There’s joy in every squiggle of Konstantin Bronzit’s “We Can’t Live Without Cosmos.” The fifteen-minute film, which is nominated for a 2016 Oscar in the animated-short category, follows two unnamed cosmonauts as they prepare for a space mission. They’re best friends who revolve in the same centrifuge, swim in neighboring lanes, and read together at night. Their happiness and exuberance is infectious. It lifts the stone-faced scientists who track their progress; it even expresses itself in their space suits, which are winsomely shaped to accommodate their slightly different heads (one is square, the other rectangular). Even as they prepare for their high-tech journey, they embody old-fashioned, noble virtues: bravery, curiosity, strength, tenderness.
Michael Pollan meets Alex Gibney!
The Donald Trump phenomenon is a riotous union of candidate ego and voter id. America’s most skilled political entertainer is putting on the greatest show we’ve ever seen.
It’s so fun to watch that it’s easy to lose sight of how terrifying it really is.
Trump is the most dangerous major candidate for president in memory. He pairs terrible ideas with an alarming temperament; he’s a racist, a sexist, and a demagogue, but he’s also a narcissist, a bully, and a dilettante. He lies so constantly and so fluently that it’s hard to know if he even realizes he’s lying. He delights in schoolyard taunts and luxuriates in backlash.
Trump is in serious contention to win the Republican presidential nomination. His triumph in a general election is unlikely, but it is far from impossible. He’s not a joke and he’s not a clown. He’s a man who could soon be making decisions of war and peace, who would decide which regulations are enforced and which are lifted, who would be responsible for nominating Supreme Court justices and representing America in the community of nations. This is not political entertainment. This is politics.
“Is Daddy on babysitting duty today?”
Nope, he’s not a babysitter.
He’s a parent.
When you look at how kids learn, they learn when something is meaningful to them, when they have a chance to learn through relationships — and that, of course, happens through play. But a lot of our curriculum is organized around different principles.
It’s organized around the comfort and benefit of adults and also reflexive: “This is cute,” or, “We’ve always done this.” A lot of the time, as parents, we are trained to expect products, cute projects. And I like to say that the role of art in preschool or kindergarten curriculum should be to make meaning, not necessarily things. But it’s hard to get parents to buy into this idea that their kids may not come home with the refrigerator art because maybe they spent a week messing around in the mud.
The subject of adoption is undoubtedly a complicated one. It’s never easy. And always steeped in deep emotions.
This week’s essay — “Open Adoption: Not So Simple Math,” written by Amy Seek and narrated by actor Sarah Paulson — explores the emotional terrain one young woman travels after she makes the decision to give up her son for adoption.
But having fun? Laughing? Just being the happy mom? Sometimes I fear I’ve lost it in the busy and the stress. I’ll try to play a game with them but my mind will race through the to-do list that has it’s own index and days of rolled over I’ll do it tomorrow items. While they’re drawing cards and laughing I’ll be creating a list of things I’ve forgotten to do and need to do and don’t really want to do but I can’t put off much longer. Mom! It’s your turn!! And I’ll be thinking about the toys that should be sorted or what to do for dinner or how to hide the card that brings you back to the beginning of Candyland because the game isn’t ever ending.
- Source: findingjoy.net
Pay attention to your self-talk. This one is closely related to adjusting expectations. It’s not my habit to speak kindly to myself. I’m stupid and lazy and sloppy and fat and old and mediocre and talentless and a failure and a lousy mother and a basket case and and and…. If anyone talked to my children like that, I’d breathe fire. If I imagine when I’m talking to myself that I’m practicing talking to my kids, I’m way more likely to say, “You’re doing great, sweetheart. I love how hard you’re trying. I’m here for you. It’s going to be okay.”
- Source: The Huffington Post
