Cousins as Friends!

Since all of my brothers and sisters are here in Minnesota, our kids are growing up together. We see each other every week for dinner on Mondays, and the cousins have a "cousin council" (which sounds really cute but often causes great intra-cousin tension). Cousin Council notwithstanding, we're being deliberate about fostering friendships between the cousins.

For example, my sister picks up Rose #1 and Rose #2 after school on Mondays and brings them to her house for a couple of hours before Monday Night Dinner. In exchange we take her daughter every other Saturday morning. Here's Rose #3 with Kate at lunch today:

Right before lunch, we broke out the Easy Bake Oven that Rose #3 got for Christmas! The cake that we made was done right in time for dessert. It was actually pretty good! It was a Betty Crocker mix.

I have lots and lots of cousins. Let me try to think - a whole bunch in California, some in Minnesota, some in other places. It's not as easy as Monday Night Dinner, but in 2011, I would like to try to connect more with them.

Falling into Friendships

A couple of times in my life I have been really lucky to fall into friendships.

Russian class, summer after freshman year of college. I sat across the room from a woman who I just knew would become a good friend. I remember she was wearing a plaid madras jumper on the first day of class. 20 years later, we've been in each other's weddings, seen each other through hard times and good times. 10 years ago, I joked that after our husbands died, we would live together in a house where everything was white, on the beach. (I think I had just seen that Jack Nicholson/Diane Lane movie.) I still think it might happen.

Daycare, after Rose #1 was close to 1 years old. A newly adopted baby came to join the baby room, a beautiful little girl from India. Her mom used to be a lawyer at my firm. Her mom and a few other daycare moms, and their husbands, became a small circle of friends for us while their kids were friends for our kids.

Next door neighbors, a couple years ago. Our kids meshed in with their kids like a pack. There was always someone to play with outside, good for a game of cops and robbers, or girls' club (which consisted mostly of painting nails, in my opinion).

I'm always on the lookout for friends, and hoping to make new ones. Sometimes it's good to remember that many friendships just happen.

We Are Not Our Children's Friends. And Thoughts on Bedtime.

One thing that has always been an issue at our house is bedtime. Too often I have acted like my kids' friend - giving into their demands about a later bedtime, more snuggle time, "I'm afraid of the dark," "I can't fall asleep without Mommy in my bed," and so on.


I recently had reason to learn a little more about both kids' sleep patterns and the repercussions when kids don't get enough sleep, and that did it. No More Mrs. Nice Guy. I am no longer your friend, Roses. I am your MOMMY, and you're going to sleep.

Of course, real life gets in the way, and I had to send Rose #3 to bed to wait for me to read her story while I helped Rose #2 stay on task to finish her phenology assignment. (You can be forgiven if you've never heard of phenology. No, not PHRENOLOGY (the study of bumps on one's head to predict one's conduct and temperament) but PHENOLOGY (the study of how plants and animals react to seasonal changes). Even Wikipedia says that phenology is not to be confused with phrenology.) PHENOLOGY, people. Right after dinner, Rose #2 dutifully went outside - yes, in the dark, in the snow - to take photos of the bunny tracks leading to the very large evergreen in our backyard, under which the bunnies have a big old nest. Warren. Think Watership Down sans the unpleasant parts. Going out in the snow and dark to find bunny tracks is what you have to do when you have to write an entry in your phenology journal.

• An aside: I never read Watership Down. Perhaps I should. Anyone? If it was that or the latest Emily Giffin novel, which would you read?


• Another aside: Emily Giffin is living my dream. She used to be a lawyer, now she is a glamorous novelist and her first book is being turned into a movie which will be out next summer. Anyone want to go?

Back to my "I'm not my kids' friends, I'm their MOTHER" theme. I suspected that Rose #3 would fall asleep waiting with her Dora book, and I confirmed my suspicion with photographic evidence, above. Then I tucked her in, turned on her fan (for background noise - am I the only one who does this?), turned off her lights, and closed the door. Phew. One down.

The other Roses are more difficult to settle. I have taken to setting a stopwatch - I do still cuddle in their beds with them - so that it's no more than 5 minutes. OK, 6. Actually, 7. But that's IT. Rose #2 can be prickly - her first grade teacher remarked that she certainly is a middle child - but she went to sleep willingly enough after I gave her the heating pad to cuddle with. Rose #1 and I talked about her strategy for falling back asleep in the middle of the night - deep breathing exercises with a stuffed animal on her stomach (to rock it to sleep and also rock herself to sleep).

Ah. Everyone down.

I won't tell you about how they all ended up in my bed, again, at 2:00 a.m.

Sisters as Friends, Redux

Sigh. This gem resulted when I asked the Roses to line up on the radiator for a quick cute pictures, Rose #3 tried to "lean on" Rose #1 (you know: Lean on me, when you're not strong, and I'll be your FRIEND, I'll help you carry on...) and then Rose #1 told her to stop it, and then the Rose cry ensued (HUGE wide open mouth - see, e.g., exhibit 1 above) and then I couldn't help but laugh a little.

Another thought about friends: Facebook. Yesterday the financial press was all lit up about how Facebook is worth like 800 kajillion billion dollars or something. I wish I had 1) computer programming skills, 2) vision, and 3) thought about friends and the value of gathering all your friends together, having them post updates about themselves, and putting it all on one horribly powerful social networking site about 20 years ago or whenever it is that Mr. Facebook got his deal started.


Do you all have hundreds of Facebook friends? I have about a hundred (keep in mind that my immediate family constitutes about 27 people, all of whom are on Facebook). I have to confess to pulling up some of my Facebook friends' friend lists and staring all agog at the hundreds of names listed there. Why don't I have 355 Facebook friends, or even a more moderate 247?

• An aside, not wholly unrelated: I wonder how many people on Facebook are not actual real people but are instead made up and posted just for fun, or for people to try out new identities, or for people to pad their friends lists.

Anyway, I digress. I refuse to worry about whether my number of Facebook friends is too low. I refuse to worry about whether a refusal to worry about such things is something that a junior high student could figure out, not a weighty matter for a middle-aged woman.

Sisters (and Sisters In Law) as Friends

I am lucky to have four sisters and two sisters in law who all live here in the Twin Cities with me. We spend a lot of time together - we see each other on Monday nights for dinner. We watch each other's kids. We have holidays together. Some of us go to church together. We have all been there to see each other marry, to see our kids dedicated/baptized, to cheer on good news and to mourn losses. I am so happy that I can call my sisters friends.

I earnestly hope that the Roses will call each other friends as the years go on. Rose #2 confided in me the other day that the reason she has such a short haircut is that she wishes she was a twin; having short hair like her big sister is her way of trying to look like an identical twin. Rose #3 sometimes reaches out her little 4.5-year-old arms for a comforting hug from her big sisters when her mom is upset about something (like disobeying me, lest you all think that I am a big old meanie). Rose #1 is often the exasperated oldest but she will sometimes help me, especially with Rose #3, who has complicated clothing and dressup needs that I often don't have the patience to deal with. (Like, I Want to Wear a Summer Dress In Mid-January. I Do Not Want To Pick It Out. Mommy, I Want You To Pick It Out. WAAAAAAAAAAAH! I DON'T WANT TO WEAR THAT DRESS! IT HAS SLEEVES! I Want You To Pick Out The Sundress I Will Wear To The Christmas Party! SOB! SHRIEK!! At this point I often bow out and appeal to higher powers, like my oldest daughter, to talk my youngest one off the Getting-Dressed Ledge.)

I know it is beyond my control, but I want my girls to grow up loving each other as siblings and as friends. In 2011 I will try to sow the seeds to make this happen.

Friends, Again. A Medley of Thoughts

I've been thinking about friends, since that's the theme for January. Another meaning of the word friends: Quakers. The Religious Society of Friends.

I have a cousin who went to Earlham College (and met the love of her life there). Earlham is a Quaker school. I think that Quakers have a lot in common with Unitarians (our family is Unitarian). They believe in the ministry of all believers, of equality before God (whichever god it is that you worry about being equal before), the light within. These sound familiar to me. One more redeemer, and all that.

• Aside: Rose #1 proclaimed very proudly the other day - "Hey, We're Unitarian!" Yes! I hope she continues to feel that way about her religious upbringing.

I digress from my topic: friends and Quakers. I feel sorry that I'm not closer with my cousin who went to Earlham. We're close in age; not in geography (she lives in Colorado). Our kids aren't close in age either. I wish I knew better how to stay in touch with people far away without seeming pathetic, like I don't have enough to do here at home. (I feel worried about seeming pathetic a lot. This may be holding me back.)

My brother and I had lunch a few months ago and I confided in him my I wish that I was in the popular group at church. (Popular! Again with the worrying about being popular!) Now it is quite possible that there IS no popular group at church, but it seems like there is. The overtures I have made to other women at church - women I teach Sunday School with, women who have kids in Sunday School with my kids - have not been very successful. After hearing this my brother, who is younger than me but quite wise especially about all matters to do with human interaction, had a very astute observation. To make friends, you have to seem like you are having fun. You can't hang around the fun people and hope to be invited into their circle: instead, you have to make your own circle of fun.

Here's to making a circle of fun in 2011. I am going to try to do it.

Happy New Year 2011! And, My Comments on Friends

Happy New Year to everyone. We were at my brother's house last night for a kid-friendly New Year's Eve party (ring in the New Year at 9:00 p.m.) and he wished me a happy 2011, adding that he hoped it would be better than 2010.

I second that notion.

The theme for Nablopomo for January is "friends." I have a New Year's resolution to be a better friend. To initiate friendships. To honor the friends I already have.

I have a comment about kids friendships: I hate playdates. I hate them for lots of reasons. I hate setting them up. I hate when we have friends at our house that I worry endlessly about the child guest getting hurt or sick at my house. What's THAT about? I've told other people about this particular fear and they think I'm nuts. (News flash: I am kind of nuts.) I hate worrying that my kids don't have enough playdates. I hate it when my kids call their school friends on the phone and I have to worry that they aren't going to be polite enough on the phone. I REALLY hate it when they hand me the phone and I have to chat with the heretofore unknown mother of the school friend.

There. I said it. Now what to do about it? I don't want my social ineptness to rub off on my children, although I already see it a bit in Rose #1. Rose #2 told me the other day that she really, really wants to be "popular." God save me from having to worry if my kids are POPULAR. Heck, I'm just going for 1) well-groomed, 2) healthy, 3) polite, and 4) has a friend or two to sit next to them at lunch.

I understand that by writing about one's neuroses, they might dissipate. We'll see if that works.