Category Archives: gratitude

new article from this geek

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Hello friends,

An article I wrote was just published in Tots to Teens.  You can read it here.

And now for a smattering of the groovy stuff I’ve been reading and learning and thinking about … I have found a fab website by a smart gal named Rebecca Haines.  Here blog is fantastic – here is just one example … tools for teaching media literacy to preschoolers.

She also has me coveting this range of dolls …  bodies that are to scale with actual children instead of all the big boob, permanent high-heel feet we all know so well.

In this season of covetousness, I am grateful for this post from the folks at Hand in Hand Parenting.  It is all about the gift inherent in a loving parental “No”.   This is a free online psychology textbook called “the Noba Project”, here is a link to a write up about new research into a likely cause of SIDS, and this link is a description of research into the differences between the male and female brains.

Here is an excellent website sponsored by the government of South Australia – it’s called Great Start and it is overbrimming with lovely play-based learning ideas to explore with children.

One last thing: this project was launched in opposition to the post-Thanksgiving “Black Friday” shopping frenzy.  I am completely in love with the idea of mending stuff we have instead of buying more stuff!  At this point, gentle geeks, the leggings that my Big Girl wears to school are more darn than fabric.  When to give it up?

amazing! and awful.

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I just heard from one of my bestest buddies: successful healthy birthing this very morning.  Baby Girl, brand new, hours old.  Welcome!  I long to rush to her side but the thick green nose of my toddler (SORRY…) will keep me away.  For today, at least.

All this on a day where the morning radio news was full of grim news about life for kiwi children.  One in five in poverty … UNICEF is unimpressed.  Our school results indicate that not enough kids are getting the education to score the jobs to lift them out of poverty.

I will return to my serious and relevant advocacy when I do not have a toddler on my hip, clawing for the computer.  Naughty mama am I (“bubby’s turn ‘puter!).  Meantime, enjoy the coolest Christmas music EVER right here.

I got the power! (in praise of electricity)

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Sometimes, it’s tempting to romanticise all that is rustic.  I don’t know if it’s just that I am a momma who values simplicity in the lives of her children, or if it’s because I am a keen veggie gardener whose 1970’s upbringing included a reverence for self-sufficiency?

Anyway, those gnarly storms that hit us on Tuesday night left this family without power for 2 days, and now that it is back, I have never been so in love with electricity.  Gotta say, though: I DID love waking and sleeping in alignment with what the sun was doing.  Our poor wee caveman bodies are a bit confused by what faux lights do to our circadian rhythms.  I think we’d have less drama about babies’ sleep if we had slightly less spazzy sleep habits ourselves.  Anyway: Mt. Laundry is waiting for me after the washing machine hiatus.  Reminding me anew to be grateful for my modern mama life, with the absolute absence of time spent scrubbing clothing against rocks.