Baby Shower Memory Games

When my daughter comes over with the new twins, we have to call in the bloodhounds before she departs to make sure she doesn’t forget anything.  She has even taken to circling the block, knowing I will call her back to collect forgotten V.I.S. (very important stuff). 

Moms these days have such great gear and tons of stuff.  There have been a few baby showers to help get daughter launched, and we’ve had a lot of fun cooing over hats with teddy bear ears or ruffles on the bums, lambs that play white noise, or cute bouncers with rabbit ears.

Most of the baby and wedding showers given when my friends and I were having babies consisted of food, presents and games.  People don’t play games much anymore, and now they invite the menfolk and hold baby showers at all sorts of interesting venues.  Breweries, Las Vegas, museums. 

Our showers were vastly more simple.  We had a rollicking good time, easily amused by anything brought out for our entertainment.

One of the games they used to play at showers was a memory game.  You could be pretty sure that Janice or Courtney would be in charge.  One of them would take a large tray around, loaded with assorted items that bore no relation to anything else.  Toothpicks, a belt, a spring, a doggy biscuit.  The more commonplace and forgettable and small they were, the better.  Courtney would teeter around in her high heels and cute little dress, showing us the tray for about 10 seconds.  Then we were issued paper and pens and the goal was to write down as many as you could remember.  There were usually about 30 items on the tray and people averaged about ten things.  The cutthroat competitors would remember 20.  I loved playing that game, trying to invent ways to remember everything.  I grouped them, I said them to myself, or I pictured them in my mind.  Very occasionally won.

Then one time Courtney came out and showed us to tray, but after she disappeared, the hostess started asking us questions, like, “What color were Courtney’s shoes?”  “Was she wearing a belt?”  Did she have earrings on?”

Drat.  

This turned out to be a very good game to play at showers, especially for the new mother.  For when it is time to take the baby anywhere, moms better have a very good memory.  What did I bring?  Where did I lay down the pacifier?  Where did I drop the burp rag?  Did I put something in the refrigerator?  Did the kids come here with shoes and why are they each wearing only one sock? 

I think I better get out a big tray and start practicing, if I’m going to take over their care in March.  Now, where did I put my trays?

How to Tease Your Parents

Who doesn’t like to gently tease the parents?  Is the house too pristine?  Never fear, the kids will come over and turn all the lighthouse throw pillows upside down.  Got a cutesy felt sign that says “NOEL” at Christmas?  It will soon spell EL NO.  Or LEON.  Or LONE.  The Nativity scene might wind up with Mary in the manger or the baby Jesus riding a camel.  No one admits to these things.

My kids come from a long line of teasers, including me.  My mom had a life-sized goose outside the front door.  Women had these things in the 70’s.  It was the era of geese as I recall. Women were nutty over country ruffles, forest green and peach colors, and artificial flowers.  Mom thought it was so dah-ling to have a little straw hat perched jauntily on the goose’s head.  But it didn’t stay there for long.  My brother and I had different plans.  I’d like to say I started it, but I really am not sure.  But one day the straw hat was on the head of the Hermes bust in the hallway.  My brother picked this game up quickly.  When the hat was found, the finder must remove the hat when no one was looking and place it on a new head, then wait. The funnier the place was perceived by the finder, the more secret points one got.  No one knew how many points one scored or what they could be used for, but there were definitely points. 

My dad never joined in.  He told us he was a grouchy old Navy officer.  Truth be told, he wasn’t that old, but he did have the lofty rank of Captain in the US Navy.  Captains aren’t usually meek, so the grouchy part was perceivably true, especially when he was paying bills.  His portrait hung above us in the living room, stiff necked in his gold braided uniform.  My mom, a noteworthy artist, had painted it.  She was a master at capturing the heart of her subjects and dad said she certainly had captured him, in more ways than one.

But as for the hat game, Mom never joined in either.  If she found the hat, it went straight back on the goose. “Now you kids stop that.”

The straw goose hat went from the head of Hermes, to an angel statue, to a teddy bear, to a stuffed dog, to the actual dog, and finally, the grand prize winner.  I’m not sure if it was my brother or me who thought of it, but we died laughing.  To this day, neither of us will admit to putting it there.  But one of us suspended it by black thread in front of my dad’s portrait, so that it blocked his uniform hat and made it look like he was wearing the straw goose hat.

In later years, I noticed that the portrait of my dad wasn’t so stiff necked.  In fact, he seems to be slouching.  He’s grinning, too.  You know what else?  Mom painted him with a twinkle in his eye.  That ol’ devil. 

I wonder if it was him?  He’s probably having the last laugh.  Way to go, Dad, way to go.

26 Acts of Kindness

So what are we going to do now?

Some are calling for more guns.  Some are calling for less.  Some want guards and protection.

I’m dragging myself around with a heavy heart thinking about the recent shootings of kindergarteners at Sandy Hook elementary.  No, the shooting didn’t try to shoot up a gun show, nor a mountain man reenactment.  He went to some of society’s most vulnerable.  My last blog was about these social outcasts.  But this one is more about the rest of us and how to heal our hearts.

Ann Curry has a pretty good idea.  She proposes that we all perform 26 acts of kindness for the victims at Sandy Hook.  Some say how about 27 to include the shooter’s mother, also a victim.  Some even say how about 28, to include the wretched shooter. 

To read more about this, go here: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/18/15999109-if-you-do-good-youll-feel-good-ann-curry-explains-origins-of-26acts-of-kindness?lite&gt1=43001

People are tweeting about what they’ve done, not in a boastful way, but with the joy of sharing their newly uplifted hearts.

I can’t wait to start.

Social Pariahs at Christmas

  Haven’t we all had moments where we felt we just didn’t fit in?  At a party where we knew no one?  Being teased at school, or even bullied?  When something seems easy for everyone except us?  Of course we have. 

The most recent shooting spree at the Connecticut elementary school leaves us with heavy hearts.  Feeling like one is a social pariah or being bullied cannot be a ticket to nightmarish actions.  How can we help these people that feel as if they are the world’s only misfits?  Especially now at Christmas time, a time of love and goodness?

Social media has sprouted photos of sweet humanitarian moments that restore one’s faith in humanity.  See: http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/moments-that-restored-our-faith-in-humanity-this-y.  I saw such a moment myself just the other day, a driver pull over and offer a highway beggar a cup of hot soup.  The steam from the soup enveloped the man’s face in sweet savory heat and no doubt his warmed his heart too.  

We see pictures of a cop buying a homeless man boots, or people buying others dinner.

Even Christmas songs speak of friendless Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and how, because he was different, could not find friends.  Yet he prevailed.

My favorite story of a social pariah overcoming her obstacles is a Bible story of the woman with an issue of blood for twelve years (Matt 9:20-22; Mark 5:25-34; Luke 8:43-47).  Considered unclean by her society, she was friendless and alone, have spent all that she had on physicians, suffered many things, and was not better.  Struggling to cope with society shunning her, she never gave up hope.  The determination that she could be healed led her to the Christ, and against society’s laws, reached out to the heart of love for a healing.  And healed she was, bravely acknowledging her personal and socially unacceptable problem as a beacon of hope to all.  Throughout centuries, she’s been an inspiration to many. 

Let her courage be a continued beacon, leading others to the Great Physician who can heal where others fail.  He who counted tax collectors, prostitutes and lepers among his acquaintances can help social pariahs in any age, and can work though us.  His love, our hands.  Let’s not have any more shootings by people who think they are socially destitute.

I Saw Santa Claus. Really.

I think probably everyone has seen The Polar Express movie, based on the book by Chris Van Allsburg.  What a delight!  We watch it nearly every year.  We always choke up, when, at the very end the narrator says, “At one time most of my friend could hear the bell, but as years passed, it fell silent for all of them.  Even Sarah found one Christmas that she could no longer hear its sweet sound.  Though I’ve grown old, the bell still rings for me as it does for all who truly believe.”

I used to read that book to the schoolchildren when I was a school librarian.  I kept a bell in my hand the whole time I read the book, then at the very end I would open my hand to reveal the bell and say, “Listen!  I can hear it.”  They would all pipe up that they could too.  Of course they could.

I believe for many reasons.  A lot of it has to do with my mom, who loved Christmas and made fantasy lands for us, with delightful presents, cookies, a pretty tree, and lots of love.  But part of it has to do with a certain memory when I was about five years old.

We lived in Newfoundland and you can be sure we got white Christmases.  I was concerned about Santa Claus’ entrance to our house, as we had no fireplace and no chimney.  My older brother Clark and I considered the perils of a fat man trying to enter the house via the furnace, the closest thing we could think of to a fireplace. 

“No,” our parents assured us, “he will not come through the furnace. He must come through the front door.”

“Where will he park his sleigh then?” we asked.  The roof seemed a bit silly if one was going to come through the front door.  How would he get down from the roof?

“He’ll park out in the parking lot, like everyone else.”  We lived in Navy housing, which was a triangle of townhomes facing a common center of grass.

On Christmas eve, Mom was making cookies, and she had the window of the kitchen open a wee bit to cool the steamy kitchen.  The snow was falling and Clark and I looked out upon the snowy common.

“You children better get to bed,” our parents warned.  “We are so far north here that Santa will come here early.  If you are not in bed, he won’t stop and leave presents.”

It was far to lovely that Christmas Eve to go to bed.  For there was the ripe tree yearning for presents to be placed underneath, the smell of cookies about to pop out of the oven, the gloriously beautiful snow that we would go sledding on tomorrow.  Our parents looked at each other and sighed.

“You really must get to bed,” Mom said as she prepared to put more cookies in the oven.

Clark and I looked out the window, side by side in our matching plaid flannel shirts, my personal favorite.  I adored Clark. 

Around the corner of the neighboring townhouse came none other than Santa Claus.  Through the snow, he looked at house numbers and ran jingling to my best friend Cathy’s house.

“Mom,” said Clark, bass-voiced and serious even at age six. “I see Santa Claus.”

“Mommy, Mommy, Mommy,” was about all I could get out.

Mommy came over to the window.  “Where?”  She didn’t need directions, she and we all saw him go into Cathy’s house.  I sure hoped Cathy was in bed.

“You better get to bed RIGHT NOW!” boomed my father, surprisingly merry.  When he laughed, his hookish nose turned down and got red, and his eyes turned turquoise.

Clark and I scrambled up the stairs, ripped off our clothes, and hopped into bed in our shared bedroom.  “Are we supposed to be asleep?” I asked Clark.  “Because I can’t do it.”

Daddy came up the stairs. “Did you kids brush your teeth?”

“Nooooo!” we wailed.

“Get out of bed and brush your teeth,” he said.

We zipped into the bathroom and brushed frantically, remembering that we might as well wash our faces or that would be ordered next.

Daddy came in our darkened bedroom.  We were never allowed a nightlight, which was fine on this night, as Santa wouldn’t be able to see if our sleep was fake or not.

“Did you say your prayers?” Daddy asked.

Again a wail.

“Say your prayers, then.”

We rattled them off, but I am sure God understood.

Daddy kept giggling, but neither Clark nor I found anything amusing about it.

In the morning, there was a beautiful Lionel train set that my brother still owns.  I got a real-looking baby doll I played with for years, which only recently disintegrated.  My mom said later that before she went to bed she looked back at the gifts under the tree and knew it was a children’s Christmas tree to be forever remembered.

Now I’m a grandmother, and we will have lots of trees with presents for children heaped under them, with cookies to make the kitchen smell good, and angels at the treetop to smile benevolently upon us.

Though I’ve grown old, the bell still rings for me.

Christmas Miracles

It is pretty nice to have new little twin babies in our lives right at Christmas.  How easy it is to love them, yet we don’t really know them.  They lie in our arms and sleep.  Sometimes they wake up and look around.  They cry and want to be fed, eagerly opening their little mouths for mama.  But they are only two weeks old and we don’t really know who they are.

When we describe why we like someone, we often say they are nice or kind.  My daughter’s highest compliment is that someone is “hilarious”.  Listening to how we describe friends might give us a clue to what qualities we value most.  Generosity?  Someone who listens?  Unselfish?

Yet these little babes do not exhibit generosity, kindness, nor unselfishness.  Why then are babies so universally loved?  Sure, we say they are cute, but actually a lot of them aren’t.  It rarely matters what anyone we love looks like.  When talking about our friends, we talk about how wonderful they are, how intelligent, or how loving.  We don’t mention that they have a bald spot or a pot belly.

With the babies, a lot of our love for them has to do with the innocence we see, the potential, the fulfillment of a desire.  These are all qualities WE are seeing and has little to do with them. 

When public speaking, an old trick is to imagine that everyone is naked.  Of course, they are not, but the trick might help a public speaker be empowered.  How might our view of mankind change if we saw everyone as innocent as a baby, to be loved and cherished?  Of course they are not babies, but the trick might help us see our fellows as worthy of love that doesn’t depend on their actions. 

It has just been wonderful to have these little ones come right at this time, for they are reminders of the grace of Love.  We can love everyone like people love little babies.  Without question.  With a love that doesn’t depend on others’ actions, on the physical, nor on human circumstance.

Wishing you all a season of brotherhood, and a sense of unity with your fellow humans that Christmas symbolizes.  “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, good will toward men.”