Writer’s Rap

For you writers out there (and even if you’re not) check out this clever music video by writer Erin Dealey:

You gotta have a hook, yo.

Get Your Yoga On

Love yoga?  Love music?  Get your fix of both this Saturday, Feb. 13, at Yoga in the Square.  Yoga instructor Checka Antifonario will join with chant vocalist/musician  Irene Solea Antonellis for a 90-minute vinyasa yoga flow to live music.  All levels are welcome. $15 drop-in ($12 w/ student ID) – Yoga in the Square class cards welcome.   What better way to get your heart (and spirit) ready for Valentine’s Day?  

Yoga in the Square
249 Elm Street
Davis Square, Somerville, MA
Saturday, February 13th, 2010   1:15 – 2:45 pm

This marathon won’t give your feet blisters

But your brain may hurt for a while.

If you write for children, why not give the picture book marathon a try?  No hamstring stretches required — all you need to do is sign up and promise to complete 26 picture books in the month of Februrary.  Sure, most might be headed for the circular file, but you never know what ideas will emerge.  If you participated in PiBoIdMo last November, you’ve already got all those spanking concepts rolling around in your brain. 

Flex your fingers.  Ready…set…GO!

Pre-Parenting 101: A Crash Course

I have a part-time job as a moderator for the parenting forums on boston.com (which is great because there’s a ton of friendly and knowledgeable people out there sharing advice and experiences on a variety of parenting topics, and I love hearing their thoughts.).  Recently, a poster on the cusp of TTC (for the rest of you, that is “trying to conceive”) wondered how others knew they were ready for parenthood. As expected, many eloquent and helpful responses were soon posted.  Sure, making room for baby and saving a bunch of money are good ideas, if you can manage those sorts of things in this economy, but there’s more you should do to get ready for parenthood.  Here’s a quick course for the parent wannabes:

Before Becoming a Parent You Should…

1. Become a celebrity.  Celebrities usually come with personal assistants, who are handy for things like reminding you to brush your teeth.  Plus, despite annoying paparazzi baggage, celebrities get lots of free stuff and are mostly rich.  I myself forgot to do this, darn it.  Learn from my mistake.
2. Embrace chaos.  Give up your old control freak ways.  The new boss is the little mewling thing in pink pajamas.  She will set the schedule, run the roost.   Nothing will ever be tidy, clean, or organized again.  Love to be on time?  Yeah, never going to happen again.  What will happen is a last-minute diaper change that leads to getting stuck in rush-hour traffic, thus entirely missing the first semi-grownup party you’ve been to in months.  If you are extremely well-balanced, you’ll really believe that old saying, “it’s the journey, not the destination.”   Or, if you’re like me, you’ll wish you had just stayed home for another reading of Good Night Moon and a late-night (read, 9 p.m.) glass of wine and couch cuddle with husband.
3. Grow a few additional arms.  You’ll need extra limbs when trying to feed the baby, talk to Mom on phone, play Candyland with preschooler, fold laundry (which never ends, see #4), email boss to explain for the 84th time where that client file still is, prepare healthy, fresh food, and blow your own nose.  Multitasking takes on a whole new definition in the universe of Parenthood.
4. Learn to love dirty clothes and lots of laundry.  By some weird cosmic Maytag conversion table, your clothes will be so neglected they’ll stand up on their own, while the kids’ clothes will get constant washing.  Like your daily surprise at the stuff that comes from their bottoms, you’ll be unceasingly amazed that something so little could create so much…mess.  (Which, of course, grows with them.)
5. Give up that pesky need for sleep.  First, any sleep you attempt will be disrupted by crying, calls for water, or monster-slaying. Second, interrupted sleep is not at all restful, just a giant tease. Third, interrupted sleep usually leads to insomnia where you lay awake for hours trying to figure out how much rest you might get if you fall asleep right now. Right now.  Now!  Then the alarm goes off.  Just give it up.  I hear that retirement is good for resting.
6. Invent a time machine that allows you to add five extra hours to your day.  This, plus the aforementioned elimination of sleep, will allow you to not only get ahead of the laundry (#4), but also finally write those thank you notes from your baby shower. During those extra hours you might also manage to, oh, read a book.  Or a chapter.  Or the dust jacket.  Or at least the cartoons in this month’s New Yorker.
7. Suck up to your neighbors, even the ones with the incessantly barking dog.  Emergency babysitting is far more important than 3 a.m. yipping or that blue spruce you’ve been arguing about for the past five years.  Get over yourself and bring them a pie.
8. Get an advanced degree in diplomacy and negotiation.  You’ll need those skills when your daughters break out in a fist fight over who gets to be Cinderella and who has to be the mean step-sister, and your son swoops in armed with a glowing light saber, declaring himself the Great Turbo Galactic Obliterator Of All That Is Pink and Sparkly.  Handle that, and you can take on the Middle East.
9. Realize the true luxuriousness of a minivan.  I know, they’re not as badass as those giant SUVs, but they are far easier for little legs to climb into.  Plus, they come with automatic door openers on your keychain, which turn out to be pretty handy when juggling the infant seat, groceries, toddler’s hand, and your own purse (which is actually a diaper bag, but we can pretend, can’t we?).  And there’s something endearing about your manly husband behind the wheel, especially if he’s the sort who swore while you were dating that he’d never drive such a stupid girly car.   It’s okay to giggle.
10. Accept that while you may have found true love in your significant other, you have yet to experience the kind of fierce passion and devotion that can split atoms and render you paralyzed by the resulting joy and humility that comes when a perfect human spirit looks into your eyes and calls you Mommy.

Drowning in stuff — how to let it go?

I will admit it.  I’m somewhat of a pack rat.  It’s not that I save any old thing, just things that are meaningful to me.  And for the past 8 years that includes kid stuff.  For them, I save almost everything.

When it was just one or two kids, it was harmless enough.  I’d save stuff like a bib my aunt embroidered for Mitzi, Cooper’s first soft baseball, baptism gifts, mementos from birthday parties.  And I even got a lot of it into scrapbooks.

But then life kicked in, and brought two more kids, and suddenly I was inundated with more stuff than I thought possible.  I’ve gathered items for Ellie and Joanna’s someday-scrapbooks (yeah, who has time for that?!), put aside drawings and crafts and schoolwork and special tokens from beloved relatives.

And with bigger kids comes more schoolwork.  I can’t bear to throw any of it away.  As it comes in, I pile it into my “to-be-filed” section of my office, which is actually a floor space between a wicker trunk and bookshelf.  Today, that pile towers over 2 feet.  I definitely need a secretary.

But I remember how fun it was to look back through my own stuff that my mom saved — it still is, frankly, even seeing those report cards that always glared a C in handwriting.  And I know that it makes Ray a little sad that he has virtually nothing from his own youth.

So I save it all for the kids.  Someday it will collect dust in their own attics.

I know I have to pick and choose — I’m running out of space and we’re just getting started!  But how?  How do parents out there choose what, if anything, to save?  How many crayon drawings by your 3 year old (and we know how many reams a preschooler can color in one rainy afternoon)?  How many spelling tests?  How many shakily-written stories with stick figure illustrations?

I need help!  If my sister were nearby she’d come over and give me some tough love about decluttering.   My mom, having spent many days cleaning out her own parents’ attic, would probably join in.

Sentimentality is wonderful, helping us to remember the past and those with whom we’ve shared it.  But when is it too much?

Please, give me advice!

8 years old!

Happy New Year!

We  had a lovely, whirlwind Christmas with my family in Connecticut and a quick trip to Long Island to spend time with Ray’s mom.  Although exhausting, getting together with everyone — including our 10 kids — was perhaps the best thing about the holiday.  The kids and I enjoyed a week off from school playing in the snow, trying out the new Wii from Grandpa, and ringing in the new year with neighbors.

Then yesterday, my oldest baby turned eight.  How can that be?  Mitzi and I cuddled in the early morning chill and watched some videos of her first days.  I was more enthralled with the quiet images than she, who was eager to get to her presents.  What can I say?  To relive those days is stunning.  Somehow in the other 364 days of the year I forget to remember what she used to be — the Not-There then There — a fat, red, just-under-9-pound bundle of sweetness that I couldn’t stop hugging.

Of course, I also recalled the labor and delivery.  Like the pregnancy, that was mostly easy and pain-free.  Except for the brief period of baby distress and Mommy oxygen during contracting, I was comfortable, thanks to the successful epidural (which left me numb from the waist down for many hours that long night).  I remember when the doctor told me to push.  I thought, “Huh?  How do I do that when I can’t feel anything?”  But I visualized and willed my body to do something.  The doctor was encouraging, so I kept it up, and out she came (with a little help from the head-sucking Hoover device).

Mitzi was a great baby, eating well, sleeping well, developing ahead of the curve.  It’s no wonder we were thrilled to expand our family sooner rather than later when just five months later we learned that Cooper was on his way.  And she has continued to thrive in like form, growing well into her big feet and nearing my height a little faster than I could ever imagined, easily wearing a pair of Michelle’s hand-me-down Sketchers, but also cultivating her excitement for science, crafts and horse riding.

So we are now, with this beautiful bundle of daughter, well into her own personality and life-vision.  As always, ahead of the curve, she seems to be testing the waters of pre-adolescent defiance and independence, while still craving to be cuddled, carried, and babied.  The moment-to-moment fluctuations between defiance and desire make my head spin, but when the vertigo ends and I breathe, I can marvel at her very existence.

Maybe that’s what birthdays are for, to slow us down so we can remember where we started and where we’ve been, to appreciate not only the current location but also the journey we’ve taken, with all its potholes and delays, to remind us to remember, every day, what a miracle each of us really is.

And maybe that’s why we have mothers who make us watch our birth videos every year — guardians of our past and protectors of our future.  Mothers delight in who we are, even before we knew it ourselves.

I doubt Mitzi has any idea about all of this — although with her precocious nature, I can’t help but wonder just what she understands — but I do know she had a great birthday, and loves, loves, loves being eight years old.

That’s enough for me.

Fire up your holiday spirit!

You might be tired of this medley by a capella group, Straight No Chaser (who originally performed together at Indiana University back in the ’90s).  Too bad.  Here it is again.  It’s a fun song sure to get even the Grinchiest of grouches in the holiday spirit!

Definitely check out the band’s web site, if only to read the unlikely success story this group of ten guys had a decade after they stopped singing together in college. Maybe it’ll inspire you to dust off that trumpet from marching band?  

Happy Friday!

Forget the toys! Books rock!

Tick, tick, tick…only days are left for you to finish your Christmas shopping!  If I had my way, everyone would only get books as gifts, so hie thee to a bookstore — preferably your local independent — and consider these titles for your little ones:

Princess Peepers adores her glasses — at least, until the other princesses at school make fun of her.  So she takes off her glasses to prove she doesn’t need them, which of course leads to all kinds of hilarious trouble.  Her biggest challenge?  Getting ready in time for the ball to dance with the prince!  The spunky, bespectacled princess prevails and changes the definition of cool.  This book is a surprising divergence from the usual princess tales, and little girls who adore fancy, sparkly heroes (whether they wear glasses or not) will cheer for Peepers.  (written by Pam Calvert, illustrated by Tuesday Mourning, Marshall Cavendish, 2008)

Mean girls are everywhere, even in elementary school.  In Two of a Kind, author Jacqui Robbins skillfully captures the dynamics between two pairs of best friends — mean, snobby Melanie and Kayla, and kind, eager Anna and Julisa.  When Anna is accepted into the exclusive friendship, she is secretly thrilled, even though she’s sad to leave Julisa behind.   Soon, however, the nastiness of her new friends becomes too much, and she realizes that she was happier with her true friend.  The honest writing never feels didactic, pulling readers into a timeless conflict of playground bullies and their victims.  Illustrator Matt Phelan deliciously captures body language and facial expressions (I love the way the mean girls are so, well, evil, despite their perfect, matching outfits).  (Atheneum, 2009)

In a lovely seasonal tale, Christmas Eve Blizzard (Sylvan Dell, 2005) tells the story of Nicholas, who rescues a cardinal trapped in the snow.  Ignoring the usual holiday fun of wrapping presents or decorating the tree, Nicholas, with the help of his grandfather, focuses instead on caring for the bird, and his efforts yield surprising results.  Written by Andrea Vlahakis, this is a nostalgic, heart-warming tale best read while cuddled under a thick quilt in front of a blazing fire — or wherever your most special reading place is.  As with their other titles, this Sylvan Dell book includes a “Creative Minds” section, which offers information and activities based on the story.  (Illustrations by Emanuel Schongut)

This book made me the hero of Cooper’s first grade class when I read it aloud a few weeks ago.  I mean, the title alone set them into peals of laughter!  How could it not?  While reading this hilarious book by James Stevenson, kids will delight in conspiring with the little pig, Freddy Faffnaffer, to disobey his boss, the grumpy crocodile Mr. Frimdimpny, during the telling of three separate tales.  All the while, readers have discovered Mr. Frimdimpny’s deepest secret — and they get to help put Mr. Frimdimpny in his place by book’s end.  The text is more suitable for older kids, though — the humor is probably a little sophisticated for preschoolers, though they will undoubtedly appreciate the wonderful illustrations. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2004)

(Edited to add author links.  Der.)

The end of the crustacean era

Yesterday we said goodbye to another member of our family.  The remaining hermit crab, Lumpy, went to his (her?) final resting place under the pine tree, alongside Bumpy, who was buried earlier this year.

Poor Lumpy.  Probably died of a broken heart, living a solitary life in the tank.  No one to climb the wall with.  No one to fight with over the crab house.  

Maybe not.  We noticed him looking poorly and grew concerned.  When he stopped moving and seemed limp, we knew something was up.  But our research led us to this conclusion:  the crab was molting.  Aha!  Experts say that it’s crucial to leave a molting crab alone, so that’s what we did.  We hydrated it, changed water, kept it warm.  The process was supposed to take up to 8 weeks.

And it went on and on.  Since there was no smell, we figured it was okay.  (I mean, dead animals smell, come on.)  But 8 weeks came and went, and eventually we decided that poor Lumpy didn’t survive the change.

So yesterday we had his funeral, poor little petrified Lumpy (I mean, stiff, fragile, like an egg shell molded to a crab form.  Every molecule of water completely gone.  Just a little crumbly skeleton.  No one wanted to touch it, because when you did, a leg or claw fell off.).  We buried him shell and all.  

Mitzi wasn’t upset to say good-bye to crab number three.

Next time, she says, she wants a better pet.

How Pillow Pets are ruining Christmas

I’ll be the first to say it — my kids are NOT perfect by any stretch (for examples, see all of my previous posts on this blog).  But they are good (for examples, see all of my previous posts on this blog).

So I shouldn’t have been surprised that when it came time to make Christmas lists, they didn’t ask for much.

• Joanna:  cookies, milk, a Pillow Pet
• Ellie:  a unicorn Little Pony, a Pillow Pet
• Cooper: a skateboard, a punching bag, a Pillow Pet
• Mitzi: skates, a lantern, a Pillow Pet

Seriously, this is all they asked for.  I should be grateful — my wallet sure is.

 Now, here’s the thing.  Pillow Pets are out of stock.  

I had no idea they were such a hot item this season.  Sure, I could pony up $200 per Pet on amazon, but frankly, if I had that kind of money I’d probably be taking my family on a vacation.  Or at the very least, not spend so much time worrying about the price of milk.

So I prod the kids a little.  ”There’s no toy you want?”  ”Nope.”  Mitzi and Cooper huddle to consult each other and say they both want a DS.  I get a cramp in my side from laughing so hard (no, my 7 & 6 year olds are not getting a DS.  I don’t care a whit what other parents do.  I might as well just flush a stack of twenties down the toilet).

That’s all I manage to extract from them during a 45-minute interrogation at dinner last night. Time is ticking.  What to put under the tree?  (Books will be given by grandpa, and my mom has come up with stuff on her own, plus is giving a game to all her grandkids.).  But Santa?  Grandma?  They both need ideas!

It’s good that they are not greedy — given the amount of TV they watch, you’d think they’d be inspired by all those commercials.  No, their needs are few.  Pillow Pets.

And I feel badly.  They believe in Santa.  They believe that they are good and Santa will put presents under the tree, because, well, that’s how it works.  I remind them that they are free to ask for whatever they like, but it doesn’t mean they will get it all.  They never budge. They know what they want and look at me like I’m crazy because I’m asking them so often.  

So can I go ahead and wrap up a bunch of stuff I think they’d like and leave a note?  ”Ho-ho-ho!  I know all you wanted in your heart’s desire was a Pillow Pet, but I ran out, so enjoy this Barbie/light saber/Pretty Pony/stuffed animal, even though you already have a dozen of this item, which means you like it, which is why I am giving it to you!  Ho-ho-ho!”

Yeah, it’s not a big deal.  My dad will post a response (waves to dad) with very wise words about the meaning of Christmas and not being about the presents and it’s about family and love, etc., etc.  And he’ll be right.  Others might point out that I should stop whining and be happy my kids aren’t greedy.  Yup.  They’d be right too.

I still have this sense, though, that for kids Christmas is magical, when anything is possible.  And we adults nurture this belief, knowing how fleeting it really is. We decorate and sing and bake and give all because of the season meaning.  (We capitalize on it as a behavior-management aid — Santa’s watching, don’t be naughty!).  So I think we ought to hold up our end of the bargain.  I’m not for kids getting 37 presents under the tree — frankly, I’m horrified to the point of nausea to hear of parents who spend thousands of dollars each year.  Does a five year old really, really need an Xbox?  I don’t think so.

But, darn it.  I’d really like to give them all that one thing they want.  They didn’t ask for much else.  They deserve it.  

Hmmm…If only I could sew!

Uh, Mom?