Category: Flights of Fancy

  • Interdependence Day

    Today is the 4th of July. It is a great day because I woke up healthy. Three years ago, I feared that I might not. I was in the emergency room, listening intently to the young doctor who had just examined my CT scan. “You have five masses in your abdomen,” she stated perfunctorily. “It…

  • Maximize your Vacation by Packing Smarter

    I consider myself lucky to have travelled a lot for my career to a lot of beautiful locations. But one thing I haven’t done much is to travel for vacation. I used to joke with friends who told me about their trips: “Vay – what – shun? Nope. Sorry. Never heard of it.”  But recently my family…

  • Visual Calendars Rock

    In my recent post “Where the Wild Kids Are,” I discussed my how I equip myself for life with a super-active child. A visual calendar is another essential in our household. I bought this set of SchKIDules magnets with pictures of all of our common daily activities: I then bought several portable, magnetic dry-erase boards…

  • How to become your child’s hero

    What have I done to become a hero to my son? It’s nothing I ever imagined. I thought he hear me in a concert and think how cool it was to have a musician-mom. Or he would see me running a marathon and say, “That’s my mom!” But be has watched those things for his…

  • Where the Wild Kids Are

    Supporting your Active Child (with special mention of Sensory Seekers) Two years ago, a friend changed my life when she asked if she could do a sensory evaluation on my son. I’ve known this friend since we wore matching green pleated skirts on the middle school cheerleading squad. (Go, Irish!) That was a “few” years…

  • The Big Question…

    “Mom, why is it just you in my family?” my son asked. We were standing in our kitchen and he was asking the question I’ve both dreaded and prepared for since before he was born: “Why don’t I have a……” My brain reeled. I always thought that I would have formulated a better answer before…

  • Won’t You Be My Neuro-Spicy Valentine?

    Last week, writer Sarah Dickinson (of The Nerdy Quill) introduced me to a new term: neuro-spicy. I love it even more than “neurodiverse” and oh-so-much more than “neurodivergent.” In fact, I love it so much that I’m appropriating it for all things relating to my son and to others whose brains function differently than what we…

  • Why I Believe in Santa Claus

    December 20th, 2022 Now that you know “My Best-Kept Holiday Secret,” it won’t surprise you (nor did it surprise my parents) that at the ripe old age of five, I announced to them that this Santa Claus thing was too far-fetched and I wasn’t buying it anymore. I was finished with that childish stuff. But…

  • This Should Be on Every Child’s Bookshelf

    When I brought this book home, my son looked at the cover and asked: “Is that me?” It’s the only time he has ever identified as “the kid on the cover.” Page after page, this book contains more positive images of Black boys than any other book I have seen. We all need to see…

  • My Best-Kept Holiday Secret

    I am not a festive person.  By any stretch of the imagination. Two years ago when I hired a professional organizer, she came across a little pile of themed hand towels that various friends had given me. “I usually put these with the holiday decorations,” she stated. “Those are the holiday decorations.” She paused a moment, blinking,…