January 22, 2011 ~ Day 44 The Most Beautiful Woman In The World

I felt a surge of excitement as I kissed my three precious children and my husband good night and headed out into the cool darkness. I was late for a date with the most incredible woman in the world - my mother.

Since my father passed away in June 2009, I have taken very seriously the importance of spending quality time with my mother. I wish I could say that I have been strong for her since his death, but in reality she has been strong for me. When I look back upon June 2009 through August 2010, my immediate and overwhelming impression is of juggling three children - including a premature newborn, stress and autoimmunity. During that time, my mother was for me (as she has always been) a rock of kindness, generosity, love and compassion.

She is the mother who makes all of my sincere attempts at excellent mothering look, well, feeble.

Despite my many failings as a daughter, my mother still manages to overlook my self-centered, exhausted monologues about how challenging it is for me to be a mother and how I don't know how she managed to make the job look so easy. She continues to give me unconditional love as only a parent can... seeing in me all of the promise of my past and all the potential of my future. She expresses pride in my life choices, which is especially gracious considering how stridently my former teenage self frequently vocalized opposition to her chosen role in life - homemaker and writer.

"I will NEVER turn out like my mother. I will NEVER be a financially dependent, stay-at-home wife and mother! No house frau for me!!!" (Me, age 17-21)

How my mother must have chuckled quietly when I ate those words with a big slice of humility a decade later. To her credit, she has never yet uttered the words "See, being like me isn't so bad..."

My mother is so much more than just a homemaker. She is the strongest woman I know, always there to lend an ear or a hand to her friends, family and even folks she has never met. She is a gifted artist ~ the woman beads jewelry so elegant it is sold in local stores; she embroiders, sews, sings, paints in oils and ~ before becoming a mother ~ she acted and modeled for almost 20 years in Hollywood.

She is the woman who will singlehandedly paint and wallpaper a bedroom by herself, at age 70+, because she likes working hard and "It beats aging". She is the matriarch that wove our Yours-Mine-Ours family together to the point that my father's sons, who were both adults when our parents married 36 years ago, now call her mother and mom and truly think of her that way.

Mom is the verbal 'heavy hitter' of the family that we unleash upon insurance companies trying to deny payment for medical claims and all other bureaucratic nightmares. She handles them with such grace and savoir faire! Mom always reminds us that "You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar" but wow, can she pour on the respectful vinegar when it's needed. She is one heck of a strong woman, especially when defending her family. A tigress!

I am really nothing like my mother. She actually reminds me much more of my husband. She is calm, laid-back, confident, connected to the world and full of faith. I take after my cerebral, anxious dad. Mom has always been the force of reason and optimism propelling our family unit forward into gratitude and peace.

We are all human though, and there are a few things that have been a few decisions my mom has made over the years that were bitter pills for me to swallow. For the first four years of my oldest son's life she wasn't around much as a grandmother, due to the highly understandable fact that she was busy caring for my dying father as he declined rapidly from Alzheimer's.

In the few moments of free time she had to unwind from his very intense need for high-level care, mom wasn't that excited about spending time with my often-fussy toddler and infant sons. "I have been a wife, mother and grandmother for over 50 years," she told me candidly. "It's important to me to spend at least some of the time I have left learning and growing; writing, traveling and doing a few fulfilling things for myself."

I understood this, and still do. Still, I would have loved my own children to benefit from the incredible mothering and grandmothering ability my mom possesses. Since my dad's death though, she has been a lot more available to us as a grandmother, which I really appreciate. My kids adore her.

The most difficult time I have ever had with my mother came when she agreed to move my father out of our family home and into 24 hour nursing care. There were a million reasons to do so and his physicians were pushing her.

For months and even years, my father had stopped sleeping through the night ~ and would wake up and do strange, potentially dangerous things while she was sleeping. He hallucinated and fought with imaginary creatures. There were lots of messes to clean up, messes of all kinds. He needed help using the bathroom, dressing, eating. He jumbled his words and sometimes made no sense at all. Taking care of him alone was horribly debilitating and at times my siblings and I wondered if we would lose mom before we lost dad.

Despite this, I was crushed beyond belief when my father was moved permanently out of his home. My mother had been told by his physicians that once out, he could never return to the house without it causing tremendous pain and psychological hardship for all involved. I don't know what I think or feel about this, but it was the advice she received from his neurologist.

My bewildered, cantankerous, lost father left his home one day to go to the doctor's office, ended up briefly hospitalized and then sent to assisted living. He never returned. He literally never saw his home again. Thinking about this continues to break my heart a little. Dad spent the next year or so in two group homes, where I visited him almost every day with my sons until I was placed on bed rest with my last pregnancy. My mother also visited him daily, spending most of her day with him each time.

At the time I was so angry with my mother for agreeing to move my dad away from the house he had worked two jobs to afford, away from the ocean view of which he (a Nebraska farm boy) was so proud. I was so angry in fact, that I boycotted Christmas that year. "If Dad can't come home for Christmas, I'm not going to be there either." We spent Christmas that year with my brothers at their hotel near Dad's new home.

Despite my frustration with the situation though, I always remained close with my mother. She, my brother and I were a team sharing the most intense experience possible, the protracted loss of someone we all loved deeply.

Eventually my father passed, which is another story for another time. Since his death almost 20 months ago, it has been a genuine joy to watch my mother's health - physically and emotionally - spring back into full blossom. She is a superwoman once again. She is the same vibrant, gorgeous soul that my father first fell in love with. I love any chance I get to spend time in her company, to benefit from her wisdom and also her absolute sweetness. She is teaching me by example how to age with spirit and zest.

Yesterday evening, I spent a wonderful four hours with my mother... cooking, chatting and watching a chick-flick, just as we might have done when I was growing up. I love our conversations which range from the philosophical ("What do you think happens after we die, Mom?") to the practical ("When did you start getting grey hair?").

Now that I am an adult and a mother, my mom often surprises me with anecdotes from her youth and acting career. She has stories about the time when she was briefly a Vegas showgirl running with a crowd that included the likes of Sammy Davis Jr. or about her best friend who married David Wolper, the creator of television sagas like Roots and The Thorn Birds. There seems always to be something new to learn about my mother's unusual life, and I never fail to be amazed and delighted.

At the end of the evening, my mother sat quietly at the counter while I finished clearing up the dinner dishes. Out of nowhere she spoke. "I only wish," she said, "That your father had been able to stay in this house. I don't know though. I loved him so much ~ I think it would have killed me to watch him die here."

Like a burst of light illuminating some dark recessed part of my heart, I finally understood - fully - why my mother had not fought to keep Dad at home. The many years of caring for him physically and emotionally had at the time made her fragile, vulnerable. Now that she has returned to full strength, it is easy to see the toll his sickness had taken.

Looking over at my mother with her soft brown hair and sparkling eyes sitting at the counter and staring into the void beyond me, I realized that having her still HERE, NOW is the most crucial thing. I am so grateful that mom *didn't* become one of the many caregivers who are outlived by their patients. On the spot I finally forgave her, 2000%. My mother is human. I love my mother.

Having a mother and being a mother. Arguably the two most important things that have ever happened to me. I am grateful for every moment and every conversation we have left.

January 19, 2011 ~ Day 41Cold Feet

About an hour ago I was sitting in the dreary grey afternoon watching my three children run like crazy around a grass field. For the most part, they looked pretty happy. The oldest one, whom we sometimes affectionately refer to as Mr. Moody, was elated that we were going to the park UNTIL we got to the park and he saw all of the children there. Then he reverted into negativity (Nobody is going to play with me, Nobody likes me, I want to go home) mainly due to shyness. Even he, however, ran around the grass like nuts. Sometimes it just feels good to run.

We've just made a big commitment to move to this new neighborhood, the neighborhood surrounding this aforementioned grass field and playgym. I submitted the rental application this morning and we are set to give them a deposit tomorrow. There are so many solid reasons to make this move, I should be thrilled right now.

Instead, I'm feeling anxious.

Is it the grey weather? Maybe.

I think it's more than that, though. As I looked around that same park, I didn't see a single mother that I thought "Hey, maybe we could be friends". The handful of mommies there were fashionable and well-coiffed, with professionally styled hair-dos, makeup and jewelry. They wore fancy sandals. There I was with my scuffed leather boots, blue jeans and flowered thermal shirt - sweating and thinking, "Where am I? Who ARE these people?" Like a three year old, I was overcome with the "I want to go home" feeling.

Except, this will BE our new home - at least for the next year.

Maybe I should get back to our reasons, then, for moving. I feel the need to justify the move, probably because the telephone just rang while I was with the news that our application was accepted and the house is ours for the taking. I should be thrilled and I was, temporarily, before my husband started to stress about how hard it is to move and the best way to give notice to our current landlords. Now I'm back to feeling blue and anxious.

What are we doing? Why are we doing this?

Here are the reasons:

• My husband really wants to buy a house, but with a family of five living on his single income, it is hard to save money at the end of each month toward a deposit. We rarely have anything left over. This new house will be almost $400 cheaper per month than what we currently pay. For the first time since having children, we will be able to save.


• We thought the schools in our community were the very best in the city until I started to volunteer and teach in them. As I began to talk with other parents and teachers, I quickly realized that test scores are high here due to parents and not thanks to the quality of the schools themselves. I want my kids to get a great education and to have access to the many charter and bilingual schools in the larger city district


• We chose our new neighborhood because it houses the best elementary school in the larger school district. I know this not just by reputation, I have seen it with my own eyes - both as a volunteer and also when touring the school last week. I guess that will sound confusing to anyone reading this blog who doesn't know us personally, or our town. Basically we live in a city just outside of a big city. We are leaving the little city to head back into the big city and its larger district.


• $850,000 in our current town will buy you a falling down tiny house (probably 1000 sq ft or less) with no yard or land to expand on. $850,000 in the new neighborhood will buy you a much bigger house with up to 8,000 sq feet of property. And yes, I know that $850,000 is an ungodly large sum of money no matter how you look at it. Unfortunately, that's the way it goes in our state.


• The kids will be able to keep riding their bikes to school. The new neighborhood has a main street and is strollerable


• We will still be only blocks from the ocean.


• The new neighborhood is more ethnically diverse (believe it or not!) with a high population of Latino and Asian students in addition to Caucasians like us. I'm guessing the African-American population is about the same as it is here... but you never know. When I went on the school tour one of the daddies in my group was a distinguished professional black man who teaches at the local university.


• We'll be able to walk everywhere (just like we can now) - bank, post office, homemade bread shop, bakeries, ice cream parlors, tons of restaurants, the beach. There are three local parks.


• I am very excited that we will be living in close proximity to the major university in our city. I would really like to take more classes there at night through their extension program. I am excited to know that when my children get to the local public high school, they too will be eligible to take classes through that same local university


• My husband and I both lived in this new neighborhood for years when we were first out of college - before we knew each other - and we each loved it at the time. I actually lived in the same house there for five years 1999 - 2004 until my husband whisked me off my feet and half a city away, into the more urban and arty downtown area. Had I not met him, I'm sure I would never have left.


• It is a good time for us to make a move. My son's best friend just moved to Australia weeks ago and he is desperately sad and missing her every day. He is hoping to make a fresh start and meet friends, which has proven difficult to do at his current school. He is hopeful that with a new school will come new opportunities.

There are more reasons, but I think I've justified enough... typing it all out helps to remind me why we are taking the plunge.

Like a kindergartner though, I am still scared that I won't make new friends... that I'll stick out like a sore thumb among French manicures. I've been lonely and isolated in neighborhoods before, and I don't know how long it will take for us to adapt to the new environment. I also have some big fears. Here they are:


BIG FEARS OF AN OPTIMISTIC MIDDLE CLASS CAUCASIAN AMERICAN STAY-AT-HOME MOM WHEN MOVING

• MY HUSBAND AND CHILDREN WILL HATE THE NEW NEIGHBORHOOD AND BLAME ME FOR MOVING THEM THERE.


• MY SONS WILL BE OSTRACIZED AT SCHOOL, ESPECIALLY THE SHY ONE. AS AN ADULT HE WILL TAKE TO DRINK TO EASE THE PAIN OF HIS LONELINESS....


• OUR NEW NEIGHBORS WILL SHUN US.


• WE WILL BE TERRIBLY HOMESICK FOR OUR OLD HOUSE AND FRIENDS.


• WE WILL BECOME SAD AND FRUSTRATED, CAUSING THE 5 OF US TO TURN UPON EACH OTHER AND BICKER ENDLESSLY.


• MY CHILDREN WILL SPEAK OF THIS MOVE IN THERAPY SOMEDAY AS THE EXACT POINT AT WHICH THEIR RESPECTIVE LIVES BEGAN THE TREACHEROUS DESCENT INTO INFAMY AND DESOLATION.


• IT WILL ALL BE MY FAULT.

To which, I have an elegantly simple solution:

We can always move back if we don't like it.

Sometimes to win big, you have to risk big. I hope by maintaining genuine enthusiasm and joy about our upcoming change, I will manage to infuse my kids with delight and excitement over life's many surprises and adventures. We've got every reason to be optimistic and to jump right over our fears. My mom always says there are no wrong choices in life, every decision just gives you more information about what you *do* or *don't* want.

The new place is truly wonderful and we are so lucky to have found it. Maybe if we take our shoes off and dance together in our new clover-filled back yard, my feet will begin to thaw.



Photo by bonitajamaica.com

January 17, 2011 ~ Day 39What's Inside?

I hope I won't sound judgmental when I confess that a lot of times, things look better from the outside.

Houses, for example. We've been doing a lot of serious house hunting lately and I can think of five homes off-hand that sounded a lot nicer from their description and pictures than they turned out to be in person. 'Spacious' turns out to mean the size of a shoebox; 'charming' equates to damp and moldy. "Ocean view" means a thin line of blue on the horizon from the window in the upstairs bathroom. The house that is newly painted on the outside turns out to have termites and problems with the electrical system.

I reflected on this for a while today after spending three more unproductive hours searching for the perfect house for my family. Looking deeper to find the truth about a person or situation is actually a crucial concept that I want to teach my children, especially if we are moving into a wealthy community where many of their classmates are likely to have expensive toys, designer clothing, ample money for extracurricular activities including sports and language lessons, and multiple family vacations around the world each year. My children could easily develop the sense that life is better with an iPad and a birthday trip to Paris... I want to teach them how to sense if a family is honorable and compassionate, and how to find a true friend.

I guess what I'm saying is, I want to show them how to look beneath the surface.

A lot of things in life look better from the outside than they truly are. Relationships, for example. Marriages always seem perfect to me from the outside, probably because I am both an optimist AND a romantic. I am typically shocked when any of the couples we know break up or get divorced. "They seemed so happy," I will kvetch to my husband. "Honestly, is *anyone* safe from splitting up in this day and age?"

Usually though I'll later find out through the grapevine (or perhaps over a glass of the crushed-fermented-aged fruit of several grapevines!) that the couple in question had experienced infidelity or endless fighting or, worse, a total evaporation of love... and I learn yet again that what looked ideal from the outside actually had a lot of cracks and fissures just waiting for an earthquake.

One great example of something that I thought would be heavenly but which actually turned out to be disastrous was my college education. In a nutshell, my parents mortgaged their home and postponed their retirement so that I could benefit from what we all assumed would be a superior education at the fancy big-name university that I attended in the '90s. I remember the end of my senior year of high school, after I had been offered and accepted admission, daydreaming about how great it was going to be at this school. I imagined that it would be socially and academically stimulating, full of freedom and choice, exciting and leading toward a perfect future.

In my vision, all of the college boys were intelligent, handsome and honorable; all of the girls were friendly, loyal and outgoing. The food must surely be delicious, since the dorm menu was so extremely expensive. The dorms themselves would be clean and private - after all, living in the dorm cost more than renting an apartment in the local community.

What a joke! Not that I'm still bitter, but it became evident fairly quickly to my parents and me that we were paying for the name and prestige of the university rather than high quality education, accommodations or meals. Many of my classes were huge sections with 600 students or more, where my only point of contact would be a graduate student TA who cared more about their own research than my ability to learn.

I was honestly surprised at how much trouble I had meeting friends who were similar to me in either upbringing or values. My freshman roommates were each quite wonderful but beyond that, I spent a lot of my four years searching for kindred spirits and feeling forlorn. I will freely admit though that I did not take advantage of all of the incredible academic opportunities available on campus, something I very much regret in hindsight.

My childhood friends - also away at college - were always surprised to hear how disconnected I felt from my university, how ardently I missed our hometown. "It's like a hollow crystal ball," I tried to explain to them, "It looks shiny and sparkly from the outside but for me, there is only emptiness."

Other examples of things that appeared glorious but turned out to be rotten: interning for Conde Nast publications in NYC, working at a high-end law firm, dating a variety of handsome/athletic men who were more in love with themselves than me, owning our first home, the experience of pregnancy, living in a 2200 sq ft home. (Too much space, too much cleaning!!!)

Is perfection really so great? It's easy to mistrust anything that seems too perfect, and mothers often bond deeply over the confidential sharing of flawed reality. When I see my friends taking expert care of their good looking and healthy children, I often feel a surge of self-doubt and jealousy which distances me from sharing the details of my own well intentioned parenting failures. Over the years I've developed a healthy sense of self-deprecation about parenting; teasing about my own weaknesses as a mother actually makes them easier to bear.

That said, I feel incredible closeness to any mother who shares her personal struggles openly. Somehow knowing that ours is not the only family where laundry piles up, parents bicker over the household budget and children watch the dreaded television while their mother cooks dinner every night... it helps to know that many other women are like me and that we are all in this noble struggle together.

Parenthood is one of those murky grey areas where it seemed much simpler from the outside than it really is BUT it still manages to be even more rewarding and fulfilling than I ever anticipated. My husband and I often muse that if we had known just how hard it was going to be or how much it would change us, our dreams, our friendships and even our time with each other, we might not have done it quite so fast. Yet, we wouldn't trade our little children for all of the treasure in the world. (They ARE our treasure.)

There is an important flip side to this realization that many things in life are not as polished, comfortable, loving or solid as they seem.

The flip side is that many things turn out to be much, much better than they appeared from the outside.

My husband and I once rented a house for two years that was totally nondescript from the outside. An olive green colored stucco with high bushes and a lawn often full of weeds in front, it didn't look like much to speak of. Yet when you entered the home you were immediately greeted by gorgeous hardwood floors, intriguing arched doorways, brightly colored walls and French doors leading onto an incredible wooden deck that overlooked an even more incredible, vast back yard with a fountain, a lawn, a vegetable garden and a stunning panoramic view into the canyon below. There was even a guest cottage in the back with its own bathroom, tiled floor and lovely view.

No-one would EVER have guessed from the outside that our little home was so amazing. I loved this about our place. It was our own secret treasure, a place adored by us but coveted by none.

Here is another, more important example. My husband and I did not fall in love at first sight. In fact, we knew each other for nine months before we went on our first date. Neither of us saw the other from across a crowded room for the first time and thought, "Wow, that's THE ONE!" I know it happens for lots of people, but that just isn't the way it happened for us.

Instead, we had a complicated beginning where we slowly became friends while watching each other go on dates and hook up with other people. We spent long hours talking, debating, listening to music and sometimes going out in groups together. We went on a score of "friend dates" with each other, eating dinner and watching movies side by side. Each of us experienced jealousy at different points while watching each other flirting with or desiring other people. We even had a significant falling out once.

Somehow though, as the months passed, it began to dawn on both of us that there was something deeper there between us that seemed more vital and exciting than the connection we were making with the other people we'd been dating. The realization struck us at different times that we were falling for each other. After several fits and starts, with the encouragement of two of our closest friends, we finally managed to kiss one night after a BBQ. The rest, as they say, was history. We went on our first "real" date a few days later and have been together ever since.

The moral here kids (for someday, our kids will read these words), is that sometimes it takes getting to know the inside of a person or situation to understand just how amazing he/she/it really is.

No matter how you look at it then, it's rarely wise to make snap judgments. The situation that looked dreamy-fantastic at first blush might turn out to be a total nightmare. That scruffy looking eccentric musician with holes in his pants and stains on his old band T-shirt might just turn out to be the love of your life!

By investing the time and patience to learn things from the inside you may find yourself blessed both with clear vision AND something that sparkles from within.

January 16, 2011 ~ Day 38 Oh, Sister...

We're in so much trouble.

I've known it was coming on for a while, but now it is official.

Yesterday morning I was jarred out of deep slumber by the sound of a huge thump followed by blood curdling screaming. Jumping out of bed with a surge of adrenalin, I flung my daughter's bedroom door open and saw to my horror that she was nowhere to be seen as HER WOODEN CHANGING TABLE WAS LAYING ON TOP OF HER. Without time to think at all I dove into the room, wrenched the table off of her 18 month old body and cradled her - still on the floor - without moving her. I wasn't sure if she had sustained any injuries to her skull or spine and I didn't want to risk hurting her further. I kissed her head as she screamed and thanked God that she was able to scream at all.

Within moments she had jumped up into my arms (HUGE RELIEF to see her move!) and commenced wailing like a banshee. I cuddled and consoled her as she continued to scream and I watched her upper lip begin to fatten and swell. Other than the fat lip, no other marks from the changing table could be seen on her body. I thank heaven that the table itself is very lightweight and there was nothing at all on it when it toppled over.

Hmmm.... well, that's not quite right.

There WAS something on the wooden changing table when it fell.

There was a 19 month old little girl who thinks she is a CHIMPANZEE climbing on the table when it fell!

What was she doing up there? one might ask. It's been many months since she has had her diaper changed up there, as she is physically too large to fit on it.

As it turns out, our daughter was PEELING WALLPAPER FLOWERS OFF OF HER WALL when she stumbled and crashed. At 19 months she somehow initiated and followed through on a plan to retrieve paper flowers located a full five or six feet off the ground.

To get a good visual of this, let's rewind and imagine the morning from her perspective.

"Hmmmm... the big humans are really slow getting me out of this room again. I'm bored. I wonder what I can do while I wait for them."

She looks around, eager to find a project.

"Wow, look up there. I see flowers. Hey, those flowers look like they would be fun to play with. I think I'll climb up and get that blue one."

The child who is thin, wiry and weighs only 23 pounds manages to hoist herself up to the top of the table, standing on her tip toes to reach the flowers in question.

"Just about got it.... Almost there... just a little further..."

The table wobbles and she loses balance. "Oh crud!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" She falls, with the table cascading on top of her.

"OMG! I can't move! The climbing thing is on top of me! That hurts!!!! Drats, I didn't even get the flower off the wall completely! Ack... HELPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!"

I am infinitely thankful that our little girl is okay, with only the fat lip to show for her most recent misadventure.

That said, this is really just the icing on the cake... the last several weeks have shown us a whole new side of her character. Here are some of the clues that worry me:

• She hits her older brothers, pulls their hair, steals their food and laughs hysterically


• She throws toys and plates, watches them break and laughs hysterically


• She punches me in the face and even head-butts me - hard! - while I change her diaper and then laughs hysterically


• She climbs up to the highest part of bar stools, counters, tables, stands on her toes, rocks back and forth and laughs hysterically


• Every time she earns a one-minute time out she flashes a huge grin and, you guessed it, laughs hysterically

Yesterday she ran into the street after a balsa wood airplane. Two days ago she threw a tantrum so impressive at the elementary school we were touring I didn't know whether to laugh, cry or applaud. It involved actual stomping of feet, laying on the ground kicking and screaming at the top of her lungs, throwing things and trying to hit and kick me when I attempted to lift her. I must have apologized to the school principal (who was leading the tour) at least ten times. (Just another reminder of how humbling parenthood can be.)

I'm also more than a tad concerned by her obvious adoration of much-older boys. By this you may think I mean boys around her brothers' age... 3 or 5 years old. Unfortunately, I actually mean that she focuses with puppy-like devotion to men in their early twenties, for example grocery shelf stockers and cashiers. When she sees one that she likes I have noticed that she fixates upon whichever guy it happens to be, smiling and staring until she finally makes eye contact. As soon as she has won his attention she really turns on the charm and bats her uber-long eyelashes.

"You're trouble..." one bag boy told her recently - and I sighed because (a) It is creepy that he noticed her flirty manners, given that he looked to be about 23 years old... and (b) I know that he is right.

So, all in all, what qualities are we looking at here?

Strong willed. Smart (Possibly in a criminal kind of way. She steals food and toys, frequently). Stubborn. Feisty. Adventurous. Mischievous. Violent. Angry. Flirty. Destructive. Loud! Possibly quite Pretty, someday...

... and she isn't even two yet.

Have I mentioned that we are in a world of trouble? We're in our mid-thirties and yet having a really hard time keeping a 19 month old out of mischief right now when she's still relatively small and vulnerable! What will it be like in 10 and 20 years? This girl appears to be a dynamo arrived to challenge us at the deepest level.

My husband and I have been told that female children are the hardest to raise during their teens. This terrifies both of us. It's been hard enough to keep her safe already, and she's just a toddler. I cannot imagine what it is going to be like when she is sixteen and asking to take the car or go out on a date.

Hubby has a solution for this:

"My daughter is not allowed to look at men," her daddy insists. "Ever."

Just then she turns to us and grins beatifically, as though butter wouldn't melt in her mouth.

"My daughter is not allowed to go on dates with anyone, ever." He smiles. "She'll just stay home and read books, right?"

Well, at least he has a sense of humor about our impending doom.

We love you Little One. Please stop climbing on the furniture and running into the road before mommy's hair turns white and daddy's falls out completely.




(Photo of someone else's fussy toddler by Life 123.Com)

January 14, 2011 ~ Day 36 Eager S.A.H.M. seeks H (house!)

I can't stop checking Craigslist.

It's bordering on an obsession, as I scan for new homes listed. Even though logically I understand that a new home has probably *not* been listed for rent or sale since I ate lunch about twenty minutes ago, I find myself impatiently checking out the listings yet again.

We've recently decided to make a big move, or at least to be open to making a big move. My husband feels strongly that now is the time to get into the housing market if we can figure out how to make it happen - but the catch is, we can't afford to do it in the community where we currently live. Even a teardown here runs up to a million dollars or more.

Given the inside view I've now had of our neighborhood schools though, backed up by conversations with lots of local residents and even my younger child's preschool teachers, we feel comfortable going forward with a move to a different community. All public schools are suffering gravely right now from the ongoing California budget cuts, but the two neighborhoods we are looking at have enough parent support to essentially make up the fiscal difference. Moving away may even be moving UP as far as education for our children is concerned.

This week I attended three elementary school orientations and there was one school that stood out ~ head and shoulders above the rest. In fact, it was so clear that I telephoned my husband immediately and told him, "Honey, I don't think we have to look any more. This is it."

Even with an outstanding public school in the neighborhood, the move will not be simple. We either have to find the right home for sale or the perfect rental, a decision that will hopefully support our family and keep us thriving for many years to come. Whether it is a rental or our own place, we know we'll be sacrificing about 1000 square feet of living space for the privilege of moving into this new community. The houses there are simply smaller, more like cottages.

On top of that, I learned at the park today that preschools in that neighborhood have waiting lists that are years-long. Years. Apparently I should have considered putting younger son on the waiting list for preschool before he was conceived, rather than calling yesterday for a spontaneous admission. All of this is very different than what I am accustomed to - in our relatively laid-back community you simply apply in January for a spot in the Fall, and usually by March you've been accepted.

I'm also looking around at our house thinking that this is the perfect time to de-clutter everything. I'm already imagining how to sell all of our baby furniture, give away half of the kids clothes to Amvets or the Good Will, and store all of my teaching supplies since I'm not likely to be using them soon at this rate.

My heart is racing and I feel both excited and anxious, like I'm about to run a race.

More deeply, I feel a worry common to all parents. Are we making the right choice? Is this the right neighborhood? Will our children thrive? Will we regret this move when we look back some day? Will this be the best decision of our lives, or perhaps the worst?

It is very hard to leave our present home and community where we have put down deep roots and fallen in love with the lifestyle. I have a handful of incredibly close friends in this neighborhood, people I would do anything for that I am convinced would also do anything for me. I don't want to leave them!

If you haven't figured it out by now (Day 36) I am a traditionalist - a creature of habit - a packrat. I have trouble getting rid of even the least savory of my sons' art projects from preschool because the mere fact of their existence has meaning to me. It is always very hard for me to say goodbye and make changes, unless I have been truly unhappy. I am not truly unhappy here, in fact I have mostly loved living here. It just doesn't appear to be in the cards for us to remain in this community long term. We're rapidly approaching a "No guts, No glory" moment.

These are the opportunities when it is most essential to trust in a plan that is bigger than us, bigger than our family unit or even our dreams. Time to pray that we will be guided into the right home in the right place for the right price, with an adequate preschool option and plenty of things to be optimistic about. I'm also praying that whatever move will bless our family will also bless those around us.

No matter what happens though, I take comfort in knowing that wherever we end up and however it looks, we'll still have each other. I remind the kids that home is wherever the five of us are together in one place. In the end, being together is the only thing which truly matters.

January 13, 2011 ~ Day 35 Love That Lasts

Tonight my husband and I were lucky enough to enjoy a rare and much appreciated date! Thanks to the warm and gracious babysitting of my mother-in-law and her dear friend, we were able to flee the coop and eat a meal where we neither had to shop for the food, prepare it, or clean our dishes and pans. Heavenly.

After dinner we went to see "Blue Valentine", a romantic drama starring two pretty incredible actors from our own generation. The story itself, about a young married couple with a small child, was deeply engrossing for us and we thought the acting was sensational. The film raised a lot of questions about love, marriage and family that we ended up discussing over our entire drive home.

In the film the characters have encountered a rough spot in their relationship. (This does not give anything away about the film, as you feel the tension between them from the first two or three minutes of the movie.) One wonders immediately if they will sink or swim.

As we headed back to our house I thought about the characters from the film, and about the idea of a love that weathers all storms and lasts a lifetime. It made me reflect deeply upon my own parents' marriage which lasted for 34 years until my father's death.

I think the most important thing I learned from my mom and dad about marriage is true love means staying open to falling in love over and over again with the same person.

When my parents met in 1974, they were both dishy in their own ways. If I do say so myself, and I do, I think each of my folks was a catch. Dad was a tall, athletic Midwesterner transplanted to southern California for its amazing weather and beaches. He loved running, boogie boarding, playing frisbee, swimming and doing pull-ups. As far back as I can remember, my dad always seemed to be stretching to get ready to exercise. He was also a talented musician and a brilliant guy in general, recruited as an officer with the US Navy who worked in cryptography breaking codes in Washington DC during the Korean War thanks to his sharp and fast mind. By the time he met my mother, he was also a newly tenured professor of music specializing in violin and viola. With his gentle manners and kind heart, it was easy to overlook the blatant '70s comb-over hairdo (Dad, what were you thinking???) and thick framed glasses to see his sparkling blue eyes.

Mom was a goddess. With her smoldering looks and dedication she achieved real success in Hollywood at a relatively young age, and was busy pursuing her career in television when she met Dad. She was patient, considerate, warm and full of life. She enjoyed cooking and baking, and kept my old-school father in such tremendous comfort... sewing, crafting, painting, wallpapering and creating a beautiful home for the family. She ironed my father's shirts and pants, starching his collars and making sure he looked well coiffed every single day. She kept the family budget and kept us on track, still managing to give us the small extras whenever she could. She was (and still is) an incredible mother, not only to her own kids but also to my father's two sons whom she loved as her own. Despite the lack of a college education she kept up with my father in every single capacity and was clearly his intellectual equal. It was a great match, mainly because they had similar expectations of the role of husband and wife in a marriage and they were both deeply appreciative of the unique skills the other brought to the table.

Over time, life did what life does. It changed both of them in ways that were unexpected. It tested their love at every turn, with every new age and stage.

Here are some of the challenges my parents faced together during their marriage:

• Combining two families


• Unexpected pregnancy late in life... starting over with diapers and bottles at 50? Yikes!


• Raising teenagers


• Mortgaging their home to pay for (my) college


• Empty Nest syndrome


• Retirement


• Alzheimer's Disease

I can remember coming home from college on a holiday break during the first part of the "Retirement" stage of their marriage - when my mother seemed ready to jump out of her skin. "Your father is ALWAYS around!" she sighed. "I have no space or peace anymore." Accustomed to spending long hours on her own reading, writing, crafting, cleaning and generally enjoying an undisturbed environment, mom was a little freaked out to have dad underfoot 24/7.

Suddenly the alone time she had enjoyed Monday thru Friday from 8 until 5 for the first twenty years of their marriage had vanished - Dad liked to watch noisy baseball, football, basketball games and the news. He played talk radio and music loudly, so that they could be heard all over the house. He was probably a little bored, and he constantly wanted to see if she felt like taking a walk, going for a drive, doing something together.

My normally patient mother had become frustrated and a little stressed out, unsure of how to grapple with the change in her role and her sphere of influence. She was irritated with him and anxious to get out of the house, so she began to go 'shopping' nearly every day - shopping being something my father hated to do, so this could win her back some privacy for a while.

At the time, I wondered what was going to happen to my folks... would they survive this new physical proximity day-in and day-out?

However when I next visited several months later, a change had taken place. Mom and dad could not have been more affectionate with each other. Suddenly they were holding hands all of the time, smiling and laughing and acting like couple of newlyweds. What happened? I couldn't figure out how such a significant change had taken place. I watched them carefully, suspiciously, wondering what was going on.

After a few days though, the truth hit me. My folks were in love! Not that they had been OUT of love before... but quite clearly, they had fallen IN love with each other all over again. Somehow they had managed to work through their different ideas of personal space and find a middle ground that worked for them both. Leaving the awkward transitional phase behind, they had re-established the boundaries of their marriage around the ample time and flexibility my father's retirement afforded. After more than twenty years of marriage, they were acting like a couple of infatuated teenagers again.

This is just one of the many times that I watched my folks renegotiate the terms of their 34 year marriage and find a way to appreciate the best in each other as they continued to grow and change. I never asked exactly how they did it ~ Did they talk it out? Did they fight? Did they take a little space? Did they get more intimate, or find more common hobbies? Whatever they did, it really worked for them and I was lucky to witness a renaissance of love between two of the most important people in my life.

I feel so lucky to have watched and learned from my mom and dad. My husband and I are working on nine years together, a tiny fraction of the time my own parents devoted to each other... and theirs was a late marriage. Yet already we have both evolved significantly as people. Our priorities, dreams and even lifestyle have shifted so much since our mid-twenties. We continue to learn from each other and to grow as individuals and also as a family. Yet, we have so much left to discover, so many lessons left to experience together during the next 50 years or so.

I'm grateful to have the example of my folks to turn to. No matter how many times throughout the coming years my husband and I may need to adapt and adjust to each other ~ no matter how many times we will witness new things to love and appreciate about each other, it IS possible to fall in love again and again with the same person... and it is truly worthwhile.

January 12, 2011 ~ Day 34 Second Chances

Today I read the text of President Obama's eulogy for the men, women and most tragically - child - shot and murdered last Saturday at a grocery store in Arizona as they waited to meet and chat with their local congresswoman.

The thing I really loved about his speech was its focus on the lives and values of the victims... not the fact that they died, but the fact that they *lived*, loved and believed. Their lives stood for something. As I read about the values, dreams and love stories of those who are no longer with us I wept. Even though I'd never met any of those folks I felt as though they could have been my own friends, neighbors, grandparents, students or child.

I've been disillusioned for a long time with our president and his actions, even though I worked ardently to get him elected just a little over two years ago. This speech brought back to me a sense of what I myself had hoped and worked for back in 2008. A sense that our country could be united rather than divided by engaging in an open dialogue where none of the parties are demonized for their differing points of view. I believed in 2008 that Obama would be a uniter, a moderate.

I feel today like maybe I can give Obama a second chance to be the president I once believed in.

All of this reminds me that we can always choose to turn the page. It's often worth taking another look at a person or an issue to see if, despite past failings, there isn't room in our hearts to care and try again.

Romantic relationships give a lot of opportunities for this kind of thing. Who among us doesn't have at least one friend whose happy marriage or long-term relationship is based on a second chance. People meet, they fall in love, they get together. Something happens, they break up. Then later, they find their way back together and realize that they both feel a strong sense of destiny or a deeper love... and finally, they choose to marry and spend the rest of their lives together. I personally know of at least six couples close to our family where this was the case - who now have happy, healthy, contented marriages based on second chances.

There are so many kinds of second chances in life... they happen for all of us, every single day. The police officer who pulled me over on Monday didn't take away my license or my car ~ she gave me the second chance to be a better driver (enforced by the payment of a hefty fine and hopefully, traffic school). My children don't picket and walk out of my life every time we have a rough day together, they awaken fresh each day without judgment and give me the chance to be a better mother. My older sister didn't write me off even during the 3? years when I immaturely chose not to speak to or interact with her... and one could argue that she really should have. Instead she chose to wait patiently for me to grow up and then gave me a second chance.

I've rarely been one for holding a grudge, so maybe I am also the queen of (giving) second chances. In some situations I suppose this has made me look like a bit of a pushover. When we were first dating my husband told me that he thought I was too nice to others, that I should toughen up a little. He was probably right. That said, I still believe that everyone deserves the opportunity to grow and become the best of themselves. Just because a friend has let me down once a long time ago does not mean that they don't have the capacity to become an amazing and dedicated friend for the rest of my life. In the same vein, I've definitely managed to let each of my own best friends down at some point or another along the way during the past twenty years or more... and they have been so gracious and generous about continuing to love me despite my many obvious character flaws. I am so lucky and so grateful for these friends.

How does the old cliche go? To err is human, to forgive divine.

I'm not arguing here that there should be third, fourth or fifth chances. I wouldn't take it that far. I'm also not saying that it is right to let someone back into your life who has been abusive in any way. Physical, sexual and emotional abuse should really be a zero-tolerance kind of thing in my opinion. If my husband ever hurt me or one of our children (which he would NEVER do because he is such a gentle spirited and kind man) we would be out the door immediately, forever.

A second chance though ~ when there has been no abuse, just disappointment ~ in most cases this seems pretty reasonable.

Every day that you take the time to read through this column, you are giving me a second chance to be a better and more thoughtful writer. I know that some days I let you down, and I am truly sorry. For a variety of reasons (fatigue, stress, distractions, noise and chaos in my house) I am not always on my game. I sincerely apologize and for those of you that keep coming back to read my musings on the meaning of life I am truly grateful. Thank you so much for giving me the continued opportunity to find my voice ~ and for valuing it enough to keep reading.

May this column bring you a day full of second chances, both given and received.

January 11, 2011 ~ Day 33 Intuition

Have you ever known someone with the ability to see or sense things intuitively? I know a few of these people and it never fails to amaze me. One of them is a close family member who I can call at any time if I have misplaced my keys or something important (a document, my purse, etc.) and that person can tell me exactly where my belongings are. As in, "I see your keys stuffed underneath a couch pillow toward the springs" and sure enough, when I go check, there they are.

I have another close friend that can tell what time of day it is at any given moment without looking at a watch, clock or the Sun.

I am not sure if intuitive gifts are a blessing or a curse. About a year ago I met a physician that confided in our conversation that since childhood she had been able to predict the exact date and time of people's deaths. "It's gotten stronger as I have grown older," she said, "And recently I've been able to guess not only the day but also the hour down to within ten minutes." (She thought I would live a long life, so I've got about sixty years left apparently to find out if she was right in my case or just a really creative and optimistic thinker.)

I left that appointment feeling grateful that I do not have her gift. It would be devastating to know the exact time and date that I was going to lose my mother, husband, siblings, close friends or children. Ignorance is bliss, as long as you live every day as though it *could* be the last... just so as not to waste any time with the ones you love.

I myself do not have the gift of a keen intuition, although I hear it can be honed or developed. However when I was younger - before the invention of Caller ID - I could always tell by the way my telephone rang who was on the other end of the line. I wonder if I could still do that these days, if I got really centered inside of myself. I guess I'll never know because we *do* have Caller ID now... so my own small intuitive skill has become obsolete thanks to modern technology.

If I had to ask myself what I think about a sixth sense or gift of intuition, I guess I do believe that there is some form of unspoken communication that all of us have the ability to tap into. I just don't know what it is or how it works.

Sometimes I dream about things before they actually happen, or I experience Déjà Vu where it feels like I'm in a place where I've been before. That is always the strangest feeling!

As a related aside, did you ever see Keanu Reeves' movie "The Matrix"? I liked how they explained Déjà Vu as an error in the computer run program of our lives:

Trinity: "A déjà vu is usually a glitch in the Matrix. It happens when they change something."

There are a lot of inexplicable things in relationships, like the way you sometimes feel upon meeting someone for the first time that you've known them before. I once surprised an long-distance boyfriend for the weekend and weirdly he was already expecting me and had cleaned his room. "I had a feeling when I woke up this morning that I was going to be seeing you very soon," he explained.

Most mothers and fathers will also agree that parenting comes with a special kind of intuition... beyond just noticing when the house is suddenly too quiet. Just a few weeks ago I had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach about my daughter and raced upstairs to find her standing fully clothed in the bathtub with hot water coming toward her toes. She started screaming as soon as she saw me (probably guessed she had done something naughty) but luckily she was totally unharmed. I don't understand how I knew that something was wrong. Somehow I just did.

I would be so interested to know what my friends, family and Readers think about the topic of intuition. We use the language of intuition frequently, for example, "My gut says that we should do it," or "I had the sense that something unfortunate was about to happen", but I'm not sure how many people really buy into an 'inner knowing' or the idea of a sixth sense. It would be fascinating to know if others have ever had interesting experiences with their own intuition!

January 10, 2011 ~ Day 32 Action: Reaction

When the police officer pulled me over today for talking on my cell phone while driving (without a hands-free device) my primal response was to throw the cell phone into the back seat of the car. It landed about a foot away from my daughter's carseat, and she started pointing at the phone and saying "Mama! Mama! Ownnnn, Ownnn!" Ha!

The officer, who was a lady, tried hard to keep a straight face as she asked me, "Did you honestly think I would believe you weren't talking on the phone when I just saw you with my own eyes?"

She sounded so much like me, talking to my children, that I grinned as I shook my head and said, "I'm sorry. I panicked."

"Just tell the truth," she advised, "And everything will be fine."

If that isn't laugh-out-loud funny, I don't know what is. Long story short, she was pretty laid back and friendly about the whole thing once she figured out that I was simply an irresponsible soccer mom and not a menace either to society or my daughter - who was thankfully safely buckled into her car seat and singing away.

On the way home I explained to my daughter that mommy got a time-out from the officer for doing something naughty.

The worst part, beyond the money and time that will be spent on traffic school, was having to tell my husband about my citation. I am very lucky that he laughed at me and reminded me that he's had a moving violation of his own recently. Still, I feel pretty silly about the whole thing.

It reminded me again of that story about The Farmer's Luck though, and how you never know what is good luck and what is bad luck since they're so closely linked. I had the feeling that maybe the officer had saved my daughter and I from an accident on the freeway, which we were just about to enter when I got pulled over. Who knows, maybe I would have been blathering away on the telephone and gotten side swiped by a big rig. Anything is possible.

As you may imagine I drove very slowly and carefully home, making sure to stop for a full three seconds at every single stop sign. This gave me a lot of extra time to think and I spent much of it pondering how each choice we make in life affects the outcome of everything. Even the choices that seem very small.

I couldn't help but think that if my husband hadn't found and plugged in my cell phone yesterday while cleaning out the car, it wouldn't have caught my eye as I went out the front door today... I wouldn't have put it into my purse, and then when I got the urge to call my mother while driving the car, I wouldn't have been able to do it until I got home. Would this have prevented the ticket?

Yet, what if the ticket was inevitable? What if I was destined to get pulled over today no matter what... and the fact that my husband DID clean out the car prevented the officer from thinking I was a suspicious character or unfit mother when she pulled me over?

It really sets your head spinning to think about how for every single action there is a reaction... every decision I have ever made in my life has brought me to where I am at this exact moment and sometimes even the decisions of other people hugely influence my own fate. In the same vein, I guess that every decision I make - large or small - has the potential to impact everyone I encounter in my life as well.

A little girl in Arizona won a school election last week and was elected to the Student Council. Christina Taylor-Green was just nine years old. Two days ago, still aglow with her election victory, she agreed to attend a grocery store "meet and greet" to say hello to her local Congresswoman. As two recently elected female representatives, they had something in common!

As it turned out, a deranged gunman happened to be attending that same event with a fully loaded automatic weapon.

Tragically, 9 year old Christina was in the wrong place at the wrong time and she was shot and killed along with many others at that Arizona grocery store. Which makes me think about the week leading up to her student body victory. What if she had lost that election? What if she had never decided to run for student council at all? Would she still have attended the meet and greet at the grocery store? Would she be alive today? What if she had decided to sleep in or play with a friend that morning instead?

This kind of thinking makes my head spin. They say hindsight is 20:20 but I guess that only works if you are still alive at the end of the day.

When I look for the meaning of life in all of this, the main message transmitted into my brain is

Action: Reaction

Our actions matter, and every single thing we do in life has consequences - many of which are positive. I guess what I take away with me from all of these events is that it is important to be both thoughtful and intuitive about the way we go about life on a daily basis. You can't live in fear that you'll make a wrong choice, but it is still important to be conscious that even small choices like talking on a cell phone can make a large impact in the big picture.

January 9, 2011 ~ Day 31Waiting

I am the kind of person who likes things wrapped up neatly in boxes, with clean lines and clear divisions. Shades of grey are not my thing. I've always been a fairly self-motivated, proactive person... so if I decide to do a thing, I typically invest myself 200% and get the job done without hesitation. If I decide to go after a new career path, I send out fifty resumes within 24 hours. If I decide to move to a new city, I make a plan and execute it - or sometimes I have simply moved to a city spontaneously with no plan at all. On the rare occasions when I have fallen in love it has generally hit me like a bolt of lightning rather than a slow burn, and I always knew after a single date if I wanted to pursue a relationship or not. Over time I've learned that most people do not operate like this.

I live by Yoda's credo: Do, or Do Not. There is no Try.

This is why the two major life lessons I seem to be working out this time around - Patience and Faith - are pretty tough for me. I'm not good at sitting in limbo, I never have been. I'm a "want it and want it NOW" kind of kid, I have trouble taking a deep breath and hanging on.

So far it seems like my 30s have been one big episode of 'hurry up and wait'. There are a lot of things I actively yearn for ~ things we are / I am working toward right now. Buying a home. Returning to excellent health. Getting our kids safely and successfully through childhood. Having time to volunteer. Planning world travel. Attending graduate school. Returning to work.

I think as a stay-at-home mother I've ended up putting a lot of things on hold while I focus my time and attention upon the three most important beings in my world. I love my role and I wouldn't trade the time I have with my kiddos for anything. That said, there is so much waiting involved with parenting. I waited approximately nine months each for these sweet, fractious little creatures to emerge from the womb. Just when we thought it would get easier, my husband and I realized that we would have to wait for several more months until they actually slept through the night. We waited for them to hit milestones like walking, talking, playing with other children, graduating from car seats to booster seats.

Most of my waking hours now consist of a lot of rushing tempered by a lot of waiting. I wait to pick my children up from school, wait for them to take their naps, wait for them to calm down so I can understand why they are having a tantrum. I wait for them to recover from illnesses, wait for hours in the doctor's office to get them vaccines and antibiotics, wait until my husband gets home from work so I can get ten minutes in the bathroom by myself to shower without a child hanging on my leg. I wait until they've gone to bed at night to work on cleaning the house, read or write, make telephone calls, catch up with my husband.

Right now I am waiting for the precious gift of time and space... hoping that we can find a babysitter or grandparent to cover us for just three hours sometime in the next week or so because I am desperate to get out of the house and go out for dinner or to see a movie. Childless people don't know the amazing FREEDOM they have to come and go as they please... they have no reason to consider how agonizing it can be to wait days and weeks just to have a few hours on their own or alone with their life partner.

Buying a house is a real act of patience and faith too. Getting pre-qualified for a loan takes time and investigation, finding the right broker to work with... then searching for the right neighborhood, the right house, the right price. To do it well may take months, and even so, we may ultimately decide against buying right now at all. I foresee ample taking of deep breaths, meditating, going for long relaxing walks and learning to take everything with a grain of salt as I practice detachment from the outcome.

Sometimes there is waiting for the other shoe to drop (and hoping it doesn't)... for example, this week I will also have a follow-up visit with my rheumatologist who will once again be checking me for signs of autoimmune disease progression. I am feeling very well overall and have no reason to believe that anything new is going wrong at this moment, but the simple act of waiting for my appointment with him is a little nerve-wracking. I find myself wondering what he will say, what the blood tests will reveal, whether I will have a fairly clean bill of health for another six months. There is a lot of waiting involved with healthcare and healing.

Waiting is a universal challenge. I'm sure even back in prehistoric times, cave people got sick of waiting for each other to finish sharpening sticks, return from a hunt, or wrap up paintings on stone walls. Even in today's fast-paced, technology-streamlined world every human is obliged to wait at some point during their busy day whether it be in highway traffic or in line at the bank.

So in thinking about the meaning of life in today's article, it occurred to me that part of the deeper meaning of life can be found in learning how to find true peace in the middle of uncertainty... how to relax while waiting.

As I've said I'm not an expert on patience. Waiting is something I'm really working on getting better at, so I am not yet at a place where I can offer any big answers. Over the years though, I've made a few notes about things that have helped me to wait more gracefully and optimistically for big life events to take place. Here are some of the best ones.

• Drink water. Sometimes when I'm feeling most anxious it turns out that I am also dehydrated. Drinking water is something few people do enough of, so it probably won't hurt and it might make you feel a whole lot better. I would venture a guess that drinking water probably helps people to wait more calmly than drinking beer.


• Exercise. According to the Mayo Clinic, exercise not only improves your mood and boosts your immunity, it also boosts your energy level, helps you to achieve a healthy weight, sleep better, have fun and... ahem... enhance your sex life. Exercising also fills time when you might be sitting around feeling anxious by a telephone, waiting for an important call.


• Journal. This can be a tricky one because you don't want to fixate on anything that might increase your general anxiety level. However if you use your journal as a tool to release the jumble of thoughts in your head keeping you awake at night, that would be a proactive way to give your mind some peace as you wait. Just don't spend a lot of time re-reading your entries... no sense stewing!


• Stay busy. My husband used to go on tour for up to five weeks at a time with his old band and I learned very quickly that the best way to watch the days fly by during his absence was to fill my own schedule so full that I barely had any down time at home in which to miss him. In those days I would work long days and then go out every night with my girlfriends. I find the "stay busy" trick works even better now that we have three children because my kids actually keep me so occupied during the day that 14 hour stretches fly by just in caring for their basic needs - food, transportation, attention, love, cleanliness and entertainment.


• Make lists. I definitely feel better when I make lists of all of the things I need to accomplish in the coming weeks and months until a big event may take place, and then checking off each small item as I achieve it. For example, pregnancy gave me a lot of items to check off on my lists before the babies arrived... like attending doctor appointments, interviewing doulas, taking birth classes, creating a birth plan, packing a hospital bag, picking out books, pictures and music to have near me during labor, etc. There were hundreds of tiny things to take care of to create the baby's room alone. By making lists and then placing neat lines through each bullet point as I accomplished it, I was able to feel less anxious about waiting for each baby to arrive.


• Prepare for the Worst, but Expect the Best. While it never hurts to have an umbrella handy on a rainy day, miracles happen all of the time. It's worth remembering that fact and seeking evidence of the miraculous in ordinary life. That said, making the physical and emotional preparations for a less-than-wonderful outcome will have the effect of propelling you forward and keeping you from getting stuck in worry or sorrow as you wait.

As we head into a new week of waiting then, I hope any of these ideas can be of use or comfort to you. If I discover any additional helpful strategies to help find inner peace during times of uncertainty, I'll be sure to share them.

January 8, 2011 ~ Day 30 What Himmelman Says...

"In the case of a moth eclosing from a tight cocoon, it is essential that it squeeze out. I read an account in which a well-meaning human, in an attempt to help the moth, cut open the cocoon to make its exit easier, like helping a chick break out of its shell. However, the moth came out severely deformed. Squeezing out of a cocoon is part of the process it has evolved over the millenia. Perhaps it is necessary to push out excess fluids."

-From "Discovering Moths: Nighttime Jewels in Your Own Backyard" by John Himmelman, 2002

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My chiropractor is a bit of a poet. Not that he writes actual poems (although, he might!) but more in the way he views the world and expresses his thoughts. I look forward to my appointments with him as much for his interesting perspective on the world as for the realignment of my spine.

As the father of twin teenage daughters, he's 'been there and done that' ~ meaning that he knows a lot more about parenting than my husband and I do so far. He and his wife are seven or eight years ahead of us on the learning curve, times two.

So when we chatted yesterday during my late afternoon appointment, I confided in him the frustration I've felt lately in watching my son struggle with friendships and the loss of Beth. I told him how frustrating it feels not be able to make things easier for my boy and asked if he had any advice.

What a wonderful response he had.

It really set my head on its ear, so to speak. A whole new way of looking at things.

He told me about Himmelman's views on moths and butterflies, reminding me that there is a good reason for everything in nature ~ including the social struggle. "You can try to do it for him," he said, "You can try to cut the hole in his cocoon larger to prevent him from hurting as he struggles through childhood into adulthood... but if you don't let him go through the natural process on his own, he may ultimately turn out like that poor moth who actually NEEDED to struggle out of its cocoon to dry its wings and ready it for flight... if you step in and try to do it for him, you might be hurting more than you are helping."

What a piece of wisdom to casually throw into my lap. Wow.

I love the way a change in perspective can suddenly change the way the entire world looks. Suddenly I see my son's current anguish over Beth's move back to Australia as his greatest opportunity yet - the opportunity to learn the value of true friendship so that he will never take a friend for granted again.

Losing Beth forces my son to work harder to act outside of his natural comfort zone. She was such a gregarious little spirit ~ cheerful, friendly, outgoing ~ she took charge of making friends for both of them. Without her, our boy will have to face his own fears of rejection and interact with new people.

Right now he feels only the pain of loneliness but one day (soon, I hope!) when he does make a new friend, the sweetness of finding another kindred spirit will be even more precious to him. It is also possible that he will develop resilience and optimism.

In the end, we may look back upon this time of transition as the beginning of huge growth and a wonderful year. It is exciting to think about that prospect.

Thank you Dr. D for reminding me that I cannot spin cocoons thick enough to shelter my babies from harm without suffocating them... and that they must forge their own way into the world guided by instinct (and our love) to spread their wings wide and fly.

January 7, 2011 ~ Day 29Haircuts and Heartache

Yesterday night I returned home to take a shower before meeting my husband and kids at my mother-in-law's house for dinner. When I entered our bathroom I couldn't help but noticed hunks of brown hair scattered across the bathroom floor, a newspaper, the counter top and even still lodged in a blue scissors.

Like Mama Bear returning home to find Goldilocks (wow, what an appropriate title!) having messed with her bowl, chair and bed... I realized that one of my three children must have been playing with a scissors. "Who's been using my shears to cut their own hair?" I wondered aloud.

For a split second, it crossed my mind that I might be assuming too much about their capacity for criminal behavior. After all, my husband technically *could* have decided to give one of them a haircut. I couldn't tell whose hair it was, since all three kids have identically colored (mouse brown) hair.

Reaching for the phone, I dialed my hubby (now at his mom's) and said,

"Babe, have you by any chance been cutting someone's hair?"

A long, slow chuckle greeted me on the other end of the line.

"Uh... no. THAT would be our son. Who now resembles Frankenstein."

"Which one?"

"The oldest."

"When did he manage to do that? His hair was fine when I left an hour ago."

"He did it during the five minutes or less when I was dressing his brother and sister after their bath."

"Wow, there's a lot of hair on the ground here."

"Yes. I have to say, it was very hard not to laugh when I saw him. Hard to keep a straight face. But I did tell him that you and I would think of an appropriate consequence, so he knows that he is in trouble."

"So how bad is it?"

"It's bad."

Getting off of the phone, I reflected upon our history with self-given haircuts. This must be genetic, because my own mother's worst memory of my toddlerhood is that of me wandering into her room missing a third of the hair on my head because I had given myself a haircut with her sharpest sewing scissors. Right before school picture day. I'm not sure how old I was at the time, but probably right around his age - five.

Unfortunately this isn't the first time our son has cut his own hair, in fact the last time he did it over a year ago he also cut his younger brother's hair - with their daddy's nail scissors. This was a big deal in our family at the time, since he could have seriously injured himself AND his brother. My husband and I each talked with him at length about why we visit a trained professional to get our hair cut. So we can't use the argument about how he "didn't know better" any more. He definitely knows better.

Not having an easy scapegoat (like innocence) to blame things on forces us to look deeper as parents at the WHY instead of just the WHAT.

WHY is a tougher question to answer.

WHY did our son make a choice that he actively knew was wrong, and which he knew would disfigure himself?

My mother says she thinks he was looking for attention.

I'm not so sure. Actually, she may be right. He may be looking for attention - but not in the way she means. He isn't seeking attention from us.

I think all of this has to do with Beth. If you scan back a few posts to the Goodbye Gift, you will remember that a few weeks ago this same son's best friend Beth moved home to her native Australia. They had been extremely close friends, especially during the past school year.

She moved away the exact day that their school vacation began for the holidays, so my son didn't really notice her absence until he returned to school this week.

However on that very first Monday afternoon when he got into the car in the afternoon, we could tell something was wrong.

"How was school today, buddy?"

"Not good."

"Really? Why?"

"I don't like it there."

"Why honey? What happened?"

"Nobody wants to be my friend."

"I'm sure that isn't true. There are lots of other kids that would want to be your friend."

"No, there aren't."

This is the part where tears come to my eyes as I type... because I don't know whether he is simply full of self-pity or if he is right.

My kid *is* a loner. I've mentioned this before. His teachers consistently bring it up. He beats to his own drum. He doesn't have a ton of friends, mostly out of his own shyness and choice to keep to himself.

So, I don't know if there are really a bunch of kids in his class that would like to play with him. I hope there are, but what if there aren't?

Every day this week I have casually asked him how the day went, what he did, who he played with. I've asked him off-handedly while doing other things like playing with toys, drawing together, giving him a bath.

Every time, he has answered that he played by himself.

Once I asked him who he would like to make friends with, and he listed the names of half of the kids in his class. So, it isn't that he doesn't want to be close to other kids. It's that he doesn't know how. The boy has many innate gifts and abilities but social intelligence is not one of them yet.

So, where does the haircut fit into all of this?

I have the feeling that our son believed that cutting his own hair would make him look cool to the kids at school... that he might make some friends out of it. Last night he kept telling his father, "I look good! My hair looks good!" When we threatened to shave it off before school started today, he began to sob.

Is his haircut then, a cry of loneliness? A cry for help, or for friendship? It's a lot to think about. Are we doing enough as his parents to help him build his social skills, and to support his nascent friendships when they do bud?

I told our son that no matter why he made the choice to steal my scissors and cut his own hair, there will be a carefully thought-out consequence. As Gilbert and Sullivan say, "Let the punishment fit the crime"... so I came up with this:

We will take him to the salon to have his hair fixed this weekend and he will then pay for the new haircut out of his piggy bank... which will pretty much drain his account. That way, in the future if he ever feels tempted to cut his own hair (or the hair of his sister or brother) again he will know that in the end he will end up ($literally$) paying for it.

After we discussed the consequence last night at bedtime, I gave my boy a big hug and asked him if he is still feeling sad about Beth leaving. He nodded with watery eyes and asked if she was ever coming back. It was hard to tell him the truth, "I don't think so, buddy."

We agreed that this week he would work on writing her a letter and drawing a picture.

"I'm going to write her TEN LETTERS", he grinned. "I'm going to draw her TEN PICTURES." He fell asleep clutching a book in one hand and a bear in the other.

I couldn't help but think as I closed his door how young he is to be experiencing isolation, loneliness, loss and heartache. As adults we sometimes delude ourselves into thinking that children's emotions and friendships (or lack thereof) don't matter yet... but we're wrong. Any kid can tell you, these things matter.

Poor little shorn sheep. We love you, buddy.

January 6, 2011 ~ Day 28The Buck Stops With Us

I'm sorry.

I'm apologizing in advance because I think this will probably be my all-time most controversial and perhaps offensive post.

If what I am about to write offends you, please let me know so we can start a productive dialogue and I can learn from your perspective. Together maybe we can forge ahead and create something of value - find some answers.

That said, here goes:

Based on my 10 year teaching career (in which I've worked with well over 1,000 children in public, private and charter schools grades K-8)... my now nearly 6 years as a mother... and my 35 years as a female American human with the course equivalent of a master's degree in Education, I'm going to take a stand right here.

Parents, the buck stops with us.

Let me be more explicit. If your child tests poorly on a standardized exam, it is more likely to be due to lack of exposure in the home to literature, communication, mathematics and a strong work ethic than it is to the fact that your child has a crappy teacher.

Now listen, I'm not saying that your child DOESN'T have a crappy teacher. I trust your judgment, and you're probably right. If you think you've seen better teaching before, chances are that you have.

I'm saying, it doesn't much matter... because at the end of the day, the most important teacher in their life is YOU.

Since I started teaching in 1997 (I started out as an assistant in four private school classrooms: grades K, 1, 3 and 4) I have seen hundreds of teachers in action. Some of them have been magnificent. Life-changing. Inspiring. The kinds of professionals that adore children, go into teaching for all of the right reasons, and stick with it for a lifetime because their hearts are in the right place.

I've also seen teachers like the infamous Mr. Q who once grew so angry at a 7th grade student, he (the teacher) actually threw a book at him through the window of the classroom and then chased him (the student) around the building. Can you imagine a fifty-something Caucasian male chasing a spry Hispanic 13 year old around a bungalow, cussing? Needless to say, Mr. Q (who had been documented with a long paper trail) did not last much longer at that school.

For these reasons and many more, my husband and I decided years ago that since we both attended public school all along before heading off to our fancy alma mater... and since we both BELIEVE in public school, that we would put our children in the best public school that we could find in our city.

So here we are. We live a block away from a "10" school - top rated, highest test scores, yadayadayada.

Except since we've been living here, we've started hearing things. Bad things. About the schools, the teachers, the drugs on campus. We hear things from our local babysitters, from older parents, even from elementary school teachers about the high school teachers. We hear that "It's not what it used to be", and "All of the best teachers have retired". One good friend confided in me that her friend has a child here in the 12th grade and another in the 4th grade, and apparently the educational quality has gone far downhill in the span of those 8 years.

I'm not one to take the word of other people though. I've always been the kind of person who needs to do it for myself - see it for myself - in order to get my head around the problem at hand.

So I've started volunteering in my son's classroom. I've started subbing in the local district schools. I've been in the classrooms and met the teachers and seen the quality of the work.

And I've got to say, I'm a little shocked.

These are top 10 schools? Really?

This is the point in the article where I should give you concrete examples of what I saw in these schools. I have plenty of examples that I could give, and I'm absolutely itching to do it. In my heart though, I feel like sharing what I've seen and what I've heard the students say ~ especially sharing it on the internet ~ would be breaking my own professional code of conduct. These schools were kind enough to invite me in as a substitute teacher, and I am grateful for the opportunity.

So I'm not going to call anyone out by name, and I'm not going to engage in mudslinging. However, if you take me out for a glass of wine at some point (or a cup of green tea) I will heartily bend your ear for an hour with stories of what I've seen and heard.

I think my own children (and yours) deserve A LOT better than what is happening in these supposedly top 10, first-tier schools. Mediocre is a word that springs to mind. Truly mediocre. Disappointing.

I've seen MUCH better, more reflective teaching in the 5-ranked (5 out of 10) inner city middle school where I spent two amazing years out of my ten year career. That same kind of inspiring, outstanding, phenomenal teaching of which I spoke earlier in this column. Classrooms that were cheerful, inviting and organized. Environmental print and art used in a multitude of ways to capture the imagination and keep the students engaged.

So here's where my own "Teacher Head" starts to spin.

Why are the test scores so low in poor socio-economic schools populated by students who are being raised in single-parent families, or by two parents who are both working full time? Can all of it really be blamed on the teachers? Even those aforementioned teachers I have personally watched "in action" - some of the best I've ever seen or heard of?

AND

Why are the the test scores so high in this upper-middle class to wealthy neighborhood where my family lives, when the quality of the actual schools - and the teaching that I've seen in action so far - is basically mediocre?

• Could it be that the difference comes down to parenting?


• Could it be that our home life, and the environment we create in our homes, actually makes the difference between a kid that succeeds in school and one that flunks miserably?


• Might it be that our own motivation to help our children navigate their education is actually more important than any single teacher they may have in their 13 years in primary, middle and high school?

Does the buck really stop with us?

I think it does.

I am as liberal politically as they come, but I am going to make the argument that it isn't just our broken education system that is failing our students today. The system may be broken but many motivated families are managing to navigate it quite ably.

I think it is the breakdown in our family structure that is failing children the most.

Children who come from homes with parents that value education, who grow up surrounded by books and newspapers... taken to see art exhibits and given extra-curricular opportunities... are far more likely to succeed and even thrive in any classroom.

Children who come from homes with parents who expect a school to raise their children, will have a severe disadvantage when it comes to education. I taught a 10 year old girl today who came to school with a bag of cookies for breakfast because her mother "didn't have time to make my breakfast, and I had to do her hair for work". Yes, that is right. The daughter didn't get breakfast because they were running late and she was too busy doing her own mother's hair before work!!!!! The poor kid complained of a headache and stomach ache and had a lot of trouble concentrating until after she was able to eat the school lunch. Small wonder! Who wouldn't feel lousy on a breakfast of three OREOs?

I wish I could say that is the only time in my career that I've had a student given cookies by their parents for breakfast but THERE HAVE BEEN SO MANY OF THEM. And sadly, the lack of a decent meal is basically the least of the problems that my students have often brought into the classroom from home.

Here are just a few of the household problems my students have had to contend with over the years:

• Divorcing/Divorced parents - multiple homes, parent drama, much chaos


• Alcoholic parents - 12 and 13 year old students taking care of their own parents and younger siblings


• Abusive parents - TRAGIC


• Abusive boyfriends of single mothers with children in my classes


• Psychotic parents - one of my first students, a sweet fourth grader who loved to play basketball, was murdered along with his mother and brother by his father who was facing financial and legal troubles


• Jailed parents


• Gravely ill parents or siblings - cancer, leukemia, heart-breaking


• Teenaged parents - I'll never forget the 13 year old 7th grade student who told me it was "No big deal" that she was sexually active with her 17 year old boyfriend because "My mom had me when she was 14". So that would make your mother, um, 27? Wow... imagine being a grandparent by 30!
  
• Overbearing, tightly wound parents who pressure their kids until they snap


• Parents with eating disorders. Yes, seriously. Imagine being the teenage daughter of THAT mess!


• Absent parents - I tear up thinking of some of the journal entries I've read written by kids whose mother or father (or worse, both) have left them behind with grandparents or other relatives... there is no rejection more personal or more painful than this


• Micromanaging parents - Obsessed with even the smallest details about their children's lives, they hover around the classroom and playroom and stifle them both socially and educationally


• Parents living in extreme poverty - Students come to school many times without having bathed, wearing the same clothing day after day


• Deployed parents - Serving their country with honor... but when country must come before family, it is usually the children who suffer most

and then you get the hard working, well-intentioned, caring parents who simply have to work double shifts or two jobs to keep their family housed and fed. They don't have time to watch their kids after school, play with them at the park or help with homework.

These are just a few of the hundreds of examples I have seen of home life directly affecting what happens at school.

If you are reading this article you probably do NOT fall into any of the aforementioned categories of parents I have mentioned. I cannot think of a single friend of mine or my husband's who is not 200% devoted to their children and their growth, education and well-being. I admire you all so much! I'm lucky to have such great influences in my life as a mother.

That said, I'm going to wrap up this tired by saying that I think we parents need to take more responsibility for how our kids turn out. In my opinion there are three main advantages that kids who attend "good" schools in wealthy neighborhoods have that other children may not have: Access, Language and Peer Support.

It is true that some schools (e.g. high schools) offer more Advanced Placement classes and the opportunity to take college-level courses while still in grades 9-12. It is true that some high schools offer study abroad opportunities or International Baccalaureate curriculum. Kids that attend these kids of schools have greater ACCESS.

It is true that top-ten schools tend to be populated by students whose first language is English. This doesn't make English "better" than other languages. This is just common sense: It is simply easier to learn ANYTHING if you're being taught it in your native language. When I took an anthropology course taught in Italian while living in Italy, I (a 4.0 college student) was totally and completely lost. Clueless.

How can a kid understand content if they don't know the language it is being taught in? Studies show that it takes up to 7 years for any English as a Foreign Language student to become proficient in academic English. Which means if you move to the USA and begin learning English in the 7th grade, you should finally understand the school textbooks by say, your junior year of college. So, kids that attend elite schools surrounded by mostly native English speakers have the advantage of LANGUAGE.

It is true that students in wealthier communities tend to come from families who value education... and because of this, there is a general peer-enforced sense of the importance of school. Kids motivate and push each other to succeed through peer pressure and peer competition. As my husband says, in the school where he attended grades 9-12 it was "Cool" to be smart and that made a huge difference in his desire to achieve. PEER SUPPORT for the value of learning is priceless.

But we as parents, whether we have $$$ or not, can find ways to give our children access. We as parents, by getting to know our children/their friends/the culture of our community can find ways to connect our children with other students who value learning. There are charter schools out there, and bussing options.

I will never forget visiting the living room of Rosa, an eleven year old student entering the sixth grade. As her new-student advisor, I was sent to speak with her parents about our school and its expectations.

I had never driven in that part of our city before, and was a little nervous to see gangs of high school or young-twenties boys wearing bandanas and white t-shirts, just hanging out mid-day on the stoops of their apartments and houses.

When I entered Rosa's two-room home, where mattresses could literally be seen on the main floor next to their dining table, I was struck by the radiant smiles of her parents. They sat me down on their tattered sofa and plied me with glasses of ice water and candies. Neither of them spoke English, but with Rosa's translation they explained to me that education meant everything to their family. They had brought Rosa and her sisters here from Mexico to have a better life.

This family had NOTHING, but they did everything they could to get Rosa and her two sisters to the best school that they could, figuring out - with no family car and no Driver's License - how to get her across the city every morning to reach our school by 7:30am, so that she could thrive. They put her education first, and she understood just how important a value that was to her family.

I am proud to say that from the first day Rosa DID thrive, and earned straight A grades in every class she took... from all of the best teachers ~ and probably some less than great teachers too. Either way, she likely saw each of these teachers for one or two hours a day. She will be with her family for an entire lifetime. In the end, parents are what matter most.

Rosa comes from poverty and illiteracy but she has parents who care, and they DIDN'T pass the buck. They stepped up and found a way.

If they can do it, the rest of us can surely do it too.

THE BUCK STOPS WITH ME. My kids may have outstanding teachers in their school years. They may have disastrous teachers in their school years. But as long as they have me, I will make damn sure that they have all the language, support, access, attention and love they need to grow, learn and thrive.