For some reason, we celebrate the baby and not the mom.

The mom does all the work!

She goes through nine months of discomfort and adjustments.

When it’s time for delivery, she endures pain so the baby can be born.

I think the moms should be celebrated on each child’s birthday.

To prove my point, one of our grandsons WAS BORN ASLEEP!

What does that tell you?

Well, the big day has finally arrived!

As your child goes off to college for the first time, you are an Empty Nester.

You have two questions on your mind: How will my kid deal with living away from home? How will we (I) live without kids at home?

It’s a big adjustment for parent and child.

If you’re still married, the two of you are together again.

But, you’re 20 years older.

You’ve just come through the tumultuous teenage years and hopefully survived.

Now, how are you both going to live through the quieter years?

Do you have interests in common?

The single parent has probably also been the bread winner.

College tuition has gone through the roof, so the bread winner may have another mountain to climb.

Hopefully, your college student can obtain a student loan.

Single parents also have to adjust to quiet times.

(Yosemite National Park)

 It may not feel like it yet, but things are about to cool off.

That goes for travel prices as well as sky-high temperatures.

“This time of year is really the best time of year to go pretty much anywhere,” says Hayley Berg, lead economist at travel platform Hopper.

Crowds thin out, prices in some destinations come down from peak season rates and airfare drops significantly as fall arrives.

“Airfare drops so considerably from summer to September and October that you can take one of those big, longer, expensive vacations for about 30% less across the board. (CNN)

We’ve been going south in November.

All accommodations and restaurants are wide open.

Did you know that many ambulance services are staffed by unpaid volunteers?

One of those volunteers is our granddaughter.

While attending college, she worked her way up to become an EMT.

As an EMT (Emergency medical techician), she can provide some medical services.

She has delivered a baby.

After further training and testing, she became an Agent-in-Charge.

When they are called to an accident scene, she is in charge.

She has also treated a gunshot victim.

Thank GOD for the volunteers who are ready to save their fellow citizens!

Yes, I’m A Notre Dame Football fan.

My dad was a professor at the school for 21 years.

He taught Biology and Bacteriology.

He was a volunteer fireman on the school’s fire department.

I sold programs at every home game.

I delivered newspapers to Knute Rockne’s house.

Needless to say, I had a fun childhood growing up in the shadow of Notre Dame.

GO IRISH!

(Hand written sign, “Tourists go home”)

Protests in the streets. Graffiti warning tourists to go home. Local populations dwindling as short-term rentals mushroom and price residents out.

It feels like this was the year that tourism turned nasty – and local communities started pushing back.

Venice has started charging daytrippers an entry fee, while one busy Swiss town has announced it wants to follow suit. Locals have staged protests in Mallorca and Barcelona.

And US national parks are full to bursting – with 13 million more visits in 2023 than in 2022, according to NPS numbers.

In peak season, visitors must book ahead to enter.

Increased enthusiasm doesn’t seem to correlate with increased respect for the landscape.

The risk, as professor and environmental specialist Emily Wakild wrote for CNN in 2023, is of “loving a place to death.” (CNN)

AMEN!

Parents in the United States are overwhelmed and burned out with the “dizzying pace” of the world, and it’s a public health concern, according to a surgeon general’s advisory. 

Released Wednesday, it calls for shifts in policy and cultural norms.

“The work of parenting is essential not only for the health of children but also for the health of society,” wrote US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, a father of two.

“We know that the well-being of parents and caregivers is directly linked to the well-being of their children.”

The advisory describes how mothers and fathers now work many more hours than in 1985 but also spend many more hours every week on primary child care.  

And that doesn’t count their total time spent with children.

“Demands from both work and child caregiving have come at the cost of quality time with one’s partner, sleep, and parental leisure time.”

The strain is even greater on parents caring for aging parents or other loved ones. (CNN)

What can be done to give parents some relief?

One of the greatest causes of parental stress is that many parents over react to their children’s behavior. Very often a child will misbehave in the morning before school leaving the parent devastated. When the child comes home, the bad behavior is left behind and forgotten by the child but NOT the parent. They have stewed all day over the incident.

Children’t behavior must be prioritized. Some things have to be let go. One of the best pieces of advice we ever received for child raising was from a neighbor. “SEE LESS.”

Even if you see or hear bad behavior, pretend you don’t. You cannot react to every incidence. It totally wears you out. And generally it doesn’t really matter.

Once a neighbor came to wife to ask for advice. She had a child who loved to say very vulgar words. My wife’s advice, tell him he can swear all he wants in his room. When he is finished, he can come out. It worked because his mother’s shock was gone and it wasn’t fun swearing alone.

Try not to react to everything. Ignore as much as you can. It may sound naive but it works!

The importance of sleep for overall health cannot be overstated.

Yet many people struggle to achieve restful nights.

In the United States, 39% of adults ages 45 to 64 report not getting enough sleep, according to a 2022 survey by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Now, a small efficacy study published July 16 in the journal BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine suggests a simple yet effective strategy to improve sleep duration.

It incorporates short resistance, or strength training, exercise breaks in the evening.

This could offer a practical solution for those needing more sleep. (CNN)

I like this approach because it doesn’t call for a drug solution.

Your best at what?

What is the highest priority of your life?

Is it your marriage, children, parents, siblings, career, health, finances, faith or other?

I am suggesting that you identify your priorities because it may be impossible to do your best at every one.

This will help you choose how to allocate your time and energy.

Of course, it’s not unusual that your top priority may change along the way.

I just think you must try to match your efforts to your priorities as closely as possible.

Once again, no one is perfect. God does not look for perfection.

God looks for effort!

(A Ukrainian mother and child)

Yes, poetry.

A Ukrainian medic was bandaging a badly wounded soldier when Russian tanks forced a retreat.

She had to leave the wounded behind.

When she reached safety, she wrote the following poem on her cell phone:

Everytime you want to be wrong About the brightness of those eyes The eyes of those who decided One day To die in battle Are always brighter than others!

Expressing the horrors of war through poetry seems to help.