According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the average American child will cost his parents $222,360 by the time he turns 17. I’d like to refute that number since so far my husband and I have needed to buy very little for our three-year-old son Ezra. We thrived without many of the must-haves on the…
You’ve probably heard about the dangers of multitasking. Apparently trying to do more than one thing at a time is worse for your productivity than staying up all night watching infomercials or smoking marijuana. In one study, students took 40 percent longer to solve complicated math problems when they had to switch to other tasks….
Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them. ~Oscar Wilde “I like you, Mama,” my son calls as he runs through the house. There’s nothing quite like a toddler’s adoration of his parents. I can almost believe it will last forever … then I remember being…
When I was a kid, every May 1, I accompanied a friend’s family in their festivities. We made homemade baskets, filled them with flowers, hung them on neighbors doorknobs, and ran away. Since it wasn’t my family’s tradition, I never understood why or what we were celebrating. It turns out that May Day was traditionally…
Recently I heard an interview with the herbalist Cascade Anderson Geller. She shared a story about a teacher and healer she met in the remote Choco region of Northern Ecuador, where she went to learn about the local plants and healing methods. Geller had been suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome and had consulted scads of…
When my son Ezra was an infant, he was no fan of the car. Car rides, even short jaunts around town, invariably included crying and multiple comfort stops. But, at some point, my almost-three-year-old became a huge admirer of the automobile – perhaps right around the time we sold ours. “Mama, we need a truck….