Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving: this quiet holiday that falls between spooky, candy-filled Halloween and big, bright, present-filled Christmas is known for nothing but its food and its gentle reminder to be thankful. The Thanksgivings I remember most from growing up were spent around our laminated, oval dining room table, which was dressed up for the occasion with a heavy, freshly-ironed tablecloth and my mom's good dishes. There wasn't much fanfare to Thanksgiving at our house; it was just the six of us most of the time. My mom would build a log cabin out of Lincoln Logs and surround it with little pilgrim and Indian candles for the centerpiece, and the corner of the stereo cabinet held a wicker cornucopia filled with plastic fruit; that was about it as far as decorations went. As for holiday music, my mom would sing "Over the River and Through the Woods" as she made pies and fat turkey-shaped sugar cookies the day before Thanksgiving, and when we woke up on Thursday morning, she'd be in the kitchen humming "We Gather Together" as she stuffed the turkey and pared potatoes. We would eat early, then spend the rest of the day playing games and eating leftovers.  I'd like to be able to add "and giving thanks for food, shelter, and each other" to the end of the previous sentence, but in truth, we probably spent more time arguing over who would get the last Brown 'N Serve roll and squabbling over whose turn it was in Carrom than being thankful. And even worse, instead of being grateful for all the blessings we already had, my sister and brothers and I were mostly just biding our time on Thanksgiving afternoon, waiting for my mom to put the first Christmas record on the stereo. By Thanksgiving night, we were busy circling coveted items in the Sears and Penneys Christmas catalogs as we composed our extensive wish lists. Thanksgiving would just sort of slip away as we started getting ready for the "bigger and better" holiday. Over the years, though, Thanksgiving has become so much more than a gateway to Christmas for me. Christmas might be bigger, but bigger isn't always better. I've grown to love Thanksgiving's simplicity, its understated traditions and decorations, its identity as a holiday that celebrates being grateful. I like its slower pace and its tight focus: one day, one meal, one purpose--giving thanks. It doesn't seem to matter how early stores put up their Christmas displays or how many Black Friday promotions there are, because for me Thanksgiving stands tall and strong, unaffected and unassuming. I guess, in a way, Thanksgiving still plays a part in getting me ready for Christmas, not by bowing out of the way to give me time to work on my wish list, but by steadily reminding of how much I already have.

Birthdays

"This is how it is with your children, she thought. You hold all the versions of them there ever were simultaneously in your heart." --Sue Miller

The weekend before last, all three of our kids were home. The two from out of town arrived by surprise  Friday night. They had come to help us celebrate our birthdays. The surprise visit involved a lot of planning and texting (and lying), but they pulled it off. We were completely unsuspecting and thoroughly surprised. It was the perfect present: we laughed and talked and ate and played games. And what Sue Miller's character says in the above quote was so true. As we sat around the table at the restaurant or in the dining room playing cards, I'd watch these grown-up kids of mine signing credit card slips, giving advice about grad school and teaching, and sharing plans for the end-of-student-teaching gifts, and I would also see an eight-year-old perched on a counter stool making an elaborate cardboard-paper-glitter present, a seven-year-old playing school with his brother and all the stuffed animals, and a six-year-old saving money in a little safe in the corner of his bedroom. It happens all the time--you see a twinkle in an eye, a stubborn look on a face, a familiar habit or gesture, and in that instant, the past telescopes itself and you see all the versions of themselves your children have ever been. Today at 4:33, my oldest child will turn twenty-seven years old, and for the first time, my parenting years will outnumber my non-parenting years. For me, birthdays have always been a time for looking back, for remembering each age and stage, but lately they have also become a time for looking ahead, for imagining all the versions of my kids that are yet to be.

Happy Birthday, Ben!

It's November!

It's November, and that means it's time for turtlenecks and warm socks and flannel sheets, three of my favorite things. In our family, November also means birthdays--three of them. One of the first things Steve and I discovered about each other during my freshman year at Westminster was that we shared a birthday. It was an odd coincidence that maybe helped us together at first. And it was kind of fun when we were dating, but later on it started to feel a little less fun. You know how it is when you're a kid: your birthday is your special day. There's a present on your bedside table when you wake up, you get to take cupcakes to school, there are birthday cards in the mail when you get home, your mom makes your favorite dinner, and then there are more presents and more cake. For that one day in the year, you are celebrated. Granted, some of the birthday hoopla wanes with age, but your birthday is still your own special day every year--except when you share it with your husband. You might think a double birthday would mean double the celebration, but in our case, the two kind of cancelled each other out. Think about it: Who makes the cake? Who hangs balloons and streamers? Who plans a special dinner? It was hard for the kids, too, at least when they were younger--there was no parent to help them get ready for the other parent's birthday. So our joint-birthday always ended up feeling a little more like an anniversary. Fortunately, our first child joined our November birthday club. For a while, we thought he might arrive right on our birthday, but he took his time and claimed his very own special day. So although Steve and I don't usually eat cake on our birthday, we happily share Ben's a few days later. Over the years, I've slowly gotten used to sharing my birthday. In fact, sharing a birthday, especially a November birthday, seems to suit Steve and me. November, with its grays and browns and leftover yellows, is a subdued, understated month--tucked in there between bold, golden October and merry, red-and-green December. Steve and I, with our November-ish personalities, fit right in. I'm not sure how we'll celebrate our birthday this year--something quiet and subdued no doubt--but we'll do it together as we have for more than thirty years. And these days, I wouldn't want it any other way.

Halloween

I loved candy as a kid, and for me, Halloween was all about the candy.  In addition to the treats in my Halloween bag, our town had a Halloween parade every year; one year when my sister, brother, and I went as  Snap, Crackle, and Pop, we won a prize, but everyone who even entered the parade got a giant Hershey bar.  There were other good things about Halloween, too: pumpkin carving and a black and orange Halloween dinner at home--usually sloppy joes and carrot-raisin salad.  Some years there were parties with spooky decorations and bobbing for apples, although once I made the mistake of going as a cornstalk, and no one knew I was there.  But aside from that misstep, Halloween was pretty enjoyable, but even with all the candy, it was never my favorite holiday. When my kids were young, we had fun with costumes. The three of them were Captain Hook, Peter Pan, and Tinker Bell on Em's first Halloween. Another year the boys were Ice Miser and Heat Miser from The Year Without a Santa Claus and Em was Little Red Riding Hood thanks to her fascination with Into the Woods. The year we bought our house on Eagle Street, we had big Halloween costume party to thank the friends who had helped us move. When the kids got older, their costumes got less elaborate, and they didn't need us to take them trick-or-treating anymore. At the time I didn't feel too sad about letting go of that part of their childhoods; it was kind of a relief not to be sewing Halloween costumes at the height of the semester. And I'd never really liked the darker side of Halloween--all the blood and gore and zombies and horror that are part of the holiday. So I didn't think I'd miss celebrating Halloween when the kids were grown and gone. But I do. I feel a little melancholy during Halloween week when my only celebration is a homemade pumpkin spice latte and a handful of toasted pumpkin seeds. Last year, Steve and I didn't even carve our pumpkin, we just scooped the seeds out.  And we sure don't dress up in costumes to host or attend Halloween parties; we no longer play spooky sounds when we answer the door to the dozens of trick-or-treaters that flood Eagle Street. It makes me wonder, are we on our way to becoming like one of those old couples who lived on my old trick-or-treat route, the kind that handed out stale popcorn balls and mushy apples or pencils or dimes? Or even worse, the kind that turned off their porch light and pretended they weren't not home?  I'm pretty sure we won't, and here's why: I love buying Halloween candy. I choose my assortment carefully and shop early--that way Steve and I can nibble away at Almond Joys and Kit Kats, and Hershey bars for a couple of weeks before Halloween arrives. And even then, we are strategic in our distribution--we give out the Skittles and Nerds and Lifesaver Gummies first, saving the chocolate in case the trick-or-treater turnout is low, and we end up with leftovers.  So despite our lack of Halloween spirit, I think we're safe for now because, for us, Halloween is still all about the candy. Anybody want a peanut butter cup?

World Series

Every year when the World Series rolls around, I am transported back in time to the early 1970's when I was growing up just north of Pittsburgh.  I remember bringing my little green transistor radio along with me to piano lessons, so I could listen to the playoff game while my brother was taking his lesson. Our crabby piano teacher scoffed at me, but I sat out on her sunny cement patio and cheered on Roberto Clemente and the rest of the Pittsburgh Pirates. They won the World Series in 1971. The next year they lost the National League championship to Johnny Bench and the Cincinnati Reds (my younger brother's favorite player and team). Less than three months later, the Pirates and their fans lost something far worse than a championship. When Clemente's plane went down on New Year's Eve in 1972, I was stunned and heartbroken. I was twelve years old and hadn't yet had much experience with death, especially not with the kind of death that takes away a vibrant, healthy ballplayer in the prime of his life.  My diary entry for January 2 reads, "Dear Diary, The whole country mourns the famous Pittsburgh Pirate Roberto Clemente.  He died on a mission of mercy. Maybe someone could replace him as a great ballplayer but no one could replace him as a man . . . I hope no one ever wears Roberto's number again (21). I just can't believe he's dead."  Baseball was never the same for me after that. Oh, I cheered on the Pirates through the rest of the decade and celebrated when they won the World Series again in 1979.  But I never quite got over Clemente's death and the realization that bad things happen to good people even when they are in the midst of doing good things. I didn't like finding out what a scary and unpredictable place the world was. But maybe that's not the only lesson to be learned from Roberto Clemente's life and death; maybe the more important lesson is to make the most of the time you're given--play hard, take care of others, and leave behind a legacy of hope and goodwill.  So next year when the World Series rolls around, I'll be remembering Roberto and reminding myself to live a life that matters. And if the Pirates are playing, I'll be watching . . . 

School Lunches

Our little elementary school had no cafeteria, so if you weren't a "walker," you carried a lunch box, paid a nickel for a little carton of milk, and ate in the classroom. I had a Peanuts lunch box and matching thermos. In those days, thermoses had glass liners, so they didn't usually last as long as the lunch box; if you banged your lunch box around a little too much on the way to school, you'd find shards of broken glass mixed in with whatever you had in your thermos. Most days my lunch box contained a peanut butter sandwich wrapped neatly in waxed paper, but once in  a while I agreed to bologna on squishy white bread with Miracle Whip. In the days before blue ice cold packs, my mom froze water in an old Bactine bottle and tucked that into my lunch box in hopes of keeping my sandwich cool until lunchtime. To go with my sandwich and milk, I had fresh or canned fruit and something sweet for dessert--usually cookies, sometimes little cans of pudding, or if I was really lucky, a Hostess Ho-ho! I loved those little foil-wrapped rolls of chocolate cake and white filling. To make mine last longer, I peeled off the outside layer of chocolate and ate that first, then I carefully unrolled the cake and ate it as slowly as I could. Our elementary school was barely a block from our town's main street, and kids who had money and a note from home got to eat "over town" at the Amber Grill. Eating in town was a rare treat in our family since extra dollars for hamburgers, fries, and a vanilla coke were few and far between.  But every once in a great while, usually when my dad was in charge of the lunch packing for some reason, we would unwrap our sandwiches and see a woven potholder tucked between the two slices of bread along with a dollar and a note giving us permission to go to town for lunch. Part of the fun of eating over town was stopping at Kenny Wilson's candy store on the way back to school for a pack of Sprees or a strip of Zotz candy to keep in your desk and nibble on during the long afternoon hours. Field trip days usually called for bagged lunches (no lunch boxes), and I suppose I usually took my lunch in a plain brown paper bag with my name printed neatly on the front, just like everyone else did, but one time--maybe it was the year my grade got to go to Old Economy--my mom decorated the front of my bag with a garland of flowers.  I loved that bag, not just because it was pretty and festive, but because my busy mom took a few extra minutes to make something special for me to remind me she would be thinking of me when I was on my field trip. It was the same with finding a potholder sandwich and a dollar bill in my lunch box on days my dad was in charge of things. He could have just given us the dollars and notes in the morning, but instead he took a few extra minutes to do something only he would do and made a memory that would last a lifetime. Of course I didn't know it at the time, but those school lunches were doing more than filling my stomach--they were etching a lifelong place in my memory, and they were teaching me about the kind of parent I wanted to be.

Signs of Fall

Signs of fall are all around. It's moving-in weekend for SUNY Fredonia students, and the Fredonia Farm Festival is in full swing. Quiet summer nights have given way to the loud voices and late-night laughter of our new student-neighbors as they make their way home from house parties and bars. On my way to the farmers' market early this morning, I saw the tell-tale beer cans nestled in the grass and the first few colored leaves on the sidewalk. Although fall is my favorite season, these early signs of fall are bittersweet. If fall is coming, that means summer is ending. And the end of summer means our last child will be leaving for her last year of college. It means the house will soon feel too big, too quiet, and too empty. It means taking baby spinach and baby kale for green smoothies off my weekly shopping list and adding non-vegetarian entrees to our weekly menus. It means my girl won't be perched on the other couch doing her nails or making bracelets while we watch Mad About You or Gilmore Girls. It means I won't see her ponytail swinging as she heads out for a run. It means she won't be making us laugh at the dinner table or on the tennis court. It means we have to get used to being two again, instead of three or four or five. We've been sending kids off to college for nine years now, but somehow it never gets any easier. How can it? How can we stop missing our kids when they are not with us? My mom is eighty-one, and she still misses my sister, my brothers and me.  She treasures letters, phone calls, and visits and wishes they were all more frequent.  So maybe it's something you never really make peace with, you just handle it as gracefully as possible and keep your door and heart open.  For everything there is a season.

Cape May

The first time we went to Cape May our kids were six, four, and one. One-year-old Emily spent most of the week asleep in her little umbrella stroller, but the rest of us fell in love with the Victorian houses and the little shops, with Sunset Beach and Bodacious Bagels, and especially with the sun, the sand, and the ocean! We returned the next summer, and then four more times over the next twelve years. We always went with some (or all) of my family--sometimes renting a house together and sometimes getting adjoining motel rooms. Some of our fondest memories are from those Cape May vacations--despite years when it was cold and rainy or when the water was too full of jellyfish to swim or when half the group had the stomach flu. To me there's something almost magical about a beach vacation, and I've been missing the ocean. After a seven-year dry spell, we are headed back to Cape May. Before long we'll be packing all three kids (now twenty-six, twenty-four, and twenty-one) and all our beach gear into our good old minivan to make the long drive to the Jersey shore. When we get there, we'll be cosily sharing one hotel room--tightly equipped with two double beds, a sofa bed, and a cot, so we're hoping hard for good weather and cheerful moods! I know things will be different than they used to be: Bodacious Bagels is no longer in business; my kids won't have their cousins to hang out with; Steve and I won't have my siblings and their spouses to laugh and talk and walk with; my mom won't be whizzing by on her bicycle. But I still can't wait to get there. I can't wait to see the mighty Atlantic Ocean and the brightly colored houses of Cape May again; I can't wait to take early morning walks on the quiet beach and spend afternoons reading in the sun. But what I'm looking forward to more than anything is having our little family together again for a few blissful, uninterrupted days.

Heavenly Hash Cake

Although we only spent a couple of years in Muncie, Indiana, we picked up a lot of things in that little community that we've carried with us ever since. It was there I learned to knit. There I fell in love with Little Kiddles. There we learned about candy strings. And it was there my mom acquired her recipe for heavenly hash cake.  For those of you who have never had it, heavenly hash is a fudgy chocolate cake topped with a layer of marshmallow cream and then with creamy chocolate frosting. It quickly became a family favorite. It was almost always my sister's choice for her "good report card" treat. My mom made it for church picnics, for family reunions, and for the fancy coffee hours my dad used to host for his university students. When there was a pan of heavenly hash cake in our house, all was well. The heavenly hash cake recipe is one of the oldest in my recipe box, and I used to make it fairly often. But then, for some reason, I stopped making it. In fact, until this past week, the last time I made it may well have been for my middle child's 7th birthday. That same dear child just celebrated his 24th birthday. He came home for a visit a few days after his birthday, and the day before he arrived, I found myself pulling out the old recipe to make a belated birthday/4th of July heavenly hash cake.  As I was spreading the thick chocolately batter into the pan, the comforting, familiar smell sent me hurtling back through time and space to the kitchens of my childhood. The next day when the cake was finished and my boy was home, I took my first heavenly bite, and once again, all was well.

Burlap Curtains and Locust Shells

Two things happened recently that reminded me of my childhood. First, I read this Facebook post by author Anna Quindlen:

"Can I get a cicada update from hither and yon? Ours seem to have progressed from deafening to loud to persistent, which perhaps means one morning we will wake to discover they are gone. Two cicada uses, one small, one great: when you drop one onto the surface of the pond and a bass comes at it like a torpedo, you instantly understand the genius of fly fishing. And when you think that this brood of cicadas will not reappear for 17 years, it makes you soberly consider the passage of time. I will be 77 when they emerge again--that is, if I am very lucky."

Second, I saw this picture on Pinterest with the caption "DIY Burlap Curtains":

In the mid-1960s, when my dad was in graduate school at Ball State University, we lived in the Anthony Apartments, one of Ball State's off-campus housing communities.  Although my mom had very little extra money to work with, she did her best to make the small student apartment a home for the six of us. One of her thrifty ideas was making burlap curtains for the window in the tiny bedroom I shared with my sister and brothers.  They weren't as long or as grand as the ones in the picture above, but they did have red and white rick-rack trim sewed along the bottom.  Because the apartment was so small, we spent a lot of time outside, and because our budget was so lean, we mostly did things that didn't cost any money like taking walks.  But as I've mentioned before, a walk with my mom was never just a walk. One of the things we did on our walks during our two summers in Muncie was look for locust shells.  When we found one, we'd gently pluck it off the tree and take it home where we would attach it to our burlap curtains.  On the rare occasions we found a locust (actually a cicada) still in its shell, Mom would tell us the story of how baby cicadas hatch from their eggs then burrow underground where they stay for up to seventeen years before they emerge, crawl up a tree, shed their shells, and begin their adult lives. So to me, locust shells have always been more fascinating than ugly--though I've come to understand not everyone (including my husband) feels this way! As I remembered those burlap curtains with the parade of locust shells climbing up them, I was thinking about about how much the world has changed since I was a kid. I don't know where my mom got the idea of making burlap curtains--maybe she thought it up herself or perhaps she saw them in someone else's apartment--but today, with just a couple of clicks, I can find dozens of pictures and posts of burlap curtains as well as hundreds of other clever, creative, inexpensive window covering ideas.  And when I was a kid, the authors of the books I loved to read seemed remote, almost magical, and not-quite-real; now I can read the wonderful, intriguing, everyday details of authors' lives on their blogs and websites; I can even find out on Facebook that an author I admire shares my fascination with cicadas! Yet, at the same time, I was also thinking how little the world has changed: people have always found unique ways to decorate on a budget and amuse their kids at the same time; cicadas continue to emerge from their underground hiding places, reminding us of their presence with their persistent singing and by the shells they leave behind.  Since I often worry about the world my children are inheriting, I like being reminded that change can be good and technology can connect us in ways I never would have imagined, but I also like knowing that some things don't change.

The First Day of Summer

For most of his adult life, my dad collected half dollars. Somewhere along the way, after we kids had all grown up, he decided to divide up his collection among us. I can't remember how many we each got, but I do remember agonizing over what to do with my share. I kept them for a while then finally decided to put them toward a special purchase: an L.L. Bean tent, two sleeping bags, and a Coleman cooler. We loved our new green tent. Its first outing was at a campground on little Squam Lake; I was five months pregnant with our first child, and Steve and I were spending the summer with friends in New Hampshire. Later on, when our kids were small, we pitched the green tent in our backyard every summer and camped there. I loved those nights filled with stories, games, snacks, and giggling kids.  When the kids got bigger and we could no longer fit comfortably in our four-man green tent, we bought a second smaller L.L. Bean tent to accommodate the five of us on our yearly campouts with friends on Chautauqua Lake. The trips to Camp Chautauqua gradually died out as the kids grew up, got jobs, and moved away. But every summer I still get a hankering to sleep in the tent. The kids can't be talked into backyard camping anymore, but good old Steve usually humors me and agrees to sleep outside once a summer.  Well, since the longest day of the year fell on a Friday this year and since none of our kids were home, I thought sleeping in the tent would be a perfect way to celebrate the first day of summer.  Steve surprised me by saying it was "not a bad idea," right off the bat, and although we spent a few minutes talking about whether we actually had the energy to set up the tent and lug down all the bedding and whether our backs could take sleeping on the ground, we decided to go ahead and pitch the smaller two-man tent. As far as I'm concerned, the two best parts of sleeping in a tent are falling asleep to the sound of crickets and cicadas and waking up to sunlight peeping through the tent windows. The time in between of trying to get comfortable on the hard, bumpy ground is the price you pay for enjoying the falling asleep and waking up!  Last night, soon after we zipped ourselves into the tent, a loud party started in a backyard of a house down the street; instead of crickets and cicadas, there were loud music and even louder voices and laughter.  Finally about 2:30, Steve woke me up and said he hadn't been to sleep yet and he was sorry but he had to go inside.  I nibbled on a couple of graham crackers and pulled out my Kindle, which I discovered is much better for middle-of-the-night tent reading than the old flashlight/book combo I've used in the past, and eventually fell back asleep when the party ended.  I woke up early this morning to a cacophony of crows and the sun shining through the tent's plastic skylight. Steve and I will both be tired later today, and it might take more convincing to get him to spend another night in the tent with me, but I'm pretty sure I'll never lose my fondness for sleeping outside, even if it's only in the backyard!

A Good Man

My dad was overweight for most of his adult life; he changed careers three times before settling uneasily into his job as a professor of education at YSU; he and my mom didn't get along all that well; and he suffered from depression, diabetes, and psoriasis. His was not an easy life, and yet he was a good man and a good dad. Although it's hard for me to believe now, there were a few times when we were growing up that I wished he'd go away and not come back. Yet I barely remember those dark days. What I remember is a dad who sat on the floor and played blocks with us, who made up bedtime stories about two hippopotamuses named Daisy and Lulabelle, who taught us to play four-square, who left packages of M & M's under our pillows on nights when he had a late class, and who gave us Friday night dimes to spend in town. When we grew up and left home, he supplied us with cameras, air conditioners, VCRs, and computers. He kept us connected with his Weekend Update emails and his frequent telephone calls. And since he didn't travel much, especially toward the end of his life, he made sure we knew we were always welcome visitors. As Father's Day approaches, I treasure the memories I have of my dad. Although he was far from perfect, just like the rest of us, he got the big stuff right: first of all, my dad was always in my corner--I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that he would go to bat for me if I needed him to; second, he believed in me--he thought I was smarter, more athletic, and more talented than I actually was; and finally, he loved me--completely and absolutely. So although it's been eleven years since I've bought a card or a gift for my dad on Father's Day, I am blessed every single day by the gifts he left with me.

Ancora Imparo ("I Am Still Learning")

I've been reading through an old journal recently. In an entry from September of 1986, I wrote, "It's so hard being grown-up sometimes." I was twenty-five, and Steve was twenty-six. If I had looked back on those early days of adulthood without reading through the journal, I probably would have said those were simpler, easier times. We were young and healthy.  We were back in school, we had relatively few possessions, we didn't own a house yet. In fact, I would have said we were relatively carefree.  But my journal entries tell a different story, a story I'd almost forgotten.  We were a couple of months away from the birth of our first child, and we were wrestling with decisions about the future, having second thoughts about careers, worrying about how we were going to support ourselves and our child. When I was a kid, I remember marveling at everything my parents knew and could do. I wondered how I would ever learn it all. There's a scene in the novel The Watsons Go to Birmingham--1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis where the narrator, ten-year-old Kenny, says, "Dad, I don't think I'll ever know what to do when I'm grown-up.  It seems like you and Momma know a lot of things that I can never learn. It seems real scary." In the fall of 1986, I was feeling much the same way. How did people learn to be grown-ups? There were so many things about life we didn't know.  What should we do or who should we call when the baby wouldn't stop crying, when we couldn't use the easiest tax form anymore, when the engine light came on, when the plaster crumbled, when the pipes were leaking or clogged or frozen, when something on my skin looked funny, when Steve noticed a strange lump on the back of his leg, when one of our kids was sick or hurt or heartbroken? But as time passed, we learned how to soothe a baby, how to do our taxes, how to use a pipe wrench; we found doctors, plumbers, and mechanics we trusted; we figured out how to tend to broken bones and broken hearts. Yet even now, twenty-seven years later, I have to admit, there are still a great many things that I don't know, and I suspect if I asked my mom, she'd say the same thing. So I guess what I've learned more than anything else is that you're never done learning. Plus, I was right all along--it is hard being grown up sometimes.

4:33

My first-born child arrived at 4:33 on Wednesday, November 19, 1986--fifteen days after his due date.  After all those months of waiting and after twenty-four hours of labor, he was finally here.  It was well worth the wait: the minutes, hours, and days that followed were some of the happiest of my life.  I will always remember the short drive home from the hospital.  We were driving down Central Avenue in our little white Toyota, a street I'd been on hundreds of times, but I felt completely disoriented.  It seemed as though the world had changed while I was in the hospital.  As it turned out, it was my world that had changed. Every year on Ben's birthday, I'd pause at 4:33 and savor the memory of the moment he was born.  I think some years we even toasted the time with sparkling grape juice.  In recent years, due partly to the emergence of digital clocks and cell phones, a strange thing has happened.  At least two or three times a week, I happen to glance at the clock on the microwave or at the front screen of my phone right at 4:33, not at 4:32 or 4:34 but exactly at 4:33.  It happened just yesterday.  Although I've been a parent now for more than twenty-six years, I still feel a little shiver of awe every time I see 4:33.  I marvel at the way my world changed forever in just that moment, and I breathe up a prayer for my sweet boy.

Mother's Day

"Anything, any loss of sleep, any loss of ease, was worth the sweet, and too, too brief time of holding little ones until they burst out of your arms and into the world." --Rafael Yglesias in Only Children

Last year on Mother's Day, I wrote a post honoring my mom; this year I want to honor my kids. As any parent will attest, having children changes you forever. But what I've been realizing lately is that having kids keeps changing you. Like most children, I learned a lot from my parents as I was growing up; much of who I am was shaped by who they were.  It wasn't until I had kids of my own that I realized the current runs both ways--children shape parents just as much as parents shape children.  When our kids are young, we teach them how the world works.  We share our favorite foods, places, and hobbies with them.  We try our best to help them develop good manners, strong faith, and healthy habits. But then, somewhere around the time our kids hit middle school, the balance shifts and we start learning from them.  As their worlds expand, so does ours. They start to share their favorite music and movies with us; we follow their team buses to places we've never been before; we learn about backpacking, guild auditions, and cross-country running. When they get to high school, our kids bring the world to us--they show us pictures and tell us stories of their trips to France, Italy, Greece, Puerto Rico, and Australia.  They help us see and feel and understand things we never even imagined.  Then they go off to college, and they begin to live the lives we tried to prepare them for as they were growing up in our homes. When they come home on breaks, we are surprised by the changes: the new maturity, outlooks, attitudes. In some ways, they are the children they've always been, but in other ways, they are young adults who feel more like friends.  All of a sudden we realize they are showing us how the world works (especially the world of technology!). We admire and learn from their generosity, their fearlessness, their stamina and self-discipline. They remind us that it's important to have fun, to take risks, and to dream big.  On this Mother's Day weekend, I want to thank my kids--not just for all the breakfasts in bed and Mother's Day gifts over the years, but for the many ways they've changed me, and for all the things I continue to learn from them.

"I would like them to be the happy end of my story."
--Margaret Atwood

The Art of Ironing

I have this memory of lying on the floor near or even part way under the ironing board on afternoons when my mom was ironing.  She was watching Guiding Light, and I was playing with my Pepper dolls.  The air was filled with the scent of clean, hot cotton, and although the TV was on, I mostly remember the thump of the iron on the ironing board and the hiss of the water from the sprinkler bottle dissolving into steam as it hit the surface of my mom's trusty iron.  Occasionally, a freshly ironed sleeve would brush against my cheek as my mom shifted the shirt she was working on.  We didn't talk, at least not that I remember, but it was calm and peaceful there under the ironing board.  With a family of six, in the days when permanent press fabrics were just beginning to hit the market, my mom had a lot of ironing to do.  I remember she used to keep a plastic bag full of damp clothes in the bottom of our fridge between washing days and ironing days, and I loved watching as piece by piece that mound of crinkled up cotton was transformed.  After an hour or two, there were pants and shirts with sharp creases hanging on door knobs and neat stacks of crisp pillowcases, handkerchiefs, and napkins on the couch.  Although my mom probably had a hundred things to do when she finished, she never seemed to be in a hurry when she ironed.  As with so many things, she took her time and did it right.  I think about that as I hurry through my days, running an iron over the skirt I'm about to put on, quickly pressing away the worst of the wrinkles.  During the years raising three kids and working full time, I got into the habit of rushing through housekeeping chores, giving them "a lick and promise, " as my mom would say.  As a matter of fact, it wasn't just housekeeping chores that I hurried through, I got into the habit of rushing through life.  I doubt I will ever have the patience or desire to become an expert in the art of ironing like my mom is, but I would like to start living more deliberately.  I want to take my time and do things right.  I want calm and peaceful afternoons even in the midst of a busy life.

Growing Up

Seventeen years ago we were in Florida for spring break, and our youngest child was about to turn four.  But instead of getting ready for a sunny Florida birthday, we found ourselves in the midst of an emotional storm. The problem? Em didn't want to celebrate her birthday. She didn't want a cake, she didn't want presents, and most of all, she didn't want to be four.  One of the books she liked at the time was I Like to Be Little by Charlotte Zolotow, which begins,

"Once there was a little girl.
"What do you want to be when you grow up? her mother asked.
"I just want to stay little right now," she said.
"Why?" said her mother. "It's nice to be grown up. Why do you want to be little?"
"Because I am," said the little girl, "and because when you are little you can do things you can't when you grow up."

In the rest of the book the little girl describes things she can do because she's little that grown-ups don't do (skipping when she's glad, making a house under the dining room table, going barefoot in summertime, eating snow when it first falls). Em had taken all that to heart and had decided she didn't want to get any older.  Another one of her favorite books at the time was The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister, and what finally calmed the storm and eased Em through the transition from three to four was the promise of a rainbow fish birthday cake. Before long she discovered being older meant she could do more tricks on the playground and keep up better with her brothers, and she sailed through the rest of being four, and five, and six . . . and really all the way through being nineteen. Last year around this time, there were echoes of that long ago birthday. Whenever I started to mention her upcoming birthday, she stopped me and said, "I don't want to talk about it."  Once again she was struggling with getting older; she wasn't one bit excited about turning twenty and leaving her teen years behind.  There were no tears or tantrums this time, but there was a bit of sadness in her eyes as her birthday approached.  So now here we are on the eve of her twenty-first birthday; tomorrow my daughter will officially be an adult, a grown-up. I don't really know how she's feeling about it; she's been through a tough week, so her mind has been on other things. But I've been watching her over the past year, and I can see that she's ready. What the little girl in the book didn't yet know is that there are a lot of great things waiting for you when you grow up that you can't do when you're little. And I think that even though Em liked being little, she's going to love being grown up.  Happy 21st birthday, Em!

Advice from Alcatraz

In one of my classes, we're reading Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko right now.  The story takes place in 1935 on Alcatraz Island, where Matthew "Moose" Flanagan and his family have recently moved.  Moose's dad has taken a job at the prison, so Moose's sister can attend a special school in nearby San Francisco.  Moose is unhappy about the move and wants to return to his old life in Santa Monica.  Early in the book he is talking to his dad about it and says, "I want to know for certain this is going to work out." Mr. Flanagan's response has been echoing in my head all weekend.  This is what he tells his son: "Nobody knows how things will turn out, that’s why they go ahead and play the game, Moose. You give it your all and sometimes amazing things happen, but it’s hardly ever what you expect.” One thing I've learned in my twenty-six years of parenting is how very true that is. Each one of my kids is different from the other two; what I learned in parenting one of them has helped very little in parenting the other two.  Their paths through life have been as different as they are, even though they came from the same gene pool, grew up in the same house and the same town, and two of them even went to the same college.  In each of their lives, amazing things have happened, but just like Mr. Flanagan said, it has hardly ever been what I was expecting.  This unpredictability keeps you humble as a parent; it also keeps you on your knees if you're a praying person.  You give life your all and encourage your kids to do the same, then you hold on tight, keep your eyes wide open, and wait to see how it all turns out.

Good Friday

When I was growing up, we went to church at noon on Good Friday.  It was a somber service for a somber day, but afterwards we went out for pie at The Landmark, a local restaurant.  We spent Saturday coloring Easter eggs in coffee mugs filled with vinegary-smelling dyes.  On the years the weather cooperated, we got up in the pre-dawn darkness for sunrise services.  When we got home, we hunted for our cellophane-wrapped Easter baskets and searched for the jelly beans my mom had hidden all over the living room.  Then we put on our best clothes and our freshly polished shoes and headed off to church where the sanctuary smelled of lilies as we sang "Christ the Lord is Risen Today" and "Up from the Grave He Arose."  We came home to Easter dinner, followed by an Easter egg hunt with the real hard-boiled eggs we had dyed the day before.  For many days after Easter we took the cracked, colorful eggs in our school lunches with little salt and pepper shakers and ate deviled eggs and pickled eggs for supper.  It was the same year after year.  Here's the strange thing: I re-created very few of these Easter traditions with my own kids.  Our church didn't have a Good Friday service, and most years classes were in session at the college, so I was teaching anyway.  My kids didn't like hard-boiled eggs, and it seemed wasteful to color eggs we were going to throw away, so some years we dipped white wax eggs in colored wax instead.  I hid my kids' Easter baskets, but I just used the twiggy baskets we had around the house and didn't wrap them in colorful cellophane.  Our church had Easter morning services and lilies, but we sang contemporary worship songs rather than "Christ the Lord is Risen Today." Some years, thanks to New York's long spring breaks, we drove to Florida to visit Steve's parents--those years we colored eggs on the patio in the tropical, eighty-degree heat, I packed Easter bags instead of baskets, we wore swimsuits instead of Easter finery and went the beach instead of to church on Easter Sunday.  I've spent a good bit of time worrying about this over the years.  I'm pretty big on traditions, and yet on this holiest of holidays, somehow I never could quite replicate the Easters of my childhood.  It's not the colorful cellophane-wrapped baskets or the Easter egg hunts I'm talking about, it's the Good Friday services, the sunrise services, and the reverence with which my parents approached Easter--those are the things that formed in me an unwavering, unshakeable faith in a loving God.  I hope and pray on this Good Friday that despite the piecemeal approach to Easter my kids have experienced over the years, they know, beyond a shadow of a doubt how precious they are to God. And regardless of how they mark these holy days in the years ahead, I hope every Good Friday and every Easter Sunday is a solid reminder of God's amazing grace and love.

Closing Night

Tonight is closing night of the high school musical, scores of people have put in hundreds of hours over the past five months.  My son Ben has been working on it since last summer when he chose the show.  And in a few hours it will all be over, living on only in the hearts and minds of all the kids and adults who worked on the show and of audience members who came to watch and cheer.  I am feeling sad and wistful about that, even though I am just one of those audience members.  As I've said before, I have a hard time with endings.  I know things can't go on forever; I know some things must end in order for other things to begin.  But still it's hard when musicals end, when friends move away, when your kids graduate from college and can no longer come home for breaks and holidays.  It's harder still when lives end, and widows like my mom and Steve's mom are left to carry on alone and when grown-up kids like me can't call their dads on Saturday mornings.  Yet all we can do is hold on to the sweet memories, while we forge ahead, thinking about what we're going to do next . . .

An Irish Lullaby

My mom was only partly Irish on one side of her family, but she loved Irish music. We grew up singing along with her Irish records in the days approaching St. Patrick's Day.  On the 17th, she greeted us with a "Top o' the mornin' to you," and we all wore green to school.  For some reason, instead of corned beef and cabbage, she simply served green foods for dinner.  I tried to carry on these traditions with my own kids.  They loved the green dinners, but despite the cassette tapes I made from my mom's old records, my kids never really got to know sweet Molly Malone or Clancy (who lowered the boom); they never fell asleep to an Irish lullaby.  These days, my kids wear green on St. Patrick's Day (if they remember), and I usually get a "top o' the morning" text from at least one of them, but it's been a while since we've had pesto, broccoli, kiwi, Granny Smith apples, celery sticks, pickles, and 7-up with green ice cubes for dinner.  I wonder sometimes what traditions my kids will carry on into their adult lives, what bits and pieces of their childhoods they will pass along to their own children.  I hope they hold onto the things that matter most.  But I know they can't hold onto everything; they need to make space to do things their own way and to create new traditions.  And I'm looking forward to watching it all unfold.

Opening Night

My husband Steve and I met in the fall of 1979 at Beeghly Theater where we were both theatre majors.  My experience at Theatre Westminster was uneven at best, and when I graduated, I walked away from performing and have never looked back.  But Steve has continued to sing, act, and direct ever since.  And we're both big fans of musical theatre, so our kids grew up listening to musical soundtracks and watching musicals on television.  When our oldest child was in third grade, his first year at the "big" school, he saw a preview for the upcoming high school musical in a school assembly.  He was mesmerized.  He couldn't wait to see the whole show, so he and I got tickets for opening night of Oklahoma on the FHS stage in 1996.  For the next five years, we kept up the tradition of going to each opening night together: Bye, Bye Birdie in 1997, followed by Guys and Dolls, West Side Story, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and Grease.  Then, finally, he was old enough to audition for his first show.  Despite having a ruptured eardrum on the night of auditions, he ended up in the cast of Oliver! his freshman year.   Over the next three years, he was in the casts of Les Misérables, 42nd Street, and Crazy for You.  In the fall of 2005, he headed off to college as a music education major, dreaming of teaching vocal music and directing musicals.  Almost right away, he realized music was not the right major for him and switched to inclusive childhood education.  Yet he still dreamed of directing  high school musicals one day.  The long-time director of the FHS musicals retired after Ben's sophomore year in high school; his successor directed six musicals and then retired, and in a surprising turn of events, Steve found himself directing the next three high school shows.  When Ben graduated in December of 2009 (that change in majors cost him an extra semester!), he moved back home temporarily to substitute teach and apply for teaching jobs, and he also worked on the musicals alongside his dad.  After directing Godspell in 2011, Steve decided to step down as director.  And much sooner than he ever could have imagined, Ben was hired as the next director.  My heart was in my throat a year ago as I sat in the dark auditorium on opening night and watched the lights come up on a silhouetted fiddler perched on a sloping roof and on my boy's dream-come-true.  Tonight is his second opening night, and I know that on the inside, the tuxedo-clad, 26-year-old director is just as  excited as he was as a third grader watching his first high school musical.  Break a leg, Ben!

The Red Plate

Somewhere along the way when the kids were growing up I read about and then bought a red "You Are Special Today" plate.  It came with an indelible black marker so you could write the dates and descriptions of the special days on the back of the plate to keep track of them.  We never did that because I envisioned more special days than we could record on the back of the plate.  Over the years we've used it to celebrate birthdays, basketball playoff games, cross-country championships, musicals, senior nights, graduations, college acceptances, and new jobs.  I hope my kids know they are special to me every day, but on big days (or on this particular occasion, on the eve before a big week), it's nice to have this plate to remind them how especially special they are.

Kindergarten Blankets

One of the items on the supply list for kindergarten for each of my kids was "nap mat."  In one of the many conversations a good friend and I had about kindergarten the summer before our first-borns headed off to school, she mentioned that she was going to make her son a thick blanket-like nap mat, using fabric from Jo-Ann's and fluffy polyester batting.  I loved this idea and decided to use Ben's bandanas to make his nap mat.  I did the same thing for my other two children, choosing brightly colored dolphin fabric for my science- and nature-loving middle child and for my youngest, cheerful cotton fabric that featured cute little faces of kids, many of whom had blonde curly hair just like Em's.  In the fourteen years since my youngest finished kindergarten, the blankets have been folded and stacked in the corner of our piano room.  Our house is big and old and drafty, and the kindergarten blankets became couch blankets for watching TV and floor blankets for our old dog who loved a bit of extra warmth and comfort.  Ben's bandana blanket has grown frail with age, so I've tucked it away for safe keeping, but we still use the other two, all these years later.  And every time I pull one out, I think back to those kindergarten days and what a leap of faith it was to send my children out into the world for the first time.  I hoped that when they unrolled their nap mats on days they were feeling sad or tired, they'd be cheered, warmed, and comforted.  I hoped in some subtle way, they would be reminded there was someone at home who loved them and was waiting for them to return at the end of the day.  And now that my children are grown and out in a much bigger world, it's an even bigger leap of faith to let go and watch them live their lives.  They no longer have time to nap or soft little blankets to stretch out on, but still I hope on days they are feeling sad or sick or worried, they know there is someone at home who loves them and is always waiting for the next time they come home.  

Perfect Penmanship

When I was in first grade, I got an "N" in handwriting.  Although I was only two years into my school career, I was already sensitive to the difference between an "E" (for "Excellent") and an "N" (for "Needs Improvement").  And since I was an early reader, I had gotten a lot of E's, so when I saw the "N" on my report card, I was taken aback.  I vowed to do better.  I was determined to give my penmanship the improvement my first-grade teacher said it needed.  It took a couple of years of practice, but eventually, one of my handwriting samples came back from the Peterson Handwriting Company as an "Outstanding" example of their method (even though I never held the pen the Peterson-way and often bypassed the "round-round-ready-write" warm-ups).  Except for occasional lapses when I'm in hurry, I've had neat handwriting ever since.  Yet, as tidy as my penmanship was, it always paled in comparison to my mom's perfect handwriting.  She could have made the Peterson alphabet cards that lined perimeters of the classrooms of my childhood.  Her cursive letters were beautifully formed and perfectly slanted.  Her printing was neat and crisp even when she was in a hurry.  But this week, I got a letter from my mom, and I realized her handwriting has changed.  I can tell she's still taking great care when she writes, but the letters are shaky now.  The hand that formed them is unsteady.  And it makes me feel so, so sad—not because her handwriting isn't perfect anymore, but because it is yet another sign that my sweet mom is aging.  Things that used to come easily and naturally to her have become difficult—things like making her own meals, remembering names, and now, writing letters.  I wish life wasn't such a struggle for her; I wish I could smooth her way, just as she always smoothed mine.  And in the back of my mind I can't help but wonder how many years it will be before my own daughter, whose handwriting is also beautiful and neat, begins to notice my careful penmanship beginning to falter.  I hope, like my mom, I will keep writing letters to my children and grandchildren anyway, even though it takes longer and my hand is unsteady.  And I hope, like me, they will know that despite the shaky handwriting, the love behind the letters is steady and true.  

"G" for Gail

Meatloaf for Dinner?

As I already acknowledged in an earlier post, I was a picky eater as a kid.  The list of foods I didn't like was long, but at the very top of the list was MEATLOAF, a meal we had way too often.  I don't know if it was the minced onions (another food right near the top of the list) it contained or its texture that I disliked, but I just could not eat it.  My dad, a meatloaf lover, used to offer me a quarter to take a bite, and even though a quarter could buy a lot of candy in those days, I don't think I ever took him up on it.  I know many people consider meatloaf to be one of the ultimate comfort foods, but I just don't get it.  And as far as I'm concerned, the only thing worse than meatloaf is a meatloaf sandwich.  My children never even got the chance to turn up their noses at meatloaf because, of course, I never made it for them, and poor Steve, who actually likes meatloaf, hasn't had it in thirty years.  So imagine my surprise when I saw a recipe for Mexican Meatloaf on my favorite cooking blog earlier this week and couldn't get it out of my mind.  I kept re-opening the post, trying to decide if I could actually bring myself to make meatloaf.  I finally decided to go for it.  Right this very minute it's cooking away in my little Crockpot, and it's looking and smelling good!  Now, I'll admit a slow-cooker Mexican meatloaf is a pretty far cry from the classic meatloaf my mom used to make (which involved Quaker Oats and ketchup and the aforementioned minced onions), and I can't imagine I'll ever travel that far down the meatloaf path, but for a recovering picky eater, this is a major breakthrough!

P.S. Dad, when I get to heaven, you're going to owe me a quarter . . .

Withdrawal

". . . nothing made him happier, nothing made him feel safer and more at ease with the world, than having one of his children under his roof once again."  (from The Arrivals by Meg Mitchell Moore)

I've been feeling a bit glum this week.  At first I chalked it up to the February blues, but honestly, I don't really mind winter all that much, except for the shoveling, which hasn't been too bad this year.  There's nothing really amiss in my little world:  My semester is off to a good start, the kids are doing well, and Steve is enjoying a much-needed February break.  So why was I feeling a little out of sorts, a little off my game?  Slowly, it dawned on me--I'm in withdrawal.  My youngest was home for the weekend and now she's back at school.  And I miss her.  I miss her car in the driveway, her face at the dinner table, and her body asleep in her bed upstairs.  I miss the way her sweet, funny presence lights up the house.  I also miss the way I feel when she is home.  Meg Mitchell Moore describes it perfectly in the quote above--when one of my kids is home, I feel "happier, safer, and more at ease with the world."  So even though I'm slowly getting used to this new stage in my life, the transition after a visit is rough.  And I suspect it always will be.

Cherry Pie

Every year when February rolls around, I get a craving for cherry pie.  The reason?  Thanks to the good old McGuffey Reader's inclusion of biographer Mason Locke Weems' anecdote about six-year-old George Washington damaging his father's cherry tree with his little hatchet and then owning up to his misdeed ("I cannot tell a lie, father, you know I cannot tell a lie!"), my mom associated cherries with George Washington and baked a cherry pie every February to celebrate his birthday. Whether the story is true or not makes no difference to me--what matters is that it led to an extra cherry pie each year, and cherry was my favorite kind of pie; in fact, it was my favorite dessert, period.  The only other time we had it was when I requested it as my "good report card" treat, which I did, regularly, but my three siblings all chose apple dumplings, so we ate apple dumplings a lot more often than cherry pie.  The kind of cherry pie I'm talking about is made with tart cherries, not with canned cherry pie filling.  And my mom's cherry pies always had a lattice top made with strips of pie crust cut with a little zig-zag pastry wheel.  Unfortunately, my fondness for cherry pie didn't rub off on any of my kids.  In fact, for most of their growing-up years, my kids weren't pie eaters at all.  So lots of Februaries came and went with no cherry pie for me (unless my mom happened to be visiting!).  I am happy to report, however, that all three of my kids like pie now.  And although my daughter's favorite pie is apple, she also likes cherry.  And she's home this weekend.  And it's President's Day Eve.  So tonight we are having cherry pie, by George!

Valentine Memories

When I was in first grade, I got a big, purple, lacy valentine from red-headed, freckle-faced Eddie Humphrey.  It's been more than forty years since I've seen Eddie, but I've never forgotten him or that valentine.  Throughout elementary school, I remember turning shoe boxes into fancy valentine boxes by covering them with construction paper and doilies and cutting a slit in the top.  And I remember my mom making red Jello hearts surrounded by a frill of whipped cream.  When my kids were in elementary school, I remember them carefully filling out store-bought valentines for their classmates and working on homemade valentines for family.  I remember making heart-shaped pizza, jello hearts, and pink-frosted valentine cut-out cookies for them for dinner.  Just last year, I remember going to Buffalo to watch Em's basketball team play Daemen in a February 14th conference game.  The one thing I don't remember is going out for dinner with my husband on Valentine's Day.  Since my memory is poor, I asked Steve about it last night, and he got this puzzled look on his face and said, "I don't think we ever did, did we?"  I'm not sure why--February 14th couldn't have fallen on a school night every year for the past thirty years.  Maybe we were always either too busy, too tired, or too poor?  Well, we're changing that tonight--no heart-shaped pizza, no Jello hearts, no basketball games; instead, even though it's a school night, my sweetheart and I are throwing caution to the wind and going out for dinner on Valentine's Day!

Phone Calls

Today would have been my dad's eighty-first birthday.  Back in the old days when my kids were young and my dad was alive and well and retired with lots of time on his hands, he often used to call in the middle of the day.  I'd be in the midst of washing the dishes or playing with the kids or unloading groceries or doing any one of the many other activities that competed for my time and attention during those busy days of parenting, and the phone would ring.  I'd drop what I was doing and hurry to answer it.  "Hi, Babe," he'd say, "I didn't really want anything."  I'd try to keep the impatience out of my voice, but I'd think to myself, If you didn't really want anything, then why are you calling?  We'd chat for a few minutes while I'd make use of the long phone cord to finish folding the laundry or to make lunch, only half paying attention to the conversation, knowing he'd be calling again in a day or two, or even later that night.  I acted like I had all the time in the world left.  It's been more than ten years since I talked to my dad on the phone, and now that my own kids are grown and gone, I understand exactly why he called even when he didn't really want anything: he called because he missed me, because his house was empty and quiet, because he was lonely.   And I know exactly how comforting it is to hear your child's voice on the other end of the phone.  Talking to our kids reminds us who we are and who we were.  I wish I had understood that back in the old days.  I would have called my dad more often, and when he called me, even when he didn't really want anything, I would have stopped what I was doing and really listened to him.  I have no idea what heaven will be like, but I'm hoping for an eternity of golden afternoons to spend with my dad, talking about everything and nothing.

Super Bowl Sunday

It's a quiet Super Bowl Sunday here--just Steve and me and some chicken wing dip.  It reminds me of a night eight years ago when I wrote the following entry in my notebook:

She and her two teenage boys had been looking forward to playoff weekend all week.  But a basketball game that had been cancelled earlier in the season had been rescheduled for Saturday evening, taking her younger son out of town.  Then at the last minute, a friend invited her older son to go skiing.  "Do you mind, Mom?" he asked her.  What could she say?  After wishing for skis of his own for two year, he'd finally gotten new skis (and used boots) for his birthday in November but until now hadn't had a chance to use them.  It was an invitation for the first ski trip of the season.  How could she say what she was thinking, "Yes, I mind.  Don't go skiing.  Don't grow up.  Don't leave me."  Instead she smiled and said, "You should go.  We can watch tomorrow's games together." She could see the relief on his face  as he hurried to get ready.  A little while later she watched him load his skis into the family van and drive away.  Her twelve-year-old daughter was at a friend's birthday party until 8:30, and her husband never cared much about watching football, so she watched alone.  Even though she'd grown up in Steeler country, and this was a big game for the Steelers and their rookie quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, she realized, suddenly, that what she liked the most about watching football was watching it with her boys.

The Steelers ended up winning that game (but lost to the Patriots the next weekend), and my boys and I ended up watching the next day's (and the next week's) playoff games together.  In fact, we've watched a lot of football games together since that night.  But also since that night, my boys have grown up and moved out, as I knew one day they would.  So tonight when I'm watching the Super Bowl alone, I'll be missing them.  But I'll be glad that they taught me to watch football, and I'll be glad they are happily watching the game with friends, and I'll be glad for all the good memories I have to keep me warm on this snowy Super Bowl Sunday.