SFO Mom

Funeral Etiquette for Teens

2012-01-28T11:13:00.000-05:00

This morning Middle Sister told us that one of her friends' grandfathers had died. She was, understandably, sad for her friend, since she certainly knows what it's like to lose a grandfather. I told her to let me know when the funeral arrangements were made, and that if she (and other friends) wanted a ride to the wake, I'd be happy to help with that.

So here's the big question: I've met this kid's parents maybe twice. Do I go in with the kids to the funeral home, or just wait outside? Do I go through the whole "condolences and procession past the casket" thing when the only family member I really know is a teenage boy? (Awkward...) Or do I go in and just stand in the back and wait for all the kids to be done? At this point, I'm not sure what my daughter wants, or if she even knows.

In a completely unrelated matter, Middle Sister's friends all think it's weird that we say "wake." Apparently, here in South Jersey, which is a completely different country than North Jersey, where I grew up, they say "viewing." Even if it's a closed casket. (So when she texted them with my offer of a ride to the funeral home, they all said "What's a wake?")

What "Extracurricular" Means

2012-01-23T16:21:00.000-05:00

Last week when I was substituting for the day at Little Brother's school, I took the opportunity to tell his teachers that he'll be having some late nights this week. It's Tech Week now for Pippin; the show opens Friday.

Basically, I wanted to let them know that he'd be up late--because I want to know if this is affecting his behavior and work at school. But they thought I had something else up my sleeve.

"I can change the deadlines for some of his assignments," one teacher offered. She seemed surprised when I turned that down. I told her that we'd make sure the homework was done before we headed out for rehearsals.

He's been handling 3 rehearsals a week (some of them running until after 10 PM) for more than a month now. But this week it's going to be every night, and I didn't know how that would play out in the classroom.

Apparently I am in the minority here. These teachers seem to be accustomed to parents who expect that academic requirements be adjusted when extracurriculars get extra demanding. Around here, it's homework first. Sports, Scouts, or other non-academic pursuits, worthy though they may be, do not excuse any of the kids from their school obligations.

Tales from Substitute Land

2012-01-19T11:17:00.000-05:00

I spent yesterday filling in for the librarian/computer teacher at Little Brother's school. Overall, it was a good day. Only one child cried.

The really cute story I read with the first-graders

Here are some of the highlights:

The day began with a 20-minute stint in Morning Car Line, or as a friend of mine calls it, "Coddling Line." Somebody's got to help the 3-year-olds climb out of the Hummers. Seriously. Those things are so high off the ground that a 3-year-old can see right under the car without bending over. It was cold, but not raining, so that's as good as it gets in January.

It's an Eighth-Grade Privilege to lead the morning prayers over the PA system. I'm guessing that yesterday's prayer leader has been cramming for a science test, because I swear she began with the words, "O Jesus, through the Molecular Heart of Mary..."

My first class was one of the 4-year-old pre-kindergarten groups. I was nervous, because they were going to spend the time in the computer room, and I'm not as Mac-friendly as the librarian. Also, I'd never seen the program they were going to be using. She did show me how to log in to the web-based activity, and that mini-lesson turned out to be a very useful thing. One child somehow logged herself out of the program no fewer than five times in a 25-minute class period. Each time, I had to enter a username and password and click through a few things to restart the activity.

When that group came up the stairs to the library and struggled out of their winter coats (the pre-K is in a small schoolhouse across the parking lot) the kids proudly showed me their name tags. "Are those for me?" I asked them. "That's a really big help, because I never met you before!" Then I told them my name, and the aide said, "They can just call you Mrs. S." Upon hearing that, one little girl repeated my name. I turned to the aide and told her, "Kids usually get it just fine." Deal with it, lady. I do. Every day. It's not THAT hard.

One of the perks of teaching the 4-year-old class is the Reception Line. As the kids lined up to leave the library, a whole bunch of them stopped to give me hugs.

Without fail, there were quite a few kids in each of the 6 classes I taught yesterday who were worried about the librarian. How sweet is that? I made sure to let them know that she was actually there in the building that day working on some technical stuff with the principal.

Some weirdnesses: I had back-to-back first-grade classes, and while I was deep into reading a great story with the first group, the second class walked into the library 5 minutes early. HUH? Now I have to figure out what to do with 40 kids? I made the teacher wait while I finished the story with the first bunch, then sent them back to their tables for their library books. Then I guess she had a change of heart because she offered to deliver the other class back to their teacher. She still wound up with a few free bonus minutes, and I'm guessing her colleague lost a few (not to mention MY moment of panic there. Substitute Teacher's motto: never let 'em see you sweat.)

My first afternoon class came in noisily, followed by the music teacher whose class they'd just left. Apparently they'd misbehaved in there, and he wanted to let me know that they stood ready to lose a privilege next week if they didn't shape up and behave in the library. But they were good. It took a little to settle them down, but once they all had books in their hands, they were busy reading when the librarian walked in and heard nothing but pages turning. "They're so QUIET!" (Substitute Teacher's motto: don't put up with much. A few well-directed glares work too.)

In the last class of the day, I had one child crying because of some misunderstanding the day before about a book to be reserved. It took a little bit to get that worked out, especially since some other student had checked out the book in question earlier in the day. Maybe it's uncharitable to say this, but there are some kids whose tears just don't affect me. This kid is one of them. I talked another one out of tattling, which is something that I just do not deal with. That's really difficult when I've got the second graders, who are tattling pros by now. (Substitute Teacher's motto: be immune to tears, tattling and puppy-dog eyes.)

All in all, though, it was a good day.

Twenty Years Ago Today

2012-01-15T07:00:00.000-05:00

...my older son was born. As with all new parents, there was a learning curve. We had to figure out that he wouldn't break when we dressed him, that the 5-second rule applies, that you need to wait that extra second after a toddler falls to see if he's really hurt or if he'll just pick himself up and keep going, that not every sore throat is strep, and that if you intend to keep your sanity, you're going to have to hide The Little Engine That Could.

image credit

We learned that we didn't doom his academic career by waiting until he was 4 to send him to pre-K (3 afternoons a week), that the policy of "if you don't like the sport you don't have to sign up again after this season is over" is a good one, that Boy Scouting is well worth the time and effort, and that despite his nearly-nocturnal lifestyle, he can still manage to make the Dean's List.

We've been letting him go a little at a time ever since his first day of kindergarten when he was the kid tossing "gotta go!" over his shoulder as he ran to line up at the door. But he'll always be a part of us.

Happy 20th birthday, Big Brother!

What a difference a day makes

2012-01-11T12:17:00.000-05:00

Teenagers. They're frustrating one minute, but inspire your awe and pride the next. Since I vented yesterday about that little attitude problem I had with my daughter, it's only right that I commend the heart and friendship she exhibited today.

Even more amazing is that all of this happened while she was very far from feeling her best. She was feeling pretty punky this morning, but in the absence of a fever or migraine or stomach-flu symptoms, I sent her off to school. Just after 8:30 (less than 45 minutes after her arrival) she texted me to come pick her up, that she was in the nurse's office. Yup, stomach flu.

True to form, she opened up during the short drive home. (Kids always open up in the car!) Apparently a good friend of hers is very upset with her mom. The friend is an only child; Mom's a single parent; Dad is remarried and lives in a nearby city with his new wife and 2 small children from that marriage. And Mom doesn't drive, but she works long hours, until late at night sometimes. My daughter's friend feels like she gets no attention from her mom, that her mom doesn't care about her, that she should move in with her dad. She is either alone from just after school until late in the evening or with an aunt, uncle and young cousin with whom she doesn't get along well.

I observed to Middle Sister that her friend probably wasn't complaining to her all the time in order to get Middle Sister to solve the problem; that she probably just wanted someone to listen. And I commiserated with her friend that it must be tough to be all alone all evening with no way to get anywhere, and all of that.

A few minutes after we arrived home, my daughter was set up with her ginger ale and crackers and cell phone. And then she asked if we could do something for her friend, if her friend could come here after school a couple of times a week and have dinner with our family so she wouldn't be alone so much.

I told her that would be fine, as long as I knew in advance when we'd have a dinner guest and if it wasn't on the nights when Little Brother has rehearsal, because we'd have to drive this girl home after dinner and that won't work on rehearsal nights.

And this is why I do what I do. She may be 16, but as her friend's situation clearly demonstrates, 16-year-olds need parents around too. Families with a stay-at-home parent make sacrifices so that can happen. I know that not every family is able to do this, but I am very grateful that my family can and does, and that, in her own way, my daughter knows that it's a good thing.

A P.T. Barnum Kind of Morning

2012-01-10T11:31:00.000-05:00

P. T. Barnum reportedly observed, "There is a sucker born every minute."

Today, that would be me.

This is the part where I get to eat those words I dished out last night when I wrote about how I'm happy to be able to do something for my daughter. Because this morning, she made it onto the school bus on time, but her laptop didn't. A few minutes after she left, I got a text message:

"Laptop..."

"For real?" I responded. Then, locating the laptop near the top of the stairs, I texted her, "I see it. Where to met?"

"? Where do you think" is what I got back.

Really? You want to smart off at me when I'm doing you a favor? The laptop is a school-issued, required piece of equipment that serves as both textbook and notebook in most of her classes. So unlike the consequences she might suffer if she left her literature textbook home, she's basically unprepared for every single class if she doesn't have the laptop.

So I rescued her. Again. She forgets the laptop fairly often.

And after the smart answers in today's text message, plus the generous dose of attitude she showed me when I expressed some frustration at having to wait for her so I could deliver the computer, this might be the last time I bring it over there. Yes, school is only a mile away. Yes, I was home at the time. But, oh well--maybe this kind of a favor, unlike a hot, nutritious dinner for a student involved in several after-school activities, isn't the kind of favor that does anyone any favors.

My sister calls me a sucker for dropping everything to deliver forgotten computers, textbooks, lunches, and track shoes to my daughter at school. Maybe I am. And maybe I'd be a better parent if I were less of a sucker. I'd rather she misses the bus and is sure to have all her stuff than making the bus and expecting a speedy delivery.

Next time she can just face the consequences, and then maybe, just maybe, there won't be too many next times after that.

The sucker has left the building.

Signs of the Times

2012-01-09T07:39:00.000-05:00

Between 9 PM yesterday and 5 AM today, 2 different signs popped up in my house.

Here's the first. Middle Sister tends to get a little territorial about "her" green tea. She's not happy that someone else has been drinking it. So to protect it from poachers, she decorated the jug.

Then I woke up to find the powder-room curtains draped over a chair in the family room and this sign on the bathroom door.

Here's the reason for the sign.

What do the cool kids think?

2012-01-06T16:55:00.001-05:00

Apparently I am once again the butt of teenage jokes. Just like when I was a teenager. I wasn't a cool kid then, and I'm far from being a cool mom now.

All this came up because I got an iPhone for Christmas. Little Brother immediately begged for my iPod touch, and I am sharing that with him (though the iTunes account is mine alone, so I am in control of any downloads.) The kids are passing the iPod around to play doodle jump.

Big Brother said, "Mom, you have 2 full folders of Catholic apps on here!"

Middle Sister chimed in that when she told her friend that I had an iPhone, that friend said something about how I had probably filled it with Catholic apps.

At least I'm predictable...

You'd think that at my age I wouldn't let this bother me. But you'd be wrong.

This is why I am so reluctant to share my technology with my kids. I don't like to be teased. And apparently, in their world, having Catholic apps is tease-worthy.

Sure, in the scheme of things this is not very major. It makes me wonder, though, if who I am, if how I live, does justice to what I believe. Do I draw strength from my faith to live my day-to-day life in a different way, a better way, than I would without that faith?

Because if all those kids see are the apps, and not what's really behind them, then I have a lot of work to do.

Epiphany

2012-01-05T17:49:00.000-05:00

The Feast of the Epiphany of the Lord will be celebrated on Sunday, January 8 this year.

That means you've got time to plan ahead; get some holy water and some blessed chalk (your priest or deacon can bless it for you) and prepare to bless your home this weekend.

A time-honored Catholic tradition is the blessing of the home at Epiphany. We remember the visit of the Magi to the home of Joseph, Mary and Baby Jesus in Bethlehem.

LEADER: In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

LEADER: The Word became flesh and made his dwelling place among us. It is Jesus who enlightens our hearts and homes with his love. It is Jesus who is our source of hope, joy and comfort. May all who enter this home find the light and love of Jesus Christ. Let us listen to the word of God:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling place among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory of an only Son coming from the Father, filled with enduring love.

ALL: Our Father, who art in Heaven…

LEADER: Lord God of heaven and earth, you revealed your only son to every nation by the guidance of a star. Bless this house and all who live here. May the light of Jesus shine from this house so that others may find their way to your light and your love. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

We sprinkle holy water in each room of the home.

We conclude by using the blessed chalk to mark, above the doorway, the initials of the three Magi, surrounded by the numbers of the current year and separated by small crosses: 20+K+M+B+12

The above blessing service is the one that is used by members of our parish. This year the Secular Franciscans prepared 450 blessing kits that included this prayer, a container of holy water and a piece of blessed chalk. It looks like we'll need to prepare even more for next year--these went quickly!

Here is another very simple prayer that you can use to bless your home. A friend shared it on Facebook:

Heavenly Father, walk through my house, and take away all worries and illness, and please watch over and heal my family and friends. Bring quiet where there is chaos, bring light where there is darkness and put love in our hearts. Amen.

Finally, Esther shares a beautiful home blessing service.

Take your pick--and make it a family tradition to bless your home this (and every) Epiphany!

Catching On

2012-01-03T08:25:00.001-05:00

I'm a sucker for those "spend a year doing a certain thing" kind of books. In recent years, I've read Julie & Julia, one where a woman decides to take every shred of advice dished out by Oprah Winfrey for an entire year, and two cookbooks written by someone who used her slow cooker every day for a year--among others.

Kind of makes me wish that I had something I was willing to do for a whole year that was interesting enough to get a book deal out of it.

Heather King's book Shirt of Flame describes a year spent reading and discovering the life of St. Therese of Lisieux.

I'm only halfway through this book, and I am SO hooked. And this is a saint to whom I don't take easily. A priest once described her in a homily as "immature, fussy, and a bit of a drama queen" and I'm inclined to agree. I read her autobiography as a teenager, and I think it appealed to me more then than it does now that I'm fortymumble years old and most of my idealism has melted away amid the cares and worries and chores of taking care of my husband and family.

I don't ordinarily recommend a book I haven't even finished, but King's chronicle of her own spiritual journey as well as Therese's is an absolutely compelling read. Each chapter ends with a prayer, and so far I've wanted to bookmark almost all of them.

Unfortunately, I can't remember where I first heard about this book, so I can't properly thank the person who told me about it. I figured, instead, that I'd pay it forward by recommending it here. Don't miss this book. It's not big, it's not complicated, and it really is worth it.

A Peaceful Start

2012-01-01T08:42:00.000-05:00

We rang in the year as we usually do, with 4 out of 5 of us visiting Middle Sister's BFF's family. In this case, BFF really does mean forever; the girls are 16 and have known each other since they were 2 1/2! It was a low-key time, just hanging around, laughing, watching the Twilight Zone marathon, eating, and heading out the door at 12:01 for a really impressive fireworks display.

I think it's been a whole year since I've stayed up until 1 AM. And the Hot Flash Express rolled through at 6:30, mercifully an hour or so late, though still earlier than I'd like.

I enjoyed a quiet start to the day; the Big Kids both stayed at their friends' houses (Big Brother rings in the New Year with a friend he's known since kindergarten) and Little Brother is still asleep. Cup of tea in hand, I had some uninterrupted time for morning prayer and the newspaper.

Then the sun came up and I moved over to the chair by the window to watch the cardinals, mourning doves and sparrows. I got a new bird feeder for Christmas--it looks a lot like this:

Basically, it's a basketball-sized cage around the bird feeder tube. It's taken them a few days, but the birds are finally getting the hang of it. And having my desk near the window lets me get a good view. I like that the big bully birds (starlings and blue jays) can't get in, but the sparrows and other small birds can. Haven't seen any snowbirds this winter, but then again, we haven't seen any snow--and that's not necessarily a problem.

Christmas vacation is almost over; today, there's noon Mass; tomorrow our little family business will hold its annual meeting and review, and then on Tuesday, it's back to work and school for everyone!

For right now, I'll enjoy my perch at the desk where I can watch my bird feeder. 7 sparrows, no waiting--and the starling has been foiled again!

Happy New Year! Peace and all good!

Last Week of 2011: Recap

2011-12-31T07:57:00.000-05:00

Well, it's been an interesting week.

One week ago today we were loading the car for my husband's Big Family Christmas Eve Celebration and Pierogi Festival. It was a busy, loud, good day. I got a kick out of the little kids: these are the children of the cousins who were little kids when I first met my husband! Although we don't all get together much, the kids were quite sociable and comfortable around the adults and each other--what a credit to their parents.

My mother-in-law came back here with us after Christmas Eve and spent Christmas with us. As we have done for the past several years, we spent Christmas at home. Now that there are teenagers in the house, we let the kids open gifts as they wake up instead of waiting for everyone. The folk group played at the 11:00 Mass, and we had a FULL choir area. I don't think we could have fit one more person in there, and the 5 guitars had a lot to do with that. What a testament to the group, ranging from age 62 to the 5-year-olds who come along with their parents! We're there because we love what we do. And on Christmas, everybody sings along. There's no better way to give God the glory.

After church we came home to prepare dinner and just hang out. Big Brother's girlfriend came over to have dinner with us. We had a gift for her, and I had gotten her a funky stocking and put some fun stocking stuffers in with the gift as well.

On Christmas: The Day After, we dropped off my mother-in-law and then headed to my parents' house. It was a full house with both my siblings and their families, my parents, my great-aunt, my uncle, one cousin, and one niece's boyfriend. The day featured lots of presents, lots of laughing, lots of food, and lots of cousins playing card games like "Old Maid," "Go Fish," and "B.S."

Then it was Middle Sister's birthday, a big chunk of which my husband spent in the Verizon store procuring iPhones for me and Middle Sister. That's a gift neither of us thought we'd ever receive and I've been having some fun with it--though there's plenty still to be learned. I made her a giant cookie cake AND an apple pie. She spent some time with her friends, and after dinner, our neighbors came over for dessert.

TheDad had been talking all week about going to Pittsburgh; no one knows why he wanted to go to Pittsburgh in December, but he did, so we did. I refused to leave the house until he'd made a hotel reservation--there was no way I was going to play the "No Room at the Inn" game after driving for 5+ hours. We drove across Pennsylvania, with a detour to Shady Maple Smorgasbord for lunch. There was all the usual bickering that driving 5+ hours with 3 kids involves. For a few minutes there I thought there might be bloodshed in the buffet line (thanks, boys...)

TheDad's new GPS totally failed Pittsburgh. Maybe the highways are just too close together, I don't know, but we were driving on "unnamed roads" a lot of the time, according to TomTom, and spent a good bit of time being told to make a U-turn when we were in a cattleshoot of Jersey barriers on a four-lane highway.

I found a Penzeys Spice Shop 5 blocks from our hotel. Look at all the cool stuff I got my hands on there! They had 5 kinds of cinnamon (I restrained myself and only got 3).

We went to a Vietnamese restaurant for lunch and had Pho. I'm glad I picked up some lemongrass at Penzeys, because I want to learn to make this soup!

We spent the afternoon at the Carnegie Science Center (consensus: it's cool, but Franklin Institute is way better) and then took a ride up and down the Monongahela Incline.

And bright and early yesterday morning, it was back on the road again to head home. We were back by 3 and I've got plenty of laundry to keep me busy all day. Though I love the Hampton Inn's comfortable beds, it was wonderful to be back at home in my own.

I really am a homebody. It was an enjoyable trip but I do love being in my own home.

We'll ring in the New Year with friends, as usual, at their home. I look forward to it, except for the staying-up-late part. I turn into a pumpkin at about 9 PM.

Today, besides laundry, I'll be cooking or baking something to bring along with us tonight--as soon as I figure out what that will be!

Except for that 3-day detour to Pittsburgh, this has been our usual Christmas vacation. I'm kind of looking forward to Tuesday when they're all back at work or school and the house is quiet once again.

Waiting in the Wings

2011-12-24T06:58:00.000-05:00

Today's the day! Before we leave for the Christmas Eve festivities, Little Brother will place all the figures in the Nativity scene.

Except, of course, for the Three Kings. Those guys get to hang out behind the stable until Epiphany.

This morning, I unboxed and unwrapped all the figures and lined them up so they're ready to take their places.

The scene is set...it's almost time...places, everyone!

Sometimes I feel like Clark W. Griswold

2011-12-23T17:18:00.000-05:00

As Christmas gets closer, I look forward to it less. I know that, like Clark, I "set standards that no family activity can live up to." So by the 23rd of December, I've kind of had enough of it all already.

I'm anticipating what I know will be difficult moments. I've got 3 days of family festivities coming up: Christmas Eve with my husband's huge extended family, Christmas Day at home, just us and my mother-in-law, and Christmas: The Day After with my family in the Great White North.

There will be people with whom I've never really gotten along well, and we'll have to make nice.

There will be people who've hurt me, and I'll have to pretend I've let it go.

There will be people who like to give me "career advice" because my kids are "too old" for me to still stay at home with them.

There will be an extremely shaggy dog that sets off my asthma, and I'll have to be extra careful about that, because I have to sing at church on Christmas Day and I don't want to sound like Bonnie Tyler in "Total Eclipse of the Heart."

It's not going to be a picture-perfect three days by any stretch of the imagination. To be honest, I'm dreading them. That shot in the arm of Christmas spirit I got from our Festival of Lessons & Carols? It's pretty much worn off. I feel less and less like celebrating, and more and more like I've got to just grit my teeth and get through it.

(It's for the kids, after all. And I think one of them still believes.)

All of that does nothing to shake that feeling I've got right now, that "we're standing at the threshold of Hell." The feeling that this one, as bad as I am expecting it to be, is going to be better than the one next year. It's all downhill from here, for various reasons, and I'm not feeling up for it.

Like Clark, I want it perfect. It's never going to live up to that dream, and I know it. Let's face it: the very first Christmas sure didn't live up to Mary's dreams. Maybe that's what Christmas is all about...

Still to be done

2011-12-21T06:05:00.000-05:00

I'm not done shopping--for my husband's gift, the kids' gifts, and food for Christmas dinner. Not to mention gifts for Little Brother's teacher and bus driver.

Nothing is wrapped.

I haven't even started baking, and my cookie recipe makes at least 10 dozen and takes at least a full afternoon.

Little Brother has a rehearsal tonight, so it will be another late night (that makes 4 in a row!)

Last night, though, I spent two hours sitting at the front of a church with my guitar, and my son and his bass, and a children's choir that included Little Brother, and various string, woodwind, brass and percussion instruments, and a group of about 30 amazing singers, one extremely talented pianist, and an awesome music director who kept us all together. We celebrated a "Festival of Lessons and Carols" with beautiful music and nine readings from the Old and New Testaments.

Four hours before the festival began, I still wasn't sure if I could play one of the songs. It was unbelievably difficult. I spent part of the morning transposing it. Then I practiced, and practiced again.

I won't say it was perfect by any means, but I'm happy that I got through it decently enough. What a challenge!

Last night was a gift. 50 people shared their talents last night--and for many nights before at rehearsals. Every one of those people could have been doing something else, like Christmas shopping, or homework, or watching football games, or sleeping...but this is what they chose to do.

I suspect that all 50, if asked, would respond the same way I do: it was definitely worth it. So worth it.

The rest of it will happen. If I had it to do over again, I'd put off the shopping and the baking and the housecleaning (who am I kidding--I'm always ready to put off housecleaning). I'd put it off in a second to be able to be a part of an experience like that.

What a wonderful early Christmas gift. I am tired, proud, and very grateful.

Enough Garbage Already

2011-12-18T15:42:00.000-05:00

In my continuing quest to win the Mother of the Year award, I've been having a bit of a battle of wills with Little Brother. He's 9 and really feeling his oats these days. And I've pretty much had it.

He's the one who's home more often than not, so he's the one who gets the chores that fall into the category that a certain camp director I once knew termed "Duties As Assigned." Basically, that means "do whatever the person in charge asks you to do." With a shortage of teenagers around here these past few weeks (Middle Sister's been involved in the play at school), the only one around to help with Duties As Assigned is Little Brother.

There has been much moaning, groaning, weeping, wailing, and let's not forget the gnashing of teeth, about how he's expected to do all the chores around here. Must be why he's so at home in the theatre; he certainly does have a flair for the dramatic.

Last night we were all home for dinner for the first time in several weeks, and we got up from the table and opened up the boxes of Christmas ornaments to decorate the tree. That done, we remembered that there was still a kitchen to clean up. TheDad asked all the kids to help me get that done.

Two teenagers headed in and got water running and started emptying clean dishes from the dishwasher. I handed Little Brother the silverware basket, and he began removing forks and placing them on the still-unwiped table where I'd carved the roast chicken earlier.

That's when it got ugly, so I just sent him to bed, which involved me spending the next half hour repeating, "Good night, Little Brother" until he finally gave up (Curses! Foiled again by Mom's Broken-Record Parenting Technique.)

After lunch today, I asked Big Brother to please take out the kitchen trash. He said, "OK" and started to get up. Little Brother chimed in, "GOOD! I don't have to do all the chores around here for once."

You know where this is going, right? Here's what I said next: "Big Brother, sit down. Little Brother, please take out the kitchen trash."

That had better be the end of it.

Making a List, Praying It Twice

2011-12-14T08:17:00.000-05:00

So when you've got a huge list of people who need your prayers how do you handle it? Do you write them all down so you can remember them? Do you try to keep track of them all in your head? Do you make a list on your smartphone?

And is it copping out if you just pray: "Lord, you know all the people I care about and have promised to keep in my prayers. You know their needs and their concerns. Help them to know that you are with them in their struggles, and may your will be done."

That's pretty much where I am right now. So I hope that will be sufficient, because I am out of words.

Advent: Sublime, Ridiculous and Sentimental

2011-12-12T08:16:00.000-05:00

In honor of Gaudete Sunday, I brought out the Christmas decorations yesterday. I used only about half of what I usually do, though I will bring other things out of the box if my family asks for them. (At this point, I'm wondering what decorations are holiday "musts" for them, and which ones can go.)

My collection of handmade Christmas trees surrounds the empty manger.

We've had the Advent wreath and the empty stable out since the first Sunday of Advent. The trees went up over the weekend.

This is our Advent wreath. A couple of years ago, my mother-in-law found this wreath among her Christmas decorations. It's the one they used when my husband and his brother were kids. We'll use it until those plastic greens fall apart (each year we lose a little more of it.)

That's really what Christmas decorations are all about--the sentimental value (like each and every tree pictured with my manger). My most precious Christmas ornaments are not the pricey Belleek ball or the Lenox "baby's first Christmas" giraffe. The ones I treasure most are the popsicle-stick picture frames with my Big Kids' pre-K pictures in them. The kids' favorites are the ceramic pierogi and the penguins, and they fight to see whose penguin can claim the highest spot on the tree. It wouldn't be Christmas decorating without that battle, which is why our tree did not go up on "Pink Candle Sunday" this year. Big Brother will be home by the weekend, and we'll get it done then.

Here's one item that's not going to last beyond this holiday season: Snowman In a Bowl.

Little Brother picked this up at Lunch with Santa on Saturday. It's a substance with the consistency of egg white. You pour it out of the little snowman jar. Eyes and nose come out of the jar too. The jar lid is the little hat, which you then pop into the bowl. 12 hours after opening this, it's still jiggly and viscuous. I'm glad I gave him a dollar-store bowl that I don't mind sacrificing, because I do not know what is IN this stuff, but it's pretty disgusting, especially when Little Brother constantly picks up and relocates the hat.

From the Department of "How Did THAT Get There?"

2011-12-11T08:28:00.002-05:00

Things found on the living-room corner hutch while decorating for Christmas:

--one giant oak leaf, almost too big to fit in a Ziplock gallon-size bag
--two complete decks of cards
--the three of hearts from a third deck of cards
--one guitar pick
--six pieces of Lego U-Build Battleship
--one sea shell (clam)
--one nonfunctional laptop battery
--two Cub Scout awards
--one penny
--one "little black book" of Lent reflections
--one big black patch with a white star and Indian chief pictured on it (I'm guessing this belongs to one of my Scouts?)
--one video camera
--program from MAME
--Middle Sister's certificate from her school's fall Honors Assembly
--one blue plastic frog
--and a black-and-white plastic chicken foot, broken off some long-tossed action figure.

This is, of course, in addition to all the stuff that's supposed to be on those shelves: photos of all the cousins, our framed wedding invitation, and a statue of St. Joseph. That cabinet is my living room's very own, very dusty Black Hole.

Peace and All Good

2011-12-11T07:11:00.002-05:00

Peace.
It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work.

It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart.

What an appropriate reflection for this very busy time of year.

Thanks, Dawn!

Spelling Errors

2011-12-10T08:47:00.000-05:00

Little Brother sorted through the mail after school yesterday and found some Christmas cards to open. After I reminded him to save the envelopes for me so I can check return addresses and remove the cancelled stamps for the mission collection, he got busy opening the cards and inspecting the photos he found inside.

But since he wasn't just shredding the envelopes like he usually does when he opens mail, he took a few seconds to notice the names and addresses.

"Mom, guess what? On both of these cards, our last name is spelled right!"

When you've got a last name like ours, that's a pretty tall order.

I mentioned on Facebook that Little Brother is proofreading all incoming Christmas cards. That got some interesting reactions, ranging from suggestions that people sending cards to my house should write illegibly to disguise the errors, to the declaration from my sister that she'll spell it her way no matter what. She's been spelling it consistently WRONG for almost 21 years, being a little extra generous with Z's in an already consonant-heavy name.

One of my aunts, a first-grade teacher, remarked that Little Brother should keep a list of the people who've spelled it right so he can give them a special sticker as a reward.

That brought me right back to the days when I was teaching first-grade Spanish, before Little Brother was born. Each teacher in that school, no matter what the subject, was to make and use a bar graph that could be regularly updated in the classroom: quite a tall order for a traveling teacher who had only 35 minutes per group as it was. I wound up asking the kids to bring in those stickers off the bananas that showed the bananas' country of origin. We would paste them onto a big poster that I hung on my travel cart. Every time we got a new sticker, we'd count the number of stickers each country had (it was a good year for Honduras, if I recall correctly.)

It's really tempting to make a similar chart with all the variations on our name...I won't, but it's tempting.

Do Your Best

2011-12-08T07:03:00.001-05:00

Twice now, in the past couple of days, the issue of how to properly pray the Liturgy of the Hours has come up.

As a Secular Franciscan, I am committed to praying the Liturgy of the Hours, in union with the Church. I generally don't get beyond Morning and Evening Prayer, but the expectation of us in this Order is that we pray at least those Hours, whether in common or in private. Now that my fraternity meets during the day, we have begun praying Midafternoon Prayer at our meetings.

We don't all, however, have the same breviary. Most of us have the one-volume "Christian Prayer" version, but a few use the four-volume set. I used to type out the prayer for that day's meeting, but it would change with the week and with the season and that got to be a huge time sink, not to mention the use of ink and paper for 15 copies--so now we just muddle through together, with all the "what page is it on?" and other general fumbling that goes along with it.

We've discovered recently, though, that the folks with the four-volume set expect that the antiphon will be repeated after each psalm or canticle, before moving on to the next. In the single-volume format, it's not indicated anywhere that this should be done. This has gotten us into a few liturgical traffic jams recently.

I brought up the issue at our November council meeting, and together we worked out a plan. Before beginning prayer at the December meeting, we would introduce the idea of the repeated antiphon to everyone--and one of the owners of the 4-volume Breviary would be the antiphonarian. While we were at it, we worked out solutions to a couple of other technical difficulties that other council members had noticed. It was all good.

At the council meeting on Tuesday, I reviewed the plan. We had a few members sitting in at the council meeting, because we had been working on a project before that. The council did not mind having a more "public" meeting this time; it wasn't like anything sensitive was going to come up. Most of the members just listened and let us do what we had to do, until we got on the subject of Liturgy of the Hours.

At that point, someone commented, "I don't think God cares very much exactly HOW we do it, as long as we do it."

Well, yes. And no.

Daria Sockey wrote, yesterday, about the challenge of fitting in the Hours when you have a busy family, a demanding job, or nowhere quiet to pray (or all of the above!) She quoted G.K. Chesterton: "A thing that is really worth doing is worth doing badly."

Badly when that's the best we can do? I can live with that. I do live with that. I'm sometimes praying with the theme song from Phineas and Ferb as my background music; other times, I've got Little Brother in my face even though I try to gently remind him that I'm saying my prayers now. A home with a family in it is not often a quiet refuge for prayer.

But when we can do better, we should. I think that we should give God the best we've got. If the best we've got is interrupting kids, then we offer that. On the other hand, if we are together in fraternity, in a nice quiet location, and capable of making a little extra effort to ensure that we are all united in prayer, we can go that extra mile.

Repeating the antiphon is a little thing--there's no doubt about it. But it's those little things, those little efforts and sacrifices, that can bring us closer to God, a little at a time.

Not What I Had in Mind

2011-12-07T16:12:00.000-05:00

Little Brother just came downstairs wearing shorts and a T-shirt.

"It's not THAT warm," I told him. We were preparing to leave the house for an errand, or it wouldn't really have mattered.

"OK then, I'll put some gloves on," he answered, pulling on his favorite pair of "hobo" gloves (the fingerless kind).

And Now, for a Limited Time Only

2011-12-06T06:54:00.001-05:00

The kids are getting older. (I'm getting older. According to Little Brother, I'm only 7 1/2 short years away from "old.") And while I've never really been the nostalgic or sentimental type--leaving that job to my husband, who's way better at that kind of stuff than I am--nostalgia has been creeping up on me lately, whether I want it around or not.

Little Brother will turn 10 this March. By then, Big Brother will be 20 and Middle Sister 16.

Yikes.

My kids are growing up on me, and there's not a damn thing I can do about it.

Really, I love being a parent of older kids. They're toilet-trained, literate, and can make their own toast. 2 out of 3 of them don't need a babysitter anymore. I love watching my kids try something new, work hard at it, pick themselves up when they fall on their faces, and succeed in amazing ways. I endured their toddler years to get to this point.

But I'm not ready to give up all of it. I'm glad that Little Brother is still excited that St. Nicholas would leave some treats in his shoe last night. He was thrilled to receive a ticket to "Lunch with Santa" from a dear friend. He's worrying that Santa won't be able to get down our chimney (maybe I shouldn't have let him listen to a certain rather macabre holiday tune). I'm not ready for the time when someone has to burst his bubble.

Again and again I am reminded that my kids are kids for a limited time only. If I'm not careful I will turn into one of those "older people" who smiles at the moms struggling with toddler meltdowns in the middle of ShopRite and says, "Before you know it, they will be all grown up. Enjoy this!" (I really hated those people, by the way.)

I had to request Big Brother's medical records from the pediatrician. He's too old for examining rooms that feature Scooby-Doo and Disney princesses. We've been with this same pediatrician's office for almost 20 years--all of Big Brother's life--and we've only got 10 years more to go with them.

I am 2/3 finished with this portion of our program, folks. In 10 years, Little Brother will be off to college and done with the pediatrician--though with luck, he'll still have a soft spot in his heart for Scooby-Doo. 10 years is not that long.

These are the years in which I finish making the switch from "hands-on" parenting to "step away from the helicopter" parenting. I have to deliberately hold back, let them make mistakes, offer (unwanted) advice, drive them places, shell out cash, drive them other places, refuse to let them go to some places, and have a hot meal ready for them when they're ready for the hot meal.

In return, I get to see them make the honor roll (2 of them), win awards for hard work at soccer (2 of them), competently and confidently pull off complicated Propsmistress tasks, rehearse for musicals, and score interviews for paid summer internships. (That interview is today. Prayers would be appreciated.) All that has happened in the past 3 weeks.

Those have been good weeks.

Here's to the next 10 years.

How Dry I Am

2011-12-05T15:54:00.000-05:00

One of the best ways I get a laugh is being around my kids. It cracks me up when they use an expression completely innocently--but you can so easily take it another way.

Yesterday Little Brother sat next to me during Mass. After Communion, which we receive under both species, he returned to his seat and whispered, "That wine really hit the spot!" I just stared at him, wondering how much of it he drank...and he continued, "I haven't had a drink all day!"

After that, there was no keeping my composure, regardless of the inappropriateness of giggling during prayer-after-Communion time.

The Pot Calls the Kettle Black

2011-12-05T13:35:00.000-05:00

Middle Sister missed the bus (again) this morning. As she opened the door of the van to load her stuff in, a video-game cartridge fell out.

"Little Brother doesn't take care of his things," she complained as she threw her backpack onto the back seat, followed by her laptop and enormous sports duffel.

I just looked at her and then at her pile of stuff.

"What? The IT people test those laptops by throwing them down the stairs! I think it can handle my 2-pound sports bag."

(She underestimates the weight of this sports bag by a factor of 10.)

"I don't think they actually throw the computers down the stairs," I replied.

"Yes, they do! My freshman English teacher told us that," she informed me.

"I have a hard time picturing the members of the Technology Department tossing laptops down the stairs," I commented.

"And the keyboards are supposed to be spillproof too! I kinda want to test that..."

A Christmas Rhapsody

2011-12-04T08:54:00.000-05:00

Because music touches you in a way nothing else can.

Because Christmas is coming.

Because classic rock is...classic.

Don't miss Bethlehemian Rhapsody!

Not a Musical Genius

2011-12-02T12:13:00.000-05:00

One thing I enjoy about having an iPod is the "genius" feature in iTunes. I can pick a song I like, click the Genius button, and immediately a playlist will be generated from the other songs in my library. It works great--most of the time.

It does not work with Christmas music.

I wanted some background music when I was baking the gingerbread cookies just now. Some will go to a bake sale tonight, others to a care package for Big Brother, and whatever's left after that will get eaten here. I made 9 dozen cookies today, so there's enough to go around.

So I cued up Taylor Swift's "Silent Night, Holy Night" and told the Genius to do its thing. It went from the sublime to the ridiculous. The second tune was Rascal Flatt's "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen," which was very nice. And then the third tune was "Who's Your Daddy" by Toby Keith.

I don't think that one quite fits the Christmas theme.

I won't be leaving my Christmas music to the Geniuses anymore.

Read While You Eat

2011-12-01T17:02:00.000-05:00

Little Brother on "Dress Like a Cow Day" 2010

My mom just called to tell me a story she heard from my great-uncle when she visited him earlier today. During World War II, Uncle Leo was in the service (I guess the Army; the family just refers to it as "the service.") I knew he'd been stationed in Japan, because he used to sing us songs in Japanese that he'd learned during the war.

"Did you know," she asked me, "that Leo was stationed in Atlanta during part of the war? And when he was there, he worked with a man named Truett Cathy. He even sent Leo one of the books he wrote."

The name sounded familiar, but I couldn't think of the titles of any of his books.

Mom told me that Uncle Leo and Mr. Cathy had stayed in occasional touch over the years, through phone calls or letters. Then she mentioned the reason the name sounded familiar: he's the founder of Chick-Fil-A.

We're big fans of Chick-Fil-A. Good food, great service, unfailingly polite staff, impeccably clean restaurants, and a business that's not afraid to close on Sunday--those things impress me.

When I got off the phone, I was telling my husband about how my uncle knew this man. As soon as I said the name, Little Brother piped up from the other room, "The guy who invented Chick-Fil-A?"

TheDad turned around and stared at Little Brother. "How did you know that?"

"They have a whole wall about him in Chick-Fil-A," Little Brother responded. And apparently he's read the whole thing.

Mending the Mug

2011-12-01T06:54:00.000-05:00

Middle Sister is burning the candle at so many ends right now; I'm just hoping she makes it through the week. This semester she has a demanding course load: Honors English, US History, Geometry and Studio Art. Winter track just started for the season (she's hurdling this year). And tonight is the opening of her school's fall play: "The Odd Couple." She's the Prop Mistress.

That's a big job in a play with a small ensemble but a huge props list. Last week she exported two cases of soda and an entire Rubbermaid bin out of my basement. I have no idea what she took from the house, other than a few crystal wineglasses that originally belonged to my mother-in-law. The other day she texted me at lunchtime and asked me to drop off more soda and a tablecloth, and yesterday she took one of my crockpots to school. (It should be interesting to see how much of my stuff comes back.)

She's been putting in 13-hour days all week, and for the past two days I've been dropping off "meals on wheels" at dinnertime. She could walk to Wendy's, but I really don't mind bringing a healthier dinner over to her, and frankly, I'm a little flattered that she asked me to do this. Yup, it was her idea. How do you say no to a kid who is clearly missing homemade dinner?

Last night when she came home after her long day, she had a cup of something in her hand. I was in the middle of folk-group practice (we rehearse in my living room so the kids can play), so I didn't pay much attention until she rummaged around in a drawer and retrieved a hot-glue gun, then dumped out a pile of ceramic shards from a coffee mug on my dining room table. The mug was a prop. It had been broken, and she was going to fix it. It's not like they needed this mug, but she needed to fix it.

She spent an hour she could ill afford, trying to glue that mug back together. People were asking her why she bothered, because it wasn't a necessary item--there are always so many coffee mugs around. And she really couldn't answer.

I completely got it, though. She was mending the mug because she needed a mental break from all the other stuff she's juggling right now. Yes, it required concentration, but it was a completely different kind of task from vocab homework, history assignments, hurdling and prophunting.

When I was in grad school, I started doing the same thing. Full-time graduate students tend to be very single-minded. They focus on their studies 24/7. I can't do that without losing my mind completely, which is why I took my master's degree and left, abandoning all hope of becoming a college professor. I don't love anything enough to study it 24/7. I took forced breaks from literature by joining the RCIA program as a sponsor for a fellow student, and by joining the folk group that played at 3 Masses a week. People wanted to know why I'd spend time doing that instead of in the library; it was precisely because it wasn't the library.

Now I deal with stress by baking. Whatever works, right?

She wasn't able to repair the mug; there were too many missing pieces. But I think that hour she spent puzzling it back together, glue gun in hand, was not a wasted hour. And I'm glad to know that she--however unconsciously--recognizes and gives in to the need for balance in her life.

Prepare

2011-11-27T20:10:00.001-05:00

This is from 2006. No paper chain anymore!

It's time to get ready...it's Advent.

This weekend, my folk group was off duty, and my family attended Mass at the school parish. Father began the homily by confiding that he really wished that if Christ were to return during his lifetime, that He would find Father serving the poor or visiting the sick or celebrating Mass with due reverence--but he really fears that Christ would instead find him in the middle of a traffic jam.

It was a good point. Do we live our lives by making an effort to do our best wherever we are? Even in traffic?

Although I had time today to get my house ready for Advent, I don't feel ready. The wreath is on the table, and we lit the candle before dinner. The empty manger is in the place of honor in the living room, all by itself except for the stained-glass picture my dad recently made me (I need to find a good place to display that.)

The Big Kids helped TheDad put up the Christmas lights, which I could have waited for, but we had to take advantage of the fabulous weather today. I am calling it "no jacket November."

The house is ready for Advent, but the mom is not. I have been busy getting ready for the Festival of Lessons and Carols, and taking Little Brother to rehearsals so he can get ready to perform in Pippin. I haven't done any thinking whatsoever about getting ready for Christmas, which is pretty much fine with me. I'm sure it wouldn't be fine with the kids, the cousins, or the grandparents, however. And sooner or later people around here will want the tree up, even through I am lobbying to postpone that activity. Usually we do the tree on Gaudete Sunday ("Pink candle Sunday") but since Big Brother will return from college on the 16th, and there is a full 4th week of Advent this year, I'd like to do the tree after he gets back. It's more fun to have all the kids there, fighting over whose ornament gets the tippy-top of the tree and who gets to hang the ceramic pierogi.

For the moment, I'm unprepared. I'll get there, though. Wouldn't want Jesus to catch me while I'm sitting in traffic.

A Thankful Day

2011-11-24T09:25:00.001-05:00

I'm thankful for a happy and healthy family, for a sister who cooks an amazing Thanksgiving dinner, for a niece whose apple pie is beyond compare, for friendship, and for the full tank of gas that will get us to northwestern NJ and back today.

Amen.

Not in My House

2011-11-22T06:45:00.001-05:00

I love the Zits comic and read it every day. Creators Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman really have a handle on what it's like to live with teenagers.

They got it wrong today, though. Around here, Middle Sister is the one most likely to eat the leftovers.

For breakfast.

Even when those leftovers are Beef Enchiladas. Especially when those leftovers are Beef Enchiladas.

The Big Switch

2011-11-21T18:46:00.001-05:00

One of the occupational hazards of being a musician at the last Mass in the building on a Sunday is that, every feast of Christ the King, you are enlisted to help switch out the hymnals. Our hymnals don't contain the extra "daily Mass" sections anyway, so they get this job done on Sunday after the noon Mass when there's a captive audience of musicians and their kids to help with the job (not to mention the deacon's teenage grandson!)

A couple of people wanted to take home a copy of the old hymnal. That's never a problem, as they're just going to be recycled anyway. But I observed to a friend, after someone asked us if they could take an old book home, that these hymnals are even more out of date than the hymnal usually is, come Christ the King Sunday.

Our parish has done a commendable job of preparing everyone for the Big Switch, and I don't mean the new hymnals: the change to the new translation of the Roman Missal. Once a month, the priests would devote the homily to this topic. Several workshops were open to the entire parish to explain the translation in detail, review the Scriptural connections, and go over what we can expect beginning next Sunday.

Before Mass yesterday, instead of singing a prelude, we reviewed the new Creed with the assembly. My observation was that people were good sports about giving it a chance, and there wasn't even any audible stumbling over "consubstantial."

My only issue with the whole thing is a musical one. Many changes have taken place in the words to the sung acclamations. Some phrases are added, some subtracted; with the exception of the Great Amen and the Lamb of God, the acclamations needed to be rewritten to accommodate those changes. I'm only familiar with two settings for the new Mass, and while Mass of God's Promise was done quite well, the retrofit didn't work as nicely with Heritage Mass. Guess which one we're currently using at our parish? Sigh...

The folk group I sing with is really going to miss the acclamation that the teenagers in the group call "The Happy Gloria"--the one by the St. Louis Jesuits. Last I checked, this was not on the slate to be redone in the new form. It's not our pastor's favorite, because it takes so long to sing, but it really is a happy Gloria. We just can't help but sing it like we mean it--and isn't that the point of the Gloria, after all? There have been many times, after singing the last notes of that acclamation, that we musicians have met each others' eyes and just known that we're all thinking the same thing: we have BEEN TO CHURCH. We have WORSHIPED.

So I really hope they fix that one, because we haven't found another Gloria that moves us to sing with such gusto that we don't have much voice left for the Responsorial Psalm.

Next weekend, we'll have to pay extra attention. Musicians, especially, since some of our usual verbal cues might be different. That's a good thing, though. Every once in a while, you need to get off auto-pilot and pay attention. Everyone will have to pay attention, and, for a time, read along. It'll take time, but we'll get there. Musically, too. But most of all, I'll miss that Happy Gloria.

Are the Stars Out Tonight?

2011-11-19T18:53:00.001-05:00

So my husband and I went over to the Boy Scout Spaghetti Dinner in 2 separate cars because the Cub Scouts are planning to leave right after spaghetti for an astronomy field trip.

I'd been gone all day, so at dinner, my husband (Mr. Cubmaster) gave me the scoop on the plans for the evening.

"After dinner I'm going over to where they're meeting and I'll make sure everyone has directions and see them off. Then I'm going to come back here and hang out with the Boy Scout leaders. Little Brother will be with me because he wants to help with the dinner." (Translation: Little Brother wants to hang out with the Big Boys. And they put up with him, so it's all good. And sometimes he actually helps, a little.)

So I ate my dinner and enjoyed the '80s music provided by the Troop's own DJs, the Clubmasters. (Nice job, guys. I particularly enjoyed "Addicted to Love," for the record.)

I asked my husband, the meteorologist, if this trip was even going to happen.

"It's cloudy," he said. "There won't be anything to see. Even if they go, I'm not going."

"What if Little Brother wants to go?"

"I'm not going. After they all leave, I'll bring Little Brother back here."

OK. Middle Sister and I finished our food; she visited with her friends among the Scouts and we left. I wasn't expecting them back for about another hour anyway--and then my cell phone buzzed to signal a new text.

"We're in the middle of nowhere."

Yup. They went. Should be interesting to hear all about how that went down.

An Island Never Cries

2011-11-19T07:53:00.001-05:00

When I first heard Simon & Garfunkel's "I Am a Rock" I felt an instant connection. That's me!

A winter's day
In a deep and dark December;
I am alone,
Gazing from my window to the streets below
On a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

I've built walls,
A fortress deep and mighty,
That none may penetrate.
I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain.
Its laughter and its loving I disdain.
I am a rock,
I am an island.
[ Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsfreak.com/s/simon+and+garfunkel/i+am+a+rock_20124809.html ]
...

I have my books
And my poetry to protect me;
I am shielded in my armor,
Hiding in my room, safe within my womb.
I touch no one and no one touches me.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

And a rock feels no pain;
And an island never cries.

Well, except for the poetry part (I prefer fiction, thankyouverymuch. Failing that, a good cookbook will do.)

Sometimes, though, I find a few chinks in my emotional armor. Today, I am not a rock. Or an island. And there is no perfectly good explanation for that. I want to be in control of my emotions--and I pretty much knew, the second I woke up today, that such control is beyond my abilities today.

Unfortunately, I do not have the luxury of staying home and sipping tea and finishing the last book in the Hunger Games trilogy today. It's going to take every ounce of strength I have--plus plenty of strength I do not have--to keep it together today.

It's easier, sometimes, to be an island. But when you can't, make sure you bring along plenty of tissues.

Things Parents Say

2011-11-18T12:19:00.001-05:00

...and an indication that Standards Are Slipping around here:

"When you eat a Hot Pocket in the bathroom, please clean up what you drop on the floor."

Prepositional FAIL

2011-11-14T08:00:00.000-05:00

Little Brother misses his brother. (We all do, really.) And he doesn't understand that Big Brother gets more nocturnal with each passing year, so when we do get to see Big Brother, he spends half the day sleeping and half the night wide awake while most of the rest of us are sleeping. Except for Middle Sister, who can be semi-nocturnal when she needs to, being a teenager and all.

The other day, Little Brother was complaining about this. He said, "I hope that next time Big Brother comes home, he spends more time playing with me, instead of just sleeping around all the time."

The kid had no idea why I nearly drove off the road after he said that. Bad choice of words, Little Brother. But it did give me a good laugh.

In Harmony

2011-11-13T05:35:00.001-05:00

(I'm in this picture, but I'm not telling where.)

One of my favorite activities in high school was the choir. We were probably about 60 strong--that's half the school! I loved the chance to sing in harmony.

We only had 3-part harmony (soprano, second soprano, alto) since my high school was not coed. I was a second soprano, but over the years I've migrated to alto. (And I'm not above throwing in a tenor or baritone part now and again, just for the fun of it.) I do not harbor any illusions of having a solo-quality voice, but I do just fine in a group and I can sustain a harmony line without being near anyone else who's singing that same part.

Right now, I'm thoroughly enjoying a chance to stretch my musical muscles. Over at the school parish, preparations are under way for a Festival of Lessons and Carols, scheduled for the Tuesday before Christmas. It's a mixed group in many ways. First of all, we've got soprano, alto, tenor and bass--and a children's chorus. WOW! It's amazing to be part of creating that wonderful sound. We're coming from at least 4 different parishes and at least as many different choirs/ensembles. There are kids (as young as second grade), teens, college students, young adults, parents with kids of all ages, and empty-nesters.

Soon, we're bringing in the musical instruments! And we all come together to make music.

Christmas music is wonderful, and there is a huge repertoire of beautiful Christmas music out there. As a musician at church, though, I'm pretty much limited to standard carols. And that's fine--people attending Mass during the Christmas season expect, and should find, those old familiar carols. It makes things easy when people visit from other parishes, other traditions, or just haven't been to church in a while. When we play and sing at Mass, we're there to lead people in prayer through song, not to perform for them.

This Festival of Lessons and Carols is a combination of Scripture readings and beautiful music, most of which is not your standard carol. It's a performance, but don't think for a moment that it is not also worship.

Last year Big Brother played bass at this Festival. The rest of us came along to be part of the audience. I loved it and was thrilled to be asked to take part this year (along with Little Brother and Big Brother, who will participate again).

That whole "singing is praying twice" thing? For me, it's completely true.

I love that we pray before we rehearse, thanking God for the gift of music, for the opportunity to share that gift and to give God honor and glory by using that gift. (That's the gist of the prayer; the music director does a better job phrasing it than I just did).

And I love being a small part of this large group. Some people in the group are like me, with ordinary musical skills. Others are incredibly gifted. When I sing with them, I am challenged beyond what I think I am capable of doing.

Great joy!

High Anxiety

2011-11-05T14:56:00.000-04:00

Remember that prayer that was on all those posters in the 70s:"Lord, help me to remember that nothing is going to happen today that you and I together can't handle"?

I've been letting anxiety get the better of me a little (a lot?) more than usual recently. And really, this has got to stop.When I was talking about this with a good friend, she mentioned that, lately, she has been making an effort to pray when anxiety starts to overcome her. She asks God to help her hand over the situation, to guide her words and actions.

Good advice.

But I don't want to pray that prayer from the 70s posters. To be honest, I find that prayer a little arrogant.

As Father Cavanagh says in the movie Rudy, "I have come up with only two hard incontrovertible facts: there is a God, and I'm not him."

Better to pray that God will guide me through a situation. I prefer this prayer, attributed to Father Mychal Judge, OFM, who perished in the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center:

Lord, take me where you want me to go;
Let me meet who you want me to meet;
Tell me what you want me to say, and
Keep me out of your way.

There's only one thing I may need to add to that: "Keep my foot out of my mouth."

Amen.

For All the Saints, For All the Moms

2011-11-03T11:18:00.000-04:00

In a month that begins with the celebration of All Saints, what better time to begin learning about the Saints of our Church? And what better place to start than A Book of Saints for Catholic Moms by Lisa Hendey?

Subtitled "52 Companions for Your Heart, Mind, Body and Soul," this book is packed full of encouragement, challenges, and reflections about saints who can be especially inspiring to moms.

As soon as I received this book, I immediately opened it to the table of contents to see who's in there! I had to check for my favorites, of course, and they were there in abundance: Saints Francis and Clare of Assisi, Saint Martha of Bethany, Saint Anthony of Padua, and more. But there were plenty of other saints with whom I'm much less familiar, such as Saint Sebastian, Saint Jane Frances de Chantal, and Saint Josephine Bakhita.

This book is bigger than I expected, with each chapter composed of a short biography of the saint, lessons from the saint's life and/or writings, traditions of the saint's feast day celebration, a quote from the saint, Scripture passages and reflections--one for each day for a week, activities for moms to complete on their own and with their children, a family prayer and thoughts to ponder. That's a lot of inspiration packed into just over 300 pages!

This is not a book that you have to begin at chapter 1 and work your way through. You can choose to read and reflect on the life of a saint that relates to a particular challenge you're having at the time. That's easy to do, because the table of contents shows not only the saint's name, but a virtue for which the saint is well-known.

A Book of Saints for Catholic Moms isn't going to lose its place on my bedside table anytime soon; it's a devotional that will serve as inspiration for a long time to come.

I wrote this review of A Book of Saints for Catholic Moms for the Tiber River Blogger Review program, created by Aquinas and More Catholic Goods. For more information and to purchase, please visit Aquinas and More Catholic Goods.

Tiber River is the first Catholic book review site, started in 2000 to help you make informed decisions about Catholic book purchases.

A review copy of the book was provided to me. I did not receive other compensation for this review.

Kitchen Conversation

2011-11-01T07:40:00.000-04:00

Little Brother's been on a rye-toast kick for breakfast these days. Specifically Jewish rye, with seeds.

This morning when I was getting breakfasts and lunches going, I asked him if he wanted toast. When the answer was yes, I said, "Regular, or Jewish?"

That's when the questions started. (Not like I could answer them...)

"Why do they call it 'Jewish'?" Aren't Jewish people from Israel? Was it always called Israel? What was it called before it was called Israel?"

And then we moved on to...

"Is Galilee a country?" (No, it's a small town.) "Is the manger where Jesus was born still there?" (Well, they THINK they know where that is, but they can't be totally sure because it's not like Mary and Joseph made a big sign for it when they were running away from King Herod who wanted to kill Jesus: "The Son of God was born here.")

"It should be easy to find." (No, there were lots of barns with mangers around Bethlehem.)

"Barns with mangers and a cow and a sheep and a pig?" (No pig.)

"Why not?" (Jewish people don't eat pigs.)

"Why not? Are they afraid they're going to get gout?"

Oy.

This, That and the Other Thing

2011-10-21T07:25:00.003-04:00

This morning when I went outside to grab the newspaper, I could see the morning star. Had to rush in and get Little Brother away from his breakfast so he could see it too. (He thought it was worth it.)

Speaking of breakfast, Little Brother is a major-league toast eater. He'll go through 6 to 8 slices each morning. But that wasn't enough to get him through until snack time. Now I serve him 1/2 cup of vanilla yogurt before the toast. For snack, he has fruit and a string cheese. He says mornings are much better now.

I am doing my best to resist the open bag of candy corn that's sitting in my kitchen. But I've got some Count Chocula in the house...my kids had never eaten it before so I just HAD to get a box.

Generally I am not a flavored-coffee person. But I highly recommend Godiva Coffee's Pumpkin Spice. It pairs equally well with candy corn AND Count Chocula. Note to self: go back to Wegman's and get another bag of this coffee before it disappears!

Looking forward to tonight's activities. I schlep the kids around a lot to things they do. But tonight's event is really for me. It's the first rehearsal for the Festival of Lessons and Carols in the parish where Little Brother attends school. Little Brother will be in the children's chorus, and Big Brother will play various musical instruments. I'll be singing and playing guitar. I have no illusions of having the kind of musical ability that many of the other singers/musicians possess. This is an amazingly talented bunch of people! But I find that I sing and play better when I'm challenged by being among musicians who are better than me. Time to stretch!

I don't get to bring my guitar tonight, though. It's just a vocal rehearsal for the first day, which kind of freaks me out because my guitar is definitely my security blanket. It's hard for me to sing when I don't have something for my hands to do.

I'm still hoping against hope that I find the earring I lost the other day. It's not a valuable or expensive earring, but it was a really cute pair of earrings and I liked them a lot. I should have an earring more than 8 days before I lose it, I think.

Last night I took Middle Sister shopping. She had a really weird shopping list: shoes for the Homecoming dance and a blanket sleeper (known in this house as a "woobie.") The sleeper is for her Halloween costume. The last time I saw her wear one of those, she was 4! After trying on a lot of shoes with insanely high heels, platforms, sparkles and the whole nine yards, she settled on a beautiful and feminine pair of black silk pumps. Grown-up shoes and little-kid pajamas, all in the same shopping trip. I guess that's life with a teenager.

Advanced Math

2011-10-20T17:55:00.001-04:00

Math has never been my strong point. I managed to get through college by fulfilling my math requirement with "Introduction to BASIC." And I always send the kids to TheDad when they need help with math homework. He had several semesters of calculus, so he's way above my pay grade in math.

But math has been plaguing me all day today. First, I got an email from my New York Cousin, who wanted to know how many servings one of my favorite potluck recipes (Dr. Pepper Baked Beans) would make.

That became a word problem: How many 1/2-cup side-dish servings do you get from a dish that fills about 3/4 of a 4-quart cooker?

For the record, I'm guessing 20 to 25.

Figuring all that out was a lot easier than helping Little Brother with his math homework this afternoon. Unlike me, he has always been good at math (he gets it from TheDad). I don't know if the school changed its math curriculum this year or what, but suddenly he's having a really hard time figuring out what to do with the homework problems. "I don't get how to do this," is a daily refrain around here. He used to whiz through his math homework, and before this year, my biggest concern was getting him to slow down enough to write the numbers legibly.

I'm not very good at helping him with the homework, either. I can add, subtract, multiply and divide. I can even manage fractions and decimals, usually. But they're asking the kids to do things in strange ways. I can find the answer, but not using their method. It's strictly "Old Math" for me.

The Eyes Have It

2011-10-19T06:42:00.002-04:00

...and it's pink.

No, not breast-cancer-awareness pink (ironic when you consider that Susan G. Komen foundation funnels money to Planned Parenthood--and their contraception and abortion industry is linked to higher rates of breast cancer).

Just plain old pink. As in pink-eye.

Don't worry; I'm not contagious. I am 100% certain that this is an allergic reaction. Unfortunately, I am 0% sure of the cause.

Yesterday I went to my Secular Franciscan meeting about an hour early so I could catalog some new books for the fraternity's library. When I opened up the meeting room, I could smell something--kind of perfumey, but nothing I could put my finger on. Being asthmatic, I made sure I had my inhaler and worried that as I spent the next few hours in the room, I might need to use it. Then, after looking for candles and plug-in air fresheners and other likely suspects and finding nothing, I opened the 2 small windows that could be opened and got to work.

Within the hour my nose started running. At least that symptom is manageable. Partway through the meeting, my eyes started itching. By the time I locked up the room after the last person left, I looked like I'd spent the entire afternoon crying.

I knew I needed Benadryl, but I had to take Little Brother to a track-and-field awards ceremony last night and was afraid to take Benadryl before driving somewhere, so I toughed it out until I got home. It didn't do much good; this morning, my eyes are still red and swollen and painful.

It'll pass. It's an inconvenience and big discomfort, but it'll pass. What I really want to know is: what was in that room that caused this?

Sweet!

2011-10-17T07:58:00.000-04:00

Fall is my favorite season. I love the colors at this time of year! So I loved the "Real Life Adventures" comic in this morning's paper.

image credit

Normally, this is not one of my favorite comic strips. Dads/husbands are usually portrayed as idiotic buffoons. Maybe that's why I loved today's strip even more!

Reelin' In the Years

2011-10-14T19:36:00.002-04:00

Middle Sister had four of her friends here earlier, and they were all lining up to primp in front of the bathroom mirror before I drove them to the football game. As she left the room, one of them asked, "Is there a guitar pick in your bathroom?"

She never asked about the Army Guy, who stands only about an inch away from the guitar pick. He's been guarding the bathroom for at least 3 years now--possibly more. It's been so long that he's part of the landscape, and when I clean the bathroom I just put him back on the counter, in the same place he was before.

Sure, it would be easy enough to carry the Army Guy over to Little Brother's room. It's only across the hall. For that matter, I could just toss the Army Guy in the trash can. Earlier this week, I cleaned out the family-room closet and toy box, and boxed up all the Army Guys along with the other stuff Little Brother no longer uses. My guess is, he'll never notice it's gone. After a suitable interval, I will donate the usable toys to our school's pre-K or Goodwill. (Tuesday's good.)

I can't get rid of everything, though. When I pulled the battered copy of The Very Hungry Caterpillar off the bookshelf, there was no way I was putting that into the donation box. The same goes for the entire "Little Critter" series (Middle Sister was a big fan) and The Little Engine That Could, which we memorized during Big Brother's childhood and hid during Little Brother's. We just couldn't go down that road (track) again.

Some people have scrapbooks, all beautifully decorated and labeled, full of photos of their kids. I've got their entire libraries, as well as a few Army Guys, Matchbox cars, and an American Girl doll.

"The things you think are useless I can't understand..."

The Disorganized Student

2011-10-10T08:50:00.000-04:00

I was very happy to see that the fourth-graders were required to have "trapper" binders, loose leaf paper, and pocket folders this year. Little Brother has a good handle on academics but not on organization. In his school, the fourth- and fifth-graders share two teachers for the major subjects, so there is some traveling between classrooms and getting used to two different sets of expectations. It's a good way to ease the kids into the middle-school mode.

I figured that since his teachers asked for a particular type of binder, they'd be devoting some time, early in the school year, to good use of this organizational tool.

And week after week, I'd see him come home with all kinds of loose papers stuffed into one of the pockets inside his binder, which also contained his homework planner, pencil case, 200 sheets of looseleaf, 5 dividers, and 3 pocket folders. The looseleaf? Unused. Dividers? Divided nothing. Pocket folders? Empty, except for one which had a paper from Spanish class inside it. Other Spanish papers were stuffed into that same pocket that held Scholastic book order forms, tests I'd signed, and a homework project due September 27--completed, but never handed in.

One month into the school year, it wasn't looking like his teachers were doing anything to make sure the students were using the supplies they'd been required to have.

So this morning, since there was no school, I had Little Brother empty out that binder. He recycled all the papers he no longer needed (most of them). He put all the Spanish papers into the Spanish folder. He's already sort of in the habit of keeping Spanish stuff together, as that teacher encourages that habit in class. And we labeled one pocket folder "Take Home" and "Hand In." He will put anything to come home in the "Take Home" side. When it's finished (homework complete, tests signed, forms filled in) it will go to the "Hand In" side. We'll see if this works, and I can reinforce this system at home.

We labeled the dividers too, though there's nothing to divide at the moment.

I hope this helps him. Next step: dealing with the "flash cards" that are floating around his backpack. I like that the teachers encourage the kids to make flash cards when they need to remember important terms or lists. But they do no good when they wind up in the bottom of the backpack, in a jumble of subjects and topics! Does anyone have ideas for how he can organize and carry these index cards around? It's not like he can put a 3X5 file box in his backpack.

I really think he'd be better off with an accordion file, but I still think that teachers require things for a reason. There will be conferences with the teachers in mid-November, so I'll give this another month and see how we roll. If it's not working out, I'll talk with the teachers about it then.

Ideas for organizing a smart but scatterbrained 9-year-old will definitely be appreciated!

Bright as Butterfly Wings

2011-10-09T07:11:00.000-04:00

No matter how sad the day (and it was a very sad day) there are always those bright spots that help get you through it.I'm grateful for these:

hogging a baby (did I say hogging? I meant hugging. I would never hog a baby. No, not me) whom I'd only seen in pictures up until now, and who was so absolutely good-natured about being passed around among cousins who couldn't wait to give him a squeeze
cousins. So many cousins. 12 out of the 15 in my generation were there
lots of reminiscing, lots of comfort carbs
the chance to rib my dad about the very fashionable (in 1974) plaid sport coat he wore in one of the many old photos
Snoopy, hand-me-downs, and good news about cousin John's cancer treatment using his own stem cells
a phone call from a friend to find out how I was getting through the day--and to let me know that the Irish were winning the game
and coming home to a lovely sympathy card that a teenager in the church folk group cared enough to send

After the Mass, we gathered outside the church while my aunt, who teaches her first-graders a fascinating science lesson each year using Monarch butterflies, explained that in Mexico (the endpoint of these butterflies' migration) there is a legend that if you whisper a message to a Monarch, it will carry that message to a loved one in Heaven as it flies. She and her oldest grandson then released a big bunch of butterflies into the air. Many loving messages went up to Uncle Pat with those butterflies.

And then there's that moment that makes you laugh instead of cry--and you always need at least one of those moments on that kind of day. The priest explained that when Uncle Pat was baptized, the Paschal candle was nearby, burning brightly. Then he gestured toward the Paschal candle standing near the casket. Little Brother turned to me and said, "It's the same one?"

Going the Distance

2011-10-05T08:49:00.002-04:00

It's time my kids learned something about doing the right thing with the right attitude. It's not a lecture I want to deliver, but I think I'm going to have to. The thing is, while the lecture is needed, I don't think I'm going to be able to manage a graceful delivery. And since TheDad is out of town for the next couple of days, I'll have to fly solo on this one.

My uncle passed away Monday night. Until very recently, we didn't know just how sick he was. While we had mentioned a few times to them that he was in the hospital, kids are kids and teenagers are teenagers and some things just don't get through their heads very well, especially when they concern a relative who lives 2 hours away and whom we've seen 3 times in the past year.
I gave Big Brother, who's away at college (but not TOO far away) a heads-up on Monday evening when I heard that Uncle Pat had taken a turn for the worse. I hate to deliver that kind of news via text message, but there's just no good way to do it. Texting him to say "call home" isn't any better, really. And he was as gracious as you can get in a text, commenting "that's not good" and "let me know if you hear anything else." Tuesday morning, after I heard the news and dithered about how I was going to let him know, I got back a :[ and "ok." For him, that's as compassionate as it's going to get, I guess.
I have the feeling that my daughter, when I told her, was busy calculating just how many soccer games/soccer practices/trips to the mall/bonfires with friends she'll have to miss to attend the out-of-town funeral this weekend.
Little Brother is going to absolutely blow a gasket when he is informed that he won't be playing soccer on Saturday. To his credit, he did give me a hug and kiss when I told him the sad news.
Meanwhile, I grieve for my aunt and my cousins and my cousin's kids, two of whom are infants and who will have to grow up with no memory of their grandfather. I grieve for my dad, who has lost all 3 of his younger siblings to cancer. I mourn the loss of a veteran, a firefighter, the "fun uncle."
May you rest in peace, Uncle Pat. And may I find the grace and the words to guide my children through this time of mourning.

The Blunt Truth

2011-10-04T20:35:00.002-04:00

Don't miss this on the feast of St. Francis--The Crescat puts into words, in no uncertain terms, the real deal about the "patron of animals and ecology."

Stop selling St. Francis short and read this article.

Pretty pictures

2011-10-02T20:05:00.000-04:00

Big thanks to the very talented Esther (the Catholic Mom in Hawaii) for my beautiful new header image! I had to redecorate to show it off to its full advantage.

It's a Catholic High School

2011-09-30T05:22:00.001-04:00

I wish my high school had offered these opportunities! Below is a quote from the daily newsletter at Middle Sister's school, describing the Campus Ministry's new activities for the year. I'm impressed.

1. Communion Service is offered daily at 7:40 AM in the Chapel.
2. Weekly on Thursday at 2:35 PM there will be an opportunity for whoever is interested to come together to share experiences, ideas and prayer pertaining to the past Sunday’s Readings.
3. Weekly on Tuesday at 2:35 PM there will be Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. If you are interested in signing up to be a guardian for 5, 10, 15 minutes please let the Campus Ministry Director know. Exposition will take place from 2:35 PM until 3:00 PM. Remember, you do not have to sign up to be present for one minute or 25 minutes.
4. There will be a Book of Intentions in the Chapel for anyone who wishes to place their personal intentions in the Book.

I'm thankful to the Campus Ministry, the principal, and anyone else who was instrumental in bringing this to the school.

One Up on Dad

2011-09-21T21:28:00.001-04:00

Remember the dad in the movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" and how he used Windex for everything? My dad is the same way--with Brown Soap.

He swears by the stuff, and I'll bet that my brother and sister have a bar of it in their homes, just like I do. It's probably in the basement, but although supermarkets sell this soap in the laundry section, we don't use it for laundry.

Dad has many ways to use this soap, but the one that has stuck with us kids is its anti-itch properties. If Dad even sees poison ivy, he rushes home and scrubs down with Brown Soap. I've really put it to the test this summer, what with the Kamikaze Mosquitoes that have taken up residence around here.

How to use Brown Soap on itches: Get an edge of your bar of soap wet. Rub the wet bar of soap on the poison ivy or bug bites. Do not rinse.

Little Brother picked up a few mosquito bites at soccer practice tonight. After he went to bed, he wandered out of his room asking me for anti-itch medicine. Instead of pulling out a tube of hydrocortisone cream, I took a page from Dad's playbook.

"Go into the bathroom and get a little soap from the dispenser. Rub it on the bug bite and don't wash it off."

"Hey, that really works," he observed a minute or so later.

Yes, it does. And a little extra soap on that kid won't hurt either.

If It's From the Fightin' Irish, It Can't Be Junk Mail

2011-09-20T20:36:00.000-04:00

Little Brother noticed the pile of junk mail I'd tossed on the table (with the intention of ignoring it for a while before tossing it into the recycling bin.) "Notre Dame! You got mail from Notre Dame!"

"They're just asking for money. You can throw it out," I told him.

He misunderstood. "They're sending you MONEY?"

"No, they're asking me for money. You can go ahead and open it if you want."

"Why don't you send them some?" he asked while tearing into the envelope.

"Because right now I send money to your school, Middle Sister's high school and Big Brother's college. I don't have extra to give to Notre Dame right now."

Inside, he found a letter and a reply envelope. He peeked in. It was empty.

"Awww--a trick envelope! I hate those!"

In Costume

2011-09-13T07:39:00.000-04:00

I'm thinking in theater terms these days, since Little Brother has been rehearsing for a community-theater production of MAME, which opens on Friday. Now that they're in dress rehearsals, I've been scrambling through his wardrobe assembling costumes. And that's exactly what I was doing for myself yesterday afternoon.

I had to find myself a costume for Back to School Night. And then I had to get into character.

While I love "back to school" time, I can't stand Back to School Night. It's not so bad at the high school, though I still do call it the Handbag Fashion Show. (When a nickname works, you go with it.) Because of the school's block scheduling, a semester at a time, I have to attend two of these a year. But with 700+ students, it's easy to get lost in the crowd while still running into a few parents of my kids' friends or teammates as we wander by looking for the next classroom to visit.

At the elementary school, though, Back to School Night is another matter.

There's a reason I don't do theater. I'm just not cut out for this sort of thing.

It really doesn't matter what I wear to Back to School Night. It's not going to make a difference. What's important on that day is hearing what my child's teachers have to say: their goals for the year, their expectations of the students, the ins and outs of the classroom routines and policies.

It really doesn't matter that I will never be part of that group of squealing moms who just saw each other at the 3 PM car line, but who act like this is the first time in years they've reunited. Not only don't I have the clothes (or the handbag) to fit in there, but I don't squeal.

It really doesn't matter. I keep telling myself that, but I'm not convinced.

I was grateful, when we all proceeded to the cafegymatorium for a slide show and PTA meeting, that a parent whose older children are friends of my older children sat near me; we had a few moments to chat and she kindly offered to give Middle Sister a ride home from soccer games if it was ever necessary. Then we both observed how very young the parents around us looked; we were both there with our youngest kids, and in both our families there's a 10-year age gap between oldest and youngest.

Back to School Night humbles me. I guess that's a good thing. I'm not a mover and a shaker in the PTA world; never was, never will be. Schmoozing and small talk don't come easy to me, and we're not even going to talk about my wardrobe.

Walking back to the theater across the street where dress rehearsal was in progress, I couldn't wait to stop at my car, ditch my shoes and put on my comfortable sneakers. I grabbed my favorite "Grumpy" sweatshirt in case it was cold inside.

Costume shed, I stepped back into my familiar role as Mom.

Ten Years After

2011-09-10T17:02:00.001-04:00

Five years ago, I reminisced about where I was, what I did, what I thought, on that terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day.

There's not much to add to that.

Little Brother's teacher talked to his class yesterday about 9/11. Most of those kids, like Little Brother, had not yet been born, and they came into a world that was forever changed and defined by that day. Little Brother has been "processing" this lesson for the past two days. Every now and again he approaches me and mentions something his teacher said. Then we talk about it some more. It's been good, to do that.

Tomorrow I will be at a rehearsal with Little Brother and Middle Sister, who's the stagehand for this play. The plan is to rehearse from 1 to 4 and then take a break to go to the park next door to the theatre for a 9/11 memorial ceremony. After that, potluck supper and more rehearsal.

It's good that we should pause in our day, to remember.

We're blessed to be able to do that. We're blessed to be free to do that. We're blessed to be alive to do that.

For those who gave their lives that day, and for those who have given their lives over the past 10 years to fight for freedom, I pray: Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and may perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace, and may the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.

Her Logic Escapes Me

2011-09-10T08:20:00.000-04:00

image credit

Middle Sister was complaining last night about the fit of her new soccer uniform. Apparently, the tops are cut small and the bottoms are cut large, for the pear-shaped soccer player. (Note to manufacturers: not too many soccer players are pear-shaped.)

She was worried about the shorts being too big, so I offered to see if I could take a tuck in the waistband or something so they wouldn't fall down during the game.

"You CAN'T do that!"

"Why not?"

"Because they're not MINE. That would be like, vandalizing or something."

Things I Forgot Over the Summer

2011-09-09T07:31:00.002-04:00

It's not only the kids who regress academically over the summer. I'm really surprised what I've forgotten during the 2 1/2 months of summer vacation.

This is probably due to all the "Phineas & Ferb" exposure. I've spent way too much time wondering where those kids go to school that gives them 104 days of summer vacation. I know that's more than I could take.

I've been refreshing my memory this week regarding the ins and outs of getting through the school year.

Little boys who have been cooped up in school all day because they can't play outside at lunch during the Everlasting Rainstorm that is September around here are WAY more likely to bounce off the walls in the after-school hours than little boys who have been in the house all day on a rainy summer day. Fortunately, little boys don't mind playing outside when it's drizzling.

School buses are great examples of Murphy's Law. When you're outside all nice and early (and it's raining) they're late. When you're running late, they're early.

I should really make part of Little Brother's packed lunches the night before. He's not a sandwich fan, but he likes "ham-alami." Here's the recipe: Take a slice of salami. Fold a slice of ham to go on top. Add another slice of salami. Roll up. 3 "ham-alamis" in a container is good for lunch, along with another container of fruit and a snack. I find salami a little disgusting at 7 AM.

And then there's the pleasant surprises, like when I was cutting up brownies for lunchboxes today. Some of those brownies never made it to the lunchbox. Brownies go great with that first cup of coffee in the mornings. Breakfast of champions! (Just don't tell Little Brother.)

Geometry and Physics, All Rolled into One

2011-09-08T16:39:00.000-04:00

It's probably mean to be laughing at this, but I am finding Little Brother & the Street Urchins hilarious as they try to retrieve a 4-inch diameter Nerf basketball from the exact center of a 21-foot diameter pool. I'm not sure how long the pole is, but I know their arms are too short to make this work.

This is what happened after I sent them to play OUTSIDE, since they were tearing up my family room. 9-year-old boys denied "after-lunch recess" because of rain get pretty rambunctious, let me tell you.

(That's Little Brother in the center, with pole. It comes within a few inches of the ball, but not quite far enough.)

Finder of All Lost Things

2011-09-06T07:07:00.002-04:00

Yesterday I got a text message from my son at college. He rarely actually calls home, and we do communicate via text, but generally I'm the one initiating the conversation. So it was surprising to hear from him first.

Until I read the message: "Did I bring my brown flipflops home?"

He had come home for a brief hour before Hurricane Irene blew through, to pick up work boots, bottled water and a swimsuit--and to appropriate his dad's rain poncho.

I remembered that he had been wearing the flipflops at the time, and texted that back as I walked through the house, cell phone in hand, looking for where the stray beach shoes might be.

Of course, if he had the shoes on when he was here, he had to wear something on his feet to drive back to Philly. They're certainly not here.

Even though my kids (and husband) firmly believe that my superpower is finding the stuff they lose, I'm pretty sure that my internal radar for such things can't cross the Delaware River or the Roosevelt Boulevard.

When we concluded the conversation, he told me that his roommate had rearranged the furniture this week, and that he'd go look under his roommate's bed for the shoes. Good idea. Maybe he is learning something at college.

But I have to admit--it's nice to be needed.

My Ultimate Playlist

2011-09-04T21:11:00.000-04:00

Just for fun...since I am battling some sort of stomach bug today that left me too tired to do much else, I sat down with my iTunes and set up my Ultimate Playlist (Secular Version). I'll do a Sacred-Music Version another time, as well as a Motivational Version, which will include peppier tunes.Tracks are in alphabetical order by song title, and I can mix them up anytime I want by hitting SHUFFLE. Fun! I love that I can add or subtract from this list anytime I want, too.

America by Neil Diamond
Blowin' in the Wind by Peter, Paul & Mary
Border Song by Elton John
Brooklyn Roads by Neil Diamond
Carolina in My Mind by James Taylor
Carry On by Crosby, Stills & Nash
Closer to Fine by the Indigo Girls
Deacon Blues by Steely Dan
Dear Amy by Minor Motion
Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me by Elton John
Eclipse by John Denver
El Condor Pasa by Simon & Garfunkel
End of the Line by The Traveling Wilburys
Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Tears for Fears
Fly Like an Eagle by Steve Miller Band
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road by Elton John
Happy Together by The Turtles
How Long by The Eagles
I'll Follow the Sun by The Beatles
I Am a Rock by Simon & Garfunkel
I Am...I Said by Neil Diamond
I Got a Name by Jim Croce
I Pray for You by Big & Rich
I Want to Live by John Denver
Lean on Me by Bill Withers
Let It Be by The Beatles
The Living Years by Mike & The Mechanics
The Logical Song by Supertramp
The Long & Winding Road by The Beatles
Looking for Space by John Denver
Mona Lisas & Mad Hatters by Elton John
My Little Town by Paul Simon
No One is To Blame by Howard Jones
On the Road to Find Out by Cat Stevens
Part of the Plan by Dan Fogelberg
Put It There by Paul McCartney
Run for the Roses by Dan Fogelberg
Sailing by Christopher Cross
Secure Yourself by The Indigo Girls
Seven Bridges Road by The Eagles
Shower the People by James Taylor
Sigh No More by Mumford & Sons
Something in the Way She Moves by James Taylor
The Sound of Silence by Simon & Garfunkel
Southern Cross by Crosby, Stills & Nash
Suite: Judy Blue Eyes by Crosby, Stills & Nash
Sunshine on My Shoulders by John Denver
Sweet Surrender by John Denver
Take It to the Limit by The Eagles
Take the Time by Freddy Jones Band
Teach Your Children by Crosby, Stills & Nash
Tears in Heaven by Eric Clapton
Turn! Turn! Turn! by The Byrds
The Voice by The Moody Blues
Walk of Life by Dire Straits
Walking Man by James Taylor
Wasted on the Way by Crosby, Stills & Nash
Watching the River Run by Loggins & Messina
We May Never Pass This Way Again by Seals & Crofts
The Weight by The Band
Where Do the Children Play? by Cat Stevens
Wooden Ships by Crosby, Stills & Nash
You've Got a Friend by James Taylor
Your Smiling Face by James Taylor
Yours is No Disgrace by Yes
The 59th Street Bridge Song by Simon & Garfunkel

Put it all together and I've got 4 1/2 hours of my very favorites! What's on YOUR ultimate playlist?

Giveaway at Mom's Fridge

2011-09-03T20:35:00.000-04:00

I'm hosting a giveaway over at my recipe blog! It's a FREE code for the HomeRoutines app for iPad. Read all about it and enter the contest here.

Comments are closed on this post. All entries must be made at Mom's Fridge.

Tiber River Review: The Bad Catholic's Guide to the Seven Deadly Sins

2011-08-27T10:09:00.000-04:00

Don't be misled by the title of this book. The Bad Catholic's Guide to the Seven Deadly Sins is not written for people who want to get around the teachings of the Church. It's funny, but not irreverent. This book does not mock the Church in any way, but inspires and instructs the readers through hilarious anecdotes and examples from history.
You'll find some of the world's greatest saints and sinners featured in this book by John Zmirak. But this is not a light read. It's definitely a challenge to the reader. Even the "Cosmo-style quizzes" on ethical problems are more Philosophy 102 than Trashy Magazine. Each set of two chapters ends with hints on how to turn a vice into a virtue:

Lust can be turned toward Chastity
Wrath can be turned toward Patience
Gluttony can be turned toward Temperance
Greed can be turned toward Generosity
Sloth can be turned toward Diligence
Vainglory can be turned toward Humility
Envy can be turned toward Magnanimity

Learn through the mistakes and successes of such people as Francis of Assisi, Betty Friedan, Aristotle, Margaret Sanger, Catherine of Aragon, John Henry Cardinal Newman, Josef Stalin, Solzhenitsyn, Mitterrand, Chesterton, St. Benedict, Julia Child, Sarah Palin, Tolkien, Andy Warhol and Mao-Tse Tung.

If you're a fan of literature, references to Dante, 1984, Oscar Wilde, C.S. Lewis, Dr. Faustus, and Flannery O'Connor abound. Movie buffs will find everything from the sublime to the ridiculous, including The Godfather, The Third Man and Nighmare on Elm Street 4! Even Harry Chapin gets a mention.

And don't miss the hilarious illustrations. You'll learn plenty just by looking at the pictures.

The Fine Print:
I wrote this review of The Bad Catholic's Guide to the Seven Deadly Sins for the Tiber River Blogger Review program, created by Aquinas and More Catholic Goods. For more information and to purchase, please visit Aquinas and More Catholic Goods.

Tiber River is the first Catholic book review site, started in 2000 to help you make informed decisions about Catholic book purchases.

A review copy of the book was provided to me. I did not receive other compensation for this review.

Productivity On the Go

2011-08-25T18:11:00.000-04:00

...because when you're a Soccer Mom and a Stage Mom, sometimes you just have no choice.

After-dinner hours around here used to include washing dishes, hanging around, reading a book and having ice cream before presiding over showers, tooth-brushing and other going-to-sleep rituals. Now the kids are older and busier. And while Middle Sister, as a high-school sophomore, can be dropped off at sports practices and play rehearsals, the same is not true for nine-year-old Little Brother. Someone's got to stay with him. More often than not, that someone is Mom.

7 PM is my slow time of day, when I'm just concentrating on staying awake long enough to make sure that Little Brother brushes ALL his teeth. Not anymore. Now I'm headed for rehearsals that last until 10 or later! The director had dangled the carrot of "sensitivity to his bedtime when school starts" but what neither she (nor I) realized when she asked him to audition was that this was affecting my bedtime too.

I'm trying to get some stuff done when I'm sitting in a straight chair in a small rehearsal space for 3 hours on end. The other day I had a stack of the "Personal Journal" sections from The Wall Street Journal. I love to read those but don't always get the chance, and they pile up in a corner. It's not like most of them have time-sensitive articles. I got through a whole month's worth on Tuesday night.

Tonight I'm bringing my copy of Apocalypse Chow and my shopping list; a hurricane is on the way here and I want to have some ideas of how to cook and otherwise prepare in case we lose power. If I finish that, I've got Michele Buckman's Death Panels with me too--although that book is downright terrifying.

It's pretty impressive what I can get done, even without Wi-Fi.

But no matter how productive I manage to be at rehearsal, I'm still going to walk out of there with "Mame" stuck in my head.

Who's In There?

2011-08-24T07:12:00.000-04:00

Lisa Hendey of CatholicMom.com has a new book coming out soon! Titled A Book of Saints for Catholic Moms, this book highlights "52 companions for your heart, mind, body and soul."

But who's among the 52? I can think of lots of possibilities. Not having seen this book before, I don't know if Lisa Hendey chose to discuss only female saints, only saints who were moms, only modern saints...there are so many ways to go here.

I'm hoping, though, that she included a chapter on that go-to patroness of homemakers, St. Martha. I've got a soft spot for St. Martha, and I imagine that many moms feel the same. (I think Jesus did, too--or he wouldn't have told her to get over it when her sister wasn't helping with the dishes.)

This book will be published by Ave Maria Press on November 1 of this year. I'm looking forward to it!

Hail, Holy Queen

2011-08-22T07:15:00.000-04:00

In honor of today's celebration of the Queenship of Mary, here's a how-to for my favorite variation of the Rosary: the Franciscan Crown.

It's got that name because, according to legend, the Blessed Mother asked an aspiring Franciscan friar to weave her a crown of prayers.

The Franciscan Crown is a 7-decade Rosary. If you don't have a 7-decade set, use your regular Rosary and just backtrack a bit. Unlike the regular Rosary, you start at the medal and end at the cross.

For each decade, pray 1 Our Father, 10 Hail Marys and 1 Gloria.

Here are the meditations for each decade:

The first Joy in the Crown of Mary is the joy of Our Lady at the Annunciation. "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to Your word." May I become your humble servant, Lord.
The second Joy in the Crown of Mary is the joy of Our Lady at the Visitation. "Rising up, Mary went into the hill country and saluted her cousin Elizabeth." Grant us true love of neighbor, Lord.
The third Joy in the Crown of Mary is the joy of Our Lady at the Birth of Jesus and the Adoration of the Magi. "She brought forth her first-born son...and laid him in a manger." Give us true poverty of spirit, Lord.
The fourth Joy in the Crown of Mary is the joy of Our Lady at the Presentation and Purification. "They carried him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord...as it is written in the law of the Lord." Help me obey all just laws.
The fifth Joy in the Crown of Mary is the joy of Our Lady at the Finding of Jesus in the Temple. "Not finding him, they returned to Jerusalem seeking him." May I never lose you through serious sin, Lord.
The sixth Joy in the Crown of Mary is the joy of Our Lady at the Resurrection of Jesus. "The Lord is not here; He is risen." May we share your glory, Lord.
The seventh Joy in the Crown of Mary is the joy of Our Lady at her Assumption into Heaven and her Coronation. "A woman clothed with the sun; upon her head a crown of twelve stars." Mary, may we share your crown of eternal life.

After you have prayed the seven decades, pray two more Hail Marys to make a total of 72--honoring the 72 years of Mary's life (according to legend). Then, for the intentions of the Holy Father, pray one Our Father, one Hail Mary and one Gloria.

Friar Charles has some more details on the Franciscan Crown. You don't have to be a Franciscan to pray this beautiful devotion. Join me today, in honor of the Queenship of Mary.

Another Altar-Server Debut

2011-08-21T15:45:00.001-04:00

Adventure Boy showed up at my house 2 hours before we leave for church (don't panic--we go to noon Mass, so he wasn't here at the crack of dawn...THIS time). His hair was (mostly) combed. He was, for him, formally dressed in a golf shirt and cargo pants and basketball sneakers--a step up from flip-flops. And he announced that he was coming to church with us.

A couple of hours earlier, Little Brother had woken up, and he came downstairs announcing that he wasn't going to be an altar server anymore. Last time he served, it was VERY hot in church, and our altar robes are made of a fabric that's closer to burlap than it is to seersucker. It was his first day flying solo as a server, there was a baptism of twins during the Mass, and he passed out right before the Lamb of God.

I couldn't even go over to help him out, since half our folk group was on vacation and I was leading the band. But at least 5 others came to his rescue and got TheDad, who didn't have Little Brother in his line of sight. Once he was hydrated and out of that hot robe, he was fine. (A Slurpee helped.)

Anyway, Little Brother was pretty nervous about getting back on the horse. And apparently on the way to church, he and Adventure Boy cooked up a plan.

When I got to church (I leave earlier than the non-musicians in the family) Father asked me how Little Brother was. I explained that he was fine, but nervous; I hoped that there would be a pre-Mass pep talk in the sacristy. I saw Little Brother and Adventure Boy arrive, and both headed into the sacristy. The next thing I knew, the two of them were wearing their robes and marching up to get the candles off the altar so they could carry them in the procession.

I'm not sure what Father was thinking, letting those two carry LIT candles. There was some during-the-Mass coaching going on (Adventure Boy wasn't holding the finger towel the right way, apparently) and quite a bit of fidgeting by the boys. Little Brother noticed me watching him and would occasionally flash me a thumbs-up to let me know that he was feeling fine.

Two very proud altar servers carried LIT candles off the altar after Mass and (a little too quickly) led the procession out. TheDad and I are very proud parents--and godparents.

And after Mass, Father asked TheDad (AKA The Cubmaster) to encourage the other Cub Scouts who are old enough to consider being altar servers.

You Go, Girl!

2011-08-12T19:40:00.000-04:00

It's time to give credit where credit is overdue. I'm proud of my daughter and what she has made of this summer. While she has had plenty of time to hang out with friends, eat pizza, swim, and stay up late watching movies, she has also made time to get involved in a couple of interesting activities.

After discovering that field hockey is not her thing (she was good at the sport but didn't like the team atmosphere--very sorority-like), she decided to pursue soccer this fall. The last time Middle Sister played soccer, she was 6. Our town is big on soccer; we produced a player on the most recent women's Olympic soccer team. And apparently soccer parents in this town are big on how much playing time their kids get, because there were only two extra kids per team. 6-year-olds play on full-size fields, and with very few substitutes, 6-year-olds get tired pretty quickly. Middle Sister didn't want to sign up for soccer the next year, and we didn't push it.

But now, as a sophomore in high school, she wants to try it. So we invested in the cleats and the shin guards and the soccer ball and the week of soccer camp--and we'll see how it goes once practices start. She seems to like it, and I have to give her credit for starting a new sport at 15 when most kids her age have been playing for 10 years already. She says she's made some "newbie mistakes," even some funny ones, but she has been eager to try, working to improve, and trying to make up for her lack of technique and finesse with heart and determination.

And she hasn't gotten a lot of rest this week after spending 6 hours a day in the hot sun playing soccer--because she's been spending her evenings at the community theatre with her brother. They're both in the theatre's Intern Company, a summer program of about 40 teens that produces a play. The kids write, direct, compose music, build sets, design special effects, advertise, sell tickets--they do it all, and have been working hard since June. Middle Sister is running the light boards for the play, which ends its run tomorrow night, and she also helped build and paint sets. She's been having a great time.

Finally, she spent a week pet-sitting for our neighbor. They have a lizard (that required live insects for food), a guinea pig, and a dog. The dog spent most of the week here, and she really did a good job caring for him. He was very sad without his family, and Middle Sister tried everything short of feeding him from the table (she was super-strict about that) to make him happy. Sometimes her pet-sitting responsibilities interfered with her social life, but she didn't complain or beg someone else to do her job.

No, she hasn't yet completed (or even started, for that matter) her math packet or her summer-reading book. But I don't think she's wasted her time this summer. She's still got a couple of weeks to buckle down and get the schoolwork done.

A VBS Letdown

2011-08-06T10:55:00.000-04:00

Our parish participates in a community Vacation Bible School with 3 other churches: Lutheran, Moravian and Episcopal. They've been doing this for years. And for years (probably 15 years, give or take a couple) my kids have participated.

We're done now. Little Brother, at 9, has pretty much aged out of VBS. He grudgingly decided to sign up this year because a few of his friends would be there. But he persevered through the whole week.

I can't say enough about the hard work by all the volunteers (ranging from older tweens to senior citizens). The decorations were amazing, though that panda is pretty creepy. The four churches got together to donate materials for crafts and food for snacks. And the music was pretty fun. I didn't receive any reports about snacks that represented the plague of boils or leprosy, which is an improvement from previous years, though there were complaints the day the snack contained copious amounts of Cheese in a Can.

Yesterday Middle Sister and I attended the "finale show" of VBS. As usual, it was Hot and Crowded, and you have to sit in certain places in the Very Tiny Church or the VBS police will make you move (though the seats are not marked; one year I had to try 3 different locations before I sat somewhere acceptable). The VBS kids did a good job of singing the songs and waiting patiently during a few Technical Difficulties.

The audience, however, was another matter. The little boy in the pew directly in front of us spent the entire hour kicking, punching, smacking and pushing his mother/grandmother (I'm not sure which). This child was no more than 3 1/2 (and he was a little, wiry guy), and the grown woman with him was actually cringing as he beat on her. Middle Sister was horrified. The little boy directly behind me spent most of the hour kicking the back of my pew. 3 adults were with him. Nobody stopped him.

After the show, the kids trooped off to pick up the craft projects they made during the week, and Middle Sister and I waited in the parking lot with our neighbor. I mentioned the behavior of the little boy in front of us. She responded that her kids had come home every day reporting bad behavior on the part of the VBS participants, so she wasn't surprised.

What is that child going to be like when he's 8, 12, 16, 20 if before the age of 4 he is beating on his adult caregiver? In church, no less.

Sigh.

Today's Weirdness is Brought to you by Twitter

2011-08-02T20:53:00.000-04:00

When you've only got 140 characters to play with, it's hard to express things.

And when you're a newspaper, using your Twitter feed to share headlines for story after story after story, you might wind up with the following CONSECUTIVE posts:

Pair charged with stealing wire in Medford
Missing Medford man found safe and unharmed

If you're reading that newspaper's Twitter feed, you might very easily (and probably wrongly) conclude that there was some connection between those 2 stories. You might even imagine a very interesting story behind the story. I'm sure it was much more interesting than what actually happened.

Book Review: Seamus O'Flynn

2011-08-02T15:22:00.001-04:00

It's the coming-of-age story of an Irish-Catholic New York City boy during the Great Depression and World War II. It could be your great-uncle or grandfather telling the story, if you're Irish. It's a young boy's version of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

Bill Tobin's book Seamus O'Flynn is an engaging story that reads like a memoir. Subtitled "New York Diaries of an Immigrant Son 1931-1945," this book chronicles young Seamus' adventures, from the first day of school to pickup baseball games. Bill Tobin eloquently describes all of Seamus' haunts: his apartment building, a few wooded areas in the Bronx, his favorite swimming spots.

Life is not easy for a child of immigrant parents during the Depression and war, and the reader learns of Seamus' struggles with hunger as well as his technique for avoiding subway turnstiles. There are funny moments, sad moments, and a seemingly-gratuitious moment of abuse by a priest (I really felt that the story could have done without that one--it just feeds into stereotypes).

Overall, it's a good novel that feels like a biography. I had to keep reminding myself that it's fiction. If you liked Angela's Ashes, you'll like this book.

Letter Perfect

2011-07-31T17:27:00.000-04:00

The kids are on notice.

That stack below the sign contains 6 towels that have been left here over the course of the summer. I don't launder them anymore--I just hang them on the line, fold them, and pile them next to the Lost & Found basket that contains someone's bug spray, someone's swim goggles, someone's sunglasses. When kids come over here I interrogate them about whose towels these are. No one knows--but the teenagers use them anyway (ewwwwwwwww).

I wonder if any of these towels will miraculously find a home in the days to come, or if the ManageMOM will get to dispose of them as she sees fit?

Real Person, Real Saint

2011-07-29T08:27:00.000-04:00

Today is the feast of Saint Martha, one of my very favorite saints.

It's the saints like Martha that give me hope for ordinary people like me. So many times we put the saints on a pedestal. We think that they were always perfect, always praying, always doing the right thing.

People tend to do that with their heroes, saintly or otherwise.

But we never get the chance to put Saint Martha on a pedestal. She starts right off by ratting out her sister to Jesus, their honored guest. And Jesus gives it right back. He lets her know that she is just way too stressed out and that she's letting her anxiety get in the way of her hospitality.

I've had way too many "Martha moments," and I'm not talking about Martha Stewart. I'm talking about the Screaming Meemie Party Mom who often inhabits my house before we have company. It isn't pretty. It isn't fun, for me or anyone else. I'm sure Saint Martha wasn't having fun that day either, especially when she was embarrassed in front of all her guests as Jesus took her to task.

She redeemed herself later, though, when she confidently proclaimed her faith in Jesus and who He was.

Saint Martha reminds me that saints are, in fact, real people with real faults, real challenges, real attitudes and real faith.

Saint Martha is the patron of cooks, servants, homemakers, single women, laundry workers, innkeepers, dieticians and travelers.

Read an interview with Julie Davis, another Saint Martha fan, right here!

Image credit

Poetry Fan?

2011-07-26T07:38:00.000-04:00

This morning I came upon a quote from one of my very favorite poems. Despite the fact that I was an English major in college and grad school, I've never been a poetry reader. Yet again and again, I've run into two or three poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins, and that makes me realize that there can be magic in poetry.

Here's Pied Beauty:

GLORY be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;	5
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:	10
Praise him. --Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1918

Maybe the rest of the time I've just been reading the wrong poets.

Book Review: In Name Only

2011-07-25T14:08:00.000-04:00

Historical fiction is not generally my thing, but once I started reading In Name Only by Ellen Gable (author of Emily's Hope) I was hooked. The winning combination: characters I could believe in, an interesting plot, and a setting in 1876 Philadelphia! I love books with a local flavor, and even had my Philly map spread out so I could follow the characters' paths through the city.

I found myself rooting for several of the characters--even ones I didn't like at the beginning of the novel. Here's the story: an orphaned teenager who spent most of her childhood and teenage years caring for her chronically-ill father travels to Philadelphia to live with relatives after his death. On the train, she meets a caring young man and his crass older brother, who turn out to be her neighbors. Caroline believes her life is destined to be a fairy tale--until tragedy strikes, and the unexpected happens.

This novel covers a wide range of topics: Catholicism, alcoholism, difficult pregnancies, social conventions and more. The characters' personalities grew and matured throughout the novel, and the historical detail pointed to diligent research on the part of the author. Ellen Gable really made this time period come alive in the book.

This novel has a lot to recommend it--and I definitely recommend it. I'm looking forward to the author's next book, due out in September.

Fine Print: I won a free electronic edition of this book as part of an online giveaway. I received no compensation for this review, and the opinion expressed here is entirely my own.

It's Good to Know

2011-07-25T07:31:00.000-04:00

I first started working as a home-instruction tutor when Big Brother was about 3 years old. I'm still listed as a tutor with one of the 3 districts in which I worked; the other two have contracted out the home tutoring. While I'm not often assigned students anymore, I do enjoy the one-on-one work with a student who is too ill/injured/postpartum/pregnant/anxious/depressed to attend school. (Yes, I've had students in each of these categories--as well as a few discipline cases and a couple of malingerers.) There are students I've only taught for 2 weeks or so before they return to school. Most of them, I never hear about again.

Every once in a while I run into one of my students, who lived here in town and had a baby girl during her senior year of high school. I was paid to be her English tutor, but I also did a good bit of informal encouragement; this young mom was breastfeeding her daughter, keeping up with her classes, and handling quite a bit of the housework. She later married the father of her baby and they have another child as well; now she's a stay-at-home mom, although she did work quite hard when her little girl was young, managing a Domino's Pizza. Her resilience, determination and dedication served her and her family well, and it touches my heart that every so often, SHE recognizes ME. She is eager to tell me how things went for her family and I love to hear how well they are all doing.

Today's local paper features a story about one of my former students. I taught her for an entire spring, when she first became ill during her junior year of high school. I remember cancellations due to specialist visits and medical tests. She never felt well but she tried hard to stick with the schoolwork. She's 27 now, married, and recently received a kidney transplant from her older sister. There are complications with her disease, though.

If you read down to the end of the article, you'll see that she recently attended a Mass of Healing at the Shrine of St. John Neumann in Philadelphia--and her family welcomes prayers. It's lovely to see that in the paper, and my former student Christine can count on mine. It's good to know how things are going, and it's good to know that although 11th-grade English is long over, there is still something I can do to help.

Deliver Me from the Mall

2011-07-24T17:50:00.000-04:00

Whoever wrote the lyrics, "Someone told me it's all happenin' at the zoo" had clearly never been to the Cherry Hill Mall.

I go to malls as infrequently as I possibly can. And I hate to shop on Sundays. But I had promised to take Middle Sister to the mall for jeans, and if we went today, we wouldn't have to bring Little Brother along.

The clothes shopping was actually quite pleasant. She tried to find some jeans for me, but that was a lost cause in the store we were in. I did find a cute pair of capri pants, a scarf and a peasant blouse that I liked--all on sale. And she got her jeans.

Then we headed to Forever 21, where I expected to see the kind of clothes aspiring hookers would wear. I was happily surprised to see plenty of very sweet tops, with feminine lines and floral patterns. I don't follow fashion--is "sweet and girly" suddenly back in? I sure hope so.

The rest of the time, I was people-watching while Middle Sister spent her own money, that she earned pet-sitting for our neighbors this week. Being all "browsed out," I sat on a bench while she shopped--there's only so much blaring rap music and perfumed air I can handle in one afternoon, and I'd hit my limit. You can do a lot of people-watching when you sit on a bench at the mall for 20 minutes, and you see some scary stuff.

A family stopped outside Victoria's Secret: mom, dad and two little boys. Mom took the younger one into the store with her, despite his loud protests, saying, "Mommy needs you! You have to help Mommy put on her panties!"

An impossibly skinny girl tottered past, dressed head to ankle in "junior hooker" garb--and shoes that would be more-likely found on a denizen of a retirement home.

And doesn't it say something about the clientele of a particular store when you have to show your ID to use your own credit card?

I'll stick to internet shopping, thanks. The only people-watching I'll have to do is staring out the window, waiting for the UPS truck.

Christmas in July

2011-07-24T11:32:00.000-04:00

Little Brother and 3 friends are sitting here, deep in negotiations about what to play. While they work out how to pair off for "teams" in a game, one of the kids is paging through a church hymnal left on the table after choir practice the other day.

"How about we play on teams for one round and all together for another round," one friend suggests.

Meanwhile, another child is announcing the next hymn--and they all drop the discussion of teams and open up a music book and start singing "Go Tell It On The Mountain."

Their great enthusiasm makes up for their lack of perfect pitch (not to mention tempo.)

Sing on, kids!

Following Up on the Sultan and the Dilemma

2011-07-22T08:26:00.000-04:00

Thank you all so much for your words of advice as I made the decision. A fellow Franciscan, Lisa of Franciscan Focus, suggested checking into a book called St. Francis and the Conversion of the Muslims. When I visited the website she recommended, I found a link to an interview with the author.

I printed out this interview and brought it to the meeting. I decided to head this member off at the pass. I handed her the printout and told her that I knew she'd be interested in reading this, and if she thought that this book would be beneficial to the fraternity, we'd order a copy for the fraternity library. The idea of guest speakers was not mentioned. She was happy to receive the interview and said she'd let me know if she thought we'd be interested in the book.

So there we are!

The Sultan and the Dilemma

2011-07-18T17:43:00.000-04:00

As the minister of my local Secular Franciscan fraternity, I don't make decisions in a vacuum, but there are decisions that I have to be the one to make. When decisions are made, the good of the whole fraternity must be considered--it's like being a parent in that way (except that in my fraternity, I'm actually the "baby" of the family!)

One of our members has brought up again and again that she wants to invite a Muslim to speak to our fraternity as part of our ongoing formation. She has not really answered the question of what topic she would want a Muslim to speak about. She has no particular Muslim in mind--she's thinking of cold-calling a local mosque to invite someone.

I know that this member is concerned that all Muslims are being painted with a broad brush as a result of 9/11 and the War on Terror. I know that she is convinced that, as Franciscans, we are to be peacemakers. And I know that she is aware that St. Francis himself met with the Sultan during one of the Crusades.

But there are a few things that I don't believe she knows. When St. Francis met with the Sultan, he fully expected to become a martyr as a result of that meeting. While he did not consider the Sultan his "enemy," he had no illusions about what would probably happen to him--even though that did not turn out to be the case. He was not insulting toward the Sultan's faith, but neither did he pull any punches about his own faith and that he hoped to lead the Sultan to the right way to God. He saw the Sultan as his brother, but he also saw an opportunity to attempt a conversion.

Someone once called me "practical," which at times seems at odds with what it means to be a Franciscan. St. Francis was, usually, anything but practical. Yet I worry that this member's proposal would not be for the good of the fraternity. With no particular speaker or topic in mind, that opens the door to who-knows-what--IF she could even get someone to agree to attend the meeting. And as no one in the fraternity has any relationships with any Muslims, we do not know if the random person she finds to ask is truly faithful to Muslim spirituality.

And, frankly, this might sound a little insular or provincial or whatever, but I believe that there is plenty for us to learn and discover and by which to be inspired right here within our own Faith. We don't need to look outside our own yard for more traditions, more rituals, more ways to prayer. There's plenty right here that we have yet to get to know.

This is going to come up again tomorrow at the meeting--I'd love to hear someone else's thoughts!

To Be Fair

2011-07-09T21:17:00.000-04:00

I don't want to paint all 15-year-olds with the same broad brush. I arrived home from an errand today to find Middle Sister and two friends (one girl, one guy) in the pool. TheDad told me that when the visitors arrived, they came in (without being asked) to say hello before swimming.

We had some grilled hamburgers, baked beans and salad for dinner. The teens ate, talked, laughed, and then bused their own dishes without being asked--politely checking with me to see where I wanted them to put the dirty plates. Before leaving, they both thanked us for the meal and the swim.

Visitors like THOSE are welcome anytime.

You've Got Some 'Splaining to Do

2011-07-09T20:58:00.000-04:00

Little Brother has a friend here for a sleepover tonight. Many of his classmates are surprised, when they come over, to learn that Little Brother has a Big Brother, since during the school year, Big Brother isn't around much.

"Big Brother, when did you graduate from St. Charles?" the friend asked.

"I never went to St. Charles," Big Brother replied.

The horrified response: "Why NOT?"

Little Brother explained: "We didn't know about it."

Um, well, that's really not the story, but Little Brother was too young at just-turned-four to have a grip on the real situation.

Gourmet Meal

2011-07-08T08:00:00.000-04:00

Our neighbors got home from vacation very late Wednesday night. Little Brother was thrilled to see his two friends again--he's really been missing them.

I was making a huge batch of spaghetti and meatballs, so I invited the whole family to come for dinner. This way, the mom could have a break from cooking on her first day back (I knew she was busy concentrating on laundry).

She insisted on bringing a salad to contribute to the meal, and Little Brother enjoyed the croutons that came along with the salad.

This morning he noticed that the rest of the bag of croutons was still on my kitchen table. "Did the neighbors leave the croutons here?" he asked. "I really liked those. I ate, like, 5 handfuls of croutons last night. They were soooooooooooooo good."

Zits hits the nail on the head

2011-07-08T07:23:00.000-04:00

I'm beating Ellen to the Friday Funny today. We have a few things in common, including a connection to our local diocesan high school and a love for the movie My Cousin Vinny. And we both enjoy the Zits comic, which chronicles life with teen boys--the kind of teen boys who are basically good kids but just, in their own way, completely oblivious. That comic makes me laugh, because there are so many times I can picture the exact situation.

Here's today's Zits:

That's life with Big Brother. Except he has an old beat-up Hyundai, not a van.

And here's one from earlier in the week, which is a good description of Middle Sister's friends:

I could totally picture some of them doing this--which is why they require more supervision than 15-year-olds want to have. In some ways, these kids are just like toddlers, only larger and stronger (and thankfully, potty trained).

He's Been Waiting for This Day

2011-07-03T17:36:00.001-04:00

Pardon the blurry shot--we had the
flash turned off.

...and so have I.

Little Brother has wanted to be an altar server for oh, so long. He was a toddler when Big Brother began altar-serving, and even though TheDad sat with him waaaaaaaaaay in the back of the church and I was up front with the musicians, I'd hear Little Brother at Consecration time: "Big Brother's ringing the bells!"

At the end of Mass, the altar servers would process to the back of the church, where Father would leave the procession and the servers would turn the corner and go down the side aisle to the front, leave the cross in the sacristy and then proceed to put away the altar linens. It wasn't long before Little Brother joined that parade, and the "Hat Lady" would allow him to put the finger towels into the laundry hamper in the sacristy. She had her eye on him; no, not just the eye that watched over the altar servers and made sure they served reverently, but the one that paid attention to children in church who seemed to have more than the usual spark of interest.

Middle Sister has been serving for several years now--so many years that she's just about outgrown the longest altar-server robe the church has. And Little Brother has wanted to serve. He asked, at the beginning of this school year, only to be told that he should wait until fourth grade. Well, third grade is over and this morning he came running down the stairs to see if he can be an altar server now.

"You can ask Father about that when we get to church," I told him, making no promises.

When we arrived, we saw that the pastor was not assigned to our Mass today--instead, it was the assistant, who thought it would be just fine if Little Brother served. So Middle Sister helped him find a robe in the right size and showed him all the ropes, including how to carry the cross in the entrance procession. He did quite well for his first day, and after the closing prayer Father H announced to everyone that it was Little Brother's first day as an altar server.

He's eager to do it again. I'm grateful that Father H did not brush him off but instead encouraged and allowed him to serve. And how cool is it that he got his "on the job training" from Middle Sister?

I think the "Hat Lady" would be proud. I know I am.

A Rose by Any Other Name

2011-06-30T09:30:00.000-04:00

Little Brother was just helping me unload the dishwasher. Picking up a slotted spoon, he asked, "Mom, where does the FILTER SPOON go?"

Just for the Record

2011-06-26T13:44:00.000-04:00

I'm not taking away the refrigerator magnets. Other than this one time, they've been a source of fun for the kids and I do want to keep it that way.

But before the teens reappear next week, I'm open to suggestion for what the next message (posted by me) should read.

An Empty Nest, an Apology, a Reprieve, and a Thank You

2011-06-26T13:28:00.000-04:00

This week, the only kid we'll have at home with us is Little Brother. The other two kids are off on vacation with their friends who generously invited them along. Lucky kids! I won't miss the all-day, everyday consumption of Dr. Pepper, Ellio's pizza, and pretzels that seems to happen when my teenagers are around, but I'll miss their company nonetheless. So will Little Brother. (I'm trying to plan a little extra fun into his week). That's the Empty Nest part.

The young man with the colorful vocabulary has come forward to apologize. We're glad about that. And he was rather eloquent about it as well, expressing his regrets for his lack of respect to my daughter, to me, and to my family. That's the Apology part.

And now we've got six more days before there will be any teenagers around here. That will give everyone a chance to cool down, and--I hope--a fresh start next weekend. I've got a big sense of relief right now. I'm glad that a confession and an apology took place before Middle Sister departed for the shore. I'm glad for the opportunity to take a bit of a break so I can start fresh next week. And I'm glad we stuck to our guns on this issue, even though my daughter doesn't "get" what the big deal was. Hopefully, one day she will. And that's the Reprieve part.

Finally, the Thanks part, in which I express my gratitude to you for your show of support in the comments, and for the prayers that I am certain strengthened me through the rest of this week. Thank you ever so much!

Inspiring Me Today

2011-06-24T09:24:00.000-04:00

Great affairs do not disturb us so much as a great number of little ones; therefore, receive these also with calmness, and try to attend to them in order, one after another, without perturbation. Thus, you will gain great merit by them. -- St. Francis de Sales

I found this very timely quote over at Faith & Family Live. While blogger Kelly Dolin was discussing life with toddlers, it's no less true when you've got teens and grade-schoolers in the house.

After I found myself defeated, again and again, by the "little things" this week, I need the inspiration. It's not like there have been any major crises. But it's been a tough week, that has included:

Little Brother running a fever of 103.7, complete with a spell of vomiting.
An extended-family medical issue that culminated in a 2-day houseguest.
A bunch of teenagers who don't follow the "say hello to the adult at home" rule when they show up to swim. They also don't bring their own towels, and they empty my porch refrigerator of all beverages. And they leave their mess behind.
A teenager (yet to be identified) who thinks it's funny to spell out one of George Carlin's "7 words you can't say on TV" with the ABC magnets we keep near the porch refrigerator. (Usually those are used to wish a friend a happy birthday.)
Adventure Boy vomiting on the pool deck (but fortunately not in the pool itself.)

It hasn't been pretty, and I haven't handled all of this well. And some of it's not over yet. Now we have to play hardball with a bunch of 15-year-olds until someone apologizes for his use of filthy vocabulary and lack of respect of us and our daughter.

I think I'm going to have to pull out my Francis de Sales book and see if he has any more advice for people like me, who can handle big things pretty well, but let the little things pile up and pile up and pile up until they lose it completely. It's going to be a long summer, and I'll need all the grace I can get.

Mr. Malaprop Rides Again

2011-06-24T08:25:00.000-04:00

As we sat and chatted around the dinner table, one of the Big Kids mentioned the name of a friend.

"Does your friend have any brothers or sisters?" TheDad asked.

"No," replied the Big Kid.

Little Brother piped up: "She's SINGLE?"

Impartial

2011-06-23T12:13:00.000-04:00

Earlier this month I reported for Jury Duty. While it was a big inconvenience, managed only because Big Brother was already home from college and able to retrieve Little Brother from the school bus in the afternoon, I don't regret participating.

However, I am relieved that after 3 days of voir dire--involving 500 jurors--I was not selected to hear the case. After listening to the indictment, I was quite sure that there was no way I'd be able to be an impartial juror.

The two defendants were indicted on nearly 50 counts involving the sexual abuse of four teenagers over the course of several years. One defendant was a police officer in a neighboring town. One woman left the courtroom in tears after telling the judge that she could not serve as a juror in such a case. The two defense attorneys managed to get any juror with children over the age of 2 tossed out of the pool right then and there.

I was at the end of the random list of 500 jurors--and one of the last 13 who had not yet been interviewed (50 questions per juror) by the time all attorneys agreed that an acceptable jury had been seated. But I figured that if I had made it to the interview process, they wouldn't like my answer to the question regarding my ability to hear this case impartially.

I have two children and seven nieces and nephews in the same age group as the victims in this case (plus my older son and older nephew who are both now over 18). My husband and I are both deeply involved in volunteer work with children. And I was ready to be perfectly honest with the judge, the prosecutor and the defense attorney that I did not believe that I could put my first instinct--to protect a child--aside in a situation like this.

I was not ready to say that the defendants were automatically guilty, as I believe in and respect the principles on which our justice system is based. But I could not be fair about it, and that's just the way it is.

Unfortunately, this case did not come to trial last week as planned. The day before the trial, one of the defense attorneys perished in a house fire caused, fire marshals suspect, by smoking in bed. Now the jury that had been assembled has been excused and the whole thing will start all over again. Next year.

If children were victimized in that situation ending in 2008, their nightmare is going to continue another year as they wait for justice. If the two adults were falsely accused, their nightmare will continue. Either way, it's not good.

When it comes to backyard disputes over whose turn it is to use the Super Soaker or who made the mess, I'm as impartial as they come. (You can share it, or it's mine; and I don't care who made the mess--I just care that you pick it up when I tell you to.) But this is way more than a fight over a water gun or the scattered pieces of a board game. The stakes are too high. Both sides deserve what I could not give them.

Both sides deserve prayer too, and I struggled to remind myself of that during the reading of the indictment and the juror interviews that followed. I struggled even more after I was excused from the case and went home to google the gory details--and those details were quite gory.

Even if the adults in this case are found to be innocent, there are many adults who are not. Today, pray for them and for the children who are their victims. And pray for those falsely accused and for their accusers. It's heartbreaking.

I Concede

2011-06-19T17:18:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I get frustrated when my husband doesn't do things the way I'd do them.

OK, I always get frustrated when my husband doesn't do things the way I'd do them.

Controlling much?

(I spent half my time on jury duty last week rethinking their systems and figuring out how to eliminate potential jurors more quickly. Yeah--I'd say I'm controlling.)

It's a good thing my husband puts up with me.

I'm the nuts and bolts around here; he's the dreams. I worry about the practical stuff like what's for dinner and who has to be where and who's driving them there and how long has Little Brother been playing on that Game Boy, anyway? He wishes for exciting vacations and gives in to Little Brother's "five more minutes" requests and lets the kids have sleepovers. He says "yes" when I want to say "no."

And when Little Brother and Adventure Boy have a sleepover that involves making "forts" out of all the cushions in the family room, he lets them. And when they're too scared to sleep in the family room when everyone else is upstairs, he sleeps down there too, on the couch. On Father's Day. And then when we go out to a restaurant for Father's Day, he invites Adventure Boy to come along.

It's a good thing that we have him in our lives. He might make me crazy sometimes, but we really do need that balance, that other side, that he brings to things.

Happy Father's Day to my husband, TheDad!

Teach Your Children Well

2011-06-16T19:22:00.000-04:00

My Big Kids know how to use utensils, but I can't figure out where I went wrong with Little Brother. I have never met a child so resistant to the use of a knife and fork. The kid even eats ice cream with his fingers if you don't stop him.

Overheard at my dinner table tonight:

"Little Brother, ravioli is not a finger food."

"It is if you fold it up like a taco!"

That didn't fly...we made him pick up his fork.

You can lead a child to silverware, but you can't make him like it.

Small Consolation

2011-06-13T21:35:00.000-04:00

Eeek, I have just qualified for the Bad Mommy Award. Looked up at the clock and realized it's 9:30 and Little Brother is not yet in bed.

So as I packed him off to bed, I mentioned that I hope he isn't grumpy in the morning.

"It's your fault, Mom," he reminded me. "YOU didn't tell me it was time to go to bed."

"You were being so quiet, I didn't even realize you were up," I said.

"I like to be quiet."

"REALLY?" (That's news to me. He's rarely quiet.)

"It's good to be quiet," he continued. "I think I'll be quiet more often. Maybe tomorrow I'll even be quiet in class."

With 4 days left in the school year, I'm sure that's a great comfort to his teacher.

They Don't Make Them Like That Anymore

2011-06-11T06:42:00.000-04:00

This morning TheDad and I are on our way to a funeral in our old neighborhood.

When we bought our first home, we were one of only two or three young families on the block. Most of our neighbors were retired military. Although it was hard not to have kids around for Big Brother to play with--and I didn't know anyone else with kids, since we were brand-new to the area code, we had lovely neighbors.

The people across the street, with the well-tended home, were "Mr. John" and "Miss Martha" to Big Brother. Mr. John had served over 25 years in the Marines, including deployments during two wars. He was in his late sixties by the time we moved in to the neighborhood.

Every day, Mr. John inspected every inch of his yard and sidewalk, sweeping up leaves and bits of trash. He always had a friendly word as I wandered by with the stroller, taking Big Brother and, later, Middle Sister, for a walk around town.

The only things that were ever out of place in his immaculately-groomed yard were the plastic Easter eggs--filled with pocket change and dollar bills--that he strewed around every Easter before his grandkids came for dinner. In the fall, a leaf would barely hit the ground before Mr. John had swept it up.

TheDad has always looked forward to their Christmas card, which is less a card than a booklet filled with inspirational stories and poems. After receiving it, he'd give them a call and see how they were doing. He'd also call after every snowstorm--and once or twice he just drove to the old neighborhood to help Mr. John shovel his driveway and walk. And we'd run into them at our church carnival and Polish dinner, because they loved the pierogi!

Today we'll say farewell to the man who, with his wife, took care of five-year-old Big Brother so I could bring Middle Sister to the ER for stitches in her forehead when she cut it on the edge of the coffee table; who always took time out of his sweeping or raking or mowing or relaxing in a lawn chair to come down the driveway and greet us as we passed on our many walks through the neighborhood.

Rest in peace, Mr. John. We were blessed to have a neighbor like you.

Young Architects?

2011-06-04T18:23:00.000-04:00

Little Brother has two visitors, who happen to be brothers. They've been enjoying each other's company for the past couple of hours, playing board games and Yu-Gi-Oh cards.

These boys live at the far end of our neighborhood, in a similar-style home. And they've been endlessly fascinated by the similarities and differences in our houses. Just now, they were walking around with Little Brother, observing that in their house, there's a piano in the spot where we have a bookcase. They covered the whole house this way. It's been really funny to listen to the three of them on their little house tour.

Growth Curve

2011-06-03T20:47:00.000-04:00

During the past two weeks I've been rehearsing for Sunday's performance of Marty Haugen's Song of Mark, a musical production based on the Gospel of Mark, with a group of musicians and singers that I don't ordinarily work with. It's been a wonderful and interesting experience.

Playing with a new group is always a challenge, and that's good, because when you play with the same people week after week, you start to know what to expect. It takes playing with different people to make a musician grow.

I'm not an excellent musician by any stretch of the imagination. Once I was out of college, I haven't been in a position where I could play my guitar every day. It was more like one or two times per week. That's not conducive to growing as a musician either. And while I had enough basic piano lessons to know how to read music, I'm a self-taught guitarist. The director of this production teaches music and can play just about any instrument. Frankly, if she weren't so nice, I'd be really intimidated.

It's nice being a part of a musical production with my kids. All 3 are taking part. Big Brother is playing electric bass, and Middle Sister and Little Brother are both in the children's chorus. Since there are only about 20 in the entire cast and orchestra, we make up 1/5 of the people involved in this event.

All the music is new to me, and Haugen's music is always a challenge. One of the other guitarists from my Sunday folk group observed that Haugen must hate guitarists when I showed her some of the music, written in tortuous keys and including chords like E-flat, Gm, and the like. Many of the songs are 6 or 8 pages long, so I also had to learn to work in page turns!

I have loved the opportunity to go and play for almost two solid hours at a time--though my arms are really feeling it. I'm playing along with a pianist, a keyboard, and Big Brother on the bass. With only one guitar, I don't have much room for error. That's a challenge too.

I think the challenge is good for me. And certainly playing is good for me. And some of the songs are really, really good. Here's the refrain from my favorite one:

When the day of our God has come to pass,
The skies will ring out with the angels' song.
The last will be first and the first will be last
When the day of our God comes,
The wondrous day of our God.

That's been stuck in my head for days--and there's nothing wrong with that.

Storytime Ooops!

2011-05-31T13:23:00.000-04:00

One of my favorite parts about helping in the school library is storytime. Because the kindergarten and first grade only get 45 minutes to divide between library and computer class, we don't get to have storytime every week.

Today, though, the librarian was helping to chaperone the 8th grade trip, and I was flying solo in the library. The lesson plan she left for me included storytime for both of the primary-grade classes I'd see. Bonus: I got to pick the story!

The first-graders had let us know earlier this year that they are big fans of Tomie dePaola. Me too--I've enjoyed his picture books since the time I used to read them to Big Brother. So I went to the bookshelf and chose one of Big Brother's favorites: Tom.

In this story, a little boy's grandfather shows his mischievous side, giving Tommy two chicken feet. Tommy takes them to school and uses them to scare his classmates--and a teacher.

We were just getting to the good part when the first-grade teacher walked into the library to collect her students. And there I was, reading all about how this little boy caused a little playground mayhem with a couple of chicken feet.

So...what do you think the odds are that I'll be asked to substitute again?

Oddest Memorial Day Ever

2011-05-30T21:36:00.001-04:00

It began normally enough. We woke up and got ready to attend the Memorial Day parade in the next town. Big Brother and Middle Sister were helping the Boy Scouts, who cook and serve hot dogs (888 this year!) and cold beverages to all who march and attend the parade. TheDad and Little Brother were marching with the Cub Scouts. I was the only one in the family who actually watched the parade this year.

And that part was weird. I didn't have Middle Sister to people-watch with, and parades are almost as good as carnivals in drawing out some pretty strange people. Homeless-looking old men who picked up candy that was tossed in the street--and handed it to nearby children. Women "of a certain age" who still shop at stores like Forever 21. Other women (older than "a certain age") who go for the star-spangled look: full red, white, and blue glitter from head to toe. And quite a few pit bulls. I didn't have Little Brother to clap along to the bands and beg me to buy him a pretzel/water/balloon/flag/pop gun/Silly String/noisemaker/all of the above. Hope springs eternal with that one: we bring our own snacks and drinks and I never buy the junk.

After the parade, we came home and a bunch of Little Brother's friends came over here to swim. I was in the middle of the laundry stream, and found that the utility sink was half-full of water and it wasn't draining at all. I finally forced TheDad out of the pool to try to snake out the drain.

He concluded that we had to call a professional.

We waited 3 hours for the professional to not show up or call back, and then we called a different professional who got here in 30 minutes, took care of the problem, and required a nice fat check from us because plumbers on Memorial Day are expensive.

I began admiring my Parade Tan, which consists of sunburn on 1 1/2 knees.

Meanwhile I took Middle Sister and Little Brother to rehearsal for "Song of Mark" at church (they're in the children's chorus, I'm accompanying on guitar) and Big Brother's friends came over to swim and eat.

We ran the whole show in a non-air-conditioned church and then I came home to the dishes that had piled up all day because I wasn't able to do any dishes since we couldn't use the water.

Now there are 7 college students trying to play Guitar Hero quietly because Little Brother is sleeping. Good luck with that.

Big Brother bought a lemon meringue pie to feed his friends. I think I'll go have a nice big slice.