It’s a funny thing sometimes, how one handles watching a second child reach important life milestones after already watching the oldest child reach them. In some cases, and for some people, it’s easy to make light of the accomplishment, or not document it as much as the first time. I try my best not to be that parent. My younger child deserves just as much attention and kudos for his accomplishments as my older child does, and it’s not only an important part of his general emotional development that I do my best in this area, but also an important part of our relationship. So, I was ready to fully…
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Chicago, Elevated.
Normally I would put a post such as the one I’m about to share over at my review blog, but this experience was never meant to be a review. I wasn’t asked to participate in what you’re about to read and I did indeed pay for it with my own money. I wanted to share it here because it’s something truly fabulous that I experienced personally in the city of Chicago. It’s my duty to share it with you here! Over the last five years as I’ve been working on my book, I’ve done lots and lots of research about things to see and do in Chicago. Some of those…
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As It Turns Out, He’s Way More Accurate Than Nostradamus
D returned home from college for the weekend today, and the first order of business (after he messed around with Roxie for a minute) was to open those two letters from his younger self. The first envelope contained some specific personal goals, like (as I mentioned yesterday) “Be nicer to J”, “Be better at turning in my homework”, and other things that, thank goodness, he has learned to do over the past four to five years. (Did I mention here that his GPA for first semester in college this year was a 3.752? WOOT!) That piece of paper was pretty awesome, but it was the letter in the OTHER envelope…
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Simple Gifts
My sister, upon seeing the title of this one, will think that this post is about one of my favorite songs, which is “Simple Gifts”. The older boy used to play it when he was in middle school orchestra, and then the younger boy learned it on the guitar. I adore it, and he rarely plays it for me anymore. Don’t know the song? Since I haven’t yet caught my kid playing it on camera yet, here’s my second favorite version. But this post isn’t about that. As a second grade religious school teacher, I sometimes receive gifts at Hanukkah or at the end of the year. It’s not necessary,…
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The Gift Of Self
We broke Hanukkah tradition this year, since the older boy is away at college. Normally the boys open one gift each night (give or take) during the holiday. This year, the younger boy opened a gift each night, all alone, for the first couple of nights until his brother came home for the weekend. Saturday night we had our Hanukkah extravaganza (latkes, blintzes, kugel, oh my!), and the boys opened all of their gifts together. The older boy had a special gift for his brother, something I didn’t ever expect. When he told me about it earlier in the day Saturday, the whole thing had an egotistical slant to it,…