Pros and cons of tradition according to a 12-year-old

In my years of mothering I've come to realize how much our kids appreciate traditions - at least some of them. They like to see the same routines and customs year after year. My oldest is probably stuck on traditions more than any of them. Even as a teenager, he always requested to make our annual trip to the pumpkin farm or to go to the Santa House like we've done every year since he was a baby. He enjoys looking forward to things like this.

One of our family traditions has been taking a family drive every year for a real Christmas tree. Initially we would drive out to a lot in Alsip near where my husband and his dad worked and pick out a tree from the Wisconsin tree farmer that hauled his trees down here to the suburbs. After a while he moved to a different lot in Crestwood, and we followed, but when he abandoned that one and the only locations left were about an hour away, we decided to find a new place after probably 15 years. That year we decided to cut down out own tree. The next year we found a place on the Munster/Highland border and we followed up with dinner afterwards at Texas Corral, a favorite of the boys mostly because you get to dig into a big bucket of peanuts and drop your shells wherever you wish. That became our new tradition and we've kept it up year after year.

Today we decided we would go pick out a tree in the afternoon and follow up with dinner. Well, this afternoon I had to run an errand and drove past our normal spot and didn't see the usual sign. I pulled in and there were no trees anywhere.

My 12-year-old was with me. He's Mr. Rule Follower. Mr. Practical. Mr. Logical. He questions why we get a real tree. "Mom, do you know how much money you'd save if you got a fake tree?" he asked. "You spend 80 dollars on a tree. That's $800 you spend in 10 years. You could buy one tree and save yourself all that money!"

I tried to explain that it wasn't about the money, it was about preference and tradition. Then he gave all the other pros of owning an artificial tree. "The needles won't fall off. You won't have to water it. It won't dry out. You won't have to clean up needles." He was trying hard to prove his point. I told him that he was correct on all counts, but that we get a real tree because it's tradition, even if it is expensive and messy. But I told him that when he grows up and has his own house, he'll get to decide if he wants to carry them on or start his own. "Do you want to have a fake tree instead of a real tree and root for the Yankees instead of the Cubs when you are older?" I asked him. "Yeah, what's wrong with that?" he asked. "Nothing," I said. "Nothing at all. It will all be up to you. You're your own person and you'll be able to decide." And I really wasn't sad about the thought of him dissing our family traditions, I was excited at the idea of him coming up with his own.

Being too aware during cancer awareness month

My, my my...how time flies. I can't tell you how many little notes I scratched on to slips of paper with ideas for blog posts, but, you know...life gets in the way and things don't always get done. My last post was well over a month ago just after the kids were back in school. September was Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. This year I seem to be more aware of cancer than I ever have been after losing my father-in-law to cancer a few months ago and knowing a few others who have been battling the disease.

Not too long before that I had been to cover a camp for kids with cancer and among the kids I came across was one I recognized. I had no idea she had cancer. She's an adorable little girl I recognized from reading to classrooms over the past couple years. She's the same age as my youngest son - age 8. I thought perhaps it was her first time attending camp and she was recently diagnosed, but when I asked her, I think she said it was her fourth year there. I left and cried much of the way home thinking about this little girl and how fortunate I am that my kids are so healthy.

During September, I also learned that a little boy who had been in class with a couple of my boys who had cancer had been doing poorly. Last spring his former teacher held a fundraiser to send him and his family on a trip to Disney Land. And thanks to her help, his wish was granted to take a trip with his family. He lost his battle with cancer later that month.

Cancer is such an awful disease and to see how it affects adults is hard enough, but to see it affect kids is so heartbreaking. And it makes you hug your kids a little tighter and makes the small stuff seem so trivial.

Feeling needed even when you're not

After a few days out of town and way too much to catch up on, I wasn't feeling well. I decided to lay down in my dark bedroom and hope my dull headache would subside. About an hour later, I woke up with the headache almost gone and feeling a little more refreshed. I looked at the clock. It was past lunch time. I couldn't believe it had been quiet enough for me to sleep a little bit and that no one woke me up asking for something to eat.

I was still feeling groggy and tossed around in bed a little longer. Then my stomach was grumbling, too, and I figured I better get out of bed. I came down the stairs and there was my just-turned-10-year-old in front of the television with a plate. He'd made himself a salad and a quesadilla while I was napping. I felt better that he had eaten something and at the same time I felt guilty that I hadn't done it for him and even a little bad that he was able to pull off a good meal on his own without my help.

As moms, our ultimate goal is to raise children to be independent and self-sufficient who don't have to depend on us for every little thing. But, as moms, we also like to take care of our children and we like to do things for them. That transition period when they are moving into doing things on their own can be a hard one for moms. It makes us feel good when we see they can make a meal on their own, but it's still nice to get a request for a peanut butter and jelly with the crust cut off.

Granderson's book has a great message

I was at a book sale at the library today and spotted a copy of this, which I grabbed. It is honestly one of my favorite children's books. Most of my favorites are traditional bedtime stories with colorful artwork that involve animals and hugs and words that rhyme.

This book, All You Can Be: Dream It, Draw It, Become It by Curtis Granderson offers great advice to young kids and teens about being successful, handling peer pressure, hard work and priorities. Granderson is a professional athlete, who currently plays in the major leagues as an outfielder for the New York Yankees. He also happens to be a graduate of the high school here in my town. I've seen first hand how much he does to give back and he is quite an inspiration to young and old.

When I first got a copy of the book a couple years ago, I wanted the boys to all read it. Since I admit I have slacked on reading together since my youngest one learned to read, I decided we could read it at dinner time when everyone is at the table. Each night one of the boys would read a chapter out loud and we'd all listen. When it was finished, they liked the routine so much that we went through it a second time.

It's a short book that older kids can get through quickly, but I really enjoyed having all the kids read it together and reading it over several days. The book also contains drawings done by fourth-graders that the kids enjoyed looking at.

The hardcover book is available on Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/All-You-Can-Be-Become/dp/1600782477.

Freedom with a side of loneliness

I'm typing this up in an empty hotel room 150 miles from home. I have never, ever stayed in a hotel room all by myself. I've stayed in hotel rooms with my husband and my kids and my sisters and my parents. But this time it's all me.

I've been on many trips that were work related and this one is, too, but every other work trip has been taken with my husband and kids. This time, the kids are in bed at home getting some rest before school tomorrow. So, I decided to take the trip on my own.

I admit, it was freeing to do the drive by myself. I got to pick what was on the radio - the 80's station most of the way. I ate dinner without having to order any kid meals or cut someone else's meat and I washed my dinner down with a margarita. I checked into my hotel and didn't have to trip over suitcases and shoes or fight over which bed I'd get or have little ones bugging me to take them down to the pool. I watched the Video Music Awards on MTV, something I would never watch at home with the kids around. It was followed up with an R-rated profanity laced movie. Two big beds all to myself. I can stay up and eat potato chips in bed. It's something I haven't experienced before and I'm taking full advantage of it.

However, I can't help but feel a little lonely. There's no one here to kiss goodnight. No one to snuggle with. If I was at home, I'd be spending my evening packing lunches, going over homework and folding laundry before tucking them in. I keep thinking to myself, "Brandon would love this." or "Ian would have so much fun here." I stopped in a candy store and bought goodies to bring home for the little guys. I bought some bling for the bigger boys. And tomorrow it sure will be nice to see them all again.

Feeling Pinteresty

Ok, I am like the opposite of crafty. I think I used to be semi-crafty...back before I had kids and when I just had one little kid and a bit of patience left. Anyway...this was one of the gifts I gave my sister for her baby shower. It might even be worthy of posting on Pinterest. :)

So, my sis is an AVID reader. She was reading way before kindergarten and has been a big reader ever since. I even recall once in jr. high or high school that I had a test on a book the next day that I hadn't read and Becky stayed up all night to finish it and give me the Cliff's Notes version the next day. I don't recall if she offered or if I coerced her or bribed her. She reads all the time and reads books over and over again and probably her favorite author is J. K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series. The baby's nursery will have a Harry Potter and owl theme.

So, since she is such a reader, I wanted to start her off with a nice library. I had about 40 books for her - some Disney classics and Margaret Wise Brown and Richard Scarry, etc. - a combination of some new ones I'd bought and some I was passing on from my kids that were bedtime favorites. I have a hard time parting with books I remember reading to my kids, but in passing them on for my nephew I was okay with letting go of them.

So, I started with a cardboard box from Aldi that was open in the front giving you a view of what's inside. I needed to cover the product words on the box. So, this was one side:

The silver stars gave it the "wizard" look, I thought, to go with her Harry Potter theme.

Here's the front of the box with the words "Mugglette Inspiration" at the bottom.

And this was the other side. I had fun pulling quotes about reading from well-known authors off the Internet to put here. :)

And then I did my best at coming up with a poem - at 1:15 a.m. the night before the shower, LOL!!!

Having summer second thoughts

The last few summers I've been pleased with how I planned out activities for the kids to keep them occupied. They've done summer enrichment programs, sports camps, a mission trip for youth group, swimming lessons, reading programs. It did put a damper on things when I wanted to schedule a trip and then couldn't because much of the summer was scheduled, but overall I was glad there was some structure and a schedule and things planned to prevent them from becoming couch potatoes.

You see, I don't do structure and scheduling well when left on my own. In my head, I will think, "Maybe tomorrow we'll go to the pool or the park. Then I get busy cleaning a sock drawer or writing an article or surfing the Web and before I know it it's 5:30 in the afternoon. Having a set time to be at a summer school class makes it happen. I go into a lazy mode in the summer and that's what I'm trying to prevent in my kids. Although I want summer to be more relaxed, I don't want it to be a stay-up-til-2 a.m. playing Minecraft-lounge-on-the-sofa-all-day-live-the-life-of-a-vampire kind of summer.

As the school year ended, I was just a bit overwhelmed. My father-in-law's health was declining and he passed away at the end of May. His memorial was a couple weeks later. We were also getting a party together to celebrate my parents' 50th wedding anniversary. All of that going on, combined with the regular busy stuff of the end of the school year and work commitments just had me completely drained.   I wasn't in a peppy lets-plan-out-the-summer mode. We were all in a sad, droopy kind of mode at the beginning of summer that we're finally getting out of.

However, my worst fears were realized as soon as school was done. One of my teenagers slept 'til noon every day for the first couple weeks off. I was staying up late since I had no reason to be up early and because nighttime is the easiest time to get work done when the kids aren't in school and are now around 24/7, preventing you from getting into a zone of concentration. I spent about 2 weeks going to bed at 2 or 3 a.m. and sleeping until 10 a.m. It seemed we were all wandering with no direction. So, I'm going to buckle up and map out the rest of our summer as much as I can. I'll leave some lazy days here and there to do nothing. A little bit of nothing is a good thing, a lot of nothing - not so much.

I thought maybe it would be good for us all to just have some unscheduled time and chill. And it was. Well, I think we've had enough of it. Like five weeks of it.