My next assignment for Taste of the Bay magazine is on including children in weddings - either as participants or as guests.

What have you seen?
There are the little children in a first wedding - nieces & nephews
There are children of the bride &/or groom - all ages
Then there are guests' children.

Have you ever seen a unity candle with multiple candles for each kid?
What do you think of including children in the vows?
How do you manage fidgety little ones?
How do you make the party for them too?

I was doing a round of hanging up coats, putting away shoes, dishes and school supplies while dancing around to my new Jason Mraz tunes, trying to focus on the fact that I'm happy my kids are here to make a mess at my house. I picked up an unusually high number of rubber bands when I came across these:




What a classic weapon in the arsenal of a middle school student. My son told me there was an all out "hornet" war on the bus.



What did you get in trouble with in Middle School?

I may have played my last Chutes & Ladders game last week, well, at least with my own child. Do you remember that game?

The little pictures create a sort of morality primer of actions and consequences for children. The playing pieces all have children joyfully skipping through their game lives. I counted and there are more chutes than ladders, so at least that aspect is realistic. One picture of a child scarfing down a plateful of cookies is connected with a chute to a picture of a sick child. A boy eating vegetables is connected with a ladder to the same boy measuring his height. A girl sweeping the floor now has money to go to the movies. A boy rescuing a cat from a tree gains a loving pet with the longest ladder on the board. The longest chute involves a precariously located cookie jar and injury.

If we were to create an adult version, what would some of the chutes and ladders be? A father smiling at his child walking in with a puppy with a chute to the same man picking up poo in the yard? A plateful of cookies with a chute to cellulite in a swimsuit? A woman midway through a row of shot glasses connected by a chute to the same woman with sunglasses and a bag of ice? A man offering a little square envelope to a woman connected by a ladder to a clean bill of health?