Grasshopper New Media Presents...

As parents, because we strive so hard to do right by our kids, we sometimes focus on all the things we could do better and overlook the things we do right.  And sometimes the things that we do right seem to happen by magic.  But, parenting is not magic, it is hard work trying to […]

Dearest Child of Mine:
I know how upset you were earlier today, when I refused to buy you that video game.  I know you really didn’t believe me when I told you that it was because I love you, that sometimes I refuse you the very THINGS that you so strongly WANT.
As a Mom Person, I […]

Every once in a while, most often when she’s sick, my five-year-old daughter K behaves like someone who once didn’t have enough to eat. She piles food onto her plate in mounds much bigger than she can eat. She eats very slowly, examining and savoring each forkful. She take forever choosing treats such as fruit, […]

The snow has already started piling up outside and children here have begun practicing one of the traditions of winter: checking the weather forecast in hopes of a blizzard and subsequent snow day off from school. I remember many mornings (both as a student and as a teacher) squinting in the dark at the […]

As a break from the heaviness of parenting advice, I thought I’d initiate a conversation where we could share good parenting jokes and funny stories. Here’s my opening gambit:
I was listening to Paula Poundstone being interviewed on NPR this weekend and she told a hugely funny story: “I’ve been having trouble with my 10 year-old […]

Today is my father’s 78th birthday.  I am forever writing about my father and the sadness that’s taken up residence since the cancer came.  He died when he was 66.  Today he would be 78.  Today,  we’re celebrating his birthday.
I look at this photo, the one I scanned for this post, many times every day.  […]

Every year, sometime in November, I prepare the fireplace for the first fire of the season. And every year, when I open the flue, a nest of yellow jackets falls down the chimney and lands right on the log. Every. Single. Year. By now I am prepared. Most of […]

In the basement of the Embassy Theatre is a makeup room.
The Embassy is one of those huge silent movie houses that turned into a theater with a stage and Philharmonic concerts and Broadway shows and singing kids. Under the stage are dressing rooms and closets and restrooms and a makeup room. A makeup room gives […]

Almost every woman, and definitely every mom, often finds herself over-worked, over-exerted, and over-stressed at some point each week.  Whether it’s the stress of a job that you hate or the stress of playing taxi for your children, mom’s often have trouble allowing themselves to let go enough of stress.
In Ruth Klein’s new book The […]

Community service has been a big part of my life since my own childhood.  My own mother often took me along as she did her “volunteer work”.  It has been such a part of my life that, as an adult, I never considered if I would volunteer… it was merely a question of where and […]