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I was at a meeting of a group considering writing grants for additional funds for the local school, in order to make up for some of the shortfall the school district is facing due to declining tax revenues and general belt tightening across the board. What was fascinating to me was, despite putting out a call to the people in the school for projects they’d like to do or get funded, there was very little response. I had seen this before when we did “teacher wish lists” for the book fair at school each year – some teachers don’t feel comfortable putting down what they’d like for the classroom.

And after stepping back for a moment, I understood. I remember feeling awkward doing a bridal registry – it felt like casing a store and being very “gimme gimme,” which didn’t feel comfortable to me, no matter how practical it might be. I hate putting together Christmas lists for much the same reason. I think this is the same feeling teachers get when we ask them what they need – everyone is willing to make do with what they have and are less comfortable at asking for what they might want. Wants and needs being very different things.

So, we decided to try another avenue – we’re going to ask them more specific questions about the problems they might be facing in the classroom. It’s much easier for everyone to ‘complain’ and ask for help that way, than to “dreamline”.  For example, I can tell you those nagging problems in my house, like the drafts from around the fireplace, or the couple of nail pops that need to be fixed, rather than figure out how I would solve any of these problems.  Each problem seems small and inconsequential, so it’s constantly getting put to the bottom of the priority list. They only seem worth addressing when they become big enough to necessitate calling someone to come help.

In contrast, I have a much harder time coming up with something that I wish for, than something that I need.  Needs are more urgent, more nagging; wants seem more ephemeral and I always think I should dream something spectacular than the real, run of the mill stuff I don’t need but kind of want, like a fancy blender to make margaritas when I have folks over this summer.  Wishes seem like they should have magic attached, some hidden desire (I guess I watch too many Disney movies), rather than some simple material thing. I want my dreams to be fun, not practical.

The best and most useful projects, of course, are those that focus on solving a problem. A toolbox can be seen as a pile of solutions looking for a problem. Yet they just lay there unless there’s a problem to solve. Then you start rummaging through the toolbox to look for the right tool for the job. You can then grab the tool fix anything, but problems and tools need to be matched up to be successful. Isolated, you’ve got nothing.

I think it’s ironic that you can tell people you have a pile of money, and invite them to figure out how to spend it wisely – and have nobody raise their hand to help. It’s like the starving man at the banquet, who can’t decide what to eat, and eventually dies from starvation while being paralyzed by indecision.  We seem so comfortable, particularly when it comes to education, in giving to others, but we seem very uncomfortable in asking for help when we need it.    Yet it’s only the squeaky wheel that gets the grease.

I have no idea how to solve this problem overall. It’s like scholarships that go unclaimed – the money is there, but no one seems willing to take it, or there’s an assumption someone else needs it more.  We have a problem putting our own needs ahead of those of others, sometimes to the point of missing our opportunity to benefit.

The take-away lessons here are these: it’s okay to want and ask for help.  Sometimes it may even come in droves.  And it’s not selfish to ask, either.  Don’t be afraid to dream big and small. It’s also really okay to be happy and not spend all your energy just fixing the small annoyances-sometimes, it’s okay just to do something because it is fun.

Learning to accept the help of others as well as learning to ask for it as taken me a long time, but it has made my life so much better.  And I finally figured out there are no martyr awards being handed out anytime soon, so I might as well let other people share both the benefit and the burden of projects – it makes us all feel useful and needed in the end.

by Whitney Hoffman

Photo graciously provided by Diana-B, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved

I’ve been scurrying through my recipes in preparation for our annual beach-fest.  This is the weekend that we, along with my 6 siblings, their families and my mother gather on the coast of Maine for sun and fun…  All together we are 7 siblings+6 spouses+ 24 cousins+ 1 mother.  We’ve been getting together for the past 5 years.  It is a complete zoo with a blend of family drama and frustration,  but heavily peppered with laughter.

It’ll be different this year because Maine, like all of the northeast, is drowning.  In June we had 9…  count them 9 dry days.  Unfortunately, the forecast for the weekend isn’t warm or sunny.  I suppose we’ll cram together with cards and board games and do our best to salvage the weekend.

I figure I’m not the only one who’s planning a big weekend this summer,  so I am sharing a recipe that goes a long way and is a huge hit with my immediate family.  We’ll see what the others think.

Banana Bread Cake

In a large bowl, combine dry ingredients. In another bowl, mash the bananas; add egg, oil and vanilla. Mix well. Stir into the dry ingredients just until moistened.

Originally the above recipe filled a greased 9×11 pan and was baked at 375 degrees of 18-22 minutes or until brown on top and a toothpick comes out clean.

This time I increased the ingredients by 1/2 and made a large loaf and 24 muffins.  I added fresh blueberries to the muffins just before baking.  I cooked them at 350 and the muffins took about 15 minutes and the loaf about 50.

How about you?  What do you make to serve a crowd?

by Megin Hatch

Photo graciously provided by mhatchew

I have an indoor child and an outdoor child.

One boy wants to spend his summer swimming, riding his bike, and hiking.  The other would be happy, it seems, never to feel the sun warm his face and arms.  He’d like to watch movies, use the computer, read, and play video games.

Managing these competing preferences has been challenging.  I do not believe that a child should stay indoors during the summer months, but neither do I believe that he or she should never see the inside of the house.  And, of course, it does rain sometimes, or, if you live near me, it rains frequently, so my outside kid needs to learn to find indoor pursuits that will occupy him.

What we’ve settled on, for now, is riding our bikes (thus satisfying my seven-year-old’s wants) to the movie theater or the library (places where my eleven-year-old feels most at home).  Or we go swimming but follow the activity by an afternoon spent working on a jigsaw puzzle back at our house.  Soon enough, I suppose, my older son will be able to stay at home alone and amuse himself while my younger son and I go to the pool or on a hike.

Still, I think it will be important, even then, to take my children out of their comfort zones.  As an adult, my indoor kid may choose an indoor life, and no one will judge him for it.  But my job, as I see it, is to show him the best of what an outdoor life can be so that if or when he finally rejects the outdoors for good, he will at least understand what he’s choosing to miss.

For the record?  I’d rather sit curled up with a book than do nearly anything else.  But don’t tell my children that.  Because they view me as the Switzerland in their indoor-outdoor war.  And that’s just the way I want it.

by Slouching Mom

Photo graciously provided by eqqman, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved

Oy. I just clicked “send” on an e-mail agreeing to buy our very first puppy. She’ll be ready for pickup in a few weeks. If this were a baby I’d know just what I needed to do. But a puppy? I’m a little lost.

This will be the very first dog for our family. We had cats up until the last one died (at 17 years of age) two years ago. I grew up with horses and tons of cats, but other than a short stint with a puppy that didn’t work out, I’ve got very little dog experience. This is both exciting and a little nerve-wracking. Will the training work out okay? What kind of equipment should we buy before she arrives?

Does anyone have any suggestions for getting her acclimated to our family? What training methods do you use? We’ve been watching Dog Whisperer for months, and I checked out a book called My Smart Puppy that looks really good.

Can we take her on walks right away? How long can a puppy walk before they get too tired? Or do you just play with them and teach the walk later?

What about sleeping at night? I’m planning to crate train because I don’t want to teach her to sleep in boys’ beds. That would introduce arguments over who got to sleep with her and it’s not worth the hassle. But will she be lonely all by herself? Any tricks for helping her with that?

What else do I need to know?

by AmyL

Photo graciously provided by fenchurch, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved

My daughter is thirteen years old. She’s been sick before, like your kid has been sick before. But after so many years, I’ve become used to it. I’ve developed a certain courage and self-assuredness. So when she came home from her sightseeing tour of Boston and New York feeling a little run-down, I thought it was jet-lag and post-trip depression. We put her to bed and that was that.

But then, the next morning, after my wife went off to work, my little girl walked into the bedroom shivering. Again, I’ve seen her sick, but this really took me aback. It was in the mid-sixties and yet she was wrapped in a blanket and her teeth were chattering enough to put a real fright into me.

She laid down in our bed and I ran to get the thermometer. A hundred and three point one. Wow. I was stunned. I almost slipped into a full-blown panic, but I caught myself and started troubleshooting. She didn’t have any other visible symptoms, and when I asked, she said she didn’t have any stomach pain or headache or anything else. So I popped a few Ibuprofen into her and covered her with a few more blankets. I then waited, figuring that I’d take her to a doctor if the fever didn’t go down, or if any new serious symptom arose.

However, after much pacing, it turned out that the Ibuprofen did it’s job and her fever dropped to a calmer one-oh-one. She slept and I tried to relax, though easier said than done.

Yeah, she was ok, but I was really rattled. The image of her, shaking uncontrollably, was echoing in my head like an Andy Warhol film. Eventually I calmed down and came to my senses, thankful that it was merely a spiked fever and nothing more. Still, that moment of panic, that bad trip was enough to keep me on edge the rest of the day.

I thought that I was used to everything, that I’d developed a hard shell defense against such emotional chaos. Not as such.

And there was nothing to learn, no happy ending, just the knowledge renewed: life is temporary and oh so fragile and there’s really nothing I can do about it. Sure, I know where the medicine cabinet is, sure, I know some medical basics, sure, I know how to care for my kids. But that’s an incredibly thin shield against the awful horribleness that’s out there. And if I’m to be real, I admit that it scares me cold.

by Stu Mark

Photo graciously provided by * Cati Kaoe *, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved

Back when my older son (OS) was a baby, I remember another mom telling me that she thought the school breaks were perfectly timed. Just when you got tired of packing lunches, it was summer. Then once your kids were bored, school started again. In some ways, I understand what she means. Just when I was getting tired of shuffling OS to and from preschool, it was over. However, I have to disagree with the second part. OS is bored now.

He was excited to be at home for the first few days. Part of that comes from his conviction that his younger brother has the time of his life while OS is at preschool. I’ve seen him look around the house when he gets home as if he were looking for evidence of a traveling circus in our living room or perhaps a hot air balloon landing in the front yard. In all fairness, our living room frequently looks like it has played host to a three ring circus!

During those first few days, everything was fine and I was looking forward to the long summer ahead of us. Wasn’t this nice? Just the boys and me. Then after a few days, it was no longer so nice…unless you call going insane nice! OS has been, simply put, terrible. He’s bored. He argues. Most disturbingly of all, in the middle of the night someone replaced him with a teenager in disguise. Seriously, there’s no way a 5 year old could have an attitude like that without some extraterrestrial intervention. I’ve been counting down the days until summer is over and having fantasies about a stiff drink at the end of the day.

I brought this up with a couple of my mom friends and apparently this is quite common after your child has been in school five days a week. Why did no one tell me that? I don’t recall the “When Your Five Year Old Turns into a Teenager” chapter of the hospital book on babies. Apparently the disappearance of five days of structure is hard on kids. It is certainly hard on parents.

I don’t mean that I have the boys sitting on chairs staring at the walls. We’ve had all sorts of outings to parks and other fun places. Today we even went to the aquarium. The difference is that we’re not doing a different activity every fifteen minutes. When he takes out toys at school, a whole class helps to put them away. When he and his brother take out toys, they are the only two putting them back. His day is just very different.

Fortunately, there is an oasis of structure in the long desert between now and the fall…camp. Let me give a standing ovation to the person who invented camp. Seriously, that person was a genius. Now I just have to count down the days until camp actually begins next month.

by Alex Elliot

Photo graciously provided by Philms, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved

My high school reunion is less than one month away. I cannot say that I’m excited about going back to my “home” town. It is not a place full of great memories, although I had my fair share of good ones there. As a shy girl, I was often misunderstood and labeled “unfriendly” (although I’m sure you can think of the word most folks used). I’m curious as to how everyone is going to treat each other. Will we all arrive with open minds and find new friends in people we didn’t know very well 20 years ago? Or will there be the same cliques that existed back then? In some respects, I guess it doesn’t matter. All I can do is be myself and hope for the best.

I’m on the reunion planning committee, I know it’s kind of ironic… It’s been an ordeal to get a few folks to follow-through on their “to-do” items and I guess that has colored my view of how “fun” it’s going to be once I actually get there. One of the events has been “organized” but there is no official agreement between us, the reunion folks, and the facility. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it works out okay, but unfortunately, it’s totally out of my control.

We are making a vacation of it, though. We are going to spend a few days hanging out with my dad in his new cabin on his new ranch. It will be a nice break away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life as he lives in the middle of no where.

As I type this, I realize it’s not really the reunion I’m dreading, it’s the time sharing between my parents. My mom is going to be adamant about seeing us because she misses Copy Cat and Pack Rat now that she has moved back to my home town. And that takes away from my dad’s time. It will be interesting keeping her happy, but also holding on to my goal that this is my dad’s time with us, not hers.

So, as I let go of needing to be sure all of the reunion events are planned perfectly, I’m releasing all expectations of what our reunion trip is going to hold, both with my former classmates and with my family. I suspect it will all work out just fine. And it will be totally fun spending time with my girls and their daddy!

by Kelly Damron

Photo graciously provided by jmacphoto.com, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved

Last weekend we spent a rainy Father’s Day at Fenway Park in Boston. Rob and I went to school in Boston and lived there for 10 years before moving to the outskirts and then finally relocating to Maine. I am pretty sure Boston will be “my town” until I am old and gray, despite the (huge) changes that have come about over the last 10 years.

So bringing our boys to Fenway was a blast. We sat in the bleachers, where the magic happens. The magic of families and college students and kids selling “hawt dowgs! Hawt dowgs hea’ !”, and these two guys who really wanted to start the wave:

My boys aren’t big baseball fans, but we were all caught up in the energy of the park. We all were captivated by the energy and buzz of Red Sox Nation.

So my question is this: Is it the same at all ballparks?

Inquiring minds want to know.

by Megin Hatch

Photo graciously provided by mhatchew

My kids and I just got back from the first trip of the summer.  Up at Grandma’s, there’s a store that we regularly visit that has the most unique and weird stuff, that it’s always like finding treasure- stuff we don’t strictly need but covet with all our hearts.  And sometimes, we even splurge and bring these things home.  This year, the booty included earphones /earbuds that had actual silicone flowers on the ear piece and space invaders ice cube trays.  These are silly little indulgences, and not necessarily cheap, but not outrageously expensive, either.  Heck, I’ve blown more on Power Rangers and Bionicles for them, to be honest.

But this piece is not about me spoiling my kids- it’s about the power of fun.

My kids thought these things were neat- but the true prize arrived after we got home- my box from Brooklyn Superhero Supply had arrived!!!  For several years, the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Store has been somewhere I wanted to visit.  It’s an actual Superhero Supply Store- and acts as a front for the 826 NYC writing project, that provides free tutoring for kids after school and over the summer.  People can buy both the published work created by the kids and SuperHero Supplies at the Store- with all funds going to support the tutoring program.  (The 826 Project also has a Pirate Supply Store in San Francisco, The Echo Park time travel mart in LA, a Spy store in Chicago, and Liberty Street Robot Supply Store in Ann Arbor, to name a few.)  These stores go to support a great cause- helping kids learn to write from actual writers- but frankly, the stuff and the imagination that goes into it is just so incredibly cool and imaginative, I bought a bunch of it for my office and house- to serve as inspiration for those days when you think the creative well is dry.  A quick read of the gallon can of Omnipotence or the packaging of the Evil Blob Containment Unit, or the bottle of ESP, and I feel recharged, knowing that the limits of sensible are again ready to be discarded for what is truly possible again.

My kids opened up our “Lab Supplies” box with me.  The shouts of delight, mixed with “Oh, that’s just awesome!” and giggles were worth every penny I spent, as well as the fact they want their friends to come over and see these pieces of inspiration.  More importantly, my kids and I have this sense of play and fun- I get to be a kid with them, and we delight in the same sense of adventure mixed with joy.

I know this is not always practical- and life is not about consumerism and more things.  But the joy of looking over on the shelf and contemplating the uses of my very own bottle of chaos was well worth the price.  More importantly, my children and I now belong to the same club- the club of imagination and endless possibility.

by Whitney Hoffman

With the end of the school year upon us, it’s time for summer vacations. Even though gas prices continue to increase, a lot of us are going to be traveling around via car instead of plane to visit some fun and interesting places.

I wanted to take this time and this article to get up on my soap box and remind everyone to drive safely out there.  Those little children you are carrying in the back seat are precious cargo.  Always expect other drivers to not be entirely aware of their surroundings, and try to be defensive.  There’s no need to hurry.  You will get to where you need to go just as quickly without riding the tail of the car in front of you, or trying to pass with limited site distance (and you’ll get better gas mileage as well).  Even if you aren’t driving around with children in the car, remember that other people on the road might be, and drive as though your decisions behind the wheel will make or break their safety.

I say all of this from my own experience. My children and I were in an accident last fall. While we were driving on a country road, another driver failed to stop at a stop sign and pulled out in front of us, and I ran right into him. Our car, sadly, was a total loss. Thankfully, though, Honda makes one heck of a minivan, and all three of us walked away with only some minor injuries. I bit my tongue when the airbag went off in my face and the seat belts bruised us all and the excitement sent my son into an asthmatic event. Other than that, we were all ok.  Thankfully, all of the passengers of the other car were also mostly unhurt.

Because I drive a bit slower than or right at the speed limit when I have the kids in the car with me, I had enough time to react to the car and slowed us down enough to avoid what could have been a horrific accident.

So, remember, always be a cautious and courteous driver and bring yourself and your children home safely.  And that, is the end of my soapbox rant.

by Rocket Science Mom

Photo graciously provided by Ben McLeod, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved