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| Baking is a great way to satisfy those needs to spend time together and learn a little something as well. |
Three happy bakers!
"Feed the meter" says Harvey Karp, M.D. author of "The Happiest Toddler on the Block" as noted in Parents magazine this month. You will
will likely increase your chances of experiencing better behaved kids who are better well-adjusted.
And what parent can't use a bit of that? It's like feeding the meter.
Why? Time spent together while doing things such as cooking, playing, or even household chores will quench your child's much needed desire to spend time with you while allowing you to spend less time later asking her to "behave."
A child's unruly behavior may surface more often if he or she is craving your attention and not getting it.
Next time you have a dessert to make, some laundry to fold, or want to go for a walk, include your child....you'll be glad you did.
Think of it as giving more time-ins and less time-outs. Go to www.parents.com to read more.
Good Luck!! Good Parenting!!
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Collin discovered broken wind chimes in the butcher block drawer in Grammy's kitchen. He was looking for chocolate because sometimes Papa keeps it there. Collin and Grammy decide to fix the wind chimes.
Collin stands on the step ladder so he can reach. Collin loves to do things by himself. He says, 'I can do it.'
It takes a lot of concentration to thread the ribbon into the small hole.
Collin's great grandfather, Pappy, hammered big spoons and small spoons to make them flat. He bent the fork tines to make a hanger for the chimes. Pappy made many things for us in his shed-shop, like weather vanes, cupolas, and clocks.
Grammy helps Collin with the threading part. This is called cooperation.
Collin counts five spoons and one fork. Grammy reads the inscription on the biggest spoon to Collin. 'To Bonnie - From Pappy -With Love'
Collin and Gram hang the wind chimes in the kitchen. They sound like tiny elf bells when they move. Pappy would have been impressed. The chimes are fixed and working again. Now it is time for a celebratory piece of chocolate.
Doing things together is fun and educational and helps to build a young child's confidence.
Good Luck! Good parenting!
Bon :) |
Excerpt from Growing Up Crazy by Bonnie J.Toomey
Freeze Pops
Winter 1972
There’s ice on my bedroom window in little cornered crescents. It’s still dark out, but it is time to get up for school anyway which I happen to like a lot.
I wriggle out of my pajamas and pull on a hand me down sweater and jeans from my aunt who works as a nurse in Boston. She was always giving us bags of clothes which I would pull apart and alter to fit my style and size. This gave my wardrobe an eccentric and eclectic look all its own which I thought was quite individual and even artsy.
I hated to leave the warmth under the pile of blankets and old coats I had layered on for extra insulation at night. It could get pretty cold upstairs this time of year, and the transition from clothes to no clothes to clothes again was a little unpleasant in the wintertime. There’s never been heat up here, Dad didn’t put it in, but instead cut a hole in the floor the size of a wood stove chimney pipe to let whatever heat rise up from our wood stove down in the kitchen.
“Heat rises,” was how Dad explained it to us. I kept thinking, well maybe it does, but I sure can’t feel it up here.
It is colder than usual this morning. My fingers don’t work as quickly as I want them to. I head downstairs where mom and dad are hunkered under some blankets on the couch which they must have dragged in front of the fireplace during the night. They’re still sleeping. Dad’s head at one end of the couch and mom curled up at the other end.
I grab my bag and step outside into the ice cold morning and my nostrils form tiny icy needles on the first breath in sticking together like metallic glue. Luckily, the bus arrives in less than a minute but long enough to finish turning my toes in my sneakers into ten freeze pops.
I slide in next to Claire careful not to break off any digits.
“Vaugn, you look really cold,” she says, very concerned. The newscaster on the bus radio says that it’s five degrees this morning over central New England, and that it warmed up from the overnight low of zero.
I explain that I think our furnace broke again and she offers me her mittens with the fancy rabbit fur cuffs.
“Thanks, Claire,” I say, and between her offering and the noisy over head heater blowing puffs of warmth into the air, I thought I had died and gone to heaven.
Excerpt from Leaf Landing by Bonnie J. Toomey
French Lesson
French is not the easiest class to miss.
I missed almost two weeks straight
after Mom died
and a lot of other days before that
and now I am really behind.
Mom wanted me to take French
because she thought it would help
in ballet class.
Dad lost a couple of bids.
He says people are losing
their jobs,
the economy is bad
The TV keeps warning
unemployment is up,
gas prices are up
and people are fed up.
I don’t know why Dad
has to watch
it only makes him
yell at the TV
Dad says we need to conserve more than we have been
now the house feels cooler.
When I complain,
Dad says
to go outside and come back in ,
then I’ll feel warmer.
Harriet and I spend our time bundled in
an extra layer of clothes
or dragging an afghan around
like giant moths in cocoons.
We are out of butter again.
Dad says
to try using peanut butter.
Well, isn’t the word,
butter,
in it?
Harriett won’t eat her toast
and it just sits on the plate
getting cold
like the floors
in this house
and suddenly the one phrase
in French,
“It is cold.” comes back to me:
“Il fait froid,
la maison est fait froide."
