Great children’s books often communicate big ideas with beautiful simplicity. Take the story of “Miss Rumphius” by Barbara Cooney. The story begins when little Alice Rumphius sits on her grandfather’s lap and tells him about her wishes for her life. He tells her there is...
Have you ever been on a long drive and experienced the jarring sensation of driving over a rumble strip? These grooves in the asphalt alert drivers who are getting too close to the edges of their lanes. Most of the time, this monotone noise rattles...
My daughter Emma has been waiting all summer to find out who her third-grade teacher will be. After a year and a half of distance learning, she was ready to be with her friends and teachers in person. When the school sent an overview of...
A friend of mine is very interested in strength training and is always finding new, creative ways to train. She recently decided to incorporate something called tire flipping into her home workout routine. Some of you may be aware of this technique, which often appears...
The first Polish language encyclopedia, Nowe Ateny, was published in 1746. It included definitions such as: Horse: Everyone knows what a horse is.I laughed out loud when I read this. I liked imagining the person tasked with writing this definition so many years ago, pondering what to...
We just came home from a family vacation. After each day’s adventures, we would retreat to our hotel room. And every day, there were treats left on the nightstand by the hotel staff. One day it was tiny cupcakes, another day chocolate truffles and the...
Yesterday in Target, in the aisle with diapers and wipes, I saw one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. A toddler was having one of those tantrums. You know the kind – screaming at the top of his lungs, a red, tear-streaked face,...
It’s hard to say “no.” There’s a reason alcohol and drug refusal – learning to say no assertively – is a core skill in substance use disorder treatment. It’s hard to say “no” when people are used to saying “yes.”In our relationships with others, it’s hard...
I found Emma hiding under the kitchen table, her laptop sitting open on the table above. Her math teacher’s voice was coming loudly through the laptop speakers. “ Emma? Emma?” I heard a stern voice saying.I crawled under the table to stay out of the...
It is so much easier to give other people advice than to take our own. Sometimes we can get stuck in our own head, repeating the same ruminations over and over without reaching a helpful resolution – and cutting ourselves down in the process. This often...