It’s been almost a year since Lucy the goat came to live with 8-year-old Emma van der Linde. Lucy wasn’t even 24 hours old when she arrived—and she was very sick. But a nearby farmer knew the van der Linde’s “were suckers for any animal in need, so they contacted us,” said Emma’s mother, Erin. […]
It’s been almost a year since Lucy the goat came to live with 8-year-old Emma van der Linde. Lucy wasn’t even 24 hours old when she arrived—and she was very sick. But a nearby farmer knew the van der Linde’s “were suckers for any animal in need, so they contacted us,” said Emma’s mother, Erin. […]
It’s no secret that Charlottesville loves the written word. The home of the Festival of the Book, local treasures like Dedalus Books, and ongoing workshops and classes at WriterHouse, this town is the place to be for writers and readers of all ages. You might recognize some of the big local names (John Grisham, anybody?) […]
Movies make it easy. Their rating system provides a pretty good suggestion for the appropriate age for kids to see certain flicks. Real-life? Not so much. Which is why it can be challenging for parents who are trying to determine if their child is old enough to, say, walk alone to the school bus stop […]
Shortly after she learned to talk, Molly Streit announced that she wanted to take horseback riding lessons. “I made the rule that she couldn’t ride until she was 5,” her mother, Meghan, said. “The day after she turned 5, she took her first lesson.” Molly is now 7 years old, and has been riding her […]
Is there a commonly accepted “playground etiquette?” Or are playgrounds a lawless land ruled by barbaric, screaming bullies and their diaper-clad children? Thinking back, wistfully, to my own children’s blissful playground days, I see images of radiant, round-faced, sun-screened toddlers, squealing with glee as they run, slide, and swing. Wait! Has the ether of time […]
With one child still in preschool and one in grade school, I’ve already fallen into the typical yo-yo family routine phenomenon: By the last month of the regular school year, I’m just done. Done with daily lunch packing. Done with backpack checking and bake sales. Done with incessant clock watching, brush-your-teeth demanding, shoelace tying, and […]
One of the things that made me wary about having children earlier was intimidation over the sheer work involved in raising kids. I thought I’d do fine with the nurturing, tender, Hallmark moments of fatherhood, but I was much less confident in my ability to manage the mundane day-to-day labor and constant vigilance that parenting […]
They call themselves the Smartie-Nerds (a mash-up of the two candy names), and after placing fifth in the world at last spring’s Destination Imagination global competition at the University of Tennessee, nobody’s going to argue with them. “Them” is Madison Gildersleeve-Price, Abby and Elly Haden, Teresa Li, Maggie Matthews, Sarah Trotter, and Stacy Vitko, an […]
Physics teacher Matt Shields, who recently received a 2014 MIT Inspirational Teacher Award for his work both in and out of the classroom with students at Charlottesville High School, never planned to be a teacher. “Physics was almost an accident. I think I got a C in physics in college,” Shields said, adding that his […]
If your baby has an iPotty (training potty with iPad attached, obviously), your toddler boys have portable urinals, and you and your daughter are currently wearing matching breastmilk-pendant necklaces, congratulations! You’re taking advantage of some of the completely absurd new and innovative parenting products available today. If you’re a slacker dark-ages parent like me, you […]