Home Sweet Cave

We have spent the last few days in a cavelike existence. After Christmas and all the stress Christmas entailed, we felt the need to stay home, play with all the toys, watch movies and eat popcorn. I have actually gotten to spend some time reading a book and the newspaper every day. I have also slept very late in my cave. I think I was recuperating from all the husting and bustling and it is amazing not having an agenda. (OK, I should be doing bills and looking for a job).
Finally I emerged yesterday and bought some groceries and today we went for a bike ride and I went out and did some work in the garden. (There are some benefit to global warming after all). Now I am ready to emerge from the cave and do something fun but everyone seems to have disappeared. By everyone, I mean the one or two friends who we see all the time. Tomorrow, we are leaving the cave for New York. That's fine. The cave is lovely but it also feels good to stop hibernating.

huge holiday stress

I have succumbed to holiday stress. Between ferrying the kids to piano, volunteering for my choir's silent auction, trying to buy gifts online, picking up my husband from the train stationa nd then driving my other son at ballet, I could feel my heart pounding and my stomach churning and I could swear I sensed my blood pressure skyrocketing.
It probably started with my online shopping trip to Amazon and Barnes and Noble.com where hours of price comparisons finally revealed - surprise: the prices are about the same. But at the root of it all, is money stress. What else is new? A survey the American Psychological Association found that 61 percent of Americans are stressed for the same reason so at least I'm in good company. www.apa.org/releases/holidaystress.html and the blog On Women by Deborah Kotz, has more details about the study which shows that more women are experiencing holiday stress over gift giving than men (41 percent to 35 percent). www.usnews.com/blogs/on-women/2008/12/12/why-women-are-prone-to-holiday-stress.html. But those of us who have been agonizing over the whole gifts from Santa thing are way ahead of the APA. We know in our gut (literally) that it's all about the money. They have several practical suggestions about how to cope with stress: make connections, set realistic goals, take decisive actionn to deal with the root causes of the stress and take care of yourself. And I agree with all of the suggestions, especially the part about making connections. I'm just having trouble making connections becauase of my tremendous Christmas deadline pressure. I'm meditating and doing yoga and walking, I'm eating right. But I'm having trouble finding the Christmas spirit. I'm sure lots of people feel the same way.
I'm sure it's nothing a few Christmas carols and some cookies can't cure. But in the meanwhile, I have late Christmas cards to send and more gifts to buy and food to prepare and the list goes on and on and on.........

Christmas shopping

I do everything at the last minute so it's no surprise that I generally leave Christmas shopping until a couple of weeks before Christmas. I am trying to be zen about this because it seems I will never be one of those women, like one good friend, who has all of her shopping done by now and all the presents wrapped, labeled and under the tree.
I'm OK with the last minute shopping but this year is a bit tough because we are trying to economize or at least be more careful about what we do buy. So, like many people, we will not have a huge gift extravaganza but we will plenty of gifts, especially for our kids.
My boys have held on to Santa for all these years but now I don't hear much about Santa. Earlier in the year, my younger son, W., said it was OK if we didn't have as much money this year because Santa could get him anything. But I think someone has tipped him off because I don't hear that much this year.
In fact, I think my boys are protecting us by not telling us that they have stopped believing. So nobody is even mentioning the big guy in the red suit. This is a little sad but I don't see any way around it until someone comes right out and says what they believe. I tried a tentative, "How are you feeling about Santa these days?" But I didn't word the question very well and all I got was a noncomittal, "Good." Hey, I feel good about Santa too. Who wouldn't?
I have a feeling we'll still have gifts from Santa anyway until they're 30 years old or so. We're big traditionalists around here.
While I fret about Christmas, my house has gotten to that level of messy where you can't even think about cleaning it unless you own a back hoe. But our tree is up and I've gotten most of my presents for my kids and my nephews.
I am resolved to try to preserve the Christmas spirit despite the last minute anxiety, the bleak economic news and my messy house. But right now I need a little ho ho ho in my mojo.

Endings and Beginnings

I'm in mourning over the loss of my parenting column, Family Matters, for the Times of Trenton. But I am trying to move forward with my blog which has been sorely neglected for the past several months.
I wrote my column for more than eight years and started it when my son W. was just 10 months old. One of my first columns was about my trip to Washington with a friend for the Million Mom March in 2000 and Will wasn't yet 1 yet, so I was still in what one friend once called "the baby haze." Happily. I had Will when I was 40 years old and I was thrilled to have children. But I did put my career on hold somewhat, although I kept freelancing and then began my column. For a copy of my final column, go to http://www.nj.com/living/times/index.ssf.
The column was a kind of touchstone for me - a place where I recorded many of my family's milestones, like the death of our family dog and my children going off to kindergarten and then middle school last year. I sometimes met people I had fallen out of touch with who said they felt they knew what was going on with me through my column. So I'm hoping the blog can serve a similar function. I haven't quite figured out how to do this blogging this but I'm willing to give it a try.

schools out for the summer

School's out for the summer but it's not the same as it used to be.  Granted, I've been looking forward to school being out almost as much as the kids.  No more lunches to make at least for a little while.  No more homework enforcement.  No more morning arguments.  

But this summer will be different because I'm teaching so that knocks out a lot of the relaxation and the boys are going to camp.  They've been going to camp for a while now. I guess the difference is I need them to go to camp.

Yesterday, we had a nice long relaxing day that started with them lying on the couch like lumps and watching TV until I made them turn it off around noon. Oh well.  I know they need to decompress.

Today, a couple of their friends are coming over and I have a last minute assignment at Princeton University, so it won't be quite that long leisurely day.  I guess I'm OK with that. I'm trying to make working from home work and that's won't happen unless I actually get assignments.

I also have to make desserts for the visit to my father. Once I'm through with that, I can move on to my true vacation on the Shore. I just want to lie on the porch and read and lie on the beach and read.  Then I'll feel I'm really on vacation. Sigh. 

Little League

My boys just started Little League and my husband is thrilled because one is on the Mets and the other is on the Yankees.  My husband tries to go to all the practices and help out on the games, I'm just the keeper of the schedule and head cheerleader.

I hate to complain about such an all-American tradition but it's a headache. It's hard coordinating schedules for two teams and R.'s coach had them praciticing three times this week.  I spent about an hour and a half writing down both their schedules on two different calendars. Still, I ran off to drive W. to ballet yesterday and S. ran off to drive R. to practice and it wasn't in the usual place.  Then I had to drive all the way home to find out where it was.  I decided I really shouldn't be the keeper of the calendar so I wrote down all the games and where they are held and made four copies for everyone. Phew.  But you know they're still going to ask me.  I would like this to be the one thing S. is in charge of.

I find baseball hard because I find it hard to watch my kids get up and bat and not connect.  They do connect sometimes but not that often and it's hard to watch. But so far we've had very nice coaches.  I'm hoping R.'s coach won't be the type to keep him on the bench all season.

Still, baseball is an enforced time out from life and when it gets warmer and we stop having this rainy, cold weather, it will be nice to sit outside and watch a leisurely but really very complicated game. So I'm OK with that. I usually bring work to do or my newspaper and then don't read or get work done because it seems wrong to do it and it takes away from the leisurely aspect of the game.

R. tried his uniform on yesterday and he looked quite the handsome professional.  S. and W. took pictures and we were all very excited.  The first game is tomorrow and we'll see how it goes.

In a way it's nice for the two boys to be on different teams because W. is a slightly better player than R. and it's nice for him to have his own team but I have a feeling I'm going to be longing for the good old days when I didn't have to worry about getting two different kids to two different fields, plus ballet and piano and all our other stuff.  I just have to get into the zen of baseball taking over our lives.  Once I realize that that's the case, I can relax and sit out in the open air and watch those baseballs sailing through the air.

Protecting Your Child from Predators on MySpace and Facebook

A  teacher in Robbinsville, N.J., was arrested last week for allegedly transmitting sexually explicit pictures of himself to a 14-year-old student, according to a Times of Trenton article. 

Police said the teacher, Daniel P. Corvino, 31, sent pictures of himself masturbating, using a web cam to broadcast pictures of himself over the past year. He was charged with aggravated criminal sexual contact and endangering the welfare of a child.

Fortunately, kids told a teacher about it after a lesson on the dangers of the Web sites Facebook and MySpace. Corvino apparently maintained web pages on both sites although it's not clear if he used those sites or simply sent the photos via the Internet. See article at http://www.nj.com/timesoftrenton/stroies/index.ssf?/base/news-4/1203138348233080.xml&coll=5.

I'm from the generation that doesn't quite understand MySpace and Facebook but I guess it's another one of those things I need to learn about. Both are social networking sites that young people use to keep in touch with friends and meet new friends.

MySpace and the atttorneys general from 49 states last month announced an effort to make MySpace more safe for teen-agers by setting the profiles of 16 and 17-year-olds to private so that only established online friends can visit their pages. See the New York Times Blog Bits for more details http://bits.blogs.nutimes.com/2008/01/14/myspace-to-let-parents-block-their-kids-from-joining/.

From what I understand Facebook, which was intended primarily for college students, already has more protections in place since it allows postings from a university.  But at large universities, that could be thousands of people so it still doesn't completely protect young people.

The scary thing about these websites is that they can be used by sexual predators. So the important thing is for kids to not reveal too much information about themselves and to keep the information they do post on MySpace private. There are options for both public and private pages on MySpace. The private option means that only invited friends can view your pages. Young people should also know that they can not accept requests from strangers to add them as a friend. There is a feature on MySpace that blocks add requests from strangers by only allowing add requests from people who know your last name. 

Generally, young people should know not to post any information about their address, their telephone number or other information that could allow a stranger to track them down.

Parents can also create their own MySpace page so they can keep track of what their child is doing. Many of these tips are available at Suite 101.com: htttp://social-networking-tagging.suite101.com/article.cfm/myspace_safety_tips_for_parents 

Family meals

It turns out that family meals are the cure for almost everything that ails American families.  Kids who eat meals with their families eat better and have better eating habits. They are less likely to be drug and alcohol dependent, smoke. They're less likely to be depressed and suicidal. (Some of this is documented in an article in ChildTrends Data Bank, http://www.childtrensdatabank.org/indicators/96FamilyMeals.cfm)..

 A new study by the University of Minesotta shows that teenage girls are less likely to have eating disorders like bulimia and anorexia. http://www.ahc.umn.edu/news/releases/meals110904.

This is great news for those of us who are toiling away at the stove each night cooking meals for our families and insisting that everyone sit down to dinner and talk to each other. I'm sure this gets more difficult as kids get older and have more activities. But the benefits far outweigh the costs. See my column at nj.com/times/features on Feb. 19.

Rude child in school

I received an email from my younger son W's teacher this week. It seems he's been very rude to her over the past week or two. He had to stay in during recess recently and then last week he suggested that a student "peg" a foam dice at the teacher.

I was very apologetic to the teacher and we had a talk with W.   We realized that his desire to be the class clown and amuse everyone was probably leading to him being rude.  We told him to stop trying to be funny and be more respectful. We took away his video games for a week and we made him write a letter. Having to write the letter was what made him cry, especially when we made him write a few drafts. "Dear Miss W., I'm sorry I said to peg the dice at you. I was trying to be funny. Now I realize it's not funny. I like your class. Love, W."  It was actually a pretty nice letter. 

We told W. that he's a nice boy but that when he behaves like that no one will be able to tell that he's a nice boy. We also told him that being disrespectful to teachers is not a smart thing to do since they are the ones who give you grades.  If you talked like that at work, what do you think would happen? we asked.  "You'd get fired," he said. I guess he knows about this.

I wonder if our bickering leads to this bad behavior. I don't want to think that that's it and I don't think it's the primary factor although we do seem to have a hostile sense of humor in our household. Sigh.  It's always something with these kids. 

Dilemna of the anti-gun mom

When my kids were little I could protect them from violence on TV and video games and I could prevent them from ever having guns or violent toys of any kind.
But since then, I've been falling down a slipper slope. I let them go to lazer tag games even though it clearly involves kids firing at each other. Why? Because it's fun and I don't want to be so politically correct that I won't let them have fun.
I've also allowed swords but not guns in the house although some water guns have made their way in - only to be put on a shelf or discreetly hidden by me.
Then we got a new X-Box for Christmas and my brother gave us several games - most of which had a teen rating. Before I knew what had happened, the boys were playing a video game in which they shoot down airplanes. Honestly, it seems pretty harmless even though it's rated Teen but there were others that I put up on the shelf while 8-year-old W. wailed about how it's not fair and his cousins play the games and they're only 4 and 7. "Every family has different rules," I told him.
I've told my kids how I feel about it. They know that "Mommy hates guns." But I feel like I've already been too lax about what I've allowed. This has led to some funny conversations. Their argument about laser tag: "It's like a gasoline nozzle, not a gun." Their argument about the video games, "There's nothing wrong with shooting. It's fun!" These arguments make me want to throw out all the guns.
And then there's TV where I don't allow them to watch adult TV or even much TV at all but where they usually plunk themselves in front of 'The Today Show" in the morning and learn all about Britney Spears' drug problems and the murder of the day.
Several studies, including a recent study at the University of Michigan, have found a link between children watching violent TV or playing violent video games and aggressive behavior both as children and later in life. (For an article on the study see ScienceDaily http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071127142134.htm).

piano lesson nightmares

Both my boys are taking piano lessons and our piano teacher is a friend who is a wonderful musician but an impatient teacher. I've always thought this was OK because R. and W. need someone to light a fire under them. But our piano lessons are torture so sometimes I wonder whether they should be taking lessons or at least taking lessons with this teacher.
R. has to be poked and prodded to practice and I have to sit with him and I have to remind him to count. So he's not really taking responsibility for practicing himself. When I try to talk to him about it he says he doesn't want to stop lessons. If I force the issue, he says that he wants to play but he doesn't want to practice. This is what everybody says about piano. But I sympathize.
W. has no trouble practicing. He's such a go-go kid, he's always looking for something to do anyway. So W. is moving ahead and, in fact, is now in R's piano book even though he started several months after R.
T., their piano teacher, says that R. starts playing and then when he tries to correct him, he falls apart and loses energy and just seems to space out. Is this a reaction to T. yelling at him? I don't know. I know part of it is a function of R.'s ADHD. He just has tremendous difficulty concentrating and we're going to see his pediatrician tomorrow to see if we should increase his medicine. Meanwhile, I guess we'll keep soldiering on and see if things improve. I sometimes wonder if it's worth it or if we should be switching teachers despite my friendship with T. Sigh.

School Play Rejection

My older son, R., tried out for the school play, "Alice in Wonderland." He's a shy, quiet kid who was never interested in acting but his school had a Shakespeare workshop and he loved doing that so he jumped at the chance to be in the play.
After he tried out, my friend, who is helping to organize the play told us, "Raymond was great. He was really fabulous." But he didn't get a call-back and when the posted the parts today he was, "Diamond Two," and I'm sure he's really disappointed.
Rejection. You want your kids to put yourself out there but when they do, they're bound to get rejected. Of course, we have to be proud of him and encouraging and tell him stuff like, "There are no small parts just small actors." But honestly, don't these stupid people realize how talented my son is. I want to throttle them. OK, I've had my little hissy fit. I guess I can't be one of those moms who calls up and complains even if these people are idiots. Instead, I have to be understanding and serene with them and with my son. That's show business. We'll try and encourag him in other ways and if we don't make a big deal it won't be a big deal to him.
I reminded my husband that it's really not about us and we should admit that we had visions of seeing R. in his starring role. Instead, he'll be out there as the two of diamonds saying his 1 or 2 lines. Oh well. I'm sure it won't be his last rejection so we better get used to it. He can talk about this in interviews when he goes on Broadway. Ha.

School Daze

R. has always struggled in school, although struggled doesn't seem quite the right word because the truth is R. has always spaced out in school. He has fun when it's something he enjoys - science, art, gym, recess.  But for the rest he's very passive and all this is probably typical of kids with ADHD.

The truth is he's doing much better. He's not way behind the class but he still sits back and waits for school to come to him. He's not engaged unless he's interested.  And so we hear that his teacher is keeping him at recess sometimes to complete work and one day my husband returned ho to find that R. was in tears after staying up late to complete an assignment and having to stay in and rewrite it in script.  Why? There was an assignment sheet with directions that he forgot to bring home or take out. 

And his teacher says she hates to crack the whip but he seems to need pushing and at the same time, she doesn't want to go too far.  I have the same dilemma. He mostly just resists doing anything I ask him unless I sit and ask him six times.  But he hates transitions, he hates doing anything difficult and that makes it all very difficult.

So now I'm trying to see if maybe we should increase Raymond's medication but I know only too well that increasing medication doesn't mean increasing his motivation and I don't know how to do that.

Next year, Raymond goes to middle school where he'll have five different classes and be expected to bring home his assignments and work independently. I'm already having nightmares about that. 

Too Stubborn

My older son, R., is too much like me. He gets a vision of what he wants and then he will not be deterred from his vision.  So when we had the idea of saving a few pine needles from our Christmas tree in a little box he went on a 20 minutes search.  That meant we couldn't read before we went to bed (we're on the last chapters of Harry Potter). I kept offering him boxes. Finally I realized that the box he wanted was a silver jewelry box my brother and sister-in-law gave me when they got married.  But I couldn't give him that one, so I found a box with a bird on it that was very nice.  Then he wanted to tape the pine needles in a certain way. More tears, more yelling. 

When I tucked him into bed, I told him that he is just like me, he has visions of what he wants and no one can stop him.  I told him we were bound to butt heads that way, just like two goats. He didn't quite get that one.  I later realized that he had taken a velvet board I have for my beading for his hovercraft for his birds. It seems he had created a hovercraft (a box with lights in it), for six of his stuffed birds.  When he again became teary-eyed at me disturbing their hovercraft nest, I told him he could keep it but then I was so annoyed that I slammed the box down and disturbed the hovercraft. So I had to apologize all over again and tell him he could keep the darned thing.

Sometimes I feel like nothing is sacred in our house.  The kids feel like the can take anything - anything is up for grabs. I'll see the turkey baster in the bathroom, the timer will be next to the bed.  It makes me crazy.

But it's good to keep in mind that the reason that R. and I get so mad at each other is he's just like me.  When I get mad at him, I'm really getting mad at myself. Hmmm.

Homework nightmares

Last night, my son R. had a homework assignment in which he had to write a letter to  Ruby Bridges.  It seems they had watched a move in school about Ruby Bridges, who was the little six-year-old girl who had to have U.S. marshals walk her into her all-white school. 

At 6:30 R. said he wanted my help. I was cooking dinner but I got things started and then we looked Ruby Bridges up on the Internet.  Then we had a long conversation while I was cooking about why she was important.  R. then wrote one sentence.  We had dinner and my husband came home.  R. still needed help with his homework and just stared at his paper.  Then Dad stepped in and informed R. that we would not tell him what to write and gave him a few more suggestions.  Tears. Wailing. Protestations that he couldn't come up with anything. I came over to offer to help because I became convinced he really couldn't do it. But Dad held fast and eventually R. came out to read us his sentences.  This process, mind you, went on until 10 p.m. W. went to bed, R. was still writing. We had dessert, he was writing over dessert. Finally, he came up with a pretty good letter that was in his own quirky style. "Did you lose many friends when you went to your new school?" he asked in the letter.

My husband gave him a pep talk about how elephants in the circus are conditioned not to break out of their chains and that he doesn't want R. to accept failure like the elephants. Well, I'm not sure about the analogy but it was great. And it does go to show that I'm not always the best one to help them be independent.

Teens and Drugs: The Danger of Generational Forgetting

OK, I may have jumped the gun on the dangers of the new drug salvia. After talking to a couple of drug experts, I don't think salvia is necessarily the next marijuana although it seems to be getting some hype in the media. So, that's the good news.

And there's also good news in a recent study that found drug use by teens is much lower than a decade ago. Lloyd Johnston, one of the lead researchers in an annual study by the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research, www.monitoringthefuture.org, said that drug use has decreased since the 1990s because teens learned of the dangers of alcohol, marijuana and harder drugs like LSD and heroin.

The study found that alcohol is the biggest problem for teens, with nearly a third of all eighth graders and two-thirds of all twelfth graders reporting drinking over the past year and nearly 13 percent of all eighth graders, 24 percent of all tenth graders and 46 percent of all twelfth graders saying they had gotten drunk over the past year.

Marijuana is also a big drug of choice for teens with 10 percent of eighth graders, nearly 25 percent of tenth graders and  nearly 32 percent of twelfth graders reporting smoking marijuana last year.

The numbers are much lower for harder drugs like heroin, LSD and ecstasy but those numbers could spike up again as teens no longer perceive those drugs as dangerous and the study found fewer eighth graders view harder drugs as dangerous.  

"It's a phenomenon I call generational forgetting," says Johnston. "They have to learn the lessons all over again. They learn the lessons from parents or drug campaigns or school education programs or they can find out firsthand why it's dangerous."

The solution is obvious: Talk to your kids and make sure you're giving them good information. Don't let this generation forget. 

New Drug

I'm always amazed at how little I know about drugs today but I can't blame myself. Our generation just isn't familiar with today's new-fangled drugs.  Why in my day, kids had to make do with marijuana.  There was none of this ecstacy around.  But I know I shouldn't be joking about such a serious topic especially one that freaks all of us out.

I attended a talk by teens about drugs in the middle school last week. It turns out the main drugs in middle school at least here in the suburbs are marijuana and alcohol but that's scary enough as far as I'm concerned.   They were a pretty wholesome group but they also seemed pretty knowledgeable and they mentioned a new drug they've seen called salvia. 

Here's what I learned about salvia: It turns out Salvia is from a plant in Mexico and South and Central America.  It seems that it's mostly smoked like a marijuana joint or smoke in a water pipe or vaporized and inhaled, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse www.drugabuse.gov/infofacts/salvia.html.  It produces hallucinations that last 1 minute to 30 minutes. It's not so much a party drug as something kids experiment with individually. And it's not controlled by the federal government although the Drug Enforcement Agency has classified it as a drug of concern and is considering classifying it as a Schedule I drug like LSD and marijuana. 

Mom is the hammer

A friend tells me  her 3-year-old always wants Dad to put her to bed.  Mom tucks her in with a kiss but Dad gets her water, sits by her bed and cuddles. Dad's more fun at bedtime. Since this is my friend's third child, she's determined not to go through the same prolonged nightmare putting her third child to be so she makes it short and sweet.  In her house, she's the enforcer, or as she puts it, "I'm the hammer."

In my house, my husband is sometimes the enforcer. He wakes the kids up in the morning. They tend to move a little more quickly when he barks at them to get moving. But when it comes to most of our daily tasks: homework, piano practice, cleaning their room, I'm also the hammer.  And let's be honest, it's no fun being the hammer or maybe the reverse is true, the hammer isn't fun.

This was brought home to me when I stayed home from my weekly choir practice last night because my husband had to work late.  There was some whining and some complaining.  "What does Daddy do that makes you want him home so much?" I asked. "When we finish our homework, we watch a little football and then we play football and he runs after us all over the house." Oh.  I didn't need to tell them that  Mommy doesn't do that. I spent the night continuing to be the hammer: they had to do homework and practice the piano and read and at the end of that, we watched just a little bit of TV and I read to them.  We had a good time together.  Still it's not easy being the hammer or as my friend says, "The hammer isn't working.  The hammer is tired of being the hammer." 

I'm not sure what the solution is.  Take turns being the hammer? Start playing indoor football with the kids?  Find other tools in the toolbox? It may be that we could all use a little time out from the hammer. There's just too much pounding and it wears you out.

Daily Dose of Exercise

Every weekday I get up and walk with two of my friends.  We walk three or four miles into town and back from 6:15 to 7 a.m. Then I come back and do about half an hour of yoga.

I have to brag about this because bragging rights and feeling virtuos are two of the immediate benefits to exercising but I can't really get all "more in shape than thou," because this daily routine is new to me.

I have tried going to the gym and taking classes and I have tried doing exercise tapes at home. I have tried many things.  But all the gym did was take my $60 every month. I estimate I paid about $60 per class or on a very good month, $15 a class.  I mostly wasted hundreds of dollars because there were always better things to do but I couldn't quit because I always told myself I would go again next month.

I had been getting into yoga though and when a friend trained as a yoga teacher and started talking about a daily routine, it finally hit me: I didn't have to go to class to do yoga, I could do yoga at home. I started taking classes with my friend once a week and doing my own routine every day.

Then I decided something aerobic that would fit into my routine and not cost hundreds of dollars so I started walking with some friends last summer.  This is a little bit harder for me because I am not a morning person and I hate waking up when it's dark.  But again, knowing that my friend is waiting for me outside at 6:15 every day makes me wake up. True, I pray for rain, snow or an act of God that will allow me to sleep in.  But when I walk, I'm more awake all day even if I do get just six hours sleep.

I started doing all this mostly because I had a number of small ailments that were stress related. I have gastrointestinal problems and insomnia and I decided that it would be easier to start dealing with my stress through exercise and yoga than through weekly appointments with doctors.  And it has helped my stress and decreased my stomach problems. I still have trouble sleeping but that's gotten a little better as well.

Best of all, my husband has taken over the first and most dreaded part of the morning routine - he wakes up the kids and gets them started getting dressed and started with breakfast and lunch, while I do yoga with the all important relaxation exercises and meditation.  This leaves me much calmer when I come out to choruses of, "I can't find my socks," and "Where's the peanut butter?"  It's made our whole morning routine better and calmer.

There are all sorts of  benefits to regular exercise.  One recent study, for example, found that people who participate in regular sports at least once a week reduced the risk of blood clots by 39 percent in women and  22 percent in men.   Another study found a link between exercise and mental health and that just walking (yeah!) can reduce anxiety, stress and depression.  It did not, however, reduce hot flashes. I guess you can't have everything.  More on this study is at http://www.temple.edu/newsroom/2007-2008/02/stories/menopause.htm,

pneumonia

My younger son has pneumonia but he is by far the bounciest kid with pneumonia you've ever seen and now he has no temperature and is almost back to his old self except he is pale and has trouble catching his breath sometimes.
Pneumonia is scary because it can be such a serious illness. My son has bacterial pneumonia. The way I understand it is this: Normally we all breathe in all sorts of bacteria that can make us sick and we filter those bacteria out, particularly through the nose. But sometimes we don't (this is the worrying part) and somehow we breathe in bacteria that makes it way into the lungs and to fight the bacteria the lungs fill with fluid. Normally, as our doctor told us, the lungs are like a dry sponge that fill with air and then compress but when they fill with fluid, they don't work so well.
At any rate, my son complained he was tired one day and that was unusual enough. The next couple of days, he had a slight fever and by Monday, he had a fever and was just sleeping all day. That went on for a couple of days and on the third day of the fever, we brought him in to the doctor who listened to him breathe and told us he hard some rattling, then he sent us off to get x-rays done. When they asked for more x-rays, my husband and I looked at each other: we knew it had to be pneumonia.
But even though, he apparently had a pretty large area of infection, the doctor said he was ramarkably energetic. So we've been trying to keep him quiet and not do too much. Our biggest activity this weekend was a walk around town to get ice-cream and pick up gyros. It's kind of nice having to be housebound. But the only reason it didn't drive me totally crazy is because my husband was home and he could spot me so I could go to the library and choir and a PTO meeting without feeling guilty.
If he hadn't been home and I was teaching, I guess I would have had to call in or bundle him up and bring him to school if he was well enough.
I do worry about whether my son's asthma has any link to the pneumonia and wether this will affect his lungs in the future. He's so athletic but he's always had respiratory problems. The doctor says no on both accounts but that, of course, doesn't stop me from worrying.
Here's a link to information on pneumonia from Medline http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000145.htm