Posts Tagged ‘family life’
Family Bucket List Series. Volume 2. Issue 2
by Lisa Lipkind Leibow, Author of Smart Women’s Fiction
The idea for my summer vacation grew out of a family movie-watching experience. We saw the movie The Bucket List, starring Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson. In the film, the two main characters, being treated for terminal illnesses, decided to carry out every adventure on their bucket list before it’s too late.
Luckily, my entire family is happy and healthy. But we do have limited time. My oldest is entering high school in the fall. We decided that since we only have five more years with us all living under one roof that we would each make our own bucket list of the places we would like to travel together. Then we compared our lists and came up with our family bucket list.
Last summer, our first bucket list trip was a trip to the Grand Canyon and more. We flew to Phoenix, spent one night in Scottsdale. Drove from Scottsdale to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, stopping a Montezuma’s Castle along the way. After a night and a full day at the Grand Canyon, we headed to Lake Powell for two nights. Then toured Bryce, Zion, and capped it off in Vegas.
As I write this, I’m getting ready for this year’s Bucket List trip. We’re off to the beautiful Hawaiian Islands. I can’t wait! We’re going to visit the Big Island of Hawaii to explore lava tubes, snorkel, see lava flowing into the ocean, and stand on brand new earth. Next, we’ll hop over to Maui where we’ll drive the road to Hana – one of the last undeveloped areas of the island. I’ll have a chance to spend time with the kids in a bungalow on the beach—completely unplugged! I can’t wait. I’m looking forward to having a few adventures with my husband and kids, exploring new surroundings, and reenergizing.
Tell me, what’s on YOUR bucket list?
Best to you,
Lisa Lipkind Leibow
www.LLLeibow.com
LISA’S MONTHLY RANT: Happy Chaos Can Make Me Crazy!
I only have myself to blame… After all, I’m the parent, right. I should be the one who’s in control of the family schedule. And I hope you won’t think I’m shallow that I’m ranting about what I normally call the “happy chaos” that fills my life. However, sometimes the frenetic pace of making sure everyone is where they are supposed to be exhausts me. (Not to mention that I carry anxiety over missing an event, practice, or bringing the wrong boy to the right field at the wrong time – or other such mix-up).
If the kids’ team coaches and managers could give me schedule at the beginning of each season for practices and games, life would be easy. I could set up car pools with ease, schedule other family time and events around those activities.
But, for some reason, many of the extracurricular activities my children chose are managed by the scattershot approach. Little League baseball, Rec-league lacrosse, and even High School Baseball coaches seem to schedule practices on an ad hoc basis, making it next to impossible to arrange carpools, plan a week’s activities in advance, or know whether my child is available to attend a birthday party two weeks away.
The notion that the life of the “soccer Mom” (translated to include Dad’s, grandparents, or anyone who carts kids around to activities including but not limited to soccer) is a breeze is pure and utter crap. Any adult who acts as activities director for a child or children is likely to come away from the experience with skills to rival any Five Star General in charge of military logistics.
I understand that fields and practice space are at a premium, and sometimes weather gets in the way. However, for the life of me, I cannot figure out why these sports leagues cannot set a schedule in advance. Why must the coaches text or email the time and place of the next practice on a weekly or even daily basis. For goodness sake! Even if they just looked at last year’s schedule and modeled a new one after it. This would make the activities so much more family-friendly. (I’m begging my readers not to volunteer me for the job of making said-schedule. I do appreciate the volunteers who take on this task, I just wish they did it differently).
My kids love these activities and love to stay busy. Every time I mention how we are over-scheduled, the reaction from my boys is, “No, Mom! We like it!” They don’t seem to mind that they run from All County Chorus to a baseball practice, or from band or play practice to Lacrosse, from Religious school directly to a tennis lesson.
They have come to understand that if three boys with two parents wish to participate in all of these different activities, that sometimes a Mom or Dad will not be in the stands cheering them on – because instead, we’ll be with the other brothers.
I’m ranting, I know. But that’s all part of this monthly feature. Chime in! Fellow time-strapped parents unite!
Remind me that in the not-too-distant future, when my kids are in college, I won’t know what to do when I’m managing only my own activities and they’re in charge of their own. In the meantime, I’d love some tips for managing and improving my attitude over happy chaos.
Best to you,
Lisa Lipkind Leibow
Author of Smart Women’s Fiction
www.LLLeibow.com
WHAT MAKES A FAMILY?
A family need not be a mother, father, sister, brother. Thankfully, we live in a diverse world. Today, in any random-neighborhood, suburban street, or city block, a single mother with three children, might live next to a couple who, married for the second time, blended their families like The Brady Bunch. Across the street might live two, happily-married, gay men with their four-year-old, adopted daughter. Three houses down, a dual-income husband and wife have been married for years but struggle with infertility.
As the infertile couple works with a doctor, they are likely to investigate the myriad of options available for them to start a family. They might look into domestic and international adoption, they could try artificial insemination, or more invasive procedures, like in vitro fertilization. If the husband learns he has problems with sperm morphology or mobility, they might look into obtaining donor sperm. If the wife’s eggs are not viable, they might consider donor eggs. They might even begin to investigate opportunities to obtain donor embryos.
If successful, either in adopting or giving birth using assisted reproductive technologies, the infertile couple may raise a child not biologically-related to one or both of them. Back to my initial question: What makes a family? Certainly, biological relation does bind some to their families. However, it need not be a factor. To me, it doesn’t matter how the family came to be, unconditional love, support, a sense of belonging are the hallmarks of family.
What’s striking about my novel, Double Out and Back is that it explores from a literary perspective, some of the social issues faced by a generation that has more options than ever when it comes to starting a family. What fascinates me is that when it comes right down to it, even with the technological advancements in reproduction and healthcare, families still must rely on one another to thrive.
Special note: I love the new show Modern Family! I think the photo of the fantastic cast perfectly illustrated this article!
Best to you!
Lisa Lipkind Leibow
Author of Smart Women’s Fiction
www.LLLeibow.com
FATHER’S DAY: Hoping It’s the Thought That Counts.
Hoping it’s the thought that counts…
I detoured all of the way around (from 7th Street around to Independence, all the way back to 21st Street). We made it to the theater five minutes after curtain. We discovered that we could not be seated until intermission, and opted to leave, instead. What a wasted day! Ugh!