Learning How Not to Keep Time with The Time Keeper

A Blog and Book Review

By: Elizabeth Redhead Kriston

Listening to audiobooks has opened up my world. Because I use the free service from my local library and download audio files via the Overdrive app, my selections are limited. This has caused me to explore genres and authors and topics I would otherwise pass by in the bookstore. When it’s free, it’s easy and painless to try out something new.

Mitch Albom, best-known for his nonfiction work Tuesdays with Morrie, has written several novels over the span of his career. His little novel, The Time Keeper, popped up as “available now” on my search feed in my Overdrive app so, I clicked “checkout” and downloaded the book.

I also place a back-up in my queue because I was certain, based on the description, this fable would not be to my liking. I was wrong.

While it is far from my favorite book ever, I enjoyed Albom’s storytelling as he imagined how time was invented and why. Through the narrator, the reader is introduced to a precocious boy who live thousands of years ago who allowed his wonder and curiosity to allow him to first notice the predictability of the movements of the sun and moon and then invent ways to measure those cycles between day and night. Without realizing or even having a name for it, he invents time.

Time it turns out is not as helpful as we know believe it to be. In fact, Albom takes the reader on a journey over millennia to teach us that by counting the seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years, we are denying ourselves the pure pleasure of living. Deep, right?

We learn this lesson through the yearning of one modern-day elderly man to live forever and the desire of one modern day teen to die young.  Albom uses great imagination and deft writing skills to keep the reader engaged in this sometimes wildly magical and mostly improbable story. Rather than question the possibility of who and what Albom supposed Father Time to be, I wanted to hear the story. Happily, I stuck with it through the very last word.

If it had been a longer novel, or if the fantastical elements had gotten much grander, I am certain I would have clicked “return” on my app, but it was just the right length. By the end, I did what Albom intended. I reexamined my own use of time.

I tend to measure my success by how efficiently I use my time. Time management is a skill that I have proudly mastered. Time management is an ability I encourage my children to grasp. Throughout my day there is rarely a minute that I am not doing something. Typing blogs, cleaning, cooking, organizing, working, reaching out to family and friends, walking or exercising, planning, etc, are all the things I am constantly doing.

As a result, when I run out of things to do one of two things happens. I get antsy and bored. I crash and burn. It is so hard for me to sit and just be. It is so hard for me to just watch, listen, think, feel and be still at the same time. Albom, in the conclusion of The Time Keeper, takes us back to before time existed and reminded us how one would just exist between sunrise and sunset enjoying just being. No one checked watches or looked at schedules. No one was driven to do for productivity’s sake. Things were done for necessity, not success.

Albom writes, “When you are measuring life, you are not living it.” So I am going to take this wisdom and work on using my time differently. I will take more time to just think, to just observe, to just feel, to just sit, to just listen, to just be.

Rush- Time Stand Still

I'm not looking back

But I want to look around me now

See more of the people

And the places that surround me now

Time stands still

Summer's going fast

Nights growing colder

Children growing up

Old friends growing older

Freeze this moment

A little bit longer

Make each sensation

A little bit stronger

Experience slips away 

Experience slips away 

The innocence slips away

Ways to Learn to Just Be: 

(No electronics is required)

1. Meditation
2. Do yoga without goals or competition
3. Walk or hike in the quiet of early morning or evening
4. Sit in nature. Take in all the sites, smells, and sounds. 
5. Fish on a quiet lake or stream
6. Sit in a sunny spot with tea. Taste the tea and feel the sun on your skin.
7. Pet your dog or cat or hamster or snake or turtle or bunny
8. Garden. Feel and smell the dirt. Notice the plants and colors and growth.
9. Watch a sunset or a sunrise
10. Stargaze
11. Kayak especially in early morning or at dusk
12. Float in a pool or lake
13. Massage
14. Draw, paint, sculpt for the process, not the product
15. Cook for the pleasure of creating food
16. Knit, crochet, sew, embroidery, hook and yarn rug making
17. Play a musical instrument
18. Lie in a hammock under a tree
19. Camp rustically not with bells and whistles
20. Soak in a tub
21. Sit on a bench and people watch. Try not to judge or mock, just watch
22. Journal

Okay, now that I have my list I better get to it because I am running out of time. Sigh… This is going to be harder than I thought.

Tell me the ways you like to just be

Learn about Overdrive here

Chips and Chocolate: Nutrition Be Damned

By: Elizabeth Redhead Kriston

Stages of Parenting and Feeding your Child:

• Infancy: Keep them alive with constant feedings, sleeping, and diaper changes. Believing that they will always gobble down the food you provide without complaint. Start introducing one smooth food at a time. Duck when they make raspberries with a mouthful of sweet potatoes.
• Toddlerhood: Keep them alive with childproofing everything and never letting them out of your sight. Convince them to eat something other than yellow foods (fries, chicken nuggets, mac & cheese). Duck when they throw their plates to express displeasure with the broccoli and salmon you tried to sneak in.
• Preschool years: Answer incessant “why” questions. Try to get them to eat “grown-up” foods by letting them help cook. Avoid sharp knives and open flames. Have a dog to eat the messes.
• Early school years: Try to keep-up with all the school programs and parties. Navigate all the weird food rules instituted by the school. Pack them healthy lunches and snacks.
• School years: Try to keep up with all the homework and after-school activities. Relent and let them buy cafeteria food. Try to make at least one family meal a week.

My Reality

My 13-year-old packs a bag of chips and a sugary, chocolate protein bar for lunch, and I am happy. I am not happy with her food selections. I am just happy she is eating something, midday, at school.

Feeding your child is essential to keeping her healthy and alive. In fact, children who refuse to eat or struggle with eating safely cause parents the highest degree of stress and worry. If our kids won’t eat doesn’t that mean we have failed at the most basic parenting skill?  The answer is no, but that's a hard pill to swallow.

When my girls were little, I was determined to feed them what I considered to be healthy foods. As a result of my health issues, I learned to cook all my meals from scratch. Seriously, take time to read ingredient labels. It is horrifying to see what companies categorize as edible. Why didn’t I know this earlier?

Wanting my kids to grow-up appreciating, and maybe even craving healthy food choices, I embarked on a one-sided mission to get them to be organic, fresh food connoisseurs who would turn their noses up to Twinkies and Doritos as they reached for the hummus and organic carrots.

I say it was one-sided because my husband was not willing to give up his Heinz ketchup replacing it with plain tomato paste. I tried to convince him was just as tasty. He wanted French fries, not roasted broccoli. He wanted his chips to be made from potatoes, not kale. Despite his groans and mockery, I pushed on. It did not take long for him to decide that grocery shopping should be his job. He took on the cooking duties and has morphed into a stellar home chef.

While he was in charge of dinner, I took over breakfast and lunch duties. Believing that breakfast is the “most important meal of the day”, I served my girls as healthy a selection of foods as I could manage. I made sure they had a protein and a fruit with their beloved carbs. They wanted Pop Tarts, I served them whole wheat toast with all-natural peanut butter. They wanted sugar cereal, I served them oatmeal, with nuts, fruit, and a drizzle of honey. They wanted frozen waffles with syrup, I served them homemade whole wheat and nut waffles with real maple syrup. They wanted chocolate milk, I served them unsweetened almond milk.

For lunch, they wanted Lunchables, Hot pockets, and Uncrustables. When they realized I wasn’t budging, they begged to buy school lunches. They turned their noses up at the leftovers or sandwiches, vegetables, fruit, and water I packed them.

Click for info on school lunch regulations

To combat their grumbling and protests, I taught them about real nutrition and healthy eating, not the nonsense they teach at school. As we shopped the perimeter of the grocery store or perused the options at the Farmer’s Market, I would argue that I knew more than any food pyramid could teach. In response, they’d wave the weekly cafeteria menu in my face to prove that French fries, syrupy fruit cups, and frozen pizza had to be healthy otherwise the "school wouldn’t be allowed to serve them." Why else would the school breakfasts have donuts and sugar cereal as options if they weren’t "healthy," they would whine. Despite their pushback, I persevered.

I persevered, that is, until they defeated me. A year ago, I had to cave. My girls were no longer toddlers and preschoolers. They no longer were the elementary school kids that I could control. No, they had grown-up and became self-sufficient. They had taken my years of advice and learned to think for themselves. They no longer retorted my inquiries with a shrill “because I want to” or “because I don’t want to.” Now when they disagree with me, they simply do things their way.

My 16-year-old refuses to eat breakfast. I continue to wave food under her nose each morning hoping she will relent and start her day off right. She gags and pushes it away not hiding her annoyance. Nonetheless, I feel victorious when I watch her pack a healthy sandwich made on sprouted whole wheat bread, raw organic carrots and snap peas with a fresh apple in her lunch. She has always chosen a crisp apple over a cookie. Yeah, she’s weird.

My younger one took a different approach. She stopped eating the healthy lunches I lovingly packed each morning. She decided that starving herself was preferable to choking down the fresh fruit, guacamole, and homemade baked tortilla chips I provided. She would rather eat a box of cookies than an apple. Yeah, she’s normal.

After discovering that the rotting corpse smell her backpack emitted was not her gym shoes, but rather the moldy and putrefied remains of her lunches, I agreed to let her pack her own lunches. I accepted that my days of controlling her diet were over. I grew up eating Dandee Cheese Twisties, Frozen Sunday Crunch bars, and Nutty Buddy bars for lunch most days and I am still alive. As she fills her lunch box with pretzels, protein bars (it makes me feel better), tortilla chips and a water, I bite my tongue and stifle my comments. At least she is eating something and her backpack no longer smells like road kill on a hot summer’s day.

I make sure my girls get healthy dinners. It helps me to sleep better at night. My kids eat almost everything we serve them at dinner. They watch us cook healthy foods. They join us at the grocery store so they are learning how to buy quality foods. I hope when they move on, that they will choose to nourish themselves with delicious whole, homemade food.

When I start to falter in my resolve to allow them to decide what they will eat, I remind myself of all the families I have worked with over the years who are heartbroken that their children can’t or won’t eat. My kids eat. I need to take that as a win and move on.

***If your child has a feeding or swallowing disorder you are not alone. Lots of good information and help exists. Please consult with your pediatrician and contact a speech-language pathologist who specializes in these disorders. ASHA has great information at:

 https://www.asha.org/public/speech/swallowing/Feeding-and-Swallowing-Disorders-in-Children/

Modern Girls Then and Now: A Book Review

By: Elizabeth Redhead Kriston

I know in my intellectual mind that learning history is important. It is crucial that we understand how things were then so that we can make better choices in the here and now. So why is it that I’ve always loathed reading about and learning about the history of our world?

Historical fiction has solved this problem! Reading stories of fictionalized people, or even real people in fictional situations, I have become quite the connoisseur of history. Sometimes a biography or a memoir will keep my attention, but historical fiction almost always captivates me.

Modern Girls by Jennifer S. Brown has opened my eyes to the plight of Jewish immigrants in the 1930’s. With war looming and the genocide of millions of Jews imminent, Brown delves into the lives of the Krasinsky family. At the cusp of Nazi Germany exploding into the murderous monster it became, we get to take a moment and witness how two women come to terms with a much more personal tragedy.

Dottie, just 19, and Rose, 42, are mother and daughter living on the lower east side of NYC. Dottie launches into her adult life excited by her bright future as a working professional woman and soon to be wife to a man she loves dearly. Rose too is on the brink of a new life. Having raised her children, she is looking forward to putting her energy back into her activist’s heart making a difference in her community by helping Jews emigrate from Europe before things deteriorate completely.

Both women must put their futures on hold when they become unexpectedly pregnant. Brown allows Dottie and Rose each to tell her own story with her own voice and thoughts. The reader gets to understand each woman’s internal struggle and how she resolves her own situation.

Rose and Dottie rely on each other, their paramours, and their friends to support and guide them through this journey of self-discovery and hard choices. Ultimately, each woman makes her own decision that allows her to move forward with the fewest personal regrets. These women are fiercely devoted to their religious traditions and their family. Somehow, they must learn to put themselves first while balancing their beliefs.

Brown touches on many themes: class struggle, women’s role in the workplace vs. the home, men’s expectations of women, religion, war, family, fashion, traditions. All of these themes remain relevant today. While immersing myself in Dotie and Rose's stories, I could not help but ponder how a woman in today's world would handle the same situation with similar circumstances. Presumably, the stigma of being pregnant late in life, or being young, pregnant, and single is much less. Nonetheless, other issues still cloud one’s ability to make an easy choice. Having the courage to decide what is best for you despite the pressures from the surrounding world will always be impossibly difficult.

As some of the laws regarding what a woman can choose for their bodies start to be retracted, as single mothers are given less and less aid, as men continue to be able to walk away from the children they father, as religious ideals continue to dictate decisions about birth control and marriage, one must ask, "Has all that much really changed?

I recommend this book for both the beautifully told story as much as for the thought-provoking issues that guide Dottie and Rose. I not only learned a bit more pre-war history and became familiar with the lifestyle and plight of the Jewish community of1930’s NYC, I discovered that, even with time and advances, somethings always remain the same. Modern girls then and now are saddled with hard choices.

Don’t Wash His Mouth Out with Soap: Why Toddlers Swear

By: Elizabeth Redhead Kriston, MS/CCC-SLP

***This Blog post was originally written for and purchased by Parent.co. It never ran due the absorption of that site by Mother.ly

“Look at my fire f**ck,” exclaimed the exuberant two-year-old I had just met. He was shaking his new prized truck at me as he beamed with pride. Red faced, his mother apologized for her son’s foul mouth before chastising him for swearing.

When I asked another family if their cherubic looking tot said any words, the parents became visibly nervous as they twisted uncomfortably in their seats and blushed. They looked at one another as if asking for permission to share some deep, dark family secret, and then blurted-out, in unison, “She says shit, a lot. We don’t know why she says it. We don’t talk like that around her. Why would she say shit? What’s wrong with her? She won’t say mom, but she says shit all the time.”

It turns out that this little girl was not trying to swear or even tell others to use the bathroom. No, she was simply a conscientious hostess at 18 months and wanted everyone to be comfortable so she directed others to “sit.” See, she was being thoughtful and kind not weirdly concerned about bowel movements

I can’t help but feel pride when I share my foul mouth toddler’s story with these families. My daughter had an unexplained affinity for sticks. No expensive toy could replace her constant search for and obsession with sticks. The only thing that calmed her or entertained her was shaking a stick, dragging a stick, hitting things with sticks, etc.…

She was a new talker at this time and had not mastered the skill of clear speech. Saying one consonant in a word was hard enough, but two in a row was impossible. So of course, whenever she spoke of her beloved sticks, the “st” sound did not come out quite right. Her “st” morphed into a lonely “d” sound.

Despite her inability to produce all the sounds in the American phonetic system, she did have a rich vocabulary. She was able to use adjectives like big, long, and brown to describe her sticks. She also loved to tell everyone about her sticks. Strangers and loved ones alike were regularly regaled by her mellifluous descriptions of her favorite toy.

My husband and I, having been blessed with twisted senses of humor, found this to be an amazing opportunity to shock others and make ourselves laugh until we couldn’t breathe. So, at every opportune moment we would prompt our daughter to tell others all about her favorite toy. Ever obliging when it came to talking about her sticks, she would toddle up to strangers (with our close supervision of course) and shake her newest stick at them. With a twinkle in her vibrant blue eyes the words would spill from her cupid’s bow mouth, “Wook at my big, brown, d**k! Do you wike my d**k. It’s a wong “d**k”

Stunned and bit concerned, the stranger would inevitably begin to stammer as they inched away, hands up and waving like they were trying to swat away her little words not wanting to talk to my baby girl about her “big, brown d**k.” We feigned apologetic looks as we unsuccessfully tried to stifle our laughter. Once the stranger disappeared, we would saunter on down the beach or through the park looking for our next victim.

Occasionally, I will meet a toddler that could make a sailor blush (is that metaphor still okay to use?), and that’s because that’s how their parents talk. Think Ralphie in A Christmas Story. Though most parents may not swear in creative strings of cusses as they try to fix a temperamental furnace, children will pick-up a rarely uttered expletive. Kids tend to learn words more quickly when they are hollered with passion. So, when mom drops a carton of eggs or smacks her thumb with a hammer and blurts out a passionate “F**K,” every toddler with in ear shot will mimic that word.

Most kiddos do not describe their toys with graphic words. The ones who do imitate words heard from the fouled mouth parents don’t really know what they are saying, at least not at first. If adults react to these mistakes with disapproval or even laughter it will nurture that word. Then they’ll have a toddler who says bad words to get a rise out the adults in her life. For the most part, the curses of our toddlers are innocent mistakes.

Why your Child Says F**k for Truck and Other Mistakes

Learning to talk is a tricky business. I argue it is the most complicated skill a baby must learn. It involves the coming together of nearly all of our body's intricate systems with precision. Our bones, muscles and breath, must be strong and healthy. Our memory and knowledge must be sharp. Our neurological system must be firing and wired.

If anyone of these things is not working just right, learning to communicate with words is hard if not impossible. Little toddler brains are still developing. All of those systems are learning to work together in synchrony so that a first-word and then an expansive vocabulary of words can be known and then said.

Practice makes perfect in all skills we develop. A baby doesn’t just walk, they have to go through a series of milestones to slowly and methodically develop the strength, balance, and coordination to walk and then run. Speech is the same, but harder.

Experts have been studying language for centuries. It wasn’t until the mid to late 20^th century that scientists in the fields of cognition and language explained what to expect in typical speech development, and why toddlers sound so funny when they talk. Toddlers change their speech in predictable ways to allow them to communicate their thoughts, wants, and needs until all those systems develop and coordinate.

Some Predictable Patterns

·        

      The littlest of speakers delete weak syllables and say things like “nana” for “banana.”

·         Many first words have an added vowel or a duplicated syllable like when mom becomes “mommy” or bottle becomes “bubba”

·         Most kids will eventually leave off sounds (final consonant deletion) at the ends of words so “juice” becomes “ju.”

·         Bringing the end sound up to the front is another common error. That’s why your kid calls for the “gog” not the “dog.” Assimilation is one term for this sound change pattern.

·         The “f**k” for “truck” scenario is a bit more complicated to explain. I won’t bore you with the details of Fronting, Deaffrication and/or Cluster Reduction, but trust me when I say, “it’s okay.”

·       Some sounds we say by letting air out in a stream like /sh, s, f/. Others we say with bursts of air like /b, t, d/. Young kids have trouble controlling airflow for sounds like “s” so they use a bursting sound like “d” instead. This is called stopping that’s one explanation of how “stick” turns into “d**k.”

·        Many sounds are made toward the front of our mouths like “b” and some are made in the back of the mouth like “g.” Sometimes the front and back distinction is subtler like “sh” is more front than “s.” Toddlers learning to talk might lean toward making sounds more toward the front also known as fronting. In this case “sit” will become “shit.”

There are many more normal speech patterns that new speakers use. Most resolve by 3-5 years of age. While many families express concern with the “baby talk” stage, most mourn it when it fazes out. I for one am glad that my daughter no longer plays with sticks, but I do miss using her as a pawn in my quest to find humor in the world.

The best thing to do when your kid swears is to ignore it. The other option is to run with it and make your kid swear at everyone who will listen because before you know it the baby talk will disappear.  You’ll wake-up one day and find yourself standing face to face with your teenager who just blurted an expletive that was perfectly clear and intended. That, I promise, is not so cute.

Find books to help kids learn to speak clearly at www.dynamic-resources.org. Look for the Word Menders Series.

Check this chart for more on phonological processes: http://www.playingwithwords365.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Common-Phonological-Processes-Chart.pdf

Gnocchi, Opera, Fashion and Love: The Shoemaker's Wife Book Review

By: Elizabeth Redhead Kriston

From the Italian Alps to the streets of NYC’s Little Italy to the Iron Ranges of Minnesota, I enjoyed following the saga of two children as they grew-up and spent their lives searching for true love.

In AdrianaTrigiani’s epic novel, The Shoemaker’s Wife, Enza and Ciro overcome every type of obstacle. While battling poverty and overcoming devastating losses, the star-crossed loves embark on their separate lives after being unexpectedly separated just as they first found each other beside the grave of Enza’s beloved baby sister. Despite brief encounters over the course of several years, Enza and Ciro are plagued with life circumstances, missed opportunities, and misunderstandings before they finally surrender to their love.

Both left their mountain villages to find work and success in America. Leaving their families behind, as teenagers they embark on careers in New York City. One becomes a master shoemaker and the other becomes an expert seamstress. After years of hard living, Ciro, by chance, finally gives into his undeniable love for Enza moments before she walked down the aisle to marry a man she liked, but didn’t love.

This epic novel by Trigiani is my first taste of her writing. The storyline, with its ubiquitous theme of unrequited love, was reimagined by Trigiani as she penned a unique and beautiful story with rich characters, beautiful settings, and intricate detail woven into the story of Ciro and Enza. This romance novel contained elements that replicated historical fiction, my favorite genre.

At times, Trigiani’s use of intricate details became cumbersome. Overall, I could not help but feel I was there with Ciro and Enza smelling, seeing, touching, and feeling along with them. The fashions and architectural details, the music and food all play major roles in this saga. You will leave this book craving the rustic flavors of fluffy potato gnocchi drenched in sage butter and cream, or warm milk with egg and a drop of brandy. You will want to listen to Enrico Caruso’s operatic voice. You will long to swim in and skate upon the lakes of Minnesota.

Ciro and Enza’s lives are touched by numerous individuals who each have their own unique and interesting stories. From family members to nuns to opera stars to other immigrants, the cast of characters that Trigiani wove into this novel are truly unique and special. Each person helped to shape the lives of Enza and Ciro, ultimately making their love possible.

Once Enza and Ciro unite, the story continues as we are given the gift of knowing how their lives playout. It is so rare that a book or movie allows the audience to become part of the happily ever after. The reality is that most stories end when the commitment begins because what happens after the “I dos” can be messy and sometimes painful. Trigiani gifts her readers with the whole story, and it did not disappoint. Each storyline in the book is resolved so the reader does not turn the last page feeling disappointed or wanting for more.

Listening to the rich stories narrated by Orlagh Cassidy as I drove to and from work kept my mind busy while she entertained me with her masterful depictions of the large cast of characters. Each player had a unique voice and accent which made the story come to life. I will never need to see a movie version after having had the pleasure of listening to the audio adaptation of this amazing story.

TheShoemaker’s Wife is the first of Trigiani’s novels I have read. It surely will not be my last.

Enrico Caruso Sings "O Sole Mio"