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Posts Tagged ‘children’

An Evening with Edgar Allan Poe

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , on October 12, 2011| Leave a Comment »

What a wonderful time of year to introduce your sons to Poe.  Tonight my sons and I enjoyed reading “The Masque of the Red Death”, “The Haunted Palace”, and “The Raven”.  As my sons are only six and eight, we obviously discussed the Red Death paragraph by paragraph, even sentence by sentence, to assist with comprehension.  Still, I knew they’d be interested.  Gothic literature, plague, grand settings, a wonderfully macabre story of elite party guests being trapped and killed by a wicked disease that kills in thirty minutes.  What boy wouldn’t love this story?

I love that my sons are comfortable enough to ask about what they don’t know.  Very William Shatner of them.  They were quite opinionated about the Red Death.  My oldest commented how stupid they were to think that by simply locking themselves away wouldn’t protect them from germs since germs aren’t stopped by a locked door.  With “The Raven”, to be truthful, they got tired of the bird saying “Nevermore”, which reminded me of Bart Simpson’s “eat my shorts”.

“The Haunted Palace” is very sad.  The images of the ghosts floating around, the tattered memories.  The most fun part for me was to get my sons engaged in one of my favorite authors.  The detail in the descriptions and narratives are stunning and create such images for the reader to embrace.  The descriptions of the seven rooms of the apartment in Red Death are exquisite.  To help my sons relate to it, we counted the rooms on our second floor (seven) but imagined each room was as big as our entire second floor.  It helped them to visualize how massive the structure was.  As we read about each room and the colors, we looked around at similar colors in our home.  To capture the picture of the stained glass window, we looked at the small stained glass panel hanging in our living room window and imagined how it would appear with flames shining behind it.

Many people would think that eight and six-year-old boys aren’t ready for Poe, or Hamlet, which they’ve already been introduced to.  The same goes for The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.  We use different ways to help them connect to it and that includes film.  Particularly for Hamlet, as play are to be seen.  Each story is creepy and connects to our sons.  And, why not?  Life is too short to wait to learn about these awesome stories.

Anyhoo (to quote our eldest’s favorite colloquialism) I must away.  Till tomorrow.  Pleasant dreams of the Red Masque…

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Sounds of chaos

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , , on October 10, 2011| Leave a Comment »

One of the greatest sounds in the world is hearing your son using a walkie-talkie to talk to his friend across the street.  Thanks to the ALCS, Terra Nova is delayed.  The boys are cleaning up the never-ending supply of Legos, but also chatting with their friend across the street.  The conversation is not that interesting (M, is that you?…Yes, it’s me.  Is that you, H?…Yes, are we gonna talk or what?) but that’s not the point.  It’s so very The Body aka Stand by Me.  They could be following the train tracks looking for their first dead body.  It is one of the sounds of chaos in my home.

Another sound tonight is the vacuum.  I love vacuuming.  I simply don’t get to do it as often as I’d like to.  I have an awesome vacuum, lots of attachments.  It does an awesome job on the stairs.  Even sucks up Legos.  A tough lesson for my sons, but one that helps them to learn to pick the bloody things up.  I used to avoid the Legos when I was vacuuming, but it took a lot of extra time.  Plus, there were always more Legos the next time I vacuumed.   I also know there will always be more Legos to be had.

Another sound of chaos is the whining and barking of our 12-year-old lab.  He’s a good dog.  He’s simply old.  He’s got issues.

Ah, the grand slam ended the game (don’t ask me which teams were playing, I didn’t notice).  I did notice that my sons used the time to be kids.  One talking on the walkie-talkie and the other starting a new book about the Jersey Devil.  I hope they are enjoying their childhoods.  They grow out of them too quickly.  You have to have the great childhood adventures while you’re a child.  Soon enough, you start having real life butting its ugly head into the picture and the fun and freedom of childhood disappears in a puff of smoke.

That’s why I’m making a clown costume and a Headless Horseman costume.  That’s why they dig holes in the backyard looking for dinosaur fossils.  That’s why they listen to stories about the Jersey Devil.

I love watching Terra Nova with them.  I love that it’s on the same time Little House on the Prairie was on when I was a kid.  Yes, it’s a different frontier and the wild beasts are a bit more dramatic, but it is sort of like Little House meets Land of the Lost.  Only there aren’t any sleestak. 

The house of chaos continues to thrive.

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Back to reality

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , , , on October 6, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Here I am back to reality.  The show is over…Mame was a blast and I miss it terribly already.  The fun part though is that my sons are doing bits from the show every day-walking like Ito, writing in their notepads like Gooch, and singing “Bosom Buddies”, although they only know a few of the lyrics.  They simply repeat those lines over and over.

My sons, as I may have written already, did a wonderful job with the Halloween decorations (yes, I will take pictures tomorrow).  We’re going to the fabric store tomorrow to get the supplies for their costumes.  I’ll drag out the sewing machine and whip up a clown costume and a Headless Horseman cape.  The boys declared this evening that they want to trick or treat with their friends, not Daddy and me.  Whoa, slow down on the growing up stuff!  The compromise will be they can go with their friends while one of us trails behind, one house back, to give them their independence.

Many moons ago I wrote about rediscovering my audacity.  That is still a quest and I am still making progress.  Our little family has a number of our own rules, guidelines, if you will.  Our own way of doing things and that’s perfectly fine by me.  Embracing that each day takes some effort, but when I am self-aware, it happens.  As I work on being my audacious self, I am also working on developing that sense in my sons.  And in my house, which has suffered at the hands of Mame.

But never fear…yard sale weekend is here.  I told the boys simply not to look at the toys I’ll be hauling out because they haven’t asked for them in six months.  I promised them none of the important ones were going on the block.  As their faces showed scenes of Toy Story playing in their mind’s eyes, I reminded them even Andy outgrew his toys.  I also told them they would still have the thousands of toys on the floors to entertain them (yes, probably literally thousands if you count each Lego individually).  Purging the unneeded items out of my attic and shed and backyard, oh my.

And the funniest thing happened today.  I had been in tense, psycho-mode (just ask my hubby) and then work provided me with a feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment that it had not done in a while.  As usual the details aren’t dreadfully important, but to sum up, I rock at physics.  Sure, I know nothing about the field of physics other than an apple fell on Newton’s head, but physics was fun tonight.  I felt energized when I got home.  We then had our late supper, together, the four of us.  Then the boys and I went over their homework, dinosaurs were played with, fervent debates took place about who likes paleontology more, teeth were brushed, and blankets were tucked.  I still had energy and did some grading, laundry, and cleaning.  Even replaced the light bulb in the bathroom.  Good times, good times.

Finally, here I sit washed over with a feeling of calmness.  Simplicity has been around even amidst the chaos of the past few months.  Grace has been my friend as I’ve needed it.  Okay, I’ve been spazzy about the mess in the house, but I’m getting better.  I’ve realized that I literally say the same things over and over.  Lately, as I begin to say them again, I stop myself and save the energy.  Perhaps that’s how I managed to do so much tonight.

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It’s the most macabre time of the year!

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on September 27, 2011| 1 Comment »

Ah, the days are growing shorter.  The leaves are falling and creating wonderful foley sound effects under our feet.  We’re almost done our annual battle with our lawn.  Yes, it’s autumn.  Time to decorate our home to resemble the Addams Family house and show our creepiness and kookiness a bit more freely.  Halloween costume choices have been finalized and it’s time to start sewing.

This year we’ll have a clown with really deep pockets that can store all of the clown’s fun toys.  Our oldest wants to stock the pockets with a rubber chicken, a horn, a water-squirting flower, the whole classic repertoire of clown classics.  My hubby will dress as the Ring Master of the circus and introduce the clown’s act.  The only thing that will be missing is a tiny car.

For the more macabre child, we will be creating a Headless Horseman, complete with horse (made out of a wagon) and covered bridge that he never quite crosses.  I will be the covered bridge, pulling the horse-wagon, and he will ride atop it in all his headless glory.  At least he’ll have a mode of transportation for when he gets tired after the fourth house.

I love Halloween.  Probably because my birthday is close to it and I always had Halloween themed birthday parties.  People at work threw me a lovely surprise party last year for my 40th-complete with macabre theme, telling me 40 isn’t so scary!  I love the creepiness that oozes its way in to the every day come autumn.  Perhaps it is because the leaves are dying, the earth is shutting down for the long winter.  The animals hibernate, having stocked up for the cold, and the nights are no longer filled with the sound of the summer symphony but rather the eerie stillness of nothing.

The fog we’ve had the past few mornings has been lovely, except for the impact it is having on my bloody commute.  It’s only fog, people, keep driving.  Last week was Uncle Stevie’s birthday and Jersey celebrated with fog in the morning and a gray, drizzly afternoon.  Perfect weather for his special day.

Scary movies get pulled out of the vaults to scare the masses.  Michael Jackson’s Thriller will be played in heavy rotation.  And Charlie Brown will tell us once again that he got a rock.  Ah, tradition.  One year, our sons got to meet the Great Pumpkin.  We went to a pumpkin patch to get our pumpkins and one of the boys sat down on a pumpkin, with a thoughtful look on his face.  I asked what he was thinking and he told me this was a very sincere pumpkin patch and that the Great Pumpkin was sure to visit it.  We were invited back for Halloween to see if he showed up, and sure enough, the Great Pumpkin visited that very sincere pumpkin patch.  How cool is that?

Another great thing for our sons is that our neighborhood is old-school.  The boys get to trick or treat at a good number of houses and I don’t have to worry about the people giving them candy.  We know them.  The town has a curfew at 8:00pm that night (and on Tic Tac Night, too…though most call it Mischief Night nowadays).  Once the boys are a little older, not much, probably next year, I’ll let them soap up our windows and toilet paper our tree.  Ah, tradition.

There is a tree in the middle of an intersection in the town my husband grew up in and every year for as long as he’s known, the tree gets covered with toilet paper on either Tic Tac or Halloween night (I can’t recall which).  It blows in the wind and we see it the next Sunday on our way to church.  It’s a grand tradition, one that I hope never ends.  It doesn’t harm anything, TP is biodegradable.  A tradition that recently ended was the mystery visitor at Edgar Allan Poe’s grave.  The current theory is that the 200th anniversary of his birth in 2009 was the last time, as the mystery visitor was a no-show in 2010 and 2011.  I wish that tradition could have lived on.  I had never attended it, but I know there were regulars who witnessed it each year.  The person would sneak in, place the roses in the pattern and drink the cognac toast, a fitting tribute for one of the masters of macabre.

There are several other events I hope to experience that are traditional at this time of year.  There’s the fun over at Eastern State Penitentiary, but my boys are still underage.  Then there are the festivities in Tarrytown, home of the Headless Horseman.  Those both can be enjoyed on various days leading up to Halloween because until my sons tell me they don’t want to trick or treat, I will happily make their costumes.  One of my happiest jobs as a mother.  Even when they stop dressing up, I probably still will.  It’s just too much fun.  And a little creepy.

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My lunch with pirates

Posted in My lunch with..., tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on September 20, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Ah, did you enjoy International Talk Like a Pirate Day?  I did.  Arrrr, matey!  If you didn’t know this day existed, allow me to introduce it to you.  All I really know about it is you can talk like a pirate today and no one can look at you funny.  See, this comes in handy for me since I often talk like a pirate.  I also think like a pirate.  Now, I not be talking about the really bad pirate stuff and I know piracy is actually a bad thing, but, son of a biscuit eater, the spirit of a pirate, by hook or by crook be alive and well.

They (those people practically as infamous as pirates) say you are either a pirate or a ninja.  Pirates be way cooler and can capture more booty with less death.  Pirates also love one of my favorite words, bloody.  Things can be bloody with multiple meanings when ye be a pirate.  I also feel piracy is more obvious in our society.  They (thar they be again…) don’t say that you ninja-ed the music, you pirated the music.  Thar isn’t a catchy, rhyming phrase like by hook or by crook.  Thar be no cool flag like a jolly roger.  These symbols and expressions are so well known and have been within culture in general seemingly forever.  Now I will give the ninja a plug–they be bloody stealthy in their ways and perhaps that is an advantage.  Some things may be better protected for the ninja way of life, or I just need to study me opposition a little more closely.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Look at all of the influence piracy has had on society (and I only be looking at the influences that I can readily pull from the Davy Jones’ locker of me mind at this time of night).  Pirates were acceptable to Walt Disney decades ago.  Pirates of Penzance is a beloved operetta with really great songs (“For I am the Pirate King” or how about a “Paradox”, anyone?).  If Gilbert and Sullivan appreciated the value of piracy, everyone can.  Besides, Kevin Kline is amazing in that film.  Top of his form thar he be!

 

 

 

Obviously Disney’s Pirates grew beyond what I think even Walt could have imagineered.  Johnny Depp kicked some bloody arse in that role and offered a great way to celebrate one’s piracy with their children.  Pirates think outside of the box, highly confluent they be, while ninjas tend to lean toward precision.  Truly, I mean that.  It’s not just because of what I did at work today.  I have an awesome picture of Captain Jack Sparrow in my office.  My youngest has a beta named Jack Sparrow.  We’ve got the pirate castle, the pop-up Black Pearl ship, pirate hats, scarves, eye-patches…you get the picture.  And we often go with the flow, thinking outside of that box.

But piracy shows up in other places.  If you recall my obsession with Kenneth Branagh,  you will have guessed that I will now be referencing Pirate Radio, a great movie.  And the youngins think that piracy and music is something they connected together for the very first time.  Nope, long ago, in the 1960s the two were linked.  (Check out the cool pirate connection-Bill Nighy is in both Pirate Radio & Pirates of the Caribbean!  Check out the cool Kenneth Branagh connection-both are in Pirate Radio and Valkyrie-not a pirate movie, and one where I have to tolerate Tom Cruise, which is a completely different blog that you’ll never read because I wouldn’t spend the time, wow, I really can’t stand Tom Cruise, can I?  Except for the ritualistic viewing of Top Gun with my dad.).  Anyway…I digress.

Back to piracy in everyday culture.  Ahoy, Pirate Booty, the delicious snack food.  Love it!  Thar’s the Pirate weekend down in Maryland.  Heck, thar’s International Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Well, me hearty, I must be off to bed.  If I oversleep, me boss will make me walk the plank and we don’t be wanting that.

By the way, I be skipping the editing feature since the pirate speak will cause the spell and grammar check  to use the cat o’ nine tails, flogging me blog about all the pirate talk.

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Randomness because I’m sleepy

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , on September 6, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Rehearsal went well.  Then again I got to leave after scene 7.  I hope it went well the rest of the evening.

There are moments from my job that are simply awesome.  They warm my heart like Kenneth Branagh saying Shakespeare.  I love being a pirate captain.

A feeling of friendship can come from the oddest places.

My sons had a good first day of school.  I guess they realize it isn’t all bad.

My husband is a terrific man who gives such great support to his wifey.

I get to go to sleep in a warm and comfy bed in a really nice house filled with love and laughter (sometimes even while we sleep).

My dog has the cutest face and grunts as he falls asleep.

My youngest was really proud that in his “My First Day of School” coloring pages he gave all of the children “evil eyes”.   My oldest was pleased he was right and I was wrong-he could have brought his new Matchbox Mega Rig Squid Sub to school because it was indoor recess.

Thank you, God, for these blessings.

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Pomp & Circumstance on a September Morn

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , , , , on September 6, 2011| Leave a Comment »

As I always crave new school supplies in time for the arrival of the first day of school, I recently bought myself a new insulated lunch bag.  It’s the Mystery Machine with Scooby Doo and the whole gang staring out the windows.  That’s right, I will never grow up.  The other annual tradition is singing Neil Diamond’s “September Morn” as the mornings grow chilly and the leaves start to hint at the orange about to peek out.

My sons went to bed tonight with mixed emotions.  They don’t seem to want to show me that they are excited for school, perhaps they are afraid I’ll tell their friends that they actually do like learning.  Or they suffer from the same anxiety their mother felt each September when facing a new classroom, a new teacher, and a new mix of classmates.  The elementary school I went to wasn’t that big, there really weren’t any surprises waiting for me, yet each September my stomach would knot up as I wondered about the new school year.

My oldest is wondering how to stop talking too much.  I told him third grade was when I finally figured it out.  Although I have told him before that I had the same comments on my report cards, tonight he seemed to really hear me when I said the teachers always wrote, “her work is fine, but she needs to work on not talking so much.”  He seemed a little relieved to know he’s not the only kid who has done this.  He said some of the students don’t like him because of it and this upsets him.  Mama Bear wants to go and talk to those kids, but that’s not how I need to handle this situation.  I need to keep supporting my verbose son as he learns how to control the need to verbally express everything exactly when he wants to.  So my heart will be with him tomorrow as he spends too much time trying not to talk.  I hope he simply enjoys the first day of school and ignores the kids telling him that he  talks too much.

My youngest was reminded to be patient with his classmates, especially if he has never met them before.  I gently helped him recall that they will need some time to adapt to his pronunciation of certain words.  I told him not to shout in their faces if they asked him to say something a second or third time.  I encouraged him to remember that when I ask him to repeat something it’s because I really want to know what he thinks or feels and that the kids at school do too.  Mama Bear wants to be there in case anyone makes fun of the way he pronounces certain words, but again, not how to handle it.  Hug when he’s hurt by it and help him understand that this too will pass. Here’s hoping that he doesn’t hit anyone either.  He doesn’t always have a reason when he does that.  My thought is he does that when he’s just too frustrated about something.  He also whacks his own head when he’s frustrated, though I’m beginning to think the real motivation behind that action is to get a laugh-which it is hard to not laugh when he smacks himself like Moe smacking Curly.

Each son will go to school wearing an outfit that makes him feel super comfortable with his uniqueness.  The third grader will no doubt be wearing khaki shorts, a dinosaur t-shirt, and his beloved red vest.  The first grader will be wearing his black skull shirt and black shorts.  He wore his black socks today, so unless he pulls them from the hamper, (okay, who am I kidding)-unless he picks them up off the floor, he’ll have to wear white socks.  They each have backpacks packed way too heavily with all of the school supplies they have to bring in and I’m even staggering some of the items.  I truly doubt the teachers need 20 sets of dry erase markers or boxes of tissues or wipes on the first day.  They can bring them in later this week.

And so my little Addams Family-esque sons will make their way into school tomorrow morning and march down the hall to their own drummers.  They’ll be in separate lunch periods this year and each will be able to claim a bit of individual space as they scan their fingers to pay for the food (How cool is that?  They pay by scanning their fingers! So much for brown bagging it!).  And as I wipe tears from my face while taking an obscene amount of pictures, I’ll be praying that God helps them avoid peer pressure, listen to the important stuff, follow directions, and truly enjoy this ritual of childhood…the first day of school.

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When’d that happen?

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , on August 27, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Last night as I tucked my sons into bed, it hit me.  They are 8 and 6 years old.  When did that happen?  I’m pretty good at keeping the special stuff and packing it away for when they are grown-up.  I write in their journals (plan on doing that when Irene knocks out my power).  And I am a photo fiend…more pictures have been taken of these boys than any child needs.  But where did the time go?

Like slamming into a brick wall, the reality slapped me across my face that I had gotten wrapped up in fungible time.  Yes, I am currently obsessed with evaluating my fungible and epochal time.  I’ve missed so much epochal time with them.  I could not say with 100% confidence right now what they are thinking about and being about.  I can rattle off list after list of what school supplies they chose or what toys they want.  But what their hopes and dreams are, I haven’t a clue.

This is a struggle all parents face.  How do you keep your own sense of self, maintain your personal interests so you don’t look back 20 years later and have resent or regret, and be there for your children?  I believe I need to keep involved in things for myself.  I also need to keep my marriage strong.  And I want to be the mom that my boys come to with stuff.  If I could change the time continuum, this would be a breeze.  But since I lost my flux capacitor, I have to work with only 24 hours in a day.  The trick I remind myself of is to let go of the little things and embrace the epochal time as it’s presented to you.

We are in Hurricane Irene’s path.  Hopefully not right under her center, but more in the green section around the red section in the computer models.  Because of Irene, I don’t have to go to work today or tomorrow as scheduled.  Because of Irene I had to postpone my oldest son’s birthday party today.  But I gained 48 hours of epochal time.  I used the first 12-14 hours to secure things that could fly around and hurt people or stuff and to sleep (ah, sleep without an alarm clock, other than my diabetic dog barking to go out).  The rest of these hours are going to be spent celebrating my oldest son’s birthday with cheese sticks and marinara sauce (I had been making marinara sauce when I went into labor, so I crave it every August 27th).  We’re going to bake his cake and play Yahtzee.  We are going to talk about my boys’ dreams.  About what they want to be when they grow up.   About what they think about.  About who they are in this moment.

Happy birthday to my big guy and, again, happy birthday to my little guy (July 31st).  You have both given me eight and six amazing years of life.  And a lot of Legos to step on.

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My Lunch with Josh Gates

Posted in My lunch with..., tagged , , , , , , , on August 25, 2011| Leave a Comment »

My sons have discovered the Jersey Devil.  I introduced them to this fine piece of folklore over a year ago, but one has to meet children where they are.  They weren’t ready to connect to the Jersey Devil last year, but now they are ready to embrace this awesome connection to living in south Jersey.  My oldest has been researching JD on the web and discovered the episode of Destination Truth in which Josh and company trekked to exotic south Jersey and our beloved Pine Barrens to search for Mrs. Leeds’ thirteenth child.

If you aren’t familiar with the lore, grab a copy of Weird NJ by Sceurman & Moran and you will bring yourself up to speed with fun recollections from some locals, Pineys and non.  The short version is that Mrs. Leeds found herself preggers once again way back in 1735.  She cursed the child, calling for this one to be a devil.  While the baby was born human, it quickly transformed into a creature with hooves, wings, a horse-like face, and the ever popular red devil eyes.  It killed everyone in the room and burst out of the house.  He’s been haunting south Jersey ever since.

I’ve been hooked on JD since 1978.  In third grade, my art teacher had us do a unit on the Jersey Devil.  We learned the folklore and, then based on the descriptions we read, we created our versions of JD in various mediums.  This is my favorite kind of learning–face it, it’s every kid’s favorite type of learning–interactive and purposeful, with built-in assessments that are fun.  I didn’t think about the fact that my pieces were going to be graded, I simply focused on making the best JD art I could.

I shared this story with my boys and they were very intrigued.  We’ve been reading Weird NJ and one of the young adult novels…The Weird Club: The Search for the Jersey Devil by Fairbanks.  They are hooked.  After my sons watched the Destination Truth clip they told me, “Mom,you know  that show you watch with the guy who goes places and you’ve tried to make us watch it?  He looked for the Jersey Devil!”  This was shocking for my sons to think that we have a shared interest that they don’t feel is dorky. 

I think my sons would love to hang with Josh Gates.  I’d love to hang with Josh.  Please remember, when I say hang, I mean hang out, not hang for dear life on a perilous bridge or on a zip cord.  I don’t know that I’m adventurous enough to be on the DT team, but I wouldn’t mind being a researcher for the show.  I love the concept of the show.  I agree with some of the online postings about the contrived nature about the team (for the record, I don’t care who is schtupping whom).  Overall, the idea of going on adventures that are centralized around the amazing myths, legends, and folklore of our world is awesome.  But I couldn’t be on the team-I couldn’t eat the foods they eat.

Thus our lunch would have to be at a restaurant that Josh would probably consider bland.  His website says that he hopes the show and his adventures inspire children to go out and have adventures of their own.  So many children just don’t do that anymore.  I am fortunate that my boys do this all the time and have connected to Josh on their own, validating that what they like to do is cool.  It would be neat to chat with Josh about the Jersey Devil and some of the other trips they’ve done on the show.  The trip to the Antarctica and the search for the Yeti would have to be discussed.  Particularly the hair sample found while searching for the Yeti that was determined to be an unknown DNA sequence by the DNA people would be explored at length.  How cool is that? 

I would also seek Josh’s advice.  The boys get a wee bit creeped out after spending some substantial time on different legends.  This leads to the classic child to parent question, “Do you believe in…?”  How does Josh handle such a question?  I know how I handle it…I tell my sons that there is so much I don’t know about the world that I can’t say it’s not true.  How can I prove that these creatures aren’t out there, managing to hide from our intrusive existence?  I can’t.  I also don’t want my sons to lose their sense of wonder quite yet.  Then again I haven’t lost mine yet.  Neither has Josh, or at least it seems that way.  And why should we lose that sense of wonder?  That belief in what we can’t see?       

It’s awesome that the show offers some television time that isn’t us versus them with our boys.  Yes, we have Looney Tunes, Three Stooges, and a ton of movies that we all find entertaining.  We also enjoy our Animal Planet and Discovery shows.  But DT has some science AND entertainment.  By combining his love of archeology and theater, the show covers a lot of ground and Josh has some great expressions and reactions, particularly when eating various animal parts that no human should ever ingest.

Did I mention we would be at a bland restaurant?  Quite possibly some “safe” chain place with overpriced appetizers?

Well, it’s past the witching hour for me.  Mrs. Leeds’ thirteenth child is roaming the Pine Barrens somewhere, possibly searching for a place to bunk when Hurricane Irene shows up.  An earthquake and a hurricane all in one week for Jersey.  Quite a lot of fun.  A big adventurous week for two small boys.  Possibly even enough adventure here for Josh.  I’d let him know he has a standing invitation to dig in our backyard with the boys.  They’re searching for a Hadrosaurus.

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You’ve got a friend

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , , , on August 21, 2011| Leave a Comment »

My oldest is worried about how many friends he has.  He wants more friends this year at school.  We talked about why he thinks some of his classmates aren’t “friends”.  He thinks it’s because he goofs off a lot.  When I asked him what he could do about that, he said, “I know, I know, don’t goof off so much.”  Smart kid.

How many friends you have doesn’t really matter, of course.  What matters is how good of a friend you are to others.  Yep,sounds a bit like the wizard.  I have had some really great friends over the years.  Apparently though, I’m not good at keeping the friendship going, the sustaining part of friendship.  I wish I could say I don’t know why, but truly I think I do.  I tend to be rather annoying, clingy, and possessive.  It’s something that I hope I do not teach my sons and yet not teach them to be aloof in the process.  I see bits of me in both of them, obviously since I’m their mom, but one has to contemplate nature versus nurture.  Will my style of nurturing override their natural state of being?  Or do I need to nurture to to try to shape their natural state of being?

My big mistake over the years has usually been to misinterpret the friendship.  The level of importance was not as balanced as I wanted to think.  I thought of myself as more important in the other person’s life than what I was.  My perception and perspective was skewed.  It took me many years to figure this out, but once I did it freed up some space in my brain.  I am a worst-case scenario-ist and so I go over all the possibilities and usually focus on the worst ones.  This creates a higher level of wondering…what did I do, not do, say, or not say that ruined the friendship?  In reality, many of the times it came down to friends being more important to me than I was to them.  This was not their problem, it was mine.  The other big error I would make involved how much I really had in common with the person.  Not necessarily the little things (books, movies, music, interests) but the important stuff-values, priorities, goals.

How do I keep my sons from creating a similar imbalance in their friendships?  All I could say tonight to my son was to be thoughtful, considerate, and remember the other person’s point of view.  I told him he is a wonderful boy, with a lot of neat energy.  I pointed out that he has done a lot of growing up this summer and to begin the school year with a positive attitude.  I also told him that he should be friendly to everyone (and hopefully everyone is friendly back) but that not everyone will be his friend.  And that is okay.

We did a study of a book in Sunday school and during it  we examined friendship.  There were exercises to graph your friends to see where they place within your life, your inner circle out through the acquaintances you have.  I didn’t reach the maximum on any of the circles.  I wonder if that is good or bad or simply me.  I suppose if I didn’t have a strong enough group of friends I would feel “lonely” but I don’t mind being alone.  Does that impact the way I am with friends?

Another thing that I realized over the years is that everyone’s perspective of what is important is so different.  I want to teach that to my sons, help them understand it.  I haven’t figured out how to do that yet without it sounding judgmental or cynical.  Perhaps combining it with a healthy dose of how everyone is usually just doing the best they can, and if they seem grumpy, maybe they are just having a bad day.

Friends are very important in life.  Family is more important still.  Surround my sons with a loving family and the friends will come along.

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