Christmas Is Coming

Maybe it started with the candy strings: strips of green felt with twenty-four pieces of candy tied on with red yarn.  Beginning December first, my sister and brothers and I untied a candy cane or red gumdrop or Hershey Kiss every night after dinner, as we counted down the days to Christmas. Or maybe it was the way my mom read one chapter of The Adventures of Santa Claus every night in December and helped us memorize Luke 2, verse by verse.  Or maybe it was her approach to decorating for Christmas--every day while we were at school, she would choose one thing from the big cardboard Christmas box to put up while we were at school; we'd come home to find the manger scene on the coffee table, a cardboard Santa face on the fridge, jingle bells on the door, or the lantern candle in the middle of the dining room table.  Whatever the reason, for as long as I can remember, I have liked the anticipation of Christmas as much as or maybe even more than Christmas Day itself.  When I was a kid, I pored over the Sears Wish Book during the long, slow early days of December, carefully circling the toys I wanted most.  Like most kids, I had trouble sleeping on Christmas eve and loved those pre-dawn hours of Christmas morning before it all began.  I shivered in anticipation as I peeked down the hallway and spied my lumpy red knee sock pinned to the fireplace screen in the shadowy darkness.  When I grew up and had kids of my own, December days were anything but long and slow.  It seemed as though every minute was crammed full of shopping and baking, teaching and grading, piano classes and church play practices, concerts and ball games.  Instead of counting down the days to Christmas, I was racing the clock trying to finish everything in time. By the time my kids reached the jingle bells on the ends of their candy strings, I was usually out of breath and low on energy.  But even amidst all the hustle and bustle, a little refrain played over and over in my head: Christmas is coming, Christmas is coming! And every year Christmas eve would cast its spell on me--I'd be just as caught up in the wonder and magic of it as I'd been when I was ten. It felt like the whole world was holding its breath, waiting, anticipating, hoping.  When my kids left for college one by one, the pace started to slow down a bit.  Suddenly, I found myself counting down the days again.  This year, it'll be December 22nd before all their cars pile up in the driveway.  Only on the 24th will all three kids be sleeping in their old beds upstairs.  I'll be the last one up, filling stockings and setting the table for Christmas brunch.  As I'm turning off the Christmas lights, I'll pause for a moment before our manger scene, lit from behind by a single electric candle, and once again I'll feel the magic of Christmas, the promise of what is to come, the thrill of hope.

Almost Done

My husband Steve is almost done with his radiation treatments.  I asked him last night if he wanted to do something to celebrate after his last treatment.  He wasn't sure.  The main thing he wants is to get back to normal.  About three weeks ago, he started having nerve spasms, an unusual and very painful side effect from the radiation.  He can't drive and has had to take a medical leave from teaching.  We're hoping and praying the radiation will have done its job and destroyed all the cancer cells by the time his treatments end, and we're trusting that the nerve spasms will subside completely as his body settles down.  As the end approaches, I've been thinking about how good and bad is so often wrapped up together.  This has been hard, for sure, but even on the worst days, we have been reminded of our many blessings.  First of all, there hasn't been one snowy drive to Jamestown during the past two months; those of you from the area know for this time of year, that in itself is a small miracle and a big answer to prayer.  Second, Steve and I have been loved and cared for during these past several months in ways that brings tears to my eyes as I write.  There have been calls and texts and facebook messages from friends and family members (our dear moms, brothers and sisters, brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, even nephews and nieces). We've gotten encouraging words in grocery stores, hallways, classrooms, and living rooms.  We've received cards and notes from church folks, from colleagues, and from old friends.  An Edible Arrangement appeared mysteriously on our front porch one dark night; books and candy and gift cards for music and food came in the mail on days we needed them the most.  Our own sweet kids have called more, come home more, and checked in more often than usual.  It has meant more to us than all of you will probably ever know.  Finally, I think going through this has drawn Steve and me together in ways we couldn't have imagined otherwise.  All of this makes me think of the Bible verse about how God can take something bad and use it for good.  This alone is celebration enough, but if Steve's up for it on Tuesday, we might go out for dinner, too!

Three to go!

Sick Kids

It's never easy when your kids are sick.  You feel so helpless when you see their hot, red faces and bright, feverish eyes.  You sleep on the floor of their rooms in case they need you in the night.  You spend hours in the doctor's waiting room.  You pick up prescriptions, then try to coax your sick child into actually swallowing the medicine.  You buy popsicles and ice cream for sore throats, 7-up and saltines for shaky stomachs.  Then you fret and pray and wait for them to get well.  When they were babies, I thought it would be easier when they could talk and tell me what was wrong.  But somehow, it never seemed to get any easier.  When they were older, being sick meant they were falling behind in school, missing games and meets and concerts and auditions they'd been looking forward to, and there was nothing I could do but take care of them and wait for them to get better.  Two of my three kids got sick the first week they were away at college, and I quickly discovered that taking care of sick kids is much easier than not being able to take care of them.  This week one of my grown-up kids is sick, very sick, and once again I am feeling helpless.  I check in by phone.  I google symptoms.  I offer advice and sympathy.  But mostly, I fret and pray and wait for him to get well.  As I wait, I realize something: it's always going to be this way.  No matter how old my kids get, when they are sick, I will worry.   How do I know? All this fall while Steve has been undergoing radiation treatments, his 90-year-old mom has been doing exactly what I'm doing: calling and worrying and waiting for her boy to get well.

A Few of My Favorite Things

Four of the original six ornaments we got as wedding gifts

When Steve and I got ready to decorate our first little Christmas tree in our first little apartment thirty years ago, we had six sweet ornaments we had gotten as wedding gifts, as well as a few stray ornaments Steve had snagged from his parents' collection.  Our tree was pretty sparse for the first few years of our marriage.  But a year or two after our second son was born, I started a tradition of buying each of the kids a Christmas ornament each year.  The idea was that when they eventually left home, they would have more than six ornaments to decorate their first tree.  In the meantime, their ornaments filled in the spaces on our family Christmas tree.  As their collections grew, so did the size of our tree.  Steve and I accumulated more ornaments of our own over the years, too, but but most of the decorations on our tree are from the kids' collections.  Every year, they each put up their own ornaments first, fighting over prime tree space.  A few years ago as our kids were getting older and closer to having their own trees, I discovered a flaw in my plan:  I had grown attached to the ornaments I bought for the kids--each one reminds me of the child I bought it for and the year I found it.  And I've gotten quite used to having them on our tree year after year.   Last night on the way home from Thanksgiving in Pennsylvania, we were making plans to chop down our Christmas tree this weekend, since the three kids won't all be home again until the weekend before Christmas.  My oldest child, Ben, has an apartment with room for a tree this year, so as we were talking about decorating our family tree, Ben casually mentioned that he would be needing to take his box of ornaments to his own house this year.   I know he's right.  I know it's time.  I know that was the plan all along.  But it's going to be very strange not to see his ornaments nestled in among the others on our tree this year.  And how long will it be before all the kids' ornaments have disappeared from our tree?  At least we still have Rocking Horse,  Christmas Broom, Thimblehead, and Sleeping Mouse!

Some of my favorites from Ben's collection

 

Grading . . .

I'm buried in student papers for the time being, so blog is on a hiatus while the blogger attends to her day job.  I'll be back when I can see daylight again . . .

Bath Time

Bath time used to mean bath toys, Johnson's Baby Shampoo, and sweet-smelling, pajama-clad toddlers afterwards.  These days it means a hot bubble bath, a good book and a calmer, cheered-up, pajama-clad me afterwards.  I think I'll always miss the former, but I like having time for the latter.  I guess that's what I'm beginning to understand about this whole emptying-of-the-nest stage I'm in: losing some things means gaining others.  I don't know why it took me so long to realize this--the same principle is at work throughout life.  When you move from childhood to adulthood, you lose the simple, carefree days of having someone take care of you, but you gain independence and the freedom to make your own decisions.  If you decide to marry, you give up some of your autonomy but you gain a lifetime of companionship.  If you end up having kids, much of the relaxing couple time you had with your husband or wife disappears, but in its place you get warm, rich, rambunctious family time.  And, as I found out recently, if your husband is diagnosed with cancer, you give up your sense of well-being (at least temporarily), but you gain a deeper understanding of how very much he means to you, a fresh realization of how lost you'd be without him, and a new appreciation for every ordinary and extraordinary day you get to spend together.  I don't know why it took a bubble bath to help me grasp this, but now I see there really is a season for everything and a time for every purpose under heaven (Ecclesiastes 3:1).

Knit One, Purl Two

When I was six years old, my dad was in graduate school at Ball State University.  We lived in one of the small university apartments right near campus.  The single-story apartments were arranged in rows of four and were filled with married students and their families as well as Ball State faculty and staff, so we had lots of neighbors right nearby.  Our two-bedroom apartment was small for our family of six, so we kids spent a lot of time outside.  One night after dinner as it was starting to get dark, my parents couldn't find me--I wasn't on the playground in the grassy center of the rows of apartments, I wasn't at one of my friends' apartments, I wasn't behind our little apartment playing dolls--I wasn't anywhere.  My parents were in full panic mode by the time I came walking calmly down the sidewalk toward home.  Although I don't remember, I imagine they were caught in that odd mixture of relief that I was safe and frustration that I'd worried them.  According to my mom, when they asked me where I'd been, I replied in a small, bewildered voice, "At my knitting lesson . . . "  One of the women who lived in the next row of apartments had apparently offered to teach me to knit, and I took her up on it.  I don't remember exactly how it came about or why my parents didn't know that I was taking "knitting lessons," but I still have my first-ever piece of knitting--a long, uneven variegated green rectangle.  Several years later, a Sunday school teacher in Pennsylvania picked up where my first knitting teacher had left off, and I've been knitting ever since.  At first all I made were scarves, but then early in our marriage, I made an afghan for our little apartment, then a complicated sweater vest for Steve that ended up being too small.  That disappointment discouraged me for a while, but when my kids came along, I started knitting again--they wore lots of homemade sweaters in their early years but then one by one outgrew the homemade sweater look.  Still, over the years, I've kept my hand in--a Christmas stocking here, a scarf there, tiny baby sweaters as gifts, a batch of comfort dolls, and most recently, a couple of pairs of boot toppers my daughter saw on Pinterest.  I don't know what drew me to knitting at such a young age, but I guess there are things each of us seeks out on our own, things we can't learn at home or from our parents--and maybe it's that blend of things handed down and things acquired along the way that makes each generation unique and interesting.

First Steps

Like many parents, I have bought a lot of shoes for my kids over the years, from Weeboks and pink high-tops to running shoes, basketball shoes, and hiking boots to homecoming heels and shiny black dress shoes.  In those shoes my kids have toddled across the living room, skipped off to school, hiked across the county, and danced at the prom; they've run fast, jumped high, and kicked up their heels.  Except for the current crop of shoes my kids have in their closets, most of the shoes I've bought over the years have been handed down, worn out, or donated.  But I kept a little pair of Weeboks.  They are usually tucked away in a box under my bed, but every once in a while I sneak a peek at them.  They remind me of the days when my kids were first learning to walk.  I think about those first wobbly attempts--how they struggled for balance, found it for a second, then toppled over and seemed to decide crawling was easier and faster after all.   But then before long, there they were, pulling themselves up and trying again, and again, and before long, they no longer needed my hand to steady them as they cruised across the room.  These days my kids are in the process of taking more first steps--steps across college campuses, steps into new professions and new responsibilities, steps into adulthood. They might wobble a bit or even topple over, but I know them--I've seen it before--they will get right back up and try again, and before long, they'll be running and jumping and dancing through their adult lives with courage and grace and purpose.

Sitting in Church

When I was a kid, my dad, mom, and the four of us kids sat in the fourth pew from the front on the left-hand side of the church.  It was a small church, and our family of six took up the whole pew.  I'm guessing we weren't allowed to bring any toys or books to pass the time during the sermon because we never had any that I can recall, though I do remember my mom playing "Intery, Mintery, Cutery Corn, Apple Seed and Apple Thorn" on my fingers, and when we were especially lucky, there was a little container of red hots, mini marshmallows, and raisins for us to nibble on.  I think we were allowed to draw on the back of one offering envelope, or at least we didn't get in trouble unless we took more than one.  I'm sure the idea was that we were supposed to learn to sit quietly and listen as soon as possible.  But you know how it goes when you have four kids sitting right next to each other on a wooden pew in a quiet place for an hour--lots of giggling, squabbling, and whispering.  I clearly remember the muffled sound my mother's gloved fingers made when she snapped them in our direction as a warning to quiet down.  When our kids were growing up, we sat about two-thirds of the way back on side section on the right.  Our family of five took up the whole row of the more modern padded interlocking sanctuary seats.  Unlike my mom, I had a bag of quiet little toys I brought to keep their hands busy and sometimes a snack--plain cheerios when they were young and fruit snacks when they outgrew the cheerios.  But like my mom, I expected them to learn to sit quietly as listen as soon as possible.  When my oldest left for college, we were down to four in the row, then my second son left, and there were just three of us.  Our church has three Sunday morning services, and we usually go to the one that starts at 11:10, and usually our oldest child meets us there and sits with us.  But this morning, we went to the 10:00 service; our oldest was playing the piano for the music part of the service then helping with Sunday School.  So there Steve and I were, just the two of us, sitting at one end of someone else's row.  It's not the first time it's happened, but it still feels so weird and lonely to me.  I remember seeing it happen to other couples over the years as their children grew up and moved on, and now we are one of those older couples sitting alone in church.  I guess it's easier not having to pack a bag of toys and snacks anymore and it's nice being able to listen to the whole sermon without distraction.  And I know it's one more thing I'll get used to in the years ahead.  But today I missed my kids, and my siblings, and even the sound of my mother's muffled finger snapping while I was sitting in church.

Church toys

Salad Dressing

In this day and age when you can find just about every kind of salad dressing you can imagine, in both regular and light versions, most people don't make salad dressing from scratch.  And I usually don't either; I don't even mix up Good Seasons Italian Dressing anymore.  But one of the oldest and most well-worn cards in my recipe box is for "Mom's Mayonnaise Salad Dressing."  Although I don't make it often, when I do I'm instantly transported across time and space to my mom's kitchen.  I'm not sure about this, but I think she got the recipe from her mom (who may have gotten it from her mom?).  And it's nothing fancy--just mayo, a little milk, a little sugar, a little vinegar, and some salt and pepper all whisked together.  My mom used to put it on a salad made of iceberg lettuce and sliced hard-boiled egg; she served it in her middle-size silver mixing bowl as a side dish to either Swiss steak or Beef-Carrots-Potatoes-and-Onions.  As a kid, I didn't like the salad or either one of those main dishes.  But over the years, I grew to love them all, and now when I need a little comfort food, these are the things I often turn to, especially the mayonnaise salad dressing.  When I made it recently, I used light mayo, instead of regular, and organic baby romaine instead of iceberg lettuce.  And I added some diced-up Cheddar cheese.  Sometimes, if I have them, I also add some fresh broccoli and chopped red bell pepper.  What I end up with isn't quite like the salad Mom used to make, but my version is only possible because of what I learned from her.  I think this holds true for so many of the things I've done and made throughout my life.  I'm hoping I've supplied my own children with what Mom gave me: basic recipes they can use to make a full and happy life.  They will, undoubtedly, make many additions and substitutions to what I've tried to hand down.  And as a result, their lives may well end up being quite different from the way I made mine, but what they create will be just right for them.

October

"I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers."  --Anne of Green Gables

Early October with its extra-banket nights and still-warm golden days is one of my favorite times of year.  The sky is an impossible blue.  Treetops, backyards, and sidewalks are covered with rich red, cheerful orange, and sunlit yellow leaves.  Apples are crunchy, cider is sweet, and pumpkin spice flavors are everywhere.  Although it's sad to put away shorts and sandals, it's fun to start wearing sweaters and boots again.  The furnace rumbles on from time to time, but there's no snow in the forecast yet (at least not usually!).  But when I woke up this morning, on the first of October, I wasn't thinking about any of these things. Instead, I was feeling sad that Em's weekend visit was over, I was feeling stressed about all the schoolwork ahead of me, and I was feeling worried about Steve's radiation treatments starting at the end of the week.  Although I would like to have pulled the blankets back over my head and gone back to sleep, I got up and got myself ready, and out into the world I went.  And that's when October started to work its magic.  The bright leaves, warm sun, and blue sky banded together and reminded me to look up, not down; to see the good, not the bad; and to be thankful for kids who come home for the weekend, for a job I love, for the technology that exists to make my husband well, and yes, for Octobers.

Messy vs. Neat

My second- and third-born children are at opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to keeping their rooms neat, and I've often wondered why--they share the same gene pool, they grew up in the same environment, and yet they are nothing alike in this particular area.  No matter how many times I asked my son to clean his room or pitched in and cleaned it myself, it just didn't stay clean.  By the time he was in as in high school, I gave up hounding him about it.  Occasionally, he took it upon himself to clean things up, but most of the time, you could barely see the floor--it was covered with piles of dirty clothes, stacks of clean clothes, books, sneakers, candy wrappers, and school papers.  I think he actually liked the way his room looked and felt when it was clean, but it didn't matter enough to him to keep it that way since the mess didn't really bother him.   In contrast, my daughter's room is a model of organization.  She makes her bed every morning, her dresser drawers hold neat stacks of clothes, her closet is organized by color, her bookshelves are carefully arranged and maintained.  When she comes home from a trip, she unpacks immediately and puts everything away.  She can't understand why anyone wouldn't do this or how a person could take off clothes and leave them on the floor instead of putting them away.  Thinking about this difference between two of my kids made me realize something.  As our kids grow up and leave home, it's easy for us parents to blame ourselves when one of them is in distress.  We're quick to worry that maybe we didn't do enough as parents or maybe we did too much.  Even when it's not quite rational, we fall into the trap of thinking that if we'd just been better parents, our children wouldn't be suffering.  But if I think just about Darton's room vs. Em's room, I can easily see that it wasn't anything I did or didn't do as a parent that made one of them messy and the other neat--it's just the way they are. So maybe instead of getting caught up in blaming ourselves, the best thing we parents can do is to help our kids through the hard times they will inevitably face as adults, whether this means helping them clean up a mess to find something they've lost, encouraging them to relax and take things in stride, or simply reminding them how very much they are loved.

Best Exotic Advice (from the Marigold Hotel)

"There is no past that we can bring back by longing for it, only a present that builds and creates itself as the past withdraws."  --The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

I know the first part of this quote is true--I can't bring back the days when my children were still at home, when my dad was still alive, or when Steve didn't have prostate cancer, no matter how much I long for them. And I know that longing for something that can never be is more than just an exercise in futility, it can actually be destructive in that it wastes a lot of emotional energy and hampers you from being present in the present.  So this brings me to the intriguing second part of the quote.  I'm afraid I have been making the mistake of thinking that what I should be doing is gathering up what is left and making the best of things.  But that's not at all what this quote is saying--instead, it is suggesting that if we allow the past to be the past and stop tugging it forward with our longings, then the present is free to grow in ways that might surprise us.  Maybe there is something new and important for us to do or be in our fifties or sixties or seventies that we weren't ready for when we were in our twenties or thirties or forties.  I know it's just a line from a movie, but it feels true to me.  Plus, I want it to be true.  So I'm going to hold onto to this hopeful bit of advice and see what happens!

Dear Mom

Today is my mom's birthday, her eightieth birthday.  In honor of her eight decades, here are eight things she did that had a powerful effect on me as a kid and as a parent:  1) She read to us: in the car, on the couch, in the park, and my favorite--from the floor of the hallway between the girls' room and the boys' room at bedtime. 2) She told us stories from her childhood, stories so vividly remembered and recounted that it made us feel as though we'd been there.  Not only did we get to know her childhood self, but she showed us how important it is to remember and tell the stories of our lives.  3) She taught us to notice and value the natural world.  She pointed out birds and bird calls, identified wild flowers, and helped us catch tadpoles.  Once she sent each of us into the backyard with a muffin tin with instructions to collect twelve different nature samples, one for each muffin cup. 4) She took us to Sunday school, Sunday morning church, Sunday evening church, Tuesday afternoon Bible club, Wednesday night prayer meeting, and summer Vacation Bible School, thus making sure we knew we were "precious in His sight." 5) She made a family dinner every night.  One of my favorite sights was coming home after high school play practice and seeing steamed up kitchen windows because that meant it was spaghetti night!  6) She was cheerful during hard times.  Holidays were kind of tough on my dad, especially Christmas.  One Christmas Eve, he was having a bad time, so my mom told us to bundle up for a walk.  She had the Coleman lantern, and it was snowing.  We were showing her how to do the walk from The Monkees, and her feet went out from under her on the slippery road. Down she went; the lantern flew out of her hand and smashed on the snowy street.  The four of us kids froze, fearing the worst--an angry or hurt Mom to go with our sad Dad.  Then we realized she wasn't crying or mad, she was laughing, and our Christmas Eve was merry again.  7) She made celebrations out of little things: biking to the gas station for banana popsicles, sprinkling salt on sweet red apples while we watched Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella, decorating our paper lunch bags on field trip days, dropping everything to fly a kite on a day when the wind was just right or build a snowman when the snow was just right. And finally, 8) She made sure we knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that we were loved. Thanks, Mom, and Happy Birthday!

Let's Go, Buffalo!

I grew up in Steeler country, back in the days of Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, and Lynn Swann.  When we settled in western New York in the mid-'80s, I started hearing about another football team: the Buffalo Bills.  I didn't pay too much attention to them at first, but by then end of the '80s and the beginning of the '90s, they were impossible to ignore.  I remember buying our first little Buffalo Bills sweatshirt for the spirit days they had on Fridays when my oldest child was in kindergarten.  From then on, we never looked back.  Despite the four Super Bowl losses and many other heartbreaking losses in the years since then, we've never stopped rooting for the Bills.  We watched training camp on hot summer afternoons when it used to be held at SUNY Fredonia and waited in line for autographs after the practices; we bought Flutie Flakes and more Buffalo Bills jerseys and t-shirts and hats and wall hangings and mugs than I can count; and all three of my kids have been to Ralph Wilson Stadium in Orchard Park to watch the Bills in person.  My middle child, who is, by far, the biggest Bills fan in our family, is there today.  For his sake and all the other loyal Bills fans at the game, I hope they pull off a win.  But even if they don't, we'll all keep cheering for them and believing that the next win, the next playoff run, and the next Super Bowl are just around the corner.  Let's go, Buffalo!

It's Just Broccoli

My youngest moved out of the dorm and into a college-owned townhouse at the beginning of this school year, and as a result has been eating in the dining hall less and cooking more.  I finally finished copying the recipes for her red binder (Recipes), so she has that with her.  But there are a lot of little things that aren't in there.  Sunday afternoon we were talking on the phone, and she asked how long you could keep broccoli in the fridge and how much she should cook for one person--she was worried she was eating too many carbs and not enough veggies.  After our conversation, she headed off to the little local grocery store in search of broccoli.  Around dinner time, I got a text saying, "so to cook broccoli, do you just put it in a pot of water?"  I texted back a few instructions, and she replied, "okay thanks hope i can make it like you."  I smiled to myself thinking, It's just broccoli.  A little while later I got back-to-back texts; the first one said, "it's good!" and then came the one that has stayed with me all week: "tasted like home :) ."  I came to realize that it wasn't "just broccoli"; it was my college-age daughter taking care of herself, eating her veggies, and carrying forward into her life-away-from-home something I never even realized I was passing along.  Broccoli is the one vegetable everybody in our family likes; I can't imagine how many florets I've cut and cooked over the years.  But to me, it was always just something to go along with the meal, something I fixed almost without thinking about it.  I never thought about it "tasting like home."  And maybe that's a good lesson for those of us in the process of letting go of our kids--they're going to be just fine; they have picked up and taken with them all the things they want and need most.

A Simple Pleasure

When I was growing up, my parents drank a lot of coffee, usually instant coffee.  On special occasions, my mom made coffee in her percolator, and the dark, rich smell filled the house.  But I didn't start drinking coffee until my college years.  I think I can actually remember my very first cup.  I was a theatre major, and our technical rehearsals used to last into the wee hours of the morning.  The directors had a much-used, rarely-if-ever-cleaned automatic drip coffee maker in their office, and when I could barely keep my eyes open, I poured a cup of their strong, bitter coffee into a styrofoam cup and added some sugar and powdered creamer.  It's a wonder I kept on drinking it after that first cup, but I did, and a good cup of coffee has become one of my favorite simple pleasures.  My husband doesn't drink coffee, so I was always on my own in my coffee brewing and drinking.  I tried the blue cans of Maxwell House, like my mom often bought, and the red cans of Folgers, like my mother-in-law used, and finally settled for a while on Chock full o' Nuts in the cheerful yellow cans.  Then I began to notice how strong and smooth my Costa Rican sister-in-law's coffee was and found out she ground her own beans.  The next time she visited home, she brought back some whole bean Costa Rican coffee for me.  When that ran out, I bought whole beans from a little coffee shop in town whose owner one day made me coffee in a French press when their espresso machine wasn't working.  When that shop closed its doors, I started ordering beans online and kept using a French press.  These days, I have my coffee beans roasted just for me by the partner of one of my colleagues in the English department.  He buys green coffee beans and roasts them just for me.  During the school year we exchange money and coffee on campus, but during the summer months and on vacations, he delivers my beans to my porch by bicycle!  I don't know what makes some people coffee drinkers and others not.  Of my coffee-drinking parents' four kids, only two of us drink coffee, and just one of my three kids has picked up the habit.  What I do know is how much I look forward to my simple pleasure each morning.

Whatever You Are--Be a Good One

Somewhere fairly early in his school career, my middle child was assigned a president report on Abraham Lincoln.  He was a bit of a procrastinator when it came to school reports, and I remember well the frenzied night before the report was due--while he was feverishly working on the report, I was trying to make a stovepipe hat out of black construction paper (which isn't as easy as you might think).  The next day he delivered his report dressed as Abraham Lincoln, and life moved on.  But for years afterwards, whenever he got to choose his own topic for a report, he prudently chose Abraham Lincoln.  So when he graduated from high school, I got this plaque for his wall:

I was thinking about Lincoln's words today when we left Cancer Care of Western New York after my husband's prostate cancer treatment consultation.  I have long admired people who are good at what they do, and everyone we met with during our two-hour visit today was "a good one."  From the patient advocate who had to ask personal questions and explain nitty gritty details and did so with both warmth and humor to the woman in billing who had already called our insurance company and was able to answer questions we didn't even know to ask, everyone was professional, efficient, and kinder than necessary (three more traits I admire).  Although our heads were spinning and hearts were thumping a little when we left, we felt as though we were in good, caring, competent hands.  I hope Lincoln's words stay with my middle son and my other two children because "being a good one" matters.

Just What We Needed

Despite my earlier hopeful blog post (Here We Go Again) about having developed a bit of resilience in dealing with my kids' comings and goings, there hasn't been much bounce in my step since I got back from moving our youngest in for another year of college.  In fact, the long weekend was starting to look very long indeed.  We had no real plans, no Labor Day barbecues; even the college pool is closed until Tuesday, so no lap swimming.  I was starting to feel a little lost and forlorn, and then a text arrived from our middle child: "I'm on my way back" (and by back, he meant back to Fredonia, back home).  What a difference it makes to have a visit from a child right when you need one.  We played two sets of tennis after he arrived tonight; we'll have a child in his bedroom when we wake up in the morning; there will be another face at the table and more tennis tomorrow.  And when he leaves on Monday, maybe we'll be over the worst of the end-of-summer adjustment for another year.

Lot's Wife

Do you remember the story of Lot's wife in the Old Testament?  Lot and his wife and daughters were sent away from the city of Sodom and Gomorrah just before it was destroyed with the words, "Run for your lives!  Do not stop anywhere in the valley.  And don't look back . . . "  Lot and his two daughters followed their instructions, but Lot's wife couldn't do it.  She couldn't help herself.  As she was following along behind Lot, she looked back.  And it cost her everything.  In the days immediately after Steve's prostate cancer diagnosis, I spent a lot of time online learning as much as I could about the disease and the treatment options; on one of the websites, I came across this bit of advice: "When you are comfortable with a decision, once you have made it, don’t look back. Remember, you made the best decision you could make. There is no room for second guessing yourself."*  In the hard couple of days that followed, I thought of those words often and even offered them to Steve when he started worrying about decisions he had made and wondering if there was something he could have done in the past that would have prevented him from getting prostate cancer.  It was the "don't look back" part that made me think of the story of Lot's wife, of course.  But in her case, the words weren't just a bit of helpful advice, they were a heavenly command.  And if Lot's wife had heeded them, she would have been protected.  So this got me thinking: maybe the same is true for each one of us--whenever we are assailed by doubts over decisions we've made as carefully as we could, or when we are threatened by temptation or fear, we will be protected if we remember to look up, not back.

*http://prostatenet.com/page/userfiles/pdf/13215907386.pdf

First Day of School

For the past forty-six years (except for the two years right after college), the end of August/beginning of September has meant going to school.  You'd think I'd be used to it by now.  I've been teaching at SUNY Fredonia for twenty-five years, yet every single year I get nervous before the first day of school.  My stomach is jumpy and I have trouble sleeping the night before.  I get to my office bright and early and scramble around getting last minute things ready for my first class.  These days my classes are filled with early childhood and childhood education majors, so, in general, they are students who like school and are fun to teach.  This makes the day fly by, and by the time I get home, I'm tired but calm.  The jitters are gone, and the excitement of a new year and new students lingers as I get ready for the second day of school.

Beginning of Day One

End of Day One

Here We Go Again

The real packing hasn't begun in earnest yet, but the pile of stuff in the piano room is starting to grow as it does every year around this time.  I'm not sure that sending a child off to college at the end of the summer is any easier now than it was seven years ago when we did it for the first time, but I guess I've finally gotten somewhat used to it.  This doesn't stop me from feeling sad each time I pass through the piano room and see textbooks and dishes and laundry detergent waiting to be loaded into the van.  It also doesn't eliminate the tension I feel between yearning to hold on and needing to let go.  And, of course, I'm well aware of how empty and quiet the house is going to feel Thursday night.  But watching my children go and come back repeatedly over the past several years has built up a kind of resilience in me that I didn't feel when this whole process started.  With our youngest child heading into her junior year, we are nearing the end of the path we started seven years ago, and I suspect I am going to need every bit of that resilience as we face the next step: life after the college years.

Waging War

We found out this week that an intruder has been quietly lurking in our midst.  Its discovery left us feeling betrayed and frightened at first, but now we're mad, fighting mad.  On the positive side, the survival rates are high for prostate cancer; plenty of men have fought this foe and won.  But as many of you know, when you discover cancer hiding in your own body or the body of someone you love, it feels big and scary, and sometimes it's hard to think rationally.  We would surely appreciate your prayers for wisdom as we explore treatment options, for strength if the fighting gets tough, and for a peace that passes understanding as we wage war against this insidious invader.

Whatever You Do, Don't Cry

Seven years ago when my first child was about to head off for his first year of college, I had already started my semester at SUNY Fredonia. I was teaching ENGL 100 that semester, so I asked my class full of freshmen for advice: What should I do or not do when I drop my son off at college? They had a number of suggestions: "Don't hang around forever," "Don't try to introduce him to all the other freshmen," and "Help him get his sheets on his bed! But their biggest piece of advice was this: "Whatever you do, don't cry." I promised to remember and even told my son what they'd said at dinner that night. We laughed about it, and I promised again to heed the advice. So when the time arrived, we loaded up the minivan and headed for campus. When we got to his dorm, a troop of friendly upperclassmen were there to help us carry his belongings up to the third floor. We helped him settle in, chatted with his roommate's parents, and headed off to the dedication service. Then, all of a sudden, it was time to leave. Ben hugged his dad and siblings goodbye, then it was my turn. As I gave him a big hug, tears sprang to my eyes. He saw them, and said, "Mom, remember what your students said." I nodded and tried to smile, but I couldn't stop the tears from trickling down my cheeks. I felt just as I did on the first day of kindergarten when I had to walk away and leave my precious child alone in a new place. Sure, he was much older now and more than ready for college, but this was a big new place, and he wouldn't be coming home to me at 3:00. In fact, he wouldn't be home until October break. But it was time. So with one more round of hugs and goodbyes, we climbed into the van and left our boy standing in front of his dorm ready to start his new life. This week I have two first-born nephews and a last-born niece heading off for college, so they and their parents are in my thoughts as I write. To my siblings and their spouses I'll offer the same advice my freshmen gave me, "Whatever you do, don't cry." And to Drew, Anthony, and Mackenzie, three things: 1) Forgive your parents when they cry anyway, 2) Don't forget to call and text from time to time, and 3) Have a great year and remember how very much you are loved!

Back-to-School Supply Shopping

It starts innocently enough--your child gets a cheery letter from his kindergarten teacher with a list of things he'll need for the school year: a nap mat, some crayons, a couple of pencils, a pair of safety scissors, and maybe a box of Kleenex to contribute to the classroom community.  Add a lunchbox and a backpack, and you're done with back-to-school supply shopping--no sweat. But each year the list of supplies your child needs gets longer; soon you're buying colored pencils, markers, highlighters, erasers, composition notebooks, index cards, Post-it notes, notebook paper, folders, and three-ring binders.  Plus, if you have more than one child in school, you're juggling multiple lists, tastes, and preferences, and back-to-school shopping is starting to feel a little bit stressful.  By the time your kids get to high school and they still need all of the above plus graphing calculators, the stress and expense mount.  But all of that is nothing compared to when they leave for college, and in addition to all the usual school supplies, you're searching online for cheaper-than-bookstore-priced textbooks, as well as all the things they need for their dorm rooms: wastebaskets, lamps, mini fridges, fans, under-the-bed storage boxes, closet organizers, laundry bags, shower caddies, extra-long twin bed sheets, laptop computers, printers, surge protectors, and ethernet cables.  Then a couple of years later when they move to a townhouse or an off-campus apartment, they need pots and pans, mixing bowls, dishes, vacuum cleaners, extra furniture, cleaning supplies, and shower curtains.  You think back to your first child's kindergarten supply list and realize the only thing worse than all the back-to-school supply shopping is going to be the first year you don't have to do it anymore . . . .

Bandanas for Ben

When my son Ben was little, he drooled . . . a lot.  At first, I snapped little terry cloth bibs around his neck to help protect his outfits, but he outgrew the bibs before he stopped drooling, and his little shirts and the bibs of his overalls were always soaking wet.  So one day, on a whim, I tied a navy blue bandana around his neck to catch the drool.
 

 He didn't mind wearing it, and it was easier to change the bandana than the shirt, so for the next two and a half years, he almost always had a bandana tied around his neck.  We collected bandanas in all the colors we could find, and I usually tried to match the bandana to his outfit.

Sometime around Ben's third birthday, he gradually stopped needing the bandanas.  Our second son used them for a little while during his first year, and our daughter didn't use them at all.  So when kindergarten rolled around for Ben, I used some of the bandanas to make his kindergarten nap mat. Long after kindergarten, Ben and the rest of us used his bandana blanket to wrap up in on cold days.  It's now stained and thin in spots, but I can't imagine getting rid of it or of the rest of the bandanas that are stacked neatly in the corner of my top dresser drawer.

Inn at the Peak

Peek'n Peak is best known for its ski slopes, but oddly, I've never been there in the winter.  In fact I've only ever been there in mid-August.  Thirty years ago Steve and I spent our wedding night at the Inn.  Twenty years ago, on our tenth anniversary, we stayed at there with newborn Emily (the boys spent the night with Grandma and Grandpa).  And this week, we returned to the Inn at the Peak to celebrate thirty years of marriage.  Much of it looked the way we remembered it: the lobby and dining room with their grand chandeliers, the great stone fireplaces, the  shadowy indoor pool, and the grassy hills and motionless chair lifts waiting patiently for snow.  We felt the same, too: excited, hopeful, happy to be someplace special and beautiful together with no worries and nothing to do but relax and enjoy ourselves.  Of course, the inn has changed some over the years, too.  There are computers in the lobby, wi-fi in the rooms, a sunny coffee shop that sells cappuccinos and lattes, and a very fun water slide in the outdoor pool.  Yet, at the same time, it's showing its age in places: the carpets are thin in spots, the staircase to the pool area sags and slopes more than it used to, and the tennis courts are shabby and worn.  Steve and I have changed some over the years, too: we're more sure of each other, more comfortable together; we have wonderful grown-up kids now, two of whom joined us the second night and made us laugh and treated us to dinner; and we have real jobs, a house, and health insurance.  But we also have creaky knees that ache after two sets of tennis; bodies that sag a little more in places; and neither of us can order off a menu without reading glasses.  In the end, though, the Inn at the Peak was all we'd hoped it would be and more; and when I look back over the past thirty years, I would say the same is true about our life together.  Here's to decade #4 and another visit to Peek'n Peak!

It's Your Story, Pass It On

My mom will be eighty in September, and my mother-in-law recently turned ninety.  We don't see either one of them nearly as often as we used to, but this summer we've had visits with both of them.  During each visit, I noticed something: our moms were eager to tell stories from the past to their children and grandchildren.  They are both getting a bit forgetful about the bits and pieces of daily life, but their memories of long ago seem crisp and clear.  Last night after dinner, Steve's mom told the group of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren gathered around the table all about having her first child alone while Steve's dad was in the navy during World War II and didn't even know his son had been born.  When my mom was here, she told story after story about her favorite teacher (Mrs. Oliver) and things her parents used to say ("If I had a rope around his neck, if I wouldn't yank it!").  Listening to them talk got me thinking about how important it is for all of us to tell our stories to the people we love, especially our kids; we want them to know who we are, where we came from, and what mattered to us.  So tell your kids the things your parents used to say and do; write down memories from your childhood; and when you look at old photo albums with people, fill in the details behind the pictures.   Your stories matter--pass them on.

Facing Forward

I've been spending a good bit of time looking back over my shoulder during the last week or so.  The first thing that happened was that the calendar turned from July to August, and I had to face the fact that my daughter's summer at home was winding down, so I was looking back to the recent past when we still had the whole summer  stretching out ahead of us.   The next thing was that I noticed that a couple of our old photo albums were falling apart.  The new albums I ordered arrived this week, so I've  been transferring the old pictures to the new albums.  Our oldest child was just six months old at the beginning of the first tattered album.  So I was looking farther back to when we still had our whole parenting adventure ahead of us.  The final thing hasn't actually happened yet, but next week my husband and I will be celebrating our thirtieth wedding anniversary, so I've been looking back to the summer of 1982 when we still had our whole marriage ahead of us.  All this looking back has made me nostalgic for those sweet beginnings.  I don't think there's anything wrong with glancing back into the past from time to time, but you've got to be careful.  If you get into a habit of constantly looking back over your shoulder, you miss all the things that are happening right in front of you--things like having grown-up kids who are now your friends, not just your children; and having a husband you know much better now than you did thirty years ago; and even saying good-bye to your sweet college-age daughter at the end of the summer because even though you're going to miss her, you're just as excited for each new chapter of her life as she is.  So in the days to come, I may peek over my shoulder occasionally, but for the most part, I'm going to do my best to face forward and keep my eyes wide open--I don't want to miss a thing!

We Love Lucy

My son Ben's fascination with classic TV reaches way to his childhood.  One of the happiest days of his young life was when we finally got cable TV, and he could watch Nick at Night.  He gobbled up  biographies, autobiographies, and other TV books by and about sitcom legends like Dick Van Dyke, Mary Tyler Moore, Bob Newhart, and especially Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.  Every Christmas and birthday included requests for VHS tapes or DVDs of classic sitcom episodes and seasons.  I think it all started with I Love Lucy.  He and I used to watch the show together occasionally when he was quite young, and he's been a big Lucy fan ever since.  He knows all about Desi's use of the three-camera technique in filming I Love Lucy, which made the rerun possible.  He knows the details of Lucy and Desi's stormy relationship, as well as all kinds of trivia about the Ricardos and Mertzes--in fact, if you give him an episode number he can tell you the title of the I Love Lucy episode.  When it was a lot more expensive than it is now, he bought the entire I Love Lucy series on DVD.  We all watch Ben's Lucy DVDs, and every time there's an I Love Lucy marathon on TV, we tune in.  We have favorite lines and episodes that we never tire of hearing and seeing.  My daughter Em is almost as big a Lucy fan as Ben is, so Saturday night, at her suggestion, we drove to Jamestown for the Lucy Fest.  The museum was closed when we got there, but we had fun walking around town listening to "Cuban Pete" and other signature Desi Arnaz/Ricky Ricardo songs being broadcast on loudspeakers and watching two I Love Lucy episodes being shown under the stars with other Lucy fans.  Happy 101st birthday, Lucy--thanks for all the laughter and good memories!

Ben's Room

Before

During

After

My oldest son's first apartment was tiny, so when he moved out last summer, his old room stayed much the same as it was all through his college years.  When he moved into his new, much larger place in May, he was still teaching and taking grad classes, so he didn't get around to moving all of the non-essential items out of his old room until last night.  Now, I know it was gradual, and I know I should be glad to have the extra space, but it's still not easy walking past that empty room today.  The previous owners used this little room as an indoor greenhouse.  In our early years here, it was the kids' playroom.  I'm not sure what it will be next.  Just a guest room?  A little office?  A playroom again when there are grandchildren?  Whatever else it becomes, it will always have its door open for Ben to spend the night any time he wants to.

Pieces of His Past

I was in my middle child's room changing the sheets after my mom's recent visit and made the mistake of hanging around in there for a little while looking at some of the things he left behind when he made his move to Rochester last fall.   I wasn't deliberately trying to make myself sad, but take a look at the picture:

This is the top shelf of his bookcase.  It holds artifacts of his whole life: favorite stuffed animals, his Kids' NIV Bible, a hacky sack, books I vividly remember reading to him at bedtime when he was in early elementary school, books he read himself during the summers of his college years, an old inhaler from his cross-country days, a pack of Buffalo Bills playing cards, and a commemorative glass mug from his college graduation.  Every time he comes home for a visit, I suggest that maybe he could go through some of the stuff in his room and decide what he wants to keep and what he's ready to part with.  I wouldn't mind getting rid of some of the clutter, but I really can't imagine going into his room and not seeing these pieces of his past on the bookshelf.  Suggestions?  If you're farther along on this path than I am, what did you do?  If you're not here yet, what clear-headed advice do you have?  For now (and probably for quite a while) these things will stay where they are, and I'll go on being happy and sad each time I look at them.

A Long Weekend

My mom's recent visit went just about the way I imagined it would, and it was lovely.  It felt like vacation with its slow pace, good food, good company, long walks, board games, and frequent laughter.  One problem with vacations is the letdown that often follows, and this weekend was no exception.  When Mom left Thursday night, she was accompanied by our kids who had made plans to visit their Pennsylvania cousins.  Somehow, I hadn't really anticipated the emptiness I would feel--I thought I'd finally gotten used to my kids' coming and going and the quiet house, but for some reason, the sudden absence of both kids at once hit my husband and me hard.  It was as if we'd both lost our footing and neither was able to steady the other.  Friday was an exasperating day--nothing went right from morning to night.  Saturday was stormy outside and in--we muddled through the day, but by evening our tempers were short, and we ended up having a stupid argument that at first appeared to be about other things but once we had cooled off and calmed down, we realized what was underneath it all: we both missed our kids and I missed my mom, and we didn't quite know what to do with ourselves.  Then Sunday dawned bright and clear, and we regained our equilibrium.  We slept late, watched a bit of Olympic tennis and the end of the women's road race, went to church, and then spent the afternoon cooking and relaxing and reading on the porch.  We had a layered Cobb salad for dinner (a dish that none of our kids would have liked but we loved), followed by a peach pie made with the local peaches I got at yesterday's farmers' market.  After supper we drove to the lake to watch the sunset. The peace and contentment that were missing Friday and Saturday are back.  And although I'll be happy to see our kids when they roll in around midnight, I'm grateful for this long weekend and for what it's taught me: to be thankful for the blessings we've had and for those that remain.

  

Frogs, Toads, and Things That Glow in the Dark

All three of my kids still have those plastic glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to the ceilings of their bedrooms right over their beds.  My middle child also had a glow-in-the-dark book about stars and planets, glow-in-the-dark paint, glow-in-the-dark balls, glow-in-the-dark stickers, and several little glow-in-the-dark plastic frogs.  As a matter of fact, thanks to me, he had a whole collection of frogs: plastic poison dart frogs, bean bag frogs, a frog that hopped when you gave it a puff of air, frogs that squirted water, and a frog whose tongue popped out when you squeezed it.  He also had all the Frog and Toad books (by Arnold Lobel), A Toad for Tuesday, and Warton and Morton (by Russell Erickson).   I used to tell people, "Darton loves frogs and toads and things that glow in the dark.  It wasn't until a couple of years ago when he was cleaning out his room that I realized Darton only liked frogs and toads and things that glow in the dark--I was the one who loved them.  I search for toads in the garden and love feeling their bumpy skin as I cradle them gently in my hands.  I am mesmerized by the way tadpoles changed into frogs.  And for some reason, I am fascinated and comforted by things that glow in the night after the lights are turned off.  Somehow, without realizing it, I projected my own interest and affection for amphibians and phosphorescence onto my son.  He was a science and nature guy, so that was part of it.  He played with the frogs, experimented with the glow-in-the-dark toys and enjoyed the stories, but for him, they were just a casual interest, never a passion.  So all of this has me wondering how often we parents do this--mistakenly assume our kids love something just because we do?  We inevitably leave our fingerprints all over our kids as they are growing up, and we can't help but share our interests and passions with them.  But as I've been reminded so many times over the years, our kids are very much their own people, not little replicas of us.  And that's just how it should be.  Now what am I going to do with all these frogs?

A Visit from Grandma

When the kids were growing up, my mom often came and stayed with us for a few days.  We all looked forward to visits from Grandma.  The kids loved having her visit because she raced Matchbox cars down the ironing board, played catch, did art projects, took walks, played board games, and read stories.   I liked hearing the news from home, having someone to share a pot of coffee with,  and smelling the familiar scent of her dusting powder after she had a bath.  But most of all, I liked the unhurried, peaceful time she spent with my kids.  I knew when they were with her, she was keeping them safe, teaching them things, playing with them, listening to them, and loving them.  I never had to worry about them when they were in her care, and this gave me a much-needed breather during those days of heavy-duty parenting.  As she and the kids got older, the visits became less frequent.  She doesn't drive much anymore and hasn't been here for quite awhile.  But she's coming tonight.  So today I'm cooking and cleaning.  While she's here, we'll drink coffee and work the crossword puzzle.  I'll hear the news from home.  We'll visit Ben's new apartment and meet Em for lunch at the conference center where she lifeguards.   We'll play games and take walks. And when she goes back home, we'll all feel listened to and loved, and I hope she will, too.

Food for Thought

I'm in the midst of reading The Feast Nearby by Robin Mather.  The book as a whole has me thinking a lot about taking better advantage of local food sources.  But there was a chapter early in the book that made me think about more than food.  The chapter focuses on the all-too-brief season of asparagus and ends with these lines: "Learning to appreciate a fleeting pleasure for itself is part of life, I guess.  I am working on cultivating my delight in a season's riches without longing for them when they have passed.  Like the seasons of my life, they will march along, whether I am ready for their changing or not."  I loved these words--not just for how they apply to tender spring asparagus, plump summer sweet corn, and crunchy fall apples, which I admit I sometimes long for out of season, but even more for how they help give me perspective on the seasons of parenting.  It's easy to fall into longing for the days of babies and toddlers or really any of the days when all the kids were still at home.  Those were seasons of great bounty, and I loved them.  But ready or not, those fleeting days are gone, and I need to recognize that this current season of life has many riches to offer, too.  Good book, good advice.

Have Fun and Be Careful

We live in close proximity to our neighbors, just a few feet between our houses, so we hear their coming and going and they hear ours.  Early this morning, I awoke to the sounds of cars being rearranged, doors and trunks being opened and closed, the crunch of footsteps on gravel driveways, and muffled voices.  Then out of the blend of sounds, I heard our neighbor's forty-year-old son call out, "Bye, Mom" and heard her answer, "Have fun and be careful." I'm guessing the son and his dad were off to a weekend antique car show, and Shirley (wife and mom) was staying home.  Just before the cars pulled away from the curb, I heard Bob (husband and father) call out, "I'll call you when we get there, Shirl."  Bob and Shirley have six children and a bunch of grandchildren and great-grandchildren, so as I was lying in bed wondering if I could fall back asleep, I started thinking about how many times Shirley has probably said those very same words over the years.   It's the same thing I say to my kids, the same thing my parents said to me, the same thing parents everywhere say to their kids.  It's a hope, a wish, a blessing, a prayer.  And we feel as though we can't let them go without saying it, as if saying it will make it so.  It's what we all want for our kids each time they head out on an adventure and we stay behind smiling bravely and waving good-bye.  Have fun and be careful.

Running in the Dark

When my daughter was in high school, she ran cross-country.  During the most intense part of their season, she used to do two-a-day practices, one after school with the team and the other in the early mornings before school.  The problem with the early morning practices was that it was still dark when she went out to run.  Now I wish I could say I laced up my own sneakers and ran with her, but I'm more of a walker than a runner--I could never have kept up with her.  So instead, I trailed her in the car.  She usually took the same route on those early morning runs, so I'd give her a short head start, then I'd follow along behind her with my headlights beaming a path for her.  If I started holding up traffic, I'd pull ahead and watch for her to come running along, ponytail swinging.  She's a college basketball player now, and along with ball-handling, shooting drills, weight-lifting, and rope-jumping, her summer training includes running.  She tries to get some of her workout done before she goes to work in the morning, then does the rest in the evening.  A couple of nights ago, she didn't have a chance to run until about 9:30, and as she was getting ready to go, we realized it was already dark.  So she took her old early-morning route, and I trailed her in the car, just like the old days.  Maybe it's the English teacher in me, but driving alongside my running daughter--offering light and company and protection--seems like an apt metaphor for the kind of parent I want to be throughout my kids' lives.  I can't do her running for her or even with her, but when she's running in the dark, sometimes I can make things a little bit safer and easier.