Thank you all for the love and donations yesterday for Madeline’s birthday. Every birthday is hard but I’m struggling more than usual with her tenth. Ten years old is such a milestone. In the peaks and valleys of grief, this one is a very deep valley, and if I’m being honest with myself, it’s been affecting me for a while now. I’m hopeful that the climb out will be a quick one, but I’m going to try to go easy on myself.
At Maddie’s first birthday party.
Around The ‘Net
~What Explains U.S. Mass Shootings? International Comparisons Suggest an Answer
~How technology helped a blind athlete run free at the New York Marathon
~Gene Therapy Creates Replacement Skin to Save a Dying Boy
~Harvey Weinstein’s Army of Spies
~Monks For A Month: College Kids Give Up Talking — And Technology
~Soldiers make emotional returns home to surprise families
~How to Hire Fake Friends and Family
~The Concept of the Weekend Is Dying. What Happens When It’s Dead?
~Who tells Eliza’s story? Philanthropy and “Hamilton: An American Musical”
~Yes Mom, There is Something Wrong
~Teen Girl Posed For 8 Years As Married Man To Write About Baseball And Harass Women
~So … When Are We All Going to Apologize to Megan Fox?
~A Tiger’s tale: How an O-lineman rallied Clemson to tackle pediatric cancer
What The Flicka
Annabel and I did a series of videos for the Netflix show Spirit Riding Free in partnership with the fun parenting website, What The Flicka. While we play with toys from the show, we talk about things like work/life balance and relationships. Annabel drops some real doozies, like saying Mike and I should only kiss once a year because it’s “gross,” and saying she doesn’t want to get married, she just wants to be a “cool girl with lots of boyfriends.” O_O
Time Flies
UM Thanksgiving is in 11 days, which means Black Friday is in 12 days. I started buying Christmas presents last month to help spread the costs, but holy moly, time is flyyyyying by.
~James & Annabel love to build rollercoasters on Minecraft, so I ordered this rollercoaster building game so they can get some IRL creativity going, screen-free.
~Has anyone ever bought their kids an easel like this? I’m tempted, but not sure if I want another large indoor toy.
~Have I told you guys about our Ring doorbell? I’m obsessed with it! It’s the perfect group, “what do we get for our parents who have everything” gift.
Happy Sunday, everyone!!
Lenora Dody says:
Thinking of you and the whole family.
Elizabeth Dallenbach says:
Sending you lots of love ??
We have that exact easel and all 3 of my kids love it (ages 9,5,& 3). I don’t find it so large that it’s in the way.
Elizabeth Dallenbach says:
And those were supposed to be hearts. Not question marks.
Z says:
Thinking of you–even wore a purple shirt yesterday. I’ve taken to keeping one around for Maddie. We’ve never even met. Hope that’s not too creepy?
Anyway, in regards to the easel, I’ve bought ones like that before. I mean, I bought them for myself, not children, but I’m about that reckless with art stuff, so using things normally often qualifies as a stress test. It should be awesome if they’re at all creative, and if you’re not keeping it in a room with carpet. If you do accidentally get paint on some white carpet, Shout stain remover’s pretty good for getting it out, even if they upgrade to acrylic paints when they get older.
What I really like about this particular board is that it comes with a mount for a paper roll. Those are great. If it didn’t weigh 40 pounds, I’d just be like, “Just get a thousand feet of butcher paper and make an infinite drawing.”
Kim says:
We had that easel when our boys were younger. It was fun for about a week then they got tired of standing up to use it. We attached a holder with a roll of art paper on it under the table they used and that was much better. They could just pull the paper across the table and go to town.
Rachael says:
My go to gift for the person who has everything is the air fryer or the instant pot.
Jenny says:
I have a similar easel for my 4 year old, but it doesn’t fold up. He was interested for a little while, but it mostly just sits there now. He isn’t one to use coloring books though or crafty projects, so that might have something to do with it.
Lisa says:
I know this is overdue but did think of you and the entire family with Maddie’s birthday. I hope that you had cream puffs. Lots of love with the birthday of Jackie! as well. Arms of support around all of you…
Valeri says:
“she doesn’t want to get married, she just wants to be a “cool girl with lots of boyfriends.”
Same, Annie. Same.
Valeri says:
Oh! My son has that exact easel. We keep it outside on the covered patio. It’s not as sturdy as I would have liked and the chalkboard is kind of garbage.