Berry-cute-a

Do not be fooled. This deadly creature is known as the Berry-cute-a. It will suck you in with its cuteness and then nibble you to death. Or lick you. It's hard to tell. Even with its eyes closed, its cuteness is mesmerizing. Do not be fooled.

See how it uses its amazing powers to wrestle toys away from larger prey? Its powers know no bounds, so beware . . .

Look at its powerful jaws and razor-like focus. It will come at you from nowhere and attack. Beware!

This picture is not berry cute. Not at all.

Peter Pan

Grace in her ferocious makeup for her role as Slightly, Peter Pan's lieutenant.

Grace and Dad after the big show, in her costume, taking pictures with her adoring fans.

The whole family (Jay included), with the boys in their fancy hats. We were all so proud!

Grace just completed a two-week run of Peter Pan with MYART, her community theater troupe of choice. This is the third show she's done with MYART, and she's rarin' to go for another in the fall. (I, on the other hand, was whupped by this show and the costumes I had to create and the money spent. But what's a theater mom to do?)

Peter Pan ran May 7, 8,9 and 14, 15, with two shows on each Saturday and two field trip shows on the respective Fridays. Grace did her "lead" on the night of Friday the 14th, and we were blessed with many friends and family members who showed up to support her.

She was terrific in her role. She sang, she acted and she filled in a line for someone who didn't say hers. I love how Grace's talent is growing and that she is looking forward to trying out for bigger roles in the years to come. Brava!!

Amazing Grace

This is my love letter to Grace, daughter extraordinaire, and really all-around fantastic human being.

Grace turned 11 on May 6, and I am stunned to think of all the time that has gone by since that first foggy night when we brought her home. I remember exiting the hospital doors, just Grant and Grace and me, and getting into the backseat of our blue Honda Civic so I could watch over her on the ride home. I remember thinking that we shouldn't be allowed to take her home yet. Why on earth do nurses trust people to take two-day-old infants away from the safe hospital? What is wrong with them? So there we were, driving maybe 45 miles an hour on the 22 freeway on our way home to the condo in Huntington Beach. And then we took her upstairs in the baby carrier and sat her down and looked at her sleeping face. For a long time. We just looked and wondered what on earth we should do now. Should we get her out and put her in her crib or just let her sleep? (Because we both knew that you should NEVER wake up a sleeping baby.) We looked at each other in confusion and then realized that from this point on all decisions regarding this beautiful child were ours to make. Mistakes or no, we were on the hook for her growth and for her emotional, physical and intellectual development. Holy crap.

Flash Forward.

I still love to look at her. I might not stare at her for a long time because she would think that was creepy, but I can steal enough glances to know that I am still full of wonder at this beautiful child. Grace, for the most part, defies expectations. She has accomplished so much for her 11 years, and we are very proud. Most everyone knows that she is smart as a whip, but not everyone knows the other things that make her fabulous.

Top Ten Things that Make Grace Fabulous:

10. She is athletic. That girl can run, swing a bat (hard), climb a tree, balance on a skateboard, and the like. She loves to try new sports and is not afraid to fall, scrape her knees or get grass stains on her pants (sigh). I love that she is competitive (for the most part) in this area and that she is willing to try new things.

9. She regards fashion as a state of mind. This one has been hard for me since I am willing to purchase really any type of cute clothes for the girl. However, Grace prefers jeans and t-shirts, especially those with funny sayings, and I need to respect her sense of self.

8. Grace has a sense of self. She really seems to know who she is and is comfortable with that knowledge. She hasn't gotten into the full middle school scene yet or hit the sometimes treacherous waters of teenagedom so that might falter a bit, but she is comfortable in her own skin, and I am grateful for that.

7. She has a musical chops. Not only does the girl love her drama (more on that in a minute), but she can play the piano, sing and even harmonize! Her favorite thing to do is pick out one instrument in a given song (or voice as the case may be) and follow the note patterns, tune or melody through to the end. I am so jealous. I am hoping she works more on that talent.

6. She's inventive. Grace loves to think about contraptions or inventions that could work or plans that she could put in place. She is always devising something or creating the schematics for something. Often she'll ask me about complex scientific principles (like I would know, bless her. Quantum physics anyone? Bueller?) to see if she's on the right track. My advice is always library or Google it.

5. She's worried about global issues. Grace once drew up a rather simple solution to the crisis in Jerusalem over the holy temple. Her solution was to allow Muslims access to the temple on Tuesdays and Thursdays and Saturdays and Jews access on the other days (or some variation thereof). She does not understand all the nuances involved, but she wants a world of peace and she's trying to create workable solutions. I love that her heart stretches beyond the house and city we live in and that she's willing to put something down on paper.

4. Grace loves big, deep discussions. She loves to bring up a topic and then see where it goes. She and I are famous for starting an innocuous discussion about cute puppies (Oh! Look at that puppy!) which leads to dog walking responsibilities, which leads to talking about pet ownership and then home ownership and then at what age one buys a house and where one wants to look for a house and then college and then areas of study and future goals, and then we end at glass ceilings for women in the workplace. All this from "cute puppy." She and I ponder a lot, and she's a great conversationalist. After one of these lengthy discussions, we usually look at each other and say, "How did we get on this topic?" I pray that our deep discussions continue for as long as we live.

3. She loves the theater. My girl has the performance gene, and nothing makes her happier than being on stage. She just finished with Peter Pan and had her biggest role to date. During the ride to her performance as Slightly, Peter Pan's lead lost boy, I tried to give her some advice, such as, "Don't worry about anyone in the audience. Just have fun!" She turned to me and said, "Mom, do you think I have stage fright?" in a tone that suggested my supposition if that were the case would be idiotic. She is comfortable and happy on stage, and I wish her many years of success and joy as a performer.

2. Grace is a writer. The picture above of my daughter wearing a dress (gasp) was taken at a reception for her and nine other winners of a short-story-writing contest sponsored by the Orange County Public Libraries and the Irvine Barclay Theater. Out of 250 or so entries, 10 stories were chosen for publication and have been compiled into a book that is available to check out from each of the 30-some-odd branches. I love that my daughter finds the same joy, solace and fulfillment in writing that I do. I love that she will ask for computer time to finish a chapter or two on the latest story that she is working on rather than to play games (okay, sometimes she quits writing in favor of playing, but that's okay). I know that writing is going to play a huge part in her life.

1. Grace is committed to learning. I'm not just talking about school work or grades. Grace wants to know things. She is really good at memorizing trivia and sharing fun facts about random items (did you know that there is a species of shark that can bark? I did not. Still don't want to know), but the core of her commitment lies with bettering herself as a human being. She has a capacity for understanding how lessons are learned and then how to apply that knowledge to her life. I'll never forget when she sought out the school psychologist in second grade to get some perspective on her emetophobia (fear of vomiting). This had been such a problem for her and for us, and she took some steps to try and solve it on her own. She never enjoys getting in trouble, but she tries to learn from each experience. This is one of those character traits that is so hard to teach. She might have to learn the same lesson a few times, but I see how she tries to put the lesson into practice.

I have such high hopes for this girl. And while I'm eager to see where she ends up in her life, I am loathe to let that time fly by so quickly. My goal is to savor each day before middle school and high school take away some of the focus and present new and even scary challenges. I know that whatever happens, God will watch out for her and help her become a tremendous participant of the world. I am just so grateful on a daily basis that she is part of our world.

Happy Birthday, Henry

Yesterday was Henry's birthday. Just look at this baby picture. Can you tell why we love this puppy so much? He is so much fun and has brought such joy to our lives these past 10 months. Yes, he sheds. Too much. Yuck. And yes, he eats all kinds of crap -- including, you got it, crap, as well as shoes and sticks and rocks and magazines and plastic straw wrappers and anything fun he finds in the yard or on his walks. And yes, his very existence complicates vacation plans and any activity where we're away from home for eight hours or more.

However, he makes us laugh. He makes us smile. He licks away tears and sad faces. He cuddles against you and keeps you warm. He plays a wonderful game of tag or soccer. He protects the family from scary intruders like the mailman and the UPS guy. He is goofy. He barks at the TV or the fireplace just to keep them on their toes. He plays hard and sleeps hard. He suns himself on the hot pavement. He is the first to greet you when you walk in the door, and he is always happy to see you. He answers to several nicknames including Boom Boom and Teeny Tiny and Wookie. As Sean summed up once, "I'm glad we got Henry, Mom, because now we're a real family."

Happy Birthday, Henry Hope Mosher; we're so glad you're part of our clan.

Stopped at the Turning 40 Checkpoint

I am going to blog in the order of recent events rather than by priority because in my very linear brain this is how things should go -- in order, from first to last. It makes me laugh that after all these years, I still find comfort in things that are ordered. My life, however, is not ordered or neat or able to be compartmentalized nicely, but I know that my comfort level rises when things have an order or a sense of place. Lately, being comforted is important.

I am 40.

I discovered that the weeks leading up to this momentous occasion were troubled and filled with questioning and doubt. For instance: How the hell did I get to be 40? I really graduated high school 22 years ago? What the #@$%^? I still remember everything about high school. I remember the lights of the football stadiums and the cool, crisp air of a fall night. I remember traveling on the bus to competitions and being afraid to raise my hand in class. I remember scavenger hunts with my church group and toilet papering houses in the middle of the night. I was cute and thin, but I didn't know it, which is amazing. I did have issues and neuroses and frustrations, but overall, I was happy knowing that my life was about to begin and savoring those great memories of school: a high school sweetheart, good friends, dances, and a horrible retail job.

I remember going to college and finding my passion in literature. I remember thinking I wanted to be wealthy and powerful, and so I started my college career majoring in business. After taking a Shakespeare class and doing really well, I realized that my passion lay with books and the written word -- not with numbers and dry, soulless theories about profit margins. I was hooked. My dream began to unfold: I would be poor initially, but I would be rich with wisdom. I would travel around the world and become the foremost Shakespeare/Renaissance/Jacobean scholar. I would settle the authorship question once and for all and the English would be so grateful (except for the Oxfordians) that I would be able to marry a fabulously wealthy Earl or Duke who would worship the ground I walked on, and I would live out my days in England raising four well-mannered boys who wore matching blazers and were schooled at Eton.

All right. Flash forward a lot of years. I am an unemployed mother of three who can barely remember enough Shakespearean characters to pass a Sporcle quiz. I am married, not to a wealthy English duke, but to a high school English teacher who thankfully is as much in love with the written word as I am. However, he is an American Lit scholar, which should give you an idea as to his shortcomings (totally kidding -- sort of). I do not have four boys. Instead I have a lovely 11-year-old daughter and rambunctious twin boys, age eight, who would never want to wear the same thing for fear of being mistaken for the other. I am tired and a bit haggard, and I look like a mom -- not the sexy, accomplished Lara Croft/Renaissance scholar with awesome biceps that I had pictured myself looking like at this advanced age. I was going to be the woman who defied age and who could command every man's attention when she walked into a room, no matter how old or young they were. Seriously, what happened to her?

Part of me laughs at the idealized future I had created for myself, and part of me mourns that dream. I don't think I ever truly believed that all of it would come true, but being able to dream and dream big about one's future is important. It gives those of us who like to control things a real sense of purpose and drives us to succeed. We want to be that idealized person, so we try to make as many of those elements fall into place as possible. We feel great while we are pursuing those dreams. We feel that there is nothing we can't do. Setbacks are minor; they only serve to steel our resolve and make us that much more persistent. Or the setbacks help us hone our course so that we take advantage of new opportunities or different possibilities that open up. I was on fire to create an amazing future for myself. I worked hard, and I made choices along the way. I just never really noticed that the choices were taking me farther and farther off my planned course.

I guess this birthday is hard because I have to acknowledge that on my way to England and tomb raiding (okay, manuscript reading), I made choices that landed me in Fountain Valley, in a little bungalow with three kids, a mortgage and a hard-working hubby. And now, it's time to let my old dreams go. It's not that I am still influenced by them, but their pull is strong. They have a type of power -- the power to say, "What if? What if you had done this instead?"

I am realizing that this type of thinking is dangerous because it makes you feel unfulfilled. It makes you feel that your life was a series of mistakes instead of choices. I do not want to stop dreaming, mind you. I will still dream and even dream big on occasion. However, I think this birthday is hard because I have to begin the grieving process. I have to mourn. I have to bury what I wanted to have happen 20 years ago. Living in the present and looking toward the future is a lot healthier. But 40 gives us pause. It makes us pause. It makes us stop at the checkpoint and look at our lives and assess where we've been and where we are.

Forty is a hard number, a real number, a concrete number. Is my life half over? If we're unafraid of our past or what's in store for us, we can continue past the checkpoint. Some sail by; I've watched them. They thumb their noses at the guards and drive straight through. Others, like me, have to get out and check behind the vehicle. We have to look at the tire treads and calculate how far we've traveled. We have to analyze the road and crane our necks to see the village we've left. Is it safe to proceed? Will it be worth it? Am I a willing participant or just a traveler?

It does seem a bit melodramatic to equate checkpoints and turning 40, I know. However, checkpoints with armed guards represent real terror, and right now, wondering whether I've lived the right life is terrifying too. My goal for this year is to get back in the jeep, thank the guards for their patience and drive slowly down the road.

The Harried Blogger

Hello, my name is Sheryl, and it's been 15 days since my last post.

I have no excuse for not posting besides my busy schedule, but doesn't everyone have a busy schedule these days? Isn't that the reason why we blog: to keep track of those crazy moments so we can reflect back years from now? So we can have a record of what we did while we were on this earth and what we did during our kids' formative years? I need to get better at posting!

Because of my limited brain functionality -- I am 40 now, you know -- I have had to focus all my attention (and I do mean all) to the items that have consumed my life for the past three weeks: Grace's MYART show, Grace's birthday, the boys' daily lessons and IN-CLASS State Testing and, to a lesser extent, my 40th birthday, which came and went like a flash and left me a year older and psychologically in flux. These events all require their own separate postings, but the aggregate effect of having multiple events happen at one time was overwhelming. I wanted to process everything one item at a time, but as you know, the real world asks you to process several things at once, often to unsatisfactory conclusions.

So, today, on the boys' 8th birthday, I will resume our tales of the burrow and start hitting the highlights of the past few weeks. Hold on. Be Patient. There's a lot to tell . . . .

Julia Louis-Dreyfus Honored On Walk Of Fame... With A Typo

Having been an editor for a long time, I cringed when I saw this headline, and then I laughed so hard I nearly cried. I am still trying to imagine what chain of events had to happen for a mistake of this magnitude to occur. Now, I know what it's like to misspell something or not catch a typo in a presentation or memo. These things do happen, but to someone who edits for a living, these things should RARELY happen. We're all human, even editors, and no matter how many times your eyes roam over a document, there is always a remote possibility that you have missed something. This is why most editors will spend extra time going over a letter, document, advertisement, and the like if it is going to be seen by millions of people. And then, they will have an assistant look at it. Then, if possible, they will look at it again. As a former editor and mentor once told me, "There are two jobs in which you can never make a mistake: editor and umpire." Enough said.

Therefore, it is with absolute incredulity that I ponder the situation that happened with Julia Louis-Dreyfus's star on the Walk of Fame. It's not like they couldn't find out how to spell her name. It's not like they couldn't Google it and double-check themselves. Her name isn't Star Jones or Joan Rivers, which have conventional spellings. Her name has a hyphen, for goodness' sake! Holy smokes. This is either laziness at its best or pure stupidity; I'm not sure. Maybe both?

When Grace, who is 10 (11 tomorrow), was doing her report on Michelle Obama and wanted to find out Michelle's middle name, she conducted a Google search that yielded three different results (including Shaniqua, which I was secretly hoping was Michelle Obama's middle name because girlfriend could totally rock that.) So when Grace asked me which one was correct, I told her she needed to do additional research to find out which one was right, including looking up the White House website and Michelle Obama's First Lady website. Michelle Obama's full name is Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama. My 10-year-old figured that one out and, of course, credited her source on her paper. Why on God's green earth couldn't someone have called Julia's agent and asked to confirm his or her client's rather unusual name? Would that not fall under the realm of common sense?

Apparently, Julia thought this whole thing was hilarious and asked them to keep the misspelled star in the ground, but by then sheepish folks were apologizing and RE-CHISELING a new star. That's what gets me, too. They have to chisel in the name. It's not like you can run spell check and then backspace. You have to re-chisel a whole new piece of granite. So, in closing, may this be a lesson to all: Do not take names or spelling for granite (okay, just kidding on that one). No, seriously, find out how to spell something before setting it in stone (See what I did there? I am on a roll.) Ack!

Star Wars Day

You may not know this, but today is International Star Wars Day. Do you know why? Because it is the only day where you can say, "May the Fourth be with you . . . " Wow. There are no limits in the geek universe. Outstanding.

Little Miss Sunshine

I was reading over my latest blog entry (you know, to check for typos and the like), and I realized that my posting was a bit on the cheery side. In fact, I found it a bit disconcerting. The text sounds like I'm doing an ad for "Homeschool USA," in which bright-eyed, happy people sing and weave baskets made of daisies grown organically in their yard. Don't get me wrong; I'm so grateful that homeschooling has worked out for me and the boys and not all homeschooling organizations promote the singing and weaving discussed above, but I think I need to dial back the rhetoric just a bit or at least paint a picture of some of the other realities of my day so my musings on the greatness of K12 don't come off as false or misleading. I love the curriculum; there are other things about the experience that are tough.

Last week's post made the homeschooling experience sound like a breeze. As if every day I wake up and there are bluebirds chirping at the window waiting to come in and land on my shoulder. I'll tell you right now, when I sing, even in my most awesomest voice, woodland creatures do not come to find me. They just don't. When I wake up, I know that there is a long day ahead with both fun lessons and surly attitudes (mostly from the teenager when I try to wake her up). There will be cajoling and pleading and threats -- usually from me towards any number of appliances, pieces of technology and, of course, children. And despite the fact that I'm generally more relaxed these days because I know the boys are with me during the day, I still have difficulties getting them to focus and perform on certain days.

Top Five Things That Are Tough About Homeschooling:

1. The boys are sleepers. They would prefer school start at noon, with a hefty dose of recess around 1:30. I cannot get them up before 9:00 a.m. even by giving them every incentive/punishment I can think of. Their bodies are just not ready for school until then, so we start at 10:00 and end around 3:30 or 4:00 p.m. And even though they like their subjects and love some of the projects and assignments, it is still school, and the boys would much rather focus on video games or the latest Pokemon t.v. show than get motivated for lessons. Once I have them focused, then they are golden. I can get great work out of them. It's the focus part that is hard.

2. Which leads me to the most challenging part of my day. We suspect that the boys are dealing with focus issues along the lines of ADD. There is no hyperactivity, but they have difficulty transitioning from one thing to another. This could be due to something beyond their immediate control, which would explain some of the behaviors that we've found most frustrating over the years: not letting go of a particular subject of discussion, needing to finish something and do it right before quitting, and the like. Add to this a bit of OCD, high intellect and a healthy dose of perfectionism and you have two very complicated children. Some of the ADD characteristics were probably masked by the fact that they do enjoy and thrive on learning new things, so sometimes they are so focused on what they are learning that you just see overexcited, eager learners who are enthusiastic about the subject. My day will consist of lots of counting, as in, "Gavin, Sean! 1, 2, 3, 4, . . . " By then, the boys know I'm serious, and we can get back to the subject at hand.

3. Bathroom breaks. INEVITABLY when I'm in the middle of something super exciting -- "Look, Arthur is about to receive the Round Table from Guenivere's father!" or "If you look, you can see the three layers of the earth in this cool video," or "When you have a sentence that has a "to be" verb, then the pronoun at the end must be in the subjective form." (Okay, I am not kidding on that last one. K12 actually had a lesson about the following sentences: Who was on the phone? It was SHE. Proper grammatical form. Love it!) -- as I was saying, inevitably, one of the boys has to go to the bathroom. For a long, long time. This provides very tricky maneuvering on my part as to whether we go ahead (me and the non-potty boy) or we wait for brother. So, sometimes we have multiple recesses or sometimes the one boy goes ahead and the other has to catch up later in the day or will do that work when the other guy is using the facilities. So frustrating! Especially when you are knee-deep in art.

4. Having to run errands or attend to appointments. These really cut into the day, and while homeschooling is awesome for the flexibility, we sometimes are doing catch-up throughout the day and evening when we have appointments. I love the days when I don't have anywhere to go and we can just get through as many things as possible without disruptions. We'll have normal breaks, which cut down on the random bathroom trips, and the routine is soothing. But life is life, and there will always be interruptions and days that are smoother than others. I just know that I like and work well with a consistent schedule, and I think they do too.

5. Burrowing. For many months now, I've been happy to stay inside and keep them safe. Safe from judgment and mean people. Now I'm slowly coming around to the idea that they need to see other people and so do I. I miss being out in the world and socializing and feeding my need for human connections. The boys also need practice interacting with others and knowing what topics are okay for conversation and which ones are not. I need to find a better balance between safety and society. It's as if I'm stuck somewhere on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and I can't figure out which rung to stand on. For the first time, I'm realizing that true burrowing may not be the right answer. We need to poke our heads out more often and see others.

There are, of course, many other crazy things that belong to the day, but these are the biggest and the ones that show up the most. I still think we're doing the right thing -- we just need to be open to shifting the paradigm and finding the right balance between protection and growth.