Author Archives: admin

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When common sense and logic no longer work.

All right, I know there are many peo­ple my age and old­er who are com­pe­tent on the com­put­er, and some much younger and less com­pe­tent, but com­pe­tence escapes me at times! The cries of “it’s log­i­cal” and “it’s com­mon sense” just tend to frus­trate me when lis­ten­ing to my 20 and 30-some­thing sons who are high […]

For the good of any country

We need to seek out the gifts in every child and adult. When we deem infants consignable to mediocre day­care I believe we are depriv­ing them of the pos­si­bil­i­ty of being tru­ly pro­duc­tive cit­i­zens. When men and women over a ‘certain’ age (you decide) are no longer viewed as hav­ing a val­ue in the community, […]

What would you think if:

A child wasn’t talk­ing by the time he was 3 or 4 years old? Once he was ‘diag­nosed’ and got inter­ven­tion he start­ed talk­ing and had gained flu­en­cy by the time he was 5. He still has no imag­i­na­tive play or sense of humour.  At age 5, on hol­i­day with his par­ents in his grand­par­ents’ house, he […]

Writing, speaking, design

I’ve always strived to write well, more so in the last 10 years when the idea of ‘my book’ has been lin­ger­ing. Both my sons write well; the old­est one loves to write and is already a pub­lished author in his field. I believe I also speak clear­ly although my Eng­lish accent is still mis­un­der­stood (more […]

The Survival of Curiosity

When I asked a ques­tion at home (there was no pre-school) the answers must sel­dom have suit­ed me because my response was always “I know, but…”. I was called “Miss I Know But”. I was also called a sloth (the dic­tio­nary gives one def­i­n­i­tion as ‘lazy and indolent’!).

What were they thinking?

Pic­ture this sce­nario: a baby is born in a water bath (a warm hot tub) sur­round­ed by friends of the par­ents and the pater­nal grand­par­ents.  Moth­er nurs­es her baby and takes some time away from her full time med­ical stud­ies to ini­tial­ly care for her child. The child is still nurs­ing at a year but the […]

Locusts

As most peo­ple know, locusts swarm. Accord­ing to my Eng­lish dic­tio­nary they also con­sume veg­e­ta­tion of ‘districts’ (whole areas I sup­pose). Anoth­er def­i­n­i­tion is “…person of devour­ing or destruc­tive propen­si­ties”. And it is the peo­ple who act like locusts of whom I was think­ing a few weeks ago. We all know those peo­ple. They seem to […]

A Few Quotes Worth Mentioning

“A woman is like a teabag. It’s only when she’s in hot water that you real­ize how strong she is” — Nan­cy Rea­gan  “You must do the thing you think you can­not do” — Eleanor Roo­sevelt “Ancoro imparo” (“I am still learn­ing”) — Michelan­ge­lo at 87 The mind is a mus­cle, you have to exer­cise it […]

Sign language and flash cards

These may both have a pur­pose but I think many mod­ern par­ents are los­ing sight of their pur­pose when rais­ing their chil­dren. I under­stand that par­ents get frus­trat­ed when their chil­dren can’t talk and com­mu­ni­cate. If they teach sign lan­guage the child can sign to them when she’s hun­gry, thirsty etc. I recent­ly found my […]

Random Happenings

Grand­fa­ther #1: Com­fort­ably picks you up at 15 months and bur­bles to you in Span­ish Grand­fa­ther #2: Nev­er vis­its you, his grand­child Which grand­fa­ther would you rather have? Care­giv­er #1: Invents games, takes you for walks, sits on the floor with you, laughs with you. Care­giv­er #2: Nev­er talks to you or plays with you. Which caregiver […]