Another Perspective on Age

Everyone seems to be talking about age lately (or maybe always). When I think about my age, I tend to think about what my best age might have been and if I could go back, which age I would choose to revisit. And that’s where I get stuck.

Like most people, I wouldn’t want to go back to my teenage years, not because they were so bad (because they really weren’t), but because that’s a period of so much figuring out and it’s better traversed only once, in my opinion.

What about my twenties? I greatly enjoyed my twenties, being on my own, with my first full-time job in a city I loved. But here’s the thing: My twenties were a time of planning for the future. Preparing for that next step in life. Getting my career on track. Hoping to meet the right person for me. Thinking about a future family.

If I went back to my twenties, even though I would be young again and could relive all the fun of being young, single, and in the middle of a fantastic city, I would have to do all the getting everything in place stuff all over again, too. Plus, I wouldn’t have Jim, Emerald, and Sapphire.

So let’s see, how about early to mid thirties, after graduate school and after Emerald was born? Still wouldn’t have Sapphire. The rest had settled out pretty well by then.

Forties? Sapphire was born just 6 days after my fortieth birthday. It’s funny, she asked me the other night if I wish she were still really little. I told her that I had been looking at pictures of Emerald and her when they were a lot younger and although that was a fun time, I am really enjoying right now. I love all that we can do together as a family now and I love, love, love seeing who they are and who they are becoming.

To be perfectly honest, I’m in a stage of my life when I am finally living for the most part in the here and now. And I’m loving it. It’s not that I don’t have goals, of course I do, but I don’t feel like the majority of what I do is planning for something else. We are settled in the place we plan to be for a long time. The kids are in fun ages (although they are still growing up too fast for my taste). I like knowing who I am and what my skills are.

So, I’ll take the wrinkles and dark circles (what choice do I have?) to get all the other things that go with them.

Tomorrow (figuratively) I’ll complain about the aches and pains, gray hair (which I color over), and older looking skin.

Waiting in Virtual Line

I admit to being a science geek, not so much a technology geek. My dear husband is very proud to call himself both. His latest adventure in the techno-geek arena is his excitement over being in line for Mailbox, a new free mail app for Gmail.

Last week he mentioned that he had made a reservation to get the app (which is the only way you can get it) and there were 413, 829 people ahead of him in line (and only 254,495 people behind him). He got a lot of joy in watching the number count down in front of his very eyes and just about as much joy in my scoffing at the whole process and verifying his geekiness. The validation just makes him giddy.

A few minutes ago there were 102,773 people ahead of him and 687,711 behind him.

The app gets 3 1/2 stars with 6,497 reviews. The biggest complaint: having to wait. Ya think?

So tell me, would you get in virtual line for an app and delight in watching as you move closer and closer to the front? Or do you find all this just a bit on the ridiculous side?

[Photo credit: Yahoo images]

Steps

Early last year, I wrote a few posts about monthly goals. Each of those posts had one goal in common: to get healthier. A large part of that goal, although unspoken, was to lose weight. My weight had crept up over the last several years and it was continuing to do so. I was beginning to worry that my various levels (blood pressure, cholesterol, etc.) were going unhealthily high in parallel. I hadn’t had any of the levels checked, except blood pressure, and although my blood pressure usually came out exactly at 120/80, there were a few readings that were significantly higher. I usually wrote these off as being due to stress, but I did begin to wonder if it was starting to go high for real. And I didn’t even want to think about what the other levels were doing. To be honest, my diet was not great (basically I ate what I wanted and however much I wanted) and my exercise was inconsistent.

Like so many others who resolve to lose weight, I didn’t make much progress. In fact, I gave up on the monthly goals because I wasn’t getting anywhere. I was still trying to lose weight (at least in theory) and be healthier, but I didn’t speak of it, because then I had to admit I wasn’t succeeding in my goal. The problem for me was, there is always tomorrow. I can eat this incredibly calorie-rich meal tonight and do better tomorrow. I can give in to the excuse for not exercising today, and get back to it tomorrow. Well, as we all know, tomorrow never comes. And so it didn’t.

I went on like this month after month. Jim and I made a point to cook healthier, light meals and we felt like we were going a good job, but we’d get bored with our recipes or be too tired to plan/cook a meal and we’d order in or go out. We’d also eat as much as we wanted. Long story short, both of us would lose a few pounds, only to put them back on, over and over again.

Last fall, when we scheduled our trip to Hawaii for this March, I was so excited, but I also remembered how self-conscious I felt taking the kids to the pool last summer. While we’re not planning on lying on the beach the entire trip, many of our plans do involve being in the water and therefore wearing swim suits. I didn’t want to spend this trip that should be so wonderful and so memorable, feeling exposed and insecure. I started to get motivated to make some real changes. I had 5 months to do it before the trip and a lifetime after that to keep it up.

One big challenge for me has always been meal planning and portion control. I always joked that if I had a personal chef, I’d be golden. For someone like me, who doesn’t have the budget for a personal chef, diet plans that include meals may be the closest thing. I had thought about going that route many times over the years, but I had a few reservations that always stopped me. One was due to the fact that prepared foods are laden with preservatives and sodium, but perhaps the biggest one was that I feared that if you didn’t prepare your own foods along the way, you wouldn’t learn how to eat healthily and therefore as soon as you went off the diet foods, you’d go back to your old habits and regain all the weight and be back to your old problem.

I also felt like I should be able to do this on my own. I have many friends who have just decided to make healthy changes and have persevered to success (or ongoing progress, which is my book is success). Shouldn’t I be able to do it, too? Where’s my will power? Was doing a meal plan diet cheating?

And then I “got real” with myself and realized that all these concerns were standing in my way. What I needed to do was chart a course for myself and deal with all these worries if/when they came up. For instance, it didn’t make much sense to worry about putting the weight back on and going back to unhealthy habits until I’d lost the weight in the first place. As for the processed food concerns, I still didn’t like it, but it was just a step along the way to success. I would cut those out once I got on down the road. I began to think of this as just another step to the process. A step I obviously needed to get started.

But I also knew that I needed Jim’s support to make this happen. There was no  way I was going to eat frozen meals for several months while I was either making, or watching him make, tempting meals for the rest of the family. I needed a weight-loss buddy. I knew how Jim felt about processed food diets (he preferred diet plans with menus you make yourself), but I also knew he too wanted to lose weight. And more than that, I knew he is my biggest cheerleader and supporter. So I made my case and I asked him to join me. He agreed.

Together we checked out diet plans online and last November, about a week before Thanksgiving, we settled on Jenny Craig, with the condition that we didn’t have to have a consultant checking on us. For both of us, that was a deal breaker. We were supporting each other; we didn’t want a stranger calling and asking us how well we were doing. The company agreed to send us the materials and the food without having a consultant contact us regularly. We each received an e-mail informing us who our consultant was in case we needed her, but for the most part they let us do our thing.

Of course, we still had to cook for the girls, but their tastes are much simpler than ours (so it was easy to cook healthy things they liked) and we were eating the same meals as each other, so neither of us minded we were eating “diet” foods.

We were surprised at how good most of the foods are. In the beginning, we were overjoyed and surprised at how fast the weight fell off. We added in a little exercise, but at first, we really didn’t change our habits much, just what we were eating. But I’ll tell you the biggest thing we learned was about portions. We thought we knew what a portion looked like, but man, were we wrong. We also learned that our bodies don’t need nearly as much food as we were giving them. We didn’t go hungry at all, but we ate a whole lot less than we had been.

Since we’ve become aware of what our portions should look like and how many calories our meals should contain, we have also learned how to eat out at restaurants and how to indulge in desserts without eating the whole mega-serving.

As of this week, Jim has lost more than 35 pounds and I have lost 21 pounds. Jim also had all of his levels checked recently and they were all great. I still need to do this, but we are confident we are on the right track. We are starting to work our way off the Jenny Craig foods (we still have a lot of food in the freezer, but we  have started substituting a home cooked meal in place of a JC meal each day, for variety) and are  adding in other parts of being healthier, like more consistent exercise.

One of the biggest surprises for me is that I’m now shopping in my own closet. I saved clothes I had outgrown in hopes I’d someday be able to wear them again. Much to my delight I have recently discovered that I now fit into all of them from shorts to tops to beloved dresses, and I feel like I look good in them. I even wore a shirt tucked in yesterday for the first time in about 10 years. Two friends commented on how good I looked, which made my day.

Jim has lost all the weight he needs to. He’s working on keeping it off and adding more exercise. I still have a little more weight to lose (probably about 5 to 10 more pounds), but we’re making progress, taking it all in steps. Hopefully all of these steps will add up to healthier people. My next goal is to be able to run a 5K (whether or not I actually run a race). Just to say I can.

[Image credit: Yahoo Images]

Really?

Last week, a friend of mine wrote a blog post about an article in a paper in her area covering so-called ”Mommy Bloggers”. She talked about a certain unnamed, but well-known blogger, who has received many nasty personal attacks because of what she shares on her blog. The point of my friend’s post was that she has never left a mean comment on a post (or a newspaper article, for that matter) and cannot see the point of doing so. I agreed wholeheartedly with her.

The next day,  I was perusing Facebook and noticed that someone had commented on the link to the aforementioned post on the blog’s Facebook page. I generally love reading other people’s comments on this friend’s posts, because they are generally positive and often bring up things that I hadn’t previously considered and that add to the discussion. This comment, however, I was sorry I read.

Although the commenter said that she has never written a mean comment, she went on to say that she is “discouraged by the multitude of moms bantering on about the banal accomplishments of their children online”. She made the point that many women (in the past and still to this day) have had to work hard to be taken seriously in the business world, in the community, and in the government. She said that, in her view, mommy blogs were “self-indulgent and frivolous, confirming the very stereotypes that need to be shattered for women to attain the status and opportunities they deserve.” She concluded that women who write these blogs are creating a condition in the work force in which women have to work harder to be taken seriously.

My first reaction was one of disbelief, followed quickly by, “That is so untrue!” Part of me thought I should let it lie, but I could not. Was she serious that mommy bloggers are hurting the chances of other women to succeed in their chosen careers? While I don’t think of myself as a mommy blogger (I blog about other things other than my children and I don’t go into the details of our daily lives the way many mommy bloggers appear to do), I do certainly write a lot here about my children. The writer of the comment suggested that mommy bloggers blog for their own entertainment and even to make money. While I’m sure this is true for some of them, there are other reasons to blog about your children. So I decided that someone had to reply and give the other side, other reasons for blogging and also to question the validity of the conclusion that mommy bloggers are hurting women who strive to be taken seriously outside of the home. I stated, I hope respectfully, that I blog about my kids for many reasons: We have family and friends who live far away and like to keep up with our activities through my blog. Since we moved last summer, I have had several friends urge me to blog more often because they miss knowing that we’re up to. I also blog about my kids to document their achievements (for them to look back on in the future). They also love it when I share their successes (particularly ones they’ve worked hard for) with our online friends. Unlike some of the bloggers mentioned in the original newspaper article, most of my readers are people we know personally.

After I posted the reply, I continued to think about the comment that got me going. And I got even more disturbed, because after my initial emotional reaction, the logical part of my brain pondered it, too. And I thought, what if it is true? What does that say about our society? Women who blog about their children and their families could actually make climbing the ladder to success much harder? And we allow this to happen? Shouldn’t we, as women, band together to fight this stereotype and generalization to all women, rather than blaming each other for the road being rockier? This to me seems akin to women whose husbands are having affairs blaming the “other women” rather than telling the cheating bum to “hit the road, Jack”.

And where does it stop? Why aren’t we extending this blame to craft bloggers or cooking bloggers, or laundry bloggers, as all of these activities are traditionally women’s roles, as well. While we’re at it, what does it say for women’s chances to succeed in a man’s world if a woman decides to become a nurse rather than a doctor, since “women are nurses, men are doctors” used to be the common attitude?

The bottom line is this: I still do not believe that anything I write here will hinder the future success of my fellow women, but if it really could, then the answer is to change the mindset of society, not to stop bloggers from using their personal piece of the internet in any way they choose. That’s my two cents. For what it’s worth.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic. Please keep it constructive and kind, though, as my girls do read this blog.

Determination

When I was a little girl, there was a little boy my age who lived on my street, whom I could. not. stand. In second grade, his family moved next door to mine. It was the worst. Not only was he in my class at school, but he now lived right next door. One day, I realized that he was in a higher math group than I was. In my 7-year-old mind, this was completely wrong, because there was no way he was smarter than I was. Better at playground sports, sure. Everyone was better at playground sports, but not smarter. That, I just wouldn’t believe. So one morning, when our teacher called his math group, I went, too. The teacher told me this wasn’t my group and I replied, “I can do it.” That afternoon, she called my mother to talk about it and said that she was inclined to let me stay there and see how I did. I stayed there permanently.

I’m not sure if this is where my girls get their determination or not, but I sure do like seeing it. Sapphire has spent her entire life trying to keep up with her big sister. But given the age difference (5 1/2 years), there are some things that her sister can do that she is okay with not being able to do yet, like riding a 2-wheel bike. Late last fall, Sapphire started asking her dad and me to take the training wheels off her bike, so we brought out the next-size-up bike that used to be Emerald’s and which doesn’t training wheels. We think Sapphire is just about big enough for this one anyway. I would hold onto the seat in the back and Sapphire would pedal and steer. We’d do this for a few runs up and down the cul-de-sac, and then she’d go back to riding her bike with training wheels on her own. She seemed fine to take it slow.

Then, just after Christmas, a new family moved in across the street from us. They have an almost-6-year-old little girl, S, and a 7-year-old little boy. S can ride a 2-wheel bike without training wheels. Sapphire began to ask more to have the training wheels taken off. She didn’t want help with the other bike, she wanted the training wheels off this bike, so Jim took them off. The first day without them, Jim and I took turns holding onto the back of the seat to help her balance. The  second day, as I was starting to go with her, Sapphire said, “That’s okay, Mom. I can do it.” I asked her if she was sure she didn’t want help. She said she could put her feet down if she thought she was going to fall. I backed away and watched.

She used her feet to “walk” the bike around getting the feel for her balance. Then, she’d pedal, start to tip over, and put her feet back down. The weather soon turned too cold to play outside much, but every chance she got, she would ride her bike by herself. After just a few days of this, she started to be able to pedal continuously for a short stretch. Yesterday, she got it completely and she was so proud. I think she’s even more proud because she did it all by herself. We’re proud of her, too!

One of my favorite things about being a parent is seeing these little beings grow and develop their own big personalities, and seeing the joy on their faces when they accomplish a milestone all. by. themselves.

A Nostalgic Look Back

Yesterday morning while driving to Emerald’s school to tutor, I heard the Maroon 5 song, “Pay Phone”.  I didn’t really listen to the song at all, as my mind wandered thinking of all the things that were plentiful, even cool, in my childhood, but that my girls have only seen in old TV shows and movies, if at all.

Photo credit: Yahoo Images

I started making a mental, and later, a written, list:

• Pay phones
• Turntables
• Console TVs
• Rotary dial telephones
• Typewriters
• Cassette players (8 track players were already on the way out when I started paying attention, but I could add those, too)
• Film and film cameras
• Reel-to-reel movies and projectors
• Slides and slide projectors
• Popcorn poppers

And then there are things like the TV movie of the week. Who needs to schedule their Friday or Sunday evening around a TV movie when you can DVR, rent, or purchase pretty much any movie ever made and watch it whenever you want?

What would you add to this list?

Lifetime Achievement Goals

My mind, probably like everyone’s, works in a continuous stream of consciousness. It bounces from one idea to another  so quickly sometimes that I have to backtrack carefully to figure out where the last idea came from. A few months ago, it went like this: I read about someone’s bucket list and was feeling sad that someone so young had or needed a bucket list. That thought shifted to realizing that the sadness comes from the word “bucket” and its connection to death. I then thought that if you remove the death connotation, the list takes on new meaning. Instead of being a list of things you must do quickly, it becomes an insightful look into your very personality. The things that make you you.

It then occurred to me that I would love to have in writing my girls aspirations at this very moment. I felt I already knew most of them, but having them in writing would not only cause us to pay attention to them and check them off as they happen, but it would allow all of us to look back at them in the future, to see which ones had been checked off and which ones were still on the list, and which ones they had decided they no longer wanted to do.

For instance, all my youth I planned to sky dive. It was one of those things that terrified my mom even more than my taking flying lessons in college. And because I’m a complete klutz, it was one that had me a little nervous as well, but it was always a goal. But when I was 26, I had tears in both of my retinas (a hereditary thing — my dad had a detached retina at the age of 40) and was told to avoid rapid falls, like sky diving. So off my list it went, really without any sadness. That onetime thrill was not worth my sight.

There are other things I always thought I wanted to do that as I got older slipped to the other side of the paper to the list of things I don’t want to do, ever.

So back to my stream of consciousness, I decided on New Year’s Day that instead of asking my girls for New Year’s Resolutions, I would ask them to write down for me things they want to do in their lifetime. I suggested that the lists could include things they wanted to do, places they wanted to visit, what they wanted to be when they grew up, and even things they wanted to buy (but I asked that the list not be just material things they desire), or anything else that was important to them.

I was amazed at how they took to the task. Each of them asked, “Why?” when I first mentioned it, which sent a cloud of dread through my stomach. I was sure the resistance had started, which could only mean a bad thing for the richness of the list. I was wrong. The question was apparently just curiosity because when Jim answered, “Because your mom asked you to,” and I answered, “We’ll talk about it later, but for now, please write down for me what you’d like to do in your lifetime,” they both headed straight to their rooms and excitedly began to write.

After a couple of minutes, each of them came out and shared the beginnings of her list. They wanted to know what we thought of the items and if we thought they would choose those.

Over the next few days, I caught each of them adding to her list. Emerald even ran through hers with me asking me if each thing would be on my list, now or when I was a kid.

Emerald and Sapphire have both given me permission to share their lists. Em’s includes:

• Going to Australia
• Riding a horse on a beach
• Being a marine biologist
• Running in a 5K with her mom
• Riding in a hot air balloon
• Riding in a helicopter (on the plan for Hawaii)
• Have the children’s book she wrote for school published and in stores
• Sky diving
• Learning to surf (also a possibility in Hawaii, at least to start it)
• See the Northern Lights
• Backpack through Europe
• Go to Germany, Paris, China
• See the Rockettes
• Twirl during halftime at football games
• Be in a marching band (she plays flute)
• Write a novel

Sapphire’s includes:

Things I want to do:

• Sky dive
• Ride in a balloon

Things I want to own:

• Horse
• Pool
• Building

What I want to be when I grow up:

• A baton coach

I want to travel to:

• Cape Cod (again; we used to go every summer)
• Paris
• Africa
• The North Pole
• Europe
• Texas
• South Carolina
• Mexico

This activity has achieved more already than I had imagined. It has opened up conversations. It has encouraged the girls to ponder their wildest dreams. It has focused their attention on far away locations. It has asked them to imagine.

[One word of caution, though. If you have a goal-oriented, introspective child, be aware that this could also cause some anxiety in the end as she realizes, "I don't know what else I want to do." In our case, this was after a page full of ideas had already found their place on the list. It wasn't too bad, though and was short-lived when we assured her that she had her whole life to add to it.]

The plan is to type these up when the girls are finished (or scan them in to preserve the handwriting as well) so that I can find them in 10, 15, 20 . . . years. In addition to lifetime goals, what I have here is a lifetime of memories, beginning now.

Holiday Homes Tour 2012

For the past 5 years, my friend Jen has hosted an online Holiday Homes Tour. I am so excited to be a part of her fifth annual tour today. This year is particularly fun for me since we have moved since last Christmas and therefore have a whole new house to decorate and many new traditions to start.

My husband will tell you that I started decorating this house in my mind the minute we put a contract on it, and he’d be right. For years (actually for as long as we’ve been married), we’ve had 8 foot ceilings, so we’ve had to be very careful not to get a tree that was too tall. Our new great room has a 2-story ceiling, so that was no longer a concern. As soon as we moved in, I tried to get Jim to talk about where we would put our tree, but alas June was too soon for him to engage in those discussions. Long about Thanksgiving, we got that figured out.

Anyway, enough chit-chat from me. Off we go.

Let’s start outside, shall we?

I was going to tell you that the kids talked us into this inflatable for the front yard, but the truth is that we were all excited to find something fun and festive for the lawn and this was just the ticket. I also went online to find outdoor ornaments. My mother-in-law sent us the gorgeous wreath for the front door.

[Note: Apparently, WordPress has changed the way it handles media and is only allowing me to post these pictures as thumbnails, but if you click on them, you'll get the full-size photo.]

As you continue into the house, just inside the door, this is what you see:

To your right is an old German desk my grandparents owned, adorned with nutcrackers, candles, and an angel. Above the desk is an adorable snowman that was a gift from my mother-in-law years ago and is always a centerpiece of our decorations.

Just ahead is the stairwell, which we have wrapped in paper-chain garlands the girls and I made together.

To your right, is a hall table, decorated by my wonderful Emerald. This has been her table to decorate since she was very little. In those days, she would choose all of her favorite decorations (angels mostly) and clump them together in the center of the table. She still adores those angels, but she now lovingly arranges them so they are just right, throws in a few Santas, and a few of her other favorites, and . . . Lovely!

Just before you get to the stairs, on your left is the dining room.

Several years ago, the girls and I decided to make a table centerpiece by placing different colored ornaments in a crystal bowl. We love the result. The table runner was a gift my mother-in-law brought me from her recent trip to England. She knows how I love to decorate for Christmas.

As you face the table, to your left is a table decorated by my sweet Sapphire. She couldn’t wait to decorate a whole table of her own, like her big sis. (Last year I gave Sapphire a shelf of the Baker’s rack in kitchen to decorate, but this year she wanted a table.) She chose the decorations that were near and dear to her heart (including a snowman she made two years ago during a playdate with her best preschool pal) and off she went. She was so proud of the result:

And to your right:

Back in the foyer, to your right is our home office (which is where I work part-time). We didn’t do much in here, but there had to be some Christmas cheer:

And a little buddy on the desk:

Moving on down the front hall, you enter the kitchen/great room area, with the tree right in front of you.

One of the reasons that I was so excited to be able to get a bigger tree this year is that we have so many sentimental ornaments and I wanted to be able to display them all without have an over-crowded-looking tree. Jim’s grandmother made ornaments and Jim’s mom shared her collection with us years ago, so along with ones the kids have made and ones we’ve collected over the years, our tree is a tale of our family history. It’s such a treat every year to take the ornaments out of the boxes and listen to each person’s delight as he/she recalls a particular ornament and the story behind it.

As an aside, I will mention that when I thought of a big tree way back in the summer and ever since until we purchased this one, I had Jen’s story of the Big Ass Tree in my head as a cautionary tale. Hence, we did not go any taller or fuller for fear of recreating her misadventures.

Turning left into the kitchen, on the table is a centerpiece made by Emerald when she was in preschool and it’s still one of my favorite Christmas decorations. Next to it are candles given to me by Emerald’s Kindergarten teacher as a thanks for my being one of two Room Moms that year.

To the right of the table, we have more sentimental favorites on the Baker’s rack, including the Gingerbread house Sapphire made at school this year and Christmas cards we’ve received. [To the Arbaughs, if you notice your card is not up there, it's because Sapphire insisted on keeping that one in her room.:)]

Moving on to the great room, which is without a doubt our most decorated room. Here’s an overview:

Stepping on into the room:

On the coffee table we have a Fisher Price nativity scene, which Sapphire just loves. As for the center of the table, I love the bowl that is the usual centerpiece and didn’t want to move it, so because the ornament-in-a-bowl idea works so well for us in the dining room, I decided to continue that theme in here. Also on the table is a plush, musical sleigh we got years ago at Hallmark.

Turning around the room, we have more plushies, a small gold Christmas tree, and a pillow:

We hung more paper-chain garland around the windows. The girls and I made this years ago, but had to combine two of them and make it longer this year to get it to fit all the way across. I was glad it needed some “tweaking” for the new house, because it was yet another fun mother-daughters moment that I treasure so much.

On the mantle, we have more angels, Jim Shore figurines that were a gift from my mother-in-law two years ago and that we treasure, and our stockings. We hang one for each person who will join us on Christmas Day, one for our puppies Riley and Raine, and one for our kitties, Squeaky and Shadow.

The last thing I want to show you is our screened-in porch. It is my favorite room of the entire house (especially when the weather is nice). We couldn’t resist lighting it up, too:

That just about does it for our leg of the Holiday Homes Tour. Thanks for stopping by. Continue on this way to the visit the other homes.

Anniversary

Yesterday was the 6 month anniversary of our move. No, we didn’t celebrate it in grand style. In fact, we didn’t even realize it, although it had crossed my mind several times in the last week that it was coming.

When the girls and I got home yesterday, they noticed that our next door neighbors were in their front yard, having just said goodbye to a friend of theirs who was over for a playdate. Sapphire jumped out of the car, ran over to their yard and told them that she had to take her backpack inside and unpack her lunch bag and then she could play.

After we went inside and the girls put their bags away and did that small chore, we all went back outside to find the neighbor children waiting patiently by their back gate and when they saw our kids, all four kids ran into our backyard and began playing.

A few minutes later, as I was talking with our next door neighbor and we were both watching the kids play, I got a text from our neighbor across the street asking if we were home because her daughter wanted to play. I texted her back that we were in the backyard with the other neighbors and told them to come on over. They did.

Six kids playing happily in the backyard until dark. A bunch of happy pictures of said children taken by Emerald on her phone. Adult socializing time thrown in for good measure. Blissful.

In some ways it feels like forever since we moved. In some ways it feels like it just happened. And although we most definitely miss our friends and our favorite haunts, we are home.

Gold Card

A few weeks ago, Emerald came home telling us about an honor at school she wanted to apply for. It was called a Gold Card and it came with all kinds of privileges, as shown in the photo below.*

*HAC is their middle school’s version of recess.

To be considered, a student had to complete an application (which was basically, name, home room teacher’s name, sixth grade team name, and date), and write an essay as to how the student thought he/she meets the criteria for a Gold Card.

The criteria are the main reason I’m writing this blog post. Instead of being about popularity, or grades, or athletic achievement, the Cougar Gold Card is all about a kid’s behavior at school. To earn a Gold Card, a student must treat his/her peers well; take direction from and be respectful to, the adults at school; take personal responsibility for his/her own learning; and follow school rules (each of which had specific bullet points to explain exactly what is expected).

The application states that the Gold Card “is a tangible symbol that recognizes students who demonstrate specific, responsible behaviors. . . Possession of a Gold Card means that you can honestly say, ‘I am responsible. I am trusted. I can handle making choices, and I exhibit positive behaviors the majority of the time. I am licensed to make choices and accept responsibilities identified on my Gold Card.’”

The Gold Card is only valid for one 9-weeks. Students much reapply every term and the card can be revoked if the student does not maintain the behavior that led to the award in the first place. Students who applied but did not receive a Gold Card this time were told individually and privately what they could do better in the future to better qualify for one next time.

I do not have enough good things to say about this idea. This card rewards, even honors, kids for behaving well. It’s not about the end result (academic or other achievement). It’s about the approach to learning and being a good citizen. This sort of thing teaches kids that success is not the only important thing. Treating others well and taking responsibility for your own actions is important, too.

Of course, I can’t end this post without telling you how Emerald’s application was received. Last week, just after Jim picked her up from school, I received a text from him that was just a picture of our very happy, very proud 11-year-old wearing her Gold Card around her neck. It looked much like this.