Happy birthday

Happy birthday to Professor Severus Snape. I'm not quite brave enough to do anything so rash as to wish you happy birthday in person (I have no wish to spend a fortnight scrubbing out cauldrons full of vile potions ingredients), but I hope you enjoy the new edition of Most Potente Potions of the Upper Mesopotamia, which I ventured to order and send Owl Post on your behalf.

Oh, and a bottle of Ogden's Firewhiskey, too. Which will hopefully mellow you out enough to forgive my temerity for sending you best wishes of the day, when next we meet.
(What did you all get Professor Snape for his birthday?)

(In honor of this momentous occasion, however, I will dare to embarrass our Potions Master by providing the link to Snape is Too Sexy. Just to prove that he can get down with the best of them.)

Oh, how dreadful

I stepped out of the house this morning into the darkness of 7:00 a.m. I could see the girls waiting for the school bus at the corner; as I watched, the bus pulled up to take them to school.

I picked up the newspaper and went back inside, where the first thing that caught my eye was this headline:

Girl, 13, choked, raped in St. Paul: The girl was attacked on her way to school Monday morning.

It happened within sight of her own house. Not my neighborhood, but . . . urgh.

Independence

I have had some interesting talks with my sister Betsy over this past holiday season about parenting. Betsy has always been my parenting mentor, and she has talked a lot about transitioning to the empty nest stage (she has four boys, the youngest of whom is sixteen).

I have been thinking a great deal, as a result, of the fact that Fiona will (hopefully!) be leaving for college in just four short years. When I think of it, it just seems so hard to believe, but Betsy assures me that the time will fly by. Fiona is on the smaller side, compared to her peers, but the top of her head already reaches up to my eyebrows. When we got together this past holiday, I was thunderstruck to realize that Leigh, my brother Chet's daughter, six months younger than Fiona, is already taller than me.

So I talked with Betsy a lot about what is involved in helping kids getting ready to leave the nest. Betsy said that her husband Greg is particularly good about this, pressing her kids to become independent decision makers as quickly as possible. In her experience, (with boys) when they are getting ready to leave, they do it by becoming extremely withdrawn, barely ever even speaking to her (the closed oyster stage, she jokes). She has heard from her friends who have girls that conversely girls as they get older sometimes enter the getting-ready-to-leave-stage by continually picking fights with their parents, so by the time their senior year of high school rolls around, parents are sometimes just relieved that they are leaving the house, just to get rid of them.

So I asked Betsy what she has done to move her kids toward independence. She answered that by this age, all her kids were doing their own laundry. I've talked with Fiona, and we're going to institute that, too. She said that all her boys had to get summer jobs at the age of sixteen, and we will be doing that, too. I have opened an account for Fiona for depositing her babysitting money, and I've showed her how to balance her statements; this account is what she will be using to start saving for college (half of everything she earns now goes into this account).

We will probably give her a quarterly clothing allowance when she gets into high school, so she will have to budget and make decisions about what to buy herself.

[One thing I really appreciated about growing up in Illinois was that by law, I had to take a course in high school, a basic consumer awareness course: how to balance a checkbook, what the fine language on credit card agreements meant, how to analyze a commercial, how to read the ingredients list on food packaging, and what I particularly remembered and appreciate, how to recognize a scam. How I wish that other states were enlightened enough to require all students to take such a course. I will probably look for something like this through a community ed program for Fiona.]

What started me thinking about making this entry last night was that we had a situation arise where Fiona got invited to a sleepover by a friend, and then later learned that a confirmation retreat was being held that same weekend. The confirmation teacher has said that if they miss the retreat, they have to make arrangements to make up the work. I was mindful of my conversation with Betsy, and so instead of ordering Fiona by fiat, "You're going to the retreat," I told her that she had to talk with the confirmation leader, telling him of the conflict, and decide on her own what to do.

This is your chance, friends list: for once I am genuinely asking for advice here! Grab the opportunity! Or at least, tell me about your own personal experience, both growing up yourself or (if pertinent) your experience as a parent. What lessons do you think a kid needs to know before being ready to venture out into the world? How do you teach them? What did your parents do when you were moving into high school to help you become independent to leave for college? In what ways did they not prepare you enough? Parents, what are you doing now to ease the transition of your highschooler kids into adulthood? What did you learn on your own despite your parents?

minnehaha K.? cakmpls? Anyone?

New Feed

I have created a feed for Curbly's Do It Yourself Maven: curbly_diymaven

A nice tribute to Andrew Davies

Here at Bookslut. I must pick up that production of Bleak House she mentions; I am reading it now for the first time through daily e-mails from Daily Lit.

Fairy doors

aome pointed out the fairy doors available for sale here:



For those interested, check out this delightful site about urban fairies, which started with the fairy doors of Ann Arbor, Michigan and then continued to acquire information about other fairy doors all over the world.

I find these rather delightful. Hmmm. Perhaps one will show up in my house soon.