Babies Reading at 18 Months?

After a night of cookie making insomnia, I happened upon a freaky infomercial featuring toddlers, I’m talking 18-20 months old, reading full sentences. It was so strangely compelling, I watched the program twice over on two channels and nearly bought the DVD set (thank goodness sleep finally kicked in). The next morning I told Paul about it, soliciting his opinion about maybe getting the program for the twins. His immediate reaction was, “No kid should be able to read before they can wipe their own ass.”

As much as I love our new town, I’ve also heard from some neighbors that because it’s so small, it can be extremely competitive. And, really, the game has changed. I got into Pepperdine University after a decent high school education but I wonder if that could happen now. Degrees are so closely linked to job opportunities that they have become even more coveted than they were 15 years ago. Will this little town turn my kids into Mylanta gulping stress bunnies worried about getting into Yale? Or, will Paul and I have the will and the skill to help them balance a healthy educational life with seeing life as it is, a journey with no clear cut answers, just lots of opportunity.

I stress about these little things everyday because I know that if I hadn’t gone to college, hadn’t had the opportunity to study in Europe, hadn’t had the confidence to move to NYC, hadn’t applied for grad school, I may not be where I am today; able to provide a decent life for my kids. It’s just another one of life’s little tight ropes I suppose. Maybe they’ll come out with a magic DVD program for adults that will instruct in balancing parental expectations as well as reducing one’s need to ever buy magic infomercial products at 3AM.

Our MJ is Gone

When Princess Diana died I didn’t sleep for two days. My husband thought I was a freak saying, you didn’t know Princess Diana. Who is she to you? The last 48 hours I’ve been watching news report after interview about Michael Jackson’s passing. It’s strange to feel such sadness over someone that I didn’t know and that ultimately led such a strange life, one with no connection to mine.
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Yet, here I sit blogging about it and it just hit me why. Michael Jackson was like the Justin Timberlake of our generation. We watched him grow up, leave the bosom of his group, break out on his own and become an omnipresent force on the radio and the TV. His songs could make you cry (I’ll Be There), make a wedding dance floor get way more interesting (Wanna be Startin’ Something), make running on a treadmill way less tedious (Don’t Stop ‘til You Get Enough) and now, let you groove a little on an easy listening station driving in the car (Rock with You). And really, who hasn’t tried at one point to learn the choreography to the Thriller video? I don’t know a single cheerleading squad or dance team that didn’t somehow copy some of those moves during the 1980’s.

I watched Michael Jacksons’s performance of Billy Jean on the Motown 25th Anniversary Special live. It was one of THE most spectacular performances that I’ve ever seen in my life! It was so original, so exuberant, and so effortless, you knew you were seeing greatness and you just wanted more. And, that’s what he gave, and maybe a little too much. I hope now he has a little peace.

Brownies Saved Me From Buyers Remorse

It is a truth universally acknowledged that moving sucks. Moving especially sucks when it rains for nearly two weeks straight, you have endless piles of stuff belonging to your four kids and your new home does not fit all your old junk. Moving from a rental to a home you now own is even more excruciating. You’re moving at warp speed to get your real house in order and then you realize that you have to scrub down your rental top to bottom and acknowledge that at heart, your kids are a bunch of slobs.

OK, so I may sound bitter but I’m not. Though my skin is raw from using too much cleaning product with bleach and I’ve probably inhaled enough toxic fumes to have wiped out all of the hair in my nasal passages, I’m really not. Truth be told I would have been 300% more bitter if not for the plate of brownies that arrived at my door two days ago.

When I moved from California to NJ, I went through a period of stiff upper lip catatonic cheerfulness as I soon realized that life on the east coast was no picnic when you have four kids under the age of 8. The weather stinks, mosquitoes the size of pigeons bite my children so much I actually worry about West Nile Virus and to make things completely absurd, the price of everything seems twice as much for living in a state with high property taxes, toll booths on their highways and really appalling fruits and vegetables. Suffice it to say that buying a house was not the celebratory experience that one would assume. In fact, it made me so anxious that I was gulping Mylanta like the Starbucks lattes that I used to be able to get when there was actually a Starbucks I could get to without driving 5 miles (another reason to hate NJ…cue the violins!).

So, when the deal finally closed, my anxiety did not end. I started having panic attacks a few times a day thinking that I had made a huge mistake. It was like buyers remorse but on the biggest ticket item you can think of. Of course you can return the 20th pair of cute black heels that you just had to have but a house, not so much. I was coming back from my 10th trip to the rental to pick up more junk when one of our new neighbors from across the street brought over a plate full of brownies.

Seriously, when was the last time you received moist and chewy goodies from a perfect stranger with seemingly no ulterior motive? It is perhaps the most neighborly thing to have happened to me in my life and my children were witness to the delivery which made the gesture even more special. So, yes, I’m still in NJ but a plate of brownies saved me from major buyers remorse and I’ve stopped gulping Mylanta. That’s definitely something to be cheerful about.

My Facebook Miracle

I can be impossibly stubborn when I feel pushed (cue the sounds of shock!). My brother Ben kept calling me a LOSER for not having a MySpace or Facebook page but I kept ignoring him, hoping that social networking would be a passing fad. It’s not that I’m a technophobe, but having four kids has a way of making one realign daily the things you need to do and the stuff you want to do.

Even as I created my Facebook page, I was still skeptical about engaging in the activity. Who cared what books I read? Does anyone really care where I’ve traveled? Is being a fan of Sex in the City passe? Why would anyone want to poke me? And, don’t even get me started on the status updates! I was paralyzed thinking what I could and should share. Are my kids birthdays OK or shameless? Does anyone care if I’m sitting at the George Michael concert?

A couple of months later, though I had spent virtually no time on my page, added no pictures, sent no friend requests, my Facebook page yielded the miracles and an amazing demonstration of human kindness.

I took a Dramamine on a flight from Cincinnati to Newark. Though Dramamine works like a charm for air sickness, it also turns me into a drooling zombie if my flight is less than 5 hours. I didn’t even remember that I had left my IPod Nano in the seat back pocket until I was 40 miles into my trip back home. Though I was sad for losing it, I knew that I had a better chance of winning the lottery than ever getting it back.

The next day, I got a friend request from a name I did not recognize. Normally paranoid about getting emails from strangers, something made me open it. Lo and behold, it was an email from a man who had found the IPod and wanted to return it to me! I accepted his friend request and sent him a gushing email thanking him and asking if I could pay for postage and if he could also send me his address so that I could send him a gratitude gift. More miracles! Not only did he refuse to accept shipping money from me but requested that I did not send him a gratitude gift.

My husband was incredulous. He doubted I would even get it back yet two days later, the bubble padded pack arrived with my IPod! It included a note that said that I should not be so cynical about acts of human kindness and that my music mix sucked anyway! Priceless.

Japan's Catcher in the Rye

Japan has its own real catcher in the rye according to Time Magazine (June 22nd Health Issue). As the global financial crisis pounds Japan's economy, the number of suicides in Japan has risen to 23.8 per 100,000 people, making Japan the home of the highest suicide rate in the world. The well-known place that many go to die is Tojinbo cliffs, a rocky piece of land bordering the Sea of Japan.

Since 2004 Yukio Shige, a former police detective, and trained counselor, has made it his singular cause to patrol the Tojinbo cliffs in the hope of preventing desperate Japanese citizens from jumping. He has successfully saved 188 people, talking them down from the cliffs and then counseling them to see their lives as not desperate but only the beginning of a larger, more meaningful journey. Shige has funded his cause largely through his own retirement savings and donations. Recently, the Japanese government has awarded him 100 million to support his patrol, as well as the counseling he provides.

Reading about Yuko Shige made me wonder what pushes someone to such deep despair that they are willing to leave the earth and the ones they love. The article cites unemployment and financial hardship, things that are truly devastating but can be fixed. Many fortunes have been won and lost around the world by the best and the smartest. I suppose all humans feel desperate about their lives at some point; drug use, broken heart, family arguments, losing their job, losing a loved one. I dearly hope my children never entertain the thought of ending their lives. If they ever do, I hope someone like Shige will be there to catch them before they fall or, if I’m lucky, that they’ll come to me to seek solace.

That One Thing

The urban legend about me is that I was speaking full sentences when I was 11 months old. The joke then is, and my whole family will say it in unison, “and she never stopped.” My dad used to say, “The one thing that you can do, Berna, is talking. You’re good at talking. Maybe someday you could be the Filipino Connie Chung.” This speech, repeated from when I was 10 years old, made me roll my eyes every time he said it.

The one thing? Only one thing? Today, I believe I’m pretty good at a few things. I can make a really moist and tasty Magnolia style cupcake and chicken Marsala. I started knitting after my birthday and am getting pretty good. I’m also pretty good at folding clothes, sending out Thank You cards on time, wrapping presents and playing a couple of songs on the piano.

Looking back, I wonder how much my father’s praising of the one thing I was good at affected my adult life. Did his prodding to become a professional talker make me turn my back on becoming a journalist? Did my role as the talker of the family effect the way my brothers communicate today? Or, did his speeches ultimately give me the confidence to know that I was pretty good at communicating and to try to harness this in my work and home life?

All four of my children demonstrate one thing that they seem to be pretty good at right now. Paul said, “Natalie is good at drawing. Paulina is good at taking care of people. Max is a clown and will probably get into acting or music. Aidan is good at creating mayhem and will end up in a minimum security prison.” OK, so I hope that the last bit about Aidan isn’t true. But, we do go through our days reinforcing how good they are at the things they do without really encouraging them to do other things well.

But, what happens later? Does laser focusing on the one thing make that one thing a self-fulfilling prophecy? Or, will other things pop up organically and we’ll know to take the cue when those things happen? It’s such a slippery slope. I just hope that when those other things present themselves, we’ll have the wherewithal to notice and celebrate them.

Elmo Needs You!

Even Elmo and friends are not immune to the recession. Sesame Workshop, the non-profit producer of Sesame Street, announced that they will be cutting 20% of their workforce. This fact has not escaped mainstream media, with news organizations like Time Magazine, MSNBC and Newsweek all writing about it, perhaps hoping that awareness of the show’s problems will help drive viewership, sales of their licensed toy products and donations to public television.

You never know what your kids will gravitate to. We’ve gone through periods of fascination with Blue’s Clues, Dora the Explorer, Diego, Mickey Mouse, The Backyardigans, The Wiggles and even the Teletubbies. Unfortunately, the twins only recently began recognizing characters from Sesame Street and it’s largely from Max and Natalie’s book collection.

My husband didn’t grow up with Sesame Street. I don’t think he even knows what channel PBS is on now. In our mega cable channel universe, whoever controls the dial largely determines what your children know and become attached to. I have very fond memories of watching Sesame Street with my brothers and still marvel at how they make the show entertaining while also teaching basic developmental concepts. I also remember the show featuring ballerinas, fine art, jazz music, the Eiffel Tower and actors and singers from every genre. It gave me the sense of a world beyond my neighborhood. It made me want to live there.

Now that I know that the recession has hit Sesame Street, I will now make sure to set the dial to PBS, buy some Sesame street DVDs and maybe even buy the twins Tickle Me Elmo for Christmas. It’s the least I can do. My life might have been very different if I had never seen Sesame Street.