If I were ten people instead of one, here’s what I’d try to pack in this weekend. Want more? The full calendar is here. (What’d I miss? Post your picks in comments!)
1. Head north to Concrete to observe hundreds of wintering eagles on the Skagit and enjoy the many other events of the annual Skagit Eagle Festival. (Sat. and Sun.)
2.Celebrate Groundfrog Day in Snohomish: entertainment, games and a local bullfrog that will give a “frogcast.” (Sat.)
3.Welcome the Year of the Dragon with a free Lunar New Year festival at Hing Hay Park in Seattle’s International District. (Sat.)
Not a normal start for a love letter but I suspect those of you who are married might be nodding right now. There may be no more romantic sentence for a married person to say to his/her spouse. So, there it is. I was wrong and you were right. Soak that in, honey. Bask in the glow of those three words while I explain.
My husband loves to ski. If he could, he would ski all day each weekend. I suspect that, if it were possible, he would ski all day everyday but I digress. He loves to push himself. He loves the rush, the challenge and the spirit of being out all day and then coming home to a fire and a beer at the end of it. Now it is a family endeavor. My seven-year-old is in his fourth year of ski lessons and loves it. Our three-year-old is a pro on the magic carpet already this season and he’s just beginning to learn how to turn and stop. I know that my husband wants his love of the sport to grow on the boys so that they can share it for a long time to come.
We have 2 copies of Go the F to Sleep,by Adam Mansbach, illustrated by Ricardo Cortes, and autographed by the author and illustrator. (Read the review on ParentMap!)
Took Bennett to Seattle Children’s this morning for an x-ray to check the progress of his arm. We were supposed to go in last week, but we got snowed in and had to miss our appointment. Turns out that the fractures have “fallen,” which isn’t unusual. I couldn’t really tell you what that means, nor could I tell you what the hell the doctor was really talking about when she proceeded to draw for me what Bennett’s arm looked like two weeks ago, what it looks like now, and what it should look like in a month. She showed me his x-rays and then showed me some other broken arm x-rays for comparison.
Apparently she’s writing a book on fractures and was so excited about it she had to show me some of her cool photos. Yeah. Frankly, I might as well have been looking at chicken neck x-rays because I couldn’t make out what she was going on about, and I couldn’t see any of the fractures she was pointing to. (Reminded me of all those pregnancy ultrasounds. I never knew what I was looking at, and it all looked rather terrifying to me. M would ooh and ahh with the technician and I’d be praying for the whole thing to be over so I could snarf my fifth sandwich of the day, and wash it down with a milkshake.)
1. We have 1 copy of Oh, Lucky Day!a CD by Lucky Diaz and the Family Jam Band, a group that won “Best New Artist (Kids Music)” by USA Today in 2010, or
In the last few days I’ve noticed more than a few mothers that I am friends with on Facebook linking to aHuffington Post essay by Glennon Melton titled “Don’t Carpe Diem.” The writer is a mother of three young children and she talks about the unease she feels when older people encourage her to enjoy every moment of parenting because it all goes by so fast.
Every time I’m out with my kids — this seems to happen: An older woman stops us, puts her hand over her heart and says something like, “Oh, Enjoy every moment. This time goes by so fast.” Everywhere I go, someone is telling me to seize the moment, raise my awareness, be happy, enjoy every second, etc, etc, etc.
I know that this message is right and good. But, I have finally allowed myself to admit that it just doesn’t work for me. It bugs me. This CARPE DIEM message makes me paranoid and panicky. Especially during this phase of my life – while I’m raising young kids. Being told, in a million different ways to CARPE DIEM makes me worry that if I’m not in a constant state of intense gratitude and ecstasy, I’m doing something wrong.
Melton writes well about the difficulties of raising kids, the frustrations and exhaustion, and she ends with an eloquent description of those few moments throughout a harried mom’s day when she pulls back and sees the beauty of her child’s face or feels the gratitude for the bounty she has in love and resources. It’s worth reading the article if only for the last few paragraphs.
Cavaliais ballet, performance art, circus, and spectacle - all with horses. The show, which opened in Marymoor Park in Redmond on Friday after a snowstorm-related delay, runs through February 19 with matinees on Saturdays and Sundays. It can be an expensive evening but if your children – or you — are obsessed with horses, it’s worth it.
And if you are not obsessed with horses, you’ll still find a unique and magical evening of entertainment featuring impressive animals and acts you are not likely to see anywhere else.
Recently while at the library to pick up a few hold items for myself, I gave my three-year-old about 30 seconds to pick up a couple of picture books (I know, top-notch mothering right there), and he was really excited to pick out Watch Out for Wolfgang. I was too, even after we read it once, twice, a hundred times.
And even after we discussed the implications THOROUGHLY of what it means to be a robot and be taken apart. (He does NOT like reading about machines that break. It freaks him out in a profound way. This anxiety is increased when the machines have eyes and ears and are friendly characters in a book.) His anxiety about the book translated to an obsession with it and he read it over and over until he loved it. He was excited to show it to his dad, and even more excited to say “and now is the scary part!” (It’s not actually that scary, unless you have a thing about machines being taken apart. Which we do.)
Linda Morgan sits down with King 5 News to discuss how parents can keep the peace among siblings during playdates. It’s totally normal for the child that’s hosting to want alone time with that pal — but it’s also common for the other sibling to feel lonely, or left out. So how can parents keep everyone happy? Watch on for Morgan’s expert tips or check out our recent article, Sibling Rivalry: Keeping the Peace During Playdates.
Want to spend an evening re-imagining the future of our schools? Here’s your chance. Tomorrow night, at this Northwest Montessori School-sponsored lecture, Dr. Steven Hughes will talk about the challenges faced by educators in the 21st century, and the promising approaches that are setting the stage for what he calls “School 2.0.”
Hughes’ premise is that for all our technical progress, education throughout the world predominantly follows a “School 1.0″ model of Teacher, Learner, and Curriculum that would be familiar to Plato or Socrates were they to reappear today. Is that really the right model for young people in the 21st century? Or, asks Hughes, is it time to rethink education?
When: Tuesday, January 24, 6-9 p.m.
Where: Museum of History and Industry, 2700 24th Ave E., Seattle
If I were ten people instead of one, here’s what I’d try to pack in this weekend. Want more? The full calendar is here. (What’d I miss? Post your picks in comments!)
By Stephanie Olson
Took Bennett to Seattle Children’s this morning for an x-ray to check the progress of his arm. We were supposed to go in last week, but we got snowed in and had to miss our appointment. Turns out that the fractures have “fallen,” which isn’t unusual. I couldn’t really tell you what that means, nor could I tell you what the hell the doctor was really talking about when she proceeded to draw for me what Bennett’s arm looked like two weeks ago, what it looks like now, and what it should look like in a month. She showed me his x-rays and then showed me some other broken arm x-rays for comparison.
By Stacey Schultz
