I was thinking about Valentine’s Day baking, and decided to give red velvet cupcakes a try. While I love a heart-shaped box of chocolates as much as any other woman over a certain age, red velvet cupcakes are the perfect themed treat for sharing with the kids and their friends. That is, I thought that [...]
Read the rest of this article »I’ve been out of the toddler game for some years now. Most of my interaction with teetering tots comes at a comfortable distance where I’m able to do one thing at will: Leave. I guess it’s been long enough for the shell shock to have worn off, because lately I find myself drawn back to [...]
Read the rest of this article »If you know a boy who’s in middle school or older, you probably already know that the video game “Call of Duty: Black Ops” was released last month. The “first-person shooter” game was an instant sensation among the kids at our son’s school, who spoke of little else for weeks straight. And according to our [...]
Read the rest of this article »It’s inevitable. One day, at age two or as late as 10, your perfect, uncorrupted little Buddha of a child is going to do the unthinkable. She’s going to lie to you. Because you are older and a bit savvier than she is, you are going to recognize this wacky statement right away for the [...]
Read the rest of this article »I’ve never been one to offer my kids much help with their homework. I’ll happily quiz them before tests, or proofread. I’ll even answer math questions if I think that it’s not going to lead to a discussion of how long it’s been since I was in the 7th grade. But that’s about my limit. [...]
Read the rest of this article »It’s the start of a new school year, and the Los Angeles Times has thrown down the gauntlet for the LAUSD and the teacher’s union, UTLA. Using LAUSD data that was publicly available but never examined by the district, the Times hired an independent researcher to run some numbers. What they wanted to know specifically [...]
Read the rest of this article »I recently read a fascinating book about childhood that captured a sentiment that I think is common to parents today. In the book, titled, Where did you go? OUT. What did you do? NOTHING, Robert Paul Smith laments the loss of a child’s world of games, play and imagination, a private world, wholly separate from [...]
Read the rest of this article »The American child-rearing schedule is a little odd. On the one hand, when the school year is in session we make the kids get up at dawn, work at school from 8 – 3, and spend the rest of the day occupied with homework, sports and lessons. It’s a harsh, Puritanical kind of calendar, suggesting [...]
Read the rest of this article »Father’s Day is coming right up, and as much as I am not a fan of greeting card holidays and trite sentiment (or maybe because of that), I’d like to take this time to give a huge shout out and a sincere round of applause to all of the fantastic dads that I know. And [...]
Read the rest of this article »I never thought that I would welcome busy weekdays stuffed with school and homework, but I feel like I spent most of spring break acting as an electronic device gatekeeper. The entertainment delivery systems (computer, video games, smart phone, and television) were always there, always tempting, and always ready to start an argument over the [...]
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