The Come Children Sing Institute, a center for research and development in music learning, invites you and your little child or grandchild to participate in ongoing research on music learning. Come Children, Sing! online music classes for young children offer a developmental music program that has enamored parents, and children ages 0-5, all over the country for over four years, according to the center’s director, Mary Ellen Pinzino.

Mary Ellen told me two new research projects are in progress. The first engages grandparents with children 0-3 in the online music classes via Skype, offering distant grandparents the opportunity to interact meaningfully with the youngest grandchildren on a regular basis. The other engages parents and 3-5 year old children in online music classes with the additional dimension of a simple computer interface for the child for self-directed music learning activity.

“You can engage with your little one in Come Children, Sing! in your own home and on your own schedule, whatever your musical background,” Mary Ellen explained. “You’ll discover new ways to interact with your loved one. This is a fascinating way to become part of the exciting process of music development during the most important years for music learning.”

Picture this, you and your little one can sing along, move along, play along, and go along with Come Children, Sing! No need to be a super star, but you’ll feel like one when your kids see how much fun the time can bring. MP3 files, music activities and parent/grandparent tips are all provided online.

Come Children, Sing! online music classes deliver one new lesson each week for 10 weeks. Participating parents or grandparents are expected to engage with their loved one in weekly lessons for at least 10 minutes weekly for 10 weeks, with 14 weeks to complete the 10 lessons. $40 gift certificates for continuing online music classes will be provided. Three years of quality music instruction for little children are now available online at Come Children, Sing! You can view sample lessons and listen to the free audio presentation, “Parenting Music,” which will introduce you to your little one’s musical brilliance.

To participate in either study, you only have to send an email to ccs.online@comechildrensing.com. Include your name, which study you would like to participate in, the age of the child, and mention that you read about the studies at WomenDaybyDay.com.

What a midwife does, how she learned to do it, and why are topics most women probably find intriguing. I just finished reading a review copy of Beacon Press’ The Blue Cotton Gown: A Midwife’s Memoir by
Patricia Harman. It’s her first book, and readers will be immediately drawn in by her warm, personal voice.

I was fascinated to see that this non-fiction memoir was every bit as entertaining and poignant as the novel I loved a few years ago called THE MIDWIFE. Harman’s book is, of course, set in fairly contemporary time – her career began in the American hippy communes of the 1960s and 1970s.

As a baby boomer, I identified with that era and with her journey to now – when she is past middle age, still working hard to keep the financial end of her business on track, and torn between desires to retire and get out of the stress of owning a business and her love of serving her women patients. If you pick up this book, you’ll keep reading, because it’s much like listening to a friend tell her story over a cup of coffee.

Occasionally, Harman’s writing style gets in her own way. She flips, often in a single paragraph, from present to past tense and back. Sometimes it happens within a single sentence, and though an artful device if used carefully, it can, and does become confusing enough to pull the reader out of the story and into critique mode. Still, if you can pass by that flaw, you probably zip through the book in a few days and be glad you read it.

There are many, many memoirs from midwives. The subject lends itself to story telling. What can be more dramatic that a pregnancy – even a normal one? And if you add risk, bad partners, daughters in trouble, and women who can’t quite make the step from child to mother, the drama grows. This book has all those elements and is unique in its own ways.

Harman and her husband practiced together for many years, and she tells her story honestly. The  reader sees into the reality of being a medical provider – insurance issues, business management getting in the way of patient care, and personalities interacting on the job. But through it all are the stories of women. A cancer patient – one you don’t quite expect. A teen who keeps trusting her drug-addicted boyfriend until her life unravels in tragedy. A woman who wants help with a problem that many practitioners would refuse to get involved in.

This is a good, light read. It flows through a dozen or so lives, including Harman’s, with surprises along the way. It provokes a variety of emotions in the reader and delivers the promise every memoir should make. The Blue Cotton Gown tells one midwife’s story in a way that make her readers empathize, sympathize, and wish they might have gone down that path.

Read more:

Will gays value marriage more than heteros do?

More book reviews at OnText

Discovery Channel Dinosaurs!

Slow down your holiday hysteria and gather around the flat screen with your family for some delightful Television programming. The Discovery Channel has new dinosaur programming that starts December 6 at 8 pm Eastern.

Dinosaurs fascinate all of us and it’s been some time since there was anything new about the dinosaurs either on pay TV or broadcast. I just previewed a four-part series from Discovery Channel which is worth seeing– Clash of the Dinosaurs.

Pop some corn or order up a pizza -

This is a family event. I tested the shows on a three year old boy, a three year old girl, and a four year old boy-genius.

All three of them were spell-bound. They didn’t flinch at the dinosaur eating another dinosaur themes, they just wanted to know if dinosaurs eat people. I answered unqualifiedly that that had never happened and never would. We had a nice discussion of when dinos lived, why they aren’t here any more and if they cause bad dreams (they did not, for us).

I also shared Clash of the Dinosaurs with a group of teens and other adults, and they loved it. Here’s why - the animation and special effects are nicely updated and positively thrilling. There’s quite a bit of repetition - scenes do double and triple duty in the programs, but the production must have been expensive and they wanted their money’s worth. Overlook that, and you’ll enjoy seeing the physiology of dinosaurs.

What’s different here is the biological information - you’ll see musculature, bones in action, how tissue is distributed through those huge bodies. There’s lots about reproduction, how eggs survive, and all about daily life of the animals.

Meeting Ankylosaurus — an herbivore specifically designed as a killing machine — was thrilling. He’s 30 feet long, has three layers of armor, and eyelids made of bone. Don’t even think you or your kids know all there is to know about dinosaurs! We learned a lot and had a terrific time. Highly recommended.

The series: Four parts - two per night on Sunday, Dec 6 and Sunday Dec 13 at 8 pm. 7 Central, of course.

Read more excellent articles:

Where to donate your old computer hardware

Overcoming PTSD

This morning, anyone caring to tune in could be subjected to Sarah Palin and Oprah Winfrey at the same time. Sarah is hawking her new book because it will make her a ton of money. Oprah is hawking anything she thinks will support her flagging viewership - and right now that something is probably Sarah Palin.

You can’t turn to any medium right now and not get Sarah and Oprah, Oprah and Sarah. Sara in short shorts on the cover of Newsweek. There’s presidential material. Oprah, thank goodness, not in shorts. Don’t kid yourself. Sarah is not presidential material, nor is she interested in being president of anything. She’d probably quit in mid term. She is interested in a couple of million bucks that will come from the sale of this book. Why will the book sell? Ya got me.

But it will. In a time when Pulitzer Prize-winning writers are unemployed and long-respected publication go toes up, this gunk will sell so Sarah Palin and her co-writer(s) pd their bank accounts. Perhaps it’s just another indication that the demand for quality writing is giving way to junk content. Perhaps just salacious curiosity. Ms. Palin, like her never-quite-made-it son-in-law, trashes lots of people in her book. Readers like seeing people trashed.

As for Oprah - she’s just getting really scary. She books anyone who is controversial, difficult to look at, tragic, or slimy. Then she either grills them or hugs them, depending on what her handlers tell her will make for a better audience reaction.

I used to like Oprah for her sort of rogue, er, maverick, positioning. Now, she’s just stale. Sarah? I’m embarrassed for her each time she opens her mouth. I can do without both of them - and I did, choosing reruns of Jerry Seinfeld over Oprah’s show this morning. What was it Letterman said? Something about the Mayan prediction of the end of the world in 2012 being linked to any possibility that Sarah could be president. Whew. Could you tolerate the simpering and giggling for four years? What a thought. Bring on the Mayans.

Take a moment to check out my guest post at HealMyPTSD.com for PTSD and Invisible Illness Awareness Week. I was invited to do a guest column because two of my family members are dealing with PTSD. It’s really tough to cope with an illness or condition that is invisible. There are physical symptoms, but often, people chalk those up to some other cause. HealMyPTSD is a valuable website by people who have knowledge and great concern.

While we’re at it, let’s visit some of my favorite posts over the years of compiling WomenDayByDay and Ontext:

A guest post from Thistle Farm, where women work to fix the hugely challenging problems in their lives. This one is terrific.

Women who read us honor their military loved ones for Memorial Day.

Proof that Jesus was a woman, and other funny stuff.

The courts are failing to help battered women.

22 ways to earn aliving at home - work at home

Basing marriage on positive thinking

Dr. Phil and the drunken teenage girls

Half dozen good ways for women to enter the blogsphere

Light therapy for pregnant women

There. That’s a little journey through the last few years of Women Day By Day. It’s rewarding to spend time digging up great information for my readers and empowering women to manage some of the things we face everyday. I’ve really loved finding guest writers to do a post here and there this year. Let me know if you know someone with something important, funny, or entertaining to tell us. Write me — maryan at ontext.com

Chicago Architecture Tour

Summer turns to fall, the weather moderates, and quick get-aways for families or delightful girls’ days out are on the schedule. One of my favorites is the Chicago Architecture Foundation river tour.

Chicago River Walk

The boats are not lush; they are what you’d expect. The seats are molded plastic lawn chairs, and after the two hour cruise, your fanny is flatter. There is no shade, so bring a big hat, sunscreen, water, and a camera. Choose a moderate day, and you’ll be fine.

Docent steps up on the River Tour

The sound quality is excellent - you will hear every word from anywhere on the boat. Every seat has a perfect view. Once the docent (tour guide) steps up and the crew shoves off, worries about comfort disappear. The trip is mesmerizing.

The star of the show is, of course, Chicago’s architecture. The real prize in choosing the Architecture Foundation’s cruise, as opposed to some of the others in the City, is that the docents are thoroughly trained and personally involved in architecture.

Chicago reflected in architectural glass

I was astonished, for some reason, at how much the buildings - their style, look, and constructions techniques - have changed over the years. The tour made me realize that no city is static.

Chicago's Marina City

In our gorgeous city, everyone from Wright and van der Rohe to The Donald have had a hand in sculpting the skyline. There are new residential hideaways hidden away along the river. This is a soothing way to soak up culture and get to know a great city. You can follow up with other tours on foot, via trolley, or by car.

The Chicago Architecture Foundation boat tour runs daily and on some holidays. $28 to $32. Break out this fall and take a day trip to Chicago for the Architectural Boat Tour. Well worth your time.

Dock is at the southeast corner of the Michigan Avenue bridge at Wacker Dr. A blue awning marks the stairway entrance - be warned, there are a lot of stairs to and from the boat.

My sister, Bonnie, got all fired up about a new book, actually a series of books, called Eat This Not That. These little books are one sneaky way for you to change your nutrition, and I am not kidding. I bought one of the books in the Eat This Not That series about a month ago and witnessed a miracle.
I bought Eat This Not That! Supermarket Survival Guide: The No-Diet Weight Loss Solution by David Zinczenko and Matt Goulding (Paperback - Dec 30, 2008). I spent a couple of hours reading it and found it amusing, informative and motivational. I wanted to go out and do what they recommended. So I did.

At the end of the book, which is a quick reading volume full of lists, bullets and quick tips, there is a one-week menu plan that covers lunches and dinners. It has a shopping list and recipes. Anything that makes one of my chores simpler is high on my list of yes items.

I copied the menu. Did the shopping - spent 30% less than I would generally spend. I followed the menus about 85% for a week. And I made my picky, finicky, nose-turned-up-at-anything-remotely-healthy spouse eat the food. I mean, what choice did he have?

So. He raved about every single meal. There’s the miracle. The menu plan is based on doing a bunch of prepping and cooking on Sunday, then combining planned left overs and fresh ingredients into new dishes all week. We went out to dinner twice during the week - moderate meals, both. He preferred the stuff I was making at home.

End result — he lost a couple of pounds without even being aware of it. I lost three. No sweat, no thinking, no obsessing. We ate great food, spent less money and enjoyed reading the book out loud at lunch each day.

It sneaked up on us and made some little, pleasant adjustments to how we eat. I’m headed out to the store to do yet another week of ideas from this series. My sister has passed the book to me, my son, her daughter and several friends. It’s almost a pandemic. And it’s very cool.