Month: August 2005

I shook the cobwebs out of my brain from a weekend in Branson, Mo. where we caught a couple shows, including our favorite, Acrobats from China. Cobwebs or not, I had to prepare for the next weekend’s flight to Pennsylvania to visit with the grandchildren and their parents. At the Philadelphia airport, the children and…

After I finished my column last week about teaching pre-verbal babies sign language, my niece by marriage, Jessica, sent me the following informative e-mail. The idea and her results intrigued me so much that I am publishing an edited version of her letter. Hi, Aunt Joan, We heard about baby signs from my aunt and…

I watched in astonishment as my daughter-in-love locked eyes with her year-old child, listened intently and understood the baby’s urgent, garbled request. I wished I had been that good at interpreting my children at that age. Since I could not, I wish I had tried sign language as my sister’s families have done. They taught…

Mathematics matter too much to Hershbergers to allow any offspring to escape learning arithmetic facts. After visiting grandchildren used their fingers to add numbers during a game, we decided one daily activity during this summer’s visit would be age appropriate arithmetic fact sheets and flash cards. My husband organized, supervised and evaluated their work and…

“How come you don’t have any kids?” the next to youngest granddaughter asked me as she leaned out the window of the family van just before she went home from the family camp-out. “All my kids have grown up and become adults,” I explained. Besides, I thought, why should I have kids, when I can…