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By Mom Unplugged, September 10, 2007 10:28 am

For me, it is one of those dreaded times of year again: birthday party time. A Good Mom probably cherishes these milestone moments and decorates for hours, bakes a cake from scratch, plans fun games and then sits back and enjoys watching her wee one having the time of his or her little life with perfectly well-behaved and polite little friends at The Birthday Party.

I, however, have come to rather dread The Birthday Party. For me it symbolizes a time of excess, greed and waste. Just call me Birthday Scrooge. I have grown tired of watching my kids rip wrapping paper off yet another toy we don’t need, only to toss it aside to rip the paper off the next one, as all the other kids “ooh” and “aah” with envy.This year I decided to suggest something different to my daughter. Having recently spent a lot of time at the local Humane Society shelter adopting a dog and three cats to add to our already large menagerie, I suggested that this year we have a Humane Society birthday where we would ask guests to bring an item for the shelter animals instead of the usual gift. My daughter loves animals and understands that many animals are homeless, but I wasn’t sure that a 7 year-old could be altruistic enough to forgo the excitement of birthday presents.

I picked my moment carefully (after we had finished sorting out a bunch of old, unplayed-with toys to donate) and made the suggestion:

“Every year at your birthday party you always get a lot of toys like these that you never play with and that just clutter up the house. How about this year we ask everyone to bring pet food, or something for all those homeless animals at the shelter instead?”

“Oh yes, yes, yes!!!” she said. Even her little brother asked if he could do that for his birthday too (we’ll see if he still wants to when his time comes next June).

We asked our cat sitter, who works at the Humane Society, to tell us what they really needed most right now. We put this list on an insert inside the party invitations. My daughter was very excited to help make the insert requesting donations instead of gifts. We even added some photos of our recent shelter adoptees.

We had the party on Saturday, and as you can see from the photo, the eight guests were extremely generous in their donations of food and toys for the animals! The parents all commented on what a great idea our party was. I am sure they were happier spending their money on food for the homeless animals than on a cheap toy for the child who has too much.

Today after school is the really exciting moment. I will pick my children up from school and we will take everything down to the shelter to give to them. My daughter can’t wait!

I must say that as I write this, I feel every bit the Proud Mama. My daughter, at only age 7, was able to derive pleasure from giving rather than receiving. For once, this was a truly enjoyable birthday party for us all!

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By Mom Unplugged, August 28, 2007 9:00 pm

NOTE: This post will make more sense if you first read part 1: The Moon Unplugged? Not For Me!!

I know that “my public” is in complete suspense about the outcome of my lunar eclipse dilemma, so I will put the two of you out of your collective misery and tell you who won. Was the victor Mom Unplugged or the Evil Sleepy Mom?

The answer is: guilt prevailed and I think I deserve a genuine Good Mom Award for this one!!

I set my alarm for 2:30 AM so as to not be the complete loser I knew I would be by certainly sleeping through the entire eclipse. Unfortunately the moon was not conveniently eclipsing directly over the skylights above my bed. And…horror of horrors…I could actually see STARS, many, many stars. Not a single cloud in the sky. There went my bad weather excuse.

I decided to drag myself out of bed to try and find the moon. I was also worried that the three new kittens on their first night completely loose in the house, might have become terminally ensnared in the hanging beads of their favorite lampshade. Despite having moved that particular floor lamp away from any easy launching pads, I quite expected to come downstairs to find all three kittens, each dangling from the lampshade by a single claw.

Perhaps all was not lost in the sleep department either. Maybe the moon was putting on its special show directly over the living room skylight that is above the sofa. I had visions of continuing my sleep on the sofa while my junior astronomer studied the eclipse beside me. Or better yet, parking my daughter on the sofa with some binoculars and then going back to bed!

Well, there were no Cirque du Soleil kittens suspended from lampshades, and I did see the moon through a living room skylight, but unfortunately not the one over the sofa.

Despite having witnessed several other lunar eclipses in my life, I was still awestruck. For a homework assignment over the weekend, my daughter had just observed that the moon was pretty much full, yet here it was suddenly looking more like a crescent. I decided that I had better be a Good Mom after all and wake her up.

But first I wanted to find the binoculars that I hadn’t seen for three years. As I wandered around the house in search of them, first one kitten, then another, attached itself to my pajama pant legs. There I was, searching the house for a pair of fatally missing binoculars at 2:40 AM with a kitten dangling from each leg of my pajamas, swinging to and fro as I walked.

“OK, enough is enough!” I thought, as I gave up on the binoculars, detached the kittens, and went to wake my daughter. I hopefully thought that my little girl might be a less enthusiastic scientist at this hour, but she eagerly leapt out of bed.

“WOW!” she said as she saw the partially eclipsed moon. We talked about the science of it all as we watched, first from the living room, then from the back deck. Just as it was about to totally eclipse, it occurred to me that we might as well do this up right so I grabbed a flashlight and warm jackets and led us through the backyard and out onto the golf course directly behind our house.

We laid down side by side on the cold, damp grass and there, finally free of the tall Ponderosa Pines that fill our yard, we beheld quite a spectacle. The starry sky formed a perfect dome above us. The now orange-red totally eclipsed moon was, of course, the main attraction. But we had plenty of other celestial wonders to discover alone together, recumbent in our pajamas at 3AM in the middle of the 10th fairway.

We identified the milky way and several constellations. We also saw shooting stars, a first for my daughter. Most were the rapidly fleeting kind, but one was a big slow-moving object that seemed to trail a long tail across the sky before finally evaporating.

I must admit that as we lay there, I was wondering about the schedule of the sprinklers and half expected our lovely time to be rudely interrupted by a sudden dousing of cold water. But we escaped them. Although a bit later, finally back in my warm bed, I did hear the sputterings and squirtings of them turning on. We had a narrow escape!

As we meandered back to bed at about 3:30 AM, my daughter told me that she would dream she was riding between Mars and Earth on a shooting star, sitting astride it and holding on to the top point.

I must say I really did feel like a “real” Mom of the Year as I, slightly damp but happy, tucked her back in bed and kissed her goodnight. Thank you Mr. N (her teacher) for encouraging us to break our routine and gaze at the moon in the middle of the night.

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By Mom Unplugged, August 27, 2007 9:52 pm

My second grade daughter came home from school today positively vibrating with excitement at the prospect of viewing the total lunar eclipse tonight.

I should have been overjoyed by my child’s excitement at the chance to observe first-hand a scientific wonder, a miracle of nature, becoming one with the universe for the very first time, etc. etc. etc. I should also have mentally applauded her new teacher for managing to instill in my daughter this voracious hunger for learning more about our universe.

My real mental first response: “Huh? Doesn’t all that happen at night? When I am enjoying my blessed few hours of solitude, comfortably asleep in my warm bed? Doesn’t it happen outside…where it is, well…cold? WHAT WAS MR. N. THINKING???”

My next thought was: “Can’t we just watch it online in the morning? Plus it’ll go faster and we won’t have to sit there for the full three and a half hours. We can’t Tivo or time lapse the real thing, plus we’ll freeze to death and be tired and crabby. With a time lapse webcam we could see the whole three and a half hours in about 20 seconds…and still get our sleep!”

I am ashamed of myself. Mom Unplugged indeed. Lover of nature and the outdoors, devoted to my children’s education…and it actually occurred to me to watch this great natural spectacle online in fast forward!! Or maybe on YouTube, like this version of the total lunar eclipse that occurred back in March.

I have reached a three-part mental compromise:

1) There are three skylights over my bed. If I wake up in the night and see the moon through the skylights, I will get my daughter and we can watch from the warmth of my bed. (In other words…she will be educated while I sleep. What could be better?)

2) If the moon decides to be stubborn and not position itself conveniently over my bed for its eclipse, then I will conduct a scientific analysis of the apparent cloud cover mathematically combined with my state of alertness, and then decide whether or not to get up and search for that naughty, uncooperative moon. (In other words…I might get to sleep. Hey, it might even be too cloudy!)

3) I sleep through the whole thing and I will have earned myself yet another Mom of the Year Award (In other words…I get to sleep, but with a guilty conscience.)

Some lunar eclipse links:

NASA’s Lunar Eclipse Page

Lunar Eclipses for Beginners

Eclipse Photos: Mr. Eclipse Photo Index

And finally…for those Poser Unplugged Moms like I evidently am, there is this link with instructions on where to go online to find that perfect, “virtual eclipse:”

Watch a Virtual Eclipse

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By Mom Unplugged, July 30, 2007 7:16 pm

I recently wrote a post about a child who decided to take it upon herself to solve a problem and make a difference in the world. See my post: Involved Kids . In this post, I mention how much easier it seems for children and young people to take action when they sense a need. Adults are often too caught up in the complexities of life to bother.

It was with thoughts of this recently written post fresh in my mind, that I came upon this article in Newsweek magazine: The Flames of Hope (Newsweek, July 16, 2007) about a Berkeley physicist who has invented a stove to be used in Darfur that burns 75% less firewood. This seems unremarkable, but when you consider the unimaginable price women pay to leave their camp to simply collect cookstove firewood in Darfur (rape, mutilation, 7 hours of travel - men can’t go for they would simply be killed), it is a huge asset.

Apparently physicist Ashok Gadgil received a call in 2004 from the U.S. Agency for International Development asking if he could design a press for turning the Darfurians trash into fuel pellets. Gadgil determined that this was not a feasible plan, but rather than give up and carry on with his affairs, he continued to consider the fuel problem. He eventually realized that instead of redesigning the fuel, he could re-engineer the stove. So he did.

The result is an efficient stove that produces the high heat necessary for cooking the Darfurian staple diet of onions, garlic, and okra, resists the strong local winds, and requires 75% less fuel. This of course means fewer risky foraging expeditions and less negative environmental impact from wood harvesting.

The plan is for the stoves to be built locally and rented by the refugees. Obviously this means that money is needed to develop workshops, buy tools, provide training, and purchase inventory for the manufacture of the stoves. If you want to learn more, the project’s website is: Darfur Stoves Project. By the way, just $20 will provide a stove for a Darfur family.

Obviously the ideal solution would be to end the horrible situation in Darfur. But in the meantime, this project seems that it could at least help improve the refugees’ living conditions to some small extent.

I find people like Mr. Gadgil and 14 year-old Savannah Walters to be truly inspirational. As one of my commenters on the Involved Kids post said about her young daughter:

“So far, I’ve decided the best way for her to learn is by example, and I need to do a better job of that.” - Jenny, of Wildwood Cottage

Well, so do I Jenny. Perhaps my blog can be a motivating force for me in my efforts to overcome inertia and do what I know is right: set a good example for my children by volunteering to help others. Unfortunately I can’t single-handedly “Save Darfur,” but hopefully I can instill in my children a conscience and a desire to do good in the world. If everyone on this planet simply did that, then perhaps another Darfur would be less likely to occur.

(The June 2007 Oprah Magazine also featured a small article about the project: Fueling Hope.)

Thanks to morguefile.com and photographer Mike Reid.

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By Mom Unplugged, June 16, 2007 4:46 pm

Since I am in “poetry mode” right now, let me tell you about a friend of mine. My good friend Wishy The Writer and her daughter have a lovely tradition that they began last summer. They take blankets and pillows to a shady spot outside. They pack some food and drinks and a few books of poems and head to their cozy outdoor spot for a Poetry Picnic.

As Wishy was telling me about this I was beginning to feel like an Inferior Mom. Here is Wishy, “A-List Parent,” exposing her daughter to the beauty of nature and poetry all while enjoying some Mother-Daughter quiet time. Here am I, “Tired Parent,” pushing my children out the door to hunt for bugs and ride bikes in the driveway so I can get a little peace and quiet.

Finally she put me out of my maternal misery by revealing the REAL origin of this plan - her urgent need for a nap! Wishy was so desperate for a nap that she hoped quietly lying together reading poetry might lull her daughter to sleep so she could get a nap herself, and it worked.

I am not into using comparisons with other Moms as a measure of my worth as a parent. However I am insecure enough as a mother to admit that I felt SO much better after discovering her much less altruistic motivation for this Mother-Daughter bonding session!

My real point here is that, whatever the reason behind it, a Poetry Picnic sounds like a lovely idea. So whether you want your child to go to sleep and leave you alone, or you genuinely want to experience the “poetry of nature” together, give it a try!

Here is a variety of reading suggestions to consider:

Please share your own favorites in a comment!

This post is part of The Sunday Garden Tour at A Wrung Sponge. Head over there to find more participants, or to add your own garden-related post. Happy Sunday!

(By the way for you gardeners: The photo at the top is a Sexy Rexy rose that is planted in a pot by my front door.)