Relationships & Family

Toddler Helps Deliver Brother

batch — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 04:05:06 -0600

According to gnn.com, when Bobbye Favazza went into labor at home, she called her mother saying she felt the baby coming. She had been expecting to deliver via cesarean section a few weeks later, which is why she was caught off guard.

Her mother immediately called the paramedics, and while Favazza was waiting for them to arrive, she found that she had a very good chance of giving birth in her own home. In what proved to be an inspirational story, her 2-year-old son Jeremiha helped deliver the baby.

How to Teach Kids to Be Thankful

batch — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 04:05:07 -0600

Thanksgiving can be the perfect opportunity for parents to introduce children to the importance of being generous and showing gratitude for life's blessings.

Child development expert Chuck Smith of Kansas State University suggests that parents begin modeling these concepts by reaching out to those in need as part of a family project.

For example, taking children to the grocery store to choose donations for a local food pantry will help them gain awareness of hunger and need, Smith says.

Memory Tree

jbloustein — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:29:08 -0600

I got up from the computer where I’d been working on our annual Christmas letter.

There were a lot of people on our list who didn’t know about our disastrous year, and I was struggling to put it all down.

How could I say our house had been destroyed in a record-breaking flood, that we’d been living in rentals ever since, that construction delays would prevent us from getting back home for Christmas? It all sounded so pathetic. Nothing to put me or anyone else in a holiday mood.

The Stocking

jbloustein — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:08:36 -0600

A shriek of frustration came from the dining room.

I poked my head in from the kitchen, where I was drying dishes. The table was cluttered with wrapping paper, boxes, ribbons, bows, scissors, felt, thread, buttons and a sewing machine. Half draped across the sewing machine was a red felt Christmas stocking. It looked like my wife, Kate, had just thrown the stocking.

“It’s ruined!” she cried.

“What?” I asked.

The First Candle

jbloustein — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:25:21 -0500

I awoke thinking that I was at my parents’ house.

I could almost smell Mom’s potato pancakes in the air, hear the comforting sounds of her and my father, whom I call Aba, bustling about downstairs.

But then my eyes finally adjusted to the fluorescent light. The pale green walls, the metal bed rails…I remembered where I was: the UC-Irvine Medical Center cancer ward. The last place on earth I wanted to be, especially the first night of Hanukkah.

Is ‘Time Out’ Time Well Spent?

jbloustein — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:29:14 -0600

“Time out!” my two year old declares, wagging her tiny finger at her big brother, “You go on time out!”

It is hard not to giggle when a 26-month old demands a “time out” for whomever happens to be bothering her. She has tried to put everyone from me to Elmo on time out.

But the sobering fact is that my two-year old has obviously watched me send her seven-year old brother, Jackson, on far too many time outs.

Out of Empty Nest Valley

jbloustein — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:17:19 -0600

To our left, the Santa Lucia Mountains jutted into the cornflower blue western sky.

To our right, the Pinnacles Mountains rose likewise into the cloudless east.

And rushing alongside our tour bus windows in a blur of emerald, teal, mint and kelly green was the verdant flat patchwork quilt of California’s Salinas Valley.

The tour guide’s microphone crackled with upbeat commentary.

Cough Medicine Scare

jbloustein — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:29:30 -0600

Type DXM into Google or You Tube and you will quickly learn what your teenager probably already knows—cough medicine can take a person on euphoric, psychedelic, or dissociative trips without even breaking the law.

Yes, teenagers know how to get high off of cough medicine. Online they can even find DXM calculators that tell them how much of what brands of cough medicine they can use to get to the four different “plateaus.”

Open Heart

jbloustein — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 15:19:08 -0500

My family depends on me and that’s the way it should be. I like taking care of them.

A Bell Ringer's Promise

admin — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 10:40:00 -0500

Sad times can be even sadder at Christmas. Twenty years ago I was a divorced single mom, struggling with a job and college classes, hoping for a better life. Money was tight. I literally counted pennies.

One cold December day I squeezed into the last parking place at the supermarket. Meals for my 13-year-old son, Shawn, and me were a priority. But it was Christmastime. Shawn dreamed of an electric guitar.