I've been spending 2-4 hours a day on my new least favorite motherhood extracurricular activity. I'll be back when I'm done with my project. I hope it's tomorrow. I really, really do.
Musical theatre always brings high school drama club memories flooding back, so I was feeling happily nostalgic when I learned that the Boston Opera House is showing South Pacific (my senior year musical production!) from September 27 - October 2. If your kids dig musical theatre or you're looking for a fun outing with a loved one, hop on over for tickets. And how cool is this? The kind folks at Broadway Across America are offering one of you awesome readers a 4-pack of tickets to South Pacific*! Here's how to enter to win:
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THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED
Congrats to winner Mary Ann!
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THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED
Congrats to winner Mary Ann!
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Rules:
*One lucky winner (drawn using Random.org) will receive a 4-pack of tickets to South Pacific for the Tuesday, September 27, 2011 7pm show. Sweet!
Today, Lindsey shares a game that's fun for kids and grownups alike:
A few months ago I realized that I was rushing my children through dinner and bath to make sure we had time for TV before bed. Startled by this, I simply told them the next day that we weren't going to have TV. We enjoyed a more relaxed dinner and evening and that was that -- the transition was shockingly seamless. Instead, after bath and before bed, we now often play a short game. I admit that some of the board games stacked in our family room are, quite frankly, a little slow for me.
Subsequently, I was glad to discover Rat-A-Tat Cat. This card game has become an obsession for all three of us. My 6- and 8-year-old play it together, though they prefer when I play with them. The game is simple: you deal four cards in front of each player, two up and two down. The goal is to wind up with the smallest number of points represented in your four cards (the cards are 0-9). Taking turns drawing from a pile of cards in the middle, you can swap out cards you draw for your face-up cards or take a chance and swap a card with a known value for one of your face-down cards. There also are a couple of other cards, such as "peek" and "swap" which allow you, respectively, to glance at one of your face-down cards or to swap a card, even a mystery one, with another player.
Rat-a-Tat Cat has the right mixture of speed (so I don't get bored) and simplicity. All three of us have won before, without anyone going easy or stressing out, and this makes the game more fun. It's a perfect game for the airplane and for up to four players, and I've overheard my 8 year old playing it on a play date before. One round takes about 10 minutes, and so far nobody around here is bored! I highly recommend Rat-a-Tat Cat.
The five of us sat outside -- Ma, Pa, Blondie, the little angel and me -- trying to capture the sound of birdsong and my parents' bubbling fountain in the background over our voices lovingly reading each other stories. (Disclosure: this isn't a review, but I did receive the books free from Hallmark when I attended a blogger event there on Friday -- more on that later.)
I had three of the recordable storybooks. Pa is the bedtime story reader in our family, so I wanted him to read one. Then we were all going to take turns reading the other two -- one for Blondie and one for us. On our first run-through, Blondie misted up a little and it was a poignant moment what with the birdsong and the bubbling fountain and that unicorn that came over the ridge right at the moment the last word was pronounced.
Then we tried to play it back.
Somehow we'd kept the recordings of certain pages and lost others, and the little angel kept scraping her chair and walking around with what she clearly thought were gossamer steps on the pavers but actually sounded like a bull elk wandering through Macy's.
Finally, we took the books inside. There was apparently some trick to laying them perfectly flat and perhaps daylight affected the little light-sensitive holes? So we recorded all three books over again, and when you press stop, it plays it back to you, then if you REALLY WANT TO BE SURE, you must then play the entire thing over when you are done, so all in all by the end we had listened to each other read these books approximately 32 times, yelling at Pa and Beloved every time they tried to have a conversation because OMG WE ARE RECORDING HERE and CAN'T YOU JUST WAIT ANOTHER 54 MINUTES?
Then we were done, and Pa wrote on the opening page of the book that he read "recorded on September 11, 2011," and I realized we hadn't even planned it, but it seemed entirely appropriate to be together on the ten-year anniversary of the scariest day in recent memory, recording our voices so we might always hear the inflections of love. Even though we came for the weekend not to commemorate September 11 but to help my parents fix a leak in their bathroom, but maybe that makes it even better.
The little angel will probably always wonder why 9/11 is such a big deal in the same way I could never understand why people could remember where they were when Kennedy was shot. I hope she never has a day in which she remembers exactly where she was when some horrible scary thing happens that rocks her faith in leadership or in humanity. It's not possible to protect her entirely, though, so ... the books. We wrap our children in as much familial love as we can, and we hope that shield of belonging and strength will be enough.
I know I'm not the only one who is super excited about a respite from the rain. The forecast looks beautiful -- perfect for enjoying any or all of these 15 (!) weekend picks that caught my eye:
1. Art buffet = awesome.
2. I hope they have weaving demos again at the Boston Arts Festival -- it was Laurel's favorite activity last year.
3. How can you not love a grand costume parade?
4. My elementary school friend Melanie was so generous -- she always shared her (crazy delicious) lamejun with me. If I knew where she was, I'd buy her treats from this Armenian festival.
5. Celebrate local and indie organic design,
baby Bollywood style.
6. I kind of freaked out a little seeing my former GBYSO conductor Joel Bard on the roster for the Newton Cultural Center festivities. Such a nice guy!
7. I find windmills kind of magical, do you?
8. I love perusing artisan wares.
9. I'm totally down with a concert that references a character named Schmutzinberry.
10. For those on the South shore, enjoy this music, theatre, and dance family festival.
11. And if you're in the Winchester area, check out this musicfest.
12. I have a feeling Laurel would really dig the costumes at the Melrose Victorian Fair.
13. Agricultural goodness abounds at the Franklin County and Sterling fairs.
14. Want to enjoy a grown up music venue family style? Alastair Moock and friends will play from Moock's new family friendly album at Club Passim.
15. We've found our last two sitters through Care.com. If you need childcare, they're hosting a Care Fair at the Museum of Science.
Image credit: Peabody Essex Museum
Today, Jennifer recommends a visit to Barefoot Books for more than books:
Given the variable nature of New England weather (cue today's monsoon...), it's always good to have some indoor activity ideas in your back pocket. My kids and I recently enjoyed a lovely afternoon at the Barefoot Books pottery studio in Concord. Our mission was to try out their newish paint-your-own pottery studio (it was added to the store's offerings this past spring), and oh, did we have a grand ol' time.
If you haven't been to the store before, it's a whimsical experience for sure. From the minute you approach the brightly-colored building with patio seating outside (hello perfect snack time venue), you know you're in a kid-centric place. Even the bathroom is crazy cool. We browsed the books for a bit and checked out the story time area and main art room before heading to the back pottery studio. We chose to paint a small castle (my 6 year old daughter) and a toucan (my 8 year old son). I even decided to join in the fun and painted a travel mug as a gift for my dad -- you're never too old to give the gift of hand-painted pottery, right? They offer dozens of items to paint and a beautiful palette of colors; pieces are ready for pick up about a week after your visit and the store calls you to let you know when your items are ready.
I thought our outing would be about an hour, max, but with the lovely and relaxing atmosphere (did I mention the cool music and wonderfully friendly staff?) we ended up staying 2 hours. After we finished painting, my daughter drew a few pictures at the big table in the art room while I looked over their impressively packed events calendar. We'll be heading back soon!
I was just finishing up work last night when the little angel breezed in. She is very firm with me -- when I say "three more emails," she stands over my shoulder and holds me to it. I was trying to fudge a little last night, so finally she flopped on the chair in my office in frustration.
"My feet need to feel the fresh air, Mommy," she huffed. "Hurry up and let's go for a walk."
And that? Was the best thing I'd heard all day. We abandoned the laptop mid-email.
Probably due to my denial about the summer's end, I'm a little stunned that today is Laurel's first day of school (and other than some morning grumbling, it went off without a hitch...no tears at drop off!). I know many of you have already started the school year or are starting this week so I wanted to share a few of my favorite tips for making mornings easier, plus some excellent back posts to help with transitions. Because experience with Laurel has taught me that transition can be easy (last year) or challenging over many months (two years ago). Good luck everyone!
Here are five tips to making mornings easier:
1. Wake up 10 minutes earlier. Without fail, whenever we give ourselves 10 extra minutes of breathing room, mornings feel more calm.
2. Prep two days of lunches at a time. We find that lunch making is less painful in the mornings when some of the pieces are already in place a couple of days a week. On Mondays and Wednesdays I pack Laurel's fruit and vegetable containers and set aside snack options (e.g., yogurt, granola bars) for two days. I'll make the main course (e.g., sandwich, mac and cheese, etc.) fresh the morning of school depending on what Laurel is in the mood for.
3. For those with kids with long hair. Laurel has very long hair and it's prone to major tangling. And dealing with a super snarly head in the morning is time consuming and does not help morning grouchiness. I comb out her hair the night before (and sometimes braid the hair) to minimize morning tangles.
4. Lay out clothes the night before. This is an easy task that you can have your kids take care of. They'll love the autonomy and it will help avoid clothing battles in the morning. I also recommend being OK with whatever your kid picks (i.e., not worrying about things matching) so long as the clothing is weather appropriate. Laurel tends to pick combos of patterns and colors that I might not assemble but if the clothes make her happy and make for an easier transition, why pick a fight when it's really not necessary?
5. Remain calm. I feel as if I give this advice a lot when it comes to parenting but it never fails me! I find that if I get sucked into the drama and get cranky in response to Laurel's behavior, the bad mojo escalates, whereas when I can remain calm and redirect, we can diffuse the situation quickly.
Do you have other tips? I'd love to hear them in the comments below!
And here's some great back reading regarding back to school transitions:
Image credit: nuttakit / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
I've become convinced recently that Americans are too concerned with return on investment. Besieged as we are by whether or not our houses are growing more valuable, we put in nice landscaping five minutes before we sell. We ask ourselves whether we'll take this job or that by how it will impact our resumes. In some instances, we are afraid to be seen walking an ugly dog.
And where does it really get us?
Maybe it's capitalism. Maybe it's our Judeo-Christian background, as a culture, and our relentless obsession with the principal of hard work. But really, who goes home after a long day of being nice to other people and thinks, shit, what a waste of a day? I really shouldn't have smiled at that old lady. I really shouldn't have waved to that school bus. I'm a reject of a human being.
The truth is that in these uncertain economic times (Beloved's most hated expression), almost nothing is a guaranteed win. Your life could become a bad Alannis Morisette song at any moment, what with the spoons when you really need a fork and all that. You could do everything right, jog every day and eat healthy, organic foods and still drop over dead at 35 whilst hiking to the top of Mount Everest on a clear autumnal morning with the earth shimmering beneath you.
Return on investment is a privileged person's way of measuring energy in versus energy out.
I'm finding as I get older that the only things that matter to my state of happiness are the ones that make other people's lives better. I'm no Mother Theresa and my income tax statements reflect that. I try, I do, but I'm often influenced in my giving by whether or not I think it will bring me something in the end, whether that something is a feel-good moment or a deduction or some form of social currency. Is it possible to do something nice just to do it? Really? I think so, but it's most commonly not the reason we do it, because we've all bought in to the concept of ROI.
The only thing that keeps me from feeling as though I've fallen into the American ROI abyss is my cat. Petunia, while a shelter cat (six points for altruism) is the worst cat ever. I mean, sure, she's nice to me, but Beloved can barely pick her up, she swats at the little angel except on the best of days and my niece E., who is two, says what Petunia says is "HISS." She's a bitch of a muted calico domestic shorthair, and there's really no good reason in the world to keep her. She has zero ROI.
This cat of mine I cling to because she's evidence that I don't do everything for a reason.
I have long railed against the idea of quarterly reporting and continuous financial gains. I think paying too much attention to short-term goals results in corner-cutting and -- let's face it -- unethical and inhumane behaviors. Yet I find myself measuring myself against short-term goals all the time, whether they be in months or in years.
Where did we get this idea of ROI, and why have we, as a culture, bought into it so? Because truly, the more you have, the more you stand to lose. I'm not trying to be Debbie Downer here, but it's true. So why not do things just because they are there, just because they are fun?
I'll tell you. It's because as long as everyone else is still subscribing to ROI, then you lose if you're just in it for the moment. We would all have to collectively decide to stop placing importance on income and social stature and agree to frolic in sunflower fields, and I have a feeling that as long as humans walk this earth, there will always be someone trying to convince you his sunflower field is way bigger and better and produces more seeds per acre than yours.
I haven't quite figured this problem of the human condition out yet. Perhaps another episode of LA Ink will help.