This year, as school begins anew, I vow:

–I will not mindlessly toss school papers on the kitchen table where where they will collect in a foreboding heap until such time that a) we have people over for dinner and have no choice but to clear the table or, worse, b) the soccer booster lady e-mails: “YOUR daughter can’t play soccer today because she hasn’t filled out her emergency medical form.”

–I will sign all permission slips, medical forms and PTA forms as soon as my children place them in my hands.

–I will be especially careful to read the fine print on any paper that says “Volunteer opportunity!”, making sure to sign up for only such activities that do not come with a one-page job description.

–I will devise a system for saving those pieces of my kids’ school work that are worth saving, and immediately throw out the rest.

–Not only that, I will sort through the boxes of papers in the basement that date back to my first child’s first preschool, circa 1990, keeping only the most significant pieces. After all, like my friend Megan says, “Do I really need page after page of my kids writing the letter ‘L’ in cursive?”

– I will, once and for all maintain a bottomless cache of cash in the little pottery cup in the kitchen cupboard, so that when my daughter suddenly remembers she forgot to pack her lunch as she is running out the door, there will be money to give. And give. And give.

–When school lunches are remembered, they will be healthy and yummy and made before 8 a.m. with slim-to-no supervision from me.

–There will be no midnight oil, as bedtimes will be at healthy times for each age group. Mornings will be organized so that nobody is running out the door with cereal in a coffee cup, screaming, “I didn’t have time to brush my teeth.” Afternoons will be calm and all-knowing, not like last year when I couldn’t remember which day I pick up my daughter from school and which day she has soccer practice.

–I will remain steady and calm for all my children. This includes the aforementioned 16-year-old. This year, I vow to know when she needs me and when she wishes I lived in a different time zone. I will know when to stay in the kitchen and when to bound up the stairs to her room, where I will sit on the side of her bed and ask, “What’s wrong, honey?” in the sweetest voice known to humankind, even if it is 11 at night and my own eyeballs are moving to the back of my head with my own fatigue and overwhelmedness.

This year, I vow not only to be a calm, steady and all-knowing mother, but the calmest, steadiest, most all-knowingest among all.

Instead of my daughter coming to me and telling me how Abby’s mother never complains about driving back and forth and back and forth - did I say back and forth to the high school enough? - every other half hour after school, I will be the mom who gets put on the pedestal.

My daughter’s friends will talk about how Mrs. Hook always has hot zucchini bread on the table after school, a really cool shirt on her bod and a smile on her face, even when the papers start piling up on the table and there’s no lunch money in the pottery cup.

If only.

-Debra-Lynn

My house is on a half-acre lot next to tons of other houses on their own half-acres.

The Suburbs.

My kids love it. The constant socializing, activity, and proximity of friends.

I long for woods, lakes, and tranquility. Even though my reality is the suburbs, I have a few parenting tips to encourage a love of nature wherever you live.

My sister-in-law coined the phrase, “clues of nature” about 10 years ago when her oldest was a toddler. As soon as her child could walk she started taking walks to find “clues of nature.” This includes pretty much anything non-manmade. For a 1-year-old, “tree” may be a new word and concept. A 5-year-old may compare a maple leaf to an oak. A 10-year-old might note the direction a river flows. As we walk and discover new things, the kids (which now number about 10 nieces and nephews) exclaim, “a clue of nature.” Kind of silly, but we’re all programmed to look for clues of nature and it’s amazing how many we find, even in the suburbs.

I have a few simple crafts and activities to get you started on becoming more aware of the “clues of nature” in your neighborhood.

• Make a stepping stone. Collect interesting stones or pebbles on a walk. Pour Quikcrete (fast-setting) into a mold. Push in the rocks around the edge and make a handprint in the middle. You can purchase a plastic mold at a craft store or I simply used a foil pie pan. Let set, pop out, and enjoy.

• Collect “clues of nature” such as leaves, plants, pebbles, feathers, etc. Glue onto construction paper to make a collage. Label items for preschoolers.

• Staple plain white copy paper into a book. On the left page, scotch tape a common plant (blade of grass, dandelion, leaf). Child finds identical item outside and tapes it on the right page. Great scavenger hunt idea for preschoolers.

• Make a simple book as above. On the left side of page, label with some examples of “clues of nature” readily available where you live (bark, flower, rock, tree, ant). Give each child a pencil and tell him or her to sketch a corresponding picture on the right-hand side. They should actually sit near the object for a few minutes trying to copy the details. Did you ever really look at bark? A rock is just a rock until you really stare at it and notice its uniqueness.

• You’ve probably done this one so this is just a reminder from your own childhood. Put a leaf under a piece of copy paper with veins up. Take paper off of a crayon and rub edge of crayon on paper over the leaf. It’s so cool and so successful, even for small children.

• Put leaves or flower petals between two pieces of wax paper. Place kitchen towel over and iron to make a pretty picture.

• Press flowers. Cut the stem off of a flower and press between two pieces of parchment paper in a book. Place weight on top and leave for a few weeks. Just saw this on Martha Stewart and it reminded me to do it with my children. Her company sells some fancy wooden tool to dry flowers in, but books work well.

• Older children enjoy using a digital camera to capture nature. My 12-year-old has photographed flowers but also has some cute chipmunk and squirrel shots. She can use those pictures to make note cards and calendars on Photoworks. Cute!

This should get you started. Obviously, ideas can be basic. The goal is simply to instill a love of nature in your children.

-Kay

Yeah! We’re almost done school shopping! And, believe me, it wasn’t easy getting two preteen girls through the experience without losing the house and my mind. My kindergartener was a breeze, thankfully. Here are tips for saving money and sanity when school shopping.

• Set a budget before you leave your house and share it with your children who are old enough to grasp the concept. Knowing that a $39 pair of jeans would take 1/5 of her budget kept my 12-year-old looking. She found great jeans at Rue 21 for $19 and the deal was buy one and get 50% off of the second pair. That means two pairs for about $30. Not bad.

• Steer your kids toward basics. Jeans over those cute retro-flowered pants. The basics can be worn over and over but those flowered pants will be worn five times and out of style by the time a younger sibling grows into them. Learn from my mistakes. Anyone want a pair of flowered pants?

• Take one child shopping at a time. I get confused when my kids team up and need feedback and attention. I end up spending more than necessary and regretting some purchases. In addition, my 10-year-old can find her own style rather than mimicking her hip, older sister. Besides, it’s good for kids to have some individual Mom time.

• Keep all receipts. You need to make this a habit or the receipts will get misplaced (again, learn from my mistakes). Then you end up getting .99 back for some shirt because it has, of course, gone on clearance since you paid $12 for it. I have a big crock that I shove all receipts into immediately upon arriving home. Even stuff like dog food receipts that I can’t imagine needing again. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to dig through that jar. Plus, very helpful at tax time.

• Allow relatives to help, if they offer. Some of my lucky friends have family traditions that help out their family budgets. One grandmother takes the kids boot and coat shopping each year. Another takes the kids for all of their school supplies, which is another big fall expense. I know of one aunt who plays Auntie Mame for the day and spoils her two nieces at Limited Too.

• Use coupons! I have a coupon file in my filing cabinet that I shove all coupons into that come in the mail. Use your store credit cards occasionally to make sure you receive them. Also, check online coupon sites and print out any coupons you may want. If the store asks for an e-mail address, give them one so they can e-mail coupons to you. I have a hotmail address just for this purpose. Lastly, check at the management office before you begin shopping. I did that last week at my mall and by showing my AAA card, I received (among other coupons) a $10 off any $30 purchase at Aeropostale. I did mention I had two preteen daughters, right?

• Pass clothing down. Communicate to your child that this is a lucky way to get clothes and they’ll totally buy into it, at least for a good number of years. We keep all outgrown clothes and shoes in plastic bins in our basement. We go to the “basement store” for new clothing for my five-year-old. She excitedly (and proudly, I might add) told her daddy last week that we’d gone to the basement store to shop and she was now ready for Kindergarten.

I did take my youngest daughter shopping this year so she could get some Mommy time, too. We shopped for new underwear! It was so exciting! There were so many choices! She finally decided on Pooh Bear, and upon arriving home she proceeded to model all six pairs for the entire family. It was one of those moments when I looked at her and just marveled at what an adorable, funny, sweet child she is and that by the grace of God, she’s mine.

So lucky. So lucky. So lucky.

-Kay

So for my book club, I read this “young adult” novel, Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow. (Don’t ask me, a 26-year-old, hard-working, harder-playing bachelor, why I belong to a book club comprised mainly of leathery men two decades my senior. It’s beside the point of this post, so don’t ask. It just works.)

This book is really important. Maybe the most important I’ve read in years. Buy it for your young adult ASAP. The premise: a high-school kid gets mistaken for a terrorist in a post-9/11 near future and is “disappeared” by the TSA. He and his friends wage an underground campaign to combat the ever- Orwellian tactics the TSA are implementing as part of a post-terrorist-incident.

The key to this book isn’t the plot though, it’s the substance of it. The book provides a convincing counterargument to the knee-jerk, reactionary fearmongering prevalent in today’s mainstream media. Every teen could use a primer in the freedoms guaranteed us by our Bill of Rights & Constitution. Truly, I cannot find a better written rebuttal to the age-old flawed tautology: “If you’ve got nothing to hide then why do you need privacy?” If you think America’s forgetting what it means to be American, getting a young person this book will be a direct countermove to this trend.

It’s also a very useful real-world tool that will teach your teens to cover their digital tracks in an ever-less-private mediascape. Tools for data encryption, online identity management, and more are profferred by futurist Doctorow (of boingboing.net fame), in the spirit of empowerment rather than mischief. If indeed the future our kids will inherit is as much or more entrenched in the online world than it is today, mastery of these tools won’t just be for the fringe power-users but fundamentals in staving off the prying eyes of a plethora of entities, not necessarily Uncle Sam.

As someone who lived very near the WTC on 9/11 and during its aftermath, some scenes in the book depicting the palpable sense of panic and terror on or around such events hit home very intensely, which, to me, is a good thing. Not many fictional accounts have nailed the sense of confusion and helplessness, and as a firsthand witness, I’ve got to say Doctorow nailed it, and it’s a healthy thing to relive through the medium of fiction.

The prose is easy-to-read (took me a few hours cover to cover), solid though maybe not worthy of poetry awards… but to look at this aspect of the book misses the point.
It’s a novel of ideas, which is something that strikes me as strangely absent from the Young Adult genre. Truly, get this book for any 12-year-old in your life. It transcends politics, so it doesn’t matter if you’re red or blue. It’s highly entertaining. And most importantly, it’s just a remarkable effective method of delivery for important discussions of privacy and liberty versus security in both the digital and post-9/11 age, which may or may not be the most important issue of our times… ambitious for a Young Adult novel, but ultimately successful in its mission. NOW GO BUY IT! SERIOUSLY!

Little Brother
By Cory Doctorow

Other reviews
Available Free for Download
Or order it on Amazon

There is a trend in America to entertain less frequently within our homes. It’s down 45% in 20 years. Why? I believe it’s because we are so crazy busy with our families, jobs, activities, church, schools, and on and on.

The thought of cleaning our house, making a meal, and then having enough energy left over for a coherent discussion can seem overwhelming. Frankly, why bother?

Well, lots of reasons.

• It’s fun. The power of laughter is amazing. Do you ever sit around laughing your head off when you’re mowing your lawn? No. You need to take a break from your “life” and have some fun with your friends. Last week we got together with good friends and got into a discussion about McCain and Obama (see, we can be serious, too). Then we started talking about their political commercials and pretty soon we were brainstorming new ones. We cracked ourselves up. Think SNL only not funny at all to anyone other than ourselves.

• It’s good for your kids to see healthy, long-term friendships. Some kids have a tendency to have a new best friend each week. Or to drop someone if it’s no longer fun. It’s character building for your child to see that even when the friendship may be a bit difficult, good friends hang in there. The friends I mention above moved hundreds of miles away but we still make it happen. I’ve had friends struggle with cancer, death, divorce, handicapped children, finances, and other challenges. It’s not always easy but our relationships are solid.

• It creates pseudo-cousins for your children. I grew up with layers upon layers of cousins and loved being known and cared for by so many people. Still do. Unfortunately, my kids don’t have that experience. They have cousins they adore but there is only a smattering of them. The children of our good friends have the same type of relationship with my kids as I had with my cousins. They look forward to spending time together and start up where they left off.

• It’s good for marriages. Relaxing with friends allows me to see my spouse in the same role as when we dated. The relaxed, carefree guy I fell for instead of the work driven, busy guy I live with on a daily basis. And vice versa. I admit I’m usually too busy switching loads in the laundry or putting band-aids on boo boos to look lovingly in my husband’s eyes (which are a spectacular blue, by the way). The nicest thing you can do for your kids is to love your spouse.

Entertaining does not have to be overwhelming. Here are some tips for simplifying:

• Keep it small. I think two families at a time is perfect for conversation and crowd control.

• Don’t try new recipes. In the summer, I grill. In the winter, I make meatballs. If you hate any cooking, don’t hesitate to order pizza. Make a green salad and you’re good. It’s about fellowship, not food.

• Don’t over plan. I know one woman who orchestrates the entire evening and it makes me a bit anxious. No sooner do you finish your dessert and she shoos you into another room for an activity. And on it goes. It’s very Martha Stewart-like and, honestly, I’d be a bit intimidated to invite her to my home.

• Be open to different ideas. For years we had a group of friends that always gathered on Friday nights. We rotated homes and made it a potluck. It was fairly effortless and lots of fun. Our neighborhood meets up with neighbors around campfires in backyards. It’s usually spontaneous and the host provides S’mores ingredients and beverages. How easy is that?

• Involve your kids. They can easily make invitations, place cards, and menus online. Totally unnecessary for your gathering, but kids love having input and feeling needed.

Remember, the goal is to make genuine connections. Good luck and have fun!

-Kay

When doling out anything to multiple little people, I often say, “same, same” to hopefully eliminate any comparisons and jealousy. I’ve done it for years and am not sure exactly how it started.

Just yesterday, I caught myself saying it as I handed out juice boxes to my nieces and my daughter. I’ve probably said it a million times, but every once in a while I actually hear myself and wonder if I’m doing the right thing by trying to make everything equal.

Maybe I should say to the preschool crowd, “you have orange juice and you have grape, and that’s the way it is. It’s okay to have different drinks and they’re both just great.” Then when they start whining and crying because they want what they don’t have, it would serve as a life lesson. I could add, “Get used to it because life is complicated, messy, and definitely not fair.”

I remember going to a boyfriend’s house for Christmas and being amazed to see that his mother had the exact same number of boxes for each of her four grown children. She told me that she had always done that in order to be fair. 

That’s “same, same” to the extreme. 

Likewise, I have a friend who actually counts the M&M’s she places in Easter baskets.  Come on. I think we can all agree that’s a bit over the top.

Yesterday, I took my three daughters school shopping. My oldest daughter needed the most new clothing simply because no older siblings are passing them down to her. It’s definitely not “same, same” and my middle daughter noticed it.

So bottom line, I’m not exactly sure how much parents should make everything equal and how much we should expect children to understand that life isn’t exactly fair all of the time. It’s a hard lesson even as adults. When I swim in my brother’s beautiful in-ground pool, I can’t help but feel a twinge of that old childhood sibling rivalry. “Why does he get this great pool, and not me?” Honestly, I’m happy for him. But, it is a great pool.

For what it’s worth, here are a few lessons I’ve learned over the years about trying to treat children equally.

• It’s impossible to keep everything exactly equal so don’t try. You’ll drive yourself crazy and actually cause your children to make more comparisons, not fewer. It promotes greed and dissatisfaction. Instead, say, “everybody in our family gets what they need.” I used this line on my daughter while shopping yesterday and surprisingly she dropped the subject. She knows she has all of the clothes (and more) that she needs for school, and her older sister does not.

• Don’t announce discrepancies. I’m sure my soccer-loving daughter would feel a bit jealous if she realized how much dance lessons cost for her sister. But, there is no need for either daughter to know that information. They are both content with their activities and that’s the goal. Right?

• If you have a child who always seems to feel neglected or jealous, give him or her more time and attention. That’s what it’s usually really about. Not stuff.

I do think it’s fine to say “same, same” to young children when handing out inconsequential things like drinks or crayons. But, as our children get older we really don’t want them to strive to be just like everyone else in all situations. And we certainly don’t want them to feel jealous of those who have more or better. So, rather than concentrating on creating an identical experience, focus on meeting the needs of each individual child in your home.

-Kay

According to Gary Chapman’s book, Five Languages of Love, there are five different ways in which love is communicated or understood by others. We each have a preferred language (or two) that makes us feel loved. The book is really interesting both for personal insight and for better understanding our children and spouses.

The five languages are:
1. Words of Affirmation
2. Quality Time
3. Receiving Gifts
4. Acts of Service
5. Physical Touch

The language of love that is most meaningful to my daughter, Grace, is touch. She literally hangs on me at times. She will get as close as humanly possible while sitting on the couch. Forget about personal space with Grace. If she loves you, there is no such thing.

My oldest, Emily, is a snuggler at times, but typically she’s on the move. When Emily was about 18 months, I would observe other toddlers. Many would sit contentedly on their mother’s lap or play by her feet.

Not the case with Emily. She was always ready for a party. Her first word was “hi” and she used it constantly to initiate interactions with most anyone. I was always trailing along behind her and I used to look longingly at other families, sitting, and think how nice it would be to just relax with my child.

Then along came Grace. Grace always wanted to sit on my lap or ride around on my hip. She loved (and still does) rocking and having her arm scratched or back rubbed. In social situations, I had to coax her to join in with other children. If a stranger said hi to her or even smiled at her, she’d bury her face in my shoulder.

Having a child who is so physically connected and affectionate is primarily a wonderful thing. I love her long hugs (she’s almost as tall as I am now) and her sweet “Gracie” smell. However, and I hate to admit this, there are times I just want to scream, “Don’t touch me!” This applies to all of my children and husband, too. It’s just that for each hug they give me, Grace probably gives me ten.

Here are a few of the times where hugs are not highly appreciated:

• Hot, humid summer days. Having a kid flop onto my lap is like stepping into a sauna (which I hate).

• When I’m standing and talking to an acquaintance. Grace will just lean into me. Nice and loving but frankly annoying.

• When I’m on the phone with an insurance agent, doctor, billing department or any other phone call I dread. It’s almost like I can’t focus when someone is physically distracting me.

• When I’ve had an emotionally draining day due to squabbles, whining, and sibling nonsense. At the end of the day, I need to be “by myself” even if I’m sitting in the same room with others.

If you have a child who you know is powered by physical touch, here are some things to be aware of:

• Make sure you initiate lots of the hugging and touching. I can tell Grace 100 times a day that I love her but until I give her a squeeze, I don’t think she feels it.

• If you and your “touchy” child are not connecting well for some reason, hug him or her, even if it’s the last thing you feel like doing. When Grace is pushing all of my buttons, if I can slow down enough to give her a giant hug, it recenters her and is a giant mood adjuster. For me, too.

• Talk to your child about how they’re wired. It’s empowering for kids to understand themselves and why they might feel a certain way.

Grace left this morning with her best friend to go to Cedar Point Amusement Park. I already crave a giant Gracie hug and love knowing that the moment I see her again, I’ll get one.

-Kay

One of my daughters is shy. At times, painfully so. When she was in 1st grade, I would pick her up from Brownies and would almost always find her sitting alone while all of the other scouts were running around. It broke my heart. Eventually, we dropped Brownies as it seemed to be accentuating her shyness rather than helping her to make friends, as we had hoped.

My husband and I wanted to intervene and assist our daughter in any way that we could. The sooner, the better. We all know that once a child is “labeled” by peers in a certain manner, it’s extremely difficult to change that perception. We didn’t want our daughter to go through school (and life) feeling insecure and trying to avoid attention. We all want our children to bloom and to feel comfortable sharing their unique, wonderful selves with others.

What’s a parent to do? Here are my thoughts.

• Talk to a school counselor. The counselor at my daughter’s school regularly meets with small groups of students to address issues like friendship-making and confidence-building. We opted to wait to see if we could address the issue in other ways before trying counseling but we were prepared to go that route, if necessary.

• Talk to your child’s teacher. My daughter had a wonderful 1st grade teacher who helped tremendously with confidence-building. Request future teachers, if permissible in your school district. After my daughter had a mediocre 2nd grade experience, I requested a 3rd grade teacher who is extremely nurturing and gifted at creating a classroom climate of acceptance. If you’re not familiar with specific teachers, talk to the building principal about your child’s needs.

• Arrange play dates. I made a concerted effort to do so when I realized that my daughter wasn’t making friends on her own. Having one person over to our house at a time allowed her to get to know some girls better in a secure environment. After playing together, her new friends started seeking her out at school and including her in group activities.

• Join a theater group. I would never, ever have thought this was a good idea for my daughter but it has been life changing for her. It was her 1st grade teacher’s idea (I love that lady). My daughter just completed her 3rd year performing in a summer theater production. The first year, it was a big deal for her just to walk on stage. This year, she was able to sing, dance, and say lines on stage. Was she nervous? Of course. Was she amazing? Absolutely. We took tons of pictures and shared them with family on Webshots.

• Avoid labeling. I could kick myself for doing this when my daughter was young. I used to periodically describe my daughter as being shy in her presence. For example, if a stranger said hello to her and she looked away, I would explain, “she’s just shy.” I unintentionally contributed to her shyness by labeling her as such and also excused behavior that wasn’t good training for her future.

My mother, Joan, tells a story about her own childhood. She has one sister named Norma and when her father would introduce them he would say, “This is Joan, my smart daughter, and this is Norma, my pretty daughter.

Now my grandfather, a nice man, believed that he was complimenting both of his daughters. But that’s not what they heard. My mother grew up thinking that she wasn’t very pretty and my aunt grew up thinking that she wasn’t very smart. That’s the destructive power of labels. It’s scary how careful we need to be with language.

My daughter is soon entering 4th grade. She is a self-assured, friendly 9-year-old who makes eye contact and smiles when she meets new people. As her mom, I realize that she still struggles with shyness at times, but it’s not something I say out loud.

-Kay

Whenever I smell certain spices, I think of my great grandmother.

Big Mama we called her, indeed a large woman whose parents immigrated from Lebanon to South Carolina in the early 1900s, bringing with them the rich food of the Middle East and a passion for cooking it.

I smell turmeric or cumin, and I am transported to Big Mama’s kitchen, a cavernous room that contained not one, but two refrigerators, not one, but two stoves, on top of which always sat two jars wrapped in towels, fermenting into homemade yogurt. The Lebanese call it Laban — a condiment like catsup that adorns every plate of Lebanese fare.

I smell mint and I see Big Mama again, shuffling over to the second oven and with a paddle board on a long handle, pulling out two round, homemade “ pie breads” — what they call pita bread now. Hers were better. They were more flour-y, less processed and big as pizza dough, nothing like the small, factory-made pita breads we buy packaged at the grocery store now.

I smell cloves or allspice and I remember Big Mama’s thin, silver hair slipped into a bun at her nape, her heavy, maternal body contained in a dark silk dress. She is sitting at her kitchen table with her feet shoulder-width apart and solid on the ground, her stockings rolled to just above her black laced shoes. The bottoms of her heavy arms flap as she uses a large wooden pestle to pound allspice into lamb and cracked wheat for the raw meat dish, Kibbeh.

Reviving the Lost Art of Cooking

Remembering the images and smells of Big Mama’s kitchen makes me long for a time when the experience of food was as much about the preparation as it was the eating of it.

And so from time to time I buy all the ingredients – with some modern-day tweaking - for grape leaves. Where Big Mama used lamb and plain white rice, I substitute chopped chick peas, roasted pine nuts and Basmati rice. I throw in chopped mint, dill and parsley - growing tangled in the side yard. I add the other common Mediterranean ingredients - lemon, olive oil, sauteed onion and garlic and a bit of allspice.

I assemble everything on the table. And then I call to my 16-year-old daughter.

“Time to roll!”

Emily never met her great-great grandmother.

She died 10 years before Emily was born.

But Emily, an introspective teenager, already knows that rolling grape leaves with her mother in the kitchen is more than just the act itself.

And so she leaves her text messaging, her IM graphics fun, her CDs, her soccer practices, her relationship intrigue and all that preoccupies a teenager’s life. And she rushes to join her mother, where together, we will make her own memories of allspice and rolling grape leaves in the kitchen.

Here’s how to make grape leaves:

Pinch off a stem. Lay the leaf vein side up. Smooth the leaf with the fingers. Spoon a teaspoon of stuffing mixture onto the leaf near the stem end. Roll the leaf from stem to center. Fold in the sides. Roll to the end.

Place the stuffed rolls next to each other, like sardines, in a large skillet that has been lined with torn leaves to keep the rolls from sticking to the bottom of the pan. Drizzle the grape leaves with more lemon and olive oil. Add water to cover, then lay a plate on top of the rolls, to keep the rolls from unraveling.

Place a small pot or something else heavy on top of the plate, to keep the plate and the rolls in place while they are cooking. Simmer 45 minutes. Remove grape leaves from pan and put in a separate dish. Drizzle more olive oil and lemon over the top. Place grape leaves in refrigerator to chill.

Emily and I always chill our grape leaves. While I have certainly seen grape leaves served warm at Mediterranean-style American restaurants, chilled is how Big Mama always served them.

- Debra-Lynn

P.S. - For a recipe close to the one that Emily and I have tweaked, click here.

My family just came back from our 2nd annual “week at the lake” with extended family. We’ve wanted to do this for many years but between weddings, pregnancies, and tight finances, it just never seemed to be the right summer to start this tradition.

Finally, after realizing that if we waited too much longer, the oldest cousins wouldn’t even want to go on some dorky family trip, I picked a location and a date. I shared the information with my parents and siblings but was determined to start the yearly tradition with or without them.

I was thrilled when my parents and both of my sisters’ families decided to join us. Let me share a few perks of group vacations.

1. You save a ton of money! Our cabin was $1,300 per week. Dividing that number by four families made our vacation easier to handle financially.

2. Free babysitting! Being around other adults who love your children provides opportunities to have some quiet time or adult time. The men caught a movie during our vacation and my husband and I were able to check out some of the local talent at an art gallery without kids.

3. The workload is shared. With four women (sorry to stereotype, but that’s the reality when my family gathers), cleaning up after dinner is a snap. In addition, both of my sisters don’t hesitate to throw another kid into the bathtub while bathing their own or recruiting extra cousins on hikes. My mother washed, dried, and folded all of my dirty laundry. It was a beautiful thing.

4. You have less to pack. We were able to fit our three children, clothes, and all of our vacation stuff into our van with room to spare. Before vacation, we split up the list to avoid duplicating and to simplify packing. For example, I brought sand toys, my sister brought games, and my mother brought matches.

5. You can share the food. Make a menu together beforehand and divvy up the items. We worked it out based upon our schedules and shopping preferences. We all saved our receipts, added up the damage, and divided the total bill equally. We briefly considered taking into account family size but that was just too complicated. Plus, we all know that kids never seem to really eat (just endless snacking) while on vacation. Anyways, we’re family. In the end, it all works out. Creating a menu and doing the shopping separately took some organization but in the long run saved time and money. And who really wants to end up with four bottles of ketchup?

6. Lots of photos! With so many adults snapping photos, we end up with more winning shots. Each December we create a photo calendar, using Photoworks, with the best of that year’s pictures to distribute to all of the families.

7. Relationships are built. This is by far the most important and was my motivation for wanting to start this tradition in the first place. As toddlers, my kids have all enjoyed listing on their chubby little fingers all of the people who love them. “Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Holly, Aunt Katie, Uncle Chris,” and on and on. What a comfort for my children to feel so surrounded by love.

Now, lest you think we’re a perfect family, we’re not. I believe we’re a spectacular family but we’re also very normal. Being human, we get mildly annoyed with each other during the week over silly, petty stuff.

“Shhh…the baby’s sleeping.”
“Who got the floor all wet?”
“Did someone eat all of the cookies?”

Isn’t resolving minor conflicts with others a lesson we want to teach our children? What better way than seeing grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins figure out the give and take of loving relationships…?

Now that’s a beautiful thing! Even better than clean laundry!

-Kay