Ritual: The Family Selfie

We have a family ritual on my birthday of going to a restaurant that has a wall of mirror windows nearby.  Because it is my birthday, my family indulges me a 5-minute photo shoot.

Up above is our first family "selfie" in that window, before the selfie trend was born.  It must be from 2010.  Since then we've taken quite a few more, to varying degrees of success.  In the process, I realize that family selfies can hold life lessons.  Here are a few:

• try to catch the best light;
• be careful what you focus on, not the car in the background, the person walking, or the back of someone's head;
• keep it centered;
• keep the camera subtle;
• stay close to each other, but not so close that personalities get stifled;
• a little blur is not such a bad thing;
• black and white can be nice and simple;
• shut the van door;
• get up close, but not too close;
• point straight ahead;
• look straight ahead;
• try to keep the family front and center;
• let John be;
• be mindful of June's legs;
• don't let Clara hide;
• enjoy Will's expressions, subtle as they may be;
• don't cover up Jeff;
• catch the moment quickly - it's fleeting;
• hope for the best!

PS - These are more pictures than you care to see.  Only in two did we half-way get it right.  The others drive home the points above, in photos as in life.

Ritual: The Practicing Rock

John goes to preschool, a few days a week.  Sometimes, I want to live there.  

The minute we walk in the door, we begin our rituals:  John hangs his coat and fills his cubby; I sign him in; he washes his hands; and then... he moves his "practicing rock."  Yes, he moves a rock from one position to another.  But, here are the elements that make it great:

• it involves a soft, round, solid rock;
• you get to wrap your fingers around that special rock twice a day, coming and going;
• the rock calls out to you with your name in gold letters;
• you get to put your rock into a cool wooden grid;
• you can do so while wearing a bell around your neck;
• your cozy rock is surrounded by rocks with all your friends' names on them.

How dreamy it would be to have everyone come home from school and move their practicing rocks.  Ahhhhhh, right.  We are currently working on the "practicing coat." Take off body.  Put in closet."

Still, I do consider myself lucky to get a dose of Zen mind through John's rock.

A Walk around a Lake

All too often, there is a strange glue that binds me to my house.  In particular, my kitchen, my washing machine, my inside clutter, my outside clutter, even the elusive higher purpose manifested in my computer.  But during my mornings with John, I work hard to push us out the door, and I am never sorry.

Recently, we ventured to Coot Lake.  It is a trail to avoid in heat or high winds, but on a clear blue sky day, it is transcendent.  In fact, John looks fittingly philosophical in every picture - peering into the distance, surveying the land, contemplating the sky.  In reality, he is probably looking for dragons or thinking about a rock in his shoe or counting the seconds before he will ask for an "uppie."

Actually, he was quite proud to walk the whole way.

Beauty: Pre-Spring Flowers

In good "Portlandia" fashion, I spend brainspace thinking about the pros and cons of buying cut flowers.  Here's how it goes:

• Isn't having tulips in your house in the winter kind of like buying blueberries from Chile in December?
• Were the flowers grown organically?
• How far did they travel?
• Shouldn't I forage some artistic looking sticks or cattails or pine cones instead?
• Shouldn't we spend our money elsewhere?

I do have a ritual of planting Narcissus bulbs before the holidays, which are beautiful for weeks.  Then they sit in our house for many more weeks in the form of the lump pictured above because I can't toss the green.  Jeff loves them.

In the end, I broke down and just bought some flowers already!  I opted for the sweet, delicate cheap variety:  daisies and things that keep well when they dry, though I avoided the non-native "baby's breath" that we once saw rangers furiously trying to clear around Lake Michigan one summer.

I must say that the dose of color and smell and sense of life are doing the trick.  And they are a reminder of the bounty to come.  Right outside the door.

Parent & Chicken Line-up

Recently, on a wintry day, I was struck by horizontal rows of beings, out enduring the cold.  

As our family ventured out to go sledding, there was a perfect line-up of parents right on the crest of the hill.  It was a beautiful spot, with the trees forming their own line as a backdrop.  Some people were all decked out for adventure, some held coffee cups, and all were engrossed in the action going down.  

Bundled up there in a row, the cold parents reminded me of our chickens, who likewise form a line-up, usually in the the sun against the house.  1-2-3-4-5-6.  Catching rays, pecking around.  

I guess there is something about standing side-by-side, facing the cold, eating or drinking, and watching the show.

Phases: What's In

I always find it interesting, even helpful, to take a snapshot of our present lives in the form of "what's in."  What holds our attention and our affection? Subsequently, what doesn't?  What we are drawn to? Where we are stuck?  What captures each person's attention is rarely a big ticket item.  Our attachments really seem to be reflections of ourselves, and are generally pretty simple.  So here is what's in today:

John seems to feel most himself when wearing this bell.


June just loves her chicken.  Always.


Clara recently acquired a new swim cap and most people in her world know all about it.

If anyone touches Will's egg shakers, he turns into a wild animal.

I cannot do without my little blue book.

And Jeff loves his new dustbuster.

Saying Hi. And I love you.

John made a pronouncement the other day:  "Now I'm only going to say 'hi' to the people I know."

For a while, John felt that it was his prerogative to say "hello" to every person he encountered.  These little determinations and conclusions must be exhausting for a 4-year old.  I remember Will in kindergarten had that same inclination when saying "goodbye" as he left school.  He shouted it out to everyone he slightly recognized, up to 500 yards away.  It prompted the old parental dilemma: do I just admire as he puts himself out there and other kids stare blankly back, or do I use it as a teaching moment to describe some inexplicable "code of behavior."

With my fourth child, my inclination is just to let him learn on his own and give him some positive karma, pick him up and hug him and think (though not say) how lucky those people are to be beneficiaries of his open his heart.

In that vein, I generally hope I get better as a parent at giving that love vibe more and talking less.  It is probably appropriate for me, too, to hold back from screaming across the field to my now 11-year old,  "Hi honey!  How was your day? I love you! I just think you are a shining star!"

Honestly, we're all probably right there with John: what's the code?