As wonderful as technology can be, it’s important to include a bit of offline fun in your children’s summer.

Pack a snack or a picnic lunch and head outdoors. If there are no nearby parks, visit a local school playground.

Borrow a few nature guides from your public library and identify some of the flowers, trees, birds and bugs in your neighborhood.

Have a backyard camp out, complete with tent, sleeping bags, and flashlights. Watch the fireflies dance, identify the constellations, and sing silly songs. If the weather won’t cooperate, construct tents from chairs draped with blankets and improvise indoors.

On a hot day, make squirt gun designs on the sidewalk or walls. When rain keeps children inside, hold an impromptu cooking class, then get out the card deck and board games, just like you would in a Northwoods cabin.

Don’t just preach exercise and fitness - make it interesting, make it fun and maybe your kids will start requesting unplugged days!

Diane Cordell is the mother of two adult, married children. In her position as a K-12 teacher/librarian, she interacts with students of all ages on a daily basis - good practice for future grandchildren! You can read more about Diane here. Diane also blogs at Journeys and can be found on Twitter as dmcordell. Click here to read more of Diane’s posts.

“Is That a Plug Tree?” by B. Cummin

“IMG_7185″ by eyeliam

I like words. I like reading them, I like writing them, I’m bothered by people who don’t want to use them. One of my favorite quotes is from Mark Twain, “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightening and a lightening bug.” I think words can be a powerful tool and weapon. I try to be careful with my words.

My son likes to talk. He’s been verbal from the moment he was born and, geez, is he a talker. He identifies when he’s said something cute, and will often point it out to me. The other day he said something funny in the car, and before we could laugh, he said, “That was cute, right?” Nicholas is starting to understand the power of words.

Our next challenge is to teach him how much words can hurt. The other night, my fiance was giving Nicholas a bath and N wasn’t behaving very well. When William got after him, Nicholas used the big hammer, “Daddy, I don’t love you.” Yes, I know that kids say that stuff; but, Nicholas had never used it before, and his and William’s relationship is just new enough, that it really hurt William. So, the three of us sat down and talked about how words can hurt just as much as hitting or biting or falling down. Later that night, William and I had a conversation about N not fully understanding what his words mean yet.

William and I have also had conversations about talking with N about his Daddy Mark. I talk about his Daddy Mark whenever it makes sense (”Your Daddy Mark liked this song.” “Your Daddy Mark’s favorite veggie was asparagus”), and I try to talk about him every day. William is worried that Nicholas may have a tendancy to put Mark on a pedastal and that William will never be as “good” a Dad as Mark in N’s eyes. He’s very worried about the day when Nicholas says, “You’re not my real Dad!”

I’m worried about that day too. Because words hurt. But I also reminded William that kids, teenagers especially, will use whatever amunition they have against their parents, and I’m sure he will use that one against William. Just as I’m equally sure that my sweet, loving, beatuiful son will one day say the words, “I wish you weren’t my Mother!” And man, those words will hurt. 

Sherry Carr Deer is Mommy to Nicholas who just turned 3, fiance to William, widow of Mark, and a PR professional at a non-profit hospital. You can read more of her posts here.

Kate Olson is a mother of 2 toddlers and lives in rural Wisconsin. She balances motherhood & working from home in a semi-functional fashion - you can read more about Kate on our contributors page. She blogs about education and lots of business/tech stuff at Kate Says . Want more? Read all of Kate’s posts!

Excuse the rant……..

Yup, I said it. Parenting is NOT a profession. We can’t say we’re professional moms when we quit our jobs to stay at home with our kids, we just can’t. So many of us have worked for years before having kids and cling to the thought of being professionals - professional ANYTHINGS. We want to turn parenting into a job and organize and strategize and delegate and CREATE. Trust me, the 2 years I stayed at home full-time with my kids began with my attempt to earn my PhD in parenting - I learned quickly that it’s all a myth.

That’s not how parenting works. There are no parenting advanced degrees, there’s no salary, there are no paid vacations and there is no human resources department. There’s no one to go to to complain about the injustices, no union to protect us. There is also no governing agency to regulate who earns the title of parent in this society, however horrible that fact is.

As a parent and professional at many other things, this goes against everything I want to believe. I want to think that by giving mommyhood my all, I’ll get rewarded and promoted and RECOGNIZED. I have to let it go. I have to realize that the fact that my kids smile at me every day is the only payment I’ll ever get and that I truly don’t have control over the creatures I created.

The boy and girl running circles around me are not my projects.

I’m not a professional when I’m with my kids.

I’m a mom. And to be a good parent, that has to be enough.

And if you think that you’re a professional parent - I say you’re wrong. Or at least tell me where you got your degree, I want one.

Damian Bariexca is a high school English teacher/school psychologist from Perkasie, PA.  He has blogged about education, technology, and psychology at Apace of Change since 2007, and has two children, Dylan and Kiera. Damian can be found on Twitter and Identi.ca as @damian613.

There’s this song by Ben Folds that brings me to tears whenever I hear it. “Still Fighting It” is essentially a love song to his son, and the line that hits a little too close to home for me is, “You’re so much like me… I’m sorry.”

I’m not shy about tooting my own horn when it comes to my strengths, and I’m always proud when I think I see them in my son. His love of books and puzzles, his problem-solving skills, his fairly early grasp of phonics - I’m proud to have helped laid the groundwork for this sort of thing, both through nature and nurture. Like any 3-year-old, of course, he has his moments - the temper tantrums, the irrationality, the occasional laser-like focus on certain elements to the exclusion of everything and everyone else around him - and we roll with the punches. I try to keep my cool and engage in all that positive behavior support that I learned about in grad school (and really, that many teachers learn simply from years of experience dealing with people). But there are some times when it’s even harder than usual to maintain that detachment - when I see him grunt or tic, when I see him whine incessantly about nothing, and when I see him terrified of the most benign things (e.g., soap bubbles). Those times, I feel like it’s 1980 and I’m looking at a 3-year-old version of myself.

I’m not sure if it’s more a sense of self-loathing or overprotection that makes me feel this way; moreover, I’m not sure which is worse. Maybe it’s the uncertainty of it all - for example, I had a variety of physical tics (including grunting and twitching) when I was young; and truth be told, I have never managed to completely kick them (I’ve just become an expert at masking them). When I see my son grunt for no apparent reason (like frustration) it scares me. I start to question myself - is he going to have to endure the teasing that I had to because of this? Is this my fault? Is he learning by watching me, or is this genetic?  What have I done? And I just go down the rabbit hole of anxiety and neuroses typically reserved for brand-new parents of infants.

I’d be lying if I said this doesn’t impact how I react to these behaviors. Yes, I’ll typically react more harshly when I see these than when he does something that wasn’t problematic for me as a kid. Intellectually, I know it’s no good, but I’m so emotionally scarred invested in what I believe people’s reactions to those behaviors will be that I sometimes find it hard to treat the situation with the cool head that it requires.

Looking down the road for my son sometimes feels like looking back down my own well-trod path. In looking into his future, my greatest fear is that I’ll see the same pitfalls and traps I went through – being painfully socially awkward and withdrawn for much of adolescence, and the resultant bullying and teasing (or is it the other way around?). I’m not here to say my childhood was significantly worse than anyone else’s – hell, I probably got off easy compared to what could have been – but to look at the larger significance of my concerns, I guess I kind of want him to learn from my mistakes before he gets a chance to make them himself. Not too unreasonable, right? Right?

Makes me wonder if I’m more concerned about protecting him from having to experience them, or protecting myself from having to watch him experience them.

(Note to Kate, et al.: next one’ll be more uplifting, I promise!)

Kelli is mom to Braxton, age 2, and partner to Mike. She is an instructor at the University of Oregon and a public relations consultant with her own firm. Thanks to growing up in a large family, she’s learned to manage chaos and still have fun. You can read her posts here.

I clearly remember my first baseball game. I was 9 and we lived in Blessing, Texas (poplulation: 800), and my dad took my best friend, Barbie (an actual girl, not a 11″ fashion doll) to see the Houston Astros play the St. Louis Cardinals at the Astrodome. It was 1984, Nolan Ryan was on the mound and Jose Cruz was in center field.

Spending an afternoon at the ballpark, whether it’s our local minor league team or heading north to Seattle to watch the Mariners play, is still a beloved tradtion in my family. I thought, for that reason, that reviewing Baseball Bits: The Best Stories, Facts, and Trivia from the Dugout to the Outfield would be fun. I always love a good story and, as an academic, I appreciate a good set of data. And my partner, Mike, is a baseball stat geek.

I must admit, the amount of information in the book is a tad overwhelming. Not many stories are more than a page, resutling in a smorgasbord of anecdote and fact snacks. The book is categorized, not chronologically, but thematically with chapters like: Ball Clubs, Bosses, Deals and Steals, Big Events and Color, Clout and Controversy. This works really well, especially if you’re a fan of a particular aspect of the game. And it makes it easy to browse the book without feeling like you’re missing some part of the story.

As I read through many of the “bits,” I’d often find myself yelling across the house, “Hon?! Did you know…?” To which he’d dutifully reply, “No! Really? That interesting!”

This book is a treasure trove for fans, afficianados and stat geeks. Author Dan Schlossberg is all of the above. A former Associated Press writer, he’s authored 33 (!) baseball books and more than 25,000 (!!) articles about baseball.

A few of my favorite “bits.”

• Nolan Ryan, who pitched a record seven no-hitters in the majors, was 12 when he pitched his first no-hitter - in Little League ball in Alvin, Texas*. Page 88, Batters and Pitchers
• Philadelphia zookeeper Jim Murray sent baseball scores to telegraph offices by carrier pigeon every half inning. Page 4, Origin, Innovation and Evolution
• Although he started with the St. Louis Cardinals, Harry Carry was with the Cubs in 1992 when he joined his son Skip and grandson Chip to become the first three-generation family to announce the same game**. Page 202, BallTalk
• The Boston Braves spent $10,000 to purchase Hank Aaron’s contract from the Indianapolis Clowns***, a Negro Leagues team, in June 1952. After less than two years in the Braves’ minor leagues, Aaron reached the majors to stay. Page 133, Deals and Steals

Win a Copy!

We have 5 copies of Baseball Bits: The Best Stories, Facts, and Trivia from the Dugout to the Outfield for our readers! All you need to do to enter is leave a comment here telling us who would benefit from the book if you win - are you a baseball fan yourself? Is it for your husband? Dad? Son? Wife? That’s it - easy as pie. Just leave a comment and make sure you use a valid email address.

The contest will close on Monday, August 4 - winners will be chosen by a random number generator and will be notified via email.

Also, don’t forget to check out the rest of our contests!

* this is a favorite because of the family legend of my dad vs. Nolan Ryan in the Little League All-Star game that same year. Nolan pitched, Dad hit a home run.

** Mike is a huge Cubs fan and Harry Carray was his favorite announcer of all time. He can even do a pretty spot-on impression.

*** The Clowns? Are you kidding me? That was the name of the team?!

(Disclosure: A copy of the book was provided free of charge for review.)

Laura P. Thomas is the wife of a former rocker and mother of one 5-year-old girl that’s already waaay too interested in The Jonas Brothers. (the apple didn’t fall far) She works in the Global Online team at Dell, evangelizes virtual worlds, and twitters too much as LPT.

I was talking to my mother the other night and she asked if my daughter was getting excited about school yet. Well, she’s been ready to start kindergarten for many months now, so that excitement has not abated; but, the full-bore, counting-down-the-days sort of excitement has not hit yet. Probably because I’m still putting off buying school supplies - put that list somewhere where I wouldn’t lose it way back in April when we first registered for class, and of course, can’t remember where that was. That said, I myself have become very aware of another sort of shopping that needs to be done sooner rather than later.

The Extra-Curricular Investment
Last year was probably the last year I got to pay no heed to the school-year calendar. I went to work, she went to preschool, and our routine was undisturbed. Sometime around September, however, I noticed that many of her classmates were apparently doing things like gymnastics and dance after preschool. The extra-curricular activities had already begun and we’d missed registration time! Horrors!

Luckily, a new extra class was soon offered at her pre-school - ballet - and I signed her up for that in addition to the extra Spanish class in which she was already enrolled. This year it won’t be so easy.
She also wanted to do the extra art class, and the extra “fun bus” class, and the extra computer class, but I drew the line at two monthly payments. For one thing, they already did arts in her regular classroom. (”But, they do ‘real’ art in the classes, Mom!”) And, rolling around on mats in an old school bus just didn’t look like high ROI to me. (”But, it’s FUN, Mom!”) And, my little Webkinz collector already knows her way around a computer all too well. (no whining about missing that class)
All of those were offered at her preschool and the extra cost was my only reason to limit her involvement.

This year it won’t be so easy.

Over-scheduled or Overweight
Now that we’ll be in “real” school that lets out before I’m off work, takes holidays I don’t take, and requires driving to extra-curricular activities the choices get that much more complicated.
On the ParentZone site I hear that: “The pluses of participating in activities for children are obvious. Children learn in all realms of development. Listening to a note in music class triggers connections in the brain that will be used later when solving math problems.”
Not to mention, we hear every day about the dangers of childhood obesity. I don’t want my daughter to become some troglodyte playing video games all day.
But, inversely, there’s also the fear of creating an over-scheduled kid. Neither she or I need the stress of trying to drive all over town every day to attend multiple classes or play weekend sports tournaments.
Navigating all this won’t be so easy.

Parental Pressure
So what’s a parent supposed to do? On the one hand, participation is good for our kids. Then, there’s that pressure we all feel to have our kids be as smart, talented or athletically inclined as everyone else’s. And, then, there’s the fear that we’ll push them too far. Will my desire to have her love ballet as much as I did (didn’t she get the memo?) or my wish for her to be musically talented like her father cause me to place too much pressure on her?
The Scholastic site says “Experts who study these issues usually find that most extra activities offer, at best, minor benefits for raising successful human beings and, at worst, can be overwhelming and taxing for our children.”
Other experts say it is all a matter of balance. (Isn’t everything in life?) We just have to figure out how to give our kids plenty of time to just “chill” and learn how to entertain themselves. We should also plan family time for simple things like board games.
And, we’re supposed to give our employers their due. While taking time for ourselves. And giving time to our spouse. And baking cupcakes for the kids’ class. And attending a Bible study to enrich our marriage. And making sure everyone has clean underwear to wear each morning. And getting the kids to school on time with their homework done. And, and, and.
Balancing this is not going to be so easy.

What To Do About It
OK, so I can’t solve all of those issues and relieve all that parental pressure. At least I can focus on making good choices about how many and what extra-curricular activities my soon-to-be-kindergartner can enjoy.
Scholastic has a nice grade-by-grade guidelines list on how much activity is appropriate.  According to them, one or two after-school activities a week are more than enough. They also say to wait until they already adjusted to the daily school routine, but there’s that looming deadline to get registered before classes fill up. I think we’ll be OK on that one, though, because my daughter has been in daycare (which we’ve always called “school”) since she was two months old, so all she’s ever known is the routine of getting up and going to school.
So, now all I’ve got to do is decide which activity and where. Ballet is, of course, still on the top of my list. Do we sign up for the “good” school now? The one that is affiliated with the professional troupe in town? Or do something a little closer to our neighborhood to start out simple? There are at least three different schools in a five mile radius of me. Which one is best? Which offers classes convenient to my work schedule? When will I find time to go visit them and talk to the teachers to be sure my daughter gets the best foundation and we get the return on our tuition?
This is not going to be so easy.

Diane Cordell is the mother of two adult, married children. In her position as a K-12 teacher/librarian, she interacts with students of all ages on a daily basis - good practice for future grandchildren! You can read more about Diane here. Diane also blogs at Journeys and can be found on Twitter as dmcordell. Click here to read more of Diane’s posts.

My husband and I spent part of the weekend in the 18th century.

Ogdensburg, NY was celebrating its Founder’s Day with a variety of activities, including a French & Indian War encampment. If you’ve never been to this type of event, be assured that it makes for a wonderful family outing.

Children are able to interact with authentically garbed reenactors who delight in sharing details of daily life in their chosen time period. Sutlers sell clothing, weapons, furniture, food items, and all manner of toys, from dolls to wooden swords. A special tent contains a colonial wardrobe for dress-up fun and a variety of playthings to try out.

There is usually a battle: in Ogdensburg this included French and British soldiers, Native American warriors, and some boats on the adjacent St. Lawrence River. Muskets and cannons kept the encounter noisy, and the crowd cheered on the participants.

Check local newspapers to see if any such events are planned in your area, pack up the family, and play around with history.

Kate Olson is a mother of 2 toddlers and lives in rural Wisconsin. She balances motherhood & working from home in a semi-functional fashion - you can read more about Kate on our contributors page. She blogs about education and lots of business/tech stuff at Kate Says . Want more? Read all of Kate’s posts!

I’m heading up north again tomorrow (yes, AGAIN!) for a visit with family, but mainly to attend the baby shower of one of my best friends. I’m so excited to be attending and I’m so mad at myself that I’m going to be seeing her pregnant for the first time and she’s due next month! I’m a BAD friend, I really am.

Hey, Beth - if you’re reading this before Saturday, you might want to stop RIGHT NOW - spoiler ahead!

Anyway, of course, with a baby shower coming up, I had to pick out a gift (and yes, I got her some batteries, don’t worry!) and ran into the veteran parent quandry - do I buy her what she registered for or do I buy her what I think she really needs?

I know that it’s so annoying as a first-time mom to have all of the veterans telling you that you need this and you need that - when I was pregnant for the first time I wished everyone would just SHUT UP and let me do my own thing! As a mom, though, I just want her to be able to avoid all of the learning that I had to do - I want to tie up all the lessons I learned and mistakes I made and put them in a pretty package and save her all of the trauma that new moms have to go through.

What did I do? Well, first I went and bought a gazillion baby supplies off of her registry - seriously, a gazillion, and then some batteries. Then I talked to her and found out that no one had bought the jogging stroller that she had registered for at a different store. This girl walks, and walks, and walks, and has 2 huge dogs - she NEEDS a jogging stroller! This is where my veteran mom part of me just overrode all “shut up and let her learn” voices in my head and took over. I returned all of the baby supplies and focused on the jogging stroller.

See, I’m the queen of stroller research - I could have written a book on it when I was pregnant with both of my kids, first on single strollers then on double. I checked out the one she registered for and realized that it was the same price as the one that I ADORE and recommend to everyone on earth. (the InStep Safari) I’ve used this same stroller (but in a more boring blue color - why does all the cool stuff come out when you’re done buying baby stuff for yourself?) for almost 3 years now and just know that my friend will love it as much. So the question was, do I get her the one she registered for or get her the one that she NEEDS?

I got her the one she needs - yup, I’m the annoying veteran. I do remember her commenting on mine once when my daughter was a baby and we’ve discussed strollers several times, so I’m fairly certain the only reason she registered for the one she did is because it’s the only one remotely close to what she wanted at that store. I knew she’d want this one - it has a lockable front wheel, but can swivel if you want it to (LOVE this) and it is compatible with almost every car seat carrier there is - who wouldn’t love it? The one she registered for doesn’t do either of those, by the way. (Yes, I know there are different needs for serious, hard core runners, but for jogging and walking on all surfaces, this stroller is perfect.)

We’ll find out on Saturday if she likes it, I guess! The only thing I was worried about is if someone bought the one off the registry, so I called her and left a message telling her to go online and take it off the registry, but I couldn’t tell her why. I. am. a. dork.

Do you do the same thing? Do you prescribe to the Rolling Stones’ way of thinking when it comes to new moms - you know, “You can’t always get what you want, you get what you need”? Or am I just annoying? Sigh.

Note: I included the picture and link here to the stroller I bought because I LOVE it. No affiliation with InStep or JustStrollers, although if they’d like to sponsor a giveaway here I’d be MORE than willing to host one! hint, hint