August, 2016 | PulseonParenting

It’s Time to Return to School: Should I Vaccinate My Children?

Aug 30 2016

It’s hard to believe the back-to-school season is upon us. Kids love the flurry of activity that swirls around shopping for new clothes and shoes (a pair of Tom’s, please, requests my 9 year-old, already a cute-shoe guru), school supplies and for us, homeschool curricula. It’s not quite as much fun completing the requisite back-to-school paperwork and gathering and maintaining (ouch) up-to-date health records (yes, even for homeschoolers). As I do the paper-pushing, I am reminded it is time to repost the following essay on the importance of vaccinating our children: I’m going to give this to you straight….

Aug 24 2016

Well, at least I didn’t say “never.” Instead, fortunately, I said “won’t.” I love the saying “Never say never, never say always.” It’s clever. And most of the time it’s good advice…but there are exceptions. For me, for example, those exceptions are: I will never like marmalade. I will never not get motion sick in an IMAX movie. I will always love my family. I have written three posts on homeschooling, the most recent about how I won’t homeschool our kids and the reasons why. Well, if I don’t swallow my words on this one, I (ahem) never will….

Meningitis, Mistaken Gender, and Orange Pee…Our Week in Review

Aug 18 2016

It was one of those weeks. One of those that by the time it’s over, you feel as if you’ve been in a time warp and wondering what the heck happened. As crazy and weird as it was, the week was a learning experience, a wake up call and in some ways, pretty joyful: ~Early Monday morning, I took my husband to the emergency room; his headache had returned with a vengeance, with a fever, chills and a stiff neck. He was admitted to the hospital for meningitis and then given every available IV drug the pharmacy had to offer….

Aug 12 2016

It’s not just adding insult to injury. It’s literally adding injury to injury. Two of my kids, when they need a bandaid to cover a scraped knee or elbow, end up with that painful, red and raised “rash” from the sticky part of the bandage. Talk about unfair. And putting bandaids on a bandaid rash obviously isn’t gonna work. I remember the first time I saw a rash from bandage adhesive. I was working as an aide in a hospital, and the rash was actually from the white tape we used to secure gauze dressings. Then I saw it again….

Losing a pet and how we teach our kids about loss

Aug 02 2016

We have the worst luck with pets. Dog number one. We had to give her up because she kept running away. Dog number two. Became food aggressive with kid vomit and bit my husband. We had to surrender him to the humane society. Lizard. My son caught “Lizzy” in our yard and designed a lovely terrarium for the randomly-assigned “her.” She lived her life span adored, sunning herself under her own heat lamp and feasting on bits of banana. My son was devastated when she died. Dwarf hamster. Our most recent, and possibly cutest, pet. She loved corn and green beans…

Archive - August 2016

It’s Time to Return to School: Should I Vaccinate My Children?

Homeschooling (Yes, This Again)

Meningitis, Mistaken Gender, and Orange Pee…Our Week in Review

Is My Child’s Bandaid Rash an Allergy?

When a Pet Dies