Stay at Home Mom.com

During the holidays Moms are particular busy and so we take a break from our book club schedule in the month of December.  But we will post the next book club selection mid month.

We would love to hear from you.  Do you have a favorite book you would like to share with other Stay at Home Moms?  Leave your comments below and check back here for our January selection

This holiday season everyone is looking for ways to give meaningful and fun gifts and still not spend alot of money. I received phone calls from various relatives and it was generally agreed that the grown-ups would be exchanging cards but everyone still wanted to know what they should get for the kids. So, we recently sat down with our kids and asked them what was on their list and I was surprised to hear what was on their list this year.

The younger kids mentioned a couple of lego toys and a couple of books they wanted to read but the older kids just wanted to spend the day snowboarding and in lieu of gifts our oldest son wanted us to donate to Child’s Play so that other kids spending the holidays in hospitals would be able to have something to do while they are there. Our other son chose Habitat for Humanity as a favorite charity as he has seen first hand the good it has done getting several very deserving families with young kids out of dangerous apartment complexes and into their own homes.

It was a thrill to hear them talk about their favorite charities. I had no idea this group existed. But it makes total sense. My kids are gamers and Child’s Play is a charity that puts video games into hospitals so that kids that are staying there can have games to play while they are getting better.

My kids other favorite charity is the American Cancer Society Relay for Life and in particular the Children’s Cancer Research Fund.

We keep a list of favorite charities on Stay At Home Mom throughout the year and so if there is a charity that you would like to tell us about please leave a comment below.

Also remember that along with great charities and good work that so many people are doing there are also scoundrels out there and very poorly run legitimate charities that spend more money on administration than on the actual charity. Check out any charity before you give your money to them. One way to do this is to visit Charity Navigator and looking into your favorite charity before giving. If your favorite charity is not listed there you can request information from that individual charity and also recommend it to the various charity listing sites.

Over a decade ago we dove into the still relatively unknown world of homeschooling. At the time the kids were young and it was very simple - there were several books at our local bookstore to support our lesson plan but I worried about their education as they progressed to middle school and high school age. Our timing was perfect though because we began homeschooling at the same time as the emergence of the Internet in the home. We now had access to resources from colleges all over the world and other parents who we could talk to about their homeschooling struggles.

We always had in the back of our minds that the kids could always return to the public school system if the educational challenges became too much. But with the Internet and, surprisingly, the support of our local school district our children not only met these educational challenges with great success but they totally thrived.

We now have a mix of homeschooled and publicly educated children ( each child is unique). All of our kids have lots of friends and participate in many community services. They often receive phone calls from various people in the community asking if they are going to participate in different events because they are hardworking, polite, and basically wonderful people to be around.

So, today it was with a great deal of disappointment to turn on The View and be totally and completely insulted by one of the hosts. I have watched the View for several years and I rarely agree with everything they talk about but I always believe that it is a great thing to be able to discuss topics that you may not agree with and be able to do it civilly and leave the discussion on friendly terms. But this morning Joy ( who is supposed to be a comedian ) made very insulting comments about homeschooled children. I am not a sensitive person in general and no one needs to call the WAH-mbulance, but there is no reason for this host to be so condescending to a group of the population that is doing some great work and contributing to the country.

I have loved Barbara Walters ever since Gilda Radner first uttered the immortal words “Hewwo, I am Babba Wawa”. And the way that she was able to break through in the news world and interview all of those world leaders was an inspiration to me as a young girl growing up. It gave me the belief that a dedicated, intelligent woman could accomplish anything she set her mind to. So, I am going to miss Barbara.

It is a great country that we live in and one of the great thing about it is that we have the right to vote, and the right to watch what we want to watch. I turned off the TV after Joy’s insults this morning, sent an email to The Viewmaster, and will not be turning that show on again.

It reminded me of a test a friend of mine did last year. She was getting very depressed so she decided she would turn off the TV news for one month. She still got her news from online sources but did not watch TV news. After one month she was no longer feeling that same depression and has only occassionally watched TV news since.

When our kids were smaller we would take TV vacations. We told the kids that the TV was working extra hard lately and so we had to give it the week off and we would turn off the TV for the week alltogether. It was pretty funny because the kids would complain for the first day and a little bit on the second day but by the third day they were usually into a pretty good routine and really didn’t complain at all. On one particular TV vacation I decided to wait until they asked to watch the TV again after the week was over before we turned it back on and we ended up going for over two weeks before any of the kids asked to watch anything on TV.

Now that our kids are a little bit older I have been a little more lax about the TV because they are all so busy with other activities but this mornings insult reminded me that turning off the TV is not only good for the kids but it is also good for us grown-ups too.

Here are some books that helped us.

Living Outside the Box: TV-Free Families Share Their Secrets


The Plug-In Drug: Television, Computers, and Family Life


Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling


Endangered Minds: Why Children Don’t Think And What We Can Do About It

This weekend is the big release of the new movie “Quantum of Solace”. This is the latest in the 007 James Bond series and promises to be even more action packed than any previous movies.
The movie has been smashing records in Europe and will probably do the same here.

The good news about this movie for parents is that it is not being marketed to the tween market. Earlier this year we saw the marketing blitz of the latest Batman movie. This was surrounded with hype because of the tragic death of Heath Ledger just prior to the release of the movie. But it was also problematic for many moms with young sons because Batman is a major figure in the toy industry and still one of the most popular halloween costume for kids under ten.

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