savoring

This may be a repeat. But sometimes it helps to write things down again to remind myself of ... well, of things that it's easy to forget in the heat of the moment.

As you may know, I'm a fairly goal-oriented person. I have traditionally put more stock in the destination than in the journey.

But a couple of years ago, I began making a conscious effort to slow down. To savor my life as it goes by, rather than rushing through it to get to the next mile-marker in the road. I find this makes me a happier, mellower, more generally pleasant person. However, this not being my natural state, it can be difficult to maintain in the midst of the daily grind.

Unfortunately, parenting today doesn't make it easy to kick back and wallow in contentment. There's always something - school budgets, swine flu, reactionary attitudes based on irrational fears - to panic or be outraged about. And that's the bit that I find particularly hard to keep clear of. The panic not so much. I filter pretty well, and I recognize that clear thought and panic don't go well together. Also, I'm not much of a worrier. I like to think about things beforehand, but I mostly don't worry until something's right ahead of me and I can see clearly what there is to worry about.

The outrage is the real issue that I find difficult to duck. Some might say that outrage is good. If you don't get outraged - and share your outrage - how do you change the world? Or, more to my particular concerns, how do you keep the world from changing in ways that you don't like? And there are people out there who can channel their outrage properly and make it a force for good. I am not one of them. When I get outraged, I tend to use big words and complicated sentence constructions that make people think I'm talking down to them. I overstate my case and allow my sense of moral superiority to surface, making the people I'm trying to convince plant themselves even more firmly in the position I'm against. So I've outraged myself, angered the people I was talking to (who generally fall in one friend category or another), and expended a whole lot of energy ... making the situation worse.

So, in the long run, I feel it's more pleasant, more productive, and generally better for everyone if I try to maintain a panic-free and outrage-free life, especially where parenting is concerned. Now if I can only remember that!

happy thoughts

It's a chilly, grey, rainy day here in New England - but I promised an upbeat post, and upbeat I shall be!

Actually, I don't mind the rain. I'm not wild about waiting for the bus in it three times in one day, necessarily, but I like the sound of it falling. I like the look of it falling. In a New England autumn, I like the light that spills off the golden and red trees and brightens up the grey. At night, I like to lie in bed and listen to the droplets fall on the roof and strain my ears to hear(imagine?) the occasional whoosh of the cars going by on a rainy road.

I love that my kids are more likely to go outside on a rainy day than a sunny one. Charles got off the bus today singing about his love for a rainy day (note to self: must play Eddie Rabbitt's "I Love a Rainy Night" for that kid some day). Even as babies, they seemed to enjoy the rain on their faces. I like being out in the rain myself ... by choice, anyway. I don't so much like to be out in the rain when I have to be. There's some odd human psychology for you!

And, of course, I love to be in a cozy, warm, brightly lit house with the little ones while the cold rain falls outside. But then, who doesn't love that?

further Einstein rantings

Really, I thought I was done with this topic yesterday, but then Lenore Skenazy of Free Range Kids, a blog that I usually respect, posted the Baby Einstein refund as a positive. Now, I know you can't agree with anyone all the time, and that less TV is a tenet of the Free Range ideal - even if it's not one I'm particularly concerned about. But I have to admit, I don't understand what positive message it sends to children if parents admit to having been so duped by marketing that they bought a video they later decided was damaging.

First, let me note that the idea that TV isn't good for kids isn't a new one. We've been hearing about it in various levels of stridency for most of my life. So if all of a sudden a new series of DVDs comes out that claims to be "educational", you still need to weigh that claim against the research. Disney's claim does not negate the parent's responsibility to do adequate research.

Second, I don't understand why the idea (behind the Coalition for a Commercial-Free Childhood) that children might see a commercial is such a bad thing. It sounds like the parents should have seen a few more commercials, so they could have considered Disney's marketing more critically. My kids see a lot of commercials (since I don't believe TV is inherently evil) and yet have a fairly small amount of toys compared to many of their friends. Because I don't buy them everything they see. They see a commercial and cry out, "I want that!", true enough. In response, I either explain why they're never going to get it in a million years or tell them to save their money and buy it themselves if they want it so badly. (They rarely do.) I view these as teachable moments enabling my kids to survive in the electronic world so many parents want to pretend isn't the one we live in.

Finally, I strongly dislike the idea that these parents have given up so much of our collective buying power. By putting such a huge amount of weight on the power of Disney's marketing, this lawsuit basically sends the message that we as consumers will believe what we are told, until someone else tells us differently. The members of this lawsuit have just admitted that they're sheep - and yet they're celebrating as though they're the ones doing the shearing.

(I promise to be done with this now and post something positive tomorrow!)

personal responsibility

Earlier this week, a woman from one of my mothers' groups posted a triumphant notice - that the Coalition for a Commercial-Free Childhood had succeeded in making Disney not only remove any claims that their Baby Einstein videos make children smarter, but also offer refunds to those parents who bought those videos! My fellow parent and her coalition seem to think they've achieved a victory. Personally, I thought it just indicated how completely unwilling we as Americans are to take responsibility for our own mistakes.

The reasoning, as I understood it, is that Disney's marketing of these videos made these people, who ordinarily would be completely opposed to introducing their children to anything on a screen, violate their own principles in the name of making their children smarter. Then, somehow, they decided that their children hadn't become any smarter and may actually have been damaged in some way by having viewed something on a screen ... so clearly, it must all have been Disney's fault. (Here is where I have to say that I feel tremendously sorry for these children: their parents are clearly somewhat obsessed with intelligence, and the poor kids have obviously fallen short of their parents' high standards, since the parents could tell that they weren't made any smarter by Baby Einstein. How insulting to your child, to demand a refund over their lack of brains.)

I understand Disney's capitulation: after all, it probably wasn't that much money, and if it retains goodwill and paints Disney as a caring corporation, it was probably worth it.

But I do not understand this idea that it's someone else's fault when a mistake is made. I'm sure I bought any number of toys that didn't do what I expected them to do ... and then I either tossed them or passed them on to someone who liked them better. In no case did I ask for my money back, unless the toy was actually defective. (In the sense of not working or being broken, not in the sense of not entertaining my child.)

In the same sense that it is not Victoria's Secrets responsibility that I don't look like one of their models when I buy their lingerie, it is not Disney's fault that these parents were willing to sacrifice their principles to move their kids' IQs up a couple of points. Nor is it Disney's fault that looking at some puppets dance to classical music failed to move said kids' IQs.

I think it's a real shame that we as a society are so completely unable to handle mistakes and disappointment on our own.

book reviews

Sorry to have neglected the blog for a bit. Two birthdays in one month (plus various parental and school responsibilities) makes for chaos! I have substantive commentary (rants?) for the next couple of days, but I also have a book backlog. So here goes:

Herman Wouk, The Caine Mutiny. Fascinating book. I've seen bits and pieces of the movie, but only the early part, so I can't really compare the two, but I enjoyed the book quite a bit. I'm not sure I was wild about the shift in perspective toward the end, but it was a legitimate way of looking at the situation, and the plot in general does make you wonder - what is tolerable in wartime? What kinds of behaviors need to be overlooked? Well worth reading.

A.S. Byatt, The Biographer's Tale. I have a love/hate relationship with Byatt. Some of her work (Possession, for one) is pure genius, some of it is just weird. This one fell into the latter category. The first chapter was mildly interesting, about a young man who decides to leave higher education and falls into becoming a biographer ... but then we left the plot about the young man and started into a bunch of papers all about different people (who went largely unidentified) that he'd found, and it was all quite confusing, I didn't see how or when we were getting back to the young man, and I wasn't particularly interested in him or his findings anyway ... so I dropped it. I always feel vaguely disquieted when I start a book and don't finish it ... but there are a lot of books to be read (and reread) and not enough time.

Kate Douglas Wiggin, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. This is basically Anne of Green Gables, but set in Maine. (It's important to note that Rebecca precedes Anne by 5 years in date of publication.) That said, the characters are good, the story is interesting, and I enjoyed the reread. I wonder what the sequels would have been like. For that matter, I wonder if there are any. Hmmm...

Jean Van Leeuwen, Across the Wide Dark Sea. This is a children's picture book about the voyage of the Mayflower. It's really quite good - surprisingly in depth for the small amount of text it contains, the atmosphere is good, and it doesn't overly sugar-coat the experience, although given that it is told from the point of view of an English child, it is very Anglocentric.

the weather

Yes, it's true, I've been reduced to blogging about the weather. But after being grateful all week that we don't live in Minnesota or Wisconsin, where it snowed last week, I just noted on weather.com that it looks like snow right here in New England, two days from now.

Increasingly as I get older, I appreciate fall. Summer's too hot, winter's too cold, and spring is practically nonexistent. A nice long fall filled with 50- and 60-degree weather is just what I like, and I was looking forward to several more weeks of it. Instead, the temps are dropping slowly but steadily and full-on unpleasant-to-go-outside-in-even-for-a-minute winter weather appears to be marching in. I'm not ready!

(Admittedly, I'm pouting a bit because we had a trip planned for which nice fall weather would have been ideal, and instead the in-laws will be stuck in the house with the kids while the rain - snow?!? - falls, no chance to go do fun outdoor New England things, and we will have to rethink our whole plan, which was hard enough to come up with in the first place.)

Grr.

book reviews

Erle Stanley Gardner, Perry Mason and the Case of the Postponed Murder. A pretty good installment in the series. Interesting plot, good detective work largely done by Mason himself, a client who wouldn't know the truth if it bit her. And for once, the judge was on the side of Perry (and implicitly justice) and the district attorneys were forced to keep their remarks to a minimum. Made for a refreshing change.

Armistead Maupin, Tales of the City. I've read this one a number of times, but its sheer retro zaniness doesn't get old.

L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea. I found that Anne is a bit more idealized than I remember - her difference from the other girls, her 'innate goodness', her high ideals, her influence on people. It's all a bit hard to swallow. But I also found that Anne is not such an integral part of the book - far more of the plot is about the people she comes into contact with and their stories than it is about hers. As such, Montgomery's characters and feel for her setting are her strengths, so the book is quite enjoyable.

Louisa May Alcott, Rose in Bloom. Rose and Anne have a fair amount in common, although Rose is allowed to have more petty foibles. This book has a slightly different flavor than most of Alcott's work - it is a bit more grown up than many of her tales, and a lot of the themes she likes to use are muted here, forming an undercurrent to the plot.

comparative confidence

One thing that I have noticed recently - as I work toward getting involved in both schools, I have a certain level of anxiety before each group interaction. But that anxiety is much higher in the more unfamiliar environment of the preschool. So the heightened anxiety I feel before a preschool meeting contrasts sharply enough with my lower anxiety toward the elementary school meeting and makes the elementary school meetings something to look forward to by comparison. So despite giving me more to be anxious about, the experience of moving to a new preschool has been a net positive in the arena of my social confidence.

Nice surprise bonus!

book reviews

Peter C. Mancall, ed., Travel Narratives from the Age of Discovery: An Anthology. This is a book filled with, well, travel narratives, all from the period when every continent was brand new to anyone who'd never been there before. I thought it sounded interesting, but in practice, it was kind of boring. Everyone's reactions to everyone else were very similar, and overall, I found the reports tedious.

L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables. Obviously a reread, but as fresh and delightful as always. I had forgotten how fast the narrative moved and how much time was packed into the book. I think I appreciated more than ever before the delicacy with which the change and growth in Anne's character and therefore the reaction to her by the people around her were painted.

Rose Wilder Lane, Young Pioneers. I admit, the first half of this book annoyed me a bit - it moved too fast, dwelt on little, and was obviously cobbled together from her parents' stories of their experiences. (Rose Wilder Lane being the daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder, in case you didn't know.) The second half of the book, where the plot was being moved forward by the actions and decisions of the main character, was much better and more interesting. It really caught the maturization of this newly married young woman who realizes that her decisions are the ones that keep the family going, not those of her impetuous young husband.

Erik Larson, The Devil in the White City. This is my book club's pick for this month. I had picked it up several times over the years and never got around to buying it, so I was quite pleased! And the book was very enjoyable. Weaving the tale of the Chicago World's Fair with a tale of a serial killer preying on the young women who went there, it was well researched and highly readable. If I wished for more detail, that may have been due to gaps in the historical record and/or a wish on the author's part to appear to know more than he did. Either way, I quibble as I would with the dash more salt that might make the steak perfect instead of great.

5 things that make me happy today

It's Monday again, and when the alarm clock went off, I wasn't exactly ready to hop right out and face the day (much less the week). Time for a happiness list!

1. Fall in New England. The leaves are turning, the weather is perfect - not too warm, not too cold - and the apples are plentiful.

2. Hot beverages that give energy. Coffee, tea, cider and cocoa to a lesser extent.

3. Unpacking. I've unpacked a lot of my office tchotchkes and am working my way through the book boxes. Happy to see all my books again!

4. The shrinking TBR pile! The shelf space required is shrinking nicely. I think 2010 will have to be another "no new books" year, but I think there's a light at the end of that particular tunnel.

5. The Amazing Race 15! So far, the season has been quite enjoyable - all the teams eliminated have been annoying, and I won't miss any of them. And there's a high proportion of teams that are enjoyable to watch - looking forward to the rest of the season!

curmudgeon

In a Facebook poll the other day, when asked a number of questions that would tell me which That '70s Show character I am most like, I came up as Red Forman. Now, Red Forman is awesome, and I was pretty pleased with the result ... but it does highlight my tendency to be a curmudgeon. A complainer. A person who, at least by outward persona, resolutely views the glass as half-empty. In short, a grouch.

Sadly enough, this is no new news. I groused my way through high school and college, as well as several jobs. But I really had thought I had a handle on it recently ... and despite the daily small annoyances, am actually really enjoying my life.

But apparently I allow the daily small annoyances to wear on me like drips on a stone. And therein lies the problem. When you're constantly complaining, even funnily, about the little things ... well, who's going to listen when there's really a problem?

Time to remember to smile more and see the brighter side. At least often enough that my lapses into Formanism are amusing rather than tiresome!

book reviews

Read a bunch of books while on my weekend away ... although not as many as I had hoped to. Just about finished unpacking them!

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King. I admit that I find Frodo kind of tedious, but Sam and the rest of the crew more than make up for it. What else is there to say, other than to reiterate my surprise that I never read these as a child/teen. But would I have enjoyed them? Hard to say.

Marguerite Henry, Black Gold. Not my favorite. It seemed to give the story a lick and a promise, dropped plotlines all over the place, and generally felt half-finished. I'm surprised I kept it after the first read.

Louisa May Alcott, Jack and Jill. A nice quiet little book, very Alcottian, about a group of children (well, preteens and early teens, they seemed to be mostly). The characters were vivid and well differentiated both from each other and from other Alcott books, and the story was a colorful little slice of life. Very enjoyable.

Richie Tankersley Cusick, Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Harvest. I picked this one up on a whim. I own several novelizations of TV shows and movies, and find that they can be really interesting, adding color and depth to what's already on TV. This one, not so much. Not at all, actually. I've read better recaps on Television Without Pity. (Not recently, mind you, but that's another post.) Boring and lifeless and does no justice at all to the original script.