Are You Ready for Christmas?

This phrase has been repeated to me thousands of times over the last week.  I finally had enough last week and mouthed off to someone "Christmas is going to happen whether I'm ready for it or not".

Seriously, exactly what is it that we are preparing for?  The birth of the Christ child?  The celebration of the birth of the Christ child?  Or the annual gift grab that so many families engage in?

We have a birthday party at our house on Christmas day, and have ever since the birth of our first child.  Cake and ice cream.  I wanted the kids to equate Christmas with a birthday party.  Just like their annual birthday party, we have lots of family over.  Before the birthday party begins, we ice the cake, and I let the kids decorate the cake with sprinkles.  Lots of sprinkles.  When the kids were still under the age of 10, it was my contention that the sprinkles on that cake alone were enough to induce a diabetic coma.

After dinner, we always have cake and ice cream.  We put candles on the cake, and we light the candles and sing happy birthday to Jesus. 

My goal, since the beginning, has been to have the kids realize that first and foremost, Christmas is a celebration of Jesus' birth.  We do the same things at our Christmas celebration that we do at our family parties.  Lots of family, and lots of talking, lots of fun.

The presents have always been one of the last things we do.  And, we've always made a point of handing out the presents one at a time and everyone watching while each person opens a gift.  It's never been a grab.  We've never wanted the kids to race down first thing in the morning, rip the paper off, and then race off again.  Within an hour of getting up they'd ask "What do we do now?"  or worse, "I'm bored".

A few years ago, we decided to spin things a little bit more.  Just as the Wise Men hunted for the baby Jesus after his birth, we now hunt for our Christmas presents.  (Keep in mind... our children are 18, 16, and 14.  We didn't start this until the youngest was 12!)   We leave a clue out for the children to find, and we hide more clues all over town.  It's the ultimate treasure hunt.  If you've ever been geo-caching, you know what I'm talking about.  Our clues are fairly well hidden, written in rhyme, and do take a while to find.  Usually, the presents are hidden somewhere around the house or yard, but the kids do enjoy the search, and the time we spend together.

But, when I'm asked "Are you ready for Christmas?"  I am saddened.  I see people rushing, rushing, rushing, but never taking the time to stop, listen, and be thankful just for the ultimate gift that we were given so many years ago.  Christmas isn't something that's wrapped in a bag, or tied up with string. 
And it's definitely not something tangible.

Christmas is about that wonderful gift, so freely given to us all.

In these last few days before Christmas, I invite you to stop, sit down, and spend some time with your loved ones.  It doesn't matter if everything is done "just right".  What matters is that you are able to spend time together, play some games together, and make memories that will last for a lifetime.

Mom, Can You Bring?

My oldest child is a freshman in college.  He's in the midst of final exams right now.  I am to pick him up on Monday afternoon for winter break.

His last day of class was on Tuesday, so I posted a little note on his facebook page congratulating him on completing his first semester of college, and wishing him good luck on finals.  I told him, I'll see you on Monday!

Little did I know....

He called home on Tuesday night, and I asked him what classes he was taking next semester.  "Two Math classes, two Physics classes, a Computer Science class, oh, and orchestra."  he replied. 

"Sounds interesting" I said. After I hung up the phone, I looked at my husband and said "orchestra?"  We both shrugged and said nothing.

A little back story here...  the kid has been playing Viola since he was 8 years old.  He made All-County Orchestra every year since 6th grade.   And here's the truly annoying thing.... he never practiced!  He has a knack for playing.  If he'd practice, he'd be an amazing violist.

Anyway, he played his Viola for the last time in May.  He hasn't touched it since then.  I asked him in August, when he was packing up for school, if he wanted to take his Viola along with him.  "No",  he'd replied.  "I don't see playing that thing again any time soon."

I deeply sighed, but I said nothing.

So, on Tuesday night, he tells us he's signed up to take orchestra.

Thursday morning, I get a call from him.

"Hey Mom, you know how I said I was going to take orchestra in the spring?"

"Yes"

"Well, it turns out that you have to audition to get in to the orchestra.  Is there any chance you can bring me my Viola.  Like, today??"

"What?  Why?"

"Well, my audition is this afternoon.  I could borrow one of their violas, but I'd feel better if I had my own."

And that is how I found myself headed back to school to drop off his viola on a Thursday morning.  I asked him if I could just leave it at the desk at the dorm and tell them "This is for the absent minded blonde kid".  He very quickly responded "You'd have to be more specific than that, Mom."

I guess this is the mixed blessing of having a child go to school in state. 

Anyway, I am wishing the absent minded kind of blonde-ish kid good luck!

(This was originally posted in my blog "A Mom's View" in 2011)

A New Cell Phone

My old cell phone was a beloved Nokia Mural.  I've had it for years, and I loved it.  It was one of the last generation of cell phones with web access before i-Phones became an instant phenomenon.  I had used it to take pictures at events for years.  I had even downloaded holiday ringtones for Halloween and Christmas.  My favorite feature of the phone was that I could change the colors of the lights, so the phone would ring in different colors.  My phone was usually green, but sometimes orange, and sometimes purple, and sometimes blue.  My screen saver was a picture of a waterfall somewhere in the mountains, and the ring tone was gentle chimes.

Alas, all cell phones eventually die.  I'd replaced the battery twice in the last three months.  Even with the new batteries, the charge was only lasting for 4 to 5 hours at a time.  I could turn off the phone and the charge would last longer, but that didn't really help when I was expecting calls or messages from the kids.

So, yesterday I bit the bullet and invested in a new cell phone.  I wasn't thrilled with it, but the price was right.  $10.  You know, the price should have tipped me off that all was not well with that phone.  I bought the phone and paid for a two year contract.  Brought it home.. and that's when the problems began.  The charge on my new cell phone was already gone when I got home.  I charged it again, unplugged it and took it with me grocery shopping.  Wouldn't you know?  The thing shut down because it had no charge while I was driving to the grocery store.  In the 24 hours I possessed this phone, I charged it four separate times.  After the 12 hour overnight charge, it shut down once again as soon as I unplugged it.  Did I mention that it was hot?  Hot, hot, hot.  The phone felt like it had been sitting on the dashboard of my car on a hundred degree day at high noon.

I took it back to the store this morning.  It turns out that I bought the phone from an independent contractor for my cell phone company.  I took the phone to the corporate store, but I had to go back to the independent contractor in order to return it.  Thankfully, someone at the corporate store talked to me before I left, and gave the go ahead and directions to me as to what I needed to ask them to do.

I went back to the independent contractor to attempt to return the phone with it's "30 day, no hassle return policy."  Turns out it was a bit more of a hassle than they advertised.  They kept trying to get me to exchange my phone for another phone of the same model.  I'm sorry, but in my experience when one particular batch or model of electronics is defective, typically all of them are defective.  It wasn't until I pulled out the name of the person I spoke to at the corporate office that they sullenly took care of me.  Then and only then was it a no-hassle return policy.

Here's the worst part of the return... my phone got so hot that it melted the little metal squares on the back of my SIM card.  That's pretty darn hot.  We're lucky that the phone didn't catch fire while it was charging overnight.  I am honestly expecting that we'll be hearing of a house that burns to the ground sometime in the next month due to a cell phone bursting into flame while recharging.

After I left the independent retailer, I went back to the corporate store.  Half an hour later, I walked out of the store a proud new owner of an i-phone.  I had tried to resist the lure of the i-phone, but none of the little flip phones that I love can access the internet, text, take pictures, and store my music.  Even better, my photos and music are stored in the i-cloud, so I can access them again from the cloud when I get a new phone.

We've been playing with my phone all afternoon.  I think I'm more fond of this than I was of my Nokia.  I do love Nokia phones, I've used them for over 10 years now.  But... this little i-phone is a really impressive piece of electronics. 

I am very impressed by the ability I'll have to keep track of everything in one place. 

I hate to admit that I'm impressed by the i-phone.  But.... I am impressed.

Mission Accomplished

Here it is, Monday afternoon.  After sleeping away most of yesterday, I think I'm finally capable of writing a coherent post.

Saturday was very successful in some ways, and not as successful as I would have liked in others.

I spent a lot of time Friday baking, baking, baking.  For the church bazaar, I made apple coffee cakes.

 

For the Improv. Group at the high school, I made brownies.
If you look closely, you can see my "secret" recipe!

In front- 2 coffee cakes, ready to go into the oven.
The batter and struesel are next, with the recipe back behind.

Here we have all of the finished projects.  The coffee cakes and one pan of brownies
are going to the church.  The box of brownies are going to the improv. group.

And finally, we have the boxes of stuff going to the white elephant sale.
The two boxes in the back- along with the monkey- are ours.
The rest of the boxes are all full of canning jars.  The craft group at the church swooped in
on them as soon as we brought them in and claimed them as their own, to turn into crafts for next year.

a word from the cat

Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!  I have sneaked onto the keyboard this morning! 

Life has been good.  The wood stove has been fired up since the snowstorm last weekend, and we have been basking in it's warmth in the chairs closest to the stove. 

I've made friends with the new, invader cat to the household.  We now share the bed of youngest human.  We have been curling up at the end of her bed, but now we think that we can work together to push her out of the bed and take it over for ourselves!  Ha-ha-ha-ha!  (That's Luna, cackling in the background)

We have an interloper who has been trying to take over our back yard.  He's a ginger cat.  We tried to jump him yesterday when he came sneaking into our yard, looking at our birds as his afternoon snack.  We're not sure how it happened, but somehow, we both ended up cornered up in the apple tree.  Youngest human had to bring a ladder to come and get us down.

Mom has been painting a lot.  She applied for 10 jobs in the last month, but has heard nothing  - no, not even a "we hired someone else, now go away" from anyone.  So now, she's painting.  We think it is a way to manage stress, but we are staying out of her way!  Personally, we think she'd be better off chasing some mice down in the back yard, or maybe rolling around on the floor with a catnip mouse, but what do we know?  We're just cats......

I'm going now.  I need to go keep an eye on Luna.  You never know what she might decide to do on her own if I'm not there to tell her what to do. 

-tiger.

*This was originally posted on my now defunct "Mom's View" Blog.

Reading to Your Kids

I loved reading to my kids.  Starting before they were born, I would read to them.

I read them everything I could get ahold of.  Textbooks, Dave Barry, Dr. Seuss.  When our oldest one was a wee little one with colic, the one thing that could calm him down was the sound of us reading out loud to him.  He would scream and scream, and one of us would pick him up, snuggle him up close and read the exploits of Dr. Seuss or Dave Barry.

As he got older, he eagerly awaited our weekly trip to the library.  He learned to count early because we would limit him to 20 books a week.  I'd sit on the floor of the library with my basket, and count books with him.  There were a couple of times when he'd sit and look closely between two or three books until he could find the one book that he liked the best to make 20. 

Some of my favorite preschool memories involve trips to the library.  I enjoyed picking out new books and reading new books almost as much as the kids did.  I have a Longaberger Medium sized market basket that used to go to the library with us each week.  It was the perfect size.  All of our books would fit in there.  The kids picture books would fit in spine up, with all of the bright titles shining out at us.  When the books weren't being read, they lived in the basket so that we could keep track of them between library trips.

I have to admit, we lost a few books over the years.  We've paid "rental" on several books that were late.  But the cost of those fines and replacement fees pales in comparision to the knowledge that my kids are active readers.  And I have 2 boys.  Boys are known for being reluctant readers, and yet they both love to read.

Why?  Because we set the stage early.  Reading was something we did as a family.  It brought us great joy.  We spent time together, looking at books, snuggling our children, and exploring new worlds together.

The boys did love to read non-fiction.  I do not.  So, we'd save the non-fiction books for when Daddy got home, and in the evenings, he'd sit and read endlessly from "The Animal Encyclopedia"  or "The Way Things Work" or "The New Book of Knowledge".  And, I'd sit there close beside them, listening with glazed eyes while the kids asked questions and Dad would go into infinite detail about say, how a screw worked.  And then, he'd get out his toolbox, a few screws, some wood, and a screwdriver, and they'd sit around putting screws into wood for half an hour before bedtime, all the while talking about where you'd use screws, and why you'd use screws instead of nails in certain situations...

I guess we didn't do all bad.  The oldest one graduated with a 4.0 and is double majoring in Physics and Math.  The middle one has something around a 3.5, and is an avid reader of business books and journals (and yes, he is Dyslexic, too.)  And our daughter has close to a 3.8.

I bring this up because I saw an article on CNN this morning that says something I think most of us already know  "It's the parent's job -- not the schools -- to find the books to get your kids reading and keep them reading".  http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/28/opinion/patterson-kids-reading/index.html accessed 9/29/2011. 

We as parents truly are our child's first and most important teachers.  What we show and model to our children is what they will live.  I know, it's frightening to think, isn't it?  They are such little mirrors of us and what we do.... 

And giving them a love of reading, which gives them the power to unlock doors, find out more, and make new discoveries?  To give them the curiosity to ask questions and find out why things are the way they are and work the way they do and see if they can understand it better, or make it work better?

I think that's the greatest gift that we can give to our children.

What Enthusiasm?

I was tx the other day, and saw a wonderful commercial with young children running with abandon through the house.

So, what happens to that abandon as we grow older?

I just watched my two teenagers leave the house.  Heads down, dragging their feet, they walked out the door and down the hill to the bus stop.  I remember 10 or so years ago, when they used to race each other to the bus stop first thing every morning. 

The joy in watching the bus pull up to the corner was only matched by the excitement in their faces as they got onto the bus, looked at me out the window with big smiles on their faces and waved enthusiastically as the bus pulled away.

Now, I'm not allowed to go to the bus stop in the morning.   I am told to stay here at home, and not even allowed to kiss and hug them before they leave.

Our college age son was home on Saturday.  He was happy beyond words when we picked him up, and chatted incessantly.  We dropped him off Saturday evening.  He got out of the car, his eyes alight with excitement.  He ran across the street, ran up the steps to his dorm, turned and waved to us enthusiastically and then went inside.

Okay, so the excitement is there, but it leads to a rather disturbing question:  was it always there and we just missed it?  Or is it just that he's thrilled to be away from us?

I'm not sure I want to know the answer to that question.