Natural Cures for Embarrassing Problems

As a mom, I've seen a lot of health related issues and I have a natural aversion towards medicine and medical doctors. First of all, I think that the medical community's faith on solely medical (i.e. chemical/pharmaceutical/surgery) cures is misplaced and their dismissal of natural cures in arrogant. Not long ago, I brought my teenage son to the pediatrician because he was getting terrible headaches every single day and was in a lot of pain. The doctor's answer was "It's normal for teenagers to get headaches. Give him some Advil." Really? If this was your child, would you be content with this answer? I ended up taking him to my friend Elana, who is a chiropractor and she has been helping him get rid of the headaches.

So I am always looking for a natural alternative when it comes to treatment of various problems. One of the most maddening problems I have had to deal with is head lice. With four girls with long hair in school, they have picked it up numerous times and once one has it, it makes the rounds.

After trying I think just about every product, method and remedy (most of which were not only ineffective, but also disgusting, painful and/or made you look like your head was dipped in oil for weeks afterwards), I have  created for myself a natural product that actually works. Anyone can get the ingredients and make it at home very affordably. Besides the fact that it works, the other nice thing about it is that unlike most store bought lice remedies, you don't have to use a whole bottle on your child's head. Just a few drops each time will do the trick. This saves money, creates less mess and avoids greasy head syndrome.

The remedy will not be effective it used alone; you also have to comb through with a good lice comb. Far and away the best one is the one called Nit Free. First, shampoo with coal tar shampoo. The brand name is T-Gel, but most drug stores sell a generic version that is cheaper. The shampoo will kill some lice and stun the more hardy ones, probably because it smells like a burning tire. Then, put conditioner on the hair and leave it on. Brush the hair to remove the tangles and squeeze out the excess conditioner. Comb through the hair thoroughly at least 3 times from multiple angles with the lice comb. Keep a white paper towel handy and wipe the comb on it after each comb-through. Once the hair has been combed through, put a few drops of the remedy throughout the head: in the middle part, behind each ear and at the base of the head. Brush the hair to distribute the remedy.

Lice remedy

Get a cobalt blue or dark brown glass bottle with a pump top to keep the remedy in. The remedy uses essential oils, which break down when exposed to too much light, hence the dark bottle.

2 tablespoons of sweet almond oil
10 drops of lavender essential oil
6 drops of neem oil
10 drops of peppermint essential oil
6 drops of tea tree essential oil
4 drops of rosemary essential oil
4 drops of lemon essential oil

Combine all ingredients in the bottle and swirl to mix. It is easier if you use a funnel to get everything into the bottle.

If the lice problem is bad, do this process twice a day, but the second time, don't use the shampoo or your hair will feel like straw. Don't forget to use conditioner or it will be too hard to comb through. If it is not too terrible, do it once a day until the problem is gone.

On to the next embarrassing problem - yeast rashes. Sometimes babies get them and sometimes adults do. No hydrocortisone or regular diaper creme works to get rid of them and they are super painful. The only real remedy that works is to daub the area with apple cider vinegar. Be careful - if the skin is really broken it will hurt! But it does get rid of it after about a week.

A True Hero

The girls with our beloved Striker

Three days ago, our dog Striker died unexpectedly. Apparently, he tangled with some animal that was poisonous and although he may have won the battle, he lost the war. He lived by the tooth, and died by the tooth.

Always a hunter, as you would expect a Pointer to be, Striker would always dash out the front door and stalk various animals, usually successfully. When he was just a puppy, there was a squirrel that used to scamper along the fence next to our bay window and chatter at him, driving him to distraction. One day in his crate, I found all that remained of that squirrel - a single leg. After that, he killed a number of animals in our yard and around the house. A two and a half foot iguana (without the tail) took out a little notch from his tongue in its losing battle with Striker. Another iguana he chased into the pool, and he also killed a possum and a water rat, and those are just the battles we witnessed.

With the family, he was loyal and loving. In the mornings, when I would cuddle with Miriam, he would crawl into bed with us and lie right on top of me, with his head on my chest, sometimes wriggling in between us to get the maximum attention. He used to follow me from room to room, no matter how comfortable he was. He would compete with the girls for lap space, always moving in to steal their spot when one of them got up from my lap. He gave each and every member of our family his complete and unconditional love each day. At the end, as dogs do, he went off by himself to spare us the pain of seeing him die.

I don't know why he had to die, at only 5 years old. I don't know why it had to be in such a painful way. But I am certain that somehow, even his end was an act of sharing. He removed some kind of judgment from us, sacrificing himself for the family he loved so much. For that, as well as for the gift of his love,  I will always be grateful. 

Rest in peace, noble dog, loyal friend, hero.

And a Little Child Shall Lead Them...

A lofty purpose?

A few days ago, one of our community members, Yosef, had a stroke. Yosef is not just an anonymous man who comes to services, does his thing and goes home. He is like an extra grandfather to my children, and is always kind and loving, dispensing hugs and lollipops every shabbat. 

We wish him a full return to health. Please meditate on him and send him healing - his name is Yosef ben Rachel.

When I told my daughters about what happened and that Yosef was in the hospital, Miriam burst into tears and sobbed in my arms for about twenty minutes. Then she, along with the others, set about making him get well cards, which we gave to his daughter-in-law on shabbat to pass along to him. 

But it didn't end there. All during the Torah reading and meditations, which lasted about two and a half hours, my 8-year old and my 6-year old sat in the lobby and scanned the Zohar to send Yosef healing energy. Later, Leah, the 6-year old, patiently explained to her little sister how to scan for healing. "You scan from right to left," she told Rebecca, "and you say 'Please, please, please, Man in the Sky, make him feel better!" (Okay, so I know we need to work on terminology, but still...)

I'm not telling you all this to pat myself on the back as a great parent. Through this terrible event, I got a view into my children's heads, and I was stunned by what I found. 

Most kids are self absorbed. The Zohar talks about how babies are born with their fists clenched tight, signifying their desire to receive for themselves alone. The growing up process is supposed to be us learning how to transform that into a desire to receive for the sake of sharing. As parents, we are constantly trying to instill good values in our children, and it may seem as if they just don't hear us. But they do. They hear everything you say (and a lot you don't say) and they store it away in their consciousness until they need it, and then they surprise you.

The other point I want to make is the amazing power in teaching kabbalah to children. You may think they are too young to grasp the metaphysics, and you are probably right. But there is a tremendous amount you can teach them, even at a very young age. If the spiritual seeds are planted and nurtured, they will grow, and these children will change the world. So, support programs like Success for Kids, which provides these invaluable lessons to kids from all walks of life, and all religious backgrounds. The world won't change until we change it.

Beeing Mindful: What We Can Learn From Bees

Bees are fascinating creatures. When we look at them, they seem at first blush very different from humans, but if you look at little closer, you will find that they have a lot to teach us.

1. When you live in unity with a shared purpose, you can receive all that you need to live, plus more. – Honeybees each have their own individual roles in the hive, but they all work in unity for the good of the hive. Working together, with the queen producing the next generation and some bees gathering nectar, others building the hive and feeding the young, etc., the entire hive prospers and produces more than enough honey to feed the colony. Try to surround yourself with people who share your goals and have complementary skills, so that you can all work together. Ideally, your family and your work environment will function like a hive. If not, choose the role of queen bee and try to bring unity to the group.
2. Choose a leader and follow him or her. – Honeybees have one queen, and that is the one they are loyal to. Whether you are talking about a spiritual leader or a spouse, pick one person that you are committed to and then stop looking for someone else who may be a little bit better.
3. Nothing is impossible. – According to the laws of aerodynamics, the bees’ small wings cannot possibly support their relatively large bodies, so it should be impossible for them to fly. Yet they do it. Maybe because they don’t know the laws of aerodynamics, they don’t limit themselves (sort of like in the Roadrunner cartoons where he runs off the cliff and doesn’t fall until he looks down).
4. Guard your entrances. – Bees produce a substance called propolis, that they spread at the entrance to their hives. The propolis seals the cracks in the hive and protects them from incursion from ants and viruses.  Similarly, we can make sure that our entrances, our eyes and ears, are protected from negativity. When people continually complain and find fault, when people speak badly of other people, we need to walk away or change the subject. We can also protect what we see by avoiding gratuitous violent or sexual images. And we can make an effort to surround ourselves with positive people with good values and avoid the other kind.
5. Choose your battles. – When a honeybee stings a person or animal, it dies because its stinger is closely attached to the rest of its body and the back part of its body comes off with the stinger. This makes it extra important for the bee to decide very carefully when it is worth sacrificing its life. So the next time you get mad about something, think if it is worth your life to react, because little by little, anger can lead to heart attacks and other dangerous conditions, albeit at a much slower pace than for bees.
6. Work hard. – We don’t say “busy as a bee” for nothing! Bees know the value of hard work, and they are willing to put the energy in to get their desired result.
7. Share your knowledge. – Like bees, people are not meant to be solitary creatures. When a bee finds a good source of nectar or identifies a potential threat to the hive, it communicates to the other bees through scent or by doing an elaborate dance. We don’t have to dance, but we should tell people we care about if we see an opportunity or a threat that may impact them. 
8. Immortality is possible. -  When archaeologists unearthed the ancient tombs of the pharaohs in Egypt, the found honey among the personal effects. Even after thousands of years, the honey was still good and perfectly edible! If we keep the right consciousness, we may be able to last as long and remain as sweet as that ancient honey. 

They Keep Going and Going and Going...

Remember when you were a kid and you couldn't wait until summer vacation? School was out and we went to camp. Well, my parents had one child, and I have five. Paying for camp for five kids is a bit out of my budget at the moment, so they are attending Camp Dublino.

The best part of Camp Dublino (for them) is that they get to sleep in. It's good for me, too, since I work from home and it gives me some quiet time in the morning to work uninterrupted. But there's a dark side - when it comes time to go to bed, they are not tired, not even one little bit. I have had to go in there yelling at midnight, one AM, and even later on occasion, because they are giggling and running around. And let's just say that when I am tired and can't go to sleep because of screaming girls, I tend to get a bit cranky. I will tell you that I am proud of myself for refraining from cursing at the little darlings (at least, so far).

These are the times when you wish they marketed a tranquilizer dart gun for children. You would just aim, fire and off to dreamland. If any of you is an inventor type, the idea is free, and I'll be your first customer.

My new strategy is forced labor. That is, if they can't go to sleep, at least they should be doing something useful with all that energy, so I make them clean their rooms. One of my spiritual teachers and fellow mother of five, Sarah Hardoon, gave me another strategy. She said when her kids wouldn't go to sleep, she made them stand in a particular place and told them they couldn't go to sleep. Eventually, the bed started to look really good and when they were exhausted, she eventually let them go to sleep.

What has your experience with getting kids (not babies) to sleep? Please share by commenting below!

My Other Life

My loyal readers may know (and hopefully love) me as a mom of 5, but I have another life - my work life. I am fortunate enough to do something I love to do: marketing. I have had my own marketing company, Pro Creative Marketing Group, for 13 years, and before that, I had another marketing company, Exe.com, which was responsible for selling, installing and teaching the teachers in the country's 3rd largest school district all about this really cool new thing called the Internet. (Yes, I know I'm dating myself here).

Pro Creative specializes in helping small and micro businesses stand out in the market, develop new sales channels and execute uniquely effective marketing programs. We write blogs for them, pursue relationships with their prospects through social media platforms, create new corporate identities, and advise them on product design and packaging.

If you have a small business and are looking for ways to differentiate yourself from your competition and find and connect to prospective customers, check out my business blog, The Pro Creative Buzz, or go to the main website, http://www.procreative.com.

Hope to see you reading and commenting here and also on the business blog!

Mind Yr Manners, Plz!

I know I am dating myself, but when I was a kid, we had an avocado green push button phone with a really long curly cord. You could go all the way from the kitchen to the dining room with it. When we left the house, we were unreachable unless we made a call from the phone at the place we were or used a pay phone.

Now, everyone, kids included, is tethered to their mobile phone. In one way, it gives us tremendous freedom, powerful computing abilities and multiple ways to stay in touch. On the other hand, we are now expected to be accessible to everyone, all the time.

This technology has also brought with it challenges in etiquette. Children, in particular, do not seem to know where to draw the line between staying connected to their friends and participating in real life with flesh and blood people in the same room.

Just today, my husband called our son Danny in to hang out with us for a few minutes before he went to his friend's house for a sleepover. The entire time, he sat on the couch texting. When I mentioned that he had to take the garbage out, he uncharacteristically jumped up to do it right away. Why? So when he was outside, he could continue his texting conversation without parental interference.

I found the same type of phenomenon when we went over to Tarpon Springs near Tampa to visit my brother- and sister-in-law and their children. The two teens were constantly looking down at their phones during almost all of our family dinner.

Here are my rules for phone manners, which I find myself needing to reinforce more often as my son gets older:
1. People physically present with you, even in the car, trump anyone on a phone or text.
2. Always try to engage the real people you're with in conversation. If they are otherwise occupied, it is OK to use the phone.
3. If I call or text you, respond first to me, and secondarily to any friends.
4. I don't mind some common abbreviations, but try not to sound like a total illiterate, even while texting.

This last one really irks me, because as a writer and editor, it bugs me when one of my children uses poor grammar or spelling. Last year, I read all of Jane Austen's novels. One of the things that really struck me was how beautifully the educated class wrote their letters. Back then, letters were the only way to communicate other than face to face, so how a person expressed herself in words was critical to how the world saw her. Now, I'm afraid that we have not only lost the art of lovely prose, but are in danger of losing even the fundamentals of spelling, grammar and sentence structure.

Let's try to preserve some semblance of civilization in our kids or at least common courtesy. I'll try if you will, and I think we'll all be better off for it.

Life on the Road

Last night, we arrived home after a 2-day, seemingly endless road trip from the mountains of North Carolina to South Florida. In the car were 5 kids, a dog, an intermittently cranky husband and yours truly, and behind us, we were towing a U-Haul trailer filled with furniture and whatnot.

It was a good thing we had the trailer, because I don't know how we could have fit all of our stuff in the car otherwise. On the way up, we had one less kid, since my son had gone a week early with his grandparents as a way of giving us extra room and reducing friction between him and his four sisters. Now we had him, plus all of his stuff.

We have an Expedition, so there are two back seats, and we were constantly doing a shell game, trying to rearrange the children to avoid fighting and minimize car sickness, as much as possible. On several occasions, the iPhone was our savior. When the little one was in tears because someone was mean to her, she stopped crying once she was offered the phone to play with. Other arguing was avoided by keeping the kids busy playing games or listening to music on the phone (a headphone splitter also came in handy). Of course, then we had fighting about who's turn it was to have the phone, but what can you do? Overall, it was a win.

Some of the car sickness complaints were successfully dealt with by putting a couple of drops of peppermint essential oil on a napkin and giving it to the girls to smell. I've found that having some key essential oils is a big help on a trip (and at home). Lavender helps minor cuts and scrapes heal quicker and relaxes the kids for bedtime. Tea tree, eucalyptus and lemon essential oils fight viruses and infections. It worked to help get rid of a nasty flu-like virus I had and that my daughter Mia was just starting to feel the effects of too. If you use essential oils, make sure you dilute them in another oil like almond or jojoba; otherwise, they can burn the skin.

Anyway, the good news is that we made it home safely. We will be returning the trailer tomorrow, which will be fantastic because I can't use my truck with that thing on the back since I don't know how to back up with it. When we got home, our pool was a swamp-like green color, but it is getting better since we added a bunch of shock. All in all, we're settling back in to normal life, with the exception of five kids rattling around with nothing much to do for the rest of the summer.

Anyone want to rent a kid or two?

A Slice of Americana

Every year, my kids look forward to the 4th of July parade in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, and this year was no exception. The town held the parade a day early, and as I was listening to the live bands in the park and looking at all of the happy families dressed in red, white and blue picnicking on the lawn, I thought that this is a bit of Americana that few people get to experience in the 21st century. It is like a Norman Rockwell painting come to life.

The parade features floats from local businesses, politicians and groups, dancing groups clogging their way down Main Street, fire trucks, tricked out equestrians, and a Shriner's band playing Souza tunes. There are clowns, old cars from the 1940's and '50's, dogs dressed up in patriotic ribbons, and a stiltwalker. This year, two of my daughters, Miriam and Leah, were also in the parade, tossing candy to the children along the street.

Blowing Rock is a small town nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains, populated by earnest, polite and hardworking mountain people. In many ways, it is a throwback to simpler times, when people would greet you in the street even if they didn't know you. Older kids can wander through the park, to the ice cream store and on to the public pool without supervision or fear. Children address adults as "sir" or "ma'am".

I sort of grew up with Blowing Rock, having visited it just about every year since I was around 8 or 9 years old. My parents have owned a home here for 30 years. When I was a kid, it was even more quaint and less commercial, with a real 1950's style soda shop named Storie's. But the main parts have remained the same, and I am grateful that my children get to experience it.

Blowing Rock is a welcome respite from the unrestrained materialism prevalent in Boca Raton. Our annual summer trip serves as a reinforcement of the values we try to instill at home: kindness, hard work, respect, sharing and good manners. Just because we live in modern times doesn't mean that we have to give up on those positive values that helped form this country. Perhaps if we all tried to tap into that old time Americana, we could pull ourselves out of our overconsumption of media and connect with each other in more meaningful ways.

A Poem for My Husband

This Thursday is my husband's and my 15th wedding anniversary. Many years ago before we were even married, I had a journal that I used to write in all the time. It was part diary, and had a lot of poems in it too. Occasionally, I would read the poems out loud to my husband (then boyfriend). So, he figured that because I shared some of the content in my journal, that he was free to peruse the rest of it. Not only did he read the private parts of my journal without permission, but then he got mad about some of the things I had written in it about relationships I'd had before I even met him. So, as a result of that huge fight, I stopped writing poetry.

Now, 15+ years later, I decided start writing poetry again. This poem, to my husband, is about how love changes over time.

When we first met
I dove into you
Head over heels
Shocked and delighted
Immersed in your eyes

That was long ago

I tasted a bite of madness
So madly in love was I
With your smile and the richness
Of your laugh

Many years ago

Now the madness has receded and
Sanity has returned
I no longer vainly try to quiet butterflies
At the thought of seeing you

Now I go deeper

Every part of me resonates with your soul’s music
Our love has left the sunny meadows and hills
It’s battled dark things
And glimpsed the Light

Words fall defeated when confronted with
Describing the fruits that have budded and ripened in our orchard
Each one more wondrous than a magical journey
Half remembered from a dream

And there’s more and more of you to know
Because love is ever expansive
Limitless
It’s about Now swaddled in Forever

And I still lose myself in the curve of your face

It Makes Me Sick

At the end of the year, we lost our health insurance coverage as my husband transitioned from a traditional job with an employer-paid health plan to being a consultant. The company was slow to send us our COBRA paperwork so we could have uninterrupted coverage and my daughter Miriam came down with a fever that lasted several days.

Normally, I wouldn’t have taken her to the doctor because it always seems to be the same diagnosis, a virus that you just need to wait out. But this time, she had already missed three days of school and she told me that she had a very sore throat and a stomachache, which I know can be symptoms of strep throat, so I made the appointment.

I had some doubts about whether we were still covered because the company had deducted money from my husband’s last paycheck for our portion of the health insurance premium, and I wasn’t sure if that was for the following month or the one that had just passed, and I thought I’d just have to take my chances and pay if necessary.

When I got to the pediatrician’s office, the first thing they did was check the insurance and got some nebulous status like “inactive,” rather than something definite like “cancelled.” I told the office staff the situation and they said they would try to contact the insurance company and get a clear answer as to whether we were covered or not.

They made me wait with my 8-year old sick daughter and 4-year old in the waiting room for over an hour. Finally, they called me up and asked me to sign a promise to pay, something they could have asked for when the issue first became apparent. Instead, they made us sit there, while we watched every other person go in to be called before us.

I signed the promise to pay. Then, because I knew that sometimes doctors will lower their prices to those who have no insurance, I asked if that was an option. No, I was told. Either they put in for the insurance or they reduce the cost for “self-pay” patients, but if the insurance company rejects the claim, then the patient must pay full cost, even though in effect, we would then become self-pay patients.

My daughters were getting antsy, to say the least, and Miriam in particular wanted to leave. She looked like she was feeling better, and in truth, she probably should have gone to school, but she’d milked it for all it was worth and got another day off.

I looked her in the eyes and asked her, “Do you really feel that you are sick and need to see the doctor or do you just want to go home, because it may end up costing me $100 or more.” I paused, and added, “If you are sick, we’ll stay.” As I’d expected, she elected to leave.

I’m not in the medical field, and I know that they have their own hassles to deal with, like collecting from insurance companies, processing mounds of paperwork, and, well, dealing with sick people. But I would imagine that when each of the doctors in that pediatric practice decided to pursue medicine as a career, and to specialize in pediatrics, if you would have asked them why they’d made that decision, they would have answered something along the lines of “to help people,” or “to help sick kids” and not “to make money helping sick kids whose families have health insurance.”

As I left the “Sick” section of the pediatric office that day with my two daughters, sick is just how I felt.

Christmas Cheer Only Once a Year?

There are a number of phrases used to describe the period between Thanksgiving and New Years, but the one that irks me the most is “the season for giving.” Don’t get me wrong. I love the concept of giving; it’s the season part that bothers me. Why should there be a season to give? There is a season for strawberries, a season for skiing, a season for planting, but giving is (or should be) a year round activity.

Do homeless people only need food and shelter at Christmastime? What about cancer patients? Do they only suffer and die in the last two weeks of the year? How about the millions of young girls in developing nations who are kidnapped, imprisoned and forced to work in brothels every year? Are they safe and happy the other 50 weeks of the year?

Maybe it’s time to reconsider the concept of a season of giving. The Kabbalists explain that the only way we can grow spiritually is to restrict and to share constantly. They also acknowledge that it is against our nature as humans to do so. It’s not easy. But don’t we owe it to ourselves to put in the effort even when we are not being reminded by the Salvation Army bell ringing on every corner?

At Christmas, Santa Claus is everywhere, and my kids when they were little, along with every other kid, got excited about him. “When is Santa coming to our house?” they’d ask me. Patiently, I explained to them that Santa is not a real person, but rather an idea. The idea is that of selfless sharing and unconditional love. Santa never takes for himself, only gives, and the giving makes him happy. This is a beautiful idea, and a worthwhile one. Even though it’s pretty abstract, my kids got it.

The idea is not to sit and wait for Santa, but to emulate him (and I don’t mean dressing up in a big red suit trimmed with fur), not just at this time of the year, but to do it all year long. That is the only way to make a lasting difference in our lives and in the world.

Public Opinion

When I go places with all my kids, I encounter all sorts of reactions. The most comment thing I hear from strangers is, “Are they all yours?” When I say that they are, I usually get some sort of blessing. I’m not knocking it; I will take all the blessings I can get. Sometimes I get other, more annoying reactions, though.

One time, we were on vacation and we went out to a restaurant. A man approached us and after giving our family a meaningful look asked us, “Don’t you have cable TV?” I am sure that he meant it as funny, but frankly, I had never considered television to be a form of birth control. That is kind of a scary concept to me, and anyway, not very reliable. We do have satellite TV, after all and (thank goodness) I consider my husband to be much more interesting than any program.

Some people look at us as if we are either really bad planners or freaks. I have actually had people ask if all of our children were planned. Yes, they were planned; none of my children is a result of a blonde moment. I am very clear on how the whole birds and the bees thing works and available ways of preventing conception, thank you very much. And no, none of my kids are twins; we didn’t get tricked by nature into having so many children. Likewise, we did not have so many kids because of religious restrictions or edicts.

The worst comment I ever heard was when I was pregnant with my youngest, Rebecca. I went to the OB/gyn for my first prenatal checkup and when I went to check out with the receptionist, she asked me if this was my first child. “No,” I told her with a smile, “it is my fifth.” The woman looked at me and replied, “I would kill myself.” With great effort, I restrained myself from giving her a piece of my mind. Suffice it to say that this person should not work at an OB’s office and is in desperate need of a filter between brain and mouth.

In the US, the average family size in 2009 is 2.05 children per woman, or basically zero population growth. However, in other times, the norm was 4, 5, and up to 8 children per family. In my family, my grandfather (born around 1910) was one of eight children, all sons. So the whole concept that having five kids is somehow undoable or bizarre is misguided.

They say that God gives you what you have the capacity handle, and I think that is true. When people marvel that I am so calm even with five kids, I reply that people who are high strung don't have five kids in the first place. I do know that I am thankful for each one of the very special people that I have been entrusted with. I am also grateful that in addition to my husband and me, they will always have each other. As an only child myself, that is important to me (and my husband, one of two children).

So the next time you see mom or dad with the courage to handle the hassles and logistics of taking a large family out in public, reserve the judgment and stick with the blessings. Specifically, you can bless us with abundant patience, peace and wealth because that is what we need.

Invisible Connections

This morning, my girls were running late to the bus. We dashed out to the car so I could drive them to the bus stop. They just made the bus, and I headed home.

It was foggy. Not just the ground-hugging fog that burns off as soon as the sun rises, but a real pervasive fog which was just starting to dissipate when I got home. While walking down the walk to my front door, I noticed an incredibly detailed spider web on one of my plants.

Each strand of spider silk was beaded with tiny drops of water that had condensed from the fog, so the entire intricate pattern of the web was visible. Then I started to look closer. There were spider webs all over: in groups of leaves in a cup shape, between branches in the traditional concentric circle shape. The webs were so densely and beautifully woven that they looked like the most delicate lace imaginable, something a fairy queen might wear.

Spiders have two sides. Many people fear them and they are associated with dark, evil and fear in just about every book or movie in which they appear. Some spiders are extremely venomous, and are even deadly to humans. Yet organic farmers consider spiders to be a positive addition, since they destroy nothing, while eating bugs that kill plants and crops. Spider silk is extremely light weight, but for its weight is stronger than steel.

When I’d run out of the house to drop my kids at the bus stop, I hadn’t noticed any of these incredible works of art, even though I went right by them. How many things of beauty or significance do we breeze by without taking any notice? We get caught up in our day-to-day life, in our routines and there are moments, important moments that we miss.

Just like the spider, these missed moments have two sides. The look of hurt on a child’s face when you make what you think is a funny comment, a close call that should have made you more cautious, but was promptly forgotten or dismissed as coincidence. A toddler’s look of accomplishment at mastering a new skill, or a flash of gratitude from your teenager.

Once I noticed the webs, I started to notice that they were not just local events. Most of the webs included strands that connected one plant to another plant, a fence or other object. And it got me thinking about how everything is connected, although we rarely see it. When you are kind to a stranger, that deed is connected to something out in the world that you may never know about. Maybe it results in another mother’s cancer going into remission or a child forgetting something and not being in a place where he was destined to be a victim of a drive-by shooting. And it works the other way, too. Refusing to give to a homeless man on the street with a cardboard sign may mean that you will be the next one laid off in your company. Your angry words might send someone into the bottomless pit of meth addiction.

I will be more mindful, more careful to listen and to notice. I will be more conscious of the unseen effect that my words, thoughts and actions have in the world. At least until I’m running late for the bus again.

Middle School Culture Shock

I wish someone had told me about middle school when my oldest child was still in 5th grade. It’s not that I didn’t talk to people about it; I did. But some people told me about the drugs and (unbelievably) the sexual activity going on in middle school. Another mother told me about how her son was mercilessly bullied until he was contemplating suicide. When I heard these issues being discussed about middle school, I was reasonably confident that my son was prepared and would not be affected by them, being a smart kid, who is strong and popular. But no one had prepared me for the fundamental culture shock of middle school.

I knew that the school was much larger than the elementary school and that the children changed classes, and therefore had many different teachers. However, I didn’t know that the attitude of the teachers and the administration would be so different. I want to make clear that the middle school is not far from where we live, so it draws from our neighborhood and the surrounding neighborhoods, including everyone who went to my kids’ elementary school plus kids from other elementary schools, so it is not a regional or socio-economic difference. It’s more basic than that.

For example, in elementary school, when a kid seems to be having trouble with either grades or behavior, or sometimes for no reason at all, the teacher will contact the parent to arrange a parent-teacher conference to discuss and resolve the situation. In middle school, there is no such reaching out by the teachers. Maybe it’s because they have so many students that they see every day, but if the parent does not initiate contact, there is no contact between the parent and the teacher even if there is a need for the child to get some help.

Another major difference is in how they handle discipline. For example, the kids have to change classes and they have five minutes to get from one classroom to another. If they dawdle and are late, instead of going to the office and getting a late pass, they are sent to the Tardy Room, where they basically sit there and do nothing. Then it is the kid’s responsibility to approach the teacher and ask for the missed classwork to do as homework.

So the idea is that you take kids who are a bit challenged in the area of responsibility and rule following and you allow them to miss class, first of all. This reminds me of the Song of the South books I read as a child, where the rabbit tells the fox “Please, whatever you do, don’t throw me in that briar patch!” So the fox throws him in there, exactly where the rabbit makes his home. Oh, no! You mean I don’t have to sit in class and I get to hang out with my friends and goof off? Please don’t make me go there again!

Then you put the same responsibility-challenged kid in a position where he has to be proactive about following up with his teacher to get the assignment. Basically, it’s a recipe for failure.

The guidance counselor told me that many kids coming in to middle school for the first time get carried away with all of the relative freedom of movement that they have there in comparison to elementary school, and this causes problems for them, particularly with boys. But apparently, this is something that parents have to find out for themselves, a sort of trial by fire.

The lesson in all this, I suppose, is that parents need to be much more nosy and on top of their kids once they get to middle school, just at an age where kids’ hormones are kicking in and they are the most resistant to overbearing parenting or restrictions on their activities. Just another reason why parenting is the hardest job in the world…

Vegging Out

Last week, I planted a vegetable garden. It is fairly large, about 9’ x 11’. My garden has tomatoes, Romaine lettuce, banana peppers, herbs (basil, cilantro, parsley, rosemary and French lavender), red peppers, zucchini, cucumber and broccoli, along with some flower seeds. Just today, I saw the first vegetables growing – five tiny tomatoes and a banana pepper.

You might think that I planted it for my kids to show them about where food comes from or as a fun family activity, but actually, it is just for me. It has become my little haven.

There is something so satisfying about working with plants and the earth. It has some qualities in common with parenting in that you feel like you are nurturing living things, but these beautiful growing things you see growing a little bit more every day and take pride in are quiet and still. They have simple needs; just some water and sun, protection from bugs, rabbits and dogs.

Every morning, I go out and water it and say the Ana B’koach (one of the most powerful prayers) to my plants. I feel the sun on my face and look at the growing plants and I start my day feeling great.

I’m not sure why it has this effect on me. Maybe it is the energy of the plants themselves. According to Kabbalah, plants have a positive energy associated with them. Surrounding yourself with plants including trees helps you restrict, so you have a little extra energy to say no to that piece of chocolate cake or to choose not to get angry. In fact, plants have their own holiday, Tu B’Shvat, the new year of the trees.

In any event, having the garden has helped keep me in balance. Right now, when I am surrounded by kids non-stop talking, screaming, laughing, crying and arguing, I'm longing for my garden’s sturdy growing plants with their sweet, sweet silence.

The Courage to Invite

We love to entertain. We have a one-story house with an open floor plan and a huge back patio and yard and we invite people over fairly often. We have to; that’s the only way we have any kind of social life.

Many moons ago, we had a social life where people actually would invite us to parties or over for dinner. But that was before we had five kids. Apparently, something about that number is very intimidating, even to close friends.

I like to think that they want to invite us, but just as the words are about to escape their lips, visions of their house in shambles appear in their minds, with small savages wrapped in remnants of their curtains running around screaming as they smash their antique chairs to make a bonfire in the living room. Then they dismiss that crazy thought and remark on the weather.

So we have people come here, and yes, we like it. For one thing, it forces us to clean and declutter the house. And, of course, we enjoy sharing. It is relatively low stress to have people here because the kids have activities they can do and places that they can go to give us a modicum of peace and adult conversation. But I always thought it sure would be nice if someone would make the mental leap and invite us to their house.

Then someone did. It was a couple with a little girl who is friends with my 5-year old, Leah. The girls play with each other on Shabbat at the Kabblah Centre. The father, Lee, is very nice. His wife, Debbie, it turned out, went to the same middle school as I did. But they certainly did not number among our closest friends. Even so, they invited us to their home one Sunday, and we, shocked as we were, accepted.

We had a lovely time. We ate and drank together, watched some football, and the children played in the backyard. Nothing was broken. And it got me thinking: here was proof that it was possible to bring our big family over to someone else’s house and for everything to be just fine.

So, armed with this new confidence, I started to subtly grouse to my friends about how no one ever invites us anywhere. Slowly, our friends are getting the hint. For the first time ever, we were invited over for Thanksgiving.

Previously, the only invitation for Thanksgiving we ever got was to my parents’ house. However, since they moved to North Carolina for half the year and my dad started to teach at the university there, his teaching schedule has prevented us from being together for Thanksgiving.

My in-laws come down from upstate New York around Thanksgiving every year, but they always spend the holiday with my father-in-law’s son in Tennessee. Of course, it is also true that my in-laws have never invited us up to see them when they are in Florida for the season. They prefer to make the trip down to Boca one or two times during that period instead.

So, getting back to this Thanksgiving, our friends, Martina and Wolfgang, invited us over to their house, along with a wonderful group consisting of another couple with a baby, a single mom with two kids and another lady, all good friends of ours as well. I had already bought a turkey for our planned solitary holiday celebration, as well as some of the trimmings, which I brought over to share with the group. I went over early and cooked and prepared with Martina, and then went home to fetch my tribe.

Once again, we had a great time. The children played with each other and occasionally came in to grab some food as the adults ate and chatted. Only a couple of things got broken – a glass jar of gravy (not my child) and some parts of a porcelain tea set (unfortunately, my kid), which I will, of course, replace. But over all, the impact was minimal.

Martina told me that she’d had to work up the courage to invite us over, but that it was worth it. Now, another friend is trying to work up her courage as well. We may end up having a social life again, after all. Yay! Lepers no more…

Vampire Children

Once kids reach adolescence, a strange phenomenon occurs: they start to resemble vampires. No, I don’t mean that they become fanged bloodsuckers (although the success of the Twilight series confirms their affinity with them). I mean that their schedules shift to staying up late and then having a tough time waking up in the morning. On the weekends, teens will often sleep until noon or later to make up for the sleep they are missing during the school week.

There are a bunch of physiological and developmental reasons why this is so, but the important thing is that it is fairly universal. As frustrating it can be to get your teen going in the morning, we can use this schedule shift to our advantage.

Parents of teenagers are familiar with the monosyllabic answers to the standard questions like, “How was your day?” or “What’s going on?” But miraculously, in the wee hours, teens tend to open up like night blooming flowers.

If you make yourself available sometime between 11:30 and 1:00 AM, you have a good chance of connecting with your teenager without the distraction of siblings, friends, or homework. Night is when your teen’s defenses are down and he or she will be more willing to talk.

Try a low-key approach with an open ended question and leave it to your child to talk, uninterrupted. Then just listen and make encouraging sounds interspersed with non-judgmental questions or comments. Restrain yourself from lecturing or giving advice because this will immediately stop the flow and shut your kid down like a hedgehog curling up into a ball at the approach of a predator.

My daughter Mia, although only nine and a half, has this sort of vampire schedule already. She falls asleep between 10:30 and midnight and then is in a deep sleep in the morning when it's time to get up. It is at this time that she is most vulnerable. When I'm not too tired, I sometimes talk with her about her day, and she is more reflective and communicative than usual.

You may miss out on some shut-eye, but it’s better than lying awake wondering what is going on with your child or being blindsided by moodiness caused by a problem that he or she had to navigate alone, and that you were unaware of.

The Teen Project

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you know that I have five kids, ages 11 and under. So why am I writing about teenagers? One of my readers with teen boys asked me if I had any tips on dealing with teenage boys. No, I realized, I have no clue how to deal with teenage boys even though I will have one of my own in two years. In some ways, I feel that I have one now, since my son acts with the same moodiness, anger and lack of communication that I associate with the teen years, even though he’s still 11. So I have decided to do a little research to prepare both myself and my readers for the dreaded teen stage.

I know it’s cliché, but it is certainly true that kids grow up much faster these days than when we were kids. Blame it on the hormones in soy products, or on video games or the Internet, but I have seen it in my children and their friends. My daughters started playing with Barbie dolls long before they had the fine motor skills to actually dress her in her tiny clothes. They grew out of Barbie and most other toys by the age of 7. Now they’re into makeup.

Danny, it seems, was a little boy for such a short time. Even though I did my best to shelter him, he has grown up even faster than the girls. The girls have each other to be silly with, but my son hangs out with friends who have been exposed to technology and grown up entertainment with few limits. By 3rd grade, most of his friends had cell phones. Most of them had Playstations and Xboxes and got to watch R rated movies, and this influenced his expectations. My husband tells me that this is what boys do now. I still fight it tooth and nail, but I also don’t want my son to be a social outcast.

There are still pockets in American where kids act more like we did at that age. Like in small towns in the North Carolina mountains, or kids who have gone to orthodox Jewish school practically their whole lives. My teacher at the Kabbalah Centre, whose 15-year old son has gone to orthodox school and has been brought up living the halacha (rules and commandments in the Torah, Talmud and other holy books), suggested that Danny could amuse himself during Shabbat with Pokemon cards like her son. Danny grew out of Pokemon cards at age 7. I didn’t know how to explain this to her, since it is clear that although they live only a couple of miles away, our sons live in different worlds.

In cities, even small ones like where we live, childhood has shrunk. It remains to be seen if this means that the struggle of dealing with teenagers will last that much longer, or if it will remain the same length, just end earlier.

So in preparation, I have been reading up about teenagers and also talking to friends who have survived the teen years with their kids. I will be passing along what I learn to you, in hopes that it will help you with your own teens or pre-teens. If you have any experience or words of wisdom to pass along, please feel free to comment on this or subsequent posts.

Here’s the first thing I have learned about teens: they have a split personality. It’s sort of a Dr. Jekyl, Mr. Hyde thing. On one hand, they are the sullen, angry child chafing at your attempts to communicate with, teach and direct them. This is the person that you experience on a day-to-day basis. But, often, when they leave your sight, they transform into a mini-adult who is capable of being responsible, kind and respectful. Seem impossible? Think about this.

Have you ever had your pre-teen or teenager go to someone’s house without you and then gotten a report back about how wonderful he is she is? I have. Many times, as I am thanking that person for her kind words about my son, I wonder to myself if she has mixed him up with another kid. Is this the same kid who, just the day before, needed to be told ten times to do his chore, and then did it half-way? Is this the same boy who got annoyed at his sister for the smallest thing, screamed at her and then took her prize possession and threw it behind the bushes where she’ll never find it? Unbelievably, it is.

In other people’s houses, my son is an angel. He is helpful, respectful and friendly. I regularly have parents begging me to let my son come over to play with their boys, or to stay a little longer if he is already there. I have mothers who are literally planning to marry their daughters to my son. There is an older man at the Kabbalah Centre who tells me that my son is the only kid he knows who consistently goes out of his way to greet him and treats him respectfully.

Here’s my theory about why this happens. It is just like when my daughter, Miriam, was two and she went to preschool for the first time. When I dropped her off, and sometimes when I picked her up, she would have a temper tantrum, screaming and crying. Of course, I was concerned. So I talked to the teacher and the headmaster of the school. During the entire school day, Miriam was not only calm, but was laughing and having fun, participating in the activities with the other children. It was only with me that she acted out.

Apparently, it is common that kids misbehave with their parents even when they are fine with other caregivers because they feel they can let loose a little and show their real emotions in a safe place. I think this is the same idea at work with teenagers. Plus, when they look at us, their parents, we look like a big bundle of limitations, rules, micro-management and babying. That’s why they act that way with us, and it's no wonder.

Bottom line, the experts advise, is just to know that you are probably doing a better job at raising your teen than is immediately apparent. Teens, in some buried part of their brains, actually listen to you and then act on the guidance, values and advice you have given over the years. Just not in front of you.

What Your Financial Advisor Never Told You

Attention, single people, engaged people, newlyweds, and expectant parents! Whether you are a major spender or a major saver, a planner or a seat-of-your-pantser when it comes to money, there is a dirty little secret that you will never hear from your financial advisor or just about anybody else. Here it is:

Pre-school is as expensive as college, and can last just as long.

If you ever went to a financial advisor, took a personal finance course or read a book about it, you have been repeatedly hit over the head with two things: save for college and save for retirement. But no one ever says “save for pre-school.”

Maybe it is because I live in Boca Raton, but my experience is that the pre-schools cost as much as tuition at a university. All this to teach toddlers their ABCs and to play nice with others. When you have multiple kids in at the same time, of course, the cost grows exponentially. Believe me, I’ve paid through the nose over the years.

My youngest three children were all born in December, which means that they missed the cut-off for kindergarten. Of course, this results in yet another year of pre-school and thousands more out of my pocket. Let me give you real numbers here.

The pre-school I have been sending my girls to for the past five years is a Montessori school right near my house. Their tuition for 8:30 AM to 3:30 PM, five days a week is $850 a month. That comes out to $7,650 for the school year (August through May) per child. Then you have to pay for summer camp, which conservatively will run you $200 a week, so an extra $2000 more or less, for a grand total of $9,650 per year per child. I thought this was expensive, so I looked into other pre-school programs in the area. They are even more expensive. One quoted me a half-day ( 9:00 AM to 1:30 PM) 5 days a week for $8,455 and full day (until 3:00 PM) 5 days for $10,330 a school year. Plus summer camp, of course.

Compare this with college. The University of Florida charges only $4,340 per year for in-state students, half of the pre-school tuition. On the other hand, private university like my alma mater, the University of Miami, is much more expensive. Its tuition is $36,188 two semesters. Yes, it is outrageously expensive. However, college students and their families have financial aid available as well as low interest student loans. On average, almost 80% of students who applied for financial aid got it, and they received over $17,000 against their tuition as a gift, bringing the total cost down to around $20,000 a year, only double the pre-school cost.

In addition, college students can work part-time to offset some of the cost. What are your toddlers going to do to pay for their pre-school tuition? Sell cups of homemade lemonade for $1,000 each?

This year, with the economy in shambles, I have elected to keep my youngest at home and keep that money in my bank. Next year, when she is 4, she will qualify for Florida’s state VPK program, which pays for 3 hours of preschool instruction a day. I think the pre-school deliberately puts the VPK hours in the middle of the day (noon to 3:00 PM) so you will be forced to pay for the “wrap-around program” for $585 a month, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

In the meantime, my advise to you is save now for pre-school. You will be glad you did!