Welcome back to Show and Tell. Everyone is welcome to join, even if you have never posted before and just found out about Show and Tell for the first time today. In fact, we hope you do go back to your blog and post your own Show and Tell item and then return with the link to your post. Details on how to participate are located at the bottom of this post.

Let’s begin.

No good words; just a picture of my favourite cookie to honour the man who built the company that used every day products to create change in the world. He donated $150 million dollars from Newman’s Own. Rest in Peace, Paul Newman.

What are you showing today?

Want to bring something to Show and Tell?

• If you would like to join circle time and show something to the class, simply post each Sunday (or earlier in the weekend or on Monday if you can’t do Sunday), hopefully including a picture if possible, and telling us about your item. It can be anything–a photo from a trip, a picture of the dress you bought this week, a random image from an old yearbook showing a person you miss. It doesn’t need to contain a picture if you can’t get a picture–you can simply tell a story about a single item.
• Label your post “Show and Tell” each week and then come back here and add the permalink in the comments section below (make sure you don’t just comment that you participated: add a link to your blog in your comment so people can click over). I post a new Show and Tell post every Saturday night or Sunday. I usually move people up into the body of the post every few hours.
• Oh, and then the point is that you click through all of your classmates and see what they are showing this week.
• If you want it…
  I’ve now placed a Show and Tell archive on the sidebar that will be updated each week in case you miss it. And click here for the icon code if you wish to have it for your blog. It links to the archives.

Next Tuesday marks New Years Day in Judaism, which we call Rosh Hashanah. Rosh means “head” and “shanah” is year (and the “ha” prefix means “the”). So the whole thing translates out into “head of the year.” Cycle day one.

Am I the only person who views the year as an enormous menstrual cycle?

It’s interesting how our new year falls at the beginning of the school calendar. I was a student for so long and then a teacher for so long that my year always begins with the fall and ends with the summer (rather than beginning in the winter and ending in the fall with a January 1st turnover). Fall is always full of hope. All of the notebooks are clean and neat. All the pens you purchased at Costco are neatly arranged in your drawer. By winter, it’s no longer fun. You’re just trudging towards ovulation…I mean, winter break.

And then it’s post break and you’re focused again. Those first days after break are easy. The end of the year looks far away, but there’s so much hope about how those days will stretch out between now and then. But by the time spring rolls around, you’re crawling towards the finish line of summer. And you barely have time to recover from the year when the whole damn thing starts all over again.

Rosh Hashanah is one of our holiest days. Part of the ceremony is the blowing of the shofar, which is a ram’s horn. Blowing the shofar (and, by extension, hearing the shofar) is actually the only requirement of Rosh Hashanah and hearing it is supposed to give a person pause; make them reflect on the past year and the coming year. Who you are and who you hope to be.

The whole shofar thing fits in with my “year of listening.” It’s all about paying attention. About making someone else understand they’re important. About not going through the year always thinking about tomorrow, next week, next month, but, instead, being in today. I am always worrying about the future, thinking about the future. I write things down months ahead in my datebook with the sole purpose to take it out of my head by placing it safe on the page. And instead, once I have it on the page, I stare at the words and obsess about it some more.

I really am trying with this whole listening thing even if it doesn’t appear that way.

So…that is what I will be doing at the beginning of next week: eating pomegranates (first fruits), dipping some apple in honey (for a sweet year), and making the shofar give me pause.

Tuesday is also the ceremony of Tashlich where you figuratively throw into a river all of the things you don’t want to take with you into this upcoming year (feh on that whole sin thing). What would you throw away? I am tossing a shitload of anxiety. We’ll see if the Potomac River can handle it.

The roundup to the Roundup: Rosh Hashanah is next week and I’m working hard on listening; what would you throw away for Tashlich?; IComLeavWe ends and the 100 Words Project needs your thoughts; and excellent bloggage to read. Oh…and something exciting this way comes next week. But more on that soon. See you Saturday night for Show & Tell.

It all began with a price check on tampons.

If I hadn’t bought those tampons, I wouldn’t have become best friends with that girl. And if I hadn’t become best friends with that girl, I wouldn’t have changed my mind about where I was going to go to college at 12:34 pm when I was in line buying prom tickets. I chose my school because I couldn’t imagine being apart from her for the weeks between summer vacation and Thanksgiving break.

And if I hadn’t fallen in love with her and followed her to college, we wouldn’t have made the decision to not see each other for the first month of school so we could form our own friendships. And if we hadn’t been so deeply in love, we wouldn’t have reneged on that decision within the first 48 hours. And if we hadn’t reneged on that decision, it wouldn’t have hurt so badly when we tried again and again to separate from each other.

And if we hadn’t been trying to separate from each other, I wouldn’t have forced myself to attend the open mic poetry reading in the student union in search for a new friend when I felt so miserable. And if I hadn’t attended that reading, I would have never met E (the mutual friend who got married) and H (the bastard who called me the old grey horse)–both seniors who were there reading their poetry. And if I hadn’t stopped to talk to them afterwards because I thought E was cute, I wouldn’t have been invited out for coffee.

And because I was invited out for coffee, we struck up this friendship that was one part big brother and one part crush and because of that crush, I chose to become a Scandinavian Studies major just like E in addition to my second major of creative writing. And because I chose to a Scandinavian Studies major, I drove my parents crazy with the idea that they would be supporting me well into old age because there is absolutely nothing one can do with a Scandinavian Studies major unless they are looking to teach Scandinavian Studies.

And because my parents were worried about my major, they used the free long-distance day afforded by AT&T once a year to talk out every major possibility and steer me towards a major in anthropology (I know, just as useful!). And because our AT&T day was right before we chose our class schedule for the second semester, I was able to change my major and still graduate in four years. But because I had enough credits to get a certificate in Scandinavian Studies, I took the final course that had a hard-to-purchase book that I didn’t order in time and checked out from the college library but due to a glitch in the system kept forever. I won’t name the book here in case my old university ever comes knocking on my door to try to collect it, but needless to say, every detail in this story will return by the end including this book which is currently downstairs on my bookshelf.

Because I was now an anthropology major, the camp director at the summer camp I worked for between my sophomore and junior year of college thought I would have enough in common with the new counselor who was a geography major. In fact, she said, “would you please go to lunch with him? His grandmother died today and he needs someone to talk to. You two could talk about social science things.”

So we went to get pizza during the first day of camp and we ended up falling in love when we went on the camping trip from hell. And because of that camping trip, we dated for two tumultuous years and because they were tumultuous years, they were also fodder for the story I wrote that got me accepted into my graduate school program. The story was set in Kenya and brought in things I was studying at the time in a mandatory anthropology course.

And this is where we hit a clump of fate. I would have never applied to this program if it wasn’t in the state where the boy lived. And I would have never chosen to go to this program if I hadn’t felt support prior to getting there whereas I didn’t feel support from the other program in the area. And I never would have ended the relationship had he not made me miss meeting Christo and Jean Claude (it was the straw that broke the camel’s very bowed back) and I wouldn’t have written the story had we not broken up because I wouldn’t have angrily aired our dirty laundry. And had I not aired our dirty laundry in a very emotional short story, I would have never connected with the professor who would become my mentor.

And if I hadn’t had that particular professor, I would not have remained in touch with him long after graduate school, still turning to him for friendship and as a mentor. And if he wasn’t my mentor, he wouldn’t have brought me together with my first agent. And if I hadn’t met Serenity in that Thai restaurant, I probably wouldn’t have had the inner strength to leave the agent that night when I returned to my sister’s house after dinner. And if I hadn’t left her, I wouldn’t have asked my mentor to coffee a few weeks later so I could lament about my lack of direction with non-fiction and he wouldn’t have attempted to hooked me up with his friend’s agent who subsequently turned me down.

But if that agent hadn’t turned me down, he wouldn’t have given me the name of another agent who he thought would be a better match and had he not been the kindhearted man that he is, he wouldn’t have told me to use his name as an in to get her to look at the proposal. Which, of course, she turned down.

But if that agent hadn’t turned me down, she would not have given me the name of another agent who she thought would be a better match and had she not been the kindhearted woman that she is, she wouldn’t have told me to use her name as an in to get the next agent to look at the proposal. Which she accepted.

And had this new woman not become my agent, I may not have had the fortitude to continue this project. And had I not continued this project, I would not have gotten it in a state to be shopped right before Thanksgiving last year. And if I wasn’t so comfortable with the new agent, I probably would not have had the balls to write my agent a note the day before Thanksgiving and ask her to send the proposal to Seal Press, which I have always loved as a press since I first encountered them as the publisher of many of my Scandinavian Studies books, most notably, the book I stole from the library.

And had it not been before Thanksgiving, they may not have been working to fix her server at work and had my email swallowed by the system. But I didn’t know that and when she wrote me the Monday following Thanksgiving with her list of where she was shopping it and Seal was on the list, I assumed that my ballsiness had paid off and she was following my suggestion.

Which is why it was strange when she called a few days later to ask me if I had written to her prior to Thanksgiving because she had a list of who had sent the emails that were swallowed by the server without a way to access the actual emails. Could I resend. And I told her that it wasn’t important because it was only an email about how much I love Seal Press and she had sent it to them regardless. And we both laughed about how great minds think alike.

And then Seal Press made an offer a few days later.

And we accepted.

And I wrote the book.

And I never would have reached this spot if not for a box of tampons.

My advice, for what it’s worth, always put your heart on the line. Always take a chance and let yourself fall in love. You just never know where it will bring you. Hopefully some place good.

The moral
of the story is that the smallest decisions can have far-reaching repercussions. And that when it all comes down it, so much of what happens to us is out of our hands.

And I owe everything to Tampax.

Children mentioned…

Off in the way way distant future (since we’ve already decided that the ChickieNob needs to remain pure and virginal until she’s about 38), when the twins are married with children of their own, I want them to hang out in my kitchen. I want to be baking cookies and slapping their hands away from the ones on the cooling racks and hearing about their problems at work. I want to be the go-to person for babysitting. I mean, the other grandmother can be a go-to person too, but I want to babysit instead of someone outside the family.

Even if they end up living far away and can’t spend every evening in my kitchen (since that would be a lot of cookies and possibly a heart attack waiting to happen), I want them to be anxious that I’m still going to make a huge Succot meal that they can attend or host the family vacation each summer at our lavish beach house (oh…because if you’re going to wish, you should wish big and include a beach house).

In other words, I want to hip check Sally Field off the set of Brothers & Sisters and appropriate the space for my own family to live life like the Walkers.

I didn’t start watching Brothers & Sisters until the writer’s strike so I’m picking up the second season DVD today so I can catch up on the first half of the season which I missed the first time around. I like family television shows. It started with Family Ties–I was completely obsessed with Family Ties and wrote Michael J. Fox a love letter that is still quoted in my family to this day. There was Growing Pains and Party of Five. I’m surprised it took me so long to find Brothers & Sisters.

I think people watch family dramas for different reasons. I watch Brothers & Sisters with a fellow blogger (we exchange emails as we watch the episode) and she watches it because it’s the family she always wished she had. I thought that I watched it because it’s the family I do have–I’m close with my siblings and while we all live far apart (albeit on the east coast), we do tend to congregate at my parent’s house. We play dirty Mah Jongg and tease my mother that we’re going to make popcorn on her clean stovetop. This summer, I’ll go on holiday with my sister and my brother just helped me pick up the twins from preschool on the first day I left the building. I thought I liked the television show because it reminded me of that cozy sense of family where my brothers (I call my brother-in-law my brother because once you enter our family, you are simply family without qualifiers) helped us run the twins’ birthday party or taking my niece to the zoo.

But I think it’s more than that. It’s about what I want for myself not on this plateau–with my own brothers and sister–it’s about this distant future where I am the mother and I am the grandmother.

We were watching an episode from the first season of Brothers & Sisters a few nights ago and I heard myself blurt out, “I want that. I want five children.”

But I don’t. I mean, I don’t want five babyhoods back-to-back. I am barely surviving the emotions of having the twins in preschool the first time around–I can’t imagine putting myself through this four more times.

What I really mean is that I want to have five grown children who are all close to one another and close to me. I want the full house–I want the overfull house. My mother has what I want and she can’t tell me what she did to get it. When we’re all there with our partners and our children and we’re taking over her space, the house is so damn full. It is loud and boisterous and we’re tormenting each other with all the ways we teased each other as children and we’re caring for each other in ways you can only do as an adult.

And I’m scared that our house will never feel full. I know it’s not about a number. You can get that fullness with two children. You can get fullness with one child. So I know that it’s not just about having a third child. The volume doesn’t come from the number of people.

My fear comes from this: whether or not I get that true sense of fullness–the volume and energy that comes from people who enjoy being with one another–is completely outside my control. You can’t create that. You make so many decisions for your children that you forget that you can’t control whether they love you. Whether they want to be with you when they’re older because…it’s a choice. It’s a choice we all make–do we want to cut ties or do we want to remain close or do we want to walk a middle road of obligation without the joy that comes from having your heart fully invested in the decision.

I don’t know how to ensure that I get the fullness of family in the future. I get a strong sense that the stage is being set right now–that there are life experiences that push people one way or the other and it’s not solely events that occur in the house. Our personalities, how we see the world, are shaped by everyone we come in contact with during our life.

And it terrifies me–this starting of preschool–because for the first time, the twins are outside the home. They are being influenced by others and those others are affecting how the twins view themselves and view our home and view their own wants and needs. It’s a lot of power to put on another person, but I do believe that other people hold a lot of power unless we consciously wrest power from them. And I don’t think that a four-year-old is capable of that.

So I do have a lot of fears that others won’t be gentle with them. Gentle with their hearts. I know that they won’t because I’ve certainly never met a person who got through life only interacting with those who were kind. We’ve all run into shitty people. Even good people, who have never done anything purposeful to make us feel shitty end up affecting us anyway when we compare ourselves. All of it serves a purpose–to build character, to teach us how we want to treat people in life, to guide us towards those who do have our best interests at heart. But along the way, before we get to the point, those people also shape who we are and lead us either away or towards family.

It’s a lot of blame to put on preschool. I mean, if things go right and I end up with the adult children all crammed in my sukkah for a Succot dinner, I’m certainly not going to give those fellow preschoolers credit for raising children who want to remain close with family. But if things go wrong, you better believe I’m holding that crappy little child accountable who said rude things to my son last week.

Rather than spend another minute fuming about that child (because, believe me, I have spent way too many minutes wishing that the crappy child fails all of her future spelling tests in school and gets held back to a lower grade’s spelling group…which happened to me so I know it feels exquisitely humiliating), I am going to head off to the mall to purchase the second season of Brother
s & Sisters. And covet–not the sibling relationships per se, but the mother who has all of her children still around her.

I’m kicking off my Read Me reviews with three children’s books–all picture books. They are books that you can use to kick off a discussion with your child or give your child a story where the character’s situation mirrors his/her own life (in other words, it’s a story where the character is adopted, though it’s not a book about adoption).

Tell Me Again About the Night I Was Born by Jamie Lee Curtis

I have to admit that I was reluctant to read this book at first because there’s always the fear that the book was published simply because the author had great connections rather than a great story. But I’m glad I finally got a copy out of the library and I plan on purchasing a copy soon.

Is the book perfect–no. The birth family is sort of swept under the rug with a single page. But, to be fair, the story is the child asking about what her parents experienced during the night she was born. When I tell my own children about their birth story, it is always from my perspective and frankly, I didn’t have a problem with a book that showed that regardless of how a family is formed, we have more similarities than differences. But it’s worth giving you a heads up; I know there are people who don’t like this book because it relegates birth families to a single page.

The story is narrated by a little girl (maybe five-ish?) who asks her parents to tell her about the night she was born. I get choked up on the page where she says, “tell me again about the first time you held me in your arms and called me your baby sweet.” The twins love this book and think the illustrations are hysterical. And as picky readers who tend to like the same books over and over again, I think that speaks volumes. Age range: you could definitely hold a young child’s interest, though I can’t see a child beyond four getting into this book unless it was already a favourite. Not a lot of text–though perhaps it would make a good book to teach reading (more information or to purchase).

Something Happened by Cathy Blanford

I hope you never need this book, though I’m glad it exists if you ever do. Cathy Blanford, a counselor for grieving children, has written a picture book explaining pregnancy loss or stillbirth to children (and it can be tweaked to explain neonatal death and infant death).

The book doesn’t sugar-coat loss or present the concept of pregnancy loss in confusing analogies. Blanford writes in the foreword: “Many years of experience with grieving children have convinced me that this direct approach to the issues is what children, even very young children, need to help them understand and cope with death.”

I was drawn into the story by the first line: “On the day it happened, everyone woke up happy.” You learn about the pregnancy and subsequent loss from the son who was anticipating his sibling’s birth. I think the strength of this book is that it doesn’t make pregnancy loss a small blip on the screen of life and end with a new pregnancy. It ends with a confirmation that even though a loss has happened, the family continues even with this new missing piece.

On most pages, Blanford also includes a box of text for the parent to use to kick off a conversation with their child about the page or to understand how their child may process the book. All in all, a very helpful book for explaining loss to children especially because it is straightforward and secular and accessible to all. Age range: Most pages have a small amount of text BUT since the subject matter is advanced, I think it would be best for three and above. I could even see an older child wanting answers and sitting down with this picture book with a parent (more information or to purchase).

The Different Dragon by Jennifer Bryan

This is just one of those great books that reflect families beyond the one mother, one father, 2.4 children construction. In addition to giving children a storybook family that may reflect their own, it’s an imaginative story about a dragon who just doesn’t want to gnash his teeth and breathe fire anymore.

The book is told as a bedtime story by one of Noah’s two mothers. She weaves a tale where Noah and his cat, Diva, go on an adventure and run into a dragon who is tired of being one-dimensional. The dragon admits that it’s exhausting being mean, but no one wants a dragon to be nice or fun. Noah, of course, informs him that it really is within the dragon’s power to decide how he wants to be.

We constantly tell the ChickieNob and Wolvog that we want them “to be nice because they can be and not mean because they can be” and we often talk about how you behave with other people is completely within your control (barring, of course, people who grate on your last nerve and you absolutely cannot stand them…but that’s more an adult thing, nu?). So we loved this book. And if you have a two-mother household, this book additionally allows your child to see his/her family life mirrored in the storybook. A good book for every bookshelf. Age range: more text on each page making it a better book for three and up (more information or to purchase).