Christmas Miracles

The Boy, having turned 9 about a month before Christmas, is probably on his last year of belief in Santa. In fact, it is surprising to me that he still believes, given that his teen sister taunts him often with cries of "there is no Santa Claus". But The Boy holds fast to the magical wonders of Christmas and probably with good reason - Santa is very attentive.

When the various aunts and uncles called to ask me what The Boy wanted for Christmas, I was at a loss. I had asked him myself, only to be told "Don't worry Mom, you don't have to buy me anything. Santa will bring me everything I need". Very sweet, but also very unhelpful.

Two days before Christmas, The Boy decided to write his list for Santa. Luckily for me, I hadn't done the shopping yet and neither had a couple of the relatives.
The list soon appeared, a full page in length. But what was on it was a moving surprise.

He had written only two items for himself. The rest of the letter was a listing of what he wanted Santa to bring the other members of his family.

Of course, now I had the task of fulfilling his gift list for all the people listed. The only one missing was his sister. He felt that Santa would not bring her anything, since she told such untruths about him.

So his step-dad got a shiny new coffee cup, his Uncle got a shinier gold edition comic book, and The Boy got his Lego sets. He even got a set of Legos with cars in it, something he didn't add to the list until after the shopping was done. It was another Christmas miracle.

Of all Christmases, past, present and future, this is one I will remember. I didn't try to make it magical, we were late with everything from the tree to the shopping, coming in just under the wire on Christmas Eve. There weren't nearly as many presents under the tree as in past years. Still it was a Christmas made wonderfully special by the kindness in a little boy's heart and the joy of watching his wishes come true.

Well, all his wishes except the present he asked Santa to bring me... a maid. I did explain that Santa can't deliver people and the hairbrush set was very nice.

And when he asked why Santa brought his sister gifts even though she doesn't believe in him, I explained that Santa is very forgiving and wants everyone to be happy, even if they are teenagers.

The Joy of Yard Sales

My mother shared many things with me as I was growing up, and amongst them was her love of yard sales. Shopping was a vocation for her, a natural talent. I don't think she could have prevented instinct from turning the car in at every sign that proclaimed a yard sale event.

Yard sales fit perfectly with my mother's idea of interior decorating, the first rule of which seemed to be to cram as many items of furniture and objet d'arts into every available space as was logistically possible. But more than that, yard sales provided the excitement of discovery, the thrill of negotiation and the satisfaction of acquisition.

Those pieces of milk glass, the tiled wall plaques fashioned by some avid craftsman, and even the blue vase that I filled each spring with apple blossoms, all became part of our family's home – none more so than a kitchen table with a bench that she snapped up when I a teen. The bench was covered in a vinyl material in what once may have been a colonial pattern but was now faded, tattered and worn. Together we bought several yards of vinyl in a sunny orange and yellow pattern and reupholstered the bench ourselves. Over the years the bench and chairs broke and were discarded but the table continued to stand in our kitchen. When a niece set up housekeeping on her own, the table was ceded to her. When she replaced it with a new and modern dinette set, the table came to me. When I moved, I gave the table to another family member and so it continued to serve for many years. That yard sale table had become as much a family heirloom as any antique passed down for generations. It became more - it became a memory of days spent with my mother, poring over the discarded items of another family, looking for treasure.

My mother's love of yard sales taught me many things. I learned to look for the value in something that didn't arrive new in the box, to look beyond the worn exterior to find the shine from within. I learned the excitement of the hunt and the pleasure of the find. With a few dollars in our pockets, we were on an exciting adventure, an expedition that would uncover hidden treasures - furniture, books, toys - whose former owners had outgrown their delights.

That is the essence of a yard sale. It holds not just dusty junk brought out of the attic into the bright sunlight once again, it holds memories and stories, that having once been stored away, come out to live anew. Each item will be forever part of those who loved it or who loved a child that played with it. A table that has seen a thousand meals and heard the conversations of a thousand family dinners can also be that which carries the memories of days spent in joyful pursuit of the perfect purchase and a loving memory of one who understood the joy of life.

A New Discovery

I had never planned on being an amateur genealogist, but I have found so much information on the internet lately that I think I may have a knack for it.

Many were the times that my mother told me of her Uncle Philip (or was it her great-uncle, obviously I need to research more). In any case it was told of Uncle Philip that he did exploring for the government of Canada and was quite the woodsman. The most fantastical tale involved Uncle Philip and a moose and a raft going down the St. Lawrence River.

Once again, this all appears to be true. I had heard of a book written by a family member about Uncle Philip and I assumed it was a vanity publishing. Research today proves that not only is this book in print and available for purchase, but that this particular cousin has written many books.

Now my only problem is funding my new-found desire to read his collected works. I do want to get the one on Uncle Philip first, of course, but the list of published works is quite extensive.

My biggest regret is that my mother never knew where to get a copy of this book, because I know she would have loved to read it. But when I do get it, I will gladly tell the tales she would have told if she could.

A Hogeous Post

Tolstoy wrote " Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way". What he didn't mention is that every family, happy or unhappy, speaks its own language. A lexicon peculiar to that family and its members, trickling down through generations, enhanced by new additions to the family through marriage and passed on. An oral tradition, if you will.

My mother's family had a rich tradition of words. I don't think so many words have ever been spoken in all of New England as were uttered by her family. By volume alone they are staggering. I did not know, however, nor suspected as a child, that the language I was learning from my mother was not quite English but some strange concoction resembling English and complementing English, yet wholly their own invention.

My mother's version of family history includes a huge migratory period of her ancestors from the Ukraine, traveling ever westward across Europe, settling in England for a time and then ending up in the American colonies and Canada. I am not sure what they were running from, this was never made clear to me, but apparently it was greatly appreciated that England had provided asylum for them in their flight from whatever it was. It may have had something to do with their brief stint in France.

In any case they were so indebted to England for something, not sure what ( not throwing them out perhaps) that they refused to fight against the English in the Revolutionary War and became outcasts once more, being forced to flee to Canada due to their unpopularity. By this time, I should think they would have gotten used to being chased out of countries.

I mention this as it may hold the keys to some of the words and sayings that I heard as a child, and still use today despite the occasional odd stare. "Hogeous" is a perfect example. I am not sure of the spelling, this is how my mind's eye always saw it spelled. It may well be spelled "hojus" but I doubt it, that would be spelling it as it sounds. I am sure that is too sensible an idea to be true.

Hogeous has many uses, usually meaning something vile or distasteful, often related to pungent smells. However it can also be used to describe a rather unpleasant dish being served to you, as in "I dont know what they had to run down on the road to make that stew, but it was hogeous"!

Anything cunnin' was cute. A soulcase was a person, most often a child. If you were called a cunnin' soulcase, you could be sure that meant they liked you. You did not want to be called a poohcat, though I confess to not knowing what that was. It was just bad. Something hogeous.

My mother had a gift for delegation and if you were so insubordinate as to ask why you were elected to any unpleasant chore, she would simply shrug and say "Why keep dogs and bark myself"? We were advised to "scud to school or you'll rue it". Education was important, and we had to scud to get it.

And then there was the mysterious medical condition known as a "split straddle". A girl always had to be careful of certain types of physical activities such as riding a boy's bike with the bar across, as there was a possibility that she might "split her straddle". She usually followed this up with the story of a girl she had known personally who had this happen to her, and it was horrible and irreparable. That touch of realism usually did it for me. My mother was good at supplying horrifying graphic images to make sure you were sufficiently emotionally scarred.

And more than anyone I ever met, my mother knew how to use words to her advantage. I remember her telling my father "Jack, I am your wife. Your money is my money and no one is going to tell me how to spend my money". Her logic was impeccable.

Now I must go and do my daily readings. Reading the blogs of others is a great way to avoid writing your own. I mean, why keep blogs and write myself?

The Story of a Salting

My mother was very proud of her ancestry, although at times her stories of her relatives that went before got somewhat muddled. Many of her stories were simply dismissed by most of us children, especially when they told of close familial connections to Hollywood directors and royalty.

With a little amateur research on the internet, I came upon some startling information that supports my mother's contention that she was related to a Hollywood director. But more interesting and somewhat disturbing was the one line sentence I found next to the name of one of her uncles, a man who married late in life. It said simply that he was "salted to death" by his wife.

I found it strange that I had never heard this before from my mother, for mysteries and conspiracies were among her favorite pastimes. In her family it seemed that wives were always somewhat suspect, since they weren't part of the family but rather married into it. Second wives were even more suspect - even if the fellow was dirt poor, it was always assumed that second wives were gold diggers.

And yes, this was poor Great-Uncle M's second wife, the first having died and left him a widower. So it is inevitable that the family whispers would be breathed in quiet corners and behind backs. But I am left with one great question: how was this salting accomplished?

There aren't many instances of "death by salt" to be found upon a Google search, although there seems to be a rock band by that name. There's a biblical death by salt, as Lot's wife became a pillar of it, but I doubt that even a second wife had the power to call down fire and brimstone. Finally, we are left with salt poisoning, which by the estimates I found would require the average man to ingest about 12 ounces of salt at one time. Surely, this would be a crime of some magnitude and the tale of it would not have been so easily forgotten.

The most likely explanation is that others in the family cared little for her cooking and found it salty, or that Great Uncle M had some medical condition that was sensitive to salt intake. In any case, it was likely felt that Wife B fed him too much salt, therefore hastening his demise. Since the dates indicate he married her shortly after his first wife's death and lived on for another 16 years, Wife B must have been a very patient woman.

Unfortunately, my mother passed on before I ever thought to look up genealogy online and I can never confirm for her that some of her information was spot-on, nor can I glean more of what she knew of her Uncle M's life, marriages and death.

But I do know one thing, even if a death certificate for Uncle M were produced and it was found that he died of natural causes, it would not quell any rumors nor sway any family opinions. Worse, the family stories would lose their mystery and element of dark conspiracy. And if they were about anything at all, my mother's family were about entertainment.

Although I find the facts fascinating and engrossing, I think I would prefer to hear my mother's stories. There was never anything better than a family gathering, to sit amongst the siblings as they exchanged knowing looks and spoke in hushed tones about this one who was done wrong by that one, and about the wife who worked her husband to his death. It's the only way to find the nuts scattered amongst the branches of a family tree. Genealogy is a fine thing, but that - well, that's family history!

Of Soap and Scandal

I may have told you this before, but housekeeping was not my mother's idea of a good time. She was very careful about germs and keeping things disinfected, and gave me some of my most prominent phobias about such things, but straightforward straightening up was not something that held her interest for long.

When it was announced that company was due, the clutter on the floor and stacked in corners didn't cause her any great consternation. If I expect sudden company, I am likely to rush through the house, picking up stray toys and clothes and hiding dirty dishes in the oven or dishwasher, making the surfaces appear uncluttered and giving the impression that our "stuff" is neatly stuffed away somewhere. My last thought would be to wash the windows or the paint.

But when faced with imminent social obligation, my mother instinctively cried out for just one cleaning product, just one magic formula that would render her home suitable for guests. I will remember the scent of it my entire life. I knew automatically that I would be sent to the apothecary to fetch home a bottle. This master of all cleansers was Tincture of Green Soap.

Tincture of Green Soap was added to buckets of warm water and rags dipped into it were used to wash down the wood-paneled walls and stairways. It cleared the dust, cleaned the wood and left a fresh scent throughout.

It occurred to me only yesterday that I had no idea what Tincture of Green Soap is or why it should be available at the apothecary only. So I had a quick google on it and discovered that it's a soap meant for human skin and has nothing to do with cleaning walls.

Interestingly, I found this quote about the properties of Tincture of Green Soap. One site selling it touted it as being "effective for removal of dried blood and proteins from skin and scalp".

Okay, we weren't the most well-behaved children and it's possible we put grimy hands on the walls or occasionally used a crayon to scribble out some insult or threat against a sibling, but come on... dried blood?

It's at times like these that I miss my mother, because I realize now how many questions I have that will always be left unanswered. I am sure there is some reason she used Tincture of Green Soap on the woodwork. Maybe someone told her that it was effective at removing grease or that it was kind to wood. But I still would like to ask her, with just a hint of a wink, what crime scene she was attempting to cover up?

Of New and Old

I am very proud of my new car, although it is new only to me, having been what is now termed "pre-owned". Car dealers believe that the word "used" carries negative connotations as does the term "used car salesman" so they tend to have only "program vehicles" (used rental cars) and "quality pre-owned vehicles" (used cars) on their lots.

The car is a little hungrier for gas than my last vehicle and quite a lot larger than any other car I have owned - which means my days of zipping into tight parking spaces is over. However, it was time to accept the fact that I had two children in the back seat who, for the sake of undistracted driving, should sit as far away from each other as possible.

I would be inclined, however, to believe anyone who told me that my car was driven only on Sundays by a little old lady who used it to go to church.

You see, yesterday was the first day it was hot enough to turn on the air conditioning in the car. Until now, we have used the heat, the defroster, and played endlessly with the electric windows until the perfect air flow and temperature were achieved in the car's interior.

We pushed the little button with frosty snowflake on it, eagerlyawaiting the first blast of cool air. Next we chose the button that limits air circulation to inside the vehicle, excluding the stiff, hot air from outside. With the fan setting at medium, a wonderful thing then occurred.

Emanating from the vents in the dash was air that was not only cooled and conditioned, but air which filled the vehicle with something that the car had lacked up until that moment.

This is why I believe the former owner must have been a little old lady who rarely drove it. Little old ladies are rarely too warm, and so the AC was likely rarely, if ever, employed.

Hidden deep within my car's ventilation system were the last remaining whiffs new car scent. As it wafted past my nostrils, I inhaled hard and long, sucking in its delicious fragrance. I realized also, that for my generation, that new car smell symbolizes so much more than the age of the vehicle. It brings up memories of prosperous family times, sibling squabbles, the excitement of accompanying dad to the dealership to pick out the new family car and stirs up nostalgia in an unsettling blend of warmth and sadness.

It also reminded me, as I endured the kids in the back seat having ridiculous arguments, giggling for no reason or making noise for the sheer pleasure of making noise, that I was once sitting exactly where they were. And in the natural course of time, they will one day be sitting where I am now. Then it will be that these days which now seem so ordinary and unremarkable will have become part of them, sealed into memory, only to be suddenly awakened by a chance sensory experience.

A Fishy Story

Today may be the day I finally put the aquarium to rest, although I will miss it as a fixture in my livingroom. I rather like the soothing babbling noises of the filter and watching the air bubbles rise. I like the colorful gravel and the large rock formation that rises from it. It's a focal point for guests who stare at it in rapt amazement until they finally ask "where are the fish"?

It's another fish tale, the ones that didn't get away so much as simply expired. I expect goldfish to die with some regularity, but some were the victims of exceptional circumstances.

I believe it began when The Boy's teacher decided to put a little goldfish bowl in the center of every group of desks (nowadays, second graders are allowed to look at each other during school - the desks are pushed together in groups of four). The fish were a grand biology experiment for the children. They would learn how to be responsible for living things that they fed and cared for. Needless to say, all the fish died.

I saw one of the early corpses firsthand. When I arrived to pick my son up at his afterschool program, a counselor took me aside and handed me a plastic baggie with a small, mushy, somewhat shiny, indistinguishable mound of something that looked like it might have been a sardine that had slid out of a sandwich to the floor and had been stepped upon. I didn't make him a sardine sandwich that day.

The counselor explained that The Boy had shown up there with a fish in his pants pocket, a very dead fish. No autopsy had been performed, but a type of dissection by erosion had taken place while the body was transported inside the pocket of a small boy's jeans. The question then became, did the fish die before or after he reached the pocket?

The Boy upon questioning admitted to removing the fish from the trash after its natural demise. So when the children requested a couple of goldfish as pets, I didn't think it would be a problem.

The first fish that got sick received prompt attention from The Boy who decided to pick him up and comfort him, hastening his passing. Later fish died on their own as they will do, but also due to overfeeding, underfeeding, general attention and general neglect.

The most abused fish were the deceased ones. Although I firmly advised a flush funeral, The Girl insisted on burial. The Boy would then insist on exhuming the carcass for further examination. When the last fish finally went to Davy Jone's locker, I said "enough".

The tank is very clean now. If you glance at it quickly, the play of light and shadow makes you think you can see fish swimming about. Watching fish swim in an aquarium is rated highly as a relaxation technique. But watching an empty tank only gives one a desire to fill it and I have already seen where that leads.

So to avoid the many hours of relaxation followed by even more hours of high frustration, I think I will empty the fish tank today.

Flashcard Friends - Myspace for Homework?

As I sat with The Boy, ostensibly to help him with his homework, I realized what he struggled with more than his reading - the medium of his homework. He fiddled and dawdled over each task I asked him to complete, looking at everything but the homework sheet. Finally, as I prodded him he let it all out in one frustrated exclamation of truth.

"I hate papers", he cried.

I actually think that's one of his big problems. He flies by in math, doing it in his head, but struggles with reading and writing. The Boy who can play complex computer games without being able to read all the complicated instructions, simply isn't engaged by paperwork. I began to wonder if I should look for computer games that taught reading.

When I saw Flashcard Friends, I immediately saw possibilities. Flashcard Friends is like a social network, but it can include your child's teacher as well as friends. I am still investigating ways to incorporate it into my son's computer time, but when my daughter saw me watching the introduction video, she immediately asked me to send her the link. I see a lot of promise for her, as well. There are already Flash Cards on the site on so many of the subjects she is now studying and there are even practice tests. If she got her friends to join up, they could share their notes and information by uploading their own flash cards. It's a very interesting concept, and bound to appeal to kids. This is a computer generation, what could be more appealing to them than a site that lets them connect with friends and study at the same time? The site was inspired by kids who wanted a fun way to study using the computer.



There's too much for me to explain, but if you have children of school age from Kindergarten to college, you should watch the video and see how Flashcard Friends can work for them. You can find them at http://www.flashcardfriends.com Here's the press release for the website, it explains it all much better than I could.

Flashcard Friends Combines Social Networking and Online Learning

Second generation Web 2.0 entrepreneurs create a FREE “social learning” website for students, homeschoolers and teachers


Belmont, CA. – February 21, 2008 – Flashcard Friends combines social networking—a la Facebook and MySpace—with online learning. The inspiration for Flashcard Friends came when the founders of the company, Kendall and Ryan Hogan (now ages 15 and 12) were being forced to create flashcards by their whip-cracking father. They complained that “flashcards are lame…why can’t we do them on the Internet…and why can’t they be fun like MySpace.” Their father, Mike, a web 2.0 entrepreneur, started asking questions about how it might work. Kendall and Ryan described a social network where students could create flashcards and share them with their classmates; or teachers could create flashcards and share them with their students.

With the help of their father, Ryan and Kendall defined what they wanted their website to do. Then their father recruited a top-notch team of developers and got it built. You can now see their website at www.Flashcardfriends.com. Following in their father’s footsteps, Kendall and Ryan are second generation web 2.0 entrepreneurs.

Old school (printed) flashcards are a powerful and proven memorization tool. By using them, Kendall and Ryan were able to substantially improve their test scores. But online flashcards enable a lot of very powerful capabilities. For example, spelling, pronunciation of foreign words, automated testing and correction, images, all of this and more is a snap with Flashcard Friends.

Once the flashcards are in the system, you can share them with friends. The Hogan kids are now looking forward to the day when they return from summer break, only to inherit online flashcards from the class ahead of them. In addition to finding flashcards through friends, you can navigate through flashcard decks by category (e.g. math > algebra), or search by tags, keywords, and more.

Some of the website’s functionality:
• Create flashcards with text, pictures and sounds (ideal for foreign languages)
• Four different learning modes: find one that fits you, or use them all
• Auto-magically creates tests from the flashcards and then corrects them
• Uses social networking to manage sharing card decks
• Find existing flashcards by subject, school, teacher, book and more
• Speak into your computer and add the recording to the cards instantly
• Turns a spelling list into spelling flashcards with a spoken version of each word
• Includes web 2.0 technologies like user ratings, bookmarking and tagging
• …and much more

Flashcard Friends enables students to create flashcards, share them, memorize them and then test themselves. Flashcards can be used at every level, from Kindergarten to post-graduate, and for every topic, from learning colors to preparing for the legal bar exam, learning a language, or studying for the SAT.

Nancy Ferraro 5th Grade Teacher, Granite Bay, CA: “I was very excited to discover Flashcard Friends. I introduced it to my 5th grade students, and we have been using it ever since. The students like how easy the site is to navigate, but they are so jazzed to see their friends’ flashcards. My students have already exchanged flashcards on multiplication, fractions, the 13 colonies, and space. All this in one week! I will definitely use this site for all of my classroom flashcard needs.”

About Flashcard Friends
Flashcard Friends, the social learning website, is pioneering the powerful combination of social networking and online learning. The company was founded by students, for students. The entire website is free to all; students, teachers, homeschoolers, everyone. You can register for free at www.Flashcardfriends.com. For more information call (650) 595-2400, or email mike (at) Flashcardfriends.com.

See web demos of Flashcardfriends.com here: http://Flashcardfriends.com/videos.php

Cleaning Up With TV

I wrote about my favorite TV show over at one of my other blogs. The show is from the BBC and it is, I am ashamed to say, a reality show. But instead of cramming a bunch of strangers into a house and watching sparks fly, this show takes two women who are cleaning experts to some of the dirtiest homes in the UK and let's us watch as they perform their cleaning magic.

I must confess, cleaning is not my life. In fact, my life is a bit untidy, which I like to believe is a result of my creativity. I have gone so far as to bookmark and refer people to a NY Times article that basically concluded that creative people are disorganized by nature. It's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

Mostly, I like this show because it makes me feel better about the state of my own house and allows me to say "well, at least my house doesn't look as bad as THAT". But the strangest thing is that the chidren now watch it with me, The Boy opining that we should call in Kim and Aggie to show us (and him) how to be tidier and The Girl wanting to try out all the cleaning tips.

After viewing two episodes yesterday, The Girl decided to vacuum and dust the ceiling fans, while The Boy busily began cleaning drawers and organizing them. I sat and watched in amazement until I finally had to call a halt to the cleaning fest after The Girl ran the vacuum so long she overheated the motor.

Who says TV isn't educational?

Lessons My Children Have Taught Me

The children have a week off from school, which they face with great joy and I face with great trepidation. Keeping two children happy and occupied with something constructive for 9 days in a row is not an easy task. Especially since, in the time-honored tradition of siblings, their preferred occupation is bickering with each other.

A little fighting and arguing between siblings is to be expected, even more so because their age difference has always been a part of it. Teen girls basically view 8 year old boys as a disease. I expected this 9 days to seem like 9 years.

But so far they have surprised me. The Girl decided to play school with The Boy. I even heard her reading a book to him - and he was actually listening! The Boy never allowed me to read to him until he found a Goosebumps book about garden gnomes that come alive and do mischievous things. That sounded scary enough to interest him, and scary enough to require my presence while it was read.

After the reading, it went quiet for a while, then for a while more. Finally, the silence was too much - I burst into the room to check on them. Appears it was nap time at school and I interrupted.

That's a key lesson, however. I have decided that children make bloodcurdling noises and scream over nothing in order to reassure mothers that they are still alive and well. It's when it all goes quiet that you wonder what could possibly be wrong. You can't really ignore it, because they might be doing something dangerous. If they are not, then it becomes obvious to them that you have noticed how quiet they are and feel that they aren't living up to their potential.

Equally inadvisable is to notice how good they are behaving and compliment them on it. It sounds like the right thing to do - reinforcing good behavior and rewarding it with praise - but again, children realize they have been lax in their duties and will redouble their efforts to make noise and fight.

I am trying to re-educate myself and work on changing my instinctive reactions. Even now, as The Boy decides to clean the refrigerator, I am smiling and being totally non-reactive to his assurances that "only three eggs broke" even though I desperately want to know how they got broken.

It's going to be a long 9 days.

Lessons My Children Have Taught Me

The children have a week off from school, which they face with great joy and I face with great trepidation. Keeping two children happy and occupied with something constructive for 9 days in a row is not an easy task. Especially since, in the time-honored tradition of siblings, their preferred occupation is bickering with each other.

A little fighting and arguing between siblings is to be expected, even more so because their age difference has always been a part of it. Teen girls basically view 8 year old boys as a disease. I expected this 9 days to seem like 9 years.

But so far they have surprised me. The Girl decided to play school with The Boy. I even heard her reading a book to him - and he was actually listening! The Boy never allowed me to read to him until he found a Goosebumps book about garden gnomes that come alive and do mischievous things. That sounded scary enough to interest him, and scary enough to require my presence while it was read.

After the reading, it went quiet for a while, then for a while more. Finally, the silence was too much - I burst into the room to check on them. Appears it was nap time at school and I interrupted.

That's a key lesson, however. I have decided that children make bloodcurdling noises and scream over nothing in order to reassure mothers that they are still alive and well. It's when it all goes quiet that you wonder what could possibly be wrong. You can't really ignore it, because they might be doing something dangerous. If they are not, then it becomes obvious to them that you have noticed how quiet they are and feel that they aren't living up to their potential.

Equally inadvisable is to notice how good they are behaving and compliment them on it. It sounds like the right thing to do - reinforcing good behavior and rewarding it with praise - but again, children realize they have been lax in their duties and will redouble their efforts to make noise and fight.

I am trying to re-educate myself and work on changing my instinctive reactions. Even now, as The Boy decides to clean the refrigerator, I am smiling and being totally non-reactive to his assurances that "only three eggs broke" even though I desperately want to know how they got broken.

It's going to be a long 9 days.

The Elegance of Time

I think my mother's love of clocks began with her mother and stemmed from the old grandfather clock that occupied a prominent place in her family's home. I was fascinated by this clock as a child, and loved to watch the pendulum as it ticked away the time. I noticed that nearly all my grandmother's offspring incorporated grandfather clocks into their decor. My grandmother also had a cuckoo clock - not as impressive as the grandfather clock, but it was delightful to wait and watch for the emergence of the tiny herald of the hour. Days spent visiting my grandmother would have been fairly boring without these timely distractions.

My mother kept lots of clocks, mantel clocks, cuckoo clocks, and various decorative wall clocks. I inherited this clock obsession, but I think that for me, it's a need to watch the time. I have always felt time slipping away, and I am more comfortable when I can convince myself I have a firm grip on it. I even keep one clock set to daylight savings time year-round, just so no changes sneak up on me unawares.

Luckily, clocks can also be decorative as well and functional, so I can indulge my obsession with a little style and flair. And there is even a Clocks Blog to help me feed my obsession and give me interesting facts and histories of all kinds of clocks. I was particularly drawn to this article on mantel clocks and how distinctive and elegant they become when set atop a fireplace mantel. If you're lucky enough to have a fireplace, then I highly recommend having a mantel above it and a roaring fire in it.

Did I mention my obsession with fireplaces?

It's All Creative Force

I still write. Sometimes I write a lot, sometimes very little. I feel thwarted, blocked and uninspired often. I feel the need to update nagging at me even more often.

Writing comes from some unseen creative force that moves me, I want to but cannot push my creativity through my own force. But what I realize, is that if one avenue is blocked, another allows it through.

I have always enjoyed creating things although I do not consider myself a "crafty" person. The desire to create may be inherited. My mother was a creative person who drew and wrote; my father was a carpenter, constructing visions with his hands. My earliest inclinations followed both these paths.

For instance, I wanted to learn to knit for both creative and practical reasons. I could make clothes for my dolls, hats and mittens and afghans for myself. I employed my older sister in the position of instructor, as she was already proficient in the art of knitting. This, however, had disaster written all over it. My sister is left-handed, I am right hand dominant. As she taught me, I had to envision everything as the other way round, practice taking what I observed as if it were a mirror image. I still haven't got the hang of mirrors, which is why I don't use a curling iron - I simply can't make my mind join the command of my brain to go one way with that hand in the mirror going the opposite way. I soon abandoned her tutelage.

Eventually, I did learn to knit, but I did it through a set of books that I now consider the greatest resource of my childhood, The Book of Knowledge. Full of everything from world history to fairy tales to how to build a birdhouse, The Book of Knowledge taught me anything I desired to know.

I dismissed any backwards practices I had learned from my sister and started by very carefully following the instructions and illustrations provided by the book. I remember how disappointing it was to find my lovely knitted square was a bit more oblong that it ought to be, but through practice and patience my skills improved.

Learning to knit was a great boon for me as a young girl, for I branched out and learned the art of circular needles, knitting, purling and changing colors. For Christmas I was able to present each of my friends and family with a handmade pair of mittens.

I don't knit anymore, my hands won't hold the needles long enough or grip them tightly enough these days. But learning to knit enriched my life in many ways beyond the simple joy of a completed project. It taught me that creativity takes many forms and must be allowed to come forth, in any medium that it chooses.

The Anticipation of Precipitation

It's been three years since we had a snowy winter, and The Boy was much younger then, much easier to pry off a snowbank and convince that we should take refuge from the icy pellets striking our faces. During that time, I had forgotten what it was to be a child in the snow. I had forgotten that children don't get cold. They don't notice icicles hanging from dripping noses or that their mittens are ice-caked, nor the brittle, frozen digits encased therein until they nearly break one off. I had forgotten how many pairs of pants, gloves, and mittens are soaked through in only one afternoon's snow play (The Boy set a record of 8 pairs of pants this weekend). But mostly, I had forgotten what snow means to a child.

To them, the snow is a mysterious gift. It covers the hard and unforgiving ground with a soft blanket. It cushions their falls and wraps itself around them. It transforms the bleak landscape into a white playground of delights. Surely, snow was made for children. They belong to the church of the Anticipation of Precipitation, and truly they believe.

They are glued to the television as the snow evangelists talk about rain/snow lines and visions of the storm as seen by satellite and radar - the tools of the meteorological prophet. In an ancient ritual, they don pajamas inside out and backwards to insure enough snow to cause the schools to close. They lay down at night with prayers on their lips. "Lord, thank you for the snow we are about to receive".

And when it comes, they erect a monument in thankfulness for their bounty, as those who came before have always done.

What's in a Name?

Schools today look nothing like the schools I attended as a youngster. My elementary school was all dark wood interior, my mind's eye always sees it enshrouded in darkness. The classrooms were lighter, there were windows, but the main lobby and hallways were deeply-stained panels of a very ancient design. The stairs and bannister bore the same swirled moldings. The atmosphere was one of an old manor house in a horror movie.

The elementary school my son attends is decorated in bright primary colors. The floor is dotted with yellow, red and blue tiles placed here and there, somewhat haphazardly. There is light everywhere, the interior hallways are all brightly illuminated and those that encircle the building have windows all along the outside wall. Every door, wall and entranceway is decorated with the art of children. It is like a child's picture book.

And yet, there is still some vestigial rigidity in schools, even the brightly colored ones. For instance, The Boy has had little luck in convincing them to accept his new name. The Boy chooses new names often, he changes them the way some children change favorite cartoons.

We were shopping for refrigerators in Sears one evening when he suddenly decided we ought to call him "Harry". I had never considered Harry as a name for him before he was born but I had to admit that it certainly seemed to suit him and so I agreed to it straightaway. I wasn't as easy to convince when he changed his name to "Rico" a few months back, but once I told him it meant "rich" in Spanish, he was utterly delighted with his choice and there was no changing his mind.

We can't change his mind, but he often does and sometimes advises that I may still call him by his real name at home. He wants others to call him Rey Mysterio, but not his mom.

Oh yeah, that's his new name. Rey Mysterio. His best friend at school is a wrestling fan (more on my dismay about that at another time) and apparently Rey Mysterio is one of the top names in the wrestling book. We don't watch wrestling here, but his friends know all about it.

He insisted on having his new name written on a piece of paper to take to his teacher. Alas, the teacher told him that they can't call him Rey Mysterio in school, as he explained to me with a crestfallen face.

I don't relish calling him Rey Mysterio but I know the fad will last a few days only and he will be onto another name that he fancies more. I remember trying out names as a young girl, planning out what I would change it to when I went out on the stage. I think we all go through these phases, but in the end, most of us end up feeling most comfortable as ourselves.

Thank goodness. And no, I have no intention of telling him that Rey means "king" in Spanish. I want this to be a short phase.

Sidewalk Dreams

A story in the news really caught my attention today, and not because it was shocking or grisly, it was just a little story about a little girl, drawing her dreams.

Natalie Shea is a first-grader in New York. At 6, her world is wide open, her dreams can be outrageous because childhood is the time for outrageous dreams and there is beauty to be found everywhere. Natalie is an artist.

Natalie shared her dreams with friends and neighbors by drawing a big blue flower in chalk on her front stoop. Her mother was understandably surprised when she received a notice informing her that she had 45 days to remove the "graffiti" or face a $300 fine. Some neighbor had complained.

At 6, Natalie showed she had more sense than the complaining grown-up who obviously has lost the ability to see the beauty around her.

"My mom got a ticket for graffiti, and it wasn't even graffiti," Natalie said. "It was art, very nice art."

Her mother didn't have to worry about the fine, because as the mean-spirited neighbor should have realized would happen, the chalk "graffiti" disappeared with the next rainstorm.

I have, on occasion, bought my children sidewalk chalk and I must admit, even helped them cover the driveway with drawings, sayings and (as the hippy in me came out) peace signs and words like "groovy". The sad thing is that I have also wondered if my landlord would come along and object because sometimes I wonder if he can see what is really drawn there.

It reminded me of a snatch of a song I wrote a long time ago, I may have been a teen at the time. It is only a snatch because for better or worse (probably better), I don't remember the rest of it.

When we were young
Our songs were unsung
And we wrote our secrets
on the sidewalk
But you know chalk
Doesn't last very long
and come the dawn
We'd lost ourselves in the pictures we'd drawn

I pity the neighbor whose sight is so shortened by time that he or she no longer remembers or understands the worlds contained in a child's chalk art. The world must be a bleak place indeed when you have given up on the dreams of the child you were.

Smile For The Camera - That way no one will recognize you

It's an important day for The Boy. Today is picture day at school. Time flies when you're stressed.

It seems that you just get all the supplies and wardrobe in order, work out the drop-off and pick-up schedules, remember which days are gym and require sneakers, which days are Library days so you can hunt down the borrowed book which is most likely residing under a bed or a couch cushion and as soon as you think you are ready to take one relaxed breath - it's picture day.

I can remember the long hours of thought and discussion that went into the choosing of an outfit for The Girl on picture day, but The Boy doesn't really seem to care. I think that's the best approach, anyway. Carefully planned color schemes to highlight their eyes and paying the extra fee for a custom background, retouching, framing and personalized monographing has not once proved to result in a better portrait. The color scheme you spent so much time choosing usually turns out to make the child look sallow or of alien origin, the strips on the shirt strobe, the carefully curled hair goes limp and ill-kempt and generally you get a very carefully planned and expensive fiasco. The best pictures happen when you missed reading that notice from school or your child used it to write out their birthday gift wish-list and you sent them to school looking just like themselves.

The Boy presents a few special problems of his own, I will admit. First, there's the haircut he gave himself just a few days before school started. This consisted of one very close chop just above the forehead, effectively removing any of that pesky hair that was falling into his face and annoying him, but also rendering a sort of swollen-brain syndrome look. The other scissor chops were placed in random spots on the sides and the back of his head. I made a valiant attempt to even it out as much as possible and it certainly helped to put a little gel on it and pretend he was supposed to look like a rock performer. It has grown a bit more, so I once again went at his head with scissors last night, leaving it all a bit more even, but definitely not stylish.

Then there are the photographic faces. He has two, and neither of them belong to him. As I sit here writing this I am looking at a picture taken by his teacher in class last year. He has both hands on his face pulling his skin and his eyelids in opposite directions. One eye appears to be rolled up into his head and the other is unnaturally wide open and staring. I know it's him because I recognize the Spiderman sweatshirt. His other photographic face is quite calm, studious and sweet. That's not him either.

In the end I settled for making sure he washed his face, brushed his teeth and wore clean clothes. I didn't tell him to smile or to sit still. I was afraid any sort of instructions might make the situation worse. I chose the plainest and cheapest of backgrounds and studiously avoided thinking about what color shirt would go best with it.

I have written out the hefty check to pay for these unseen portraits and await the resulting images with motherly pride and some well-learned trepidation. Oh, and The Girl? She's thirteen and believes that her mother is clueless so would never think of asking for my advice on her clothes and hair on picture day. Thank goodness. Teen attitude is good for something at least.

Life is a Puzzle

I have just finished my online jigsaw puzzle. Please give me a moment to congratulate myself. There, that should do it. Thank you. I won't be submitting my time or checking high scores because for me,it isn't about trying to be the fastest and the best. In fact, I don't think I could enjoy doing a jigsaw puzzle if the goal was to complete it blindingly fast, sliding pieces into place without error. A jigsaw is a slowly built masterpiece, a project, a hobby that both exercises the mind and soothes it at the same time, giving it a break from real world problems and replacing them with the problem of why this piece that has just the right tip of blue and stripe of white doesn't fit perfectly where it ought to. But jigsaws, like life, often don't make sense until you see the whole picture.

I learned to love jigsaw puzzles when I was a kid. On Sundays my parents would often travel to Maine or other parts equally distant to attend church or visit relatives and if we were lucky, my younger brother and I were allowed to stay home with the older siblings to watch over us. Often this privilege came with the obligation to clean the house, which we all happily agreed to. Surprisingly, we worked well together. Staying home meant no parental control over the stereo. The elder sister and brother took turns spinning records our parents would never allow to be played in their presence - The Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Beach Boys.

And when we were done scrubbing floors and folding laundry to our forbidden rock n' roll beats, my sister would spread a jigsaw puzzle across the dining room table. We could all sit and work on this wonder together. That was the time for my sister's quieter taste in music and we listened to Johnny Mathis , The Mama's and The Papa's and Neil Diamond. I learned the pleasure of the quiet pursuit of a dream - the dream pictured on the box. Many years later, when the elder siblings had grown and moved out, I could still be found on a winter's day, alone in my room with nothing but a stereo and a jigsaw puzzle.

Time moves on and life gets busy. A real jigsaw is large, takes up space and time and doesn't fit in. I have no extra table that can be devoted to such a project. Pieces are more than likely to go missing long before they are properly set into their places.

So, an online jigsaw puzzle has to do. They can be a pleasant way to while away time on the net but the experience is not complete. They lack that tactile pleasure, the fingering of a piece, the satisfaction of feeling it snap into the spot that your eye finally spied and that smug knowledge that your mental calculations of its parameters were unerring.

If you like jigsaw puzzles, there's a new one daily at Shockwave.com and sometimes they can be nicely challenging, like the one that is in black and white and doesn't colorize until you fit the pieces into the right place. But, if you truly love jigsaw puzzles, I highly recommend a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle spread out over a dining room table, with music on the stereo and preferably an assortment of family and friends to sing along with you as you explore the mystery of its construction and the quiet pursuit of a dream.

My Mother Should Have Been a Writer.

I was clicking through a friend's blogroll and came upon this blog. The first post I read was about working amidst chaos and it really rang a bell with me, but even more so did the Word of the Day, " rapscallion".

Rapscallion was one of my mother's favorite words and she had many. Her daily speech held words that deliciously filled the mouth with rich vowels and muted dipthongs and bold words that employed teeth, tongue and lips to give them full effect. Just say "rapscallion" and tell me you don't like the feel of it as it escapes from the mouth to be sounded. Now, say it louder, as a chastisement. Perfect, isn't it? I must remember to say it to The Boy the next time he is mischievous.

My mother didn't always use words strictly according to definition. Sometimes she went for texture and effect over meaning. My mother probably should have been a writer, but I don't think she was ever encouraged in creative areas. However, she was a wonderful storyteller. I wish that I could remember enough details from her childhood stories to write them all down. They were stories that were full of childhood mischief and peppered with colorful phrases never heard outside her family.

I wonder now if her surviving younger sister would know some of these stories. I know she would tell them in the same downeast Maine accent and excited tone. Now I have a project. Thanks for that Word of the Day, Easy-Writer.