The End of Time

I do enjoy the fall – changing colors of the leaves, the cooler weather, the World Series (even if the Tigers didn’t win) and football. I look forward to gathering with my family during the holidays. Just like last year, I promise that this is the year I will experiment more with Crock Pot cooking and soups.

What I don’t like is the darkness! I really dread going off of Daylight Savings Time and having the days be shorter and the nights seem endless. My children are “outside” children. They love to play outside in the afternoons. When it gets dark before dinner time, they don’t know what to do with themselves. Quite honestly, I don’t know what to do with them either. They come in at dark and wander aimlessly through the house as if they have lost something.

In fact, they have. It is the end of time again for this year and it points us toward spring.


Copyright, RPL Communications, 2006

Maria Shriver and I are not on the same political …

Maria Shriver and I are not on the same political page but I expect that I would enjoy meeting with her and talking to her. I do recommend, however, her book entitled 10 Things I Wish I Had Known Before I Went Out Into The Real World. It is based on a commencement address that she delivered and it includes important information for people of all ages – not just those on their first trips out into the world.

I first read it several years ago after her seeing her interviewed on The Oprah Wynfrey show. Obviously, she is well-spoken, but, in that interview, she talked about so many things that I related to and they sounded like some of the things I learned while growing up.

There are lots of wonderful lessons to be learned from her words, but this is my favorite. It is actually something that her mother, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, told her. It is the kind of advice that I have to remind myself of again and again. Here it is in Maria’s words…

“But as my mother taught me, LIFE IS A MARATHON. It’s an endurance event played out over time. Once I was freaking out to my mother about not being good enough in any area of my life. She said, ‘Maria, you can have and be all the things you want to be. Just do it over a lifetime. Don’t try to do them all at once, because you can’t. If you try to, everyone around you will suffer – mostly you.’”

I am in the middle of my marathon and these miles are the most important so far!


Copyright, RPL Communications, 2006

Two Very Different Evenings…All In The Same Night

I started the evening at the Fall Carnival at my son’s elementary school. It was loud and crowded and chaotic. The children ran from room to room to participate in activities and get small prizes for their trick or treat bags. The grownups held the coats, umbrellas and the left over cotton candy.

My son took great pride in being the tour guide for our family while I took pride in walking with him through the same halls that were my elementary school. Of course, the carnival raises money for the school, but it’s also an “event”. The planning goes on for months; families make a night of it; and it is a huge undertaking. It raises spirits and expectations and it brings us together. We didn’t walk more than a few feet without seeing people we knew. It was loud and crowded and chaotic and it was also important. Important in ways that quiet and uncrowded and calm can never be.

I ended the evening at a local restaurant with 5 of my girlfriends. It was quiet and uncrowded and calm. Our husbands and children were taken care of for the evening and we enjoyed a leisurely dinner of talking and laughing and being together. We didn’t solve the world’s problems. In fact, we didn’t even talk about them. Instead, we told stories and found out things we didn’t know about each other. It raised our spirits and it brought us together. I have good friends and being with them made me thankful for them anew. It was quiet and uncrowded and calm and it was important. Important in ways that loud and crowded and chaotic can never be.

Copyright, RPL Communications, 2006

One Small Step

My husband and I often joke that someday our children will be in therapy for something, but self-esteem probably won’t be the issue!

Our 3 year old congratulates herself on everything from walking up and down stairs without help to putting her clothes on with “the tag in the back”. It is not unusual for her to say to me, “I’m a great jumper…I’m a great walker…I’m a great (fill in the blank).” When we play games or read books, she often says “Mom/Dad, you’re a great reader.” She jumps out of the car at preschool, waves goodbye and never looks back to the carpool line. She is not a tenative soul.

Likewise, our 5 year old is very confident and wants to do things for himself. One of his favorite things to do right now is see how high he can reach in various places throughout our house. Granted, he has grown several inches in the last year. I have to admit that, sometimes, I find his ability to reach things to be a help.

Today, he reached a small milestone along the “confidence road”. Without prompting, he TOTALLY dressed himself for church – head to toe including brushing his hair and getting his shoes and socks on! He has been dressing himself during the week for some time, but I have never allowed myself to let him go it alone on a Sunday morning. I still subscribe to the idea that what we wear to church should be a little nicer and more presentable than what we wear other places (that is a subject for a totally different post). Suffice it to say, I have always buttoned, tucked, and brushed after he was finished with the basics of getting his pants and shirt on. Today, I laid out his clothes and left the room to help dress my other one. The next time I saw him, he was fully dressed with hair combed and all I had to do was straighten his collar. He knew that he had accomplished something and he wore huge smile when he walked in to my daughter’s room. I swear I think he was standing up a little taller!

Of course, I praised him and complimented him on how handsome he looked. For me, it is such a small thing to get completely ready to go somewhere. For him, it is an accomplishment and another marker of how he is growing and learning new things.

Like all mothers, I have a lot of prayers and hopes for my children. Someday, if they need therapy, I hope they get it. If it turns out that self-esteem truly is NOT the problem, I will consider that my husband and I have done a great job!


Copyright, RPL Communications, 2006

Newsflash…Children Need to Play

I am more than a little irritated and amazed at the news that schools are banning tag and other “unsupervised contact sports” during recess. Apparently, it is not enough that they spend all day in school and most of the rest of their waking hours in lessons or guided activities. Are we really going to rob them of running around and chasing each other on the playground?

There are things children learn on a playground that they don’t learn other places. I didn’t say that they CAN’T learn them other places, I said they DON’T. There are lessons about community, accountability, following the rules, taking your turn, being the odd man out and on and on and on.

My son is 5. He likes to run. He likes to be outside. He likes to play with his friends. He likes to chase things. Guess what? He also likes to run WHILE he is outside WITH HIS FRIENDS and CHASING THEM. Yes, he could get hurt. Yes, he could get hurt seriously. If he did, I would feel bad about the situation, but I wouldn’t blame the school. SOMETIMES, THINGS HAPPEN AND THERE JUST IS NOT ANY BLAME. Is my son’s school a bad school because they allow kids to play tag at recess?

Forgive me if I find this whole thing ridiculous and if I don’t play the part of an overly paranoid parent. Let the kids play tag and touch football and whatever other games they want. Sometimes, they need to play more than they need to be protected!


Copyright, RPL Communications, 2006

Bloody Pants

I was awake early, showered, dressed and wearing make up. It was my first child’s first day of “children’s day out” and I had looked forward to it for weeks. The morning went just as I had planned…take pictures in his “school” outfit; pack the diaper bag with extras of everything; label all his belongings; charge my cell phone, etc. I had a TO DO list that I could not accomplish in a week, much less in those short hours, but I packed it in my purse and headed out for my day – 5 hours to myself.

My outfit was new and it included the single most expensive pair of pants that I ever owned. They were denim crop pants and I wore them with a taupe linen shirt and chocolate brown sandals. I wasn’t as “cute” as the moms that were 10 years my junior but I held my own. My hair was fixed; my sunglasses matched my purse; and I looked good for my day.

The parking lot was almost full so I pulled into a spot a couple of rows over from the sidewalk and parked on a slant. After unloading the baby “supplies”, I unloaded the baby and started for the door. The next thing I knew, my ankle had buckled beneath me and I had skidded on one knee across the parking lot. I bounced right back up, checked the baby, and quickly looked to see if anyone had seen me. No one had. I gathered myself and headed to the door like nothing had happened.

While signing the register, I realized that my hand was bleeding. I handed the baby to someone and asked if I could wash my hands. I imagine that I wore a nervous smile thinking of the magnitude of motherhood and my responsibility for protecting him. I know that I seemed uneasy. Honestly, it was not the uneasiness of a woman leaving her child with strangers for the first time. Rather, it was self-consciousness mixed with the embarrassment of my own clumsiness. I now felt the blood running down my leg and the pain where I had skinned my knee. I remember that I tried to stand at the door in such a way that my leg was hidden. I did NOT want to explain why my leg was bleeding. I just wanted to get out of there and start my day!

Finally, I made it out! I had made plans to eat lunch with friends, shop and run a couple of errands. My list was long and I didn’t have time to waste. On my way back to the car, I looked down and realized that my pants were torn. On them was a trail of blood starting at my skinned knee and stopping where the leather of my chocolate brown sandals touched the top of my foot. That meant that the first thing on my day to myself would be to return home. Literally, I had to stop the bleeding. Then, I had to build a new outfit that did NOT revolve around the most expensive pair of pants I ever owned. Eventually, I would make it back to my day – now, not quite 5 hours to myself.

As my front two wheels left the threshold of the parking lot, my tears were finally free to flow. I was finally alone for my day – my very own day –and I wept all the way home. This was NOT the day I had planned! I wept for the loss of my child for a few hours each week; and I wept for the loss of my pants. Torn and bloody, they stayed in my closet for a long time after that. I wore them a few times for “work pants”; I even thought of cutting them off for shorts but never could make myself do that. Eventually, I put them in a discard pile and the most expensive pair of pants I ever owned became just a very brief part of that day – my very own day – with just a few minutes left for me.

Copyright, RPL Communications, 2006

Baseball and The Great Beyond

I am a suburban mother and I love sports. I understand the “squeeze play” in baseball, the “pick and roll” in basketball and the “play action pass” in football. I think sports were better when there were no steroid scandals and when pro sports were more about teams than “personalities” and/or superstars. I have a satellite radio subscription so that I can listen to sports broadcasts when there are not any on television.

Recently, I am eating my Saturday breakfast when a newspaper business blurb, CASKETS FOR BASEBALL FANS, catches my eye. I go on to read that a company named Eternal Image, Inc. has reached a licensing agreement with Major League Baseball that will allow the casket designer and manufacturer to begin offering customized caskets and cremation urns with the names and logos of Major League Baseball teams. Honestly, I cannot decide if I am more offended or amazed! I mean, I understand team loyalty and devotion, but there are plenty of die-hard, lifelong Boston Red Sox fans that have been laid to rest since 1918 without a logo on their casket. More of those fans than would like to be remembered spent their entire lives with just a mere hope that the Red Sox would win another championship. Maybe some of them would have jumped at the opportunity to adorn their eternal abode with a logo or a team name. I daresay, however, that, given the option, they would have traded a World Series Banner during those long, dry years for anything that might possibly have been printed on their casket!

More than anything, I am amazed there could really be a market for this in the world. Unfortunately, I have no doubt that there is. With all the things that are wrong with this world (and with baseball) it seems that the, literally, thousands of dollars that will be spent on these customized caskets could go to so much better use in other ways. After all, Major League Baseball has numerous community interests and initiatives that could, no doubt, benefit from EACH $3000 – $3500 spent on a logo casket and $600-$1000 spent on a cremation urn with the recently deceased’s favorite team name.Either way, baseball fans will have a little while to start saving their pennies for their final team tributes. The logo products won’t be available until 2007. As for me, as much as I love and enjoy sports, I cannot imagine any part of any sport that would make me want to live out my eternity in a casket with a team logo. So please remember this, IF I should have an extra $3000 laying around when it’s time to plan my funeral, don’t bother with a logo. I’d rather the Braves win another World Series!

Copyright, RPL Communications, 2006

War Games

The shots rang out just a few days ago,
And the kickoff is but moments away.

A world apart, at least it seems,
Many men are fighting – in respective teams.

Our life goes on, as normal as possible,
And maybe these games will be a diversion.

“Play Ball!” the official said.

“THE SOLDIERS WOULD WANT US TO PLAY,” shared a player.

And even the President, said he would watch the games this afternoon!

Copyright, RPL Communications, 2006