Heaven Help Me!

The kids have been really excited to see all the BIG boxes arriving with the mail. Gianna (age 5) claimed this one for herself! On one morning, when she particularly didn’t feel like completing her schoolwork, I allowed her to do her work in this “big box”. As usual, she started the day by writing her name, then her numbers; today directly on the box. And when her mind wandered, she just started drawing pictures. I wonder if the local public school could provide each child with a box like this?! It did wonders for Gianna, who today especially needed her own little space to think and work.

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Did you know that two phone books can adhere together as if cement were applied to each page?

This is what my children learned from Mythbusters’ September 10, 2008 episode, “Phone Book Friction”.  If you interweave the pages of two phone books,  they are impossible to pull apart, except with well, a tank, maybe!

They kids tried it out yesterday. At dinner, they tediously weaved each page on top of the next, the next on top of that, etc. until they replicated the original shown on Mythbusters.

The result:  they pulled and they tugged; they fell on the floor from trying so hard to get it apart. The phone books would not release themselves from each other!

Here’s a couple pictures of them in action!

Eventually, they did get the two sides of the phone book apart – but it was because the covers ripped off – NOT because the pages slipped apart!

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One may be surprised to know that it is a fairly recent practice in Catholic homes to celebrate birthdays. In our culture, birthdays seem integral to the celebration of a person’s years on earth; but let us not forget the Catholic custom of celebrating “Name Days”!

Today is the name day of one of my children, Teresa. We are remembering her patron saint, St. Teresa of Avila.  At the age of seven, St. Teresa of Avila wanted nothing more than to give her life for Christ. So, she ran away to Africa to attempt martyrdom amidst the Moors.  Some may say it is fortunate that her uncle retrieved her from this, or we wouldn’t have the volumes of writings St. Teresa gave us.

This morning the children woke up to the smell of incense wafting through the air, the icon of St. Teresa of Avila prominently displayed at the kitchen table, fresh cannolis and hand-dipped chocolate covered strawberries from the local Italian market.

We celebrate Name Days “in style” in our family, perhaps more so than birthdays. Lest this tradition be misunderstood, I found an excellent article on the practice of celebrating name days.

What this article says in a nutshell is that while it is not necessary to ignore or do away with customary birthday celebrations,  we should try to restore the meaningful celebration of the feast of the saint whose name was given to us in Baptism, “our personal patron, loving and helping us whether we observe or neglect his veneration”. As a parent, I have found that my children typically do not object to this practice – any chance to get treats! They also like it because it is unique to them. Every one in the family has a birthday every year, but the child celebrating his/her name days enjoys a day which is exclusive only to him.

And the best part about it is the celebration of Name Days doesn’t end with childhood. It continues for older children, adolescents, and adults for the rest of their lives. As timeless is the life of faith, is as eternal the celebration of our union with God. And this is truly something to celebrate.

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As I was reading the Chicago Tribune this evening, I came across this article, entitled “Card games are great for families”. I remember growing up enjoying board games and playing “Rummy” with my family. We had an Atari 2600, and an Apple II Plus, but the thrill of playing a non electronic game with the family kept drawing us back to treasure that activity. In today’s world, however, it seems card games have a lot to compete with. Video games which provide constant stimulation and positive reinforcement every ten seconds are the entertainment of choice. I bemoan the fact that electronic video games are such a favorite activity amongst my children, but I am also responsible for that fact. After all, as one who spent hours every weekend on my Atari, how can I preach to them about how these games, while fun, are essentially a potentially dangerously solitary activity? The new social media does successfully draw people together, but the old-fashioned worried mother part of me thinks it is not as beneficial as the skills learned from an old fashioned card or board game. As the author of the article in the Tribune writes, “Card playing around a table is “massively social, intimate and direct,” McNeely says. “It covers all ages, interests and attention spans.”
Within my immediate family (now), we realized early on the importance of such intense and intimate social interaction. Having a child with Asperger’s Syndrome made it apparent to me early on, that board games and old fashioned card games run different for non-neurotypical children. In other words, for those who brain is wired differently and see the world not as others do, board/card games work on important pieces of the “social puzzle”. In fact, these games were recommended to me by my child’s therapists in second grade as a tool for teaching social skills. Everyone needs to learn important skills for civilized social exchange such turn-taking, following the rules (not cheating), and frustration tolerance. The flip-side of this, is that while these games are good for promoting civil behavior, playing them with this goal in mind makes them much more “work” for everyone involved. We do them occasionally, peppered with plenty of video games and movies in between. My children find the video games much more relaxing, and more so than I did when growing up. (This comes as no surprise to me now, as I’ve discovered many of my childhood favorites – spam, the great outdoors, having pets – are unappealing, and sometimes inconvenient to them as well). Perhaps the real problem is that I think children today have way too much ability to create their ideal environment – one which is convenient and comfortable, with frequent positive reinforcement – and my concern is that I’m not sure this produces the endurance and perseverance necessary to bear future hardships. Card games and board games could be one way to help in this area.

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My kindergartner and I were sitting at our desks today learning phonics when ‘lo and behold’ a tricky word appeared. After several attempts, my daughter became frustrated, then spit it out, like this: “Damnbana!”

“No dear”, I said, “It’s a bandana. You know, a scarf you can wear around your neck.”

“I like my way better”, she said.

To each his own.

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I am the great-granddaughter of German immigrants who came to the United States around 1850, seeking a better life.  A whole group of dairy farmers left the area of Koblenz, Germany for new hope in America.  They came to Chicago and then scouted out the land in McHenry County.  Finding it suitable for dairy farming, they settled there.  Being good German Catholics, the first thing they did was to build a church in Johnsburg, Illinois, east of McHenry.  We are not sure why they left Germany.  Was it religious reasons or was there a famine or crop failure? My grandfather spoke German in the house my mother grew up in. I ate German Potato Salad bathed in bacon grease and heavily seasoned with celery seed every Christmas. These were the beginnings of my priveleged life in the U.S.A.

As I stand here this morning in front of the deportation building, I watch an undocumented worker from Mexico, with nothing left in the country he’s mandated to go to, led in handcuffs to a van loaded with thirteen others in handcuffs and shackles. His brother stands next to me, and explains that his brother who is being deported, has lived in the United States since he was three years old. He knows no one, not a soul, in Mexico,  and he leaves a family back in the United States. He barely speaks Spanish anymore. Yet he is forced to go there, since he has not yet become a U.S. citizen. He has worked in America, doing the jobs no other American wants to do, yet for him, attaining citizenship is challenging, if not impossible.

My dairy farming ancestors paved the way for me. I enjoy U.S. citizenship with no roadblocks. My life is easy – it is easy for me to get a job and support a family, should I choose to do so,  I can give birth to children and be assured that I will not be forced to separate from them in the future.  My husband and I will live in the same country, ’till death do us part, with no threat of someone showing up at our door, ripping our family apart – leaving my children fatherless, our family without a source of hard-working income.

Is this predujice? Sometimes, I think it may be. The American dream has become the American scheme. When I’ve easily obtained American citizenship, by nature of being the granddaughter of immigrants, who am I to tell them to get the hell out?

The media makes these people seem like such criminals. As if they have disobeyed our Constitution, they are shuttled out like thieves in the night. In reality, there is not much they have done wrong, and in fact, our economy is stronger because of them. These people don’t mind cleaning up the mess we make, literally. Why do we shoo them away?

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