This coming summer Kimmy will follow in the steps of her big sister by taking a language program in France. The organization that we are using for the second time for this purpose, SPI, invited me to contribute a guest entry for their blog on the topic of why we are sending our child to
Our eldest is off to Brussels for a semester of study abroad. Although she has traveled to foreign countries on her own in the past, this will be the longest and likely the bumpiest of journeys. We are all excited for her and obviously just a smidgen worried. She promises to keep a journal of
I’ve heard it many times in the past that performing at the Carnegie Hall in New York always features among the major highlights of a musician’s career. Well, one of my children have gotten it out of the way at a pretty early stage. Becky and her high school choir participated in a program at
It is a bit disorienting when one day your youngest child is 3 months old, and then a few days later, your eldest hits 16 years! I feel old and young at the same time.
I am re-learning a well-forgotten language nowadays. It manages to convey a vast range of thoughts and emotions via usage of just a few syllables – “aye”, “goo”, “uhm” and the like – with facial expressions playing a critical role in differentiating between homonyms. I am very busy trying to regain my fluency in it.
When family with children is going to visit relatives who live about an hour’s drive away, Dad’s responsibilities do not really start until around the time of departure. Prior to that, Dad might indicate several times that he is annoyed at being the only person who is ready. But only when the same level of
Admit it, all of my one-post-a-week schedule aside, you keep coming back to this blog because you expect pearls of wisdom from me that you cannot get anywhere else. I’ll give you one: This whole thing called parenthood is awfully hard. There she is, just a few days old, lying on a blanket and moving
Children of the age of technology acquire the weirdest mannerisms. Becky, for instance, has gotten into a habit of saying “LOL” when she is amused, rather than, you know, bursting out laughing. I’m starting to call her Lola. My other daughter, meanwhile, resides in pool heaven. She always has been very partial to water-based activities,
My eldest daughter seems to be the primary source of material for my blog lately. At her request, I am putting up another of her drama class projects, so that it is publicized to my considerably larger audience. The assignment was to select 3 words that either described the person, evoked a specific emotion or
It occurred to me that my girls now possess skates signed not only by the Olympic silver medalists, but an Olympic champion as well. Becky participated in a 2004 edition of Stars Stripes and Skates gala with Nancy Kerrigan. Next year, she attended a skating clinic in NYC’s Central Park hosted by Sasha Cohen. Now,
I wanted to put up another video of Becky, this one of her recent number at the school Performance Showcase, but I can’t make the Facebook video download script work in my Firefox browser. The quality of that video is lacking anyway, so I have to rely on eyewitness accounts that it was a pretty
I don’t want to provide the name of this little performance out of concern for what type of future Google searches it may attract. You’ll understand. This is something Becky did for a graded Drama class project at school a while ago. We decided to take a video cut for posterity. Get the Flash
My eldest daughter reminded me that I promised to put her latest artistic achievement up on my blog. That promise is about two months overdue now, but I’m sure she’ll forgive me. Here is the school project by Becky and her friend.
Kimmy had an advance birthday party last Saturday (we had a bit of a scheduling problem with our customary approach of celebrating after the date, not ahead of it). She and a dozen of friends – including Big Sis and one of her friends – enjoyed an hour of fun in a swimming pool. Kimmy
In lieu of any other content that I can provide at the moment, here is a recent masterpiece from my budding artist offspring, a music-video-ish interpretation of the immortal Shakespeare’s play by Becky and her friends. As with her poem, Becky decided that my vast audience offers a chance for better publicity than her own
The little conversation about Juno reminded me of something that I wanted to post here on the blog. Becky is always on the lookout for ways to spice up the decoration of her bedroom. Some time ago, she harvested a bunch of color-coded booklets from her school and taped them to the wall above her
Kimmy has been asking Natasha to arrange for a “fun” birthday party for her this year (it’s still two months away, but it’s never too early to start thinking of one’s birthday, according to Kimmy), as opposed to our normal choice of a party in our back garden. Her interests fluctuate between a swimming party
Becky’s history curriculum this year includes World War I, and as part of her coursework, she was supposed to imagine herself as a Wilfred Owen and write a poem about war. All I can say is that, parental bias aside, I find it amazing that such a piece can be written by a 14-year-old who
Kimmy and I cuddled on the couch watching Stardust the other night, when my 8-year-old suddenly said: “Daddy, you’re the warmest person in the world!” After a momentary pause, she added: “And the second funniest.” “Second funniest? Who’s the first?” asked I with an appropriate doze of indignation. She gave me the look which I
One of the gifts that Becky received this year for her birthday was a recording studio experience (idea by Mom, funding by Grandma and Grandpa). She enlisted a couple of her friends as a personal gallery and went the other day to record three songs of her choice. I have to say that she somewhat