The Town of Cary will award 6-year-old Grace Downen Cary’s first “I knew What to Do” award Thursday, Nov. 20, for remembering to call 911 when her mother became ill.

Town of Cary Police Chief Pat Bazemore will present the award to Grace at 6:30 p.m. at the Town Council meeting, in Council Chambers at Cary Town Hall, on Academy Street.

Grace, who called 911 when her mother was having difficulty breathing, provided her address, telephone number and gave the 911 communicator vital information about her mother's condition. Implemented in June 2007, the "I knew what to do" program is aimed at recognizing and rewarding Cary youth ages 13 and younger who call 911 with a life-threatening emergency and provide vital information to assist dispatchers.

A Cary couple are warning other parents to look out for a teen “choking game” that killed their 15-year-old son two weeks ago, WRAL reports.

Since 1995, 82 youths nationwide have died while playing the game, which involves someone asphyxiating himself or herself or choking a friend to the point of passing out. Parents should watch for signs that teens are involved in the activity, and talk them out of playing it. Teens should warn a parent or teacher if they see signs of it. For more on this story, including some of the clues your child has been playing it, click here.

Got relatives in town for Thanksgiving? Why not take the kids and the whole family to fun local events. You’ll find information on local holiday events in Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, Cary and other Triangle-area cities in our Harvest Guide.

Our guide also lists Turkey Day games and activities, Thanksgiving Day movies in theaters and on TV, and tried and true holiday recipes from our readers and staff. So go local this Thanksgiving for the best ever holiday fun!

Hearing that there is a series of books that moms and daughters have not only been reading together but actually devouring, I was curious. Pairs would pre-order the next book, stand in line at midnight to receive their latest installment and rush home to spend the next few days together totally consumed in the story. I had to learn more about these books. (OK, I know that if you have already read the books you will be rolling your eyes with my choice of words, devouring and consumed. I just couldn’t resist.)

My daughter Janet and I like many of the same books and authors. Barbara Kingsolver has held us spellbound with her detailed stories about life and nature. Marley and Me had us laughing out loud and later sobbing at the end of the story. Three Cups of Tea inspired us to wait hours in line to meet author Greg Mortensen and hear him tell his story in person. Another series of books to share would be a treat. So with great enthusiasm I bought the first installment of the Twilight saga by Stephenie Meyer. I was further encouraged when the sales clerk, with a great forlorn kind of sigh, told me how much I would enjoy the book.

I read all four books of the series over the course of three months and now, here’s the truth: I really dislike these books and I wouldn’t recommend them to anyone much less a teenage or even worse, preteen girl. I shudder when I think of all the hype this book and upcoming movie have received. I’m having a hard time trying to figure out why moms feel compelled to encourage the reading of these stories.

If you haven’t heard the details yet the Twilight series by author Stephenie Meyer is based on the story of Isabella “Bella” Swan, her divorced parents; police chief father Charlie and newly re-married mother Renee, and Bella’s boyfriend Edward Cullen. Bella had been living with her mother in Phoenix since she was six months old and her parents separated. Renee remarries and, at seventeen, Bella feels like a fifth wheel so she moves from Phoenix to live with her dad in Forks, Washington — giving the newlyweds their space.

Bella meets Edward in school and it just so happens that he’s a vampire although Bella seems to be the only one in Forks who figures this out. Vampire code forbids vampires from disclosing the fact that they are vampires. Spoiler Alert: If a mortal learns the truth about vampires, the mortal either has to be killed or turned into a vampire. This creates problems in future books.

It’s pretty much love at first sight except for the week or so when Edward tries to avoid Bella since she smells good enough to eat and he’s afraid he will. Of course that’s a problem; not only for the obvious reasons, but especially since Edward and the family of vampires he has been living with for the last century or so have sworn off humans and only eat wild animals.

Bella figures out the truth about the “cold ones,” which include Edward, from her Native American friend Billy when he tells her some of his tribe’s ancient legends. One legend claims that the Quileutes, Billy’s tribe, descended from wolves and there is still another legend about the “cold ones,” natural enemies of the wolf – “well, not the wolf, really, but the wolves that turn into men, like our ancestors. You would call them werewolves…But this pack that came to our territory during my great-grandfather’s time was different. They didn’t hunt the way others of their kind did – they weren’t supposed to be dangerous to the tribe. So my great-grandfather made a truce with them. If they would promise to stay off our lands, we wouldn’t expose them to the pale-faces.”

A large part of the book dwells on Bella learning about Edward and his family and the uniqueness of being a vampire. It’s pretty typical character development if you overlook the vampire thing and their special talents. During a midnight baseball game with Edward’s family, Bella is exposed to a pack of human-eating vampires and for the remainder of the book Edward is kept busy protecting Bella from a renegade vampire who is out to get her.

Now for some of the things that many moms aren’t going to like. This is Bella describing herself, “it wasn’t just physically that I’d never fit in. And if I couldn’t find a niche in a school with three thousand people, what were my chances here? I didn’t relate well to people, period. Even my mother, who I was closer to than anyone else on the planet, was never in harmony with me, never on exactly the same page.”

Despite Bella feeling like an outsider, which probably half of all teens do, Bella had three potential boyfriends the first day she went to school as well as a number of girls to hang out with. If you are a geeky outsider how do you fit in so quickly and land the most handsome mysterious boy at school? How is this going to make the reader feel?

Bella is supposedly very close to her mother. She says of her mom, “She’s more outgoing than I am, and braver. She’s irresponsible and slightly eccentric, and she’s a very unpredictable cook. She’s my best friend.” But Bella rarely speaks to her mom on the phone and only occasionally emails her since she has to use a slow dial-up land line. She keeps Edward a secret from her mom for a long time. What mom is going to go without talking to her seventeen-year-old at least on a daily basis? And it is NOT okay to keep secrets from mom.

Then there is Bella’s dad Charlie. He is the chief of police and about the most clueless dad in the state of Washington. Bella takes care of his dinner and washing his clothes like he is the child. She also hides her relationship with Edward from Charlie. She often lies about where she is going saying, “With Charlie, less is always more. I was definite about that.” Both of Bella’s parents are portrayed as complete imbeciles that Bella has no problem deceiving.

Early in their relationship Edward uses the key under the front doormat to break into Bella’s house, “I was curious about you,” he said. Then Bella discovers that Edward had been looking through her bedroom window watching her sleep. Her biggest concern was that Edward overheard her talking in her sleep and that she had said something embarrassing. Most parents would find this very creepy and call the police to have Edward put in jail.

After Bella discovered that Edward had been peeking through the window she decided he should just start spending the nights with her and at one point she “regrets not packing the Victoria’s Secret silk pajamas my mother got me two birthdays ago.” Bella is seventeen and in eleventh grade, deceiving her parents and having her boyfriend spend the night on a routine basis. The only reason they don’t have sex in the first book is because Edward is afraid he might get too excited, lose control and kill Bella by accident.

If this isn’t enough to make a parent cringe, Bella is supposed to be an honor student taking AP classes, but she routinely makes poor decisions and Edward is constantly swooping in to save her. Much of the time she follows Edward’s lead without question.

If your kids want to read the books, then by all means read with them so that you can explain to them that they better not ever behave the way Bella does.

-- Written by Donna Jefferson, publisher of  Chesapeake Family Magazine, which serves parents and families in Annapolis, Anne Arundel County, Baltimore, Bowie, Calvert and Prince George’s County and the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

Building your child’s brain skills without breaking your budget

Who says you have to refinance your house to buy those expensive “educational” toys? If you’re looking for fun ways to build your child’s brain skills without blowing your budget, take the advice of childhood development experts and focus on the LEARNING SKILLS that toys develop.
“Even the simplest toys – when used properly – can help develop complex brain skills,” explains Dr. Ken Gibson, author of Unlock the Einstein Inside: Applying New Brain Science to Wake Up the Smart in your Child. “Cognitive skills, like attention, auditory and visual processing, memory and processing speed, are essential tools that help kids become better learners. Research now shows that learning skills can be taught – and therefore improved. Brain training – like in these games that parents can play with their kids - does for the mind what exercise does for the body.”
Here are a few simple and inexpensive games currently on the market that can help develop crucial cognitive skills:

SLAMWICH
How it’s played:one of six colored cards. The first player to collect one card of each color wins.
Ages: 6 and up
Cognitive skills: Visual processing, planning, problem solving, analysis skills

SHAPE BY SHAPE
How it’s played: Players match red and yellow puzzle tiles to images on one of 60 challenge cards.
Ages: 8 and up
Cognitive skills: Conceptual thinking, spatial relationships, visual planning, analysis skills

LOGIC LINKS
How it’s played: Players follow a series of clues to learn where to place colored chips to solve one of 166 puzzles.
Ages: various level options
Cognitive skills: Sequential thinking, deductive reasoning, visual processing, logic

RHYMING BINGO
How it’s played: Players  Colorful bread-shaped cards are dealt evenly to players sitting in a circle. Players take turns flipping their top card onto the center pile. If two matching cards (such as two pickle cards) are thrown down in a row, that’s a Double Decker. The first player to slap the pile when they see a Double Decker keeps all the cards in the pile. If two of the same cards (such as two bacon cards) are separated by one other card (such a peanut butter card), that’s a “Slamwich.” As with the Double Decker, the first player to slap a Slamwich gets all the cards in the pile. There are also Muncher Cards and Thief Cards to help players gain cards. (Winner of the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Gold Seal award and a Parent’s Choice Approval award.)
Ages: 6 and up.
Cognitive skills: Sustained attention, memory, visual processing, processing speed

JAX DOODLE DICE GAME
How it’s played: Players roll dice and then rearrange the designs on the dice to try to match a doodle on place chips on pictures of items that rhyme with the caller’s word.
Ages: 4 – 7
Cognitive skills: Rhyming, sound blending and segmenting, auditory processing

NINETY-NINE OR BUST
How it’s played: Using tokens and a special deck of cards with varying values, players try to play their cards without the total going over 99.
Ages: 7 and up
Cognitive skills: Math computations, analysis skills, planning, numerical fluency, attention

SQUINT JUNIOR
How it’s played: Players use a number of simple shape cards to build pictures shown on any of 168 Squint Junior cards. It includes an hourglass timer.
Ages: 8 and up
Cognitive skills: Conceptual thinking, spatial relationships, visual planning, analysis skills, processing speed

Sheryl Underhill, Director of the LearningRx Brain Training Center in North Raleigh, encourages parents to look for games that are appropriate for their child’s age, as well as any cognitive weaknesses of which they’re aware.

“A parent whose child has Attention Deficit Disorder, for example, would want to shop for toys that improve one or more of the three types of attention; sustained, divided and selective,” explains Sheryl. “Likewise, a child who struggles with reading would benefit from games that practice sound blending and segmenting. In addition, parents can use a stopwatch with some of these games – like Shape by Shape – to work on strengthening processing speed.”

For a free list of more than 30 games and the skills they strengthen, visit www.unlocktheeinsteininside.com.

Written by by Wendy Burt-Thomas, a free-lance writer who works for LearningRx Brain Training of Raleigh, www.learningrx.com/raleigh.  

Last night I took a bath with God. Seriously.

It was one of those days where you get to the end of yourself. I made the mistake of starting to think about the holidays and that sent me on a downward spiral of overwhelm and guilt. Plus, having had a cold for almost two weeks was perching me dangerously close to the edge.

It all started with getting the mail and finding almost 50 catalogs to greet me. Their glossy pages were filled with alluring images of well-dressed people, fantastic homes and glorious meals of happy times. My holidays never feel like that. I usually am ridiculously tired from not sleeping well and getting up at 4 a.m. to polish silver. A friend and I have this joke about how women are the "magic makers" of the holidays -- preparing all the meals, the home, the gifts, the experience, the everything. But seldom do we have enough energy left over to enjoy the magic for ourselves.

In the last few months, I have been part of a very encouraging group of women of faith who meet regularly to talk about the Bible and it's promises. We like to discuss the hard stuff like how do you make your marriage work? or what do you do when it feels like God is on vacation? I'm not saying we all have it figured out, but it's relieving to come up with some faith answers for the journey.

After discussing some pretty hard topics one day, one of our leaders said to me "You just need to hang out with Christ and let him love on you for awhile. Ask Him to lavish you with His adoration and grace and see what happens."

The idea of inviting Christ to hang out with me had never really crossed my mind. I certainly pray, read my Bible, go to church, journal about my faith -- but asking Him over for dinner and a movie didn't ever come up as an option.

So that is what I thought of when I had my bad day. I wanted to climb in the bath tub and soak away all the fears, worries and frustrations that seemed to hang on me like a big heavy coat. I thought, "God can you get in the bath tub with me?" I know that seems odd and you probably think I'm weird for saying it out loud. I really wanted to be held and loved and adored in the promises that I know are true. I wanted God to hold me and soothe me and tell me everything was going to be okay.

So I did. When I got out of the bath, I felt like a small child who had just slipped on her footed pjs and was wrapped up in her favorite blanket. That day I understood that it's okay to invite God into every aspect of our lives, whether it's for pizza or wherever you need Him. He's not just available on Sundays in stained glass churches. He's even available in bathtubs.

Written by Cara McLauchlan, a writer whose blog, Joy Goggles, charts her last year before 40 as a mom.

Want to give your kids a peek at life on a farm? Lazy O Farm in Smithfield is hosting Turkey Dayz, with visits by appointment, starting today through Nov. 26.

Owned by one family since 1850, Lazy O Farm has been offering educational visits since 2002. This year, visitors are invited to tour the farm, enjoy a hayride, a playground and picnic area and make a Thanksgiving craft. For more on visiting Lazy O Farm, where residents read like a Beatrix Potter tale, complete with Flopsy and Mopsy bunnies, click here.

Take the kids over to Apex Family Health Festival on Saturday, Nov. 15, which kicks off at 8 a.m. with Breakfast with Twinkle, WakeMed Children’s mascot, and live entertainment. Call 350-STAR to register for the breakfast.

At 9 a.m., enjoy a 1-mile Family Fun Walk through beautiful Apex neighborhoods. No registration is required. The walk will be led by the YMCA of the Triangle, from the starting location at Coastal Federal Credit Union. Donations will be collected to help provide health care services for underserved child in the community.

The festival, which runs through 1 p.m., will offer the services of local health care professionals and organizations, such as bone density screening and child safety seat checks as well as giveaways such as child identification and fingerprinting kits and CPR kits. For details on registration for events as well as the festival’s location, click here.

The Town of Cary will award 6-year-old Grace Downen Cary’s first “I knew What to Do” award Thursday, Nov. 20, for remembering to call 911 when her mother became ill.

Town of Cary Police Chief Pat Bazemore will present the award to Grace at 6:30 p.m. at the Town Council meeting, in Council Chambers at Cary Town Hall, on Academy Street.

Grace, who called 911 when her mother was having difficulty breathing, provided her address, telephone number and gave the 911 communicator vital information about her mother's condition. Implemented in June 2007, the "I knew what to do" program is aimed at recognizing and rewarding Cary youth ages 13 and younger who call 911 with a life-threatening emergency and provide vital information to assist dispatchers.

A Cary couple are warning other parents to look out for a teen “choking game” that killed their 15-year-old son two weeks ago, WRAL reports.

Since 1995, 82 youths nationwide have died while playing the game, which involves someone asphyxiating himself or herself or choking a friend to the point of passing out. Parents should watch for signs that teens are involved in the activity, and talk them out of playing it. Teens should warn a parent or teacher if they see signs of it. For more on this story, including some of the clues your child has been playing it, click here.

Got relatives in town for Thanksgiving? Why not take the kids and the whole family to fun local events. You’ll find information on local holiday events in Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, Cary and other Triangle-area cities in our Harvest Guide.

Our guide also lists Turkey Day games and activities, Thanksgiving Day movies in theaters and on TV, and tried and true holiday recipes from our readers and staff. So go local this Thanksgiving for the best ever holiday fun!

Hearing that there is a series of books that moms and daughters have not only been reading together but actually devouring, I was curious. Pairs would pre-order the next book, stand in line at midnight to receive their latest installment and rush home to spend the next few days together totally consumed in the story. I had to learn more about these books. (OK, I know that if you have already read the books you will be rolling your eyes with my choice of words, devouring and consumed. I just couldn’t resist.)

My daughter Janet and I like many of the same books and authors. Barbara Kingsolver has held us spellbound with her detailed stories about life and nature. Marley and Me had us laughing out loud and later sobbing at the end of the story. Three Cups of Tea inspired us to wait hours in line to meet author Greg Mortensen and hear him tell his story in person. Another series of books to share would be a treat. So with great enthusiasm I bought the first installment of the Twilight saga by Stephenie Meyer. I was further encouraged when the sales clerk, with a great forlorn kind of sigh, told me how much I would enjoy the book.

I read all four books of the series over the course of three months and now, here’s the truth: I really dislike these books and I wouldn’t recommend them to anyone much less a teenage or even worse, preteen girl. I shudder when I think of all the hype this book and upcoming movie have received. I’m having a hard time trying to figure out why moms feel compelled to encourage the reading of these stories.

If you haven’t heard the details yet the Twilight series by author Stephenie Meyer is based on the story of Isabella “Bella” Swan, her divorced parents; police chief father Charlie and newly re-married mother Renee, and Bella’s boyfriend Edward Cullen. Bella had been living with her mother in Phoenix since she was six months old and her parents separated. Renee remarries and, at seventeen, Bella feels like a fifth wheel so she moves from Phoenix to live with her dad in Forks, Washington — giving the newlyweds their space.

Bella meets Edward in school and it just so happens that he’s a vampire although Bella seems to be the only one in Forks who figures this out. Vampire code forbids vampires from disclosing the fact that they are vampires. Spoiler Alert: If a mortal learns the truth about vampires, the mortal either has to be killed or turned into a vampire. This creates problems in future books.

It’s pretty much love at first sight except for the week or so when Edward tries to avoid Bella since she smells good enough to eat and he’s afraid he will. Of course that’s a problem; not only for the obvious reasons, but especially since Edward and the family of vampires he has been living with for the last century or so have sworn off humans and only eat wild animals.

Bella figures out the truth about the “cold ones,” which include Edward, from her Native American friend Billy when he tells her some of his tribe’s ancient legends. One legend claims that the Quileutes, Billy’s tribe, descended from wolves and there is still another legend about the “cold ones,” natural enemies of the wolf – “well, not the wolf, really, but the wolves that turn into men, like our ancestors. You would call them werewolves…But this pack that came to our territory during my great-grandfather’s time was different. They didn’t hunt the way others of their kind did – they weren’t supposed to be dangerous to the tribe. So my great-grandfather made a truce with them. If they would promise to stay off our lands, we wouldn’t expose them to the pale-faces.”

A large part of the book dwells on Bella learning about Edward and his family and the uniqueness of being a vampire. It’s pretty typical character development if you overlook the vampire thing and their special talents. During a midnight baseball game with Edward’s family, Bella is exposed to a pack of human-eating vampires and for the remainder of the book Edward is kept busy protecting Bella from a renegade vampire who is out to get her.

Now for some of the things that many moms aren’t going to like. This is Bella describing herself, “it wasn’t just physically that I’d never fit in. And if I couldn’t find a niche in a school with three thousand people, what were my chances here? I didn’t relate well to people, period. Even my mother, who I was closer to than anyone else on the planet, was never in harmony with me, never on exactly the same page.”

Despite Bella feeling like an outsider, which probably half of all teens do, Bella had three potential boyfriends the first day she went to school as well as a number of girls to hang out with. If you are a geeky outsider how do you fit in so quickly and land the most handsome mysterious boy at school? How is this going to make the reader feel?

Bella is supposedly very close to her mother. She says of her mom, “She’s more outgoing than I am, and braver. She’s irresponsible and slightly eccentric, and she’s a very unpredictable cook. She’s my best friend.” But Bella rarely speaks to her mom on the phone and only occasionally emails her since she has to use a slow dial-up land line. She keeps Edward a secret from her mom for a long time. What mom is going to go without talking to her seventeen-year-old at least on a daily basis? And it is NOT okay to keep secrets from mom.

Then there is Bella’s dad Charlie. He is the chief of police and about the most clueless dad in the state of Washington. Bella takes care of his dinner and washing his clothes like he is the child. She also hides her relationship with Edward from Charlie. She often lies about where she is going saying, “With Charlie, less is always more. I was definite about that.” Both of Bella’s parents are portrayed as complete imbeciles that Bella has no problem deceiving.

Early in their relationship Edward uses the key under the front doormat to break into Bella’s house, “I was curious about you,” he said. Then Bella discovers that Edward had been looking through her bedroom window watching her sleep. Her biggest concern was that Edward overheard her talking in her sleep and that she had said something embarrassing. Most parents would find this very creepy and call the police to have Edward put in jail.

After Bella discovered that Edward had been peeking through the window she decided he should just start spending the nights with her and at one point she “regrets not packing the Victoria’s Secret silk pajamas my mother got me two birthdays ago.” Bella is seventeen and in eleventh grade, deceiving her parents and having her boyfriend spend the night on a routine basis. The only reason they don’t have sex in the first book is because Edward is afraid he might get too excited, lose control and kill Bella by accident.

If this isn’t enough to make a parent cringe, Bella is supposed to be an honor student taking AP classes, but she routinely makes poor decisions and Edward is constantly swooping in to save her. Much of the time she follows Edward’s lead without question.

If your kids want to read the books, then by all means read with them so that you can explain to them that they better not ever behave the way Bella does.

-- Written by Donna Jefferson, publisher of  Chesapeake Family Magazine, which serves parents and families in Annapolis, Anne Arundel County, Baltimore, Bowie, Calvert and Prince George’s County and the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

Building your child’s brain skills without breaking your budget

Who says you have to refinance your house to buy those expensive “educational” toys? If you’re looking for fun ways to build your child’s brain skills without blowing your budget, take the advice of childhood development experts and focus on the LEARNING SKILLS that toys develop.
“Even the simplest toys – when used properly – can help develop complex brain skills,” explains Dr. Ken Gibson, author of Unlock the Einstein Inside: Applying New Brain Science to Wake Up the Smart in your Child. “Cognitive skills, like attention, auditory and visual processing, memory and processing speed, are essential tools that help kids become better learners. Research now shows that learning skills can be taught – and therefore improved. Brain training – like in these games that parents can play with their kids - does for the mind what exercise does for the body.”
Here are a few simple and inexpensive games currently on the market that can help develop crucial cognitive skills:

SLAMWICH
How it’s played:one of six colored cards. The first player to collect one card of each color wins.
Ages: 6 and up
Cognitive skills: Visual processing, planning, problem solving, analysis skills

SHAPE BY SHAPE
How it’s played: Players match red and yellow puzzle tiles to images on one of 60 challenge cards.
Ages: 8 and up
Cognitive skills: Conceptual thinking, spatial relationships, visual planning, analysis skills

LOGIC LINKS
How it’s played: Players follow a series of clues to learn where to place colored chips to solve one of 166 puzzles.
Ages: various level options
Cognitive skills: Sequential thinking, deductive reasoning, visual processing, logic

RHYMING BINGO
How it’s played: Players  Colorful bread-shaped cards are dealt evenly to players sitting in a circle. Players take turns flipping their top card onto the center pile. If two matching cards (such as two pickle cards) are thrown down in a row, that’s a Double Decker. The first player to slap the pile when they see a Double Decker keeps all the cards in the pile. If two of the same cards (such as two bacon cards) are separated by one other card (such a peanut butter card), that’s a “Slamwich.” As with the Double Decker, the first player to slap a Slamwich gets all the cards in the pile. There are also Muncher Cards and Thief Cards to help players gain cards. (Winner of the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Gold Seal award and a Parent’s Choice Approval award.)
Ages: 6 and up.
Cognitive skills: Sustained attention, memory, visual processing, processing speed

JAX DOODLE DICE GAME
How it’s played: Players roll dice and then rearrange the designs on the dice to try to match a doodle on place chips on pictures of items that rhyme with the caller’s word.
Ages: 4 – 7
Cognitive skills: Rhyming, sound blending and segmenting, auditory processing

NINETY-NINE OR BUST
How it’s played: Using tokens and a special deck of cards with varying values, players try to play their cards without the total going over 99.
Ages: 7 and up
Cognitive skills: Math computations, analysis skills, planning, numerical fluency, attention

SQUINT JUNIOR
How it’s played: Players use a number of simple shape cards to build pictures shown on any of 168 Squint Junior cards. It includes an hourglass timer.
Ages: 8 and up
Cognitive skills: Conceptual thinking, spatial relationships, visual planning, analysis skills, processing speed

Sheryl Underhill, Director of the LearningRx Brain Training Center in North Raleigh, encourages parents to look for games that are appropriate for their child’s age, as well as any cognitive weaknesses of which they’re aware.

“A parent whose child has Attention Deficit Disorder, for example, would want to shop for toys that improve one or more of the three types of attention; sustained, divided and selective,” explains Sheryl. “Likewise, a child who struggles with reading would benefit from games that practice sound blending and segmenting. In addition, parents can use a stopwatch with some of these games – like Shape by Shape – to work on strengthening processing speed.”

For a free list of more than 30 games and the skills they strengthen, visit www.unlocktheeinsteininside.com.

Written by by Wendy Burt-Thomas, a free-lance writer who works for LearningRx Brain Training of Raleigh, www.learningrx.com/raleigh.  

Last night I took a bath with God. Seriously.

It was one of those days where you get to the end of yourself. I made the mistake of starting to think about the holidays and that sent me on a downward spiral of overwhelm and guilt. Plus, having had a cold for almost two weeks was perching me dangerously close to the edge.

It all started with getting the mail and finding almost 50 catalogs to greet me. Their glossy pages were filled with alluring images of well-dressed people, fantastic homes and glorious meals of happy times. My holidays never feel like that. I usually am ridiculously tired from not sleeping well and getting up at 4 a.m. to polish silver. A friend and I have this joke about how women are the "magic makers" of the holidays -- preparing all the meals, the home, the gifts, the experience, the everything. But seldom do we have enough energy left over to enjoy the magic for ourselves.

In the last few months, I have been part of a very encouraging group of women of faith who meet regularly to talk about the Bible and it's promises. We like to discuss the hard stuff like how do you make your marriage work? or what do you do when it feels like God is on vacation? I'm not saying we all have it figured out, but it's relieving to come up with some faith answers for the journey.

After discussing some pretty hard topics one day, one of our leaders said to me "You just need to hang out with Christ and let him love on you for awhile. Ask Him to lavish you with His adoration and grace and see what happens."

The idea of inviting Christ to hang out with me had never really crossed my mind. I certainly pray, read my Bible, go to church, journal about my faith -- but asking Him over for dinner and a movie didn't ever come up as an option.

So that is what I thought of when I had my bad day. I wanted to climb in the bath tub and soak away all the fears, worries and frustrations that seemed to hang on me like a big heavy coat. I thought, "God can you get in the bath tub with me?" I know that seems odd and you probably think I'm weird for saying it out loud. I really wanted to be held and loved and adored in the promises that I know are true. I wanted God to hold me and soothe me and tell me everything was going to be okay.

So I did. When I got out of the bath, I felt like a small child who had just slipped on her footed pjs and was wrapped up in her favorite blanket. That day I understood that it's okay to invite God into every aspect of our lives, whether it's for pizza or wherever you need Him. He's not just available on Sundays in stained glass churches. He's even available in bathtubs.

Written by Cara McLauchlan, a writer whose blog, Joy Goggles, charts her last year before 40 as a mom.

Want to give your kids a peek at life on a farm? Lazy O Farm in Smithfield is hosting Turkey Dayz, with visits by appointment, starting today through Nov. 26.

Owned by one family since 1850, Lazy O Farm has been offering educational visits since 2002. This year, visitors are invited to tour the farm, enjoy a hayride, a playground and picnic area and make a Thanksgiving craft. For more on visiting Lazy O Farm, where residents read like a Beatrix Potter tale, complete with Flopsy and Mopsy bunnies, click here.

Take the kids over to Apex Family Health Festival on Saturday, Nov. 15, which kicks off at 8 a.m. with Breakfast with Twinkle, WakeMed Children’s mascot, and live entertainment. Call 350-STAR to register for the breakfast.

At 9 a.m., enjoy a 1-mile Family Fun Walk through beautiful Apex neighborhoods. No registration is required. The walk will be led by the YMCA of the Triangle, from the starting location at Coastal Federal Credit Union. Donations will be collected to help provide health care services for underserved child in the community.

The festival, which runs through 1 p.m., will offer the services of local health care professionals and organizations, such as bone density screening and child safety seat checks as well as giveaways such as child identification and fingerprinting kits and CPR kits. For details on registration for events as well as the festival’s location, click here.