My husband has been with the TV station so long that the only time they call him in on weekends is if there is a big story, like when Birmingham abortion clinic bomber Eric Robert Rudolph was finally captured. So when the station called him Saturday and asked him to co-anchor the Sunday morning news, I knew big news was expected. Mother Nature didn’t let us down.
When Truman and I finally rolled out of our beds Sunday morning (Rick had to be at the station at 6 a.m.) the yard was covered with snow! I haven’t seen snow in so …read more

Truman and I had a concert at the house earlier this week. He was beating on the homemade drums and I was belting out a punk rock version of the Alphabet song (think Ramones) on the Tinkertoy microphone. It was awesome. We told Rick all about it when he got home and he gave me that look that I’m sure he gave Santa when he was a kid, “You know, maybe we need to look at getting him a drum set.”
Yeah. Whatever, darling. I mean, I’m all about fostering my son’s talents, but how do I know my son is …read more

My son is destined to be a genius. Here’s my proof – the Chicago Tribune reported Friday that researchers at the University of Chicago have found that the children of parents who use gestures are far more likely to have larger vocabularies when they reach school age, which, the story says, is “an important predictor of academic success.”
I’ve had this gesture problem all my life to the point my longtime college roommate, Anne, would literally sit on my hands when I spoke to see if I could complete a sentence without flailing my arms in the air. It was a …read more

Think your child has creative genius? Challenge him to draw a character for the Arthur show on PBS Kids. Be sure to add details such as any talents, skills, abilities or disabilities and why his character would want to be friends with any of the other characters in Elwood City. If chosen, your child – and his character – will appear in an episode of Arthur, and he will get the chance to meet the creator of Arthur, Marc Brown.
The goal of the contest is to help young people see past the differences of others and to accept that peers …read more

We are going to the Imagination Movers concert this weekend. The very second we heard that the guys were coming to Birmingham, we cued up at the Web site to buy tickets. I haven’t been so excited about going to a concert since camping out for Adam Ant. (Did I actually just admit to that?) Love those Movers. We were somewhat fans before Truman joined us on this earth – they had come on Rick’s show in the early days. Then we saw their music videos between shows on Disney. And then last fall they debuted their own 30-minute program …read more

My husband and I were raised in entirely different households. Rick’s parents are conservative, tea-toddling Southern Baptists. My parents are…well, my parents are California pseudo-hippies. Rick’s folks raised him in a sterile environment, took him to the doctor for every ailment and protected him from harsh environments. Mine let me run barefoot outside, dig in the dirt and eat cookie dough and rare meat.
Perhaps it is the scientist in my father, but we were rarely dragged to the doctor or given antibiotics to ward of infection. Wallowing in germs was my parents’ way of making us healthier adults.
For the good …read more

In theory I would like to be one of those mothers who limits my son’s television viewing to one hour a day and discourages the video games that have so corrupted this “Playstation Generation.” But for me, to be the best mum I can, I need to maintain some ounce of sanity, especially when I have to have an uninterrupted conversation with my husband or, say, buy a week’s worth groceries without blood-curdling tantrums. Which means, there are times when a video or a game is the only thing that can pacify my child – next to sedating him and, …read more

It’s a rainy day in my neck of the woods, and while it can be nice to go out in a light rain shower in the summer, a late Fall day of rain is damp and uninviting. Which means a lot of pent-up energy for the kids (and insanity for the parents!). Here are some of our favorite ways to pass the time on rainy days.
Arts & Crafts – We always have tons of paper and crayons for coloring, which is my youngest daughter’s favorite form of creativity. She’s especially fond of drawing everyone in our family. …read more

With three kids it’s always nice to come across something packaged in threes. It doesn’t happen often – stuff is usually in a two-pack or some other even-numbered variation, and we end up having to go with a four or more pack which makes sure everyone gets one of whatever it is, but with which we also end up with extras.
Anyway, while trying to find some fun stuff for the kids to do outside I came across a “Triple Wave Racer Water Slide.” I had only ever seen the single slides and I was instantly interested. I remember having …read more

Sherry had a great question yesterday in her post about keeping kids occupied. I commented that maybe printing out some coloring pages would help and thought I’d expand on that a little bit and list some of my girls’ favorite coloring sites.
We’ve been doing coloring pages for years and years now. Every once in a while we’ll pick up a coloring book at the store but they seem to have less interest in those (especially as they get older), but coloring pages don’t lose their charm because they get to pick specifically what they’re in the mood for.
They’ve also …read more