Setting a Theme for Your Family in the New Year

Remember in A Christmas Story, where the teacher says the class has to write "A Theme!" and everybody groans?


Truth: I love a good theme.

I always wind up thinking about New Year's Resolutions early - probably because during the holidays, I think of about 1,000 things I should change or would like to do, "once Christmas is over." But this year, I've decided my family is going to try something different: We're not going to set New Year's Resolutions. Nope, not going to do it. It's too much stress and they seldom work out.

Instead, we're going to set a theme for the year.

I shared this approach in a September post, after reading, Goal-Free Living: How to Have the Life You Want NOW! by Stephen M. Shapiro. The idea is that instead of setting goals - which let's face it, are so type-A and stressful - you set a direction for yourself, a compass, if you prefer. This compass then guides your overall decision making. For instance, if you've chosen "Adventure" for your direction, you wouldn't take your vacation in the same old local. You'd pick a new place, or maybe go for an adventure vacation package.

One couple translated this into a yearly theme. Each year, they picked a different theme and went after it in every aspect of their lives. For instance, during the Year of Exploration, the woman spent the year exploring her potential as a writer and starting her first book.

I love this idea for families, because it can guide so many of your day-to-day decisions, as well as your big lifetime decisions. And it's so easy to do - just decide what you really want more of in your life. For instance, we really want more fun in our lives. We get too serious, to embroiled in what we "should" do, and fun gets pushed to the side. Not surprisingly, my husband and I are experience a bit of drudgery in our lives. The remedy: More Fun and Freedom - permission to have fun and be free from worry, free from constant work, free to do what we want to do.

So, we've already agreed on our theme for the coming year: Fun & Freedom.

Carnival of Family Life Up

The new Carnival of Family Life is up at On the Horizon. It includes a recent Time for Family post, "A Community Makes Time for Family."

I particularly liked the section on Holiday gift ideas, including a list of lead-free toys. Check it out.

Quick Tip: Christmas Lights and Coco

Want an easy, low-stress family tradition for the holidays? That's right - I said "easy, low-stress" and "family tradition" in the same sentence.

When it's dark tonight, instead of plopping down in front of the TV, do this: Mix up some warm coco, put it in a thermos - or sippy cup, if you've got a preschooler - and head out after dark for a car tour of the neighborhood or downtown Christmas lights.

If you've thought far enough ahead, pop in a CD of seasonal songs, but chances are, carols are already playing on the radio.

One caveat: If you have a DVD player in your car, be sure to turn it off!

Some cities even have parks that host light displays, but these cost money and, well, driving around neighborhoods is relatively free - minus the $3 a gallon gas prices, of course. Plus, every town has those neighborhoods were people go all-out. Why not enjoy their creativity for free?

If you're up for it, and live in a neighborhood that loves to decorate, you could bundle up and go for a walk instead.

Christmas: Time to Heal?

Given my humbuggery about Thanksgiving, I suppose it's only karma that I stumbled onto this article, "The Purpose Driven Christmas," by Rick Warren, author of the Purpose Drive Life and similar titles.

One of the ways Warren suggests we add meaning to the holiday is to "Make It a Time for Personal Growth," which has a very specific meaning for him. He challenges us to look at who we need to forgive and of whom we need to ask forgiveness. He writes:

Resentment always hurts you more than the person you resent because bitterness keeps you emotionally stuck in the past. Let go of those hurts and remember this: The most valuable and significant gift you can give anyone this Christmas is your forgiveness, because it will allow you to grow.

Obviously, I've got some forgiving to do. The question for me has always been how? To tell you the truth, I've never found that real forgiveness - where you can give as you did before the injury - happens easily or often. People forgive in that they let go of the anger, but they don't give up the fear, the mistrust or the pain. I think if you're really going to forgive, you have to do that as well. And that's damn hard to do if someone keeps hurting you by doing the same thing.

Here's a little secret: I'm trying a new form of therapy that's supposed to help you do exactly this. It's called EMDR, and I started going for post-traumatic stress disorder from the Oklahoma City bombing.

I'll be honest with you: If I'd walked into a therapist's office and she tried EMDR, I'd probably walk right out or never go back. But I have a psychiatrist friend who's been using it with his patients, and he reported nigh-miracle results: People off their medicines, completely different, happy and well-adjusted in a very short time. Then a friend tried it and it seemed to work for her.

After years of struggling with depression, always being on medicine and never getting very far in therapy, despite three therapists and years of work, I thought I'd give it a try.

And it seems to be working. Really, really well. Even my husband agrees.

So far, I have been able to 'let go' of a lot of pain and anger. What's nice about that is I can come from a place of strength and resolve without feeling all ick inside about it. You know what I mean: The nervousness, the anxiety. No, in the situations where we've done EMDR, I can just be myself and feel okay and not have to worry about it. I remember everything - but it's all clearer and in perspective.

Sometimes, like over Thanksgiving, I still get knocked down, but so far, it's always been in an area where we're still doing the work or a new area I've never tackled. It turns out, some of this depression stuff goes way, way back. Surprise. Maybe when we're finished with the EMDR, I won't have to write posts about 'subtracting' family members. Although, you know, after EMDR, I really have no guilt about cutting off some very dangerous, destructive family members. Previously, it was very hard for me to opt out - I felt guilty, as if I should make it possible to see them over the holidays, even though they didn't respect our requests, our rules and even potentially were a danger to my child.

If you're really struggling to forgiveness, depression, anger or anxiety, why not find an EMDR therapist and try. Be prepared to give it at least two months before you see results. And realize that you'll actually get worse before you get better. That's what happens when you dig up bones.

Hopefully, by Christmas, I'll be able to manage some forgiveness under the tree.


Family | Family Problems | Holidays

Prayer for A Lifetime

I used to post prayers regularly, but I got out of the habit. Mostly, because religion has fallen off my radar in the past year. Sad, but true.

I found this great prayer at The River and the Vine and thought it was worth sharing:

O God, when I have food,
help me to remember the hungry;

When I have work,
help me to remember the jobless;

When I have a home,
help me to remember those who have no home;

When I am without pain,
help me to remember those who suffer,

And remembering,
help me to destroy my complacency;
bestir my compassion,
and be concerned enough to help
those who cry out for what we take for granted.

Amen.

-Samuel F. Pugh

You can find another great Thanksgiving prayer, sermons and other religious writings, at The River and The Vine, a blog written by Rev. Cynthia O'Brien of the Smith Memorial Presbyterian Church, Fairview, Oregon, and the Presbytery of the Cascades.

Defining Family: When to Subtract

When I started this blog, one of the topics I wanted to explore - and I listed it right in the masthead (see, above this post) - was what it means to be a family. And I think a big part of that is defining family.

I'd never looked up the definition for family before because I thought I knew it. It turns out, I was surprised by how limiting the first entries or so are. I'm posting the first seven, because the rest don't apply, since they move in the idea of larger, official families (the family of Romantics, for instance). Dictionary.com defines family as:

1. parents and their children, considered as a group, whether dwelling together or not.
2. the children of one person or one couple collectively: We want a large family.
3. the spouse and children of one person: We're taking the family on vacation next week.
4. any group of persons closely related by blood, as parents, children, uncles, aunts, and cousins: to marry into a socially prominent family.
5. all those persons considered as descendants of a common progenitor.
6. Chiefly British. approved lineage, esp. noble, titled, famous, or wealthy ancestry: young men of family.
7. a group of persons who form a household under one head, including parents, children, and servants.

For me, family has always been extended to definition four - any group of persons closely related by blood - and, frankly, their marriage partners as well.

I now see that's just a huge definition - no wonder 'family' makes me anxious! The family I carry around in my head is just too darn huge to feel like family.

You'll note the first three definitions are much smaller, essentially composed of the traditional, nuclear family: A parent and offspring.

Why all this defining of family?

Honestly, I'm pondering whether there are situations - things that happen, circumstances - that make it ridiculously to extend to someone the consideration of family.

In short: Can you kick people out of your family? Can you cut out the dysfunctional and limit who you consider your family to the point of creating a functional group?

If my extended family is so negative as to make me miserable, can I just delete them from my definition of family?

Obviously, in some ways, no. Family is family, and if there's a blood tie, there's not a lot you can do about it. You'll still all be invited to the same funerals, the same weddings, the same 'parties.' You can't control that.

But you can control how you relate to that person and whether or not you accept them as family - whether you continue to 'try' to be a part of their lives, their family.

And if you can delete people - if you can redefine family - then where is it fair to draw the line? I know people who've cut off their family over what seem to me to be nothing. But increasingly, as I move toward a healthier place for myself - I'm seeing that sometimes it's not about what people do so much as how they make you feel. Maybe these families didn't 'do' much to the outsider, but their words and actions, over time, have amounted to an ongoing psychological beating. And who wants to endure that all the time?

I was talking about how a friend might benefit from therapy to deal with some of her family issues. Her father's dead and she said, basically, that every one's parents hurt them - including her father's parents - and you shouldn't hold it against them since they were acting from a place of hurt. I pointed out that this didn't change the fact you'd been damaged and could get help recovering from that. It doesn't have to be about blame.

On the other hand, it occurs to me that it's much easier to 'get over' the pain when the family member is dead. We assume it's because their death gives us perspective, but even now, I understand my dad won't live forever. When your relative dies, they stop inflicting injuries, and you can heal. But while they're alive, they're still causing hurting you - and how can you get over it when just yesterday, your father put you down in the exact same way he did when you were 10? Or when you see him making fun of someone else the same way he did you?

Maybe when I'm healthy and strong, I'll be able to. But I'm not there yet, and I don't think anyone just 'gets there' without reconciling and recovering from the past.

Fortunately, my friend and I were just talking about psychological wounds - not being 'good enough' and being made fun of for our accomplishments. Thankfully, neither of us had to deal with physical or sexual abuse.

So, is it fair, then, to restrict your family interactions while you heal? I think it is.

But I also think maybe some things you can't overlook - physical/sexual abuse, for instance. For me, physical danger and excessive, deliberate psychological abuse all are grounds for being subtracted from family.

Family | Family Problems | Abuse

A Better Thanksgiving in 2008

My Thanksgiving was so unbelievably horrible, my husband and I have decided to start a new tradition next year: Leaving town.

Here are our ideas for a new family (meaning, just the three of us) tradition for next year:

1. Thanksgiving with the Mouse. Disney is such an artificially pleasant place - and frankly, I could do with some forced pleasantry during Thanksgiving. After all, it sets the tone for the whole Christmas season. And believe me, I have no Christmas joy after this year's Thanksgiving. So, my logic is: Forced joy = Joy through the Christmas season. Actually, one year we spent the week before Christmas in Florida and visited Disney and it just brightened up our whole Christmas. Also, I figure once our daughter's married, there's no way her spouse's family can compete with a Disney vacation at Thanksgiving. But then again, we might get stuck with Thanksgiving and his family would get Christmas, which would just piss me off no end. So, maybe not. (You have to think ahead when planning new family traditions.)
2. Thanksgiving in New York - why not? Book the package, see the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade up close and personal, stay the weekend and enjoy the Christmas lights. I recognize we may not want to do this every year, but it's my hands-down favorite for next year.
3. Thanksgiving in a different state, starting with Maine - or New York (see number 2). My least favorite, because once you finished with the original 13 colonies, I think it'd get pretty dull. Except for Florida, California and Hawaii. They'd be awesome. On the other hand, my daughter will be 5 and she'd be 18 by the time we finished the colonies. By that time, we'd have a long track record of not being home for Thanksgiving and could perhaps slack off a bit and do something more fun. And maybe we'd have more money to do something wild - like buy a time share for Thanksgiving in Hawaii. Aloha!
4. Thanksgiving in a cabin far, far away. As in, the Smokey Mountains, the Poconos, or possibly the Rockies.
5. Thanksgiving Abroad. No turkey, but no relatives either. We could revisit all the places the Pilgrims fled. It'd be very educational.
6. Thanksgiving in our new home state - of any-place-but-here.
   

Actually, I did enjoy seeing my extended family Friday night at my grandmothers. And my daughter loved playing with her cousins - well, second cousins, but they're all she has in terms of young relatives.

Thanksgiving | Family Problems | Surviving Holidays

Thanksgiving: Hunker Down and Get Through It

I know this is a blog focusing on family, and in the past, I've had a tendency to focus on the potential of family more than the realities. But this holiday, I've got a bad case of the humbugs.

And, frankly, I'm just hunkering down to get through this hap-happiest time of the year. I do harbor hopes my attitude will improve before Christmas, but it's just too late for Thanksgiving.

The thing is, all is not well in Extended Family Land and the holidays are just forcing togetherness at a time when we'd be better off left alone. The truth is, the thought of the whole thing makes me queasy.

I'm not alone, as I recently discovered during a conversation with my mother.

Just last night, I learned my sister's new boyfriend would be joining us. Every year, there's a different stranger sitting beside my sister at the Thanksgiving table. At a time in our lives when we barely see each other, it's disconcerting to navigate dinner conversation with a stranger. To me, it just adds to the strain. I never brought boyfriends to holiday dinners and can't understand why she feels the need. Sure, he might become a member of the family one day - but, frankly, we've thought that about every guy she's brought to holiday dinners and let's just say the odds are against him.

My mother contends it's because my sister - who is the baby of the family - is the only one not married and that she has a right to bring any friend she wants to the family meal. And since it's my mother's house, what can I say, except the same was not true about my friends. "This is family-time," I was told very sternly. "Haven't they go their own family?"

But I digress. The point is, when I said the boyfriend made me anxious, my mother informed me she gets anxious having all of us to dinner. My father and she agreed that it'd be a 'successful' holiday if we could all get through it without fighting.

Which made me wonder, "Then why are we bothering?"

I mean, really. No one's looking forward to it. Everyone sees it as something to survive. Why bother? Why not just cancel Thanksgiving? Christmas will come soon enough as it is, and I know I'm not getting out of that one.

I realize this is not the holiday tripe I'm supposed to think. And it definitely doesn't reflect a positive mental attitude. But one does wonder: Are we just all in this because of our misguided ideas about family and it's importance? If we only see each other because we 'have to,' because it's a holiday, then is family really important? Or are we just playing at family?

It'd be nice if the solution were as easy as, "Just don't go." But the truth is, doing that would generate all this weird angst around the holiday table that would have ramifications through my mother's birthday and Christmas. It's easier to just endure.

One thing is clear: I don't want my own family - my husband and child - to be this way years from now. We've got to redefine the day for ourselves - cut loose somehow from the situations that make us grimace with anxiety and feel we're 'enduring' the holiday. Wouldn't it be wonderful if, some Thanksgiving in the future, we actually felt glad and grateful for a day to be together?

But not this year. So, until that fabled time comes when we're actually thankful to spend time with family, check out Mahalo's "How to Survive Thanksgiving Dinner with Your Family." You might also enjoy my post on Toxic Relatives from last November.

See you on the other end of the turkey!


Thanksgiving | Family Problems | Surviving Holidays

Quick Tip: Family Bonding List

LifeEdit is this amazingly bold blog I stumbled across recently. I found this fun blog post on "50 Easy Family Bonding Activities" and thought I'd share it. If you're looking for a few ideas for this long holiday weekend, check it out. I would caution, however, that not all of the ideas are free or easy, despite what the post says. For instance, item number one - Go Camping - is anything but free or easy, unless you're camping right outside your house in a tent or camper that someone else has already set up for you.

Likewise, as I found out earlier this year, volunteering is rife with complications.

But there are lots of fun ideas here - some new, some forgotten, some just untried. Why not pick one Thursday and give it ago? I'd definitely like to try number 45 - Build a Lego model of your house - provided I can find enough Legos!

Family | Family Bonding

How Many Children Go Hungry in Your State?

Do you know how many households in your state are considered "Food Insecure?" Do you know how many children are living in poverty? Find out by visiting America's Second Harvest's Child Food Insecurity Statistics Map.

While you're on the site, join the Hunger Action Center.


Hunger | Children

A Community Makes Time for Family

I'm reading 100 Simple Secrets of Happy Families: What Scientists Have Learned and How You Can Use It (100 Simple Secrets Series). I love this book series - each item is only one page long and the books short, so it's easy to pick the book up and put it down.

Number 46 is "Encourage, but Don't Require Activities," and it includes a great idea I thought I'd share.

We've all read how children - especially suburban, middle-class children - these days are over-scheduled. Heck, the whole family is over-scheduled. Obviously, this is not The Biggest Problem in the World. There are much bigger problems - world hunger, war, child abuse. But I think this is a really bad trend for the following reasons:
1. Over-scheduled kids become accustomed to someone entertaining them. They therefore do not take responsibility for entertaining themselves. They are easily bored. All of which makes them easy prey for the entertainment industry.
2. Over-scheduled children and parents don't have time for self-reflection, or even processing what's happening in their lives. This leads to a less thoughtful society, a society busy being busy. This is a Bad Idea because it creates a society that is endlessly self-indulgent and too concerned with its own affairs to worry about real world problems.
3. Over-scheduling doesn't leave time for imaginative play and family bonding.

One school came up with a simple solution: Community leaders and school officials declared the suburb would have a Family Night - one evening a week when nothing was scheduled. No school activities, no homework, no city council meeting, nothing, nadda.

They actually received calls from people asking what they should plan to do on Family Night.

The book quotes one of the originators as saying the idea was to push the pause button on busy suburban lives. The woman, who is named only as Marcia, says:

"Some people say this is just the way it is to be a parent these days. Our community wants to throw out the suggestion that maybe there is a choice. Maybe all these activities and running around aren't in the best interest of your children."

I'll second that.

Action Steps:

1. Start circulating the idea among other parents at your child's school. Ask your child's teacher to consider one night a week without homework.
   
2. Move up: Ask your school or even your school district to support a Family Night. Start with the principal, write a letter to the superintendent and speak to the school board if necessary. Ask for one night a week, but accept no less than one night a month. No homework. No activities. Not even athletic practice.
   
3. Email your city council and suggest it support the idea.
   
4. Pick one: Either write a letter to the editor or email or phone a local newspaper columnist. Columnist and editors always looking for ideas to write about, and you may recruit a powerful ally with this one contact.

Parenting | Community | Schools

Where Did the Time Go?

One of the more ironic aspects of writing this blog is that sometimes, I don't have time to write it, particularly if I want to spend time with my family. So, if you see long gaps, that's why - that, plus my innate tendency to like TV and surfing the Internet.

My hope is that I'll be more disciplined and a more faithful blogger once my Tidbit starts school - but that's still nearly a year away.

The realization that she's headed to school - and won't need me at home full time - is sending me into an identity tail spin. I simply can't decide what happens next. Among the ideas bouncing through my head:

• Have another baby. I've always planned for two, but for a lot of reasons, that didn't happen and it's a really hard choice for me. Pregnancy just about kills me. And yet...
• Go back to school or work full- or part-time.
• Take a year off and get in better shape.
• Really dig in and work hard at my freelance career. (Complicated, since she won't be in school year round and clients aren't likely to understand I need summers off!)
• Try to start a new and different business that the whole family could participate in.
• Try to launch a mega successful blog and/or write the next Harry Potter.
• Keep going like I'm going now, same part-time freelance work, and just accept there are some things in life we'll never afford - such as retirement.
  

Right now, I spend a lot of time debating the merits of becoming a teacher versus continuing as a freelance writer. I'm even exploring getting a masters in teaching.

I've been reading "101 Secrets of Happy Families" off and on - it's one of those books you can read that way, since it's really more a series of short essays than a book. Anyway, one of the items is that Happy Families determine what they should do - not what they want to do. In other words, you stop focusing on your wants and on what needs to be done, what should be done, to further the family. This has been somewhat helpful. After all, I should do something that brings in money, adds to our future financial security and lets me still be home with my child as much as possible. So, when you look at it that way, I should be a teacher, since then my schedule and my daughter's schedule would be the same and I'd have a regular paycheck and retirement and even my own health insurance. Plus, I think I might actually like it.

(Go ahead - post about how teaching is a calling. But I know people who teach and didn't feel called. And they're good teachers. Great teachers, even. So, you may feel it's a calling, but that doesn't mean the rest of us have to. Yes, yes: I realize it's not just days with kids and summers off - I know there's a lot of work involved, including long nights of homework and prep, so just back off people! I've got an eraser and I'm not afraid to use it!)

But then again, the book says happy families support each other in achieving their full potential. And for me, I've always dreamed of being a writer. Not the kind of writer I'm being now, I'll grant you. But nonetheless, a writer. While I could be a teacher - and really enjoy it and work hard to do it well - it's not my dream.

If only my dream job came with full retirement, full salary, the ability to write what I really want and summers off: Then we'd be talking. Instead, I'm pretty much a freelance writer just to be called that. I don't really write about anything I care about. Sad, huh? I just write to pay the bills - the writer's equivalent of taking in laundry.

And then there's this question: Which is a better role model for my daughter? Should I pursue my dream or be a responsible adult and get a real job that helps my family. After all, her father has to work at a 8-5, 40-hour a week job that's less than his dream. True, he wanted to do what he does, but I'm sure he'd love to be working from home in his pajamas, spending summers with her, too. Where do I get off thinking I'm entitled to such liberty? And do I really want to raise her with these kinds of expectations?

I am working. And I'm pretty happy with my salary - though full-time work would be better and allow us to buy lots of opportunities. Not stuff - I don't want just stuff, like huge TVs or expensive cars.

But, for instance, we want to camp as a family. I feel camping is a fantastic way to teach our environmental values to our child and bond as a family. It's also something my extended family does together. But this year, I aged out of tent camping. I just can't do it anymore. I ache too much - and we've tried everything. Plus, my daughter hated it.

So, to camp, we're going to need some form of camper and a different vehicle for toying. Right now, that means we're just not going camping because we don't have the funds for all that. And I'm not sure when we will, as long as I'm freelancing.

Freelance writing worked while my daughter was young. But long-term, I'm not sure what I do now is the best bet for me or my family.

Wow. Talk about a tangent. Not my usual type of post. But there you have it: Do you follow a career that's your calling or choose a career that most helps you further your family's goals and lifestyle?

Back from Vacation

We've just returned from a family vacation to Florida - including a three-night stop at Disney World.

We had an awesome time. Disney really is amazing - though exhausting. We spent the first day at the Magic Kingdom, a humid, hot experience that left us wishing we'd built in a rest day before visiting Epcot. Still, my Little Bit got to visit almost all of the Princesses, plus ride the Dumbo ride twice, so she was happy. She actually became so exhausted, she asked to leave the Kingdom and go back to the hotel early - at 6 p.m.! Instead, she napped in the car and we drove to the Animal Kingdom, where we saw a giraffe, some sort of weird, horned cows and zebra before sitting down to an African buffet that was out of this world.

The next day, it rained mid-day - thank goodness, because that cooled everything off and got rid of some of the humidity that drug us down the day before. We really enjoyed Epcot - if you've never been, go. It's just such a nice change of pace after the Magic Kingdom. There are lots of interactive 'learning' things that you can take at your own pace. I even got to ride a Segway, which I've always wanted to try. We had a dinner with the Princesses in Norway, then enjoyed strolling through the various "countries" during the evening. I was disappointed to learn Epcot no longer had it's amazing closing parade - there's a fireworks show instead. Little Bit hates fireworks - she has some sort of bat-like hearing ability and loud noises freak her out.

Anyway, it was a good time. The next day, we drove across Florida - poor planning, that bit - and spent a few days helping my parents dog-sit in a beach house on the gulf. There was enough rain to give us a break from the heat, but enough sunshine to have a fantastic time. We even saw dolphins - possibly and porpoises - playing off the shore.

Since we'd already pre-arranged much of our vacation, I didn't use the family vacation planning idea I blogged about earlier. But since we were at Disney World and then opted to leave for a much more sedate few days at the beach, I did have to do a lot of damage control with my Little Bit, because I knew the beach would be boring after the Magic Kingdom. I also saw a lot of breakdowns - and endured two myself - at Disney. So here's what I learned about managing little ones during your vacation, whether you're vacation is go-go-go or sit and relax:

1. Always practice damage control. By this, I mean let your little one know each day what the rules are and what to expect. Each night, I'd tell her what would happen the next day, including any rules.
2. Build in conditions. By this I mean, tell them what fun thing they'll get to do - but also tell them when it will end and include a treat if all goes well. If all doesn't go well - then no treat. For example, I told her, "When we come back from the park, if we're not tired and you've eaten your dinner, then we'll go for a short swim in the pool." Another example: "We're going for a short swim in the pool, but it's late and we need to take a bath and go to bed so we can get up in the morning to go to see Papaw and Granny. So, when we say it's time to go, then you get out and come in with us - no crying. If you cry, I won't let you watch a cartoon after your bath." When I forgot to do this, we had a hard time getting her to move on to the next activity. When I remembered, life was much smoother.
3. Make sure one of your conditions is that your child eat - regularly. There was so much to see and do, Little Bit never wanted to eat. She was never hungry - until suddenly, she was a sniveling wreck of a child, totally out of control and inconsolable. I saw a lot of kids reach this state and after the first meltdown, I realized she had to eat regularly or we'd have many more meltdowns. So, we would insist she eat and say we couldn't go do X or Y until she ate. Usually, once we sat down, she ate like she hadn't eaten for months. (I also always gave her food she'd want to eat, like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, pizza, fries and fruit.)
4. Don't let an agenda interfere with sleep. Originally, we planned to be at the Magic Kingdom when it opened so we could follow the agenda set out by The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World 2007 (Unofficial Guides). It's supposed to cut down on lines and maximize your enjoyment. But when 11 p.m. came and our over-excited Little Bit was just going to sleep, I turned off the alarm and decided it'd be more pleasant if we let her wake us up and spent the day in a few lines, but with a well-rested child. Of course, it also helped that early October is a low attendance time for the park - which we knew when we planned the trip.
5. Buy a portable DVD player if your car doesn't have one. Also buy a headset so you don't have to hear the movie. This will keep your child quiet and happy - but more importantly, your child will stay awake. Ours quit midtrip. Little Bit slept while we drove - which meant she arrived very well rested and we didn't. This is never a good thing for parents. Also, she didn't want to sleep that night because she slept most of the day.
6. Spend some time at a playground. Kids don't need big amusement parks to be happy. My daughter was surrounded by a place totally catering to all her dreams - and she wanted to hang out at the hotel playground. Playgrounds give you both a chance to decompress.
7. Don't pack a lunch when you go to the beach - or too many snacks. This will force your child to get out of the sun, give you a chance to relax in the air conditioning, maybe watch a little TV and catch a nap. Little Bit wouldn't nap, so we all got in bed, put on some cartoons after the morning at the beach. We got a chance to snooze and she rested a bit, too. Once the worst of the day's heat was over, we reapplied the sunscreen and hit the beach again.
8. For Pete's sake, let the child play in the water. I remember the only thing I really wanted to do, no matter what the vacation, was to play in the pool. So, we included pool time. And when we were in Disney, even though I knew she'd look a mess the rest of the day and be damp for a good 15 minutes in the Florida sun, I let her play in the water. They have play areas with water spouts set up at various places throughout the park. Frankly, it just proves that those Disney people are absolutely brilliant, because it helped the kids cool down and stay happy. There was a nice one surrounding the line for meeting Ariel - you know, the Mermaid? Smart, right? And yet, since meeting Ariel is a photo opportunity, there were parents who wouldn't let their children play in the water. I thought they were crazy - and if they weren't technically crazy, I bet their unhappy, hot children soon drove them to it.

Giving Everyone a Say in the Family Vacation

Here's a good idea from the blog of Doug Boude (Rhymes with Loud): Involve your children in planning the family vacation.

His family recently went to the beach in an effort to promote family unity. While there are always some things the parents need to decide - such as how much to spend and perhaps where to go - it helps to involve the children in decision-making as much as possible.

Doug went a long way toward promoting family harmony during the vacation by having a pre-vacation family meeting. This achieved two ends:

• It gave the children a chance to reach a decision about some things before they pulled out of the drive.
• It gave the parents a chance to outline the trip rules.

We're going on vacation soon, and I'm definitely giving the pre-vacation family meeting a try.

Tuesday Quick Tip: Tea Time

Yesterday was Family Day - a day dedicated to encouraging families to have meals together. I hope you took the time to have a family dinner yesterday, but if you didn't, no biggie - just plan on eating together as a family tonight. It doesn't have to be fancy, it just has to be together!

But I'd like to look at another fine tradition we've lost over time, particularly in America: Tea time.

I don't do this every day or week, or even every month, but every now and then, we all sit down before dinner and have a nice cup of tea, sometimes with a few cookies or lite snacks. While a fruity herbal tea is a great option for children or anyone who doesn't drink caffeine, Little Bit won't drink anything hot, so she has milk, water or juice instead.

Sometimes, I even break out a real teapot and our wedding china.

We sit down in the living room and enjoy a nice cup of tea and chat about our day in a civilized way. Hubby and I almost feel like real adults, and what child doesn't love a tea party? You could even use your child's tea cups if you want to add a bit of zing.

It's a fun, easy way to slow down, enjoy each other's company, and the snack is particularly nice if dinner's going to be awhile. Some even say the practice of tea time contribute to world peace - you may find it increases the peace in your home as well.

Tea can be made in the microwave, of course. But using the more traditional preparation adds a touch of elegance and relaxation to tea time.

For more on why tea time is a great idea for families and tips for preparing tea properly, read this essay by Karen Deuschle, a mother and nurse, on Old Fashioned Living.

If you don't like the idea of tea, think about adding a healthy late afternoon snack, perhaps cut vegetables, salad or soup, as a way to help hungry family members 'make it' until the adults can prepare a healthy sit-down dinner.
Family | Tea | Family Dinner

Five Fun Family Things to Do on a Week Night

I had a tough day at work. A really tough day. It started out with five threatening emails from Germany, the senders of which apparently did not realize that there's a huge time difference between their country and the U.S. They didn't have a leg to stand on, but nobody tries to work things out in a decent manner anymore. They just jump straight to the threats.

It was actually an easily solved problem, but it set a nasty day tone for the day, apparently, since everyone I dealt with afterwards had something hateful or snide to say.

Frankly, by the end of the day, I felt a bit beat up. So, Hubby and I agreed we'd all do something fun tonight. And since I work from the home, I desperately needed to get out of the house.

The question was: What to do?

Recently, our favorite weekday past time has been swimming at a local outdoor pool. It's awesome - the pool is huge and we can all sort of float around aimlessly watching the blue sky and white clouds.

Since it's 96 degrees here, that appealed to us, but alas, the pool closed weeks ago. We wanted to swim at the indoor pool, but it was only open for lane swimmers and classes tonight.

As it turned out, pretty much everything was closed: The amusement park, the zoo, the museums. There are tons of ways to spend your evenings in the summer. But when summer ends, so, for some reason, does the fun.

I understand there's not a lot of demand for weekday family fun during the school year. Children need to go to bed early. There's homework. And of course, there's not as much daylight.

But sometimes, you need to have some a good time and forget your day. You need to break out of your routine. You need a mini-vacation, preferably away from your house.

In the past, we'd probably went for ice cream. But I'm on Weight Watchers now, so I thought it'd be best if we avoided food as the main attraction.

We brainstormed our options and here's what we came up with:

1. Go to Gattiland, or Chuck E. Cheese, or any restaurant with a fun zone where you and the kids can grab pizza and a few laughs. This is what we did. I had a nap while Little Bit and Hubby knocked out a level on Star Wars Legos, then we all headed for the pizza buffet at Gattiland's. Afterwards, we spent $5 and had an hour's worth of fun trying the arcade equivalent of Dance, Dance Revolution, throwing balls, playing air hockey, trying skee-ball and riding an indoor Merry-Go-Round. Hint: If you watch the inside, you actually get more dizzy than if you look outside the Merry-Go-Round.
2. Live near a city? Go for a horse-drawn carriage. Hubby checked - they run all the time in our downtown. Alternatively, you can visit a park and swing or bring your bikes and go for a ride. If you're in the country, go fishing. I loved fishing in the evenings when I was a kid and nothing erases the day like throwing a few lines after dinner.
3. Head outside after dark with some hot chocolate and check out the stars. You don't need a telescope - in fact, my daughter hates our telescope. Binoculars are actually a much more kid-friendly way to view stars and work just as well, if not better, than a telescope. There's also the old-fashioned star-gazing, where you just point out constellations with your finger.
4. Go to a movie. Why not? Some theaters even have discounts during the week.
5. Go bowling. For some reason, bowling alleys are open weeknights. I know it's impossible to get a lane on league night, but often you can grab a lane right after work and bowl a few games before the league players even show up. For children, bowling alleys will usually put up lane bumpers, so the game's not quite so frustrating.

Family | Fun | List

A Better Way to Make Family Goals

I read a lot of self-help and advice books. Stuff about money, organization, goals and so forth. I guess it's sort of a sick hobby.

There are tons of interesting ideas that pique my interest. And I try most of them, but by and large, the recommended actions are very hard to sustain.

But very rarely, I'll read a book and think, "Wow. I can do this. This is really going to change how I live my life."

I happen to be reading such a book now: Goal-Free Living: How to Have the Life You Want NOW! by Stephen M. Shapiro.

I admit it: I'm what Shapiro calls a Goalaholic. You just have to read the December/January entries in this blog to see that. But like most goalaholics, I never reach most of my goals. Some, certainly, particularly the career goals, but no where near most, and particularly not those involving my family. It's very frustrating, ugly cycle. You don't make a goal, you beat yourself up and you set the goal again.

Living your life through goals is also a good way to miss the best in life, Shapiro argues. Even if you achieve your goals, you can miss out on things that you actually wanted more - for instance, he was so focused on career success, he missed the fact his marriage was falling apart. And once the marriage was gone, he knew he'd rather have had the marriage than the great career goal - which he did achieve, by the way.

So, if you don't set goals, what do you do? How do you make sure you don't drift aimlessly through life, accomplishing nothing but an encyclopedic knowledge of sitcoms?

You use a compass, not a map, as Shapiro puts it. This means instead of goals, you set a direction, a theme, if you will. And you change it - as needed, but certainly yearly.

Setting a theme helps guide your decisions in all areas of your life and challenges you to bring more into your life of what you want.

The book offers some examples of themes that various people have used for a year or for their lives:

• Shapiro's overarching map is "to make a massive and visible impact in the world." One year, his theme was flexibility - which meant creating a lifestyle that let him follow different paths. Another year, the theme was platform, meaning a place to express himself - he wrote this book.
• Mark Grossman's overarching compass has been to be part of something bigger than himself, but to be true to himself.
• Another couple followed the following themes: Year of Exploration (She decided to explore her potential as a writer and started a book); the Year of Adventure and the Year of Lightness, (for some calm time, after the year her book was published).

Shapiro explains how you can do this as an individual, but I think the theme idea would work wonders for family. And the idea of setting a compass - an overarching direction - for a family just strikes me as brilliant.

I'll post later with a few ideas on how this could be applied specifically to build family identity and bonding.

Family | Goals | Book Review

It Be National Talk Like A Pirate Day!

Ahoy, Me Hearties. It be National Talk like a Pirate Day. It be a grand, grand idear for yer parents and ye little mateys to be bonding over de dinner table by talking like a pirate. Aye, that sure beats da plank.

Avast! Read up on these fine, fine tips for talking more like a matey and less like the landlubber ye be! Dinner be a grand, grand time for trying out ye new lingo, yer sprogs.

And whilst yer at it, ye be thanking Dave Barry for the idear. Yer can also learn more on about.com, which doth offer links to pirate and wench clothing.

It be a dinner the likes of which yer'll never forget!

Where Can Kids Eat Free?

If you like free food - and who doesn't? - then check out the budding website, KidsEat4Free.com.

Right now, it's restricted to Louisville, Kentucky, but they are taking restaurant submissions from across the nation and hope to quickly grow the site to include other communities. If you know of a local (to you) restaurant that lets children eat free, you can help by clicking on "Recommend a Restaurant" on the left hand nav bar, and filling out the form.

Hey - family dinners are great for bonding and for - I kid you not - keeping your children off drugs. Nobody said these meals had to be cooked or served at home!

Family | dinner | Dining Out

Quick Tip: The Evening Stroll

Fall's easing into my home state, Kentucky. For my money, there is no better time to live here. Gone are the oppressive heat and humidity of summer, replaced by clear air that crackles with energy. The trees are nearly magical in their beauty, caught between the silver greens of summer and the early yellows of autumn.

With the temperature a pleasant 75-85, it's perfect weather for an evening stroll. We've always had plans to make an evening walk part of our routine, but struggled with it. Since I often work late, I usually nap as soon as my husband comes home. Then there's dinner, clean up, exhausted TV watching and, finally, baths and bed for everyone else, work for me.

But that's changed recently. My daughter has finally gotten up the nerve to hop on her bicycle - she was a strictly Big Wheel kid previously. As children will do when they're learning a new skill, she's a bit obsessive about getting out on her bicycle. So every night, we're outside, walking or, in my husband's case, slowly pedaling his bike, while she confidently rides all over the neighborhood.

We're not alone. Since summer's heat has subsided, the neighborhood is alive with families pushing strollers, bicycling with little ones, and fathers and sons tossing footballs.

It's fantastic. I know an evening family walk isn't the most original of bonding ideas - but I think it's also one of those things we realize we could do, but don't do.

It doesn't have to be long. Even a 15 minute outing will increase your health, raise your family happiness quota and remind you of why it's good to be alive. My guess is, once you try it, you'll find it's hard to go back inside.

If you're having a hard time starting the habit, dedicate one week to trying it. My guess is, after that one week, you may be surprised to find you've created a habit your child won't let you forget.

And if that doesn't work, I ran across this Zen Habits post, "Engineer Life: Set Up Habit Changes So It’s Hard to Fail." The writer points out that to change a habit, you need to do four things:

1. Increase positive feedback for the habit you want to form.
2. Decrease positive feedback for what you're doing instead.
3. Decrease negative feedback for the new habit.
4. Increase negative feedback for the old habit.

Family | Time | Exercise