Imagine Gifts (a game)

This is a game my family and I invented this year, inspired by a friend (Hi Kat Alexander!) who picked out some fabulous gifts online and gave them to friends on facebook, without actually purchasing them. That’s cool. So me and the family woke up a couple of days ago and did this. It didn’t take long and even some of the youngest among us can search and find images and print them, our two year old was a wee bit to young, so he just received. When dinner came we had a stack of 6 envelopes each (my father is in town.) Some of the highlights: daughter gave father Hawaii, I gave middle daughter front row tickets to Green Day for every show from now on, and perhaps best of all, granddaughter gave grandfather the moon. We loved showing them off and the best part? After opening them you really felt loved, no disappointment, and yes, I’m really happy that my father gave me England. I gave him the view of redwood trees out of his window.

So anyway, in lieu of my comic Christmas card (I’ve got some repeats posting from years past) I wanted to tell you about this game in time to possibly try it on Christmas Eve. You won’t regret it, it’s really good. Think of it as a gift. And Merry Christmas to you and yours….

Mouth of Babes

John Rosemond writes a parenting column in most big newspapers. He’s a beloved parenting curmudgeon. If you’ve never read his stuff it’s heavy on the Authoritarian model of parenting, I’m the dad (or mom) and what I say goes. Yet, we’ll occasionally  agree, like that family dinners matter, and that too much screen time isn’t a good thing. So I couldn’t figure out how we could be so far apart on other things, like the parent always has to be firm and consistent and unyielding and disciplining. Why so far apart? Then I read his thoughts on Attachment Parenting and he said the above. OH! That’s why we’re so far apart, that one simply belief system. Are children born anti-social or social? All the different types of parenting methods in the world really fall under one of those two beliefs. Think about it. Did I just blow your mind? do you practice anti-social parenting, or social parenting? Try and think about the underneath value, when you look at your child are you suspicious that he’s trying to put one over on you, is it a battle of wills? Or a walk through the park, together?

 

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