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Kids Do Listen, Sometimes Years Later

Sep 16 2015

I don’t remember what I made, but I do remember the process. Or at least, I remember what I disliked about it. The measuring, the tailor’s tacks, the ironing of narrow seams. In short, my mom tried to teach me how to sew and I really, really, didn’t want to learn. I was the teenage daughter of an exquisite seamstress: she made her own wedding dress. She helped sew bridesmaid’s dresses for her sister. She painstakingly pieced together, with her two equally talented sisters, a quilt for their parents. My mom grew up sewing. And thought I should, too.

What Every Parent Needs to Know About Kids and Sleep

Sep 08 2015

It still sticks in my brain: the girls teasing me about the time I went to bed. Why? Because I wasn’t smart enough to not answer when they asked, even though they weren’t my friends and kinda mean. So of course my 8 o’clock bedtime became fodder for calling me a “baby.” Even though I slept like one, this “baby” would have much preferred to stay up later. What kid doesn’t? But my parents were unwavering on when I went to bed, which was good: I went out fast and rarely awakened during the night. So I must have needed…

Sep 01 2015

“SHUT UP!” As a kid I marveled at how two words like shut and up, harmless when they stand separately, could join up to become so hurtful. Like when hydrogen and oxygen come together, these words become something very different from their component parts. And when my son bellowed “SHUT UP!” to an acquaintance, mortification didn’t begin to describe our reaction. It seemed the world stopped spinning. Proverbial crickets chirped so loud that our ears were ringing. The stunning paralytic effect of those two words kept us from swooping in and immediately rectifying what had gone terribly wrong. Our reaction, or…

Aug 24 2015

A few years ago, I tried a new sunscreen. Not just a different brand from the drugstore, but something completely different. The active ingredient was titanium oxide but it was formulated in a tinted powder and applied with a brush, much like foundation. The person who recommended it was a fair-skinned pediatrician who loved to sail, and with that kind of multifactorial endorsement, I bought a jar (at a rather hefty price tag). I liked the idea of a non-greasy, lightweight sunscreen that wouldn’t appear smeary-white if we didn’t get applied evenly. Certain it would be the best thing…

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

Aug 11 2015

It’s hard to believe it’s time for our kids to return to school. Today was “Fall Check-In Day” (aka Registration Day) for my kids. Not being Kindergarteners, or otherwise new to the school, our paperwork process was pretty straightforward. But for new families, registration can be a seemingly insurmountable pile of blank forms and information. I remember those days…especially when I had three sets of vaccination records to dig up and then transcribe to official school documents! But I’m taking a long time to get to my point. Given it’s that time of year to get school health records in order, and given…

Physical or a Feeling. What is Truly a Home?

Aug 06 2015

Your house is small and dirty. (So there.) That statement was the trump card another child played in his argument with my oldest son (apparently over legos). The six-year-old couldn’t have understood the “grown up” interpretation of his words, the comparisons made by adults in attempt to “win” in the material world and therefore life itself. But neither could my 10-year-old son comprehend such craziness. He was, not surprisingly, hurt by the critique. Small and dirty implied his world was inadequate, that the place his father and mother provided for him was, well, small and dirty. When my son told me…

The Holly Story and Nothing But the Holly Story

Jul 29 2015

It came in an oversized white rectangular box. I was ten, maybe twelve, and beyond the tradition of hunting for Easter eggs. And I was certainly “over” my belief in the Easter Bunny. But my grandparents, who held the secular rituals of Easter dear, still gave gifts. Thus the rather simple box laying in my lap that morning several decades ago. I was startled to find what was inside; it appeared to be a dismembered stuffed animal. I was startled, and am afraid I let out an “Oh!” or some similar exclamation because the sight was a bit disturbing: long,…

Jul 21 2015

Everyone notices when someone sports that gorgeous sun-bronzed skin from a sunny vacation. But my family? The people who get sunburned through car windows? We return from a week away and people look at a quizzically and say, “Where did you go, again? Submarine cruise?” I honestly could kick myself for not buying stock in a sunscreen manufacturer before we had kids…given their genetic legacy I knew they would be more sun-sensitive than a field of solar panels. Most of us use more sunscreen in the summer than any other time of year. And most of us don’t think…

The State of Disconnect

Jul 15 2015

Our family spent a recent vacation at a state park in Nebraska. Unexpectedly, we found ourselves without wifi and also without cell service. And in order to get to our destination we made a painful several-hundred-mile drive across the western part of the state. Feel the obvious joke coming on? Maybe instead of calling it the Cornhusker State, Nebraska should be called the Disconnected State. I have heard and made many jokes about Nebraska (having spent lots of time there I can… right?). But I make this (barely humorous) zinger out of the pleasant inability to reach the outside world…

Jun 24 2015

When my husband told me that video games are good for hand-eye coordination (and therefore improving his career skills), I figured he was just vying for a Wii (or was it an Xbox? I’m pretty clueless on the difference). I didn’t buy it, literally or figuratively. Because I still can’t tie a sailor’s knot despite my hours of playing Pong and Pac Man back in-the-day. And yet, yet, despite that skepticism on the positive value of playing video games, I allow my kids to have daily access to their iPods. Is there guilt? Yes. Do I allow them more time than I…

My name is Heidi Black and I have it all... Maybe not in the traditional sense of the phrase but I do feel I have it all: three beautiful, healthy children, a devoted husband and father and the privilege of being a Domestic Engineer. (I used to call myself a SAHM but that just doesn’t fit when my day is filled with coordinating 5 schedules and preplanning their execution, all up to a week in advance.) And now, indulging in a not-so-secret desire to write, and following the advice “write what you know” I am ready to share what I have learned from this ironic life journey and along with you, discover answers to those many questions related to parenting.

Category - blog

Kids Do Listen, Sometimes Years Later

What Every Parent Needs to Know About Kids and Sleep

Kids Behaving Badly = Bad Parenting?

Getting the Most Out of Your Sunscreen

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

Physical or a Feeling. What is Truly a Home?

The Holly Story and Nothing But the Holly Story

Are Chemical Sunscreens Safe?

The State of Disconnect

Video Games, the Priming Effect, and Kids