mama’s sewing circus

This book looks right up our alley.

You may already be familiar with Daniel Handler, aka Lemony Snicket. If you aren’t, and you’ve got 7 year olds to read to, check out The Series of Unfortunate Events. Snicket has a new book on the shelves these days. This one is more of a performance. He has teamed up with a composer to [...]

“… the more it goes – Tiddly-pom
the more it goes – Tiddly-pom
on snowing.”
- Winnie the Pooh, The House at Pooh Corner
I’ve been reading two chapters a night of Winnie the Pooh to Will and Sylvie. Our collection is tattered from 34 years of use so I flinch when the kids reach to turn the page [...]

In case you’ve been deflowered, amusing Edward Gorey etiquette book on the appropriate response.

I realized yesterday that my favorite Christmas songs were all written by men who don’t even celebrate the holiday – “There’s no place like home for the holidays” was written by Al Stillman (aka Al Silverman), “Let it snow!” by Sammy Cahn, and “Donde esta Santa Claus” by Guster. Although for us Christmas has very [...]

I’d forgotten until last night one of the primary reasons I had kids – to share my favorite books. Sure, there were many other reasons, but I’d been looking forward to building traditions around books like we’d had growing up. Yeah, yeah – I’m bookish. To this day, Christmas involves reading (and crying through) The [...]

A car ad.

We’re raising a strong-willed child. Although this can be a great thing for him in life – it puts him at great advantage to succeed in all of life’s endeavors – I’m afraid that if we mis-step in our parenting through his tantrums, he may instead end up with a poor self-image, finding solace in [...]

I’ve mentioned before that I know my son is intelligent, but I am struck by how his learning style is so different from mine. Approach this kid with an activity book and a pen, and he recoils in terror; come at him with a box of wooden blocks and he dives in ready to play [...]

The Boston Globe has a great editorial for wordies in defense of English as user-modifiable technology.
Part of the joy and pleasure of English is its boundless creativity: I can describe a new machine as bicyclish, I can say that I’m vitamining myself to stave off a cold, I can complain that someone is the [...]