in case i'm gone

Apr 15

Bossy Bossy Two Socks

Dear Loch,

Years ago I wrote a children’s book called Bossy Bossy Two Socks. It’s a book about a little girl who, with all best intentions, spends all her time telling people what to do until eventually she discovers she has no one left to play with. It was an autobiography of sorts, a love letter to the lessons an only child must learn. I started thinking about Bossy Bossy Two Socks again recently and wishing I’d had it published. A: because “author” is a pretty good answer to “What do you do?” and B: because I’d have the book to read to you right now. BB2S is a book you should be reading and having it would allow me a way into a discussion about appropriate behavior. I wouldn’t even tell you I wrote it. Frankly, I think it would mean less if I did.

You’re in a mode. A pressing every button, testing every established rule mode. You talk back and act up and push your luck and, if I hadn’t seen it before I’d be nervous about what was happening to you. The thing is, I have seen it before. Every year around your birthday something like this happens. Overnight you seem to morph from the boy I raised to some unknown, attitude coping child I’m unsure of. When you turned three you started ignoring me. You’d stare right at me as I told you not to do something and do it anyway. You pushed hard against my authority. You even tried to swat me once while I was plugging you into the carseat. I was freaking out. What happened to my perfectly behaved boy? Who was this ruffian with his embarrassingly willful behavior? I brought all my anxiety to your wonderfully and amazingly zen teacher Tammy. I didn’t know what to do. What had I done wrong? What made you think this behavior was ok? Teacher Tammy, in her infinite wisdom, told me not to worry, that this was a normal phase. You were growing up, testing your boundaries and seeing, now that you were older, if the rules still applied. You were looking to me for guidance. You wanted to know what being three meant and I should see it as good and normal behavior even if it appeared the complete opposite. Another mother who overheard our conversation told me when her son turned three he started spitting, everywhere, including on her. She was so appalled that – for the one and only time – she’d slapped his hand. She said she felt like “Where did my child go? Who is this kid?” and I totally understood. Teacher Tammy told us both to relax and accept our job was to calmly and firmly remind our children of the rules. To let them know they may be older but the expectations remained the same. She reminded us that even though it was a trying period, it was a short one that would be outgrown provided we stayed firm, and two weeks later just as predicted, the testing stopped and the boy I knew returned to me.

From this….

When you turned four the behavioral shift arrived in the form of attitude coping. “Mommy, you don’t know.” “Mommy, you got it wrong.” It was eye rolling/teeth gritting/don’t lose it behavior and just when I’d bent down to eye level to “calmly” talk to you more times than I thought I could possibly handle, overnight your sweet disposition came flooding back. Now, you’re five and transitioning again. This time your boundary pushing has arrived resembling what I would call snit fits. If you don’t get what you want, you pout, you badger, you talk my ear off with disappointment and blame and if you’re worked up enough you fall into full fledged, life’s unfair, crying dramatics. I honestly think you’re subconsciously seeing how far you can push me before I lose it. The other day I had to put you in a time out because you became so completely worked up looking at yourself in the mirror. It was as if the more you witnessed your own devastation, the more devastated you became. It would have been hilarious if it hadn’t been so irritating. I understand things can be disappointing and it’s hard when we don’t get our way but life is like that and, if you don’t learn to handle it now, you’ll be more prone to breakdowns later, and there’s nothing worse than a grown man having a hissy.

Back to this.

The other issue five has kindly brought us is bossy, know-it-all behavior. I’m sure it’s partially the product of growing up an only child, though we’ve done our best not to let you run the roost. Your Dad and I make a big effort to encourage you to fall in, to play our game or use your second choice toy. It’s not because we care what placemat we’re using or what Ninjago we get, it’s because we don’t want you going through life expecting everyone to bow to your will. We’ve done you no favors if you think the world revolves around you and reality will be a crushing blow. We’re very sensitive you not grow up with an inflated image of yourself. We don’t want you to fall into a world of righteous entitlement. We want you to feel special. We don’t want you to feel SPECIAL. It’s important you understand everyone’s ideas have merit and just because you have a captive audience at home doesn’t mean the world will always stop to listen to you. Learning to be flexible, to defer to others, to know when to take the lead and when to give it away are important life skills and ones too often lacking in both children and adults.

Talks about behavior started early…

Up till now, you’ve been great at this kind of behavior. You’ve been a leader without being a dictator and I’ve secretly patted myself on the back for your excellent manners. So now that we’re returning to the post-birthday boundary check, these long established skills have been slipping and we need to reign them in. Recently you were playing at your BFF’s house and from the kitchen I could hear you screaming “No! You don’t do it like that!” “Stop playing until I say it’s time to start!” “NO! Wait for me to say ok!” And, when your friends ignored you and continued playing the way they wanted, you freaked out. “Stop! Stoooop!!!” I came in to find you standing at the side of the room just as livid as can be and I was floored. All your beautiful give and take, “please may I have?”, “that’s ok, I’ll play with it after” had been replaced by an unfamiliar, little tyrant yelling at his exasperated friends. When I asked you why you thought you were in charge you looked at me with irritation and disgust and said, “Because I’m the Director!”. Now, if you’d grown up on sets, or gone to work with your Dad, I might chalk this behavior up to remiss parenting and the need to extricate you from “the business” but you don’t even know what a Director is so the behavior was all you. What you really meant was you were the “Boss” and we needed to address it immediately.

…and has continued every year.

Driving home you explained you were frustrated because no one was playing the game “right” and when you tried to explain the rules no one was listening so you had to scream. I tried to impart parental wisdom by saying that unless a game comes with rules written down on paper, there is no “right” way to play and you have to learn to loosen up on the “rules” because everyone’s ideas were worth the same amount. I tried to explain if you kept telling everyone what to do, yelling that they were wrong and screaming when you didn’t get your way, pretty soon just like Bossy Bossy Two Socks, no one was going to want to play with you. I realize it’s a tough lesson but it’s one you have to understand. At this stage, having friends is infinitely more important than being in charge.

I love his face in this one. Normally it’s not caught on camera. Totally classic.

So, the battle continues. I hope the Post-Five adjustment ends sooner rather than later and I get my easy going boy back. Lochlan, I know you can’t stay the same forever. I know you’ll only continue to grow and change and each phase will test me in different ways. I can only hope I’m always able to rise to the challenge. I think children fail when parents get complacent and tired. Keeping up with the rules is exhausting. There are so many times when it would be easier just to say “eff it, I can’t deal with this” and let you do whatever you want, but high expectations require effort from both sides and we keep at it because we want the best for you. We want you to be the best you can be. We don’t want you to be that kid.

Most of all, we don’t want you to be that adult.

At the end of the day I’ll love you no matter what phase you’re in. Let’s just try and keep it an 80/20 split between my boy and that boy. Deal?

I love you always. Even when you’re a twit.

xo Mom

Mar 25

9 Comments

Perspective

I recently went to see the most recent movie from Nicolas “The Notebook” Sparks. I was going with my parents so we settled on Safe Haven with Josh Duhamel and Julianne Hough as a film we could all agree on. I wasn’t expecting much. I like romances but Sparks’ stories are pretty predictable and I find I generally waver between pleasantly entertained and slightly eye rollie. The only exception to this rule so far would be Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams in the aforementioned Notebook. The scene when they’re on the floor of the old plantation house elevates the film well beyond any typical feel good romance. Anyway, Safe Haven was exactly what I was expecting and was enjoying it well enough until I found I was becoming increasingly emotional. By the end of the film I was so overwhelmed I went to the bathroom and bawled my eyes out. The whole experience got me thinking about how our reactions vary so drastically depending on our perspective. The film had a different affect on me than everyone else in the theatre, except maybe my mother who was seeing it through my eyes.

Safe Haven (SPOILER ALERT) is about a young woman who escapes her abusive husband to find herself in a vacation town on the coast of South Carolina where she meets a handsome widower and his two adorable children. It’s relatively straightforward. She’s got trust issues, he’s still dealing with the struggle to move past his beloved wife, they fall for each other, love conquers all and, after her crazy ex-husband gets shot in the chest with his own gun, they live happily ever after.

The thing is, I was supposed to be rooting for the couple. I was meant to see her fill the void left by the children’s mother. I was to hope she’d trust this marvelous man – only alone by a cruel trick of fate – and cheer when she finally let her guard down enough to see that not all men are bad and that she was worthy of love. As I followed the plot however, I became increasingly aware that the character I was most associating with was not the main girl, or the husband or even the children. The character I was projecting onto was the dead mother. For obvious reasons the mother was the character I found myself most connected to. There’s a scene where Josh explains his son “remembers his mother” while the younger daughter just “remembers the idea of her”. It was supposed to make me see that if Julianne could win over the son, the daughter was already hers and everything would just fall into place. I found the entire thing devastating. Loch is younger than the daughter in the film and I know should something happen to me now, he’ll never truly remember me and another woman will easily be able to take my place in his heart. The son in the movie is older, say 11, and he’s angry and confused by his mother being gone but also by his Dad’s interest in a new woman and I found that concept equally unbearable. But, because this film is about two people falling in love and not the story of how people deal with grief, after a few short scenes of minor tween attitude, the boy is equally won over by the successor and ready to move on. Nice for the child. Nice for the Dad. Nice for the new girlfriend. But I’m still sad for the dead mom.

Did I mention the dead mother shows up to befriend and get to know the replacement. Yep, so there's that too.

Did I mention the dead mother shows up to befriend and get to know her replacement. Yep, so there’s that too.

At one point Josh Duhamel looks through a stack of letters in his wife’s old office which has been left like a shrine. It appears the mother wrote a collection of letters to be read by her surviving family members at key moments in their lives, “To My Son on his Graduation” or “To My Daughter on her Wedding Day”. Those letters, all sealed and waiting, are there to make us feel for the husband, for the burden he’s carrying and the job he’s now doing alone, but I was weeping away in my seat for the woman who wrote them and what she had to leave behind. Later in the film when that same building burns to the ground (thanks to the unbalanced ex) and I wasn’t worried for the child who had to jump from the roof or the female lead wrestling her ex with a gun, I was worried for the letters. Those painstakingly written last hopes and dreams. The final thoughts of a mother who had to leave her family but wanted them to know she was still with them. I kept thinking “Save the letters! Save the letters!” and when they didn’t, I was a wreck.

As it is with these kind of books and films however, there was a loophole. The letters, which were stored in a metal desk, were discovered intact when the husband roots through the debris after the fire. At the end of the film Julianne’s character, sitting on a beautiful, old tree swing, is given one of those letters. The letter is simply addressed “To Her”, meaning the woman who comes after, the woman my husband has chosen to love. As Josh and the darling moppets fish in the warm Carolina sun Julianne reads the letter. The dead mom’s voice over wishes her love and joy. She says she’s happy her son will have a mother and her daughter a confident. She says that she knows her husband must really love her because she’s reading this and she’s now able to move on because she knows her family’s taken care of. Julianne looks up, her eyes lock with Josh and they stare lovingly at each other. Their happy ending is all but guaranteed and all I could think of was the poor dying woman who’d been reduced to a disembodied voice.

Life is perspective. We hear in songs what we’re experiencing at the time. We react to words people say with the spin we feel in our soul. Someone having a baby is great news unless you just had a miscarriage or have been trying unsuccessfully for years to get pregnant. Getting an expensive present from your husband is lovely unless you know your family’s struggling with money. Birthdays make some people depressed and other people, like me, super happy. Our take on things is amplified by how we already feel. I was happy for the couple in the film but I didn’t care about them like I did for the woman who had to say goodbye before she was ready. I’m not feeling as noble as she was about being replaced, though for the sake of Sean and Loch I know eventually I might have to adjust.

There was one moment in the film I really appreciated. A second where they took a moment from courting to honor the memory of the person who was gone. The couple are at a particularly romantic location and Julianne asks Josh if he used to bring his wife there. He says yes and admits that for a while he tried to avoid places that reminded him of her because he thought it would be easier. He says he tried to put her from his mind, to not think of her… but he realized that wasn’t fair to her memory. That if he wasn’t remembering her, who would? He says, “She was wonderful and doesn’t deserve to be forgotten.”

Should I go, I would want Sean to find love again. I would want him to be happy. I would want Loch to have someone to love and mother him, to hug and kiss him and tell him everything was going to be ok. I wouldn’t want them to be alone but the thought of someone taking my place kills me. No matter how healthy it would be for them, I’m not ready to be forgotten. Right now I still believe I’ll beat my disease but, should I go down hill, I can see softening to the idea of being replaced. I can imagine a time where I’ll be at peace with the thought of simply being a memory and, with all the letters I write to Loch, perhaps I should take the time to write one to “Her” as well.

Sometimes the right thing to do is also the hardest. It’s all a matter of perspective.

xo leigh

Mar 4

6 Comments

On the Occasion of your 5th Birthday

Dear Loch

You just turned five. You’re FIVE years old. Half a decade. No longer a baby. A full fledged kid. You don’t toddle or struggle for words. You make yourself and your feelings heard. You are loving and empathetic, kind, funny, popular and cheeky. I am honored to know you and am so proud of who you’re becoming. I adore you with all my heart.

People say it goes so fast. The years fly by and one day your child is grown and you wish you could do it all again. You wish you’d spent more time together, not sweated the small stuff, appreciated every minute. I’ve heard that every time I’m at the end of my rope I should try and transport myself to the future and see my life after Loch’s grown. I should take a look in my rearview mirror and see no carseat, no goldfish, no little face. I should imagine hearing no kid music or little voice talking from the backseat and that should give me the perspective to see all the monotonous activities morphing into lovely memories I’ll surely miss. Though I understand this as a noble exercise that could possibly grant me that extra scrap of patience when I’m steps away from losing it, the truth of the matter is I believe true perspective is only really possible in retrospect. We can enjoy the company of our children, appreciate the moments of love and affection, revel in our unconditional love for each other, we can kiss their sweet faces and pray over their little sleeping bodies, but we can’t truly appreciate the passage of time until it’s passed. It’s too much to expect of ourselves and just another thing to feel guilty about when we don’t succeed. You can’t see a forest if you’re tied to a tree and the rope only slackens up as our children age and gradually pull away on their own. It’s only with distance that we can see a bigger picture. Yes, childhood goes fast but in many ways it also goes slow. I stayed home with you. I’ve been with you every day of your life.* I was there when you walked and talked and sang and learned and grew. I committed to your well being, your education, your entertainment. I introduced you to everything from manners to live theatre and all the things in between. I’ve been your constant companion, champion, teacher and friend and I’ve loved almost every minute of it.

Being a parent is by far the best thing I’ve ever done. Being your parent is a gift from God I’m grateful for every day. I know I’ll look back on these baby years with longing but I’m also looking forward to the next step. I know there a lot of working parents who feel guilty they’ve missed some milestones but I don’t find myself in that position. I didn’t miss anything in your life. The things I missed were things that belonged to me. As a parent whichever way you choose you’re going to miss out on something. It’s impossible to do it all, be it all. have it all. Something has to give. If you’re at work you’re missing out on your kids. If you’re with your kids you’re missing out on your work. We do the best we can and live with the guilt however it comes.

I’ve been tired lately. Not of you but of me. I’ve been so caught up in the business of being a parent I find I’m less capable of experiencing the joy of being a parent. I watch your Dad play with you and I get down on myself for not being more like him. As you wrestle or play superheroes or legos I feel I should be able to handle more than an hour (or sometimes 15 minutes) of down-on-the-floor-playing but I can’t. I’d rather be out in the world experiencing something with you, or taking you somewhere, or getting some writing done or folding the damn laundry.

I fight to live in the moment when I have so many other things in my mind. On the flip side your Dad’s time with you is more spuratic, more fleeting. He’s able to give himself over to you completely because your time together is finite. Our time together is more extensive and fluid. We’ve experienced so much together. Played for hours at all ages. You’ve grown up in front of my eyes and I’ve decided not to get down on myself for being excited for the next phase. I’ll always treasure our days together but I look forward to having some time belong to me again. Time to find worth in my work and not just your behavior. Time to explore my own happiness and not just live vicariously through yours. You will always be my top priority, my first and most important job, your happiness will always come before mine, but as you grow, so again shall I.

I’ll miss these days. I’ll miss our time together. The concentrated, one-on-one Mommy/Lochie time. I’ll miss your unbridled affection, your devotion to me, your constant desire to be with me. You recently told me you didn’t want to turn 5. When I asked why you said it’s because 5 year olds have to go to kindergarden and you’d rather stay in preschool. You understood it. You liked it. You weren’t ready to move on. I get it. I have moments when I feel exactly the same, both for your life and mine, but I told you no matter what we do we can’t stop time from marching on. We have birthdays, we get older, we transition to the next phase and the best we can do is appreciate each one as it comes.

I have six months until you start kindergarden. Half a year to truly treasure these last days of your first phase before we start celebrating the beginning of the next. Every part of your life is important, every transition exciting, and even though each step will take you further from my side, each one only solidifies you in my heart. I love getting to know you Lochlan. I love the discovery of who you are and who you might be. I am not afraid of you getting older. I will look back on these days as glorious memories. I’m not sad. I’m excited and proud and I only hope I’m around for the many more phases to come.

Happy 5th Birthday Darling boy!!!

xoxox your mommy

Photo credit for all green pictures to the lovely geniuses at Hendershott Photography. We are so lucky they like to use our kid to play around. Yay Adam & Sylvia!

* Every day except nine. Three, weekend trips with your father and one three night trip to NYC when you were two

Feb 12

A Lesson in Love

Dear Loch,

Love is the most important thing in your life. It is now, when you’re small and dependent on your parents’ love and protection. It will be when you’re grown and find a home in the heart of another, and it will culminate in the love you’ll feel for your future children. But for this the season of cupids and cards, let’s put parental love aside and focus on romantic love which you will experience all varieties – obsession, heartbreak, ambivalence, lust, desire – throughout your life. Ultimately you should look to find yourself an equal, a partner who not only turns your head but fills your soul. Love, at it’s essence is acceptance. If it’s right you should feel supported for who you are and encouraged to become who you want to be. Love is not all passionate getaways and happily ever afters but at it’s heart, it has the ability to bring moments of true magic.

csmonitor.com

I’ve written about your father before, my love for him, the great blessing of finding such a partner, the struggles of marriage that befall any couple. I’ve spoken about dating and navigating your way through the discovery of love. But in the month of St. Valentine I want you to know that though love will be the most important thing in your life, you can’t make it your sole focus. I pray great love will find you but I want to encourage you to live your life and experience its many joys while you wait for it. Finding the right person is a blessing but before that person arrives there are bound to be some disappointments and it’s best if you are aware enough to handle them.

I can’t prepare you to deal with heartbreak. It’s something you just have to live through. All I can say is there’s life after heartbreak if you don’t let it to ruin you. Heartbreak, though painful, is a good sign. It means you committed. You put yourself out there and in doing so truly allowed yourself the best chance of success. It’s my belief that true love can only be attained from an open and unguarded heart. It’s hideously gut wrenching when it doesn’t work out but it’s better to be unsuccessful because you gave too much than to fail because you couldn’t give enough. People who guard their heart so tightly that they’re unable to truly commit or relax with another are the people I truly feel sorry for. You’ll get over heartbreak but you’ll never find true love if you aren’t willing to experience it.

weheartit.com

I’m can’t say for certain if boys and girls experience love the same way. I believe as we age men and women treat and see love in remarkably similar ways but I wonder, as you traverse the path of young love, if I can truly relate to you on your level. In my experience boys always seemed less invested in affairs of the heart. Not to say they weren’t committed or didn’t get hurt just that they seemed to have a stronger ability to disconnect, move on, or play the field. Male dating behavior seemed to involve a lot less crying and certainly less rehashing of minutia details. Perhaps I’m wrong. Perhaps boys feel everything just as strongly but gender bias forces them into silence. I guess I’ll never really know until perhaps I watch you go through it.

sinisiamballs.wordpress.com

However it plays out I can tell you that when love takes hold it can control your behavior, your feelings, your choices, it can even change the person you become. People don’t start out bitter they get that way. Disappointment in love can cause great misery and if you experience it over and over it’s difficult not to allow past sorrows to dictate your future possibilities. The important thing is to keep the faith. Throughout my life of rather dismal dating experiences I never lost hope that there was someone out there for me. That hope didn’t prevent my suffering but it allowed me not to get trapped in it. For all the pain, I was never jaded.

Your younger years are full of unrequited love. It’s the way of the world. We all want what we can’t have. High School is tough. Certain people are considered the pinnacle of desire and others their pale comparison. You could navigate these waters without a hitch or struggle to keep up. The key is not to let it define you. Whether you’re the BMOC or the awkward guy trying to find his place, everything is fluid. Everything changes. Have confidence that becoming the best version of you will attract the right people for you. Don’t change to fit in. Don’t conform. Don’t become someone your not. Never do things you aren’t comfortable with to make someone love you. The greatest relationships I saw as a young person were not between the “coolest” people but the people who were coolest with themselves.

My lack of teen dating success can be boiled down to fear. I set my sights too high on older boys, or boys who only loved the beauties, and more often than not I allowed the opinions of others to dictate my choices. There were boys I could have gone out with, nice boys, boys I liked, but they couldn’t live up to the people I’d put on a pedestal or else my friend’s didn’t approve. Either way, I didn’t have a boyfriend till I was nineteen and the only person I have to blame for that is myself.

juliet’s balcony and statue in Verona.
verona-tourism.com

I wrote a boy’s name on the walls of Juliet’s house in Verona one summer when I was backpacking through Italy. I made it small and subtle and kissed the spot it was written. In those days I dreamed of love but I’d yet to experience it. I fantasized about boys who didn’t care about me and spent my time making out with boys I didn’t care about. I aspired to great love but settled for trivial attachments.

By University I was able to value myself more and compare myself less. I dated a lot, had a series of mediocre, short lived romances and one serious relationship that introduced me, for better or worse, to capital L, Love. I lost myself in that relationship and it wasn’t till it was over that I was able to pull myself out from under it. Loving someone can be the most powerful thing you do but it can break you and you have to be strong enough not to let it. You have to know who you are and have a clear enough sense of self worth that even if you lose yourself in a relationship for a while, you can walk away knowing you’ll never do it again. Problems start, not when you make mistakes, but when you repeat them.

Even the things that appear to be perfect can surprise you. I have a darling friend who had the most grown up, open, respectful relationship in High School. They were so well suited to each other, so in love, so devoted that no one questioned them ever breaking up. They made plans for the future and stayed together as we all went off to University. When he ended their five year relationship over the phone because he’d met someone else she was completely blindsided. Sadly, this happens. We change so much as we grow that ideal relationships from one phase of our life may not work in another. This happens with location as much as it does with time. You meet someone at camp or on vacation and it’s perfect, you try and make it work when you get home and it fails. The saddest thing about my friend is I think she believes she had her shot at great love and lost it. She’s never been as sure of herself, her gifts and talents as she was when we were kids. She’s never asked as much from a man again and, in a disturbingly self fulfilling way, no man since has been worthy of her. It breaks my heart she’s still alone. She’s so deserving of love. Life is hard but it’s so much harder by yourself.

fanpop.com

When I was in my mid-twenties a boy who’d always been pleasantly dismissive in my teens, looked at me across a pool and said, “I should have been nicer to you in High School”. It might have been a kind and aware thing to say – a young man suddenly realizing how superior he and his friends had been to all but a few of us – but what was really happening is he was hitting on me. He was saying, “Hey, you turned out way hotter than I thought you would and I should have laid some groundwork when I was younger because I don’t have as much of a chance now.” He wasn’t wrong.

Ironically, a lot of the boys I’d pined for seemed to return as I got older. It was as if they’d always been interested in me the person, but now that I looked differently they could commit to being interested in me the girl. Keeping this in mind, never judge potential partners on too narrow a list of requirements and try not to idolize. You can’t fight chemistry, you’re either attracted to someone or you’re not, but make sure you like the person inside the package. You’re convinced someone’s perfect for you? Make sure your perception matches the reality. Love a person not the ideal and understand people can grow in relationships, improve or degrade depending on the love, but ultimately you can’t change someone. We can be better versions of ourselves -clean up, learn new skills, get better looking – but at the end of the day we are who we are and deserve to be loved for that person first.

darrenhardy.success.com

You shouldn’t have to second guess love. I was never totally at ease with anyone before your Dad. I knew I only had a tenuous hold on most of them, they were only partially committed to me and no matter how much I cared it was never going to be right. When I met your Dad, I knew immediately. I always say, I could have told you I’d marry him on our first date, but if I was being truly honest, I think I knew the first time we made eye contact. There was something about that moment – a recognition, a stillness and I never questioned it. I may have a million terrible dating stories but I never doubted I deserved love or could make someone truly happy. I knew I was worthy of someone who would meet me at my level. Getting to know your Dad was like coming home and everything that came before had lead me there. I didn’t need to lower my standards or expect less. I didn’t have to pretend or settle. When we got engaged I knew in my heart it was the right decision and it took everything that came before to prepare me to recognize that.

Love to the fullest. Don’t guard yourself or hold back thinking it’s safe. You will experience hurt but it’s part of the journey. Things have a way of working themselves out.

Believe in love. Have faith in love. Respect love and in the end it will respect you.

Happy Valentines.

Love forever,

Your Mommy xo

The path to true love is never smooth.
indiaforums.com

Jan 21

25 Comments

Aging Gracefully?

I was at a holiday party this season speaking to a gentleman who was around sixty years old. We were having a great conversation when he asked me, in a flirtatious manner, if I’d come with a husband. I said, yes and pointed across the room to where Sean was standing his back to us. The man said, “The buff one in the gray? Must be nice.” Then, in a conspiratorial manner he added, “So…you married younger huh?” My wine glass nearly shattered under the pressure of the involuntary death grip. Married younger?! Excuse me?! What was he implying? Ok, truthfully Sean is two years younger than me, but this man was implying an age GAP, like I was some crazed cougar shopping for mates in the nursery. I get it, he’s young and handsome, but suddenly, in contrast, I felt I must look…what…old and tired? Yes, this man was still hitting on me, but it was like he was making a play for a contemporary and not the much younger woman I actually was. The whole experience left me feeling dismal.

Before and after from the botox website. Looks pretty good right?

I’ve flirted with the idea of botox for years. When I moved from New York to LA my incredibly expressive face, the one that could be read from the top balcony, was suddenly a serious detriment. On camera my expressiveness morphed from enthusiastic to garish. Everything was amplified and not in a good way. One on-camera coach informed me I should get botox immediately “to shut that s*#@ down”. I thought I would have done anything to get my career off the ground but I couldn’t get my head around injecting my twenty-seven year old face with a toxin so it was unable to move. Ten years later, seeing the result of that movement etched into my forehead, it’s starting to look like a pretty good idea. Years of conversations and “feelings” have stolen my fresh face and replaced it with one that looks, well, weathered.

Not ready to bite the bullet, I dance the perimeter of the anti-aging world with things like the new skin care line from Rodin + Fields. Rodin + Fields are the dermatologists who created ProActive Solution, a product I could never use (despite the need) because I was allergic to one of the key ingredients. However, when they introduced their new anti-aging line for both fine lines and brightening, I thought maybe some non-invasive reversing could help. I recognize it’s just a bandaid, but at this time I can’t afford (and am too afraid) of the other options.

Jessica Chastain on the cover of said Marie Claire only further encourages my desire for botox. My forehead hasn't looked like that in ten years.

Jessica Chastain on the cover of said Marie Claire only further encourages my desire for botox. My forehead hasn’t looked like that since I was a teenager.

Aleksandra Crapanzano wrote an essay in December 2012’s Marie Claire called Frozen in Time where she poses the question whether botox and anti-aging treatments are becoming not just the norm, but the unspoken expectation for women in our society. She writes about going to a dinner party and looking around the table at the other women. Despite the fact she was probably the youngest by ten years, she realized that without having undergone any injections or surgeries she probably looked the oldest. She asks, “Have the expectations of a certain stratum of society changed? Was it now uncouth of me to show up at dinner with my fine lines? Was it akin to showing up with mud on my boots and a moth hole in my sweater?” Now I may not be hobnobbing with Manhattan’s social elite but, looking around at the other women in Los Angeles, I can honestly say I understand how she feels.

I was recently doing some random flipping on the TV and came across an episode of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Having never seen it before I stopped to see what all the hype’s about. What struck me most – aside from the fact that certain women never grow out of junior high behavior – was their faces.

Is this look attractive? Seriously, I’m getting confused. celebitchy.com

What was happening there? It was horrifying. Everything was too tight, too shiny, too exaggerated and frankly, too frozen. I was inspired to tweet something (something I’m making an effort to get on board with) but I couldn’t properly formulate my distaste. What exactly was I thinking? Why did they all look like that? How could they look in the mirror and think they looked good? Were we coming to a place where that was beginning to look normal? In ten years will everyone look like that? God knows I understand the desire to retain a youthful appearance. I’d love to hold onto my jawline and crease free eyes but I couldn’t help thinking I’d rather look like a pile of wrinkles than, to coin a phase, a melted Barbie doll.

It’s brave to age naturally like this…
simpsonswiki.net

My concern is that we’re getting confused. The more we’re absorbed into the business of youth, the more disoriented we get. Is a lineless, frozen face the future’s new normal? Are we looking at a time when we don’t realize how ridiculous we’ve become? It’s obviously what Suzanne Collins was thinking of when she created the people of the Capital in her wildly successful Hunger Games trilogy. In the books the wealthy and elite are surgically altered, dyed and powdered within an inch of their lives with no sense of how absurd and, in many ways, grotesque they actually appear.

Crapanzano’s article references Timothy Greenfield-Sanders HBO film About Face, which interviews former supermodels about aging. In it Isabella Rossellini expresses her inner conflict with this whole new anti-aging industry. “I’m debating in my head. One day I get up and say, “Hey there’s this new technology, why not use it?” But most of the time I wake up and say, “Is this the new feet binding? Is this the new way to tell women, you are ugly deep down, you should be this and this. Is the main problem misogyny?”

…when people expect you to look like this.
nndb.com

Carmen Dell’Orefice, the still stunning supermodel of the 1950’s, offers a different perspective with a candid and casual “Well, if you had the ceiling falling down in your living room, would you not go and have a repair?”

I think there’s something to be said for both points of view. Don’t we all want to retain our face’s “natural” state, the face of our youth? My mom used to say she’s often surprised when she looks in the mirror because she doesn’t feel that old. Crapanzano acknowledges that feeling when she expresses the natural process of aging feels anything but natural because so few of us feel our age. She says, “Out of sight of a mirror, I still think I’m 30, tops. For most women over 40, looking in a mirror is an unpleasant collision with reality, a fissure in our denial. We just don’t feel how we look.” Dr. David Colbert, a Manhattan dermatologist known for keeping his patients looking “naturally” young poses a more probing question, “Does it make your life longer when you look 40 when you’re 60? Maybe. Maybe it’s the interpretation of your life that make it feel longer.” And according to Manhattan psychiatrist Dr. Marianne Gillow, her patients are consistently in better moods after botox, as if looking better makes them feel better, or perhaps the inability to frown simply makes people feel less “frowny”.*

You gotta hand it to her. Carmen Dell'Orefice is 82 and obviously doing something right in the anti-aging battle.herworldplus.com

You gotta hand it to her. Carmen Dell’Orefice is 82 and obviously doing something right in the battle against aging. herworldplus.com

I have to say seeing my face in photographs or a mirror these days has a clear effect on my mood and interpretation of self. I fear turning into one of those women who refuses to be photographed or, like my mother has a habit of ripping (or deleting) herself out of photos. I don’t want to break up with my image, I just want to like it. I don’t think these feeling are uniquely mine or even exclusive to women. There are some amazing before and after pictures of men in Kate Sommerville’s book on skin that would benefit everyone from Sean to my father. Yes, men generally age more attractively. It’s acceptable to see the results of aging on their skin and, in a cruel double standard, their wrinkles often end up improving their looks making them sexy and distinguished, but ultimately, men want to look young and fresh too. Look at poor Kenny Rogers…and he was a cowboy. They’re allowed to be wizened.

Adorable Lindsay vs. post unnecessary plastic surgery Lindsay. So sad.

It’s hard to open a magazine or turn on the TV these days without seeing an onslaught of perfectly smooth faces. Everyone from politicians on the national stage to movie stars on our grocery store news stands are there to show us how we could (should?) look and it’s difficult not to fall pray. I think if you’re going to do it, the key – after finding the right doctor – is to not go overboard (and never touch your lips). Everyone witnessed the destruction of Meg Ryan’s beautiful, quirky, adorable face, because for every Demi Moore there’s a Jocelyn Wildenstein around to freak you out. Crapanzano quotes Harvard-trained plastic surgeon Dr. Haideh Hirmand who says, “People get carried away and think, If a little looks good, a lot will look better and that’s not the case. I’m almost certain you look older if you do too much.” Case in point, previously adorable Lindsay Lohan who looks older than me now.

usmagazine.com

Ultimately, it’s a slippery slope. What is pretty if we can buy it? I remember when Ashley Simpson had her nose done. At first I was annoyed. Just accept what you look like already. But time passes, you forget about the nose job and all you see is the pretty girl the nose job uncovered. I hate myself for thinking it, but she looks better now, and once you’ve allowed yourself to forget she bought that face, you start thinking it was a pretty good idea. At the end of the day I don’t want to look different, I want to look the same. Life’s aged me and I’d like to recognize myself in the mirror again. I want to be the best version of myself, but not so young it becomes creepy. The aforementioned Demi Moore looks fantastic but she reminds me a bit of that old Meryl Streep/Goldie Hawn/Bruce Willis movie Death Becomes Her in which two vain competitive women make a pact with the devil (ironically, played by Isabella Rossolini) for eternal life and youth. As things go drastically and comically awry, they realize life isn’t about how you appear but who you are, and as they shatter to pieces at the end of the film, the audience sees the cautionary tale that is the worship of youth and beauty.

When it comes right down to it -as I said in my post on Birthdays – obviously the key for me is being around to age. I WANT to grow old. But, even with that perspective, I’d prefer the aging part to be a little less obvious. Life is special and sacred but feeling good about yourself is a part of that. Self confidence is akin to self worth and if people start looking at me like I’m expired meat I might start to feel like that. I don’t want to be tightened and pulled within an inch of my life. I always want to look like me, older or no, but if I’m never mistaken for my husband’s sugar mama again, it will be too soon.

I mean really?! Come on!!!

xo leigh

* Aleksandra Crapanzano, Marie Claire December 2012, Frozen in Time

Jan 7

2 Comments

Time To Be A Grown Up

I just returned from Christmas vacation in Toronto with my family and we had an absolutely amazing time. We haven’t been home to Canada in the winter in five years but after having such a lovely time in Oregon last Christmas Sean and I realized there’s something to be said for getting “away” for the holidays. Celebrating in our own home is nice, but the luxury of being able to leave – to go somewhere where we aren’t constantly reminded of things that need to be done or work that should be accomplished, a place where friends are close and family is closer, a space far removed from our “every day” – is a real treat. Our lives have a habit of becoming repetitive, sort of a “same s*^# different day” mentality that a change of scene really shakes up. Turns out it was just what we needed to refill our tanks.

Obviously, being the kind of chummy, togetherness family we are, we filled our days with plenty of family activities encouraged by the season. We walked downtown to see the beautiful Christmas windows decorated for the young and young at heart, we did multiple days of tobogganing (sledding for my south of the border friends) down the snowy white hills in our mismatched ski clothes, we made snow men, angels and igloos on the front lawn and cozied up inside for movies with hot chocolate. Christmas day was thrilling (how can it not be with a little person?) and the spirit of the season filled my childhood home. Two full weeks allowed us to have a real visit with my parents and Loch and his Granny were like peas in a pod. Every morning he’d open the door to my room not to say good morning but to take a shortcut to his beloved Gran. It was both sweet and awesome to be able to roll over and go back to sleep knowing he was happy and I wasn’t in charge.

How great is that snowman? Love my family!

Family time aside, what struck me the most about this holiday was how energized I felt being able to go out and socialize as an adult. Not as a family, but as a couple, or even as an individual. We did have a wonderful Christmas Eve with six of my oldest friends, their spouses/partners and children, but even amidst all the chaos it felt as if the priority remained on the adults. The children ran around and did their thing but I think the grown ups were free to enjoy their evening. I’m willing to accept it might have just felt like that to me because my child is almost 5, comfortable in the space and can feed himself, but for the most part I felt the children, instead of being the focal point they usually are, were able to fall in and let their parents come first. Before everyone went home we even had the energy to do some singing as a group. For me it was the most special Christmas Eve I can remember having. A perfect storm of family, friends and joy for which I was incredibly grateful.

The boys in my life. Good sports every one.

We don’t go out a lot in LA. We sometimes see movies or go to dinner, but between Sean’s insane work schedule, our friend’s busy lives and our baby sitter’s availabilities, we don’t do it that much. I don’t know whether it was the fact that it was the holidays, we had a built-in baby sitter or people were just up for going out, but Sean and I were really social over the break and it was fantastic. We had night of tequila and Mexican food with my Maid of Honor and her new love who, after a decade of living in NYC is finally back in Toronto where I can visit her. We spent an terrific weekend with one of my oldest friends and her family up in ski country where we were outdoorsy all day and spent rosy cheeked nights chatting away while our children played. New Year’s Eve was a riotous evening of old friends, great nibbles and big laughs where even some dancing took place. And finally, and what really solidified this whole thought for me, was a dinner we had with a dear friend of mine from High School and his adorable wife. We connected at a great Italian restaurant, drank a couple bottles of wine and enjoyed four hours of animated, candid conversation. After we’d dropped them off, I turned to Sean and said, “That was an absolutely perfect evening” and it was. Good food, great people, and real grown up interaction. I don’t think any of us noticed the time fly by. There’s a real under appreciation, especially with parents, for taking time to yourselves. I’m not talking about things like spa days, because honestly how many people are actually doing that, but an afternoon or evening here and there that truly belongs to you. Where our conversations shift to subjects other than work or kids. A time where the enjoyment of our peers and ourselves becomes the focus.

The Christmas Eve Gang. Such a wonderful evening.

There was a night a couple of months ago when a group of moms from Loch’s preschool were getting together for dinner. I was exhausted and seriously considering bailing, but I pulled it together, slapped some blush on my cheeks and willed myself out the door. What struck me most, almost instantly after I arrived, was how un-tired I felt. I thought I’d stay for one drink and here I was all perky and laughing. What I realized in that moment was only part of me was tired – the mom part – the other part of me – let’s call it the Leigh part – was really excited to be out. That part of me was thrilled to be among her peers and perfectly happy to order a second martini. I try to remind myself of that feeling every time I think I don’t have the energy to rally at the end of the day. Only part of me is whipped. The other part is just bored.

2 days of skiing with our great friends from the cottage. Fun for kids and grown ups!

I have a close group of friends here in LA. It’s basically three couples with kids and two singles. We used to do a annual dinner out for everyone’s birthday but over time it became increasingly more complicated to organize and we ended up celebrating March birthdays in June or putting two birthday’s together, so we finally let it go. The thing is, now we barely see each other. Sure our dinners only happened five or six times a year but at least they happened. I looked forward to them and now, with all our busy schedules, there’s never any time to see our friends. Without the excuse of the birthday celebration, there never seems to be a reason to make plans.

Some of the New Years crew.

If you’re a parent you understand when I say “embrace the adult part of yourself”. It’s the part that still bothers to do your makeup or craves a couple of hours when no one’s asking you for something. A time when you can stop trying to shape a person and just be a person. But I also think it’s important for people without children to embrace that part too. We aren’t just parents or our jobs. We can’t simply fall into routines and forget to get out. Remember when you used to wait for the weekend? When you’d be excited planning your social life? We shouldn’t stop just because we got busy…or tired.

I’m excited for a fundraiser for Loch’s school in May because it’s a dinner dance where I can plan a costume. I’m eagerly awaiting the summer when my BFF and I will go dancing. I’m psyched for a friend’s birthday party that has yet to be planned because he mentioned he wanted it to be a masked ball. It could be next year but I’m already looking forward to it and that’s slightly depressing. These nights out shouldn’t be so few and far between. If I learned anything this Christmas, other than Mt. Sinai is a far better hospital than Sunnybook, it’s that we need to make more of an effort. That seeing our friends is a spirit lifter. That we require more nights of companionship and conversation and we should remind ourselves more than twice a year that we’re more than a collection of schedules, habits and errands. Connecting with others reminds us of ourselves, not just our given roles.

If I know anything, it’s that life is short and you never know what cards you’re going to be dealt. I realize life’s not a vacation. That we don’t always have the time, finances or inclination to go out. But this holiday reminded me that I should more of an effort. That the simple action of interacting with my peers made me happier. Time with our kids is wonderful. Commitment to our spouse is essential. Devotion to our job is both lucrative and inevitable. But our friendships, our adult based interactions, are vital to our mental health. We need those connections. We need those evenings or lunches or whatever to remind us of who were are at the root of it all. We deserve to be excited. To have fun. To get dressed up, because time for yourself, for the person inside who wants to be more than what they do or who they take care of, is indispensable. So though it might feel like it’s the last thing on your to do list, I believe our lives are better and more full when we live them, not just exist within them.

Happy New Year! Go call a friend.

xo leigh

Dec 17

10 Comments

Tragedy in Newton: What’s wrong with the USA?

The post I had planned for this week seemed frivolous and inappropriate in the wake of the recent tragedy in Connecticut, so I’m going to take this time to briefly express my views, as simplified as they are, on this hideous and sickening event.

First of all, I grew up in Canada where guns are rare and for the most part belong in the hands of the police or terrible criminals. There was no “gun culture” in Canada so even as an American I feel no constitutional pull to “bare arms” in any way. I don’t want a gun. I don’t like guns. I don’t understand, other than hunting (which I’m also not big on) why you would need a gun. I understand the concept of protecting yourself but at what point does your right to “protection” start infringing on the protection of everyone else? Sean and I have decided that we only really want a gun “if the zombies come” because it’s not as if we’d be using it in any other way. Gun in one locked box. Ammo in another. Probably in two completely different places in our house. It’d be useless in a crisis and, frankly, I’m fine with that. Bringing a gun into play changes the game and it’s a game I’m not equipped or interested in playing.

.223 assault rifle, like the one used in the shootings.

Guns were made to kill. That is their purpose. Why regular people in no eminent danger feel the need to have them is foreign to me but I realize it’s a big part of the American culture so I can understand even if I don’t agree. Assault weapons on the other hand – AK-47, semi automatic weapons, fully automatic weapons – I simply can not abide. Assault weapons were created to hold and get out as many bullets as quickly as possible. They are weapons of war that I believe have absolutely no place outside of the military. They don’t belong in the hands of hunters, home owners, collectors or God forbid, mentally ill sociopaths. They are a weapon akin to a bomb as far as destruction, and as far as I know bombs are illegal.

“Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.” I know, love and respect many people who say this but I think it’s a trite phrase touted for years that allows people to pass the buck. Of course people kill people, but the access to guns makes it a hell of a lot easier and destructive. A child who picks up his father’s gun to show a friend and ends up shooting himself can only do that because the gun is there. The angry and disturbed young man who shot 32 people at Virgina Tech could only accomplish that because he was able to get his hands on two semi automatic hand guns. Yes, it is essential we figure out what’s at the bottom of all the anger. Why these young men feel there’s no alternative but mass murder and suicide. We must get to the root of the problem and better respond to the issue of mental illness. We must weed out the cause, but in the meantime, we must also make it harder for disturbed people to follow through with their plans. Even without a “No Guns. Period.” law – which I realize is impossible – limiting the access to weapons can only help. If Adam Lanza only had access to a knife like the mentally ill man in central China that attacked an elementary school on the same day, rather than three semi-automatic weapons with multiple round magazines, the death toll would have been exponentially lessened, as it would have been in the movie theatre in Aurora, CO, the Sikh temple in Wisconsin, or the High School in Columbine, CO.

We have to stop being afraid to talk about this. As Ezra Klein for the Washington Post said in Twelve Facts about Guns and Mass Shootings in the United States, “If roads were collapsing all across the United States, killing dozens of drivers, we would surely see that as a moment to talk about what we could do to keep roads from collapsing. If terrorists were detonating bombs in port after port, you can be sure Congress would be working to upgrade the nation’s security measures. If a plague was ripping through communities, public-health officials would be working feverishly to contain it. Only with gun violence do we respond to repeated tragedies by saying that mourning is acceptable but discussing how to prevent more tragedies is not. “Too soon,” howl supporters of loose gun laws. But as others have observed, talking about how to stop mass shootings in the aftermath of a string of mass shootings isn’t “too soon.” It’s much too late.”

The innocent child victims of Sandy Hook Elementary

We have to stop falling back on old rhetoric and realize the system is broken if our citizens are not safe. Our children are DYING in their classrooms. Whatever you feel your rights are, they can’t possibly trump the safety of our children, or ourselves, as we go about our daily lives. Guns are a serious problem that needs to be addressed in a serious way. It’s not going away, if anything it’s getting worse. Time Magazine has a list of the 25 worst mass shootings in the last 50 years and 15 of them are in the US. The second place goes to Finland who has 2. Of the 11 deadliest shootings in the US, 5 have happened SINCE 2007 and that doesn’t include these Connecticut murders with it’s death toll of 28, now the second-deadliest mass shooting in US history.*

David Remnick from the New Yorker recently wrote an article entitled What Obama Must Do About Guns in which he clearly and adamantly insisted our President stop falling back on empathy following such a tragedy and take some serious and decisive action to deal with the issue of guns. It may be a heated political topic that polarizes the country but what kind of country are we, and what kind of leader is he, if the safety of our citizens isn’t our paramount concern? As Mr. Remnick says, “We have grown accustomed to what will happen next. The President will likely visit a funeral or a memorial service and, at greater length, comfort the families of the victims, the community, and the nation. He will be eloquent. He will give voice to the common grief, the common confusion, the common outrage. But then what? A “conversation”? Let there be a conversation. But also let there be decisive action from a President who is determined not only to feel our pain but, calling on the powers of his office, to feel the urge to prevent more suffering. His reading of the Constitution should no longer be constrained by a sense of what the conventional wisdom is in this precinct or that. Let him begin his campaign for a more secure and less violent America in the wake of what has happened in Connecticut.”

A vigil for the victims outside a church in CT.

Nicolas D. Kristof sites some excellent and plausible suggestions in his Op-Ed piece for the New York Times Sunday Review called Do We Have The Courage To Stop This? After pointing out this “isn’t about one school shooting, but the unceasing toll across our country. More Americans die in gun homicides and suicides in six months (approximately 15,500) than have died in the last 25 years in every terrorist attack and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq combined.” (2000 casualties in Afghanistan as of 09/30/2012, 4,326 in Iraq since 2003, and 2,751 victims in 9/11 Attacks total 9,077) After suggesting such changes as limiting gun purchases to one a month to curb gun traffickers, restricting the sale of high-capacity magazines so a shooter can’t kill as many people without reloading, imposing a universal background check for gun buyers (even with private sales), he directs us to the examples of other countries who have adjusted their gun policies in the wake of similar tragedies. “In 1996, a mass killing of 35 people in Australia galvanized the nation’s conservative prime minister to ban certain rapid-fire long guns. The “National Firearms Agreement” led to the buyback of 650,000 guns and tighter rules for licensing and safe storage of those remaining in public hands. The law did not end gun ownership in Australia but reduced the number of firearms in private hands by one-fifth, and all but eliminating the kinds most likely used in mass shootings.” And it worked. In the 18 years before the law, Australia suffered 13 mass shootings, but not one in the 14 years after the law took full effect. The firearms murder rate also dropped by more than 40 percent with the suicide rate being reduced by more than half (Harvard Injury Control Research Center). Kristof also suggests looking to Canada which “now requires a 28-day waiting period to buy a handgun and it imposes a safeguard where gun buyers must have the support of two people vouching for them before the transaction is able to be complete.” Finally he cleverly suggests we simply look to our own history on auto safety. “As with guns, auto deaths are often caused by people who break laws or behave irresponsibly. But we don’t shrug and say, “Cars don’t kill people, drunks do.” We require seat belts, air bags, child seats and crash safety standards. We have introduced limited licenses for young drivers and are trying to curb the use of mobile phones while at the wheel.” And the policies have worked. With these governmentally implemented auto safety regulations America’s traffic fatality rate per mile driven has been reduced by nearly 90 percent since the 1950s. Kristof rightly points out that if we don’t get as serious about our gun safety as we are about our auto safety, many more will die because of our failure. **

This is no longer a situation that can be blamed on one crazed madman. Yes, one man is responsible but the problem is much further reaching. As John Cassidy said in his New Yorker article America’s Shame: Words and Tears Aren’t Enough, “All societies have deeply troubled and alienated young men, some of whom end up violently lashing out at the world. But in most other advanced countries, such as the United Kingdom, which banned handguns after what happened at Dunblane (in 1996, a former Scout troop leader entered a primary school in Scotland, and shot to death sixteen pupils before killing himself), these misfits don’t have easy access to guns and the gun culture that glorifies them. During recent years, politicians of both parties, President Obama included, have been far too reticent about spelling out this elemental truth. In the immediate aftermath of the massacre at the cinema in Aurora, President Obama refused even to talk about the gun laws, preferring to keep the focus on the victims.” ***

We have to stop making excuses. We have to stop hiding behind an amendment from over 220 years ago and accept that we live in a different world now. A more unkind, angry world with laws that no longer fit the hostility of certain factions of society. Yes, we should also seek the root of the problem, to discover what’s broken in our system causing people to become so desperate they see no other way out or lets mentally ill people fall through the cracks, but in the meantime, we must seriously consider taking the weapons away. As Adam Gopnick, also of the New Yorker, recently said in his article Newtown and the Madness of Guns, “Let’s state the plain facts one more time, so that they can’t be mistaken: Gun massacres have happened many times in many countries, and in every other country, gun laws have been tightened to reflect the tragedy and the tragic knowledge of its citizens afterward. In every other country, gun massacres have subsequently become rare. In America alone, gun massacres, most often of children, happen with hideous regularity, and they happen with hideous regularity because guns are hideously and regularly available.”

I cried my eyes out when I picked Loch up from school on Friday. Hearing his little voice in my backseat, seeing his chirpy face in my mirror. So many parents will never hear that voice or see that face again. That is unacceptable. So many people have been forever devastated by this senseless monstrosity. My heart is broken. My faith in this country is shaken. I’m sick to my stomach. I want to do something to help but how do you make people listen? How do we enact change if even cataclysms like this don’t wake people up?

We can do better. We should be better. If no one stops it, this will go on. As Nicholas Thompson says in America’s Culture of Violence “Voters need to be loud, politicians need to be brave, and the gun lobby needs to be defeated.” There are other issues at hand, but this is the first step and it must be taken.

Let us take this as a call. We must stop sitting in the complacency of our safe, little lives and realize if we don’t step up, that safety could be gone forever. There are rights and there is the greater good. When our kindergarden students aren’t safe in their own classrooms the time has come to stand up and say No More. Every killing is a tragedy. This is a call to arms.

*Ezra Klein Twelve Facts about Guns and Mass Shootings in the United States

** Nicolas D. Kristof Do We Have The Courage To Stop This? New York Times Review, December 15, 2012

*** As of 12/16/2012 Huffington Post and NBC News reports Dianne Feinstein is to introduce an assault weapon ban on the first day of congress. Please don’t turn this into an impotent circular debate of cow towing to your constituents and lobbyists. Pull together for once and do what is best for the country.

Dec 2

4 Comments

The Me First Mentality

Dear Loch,

The world is not the same as it used to be. It’s harder, tougher, more self serving. People don’t take care of each other like they used to, or at least as I’ve heard they did in say, Grand Mimi’s time. Even when Granny was young it seems people were more willing to look out for one another. That’s not to say there aren’t twenty-first century people who give of themselves, but just that it seems they’re more the exception than the rule. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that my generation never lived through a major coming together like a great war or depression. We’ve faced financial hardship and God knows there’s been enough blood shed for generations to come, but wars over oil or perceived nuclear threats are different from the Great Wars fought for ideology and losing your house because of loose banking regulations is less uniting than the dust bowl and the crash of the entire economy. Those times forced our country to band together to weather a storm. It was a time where people on the home front sacrificed and contributed and the war was the news of the day. These days it feels as if we’ve become complacent, leaving the wars to faceless soldiers halfway around the world, it barely registers in our daily lives. Our most recent conflicts didn’t even raise taxes. We’re paying for it with our hideous deficit, but it’s almost as if we thought we could get involved without really involving ourselves. We’ve become so used to looking out for the individual that we’ve created a culture that celebrates and rewards those who put themselves first.

underconsideration.com

Lochie, I’m sorry to say that you seem to be growing up in a “what’s best for me?” world. I’m not sure how to advise you to navigate it other than to say try and choose a higher path. It’s fair to wonder how you’ll be able to compete if you aren’t playing the same game as everyone else, but I’m confident it’s worth striving to rise above your most basic nature and attempt to be better than the lowest common denominator. Hold yourself to a higher standard than expected. Ask more of yourself and more of your friends. I often think of this idea when people are shocked by your manners. Fifty years ago, children were expected to behave. A child not saying please and thank you would have been a disappointment, an anomaly. Today, a child that doesn’t bowl you over is a delightful surprise. Often, when we’re with guests or at someone’s house and I correct you for doing something impolite (interrupting a conversation or climbing on the back of their couch) people will say, “Oh, don’t worry about it. It’s ok.” As if the mere fact that you’re not destroying their house is cause to be impressed. My answer to their kind overlooking of your behavior is always, “No, it’s not.” I hold you to a higher standard. I expect you be well behaved and follow the rules. It’s how you were raised and I hope it’s how you’ll continue.

chandelight.blogspot.com

Nowadays more and more people – adults, not just children – somehow feel the rules don’t apply to them. They’ve convinced themselves they are somehow exempt from the standards to which others are accountable. I recently witnessed this first hand waiting for a treatment room at my acupuncturist’s office. A girl came into the lobby with a big golden retriever. My acupuncturist sighed and I looked at him and said, “The dog?”. He nodded and went over to speak with her. The conversation played out like this:

Acupuncturist: I’m so sorry but we can’t have dogs in here. We treat a lot of people for allergies and the pet dander makes it a really tough environment for them.

(Her response should have been something along the lines of, “Oh, I’m so sorry. Of course.” and promptly removed her dog. What actually transpired was an illustration of a society that thinks it’s special)

Dog owner: (non-plussed) Oh. Really? Can’t I just keep him in here this time?

Acupuncturist: (long pause) Um, well…no…because he’s a really big dog with a lot of hair and we’re really trying to keep the office pet free.

Dog owner: But he doesn’t like being tied up.

Acupuncturist: You can leave him on the patio. It’s fenced in.

Dog owner: I’d rather just keep him in here.

(At this point I wanted to go over and say, “Hey! This place is no dogs. That includes YOUR dog. The rule applies to YOU. Take. The. Dog. Outside.” But I said nothing.)

Acupuncturist: Um, unfortunately, I really have to ask that you take him out.

Dog owner: What if he runs away?

(Seriously lady?!!!! Like that’s going to happen.)

Acupuncturist: I’m sorry. I’m sure he’ll be fine.

Dog owner: (much huffing and puffing) Fine.

Dan Goodsell illustration from rivetart.com

The whole interaction was both ridiculous and representative of everything that drives me crazy about the “Me First” culture we’ve morphed into. Rules are rules. They exist for a reason and you’re not exempt just because of a sense of entitlement or inflated self worth.

I was infuriated in traffic the other day sitting behind a woman making a left turn at an intersection clearly marked (multiple times) No Left Turn. She sat there completely unconcerned with the honking and waited the entire light to make her turn. As I cooled my heels through the next light I grumbled to myself about people who think they can do whatever they want. From the backseat you asked me what I was saying. After explaining the situation, I told you it’s important that you respect the rules that are laid out in life, and even more importantly respect other people. You don’t do something just because you want to. The world doesn’t revolve around you. Frankly, I think you got it, and even more so I think you agreed.

Lest it appear that your mother is simply a wuss to the rules – a cow tower if you will – I should stress I’ve always been an advocate of rocking the system and I think you should challenge authority if authority needs to be challenged. I’m simply of the opinion that you can’t go through your life under the assumption you are special which somehow qualifies you to live under a different set of guidelines. And, yes, I believe that also goes for celebrities who continue to skate their way out of situations the rest of us would be in jail for. If that’s not the worst message to society I don’t know what is. Other people should not have to clean up after you. You’re responsible for your own actions. Blatantly disregarding rules for your own betterment does not make you better, and as you navigate this world I hope you’ll remember that.

the100percentyou.com

Nothing brings this point home more succinctly than a recent altercation your Dad had at work. He was bartending a Laker’s game and a man (who’d already proved himself to be selfish and self serving) tried to remove one of the stools from the bar to put at his table. Your Dad informed him that, unfortunately, the bar’s policy was the stools had to remain where they were. They were for bar patrons only and could not be moved. Outrightly dismissing your father this patron continued to leave with the stool. Again, your Dad stopped him, telling him more firmly this time, he would not be taking the stool. The man proceeded to launch into an angry tirade about how his elderly mother needed a place to sit and what kind of *^#@ wouldn’t give a stool to an elderly woman. Your father suggested the man take his mother to their seats if she needed to sit, but reiterated the seating rules. About an hour later a regular arrived to have dinner with his daughter at the bar. At this point it was very crowded and he asked if there was stool he could sit on. Your Dad looked down and saw one stool was missing (there’s only 7 so it’s pretty easy to see). Knowing exactly where it was and who it was with, he asked his barback to retrieve it. When the barback returned shame faced without the stool your Dad asked what happened. Apparently the same man had told him the stool was needed for his one-armed son who was in the bathroom. The man had asked Dad’s barback if he really expected his disabled child to go without a seat. Your Dad lost it. He left the bar, found the guy and called him out for not having a “sick mother” or a “one-armed son”. Realizing he’d been busted, the guy gave up the stool, but made no apologies for his behavior. When your Dad got home five hours later he was still furious. He couldn’t believe someone would be so despicable as to fabricate a disabled child just to get what he wanted.

usmagazine.com

People can be disappointing and I wonder with our society’s current leaning towards the celebration of people’s base natures – reality television’s generated fame lathered on undeserving people to the greed of a wall street tycoon who takes a company into bankruptcy but feels it’s appropriate to collect a bonus – if things really have the opportunity to improve. I’m always touched when someone goes out of their way to help me or does something classy like hold a door or send a thank you note. It seems like a glimmer from a lost time, a bygone era, and I appreciate it all the more for it’s rareness. What I’d like to see is proper behavior being less uncommon and it’s my hope that we can find it in ourselves to overcome our grasping natures and remember we don’t live here, or do anything, completely on our own. At the end of the day we are all connected and though personal fulfillment and success are wonderful, collective success helps us all.

Take the extra step. Respect the rules. Use your manners. And unless you’re rushing to the hospital…don’t turn if it says don’t. Honestly, it’s just so ignorant.

I love you. I believe you have it in you to be better than anyone will ever expect you to be.

Anyone, except me.

xo your devoted and ever opinionated mama

coffee-reverie.blogspot.com

Nov 19

8 Comments

Being a Parent versus Parenting

Dear Lochlan,

I’m sorry. Sometimes I feel as if I’m failing you. My personal struggles have a way of seeping into our life together. I’m tired and frustrated and I don’t always have the energy to do all I should for you. No, that’s not fair. I do everything I should for you. What I don’t do is all you’d like me to, and if I’m being perfectly honest, only part of that is because I don’t have the energy. The other part is because I don’t really want to.

As I said before in Pre K, I’m kind of sucky at “playing”. Moving cars or trains around on the floor with no game plan makes me twitchy. I’m happy to engage in a board game. I dig building. I’ve made more inanimate objects talk than I can possibly count and I’ve embodied every bad guy from this planet and beyond for you to destroy and capture, but I can only do it in ten to thirty minute intervals before I start planning my escape. I love talking to you. I love going places with you. I love singing and visiting and hugging and snuggling, but playing, just random “play with me” moments, exhaust me. I’m not four. I’m not a boy. I have nowhere near the energy you do and there are so many other things I need (or would like) to be doing. I love to work. Love it. It makes me feel good. I like using my brain. I feel pride in a job well done. I aspire to do better, be better, than I am, not just as a parent but as a person. Despite the fact that my life closer resembles a 1950’s housewife than the millennium power player I thought I’d be, I still aspire for things to be different. I cook and clean and do laundry because it needs to be done. I research the best schools and camps because I want you to be happy and fulfilled. I take you from class to class and involve you in extracurricular, play dates and sports because that’s what a good mother does, but I’m not fulfilled by it. I’d love to be one of those women I see at preschool drop off in full Lulu Lemon on her way to spinning, but my finances can’t stretch to exercise classes, and I don’t have time to waste those two and a half hours on something as frivolous as me. I have to get home, attempt to be creative on cue, then return to my job as a full time mother.

pinterest.com

I love being your mom but being a parent is sometimes a tough pill to swallow. There are days, like recently, when you were furious at me for A: choosing “totally the wrong shorts”, B: having the audacity to take off your long sleeve shirt so you wouldn’t be hot, and C: “interrupting” you, all before I’d even had a chance to brush my teeth, when I just want to say, I’m out, and go catch a movie. I don’t want to be away from you for long, but sometimes I could use an afternoon, an evening, a day, when I wasn’t in charge. I think that’s not so much selfish as self preservation.

I recently read an article in the New York Magazine called All Joy and No Fun: Why Parents Hate Parenting, that gave weight to some of the more complicated feelings surrounding parenthood and that ultimately, made me feel a bit better (and more justified) in my shortcomings.

The article points out that being a parent is something that most of us chose and when asked, would say we would be miserable without. I agree wholeheartedly with this as having you was an active choice that I can’t imagine living without. The article, however, goes on to say that most people assume having children will make them happier yet “a wide variety of academic research shows that parents are not, in fact, happier than their childless peers, and in many cases are less so.” The article quotes a 2004 study by Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Prize winning behavioral economist who, after surveying 909 working Texas women found that “child care ranked sixteenth in pleasurability out of nineteen activities.” * Preferred activities included cooking, exercising, TV, talking on the phone, napping, shopping, even cleaning. The article suggests that perhaps much of the problem may be attributed to the fact that raising children has fundamentally changed.

939kissfm.com

“Before urbanization, children were viewed as economic assets to their parents. If you had a farm, they toiled alongside you to maintain its upkeep; if you had a family business, the kids helped mind the store. But all of this dramatically changed with the moral and technological revolutions of modernity. As we gained in prosperity, childhood came increasingly to be viewed as a protected, privileged time, and once college degrees became essential to getting ahead, children became not only a great expense but subjects to be sculpted, stimulated, instructed, groomed. (The Princeton sociologist Viviana Zelizer describes this transformation of a child’s value in five ruthless words: “Economically worthless but emotionally priceless.”) Kids, in short, went from being our staffs to being our bosses.”

Reading that resonated on many levels. I do see childhood as a privileged and protected time. You’re an adult with responsibilities for so long that I think having the opportunity to be a child without pressure is key, but I also want you to go as far as you can in life and with that hope comes a certain amount of stress. According to the article I’m not alone. Apparently middle and upper class families are particularly susceptible to unhappiness as they are more likely to “see their children as projects that need to be perfected”. Though your Dad and I try so hard to not put that anxiety on ourselves, or worse, on you, the fact of the matter is there’s so much competition, so much emphasis on making the “right” choices and choosing the “right” path that it becomes overwhelming. The article acknowledges that feeling saying, “middle-class parents spend much more time talking to children, answering questions with questions, and treating each child’s thought as a special contribution. And this is very tiring work.” Yet it appears that level of diligence is something few parents feel they can neglect “lest they put their children at risk by not giving them every advantage.” It’s a tough road to navigate and one that leaves very little energy left for for Ninjango, let alone doing something for yourself.

birthwithoutfearblog.com

According to research, all parents today, regardless of social status, seem to spend more time with their kids than (when I was born) in 1975. “Today’s married mothers have less leisure time (5.4 fewer hours per week), 71 % desire more time for themselves (as do 57% of married fathers), and yet 85% still think they don’t spend enough time with their children.”

The article reminds us a few generations ago “people weren’t stopping to contemplate whether having a child would make them happy. Having children was simply what you did.” It goes on to say “We’re lucky today to have choices about these matters, but the abundance of choices—whether to have kids, when, how many—may be one of the reasons parents are less happy.”

It also matters what age you are when you have your kids: “When you become a parent later in life there’s a loss of freedom, a loss of autonomy. It’s totally different from going from your parents’ house to immediately having a baby. Now you know what you’re giving up.” There’s no more “let’s meet up for dinner” or “wanna catch a movie?” Your freedom and autonomy no longer exist, you traded them for parenthood, and for the most part you also traded your disposable income and marriage first mentality.

It’s been said that you should always put your relationship first, that a happy marriage makes a happy family, but in real life that can prove quite difficult. Thomas Bradbury, father of two and professor of psychology at UCLA, says: “Being in a good relationship is a risk factor for becoming a parent.” Psychologists Lauren Papp and E. Mark Cummings asked 100 long-married couples to spend two weeks meticulously documenting their disagreements. Nearly 40 percent of them were about their kids. “And that 40 percent is merely the number that was explicitly about kids, many other arguments were ones couples were having because they were on a short fuse, tired, or stressed out.” According to Changing Rhythms of American Family Life one of the biggest problems with marriages with children “is the amount of time married parents spend alone together each week: Nine hours today versus twelve in 1975.” Husbands and wives apparently spend less than 10 percent of their home time alone together. “And it’s mostly just two tired people staring at the TV.”

ivillage.ca

Lest you feel depressed my love, or feel I’m somehow saying having you was a drain on my happiness or a detriment to your father’s and my marriage, I will tell you that is unequivocally not the case. Your father and I are stronger as a couple because we are both so devoted to our family. If anything you have brought us closer together. Life, in itself is more of a strain, but statistics (and my heart) will confirm that “though parenting might make people unhappy, not parenting makes people feel worse.” That when we “take stock of our life, in the end, it isn’t by how much fun we had, but what we did with it.” Children give us a real sense of purpose and a point to our lives. It might not always be fun, but it’s exceptionally rewarding. Tom Gilovich, a psychologist at Cornell highlighted the concept of “retrospective happiness”. The idea of looking back on our good times – the very things that in the moment might have felt like a complete drag – but later can become the “source of intense gratification, nostalgia and delight.”

I know this to be true. You’re only four and a half and I already feel it. It might be just a trip to Target or grocery shopping or brushing your teeth. Time we’re simply filling in, or errands that just have to be done – those ho hum, nothing special, moments between moments – but in retrospect those times are some of the best. It’s time just spent together, snippets of connected activity where I get to steal a kiss or two from your sweet skin and talk with you about everything and nothing. Days I know I’ll look back on with nostalgia and longing. I may miss my old life. I may have days when I desire my autonomy. Times when explaining why it’s not “unfair” that you can’t have a mall pretzel at 5:30pm is just too much, when the selfish takes over and I can’t bare to pick up another toy, or I just want to shut my door and be alone, but I wouldn’t give any of it up for the world. You are by far the best thing I’ve ever done, my most prized accomplishment. In my heart of hearts, I know even if I don’t get as far as I’d like in my professional life, looking at you makes me feel like a success. I love you. Your presence has blessed my life.

There are so many moments as a parent that make it worth it. Moments that melt your heart with joy and make you say things like, “God, we’re so lucky” and if you can accept that there will also be times of exhausting, overwhelming tedium, extended moments where you wonder where your life went, then you’re well on your way to being a happy and successful parent. Your Gigi tells a story about when your Dad and Uncle Matt were young and she would sneak out to the garage just to hide in the car and have a break. I always thought that was a hilarious image, but now that I’m a parent it’s starting to look like a pretty good idea.

Why do you think I have so many magazines in the bathroom?

I love you kiddo. Cut me a little slack will ya?

xoxo your loving Mom

cartoonstock.com

*all quotes from Jennifer Senior, New York Magazine, “Why Parents Hate Parenting” July 4, 2010

Nov 5

3 Comments

Halloween

I am posting a week early because I believe a post on Halloween will feel less relevant next week. With the election tomorrow, I anticipate there will be other things to discuss than goblins and candy corn. To that point, I’d like to encourage everyone to get out and vote tomorrow. This is an incredibly important election and I hope you’ll vote with both your head and your heart. xo leigh

I love Halloween. I love dressing up. My family loves dressing up. We’re those people. We decorated our house with (mostly) home made decorations on September 29th, we bobbed for apples in our backyard, Sean sewed his and Loch’s costume and we throughly enjoyed everything the holiday had to offer from picking out our pumpkins at the local farm, to Monster Mash playing in our house day and night. We love it all. That’s why, when our trick or treating turned out to be kind of disappointing this year I was bummed. It’s like when you love a book so much and then the ending falls flat. You feel kind of like Meh (and yes, I’m talking to you The Historian).

We were really excited to go out. Halloween night is the culmination of an entire month of anticipation and our expectations were high. This year we were kindly invited to join Lochie’s best friend, his family and some of their extended friends in the tony neighbourhood of Tuluca Lake, CA. It’s a beautiful area, filled with houses ranging from lovely medium size homes to humongous, bohemeth estates of the extraordinarly wealthy. The problem is it also seems to have become one of the “it” places to be if you’re on the hunt for candy and a killer Halloween atmosphere. It’s a full size chocolate bar neighbourhood if you get my drift. We were psyched to be included in our group. We love the family and being there seemed legit because we weren’t just driving ourselves to a cool neighborhood to knock on doors. It’s where our friends ACTUALLY live. It’s also an area I can imagine buying a house, because even with it’s obvious 2%ness, it retains it’s old school neighborhood feel. People know each other, talk to the dog walkers, notice when things seem off and generally seem pretty friendly. So, despite the fact that it, like the rest of the residential streets in the valley, has very few street lights, it seemed to be the perfect place for our little costumed babies to experience trick or treating.

We were a small(ish) group of four families with the oldest being six and the youngest being two. We started our evening enjoying pizza and taking pictures of the kids. Sean and I were the only parents dressed up but, that’s us, and pretty soon the people who didn’t know us understood we weren’t so much weird as enthusiastic and accepted us as such. Around 6pm we started walking the neighborhood while it was still light. From a favorite Disney phenom cum rocker’s house where her staff give candy out in front of her closed gate, to the family who’d deliberately taken their gates off the hinges to make their house look haunted, the neighborhood was fantastic. We crisscrossed the street and the kids were having a ball.

As the darkness came so did the big kids. Personally I think there should be a mandatory cut off on trick or treaters. Just as we aren’t supposed to drink in this country till 21, I think trick or treating should be cut off at 13. If there’s a “teen” in your age, you’re too old. I understand that I sound Grincy (or whatever the Halloween equivilent would be) but if you’re out in big groups with your high school friends and your pillowcases pushing ahead of the little kids you’re doing something wrong.

We ended up at a dead end street called the Tuluca Lake Estates which is basically a mecca for entertainment industry big wigs who do it up BIG for Halloween. One lawn had a life size pirate ship, complete with strobe lights, fake wind and sound effects. Another house, which apparently chooses a new theme every year, capitalized on the love of all things Super Hero and had decorated with dozens of skeletons dressed in destroyed superhero costumes, posed in full battle. Aqua Man held a trident to Superman’s neck. Spiderman had reduced Ironman to a helmet and a pile of bones. Another lawn had at least ten life size ghosts playing ring around the rosie. This one street was like a theme park and it was at once both completely fabulous and total bedlam.

The surrounding streets were bumper to bumper parking. No one could drive anywhere. There was a stretch golf cart tooting around a bunch of mouthy early teens yelling “Move!” to anyone who got in their way. Hundreds of people had obviouly heard about this neighborhood and it was as if they were getting dropped off by the bus load. Every house had a line of at least twenty-five people (often double or triple that) clamering for candy. The home owners (or in most cases their nannies and housekeepers) sat in their driveways or on their front porch behind tables. One house even set up a velvet rope to keep the crowds in check. There was no time to interact. No time for the person giving out candy to say “Oh, and what are you?” No time for the generous homeowners (who were easily spending $1000-$2000 on candy) to appreciate the kids in their costumes. No room for the kids to check out the decorations that had been so elaborately set out for their enjoyment. I would have loved to really look around, to take it all in, but it was all I could do to keep my eye on my little jedi and his pirate friend amidst the dark and the crowds. I took to taking them up to every house, clutching their little hands, lest I lose track of them. The candy line was like a convayer belt and, honestly, it was kind of depressing.

This is literally on someone’s front lawn.

As we were pushed aside by bigger and bigger kids (and I’m talking 13-20 – most just in jeans) I felt more and more irritated. I started saying things outloud like, “There’s a line” and “You’re going to knock a four year old over, really?” For every nice teen waiting their turn who had put together a cool costume – big shout out to the Book of Mormon kids who could sing the opening number, the awesome Lisbeth Salander from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and my matching Princess Lea who wanted her picture with me, you guys were great – there were ten, burly, shouldn’t be out, little jerks jamming up the streets and elbowing their way past the pre-schoolers. When I was young no self respecting teenager was still going door to door. Or, if they were, it was later, after the little kids were done. You didn’t need a watch back then, as soon as the big kids came out, you knew it was time to go home.

This, however, was chaos and I think the ones who suffered most (aside from the parents who looked strung out and tired) were the kids. The boys never let go of my hands. The pirate kept telling me he was scared and my jedi was seriously put out to wait in a line. Loch was asking to go home by the end of the dead end street. It was no longer fun. It was overwhelming.

What happened to trick or treating in your own neighborhood or like us, the neighborhood of your friends? Driving thirty minutes to get to the “right” neighborhood is weird. It’s like dragging your kids to best fishing spot to “catch the big one” when all they want to do is drop a line off the end of your dock. The houses were amazing but we couldn’t enjoy them. Even the people who owned them, and had gone to all the trouble, weren’t getting much out of it. It was an onslaught and probably why they delegated their candy job to the help.

more purity needed like these images at ziprealty.com

At the end of the day if you asked Loch if he had a good time he’d say yes, he dressed up and hung out with his friends, but as his mother, I know it could have been better. I miss the old days before we started supersizing everything. I missed the purity of watching my kid trip up someone’s walkway to ring their bell. I missed watching from the street as he spoke to the home owner and received his candy. Last year he was a vampire and everyone kept saying, “Oh, look Dracula!” and he’d say, “No, I’m a vampire.” not knowing that Dracula was, in fact, the most famous vampire. I missed him running back to us to show us his goodies and I was sorry not to be able to interact with the other adults in our group without worrying we’d lose track of our children in a mob. Secretly, I even missed my voyaristic love of peeking into other’s people’s homes. We had a lovely time with our friends back at their house but I prefer trick or treating when it’s more wholesome and less commercial. I appreciate the expensive decorations but they come with too many fans. I’m ok with a hand carved jack o’lantern on the front porch and I favor a Halloween that’s more cute superheros and less evil clowns. This year was a perfect example of how bigger is not always better. Sure, Loch came away with a lot of loot, but he was happiest when we got home and he was able to hand out candy and play with his friends. He felt safe there, and in that happiness he could finally relax and just enjoy the holiday he loves so much.

I couldn’t agree with him more.

On the Occasion of your 5th Birthday

A Lesson in Love

Aging Gracefully?

Time To Be A Grown Up

Tragedy in Newton: What’s wrong with the USA?

The Me First Mentality

Being a Parent versus Parenting

Halloween

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