Category Archives: kids

September 27, 2011 · 6:00 AM

Life is not fair, and no, I won’t get used to it.

The following list of rules has been showing up on my Facebook feed, and being credited to Bill Gates.  I did a little bit of research (aka went to snopes.com) and found that it’s long been incorrectly attributed to Gates, when it was really written by a man named Charles J. Sykes,  author of a book called “Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good About Themselves, but can’t Read, Write, or Add”.   While lots of people praise it for its advice, the whole thing struck me as pessimistic and resentful towards kids in general.  Here is the list, coupled with my response to Mr Sykes.

Rules You Won’t Learn in School

Rule 1: Life is not fair – get used to it!

Is there an element of truth to this?  Sure.  Sometimes life isn’t fair. But subscribing to this sort of philosophy is like living the old adage, “Life sucks and then you die.”  It is a pessimistic, sad, and destructive way to view the world, and your life.  I certainly wouldn’t want to view life in that manner, and I wouldn’t my kids to either.  I choose to focus on the GOOD.

Rule 2: The world doesn’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

So let me understand this.  We’re not to feel good about ourselves until we “accomplish something?”  Who decides what we need to accomplish before we feel good about ourselves?   I didn’t finish college.  I didn’t get a 1600 on my SATs.  I haven’t worked outside the home in over a decade.  Should I not feel good about myself?   Because I do, unabashedly.  And it seems to me that in this day and age of bullying, drug addiction, eating disorders, and trying to fit in with the crowd that school kids’ self esteem is at a collective all-time LOW.  I’m thinking that advising them to “accomplish” something before they even think about feeling good about themselves isn’t such a stellar plan.  My kids do feel good about themselves, and because they feel good about themselves, they can ‘accomplish’ anything they put their minds to.

Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won’t be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Absolutely.  You probably won’t.  But I don’t want my kids to chasing a goal of x dollars a year, or of being a “vice president with a car phone.”  I want them to follow their path.  Maybe it doesn’t involve making $60,000 a year.  Maybe they have no desire to be a vice president of anything.   If they’re happy and growing and pursuing their own goals it won’t matter if they’re making $10 an hour or six figures a year.  If THEY are happy (and this is assuming they have ignored the advice in #2 and feel good about themselves even before they’ve “accomplished” anything) then I will be happy as well. 

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

I have had great teachers, and I have had great bosses.  I don’t want my kids to fear somebody being “tough” on them, but to approach each new opportunity, person, and experience with an open mind, and an open heart.

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: They called it opportunity.

Who said it was beneath anyone’s dignity?  I worked at McDonald’s as a teen.  I picked blueberries one summer.  I’ve mucked horse stalls.  I’ve cashiered more years than I care to count.  I was grateful for every job that I had, and I’ve no doubt that my kids will feel the same way.   I can’t help but wonder why Mr Sykes has such a low opinion of today’s youth.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Seriously, what is with all the negativity?  My kids make mistakes (as do I) all the time.  Never once have I seen them blame me.  They learn from their mistakes just like their parents do.  But then again, they have self-esteem.  I’d imagine it’d be easier to blame someone else for your mistakes if you didn’t feel good about yourself.  So maybe if you scrapped number 2, you could scrap number 6 too. 

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent’s generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

This one made my 11 year old laugh.  He said, “That’s pretty  funny.  NOT TRUE, but funny.”  He doesn’t think we’re boring, and he knows we don’t view him or his siblings as a burden, or as someone who needs to somehow be indebted to us because we pay his bills, or clean his clothes.  I’d join him in his laughter except that it makes me genuinely sad to hear someone talk in such an insulting way about children in general.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they’ll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. *This doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.*

Well, I do agree that school does not bear the slightest resemblance to real life, but not because of this example.  Schools that are abolishing traditional testing and grading systems are actually getting closer to real life than those that are not.  In real life, we’re allowed to use calculators, and we don’t have to “show our work.”  In real life, employees get to ask questions, get feedback from bosses and coworkers, and often work as a team.  In real life, people don’t have to be graded and categorized and labeled, and in real life people get to CHOOSE what they study, what they pursue, and how and where and why they work.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF.  Do that on your own time.

No, life is not divided into semesters.  And no, you don’t get summers off.  What strikes me about this rule though is this:  Most kids are in school, what, 6, 8 hours a day?  Add to that the 2 hours of homework, and to that the hour of after school sports… When does Mr Sykes suggest that kids actually get their “own” time to find themselves?

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

We’re big fans of Friends, so this one made us laugh too.  It’s laughable for other reasons though.  The kids know that Friends is just  a TV show.   Even the 3 year old understands that Daddy goes to work every day,  and she understands why.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.

Kind of ironic that he’s concerned about being nice to ‘nerds’, at the tail end of a list that’s been anything but nice to children.   But by all means, YES, be nice to nerds.  Be nice to teachers.  Be nice to jocks and geeks and popular kids and kids who smoke in between classes.  Be nice to the people who get on your very last nerve and be nice to the people who make you want, with every fiber of your being, to be the exact opposite of ‘nice’.   Not because you might be working for them one day, but because it’s the right thing to do.  And because – if you’ll ignore rules 1 through 10 – you’ll feel good about yourself, and positive about life, and will genuinely want to share it with others.

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September 21, 2011 · 6:00 AM

Too shy? There’s a med for that.

Once you label me, you negate me.  ~Soren Kierkegaard

I am:

shy
ADD
depressed
anxious
too sensitive
bi-polar

ME.  I am me.  I won’t be defined by a label… not yours, not mine, and not the “experts'”.   I am me.

And my kids?  They’re my kids.  They’re people, each one of them individuals.  They are not a set of characteristics or facets or “quirks.”  They are not a description in a book or a pamphlet in the pediatrician’s waiting room.  They are not hypothetical.  They are not like anybody else. They are not mere ingredients of a whole, or something to be molded or refined or altered to fit into a certain box.    They do not need to be diagnosed.  They do not need to be labeled.

This article, from Health Impact News, says that 650,000 kids are already on Ritalin.   As if that’s not enough, children who are too quiet or ‘moody’ or not as social as their peers now “run the risk of being diagnosed with mental illnesses and given powerful drugs like Prozac, psychologists have warned.”  Not as chatty as the kid sitting next to you?  Must be social anxiety disorder.  Sad because your betta fish died?  Clearly you’re clinically depressed.  Voiced a contrary opinion to someone in charge?  Why, that’s surely caused by your oppositional defiant disorder.

I think the thing that bothers me the most about this disturbingly increasing use of labels (and subsequent dispensing of medication to “treat” them) is this end goal of making everyone somehow the same.  The quiet kids need to be more outgoing.  But not too outgoing.  The energetic kids need to calm down.  But not too much.  The kids who are too rigid and regimented need to relax.  But just a little.  The ones who are making up stories in their head and looking out the window… well, they need to learn. to. focus.   Let’s just take away all their differences, and all their uniqueness, and all their personalities.   Let’s make everyone NORMAL.

But wait.  I have a question.  Who the hell decides what “normal” is?  And why is it something I’d ever want myself or my kids to strive for? I don’t want “normal” lives for my kids. I want happy. I want healthy. I want full, and rich, and interesting.

I want them to know that there isn’t something wrong with them because they are too quiet. Or too loud. Or if they learn quickly or slowly or in a different way than the kid sitting next to them. Or walk differently or talk differently or think differently. I want them to know that they were created exactly the way they were created for a reason. I want them to know that they are not a label, and they are not a box-filler, and they are not automatically a member of whatever group someone else wants to lump them in with.

This is not to say that I think we should ignore it when our children are unhappy or struggling in some way. In fact the opposite is true. I think it’s our job as parents to continually ask ourselves how we can best meet their individual needs. I think it’s our job to ask ourselves what we could do make their lives even better. What we could do to help make their lives more happy and peaceful and fulfilling. They don’t need someone to try to fix them or change them to fit inside someone else’s ideal, but someone who’ll just love them, exactly as they are. Someone who will pay attention to their needs, support them in their interests, and respect their individuality. In the end, what they need is a parent who will stand up and say, “You know what, I’m on your side.”

When I first began writing this post, I was going to share my experiences as a parent to a child that everyone wanted to label from the time he was a toddler. But I’ve decided it’s not my story to tell. It’s his story, to eventually share or not share however he sees fit. I am not in his head, and I am not in his body. I’m just lucky enough to be his mom.

I can, however, tell you what it’s like to be me. I can tell you what it’s like to have the labels I’ve crossed out up above (which, by the way, are real words I’ve heard to describe myself at various times in my life). I can tell you that I am not those labels. I can tell you that I’m just me… with flaws and warts and awesomeness just like anyone else. I can tell you that I’ve learned that the minute I let myself get defined by a label is the minute that my life gets smaller, and the minute that the world gets a little less colorful and a little less free. It’s the minute that doors close instead of open, and the minute that the glass that was once half-full suddenly becomes bone dry.

I don’t want that for myself, and I don’t want it for my kids.

And so, we celebrate being authentically US. We celebrate differences. We recognize and embrace the fact that those differences that school or society might tell us are weird or crazy or wrong… are actually something pretty darn wonderful.

 

 

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Filed under kids, labels, parenting, unschooling

August 10, 2011 · 8:38 AM

The Passage of Time

Last night, we took the kids to a local amusement/sports park, because they’ve been wanting to ride the go-carts. All-you-can-ride wristbands are super reduced on Tuesdays, so we got one for each of them, and set them loose.

Tegan was tall enough for the mini go-carts this time, but couldn’t quite get the hang of the gas pedal and steering at the same time, so she only took one lap. She did however love the bumper bumps and the miniature golf and the water balloon launching.

The big boys didn’t want to play miniature golf, so they rode the go-carts again and again while we played with the two youngest. One loop of the track was close to the golf course, so every now and then I would look up and see them…. smiling, happy, red-faced blurs zipping around the corner. I realized as I watched them that the last time we went to this particular park (two years ago) Paxton wasn’t even close to the height requirement to drive alone, and Spencer was still nervous to be anything but a passenger. But here they were, two brothers who are growing up, happy and confident to be off on their own and racing around the go-cart track.

And unbeknownst to me, Everett had graduated to playing mini golf the “right” way (instead of the “put the ball right near the hole and carefully push it in” method still employed by Tegan. :)) Then there was Tegan… who, when I had this realization, was off at the restroom with Mike, because she’d (successfully) worn underwear on at outing for the very first time.

We capped off the evening with Icees, then went to the store so Tegan could pick out the new baby we’d promised her in celebration of using the potty full-time.

Looking so much older than her 3.5 years…

She was so excited to get home and start playing with it.  Spencer was excited when we got home too, because FedEx had left the package of DVDs, books, and tools that he’s been anxiously waiting for:

A little light reading

It all makes me feel sad, and happy, and wistful all at the same time. My kids are growing up.

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August 9, 2011 · 6:30 AM

Children Are Not Baked Goods

So you want to make a cake.

You consult your recipe, you lay out all your ingredients, and you preheat your oven. You meticulously follow each and every step… carefully measuring, pouring, and mixing. You dot your i’s and cross your t’s and lovingly place it in the oven.

With a little bit of luck, your cake will rise. It will be moist and springy, flavorful but not too sweet. You’ll look at its beautiful exterior and lightly golden hue and you’ll pronounce yourself a fabulous baker. So fabulous, in fact, that when you want to make the exact same cake again and don’t have the same ingredients, you’ll try to wing it. You’ll leave out the eggs. You’ll substitute oil for butter. You’ll use flour made from almonds instead of wheat. You’ll sweeten it with honey instead of sugar.

It won’t work.

But I’m such a great baker! I had such a terrific recipe! I had such high hopes!

The fact is, you can’t bend the will of a set of ingredients to make them into the cake that you envisioned. It doesn’t work that way.

And parenting doesn’t work that way either. Children are not baked goods. They don’t come to us as a set of raw ingredients that we then fashion into something of our own choosing.

Children are fruit.

An apple growing on a tree knows what to do. It grows, all on its own. It does not exist to serve as a potential pie or cider or muffin, but rather as a perfect piece of growing fruit right. now. From the moment that it came into being, it already knew what it was going to be… how big or how small, how red or how green, how tangy or how sweet. It’s not ever going to be exactly like the one next to it, and we wouldn’t expect it to be. It is unique and beautiful and whole just as it is.

(source)

Our job then isn’t to try to mix it and change it and create something with it… our job is to simply nurture it, and let it do its thing.

Our job is to give it warmth, shelter, and nourishment. Our job is to lovingly tend to its needs, protect it from harm, and ultimately give it space to grow. Sometimes…. well, sometimes we get to sit back and just… watch. Watch and enjoy how big and how strong and how amazing our little apple has become.

And an apple (or a child or a street sweeper or a brain surgeon) that’s appreciated and valued and accepted for what it is – and not what we try to make it – will always be infinitely better, and happier, than anything we could have possibly created from the sum of its parts.

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June 27, 2011 · 4:20 PM

Firsts

   
Paxton and the birthday boy      

This past weekend was my nephew, Isaac’s 10th birthday party.   He chose to celebrate at a local water park (perfect for the 110 degree day)  To be honest, the anticipation was a little stressful, mainly because lots of water plus four kids – only one of which is a strong swimmer – equals lots of heightened anxieties for parents.  But it turned out to be a great day for all involved, as well as a day of conquering fears:

Spencer went down the huge slide.

Tegan went down the kids’ slide without me… over and over and over and over and over.

Everett practiced swimming and floating and treading water independently.

And Paxton discovered the joys of jumping from the high dive.

When we got home, Tegan went to sleep in her own bed for the first time, and slept there for nine hours straight.  I of course was so weirded out by having a kid-less bed, I spent most of the night awake, watching old sitcoms and checking to make sure everyone was still breathing. 

My kids are growing up.

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June 22, 2011 · 6:30 AM

I’d Rather Be With My Kids

Top ten reasons why I’d rather spend time with my kids than with most of the adults I know:

1. They’re cute

I mean, come on. Do any of your adult friends look like this?

2. They appreciate the little things in life

I know very few adults who derive as much – or any – joy from rainbows, mud puddles, or caterpillars.

3. They still know how to play

Not everyone loses this ability as they get older, but so many do! I want to be around people who still see the value in an impromptu game of hide and go seek, or blowing bubbles with a straw, or putting on a Spiderman costume at 2:00 in the afternoon, just because.

4. They’re REAL.

My kids are authentic, always. They don’t play mind games, they don’t act a certain way around certain people, they don’t just tell me what I want to hear. Happy, sad, silly, frustrated…. they are wonderfully unmistakably themselves, and they express it. And as a bonus, I’m more real when I’m around them, too.
 
5. They always give me something new, 

When it comes to a life with kids, it’s nothing if not full of surprises.  I never know what each day is going to hold, and I love that!



but at the same time,

6. They’re always comfortable and familiar

I know my kids better than I know anyone on the planet.  I’ve been there since their very first breath.  I know every story, I remember ever wound.  They truly are my heart and my soul walking around outside my body.



7. They’re great conversationalists and even better thinkers 

You know how 2 year olds constantly ask “why?”  They’re not doing it to annoy you;  they’re doing it because they’re learning how the world works, and they’re looking to you – their most trusted and loved ally – to help them figure out.  Kids are naturally open and curious and questioning, and they are not held back by the preconceived notions of so many adults.  Some of my very favorite times with my kids are in the car, discussing anything from armpits to snakes to heavy artillery.    Their perspective is always fresh, honest, and enlightening.

8. I enjoy their company

Whether I’m catching an episode of Dr G with the 14 year old, discussing music with the 10 year old, making simulated blood with the 7 year old, or playing dolls with the 3 year old… or doing something more out of the ordinary…  I’m having a good time.  I love my kids – of course – but I like them too.


9. They’re funny

No one makes me laugh harder than my kids.  Period.



10. They teach me more than anyone or anything else combined 

No, not about isosceles triangles, or finding the value of ‘x’, but about LIFE.   They teach me the things that matter.  They teach me about love.  They teach me about living in the moment. About being honest with myself and others.  About not sweating the small stuff.  About being REAL.  My kids teach me everything I need to know about what kind of parent I want to be, and what kind of person I want to be.  

They teach me about smiling…

Even when I’m faced with the metaphorical business end of life:

And you just can’t put a price tag on that.


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June 21, 2011 · 6:30 AM

Cleaning Fail? Parenting Fail? You’re both right.

Not even two weeks ago, I blogged about how much I needed a break. I was exhausted, I was stressed out, and I was panicking about getting read for our upcoming trip. I took exactly two days off from blogging, missed it terribly, and jumped right back in.

Yesterday, I was back in panic mode. We leave for our trip in 12 days, and it still feels like there are mountains to climb before we do. Making matters worse is the fact that I’m the only one who feels that way. Mike simply doesn’t stress out about much of anything, and the kids are just looking forward to a fun vacation (as they should be)

Sunday night was a rough night. I wasn’t feeling well; Everett had a nightmare very early on, and was in our bed the rest of the night; Tegan was tossing and turning and kicking even more than usual; I ended up sleeping in a ball on the end of our bed. The big boys were up past 2:00 (which is not unusual for them) but were woken by Tegan far too early in the morning. Everyone was tired and grumpy, and what I should have done was given us all a free day… a no obligation, lounge around, rest and recoup kind of Monday.

But, oh no. We had 13 days left. We had to CLEAN!

I started with my own desk, and instead of leaving well enough alone, I then decided it was imperative that I tackle the computer room.

This is the ‘after’ picture, but the girl had already dumped something out again.

This room has been a thorn in my side since we moved in to this house nearly 5 years ago. It looked like it was originally a formal dining room (judging partly from the big chandalier that once hung in the middle of the ceiling), but the previous owners didn’t seem to know what to do with it either. When we first toured the house, it was mostly empty, save for a little couch in the corner. For us, it has always served as a computer room slash project room slash collector of random, miscellaneous stuff. It’s always a mess, and yesterday I was going to clean it.

I asked the kids to help me, but they were too tired. (Of course they were too tired; No one got any sleep). I asked them again. Spencer was half asleep on the couch, Paxton was engrossed in a computer game, and Tegan and Everett were chasing each other around the house. No one really answered me.

And again, I should have taken the hint, followed their lead – and my own level of exhaustion – and rested. Instead, as if possessed by some mop-wielding inner demon, I became that mom. The stomping, huffing, sighing, “fine, I’ll do it myself”, martyr of a mom. For the next hour, I was noisily moving chairs and bookshelves, digging stuff out from beneath the desks, flinging sweeping wayward toys and papers and books and tools to the center of the room to sort through. Spencer had fallen asleep by then, Paxton was calmly moving out of my way as I cleaned around him, and the little ones had wisely moved their play to another room, lest they accidentally witness the embarrassment of their mom in the throes of her tantrum.

It really wasn’t my finest moment.

I was tired, I was irritated, and I couldn’t even enjoy the fruits of my labor once I’d finished.  Who can enjoy something they’d done with the wrong attitude in the first place?

I do still want to get the house clean before we go.  But not like that.  Today, I will get a grip and remember what’s important.  I’ll listen to my kids, listen to my own body, and save the cleaning for another dang day if need be.

And if all else fails, I’ll stick to the kitchen side of the house, and avoid the computer room completely. 

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June 18, 2011 · 6:30 AM

Haircuts and Hyprocrisy

I cut the boys’ hair yesterday. They’d been asking for awhile, and for various reasons it kept getting pushed further and further back. Since our vacation is fast approaching, we knew we had to commit to doing it and stick to it. Because I’m a dork – and simple things amuse me – I made this:

and Everett taped it to the wall. He and Paxton both called (from the next room) for their appointments, and Spencer looked at me and said, “Mommy. Can’t you just cut my hair?”

Party pooper 🙂

When I got out the clippers for Everett’s mohawk, Tegan begged me to cut hers too. “Okay, sure,” I told her. “I’ll give you a trim,” even though I knew that a trim wasn’t what she really wanted.

She sat in the chair and I gave the very tips of some of her hair a tiny snip with scissors, and she cried. “No, with the clippers! I want it all cut off!! I want it like Spencer’s!” And it wasn’t the first time she’d asked.

Spencer’s hair post-clipping is even shorter than this:

Then (this is the part where I’m a hypocrite), as much as I believe in giving children choices and autonomy, as much as I respect her right to take ownership of her own hairstyle, as much as I know that in the bigger picture, shaving her head wouldn’t have mattered…

I talked her out of it.

Can you blame me?

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May 19, 2011 · 8:55 AM

Plank Pullin’: Cuz everything little thing’s gonna be alright

It’s Plank Pullin’ time! The one day a week that we strongly resolve to ignore the multitude of specks and sawdust around us and pull one bona fide plank from our own eye. Matthew 7:3-5, style.

Two of my four kids have a tendency to worry.  They get caught up in “what ifs”, stress out about what’s coming the next day, and sometimes forget to live in – and enjoy – the moment.  I often find myself reassuring them… reminding them to take each day as it comes, to not worry, to let each moment take care of itself, to just breathe, to know in their hearts that everything really IS going to be all right. 

And dangit, I’m good at it.  I am.  I’m honest.  I’m convincing.  I’m reassuring.  It’s all I can do to keep from patting myself on the back as they tell me, “Thanks Mommy, I feel better now,” and happily go off to play. 

But alas, it’s nothing more than a sparkling example of my own hypocrisy, because I am a huge worrier.   I hate that I am, and I so very badly wish that I wasn’t… but there it is.   And the worst part is not the fact that I have the tendency to worry – which, honestly, is bad enough in and of itself – but the fact that I worry over such undeniably stupid things.  It’s not like worrying about, say, walking down a dark deserted alley alone at night.  That would be productive worry that might make one think twice about a possibly dangerous decision. 

No, I worry about very important things like not having time to get the house cleaned before we have somebody over. 

Last Saturday we had a busy day at the end of what was a very stressful (and as a result, a very unproductive) week.  We were out all day off-roading, came home very briefly around dinner time, and then went to a friends house to swim and hang out for the rest of the evening.   It was a great day, and a fun diversion, but that night I came home exhausted and stressed out.   I had to babysit the following morning, and the house was a disaster (and not at all safe for a crawling baby)  We also had someone coming to meet us and talk with us about caring for our chickens while we’re away this summer.  Meeting new people in general tends to stress me out anyway, and coupled with the neglected house and babysitting as well, I was nearly rife with anxiety. 

My husband, who never fails to be the voice of reason, basically said “Relax please.  It’ll all be fine.”

And it was.  We got the house picked up just fine the following morning.  It was not perfect, but neither the chicken sitter nor my ten month old cousin pointed out our flaws.  The day unfolded without a hitch, and I realized – as I often realize – that I’d stressed out for nothing.  I actually wasted entire minutes of my life worrying about… what, exactly?  My house being too dirty?  What on earth is wrong with me? 

It’s hard not to stress out and worry when I’m not sleeping, and this particular bout of insomnia has been a long one.  It’s a vicious circle too, because the more I stress the less I sleep… and the less I sleep the more I stress.  And the solution is, of course, exactly the same one I so easily dole out to the kids:

Breathe.  Relax.  Appreciate the moment.  Let tomorrow take care of itself.  It’s all going to work out.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?”
Matthew 6:25-27




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April 20, 2011 · 8:23 PM

Catapults

I have fond memories of sitting around the dinner table as a kid. We’d finish dinner, hang around talking, and inevitably start to do something like hanging spoons off our nose or bouncing things across the table. There was fun, and there was laughter. In fact, when I get together with my whole family, it’s still like that, which is one of the biggest reasons I so look forward to Thanksgiving at my parents’ house every year.

I was reminded of those memories last night.

Our kids have full reign of a house full of toys, books, and games. Three video game systems, five TVs, satellite, Netflix streaming… and the freedom to choose any or all of the above. Last night the youngest three chose a box of multi-colored craft sticks, and their imaginations. There was fun, and there was laughter.

So I grabbed the camera.

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