A couple of weeks ago, Carlos Peña of the Tampa Bay Rays lamented that the stands weren’t very full for one of the games. I kind of took that personally because I was one of the people NOT at the game. Oh how I wanted to call the clubhouse and tell him that I would be there every game if I could. But while our little baseball team that could focuses on its team mantra to do “What’s Important Now” and battles to make the MLB playoffs and top off the season with the best record in the American League, for many of us, What’s Important Now is economic survival.
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It was inevitable. Well, two things, actually. It was only a matter of time before my son brought home his first real book report assignment. Congruently, I shouldn’t be surprised that when I asked him if he had homework, he answered ‘no’, because the teacher didn’t call it ‘homework’. To his credit, though he kept the assignment from us, he did covertly read the book he chose – Marley: A dog like no other, by John Grogan.
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Apparently Octomom, Nadya Suleman and her 14 kids could be looking for a home because her mortgage is headed for foreclosure, according to a report posted Saturday by Radaronline.com. The article quoted interview with Amir Haddadin, who holds her mortgage, saying that she hadn’t made a payment between May and September. The same website reported on Friday that the mom who made national headlines with her delivery of eight babies is “going on welfare to make ends make”.
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I returned a bit ago from the SPARC 2010 conference, which is one of the largest events for Tampa Bay parents, teachers, and providers that work with special needs children to get together. The acronym-heavy event is put on by STAND, the Florida Statewide Advocacy Network on Disabilities, Inc., and its official title is STAND Pinellas (County) Accessing Resources Conference. We will have much more coverage of the event in the iParent News section, but I feel compelled to share perhaps the greatest tip for working with a special needs child that I have ever heard that was shared by one of the presenters.
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Yep, I’ve done it. Again…and again…and again… For upwards of a decade, my wife and I were healthy vegetarians, and even vegans. For years at a time, we skipped ice cream, cheese, steaks, pizza, and just about anything else that had a record of clogging arteries – our our fat tissues. But then along came the little boy, and because we didn’t want to ‘deprive’ him of the joys of junk food, we ‘made exceptions’. And to be sure, a substantial cause for choosing foods less than healthy for him is his sales job to convince me that the cookies or donuts aren’t that bad. He is ultra thin, so I actually work to beef him up, but need to be careful not to beef up plaque in his arteries while I’m at it.
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Parenting a child with special needs means many of your child’s milestones come on a different timetable than most kids – if at all – so when they (& you) are fortunate enough to reach one, it’s a big deal. When we were Kyle’s foster parents years ago, we got him a bike for his seventh birthday. We had been working on strengthening his legs and his balance for a long time, and he had spent hours riding the Pinellas Trail with us on a trailer bike.
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The content of this actual news clip is so comical, it could easily be a bit for Jay Leno or Saturday Night Live. Apparently, the Mr. Magic herbal male enhancement product manufactured by Glow Industries, Inc., has been recalled because it contains actual erectile dysfunction (ED) medication, according to the FDA’s press release.
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Since it appears that climate change has left Florida with a monsoon season usually reserved for southeast Asia, finding a break in the nonstop rains to take my son outside and burn off some energy together has been a challenge. So today when the downpour slowed to a drizzle, I dragged him out to play catch with his new football. And the beautiful child he is helped me turn it into an opportunity for me to remember to take advantage of the things he likes to entice him into the things he really can’t stand.
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The U.S. Government seems to have a site to help guide virtually every part of our lives – how to shop, protect our children, be a parent, protect ourselves, and many, many more. I try not to be a cynic, and can see the value in much of content these sites provide as guides for parents’ lives, but I have to question “Apps for Healthy Kids”. It’s a programmer competition that offers $60k in prizes to “create innovative, fun and engaging software
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As the economy lurched along these past few years, the experts on Wall Street and blowhards on the TV ‘managing your money’ shows have pointed to all kinds of government statistics and market fluctuations to tell us if and where people are spending money and whether they anticipate those numbers to grow or shrink.
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