Just before Thanksgiving, all the parents in our school were informed of the existing policy in Massachusetts regarding gift giving for teachers.  In a nutshell,  it’s a violation of the law to give a gift worth more than $50.  It’s a violation for a group of parents to pool their money for a gift valued over $50.  The only exemption to this is if the gift is intended for classroom use, such as books or software, supplies or materials.

Thus began the brouhaha.

Newspaper articles and talk shows focused on this hot-button holiday issue.  Some parents are in an uproar, feeling that they ought to express their gratitude in any way they like.  Teachers don’t make a huge salary, and, some say, the holiday season is a great opportunity to give these hard-working educators a little something they wouldn’t be inclined — or able — to get for themselves.

Others are in favor of supporting the existing regulation.  Some say this annual ritual is akin to slipping the hostess a twenty for a fast seating.  Some claim that parents who, for all intents and purposes, tip their children’s teachers are hoping the teacher rewards the child with better grades or simple favoritism.  Others point out that even with the $50 limit, teacher gifts can get expensive, especially if you have more than one child (hmm…groceries or teacher gifts?).

Whatever side you’re on, the fuss shows a general dim view of teachers.  On the whole, teachers don’t get into the business to make money or reap the benefit of seasonal generosity.  If they do, they couldn’t have been too bright in the first place and ought to be dismissed for that singular act of stupidity.  No, most teachers start their careers with at least a minimal sense of service, a desire to help make a difference in the lives of children.  How that changes over many years in the system is anyone’s guess, and maybe these are the educators who enjoy the festival of tipping.

But I would venture that most teachers are as touched by a child’s hand-made card as they are by a gift card to Bertucci’s or a bag of Lindor truffles (or a Coach bag, if you happen to teach in that kind of town).

Time for me to ‘fess up.  In my first year of teaching I was employed by a small Catholic school in southwestern Connecticut.  My salary was a whopping $18,000 a year.  Yup.  This wasn’t 50 years ago.  More like 15.  But I was 24, living with my parents, and happy to be doing a job I loved, at a school I enjoyed immensely. The parents were painfully aware of our piteable salaries, and Christmas gifts rolled in. I mean, seriously.  It was a little embarrassing to pack my car at the end of the day.  Most were tokens, ornaments or plants or a bag of chocolate.  I was touched by the effort, and every year when I decorate my tree I remember which child gave what decoration, and I wonder where that child is today as an adult, whether they yet have children of their own.  That year, the parents en masse collected funds and gave each teacher a cash bonus of $500.  Seriously.  That was fantastic.  $18K doesn’t take you very far, even living at home.  But it only  happened once, and I never expected it then or ever.  A couple of years later, when I worked at a private school on the South Shore of Massachusetts, the gifts were fewer, but equally heart-felt.  I loved that surly middle school students would sit down to pen a thank you note and offer a”Happy Holidays!”, even if their parents made them.  I know, I’m a dork, but I still have some of those cards in a box in the basement.

I really believe teachers don’t need more, don’t expect more.  It’s the parents who get in a bunch about it, and interestingly, it’s the parents in wealthier communities who find this issue to be most disturbing.   Parents with vacation homes who give the gift of a week of skiing.   Seats to a Sox game.  A spa weekend in the Berkshires.  It seems more like an effort to one-up the neighbors than to say a simple thank you to someone who is doing a good job.  Maybe some do expect preferential treatment for their kids, maybe they don’t.   I can’t say.  But I do wonder how the teacher feels, what his or her perception is of that parent’s expectations, how the teacher must wonder what others think whenever the child of a overly-extravagant gift-giver happens to get an A.

This is a teachable moment for parents and children alike.  What message do we want to send our kids in this already stuff-crazy season? 

I’m an English teacher, so I turn to a book.  The definition of a gift = “something voluntarily transferred by one person to another without compensation”  (Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary).

The best gift a child can give to her teacher is an honest thank you.  Instead of shopping or collecting money or making collages and scrapbooks, maybe we parents should spend that time with our kids and talk about why we appreciate our teachers, why teachers are worth far more than the world pays them.  Maybe we parents should, in a giant surge of grassroots activism, gather our huge numbers and spend our time changing the way teachers are compensated for a job that society deems thankless but for this one time a year.

Teachers don’t need chocolate or gift cards.   Show thanks with support and advocacy.  Let that be the lesson for the kids.  Put your money where your mouth is.

Not $50.  Priceless.

Just a quick post for you Boston-area parents.  

Gorse Mill Studios is having its holiday open house with open studios and holiday art sale.   This weekend professional storyteller Cindy Rivka Marsh will be performing shows appropriate for all age levels.   On Friday, December 4 at 7pm she will perform “What We Make,” stories that portray the importance of creativity. On Saturday, December 5 at 11am,1pm, and 3pm, she will tell ‘Animal Tales,’ folktales from many cultures. And on Sunday, December 6 at 1pm and 3pm, Cindy will perform ‘Hanukkah Lights,’ stories for the upcoming holiday.

Looks like a lot of fun!

Directions to 31 Thorpe Road, Needham, MA, 02494:  Rte 128 North or South to Highland Ave., Needham; Highland to left on Webster St.; Webster to left on Thorpe Rd.

This year I’m making Thanksgiving dinner at home — it’ll be just me, Ray, and the kids.  I guess he was concerned that the turkey wouldn’t come out as well as Muggy’s, because Cooper came home from school with this recipe for me:

I had been a little worried, but now I’m good to go.  My favorite part is that other than turkey, the primary ingredient is butter.  That’s my boy!  I wonder what I’m supposed to do for steps 6-8?

Gobble, gobble, gobble!

Yesterday, the realization that my oldest child is turning eight finally solidified in my overtaxed brain.  My former almost-nine-pound baby is nearing my height and almost fits into my shoes, which, admittedly, given my height isn’t that amazing, really, but she is growing up.  No doubt about it.

We were at the Y for free swim, and met up with friends after their weekly lesson for a few minutes of play.  Moms chatted, kids cavorted.  Mitzi and our friends’ younger son are in the same grade; his brother, a year older.  I was a little surprised when the older boy was the one who swam up, looking for my daughter.  The pair goofed around, and it struck me that the play had a very small, almost undetectable edge of flirtatiousness to it, the sweet kind that only young children can have when they think no one is looking.  It was clearly innocent, fun, and nothing of real note.  But watching the silliness and the splashing, I was reminded of the sort of playfighting that occurs between teens who like each other (come on, you remember those days), and it was then I understood for the first time that the reality of growing up loomed before us, closer than maybe we’d realized.

I’ve been thinking of this all day, how I need to start being aware of the changes on the horizon, the ways I hope to model positive behavior, and the means by which Mitzi (and her siblings to follow) enter and evaluate the world around them.  Suddenly, the casualness with which they occasionally watch certain Disney Channel seems less benign.  

Not that I’m leaning toward overprotectiveness, but certainly I need to consider what messages my kids, especially my daughters, receive from the world around them.

So it was with dismay that I learned of the financial struggles of New Moon Girls Magazine.  If you haven’t yet seen this periodical, check it out (www.newmoon.com).  It’s an advertising-free publication, written almost exclusively by girls — a gem amid other teen fare.  Not that I have anything against those others — I remember being young and begging for subscriptions to 16, Seventeen, whatever.  

But now I’m the mom, and now there are different choices.  New Moon strives to offer girls ages 8-14 an alternative to magazines primarily concerned with diets, beauty tips, celebrity profiles, and fashion updates.  I came across New Moon in my writing research and was, frankly, surprised by the high quality of the writing by children.  New Moon doesn’t ignore the concerns of girls in this age group — rather, those concerns are discussed without pandering to the idea that a girl is only as good as her looks, and a BFF is only as true as her Facebook profile.

Sadly, those qualities don’t help a magazine do well in today’s economy.  Without increased sales, New Moon will fold at the end of the year.  Luckily, those sales amount to only about 250 subscriptions a month, a paltry amount when you consider the numbers of girls eager for a voice in their confusing world.

So my sales plug of the day — check this mag out.  Buy your daughter a subscription.  Or a neice.  Or a friend’s daughter.  Or buy one for your library.  You could sponsor a membership for low-income girls who have fewer options of experience and exposure than their more well-off peers.  Tell your kids’ teachers about New Moon — as a teacher I would’ve loved another place to encourage my budding writers to send their well-penned articles and essays, not to mention the opportunity to show real kids’ writing to my students.

Mitzi is turning 8 in January, just after Christmas.  And I’m pretty sure that for one of these celebrations she’s going to get a year of New Moon to enjoy.   It’s not going to alter the challenges ahead of us, but maybe it’s a start.  

What about you?

Don’t ask me where I’ve been.  I can’t remember.  For the last month I’ve been struggling with just about every aspect of my life, juggling, balancing, trying to fit together all the pieces of this jigsaw puzzle that is my life.  

And, mostly, I’ve been attending a dark, brooding, pity-party as I hopelessly criticize myself for being less-than in most of the things I’m trying to do.  When I try to be a good writer, my parenting falls short.  When I try to be a good parent, my writing goes to the back burner.  When I try to keep up with the daily minutae of laundry, dishes, holidays, and housecleaning, my husband waves at me from a distance and I’m reminded that I used to date that guy and he might be still interested in my attention every now and again.

Oh, and I turned 40.

So I haven’t been blogging.  Mostly because I’m often sick of listening to my own thoughts, I don’t feel like I have much to share with anyone else.

I’m back on the upswing.  I’ve submitted a number of pieces in a range of genres, and hope that at least one generates a positive answer.  I cleaned the house once or twice.  My parents came from out of state for a short but joyful visit.  I had some teacher conferences and my kids are doing very well in school.  I can fit into my old jeans.  And despite the ever-present financial concerns, we still have a house and food on the table, even if it is usually pasta with butter and cheese.

Part of the problem is that I hold myself to very high standards.  Oh, sure, I could log on daily and blather on about this or that, but it’s just not in me.  Somehow I have to make everything I write here “column worthy” — that is, if I wouldn’t have sent it to my old Herald editor, it’s not good enough to publish here.  A crisp, pithy 500 words on something meaningful, whether personal or global.  Precise language, whether poetic or staccato; an identifiable arc with personal insights and external meanings intertwined.   A bit of me, exposed, for the general masses to critique.

Not too daunting, is it?  No wonder my fingers freeze over the keyboard every time I log on here.

In my fiction writing I have defrosted myself by accepting that I am free to write the biggest pile of crap that I can, because all writers know that the real stuff comes in revision (even while we hope that as we struggle with the first draft it’s not all entirely a load of poo).  

The same is true for my life.  While I haven’t lowered my standards or truncated my expectations, I think I’m going to make a bigger commitment to myself and to this blog.  My world is messy and complicated.  Why should this piece of it be any different?

A Mom’s World continues to spin.  Hang on.

(ps — 500 words exactly.  Quality?  You decide.)

File this under Unbefreakinlievable.

In case you missed it, an Arizona couple is suing Wal-Mart after a store employee in the photo lab developed some of the couple’s family pictures and determined that a few bathtime photos of their three young daughters were pornographic.  The pictures were passed on to local authorities.  Despite the determination by doctors and social workers that nothing was wrong, the investigation continued.  Kids were removed from home for a month.  Couple was required to register as sex offenders.  Mother suspended from job for the duration of the investigation — one year.  After that time, a judge threw the case out.  Because, after all, nothing was wrong.  (Read the story as reported on Good Morning America on Monday.) 

Pardon my language, but WTF?

What parent hasn’t taken a picture of their own uber-cute child in a bubble bath?  Or snug in a towel following said ritual of hygiene?  Or taken a picture of a loved one hugging a child — wrapped in a towel or in a bathing suit or summer shorts?  

To view innocent pictures as perverted speaks volumes to the mindset of that employee who set into motion the wheels of this ridiculous train.  

The couple is outraged, emotionally shattered, and drained.  And what of the agony of those children?  What scars will they carry from this ordeal?  And will Wal-Mart and the local police or that original so-well-intentioned employee be there to mend the wounds?

We all can appreciate our society’s efforts to protect its most innocent members, but this is another example of when those efforts spin out of control.

Like this couple, we try to teach our children to be proud of their bodies, whatever the form that body is.  In a world where sharp focus on one’s appearance leads to devastating consequences like anorexia, bulimia, obesity (and us with three daughters!) self-confidence is paramount.  Love your self, your mind, your body.   To learn that lesson, to nurture and develop as best as you can, you’ve got to know yourself, your mind, your body.

Most kids love to be naked.  Our job as parents is to teach them that there is a time and a place for everything, and the family home, especially the bathroom, is where showing a little skin is okay.  Do we avert our eyes in shame when drying off a toddler after her bath?  Should we remove ourselves from the room altogether and hope for the best?  And if a parent snaps a picture of an irresistibly adorable moment (when naked child chooses to accessorize with a tiara and bedroom slippers but nothing else, or when he piles a two-foot bubble hat onto his head while still in the bath), if a mom or dad captures these moments — for their sweetness or plain hilarity – as the priceless memories  that they are, that’s our business as parents.

Thank you, world, for helping us keep the kids safe when we venture outdoors.  But unless you have some hard evidence that something is actually amiss, keep your Victorian noses out of my home.

(In a not entirely related vein, far more concerning is the exploitation of children for profit that our society seem to be applauding rather than questioning — the recent trend of kids, well, their parents, really, making a buck as precocious adults.  Check out Lauren Beckham Falcone’s recent column on the topic.  And hey, Arizona Wal-Mart staff, you might want to spend a little more time investigating a popular activity in your neck of the woods — preschool beauty pageants.  Nah, not at all as troubling as a naked tush.  My mistake.)

There is no better food in the world than Sunday gravy.

Before I tell you why, let me clear up a few things.  There’s a lot of debate about what to call tomatoes cooked to serve over pasta.  Is it sauce?  Gravy?  Something else?  I won’t tell you that you’re right or wrong, whatever you think, but in my world here’s how it breaks down:  Tomatoes cooked with Italian spices and served over pasta is marinara (I think adding “sauce” to “marinara” is just redundant).  When you add meatballs, sausage and a stick of pepperoni, that’s gravy.  There are, of course, plenty of sauces — clam sauce (white or red), cream sauce (any variety), and many others.

But gravy is what we had on Sundays.  And, apropos of the day, it was heavenly.

For many people, Sunday was — and is — family day.  Playtime with friends is limited, which is to say your backyard is where you play with your friends who had different schedules.   In some areas, Sunday is a visiting day, though when I was young my extended family lived too far away for a day trip.

Sunday gravy.  I don’t know when Mom made her meatballs, only that they were made in advance, as she is a proponent of chilling them before cooking (this helps them to not fall apart when frying).  On Sundays, we’d wake to the glorious smell of frying meat, the air thick with garlic and onions and basil.  We’d all head off to Sunday school and mass, and when we came home around noon, a thick gravy was already simmering.  I don’t know how she did it, since she also taught Sunday school classes and drove us around.  Another of Mom’s brand of magic.

The gravy needed to be ready because our Italian family’s tradition was to have a midday dinner, around 2 or 3 o’clock.  I guess we had a light supper or snack later before bed — I remember a lot of PB&J crackers while watching the Disney movie that showed weekly at 7 p.m. — but gravy was the main meal every Sunday.

After putting on play clothes, you’d wander through the kitchen as much as possible, eyeing the heavy pot.   Whenever you dared, you’d grab a slice of bread (white, not wheat in those days, and this makes a huge difference in taste), slather on some gravy, and dig in.  Mostly, Mom would yell that it wasn’t ready yet, but it was.  Gravy bread is unparalleled in its deliciousness.  Sweet and spicy, and on a lucky occasion with a few pieces of meatball…you’d try to wait for it to cool but that was too hard.  Who cared about burning your tongue, anyway?

When Mom put the water up to boil, Dad would get the unwieldy cheese grater out.  This mammoth device clamped to the side of the countertop, reassembled with every use.  A block of parmesan was cut and a lucky kid got to crank the handle.  Said lucky kid also got to snack on the sharp, pungent cheese while doing the job.

The six of us gathered for dinner, possibly with a good friend, or, later, the lucky boyfriend or girlfriend who had achieved that special level of acceptance (everyone was welcome for Friday night pizza, but only a chosen few made the cut on Sundays).  Thick, fresh bread and an amazing salad rounded out the meal.  Dad served us heaping portions — and when it came time, offered seconds, which we called a “Grandpa spoonful”, which was a heaping ladle of macaroni, far more than you could ever eat, but Grandpa and Dad seemed to agree that all of us needed to be fattened up.  Have another meatball!  More sausage?

Another pause.  We called it macaroni.  I still do, though most of the world refers to it as “pasta,” something I’m still getting used to.

This meal a tradition that I am trying to continue.  Ray and the kids love my cooking, though I am partial to my mother’s gravy and meatballs.  I leave out the pepperoni, though, as it gives me agita (which you know as heartburn).  My brother Stephen also cooks a gravy on Sundays.  Harry and his family do from time to time.  Michelle joins in.   

The kids help me make meatballs and they wander through the kitchen, sniffing eagerly as the gravy simmers.  We crowd around the tiny kitchen table, bumping elbows and knees, and dig in.  Family time over Sunday gravy.

Gravy.  ”Sauce” is far too ordinary for this kind of meal.

After months of waiting, Joanna finally got to start preschool today.  It wasn’t a tough transition.  After all, she’s been going to the school since she was born, when the big kids first started there.  She knows her way around all the rooms, all the toys, all the teachers.  It was hard to get pictures because she was so busy!

So now, three mornings a week, I have an empty house for 2 and a half hours.  For the first time in almost eight years.  The silence is lovely now.  My mind is spinning with plans for how to use those 180 minutes.  

And yet, a part of me aches because the end of a time has begun, the end of the time when I was their whole world, the time when everything they experienced was shared with me, Ray, the family.  Today begins the time when they do what children are supposed to do — leave their parents.   Already Mitzi and Cooper have their own lives, small to be sure, but their own lives of which I don’t know the details.  Friends, teachers, thoughts, feelings, games, laughter , struggles, fears — there is so much that they go through every day that I’ll never know, except what they remember to tell me, what they want to tell me.  They are growing up, and I couldn’t be prouder of who and where they are now.   Still, the leaving, as small as their steps are today, squeezes my heart.

Ellie and Joanna are starting that road too, with as much speed as their little legs can muster.  Not very far, not for very long.  But they are running to greet their own lives.   

It’s what they’re supposed to do.    I stand behind them, savoring the moment.  I hope they always feel the excitement and possibility that they feel today.

I hope they always know that I will always be here, when it’s time, at last, to come home.

As much as I love gardening and flowers and a pretty yard, I’m not much of a gardener.   I’m kind of lazy when it comes to tending the vegetation around my house.  But the other day I got a nice surprise.

After Grandma’s funeral last spring, as we were packing up to return from Connecticut, my mom offered me some plants that had been given by friends as condolences.  I chose a small tea rose, knowing my inability to nurture house plants.  I figured this lovely, delicate bloomer was not intended to last that long, so when it went it wouldn’t be my fault.  I’d get to enjoy it for a few months, as I mourned my Grandma and Grandpa, both now gone, and its beauty might help as I struggled to take solace in the memories of my short time with them.

So it hung around in my dining room, perched in front of the big, sunny windows, and it bloomed for a while.  When the last petals faded, I was surprised to see that the leaves and stem remained healthy.  After the June rains, when I got motivated to dig a new bed in the backyard for some perennials, I added the rose.  What did I have to lose?

Again, I was surprised each day at its survival.  Normally I try to choose plants that don’t require much from me — no pruning, good in drought conditions — definitely not a rose.  Maybe thanks to a somewhat wet and cool summer, the little rose dug in and grew.

Then the other day.  There it was.  A single bloom in the bright September sun, opening just as the kids started their new year at school.

I’ll enjoy the little bloom while it can.  I don’t know what to do with the plant to ensure it comes back next spring.  Maybe it will, maybe it won’t.  Because that’s the way things work.  You do the best you can, but so much is beyond your control.  At some point you have to step back, bask in the wonder of the ever-changing, unpredictable, and often glorious nature of the world we have such a short time to live in.  Much of the time, there’s not much more you can do.  

The wonder of this rose, that it hung on, flourished, even, has nothing to do with me, I’m sure.  But maybe my grandparents’ love had something to do with it.

And maybe that’s the key to it all, what you can always do when nothing else seems possible.  

You can love.

Few things are more exhilarating than a walk in crisp fall air.  If you’re going to be doing it, why not do it for a great cause?

Dust off your sneakers and join hundreds of other walkers on October 11 in support of the Massachusetts Down Syndrome Congress.  The 2009 MDSC Buddy Walk and Family Picnic will be held at Lake Quannapowitt in Wakefield.

Some other fall walks garner more publicity and national support (such as the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer, which I’ll be participating in that same October weekend), but that doesn’t make the cause less important.  In fact, some would say, perhaps this walk deserves much more attention.

I’m sad to have already committed last year to the Avon Walk, or I’d be lacing up to join Team Lucy, a group of walkers organized by Boston Globe columnist Beverly Beckham, in honor of her granddaughter Lucy, age 6, who has Down Syndrome.  Lucy is the daughter of Boston Herald columnist Lauren Beckham Falcone, a terrific writer, a great friend, and an inspiring mom.   The team’s goal is to gather 100 walkers and raise $10,000 for the MDSC.

Raising a child is never easy under any circumstances, but the hurdles while raising a child with different needs, one that our world is sadly not always prepared for, must seem insurmountable at times.  Lucy is the same age as Cooper.  When Cooper was 15 days old, he was hospitalized for 2 days after contracting RSV (but rebounded quickly and soon grew rather fat while nursing around the clock).  Lucy, meanwhile, underwent multiple surgeries to repair holes in her heart.  I thought our hospital experience was scary — I can only imagine how Lauren and her husband Dave felt each time they took their baby back for more.

These days, though, Lucy is a healthy and happy kindergartner, surrounded by an adoring family and a supportive community.  The local paper, the Canton Citizen, recently ran an article about the amazing residents.   

At back-to-school time, our society refocuses on kids, encouraging their growth and learning, celebrating their successes and possibilities.  This is the perfect time to also celebrate this amazing group of people — for being exactly as they are.