Regina Suburbia

Christmas -- The Most Dramatic Time of the Year.

2011-12-25T16:56:00.000-08:00

So I won't pretend my Christmas day was perfect. We had 3 generations in the house, and, while we were all happy to be together, days like this do not pass without tension. Tension is guaranteed. It is inevitable. Unavoidable.

While it is tempting to post a few cozy pictures of happy kids with all their presents, the reality for most of us is that conflict arises on days like this. We want to ignore it, pretend it doesn't happen, act like our family times together are enchanted and perfect. But, if your family is anything like mine, then you know what I'm saying has the ring of truth.

I'll admit it: My 5 year old son had a temper tantrum at the breakfast table. He stayed up way too late last night, in anticipation of Santa Claus. He woke up in the middle of the night, too wound up to sleep, and took a long time to settle back down again. His blood sugar was surely at an all-time low, and he hadn't really even had a bite to eat yet. We stopped the present opening to eat something, and the meltdown ensued shortly thereafter.

I don't know if you have recently witnessed a 5 year old meltdown, but it's not pretty. In fact, chances are, if you have seen one, you've blocked it from your memory due to the trauma-inducing tendencies of it. I mention this not from my own personal experience, but in deference to my 70 yr. old mother, who found herself compelled to excuse herself from the table due to the hearing-aid, pain-inflicting shrieks that came from his adorable mouth. Great beginning to a beautiful day, guaranteed to create long-lasting memories of family bonding for all of us.

Dinner brought a new twist of family tension. Rather than focusing on the needs of the 5-year old child, we decided instead to switch our attention to more pressing and adult matters. The dinner discussion seemed to land on starvation, stewardship, religion, and similar chit-chatty topics. Let your imagination run wild with the festive, celebrational air that held court around my dining room table. (let's admit, tho', the world's problems were never solved during celebration...)

So, anyway, you can imagine that my 5 year old Ben was less-than-enthused by this dinner topic. He was eager to leave the table. We wrapped up dinner & started clearing up when the event that caused my own personal temper tantrum occurred.

I heard my mom pulling aside my older son, Bob. She whispered to him something along the lines of this: "your grandfather grew up in a household where children under 12 were kept in the basement to eat dinner and not allowed at the grown up table."

Now, I understand that there can be a certain nostalgia for the past, but my mother is the first to criticize my dad for his social & emotional failings, and I could not let this comment pass. As a rational adult, I have to believe she was reacting to the emotions of having a lively debate at the dinner table. But, having heard for years how my father struggled with social interaction, I was shocked and upset to hear this proclamation on how my child (a) shouldn't be allowed to be himself & interact with adults and (b) shouldn't be exposed to conversations that were adult in nature (not inappropriate, but complex views of the world.)

Sadly, the Christmas spirit was completely ruined when I decided to open my mouth & lecture my mother how completely wrong & inappropriate she was, not to think such a thing, but to vocalize it to my children.

I am endlessly happy that my mother was able to join us for Christmas. And I am even thankful that we have opportunities to have discussions about the world. Many people I know are denied that, for a variety of reasons.

Isn't it ironic that, while I was growing up, I heard my mother rail against the backward, staid views of her own mother. She thought she definitely had the edge on her own mother's world views, and know how to raise her children "right." It is tempting for me to feel that way too. Except I must remind myself that my children will one day, too, grow up & have children. And I will have opinions about how they are raising their children.

So, for that reason, I find I must give my mom a pass this Christmas season, lest I one day here this....."I told you so!!"

Humility, or Feeling Small

2011-12-11T19:36:00.000-08:00

This morning I woke up early & hopped in the shower to get ready for church. I turned on the radio, tuned to NPR, as I am wont to do, and listened to a program called something like "Simply Being." They were interviewing a Russian-born physicist who works with the Hubble telescope. I don't recall his name, but he was fascinating to listen to. There was one particular part of the interview that struck me; he said something along the lines of this:

Many years ago, we, as human, thought we were the center of creation, the center of the universe. Over time, as we have made more and more discoveries about the world, the solar system, the galaxy, the universe, we find ourselves, physically, to become smaller and smaller. But our minds, as we contemplate our new knowledge of the amazing universe in which we exist, continually expand. Physically, smaller; existentially, continually growing.

Shortly after hearing this, we left for church. The sermon this week was on being humble in the presence of God. The Pastor began by reminding us all about how we, as a human frailty, frequently measure ourselves against others around us, constantly assessing and trying to ensure a certain "pecking order." Somewhere near the end, he reminded us how frail and tiny we are, how humble in the presence of God. I felt a startling connection between what I had heard earlier on my radio, and what I had just heard in the sermon. It felt too much to be just a coincidence.

A few days ago, someone sent me an email that contained a photo they called "The Eye of God." This was an image taken by the Hubble telescope (I did check it out on Snopes.com, actually, so I can verify that).

In my mind, I have strung these three occurrences together into a not-so-coincidental message. A reminder to each of us that, no matter how tempting it is to put ourselves in the center of our lives, it is a mistake. We are all just a speck, a tiny part of something greater. We can make a difference, for good or for bad; I do believe that. But in the end, there is something so much larger than we can even imagine, something so much greater that created us, guides us, and leaves us in wonder and mystery.

Hubris is an easy trap to fall into, but, as my Mom always said, "Pride goeth before a fall." Life is a mystery, our purpose is a mystery, and what is next is a mystery. The only thing we can do in light of all that mystery is accept that we can only try our best, live, enjoy, and put our faith and trust in the Creator who makes perfection so amazing that we cannot comprehend it's limits.

Ancestry Explained

2011-11-27T19:25:00.000-08:00

So guess where we were the other day?

In the car.

As usual.

Ben starts talking about family relationships. He whips through all the current relationships---moms, dads, grandparents, etc., then starts to move onto territory a little more unfamiliar to him. This is always where the fun begins.

First he informs me that he has high hopes that I might live long enough to see him grow up and get married. He has been a little preoccupied lately with my life expectancy; some days he's not sure I'll make it through the night. I reassure him that I'm planning on sticking around until he's grown up and gets married.

That little detail taken care of, he moves on to step number two. He has this one figured out. "Mommy, when I have children, those children will be your grandchildren. If you are still alive. If you are not alive, though, you can still be their ancestor."

And that, my friends, is where ancestors come from.

Angels We Have Heard

2011-11-17T06:07:00.001-08:00

Ben & I were in the car last night, on our way to choir practice. (Are you noticing a trend? Ben seems to do some of his best thinking in the car.) The kids have begun rehearsing for their Christmas pageant, so we were talking about Christmas carols, going through which ones we knew, which ones we remember singing from last year, which ones are our favorites. The conversation winds down and Ben is quiet for a couple of minutes. Then, from the dark of the back seat I hear,

"Mommy, I think that angel was really bossy." Kindergarteners, it turns out, spend a great deal of time worrying about bossiness. This concept of who is bossy and who is not has been a topic of many discussions recently.

"What angel, sweetie?" I reply.

"You know, the angel who went to Mary. That angel was really bossy. He told Mary that she had to name her baby Jesus. But I think a mommy should name her baby the name SHE wants to name it."

A Random Thought

2011-11-16T05:04:00.000-08:00

We were on the way out the door to somewhere that I was already late for. I sent Ben out to buckle up in his car seat while I was rummaging around in my keys, trying to unknot the sleeves of my jacket & pull it on, and turn off the coffee maker, all at the same time. Finally, frustrated, rushed out to get in the car, where Ben had been patiently waiting for more than a few minutes already. As I got in the car, he was eager to tell me something.

"Hey, Mom, guess what??!!"

"Guess what" is his favorite new phrase. He uses it about a gajillion times a day. He uses "guess what" as most teenagers use "like."

He was unfazed by my frustration, and barreled on, "Guess what? If I was going to make you into a robot, I'd call you a Mamabot, and if I was going to make my self into a robot, I'd call myself a Benadroid."

I stopped the car to laugh out loud. I was no longer anxious about being late to wherever we were going, and just stopped a minute to enjoy being right where I was.

That's what my 5 year old can do. It's almost like a super power! He is my little 5 year old superhero.

A Brief Moment of Time

2011-11-04T18:45:00.000-07:00

How can I possibly catch up on all the time that has passed since I last posted? Point of fact: I cannot. So I will, instead, offer up two comments from a five-year-old and let you imagine the many joyful, funny, and poignant moments that I have carelessly let slide.

After chatting with a friend last night who mentioned how her daughter loved compound words, I decided to play a compound word game in the car with Ben today. I'm actually kind of surprised that we've never done it before---he's such a word-meister. But, there is no time like the present to begin.

Turns out they already do this in school, so it didn't take him long to catch on. He came up with "moon" + "light"="moonlight." He came up with "tree" + "house"= "treehouse." After a few more, he started struggling a little. I knew we were getting dicey when he offered up "pump" + "kin" = "pumpkin," but I couldn't really explain to him why that was actually wrong.

Then he came up with the real prize: "don" + "zer" = "donzer."

What? What's a donzer? I asked.

"You know, Mommy---the donzerly light," he answered.

Donzerly light? What's a donzerly light?

"Oh, say can you see by the donzerly light."

It took a few moments before I could recover enough to speak without choking on my laughter. Even though "donzerly" is not technically a compound word, I declared him the winner of that round.

****

Ben started piano lessons at the beginning of the school year. He loves his teacher and enjoys playing the piano (so far. May that continue for a long time. Amen.) We spend time each day during our practice sessions familiarizing him with musical symbols and terminology. I know he is "getting it" because of the ways he re-purposes some of those terms in regular conversations. This evening, just before I tucked him in for the night, he told me he wanted me to lean very close to him. He wanted to put his mouth very close to my ear, because he had to tell me something in "pianissimo."

Which he then rendered so excellently pianissimo that I couldn't even understand what that whisper said. When he repeated it, this time "piano," I caught it: "I love you."

I love him too.

A Prayer for a Giving Heart

2011-05-15T19:03:00.000-07:00

“Dear God,
I am so afraid to open my clenched fists!
Who will I be when I have nothing left to hold on to?
Who will I be when I stand before you with empty hands?
Please help me to gradually open my hands
and to discover that I am not what I own,
but what you want to give me.
And what you want to give me is love,
unconditional, everlasting love.
Amen.”
— Henri J.M. Nouwen (The Only Necessary Thing: Living a Prayerful Life)

Humility on Easter Sunday

2011-04-25T12:10:00.000-07:00

I've heard it said that children keep you humble. Ben yesterday displayed a rare talent for doing just that. We were attending the Easter service at our church when Ben went up front to participate in the Children's Message. The pastor handed out stickers that could be used to tell the Easter story. He suggested that they could put the stickers on a page and put it up somewhere that they could look at it whenever they were feeling sad, to remind them of God's love for them. Then he asked the children to tell him what made them sad. One boy said, "not being able to play my video games" another said, "when a toy gets taken away." Meanwhile, Ben is waving his hand in the air; "I know, I know," so the pastor finally calls on him. In front of +/- 500 people, my child announces, "When your Mommy spanks you!!!" The pastor recommended that maybe, in that case, mother & child should both look at the picture of Jesus. I wanted to sink through the floor.

Now this might not have been so horrible to take if, say, we actually used spanking as a form of punishment. But, the fact of the matter is, we don't. I could count on one hand the number of times that Ben has been spanked in his lifetime. And I'd have fingers left over. But that fact means absolutely nothing to the half-a-thousand people who heard my child yesterday. I am, in their minds, the Spanker. I might as well sew a scarlet S on my chest.

Of course, on the way out the door, we shook hands with Pastor Dan. He made a point to remind me that Ben, apparently, doesn't like spankings. You know, just in case I didn't catch that remark when he made it in front of half the congregation.

I wondered if it were possible to print a retraction in the upcoming church memo? *sigh*

Ben swears he was just trying to think of what would make ANY kid sad, and he was talking about OTHER mommies--the ones who DO spank their kids. He felt really badly that I was so sad about it, and I had to make sure he knew that he didn't do anything wrong. Ben loves going up for the Children's Message, and I don't want to squelch his sweet, child-like openness. Usually, it's really cute. But Ijust have to recognize and accpet that I cannot control those times when it doesn't reflect on us, or on me personally, in a way that I would choose. THIS was definitely one of those times!

Yes, I am truly humbled to be a parent. And I love my son unconditionally. And, I guess, if you want to put a real Easter spin on that message, I can point out that that is the way God loves all of us.

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Mom's 70th Birthday Party

2011-03-05T10:58:00.000-08:00

Ben & I traveled out to the East Coast via Amtrak train last week to attend Mom's 70th birthday party. We had a wonderful time. It was great, as always, seeing the whole family gathered together. This is the 3rd time in recent history that we've managed to do that! (Xmas at my place a couple of years ago, Nancy's wedding last spring, and this party!) We very much missed my brother Kevin and my husband Brent, who couldn't make it to the party, but who were there in spirit. It was great, too, seeing some of Mom's friends who I've known since I was young. But I especially enjoyed watching Mom enjoy herself. The only thing I would have changed is having been able to spend a little more time with everyone.

Since mom is gluten-intolerant, we celebrated with a champagne toast instead of with a birthday cake. I was happy to give the toast. Here is the toast I gave at the party:

First of all, I would like to thank everyone for joining us this afternoon. In case anyone is not sure, this is Peggy’s birthday party—if you’re here for any other event; you’re in the wrong place!

For those of you who are here to celebrate Peggy, I must say I am absolutely fascinated to meet such a marvelously interesting group of people. But, then again, knowing my Mom, I’m not surprised that she would collect such a fabulous group of friends. She’s not someone known for doing anything halfway.

When I was thinking about what I would say about Peggy today, I got to thinking about the variety of relationships we all have in our lives. I know Peggy as my mother (which has, I admit, at various times been both a blessing and a curse for both of us, I’m sure!). My siblings here, Nancy & Brendan, and my brother, Kevin, who couldn’t be with us today, also know her as Mom. But to others in this room, she is mother-in-law, grandmother, sister, and, of course, friend. She fills all these roles in their own manner as required. But, while I’m sure we each see a slightly different side of her, I think we could all agree on one particular quality about her that shines through for the entire world to see: enthusiasm.

Whether it is dolling up to go to see her annual opera, or putting up her tomatoes ; whether it is telling you the amazing properties of Vitamin D, or reciting a poem she has memorized, Mom approaches every aspect of her life with a fabulous dedication driven by her pure enthusiasm for life. Over the course of 70 years, she has seen amazing things, faced tremendous challenges, and persevered through even the darkest hours. But, for each low, such as losing everything she owned in a fire, she has sought a corresponding high point, such as achieving a lifelong goal of traveling around the world. And always, she has just kept on moving forward. Because, as I’m sure you all know, once she has chosen a direction, not even the laws of science can sway her from her course.

As we gather together in this room from places near & far, I’d especially like to note some very special gifts—all of Peggy’s grandchildren have made it here today to celebrate with her. Now, you might not envision Peggy as a typical grandmother. But what greater role model could a grandchild have? Peggy is the kind of grandmother who you might have heard tell about in urban legend—if some rascally kid tried to snatch her purse, she’s surely beat him senseless with it, then proceed to lecture him about how he could improve his lot in life & rise above purse snatching. Then she’d give him a good dose of vitamins & send him home with a stern warning to mind his “P’s & Q’s.!” But, you can bet your bottom dollar that if that same kid came back in a week looking for her advice & a warm & willing arm to prop him up, she’d be more than happy provide exactly the support he needed. Peggy is always happy to tell it like it is, but she is also the most likely person to cry with you when you confess to her your deepest sadness. With those qualities, it is not just her grandchildren who are blessed with her presence in their lives, it is each & every one of us.

So I would ask all of you to raise your glass with me as I say to this marvelous woman who is celebrating her 70th birthday— for all that you have accomplished in life, for your energy, your strength, for all the ways you continue to inspire us, we wish you the happiest of days today. May we all gather together again, still in the best of health, to celebrate you again when you turn 80!

Chores, Allowance, and Kindness

2011-01-29T18:56:00.001-08:00

So, 2011. Welcome! We are on the eve of Ben's FIFTH birthday! After much discussion in January, we had a joint family decision that Ben was old enough to start having assigned, specific chores at this age. Now, before you start thinking what a tough-minded mommy I am, let me just add that the reason we started even discussing chores is that Ben started wanting "stuff."

Ben has never been a big one for craving or demanding material things. I don't think we've ever had a temper-tantrum in a store because he wanted something he couldn't have. He's pretty laid back. Of course, when he was younger, he would occasionally spot something & ask for it, but he was always easily distracted. With the advent of Pre-K this fall, though, all of that changed. I'm not sure if it was the influence of his new-found friends, or just general maturing, but suddenly, Ben started having ideas of things he wanted---no, needed!--and carried around a mental list of these objects in his mind. For the first time ever we had an actual Christmas list--with multiple items on it--generated by Ben.

This sudden desire for material goods drove me to consider the importance of teaching my child to understand the concept of money, of value, and of saving. And my desire to teach my child these things caused me to conceive of & bring up for discussion the idea of chores which would, if executed on a regular basis, result in allowance.

And so it was decided. Ben would, in exchange for his assigned chores, receive $4.00 a week. Of that $4.00, he is required to put $2.00 into savings. The other $2.00 he may spend as he wishes. If he wants to spend it on the gimcracks in the gumball machines at the restaurant he & his dad like to go to on Saturday lunch dates (as he did the first week), that's fine. If he wants to save it up for something special, that's fine too.

Today was week 3 of allowance. He had $4.86 saved up. As we were getting ready to run errands, I asked him if he was saving it for something in particular, or if he knew what he wanted to do with it. He announced to me that he wanted to buy Colby a new chew-toy. I reminded him that, once he spent his money, it was gone, and asked him if he really, really wanted to spend it on his dog. He really, really did. And he was so proud of the fact that he--he, himself--was spending his own money to buy his dog a treat.

At the pet store, we chatted up the clerk & explained what our shopping trip was all about. We asked him if he could show us what was the best value we could get for the money. That brilliant man found us a rawhide "candy cane" leftover from Christmas & marked down to 1/2 price from $7.99. We had just the right amount of money to buy this foot-long candy cane rawhide.

Colby knew somehow. Before we were even in the door, she was all over us. And she absolutely was over the moon about her raw hide. Ben checked in with her regularly the rest of the day, and each time she was still curled up with her rawhide. So my kind little boy went to bed happy, knowing he had done something special for his pet today.

I wonder if he knows he did something special for my heart today, too?

Out With the Aughts. And the Oughts

2010-12-28T16:46:00.000-08:00

Wow, we are about to enter a new decade. Time for some major New Year's Resolutions! I won't say I ought to do it--I WILL do it. :) Happy New Year, World.

A Day at the Beach

2010-06-11T15:30:00.000-07:00

I remember those special summer days when my parents would, by some mysterious method unknown to, but deeply appreciated by me, decide it was a beach day. My mom would pack a picnic cooler, we'd change into our swim suits & clamber in to the car for the long, sweaty ride to the beach.

Once there (there being a State Park Beach on mid-coastal Maine), we'd only pause long enough on the sand to shuck off our t-shirts & shorts, pile up our shoes on the corners of the blanket that marked off our territory claimed on a 6x8 piece of sand, and we were off & running to the water. We would generally not return to the blanket until our stomachs refused to be ignored anymore, dashing back just long enough to wolf down a gritty Wonder bread sandwich & wash it down with some sandy Kool-Aid before heading back to the water. Thankfully, my mom, unlike many moms of the day, didn't spend much time worrying about troublesome myths regarding how long you must sit out of the water after eating, and so we were not held in a beach-blanket purgatory like so many of the kids around us, who looked miserable and regretful that they gave in to their hunger & now had to wait an hour before venturing even to pop a toe into the water..

The best part of a beach day, in looking back on it now, was the end. Trudging back to the car, almost unbearably, happily, sun-dazed and exhausted. Tumbled & polished by the waves the the wind and the sand. Every step an effort, each foot feeling heavier on the land than it had ever felt before spending this time in the ocean. Stopping to eat at some roadside steamer joint for lobster or clams, fresh off the boat and cheaper than cheap. Big 55-gallon drums lined up outside & boiling away, just waiting to cook up your own, personal order to fill that cavernous hole carved by all of that swimming. Finally, climbing back into the car, sleepy & relaxed, to snooze & dream mermaid dreams.

Those summer days were the best summer days of all.

Stories of My Father, Part 10

2010-04-16T06:00:00.000-07:00

My Uncle's Memorial

Donal is our brother. I say 'is' rather than 'was.' Because I believe that there is life after death and that Donal is just continuing on to his final destiny. It is a very comforting thought.

He was never called Donal at home in Portlaoise. It was always Dodo. And I'll always remember him as Dodo.

Dodo was a man of many talents. He was an artist and produced some beautiful wood carvings, most of them spiritual in theme. He gave these as presents to his friends and to us as well. they have pride of place in our homes today.

I remember how innovative he was, and the schemes that he thought up and carried out on a regular basis. For instance, at the end of the second World War, food was scarce and Ireland exported a large amount of food to Britain and was paid very well for it. Dodo used to catch pigeons and sell them to a wholesaler in Dublin and, hence, he was never short of pocket money.

He caught them by setting traps on the roof of our house where the pigeons came to drink from an open water tank that we had on our roof. The traps he used damaged the birds legs and our mother, who was a very caring person, complained and said that Dodo would have to stop. But that didn't stop Dodo. He wrapped bits of carpet around the jaws of the traps and pleaded that this was more humane. But, once again, Mother was not pleased. And, fair dues to Dodo, he always tried to please our mother. So he raided Daddy's whiskey and put it in feed that he set out for the birds, and, afterward, harvested the birds as they wandered drunk around our backyard. It was a most unusual sight to see the birds staggering about the place.

Some of his schemes were a bit more hair-brained and not so successful. Like the time he tried to make black polish commercially by using heavy oil and charred paper.

What I really mean to say is that Dodo was a warmhearted person, always novel and interesting. And was a great person to have as an older brother. He was always a source of wonder to me, being 5 1/2 years younger than him.

I always had great admiration for him, and I still have.

He left us to go into the Jesuit order and, later on, he left us to go to America. And each time we missed him dearly.

Then, as a hare whom hounds and horns pursue comes to the place from whence, at first it flew, he came home to us. Not as a prodigal son, because Dodo could never be considered to be a prodigal son. We loved him and welcomed him on his return. And we thank God he has had some peace and happiness here and died peacefully with his family close around him.

I have never known him to be unkind to anyone. He was never unkind to me, his younger brother, and that in itself speaks volumes because older brothers tend to hit on younger brothers.

Some people are easy to love. To me, Dodo was that kind of person. I love him dearly....

Since we all loved him, how much more must the Lord love him? I ask the Lord to have mercy on the soul of my lovely brother, Dodo.

Stories of My Father, Part 9

2010-04-15T06:00:00.000-07:00

In between typing up the notes of Dad's Novitiate years at Emo and then Father Brennan's eulogy, something caught hold in my mind & set me to thinking. The gospel theme that appears in both, and ties the two together in a really profound way that caught me by surprise and, maybe, helped me nail something down about Dad that I never could quite figure out before.

Did you catch what it was?

Fr. Brennan references in his sermon the Gospel reading he had just completed; the story of Mary Magdalene going to the tomb the morning after the Passover ended, only to find the stone rolled away and the tomb empty. After a bit of confusion, she realizes that she is seeing & speaking to the risen Lord, and she calls him, "Rabboni." Fr. Brennan focuses his sermon on that word--a word which my father had put on the 14th Station of the Cross he had made many years before. Teacher. Master.

If you know the story, you know what happens next. Naturally, Mary wants to touch Jesus, but Jesus chastises her & says she cannot touch him. She cannot do this one final thing to verify what her eyes and ears are telling her. She cannot absolutely prove to herself that Jesus is standing right there in front of her by simply reaching out her hand and touching him.

When I first read Dad's description of his Novitiate years, what immediately jumped out at me was his description of how they were required to beat themselves with the flagellum while reciting the de Profundis. It just seemed so --I don't know-- medieval? The shock value of that steals the focus from some of the more subtle details in his story.

But, on reflection, and taken in it's entirety, the overall sentiment Dad conveyed of those years was a profound loneliness. Not only could these young men not visit with their families, they were restricted from even speaking to each other much of the time. And then there is the rule of 'ne tangas.' They were prohibited from even touching. Just exactly as Mary could not touch Jesus. I suppose, in some young men, this lifestyle encouraged a very spiritual & real connection to their faith. In fact, the strict rules were designed, by stripping away the worldly things, to do exactly that. But you can sense in Dad's description of this time in his life that he felt isolated and alone.

Nevertheless, Can you see how the two bookends of this same Gospel story jump out from the reflections of two men, decades apart? Master. Don't touch me. It seems to me to define the fundamental struggle my dad dealt with.

As you all must have easily figured out by now, Dad left the church. And you have probably also realized that, later, he returned to the faith of his childhood. For most of my life, he would claim himself to be agnostic. It wasn't that he disbelieved in God, but he could not find any way to prove God's existence, either. It was that absolute proof that he desired; he wanted to know, with black & white clarity. And he was isolated, he couldn't feel that touch.

I don't think that Dad could ever completely relinquish the deep-seated beliefs that were instilled in him. After all, when he left the Jesuits, he had already spent nearly half his life with them. And the half before that was spent in a deeply religious household. As a child, I attended the Episcopalian church and, when I became an acolyte, I remember Dad sitting me down & having a long discussion with me about what it meant to take Communion, and what it meant to serve on the alter. The one thing that sticks out in my mind after all these years was his warning about how I must never, ever let even a crumb of the Communion bread fall to the floor. He described how, if such a sacrilege were to occur, the floor must be cleansed to ensure every bit of Jesus was cleaned up and not left discarded. Of course, I was never taught transubstantiation in church then, as an Episcopalian, nor later, as a Lutheran. But I can't take Communion without thinking of it.

It was right around the time that he wrote down these memoirs that he decided to return to the church. He asked if I would write a letter of character for him and send it to the Vatican, which I gladly did. I didn't ask him any real questions about why or how or what brought about this change. I didn't understand the ecclesiastical details of how this return to Catholicism was effected. But I do know it must have taken a huge shift of spirit and a huge dose of courage. I was just glad for him, and hoped that it brought him some comfort.

I have found it interesting, as I've grown older, to discover that with each child in our family, despite the happenstance of growing up within the same household, with the same rules & same everything, has had entirely different experiences. None of my siblings attend church, although I believe that they are each spiritual in their own way. And, while we all loved Dad more than words can express, we each had our own way of connecting with him.

I was there when Fr. Brennan shared Communion with Dad that last time, as he described in his Eulogy. Later on--I don't remember if it was that day or the next--he told me how much comfort he had in that. But, later on as well, according to my sister, he claimed he didn't know why he did it because he thought it was all a load of balderdash. I don't doubt my sister's word, I truly don't. I'm sure he said to her what he thought she wanted to hear, and to me, what he thought I wanted to hear. I choose personally to believe that he did find comfort in it. And I truly believe that he, and each of us, will finally understand the mystery of our being and be at peace, at last, when our own days come to a close.

Stories of My Father, Part 8

2010-04-14T05:00:00.000-07:00

My Father's Eulogy

While Dad's original memoirs go on, I have decided to depart from them, at least for the moment, and take a huge leap forward over decades of time to allow the reader another perspective of my Dad from a close colleague and friend. The following sermon/eulogy was given at Dad's Funeral Mass on November 6, 2006 in Portlaoise.

My name is Joe Brennan. I'm a priest up in Dublin. But, to Donal, he and I were colleagues together for 16 years. And it began in Emo, which, as most of you know, is not too far from here. We spent 2 years there. And part of those 2 years we were working at Mountmellick, at what was then known as the County Home, and now is known as St. Vincent's Hospital.

I remember on a certain day in August, 1950, my education was greatly deepened by Donal. And how was that? We were walking along the canal and Donal spotted something in the canal. . And, so, he put his hand down like this (palm out, fingers extended), and flipped. By this method, we eventually had three fish for4 dinner. I'd often heard the phrase as a kid about tickling trout. But I never knew one could actually tickle a trout. But Donal Gannon enlightened me. Donal was from the countryside. In fact, he was very good at fishing and hunting and that kind of thing. He had a great skill in the countryside.

And then, we did studies together. And then, we had three years where we did teaching. And, as it happened, we were sent to the same school, called Mungro College, which was a boarding school outside Limerick. Now, he was sent to do an important job. He was an assistant in another part of the school, where as I wasn't as clever as him, so I was just in charge of the study hall. But, anyway, the two of us got on very well together. I want to refer back to that moment a little later.

And then we did further studies and, eventually, then, after 16 years, Donal was sent to America and I was sent to Germany, and at that point, our paths went in different ways.

To go back to the beginning again; as I'm sure all of you know, the Gannon family was a very distinguished family here in Portlaoise. And, not that Donall would ever boast about that, but I was very aware of that, and the rest of us were. And what we would remember Donal is that, while he was very kind, and even though he was very tall-much taller than me--he was a very gentle man. At the same time, like myself, he played fullback in the soccer matches. So the two of us never clashed. But it was very hard to get by Donal Gannon on the soccer field. And so, luckily the two of us got along very well.

But, having said all that, of course, I deeply sympathize with his whole family. Particularly with his four children who have come all the way from the States to be with us today.

Why we are all here together, in this beautiful church here in Portlaoise, is because we believe that Jesus has risen from the dead. What I've been doing most of my life is that I've been teaching teenagers. What I say to my boys, every new class, what I say to them is this: "Boys, I'm in this room because I believe that Jesus is risen from the dead. Which is the truth. I'm not exaggerating. That is why I am with you here today. Otherwise, I'd be doing something nonsensical." So, I would say this to the boys, and then ask them, "Why are you here? To get points in to your Leaving Cert?" The school has a very good reputation. But, I'm just trying to get the boys to think that that's important.

It's important that we know what our value system is. And in the Ireland of today, as we all know, things are changing very rapidly. And some of the changes are good changes. But not all of them. And what is happening is that some people did have something and now they don't have anything. Anything that is within.

I said I would refer back to the days at Mungro. Donal had a very artistic side to him. And, while he was at Mungro, he made a set of the Stations of the Cross. And the reason I chose the Gospel I did, where Mary Magdalene meets the Risen Lord, is because of that 14th Station (that is the last station, representing the tomb.) This was kind of an abstract set of the Stations, and Donal wrote a word under his 14th Station, and that word was "Rabboni."

"Rabboni," the word we heard today in the Gospel where Mary, recognizing the Lord said to him, "Rabboni," meaning "master." So, there was this very deep side of Donal. The artistic side, the spiritual side. You see, that way of conceiving of the 14th station is actually very beautiful. I think it very, very beautiful. Because what we are talking about today is the human and the divine at the same time. And it is not always easy to untangle them.

I think maybe we shouldn't try to disentangle them. Because Jesus, the person Mary said "Rabboni" to, was also God. That's how he rose from the dead. He was a human being. Everyone around him knew him to be a human being. But, he was also God. He rose from the dead. And that is why he still has an influence on Portlaoise today, 2000 years later. An influence I hoe will continue to grow deeper.

In other words, to conclude with the very nice second reading that Kirstin was kind enough to read for us, that bean, "Hope is not deceptive. Hope is not deceptive. Donal lived in hope. I had the pleasure of celebrating the sacraments with him two weeks ago in Portlaoise Hospital, and he was very glad to do so. And I was deeply honored to celebrate the sacraments with him.

Hope is not deceptive. Our hope is not deceptive when we put our faith in Jesus, who Mary Magdalene recognized that day as her master. But a master who was also her best friend.

The linking of the divine and human together in Jesus is wonderful. One can never talk enough about it. One can never express enough about it. I am certainly not doing it justice here today. But, as I recognized when talking to Donal two weeks ago, it was very much a part of who he was. And that was symbolized by that beautiful set of Stations that he made, the last of which said "Rabboni." Jesus, you are my master, and you are also my best friend.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Stories of My Father, Part 7

2010-04-13T05:00:00.000-07:00

I entered the seminary to begin my 2 year Novitiate at Emo Park. Emo Park was a 2000 acre walled estate given to Lord Portarlington about 450 years ago by the English queen. It was situated not too far from Portlaoise and by the time I was growing up, it had become a shooting club. My father was a member there, and I, myself, shot many Pheasants there. The Jesuits bought the mansion and extensive grounds around it for use as a seminary. Years later they were forced to sell it, as they had so few vocations. It now belongs to the state and is open to the public for tours. The original mansion, which had been modified to suit the needs of the seminary while I was there, has now been restored to the state it was built in. But my memories of it are quite different than what people see now as they walk through.

Once you entered the Novitiate, you were cut off completely from your family. You were allowed no visits for the first 8 months and no vacations home ever. After 8 long months, your family was invited to come down for a visit. They were treated to a splendid dinner, complete with wine, and shooshed out by 6:00 PM. Any presents they brought along had to be handed up and shared out to the entire community.

As Novitiates, we rose at 5:30 AM for mediation and prayer until 6:30 AM. This was followed immediately by Mass, and then breakfast at 8:00 AM. After Mass, we engaged in various spiritual exercises, which included 'indoor works,' meaning cleaning the house, peeling potatoes, etc. And after our midday meal, 'outdoor works.' There were extensive grounds with lawns, shrubs, garden beds, and trees that all needed to be maintained. All of our work was done in strict silence. If it was absolutely necessary to speak, we were required to speak in Latin. Latin was also spoken during the first 10 minutes of our evening recreation period. The Second Year Novices were, by that time, used to using the Church Latin and, so, would help the First Years out.

We lived under very strict rules almost too complex to describe. The simplest and most basic included 'ne tangas' (do not touch one another)and restricted conversation. When we were allowed to talk, we were guided by a list of 'forbidden' topics, among which was food.

Our bedrooms, called Cameratas, had five or six beds, each with a curtain around it. Two nights per week--three nights during Lent--we were required to flog ourselves with the 'flagellum' for the duration of the 'de Profundis,' said out loud.

(Note- This prayer is Psalm 129, and known as de Profundis for the first two words in the Psalm, which translate to 'Out of the depths' in English. This prayer was surely spoken in Latin by my father, but I have included an English version here:

Out of the depths have I cried out to thee, O Lord; Lord, hear my voice.
Let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplication.
If Thou, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?
But there is forgiveness in Thee; because of Thy law, I wait for Thee, O Lord.
From the morning watch until night, let Israel hope in the Lord.
For with the Lord, there is mercy, and with Him is plentiful redemption.
And He shall redeem Israel from all her iniquities.)

The 'flagellum' was made of hard knotted cord and was quite painful. It's use was intended to keep the will of the flesh subdued. To meet that same purpose, we also had spiked chains that wrapped around the lower arm and, sometimes, if it were too tightly applied, would break the skin.

Another punishment we were required was to declare your faults with outstretched arms in the refectory, on your knees. When you were done, you had to kiss the floor before getting up. But the worst punishment for most of us was reading (the Latin text) aloud during dinner, as we were corrected for every mispronunciation and thereby shamed publicly.

The Master of Novices was Father Donal O'Sullivan. He instructed us in the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola (founder of the Jesuit order) and other spiritual matters. Fr. O'Sullivan was also very interested in art and provided us with copious good reproductions of spiritual art. I attribute to him my knowledge and appreciation for the works of Fra Angelico, Giotto, el Greco, von Bruegal, and all of the Impressionists.

I held Fr. O'Sullivan in high regard, and so it was to him I went when I was troubled in my faith. I remember discussing with him that I did not believe that the Virgin Mary appeared at Lourdes, Fatima, or Knock (in Ireland). He stressed to me that, if you have faith in God and do what is right, you are doing good. It is not a matter of emotions or feelings. Some of the saints, he told me, spent years in the 'dark night of the soul,' which was to say, struggling with their own doubts.

During my second year in the Novitiate, I was appointed 'Beedle.' The Beedle was sort of the head Novice who led the group in prayers and visited the two head Priests every morning for any special instructions for the day.

At the end of two years, those of us that were left took 'simple vows' of poverty, chastity, and obedience. For the first time, we were allowed to wear dog collars and black suits.

(Note-I was very lucky to visit Emo Park with my Dad a few years before he passed. What a touching and fascinating experience to hear him speak of the long days he spent here as a Novitiate. His writing here cannot come near to touching the emotional pain he struggled with as he transitioned from a somewhat coddled family lifestyle (think maids, doting nanny, and many siblings older & younger) to the bare, sparse, heavily regimented life he had now to live. And, certainly, he was not alone in this experience, for I imagine most of the boys around him struggled the same. Boot camp in armed forces has nothing on the Jesuit Novitiate life in the mid 20th Century!

I remember feeling irritated at the guides when we visited Emo that day because my Dad tried to strike up a conversation a few times during our tour of the house, mentioning that he had spent his Novitiate there. But the guides were so busy blabbing on about Lord Portarlington, dead and gone these many years, and couldn't be bothered to take an interest in an old man who was right in front of their faces with a fascinating bit of the history of this property. )

Stories of My Father Part 6

2010-04-12T06:00:00.001-07:00

From my earliest memories, I grew up in a very strict Catholic atmosphere. Almost everybody in Portlaoise was Catholic. My own mother was a very devout Catholic, as was our nurse, Biddy. Mother was the Director of the Legion of Mary. She not only professed, but regularly practiced the best elements of Catholicism: Charity to the Poor. Many hungry people came to our house for food on a regular basis and, even if the were drunk, she never turned them away.

We said the family rosary on our knees almost every night after supper. We were educated by men who had devoted their lives to the church, the Irish Christian Brothers. We said prayers in the morning before classes and in the afternoon before we left school. We studied the Gospels and we were very familiar with the concepts of Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, Limbo, and the Devil himself. We knew the difference between Mortal Sin and Venial Sin, and all of their consequences.

If one died in Mortal Sin before having the opportunity to confess, it was straight to Hell's everlasting flames. If one died in Venial Sin, it was off to Purgatory, where flames would gradually burned away the sins and, finally, once pure, would move on to Heaven where one enjoyed the presence of God forever. If one could manage to make it without any sin on his soul, it was straight to Heaven. But there were several degrees of Heaven. One could be perfectly happy in each, but, by choosing to give your life to the service of God (ie, a Priest), you would enjoy the highest place in Heaven for all eternity.

In the Ireland of 1945, for the adolescent boy, sex was sin. Disobeying one's parents, telling lies, stealing were all sinful, and all featured large in the monthly confession. But none of those had the status that sex had. Just thinking about sex was a sin. A simple kiss on the lips was a Venial Sin. Open the mouth, it becomes a Mortal sin. Going on a date was "an occasion of sin." Any kind of touching a girl under her clothing was a Mortal Sin. And, of course, masturbation was a Mortal Sin. So I grew up amid the fierce tug-of-war between the joys of sin and the joy of going to Heaven. Both, at the time, seemed very real & important to me.

Every year at school we would have a three day retreat , during which the Priest would graphically depict the dangers of sin. He would also describe how precious a 'vocation' was. Nothing was greater than a calling by God to devote one's life to Him. To outline the dangers that lay directly in our path, he'd go on to tell us a story that might go something like this:

Twenty years ago, there was this 15 year old boy who was leading a good and holy life. One evening a girl asked him out for a walk and the committed Mortal Sins. On the way home, a lorry smashed into them and sent them directly into the flames of Hell, and they are still burning there even as we talk, and they know they will be tortured there for ever.

A vivid and highly imaginative description of the horrors of Hell would follow such a story.

On the other hand, a boy who resisted temptation and listened to God's call and became a Priest would go straight to Heaven, and to pleasures that far exceeded any pleasure we could possibly enjoy here on Earth.

I remember when I made my decision that I had a Vocation. I was in our Dining Room, sitting by the fire. I had just turned 18. My Mother came into the room and casually asked me if I had made up my mind what I wanted to do after passing my Leaving Cert at school. I replied, "I can't understand how anybody who believed the Gospels and the Revelations of Christ could do anything but devote their lives to him." But, upon reflection, I think even at that stage of my development there were some incipient doubts about the veracity of the Catholic message.

At that time I was quite taken with a really beautiful girl named Ponky McSharry. We went out together and she told me that she loved me, but would not want me to forsake my vocation on her behalf. I wondered if my strong feelings for Ponky was not a sign that I was not meant for the Priesthood. We kept our sins within the Venial limits, but I was suffering an agony of indecision right up to the day I left to begin my Jesuit training.

Most priests are ordained after seven years of training. Jesuit training extended over 16 years.

Stories of My Father Part 5

2010-04-09T06:00:00.000-07:00

In the years between 1944-1947, we enjoyed forming gangs with secret passwords and codes. We'd let our coded messages fall into the hands of the enemy to see if they could break them. We had homemade slingshots and usually carried a pocketful of selected stones, with which we practiced regularly knocking tin cans and bottles off the ash-pit wall. We became quite accurate at 30 yards or so. Sad to relate, many a blackbird exploded into a cloud of feathers as a result. We enjoyed challenging our rival clubs to battles, which we might schedule, for example, at 3:00 PM, Saturday, at the sandpit--only slingshots and bow and arrow are allowed. I don't know how there were not serious accidents.

Barry O'Connell figured large in all of this activity. Barry was the son of Dr. O'Connell, who lived in the third house of our group of three conjoined houses on Coote Terrace. Occasionally we found ourselves on good terms with Barry and his gang. But not too often. Once, when we were at war, one of his gang, Billie Rogers, was up on the roof of the O'Connell house, spying on activities in our backyard. My brother Paddy fired his pellet gun up at him. He jumped back to avoid being hit and fell through a glass skylight to a floor 15 feet below. He was bleeding profusely, and was taken directly to hospital. In the aftermath, of course, rumors ran wild; he was operated on and several pellets were removed from his leg, Paddy's gun was to be taken by Garda (police) as evidence, and our Paddy was bound for jail. The Garda did come to our house, and I'm sure our parents were very upset with the lot of us. But nothing much ever came of it.

Barry found multiple ways to torture us. Another that I remember involved my father, the direst insult of all. My father advertised at the local cinema in those days. The ad. film was shot at our chemist shop, and showed him as he came up behind the counter and held up a bottle of Milk of Magnesia. My father was a heavy smoker and, as a result, he coughed almost constantly. Barry paid a penny to each kid in the two penny seats in front to shout "old grunt, old grunt" when our advert came on. It was most mortifying for us, especially because it became such a popular activity that it continued even when the kids were not paid. There wasn't much we could do at the time. I'm sure, eventually, we took heavy retribution on Barry, but I can't remember what it was. Barry went on to become a priest, but I heard he had a serious problem with alcohol.

(I don't know why, but the end of this story tickles me. Dad never said it, but I think he held a strong belief in the concept of Karma. Clearly evidenced in the delight he has in sharing with us Barry's sad fate, probably predestined, if we're to judge, from serious character flaws made evident in this story.)

Stories of My Father, Part 4

2010-04-08T06:00:00.000-07:00

By 1943, we were inundated with propaganda films from the U.S., and we were 100% for John Wayne as he beat back the Japs. In that same year, the O'Carroll family came to our town to avoid the bombing in their hometown, London. Their children, Michael & Donal, became our closest friends. The O'Carrolls moved to a seaside resort town in the south of Ireland, Tramore, and opened a guest house there. They invited us down every summer. Summer in Tramore spelled freedom, and it was there that I first kissed a girl. Pam Best.

Pam was on holiday, staying in a hotel with her parents. This made it difficult to get together, but we could escape to see each other at the movie house. One day, I timorously put my arm over her shoulder and gave it a tiny squeeze. She did not object. I was trying to work up the courage to kiss her. The movie was called 'Cat Man,' and I said to myself, "the next time he changes into a panther, I'll kiss her." I was put to the test in about 2 minutes. I leaned over and gently touched her lips with mine. She did not object. For the remainder of that movie, whenever the man changed into a panther, I kissed her again.

On the very last day of this magical holiday, I managed to sneak in a long walk along the cliffs with Pam, holding hands. Time did not exist for us. Until suddenly I heard people calling and calling my name and telling me to hurry, hurry, or I would miss the train. I almost did.

On returning home, I could not stop thinking about Pam. A short time later, I tried phoning her in Dublin. Her mother answered the phone, and I asked for Pam. "Does your mother know you are doing this?" she snapped. And the line went dead. And that was the end of the first blossoming of 12 year old love.

(Note-slightly off subject, but worthy of mention before Dad gets any 'older' in his narrative: One of my favorite stories growing up must have happened right about this time in his life. He attended an air show, which I can only imagine must have been a spectacular display of WWII military prowess for a boy from a small town in that time. Amongst other things, he saw a man jump from a plane & parachute to the earth. Dad was captivated and couldn't stop thinking about the beauty, grace, and marvel of the man floating gently back to the earth suspended from his parachute. Using what soon proved to be very faulty logic, he determined that he might be able to accomplish a similarly spectacular feat employing his largest handkerchief as a parachute and using the top-floor landing of his house as a launching point. The end result failed to live up to his imagination of the event, and he failed to realize at the time that he was lucky to escape with no more than a broken arm. But it made for a wonderfully entertaining story when I, too, was miserably bound by a hard plaster cast on my left arm.)

Stories of my Father, Part 3

2010-04-07T06:00:00.000-07:00

I've gotten a bit ahead of myself, so I'll back up a few years. I was nine when World War II started. Ireland declared neutrality but, indeed, there was a lot of pro-German feeling in Ireland at that time. It felt good to see the English getting the lard beaten out of them after all the hundreds of years they had mistreated the Irish. In school, we received what I later recognized as a rather twisted and superficial view of Irish/English history, but at the time neither I, nor any of my countrymen, could see any good in the English.

I remember that Churchill asked to use the Irish ports on the west coast as a safe haven for the convoys from America from the German submarines. (Eamon) De Valara (founder of the Fianna Fail, Ireland's leading political party and credited with much of the writing of the modern-day Constitution of Ireland) refused, and Churchill nearly declared war on Ireland because of it. It was very probable that the only thing that kept him from declaring war on us was the great number of Irish in America.

Practically every kind of food was rationed during the war years, and I remember rationing even as late as 1950. In our family, we were never hungry, but we had coupons for everything.

(Note-I remember Dad telling us stories of how he would come up with great business schemes to make some extra money during the war. One of them was hunting wood pigeons to sell as food in town. Another one had something to do with converting coal dust to boot black?? There were others which, sadly, I can't remember. I don't think any of them was a raging success, but anyone who knew Dad understood that this entrepreneurial spirit never left him. He was a great one for big business schemes. I must remember later to come back to this theme & mention his worm farm...)

The age of 12 heralded the advent of many important benchmarks in our lives. We now were allowed to eat our meals upstairs in the dining room, rather than in the kitchen with the younger children. We moved from short pants to long pants, and were allowed to tackle new subjects in school such as Latin, algebra, geometry, geography, and science. And, of course, it marked the onset of puberty.

Boys and girls were educated separately at that time and, indeed, it is only recently that a few schools have become coeducational in Ireland. School uniforms are still the order of the day here today. And such social occasions as school dances were unheard of. Parents did not allow their children under the age of 18 to date. Of course, there were a few teenage pregnancies, but they were quickly hushed up.

Stories of My Father, Part 2

2010-04-06T06:00:00.000-07:00

We did not live at the pharmacy on the main street, but at a house at 1 Coote Terrace. It was one of three large houses joined together. At three stories high, the first floor was slightly below ground level and consisted of the kitchen, which had large flagstones set as the floor, the maids room, the back kitchen, and the coal house. Since it was below ground, the sink was high up, not far from the ceiling and all the water had to be carried up two huge steps to be thrown out.

A tall flight of stairs led up to the dining room, and all the food had to be carried up these stairs. Biddy, all of the help, and the children under the age of 12 ate in the kitchen. Children were required to learn table manners before graduating to the diningroom to eat.

The top floor consisted of the nursery, bathroom, and four bedrooms. We slept two to a double bed, and were glad of the company and warmth that provided us.

My mother taught all of my older brothers until they reached the age of seven, when they could start in grade 1 at the Christian Brothers school. This was unusual, as most younger boys began their education at the convent (girls) school in classes named "Ha'penny Babies" and "Senior Infants."

When I was about four and a half years old my mother, exhausted from continuous pregnancies and from taking care of our large family, decided that I should go to the convent. And so I became a "Ha'Penny Baby," and I did not like it. I did not like the nuns or the girls.

The only strong memory I have from this period is one day, when I gulped my sandwich down quickly in the first few minutes of the lunch period and was sitting alone and looking miserable, a nun approached and asked me where my lunch had gone.

"Down the little red lane," I told her, meaning my throat.

Misunderstanding my meaning, and thinking I was telling her that some ruffian had grabbed my lunch & run down the lane with it, she exclaimed, "Oh, you poor child. Come with me & we will get you another sandwich and lemonade in the convent kitchen."

Strange what you remember after so many years.

(Note-the story of The Little Red Lane was a story we all heard many, many times as I was growing up. Until he wrote this down, I never realized how young he was when this story happened. I wonder why this memory, in particular, was such a strong one? Did he feel guilty for misleading the nun, or was it the delight of a hungry, growing boy receiving the gift of an extra lunch? I wish I could ask.)

My first rebellion took place on the 7th of January, 1937. I remember it well because it was my birthday. Unknown to my parents, I presented myself at the Christian Brothers school and announce that I was now seven, and wanted to go to school there. The Brothers consulted with my parents and they decided, although it was the middle of the school year, I might be happier there. And so, I never went back to the convent until 1962, when I said my second Mass there. I spent the next 11 years in the Christian Brothers school.

My primary education years at The Brothers were difficult. Some of the Brothers were pretty brutal in their treatment of the boys they were teaching. To complete the sixth grade, we had to pass the "Primary Certificate," a state exam. We were required to work extra hard to make sure we passed this exam. Brother Horgan was our teacher and I was terrified of him. I just had seen the movie "Geronimo," and Br. Horgan had just come back from summer holidays well tanned. He looked just like "Geronimo," and it was an unusual day that we did not get at least on belt of his leather on our hands.

The homework was piled on. We had to memorize long passages from English and Irish texts, and write them out from memory the next day in class. And, for every mistake, a whack of Br. Horgan's leather belt. It was not uncommon for some of my classmates to have up to ten mistakes.

One Friday afternoon there was scheduled a test in Irish and I knew I was in serious trouble. So that morning I told my father I had a terrible toothache and asked if he would pull it that afternoon. Strangely enough, he agreed, and gave me a note for Br. Horgan to dismiss me from school early. I left school at the end of the test, but before the papers were collected. I took my answer book with me & burned it after leaving the school. Then I went on to have one of my perfectly good back teeth pulled. I can put my tongue into the gap as I write, all these years later. This was a terrible period of my life. But I passed the primary cert with flying colours and, the following autumn began my secondary education. I was 12 years old.

Stories of My Father, Part 1

2010-04-05T05:50:00.000-07:00

My Dad passed away in 2006, and, as much as I miss him, it makes me even sadder that Ben will never have the chance to know him. Luckily, about 10 years ago, my brother Kevin asked Dad to put together some of his memories and Dad obliged. Dad was born in Ireland in 1930, had his childhood during WWII, was ordained a Jesuit priest, and finally, of course, became an husband and father.

As children, we had very small glimpses of his childhood, but nothing on the level of detail that he wrote out in this series of emails we wrote at the request of my brother, Kevin. I had put this document in a file in the basement & forgotten it, but came across it recently while cleaning & organizing. Rather than bury it in yet another stack of old papers, I think it would be a great addition to my blog. It is a fascinating story of another time & place, and is a unique gift to Ben, my niece, Tillie, and any other young Gannons who might come along in the future.

So, here, in good part, is the history of my father, as written by himself:

I was born on January 7, 1930 in our own house in Portlaoise (Co. Laoise,Ireland). Portlaoise was a small town at time, about the size of Pittsfield or Newport (Maine). My father was William Gannon, son of a large farmer from the town of Castleroe in Co. Kildare (Ireland). He was a pharmacist and a dentist and owned a chemist shop in the town. He was a strict disciplinarian and none of his large family felt close to him until his old age, when I got to know him better. He died at the age of 85 and was buried in the family plot two years after I left for America.

My mother was Gertrude Aird and was twenty years younger than my father when she married him. My mother & father had twelve children, and one or two miscarriages, which were never mentioned because an unborn child was not baptized and, therefore, could not enter heaven. My siblings were John, James, Bill, Frank, Paddy, myself, Bernadette (who died when she was 2), Gabrielle, Anthony, Claire, Gertrude, and Ignatius.

With this large family, my parents needed help. And so, Biddy Sullivan was hired when John was born, as his Nanny. She was in our family until she died, approximately 40 years later. We all agree now that we were closer to Biddy than we were to our parents. Whenever we were in trouble, we confided in her, and she always listened and comforted us. If we were ill, we would go to the nursery and she would let us sleep there as a special favour. These few lines do not do justice to the important role which Biddy played in our family. She is buried in our family plot in Portlaoise.

We also had kitchen maids, but none of them ever reached the stature in our lives that Biddy did. In Biddy's final years, when she was confined to bed, she still kept tabs on everything. "Master Jamesey, your good shirt is in the third drawer in the landing dresser." We were terribly spoiled by Biddy's help and attention.

(Note-when I was a child growing up, we heard many, many stories of Biddy, who was absolutely beloved by Dad. In fact, I do not remember any significant or oft-repeated stories that featured either Dad's mom or dad, but Biddy was a constant presence whose memory comforted Dad far beyond his childhood)

Finding MAX

2010-03-31T18:06:00.001-07:00

Ben has started learning to read in earnest, sounding out 3- and 4- letter words all over the place. Sometimes I guide him by asking him what something says, and helping him with the tricky bits. But the biggest thrill for me is when I happen upon him when he has discovered a word and is trying to figure it out all on his own.

One day a few weeks ago, Ben discovered, quite by accident, that his best friend's name is everywhere. He first found it on the faucet in our bathroom, in minuscule writing wrapped around the very tip where the water comes out. He's since discovered it in many other places. On tires everywhere. On his car seat. On signs over bridges. And every time he discovers it, he is thrilled all over again. Amazed at the powerful presence of his friend. Proud and confident of his ability to discover it wherever we are.

Have you figured out Ben's best friend's name yet? It's Max. As in the cute, clever, curly-headed little boy at nursery school. Ben's companion, cohort, and partner in crime. As in, on the faucet, max. gal/min. As in, on the tires, max psi. As in max. weight on his car seat or on bridges.

It's amazing what you can discover when you are looking for it. I never looked for Max, and yet, there he was, all along, just waiting for us to discover him in all these obscure places!

This lesson, which Ben just taught me, is one that I hope to give back to him: We can choose to look for those things that lift us up, or we can constantly be on the search for those things that reinforce for us how much our life has let us down. Whichever we look for, we can be assured we will find it. The only question is, which will we choose? And how can I teach Ben to continue to search for the "Maxes"--those things that excite him & lead him forward and make him feel successful?

Adventures in Communicating

2010-02-17T12:58:00.000-08:00

It seems that 4 is the age where we, as parents, all delight in those communication mishaps and malapropisms that we affectionately term "out of the mouths of babes." I've recently been swapping lots of these types of stories with other MO4YO (Mothers of 4 year olds) , and can't help myself but to report a few recent incidents here to illustrate Ben's personal take on this fun phenom.

Take it & Run with It...Literally

We went to visit our wonderful pediatrician, Dr. Brottman, for Ben's 4 year physical. Ben was having a great time chatting with and showing off for Dr. Brottman, who is very engaging and who had lots of questions for Ben. At one point, Dr. Brottman asked Ben if he could run fast. Ben confirmed that, yes, indeed, he could run fast, and Dr. Brottman told him he'd like for Ben to show him how fast he could run by running down the hall. So we lifted Ben down off the exam table & went out into the hallway, his sturdy little body clad only in his "Cars" undies. I guess to us grownups, it was clear that he intended for Ben to run to the end of the hallway & back to us, but before the doctor could give any further instruction, Ben took off like a shot. Down the hall, around the corner, and into the reception/waiting are beyond! We could hear the laughter from the staff & patients up front. Moments later, he came tearing through the doorway on the other side of the reception area to complete the circuit. Panting for breath, he stopped proudly in front of Dr. Brottman & exclaimed "I WIN!"

Communicating Like a Grown Up

We met up with some friends for a play date last week at a place called Monkey Joe's. Monkey Joe's is an indoor play area filled with about 8 or 10 gigantic "bouncy castle" for the kids to climb, jump, slide, and explore. I was chatting with another mom when Ben popped out of the door of one of them & started over toward me. On the way, he noticed a woman sitting in a chair, and he veered off course to go and talk to her. He was just out of earshot from me, so I couldn't hear what he said, but the woman was clearly amused; she laughed out loud & patted him on the shoulder. They exchanged a few more words and then he turned and came on over to me. I asked him, "what were you talking to that lady about?" His reply--"I told her I liked her purse, Mommy." I glanced up at her, and she--still laughing--held up her "purse," a small Thomas the Tank Engine tote bag.

And Just When You Think They Get It

Ben's 4th birthday party, coming up this weekend, has a magic theme, and will feature a magic show. I was making up the goody bags a couple of days ago in preparation for the party, and Ben was very interested in one of the goodies--a disappearing coin magic box trick. Since I had plenty, I told him that if he would be patient & let me finish my task, I would sit down & show him how the trick worked. So a short time later, we sat together on the couch & read through the step by step instructions on how to do the trick. I demonstrated a couple of times, showing him how, if you turned the box one way or the other, you could 'magically' make the coin disappear & reappear. I would wave my hand over the top & say "abracadabra" before sliding the box open to reveal what had just' magically' occurred. Once I thought he understood, I handed it over to him. He showed me the trick over & over, and then I moved into the kitchen to start preparing dinner. About 10 minutes later he came running, breathless with excitement, into the kitchen to announce to me, "Mommy, I just did the trick, but I didn't say 'abracadabra,' and it still WORKED!!!!!!"

Perfect Imperfections

2010-02-08T11:15:00.000-08:00

This is a picture I have hanging on my bedroom wall. My oldest son, Bobby, took this picture a few years ago when he was visiting my dad in Ireland, so I love looking at it each morning for multiple reasons--most of which, I'm sure, you can guess. It reminds me of my son, it reminds me of my father, and it reminds me of Ireland. I also love it because it has an intimate, cozy feel. I can imagine myself pedaling my bike into this courtyard, leaning it against the wall there where you can see it peeking out, scratching the cat behind the ear, and settling down on the bench in the foreground with a steaming cup of coffee. I feel like I belong in this picture.

As I was looking at this picture this morning, for some reason the scruffiness of it struck me. I noticed how the paint is peeling on the door and the boards on the side of the building look worn & run down. I mean, obviously, this is part of the charm of the photograph and, certainly, part of the charm of the actual location, too. How different would this picture be if the door were flawlessly painted, if the siding on the building clean & perfect? I'm pretty sure the photo would lose all of it's appeal & barely cause anyone to take a second glance. It is the imperfections in this picture that make it worth seeing. It is its imperfections that make it beautiful.

I think it is important to be reminded of that sometimes. Especially here in the United States, where so much emphasis is put on perfection, both in our personal appearance, and in the appearance of the material things we have around us. We are judged every day by these standards, and therefore we spend inordinate amounts of money & time in maintaining them. From our Botox to our Lexus (tell me, would "Lexi" be the plural of Lexus? Seems right.), it's easy to get caught up in the madness of creating an illusion of perfection.

And yet, who can deny the charm of this picture? Could we possibly achieve such charm in our lives while allowing our own imperfections to shine through? I think so. I hope so. Because I'm getting wrinkles, and will remain Botox-free. Because I can't afford a Lexus. But, most of all, because I plan on teaching my son that it is not just possible, but important to do so.

Goodbye to Threes

2010-02-05T18:11:00.000-08:00

I just tucked Ben in for the last time as a three year old. When he wakes up in the morning, he'll have officially left any traces of babyhood behind & start life as a big four year old. On Tuesday, we had his new "big boy" bed delivered--he's sleeping in it now. Last night, after his art class (see picture of Eskimo, below), we went to visit the pre-K he'll be starting next year. He can dress himself, spell his first & last name, tell you his address, and make up stories about a host of fantastical beings and fantastical situations (although he would prefer that Mommy do that).

We went to the dentist today. We were getting sealants applied to a couple of his back molars. He asked the hygienist lots & lots of questions. What were they going to do? Would it hurt? Were they going to use the "race car toothbrush" and the "thirsty straw?" (Not his favorite implements from his first checkup). When the dentist finally came in, the hygienist commented to the dentist that she thought Ben was worried about what was going to happen. Ben sat right up and said, "No, I'm not worried. I'm just curious. Like Curious George." The dentist laughed right out loud. Ben didn't care much for the procedure that followed, but he was a big, brave boy and didn't cry once.

While this year had some tough developmental moments, overall it was magical. I hope I've captured a few of those moments in this blog.

Spaghetti Sauce Update

2010-01-19T19:31:00.001-08:00

I have been having a mental struggle since late summer, and I'm finally ready to come clean & admit it. Maybe, if I'm lucky, someone might even be able to give me a real, solid answer & solve my problem. God knows I've spent numerous hours searching for an answer, both via email & by telephone, with very little luck, so a definitive answer would be a blessing to me.

It's about the spaghetti sauce. I was so proud last summer when I invested an entire day whipping up a beautiful batch of homemade spaghetti sauce and then preserving it in pint jars using a steam bath. In fact, I even wrote a blog post about it. I think there are probably about 8 pints, which involved scads of fresh tomatoes from my garden, lots of peeling, chopping, simmering, and the like. I could tell you exactly how much if I were to just get off my butt & go over to the pantry to do a count. Why? Because we haven't even opened one jar.

You see, not long after I made the sauce, someone mentioned to me that if I didn't put lemon juice (or abscorbic acid) in as one of the ingredients, the sauce wouldn't be safe to eat. At first, I just laughed this idea off. I've been putting up tomatoes for several years now, and never had a problem. Why would sauce be any different? But, the idea noodled around in my brain & wouldn't leave, so I finally gave in and did a little further research. Indeed, I discovered, there is a definite concern that the additional ingredients in spaghetti sauce will dilute the acidity of the tomatoes and thereby create an environment that is perfect for the growth of botulism. I went on to further read that modern tomatoes have had a lot of the acidity that has traditionally been found in tomatoes bred out of them, further increasing the risk. The tomato sauce that our grandmothers may have made with fresh tomatoes from their gardens is not going to necessarily equal the sauce we make today; theirs would be far more acidic. While I didn't grow some fancy-schmancy new-fangled hybrid, I don't think that the "Big Boys" I picked in my garden that day exactly qualify as heirloom seeds either. Well, in fact, I know that they don't. They are definitely hybrids. But were they acidic enough??

Unfortunately, I couldn't get any definitive answers. Everything was "maybe" and "might" and "possibly." I even debated going to the pet store & buying a kit designed to test the ph balance in an aquarium, thinking that if I could verify the acidity of the sauce, I could quell my fears. But, then again, I don't know how accurate those tests are.

Then I read somewhere else that, if something is suspected of possibly carrying botulism, simply bringing it to a boil for 10 minutes will render it safe by killing all the botulism spores. Sounds good. I can certainly boil my sauce for 10 minutes--even longer. But I have not been able to verify that statement. And I'm just not sure I want to test the validity of that on my family.

I've tried calling the Extension Service, which has a program called the "Master Preserver," but I cannot actually reach anyone. In fact, there is not even an answering machine. I even tried calling the Botanical Gardens & speaking to the woman who does the vegetable garden/food programs there. She was nice, but couldn't give me an answer either.

So part of me says just dump the sauce. And another part of me says keep looking for a definitive answer. And therefore the sauce just sits on my pantry shelf, right at eye level, looking at me accusingly every time I open the door. I really, really want to try it. But I really, really need to believe I won't kill myself or my family by doing so. What to do? What to do??

Foodies or Fatties

2010-01-12T19:08:00.000-08:00

Last weekend I flipped open the paper & found a long feature article on the phenomenon of the past decade, the "Foodie." The article lauded the fact that Americans, at last, had discovered the value of buying, cooking, and consuming good, quality food, stating that it was an era where "cola wars & burger battles made way for artisinal sodas and grass-fed beef." That article really got me thinking about some of the crazy food messages we've gotten in the past 10 years and wondering if we, as a nation, have grown into a better relationship with our food, or whether our relationship is still a poor one, and has rather just veered off into a more expensive direction.

Undoubtedly stores like Trader Joe's and Whole Foods have opened up a whole world of food options for us, even driving our local grocery stores to finally make room for aisles stocked with organic items. And the terms "organic" and "slow food" became an important part of our vocabulary. Farmers Markets became the place to see & be seen on a Saturday morning, and "fairly traded" items like coffee or chocolate tapped into our longing to connect with the poor farmer.

Throw into the mix a little Rachel Ray, or one of the limitless selection of other television shows dealing with food, and spice that up with a little epicurous.com, and you'll discover that we cannot stop thinking, dreaming, cooking, or eating food. You might say we've become obsessed. And you might say it's not a bad thing, since we're talking about good, quality stuff here. But I'm not so sure.

While we encountered more food choices than ever before, it would be a mistake to believe that the majority of Americans have taken advantage of that by cooking healthy meals. Or, maybe the meals ARE healthy, but just so delicious that we cannot stop at just one serving. We know this is true, because the size of the average American continues to go up, up, up.

Hey, America, that fairly-traded chocolate bar has just as many calories as the Hershey bar of old. And dark chocolate may be heart-healthier than milk chocolate, but it's still not as healthy for your heart as eating an apple. I'll let you in on another secret: all those venti-caramel-macchiatos, even without the whipped cream, might taste delicious, but it's not just the gourmet coffee you are enjoying. It's also about a gazillion tooth-rotting calories per sip.

The funny thing is that we, as a Nation, seem to also be working harder than ever to stay fit; going to the gym, spending on everything from personal trainers to uber-expensive shoes. All in a desperate effort to have our cake and eat it, too. And color me guilty. I'm not above the fray here, but right down in the food trenches.

It will be interesting to see what we think of this trend 20 years from now. You know, when I look back at my high school & college pictures with my friends, we laugh at our "big eighties hair." I wonder if my son is going to laugh at our chubby little double chins 20 years from now and say "that was so 2005." Sheesh, I hope not.

The Quiet Household

2010-01-07T19:19:00.001-08:00

I have a confession to make. I would not make a good nurse. I don't do well with illness. I recognize & give thanks every day for my health & for the health of those around me. I swear I give thanks every day. But some days more than others. Right now it is in the forefront of my mind, because Ben has been sick since the beginning of the new year. I shouldn't complain, but I'm just not used to it. I'm used to my crazy, happy, energetic little bouncing-off-the-walls 3 year old, and not this lethargic, virus-stricken, rashy, snugly, sad little boy who has taken his place.

To tell the truth, I've been seriously worried about him. I even called the doctor to ask if I should bring him in. If you know me at all, you know that calling the doctor is not something you find me doing unless I feel dire circumstances demand. So, take my admission of doctor-telephoning as a signal of my serious state of concern! The doctor diagnosed Roseola over the phone & said there was no need to bring him in unless I was worried that he had an ear infection as well. I'm sure he doesn't, so we didn't bother going in. But he's been such a little zombie, I found myself wondering this afternoon if those high fevers he had earlier this week caused him damage. Please, say a little prayer that he'll be better tomorrow. I'm sure he will be, but a prayer or two to speed it along would give me peace of mind.

Edited to add:

In an attempt to cheer me up, Brent just reminded me of something funny that Ben did during this sickness. In light of my last post, I had to come back & update this post to include it:

Ben was having very high fevers for a few days earlier this week, particularly at night, so we were taking his temperature at night when he was asleep. The first time we did it, Brent woke Ben up enough to get the thermometer under his tongue. When the thermometer gave the little beep that signaled it was done, Ben mumbled "I win."

It Runs in the Family

2009-12-30T14:07:00.001-08:00

We just had a rare occurrence in our family--nearly everyone was assembled in one place at the same time. I started working on this idea at the beginning of 2009, and managed to convince 6 people from 3 states to come & spend Christmas at our house. The only person missing was my brother, Kevin. It was awesome (if a little crowded & hectic at times), and I have a deep gratitude that we were able to gather together for a happy occasion rather than waiting, as we so often do, for something tragic to draw us together.

While they were all here, I started contemplating an amazing fact. My sister & I have an awful lot in common. Who knew? We spent so many years being competitive, so many years trying to be different. But there is no way around it. Without even trying, we are the same. Having chosen very different lives, and living over 1000 miles apart, we are the same. Our favorite color is the same: orange. We both chose men who love football & hate condiments. And, weirdly, we both sing our way through life. Seriously, I had no idea how MUCH I sing until I spent a few days with my sister. Hearing her, I realized that I do the same thing--we narrate almost everything we do throughout the day with little impromptu songs. I'll admit it, too, sometimes my impromptu songs turn into everyday songs that we add to our repertoire & sing over & over. Like the songs we sing to brush our teeth.

(sung to the tune of London Bridge)
Brush-a Brush-a Brush your teeth
On the top
Underneath
Brush-a Brush-a Brush your teeth
My fair baby.

(sung to the tune of Row Row Row Your Boat)
Brush Brush Brush your teeth
Brush them everyday
Helps to keep them nice & clean
And keeps bad breath away!

Or the Good Morning Song:

Good Morning!
Good Morning!
It's a very, very, very good morning!
The sun is up
And Ben is too
So that makes it a good morning!

I've never really thought about it before. But I bet there are lots of people who do this. I hope so. It's fun! Plus, I don't want my sister & I to be the only ones!

The family is gathering together again in May for my sister's wedding. Another joyous occasion! I'll have to make up a special song for it!

Happy New Year!

I Win! You Lose!

2009-12-16T11:29:00.000-08:00

If success is truly dependent on a winning attitude, Ben is way ahead of the game! In the past few weeks, he has adopted a new philosophy on life. I call it the "I Win! You Lose!" philosophy. In shockingly short order, this new mindset has swept our entire household. It has saturated us to the sub-cellular level. Everything that occurs in our lives lately, if Ben is even remotely involved, includes a winner or a loser. And, let there be no doubt, Ben is NEVER the loser.

Today, I was driving Ben home from school. He was sitting in his car seat in the back of the car, singing himself a little song as I drove. I wasn't particularly listening to the song at first, but slowly the words sunk in & grabbed my attention. Sing along if you know this one!

"I have the best house. I win!"
"I have the best car. I win!"
"I have the best school. I win!"
"I have the most snow around. I win!"
"That's the biggest football field. I win!"
"This is the longest road. I win!"
"I win, I win, I wiiiiiiiinnnnnnnn!!!!!!"

It goes on & on, so I won't repeat all the lyrics. I think you probably get the general idea, right?!

I'm not sure that the "I Win! You Lose!" philosophy is the best choice for our family, but I am powerless to fight it. I've tried my best to introduce the concept of "sometimes we don't win," or "how about we all are winners?" to no avail. So I'm trying to figure out how to make the "I Win! You Lose!" philosophy work FOR me. Like, today for example, Ben won at getting to the bathroom & brushing his teeth. And he won at getting to his bedroom first to lay down for his nap. Maybe after nap, he'd like to try his hand at winning at vacuuming the whole house. (Ha ha--just kidding. Since I think I'm the only one here who knows how to turn the vacuum on, I already won at that...)

Lao Tzu, I fear, would not be pleased with the "I Win! You Lose!" Philosophy. There is a lot of adrenaline involved, a lot of running about. Peaceful meditation of nature does not play a role in this philosophy. I'm kind leaning over to the Lao Tzu camp myself, but if I get there first, I'm afraid I might blurt out "I win" and spoil the whole thing.

We're Counting on You!

2009-11-19T11:37:00.001-08:00

Ben can count. He can count high. And he wants to show you this newly acquired skill. Mention almost any number under 100, and you'll get him started. In fact he'd like to show you how high he can count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 times. Will you take him up on that offer? Because he never gets tired of it, but I need a break now. Thank you.

Don't Worry, Be Happy

2009-11-10T13:18:00.000-08:00

Ben is fascinated by natural disasters. It all started a couple of months ago when we heard the monthly test of the town's tornado sirens. When he asked about it, I explained what tornado sirens were & why they need to be tested. Then I went on to answer about 2,572 additional questions about tornadoes that afternoon. The next day, Ben wanted me to make up a story about tornadoes. In fact, every day since that day, we have discussed tornadoes.

It is clear to me that Ben is anxious about the idea of a tornado, but it is not clear to me exactly the best way to handle it. I've talked about it whenever he has asked, making up stories about them, discussed in extreme detail the exact, and extremely rare, I might add, weather conditions that must exist in order for a tornado to occur, talked about what we would do if we ever heard the sirens go off, and how we would be safe. We've even talked about scientists who study tornadoes for a living.

I thought talking about it would allow him to work through his anxieties, but now I'm wondering now if my mommy-instincts have failed me. Because tornado talk has started spilling out to random strangers we meet in out day-to-day activities. Like when he asked the mailman the other day, "hey, don't you think maybe the sky is looking a little greenish-yellow today?" The mailman was, understandably, baffled. It was a chilly, clear, sunny 48F day. Or take last week when he asked his nursery school teacher during their free-play on the playground , "Hey, Miss Jen, can you hear the tornado sirens here?" I think he was just trying to strike up conversation, and, you know, maybe trying to double-check with her that the sirens could be heard everywhere, not just at our home. Just in case, 'cause it's good to know these things, right? But, of course, Miss Jen was baffled. She wasn't prepared for in-depth conversation about tornadoes in November.

To add insult to injury, we just bought a generator this past weekend. A few years ago we had big, big storms (no tornado, in case you're wondering) and our power was knocked out for 3 days. We'd talked about buying a generator ever since, just in case it happens again. In fact, our in-laws gave us a check for Christmas a couple of years ago for just such a purpose. We tucked it away, fully intending to get the thing....but, you know, life happens & these things slip through the cracks. Since the ILs are coming out this week for a visit, we thought we'd better go ahead & make that purchase.

The side of the generator, like many things in this day & age, has a label on it with a series of pictures depicting the dire & horrible things that could occur to you if you should choose to use the generator without reading the owners manual. One of those warnings was about Carbon Monoxide. It wasn't this exact picture, but close to it. Ben was, naturally, a little concerned about the meaning of this label. I explained that the generator makes fumes when it's running, so you have to make sure it is outside so no fumes can get in your house. Because, if you breathe them, they will make you sick.

And off he went. "What's a fume, Mommy?" "Mommy, why are you putting the generator away in the garage? It might make a fume in our house." "Does this thing give you a shock, Mommy?" "Is a fume a shock, Mommy?"

When the conversation continued right on into Monday, I took the opportunity to show him the smoke detector & the carbon monoxide detector. I had meant to change the batteries at the fall time change, but had missed it, so this was a the perfect time to kill two birds with one stone. And, Lo & behold, the smoke detector failed it's test, even with a new battery. So off we went to Ace Hardware to buy a new one.

Ben, my little chatter bug, struck up a conversation with the cashier while we checked out, and informed her quite proudly that he wasn't worried about tornadoes anymore because now, with this purchase, we finally had everything we need to be safe.

That cashier is probably still wondering what the heck he meant by that. But I'm breathing a sigh of relief.

Meet Justin

2009-10-22T11:02:00.000-07:00

Ben surprised me one night last week when he announced from the back seat of the car, "Mommy, when I grow up, I'm going to be Justin."

"What do you mean, honey?" I asked.

"I want to have my name be Justin when I'm big, Mommy. I don't like being Ben anymore."

Oh.

I'm so sad.

My husband & I spent many fruitful hours of discussion in debating all the pros & cons of names. For each name under consideration, we rolled it around on our tongues, trying to find every conceivable way it could be warped into a mean taunt, or a silly rhyme. We wanted it to sound good with our last name, without being "cutesy." As anyone who is a parent can attest, choosing your child's name is serious business. And, trust me, EVERYONE wants to weigh in on your decision well in advance of the arrival of the baby. So, you can imagine, we were quite triumphant when we had realized that "Benjamin" was the perfect name for our child.
And, just to steer clear of the pesky advice-givers, we declined to reaveal his name to anyone until he was actually born.

And now, on some whim, after only 3 1/2 years, he wants to give it up, just like that. Sheesh, he JUST learned how to write B-E-N. Fickle child.

Glancing in the mirror, I slyly asked him, "Justin? Can I call you Just in Case?"

After a brief moment of deliberation, he announced that, no, he'd keep the name Ben afterall.

Phew. I'm glad.

Growing Up So Fast~

2009-10-14T06:59:00.000-07:00

Ben drew me this beautiful picture of a butterfly last night, and signed his name in the lower right corner. It's the first time he's ever written his name by himself.

Flow Together

2009-10-12T13:15:00.000-07:00

After intently peering over the side of the bridge into the water flowing below, Ben hopped down, looked up at me with sparkling eyes, and, full of wiggly excitement, exclaimed, “Let’s see what’s on the other side, Mom!!” Barely waiting for my nod, he raced across the bridge, clambered up on the rail, and peered intently into the flowing water below.

This is a ritual of which Ben never tires. There is never anything too exciting to keep him from pausing here, at the bridge that crosses from the Visitor’s Center of the Chicago Botanic Gardens and into the gardens. And, although he has already crossed this bridge hundreds of times in his short life, the joy of stopping to peek over the side never fades. The hope of seeing something new and exciting is always burning. And, even when the first peek yields nothing new OR exciting, it is always followed by the happy scramble across the bridge to peek over the other side.

I think, for me, this represents the wonder of childhood. These little things bring my mind racing back to my own childhood, & I can touch, if only ever so fleetingly, the same sense of joyousness that I felt when I was that age, and when I was doing the same thing. Similar memories include the smell of burning leaves, skipping a rock on a quiet pond on a hot summer day, making the first footsteps in a new-fallen snow & feeling & hearing the hard, squeeky crunch under your boots. These experiences are crystallizations of everything that is wonderful in the world into one experience, and they are transformative.

My husband & I often talk about the things we want for Ben. Our whole family life is literally centered around him these days because he is our everything. But I have to stop & recognize that the happy & fulfilling moments like the one I described above are not a material thing that I can give or take from Ben. They are a gift from a higher power. I am so blessed that I am able to be watch him as he encounters the world in his own way. He reminds me every day through his own actions that I need to slow down and engage with the world, notice it. We are teaching each other.

Magical Thinking

2009-09-02T19:03:00.000-07:00

Lions, Tigers, & Bears. Oh my. I've spent a lot of time recently reflecting on the reality of the concept of Magical Thinking. Who can be surprised, really, when one considers that I see it manifested daily in my 3 1/2 year old son, Ben? He has entered into a unique period of human development right now in which his brain is overflowing with new, imaginative ideas. For the first time, he can take a pieces of information that he is given from multiple sources, break them down, reconstruct them in new & unique interpretations, and express them verbally. This is an amazing sight to see, and a privilege, since it only occurs in most people for such a very short period of time.

It's can also be a source of endless amusement. I often, these days, am taken by surprise when Ben mis-understands words or ideas that he overhears. Common phrases or sayings take on new meaning when heard by his young ears. When I recently closed a car door on our babysitter's hand, I brought her inside to provide some comfort & first aid. As I ministered to her injuries, I said to her in a worried voice, "Oh, S*, I'm so sorry. Is it killing you?" Of course, instant mayhem ensued. S* is Ben's beloved, and he had no other way to interpret what I said other than literally. He wailed in despair. He was sure I had just killed his darling babysitter. Oops, time to watch my words!

I recently picked up & read, just by chance, a memoir by the author Anne Rice entitled Called Out of Darkness. Early in the book, the author very passionately describes how she felt she interacted with the world prior to learning to read, and how that period in her life seemed richer, more real--yet at the same time, more mystical-- than any other period of her life. It seemed clear to me that she was describing this very phase that Ben is going through now. She draws a clear line between her pre-reading world and her post-reading world, and clearly preferred the time she remembers prior to learning to read. Perhaps it is not outside the realm of possibility that these experiences & memories she describes have fueled a whole creative & very successful career.

This particular passage in her book has given me lots of food for thought. She entertains the idea that learning to read binds the world to the weighty reality of constricting things through letters, words, sentences, and that this ends the mystery & enchantment of the non-reading period of life. Around this same time, I became aware of a commercial that was on tv fairly often--a program to teach your baby to read. "Don't miss out on this once in a lifetime opportunity," pleaded the announcer. As if to suggest that, if my child doesn't learn to read before the age of 2, I might as well toss in the parenting towel & give my child up for lost. Silly, really, yet it was strong counterpoint to what I had just read.

After much thought, I do think I've arrived at a philosophy I feel comfortable with. I'm a great reader. Some of my earliest memories are of my mother reading bedtime stories, and, not long thereafter, my own before-bed reading. I want my child to have a great love for reading, as well. But, nowadays, I think that the best way to nurture that may well be to not rush it. It is my personal opinion that this creative period that Ben is living in right now is too fleeting to interrupt in any way. I will do whatever I can to encourage his imagination to grow without borders. I will nurture his creativity by both taking an active role through reading, talking, playing with him, and a passive role, by allowing him the time & room to explore on his own. But I will not push him to become a formal student before he has too. If & when he expresses an interest in learning to read & write, we'll work on that. If he starts Kindergarten without knowing how to write his name, I won't be ashamed; I'll be proud that we lived in our magical and enchanted world as long as we possibly could.

The Ha Ha Pig

2009-08-30T18:53:00.001-07:00

Last summer, my good friend P* invited Ben & I to join her son A* & herself in a day at Six Flags Great America in Gurnee, IL. We didn't realize it at the time, but on that day, Ben's arch-nemesis was born: the Ha Ha Pig.

The birth of the Ha Ha Pig was humble, and went almost unnoticed. In fact, if I hadn't happened to take a picture of the actual moment, it may have slipped away, altogether unmarked & unrecognized. Luckily, I had the camera at the ready. So, gird your loins, or take whatever other measures you feel may be appropriate to prepare yourself for introduction to the gruesome & horrible beast. Ready? Here we go!

Don't let that happy, adorable child on his back fool you. Notice, instead, the beady eyes. Shudder in fear at the glistening tusks. Imagine yourself sitting on an cute & cuddly carousel giraffe, preparing for a jolly ride when, suddenly, you notice this creature lurking at your side. You, too, would probably leap from your giraffe in fear, stagger blindly toward any avenue of escape, and, finally, settle for moving to a kitty the next row up, so you wouldn't have to look at this sight during your ride.

Starting to get the picture, now, aren't you? This is no normal carousel folly, this is a ferocious beast. Trust me. Now, imagine, this hideous creature inhabiting your basement every night for a year. chuckling his evil "ha-ha-ha-ha" noises through the furnace vents from the stuff room, and thoroughly terrifying my darling child. No ordinary arch-nemesis, quite certainly not.

This past week, Ben finally had the opportunity to look his longest & deepest fear in the eye & face it down. He even climbed on it's back & pronounced, stunned & happy, "Mommy, it's so small!" And after the first ride, we had to do it again, a little later, just to make sure we had this fear licked for good. I think it went pretty well. What do you think?

Forgettable Moments (That You Don't Want to Forget)

2009-08-24T12:28:00.000-07:00

The title of this entry sounds like the title of a Country & Western song, doesn't it? I don't want to be too hokey, but in these final days of summer, Ben has filled my mind with those types of moments. And it is with mingled excitement & regret that I think about the start of nursery school & other school-year activities. When I made the decision this summer to not enroll Ben in any formal activities, I knew we would run into a few moments of boredom. But I also knew that this may be the last summer we'll have that is completely unfettered & unscheduled. I wanted to savour every moment.

How on earth was I to know so many of those moments would involve Ben & myself locked in endless arguments and tantrums? The 3-year-old determination & energy could far surpass anything a world-weary mommy like me could offer as defense? And, toughest of all, that Daddy would have to travel for work week after week for the first six weeks of summer? Suffice it to say, it was a rocky start.

The last few weeks have seen a change, though. Ben has relaxed a bit. He has passed through some invisible milestone that allows him to actually fully engage now in conversations with me. Real, actual conversations, I mean, not conversations that consist of "Ben, stop pulling the cats tail."
"Why Mommy?(pull)"
"Because he doesn't like it. "
"Why Mommy?(pull, pull*yowwwwwl!*) "
"Because it hurst him. Just stop, ok, Ben?"
"Why Mommy? (pull, pull, pull)."
"AAAAAARGH leave the damn cat alone!"

Our new conversations are more along the lines of
"Mommy, when I lose a tooth, the tooth fairy will take it, right?"
"Yes, honey, but how did you know about the tooth fairy?"
"Oh, Miss Jen (nursery school teacher) told me."
" Oh, that must have been a long time ago. You haven't seen Miss Jen since spring."
"It was." ... pause.... "Mommy, where does the tooth fairy live? And why does he want my tooth?"

A vast improvement, if you ask me. I can have long discussions about the tooth fairy & never get rattled.

Last week, Ben informed me that he wanted to take a bike ride around the block after lunch & before he went to rest. I was eager to get him down to rest, but saw the merit in the idea of a bike ride, and, in hopes that it would tire him out enough to actually sleep during rest time, I agreed. We headed out a short time later, and about halfway through our walk encountered a gloriously large puddle of water on the road. Ben's face lit up, and he peered back over his shoulder at me to get my silent permission. With the merest nod of my head, he revved up his little feet to take his trike into warp speed, and zoomed into the puddle. Water slooshed & splooshed, cascading everywhere, and he emerged on the other side with a look of intense joy & triumph on his face. The walk was over. We spent the next 15 minutes riding through that puddle over & over until the majority of it had been splashed away. When we finally returned home, Ben was drenched & exhausted, but just so full of happiness. That brief 15 minutes, I hope, will be the moment I will carry with me in the years to come when I think about the summer of 2009. The summer Ben was three years old.

Fruits of Our Labour

2009-08-20T19:08:00.000-07:00

Ben & I harvested tomatoes again today, lugging in a haul of 20 lbs. Ben was in ecstasy! Funny, the kid won't eat a bite of tomato to save his life, but he sure loved picking them. What he WILL eat is spaghetti sauce. Or, in his words, "meatball sauce." Fortunately for him, the recipe I found for sauce called for 20 lbs of tomatoes, so while he rested, I got down & dirty with making up what I thought would be a big batch of sauce. Hours and hours and HOURS later, the acid from the tomatoes has eaten the fingerprints right off my hands, and I'm left with 7 little old pints of spaghetti sauce. I have a new respect for Italian cooks everywhere!

Gardening

2009-08-07T13:54:00.000-07:00

I tripled the size of my garden this spring, having found a guy who was willing to do the rototilling pretty cheap. I was dying to plant a great big garden for a couple of reasons, a big one being, of course, growing fresh produce for the family. The second big reason, though, was just as important to me: I wanted to give my 3 year old son, Ben the opportunity to plant seeds & watch a garden grow. It is a very satisfying experience to push a tiny seed into the cool, wet earth in the spring & know that in a relatively short period of time, it will become nothing short of a miracle!

Picking & eating food from our own garden gives me a sense of satisfaction, and an enjoyment in preparing & eating the fresh produce that I don't get when I purchase it at the market. I would like to think that I can use this experience to instill some of that same feeling in my son, and perhaps grow in him a willingness to try new foods (especially vegetables!) at which he might otherwise turn up his nose.

Big, fat seeds that are easy for little fingers to handle were at the top of our list of things to plant in our garden. If those big, fat seeds could produce spectacluarly huge results, they were even more in demand. As a result, I have four rows of eight-foot-tall corn. It's a wonder to behold, a forest of greenness! I read somewhere that you need a minimum of three rows to allow proper pollination of the plants, so, just to be on the safe side, we did four. From this bounty of greeness, we have enjoyed, so far this year, exactly five ears of corn. I might add, the squirrels are enjoying the corn immensely. They've eaten more than five ears so far. All told, I think we've gotten our .99 cent investment back. And there are still ears of corn ripening, although it's a toss-up whether those ears will be consumed by human or squirrel.

We have a big, rambly pumpkin plant wandering through our garden. Sadly, while it is covered in spectacularly gigantic yellow blossoms, not a single blossom has resulted in a pumpkin. I've been told that there are male blossoms & female blossoms, and the one plant will pollinate itself to create pumpkins. I guess I must have a gay plant...all male blossoms & no offspring in sight. Oh, well. I'm just glad I only planted one. It takes up a lot of space.

Green beans were fun to plant, but decidedly less spectacular in the delivery of their payload than corn, according to Ben. But they grow quickly (as suggested by the fairy tale, Jack and the Beanstalk), and are therefore satisfying. In addition, I should add that I've frozen about 10 lbs of green beans so far, so from my perspective, they have produced far more satisfying results than the corn!

Another great satisfaction has been our giant sunflowers. Towering at 8-10 feet tall, their happy, nodding yellow heads are what make the sun come out each day, according to Ben. They may not produce anything I'm going to put on the table for dinner, but they feed the soul & therfore deserve a place in our garden.

But the grand prize winner of the garden, from a 3-year-old's perspective, is the Zuchinni. Thankfully, I only planted one. It's the gift that keeps on giving. Ben is amazed, as am I, at how quickly this plant can produce fruits of gigantic proportions. Turn your back for a minute & you'll find yourself picking Zukes as large as a small 3 year old. I can vouch for that! Ben has had the extreme pleasure of not only eating Zuchinni himself, but also in delivering it to our friends & neighbors on a regular basis. He's proud & happy to share our bounty.

Along with the "showoffs" of the garden, we're also enjoying lettuce, spinach, peas, radishes, brocolli, cauliflower, tomatoes, cucumbers, summer squash, strawberries, basil, and parsley this year.

The garden takes a lot of work, but Ben & I have shared some wonderful moments there, side by side, together this summer. From planting to weeding, growing to harvesting, I'm happy to have the opportunity to grow my garden and my son's love of nature at the same time. In fact, I'm already planning next year's garden in my head!

The Celligator

2009-07-11T12:52:00.000-07:00

Ben got this little Alligator cell phone from his cousin Jeffrey for Christmas. It has a fun feature that allows you to record your own message, and then replay it whenever you open the cell phone. We call it the celligator, and Brent loves to record a bedtime message for Ben to listen to each night when we're getting him in his jammies. Brent has a secretly amazing talent for mimicking the voices of children's characters. Grover, Elmo, Bert have all called. And some of our own family favorites, too; Junky Camel calls a lot, a Glarmy just called the other night, even the HaHa Pig has called a couple of times. Ben looks forward to listening to his message, and his face lights up every time he hears a message. Because of that, we love the celligator.

My Bouncing Baby Boy

2009-07-10T11:59:00.001-07:00

I recently signed Ben up for the summer reading program at the Palatine Public Library. We have to read 40 books, getting a sign-off after each 10, in order to get a t-shirt. I think the main goal of the program is to encourage kids to read; my main goal is to find an excuse to read something different. Ben, if the decision were left up to him, would choose to have me read the same book at naptime & at bedtime, day in & day out, for weeks at a time. It's enough to slip me into a mini-coma just thinking about story time. While Llama Llama Red Pajama may have it's merits, by about the hundredth time reading it, I'm stark raving mad. I figured at the very least, enrolling him in this program would force us to march through 40 books in 4 weeks & minimize repeats. In fact, I may not tell him when the program ends. He can't count to 40 yet. I wonder how long I could get away with it??

So, anyway, while last Sunday was a perfect day for spending romping around outside, Ben & I had an urgent need to visit the library to get signed off on the first 10 books & pick out 10 more. We're definitely on a deadline and can't let the rare perfect day sidetrack us. Round about mid-afternoon, we pack up & head off to the library.

As we entered the semi-busylobby, Ben was trailing about 8 feet behind me. As usual, these days. There is always something he has to stop & inspect, and he lives to the constant refrain of Mommy calling back to him, "Ben, hurry up!" Not today, though. I was about halfway across the lobby when suddenly he came rocketing past me, in a beeline for the water fountains. I guess he was thirsty. Because he was moving so fast, he was literally a blur. He flew between me & another mom who was standing near me, literally bounced off of the water fountain, and executed a near-perfect backward roll before finishing off neatly on his feet again. Oh, yeah, and did I mention that he actually managed to turn the water on during this whole maneuver, as well? It was an amazing feat. The other mom burst out laughing, turned to me, and said, "I wish I had that on video, because that was a move that could win contests."

Ben is not known for his brave & reckless feats of gymnastics, but somewhere in Palatine right now, there are a handful of people who think there is a future gymnast in their midst.

Bird's Nest Wreath Update

2009-06-26T17:02:00.000-07:00

This past winter, I posted about a wreath I made of bird's nesting materials. I just took it down last week--it was a big success amongst the bird population in my neighborhood. I thought I'd share an "after" picture. I had a hard time getting a good picture of the wreath with birds-in-action. Although this one is a little blurry, you can clearly see that this pretty wreath was near the end of it's days when I took this picture.

In a Jam

2009-06-25T16:30:00.000-07:00

Ben & I went to pick strawberries today at Stade's Farm in McHenry, IL. When we got there, we walked out to shed in the middle of a field, where we hopped on a hay ride out to the strawberry fields. Ben was beyond thrilled & told everyone on the wagon it was his 1st hayride. I picked 1/2 peck of strawberries. Ben at about a 1/2 peck of strawberries! Every time he picked another one, he'd exclaim, "Wow, Wow!, WOW!!!!"

On the way home, we stopped at Whole Foods to pick up a packet of Pomona's Ultimate Pectin, which Mom told me about on the phone this morning. Great stuff--let's you make your jam with half the sugar that you'd need with regular pectin.

What followed was a busy afternoon of hulling & mashing straberries, (finding &) sterilizing jelly jars, and making jam. Here are the results--we did a taste test already & can vouch for the final product: absolutely delish!

Out of the Mouthes of Babes

2009-06-21T16:54:00.000-07:00

Our church, Our Saviour's Lutheran Church, has been waiting for a Head Pastor for more than 3 years. Today, at last, we installed our new Head Pastor, Dan Hoeger, at the 9:00 a.m. service. Bishop Wayne Miller was there to do the blessing & install the Pastor, and he gave the sermon as well, so, as you might imagine, the service was quite full & quite special. When we went up to take Communion, we just happened to be in the line for the Bishop, so Ben got his blessing from the Bishop-also, quite special.

After the service, I told Ben how lucky he was to get a blessing from the Bishop, and he said to me, "But, Mommy, I wanted bread, too. How come I can't have bread?"

"Ben, you'll be able to have the bread when you get bigger," I told him.

"I'm already big, Mommy."

"Well, Ben, when you're big enough to be in school, you'll learn all about Jesus. And then, after that, you'll be able to have the bread," I explained to him.

"But, Mommy, I already know all about Jesus." He replied.

I asked him, "You do? What do you know about Jesus, Ben?"

Without skipping a beat, he answered me, "I know he loves me."

"Well, Ben," I laughed, "You are absolutely right. When it comes right down to it, I guess that's all we really need to know."

He still has to wait, but at his First Communion, I'm going to tell him this story!

Good Reads For Me

2009-06-09T21:05:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. My sister brought it for me when she came to visit in early May, along with Housekeeping, also by Marilynne Robinson. I really, truly loved Gilead. It is definitely a read-over. I found myself on virtually every page, stopping to soak in the beauty of several lines, a paragraph. I told myself everytime I turned a page that I wanted to re-read this book in six months, to catch the bits and pieces that slipped by the first time. It is a beautiful story, beautifully written. Love.

Right now I'm reading The Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker. I'm really enjoying this book as well. I haven't finished it yet. It's a little offbeat, a little dark, but not in a heavy, depressing way. I'm sure I won't love it as much as I loved Gilead, but it is good entertainment. I just picked this one up by chance at the library. A good find.

Hey, Boys!!!

2009-05-04T09:27:00.000-07:00

While most of the things Ben comes out with make us chuckle, every now & then, he'll say something that makes your heart bend a little. Yesterday he came up with a doozy.

It was a beautiful spring day and Ben had a great time playing outside in the yard. I spent a good part of the day working on the garden, taking short breaks here & there to play with Ben or sit with Brent & have a rest. At one point, Brent set up Ben's little basketball hoop at the top of the driveway. After playing with him for a bit, Ben sent his daddy to go sit in the chair & watch. But, eventually, he got a little bored, so he turned to his daddy & said, "Daddy, I need some boys to come play basketball with me. I'm going to call them." And, with a plaintive little cry, he hollered, "Hey, Boys, come play basketball!!"

Brent told me about it when I took my next little gardening break, and we both sat there feeling sad and a little bit guilty for having a lonely little boy. But, after contemplating the situation for a little while, I came upon a realization; if there were other kids over to play basketball with Ben, a great portion of the time would most likely be spent with one or the other of them gripping the basketball with both arms, hugging it to their tummy, and proclaiming, "no, it's MY TURN. You can't play with it!!!"

And, with that realization, I can move forward relatively guilt-free.

Codewords

2009-04-30T13:26:00.000-07:00

Sometimes kids come up with strange names for everyday things. Ben's recent examples of this--Yetis & Lofax.

Yetis are the big dried flower heads of last year's hydrangeas. With everyone doing yard clean-up in recent weeks, there have been a lot of Yetis around our neighborhood.

Lofax flowers grow on Lofax trees. These trees are blooming right now---big, gorgeous white blossoms, each petal the size of Ben's little palm. I've told him the "real" name is Magnolia, but we both agreed that from now on, we're sticking with Ben's name. Lofax. It's our secret code.

Scrapbooking aaarghs

2009-04-13T18:43:00.000-07:00

So I had a fantastic idea this morning. It was a grey, rainy day, so I would run by the craft store, pick up a few scrapbooking supplies, and scrap Easter. I haven't done any scrapping for a couple of months, but it seemed like the perfect day for it. While I did (eventually) scrap a few pages, more of my day was spent being frustrated and angry about a whole slew of scrapping concepts that I feel are starting to interfere greatly with my ability to scrap at all.

The roots of this ire began in the aisles of my local craft store this morning. I literally thought I could walk in & pick up a few simple bits & pieces and head happily home. Is it too much to ask, out of the 3 walls of stickers & embellishments, to find one package that has bunnies, carrots, eggs, or other ornament lending itself to a festive, spring-y holiday? I mean, there were dozens of stickers for summertime fun--barbecues, beach, fireworks. There were dozens more for wintertime fun--snowmen, Santa Claus, dreidels, skis, you name it. There was a slew of stickers dedicated to your basic cats & dogs. And peg after peg of stickers dealing with the miracle of birth, bundle of joy, little angel, girl, boy, covering every aspect from sleeping to not sleeping, to bathing. Endless variety. There were cheesy flowers made out of nylon, out of chipboard, sparkly or embellished with rhinestones. There was package after package of alphabets in any form or color you could possibly imagine. There are brads, tacks, pins, pegs, ribbon & bows. But not one damned bunny in the whole freaking place. Sadly, the more I searched, the more I realized that all this product has taken the joy out of scrapbooking for me altogether.

I started scrapbooking about 10 years ago, and, for me, scrapbooking has always been about creating a photo album with words. The journaling, to me, is the most vital part of the scrapbook. When I look back at pictures that I took back in high school, I'm shocked at how many there are where I can't remember where we were, what we were doing, or *gulp* even the names of everyone in the picture. Even more heartbreaking, when I look at old family photos with my mom or, in the past, with my grandmother, it is more often than not that people, places, things are forgotten & stories are lost forever. Scrapbooking to me is about putting these details down on the page, along with the supporting pictures. Whenever I sit down to work on a page, I try to do it with the idea that I'd like my grandchild to look at it and feel that it has added something to his or her identity. Silly stories, family traditions, special moments are things that are displayed best through pictures AND journaling. While colored paper and floofy flowers have their place (a very limited one), they are not necessary at all for me to complete my scrapbooking task.

Another pet-peeve of mine, since I'm on a rant, are the pages you see over & over in the scrapping magazines that strike me as unbelievably vain and narcissistic. I can't attach any merit to a page that features 3 pictures of me, and the big word, "ME." Why me? Or how about the page of your adorable kid--3 pictures & one big word...."CUTE." Why cute? In my book, this type of page is a waste of time making it, and a waste of album space holding it. Give me details. Give me info. Otherwise, it's just a glorified photo album.

Finally, I feel almost like the creative process has been taken out of the mix & the final product dictated to us. Partly due to the advent of digital scrapping, scrapbook page marketing has made us feel that, to be successful scrappers, we must become full-fledged graphic artists. Perfection is the goal, and you can buy it. If you can't afford the Cricut or the other pricey gizmos that they sell to achieve perfection, then you can buy the full scrapbook kits, complete with coordinated papers ,matching embellishments, chipboard letters...just add your pictures and voila! you're an ARTISTE (pardon my French...). No creativity required, it's all been done for you.

Obviously, this stuff has its place, has its audience, and sells. And I'm sure there are thousands of beautiful scrapbooks all over the land to prove me wrong. But it doesn't change the frustration I feel when I shop for supplies. While I love scrapping, more & more I think I'm going to go for using "found" materials rather than hazarding another trip through the overworked & overpriced aisles of my local craft store.

Speaking of Dreams

2009-03-29T13:14:00.000-07:00

Ben has exhibited a new tendancy to talk ceaselessly about the things that worry him the most lately. I'm sure if I were a child psychologist, I could express in very clear terms exactly what this behaviour is called & why he doesn't. But,as my career path has led me to a lower-paying (but far more satisfactory) position of Mother, I'll have to express myself in simple layman's terms.

A couple of nights ago, Brent went of to his poker league, and I took off with some friends for some fun at the Bocce Bowling Bistro, leaving Ben with our fave babysitter, Stephanie. When I got home, I got Ben out of bed to use the toilet, and then layed down with him (since Brent wasn't home yet.) Not long after, Ben woke up from a really frightening dream about "Hoos." Or, maybe they're "Whose." He wasn't clear on the spelling. But what he was clear about was just how scary they were.

Ben has had a few scary dreams in the past, but has never really been able to express what was in them or what they were about. So this was the first time he spontaneously told me about his dream. He woke up with a yell, then told me in a really scared voice, "Mommy, there's Hoos in here!" I sat halfway up & told him, "Ben, it's only a dream. Open your eyes & look around. See, there is nothing here." After a little comforting-calming-down type action on my part, he put his little hand on my cheek & told me, "OK, Mommy, lay down now & go to sleep." And, without further ado, we did. When Brent got home, he popped Ben into his own bed & we all slept like lambs 'til morning.

First thing after getting up, Ben started talking about Hoos. Asking me endless questions about them, from "Mommy, why would a Hoo come here?" to "Mommy, what does a Hoo like to eat?" Once we wrapped up the initial session of questioning, we had to "play Hoos." As in, Daddy and Mommy have to pretend to be asleep, & Ben will be a Hoo & scare us. Then, Daddy has to be asleep & Mommy & Ben have to be Hoos. And next, Mommy has to....well, you get the picture. We played Hoos over & over. And over. And over. Then had a few hundred more questions about Hoos before beginning a new game of "playing Hoos." It was a long day.

Today, we've talked about Hoos a couple of times. Thankfully, the Hoo questions have gone from a torrent to a trickle. With any luck, we won't experience any more Hoo infestations at our house in the near future. I'm about Hoo'd out. Hoo wouldn't be?

Wordless Wednesday

2009-03-17T13:00:00.000-07:00

I don't often participate in the Wordless Wednesday fad...in fact, I think "never" would be the word I'm searching for. But today, I'll jump on the bandwagon, since I'm behind on pictures.

Just a few short weeks ago

Last Weekend at the Aquarium

More Things Kids Say

2009-03-09T17:24:00.000-07:00

The things Ben says just become more & more amusing as he continues to absorb & try to interpret us crazy grown ups and our strange ways.

A couple of weeks ago I arrived to pick up Ben from nursery school a little early. As I peeked over the wall (one of Ben's favorite stories is how the Mommies peek over the wall to watch their little ones in nursery school), I saw the kids all sitting in "circle time" listening to a story. It was kind of a weird story...something about a kid learning to use the potty. I didn't pay too much attention other than to notice that the kids seemed enraptured and enthralled....not even one kid was wiggling!

Well, I didn't think of it again until last Thursday. Thursday was a beautiful day, & Ben & I spent most of the day outside, playing & doing yardwork. After we had been out there for a relatively short time, Ben sidles up to me & announces, "Mommy, Miss Jen says I could pee behind a bush." She did? Well, Ben finally gets around to admitting that she read a STORY where the kid pees behind a bush. Ben had been thinking about that story ever since, and he was absolutely itchin' to give it a try.

Ah, well. As the saying goes, boys will be boys. Who am I to deny him this opportunity. He peed behind a bush. Several times. And loved it.

I brought it up to Miss Jen this morning when I dropped Ben off for nursery school. She was absolutely mortified, and tried to apologize. But I wasn't mad...just had to take advantage of a great opportunity to tease her a little about the strange lesson Ben learned in nursery school!

The Things Kids Say

2009-02-17T11:24:00.000-08:00

I took Ben to the library story hour today, and we sat in a room of 3-5 year olds who were all listening to stories about dinosaurs while we, the adults, listened to the kids. The funny thing about kids listening to stories is that they cannot just listen. They extemporize about what they are hearing. Some do it quietly, muttering to themselves, and almost subconsciously. Others crow out their thoughts & ideas about what they are hearing, announcing it to EVERYONE in the room & momentarily drowning out the voice of the storyteller. The funniest one today was the kid who kept announcing to the room, with some obvious sense of relief, "Dinosaurs can't come back now...they're just bones."

Anyway, I'm glad to know my child isn't the only one who can't stop talking.

"Mommy, windmills attract the wind."

"Mommy, buildings have numbers all the time."

"Mommy, when I get to be a big boy, I'm going to go to school & I'll ride the school bus, and you can ride with me."

"Mommy, baby Tillie is brown, and I'm white, but Auntie Nan is GOOOOOOOOORGEOUS!"

The other night, our babysitter, Stephanie, came over to watch Ben so that Brent & I could go out for a (day after) Valentines Day date. The next morning, Ben crawled into bed with us for a morning snuggle. After a few minutes of quiet snuggling, Ben shakes his daddy's shoulder. "Daddy, I had a good time with Stephanie last night."
"That's great, Ben."
"What did you do, Daddy?"
"We went to have dinner, then to a movie."
"Who did you go with, Daddy?"
"Mommy"
"Oh!"

Silly boy.

Ben's Birthday

2009-02-08T12:27:00.001-08:00

Remember back in his first two years, I'd do Ben's handprints every month, and then decided to do them just on his birthday. Well, I would have forgotton all about it, but Ben reminded me! Here is the 3 year old set of handprints for our scrapbook.

For Ben's birthday dinner on Friday night, we took him to Rainforest Cafe. Although he'd been in the store before, we'd never eaten there, and he LOVED it!

Then we took him to Ridemakerz to build a car. We promised him that when the store first opened, and for MONTHS he would say he was going to build a firetruck. Even during dinner, he said firetruck, firetruck, firetruck. We get to the store & the lady asks him what he wants to build? Towtruck. :shock: He loves it though...and since we already own about 2197 firetrucks, it's kind of refreshing to have something different.

We had a great time at our Build-a-Bear party yesterday. Too bad it was so hard to get a picture of all the kiddos smiling--they were all way too busy building bears! I was stressed out the whole time, trying to talk to everyone & so afraid they weren't having a good time, but that's just me. I talked to a couple of the moms after & they said it was lots of fun, so I guess I was all worried for no reason.

Instead of cake for the party, we ordered these cookies--dipped in white chocolate & decorated with frosting. I decorated this picnic basket with a little ribbon to bring them to the party.

I did bake a cake for our family dinner at home last night. Ben tested it while it was cooling...I was in the basement, folding laundry.

I think he enjoyed his birthday celebration....and he's definitely mastered the "cheesy grin" this weekend!

Birds Nest Wreath

2009-02-03T20:39:00.000-08:00

Happy Groundhog's Day. Apparently, groundhogs all over the world saw their shadow yesterday and dove straight back into their holes. *sigh* Figures. This is the winter without end. We get it, already. It's been made apparent. We didn't need the groundhogs to rub it in.

To fight off the winter doldrums, Ben & I worked on a spring project today. When we were out East for Christmas, I was shopping in a Wild Birds store, specializing in food & shelter for bird (as the name might suggest....). While there, I came across the cutest little wreath that was designed to supply nesting materials for birds in the spring. It retailed for some ungodly amount of money (considering it was made primarily of grass, paper, & cotton), so I made a mental note to try my hand at this project at some later date. Today was it. The results below. The success of this project will be determined by the birds themselves in a couple of months.

Here's how I did it:

I found most of my materials for this project at JoAnne Fabric Store, and relatively inexpensively.

12" wire frame

Excelsior

Spanish Moss

Feathers

Raffia

100% Cotton Batting

Nylon thread

When I got home, I realized I had a bunch of stuff already in the basement--a basket full of crinkly paper raffia & the grassy stuff called Exelsior, some fabric strips cut from scraps, and some sheet moss. You could also use strips of wool/yarn, twigs, leaves, milkweed pod, pine needles--let your imagination be your guide. The one thing I read over & over was to avoid using dryer fluff, though. Many sources said that it will harden if soaked by rain & turn into a cement-like material. Maybe they're wrong, but I decided not to experiment with that yet.

The first thing I did was place a layer of the Excelsior on the top & bottom of the frame, and wrap it with the nylon thread. I found it easiest to work with the thread by tying it directly on to the frame, then wrapping it around the wreath directly from the spool. When it was ready to be tied off, I cut a long tail, threaded the tail onto a needle, & tied it off using the needle. (See the detail photos below) Otherwise, the nylon thread was just to slippery & difficlut to tie.

Once the Excelsior was tied on, I layed out the additional nesting materials on top (picture below), then simply wrapped a second layer of nylon thread around that layer to hold it all on. Wrap it tight, but not TOO tightly. You want the wreath to not fall apart in a breeze, but you also want the birds to be able to take what they want from it. I actually found that the feathers were easier to put in & arrange after the thread was wrapped & tied off. Otherwise, they just kind of got squished flat or fell off, and generally looked terrible.

Then I tied a raffia bow around the wreath, added a little hanging loop with florist's wire, and voila! It's ready to go out to the garden. I'm going to hang mine from a shepherd hook that is currently bare. It's in the middle of a flower bead, halfway across the back yard. I think I may have to secure it at the bottom with a little more florists wire to keep it from getting knocked down or blown away. But it should be a prime spot, enabling me to sit back & watch the show. I'll be keeping a close eye out for bird's nests this spring, too, to see if I can spot any of my materials in use!

PS--Ben's project was to use the same materials to fill up an empty net onion bag. He opted to add snips of yarn, which he had a great time cutting up with his safety scissors. We're both looking forward to sharing our project with the birds!!

River Trails Nature Center

2009-01-27T13:27:00.000-08:00

Ben & I went to visit the newly-remodeled River Trails Nature Center in Des Plaines this morning. We were welcomed by a mini-herd of 3 deer, who had come to eat at the bird feeder. The discovery center was lots of fun, and the staff was super-friendly....we're already planning another visit!

My Little Man

2009-01-26T11:55:00.000-08:00

Seems like every month or so I wonder if Ben can actually get any cuter, decide he can't, and revise my opinion a month later. We're so lucky that we've pretty much avoided those "Terrible Twos" you hear tell about, and Three is coming right up in a couple of weeks!

Yesterday I had two different events I was attending, so I didn't see Ben pretty much all day. I got home at 4:30, while he was still napping. We woke him up shortly thereafter, and I pulled out a purple balloon I had tucked in my purse earlier in the day and blew it up for him. It was such a nothing little gift, but, by Ben's reaction, you would have thought I'd brought him home a ball of solid gold. We played for about 20 minutes, bouncing, swatting, kicking, and head-butting the balloon, Ben pealing with laughter the whole time.

Later in the evening, after I had finished reading Ben his bedtime story, but before we actually got in bed to say prayers, we were just rocking in the chair in his bedroom, unwinding a bit. He was holding his "Softies," the satin blanet-bears he takes to bed with him, and every now & then, he'd bite "Regular Softy" on the nose. I asked him, "Ben, why do you bite your softy?" And he replied, "Mommy, it makes me comfort." I love that answer. It's adorable, but at the same time, so grown up.

Final story--Ben had just fallen asleep last night when I heard a sleepy little voice saying over the monitor, "Mommy, I peed in the bed." Uh oh. He's done potty training, and hasn't had an accident in weeks, but I still put him in a pull up at bed time, just in case of an accident. He's been waking up dry in the morning for a solid week, but it 'makes him comfort' to have the pull up on, so we wear it. Anyway, I went on down to his room to check him, and he was 100% dry as a bone. He'd had a little dream that he wet the bed, I guess! I took him to the potty, tucked him back in, and he fell right back to sleep. He woke up this morning dry.

Yep, he's definitely a little man.

Peeling off the Layers

2009-01-23T20:35:00.000-08:00

I have this *thing* every year for a month or so after I take down the Christmas decorations where I want my environment to be as empty and barren as possible. In a real sense, it's starting the new year by removing all the clutter of the old year and starting with a clean slate to work on. It's not something I consciously do. I don't spend any time at all thinking about it in advance. It's more like a reaction to the overload of holiday excess...once the holidays are over, I must purge, purge, purge. I go through closets, under the bed....heck, today I vacuumed the ceiling in the basement.

I wonder where this urge comes from. I wonder if anyone else feels this way, or, if they do, acts on it. I wonder if I could refrain from doing it, against my every impulse. I don't think I could. I do know that, by mid-February, I'm worn down by the barreness of my landscape, inside & out. I'm longing for a change--any change. Since the landscape isn't likely to make any change for the better for another 6-8 weeks, mid-February tends to be the time I launch into some major home project, such as repainting.

This year I have a strong feeling that my major painting project will be the family room. Yesterday, we had a mini-thaw around here, and some of the 14 or so inches of snow on the roof melted enough that the lovely ice dam that had formed over the tv started raining down on us. Second time in 2 years....something's gonna have to change on the roof. But, also, something is going to have to change on the WALL! The paint is ruined in that corner. Since the room has been heartily abused in the past 3 years by dog & son alike, it's high time we painted anyway. The ice damn is just the icing on the cake.

By the time I've finished up & gotten the last bit of paint splatters out of my hair, hopefully something will be changing outside!

Let Freedom Ring!

2009-01-20T10:33:00.000-08:00

Today, I am proud to be part of a people who believe in optimism, hope, and equality.

Today, I am proud to be an American.

Let Freedom ring!

Hooded Towel

2009-01-15T11:10:00.000-08:00

With some seriously cold winter weather, I've been spending a lot of time trying out new projects. It keeps my mind of the insanely cold weather (it was -10F when we woke up this morning) and the piles of snow (9 straight days with measurable snowfall!!). I've been trolling blogs, looking for new & fun crafty ones. There are so many out there that it's easy to blow an afternoon just on blog-spotting. I have to set the timer to limit myself, so that I can get off the computer and actually DO something!!

So I came across this adorable project on a blog I was looking at last week (http://www.skiptomylou.org/ ). She's got a great blog with lots of cool crafty projects & great ideas & instructions, so go check it out! Anyway, I thought I'd try out her hooded beach towel. Kohl's had a great sale on towels right now, and I bought this big towel for $3.99. I think the hand towel was $2.99, but don't quote me. I'm going back to Kohl's tonight to get more towels--they had lots of nice colors to choose from! I had the trim on hand, so this was not an expensive project at all. And it came out so cute, I'm making them for all the kids in the family this year! It took me about an hour and a half, but I think the next one will take half that time because I know how now. If you want to try this project, specifically, she's got instructions on her blog under her 'sewing' link.

Ben's Worried

2009-01-09T11:42:00.001-08:00

Ben's worried. His Papa is having back surgery today. Brent's dad has had back troubles for many years now, and had many surgeries over those years. He went in to the hospital for another one today. Last night, we called Papa to wish him good luck in his surgery, and, when I was putting Ben to bed last night and we were saying our prayers, we said a special prayer for Papa and for the doctors who would be working on him today.

After we finished, Ben asked me, "What are the doctors going to do to Papa's back?"

"Try to fix it up so it doesn't hurt anymore," I told him.

"Why is Papa's back hurt? Was it because he played hotwheels on the floor with me, Mommy?" Ben asked.

My heart broke in half to know he'd even think he was somehow to blame for his Papa's back surgery. I'm just amazed at the depth of understanding--that he would put all that together in his mind. I mean, he's not even three yet!? He seem to young to be able to come to such conclusions. Obviously, as the old saying goes, I should never assume anything.

My Exploding Photo Box

2009-01-07T13:35:00.000-08:00

Over a year ago now I saw the cutest project for an exploding photo box. It was a really fun little "scrappy" project--a box about 4" square, with 3 "leafs" inside on which to mount pictures. All the leaves fold up toward the center and are capped by a little box top. I printed out the instructions for it, and promptly forgot all about it. But, recently, with the 1st birthday of my nephew, I thought it might be a fun gift to make. I asked my brother and sister in law to send me a couple dozen of their favorite pictures from the past year, and yesterday I put this together in about 2 hours. It was fun, and oh-so-cute! I mailed it to them today. I hope they like it!

If you are interested in making one yourself, go here for well-written instructions. You may find other great projects you want to try on her creative site as well!

Out With The Old

2008-12-31T05:25:00.000-08:00

2008 has been such a wonderful year, I almost hate to let it go. We had a new nephew on Brent's side of the family, a new niece on my side of the family. We had a wonderful vacation in Cape Cod this past summer. We got to visit with lots of family over the course of this year, which is so rare because our families are all so spread out. Ben learned to have conversations, get himself dressed, and use the toilet. 2008 has been great to us.

I hope 2009 holds just as much wonder, love, and excitement for our family and for yours!

Christmas Tales - Travel Woes

2008-12-29T12:06:00.000-08:00

I only have a couple of minutes, so I am going to jot down a few Christmas thoughts now, and I'll get back here at a later date with more Christmas news!!

What crazy weather there was this Christmas!! From -15 to 52 degrees during the course of the week! It really created some travel nightmares for lots of folks around the nation, and we were no exception. We flew out to Rhode Island the Sunday before Christmas, and it was touch and go all the way. First off, our cab, which we had ordered ahead of time to pick us up at 5:30 a.m., never showed up. At 6:15, in a complete panic, we hopped in the car & drove ourselves to the airport for a 7:30 a.m. flight. I had to park in daily parking, and even then it was questionable if we'd be able to get checked in, through security, and down to our gate before our plane left us behind. But, by some miracle, we actually made it!

Brent, in a genius-move, took our bags to the Sky Cap outside to check in curb-side, and they issued our boarding passes there at the same time, saving us countless time in the long check-in lines at the United desks. Then, while we were desperately snagged behind someone in the security line who seemed to have some sort of passport discrepency, they miraculously opened another security line for us to sail right on through. We got to our gate with time to spare--I even ran back to the coffee place & picked up coffee & a bagel. Incredible.

Too bad Providence airport shut down due to snow. We circled over Providence for 45 minutes before we finally headed over to-and landed at-JFK to refuel. We finally arrived at Providence at around 3:30 pm. Long day.

Coming home was not any easier. We were supposed to fly to Washington D.C. and catch a connection home to Chicago. Too bad the flight to D.C. was delayed leaving Providence by 3 hours! We were never going to catch the connection, so we just planned to spend the night in D.C. & catch a flight to Chicago at 6:00 a.m. Brent thought he had it all set up on the phone prior to going to the airport. But that would be too easy, right? Nope, the friendly representative on the phone set us up to fly out of D.C. at 6:00 am, but took us OFF the flight from Providence to D.C. The check in agent finagled that all out & fit us back on to that nights already-much-delayed flight to D.C., but then, while I took Ben to the potty, she informs Brent that the bags must be checked all the way through to Chicago & we wouldn't be able to get them for the night in D.C. So Brent takes out a pair of PJs and sends the bags on through. One pair of PJs for Ben, that's all he took out. No contact lens stuff for my poor eyes, no nuthin' for us to sleep in or put on clean in the morning. *sigh* We were all stressed & not thinking clearly...

Anyway, we go though security & on the way down to our gate, we see that the direct flight to Chicago (upon which we were not booked because it was sold out when we bought our tickets) was just starting to load up. We stopped and talked to the gate agent, just on the off chance they could somehow squeeze us on. AND THEY DID!!!

So, we somehow miraculously sailed through to all our destinations this holiday trip, despite disasterous odds, and for that I am truly thankful!

Snow + Chiropractor = Potty Training

2008-12-19T06:30:00.000-08:00

A strange mix of circumstances has resulted in Potty Training Triumph in our home!!! Let me fill you in--

Winter got an early start here in the Midwest this year, with snow right after Thanksgiving. It hasn't let up since--in fact, we woke up this morning with 4 more inches of snow/ice on the ground & forecasted to keep falling until this afternoon. We've been out with the sled a few times, and made a great snowman that lasted a couple of weeks, so Ben's been making the most of really ugly weather conditions.

Another thing that arrived right after Thanksgiving was a back injury for me. The Sunday after Thanksgiving, Ben woke up in the small hours of the morning from a nightmare. After many varied attempts to calm him down & get him back to sleep, I decided (in my sleep-muddled mind) that it would be a good idea to bring him to our bed. I dead-lifted all 38 adorable pounds of him from his toddler bed, and would like to lodge my offical complaint to toddler-bed designers, as the angle of my back during said lift was condusive to major back trauma. I couldn't walk upright the next morning. I suffered through the whole first week, thinking only time & the hot water bottle would help. But, finally, on Friday when there was still no sign of improvement, I called & scheduled my first-ever visit with a chiropractor for the next morning.

I was kind of hoping for a miracle cure, but didn't really expect it. Good thing, because it didn't happen. It took a week, and three adjustments before I even started to feel signifcantly better. Then, like a fool, I over-did it and was back to square one. So I'm on week three of adjustments now, and feel SO much better. I LOVE the chiropractor & really think she's done wonders in taking care of me. It was fascinating to see the changes with each adjustment she did. I'm pretty sure I would have gotten better eventually on my own, but it would have been in fits & starts, and would have taken much longer. I'm going back again after we get back from our Christmas trip to Rhode Island next week, but that may be my last visit.

So, anyway, all this down time had a big positive return. Being pretty much house-bound led to me really being able to focus on working with Ben to get him potty trained. We'd been toying around with it for quite some time, talking about it, doing it for a few hours at a time. But we really needed to buckle down & take the plunge. Well, those are mixed metaphors, but you get the idea.

I'd been telling Ben for a while that when we ran out of his current pack of diapers, that was it, and he would have to wear big boy pants after that. We talked about it every.single.day. Finally, the day arrived that I was down to less than half a dozen diapers. We were in Target shopping when I told Ben, "This is it, buddy....you are out of diapers. I need you to decide right now: Do you want Mommy to buy more diapers, or do you want to wear big boy pants from now on?" And he picked big boys pants!!! That was over a week ago now. While we've had the occasional accidents, he's pretty committed to this idea of being a big boy.

Yesterday we went out to play in the snow. When it was time to come in, I stood with Ben outside on the back step, looked him in the eye, and told him, "Listen, buddy, when we get inside & you feel the warm air in the house, you are going to want to go pee right away. But don't! You have to concentrate on holding it in until I get your boots & coat off. Then we'll go right to the potty."

Maybe you've guessed from this pep talk that this is is a scenario with which we've already had accidental experience. But the talk worked, and he did it!

He's gotten pretty good at telling me when he wants to go potty, but the funniest was yesterday. After playing outside, later in the day, Ben came up to me and said "Mommy, my butt is saying poops want to come out!"

We fly out to Rhode Island on Sunday morning, and I plan on flying with Ben in big boy pants. I'm a little worried; this will be the big test. But, if I stay alert to him, I think we'll do just fine. And I think we'll be able to truly claim potty training success.

I Wear My Heart on My Christmas Tree

2008-12-11T10:39:00.000-08:00

We set up the Christmas tree this weekend. Ben helped Daddy to get the tree up & put the lights on, and then helped me put the ornaments on. As I opened one box after another of ornaments, sorting through them all, I got to thinking about what a Christmas tree is supposed to mean. It's kind of a pain in the neck to rearrange the furniture every year to make a space big enough to accomodate it. Then untangling the lights, figuring out which little stinker of a bulb is burned our, causing the whole string to not light up, hauling boxes of stuff up & down the basement stairs. Why do we put it up every year?

If you're anything like me, you've probably noticed a startling transformation in the humble Christmas tree over the last few years. Just yesterday I was at one of my favorite local nurseries, Knuppers, to pick up an ornament for our annual neighborhood ornament exchange on Friday, and I was amazed at the gloriously exotic Christmas trees on display there. These trees were loaded with ornaments, and sprouting all manner of glittery fronds & graceful feathers. In addition to all the sparkle & shine, there were a variety of "themed" trees, including a "bird" themed tree, complete with birdhouses & birdseed!

I wonder if I'm outdated? Stuck in the past? Are my mish-mash collection of ornaments hopelessly passe? Should I pitch them all & start next year with a "themed" tree?

Back when Bobby & Nathan were young, I started a tradition. Every year I would pick out a special ornament to give them with the idea that someday, when they grow up and get their own place, I will be able to give them the ornaments we've collected over the years to put on their very own first Christmas tree.

I hope it's something they will do--keep those ornaments, cherish them, use them year after year. Because the truth is, those ornaments represent the reason we set up the Christmas tree every year. From the silly little Tigger ornament from years ago, to the glitter covered snowman ornament from last year, each one represents another year of cherished memories & tradition. Each one builds on all the years before it; some really tough years, but, happily, some smooth & easy years too. It's more than a collection of ornaments--it's a collection of love that continues despite any adversity.

So, while my Christmas tree might be a pain in the neck to put up, and while it might not be as perfectly showcased as some of the recent trees I've seen, I think it is a perfect representation of the love I have for my family. While others may wear their hearts on their sleeves, I definitely wear mine on my Christmas tree.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot....

2008-12-09T11:15:00.000-08:00

Man, Thanksgiving was so LATE this year that I now feel totally overwhelmed that Christmas is upon us. I'm not ready for Christmas yet! Before I even have time to savour & enjoy the season, it will be over!

Ben, on the other hand, is doing lots of savouring. He totally understands the concept of Santa Claus, who is the topic of much discussion around here these days. Ben had a close encounter with Santa at the mall a few weeks ago, during which he informed Santa that he wants "hotwheels." Santa isn't quite sure exactly what is meant by hotwheels, but thinks he's located something bearing that brand name which will please Ben.

My personal favorite new sleep aid was created by my darling husband, Brent: "Now be quiet and go to sleep, Ben, because Santa Claus doesn't like shenanigans!" It works really well. I ocassionally have a flicker of doubt when I think ahead & wonder what we'll do after Christmas to end bedtime shenanigans? But for the most part, ending shenanigans NOW is what's most important. After a long & busy day of being 2-going-on-3, bedtime is a much-anticipated time for the grown-ups in the house!

If we're really lucky, Ben will be completely potty trained by the time Santa makes his rounds. On a funny side note, we took Ben to a 3-year-old friend's birthday party a couple of weeks ago, and the amount of potty-based conversation was staggeringly funny! We definitely partake of activities & discussion as parents that we never would have dreamed of before our little one's came along!! Anyway, Ben decided he doesn't want to wear diapers anymore. We've been doing limited diapers for a while now--and when the last of these diapers are gone, we've agreed: no more diapers! What a great way to end the year, wouldn't you agree?!

Ben's Big Adventure

2008-11-15T12:52:00.001-08:00

Ben & I got back yesterday from a big adventure. We left last Sunday and got back home last night...drove from Chicago to New York City to meet & visit baby Tillie. It was a wonderful and exciting trip, but also exhausting. I don't want to really drive anywhere now...not even the grocery store. Maybe tomorrow I can face getting behind the wheel again. I'll have to, I guess, because we need groceries!

So, details about the trip. Ben was an amazing passenger. We packed plenty of books, toys, and music. We borrowed a portable DVD player from a friend and brought along some movies. We had a cooler with snacks & juice boxes. I was hoping Ben would spend at least some of the drive sleeping, but he only napped for about 1 1/2 hours on Sunday evening, the day we left. That was the ONLY time he slept at all in the car, which was INSANE. But he was good company and we had lots of fun with very little whining, so I cannot complain at all!

I'd never been to visit Nancy since she moved from Manhattan to Brooklyn a few years back. condo is cute, but TINY (although she assures me that people can & do raise multiple children in less space than hers!). While I'm not much of a city girl, we enjoyed the multiple playgrounds within walking distance immensely. And Ben & I did manage to spend one day on a walking trip of lower Manhattan, including walking over the Brooklyn bridge. I thought I was being so original when I took this picture of the suspension cables on the Brooklyn bridge, until I realized that everyone with a camera on the bridge was taking the exact same picture. I'm gonna guess my cute picture of Ben picking the Wall St. Bull's nose isn't exactly original either. Oh, well....it's still cute!

I've never really spent much time in NYC, so it was kind of cool to be able to sightsee a bit. NYC is so unbelievably massive it's hard to imagine being able to see everything in any reasonable amount of time. Just the small section of lower Manhattan we walked around was a little overwhelming. First we walked over to the site of the Twin Towers. Nancy told me it wasn't anything too exciting, and she was right. It's still just a big hole in the ground, surrounded by construction fencing. The most notable thing about it was the amount of open space in an otherwise densely-packed section of the city. The "Roots" sculpture in the courtyard of St. Paul's Chapel on the corner of Wall St. & Broadway was a nice surprise, though. The sculpture memorializes an old sycamore tree that stood in that spot until it was knocked down by debris on 9/11. The chapel itself is beautiful, and it is surrounded by an historic cemetary that dates back to very early days in NYC. All-in-all, St. Paul's chapel was the best find of the day!

We took lots of pictures, of course. But I had to include Nancy's favorite here in my blog. It's me, holding Tillie, with Ben's jealous little foot coming in for a poke...check out the expression on poor Tillie's face! Too funny.

We had a great trip, but we're happy to be home again!

Star-Shaped Eyes

2008-11-07T19:54:00.000-08:00

Ben woke up from his nap today and I bundled him up so that we could take the dog for a late-afternoon walk. It's been cold today, with little flurries; you can feel winter in the air. As we walked, the overcast afternoon light waned into twilight. Ben chatted to me, keeping me happy & warm. Ben told me about his new bear, Bucky, that he got with his Daddy at Build-a-Bear workshop today, and of his other fun adventures with Daddy.

In the fading light of the day, near the end of our walk, he spotted a Jack-o-Lantern sitting cold & forlorn on someone's front step. It was a cute pumpkin, and Ben's face lit up as he exclaimed, "Mommy, that pumpkin has star-eyes. I don't have star eyes," he told me, "I have.....*think, think, think*..."

"People-shaped eyes," I offered?

"Yeah, yeah," he told me distractedly, "people-shaped eyes....those are OVALS!!"

Bravo, Ben.

That was the cutest & most amazing thing that happened to me today.

Tiny Tillie

2008-10-31T11:12:00.001-07:00

tillie5
Originally uploaded by http://www.flickr.com/people/13643812@N07/

My niece is here, and deserves an entry all her own. I was waiting to get permission from my sister before posting, but now I'm excited to share some pictures of my most precious little niece--Matilda Rose! Welcome to the world, little Tillie! Congratulations, Van & Nan! We'll be out to visit you soon!!

All & Nothing

2008-10-30T13:36:00.000-07:00

I have nothing really cohesive to say this week, but pictures to share. Here goes:

Ben "helping" with fall cleanup. I had pruned the bushes in front of the house & we had to bundle up everything with twine. Ben helped us prepare the twine for bundling.

At the Palatine Park District's annual Halloween Party. We had a REALLY GREAT TIME at this AWESOME COMMUNITY EVENT! We'll be going to this every year until Ben outgrows it!! Can you tell I like it? Can you tell, from the picture below, that Ben did too?

After this party, we came home for lunch. Somewhere along the line that day I lost his costume. I just have no idea where it went! If you have read earlier entries of this blog, or know Ben, you'll know that he is completely into skeletons right now, and it's the ONLY thing he wanted to be for Halloween. Trick-or-Treating is tomorrow, so Daddy had to go buy another costume. I feel like such a dope sometimes. *sigh*

Here's a picture of Ben at the forest preserve. Bobby, Ben, & I went for a hike & ended up at the model airfield.
Here's Ben's awesome imagination: His imaginary owl friend, Bucky, has an imaginary owlet named Petey, and Petey also has an imaginary owl mommy named Kirstin Larson (tee hee--Mommy's are never imaginary I guess!). Ben's hand opens & closes as it swoops through the air--that's Petey flying. He's flying to the forest preserve to meet up with his friend Joey. Joey & Petey like to watch the model airplanes on the field. Then they fly home to Bucky & Kirstin Larson for hand smooches. (we have to touch palms for hand smooches). We love Ben's stories!!

Playing outside last Sunday. Yes, I got my hair cut. Again. I love it...Brent's not so sure...
PS-Patriots won!

The view from our front porch was so beautiful on this autumn afternoon. We love to sit out here in the afternoon and evening.

The Grace in Being Grateful

2008-10-17T10:41:00.000-07:00

I recently read in a teeny-weeny article that regularly writing down what you are grateful for can increase your level of happiness by 25%. There were no scientific citations to prove this statement, and I'm not sure if we can quantitatively measure this increase in happiness anyway, but I can vouch for the powerful effect of counting your blessings!

My Mom used to listen to this old Jimmy Durante album (yeah, the good old days when vinyl was your only option!) I remember the dust jacket had this picture of him on the front, with his famous, huge schnozzle. And I remember the words to one of the songs...

"When you're tired

and you can't sleep

Count your blessings

instead of sheep

And you'll fall asleep

Counting your blessings."

What a beautiful idea; to fall asleep counting your blessings. So often I fall asleep counting the things I have to do tomorrow. Or worrying about something that might happen. Obviously, those are not conducive to good nights of sleep!! I am, in general, a happy person. But how much happier would I be (I know, the article says 25%, right?!) if I did take that time each day to be thankful, and to give thanks for the wonderful things going on all around me. To quote yet another song (and risk being totally campy!), let's "accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative!"

So....with all that in mind, a reminder list of my blessings:

1. Healthy children. Three strapping, healthy, beautiful, strong, good boys.

2. A wonderful husband. Five years--today! is our 5th anniversary!!--of happiness & love.

3. A great home in a great neighborhood. We have found something I think is unusual in this day and age--neighbors who are friendly, supportive, caring, and enjoy spending time together. We annoy each other, on occasion, but we also have lots of great times together. Sort of like extended family, I guess. How luck for us!!

4. A brand new niece being born today--on our 5th wedding anniversary!! How cool is that? Five years ago, my sister was at my side as I got married. I wish I was at her side right now...

5. My husbands parents; my in-laws. Maybe things have had their tense moments...but they are family-oriented, morally-strong people and they truly, truly love their family. I'm happy that Ben has such wonderful grandparents.

6. The ability to stay home and take care of my family. I'm privileged to have a job that I love. Yeah, I have my bad days, who doesn't?! But there is nowhere I'd rather be. With today's troubled economy, I'm lucky that we're in a stable position at the moment. I need to remember not to take that for granted.

Autumn Weekends

2008-10-10T14:42:00.000-07:00

Autumn to me is like that last binge of fabulous desserts before you go on the long diet of winter. Warm, syrupy, caramel days filled with crunchy, warm outdoor afternoons and cool, crispy evenings. I start to eagerly contemplate pulling out my sweaters & regularly wearing boots & jeans again, and, then, just when I think it's too late, always get pleasantly surprised by at least a few more shorts-&-tshirt-days.

Autumn weekends are my favorite time of year. The vibrancy of the fall colours wakes up our surroundings, and the cool, crisp weather reignites the energy we lost during the hottest days of summer. From football to Oktoberfest, there are always more fun & exciting activities to partake of in a weekend that there is actually time to do. But it's so fun trying to cram it all in.

My darling husband, Brent, is a football referee in the falls; a job he really enjoy, and a season to which he spends the whole year looking forward to arriving. Youth football is really a big deal here, and there are an unbelievable number of kids involved. Brent loves to ref the youth games, and will generally do 5-8 games a week (almost all of them usually on Saturday!) Ben & I always attend at least one game a week while he's ref'ing. We love doing it! Doesn't Brent look great out there on the field with all those young men?! I'm very proud of him.

In between football games, we fit in the other regular fall activities. Here's a playdate at the pumpkin farm with some friends. There's always too much to do in one visit, so we'll be going back again soon.

Sundays are time for church & family. We usually stick pretty close to home & try to relax & prepare for a new week. The weekends go by so quickly, before we know it a new week is starting. Soon, autumn will be gone & we'll be waking up to cold, snowy mornings.

Fings That Go Fump and Other Scary Stuff

2008-10-04T18:16:00.000-07:00

With Ben's ever-refined imagination come a lot of scary moments. Particularly at night. Children definitely have an advantage that many business professionals crave--they can think outside the box. In fact, they don't even comprehend that there might BE a box! That, in itself, is why Halloween is so much fun in regards to scaring kids! When your imagination knows no bounds, alomst anything has spooky potential.

Take, for example, exhibit A

My mantle. Other than the fact that it is laden with autumn decorations, nothing really abjectly spooky about it....or is there???

Look closer. Come on, now that you KNOW it's there, it should be easy to see, right??? Look----closer!!!

See that spooky face? Now, tell the truth...as an adult, would you have picked that out on your own? I looked at that painting for years & never saw it. Took a child to pick it out.

Now that it's been pointed out to me....I can't look away! It's all I see, everytime I look over my mantle. Rats. I might be in the market for a new painting, if anyone has any suggestions...

Amazing the simple things that stare us right in the face, and we, as adults, can't even see them. If only we could tap into those little brains every now and then, I'm pretty sure we could save the world & create a better tomorrow. Come to think of it, maybe our little ones will do just that...I hope so.

Change

2008-09-25T15:50:00.000-07:00

We woke up this morning and there was definitely a chill in the air. Seems like another summer is drawing rapidly to a close. I've been trying to avoid admitting it, and the recent spate of 80 degree days has helped my denials. But, in spite of the warm dog-days of summer, we've already started seeing leaves turning yellow and orange, and lots of pumpkins and mums appearing in yards all around us.

It's given us an opportunity to talk about change. Change right now is a fascinating and exciting topic to Ben. The idea that the same grassy hill we enjoy climimg up & rolling down at the park will become a snowy hill that we will sled down in the very near future is something that Ben looks forward to with a great deal of anticipation.

Change came up again a couple of nights ago, during bathtime. Brent had drawn the water for Ben's bath, and by the time we got into the bathroom, it was too hot. Brent, in a stroke of genius, grabbed a handful of ice cubes from the freezer & tossed them into the tub. Ben watched with intense concentration as the ice cubes slowly grew smaller & smaller, and finally disappeared. He understood that they changed into water. Or did he? I'm still not sure...but he was certainly intrigued!

Too often, change is something viewed as a negative that we, as humans, try our hardest to avoid. As yet in his short life, Ben hasn't seen any changes that aren't welcome. His excitement, joy, and fascination with change is fun to see. I hope I can keep it that way for a long, long time. And I hope Ben's ability to welcome & celebrate change is something that I can embrace a little bit in my own life.

A Tummy Bug

2008-09-19T12:11:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I forget how common, everyday phrases can be interpreted, when taken literally, in an entirely different way. As grown-ups, we use figurative language every day, and understand eachother with no problem. But at 2 1/2 years of age, these phrases can sound very odd, and, as I learned this morning, even a little scary.

I first noticed this last week, when it started raining. Ben & I were shopping in Target, when suddenly we could hear a muffled roar overhead. We checked out & headed back out to the car, and it was a deluge outside. When I had arrived at the store, the sky had been threatening, but I thought I could dash in & make it outside again before it actually started raining, and so I had not grabbed the umbrella. In some dismay, I uttered

"It's raining cats & dogs!"

Ben's eyes widened as we dashed to the car, but I was too busy to really react to it. In fact, it didn't strike me again until this morning, when I started thinking through this topic.

Ben woke up with a bad dream this morning. He was crying when I went in to his room, and, when I offered "Mommy-Daddy-Ben Snuggles" he took me up on the offer right away--something he doesn't normally do. We climbed into bed and pulled the covers up over us for a nice little cuddle. I was talking quietly to Ben, and he started to cheer up to his more-normal self. Then, as I was playing "spider" with my fingers on his tummy, he turned to me very seriously and asked me, "Mommy, is there a bug in my tummy?" I was stumped for a few seconds, thinking this through, as I reassured him that of course there was not bug in his tummy. Then I realized--Ben had overheard me telling someone on the phone the day before that he had diarreah, and seemed like he had a little Tummy Bug....He heard it, and he took it to heart. Poor little guy! I'm not 100% sure that his bad dream was about this, but he did seem quite worried about it, and once I explained to him that bugs can't live in his tummy, quite relieved.

I often think that Ben's language skills have developed in strong part due to the amount of one-on-one communication we have with him. This may or may not be true. But one thing is becoming extra-clear....he learns as much from listening to me talk to other people as he does from engaging in conversation himself!

Beyond Saturated

2008-09-14T17:42:00.000-07:00

Remnants of Hurricane Ike lurked around again all day today. My back yard is a lake. Thank God the basement hasn't flooded! Ben's loving it, though. When we came in, his boots were full of water. Since the water was about 70 degrees, I wasn't too worried about his wet feet.

The Saturation Point

2008-09-13T12:09:00.000-07:00

What happens when there is a nice, steady, gentle rain for 12 straight hours? When roads are closed due to flooding, not that you'd even have the desire to actually try to go anywhere or do anything in this kind of deluge anyway? When a frisky toddler who is just recovering from a nasty cold all week, but is on his game today, is romping around looking for something to do?

I think we'll start a little woodworking project in the garage. Building an ark sounds about right...

Work or Play

2008-09-09T11:15:00.000-07:00

I consider being a Stay-at-Home Mom to be a job. The title is deceiving, because the job entails much more than just Mom duties. It also includes cooking detail, cleaning detail, and general maintenance of the family doing all the tasks that no one else really would choose to do. I usually really love my job. I enjoy cooking, and I even enjoy cleaning. I feel fulfilled. Maybe that sounds kind of silly, but I really do.

Some days, though, my job is really hard and I want to quit and go back to a "regular" job. A job where I can talk to other adults. One where I can walk out the door at 5:00 pm and not think about it again until 9:00 am. A job where I can think about something for 20 minutes without interruption. On those days I try to remind myself that this job is the best I've ever had, in spite of my momentary frustration.

Being the mom of a 2 1/2 year old feels a lot like having Attention Deficit Disorder, I think. I really can't plan on doing anything for more than 20 minutes, max. There is no such thing as focusing on any one thing, ever. So everything gets partially done in 20 minutes or less, and then often abandoned. The call-to-play of a 2 1/2 year old is just too strong, and draws me away from laundry to play "going to school on the schoolbus," a rollicking game that requires a steady line of stuffed animals boarding the pretend schoolbus while we zoom, turn, bump, and screech our way to school. Or we play "carwash" and line up his matchbox cars in the living room, giving each one it's own turn to go through our pretend carwash & get polished up.

Sometimes, during carwash, dinosaurs attack. Sometimes, planes fly overhead & crash land on the cars. You never know what exciting thing might happen next at the carwash.

As a rule, it's not the playing that is the problem. It's hard to say no to fun pretend games with a cute little boy. It's the stress I feel when, at 5:30, the house looks like a tornado went through it. Twice. And I haven't even had time to think

about what I'm making for dinner. And Brent will

be home in 1/2 an hour.

My good husband usually will tell me not to worry about doing the housework, and that I should just relax. He's sweet, and I'd like to provide him with clean socks & underwear on a regular basis, as well as a decent meal, so I keep on working to try to stay on top of it all. In another couple of years, Ben will be a lot busier with school & activities, so I'd better enjoy this part of his

life while I've got it.

My Chatterbox

2008-08-29T14:05:00.000-07:00

Ben is a real chatterbox. He talks & talks all day long. He talks to me, he talks to his pets, he talks to his toys, he talks to complete strangers. And, when there is absolutely no one else to talk to, he talks to himself.

He's very articulate. For example, today he told me "Ben (he still often talks about himself in 3rd person) is fascinated by skeletons." Which he is. We spend a lot of time each day talking about skeletons lately. He knows somehow that they are supposed to be scary, in spite of me rationally insisting that they are just a bunch of bones that hold us together & make us able to walk, and explaining that inside of all people and most animals is a skeleton--perfectly bland, normal, ordinary, and non-spooky. The problem here is that Ben wants them to be spooky...at least a little bit. And thus, we debate skeletons day in & day out.

The first sign that Ben may actually talk too much came last week when we were on vacation. The cottage we rented for the week filled up when my family came to visit at the end of the week, and my sister ended up bunking in Ben's room. When she got up the next morning, she told us all how Ben had woken her up in the middle of the night, talking. He was having a regular old conversation, and she thought he was talking to her. It took her a few minutes to realize that he was fast asleep, and talking away in his dreams. Now that's a lot of talking!

Real Simple Magazine--best parenting websites

2008-08-29T13:59:00.000-07:00

From their article in their family issue, Fall 2008

Best practical information
WWW.thecradle.com
www.pluggedinparents.com
www.kidfriendlyguide.com

Best networking sites
www.totspot.com
www.raisingthem.com
www.motherhoodlater.com

Best daily destinations
www.babble.com
www.thefamilygroove.com
www.ohdeedoh.com

Best for kids
www.zookazoo.com
www.kidstube.com
www.handipoints.com

I haven't checked any of these out for myself yet, but wanted to preserve the list so that I can go back & look them over some day when I have a little more time.

Summer Vacation

2008-08-28T20:50:00.000-07:00

Back in the cold, cold days of winter, early in the new year, I started dreaming of taking an actual vacation. What would be the first since Ben's arrival. After many months of planning, our vacation to Cape Cod finally arrived 2 weeks ago. Now, 2 short weeks later, it's all over & I'm back at home, supposedly unpacking, but instead....blogging.

It was an action-packed & fun-filled vacation, and well worth all the work in making it happen. Since a picture is worth 1000 words, I'll use some of our photos to share the fun.

We started by spending a couple of days with Grammy & Papa. Ben has so much fun with his Papa. Here they are, fishing in the lake. As always, Ben's favorite place to be was in the lake. Maybe you can tell that by the look on his face here!

Brent joined us on Saturday and we headed off to the cottage we rented on the Cape. We left mid-afternoon & make pretty good time, getting there a couple of hours later. While Ben & his Daddy checked out the digs, I headed out to do some grocery shopping. Big mistake! The store was mobbed!! We had a quick dinner when I got home, made up the beds, & went to sleep.

Over the next few days, we settled into a routine. Ben and I would wake up early--5:30 or 6:00 am, and get dressed and head out for a morning walk. We saw lots of people out & about, getting their exercise every morning, just like us. The mornings were actually so cool that we put on sweatshirts when we left, although we'd always have to take them off before the walk was done. How lovely it was just to walk along the ocean for an hour each morning. I highly recommend it as a way to start your day!

After our walk, Ben & I would grab a little breakfast while Brent got up & showered. Then we'd head out for a family excursion in the morning. More on those later.....

Once back, and after lunch, we'd grab some beach time. Brent doesn't enjoy the beach or the ocean too much, so he'd opt for a little downtime up at the cottage, watching the Olympics. Hey, that was fine with us! We're on vacation, and everyone is supposed to be relaxing and enjoying themselves. Since the cottage was only about 50 yds from the beach, we could pop in to visit any time! While Ben's favorite activity quickly became Mommy & Ben riding the waves (he called them "big salty ones..."), mine was building sand castles. Here's a picture of one of my real success stories! Unfortunately, Ben really enjoyed playing "Castle Demolition." We got a lot of use out of the $1.99 sand castle set we bought at the Christmas Tree Shoppe!

We'd try to get Ben down for an afternoon nap--some days more successfully than others! But he was such a good kid, and having so much fun, that we didn't insist too much on our normal regular nap routine.

Our outings took us literally all over the Cape. One of the best was the whale watch. It was fabulous! I'd been on one years ago, but this one was far better because we saw so many whales. The boat left out of Barnstable, on the North side of the Cape. When we left, it was low tide, and the harbour was bordered by one huge, long sand bar. The water looked turquoise & reminded me of the Carribean. When we came back, the tide was in, and you couldn't even see the sand!

We saw a total of 13 whales--2 sets of mother-calf pairs(Humpbacks)--and one set you could actually watch the baby nursing, which was really amazing!, 1 Minke whale, and then a group of 8 Humpbacks all together. It was really beautiful!

The ride back was kind of difficult...turns our 4 hours in a boat was a little more than Ben was ready to handle. As long as we were looking at whales, he was cool. But all 45 minutes of the trip back to harbour was one big, long temper tantrum. Poor kiddo!

One of Ben's favorite things was visiting the Dennis Fire Dept. We liked it 'cause it was free! We stopped there on our way to the Maritime Museum in Hyannis, which appeared to be brand new and was, in spite of promise for the future, at the moment a bit underwhelming. We made our own fun there, dressing up as pirates in the kids area of the museum!

On Thursday, Boba and Auntie Nan came to visit. We left Friday morning to drive up to the very tip of the Cape--Provincetown. The plan was to drive there, have a picnic lunch, then drive back toward Dennisport along the coast, stopping to check out all the lighthouses on the way back. In P-town, we picnicked on the grounds of the Pilgrim Monument, which offered a beautiful view of the town and the harbour. After lunch, Nancy, Ben & I decided to give the tower a try. We hoofed it up 8 flights, and the view from the top was absolutely stunning. The picture with the sailing ship & the tower was taken from the top of the Pilgrim Monument in Provincetown. Thankfully, the breeze at the top was also absolutely stunning, so the 2 year old and the 8-month-preggo lady made it back down just fine after a short recovery at the top.

As to the rest of the goal of the day, we did pretty well, but did have to cut out a couple of lighthouses on the way back because time was short. Ben was a great kid (again), spending the day getting in and out of the car to look at lighthouses. Not too much fun for a 2 year old!

2008-07-13T11:03:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning we went to Arlington Park for their breakfast with the horses. They do these breakfasts usually about once a month during the summer, and for $7/person you can enjoy a breakfast buffet & watch the horses do their morning exercise session on the track. They have trackside announcers who usually do some commentary & interviews with various horse-racing people, for example, a jockey, an odds analyst, what have you. It's relaxing & fun, so we usually try to get to at least one breakfast each summer.

It's only the second time Ben's been to Arlington Park, and it reminded me of a story from our first visit that I want to write down here before it gets completely forgotten.

We went to Arlington Park early this summer with our neighbors. Sunday afternoons are family day at the Park, and they have a petting zoo, pony rides, and entertainment for the kdis, so we thought this would be lots of fun. We packed a picnic lunch, sat in the grass, and had a great time. We all took turns walking Ben down to the side of the track, and Brent at one point took him back to the area where the horses get staged before their race. Ben was watching the horses getting ready to come out onto the track when suddenly, one of the horses decided to "lighten" himself before the race. To put it plainly--he pooped.

Ben's eyes widened, he pointed, turned & looked up at his daddy & said, "Daddy, that horse dropped something!"

A memorable first visit.

2008-07-09T13:22:00.001-07:00

I can't believe how quickly this summer is slipping by. I went in to Hobby Lobby the other day and they already had set up all their Fall merchandise, and even a few aisles of Christmas stuff, if you can believe that! (I mean, c'mon, it is still only July!!!)

We've been keeping pretty busy these past couple of weeks. Two weeks ago we traveled out to Rhode Island to visit Grammy & Papa and to attend baby Jeffrey's baptism. Ben & I left a few days earlier than Brent, who had to work. We arrived on Wednesday, Brent on Friday night. We flew back Sunday.

During our visit, Ben got to meet up & play with his 2nd cousins, Katie & Caroline. Katie is 4, Caroline is 2. They have a great yard with lots of kid-stuff: a playhouse, a swingset/climber, toys on the patio, and they even set up a sprinkler for our visit!! The girls are very adventurous & taught Ben how to go down their "round & round" slide on his belly.

Ben playing with Caroline in her back yard:

Ben had the most fun playing down by the water & G&P's house. Every morning he'd no sooner be up than he'd be at the back door, asking to go down to the water & throw rocks. Papa had no end of patience for Ben, and the two of them literally spent hours. Ben threw rocks, caught little minnows with his net, practiced casting with his little fishing rod, and waded & splashed. He never showed any signs of being tired of playing in the water.

And, of course, we finally got to meet baby Jeffrey!!

Baby Jeffrey had just had his 6 month checkup. His adjusted age is 3 months, since he was born so early. So, we checked his "stats" against Ben's 3 month stats, and he weighs a full pound more than Ben did at 3 months. So he's doing just fine, and is very cute!

We flew back Sunday night, and had a nightmarish trip. Our plane boarded late, pulled out & sat on the runway for 90 minutes, and we got home hours later than we had originally planned. But, we did make it home safe & happy at last!!

Then & Now

2008-06-24T17:25:00.000-07:00

Ben is my little fireman. That's what he tells me he wants to be when he grows up. "Ben be a fireman!" he says.

We live about 3 blocks from the fire house, and stop by often for a visit. Ben is usually rendered speechless by the awe and excitement of being up close & personal with real fire fighters & real fire trucks. The only thing he'll really speak up & say in the presence of these real-life heros is in response to my question--"ok, Ben, ready to go?" "NOOOOOOO!" is his instant response. So I've done all the chatting. I've really gotten to know our local firemen. They're really great guys. They've filled me in on pretty much everything one might need to know about being a firefighter & what goes on in the fire house. I've learned the technical names of all the trucks in our station, the difference between a truck & an engine, names of the various components of their "outfits," and pretty much any other trivia we can dredge up. By the time he's old enough to become a firefighter, he'll know everything about it. And, apparently, so will I!

Big trucks last year (top)

Big trucks this year (below)

Book Club & Garden Club

2008-06-17T20:35:00.000-07:00

If you had asked me 15 years ago, I would NEVER have told you that I'd be a consenting memeber of a garden club OR a book club. I never would have guessed that I'd be a happy resident of the suburbs. Look at me now!?! It's like I was born to do this. I can't describe the happy/weird feeling I have when someone calls & I have to cut the conversation short to say "oh, sorry, I've got to go...I have book club tonight." Oh, I'm so hoity-toity!

If anyone only knew the truth...look below my supercilious proclamation & see that book club is an opportunity for me to put on mascara & nice shoes. And skip dinner to eat forbidden appetizer & dessert foods. Ah, now that's the truth of it. Please, don't tell that to my children...

Being grown up is so complicated, isn't it?

24/7

2008-06-15T18:56:00.000-07:00

I cleaned the house up today. Four times. It's still a little messy, but I just give up.

There are days that I'm just completely overwhelmed by the disaster that my house can become in no-time-flat. Especially when I have Brent, Ben, Bobby, Nathan, Colby & Brady all in-residence. No sooner do I finish one "sweep" of the house, than there has been another "man tornado" that has left toys, dirty socks, crumpled wrappers, and other detritus strewn in its wake. I swear, I have worked hard to teach all these boys some basic rules of behaviour (that includes husband!!). And, truly, I can't say they are all just total slobs. But I believe that humanity--especially of the male variety--is just intrinsically messy. Add a couple of hairy pets (of the canine & feline variety) to the mix, and you reach a whole 'nother level!

I admit there are times I get really worked up over the constant race against the accumulating piles of messiness. I feel overwhelmed & underappreciated. I envy my friends whose children are grown & gone. But then I remind myself of the treasure I still have. Children grow up so quickly, and move on without a backward glance. When my house is empty, won't I miss those messes? I have to remind myself of this on a regular basis. Especially on the really dirty days. This, too, shall pass. And, for as long as it lasts, I need to look for the blessings & love underneath those dirty socks. I know they are there if I just take the time to see them.

Terrible Twos?

2008-06-13T10:49:00.000-07:00

These are trying times.

Ben's language skills have recently taken a huge leap. He's discovered the DON'TS. He says --and I quote--

Mama, I don't WANT to take a nap.

Mama, I don't WANT to eat any lunch today

Mama, I don't WANT to take a bath

I say I don't WANT to hear whining.

He doesn't answer.

He's still cute & funny & adorable. But just a little more cranky.

We went to Six Flags Great America with our friends Paula & Aidan on Tuesday. Paula has season passes, and they had coupons this week to bring a free guest, so they invited us. Ben's first amusement park visit. Great fun was had by all. It was a gloriously sunny day, and the boys were excited & happy. We took a break mid-day for a picnic outside the main gates, then back in for more rides. There was an area of the park called Wiggles World. There was a "Captain Feathersword" boat to climb on, a "Big Red Car" ride (we did that one twice!), and several other rides, but the best of all was the "Wiggly Concert!" In the picture here you see Ben "doing the Mashed Potato." Fun stuff, I say!

Gardening & Other Backyard Fun

2008-06-03T12:05:00.000-07:00

Before Ben was more than a few months old, I was dreaming of his future sandbox. I think every little boy needs a vast sandy expanse, and plenty of trucks, shovels, and buckets with which to build roads, castles, rivers, and imagination. I had a specific picture in my mind of what we needed, and just knew that the little Crabby Sandbox at Toys R Us would NOT fit the bill.

Last year I was super-lucky to get a big old handmade sandbox that someone nearby was getting rid of. I had just put together a materials list to price out building one myself, and was shocked to find that the few pieces of wood to make a frame & a cover, along with the necessary hardware, would cost close to an arm AND a leg. The freebie offer was exactly what I wanted, and came along at just the right time. It is a little over 6' square, just four 2x12s nailed together with little triangular reinforcements (in my own vernacular, "seats") at each corner. Simple. I reassembled it in our backyard last summer, lined the bottom with landscaping fabric, and filled it with about 6-8 50 lb. bags of sand. The boy down the street made a cover to keep out the neighborhood cats, and--viola!--the perfect play area is born!

This summer is clearly going to be the summer of sand box glory. This weekend, at a yard sale, I picked up a big box full of shells for $2.00. Sunday, I dumped the shells in the sandbox, kicked a little sand over them, filled a bucket of water, and set Ben to work to find the shells & put them in the water. He played quietly for well over an hour and a half. After that, I he played "fireman" with the garden hose for a while, followed by some crazy sprinkler fun, allowing me to get a fabulous & unprecidented amount of gardening done.

I was elated & sad, both at the same time. While it was great to get that amount of time to weed, it did make me realize that my little boy is growing up. His imaginative play is getting more and more involved, and he requires less & less stimulation from those around him (particularly, me) to have a good time. I listened in to his play as I worked, and it was all the entertainment one could ask for. He keeps up a constant, stream-of-conscience chatter about what he's doing & thinking, so it is easy to peer into that little mind & see the wheels turning. He is so un-selfconscious about it, so natural, and so cute! I think this stage won't last too long before he learns to keep his internal dialogue internal. But for right now, he lets it all hang out in his crazy, adorable, little-boy way.

First Days of Summer

2008-05-27T13:24:00.000-07:00

My friend Sheila called me yesterday morning to tell me that she & the kids had set up their wading pool and did we want to come over for a playdate. Short notice, yeah....but did we jump all over that invitation? You betchya! In a spring that has been unbearably chilly, yesterday was 80+ degrees. The 1st really warm day we've had, and an invitation like that were too much to resist!

I've been looking forward all year to "pool weather." Ben & I got a pool pass last summer. We used it quite a bit, although Ben was really just getting steady on his feet & not really a swimmer yet. The pool is only a few blocks away. It has big slides & toddler slides, a "zero-depth" pool, and a gigantic sandbox replete with water spigots, toys galore, and sand & water tables. My January day-dreams this year consisted mainly of lazing around the pool on hot summer days while my 2 year-old little man really got down to the big business of water enjoyment.

Yesterday was our first opportunity this year to put toe & pool together. And Ben wanted nothing to do with it. He was eager to have a playdate with his friends, but not so eager to include swimming in said venture. My heart wept....

I told him I was bringing along the swimming gear anyway...just in case. He pouted for a little while in the car, but soon forgot about it as we headed down the road to fun.

After a rousing game of toddler basketball (in which everyone has their own ball & there is no such thing as "defense") and a hotdog picnic, four-year-old Frannie announced that pool time had arrived & SHE was putting on her bikini.

Good thing I brought along the swim gear. Suddenly Ben was very interested in swimming. Why, if his friends were going in the pool, then he sure as heck wasn't staying behind. Ahhh, peer pressure. I guess it's not always a bad thing. It definitely has it's place.

The six inches of water in the pool was as frigid as an arctic lake. Nevertheless, great fun was had by all, including the onlooking mommies. At last they clambered out of the pool, blue-lipped, shivering & exhausted, leaving behind a floaty film of grass, leaves, dirt, and other kid-induced debris. After drying him off, popping him back in his clothes, and arming him with a couple of cookies to kick that blood sugar back up a notch, I popped Ben in his carseat & we headed home. I remembered the exhilerating exhaustion I felt after a fun afternoon of play & swimming when I was a kid, and it made me feel happy & summery.

I think we're going to have a great time enjoying the outdoors this summer & I'm happy we were able to get it off to a great start this weekend.

2008-05-20T13:35:00.000-07:00

Ben's imagination is working full-throttle and it is such a joy to watch his little mind at work. It continually amazes me to see him take a whole bunch of disparate thoughts and put them together into a whole idea. Often those thoughts hatch out an idea that is quirky, funny, and distorted in a way that illustrates a uniquely 2-year-old point of view, and reminds me what a treasure it is to watch a young soul discover the world.

My friend Cathy has a standard Poodle, Gracie, who recently whelped a litter of nine (!) puppies. We waited until they were about a month old to go see them, but we've seen them twice in the past few weeks now. The first time they had just started to open their eyes & peer around at their surroundings. But by last week, they were wrestling around with eachother & giving off adorable little puppy barks and growls.

Ben was fascinated with the puppies, of course! He held the puppies so gently, and looked at their teeny noses, their tiny little eyes, and lifted up and peeked under each adorable little ear. Gracie, the mommy, was a little anxious and stayed pretty close to Ben while he inspected her puppies. When he was done, Gracie went & lay down with her litter, and they began to nurse. I explained to Ben, as I had explained the first time we saw the puppies, that the puppies were drinking the milk that their mommy had made just for them. He understands that he used to nurse when he was a baby, and that the puppies nurse too.

Fast forward a couple of days...

Ben woke up from a nap because he threw up in his crib. Ewww. After cleaning him up, we sat in the rocking chair to calm him down, as he was understandably upset. It didn't take long before he calmed down, and we were rocking quietly. I thought he was maybe even drifting off to sleep when, suddenly, his little head popped up and he looked up at me with a grin. "Mommy," he said, "Gracie needs a diaper-bra."

"What?" I asked him, caught off guard.

"Gracie needs a diaper-bra" he repeated.

I took this in for a minute. And realized, indeed, Gracie's once smooth underneath was now a lumpy, milky mess. Whereas I, his own mommy, wear a bra on my chest, and he, himself, wears a diaper underneath....well, isn't it perfectly logical that a diaper-bra fits the bill? I laughingly agreed with him!

Ah, these are the memories that I want to be able to recall when he's all grown up!

A Letter to a Friend

2008-05-04T18:22:00.000-07:00

Spring has sprung & we've been trying to spend as much time as possible outside. Ben wakes up in the morning saying "play outside?" before he even gets out of bed! Ben & I have settled into a pretty good routine for outside. He knows the rules of where he can go & where he can't go, and is pretty good about following them. Ben also has soaked himself with the hose more than once already, eaten & rolled in dirt, and decided to dig up portions of the veg garden multiple times. The digging up/tromping through the garden has been the one big no-no. The rest I let roll off my back. Wet, let's change clothes. Ate compost? Didn't taste so good, guess you won't do that again, right? LOL~

I'll tell you what's really been a big hit for us here. I thought it would be the kid-sized rake & shovel that I bought him, but wasn't to interested. But, a couple of weeks ago, we were in Walgreens picking up some allergy medicine for Brent & they had a whole aisle of cheap-o garden ornaments. I let Ben pick out a couple of figurines that were 2 for $5.00. (He picked a bunny & a Blue Jay sitting on a flower pot). I let him pick a place in the garden to put them. Since then, the figurines have been one of the outside "toys" he's most interested in. He will pick them up & move them to a new spot at least once a day, spending much time & energy on making the right placement, and really had a great time with them. Best $5.00 I've ever spent on him Oh, and bugs. Ben loves bugs! When I dig up a grub or a millipede or any other manner of insect, I don't kill it, I put it in a box & hand it over to Ben to inspect. Keeps him busy for ages!

Remember I started my "winter sowing" in milk jugs back in March & early April? Well, they're working like a house-afire! Just yesterday I cut off the top halves of the milk jugs to start to harden everything off in prep for putting it in the ground. There is not frost predicted for the coming 10-day forcast, and generally by late May, we can be considered frost-free here, so I'm pretty much set to jump into full-garden mode over the next couple of weeks. So far I've got in my spinach, peas (the bunnies keep eating it, I keep planting more!), lettuces, and my strawberries are already setting berries! I've got cauliflower & brocolli in jugs just waiting to go in the ground, green beans waiting to get planted, & I'll pick up my tomatoes & peppers from the local nursery in a couple of weeks. They always go in last, once I'm sure they won't get hit with frost. We also plant a couple of cuke plants, a pumpkin plant, a zuchinni plant, and sunflowers. My garden has 2 beds ,each one about 7'x14'. The last couple of years I haven't cultivated the top bed, but this year I will, since I'm planning on doing a lot more canning & freezing. Food prices here are ridiculous!

Hey, I just wanted to mention that I was thinking of you the other day. We have a CD of Veggie Tales that has Sunday School songs (can't remember the name of the CD off the top of my head), and Ben LOVES it, sings along to most of the songs now. He woke up from a nap the otehr day & was singing to himself in his room "Love your neighbor, when someone helps you than you'll understand, love your neighbor, loving means lending a hand!" It was so cute! Well, anyway, it struck me right then --do I remember you talking a while back about this CD & this song in particular? I think so, but maybe I'm dreaming....

Lyssa & Joshua

2008-04-21T18:38:00.000-07:00

So a month or so ago I got completely toddler-storied out. At every nap & night-night (N&N), we read 3 stories for a total of 6 stories, minimum, per day. I'd read every book on Ben's bookshelf multiple times & couldn't stand to read them one more time. When I reached the breaking point, I turned out the light & made up a story, spur of the moment, about a little girl named "Lyssa," who is two years old & lives with her Mommy & her Daddy. I don't even remember what that 1st story was about, but Ben fell in love with it, and it was game on!

Day after day, bedtime after bedtime, Ben pipe up in his tiny little voice:

"Talk about Lyssa???"

So I'd have to come up with a new story.

Phew, after a few days, I was exhausted & longed for the brainless toddler boardbooks of simpler times.

It also started to become clear to me that Ben was completely identifying with Lyssa & living vicariously through the adventures I created for her.

I decided to break out a two year old boy character....welcome Joshua.

Now we "talk about Lyssa" and "talk about Joshua" at least once every day. Some of our favorite adventures revolve around Joshua's ride on an airplane (he gets to go into the cockpit & push buttons), Joshua flys a helicopter (based on a true story of our visit to the firestation open house on Illionois Ave. last fall), and Lyssa gets lost in the shopping mall & the bad man tries to take her away. But the all time favorite must be Joshua Rides a Firetruck--in which Joshua's Uncle Michael helps Joshua face his biggest fear---the carwash--by letting him "steer" the firetruck through the carwash. The climax of the story is reached when Joshua & Michael, both frightened by the dreaded "washcloth noise" of the carwash, decide to hit the lights & sirens on the firetruck & thereby earn everyone's admiration! Fun stuff, right?!

I still worry about Ben identifying too closely with these characters....mostly I worry about what I'm going to do the next time we ride on an airplane & Ben can't go into the cockpit! But I love it that Ben can sit still to listen to these stories & use his imagination to make the characters come to life. How I wish I could preserve the excitement & joy he gets from imagining the possibilities of flying an airplane or taking a firetruck through the carwash!

First Post, Well in

2008-04-20T18:29:00.000-07:00

Something I've been meaning to do for quite some time is to start capturing Ben's childhood on a regular, maybe even day-to-day basis. At a bit more than 2 now, he's really starting to exhibit signs of becoming a little man now, and the baby is disappearing. As his imagination develops, I'm eager to capture those brilliant moments of a 2 year old's interpretation of the world before this brief period of our lives disappears.

A perfect example of the brilliance of a 2 year old mind happened about a week ago. I have 3 citrus trees that winter over in the house; an orange, a lemon, and a lime. The are (or were) in pots of corresponding colour, and 2 are on top of the birdcage (orange & lemon), while the lime is on a small plant stand in the living room. About a week ago, Ben was lingering about, just before bedtime, looking for a little something-something to engage his mind & keep him from acting tired (the ultimate sin for a 2 year-old). I was in the kitchen, cleaning up after dinner. Suddenly I heard Ben exclaim from the living room "They must be caterpillars!!"

After a minute or so of hearing him proclaiming how they must be caterpillars, my curiousty became sufficiently aroused to drive me from my dinner dishes (ok, I admit, it doesn't take much!) & go to investigate. Ben was hovering over the lime-coloured pot, poking a teeny-tiny stick into the dirt. Upon close inspection, I discovered a host of tiny little wormy things (could they be creepy millipedes?????).

Maternal instinct won out over horror, so I ended up scooping up one of those creepy little bugs & letting it crawl on my hand for Ben to examine. For a very, very long time.

These little creatures are now our good buddies. They apparently sleep during daylight hours, but make their appearance right at bedtime, in a brave & valient attempt to allow Ben to stay up just that little bit longer. What more can you ask for in a buddy?!?

Personally, I may never have noticed these little creatures living in my home. And, just possibly, I never would have felt bad for the missed opportunity. But now that I've been introduced to these tiny inhabitants by someone who adores them, I would miss them dreadfully if they were no longer around to entertain us of an evening.

So, my 2 year old son reminds me that I may know everything, I don't necessarily appreciate all of those things as much as I might. And when it comes right down to the final analasys, I wonder....is it more important to know everything, or to appreciate the smallest of the things you know.