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.

Having serious neglected these blogs for a month, I am back on track with a question. Has marriage become a temporary condition? While California gays expending enormous effort to gain the right to be married, fighting for same sex marriage, I wonder if heterosexuals have lost the ability to understand the entire idea.

I know a young couple, married for five years. Two children - prekindergarten and toddler. An idyllic couple, really; so in love they couldn’t wait to marry. Husband has great job. Nice home. Family support and encouragement. social life. Education. They have it all.

One day, the wife decides she’s bored. She trolls Facebook for someone to relieve the boredom. Her family watches her accumulate male “friends” on the website. Her husband, secure in knowing he provides well, helps out with the kids, runs to the grocery store when required, and tells wife she’s pretty when he thinks of it, feels pretty secure. Life is good. He believes women and men can be friends without hanky panky and he trusts his wife. He sits on his couch, a lot, watching TV. He’s tired - 60 hour work week.

Later, after it all implodes, she will tell. him she made a conscious choice to hurt him. She never articulates why. Boredom?

So the wife hooks up with a boyfriend - a guy the husband befriended when they served together in Korea, and later, Iraq, bombs bursting in air. The scumbag came to visit the couple often. Lived off them for a time - he doesn’t choose to work. Bonded with the wife while the husband slept.

The couple went on a lovely vacation with the kids. NO, not the husband and wife. The wife and the boyfriend. they traveled three states, posted photos of the happy family entertaining the children. Lovely mountain venues. Stayed with the wife’s mom for a bit. And then the wife came home, packed up three small backpacks, and ran away with the kids to another state, where the scumbag resided in a rusty trailer. He’s unemployed, of course.

Refused to come home. Husband got a court order to bring home his biological son, the toddler. Wife said - ok, fine. I have one child and a boyfriend.

The marriage has now become a “case.” The children are confused, lonely and scared. They have each lost one parent, and each other. One has lost his friends, his home, his toys, his school, his clothes, too. the wife says - hey, he’ll adjust and get over it. I have my boyfriend. But no job, no money, no prospects, no place to live. She bunks in with whatever people will have her and a child for however long.

The husband and wife send unbelievably accusatory text messages to each other more often than hourly. They phone each other on prepaid cell phones and detail what action they each will take next to make the other feel like trash. They are out to annihilate each other and it’s working.

The kids? Adjusting to an extent. On the outside. They laugh sometimes. They play, and at least one of them gets plenty of hugs. No one knows where the other is, in what conditions, or with whom.

The husband and wife aren’t gay. they have always had the right to choose a partner, create a “relationship” and marry without giving any thought to the long term. When the wedding is over and the housework sets in, the job takes over, the kids get messy and cranky, the dog pukes, and the in-laws interfere, the husband and wife have the right to dissolve the marriage.

Gays, all over the country, are petitioning and fighting for the same right. Perhaps they will get what they want and maybe they will have the good sense to figure the marriages they may create in the future are worth fighting for, not fighting about. We heteros seem to have lost that perspective. It is so damned easy to get bored, resent housework, feel tired, and run away to something else. But what happens to the kids?

Nearly every U.S. state has boiled divorce down to irreconcilable differences. You don’t have to have a reason to break up. You don’t have to think about the pros and cons. Just sign the papers, pay the lawyer, and walk away. Most women never recover financially. Most children never recover emotionally. But hey, if you’re bored with housework, you gotta do something, right?

This morning, VibrantNation.com posted a bit about someone’s “inner old lady” and the phrase resonated gleefully inside me. It’s a fascinating concept bouncing across women-centric sites this year and I love it. Nurturing our inner old lady seems much easier than worrying about inner child.

Here’s the deal. I’m not old, though my daughter, in particular, can’t stop making little observations about my age, the year I was born, and the two gray hairs I have. But there is a little old lady living inside me who will ultimately make an appearance. I want to spend some time nurturing her now so that when she comes out to stay, in maybe 40 years, I’ll be ready and she will be socialized.

For example. I will enjoy seeing her wear purple - possibly with orange mixed in or next to the purple. The brighter the better. Perhaps trousers with splashy flowers. I will love her gray hair.

She can speak her mind and say what she wants, but she can’t be mean and curmongeonly. I want the lines aorund her mouth to be laugh lines like my grandma’s were - not frown lines. No drool will be tolerated.

Inner old lady will not be allowed to wear chemically formulated perfumes. There is nothing less appealing than the trend of mature women dowsing themselves with designer label perfumes over dime store hairspray. It stinks and my inner old lady will not be so crass. Essential oils (NOT patchouli) are encouraged. Maybe a nice sage flower essence.

My inner old lady will be welcome to play - by herself, with my grandkids, or with anyone who is so inclined. She can laugh aloud. I’d love to see her slap her knees and get totally giddy over kites and kids on swings (ok, I admit it, I do that now).

I’ll cherish my inner old lady - in or out - but will require that she and I continue to remember what it is like to by young or inexperienced. We will never lord it over young people or require anyone to make way for us simply because we’re aging. Should anyone care to open a door for us, we’ll thank them and be grateful. We’ll offer help and wisdom where we can, but no one is obliged to take either.

She will be encouraged to oogle fine looking men, or women, perhaps pinch a butt here or there. She can feel and think like a sexy human. Wrinkles notwithstanding.

I’ll love the inner old lady-crone because she is simply another iteration of myself and I am pretty fond of me. I’ll soothe her wrinkled brow, bring her a heating pad for arthritic joints, and excuse her lapses of social graces. She has paid some dues.

I love the idea of nurturing my inner old lady. Giving her permission to age gracefully, without plastic surgery or chemical injections feels just right for me. I remember how graceful, kind, and warm my grandmother was. She looked like a grandma and felt like one. I could do worse than to end up like her.

Women keep each other afloat (Photo by Oddsock)

---

Doing some housekeeping today, I dove way back into the contents of Women Day By Day and found some articles our newer readers may have overlooked. Here, then, are some of the best web articles for women from Women Day By Day.

Sexy Stories for a Hot Summer Beach Read

Women in need find recovery and independence

Low Cost Activity Books for Young Children and Moms

Pro-Life Thinking: Understanding the Basics

Pro-Choice: The Basic Issues

Aging Tissue Can Be a Risk Factor for Breast Cancer

Lose Weight or Lose Yourself - Truths About Dieting

Resources for Military Women, Women Veterans and Families

Women-Fix Your Own PC? Windows Ailing? Tips from Computer Guru

Our site for writers and freelancers

Take a look at some of these and then dip into our archives. Tell me what you think - add your comments or contact me about doing a guest blog! I want to engage with you.

Growing up in Chicago, I knew a lady whose name, I thought, was Mary Upstairs. That’s the only way anyone in my family referred to her. She was my grandmother’s friend and was the tenant on the second floor of the brownstone in which we lived. Thinking, the other day, of Mary Upstairs reminded me of how much sense of community there was in our neighborhood.

We lived in a huge city. But that little Polish neighborhood was self-contained and way homier than the suburbs my parents migrated us to in the 1960s. when everyone was flocking away from city living.

There was a grocery store on each corner. We lived in the middle of the block. So Oskin’s Market, the big store, was for weekly shopping. The place was, I don’t know, the size of a Walgreen’s or some other chain pharmacy these days, maybe a tad bigger. Oskin’s was centered around a deli and butcher counter. Every Saturday morning I walked with Grandma to Oskin’s to buy lunchmeat. My family would never buy meat at the supermarket - too risky, they thought.

“Yeah, Mike, gimme hef a pound a Polish ham an’ some switch cheese,” she’d say and then respond affirmatively to his question about potato salad and maybe headcheese (ieuuw!).

We’d go next door to Joe-the-Bookie’s place (I thought it an odd last name). It was a candy store - he’d pinch my cheek and give me a little sack of penny candy. Bullseyes, buttons, Mary Janes. He’d chat with Grandma for a few minutes and we’d go home. Joe was probably a pervert of some sort, and I wonder what Grandma was doing meeting up with him all the time.

Sunday afternoons, we went the other way to the littler store that evidently had no name. We got an ice cream cone. A pointy cone with a square recession in the top. Wrapped separately was a chocolate or vanilla block of ice cream, in foil, a three-inch cube so hard and cold it steamed. You’d plunk the cube on the cone.

Then, we walked - many, many blocks - to Helen’s house. Another friend of Grandma’s. No last name. They’d chat for hours, I’d climb in and out of her porch windows and play with her parrot.

Quilting bees happened every week at my other Grandma’s - about six or eight blocks away. About a dozen women, lifelong friends - life long friends - gathered around a quilting frame - I played under it. They gossiped and chatted and complained about their husbands while they stitched across beautiful patchwork quilts for the missions or patterned quilts for a wedding or baby coming.

I miss that atmosphere of comfort and normalcy. Tradition. I must be getting old, because I’d give a lot to revisit one of those quilting bees or walk with my own grand kids to any where that seemed non-threatening and cozy. Certainly not Walmart. Definitely not Big Lots. All the women I know work or have clubs to go to or are so busy running in ten directions that a quilting bee would just make them think I’m nuts. We’ve lost a lot in our quest for technology and progress.

photo by art es anna

Here are six links for Mother’s Day and a nice little poem. Go in quietude and count your blessings that your are, or you had, a mother. Happy Mother’s Day from Maryan and WomenDaybyDay.com

1. Mother’s Day in a Family with Two Moms
2. Soap to Ploughshares - Return Mother’s Day to its Original Meaning
3. Mother’s Day Recipe - Sweet Strawberry Salad
4. Gadget gifts without breaking the bank
5. Mother’s Day Destinations
6. Gift from Mothers to Mothers

A poem for Mother’s Day:

Mothers are the place that we call home.
On them we rest our heads and close our eyes.
There’s no one else who grants the same soft peace,
Happiness, contentment, sweet release,
Erasing nighttime tears with lullabies,
Restoring the bright sun that makes us bloom.

(photographer Dawnzy’s collection)

You see Badger healthy body care in stores and boutiques everywhere. Badger Balms, made with what you can tell are pure essential aromatherapy plant oils feel, in a word, good. The home-based company began simply and has expanded to make babies feel good, too.

Katie Schwerin and her family began an entrepreneurial endeavor in their kitchen, 1995. It