Peter Pan Parenting

Pumpkin Delights

2010-12-03T15:30:00.000-08:00

Since I've steered a little away from my crafty posts, the next few will be dedicated to the fluffy joy of craftiness and baking. A few posts back I outlined the mountain of crap I've been navigating this year. It hasn't really let up too much. But I've gotten to a place where I can let some of the demands on me float away...like quitting one of my jobs. That helped.

I know Thanksgiving is already over, but I have 2 super great pumpkin-y things to share.

The first is this adorable pumpkin birdy that my 5 year old made in school:

A little pumpkin, some strands of raffia or straw, a little pinecone, a wooden bead, a little feather and a glue gun--and Wa-La! Cuteness.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The other pumpkin delight came from Matt Lewis of Baked Bakery, via Martha Stewart, by way of a friend sharing excess baked goods. Pumpkin whoopie pies will make a pumpkin lover out of you. I'm not a fan of pumpkin pie--too mushy, sometimes watery, often grainy, soggy-crusted...but these, they're worthy of the time it takes to make them. Do not be afraid to put in the quantity of spice called for (yes, tablespoons, not teaspoons). Moist and delicious little cake-ettes. I did only scoop about half of what they recommend for each dollop--made them cookie sized. They'd be too big for us otherwise, but if you want them big, go for it.

Ingredients

Makes 12 whoopie pies.

FOR THE PUMPKIN WHOOPIE COOKIES
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon ground ginger
1 tablespoon ground cloves
2 cups firmly packed dark-brown sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
3 cups pumpkin puree, chilled
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
FOR THE CREAM-CHEESE FILLING
3 cups confectioners' sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions

Make the cookies: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or a nonstick baking mat; set aside.
In a large bowl, whisk together flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves; set aside. In another large bowl, whisk together brown sugar and oil until well combined. Add pumpkin puree and whisk until combined. Add eggs and vanilla and whisk until well combined. Sprinkle flour mixture over pumpkin mixture and whisk until fully incorporated.
Using a small ice cream scoop with a release mechanism, drop heaping tablespoons of dough onto prepared baking sheets, about 1 inch apart. Transfer to oven and bake until cookies are just starting to crack on top and a toothpick inserted into the center of each cookie comes out clean, about 15 minutes. Let cool completely on pan.
Make the filling: Sift confectioner' sugar into a medium bowl; set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter until smooth. Add cream cheese and beat until well combined. Add confectioners' sugar and vanilla, beat just until smooth. (Filling can be made up to a day in advance. Cover and refrigerate; let stand at room temperature to soften before using.)
Assemble the whoopie pies: Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside. Transfer filling to a disposable pastry bag and snip the end. When cookies have cooled completely, pipe a large dollop of filling on the flat side of half of the cookies. Sandwich with remaining cookies, pressing down slightly so that the filling spreads to the edge of the cookies. Transfer to prepared baking sheet and cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate cookies at least 30 minutes before serving and up to 3 days.

First published October 2008

Yumminess.

And now, onto Advent.

Wrestling with the Boy Scouts

2010-12-01T10:41:00.000-08:00

In my sometimes vain attempts at enlightened parenting, I have turned to sage parenting books on how to do The Right Thing. From The Wonder of Boys to How to Talk so Children Will Listen and How to Listen so Children Will Talk, I feel like I've sampled a lot...all to understand how I can support my young boys in becoming masculine, strong, sensitive, kind, empathetic men who will love well and make excellent partners and contribute positively to society. I've also read most of the panicky articles about the demise of boys, childhood, our educational system (see: recent Newsweek magazines). It seems boys are the new girls. Remember back in the 70's and 80's when we needed Title IX? There were glass ceilings? There was talk of an Equal Rights Amendment to the constitution? I'm not saying everything is perfect for women, but if you look at the stats on our current economy, men (especially those in the uber-male fields of construction and the like) are suffering, remaining unemployed, feeling emasculated. If you look at the stats on ADHD diagnoses, they are rapidly increasing (and in geographical patterns--coincidence?) and mostly assigned to boys. And women are outpacing men in higher education. And this either/or dichotomy for gender based success is good for no one.

One thing I've read and believe is that boys need mentors, particularly as they enter adolescence. There is a point when young men need someone besides a parent to hold them accountable, to bounce things off of, to be around without the baggage of family, to share secrets with. They need a tribe to help educate them on the ways of manhood. Boys (and all children of course) need nature and movement. In fact, many psychologists see ADD/ADHD as nature deficit disorder in part. As I started thinking about all of this over the past several months was when I started thinking about the Boy Scouts. Well, all that, and our experience last summer working at a scout camp a couple of hours from our home--Philmont Scout Ranch near Cimmaron, NM.

I have to admit that I've had several biases against the scouts. There was a cloud of un-cool geekiness that I'd internalized somewhere in my own adolescence. Even though both of my brothers had been scouts and seemed to enjoy themselves, scouting seemed to fall out of fashion, either as a function of time or age. As I learn more about the organization, it seems that the 1980's were generally not kind to it. And then there were the scandals. I think the scandals were very harmful to the intention, the reputation and the enrollment of the scouts. Appropriately so.

I'm specifically referring to pedophilia. And the violation of a scout is on par, in my mind, with the crimes perpetrated by the Catholic church. The leaders of both are held in trust and esteem by the scout and the parents. Violating that kind of trust is one of the ugliest, most vile kinds of abuse. I clearly recall lying in my hospital bed after the birth of my eldest son, watching the reports of pedophilia and molestation by priests, and the cover-up and shuffling of the perpetrators by the Catholic leadership on the news. I remember vividly, only hours into motherhood, thinking that I would kill someone if they did that to my boy. Literally.

So there's that, and then there's the issues of the 1990's: the 3 G's--Girls, Gays and God. The girl thing, not such a huge issue for me. Gays--problem. One part of the problem is that in both the church and scouting fallout, gays have been equated with pedophiles. So Not True. It's the same as believing all heterosexual men would be attracted to little girls. And if there is a gay father or community member who has gifts, time and positive mentorship to share with boys, why should he be banned? It is still the policy of the scouts, upheld by the Supreme Court since they are a private organization, to exclude gays.

On the God issue, I'm torn. There is a compulsory component to scouting that is called the "Duty to God." And supposedly they don't care what religion you are, but you have to believe in something. Buddhists, Hindu, Jews, Muslims--they all have their own badges. The Unitarian Universalists got into a tiff with the scouts over the gay policy--very anti-unitarian. You can be anything at all in the scouts but a non-believer. As a recovering Catholic, evolution believing biologist who is struggling deeply with issues of higher powers, this puts me in a slightly ambivalent, slightly uncomfortable position. We are still sorting out where we sit--the pew or the pillow--on this issue. Our family tendency is closer to Buddhisim than anything else. But we have time to figure some of that out.

After our experience at the Scout camp this past summer, my reservations about enrolling my son were put on the back burner. What I saw were hundreds of adolescent boys (and many, many young women) who were in the midst of lengthy backpacking treks through the wilderness of NM. There was heartwarming camaraderie amongst the troops and with their leaders. There was physical stress, immersion in nature, history, beauty, solitude. There was personal triumph. There were a few fights; my husband cared for a couple of boys who'd gotten into a fist fight and had some minor injuries. They were forced to spend the night together in the medical tent and figure it out or be sent home. It worked; they re-joined their troop the following day.

We spent most of our time with the staff. There were a LOT of college aged kids employed to make the 40,000 individuals passing through Philmont either on expeditions or training seminars have a fun, exciting, seamless experience. I was in awe of how this place functioned so well, with at least 1000 scouts turning over every day. And these kids were kind. They were just plain old college aged kids, not drinking (alcohol was strictly forbidden...but not in nearby Cimmaron), living in tents for a summer. They were really nice and the whole experience was ridiculously wholesome. We also got to ride horses, shoot archery and air rifles, make oodles of crafts and our own leather belts. We hiked and spent really quality time together and then separately with our age matched co-horts. In spite of the uniforms and my fear of quasi-militaristic indoctrination, it was really fun. My kids ask about when we are going to return all of the time. S, the 5 year old, told me that he wanted to stay there forever as we were drifting off to sleep together one night in the tent next to our cabin.

So that, combined with the fact that I keep finding people that I really like and respect tell me about how they attended Philmont 20, 30 or more years ago has nudged us into scouting. The adults I've met who were scouts are all kinds. Jewish East Coaster who was a scout into his 30's and came to Philmont on a train at age 16...Black physician who is still active as a scout master...corporate attorney/former Wall Streeter who has become a cub master...really fun friend/fellow doctor who now practices in New Zealand. All open minded. All more or less liberal folk. Not religious in my mind at all, really. Certainly not discriminatory in the least. And they have volunteered or are volunteering their time to serve as mentors for other young men. I have found that there is no stereotype to scouts and their leaders. Just folk that are interested in learning, teaching, mentoring.

It is critical to know the scout masters or anyone you leave your children with of course! But I'm thankful that my son's soccer coach, and friends and fellow parents at our children's school are our scout leaders. These are people I trust. The scouts also have a booklet that parents discuss with their children that has really good information generally about situations where a child could be put in danger. The organization has also put into place mechanisms that should obviate opportunities to violate children. On the inclusivity front, our local scout leaders put out a letter saying that they personally would not discriminate against any scout who came out as gay. They would not enforce the organization's policy, and they are subtly fighting it. I think that given the community that we happen to live in, it couldn't be any other way. However, I wonder what the policy means for the country and for boys living in more conservative places.

It feels a bit retro, the scouts: whittling and carving, wrestling, races, knot tying, secret handshakes. In our tech driven culture how do the seemingly old fashioned tasks of whittling, knot tying and the like help him? Those things hone his dexterity and connection to the earth. How will carving a pinewood car help him succeed later in life? The race will teach him about success and more importantly, failure. In our time of accelerated maturity, hyper-stimulation by media of all kinds, exposure to violence, being able to bring simple skills and joys back into focus feels right. Instead of living in a virtual world with virtual friends, he's in the natural world, figuring out how things work, navigating challenging relationships with other actual boys. There are also sessions on wilderness safety, water safety and first aid. He's developing a consciousness about dangers in the world and safety from them. Of course the scouts do not have a monopoly on these activities and lessons. It's just one avenue, a boy-centric avenue, where boys are loved and appreciated for their boyness--with snips, snails, puppy-dog tails and all. They can be physical, occupy large space, compete...be themselves in their tribe.

So with some caveats, I have enrolled my son in Cub Scouts. And now every Wednesday evening, C comes home beaming about his latest scouting adventures. The real proof is in my son's joy--it's just plain fun. He's not one to be mysterious about his emotions. If at all buried, they usually emerge when I'm lying down with him in the dark at snuggle time. So far it's all good. But my hope is that the activities, the lessons, the group dynamic and ultimately, the mentorship, help in shaping my son into a great man, one who can navigate a future world we cannot even imagine. And when the time comes that he does not tell me his secrets in the dark, there will be another trusting adult to hear him out.

Talk to Me Baby

2010-10-03T15:16:00.000-07:00

Fall is underway in all of it's golden-leafed, azure-skied glory! Here in the southwest, we have had a warm, dry month of September, save one day of solid rain which helped to wrangle the dust. It was also a frightening preview into the housebound winter months with three active boys who are occupying more space every day. C literally grew 2 inches in a few weeks. One week his pajama bottoms were too long and the next they were high-waters, 2 inches too short. He dressed up for my sister's fancy birthday dinner in hand-me-down skinny jeans and a button up shirt, and I thought, Dear God. This is a pre-preview into adolescence.

The other changes I've noticed in my eldest are that his incessant talking has quieted. He used to chat non-stop about whatever entered his head. It often left me confused, trying to construct a line--or at least a thin flexible string--of logic and connection from whatever our last topic was to the present. He would bring up things that I could not believe he would remember; things that happened when he was two and three years old. These were not even things that would have been planted memories or family lore, those things talked about and reminisced about so that pretty soon the child mind cannot know whether the memory is the actual event or the construction of the mind's eye. Astonishing at times. So, his questions have slowed...his constant narration has ceased. His mind is still just as active and I have an even harder time trying to discern his references as there are now larger pieces left out along the way. He is overall quieter, still fights with his brother, and loves to make up jokes. Pretty good jokes at that.

A few weeks ago it worked out for he and I to venture on an eventful hike together, just the two of us. We had been talking of summiting Wheeler Peak, the highest point in New Mexico for some time. On Labor Day the opportunity arose, the weather was good. His daddy couldn't join us as we hoped, but C still wanted to go for it and so it was mom-son time.

Well. Moms. If you ever, ever need to talk with your son, take him on a hike. We were out for 5 hours and C talked non-stop, just like he used to. I've heard that the male species doesn't do well with eye to eye contact--it can be threatening. Side to side talking works better, or discussions while doing something else like fishing works because it occupies their hands and allows them to open up in a non-physically confrontational way. I've seen this work with my husband. I've seen it work in the car, even. On that hike, C filled up that vastly open space with everything his little eight year old self was ruminating about.

It makes sense biologically that male and female brains are programmed differently. Of course! Women gaze into eyes, feeling, making connection. Men have a task, they have a need to fix a problem. Come on, we all know it and isn't it time we accept these facts? And it's okay. Let's have realistic expectations, for goodness sake! I read a mostly excellent book called The Wonder of Boys that addresses these differences and needs. A recent Newsweek was devoted to the differences in development between the genders. Let's stop trying to fit the square pegs into the round holes. Let's all just stop expecting people to act outside of their brain biology. Not that dudes can't be sensitive and make eye contact. Or that women can't be warriors. But we really need a return to the authentic-self gender paradigm...though I'm not exactly sure when that happened....

Not entirely surprisingly, it turns out that C's concerns are so incredibly different than mine. I had figured that was the case, given that everyday I ask him in some new and creative way how his day was and for such a smart little guy, darn if he can't ever remember. Even if I phrase it as a specific question, such as who did you play with? What was the most interesting thing in your day? What was the worst part of your day? What did you learn in Spanish class? Same. Nada. I, for multiple reasons, have been concerned about his school experience and wanting to make sure things were going along well, appropriately; trying to understand the class dynamics; trying to understand how his reading is going. According to him, a straight-faced "fine."

Well, what he's concerned about is Star Wars. We talked for a good three hours about the various characters, which movie they were in, which team they were on, who were my favorites, who were his, how old I was when each movie came out. And on. And on. And questions about the film making, the direction, the story. The other two hours was about the Bugs Bunny/Looney Toones gang. Now, don't get the impression that we have a lot of screen time. Quite the contrary. But he was fascinated by the 'old fashioned' and still very funny cartoons. We'd gotten the complete collection of Looney Toones discs during a weak and nostalgic moment of WalMart shopping. He has questions about the animators, the production, the voices, the stories, the references. Way more--WAY more--than I know about, and way way more than I thought about when I was exactly his age watching them on Saturday mornings.

Many of his questions were about getting the stories right--especially Star Wars. Given the non-sequential release of the films and the fact that he's only seen three of the six movies, I think he was trying to get some details filled in. But he was busy categorizing the characters, placing them on the appropriate "team." He was categorizing things in that black and white, good and evil dichotomy that eight year-olds require. He was casting himself into those roles as well, trying on those people and seeing himself as a warrior, seeing what would be worth fighting for. What would be worth putting one's life on the line for? He already knows that (spoiler alert!) Darth Vader is Luke's father as part of cultural lore, but that they fight on opposite sides absolutely fascinates him. How on earth does Annikin become Darth Vader? Of course he's not seen that movie--too scary. Star Wars really is an archetypal movie; Jarjarbinx and Ewoks be damned!

And co-incidentally enough, as we went on our journey, my little warrior never once complained. I'm not saying this to brag...I'm saying it in surprised awe. The first 2 1/2 miles were a steady climb, and the last 2 were straight up. We took poles and paced ourselves. As we got higher up the mountain, the wind became fierce and the chill it brought was significant. We were prepared with jackets, etc., but there were moments where I thought I was going to get blown over. He bravely, steadily and constantly moved up that mountain, perhaps inspired by his own thoughts of his heroes. He had a few moments where he was scared, and he literally talked himself through it. He was ready physically and spiritually to test himself on that mountain. I was one heck of a proud and humbled mama bear, close enough to step in but far enough away to let him test himself.

On our way back down, our anxieties melted away. The wind died. The day heated up to a pleasant warm. We were skipping our way down and laughing. Pure joy. And side by side we talked; I supported him just by being there in facing that mountain in the company of his heroes and villains, and I watched him succeed. And really, this was his doing--not mine. I can't take much credit on that one. But lesson on communication and priorities--learned.

And here's to many more hiking adventures to come!

Time is on my side...mostly

2010-08-19T09:30:00.000-07:00

I was very, very worried when I had my eldest son repeat first grade. I thought that he would be teased and called stupid. He is far from that, but I recall a stigma attached to being "held back." I remember my own harsh 6 year old self's thoughts about those others who were slow, couldn't read well, didn't "get it" in school. I didn't understand what was "wrong" with them. The labels were swift and irreversible, in my mind. He is a boy, born in the summer, and so on the tail end of his school co-hort. The first time around, we enrolled him in first grade after kindergarten without any concern. Both my husband and I had been on the very young end of our classes and we thought it didn't do us any harm. There weren't any red flags in kindergarten, and he had a group of boys in his class that would be close in age which we thought would protect him from being too much of an outlier. On he merrily went from kindy to first grade. I thought things were going along just fine at the beginning of the school year. Then at our first parent-teacher conference in the fall, the teacher hit us with what felt at the time like a small bomb--C was having problems. It might be something serious, diagnosable; it might just be his age and development. Wha? Huh? He was having a hard time completing his work, wasn't able to follow directions precisely. He lagged behind the class. He required one-on-one attention from the teacher most of the time to finish writing sentences, drawing pictures, creating forms. He had some issues socially integrating with his classmates.

After my husband and I absorbed the news, we proceeded to systematically evaluate things easily correctable. Doctor visit-okay. We had his eyes checked. Twice. Hearing-fine. We tossed around the over-diagnosed/easily medicated ADD/ADHD. I researched it extensively. By the end of spring of that year, I had a reading specialist evaluate him for any "processing issues." Since he's in a Waldorf school, arbitrary grade-level reading tests were meaningless. Sure enough, she detected some slow processing--he took an excessive amount of time translating visual pictures into words. But he was only six, and no one wants to label a six year old (except for maybe their classmates). It was hard to not feel like valuable time was being lost by not labeling him. But she confirmed "likely" dyslexia.

I actually experienced moments of sadness--grief--in realizing my perfect little boy was in fact not perfect. My ray of sunshine who would create worlds of magic...marred...abnormally wired, compared to most everyone else. I felt anguish that he would have to struggle through life with dyslexia (or something). Then I would think of children and families with real problems. Real sickness, real behavior issues. Leukemia. Accidents. Death. It seemed not such a big deal after all. I got over it and began to internalize the real meaning of the issue.

Part of that acceptance was in letting go of my expectations for him. We all have that as parents. High expectations of a child can be a very positive thing. But preconceptions--expectations for--are a mistake. This child loves stories and I felt that once he could read, the world would open up to him. I saw him as bright and likely an early reader--which would be a de-facto confirmation of his gifts and interests. I had been an early reader, so of course he would be. No one in either my or my husband's families had had any real learning issues, I didn't think. Somehow, in seeing how much he loved to hear stories, I neglected to see how hard letters were for him and how he shied away from writing. What has taken a while to incorporate fully into my understanding, is that reading--processing ability--is only one kind of intelligence. Just because someone isn't wired to easily learn to read (some 30% of us figure it out without formal instruction, and another 30-40% get it with minimal teaching) does not mean that they aren't bright. I've known dyslexic people my whole life; I just didn't really ever fully understand what it meant. Of course, I have always believed the cliche that everyone has a gift to share no matter their education level or whatever...I just never thought that a "learning disability" would apply to my kid. And, Oh, how I want to take back any judgment I ever made.

Once again, through my children, I am humbled and continuing to learn. I had driven myself and my son crazy working on letters and words with him. Not drilling him or anything, but even casually working on it was painful. I've stopped. I'm going to leave it to a specialist. But in the mean time, we had him repeat first grade. It helped to sort out what was in fact developmental from what is likely organic. By the end of his first first grade year, he had made strides and was much better able to finish his work. He wasn't as easily distracted by sounds and people. He'd 'worked hard' to catch up. He'd also had bedtimes full of tears, calling himself stupid. Over that first summer break, my husband and I had an epiphany that we should just have him be the oldest in his class instead of the youngest. We checked it out with his former teacher who had since moved schools, and he was fully supportive. He had not recommended it in the end of the year, probably partly because C is sweet, not a troublesome child. Not disruptive and screaming for attention. But he thought it would be a great thing for him.

So we gingerly approached the school and I wrote a letter to the parents of his former class, asking their help in explaining to their kids what was going to happen, hopefully easing the transition and limiting the teasing. The school gave us their full support. His classmates and friends gave him no hassle. The grade above him did tease him a bit, unfortunately. But that is part of life, I guess. I can't protect him from everything.

In that repeat year, I did not work at all on reading unless C asked to. I just let him be. I let him do the work of his second first grade year uninterrupted. His teacher said he was a leader in his classroom and socially. He could sit and complete his work. About ninety percent of the issues from the previous year vanished. He has, in spite of the teasing, come through more confident. He still, however, cannot hardly read at eight. He is, still, dyslexic. But at least now, there is clarity and a path. And I have learned so much, so incredibly much, about slowing down on pushing a child through school, hitting arbitrary milestones at proscribed points. I can certainly see how and why they came to exist. But applying population based norms to individuals sucks. And applying my experience, believing that just because my son is of my genes that he will be like me or his father, is just plain ignorant. And then there is the profound difference between the boy and girl brain...that is a whole other story.

I've decided that I will probably keep my other two boys "back" as well, so that they will be on the older end of their classes, but we'll see. If you read Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers," he makes compelling arguments in support of it. I had thought we might only see the benefits eight years from now, but they were apparent immediately. Really, why should we be in a hurry to "get our kids through?" The six years of elementary school go by exceedingly fast. And a year of development between a five and six, or six and seven year old--it's a significant portion of their life. Sometimes it's when you don't push that you feel no resistance and things move ahead on their own. A small part of me keeps waiting for some developmental wiring in C's brain to connect and for reading to magically begin for him. Other parents, especially those with boys, relate stories such as this. One day their son picked up Harry Potter and off they went reading into the sunset. Maybe that will happen. But I think not. And it's okay. It's truly a "learning difference," a brain wired in a way that learns differently than most of us, and because of our learning systems, a disability. So humbling. And part of what makes him magic. And what made me a peter pan kind of mom.

Man in the Mirror...

2010-08-01T18:51:00.000-07:00

So my eight year old threw me for a loop the other day, as children do. We were listening to Michael Jackson's "Man in the Mirror," one of my favorite songs MJ songs, and one of my son's favorite, period. He said to me, "Mom, do you know what he is talking about--making that 'change?'" You know, that dramatic point in the song where there is a pause and a choral "Change," a poignant key change in the last verse of the song. It has a gorgeous gospel feel. I explained my interpretation of the song, how social justice and cultural change start with one person--yourself. Blah, blah, blah. And he said, "I think it is about him changing from black to white."

Oh. Hmm. Wow. Difficult parenting moments aren't always what you think they will be. So I ask him how it would make things better for a person to be white and not black. Well, life is just easier. C was thinking it would make his world a better place, not the world...I think. Oh, Jesus. No. Not in the era of a black president. No! And he's stuck to this, mentioning several times MJ's deliberate change to white. "Oh, that's when he was white." "The Jackson 5 is when he was black." There are some murky post-Thriller times. I suppose if you look at this from his eight year old perspective, from one who didn't live through the 70's and 80's, watching MJ grow up and transform from child phenom to King of Pop to freakazoid, the change looks quick. I think this all really started when he died last June. I had some MJ on my iPod (come on, who doesn't?) and C liked it. One of his songs would pop up on shuffle and he'd want me to repeat it ad nauseum. If you can separate all the weirdness out, he really is good, and his music just makes you wanna shake it. In all of the post-mortem retro-spectacle, one could really see his evolution in fast forward. Cute dark brown, afro-haired child...to knife-thin nosed, long straight haired white "guy...." C has also commented on how he really sounds and looks like a female...but still goes in the category of male, I guess. Children have that need for things to be black and white, concrete, well-defined. So. MJ became white (did he really have vitiligo?), but still a guy. And why not? One can change their appearance quite dramatically through modern surgical and pharmaceutical techniques.

Between that thought-provoking conversation, a recent Vanity Fair article on "Thriller", our watching "This is It," and then stumbling on a 1992 biographical movie on the Jackson Family last night, it's time to process. I don't want to give the impression that we have any kind of obsession with the Jacksons. Really. Just some convergence. The whole family enjoyed watching "This is It." It is really good--especially if you watched his music videos growing up during the cool days of MTV. But even if not, you get a very rare glimpse at MJ in his creative realm. The concerts were a massive production, each song a work of theater-art, music, dance. You see him working lovingly and patiently with the musicians and dancers. You witness his artistic vision and genius. He did not look days from death. His voice sounded great, his signature moves intact. The boys were all up and doing their own best moves, looking rather, um, white in the process.

What struck me, knowing what we know (and think we know) now about him, were the contradictions that abound. He sings about human nature--he, who surgically altered himself so far from anything remotely natural--telling us to "tell him that it's human nature." He saunters around the stage with a gorgeous, scantily clad woman, trying to seduce, explaining about "the way you make me feel." Hmmm. Really? And it doesn't matter if "you're black or white." Huh? How conflicted was he? How much did he loathe himself to alter his physical appearance so fundamentally? And how can I explain these contradictions to a questioning child? Was he an artist, singing his heart and truth and experience? Or was he a performer, singing what he thought others wanted and trying to make as much money in the process? I suppose it is a little of both. And a lot of irony.

You cannot doubt his talent. We hear how his childhood was robbed from him, his father abusive. He was clearly immensely gifted and was pushed very hard to hone his skill. He seemed to light up while performing, and shut down when offstage. He loved what his father was making him do, but he hated his father. He was a boy who came of age in the time of Black Power; a black man who has the biggest selling album ever (still to this day), and who changed the face of pop music and American culture. He blurred the line between rock, R&B, pop; he had truly mass appeal. A hero for blacks...who wasn't really black in the end. What do we learn from this? And why is it easier to be white, as my son says? We live in a very culturally diverse place, though there are not many blacks. My husband and I make a very pointed effort to discuss race and our country's and region's history. Again, looking back over the past 2 years, C has seen my husband and I talk at great lengths to each other and to him about the significance of our black president. Regardless of what you think of Obama, we cannot forget that only in his lifetime, have Blacks in this country had equal civil rights. We talk honestly about who Martin Luther King, Jr. was, and on his holiday pulled up films of his speeches to watch (thank God for youtube; the result was the drawing above). We really aren't that many generations away from slavery. But having a black president doesn't clean the slate and make it all okay.

So my hope is that, bathed in a partial understanding of the history of blacks, my son has made that determination--it is easier to be white in this country; or at least it has been up until recently. I'd like to think it has already changed...but I'm white. I don't know. And I don't think anything in Michael Jackson's life was particularly easy...I guess we'll never know whether it was easier for him once he was white, either. Certainly not publicly, but personally--pointedly looking in the mirror and not seeing his father--maybe it was. Thankfully we have not had to broach the subject of alleged pedophilia...yikes. Or his five female dressed mannequin "friends" he had as a young adult...the monkey, Bubbles...Neverland and his Disney obsession...the hubris and the timidity. Was he just a lonely, sensitive soul? A peter pan not wanting to grow up, trying to capture the essence of childhood magic since his own was lost? Or did he take his love of innocence to a level of sexuality and pedophilia? Was he molested? We are definitely not there in our conversations, but I don't know what I will say to C when he does learn this information. C now has a vague notion of the concept as I unfortunately had to partially explain to him why I wouldn't let him change alone in the men's room at a very large public pool this summer, in spite of his insistence. Why would our culture, why would I personally, hold up this icon? Partly because we do not know for sure. Partly because he was immensely talented. Partly because Americans love a spectacle. Anyone going through a grocery store check out line knows for sure that our stars belong to us. Maybe should we just take the artist/performer's work for it's surface value, not dissecting the person underneath. Just let the iPod shuffle and groove. But he was so fascinating! He had it all, though no matter how much, it was clearly never going to be enough.

I will continue to speak honestly to my boys when they inquire about uncomfortable subjects, providing them information when they seem ready to handle it, hopefully striking a balance between satiating their curiosity and stretching them just a bit. Though we are a part of a Waldorf school, I don't eschew media entirely. We limit screen time, but I feel that media literacy is part of life and provides children with a cultural currency. And movies, music, stories--they are art. They hold powerful stories, lessons and messages. Do we have a responsibility as parents to provide our children with controversy-free entertainment? Might it make things cleaner, easier? Sanitized? Sure, but that is not reality, and it's soooo boring. I suppose they are going to have to absorb, little by little (I hope) the messy nature of us humans. The artist as well as his work. And maybe that is part of MJ's appeal--he was fatally flawed, just like so many heroes; it brought him down to earth like the rest of us. I suppose that when they inquire more about MJ's strange life and doings, I'll be as truthful as I can; or maybe I'll just sing a few bars about "his human nature." MJ and the cadre of ruined, addicted pop stars affirm my desire to slow it all down and let children just be. Stay out here in the boonies, let my kids grow their hair long and shaggy, wear crazy costumes/clothing, and stay as unplugged as possible. And I will continue to do my part as best I can, to make the world a better place, looking at myself in the mirror every day and when needed, make that change. But the real kind of change...the one I think MJ was talking about...maybe, I guess.

It's the journey, not the destination....

2010-06-26T11:13:00.000-07:00

After a four month hiatus from my fledgling blog, I am back. Writing, of course, takes a certain amount of mental and emotional energy. Given the hurdles that I had to clear over the spring, I had to recoil: board re-certification exam that occurs once every ten years, is expensive, requires brushing up on test-taking skills as well as mastery of all the new scientific and clinical information that has accrued in the decade, and wanting to not fail; major abdominal surgery to repair some of structural damage done by three pregnancies with 9+lb baby boys; new and exciting and very time-consuming projects at the company I'm the CEO of (it's not as fancy as it sounds) requiring multiple meetings in our hospital and medical community that I literally can't step back from even though I'd like to; escalating hours in my "real job" of doctoring at the hospital; organizational, scheduling and bookkeeping duties related to my husband's small business/corporation as well as our household (The Calendar could be contracted out as a part-time job in itself); duties related to being member and secretary of my children's school board of directors, and the attendant spring-time issues of major budget and financial decisions; end of school year celebrations, plays, field trips, parties; planning the three-week camping/road trip that commenced immediately following school and Memorial Day weekend; usual duties of life, home, wife, mother including (but not limited to) daily breakfast, lunch and dinner preparation, chauffeur duty to and from school and scattered after-school activities, diaper changing, laundry, daily (up to thrice) sweeping of the dusty floor in the dirt house in the dusty high plains desert, bathing and fingernail care and hair brushing and inspection of children to insure weather-appropriate and reasonably matching clothing with location of shoes and any necessary accessories, such as coat of varying weight, hat for either warmth or sun, gloves in winter and sunscreen in summer; keeping my self from getting over-extended, over-tired, cranky, catty and maintaining my sanity with runs, painted toe-nails, and a clean car (to feel some sense of control, I suppose). Oh, and trying to be a good friend and good wife (and I mean that in the best possible way) while trying to stay engaged in the social and political world around me.

Sound ridiculous? Yes. I don't list it all to sound boastful or complaining at all. It's just taking stock, which vacations often prompt me to do. And it's similar to many people's lives. Yes, David Byrne, how did I get here? And I purposefully tried not to get here. I try to avoid getting or feeling over-extended. I try to be a peter pan kind of mom, after all. Seriously, I still think of my primary job as parenting, wife-ing, home-making. Then comes being a doctor, and then the other stuff comes after that. It's no wonder that it feels, as most would agree, like my life is flying by, my kids are growing up fast. Every day that I see patients in the hospital (and as an internist I see adults, mostly older ones) at least one tells me how quickly it all goes by, to enjoy my children, even the hard parts, how special it is to parent a young child, how lucky I am, how these are the best years of my life, the years of milk and honey. I agree with this and bear it in mind constantly. I've tried to structure my life such that I would be present for and relish all of those fleeting moments in my children's lives, even the most painful and annoying ones (and aren't they unfortunately plentiful?). I have the same feeling about my family's health--given all of the things that can go wrong and the tragedies that befall wonderful people every day, there but for the grace of God go we. I've also recognized in my self-analysis and attempted life balancing that I become a less-effective, disaffected, isolated person if I only parent. I like feeling productive and connected, feeling like I'm contributing to the world, and earning my own paycheck. And so I let the other things in, one by one, because they are important.

Well, thank God for vacations. My husband and I bought a camper van in the winter in anticipation of road trips to come. We did a big one last summer with great success (and a 1, 3 and 7 year old to boot) in my family car and commando style tent camping. We decided that while the boys are young, road trips plus/minus camping, would be the way for us to go. We bought a Sportsmobile van. Inspired by the freedom of the road, the freedom from the airport security process, and the rare opportunity to be spontaneous, we planned on a three week trip north through the Rockies. I'd like to say it also is economical, and except for the actual purchase of the van, it is! Our goal for this summer's trip was to hit several National Parks/Monuments, and maybe catch up with some old friends along the way. We were aiming for some big guns, Yellowstone, Grand Tetons and Glacier, with side trips to Rocky Mountain and Dinosaur. Mission accomplished, and then some.

The beauty of a road trip, when done as the trip and not for the agonizing purpose of getting across the country in a hurry, is that the vacation and attendant psychological freedom begins as soon as everyone is belted in the car and you pull out of the driveway. As it always is, both my husband and I had to put in extra time before (and less enjoyably now after) the trip to clear our life's path for the journey. I felt only capable of taking one day, quite literally, at a time. But then, hitting the road and driving north, we were again taking things one day at a time. The difference was that at home I was performing duties proscribed and penned on The Calendar, and had to do each of those duties as a matter of course or in preparation for something else. I couldn't look ahead, lest I get distracted from the duty at hand. I had only so much time to do each thing. I had one day to pack for the trip two weeks ahead, and one day to pack two days ahead. Every other day in April and May were accounted for.

On the road, and with only a few reservations (out of necessity, at campsites in the national parks) we took things day by day, and drilling down more microscopically, moment to moment. We could side trip here. We could stop there. We could keep going on the road if all were content or asleep. We could stay an extra day in Bozeman or Glacier or Ouray because we were having an extra good time. Much to the delight of my husband's wanderlustful soul, we could be spontaneous. We could linger. We could roam. And, save for our occasional use of smartphones (of which the GPS mapping and direction capabilities were stellar), we could eschew the "real world" and live in the moment with the kids.

All that a child really wants from their parent is attention, love. Since we had no other distractions, they could have it in spades. We also went where we, the adults, wanted to go. It was a win-win, no compromise. We've never been to the glorious Yellowstone and, thank God and Teddy Roosevelt, we could all go and benefit from and enjoy it's fruits. We saw geysers and wolves and mud pots and bison and grizzlies and raging waterfalls and the yellow stones of their grand canyon. We rode bikes as a family. We ate marshmallow pancakes for breakfast. The older boys became Junior Rangers. We lived and slept by the sun and moon and not the clock, apparently staying up late and sleeping in. We let our oldest have a bit of supervised autonomy. We also saw dinosaur bones, crossed the path of Lewis, Clark and Sacajawea, saw moose, elk, several bird species, and grizzlies. In Glacier, we saw the namesake ice, dwindling as it is, set upon jagged peaks and against cobalt blue skies, floored by crystalline lakes. It was magnificent.

I was moved to tears on multiple occasions, by the sheer beauty of it all. The creatures flourishing in a wild and natural habitat, the blazing beauty of our surroundings, the wonder at the history of this amazing land. The grace and beauty and imperfection of our family. The wide-eyed light in my boys as we visited museums and visitor's centers and saw a wolf. And I could just be. And so could the kids. Of course, they still fought and whined and cried. And it rained. But I wasn't hurrying them to get shoes on, to make sure they had lunches, to tick off items on the agenda. We could transcend the minor annoyances of the day. I watched each of my three boys leap forward in some way. C (who turned 8 on the trip) knows the natural world in a very deep way, wanted to plen aire paint, and internalized the meaning of an ecosystem, explaining to the park ranger in Glacier the ecology of the mountain goat. S (age 4) went from drawing fisted scribbles and scratches into careful renditions of identifiable scenes, dramatically and literally overnight, creating a portfolio of pictures of us, animals, trains, busses and other things I will put in the scrapbook of our trip. F (age 2) learned to love camping, developed a flexibility not easy for toddlers, and began to compose more verbose sentances. It was just lovely.

And so, in re-entry, I am trying as I always do, to bring part of that vacation into real time. Isn't that the purpose of vacation? Mental and physical relaxation and the kind of frame-shift that we can incorporate into our self to bring more joy? Can I bring the zen of living freely in the moment into balance with a scheduled life? Well, that may be overly ambitious. But it has pushed a re-set button in my heart. It has put priorities into perspective. It has re-connected me to my ever-evolving children. It gave me a burning desire to just live in vacation mode. Thank goodness it's summer and I can hold on to that, at least for a little longer. It's life: one great big wide open road trip.

My Funny Valentine Project

2010-02-09T20:46:00.000-08:00

I love making Valentine's with the boys. This sweet but semi-superfluous, semi-contrived holiday falls at a time when we've recovered from Christmas craftiness, and I need a project to focus on while we are mid-winter housebound. In the past we've made fortune cookies out of felt with love notes inside, made flowers from cupcake papers, and made collages from magazine cutouts. This year I was more excited than the boys about our project. They did enjoy it, but I loved it. Partly because it was an extremely green project, and I could feel so super good about it all. Partly it was super practical, and partly it was goopy fun. Hopefully I'm not being too smug about getting two of the three "R's". We made paper and sprinkled it with wildflower seeds so that the paper could be planted--recycle AND reuse!! Or is it double reused...or double recycled...hmmm.

I went through piles of remnant construction paper and old abandoned art projects, collecting all of the scraps of paper I could. It was fun looking at old cutout colored paper in relief and partially finished drawings from the kids, knowing that art and energy would go into these Valentines. I got to reflect on previous artistic obsessions, such as the letter X. I divided the paper into 4 piles of color groups--pink/red/purple, blue/green, brown/yellow/orange, and black. I found 3 buckets and a small trashcan, and tore the paper into one inch-ish size pieces. The boys helped some with this--since I decided to go big and do four batches (can I do anything little?). If the project had been smaller they would likely have been able to tear plenty. I added white paper (all recycled) into all of the buckets and then covered the paper with warm water and let it soak for a couple of days...mabye four?

I started the project thinking I could finish it the next day but that didn't work...it really only needed to soak for 24 hours. But, I had work and various other interferences and I began to imagine all kinds of disgusting microbes festering in the water. That didn't happen--well at least not to a significant and smelly point. Probably partly because I put the buckets in our storage room that's nearly as cold as a fridge. So I worried for nothing.

Anyhow, the next step was putting the paper with LOTS of water into the blender and making the glop. This was the kids' favorite part, except for the baby, who hated the loud noise the blender makes on 'high.' I collected window screens not being used in the middle of winter and placed them over the bathtub. I got some plastic wrap and a half cup measure and went for it. I had to experiment a bit with how to shape the paper. I was trying to make hearts, which I more or less did, but that was a little tricky for the kids to achieve. Their paper was a bit more free form and amorphous...and sort of thick, but pretty. I achieved the heart by making a "V" with the glop, touching it up with my fingers to make it round and pointy, sprinkled on the seeds, then put plastic wrap over the top and pressed to shape and wring out excess water. The tub turned into a rainbow. The black and white paper turned a pretty purple. The pinks and reds stayed true. The brown palette glop made a lovely au natural peachy-tan. The green and blue turned a muted minty color.

We then had several screens full of glop that dried overnight--super quick here in the dessert during wood stove season. The paper peeled right off of the screens once dry, and had that lovely organic-looking soft edge. Then I made up a little poem to explain what the paper was for:

Plant Me!

When Valentine's gone

And winter is done

Plant me in the ground

Give me water and sun

Soon flowers will show

And my friends will know

No matter the season

Love will always grow!

Cheesy enough? Cute anyhow. I attached these little poems to the hearts with yarn and had the kids write the "To" and "From" parts. We had so much glop that I made some extra squared and rectangular papers and used them as background mattes, printing out some photos and mounting them on the paper for family Valentine's Day gifts.

I'm looking forward to planting some of these when Spring arrives. With over a foot of snow on the ground and more falling from the sky as I type, it seems so, so far away from now. At least we can dream about it.

Children of Avatar

2010-01-29T19:46:00.000-08:00

Given that I live in the boonies, have three small children, haven't seen a movie in a theater with my husband since before we were married eight and a half years ago, and that I tend to hibernate in winter, it's shocking that I made it to the theater to see Avatar. And it was well worth it. It's one of those game-changing cultural and technological experiences that had to happen. I had heard from enough people that it was "The Best Movie Ever," that I made it to the theater and was thoroughly engrossed and amazed. Before I saw it, I wondered if I might be able to bring my 7 year old, C, to see it. I had reasons: he loves visual arts (and most other types of artistic pursuits), he has talked a lot about making movies when he gets older, he has a dreamy countenance and could engage in such a spectacular fictional world, and he would be able to engage in the cultural discussion and experience around this movie. I spoke at length with dear mommy friends. I heard of other kids his age and younger that saw it. I went to one of my favorite websites for evaluating media for children, commonsensemedia.org. I trust that website, and it had a definite 13 years old+ rating for children. Based on that and other issues, I decided against it. Then I saw the movie myself.

Well, you know, wow. Words can't really describe the experience. Story aside, the 3D experience is like being on the holodeck of Pandora. The intensity of the scenery, the acrobatics, the flying, the sharp-toothed critters were like nothing ever before on film (but, remember, I don't get out much)...not to mention the emotional intensity of the story and the absolute devastation that befalls the Na'vi in the loss of their home. My husband and I came out of the theater in our own state of Shock and Awe. Then we had a thoughtful discussion about whether or not our son should see it. He had the same questions that I had thought about before seeing it. We both admired the hero of the story, the warrior who finds his path and love. We adored the strong female characters in the story, and the fact that the more 'primitive' culture triumphs over the machines (of course, how many machines were needed to make the film?). There are many positive (if not psychadelic) messages in this story.

I take my job of raising boys--three of them--very seriously. I am trying to strike the balance between strength and sensitivity; trying to raise noble warriors. In fact our eldest's moniker is that of a legendary Irish warrior. We need powerful warriors and true heroes in our clans. We speak often to our boys of what bravery means in the course of sword fights, archery, wrestling and general disagreements: how to be strong, to stand for your beliefs--to know your beliefs, for that matter--to be honest and to communicate needs and feelings (use your words, boys). And there have been moments when I'm even proud of my son for using physical force and standing up for himself. C has for years taken the warrior role deep into his soul, and until recently dressed up constantly as a loincloth wearing Native, carrying quivers of arrows and bows.

In spite of its warrior hero, I have concluded that Avatar is just too intense for my boy. The dinosauroid critters were ugly, sharp-toothed and terrifying. The first scene where Jake is alone in the forest would be nightmare-inducing enough...and for a little boy who lives in the forest amongst sharp-toothed creatures? The fighting scenes were so realistic and violent--granted, though not gory. Watching the home tree get torched and crash to the ground while the Na'vi flee--horrific. And well, we live amongst the trees, too, and fire is a real, real issue every summer. How is a young mind to process all of this?

I waver back and forth, pretty much constantly, about whether I am too protective of my child. Children in other countries, or just other situations, actually use weapons, firearms, hunt, butcher...and play first person shooter video games, watch gore, violence and murder on television and in the theater. Children are warriors, real and imaginary. Consensus in our country and culture has given us the rating systems used on games and films. But do people really pay attention to it? I do, though I'm generally a rule follower...and I think I'm in the minority. It is each individual parent/family's right to make decisions best for them. But exposing 3 or 5 or 7 year olds to Avatar world? Can a child even grasp the concept of fiction--science fiction--set 145 years from now? Can they separate out reality from fake violence? What do those searing images--of those animals and fires and dying Na'vi and humans with two arrows piercing the heart--do to the young brain? Not to mention the degree of sensory stimulation that world presented....

I don't want to be judgmental of any parent that has chosen to take their child to see this film--I have really had to wrestle with these issues personally, and I'm laying it out here. And my husband is still toying with taking C to see it (against my now formed opinion). My reasoning on waiting for the 3D techno-experience is that the Alice in Wonderland movie and the Pixar dragon-tamer movie (the previewed films) will be coming out soon and C can go to the theater and experience these mellower films (though my husband argues that Alice in Wonderland might actually be scarier). Will Avatar be in the theater, or home video, when he is at an age when I think he can handle it? I'm sure it will be--and much, much more. I am taking the path of (over?)protecting him--allowing him to remain in his childhood world. Benign omission. Because, though children do wield guns in certain parts of the world, I have the luxury of allowing my child to be a child. He can be the warrior of his own making. Once a door such as Avatar's is opened, there is no going back. The innocence is lost; a child begins to see the monster in the dark is real, the evil in the world is present and often deceitful, the intentions of others are muddy. These are all lessons we learn in life--but when should we learn them?

It is hard, because there is a social pressure on kids to have seen this movie (or others like it--Batman, Spiderman, Star Wars--even more enticing to children and all PG-13) so that they are in the know. But which child can really handle it? Some kids my son's age very likely can handle this movie. When is it that a child can watch a person die on screen through violence and understand the full impact and consequence of this? The child brain operates on a concrete level--without the ability to think outside of itself (think: sharing) until the age of 12, give or take. Children cannot perform abstract thought. They can understand pretend, of course. But the abstract concepts will be distorted in a child's mind to a point they can understand; they will create a myth around this story to process the images. And they will be desensitized to bad things. I only saw a few pictures of the devastation in Haiti because it was enough--to know what had happened was enough. I did not need the bombardment of grotesques images. I'm a sensitized adult and was able to imagine enough about the tragedy. The children warriors and hunters who wield guns or butcher goats are in living those situations--they are real to them and they see the blood and hear the cries. Seeing violence third hand...well, I wonder about what effect that detatchment has on the soul. Is the story understood? Is the consequence translated?

The questions I pose are sincere, and I would be very curious to hear from people who have taken children to see this film and what their experience has been. For my tender-hearted boy (and self), I will postpone this experience. He has enough going on in his imagination. See clown, above.

Iscream for snowscream!

2010-01-19T05:34:00.000-08:00

In honor of the highly anticipated series of snowstorms forecast to hit our little ol' piece of the Southwest, I'm putting out the recipe for one of our very most fave things regarding snow. Yes, young and old alike love snow ice cream. I know it is cold on cold--most of us want a hot cocoa after a tromp in the snow. But it's fun and you can have cocoa with it. And, hey, it's ice cream...kids don't care what temperature it is.

Snow Ice Cream
Get a big bowl of clean snow--at least 5 cups
1 cup half and half
1/2 cup sugar or maple syrup
1tsp vanilla
dash salt

Stir--will get nice and creamy. Dreamy! You can also experiment with flavors if you fancy--peppermint extract, lemon, lime or other fruit juice. You can even squirt in a blob of chocolate syrup. If you like, skip the dairy for a more sorbet experience.

I thought myself quite clever, leaving the large bowl outside after serving to keep cold...then the kitty found it and had herself a big milky treat. You may want to transfer to a smaller bowl, perhaps with a lid, and store wisely.

Enjoy!

Reflections on Magical Thinking

2010-01-07T18:39:00.000-08:00

I fear we are passing a milestone that I'm realizing I'm not quite prepared for. With the magical glow of Christmas fading away in the rear view mirror, and the light and length of days growing steadily longer in the road ahead, I've been pondering the fairy world. You know, Santa and the like. My oldest, at age 7, seems like he has rocketed (and not slowly transitioned as I'd envisioned) from magical thinking to concrete thinking. He spent the weeks before Christmas asking questions about the existence of Santa Claus, pondering the plausibility, examining the details and questioning the logistics. I suppose this is the age when this sort of thing starts--it is after all the transition from magical to concrete operational, or some such thing that Piaget and Steiner and parents any observer of children note. I'm just surprised at how quickly it came. I think that the older kids on the playground plant the seed of doubt, and as concrete logical thinking grows so does the questioning.

As the fall semester ended and we entered the cocoon of winter break some weeks back, I found that as the days since the playground accumulated and Christmas grew closer, C's belief in the magic of Santa began to rise again. By the time the holiday arrived he was in the throes of flying reindeer and magical sleighs. He declared several times that he was a believer. He claimed, a la Polar Express, to hear the sleigh bells. Assessing his booty, he was thankful, several times, to Santa and all that he delivered. He even wanted to write him a letter of thanks (see my heart glow with that gesture). It was amazing how Santa knew exactly what to bring, he reflected. We played with the toys in our insulated home. 2010 came. School restarted this week. Then the test happened.

Last night, C mentioned that he had a newly loose tooth--his eighth, so he's very familiar with the coinage accompanying lost baby teeth. He was wiggling away and it seemed quite loose for a new one--but those teeth can linger for months...and I heard nothing more. This morning, he presented to the kitchen for breakfast, left lateral incisor tooth in hand. He told me that he'd pulled it out last night and hadn't told anyone, left it under his pillow...and was disappointed to confirm that the tooth fairy does not exist this morning. I was stunned. Speechless. I looked surprised, saying, "Oh, really?" Then as is my usual fashion with difficult questions, I figured I'd turn them back on him. What did he think happened? I didn't ask too much, as I was trying frantically in my head to come up with a decent explanation...and tried to just let the silence seem natural. In the end, nothing emerged in the moment so I dropped it. I thought about it all day, and wondered if I could leave some quarters under his pillow while he was at school...but he took the tooth with him so that wouldn't work. The teaching assistant in his class even called me at home to alert me of his test, bless her heart, but alas, I'd already found out. At the end of the school day, he showed me the tooth in my rear view mirror as I drove out of the parking lot, replacing it in it's former socket and smiling. He wondered if the tooth were still alive, if it would then be any value to the TF. Then he stated matter of factly that he had in fact been testing the existence of the fairy and she failed. He didn't say anything further. He didn't ask me if it was me all this time, which I thought would be the ergo question. I guess he's not quite ready to give it up completely...? Though I did ask if he was going to put it under his pillow tonight and he said no, he was going to put it in a picture. I suggested she might come steal it. He said he didn't know.

Between this and Santa, I've wondered at the wonder of magical fairies. Why are they so great? Why do we propagate these lies? I do believe that is how the young child's mind works. Anyone who's spent any time with a 4 year old will be amazed at the imagination and magic that child will create, linking unlikely worlds, explaining how planes fly, how telephones work, watch them occupy mythical characters, performing impossible feats. And as adults, Santa allows us to indulge in that magic, to honor the mysteries of life and relish the innocence, both of our child's and our own in remembrance. I have been amazed at my own reaction to this (essentially) loss of innocence...one step closer to grown up, letting go, moving away from mom, not needing me...or perhaps I'm making too much of it.

I also think that fairies and Santa give a needed degree of separation and consequence from a parent. The day in, day out correcting/feedback/instruction that children receive from their parents can get old for both parties. Creating that third party that is privy to all, sees all, knows all, but detaches the parent and all of that baggage. As parents well know, children save their best tricks and worst behavior for home, where it's (usually, hopefully) safe to try out. They can let their guard down, they don't have to keep it all together, and they can be a little terror to mom and she will love you in the end no matter what (usually, hopefully). So behavior watched by a St. Nicolaus, Santa Claus, Kris Kringle who will know and reward or punish accordingly truly can bring out the best in a child. Though I can't help but feel guilty about it, I pulled out a few Santa threats this year. I even dialed him on my cell phone at one point. But what a powerful motivator. And it seems in my quick online research on Santa, that he has existed/been borrowed and evolved since the time of the Greeks. This is not a new phenomenon.

I recall the exact moment in my childhood that I found out about Santa. I had clung on until I was 8 in spite of three older siblings. I believed, because everyone told me it was so. Then I asked my mom one day, near Christmas, knowing she would tell me the truth but not expecting the answer I received. We were in the laundry room with the ugliest orange-brown utility carpet you can conjure up in your mind as a background print on the moment. I felt duped. I felt so silly and small and that everyone had lied to me and I was mad that I was the last one in on the big joke on me. I think it had something to do with being the youngest and needing to have everything perfect all of the time. This was not in the plan.

I recovered. And from what I hear, my reaction is unusual. Kids seem to assimilate the truth about Santa/Easter Bunny/Tooth Fairy/Halloween Fairy magic slowly, and appreciate that the world was made softer and sweeter for them by those adults that love them. In fact, I think that only now, as I perpetuate that lie that so upset my 8 year old self, do I realize how much love goes into being a magical fairy for your child. And I realize the grief that goes with losing that soft, sweet, innocent outlook on the world that is being a young child. There is nothing that quite compares to the joy and wonder on a child's face when a fairy-granted surprise greets them. And tonight, as C goes to bed, I wonder what he will do with his tooth. Which direction will he choose to go? He's been playing with it all night and has actually lost it a couple of times, prompting me to suggest TF came and got it. But he's recovered it, it's sharp and half-hollowed out edges irritating his palm. I wonder. I know it's ineveitable. As I look at his big round face in the rear view mirror, now with big front teeth floating in space by now two empty sockets, I see that I am looking at my little boy, seeing the magic (though definitely NOT the creativity) fade into the background of the road we've already traveled.

12 Days of Crafty Christmas

2009-12-20T20:05:00.000-08:00

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love made for me:

12 (x 10) sugar cookies

eleven pipers piping

Ten pounds of fudge

Nine degrees Farenheit

Eight colored cards

(drawn by your son and printed professionally as a school fundraiser that were too cute to pass up)

Seven small students singing

(mostly sitting on stage)

Six hand knit Nepalese stockings by way of a little shop in Steamboat Springs that I had to order in a panic at the last minute because I couldn't find our stockings after traveling last Christmas and I love these cute knitted ones and wish I could knit this beautifully and I paid full price and expedited shipping for but S still has his from last year because we had to order him a new one since his old one was chewed on and nested in by a mouse....

(INHALE)

FIVE SWEET SMALL FINGERS!!

Four felt gnomes

Three wooden elves

Two knitted bears

And a green sweater with a red star!!!!!

(that I obsessively knitted for my eldest son so he'd have a holiday sweater since Grama couldn't find one for him and she found some for the younger ones!!!!!!!)

Home Made Christmas Ornaments

2009-12-07T13:07:00.000-08:00

Did you know that you can bake salt dough (ie, home made play dough) and it will harden enough to make a 3-dimensional sculpture...like an ornament? I'm wondering how I have made it this far in life and just realized that. We had a fun afternoon playing with the dough--free hand sculpting, rolling, cutting and molding. My 7 year old made a snowman, Mary + Joseph and baby Jesus, then another 2 little baby Jesuses, a Christmas tree and a wreath. They are adorable, very authentically his, and fun little secret santa presents. The 4 year old wanted to make a pile of candy canes which will look almost planned out and cohesive on our tree. I made a few big snowflakes and trees and will give them away as little presents.

We also used some extra cookie cutters and backed them with fun paper prints to make some ornaments. The scissor work was slightly tricky, and the gluing/taping was kind of intricate. But my 7 year old especially liked this.

Home Made Dough Ornaments
yield-dough for 5 dozen +/- ornaments
4 c all purpose flour
2 cups salt
1 1/2 cups water
1 t alum (we didn't have this; it's a bitter preservative agent--I used ginger and cinnamon instead and the dough seemed fine.

Mix all ingredients thoroughly with hands. Add water 1T at a time if to dry. If desired tint dough with food dye by kneading in. Cover (keep covered while working in dry climates); can be refrigerated for up to 2 weeks.

Roll-1/8 inch thick and cut with cookie cutters. If making ornaments use a straw or stick to make a hole near the top.

Mold-up to 1/2 inch thick.

Heat oven to 250 deg F. Place decorations on ungreased cookie sheet and bake about 2 hours (until completely hard and dry). Cool completely on wire rack. Sand decorations lightly until smooth. You can paint them with acrylic paint and seal if desired.

Advent-ures

2009-12-04T13:06:00.000-08:00

Like the small voice of Cindy-Lou Hoo asking "Why, Santa?" I and so many parents fight a lopsided battle against the consumerism and commercialism of the Christmas Holiday. We all remember that iconic story where the Grinch steals "The Stuff" and it doesn't matter--Christmas comes anyhow, and they sing and hold hands and share the love. That sentiment really does hold true for most of us during the gifty winter holidays--it's the sharing and togetherness that is the richness. But reigning in the desire is another thing altogether. Everyday in the mail a pile of catalogs arrive: the same company (and its sister companies) sends some publication every other day. The kids see the direct advertisements with X-ray vision when I pull the stack of mail out of our box, and immediately ask to look at them. I'll admit, handing them back for them to peruse buys me 3 minutes of silence between the mail box and our house. But like the night in winter, the children's toy want lists grow longer. Most of the catalogs we receive (in spite of multiple calls to various companies to cancel them, requesting that I be taken off mailing lists, etc.) have lovely natural toys, mostly made in the USA. I am okay with most of what they see, though they all create a false sense of need. But a couple sneak through that show behemoth plastic multi-storied castles, rockets, dinosaur villages. Even if I were inclined to buy these, we just would not have the room in our house. As it is, I need to go through the boys' toys ASAP (all three of them share one room with toys and art and stuff for all three age ranges crammed into storage shelving in like an overstuffed pillow) and share some boy toy love (not that kind, ahem).

One way I keep the meaning of the season forefront is with the celebration of Advent. This is something I've only started doing in the past few years, but it is a wonderful way to bring to life the stories (and I do include all of them--its a great opportunity for a comparative review of the world's religions) of this season and honor the solstice. It is a time of quiet anticipation, preparation, waiting. Of course, it's mostly about the birth of Jesus, and we really have fun with it, celebrating little traditions the boys talk about all year long. And we talk a lot about Jesus in his many contexts. Most of our celebrations mirror those going on in the boys' Waldorf-inspired school, and the first thing to come is the Advent wreath. It is simple--I just arranged ours on the kitchen table with some greens and five candles; each of the four candles is to be lit on the four Sundays of Advent and the center one is for Christmas Day. We light the first candle (I'll admit we were slightly late this year, still recovering from Turkey Day goings-on) and sing a few sweet little songs and talk about what is to come. The first light of Advent is a time to think about the stones in our world--shells, minerals, bones, crystals. All of that first week, I put one special little treasure in their advent stockings along that theme. I set up the Creche on a separate table, starting with just the stable, and we add daily to the display with the little advent surprises. Boys love rocks--they really like the first week. Our advent "calendar" is a collection of 24 little stockings on a rope--a fun preview of the larger holiday to come. Each week we move "up" the scale of complexity: the second week is the light of the plants, the third week the light of the animals, and the fourth week the light of the people. I put corresponding gifts (recycled from year to year-nothing fancy) in the stocking--a little wooden heart, a piece of petrified wood, some juniper berries; then little wooden animals; then little people, all of which go over to the manger scene. Occasionally I'll be a fun mom and throw in a little chocolate coin or ball. By the time it's Christmas, the Creche is full of stones, crystals, moss, evergreens, leaves, animals, and people awaiting the rival of the wee baby.

Okay. I have to make a little confession: I almost put all of our stuff away the first day of advent because the older boys were fighting incessantly about who got what and when and all of that annoying stuff siblings fight about. In anticipation of this, I had even planned it out ahead of time how it would go down in what I thought was a fair manner...but you know what happens to the best laid plans. Ooh, was I mad. I lectured them about how this was all supposed to be fun, reminded them of the "true meaning" of the season. Blah blah blah. Fortunately we all calmed down by the next day, and they are taking turns and playing nice. I don't think making threats really goes along with the various messages of the season...but who's perfect?

Back to the story: the folks at the left here are Mary, Joseph and the Donkey. This is one of the boys' favorite traditions. They start out on their journey to the manger at the beginning of Advent. I put the figures far away from their ultimate destination and each night they travel just a little on their way--the kids love to seek them out the next morning. Some nights I forget to move them, and then have to ~~make up~~ explain that they just needed a rest day or a shopping day. She is pregnant after all and it's hard to do anything in that state. And then one year the cleaning lady took them home--supposedly on accident. I'm not sure what you'd want to do with 3 very small wooden figurines like these, but she says they were on a windowsill and somehow they got in her cloth and she took them home and they went through the wash. When they went missing did we ever have a panic. My oldest one was concerned to the point of obsession. I made up all kinds of stories about their travels--they had taken a very big detour. Thankfully they made it back in time for her to give birth to the Lord right on schedule.

In honoring the quietness of Advent, bringing more light with each successive week as we approach the very darkest time of the year, and focusing in on the very basic elements of our environment, we can push away the overwhelming messages of unbridled consumption that come with Christmas. My son's preschool does this in a most beautiful way, from the messages the teachers give, to the small surprises of Advent, to the presence of St. Nicolaus. He comes not to ask the children what they want, but to recognize their strengths and encourage them to work on their not so strong points. I witnessed this a few years ago when I very first visited the school, as a volunteer/good sport white-bearded man in a shabby red velvet suit with a beggar by his side (the real story of St. Nick) and a big special book spoke knowingly to each child in the class and offered a small gift--a golden walnut representing the hardship of life (getting into the nut) as well as the rewards for hard work (the nut meat). The children were entranced; it was pure magic.

This year, several of the moms in our class worked together to make this most beautiful felted woolen Advent calendar with pockets for little goodies--wee gnomes that appear one by one each day. It's beautiful--a work of art. The tapestry is brilliantly colored with strong tree roots at the bottom, a many-branched evergreen, and the majestic winter sun atop it all.

Winter has fully hit us here with extreme cold and a gorgeous, clean white covering of snow. The icicles hanging from the roof glisten in the morning sun. We're settling into the countdown of Advent (we've all calmed down, and are taking turns and playing nice...mostly...at least with the Advent calendar), especially now that it looks like Christmas. Tonight we get to light candles and place them in a spiral made of pine boughs followed by cookies and warm drinks at the school's Advent Spiral celebration. I'm making biscochitos as we speak. And though the catalogs are coming at lightening speed and voluminous quantity in the peak of shopping season, we can come home, build a fire (perhaps with the catalogs?), quiet down, light a candle and play with some rocks. And, you know, be together while it's -4 degrees outside. Because along with giving and sharing and kind deeds, that's really what the season's all about: figuring out how to live together inside while it's really cold and dark.

Gobble, gobble

2009-11-29T10:27:00.000-08:00

Whew. With the dishes done several times over, cousins out the door at 5 am today to catch a flight, and leftovers nearly gone, I'm just about done with the turkey holiday...what a glorious time! I cooked for 15 people, children outnumbering adults by a hair. We had an afternoon of exactly what Thanksgiving is meant to be--warmth, yummy food, reflection, cooperation, tradition, and love. I spent several days staging the meal preparation so that I could enjoy my guests. Inevitably there were some last minute crises that derailed my plan (such as the crying, under-napped, excited 19 month old)...but it was still good. The fact that I would even dream of cooking a meal of this size and caliber is no small feat; in fact, it has been many, many years in the making.

One of the gifts of children and living in the boonies is that it has stimulated me to learn how to cook. As a child, food was fine and all. I liked Oreos and Happy Meals. No offense to my beloved mom, but dinner was more convenient than inspired. She's going to read this and agree--I mean, there were four kids and a lot going on--and that was the mode of the day for the 1970's do-it-all woman. My dad loved to cook (and was good at it) but this was a special event. In my adolescence, I tightly controlled my food intake to have a sense of control over something in my life (read: eating disorder). In college, living alone and being a vegetarian, I lived in Atkin's Hell on pasta and bagels. Cooking for one, or occasionally two, is tricky and for someone wholly focused on school, well, eating was really just an inconvenience. I dreamed of and actually think that I told someone that I'd rather eat a Jetson's-like nutrition pill and just be done with it so I had more time to study and work and do other important things.

I also was somehow miraculously surrounded by nurturing folk who did in fact love to cook (hmmm....coincidence?). A particular friend who went on to become a professional chef fed me well for some time. She was also a vegetarian but had the imagination and stimulation to actually look at recipes. She made things like asparagus soup; they were good. I don't want to give the impression that I only ate white trash junk food...I could definitely appreciate more gourmet fare such as wild mushrooms and coq au vin (pre-veggie days). I just had a sweet tooth and when you don't eat much, you get a lot of bang for your skimpy student income buck from a Reese's. There was another dear family that fed me regularly through my 20's. The mom was a phenomenal cook and had worked as a caterer in a previous life. She could effortlessly put together a light and yummy, nourishing feast that we would consume in their garden, which she'd also nurtured to glorious fruition. That family provided me with a lot of love and company. These times were my first hint of a clue at the communal meaning of food and meals. I hope that somehow, somewhere I have been able to return the favor to both of these folks.

In my late 20's I finished my training and entered my "Real Life." I joined a practice and moved, with my boyfriend (now husband), into a home we purchased. It's a remote location--rural and bordering on only a town-size locale. Kinda out there. We can't just run down the road to get take out or quick groceries. In the first couple of years here, establishing my professional self, I worked very, very long hours and did a lot of call nights. Still not so much time for cooking. My guy got terribly tired of pasta, but at 8pm after a full day, that's about all you can muster. It's funny, I never seemed to tire of it--I could eat the same thing every day, it was so low on my priority list.

After we married and I immediately got pregnant--that's when the food relationship changed. I was physically unable to cook at first with my nausea and exhaustion. Then, I became ravenous for meat. Then, I suddenly really, really cared about what I ate and passed along to my baby. It wasn't immediate, but as I transformed into a mother, I learned to care about the world in a way that I'd only thought I'd understood before. I'd always considered myself "an environmentalist" but when the possibility of my child suffering the consequences of my generation's missteps became real, I cared in an entirely different way. I finally felt like I was part of the fabric of humanity. I had thrown my genetic chips onto the table and was ready to really play.

Over time, between wrestling with my role as a mother, physician and wife, I began to feel very strongly about how and what my family ate. We joined our local CSA and would receive a bag full of surprise veggies every week for half of the year. I had to learn how to cook with chard, kale and kohlrabi, and began to love the challenge. I learned to appreciate the process of eating locally--eating what your local environment can appropriately support, and eating seasonally, eating things your neighbors have grown (not things shipped from New Zealand). That is really how we humans are supposed to eat. And who wants mealy, pale pink tomatoes in January, anyhow? I experimented with varying amounts of meats in our diet (I'd found between pregnancy and nursing that my vegetarian days were over, at least for the moment). In my hyper-organized way, I planned out meals on a weekly basis and shopped with a list that was organized into the order of the grocery store where I shop. I would challenge myself with new recipes, I subscribed to various homemaker magazines with many recipes (again, seasonally inspired), and rarely would duplicate a meal for some weird reason.

Over the past eight years, since weaving myself and my family into the local community, I've become proficient at cooking. I never, ever thought that I would, and occasionally my husband will teasingly ask me what my friends from past lives would think of me now (though with the magic of Facebook, I can figure it out pretty easily). Just as sewing, knitting and other home crafts did not appeal to me, I viewed cooking in a purely utilitarian way and did not have time for it. Then, as I grew a baby and fed it in utero and then from my very own milk, my relationship to food and nourishment changed entirely. As I fed my children, I finally understood how people experience food as love--from day one, that is what a mother does, and that is one of our most basic human expressions of love and affection. It grew to wanting to feed my extended family and our wonderful community of friends. I was finally able to open myself to the incredible power of food--it connects us to one another, nourishing us both physically and soulfully. And the joy of good food in the mouth is a wonder to behold. Deliciousness experienced by our taste buds will quite literally change the chemistry in our brain.

This past week, I was delighted to cook for my husband's sister's family and some dear friends. Proficient enough to not worry, experienced enough from Thanksgivings past that I could pick the recipes I knew and loved, organized enough to time the preparations, I got to make a meal that would fill my loved ones and our children. I don't want to sound like I'm tooting my own horn, but I like the evolution of my relationship to food. Maybe it's really just growing up. We had a juicy roasted turkey (secret: brining) with local root vegetables, porcini mushroom, sausage and chestnut stuffing (locally collected and dried porcini), Big Martha's mashed potatoes (Ms. Stewart's mom's recipe, made with cream cheese), local green beans, home made crescent rolls, orange-cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, and sweet potato pie. Everyone but my sister-in-law, the baby and I went skiing for the day and we had plenty of time and space to cook. At feast time, the kids played waiter and served the adults. My son drew menus for everyone with their names and illustrations of the dinner. The kids (all 8 of them) played together beautifully. We said/sang 4 different versions of grace and/or blessing songs. We went around the table and asked everyone what they were thankful for which was pure sweetness, then at the request of one four year old, we all said it together at the same time (my new favorite tradition). After dinner, they played a modified cooperative team charades where they acted out something and all of the adults together guessed what they were (this was particularly hilarious and a great game for kids of varying ages). We didn't even turn on the TV--I saw no football.

My friend emailed me the following day and said that she felt "loved, adored, fed, comforted" by the holiday. I could not have gotten a higher compliment. Holidays, at their best, are opportunities for tradition and rhythm that speak of creativity, enthusiasm for life and fun, as she told me. I have also experienced Thanksgiving completely alone, searching for an cheap open restaurant (Thank God for The Frontier), serving the homeless donated food, working at the hospital, and with dysfunctional families. I've had crazy and not fun times. I much prefer this version, and hope to replay it again and again. Thanks.

Helping Hands

2009-11-22T17:31:00.000-08:00

Our deco motif this Thanksgiving: handprints. They fit so nicely into the message of this season-- of lending a helping hand, working hard, giving thanks. And they make great little turkeys. Our table center pieces are seen here at the left and were a whole afternoon's worth of entertainment for the family. Grama and the boys collected some gorgeous pinecones of varying sizes and then spent an afternoon tracing little hands and cutting them out of autumn shades of construction paper. Some pipe cleaner feet, and these decorative toms were complete. We made a whole fleet of them, though S (age 4) got tired of the enterprise. Cutting out a hand is very hard work for a little guy--it's sort of intricate scissor work. F, the baby, did his part by standing still for 7 seconds and permitting us to trace his chubby little hand. C (age 7) worked hard at this activity for quite a while. It had something for everyone (which can be tricky with this age spread)--a walk in the woods, gathering, drawing, cutting, gluing.

We're also going to use our hand made and very wobbly (and partially nibbled on by curious teeth) beeswax candles on the table. And C, my 7 year old, has literally spent hours making menus for each of our guests. We are excited to have close friends and neighbors joining us, bringing authentic Southern sweet potato pie to share. My husband's sister and her family are traveling here for the long weekend and C is already planning how he and his cousin can play waiters for the dinner. His menus had adorable drawings of turkeys on the front and each attendee's name. Inside was a list of the food and drawings of pies. This was a very big deal for this boy who has struggled with writing skills, and though he's always loved to draw, the illustrations were identifiable. I'm so proud of him, and pleased it was entirely his idea. And the fact that he is planning on using his own helping hands for the holiday is just lovely. We'll see how it actually turns out.

On this pre-Turkey Day Sunday afternoon we made hand print turkey cookies. I'll admit, they got the idea from the incessant PSA-type message between repeated episodes of The Wonder Pets on Nick Jr. Why don't they show Yo Gabba Gabba all of the time? And, it's easy to make 4 colors of frosting when someone else makes it for you. But they were darn cute and the boys know how much I love to bake. I try so very hard to share this activity with them, and really, as many activities in the kitchen as possible. Baking, though, is like chemistry lab and requires a certain amount of precision. I don't want to say I have to be in control, but I hate to waste ingredients (ie, throw away a pan of inedible cookies/bread/cake)...and it's a big mess to clean up flour sprinkled everywhere...and picking out eggshells from batter can be tricky. I really do try to let go of all of my need to bake perfectly and let the boys go at it. I would hate to damper kitchen enthusiasm, especially in a boy. But boy, do I have to try. And breathe a lot.

So I made some sugar cookie dough with the help of S. He especially likes to be in the kitchen. In fact, he loves to have a job and to be needed and useful. I guess we all do, to some degree. But whenever he is going astray by torturing his baby brother, licking the mud from the adobe walls, stealing special things, marking up his older brother's hand made Thanksgiving menus that took 5 hours to make, I know it's time to call him in to help me with a special chore. It's our little way of bonding and re-setting into the right groove. He, like all four year old's, has a hard time with impulse control. Specifically the impulse to eat the raw dough of whatever we're making. I've tried not to bog him down with the threat of salmonella, but he does know raw eggs are a no no, and he doesn't seem to particularly care. So far, knock on wood, we've avoided any horrible dysenteric food-borne illnesses.

After a few hours of outside time and dough chillin' we were ready to make cookies. We made a template with outlines of hands that we cut out and used on the dough to trace and cut. A few minutes in the oven and we were ready for the fun part, the decoration. These cookies could have turned out cuter if I'd made multiple shades of frosting, but I just wasn't up for it today. We had orange and that was going to have to do. A chocolate chip eye, a candy corn beak and some free form frosting work finished the birds.

It was a fun way to spend the afternoon. I have always loved to bake, from childhood--much more so than cooking (future post on that one in the pipe). And taking the time to bake from scratch makes the reward that much sweeter. I walk that tightrope of appropriate amounts of treats for my children, and it's a tricky one. I fear if they are deprived that they will never learn their own limits on sugar intake. But I don't want it around all of the time. We don't buy packaged cookies, and baking together seems to be a nice compromise on the whole issue. We get to have together time, use ingredients of our choosing, and see the work that goes into making a sweet. Then we get to enjoy it--a treat on many levels. It was my treat to see all three of their sweet little hands in cookie form.

I'm hoping to find someone to share these with, as the recipe made a lot of dough...and after we lost steam on the precision needed for free form hand carving, I used my fall cookie cutters to make oodles of pumpkins, leaves and acorns. I or my husband will probably take them to work--that's what we usually do with our confectionary excesses. People who work in hospitals need that kind of love sometimes.

I'm looking forward to the coming week, though there's much work-- cooking, baking, decorating--to do for the celebration. I'm sure if I just let go a little, let things be a bit imperfect, take the gifts of many helping hands, a great time will indeed be had by all--including me.

From Mind Fullness to Mindfulness

2009-11-18T06:40:00.000-08:00

Getting swallowed up in the quicksand of peripheral junk that comes with the holidays is dangerously easy: the shopping, the lists, the menus, the parties, the school plays and concerts, the traveling. It's all for a good cause but friends, let's keep it in perspective. It's nearly Thanksgiving-- give some thanks. And for those of you who tirelessly give to others--and you know who you are--be kind to yourself. Every few days Oprah efficiently reminds me in email form to be grateful, to be mindful. She's a ka-jillionaire and has an army of Deepak's and Oz's and trainers and cooks...easy for her to say. But for us little people, there are actual scientific studies that show how mindfulness will lower blood pressure and have generally positive benefits on health and the like. It's a simple moment of stopping thinking and checking in with your body. If you have the time and/or patience, it can be extended into full on meditation. And the practice of gratitude will keep things real. Every time I work with patients I am given the gift of perspective--that the little things I can get upset about...compared to leukemia, not so big. When I ask my little ones what they are thankful for, they say, "For being me!" And what more basic thing do we have to be thankful for than existing as who we are on this earth!

I am a morning person...sometimes by choice and sometimes by crying baby alarm. I love seeing the world at sunrise. It's so quiet, still and the day is full of promise--that moment of anticipation that is sometimes sweeter than the moment itself. I'm particularly inspired to capture these beautiful moments when the light is just emerging and holds amazing colors. I am not good at taking pictures; I love digital cameras as I can snap away and filter through for one or two good ones. The fact that these photos turned out at all is due only to the natural beauty of this place. I love the light here in Taos and can see why so many artists were drawn to this place. You could make a pile of bear turds look good. In these moments--sometimes captured, most just floating around in my sub-conscious--I am fully aware, and often quite thankful for just being in that very moment. These pictures here I snapped over the past few weeks from my porch, as I've watched the season change from a lovely fall into a quiet early winter, in a few quiet spaces I've found.

When I get anxious, angry, short tempered, I look out my window. And breathe. This will work anywhere, really--not just in the foothills of the Rockies, though that definitely helps. It's the change of scenery, the injection of physical perspective into a moment that will diffuse a stressful patch. As a person ruled largely by the left hemisphere of the brain, I've only learned to appreciate beauty for it's own sake over the last ten years or so. C, my 7 year old, will tell me at random moments to look out of the window--at home or in the car--to notice something, a cloud, a bird, the light. These moments give my life an unbelievable richness. The beauty that is around us all of the time is joy made manifest in physical form. Both older boys will set the table and want it to look beautiful just for the pure enjoyment of it being beautiful. It's amazing how quickly and easily we can wrap our minds into a tizzy about a to do list, an upcoming meeting, a child's temper tantrum, or my nemesis, being on time. But when you step back, look out the window at the trees and mountains (or streets full of cars and people, which has its own, different beauty) and think about how incredible it is that we are all here; that somehow this little rock flying in orbit around the sun, spinning away, happens to have just the right combination of weather and water and vegetation to allow us to live here in relative harmony...it's almost overwhelming to consider. Whether you believe God created it or it happened through a synchronicity of perfect conditions--well, either way it is nothing short of miraculous. Sometimes when I think about it I have a little out of body moment and get quite literally lost and a little nauseated and frightened thinking about the universe and our place in it.

I'm writing this as much as a reminder to myself, as a plea to my wonderful friends and family. These, like so many things in life, are a practice, and despite the saying, we will never make perfect of it. So step away from your daily drudge and consider your body as a temple, an amazing machine. Feel your bones and height and strength. See your family as the anti-entropic drive of life's longing for itself. Your home as sacred. Your road, city, town, as an amazing complex of math and science and art and humanity all thrown together to drive cars, build houses and live together--with all that entails. And when you stop and think about what you might be thankful for--it's the most basic things, right? Family, health, friends. It's not really the big fancy stuff.

Slow down for a moment in this crazy time and be mindful of your self and well being. Break off an icicle and enjoy. Stare in awe as a crescent moon rises along with the sun. Stop cooking dinner and look at the sun setting, casting light through a snow squall. Know that any little (and even most of the big) transgressions shall pass. When in doubt, add more love. Take moments to be grateful--remember how basic our needs really are and what we most want around us. And be thankful that you are you.

On the Virtues of Knitting, Pt. I

2009-11-12T16:36:00.000-08:00

The first time I seriously tried to knit as an adult was when I was being held prisoner. I was early in my third trimester of my first pregnancy, breezily going about my business taking call every third night and working full time in a busy practice, waking up at 5 am to exercise by riding my bike on a stationary machine, planning on how I was going to quickly transition back to work after a really generous three month maternity leave. I was in that really cute phase of pregnancy where you are very obviously pregnant but not yet a whale. I suddenly started having regular contractions one night. No, no, no. This was not happening to me. But it was, and I was scared. In a calm and clinical way I spoke to my OB, she brought me for an evaluation, and there in seismographic ink like periodic earthquakes were regular contractions. One heart-racing, tremor-inducing dose of terbutaline later, and they were gone. And I was on bedrest.

An experienced mom of two would smile benignly and tell me to surrender. I understood what she said only on a very superficial level at the time. Pregnancy had brought out an extreme anxiety in me, as it does many women. Having the somewhat unfortunate knowledge of the horrific things that can come (but thankfully mostly don't) with pregnancy, combined with the completely new sensation of vulnerability, left me worrying. Worrying does nothing for anyone. You fantasize about what may come, what might be, all of which--particularly when it comes to pregnancy and birth--means nothing. I worried about miscarrying, knowing full well that there is very little that you can do to cause or prevent it; in fact, most of those babes are not compatible with life, as we say in medicine. Having had a miscarriage with my first pregnancy, I kept thinking that once I was through the first trimester, I'd be home free!!!

How wrong was I!!!

That was just the nascent beginning of the worry that comes when you know you have a viable pregnancy--a growing actual person and soul in baby form--in there. And then, oh, just the rest of their life. I did okay through the second trimester, feeling a bit like superwoman/mother goddess as you do at that point. I was confident I'd work as long as possible or until my due date. I was exercising, determined to stay in shape and continue my mental health regimen as long as possible. I even skied until somewhere around 25 weeks, at which time my completely unzipped snow pants became too tight and I could not bend down to buckle my boots. We then passed the next milestone--24 weeks--the point at which a baby could survive if born. And I'm thinking "I'm doing great!"

Somewhere around 26 weeks the regular contraction event happened and I was forced to bed to receive, as my OB ordered, "The Princess Treatment," getting up only to use the bathroom. For this type-A mama to be, exercise was my anxiolytic; it always had been. It got me through 11 years of very stressful school/training without the use of antidepressants. So there I was, worried about birthing a pre-me (and much, much worse), and trapped in bed. My sweet hubby rented me a stack of movies (we had a TV but no reception). I tried to read. I could not settle.

I decided to try to knit something for the baby. I'd been taught knitting as a kid but had never really done anything but a potholder. It seemed so old fashioned and boring, I'd thought in my youth. Both my mom and her mom knitted. My Grandma knitted each of her grandchildren a blanket, customized to the child's color preference. I had my green acrylic one for years, but I kick myself now for jettisoning it in college, along with many of my sentimental material attachments. It was a kind of Buddhist, self-deprived period. My mom knitted everyone in our family sweaters. They were beautiful, I recognize now. At the time a home made garment such as this seemed so uncool. The pieces were "different", un-branded, and didn't fit into the late1970's little girl uniform (you know, Jordache or Chemin de Fur, rainbow shirt, leg warmers--ironically, none of which I had).

Back in bed, my mom brought me some knitting needles and a pastel rainbow-ed neutral yarn suitable for a boy or girl (or hermaphrodite as I worried about--we didn't know what we were having). She showed me how to cast on and do a basic stockinette stitch. I went for it with my usual drive. Unfortunately in my wound up state, I wound my stitches so tight that after a few rows, I couldn't even get the needle into a loop to knit it. I ended up with a pale yellow-green-blue-pink tightly knit rectangle.

I went on to give birth ten days past my due date, to a healthy 9 lb 2 oz baby boy. I didn't do much more knitting until I was pregnant for the second time. In my eldest son's infancy and toddlerhood I tried to be supermom, working and mothering and wife-ing and everything. I could go on volumes about that (maybe a later post) but suffice it to say that I finally and fully learned what my wise friend meant when she said "Surrender." While pregnant with S, baby #2, I felt the knitting urge and went with it. I think it had something to do with a nesting instinct. Oh, that and being imprisoned yet again when I began to bleed early in my second trimester. I bleed heavily for 3 weeks. Major bummer. I managed to knit some looser rectangles, and a little scarf for my older boy. I think I've mastered the scarf, actually, having now made several for myself and for each of my kids. The nice thing about the scarf is that it's easy, quick, you don't need a pattern and you can make it any size you want--it's a very long rectangle. It is the way to start--a beginner can make it and have something organic and maybe even nice to wear at the end.

Over the past few years I've ended up coming back again and again to knitting. It's a hobby that has evolved in slow motion. It seems to be seasonal and I definitely feel inspired as the days grow shorter. There's more inside time, more dark hours and it's cold so you can wear your woolen creations--a perfectly utilitarian and yet creative project! For you fidgeters out there, and I count myself among you, knitting is a terrific thing to do while trying to watch a movie or news or The Daily Show. You can be productive in a highly meditative way while unwinding. How great is that? If you have an OCD tendency to count things, such as stairs, steps--you know who you are--knitting would suit you well. Knitting is portable. It appeals to me in the same way running does--both require very little equipment and can be done anywhere. Stuff it in your bag and while waiting at soccer or swim practice, knit away.

This fall, I had to skip out on our latest bookclub read because of a meeting. I took the hiatus as an opportunity to design my first big knitting project. My son had won some hand dyed wool yarn and bamboo needles at a raffle. I had bought some ivory alpaca skeins while visiting a nearby alpaca ranch, on a whim because it was so beautiful and soft even though I had no plan for it. So I made a plan. I thought: poncho. I looked though my knitting encyclopedia for ideas. I visited knitty.com for patterns. I came up with a hybrid design based on using what I had. It was basically a big rectangle--I can do that!!--that was then folded in half and sewed up one end about 2/3 of the way, making a hole for the head. I knitted away for weeks. I learned the immense value of blocking your knitting. I felt okay about pulling things apart and starting over, because, as an experienced knitter friend told me, you don't want to look at something you've worked long and hard on and be disappointed for eternity. I learned how to crochet (even easier than knitting!) and made these cute little flowers that my mom just made up on the spot. I sewed it all together and crocheted a little ruffle. And, my friends, I made a poncho.

The funny thing about working on something like that is that after a while you've looked at it for so long, you lose perspective on how it really looks. Is it even cute? I don't know. Is it me? Is it something I'd wear normally? Is it something I'd buy? How much? And I've asked myself all of those questions and oddly enough I can't really answer them. I love it and I've worn it and I don't even know how much I'd sell it for because I wouldn't sell it.

I knitted it in the evenings. I knitted it at soccer practice. I knitted it while nursing my boy through the swine flu. It kept my fidgety hands from being idle...because you know where that leads. My poncho has the qualities that I now appreciate so much from the pieces made by my foremothers--hand made, considered, imperfect, with love. The things I knit inevitably, inescapably are made with love. When you take your hands and create something for someone else that you know and love (or even for yourself, as my husband teased me), your time and energy and thought and feeling goes into that piece and the love comes through. The fact that you make it yourself, with your own two hands, investing your precious time, and thinking about someone else in what you create--that is love. I gave a dear friend a scarf (of course) that I knitted for her birthday. I got the yarn at the aforementioned alpaca ranch, and it was so soft and so beautifully eggplant purple. I immediately thought of her. And the shop gal gave me a pattern that used one skein of the stuff and created a beautiful ribbed and ruffled scarf--one of my friend's favorite accessories. What I gave her wasn't perfect, but she thanked me for it and told me how she would feel enveloped with my love every time she put it on. Exactly what I was hoping for. And only now, 20 years too late do I wish I could have that dark and light green zig-zagged blanket back, ugly as it was, as a small thread linking my adult self back to my grandmother, my kids to their great-grandmother, and the time she loved me enough to knit me my very own blanket.

Martinmas

2009-11-07T08:29:00.000-08:00

Largely celebrated in Europe, St. Martin's Day on November 11, is one of those essentially religious holidays that holds a really nice message. Martin was a Roman soldier who came upon a freezing beggar at night. He took his cloak and cut it in half, saving a piece for himself and giving the other half to the beggar saving the beggars life by keeping him from freezing. That night he had a dream where Jesus came to him and said something along the lines of, "As you have done to this beggar, you have done to me." Martin went on to be baptised as an adult and lived his life as a monk, being sainted post-humously (as is required).

The celebrations in Europe tend to relate Martinmas as a day or night of feasting prior to the beginning of a forty day advent. Many places also celebrate with a lantern walk in the night. In my research I couldn't exactly find the link between lanterns and St. Martin's deeds; perhaps it is another way to bring light into this dark time of year. Our little school celebrates Martinmas with one such lantern walk. In the days before the walk, each class makes it's own little paper lanterns for the children, ranging from simple painted cylinders to very ornate cut paper decorations on geometrically designed containers. They mostly have a wire or pipe-cleaner attachment on top and a long stick for a handle, keeping little hands safely away from the flame. The families then gather at a local park for a nighttime walk. One year, the eighth grade had access to a horse and re-enacted the entire story in theatrical form. Some years a teacher steps forward and tells Martin's short story. In years past we have then strolled around the park and sang songs about light.

The lantern walk tends to occur on the Friday most conveniently near November 11, and we had our lantern walk last night. It was a warm-ish (for November) and lovely clear night. About 250 children and adults gathered in our little park, and this time we walked over to the plaza a couple of blocks away. We even had a motorcycle police escort which was by far the highlight for my 4 year old and 19 month old. The baby kept saying/growling "BIKE" over and over and over. Then when we he moved on, "Bye, bye bike."

After we returned to the park, yummy warm rolls that are just ever so slightly sweet and flavored with nutmeg were served along with hot cider. It was warm enough that the kids all ran around in the dark around little pools of lantern light and had a great old time. The lanterns are really beautiful and fun--we now have a little collection from all of the different years that my boys have attended the school. They are simple but sturdy enough that they can be re-used, and are another lovely way to bring light to the darkness and to get oneself outside into the night in spite of the cold. What I really hope, though, is that the true message of Martin and his generosity, selflessness and charity gets through some little tiny pore and lodges into my kids' brains.

Lantern Bread Recipe

Yield-3 dozen--a large group, but modifies well--I've cut it down and made it at Thanksgiving.

18-20 cups white wheat OR spelt flour

6 cups soy OR regular milk

1 1/2 cups honey

1 1/2 cups oil

6 pkg yeast

6 tsp vanilla

3 tsp grated nutmeg

3 tsp salt

In a very large mixing bowl, combine 10 cups of flour, yeas, nutmeg, and salt. On top of stove, combine milk, honey, oil and vanilla and heat to 105-110 deg F. Pour into dry ingredients and stir to combine. Let rise 15 minutes to make sure yeast is active.

Add remaining 8-10 cups flour and knead together but don't overnknead. Let rise 30-40 minutes til double.

Punch down and make into spiral rolls--either a simple spiral or an S-shape. Let rest 15 minutes in a warm place until rolls puff up but don't lose their spiral shape. Brush with mild to make rolls shiny.

Bake at 375 deg F for 15-20 minutes.

El Dia de los Muertos

2009-11-04T15:00:00.000-08:00

I'm kind of thinking that the day after Halloween should be called "Day of the Dead Tired." Actually, as I have gotten older and lost loved ones, I appreciate this holiday more and more. Every year I intend to make a beautiful shrine, but in the excitement of Halloween (see previous four posts) it's lost in the shuffle and then before I know it it's suddenly November 4th. Even though El Dia ya ha pasado, the timing of this celebration makes total sense when you think about it. Everything around us has died--fields are brown with formerly tall and waving grass stems now brittle and flattened. Trees once green and supple, then recently beautifully yellowed and oranged are now bare skeletons, with dirty carpets of their recently departed leaves surrounding their trunks. The last of the summer's harvest have been collected or are dead on the vine. After the glory of summer and the blazing colors of early fall, it's all a little sad looking and stark now, especially before the real snow begins to fall and provide a clean white beginning. The days are shortening with alarming speed, the pineal gland struggling to keep up with the invading night. It all puts us in touch with death, with the cycle of life, with darkness. It makes sense that the Celtic Pagans of centuries ago would feel a closeness to their dead at this time of year. As various religions have done, especially Catholicism, this pagan celebration of the dead has been incorporated into their repertoire, and whether it's All Souls Day in France, El Dia de los Muertos in Latino cultures or All Saint's Day, it's time to have a wake on the day of the dead.

I love that we get to purposefully celebrate the dead on November 1st--feed them, nourish them, tease them, talk about them, celebrate them, care for them, make things beautiful for them...or really, for us. Instead of the memories of the dead sneaking up on you in an ambush at inopportune times as they are wont to do, you get to plan and consciously celebrate them. I live in the Southwest in a predominantly Hispanic area, so the celebration of El Dia is forefront. A dear friend of mine created the beautiful alter, pictured above, in her home. The boys' school is celebrating El Dia in really sweet and age appropriate ways for each class. The pre-K/kindergarten classes talk about Heavenly Birthdays and are invited to light candles and share about any losses. The first grade related it to the life cycle of an insect, from caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly--a transformation of body and form. They made an altar in the class and the children brought in photos of lost ones and offerings, seen here to the right.

The decorating of sugar skulls, the dressing up of skeletons and putting them into lively situations, the vibrant hues of magenta and orange, the paper flowers and strands of dried marigolds, the tissue paper flags cut into skeletal designs and hung like prayer flags; they are all so beautiful, fun and even a little daring. The photos put onto the altars give the living permission to feel joy in remembering the dead when they were alive, upright, walking, eating, laughing.   It's a day to imagine the dead there in the living room or kitchen, drinking a cuppa, laughing at you, allowing them to haunt you just a little. The comfort of an imagined conversation, some advice dispensed, a practical joke, even just a presence, relieve the loneliness ever so slightly. That part in yourself made up of joy and life force that is chipped away when the permanence of death sinks in and you're left to just live the rest of your life without that beloved person, you get to forget about that part for just a little bit. You get to focus on creating external beauty in the midst of death as well as create internal beauty within your soul in the remembrance.

As a doctor, I see people die. You know, it's inevitable for us all. It is an unsought honor, in a way, to shepard someone through death. It can be a beautiful and spiritual experience, it can be gruesome and traumatic. It is never a happy occasion, though sometimes it is a relief. It is hardest, of course for those left behind. I chose my specialty because I largely deal with adults, and seeing the elderly die is much, much easier than seeing pretty much anyone else die. I found in my training that witnessing the death of a pregnant mother, a child, a teenaged boy, was really too much for my heart to bear and I could not draw boundaries that would protect my psyche.   But seeing a long suffering, elderly cancer patient who has finally lost the battle, and being able to relieve his suffering and be a midwife to a peaceful death gives me a sense of spiritual satisfaction. I was fairly tender as an adolescent but my soft underbelly has softened further with the birth of my boys and motherhood, and I'm more glad than ever that I chose adult medicine.

Coincidentally, three weeks after the birth of my eldest (now aged 7), a series of deaths in my husband's and my circle of family and friends began that left us reeling and feeling not only profound grief but a heaviness that comes with truly growing up. I'm starting to think that we've just entered "that phase" of life, the one where we begin to lose people on a regular basis. In honor of those departed from us, I'd like to say a few words about our friends now gone.

Harriet, my mother's mother, was the one who kicked off the whole kicking off binge. She was a ripe old 86 with multiple medical problems and it was not entirely unexpected though I'd been preoccupied with my first pregnancy, being 10 days overdue and recovering from an unexpected C-section.    I'd just had the most profound experience of my life in becoming a mother, and was in the nadir of a rapid exodus of estrogen from my brain. Needless to say I did not handle it well. She had been the unlikely, unsentimental rock in our family. She was practical, kind of boring, reliable, thrifty, and judgmental--really a product of her Mid-Western, German upbringing through the Great Depression. She lived to become a great-grandmother twice over. By her 70's, she was so deaf she couldn't hear herself fart, which she did frequently and publicly.

Darren, my husband's beautiful 23 year old cousin was next. He'd just graduated from college. He was vacationing in Mexico with a group of friends and his girlfriend, was a blossoming young lovely man who played rugby and raced triathlons. We still have no clear reason why he suddenly dropped dead in the middle of the night. His mother's heart irreparably broke that day, and the golden unwritten book that lay unfolding before him slammed shut. The cream of American youth, as my dad would say, spoiled.

Pat, one of my husband's dearest friends, died in one heckuva bizarre accident. He was 41 and riding his bike which he crashed, knocking himself unconscious and landing in the unfortunate spot of 2 feet of ditch water, causing him to drown. His two young sons and wife plow on, the wife now entering a PhD program in grad school, the eldest son now entering his freshman year of college, the youngest son now in high school. He was a shaman, a wizard: small-framed, bearded an long haired. My husband used to attend mushroom conferences with this fellow ER doc, toxicologist, and kindred spirit. They would wander through the mountains for hours to see what they could find, identify and safely and tastily eat. Pat used to call my husband "The Golden Boy." You'd have to know my husband to understand it completely.

Mike, "Pops," my beloved father-in-law who died three and a half years ago, was next. He'd been an immigrant from Ireland and built a life in California as a carpenter, raising five children. He was 74 and ruptured an aortic aneurism. Much better for him to have gone quickly, save for the fact we didn't get to say goodbye. I could go on volumes about this one...he was by far the hardest to lose. I think the loss of a parent shakes the very foundation upon which we walk. In brief, he was a brilliant person, untethered by formal education. He'd been a fallen man, a drunk, who redeemed himself and his life. He was pure joy, and I loved him so. He was quick with a quotable gem, such as "It's like trying to shove 10 pounds of shit into a 5 pound bag." In fact most of his quotable gems would be bleeped by the FCC.

Father Bernard, the family priest went only 3 months later. He'd done all of the family baptisms, many family weddings, and the funerals of Darren and Pops. He was a hoot, and had devoted his life to not only the ministry but served the most outcast among us--those in prison. He had a funny sounding voice for a priest, kind of whiney. He thought all of our kids names unfortunately difficult to pronounce.

Tim, my sister's brother-in-law, died at 36 of a horrible traumatic crime. It was one week after my second son was born and my sister had to rush home from her visit with her new nephew to attend to her family. He was young, strong, beautiful. We attended the funeral with our newborn and again, in a hormonal tumult, I was profoundly shaken.

Pablo, a little boy just days shy of his fourth birthday, died next, while I was pregnant with my youngest baby. He had a brain tumor and died 3 months after it was diagnosed. Again, in my hormonal, fragile and vulnerable state, this one hit me particularly hard. But then who isn't hit hard by the death of a child? He was a little boy at my son's school, his sister in my oldest boy's class, his dad a teacher at the school. My two older sons were fully present and participatory for this passage and showed me beyond any doubt that young children are still in touch with the other side, having just recently come from there themselves.

Dave, just a few weeks ago, was a dear friend and local architect who was working on some plans for an addition to our home. Just 58, with the sudden rupture of a cerebral aneurism, he left us quickly and way too soon. He was a local activist and had a great sense of humor--always quick with a joke.

And these were just the people central in our lives who we lost. There were also others, more peripheral.

So here today I build my little altar out of words for our dear departed. I put here a pinwheel Christmas cookie and some spatzle for Harriet. Here, I put a rugby ball and jersey, and a pint of Guiness for Darren. Pat, here's a primo piggy, a King Bolete for you. For Pops, a cup of coffee and though I know I shouldn't, a cigarette. I mean, he's already dead, it's not going to hurt him. Oh, and heck, he gets the full fry too. Father Bernard I'll light the candle you gave me when you baptized our son. Tim, I'll crack open a Bud Light. Pablo, this donut is for you. And Dave, here's a nice plate of spaghetti bolognese. I lay here some brilliantly bright and colorful paper flowers. I have a picture of each of you, really lovely ones, happy smiling ones, here in my mind.   I hear Pops singing away, cracking jokes and giggling. What a lovely little party. And next year...next year I'll make the time and space for a beautiful, visual, tactile altar to bring these folks back for another fiesta.

Halloween, debriefed.

2009-11-02T14:51:00.000-08:00

What I am most thankful for this Halloween (I know, not yet the season of Thanksgiving but really, something we should be practicing all of the time) is that I didn't get so caught up in the perfection of the food and decor and trying to do everything myself that I actually really got to hang out with my kids and friends and have fun. I hate it when I get so attached to a preconception that I can't just let things unfold in their own organic way. My children have given me that gift, through parenting, for sure. I find that the less is more approach for holidays works quite well. Oh, and delegating and asking for help--something I would have NEVER thought of doing not so very long ago--go a very long way toward maintaining one's sanity.

We had the fourth of what has become an annual tradition on Halloween night--post trick or treating family fun at our house. We provided the Ghoul-ash (sigh) and spiced pumpkin soup, friends pitched in pot luck style and brought loads of "grow food" in a vain attempt at a protein versus sugar counter-insurgency, as well as some fun and decadent treats to share. We had a game of a spoon race with these really oogie gummy eyeballs (a-la egg races). We had a wrap-a-mummy craft with popsicle sticks, gauze, glue and a marker, as well as candle making with sheets of beeswax to wrap around a string (kit purchased from Magic Cabin). Then there was the highlight for the children, the haunted closet. We hung black sheets all around and dangled things down. It's very easy to create a spooky environment based on suggestion and possibility--it let's the imagination fill in the blanks and can create dramatic tension. We had some ghosts and bats and ghoulie things but the faces were cartoon-ish; without the realism they seem not so scary and a bit softer. We borrowed a skeleton from work and dressed him up as a pirate. There was a bucket with some dry ice steaming away and a strobe light. There was also a large pot with spaghetti, gummy worms and eyeballs. Eeew. Major tactile grossness. A little background of scary (but not disgusting or horrific) sounds from the $3 disc from Wal Mart on repeat in the CD player, and we had some serious ambiance. What allowed for the precise level of terror based on the age/temperament of the child were the 2 dads that participated in the fun. My husband and a dear friend/super good sport who donned some furry gloves and made noises while reaching out from behind a black sheet, sacrificed their own social needs and agenda to provide a true thrill for the willing guests.

What I also enjoyed immensely was the creativity of the costumes--all home made and hilarious, gorgeous, kooky, and fun; an opportunity for the alter ego to have it's day in the sun. We had 3 skunks--?, one with Elvis hair. We had Goldilocks and the 3 bears in costumes made from brown towels and some faux fur--Mom and 2 daughters were the 3 bears and Dad was Goldie which was...interesting. We had Sonny and Cher. We had a Lager/Logger and a Cougar animal/40 year old prowler, both double entendre'd. We had 2 Princess Leia's and 2 Yoda's-one father/son and one mother/daughter team. We had a drop-dead gorgeous flapper with an authentic dress, her hubby a cowpoke. There were a handful of cowboys, gypsies, witches. Then, of course, our costumes.

C, the dreamer, wanted to be "The Ocean" this year. He is a water child; unfortunately we live in the desert. But he manages it fine between the bathtub, pools and an occasional hot tub, and, amazingly, doesn't mind getting pummeled by waves any time we make it to the ocean (which is every chance we get). He used to dress up anytime and all of the time, an activity that has sadly faded some in the past 6 months as he comes more into his body, more into this world and more into reality. I mean a character would occupy his soul and he would create an amazing and accurate look with a sarong. He would dress up as Robin Hood, Peter Pan, an Indian (I know, so un-PC), Jesus, a Masai warrior, a beggar, a pirate, and animals of all kinds, among other things. Being in an imaginary world was ALL he would do. Given his costume proclivity, I advised him that a decision on Halloween needed to be made by the beginning of October so that we would have time to make it. This, to the right, was his vision. And the hat is a wave...sometimes a tsunami. I love the fact that it's abstract; the other thing he was considering was being a mountain. He was thinking of big-ness. It was fun to find the little jewels to put onto this creation, and to have him draw a picture of his vision and then try to make it come to life...sort of our own little Project Runway. He found the fabric and we bought a couple of "toobs" of sea animals which, along with copious tiny and a couple of larger shells from the craft store, were attached with a hot glue gun, my new favorite thing in life. We painted some fabric glue on the bottom and sprinkled sand from our play box on the bottom of the cape to create the sea bed, and we had ourselves an ocean.

Last year he was a nature spirit. We (meaning Grandma) sewed a cape-like gown and put lots of nature-y things on it, such as leaves, feathers and flowers. We went to town with a hat and staff. The truth is that I'd have done none of it if it weren't for his wanting to do it, and my wanting to see what we could do. I want him and my younger boys to truly believe that anything is indeed possible, that you can make your dreams come to fruition. And I want them to feel supported, acknowledged, listened to. Before these last two years his costumes were much more standard fare--a pirate, a lion. But when he said "Nature Spirit," I thought "And So It Shall Be." And, of course, I love a challenge.

In some years past we've done a family theme just because it's fun and funny and cute. S, the middle one, wasn't interested in being anything related to his brother, in spite of so many cool things from the ocean--he wanted to do his own thing. His preschool class is called the Gnomes and he loves it. So, being that he is so very gnome-like, I thought he and my baby would look ridiculously cute as gnomes, and he went for it. My husband has a vast knowledge and love for fungi and we often go a-huntin' for mushrooms. I made a hat to look like the cap of an Amanita muscaria, and my body the white stem, and we were off. Hubby, a magical wizard, and it was complete. What was extra nice about this, is that it gave me the opportunity to connect in a direct and very special way with my middle son. He is the one I worry about most and hope that I make enough effort to let him know how loved he is. I fear him getting lost as a middle child, and have had nightmares about him literally getting lost-in the woods, in rivers. The fact that we had costumes that went together like peas and carrots, like PB & J, like gnomes and toadstools...well, that was extra special. We got to be special buddies and I got to honor both C and S in very different and very gratifying ways.

After a bit of trick or treating, back home we went and welcomed our treasured circle of friends in. I think that it being on a Saturday helped a lot as there was some down time for the kids, and time for us parents to get things ready. I was able to take time during the party to listen to my kids, to do crafts with our smaller guests, to visit, mingle and be present. It was good. We had enough of everything--food, drink, merriment, people and time. And the fact that the 'fall back' Daylight Savings change happened that night gave me a whole extra hour to clean up the next day! That and think about next Halloween. And for it all, I am so, so very thankful.

Jack O'Lantern, such a pretty sight.

2009-10-30T20:28:00.000-07:00

I think I've partially discovered why Halloween is so appealing to me. In thinking about the true meaning of the holiday, I have researched the origins of Halloween and Jack O'lanterns. Well, it all makes sense on a molecular level now, as the origins of it all are completely Celtic...as are mine. I sort of knew that--all of that druidy stuff-- but not entirely. The carving of gourds and other vegetables are more new worldly, as are gourds and most other vegetables of any worth, unless you're a big turnip fan. The term, however, of "Jack O'lantern" is tied to a Celtic folk tale of an alternately wise and foolish, fastidious and lazy lad, Jack, who invariably but in unclear ways traps the devil. When he eventually dies a natural and old-aged death, he ain't going to heaven (for he's made deals with Satan) and has been banished from Hell for his previous trapping shenanigans. The devil tosses him an ember, and old lazy/shrewd/clever Jack carves out a lantern from a turnip and puts the ember there and sets about to wander for a restless eternity.

Halloween itself is believed to be the Celtic New Year, the end of summer (Samhain) being a more important time for collecting the last remnants of the harvest, counting the bones, preparing for a dismal winter. It's not well separated from the Festival of the Dead, a time when the borderlands between the living and dead are quite thin and can be breached. People dressed as spirits to either attract or repel them, depending on your position. In a mysterious world these rituals surely proved some large measure of comfort.

Pumpkin carving is one of my favorite family Halloween activities, save for the scooping out of the slimy and stringy innards. C began carving his own last year when he was 6. I was definitely nervous letting him wield a knife. Actually, last year I told him he could carve his own with the intent of a group/supervised activity and the nearly exclusive use of the little "child-safe" saws that come in carving kits. As I was doing some preparations he went into the kitchen on his own and fetched a large knife and the next thing I knew he was going at it. I suppose that might prompt some to call child protective services...but he actually did quite well with it. He carved a simple face, seen here:

Really simple--one eye and one very large mouth. But he did it, including the top opening and the guts. He did his own again this year and carved a bird on a post that's in the shape of a C, and a witch seen here on the right. That's a sizeable improvement in a year. And that's another lovely and beautiful thing about a family tradition, is seeing the growth and development in your child from one pumpkin to the next. S, the 4 year old, had very definite ideas about how he wanted his face to look just slightly scary, but not too scary, and sort of ghosty-gobbliny-like. It's amazing how the degree of sharpness on the teeth convey a precise measure of sinisterness. Seamus completely supervised his father in the carving of this joyful but slightly eerie masterpiece:

earnest eyes, raised eyebrows, round nose, massive smile, and the creepy part--sharp teeth.

On behalf of the baby, F, I spent an inordinate amount of time carving out intricate letters in the Curlz MT font along with a shaved out goblin face in relief. I thought that the template picture was cute and it looked a little challenging. Thank goodness we'd ordered a pizza for our Friday night activity. Two hours and multiple dirtied implements later, we had this gem:

Seeds now separated and drying, most of the waxy goo peeled off of my hands, I'm ready for bed. The boys are now asking for pies and the like from the pumpkins, though as C told me, he doesn't even like pumpkin pie. I must confess it's not my favorite either. I am hoping the Jack-O's just get covered by snow and forgotten/composted until next spring...not a bad resting place for the weary little lad.

Haunted Gingerbread House

2009-10-29T07:00:00.000-07:00

Have you ever tried to make gingerbread? It is actually interesting and fun--if you are a baker type of person. I have tried various recipes and finally found one with the secret trick to make it relatively moist and pliable (though it still bakes up like a brick...thus making it suitable building material). It's melted shortening...which is sort of gross. But it does the trick beautifully, and moisturizes your hands while you roll and cut (wink, wink). When I've made it before without the grease, it is so dry it's not workable. I'm sure the dessication issue is in no small part due to the fact that we live in the high desert at 8200 feet elevation, which makes baking anything a challenge. But I love a challenge. Most cookies and un-leavened items may only require a bit more of whatever wet ingredient seems logical. Cakes and the like require advanced math to figure out adjustments, or use of the lovely Pie in the Sky cookbook (by Susan G. Purdy), which figures it all out for you and includes charts with every recipe for varying elevations up to 10,000 feet.

Part of the fun of holidays and home made is the opportunity to establish family traditions; it gives children predictability and anticipation, a yearly rhythm. Haunted gingerbread houses are a blast to make whether you tackle making the gingerbread yourself or buy a pre-made kit. My children look forward to this decadently fun activity every year, as of course, they partake in the decorator's dividend. I did the foundation work and C and S (ages 7 and 4) did nearly all of the decoration. S, who loves to be in the kitchen, helped with the gingerbread; after it cooled I glued the form of the house together and let it dry. I was able to use the extra gingerbread dough for both cutout extras (leaves, tombstones) and free form decor (ghosts and little ginger boys). I bought one bag of candy that had the pumpkins and candy corn, and then a few sprinkly type items for decoration. A little frosting/glue...and viola! We made a scene this year on a cake board and added landscaping. The trees are paper bags that were filled with sand and pebbles and twisted to make the trunk (you can use a bottle to make the correct trunk shape then remove and put in something weighty), then strips of the bag were cut and twisted for a creepy, bare deciduous tree. Salt dough ghosts were made with faces a la Sharpie; basically use a home made play dough recipe, mold into ghost shape with your little ones, and bake in the microwave for 30 seconds at a time until firm. A few collected golden/red aspen leaves for ambiance, and off we go! We made this a week ago or so, and the fence just keeps disappearing, corn by corn.

Here is last year's version--made with an all-inclusive kit (I had an infant at the time so went for major convenience).
A fun way to work up to the holiday--enjoy!

Gingerbread Recipe (enough for 1 house + a few acoutrement):
2 1/2 c flour
1/2 c sugar
1 1/2 t powdered ginger
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t nutmeg
1/2 t salt
1/2 c solid white vegetable shortening
1/2 c unsulphured molasses

Melt shortening in saucepan. Add sugar and molasses and mix well. Make sure the sugar is fully dissolved (this will take a while). Sift the flour, baking soda, nutmeg, salt and ginger together in a mixing bowl. Gradually stir the dry ingredients into the melted shortening mixture. Mix thoroughly. Shape into a ball. Roll the dough ball into a rectangle 1/4 " thick to cut cookies (you can roll directly onto the cookie sheet so you don't have to transfer the cutouts which can be large--a damp towel under the sheet will keep it from sliding). Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet in oven preheated to 375 deg F. for 13-15 min or until lightly browned.

Halloween...spooky...scary...terrifying?

2009-10-28T10:45:00.000-07:00

I love Halloween...I mean really love it: the food, the dressing up, the drama, the opportunity for craftiness of all kinds. And I've been thinking a lot about why...what does it mean? It is so apropos to the changing of the season, the approaching winter and darkness. It is a time to put on our masks and be brave, face demons, that may or may not be real. For children it is a time to test out different selves and an opportunity to be brave in the face of fear. It is a safe fear. Or at least it should be. It ought to be just a bit thrilling, with the promise of a reward for bravery (the candy, of course). Like so many of our holidays I feel that the true meaning has been lost in the commercialization. Buying the pre-made costume, the perfect replica outfit, the mass quantities of candy. Remember when it was truly home made? When you came up with something funny out of your closet? When perhaps your mom sewed something special? When you had the idea instead of perusing a catalog for an idea?

Our lovely little school respectfully requests that the children wear no masks, show no gore, and use home made costumes. It has taken the focus off of the terror and put it on the bravery aspect, the creativity aspect. They've also taken away the sugar focus and massive accumulation of loot and put the spotlight on little treats, the lovely little home made kinds, even the non-edible kinds. Don't get me wrong, I love me a Reese's now and again, but who doesn't love a caramel apple or a baked goody? So much more delicious and probably healthier, and made with loving hands. That kind of treat you can no longer give out because of the sicko who put razorblades into apples a while back. Children get their loot X-RAYED. It's so sad and so pathetic. We live in a place that is rural and not conducive to the usual trick or treating. I'm not even sure what folks in the 'big city' do for trick or treating these days--do you trust your neighbors, to what extent, how far? Thankfully our little town has a tradition of trick or treating on the plaza and most all of the merchants participate by doling out loot. But as darkness approaches, the age and gore index at the plaza increase exponentially. So we've been throwing an after party for a few years for the little ones to gather and spook each other with some thrilling measure of safety.

We make a little haunted house...well, really a closet. As my eldest gets older and into a more sophisticated phase of spookiness I am trying to walk a tightrope of thrill without terror. It is far, far too easy to find the terror. A walk down the well-stocked Halloween aisles of the local Wal-Mart is fairly terrifying. The grim reaper costumes, blood-laden masks and various implements of terror abound. I don't take my kids down those rows, for multiple reasons. But as I look at the horrific costumes for children I am deeply saddened. I cannot believe that the desensitization to violent images is healthy for a developing psyche. It is impossible to watch prime time television without being assaulted by commercials for violent television shows or films (CSI, Saw VI). A little green goblin-okay. A spooky ghost-cool. A little witch-fun and cute. Jason with the hockey mask--why? And don't even get me started on the prosti-tot costumes they put out for girls. Does a bee have to be sexy?

C wants to be "The Ocean" for Halloween. I just love it-he came up with it, and had a vision of what it should look like. We went to Hobby Lobby in the big city and got all of the stuff to make it. He picked out the fabric, some shells, some little critters and with the help of Grandma the master seamstress, we indeed, made the ocean. And a hat with a big wave. I'll post a picture if I can figure out how. But the process was a blast. We decorated it together. And I'm sure he will move around in that costume is if he is actually a large body of water. Last year he was a nature spirit and occupied the role completely.

The little ones, ages 4 and 19 months are going to be gnomes, daddy a wise wizard and I a large magical mushroom. We will be at school on the Friday before Halloween creating a fun, ever so slightly mysterious place for the children to explore another self, to be brave in the face of fear, and to receive rewards for their cleverness. I am putting together our little haunted closet as we speak, walking the line between spooky and scary and terrifying. I can't wait to see how it all plays out.

Slow Parenting

2009-10-27T20:30:00.000-07:00

Now that I have 7 1/3 years of experience as a parent (I guess it is 12 years, cumulative), I see that the more I try to push forward in time, thought and development of my self and my children, the more I must let go, back off, relax. You see, I have gone from being a left-brained, controlled, organized professional with an agenda and goals and perfection, to being a mom. I started off as that organic-pushing, exclusively breastfeeding hyper-conscientious mom that could easily hover. I can see how and why people become that. Thankfully, I was graced with a decidedly right-brained first born son. This is the first entry in a blog I'm going to write about what an incredible gift this has been. I gave birth to Peter Pan.

I mean this in the most loving and respectful way. He gets a bit of a rap, Pete does, for being a slacker, avoidant, irresponsible. But what he teaches us is how to see the world through a child's eye, for it is truly and completely different than how we adults perceive and relate to others and the world. I see that in the wonders of the internet we can answer any question we have, any question a child has, in a literal instant. We can answer the timeless "Why is the sky blue?" with discussion of atmosphere and light scattering. We have 24 hour access to information and can bombard ourselves with it. A child exposed to this constant information, constant imagery, constant implantation of idea, constant stimulation will have little time to develop his own questions, his own visions, his own ideas. His creativity.

As I began my parenting journey in June 2002 with the birth of my eldest, C, I read so many books on how to be the right parent. "Just tell me what I need to know, what I need to do and I'll do it!" Doing things to nourish my child, allow him to flourish, and absolutely, positively not harm him. Of course, I could not achieve perfection. I yell. I get angry, impatient. I am distracted. I was horribly torn between my drive and desire to work at my profession and the feeling I needed to be with my son. But then when I was with him alone at home, I felt isolated, unimportant, frustrated, depressed. But I digress....

I'm approaching middle age at what feels like light speed, and watching my 3 boys grow in that way that seems achingly difficult from moment to moment when I'm constantly being asked of my services and energy and time. Butts to be wiped, string to be cut, tape to be dispensed, fights to be refereed, cardboard to be cut, games to be played, tricks to be applauded, teeth to be brushed, nails to be clipped, nightmares to be soothed, messes to be cleaned, colds to be nursed.... It is impossible to engage in anything else of substance while parenting--a 30 year habit I've had to break. I find it incredibly difficult to allow myself to live in the moment--in their moment, and to let go of a need--a compulsion, really--to be productive. I've been at home with my boys off and on since becoming a parent, trying on different work arrangements for size. I have a good balance now, working in my profession part time, during 'school hours' and largely being available for my sons. I can drive on field trips and bake for the festivals. This has allowed me to fulfill both of the deep needs I have to work and to be present for my kids. I consider myself incredibly lucky--my husband's income allows me this luxury. And when I step back, as cliche as this sounds, I can't believe how quickly it's all flown by. And I know that the needs they have now will fade quickly, as will their need for me and my advice.

What C has taught me is to enjoy the moment. He has demanded slow parenting. Stop and cut out the circle. He has had an incredible capacity to appreciate beauty from a very young age and will stop life to appreciate it. He has reminded me that if you live your life now and you'll enjoy it again when you remember it in the future. So many 'time-saving' devices and prepackaged foods short change our soul. Who's time is being saved? And for what? A particular gift C has given me is an introduction to Waldorf-inspired education. I was reluctant, judgmental and skeptical of this approach. It became clear in preschool, at the tender age of 4, that he was not going to fit into the usual mold. One day when I picked him up from the very sweet local preschool, where my friend's kids attended and I fit in well, and where he'd been having issues integrating into the high-energy boyish play, he told me with a heavy heart that "they'd be better off without me there."

Now, I do not intend this blog to be a debate on the right-ness, or righteousness, for that matter, of Waldorf education. I merely want to point out the positives it has had on my life and my parenting. And I'd have never gotten there if it weren't for C. What I have relished in this journey is the emphasis it has on home made. I've taken up knitting again, a craft my mother wanted me to learn though I quickly dropped in childhood. It is expected that foods will be wholesome and preferably home made. Baked goods will have a minimum of sugar. There is an absence of media images and movie characters are not discussed. Screen time is strongly discouraged during the school week. The children are encouraged to come up with their own images. They don't use worksheets or coloring books--the children create the page.

What else his school does is honor childhood. It slows down exposure to many forces in our culture that push children to do things before they are ready (but allows for those ready to move forward). It preserves the magic of that time. This is not in leiu of becoming responsible as there is much that is expected of the children, including chores, tasks and projects from a young age. But they are given time to blossom at their own pace. This has been invaluable as I have entered the realm of reading with my eldest (a topic for another post). But in this moment in time, with melting ice caps, wars on multiple fronts, dying soldiers, vanishing species, and children not being left behind, I relish taking a step back. I remember when C was 4 1/2 he devised a plan to save the polar bears and was intent on writing the president to let him know that with plenty of tape and glue their homes could be saved! What an incredibly anxiety for a preschooler. I now focus on what I can make beautiful, lovely and enjoyable in my home. I can relish that which has been made at home. Ironically I shunned taking Home Ec in 7th grade--I was on a different track. And, indeed I was. I went to medical school. I played sports. But the value of a slow, safe, sweet, beautiful home where creativity is fostered, play and laziness are allowed (interspersed with responsibility, of course), children aren't over-scheduled, is now my pursuit. Of course, I'll never be perfect, I've realized that. But my child who would not grow up at what was the proscribed pace is my inspiration...and just wait til I tell you about the other two.