The Warren & the World Vol 3, Issue 39

The Warren & the World is Story Warren’s weekly newsletter, providing a round-up of our favorite things from around the web as well as a review of what was on our site over the past week. We’re glad you’re here!

Around the Web

Little Boy Lost

Susan Tucker shares a powerful piece about the hard things that shatter childhood at Red Tent Living. In telling her son’s story, she reminds us that tragedy will come into our children’s lives and we cannot prevent that. But she also reminds us that there is joy.

Poet Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote, “Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies.” With the death of his friend, the innocence of Seth’s childhood shattered into a million pieces.This shattering isn’t unique to my son. At some point, we all experience a loss of innocence. There comes a time when we realize that life isn’t the Eden we imagined. Often this loss involves family or our closest friends, whether through their betrayal, sickness, or death.

A Dad Turned All the Ridiculous Things He Ends Up Saying To His Kids Into A Book

BuzzFeed UK shares the work of Nathan Ripperger, a video producer and graphic designer from Iowa, who is publishing a book of his images highlighting the ridiculous things he finds himself saying to his kids. According to Ripperger,

“When you’re a parent, after a while the absurdity just washes over you…That’s the hardest part about parenting for me — to not let yourself be so caught up with your day-to-day business of life and really just enjoy the time with your children.”

Motherhood, Screened Off

Susan Dominus writes for the New York Times Magazine on the challenge of transparency with our children in a world of smart phones.

My mother’s address book is one of the small visual details of my childhood that I can perfectly conjure, although I am sure no photograph of it exists. Fake-leather-bound, filled with her formal, spidery script, it was, to me, barely legible, with addresses crossed out and replaced with new ones as friends’ lives shifted. I often was dispatched to grab it for her from a kitchen drawer. I knew when she was looking for someone’s phone number, which seems unremarkable, except that my own children do not know when I am searching for a phone number, because all they see is me, on my iPhone, intently focused on something mysterious and decidedly not them.

30 Little Things That Mean a Lot to Kids

Margery D. Rosen suggests in Parents Magazine small gestures that may seem trivial to adults, but go a long way with little ones.

Wear that macaroni necklace to work. Well, at least until you’re safely out the door.
Tape a family mantra or slogan (Unstoppable! We can, we will! We’ve got this!) to your refrigerator door and invoke it whenever your child feels discouraged.
Go for a walk with just one child.

Around the Warren

Barre Work

Julie Silander writes about the grace found and the lessons learned through barre work; lessons and grace that serve as signposts, pointing us toward the truest truths of the universe.

The first time I walked through that very ordinary doorway, I entered a portal into a different world. It was an unexpected discovery, a world of beauty and grace. Girls lined up against the wall like dominos in a row, one behind the other. Alone, each was not so different than me. Wispy girls with freckled noses and hair pulled back as tight as onion skins.The music first trickled, then flooded into the room. The girls began to move. They ceased being individuals and became intricate parts of a larger organism. The great animal had a long set of identical pink legs, all of which traced shapes on the floor, sliced through the air, and melted toward the ground in perfect unison. Out of the creature’s left side protruded a row of delicate arms, each grasping the walnut-colored bar that ran the length of the room.

“…say what you mean to say…”

Kate DiCamillo’s words. Paul Boekell’s art.

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

Liz Cottrill introduces us to The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, the story of William Kamkwamba.

Children believe in the impossible. Stories with heroes who face hardship, setbacks, and even defeat win their instant sympathy and when those heroes overcome, succeed and rise to fame and fortune, the child, who has been the hero’s fan from the start, is strengthened in the conviction that anything can happen if you try.I remember my own inspiring heroes: Thomas Edison, the Wright brothers, Helen Keller, and Jonas Salk. Nothing pleased me more than meeting a character in the pages of a book who had ideas and made them happen. Later, when I discovered they had really lived, or that telephone in my hand was a direct descendant of Alexander Graham Bell’s tireless attempts, I knew my own dreams could come true.

Smells

Kelly Keller introduces us to a great poem by Christopher Morley

Something to Do with Your Kids

This week the temperature dropped and suddenly fall feels like it might actually become a reality. So if it’s not just faking me out (which it totally might be, but October is here, so maybe not), here are some fall activities to keep your family occupied as the season goes on.