Holy crap we’re hosting an exchange student — now what?!
My husband and I were recently approached by a friend coordinating host families for a three week long cultural exchange program for students from Spain this summer. We decided to go for it — it will be a neat experience for us, and it’s a nice thing to do both for our friend and for the student who will be staying with us. The other day we got the email that we’d been approved as “host parents” and matched with a 17-year-old young man!
It turns out nurturing your young child may help them regulate stress
I am super intrigued by this article, Nurturing Moms May Boost Children’s Brain Growth. Researchers are positing that children with nurturing mothers may experience brain growth in the hippocampus, the area of the brain that processes memories and helps you deal with stress. So… nurturing mom = mellow kid? We’ll see.
I helped boost my eight-year-old’s self esteem with a jar of nice notes
I did not grow up often hearing that I was smart (although I was) or that I was pretty (I had my good days). In fact, I did not know my worth at all until I thought I could find it in boys. BIG MISTAKE. Unfortunately, it’s an all too common one. There was no way I wanted my daughter to follow that same path, so from a very early age I built her foundation of worth with a continuous flow of positive words — none of which focused solely on her obvious beauty.
My favorite Goosebumps books and how they relate to my life
Did you guys ever read Goosebumps? The series of sixty-two books was published in 1992 to 1997 to give younger readers a chance to get creeped out by R.L. Stine before their time, and I was TOTALLY ON BOARD. While I eventually graduated to the Fear Street series (and was subsequently so terrorized I was told to stop reading the books), my heart has always had a special place for Goosebumps and the bizarre-ness it holds.
What pregnancy books can I read that won’t make me crazy?
My husband and I will begin baby making attempts in the next few months. I’ve never been into self-help and intend to approach pregnancy as just another stage in life, not some idealized baby obsessed utopia during which I need to document everything, take extreme precaution with safety and food, and transition my life into mommy perfection.
A simple sunset maternity session that will be hard to forget
For all of the amazing things people have thought to do for their maternity photos (and trust me — we’ve seen some of the best around!) every so often it’s nice to keep it simple. These shots from Gregarious Peach are a great example of what I mean: just a woman, her pregnancy, and the world around her.
On liberating ourselves from worrying about our kids
My kids are perfect the way they are. Every parent says this — well, maybe not every, but enough. We might even believe it when we say it (or a part of us does). But the same parent worries, too: my children aren’t getting enough to really develop into their full potential. I’m not doing enough to give them the best start in life.
How can we transition step-children and half-siblings into a unified family?
I married a wonderful fella and his two daughters last June. We both feel like the four of us are doing fairly well with the transitions, and now it looks like we’re adding to our family in October. The girls knew we hoped to, which meant that they were not surprised when we told them. They weren’t enthusiastic, either. I’m not expecting them to be, at least not yet, but I am curious about how best to proceed.