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By Liz Gordon-Hancock
To everything, there is a season. And I'm not talking about the fall, winter, spring, summer... or even the Christmas season, but the seasons that come with motherhood. These seasons are typified by little things, like diapers or high chairs, soccer balls or pom poms.  

If you have a teenager, you may be in the season of door-slamming and hormones. If you have a growing boy, you may be in the season of monthly shoe-shopping, as you try to keep up with your son's ever-growing feet.

For me personally, I'm in the season of diapers, sleep deprivation and a dancing chicken toy.

My kids bring a lot of papers home from school.

Amongst these papers was a sheet of practical activities to do at home to encourage literacy, logic, character-building and math skills. Under the language section, it suggested counting how many idioms my first grader could think of, as a sort of game.

You're pulling my leg, right?

First off, I think today's first graders are learning far more than I was taught at that grade level. For example, my first grader was learning to spell advanced words such as special, barbecue, and rhythm. She just turned seven. So - today's first graders have the potential to know far more than I did at that age.