All Hail the Calendar

12/31/2009

I have a thing about calendars. If I had my way, I’d plaster every wall in the house with them, but that would probably annoy my husband.

So I settle for tacking them all over my office at work. Right now I have seven hanging up, and I’d gladly add more.

Calendars are, in fact, the main reason why (after Halloween) New Year’s is my favorite holiday. I’m not crazy about the part that involves staying up ‘til midnight drinking sickeningly cheap champagne at some overpriced function, getting your eardrums blown out by those honker things.

Which is why I don’t do that any more.

But I am crazy about the part that involves buying calendars for the following year. Fellow calendar lovers know that this time of year is calendar nirvana. They’re all HALF OFF, so you don’t even have to feel guilty about buying out the place.

I know what you’re thinking. What’s the big whoop about calendars?

At the risk of sounding hokey, it’s because they’re all about possibility. When you unwrap a new 2010 wildflowers calendar, you hold in your hands 365 new, blank days, just waiting to be filled. I read somewhere recently—can’t remember where—that New Year’s Resolutions signify hope. Well so do calendars.

Of course, every year I hope all my calendars will get me organized. Which hasn’t happened yet.  But it’s never too late, right? So here’s my to-do list (so far) for 2010:

 

• Set things up so I don’t have to return to the house five times after leaving it every morning.
• Take my kids to see the rhododendrons and mountain laurel blooming in West Virginia in spring.
• Organize my writing clips from the past 15 years.
• Try the grasshopper tacos at Oyamel.
• Actually watch and send back my Netflix movies.
• Start a new blog on memory.
• Get my car serviced.
• Erase e-mail.
• Write right.
• Camp out at doctors’ offices until my kids get what they need.
• Decide how I really feel about pedicures.
• Stop trying to be good at things I’m not and focus on what I’m good at.
• Bellydance (this one ignores the previous one).
• Walk to work more (well, after the cold weather).
• Write stuff down in one place instead of on 80 pieces of scrap paper that I can’t find later.
• Make sure I’m wearing matching shoes before leaving the office.
• Praise my kids more and say specifically why.
• Count to 20 and take a walk.
• Laugh.
• Joke.
• Breathe.
• Let go.

'I Don’t WANNA Go to School. You Can’t MAKE Me!' Oh, But I Can Sweet-Talk You

11/12/2009

T-Rex is hunched on the couch, arms folded, glaring at me.

He’s staked his position, and he’s not budging: “I don’t like playschool. I’m staying here!”

I’m glaring back at him, BlackBerry in my backpack buzzing work requests it seems I will never get to.

We had an episode like this not so long ago, involving both T-Rex and his twin brother, Punk. They pretty much staged a mutiny against school, and I devised what I thought was a brilliant solution. I told them we were going on safari. Punk’s favorite stuffed animal, “Elephant,” had gone missing, so I suggested we go find him. The search would just happen, you know, during the walk to school.

I strapped on their safari hats, and boy did my ploy work. They were out the door in seconds, running down the street calling “Elephant! Elephant!”

We had a few hitches. Like Elephant had recently scratched his butt (which required a band-aid), and there was some concern that he was incapacitated. Also, Punk decided we couldn’t move forward without a map. Luckily, I produced an imaginary one that he then kept checking. We looked for Elephant behind bushes, under leaf piles, and up in the trees (I know I know, elephants don’t generally climb trees, but you do what you have to do).

The whole thing went gangbusters until I steered them into their school. They immediately lay down on the floor, screaming and wailing that they thought they were on safari, not going to school. And, well, I felt like a jerk for duping them.

So now I have the same school-resistance problem with T-Rex, but obviously I’m not going to do the safari bait-and-switch again. I’ve got to plot some other response. Trouble is, dealing with T-Rex takes some serious maneuvering. A mini version of his grandfather, he’s every bit as smart—and stubborn.

I need a political strategist on this one. Where is David Axelrod when you need him?

I’ve already tried the appeal to sympathy:  {sigh} “C’mon sweetie-pie, you’re going to make mommy late for work.”

T-Rex: Glare. Pout.

And the appeal to reason. “T-Rex, you don’t have a choice here. Sometimes mommy and daddy don’t feel like going to work, but we have to. And you have to go to school.”

Frown. "I’m staying HERE!”

Tick tock, tick tock. Now I really am late for work.

I resort to coercion, grabbing him by the hand and pulling him to the door. “Look bucko! I don’t have time for this. Come ON!”

This, of course, prompts him to park himself on the floor and draw the most effective weapon in his arsenal: tears.

“I don’t.” [sniffle] “Wanna go.” [choke] “I don’t” [snort] “Liiiiiiiiike it theeeeere.”

Now, as planned, he’s got me. I can’t have tears, so I’ll have to try an extreme tactical shift. Even though it’s against my cynical nature, I opt for the pep talk.

I roll up my sleeves, sit next to him on the sofa, and ask if there's a problem at school. He shakes his head, no. Time to turn on the sunshine:

"T-Rex, sure you like it at playschool! You get to eat syrupy pancakes for breakfast. And sing songs. And play with the computer. And [I'm reaching now] and Ms. Johnson is there. She reeaaally likes T-Rex. You're her favorite!"

T-Rex considers this for a moment. Then he jumps off the sofa and gets all puffed up. "Oh yeah. I'm the best boy. I'm the strongest, big boy too. I'm Ms. Johnson's biggest boy of all. And I have really strong muscles." He flexes a bit, then puts on his jacket, all ready for school.

Touchdown! I'm dumbfounded that this tack actually worked. And I'm curious whether any of the strategies I tried are actually what experts recommend for tackling (in expert-speak) school refusal, AKA school phobia or school avoidance.

The American Academy of Pediatrics Web site confirms that yes, I was right to insist that he go to school; let a child stay home for no good reason, and the school refusal will only increase.

And, my asking him if there was a problem and playing up the positives of school are also recommended strategies of the site Phobics Awareness. Both sites also recommend speaking with a child's teachers about the problem—that's on my to-do list.

OK, I gotta admit, I was feeling pretty smug after I packed T-Rex off to school and read that I'd, for once, done all the right things. Small victories, folks. Small victories.

And I was still feeling pretty pleased when I went to pick up him up from Ms. Johnson's room after work. Unfortunately, it was not a happy scene. T-Rex was sitting in the corner, sulking, and Ms. Johnson looked, well, tense.

 
"What happened here?" I asked.

"Well, T-Rex got hold of my ink stamp pad, and stamped ALL of my report cards. I mean all of them. Stamps all over them. I'll have to get a whole new set."

Understandably, she was more than a little ticked off. We quickly made our apologies, and I hustled T-Rex out of there.

Crud. T-Rex had just single-handedly obliterated my "You're Ms. Johnson's favorite" tactic. Why am I not surprised?

Outsourcing Our Brains: So Busy Recording, We Forget to Live

11/06/2009

A good friend of mine called me in a snit earlier this week. She was going to a big-deal event on Capitol Hill for work—some Senate thing—and a colleague had casually asked her to take photos.

She was all whipped up. “I mean the nerve!” she fumed. “I’ve earned this. I had a dress altered. I don’t want to be stuck behind a damn camera. Not gonna do it. I want to snarf heavy hors d'oeuvres and get snockered. I want to schmooze!”

I tried talking her down, but it didn't work because I totally identified. Not on the schmoozing part. (I couldn't schmooze my way out of a wet paper bag.) I sympathized that logging the event would crimp her fun. Because that's exactly what happened to me at my twins' fourth birthday party last weekend.

It wasn't enough for me to be party planner and people herder; I also appointed myself photographer. So while everyone else was dancing with giant parrots, feeding bison, and stroking camels (the party was at a local petting zoo), I was scrambling around the "safari" wagon like I was after the money shot for National Geographic.

I kept it up the entire time.

Click. Click. Click. Distribute bottles and pellets for barnyard-feeding. Click click click. Order pizza. Click. Click. Click. Everyone on the pony rides. Click. Click. Click. All aboard the wagon. Click. Click. Click. Catch ostrich grabbing cup and chugging pellets. Click. Click. Click. Serve pizza. Click. Click. Click. Cake and candles. Click. Click. Drop dead from exhaustion.

Afterward, I realized I hadn't spent one free moment with either birthday boy. When I wasn't playing traffic cop, I was full-on recording.

In a way, I'd totally missed their freakin' birthday!

So now I'm wondering what else I've missed.  As a blogger, I am always writing, tweeting, Facebooking my observations. That means I'm not living in the current moment. I’m capturing the one that just passed.

And I'm not alone. Millions of other moms—and dads—are out there snapping, blogging, and video-logging their kids' milestones and antics. Now, as I blathered in a previous post, there's a positive side to all this. If you don't capture those first steps and words, it all gets buried in the mush of your poor, information-overloaded brain.

When you record it, you not only have a record to return to later, you also help cement your memory of it—as found by memory researchers. But there’s a price: Not only does your reality become more about the recording, but your reality may be altered by the recording.

Imagine if a bride had to videotape her own wedding. Walking down the aisle and cutting the cake would be more than a little awkward. And it would no longer be her day. It would be her guests' day. But I bet it's been done.

Just think of all the people Facebooking and tweeting their babies' births. I was one of thousands who followed Pregnant Jane (@HisBoysCanSwim) as she tweeted the birth of her son, Monkey, from the very first contraction to the big delivery. It was like my favorite show, "Birth Day," except on Twitter.

And our obsession with digital recording is only going to escalate as the technologies get smarter. As noted in a recent CNN article, Microsoft will soon be releasing a wearable digital camera, SenseCam, that auto-snaps your every action, 24/7. Think of the implications! Will we all become walking citizen journalists recording everything that we and others do? Swear, and it's on the record. Burp, and it's on the record. Everything you do and say can and will be used against you on the Web.

On the other hand, if you do want to record something, it'll be even easier. And we're all so addicted to documenting everything that I can't see us foregoing the recording equipment.

Consider my friend. She called me all gushing and aglow after her Capitol Hill event. But she had one complaint: "Nobody brought a camera," she wailed. "Not even one person. So now we've got no record of it at all."

But boy did she enjoy herself.

Umm, Actually, We DO Have All Day

07/16/2009

I had just thrown some leftovers into the office microwave and was waiting, impatiently drumming my fingers on the counter, when the front-page headline from The Onion caught my eye: “Everything Taking Too Long.”

“Dang straight!” I thought, relating to the accompanying photo—a guy clutching his head, eyes riveted to the chicken nuggets (or yams, hard to tell) taking forever to nuke in his microwave. Strange that the article was left next to the office nuker. Coincidence?

According to the article, a recent poll reveals that “54 percent of respondents are not getting any younger over here. Nearly 10 percent don't understand what the big holdup is. And 23 percent are not only ready, but have been ready for the past half hour, so let's go already.”

That really cracked me up. So did one man’s indignation that the subway train was running behind schedule, and another’s outraged refusal to wait at an emergency room. And that goober rolling his eyes at the microwave? Too funny. Then I realized, “Oh wait. That was me, three minutes ago.”

It got me to thinking: Pretty much all the examples of impatience in the article could be me. Take the train running behind schedule. Here in Washington, D.C., the metro route I ride, the Red Line, has been plagued by delays following an accident two weeks ago. You wouldn’t believe the amount of complaining this has caused. “The Red Line needs an exorcism,” I grouched on Facebook. A flurry of comments followed, with the theme: “Seriously, how long is this going to go ON?”

It’s kind of a disease—this massive rush we’re all in—and when I actually stop a moment and consider it, I’m not sure what the big hurry is. I reflect on an average work day:  It seems to take forever to get my three-year-old twins fed, dressed, and pottied. One of them, usually Punk, invariably has some sort of crisis right when I’m ready to step out the door. I turn around and he’s peed on the floor, saying “Uh OH!” Or he’s poured milk in his hair, stepped on a roll of crackers, or inexplicably tripped, fallen over backwards and hit his head on something or other.

“Punk,” I constantly find myself saying, “Come on! We don’t have all day.”

After that, I gun the car to daycare and back, then park and sprint to the metro, checking my BlackBerry to see how bad my meeting schedule is. I can feel my blood pressure mounting, and then I get stuck behind the clump of tourists. “Oh man, oh man—I will never get around these people!” I mutter like a grumpy old man.

The workday is more of the same: I open up email and instant messenger (IM) to a barrage of requests for things people needed yesterday. Ping! A meeting reminder pops up. Ring! A vendor wants to know where the check is. Ding! A colleague on IM needs an immediate answer to a question. Pop, pop, pop! My blood pressure cranks up a few more notches. Behind schedule by lunch, I tear down to the cafeteria, grab whatever’s being served to the shortest line, and race back to my desk to scarf it.

Now, finally, the irony is dawning on me. These technologies we’ve invented to free up more time are actually enslaving us; they’re making us jumpier than ever.  The train that speeds us to work is never on time. That search engine that should instantly “Bing” us results takes too long to load. And when the IM pings or the BlackBerry buzzes, we can’t respond fast enough.

A growing number of people have had enough of this technology-fueled rush. Proponents of the countervailing “Slow Movement,” like Carl Honoré, maintain that, in our increasing haste, we fail to experience life minute by minute. The more you become a “rushaholic,” they say, the more you try to cram into one day,  and the less well you do any of it; quality gets sacrificed for quantity. And, yes, the more a person multitasks, the harder it is for the brain to effectively do anything, studies by neuroscientists like Marcel Just of Carnegie Mellon University have repeatedly shown.

The mad rush can also bad for our health and relationships, possibly spurring anxiety, depression, and alienation from loved-ones, according to psychologists Michelle Weil and Larry Rosen, authors of the book TechnoStress. But don’t despair, they say. Here’s the good news: We control our lives and technology; we are only rushed to the degree that we let ourselves be rushed. We have the power to unplug, to turn off the beeps and buzzes of the e-mail and BlackBerry, to stay out of IM, to simply slow down.

Heck, looking at things this way, I’ve got no problem waiting for the train or microwave. Without feeling rushed, I can use the time to read, meditate, or just….sit.

So I’m going to try this slow thing. And I think I’m going to like it. Now, instead of riding the Red Line to work, I’m walking. It takes longer but I’m OK with that—very OK with that. Because after experiencing the exercise, the breeze in my face, and the trees and flowers along the way, I arrive at work relaxed, and ready for a slow, steady start to my day.