Suzy's Blog - November

TOPIC	THE BLOG	COMMENTS
IT'S OVER Suzy Smith 11/29/2005!	Thanksgiving 2005 is but a memory. The question has changed from what are you doing for Thanksgiving, to how was your Thanksgiving. All the answers have been positive except for one which was expressed with a laugh. NOBODY HELPED ME, I’M NOT DOING THAT AGAIN. We ended up being guests after a last minute change of plans. Our young ones, who have recently remodeled their house, wanted to have the event in their “new” home.. I was happy to pass the torch, I think, but I had some moments of missing all the preparations. In retrospect, I also realized I have controlled how we celebrate the day, – the menu, the activities, the ambiance. Its been MY event. Indeed, it is time to pass the torch, hopefully with grace.	Click to submit a comment on this topic.
TENNIS AND FAMILY Suzy Smith 11/28/2005	TENNIS and FAMILY In the small Midwestern town where I grew up, there was very little opportunity for girls to participate in team sports, so, I didn’t. It wasn’t until I began playing doubles tennis that I discovered what life’s lessons a team has to offer. The first discovery was stunning. One moment you return a fantastic shot and you’re a hero. The next moment you hit the ball into the net and you’re a dolt. But, amazingly, life goes on, regardless. I thought winning was everything. Oh yes,I want to win, but, someone has to lose, why not me -- as long as it’s not too often. Sometimes your partner consistently loses points. You become frustrated, try to overcompensate, play badly. In time, hopefully you settle down into something like acceptance, realize you love the game, you’re just happy to have someone play it with you. You might, if you’re thinking honestly, even recall times when you’ve been the weak player. As I look around the Thanksgiving table, with just about all the family present, I realize, here’s my team, my players, I’m going to do my best to keep the ball in play.	Click to submit a comment on this topic.
THANKSGIVING DAY Suzy Smith 11/24/2005	Here she is, Norman Rockwell’s image of the perfect grandmother serving up the perfect turkey on Thanksgiving day. Grandad, at the head of the table, will be carving, and soon all those happy faces at the table will be indulging in the feast she has lovingly prepared. There’s something quite benign about her, the round face and white apron, the concentrated expression on her face. We make assumptions, about her, assumptions Norman Rockwell fully intended us to make. She will see to it that the day goes smoothly, that the old hostilities don’t surface. She’ll manage this while remaining invisible, quiet, hers being a self effacing power. To this distant day, those Norman Rockwell images remain buried in our psyches , an image of a perfect world that we, in a grandiose way, think we can achieve. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never been able to pull it off. That, however, doesn’t mean I’ve stopped trying!	Click to submit a comment on this topic.
CULINARY DISASTERS Suzy Smith 11/23/2005	Thanksgiving in take out form has other down sides. No stories for family history are created by disasters in the kitchen. There was the time I put the turkey in at 420 degrees to seal in the juices, then after 20 minutes turned it down to 350. The family went for a two hour walk, leaving the turkey to do it’s thing. Walking in the front door on our return, we immediately noticed there was no aroma of roasting turkey. I checked the oven and discovered I had not just turned the oven down, I’d turned it off. Thanksgiving dinner was served at ten that year. Then there was the year of the rolls. The candles were lighted, the guests were seated, and we were serving the food when I remembered the rolls. I’d forgotten to heat the rolls. I’ll quick heat them under the broiler, I thought. We had just finished grace, when smoke began pouring out of the kitchen. Every smoke alarm in the house was activated. I rescued the rolls, now beyond rescue, my husband found the ladder and began a systematic deactivation of the alarms located in the ceilings, and our guests rushed to open the doors to let out the smoke. It wasn’t just the food that got cold. Funny, those are the only two Thanksgivings I remember in any detail. They always make me laugh, illustrating the importance of culinary disasters at Thanksgiving something less likely to happen when the meal is precooked.	Click to submit a comment on this topic.
FOOD/LOVE Suzy Smith 11/22/2005	An old ad slogan when I was a young bride, announced, "Nothing says lovin' like something from the oven." I don't remember the particular advertiser, probably Betty Crocker, but I do know women of my generation have this slogan embedded in their hearts. We think feeding people is an act of love. Oh there’s trouble. Puts a lot of pressure on both the givers and the receivers; condemns the giver to hours in the kitchen, and the receivers to being appropriately thankful. Our liberated younger women don’t carry this baggage, they have other things to do, spending hours in the kitchen is not one of them. Thanksgiving dinner, completely prepared, is picked up at the local market and, oh my, tastes great. After about 30 years of being the Thanksgiving provider, I decided I too would order our Thanksgiving dinner from the local gourmet market. It wasn’t quite as easy as I expected, There was still the table to plan and set, the silver to polish, the serving dishes to be found, washed and when the meal was reheated, filled and put on the table. To my surprise, I missed the planning, reading my cookbooks, the food magazines, all the time dreaming about how it was going to come together. I missed the smell of the bird in the oven, even missed worrying if it was done. It turned out just fine, that Thanksgiving, but something was missing. I hadn’t put my heart in it.	Click to submit a comment on this topic.
MORE FOOD Suzy Smith 11/21/2005	I come from the “clean your plate” generation, a generation that ate their vegetables and everything else on their plate, not just because of the starving children in Europe, but because we went to bed hungry if we didn’t. I do remember refusing to eat apple pie until I was ten and then being furious with my mother for not MAKING me eat it. All those missed years of something really good. MOTHER, how could you have let that happen? The next generation, my son’s, hid their uneaten vegetables in their pockets, only to be found out on laundry day. Thus began the battle of the vegetables, that long time sit at the table until the peas were eaten. We and our children come from the YOU WILL EAT YOUR DINNER generations. Our grandchildren are the EAT WHAT YOU WANT GENERATION. How this will all play out is, as yet, up for grabs. I hope to live long enough to see the results. Just don’t close those four star restaurants or maybe by then I will welcome soft food.	Click to submit a comment on this topic.
FOOD Suzy Smith 11/18/2005	While warming up on the tennis court yesterday, we talked about the upcoming Thanksgiving dinner we’d all be cooking next week. Said one player, “No turkey for us this year. Bob (her husband) doesn’t like it and the grandchildren only eat macaroni and cheese.” As I returned her shot, I began to worry about the demise of the traditional turkey feast. Will we, as we tire of always cooking two meals for every one devoured, forego the aroma of turkey roasting in the oven, and succumb to a diet of macaroni and cheese, pizza, scrambled eggs, hotdogs and toasted cheese sandwiches as our holiday fare?	Click to submit a comment on this topic.
THANKSGIVING PLACE CARDS Suzy Smith 11/17/2005	Having the children make place cards was a very effective project last year. Click to link to Arts & Crafts/Placecards. I think we’ll do that again. Not a big undertaking with so few of us, but I’m going to also let them decide who will sit where. We all have "our places" at the dining room table when we’re "just us". No one is completely comfortable when I try to change them. Are we all such creatures of habit? I have the space on the floor where I like to put MY mat in my yoga class, I have MY seat in Spanish class. It takes some adjustment when someone else takes MY space. Will the children automatically decide we sit in our usual places or will they rearrange us? Will they argue over who sits where? Funny what interest grandmother isn’t it?	Click to submit a comment on this topic.
A MURAL FOR THIS YEAR Suzy Smith 11/16/2005	I want to do another mural this year. I can hear my grandson saying something like "Not that again!" He’s right. We need a new twist. We’re also going to be a small group this year, at the moment just the immediate family which is only six. I’m thinking about drawing a tree on a big sheet of paper and having us each trace around our hands on fall colored paper, cut them out and glue them on the tree as leaves. On the hands we’ll write or draw what we are thankful for. Maybe I’ll display last year’s efforts somewhere in the dining room too. We’ll see how that flies.	We took your hand/leaf idea and gave it a slightly different twist. There were 28 of us at our Thanksgiving table this year. As each guest arrived, he/she was given a piece of colored paper and asked to trace around their hand, cut it out and write on it the things for which they were thankful. This done, they were told to place their hand where they wanted to sit. During dinner we went around the table and each person read from their hand. We too had a variety of thanks. One was for bicycle helmets as the guest had frequent falls from his bicycle. A teen-ager was thankful for boys and of course on this very special of days, we were all thankful for family and friends. Betsy S. Click to submit a comment on this topic.
THINKING ABOUT THE THANKSGIVING MURAL Suzy Smith 11/15/2005	I’m looking at that mural a year later. Oh yes, I saved it, grandmothers do that! What I see today is where everyone was coming from. For the family with young children, the thanks are all about family. For the rest of us, either single or no longer raising children, it is about the other things that sustain us. Who knows what children absorb? On some level could they see the importance of having interests in their lives, something to carry them through a hopefully long journey? Maybe the music lessons, the dancing lessons, the trips to the library, etc. all have an important purpose. No, they couldn’t articulate that at their present ages, but it might surface in other ways, like the book of drawings our granddaughter made of the things for which she was thankful the day after Thanksgiving.	Click to submit a comment on this topic.
THANKSGIVING MURAL Suzy Smith 11/14/2005	Does every Thanksgiving gathering include a moment of thanks giving, a verbal trip around the table where each one present talks briefly about what they are thankful for? Certainly when there are children present. Don’t we want them to be aware of how lucky they are?! Last year we put our thoughts on paper in what turned out to be a wonderful mural. In a room removed from all the activity, I put a three foot long piece of paper with crayons and magic markers and told everyone their assignment was to express their thanks however they wanted to on the paper. Each person had alone time to do this. Between the main course and dessert, we taped the mural on a wall in the dining room and each person got up from the table to talk about what they had expressed. We were thankful for a variety of things. Our diver had drawn fish, our opera lover drew a valkerie from a Wagner opera he loved, our bachelor wrote about his absent girlfriend, there were flowers, music, and sun. A mother wrote a touching tribute to her daughter, a big eye announced joy at all we could see, an entrepreneur was thankful for opportunity, a mountain dweller drew peaks, sun and a deer with antlers, a large bird announced he was thankful not to be a turkey. Our son wrote FAMILY in big letters, his wife wrote friends and family in small letters. In impressive cursive writing our grandson also wrote friends and family.. Our granddaughter, the artist, drew a colorfully attired female figure. When it was her turn to talk about it, she became quite shy. Her older brother offered to talk for her. They whispered to one another for a bit and he announced she too was thankful for family. Not a great work of art, but a delightful piece of family history. Click to link to Thanksgiving Mural.	Click to submit a comment on this topic.
RELATIONSHIPS Suzy Smith 11/12/2005	I've been thinking about what kind of relationship I want to have with my grandchildren. When they are grown and looking back on their youth, it would be nice if they remembered "Suse" as non demanding and accepting. The other adults in their lives, their teachers, their coaches, their parents all have expectations, that's their role. We grandparents, however, are in the enviable position of just being able to love them for who they are. Where else does that exist?	"Do you get the catalogue "Museum Tour"? Just got one and was amazed at how I might operate at about a 5 year level in the area of science! It also made me think about how much fun it is to be with the grandchildren and NOT be pushing them to learn all the time. I think they just enjoy the special time with someone other than their teacher and their parents .... I agree on dropping pebbles etc., checking out the leaves and making cookies etc. as being perhaps the best "quality time." Polly Click to submit a comment on this topic.
EXPECTATIONS Suzy Smith 11/11/2005	Mere Mere reminds me the holidays are just around the corner. Are we all experiencing EXPECTATIONS which can never be fulfilled? Last week my son Emailed that the soccer team he coaches with his son as one of the players, had lost their soccer game, getting disqualified for the semi-finals. "Too bad for the boys," he wrote, "they deserved to move on - but they just weren't on their game." None of us had EXPECTED this turn of events and were disappointed. I Emailed back. "So sorry about the loss. One thing I have finally learned (probably as late as my sixth decade) is you can set the scene for positive results, but in the end it is the players who determine those results, their part being out of your control. Probably I knew that all along, but refused to believe it. Delusions of grandeur". I'm going to take this wisdom into the holidays --- hopefully.	Click to submit a comment on this topic.
SOUL Suzy Smith 11/10/2005	I was reading the SF Chronicle today, an article about Adam Gotnip's recent children's book. He's here in the Bay Area on his book tour. I was fascinated by the following quote: "Every American parent spends half the day struggling with the entertainment industry for the soul of their child." It made me think more about our role as grandparents, how coming from a less technological era in America's history, our ideas about entertainment are different, simpler. When we think of getting together our ideas of fun are about interacting with each other rather than a TV or computer screen. We like games of togetherness. Not a bad trait to bring to the party.	Click to submit a comment on this topic.
WHAT'S YOUR NAME? Suzy Smith 11/9/2005	WHAT'S IN A NAME? We began to feel the pressure when all of a sudden our grandbaby began to conquer language. We needed names so he could identify us. Who were we going to be? A rare and precious moment this naming oneself, not to be taken lightly. I suggested our proud grandfather be "Sage" since he has great wisdom to impart, if only someone would listen. Grandfather didn't see the humor in this suggestion and as it turned out, Grandfather became "Granddad" since he was the only Granddad in the family and our son felt that the connection the name implied was important. I on the other hand was free to pick and choose. Friends were Oma, Nanna, Ami, Gram, and whatever had been garbled out of Grandmother in baby's first attempts. What I really liked was "Chappie", short for Chapman, the last name of a dear friend. That sort of left me with "Smitty" as a possibility which was not appealing. What I wanted was a name that only my grandchildren called me, indicating a secret relationship only we shared. So I became "Suse" which rhymes with "use". My daughter-in-law says that was a form of denial. She's right on. Am I really old enough to be a grandmother? What's your name?	Click to submit a comment on this topic.
IDENTITY Suzy Smith 11/8/2005	Thinking back on being a young Mother, I remember feeling a need to establish my own identity. I wanted to be something more than somebody's Mother. Perhaps this was the result of two things: one Mother's always seemed to be last in line, and two Motherhood didn't have any cache at the time, or anyway that is how I perceived things. This before women's liberation! All that has changed. Motherhood is now right up there with being Chairman of the Board! Just look at those young women pushing those strollers. Now there's POWER. Just listen to those CEOs who have stepped down to become stay at home Moms attesting to their joy in Motherhood. Kudos to them. After working hard to be something more than someone's Mom, I realized at the end of the day, being someone's Mom was the best thing I did.	My husband read this and asked, "Is that really true?" "YES!" I answered. He was dubious, but in today's Chronicle, reading the article about Adam Gopnik and his children's book, I came across the following quote: ...Of all the experiences I've had in life, besides maybe being married, having children and raising children is the key most meaningful experience I've ever had." Now Adam Gopnik writes for the New Yorker, has published successful books and lived some years in Paris, that's a lot of competition for first place. Just wait, Mr. Gopnik, someday those children are going to give you grandchildren, the frosting on the cake! Susan Smith (follow-up 11.8.2005) Click to submit a comment on this topic.
24/7 MOM Suzy Smith 11/7/2005	Much has been written about the 24/7 Mom these days. My son has an interesting theory about this phenomenon. Since many of today's Mothers had careers before staying at home to raise children, they approach childrearing like a career with the same dedication and organizational skills. Not so true of today's grandparents who became Moms when they were around 24 or younger. In a way we, today's grandparents, grew up with our families, still had a certain amount of self to pursue.	Click to submit a comment on this topic.
GIRL-BOY Suzy Smith 11/6/2005	Incredible what you learn about the difference in the sexes when you have both a male and female grandchild. They are so blatantly male and female in how they are in the world. When my grandson was three I held him up to look at the baby birds that had just hatched in a nest in one of my window boxes. "Let's kill them!" he said eagerly. Our granddaughter would want to bring them in the house and Mother them. Lest you think our grandson is a barbarian, these attitudes have been civilized now that he is 10. Perhaps his current reaction would be more like "Yuk" as he looked at those hairless, homely creatures with their gaping mouths.	Click to submit a comment on this topic.
SOCCER Suzy Smith 11/5/2005	Today we went to our grandson's soccer game. While watching him play, I was telling my granddaughter I thought she was the best player on HER team. Her Dad chastised me. "We believe in presenting a realistic picture," said he. "Ah," said I, " it's okay for Grandmothers to think their grandchildren are the best. That IS the reality.	Click to submit a comment on this topic.
QUIET TIMES Suzy Smith 11/4/2005	Mere Mere such beautiful thoughts. All this talk of activity, when, the truly magical moments with our grandchildren are, indeed, the quiet times. I am always overcome when one of my grandchildren unexpectedly climbs into my lap as though it was his or her rightful place, which, of course, it is. I wrap my arms around my little visitor and for a brief, but precious moment, the world becomes a warm and snuggly place.	Click to submit a comment on this topic.
CLOWNS-DOWN Suzy Smith 11/4/2005	It occurs to me that not all projects are going to fly with all grandchildren. I spent some precious time designing a clown puppet to be made from a paper bag. I had cut outs for gluing on, arms, hat, tassels for buttons etc. My granddaughter took one look at the project and said "I hate clowns!" So much for that project. Good to have several ideas up your sleeve just in case....	I LOVE your web-site! A great idea by some very creative and talented grandparents. Just reading your blogs (or whatever) brought a laugh and a deja vu experience. The clowns-down story reminds me about what we used to discuss about our feelings around the holidays....such high hopes of dazzling decorations (no one noticed), elaborate menus (too fancy) and perfect harmony (and I don't mean music). To me, the great joy is always found in the simplest times between the big events: reading a story to our little ones, or lying quietly next to them at bedtime or seeing them wake up with a smile....these are the times that our grandchildren remind me so much of the joys we shared as parents. But now we have the TIME to enjoy those moments to the fullest. Anyway, Suzy, I intend to let you know what activities, theater, etc. we're thinking of for our group during this holiday season and can't wait to read what others are doing with their little ankle-biters. Will get back to you soon! love, Mere-mere Click to submit a comment on this topic.
SOCCER Suzy Smith 10/29/2005	We went to a soccer game today to watch our grandson play. His team won and will go to the semi-finals. It occurred to me that I don't know anything about soccer except you get a point for kicking the ball into the goal before the goalie can get it and toss it backinto the game. That's pretty elementary, but there are subtleties like rules and positions played. I wonder if other grandparents are equally as uninformed? Last week-end we watched our granddaughter play. The girls are less aggressive. She is seven. I wonder if that changes as they go on? Click to view soccer rules.	Click to submit a comment on this topic.
FUN! Suzy Smith 10/25/2005	We’re having a lot of fun with this site, there are places to go and things to make in the process of building content. We’re pursuing all that with the enthusiasm of eight year olds. Unfortunately our grandchildren are SO BUSY they can’t be with us on all our excursions, but this isn’t holding us back, we’re observing other grandchildren and discovering what holds their interest is exactly what holds ours. Ah, the inner child is alive and well! We mix a bit of adult activity with all this – going out to lunch on the way to our ultimate destination, an integral part of the package. Over lunch the ideas flow. Last week we went to the Children’s Discovery Museum in San Jose, stopping at Santana Row for lunch at the new Greek restaurant next to the movie theater. It’s good. From there, on to the museum. Since we had no children in tow, they let us in free! If they only knew what a good time we had, how we played with everything except in the water which was attracting a big group of little ones, they wouldn’t have been so generous. This is a wonderful place, definitely four star.	Click to submit a comment on this topic.
CLASS REUNION Suzy Smith 10/24/2005	We went to a class reunion last night where all the attendees were grandparents. We talked about our plans for Kabubble.com. Someone asked, "Can you work with your husband?" I hadn't considered that an issue, after all we've lived long enough together to be grandparents. Today, however, I received an Email from him saying he had made some additions, I should check them out, let him know what I thought. If necessary he would change them, MAYBE! Fortunately, I liked them. Whew!	Click to submit a comment on this topic.
STARTUP Suzy Smith 10/23/2005	When I¹m with my friends, sooner or later those precious grandchildren of ours become part of the dialogue. Because I love to make things, I just might bring a completed arts and crafts project to the tennis game, or the restaurant or the meeting along with stories of the doing. Oh Yes, my granddaughter burned her fingers on the hot glue, when we made the bird¹s nests, but we had a jar of cold water at hand and dunking her fingers in the jar was so entertaining she forgot to cry. Everyone loves the nests and wants to know how we made them. I explain and someone suggests we should set up an email chain whose sole purpose is exchanging ideas for having fun with our grandkids. Well, it never happens and great ideas get lost. One day the grandkids are about to come through the door. Wouldn¹t it be nice to make the bird¹s nests, hmm how was that done? Who remembers. I thought about that for several months, finally discussing the subject with my computer savy husband who thought it was the perfect idea for a net site, and before I had a chance to think seriously about the idea, he was building a site and asking for content.	Suzy came up with the problem: grandparents need somewhere to go where they can get ideas about what to do when grandkids come to visit. Creating Kabubble is our answer. We work on the site together, I do the technical stuff and Suzy comes up with activities that have worked for us with our 2 grandchildren. We're having fun and I hope you'll join us in this new adventure! Ry Smith Click to submit a comment on this topic.

Grandparents l Arts & Crafts l Games l Photos/Art l Gifts l Outings l Entertainment l Kabubble Store l Submissions