Our Little Chicken Fried

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The meanings of some songs are best danced out...

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Needs and wants and dirty feet

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There are few things as humorous as trying to explain the difference between “needs” and “wants” to a group of young children.  For reasons our adult brains cannot understand, they honestly believe they need certain things to survive, including the newest plastic doll, video game, or the latest in absurd fashion crazes.   I remember this feeling quite well, trying to convince my parents in the early 1980’s that I needed parachute pants or else life would just not go on. In my attempt to avoid having to enlighten my own kids, I find that nothing better puts life into perspective than a good ol’ family camping trip.  And I’m not talking about loading up an RV and driving to campground where you plug in your satellite dish and the dangly Christmas-type lights from your instant front porch.  I’m talking about the sort of camping that involves a tent, a fire, the hum of a Coleman lantern, and walking a half a mile to use the bathroom. It’s a beautiful thing, really. With the lim
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Old mom, new tricks

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            If you add up the ages of all of my children, I’ve been a mom for almost 38 years, which is almost as long as I’ve been on this Earth. You might think that I have most things figured out. I know I did. But as it turns out, you’re never too old a mom to learn new tricks.             This tip came from the brilliant family of the child who has the locker next to my oldest daughter. Both freshmen in high school, one day my daughter saw him pull a girly lunchbox out of his bookbag. There must have been an exchange of expressions and the explanation followed.             “I forgot my lunchbox at school yesterday so my mom packed my lunch in this princess Lunchbox of Shame. I’m never going to forget it at school again.”             Upon hearing this story, my eyes got wide and I probably stood there, mouth agape, wondering why I hadn’t thought of this long, long ago. While our children are pretty good at remembering to bring their lunch boxes home, they are terrible at r
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Bedtime

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            It is a cruel world we live in, when the time for sleep is never the time we want it to be. Ever.             There are, of course, exceptions, but speaking from my own personal experience, I’m not sure I’ve ever really been able to go to sleep exactly when I wanted. I can’t remember a single time (although I also can’t remember what I had for dinner last night) that I’ve had the pleasure of announcing, “I’m tired. I’m going to bed and no one or nothing is going to stop me.”             As tiny infants we know no better and haven’t yet adjusted to any sort of schedule. After living in darkness for all of our lives, we suddenly find ourselves with lights and sun and lovely people who are trying to train us to sleep at times when we really don’t want to, but aren’t sure why.             As toddlers and preschoolers, we start to slowly learn about all of the fun things we are missing when those big, lovely people make us go to bed. We may not understand anything like
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