Updates

Thanks to Kristin, Kristina, Julie, and Kai for coming to the meeting last night.

Krsitin is going to help me make the blog more interactive so that anyone interested can be registered to submit to the blog themselves. We are also going to change the "about me" to make it more about the group. Finally, we will start to work on on marketing to attract more viewers.

Keep working on the "this I believe" pieces.

Next meeting is Saturday July 18 at 8am at Catalyst on Drake and Shields.

Happy Writing!

Remembering Miles

Today is the anniversary of the birth/death of my son Miles. He would have been seven years old today.

How is it possible that so many years have passed when the pain is still raw and fresh. How is it possible that he has not aged a day and still is my newborn baby when my other children are now nine and four. How is it possible that my brother and his partner have planted seven years worth of trees in his honor.

Miles still lives with me, and secretly I consider myself to be a mother of three and not two. I still cannot understand why people don’t miss-ask-wonder about his absence. I still wish I could touch him and see what he would look like as a two year old, five year old, seven year old.

But I can’t. And my other children will be awake soon and I must get lunches made for camp. I will try not to let them see me cry. I am sorry I could not bring him safely into this word.

E

Next Meeting!

Hi All,

KUNC is accepting "this I believe" pieces... Shall we try to get some submitted?

Go to their website for further instructions!

Elisabeth

Congrats to Kristin!

Congratulations on your new blog! This blog describes eating experiences in Fort Collins! Everyone check it out and leave comments!

www.feastingfortcollins.blogspot.com

Elisabeth

Meeting Update

Thanks to Peggy and Julie for a great evening... It was fun just chatting at Cafe Vino.

Our next meeting is Thursday June 4th at 7 pm. The location is Genoa Coffee and Wine for you Southern folks. If anyone has a topic that they wish to write about let me know.

Keep writing!
Elisabeth

Fear Factor

Several years ago my two young daughters and I were laying on my bed one Saturday night. We were all comfy in our pajamas, we had our books in hand, the room was quiet and we were ready for a mother-daughter read-in. As we began reading, our cat begin meowing. It was a soft meow at first, which caused me no alarm as she continually wanted attention and I thought she was just demanding some petting. We all ingored her and went on with our reading. The meowing became louder and more relentless. She then began meowing with such a strange tone that it was really getting on my nerves. Exasperated, I put down my book, yelled “Sadie, shut up!” and took a quick glance her way. The visual of that night still sticks with me today. Our cat was batting her paw at a snake on my bedroom floor. This was what the frantic meowing had been about. Now, considering that the bedroom is on the second level of my house, and I am not in the habit of bringing snakes inside, I had no idea how the snake came to be on my bedroom floor. All I knew at that moment is that I was deathly afraid of snakes, and I would never be able to work up the nerve to catch it and remove it. I was already mentally preparing to move my family to a hotel to live until the snake was caught.

I quickly decided that my only chance at removing the snake was to coax one of my girls to do it for me. They were young and had not yet developed that horrible fear of snakes that many of us have. They still thought snakes were cool and interesting, and I was hoping that I could take advantage of their innocence. However, I knew that the only way my plan was going to work was that I would not be able to show any fear myself. I had to make it seem like it would be fun for one of them to catch the snake and carry it outside. I couldn’t allow them to see the absolute terror in my face or else they would potentially freak out on me, leaving us with our only other option: moving.

So, I nonchalantly called for Rachel, my oldest daughter, who was maybe 8 or 9 at the time, to “pick up the snake and take it outside where it will be happier.” I used my calmest voice. My verbal demeanor was that of “I would do it, but I’m a little busy right now, can you do it?” The same kind of voice I would have used to ask her to get something out of the fridge. No big deal, just get it done.

She obediently responded to my request and went to pick up the snake. I, of course, had to see with my own eyes that it was truly leaving our house, so I followed her down the stairs. Just as we reached the kitchen, the snake began wrapping it’s tail around her wrist. “Mom……”, she said in a tentative voice, “I’m scared, I can’t keep holding onto it.” Knowing that Rachel was my only hope, I shot her a quick, “don’t be silly, it’s not going to hurt you, just keep going.” I was praying that she could make it to the patio door before she panicked and dropped the snake on the floor, which would send me into my own episode of Fear Factor. I adopted the philosophy of “if I don’t show any fear, neither will she.” It was my only option.

I am pleased to report that many years later we are still living in the same house. Rachel made it to the patio door that night with the snake wrapped around her wrist, unraveled it from it’s grasp, and threw it into the backyard. She had accomplished a feat that for me at that moment was on the same magnitude as saving humanity.

Rachel still has no fear of snakes. In fact, she has a pet snake, which, ironically, is living in the same house with us right now. As for me, I gaze into it’s aquarium and look at it, but never touch it and never plan to. We occasionally talk about “the night of the snake” and laugh about it now. To this day none of us have any idea how it got into our house and into our second floor bedroom.

Peggy

Fear?

Dora the Explorer is interrupted with a honking warning sound as the emergency broadcast system is being tested. "Tomato!" "Tomato!" my daughter starts shouting and crying at the same time. She is 3 and thinks that this warning sound means that we are about to have a tornado. Not that she knows anything about tornados. She has never seen or been in one, I have never spoken about one, and I am not afraid of one happening here myself. But for some reason she thinks that something dangerous is about to happen - not to mention that they are only testing the emergency broadcast system.

How do we become afraid and more importantly how do we stop the fear. For her, it must be just an urgent and scary noise that has interrupted the normal dullness of the routine and Dora's perky quest to find the missing treasure. As we grow up we learn to fear things that seem to be more possible each day.

I hold her and reassure her and lie promising that we will never have a tornado here and that everything is fine and safe and that I will protect her forever. It seems to work for the time being, but I feel a little guilty with my promises, even though she is only three years old.

Now that she is nine, I still make promises that I cannot keep. When my mother died she immediately made the connection that I could die one day as well. I promised her that she will always be OK and that I wont die for a very long time. My four year old is unfased, "I am sorry your mother died he says, obviously mimicing what others before him have said. Then he says we are all going to die but not for a very long time", mimicing what I have said.

Everyone has fears. Here is my incomplete list: I am afraid of dying, leaving my kids, getting cancer, getting old, getting fat, getting Alzheimer's disease, spending too much money, losing a child, looking stupid, looking incompetent, dying in a plane crash, food poisoning, high fructose corn syrup, insomnia, and global warming.

We all have fears but we somehow manage to keep them at bay. If we did not, we couldn't function. I think it is because as humans we are stupid. We actually think that these things won't happen if we don't think about them. Some of us try to face our fears, but really what does that do. You know that old saying we have nothing to fear but fear itself - that seems ridiculous to me. There are a lot of things that we really should be afraid of. We just need to think about the reality - later.

That must be why we have TV! Television, whatever your poison be it the Real Housewives of Orange County or the Bachelor or Iron Chef allows us to not think about our fears. In fact, it is usually when I am lying in bed at night when the house is quiet and my husband begins to snore that I think about my list at all. The trick must be to keep occupied with all the other stuff. Maybe the interruption in Dora is what did it to my daughter. Maybe kids are smarter than we think.

Elisabeth