Category Archives: children

Unbreakable?

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Posted by on in Assistance, children, collaborating, Community, Family, Inspiration, Personal Values, service, Social, Spiritual, Striving

January 30, 2026-

My son and daughter-in-law have each done a good job at treating my head wound. Hana,sensing that something is off, has clung more tightly to me, the past few days, My family and friends have offered heartfelt prayers and well-wishes, which have surely sped the healing process along.

I will be able to make good use of a chiropractor in nearby Frisco, once I sign up for his services next week. He is reportedly using the same methods as Dr. Boehland, who kept me moving nicely for twelve years.

None of us is individually unbreakable. I guess that is the main reason I pulled out of my shell, years ago, and have focused on bringing people together. We can’t afford to let opportunists run the table, so my efforts at a community level will continue here, as they did in Prescott.

What She Thinks

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Family, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Striving

January 28, 2026-

The little girl throws her arms straight out, when she wants to be held close. This is something commonly noticed, in toddlers and older infants, but Hana, my granddaughter, is five weeks old.

When she hears a familiar voice coming in from outside, she calls out, in a single syllable, loud enough to let everyone know she is aware, even from her basinet in another room.

When I read to her, the eyes alternate between looking at the book and gazing intently at my eyes.

She values warmth and hates cold, like a lot of people. She is fairly insistent on being covered, even by a cotton towel, while someone is dressing her and knows to push her arms and legs into the onesie.

When we adults are at the dining table, having lunch or dinner, she calls from her nearby basinet . Someone gets her and holds her on a lap, and she wants to face everyone, so that usually means the right leg is the lap.

Her smile already lights up a room and her cries go deep into my heart. This is our Hana, and there are so many great days ahead.

Thawing Out

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Posted by on in Assistance, children, collaborating, Community, Family, impediments, Personal Values, Social, Striving

January 27, 2026-

The space heater got turned off, I bought a floor scraper that doubles, nicely, as an ice scooper and the essential surfaces are now clear of ice and snow. The floor scraper, made by Marshalltown of Iowa, is the kind of solid steel mechanism that my Dad had around when I was a kid. It made clearing the driveway and walks a relative piece of cake.

Hana responded to the improving weather by being more mellow, not acting like she had a splitting headache. I swear that babies and toddlers take it on the chin when the barometer drops.

She is assertive, and we always know if she is happy or upset. Isolating her cries helps in solving the problem and she is happy again, giving the person holding her a world class smile.

The thaw will come soon to many areas that Fern visited after leaving the southern Plains. My prayers and positive thoughts, though,to all facing the coming Nor’easter.

Then, there is the slight ICE melt in the Twin Cities. It took the death of a Federal employee, at the hands of other Federal employees, to bring about, but there seems to be some degree of sanity in the air today.

Remember, in small matters and great, we are all in this together.

Storm Preps

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Posted by on in Assistance, children, collaborating, Family, impediments, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

January 23,2026-

Cardboard has many uses. We are putting former packing boxes to use, this evening, as insulation on several windows. I also spread Icy Melt on the driveway, steps and sidewalk.

It is nearly midnight, and while it is snowing and windy, we have not lost power and it is warm inside. I am watching Hana overnight, and we are snuggled in a blanket , until she falls asleep again.

My thoughts are with all those in the path of this mega-storm, from Northern Arizona to New England. If you are in the crosshairs, let a loved one know your whereabouts. We are all in this together.

Powering Through

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Posted by on in children, Family, impediments, Inner Struggles, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Striving

January 22,2026-

My son worked at clearing all our yards of leaves-until close to 11:30 p.m. A suctioning, mulching and bagging tool, carried on his back, made a four hour job shrink to two .

This came about after he put in eight hours of work and spent a few hours with his daughter.

My daughter-in-law, after seeing her mother off at the airport, came back determined to handle her own mothering duties as independently as possible. She did just fine, which shows that one’s most heartfelt efforts to give advice, while appreciated, need to be tempered with letting the recipient of the advice integrate it into own skillsets.

Hana, for her part, is working on turning over and is practicing crawling up from the belly of the person holding her, up to the shoulder. She also has a couple of one-syllable utterances: “Hi”, when seeing me first thing in the morning and “Oww”, when something hurts. The latter is incorporated in the accompanying cry.

My little family is a remarkable trio, powering through life.

First Thing

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Posted by on in children, Community, Family, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

January 18, 2026-

I was glad to be invited to a Baha’i Feast this evening. I didn’t attend because my kids took Yunhee’s Mom out to dinner and found themselves waiting in line for an hour.

Hana and I held down the fort at home. We just looked at a big plush toy with valentine heart eyes and felt its softness. I told her about the need to sometimes be patient and how so many things that her soul wants will take time to happen.

She will understand this and much else, in less time than we might imagine. She sees things that adults can’t and seems comforted by them. She also knows, on a very basic level, that her safety and well-being are the most important things to us.

So, if I am asked to be somewhere and my grandchild needs me, I will take a rain check on the invitation.

Passages

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Family, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual

January 17, 2026-

Hana will never know seven of her great grandparents. Five of them, including my Dad and Penny’s parents, passed some time ago. My Mom has been gone for 1 1/2 years. Yunhee’s maternal grandfather bid farewell this evening.

I recall stories about my own maternal grandfather. He was, by all accounts, a hard- working man, who warned anyone who would listen about the rise of Fascism. That was in the Boston of the late 1920s and early ‘30s.

My maternal grandmother was a bright light of my early years. She would walk down the hill to visit, when we lived less than a mile away. After we moved to our own house, she would take the bus to our corner and walk down Adams Avenue. Either way, she was a reliable presence, until she became ill and passed on, in 1960.

My paternal grandparents were also endearing people. Grampy underwent an experimental heart bypass, in 1955 and didn’t make it through. Nana was more of an enduring presence, living to see and enjoy 49 grandchildren, then 10 great grands. she, too, would take the bus from her neighbourhood in nearby Lynn and one of us would pick her up at Saugus Center.

Hana will know them, and her grandmother, Penny, through stories and pictures. It will be a while, hopefully, before she encounters death as a part of life. Her maternal grandparents and I will keep ourselves active and healthy, and hopefully the impermanence of life will come to be understood in a positive context. I will teach her about spiritual energy, when she is old enough to understand such matters.

In the meantime, I will just be backing her up with prayers, and by holding her close, in a reassuring manner.

Evened Out

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Posted by on in Assistance, children, collaborating, Family, Personal Values, Social, Striving, Technical stuff

January 16, 2026-

We had a long conversation, my granddaughter and I- I talked and she cooed and babbled. Our eyes were locked on each other, except when she gazed up at the trees outside. The wind was causing the leaves and branches to move. So I told her about wind and what it does.

She then was “treated by her maternal grandmother to a fifty-minute loop of someone singing a tune, whose signature line was “Welcome to the kitchen”. The singer was a woman, so I know it was not by Labrinth.

The time will come when Hana will revel in watching and listening to the same thing over and over, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.

The connectivity matter is starting to even out- on my end at least. I have added passwords to a few more sites and let correspondents know to touch base with me using the new e-mail address.

This process will take a few more days. I have asked Word Press‘s parent company to help, so maybe by Monday or Tuesday things will start getting back to normal.

Loop de Loop

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, distraction issues, Family, impediments, Personal Values, service, Social, Striving, Technical stuff

January 15, 2026-

I spent most of today going around and around with the AI of G-Mail and Word Press. This site’s schtick was: “We need you to provide proof of original site purchase, before restoring your account. To do that, though, you have to change your password, which of course you can’t do on the phone app.”

G-mail is not a whole lot different. So, here I am writing my blog on the phone and cannot share on Facebook, because that requires entering my Word Press password.

I am able to pull my friends, family and Substack subscriptions onto my new G-mail address, so there’s that. Eventually, the address with the lost password will fade into irrelevance.

Around the house, though, I pulled a mess of weeds out of the backyard and got a few smiles from Hana, when she awoke and mine was the first face she saw. She is taking in more of the first floor and looking outside the window more.

Limbo

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Family, impediments, Personal Values, Social

January 14,2026-

This post, and probably the next few, will be brief. I can only post from my phone for the time being, due to an issue between my laptop and wordpress.com. The site will not recognize any password I enter, even if it initially says the password is okay. Also, this blogsite cannot be accessed on the computer. I am instead directed to two or three AI-generated free sites.

As for the family, we are all doing well. Hana is keeping us all busy, even just being a mellow little girl. I am re-learning skills I had back in the day, along with all the new infant care gadgets that are quite helpful. The basics of holding baby close and supporting head and back, are still first and foremost.