Favorites on Friday -- Harper

I love HarperCollins, who brought CHOSEN to life as a hardcover and last month, in paperback, and I am having a great time on the blog tours with TLC and ChickLitPlus, but this post is about another Harper debut, my sweet niece born on 11/11/11 at 11:11 who has me smitten. Harper Ford

What a fantastic sister I have to not only move from the Caribbean to the PA farmhouse in the apple orchard only a hundred yards from my front door with her instant playmate daughter for my daughter, Piper's 'sister-cousin', but then to give birth to another sweet baby who brings magic and her angel sphere to our life every day. 

My love for babies is no secret--I will travel to orphanages in Eastern Europe to hold babies and have cherished that early time with each of my three. There is a frequent revisiting of this issue in the Hoffman House (captured in my article "Are You Done?") a constant questioning about whether or not this sphere will only visit our house in the form of nieces and nephews from now on... 

Harper in our lives is all the fun of baby time--walking up to steal her away for a prolonged visit at our house while my sister sleeps, play with her, and then the ability to drop her back off if she squawks too much.

What a gift for my kids as well! I knew Piper would love her (and accelerate her campaign big time for Piper and Harpera baby sister of her own) and Max has always been obsessed with babies, but one of my biggest delights was when Hayden held her for the first time. 

Hayden is a great big tough ten-year-old now, bustling from hockey games to researching rare reptiles to hip-hop dance class and interested in all things Flyers and Lego. I put a week-old Harper in his arms during our extended family's Sunday Night Dinner, and her pure innocence and magic touched something in him--he started laughing, the delicious, uncontrolled, joyful chortling of his toddlerhood, a hearty belly- laugh I haven't heard from him in ages. It didn't stop--he just kept laughing, marveling over her toes, her tiny fingers clutching his, the way she dreams with dramatic rapid eye movement, lids open...  

Today, my favorite thing on Friday is Harper, and the rest of her lovely family, the gift of getting to raise my family in this extended village, and be the doting auntie to its newest member. 

Auntie C and Harper Ford

Weekly Dog Blog -- Sampson, 9 Weeks

Age: 9.5 weeks

Weight: 30.4 lbs

Yes, you read that correctly. In his first three weeks home, Sampson has almost doubled his body weight. 

The past week and a half have flown by with my husband's birthday and the arrival of my sister's family as they transition from full time Caribbean life to a US existence. I have hardly known how to handle myself, so many exciting things at once. If you haven't  read This POST about the fabulousness that is my sister, you might not get how giddy this makes me, to have her family shouting distance away... 

Piper and Quinn with their ongoing painting projectAnd Piper has been thrilled to have my sister's daughter Quinn, her sister-cousin. Both girls agree that Sampson's chewy phase is unwelcome. He loves following the little girls' flouncing skirts and thinks their delicious, sun-warmed forearms are just ripe for nibbling. Perched up on the kitchen counter out of the way of Sampson the other night, Piper told me:

"I have decided I don't want a puppy. I want a dog. The worst Jonah ever did was shake his wet on me."

Throughout this time of helping their family to settle in, Sampson has been a game little shin-high compadre, toddling cheerfully between their new house and ours. He should be relishing his final moments indoors at Casa Nowak because the white carpet comes tomorrow and it's not going to be much longer that J can do this: Over the Shoulder Puppy Holder

In addition, this past week we had our annual family reunion--a tradition my maternal grandparents started more than 50 years ago. From these two people, who had seven children, there are now 72 relatives--their children, grandchildren and great-grands with three new babies due. This year, we decided to hold it locally, literally in the common property. My grandfather celebrated his 90th birthday yesterday and we are all feeling blessed to have him as this winter he underwent treatment for cancer and beat it. The day before the fesitivities began, he played his first full round of golf. This is the cake my sister and I made to celebrate my grandfather's return to one of his favorite pasttimes:

Grandpa's Golf Cake

 Because of my grandparents' belief in family, because of them starting this tradition, my children know their second cousins more intimately than most people know their firsts. It was so fun to see the twenty great grandchildren traveling in a pack, fishing and bouncing and running wild. Sampson got to be underfoot for much of the family festivities in the backyard, scavenging under banquet tables, frolicking with my cousin's two-year-old Bernese Mountain dog and snuffling small cousins.

Our typical 4 am pre-dawn walks were spent restocking the hidden treasures for the weekend-long scavenger hunt and Sampson was a game little companion, sniffing out . In order to control him in such a crowd and monitor his bacon intake, I started attaching a leash to his collar. He mostly dragged it or carried it proudly in his mouth, but it was a start.

There was also time for a little bit of this--early morning writing with my sweet boy at my feet: 

BUT ENOUGH ABOUT THE FAMILY THIS WEEK... WHAT HAS BEEN HAPPENING WITH SAMPSON?

Holy Biter, Batman!

When I was growing up, conventional wisdom was that when a dog nipped or bit, you 'popped' them under the chin. Never over, so they wouldn't see it coming or get head-shy of petting. This doesn't jive with our parenting style or who we are as people so I have been researching some non-violent approaches to keep Samps from being too bitey with the under-four set. 

1. LICK

In this, we coat Piper's palm with a smear of peanut butter, and then she calls Sampson to her and tells him to 'lick', while repeatedly praising him. The idea is that when he runs up to her, mouth open, she can hold out her palm and say 'lick', and he will do that instead. This has about a 35% success rate. The rest of the time, he just looks at her incredulously like, "Wow, you're giving it to me? It's more fun when I chase you down and you squeal but okay..." before chomping down with his needle teeth. 

2. "YIPE"

So when that doesn't work, we have tried to teach her to 'yipe', high pitched and loud, like one of his litter-mates, to give him the message that that's too much. If you know Piper, and her big-eyed, soft-spoken ways, you know that this only works when I am right there and 'yipe' for her.

3. Mama Dog Says NO

This is another one that is only effective when I am around and comes straight from the Dog Whisperer. When he gets her, I make my fingers into a claw/jaw and close them over his skull like a mama dog's jaw and hold it there making a low growl until he lets go. This is the most effective of the three, though nothing quite beats the foolproff way of keeping Piper from getting nipped--carry her; everywhere. 

If you have a great puppy-training method, I'd love to hear it! 

Favorites on Fridays: Sisters

I remember when I found out my second child was a boy, a brother for my firstborn son, a friend shared this bit of wisdom with me: It is more important to have a brother for your boy than a sister for your girl. I asked why and she said, "Because women are typically better at finding other women to fill the sister relationship but most men's default best friend is their brother." 

And after thinking about it awhile, I would agree--with a sister who lives abroad it has been necessary to find other women to fill the everyday sister role. There are a handful of friends who are 'sisters in the village of childrearing' in ways I cherish immensely. I can show up at Beth's door which she opens in PJs to fold my children easily into her family if I have to dash off to a last-minute event or doctor's appointment, a friend I am sure to call in an "I'm at the Supergiant, do you need anything?" way. Beth's always up for a walk to the playground and thrift barn; our children walk the quarter mile between our homes daily.

Locally there are many friends whose kids fit right into my crowd for a game of pick-up soccer and jam-making while their mamas go off to yoga. My three children anticipated Jessica's new baby like a long-awaited fourth sibling and there's a large crowd of women with whom I cherish conversation about kids, husbands, education, health, cooking, crafts, fitness, literature, vocations and avocations. There have also been many long-distance 'sisters' I have met over the years who have cheerleaded me and my dreams, who have been a part of my journey. 

Then there are the sisters I get to have because my brothers chose them--women who enrich my life with the differences of our backgrounds, fading as our shared history becomes longer and more significant.

While I cherish these friends, these other sisters and their unfailing support and love, their perfectly timed phone calls, their insights and thoughtfulness, the deep affection I have for each of them and their families, I call them 'sisters' meaning they are dear friends, because in truth there is nothing quite like a sister. 

After seven years and three brothers of waiting, Linden Ford finally came into my life. I remember knowing, on some innate level that my life was changing.

 I loved this baby with a fierceness unparalleled; loved bossing her around and dressing her up. With such an age difference, we bypassed the competition that sometimes plagues sisters, but we also missed sharing the same interests at the same time, converging only on horses, two years before I left for college. 

Seven years--the gap took awhile to fill and we grew up in different times, with different friends. But sometime in college, it all fell away and I saw in her a steadiness and surprising maturity, and even better, realized our shared history and genetics.

I consider myself blessed to have recognized that in my sister, I have a best friend who knows what I mean with the barest shorthand of words, who wants everything for me that I want for her, with whom I can dish about family without feeling like I need to add any disclaimers, who gets it.

JULY 1983--Seven Mile Beach

We are not exactly the same; but similar enough in voice that we can fake out our husbands on the phone, trick each other's newborns so long as we hold them facing out. She is far more savvy and stylish than I am, a rule-follower who plays her hand closer to her chest, who actually thinks before she speaks.

Linden in Roatan 2006,

As the years go by, we grow even more similar, in tone, appearance, priorities and aspirations. I am proud of the woman she is, of the honesty in our friendship, of all the ways she surpasses me, of the ways we complement each other, how roles can reverse and flip back (I used to dress her up--now it's the other way around!) with no worries...

 Linden and me, selling tickets at Hurricane Katrina benefit concert...

We can hold each other up, dust each other off, look at each other with honesty while dreaming of the future, revamping and revising, laughing hysterically...

Now we are mothers together, two little girls who despite the physical distance, share all the closeness, the drama, the understanding and compatibility of sisters...

Piper visiting newborn Quinn , 2008

The truth about sisters: we can always, always pick up exactly where we leave off.

FULL CIRCLE:  Quinn (2) and Piper (3),

reunite this Thanksgiving weekend

Today, every day, one of my favorite things is my sister... 

Sisters in Writing...

I have recently met some new fellow moms/writers on the website SheWrites. 

I feel so fortunate to be sharing the journey with these two debut novelists, Lori Tharps and Ilie Ruby and just wanted to take a moment to shout out their books:

Lori Tharps

Though Lori has other publishing credits to her name ("Hair Story" and "Kinky Gazpacho") "Substitute Me" is her first novel. It has been called "The Nanny Diaries" meets "The Help". We recently met up and swapped novels since ours both released the same day (Aug 24). Lori is a professor of journalism at Temple, has an interesting resumé that includes work in publicity for some big names, living abroad in Spain, and is mom to two boys around the same age as Hayden and Max--you can imagine we had so much to talk about that we were still hanging around the Barnes and Noble parking lot at midnight. We take each other's promo cards to events and I have had lots of people curious about "Substitute Me". 

Brief summary:

Set in modern-day Brooklyn, Kate and Zora are women who could be friends, but are inhibited by their own issues of culture, race and power—Zora is nanny to executive Kate’s baby and 'Substitute Me', the title of the ad Kate places to find a nanny, takes on a whole new meaning in this domestic drama. The meals in this book will make you hungry and the questions it raises are food for thought.

Lori and I are in the process of putting together an event where mothers of young kids  can attend a kid-friendly play place and have a conversation about books with us as moms and writers.

Ilie Ruby is another writer with credits to her name, but the recently released "The Language of Trees" is her first novel. I'll confess I haven't read it yet as I have been in full-on CHOSEN release mode and it's birthday week at the Hoffstead, but the reviews are all raves and make me want to dive in as soon as I get a moment. 

Ilie was also recently reviewed in USA Today-- find that story here

Ilie and I have found so many parallels in our lives that it is creepy. Born a day apart, mothers of three, both fell in love in Grand Cayman, connected to Honduras, and she is book-touring with her kids as well. 

We are hoping to do an event that highlights the new novelist, hands-on moms who write and parent, who take the kids on tour, who are rocking the reviews...

I'll keep you posted on when and where this might be happening. Or send me an email if you want to host this event--promises to be lots of fun. 

In the meantime, please check out the websites of these two new friends:

http://loritharps.com/

http://www.ilieruby.com/