children
Children: Our most valuable natural resource.
Tightie Whites and Coco Puffs
There are dozens of times during my youth when my Dad frightened me. Some of those times were due to his showing off his driving skills. Driving down the interstate and “drafting” big rigs were the worst. He was doing 75mph on up to 85mph riding so close behind the truck that I thought we were touching bumpers. At times like that all you can do is pray.
By Dale Austin 6 years ago in Families
They Go in Our Places
The café was much busier than normal. Cigarette smoke covered the ceiling and shrouded the room in a fog, and every table was occupied. Chairs screeched against the hardwood floors, and the smell of coffee permeated the air more heavily than usual. As the man and the woman walked in and ordered their drinks, they heard a radio playing in the background:
By Noah Roush6 years ago in Families
Like One of My Own
Like One of My Own Blended families aren’t a new concept. For as long as we’ve settled with partners to bear children, we’ve had blended families. Really, it’s become the norm for most kids to have a step-sibling, half-sibling, or adopted siblings. It’s critical to look at the way step-parents cooperate with biological parents.
By Echo Mayernik6 years ago in Families
The Big Texas Freeze 2021
We knew it was going to be cold. Really cold. We saw it coming in the 10 day forecast. How cold, we didn't know, but the distinct possibility of below 0F cold was starting to gain traction. I cancelled my daughter's birthday trail ride *again* (first time was because it was going to rain) because the weather on Saturday was going to be a high of 34. The prediction for the Monday low fluctuated between 0 and 9 in the days leading up to the weekend, and by Friday, Chris and I decided we had better go to Costco to stock up on some supplies to hunker down at home for the next 4-5 days. We tried to get firewood, but everywhere we looked, it was sold out. I guess this probably should have been my first clue, but it wasn't.
By Sarah Hatfield6 years ago in Families
Day at the Construction Site
When I was in elementary school I used to ride my bike constantly. Every day I would ride up to the grocery store and spend fifteen or twenty minutes browsing the candy aisle, deciding whether or not I wanted Starburst or Twix. I also loved feeding spare change into the vending machines outside of Giant Food to get a bag of chips or a pack of gum. One of my favorite places to ride however, had to be the bike path that went around the Sports Pavilion pond in the community, which was about a 10 minute bike ride to go all the way around. Sometimes I would even ride up to Blockbuster and play the Nintendo 64 in the showcase for hours on end.
By Robert Reinert 6 years ago in Families
The Bird's Book
Julia found the notebook stuck between two neighbouring branches of the tree at the end of her garden. One of the pages tore a little at the corner as she ripped it out of its snug groove, as if it had been growing out from underneath the bark.
By Francesca Devon Heward6 years ago in Families
My teenager banished me to the dark corner...
It was 7p.m. on a Friday night and I got the pleasure of sitting at Fly Trampoline while my 13-year-old gets to be a teenager. In my 'hey-day', I think the thing to do was go to the local roller-skating rink. There are no roller-skating rinks here in Fairbanks, Alaska...so it is a fun filled night of neon lighting, pounding music, and a bunch of 10–16-year old's jumping on large squares of woven polypropylene material, connected by coiled steel springs in the dark. What can possibly go wrong in this situation?
By Rose Loren Geer-Robbins6 years ago in Families
Better Than it Seems
This was a day like no ordinary day. I had awakened before my alarm, which never happens. I felt happy, I had just been in a whirlwind of depression. The closest person to me was gone, but not by death you see, by war. Our country is at war and my dad was thousands of miles across the seas and I was here. He has been gone for 6 months now and there is no news on when he will be able to come back. You may be thinking “don’t you have your mom?” Well, no, I do not have her. She left when my dad was taken away. I mean yes, she is here but not really so I guess you can understand how I fell into a whirlwind of depression. But today was different I never wanted to go to school but I felt like I had to go. Dad used to drive me to school it was like our little time together. See I was not like your normal teenager, who locked themselves in their bedroom and wanted nothing to do with their parents. I loved family time but the rides to school were extra special because dad would always tell me some clever little riddle that would always end with the saying “things are always better than they seem.” Up until this point I believed him. Now that dad was gone, I had to walk to school and every step made me miss him more and more.
By shanae curtis6 years ago in Families
