Poor little guy

Since late October, Jack has been having clear signs of another food sensitivity.

It's been sporadic, and we've been trying to narrow it down with little success. Every time we think we've found it, the symptoms strike again -- usually at the worst possible moment.

Finally on Saturday we started trying to document all that Jack eats and the state of his symtoms. I think it's possible that the symptoms are more than a day delayed and that's what's throwing us off.

Needless to say, Jack is far from thrilled at the idea of cutting out more food from his diet. He's pretty sure it's something he loves. Chocolate, maybe.

Poor guy.

Meet the Family (updated)

If I were to suggest parenting manuals...

Can it really be autumn already? I woke up to a very cold morning, the geese are flocking, and the light looks like autumn, so I guess it can. *sigh* Time goes so fast these days!

I've been pondering parenting manuals. First, because this interesting article appeared in this months of Secular Homeschooling magazine, and then because I picked up Hold on to your kids to get to the part where he explains *how* to hold on to kids.

(The first 80% of the book is spent selling the idea that peer orientation, normal though we think it is, isn't the best thing for children and families. I was sold before I bought the book, so eventually I put the book down for a few months and only recently picked it up again to find out whether he eventually gets to the point...he does.)

I am not a huge fan of parenting manuals.

I read them, and I usually get something of value from them, but parenting manuals, even more than most self-help books, have to be taken with a huge dose of common sense.

I find myself largely in agreement with Dr Sears and his attachment parenting theories, but I have seen his advice taken in what I think is not the best direction -- mostly people who miss the point seem to be inclined to put the kids in charge. Not good for the child or the family. But they do tend to be loving and that's good.

On the other hand, I also believe that, on rare occasion, a swat on the butt is a perfectly valid parenting tool. Having raised Jack for seven years, I know that some children will *never* need that. However, I have also raised a child who would have benefited by more aggressive parenting than I was capable of at the time. That said, like any tool, it should be used only when it’s the appropriate tool and for almost all purposes there are far better tools in the parenting kit.

So, if I were to be asked about what parenting books someone should read, what would I say? I would say “Not Babywise”. That book has some truths in it, but it is far more dangerous in the hands of inexperienced parents than any other parenting book I know of. (I never heard of Dr Spock’s book resulting in the death of any child. The end of civility, perhaps, but no babies died because parents followed that advice.)

On the positive side, while it’s not a parenting book, per se, I would recommend that anyone who wants to think about what babies and children really need might want to read “The Continuum Concept”. This the book from which Dr Sears drew his first inspiration in developing his attachment parenting theories.

The author’s observations of how a people who, on the whole, seem a lot more centered than we are, approach the whole parenting thing are very thought provoking. The author's observations give way to opinion on a regular basis, though, and her conclusions about what it all means can be a bit odd. If you're a reader who can sort observation from the opinions based on those observations, I would still recommend this book. More than anything else, I would say thatthis book has coloured the way I raise Jack.

The observation that had the biggest impact for me? Children are born wanting to learn to be adults and wanting to be a contributing member of the group. If you work with that impulse, children have higher self esteem, are more content, and are much easier to live with.

Another book i would recommend is “Hold on to your kids: why parents need top matter more than peers”. The authors take 179 pages to plead their case and only 84 pages telling you how to hold on to your kids, but it’s the first book that I have read that seems to hit on the things I learned in raising TJ and Corey from start to finish and it answers the questions that I had about "what went wrong" with raising them. Don't get me wrong, I am very proud of the men they have become, and I love them completely ... but I also feel that I failed them. I was not the parent they needed and I wasn't sure why. Drs Neufeld and Mate seem to have captured the thoughts that lurked just out of reach about my parenting of TJ and Corey and about my parents raising of me.

Neither of these books has anything much to say on the subject of how or when to wean, techniques for garnering cooperation from a cranky two year old, or how to keep your child asleep at night.

You might call them "meta-parenting" books. I guess that's one reason I'd recommend them over any other. Any one set of 'how to' advice won't work for every child -- pick one that works for each of your kids as individuals -- but in parenting, it is easy to lose sight of the ultimate goal.

That six month old who cries night after night, that two year old insisting on putting on his own shoes when you're in a hurry, that nine year old who won't do her homework? Those are very temporary issues. Ultimately, it's the relationship that matters -- because the crying six month old will all too soon be a fifteen year old deciding what to say to offers of a beer from a friend. The two year old will be a 25 year old, trying to decide what to do about an unethical demand at work. That fifteen year old will be a forty year old, making time (or not) to be with you.

Parenting is about providing the relationship that guides young people thorough the unknown, whether you're with them or not. It's about providing them with the confidence in themselves to deal with situations we can't even begin to foresee.

In the end...it's about building family.

Cooking at the shelter

Several times a year (maybe every two or three months) we go over to the shelter and cook a meal.

Sometimes we cook alone, sometimes we work with a crew. Always we bring Jack and he helps, too.

We really love to cook and we enjoy the challenge of cooking for ever-changing needs and tastes, so we always have a good time, but that's only part of the reason we go.

Another, at least as important, is that we think it's important to make a real contribution to our community. We could just donate canned goods or money, but actually getting in there, contributing time, energy, and food is both more satisfying and more direct.

It sends a much clearer message to our spirits, the spirits of the people we feed, and to our little boy. As you do unto others, so shall be done unto you. As you sow, so shall you reap. Ever mind the rule of three. Helping people is one of the most basic ways to create happiness in our lives. Feeding people is fundamental to who we are as a family and sharing that beyond our social group just plain feels good.

It's also important to have a mechanism for reminding ourselves just how lucky we are.

It can be a disconcerting to go back to hand washing dishes because we can't afford to go out and buy a new dishwasher just because ours has broken down. It can be a little sad to not do things we might like to do because we don't have the money right now.

But we always have enough to eat, even if it isn't what we might have preferred. We have a warm bed and a comfortable home of our very own, and we own a little plot of the planet on which we can garden and forage. There have been times in my life when I had reason to doubt I would ever be this wealthy ... my older sons often cried themselves to sleep from hunger when the food stamps ran out before the month did, they wore old torn clothes that were often dirty because I had no money for soap or laundry detergent. A major treat was affording a can of fruit juice or toothpaste and show laces in the same month. The people we help to feed aren't other, they are me in another time of my life.

But Jack has no knowledge of anything other than plenty. I'm glad he doesn't have personal experience, but I think it's critical to his happiness for him to be able to see just exactly what he has.

Besides...it's fun to cook for a =crowd in a commercial kitchen -- at least once in a while. ;)

Time well spent - purges and educating a young man

This week on furlough has been a perfect opportunity for the New Year Purge. I am not done yet, though I have finished the downstairs (except for the office, which is Rod's domain) and found four boxes of stuff to donate.

St Vincent de Paul was happy to take our kitchen stuff, leaving the excess from the magickal cabinet and the homeschooling cabinet to find homes for.

Next job -- the upstairs. That doesn't get as much attention as the downstairs, so I may generate a lot more boxes up there. Especially in my poor craft room which has slowly become the "home of the unclaimed. (I think every home probably has one. Its the place where you put whatever you don't want to deal with right now until that mythical "later". )

We have also made progress on the time line. It has been sitting, folded up, on top of the china cabinet for months as we tried to figure out how to best hang it. We want it to be secure -- but also easy to pull down in sections so that we can easily add new items to it.

We settled on attaching it to foam board and then punching holes in the board to hook over nails. So far so good. (Except that we ran out of foam board and had to run out and get more.)

Jack and I have already started making our tokens to add and I was surprised at how perfectly they work. Of course, I also realized that we have been bopping all over history in our explorations...we have some paleolithic characters to add from our reading -- but we have also explored Ben Franklin, Louise Braille, Pythagoras, and Beethoven. (Poor Beethoven is folded in half at the moment. )

I liked the idea of the time line -- but now that we're actually using it a bit, I like the idea even better, because it's making the timing of events much easier to put into perspective. As we study different places, I suspect that it will be even more helpful to see that "while Europe was doing this, China was doing that".

Jack continues to be Jack. He discovered Mah Jong yesterday and has a new love. (I doubt it can unseat chess, but he's absolutely enthralled for the moment. Then, at bedtime, he decided to read a chapter book to me before I read his chapter book to him. He chose The Adventures Of Ulysses. I didn't really expect him to get far, but he read two chapters aloud. He stumbled on some unfamiliar words, and I have discovered that he he uses his phonics, finally -- but not on complex, multi syllable words. On those, he mumbles. *laugh* I asked him not to mumble but to stop and show me the word so I can tell him how to say it, since it's hard for me to understand the story when he mumbles. He stopped reading then, so I'm not sure if that's going to backfire or not...

He's become such a complex person, has my Jacky. I have been trying to introduce art to his list of explorations and he has been resisting me. It perplexed me. He loves matching the art cards...he enjoys colouring with me, but mostly he resisted new adventures. That is so unlike Jack.

My "technique" of trying to introduce art has changed from inviting him to play -- to which the answer is usually "no thank you" -- to just sitting down in the parlour with the materials. Then he sometimes joins me.

One day, I had started to play with block crayons at the table. Jack Joined me, but after a few minutes, he started to look angry and said accusingly, "You're too good for me".

Woah.

I was mystified...I was noodling away on my own paper as he worked on his, and from my perspective this came out of the blue. Lucky for me, Rod was nearby and observed the exchange. He told me that he thought Jack wanted me to show him how I was getting the effects I was getting. (I had been carefully avoiding pressing him to try for any specific outcomes since I had managed to turn my older kids off the whole idea by being to focused.) I said I didn't know that, because Jack hadn't asked, but when I asked him, jack said that "yes", he did want me to show him. So I did. As I was showing him, I remembered a couple of other times when he had announced "I can't do that" and had walked away from a project. I wonder whether he had been waiting for me to show him how then too ...

Miss Debra, our artist friend, was over for dinner last night. She graciously talked to me a bit about teaching art to young children -- and then she initiated a game with Jack that seemed to turn his whole perspective around. He pulled out his Magna Doodle and was showing Miss Debra how he likes to make dots and then connect them. (A pen control and writing exercise he and Dad do.)

Debra joined in -- he made a shape and then she turned the shape into something. This went on for an hour, with her gradually shifting the creating to Jack. By the end, Jack was creating recognizable characters...something he had never done before.

She also brought some of her in progress art to show us...and it was very cool to see what she is doing with one theme. She also talked about a few things that hadn't come out quite like she had hoped and how she planned to try this or that to turn them into something else.


I learned *so* much last night! I know nothing about art technique other than what I have taught myself in the craft room in the last couple of years. I certainly know nothing about teaching art. But Debra turned Jack around from "I can't" to "look what I can do!" in an hour. I was amazed. Especially because I remember the "I can't". That was me until not too long ago. I love preRaphaelite painting and I was always so unhappy with my own results because not only couldn't I manage anything that beautiful -- I could never manage anything even cartoonishly recognizable. Jack and I learned last night that maybe we had both been approaching it backwards. Maybe the idea is to start -- and see what it looks like, and then work with that.

Now I just have to find a way not to kill the new spark I saw in Jack last night!

Yikes! We have our pagan homeschoolers nature walk in less than an hour -- I'd better go wake the family!

What the Aunties started ...

The Aunties, Auntie CeCe and Auntie Dee (Jack's Goddess mothers and parental pinch hitters) invited us over for dinner last night.

As always, the company was amazing and the food was delectable. (Auntie Dee treated us to what she called "Georgie-style, African American, cuisine": chicken cacciatore!) and Auntie CeCe pulled out all the stops and made a strawberry shortcake for dessert! Yum!

Toward the end of the evening, Auntie CeCe brought out Jack's Yule present. Ed Masessa's Wandmaker Guidebook. Now obviously, I had seen this series in stores, but the price was pretty high when I saw them, and I am ashamed to admit that I saw how beautiful they were and just assumed that all the effort had been put into the graphics and the content would be very poor. That has, after all, been largely my experience.

We have found that the content is actually pretty good. The history is deep enough to trigger conversations and the cautions and what "magic" there is, isn't so far off that we can't work with it. It has turned out to be a truly excellent trigger to get Jack really interested in studying the finer details of our way of life.

The book talks about creating your own magical space to work in, and Jack and I immediately had to redo Jack's altar. The one he'd had since he was three was simply "too baby-ish". The new one still has those dreadful power cords messing up the energy, but we do what we can. He now knows more about what his altar is for and what needs to be there than I had been able to get across to him.

Next, time we sat down with the book, we learned that one must never trust store-bought oils (not an unfamiliar concept around here), so I taught Jack how to make his own oils.

We decided after some research that orange oil sounded about right for his wand, so we chopped up an orange peel while we talked and then stuffed the entire peel into an herbals bottle. Then we used an eye dropper to fill the bottle with extra-virgin olive oil, charged it, and it is now sitting in an east-facing window to absorb the energy of the sun and the moon until Imbolg.

So, we are working our way slowly through the book, going back to revisit critical points every so often. Jack is fascinated by the little pockets with 'secret" information in them, and seems to really be coming to grok that magic is 9/10 patience.

(It helps so much that the book that the Aunties [fonts of all wisdom] gave him says so!

It's after midnight. The last of the thank you notes is written, and we have learned more about magick tonight than we have in a LOOONG time. I'm exhausted, but I am also content to have been here to see the moment of inspiration that has allowed us to explore these things...

Thank you, Aunties! We love you!

Happy Christmas everyone!

I hope everyone is warm and well fed and has a most pleasant Christmas day!
We have had lots happening.

First, our annual engineering disaster was canceled due to impassable roads between here and Nerida's place. First it snowed for days -- and then it rained all day yesterday, creating an icy mess. It was slick but passable here in town, but Nerida and her family live on a farm 30 miles out of town and the roads out there were pretty bad. (It's back to snowing now, so we can hope that there is enough accumulation to make the ice rough.)

Next, Jack and I went to the early Christmas Eve service at the church where Rod has joined the choir.

It was Jack's first experience in a Christian style church service, and once he got the hang of the expectations he did great! (We were surrounded by babies, so it wasn't until I pointed it out to him that he realized that the only people talking during the service were the babies.) He absolutely loved the music and seemed completely enchanted by the whole experience. He made his way to the choir director after the service to ask to join the children's choir and he was welcomed most graciously, so it looks like we'll be going regularly for a while.

(Whenever a baby would crow, the minister would make reference to "choirs of angels! I loved it!)

Next, we got word that we have been passed over for the first round of the big payout for volunteers to leave the company. There may be some chance that either the numbers of payouts will be increased or that someone who volunteered will change his or her mind, in which case we're still on the list, so that doesn't count us out entirely, but it's disappointing.

More likely, we are now facing a 50-50 chance of keeping our place with the company or that we will be let go anyway, with a far smaller payout and some very, very difficult choices. Needless to say, we have a preference.

On the bright side, it's snowing again, and we're looking forward to spending the day with Grandpa John and we got many of the cookies delivered yesterday and I had a chance to spend some time with a friend I don't see enough of yesterday. There is much to be happy about in this season.

I'd best got tidy up before we leave to get John.

Things one doesn't expect to hear from a five year old

"No, thanks, Dad. I think I've had enough sweets for today."

(No idea of the context, but...not what I ever expect to hear from a child.)

Jack with his first gift of the day - -a tub of lego from Mamma

"What?" (in a shocked voice) "why do you keep talking about that? You do know that love has more honor than money, don't you?!?!?!"

(In the car on the way home from dropping Grandpa John back home after a really wonderful Solstice celebration. Again, I didn't catch the relevance to the conversation - -but it was a funny remark anyway.)

A philosophical question...

A number of situations have come up lately and have me coming back over and over to the same question.

The question is, what exactly do we owe to other people, especially where our health is concerned?

What I mean is, it is very common for people to have opinions about how others should live their lives. What we should be "allowed" to eat, what we should be "allowed" to do or not do that might by some estimations be "bad for us".

Fat people are often scolded publicly for eating "bad" foods.
(Yeah, believe it or not, it's pretty common!) Pizza, ice cream, chips...all foods that are OK for thin people, but let a fat person indulge in public and the scolding food police start in.

But it's not just a fat issue. It's also the elderly.

My friend John loves to run. He has done so every day for, oh, sixty years or something. Running is a big part of how John sees himself.

About 18 months ago, he started toppling over while he was running and he has, several times, done himself serious injuries in his falls. Now the hospital is pressuring John's son, Bill, to put John in assisted living so that he can be prevented from hurting himself.

I certainly understand that instinct to protect him. Really, I do. Especially for strangers who see him persisting in running though he's 80 years old and has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's and he hurts himself sometimes when he runs.

But I also look into John's face as he contemplates a life in which he is not only not being able to run, but also "trapped forever" in what he perceives as a prison. The pain I see there is very sobering.

The people who think that John should just stop running don't know him well. They don't understand what running means to him. Bill does understand, but he also loves his father and hates to see him hurt.

I am relieved to see that Bill is looking for a less draconian answer to the problem than incarceration, but I also see the tough spot he is in. Aside from the quandary his own feelings provide , if he doesn't seem to be trying to stop John from hurting himself, as John's guardian he can be seen as legally negligent and interpreted as not a very loving son if he doesn't act to limit John's ability to hurt himself, when my experience of him suggests that Bill loves his father and is as devoted to him as a son can be! Bill understands the pain that never running again will cause to his father and he seeks to find the Sacred Middle Way.

And yet, if John were 30 years old and persisted in bungee jumping or diving into lakes or rivers off bridges (both inherently more dangerous than running) people might cluck, but no one would be insisting that he had to be stopped.

John has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, and I'm sure the day may come when he really doesn't understand the danger inherent in his choice to run. In that case, though he will no doubt be angry with me, I would agree that he would not be in a position to make a meaningful choice. Right now, though, that doesn't seem to be the case. In talking with him, I am pretty clear that John acknowledges that running is a dangerous choice, but the pleasure it brings him when it goes well (far more often than when it doesn't) is, to him, worth the risk he takes .

This matter of our "responsibility" to others where our health is concerned has been on my mind a lot. As a fat diabetic, I find that a lot of people seem to have an opinion about what I should be eating and doing. Maybe that colours my opinions and makes them more "libertarian" than they might otherwise be.

I am irritated with how often the press implies that we all *must* follow the latest advise about how to live forever in our little cotton-wool worlds and I am even more dismayed at how pervasive that opinion seems to be. What of a life worth living? What about the fact that life not only shouldn't be risk free - -it *can't* be risk free. No matter what we do, there are risks. (Even if you never leave your own home, you could find a truck coming through the bedroom wall or an airplane coming through your roof. Improbable, yes, but still possible; just read the paper.)

So, what do you think...how much do we owe other people in making choices about our lives? Do we owe it to the people who love us to try to live absolutely safe lives for as long as possible?

Thank you, Trudi!

Rod's sister, Trudi, took this family portrait of us while we were in Australia. I do believe it's a first! If not a first, it's been a very, very long time.

She did a beautiful job, I think. Pity I'm talking...as usual. *laugh*

(The devilish look on Jack's face? He was trying to make it as difficult as possible. We have a dozen false starts with a boy hiding his face or launched into mi-air. But, as grandparents all, we knew that if we all persisted with patience and humour, we'd either get a decent one or we'd end up with a tearful boy. We took our chances, et voila!)

Only three birthday cards behind now; I hope to blog soon...

They're here!

Showered and fed and safely enconced in their cozy bed to catch up with themselves, my boys are home!

Life is good.

Almost Home

Rod and Jack are just a few hours away -- Rod has been so sweet about keeping me posted!

I'm off to make soup and bake cranberry bread for their dinner before I head to the airport.

From: Rodney B. Smith

Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2008 11:59 AM

hi hon,

we're back in the states, things are running smoothly thus far

its 8:35 and our flight leaves at 10:35

hope all is well

see you soon

r

On Jun 11, 2008, at 11:59 AM, Misti Delaney wrote:

Thank you so much for writing, hon. I have been thinking of little but the pair of you all day.

I had hoped to have the house sparkling, but the jet lag and then losing Min slowed me down. It's not close to done yet.

What time, exactly, am I expecting you? And you're on American, yes?

What flight number?

From: Rodney B. Smith

Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2008 12:40 PM

American flight 2312

due at 21:15 which is 9:15 pm

I miss you too

didn't sleep a wink on the flight

Jack fell asleep for the last hour and a half

On Jun 11, 2008, at 12:40 PM, Misti Delaney wrote:

How is Bub holding up?

From: Rodney B. Smith

Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2008 12:47 PM

he's doing fine really

He's a bit impatient, but so am I

I also smell really bad

we'll be boarding in15 minutes or so

On Jun 11, 2008, at 12:46 PM, Misti Delaney wrote:

OK. Thanks for getting in touch. You'll be able to shower in a few hours.

I love you both! Kisses to Jack!

From: Rodney B. Smith

Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2008 1:00 PM

we arrive in Dallas at 4:45 michigan time and leave at 6:35

I'm looking forward to meeting you

you might come in, that way you can see if the flight is delayed

I'll try to check my mail at Dallas

On Jun 11, 2008, at 12:59 PM, Misti Delaney wrote:

I'll look for you in Dallas. ;)

From: Rodney B. Smith [mailto:rodsmith@delaney-smith.net]
Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2008 4:58 PM

in Dallas

exhausted but high spirited budgie in tow

he recites the goddess chant when he's happy

its great to be home

see you in Detroit

Learning about time ...

When he was about five years old, TJ, my eldest son, wondered whether I remembered dinosaurs and saber tooth tigers. I was a baby myself at the time - - not yet 30 -- and I was half appalled and half amused.

Then I remembered asking my mother (we were probably around the same ages) whether she remembered settling the old west. Hmm.

Jack is far too sophisticated to make the mistake his brother did. He knows full well that dinosaurs were around long before people existed. He has learned a lot about the evolution of people from Australopithecus Africanus through Homo Sapiens, and he has learned about the diaspora of Homo Sapiens out of Africa and over the planet, encountering our older cousins the Neanderthals when we reached Europe.

But his mind is whirling as he tries to put it all in perspective. It came out last night.

"Mamma, was your father a hunter?"

"Well, sort of; my father hunted once a year for fun".

"Was your grandfather a hunter?"

"No, both of my grandfathers were farmers. Why?"

"I'm thinking about homo sapiens hunters"

"Ahh, I see. Are you asking me when humans were hunter gatherers? Trying to understand time and learn what happened when?"

Big grin "Yes!"

"Ahh, well, my grandfathers were born during a time we call the Industrial Revolution. That was many years after we started the "Agricultural Age" when we started farming. Before that, people were hunter-gatherers. A loooong time ago. (gesturing with my hands.)"

"When we get back, we'll put up the timeline and start putting up pictures for everything we know, OK? We'll put pre-dinosaurs over near the basement door, and Jack right on the edge of the timeline over near the china cabinet, and then we'll put in different things as we learn about them -- OK? Sound good?"

Beaming "Yeah!"

And then we were on to watching Jack squeeze the juice out a green bean and a discussion of table manners.

Now, does anyone know of a good Ancient Greek language curriculum for tiny tots, similar to Minimus for Latin?

Still the Long Distance Grandma

I've written before about the challenges of having your heart walking around (in the form of your children and grandchildren) on another continent.

I continue to read everything I can get my hands on, and the ideas continue to be focused on the Grandmas who live 80 miles from the grandbabies and are fretting because they can't pick them up from school or babysit for them a couple of times a week. I'd love to be able to record stories and then send the file and the book so the children can hear me read it to them...but I can't read Swedish well enough and they don't speak English!

I'd love to send a package of delightful surprises once a week -- but that quickly becomes very expensive! (A fat letter can cost $4 -- can you imagine how much a pair of mugs and some instant cocoa and a book would cost?!?!)

A few of the books do have some good ideas, but mainly it seems to come back to writing letters. If you don't speak the same language as your grandchildren, then a translator is immensely helpful -- maybe critical. Even though I speak a tiny bit of Swedish, as Bella got older, I felt more and more limited by having to stick with topics I knew the words for. My wonderful translator, Johanna, has been helping me since last June and after a year, I am starting to be able to "hear" how my "voice" sounds in Swedish. I can even pick through old letters and adapt phrases to send short notes between my monthly letters, which increases my ability to be "in touch".

But after a year of chatting about the routines of my life, I find myself getting repetitive and I started to wonder what to write about next...I can only hold the children's interest with planting a garden and canning and building snowmen for so long. I can discuss the books Jack and I are reading, but many of those haven't been translated into Swedish and so they are of limited interest. And always writing about books gets dull, dull, dull. I write about some holidays ... especially the ones we celebrate that Swedes don't.

And of course, when I can get an anecdote out of Grandfather or Mamma or Pappa, I comment on that, but it's relatively rare -- certainly, I don't have an anecdote to work with once a month! (If you're a young parent, please don't put your parents, your children's grandparents, in this position. It may seem of limited interest that your child is on a 'pirates' kick or can name all the numbers up to 20 -- but, honestly, it's the stuff of life for a grandma!)

One thing I have carried away from all of those books on grand parenting, though, is the important role a grandparent has in a child's life. We are the keepers of the family history and our traditional role has been to pass that along. Having a strong sense of history and a strong sense of belonging to one's family grounds a young person, gives them confidence, and helps to protect them from the emotional battering that ordinary life can impose. I am not a psychologist, so I can't speak to the long term effects of knowing their family story has on a child. I can say, though, that if you as the grandparent don't tell those stories, who will? Will you allow your family's stories to be lost forever?

I wasn't able to share much of my family's history with my older children. At 30, I really didn't have much idea myself. In the decades since, though, I have been investigating, collecting, and recording those stories I can find. I started this new project of sharing my family history on Mother's day this year by recounting just a bit about *my* grandmothers for my grandchildren. I also made a small "scrapbook" by folding a few sheets of paper and sewing them together by hand with great big stitches. Then I cut out the part of my letter that was about each grandmother and pasted it, alongside a few photos, into the scrapbook, with comments about what they were seeing in the photos. In November, when my babies will celebrate Fathers' day, I will do the same for my grandfathers. Later, I'll do a book for each of my parents. (I know a lot more about them) and eventually, I will tell the tales I have heard about other ancestors, so those stories aren't lost completely. That's a good start -- but it's only few letters and we'll have covered what I know.

So, I kept looking.

That's when I remembered The Remembering Site! The Remembering Site is a non-profit initiative that lets anyone create an online autobiography by answering a series of questions. It costs $25 for a lifetime membership, and when you're done, you can e-mail your story, print it out at home, or you have have it printed and bound for a reasonable fee.

I started recording my memories there years ago to "someday" have printed as book for my children and grandchildren, but it occurred to me that the memories don't have to be in the form of book! The site consists of thousands of questions that you can use as a springboard in telling your story, and those questions can be used just as easily as a springboard for letters! (I can even paste the contents of the letters into my biography and get the two goals met at once!)

Of course, the rest of the letter can be more chatty and less important and when there is something more immediate to write about, I'll write about that -- but those memories will make the letters worth saving! As the kids get older, the letters will mean even more to them.

I am feeling a lot happier about my ability to forge a real relationship with my children's children... I still wish we could communicate more directly, but I am also working on that. Jack and I are studying Swedish using Rosetta Stone. So far I can talk about being under an airplane or over a horse...but eventually I hope to be able to use it to actually have a conversation. ;)

Thank you notes and kids...

It's that time again ...

With birthdays, comes the writing of thank you notes.

I think that getting into the habit of writing thank you notes is a very important thing for a young person. The younger we start writing them, the less daunting they are.

I am convinced that a part of the the reason so many people think with horror about writing their 'thank yous' -- and then end up postponing it forever, is because no one expects Thank You notes until suddenly, at age 8 or 9, we are handed cards and told that now we have to figure out how to write a formal Thank You notes. If we're lucky, we get a book to crib from.

That's not fair! What should take a few moments and a reflection on the kindness of a loved one becomes a horrible chore. There is a very simple form that makes it easy -- and with a bit of practice, we can embellish the form to make it very personal. But we have to be taught how!

Jack has been writing his thank yous pretty much from the time he could make an impression on paper. His first "thank you notes" were scrawls of crayon on a card to which Mamma added a handwritten "thank you". Then came the elaborate sticker creations to which I added Jack's dictated thank yous.

Once he was old enough to understand the concept (around his third birthday, I think) we started working on form. One day, it will be important to hand write his thanks, but at the moment, Jack doesn't write yet so we're using the computer. Much better to focus on the parts that he can learn reasonably easily and add the others parts as he develops. I never want him to think of this as difficult!

There are several standard parts to a thank you letter, and I coach Jack through each one. The nature of these things is that we do one after another, so he gets to practice what he's (re)learned several times.

First, we assemble the gifts. Next Jack picks one up (and if there were several from the same giver, he gathers all of them in one stack.)

I write "Dear" and I ask him who the gift is from. He tells me and I repeat "Dear Grandpa John".

Then I write 'Thank you for the" and I ask him what Grandpa John gave him, and we write down the name of the gift(s) and I read the whole letter to Jack.

"Dear Grandpa John, thank you for the Winnie the Pooh book."

Next, I ask Jack what he likes best about the gift, and we write that down. "I really like the pictures in this book!"

Then, I read the whole thing back to Jack and ask him if there's anything else that he wants to say...if there is, we add that (this is often moderately incoherent at the moment, but it's his letter. As long as the basics are there, I stay out of his way.)

Then we add another thank you "Thank you so much for remembering my birthday!"

and the signature "Love, Jack"

and we're done. I still do *a lot* of coaching, but because it's easy, we can do all of his notes in a half hour. (Cut and paste the first letter, delete the details, pick up the next gift and discuss it and add the new details...et voila!)

This way, Jack is learning the form for thank you notes, the idea that they're easy and reasonably quick to write -- and most of all, he is learning to think about the people who love him enough to give him gifts and about the effort they put into picking a gift especially for him.

Gratitude is good -- but if we don't express it, it's impotent. Everyone wants to be thanked! It's not hard to do...you just have to know the trick!

Now that he's older, it's time to start reading my own thank you notes to him, so that he can get the idea that once the forms are in place, we can embroider them to make them our very own! I think that birthdays are a good time to start that, because he won't be making an immediate comparison to his own notes like he would at Yule.

Irony

We live in a small town. It's easy to forget that, sometimes, but really, everyone knows everyone around here, one way or another.

At a healing circle this weekend, a friend mentioned that she had overheard some conversation about Jack that amused her greatly. It seems that somewhere in this town, there are people who feel bad for our poor deprived boy because he's too serious and doesn't know how to be a child. She didn't say who thought that or why they thought that, and it doesn't really matter -- it's just funny.

The tidbit of gossip had to be delivered at some volume, because little Fauntelroy was busy tearing at full speed and full volume around the house with his little friend. They were being very fast, very loud dinosaurs.

We had to laugh.

Happy Ostara!

Ostara, the season of new life.

I was so ready -- no, in need of -- this season this year! The dark season was indeed dark for us and we felt our middle age creeping into our bones a little more with every loss. The return of the light brought with it the deepest loss yet.

But now comes the time of new life -- the planting of seeds and the return of song birds. Maybe even eventually some warmth.

We took Jack to a children's Ostara circle on Friday and he absolutely loved it. They meet regularly at the Sabbats, and Jack wants to join them for Beltane as well. He loves circle, and the very idea of a circle aimed at his age, in which it was perfectly OK for him to dance around inside the circle while everyone was participating in their own way was a dream come true! Interestingly, he had been behaving less well in adult circle of late and I noted that when we celebrated at home later, he actually did much better than he has been. I'd have expected the opposite...

Yesterday started with Jack's discovery of a basket of gifts on his place mat. Since we don't usually use the parlour until later in the day, that took some time. He was pleased to find a CD of Mozart and another of Beethoven, and a Mary Pope Osborn novel (Dinosaurs before Dinner). A little more digging revealed not one, not two, but three dinosaurs! He played his CDs and read the first chapter of the book -- but the title of the second chapter was "Monsters", so he thinks maybe he needs company to read the second
chapter. He has a lot of trouble with books that have much emotional intensity.

As an example, _Five Run Away Together_ by Enid Blyton had to be out away for another time because the The Stick family was just so abusive that he couldn't take it!

Anyway, the chapter called Monsters in this latest find suggested that it might be scary, so we'll read it together.

Eventually he spotted his first hidden (plastic) egg -- and then the day became a flurry of egg-spotting. I didn't hide them very carefully this time -- next time, I think I will. Jack had found all of them within an hour and he ate all the chocolate as he found them. Needless to say, we needed a kite string on his ankle to make it through the rest of the day!

Later in the afternoon, Grandpa John came over and we had our Ostara celebration -- a very perfunctory circle, the work of which was planting our seeds for this year. I got a couple of things planted, but I also spent a lot of time helping Jack with his seeds and helping the guys get the balance of soil and "plant baby food" right. It's not that finely detailed a process, but if you didn't invent it, I guess it's a little weird.

After dinner, we chatted a while, but we were all feeling pretty sleepy so John left early. After a couple of hours, we started to feel more awake and we went off to hang out with Shelley for a while and then we came home and finished up our planting project.

In the end, we got 75 containers planted. A good start. We'll put the carrots and other things that don't want to be transplanted in after the snow has melted.

Edited to add: not all of those plants will go in our own garden. Some are also for friends.

Between the company, the circle, and the seeds, I am feeling more alive today than I have in some time.

Sad

It's a cold grey day here in Ypsilanti. That seems suitable, given the incredible sadness of the day.

I woke up to the sound of the phone in the dark .. .that's never good.

It was my dear friend, Shelley. Her beloved Al had died in his sleep. The poor kid was in shock. I immediately went to her. I can't make it better, but I can be there. That's all anyone can do.

It's been a hard day.

Al was larger than life. A storyteller of the first order, a musician with a voice like velvet, and a world class curmudgeon. A visit with him was always extremely entertaining, and reading one of his blistering essays in the newspaper or in an e-mail always left me in awe of his talent with the language. It's so hard, even though I saw them take his body away, for me to realize that Al won't be over for dinner next week. Al will never be over for dinner again. It's hard to understand, but it's also deeply sad. The world is a poorer place without Al.

The service is Thursday. I usually officiate at a funeral about once a year. This is the last one I could have foreseen and the certainly last one I would have wanted to have to do. But I will -- for Al, and for my dear, sweet Shelley. I wish it wasn't time yet -- but I am honoured to be asked.

I'm back!!

Well, I am home and feeling much better!!

Thank you, all of you, for the support you have shown for myself and my family. Not long after word got out that I was in hospital, I started to improve at a remarkable rate. The flood of support for us has been truly amazing and really wonderful. Of course, having some very talented healers in our circle of friends, and a bunch of fervent prayers in our family and wider circle of friends, helps a bunch too!!

Misti has been a tower of strength through all of this, to the point that she is now pretty thoroughly worn out. In many ways, this weekend was harder on her than on me. She not only had me to fret over and Jack to look after, but she had to deal with her own angst and keep everybody posted. She works like a trojan, does my Misti, I am very lucky to have her as my wife.

Jack has been truly remarkable. His behaviour has been exemplary and, as boring as hospital is, he didn't want to be anywhere else. His dad was sick and he was going to be there until I came home.

I think it has helped that Jack has been with us when visiting hospital as some of our closest friends have had major crises, and we have, as a family, done what we can to see them through. Hospital is not his favorite place to be, but it doesn't phase him.

We operate as a family unit. We stand by each other, we support each other, and we do the hard yards when they need to be done. That's the way Jack sees the world, and I am impressed a the depth with which he has internalized it all. It has taken its toll emotionally, though. I think he'll need a couple of days of no-pressure-at-all to just unwind and be "nearly 5" again.

So, the whole story from my perspective, goes something like this...

I had been fatigued for a couple of days, and figured I was fighting off a cold or some other undesirable bug (the only reason this is important is that Jack insists that the afternoon's events sparked the evening event). I was clearing the driveway of snow, and it had taken a l lot more effort than it usually does. I uncovered some "black ice" on the concrete which, of course, looks just like the concrete.

I slipped on the ice and landed hard. I had bruised my rib by falling on my arm, but thankfully I had the presence of mind to throw the shovel away from me. I didn't think too much of it, but it unsettled Jack, who was standing on the porch waiting for me to be able to shut the gate (which is another story).

I finished the driveway off (which totals about 1200 sq feet) and proceeded to free the gate, which had been frozen in place all winter under about 8 inches of accumulated ice.

I was pretty wiped out, so when Misti arrived home a little while later, I wasn't up for cooking dinner. We eventually went out to a familiar restaurant for a familiar meal.

As we arrived home after dinner, I became aware that I was "coming down with something". I had that nasty chill that often portends a raging fever.

There was no doubt in my mind I was sick, and while I had been off color for a couple of days, this hit like a ton of bricks.

Misti grabbed a large thick blanket for me and I lay under it (and my regular blanket) for at least an hour and a half shivering hard enough to shake the bed.

During this time, my breathing became increasingly difficult, and I developed a rattling wheeze. My lungs have been compromised for many years, so I am accustomed to fighting for breath on occasions when I push myself a little harder than usual, but this was quite different.

Misti became concerned, and I suggested a wait-and-see approach, there were a couple of things I hadn't tried yet.
Still fighting for breath and shivering, I put my c-pap on, figuring the extra pressure would open the airways, and the warm, moist air would help things along as well.

The shivering eventually gave way to the expected fever, but I never stopped fighting for breath. The rattling wheeze became worse over time, and the shortness of breath remained.

After giving it a couple of hours, I managed to calm my breathing to a regular, though still very forceful pattern, and any movement at all resulted in 10 minutes of heavy panting, trying to catch up.

It did not improve from there. I figured I probably had pneumonia.

I made it clear to Misti that I was unable to think straight, and not improving at all.

She immediately rang the hospital, and set the wheels of industry in motion - very slow motion as I recall. It seemed to take most-of-forever to get upright, dressed, downstairs, and into the car. Sitting upright required considerable recovery time, as did every other step in the process.

Misti managed to take care of my needs while bundling Jack into the car and preparing everything else for the journey across town. it was snowing and another inch had accumulated on the driveway.

The drive over was slow and somewhat slipery. I thought about pneumonia, and the probable recovery time for that. I thought about the bruised rib and hoped I hadn't done the extremely improbable, and punctured my lung. I thought about the amount of time Misti might have to take off work, and whether or not we'd have to cancel our Australia trip (the cancellation alone would cost 600.00).

We arrived at the hospital and they ruled out pneumonia or any other form of lung trouble with a chest ex-ray. At that point I began to really be concerned, because anything else I could think of was really serious.

They gave me oxygen, which helped a lot, and a breathing treatment, which helped further. However as soon as it was removed, my blood oxygen dropped and breathing difficulty returned, though it was nowhere near as severe as before.

They then ruled out out blood clot in the lung, which required a CT scan. Next on their list was heart disease, which required a longer time to test. At that point, I was admitted to hospital, and Misti and Jack finally went home.

Of course, I am a substantial guy, (and at 4 am in distress, I look pretty unkempt and disreputable) and the first thing anyone else thinks of is heart disease. I know my heart to be strong and healthy, so heart attack is never high on my list of probable causes, but "atypical chest pain" nevertheless turned up front-and-center on my admission papers.

Once they had ruled out heart disease, the remaining possibility, was laryngal spasm, the type of thing associated with anaphylactic shock.

We hadn't considered this because there had been no obvious cause, and I have no history of anaphylaxis at all, but the symptoms did point more clearly to that than to anything else.

We eventually put it down to a cross-contamination. The most likely culprit being the fish I had for dinner being something other than the cod it was advertised to be (there are certain fish I cannot eat), or cross-contaminated with the shellfish (which is abundant in lent, and I can't eat that either).

Anyway, that is the full story, it was a very harrowing time for Misti and Jack, and it was no bunch of roses for me either.

I'm glad that the problem turned out to be something that is largely avoidable. I'm also very glad that my general health hasn't deteriorated further, as I have been working hard at mitigating the damage done by many years of hard living.

Now its time to set about doing those things that only I can do, because I've got a long list of things to accomplish, and none of us can be sure of how much time we have.

Take Care

Rod

He's home!!!

24 hours after this whole scary adventure started, Rod is home.

It turned out not to be his lungs, or his heart -- best guess -- an anaphylactic reaction -- probably from an inadvertent to a known allergen. Rod has known for some years that he's allergic to sea food. He avoids it, but until now the reaction has been unpleasant but not scary. Last night, we went out to dinner, and Rod had fish and chips. Ina restaurant that had an unaccustomed sea-food special on for Lent. Our best guess is that somehow Rod's fish was contaminated by shrimp or crab or...something, either in the batter or in the fryer. If that's the case, then his reaction to sea food is becoming life-threatening.

However, the good news is, Rod is home and doing much better. He still doesn't feel great, but I think a good night's sleep will likely make a difference.

Now, I will let Rod post any details he sees fit. About 24 hours ago, I was starting to think it was past bedtime. I think I'll follow through on that now.

Good night all - -and thank you, everyone, for all the help, support, energy and prayer!