One of THOSE People
I'm becoming one of them. Those mamas with the cell phone poised, snapping low quality digital images. My kids (to post in Facebook), the coffee pot I might buy, so I can compare prices, the kids again. What fun!
I snickered at people like me not long ago. For no good reason. Just certain Luddite sensitivities. No longer! I'm converted. And to prove it, I'm going to post a picture every day this year. Maybe. If I remember. In fact, here's one now.
And wouldn't you know, the year is over. Sneaky me!
I thought my 5 year old was watching a harmless YouTube video for kids. What he was really watching absolutely horrified me. The internet is fast becoming one of the scariest places on earth, especially for kids and their parents. Here is the first in a series on protecting children from online dangers.
I used to hate read-alouds. My neck would get tense, my throat would feel stiff and sore and my voice would hurt. (And if you say a voice cannot hurt, I assure you, it can.) Here's my story of how diagnosing and treating Hashimoto's changed my life in an unexpected way.
Every year my parish holds a garage sale to raise funds for the VBS and Preschool programs. It has fast become one of my favorite events and helping at every stage, in my mind anyway, absolves me from taking part in the actual VBS. Anyhow, a sale of this size is a huge undertaking. Like crazy huge involving weeks and many, many, many hours from lots of people. But it's so worth it, and apart from the usual reasons about helping others and serving the community, here's why…
I'm becoming one of them. Those mamas with the cell phone poised, snapping low quality digital images. My kids (to post in Facebook), the coffee pot I might buy, so I can compare prices, the kids again. What fun!
I snickered at people like me...
We've heard of racism and ageism, sexism and more, but over the weekend we experienced yet another "ism." It could be seen as a sort of reverse ageism, I suppose. It's nothing less than: "Kidism."
"Mom, hey Mama? Is it possible to make a giant robotic stuffed animal to help old people but then the makers make it turn EVIL?"
Rebecca has been writing since childhood, her first book about a kitten published between homemade cardboard covers in second grade. Although she studied religion and philosophy in university, she continued writing, earning an MFA from Hamline University and publishing multiple picture books (no longer with homemade covers) and a collection of poetry with a variety of New York and independent publishers. She has also published a wide array of fiction, essays, and poetry in magazines and journals and photographs for Getty Images. She balances writing with homeschooling the younger of her six children, launching her young adults, church activities, and overseeing a small flock of chickens in rural West Michigan.
I couldn’t pay my kids to go outside. They’d drag out of bed, take bowls of cereal to the family room where they’d watch TV followed by hours of begging for “screen time” while I battled our way through the morning’s schoolwork. Months of this, years of it. We fought this battle day after day until we made a dramatic decision and drastic change.