Avant Parenting Archives
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Avant! Welcome to my parenting blog archives
As you can see by the dates below, this blog is no longer being updated. However, there’s lots of good stuff here, much of it as true now as when it was written. Please feel free to browse, or follow these links: One last piece of parenting advice: Enjoy today even if it’s a rough…
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A Proven Formula
Someone pointed me toward this article from Newsweek Magazine. It is one of those articles that many people wish they could have written, but they knew they didn’t have the moral standing to do so. The writer is in the unique position of having both a gifted and a disabled child. She points out that…
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One person’s plotting is another’s reading units
One reason, perhaps selfish, to homeschool your kids is so they don’t have to do the time-wasting, mind-numbing exercises that you hated in school. I’m not of the parenting mind that thinks, “I had to suffer through it, so she should too!” The thing is, my kids don’t necessarily hate the same things I do.…
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Whither Goest Poetry?
For a period in my life, I lived poetry. I read poetry, wrote poetry, and published poetry. Recently someone asked me, are you still writing poetry? And for the first time in a long time, I had to say, No, I’m really not doing anything with poetry anymore. Life takes us in strange, circuitous routes…
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This is what a family looks like
My husband’s Great-Aunt Gladys, my kids’ great-great aunt, passed away. It was not unexpected…she was 98 years old. Aunt Gladys — or “Happy Hiney” (you figure that one out!) — was beloved by my husband, and much later by me and our kids. The last time we saw her as a family, we sat in…
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Choice, Ain’t it Cool?
I was talking to another mom in my daughter’s homeschool program the other day, when she happened to mention her age. She has kids just a bit younger than mine, and she’s still in her twenties. No wonder she’s so much fun, I thought. Her back isn’t killing her yet! Seriously: I have never regretted…