family
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Christmas Classics for Kids
When I was little, I looked forward to watching the Christmas specials every year. We didn’t get cable until I was an adult, and so we watched on this poorly tuned staticky TV (I thought all TVs had “snow” for a long time). These shows have been around since long before I was born. One…
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Things I Automatically Do Even When My Kids Aren’t Present
I was thinking about this today when I caught myself doing several of these things. Then I stopped and thought, Wait, I don’t have any kids with me, I don’t need to do this! When I turn on the TV, I automatically change it to Disney. When I get out of my car, I open…
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Sugar Mania
After summer and vacations and trips to Chicago and New York and all the eating that entailed, I was feeling quite, well, bloated by September. Also, back in the spring, my doc prescribed birth control pills, and they were making me HONNNGRAYYY. Every time I got preggers, BTW, I’d bloat up like a water balloon,…
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Dilloway Grand Canyon Family Vacation
Last week, we got the harebrained notion to go to the Grand Canyon. We also decided to go to Tonto National Monument to see a cliff dwelling, and the Tonto State Park Natural Bridge. We filled a cooler with ice and water bottles and took off. In Date City, or Date Town, or Date Village…
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Because My Husband is 12
^^I can’t *wait* to see what searches bring people here, with a title like that! You try to set a good example for your kids. Don’t drip on the hardwood. Keep the water in the pool, where it belongs. It’s hard, though, when Dad is the instigator of mayhem. I was inside and Cadillac was…
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Death of a Bougainvillea
Three trips to the dump later…that wretched plant is out of the yard. That was Cadillac’s weekend, putting the plant on the trailer he borrowed from his dad. The bougainvillea is the devil plant. Thorns EVERYWHERE, some three inches long. Paper flower leaves. An old-timey neighbor stopped by. “They’ve cut down that plant at least…
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A Leak and a Flood and a Runaway Dog
Sometimes I don’t want to put anything on Facebook, because I want to use it on my blog. And then I think, wait, should I not put this on my blog, in case I need to use it in a story? If I put a photo on Instagram, should it not go on Tumblr? What…
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Angry Daddy vs the Bougainvillea
There is…was…a bougainvillea growing in the front, over an overhang. Two building inspectors said it should come down. Cadillac got a chainsaw and went to work today. Me: Maybe we shouldn’t cut the whole thing down today…after all, we have only one trashcan. Cadillac: I’m not. I’m just going to get this one part down.…
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Summertime, So Far
Summer is a strange season in this age. No longer do kids just leave the house all day and return when Dad whistles into the yellow rays of the street lights to come home for dinner. I just read this article called The Case Against Summer Camp. It’s true, kids do need unstructured, unplugged time.…
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What Kids Are Reading
Today there was an article on NPR that said not only do kids choose easy books to read for pleasure, the reading that high schools assign is getting increasingly easier. This is the opposite of my kid’s experience. This year, at the public high school, my 9th grade daughter read THE KITE RUNNER, UNCLE TOM’S…
MARGARET DILLOWAY 