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Little Genealogists Can Use Family Tree Kids Website

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Would you like to have your children, or grandchildren, get interested in genealogy? There is a new, and easy, way to spark their interest. It is a website called Family Tree Kids. It is designed to let children explore their family relationships in a way that makes it easier to understand. Genealogists sometimes think about their great great great grandparents. They find joy in figuring out the often complex relationships between one ancestor in their family tree and a relative who is alive today. Is that relative your first cousin, your third cousin, or your first cousin once removed? These … Continue reading →

Mama Bear vs. Wise Owl

My 7-year-old is fond of telling strangers that her mom is “90 percent wise owl and 10 percent angry mama bear.” She got the line from a TV commercial. I think it’s from those Charmin ads, which feature the family of animated bears discussing the merits of proper rump wiping skills, and how it’s never a good idea to walk around with toilet paper remnants sticking to your backside. Hey, even bears have to preserve their dignity. In any event, back to the mama bear versus wise owl line. When my daughter says it, I take it as a compliment, … Continue reading →

The Superhero and the Damsel

Does your man feel like a superhero? Like he can do anything in your eyes? If you think about it, men like to believe they are conquerors. They like to be viewed as someone who can go above and beyond your expectations. They want to be seen as strong, the one who comes to the rescue. My husband does this in a number of ways. He can open any jar, fix just about anything in our house and can find solutions to virtually any problem. If he could don a cape, I think he might. While most men like to … Continue reading →

Preserve Your Family Recipes in a Family Cookbook

As I was making turkey burgers the other night, I paused to wonder whether my son will ever ask me how I make them. He’s only nineteen months old, so it will be a while before I show him how to cook. To his credit, he can say “burger” already and it sounds really cute when he says it. I would like to think that he will someday be an ace in the kitchen, just like his mom and dad. When the time comes to teach him how to cook, I want to make sure that he learns all about … Continue reading →

Is Technology Messing with Christmas Traditions?

Just how tech savvy is Santa anyway? Does the big guy in the red suit really communicate via a small smartphone? Are traditional paper letters to the North Pole on the brink of extinction? Are PDFs and instant messages the preferred method of sending one’s Christmas wish list to Jolly ol’ St. Nick? Say it ain’t so. Call me old-fashioned, stodgy, or a stalwart traditionalist, but I’m not a fan of the litany of new high-tech ways kids can communicate with Santa Claus. I don’t want my daughter emailing Santa, nor do I want her faxing, tweeting, Skyping, or texting … Continue reading →

Another Mouth to Feed

My 6-year-old daughter has always dreamed of having a younger brother to boss around. Actually, what she really wants is a dog. A feisty yellow Lab puppy that will fetch anything and everything she throws his way. She wants a four-legged companion to “sit,” “heel,” “roll over” and “beg” on her command. She wants to be in control. She hungers to be the master of someone else’s destiny. She wants power! But what she got is a fish. After years of begging for a pup, a few weeks ago my pet-loving, power-hungry daughter settled for a fish. Charlie the fish … Continue reading →

A Middle-Grade Novel to Skip

There is a dearth of adoption stories, either fiction or non-fiction, for kids in between the picture book stage and the young-adult novel stage. So it’s doubly disappointing that the latest one I read perpetuates old stereotypes. Trophy Kid, or How I Was Adopted by the Rich and Famous is by Steve Atinsky. We hear a lot nowadays about celebrities adopting. Atinsky did have a creative idea to look at what a 13-year-old son of movie stars (one of whom is a political candidate) thinks of his adoption ten years later. Jozef Francis (Joe) was orphaned by the fighting in … Continue reading →

Families That Fly Separately to the Same Destination

Surely you know families who insist on taking separate flights to the same destination. They rationalize that by doing so they will avoid the unthinkable: perishing together should tragedy strike. I happen to know two families who practice this method of travel. My friend from high school flies solo with her two youngest children and has her husband travel with their oldest. For them, the practice has worked out fairly well (if you disregard the incidents of lost luggage and annoying delays). However, the same cannot be said for the Schnabl family. The Schnabl’s were taking a planned vacation to … Continue reading →

Obama Inauguration Coverage Dips to American Idol

Oh sure, he’s now the president of the free world and made ground breaking history by being our first president of African descent, but Obama had to give it up to “American Idol” last night, at least in ratings. After what seems like weeks of Obama coverage and an entire inaugural day of constant coverage, Americans turned their minds off for idol Idol. But, before that happened, Barack Obama pulled in some big television ratings. In fact, his inauguration pulled in the biggest Nielsen numbers since 1981 when Ronald Reagan was sworn into office. According to the Nielsen estimates, about … Continue reading →

No, Really, I am Still Alive!

Yesterday, I was talking about premature obituaries. These are obits that somehow get released to the public before the celebrity in question is actually dead. Sometimes, it happens when technicians or reporters just accidentally press the wrong button. Sometimes, the celebrity had been ill and perhaps the media outlet is just hoping to get the jump on everyone else. Sometimes, it is just a joke gone bad. Despite how it happened, here are a few more untimely obituary releases: Melody Maker magazine had the macabre idea to publish an Alice Cooper concert review in the form of a fake obituary … Continue reading →