Where's my van Gogh?

Not many 4-year-olds own a van Gogh, but my daughter Emily did. She held it carefully in one of her hands and fanned herself with it from time to time while searching upstairs, downstairs and in every hallway of the Cincinnati Art Museum. Emily was looking for a painting that matched her van Gogh postcard from the gift shop. Sometimes she would invite one of her friends to come along with us on the adventure. When we arrived, the girls would choose their favorite card from the back wall where the gift shop kept postcards of Cincinnati-owned art. Before purchasing, we’d ask the cashier to call to make sure neither of the works of art were in storage, before we spent the morning looking for them.

We stayed together, but I remained silent, allowing the girls to ask guards for directions and to make mistakes. After ending up in the same room 3 times, Emily FINALLY announced, “We’ve been in this room before! There’s that painting of the man in the black hat again! Let’s ask a guard for directions!” The girls eventually arrived at the proper room and seeing Emily’s van Gogh on the wall, shared a “touchdown-type moment,” hugging and dancing in tight little circles. I was pleased that the Emily and Paige were willing to take a few minutes to appreciate the skinny trees and van Gogh’s thick swirly paint, but having covered a lot of territory in their search, we soon headed to Graeter’s ice cream in Clifton for our traditional treat. A perfect end to a perfect morning.

Emily is twenty-one now and has wonderful memories of searching for her paintings. This summer we had a day off together and went to the museum to see our old friends hanging on the walls. As we passed the marble lion with his nose worn off, Emily remembered that he was Paige’s lion, guarding that same cavernous hall. And we saw Kayla’s favorite flower painting with numerous bugs still hidden within the petals. We visited Colleen's darling girls in the paneled room with their short haircuts and blue dresses. We hated to leave the old man in the black hat, but we were hungry and oddly enough, we both had a craving for Graeter’s mint chocolate chip.

Let it snow

I like to sing, but often don’t know even a third of the words in a song. Fortunately that doesn’t keep me from singing. I make up my own lyrics and will fill in here and there humming and doodle-de-dumming until I reach the chorus, which I can usually belt out with splendor. I’ve taught my daughter Emily every song I know (and don’t know) from camp songs, to show tunes, to 1940’s classics my parents crooned on long car trips across the country.  At Christmastime when the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful, we both rise in singing, “De-dum-de-de doodle-do, Let it snow; let it snow; let it snow.”

Sfathering

We all know what smothering looks like with too much attention and too much worry. I'm somewhat bothered that a word like smothering exists without its counterpart - sfathering. If a child can be smothered, couldn't a child also be sfathered?

Dads often are the ones who goad their children to climb higher in the tree, to ride faster on the bike, or to attend a college that's just east of East Jesus; sfathering can be just as annoying as smothering. Luckily, somehow our children find that safe and happy middle ground between our desires to smother them in protective bubble wrap and to sfather them to the roof of the car.

Nautical Gold - Trick to keep water from going up your nose when swimming

"Ann! Stop hanging on the wall!"

I hated swim team. My only moments of pleasure came at the end each lap, when I clung to the wall, tucking the curtains of my too-long-bangs back behind each ear. I tried to go unnoticed for as long as possible, catching up on my inhaling until finally the coach's whistle found me again, and I was off. Then came flip-turns and all joy in the sport was gone for me. Not only did I miss those regular intervals of oxygen and visual acuity, but now I had to contend with highly chlorinated water running through my sinuses at each and every somersaulty turn.

The solution to keep pool water out of my head came to me one glorious day when I saw the blurry end of the pool approaching and moaned a little. What do you know, bubbles came out my nose when I moaned!  With bubbles coming out, bubbles couldn't go in. I had discovered nautical gold. Humming soon replaced moaning as a more interesting way to keep a steady stream of bubbles flowing. And besides, there were countless tunes to hum to keep me company on the long and not so winding road of swimming.

When I was first married, I volunteered to teach swimming lessons at our local YMCA. I would get so annoyed when the other teachers instructed kids to blow bubbles with their mouths. Blowing bubbles actually MAKES water go up their noses. And that "up-your-nose feeling" makes it all the harder to get them to have another go at putting their faces in. I  started my beginning swimmers off by holding hands in a little circle in the shallow water. We'd pick a song we all knew like, Mary Had a Little Lamb. With our heads out of the water, we'd begin humming the song and then would gradually bend our knees until our humming heads were fully submerged. As long as the children hummed without stopping, there was a steady stream of air that kept water from going up their noses. It's an easy skill to practice in the tub too.

I still swim sometimes at the neighborhood pool in the summers. If you ever have the misfortune of swimming laps next to me, you might want to bring ear plugs.

Toast in Triangles - Starting Traditions

When I was little and lay on the couch recovering from a stomach bug, my mom would bring me a piece of toast cut into four perfect triangles. In my family, we always made our own breakfast, so having toast brought to you (in triangles no less) made me feel quite royal. I came to associate "triangle toast" with illness and with the extra-special-loving care one pours on loved ones during those times. 

Once I had a daughter of my own, I made sure that every time she was sick she got toast in triangles - another princess. One day when Emily was in second grade, I decided to send a little extra love in her lunchbox and made those thoughtful diagonal cuts to her ham and cheese. Emily came home from school declaring, 

     "Why did you cut my sandwich cut into triangles? I'm not sick. Let's save that for sick times."

Emily is 21 now and before going off to her senior year in college, she caught a cold. I buttered a piece of toast for her and listened as she snuffled from the couch, "Don't forget to do triangles!"

Traditions don't have to be elaborate, expensive or clever. An extra slice of the knife my mother made almost 50 years ago - and a crazy and beloved tradition was born. 

A great way to put in eye drops

Eye drops are a problem regardless of the age of your patient. The struggle to keep an eye open when a wet orb of water is about to collide with the eye's surface can be a challenge. I've found it's much easier to "do" eyedrops if the patient closes her eyes. While she lies down in comfort, simply squeeze one droplet onto that corner pocket of the eye on the nose side. Ask her to blink a few times, and it magically goes right in without all the trauma.

I even give myself eyedrops this way. It's harder of course, because you have to keep the tip clean and yet navigate blindly to where you think the corner pocket of your eye might be. Usually I miss the mark and then like one of those maze games with a rolling BB, I move my head around to steer the misguided droplet into my corner pocket where I can blink it into action.

Playing with Money

Once choking on change was no longer a hazard, we dumped a quart mason jar filled with quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies onto the carpet. My little one and I played in puddles of coins just like Donald Duck's nephews. We rolled in money, tossed it back and forth and made forts out of columns of pennies. Emily came to recognize the presidents' faces and differences in coin shapes the more she handled and sorted them. And honestly, who could ever tire of rolling in money? As Emily got older, we replaced the fake money for real money in our board games. Presto Chango and Monopoly are a lot more fun when you're counting up the real thing.

When Emily was four, we started an allowance system. Each Monday morning Emily received her age in one dollar bills stuffed neatly into the napkin holder on the kitchen table. She had until Saturday dinner to complete her four-year-old chores. The dollar bills served as "the nag" as they were forever falling out at each meal whenever we grabbed for a napkin. Emily had all week to empty bathroom garbage cans, to squirt down bathroom sinks and counters with vinegar  water and to wash the windows of the front door. If her chores hadn't been completed in time, the money disappeared and she had to do her chores after supper that night without receiving her allowance for the week. The next Monday morning though, four dollar bills would once again appear in the napkin holder as a reminder to complete her work sometime during the week. 

It was really hard as a parent to allow Emily to fail - sometimes several weeks in a row - but we let the napkin holder do its thing and eventually she got better at remembering. On weeks when Emily received her $4 for completing her chores, she distributed one dollar into each of four mason jars she'd decorated. One had an ice cream cone on it. (That was for impulse buying). One had a picture of something she was saving up for. Another had a red cross on it for whatever charity she wanted to give money to and the last one had a picture of a house drawn on it with the words "college" written under it. Every birthday another dollar was added to the napkin holder and another job was added to her list of chores. One dollar always went into each of the four mason jars, and as her allowance grew, Emily was allowed to divvy up the rest in whatever ways she saw fit. She sometimes asked us to break a one so she could have more control over how she divided the extra dollars in her allowance.

When the ice cream truck came down the street playing its signature tune of, "I had a little chicken and it wouldn't lay an egg" all the kids ran home as fast as they could to get money to buy popsicles and ice cream sandwiches. When Emily burst through the front door huffing and puffing she asked,

     "Mommy, can I have money for the ice cream truck?" 

     "Sure," I said. "You can use the money in your impulse buying jar or you can grab a free popsicle from our freezer and eat it outside with your friends."  

Sometimes Emily would buy the red, white and blue rocket popsicles from the ice cream truck and sometimes she'd go with the free grape juice popsicles in our home freezer. When her friends invited her to go to a movie one time, she couldn't go because her "impulse buying" jar was empty. Next to giving birth to her, this was the hardest thing I ever did. My husband and I allowed her to miss the movie. We comforted her and offered to watch a movie with her from our video collection at home. After that, I noticed that Emily started eating more popsicles out of the freezer and made sure she never completely drained her impulse jar. It felt good to see her making choices about how she was deciding to spend and save her money. 

Emily was also really proud of her work around the house. At four, it was her job to wash the narrow window panels on either side of the front door. Right after she'd completed her window washing one day and we were sitting down to dinner, the neighbor girl Paige rang the doorbell with her nose pressed impatiently against the glass. Emily melted a bit in her seat and tisk-tisked, 

     "Oh No! Not on my nice clean windows!" 

Each time Emily's college jar reached $50, I'd buy Exxon stock. Sitting on the porch swing in the garage with Exxon's Annual Report in her little lap, she checked up on her investment by looking carefully at all the pictures. She also enjoyed watching her money grow when I showed her the quarterly statements.

When Emily turned 14 the allowance ended, and she got a weekend job at the neighborhood bakery. We stopped using the mason jars and left it to her to manage her giving, spending and saving. But in those ten years of saving and 14 years of growth, Emily's college Exxon stock grew to $1,200. She's used this money to purchase college text books. With careful planning, renting books, sharing with friends and buying used and selling, she's managed to stretched her Exxon funds so they'll cover her for all four years. It's popsicles all over again.

Books beyond the cupboard

I love books. Every shelf of the antique cupboard in our family room and even the shelves in the office closet are crowded with picture books from when our daughter Emily was little. I have no trouble parting with my own books but can’t seem to give away Mrs. Armitage on Wheels, Mr. Putter and Tabby or Shell Silverstein’s hilarious poetry and drawings. These characters from yesteryear are the dear friends who helped us raise our daughter to be the twenty-year-old woman she is today. Of course I’ll make room for them.

During a phone chat with Emily, she surprised me by saying how often she thinks about one of the paintings from a book we used to read together called, Sister Wendy’s Book of Prayer in Art. When something bad happens, she is reminded of the story of a person in a boat who must tell the oarsman which way to go. Should they head for the lovely island bathed in light or to the desolate and dark one? Thinking of herself in that boat - making the choice of how to feel about her difficulties - helps her to remember that she can’t always choose what happens to her, but she can choose how she’s going to feel about it.

As Emily’s mom, I sometimes find myself in “the boat” heading toward the dark and dreary island. I mourn the loss of Emily’s 3-year-oldness when I was adored daily and needed thoroughly. But thanks to a children's book, I am able to turn the boat around and head for a more pleasant place. Emily has become an independent woman. That's not defeat; that's victory. Mr Putter, Mrs Armitage and the other characters pressed between the pages are alive and well. Yes, these books do indeed go far beyond the cupboard.

Barns are more fun to clean than bathrooms

Who wouldn't rather clean a barn than a bathroom? I wanted Emily to have responsibility for her own bathroom. From the age of 4 she was wiping surfaces clean with a paper towel and a spray bottle of diluted white vinegar. I expected her to hang her towel over a free-standing towel rack each day and to drape the bathmat over the edge of the tub. Each year a dollar was added to her allowance and another family chore - now that she was bigger. When I referred to her bathroom as a barn and we turned the edge of the tub into a horse named Princess and the towel rack into a mule named April, she suddenly remembered to drape her "horse blankets" on the "horses" more often. And when she didn't, it didn't sound as mean when I said, "April and Princess are cold" than when I used to say, "You forgot to hang up your towel and bath mat again!"

Secret Language to Stop Bad Behavior

Emily and I have a lot of code words or tunes we've used over the years as ways to get our points across without hurting each others' feelings. Many of them were only appropriate for a toddler or young child, but some we still do to this day.

• Somehow it seems less rude to be hurried by the Bug's Bunny chase song than to be told, "Hurry up!"
• When one of us is doing something annoying, we ask, "When's Memorial Day?" This is our code for "Stop it!" 
• After reading the book, The Little Dog Who Would Not Wag His Tail, "Wag your tail!" whispered behind Emily's neck was my reminder to her to be more friendly. 
• I'd whistle or hum a bit of Rosemary Clooney's song, Straighten up and Fly Right, as I tidied the house around Emily and her friends. This was my code to Emily that she was being being bossy or mean. Her friends didn't notice what I was doing at all, but Emily would say, "Thanks Mom - I got it." It gave her that immediate feedback little kids need to correct bad behavior, without embarrassing her in front of her friends. 
• Zabbazee is the phrase our family yells when someone says something from some far-off place and imagines that you heard them. "Zabbazee" yelled back let's them know in a nice way, "Get over here and talk to me face to face."
• My dad had a singsongy 2 note whistle that my sister and I knew as a warning call. If we didn't stop the shenanigans, there'd be trouble.

1-2-3 I-Love You

If your kids are little, I'd recommend you start a 3-squeeze secret code with them making sure they know it means "I-love-you." My dad used to squeeze our hands 3 times saying one word of the phrase with each squeeze. It was great when we were little, but when it came in really handy was once we were teenagers. At that age, you don't always want to hear your parents say, "I love you." But when my dad would knock on my knee 3 times while we were sitting at a football game or when he'd reach over at the kitchen table and jab me 3 times with his fork, it seemed like just the perfect thing to do. When my husband and I started dating, I taught him the 1-2-3 squeeze. The most wonderful time he 1-2-3ed me was when we had sold our first home and were buying the next all in the same day and our buyer fell through killing both deals. As I followed my husband home in my car after our disappointing evening at the bank, my husband's brake lights lit up in front of me on the highway as he touched them 1-2-3 times. Sometimes an "I-love-you" touch is still just the perfect thing.

Let's Do Christmas

"What shall we do today, Emily?"
My 3-year-old answered back, "Let's do Christmas!"

It was nowhere near December 25. I don't know where she got the idea, but I thought it was a good one. Christmas is so special it should be celebrated at least twice a year anyway. I called my husband at work and told him to invite his boss's family over for Christmas dinner tonight; Emily and I were going to spend the day doing Christmas.

Emily and I pulled out the holiday decorations, sang along with the Little Drummer Boy's "A Rum-pa-pum-pum" and had a great time making Christmas cookies, wrapping a few presents and preparing a Christmas dinner that we all enjoyed. "God Bless us Every One!"

Learn to read using a microphone or southern accent

Everything is more fun when you use a microphone. I have a karaoke machine I've never used for karaoke. I tutor kids in the neighborhood with reading and they have so much more fun reading out loud when they can do it with echo and special effects. We also sometimes take turns reading a page using our best British or Southern accents.

Notes from the Past

Even though Emily's in college, I still enjoy the misspelled-early chicken-scratch handwriting I saved and taped in various spots around the house. We have a clothes-shoot in the laundry room where years ago I placed an "I luve yoo Mommy" message on the inside of the little metal door. Nothing takes the edge off the heinous task of doing laundry than seeing that memory smiling back at me. I draw encouragement when I'm about to make cookies when I see Mom's confident loops and even lines on the recipe card. And when I face possible electrocution before jump starting my car battery, I can easily consult the correct page in the vehicle's manual with the decades-old-homemade-birthday card my dad made that I've left in there as a bookmark. I'm comforted by my Dad characteristic last line, "I loved you first" written in his nearly illegible cursive handwriting.

Sleeping in the Closet

When our daughter Emily was little, she asked if she could sleep in her closet. My first impulse was to say NO, but I stopped myself and asked, "Why not?" I cut a foam pad to lay in the bottom. I scooted everything down to the other end and made a place for her little legs down that blind alley where nothing can be stored conveniently anyway. I called the fire department because after 2 months of this my dad said he was nervous about what would happen if there were a fire. The fireman on the phone said that no fireman worth his salt would ever leave a room without looking in the closet and that sleeping on the floor actually gave her protection and extra minutes from smoke inhalation. I insisted that during night-time hours the sliding door needed to remain open and she had no problem with that. Emily lived in her cozy little closet for about 6 months before making the move back to her bed.

Conversation Ping Pong

Jumping rope reminds me of the art of pleasant conversation. Both require timing and practice.

As the rope slaps the pavement and whirs overhead, you must find your moment to jump in. There can be no hesitation or the rope falls to an awkward stop. Conversation and jumping rope both require rhythm and guts to enter in to the madness.

I invented a game I called Conversation Ping Pong to give my daughter some extra practice. The object of the game was to keep the conversation alive. We volleyed questions back and forth to each other trying not to let the conversation die in our lap. We pretended to be other people to liven up the dialog when our own lives paled. I'd ask her if her husband liked his new job and what her twins were up to. What were their names again? Our made-up chit chat was not only entertaining, but gave her confidence and taught her the rhythm of a good conversation.

Go Fish!

Bring relatives who live far away into your home each day by playing Go Fish with their faces in a home-made deck of cards. Simply have double prints made, trim them down to playing-card size, shuffle and begin.

"Do you have an "Aunt Jen?" GO FISH.

Don't Pave Paradise to Put Up a Parking Lot

Just below the surface of plush carpets, delicate china, and tidy rooms lies the basement, “the other world,” - a place belonging to children with its cement floors for roller skating, gray metal poles for shinnying, and exposed-joist ceilings where you can hang swings. A parallel universe where upstairs rules don’t apply. Parents open the door only to announce mealtimes or to toss down a toy that spun beyond the borders.

Why are we in such a hurry to fix up the basement so we can park ourselves in front of the big-screen TV? An unfinished basement is a beautiful thing - where no one minds if you spill paint or nail sheets and cardboard from the ceiling to make a fun-house maze; where Tarzan can swing from a rope and jump on old mattresses; where plastic swimming pools are filled with sand or beans. Consider what you could be losing before you pave paradise to put up a parking lot.

Cardboard Town

My sister and I made tunnels and houses out of refrigerator boxes spread all over the basement. It kept the neighbor kids and us busy for weeks planning and decorating our cardboard boxes.  It all culminated in a mega slumber party in our little cardboard town.

Playing Elevator in the Closet

Kids love small spaces. I used to play elevator in the closet, pushing all the coats to one side. Every 10 minutes or so my mom would come by asking for a lift to the second floor.