Give Your TV a Rest!

National Screen Turn-Off week starts tomorrow, April 14, 2008.

This is a worldwide event sponsored by the Center for Screen-Time Awareness (http://www.screentime.org/) and celebrated by schools and families each year. Although the national Turnoff Week is officially scheduled for the following week, the elementary schools in the Shoreham -Wading River school district are celebrating the week of April 14, just before our Spring Break. How do I know this? Because I am chairing the event for the Wading River PTA.

During Turnoff Week, millions of children and adults will be turning off the screens in their homes. Instead of watching or playing games on the screen, they will read, exercise, and spend time with family and friends.

Children who reduce their screen time are more likely to read well and be physically fit. Recent research has also shown an increase in focus and attention when children aren’t watching TV. Turning off the screen also allows for more family time. In the course of a year, American children spend more time in front of the television than in school!

So, I challenge all parents reading this post to join us and turn off the screens. We've sent home copies of the the "No TV" icon to all families in our schools, as well as a contract for children and parents to sign. Can you commit too?

If you turn off the screens, you might find that your kids have more time, more energy and they might even listen better!

Let me know if you plan to try. Check out this blog http://www.unplugyourkids.com/tag/tv-turnoff-week/ for some inspiration. Or this website http://www.turnoffyourtv.com/ for something a little more radical.

Good luck!

Updates (aka Trying out inbedded links)

"I may not be able to see you, but I can hear what you are saying." I LOVE this quote from Governor David Paterson, as he announced his final decision about Broadwater, the LNG facility proposed to be built in the middle of the Long Island Sound. This incredibly brave person turns out to be an incredibly brave Governor and I, for one, am ecstatic! He agrees with all of Broadwater's opponents that the ecology and the well being of our beautiful sound would be compromised if this project were allowed to proceed. And he traveled all the way from Albany to Sunken Meadow State Park to make the announcement.

I just want to mention that my personal reasons for being against this project were not just due to "NIMBYism" ("Not In My Back Yard"). From the evening back in November of 2004 when representatives from Broadwater made a presentation to the Officers and Trustees of the Wading River Civic Association, I knew that this was the wrong way to go to ease the Energy crisis on Long Island. After all, isn't natural gas another fossil fuel? Isn't it a limited resource? Although it burns cleaner than oil, doesn't it still emit carbon into the atmosphere?

Long Island needs to move toward energy efficiency and conservation and the whole country needs to move toward alternative energy sources. This is the way of the future. And the governor of New York knows it.

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Some other updates:

The interview went well. I'd say I nailed it, actually. Turns out, with all the volunteering and organizing and leading of groups that I've done over the past 9 years, I had a lot of experience to refer to during the interview. I was asked back for a second interview and I will know if I have it by the end of next week.

It's one of those jobs that's you'd never thought existed. Something your kids might have trouble telling their friends. I'd be the administrator of the Chemical and Molecular Engineering program at Stony Brook. Sounds bigger than it is -it's part time. But they're offering health benefits, something my husband and I pay for ourselves, since he has his own company.

I was really excited at first. Thinking this would be the perfect job for me. But as time passes I'm starting to get cold feet about leaving home and the kids for so much time. Plus there's this other opportunity that's been brewing. Money's not as secure - kind of a commission paid gig. But the organization is very worthwhile, and I know I would love working with the director.

So I guess I'm in a good position. There are two things I might be able to do. And that's nice.

In December I posted about a commitment to exercise. I'm happy to say that I have stuck with it and i feel great. I won't lie to you and tell you that the results have been miraculous. I'm no supermodel or anything. But, maybe, if it's a miracle that I feel better than I have in years, then it has been. I have both more energy and more of a feeling of calm. I'm more flexible and I haven't hurt my back for 6 months. I still love my yoga and really miss it if I have to miss classes for a week. Jazzercise is fun and I don't feel quite so goofy as I did in the beginning.

The whole exercise thing has been really empowering for me.

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Finally, I realize that I never talked much about my epiphany. I'm afraid that this new dream has been placed on the back burner for now. I realize also that I never spoke of what it was. But this is OK. Better even. It's still living inside me. And it's mine to cherish. It's not going anywhere.

Quiet

I just got home from a long school district meeting and although I'm thoroughly exhausted from my day, and from this budget discussion meeting, I'm not quite ready to go to sleep.

Everyone in the house is sleeping right now. And I feel so at peace. I love my house when everyone is sleeping. I love everyone when they are sleeping. I love them fully and unconditionally and I can't imagine that any of my children could ever have caused me any strife ever.

The children are lovely and calm and beautiful to look at. And they are quiet. My house feels peaceful, yet full. I know that everyone is safe and in their beds and regenerating cells for the adventures of the next day.

(Everyone except the hamster. He's nocturnal. But I've grown accustomed to the muffled sound of his little wheel turning and if fits in with the peace).

So this is why I stay up. This is my reward time. When I first arrived home and found my husband sleeping, I was a little disappointed. We hardly have any time to talk during the day, and sometimes those minutes right before sleep are the only ones we have alone together. But I know he is tired. He wakes up at 6 O'Clock to start his day, works out, commutes, and works very hard all day. I am glad that he's resting at this moment. And he seems so serene.

When everyone is asleep and the house is still, I can feel very good about my life. Life is good. In a couple of days I will be going on a job interview for my first out of the home job in 9 years. I'm very excited about it and I have a feeling, if I get it, I might appreciate this quiet nightime hour even more.

Shhh.

Animal Habits

Check out this article from the Science Times in The New York Times from March 18. Very interesting scientific observations.

Funny, too.

And the comments, if you have time to read them, are even more interesting. It seems, as a society, we are pretty divided over the issue of monogamy and infidelity.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/18/science/18angi.html?_r=1&ref=science&oref=slogin

Poison Thoughts

Some serious and rather personal thoughts are going through my head tonight. And I just read somewhere that a real blogger should not hesitate to write things off the top of her head (or some form of that thought). So here I go.

I just found out that someone else has cancer. Well, a brain tumor, actually. I don't know any details, but I'm assuming it's cancer. This woman is the mother of my daughter's classmate, and I only know this personal thing about her because her husband called me today to ask if I would drive their boy to my daughter's birthday party tomorrow. The party is in a town west of here, and the boy's mom is in the hospital and the dad needs to be with her. But, he said, his son really wanted to come to the party and didn't have a ride.

This news hit me like an electric shock. Mostly because one of my best friends had a tumor in her sinus canity last year. She was diagnosed with a rare form a cancer called neuro-endocrine cancer in December of 2006. She died June 16, 2007.

Another friend of mine had thyroid cancer in 2004. At least 4 other moms in my kids' school have been battling breast cancer. My sister also had breast cancer back in 2002. And these are just the people I can think of off the top of my head late at night.

So I'm wondering, what the hell is going on in our society? What the hell is wrong with a nation with such an incredible amount of financial resources and highly educated people, but we can't figure out why so many people are contracting and dying of cancer. We are an evolved civilization. And people are dying in their forties and younger. A LOT of people.

I'm so tired right now that I can hardly express the level of anger and frustration I feel about this issue. Sometimes I feel inspired to write letters to all our leaders to ask them: What will you do about this? How are you going to save our people from dying of cancer? WE HAVE A PROBLEM HERE. HELP!

I also want to know why. Why does it keep happening? Why so much here on Long Island?

It couldn't be the extensive network of overhead power lines. Or the road runoff and pesticides in our ground water. Or the crap in our food. Or the poison in the air. It couldn't be any of that, right? Because our government wouldn't let those things exist if they were bad for us, right?

Bullshit.

The Talking Stain

Is he kidding, or what? Does Eliot Spitzer really think he can continue to govern our state with this enormous embarrassing stain on the front of his shirt?

Did anyone see that ad for a laundry detergent that was first aired during the Super Bowl? It had a guy obviously at a job interview and every time he tried to answer a question, this stain on his shirt opened up like a mouth and started "blah-blahing" over what he was saying.

Message: Everything you say will be drowned out by the droning of an ugly stain. Nothing you try to communicate can or will be heard.

Just resign already, Spitzer. It's over.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmD7joJNE0c

The Third Month of the Year

March is here and I can’t say I’m sad to see winter on the run. I’ve always had ambivalent feelings about the month that comes in like a lion and out like a lamb. I’m glad when it arrives, feeling the excitement of spring around the corner. Sometimes even prematurely taking out the summer clothes. Only too often I’m disappointed with a big fat snowstorm smack in the middle of the END of the winter. Then I pout a little, but the flowers pop through within weeks anyway, and I get over it.

My middle daughter, my first baby girl, was born on March 17, 1998. Ten years ago. This, for me, is an enormous milestone. Ten years.

It cannot be ten years. I remember the days leading up to her birth so well – that familiar spring feeling was in the air and I went walking with my baby son and my mother every day trying to pass the time (and trying to bring on labor – I was due on the 12th!). I didn’t find out the sex of my 2nd child, even though I had the 1st time around. I felt wiser and calmer and wanted to be surprised. I went to the hospital at about 12 midnight and I was about 200 times more in control than I’d been that first time. The labor was manageable and after only one or two dramatic outbursts, my baby girl was born at 8:00 AM. I can remember how it went and how I felt – in detail. I hadn’t expected to feel as emotional as I had when my son, my first child, was born, but I was completely overwhelmed when the doctor said, “… and it’s… a …girl!”

A girl! My own baby girl!! I was silly, tired and a little drugged. “Daddy, we have a girl,” I slurred. I grinned. Tears streamed down my face.

I remember how when they placed my baby on my chest, she kept looking past me, up at the handsome doctor who’d just delivered her. And at her daddy. And I kept whispering, “Hi. Hi, baby girl. I’m your mommy.” And within seconds she was crying at the top of her lungs and everyone was laughing. They took her to clean her up and weigh her and poke her foot and do all the crazy things they do to newborn babies, and I felt a little sad, but I knew it was going to be ok. I had a baby girl. A daughter. I was overjoyed.

My life has never been the same.

It snowed a few days later, I believe. And I pouted that the weather wasn’t nicer for our baby girl’s arrival home. But that’s March, and I did get over it and I remember Easter came very early that year too.

Last year my baby girl niece was born on March 8th. Another reason to celebrate and feel happy during this sometimes tumultuous month. I was there at the hospital with my sister when that little bundle came into the world and once again I was overwhelmed and changed. Being an aunt has affected me almost as strongly as being a mother. But in a different way. It’s hard to explain. I remember when my sister tried to express it when my children were born. The woman you feel closest to in the world, the woman you’ve known since you were a baby – she has a baby. And it’s like you have another little piece of your sister only you can hold it and cuddle it and love it in a whole new way.

So this March we have a lot to celebrate, and this is one of the reasons I’ve been MIA for a while. Planning birthdays, shopping, repainting my son’s little wooden table and chairs to pass down to his cousin. All good stuff.

But March is also a busy month at school. The older kids have math assessments. There’s the elementary school science fair (which we always participate in, although it is voluntary). Also, my beautiful 10 year old baby girl will perform in an “Evening of the Arts” in a couple of weeks where she’ll have the opportunity to play her flute in a more intimate setting. We also have parent teacher conferences.

It’s also budget time in the school districts. What with inadequate state funding and population growth, many school districts will feel the crunch for the next fiscal year. Our district is in particular need and there’s a lot to be addressed. I have lots of meetings to attend at night and our PTA is trying to get involved in the planning process this year.

(Addendum to a prior post: I was asked a couple more times about running for the school board. Wooed and flattered (in a manner of speaking). Just today one of the current board members again asked me if I had thought about it and I told her a definite no. After discussing it briefly with my family, I had the distinct impression that support from home would not necessarily be forthcoming. Plus I decided that any good I might be able to do would not be worth the hassle and stress being a board member so clearly entails. It only takes a couple of board meetings to see exactly how things go. I would either kill someone, or they would try to kill me. Maybe next year).

Anyway, things here are good and busy and I’m looking forward to the next two weekends of birthday festivities. I haven’t forgotten about my “dream”. In fact more things seem to be falling into place. I’ve only shared it with one person. And I think it went pretty well. It’s not something that I can accomplish quickly, but I would like to get something in motion by the beginning of April. I’ll keep you updated.

I had a very wise and mature thought today, and I thought I’d share it.

Life is not about trying to avoid bad things from happening. Life is made up of what you do with bad things when they do happen.

First thing this morning I found out that a very silly and careless thing that I said had gotten back to the person whom it was about. My first reactions were guilt and regret. Then I spent a little time trying to go over all the ways that I’d screwed up. What I’d said. Who I’d said it to. How thoughtless I’d been. I tried to re-run it without all the mistakes. It’s like what my 7 year-old says, “I wish I could rewind time. Then I wouldn’t do that again.” I know the feeling very well.

But a little later I realized there was nothing I could do about it. There really was nothing, the way the situation was. I couldn’t even apologize because the person who told me wasn’t supposed to. It occurred to me that any further discussion of the issue could only make it worse.

Ultimately the thing that came to mind was this: I can’t change what I’ve done. I’ve got to live with it and see what happens. I’ve got to incorporate it into my life. And the way I do that reflects who I am. Regret is worthless. Anger eats away at your soul, shortens your life and it doesn’t change anything. My choice was to try and let it go and to be aware of this person’s feelings from now on. It’s all I can do.