Tell Me What You Want, What You Really, Really Want

One of the nicest things about having a husband almost two decades younger is that his mom and aunts came with him as ready-made friends. I’m lucky, I know, because it could have gone very differently. Not having any sisters, and getting in-laws who only have sisters, I’m still learning the female sibling dynamic from them. But, being a big sister I know. So Nick’s mom, Becky, who is also the eldest, and I have very similar personalities and social interactions. We both typically take the position that if everyone would just get it together, do their part correctly, and stay out of each other’s way, the world would run much more efficiently--thus, smoothly. Or, more succinctly, if people would just behave like big sisters think they should. Nick’s Aunt Michelle, on the other hand, is a middle-child mediator personality. Even though I don’t quite understand her ways, I admire and even envy them. I’d like to be more like her. And one of the methods I like best is what she calls “skillful means,” a way of finding out what people need and want so that you can provide it when possible and everyone ends up feeling content with the exchange. I have to admit it works, but it’s hard to be patient enough when bossing people around is much faster. In Bruce McMillan’s The Problem With Chickens, Icelandic ladies need eggs and chickens need a place to stay. Once everyone starts working together skillfully, it all works out.

http://www.amazon.com/Problem-Chickens-Times-Illustrated-Awards/dp/0618585818

http://www.brucemcmillan.com/

Alphabet Soup

I always wanted to be a teacher. By six I settled on education as my vocation and never changed my mind again. The age-level choice evolved over the years, but I knew that the world of chalkboards (now whiteboards) and grade sheets (now Excel spreadsheets) was where I belong. My first teaching experience was corralling all the unsuspecting kids from the neighborhood to come to my “school” on weekends and summer vacations. Since the internet was still just a big military secret, television had only three channels, and “handheld games” actually meant checkers or Candyland, they were enthusiastic at first. Until I assigned real homework at my pretend school. After that, I had to catch ‘em young or not at all. Another early teaching experience has stayed with me all this time. I spent two years teaching preschoolers basic kindergarten readiness. One of the most surprising and sad aspects of the job was realizing that, although they could reach the highest level of any video game, some of them couldn’t even recognize the first letter of their own name. How did that happen? How could their caretakers let it happen? It wouldn’t be a problem if they were Shaker children, apparently. To avoid the very deficit of which I speak, the Shakers long ago developed the Shaker Abecedarius to teach each child their letters by rote. A Peaceable Kingdom, illustrated by Alice and Martin Provensen, makes learning the alphabet as easy as A, B, C.

http://www.amazon.com/Peaceable-Kingdom-Shaker-Abecedarius-Picture/dp/0140503706

http://www.jstor.org/pss/27546611

Surfin' U.S.A.

Zuma One. Those two words were enough to spur a frenzy of action--Somebody get the towels! The lotion! Some snacks! Then we’d all pile into one car, chip in a couple bucks for gas, cram every remaining cranny with skim boards and boogie boards, and hit the road, ending up parking as close as we could to the first lifeguard tower at Zuma Beach. Much of our youthful angst and zeal played out on that particular patch of sand. Offhand, I can think of ten people--adults with jobs, kids, and even grandkids--I’m Facebook friends with who I watched tan, body surf, and play there. And a few whose time here didn’t last as long so they stay frozen forever in my memory young, bronze and beautiful. I always wanted to be a beach bunny--one of those girls who oils up and spends the day looking glamorous on a towel with perfect hair and makeup--but it never worked out. I couldn’t resist the lure of the water. I never did get the hang of skim boarding and I haven’t actually been on a surfboard in the water, but boogie boarding and body surfing kept my craving for saltwater therapy in check. In Brian Lies’ Bats at the Beach, when the moon is shining bright the nocturnal ones come out to swim, moontan, and eat all the junk food they can hold before it’s time to brush off the sand and go home. I wonder if they ever go to Zuma One…

http://www.amazon.com/Bats-at-Beach-Brian-Lies/dp/061855744X

http://www.brianlies.com/

I Could Eat You Up

When my youngest brother Matthew was born, I laid claim to him as my own personal living doll. I bathed him and fed him and carted him everywhere I went. His crib was in my room but I smuggled him into bed with me every night. When he was old enough, all three of the boys shared a bedroom. John slept on the top bunk, Todd and Matt had the bottom bunk, and I would sneak from my solitary only-girl room into theirs. I wedged myself in next to the wall on the bottom bunk looking up through the crack and John wedged in next to the wall on the top bunk looking down. We all talked and joked until we were giggling so much I’m surprised we didn’t get caught more often. But when it was time to really settle down and go to sleep, Matthew insisted on playing “I love you more than…” In this game, you trade off telling the other person what yummy dessert you prefer them to. Delicacies like lemon pie and strawberry ice cream got casually tossed around, but you knew Matt was ready to say goodnight when he pulled out the big gun: I love you more than chocolate cake. That is the most you can love someone--the very best treat saved for last. In Heidi R. Weimer’s You’re My Little Love Bug, there are lots of “I love you” goodies, but not a single slice of chocolate cake. Oh well, she tried.



http://www.amazon.com/Youre-Little-Love-Parent-Letters/dp/0824965892

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/80266.Heidi_R_Weimer

Won't You Be My Neighbor?

I learned everything I know about interacting with others from Southern people. I know never to return a plate empty, always make twice as much food as you need for drop-ins, and to say “Bless their heart!” when you want to punch someone in the head. I learned to give way to my elders, mentor my juniors, and, coming from a long line of Methodists, that Baptists have their “own way of doing things.” I was taught to express gratitude for blessings and ask forgiveness for insult or injury. It is expected that you hold doors, elevators, and, sometimes, your tongue (not my strength). I’ve seen my Grandma take someone’s wash off the line when the rain started. I’ve watched my Grandpa spot children with not enough change to a Coke or a candy bar. Half of my extended family are ministers and live their lives in service. But the most defining characteristic of Southern hospitality is their relationship with doors. Every home has a front door, but you don’t use it. You come around to the back like family. And no door is ever locked. The one and only time I ever found my grandparents’ door impassable was the night I went back for my grandmother’s funeral and Californians were staying there. It was how I knew she was really gone. In Love Your Neighbor by Cindy Kenney, the Good Samaritan story is retold for the preschool set but the message is still the same: Everyone is your neighbor.

https://bigidea.com/products/books/books_content.aspx?pid=382

http://www.kenneycreative.com/About_Cindy_Kenney.html

Shake, Shake, Shake!

You can tell what you need to know the first time a person shakes your hand. Especially if you’re a woman shaking hands with a man. Believe me, I know. Shaking hands matters to me and, when ineptly done, is second only to grown-woman baby voice as my biggest social interaction pet peeve. Some men hesitate to shake your hand at all because they, what, might hurt you? Might get hurt by you? Whatever it is, they need to get over it because women as handshaking equals are here to stay. Then there’s the men who begin with promise and fade. They start in proper handshake fashion, grasp your hand, and slide to the tips of your fingers giving them a cursory wag. Probably my least favorite of the bunch. Since no man alive today was born in an age of knights and damsels chivalry or Queen Victoria’s England, ending up with my hand in kissing position is weird, patronizing and unnecessary. Maybe if one of them actually did kiss my hand once in awhile, it would be quirky enough to have some charm. Or just gross me out, I don’t know. And there’s the pumpers. These guys are going to show how comfortable they are shaking hands with a woman by tearing my arm out of the socket. Preferable to the others, but still. In Grace Macccarone’s Oink! Moo! How Do You Do?, the barnyard folk get acquainted without any of that handshaking nonsense. Maybe it’s better that way.

http://www.amazon.com/Oink-Moo-How-Do-You/dp/0590206559

http://content.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=10182

My Up, My Down, My Pride And Joy

In “Fiddler on the Roof,” Tevye’s daughters sing about the boy they hope will be their match. When one sister professes an interest in the rabbi’s son, the others scoff. Indignant, she demands to know why this is laughable. Her sister offers, “Because we’ve only got one rabbi, and he’s only got one son.” To which the interested sister replies, “That makes him the best, and why shouldn’t I want the best?” Good question. An even better question is: What is it with only sons? They are the subject of history, myth, legend and lore. Henry VIII killed for one, John the Baptist prophesied one, and most cultures do not consider a man complete without one. What’s up with that? I’ve had four children but only one son, and he’s the one who tried to do me in. Bed rest for weeks, panicked trips to the emergency room, premature labor, and incessant worry. All for nothing, it turns out, since he showed up sixteen years ago today big, fat, and healthy. There is something visceral and therapeutic in having a child of the opposite gender. For the first time, you experience the other in a pure form and the best of you can respond. In no offering is the mother-son relationship more completely and lovingly showcased than the greatest stalker story of all time: Robert Munsch’s Love You Forever. If you’ve read it, you know what I mean. If I could only have one son, I’m glad it was Connor.

P.S. Happy Birthday, Con-Man!

http://www.amazon.com/Love-You-Forever-Robert-Munsch/dp/0920668372

http://robertmunsch.com/