Two man-made lakes, landscaped with beautiful trees and flowers, sit in the middle of our development. As you can imagine, the mile-long paved pathway around the lakes is a magnet for dog walkers, joggers, bikers, strollers. It's lovely to have the lakes in our neighborhood and to me, they are the shining point of our…
On Time and More of It
For those of you who don't know, I was recently "restructured" out of a job. Remember my lovely job in downtown Trenton? (I posted about Trenton here and here). Well, it is no more. On one hand, this is not terrible. I wasn't thrilled with the job anyway and financially and emotionally, it made sense…
Snow Day Time Lapse
Time it takes to find appropriate clothing for two boys on blizzard days: 45 minutes. Amount of time spent putting said clothes on boys: 15 minutes. Size of snowsuit that you are cramming your nine-year-old into: 6/7. Time it takes for little one to decide he has to pee after said clothes are in place:…
Why I Have Grey Hair…
JC, my eleven-year-old, had a noun test today in his Language Arts class. He had to be able to identify different types of nouns: subjects, subject compliments, direct objects, indirect objects, and objects of a preposition. Let me tell you, Blogtropolis. I write for a living and I couldn't identify these nouns if my life…
“Happy My Teeth”
My eight-year-old son, M., has autism. For an autistic kid, M. is very in tune with other people's feelings. He shows a great amount of empathy. He gets very upset when others are upset.For example, when our house gets loud or we're arguing with M.'s older brother JC, M. gets very unsettled. He starts to growl.…
Funny Kid Story . . .
Today I happened upon an old email in my Lotus Archives and remembered this funny kid story and thought I'd share. About five years ago, my then-five-year-old, JC, loved to watch a television show called "How It's Made." I think it was on the Discovery Channel (it may still be). He loved the episodes showing…
Sweet Defiance
My son, JC, who turns 10 at the end of the month, has what he calls "interests." These "interests" range from particular types of jellyfish (the arctic comb jelly is his current favorite) to Star Wars, to his favorite app, Minecraft. During the life span of any one of his "interests," he likes to research…
Elf Stress
For those of you who aren't familiar with the popular Elf on a Shelf bonanza that happens every Christmas, let me briefly explain. Some genius came up with the idea to make a toy Elf that comes to your house Thanksgiving night and makes himself at home. This Elf supposedly watches the kids and then…
Daily Prompt: Pants on Fire
Today’s Daily Prompt from The Daily Post reads: What was the last lie you told? Why did you tell it? You can see the prompt and links to other responses here. I read this one and immediately thought of all the nonsense I tell the kids, from Santa seeing their every move, to babies coming out…
A Writing Prompt for You . . .
I found this when I was cleaning off my nine-year-old son's "work table": "But when we saw the light, ..." I read it and smiled, wondering about the story in his mind. I love that he used a comma and that he drew it like a colored-in dot with a tail. I…
Waiting on a Word 
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