Priceless Stuff I Love: 2015 Edition

Every now and then I like to look back over blogs that I wrote a few years ago. In August of 2013, I wrote a blog entry called “Cheap Stuff That I Love” about inexpensive things that make me happy (like iced coffee from Dunk’s, and non-stick foil, and bubble wrap), and I followed it up a few weeks later with an entry called “Priceless Stuff I Love” about things that you can’t buy that make me happy. And even though all of those wonderful things (fuzzy baby heads, jeans that fit, sing-along songs, etc.) still make me happy, here are a few more to add to the list of free wonderfulness in the world.

A Child’s Story

My kids are both talkers, and they love telling stories. Sometimes they’re retelling stories that they know and love, and sometimes they’re making up completely new stories. But either way, I love it when I can get them to tell me one of their stories. I love it even more when I manage to catch them telling stories to their stuffed animals and their dolls.

A Morning Walk

I’m not typically a morning person, nor am I a “get out there and walk” person. But every now and then I manage to get myself up and going early enough to catch a stroll around the neighborhood before the day begins in earnest. I love the familiarity, the quietness, and the chance to center my thoughts.

Homemade Cookies

When I was growing up, there was always – and I do mean ALWAYS – a Tupperware or two full of homemade cookies in my house. Chocolate chip, snickerdoodles, no-bakes, peanut butter, thumbprints, molasses…you name it, my mom made it. My dad’s, my sister’s, and my lunches always included two cookies, carefully wrapped in waxed paper sealed with a drugstore fold. Nowadays, fewer families have time to bake cookies, so even if there are cookies on hand, they’re more likely to be Oreos or Chips Ahoy or Pepperidge Farm – not that there’s anything wrong with that; I’m a big fan of a couple of Oreos and a glass of milk. But there’s something special about a homemade cookie, especially one made by your mom, with love.

A Scent from the Past

They say that scents often bring back the strongest memories. Have you ever gotten a whiff of your grandma’s perfume and been drawn right back to her house when you were five years old? Or perhaps it was the smell of your first boyfriend’s aftershave or your first girlfriend’s shampoo that made your heart skip a beat. It might be the smell of your mom’s lasagna baking or the same brand of baby powder you put on your baby or even the same scent of car deodorizer you had in your very first car that sends you back into the past for a split-second. But there’s nothing quite as wonderful as catching that passing whiff of something that brings back a happy memory.

A Project Going Right

I love doing projects – home improvement projects, art projects, sewing projects – even when I’m not particularly good at them. I’ve had a few impressive crash-and-burns (I tried the infamous “melted crayon art” from Pinterest once; the results did NOT look like they did on Pinterest), and a few moderate successes, but every now and then a project comes out just as – or even more – spectacular that anticipated. And there’s no more wonderful feeling of triumph than that.

What other little experiences in life make you happy?

Sticker Storytelling

Roughly two weeks into my home schooling journey with my son, I have discovered what is easily the skill with which he struggles most: writing. He has no problem with writing in terms of ideas; he has been telling stories - both repeating ones he's heard and creating stories of his own - since he was able to talk. Give him a character or a topic and he'll happily spin a wild yarn for you. But the act of getting those words onto paper is brutally difficult for him. Holding the marker, forming the letters, keeping the words from falling off the page...you'd think I was asking him to create life.

So I've been searching the internet, reading home schooling and kindergarten teacher blogs, and looking through books to find some creative ideas of how to help make writing practice more interesting and less frustrating for him. Writing in a tray of pudding, or jello or Kool-Aid powder, or sand, or shaving cream; and writing on a chalkboard or dry erase board seemed like great suggestions, but he wasn't terribly enthusiastic. I tried making letter flashcards that he could copy. I made dotted outlines he could trace. I read an article written by a kindergarten teacher who has her students draw a picture and then write a few words about it daily, and I laughed (a little enviously). I couldn't imagine how long it would be before my son would be interested in writing an entire sentence, never mind doing it every single day. But then, I had a sticker epiphany.

My son is moody about drawing pictures: some days he'd draw robots and space aliens all day long, but other days he has zero interest. But I've yet to offer him stickers and be turned down. So this morning, when his little sister was playing with stickers and he asked to make a sticker picture, I was struck with inspiration. I told him he could make a sticker picture, but afterwards he had to tell me a story about it and then we would work together to write one sentence about it. He considered that for a moment, then apparently decided that his love for stickers outweighed his hate of writing, and took me up on it.

I let him choose 10 stickers to put on a piece of construction paper. The Melissa and Doug sticker book we were using has literally hundreds of stickers with a different theme for each page: farm animals, jungle animals, ballerinas, fairies, princes and princesses, bugs and butterflies and flowers, a tea party, and paper dolls (did I mention it was his sister's sticker book?). He flipped right to the prince and princess page and chose a unicorn, a princess, a tiara, several sceptres, a palace, a rainbow, a flower, and several hearts. He carefully put them on the page, layering stickers on top of each other to create a sceptre topped with a flower and a rainbow and another topped with a heart. He studied his artwork carefully for several minutes and then, without any prompting from me, began to tell me all about the princess who lived in the beautiful castle and who had a pet pony (he hasn't much use for unicorns) who used his magic to make the princess special sceptres. After much discussion (and several reminders that the shorter the sentence he chose, the less he would have to write), he came up with this manageable sentence: "The princess has a pony."

I braced myself and got out my pack of flashcards. I reminded him that the beginning of a sentence starts with a capital letter, and together we figured out what letter the word "The" starts with (starting with a diphthong was not my best decision). I laid out the appropriate flashcard, went over where each line starts and the order to make them in, and handed him a crayon with bated breath.

To my surprise, he started to hold the crayon in his fist then corrected his grip without my saying a word, then drew a huge - but surprisingly neat - capital T. I laid out the lowercase h flashcard, and stopped him when he began to make a capital H instead. He corrected it but then got all upset that the mistake made the h look like there was a capital A in the middle of it. But I reassured him that this was just practice and it was okay if there were mistakes, and he soon settled down and kept going. We carefully repeated each word to figure out what sound and what letter came next. Letter by painstaking letter, words began to form on the page. All we could fit on the front of the page was "The prince" so we continued on the back with "ss has a pony." (Technically, it says "has a pony. ss" since he doesn't always remember to start at the top of a new page.) He ran out of steam halfway through so I wrote "a pony" for him, but at least he was willing to tell me which letters to write.

It's just a start, but it gives me hope that someday he will experience the joys of writing that I feel every time I put words to paper. I want him to feel the same thrill that I do at being able to express my thoughts and feelings through words. Even if he doesn't end up being a writer, I want him to be a good communicator. Because he has so much to say!!!

Photo A Day, Day 9: Mine

My favorite line from Fiddler on the Roof (and there are many – oh, are there many) is when Tevye is introducing his daughters to a guest and informs him, “This is mine, and this is mine, and this is mine, and this…this is not mine,” the latter referring to his eldest daughter Tzeitel’s would-be suitor, Motel, who is constantly hanging about Tevye’s home. Tevye is proud of his daughters but has little respect for Motel – at least, not until Motel shows some backbone and claims Tzeitel for his bride over Tevye’s objections. Once Motel becomes Tevye’s son-in-law (in other words, “mine”), Tevye treats him very differently. Whether something is “mine” because I earned it, I sought it, I worked for it, or merely because I inherited or otherwise stumbled into it, it becomes more valuable and more cherished merely because of its “mine-ness.”

We all have a natural pride in things we can label “mine.” I am proud of my car, even though it’s not stylish or cool, because I worked hard to save the money for it. It is mine. I am proud of my children, because they are a part of me, and because I have worked hard to make them into polite and pleasant people. They are mine. I am proud of my writing, because I have put blood and sweat and tears into making it interesting, entertaining, and insightful. I have put my heart and my soul into it. It is mine.

Some things we call “mine,” though, we really can’t claim credit for. My house is mine, but I didn’t choose it, or decorate it, or furnish it; I simply married into it. It is mine, and I love it, but I don’t take the same kind of pride in it as I do certain other things because I didn’t work for it or make it what it is. My stepdaughter is mine, but it would be presumptuous (and disrespectful to her own parents) for me to claim responsibility for the lovely young woman she’s become; I didn’t create her or mold her. She is mine, and I love her, because she is an important and dear part of my family, but I cannot claim credit for who she is.

Another important aspect of “mine” is things that are a part of me, in some sense; part of me that will live on when I am gone. Children, art, and writing are three examples of “mine” that live on past their creator. My children will pass on what I’ve taught them to the next generation. They are mine in the sense of being my legacy. An artist who creates physical works of art such as paintings or sculptures will live on through their works, looked on by future generations. A writer, whether a novelist, or a poet, or even a lowly blogger such as myself, can look forward to his words being read and perhaps thought about long after the author is in his grave. These “mines,” in a sense, are our immortality.

So what is it that symbolizes “mine” to me? Is it my children? My writing? Something tangible that I own? I think that the one thing that is most uniquely mine is my story, my life. Whether I put it into words on a page, tell it to others, or simply live it, my life is that one thing that is absolutely, uniquely mine. It is what it is because of my choices. I have made this path. I have cultivated the relationships around me. I may not have controlled the situations I have encountered, but I have the sole responsibility for the decisions I made in those situations. It is my story. MINE.

Motherhood Skills I Didn't Know I'd Need to Know

When I was expecting my first child, I thought a lot about the various skills I’d need as a parent. I figured I’d need to know how to sing some lullabies. I figured I’d need to know how to mix formula one-handed. I figured I’d need to know how to have a pretend tea party or build a pretend railroad. I figured I’d eventually have to be able to give a passable rendition of a few dozen fairy tales and nursery rhymes. I even figured that I’d have to learn to drive a minivan. But after nearly three years of hands-on parenting, there are a lot of skills I’ve picked up along the way that I never expected to need to know. Let me give you some examples.

I never knew I’d need to be able to dress and undress a recalcitrant, sticky, poop-covered octopus. The first time I had to change an uncooperative 8-month-old baby in July following a poopsplosion, I realized there were skills involved that I had never even imagined. I had to somehow have enough of my own appendages to hold all of his appendages away from the poop and still have a couple left over to peel his clothes and his diaper away from his sweaty, wriggling little body, plus at least one more to grab the clean diaper before any escaped baby appendages beat me to it.

I never knew I’d have to learn how to make everyday food into something entertaining enough that a two-year-old will eat it without question. I had no idea that the expression “plating,” in reference to a toddler, would mean creating everything from a pancake shaped like Mickey Mouse to a peanut butter sandwich shaped like a pinwheel to a pile of scrambled eggs with a face made from pretzel sticks, Cinnamon Life cereal, and M&Ms. Fortunately, I also discovered that in a pinch, I can just cut everything into chunks and stick a few frilled toothpicks in them.

I never knew I’d have to be able to create toys from nothing but the detritus in the passenger seat of my car, while driving. Who knew that an empty plastic water bottle, an oversized Dunkin Donuts straw, the lid of a yogurt tub, and a piece of tinfoil that was once wrapped around a gas station hotdog could occupy a small child for enough time to get to a reasonably hygienic highway rest stop with a child-friendly restaurant and changing table? Not to mention the fact that I also had to develop the power and accuracy in my throwing arm to get said detritus into the hands of the child in the back seat, using only the rearview mirror to aim. If I ever decide to make baseball pitching or dentistry my next career, I’ll be well ahead of the game.

I never knew that I’d have to learn how to make up stories on the spur of the moment based on subjects like, “the camera on my ceiling,” “a bulldozer,” “a smokestack and a silo,” and “my wall.” (All of these are actual story topics requested by my son within the past few months. And yes, I managed to come up with a story that had not only a coherent plot but also some kind of useful message for each one.) This particular skill happens to come in very handy when I’m blogging, as it gives me plenty of practice in having to expand a very simple or even vague idea into an entertaining story with a useful point.  

Wanna hear the one about the bulldozer that pushed over the smokestack and the silo which then knocked over the wall while being recorded by the camera on my ceiling and thus learned how to be gentle when playing with his toys?