Author: Mom

Baby Island > Babel
The Mom Weekly Volume 4—Tuesday, August 15

Happy Tuesday! Today is the feast of the Assumption, so don’t forget to go to Mass. In addition to being a Holy Day of Obligation, it’s a big Catholic feast for Italians. I have this memory—but only when I was very young—of being in Wildwood, NJ, on our family beach vacation. We attended Mass for the Assumption, and afterwards the congregation walked down to the beach for the blessing of the ocean.

It is a dreamlike memory for me, almost in black and white, but very vivid. So I thought to myself, maybe it’s not real and I just made it up? But it turns out that this is a longstanding tradition in Wildwood (and doubtless elsewhere), and is happening this year, too.

Why I read the entirety of Carol Ryrie Brink’s Baby Island the other night, and some of my favorite quotes from it.

I’m “buddy reading”with two of my sisters the novel Babel by R.F. Kuang, an “historical fantasy epic.” The main characters attend a fictional college at Oxford, and language study and translation figure prominently. You had me at “Oxford” ! At first I found it terrific, but now I’m on the fence about it–it’s taken a really dark turn in the latter half of the book.

This is how dark: The other night, I began reading a chapter at bedtime, and was so disturbed by what I read that I need to read anything else.

[I have since finished “Babel,” and my rating would be 1.5 stars, when I started the book thinking it would be 5 stars. That doesn’t happen very often!

However, the translation part of the novel is compelling. That reminded me of this NY Times multi-media look at how translation happens. It’s really worth exploring—give it a look! ]

So I looked at my Kindle app, and I ended up reading the entirety of Baby Island, Carol Ryrie Brink’s hilarious midcentury children’s novel about two girls who get stranded, with four babies, on a deserted island. It couldn’t be more wonderful, or less like Babel.

Here are some of my favorite quotes:

……
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Most girls of twelve would have been frightened, but Mary Wallace was not an ordinary girl.
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……
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“Because shipwrecked people always do,” said Mary decidedly. “Why, the public library at home is just full of books about shipwrecked people who landed on tropical islands. And did you ever see a book written by a person who was drowned at sea? I never did.”
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…..
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“We mustn’t forget our grammar just because we’ve become sailors, Jean.”
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…….
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“Perhaps a sight of the babies will soften his heart,” she said. “It’s wonderful what the sight of a sweet, clean baby will do to a hard and cruel heart!”
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….
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“You hardly ever see anyone acting bad on a full stomach.”
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……
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“Down, down, I went, just into the hedge of the river, an’ there a alligator caught me an’ bit off me toe as neat s your granny could do it with her shears.”
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….
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Once Mr. Peterkin’s hard heart had started to soften, it was just like ice cream in the sun. … Naturally he still grumbled a good deal and pretended to be angry with them all, but after all one can’t throw of the habits of years in a moment.
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……
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As the girls often remarked, Ann Elizabeth was probably the cutest baby ever seen. She was plump and dimpled, with shiny curls that stood up all the wrong way on the back of her head, and big blue eyes. But it very much looked as if her fatal beauty had made her lazy.
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…..
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“ Pit it out. ‘Pit it out right away.”
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…..
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Ann Elizabeth gave Mr. Peterkin a long look, and then her face dimpled into a lovely baby smile.
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“Pitty,” said Ann Elizabeth, touching his fierce black whiskers. “Pitty-pitty.”
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Mr. Peterkin was embarrassed, but he was also just a little flattered. Nobody had ever before called his beard pretty.
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……..

It makes me smile just to see the quotes again. And also: notice how Mary Wallace gets all the best lines? 🙂

So this week’s advice would be, have a source of comfort reading (topic of a future post)to use when needed.

Love,

Mom

Interesting/Worthy

A worthy read: For Luck in Love, Couples Are Breaking Plates (On Purpose)

From the New York Times: In Germany, smashing porcelain plates is a time-honored wedding custom that is said to bring good fortune and harmony to newlyweds.

“The act of breaking plates is believed to represent a couple’s first moment of unity and teamwork. … “It symbolizes working as a team in life and in their marriage.”

I love this tradition so much, and I wish I had known about it when Dad & I were married. Something to consider, especially since you kids are 1/4 German (from my half-German)!

A worthy listen: The Free Press Debate

If I lived anywhere near Los Angeles, I would immediately get tickets to attend this debate hosted by The Free Press.

The debate is to answer the question: “Has the sexual revolution failed?” and features four prominent women, two on each side.

When I told one of my children—who shall remain nameless but who is the oldest—that one of the pro-sexual revolution debaters is the musician Grimes , she said, confidently, “Mom, no, it is NOT Grimes” and I said, “I assure you, it is Grimes.” So daughter looked it up on her phone to prove I was wrong, but it turns out I was correct.

Let me move on so I do not gloat about being right, as Moms often are, and since last week I admitted that Moms can make mistakes. 😉

My main reason for wanting to see the debate mostly to hear Louise Perry speak live. Her book, The Case Against the Sexual Revolution is a must-read, in my opinion.

If you don’t want to invest the time in reading it, I highly recommend watching/listening to this conversation she had earlier this year with Ali Abdaal.

An action item:

Sign up for text message alerts from your financial institutions. For this week, just start with one account—perhaps a credit card, or your bank account.

Most banks and credit cards—really, financial institutions of all sorts—have alert features you can sign up for.

One of the best features is text message (or email) alerts whenever there is any activity in your account. This way, if there’s a charge you don’t recognize, you can contact the company right away. I find it very useful for keeping track of expenses, as well.

To do this, you can search for the “manage alerts” tab or section. Even easier, Google, “how to set up alerts.” I did this for Capital One and the top result was this, from Capital One. It couldn’t be easier!

What are you doing this weekend?

The Mom Weekly schedules to post on Tuesdays. One of the reasons for this is to encourage you (and me, too!) to think about weekend plans. All too often, I have let that go until Friday, and then it’s hard to get people together, or make plans for coffee, or figure out when you go to Mass (other than the default, which is what we typically do).

So, now that it’s Tuesday, what are you planning for the weekend? I’m going to suggest trying to cover four “F”s to get ideas flowing:

*faith—when are you going to Mass?

*friends—what friends will you see or connect with?

*food—any fun recipes you plan to try, or restaurants you plan to visit?

*fun—anything interesting you are going to play, watch, or do this weekend? Now’s the time to think it through, and put it on the calendar (even informally).
August 15, 2023
Everyone Makes Mistakes

The Mom Weekly Volume 3, August 8, 2023

Notes:

Welcome to Volume 3 of The Mom Weekly!

Sorry about the button thing from last week. As I found out—and as many of you told me—an error message pops up if you press one of the buttons.

I don’t know if I did something wrong, or if having a button actually “work” is a premium feature of beehiiv, my email newsletter provider. I am using the free plan, so there aren’t a lot of bells and whistles. I will look into it.

Also, I just noticed that there was a TYPO in the headline of last week’s newsletter. The title read “Messages My Adult Children May Need to Here” !!!!!

I hope it was an autocorrect situation, because I can’t imagine writing that, but who knows. The online version is now correct, and the buttons are gone until I can figure it out. Feel free to let me know if you see other errors. Imagine that—moms making mistakes! 😉

Everyone makes mistakes

I wrote a long-ish reflection on the memoir When Breath Becomes Air that was not entirely “polished,” so I decided to work on it more before including here.

As a result, this week’s message is really short:

Everyone makes mistakes.

What’s key is that you don’t “stay there” or ruminate on your mistakes too much. And that applies to both our own mistakes and the mistakes that others make.

If you can “own” or correct your mistake and (if possible) apologize for it, do so promptly and without too much “explaining.” And when you can’t correct something, accept it and move on.

My typo mistake last week is a kind of hybrid version of that. I can “own” the mistake and apologize for it. And I can fix the online version. But I can’t correct the email that went out last week, so I have to accept that. It’s a good example because it’s so small, and offers the chance to practice letting it go, which can often be the hardest part.

Well, this is turning into more of a reflection than I expected! I’ll have to expand on this another time.

As always, remember how much I love you,

Love,

Mom

An interesting read:

What if We’re the Bad Guys Here? — David Brooks in The New York Times

This is a must-read.

Best quote:

“The ideal that we’re all in this together was replaced with the reality that the educated class lives in a world up here and everybody else is forced into a world down there. Members of our class are always publicly speaking out for the marginalized, but somehow we always end up building systems that serve ourselves.”

An interesting listen:

Why “The Free Press” exists.

I admire so much of what The Free Press is doing these days. And Bari Weiss’ explanation —- wanting to create truly independent, high-quality journalism—is just gold.

So far, I think they have succeeded. I find myself listening to the TFP podcast “Honestly” almost every episode, and the interviews and discussions are top-notch. Here are just two episodes of many that are excellent: How to Dad in 2023 (Father’s Day episode) and America Needs a Self Help Book.

I also appreciate that even if I disagree with what I’m reading or listening to at The Free Press, I don’t feel “shamed” by my views. That shaming impulse is unfortunately present in many forms of media. That, and the “cancelling” people, is just poison to healthy relationships, especially online interactions.

An action item: Start your “if I get hit by a bus” document.

I update quarterly-ish my “when I get hit by a bus” document with very short notes for the family, some suggestions, as well as instructions on how to access accounts and where to find various important things, etc. I highly suggest that you consider creating such a document—it’s a ton of work the first time, emotionally and otherwise, but updating it is much less stressful.

Sometimes people call these “in case of emergency” letter or “death binder” etc.. Ideally, you’d come up with a title more prosaic than mine.

There are various products/books/online services you can purchase to fill in, but I have found it easier to create a document to personalize it.

Since these are meant to be small steps, don’t try to complete it or even put any content in. Just create a document.

Ideally you would have it password protected. Eventually you can share its location—physical and digital—with a family member. That eliminates Google Docs, unfortunately.

That’s it for this week! We’ll come back to what to include in it in another week.

What are you doing this weekend?

The Mom Weekly schedules to post on Tuesdays. One of the reasons for this is to encourage you (and me, too!) to think about weekend plans. All too often, I have let that go until Friday, and then it’s hard to get people together, or make plans for coffee, or figure out when you go to Mass (other than the default, which is what we typically do).

So, now that it’s Tuesday, what are you planning for the weekend? I’m going to suggest trying to cover four “F”s to get ideas flowing:

*faith—when are you going to Mass?

*friends—what friends will you see or connect with?

*food—any fun recipes you plan to try, or restaurants you plan to visit?

*fun—anything interesting you are going to play, watch, or do this weekend? Now’s the time to think it through, and put it on the calendar (even informally).

August 8, 2023
Messages My Adult Children May Need to Hear
The Mom Weekly Volume 2

Welcome to Volume 2—week 2— of The Mom Weekly! I really enjoy having this accountability and having a semi-captive audience to talk to. 🙂

You may remember that I shared these with you on Instagram from a mother/daughter account that was “recommended for me.” Sometimes IG recs are odd, but sometimes there are some real gems, and this was one. I’m going to paraphrase the content since I can’t capture the entire post, but I’d like it here for posterity.

Messages my adult children may need to hear:
- I’m so proud to be your Mom.
- I’m sorry for any parenting choices I made that hurt you. I’m here to listen, if you want to talk about it.
- You are incredibly precious to me.
- I’ll always love you no matter what.
- My life changed for the better because you are in it.
- Your worth is not determined by your productivity, job title, or relationship status.
Even writing down those things is making me a little teary-eyed, because of how much I love each of you! And I truly mean all of those things.

Remember how much I love you,

Mom

An interesting read:

What Kind of Villain Doesn’t Clean Up After Their Dog?—The Atlantic Monthly

A fascinating look at how “pooper scooper” laws came to be, and how to get people to be more compliant with them. I plan to share this with the HOA here, as many neighbors complain about people not picking up poop!

An interesting listen:

“Barbie is a conservative movie”

I saw Barbie on Friday with a friend and her adult daughter— so funny and so enjoyable. This video (I wish it were an article) making the case—well, lots of spoilers—but from St. Thomas More’s “Utopia” to Homer’s “Odysseus” —there is much to ponder here.

I have mostly refrained from reading social commentary reviews about the movie, whatever the type of social commentary, but I found this less a “culture wars” in-the-moment hot take than a philosophical approach to the themes of the movie.

An action item: Open a Roth IRA !!!

Time to make sure you have a Roth IRA. This may seem really complicated, but it is not. We’re not going to do anything with the Roth or contribute anything to it, just open it up.

In future weeks we can talk about contributing or what investments to buy in your Roth. Let’s just get the Roth opened and set up. That’s it—it will take you 10 minutes, or less!

Why should you have a Roth? I think it’s one of the best no-brainer investments, especially the younger that you are.

I don’t need to reinvent the wheel, so take a moment to visit this article from Krista at Ready to Roth. She’s great, and this is a very thorough walk through of why you should have one.

The easiest place to open a Roth is through a low-cost brokerage—the “big three” are Vanguard, Schwab, and Fidelity. It’s completely free to open a Roth at any of those firms. I’m going to share a couple of screenshots to show you where to go, and how to do it.

Fidelity home page. Click the orange box that says “open an account”

That will bring you to the screen, and you can click on “Roth IRA”

And this page begins the walk-through.

Here’s Schwab. Click on “Roth IRA” in the middle square under “retirement”

This page explains the costs ($0) and more.

Vanguard, Click “open an account” from the top menu.

Vanguard: click the 1st: “open a new account” and select “Roth” on the next screen.

What are you doing this weekend?

The Mom Weekly schedules to post on Tuesdays. One of the reasons for this is to encourage you (and me, too!) to think about weekend plans. All too often, I have let that go until Friday, and then it’s hard to get people together, or make plans for coffee, or figure out when you go to Mass (other than the default, which is what we typically do).

So, now that it’s Tuesday, what are you planning for the weekend? I’m going to suggest trying to cover four “F”s to get ideas flowing:

*faith—when are you going to Mass? We went to a Sunday evening Mass—unusual for us this week. I am a creature of habit, so I didn’t love the change in schedule.

*friends—what friends will you see or connect with?

*food—any fun recipes you plan to try, or restaurants you plan to visit?

*fun—anything interesting you are going to play, watch, or do this weekend? Now’s the time to think it through, and put it on the calendar (even informally).
August 1, 2023
Introducing The Mom Weekly

The Mom Weekly, Volume 1

For a long time, I’ve had the idea of having a weekly newsletter.

My goals?

*Share my wisdom as an older mom.

*Suggest actionable things to optimize for a week—small steps to making life better. I want to do some of these myself. I consider this my own form of accountability.

*Share interesting content I come across (and have a place to refer to, as in, remember when I shared that article about the UK Coast to Coast Path?)

If the only people who read The Mom Weekly are my family and a few others, that would make me happy.

Part of the reason for this is the “if I get hit by a bus” semi-urgency. Someday (I hope far in the future) I am going to die. As a result, I want to share all the various things that I want my kids and other loved ones to know about me, my view of the world, and more.

How many times have I wanted to ask my parents about something about how they felt about things? Of course, you can’t possibly get the chance to share everything, but I think that having this kind of record will help me do so.

But I also want to capture things I want to remind my kids about—have you considered maxing out your Roth IRA this year? Did you finish your taxes yet? Have you made your annual physical appointment? Where should we go as a family for vacation next year?

So, without further ado, welcome to The Mom Weekly.

Remember how much I love you and delight in your existence, even when you’re super annoying. Maybe especially when you are super annoying. 🙂

Love,

Mom

An Interesting Read:

*It’s never too late to travel the world with your best friend.

This reminds me a bit of “sister trips” with my sisters. Some goals for the years ahead!

An Interesting Listen:

You didn’t think you’d have a Mom Weekly newsletter without a podcast recommendation from me? Ha. Often these will be from YouTube, but I generally listen to them as podcasts.

*Training for the Centenarian Decathlon: Dr. Peter Attia.

Attia’s new book Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity deserves its own “deep dive,” but for now, this is a good intro.

An Action Item:

Action items are short—I expect them to take less that 15 minutes—activities to improve life. I plan to do these as well, so often it’s a reminder for myself!

Considering joining the Facebook Consumer Privacy class action case.

(This is Here’s an explanation of it. You can still join the lawsuit even if you no longer use Facebook. Bonus: Instagram user class action lawsuit for IL residents. I received an email about this, but good email hygiene tells me not to click on any links in said emails. So I did a lot of research (i.e. checked Google), and found the article linked above. I was able to then cut/paste the Notice # and confirmation code into the class action lawsuit “submit claim” tab. You can still join the lawsuit even if you’re not an IL resident any more.

What Are You Doing This Weekend?

I am scheduling The Mom Weekly to post on Tuesday. One of the reasons for this is to encourage you (and me, too!) to think about weekend plans. All too often, I have let that go until Friday, and then it’s hard to get people together, or make plans for coffee, or figure out when you go to Mass (other than the default, which is what we typically do).

So, now that it’s Tuesday, what are you planning for the weekend?

I’m going to suggest trying to cover four “F”s to get ideas flowing:

*faith—when are you going to Mass?

*friends—what friends will you see or connect with?

*food—any fun recipes you plan to try, or restaurants you plan to visit?

*fun—anything interesting you are going to play, watch, or do this weekend? Now’s the time to think it through, and put it on the calendar (even informally).

July 25, 2023