Taking the goo-goo, ga-ga out of talking to your infant and toddler
It was a neighbor or a grandparent, an uncle or someone in high school. Hopefully it wasn't your parents, brother or sister. But death visits several times before it moves in, and we all have unique first awarenesses and experiences of it. So it's not a merry subject: it is a perfectly conversational one, though. And who knows, in retrospect, especially with age, it might even have some humorous facet to it. In the summer of my 11th year my parents sent me to live with a German family for the summer. Two weeks...
Hot Summer Days. Not just nice and warm, "whew, it's something out there" weather, pinching your shirt in front and letting it snap back for a mild breeze. No, how about those other days when the heat...
Whether it was a house or a car or a horse or a piece of furniture, there''s a story behind some big ticket item in our lives. The hemming and hawing, or the recklessness with which we plunked down the money; the expectations, the delight it brought (or not). Was it a surprise? Was it for you, or a gift? Tell that story.I'd had a string of old cars and had learned how to run around their peculiar "features" for several years, but now found myself married, with an older, idiosyncratic VW Passat, which didn't please...
There have been moments in each of our lives where prayer has played a role. It might be as fleeting as a split-second reaching out to a superior power for a lifeline in a moment of panic, or it could...
Like it a lot or like it very little, it's a large part of life, and you have something to say about it. Keep it on the positive side and tell the little one about it. What you actually do, what you...
So many of us promise ourselves that when we have children we won't do the things our parents did to us. No spanking, no trips to the woodshed, no impatience with the incessant word "why?" Mommy and Daddy swear to listen to everything you have to say, to treasure every little Crayola scribble, and we'll be friends, right? I promise never to say "because I said so," and I would never think of mimicking you when you're on a two-day whining spree, by mock whining loudly myself--after all, I'm an adult, and You are...
Smell is the sense most loaded with memories, and has a higher trigger rate for emotions than all the other senses combined. We happen upon a scent and instantly we're transported to a moment decades ago, and we can lose ourself in the moment to something ripe in the past. Stuck in traffic, perhaps you smell freshly cut grass still heavy with dew, and you're suddenly lost in Virginia Beach, in the early 70's, looking at the Thoroughgood Elementary baseball diamond, knowing you'll be on a team, hoping you're not playing...
Imagine: you're diagnosed with Dying Soon (keep reading, it's not so bleak.) You have one month to live, and the money to do anything you want. Whether you're the type to change nothing and go on living...
We meet, we date, we marry. We sign up for a lifetime of shared goals and shared life, til death do us part, and we'll work it out somehow when the speed bumps come. Well, about 50% of us do. Because we're all quite different, and we all bring a lot more to the picnic than whatever fit in your bike basket, and a lot of it doesn't become apparent until a hard decision has to be made, but wait, I digress. Each of us has our perspective, and each of us has a value system that's not quite identical to anyone else's...
I'm a dad, husband, writer, and yoga practitioner. 49 Things To Tell Your Baby is a list of things to talk about with your pre-cognitive infant when he/she wakes up at 2.34am and you are at a loss for words. Like every other critter in the world, they want a connection. So tell them something that you might delight in telling them. Oh, and maybe your spouse goes in the other room?
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