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Strollerderby
My kids, ages 5 and 7, aren’t going to camp this summer. They didn’t go last summer either. This fact caused me to hyperventilate for exactly 1.2 seconds — when my older daughter turned down what looks to be a fantastic five day camp at the planetarium where she’d even get a chance to learn to sail.
“SAILING!” I told my husband in my capital letters voice. “We live on a Great Lake, she should learn to sail!”
“We’ve lived here our whole lives,” he countered, bringing me back to Earth. “Do either of us know how to sail?”
Of course she doesn’t need to learn to sail, especially not at 7 when she’d rather be building sandcastles anyway. They turned down every camp that came their way — even the one at the rec center that costs just $80 for the whole summer, including lunch and breakfast. That one hurt more than sailing.
Like me, Michelle Sinclair Coleman isn’t sending her kids to camp this summer, either. But unlike Michelle, I didn’t feel any peer pressure when making my decision. She writes:
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Want active kids? Turn off your TV. New research on how parents’ behavior affects their kids shows that kids whose parents watch more than 4 hours of TV a day are at substantially increased risk to watch that much TV themselves.
Not exactly shocking.
Here’s good news for couch potato parents, though. You don’t have to exercise to get your kid moving.
Yesterday my kindergartner looked at me very pragmatically and said, “Mommy, you are going to be in danger this summer.”
“Why?”
“Because I am not going to be in school.”
OK, then. I assured her that I love having her at home. She’s got this summer vacation thing nailed though: kids get out of school and everything changes. Here’s what moms are really worried about.
Growing up, my family’s idea of a summer vacation involved piling into my dad’s Buick and enduring a 12-hour car ride to visit family. If getting there was a drag, the actual time spent hanging out with elderly relatives in rural Arkansas was pure torture. To my mind, this trek was not so much a vacation but an annual obligation that not even my parents enjoyed.
These days, no self-respecting kid is going to put up with that kind of nonsense. They want to play on the beach, cruise with cartoon characters and generally have the time of their lives. And according to travel experts, more children are getting their way when it comes to family vacations. Continue reading »
Did your kids spend their summer on the beach, at the pool, or just hunting for bugs in their backyard? That free time might be endangered. President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan are advocating for longer school days and a move toward a “balanced” or year round calendar for school kids.
Obama won the mock election in my kids’ school by a landslide. I wonder if those votes would have been different if the kids knew he had it in for summer break.
. . . to sail the open seas, ripping sharks to shreds with his bare teeth? Well this kid does and he’s entered to win a $500 travel card from Best Western to help him explore the world and battle other land and water predators. You can win the travel card too! Continue reading »
Does yours? If so, break out the tiki torches and show off their moves on The Babble Playground’s August Photo Contest: Water Babies. Just for showing us your good time baby, you could win some vacation help from Best Western. Continue reading »
Lori Garcia 
Joslyn Gray 
Amber Doty 
Julianna Miner 
Monica Bielanko 
Sierra Black 
Meredith Carroll 
Carolyn Castiglia 
Sunny Chanel 
Madeline Holler 
Rebecca Odes 
Danielle Smith 
Danielle Sullivan 
Katherine Stone 
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