Son helps Mom study for a change

Turnabout is fair play.
I have been quizzing my son, Ryan, for quizzes and spelling tests for several years.
This year, I get to quiz my son, Ethan, as well.
As a first-grader, Ryan really liked this time with me. He also felt very grown up having homework and tests to study for at school. The older he gets, however, the less he wants to be bothered with homework.
Ethan has pretty much felt that homework is a bother from the beginning.
While I really enjoy studying with the boys, they would much rather play video games.
In my house, however, homework and studying comes first. Period.
Ryan’s enthusiasm for being quizzed on his spelling words is particularly lacking. Especially if we’re going over words he initially struggled with for a second...

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New Year’s resolution: Bye, bye chicken fat

By Traci Arbios, herdingsquirrels.com

On the very first day of the very first month of this brand new year, I stepped on my home scale and let loose a wail of disgust that could be heard clear to Selma.

EIGHT POUNDS! I had snicked and snacked my way through the holidays and on up the scale by EIGHT POUNDS. Going in, it looked like red wine and fine cheeses and amazing butter cookies. But I knew, sloping there off my hips and my thighs and the new floppy parts of my arms, it now all looked like a big bunch of yellowy chicken fat. On the inside of my skin, anyway. On the outside I looked like a tube of sausage in too-small a casing.

I had to do something.

My family had been long-time members of GB3 gym, in Clovis, Calif. You know the one: It’s...

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Hotel includes suite outfitted for parents of autistic child

McClatchy-Tribune

A hotel in Tenafly, N.J., has geared it’s Alpine Suite towards travelers with autistic children.
Managed by a parent of an autistic child, the Clinton Inn Hotel offers suite with unbreakable glassware, bumpers on furnishings, special locks and in-room decor and accessories that can’t be knocked off surfaces by wandering hands.

Along with the room features, families who stay at the hotel receive a welcome box of activities for children with autism, as well as a special-needs menu, free in-room movie and access to a reserved table at the hotel’s restaurant. The hotel also donates part of the proceeds from stays in the suite to charitable organization Autism Speaks.

The hotel is located about 10 miles from the George...

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Class lets teen mothers learn from each other

By John Keilman, Chicago Tribune

Paula Martinez was worried. Her son was approaching his first birthday and had yet to begin crawling.

She confided her concerns to her fellow students at a teen parenting class run by Kids Hope United, and they swiftly hit upon a solution: Martinez, 19, should get on her hands and knees and show her son how to do it.

“I would start crawling with him, then he would crawl a little,” she said. “He figured it out. He’s 13 months now and he’s started to walk already.”

That was just one bit of parental confidence instilled by the class, which is run out of the Alternative/Optional Education Center alternative high school in Waukegan, Ill. Twenty-eight young women are enrolled this...

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Mom of 2 is also a pageant queen

By Brian Newsome, McClatchy-Tribune

Lisa Collacott won’t have to tap dance, play the piano or juggle fiery batons for her upcoming pageant.

But some might argue she has already faced the toughest challenge in pursuit of a sash and crown: marriage and children.

The 42-year-old “Mrs. Monument” will go up against dozens of other women from around Colorado in the Mrs. Colorado pageant scheduled for May. The winner will go on to compete in the Mrs. America pageant and, if victorious, compete for a shot at the Mrs. World title, a nationally televised event.

Collacott, a freelance writer and substitute teacher, did not dream of the pageant life and its glittery dresses and camera flashes as a kid. She wasn’t a high school cheerleader...

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Bad weather fun with the kids

By Marla Jo Fisher, The Orange County Register

I’ve pretty much given up any effort this week to get the kids to stay warm during the winter storms.

They go outside in thin sweatshirts, get freezing and soaked, come in and drip all over my clean floors. (Well, they’re not really clean, but I can dream, can’t I?)

Then, they shiver uncontrollably and complain about being cold.

After I’d pointed out dozens of times that our closet contains not only clutter but also several perfectly good waterproof jackets with hoods, not to mention umbrellas and boots, I stopped listening.

Instead, I just steer them directly into the hot shower, where their wet clothes will miraculously rise up off the floor and into the washer....

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Even on snow days, tempers heat up

By Aisha Sultan, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

In our household, the year’s first snow day always starts as a no-no-no day.

As in, “Oh, no. Who’s going to call in to work to stay home with the kids?”

“No, you cannot play in the snow at 7 a.m.”

And “No, you are not wearing that outside.”

Unfortunately, the nos have been known to escalate to full-blown warfare. Between the alleged grownups.

I lack childhood experience with snow days. We had inclement weather days in Texas, but who plays outside in a hurricane? Well, once we did in the early stages of a flash flood, but regardless, it’s not a day with sleds and hot chocolate.

Like other warm-climate transplants, I suffer from...

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Tips to corral that kid clutter

By Debbie Arrington, McClatchy Newspapers

Does kid clutter make moms crazy? Yes, your children can clean up their messy rooms and keep them clean or at least passable. The trick is making organization more fun and not such a chore.

Here are some experts’ tips on getting youngsters hooked on clean:

• A place for everything and everything in its place. That’s an old credo, but it works from a child’s perspective. Give Barbie and her friends a “home” in the closet or the toy drawer. Put the toys “to bed” each evening in their toy box. Park the toy trucks and garage in their closet “garage.” Take a few minutes each night before sleep to help your children tuck in their little toy friends. (Make sure the...

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Embracing the 30s, anti-wrinkle creams and all

The other day, I looked in my bathroom basket sitting on top of the counter and noticed something … the place where all the sweet smelling lotions used to sit have now been replaced by lotions for extremely dry, cracked skin or wrinkles.

In college, I loved to shop at Victoria’s Secret, because clearly, she had the secret in her lotion for attracting and keeping men. Now when I am at a mall, I don’t even walk into Victoria’s Secret because, well, I simply cannot afford a $42 undergarment, let alone a bottle of her lotion.

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H1N1 flu clinics this week

The Chronicle-Telegram

ELYRIA — The City Health District will have another round of H1N1 and seasonal flu clinics starting this week and continuing through February. Clinics will be in the Midway Mall Community Room near the former Dillard’s department store.

H1N1 vaccinations are free, and there are no age restrictions for those shots.

Seasonal flu shots cost $15. Medicare or Medicaid is accepted in payment. All clinics will be noon to 6 p.m. today, Feb. 2, 9, 16 and 23. To learn more, call the City Health District at (440) 323-7595 or visit www.elyriahealth.com.

The Lorain County General Health District also will offer H1N1 flu vaccine clinics on the following dates, times and...

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