Accessory Tuesday: Simple Pure Cashmere Scarf

someone posted this on the main page and all of my tips/hacks involve kids/parenting stuff, so i thought it would also be fun to do over here. here is the prompt “A “master list” of products – your favorite, can’t live without items, small or big – and “pro tips” – eye-opening things you think everyone should know or super helpful life hacks.”

At parent teacher conferences in October the teacher told us they’d be putting our kids in reading groups so when they rotate through stations she could work with the kids on reading at the right level. My kindergartener is pretty proficient at reading already, so I was excited for this to happen so she could build some confidence. (She considers herself not to be very good at reading because she can’t keep up with her 3rd grade sister–I’d like her to read with peers.) Up until then the class had been reviewing the alphabet–totally fine for the beginning of the year but not something she really needed.

My 5 yo has been telling me for months there are no reading groups and they never ask her to read anything at school. I figured she was probably being inaccurate and ignored the comments for a long while, but I finally reached out to ask the teacher. The teacher told me that they only finished fall language assessments three weeks before the holidays, then used those three weeks to get the kids proficient on their iPads in case school went virtual. Then when they came back in January they started mid-year assessments which they expect to complete by the end of March. This means that they’ll start working in reading groups in mid-March. They use all of May and June for end of year assessments.

Is this insane or is it just me? In English class she colors a little book every week with a new letter and its letter sounds. When she’s not doing that, she tells me that she plays games on her iPad. The teacher is busy doing assessments.

I’m stocking up on books for the 4 and 5yo before baby #3 arrives (due today, hoping they’ll let me induce later this week) and was wondering if anyone had recommendations for “treasury” type books (ie ones that have lots of individual stories in them). So far we’ve had luck with the Frozen one (I am so sick of it), Madeleine, D’Aulaire’s Greek Myths, Daniel Tiger, a random Disney collection, and one of fairy tales that I think they enjoy largely because it’s a fairly gruesome/non-edited version. Did you know that at the end of Snow White, the evil queen is forced to wear red-hot shoes and dance until she dies? Horrifying!

Has anyone had a child diagnosed with a chronic disease that is willing to share their experience of managing work with the stress of disease management, doctor’s appts, etc? I am really struggling. It is like the damn broke on the stress and I don’t know how I am going to do this.

I’m curious about whether I’m an outlier here, or whether others have noticed this as well. Two years into this pandemic, and I’m less into the kid activities that we would’ve done as a family pre-Covid. Things like festivals, special events at the children’s zoo/museum, things of that nature. It’s kind of sad, but they hold zero appeal because I don’t feel like we get enough out of them for the effort required. Also, I now have a grumbly tween in the mix, which I didn’t a couple of years ago.

On the other hand, I am so ready for in-person school events to be a thing again. I miss being around other parents in our school community, even if they aren’t people I’m particularly close to. I guess this has re-ordered my priorities to be more focused on our immediate community. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing is up for debate. I also hesitate a lot more before signing my kids up for activities and no longer feel this obligation to have them participate (unless it’s something they’re really really into). That’s been freeing.

How often do you get together with the same group of friends and how did you get to that point?

Growing up, my parents had a close group of friends that they would hang out with nearly every weekend. They mostly all had kids roughly the same age as me and my brother, and so the families would often be together on a regular basis.

In my own family, I have sporadic pockets of friends (some are family friends with kids of similar ages, and others are work or other activity friends that I see without kids/family). But although there are a handful of different “groups” of these friends, they are fairly casual and we only see each other every few months at best (less during Covid).

I find myself craving more and deeper connections but I don’t quite know how to make that happen. I’m not necessarily looking to make new friends, just deepen the ones I already have.

Do other people have friends that they see more often and more regularly than every few months, and if so, what does it look like? How did it come to be that way?

we recently moved into a new house/neighborhood and my 4 year old twins would like to drop valentines in neighbors mailboxes. most are older and don’t have kids. is this ok to do or is this strange? they dont expect anyone to reciprocate, but are very excited by this idea