Creativity: A New View

Tapping your creativity is like staring at the stars: It's by looking indirectly that you see most clearly what you're looking for. So often I start a project by listing all the free associations my wee brain can produce about the subject. Then I'll research it. Next, however, I look a bit "to the side" of the topic, allowing even the threadiest of linked thoughts to come into focus. It's like overlaying other images on the main image to see what new picture develops. Seems like there's always something wonderful to see when you telescope your creativity all the way out!

Programming kids to be "can-do"ers

Some years ago, my then-hubs and I sponsored freshman cadets at the Air Force Academy. Sponsoring basically means giving them someplace to do laundry, wear real clothes and escape military college life on weekends. We were slack-jawed to discover that one of the girls we were assigned didn't know how to do her own laundry, chop an onion, sew on a button or pay more than the minimum balance on a credit card. Watching her learn to "do" life gave me the idea for The Program.

The Program is a method for giving my kids the gift of life skills. Here's how it goes:

On her 13th birthday, each daughter does her own laundry forever more. Prior to this day I teach her how to sort, what not to put in the dryer, how to hand wash and how to iron. I printed out some Laundry 101 guides from the Web. And - yes - I washed every scrap of their clothing the nights before their birthdays. Then I never do it again.

At age 14, they get the gift of learning to cook. Each kiddo is responsible for planning, cooking and cleaning up one meal a week. It's awesome now to have two nights off a week! And the girls' culinary skills and menus have grown from the time my oldest once presented a single-serving can of soup to feed the three of us. When the younger daughter and I presented her with empty bowls and our most pathetic Oliver Twist voices - "Please, suh, may i have some more?" - she threw a leftover sandwich at us and yelled, "There's the rest of your dinner!" Prepare yourself for some interesting meals early on; it gets better; then it gets great.

15 brings the gift of financial responsibility. I set up a debit card that's a one-way valve from my account and transfer allowance and lunch money weekly. There are phenomenal teen debit and checking programs out there (we like USAA and Wells Fargo) that won't let the kids overdraft. If there's no money, the sale is cancelled. I seeded the accounts with $15, having watched one of my daughter's friends mow through the generous amount of green her mother deposited into the daughter's first checking account. Although my teen sniffed at 15 bucks at first, she appreciated the value of it so much that she spent not a dime of it for many months and now has a healthy savings in addition to her spending money.

When they turn 16, my girls have to get a job. There's nothing like making your own money and being responsible to someone other than parents and teachers to help you discover your own bootstraps. And financial freedom is a beautiful thing.

We haven't reached the 17th-year milestone yet. I'm thinking the "gift" will be researching colleges and scholarships for a couple of set hours weekly. In this economy, that could be a full-time job!

life in the fast lane

I have a friend who keeps asking when my life is going to slow down. What I hear is, "When are you going to stop creating drama?" I know that's not what he's saying; it's just how it plays through my mind's ear trumpet. It flusters me, though, because my life must appear unmanageable to him. Maybe it's just that the goings-on in our house are a different speed than the goings-on in his and he dreads that shift into fourth gear that having older children brings. But it doesn't feel out of control to me. So why does his question get under my skin?

fur-ever

We have a new puppy. An adorable/incorrigible, gimlet-eyed/irksome, sandpaper-tongued/sharp-barking ruffian that makes it hard to remember life before her, even though she came home less than a month ago. I feel no shame in admitting I looooooooove her. She is life and light that our family needed.

Our friends had warned us, "It's like having a baby, but without the diapers." I took her out every two hours, round the clock, the first couple of weeks. This morning we had a revelation: She might, might be able to sleep through the night if we’d stop trying to interpret her every toss and turn. Yep, it’s a lot like having a baby. Concern for her peppers my day: Is she napping enough? Is she eating too much? Are we socializing her properly? Will she turn out okay? The same thoughts that swirled about my children years ago now absorb me about this new addition. It’s not lost on me that my teens are phenomenally interesting and well adjusted and kind people AND I can’t take credit for all of their goodness. But I don’t see the dog as a fresh start or new opportunity, either. Just a new little someone to love as best I can.

That I know I can do.

Too see-through?

Is it possible to be too transparent? In this day of tweets and custom status messages on everything from AIM to Facebook, it seems ironic there's still such a thing as TMI. You set your status to something you hope will invite curiosity clicks and chats, but – people being people, no matter what new technology they're clothed in – there are still boundaries. It's the emperor's new clothes, 2.0 style.

I'm writing this as a note to self. I forget, repeatedly, that people much prefer chirpy chatter to the real thing. I make the mistake of confusing someone's genuine-sounding "How are you?" with "How are you, really?" It would make both of our lives easier if I'd remember to clothe my conversations in something my grandmother would approve of.

But that leaves me wondering how we strip off the layers to our authentic selves. Are our twitterings the real stuff of life or the appearance of the real stuff of life? How do we truly connect unless we actually undress? Perhaps that's my lesson: Not only do I take it all off too quickly, I do in front of a crowd what's better left for a private audience.