The Mother Board

Grandma's Bread Recipe

2025-02-11T14:22:00.002-06:00

A loaf of bread that contains monoglycerides, enzymes, ascorbic acid, soybean oil, vinegar, cultured wheat flour, monocalcium phosphate, and soy lecithin costs $4.38 and lasts well over a week without growing mold. That's nuts. That cannot possibly be healthy.

Yes, this recipe takes about and hour and a half from start to finish, but most of that time is waiting for it to rise or bake. This is for one loaf, so the measurements are a little wonky. When your family gets spoiled, you'll need to double it to make two loaves that can be baked together. When I was a kid, the bread label only used words I knew, so I'm going to give you this delicious bread recipe that is actually healthy.

Warm in a small saucepan to 120-130 degrees (I use my meat thermometer that beeps):

½ whole milk

5/8 cups water

1 ½ Tbsp butter cut into pieces

Blend together in a mixer:

1 ½ cups of bread flour

1 pkg or 2¼ teaspoon of yeast

1 Tbsp sugar or honey

1½ tsp. salt

Add warmed liquid ingredients to mixer and then add:

another 1 ½ cups of bread flour to make a dough

Knead on a floured surface 5-7 minutes until smooth and elastic

Place dough in a buttered bowl and cover with a clean dishtowel then place in a warm spot and let it rise for 20 minutes.

Punch down dough. Transfer back to floured surface and pat into a 14"x 7" rectangle. Starting with the short side, roll up tightly, pressing dough into roll with each turn. Pinch the ends when you have the roll complete and place in a buttered loaf pan. Cover again and place back into the warm spot for another 30 minutes to double in size.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Make a slash across the top of the dough and pour another tablespoon of melted butter over the top. Bake on the lower rack for 20-25 minutes until the top is golden brown. Cool in the pan for a few minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack and/or cut off a slice while it's still warm. Try not to eat the entire loaf in one sitting.

Something Special in these Mountains

2024-03-01T12:59:00.001-06:00

My husband and I are blessed to have dear friends who happen to have season tickets to all App State sporting events. We love going to the men’s basketball games and were in our regular seats for the game against Louisiana on February 17. As I sat down to write this, I was pretty certain we won, but honestly, I had to look online to be sure because that was the night an older gentleman only several seats away suffered a medical emergency and died at the game.

I had been chatting with the friendly lady sitting beside me (who turned out to be the parent of one of my husband’s students) when we noticed the medics coming down the stairs and heading to an elderly gentleman sitting in the small section beside ours. The man was sitting upright but was not looking at the medics. It was his wife who was talking to them. She did not look panicked, but the medics were young and there seemed to be some confusion as they took what seemed like a long time to assess the situation. We all kept watch, my new friend and I praying softly for him, his wife, and all the people attending to him. Things seemed to be under control, but they quickly escalated as he became non-responsive and a police officer was called over to help move him, everyone in the surrounding seats feeling the urgency and seriousness of his condition. As the medics and police officer got him out of his seat and attempted to carry him up the stairs, it was clear that they were not prepared for so serious a medical emergency for such a large man. I found myself clinging to the hand of the lady beside me as our friend and my husband stood ready to help but not wanting to hinder the process. The medics finally got the man up the stairs and immediately began CPR, which went on for what seemed like ages.

As the minutes dragged by and the efforts to save the man’s life continued behind us, there wasn’t a soul in our section who was not overcome and shocked by the dire situation. Some were praying aloud, others were silent, but no one’s thoughts were anywhere but with that man and his wife.

The mascot for App State, Yosef, is a cheerful mountaineer who is usually clad in a yellow and black flannel shirt, suspenders holding up his black trousers, and a black felt flat-brim hat that he regularly sets upon the heads of fans. He’s always appropriate and more polite than some other school mascots when doing the usual mascot stuff – posing for photos, giving high-fives, and accepting hugs from little kids. But on this night, without his usual high-energy fanfare, Yosef came over to our section and simply began patting shoulders or leaning over to gently fist-bump everyone who was in attendance. He slowly made his way up the aisle, all his attention on us, clearly acknowledging the pain of the moment and letting each one of us know that we were not suffering alone. As he came to our row, I think that I gave him an appreciative smile, but I was still in shock, silently praying for the man’s wife and thinking about what she must be suffering. Yosef stepped into the row behind us, and suddenly, I felt both of Yosef’s gentle hands resting on my head, this vessel conveying nothing less than what can be described as holy and blessed compassion. It stunned me. I didn’t move my head but looked wide-eyed at the lady beside me who had tears in her eyes at the sight of our precious Yosef consoling me in the way he could. I was so touched by this comforting gesture that I didn’t turn around but rested my head into those hands, letting go of the breath I’d not realized I’d been holding. His hands lifted and he continued up the aisle with his loving efforts as tears of gratitude slipped down my cheeks. Well done, good and faithful servant~ Matthew 25:23.

I have thought of this moment every day since, grateful beyond words for our Yosef and the kindness, humanity, and spirit of mountain folk he embodies so beautifully. I will never see him and not feel appreciation and awe for the love and compassion he gave to all of us that night.

I knew it before, but no truer words have ever been spoken, there is something special about these mountains, and whatever this sacred thing is that inspires such compassion, reverence, and selflessness, this is my testimony that it is reflected in those who call App State their own.

The Summer Before College

2018-08-15T11:07:00.004-05:00

The first time it happened, my youngest was in the fifth grade. Summer evenings are less structured, so a missing person at dinner more common, but this was a school night and the first time our eldest had driven straight from class to the summer job she had extended into the fall. The table setter had not gotten the word and as the remaining four of us sat down, her absence was noted by all, especially our son, his eyes filling.
"This is what it's gonna be like when Rachel goes to college."

Whaaaaaaat????
Brake! BRAKE! BRAKE!!
Mamas know that their days with their babies/toddlers/school kids/pre-teens/teenagers are limited, but we don't understand until it is upon us. Understanding is like everything else that ejects us from comfort; it doesn't happen until it's over. I sobbed the first day she went to kindergarten ... AND first grade, and middle school, and high school, and when she passed her driving test, and the day we left her at Crosby Hall at Ole Miss, ten and a half hours away from home, fearing I had not prepared her enough to be out in the world on her own. My kids are my career. I was the one whose job it was to know everything; acetaminophen dosing charts, allergies, favorite colors, favorite foods, piano lesson times, tutoring schedules, and check-up appointments. I'd made and updated regularly a Hall Family Handbook for babysitters and grandparents who came to watch the kids or in case I died unexpectedly. I can plan for when I'm not around, but what about when they aren't around? What the hell am I supposed to do without anyone to need me?? Just like every other question I have, the answers were already there. I had just been pretending not to notice.
From the moment they arrive, our babies are not ours, they are their own. We are the vessel, nurturer, guide, law, and advocate for these precious creatures, but we forget that we did not craft them with our own hands for our purpose. We did not choose their skills, talents, gifts, hair color, or temperament. The aim was not for us to always have a job or constant companion; it is for our children to be capable of helping move humanity forward, and if we have done our job well, they will contribute to society by forging their own path and finding their own way. This is impossible if I don't let go of her hand.
Our flood of nurturing and protective instincts is real, but it excuses every "I can do it myself" they've uttered and we've ignored or fought. So now, in the last days before the big move, they make their last stand. They turn cold to our warmth. They become cranky, rude, and ungrateful because it's impossible to leave if they don't want to go.
Your role as mama is about to change, but I promise, it is not for the worse. The contact becomes less frequent but more meaningful. Themes emerge. Their need for concise wisdom will require your concentration and creativity, graciously imparted, to allow them to recognize truth for themselves, rather than being told. Guided questions and analogies using their specific interests (as only a parent can) will be the connection that not only remains intact but thrives.
Hold your tongue in the new dorm room when she tries to shove the head of her bed into the closet to make it "kinda my own room" or starts hanging pictures on the walls before putting her clothes in the dresser. Don't cry and hang on when you leave. Tell her that she can do it. Let her be the first to call you and when she does, ask what she did that day without filling her in on what you are making for dinner (lie and tell her sandwiches).

I won't lie- it's sad for you, this change. Allow yourself the time to grieve - I may or may not have been guilty of crying in my closet for three days - and then on the fourth day, get up early and go for a walk. Call your friends who are also struggling and go to a movie or float the river or choose a new paint color for the laundry room. Read. Make every night a binge-watch with your husband. Buy a new frying pan, athletic socks, and mascara - stuff you've held off doing for yourself because you haven't had the time. And call your own mama - there's a good chance she'll accept your apology for being cranky the day before you left for college, too.

For Mothers, especially me

2016-07-12T06:36:00.002-05:00

There is a pattern to life; we are born, we give life, we die. A woman wrestles the wind and waves, lands her boat ashore, helps her child to build her own boat, then watches and cheers silently (and sometimes not so silently) as her child tackles wind and waves, headed to find her own shore on which to land. The tragedy of watching a child’s boat succumb to the waves and disappear is against all nature. The pattern is irrevocably broken, the horizon damaged beyond repair.

My dear friend lost her daughter in a car accident. It was a good car, a car with the latest safety features and airbags. Her daughter had never had an accident or a ticket. She was not doing drugs. She was not drinking. It was in the middle of the day on a good, dry road. None of those things that we parents check off our list mattered, because it still happened. These things happen.

We can track our daughters, limit them, bind them in bubble wrap, and duct tape them to the kitchen chair or explain, teach, demand, and pray, but still, these things happen and eventually, despite our fear, they grow up and we have to help our daughters launch that boat.

It is what we do on our shore with them that matters. It is the time we spend building that boat, teaching them to read the waves and wind. It is how and what we do together that matters.

If we spend our time arguing over the narrowness of the keel, the depth of the hull, how widely the seats are spaced, or the color of the sail; that is what we have when they are gone.

If we build the boat to our standards, making them watch, not do, because it must be perfect; not allowing them to know their own vessel, fearful and unaware of what it can and cannot do; that is what we have when they are gone.

If we nap on the beach or make new sails for our own boats, ignoring their calls for guidance; that is what we have when they are gone.

But if, like my dear friend, we sit with them, smoothing the rough edges, weaving the sail, and laughing together at the seagulls who perch on the rim and watch as our daughters work; then that is what we have when they are gone.

2013-12-19T12:25:00.001-06:00

Babysitter Tips From a Mom of Those Having Been Sat and Those Now Sitting

Having been through it for twenty years, I feel it coming. The kids have been home from school for over a week. Their discarded presents scattered in boxes with the sides caved in from being trampled. New clothes, still with the tags, lie in a pile on the floor of their rooms, unhung. The new movies have all been watched, the candy eaten. They seem to sing "I'm bored" on the hour and off-key. It is just before that wonderful time of year when parents have had their fill and need a night out. If we can just hang on 'til NEW YEAR'S EVE!!

If you have children old enough to babysit, there are a few things to keep in mind when you allow them to accept a job.
Babysitters:
You are there for the primary reason to keep the children safe. Do not check you instagram and twitter every five minutes to see what you are missing. Do not post pictures of the kids you are babysitting, the address of the house, or any of its items within its walls while on duty. Do not invite your friends over or talk to them on the phone (this includes texting) while the children are awake.
When accepting the job, you need to know:
*the hours you are expected to stay (no one comes home right at midnight)
*how many children you will be watching (most houses have at least one extra friend spending the night)
*if you don't drive, ask if they will pick you up or if you need to find a ride (plan now to get a ride home--you don't want to depend on tipsy parents to get you home safely)
Now you need to set a fee and tell the parents up front.

It is going to be a long night. Plan age-appropriate activities for the kids: bring any old dress-up dresses for girls if they are nine years old or under and music to have a "Dance" (do NOT teach them to twerk); teach them card games; bring refrigerated cookie dough, frosting, and silver sprinkles to decorate them with the kids. Don't lie around and watch movie after movie. This is a special night for them, too.

Make sure you have both of the parents' cell phone numbers and an emergency number for an adult they trust. Write down:
*what allergies the kids have
*specific dinner instructions
*special bed times for each one
*behavioral expectations and consequences

After the kids are asleep, you should always clean up any dishes, pots, and pans you used to feed them, toys, blankets, etc... The last thing parents want to do when they get up in the morning after a long night out is face a messy house.

Now, if you are the parent of kiddos needing a babysitter, keep the following in mind: college kids are broke. This is the one night they really are "giving up" to make money. If she tells you she charge 5.00 per kid per hour, pay it and give her a tip if your house is cleaner than you left it.

If your child hits or your niece bites, warn your sitter! Tell her how to handle any bad behavior--if your kids act that way for you, you can be sure that they will bump it up a notch with a ton of other kids in the house and a young adult in charge.

Do not run off to your party without buying food and expecting the sitter to just find something to feed your kids. If you expect her to feed them a meal, make it and leave specific directions. Ordering pizza? Do it yourself and have it there before she arrives or be certain to leave enough cash to pay for it and the tip.

Call once during the night to make sure that there have not been any major problems.

If you tell her that you will be home by 12:30am, don't show up at 2am. Call at 11:30, ask her if she doesn't mind if you stay out later and then pay her the additional amount with a giant Thank You!

If you have told her that you will be driving her home Never EVER drive if you have been drinking. Period. She is someone's baby who has been loved for twice as long as you have loved your own. Have her call her parents and hand them a bottle of wine for getting out of their warm bed to do your job.

End of lecture. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to us all!

Happy Mother's Day for Us

2013-05-12T10:37:00.003-05:00

Years ago, I saw the tail-end of a sitcom that has stayed with me. I can't remember what it was called, but Diane Cannon played a California fruits-and-nuts mother (I lovingly say this while holding my "Native Californian" card) with two grown daughters. The oldest was married and had a new baby and had hoped that her first Mother's Day would be one of the best days of her life. Her husband did buy her a card and cut the grass, but it was nothing like her imagined day at the spa, giant bouquet of wildflowers, surprise oil portrait of her with her new baby, or thoughtfully planned dinner. Since her husband had fallen asleep watching a baseball game for the rest of the afternoon, she and the baby ended up at her mother's beach house for dinner.

I'm going to paraphrase here:

Later that evening, she bemoans to her mother, "I thought that when I gave birth, became a mother, that it would change our entire lives...spiritually; that we would truly become a family in the deepest sense of the word; that Todd would recognize that enormous change in me and in us."

(Pause. Pause.)

Her mother looks at her as though she is speaking Swahili.

"Where do you get this crap?" (Clearly, her mother is not the source of these ideas).
Sigh.

"I just wanted my first Mother's Day to be memorable," her daughter begins to recognize that her expectations were a bit off.

"You want memorable?" her mother grins, patting her daughter's knee. "Memorable, I can give you."

Cut to the beach (night shot), the outline of the two of them, skipping/running into the surf, laughing hysterically, and completely naked. What a way to teach your adult kid how to celebrate herself! What a great gift to give her!

My image of motherhood was nothing like what it became. People talk all day long about the joys of motherhood; that it's the hardest job in the world, that there is nothing more fulfilling, blah, blah, blah. No one says what that looks like in real terms. First, you don't glow. You sweat, wear mismatched pajamas because that is what is relatively clean, and stop checking the rearview mirror because, well, it's just depressing to see how tired you really look. Motherhood is your friend telling you that there is something questionable in your hair and you are relieved to find that it is only peanut butter. It's clenching your jaw so tightly with frustration that you are certain your front two teeth are going to snap off and cause your gums to recede. It's having to change your entire outfit on Sunday morning two minutes before you have to leave because your other shoe is at the bottom of the dress-up box (discovered well into the next season). It's being so completely covered in God's "blessings" that you miss everything He might be telling you unless some wonderful person points it out.

No one can tell you in advance that the most memorable moments are not those that the modern-day poets blather on about in a Hallmark card or are captured in the soft filtered lens of a photographer, but they are in the most trying--the moments that no one sees except you and God. Moments like when your infant has had a fever all night, and you are covered in infant urp and sweat, and a part of you is desperate to put her down, shower, and get into your own bed, but...she has finally fallen asleep on your spent breast, the sheen of sweat bathing her forehead as her fever breaks, and you sit rocking and kissing her damp head, thanking God that she will be well... and quiet. Moments like when your son finds a dead, fuzz & crud-covered lollipop in the car and, instead of sneaking off to have it himself, brings it to you "because I wuv you." The gratifying and heartbreaking moment when your baby goes off to first grade without tears, and most devastating; the days when your tears won't stop because she is going through her first days of college without coming home to apples and peanut butter after school...and you know she's doing just fine without them. Because they are our babies, there are times we forget that our job is to grow them to be contributing, confident adults who affect the world in a positive way, and those moments when they do are hard on us, not them.

Diane Cannon's character embodies the mother I aspire to be on a lot of occasions. Since I don't see a load of my friends and me heading into Barton Springs Pool in the middle of the night without making the internet, this is not an invitation to go skinny dipping, but I do want to throw some Diane Cannon light on the ideas we have realized: that motherhood is full of rearranging your expectations and laughing it off and knowing who will welcome you, feed you, and tell you like it is--and go skinny dipping! And so, my friends, you who fill in for me, who kick my butt, who tell me that I'm doing fine, who share wine and horror and laughter and love and understanding with me--I wish you the Happiest of Mother's Days in your very own soul, that there are moments in your life that exceed your expectations, and most of all, that when God needs to speak to you, that you can hear.

Skiing with Kids

2013-01-27T09:35:00.004-06:00

I spent most of the winters of my Southern California childhood coming home from school on Friday to be greeted by the pile of ski equipment, bags of clothing and food, and a whistling father. Ski season began in late January and ended sometime in May and as the daughter of the leader of a local mountain’s ski patrol, my weekends were dedicated to “new powder!” at Kratka Ridge with my dad. Our nine-day Spring Break was spent at Mammoth Mountain. Needless to say, the man knew how to ski with kids/teenagers.

As we gather for Winter Break, I figured now would be a good time to share:

Tom Battenberg’s Skiing with Kids 101

Several weeks before going, have your kids do squats and lunges, especially if they have never skied before. The best way to get them to do these properly is to have them “sit” with their backs against the wall, having just their legs support their weight.

Drink a lot of water the day before you leave for the higher elevations—driving from the lower elevation to the higher is best to avoid altitude sickness, but hydration is the key. Drink a lot the day you arrive and the day after to avoid nausea and headaches.

Money saver--If you are headed to Colorado, rent skis/boots/poles in Dillon or Silverthorn then take them with you to your resort (they have another location there, but it is considerably more expensive)

Steps to Skiing On Time
The Night Before
      1. Charge phone and ipod
      2. Bathe and then sleep in your underwear and long underwear (base layer)
First Morning Stage (go to the bathroom/brush your teeth/put up your hair)
      3. Put on your ski socks and your slippers (so your feet don’t get wet from the kitchen floor)
       4. Put on your performance shirt
       5. Ski Pass around your neck
       6. Put phone, tissues, key to condo, and ipod in pockets of ski parka
Second Stage: Eat Breakfast/drink water, then check the weather to see what layers you need for the day
Third Stage: Go to the bathroom again, even if you don’t think you need to go
       7. Sunscreen and chapstick (put them in your ski parka)
       8. Ski pants
       9. Sweater or “Fuzzy”—if needed
       10. Gator around your neck/face masque/headliner—blocks the wind
       11. Ski boots—make sure they are on the “walk” mode or leave the tops unbuckled
       12. Parka—do not zip up inside the condo until the last second, so not to overheat
       13. Helmet (it is the law) and goggles
       14. Mittens (gloves don’t keep your fingers as warm)

Beginning skiers--If they are new at this, they’re gonna whine. It is best to put them in ski school for the first two days… at least.

             As they gain control, get them to a groomed intermediate run (blue) as soon as
              possible, so they learn to use the momentum the steeper slope offers. Stay away
              from the bumpy runs, as this adds an extra challenge a new skier does not need.

Food to Eat While Skiing

Lots of water—skip the soda and tea, since they are diuretics. The new sports drinks that contain protein are great.

Hand them fruits and veggies while they are waiting for dinner or lunch to be served. Our rule was: nothing else to eat or drink unless you drank six ounces of water and at half an apple/orange/3 celery sticks, etc…Anti-inflammatory foods help sore muscles. Spaghetti is the best thing to feed a starving kiddo since it helps with inflamed muscles and gives them the carbs they need to burn on the mountain.

Do not take off their ski boots during lunch, it is harder to put them back on their feet after an hour of being allowed to swell. Simply unbuckle them unless you are suffering from a blister—put moleskin on that hot spot

After the last run of the day

Sit your kiddo’s bottom just inside the door and pull off his ski boots, bang the snow off of them before bringing indoors (keeps the floor and socks dry)

Give him a big mug of hot chocolate and apple slices and let the stories of the events of the day begin!!

NEVER put your boots near the heater or fireplace to dry—they will melt. Pull the liners out of the boots and ALWAYS bring them inside your condo/hotel at night since there is nothing worse than wet, freezing cold ski boots in the morning

Hang everything up to dry and be ready for the next day in one spot, so you don’t have to spend precious morning time hunting for missing mandatory equipment

As a final bit of info and advice:

*the effects of alcohol are greater at the higher elevations
*mamas need helmets, too (remember Natasha Richardson)
*and most importantly, stop at the top of every run to appreciate the beauty and light of your mountaintop experience.

The Emergency Money Diet

2012-11-25T22:59:00.004-06:00

Hello! Thank you to everyone who has passed this blog along to your friends and family! We had 10,500 hits as of this week! I am amazed and appreciative of the requests, and as I have shared with some of you, I am hard at work putting together a collection to publish before Mother's Day. That said, a very good friend of mine lost her job last week. It is with a heavy heart that I present for her and for anyone else dealing with this crisis:

The Emergency Money Diet

On Friday afternoon you are let go from your job with two weeks’ pay and a heavy urge to find the nearest bar and drink yourself into oblivion. Hangovers actually feel worse now that you are over thirty, so buy a decent bottle of wine and steaks to grill and keep yourself busy until you are ready to tell your spouse.

Are you crazy? I can’t afford wine and steak. You just drove past a bar that serves a 14.00 glass of Pinot Noir. You are not doomed to eat cereal every night for the rest of your life. Everyone should be allowed a bit of time to adjust their thinking to a shock like that. Feel free to crawl into your hole for the evening, even if you spend it playing Candy Crush until 2am.

Tomorrow begins a temporary adjustment to your life. Yes, I said temporary. Most crises such as these do not last forever. It isn't cancer. But. It could last a while, and though you cannot "fix" the situation right away, this is a good way to take hold of it and give yourself some control.

Saturday

Hey, Honey. I have to tell you something hard...

Big breakfast day—make pancakes from scratch, fried eggs, and fruit. Heat the syrup, so it pours easily and the kids don't waste as much. Tell your kids what is going on--only enough that they can handle--you can present it in a way that makes it seem like an adventure. This is going to be rough, but not if everyone understands and is actively part of the team. They, and you, will be stronger as a family on the other end of this.

Do not wallow in the hole and say, "Screw it, I don't want to cook," and figure that you will go out to eat four days this week. Get out your recipe cards for inspiration, make a meal plan for the week, and put together the grocery list right after breakfast. Put one large roasting chicken on your list. I am about to show you how to stretch it into three meals - a "Rubber Chicken."

Shopping Tips
Buy only the necessities: lean hamburger, chicken, pork chops; fresh fruit you know your kids will eat for snacks; sweet and roasting potatoes are a great way to fill up teenage boys--make them mashed and then load the skins with cheese and bacon for their appetizer; largest size bags of frozen veggies (they actually have more nutrients because they are frozen so quickly; cold cuts for breakfast and lunch sandwiches; thin sliced bagels and whole grain bread; avoid the cost of things that are pre-made to save--blueberry muffin mix is less than a dollar--if you throw in two handfuls of real blueberries, they are better than Starbucks. Buy a giant can of diced tomatoes at Costco (2.50) and add it to sautéed onions, mushrooms, a tablespoon of garlic, and oregano for a light but delicious spaghetti sauce--freeze the other three portions and add it to ground hamburger or meatballs.

Buy family-size boxes of crackers and cookies, not individual packages, and frozen concentrate juice instead of juice boxes - I add twice as much water as is called for to keep them from getting used to such a high level of sweetness - for fourteen 6 oz servings –that's half the price and no individual trash. If you have school-aged kids, get reusable containers to pack individual servings—it is still cheaper than the pre-packaged stuff.

Skip the movie and shopping or whatever expensive activities you normally do. After your kid's soccer game, skip the fast food and head to the grocery store together - stick to the list, no impulse buys. Teach your kids about price per ounce and making smart choices with money. Spend the rest of the day on improvements - you and your kiddos can fix something in the house, such as changing batteries in the smoke detectors or burned-out light bulbs. Do some easy task in the yard together that you've been avoiding for weeks. I'm not kidding; kids think cleaning the garage is fun.

Big Saturday night event--Make homemade pizza for dinner with a tossed salad and play a board game instead of streaming a movie for 3.99 -- I highly recommend Wits and Wagers.

Sunday—Don't skip Sunday School for the kids—great place for them to socialize and for you to learn a little something, and the coffee is free.

Come home and make lunch together. Early afternoon money-saving task - Go through your phone and see what apps you can cancel. Go through your credit card and see what subscriptions you can cancel. If you have parents or grandparents who clip coupons, send them an email and tell them what is going on and that you could really use their help to be thriftier—they will absolutely LOVE you for this and will send every coupon you request.

It is Rubber Chicken Day One. Big dinner day—roast your large chicken, cook brown rice with 2 bouillon cubes, make gravy from the drippings, and steam a green vegetable. Cut the meat and put it on plates in the kitchen - you can save about two-thirds of the meat for the next two meals. Serve your family meal around 3pm. You still have time to take a walk afterward - exercise will help your mental health. Keep in mind that an adult serving of chicken is about the size of your fist or about 3 oz. We are so used to giant portions in this country that we have lost sight of the idea that we are not trying to fatten 'em up but just keep 'em alive.

Save every bit of meat from the bones and divide what is left into two containers - one for Tuesday and one for Thursday. Put the bones into some water to simmer with 1/3 onion and some celery. Cool and refrigerate - you now have bone broth, one of the healthiest appetizers ever, but you will be using this for meal #3.

Monday—Substantial breakfast, middle–size lunch, small dinner (good energy and weight management) is always the plan. If you have put on a few pounds, with this uncertainty in your life, you are likely to lose some of it, but with careful eating and exercise, you can look great for interviews when it is time.

Clean Out and Clean Up
What can you sell on Ebay or the Neighborhood FaceBook page? Go through toys and clothes that your kiddos may have outgrown. If you bundle them into a group and offer them for a reasonable amount, they will probably sell and you don't have to deal with a consignment store. What purses or jackets have you barely used? Collectibles that someone gave you that you don't really want that could bring in cash on eBay?

Little Kids--Take your kiddos for a walk to the park, hike around the neighborhood, and walk to get the mail every day. They love the outing, and it gets you out of the house and moving your body.

Cancel your cleaning service—did you know that vinegar and hot water cut grease? The smell fades when it is dry. Vinegar is also a miracle cure for animal urine.

How much did it cost you to work? Review your expenses—this can be really painful, but if you think of it as temporary, like camping, it can make a huge difference. Check over all of those debit charges that you do for and while working.

How much do you really spend on gas, Starbucks, dry cleaning (because you don't have the time to iron), lunches, clothes, hair products and makeup (it is totally freeing to put on sunscreen and chapstick and throw your hair in a ponytail four days a week), eating out because you just don't have the energy to cook, childcare, doctor's office visits for ear infections, individually packaged food and drinks for your kiddo's lunches, manicures, pedicures, massages? It all adds up, and a lot of the time, just cutting this stuff out can get you very close to where you need to be.

Not enough? Do you have two car payments? If you traded in one of the fabulous cars, could you get one that is "just fine" for half the payment or none at all? What if you sold your teenager's hotrod and shared your Accord? How much is the difference in your insurance? Call the insurance company for a breakdown of what you pay.

Your Budget --yes, you must assign a job to every dollar you have.
My list of necessities (and of Dave Ramsey) is 1. food 2. lights/gas 3. mortgage--after that, I think 4. gas for the car 5. car insurance 6. 1 phone--everything else is negotiable. Try to keep your credit rating good--a bad credit rating affects your car insurance rates.

If your teenagers constantly buy music or movies, kill the debit card link. Your teenagers need to get babysitting gigs, part-time jobs, or offer to do yard work/wash cars/clean decks for anyone who will pay them. Demand that they save no less than half the money they make.

Dinner—hamburgers, homemade fries (thinly sliced potatoes), and steamed mixed veggies

Tuesday--Look at your bills. What electric vampires are you using? Anything not regularly in use needs to be unplugged. What services are you paying for because you did not have the time? Cancel the gym membership - running is free.

What can you sell on Craigslist?
Get into your garage and look at all of the toys and tools gathering dust. Check eBay and FaceBook Marketplace to set prices, but you can get quite a bit of money from bikes, strollers, backyard toys, trampolines, unopened paint, loose wrenches, boxes of nuts, bolts, and screws. If you need to move for a new job, you won't have to be in a panic trying to pack up all of the stuff or pay someone to haul it away for you.

Little Kid Project--Have your kiddos "sort" all of your Tupperware stuff by putting the lids on all of the containers. No lid or no container—put it in the Goodwill bag. Emptying your house of clutter will help your brain function more effectively.

Little Kid Job—make the juice. One of your plastic pitchers becomes the official juice container. Put a can of frozen juice concentrate in the pitcher, add twice as much water to the pitcher as is called for (gets them used to things with less sweetness), and mark the level with a permanent marker. Now when it is your child's turn to make the juice, they don't have to measure and spill. They will just put the pitcher in the sink, add the concentrate, add the water to the line, and stir. Voila! They can do something helpful without a sticky mess.

Put a serving of snacks in a little cup or bowl instead of eating out of the box—keeps everyone from ruining their dinner and wasting food.

It's the 2^nd night of the Rubber Chicken—take the second 1/3 of chicken meat and make sour cream chicken green sauce enchiladas (usually the best enchilada sauce is the cheapest one on the shelf), a casserole, or Cream of Chicken spaghetti with a green salad.

Wednesday—Make a job chart and post it—you don't have to buy stickers, just use a pen or colored pencil to keep track of your kiddo's progress. Kid job—gather the trash from all of the trash cans in the house. If you give them a dry cleaners bag with one end tied, kiddos can usually manage emptying little wastepaper cans into it.

We like to start our job week on Wednesdays so that we get a treat in the middle of the week. Good job approval gets to pick out a new book or puzzle at Half Price Books or Goodwill.

Find your library and join it. They always have a story time during the week. You can borrow books, audio books, and movies - all paid for by your tax dollars. Your kiddos may even make some new friends who like to read.

Little Kid Project—take pieces of tin foil and make costumes out of it and then read any book on knights or princesses.

Dinner - Pork chops and rice casserole is always a hit. Spray the bottom of your largest casserole dish and pour a cup and a half of rice in the bottom. Lay thin-cut pork chops on top of the rice. Layer onion and tomato on top of the pork chops and pour three cups of chicken broth over the whole thing. Cover and bake for one hour. Steam half a bag of frozen mixed vegetables. Serve with apple sauce.

Thursday—Start a journal on your computer about your progress for weight, eBay, and household handyman jobs you finish—it does help to see that you are accomplishing things at home over time.

Where can you and your kiddo volunteer? Is there a retirement home nearby that encourages kids to come and bring their artwork?

You are being a homemaker, right? So, make it what you feel is a home. Throw out/send to Goodwill parts of things that will never be fixed, clothes you never wear, and all the little bits of clutter that remind you that you have not finished them. They do not really matter if they have not been missed for a year. Clean and organize one drawer in your bedroom in 30 minutes—set your timer and finish that one small job. Again, if you have to move for a new job, it will cost less to haul all of this stuff away or move it.

Make pudding for dessert. Make your own bread instead of buying loaves made with sixteen ingredients you don't recognize. See the recipe in Grandma's Recipes Blog.

Final night of the rubber chicken—Chicken and Dumplings. Heat the broth, then strain out all of the bones, celery, etc... Add the last 1/3 of chicken to it and dissolve chicken bullion cubes (1 cube/12 oz). Taste it and add salt if needed. Add some frozen green beans if you want.

Dumplings: 1 cup flour, 1 tsp salt, just under 1 tsp baking powder, enough milk to make it dough. Roll out flat on a floured surface and cut into strips. Place the strips on top of the simmering chicken and broth. Cover and cook about 10 min and serve.

Friday—You made it! Look at your debit spending this week compared to last week. Tomorrow you plan for the following week, but now you have the momentum.

Plan to exercise. Most cable companies offer a workout channel that has everything from cardio dance to yoga. You are already paying for this, so use it.

Special Dinner night—No going out for $175.00. Don't order that 10.00 glass of wine. Get a large rib eye for you and your husband to split (again, no one needs more than 3 oz of red meat at a serving) and a little sirloin for the kiddos. Bake potatoes and steam some veggies. Find a bottle of wine for around 10.99—I'm not kidding, there are a lot of good ones that are fabulous if you let them breathe for an hour.

Be Honest with someone you trust. This stuff is hard and without support, it will be harder. You don't know if you don't ask, but you may have friends who want to join you on your money diet!

If you haven't already, one of you should join Costco. Buy stuff in bulk and split it (giant pork chops) or store the additional ones for later. If you pay $120.00 (55.00 each) for the executive level, you get a check at the end of the year for 2% of everything you buy—except gas. If two families are using it pretty regularly, then the check usually covers the membership fee, and you can both go to lunch on the balance to celebrate.

Do errands together with the kids. It sounds like hell, but it is actually one of the best tricks. The kids talk to each other while you moms visit and get your errands all done. Make a map for the day to maximize time and save gas. Take turns driving every other week.

So, now the hard part begins. If you are like my friend, her job has evaporated, and there are no positions within 500 miles of her home. It may be time to rethink your career. If you were in marketing, can that be restyled to apply for a sales job? If you were a business person and have your MBA, can you teach business courses at a university? Do consulting for businesses in your area? You don't know if you don't look. Cry really hard, go for a walk or run when you feel like crap, and when you can, embrace this opportunity that has been set before you. It is always darkest before the dawn, but know this, if you look for it, there is light.

Food as a Need

2012-08-26T12:03:00.000-05:00

To celebrate the beginning of the school year tomorrow, now would be a good time to check on the Mama’s Needs. After your kiddos head off to school and you are in the house with only the little ones or Alleluia yourself, where are you in your Needs?

Quick review. According to the Mother Board Handbook our Needs are air, water, food, shelter, sleep, medical treatment, physical activity, an honest, loving relationship with our spouses, and one real friend. Necessary clothing is important, but nothing dies if you don’t have it. Everything else comes after.

Let’s go back to the Needs Quiz (June 30) and talk about food. Since you took that quiz, how has the one thing you wrote down to change improved your life? If you forgot all about it, that’s okay. Tomorrow is a great day to put the pop tart down.

Food is necessary, but the kind of food we need to fuel our ability to think clearly and fuel our bodies for movement is probably not what we think of when ch0osing what to eat. Just because you are not in school, does not mean that you do not need your brain to function at a higher level.

Where we were told that grain-based foods should be the foundation of all of our meals, I am finding that using that guideline only makes me fat. If I switch the if I'm being honest huge bowl of cereal for Greek yogurt with blueberries and strawberries (huge antioxidant foods) and a piece of grainy toast, I have the energy for a three-mile run and two loads of laundry. Eating half an apple with peanut butter at 10:30am keeps me from wanting a 600-calorie cheeseburger for lunch, so that I can enjoy a small plate of re-heated chicken and brown rice with broccoli. Getting ahead of my hunger keeps me out of the junk food I crave when I allow myself to get depleted.

Everyone has been in a grocery store with this one: While standing in line to pay for groceries, a toddler wants candy. The mama absently says, "no." Having had only a pop tart and juice box three hours ago, the child cries. The child screams that she is starving and begins to wail. The grandmas in the line raise their eyebrows. The mama, her mind straddling the thought that people are seeing evidence that she has a terrible child (ergo she is a terrible mother) and knowing she had better hold her ground or all will be lost, repeats a quivering “no” to her little beast. The child, hearing the uncertainty in her mama’s voice and realizing her own power in front of all of these people, lashes out physically and hits her mama. Mentally exhausted because she did not feed brain-supporting food to herself, the mama picks up the candy and takes half before giving the child the rest. All the grandmas shake their heads.

Let's back up.

One must always feed the mama and the kiddo a proper meal before going to the grocery store. Even a snack will avoid the meltdown that may occur. Mamas must keep in mind that toddlers are especially irrational when they are hungry. Rationality is the mama's job. The mama knows that candy tastes way better than chicken and brown rice with broccoli, so it is up to the mama to feed the kiddo before taking her into the wonderful land of stimulating, colorful, tasty treats.

Now that both the mama and the toddler are not cross-eyed crazy hungry, the Mama Bubble can be drawn.

The child wants candy—they always want candy. The mama says, "No." The child cries.

The mama gives child "the look." "The look" is a flat stare, narrowing of the eyes, looking dead-on into the child's eyes without breaking the gaze. Eventually, the child will look away--this how the mama knows she has won. Works with dogs, too.

I did realize at one point that I have said “no” out of habit. Occasionally, I allow one appeal. It has to be a well-thought out appeal with good reasoning. “If you buy me this, I will clean my room” bribes are instantly thrown out. This exercise encourages them to understand how to make a logical argument. “I ate all of my lunch and rode my bike 3 miles today, so could I please have this small bag of Skittles?” is a reasonable request.

I'm feeling a little like a slug. My kids have eaten pizza or fast food every night this week. Yep, mine, too. Celebrate the fact that it was fun and easy and move on. Since the need for brain-food begins in earnest this week, eat lunch and make your list of what health-supporting meals you can make for you and your family BEFORE you go to the grocery store today. Otherwise, you will buy random items that look like they taste good, including that huge bag of chips you will open and eat in the car on the way home. As a side note, your kids’ lunches will be healthier if you do not take them to the grocery store with you. Mamas know that kids will eat the apple slices for a snack if the lunchboxes contain only apple slices and not chewy fruit snacks, but it is hard not to give in when we are having our own anxiety over how our kids will do in their new class.

The lazy days of summer are over for now. It is a new start for everyone tomorrow. Fish and nuts help you to have better recall. If you have cancer in your family or a lot of allergies, antioxidants can help both of those issues. Digestion problems? Make sure you grab the apples. I just heard on our local news channel that the healthiest population drinks two glasses of red wine per night! Wahoo! To begin to have a balanced life, we must feed ourselves and our brains before tackling the challenges that are to come.

Nobody Listens to Me and the Consequences

2012-08-19T16:44:00.005-05:00

My kids and I have discussed their role in this endeavor and we have come to the agreement that I will not use their actual names, but words which describe one characteristic of each of them. This grants them the option, when questioned, to deny that they were the offending child in any of the blogs. You have already been introduced to “Ferret” and “Techie.” I am now allowed to present “Quick” and “Duchess.”

This may sound familiar to you…

While at my family’s mountain cabin packing for our rafting trip, I tell my nine-year-old playing with his lacrosse stick to bring down the day bag sitting on the sofa upstairs.

(Acts like he doesn’t hear me).

“Darling boy, child of mine, please get the day bag. Upstairs. Sofa by the window.”

He picks up his lacrosse stick and disappears up the stairs. I continue gathering items, chatting with J/Mother Board member, throw two mugs into the dishwasher, etc, then I realize that the boy is still missing.

“Quick!” I holler in irritation and irony.

“Yes?”

“Bring it to me!”

Quick appears two minutes later… with my purse.

“No one listens to me,” I tell my friend, J.

J, mother of two boys who has watched me and my kids for years, smirks and raises her eyebrows.

“It’s because they don’t have to,” she tells me. “You are asked to repeat yourself, and you do, constantly. There’s no consequence.”

Crap. She’s right. Get their attention, say the direction once. If they ignore you, nail with the consequence. It should have gone like this:

Quick wants to go outside and play lacrosse, but I need help packing for the rafting trip.

“Quick, put down the lacrosse stick and come here.” (Walks over, looks up) “I need you to get the day bag. It is upstairs on the sofa. If you are back here in two minutes, I will let you go outside. If not, no lacrosse, got it? Repeat to me what you are getting and where it is.”

He does. Bag retrieved, happy mama, happy boy.

Clear. Concise. Especially with boys. Repeating yourself drains the energy out of you and teaches your children not to listen. Yes, we are all overwhelmed, but everyone can improve their attentiveness.

But not following a parent’s directive in order to explore their own way of doing things is also part of a child’s normal break from being a child to becoming a young adult. Applying eyeliner above the lashes rather than below, positioning the head of the bed by the door rather than the foot, and using honey instead of syrup on their pancakes are small inconsequential choices that are not harmful and are a perfect way for children to explore their options and find out what works well for them and what does not. It is the dangerous choices that need to be discussed out loud, with consequences explained where parents must have their child’s attention. Unsafe driving, alcohol and drug experimentation, and sex with multiple partners all must be addressed well in advance of the behavior.

My kids are still young. I don’t want to bring that up now. Actually, you do. In my upper-middle-class neighborhood, we have had our share of horror stories. A freshman boy and his friends were playing a drinking game with their own version of shots –a solo cup half-full of vodka instead of a true shot of 1.5 ounces—and he got on a losing streak. The freshman’s heart stopped twice during transport to the hospital. Two seventh-graders were caught in the middle school bathroom having anal sex, "because," the girl said, “it was not real sex and I'm still a virgin.” A local pediatrician, Dr. Jill Grimes, was appalled to find that one out of five of her patients tested positive for not one but multiple sexually transmitted diseases and wrote a book, Seductive Delusions, to help us prepare our kids. Things are not the same as they were when we were growing up, my friends. Now is not the time for our kids to be ignoring us.

Most psychologists will agree that parents have until their child is fourteen to make the biggest impression on them. At that point, the child begins to break away from the role of child to find his way into adulthood. Friends become more important than parents. It is normal but very sad for the mamas and can be fraught with danger for their children. The corollary of buying and using methamphetamines, loss of appetite (the draw for girls) and staying awake (the draw for high school and college students), must be counteracted with the knowledge of extreme tooth decay and severe depression (Morrison). The key to keeping your child safe is to face these conversations without embarrassment or hesitancy.

There are safeguards to be put into place before your child is in middle school. Setting requirements and boundaries establishes these ideas in a child’s brain and gives her a caution light when she is on her own.

Duchess never wanted to be corrected on how she drove the car. It was clear that she was trying to assert her independence in this new venue. Therefore, before being allowed to get her driver’s license, in addition to the State’s requirements, we required that she save and submit to us a deposit of $500.00 and find a way to pay $150.00 per month to pay for her car insurance. The $500.00 was to cover the expenses of a traffic ticket (fees and defensive driving—happened once) or pay the deductible in case she had an accident. Since it took her over three months to scrape together the $500.00 in the first place, Duchess was extremely careful to leave enough space between her car and the other vehicles on the road. After a year of driving without an accident, her insurance went down to $121.00 per month, then the following year, it dropped to 96.00. This is a real-world consequence of good behavior for teenage drivers. We did get a phone call from a friend who witnessed one lane-change transgression and called us to let us know. When Duchess got home a few minutes later, we nailed her with the information, fined her $30.00, and grounded her for the night. Astonished, she actually laughed out loud and bowed to the ground in submission to our abilities to see and know all. God will provide the power of knowledge for parents who seek and appreciate it.

Before dating, I highly recommend that each child read a book written by Dr. Grimes. Seductive Delusions, John Hopkins University Press, is a shocking, well-written book that every teen should be required to read before becoming sexually active. I paid each of my kids a dollar per case to read it when they turned thirteen. No, I do not expect my kids to be sexually active in high school; I expect them to be informed. Knowledge takes time to sink into a brain, and better they know before heading into a situation than after. You can order the book from her website:

http://www.jillgrimesmd.com/seductivedelusions.html

What is coming down the road for our kids? We cannot foresee everything, but as their only parents, it is our obligation to provide as much fact-based information to them as we are capable of giving. These are only two examples of thinking ahead for our kids. The first step, getting them to listen early, makes the more difficult conversations infinitely easier and may be the road to them saving their own lives day after day.

Grimes, Jill. Seductive Delusions. Baltimore. John Hopkins University Press, 2008. book. http://www.jillgrimesmd.com/seductivedelusions.html

Morrison, William. “Meth Addiction.” Web. myaddiction.com. 19 Aug 2012. http://www.myaddiction.com/methamphetamine.html

The Expectation of Happiness

2012-08-12T07:00:00.002-05:00

Instead of WELCOME, my best friend gave me a doormat that says, “GO AWAY.” I laughed hysterically when I first saw it and placed it at my front door immediately. Any time we get a solicitor, I smile, point down at the message, then yell through the glass, “Sorry, can't open the door. My dog will eat you!” He is over 75 pounds and has a ferocious bark, so it works every time. I think the angel statue wearing the bicycle helmet balances the sentiment, but I do move the doormat into the garage at Christmastime as a show of good cheer.

Another friend asked to borrow the doormat from me the other day. Her youngest daughter just moved home after graduating from college to “save money.”

“You know whose money ISN’T being saved? Mine!” she said. Brianna had two job offers and turned them both down because she does not want to leave the great state of Texas. Last week, since she was so bummed out that she does not have a job, she bought a $300.00 Chihuahua puppy with the last of her graduation money because it would …ready?...give her something to be happy about. I listened to her rant for almost forty minutes, vowing to myself that I would not take notes and use this story in any writing at any time, but she said, “I wish someone had told me to teach my kids that the best happiness is the happiness you get after overcoming a difficult experience. Her happiness was a huge part of our parent-child conversation. I thought having a secure childhood would make her more capable, not less." The happiness requirement our kids have is overcoming the urgency of necessity.

Almost twenty years into this mothering program, I realize that all of the theories I had about having children and rearing children have given way to the realities of doing it. My early thoughts on parenting were formed by my negative and positive childhood experiences, but if I am honest with myself, my childhood had happy moments. My childhood was not all happy, and as a parent, I want happy kids, but to what level? Happy for eighty percent of the time? Forty? When did we become so focused on happiness? What percent of the time are mamas or daddies happy? In fact, a good percentage of the time, we are bored and frustrated, but even that serves a purpose. Frustration is the first response to a challenge. Overcoming challenges is what makes new connections in a brain. Perhaps it is time to re-think our goals for our kids. Is the most important aspect of a career to provide happiness or to provide shelter, food, and clothing? Brianna's mom would like a do-over, this time she would like to request her own Mother Board.

Brianna (age 3) is at the playground. She wants a turn on the slide but is afraid of the stairs. The playground is designed for ages 2-4, so physically, she can handle it. She cries in frustration. Brianna’s mama, wanting her child to be happy, reacts to her crying by

Choice # 1

lifting her over the stairs to the top of the slide every time

This does not allow the desire to have fun overrule the fear of falling, it confirms that Brianna is not capable, and it also makes Brianna’s mama her playmate, not giving Brianna the opportunity to learn to play with her peers

Choice #2
sitting down on a bench and calling to Brianna “Go for it, Baby!” then looking away as if she expects Brianna to be able to do it. Guess which one the Mother Board would encourage? If Brianna overcomes her fear and does it herself, she realizes true value in her accomplishment. She will access this memory of achievement every time she faces a fear until the next one reestablishes that knowledge and so on. She builds her own basis of success.

Sadness and happiness are reactions. When our little kids are disappointed or sad, mamas have the tendency to try to divert the sadness by introducing a positive stimulus to the child (favorite ice cream/candy/watch a favorite movie) or stepping in and doing the task for them. The obesity rate in children in the United States has gone from 6.5% in the 1990’s to 20% in June of 2012 (Pandita). That is over 25 million children who are at least ten percent over the recommended weight for their age and height. Why is it that in the last twenty years our obesity rate has blown up? Could it be that the latch-key kids have grown up to be over-indulging parents to make up for our own unhappy childhoods? We think this will help, but what it really does is keep the child from learning that sadness is not debilitating and that picking herself up and trying another way is the key to success. If little ones are not given this chance, it only gets worse.

Brianna is now a junior varsity cheerleader at her high school with her friends. Despite the fact that she is the least strong member of the team and has a slight sprain of her ankle which happened on the stairs at school, she tries out for the varsity squad. The results are that she is the only one of her friends who is placed back on the JV squad. Brianna is devastated. Her mama, still the well-meaning, attentive parent wanting her daughter to be happy, goes to the school to re-explain that her daughter had an injury that happened at school and question why her daughter was not placed on the varsity squad. The school says that they were aware of the medical situation, but that during the previous year Brianna had not shown that she has the ability to be on the varsity squad yet. The next step her mama takes will determine Brianna’s emotional growth for this situation. Her mama can:

Choice #1

threaten a lawsuit, forcing the school to give her a spot

                  Requires no growth on Brianna’s part and places her in an awkward position
                   with the rest of the squad who legitimately earned the honor
                                                   or

Choice #2

help Brianna lay out a plan to deal with Brianna’s feelings of embarrassment and encourage her to practice to improve her performance level enough to make the varsity squad for her senior year.

Take a wild guess which one the Mother Board would encourage?

Children who never have to deal with disappointment or embarrassment do not have the capability to deal with disappointment or embarrassment when they are adults. They also have a hard time feeling empathy for other people who are experiencing these emotions. Almost always, it is those who have experienced great hardship who are the most compassionate. Diamonds are not found lying in a bed of clover, they are formed deep within the earth under great heat and pressure. These moments must be embraced. Encouraging a child to know they can and will overcome a difficult situation can be all the fuel the child needs to triumph over themselves. If the mama approaches a challenging situation with a positive attitude, she teaches her kiddo to do the same.

The generation of parents before us did not respond to their children as ours does. With two working parents, we were left home alone and were expected to do our homework, fold the laundry, and start dinner. We thought this was tantamount to child slave labor, but to what end has this “helicopter parenting” brought our kids?

Because of her mother's strategic blocking, Brianna has not experienced a major disappointment in her life, so as an adult, how will she respond when she does? How many puppies will she buy? How many bowls of ice cream will she eat to answer the lack of happiness?

Where children twenty or thirty years ago were made to do chores, have jobs, walk to school, and go play outside, learning to handle ourselves among our peers and overcome our fears without holding the hands of our parents, the concerns of today's parents have kept our kids closer to us. We might have hated the frustration and uncertainty at the time, but looking at what we have been able to accomplish, some of that forced independent activity is the reason for our success as adults. Our kids, under our watchful eyes, spend a great deal of time snacking in front of video games and the computer. Yes, the safety factor was not as much of an issue for us as it is now, but we have gone guardrail to guardrail, overcompensating for the small percentage of monsters by not only protecting our children from them, but from failure. Apparently, the outcome of our over-involved parenting is a generation of kids with expectations of "being happy" who will hit the colleges and job markets without having suffered and overcome the small challenges of childhood.

Pandita, Rahul. "Child Obesity Statistics in America." Buzzle.com. Web. 15 June 2012

The Christian Grey Phenomenon

2012-07-15T10:33:00.001-05:00

Warning: this piece is not appropriate for a Sunday morning, anyone under the age of 21...or my dad

A very good friend asked if I had read the Fifty Shades of Grey series. Honestly, because I was now seeing it in the middle of the grocery store aisle, I had purchased the first one, but had not made it very far into the story.

“You HAVE to read it. It made me absolutely crazy,” she confessed. “I had extremely vivid dreams all night long. I couldn’t sleep!” she gushed. She was one of about ten friends who were raving about it.

“Why would you lie wriggling in your bed when you have a perfectly good husband lying right there beside you?” I asked her.

“I can’t do that! He’d think I was nuts! Plus, he can’t do what Christian Grey can do. I'd rather just dream about a kitchen pass for him.”

The one relationship where love is supposed to encourage and allow all truth and you are not going to share with him? The fantasy is always better than reality, however, we too often let the fantasy hinder movement forward.

I apologize, but I must to do this first. In my mind, there are two kinds of fiction, authentic and manipulative. Authentic fiction builds a moving story around a moral and illustrates a clear theme—I would highly recommend the fabulous examples of The Elegance of the Hedgehog or The Poisionwood Bible. Manipulative fiction has little depth, but manipulatively plays on the psychology of the reader—examples are any “chick lit” or romance novel.

The story of Christian Grey and Ana Steel is the exploitation of any teenage girl’s daydream that she is so special and so beautiful and so desirable that she inspires the unattainable bad boy to become husband material. Do not get me wrong, the book is being marketed to thirty-somethings, but the author is writing to the sixteen-year-old in all of us. The idea of being dominated releases the societal binding of “appropriate good girl behavior” to awaken the subdued carnality in us all. The manipulative brilliance of the author in using the name Christian and making Ana a virgin invites the normally pious to read on. This series is Beauty and the Beast, Twilight, The Thorn Birds, and Gone With the Wind, only with unnecessary graphic sex. The fact that the author made the main female character an English major and used a thesaurus sporadically does not make it well-written.

However…women, especially tired mamas after a long day, can have the tendency toward being slow to warm up to their husbands. For generations, society dictated its Victorian era view of sex onto the impressionable minds of its teenage girls, suppressing their innate desires by making them think that sexual desire is “bad”. What? They are all having sex! The STD rate is skyrocketing! True, but that has everything to do with the way we were raised and the way we are raising our girls to think about sexual desire. The discomfort of the subject for the mamas casts it into the shadows, allowing us and our girls to remain silent with each other about the topic. Without understanding or knowledge, young girls in search of understanding to the awakenings in their bodies, respond to the boys’ lead, in hopes that they know what they are doing. Perhaps our girls would wait to experience sex in a healthier environment if they were encouraged to be the one to lead their partner in what is enjoyable for them. Clearly, males are not as complex as females. Most likely, they would appreciate the direction.

Perhaps the first step in changing the taboo of discussing female desire is for mamas to embrace their own. As noted, I cannot recommend the Grey books on their literary merit, but if a mama desires certain aspects of the sexual relationship Christian Grey provides, she should not wonder who will be cast as the character for the movie and keep her daydreams to herself. A good place to start would be reading enticing sections of the book aloud to her husband. After his jaw hits the floor, it may be just the key he has been searching for all along.

Keeping Up With The Joneses

2012-07-08T10:20:00.002-05:00

Why is it that just before my birthday, the one person who makes me feel the most insecure gets a new car? I do not need a new car or desire to spend my emergency fund money on something other than an emergency, but right before my birthday, if that person gets a new car, I want a new car. That little green monster starts whispering in my ear that I am falling behind and I must keep up with those Joneses, and I, like the insecure idiot I can be, panic, adding unnecessary, unhelpful pressure to my bubble.

In every neighborhood, there are Bad Joneses. They have thick lawns edged with begonias, a sparkling pool, a new Escalade, bags of new clothes, and every other item that you desire, and they tell you about it. They judge every single item of clothing and piece of jewelry and decorative piece of fluff you own by comparing yours to theirs and giving backward compliments that translate into bragging that theirs is better. That is how they let you know they are the Bad Joneses. The Bad Joneses invite you to come sit on their picture-perfect Southern Living porches and drink iced tea with fresh mint. This lure makes them seem so nice, but their sole purpose in life is to seem impressive to others because of the big secret they are desperately trying to keep: they do not think they are valuable people themselves. Having this kind of presence in your life is a huge energy suck.

The pressure of meeting the Needs of our husbands and children is a lot. We do not need to add pressure by surrounding ourselves with the Bad Joneses who help create a load of Wants in our heads. Keeping up with the Bad Joneses is the main reason that families have unnecessary credit card debt.

The truth about people who want everyone to think they “have it all” is that they don’t feel that they do. They have what they have, but the feeling of contentment is usurped by a list of troubles and emotional baggage and insecurities. Rather than focusing on trying to be part of a solution to a community problem (loving thy neighbor), they react to their list by negatively criticizing others to elevate how they feel about themselves. It never works, but that is the only way they know how to handle their insecurity. Their insecurity blinds them to good things that happen to anyone “below them” because they are so focused on impressing the Joneses above them.

For others who are insecure, it is easy to become swept up in this mess. For instance, when your kids start going to school, joining a carpool does not require a new Cadillac Escalade to impress the Joneses. To keep your Mama Bubble intact, qualify the point of a carpool to yourself. A carpool gives each mother the opportunity to skip sitting in traffic, save gas, and invest that time toward achieving a goal. As a bonus, it gives the kids a chance to socialize. However, the Joneses use a carpool as an opportunity to brag when they stop to chat when dropping off your kiddo (“I have just GOT to make our airline reservations for Belize or we will all get stuck in economy”). This type of conversation is a RED FLAG telling you that it is time for you to create another carpool. Honestly, it would better serve you to drive your kids yourself than to be exposed to people with so little self-assurance.

If you happen to live around nice people who have nice stuff but do not brag about it, and you are feeling insecure and jealous, you have several healthy Mama Bubble options:

a. Embrace the fact that your vehicle is paid for and give it a good cleaning to reward it for its faithful service

b. Turn up the volume on Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody and sing along with your passengers—it makes your car the “fun” car--they will love you for it and love riding with you

c. As always, repeat the following: I will not add pressure to my bubble

Kind, thoughtful friends who belong on your Mother Board do not put pressure on each other to impress one another. True friends name your eight-year-old vehicle Penelope and cheer when she only needs brake pads instead of a total overhaul of the brake system. True friends encourage solid behavior (saving up and paying cash for a new car) rather than damaging behavior (telling you to just go get a new car because you deserve it).

A good question to ask ourselves is “What is the value in my friendships?” If you notice that every time you come home from someone's house and feel badly about yourself, you need to recognize that that is not a healthy relationship, and it is really unhealthy to spend a lot of time pouting about a list of Wants. However, if you come home from someone's house and you feel smart and funny and want to invite her over without worrying that the front hall needs repainting, that is a good indication that you have spent valuable time with a friend.

If we, as mamas, are influenced by the insecurity of others and allow that negativity to affect our decisions, how can we teach our kids to make healthy choices? What does this behavior look like to them? It models that Wants are more important than Needs and people who focus on Wants are more valuable than those who do not. Perhaps it is time to do some cleaning of the Mama’s soul and stop allowing the Bad Joneses to use her as a tool to temporarily prop up themselves. Letting go of relationships is never easy, but making the goal of creating a healthy environment for ourselves and our families makes these difficult decisions necessary.

Everyone wants. Especially me. However, more times than not, God gets ahold of my soul through a true friend, stops my damaging impulsively, and sets me straight. but surrounding myself with healthy friendships is a requirement for this healthy behavior.

The Needs Quiz

2012-06-30T09:54:00.002-05:00

Quick review. According to the Mother Board Handbook, in a nutshell, our needs are water, air, food, shelter, sleep, medical treatment, physical activity, an honest, loving relationship with our spouses, and one real friend. Necessary clothing is important, but nothing dies if you don’t have it. Everything else comes after.

It may be time to re-arrange your order of importance. A few basic carbohydrates do not a good day make. If a person cannot sleep undisturbed because they are being awakened by small children and sharing their bed with said beasties, that person will not be able to think clearly the next day. If the house has a leak that goes unfixed because the credit card limit has been met with a family vacation to Disneyworld to keep up with the damn Joneses, the safety of the family is uncertain. If we argue ineffectively with our husbands, it puts everyone on edge and sits at the forefront of our kids' minds, blocking their ability to mature. If a mama gets liposuction but does not fill her refrigerator with fresh vegetables, there is no Mama Bubble in place. Needs are needs. They must be filled for the mama to be a healthy example for the kids.

Fill in the blank or circle one of the following:

Water

1. I drink about _________ glasses of water per day. I think my body needs_______ glasses of water per day.

2. I shower AS OFTEN or NOT AS OFTEN as I would like.

Air

3. I DO or DO NOT take time to breathe deeply when things get hectic.

4. I DO or DO NOT get out of my house into the fresh air.

Food

5. I eat ________ servings of vegetables and fruit every day. I think my body needs

________ servings of vegetables and fruit every day.

6. I DO or DO NOT plan balanced, healthy menus for myself and my family.

Shelter

7. My home IS or IS NOT safe for me and my family.

Sleep

8. I DO or DO NOT sleep soundly through the night.

Medical Treatment

9. I KNOW or DO NOT KNOW my cholesterol, thyroid, and hormone levels

10. I KNOW or DO NOT KNOW the results of my pap smear

11. I HAVE or HAVE NOT had my mammogram in the last twelve months.

12. I AM or AM NOT up to date on my dental checkups and procedures.

Physical Activity

13. I exercise ______ hours per week. I think my body needs ______ hours of exercise per week.

An honest, loving relationship with my spouse

14. I spend ______% of my time thinking about the good things about my spouse and ______% on what I would like to be different about him.

15. I told him Thank You ______ times today.

One Real Friend

16. The one person I can count on to be honest with me, even if I get mad for a little while, is

_______________________________________________________

So, are you content with your answers?

No? Okay, change one thing that would make you feel content.

Something to think about before you write down what you would change:

Water is the best drink ever. It helps flush the toxins out of your system without adding very many new ones to it--unlike colas or processed energy drinks.

If you are one of the thousands of new moms with an infant, you are one of thousands of moms with a new infant who lives with baby urp on the front of her shirt and in her hair. These days are over in the blink of an eye, so when your baby is ready for his morning cat nap, put him in his crib (I know, you really like holding him when he sleeps, but remember, a shower is something that will make you feel human and benefit the others living with you), and go wash your hair. The monitor works in the bathroom, I promise. If you are the proud parent of a clinging two-year-old, it is time to set a boundary. Is there a safe place for your child to watch a Bluey episode that is within earshot of a shower? Put a snack in a kiddo bowl, fill the sippy cup, and turn it on for said child. Put up a gate to the door of the safe place and tell your child that you are going to have your bath. If she screams the entire time, at least you know where she is.

*Keep a bar of white soap under your bathroom sink to treat the stains on your shirt while you wait for the water to heat.

To feel content about my Water, I will now

_________________________________________________________________________

Oxygen helps the brain think more clearly (Brizendine M.D., The Female Brain). If you react without breathing, then your decisions most likely are not going to have the desired effect. Stopping and taking four deep breaths may feel like an eternity, but it will save you in the long run.

Yes, you can carve out time outside for yourself. Small steps. “I want to make my front yard look pretty” is totally doable and will meet the fresh air requirement if you don't try to re-landscape the whole thing on the first day. Rome was not built in a day, but five thirty-minute sessions should have you feeling a lot better about your front flower beds. If you have to have your kiddos with you, haul the port-a-crib outside and throw some netting over it—babies love watching bugs fly around as long as they don’t touch or eat them. If they aren’t babies, you can hand them the weeds to put into the trash bag or give them the small hand trowel to loosen the dirt. You are not trying to make your yard perfect for others walking by. You are trying to take care of yourself. Want fresh squash? Buy a small plant at the nursery and remember to water it--they are incredibly prolific.

To feel content about my Air, I will now

__________________________________________________________________________

“I get fast food all of the time, or we eat out a lot because I don’t remember to pull the meat out of the freezer” has to be the one thing I hear the most.

*Set an alarm on your phone to make a menu and grocery list for the week, then set another alarm to check your menu and take out the meat every morning. Simple small steps will make your life easier. Again, buy a squash plant. If you are feeling really adventurous, buy a tomato plant and a cage--your kids will think that growing food in the backyard is the coolest thing ever.

Food should have nutrients that are not additives. If one eats only a pop-tart for breakfast, there cannot be a great accomplishment at work or school.

To feel content about my Food, I will now

________________________________________________________________________

A safe place to sleep is the most important goal of a shelter. Deadbolts must work. Gas cannot leak. Safety also means that most tragedies are avoidable. Furniture and televisions cannot topple over onto toddlers. Dogs cannot bite. Gates to pools must be locked. These are some of the things that must be attended to for you to have peace. If the first thing you think of for this next goal is cosmetic in nature, move on - that is a want, not a need.

To feel content about my Shelter, I will now

_______________________________________________________________________

You must sleep. Children who wake up and come to your bed in the middle of the night must be placed back into their own bed. Period. If this is a change to their routine, it will take a few nights of firm boundary setting for it to hold, but this must be accomplished for you to function effectively.

A snoring husband needs medical attention. You can try over-the-counter remedies, but you must be honest with him and say out loud that his snoring is causing you to not function effectively (i.e. forgetting things he needs).

To feel content about my Sleep, I will now

________________________________________________________________________

Yes, your health is important to your entire family, and if you neglect yourself now, it will make your older age miserable. Even the airlines tell you to put on your own oxygen mask first before securing your child’s. Small things turn into big things if left unattended, especially teeth! “I have no money for that” can be handled by putting fifty dollars into an envelope every month to cover these dental checkups, or your doctors may have payment plans if you need to see them immediately. A small infection can lead to a major infection that can put you in the hospital, which can cause MAJOR financial issues. Cancers spread if left unattended.

To feel content about my Medical Treatment, I will now

_________________________________________________________________________

If you are thinking of writing down that a marathon is your goal, you had better be able to run five miles with no problem right this minute. Otherwise, you are about to set up a giant roadblock in the lives of everyone around you.

Set a realistic goal if you are a slug right this minute. Think Cardiovascular health. “I want to run two miles three times a week” is a reachable goal for a slug. Yes, you feel like a fraud at the beginning, but people who run regularly will cheer you on in their minds as they see you struggling at the beginning, and other slugs will think you are better than they are for just getting out there. Pick a light post. Slowly run to it. Catch your breath for twenty seconds. Pick the next one down the street. Make your way around your neighborhood for two miles. The next time, your body will remember what you did and react more favorably, and within six weeks, you will be running the entire thing and thinking about where to get the money for smaller shorts.

To feel content about my Physical Activity, I will now

__________________________________________________________________________

If you spend ninety percent of your time thinking about the ten percent that is not good in your marriage, you are like most of the wives in the world. But. Do you want your husband thinking the same way about you? When was the last time you initiated something lovingly sexual? “He doesn’t treat me the way I want to be treated” is only blocking you from having a better relationship with him. This one takes additional mental conviction (especially if you work outside the home, too), but see what response you get when you tell him, “Thank you for going to that job and supporting all of this for the kids and for me.”

To feel content about my honest, loving relationship with my spouse, I will now

__________________________________________________________________________

If you called this person and told her that you feel like you have fallen off of a cliff into a very dark place, what would that person say? Is the person you wrote down capable of attending to the statement, or would she brush it off with “Oh, you’re okay. Everyone has bad days. Let’s go shopping.” A real friend would ask, “How long have you felt this way?” and if it is longer than a couple of weeks, she would tell you it is time to go see your doctor. She would hand you your phone and stand there while you made the appointment and then keep your kids when you go. Husbands and sisters can be the best friends of your life. Do not discount their value.

To feel content about my One Real Friend, I will now

____________________________________________________________________

So, now you have goals for your needs and plans to meet those goals. Nothing is perfect, and everyone has areas of their Needs that need attention. This exercise is to help you avoid letting the overwhelming idea of "perfect" paralyze you into not moving forward at all. Make your list and make time in your day to attend to the improvements you desire.

Permission to copy is granted by the author for personal use only.

Great Expectations

2012-06-24T09:42:00.001-05:00

What was the goal in having children? Why give so much time and energy to someone else? If you have never considered that question, it might be a good time to think about it. I did not have a valid goal when I had my kids. But now that my kids are moving toward adulthood, my goal is to release considerate, capable, emotionally functioning adults into the world who will affect positive change. In other words, no slackers.
Parents hate it when their kids underacheive. Not only is it embarassing to have to go to a meeting at school because your relatively-smart kid is failing a class, but it is scary to know that bad grades limit a child's college choices and a lifetime of opportunities. If both parents made it through high school, they know that for a relatively-smart kid, getting good grades does not take a lot of effort. It feels like everyone else's kid is in the National Honor Society and their kid is a total slacker. This makes parents crazy. What motivates our kids? Ah, that is the question.

The Carrot and the Stick

An evening carriage driver in New York has to make three hundred dollars per night to avoid a day job. A horse does not want to pull a carriage through crowded streets. The driver of the carriage uses two tactics to achieve his goal. To motivate the horse forward, he hangs a carrot on a stick in front of the horse. Always happy for a snack, the horse moves toward the carrot. If the horse slows down, the driver gives him a whack on his shank with a stick. Startled by the sting, the horse moves away from the stick. Either way, the carriage is pulled through the streets of NY.

Well, I'm not going to smack my kid every time I want her to do the dishes or finish her homework. No, but you know what your child wants.

Freshman Greta says intelligent things, asks intelligent questions, and every so often when she is engaged in an assignment, her eyes sparkle with ideas. Most of the time, Greta is buried in her Facebook page or texting with her friends. Her homework assignments are mostly finished on time, but are haphazard and sloppy. She scrapes by with an 82 overall average. Frustrated and knowing that high school grades are the most important item on college admission criteria, Greta’s parents put her on a study schedule. When she ignores it, they take away her cell phone, then her computer, and finally television time. Greta is now irritated with her parents and completely unmotivated.

Greta’s parents’ plan has backfired on them. Any of this ringing a bell?

Step One: Figure out what motivates your child

No one knows a kid’s motivations better than a parent, because their kid is constantly asking for things. For Greta, the best carrot her parents can use is that she loves going to all of the school athletic events, parties, and spending time with her friends.

Studies show that learning new pieces of music helps children grasp math concepts. Greta hated band in middle school and begged to be allowed to take dance instead. The best stick they can use is the decision to put her back into the school’s band program for her sophomore year “to help her brain to function.”

Step Two: Set realistic expectations.

A parent is only setting their child up for failure and themselves for frustration if they demand straight A's when the child has never acheived that in the past.

Greta’s grades for the first semester were:

Algebra 80

Biology 82

Geography 74

Dance 95

Fresh. Course 90

Health 80

Spanish I 78

English 77

Greta has never gotten higher than an 83 on an Algebra test and 85 on the homework (mostly she earns high seventies), so her average is an 80. Her parents think that if she applies herself, she can get an average of 90 on her tests and a 93 on the homework, which would give her an overall average of 92. But, looking at her past record, they compromise and set her target at an average of 85 on tests with a 90 on all homework for an average of 88. This goal is reachable with effort. They do this for each class. Her parents’ goal was a bit too lofty and could have kept her unmotivated. The process of compromise gave Greta ownership of the goal. She has evidence that her parents are listening to her which helps to heal the relationship. Keep in mind that the most important aspect is realistic expectations.

Every time Greta wants to attend an event, she will log onto her school’s website and show her parents her grades. If she has met the expectation, she gets to go, if not, she does not. If she hits the target for all of her classes she does not have to go back to band next year. Having this structure in place eliminates all screaming by her parents and sulking by Greta. At the beginning of every semester, the process will begin again. It is imperative that Greta and her parents set realistic expectations that motivate her to grow her brain. If she is working hard (i.e. not constantly on Facebook while doing homework, asking for real help with specific problems, etc..) and not reaching the goal, then the expectations can be lowered. It is imperative that her parents check up on how she is approaching the goal. If she is still messing around when she has homework, her mom should take a photo to show proof that she was on Facebook when she was supposed to be studying and flash that at her when she insistes that she DID work hard.

The concept of realistic expectations can be applied to household chores. If kids have never done a job and don't understand all of the components of the job, they cannot possibly do it thoroughly or well. Breaking down a job into specific expectations makes doing the job successfully much easier. Telling the child "clean the kitchen" is not a great direction if he does not have a blueprint of what a "clean kitchen" requires. Once he understands all of the components, there can never be that wide-eyed "You never told me" look again.

This system is also an inadvertant Mama Bubble. Mamas are doing too much for their kids to "help them." Homework is a review of what the teacher already taught--don't let them tell you that the teacher did not teach it in class--teachers have to turn in their lesson plans and spend most of their time talking to children who are texting each other on their phones under the desk. If Greta was not paying attention in class, it is not her mother's job to learn the material and re-teach it to her. She needs to get the 54 on the homework. Benjamin Franklin said, "The things that hurt, instruct." You must refrain from jumping in at the end to save your child from failure. This process works only if you tell yourself and your kiddo that you will not be doing their homework for her or running around at the end of the semester to do extra-credit projects, so that she does not have to go back into band.

If a child does not have the opportunity to experience the fact that work equals accomplishment, she does not know how strong, smart, or capable she really is.

Per Request: Sibling Rivalry

2012-06-22T07:55:00.000-05:00

Sibling Rivalry is a topic most families must deal with, but rarely does one hear it as a regular topic of conversation at Wine Night. No one really wants other people to know that their kids are perfectly dreadful to each other and say the most horrible things, especially when they do it right in front of their mama! Even four and six-year-olds!

“That’s mine! You’re a Poophead!” “Oh, yea? Well, you’re a Butthead Fartacus!” It’s embarrassing. How can children who are reared with such unrestrained love treat the very people they are supposed to love the most with such distain? In a word, jealousy. Every child wishes that they were their parents’ only child, receiving all of the energy, attention, time, and financial resources for themselves. Truthfully, who would want to share any of that with another person? They know we are full of it--sharing is not fun. Sharing is a pain in the butt. But as they grow up and out and have families of their own, having to share continues when visiting parents/grandparents and who gets the “good room” and who was given what piece of furniture for their new house, blah, blah, etc…This rubs raw on past injustices. Worse will be the dividing of responsibilities toward caretaking of aged parents and dividing of their estates. Life requires practice.

God willing, your children will spend an additional twenty-five years with each other than they will with you, so the relationship they build has lifelong consequences.

“Great, my kids already hate each other.”

I hear you, most do. There is no way to guarantee that they will be friends, but the truth is that siblings must deal with each other for, hopefully, the entirety of their lives, so they may as well be given the best chance to learn to deal effectively with one another.

Introducing New Babies to the Fold

There is nothing fun about an infant brother or sister to a small child. At first glance, they are about as exciting as a new lamp and less useful. They cry for the tiniest reasons, everyone who paid attention to the small child now pays attention to the infant, and nothing runs on the same schedule as it did before. It is exasperating for a three-year-old, so to have the same people who are cooing and smiling at the new baby look over at her and ask “What do you think of your new sister?” is insulting.

What mamas want is for their children is to love each other, protect, play, and be best friends to one another, right? Ain’t gonna happen. What parents need to go for initially is apathy.

Before you go to the hospital, think of a toy your older child has been begging for you to buy him. You may have to set him up with a trip to the toy store to buy a small puzzle as a ruse to find out if he is dying for something—“dying” for something looks like: holding it while following you from aisle to aisle, or begging, crying, throwing a fit over it. This only works if he is emotionally attached to something. Buy it without him knowing and hide it. When the baby comes home, your older child should be elsewhere with Grandma or a neighbor—the park, out to lunch, a movie, something fun. This allows you get home, settled, and ready without a big scene. Set up the meeting place in a neutral part of the house, where the baby can be in a pop-up bed or Moses basket nearby and put the desired toy next to the sleeping infant—they all sleep for about three days before becoming milk vampires, remember? You need to be sitting and comfortable like nothing unusual is going on. As your older child enters, take him into your arms for a big hug and ask him if he had fun at the park. (Don’t ask if he missed you—of course he did--that is bringing up a negative—we are only being positive). He answers yes and tells you that he missed you and you say nonchalantly, “I’m back. I’m so glad to see you,” smooch, smooch, ear nibbles, zerbert his neck, as if he just came home from school. No biggie. As you chat about the park, he will see the baby and the toy and connect the two as both positives. You tell him that the toy is from his baby sister to him, because she is so glad to have him as her big brother. It is imperative that he hears this said clearly and only once (if you repeat yourself, he starts to feel like you are hammering the point and won’t believe you—little kids are more intuitive than we give them credit for being).

In the next few weeks, NEVER ask what he thinks about the baby or if he likes the baby, he does not have enough information or words to express it yet. When he has an opinion, you’ll know it. Life changes and it is a good idea to prepare children, but with toddlers, it is best not to discuss something to death. The less you draw attention to the new baby, the more comfortable they will be with the baby.

“Well, it would have been helpful to know that one five years ago. My kids are 5 and 8 and fight constantly. Now what do I do?” The answer: nothing.

Yep. Here is another Mama Bubble for you to draw around yourself:

When the children come screaming for you because the little one took the big one’s juice box or the big one called the little one a “baby,” your new answer is, “Go work it out. I was not there. I do not need to know. Go back to the playroom. No hitting.”

How often do you file a complaint in court? Probably never is pretty close to the truth. If you have a problem with someone, do you always need a mediator? No. Children will never learn hold their own against the world if they do not have the wherewithal to do it within their own four walls.

Since mine were old enough to argue, we have sent them into a neutral location to have it out. The only rule was that they could not hit each other. Listening to how they learned to explain and compromise their way through a dispute has become kind of an event. I do listen from the other room and occasionally, after a few hours have passed and tempers have settled, give a critique of their performance and ask how they could have avoided the confrontation.

Time to throw my own kids under the bus: My youngest daughter (kiddo #3) has the nickname “Ferret.” If anyone in the house is missing something (tape dispenser, markers, socks, makeup brushes, etc…) it has most likely been ferreted up the stairs to her room and is neatly organized on a shelf in Ferret’s room. She “stores” anything that does not have a specific person’s name on it, happy to share, but she likes having the stuff in her room. Where there are three of the same sex in one family, the third daughter always seems to come up with an interesting role for herself. Daughter #2, aka “Tech Girl” (loves gadgets) was missing her labeler. No one in the house had seen the item, so the first place TG looked was in Ferret’s room and guess what? Yep—displayed beside a coffee mug containing every missing pencil in the house was the pilfered item.

Ah-HA! TG pounced, bellowing at Ferret at such length and volume that the dog sought his hiding place under the kitchen table and I had to pause so that I could monitor the show. Ferret raged back, arguing that it was left on the floor no question this part is true and the dog had been chewing it, so she took it from him to save it, besides the finders-keepers rule overrides personal property law if left for an extended length of time. Boo-yahh! A few moments later, the labeler was returned to its original owner along with the insulting suggestion from her four-years-younger sibling that she take better care of her things. Doors slammed all over the upstairs, but in twenty minutes, both were downstairs on the sofa, laughing at Wipeout and sharing a bowl of popcorn. Since then, the labeler has been used by not only Ferret, but the other kiddos, too. They learn. Occasionally one will slip and come tattling, but no one comes to seek my help. They don’t need it and I’m not helpful. I laugh. I think it’s hysterically funny and take notes for future novels, so they may as well handle it themselves without getting abused by my teasing.

When you first implement this change, your children will not like this. They will try desperately to get you on their side, pulling out every memorable infraction the other child has committed. They will accuse you of not caring. Give them the death stare, then dismiss them from your space.

Having children capable of sharing is one of those pinnacle goals that practice over time will yield. As mamas, a large part of our job is allowing our kids to fail where it is safe, so they can have success when we are not there to zerbert their necks.

Husband/Father's Day

2012-06-17T07:36:00.002-05:00

It is with great trepidation that I post this week’s blog. Lots of mamas are not going to like this piece at the first read. However, the point of writing these is to make the lives of mamas better and an appreciated husband/father is going to do just that.

I have absolutely been guilty of blowing Father’s Day. As young mother, I never had a clue as to what my husband could possibly want as a gift—it is up to us, the kids don’t really get it until they are much older. I have bought new socks and underwear, ties, golf balls, bad shirts, and (I’m not kidding) as a joke, soap-on-a-rope. Dads don’t love massages or facials, bathrobes or shaving necessities like we think they should. Most of the time, if they want something, most dads will just go buy it for themselves; what they would consider a thoughtful gesture, so as not to burden their wives with another errand. However, we mad at them, because we have nothing to give them for Father’s Day. For a lot of wives, it is the symbol or the image, not the effectiveness of the activity that matters. That is sad. It is very sad that as wives, we still have not figured out how to appreciate our husbands. “But, Wait!” you say. “Father’s Day is about the kids appreciating their dads.” True, but a happy husband is a better dad.

So what do they want? A great deal of wives over-think the information they give us, so, after years of being one of those over-thinking wives, I came out and asked my own and some other husbands. Here is the scoop:

Men are simple creatures. They want to be comfortable. Their idea of comfortable is also simple; they wish to avoid being hungry, overly-amorous, and unappreciated.

So, food can be as simple as making sure their favorite cereal and milk is always available. Frequent physical love helps alleviate the feeling of being beaten up by the rest of the world and helps them to trust us. And finally, not keeping a balance on the credit card makes them feel appreciated for all that they have provided. Sounds simple… and impossible.

It would be so much easier if a husband felt safe enough with his wife to say, “Tonight, I want a hamburger, to have sex with you, and sleep until 10:00 tomorrow morning.” Why does he have to tell her why he needs it before he gets it? Marriages all over the world would instantly be better if his wife responded “You got it, babe.”

I know, that sounds SO backwards from what society has fed us and “why should he get it and not me, too?” Stop trying to keep score. Again, life is not fair. At the end of your life, it might average to fifty/fifty, but at no given time is life fair.

The answer to why he wants this would probably be revealed afterwards and is something like: he was so worried about a major meeting at work that he did not sleep well the night before, he did not get out of the hellish meeting in time for lunch, and the boss yelled at him in front of his peers. Why does he have to go through all of that humiliation with his wife all over again, immediately after a really crappy day? Because society told us he should. So instead of being honest and asking for what he wants, he stuffs the bad day and tries to function as best he can, ending up being grouchy, for which he is rewarded with harsh words and no sex. The sad result is, after years of stuffing it, they quit. Unfortunately, I have too many examples of men who have gone flying out the door in grossly spectacular ways. A big reason for this is that we give the very dregs of our energy and attitude to our husbands. The excuse of being irritated that they don’t understand us has got to end. They don’t get us. The truth is, they never will and don’t have to. We are totally different creatures meant to compliment the characteristics, abilities, and spiritual gifts of the other. I like reading to the kids, he likes teaching them how to throw a baseball. I could not possibly be the mama that I am if I had to do all of the things that my husband does to support me and these kids. I hear you grumbling out there. I know, the same goes for them, but it’s the Father’s Day blog.

Marriage is hard. On my wedding day, I asked my grandmother how she and my grandfather stayed married and still loved each other. She got a strange grin on her face and said, “You do it one day at a time.” Annoyed by her flippant answer, I blew it off…until I understood. Sometimes it’s all you can do to be and stay married for the next five minutes, so one day at a time IS the best approach. Society has fed us a philosophy that men and women should be able to understand each other and be empathetic and talk everything to death. Why? I don’t know the reason why I do what I do in the heated moment of doing it and I cannot articulate what I think half of the time. How can he possibly understand me when I don’t?? Theory is not worth the paper it is written on if the practice of the theory does not work.

What we are going for here is a more peaceful existence for ourselves, husbands, and kiddos. As mamas, we want to give our children a solid foundation without them having to split Christmas Day into two sessions, allowing time for travel in between. The only way to do that is to be a wife.

Father’s Day Gift Number One: Plan to have a date with your husband every two weeks

I hear you whining, "Whyyyyyy? Why do I have to pay for a babysitter and do my hair and put on a dress just to date my husband who leaves his socks on the floor and doesn't come home for dinner when I told him what time it would be ready and plays Halo until two in the morning?" Because if you make the effort to tear yourself out of the mommy role to look nice and share a small space and a dinner or a movie with the person you promised to love, honor, and cherish in front of God and everybody, you will like him more. And vice versa.

Gift Two: Stop expecting your husband to be your Mother Board

Most husbands don’t have much to say after being at work all day. On average, women have a bank of 20,000 words a day and men have about 7,000 (Brizendine, Louann. The Female Brain, 2006). They have to talk at work or be fired, but by the time they get home, they have used up a good portion of their words. We talk as we process through our thinking. They do not. They need quiet for their processing. Do you have a husband who disappears into the bathroom the moment he walks in the door? He isn’t avoiding you and the kids, he’s processing. Don’t holler that dinner is ready—let the man poop!

A great deal of frustration happens in communicating with our husbands. As a rule, they cannot follow our thinking. A lot of my friends have complained that their husbands don’t talk to them. What they mean is that their husbands don’t listen to them or understand what they are thinking. At this point, we need to ask ourselves, “Why do they need to know everything we are thinking? What does that accomplish?” Truthfully, we don’t know what we are thinking most of the time and the way we process it is so complex that a man’s point A to point B brain cannot follow it anyway. Women LOVE to figure out what they think and why they think it with each other. It is our role as friends.

Husband-Speak

Yes, there are things that have to be discussed. So, when dealing with the business side of family life, it is more important that you know what you think than it is for you to figure it out in front of your husband. Instead of beginning a conversation:

“We need to talk about money for college” and having no other information to offer confuses them. If you start with: “Michael’s college is going to cost $147,000 and we have nine years to save it. I want to put six hundred and eighty-five dollars per month into ABC mutual fund starting next week.” That gives him the problem and your solution to the problem. Now you have a place where you can begin an effective discussion, because you have laid out the path you want to take in reaching the desired goal.

If you just want to tell him that you love and appreciate him, he will always understand “You put gas in my car for me? I want you bad,” and “I love this car. Thank you.”

It is a terrifying moment to discover that a husband has checked out. Most of the time, it is because of miscommunication on both sides, but the only side we can control is our own. If we can figure out a way to feed, love, and respect our husbands in their terms, there is no better Father’s Day gift than that.

Needs, Sleep, and Drawing the Mama Bubble

2012-06-10T07:15:00.000-05:00

Theory: Always put your child’s needs before your own.

First, let's re-define a "need." A need, as defined by the Mama Bubble Dictionary is something that one cannot live effectively without: air, water, food, shelter, sleep, and medical treatment if your leg has been severed. If you are a child growing up in the Jones home, your list continues with: an education, laughter, and scream-therapy pillows.

As moms, we give. Despite the endless crying, sleepless nights, and poopy diapers, we cannot give enough love to these little miracle creatures who emerge from our bodies and head off too quickly into the world with half of our souls stuffed in their back pockets. We do not require or expect reciprocation for our efforts. We give life and love which honors our mothers, who first gave us life and love.

With God’s exuberant joy we give over our bodies to produce them, our breasts to nourish them, our careers to care for them, and our sleep to comfort them. We give over our minds to determine how best to console, teach, and inspire them. Every day of our lives becomes related to theirs and seeking the revelations of their growth, intelligence, and ability. We want our children to achieve even more desperately than we want ourselves to achieve. So much so, that we show them time and time again how something is to be done. The truth is that we are actually doing it for them.

The idea of sacrificing for our children is well-established in our society, as it was only a hundred years ago that mothers went hungry, so that their children could eat. Nearly every family history has a story of parents sacrificing their own welfare or enjoyment for their kids to go to college or see the world or live their dreams. Giving is what we do, but the boundary line between enough and too much has a different location for each child. We, as mamas, are not necessarily great judges of where that boundary should lie.

It begins with sleep. At some point between the ages of six months and one year, each of my children went from needing me in the middle of the night to wanting me in the middle of the night. It was something in their cries that alerted my husband to the change. A “need cry” is very different from a “want cry”; both are alarming if you are a first-time parent. A need cry starts off loud and high-pitched without breaks. A want cry is a whining that becomes more insistent with breaks to see if it has had an effect.

“She’s just complaining,” he told me as I started to get out of bed. “She just wants you to come get her.”

“What?” I looked at him like he was crazy. “She doesn’t know the difference.”

Oh, but she did. Now that I have been decreasingly manipulated by my own four kiddos, I believe children are born with the innate understanding of the maternal human spirit. What the heck does that mean? It means that they’ve got our number. There is a moment for every human being when they figure out: “If I cry, Mama comes.” The first step in their developing brains is to test that theory and the next logical step is to use it. It is not malicious. It is brilliant.

What is keeping mamas from stopping this manipulation? As a mama, do I want to go in there? Absolutely. They smell so fabulously sweet and feel so soft in their little cotton-footed jammies. It makes your heart melt into a big ole puddle, but… I'm going to ruin the moment for you…your presence will only stimulate them into a wakeful period that will become WIDE awake, disallowing the experience of self-soothing. Precious babies, as soft and warm as they are, need their sleep, too. They need to experience the awareness that they are capable of handling this first challenge themselves. Nothing breeds self-confidence in a person more than accomplishment. It is a shame that a light does not automatically flash when this moment of understanding occurs to demand that mamas acknowledge this connection in their baby’s brain. Lots of mamas yep, I was one of them continue to believe that their children need them long after they don’t.

It doesn’t end with sleep. A "want" is anything other than a need. When I was a toddler, I tried to talk my mother into buying a piece of candy for me by saying, "Mama, I neeeed this!" Saying "I need" about an "I want" can have a lot of power over a novice mama.

I cannot count the times I tied shoes, did a homework problem, made a bed “correctly,” made a play date, and took homework to the school-all jobs my children were perfectly capable of doing once they struggled through it. By giving my kids my time and my memory, I did not give them a reason to tap into their own. Giving to others is a blessing for us, but giving to someone who does not need it only delays their development. Present-day mothers are expanding their roles and their perceived value much like the value of internet stocks of the late nineties and the housing bubble of late. We have filled our schedules with what we assume are "needs" when most of our time is actually affected by "wants." Does this give us joy or give our kids inspiration? Or does this cause us stress and our kids to ignore their own creative ability? I am not going into why we do it, as every mama has her own backstory. What must be addressed is the effect it has on them and on us.

Having to discern that something is a problem, then solving that problem is the single greatest accomplishment in learning. Kids will tell you that Edison failed two thousand times (not a substantiated figure) to create a working light bulb. The point being, every time someone tries something that doesn’t work, they learn in the failure. In fact, I believe that failure is a more effective teacher than success. How many times will a child touch a hot stove without an oven mitt? How many times will a baker mistake salt for sugar before making cupcakes? How many times will a child forget his permission slip when the consequence is that he has to miss the field trip? I hear you, “It is just easier and faster to tie those shoes myself. He won’t trip and fall and knock out his teeth.” One industrious person replaced the laces with Velcro. Definitely a time-saver, but what did that do? It gave us a bunch of kids who can’t tie their own shoes!

Mamas of babies six months old or older, draw your Mama Bubble right here. Mamas regularly need eight hours of sleep, so that they are capable of being patient with their children, drive safely, and have the ability to find important vocabulary words in the back of their brains. If you do not have repaired neurons, you will not have the capacity to reach to the back of your brain to find the information you must have to rear healthy children. Needing eight hours of sleep is not being selfish.

This country and all of its glorious inventions was born on the backs of children who grew up with “not enough” and with mamas who did not do it for them. If there is no discomfort, there is no reason to change.

As you watch your babies fuss with the cardboard pages of their toddler books or labor over a nearly-shredded–from-erasing homework sheet or toil late into the night over an English paper they put off until the last minute, embrace the moment. Do not show her, again. Say: “You can figure that out,” give her a confident wink, and go to bed.

Sleep well, Mama

The Rules of Traveling with Kids

2012-06-03T11:25:00.001-05:00

As of Friday, school is officially out in Austin, Texas, so this post is for my friends who are about to embark on the yearly trek to Grandma and Grandpa’s.

Please take note: Taking a trip with your children as is not a vacation. The Mother Board defines a vacation as removal from your regular responsibilities for the sheer effort of enjoying yourself. If you take your children with you, the only thing from which you are vacating is your own home. A trip with your kids is just life in an unusual place. This, too, can have great value, but a spade is a spade.

So, what is the objective of this excursion? It must be decided before implementing the route and timetable. The overall objective for me is to reach the grandparents' house safely and with as little stress as possible. If dad is coming, too, one must acknowledge that this is also a race to beat the time of every other trip. Plan accordingly.

I actually LIKE planning road trips. I do it as an escape from folding laundry. I hate folding laundry. I can sort it and wash it and get it in the dryer without anxiety, but once that buzzer sounds, the dread washes over me and my arms get tired thinking about having to fold all of that hot, mismatched, faintly stained, fifty-percent blend. If I use the excuse that I am waiting for it to cool, that puts it off for a while, but if I wait too long, then I have to deal with the wrinkle factor. I digress.

I have been hauling my kids around the country to see my scattered family since their infancy and have figured out a few helpful tips to maintain the Mama Bubble.

Packing

Road trips are fun. I don’t really drive from Austin to North Carolina. There are multiple trips within the trip: Vicksburg to Meridian to ride the carousel, Meridian to Dreamland Bar-B-Que on Jug Factory Road in Tuscaloosa for the ribs, etc… All of the legs are about two and a half to three hours long, with potty stops at Cracker Barrel or Starbuck’s in between, and a lukewarm pool at the end of the day. But after dragging four kids’ suitcases, my suitcase, the electric cooler, and swim bag into a new hotel every night, I had to find another way.

First, no one gets their own suitcase. If I take four days to drive from Austin to North Carolina, I have three stops: Tyler the first night, Vicksburg the second, and Dillard, GA on the third. That requires three carry-on size bags, plus the “every night bag” which holds everyone’s pajamas, swimsuits, and toiletries, and the “final stop” bag for everything else.

The Tyler bag needs appropriate clothing for the drive from Tyler to Vicksburg. We like to stop and buy peaches in Ruston, LA, tour the Vicksburg National Military Park (they shoot off a canon every hour), and have dinner by the pool at the Bed and Breakfast. I pack everything for every person for that one day into one bag and write TYLER on the luggage tag. I repeat the process for the other cities along the route, so I have to bring only one carry-on bag, the “every night bag,” and the cooler into the hotel. Everything else stays in the car. We put the dirty clothes from the day before into that night's carry-on to keep them separate from the clean clothes and as a bonus, no one loses anything. Line up the carry-on bags in order in the car to avoid excessive digging.

Do not forget paper towels, baby wipes, and an old towel. Years ago, when I had only a three-year-old and an infant, I was between Memphis and Nashville when my oldest erupted. NEVER give little ones an entire bag of Cheetos and expect good things to happen. I pulled off the highway into a decrepit Texaco in…ready? Bucksnort, Tennessee. Seriously, I couldn’t make that name up. From then on, there has ALWAYS been an old “barf towel” in the car when we travel. If someone is going to be sick, a towel can handle the volume I know, gross and it can be thrown away. We end up using it as a picnic blanket most of the time.

Coolers (especially the electric ones--our Coleman cooler/heater has surpassed all expectations) are essential. Road food is expensive and makes me fat. I load our electric cooler with cherries, carrot sticks, celery sticks, apple slices, and lemonade. The kids gripe, but by the time we arrive in NC, everything is eaten. I bring baggies for leftovers at restaurants and stick that food in the cooler for when the person decides that they are hungry. After years of hearing someone complain about the crumbs in their seat, I refuse to bring chips or anything that crumbles into the car. It’s heartless, but effective.

Entertainment

Once the car’s originally installed DVD player died, we bought personal DVD players (one for each row in the car) and splitters for the headphones. I decide which movie is going to be played. Again, heartless, but if I handed them the stack of movies, they would fight over which one to watch as if it was an activity. Everyone gets a new pair of different-colored headphones at the beginning of the trip; again, we avoid arguments. The only drawback to allowing them to wear headphones is when someone in the front seat (me) needs the attention of a kid in the back when there is a baby asleep somewhere in the car.

Once, on the way to Gulf Shores, both my little ones were asleep in the middle seats, but I desperately needed something from the back. After frantically waving my arm for my big girls to see and failing to get their attention, I finally tossed the cap off of my water bottle over my shoulder at them and hit one of them in the chest. Bingo! A new attention-getter was born. Right before we left one year, my sister presented me with the best gift ever—an entire gallon-size bag of water bottle caps!

Goodwill and Half-Price Books have kid-appropriate audio books on CD for just a few dollars. My son became completely addicted to them on a trip a few years ago, so we start searching for new ones weeks in advance of leaving. Now that he is older, he gets the entire bench seat in the back of the car to himself for his books, toy soldiers, and Pokemon cards.

Rules of the Road

Children should be separated, especially if there are three girl children and one boy child. If they are to be packed in right next to each other like sardines, do not attempt a drive of more than one and a half hours per leg and have Dad fly to meet you. Period. If there is adequate space, put a pillow between the children to provide a barrier. If they like each other, this barrier can be used as a table for cards, games, or a shared video player.

Children have to stop every two and a half to three hours. Don’t try to push it. The whining and fighting will only escalate, causing more stress to you and every other person over the age of twelve.

What NOT to eat on the Road

Coke makes children pee. Never give your kids soft drinks in the car. Coke in the car translates into:

1. Having to make an extra restroom stop for the consumer of the beverage

2. A sticky spill that sits until the car is completely unloaded, because it has dribbled down the seat between a backpack and the cooler carefully wedged under his or her feet

3. A hyper kid

Candy. Again, hyper kids are distracting kids. Incidentally, a warning about consuming sugar-free gummy bears: never before has gastrointestinal distress ever been SO distressful, resulting in frequent stops in unauthorized bathrooms (i.e. anywhere other than a Cracker Barrel or Starbucks). Just say "NO."

Engaged children do not argue with each other and tired children are quiet. This protects the Mama from distraction, keeping everyone alive. Tools are Once they figure them out, kids love maps. If I hear an argument about to ensue, I quickly ask where we are and what the next town is or if there is a state park coming up. Everyone grabs their map and in a few seconds, the argument is forgotten until the next time they are bored.

Every time we stop, the children must have a hopping race into the restaurant. If they refuse to comply, the winner gets two prizes. The prize is something like getting to hold the DVD player in their lap, while everyone else has to crane their necks. On particularly long hauls, we will pull over at a rest stop and have a Chinese Fire Drill of three laps, with each kid ending up in another seat. The world looks different from someone else’s point of view. They can run sprints on the grassy areas, too. They feel like they look ridiculous, but I remind them that no one knows them and it is better to be tired than twitchy. In the car, they have been known to take a small object with some weight and do arm lifts or circles to tire out their muscles.

If there are no adult males in the car, the trip does not have to be a race to the front of the line. Stopping for peaches or to see the largest fire hydrant in America gives an opportunity to see that people in other parts of the country are just like us or not just like us. Seeing the world outside the windows of the car and off of the interstate affords God the opportunity to teach us, so that we may teach our kiddos.

We walked into Prejean's in Lafayette to see a very elderly man sitting at a table. My oldest smiled at him and he returned the smile to reveal a pleasant disposition and only a few worn teeth left in his mouth. I saw her suppress her surprise and move on with her meal. Intrigued, I wanted to see what she was thinking. What I hoped for her to think was that he, just like her, started out with teeth and that his life had not afforded him the luxury of good dental genes or dental care. I wanted her to think about how she would feel if she did not have teeth and how he was braver than we are to venture out into a world of judgemental people to enjoy his life. .

"What did you think about that man's teeth?" I asked her.

"Gross." Want to guess what we discussed from Lafayette to Gulf Shores?

We will never know which direction our childrens' minds are headed if we don't take the time to ask. A bright turquoise house in Fort Morgan, Alabama can spark a conversation about favorite or worst house colors, leading to architectural styles, leading to lifestyles. Pleasant interaction with new people builds friendliness and better communication skills. Amiable grandchildren tend to result in ecstatic grandparents. There is a treasure available from our experiences on the road. Don't let the dread defy the delight.

One Friend and the Mother Board

2012-05-28T13:57:00.001-05:00

Let's review. In a nutshell, our needs are water, air, food, shelter, sleep, medical treatment, physical activity, an honest, loving relationship with our spouses, and one real friend. Necessary clothing is important, but nothing dies if you don’t have it. Everything else comes after.

We have many acquaintances in our lives. Friendship is different. Friendship requires humility and honesty. For instance, knowing who to trust for confirmation when you think your child has lice for the first time can be a daunting decision. Making that leap of faith to confide in another person determines if you have the ability to be a trusting friend or if you will spend your children’s lives keeping your imperfections hidden from the rest of humanity. Yes, it is terrifying to reveal our flaws and limitations to another flawed and limited person, but nothing will free you from yourself like a friend.

As one person, I have only my life and my experiences from which to draw information, but my trusted Board of Mothers multiplies that cache to wealth beyond limitations.

When my kids were tiny, my mom was my main source of baby information. Not only was she an expert on diapers and nursing, but sharing my role as a mother with her expanded our relationship, bringing us even closer. However, as the kids grew, topics arose in my life where she was learning along with me. By necessity, I had to expand my boundaries in search of guidance. I needed others who could answer, "Am I overreacting? Does this situation require action or waiting it out?" Time and time again, life presents us with choices, and it helps tremendously to have trusted counsel.

My friend, Lynne called me earlier than usual one morning.

“Okay, I know it’s early, but you have to help me decide what to do.” She had seen an acquaintance's son throw his sister’s bike into some bushes just before the middle school campus.

“Do I call and tell his mom? Am I overthinking this?” We took a moment to consider our friendships with his mother (would she be mad at Lynne for tattling?) and the worst-case consequences (the bike could be taken). We decided that the cost of replacing a bike outweighed the possibility of our acquaintance's irritation.

The outcome was that she appreciated the heads-up. The boy’s father was dispatched to retrieve the bike, spotting it just as it was being driven away by landscapers. He had to chase them down, explain in broken Spanish that the bike was his daughter’s, and set up a life lesson for his son. Their son learned that he should get up when his alarm goes off, air up his own tires when they are low, and lock up bikes, even when they are pink, with streamers.

“Yay!” Lynne called to report the results of the day. “The Board of Mothers wins this round against the evil minions!” she laughed. We added a friend to our ranks, a new story to share, and The Mother Board was born.

As a mother, there is nothing more terrifying than not knowing what to do about your child. Within the sacred borders of our membership, we have dealt with the monumental decisions of whether or not to hold a child back a grade and where to seek help for another child's special needs. We have tackled children’s study habits, chore neglect, pet responsibilities, vacations, medical issues, and college choices. We get defensive, cry, and laugh our heads off all in the same conversation, and we know, no matter what the subject of concern, we have people available who will take it seriously.

Men call it gossip or gabbing, but that is because they have different brains. Gossip is telling someone else’s secrets to an uninvolved party for the sole purpose of elevating the position of the messenger. “Did you hear that the Smiths are having an affair?” can be translated as “I want for you to think my marriage is perfect even though I think my husband has the hots for his assistant.” Tattling is giving negative information about someone else to their superior to get them into trouble and distract from the tattler’s own bad behavior.

Asking for help does not fall under either of those categories, and being the recipient of this type of request is to be honored as a sacred covenant.

The rules of being a Mother Board member are as follows:

Never brag about a child’s accomplishments if you have not shared his struggles
Give your best answer, despite the immediate negative response to it
Show up

There are other helpful guidelines for being a part of a trusted friend group. We have learned that just because we think it’s right doesn’t mean it’s right for everyone. We have learned that when families travel together, it is most enjoyable for the moms to ride in one car with half the kids and the dads to ride together with the other half and that each family should have their own bathroom. When something really bad happens to a true friend, make a pot of soup or grab a good bottle of wine and go over without calling first. Inside jokes should never be told outside. Everything and nothing can be decided on a three-mile walk. Actively have faith in the people you say you trust. Trust must be earned and is a two-way street. Perfect or ideal is all in the perspective. "Trusted friend" status is only a step below "soulmate," and opening one's heart to share a difficult situation with another human being is the highest honor one can give.

Intro The Mama Bubble

2012-05-21T07:50:00.003-05:00

The summer did not begin well. On the first day of summer vacation, my triathlete husband was hit by a car. He suffered a shattered hip, separated ribs, sprained hands, and several deep gashes but managed to survive the surgery. His recovery was touch and go, then settled into misery for all of us. So, after months of struggling with a broken husband, insurance companies, a sweltering Texas summer, and three "totally bored" kids, I talked our best friends into a week at the beach. I loaded our Excursion with every bit of beach paraphernalia I could buy or borrow and caravaned the entire group to Gulf Shores.

As a Southern California native, I knew the beach and setup required. I dragged umbrellas, newly purchased beach chairs, the newest addition to Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series, and a wheeled cooler full of drinks and cut fruit and veggies to the water's edge. I screwed the umbrellas into their anchors and the anchors into the sand, set up the beach chairs for the adults, then plodded back up to the beach house multiple times to retrieve two inflated boats, two boogie boards, and assorted toys. I tied the two boats together with a 100-foot cord, then tied another 150' cord from the second boat to the leg of my beach chair. I caught and slathered each child in sunscreen and adjusted their visors. I spent twenty minutes teaching them how to ride the boogie boards. I demonstrated how to pull the boats past the gentle surf to the soft rocking of the blue-green gulf water, showing the nervous little ones that they were always attached by the cord leading to my chair. I showed them the cooler full of ice and drinks and snacks. I pulled out a kite, threw it into the air, and tied it to the cooler, where it danced in the breeze above our heads. My appreciative friends applauded.

"See?" I showed all of them, "You will always know where we are because of the kite." They were ready and dashed to the water's edge. I walked over to my umbrella, adjusted my own straw cowboy hat, plopped myself down in my chair, and picked up the novel. Ahhh. Heaven.

Having never been to the beach, the children were all over me in five minutes.

"How do I get on the boogie board again?"

"She took my boat!"

"Mama, make a sand castle!" my five-year-old demanded.

Ever see a woman lose her mind?

"No!" I yelled. "I have given you everything you need, and I am sitting right here watching you. Get off of my feet. Do not touch me with your sandy hands." I got up and made all of them stand in a line. "This…," I said, drawing a large circle around my chair. "…is off limits. Do not enter my Mama Bubble." Noticing my best friend nodding her approval, I proceeded to draw another circle around her towel lying a few feet away from me. "This is another Mama Bubble. Anyone who enters the Mama Bubble gets popped! Got it?" The children giggled, not knowing if they should heed the warning of the insane woman frantically gesturing in front of them. I re-settled into my chair, my glare daring any of them to cross the line.

For the first time in thirteen years, I had made a boundary. A couple of them tested it and found themselves sitting on the steps of the beach house for fifteen minutes, but for the rest of the week and for every beach vacation thereafter, the Mama Bubbles remained unbroken.

This blog is about boundaries. Boundaries for you as a mother, for your children, for your husbands, and for your extended families and friends. Only a mother's love is endless, but her patience and good humor must be nurtured. You cannot give what you do not have.

So this is the blog I have been told to write. I cannot decide if my friends and neighbors asked for my thoughts on children affecting marriage because they think my system works or if they just like to hear me rat out my kids. As my marriage is still intact and I am looking forward to spending the last decades of my life with my husband, I assume it is the former and doing it.

I travel my life searching for the wrong things and stumbling upon the right. I seek and have sought the approval of the unworthy and have been honored with the acceptance by people of great value. One’s life is never lived according to plan without wrestling it into place, but with flexibility, it can be beyond the wildest of expectations.

Giving birth to another person does not require relinquishing one's soul to the child. Mothering does require that you demand the child's own soul to show itself and be recognized. How is that accomplished? By stepping back and allowing it to happen.

"Ironbutt"

2012-05-18T15:31:00.005-05:00

“Why do you put up with his training schedule with three kids?” has to be the most thoughtless question to ask the spouse of an age-grouper Ironman athlete. The insinuation is that a) the tremendous effort it takes to train for triathlons is wrong and/or b) I am an idiot.

The beginning of the long answer to that question is that the presence of God is different for everyone. For me, holiness is in the air of the North Carolina Mountains, a symphonic orchestra playing John Williams, and the lilting poetry of Keats. For my husband, God is mostly present in the Texas Hill Country, riding sixty miles on well worn pavement, his Cervelo screaming around hairpin turns. His religious moments are in the light footfalls of a seven-minute pace on the trail at Town Lake and in the tense quiet morning of an Ironman race. He is most content when he is training toward a goal and so, knowing how important it is to limit the creeping insistency of the “daily grind,” I have gladly sent him off on those excursions every day or two. The exertion, wind, and scenery restore all that is depleted during his long work days and he returns to me the loving and funny man I adore.

I never worry about his safety on long rides. He is the one who uses the flashers on his bike if it is dusk or dawn, wears blaring yellow when he rides by himself, and actually follows traffic rules on those long training rides. If another rider has the audacity to pass him without even an acknowledging nod, he clicks his gears and chases them down, only to allow the newly conquered to pass him again when he stops for a red light.

“It pisses off drivers if you act like you are the only one on the road,” he explains to new riders. “You don’t want them aiming for you.” His friends used to joke that it was like riding with race marshals all of the time. So when the phone rang at 9am on Saturday, June 4, 2005, and his number appeared, I thought he was just letting me know that they were on time and he would be home for lunch.

“Christina?” I heard his friend’s voice on the other end of the phone.

“What happened?” I demanded as my heart dropped into my stomach, knowing it could not be good.

“He’s okay, but B got hit by a car,” those two antithetical sentences actually came out of his mouth in a relatively calm voice which then went on to give me no believable information.

Quickly, he handed the phone back to my husband to calm my fears, not realizing that Bo telling me that he was alright did not make it so. Bo's voice, always irritatingly calm in a crisis, told me that he probably broke his leg and that he was going to the hospital.

A local woman in a 1992 Dodge Dynasty had decided at the last minute that she wanted a Starbuck’s, saw no cars, and turned left at about 25 miles per hour. She did not see my husband on his bike coming at her at about 35 miles per hour. He realized in that split second that he could not go in front of her or behind her to avoid it. He was going to hit her straight on, so he made his body go limp and waited for the impact. The word Bo uses to describe the collision is “violent.”

His left knee hit her right rear view mirror, breaking it off and sending his femur straight back into his left acetabulum (hip bone), shattering it into pieces. His bike smashed her windshield, but his body vaulted ten to twelve feet into the air, over the car, and down onto that shattered hip. Though it knocked the wind out of him, sprained his thumbs, separated two ribs and cracked two more, he was conscious for the entire event. His knee and shin bled profusely onto the street, but he had no internal injuries. His priorities were unfazed.

“Can you come get my bike?” he asked me.

Shaking internally, but keeping my voice at a normal volume, so as not to terrify our three children, I quickly got them dressed and taken to friends’ homes. I drove to the accident site with my hands clenched, knuckles showing white on the steering wheel the entire way. The girlfriend of one of the other riders took kindly ordered me into the passengers seat and drove me to the hospital.

What seemed like forever passed as I stood in the freezing cold emergency waiting room, watching the doors, willing a nurse to appear and call my name. Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out. The tiles on the floor were in need of a good scrubbing and I wished with all of my being that I had not been there to know that.

Finally I was taken back to him. His face was fine and his helmet on the chair did not have a scratch on it. His voice, that analytical, unruffled voice, calmly told me his hip was shattered. He continued to describe to the earnestly listening surgeon his training schedule for the Lake Placid Ironman the following summer and explained that a total hip replacement would be the end that, but the doctor was adamant. If the hip could not be put back together correctly, he would replace it. End of story. If Bo wanted a second opinion that was fine, but if someone did not perform surgery on him in the next six hours, he would bleed out and there would be no races if he was dead. Nodding to us, the surgeon left.

Oh. Barely able to breathe in the face of this crisis, I made my way over to the seat the surgeon had vacatedwas silently, inwardly groaning please, God. After several minutes he looked at me.

“I’ll never qualify for Boston,” he said, his lifelong dream of running that marathon one day ending, his eyes staring straight ahead.

I walked beside him down the hall as the orderly wheeled the bed toward the surgical suites. We tried to be light-hearted about the situation. “At least you don't have to buy a new helmet," I pointed out. "And you got out of doing the yard work this afternoon."

“Hey doc, this leg has always been a little shorter. Can ya do anything about it?” Bo joked, but the doctor stopped us.

“You two don’t seem to understand. This is a very dangerous surgery. You need to be sure you have everything in order before he goes in there,” he told me. Then he abruptly turned around, and disappeared through the double doors. The orderly took several steps back to give us some privacy.

We looked bewilderedly at each other. Is he saying Bo could die? Everything is in order? How could we possibly have everything in order? He’s not even forty. Our youngest has only been out of diapers for a year. How are we supposed to have everything in order?

“Come back,” I finally told him.

“I’ll try,” he gave me a half-hearted grin. I stared at him and he stared at me.

“If you don’t, then save me a place, okay?” I whispered.

His face grew still and he nodded. I leaned over his body and kissed him firmly, breathing him in.

I watched as the orderly took him through the doors and heard the soft vacuum sound as they closed behind him. I stood in that freezing hallway staring at those doors until somebody led me away.

That abrupt, wonderful, gloriously talented surgeon not only kept him here on earth, but pulled every shard of bone out of the smashed cartilage and screwed all the pieces back together with thirteen titanium screws and two plates. Our three-year-old’s Lego Bionicles figures look better than that X-Ray, but they were his bones and they might heal.

And so, the healing began. Heparin shots to ward of thrombosis, managing pain killers so that crutching to the bathroom was not excruciating, managing painkillers with senecot and oatmeal and raisins to combat constipation, watching his left leg swell to twice its normal size before slowly deflating, dealing with being in a wheelchair, dealing with being on crutches, dealing with the kids’ fears that Daddy was broken, dealing with our fears that Daddy was broken, dealing with the impact to his soul that he might never be able to run again.

He withdrew, not wanting to see anyone, not wanting to talk to anyone. I panicked, thinking I was about to lose the best friend I ever had to depression, but instead of accepting it, I got in his face, “This isn’t just about you, dummy. Your friends are hurting, too. They can’t put you back together, so they bring brownies and backscratchers and casseroles and movies for you to watch as an excuse to be here with you. When you turn them away, you’re telling them that they aren’t good enough for you. Let them in. Let them love you.”

So he did. He took to showing everyone his horrifying twelve-inch scar that was held together with staples and enjoy the look of shock on their faces. He signed all of his emails, “Frankenbutt.” The house swelled with family and friends who brought food and wine and books and backscratchers and listened to him tell the story of the crash over and over as he exorcised it from his soul. I watched, hoping to see a flicker of the light come back into his face.

“Well, I suppose he’ll put all of that training business behind him now,” sedentary, underachieving, thoughtless individuals commented to me. “This will put his head straight.”

“Oh, no,” I told their shocked faces. “He’s an Ironman. Of course, that is something non-athletes can’t understand. I know he’ll do it again and everyone who gets it will be there with him at that finish line.”

“Don’t change a thing about him,” I prayed to God.

Our sixteenth wedding anniversary was coming up and I wanted to do something special to mark the day, considering that this could have been my first anniversary without him. Since his endurance training began, Bo’s wedding ring had been a bit too large. It bothered him that had to take off any time he ran or swam, so I decided to get him a new one that would reflect who he was and why I would marry him all over again. Sounds nice, but I am not artistically creative. In fact, I have been known to groan aloud when the kids have a project that requires glue. So, after racking my brain for a week, I almost gave up and ordered another plain gold band, but then I accidentally bumped his Ironman Canada plaque off the wall.

The night of our anniversary, I doped him up on an extra pain pill and hauled him to a white table-clothed, expensive-wine restaurant. We carefully got him settled in an out-of-the-way booth, where no one could possibly bump into his seat, and ordered champagne. I slipped the new ring on the thumb of my left hand and waited about twenty seconds for him to notice it.

“What’s that?” he asked me.

“It’s your new inspirational wedding ring,” I showed him. “First of all, it fits. You’ll never have to take it off while you are training.

“The band has five block Ms to commemorate the twenty marathons you have run, but this one,” I showed him. “It has a diamond dot over it for Canada. Your job is to dot all the rest. You’ll be an Ironman again. There isn’t a doubt in my mind.” Broken and in terrific pain most of the day, he could only shake his head, not daring to wish my words to be true. But he did wish it. Knowing that I was behind him sparked him to acknowledge it.

When Bo was given the okay to get out of the wheelchair and use crutches, he would park at the far end of the building and crutch the long route to his desk. When he would see people waiting for the elevator to take them up one flight of stairs, he would head for the stairwell, crutch as fast as he could up the stairs, and beat the elevator. The moment he was able, we got him to the neighbourhood pool and he swam laps, gently moving his feet, working out the tightness in his legs. He did exactly as the surgeon said; putting no weight on his hip for three months. Finally, at his twelve-week check up, the x-rays showed perfectly healed bone surrounding the thirteen titanium screws and three titanium plates. The surgeon smiled. "This is the result we dare to hope for."

"I'm good to ride?" Bo almost whispered and held his breath. "To run?"

"You're good to do anything you can," the surgeon grinned. "Go.”

We drove straight home. Bo went upstairs, put on a screaming yellow jersey and his helmet that didn’t have a scratch on it, and went for a ride on his bike as the kids and I waited in the front yard, cheering with all of our might when he returned unharmed.

“How was it?” I asked him.

“It sucked,” he admitted, the most delighted grin lighting up his face to his eyes. “And it was glorious."

The Comeback - Ironman #2 Lake Placid, NY, June 22, 2007

Goals: Beat his Canada time from three years ago before the accident (13 hours, 16 minutes, and 6 seconds), finish in the top half of the field, and beat his two buddies racing with him that day. All the difficult, painful, frustrating, agonizing hours have led us once again to the starting line. Thank God. Thank God he’s here to do it. Just Thank God.

We get up before dawn after not sleeping all night. It’s chilly and quiet and all of Bo’s equipment, clothing, and nutrition are in their assigned bags ready to be taken to the transition areas. Our hotel room smells of multi-grain Power bars, orange Gatorade, sunscreen, and the scent of newly printed t-shirts—mine proudly state TRANSITION VOLUNTEER and FINISH LINE VOLUNTEER allowing me past those who guard the gear of the 2,425 professionals and hopefuls that have given their bodies, minds, and souls to this quest. Bo’s face is stoic, but I know he’s barely holding it in. As we walk down the street to the venue, several hundred athletes maneuver their bags and bikes into this slow river of bodies heading toward their starting place. It is a holy act, this march to the start. Hearing only the occasional nervous laughter break the tension in the air, their prayers are palpable, the silence so like the quiet in church before the organ music signals the beginning of a service.

The announcer has not yet started his playlist or encouraging tag lines. About a tenth of the racers are here as I stand in my designated volunteer spot, pointing the way to the changing tent and marking station. I don’t hover over Bo and his preparations. He is taking in everything around him, pleased that he has this moment of quiet with ‘his kind.’

He comes over to let me know he’s headed to the swim with a silent hug and kiss. The moment is too big for words. This is it. This will be the proof that the accident and its effects are over or are they are not.

“Be great,” I grin at him, choking back the flood of pride and joy and love and fear I have for this man, thrilled that he is here again. He heads off. I stay at my post until the last racer leaves, then dash over and climb to a great viewing position on a boulder above the crowd to watch the start. I can’t pick Bo out in the sea of wetsuits and swim caps, but tears well up and slide down my cheeks, “Don’t drown, dummy,” I whisper to him. The horn blasts, the music blares, and they’re off!! It’s a washing machine of arms and swim caps and goggles. How anyone can survive that start is beyond me, but the churning mass manages to move forward and spread out, Bo and his two friends, too, I hope.

I go back to the transition area and meet other spouses and parents and college-age kids of racers, doctors volunteering in the Medical tent, Bill, the walkie-talkie guy who hands me a megaphone. Bo isn’t crazy here. Here, he’s normal. I'm just another normal wife. In the transition area, I’ve got a perfect spot to see every racer come through, but I make the effort to help the racers stay loose. They need to laugh. This is supposed to be fun, so I spend my time in the Swim-to-Bike transition hollering into my megaphone stuff like, “If you did not pee in the lake, the bathrooms are this way!” and “Make sure you grab your own bag if you want the right size bike shorts!”

It’s a long day of injuries, dehydration, and disappointments, but the time flies by as racer after racer moves along the 140.2 miles. I volunteer at both transitions, running back to the hotel room between shifts to send a quick email report of Bo’s time to our kids, all of our parents, and close friends, throw my jacket and jeans into a backpack for the chilly evening to come, and change into midday clothes (it was ninety that afternoon).

I’m back again to catch the finishers, a lot of them needing the medical tent because of the heat. Bo was 20 minutes down from the time he wanted for the bike leg and probably won’t beat his old time, so I’m thinking up all of the supportive things I can say to him.

13:10:00 I step away from the line of volunteers as the clock ticks closer to his goal time, but I sit down on the table under the tent, sad that the day had not gone the way he’d hoped. But then...

13:15:50 “From Austin, Texas,” the announcer blasts, “Number Eleven Oh Seven, BO JONES, YOU are an IRONMAN!”

I shriek and leap off the table, “That’s HIM! THAT’S HIM!” My fellow volunteer friends holler with me as I grab a ribbon and medal and catch his eyes as he comes through the Ironman tape at 13:15:56. We’re sobbing and laughing. He did it. He did all of it. And he made up the loss of time on the bike with the run. His hip is fine. He’s back. The accident is done. He beat his personal best time by ten seconds! He squeaked into the top half AND he beat both his buddies, though you couldn’t tell who won by all the tears and hugs as his friends saw him waiting for them at the finish line. God is at the Ironman Finish Line, too.

He’s doing Arizona with several of his buddies the weekend before Thanksgiving, more than willing to give up his “ownership” of them both. I’ll be there with the rest of the "crazy" wives and husbands and kids, cheering on my Iron Man.

He wants to put “IRONBUTT” on his jeep’s license plate. Maybe Texas will go to eight letters by this year’s wedding anniversary.

Some helpful heads-ups to wives-of-triathletes just beginning their first training season:

1) As your spouse begins to shrink into a “fit machine,” do not panic and think that now he thinks you are a fat slob. Bo began training for his first marathon when I was pregnant (so rude) and it gave me a massive fit of insecurity. His words to keep in mind--People who are accomplishing something for themselves want only to be honored for what they have done. In fact, a lot of them feel that their efforts are underappreciated if their spouse begins their own life-changing experience at the same time. Let this training season be for and about him. If you feel motivated to become healthier and want to try something active for yourself, you’ve already waited a long time to begin. You can wait a little longer before competing for time away from the kids or kudos for yourself.

2) Time spent training is a lot. Yes, it does take time. Full Ironman races require a buildup of training time. Sixteen weeks out from the race, you can expect about two hours on the bike once or twice a week which builds to about six hours. Running can add another hour to three, three or four days a week. Only once or twice would age-groupers do a nine-hour training day once a week, but it can be frustrating to a spouse if they are not prepared to expect that kind of time allowance.

What is a fair amount of training time? The most problematic word in that sentence is fair. Fundamental Rule of Life #1: Life is not fair. It is not fair that women get varicose veins and fat thighs in exchange for a child. It is not fair that we have to work insanely hard to lose the fat and don't get to keep the nursing boobs, but when dads decide they are going to work out and lose weight, they drop ten pounds in two weeks. If you think about or try to make anything fair, you will be a very unhappy person. My way of dealing with three small children and an Ironman triathlete is to take a break from him during the most difficult time of training (about six weeks out from the race which is most likely during the summer). If you are a “stay-home-mom” and have family or friends who live somewhere out of town (mountains, beach, swamp…) make plans to load your kids into your car and go visit those people and others for about three weeks. Yes, travel with children does not really equal a vacation, but the children are communicating with new people, they are discovering a new part of the country, and you do not have to be mad at your spouse every night at 6:30 when he falls asleep on the family room sofa and is a giant grump when awakened by a child giving him a good-night kiss at 7:30. Your spouse will be able to work at his job and do his triathlon workouts unencumbered by familial duties. This sounds SO bad, doesn’t it? Well, if it were regular life, it would be. But it’s not. It's Ironman. Most age-groupers only do one or two of these. I can testify, you can survive this once or twice during your lifetime without permanent damage.

If you handle the extra load you take on with gracious dignity, your triathlete will go above and beyond to accommodate you, both during and after the event. You will find that they schedule their workouts crazy-early to make it to your six-year-old’s soccer game. Appreciative athletes schedule time for a nap during the day, so they can take you to a nice dinner and a movie that evening. This is their dream that they are fearfully and urgently and gratefully chasing as they continue to work, maintain the lawn, and coach their kid's soccer team. They know it is a burden on their family and feel badly, but it is still their dream. Watching Bo struggle to keep his eyes open always makes me think of Robert Frost’s poem,

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

A warning about early workouts: if your athlete gets up really early to ride his bike for four hours mostly in the dark, it is more dangerous AND he will be exhausted for the rest of the day, definitely falling asleep in the middle of the family room (which means that you then have to occupy the kids elsewhere to keep them from waking him up into a grumpy mess). Give the guy a break and agree that it is better for him to ride in the daylight (skip telling him about the falling asleep, grumpy thing).

3) The equipment is expensive. True. So are houses, cars, dinners at restaurants, clothing, and college. Good equipment means a safer triathlete. Screaming yellow jerseys are a great way to keep from being run over by a car - buy several. A good way to offset expenses is to find triathletes who are hooked on the sport. They usually have an extra bike they are happy to loan or sell at a much more reasonable price (new bikes can cost anywhere from basic $2,500 to impressive $20,000 - average seems to be about $8,000). Wetsuits can be rented, but it is better for him to buy his own (it costs the same as a gown you would wear to a charity gala) - maybe you can use it and take a scuba vacation the next year! Think of bike shoes the same way you would think of a pair of high-end heels that are necessary for an evening gown. If your spouse spends a fortune and does not like the experience, you can sell the equipment on ebay. If he does like it, the equipment can last for years and years to come - and get a lot more use than a dress and heels.

4) Nutritional requirements—every athlete has to figure out how to fuel himself so he doesn't bonk (dehydrate and run out of energy). Plan now to buy a lot of Gatorade and protein bars for long training rides. Do not pass judgment; no one gave you a hard time for eating nachos with ranch dressing every day of your first pregnancy!

Finally, I must encourage that you go to the race! Volunteer if you can, but if having little kids makes that impossible, make signs, wear the t-shirts, and scream your head off at the finish line for every athlete. You, your family, and your athlete will be SO much happier that you did!

To the Rising College Freshman--The Light Post Lecture

2012-05-17T08:33:00.000-05:00

Dear Rising College Freshman,

Anyone who has ever started a running program knows the dread of the first run.
"I’m gonna get all sweaty. What if I hurt myself? I look ridiculous in these shorts, I should wait until it gets colder and wear sweats. I feel like a fraud."
But running is the best, most effective way to get and stay healthy. The muscles have to push all that weight into the air and forward; wearing them out and building them up. The pounding of foot on hard surface jars the bones into building themselves into a stronger protective device. Adrenaline washes over the brain, allowing moments of euphoria to remain as a positive attitude. Running is good.
But the first run…is not much of a run at all. It is picking a light post in the distance, sprinting to it while fighting one's formerly-stationary body’s attempt to put a halt to this attack. It is torture, this placing one foot in front of the other, moving the arms forward and back, and having to breathe all at the same time. IN, two, three, four, OUT, two, three, four. Gasping for breath, muscles burning, sweat pouring from the brow, the runner rejects the former goal, choosing a closer light post, and manages to slog across the final crack in the sidewalk.
"Whew. I can’t breathe. That was awful. Did anyone see me?"
But quickly the breath returns without having to pant, the muscles cool, and the runner picks another light post and repeats the task. If the newbie stays with it, in a week, she will run past that first light post to the second on the first try, and within six weeks, she can make it two miles without stopping. Then, as the runner trots along the path, she begins to think about the new shoes she saw and how to find the money to buy them. It becomes…dare I say it? Easy.
Beginnings are painful. You don’t remember learning to walk, but your mama can tell you about the bruises on your forehead from falling into the coffee table. Learning to read (all of those strange symbols, first individually, then paired, then finally grouped into strange sounds and coherent meanings) opened the world to you. Football plays. Band. Algebra. Boys/Girls. Spanish III. They were all painful beginnings, but you pushed past and conquered. I will tell you the truth, even at age 107, beginnings are always painful. They always will be, but the more beginnings experienced, the less daunting they become.
The trick is to keep from having to re-experience a beginning you have already begun. If you have already been a runner, run to maintain your fitness level. You just triumphed over psychology, government, and Beowulf. Now, read something daily, so reading is not the struggle, the struggle is discovering which philosopher said “Education is the best provision for the journey to old age.” Maintain. If you maintain a level of ability, the “bang ups and hang ups” you experience along your route will not devastate every aspect of your being, they will simply knock you on your butt. However, maintaining an acceptable level allows you to know that you are capable of getting back up under your own power.
A good deal of life is lived as you make your way down a two mile run. Your life will be going along steadily when you suddenly realize you are at the top of a hill with a vista that takes your breath away. It fills your soul and you are motivated to move forward at a quicker pace and through the valley to come. Randomly, you will have days that feel as if you are only capable of gasping to that first light post. Say to yourself, “I have enough to get to that light post” and do it, as that moment will pass and you will find that you have more to give the next time. When you decide that you are ready to invite someone to join you, be sure that they like and respect your chosen path and pace, as it is entirely different to view a beautiful vista with someone who gets it and someone who does not.

With Love, Mrs. J