Magi Of The East

The biblical Three Wise Kings are celebrated on the 6th January. The Gospel of Mathew tells us that they found the baby Jesus by following a star. Along the way they came across King Herod, who tried to trick them into telling him where this new king was.

They came bearing gifts of frankincense, gold and myrrh. Warned in a dream about Herod's intentions, they left following a different route. Herod followed this up with the massacre of young children of Bethlehem.

Not much more is known about them, though popular myth gives them the names of Balthazar, Melchior and Caspar.

So on Tuesday we decided to begin our own family tradition (based lightly on the Mexican one) of celebrating the Magi from the East.

We prepared a cheese fondue, and my wife made a ring shaped loaf which after slicing became an excellent piece for scooping up the cheese.

Before eating we shared a brief prayer and talked about the Magi, not only about the biblical reference, but also about their possible journey.

We all decided this would become a yearly tradition as we had great fun (after the religious side of things it became a moment of sharing, joking, laughing and overall healthy fun).

We all had a glass of wine (a very small sip for the two youngest) and fed to our heart's content.

This is something to be repeated as it also provided an interesting alternative to the typical New Year Resolutions.

As we invented different adventures for the Magi, we realized that though the religious view has always stressed that they came to adore the Messiah, to get there they had to have had a vision and the strength of mind and dedication to follow that star.

So we shared our vision for the coming year - one particular point each. Travel, spending more time together, work and school related, and so on.

In all a moment of great joy. And a great lesson for all, but especially the children (5).

The lesson: the importance of having a vision (a goal) and the willingness to go for it.

Let's see what happens next year.

I Will

You may have noticed that at the bottom of this page I have said: I Will.

Many years ago I read an Ayn Rand novel - it was either The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged - and one of the secondary characters had a yacht and he named it "I Will".

According to him many people asked why he named it that way, and eventually he told the hero.

All his life, and he had been born in a poor neighborhood, everyone kept telling him:

"You can't do this ... you can't do that... you mustn't this, that or the other".

And all the time, but keeping it to himself, he decided that he would do what ever he chose to do, no matter what people said or did.

And that became his motto.

I kind of liked that and so decided that I also "would", but I have always been aware that this could mean trampling over others and so have never forgotten that respecting the rights of others must go hand in hand with my "I Will".

And Then There Were Nine

Too many interesting things have been going on since I was here last, so for a moment I had no idea where to start.

Since the "nature" type of entries are the ones I most enjoy, I´ll start off with one of those.

Apart from the dogs, the disappearing cat and the now defunct rabbit (who died of a tumor)we now have quails and until yesterday eleven chicken.

Our dog Sazu, the old and apparently worn out Akita, has been up to his old tricks. He raided the hen house and managed to sequester two of the chickens. The cackling and barking brought us rushing to the rescue and though we managed to recover nine hens, for two it was too late. And now there are nine.

Sheba (our other dog) is furiously jealous of all the attention Sazu has been getting. She kept trying to steal the bodies but the king of the kennel would have none of it. I am not sure if it is an age thing (she is a young teenager) or that she isn't as smart as she thinks. Trying to imitate Sazu while he is being chastised makes me wonder.

The kids after mourning the hens for all of two seconds were thoroughly enjoying the spectacle.

- Sazu proudly lining up the two ex-hens in the midst of all the fuzz.
- Sheba rushing around, excited and nearly bitten by a roaring giant of a dog.
- Mummy chasing everything that moved with a stick.
- Cackling chickens.
- An elder teenager trying to tempt anyone with another live hen.

We didn't have chicken for lunch, but we did enjoying reliving these moments.

Girls Can Be Annoying

Following with the "Annoying Habits" theme of my last two posts, it wouldn't be fair not to mention something about girls.

And these do come from the heart.

First and foremost, shopping is not fun. It is not a sport, it is not a game and at the end of the day you end up poorer. As far as I am concerned unless it is books, music or an interesting gadget, you don´t need to share it with me. In fact when it is books and so on, I still prefer to do it on my own.

When I come up to a baby, I also want to make cooey noises. But please don`t make baby voices when there are no babies around. You sound infuriatingly empty headed, and as if you lost your marbles. And definitely don`t do it in front of your husband's boss. It doesn't look good.

Girls who start pouting and slowly build up into a hiccoughing, I am out of breath, type of crying.

Nagging and bossy women. This is only good in jokes. When St. Peter told the men lining up in front of the pearly gates that only those whose wives didn't boss them around should step forward, only one man did. St. Peter congratulated him and then asked him how he did it. This man explained that his wife on the other line told him to step forward. No nagging and bossy women, please.

Women who paint their nails all day long, chew gum and talk on the phone while clients are waiting.

Women who say honey all the time. It sounds better coming from Winnie the Pooh.

Boys Will Be Boys

OR ...

Toilet Seats and Loud Noises.

I am sure it is a male thing. We have three boys ranging in age from 9 to 19, and all have these habits (habits my wife has convinced me are annoying).

From the moment they learned how to pee, they leave the toilet seat up. (Why do women leave the toilet seat down?)

They stop listening very quickly, specially when you begin to repeat yourself.

They enjoy their bodily noises, and are quite fluent. It seems to be a question of practice and natural ability.

They love lavatory humor.

They fall asleep with a hand comfortably between their legs.

As they grow older they will probably graduate into the more annoying male habits, but as I told my wife, girls also have their fair share.

Family Meal Time

Many of us have heard over the years that one of the most important family times is meal time.

I couldn't agree more.

The problem is that in this day and age it is getting more and more difficult to manage the time part of this equation.

For a family of seven, 5 kids plus mom and pop, everyone has different engagements and different priorities. We span the age spectrum going from 9 to 50.

Breakfast is always hectic as everyone starts the day with a large disparity of energy, time awareness and occasional peskiness. It is always a rushed affair, with family members appearing and disappearing at different moments.

Lunch is just about impossible with the different school and work schedules. I never make it as my work is over 45 minutes away, and the rest glide in at intervals.

We do manage a few dinners together every month, but the quality family time is weak.

How to get round this.

We (as in all of us) have come up with a few alternatives that are fun and contribute to family bonding.

• Once a week we have a family night. One of us acts as master of ceremonies, which means he or she can choose the menu, the conversation subjects as well as the after dinner activities. Usually a movie. We all get a chance to be in charge once every seven weeks and as we all have different favorite foods we learn to accept other family member's choices - which is very important in such a rowdy home.

• Once a month we "the parents" take one of the children out for his or her night out. A meal at a restaurant, followed by skating, bowling or a movie. We therefore also manage to make that one child feel extra special.

• Either Saturday or Sunday morning we have an extra special brunch. This is a new development which everyone wants to keep. Everybody, including the dogs and the cat (by the way we have a new white frog in the home), pitches in with cooking, setting the table, talking, laughing, dancing and playing. We are not doing so well yet with the cleaning up, but I am optimistic.

In short, family time, together time and specific time is quality time put to very good use.

Nature in The Home

Since I last wrote we decided to have closer encounters with nature.

The dog, the cat and the rabbit have turned into three dogs and a cat.

If you are good at reading between the lines you will have noticed the sad demise of our rabbit. He had been living the last year with a tumor below his throat.

The cat is still very catish, temperamental and disappears every so often.

The fiend has convinced us his is quite intelligent although he gets carried away at times and wallows in mud. For a mini (medium?) Schnauzer, this coating of mud transforms him into something out of primeval and slimy bog.

Our next door neighbor's Akita (she also happens to be my mother-in-law - our neighbor not the dog) has also adopted us. He is quite fearsome looking, but behind that savage demeanor he is a gentle beast. Actually to be fair to him, he is just old. I can tell when he sleeps (a large part of the day) he still has youthful dreams. They must be interesting as he hardly whimpers, but snarls instead.

And the young lass, our latest addition is a beautiful dog. She is a Swiss shepherd something; cute, lovely hair, great disposition and happy pup.

Perhaps her only fault is she has a weak bladder, which I constantly forget.
Just about every day I come home she greets me enthusiastically whereupon I do my old man's impersonation of a cross country runner as I rush avoiding puddles in the yard, but always manage to get splattered.

Which in turn means when I enter the house I am immediately welcomed with glorious shouts of joy ordering me to go and clean up.

It is during those times I fully realize nature IS in my home.

Parenting Lessons

With five children and nearly twenty years of marriage, I have come to realize that you do get to know your kids. You get to know how they act, how they think. The differences between each one.

Watching they way they react is fun in a way. Under the same circumstances they come up with completely different results.

But all in all this day to day experience does come with a learning curve. And after a time you find there are a few lessons you can pick up.

* Don't Jump to Conclusions. I love this one. It applies not only to your children and to your spouse, but to everyone. As for your children, you can easily jump to conclusions, because you know them, and they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. And then with a little research you find you have really put your foot into it. It wasn't Jane it was Joe.

* Don't Be Hasty. An easy way of looking at this is: Slow down, I'm in a hurry!

* Don't Judge. This is my all time favorite. Perhaps because I`m tempted to do this. It really makes a difference on your outlook, how you act or react, the outcome and above all the future relationship. If you judge a person, you have in effect closed the doors. Judgment implies a guilty / not guilty stance.

- Not guilty, which is far easier to live with, is an OK, a good mark. (But still implies the other went through a process where there was doubt).
- As for guilty, well, some sort of sentence will come forth. From forgiveness to outright life sentencing.
- With a little effort, based on awareness of one`s mental process, the end results of looking at the whole picture will have a better chance of positive results, with a long term relationship intact. In addition to that personal, long term view, this allows you to be much more objective. This objectivity, even if it sounds a contradiction in terms, allows for the personal approach as the decision making can take into account individual needs and impulses, without the emotional weight of a judgment.

Having said all that, there are moments when a parent reacts with what seems a contradiction to all the above. It is a fast reaction and appears impulsive. In actual fact, it can be an intuitive reaction. A parent's intuition, and notice this implies not only a woman's, but also a man's intuition (but that is a subject for another blog), is based on reading the signs very quickly, and most of these are the non verbal kind. This reading of the signs is contrasted with the knowing of the person.

And the point I am trying to make with a parent's intuition, is that:

* Don`t discard it. Look into it.
* If there is smoke, there is fire. If you as a parent, feel there is something wrong, it usually means you are reading the hidden signs. Trust your self and your feelings, then apply the don't jump to conclusions and don't judge rule.
* Once you have perceived the feeling, the intuition, review it consciously.

A couple of examples on intuition.
1. We felt something was going wrong with P., before having any kind o proof or knowledge. Amore, had the strong "intuition".
2. We recently had to make some choices with C., our middle child. I just didn't feel comfortable with the obvious one, but couldn't put why into words. We went with the obvious, and really messed it up. What did help though, is we were able to correct very quickly as I had my doubts previously so I was ready for a quick reaction.

So, in a nutshell: Trust your intuition, don't judge, don't jump to conclusions and slow down - you are in hurry.

Wake Up Call

Every morning a giant awakes with a slow, lazy stretch of the limbs that begin to gather speed.

That’s us. Our family. Every morning at six o’clock “Amore” wakes up, sleepily kisses me good morning and begins her day.

Shortly I go to the boy’s room and spend five minutes or so trying to wake them up; then the girls’ room.

As I hug V., her dog, a jealous fiend, tries to squeeze in between our arms. V. laughs as she tightens her arms round my neck, knowing full well I am about to get a slobbering gush of foul breath straight into my face.

Another round of hugs to E. and I am now running late.

“Amore” is in the kitchen doing her things with breakfast and reminding us all to make our beds, let the dog out, pick up the laundry, brush up, get dressed and hurry up.

The giant is picking up speed as I chase one of my socks that, for the umpteenth time, is caught in the jaws of the tiny hound. Things get worse as everyone jumps in to help and we all end up in a rude tangle of arms and legs.

Someone, me, shouts out in pretend rage, as my face is squashed against the carpet. Strange and indistinct noises slip out. The worst part is the soothing kisses I receive on my bald spot, and the cootchie-coo sounds I hear. To top it all, my youngest starts bouncing off my middle; this causes an immediate reaction in the form of further strange noises. This usually untangles us in a hurry.

Breakfast is over very quickly and we rush out of the house. The giant is leaving home.

The family is ready to take on the whole world as we leave with a smile on our faces, a song on our lips and the memory of another wake up call in our hearts.

My Muse -

I will be sharing some highlights, good and bad, but rarely boring, that arise in my family and surroundings. Family and parenting will be the underlying theme.

Thoughts on youth, marriage, relationships, the beginning of my fifty something.

Society, including addictions, eating disorders.

Things I see, things I think, things I trust.

A bit of nature, a few books, films that strike a chord, articles and even a few fishing trips.

As a father of five, (from 9 to 19), adventures and activities are part and parcel of my life.

As I reflect on the past, but more importantly on the future, you may find a few ideas and tips. You may agree or not; you may find some thoughts useful, others useless - but at the end of the day, these pages will reflect one man´s point of view over a brief span of time.

The major character here is "Amore". The woman who agreed to share my life twenty years ago. I am the only one who calls her this, my one and only lasting temptation, an eternal reminder of our honey moon in Venice, Italy. "Amore Mio".

She may not appear in many articles, but she is my muse.