I am bored. If there is any mantra that epitomizes summer with children, that phrase is it. As their mother, the words send me into a tailspin. Childhood should be happy, joyful, and adventurous. Not boring. What can I do to pull them out of this distressing state? My suggestions yield little fruit. “I don’t want to do that.” By the time the kids are done nixing my propositions, I feel just as bored as they do. Signing them up for yet another summer camp becomes appealing. But what would I be depriving them of if I rushed to fill those empty hours?

Kids have a miraculous ability to feel boredom whether they have access to stacks of the best selling kid books (the library), the latest DVDs, a new slip n’slide, or the top-rated game for their game system. The result is the same. I’m bored.

Setting doesn’t seem to matter either. My children spend most of their summer deprived of the ability to flip through the channels of a television, along the banks of a small lake. They, justifiably, in their opinion, managed to utter that phrase of tedium on a particular day, despite the fact that their morning involved tracking an army of ants to their home, feeding a lost baby Robin a worm, catching no less than 4 toads, and built and decorated a toad-condo out of an empty cardboard box. The fishing gear, rafts and water trampoline had yet to be touched. At that moment, I looked at one sincerely sad face, and into his bewildered eyes, and laughed. Preposterous. “You don’t even have the slightest idea what being bored feels like,” I decided.

Maybe, they aren’t really bored. Perhaps kids just aren’t used to the feeling of autonomy after spending most of their year being told what to do, for how long, and when. When they get home from school, there are more books to read, and more worksheets to be completed. At their sports practices and music lessons, they are to practice drills, in this particular way, for this amount of time.

When school vacation starts, kids suddenly have free rein of their own time. They are baffled. “What am I supposed to do?” they may wonder. This newfound independence must feel strange. Kids have given this, this freedom, a name of their own — boredom.

As adults, we don’t have the luxury of boredom – or freedom. If there is the slightest millisecond when the feeling of ennui takes over, we suddenly remember the emails that need answered, the leaky faucet that needs adjustment, or the fact that people will be hungry in just a few hours, and something needs to be prepared.

Some child development experts say kids don’t have enough time to feel the all-important “boredom.” Boredom sparks a child’s creativity, giving a child the needed time to use his imagination to turn clouds into animals. For only a few months of the year, kids now have the chance to think for themselves.

Now when I hear the words, “I’m bored,” I smile back, remembering that what a child really wants is permission: The assurance that it is OK to use his own power of choice. When I hear the words, “I’m Bored,” I simply look back and say, “You mean, you feel free?”

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Once the woman has three children, her household chores go up to 28 hours per week, while the man gains ten hours. (The study stopped at 3 children; but if they would have asked me, I would have told them what happens when you have four boys. The number shoots up to 1,432, exactly.)  Housework is defined as laundry, cooking and cleaning, and this study excluded the time moms spend scheduling doctor’s appointments, sports and play dates and keeping track of everyone in the family. But dads do much of the maintenance, yard work and car repairs, which was also excluded from the study. Yet, those tasks only took about one-quarter of the hours women spent on core household tasks.

But what about men working outside the home? That should count for something, right? Michael Burda of Humboldt University in Berlin, Daniel Hamermesh of the University of Texas, and Philippe Weil of the Free University of Brussels have analyzed data from surveys in 25 countries and found that in the United States, men average 5.2 hours of market work a day and 2.7 hours of homework each day, while women average 3.4 hours of market work and 4.5 hours of homework per day. Adding these up, men work an average of 7.9 hours per day, while women work an average of 7.9 hours per day.

Yet, mothers have not always done all the housework either. In her book More Work For Mother, Ruth Schwartz Cowan reveals

Mother’s Day Art: My Mom Can Do Anything

(and hey, you, my own flesh and blood, my eyes are BLUE, remember?)

that it was the man who once held the primary responsibility of putting bread on the table — literally. Man tilled the soil, grew the wheat and had it milled. The man grew the grain, fed the livestock and butchered the animals. Once meat was available in tins, livestock was no longer necessary to feed the family. It was the industrial revolution, really, that relieved men and children of their chores: Men went to factories to earn the money to buy the goods they no longer produced at home, (meat in tins, white flour, woven cloth), and children went to public schools. Mom was left behind, alone, with her new labor saving devices, and higher expectations to do and create more. Mountains of laundry, for example, hardly existed until factories made it possible for families to buy cloth cheap. Until then, people only owned a few items of clothing that were hardly washed. Today, we need walk-in closets to handle all of our stuff.

We never expected as much from our brooms as we do of our vacuum cleaners. Our appliances may make our homes cleaner, but they come with the accompanying advertisements, and guilt, for spotless sterile homes that hold no evidence that humans, pets or the dust of the earth has ever crossed our thresholds. It’s tough to relax among the standards the media places on us.

Thankfully, these new labor saving devices have greatly increased the cleanliness, safety and hygiene of our families. Did they really save us time? Cowan says, “Women still spend as much time on home maintenance as they did eighty years ago, with less help.”

Women today are the victims of what Sharon Lerner, author of The War on Moms: On Life in a Family-Unfriendly Nation, says moms are part of the “great sea of beleaguered and overburdened people in America—mostly women, but some men, too—stuck between the need to support their families and the desire to live a decent life with them.” She adds, “Moms do not have enough time to handle the inevitable overflow of domestic responsibilities.”

So many moms feel literally choked by our unrelenting responsibilities. Is the reason our to-do list grows instead of shrinks simply because it is impossible? Are we still living by the household standards of our ancestors, who had husbands, children, and extended families pitching in and helping with the chores? We’ve been trying to find balance all this time, and society can’t even begin to support what we’ve taken on.

A little publicized fact came out in the University of Michigan research is that while moms still carry the heaviest load of core chores, men’s housework has increased to 13 hours in 2005, from six hours in 1976. Women’s work was never meant to be a woman’s work alone. It’s nice that dads are agreeing to share in the chores, just like their forefathers did.

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So, this month, the story of Brownie, the school bunny that met her demise in our home, can creeping in like a whisper. I gave the story the wings it wanted, and sent the article off over a week ago. Only yesterday did it dawn on me that perhaps writing a story that shows up during the Holy Week about a bunny was probably quite brilliant. But writing about a bunny that dies? What was I thinking? My embarrassment overwhelmed me. Why didn’t I make the connection?

Thank you to all of you who are stopping me in the stores, the street and at the school to thank me for the story. Because, the truth is, giving kids the honor of telling them the truth about death makes them feel like the important people they really are. That’s a story for any season. Thank you to all those people out there who helped me see this.

Here’s the column:

We carried Brownie out of the elementary school building on a Friday, while she snuggled among the newspaper clippings in the bottom of her cage. The halls were filled with well-wishers, saying “Bye Brownie,” veteran hosts, who promised, “Brownie is lots of fun.” So many people knew Brownie, that I wondered if maybe the bunny had already visited at least half of the families in the school with children grades 3 and up.

Brownie’s care package included a scrapbook, including photos and notes from previous sleepovers; a care instruction book; and a supply of food. Bunnies like to chew everything from electrical wires to shoes, I learned, so it would be best to keep her contained when she’s not being held. She also arrived with her own portable outdoor fence, and when the kids pleaded to take Brownie outside, I had a panic vision of myself chasing the bunny up and down the streets. By Sunday morning, I feared, we’d be at Kinko’s making “Wanted” posters with Brownie’s face (scanned from the scrapbook) plastered on the top, and my phone number below.

Alas, a bunny chase was not to be my fate for the weekend. Things started out well – Brownie was rotated from lap to lap, in 15-minute increments during the Saturday morning cartoon ritual. Carrots were pulled from the refrigerator for “special snacks.” By Saturday night, Brownie, like me, seemed tired from all the excitement of living in a house full of boys.

When I tucked my 3rd grader into bed that night, a tear dropped out of his eye. He wasn’t ready for Sunday, he wasn’t ready for Monday, and certainly wasn’t ready to send Brownie back to school. “Lucky for you,” I said. “We’re on the schedule again in two more weeks.” I left him with a smile on his face, and eyes that were finally closing.

Alone in the living room, I heard a crash. Brownie was doing back flips, forcefully enough to make the cage jump a few inches across the floor. Her acrobatics lasted less than a minute before the silence came… the stillness… the missing breaths… the lost heartbeat. Betsy O’Brochta, Brownie’s “mom” drove over as soon as she hung up the phone. As hard as those moments were for her, she was thinking just as quickly as me about what we could tell the kids to “ease their pain.” “Maybe,” we said, “Brownie wasn’t feeling well. So we called the vet, and Brownie died there?” Maybe.

Now I finally had the exception to that cardinal rule at First Community Church Preschool, “always tell children the truth.” Could I tell this story with the conviction I needed? The idea of shielding him from the pain was as comforting as pulling the blankets around him to tuck him in. Yet, it left me feeling uneasy. I sent an email that night to Holly Cavallaro, a teacher at FCC, saying, “Just to spare my son’s feelings, I’m burying the truth.” Her response surprised me; yet made the entire event crystal clear. “You’ll be telling this story for years,” she explained. “If you don’t tell him the truth, you’ll always have to change the story when he’s around. Eventually, he’ll learn this from someone else. He’ll be hurt again.” Why not say, “Isn’t it nice that Brownie felt safe enough to spend his last day with people who really loved her?”

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From my Newspaper Column for the SNP

She has removed the password from his Caring Bridge site, because she wants to spread the word. Seth needs prayers. The next 24 hours are critical. Feb 5, 2010 was supposed to be a day of celebration. The date would have marked the end of Seth’s 6-year battle with leukemia. Instead, Seth received more chemotherapy for the illness that was supposed to leave the 13-year-old alone by now. They also received the devastating news that not one of his 3 sisters is a bone marrow donor match.

Yesterday, a throbbing headache led Seth back to the hospital, where they learned he is now septic. He has no white cells to fight the infection. You can read the details and updates here.

All I can think about is the day, 9 years ago, when Seth was dressed like Robin Hood, running around the tree house in our backyard. Wendi, loving mom, made the costume. She made all of Seth’s costumes — including the Obi-Wan Kenobi , Buzz Lightyear, and Jedi Knight costumes. We were always impressed by her talent. The sun lit up Seth’s golden hair, and his blue eyes twinkled at me as he gripped his light saber, wondering if I was going to take away the light sabers because they were all hitting too hard. Our boys were so young and small then; we could pick them up with one arm, and hold them tight. All day long, I’ve been stuck on that day, trying to will it back. I just want to help my friend.

But we are not there. We are here. His parents want to help spread the word about bone marrow donations. I will do my part. Wendi says, “It’s one of the few organs you can donate without being dead to do it.”

Each year, we donate our blood to stock the blood banks, and this is as routine as filling up the car with gas. But how many of us have ever considered donating our bone marrow?

For some, fear is the reason we’ve never considered this gift. Fear can always be traced to unknowns. Here is what is known: No pieces of your bone are taken. Seventy five percent never need surgery; in most cases you’ll only need to give peripheral blood stem cells, which is similar to donating plasma. A bone marrow donation is a surgical procedure, done under anesthesia. Yet, both are treated as outpatient, and you go home the same day. Some donors are sore afterwards; some are not. In 2-7 days, most donors are back to normal. Most donors say they would do it again to save a life.

Thanks to advances in medicine, many of us will be hearing more about transplants; they’re increasingly becoming a path to save lives. Sometimes, it’s the only hope people have. Just like Seth, over 70 percent are unable to find a donor match within their family. Yet, even with a registry of millions, many patients still cannot find a match.

You can visit www.BeTheMatch.org to join the Be The Match Registry online. They’ll mail you a kit so that you can simply swab your cheeks at home and mail it back. Or, you can register in person February 20 at Premier Women’s Health, (614-459-1000 Ext 2007), from 8 a.m.– 1 p.m.

Since he won’t be getting a bone marrow transplant from one of his sisters, Seth hopes to get his marrow from “someone famous…. that would be cool.” Wendi wrote on Seth’s Caring Bridge web page, “In my eyes, the person who shares this gift of life with my son may not be famous, but will be truly heaven sent. An angel. A lifesaver. What more could you ever hope to be in this world?”

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I saw no stars on that cloudy night at the Perkins Observatory. Instead of stardust, the astronomers there sprinkled my mind, and the minds of the first- and second-graders there, with wonder.

They reminded me that when we look up, we see the past; the light is already billions of years old. They reminded us that our vast galaxy is just beginning its life. Our 4.5 billion-year-old sun is still less than halfway through its life. The future lying ahead is more prolonged than the past we’ve seen.

These concepts are staggering to comprehend, but the gem here comes from remembering what my seventh-grade history teacher used to repeat: “You can’t understand the future until you understand the past.” Four hundred years ago, Galileo turned his telescope away from the sea and began to look at the heavens, and thus 2009 is our International Year of Astronomy (IYA).

Galileo’s shift of his telescope changed the world not simply because he looked, but because he observed the sky night after night while meticulously filling in the details in his observing log. He saw that the stars do shift positions, and when one star vanished, he discovered not a star, but a moon hiding behind Jupiter.

Because our word shares the same sky, astronomy is a great unifier, and may even hold our potential for world peace. Satellite pictures of our earth show us the geographic boundaries of our continents, while the political boundaries vanish.

This revelation led astronomers in Iran to create StarPeace, a project of IYA to hold joint public star parties near the borderlines of two neighboring countries. On Dec. 4, people from Indonesia and the Philippines came together to make a peace bridge on South China Sea, with teachers and astronomers offering free public viewings of the stars through high-powered telescopes.

The amateur astronomer George Eric Deacon Alcock discovered five comets on his own through meticulous viewings and recordings in his observing log. Backyard astronomers, like you, can use their eyes, telescopes and binoculars to create their own observing logs. Binoculars provide a wider field of view than telescopes.

In the winter, no other constellation is more distinct or bright as Orion, the Mighty Hunter. This month, if the sky is clear — a minor  miracle — look for three bright stars that form Orion’s Belt. One of the brightest stars in the night sky, Rigel, represents Orion’s foot. His two shoulders are made of the stars Bellatrix and Betelgeuse.

Orion will wait for you; he will remain recognizable in the night sky for the next 1 to 2 million years, making it one of the longest observable constellations.

As we stand solidly on earth looking up, we can barely fathom our place in a galaxy that is showing us our billion-year-old past. But imagine, for a moment, looking at earth from space, where there is no solid footing. An astronaut once revealed to me the universal secret astronauts hold: They are homesick. Not for earth, but for space.

He described the familiar heavy pull of gravity as the carrier sped back toward earth, and he instantly felt a longing for the lightness he knew in space. With tears in his eyes, he also added, “The earth looks beautiful from space. The earth glows, and it pulsates with energy.”

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So far, this post has generated more personal comments to me than any other of my newspaper columns. People tell me this one is clipped, and hanging on their fridge.

We start out by identifying clear boundaries: You cannot hide on the roof (anymore), inside of cars or, definitely, in the house. Warmer Octobers, unlike this one, have, in the past, led us to impromptu games of Ghost in the Graveyard.

While summer traditionally holds hosting rights to this game, October offers an enticing venue for this nighttime version of hide-and-seek for two reasons: primarily because it’s a frightful game, tying in perfectly with Halloween, and secondly, and more importantly, October features short days, making the official start time of the game much easier to accommodate in our lives.

Still, despite this early nightfall, I find myself resistant to embark on this game. I feel the strings of domesticity and the demands of homework, and quite frankly, I’m just too tired to summon the energy to play at this hour. But there are nights when I catch a glimpse of the moon, sometimes obscured by the branches of a tree, and I see that the moon is staring right back at me.

Now, I think I’m missing out on something. We gather the kids and venture outside in the dark to play. Don’t underestimate the power of the moon; just look at what it does to the ocean.

From home base, the ghost starts the countdown — 1 o’clock, 2 o’clock, 3 o’clock — while everyone else hides. Once the ghost reaches “midnight,” he is free to leave base and search for us; our goal is to sneak back to base before the ghost finds us first.

As I hear the ghost approach “7′o’clock,” I panic because I have not yet found a spot. I start to run, I feel my blood start shooting right up to my toes and I’m breathing heavy. Soon, I’ve broken into a sweat. “This was effortless,” I whisper to myself under my breath.

Funny how this nighttime run fails to invoke the monotony that often accompanies those forced runs I try to take. Yet, it seems to have the same effect on my system.

A small hand grabs my own, and a voice says, “Mom, I want to hide with you.” We take off running, and I stumble on the perfect spot — the railing of the deck creates safe roof access to a hiding place where the floodlights do not reach. Just as the ghost yells, “midnight,” I lift my son over the railing, sit back against the wall of the house and wait.

My son’s body shakes against mine, heaving from the giggles he is trying to contain. “A spot like this could keep me winning this game for years to come,” I think. But before the ghost even takes three steps, my son yells triumphantly, “You’ll never find us! We’re on the roof!”

After a few rounds, we have exhausted all hiding spots and, unanimously, we are ready to call it a night. I catch a glimpse of the moon again, this time lighting up the flushed cheeks of my children. “Is that a glimpse of stillness I see coming over their faces?”

What originally started as the kids’ “great idea to delay bedtime” seems to have had quite the opposite effect. This evening run in the fresh air, accompanied by the adrenaline rush, seems to have flushed out the tensions of the day, unknotted my own worries about tomorrow and effortlessly moved us through that awkward transition time between day and night; between doing and being.

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The best part about writing the article for Columbus Monthly was Ray Paprocki. As the magazine’s editor, he has a way of gently coaxing words out, so they tumble onto the page like melted butter. This can be a double-edged sword; suddenly you realize there are now 500 ways to say that one thing you’re trying to say – deciding which strand to pick up and weave your story is part intuition and luck. Ray gives the writer the freedom to choose, which is a grand act of faith and confidence, making any writer feel privileged to work with him.

Secondly, I loved talking with the great mom bloggers in Columbus; amommystory, doobleh-vay, momo-fali, pepperpaints, thiswomanswork, revelry, Sundayswithstretchypants, lifedownourlane , and carrymilkweed. Hats off to the dad bloggers who unfortunately ended up on the editing floor.

And thanks to all of my editing friends who willingly read it “one more time” for me.

The sad part about writing the article is, of course, not being able to tell my Mom. So, if my friends haven’t yet bought every last copy — go get that August issue.

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So at midnight, the house finally quiet, I began to write. I finished by 2 a.m. Friday morning, and checked for edits at 8 a.m. before sending the final copy to my editor.  Then, I got my little preschooler ready and took him off to school for his last day of preschool.  Here’s my recent newspaper column for the Suburban News Publication.

Spring is that season we associate with new beginnings. Yet, it is primarily a time of endings.

The flowering of the crabapple trees heralds graduation — whether it is from colleges or preschools. Time is moving. Lives will change and familiar faces and places will be banished from our established daily routines.

This migration affects everyone, from the grocery store that looses its high school senior grocery baggers to the preschoolers who migrate to the public school system. Spring means life changes everywhere for everyone.

We’re careful to take snapshots of the faces that mean the most to our hearts. We promise “never to forget,” to “stay in touch,” while we exchange e-mail addresses and post notes on our Facebook walls.

We do forget. This is unintentional, of course. Our lapses are merely a byproduct of the new lives we have stepped into; we make friends with new faces, we have new routines and divergent pathways unfold in front of us.

We have new choices to make; and suddenly we seek advice from new sources — people who know what we’re going through now. This allows us to form bonds quickly with people we barely knew a month ago.

But before the new friendships are made, there is that awkward, uncomfortable transition phase. The part where one foot is stuck behind, as in cement, in the old life, while the other foot is stretched forward, ready to leap into the new world. Except, there is nothing solid there to form a sure footing — yet.

In his book, Stress and Mental Health of College Students, M. V. Landow found that students rate moving away to college as being more stressful than severe traumatic events they experienced within the same year. For many, it’s the first day of high school or middle school that creates the trauma. For me, it will be that day this fall when I send my last boy to kindergarten.

We naturally just want life to revert back to the way it was; when we were so comfortable, life was predictable, and familiar faces dotted our view. Yet this life of certainty never really existed. Just as we have become unaware that the Earth is constantly spinning on its axis, we forget that our lives run like a river, constantly flowing form one phase to the next. The only constant is change.

In the face of so much uncertainty, there is one way we can carve out some power and comfort for ourselves. We can create rules, or specific constants, that we can carry through our lives, regardless of where we spend our days, and with whom. Mother Teresa has a great rule, and it’s one that I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if you stole: “Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier.”

It’s a remarkable feeling to remember that we do have the power to make choices, and we are not victims of transition and change. Life is not happening to us; we are creating our life all day long. We need constructive life long rules to get us through life’s transitions.

Another rule to incorporate is Maya Angelou’s wisdom: Don’t make money your goal. Instead, pursue the things you love doing, and do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off you. All the other tangible rewards will come as a result.

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This post is adapted from my newspaper column.

Cancer is that dark subject we try to avoid, especially when it comes to our own health. We’ve been know to delay scheduling that screening appointment because we’re just too busy. We believe that what we don’t know about can’t hurt us, so we stall, despite the public service announcements that clearly state, early detection saves lives.

On one day this month, our perspective will change. May 16th is the Komen Columbus Race for the Cure. This event give us a forum to honor and celebrate lives, and release our hope for someday finding a cure. The motivation we’ll need to give our time, buy the raffle tickets, run the race and give our dollars will come from within our hearts.When we reflect on the tragic ways cancer has touched our own lives, we can’t help but privately promise ourselves to eat better, find more time to exercise, and schedule those screening tests, whether they’re for skin, colon, or breast cancer. Knowledge truly is our power.

Ten years ago, I walked the race pushing a stroller with a friend. “I don’t need a mammogram,” she said. “My aunt died of breast cancer, and it skips a generation.”

No, it doesn’t, my friend. “When I call you Monday at lunchtime, give me the date and time of your first mammogram.” The conversation may not have happened, and the appointment may not have been made, if not for the time we shared at the race that day.

Out of all the uncertainties and unknowns that come with a cancer diagnosis, one thing is clear: treatment will be expensive. Global sales of cancer drugs will reach $80 billion by 2012, according to Norwalk, Conn.-based consultant IMS Health Inc. A 2006 survey conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health, 33 percent of cancer patients have trouble paying medical bills and 43 percent report skipping treatments or not filling prescriptions because of the cost.

Statistics like these prompted Stefanie and Chris Spielman to create the Stefanie Spielman Fund for Patient Assistance, which allows families to buy groceries, nutritional supplements, Wendy’s gift cards, wigs and transportation to appointments.

On a global level, the cost of finding a cure for cancer is staggering. The reality that we still don’t understand what causes breast cancer led Dr. Susan Love to create www.armyofwomen.org. Her goal is to eradicate breast cancer by linking patients with research scientists and clinical trials. They’ve already created a low-cost band-aid-like test strip that indicates cancer risk.

The Spielmans hoped to raise $250,000 for breast cancer research, but have instead raised over $5 million — so far. The dollars allowed the creation of the Spielman Breast Cancer Tissue Archive Services and the Spielman Breast Cancer Tumor Bank that allow scientist to test discoveries on human breast cancers.

Cancer is a frightening disease that comes with little answers. Hope, sometimes, is all we have. Whether the medicine does its job or not, cancer always gives us the opportunity to show our love.

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I write that down, and I say, “OK, what’s the second thing.”  They give me that look: “you’ve got to be kidding.” At this point, they get a little irritated; sometimes angry.  I ignore that, taking it for a bluff, and I wait.

And then, their eyes light up, and they get that far-off look and say, “Oh yeah…I ran through the hall today with Max, we were having a race, and we didn’t get caught. Well, Mrs. R saw us, but she just smiled at us and we didn’t get into trouble.”  Or, “I’m almost finished with my art project.” Sometimes this is how I learn they wrote a new song during music class; or I discover that their favorite meal is the tomato soup the cook serves on the third Wednesday of every month.

Regardless, I now know something I didn’t know before about each one of them.  I didn’t know before that art class is a relief to him.  I knew orchestra was bad; but I didn’t know it was that horrible. And, it appears that Mrs. R has a soft spot for the boys.

Meanwhile the boys discover that Monday at school wasn’t such a bad day after all.  Gratitude, all the experts keep saying, is the key to happiness, wealth and joy.  I’d like my boys to grow into their adult world with those keepsakes in their back pocket. To have an inkling of how to turn a dreary day into a great one; just by remembering what was good.

Our family gratitude journal is a spiral Superman lined blank book (except for the pages where Spider Man leaps onto the lines) that I originally purchased in November of 2003.  At the time, I was busy with a newborn baby and a fussy toddler. I wanted each boy to understand that while I was busy, I cared about what was going on in their lives.  The journal was my way of getting them to open up, and worked as a safety valve for me; to prevent me from getting too focused on the baby, at the exclusion of the little things going on in their worlds.

The entries stop around February 2004, and then start up again in June 2004. There are many pages where the handwriting is barely legible, as I was writing with one hand, and nursing the baby with the other arm.  The entries are sporadic until December 2004.  There are no entries at all in 2005. Only two in 2006, and this one today in 2009. I store the journal in the kitchen tucked on the shelves with the cookbooks.

I hope I can keep the journal going this time, because looking back through the pages is insightful, funny, confusing and always surprising.

December 17, 2007: Playing Heads Up 7up during indoor recess.

March 13, 2006: Tasted fresh maple syrup for the first time.

February 7, 2007: Favorite time of the day was getting my brother out of his crib this morning. Also happy that there were no dogs out  in the yard when I walked home.  (I had forgotten about his fleeting fear of dogs. )

January 18, 2006: My Life.

I always try to include entries from Mom and Dad, so that when they’re all grown up and laughing, they’ll laugh even harder when they read that Mom’s favorite thing on November 24, 2003, was that “it’s finally the end of the day.”

June 22, 2004: Running through the dust created when Dad was blowing the driveway with the power leaf blower. (I think that was my parent’s wedding anniversary, but not sure.)

This book is a treasure chest.

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When the first warm breeze blows into our long, bitter winter, my boys are sure that this is the signal of the end. Within minutes, they’ve scrambled to the attic, pulled the lids off the storage tubs, and are soon wearing their long lost and forgotten t-shirts and shorts. It is only March, and Ohio weather can turn bitter cold in a span of just a few hours. Yet, the boys believe, with all their hearts that summer has settled into the earth for good.

The tangled mess of clothes they’ve left, running like a river down the hallways, with tributaries running to each of our bedrooms, is the starting point of my spring-cleaning; a more intense effort of my yearlong efforts to sort, purge and clean.

Warm March days are made for opening the windows, before the insects awake, to let the high winds carry out the dust. Before the cleaning comes the purging; to free our home from the stress of stuff. Scientists say that even if we aren’t looking at the clutter that fills a room, our brain must work harder to filter out the objects in the periphery, just so it can focus.

Clutter is a 3-D visual reminder of what is unfinished. Rarely used objects are symbols of procrastination, unfinished plans, and of who we are not. The rules are simple: trash it, donate it, or use it. There is also the one-year box trick; put items in a box, and if you haven’t opened the box in one year, give it away – without opening the box.

This stripped, popsicle-stained t-shirt, lying on the floor, that no longer fits any boy in this house, is a good place to start. Experts advise me to separate emotion from things; sentimentality is out. This is not the time to reflect on the days this shirt was worn to pick blueberries, or its sunset appearances at Picnic at the Pops, or the catnaps taken in the stroller while wearing this shirt. Not the time to remember the days when the presence of a Popsicle kept them blissful for at least 20 minutes, and transformed me into their heroine.

Each shirt is like a page in a scrapbook; evoking memories of places, miss-pronounced words, and smiles I have forgotten to remember. “How do you let these go?,” I want to ask the clutter experts. “Take a snapshot,” they will answer. A photo will never capture that little boy smell that doesn’t wash away, the softness of the fabric that once covered their skin.

The de-cluttering experts will tell me that hanging onto things that no longer have a purpose keeps me stagnant. So, I purge my own closet, ridding myself of belts and purses and out-of-style jeans. Vases I no longer love, (regardless of the sender) and even the cast that cradled my leg at the age of two. (The one item that I do regret purging.) I toss the junk mail religiously, along with the uneaten leftovers in the fridge. Our counters are clean and clear; at least for a few minutes each day.

As for the stained t-shirt, I’ll keep this; it’s not a shirt, it’s a memoir. I’ll pack it away along with the sweaters we won’t need for the next few months. Next fall, when I pull out this Christmas tree sweater, the one he insisted on wearing post-season through March, I can only imagine what memories it will evoke.

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Imagine, finally getting the courage to ask for help, and there is no food on the shelves at the food bank.  Imagine looking at your children.

There is a way you can simultaneously ease your own food budget constraints, while sharing fresh, nutrient-rich foods with our world’s food banks.  Plant a garden, and give what you grow to your local food banks. With gardens, there’s always a surplus of something.

My best shot is a badge that I’m sharing,  (the code is below) to encourage everyone to remember the hungry, and to fill the gaps by planting a garden. Today, the average tomato travels 1,500 miles and requires 400 gallons of gas to arrive at your table — this must change too if we are to remain  a sustainable planet.

Code for the small badge: [a title="givewhatyougrow by susiejpics, on Flickr" href="http://www.susiej.com/index.php/give-what-you-grow/"][img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3282/3282964326_3525b137da.jpg" alt="givewhatyougrow" width="166" height="161" /][/a]

(Replace these [ ] with these <> to make the button appear.)

To win your own packet of seeds from Burpee’s Money Garden, visit here.

Our country’s history carries a strong correlation between growing and eating.  Vegetables were part of the United States’ arsenal during World War I. The government, trying to ensure our soldiers had enough to eat, earmarked funds for a national school garden program. A steady supply of vegetables would keep food costs down and save the War Department money. Backyard “Victory Gardens” fed our nation as the Great Depression reverberated across the land. Eleanor Roosevelt even planted a Victory Garden at Pennsylvania Avenue. By 1943, nearly 40 percent of the fresh fruits and vegetables consumed stateside were grown in gardens at schools, parks, rooftops and backyards. Careful preservation allowed us to export our harvests to our allies.

Every six seconds a child dies because he or she is hungry.

While there are many similarities between The Recession and The Depression, one common thread of both crises is the feeling of powerlessness. The Victory Gardens planted during World War I were one practical way families cut their food budget, and shared their crops. Harvesting crops also boosted morale. We only need to read Ruth Krauss’s book The Carrot Seed, one time to feel the victory of the child who learns that “it did come up,” to see how gardening feeds the souls of children. Growing food preserves our world.

But what about the work? Pat Marfisi, a gardener in drought-stricken Hollywood Hills, uses the “no-dig” or “lasagna-style” method of layering newspaper, mulch and straw directly over the sod to create a nutrition-rich bed. (Repeat, no digging.) The rich soil allows him to extend watering to more than 10-days. His garden, he says, “inundates him with food.”

If kids that help in the kitchen are more likely to eat what they make, kids are more likely to eat what they grow. A single freshly-picked snow pea could transform their palate; the sugar content of a homegrown pea is much higher than any grocery-store pod. Beans can  grow into great forts, and sunflowers make great houses for children to explore nature’s marvelous bugs. Now’s the time to explore seed catalogues, and books like Sunflower Houses that give step-by-step instructions for transforming vegetables into magical spots.

While we wait for spring to make its long journey back, take this time to ponder our extensive, food supply chain, the taste of a garden-fresh tomato, and the depleting stores of our food banks. When spring arrives, I hope you’ll be ready to share what you grow. Our dinner tables could use an infusion of good, ripe, old-fashioned flavor.

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A recession seizes many luxuries; time is not among its casualties. In our scramble to monitor the market, save the cash and replace the job, we overlook the one shinning emerald in the bleak economic outlook; our frenzied schedule slows with the Gross National Product. Incoming orders grind to a halt, checkout lines dwindle to a trickle, and companies offer pink slips, or time-off, without pay.

What we choose to do with our sudden abundance of seconds could predict where we will be standing when the recession finally melts into our next economic upswing.

We were cautioned to choose a career based on logic, prudently casting aside interests that generated passion, but little cash. We packed our hobbies away in the attic, and pursued the education and contacts we’d need to advance our careers. Now those livelihoods once considered financially stable are on shaky ground. So, we ask, “What opportunities are left lurking around in our attics?”

Our city boasts about our heroes who turned passion into career: Cameron Mitchell’s love of food and people created the restaurants; he also went 14 months without a paycheck. Cheryl Krueger used her grandmother’s recipe to open Cheryl & Co; she worked two jobs to cover expenses. At 9, R. L. Stine wrote joke books; he sat down and wrote. Hard work comes easier when we’re sacrificing for passion.

Sometimes, our hobbies help us immediately. One man found his current job not from his business contacts, but rather from a member of his Sunday morning cycling team. A company the man would never consider if not for his bike.

Doing a bit of what you love brings joy. When the stock market plummets, happiness is a scarce commodity. Customers buy in the shops with the friendly staff; employers hire, and keep, the people with enthusiasm. Happiness is our edge in a recession.

Maybe hobbies keep us enthused because they allow us to tap under-utilized parts of our brain, so we think more creatively. Albert Einstein would play his violin while he pondered mathematical problems, until he would shout, “I’ve got it.”

Passions draw out our strengths, and even our weaknesses benefit. When Shaquille O’Neal improved his play under the basket, (his strength) his free throw percentage (his weakness) jumped from below 50 to 70 percent. Incidentally, when he tried to exclusively improve his free throws, his percentage points barely moved up at all.

Pursuing your passion will certainly raise your endorphin levels, and maybe give you the inspiration to turn those apples in your refrigerator into four warm bowls of applesauce; or to clean out the basement and sell your treasures. You’ll not only generate revenue, the new space may lead you to see opportunities you never realized existed before.

A recession brings us more time; and more time can mean more freedom. Now, maybe you can no longer do what you should do; but maybe you can do what you want to do. Need inspiration? Check out the class offerings at your local Parks & Recreation Department.

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The question, Is Santa Real, rings through the holiday season with the Christmas carols, and just like the icicles hanging from our rooftops, sends a shiver down our spines. We can stall, ignore or sugarcoat our answers; however these futile attempts to side-step the issue rarely satisfy the insatiable curiosity of a child. A better approach might be to just give our children the facts; cold, hard evidence grounded in science. Because we all know the real reason we must use those tiny screwdrivers to change the batteries in the toys Santa brings: little elves made the tiny screws.

Fortunately, we have much evidence to use in building our scientific case for the existence of Santa Clause. We can easily say, “Just because you’ve never seen a reindeer fly doesn’t necessarily mean that reindeer don’t fly.” However, your response will be stronger if you base your answer on this one true scientific fact: Scientists say there are millions of species yet to be discovered, (According to my son’s Middle School, 7th grade science class). Between 1978 and 1988, five new species of birds, 226 species of mammal, and 231 species of fish were identified. (The Environment: Principles and Applications, By Chris C. Park, Routledge, 2001.) One day, the list of new species discovered just might include flying reindeer.

Crucially important is reassuring your child that Santa will be able to find your house on Christmas Eve. We all know that Santa Clause, being male, won’t stop to ask for directions. Fortunately Mrs. Claus has already taken care of pre-programming the sleigh’s on-board GPS system so that the sleigh will automatically follow the most efficient route that goes directly to your house.

When your child wants to know, “how far Santa will travel on Christmas Eve,” view this as an opportunity to strengthen your child’s math and geographic knowledge. Start with these basic facts: The earth’s circumference at the equator is 24,901.55 miles. Still, Santa does not have to travel that far, as most of the Earth’s surface is covered with water. This leaves 45 million square miles of exposed land for Santa to travel across the six habitable continents.

This is a good time to remind your child that Santa has the advantage of spending thousands of years at the North Pole perfecting his toy delivery system. For example, he has created satellites that collect electromagnetic waves from the thoughts and deepest wishes of children. Letters are not necessary: Santa can read your thoughts, although it is still a good practice to use the written word to collect your thoughts. Letters are highly esteemed to the man in red. One cautionary note: the satellites also allow Santa to know exactly who has been naughty or nice.

We can always use a bit of logic, too, when trying to resolve our child’s question about the existence of Santa Clause: “Really,son, do you think it’s possible for us to buy and wrap all of those presents on Christmas Eve, (when the stores are closed), so they appear on Christmas morning? Of course not. Parents need help; and that’s why we have Santa Clause.”

Help does seem to magically come from somewhere outside of ourselves. Once the kids are asleep, you begin your annual ritual of pulling out the presents from their hiding spots, many gifts still in need of wrapping, and worse, some still requiring assembly. Nothing short of some kind of miracle allowed that massive amount of “elf”work to be completed, well before dawn, ensuring that the tiny faces do light up like a Christmas tree on Christmas morning. I think it’s safe to say, that there is a bit of Santa working quietly away in each of us.

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