Friday Night Lights

This weekend I got my first real taste of “Friday Night Lights”.

Let me be clear up front: I am not a football fan. Though I hail from the land of the Giants (and the Jets), football was never really a sport that interested me. I’m married to a Patriot’s fan, so I’m willing to give up television time for the sake of my spouse. Occasionally I’ll watch the Super Bowl, but only for the commercials.

I do enjoy watching other sports. Baseball is fine, though a little slow. Basketball, hockey and soccer are fast paced and exciting. But watching football at home, on television is my equivalent to watching paint dry…or grass grow. It’s just oh so slow.

Perhaps the problem lies with the fact that I have no idea how the game is played. This is what I have learned from watching football: One team has the ball. They go five feet. They stop. They go ten more feet. They stop. Somehow, someone else gets the ball and they go ten feet the other way. They stop. The referees have microphones so everyone in the neighboring state can hear what kind of penalty is being issued. And they dress like Foot Locker employees. The cheerleaders have perpetual smiles pasted on their faces and double stick tape on their short-shorts to avoid unpleasant wardrobe malfunctions on national television. And the commercials are all for mass-produced American beer, Doritos and Chevy trucks.

Granted, I’ve seen exciting moments in football. For example, the Doug Flutie “Hail Mary” pass. Imagine if Gerard Phelan hadn’t caught that ball? Talk about the agony of defeat. Speaking of defeat, how about the moment that ended Joe Theismann’s career? Whenever I mention the words “Joe Theismann” in my husband’s presence he winces in pain and tries to think of something else. Then there was the Patriots’ Super Bowl win over the St. Louis Rams in January 2002. I remember that game well in that it was one of the rare times that I’ve seen my husband cry (a feat to be repeated a few years later when the Red Sox won the World Series).

My kids have never had much interest in football, neither watching nor playing. Both of them enjoy soccer instead. However, many of my fourth grader’s friends are playing football this fall, and he asked if sometime we could watch a game so he could cheer his buddies on. Most of the football games conflicted with our Saturday morning soccer schedule, but this weekend’s game was scheduled in the evening, so we bundled up in warm coats and boots and headed off to the game.

Despite my lack of enthusiasm for football, there’s something about sitting on freezing cold bleachers on a crisp, autumn evening that seems so right. As we walked to the field, the setting sun filtered through the red and gold leaves while a teenage girl sang the national anthem. Since we were the visiting team, our hike to the visitor’s bleachers was lengthy. Our opponents that evening were the Scituate-Cohasset Sharks, a team with the unlikely nickname of “Sci-Cohs” (pronounced like the Alfred Hitchcock film.) I guess that’ better than being known as “Sickos” but it still seemed odd every time the announcer made a comment about a member of the “psycho sharks”.

We don’t have announcers in soccer. When my kids play, no one is sitting up in the booth giving shout outs to players over a loudspeaker. Given my ignorance of the game, the announcements were quite helpful to me. Whenever one of my son’s friends got a mention, I’d let out a huge cheer. Luckily, none of them were injured or taken off the field on a stretcher as that might have made my cheering a bit embarrassing.

My sons discovered another bonus to football: the snack shack. Dollar after dollar found their way into my kids’ hands for popcorn, hot chocolate, Swedish fish and Reese’s peanut butter cups. I consoled myself with the fact that the walk from the visitor’s bench to the snack shack was long enough to burn off the calories of anything they ate.

Did I learn anything from watching the 4th and 6th graders play? Well, if anything it was more difficult to understand the game itself, without the advent of overhead cameras, telestrators and instant replay. But from sitting in the bleachers, I could feel the camaraderie of the parents as they cheered for each other’s kids. I could see the devotion of the coaches as they rotated players in and out, trying to insure that each kid had his fair share of playing time. I watched the younger brothers running up and down the sidelines, tossing footballs to each other and anticipating the day when they could become part of a team. And I marveled at the way my son, who has no real interest in football, jumped up and down, cheering and waving to his friends on the field as they each played their part in an hour of glory under the stadium lights on a crisp October night.

I get it now.

When Kids Can Watch Themselves

Last weekend my husband and I planned a movie date. Like many couples, we spend most of our weekend time with our children, shuttling them to sports activities, overseeing weekend homework and sharing that rare family occurrence when everyone sits at the dinner table at the same time.

So “Date Night” seemed like a good idea. We chose the movie, checked the theater times, fed the kids dinner, bid them goodbye and were off.

Do you recognize what’s missing in this series of events? The noticeable absence of a babysitter. Until recently, any outing that involved both my husband and me required a babysitter to watch our two children. Unlike many of my friends, my husband and I have no family in the area to help with the kids, so we’ve relied heavily on sitters over the years. Most of my babysitters began sitting for me when they were twelve. Now my own “baby” is twelve, and over the past year I’ve been allowing him to take responsibility for watching himself and his younger brother without a sitter.


I tried to calculate just how much money I’ve spent on babysitters these past twelve years. $ 5 -$8 per hour multiplied by all the hours spent at book club, Newcomers, my Pampered Chef business, dates with my husband, weddings and funerals equals enough to purchase a luxury vacation for my husband and myself (a vacation we couldn’t take because that would require…a babysitter).

This led me to reflect on my own experience as a babysitter. As an early teen, my Saturday nights were spent sitting on a scratchy couch keeping an eagle eye on Adam Gilbert, age 4. Surrounded by metallic wallpaper (this was, after all, the 70’s), I’d watch “Love Boat” and “Fantasy Island”, sneaking chips or cookies from the pantry in unnoticeable increments, despite the Gilbert’s admonishment to “Help yourself to whatever you’d like.” Sometime after midnight I’d be roused from sleep by the sound of the garage door opener, at which point Mr. Gilbert would drive me home as quickly as possible, always in silence, clearly uncomfortable with the idea of making conversation. For this I earned the princely sum of $1 per hour, an amount that seems like slave wages compared to today, but one that paid for a steady supply of candy necklaces, Tiger Beat magazines and worthless trinkets from Spencer Gifts.

Now that my son is the same age that I was when I began sitting, I’ve eased him into the idea of being home alone. At the start of fifth grade he was given a key to the front door and strict instructions to call my cell phone if I’m not home when he gets off the bus. In sixth grade, he graduated to getting himself in the door and getting his brother off the bus shortly afterwards. I would always arrive home soon after, since leaving these two boys together was like leaving a lit match in the company of a powder keg. On the rare evening when I needed to go to book club or a school event before my husband arrived home, I would entrust my boys to watch each other for the overlapping hour. Even this resulted in no panicked phone calls to my cell phone or bloodshed.

Then last month, the true test: We left our kids home on a Saturday night in order to attend a friend’s party. The party was five minutes from home, and our children had already been fed dinner, minimizing the risk of cooking or choking incidents. From 7-11pm, we mingled with other grown-ups without worrying about how much the evening was costing us in babysitter fees. A friend at the party whose kids are older than ours, said, “It’s great when the kids are old enough to watch themselves. See, it was totally worth having them!”

We arrived home that night to find the house and children still intact, and that’s when it dawned on me that my husband and I could now get some of that all-important alone time that was sacrificed when our kids were little. We no longer have to wait for a “special occasion” to get out for a few hours on our own. We don’t have to go to the bank or make change to pay the babysitter, or take turns driving her home. We don’t have to take out a second mortgage in order to pay for dinner, a movie and a babysitter.

We do, however, have to figure out a way to get the kids to put themselves to bed before we arrive home past their bedtime.

Baby steps.

On Milestone Birthdays

This has been a year of milestone birthdays.

Thankfully, none of these milestone birthdays have been mine. My next “big” birthday ushers in a whole new era, allowing me to apply for membership in AARP and checking off that box on surveys for people “50 and above…” But that’s three years from now, so let’s return to the milestones I helped celebrate this year.

In June, my mother-in-law celebrated her 70th birthday. On the last day of school we picked up our kids and drove to central New York to share this momentous occasion. As a child I thought 70 to be a particularly ancient age, but my in-laws run their farm, volunteer and participate in several social organizations in their community. I’m often exhausted when I read emails from my mother-in-law Sara, detailing the myriad of weekend activities. If I’m this tired on the dark side of 40, how does she manage to stay so active at 70? Maybe Sara can clue me in to the secret of increasing your energy as you get older. Good clean country living…or Geritol?

In September, my nephew turned 21. Sadly, the emphasis of this milestone birthday is the ability to drink alcohol legally. Since you can drive at 17 and vote and serve in the armed forces at 18, the one remaining activity restricted to age 21 is drinking. Visiting the party store last weekend, I noticed that all the “milestone” themed items for ages 30, 40 & 50 were very different from the “21” items. The majority of these novelties revolved around alcohol. My nephew is a smart kid, his one vice an excess of video games. I’m hoping that now that he’s “legal”, he’ll stay smart and drink only in moderation.

Recently, my sons’ taekwondo teacher invited my husband and me to a local pub to celebrate her husband’s 30th birthday. 30? An unpleasant truth settled in my brain: I was old enough to be his mother. Pushing that thought aside, I tried, without success, to recall how I spent my own 30th birthday. I have no memory of it whatsoever. I can, however, remember my husband’s 30th. Vividly. It was my first visit to his parents’ house. His stepfather had planned a barbecue for the occasion, but as he fired up the hibachi, it began to rain. Undeterred, his stepfather brought the hibachi inside, setting it on top of the woodstove. Smoke filled the house as my future husband ran from room to room opening windows: A truly unforgettable milestone birthday.

Last weekend, I helped organize a party for a friend who turned 40. She accepted this milestone with good grace, though she looks about 25 so perhaps that makes all the difference. On my 40th birthday I spent the day in my bathrobe, crying and feeling sorry for myself. Then the two dozen roses arrived from my husband and I managed to pull it together. When he arrived home with a spa gift certificate and tickets to the musical “Mamma Mia”, 40 suddenly didn’t seem so bad. The day ended with several friends taking me to dinner, and I finished that milestone on a high note.

Next month I travel to New Jersey to celebrate my father’s 80th birthday. This milestone is bittersweet: my dad is reaching it but many of his friends and past acquaintances did not. Though his mind is as sharp as ever (he still does the NY Times crossword puzzle in about 20 minutes…in pen), his body is feeling its age, something that concerns us both. I’m thankful that he is reaching this birthday, but then again I am grateful for every year that he and my mother bless my life.
Which brings me to my final thought: Isn’t every birthday a milestone? Is 30 that different from 29? Will 50 be that much different than 40? All of the milestone birthdays this year had one thing in common: they reinforced the notion that time passes all too quickly, and we need to appreciate every day, every hour, every minute that passes, regardless of whether this particular birthday happens to have a zero on the end of it.

So when my next milestone birthday comes, think I’ll be okay with it. I’ll celebrate with a smile, a prayer of thanks and a cup of coffee purchased with my senior citizen discount.

Antiques Roadshow

It’s comforting to know that there’s a place where you can buy a prosthetic leg, a stained glass window, or an ammunition container, if you need one.
And that place is the Brimfield Antique Show.

Brimfield Massachusetts is home to three thousand residents. But for one week each May, July and September, the town welcomes over 250,000 visitors and 5000 antique dealers. True antiques muscle for space with found objects, collectibles, knickknacks, clothing, tools, books and pretty much anything else you can imagine.
Let me just state for the record, I’m not an antique aficionado; I wouldn’t know a priceless antique from a worthless piece of junk. But with the advent of programs like “Antiques Roadshow”, “Pawn Stars” and “American Pickers”, my interest in secondhand treasure has piqued.

I inadvertently purchased a “collectible” in 1987, buying a sealed copy of a limited edition Stephen King novel. “I can’t wait to read it“, I enthused to the bookseller, causing him to literally look down his nose at me and reply, “You don’t buy this book to read it.” At which point I shrank to about six inches in height, paid for my “collectible” and slunk out the door. The book is still encased in plastic, buried in my attic, now worth about $250. I read the paperback instead.
I first visited Brimfield 15 years ago, with an interior designer friend. As we trolled through trash and treasure, I noticed a vendor displaying what looked like large wooden hatboxes. This was during my hatbox-collecting phase (they’re all in the attic now too). The vendor explained that these were, in fact, cheese boxes, once used to store giant wheels of cheese. While I debated about whether to buy one or two, (there were three for sale) my friend offered up this interior design nugget: “You should only group things in threes and fives.” Who knew? I bought all three and they still reside in my living room (not the attic).

I haven’t been back to Brimfield since, though a friend and I often talked about going. Bad weather cancelled an attempt last fall, but this year the week’s weather turned out sunny and cool.

My friends picked me up at 5:30 Saturday morning and we were off. As our coffee kicked in, we talked non-stop all the way to Brimfield, to the point where we completely miss our exit, necessitating an 8-mile backtrack. Riding up Rt. 20 into Brimfield, we marveled at the lack of traffic. Apparently everyone else decided to sleep in. As we drove along the main road, flanked by fields of tents, we could see someone already rolling an early morning purchase to their car, an antique claw foot bathtub. We parked our car in the middle of town and began to wander through the vendors. Some were still closed, others just opening for business, but many were ready to bargain with eager customers.

Not wanting to spend great amounts of money, a friend suggested I play “the dollar game”. She had been to Brimfield many times and always tried to find the best item for one dollar. As we walked through the stalls, my cohorts began racking up purchases: a tin wall decoration ($20); a decorative tree made from twigs ($25); and the one item my kids would have fought over: an authentic army ammunition box ($20). I debated about that one, but suggested my friend purchase it for her son instead. Not wanting to lag behind, I bought a mason jar with the words Queen Wide Mouth and an old anesthesia bottle for my 9-year-old’s bottle collection. Vintage comic books, one for each son, depleted another two dollars from my wallet, but who can resist a title like “Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos”? I bought a metal “X” for my son Xander and a two-dollar wooden shoe last. My friends found other bargains, such as a stained glass window for $50 and a wooden wall carving for $30. And my “dollar game” purchase? A magazine from 1960 entitled “Calling All Girls” which lent a peek into the decade in which I was born.

We spent the day laughing over items like the single-legged-lion-head-end-table and the abundance of scary clown art. As we headed home, our bodies tired from miles of walking, we recapped the events of the day and declared it a huge success.
But the best part of our excursion wasn’t the items packed in the trunk of our car; it was the time we spent together. Our wallets may have been a bit poorer, but we drove home rich with memories.

A Different Sort of Homecoming

This past weekend I attended Homecoming. Often when you hear that word, Homecoming, your thoughts turn immediately to football. Homecoming brings to mind images of a crisp, autumn day; cheerleaders shaking pom-poms, their cheeks rosy from the cold as heavily padded football players take the field; pretty girls wearing pastel gowns and cheap tiaras, smiling and waving to a crowd of cheering onlookers, bundled up in LL Bean and North Face jackets, a cup of steaming coffee or cider warming their hands.

But this weekend was a Homecoming of a different sort. This Homecoming was held at my church, The United Church of Christ in Norwell. For many, Labor Day is the official end of summer, but for me it is my church’s Homecoming Weekend. On that day, our Sunday service returns to its regular 10:00 a.m. time slot. Those of us (and I consider myself one of the worst offenders) who spent summer Sunday mornings sleeping in, reading the paper and making our leisurely way to places like Canobie Lake Park, Duxbury Beach or the New England Aquarium now set our alarm clocks in order to be showered, fed and in our seats by 10:00 a.m.

Summer is a time for vacations. Families take vacations from their everyday lives. Workers take vacations from their jobs. Kids take a vacation from their studies. And I, unfortunately, despite my best efforts, tend to take a vacation from the things that are good for me: healthy eating, exercise and religion.

During the summer I have every intention of eating fresh fruits and healthy salads. I tell myself that I will bring the kids with me to the gym, or go while they are in camp. And I will absolutely, without a doubt, continue to attend church every Sunday. Unfortunately, burgers and margaritas are awfully tempting, and when the kids are in camp it’s much more fun to go to the beach than the gym. And though our church’s summer service lasts only 45 minutes, most Sundays I just couldn’t seem to get myself out of bed in time.

Muscles that are not worked regularly become flabby, and the same holds true for my soul when I skip church for too long. It doesn’t help that my weekly Wednesday morning bible study takes a break during the summer months. While tidying my bedside table, I was disheartened to find a thin film of dust on my bible. A friend and I had decided to do a bible study together on our own this summer, had even gone so far as to order the workbooks online. We made it through one chapter.
That’s not to say that God wasn’t present in my life during the summer months. I found myself praying all summer long; for friends who needed strength; for my husband as he lay in the emergency room with acute appendicitis; for my children as they traveled on the bus to and from camp. Still, it just wasn’t the same

So clearly, Homecoming was an event that could not be missed. As I parked my car, I wondered if anyone would reproach me for being away so long. The first face I saw was my friend Cathy, who runs the church school program. “There she is!” she cried exuberantly as she threw open her arms wide for a hug. We caught up for a few minutes on our respective lives before I walked up the stairs and into the sanctuary. I nodded and greeted other familiar faces as my sons and I settled in our seats.

Throughout the service, I realized just how much had I missed the sounds of our impressive choir, the sweet strains of the organ, the steady sureness of our minister’s sermons. I missed hearing the sincere prayers voiced by other members of the congregation, reciting The Lord’s Prayer while holding hands with the person on either side of me, and greeting those around me with a warm handshake and the word, “Peace”.

It was all so familiar, and yet there were subtle changes as well. A young couple sitting behind me had a new baby in tow. There were new faces in the choir. Friendship Home, which was still a construction site last spring, is nearly complete. And my older son, who used to enjoy going up to the front of the church during the “time for children” opted to stay in his seat instead, whispering ,”Mom, I’m too old for that.”

When the service was over, I collected my things and made my way to the back of the church. A woman came up to me and said, “I haven’t seen you in such a long time!” There was no reproach in her voice, just a warmth that told me she was genuinely glad to see me again. I admitted that I had been the invisible woman all summer. “However,” I said, “I’m back now.”

With a smile, she replied, “That’s all that matters.”

I now know why they call it Homecoming.

Food Fight

There is unrest brewing in my town. People are taking sides and there is a line being drawn in the sand. And sadly, that line is made up of…hot dogs.

Each September, the start of the school year brings new teachers, new friends and new adventures in learning. This year, our town also introduced a brand new school lunch menu. With childhood obesity growing at an alarming rate, a group of concerned residents and school staff members created a Healthy Kids Initiative with the goal of providing our children with better food choices during school hours.
In general the whole buy-lunch-or-bring-lunch debate splits right down the middle at my house. My older son prefers to bring lunch every day, while my younger son prefers to buy it. Though it takes me very little time, I don’t enjoy preparing the older one’s lunch each day (Yes, he’s old enough to make his own lunch. Perhaps it’s time to suggest that). So the lazy part of me has always enjoyed the fact that my younger son prefers to buy. True, I sometimes have to scrounge through seat cushions or the bottom of my purse to come up with the change for lunch each day, but it’s a small price to pay for having one less task in our usual chaotic morning.

The downside to my son buying lunch each day is the possibility of him living on hot dogs and bagels. He’s the type of kid who likes to try new things, but on days when he’s unwilling to risk his taste buds on something exotic, a hot dog or bagel is his trusty stand-by.

The night before school began, I looked up the lunch menu online and immediately noticed that hot dogs were no longer an option. The plain bagel is now replaced by a whole wheat bagel. I told my son that the menu option was ham and cheese on a croissant and that hot dogs were no longer available. His response: “Okay, I’ll bring my lunch instead.”

The next afternoon, while on Facebook, I was surprised by the volume of comments posted on multiple friends’s pages regarding the new lunch menus. No hot dogs? No plain bagels? Some kids chose to skip lunch all together, rather than trying one of the healthy options, and came off the bus starving. Parents who were ready to pay for the entire year in advance were ripping up their checks. It was incredible to see people prepared to eschew an entire year of school lunches after just one day.
You would think that our new lunch menu consisted solely of Brussels sprouts and tofu. Not true. Nachos, chili, hamburgers and meatball subs are still part of the menu. However in each instance the food is prepared with lean meat. Nachos and tacos are served with fresh shredded cheese instead of canned cheese product (If you look at the list of ingredients on the old cheese used for nachos, cheese is the fourth ingredient listed. Not first. Yuck) Not every kid will want to try a grilled chicken Caesar wrap, but some might and actually find that they like it. And though hot dogs are not part of the menu at this time, perhaps a healthier version will reappear in the future.

Believe me, I’m not a health food guru. I keep a supply of fresh fruit and healthy snacks in the house, but I have bags of chips and cookies in the pantry as well. I want my kids to make good food choices, but I don’t always make good choices myself. It’s a tricky balancing act for parents and children alike.

Kids are hard to feed, starting from the moment they begin solid foods. Remember that toddler sitting in his high chair, shaking his head from side to side to avoid a spoonful of applesauce, yogurt, or something equally healthy? We didn’t give up on the first try. We stuck to our guns and continued to encourage healthy foods instead of throwing up our hands and feeding them just Pepperidge Farm goldfish instead.

The second day of school, the menu item was “healthy pizza”. My son bought it and enjoyed it. A friend mentioned that the kids in her neighborhood got off the bus talking about how much they loved the pizza. Perhaps if we give it a little time, we’ll find that our children actually like the new choices. They might surprise us. And if they absolutely refuse, there’s always the brown bag option.

So let’s give the new menu a chance. Let’s see how our kids respond to it for more than just one day. Let’s find out if we can live, temporarily, without hot dogs for lunch.

Because when it comes down to it, do we really want our town divided because of a few weenies?

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Today is the last day of summer vacation (for my town, anyway). It seems like just yesterday I was lamenting the end of the school year and worrying about how I was going to fill the hours and hours stretching ahead of me. And yet, in a flash, the summer is gone. While parents are humming the holiday tune “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year”, children are humming “It’s The End of the World as We Know It.”

Now is the time when we ask ourselves, “Did we do enough over vacation?” Did we go to the beach, sleep late, watch movies, camp and ride our bikes enough? Did we take enough day trips and weekend trips? Did we see enough family members (Or in some cases, too many?) Did we grill enough burgers, drink enough margaritas and swim in our pool (or our neighbor’s pool, or our friend’s pool) enough?

The answer is yes, yes and yes. We had hot days (too many), cool nights (too few), the occasional passing thunderstorm (not nearly enough of those) and every type of weather in between.

I have mixed feelings about the end of summer. Once school begins, I have more time to myself. However, the time when the kids are home will be filled with cracking the whip over homework, chauffeuring them to after school activities and mediating fights.

There are many things that I will miss about summer: letting my kids stay up late and sleeping in the next morning; surprising them with day trips to unexpected places; no homework; spending time with friends; stopping for ice cream on our way home from the beach; crowding around together on a rainy day and watching a “Pawn Stars” marathon on television.

But there are an equal number of things I will not miss about summer: the phrase “what are we doing today?”; fighting over whose turn it is to play the Wii, use the computer or choose the television program; listening to a constant refrain of “He touched/punched/kicked/breathed-on me”; trying to pry my kids away from the aforementioned Wii, computer and television; hot days that make you want to camp out in the freezer section of the Hilltop Butcher Shop; and motorcycles that zoom past my open bedroom window at all hours of the day and night.

Looking back I feel it has been a satisfying summer for our family. We celebrated two milestone birthdays with family and friends. We went to the beach a number of times and spent many afternoons lazing at a friend’s pool. We reconnected with old friends from work, college and elementary school. We read several good books and watched way too many hours of television. We saw good movies and bad movies. We took our annual trip to Canobie Lake Park and toured Castle Island for the first time. We cheered at the Brockton Rox and stood in awe at the Westfield Air Show. We lost one appendix but gained a set of braces.

Best of all, we spent approximately 1,700 hours together and still love and respect each other. So fire up the grill, pour one last margarita and think back to all the things you did this summer. Was it enough? Did you fill it with as many adventures and memories as you had hoped?

I’m willing to bet that you did.