Category: The Nipper
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Full Stop
The Nipper is learning punctuation. They were studying periods, exclamation points, and question marks in class. He told us they have hand signals for each one (they clap for an exclamation point, raise their eyebrows and touch their chins for a question mark, and they hold their hands out in front of them, palms facing…
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The 7-Year-Old Uncertainty Principle
The 7-year-old Uncertainty Principle (7yoUP) states that you may observe any number of 7-year-olds in your yard at an instant in time, but you can never actually know how many 7-year-olds are in your yard. You can know the *identity* of some of the 7-year-olds in your yard, or you can know the *position* of…
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Apple Blossoms, Ornamental
In the yellow golden light of morning, The Nipper and I walked, sometimes hand-in-hand, sometimes side by each, through the well-limbed vaulted cathedral that was my neighbourhood when I was a child. The streets were empty and the windows of the stately old homes stared unblinking as we crossed before them. One side street –…
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My Underage Roommates
Sometimes, you just have to stop thinking of them as your own flesh and blood and start thinking of them as what they really are – your underage roommates. This is how you will begin to understand where we as parents all go wrong. All of us. We forget what it’s like to have to…