Words on the Word
Family Fridays
Five Kids’ Magazines We Enjoy
Here are five children’s magazines we particularly enjoy reading to our two-year-old and five-year-old: 5. High Five “My First Hidden Pictures” and “That’s Silly!” are two favorite features of the magazine. It says it’s for ages 2 to 6, but it’s hard to imagine any two-year-old tracking with it. Better for slightly older kids. 4. … Continue reading
A Perfect Song
“North American Field Song,” by the Innocence Mission: Lyrics: Raincoats, Finlandia, Raincoats and lakes. The best words, I take along in my field bag. Across the morning, the beautiful air, I will be aware. I’ll speak if I dare, and Stay calm, stay calm, stay calm, stay calm in the meantime, Stay calm, stay calm, … Continue reading
Tough Guise: Violence and Masculinity in the Media
This last week I was part of a panel for Gordon’s Faculty Film Series for the film Tough Guise: Violence, Media, and the Crisis in Masculinity. Narrator and anti-violence educator Jackson Katz talks about the construction of masculinity through the media, particularly a masculinity where men are defined as tough, not “soft,” aggressive, etc. Here’s the … Continue reading
6:00 a.m. Muffins, by 2-year-old
Here he is, waiting for his morning’s work to bake.
A New Friday Night Family Tradition…
…is homemade pizza and a movie. The kids love it, and so do we parents. So far we’ve watched: Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Mr. Rogers (Season 1!), and Wall-E. And the pizza is delicious. Last week our Friday night “movie” was a friend’s fireplace and a blizzard, a nice substitution. It’s a good way to … Continue reading
How to Effectively Use the 2nd Person “We” (Parental Communication Tip #427)
You’ve heard of the royal We? It’s all too present in seminarian papers with just a single author: Careful consideration of the textual data leads us to conclude…. Or: We read with the majority of scholars in this case that…. And then there is simply, “We are not amused.” For some time now my wife … Continue reading
Apocalyptic Dialogue with my 5-Year-Old Son
It went like this: Me: These Duplos have eyes all over them. It’s like a creature from Revelation. He: What’s Revelation? Me: It’s a book in the Bible. There are all sorts of creatures in it. Dragons, too. It will be a great book for you to read sometime, maybe when you are older. He: … Continue reading
Traveling Mercies
The first thing I noticed when we got to my parents’ new home in South Carolina was the smell of the pines. The boys spent time outside there almost every day these last two weeks–the “cold” days there were high 40s, low 50s. It was truly good to celebrate Christmas and New Year’s with beloved … Continue reading
The family bedtime rules
Not long ago we began instituting “the bedtime rules” for our two boys. The idea was to have a sequence of rules (steps, really) for the boys to follow once in bed that would provide consistency and direction each night. They were: 1. Put your head on your pillow. 2. Close your eyes. 3. Go … Continue reading
State of the Blog Address: Why I (continue to) blog
Sure, I picked a strange time to start this blog: just weeks before the birth of our third daughter. But I had good reason(s) to, as I enumerated here. Looking back on that blogging minifesto (you heard that word here first), not much of my reasoning for blogging has changed: It’s a creative outlet for me, a … Continue reading
