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