Brilliant, Long Lasting Fall in New England
This is the longest lasting color I can remember in New England in a long time...
Teaching Moments from an Argument
Attempting to turn a political argument with my brother into a teaching moment for my children is difficult. For starters there’s my personal passion; add that to the baggage we’re carrying around as siblings and I’m way over the limit for any domestic or international travel.
Silver linings, I tell myself. Perhaps tangled in the stress radiating from my heart there is a kernel of a teaching moment to share with my children.
For starters, there’s what I have learned about have an effective argument, er, debate— everything from knowing my opponent to getting my facts straight to knowing when to stop so I don’t permanently damage the relationship. That seems like useful knowledge to pass on to my children, but it doesn’t seem to be key to making the world a better place.
There’s the “let’s learn from our mistakes” pitch. This would amount to me saying that passionate, heated arguments aren’t the only way to exchange different points of view. Somehow, I think showing them a more effective exchange of ideas rather than telling them would be a better teaching tool.
Perhaps I should focus on the whole package of world views. How did two children raised in the same family end up with such disparate views? Oh, wait, that’s my baggage, not what I want to impart to my kids.
What I want to do is to have a positive influence on my children’s world views. To help set their moral compass, to teach them how to gather, evaluate and analyze information in making decisions and to provide a foundation in forming beliefs and standing up for their beliefs.
And of course, there’s the value of a family relationship as great or as dysfunctional as it may be. I believe there is almost always value in maintaining a family connection. So mostly I want to tell them to know when to reset; to learn when the relationship is more important than the ideal.
Parenting to do list:
In the end, my analysis is in fact self-analysis— more instructional for me than my kids.
Silver linings, I tell myself. Perhaps tangled in the stress radiating from my heart there is a kernel of a teaching moment to share with my children.
For starters, there’s what I have learned about have an effective argument, er, debate— everything from knowing my opponent to getting my facts straight to knowing when to stop so I don’t permanently damage the relationship. That seems like useful knowledge to pass on to my children, but it doesn’t seem to be key to making the world a better place.
There’s the “let’s learn from our mistakes” pitch. This would amount to me saying that passionate, heated arguments aren’t the only way to exchange different points of view. Somehow, I think showing them a more effective exchange of ideas rather than telling them would be a better teaching tool.
Perhaps I should focus on the whole package of world views. How did two children raised in the same family end up with such disparate views? Oh, wait, that’s my baggage, not what I want to impart to my kids.
What I want to do is to have a positive influence on my children’s world views. To help set their moral compass, to teach them how to gather, evaluate and analyze information in making decisions and to provide a foundation in forming beliefs and standing up for their beliefs.
And of course, there’s the value of a family relationship as great or as dysfunctional as it may be. I believe there is almost always value in maintaining a family connection. So mostly I want to tell them to know when to reset; to learn when the relationship is more important than the ideal.
Parenting to do list:
- talk with my children about resolving disagreements and standing up for your beliefs
- engage in disagreements with individuals who can remain calm—have dinner with my kids and family friends with different political views during the week around election day
- listen to my children when they are wrestling with their own decision making, help them with the process more than the content.
- support my children in their efforts to stand up for their beliefs
- be respectful in my disagreements with them
- end disagreements without slamming down the phone and, if I’m feeling really good, with an invitation to dinner!
In the end, my analysis is in fact self-analysis— more instructional for me than my kids.
Family Politics
I fear my extended family is a microcosm of the political distrust and antagonism our country is facing today. I will try to present this without bias, but as I clearly represent one side of the political spectrum, I am sure that some of family members will vociferously denounce my objectivity. Fortunately, the most vocal of all, also has huge privacy hang-ups so is quite unlikely to leave comments in all caps following this blog. So we can keep our ranting and ravings confined to the holiday dinner table and the more and more infrequent phone calls.
The right-leaning among us watch Fox news and expound upon its objectivity. The left-leaning among us listen to NPR and say it presents news impartially.
“Well then”, the rightist replies, “you should listen to what Juan Williams had to say on Fox after he was fired, have you heard?”
”No, because I don’t watch Fox news,” the liberal retorts, “and clearly anyone who has just been fired is going to be angry at his former employer and not present unbiased facts.”
“Ah ha,” says the radical right, “you can’t make that judgment without watching his commentary, because he only presented facts!”
“Yes, but did he present ALL the facts?” the leftist responds. ”It’s easy to leave some facts out which in and of itself is bias. He could easily have presented only the facts that showed NPR to be in the wrong and Fox to be in the right.”
“Facts are facts. Listen to what he said and you’ll hear how biased NPR is.”
How did we get here, I wonder to myself. I thought we were talking about our children’s high school classes. I ponder the trip we took, let’s see, from high school classes, to leveling among students, to government being involved in education, to Carter creating the Department of Education, to Obama being a radical socialist, to Bush spending billions on a needless war in Iraq, to Clinton leaving office with a surplus to Reagan getting America on the right track and building a robust economy. Not sure how Juan Williams came up, other than the obvious that he’s currently in the news.
I sigh. “Well you are still welcome for dinner Saturday.”
“You sure?” my brother responds, “you can take back the invitation.”
“No, no, I’d like to see you. Let’s just not talk politics.”
Unfortunately, in the state houses across the country as in Washington D.C., they have nothing else to discuss, but politics. And as in my political discussion with my brother, no one is willing to compromise, no one is willing to bend, no one is even able to cede one point to their adversary. Those in office must internalize significant stress daily if they feel anything like I do after hanging up the phone. In the time we spoke, no, make that argued, no one, not me, not my brother, not any elected official has done one thing to make the world a better place, to bring enlightenment, even simply to extend an olive branch. Maybe my brother will get the hint if I serve olives with dinner. Oh wait, he hates olives. Therein lies the problem.
The right-leaning among us watch Fox news and expound upon its objectivity. The left-leaning among us listen to NPR and say it presents news impartially.
“Well then”, the rightist replies, “you should listen to what Juan Williams had to say on Fox after he was fired, have you heard?”
”No, because I don’t watch Fox news,” the liberal retorts, “and clearly anyone who has just been fired is going to be angry at his former employer and not present unbiased facts.”
“Ah ha,” says the radical right, “you can’t make that judgment without watching his commentary, because he only presented facts!”
“Yes, but did he present ALL the facts?” the leftist responds. ”It’s easy to leave some facts out which in and of itself is bias. He could easily have presented only the facts that showed NPR to be in the wrong and Fox to be in the right.”
“Facts are facts. Listen to what he said and you’ll hear how biased NPR is.”
How did we get here, I wonder to myself. I thought we were talking about our children’s high school classes. I ponder the trip we took, let’s see, from high school classes, to leveling among students, to government being involved in education, to Carter creating the Department of Education, to Obama being a radical socialist, to Bush spending billions on a needless war in Iraq, to Clinton leaving office with a surplus to Reagan getting America on the right track and building a robust economy. Not sure how Juan Williams came up, other than the obvious that he’s currently in the news.
I sigh. “Well you are still welcome for dinner Saturday.”
“You sure?” my brother responds, “you can take back the invitation.”
“No, no, I’d like to see you. Let’s just not talk politics.”
Unfortunately, in the state houses across the country as in Washington D.C., they have nothing else to discuss, but politics. And as in my political discussion with my brother, no one is willing to compromise, no one is willing to bend, no one is even able to cede one point to their adversary. Those in office must internalize significant stress daily if they feel anything like I do after hanging up the phone. In the time we spoke, no, make that argued, no one, not me, not my brother, not any elected official has done one thing to make the world a better place, to bring enlightenment, even simply to extend an olive branch. Maybe my brother will get the hint if I serve olives with dinner. Oh wait, he hates olives. Therein lies the problem.
Suture Necessity: Humor
Humor is a great accompaniment to receiving sutures. As the physician assistant sutured my finger laceration, he told me this was his third career (not humorous) and told me about his experience slicing his own finger (very humorous).
I had ended up on the receiving end of the needle and thread by carelessly attempting to slice frozen bread with a very sharp knife and without a cutting board—something I have been told on multiple occasions not to do. Maybe this time the lesson will stick.
As I tightly gripped my pointer finger against my thumb, my daughter ran for a bandage and extolled the virtues of applying pressure and using elevation in such situations. I had no desire to release my finger as I’m not a fan of watching blood pour out of my hands. But when I finally got the nerve to take a peak at the incision, I knew immediately that a Band-aid brand adhesive wasn’t going to cut it so to speak.
I headed to the ER, my husband cleverly picking the older car to drive in case I was dripping blood, although my daughter had thoughtfully handed me an old bath towel to wrap my hand in just to avoid difficult to remove bloodstains.
“Well, I hope the chili you made for dinner is bloody good,” my husband commented wryly as we sat waiting in the ER. Doubtful we would get any tonight as the waiting room was mostly full and no one was moving anywhere quickly.
The admitting nurse thoughtfully asked if my finger was still attached (which it was) while my daughter texted me to take the pressure off and get the blood flow going to move up my place in the ER line. As the TV show Chuck was about to start, I was okay sitting in the waiting room for a bit and watching TV. So I kept the pressure applied as my hand began leaking blood onto my towel wrap. Unfortunately halfway through Chuck, someone decided that the assorted menagerie of patients would prefer Monday night football and switched channels. I think we should have taken a vote and raising a bloody hand should have counted extra. In any case, I missed the second half of Chuck and so I have no idea if Chuck and Sarah managed to capture the bad guy or not. Now it was clearly time to remove the pressure and get seen sooner rather than later.
In the examining room, the nurse told me that day old blood stains were as hard to remove from crevices around fingernails as from white Ts. I didn’t believe her, but was glad she thoroughly cleaned my hand in any case.
Then after a lengthy wait with only the sound of a screaming child in the background, a physician’s assistant came in for suturing. Apparently only on Grey’s Anatomy do plastic surgeons hang around the ER.
“So do you know how to sew?” I asked.
“She means can you sew well,” my husband clarified.
He didn’t answer directly but did tell us about the time he cut his finger on a bread knife at a salad bar, tossed the knife and bread behind the salad bar and then while walking over to meet his friends at their table, passed out in the middle of the restaurant where everyone, but his friends saw him go down.
Clearly he had empathy as well as a more entertaining story. Guess I’ll find out if he also can sew when I get these 5 sutures removed.
I had ended up on the receiving end of the needle and thread by carelessly attempting to slice frozen bread with a very sharp knife and without a cutting board—something I have been told on multiple occasions not to do. Maybe this time the lesson will stick.
As I tightly gripped my pointer finger against my thumb, my daughter ran for a bandage and extolled the virtues of applying pressure and using elevation in such situations. I had no desire to release my finger as I’m not a fan of watching blood pour out of my hands. But when I finally got the nerve to take a peak at the incision, I knew immediately that a Band-aid brand adhesive wasn’t going to cut it so to speak.
I headed to the ER, my husband cleverly picking the older car to drive in case I was dripping blood, although my daughter had thoughtfully handed me an old bath towel to wrap my hand in just to avoid difficult to remove bloodstains.
“Well, I hope the chili you made for dinner is bloody good,” my husband commented wryly as we sat waiting in the ER. Doubtful we would get any tonight as the waiting room was mostly full and no one was moving anywhere quickly.
The admitting nurse thoughtfully asked if my finger was still attached (which it was) while my daughter texted me to take the pressure off and get the blood flow going to move up my place in the ER line. As the TV show Chuck was about to start, I was okay sitting in the waiting room for a bit and watching TV. So I kept the pressure applied as my hand began leaking blood onto my towel wrap. Unfortunately halfway through Chuck, someone decided that the assorted menagerie of patients would prefer Monday night football and switched channels. I think we should have taken a vote and raising a bloody hand should have counted extra. In any case, I missed the second half of Chuck and so I have no idea if Chuck and Sarah managed to capture the bad guy or not. Now it was clearly time to remove the pressure and get seen sooner rather than later.
In the examining room, the nurse told me that day old blood stains were as hard to remove from crevices around fingernails as from white Ts. I didn’t believe her, but was glad she thoroughly cleaned my hand in any case.
Then after a lengthy wait with only the sound of a screaming child in the background, a physician’s assistant came in for suturing. Apparently only on Grey’s Anatomy do plastic surgeons hang around the ER.
“So do you know how to sew?” I asked.
“She means can you sew well,” my husband clarified.
He didn’t answer directly but did tell us about the time he cut his finger on a bread knife at a salad bar, tossed the knife and bread behind the salad bar and then while walking over to meet his friends at their table, passed out in the middle of the restaurant where everyone, but his friends saw him go down.
Clearly he had empathy as well as a more entertaining story. Guess I’ll find out if he also can sew when I get these 5 sutures removed.
Garden Issues
The weeds in my garden have roots in New England that rival the descendants of the Mayflower. My lavender sends shoots up everywhere including right in the middle of my miniature rose plant which is about the size of a softball (decidedly not a bush). My coneflower is, literally, one foot tall. Just when the phlox bloom in their glorious bright pink, their shaky stems decide it’s just too much and they collapse onto the walkway or rest upon the browning yarrow, that I am sure I just deadheaded yesterday.
My garden will clearly never be on a garden tour; it continually confounds me. Yet I love it. Each year in July I tell myself that I really should just uproot the lupine—their brown, crinkly leaves and dried tubular stalks are unappealing, and the phlox behind which I attempted to hide them were taken down by a white powdery fungus. Yet I let the lupine thrive, and the following May as I watch their perfect star shaped leaves hold drops of water after the rain, and their flowers turn from green to pink, top to bottom, I wonder how I could have harbored such destructive thoughts. Then the aphids show up and although I reconsider, I let the lupine alone. Or my Rudbeckia flowers in profusion and within days needs to be deadheaded, leaving its hairy brown stems behind.
Last summer I nurtured my stunted plants along and was rewarded with buds ready to burst into cascades of color. Each morning as I excitedly approached my garden, not a speck of color could be seen. Every bud about to burst had been chomped off by a voracious deer. Then this summer, knock on wood, my buds have all been left alone to unfold into brilliant color. Did the deer take an alternate route? Did it find better grazing grounds where it didn’t have to reach down quite so far to nab a tasty bud?
I would continue to expound about the frustrations and gifts from my garden, but a giant foxtail is creeping in the window and tapping on my shoulder.
Last summer I nurtured my stunted plants along and was rewarded with buds ready to burst into cascades of color. Each morning as I excitedly approached my garden, not a speck of color could be seen. Every bud about to burst had been chomped off by a voracious deer. Then this summer, knock on wood, my buds have all been left alone to unfold into brilliant color. Did the deer take an alternate route? Did it find better grazing grounds where it didn’t have to reach down quite so far to nab a tasty bud?
I would continue to expound about the frustrations and gifts from my garden, but a giant foxtail is creeping in the window and tapping on my shoulder.
Quick Tips for Writing a Camper
The rest bell rings and campers race to the mailboxes to see what awaits. Samantha Saylor arrives first and grabs the stack of envelopes from the S box, quickly reading through the addressee names.
“Santos, Smith, Santos, Strickland, Surrey, Santos, Smith, Shen, finally Saylor!, Santos, Santos, how many friends and family does Santos have?!, Shen, Sargent, another one for Saylor, Santos, Steinberg, Santos”
Samantha hands the stack to the anxiously awaiting Strickland and heads off with her two letters. The high point of mail time has passed—sorting through the envelopes and finding the envelopes with her name on them. Even opening and reading the mail can’t eclipse the excitement of reading through the addressee names.
So take this as your first tip in writing your camper—mail, any mail, is better than no mail. And the contents of the letter or postcard are far less important than the fact that correspondence has been received. Still, writing about your commute to work, or grocery shopping will pale in comparison to a note including a funny story about trying to pick blueberries in the rain or fixing the leaky faucet and getting soaked in the process.
Here are some quick tips for writing your camper this summer:
- Write short, frequent letters rather than long occasional notes
- Include interesting flat items such as a newspaper comic or a photo
- Sprinkle in a few riddles
- Take some time to doodle
- Include a short, funny story. Nothing happened on your commute to work or in your office? Find a few short jokes to include (there are plenty to be found on-line) or relate a story from your childhood.
- Comment on your camper’s most recent letter—great job on learning how to serve in tennis or how cool that her cabin mate is from Montana.
- Include a game like hang man, tic tac toe, or 20 questions on a second sheet of paper that the two of you can send back and forth over the summer to play.
- Remember to write so your camper can read—many of the under 12 set cannot read cursive and that goes for many teens as well these days. 4 paragraphs of loopy handwriting will quickly be scanned for the signature at the end.
P.S. post scripts and post post scripts are always a big hit!
10 Reasons to Send Your Daughter to Summer Camp
At Summer Camp...
Friendships last a lifetime.
When the heat wave hits there’s a cool lake to dive into!
Campfires can’t be beat when shared.
It’s easy to find a quiet place to read a book,
Or a busy place to play with buddies.
Learning how to live with others is essential.
Or in achieving a goal together.
The nights are as spectacular as the days.
But most importantly, every child should have the opportunity to soar!
Friendships last a lifetime.
When the heat wave hits there’s a cool lake to dive into!
Campfires can’t be beat when shared.
It’s easy to find a quiet place to read a book,
Or a busy place to play with buddies.
Learning how to live with others is essential.
There’s a great sense of accomplishment in learning a new skill
Or in achieving a goal together.
The nights are as spectacular as the days.
But most importantly, every child should have the opportunity to soar!
Looking for answers to your summer camp questions? Check out the summer camp blog !
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