ShelterBox - After the Disaster Is Over

Visit www.shelterbox.org to learn more about the miracle in a box for disaster relief.

ShelterBox - Response to Haiti Earthquake - Help Haiti

ShelterBox is a compact box of aid for displaced or homeless victims of disaster. The box, small enough to be carried by one adult, contains a ten-person tent, a cooking stove that can run on a variety of fuels - even dried paint, a water purification system, mosquito nets, tools, utensils and even a child's pack of paper and crayons.

See more and donate at www.shelterbox.org

A Tonic For What Ails You

You can't keep letting it get you down. Let it go. This too shall pass. The morning comes.

See Mom Run

"What are you reading?" asks my seven year old, most likely enticed by the cute robot on the cover of See Mom Run: Side-Splitting Essays from the World's Most Harried Moms, a new anthology of real life stories from blogging moms, compiled by Beth Feldman.

"It's stories written by mommies," I offer.

"What kind of stories?" she asks, still intrigued by the pink robot, but two seconds away from losing interest.

"Well, there's one mom who was driving to the water park and her daughter threw up all over the back of the car. "

"Really?" said Mia, her eyes lighting up.

"And there's another mom and a lady asked her if she was 'with child' when she wasn't pregnant and she wanted to ask the lady 'Are you with brain?'"

I added this last episode for the benefit of my husband who was walking by and would get the joke. I laughed loudest at this one, but to recapture Mia's attention, I added: "Yeah, and there's another mom who was at a restaurant and her baby pooped and pooped and wouldn't stop pooping!"

Mia, who is entranced by all things scatological, dissolved into loud and happy giggles.

Every parent has a immature digestive system story of his or her own to share. My favorite from our family starts when Mia was only a few months old and had been worrying her ever-observant mother with two days of wet, but not dirty diapers. One night I laid her on her changing table and tried a little infant massage in gentle circles on her belly. She complied with a big mess in front of me. Yeah!

A couple of weeks later, we were visiting with my husband's sister and her husband who had a new baby of their own. I was talking with my brother-in-law about how cute the little cousins were and he mentioned, "It's so funny to watch them poop."

"Yeah," I said. "It's like soft-serve!"

My brother-in-law gave me a half horrified, half-puzzled look and I suddenly realized he was talking about the funny faces that kids make when they are struggling with their innards, NOT the actual product of their struggles.

William and the Christmas Moon by Laura Robinson

The sweet folks at Sawbridge Studios sent me a copy of local writer/artist Laura Robinson's book William and the Christmas Moon: A Shadow-Casting Bedtime Story a few weeks ago. I've been meaning to tell you about it; it is so so beautiful - but the time has flown. Now you'll just have enough time to run out before Christmas Eve, because believe me, you'll really love starting a new holiday tradition, sharing this special book with your children.

Robinson's poem-story of William's magical night journey is accompanied by exquisite cut out illustrations designed to be lit on the wall by a cunning little flashlight that comes with each copy of the book. You'll need two AAA batteries. The attached flashlight, which ingeniously hooks to the book with velcro, is best for the images. Our old Maglight distorted the projected shadows.

My girls were squealing with delight at the pictures projected on the bedroom wall; I was entranced by the delicate beauty of the images. Two deer drink water by a moonlit lake. Pinprick stars twinkle over a snowy village. As I read on, my girls fell silent under the spell of the picture show in the darkness. The line, "Darkness frees our eyes/To see what daylight can disguise," made me think that this was a perfect story for the eve of the solstice. And made me think with new gratitude about the very darkness that we work so hard to banish this season.

Robinson has used this lovely shadow technique previously in her book William and the Magic Ring. I'm getting a copy to put under the tree for the girls.

William and the Christmas Moon by Laura Robinson. Sawbridge Studios, 153 West Ohio Street, Chicago and Green Bay Road at Tower Court, Winnetka.

Ohai

Mia called from the other room to tell me how good her hot chocolate tasted. I could have been next to her enjoying some tea and her cute mustached face, but I was somewhere between Rushed and Frantic, compiling a year-end montage for the holiday card or tracking down gifts that can still be shipped by Christmas. (Goodbye, dreams of healthy and delicious Florida citrus baskets.)

So it wasn't until she was finished with her drink and moved on to play that I walked by and say the delicious dregs of her cup. Miss H., Mia's first grade teacher, had given the kids packets of "Snowman Soup" as a holiday gift on Friday: hot chocolate mix, a peppermint candy cane for stirring, Hershey's kisses and a cute poem about freezing weather and warming the spirit. Mia had dropped the kisses into the hot drink and now all that was left was some chocolate goo and a peppermint fragment. I grabbed Mia's straw and sucked up the rest, forgetting, perhaps deliberately, her coughs before breakfast this morning.

"I just ate your germs, Mia! But the Snowman Soup was so good!"

I went on like that, licking the straw for the last bits and alternating happy groans at the minty melty goodness with loud complaints that I could feel the congestion in my chest already. Remember when Redd Foxx on Sanford and Son would grab his chest and call out to his dead wife, "I'm coming, Elizabeth!" A hair less dramatic than that, but with added holiday cheer.

Oh, hi. Yeah, I'm back. Had to share that story with you, apropos of nothing but holiday fun and a general Fall Downiness. No promises for much more writing before the new year - it's that crazy time. But I do have a few more Copenhagen stories to share so stay tuned. Love ya lots! Enjoy your holidays. Be safe and happy and well.