Random childhood memory

Some of our happy childhood memories are of big events, but sometimes it's something small and random that occupies a warm spot in our mind.

One of my random good memories is this:

My mom, brother and I are on vacation in Wildwood, N.J. with its boardwalk and fine sand and long strip of old hotels. One morning, we wake up to a steady, melodious rainstorm. It's the kind of rain that is strong but not pounding, and it provides a musical lull. Even though the beach is meant to be enjoyed in sunny weather, there's something calming about watching the waves roll under a stormy sky, and I don't mind the break from hot weather at all.

We head a few blocks to a pastry shop and sit at one of the outdoor tables under an overhang. There's a white railing around the patio, and as I eat my sticky bun, I watch the rain hit the railing and splash in different directions. Beyond that I see the little shorehomes of the town. Political stickers are plastered all over the poles, and a resident is dropping something into a mailbox.

It's just a calm morning scene I remember. Why has it always stood out? I have no idea. I don't remember anything else about that trip, just eating pastries in the morning in the rain and observing the town.

I bet you have a few kind of random memories like that, slices of life that are nothing fancy, but just make you happy when you recall them. What are yours? Tell me!

Mailbag

James from college writes:

Seriously, the best way I have found to bring our children up right is A) Be an example for them B) Role play, use examples from real life...how would YOU handle that? What would YOU do if... C) Give them plenty of opportunities to "do good." (or bad). Give your son either a lot of positive feedback if he does well or make it a teachable moment if he falls short. We are all works in progress.I am so grateful that you share your wonderful, joyous life with all of us via the Internet. Jim

I didn't bring my son to work today, even though it was take your child to work day. I didn't think I'd get much done, what with all the crying and pooping. And that's just from me - I'm sure my son would have done some of that, too!

How do you raise your children to be nice people?

There are several blog entries I've been wanting to write for a while. At some point I'm going to get to the one about turning 40, even though I may really be 50 by then. But at least I can trick people into thinking I'm younger.

Anyway, one quicker entry I wanted to write is this...

Everyone tells us our son is cute, and he is. But when he gets to the age when his personality starts to really develop, how do we teach him to be a nice person?

There's a line between being firm when teaching your kids to do a certain thing, and being so firm that they rebel and do the opposite. I guess most parents figure it out as they go, and reassess over and over again. There are some kids who aren't very nice when they're younger but gradually figure it out. We've all met them.

Things like rewarding good behavior and being strict about bad behavior are important, but more important is showing why, so they understand your reasoning.

How do you teach your kids right from wrong, particularly in how they treat other people? Stefanie Klein had an interesting blog entry about this a while back that I wanted to link to, so here it is.

Sports talk

HUBBY (watching Mets game): They're winning 4-0!

ME: Are they playing the worst team in baseball?

HUBBY: They ARE the worst team in baseball.

Baby's first seder

Street shots

Nice little ditty

Is it just me, or are there some interesting songs featured in commercials these days? I guess because of the internet, you can find out what song is being used a lot more than you used to.

Right now there's a Tide/"Future friendly" goods commercial that even shows the "Shazam" logo on screen, so you can put your iphone up to find out what the song is. I simply put Tide/Future friendly song into Google and found it.

And here's another song I liked from a commercial last year.

Ah, spring.

(The second one is the original. I played around with it on my computer to get the first one; not sure which I like better.)

Nice new review

I saw that someone visited my website today from Jamaica. Does that mean they're on vacation enjoying my book by the warm beaches? It's a nice thought.

Anyway, I saw there's a great new review on a site called Bookshelf Banter. Excerpt:

She is the most over-thinking over-thinker I’ve ever heard of, and coming from someone like myself, who overanalyzes Every. Single. Thing, that’s saying a lot! It was so much fun to empathize with another over analyzer and see how her brain flits so quickly from one line of thinking to the next. For example, in one scene Carrie starts wondering if polkas are Polish so she looks it up in the dictionary, next thing you know she goes off on some tangent that leads her to wonder about gypsy moths.

Back to the beach

Cape May shots from when we were there in 2009.

Saw this last time I was in NYC.