Reading Homework

The Moose had a homework assignment, requiring a parent to read his story and write questions for him to explore in his next draft. His sense of humor shines through despite the spelling errors. For your reading pleasure, here with the spelling corrected is the first draft:

The Pyramid Dream

I was an archeologist. I entered the pyramid with my friends. There was a gold coffin. It was hot. I was sweating. Then the door began to close. My friends got out, but I was trapped in the dark with the coffin. Then there was a reddish light. The temperature increased rapidly. Then all of the sudden it was right in front  of me! Me trapped alone. Abandoned by my comrades! Stuck with a dead person in a box. I yelled, falling back in shock. Banging on the door in the silence. (Three things went through my head right then was why can't I have a laser gun in this dream, let me fly for once, and when are those morons coming back.) I couldn't move. All I could do was sit there helpless (and now for something completely different). I woke up sweating.

Movie Ratings for Immature Audiences

"Did you check the rating?" asks my kid. We're at the movies to see Mr. Holmes (2015). "Yes," I assure him though I've only just checked a moment before. A few days prior I had been caught off guard when a parent sent me a link to all of the offensive moments in a film I planned to take three elementary students to see. It was a Science on Screen Athena Cinema event with a lecture from a naturalist and birder from the co-founder of the Ohio Bluebird Society and conservation education co-ordinator from the Athens Soil and Water Conservation District, followed by a film.

Summer brought hummingbirds and interest in identifying birds so a lecture and movie about bird watching seemed like a great transition for the first day of school. Ratings schmatings.

Yeah, I know about Common Sense Media. I just keep forgetting to check every single thing I expose my children to let alone what they expose themselves to when not even trying. Besides, my own childhood memories of horror scenes cured me of all desire to watch that genre and has saved me from countless hours of tedious movie watching. Profanity, sex, nudity, violence, and gore are not easily avoided whatever medium viewed. It generally does help to consider offensive things through the context of the story. Stories all about shlock and violence do nothing, but take a story that moves through them and goes somewhere else like The Silence of the Lambs (1991), and it becomes something powerful and worthwhile, but not for kiddos. Navigating ratings and stories with childrearing requires an appreciation for individual differences even at the same age.

One child hides their face during a kissing scene in practically every movie, the other watches. One child asks to read a book that another refuses. Kids know when they are ready, especially if you talk to them about what they are reading and what your concerns are. I may rely too much on trusting my children to talk about disturbing scenes and issues, but it hones the ability to talk about uncomfortable subjects.

"The movie may contain some profanity and nudity," I say to the three kiddos sitting around the kitchen table eating cheese rice. "What's profanity," asks the guest child. I look at their faces wondering if my own children will answer the question. Everyone is looking at me. No one appears to know the what profanity means. "Words you may know as cuss or curse words," I say. They all nod in understanding. They've learned a new vocabulary word, I think to myself. "Well, any questions," I ask. The kids are back to eating cheese rice. "You can always close your eyes if something makes you uncomfortable in the story or ask your parents if you have any questions. Remember things that are part of telling a story are there because they mean something to the storyteller," I rattle. The talk turns to other things. I extract myself from the conversation, feeling that enough has been said.

My fav example of the say less approach of parenthood happened years ago when from the rear car seats one child, out of the blue, says, "Aunt X is married to a girl." I look up and into the mirror to see the faces in the backseat. They are both looking out the windows. "Yes. Some women are married to women and some are married to men," I say with more nonchalance than I feel. I guess I expected some grilling that never came. I held my tongue in truth because I didn't know what else to say, but in holding my tongue I realized, they had all the information they wanted.  Kids will ask more questions when they want to know more. I've been a fan ever since.

One kiddo ducked, as usual, at the sight of an on screen kiss, but we all enjoyed the A Birder's Guide to Everything (2013) even with the offensive moments and PG-13 rating because the story worked and it made us laugh.

Planting Borage, Playing War

Two boys separated for a week by a beach vacation by one, greet each other with nerf guns. It's early, I'm poking borage into the garden. The boys discuss their options for war.

"Let's do Vietnam," says the Moose. "Um, Cold War," says the other. I look up to the balcony where they are surveying the terrain. They laugh. The Moose says, "They just looked at each other in the Cold War." The other fires a shot and runs, calling out, "Vietnam!"

I sit back on my haunches and wonder if those who endured the Cold War would appreciate the stare off assessment.

I planted the borage for its brilliant blue blossoms that are edible as well as for the bees.

Borage (bees love it) is also edible

When Every Child Matters in Public Education

We're only as strong as our weakest link, but we spend a great deal of time building perimeters and excluding the unfit, less fashionable, not as brilliant, and difficult to manage, shuffling the problem to elsewhere, and no one really wants to be in elsewhere. Even those who start out with the best intentions can slide down the slippery slope when dealing with difficult people or problems especially when in search of clear cut solutions.

Life prefers the colorful overlapping abundance of the murky state; think about the rain forest with life thriving in its various levels or muddy water swirling about. It's hard to understand what is in play until we separate the parts, but then we only have the parts. When we keep pulling out and pulling away from each other, it weakens the overall fabric of our communities. We need to be clear that the goal of public education is to educate all children, even the least of us.

I live in a community that, perhaps like yours, faces a public school budget deficit. What to cut? Where to go? Can we turn a problem, budget shortfall, into an asset? How do we teach children to love learning and to be engaged in the learning process with limited financial resources? People are working on this, as I'm sure they do in your community, but the problem is ongoing, continual, and it has no easy answers. Except that we want easy answers which can stir up the issues of exclusion or firm lines, a slippery slope that serves no one when every child matters.

We embrace concepts like three strikes and you're out or zero tolerance because surely if we punish the bad guys, they'll stop misbehaving. You might note that these kinds of rules are being rolled back and, if you like, you can read more about why in David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell for one version. The problem is school systems, teachers, and parents frustrated by behavior or difficult kids wish they would just go away. These black and white limits continue to be used, despite their failures.

Kids get sent home for behaviors that reinforces to the child that they aren't good enough, that internalizes shame, and that don't motivate a child to engage or participate in a more positive way with the system. The strikes backfire because the negative reinforcement teaches children to give up and to not care. This doesn't solve the behavioral problems, it compounds them.

In recent years, we've drifted toward testing to the extent that teachers send home flyers and notes telling parents how to prepare students for tests-- giving them practice tests to do at home, ensuring a good night's rest, not assigning homework during the testing period, and by asking parents to supply sundry items to reward the students with post exam parties. You can tell me all you want that the tests aren't the priorities, but children are learning something else with these actions and rewards. 

Focusing on even good test results doesn't mean that a child has learned something. 

A grade can be the result of memorization skills and drilling. Here's an example. I asked my child's teacher to consider revising the spelling list (for next year) to not include so many spelling rules in the same list, to regroup them in a more meaningful way, to put the focus on learning the most common way to learn to spell a sound first and them to move toward the least common. Putting five ways to spell the same sound on one spelling list in a week requires memorizing and not learning how to spell new words.

Though the response did include an agreement to consider the list revision, it came with the comment that the other children (at my child's school) didn't need to learn this way because their test results were fine. In another school, she had revised the spelling lists because the children couldn't pass the spelling tests. Can I just point out that the focus on the test result doesn't mean that the children have learned how to spell the "n" sound in any random word they are trying to write?

In one school, I bet more parents ensure that the children practice their spelling words. Learning five spellings of the same sound in five days is really about either previous experience, exposure, or rote memorization. However, probability is a great way to approach spelling new words, and who doesn't need some hard and fast rules for spelling? Spelling probability (see pdf at bottom) is stuff like when you hear the "n" sound, go with the letter "n" first and then consider "kn" or "gn" in that order of usage. It was a revelation to me to hear someone teach spelling from this perspective.  

Continually revisiting the learning process, tweaking our methods and evaluations, and holding ourselves as a community to be accountable to both our weakest and our strongest minds is needed to serve children in a learning environment. We might vaguely agree that zero tolerance doesn't work and that testing isn't they key, but we must also guard against the slippery slope of thinking we have it all figured out, that it is clear and easy.  When kids without parental involvement are written off as worthless or lost, and kids with parental involvement are held up as paragons of learning, it's easy to get confused that test results equal learning. However, we're getting away from the learning process which gives every child the tools to excel.

Collaboration and communication across disciplines is tough in the silo town of ideas. When school is interesting, kids pay attention. When the focus is on the learning process, not testing, in the ways we reward teachers, students, parents, and administrators, then all can learn at the level to which they work. All have to chance to access the joy and skills of learning which are essential to instill.

There is a need for coaching for positive behaviors and using precise language when working with each other. I sense we misunderstand positive reinforcement which is about focusing on what we do well and not on fake or false validation. A kid can smell an emotional swindle a mile away. Positive reinforcement works when it is seen, acknowledged, and validated by the child as something that can be repeated.

A world of negativity is swirling around the  weakest students and taking away the light that they need to bring into school. When we fall into the trap of thinking everyone can bootstrap their way out of hate, misery, and negativity, we forget to focus on rewarding the positive and participating in the ongoing need to collaborate and communicate with those different from ourselves.

As a national community, I also hope that we'll soon figure out that it is better to spend money on kids than prisons. As a local community, I hope we'll soon recognize that we are in it for better or worse as a group. Thinning the herd is asking for more problems as a society.

In Japan, I went to school observation days where one teacher worked with thirty-five to forty first, second, or third grade students. There were moments when the students were wild, but the teacher, instead of leaving the classroom and taking the child to the front office, ignored or redirected the child one on one, meaning that the teacher walked over to the child and quietly pointed them back to their seat while staying on message to the class. Students in Japan are given increasing amounts of responsibilities as they go up in grades. For example, first graders spent fifteen minutes every morning without a teacher present organizing themselves around a daily task and assignment. Americans often think that the Japanese children surely were self-disciplined. I assure you they are not, but they are given opportunities daily to practice consistent behaviors and communication consistently focuses on keeping them as a part of the group. When we focus on consequences and rules, we forget that the real focus should be on learning and participating.

Students, teachers, parents and administrators have to be willing to learn from and to listen to each other. We might need to consider different ways of working together. Sometimes, we will try things that work. Sometimes, the things we try won't work. The point is to keep trying. It helps if we standardize our expectations, stay on message, focus on the learning process, collaborate across disciplines, communicate in ways that are positive and inclusive, and, importantly, to recognize that it is an ongoing process. When people opt to check out of the system, they leave behind the weak, but they don't leave them forever, they will still be there and their needs will still need to be addressed. 

As the school year closes, we should be asking, "What did you enjoy learning (teaching) this year?" "Are you eager to come back next year?" These are some of the metrics that reveal if we have focused on the learning process or rewarded students for participating in school. When we value all of the children in the room, we do it by asking for more collaboration, not less.

Rats at COSI play basketball thanks to positive reinforcement and conditioning.

Girl Scout

I set off for Girl Scout camp for leaders not long ago. I was and I wasn't prepared. After I got there, I realized I had glossed over the packing list when I found myself wishing I had a pillow. My backpack worked in a pinch. I used the same styrofoam cup all weekend, but next time, a reusable mug might be in my stash even though it wasn't on the official list. My pajama top worked as a towel, but I wished I had remembered that I wasn't sleeping in a hotel. Camp wasn't only about packing flails, it was also about experiences and building skills.

Here's a picture of my situpon made of a vinyl tablecloth and duct tape-- you can stuff them with almost anything from leaves to newspapers to padding. The knots and lashes class taxed my brain, but in the moment I was able to tie things up. I sang camp songs and earned quals in hiking, fire building, and camping. The closing camp ceremony was planned and implemented as a group so we learned as newbies and pros alike from each other.

Sure, my feet were cold, I got only one shower in three days, and the food was local, mainly from Walmart, but I appreciated that other women got up and cooked for me and forty-nine other women, and I'm ready to take a Girl Scout troop on a camping trip!

Cleansing Negativity

As a mother, I avoid saying, "No!" for impulse control and daily behavior management as I'd be shouting it all day long and that gets old for all involved. I prefer to nudge and focus on using positive terms, such as, "Use a fork" instead of "Don't eat with your fingers."  "Volume control please" instead of "Shut up." "Take turns" instead of "Quit fighting." These twists in semantics may or may not have statistical backing, however, you get more bees with honey than vinegar.

In life or work when you screw up, people love to tell you the rules or the shoulds. "You should wear a seatbelt. You should have a back up plan. You should get that in writing." It seems like rules are brought up just before someone pounces on you or flogs you to death. This kind of stuff drains the life out of me.  If we have to do the shoulds and the rules, we are so down near the bottom of creating any thing interesting that it's hard to want to do it.

I wonder why so many people think that quoting rules and demanding are effective ways to get what they want? Doesn't everyone like a carrot or positive reward?When the work is compelling, I listen. When the way is clear, I follow. When the environment is safe, I grow. My life force opens with sun, gentle breezes, and colorful flowers.

If you have to whine, wheedle, cajole, or remind others of the rules, you are at rock bottom. It's time to reconsider how the negative, squeaky wheel gets the grease, is working for you. Maybe it's time to try being positive, helpful, amping up the experience, or just letting something pass?

When I volunteer in the community to support an activity, organization, or group, the experience is part of the payback or reward. When the experience is negative, I often use a mantra to remind myself of the value of the cause to help wash the negativity out of my mind. "They mean well. The long run is about..." The same goes for people. As a fallible human, I also have to work at being kind to myself when I don't live up to standards that I apply to myself more than others.

At the moment, I'm in a log jam of negative feedback, and I'm busy washing my mind of other's negativity. Which is why I was thrilled today to hear my pilates instructor explaining an exercise to cleanse the mind. It is something along these lines:

Sit cross-legged with hands in namaste, bring your hands down to your lower abdomen area, turn your palms together and horizontal, one over the other, breath in and bring your arms out to the side and up overhead, return to namaste. Repeat for as long as it takes to cleanse your mind.

I'll be here all week.

A Riddle

"What sees, but has no eyes, and speaks, but has no mouth?" asks the child. The parents, stumped, sat quietly. "A thought," answered the child.

Our son told us that he made up this riddle-- likely while he was not raising his hand to speak in class or  maybe when he was supposed to be spelling something correctly or perhaps when he wasn't listening to his mother call him to dinner. 

What we value and what is valuable are not the same things.

Me vs. We Thinkers

"Look at me, look at me, look at me." "Go out there and show them who's number one!" 

We Americans talk a lot. Talk. Talk. Talk. Many an American teacher sees the child (with a raised hand) that talks a lot as intelligent. This talk, talk, talk busy-ness is an American concept of intelligence often ridiculed in other cultures. Watch any Monty Python lately? You can verify it for yourself by watching many a newscaster.

In America, we hustle to get to the front of the line. We do not encourage our children to defer to others; this is seen as a sign of weakness. What is lost in deferring to those who think they need to be first? The result of this is that in America, time and energy are spent on me, me, me, which cultivates a certain amount of rudeness.

In Japan, children learn to wait to eat with other people so that everyone eats at the same time. Admittedly, this waiting drove me crazy with the preschool set, but by starting early, the tone is set for the "we" concept.

The me vs. we culture yields some tangible differences.

"Which culture is easier to get along with, Japanese or American?" my husband asked our son. With no hesitation, our son answered, "Japanese." I piped in, "Why?" Our son replied, "Because they're kinder, quieter, and they're not mean." 

Reeling at the sting of my own culture being meaner, I sat quietly, knowing that he spoke a truth. My husband brought up a difficult friend for our son while we lived in Japan. Our son responded, "The American kids are meaner." 

While Americans focus on, "I'm the boss," our Japanese friends focus on, "We are all part of the group." 

The focus on the we leads to some tedious experiences in trying to reach consensus. If everyone is part of the group, then any one member can lead the group astray as everyone has the right to challenge the group. You are not allowed to be mean to some because everyone has the right to be there.

Wow! Everyone has the right to be there. 

Japanese friends might say the niceness is feigned. My point is that the individual is important enough to the group that they fake being nice which beats vitriol anytime, just ask my nine year old.

In America we spend time dismissing everyone else's right to be at the table-- he's an athlete, they're gay, she's poor, he's uneducated. We're so busy eliminating differences that we end up serving only ourselves-- me, me, me.

We could benefit from thinking not about the me but about the we.

Girl Scout's Ban Bossy Campaign

Last month, my daughter talked me into volunteering with Girl Scouts as a Junior Troop leader. This month, my book group selection is Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg. Now, Girl Scouts of the USA have a Ban Bossy campaign. I should lean in and jump at the opportunity to wax poetically about how I too was called bossy and that it held me back. Except, I was one of those annoying girls when faced with a leadership vacuum, I stepped up-- just like I did when my daughter asked me to help.

If a label is going to get in your way, you've got bigger problems.

Maybe I should have let it fester and grow into some kind of discontent worthy of demanding others to ban the behavior? The women chiming in on this campaign are wildly successful in their fields-- you can see them in the video on the Girl Scout site where things like this are said,

"Pushy, Stubborn, Bossy. When I was growing up, I was called bossy. Being labeled something matters. Words matter. Let's just ban the word bossy. Listen to your own voice. There are no limits. Its ok to be ambitious. Let's ban bossy. Join us to ban bossy." 

I'm struggling to not want to throw a cream pie at this. I get the concern about girl's having self-esteem drops, but I can't chalk it up to name calling.

Consider what young girls begin to hear about their body, looks, development. Even Sandberg brought up the client who wanted her to meet his son. And this is in America. Try being around Saudi men in Bahrain wearing jeans and a t-shirt with your husband; they think you're a prostitute.

There is so much more to the self-esteem gap than the name bossy, although its probably not as comfortable to talk about.

I wonder about young women especially because I'm raising one and because I see the college aged women in my new hometown doing things like peeing in the streets and having sexual encounters on bank machines (that one was on the web thanks to a kind passerby's widget recording). These encounters were fueled by alcohol which likely bolsters false confidence, but it puts the thought into my head of why? Apparently not enough women are attracted to corporate boardrooms or aping male behavior.

My frustrations with the Lean In book, for all that was good in it, was that it encouraged women to play at a man's game without raising the point that we need a new game, new rules, and better standards for all of us. A ban feels enormously misguided in the face of the need to educate women about so much more, and please, call me bossy.

(Just in, this is the kind of news that bites into the core of the problems women face--a lopsided system that fails the victim... a letter to Harvard from a victim of sexual assault.)

 When a little boy asserts himself, he's called a “leader.” Yet when a little girl does the same, she risks being branded “bossy.” Words like bossy send a message: don't raise your hand or speak up. By middle school, girls are less interested in leading than boys—a trend that continues into adulthood. Together we can encourage girls to lead.

As part of Ban Bossy, Girl Scouts of the USA and LeanIn.org have teamed up in partnership with Lifetime television to create a PSA featuring Beyoncé, Jane Lynch, Condoleezza Rice, Diane von Furstenberg, Garner and others that points out that girls are discouraged from taking leadership roles because of labeling and name-calling.

42 Times

My daughter, a wee tyke of fifteen months, had a habit of coming into the parental bed. Exhausted from twelve hour night shifts and a new round of morning sickness, I pulled her in and rolled over, grateful for any sleep. Except, I didn't sleep so well with her in the bed. She turned in every direction and oozed heat like lava from Mt. Kilauea. 

I read several books about children and sleep before finding the baby whisperer, Tracy Hogg. Maybe because the baby whisperer was a nurse, I got the message. I had to make the change, no one else-- neither the child herself nor my husband-- would rescue me. The baby whisperer method was gentle, clear, but required one to be firm in the face of resistance.

My call to action was signaled by the late night pitter-patter of little feet coming down the hall. As she drew nearer, a breath steeled my nerves even as I wondered if it was really the night to start. Did I have the energy to stick to the plan-- surely I should wait for a good night of sleep.

Her happy face cemented the beginning. I gently clasped her hand, trotted her back down the hall, tucked her into bed, patted her head (trying not to speak much as instructed), turned out the lights, and shut the door. I repeated this forty-two times that first night. The next night we made eighteen trips down the hall to her room. 

She's a tad stubborn, hence her nickname, the Mule.

My husband, gifted on many fronts in getting children to talk and with deescalating anxious parents, is not known as the enforcer of bedtime in our house. It is left to me to encourage visitors to leave after eight. Another motivator is the resident Rooster Moose (the second child is a morning lark) that will crow the song of the day at sunrise. The point is that there is no slacking on the bedtime front beyond an hour or two. It is not mastered one time; daily practice is required.

When I think I've tried something that didn't work, I remember, try it forty-two times, and then expect to do it some more. I wanted to give up, to just go back to sleep, but ultimately I knew the short term gain of sleep was not in the interest of either of us. For change to happen, it helped me to stick with the big picture of why the change was needed and to remember who it served-- good sleep meant happier mama, and happier mama meant better everyone else in the family.

If all else fails, restore your sense of humor. Listen to the audio of Samuel L. Jackson read Go the F**k to Sleep and then after laughing deliriously, try again.

Be gentle, firm, but persevere-- this is required of us for any change we attempt.

Helpful sleep tips!

Deliriously funny for sleep deprived fed up parents

Spacing Togetherness

"I want it Now!" whines Veruca Salts in Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Mrs. Salt's wry comment to the father, "You're going to be very unpopular around here, Henry, if you don't deliver soon," speaks to the frenetic pace needed to meet the ever increasing demands of Veruca. Meanwhile, Wonka notes a lost opportunity, and the audience cringes.

The Old English meaning of hwīnan is to whistle through the ear. Whining is part of life with a preschooler, after that, it's a bad habit. The high pitched cry begets attention as does the more discrete whisper into the parental ear version. Whether with the quiet approach or an uproarious bellow, the child claims a parent's undivided attention and rescue services. 

There is no need to solve problems when cleaved to a parent, no need to build up internal resources when rescue is a demand away, no need for positive attention when you have it in spoonfuls at your beck and call. There is no need to learn delayed gratification when the world revolves around you.

Saying no is difficult, but the ongoing interruptions, whether overt or whispered, create an environment of exclusion, confusion, and annoyance. 

Meanwhile, the child fails to develop negotiating skills, and the parent avoids setting boundaries. Giving into a child's demands reinforces behaviors so it's wise to reinforce productive, positive patterns. Parents become marionettes on a string controlled by children, but this technique fails children too. It is with space that an individual emerges.

When I lived in Bahrain, a worker arrived late, apologizing for being on an overseas call. The phone call from India was so that he could decide about his sister's marriage. I was amazed that his long distance input was needed for this decision. We chatted as we worked about how decisions were made and who made them in our respective cultures. 

I felt a wave of gratitude for the mistakes, struggles, and successes I had made through the years whereby I had learned from both small and big choices. Minor choices hone the skills to make the major ones. Negotiating skills only improve when you use them. You start with learning to get along with playmates, and those skills come in handy when it's time to choose a spouse. Part of making decisions is also learning to live with the flaws, imperfections, and consequences that come with the road not taken.

Children learn one thing when they are rescued-- that someone else will save them, but, then, they will always need to be rescued. Instead, let them learn to solve their own problems, to tolerate imperfection, and to get comfortable in their own space.

“But let there be spaces in your togetherness and let the winds of the heavens dance between you.”
Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

Learn to deal now vs. later

Walking Through Open Doors

His problems are my problems because we’re connected. I push; he resists. I give; he takes and wants more. He gives; I take and want more. Some how in this dance of life, we are stepping on each others toes. He reflects my emotions, and sometimes it’s as if we’re trapped in a house of mirrors where everything is distorted. I am his mother, and what I think of as normal, he does not.

You have to learn how to walk through open doors. I push, cajole, get mad, demand, and get irate that the kid won’t go through the door. Seriously, I get that this is not effective, but I’m still struggling to understand how it is that I’m standing at the threshold trying to force the kid into the world. The harder I push the less happy I feel with myself and yet it’s what comes to me in those moments of, “it’s time to go.”

I want a softer way. I have a sensitive kid that needs to make mistakes without fear. His threshold differs from mine which is where I keep struggling. You have to feel safe to be willing to make mistakes. When I press him to try, he turns inward and goes to an unreachable place. While I struggle with the why, the real question is how do I gently coax and positively persuade?

For starters, I’d have to ease up on myself and, maybe, learn to quit on a good note.

Crybaby

I cry at the slightest rub against the emotion of loss-- lost time, lost relationships, lost opportunity. I feel it with a hint of someone's departure, through a phone call with an old friend where I find myself bereft of words and wallowing in the pain of time passing; or through the words found on the printed page of a storybook. I cry over sad endings, beautiful moments, and sometimes when caught unawares. Ignoring the power these moments hold over me feels foolish, but I do it often enough anyway.

I steal an inward glance and prepare to cringe. Pain from the present moment anchors onto an old state, an old fear, or an old longing. It wants release like a soap bubble that floats up and then pops except that it's a bubble bursting with pain that I can't hold back. It's complicated and it's simple.

Sorrow for what can't be; loss for what has passed and will not come again is tethered to every moment before it and after it. I tune into this channel of loss as if it is a beacon or homing signal. Some transend regret eloquently whereas I choke on pain and drip with tears. I want to gather all the pieces that have taken flight on the wind and form them into something meaningful and keep them or at least bring them back into my life.

In the Jewish tradition, after bar mitzvah, a rabbi might say to the young adult, go and repair the world. What am I to do with these shards? Why do I hold onto ancient history? Why do I stroke the bones as if they can be brought back to life?

Instead, I smile inwardly when my son, eight, asks for my iPod because his dad's iPod doesn't have the Moody Mama Playlist that has the Journey songs he likes. Journey always makes me think of my friend Kelly. When I was fourteen, I remember noting a Journey poster in her room before confessing that I liked the band. She was probably oblivious to the impact of my truthsaying, but for me it wove her into their songs. My son has added another layer. This is how a song becomes laden with feelings, memories, and love. It's never the surface thing, but that deeper place that resonates, vibrates and knocks everything together, the wellspring, the source of tears too hard to explain. Everything is like this-- overgrown and entangled.

House Rules

With piles of work and deadlines some of us stay up all night, cram for hours on end, and eat whatever. That was me before kiddos. Childrearing was my gateway to routines, schedules, and menus. Kiddos thrive on routines, schedules, and familiar foods. This  lifestyle turnabout from whatever works to structure and contemplation has, at times, frustrated me. Sometimes I mix up my frustration with my role as a mother and the indicators that change is needed.

Aware, yet again, that I have room to improve, I enrolled in a parenting workshop offered by grad students at the local university with hopes to glean insights into helpful approaches to childrearing. Ok, really I wanted help with positive reinforcement techniques, but you get what you get somedays.

The first homework assignment was to create a list of house rules which got me thinking: What house rules have been ingrained or are no longer said aloud? What house rules would I like to add? I wanted the house rules to be positive statements that apply to everyone and to serve as mini mantras that encourage us each to be kinder, gentler, and compassionate enough to help each other.


House Rules (a work in progress, in no particular order)

1. Everyone counts, everyone wants to be heard
2. Take turns
3. Speak kindly "my least favorite..." "the best thing ever..."
4. Words matter and sometimes we need help saying what we mean, but please try, try again-- it's not really that "I hate school" but "I'm so overwhelmed..." 
5. Give generously, really, you can give more. Holding back? Saving it for yourself? Really, what are you doing with it?
6. Touch gently, hold softly, everyone needs a hug sometime
7. Clean as you go, don't start the next project until the first one is cleaned up 
8. Everything has a place so put it where it belongs and if it doesn't have a place, get rid of something
9. Pace yourself-- one thing at a time (see #7)
10. Try before you ask for help
11. Hold your tongue-- don't tattle just to tattle
12. Eat at the table, together
13. Say your sorry if you hurt someone & look them in the eye while you do it
14. Routines are good-- have a loose plan
15. Find the positive or avoid commenting (see #11)
16. Ask open ended questions (don't assume); let the story unfold (applies mainly to Mama)
17. Manners are always appreciated; use them
18. Silliness, laughs, and movie lines add levity
19. Let go, we hold onto too much that weighs us down, really, let go

No Law Will Change the World

The assignment says, "Write about what you'd do if you were the President. How would you change the world?"

The student writes, "There is no law that will change the world. We only have hope."

There is no law that will change the world. We only have hope.

I couldn't read his writing. The rewrite was to improve his spelling. Having left my children in Japanese school for five years I have a bit of guilt about their spelling, writing, and reading. I get the +2/4, but still, bonus of +5 for getting that the world isn't cured by laws in second grade.

One might argue that I'm harboring an anarchist, but that would be over looking his spot-on comprehension of humanity. Laws tend to preserve a path of justice that we come to or legislate after a cultural reconciliation with a bitter fight. First, the dream of the better world, then the refusal to yield to the corrosive norm or existing way because we hope that the world is better than what we are experiencing, and then, someday, the laws catch up.

I read that Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat because she was tired. I bet she also expected better of the world, that it should care about people more than rules. I suppose that's why I liked that my kid thought hope was more powerful than a law even if he were the president.

Reactions

I know a little guy who talks a lot, is sometimes too loud, and occasionally he has a short fuse. He is also the most cheerful person I know particularly in the morning, a true anomaly in our family. He gives lots of hugs and cracks jokes like a British comedian which seems surprising for a seven year old. His emotional responses to life have a pinpoint accuracy nonetheless. His reflections have given me pause more than I could have imagined.

We don't have the TV connected to our house. Our local paper delivery service is thus far intermittent. I  read the New York Times online and so graphic images are censored at our house by virtue of this lifestyle choice we made nine years ago.

The murder of school children and the adults in their school was painful to read about. The still photos were more than enough for me. My heart goes out to those families.

Reading the response of parents driving to the school, hitting traffic, leaving their cars, to run, running to the school, running to find out if their kiddo was ... tough stuff. It rang around in my head all weekend.

The tragedy was mentioned at church on Sunday from the pulpit. We talked about it with friends while our children were in the vicinity. We did not however speak directly with them about it. My husband suggested we wait for them to bring it up, but they didn't.

I was confident that we had made the right decision not to specifically address it with our children until they left for school on Monday morning which was when it hit me,  other children, if they had seen the news, would be talking about it. Too late; my kids were out the door and on the way. My husband, the voice of reason around here, said, "So we'll talk with them when they get home. Just because you're reacting to it (night and day), doesn't mean they are." Guilty.

After school the teacher sent a note letting us know that it had been brought up in the morning meeting. My husband seeing the email asked the Moose, "Did you talk about what happened in Connecticut at school today?" "Yeah," said the Moose. "Was it scary?" asked my husband. The Moose paused as his way as he deliberated, and then he said, "Not really, it was shocking and it was a little sad."

Shocking and a little sad, so it was.

Kids are resilient, they don't want to stay down long. They take things in stride that I tend to ruminate on, replaying and overanalyzing what is done which can be paralyzing when it holds us back replaying and replaying tragedy instead of moving on to the next moment present. Life moves on even if we don't. History shows that we start new wars with technology to fight the last war because we operate from the past.

As we consider policy changes and safety measures, I hope we keep at the center what is good for our children. By this I hope we support our children and their teachers, not with things that add to their stress and daily hassle which in the end become meaningless, but instead make deliberate choices that strengthen their inner resources and create learning environments that make learning and safety the default way everyday. Despite the horrific moments in the news, lots of good things happen everyday. I'd like children to be prepared for a life of good so that even when shocking sadness strikes, there is a resilience to reach for the present moment instead of hunkering down in fear and anger.

Reach for love. Offer friendship. Help.

I'd venture to say that neglect and anxiety made more bad guys than did guns which only means that we have to care for the least of us.

This Little Light

Advent is the season of waiting and preparation that leads to Christmas. Sunday the children at our church will participate in a Christmas pageant and puppet show. In preparation they have been encouraged to practice singing "This Little Light of Mine" and "Go Tell It on the Mountain" - refrain only. I haven't heard either of my children sing the songs of late, but they have both told me that they know them. I have plenty to nag them about so I've let it be.

We don't live with werewolves exactly, but when the moon is up and it's getting late, our children change. They do things like dance and sing wildly as if to keep their tired bodies awake and fatigue at bay. We had popped in on a holiday party earlier in the evening and so with dinner pushed back, the Mule started belting out, "This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine" while holding the small electric light from the advent candle she had made, twirling in the ballerina slippers that I had left out to remind myself to stitch the straps in place (she's only been in ballet for three months), and then she came to this verse which I had never heard before, "Don't let Satan blow it out, don't let Satan blow it out, don't let Satan blow it out!" She blew out her light (and flipped the switch on the bottom) and fell dramatically to the floor in a heap. I felt the twitch of unknowing in my left eye.

My husband, who some how cuts to the heart of what is bothersome to me, said to our daughter, "The song is about the light. Some people choose to emphasize the good battling evil part, blowing out the light of Satan, but the song is about letting the light shine through you." 

She's a nimble one, she rose, twirled, snapped on the light, and sang, "This little light of mine, I'm going to make Athens shine."

The lights are shinning in Athens

A Reader, A Writer, & a New Webpage

Being a fish out of water as a mother in another culture was painful, but it broke me open day after day to the value of kindness to strangers. I still can't speak of my experience as a foreign mother without the pinprick of tears to my eyes. When friends tell of their deepest dramas, of near death situations, of moments of lost hope, I ponder why I struggled so hard with being illiterate and limited in communication skills in Japan for five years. It wasn't a bad thing, but it marked my heart as much as any other trial in my life if not more so.

Day after day I had to trust that some how I would figure out what to do and how to do it. In the maze of unknowing, the universe delivered. In a foreign land where I could not speak or read, I was helped, sustained, and encouraged, even if inwardly I winced at taking a step into the great unknown as if a bandaid was ripped daily from a wound.

Suspense is not a favored state of being, perhaps accounting for my dislike of horror films as well. Every time I thought I was stepping off a cliff to my doom, I took a deep breath, braced myself for impact, and stepped forward, but I never fell. Someone always caught me-- the exact right person. It is a beautiful tribute to my friends in Japan and the culture in general that they never shied away from helping, assisting, or sustaining a gaijin abroad.

I learned to receive, but it was the cracking open, the vulnerability, and the making myself take a step day after day, that were the character forming moments for me. Yesterday, I got the note below from a blog reader responding to Other Mothers which I wrote last year. It made that struggle come back in a meaningful, beautiful way for me.

Dear Kim, 

"I wonder how my children will think back upon their childhood memories of Japan. They belong here and yet they don't. It is a complicated thing." 

I found your blog by chance (I was googling "oden" and "pressure cooker"), and since last night I have read many of your posts. I just want to say thank you for maintaining this blog. Writing this may have been an outlet and therapeutic for you especially when in Japan, but I find myself as a reader being comforted in a way too. 

I was in your daughter's shoes until Age 12. I'm in my mid-20s now and honestly, living in Japan was one of the best things that happened to me. But now I realize that my parents were the ones to pay the price for this privilege. As I grew older, I started to understand how difficult it was for my mom. Reading your post just made it all the more real. 

I feel like a gaijin everywhere as well. I miss the real Japanese taste (the non-sushi foods - because that's the stuff people actually eat), the way people talk, the stuff they make...
Your kids will always have the Japanese taste buds. When they go off to college, they'll have random Japanese food cravings that can't easily be satisfied in North America.
When I finally returned to Japan last year, first time in almost 15 years, it felt like some personal mystery had been solved. After that, I finally stopped dreaming about my Japanese hometown. Hopefully you will be able to go back to Japan periodically with your daughter so she doesn't forget or miss it too much. 

Didn't mean to write this much. Basically, I'm really enjoying your blog and can really relate to it (esp to Mule-chan). Keep it up and take care :)
-Col

I love that she found my blog through a food search. I love that food is the great equalizer in that we all love good food no matter our cultural background or our social status. I have no doubt that she is right about the food cravings being what randomly emerges years, months, weeks later. They have started already, Mule-chan craves ramen.

I am currently in a desperate search for black sesame paste in America. It seems that the world is missing out on black sesame paste as it is only widely consumed in Japan. My local Asian market is looking into what they can do for me, but it isn't promising.

After reading this I headed off to pick up the Ohio Today print magazine that published my article on Bistrot Nobu (it is currently not posted online). It was thrilling to see it finally in print as I had done the interview in the days just before leaving Tokyo in summer. I walked sedately to my car with a handful of the magazines and then happily flipped through the pages to take a look. It was satisfying to see the article in print, but having a random reader respond to my writing in such a meaningful way, hit my heart in a deeper place. I am thankful for both things nonetheless.

I used the income from writing the article to purchase a website. I missed my Japanese cooking lessons so much that I decided to start home cooking classes. I loved the hands on experience of learning to cook in Japan so I am taking the plunge here in Ohio. I also loved the camaraderie that forms.

Cooking in Athens is still a work in progress. The focus is on Japanese inspired cooking classes using local ingredients. Website building is not my forte, but I'm trying. Classes will be updated regularly with offerings. Time will tell if others in the area respond. Do take a look and see if one tempts you if you are in the Athens area.

Thanks for your note Col.

The Ohio Today Article I wrote- yay!!!

A Birthday Cake Decree

I flubbed the birthday party cake. The birthday girl had requested that mama make the cake. I wanted to get one from the bakery because despite liking to bake, cake is not what I like to bake, that would be bread, more specifically yeast breads. I made nice cinnamon rolls for the party, but the cake, sigh, it was terrible. Everyone loved the punch, raved about the wheat berry salad and the millionaire chicken, ate the yeast buns and the cinnamon rolls, but the strawberry whipped cream sponge cake sat there looking pitiful and more like melting custard.

I fancy myself a reasonable baker so the birthday cake disaster bothered me. Only it wasn't over, but I didn't know that then.

On the official day of the birthday, I prepared the birthday breakfast request, crepes. I got up, made the batter, ran it through the sieve, made the crepes, cut the berries, whupped the cream, and the crepes were perfecto.

After the breakfast cleanup, I made shortbread cookies with rainbow sprinkles and took them to the birthday girl's class. She reported back excellent reviews. By late afternoon, I was starting to feel redeemed. Plus there was uptown trick-or-treating and a quick swim lesson to gloss up a weekday birthday.

Then there was a late dinner after swimming. As I scrambled to pull together the fastest dinner on the East Side, birthday girl asked me, "Where's my cake?" "Ah, we did that on Saturday," was my weak reply.

She got out the whipping cream and began whupping it. She put the whupped cream into the left over crepes from the morning. They were under a towel on the counter. She then went in search of candles. When she found none, she got a small bee shaped candle she had bought at the Farmer's Market, placed it on a plate, and lit it with the lighter. We sang, "Happy Birthday, cha cha cha," to a plate.

Did I mention there is about five pounds of Halloween candy around the house as I type?

All of you parents out there who think you've got this birthday thing licked, yeah, me too. I was dumb enough to think one can conveniently schedule a birthday celebration and ration the events and fun to make them more manageable. Ha!

Hear Ye, Hear Ye, this is a birthday decree:

All birthdays will be celebrated on the actual day of birth with a cake, preferably not made by mama, with candles, with the official birthday song because it doesn't matter if we had a birthday party on the weekend, it doesn't matter if we celebrated it at school or the office, it only matters what we do on the day of birth at the dinner table in our house. All birthdays are to be properly celebrated and this means CAKE, CANDLES, and the song on the day, no matter what! 

Now that I think about it, it has to be a WHOLE CAKE because back in March when we went to Ninja Land to celebrate the Moose's birthday, he was upset when we ate a slice of cake at a coffee shop and told us that it did not count as a birthday cake.

Shoot me now.

The birthday cake disaster

Linking Up

The temperature has dropped, but I am wearing a light sweater because I have been distracted by kitchen issues all day-- an oven that doesn't heat, a broken pizza stone, bread dough not rising. I lean over a platter of cinnamon rolls that I am trying to protect from the drippy rain as we race down the street. The plastic wrap flips back with the force of the night air. I holler directions to guide the wee ones. They find their way to the front porch.

My children walk into their friend's house and greet the first person they see, their art teacher from summer camp. It's Athens, I should be used to this by now. We chuckle and exchange greetings. I actually know people in the room now; I've been here nearly three months. I am happy to be embraced, to chat, to know the glimmerings of others. I am going to be ok here-- there are enough people that I get. I trust that, eventually, they will get me too.

I spend time talking to mothers. Being a mother is not for the faint of heart. It helps to know that other mothers struggle too AND that somehow it all works out, or not. I learn more about them-- what they do and how they do some of their version of the mothering act. It is fun to see the children all in a room together telling ghost stories over low lights while we mothers talk of what has impacted us-- work, life, moments. We are not alone in what challenges us. 

Earlier in the week, I went on the Moose's class outing to a local business. Passion Works makes art and sells art. The art is made collaboratively by people with and without disabilities. I listened to the studio director explain the concept to the children this way, "We all have disabilities, some are obvious, some hidden." Some of what they do is make art, some is displaying art, and the program is paid for by selling that art. The love of making art underpins it all.

As I lean into motherhood, I want to collaborate in this same way. Connecting with others means gaining strengths, sharing weaknesses, and having the opportunity to be something totally different than one artist, one mother, or one anything all by myself.

If we link up, we just might pull each other along.

In yet another event of the week, the munsters and I, along with 14,000 other inhabitants of Athens trekked down to the OU green for President Obama's campaign rally. I could see the back of a tall athlete who blocked what the remaining tree leaves didn't. I could hear some of what was said. I was acutely aware of the presence of a lot of people very near me. When we finally abandoned ship, two thirds of the way through the rally, I wondered why we stayed in the thick of it so long. Fresh air and space were right behind us.

Earlier in the day I had chatted with mothers who had attended a presidential visit with their children in 1964. 

This town is growing on me.

Obama visits Athens, Ohio