Grasshopper New Media Presents...

As I write this post, there are only four days left until the Presidential election. A long-time Obama supporter, I know how I hope things will go. The last election left a bitter taste in the mouths of many Democrats like me, and I fervently wish that on Tuesday there will be no […]

Last night at dinner, my wife and I turned to each other and couldn’t contain our grins. We understood each other without speaking our feelings: “This totally rocks.” What revolutionary event in our parenting lives sparked this tsunami of warm satisfaction?
We had kids over without their parents.
Two kids, to be exact — a brother and […]

I have a news-junkie/political wonk side of me, and as a result, my kids have heard hours of political news while in the car or hanging around the house.  They’ve developed a sense of where my husband and I sit on the political spectrum, and while I think they largely have adopted many of our […]

My twins are all about princesses. If it isn’t a Disney princess, well, it’s not a REAL princess. Both of them have decided to be Belle for Halloween and they have both been wearing their Belle costumes every day since their birthday. I’ve always been a huge fan of cartoons and animated films, so I […]

My son has a poster due in science this week, all about the units of measure.
I understand, I think, what this is about- to try to get the kids to get a feel for what unit of measure you might use in what case, and to find examples from their own lives.  But let’s face […]

Later today Whitney Hoffman is going to share an experience with her son’s school. I was thinking about her post as I was writing this one (I had a sneak peak).
Last night was my 1st grader’s open house at school. It was a nice relaxed evening that gave Lucy (4), Aidan (8), and […]

Six is a strange age, an age that straddles a line between early and middle childhood. Six can be by turns timid and cuddly, or brashly bold and confident. It’s difficult to predict which Six you’ll get at any given moment. Six is the perfect age for trying on various selves and […]

I’ve written before about my selectively shy son. And today my mind is once again wrapped up in his reticence. My middle child often offers us only one word answers unless we really focus on drawing him out.
Don’t get me wrong- at playtime at the Hatches my boy would give […]

Before I became a parent I would sometimes say things like, “I won’t allow my child to behave like that in a public place,” or “I’ll teach my kids to have better manners than that kid” whenever I saw a child behaving poorly. While I have allowed a few temper tantrums to take place in […]

I just started reading a novel written by Gayle Brandeis called Self Storage. Today I came upon these two paragraphs, paragraphs written so beautifully that I want to honor them here:
When I was seven and my mom was near death—pancreatic cancer—my father made me stay in her hospital room. It was horrible. […]