Grandmothering

I've just spend four days and nights babysitting 3-year-old Megan and 5-month-old Emma, and I am tired! I have new respect for mothers of toddlers! Just hauling that car seat with 14-pound Emma up and into the base and then out again was enough to pull every muscle in my arms and back - and somehow carrying babies through the house has redefined my space and I've managed to knock my shins, ankles, shoulders and other parts into the dishwasher door, step ladder, coffee table and door frame. I'm looking forward to a massage, once I get the house picked up.

Other than that, the girls were darling and precious - Megan talking non-stop (reminding me of her Aunt Katherine), insisting on wearing her Princess dress and hand-me-down Cinderella (pronounced Cindagrella) slippers, and wanting "just one more story"; and Emma finally cuddling up and taking a bottle and falling asleep in my arms. Emma is already turning over both front-to-back and back-to-front, and is almost sitting up. She has discovered her feet and is unsafe unless securely strapped in, since she can really arch that back. She's a talker, too. What is sweeter than hearing a baby gurgle and chirp?

The two portable video monitors helped keep that hundreds of trips up and down the stairs to a minimum and the swing Elizabeth brought over for Emma was great for helping her stay asleep longer.

Byron reminded me that my mother kept our girls pretty often - but I remember (1) Mother was at least 10 years younger than I am now, (2) Mother had full time help (Peggy stayed until my 8-years-younger sister graduated from high school - when Elizabeth was two) and Daddy was home most of the time.

I would do it again, just not right away.

Video games for girls

I don't play video games - too old and slow - and don't interest me. Who cares about shoot-'em-ups, car chases, explosions? Those are all guy things.

BUT, if someone invented games for girls - that might be fun.

How about Bride Pride? You could play the role of Bridezilla
1. Choosing the groom (involved, semi-involved, absent)
2. Choose his mother (possibilities are endless)
3. Pick out the ring
4. Design a dress
5. Thwart your mother
6 Order bridesmaids around
7. Choose horrible bridesmaids dresses
8. Have numerous showers and parties
9. Register for gifts


The program could have built-in obstacles (flowers don't arrive, people bring children to the service, groom gets flat tire on way to church, torrential rain)

You could also play the Mother of the Bride role or Mother of the Groom role.

There could be options for the $500,000 wedding or the $500 one.

This might even be a sort of instructional interactive game for brides to see what their dream wedding might cost.

The possibilities are endless!

Travel Report

In the last couple of weeks I've been to Florida with my lady friends (our 25th year of fall travel), to the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs and the the Algonquin in New York City. Fun, but I'm glad to be back home!

Our ladies group consists of eight lawyers wives. It all started when our husbands, law partners, took clients on a weekend fishing trip to Biloxi, Mississippi and we wives, in retaliation, decided to take a trip of our own. We've visited Charleston, Savannah, Deleware (Winterthur and Longwood Gardens), Sturbridge, the Hudson Valley (Kikut), Lake Placid, South Texas, among others. This year we rented a house in Watercolor in the panhandle of Florida - near Destin. Beautiful beaches and good food. Our husbands have all either moved to other firms or retired and don't do their fishing trip anymore, but we are still taking advantage of the time to catch up, see some beautiful scenery, shop and eat.

The Broadmoor is beautiful and the Colorado Springs area has a lot to offer. The Colorado Springs Art Museum has an unmatched collection of Dale Chihuly glass art - spectacular! And Manitou Springs has cave dwellings and a delightful and different kind of hippie culture mixed with tourist trappings. The chapel at the Air Force Academy is a cultural experience not to be missed.

New York is always exciting and it was fun to imagine Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley et al in the Algonquin, even though the hotel has been renovated. The rooms are still about as big as a good-sized closet, but the hall wallpaper is made up of New Yorker cartoons and a quote from one of the Roundtable regulars appears daily on each hotel room door. Have a drink in the lounge (I recommend the "Parker", but more than one might kill you). Give the dining room a miss.

We tried for tickets to "The Jersey Boys" which I saw in San Francisco and loved, but they were sold out except for premium seats at $320 each. We settled for "The Fantasticks", written by two home-grown Texans (and University of Texas ex-students) that we saw maybe 40 years ago. Tom Jones (one of the play's authors - not the British singer) appeared in the part of the old actor. The production was in the Snapple Theater a small and pretty grubby venue and was about half full. But the fantasy and the music still charms. I'm still singing "Try to Remember" and "Plant a Radish" in my head a week later.

TIVO and US Open

I'm going to have to get TIVO. We've spent a good bit of time watching the US Open since we spent Labor Day at the ranch with family, including almost three-year-old Megan and eight-week-old Emma. (Megan is working on being potty trained and Grandmother Dearest was in great demand to help and watch.)

However, if I have to see that stupid American Express ad with John McEnroe and the actor pretending to be a former tennis judge, I may have to commit violence. If Amex can't come up with more than one ad to run every three or so minutes during an entire tournament, they are unworthy of my business. I have missed good tennis by grabbing for the remote every time that dumb ad appears. Why should the Super Bowl get all the good ads? I need TIVO so I can avoid that ad.

The Andy Roddick Lexus ad is only marginally better - at least it has no dialog and is easier to ignore.

California Dreamin'

We've been on a week-long trip to Napa Valley and San Francisco. In Napa we stayed in the very posh Auberge du Soleil - probably the most expensive place we've been (business friends arranged it). It is beautiful, peaceful and surrounded by gorgeous countryside loaded with flowers and landscaping to die for. The food was excellent and served with great service and terrific views.

Our room was less impressive - although with a private terrace (complete with a hummingbird in the early morning). Even with all the lights on it still seemed too dark to read and our hardwood floor had a big buckle in it at the end of the bed.

The most interesting perk was that our bellman said "You have already bought all the accoutrements here, so don't hesitate to take them." Which, in perversity (or something) led us to leave stuff in the refrigerator - including two servings of Chinese food which would need to be microwaved in a non-existant microwave.

I recommend the Auberge du Soleil if you have the money and time to enjoy the setting.

We had great wine tastings, arranged by friends - VineCrest, Ggrich Hills and Duckhorn. We didn't get to the French Laundry but those who did had two comments: $550 per person seemed a little high, each bite was delicious but there were not enough bites and the staff was pretentious and condescending.

In San Francisco we stayed at the Fairmont, which is close to the cable car junction at Powell and California, but not much else. It is a nice, efficient convention-type hotel and across the street from the Mark Hopkins. We ended up most nights at the Top of the Mark for after dinner drinks and dancing.

Yesterday I went to see Jersey Boys. When I originally looked on line there were good seats for one, so took my chances at the box office. Mistake!

First, I either misread the web site or the info wasn't up-to-date, but I ended up at the Opheum Theater not the Curran (after walking through a seedy neighborhood), then not finding a cab driver who knew where the theater is. (It's about a block from Union Square). A security man finally gave me directions.

Second, it was almost a sell-out, and my seat, of course, was behind the tallest, wiggliest man available! Even with that handicap,the show was great! The actors/singers were outstanding and it has a good story line (Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons rise to fame). I not only recommend it, I'd go see it again!

New York Times, Gail Collins, spellcheck

Don't you just hate it when that happens?

In Gail Collins' column vilifying Judith Giuliani in this morning's NYT editorial section, she takes a swipe at Rudy as well:

"This is not something you as a voter need to worry about since Giuliani's closest aides and confidants tend to be extremely expendable hangers-on. (We will revisit this issue sometime later when we discuss how chauffer-turned-police commissioner Bernard Kerik came to be nominated for chief of Homeland Security.)"

Yes, chauffer.

Spellcheck, anyone?

Clothing, Talbots, Chico's

For someone who doesn't look any better than I do, it is surprising how much time I spend trying to find something to wear. Of course, I want to look, if not thin (too much to ask), then at least trim and somewhat classic.

Today I looked for some dress shoes - you know, the kind that you wear with a short cocktail dress or a pant suit not made of cotton. No deal. I talked to one shoe salesman and asked for an evening shoe with a 2 inch heel, file or microfiber, black, closed toe and not pointy-toe. How hard is that - a regular shoe! "Nothing like that this year," he said. As if that were something out of Harry Potter's Muggle catalog!

Looking for a jacket to wear in Florida in October is also fruitless. Lots of print jersey (ugh! and lots of pseudo-maternity tops (those 100% cotton (have to be ironed) blouses with a band under the boobs) (double ugh!)

For a nation with millions of boomers, who is going to clothe women of a certain age? Even Talbots, my former fave, hasn't tempted me to spend my two $25 coupons. And Chico's has gone mad with stuff I wouldn't wear at any price.

Creepy

Two weeks ago I visited a friend's church. I had the bad luck to sit behind a couple - seemed to be married to each other and have children on the same pew - and the man, while seeming to pay attention to the service, continually stroked his wife's hair, shoulders, neck and up and down her arm.

Then today, at my regular church, a man, woman and presumably their teenage son (big and almost as tall as the man) were three or four pews in front of me. The man kept his hand on his son's shoulder and patted, scratched, smoothed and rubbed - all while seeming to be enthralled in the sermon.

What's the deal? Is the stroker proclaiming "possession" of the strokee? Ewwww.

Pecos Cantaloupes, FEMA

I got a crate of Pecos Cantaloupes yesterday and they are just as good as promised. Although you can get cantaloupes grown in California, Arizona, Mexico or even Presidio, TX - the Pecos ones are the sweetest and best. I can usually find the Pecos ones (marked PecosSweet) in the Dallas stores, but not this year. I had to order them from the Pecos Cantaloupe Shed (no website - call (432) 447-2123 to order).
(432) 447-2123(432) 447-2123

The growing season for these West Texas specialties is usually just the month of July, but this year has been strange. One - not many acres were planted because a shortage of workers. Apparently there are plenty of migrant workers, but no place to house them. The oil and gas boom has taken up all the available housing - and they are even building an apartment building and a new suites hotel. It's slow, though, because the workers they truck in to work in construction are soon lured away to the better paying oil patch jobs.
Two - unusual rain. The average rainfall in far West Texas is about 8 inches per year - this year they've already had over 8. The desert is blooming, but it was hard on the melons which thrive in the sun.

In any case, the melons are always the best.

When I was growing up in Pecos, my dad and his cousin had a cantaloupe operation - the M.L. Todd Company. They shipped cantaloupes all over the country via Railway Express, which had refrigerated cars. As I recall, you could ship 9 or 12 melons to New Jersey for $4.95. They had a shed where trailers with hinges on the side (not the back) could drive up unload onto a conveyor belt, be sorted, graded and packed into wooden crates in a very smooth, efficient operation.

The melons too ripe for shipping would be sold as "culls" for $1 a grocery sack full. My younger brother David was in charge of the shed's cull selling operation and my friend Sallie and I had a stand closer to town. Daddy had a fellow build a frame and covered it with an orange and white parachute for shade. I think we made about $100 all summer.

That open air shed, on Highway 80 next to the train tracks, has since burned down. I think the new one is enclosed and air conditioned.

Bluebell Ice Cream has had a flavor called PecosSweet Cantaloupes and Cream, but I haven't found any this year.

The Pecos Economic Development office is trying to get FEMA to send some of those infamous trailers for workers in Pecos, but I think some enterprising trailer seller from Dallas or Fort Worth could take a bunch out there and sell them to people who are now driving 90 - 100 miles each way daily for housing.

Surveys, Rocky LaPorte, Augusten Burroughs, opinion

Well, they got me again. I do know enough not to be sucked in by Cambodians promising millions, but somehow, when I'm asked my opinion, I can't help myself.

This group - Audience Studies - said they were testing a new TV sit com and since I fit into their demographic, would I watch the show and give my opinion? I would receive the CD on Monday, must watch on Monday and would be called Tuesday.

I didn't get the CD until Tuesday, but faithfully followed instructions - including filling out a form regarding product preferences - smooth or crunchy? Which of 12 kinds of seasoning salt? I should have known.

Then I watched the CD - The Rocky LaPorte Show. Let's just say it probably wouldn't harm the kids to watch. I had never heard of Rocky LaPorte, who apparently is a stand up comic. If he wrote this, he wouldn't make the first cut for Last Comic Standing.

I followed the instructions to fill out another, almost identical, form regarding product preferences.

Then they called and wanted to know when I'd watched and wanted to call back tomorrow since it was important to survey a day after watching. "Now or never," I said, so he deigned to continue. Did I watch the CD? Did I fast forward through the commercials? (aha!) Now, before discussing the show, a few questions about detergent preferences.

"Hold on," I said. "I'll tell you what I think of the show, but I'm not answering all these questions about products. I'm not interested in doing a marketing survey. "

After some argument from the caller, who said that the questions must be answered, I wished him a good day and hung up.

Do companies really pay for the results of this "survey"? Do they think they are getting good information about their products?

After listening to Augusten Burrough's books A Year of Magical Thinking and Possible Side Effects hearing about his experiences in the advertising world, I'd say companies who fall for this sort of "market research" should have their collective heads examined.

They won't get me again!

Baby Emma

We have a darling new granddaughter, Emma.

She is darling and precious, with dark hair and blue eyes. Her big sister Megan is crazy about her at the moment, but Emma's only been home a day or two, so we are expecting more sibling rivalry in the future. A wonderful sort of cousin, Katherine, has come to help Emma, Megan and their parents by entertaining whoever needs entertaining (including Grandmother Dearest) and she is delightful and a huge help.

Katherine is one of those volunteer relatives (her late father was married to my first cousin) that we treasure more than the relatives we are related to by blood - because we choose to be family.

In other news, we are anxiously awaiting Book 7 of the Harry Potter saga. We have tickets to the movie (#5) and everyone will get a new book at midnight on the 20th. Of course, I've preordered the book and the audio book.

In still other news, I'm working on a project to target one zip code in Dallas for intense spay/neuter promotion plus loose dog round up. An article in the current DMagazine profiles the terrible overpopulation of unspayed/unneutered dogs running loose in some areas of Dallas. The Metroplex Animal Coalition offers free spay/neuter in 14 different zip codes and the City of Dallas provides free spay/neuter if a person is already on public assistance - but many of the targeted population isn't getting the message. And the application (in English only) is long and has to be mailed before an appointment is set. Surely we can do better!

I propose to do a direct mailing to each address in a targeted zip code telling them in English and Spanish how to take advantage of these programs.

Baby names

In about 20 days we'll have grandchild #3 from daughter #1. We already have grandchild #1 Megan and grandchild #2 Andy.
This leads me to consider baby naming.

When my daughters were born, we (I - having C-sections and looking pale and wan, trumped all my husband's desire to name them Eleanor or Elaine), named them after family members and gave them family surnames as middle names.

I preached strenously for 30 some odd years about the benefits of family names "you know your child will someday say 'why am I named Matilda or Byron' and you can say 'because we loved aunt Matilda, or uncle Byron' - BUT if you name them Chase or Tiffany or Brittany, how can you look at that child in 5 years and say - "but she was sooo cute on the Mouskeeters!").


However, names seem to be dated. Census takers apparently can deterime your age by your name.

My grandmothers' generation Gladys, Mae (May) Ruby, Jewel, Opal, Esmeralda

My mother's generation - Beverly, Lucile, Nancy, Jo, Flossie, Fannie.

My generation - Linda, Sandra, Joy, Lynn, Kay, Barbara, Susan, Judy, Mary Beth (all double names), Tammy, Debbie

My daughters' generation - Katherine, Kathryn, Catherine. Elizbeth, Mary, Emily, Tracy, Stephanie, Lisa, Jennifer

My grandaugters' generation - Megan, Isabella, Emma, Frances, Mary, Kate, Lydia, Margaret, Emily.

Mosquitoes

Dallas has been inundated with rain. We've had a hard-to-fix roof leak on that stupid flat roof. (Why would anyone have a flat roof anywhere but in West Texas or the Middle East?) And the mosquitoes are out in force. Every door of our house has a colony of the biters lurking, just to try to get in. I have the pests in my car! My new perfume is Deep Off Woods (25% Deet) and I have about 12 current bites. Fortunately, these aren't the kind that give West Nile Virus.

To make matters even more annoying, my husband does not get bitten. Oh, he'll get the occasional tick attached to tender parts when we go to the ranch, but mosquitoes just don't like him. He doesn't spray at all and he just never gets bitten. NO fair.

I'm waiting anxiously, for someone to do his DNA and give me some of that.

Gum chewing

I know this is trivial with war, insane college shooters and out-of-control TV coverage, but gum chewing is driving me crazy. I think there must be a requirement for postal employees that they perfect gum chewing before being allowed to work the desk at the post office. Seriously, when was the last time you stood in line and actually watched a post office work NOT chomping away?

My aunt Jane (born in 1902) wrote in her diary that "they were so naughty - they chewed gum!" And my mother thought gum chewing should be done only in private.

Just look at Britany Spears - doesn't the fact that she's always chewing away (mouth open, of course) just punctuate the fact that she's just trashy?

Writing Contest, life lessons

In between editing the pet magazine, preparing the library budget and grandmothering, I have entered the over 60 PEN Texas contest. As background, I remember leafing through a book in the library at the Theta house in Austin in around 1964 and being fascinated with an account of a life told in checks. The series of checks revealed a life in Hollywood in 1931 (writen by Wuther Grue) and published in a big book.

Last year I came across the same book ( Vanity Fair 1931) and thought that this could be adapted to Dallas from the 70s to 2006 and tell the life of a privileged young woman. It was harder than I thought to organize the events and the different banks (there were lots of bank changes in the time)! Anyway, I sent it off and we'll see.

I used events from my own daughters' lives (the OB/GYN, the ballet school, cotillion) but other events (obviously, since my daughters grew up to be perfect, unspoiled, intelligent and beautiful) are made up or drawn from friends or acquaintences who weren't so blessed. Looking at their lives makes me realize that you can do everything you think is right and still be wrong.

Family history

In my spare time I've been organizing the mound of family papers - putting them in binders titled with family names;
Egan
Dean
Camp
Flanary
Armstrong
Stroud
Camp
Walling
Breeding
Crozier
Smyth (or Smythe)
Kuhn
Denton
and others.

It has been fascinating and I've been lucky to be the family historian. Most of the men in my husband's family have left a personal record of who they are and from where they came.

Here's mine:

I was born in Pecos, Texas December 3, 1943, the second child of John Robert "Bob" and Nancy Elizabeth Camp Dean. My older brother was born October 31, 1939. My younger brother was born July 25, 1949 and my younger sister born September 1, 1952.

Pecos, a town of about 15,000 people at the time, was a great place in which to grow up. We had prosperity from oil, gas, cantaloupes (the World's Best) and cotton. My father and grandfather operated an abstract office - very important in determining ownership of mineral properties - and Daddy and his cousin Marcus Dingler operated cotton and cantaloupe fields.

Our high school provided us with exemplary education with outstanding teachers and many of us went off to colleges. I went to Christian College in Columbia, Missouri (which a cousin had attended) then transferred to the University of Texas (at Austin - a suffix not required in 1963).

My father's family moved to Pecos, Texas in 1918 (when he was 8) from Carlsbad, New Mexico. (He was the youngest of four siblings - Jane, Bill, Jr, Katherine).

Mother was the youngest of her family, as well. She had two brothers, Hilliard and Keith. She was born in Pecos in 1916 and was delivered by her father, Dr. Jim Camp.

More fascinating family history later.

black pants, braces

Ok - I've ranted about maternity clothing. Now I want to rant about grown women's clothing. Have you noticed that all the "new" looks (tunics, empire waists etc) look like maternity clothing? I'm 63 - I don't want to look pregnant! I want to look put together and stylish (not to mention, this) - if I can achieve that without itching, holding my stomach in, or sweating.

I looked at the mall today for plain lightweight black pants - cotton blend. It's too hot in Texas to wear heavy polyester or even microfiber. We need cotton with a little spandex for shape. We older women want a little camoflage of the bumps and rolls - no thin fabric - and give us a little room, for goodness sake! Anyway, no luck with black cotton-blend pants. I think the Chinese look of black pants and jacket would look great. I'm looking online.

In other news, I've decide to get braces to correct the overcrowding of my lower teeth. So far, ouch. The benefit of orthodontia at an advanced age is wine.

Ugly, ugly

Well, I've looked everywhere and there are no good-looking maternity clothes. My oldest (of three) daughters is having her second baby in July and we went shopping yesterday. Destination Maternity is a store here which carries Mimi Maternity, A Pea in the Pod and other brands under the same roof - and it's all ugly! I checked out Sears, Motherhood and Penney's today - ugly, ugly. And cheap-looking.

Who decided that the "look" for pregnant women is an empire line (which hits most pregnant breasts about the nipple) and thin, jersey-like fabric which clings so closely that nipples and bellybuttons are in high relief? Ugh.

Looking back on pictures of me in maternity clothes back in the 60s and 70s, I'm surprised I wasn't arrested they were so short. But they did cover the vitals. They were dresses (for the most part) which hung from the shoulders and were made of thicker fabric. They didn't disguise the pregnancy but they didn't thrust it in the face of passersby, either.

I'll bet they were also more comfortable and cooler (a big advantage for a big, hot body) as well as being easier to navigate the frequent bathroom stops.

I had the bright idea of finding a maternity jumper dress made from a wool crepe or light gaberdine which Elizabeth could wear with or without a blouse or T-shirt underneath. She could wear that to the office, to lunch or even out for dinner with appropriate accoutrements. I couldn't find anything like that. They do have denim ones with cutsie embroidry, but anywhere you would wear that, you could wear jeans.

Maybe I'll have one made (I gave up my sewing machine after the disaster of the purple velvet pants suit, which I made with the nap going up on one leg and down on the other.)

Ears and Years

We attended the University of Texas Chancellor's Council meeting here in Dallas last weekend.

They presented a fascinating program at UT Dallas (the UT system has nine academic campuses and six medical ones) - showing off the latest in nanotechnology, brain studies and art. Their interdiscipilnary coordination between the science and art departments boggle the less-than-young mind.

Then we reconvened at UT Southwestern Medical School and heard about the coordinaton between Callier Center for Communication (used to be just speech and hearing challenges), UT Dallas Engineering school and UT Southwestern Medical. They are doing ground-breaking work on deafness and cochlear implantation.

Did you know:
Hearing aids supply amplification; cochlear implants electically replace the tiny hairs in the inner ear which transmit impulses to the brain which allow you to hear.

They can do a cochlear implant in childen as young as 6 months.

A cochlear implant never (so far - they've been being implanted for the last 20 or so years) needs to be replaced as the inner ear is adult size at birth.

Children can't learn to speak if they can't hear.

Getting a cochlear implant can result in loss of any residual hearing.

Studies show that background noise can sometimes be eliminated with two implants.

Technology is coming up with new systems to deliver sounds to the deaf - future systems may include hardware that looks and acts a like PDA.

In more news, we are having our 45th high school reunion and about a fourth of our class of 97 will attend. I expect lots of laughing over old pictures and oohs and ahhs over the photos of the grandchildren - some of whom are in their 40s. In our old days, people didn't wait until their late 30s to marry and have children. Some of our classmates married at 18 or 19 and had children right away - AND some are even still married to their original spouse! What a concept!

Maybe it's not the schools

Charles Murray, the co-author of The Bell Curve, has written a series of three articles for the Wall Street Journal on the part intelligence plays in the classroom. In my opinion, it is the brilliant exposition of a serious flaw in our educational system.

Here’s what I understand his studies to show:

There is a wide range of levels of intelligence in the American classroom.

Half of all children are below average in intelligence. We are not from Lake Wobegon (where all the children are above average).

“Our ability to improve the academic accomplishment of students in the lower half of the distribution of intelligence is severely limited “

A good teacher may be able to bring up the grades of a motivated intelligent (IQ above 100) student, but even an exceptional teacher is not able to impact the ability of the student with an IQ much under 100.

“Some say that the public schools are so awful that there is huge room for improvement in academic performance just by improving education. There are two problems with that position. The first is that the numbers used to indict the public schools are missing a crucial component. For example, in the 2005 round of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 36% of all fourth-graders were below the NAEP's "basic achievement" score in reading. It sounds like a terrible record. But we know from the mathematics of the normal distribution that 36% of fourth-graders also have IQs lower than 95.”

Food for thought!

Raising Children in Your Spare Time

I pulled out one of my old time favorite books on child rearing to see what it had to say about two-year-olds now that both babies, (uh toddlers,) are two.

They seem to be learning a new word daily, plus learning how to open and close doors among other scary lessons. And they are learning how to push mama's and grandmother dearest's buttons by refusing to put on jackets, deciding that their formerly favorite meal is now poison and having contrary opinions about everything.

"How to Raise Children at Home in Your Spare Time" written in 1966 by Dr. Marvin J. Gersh, was a book I initally found at the Austin Public Library when I was pregnant with Elizabeth, so at least 38 years ago. It's a little out of date now, but it was reassuring with practical and tongue-in-cheek advice. His theory seemed to be that childraising was too serious to be taken seriously.

However, I think I need to get Vicki Iovine's toddler book to see what she advises about this new stage.

Brain Health

I heard a lecture yesterday about keeping your brain healthy and it was fascinating.

The Center for BrainHealth® , out of the University of Texas at Dallas, is dedicated to achieving an individual's highest mental and communicative potential to optimize brain health after brain injury, brain disease, and natural aging. www.brainhealth.utdallas.edu.

Sandra Chapman, PhD, made several points that stuck with me.

1. Forgetting is good. Somethings don't need to be remembered (trivia, your fourth-grade teacher's birthday, long ago negative experiences). Replace them with postive memories.

2. Don't have general anesthesia if you don't have to. It puts a ding in your brain that takes a long time to overcome.

3. Older people do forget details but remember the gist. Cultivate getting the big picture.

4. Keep learning, but find something you are already find interesting. Don't take up calculus or sudoku or French if you don't like it. Get better at something you already do well.

5. Multitasking can be overwhelming. Focus on the important things.

6. Forgetting and disorientation are not normal signs of aging. Consult a specialist - your gynocologist or dentist may not know. The Center for Brain Health is proposing a "baseline" brain checkup (like in mammograms or colonoscopy) so changes can be monitored and treated.

That's who she is

My daughter's child's play group has sort of nastily divided into the stay-at-home-mommies and the working mommies - with, it seems to me, a little jealousy on both sides.

However, a person who would pass judgment on someone else's child care and mothering choices is the kind of person who won't hesitate to tell you everything else you are doing wrong. My advice is to avoid her like the plague she is.

Frankly, there will always be someone who not only bakes their own bread, but grows and grinds their own wheat; has a professional-grade play yard; has a bigger house in a better neighborhood; is teaching their two-year-old Mandarin Chinese; - in short, is doing things you never thought of but think would be great for your child - if you just had the time and money to do it.

Life's too short to try to live up to someone else's expectations. Let's assume that we're all trying to do the best we can.

Books

We've just helped a widow friend donate books to our local library. Most will go directly to our quarterly sale, except some we want to read (me) or save (Byron).

I've just finished reading a novel by a friend of our daughter and son-in-law - Requiem by Christopher Moreau. Very entertaining, and I recommend it. A fascinating look at the LA music scene, with a murder thrown in.

Other books I've enjoyed lately:

Being Dead is No Excuse - a book about funerals in the Mississippi Delta - very funny and has recipes. Don't hold a wake without it!

Any title by Mary Lasswell (out of print - go to www.abe.com) The trio of ladies from San Diego during WWII will make you laugh.

Mysteries by Phoebe Atwood Taylor (who also writes as Alice Tilton).

I'm also listening to "Sense and Sensibility" by Jane Austen. I've seen the PBS movie and listened to other audio books, but this is a superior production of an amazingly timeless book.

Death & Funerals

I admit I've watched all of Gerald Ford's funeral proceedings. What beautiful music! And what a trooper Betty Ford is - 88 years old and holding up through all that (probably without the consolation of Scotch).

Do you wonder about all those military people who play in the Air Force Band and are honored to stand watch over or carry the casket? How do they get that assignment? Do they get to sign up for the band, or do they have to serve in combat first? The pomp and circumstance is very impressive.

It made me think that when Megan and Andy (both now two - ten weeks apart) graduate from high school, I'll be 79! Granted, my grandmothers lived to be in their 90s and Mother was 84 - but still.

It makes me sad that they won't know much about my little home town or their grandparents and great-grandparents in Pecos or their Dallas grandparents (who were so much older).

I'm going to have to write down stuff that they probably won't be interested in reading about until they are all grown up - if then.

Meanwhile, remember I don't want any sopranos singing at my funeral. Save the stories for the wake.

Grandmother club

At a New Year's Day Blackeyed Pea party yesterday (blackeyed peas on New Year's Day bring you good luck and prosperity), two friends and I were talking about our grandchildren.
The three of us are contemporaries, early 60s, and we each have had our first grandchildren in the last year or so. Mine at two and almost two are the oldest. Each of us married in our early twenties and had children right away - three each - and our children have waited until their middle thirties to have our grandchildren. It's been a long time getting here, but as one remarked "I'm so glad I'm in this club!"