Category Archives: Mother-Advice

Nutrition for Your Growing Athlete

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All young athletes need good nutrition to compete.

All young athletes need good nutrition to compete.


If your son or daughter is participating in a sport, consider using this diet and nutrition information from Iowa State University. Working with a nutritionist, swim coaches there created basic guidelines to help young athletes not only have good nutrition to prepare their bodies for events, but also to sustain health throughout training. The body cannot compete when depleted of nutrients.

If your child is going to swim or wrestle or run in a MORNING EVENT, follow this plan:

DINNER the night before: 2 cups spaghetti, 1 cup pasta sauce, 1 plain dinner roll, 1 cup mixed greens, ½ cup cooked broccoli.  Totals: 115 grams carbohydrate; 575 kcal

SNACK: 1 cup OJ, 1 banana(small), 1 granola bar.  Totals: 60 grams carbohydrate; 240 kcal

LIGHT BREAKFAST: 1 1/2 cup cheerios, 1 cup skim milk, 1 banana. Totals: 72 grams carbohydrate; 320 kcal

BEFORE AFTERNOON EVENTS: eat a hearty breakfast & a lighter carbohydrate-based lunch 

HEARTY BREAKFAST: 2 eggs scrambled, 2 slices whole wheat bread, 2 tbsp peanut butter, 1 tbsp jam, 1 cup skim milk, ½ cup OJ, 1 banana (small). Totals: 87 grams carbohydrates; 685 kcal

LIGHTER LUNCH: 1 cup chicken noodle soup, 1 plain dinner roll, 1 cup skim milk, 1 orange. Totals: 64.5 grams carbohydrate; 310 kcal

SNACK EXAMPLES: 2 hours before exercise: granola bar, fruit (banana, orange, apple), bagel, yogurt – low fat/non fat, sports bar, low fat /20% total fat and low protein.

DURING EXERCISE: sports drink, crackers, fruit, sports bar

BEFORE EVENING EVENTS: eat a hearty breakfast and hearty lunch; eat a light snack 1-2 hours before (if tolerated)

HEARTY LUNCH: subway 6” roasted check breast, 1 chocolate chip cookie, 1 apple (medium). Totals: 92 grams carbohydrate; 590 kcal

SNACK: 1 cup OJ, 1 banana (small), 1 granola bar.  TOTALS 60 grams carbohydrate, 240 kcal

Thanks to Iowa State University, University Extension

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Gifts from My Children (adapted from a piece written in 1985)

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Gifts from My Children (adapted from a piece written in 1985)

We are the beginning of the gifts that come back to us from our children.

Children give us many gifts; one is to reveal to us who we truly are.

When I was just a child, a daughter growing up, I reflected my mother’s image—her habits, nuances, even her opinions.  I was a mirror.  She could look at me and see aspects of herself.  I, however, didn’t truly know who I was becoming.  I changed, advanced, fell backward, tried again, grew.  Others saw the changes.  I did not as growing up is equal to change.  I was just me.

When I became the mother of two little girls, they began to reflect and mirror my image, my words, ideas, habits and actions.  Gazing into their faces, listening to their speech and observing their choices revealed things about myself.  I could see my tendency to be over-cautious in one daughter.  “Mom, you shouldn’t carry all those books down the stairs.”  The other sometimes reflected my crazier moments, “I’m punk today, Ma, just call me Punky Weirdo.”  One liked her room neat and tidy (so me).  One liked a sunny corner to read in and another would cry easily when hurt by a friend.   That’s me too.  They were both tender to our cat and any child who visited.  So okay, I am doing something right.

So much of what we do and say around our children and now our grandchildren, they take into themselves.  Listen and you will hear phrasing, tone of voice, and word choice.  My daughter remarked recently that she gets why she uses the word “literally” as emphasis.  “Both you and dad just used it in the last five minutes.”  To underline her statement, moments later four-year-old Keegan walked in and said, “It’s really hot out there, Mom, I mean literally.”

This word usage thing is generational, stretching forward and backward.  Sometimes when I am speaking I have no control over what comes out—it is my mother: her inflection, her vocabulary, and often her ideas.  I can be my mother, so kind and gentle with a sick child, and so impatient when things aren’t flowing my way.   Is that a good thing?

The answer: we finally all decide, I want to be myself.  My own self.  Not my parent.

And luckily, for both parent and child, I think, we don’t become exact copies.  We make our own decisions and alter the paths of choice.  We bring along parental things, but we change things up too—we grow more and more to be just ourselves.

I guess we are all like pieces of glass, catching beams of light and casting them off into the darkness or bouncing them into other pieces of glass.  We affect and reflect one another.

If we have performed our parental tasks well, our children give us back the gift of seeing the best part of ourselves.  They change others’ lives for the good.  They earn a degree, a paycheck, start a company, make a good marriage—and there is something of us in each event.  There is also something of us in the first argument or maybe a divorce, or a job loss.   When we parent, we bargain that most of the gifts from our children and grandchildren will be positive and confirming.  It’s always been our responsibility to be good models, so that the mirror we eventually look into—the lives of our children—will be positive, the light they are beaming out bright and positive.  It’s a light that we started and that will be carried along to the generations that follow—it’s that gift from our children.

Thanks to Google Images

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From My Mother’s Hands

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From My Mother's Hands

Gifts flow daily as I remember everything she did for me and our family.

My mother’s hands, your mother’s hands: whether still smooth and soft or lined with age spots and ropey veins are the symbols or giving, of nurturing, of the raising of a child.  And a few weeks ago I sat at my mother’s bedside holding those hands and doing everything I could to help her transition from this amazing life to the next.  Hers were hands that typed insurance policies to feed and clothe three children after my father died.  Hers were hands that soothed us when we were sick, and clapped at every piano recital, play or baseball game we participated in to encourage our developing skills and to let us know that we were everything to her.

But she was everything to us–she was our world for all our developing years.  And if we were able to go out and meet the bigger world–attending college, procuring good jobs, making good marriages and raising our own children–it was because she made our world safe, interesting, challenging and just plain wonderful.

Gifts came daily from her busy, working hands, gifts that went beyond food, clothing and shelter: an introduction to good music through the Children’s Record Guild, 78 rpm records that appeared monthly with story, song or orchestra introducing us to the classics; books from the Landmark Book Club through Random House that included titles like JOHN PAUL JONES–FIGHTING SAILOR; and trips–auto and train trips that introduced us to places outside the green and verdant streets of our southside Chicago neighborhood.  She drove us downtown to visit the Chicago Public Library, the Art Institute, the Field Museum and Marshall Fields Department Store.  At Christmas we dressed in the dark to drive downtown and be among the first to eat breakfast under the branches of a huge fir tree that rose from Fields’s Walnut room and up several stories.  Then we waited in line to tell Santa what we wanted for Christmas.  But we didn’t need to bother as Mom had already neatly typed our requests and mailed them to the North Pole.  After her death we found one of these “saved” letters, smiling at Mom’s additions: “And you, Santa, you decide the rest.”  She signed it: “Love and hope you are feeling well…and Mrs. Santa too.”  Even then Mom knew that the women in one’s life were important too!!

The highlight of our young lives was a cross-country train trip on the Burlington Zephyr that took the northern route through the Rockies and the Feather River Canyon.  We couldn’t afford a sleeping car, but it didn’t matter.  All day we sat in the dome of the observation car falling in love with the breadth and beauty of our country.  Nightly we slept sitting up–but we were kids and easily adjusted.  Once in California, we visited San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego then traveled on the El Capitan train to the Grand Canyon, Albuquerque, New Mexico and finally back home. What a woman my mother was–handling Bill’s croup episode and my sleep-walking and sprained ankle that unfortunately became part of the adventure.

As we grew and my older brother became a student at Georgetown University in Washington DC, Mom didn’t hesitate to drive back and forth to our nation’s capitol, introducing us, once again, to an amazing city and widening our vision and future goals.  She did all the driving, singing love songs reminiscent of her courtship days, The Man I Love, Someone to Watch over Me, Night and Day, wonderful memories for me as I watched the land flow by and listened to my mother’s beautiful voice and subsequently learned all those songs.  They marked episodes of my young adulthood and I knew that she still longed for my father and that these songs held great emotion and possibly comfort for her.

Mom never married again.  When her hands weren’t busy caring for us or writing to us when we were away at school, or helping bathe our children and teach them games and read them books, she worked as a secretary in downtown Chicago.  She kept traveling, going to Prague in her late eighties.

Everyone who knew my mother received a gift from her loving hands–a note, a letter of encouragement or a series of prayers said with her worn rosary beads. The gifts from her hands were endless and enduring and I was gifted when she allowed me to hold those hands as she took her last breath.

 

Thanks to Google Images

 

 

 

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Boomer Highway’s Advice from an ER Doc

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Boomer Highway's Advice from an ER Doc

Sports, summer fun–know how to keep your children and grandchildren safe!

“You are never over reacting when your child is hurt,” advises Dr. Bernard Heilicser a veteran ER doc.  “Don’t let a crabby doc or nurse make you feel you did the wrong thing by coming to the hospital.  If your first thought is ‘I should call the paramedics,’ do it. Your gut feeling is almost always correct,” adds Heilicser who educated and directed paramedics in South Cook County, Illinois.

Here are tips from Dr. Heilicser that can keep your children and grandchildren healthy as they enroll in sports or are just out there in the world having fun.

  • Always do ABC first—check airway to see if it is blocked; check for breathing and check for circulation.
  • Scalp wounds bleed profusely, so don’t be alarmed.  Be more concerned about a head or brain injury, especially in an infant.
  • If your suspect a head, neck or back injury, don’t move the patient.  Call the paramedics. “A head injury is always a broken neck until prove otherwise.” Do ABC.  Move the environment not the patient—furniture, bike, etc.  Cover the patient with a blanket, and allow no water or food.
  • Try to stay calm, hold your child and assure her first.  However, if blood is gushing out, then you have no choice but to act.  Stitches will be needed, if you see bone, tendon, or what globules inside the wound.  Bright red blood pumping out is arterial bleeding.  Try to put pressure on the bleeding and keep the patient still.
  • If a finger or toe has been cut off, apply pressure to the wound, place the body part in a cloth, and ice it.  Most often it can be reapplied.  Time is essential.  You have about six hours.
  • If a permanent tooth is knocked out, don’t clean the tooth or rub it.  Have your child hold it in the corner of his mouth and get to a dentist within thirty minutes.  It can be saved.
  • If your child gets a chemical or harmful fluid in her eye, irrigate the eye for about ten minutes.  If necessary just jump right into the shower with your child, clothes and all.  Then consult with your doctor.

A few things to do ahead of time to prevent and deal with traumas:

  • Know whether your doctor is equipped to deal with emergencies.  Can you call her at 3:00 in the morning?  Would she have the equipment to do an x-ray or would she just tell you to go to the closest hospital?
  • Is there a trauma center near you, a hospital that always has a surgeon ‘in house’ to deal with emergencies?
  • When was your grandchild’s last tetanus shot?  A tetanus immunization is supposed to last ten years, but if your child has a “dirty” wound it is really good for only five.  If the cut is deep, jagged, dirty or a cut from glass in a lake—get a tetanus.
  • Learn CPR.  Doing something is better than doing nothing.  It stops you from feeling totally helpless.
  • Don’t allow children or grandchildren to eat or chew gum on the playing field.  During an injury the airway can easily become blocked creating a critical situation.
  • See if your Athletic Association has a rule forbidding a coach to move a child from the field.  The game can wait.  Your child’s injury comes first!

Remember this advice from an ER doc and keep your child healthy and happy.

Thanks to Google Images

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4 Surprising Ways to Look Younger

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4 Surprising Ways to Look Younger

A fresh smile and good posture brings youth your way.

Though striving for good health should come first, finding ways to look younger can contribute to overall wellness by packing on some positive vibes.   There’s a reason we have mirrors in our lives and we look in them before we walk out the door.

You can feel good about yourself and look younger every day if you:

Eliminate forward head posture.  What’s that?  It’s the result of years of slouching on the couch, sitting at computers leaning forward, and driving cars leaning forward.  In fact your head, which weighs an average of  8-12 pounds, has been forward for so long that when you exercise (walk or run) your head is still forward, your shoulders rounded.   STOP IT.  If you stand up straight, tighten your abdomen and pull in your core, automatically your head should come back and sit upright on your neck. Paula Moore (watch her You Tube) asks you to feel like a balloon is attached to your head, pulling you up, lengthening you.  You’ll look younger instantly and your clothing will drape your body properly.

4 Surprising Ways to Look Younger

There’s a surprising, younger difference when you eliminate forward head posture.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Keep your teeth clean and white, and smile often.  The eyes may be the windows to the soul, but a person’s smile opens the space surrounding them, makes an instant connection with people, animals, the universe.   Aging can alter tooth enamel as well as create spaces between teeth where food can linger.  There’s nothing worse than a smile that reveals what you had for lunch. Good dental hygiene twice a day which includes careful flossing can keep your smile looking its best.  Watch a periodontist demonstrate proper flossing.  You might consider carrying floss for emergencies and checking out tooth whitening pastes and preparations, if you need them.

Wear clothing that reflects your age and body type.  Buying clothing that was designed for a twenty-year-old will not make you look younger.  In fact, it has the opposite effect, accentuating the fact that you are not 21 and perhaps you’re in denial.  Clothing carries a very strong message and though you want to shout out that you feel healthy, that you are young at heart–wearing things that are too tight, too short, or too revealing only indicate that you need a reality check.  Everyone already knows that you won’t be carded on Friday night.  (Check out these smart dressing tips.)

4 Surprising Ways to Look Younger

You are only fooling yourself when you fail to wear clothing that suits your body type and your age.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Love the skin you’re in.    It’s never too late.  Never.  So start NOW: wear sunblock every day no matter what the weather or the season.  It’s hour to hour protection to keep your skin from aging.  Start your day by cleansing and moisturizing, then apply a sunblock with at least an SPF of 15 on hands and face; you should apply to other areas of exposed skin as needed.

Combine all four ways to look younger and “learn to love yourself.”  It is The Greatest Love of All and it will give you the bloom of youth.

Please share your surprising way to look younger.

 

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Gracious Giving Preserves Memories

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In my grandmother’s time, gracious giving was the acceptable way to honor someone.  At a wedding shower given for her by a small group of friends, she was gifted with a set of six hand-painted plates—each one signed on the back with her friends’ names and a message for a successful marriage.  I cherish them.

Gracious Giving Preserves Memories

Gracious giving at my grandmother’s wedding shower preserves memories.

 

Gracious Giving Preserves Memories

On the back of each plate was the giver’s name and a message for a successful marriage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My grandmother, Nana, passed on this trait of gracious giving to her family.  She and my mother and my two aunts gifted me all my life with spiritual, intellectual and material gifts.  Though Nana and my aunts have died and my mother’s dementia has deprived her, the memories of my life with these strong and amazing women holds me up every day.

Elizabeth, my Nana, not only gave me my name but also quietly brought me into conversations when my status as a middle child caused me to hold back.  She had eight siblings, but was selected to attend teacher’s college and work outside the home.  She taught school and in her spare time, as women of her time did, she painted water colors, made quilts, knitted and crocheted.  She also sang in the church choir and played the piano.

After her marriage to my grandfather, these talents helped her raise and care for four children while he traveled selling oriental rugs for Marshall Field’s in Chicago.  During the depression she baked bread, raised chickens for eggs and meat, and used her skills with a needle to darn socks and mend clothing.   Nana always put her children first and denied herself new clothes or trips out with lady friends so that her children could attend private schools and take piano, voice and violin lessons.

She stimulated love of literature and learning by reading to her children every night.  My mother kept many of these books, like the Maida series by Inez Haynes Gillmore Irwin.  When I was ready, mom gave them to me, opening a world of gentle lives and loving experience that made me a reader forever.  Now my daughter Carrie has been gifted with them.

The sixties ushered in major cultural changes, but Nana and I were always close and she continued to gift me: a bright red sweater which she knitted; a quilt of the Tree of Life, a labor of many hours of stitching, her wedding gift to me; and an Elizabeth Birthday Party that honored her turning 80 and me graduating from grade school.

Gracious Giving Preserves Memories

NANA

Gracious Giving Preserves Memories

All my children and grandchildren get their picture taken on the tree of life quilt that Nana made.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Because of Nana’s giving nature, she also received.  Living until 91, she was able to stay in her home with my two aunts until her death.  She was gifted with California trips to see grandchildren, a great granddaughter and periodic announcements of her grandchildren’s graduations, marriages and career moves that often made her raise both hands to her mouth in a gesture of amazement and pleasure.  She died within hours of a gathering at her church with her oldest and dearest friends.

I love to think of her as I search the depths of two of her lovely watercolors.  In my life, I was gifted with Nana, a woman who knew the importance of family and provided all of hers with amazing memories—because of the most gracious and meaningful gift of all—herself.

Gracious Giving Preserves Memories

My grandmother painted these apple trees; apple blossoms were falling the day she died.

 

Gracious Giving Preserves Memories

I wonder if my grandmother was dreaming about her future when she painted this lovely water scene.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What gracious gift have you been given in your life that you will never forget?

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9 Ways Immunization Keeps Your Adult Children and Grandchildren Healthy

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Immunization keeps your adult children and grandchildren healthy

Immunization keeps your adult children and grandchildren healthy.

Immunization keeps your adult children and grandchildren healthy—a goal of every parent and grandparent.

Boomers who grew up in the 1950s remember the fear of polio.

In summer, mothers kept children out of swimming pools, summer camps were closed and everyone stayed home, away from crowds—all to quell the spread of the polio virus.

Jonas Salk’s vaccine provided immunization, took away fear and children could be kids again.

  1. Immunization still save lives and is safe and effective.  Every vaccine undergoes long and careful analysis by scientists, physicians and healthcare professionals.  Pain or redness at the injection site cannot be compared to the severity of the diseases that vaccines prevent.  Serious side effects following vaccination, like severe allergic reactions, are very rare.

  2. Immunizations protect the people you love and care about. Immunization keeps your adult children and grandchildren healthy, protecting them and also vulnerable people like babies under 6 months who cannot be immunized and people with immune systems weakened by conditions like leukemia. This herd immunity stops the chain of infection of contagious diseases. When parents stopped vaccinating their children, this caused a resurgence of measles and whooping cough (pertussis) in the past few years.

  3. Immunizations can save your family time and money.  Family members won’t miss work and school.  Medical and hospital bills won’t stress your budget.
  4. Vaccinations also protect future generations.  The smallpox vaccine eradicated the disease worldwide.  Vaccinating populations against rubella (German measles) has dramatically reduced the risk that a pregnant woman will pass the disease to her fetus; birth defects from rubella are no longer seen in the United States.

Immunizations are important for children, but your young adult still needs protection from contagious diseases—just different ones.  Entering college, moving to a different location for work increases the risk.

5.  Young adults living in dormitories or crowded apartments are at higher risk for             meningococcal disease, including meningitis. Infection with this organism is almost always serious and can become fatal quickly.  Protect your young adult with a meningococcal conjugate vaccine quadrivalent; have them vaccinated before they leave home.

6.   Because of the recent widespread outbreaks of pertussis (whooping cough)mentioned above, young adults who have not received a dose of Tdap (tetanus, diphtheria, and acellular pertussis) vaccine should be vaccinated before leaving for college or a new job.  They should have already received the childhood 4-dose primary vaccination series.  If they did not or they are unsure, the full series should be given.

7.   A newer vaccine that protects against the viruses that cause cervical cancer, anal cancers, and genital warts is Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine.  It is licensed for use in both males and females, a complete series being 3 doses. The second dose is administered 1-2 months after the first dose, and the third dose is given 6 months after the first dose.

8.     The CDC recommends seasonal influenza vaccine for all adults. Again herd immunity protects many in the community, especially the weak and vulnerable.  Either the live-attenuated (inhaled) or the inactivated (injection) version of the vaccine is appropriate for most young adults.  If the vaccine is given early in the season (September–October) adequate immune protection is likely to be maintained throughout the flu season.

9.    Finally, if your young adult is traveling out of the country, make sure they visit the health department to receive all the immunizations necessary for safe travel.  The Centers for Disease Control (United States) requires or strongly suggests timely vaccination before leaving the country.

Immunization keeps your adult children and grandchildren healthy and they won’t be bringing some contagious disease home to you!

immunization keeps your adult children and grandchildren healthy

Nasal flu shot is easy on kids.

 

 

 

 

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Seven Things About Me Award and a Publication

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Seven Things About Me

Seven Things About Me is an award created by bloggers so we’ll get to know each other better.  Karen and Wendy who share their laughs and worries on their blog afterthekidsleave (with the tag: First we rent out their rooms!!) listed me with six other bloggers. Thanks Karen and Wendy. Here’s what they said about me: Beth at Boomer Highway. Her posts are practical, thoughtful, and full of important tips to help us navigate through mid-life. This award brings duties: first, sharing 7 things about myself with my readers.  So here goes:

1. I was raised on the southside of Chicago.  Go White Sox!

2. My husband and I, 42 years married !, don’t know when we met as we’re from the same neighborhood and went to the same grade school.

3. Growing up I was fortunate to have 3 amazing female role models who maybe didn’t realize it, but their influence made me a strong woman: my mother, widowed in her early thirties with a six-year-old, a three-year-old (me) and a three-month-old to raise, and two single aunts who earned Masters Degrees in English at the University of Chicago.  This certainly helped me raise two very strong daughters of my own.  And my amazing son.

4. My first major work was a two page story about a tornado.  (there are a lot of those in the midwest)  My 4th grade teacher praised me and my writing career began.  I pursued writing in high school and college, but my dedication increased when my daughters were young–then I wrote short stories for small literary publications and took writing classes at the U of C.

5. I have had two careers: secondary school teacher of English; labor and delivery RN. Both were very rewarding–but I guess I always go for careers with a burnout factor.

6. I have written three unpublished novels, a section of which you can read online this Wednesday. (see below) I love blogging as it keeps me in touch with other writers and thinkers.  I also teach diabetes education at the health department.

7. Reading is my passion and I am indebted to each one of you when you READ my blog.  I am even more grateful when you share your comments and ask me to research other problems, situations, concerns that boomers have. Thank You.

To complete my award duties, I have chosen the following seven blogs for the Seven Things About Me award.

1. Marianna Paulson’s Rheum Full of Tips  http://rheumfuloftips.wordpress.com/, a post each day to help people deal with rheumatoid arthritis, but helpful to all of us who want to navigate life and still be easy on our bodies.

2. Living Better at 50, http://www.livingbetterat50.com/, an online women’s magazine that offers great articles on health, beauty, travel, home and relationships.  Carol Doyel is a great friend and has published many of my blog posts.

3. Fab After 50, a blog from England and the brainchild of Ceri Wheeldon, is a positive take on being 50 plus. The blog covers up-to-date information on career, money, beauty, and relationships.

4. MarilynYokum.com is a bright and varied blog that offers poetry, book ideas, travel notes and always great photographs. Check out MarilynYokum.com and see what she’s up to.

5. Conscious Departures, preparing for what ultimately lies ahead, is an artistically written blog by IJ Woods.  Using careful thought and research, Conscious Departures asks the hard questions that boomers face: what will we do when and if we become caregivers for those we love.

6. Robert Avsec writes a blog that gets a lot of inspiration from the heat of the moment.  That’s logical because Bob is a retired fireman whose passionate feelings about his country, his family and women’s rights keeps me reading.  http://bobavsec.wordpress.com/

7. Last but not least, Karen and Wendy’s afterthekidsleave. Want a tongue-in-cheek take on aging, all aspects of it, read K&W. THANKS! 

On Wednesday, September 12th, an excerpt from my novel, FORGIVING, will appear on the Necessary Fiction website.  Writer in Residence, Nancy Freund, who I met at one of the University of Iowa Summer Writing Workshops, graciously asked me to contribute to Necessary Fiction while she is editor of the month.  Click on the links above to read my entry–on September 12th.

 

7 Things About Me

Seven Things About Me, Beginnings

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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How to Keep In Touch with Your Grandchildren

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There are so many days when we wonder what our grandchildren are doing.

Living in a mobile society that allows us the freedom to move from state to state or to other countries provides many positives.  But being close to grandchildren and thus able to develop close relationships isn’t one of them.

Distance initially can be exciting: your son or daughter snares a fantastic job in a city you’ll love visiting.  But when they settle down and your grandchildren begin to arrive—it’s no longer exciting.  Unless you are able to jump on a plane in a moment, wistful yearnings enter you life.  Even day-to-day sadness…

  • I’d like to be there when Sarah has her baby
  • Maybe I can be there for the baby shower
  • If only I could be there for Grandparents Day
  • I just want to be there…

Many 50-something grandparents miss frequent contact.  Here are some ideas for forming strong and meaningful connections.  Consider your grandchildren’s ages when choosing!

  • Special phone calls: on any old day, just ask to speak to your grandchild—they love getting personal calls
  • Your favorite thing today: call and share yours then ask them to share theirs
  • Skype, Face Time, i-Chat etc: a great way to have face to face as well as voice contact
  • e-cards like Blue Mountain: send interactive cards on special days like  Valentine’s, Easter, Christmas, Hanukah, and of course birthdays
  • Snail mail—children LOVE it!  Keep in touch sending small gifts like stickers, coloring books, books, music CDs—or simply print a note of love, clip a fun cartoon and address it just to them!
  • Photo sharing: share photos via Facebook or email; iphones have video capabilities so you can experience your grandson’s first steps or your granddaughter’s first words
  • Photos of your life and your world: your grandchildren will see your Christmas tree or your birthday celebration when they can’t be there
  • Photo books (iPhoto, Snapfish): after a visit or vacation, make two copies, one for you and one for them
  • Grandchildren Calendar (iPhoto, Snapfish): create a calendar using photos of you and your grandchildren for each month; mark the dates for visits or special events
  • Nana’s Calendar: create a special monthly calendar with your name on it —ask your grandchild to write about a happy, exciting, sad or confusing day; when they send it back to you or read over the phone, you can share advice, love and laughter with them
  • Growth Chart: send each grandchild a Growth Chart printed with your phone number—you want a phone call when each new measurement occurs
  • Grandkids space: prepare a special place in your home when they visit—for younger kids, have a small table and chairs, games, toys and drawing materials, for older games and books and privacy
  • Encouragement: pledges for fund raisers, report card rewards, attending special sports or musical events–they all cement a great relationship

A Few Other Ideas

  • Joe, a personal trainer, had a photo taken of him with his four grandchildren wearing their team jerseys. Everyone has a copy!
  • Sue takes her grandchildren on periodic trips to different places in the U.S.
  • John loves to sit with his grandchildren and start a story: Once upon a time—at a certain point he stops the story and one of the grandchildren picks up the thread and continues.  The ensuing story provides laughter and fun.
  • I spend hours painting and coloring with my grandchildren.  Often we play music and sing while we create.
  • Kathy has older grandchildren. They play Words with Friends back and forth.
  • Pat reads a book and passes it to her granddaughter—they share and discuss later on.

Please share your ideas—all of us want to bridge that distance and stay close to our grandchildren.

 

Closeness is what we all want with our grandchildren.

 

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How Shopping for Lingerie Helped Me Accept My Mid-life Body

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A real dressing down at Victoria Secret

You might learn about my health searching my medicine cabinet, but to unlock the secrets of my self-esteem, try looking in my lingerie drawer.   We all have a time-line when it comes to panties and bras—they say volumes about how we love our bodies.  Or not. I wore cotton Spanky pants when I was in high school and, I hate to admit, college.  They cover everything.  No Frederick’s of Hollywood for me.

When my two daughters reached the teen years, their lingerie time-line was far advanced.  Babysitting money bought them underwear at Victoria Secret.  I found the Mom-approved briefs unopened in their drawers, the bare silky things hanging in the bathroom and scattered on their beds.

The Victoria Secret catalogue came to me—I have a lover, their father.  I had already advanced on the time-line, driven by my proximity to “over-the-hill.”  I confess I bought the fantasy, purchased naughty things.  The bras then had English garden, French ballroom feminine names–Amy, Emily, Niccole, Michelle.  Flowery and lacy they were still able to uplift, hold firmly and reveal your assets.  But in the lingerie world, time rushes like crazy.  Emily and Amy and their wimpy flowers vaporized.  Overnight it was silk and shine, plunge and plump.

How can I accept my ageing self when the world around me has set unattainable heights?

Don’t even try being innocent in these bras—immediately you’re a tigress.  To push the fantasy, the models’ photos were air-brushed into perfection revealing completely bared buttocks in thongs and facial expressions that looked pre-, post- or in medias res orgasm.  Now that’s some lingerie!  The time-line had crashed over the edge of the flow chart.
Where do we go from here?  A scary question that makes me acutely aware of the attributes I have or more accurately, don’t have.  The women peering out from catalogs and magazines, television and the internet have perfect skin, defined arms and legs, breathtaking décolletage, slim stomachs, firm breasts and buttocks, incredible flowing hair, just sexy everything.  How can I be happy with my aging self when the world around me has raised the bar to unattainable heights?  So unfair.

In my attractive twenties, the bar just wasn’t that high.  I wore ordinary bras.  Everyone did.  I can’t even remember the nondescript panties.  If you did shop Fredericks of Hollywood, you were close to being a slut, though there was the trousseau lingerie you received at wedding showers—considered totally acceptable by your girlfriends.  But Grandma Harriet?  She’d have a seizure now.  I mean why do we have to look like we all work in a bordello?  Give me a break.  I’m aging and becoming obsessed with how to encase my sagging anatomy.  What’s a girl to do?
Get it over with.  Take the sad trip to VS or some other lingerie department.   You’ve been there: standing in the dressing room totally naked, looking at your sagging breasts, and for some, baby-making tummies, and for others, I-like-desserts-too-much tummies.  You check out the fine wrinkles in your knees and the occasional spider-vein and either cry or just keep sighing as the fluorescent light transforms your skin into a lovely grey and the tilt of the light reveals every flaw in your face.  (Advice: don’t ever bend your face over your mirror—gravity will allow you to see where you’ll be at 90, sans Botox. HELP!!! )
So you stifle the urge to break the full-length mirror, telling yourself: stay cool.  You suck everything in and try on THE BRA.  At VS it’s called the “I feel sexy bra,” though you don’t.  Because this is the sad trip, the one you take when your lover drops you despite the surprise party you threw him complete with stripper.  Or your longtime boyfriend was relieved to get transferred to Australia, or your husband has revealed he’s doing it with the dog trainer.  You’re familiar with the drill.

Time will always win


Why was I there?  Getting a head start—warding off the sad trip, fighting with the devilish mirror.  My man had to be noticing negative changes.  But I’m a survivor, I said aloud, my body reflecting back at me in its lost glory.  I can get back the fantasy, recuperate the ailing sexy self, hang on tight to youthful dreams.  Well maybe and maybe not.
The bras ended up in a pile on the floor.  The panties were worse.  They accentuated my lower body problems whether there was spandex present or not.  The young salesgirl outside the door had not a clue.  In a lilting voice: “Another size?”  “Is there anything I can do for you?”  Yes, finance an extreme body makeover.  But no.  Maybe another store.  A different brand?  Who am I kidding.  What I really needed was a paradigm shift; forget the lingerie time-line, throw off the cultural images that were trying to do me in and make me want to join a survival group where I’d dig up potatoes and learn to shoot wild bore.
I took a breath, assessed the situation.  As a woman over-the-hill I had made healthy life choices and had lots of fun besides, enjoying two different careers, raising three amazing children, and being loved by an incredible soul mate for forty years.
Then despite the mirror, I saw it.  I didn’t need a paradigm shift, just a reemphasis of my life philosophy.  It had worked so far.  I had to reclaim it, believe in who I was—the total person—body, soul, mind, personality.  In the past I didn’t scold my daughters for their secret underwear.  I just quietly pressed harder on the issues that I knew would truly affect their lives—the type of men they would choose to love, the image of themselves they would honor, the choices in life that they would eventually make.  I hoped that their father and I would be better than a television-show example.
The mirror again.  I patted my cheeks.  Color emerged.  My eyes shone.  I pushed my fingers through my too thin hair, but it’s still there!  I held my breasts in my hands.  A gift, I still had them.  So what if the pile of lacy things on the floor didn’t work.  Then I actually smiled at the mirror, everything revealed. I got dressed.  I would make a purchase, had found a gift to carry home–I bought my body back.  It was something to honor and cherish—not brag about, certainly, (except I did pass my bone density exam) but not denigrate either.   It had withstood a lot, carried me through the vicissitudes of life that we all have with our partners.  If I am sagging, my husband is too.  (Actually he still looks damn good.)  But we are tangoing with time.  And time will always win.  Maybe in the Victoria dressing room I just saw that truth more clearly—no secret there.

This post has appeared on two favorite blogs: http://www.fabafterfifty.co.uk/
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