That American Dream Feels As If It’s Slowly Slipping Away

Despite what the pundits say, Joe Biden delivered plenty of red meat tonight. But most important of all - he was able to close. “These are extraordinary times. This is an extraordinary election. The American people are ready. I’m ready. Barack Obama is ready. This is his time. This is our time. This is America’s time.”

Here’s to the sisterhood of the traveling pants suit. — Susan Kaiser Greenland

A class act!
She knocked it out of the park!
How many cliches can I write in one post?
Supreme Court Justice Hillary Clinton? Keep Going!
PS - Mindful daughter’s best girlfriend is at the DNC as a junior statesment and blogging . . . she’s more insightful than most TV pundits. Check it out.

PeaceJam - Brett Engle

This year on September 11-13th, we’re doing another PeaceJam International Youth Conference, this time in Los Angeles with 7 Nobel Peace Laureates. 3,000 Jammers from around the world are flying, driving, and busing in to take on The Global Call to Action, a plan to address the 10 core issues which the Nobel’s feel threaten the world over this next decade, by implementing 1 BILLION service projects.

Fly Away — Susan Sawyers

Emotion is one of the things I neglected to schedule the week the 14 year-old headed north to sleep away camp. After a series of attempts to manipulate the family schedule in order to accompany her to the camp bus meeting sight, we opted to send her to Toronto as an unaccompanied minor, or UM […]

What I did on my summer vacation — Lori Mozilo

Zach will be home in a week. Of course I miss him. I’m so curious to see how much he’s grown and changed. But I’m also a bit nervous. I want to make sure I honor his newfound independence. And mine. I have to remind myself that my job as his parent has built-in obsolescence and if I’m doing it well, I’ll be, for the most part, out of business in a few years.

Building Emotional Intelligence and Fostering Resilience in Children — Linda Lantieri

What are some of your hopes for the important children in your life? Whether they will be successful at realizing those hopes is dependent on whether we, the adults in their lives, have equipped them with the inner strength they will need to approach their day-to-day challenges as well as the big challenges life may throw them.

Changing the world one pillow at a time — Danielle Sobol

While working at a pediatric cardiology clinic in Israel last year with Zanzibari children, grad student Danielle Sobol became fascinated with their culture. She went to Zanzibar and met a group of truly amazing women and discovered that while her basic computer skills were very helpful to them, they were making a difference themselves with their not-so-basic skills making pillows.

Dog bites man again. — Susan Kaiser Greenland

July 28th Note: For those who follow the progressive blogs, the online reaction to the John Edwards story is fascinating. Check out how Lee Stranahan is getting slammed in the comments for his post on Huffington why the progressive blogs need to get out in front of this story and also slammed in the comments on his crosspost on Daily Kos.

And now the Momocrats weigh-in On What’s News and What’s Not.

Read more on this story in the post John Edwards, Father of the Year?

Way to go, Sue!

Sue Smalley’s article Reframing ADHD in the Genomic Era, is published in the latest issue of Psychiatric Times. For those of us interested in the investigation of non-pharmaceutical forms of support for children with ADD/ADHD, Sue voiced encouragement in this mainstream psychiatric journal.

Lay off my big brother Angelo. — Lori Mozilo

My second confession is that I am the youngest sister of Angelo Mozilo who, up until recently, was Chief Executive of Countrywide Mortgage. I am writing because, although the Congressional hearings on the mortgage crisis did indeed stoke my sense of moral outrage, my anger, this time has been reserved for Henry Waxman and the Democrats on his committee. As for the truth, it has been in very short supply.

Don’t tell my husband but I’ve developed an intimate relationship with a raisin. — Susan Kaiser Greenland

Mindful eating. Yikes! Every now and then I’ll savor a truffle, the piquant flavor of a sweet Vidalia onion, or the bouquet of a Tuscan Chianti. But all too often, I eat mindlessly. I talk to my family and friends while I’m eating. And then I do the dishes. I automatically go through the motions without question. And then I’m surprised when I climb on the scale and - WHAT? - I’ve gained five pounds without a clue that it was happening.

How I roll… — Anna McDonnell

It went something like this: “It is THREE O’CLOCK in the morning. He has to be up at SEVEN. That is FOUR hours of sleep. He will probably sleep through his alarm and be late for work. I wonder if I should I wake him up tomorrow or let him sleep through his alarm clock?

Heat for a little while on a high flame. — Amy Spies

Cooking is definitely one of those mother-daughter bonding things. Obviously, since from the get-go, mothers are nurturing their children–feeding them literally from the womb, making their lunches, stocking their refrigerators.

Bela & The Benz — Tom Teicholz

To imagine where their lives played out across centuries, to walk down those streets, to see buildings and synagogues and to be able to say my family walked these streets, my family members lived here, they were married in this place and buried here, it gives one a feeling that is larger than one’s self — a connection between present and past, a feeling of history.

God, country and the fourth of July - Susan Kaiser Greenland

With all of these other parades going on why was the lack of one on the Fourth of July so important to him? Because it was the largest and most public way he could honor a country that had given him and his family so much.

A Powerful Teaching — Trudy Goodman

On June 9th, my birthday, this unknown girl touches my heart. She evokes the compassionate teaching of all the special kids who are different somehow: we don’t have to be afraid of what we don’t yet understand — we don’t have to be scared of shrieks and groans — or of our own minds and hearts.

SisterFriendSister — Amy Spies

As I’ve grown up and evolved myself, girlfriends have become increasingly important to me, and like sisters. They really do feel like a growing extended family, a net for me in case I stumble, a warm embracing hug for when I need that. I kind of mentally picture the women in my life as a circle around me, holding hands and full of life. Hmmm—kind of like those circles we made with our children in preschool holding a parachute.

The ties that bind. — Susan Kaiser Greenland

When a child is not bogged down by a preconceived notion of right or wrong there is less of an emotional charge around taking a look at life experience exactly as it is. This doesn’t mean that whatever is happening is ethically neutral, it just means that it is useful to teach kids to view experience objectively before taking action.