Christmas Traditions: Front Porch Pumpkins

Christmas traditions can be wonderful, conjuring up memories of happy times together with friends and family. They can also be stressful, piling up into to-do list items a mile long. The key to the successful tradition is to find the right ratio of enjoyment to effort.

Using that scale, my most favorite tradition is the Christmas Pumpkin. It requires almost no effort on my part -- all I have to do is not carve my Halloween pumpkins and leave them on the front porch until December -- and I get unending joy every time I look at my house.

What's a Christmas pumpkin, you ask? And how you can you get some with so little work? Well, you start by living across the street from Ms. Marty. Because the truth is that the Christmas pumpkins actually take a great deal of effort -- it's just that she's the one who makes it all happen.

It started with felt in 2009, when I accidentally left my pumpkins on the porch past Thanksgiving.

And then there were lights in 2010.

In 2011, she took it up a notch with this little crowd. Their song sheets are for "Silent Night," in case you can't tell.

2012 arrived all tied up in ribbons and bows.

 

 And just when we couldn't imagine what could happen for 2013...

Seriously, y'all -- that's eight tiny pumpkin reindeer led by a pumpkin Rudolph and pulling a pumpkin Santa's sleigh and his bag of toys. That one we had to bring inside to display on the table because it's just too cute. (And yes, the middle-schooler in me laughs every time my kids say "Look at the HO on the front steps!")

So, to recap, in case you want to implement this tradition at home:

• Step 1: Move across the street from Marty.
• Step 2: Buy an assortment of pumpkins for Halloween. Do not buy them too early and do not carve them.
• Step 3: Wait patiently.
• Step 4: Enjoy the brilliance. Be careful not to puncture any of the pumpkins.

A Super Ordinary Boy

Today Dylan looked more or less like all the other second grade boys on the school field trip, with his gap-toothed grin, energetic legs, sweaty head and dirty fingernails, digging through the dirt for fossils at the Museum of Life + Science. In fact, most days when we see him, he's just like all the other kids.

Except for last summer, when we had to go to Duke Hospital to see Dylan. Then, for the first time since 2007, he looked more like a patient than the kid down the street. For two weeks, while a team of nurses and doctors poked and tested and treated him for an infection, we were reminded that in spite of looking and acting and generally being like all the other kids, Dylan has cystic fibrosis.

As CF patients go, he's been pretty healthy, according to his mom -- but his parents work hard to keep him that way. Each day, he takes more than 20 pills, three nebulizer treatments and two airway clearances -- and that's when he's well. If he has a lung infection, he can spend up to two hours a day doing breathing treatments. After his two-week hospitalization last summer, he spent another eight weeks at home on IV meds -- that meant no swimming in the pool for all of July and August.

So stop for a minute and imagine your daily routine with your kids.

Think about how full each day is and how often you're running late for school or work in the morning because they can't find their shoes or didn't remember their homework or need you to make an extra snack or are just generally being pissy. And think about how hard it is to get your kids to bed on time because there are always a hundred things, both real and imaginary, that suddenly have to be completed before you can get them to go to sleep.

Then imagine that in the midst of all that everyday chaos, you've also got to work in five different breathing treatments and convince your child to swallow 20 pills. Every. Single. Day.

Now if you're Dylan's mom, you don't complain about any of that. In the 7+ years that I've known her, not once have I heard her complain. Instead, she says things like this:

"That is a lot for a little guy to have to handle and as a mom it is hard to watch him having to endure all he does everyday. Dylan has made me a stronger person. He never gets a day off. I will continue to do all I can to keep him healthy until a cure is found."

On Saturday, my family and I will join with the rest of the Super Dylan Nation in the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation's Great Strides Walk. We will wear our red shirts and wind our way through downtown Raleigh for 3.1 miles. We will marvel at how our little friend with cystic fibrosis can run the whole 5K. We will celebrate all that his family does to keep him healthy.

And I will also say a quiet prayer of thanks that we can do something -- however small -- to help make CF stand for "cure found."

Click here if you'd like to join us on the walk, share your support through a donation to the Super Dylan team (no gift is too small!), or learn more about the CF Foundation.

Need more convincing?

• Five reasons why you should donate to the Super Dylan campaign
• For Super Dylan's Mom
• "The Longest-Lived Survivor"

Student Assignment 2.0

The devil is in the details.

That ought to be the tagline for the Wake County student assignment plan.

The latest twist in the on-going (and seemingly impossible) search for the perfect plan involved returning a base school assignment tied to each address in the county. Until last year, every house in the district was automatically assigned to a specific school -- if you didn't apply to a magnet school or some other option, then that's where your kids went to school (we'll call this Old Plan).

For this year's plan (we'll call it New Plan 1.0), the school board did away with base assignments, having every family rank their preferred schools from a list of options (based on your address) and then placing them depending on certain criteria and available seats. Doing so gave the district more flexibility in filling available seats and avoiding wildly overcrowded schools.

Real estate agents (as a group) and some families protested this element of the new plan, saying it was unreasonable for newcomers to the area to be able to buy a house without knowing  where their kids would go to school. The new approach also meant that, depending on a variety of factors, it was possible to live across the street from a school and not get a seat there. You can see why people were frustrated.

So this summer the school board instructed district staff to revise New Plan 1.0 to reinstate base assignments tied to addresses. And regardless of the plan, they've promised to allow anyone already in a school to stay at that school until they graduate. Sounds like they're being responsive to legitimate complaints and frustrations, right?

Enter those devilish details.

Because when the district released the base assignment plan (we'll call it New Plan 2.0) on Friday, it turns out that they didn't simply go back to the school assignments that people remembered from Old Plan. In some cases, they got new assignments that pulled them away from where they were used to attending. And that left lots of people with a big surprise (translation: trauma) when they plugged their address into the online school finder Friday night..

So while I'm quoting cliches, I'll add You Can't Win for Losing as the clear motto for the Wake County Public School System. Seems that every time they try to adjust for one problem, they create six new ones in its place.

This scenario may not have played out in every neighborhood, but I don't think mine is the only one. With New Plan 2.0, here's what I think the school district was trying to do:
a. Keep a whole neighborhood together instead of splitting between two elementary schools.
b. Keep people at schools close to home, even if not at their absolute closest school.
c. Connect elementary schools to middle schools on the same calendar.
d. Relieve overcrowding at one school to fill empty seats at another school.

These all sound like good things, except that (ah, there's those details again) their solution was to assign most of my neighbors to:
a. A different school than the one they (or their address) have attended for many, many years.
b. An elementary school that is less than 2 miles away but would require riding the bus or at least crossing a very busy 6-lane street with no crossing guard instead of the school that they can currently walk less than a mile to.
c. A middle school that is 9 miles away and on a year-round calendar even though there's a traditional calendar middle school in our walk zone.

Yeah. They're not happy.

There are bigger policy issues at stake here -- how do we ensure that every school is a great school, how do we support teachers and principals to do great work, how do we help students get the attention and services they need, how do we ensure that no school is overwhelmed by poverty? But no one can think about those big questions because all they hear is more change, more uncertainty, more arbitrary decisions.

Oh, and tomorrow it sounds like the school board might fire the superintendent. Because nothing helps calm nervous or angry parents like a sudden leadership vacuum.

Oy vey.

Make CF Stand for "Cure Found" for Super Dylan!

Adapted from a post May 17, 2011 -- We'll be walking in the Great Strides walk again this Saturday with the Super Dylan Team!


You may remember that I'm not a fan of NPR's pledge drive, but apparently it works because they keep on doing it over and over and over and over again. And again.

So it's pledge drive time again here at My Convertible Life -- we're raising funds for the Super Dylan Team and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation's Great Strides walk. I'll be walking this Saturday in Raleigh with the fam and we need your support.

If you already know about Dylan and want to make a gift, you can stop reading now, click here to give online and feel confident that your money is going to a great cause.

If you don't know about Dylan or about cystic fibrosis, here are some old posts you can read to learn to more about one of Junius' best buddies and his battle against this chronic illness:

• Donate for Super Dylan (background post)
• For Super Dylan's Mom (because to know her is to love her)
• Friday's 5: Why You Should Donate for Super Dylan (in case you need a list)
• The Longest-Lived Survivor (to see why research can make a difference)

Now click on over and help us ensure that Dylan has lots more afternoons of slip-n-sliding with Junius and Pippi. And thanks in advance for your gift!

A Band in the Neighborhood (from Kansas)

It's not every day that a neighbor invites us over to hear a band play at their house. So when Marty announced they were hosting Abandon Kansas in their over-the-garage music studio earlier this week, I strolled out my driveway and across the street to hear what the fuss was about.

Two hours later, I was making chat with Jeremy here like a little groupie and clutching two new CDs in my hand. And I've been listening to those songs ever since.

If you weren't lucky enough to get the invite to the show (meaning that you're not lucky enough to live close by), then just be glad that I'm here to introduce you. So here's what you need to do:

1. Go read Marty's post about how she met Abandon Kansas earlier this year. 
2. Go to the AK website and listen to their songs. Buy some music in your format of preference. Tell Jeremy that we sent you.
3. Sit there and be jealous that my neighbors are cooler than your neighbors.

"The Longest-Lived Survivor"

I generally don't read the obituaries.

I'm afraid of death. Or more specifically, I'm afraid of losing people I love. So I avoid the obits as a reminder of the inevitable.

Except when I was pregnant, when I would quickly scan the obit pages looking for interesting names to use for my soon-to-arrive babies. Even then, I still didn't read the actual obituary. And I never found quite the right name, either.

But today, as I was flipping through the paper, one of the obits caught my eye. Maybe it was the pretty photograph of the deceased, possibly it was the length of her hyphenated name. For some reason, I started reading it.

"Elizabeth Kathryn Herring-Shapiro, called Betty Kaye by most of her family and BK by her husband and countless dear friends, passed away Friday morning, June 3, shortly after sunrise. At the time of her passing at the age of 66, she was thought to be the longest-lived survivor of cystic fibrosis in the nation and perhaps the world."

And then I started to cry.

That she lived to age 66, the obit says, is a testament to both medicine and her "unwavering faith in God, miracles and the power of prayer." I found some hope in the very full life she lived in those 66 years, with a career that ranged from New York model to Governor's special assistant to international tour director. She must have been a great friend to many and was clearly loved by her family.

When we walk in the Great Strides walk each year to raise funds to cure cystic fibrosis, it's not for some broad, altruistic reason. It's for this very specific goal:

I'm counting on never seeing the obit for Jack's buddy. But when it's printed (assuming there's still such a thing as "print"), I want it to say that at the ripe old age of 101, after a rich and successful life, he was the longest-lived survivor of cystic fibrosis.

Photo from the N&O obituaries.
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Is That a Leak in My Ceiling or Just My Own Tears?

So after this...

and then this...

you'd think I'd be done with water leaking through my ceiling.

But, sadly, you'd be wrong.

Because today there's this...

Yes, that's a gash in my upstairs ceiling with water dripping through it. And yes, that strange curve is the bulge of the wet drywall sagging with the weight of it all. And yes, it's nearly three feet long.

This time, it wasn't the shower (photo 1) or toilet (photo 2) leaking into the kitchen. Today it was the A/C in the attic -- someone dumbass DIY previous homeowner repaired a broken PVC pipe with duct tape and even though we had a maintenance check on the whole system last year, apparently no one bothered to properly install the run-off pipes for the water overflow from the A/C unit. So it's been leaking into the attic floor for who knows how long and finally burst through the ceiling this morning.

Yea.

Thank goodness for awesome neighbors/contractors who responded to my panicked phone call, converged on the house within minutes and repaired the leak within an hour. At least now the A/C is working, although the hole is the ceiling is another matter.

If I call my husband one more time at the office to tell him that it's raining inside our house, I'm pretty sure he won't come home anymore.
.

Pledge Drive for Super Dylan

You may remember that I'm not a fan of NPR's pledge drive, but apparently it works because they keep on doing it over and over and over and over again. And again.

So it's pledge drive time again here at My Convertible Life -- we're raising funds for the Super Dylan Team and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation's Great Strides walk. I'll be walking this Saturday in Raleigh with the fam and we need your support.

If you already know about Dylan and want to make a gift, you can stop reading now, click here to give online and feel confident that your money is going to a great cause.

If you don't know about Dylan or about cystic fibrosis, here are some posts you can read to learn to more about one of Junius' best buddies and his battle against this chronic illness:

• Donate for Super Dylan (background post)
• For Super Dylan's Mom (because to know her is to love her)
• Friday's 5: Why You Should Donate for Super Dylan (in case you need a list)

Now click on over and help us ensure that Dylan has lots more afternoons of slip-n-sliding with Junius and Pippi. And thanks in advance for your gift!

.

Remodeling 5: Things He Left Behind

Do you remember Eldin Bernecky?

He was the chatty house painter who essentially moved in with Murphy Brown for six seasons while he supposedly repainted her house.

Well, after four (plus) months of home renovation, we kind of have our own Eldin. At our house, he's known as Mr. Joey.

He didn't actually move in, although we considered inviting him -- but I think his daughters would have missed him. Thankfully, he just lives around the corner, so it's the next best thing.

He exorcised the demons of the previous homeowner's dangerous DIY trail. We called him whenever we needed him, even on Christmas Eve. He hugged and high-fived the kids every time he came over. We chatted about religion and politics and the latest neighborhood scoop. He checked in even when it wasn't his crew in the house, just to be sure things were going right.

We're going to miss him -- and I think he might miss us a little, too. So today's remodeling list is in honor of our own Eldin.

When you hire a contractor, you expect to find dust, invoices and maybe a tool or two at your house after he's gone. But here are five things we didn't expect our contractor to leave behind:

1. A fairy dress. While cleaning out closets at his house, Joe found an old fairy costume and wings that his daughters had long outgrown. Clearly he knew Pippi well. When she walked in from preschool and saw it hanging on the coat closet doorknob, she immediately pulled off her clothes, sat on the floor and dressed herself as a fairy (see photo above). He also brought Pippi roses from his garden until the weather turned too cold for blooms.
2. A plastic sword. Another gem found when cleaning out closets at his house, the plastic sword was hanging from a picture hook in our foyer when Junius came home from school. Under normal circumstances, it might make a homeowner nervous to see a sword dangling inside the front door. But Junius was thrilled. We've since had to duct-tape it together because of over-use.
3. A book. No, not a Home Repair for Dummies book. It's a copy of Cinderella Ate My Daughter by Peggy Orenstein. Joe has two tween-aged daughters and he's working hard at being their dad. He read the book himself, then passed it along for us to read -- I'm looking forward to discussing it with him once I'm finished.
4. A CD. Even better, it's a CD by The Desmonds featuring none other than our very own Mr. Joey on drums and back-up vocals. We first discovered Joe's drumming talents coincidentally on our Holly Raleigh Kidsmas disc (click the Desmonds link and listen to "One Wish This Christmas") -- he gave us a less seasonal album so we could keep on listening to him after Christmas was over. Pippi's favorite is track #6. We've listened to it 847 times in the car over the past few weeks.
5. A house key. And by house key, I mean one to his house. The weekend after he tore out our kitchen, Joe was out of town. So he gave us his key and invited us to make ourselves at home -- cook dinner, let the kids play his drum set, watch TV, sit in a calm, clean space with an in-tact floor. Totally lovely, although it made the chaos of our house seem even crazier by comparison.

Oh, and that beat-up looking foyer where Pippi was sitting in the photo above? The one with the sad fake wood floor, dirty carpet, missing drywall and banged up closet door? 

Now it looks like this:

Remodeling Week:
Hire People You Trust
Eating Without a Kitchen
Tips for Prospective Remodelers
Kitchen Before and After

Remodeling 5: Hire People You Trust

Last August, I warned you what happens when you give a girl some crown molding. When I wrote that post, we'd actually completed the story through the shower remodel.

The rest started in November.

And by "the rest," I mean tearing out walls, installing a 600 lb steel beam in the ceiling, adding lighting, replacing ceilings, replacing floors, gutting the kitchen, removing the fireplace facade, adding lots of bookcases and cabinets, installing new trim, and painting everything. Plus relocating all the furniture and accessories a million times to accommodate all the work.

Damn. No wonder I'm exhausted. And we didn't even do any of the construction work ourselves.

But as of March 11, 2011, I have a fully functioning, totally remodeled kitchen. Let the people say Hallelujah! Can I get an Amen?!

It's been a long road -- and even though we're not 100 percent completely finished, I thought I'd designate this week as Five Lists About Home Renovations Week.

Today's theme is The House that Lakemont Built. One of the cool things about this big fat messy project is that we got to work with people in our neighborhood.

Here are five of our neighbors who helped make this new house possible -- plus a bonus neighbor from the first round of projects:

1. Architect: Jennifer Heron Brock, JHB Architect. Jennifer spent many hours designing a plan that would be both structurally sound (important when you don't want your upstairs bedroom to land in your family room) and also incorporate all the changes to make the house live the way we want to live. Having architectural plans in place before anyone started swinging a sledge hammer gave me peace of mind that everyone working on the project would literally be on the same page.
2. Contractor: Joe Fiore, Residential Remedies. Joe practically became part of our family over the past 4+ months. From hoisting a steel beam into the ceiling (with a little help) to sweeping up at the end of the day -- and everything in between -- he made the whole project come together. Plus, he let the kids feel like they were part of the project, too, even when it would have been easier to send them out of the way.
3. Drywall: Juan Martinez, freelance. Juan made our ceilings so smooth they look like a freshly-Zambonied ice rink. You'd never know there's a layer of crappy popcorn hidden under there. He also spent a lot of time repairing all the walls after the electricians and plumbers were finished so that the paint would look perfect.
4. Carpentry: Matt Kesterson, Kesterson Finish Carpentry. Matt turned a pile of wood into the most beautiful cabinetry, shelves, trim and mantel you can imagine. The level of detail -- from the way the baseboard traces behind the toilet plumbing to the special touches along the crown molding -- is absolutely gorgeous.
5. Flooring: Jeff Armstrong, Brentwood Flooring (Cary). Jeff helped us select the perfect flooring for our house -- then made sure that the installers got everything just right. We had a not-so-great experience with hardwood installation at our last house, so it was a relief to know we were in good hands this time. And considering that the new floors cover the entire downstairs, we really had to get it right.
6. Shower: Wally Ackerson, Acclaim Builders. Wally took care of our shower problem last year after we discovered the leak. Even though it meant cutting into the kitchen ceiling (leading us into the rest of this project), he left us with a beautiful shower that makes starting the day much brighter -- which is particularly important when the whole downstairs was such a disaster.

Stay tuned this week for tips about remodeling, how to survive without a kitchen, surprising things our contractor left behind and some much-anticipated before/after photos.

Remodeling Week:
Eating Without a Kitchen
Tips for Prospective Remodelers
Things He Left Behind
Kitchen Before and After

'Twas Friday Night in Lakemont

Alternate Title: Why You Wish You Lived in My Neighborhood
With apologies to Clement Clark Moore or Henry Livingston, or whoever wrote the original

'Twas Friday night in Lakemont --
A night in, you see --
My husband and I
Turned on the TV.

The renovation mess
Would eventually be great,
But it meant no holiday
Decorating to date.

The children were nestled
All snug in their beds,
While visions of presents
Filled up their big heads.

And my husband in sweatpants
And I, in my jammies,
Had just settled down
For some TiVoed programmies.

When out on the porch there arose such a clatter,
Hubby sprang from the couch to see what was the matter.

He peeked out the window, then walked 'cross the floor,
Turned on the porch light and opened the front door.

When, what to our wondering eyes -- not a fright --
But a green pumpkin tree clad in garland and light.

From a fabulous neighbor, so clever and arty,
I knew in a moment it must be Ms. Marty.

More rapid than eagles, she'd smuggled away
The pumpkins on my porch since an October day.

And now it's tradition, we'll hope every year
That our favorite craft elf will bring us this cheer.

As if just her friendship weren't enough,
She does fun things like this and shares tasty stuff.

So we send her, as thanks for all these delights,
A most Merry Christmas and many peaceful nights!
.

Wordless Wednesday: Halloween Weekend

A brief photo journal from a busy weekend:

Glasses courtesy of Daddy's co-worker.
Because not every cool Halloween treat has to be candy.

The boys pose with the Durham fire fighters,
who completed the Climb for Life with 50 extra pounds of gear.
That's 56 flights of stairs.

Batman tries out the violin before the NC Symphony kids concert.
Even superheroes need a talent.

Spiderman and Miss Ladybug hit their first target,
 then are surprised when the bowl grabs back.

Dating Women Sucks

Three years ago this month, my husband and I sold our house in Raleigh, packed up our stuff (and two-year-old Junius) and moved in with my parents in Greensboro so that we could be closer to a job opportunity. Two months later, we bought a house there and attempted to settle in before Pippi arrived -- which is to say I was on a desperate hunt for friends before the newborn craziness started.

I loitered at parks near my neighborhood, hovered around the baby pool, practically stalked women by the entrance at Junius's preschool. Some women ignored me, but most were nice and many stopped to chat -- still, nothing clicked. It felt like I was 21 again, trying to meet guys at a bar ("Hey, didn't you go to Carolina?"), but worse -- no loud music or alcohol to mask the awkwardness, and with a crazy toddler at my side.

When I spied a similarly pregnant mom with a young son at the Children's Museum one day that fall, I nearly threw myself at her feet -- as our boys miraculously started playing nicely beside each other at the train table, we had enough time to talk and discover that our baby girls were due within a month of each other. Before she left, she asked for my phone number. That night, I'm pretty sure my husband thought I'd gotten digits from Brad Pitt -- I was that excited. "SHE asked me for MY number!" I kept saying, like somehow that made me seem more desirable.

This scene flashed through my mind last week when Brenna at Suburban Snapshots wrote about the difficulties she's had making good friends as a full-time working mom in her 30s. "Is there a cut-off to making lasting friendships?" she asked. The post clearly resonated with lots of people -- within days, she had 50 comments and 46 shares on Facebook, mostly from women who were facing the same loneliness, whether they were SAHM, WAHM or full-time in an office with no children.

The truth is that dating women sucks. I realize I don't shower every day and sometimes I'm kind of opinionated, but I like to think I'm generally a socially acceptable, easy-going, relatively interesting person -- and finding good friends was really hard. Maybe it's just that we're all so busy -- with jobs, kids, husbands, houses and more. Maybe, as some of Brenna's commenters noted, making friends in motherhood is more complicated -- it's harder to put on a pretty face when you've got baby spit-up down your back and your 3-year-old is screaming because another kid just whacked him on the nose.

As it turned out, our stay in Greensboro lasted less than a year before we moved back to the same neighborhood we'd just left in Raleigh. (It's a long story and requires adult beverages, so feel free to invite me over if you really want to hear it.) And so I was blessed (and I mean that literally) to come back to a group of friends who were still here and still loved me. But I've never forgotten those lonely days, wandering the stacks of the children's section at the Greensboro library, hoping some cool mom and I might reach for the same Curious George book at the same time and realize we were destined to be friends.

So when you see that mom who looks like she's eavesdropping on your conversation at the park, invite her in next time. It will do you little harm and do someone else immeasurable good. Dating is hard enough without having to come up with a pick-up line at the swings.

Friendship necklace photo from HandCraftedCollectibles. I never had my own.

Grocery Shopping for a Cause

I complain a fair amount about grocery shopping. Generally speaking, it's not my favorite activity -- it always takes longer and costs more than I expect. Adding kids to the mix doesn't help any -- between Pippi tossing her shoes overboard when I'm not looking or trying to wiggle out of the cart and Junius knocking things off the shelf and asking for every product featuring a Toy Story character, it's not a peaceful trip. Top that off with a complicated new two-story Harris Teeter and I'm about ready to stop shopping altogether.

But even as I'm complaining, I realize how fortunate I am to be able to buy groceries every week for my family. Thanks to suggestions from friends, we decided to recognize our good fortune by hosting a mini food drive for the Kids Summer Stock program at the Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina. The program provides summertime food for students who receive free and reduced-price breakfast and lunch during the school year -- for the thousands of students who qualify for those school meals, no school means no meals.

For our recent neighborhood Third Friday Happy Hour, we simply asked friends to bring some items on the most-needed list -- we collected all the food at our house and delivered it the following week. And with less time and effort than it takes me to find my way through the grocery store, we were able to deliver 50 pounds of food to the Food Bank.

Whether you love or hate grocery shopping -- or even if you're lucky enough not to have to do it -- I encourage you to make time for a mini food drive in your neighborhood, office, church or other group. It's easy to do, but it can make a world of difference for a family in need.

The Kids Summer Stock food drive is a great program, but I do still like to complain. Check out my Open Letter to Harris Teeter at North Hills East over at Triangle Mamas. And if anyone from Harris Teeter is reading this, please send more coupons -- I used my last $20 coupon yesterday.

Loving the Ladies in Lakemont

As if the ice cream parties, the babysitting co-op, the craft projects, the bunco evenings, the poker nights, the Third Friday Happy Hours, the fundraisers and the meal calendars weren't enough fabulousness, last weekend brought my Lakemont love to a whole new over-the-top level.

Yes, that's a drag queen. In my friend's kitchen during a break between sets. You know, cause that's how we roll over here in midtown.

S/he was there for my friend (who is also her/his friend) because said friend was in need of some cheering up. And how better to find your smile than with a house full of dancing girlfriends and gay men, a chilled pitcher of cosmojitos, and a gorgeous man wearing sequins and false eyelashes belting out lip-synched versions of Whitney Houston songs?

What? That's not what you do in your neighborhood? Well, too bad -- because it rocked. Even after an anonymous neighbor (who was understandably bothered by the decibel level from the backyard around midnight) called the police.

Guess we'll just have to start a little earlier next time so as not to violate the noise curfew. Because I'm sure there will be a next time.

Friday's Five: Donate for Super Dylan

The Great Strides Walk is tomorrow -- we'll be joining with the Super Dylan Team to raise money for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

A very BIG thank you to those who have already donated to our team -- we appreciate your help! For those of you who are still interested in a making a gift, here's a pitch to help motivate you to sign up now. (I suddenly feel like I'm hosting the pledge drive on NPR. Ick.)

Here are five reasons why you should make a gift to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and the Super Dylan Team:

1. Super Dylan rocks: I mean, just look at him there, groovin' with Junius. The kid is smart, spunky and full of energy. If his smile doesn't motivate you to find a cure, I don't know what will.
2. CFF uses your money well: Your gift will be used efficiently and effectively, as nearly 90 cents of every dollar of revenue raised is available for investment in vital CF programs to support research, care and education.
3. Charitable giving is good for everyone: Your donation helps CFF do their good work and it helps your accountant tap into those tax deductions. That's called a win-win.
4. Research means help now: CFF has built a pipeline for the development of more CF therapies that are coming to market now to help target problems in the airways and the digestive system. They haven't found a cure yet, but they're improving the lives of CF patients every day.
5. Find a cure: The ultimate goal is that CF will stand for "Cure Found." This disease isn't something that happens to "other people." It happens to our people, and it's our responsibility to help.

Okay, pledge drive over. I can't offer you a coffee mug or promise to enter you into a drawing for a trip to London or Paris -- but I can send you my thanks and prayers that your gift will make a difference for Dylan. Click here to make a gift.

For Super Dylan's Mom

Three years ago this summer, I spent a couple of days with Junius at Duke Children's Hospital. Fortunately for both of us, Junius wasn't sick -- we were there visiting our buddy, Super Dylan.

If you'd seen Junius and Super D during those visits, you wouldn't have guessed that either one of them was sick. They looked like any other pair of almost two-year-olds as they took turns pulling each other through the lobby in a wagon and chased each other around the fountain and the hospital playground -- this picture shows them playing on the floor in D's hospital room. But the truth is that Super D's powerful, feisty exterior hides the cystic fibrosis that threatens his life and keeps his lungs and digestive system from working properly.

At the time, we didn't even know Dylan and his family very well -- we were neighbors who were just becoming friends. But I'll never forget those visits and what I learned from watching Dylan's mom. During that 2-week stay at Duke three years ago, she never left the hospital. Two weeks. Never left, not even when friends or family were there with Dylan. Although I don't know what I would do if I were in her shoes, I do know that that much time in a hospital would make me crazy.

Yet she never complained (at least not out loud), never looked flustered, never seemed to resent being stuck. She just advocated for her son, loved him, helped him in every way that she could -- just as she does every day of the year.

So on this Mother's Day, I invite you to make a gift to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and our Super Dylan team. We're walking on Saturday to raise money to help Dylan -- but I'm sure that finding a cure would be the best Mother's Day gift for his mom and thousands of other moms around the world.

P.S. Dylan's mom is probably going to be annoyed with me for writing this post. She doesn't like attention and doesn't seem to think that she's anything extraordinary (which she is). So please make a gift, however small, so that she'll be a little less irritated with me. To learn more about CF and the Foundation, visit cff.org.

A Rainbow of Opportunity

I'm the first to admit that I cry easily at the slightest thing -- sappy commercials, children's books, the last 10 dramatic minutes of a cheesy movie I've never seen. But even I was surprised to find myself choking back tears at a modern dance recital last month.

It was the Rainbow Dance Company's annual concert -- our friend and neighbor is the director and was also dancing in the show, so my husband and I took both kids to the Saturday matinee. The Rainbow Dance Company, a multi-age modern dance group, includes girls and women (and a few men) ranging from age 9 to 50+.

When the first group of dancers took the stage, Junius and Pippi were in awe, mesmerized by the sounds, the lights and the dancing. I watched the dancers -- and watched my children watching them -- and felt my eyes well up. Here was a group of (in this case) women and girls representing a range of ages, colors, shapes, sizes and ability who were all part of the same beauty, working together to make something amazing. They were so in control of their bodies, so comfortable with themselves, so powerful on the stage. I wanted to be like them, to be one of them, wanted my daughter to grow up in a group like that.

I tried to imagine what it would be like to have that kind of confidence at age 16. To feel so strong in my own skin, to mentor a 9-year-old girl who is holding her own among the "grown-ups,"  to dance side-by-side with a 55-year-old woman who is every bit as beautiful and athletic as the younger girls. What an incredible opportunity to see the world this way, to see being a woman this way.

Among our friends and neighbors, we know moms who are marathoners and triathletes, teachers and lawyers, architects and accountants, and more. I love that my daughter will have so many strong women role models to look up to as she gets older. And I love that my son will have always seen women in all these roles, so that maybe (just maybe) it won't occur to him that there is anything unusual about it. But taking Juni and Pip to that modern dance concert was a rare opportunity to see one of our mom friends in action doing non-mom-related work.

I don't know if either of my kids will want to study dance (although Pippi does adore a good ballet outfit and Junius had a blast at Arts Together's Super Hero camp last summer), but I do know this: as they grow up, I want them to be part of a group that makes them feel strong, that allows them to see the possibilities ahead, that connects them with diverse communities. And in the meantime, I'm trying to figure out how many years of dance lessons I'm going to need before I can win an invitation to the Rainbow Dance Company for myself.

Photo by Matt Kesterson from Arts Together

Birthday Preview

You'll have to forgive my amateurish photography, but seriously -- how cute is this shirt?!

My awesome neighbor made it, of course, just like last year. The difference this year was that I took her the shirt and fabric back in December given that her newborn son was due to arrive in January. Because that's the kind of thoughtful, caring neighbor that I am -- I didn't want her to have to make it in February with a 3-week-old (and her own 2-year-old) in the way.

Anywho, the Pipster will be proudly sporting this adorable shirt and announcing "Happy to you!" as we celebrate her birthday on Sunday. And Monday. And maybe Wednesday, too. You're only two once -- you might as well get the most out of it!

The Illusion of Safety

If you see my kids sledding next year, please don't laugh at them. It's not their fault they'll be wearing helmets -- and hopefully by then I will have convinced them that the head gear serves an aerodynamic purpose, so your laughter will only ruin their sense of speed.

The real reason they'll have helmets strapped onto their sweet little heads is that I called 911 for the first time last Sunday after our four-year-old friend sledded into a metal mailbox post. It was a total fluke -- nothing dangerous or risky, just good old-fashioned sledding on a Sunday morning. If the sled had dumped her a couple of inches to either side, she would have had a face full of snow and a reason to stay inside drinking hot chocolate for the rest of the day. Instead, she had a terrifying gash down the side of her forehead that ultimately required 10 x-rays, a CT scan and 20 stitches.

Thankfully, our friend is fine -- we knew she'd be okay when she started yelling at the paramedic because he suggested Mickey might be her favorite Disney character instead of one of the princesses. Her parents, however, still need some time to recover.

The whole accident left me shaken, reminded of how delicate our lives are. Accidents are random -- that's what makes them accidents, and also what makes them so scary for us parents. I prefer to believe that if I do all the right things -- make my kids wear helmets, brush their teeth, buckle their seatbelts, look both ways -- that I can protect them. But any one of a million random moments takes everything out of my control.

So I do what moms have done for centuries: I make rules. No jumping on the bed, no running with scissors, no crossing the street without an adult, no talking to strangers, no swimming after you eat, no sledding without a helmet. The older they get, the scarier the world seems, the more rules I make.

At the end of the day, I know I can't bubble-wrap them into safety. Accidents happen, even when I'm right there watching them. But the rules help me survive, give me the illusion that I have some control. Otherwise, I'm this close to becoming That Mom -- the helicopter type who never lets her kids have fun -- and that's not a safe way for anyone to live.