For Mother's Day

When my parents moved to a hurricane-prone area, I started receiving boxes filled with photographs to preserve in case of a flood. After sorting volumes and years of photos, I am struck by how many vivid memories I have that were never photographed. Most of these have to do with my mom. Like many moms, she was more often behind the camera that in front of it. Or like me with the delete key, photos of her would show up missing.

Those missing photographs were snapshots in my memory. Like, for example, how she looked floating in front of my little boat raft in the pool, or putting on make up, or cooking popcorn on the stove, or the back of her hair when she drove or what her hands looked like when I would play with her rings in church. (As it turns out, her hands look very much like mine when my daughter holds my hand.) There are moments when my daughter looks at me very hard - when she is studying something I'm doing- I wonder if she is taking one of those snapshots.

For the last 12 years, I have lived 700 or so miles from my mom. Though we talk almost every day, when I think of her, I still imagine her to look like my childhood mom, busting me out of preschool to go get cheeseburgers and watch As The World Turns. I remember what she smelled like when she was getting ready for a party or church, like perfume and spray starch or after a day at the pool, chlorine and baby oil. Even as a married woman, long gone from home, I opened a package from her and just the smell of her perfume made me burst into tears.

Here are a few of my favorite photos of my mom. I'm sure if given the chance to see the originals, she would hide them. But to me, she looks so beautiful.






I love this photograph. She looks so beautiful. I just hear Diana Ross singing Baby Love when I see this photo.


Mom went to college when I was 6. Here she is drawing Squirt, the family Hamster, for an art class. Even at 6, I understood how brave she was to go back and I was so proud. I still am. I hope I inherit her energy to constantly try new things. Happy Mother's Day Mom.

Closed Captioning

Closed captioning, as it turns out, is not only for the hearing impaired. It's essential for those of us whose homes are acoustically and/or square-footage challenged after the kid(s) are asleep. Why do they mumble so much dialogue on Grey's Anatomy? Why? WHY? Speak up Derek for Pete's SAKE! It's like there are marbles in his mouth. McMumbles I tell you!

I thought about getting a couple of these jobbies:


But then we would be like John Cusack in Sixteen Candles with matching headgear. Conversation would be stilted. If I put wireless headphones on a couple watching TV on the video game The Sims, they would lose relationship points. Right? We should probably just read. With booklights.

Moving Little Troopers

The military lexicon was often used in my house growing up; a remnant of my dad’s army days. “At ease,” he would tell the dog barking at the neighbors. Mother’s Day shopping trips were “missions” involving “recon” and herding up all of us to get to church on time involved directives such as, “move out troops,” etc. He’ll agree with you by giving an affirmative, “that’s a Rog” (pronounced with a soft “g” short for Roger).

When we arrived at my parent’s house for a visit with our 4-week-old, Dad jokingly mentioned that he had moved 40 men with less gear.

As summer travel is on the horizon, I have been doing research on traveling with small children. (See, prior post Vacation Dreaming) When in doubt, ask the experts! The best tips I found weren’t from parenting sites at all but from spouses of military personnel: http://www.military.com/spouse/fs/0,,fs_militarymama_travel,00.html
Who better to orchestrate a strategy for the movement of gear and people?

Also, for the ambitious traveler, I love the concept of this group: http://www.babyfriendlyboltholes.co.uk/
These vacation spots are kid friendly cottages with all the baby gear on site. They offer that they know it takes more than a cot and a high chair to be toddler friendly. Cottages available in England, France, Italy, Spain, & Greece.

Speaking of summer travel, I stumbled upon the Seat Chiller. It's a one-size-fits-all car seat cooler to keep the seat chilled between stops or when the car sits in the hot sun. This one is available online at http://www.babydagny.com/c/Favorites/p/Seat_Chiller.

Condensed Powder

According to today's NYTimes, next month Sony TV is going to introduce the Minisode Network online that will run an entire episode of a Sony classic show (like TJ Hooker or Charlie's Angels) in 6 minutes or less.

“So in ‘Charlie Angels,’ they have a meeting, Charlie’s on the intercom telling them what the assignment is, there’s a couple of fights, and then a chase, and they catch the bad guy. Then they’re back home wrapping it up.”

Sign me up! It's like cotton candy in a click! I wonder if they will have Magnum?

Fighting Fires

Cookie Magazine mentioned this family's blog in this month's editor's note. http://www.princeliamthebrave.blogspot.com/ This little boy is close to my daughter's age and I believe they would be fast friends. They share a keen interest in cheese puffs, Curious George (who they both refer to as "George Monkey") and firefighters. This is his parents' courageous blog to update friends and family of his brave, and I believe winning, cancer fight.

As a believer in the power of prayer, I wanted to pass along their blog with hopes that more people will say a prayer for this little man and for his family. In their most recent post, they write:

"I know in my head that the medicine is working. I know in my heart that the prayers, positive thoughts, blessings, healing crystals, blessed figurines, good wishes and meditations are also working. A friend is making 40 loaves of Challah bread this weekend with a group of women from her synagogue in honor of Liam. It's an old Jewish tradition that brings good health to those in need. We are honored that they would make such a commitment of time for a child whose parents aren't a member of their community. But again, it takes a community the size of New York to heal a sick child."

I am so moved by people doing what they know how to do to effectuate change and lift people out of crisis.

As I child I remember visiting my grandmother (who passed away in 1995) and hearing her in the kitchen at 3:00 am brewing coffee to pour into thermoses and making sandwiches, wrapping each one in wax paper. It wasn't until morning that I learned that a furniture factory caught fire in the night causing chemical explosions and that fire departments from all of the surrounding counties had come together to fight the fire. My grandfather packed up her sandwiches and coffee and took them to the firefighters to eat during breaks to give them strength to keep fighting the fire all through the night.

It's such a vivid memory for me because I was so impressed by her ingenuity. She knew she could do something in her own way to make a difference and she did it without hesitation. She saw a need beyond the flames. Women in church basements and sewing circles around the world have done this for centuries. When everyone is scrambling, they are finding ways to solve problems, bring comfort, and organize the madness.

We're all part of the same community. If only we could each use our skills, even in small ways, to help each other. Perhaps it does take a city the size of New York to heal a child. But with the internet, a global community as big as the ocean, just think of the great that we could do for our children. 40 loaves of Challah bread to you and your children and good health.

Grand Women

Remember in Fools Rush In when Selma Hayek’s character goes to her great grandmom’s house in Mexico? Her Grand is this beautiful, Georgia O’Keefe, Eudora Welty type of gal and you just want to go to her house and quilt or make something fabulous to eat with tamales. I love that movie.

Or there’s the scene in An Affair to Remember when Cary Grant goes to his Grandmother Janou's house and she is beautiful and wise and she hugs on Deborah Kerr (who is sort of in need of some support) and they play the piano together. I love that movie.



My Grands, and the Grands I’ve adopted in my life, are (and were) those kind of girls: huggable, filled with experience, adoring women who walk into the kitchen and come out with something that tastes like every ingredient is the result of someone’s best day.

My husband’s Granny, who I have claimed as my own Grand too, makes mouth-watering apple pies that actually transform a cup of coffee. I’ve noticed they are usually made in celebration of a homecoming.

My 95-year old Grandmom, who has a “gentleman friend” because, as she told me, “he’s too old to call a boyfriend,” is still staggeringly beautiful and makes coconut pie every time someone she loves passes away. There was a time when people at her church looked for coconut pie as a comforting staple in times of grief. And no celebration is complete without her cheesy squash casserole with Ritz crackers and loads of butter.

The Farmer’s Market is starting up here again for the summer and I’ve been thinking about another one of those kind of girls, Diana Kennedy, and how we need to go get some fresh vegetables and try out a recipe.

Ms. Kennedy is this lovely, curious English woman who moved to Mexico with her husband Paul where he was writing for the New York Times. And then he died of cancer. But instead of heading home, she decided to live in Mexico and became sort of an anthropologist, traveling to remote villages and learning from the local people, cooking in their kitchens, quietly respecting and preserving their unique recipes. Her mission is to collect recipes that have been passed down for centuries, but have never been written down or published. I just love that.

She has built a solar-powered adobe eco-house where she grows her own vegetables. In photos, it looks like something from Under the Tuscan Sun.



I did some research and found out that she’s been traveling around Mexico for 47 years now. She asks these great questions from people about what something tastes like and then, before you know it, she’s in their home and they are cooking together. Now there’s a diplomatic approach I can get behind.

One website quoted her as saying, “I never travel in straight lines. The important discoveries in my life have always happened by chance.” Awesome.
Here’s a link to her work: http://www.powells.com/s?kw=Diana+Kennedy&x=0&y=0

Wonder In Uncertain Times

We get the magazine www.wondertime.com (thanks shishie!) which prints beautiful pages with suggestions of small, magical things about the world to share with your children. One article talked about how to make an adventure out of airline travel for your toddler. Another article shared one mom's experience of lining up all of her kids' toys in a parade during naptime to watch them re-discover some old friends when they woke up. Inspiring, adorable, creative stuff.

Wondertime has me thinking about how to make the most of these years when everything is new and when my daughter is discovering all of the fantastic things about living. Things like chocolate and sunshine, the sprinkler and sidewalk chalk, books and music.

She's been learning about the people of her neighborhood at school: fire fighters, police officers, postal carriers and doctors are this month's subjects. She has hung on to every detail about them and when we encounter one such individual, she is so thrilled to see them, waive, and tell them what she knows. During our regular Saturday morning bakery visit, she stands almost at the door greeting people as they come in. "Hi!"

After a day like today, I worry that I may be setting her up for disappointment later. The world is not safe. There are many days that are scary and devoid of any magic or wonder -- when the people of your neighborhood can't protect you. How I wish I could re-create a world for her that is more like the one I've been selling. I am beginning to think that as adults, we are in a constant battle to force our current experience into what we initially thought the world was supposed to be as children. Will it be more disappointing for her to learn over time that one by one, the things that she thought were shiny, safe and secure could have rusty, sharp edges? I suppose the child in all of us gives us the capacity to experience, remember and hopefully recapture joy: finding shapes in clouds, reveling in the miracle that plastic caplets can magically turn into sponge dinosaurs in the bathtub, that an empty shoebox is the perfect a stage set for a playdough snowman performance.

Maybe that's what we all need on a day like today. After we cry our eyes out and pray and get angry and challenge our faiths, maybe all that's left is to help our children, and in turn ourselves, find wonder in a scary world.

My prayer is for new moments of hope and wonder in a time, after another event, that is not representative of who we are as a people of the American neighborhood.