SUNDAY: Radiant Beams

NEENEE AND THE QUEEN BEE

And said, O man greatly beloved, fear not: peace be unto thee, be strong, yea, be strong.

-- Daniel 10:19

We have this gorgeous, sweet daughter Neely who is getting ready for her senior prom this weekend. She has a knockout dress in raspberry red that’ll show off her long, golden hair, and she gets to wear her first set of grownup sparkly earrings.

It seems crazy, but because of this war going on against Iraq and the drip, drip, drip of worries about terrorism, I’ve been thinking lately about something our Neely did ‘way back in fifth grade. It involved putting down some real, live terrorism, but not a shot was fired and there weren’t any casualties. I wish the military and political leaders of the world could take a clue from how NeeNee handled the school bully that day on the playground.

Neely was a skinny fifth-grader with Band-aid knees and a ponytail. She was one of those quiet girls who would never hurt a fly, and she had a group of very nice friends. However, the class ahead had a few girls you could call “headstrong” or “high-spirited” or “Queen Bees.” “B,” that is, for “bullies.”

You know the type: very smart, very pretty, very loud, very bossy, from high-achieving families, used to getting their way, used to dominating their little group of wanna-be’s, and most of all, not really happy with themselves just the way they are.

And lots of times, it spills out on the playground, onto other kids.

Well, on this particular sunny afternoon, Neely and the other fifth-grade girls were on the blacktop playing an all-American game of Four Square. There were four girls standing in painted squares on the pavement bouncing the ball around, and two or three waiting in line for their turn to get into the game.

All of a sudden, here came the Queen Bee and her entourage. The older girl stepped right into the Four-Square game, into the space rightfully occupied by the tiniest little girl in the entire fifth grade, and snatched the ball away from her.

“Heyyyy!” the little girl protested, weakly. “You can’t take cuts!”

“Oh, yes I can and I just did!” the Queen Bee buzzed, menacingly. “You go to the end of the line.”

“But that’s not fair!” the little girl whimpered.

“Oh, yeah?” the Queen Bee challenged. “If you’re so smart, what’s six times four? What’s seven times eight? What’s 42 divided by seven?”

She was a year ahead in math and light years ahead in sheer aggression. She out-dazzled the younger girl, who stood there speechless and humiliated, then grudgingly turned to go to the end of the line.

All of a sudden, another pair of hands seized the ball.

The Queen Bee turned in shock. To be challenged outright in front of her entourage and her victims? She locked eyes with . . .

NeeNee.

NeeNee, the quiet, reserved, polite, obedient child who never said “boo” and never got into conflicts of any kind, had stepped right into the fray to preserve, protect and defend her smaller classmate’s rights.

She locked her laser-blue eyes onto the older girl’s. “If YOU’RE so smart,” she challenged the Queen Bee, “what’s the square root of 3?”

Silence.

The Queen Bee had no idea.

This time, the bully was the one standing speechless and humiliated. It was a staredown, and the tables were turned.

Game ball.

This time, it was the bully who grudgingly gave it up.

Holding the ball for all to see, Neely said to her, loud enough for all to hear, “Go to the end of the line, then, and wait your turn like everybody else. C’mon, now! Let’s play Four Square!”

And do you know what? The Queen Bee and her wanna-be’s politely waited their turns, got into the game fair and square, and a good time was had by all.

Neely came home that day and told the story. “Wow,” I responded. “What made you think of that? What IS the square root of 3?”

“I have no idea,” Neely replied, squinting a bit with a rascally smile, “but it SOUNDED good.”

For the rest of the school year, the Queen Bee never bothered their little group again, and even played games with them from time to time, uneventfully with mutual respect. Well, whaddya know? She wasn’t so bad after all.

All it had taken to put her in her place was a show of quiet strength from an unexpected source . . . a younger girl’s resolve to make peace and make things come out right, relying on her God-given wits to pull off a simple but effective bluff.

You call ‘em on their own game, and you win, every time.

Here’s hoping the war ends as quickly and as well, for all concerned.

And here’s hoping Neely can enjoy her senior prom without having to break up any fights. Something tells me, though, if the boys try to get fresh . . . she’ll send ‘em to the end of the line.

SATURDAY: Just For Kicks

‘BETTER THAN BREAKFAST’ CEREAL PARTY MIX

This is a great treat to set out at a party with individual paper cups for people to scoop some together and not miss a bite. Or bring it in individual zip-lock bags to a ball game:

9 C. Chex or Crispix cereal
1 1/2 C. coconut
1 1/2 C. peanuts
1 C. light brown sugar
1 stick butter or margarine
1/2 C. white corn syrup
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 C. chocolate chips
1 C. raisins

In two 13” x 9” pans, mix cereal, coconut and peanuts. In double boiler over medium heat, melt butter with sugar and corn syrup. Stir frequently until it boils. Boil without stirring for 5 minutes. Remove from heat. Stir in vanilla and baking soda. (Note: if you are doubling this recipe, use a large pot with tall sides because the syrup bubbles up at this stage). Pour over cereal mix and stir well to coat. Bake at 250 degrees for one hour. Take pans out every 15 minutes and stir carefully with a large spoon to make sure all sides are coated. Let cool completely. Add chocolate chips and raisins, breaking clumps gently.

FRIDAY: Vitamin Mom

A MOM WITH CLASS

Most kids go off to college and do just fine. But there are always those exceptions that can break your heart. It's almost never because of an inability to do the schoolwork that young people drop out. It's almost always a financial or emotional problem.

If your child has one or both and has to move home, be sure to insist on structure -- translation: a "job" -- and insist that the child start taking at least one class just as soon as possible. You don't want the young adult to fall out of the habit of "going to school" or underachieving right out of the mainstream.

If at all possible, enroll in the same class with your child. You'll both learn something and your moral support may be just the ticket to keep that young adult on track, and back on the road toward independence.

THURSDAY: Cre8iviT

WAR: WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?

The song's answer is "absolutely nothing." But that's not true. One thing war can do for the families of young people who are engaged in it is to teach them unmistakeably that love is what life is all about.

You can help support a family with a loved one who is dispatched overseas with a simple gift: a scrapbook.

It might be a tool for them to keep news clippings, letters from the soldier, notes from friends, mentions of prayer groups, photos, mementos from rallies, snippets of memories, email stories, and anything and everything else that might help document this momentous time for someone who was there, but unable to record such memorabilia because of the press of business.

Help someone get through this challenging time by giving them the tools to keep the creative juices flowing, and perhaps to hold back the flood of worries by keeping busy doing something constructive.

WEDNESDAY: Family Funnies

THAT DARN DAY CARE

Most family one-liners come from off-the-cuff remarks that are never intended for posterity, but wind up that way, anyway. When our toddler smacked Grandma's arm at a restaurant, we were all shocked, and then, hoping to deflect blame from my own very real inadequacies as a mother, hoping to hide the fact that I was kind of "iffy" some days on being able to instill and model self-control, consideration and discipline in my children, I took the classic way out, and said, "That darn day care."

Nobody bought it, but everybody gave me a pass, anyway.

So now, that's what we say when we forget to feed the cats, or break a plate, or allow a word of less than impeccable origin leave our lips.

"That darn day care! Golllleeee!"

Works for us.

TUESDAY: Hot Potatoes

MAYBE THOSE VACCINATIONS DID CAUSE THE SPIKE IN AUTISM

A dramatic rise in the incidence of autism, a serious brain disorder that impairs a child's ability to interact with other people, might be connected to the use of the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal in childhood vaccines, according to a report in the Journal of the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons by Dr. Mark Geier and David Geier.

In a related move, parents of children with mercury-induced autism will demonstrate Wednesday in Washington D.C., in favor of a U.S. House of Representatives bill, the Burton / Waxman / Weldon bill, which they say allows for civil litigation for parents who seek compensation from drug companies for their child's medical care related to their neurological disorders.

There is another side to the story, of course: though the U.S. Centers for Disease Control reports that the rate of autism has increased from one in 10,000 in 1990 to the current rate, 1 in 150, solid medical studies refute the link to vaccines and contend that better diagnosis is the reason for the increase in autism cases. One study from Denmark, published last year in the New England Journal of Medicine, looked at 400,000 children who got vaccinated for measles, mumps and rubella, and 100,000 children who did not. The study found that there was slightly less autism among the children who'd been vaccinated.

However, the spike in the autism rate does appear to dovetail with the increase in mercury exposure due to vaccines given to children in the late 1980s and through the 1990s.

For more on the issue, see Safe Minds or Moms on a Mission for Autism

MONDAY: Show 'n' Tell for Parents

SAVVY SINGLE PARENTS

Q. I am divorced, work full-time, and have three children, one in high school, one in middle school, and one in grade school. What should I be doing to fit in, in our new district?

Don’t buy in to the stereotypes either way. Single parents are often the most admirable parents around. And even though kids with only one parent in the home are indeed overrepresented on learning disability rolls, that doesn’t mean schools are mistreating them. In fact, most education activists say schools are doing a great job with children from one-parent households.

But . . . here are some ways to excel as a parent advocate:

-- Work on your relationship with your ex. It’s not only good for the children, it’s impressive to the school community.

-- Divide up the academic areas in which you each will mentor your children. Split the workload by class subject, or one of you take homework and the other take tests and projects.

-- Provide your kids with good nutrition, enough sleep, a place to study, hugs, kisses, and get school paperwork in on time!

-- Make sure to have both of your names, household addresses and phone numbers in the student directory if you both are in town, for the kids’ friends to find them and present a unified front even though you’re technically split.

-- Early in the school year, one or both of you should stop in, see each teacher, and give them the noncustodial parent’s name, address and phone number, urging the teachers to call either of you if there’s a problem.

-- Volunteer at least once a year and attend at least one parents’ group meeting. Don’t get labeled as a “no-show.”

-- Both of you should come to curriculum night, parent-teacher conferences, concerts, science fairs, musicals, and other events. Be cordial. Keep your sense of humor. It’s your job!

Homework: “Helping Your Child Succeed in Public School” by Cheri Fuller (Tyndale, 1993, 1999, 285 pp.) is a thorough guide.

SUNDAY: Radiant Beams

SOAP SANDWICH

If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?
– Luke 11:13

We heard about this guy who belongs either on a funny farm or in the Fathers’ Hall of Fame. He had a load of dirt dumped down the window well into his basement. He did it so that his two little boys could play trucks and army down there all winter.

I wish I could have seen the neighbors’ faces as that dumptruck and mini-dozer pushed that fill dirt in through their basement window all afternoon. I wonder how many fingers were poised to dial “911.”

You know, some of us spend a lot of time trying to get dirt OUT of our houses. Here’s this clown paying people to dump a ton of it IN.

But you have to hand it to him. That was genius parenting. He knows what a long, boring winter can be like for little boys. Cabin fever to the max. I’m told the family has a concrete floor and block walls down there, anyway, so it wasn’t a cleanliness problem. And this is key: the Mr. cleared it with the Mrs. well in advance instead of springing it on her. So a good time was had by all.

Especially the little boys. Just think how cool that must have been for them. Think what a lifetime memory that made. Think of the fun they had with each other and their friends. They could always be proud that they had a dad who “got it” about the needs of childhood, and met those needs with style.

This time of year brings out the best in most parents. Of course, with children, every season is memory-making season. But it seems to peak in the spring.

I just heard about a bunch of mothers of kids who were competing in the state swim meet. These moms got together for weeks in advance, making fantastic commemorative towels, intricately appliquéd with the kids’ names and school logos. For many women, it was the first crafts project of any kind, but I’m told they were gorgeous. I’m sure those towels will be treasured for decades to come.

We all know of many fathers who are out there coaching ball teams, repairing camp cabins, supervising toy racecar construction, and putting together graduation videos from baby pictures, being careful to wipe away their sentimental tears so the photos don’t get dotted.

Make a memory, Mom and Dad. Make a good one, every day if you can. Give to your kids the best that you can, and you’ll point them to God, the giver of it all. Now’s the time. Forever’s the reason.

I say this because one of the best fathers I know, with some of the most realistic habits and attitudes of parenting, had one of the worst childhood memories I’ve ever heard.

When he was a teenager, his father had gotten into some heavy drinking. One night, my friend came home to find the house full of his parents’ friends, drinking and partying. His father, always the center of attention, greeted him warmly, which was unusual. It was one of those sad, reverse situations in dysfunctional families in which the father did all the taking and the son did all the giving . . . and waiting . . . and hoping.

But this time was different. The boy was a little cautious at the sudden turnaround in his fortunes. But here was his father, with an arm around him, saying loudly in front of all of his smiling and inebriated friends, “Here’s my boy! Well, Son. Are you hungry? I’ll make you a sandwich. My son is hungry, and I’m going to go into the kitchen and make him something to eat.”

My friend was partly embarrassed and partly proud, to have had this unexpected attention. Everyone smiled his way and he felt important and attended to.

Then his father came back out of the kitchen with a sandwich on a plate. My friend took a bite.

It was a soap sandwich.

Ptuui! He spit it out. Everyone laughed . . . including his father.

He ran to his room and slammed the door. The party went on.

Never was a word of apology or explanation offered. The memory just hung in the air, creating or perhaps completing a distance between them that persisted until the father’s death.

That was many years ago. My friend doesn’t like people telling that story. But it stays with me, and sticks in my throat sometimes when I’m tempted to ignore my own children, or yell at them, or otherwise put myself and my needs ahead of them and theirs. That happens more often than I’d like to admit, since the day they passed out the superhuman parent capes, I didn’t get one.

But when I feel like being a lousy mom, I think of the soap sandwich, and the great father that boy has become, and I’m humbled, and clean up my act.

The boy who got the soap sandwich grew up into a man who is gentle, tender and loving with his own son, although he has cracked the whip a time or two. He has never said an unkind word about him, to my knowledge. He has taken him hunting numerous times with his own friends –- a privilege to be a boy among men -- and treated him like someone to listen to and learn from.

He has given him the incomparable gifts of a father’s trustworthiness, approval and respect. He has been a model of fatherhood, doing it God’s way, solid as a rock and yet sweet as spring.

And it’s all because of a soap sandwich?

Could be. Over and over, we see good things coming out of bad. We see good things coming out of good, too, of course. That’s very nice. But this is of a higher order and a deeper meaning. This is the beauty of the overcomer, blessing all who know what has been overcome, and what it has taken to do it.

All I know is, a thoughtless, dirty trick has wound up creating an excellent, thoughtful father with a clean heart. His son is getting memory sandwiches that are spiritually nutritious, fresh and wholesome, made with love . . . and the bread of life.

SATURDAY: Just For Kicks

ST. PATRICK’S DAY PARTY FOR TWO OR A WEE FEW

If bar-hopping is not your scene this St. Paddy’s Day, rejoice: there are still fun, inexpensive ways to mark this holiday with your significant other or just a few friends.

Wear green, of course. Serve corned beef, cabbage, potatoes, soda bread and a good, strong Irish coffee. If you have Irish linens and crystal, now’s the time to use them. Irish lace makes a wonderful table covering. As a centerpiece, clean and polish a garden rock and label it “The Blarney Stone.” Everyone can enjoy their after-dinner coffee and stay at the table, taking turns telling stories and kissing the blarney stone.

You could visit the library ahead of time and check out picture books with lovely scenes from Ireland to place around, or buy a poster of the gorgeous Irish countryside and put it up with some green streamers and a shamrock or two. Rent a funny Irish movie such as “Waking Ned Devine,” or dig out your old songbooks and fire up the piano or keyboard with sing-along favorites such as “When Irish Eyes are Smiling.” Even if you don’t have an authentic Irish tenor in the bunch, everybody sings beautifully when the songs are from the Emerald Isle.

FRIDAY: Vitamin Mom

PREVENTING PERFECTIONISM

Sure, mothers want their children to try their best every time. Of course we want them to strive for excellence. Naturally, we want them to work hard and use their gifts in this world.

But sometimes, with the best and brightest children, the messages we mothers send can push them over the edge into perfectionism.

Overachieving is a trap. It doesn’t broad the child’s world; it narrows it. The drive to be perfect and the best doesn’t bring the child joy and satisfaction; eventually, it brings stress and anxiety, disappointment and isolation.

So prevent perfectionism with a few numbers games:

1. Teach your child the 80 / 20 rule: about 80 percent of what’s really important in life comes from 20 percent of what you do. The child should concentrate on doing that 20 percent just as well as possible, but to quit sweating the other 80 percent so much. Life is a snap if you take time to study and set your priorities.

2. You don’t always have to do a 100 percent job on everything. You can do an 80 percent job on some things, and even a 60 percent job, and they will still be fine. Encourage your child to shoot for less than the stars in the things that don’t count, and you’ll be amazed at how that “permission” to be less than perfect will free up the child’s spirit dramatically. So the child’s bed is made three days out of seven; that’s still 300 percent better than a lot of kids do!

3. Help your child confront the fears that are often behind perfectionism. What is the child afraid of? What is driving the child to stay up so late working on school projects? Help your child over a fear of failure by describing some of your failures and, in retrospect, how you gained from them. Help your child build a sense of humor and put the challenges of life and school into a more perfect perspective . . . which is, we’re only human, and that’s good enough!

THURSDAY: Cre8iviT

THE NAP GAME

Smart babysitter trick: if a little one in your care just will not go to sleep, announce "The Nap Game." You and the little one both lay down on the floor in the child's darkened room. Whoever keeps from giggling or moving, and "naps" the longest, is the winner of the game. Only a couple of minutes need to go by until you "lose" and proclaim the child the winner. With a big grin and a chest puffed out with pride, he or she will go to bed immediately. There's only one caveat: be careful that you don't REALLY fall asleep during the competition!

WEDNESDAY: Family Funnies

MY DAD GOT TRANSFERRED

A first-grade teacher was killing time at the end of the day, just chatting with her students. They were discussing the meanings of unfamiliar words. She would throw out a word and the kids took turns using it in a sentence.

"How about 'transferred'?" the teacher asked. "Does anybody know what 'transferred' means?"

One little boy's hand shot up. "Oh, yeah, my dad got transferred by my mom," he said. "He had to move into an apartment."

TUESDAY: Hot Potatoes
A PERSON’S A PERSON NO MATTER HOW SMALL

In states around the country, legislation is being proposed that would provide that an unborn child may be regarded as a "person" for purposes of "wrongful death" civil litigation. Because of U.S. Supreme Court rulings, abortion is excluded from consideration in this matter, so abortionists could not be sued after an abortion, if these laws are passed.

But others could, including drunken drivers or violent attackers whose actions lead to miscarriage and death of the unborn child. Therefore, this legislation is central to continuing efforts to build legal recognition and protection for unborn children.

The issue hinges on when a human being becomes a “person” under our laws. There is no question that at the instant of conception, what is created is a being, and it is human. But there is controversy over whether that human being also should have legal status as a “person.”

Bottom line: life begins at conception . . . but do legal rights?

In the landmark U.S. Supreme Court abortion case, Roe v. Wade, it was determined that an unborn child who was not yet viable – able to live on his or her own outside the womb – could not be considered a “person” under our constitution’s equal protection clause. However, that ruling was 30 years ago based on the knowledge of the day. Scientific disciplines from embryology to genetics have yielded so much more information about unborn children since then, and pushed back the determination of viability so much earlier in the pregnancy, that the ruling now appears ridiculous on its face.

Those opposed to “personhood” for an unborn child bring up the traditional Jewish view that it is not until a newborn baby draws breath that “ensoulment” occurs. Since our laws are based on ancient Jewish laws, the thinking goes, we ought not to consider unborn children as “persons” under the law, either. However, Jewish laws did provide significant protections for pregnant women, so immense value was given in ancient times to the unborn.

In the thousands of years since those Jewish laws were devised, modern science has since done so much to show the uniqueness of the newly-created life in the instant of conception that the idea of no protection for an unborn baby until he or she breathes also looks ridiculous on its face now. It may no longer be a reasonable stance to ignore scientific truth and stick with what ancient peoples believed. We don’t limit ourselves to ancient beliefs about much of anything else, do we? We’ve accepted advances in everything from art to transportation to zoology. This issue is no different.

For example, at conception, DNA from both parents is transferred to the new human being, making a third, separate human being. The ancient Jews could not have known this, scientifically, and if they had, it’s reasonable to assume that they would have viewed the sanctity of life in the womb much more cautiously.

Modern ultrasound technology also has shown how a fetus recoils from a prod, and obviously feels pain and distress even in his or her early months. Even the pro-abortionists are saying that fetuses should have pain medication during abortions, as if that isn’t the craziest thing ever said. But the proof of fetal sentience puts the lie to the opponents’ claim that the fetus is not conscious and thus can’t be termed a “person.”

Those in favor of civil rights for the unborn might have been influenced just as much by a famous Dr. Seuss book as by the Bible’s solemn and beautiful instructions to sanctify life in all its stages and forms.

The Dr. Seuss book is “Horton Hears a Who,” featuring an elephant who could hear some teeny, tiny people on a speck who were crying out to be heard.

“A person’s a person no matter how small,” that book teaches us.

Indeed.

MONDAY: Show 'n' Tell for Parents

Play Time With Writing

Q. Our son is 10. He can’t spell, his grammar is terrible, and he doesn’t write in complete sentences. He freezes when a blank piece of paper is put in front of him. How can we help?

It’s hard to feel confident when the pressure’s on. It’s better when you do what comes naturally, for kids: play.

Writing should be joyful and natural, and it can be, with the right kind of playful practice activities you can do at home:

-- Write a joke or funny note on a slip of paper. Tuck it in your child’s lunchbox or backpack. Next day, the child should write back, hiding the new note for you to find. Keep it up as long as you can, and keep the notes to re-read together.

-- Tell “audiotales.” Ask your child to talk into a tape recorder about “my perfect day” or “how to score in soccer.” Whatever is familiar, fun and exciting should make the words freely flow. Then the child can listen to the tape and transfer the best parts onto paper. Result: better flow in print, too.

-- Match your child with a penpal. They can write letters or send email. A grandparent or adult friend of the family would be ideal so that good grammar, spelling and punctuation would be modeled. Teach your child to end each message with a question to keep the conversation going.

-- Kids love mysteries and finding what’s hidden. Take turns hiding things in your house and yard. Your child should write three or four clues to lead to the “treasure.” Clue-writing is a great way to practice writing clearly and concisely.

-- Teachers should be circling grammar, spelling and punctuation errors by third or fourth grade, but if they don’t, you should. Your child should correct and rewrite each error, and as a reward for “catching” errors, you should go out and play some “catch” with your all-star young writer.

Homework: good at-home aids for writing instruction are available through the Sam Blumenfeld Alpha-Phonics site

SUNDAY: Radiant Beams

MR. DIXIE

Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
-- Mark 12:31b

We have this neighbor, Dan Dixon. He and his wife happen to be old friends and classmates. We just love them. It's nice to have them living right across the street.

But it must be a bit painful on Dan Dixon's end. He may never live down the Night of the Near Tornado. See, Dan raises thoroughbred horses for a living. Just in case his clients read this, I believe these racehorses are each worth something like a squillion dollars. He babies them something awful. We love watching them kick up their heels and run and play in the pasture across the street.

Well, on the Night of the Near Tornado, Dan went out to check on his new colts . . . and saw the black one apparently distressed by the wind, disoriented, and trapped and struggling under the fence.

That is, most people would just see a horse, but Dan also saw piles of currency with wings on them, about to fly away. He knew that if that horse injured his leg, a large investment would be . . . you guessed it . . . gone with the wind.

So he crept up to the black colt, so as to not alarm him. He thought if he crept up soothingly, he could keep the colt somewhat calm and have a chance to untangle his expensive legs. He crouched 'way down and crept up, and crept up, nearer and nearer to the struggling black colt in the dark and stormy night . . . and then he saw that it wasn't a struggling black colt at all.

It was the plastic cover off our trampoline.

It had been ripped off in the Near Tornado, blown across the street, and caught in the Dixons' pasture fence. The edge of it was flapping furiously in the wind.

At that point, Dan saw the horses clear over on the other side of the pasture, standing there safe, sound and non-plastic.

So now, when we are praising him in front of his high-paying clients, we always say, ''That Dan Dixon . . . he knows horseflesh . . . and plastic trampoline covers, too.''

He's a redhead. It's a kick to make him blush.

What's not to like about a neighbor like that? Dan Dixon is very kind to our children, too, even when they don't get his name quite right. Maddy, the toddler, used to bolt across the yard in various stages of undress, waving and shouting, ''Mr. Dixie! Mr. Dixie!''

Usually, he would be completing a big-dollar deal with a client, standing in his driveway, trying to act cool. But, I think because his own three children are older and he's been feeling a bit child-deprived, he would always stop and smile and crouch down low to say ''hi'' to her, even though he wouldn’t crouch down as low as he did when he was creeping up on our trampoline cover.

But one time, we accomplished a nuclear blush on the face of our dear Mr. Dixie.

I remember it because Maddy's third birthday is this week, and this happened the day she turned 1. We were remodeling, and so the party was relegated to the basement. Because Maddy is sort of a community project, the only young child for a country mile in all directions, we had invited a few neighbors, including Mr. and Mrs. Dixie, of course, to come in and have cake, wear goofy party hats, blow whistles, sing ''The Wheels on the Bus Go Round-and-Round,'' and all that other birthday party stuff that we adults pretend we're too old for anymore.

Well, we had had our cake, and Maddy was in her high chair with frosting smeared from ear to ear. There was kind of a lull. I was proud that Maddy had learned to point that very day. I wanted her to demonstrate this amazing new skill.

''Can you point, Maddy?'' She looked at me, puzzled. ''Can you point to Daddy, Maddy? Show us! Point to your dad!''

She looked at me for one more instant, and then she made a frosting grin from ear to ear, and stuck out her chubby little triangular finger, and turned, and pointed straight at . . .

. . .

. . .

MR. DIXIE!!!

Well!!!

His nice, neighborly face went so red so fast, the air conditioning kicked on.

His wasn't the only one. I wished the trampoline cover would blow right downstairs and cover my face, as everyone, including our respective spouses, cracked up.

Sure, I love my neighbor. But heaven knows, not THAT much.

SATURDAY: Just For Kicks

THE FINE ART OF THE UNIQUE DOUBLE DATE

Dinner and a movie. A movie and dinner. Dinner, a movie and then another dinner . . . socializing with other couples can get a little boring and routine, although it is very important that you make time each week to relax with friends.

Here’s an idea that’s a little different: start your Saturday night date a little earlier than usual, in an art museum. If there isn’t one where you live, it might be worth the drive for a relatively inexpensive, interesting and unusual experience. Museums tend to close at 4 p.m. or 5 p.m. on Saturdays, so check the schedule and plan ahead to make sure you’ll be able to browse.

An hour and a half or two hours is probably your max. Have fun trying to top each other with wisecracks about the art pieces you don’t like. Read the background information posted by each piece; learn something! If they offer a children’s hands-on art activity, why not sit down and try it? Nobody will “card” an adult who wants a turn, and a little artistic expression does priceless good work for the soul.

After your close encounter with culture, have a nice dinner. Discuss art in general and the pieces you saw in particular. Everybody should name a favorite, and why.

It’ll be a colorful evening and you’ll have fun drawing closer together in a fresh, new way. Friendship: it’s a fine art.

FRIDAY: Vitamin Mom

ENGAGED . . . TO YOUR PARENTS?

At age 13, loving parents take their daughter out for a birthday dinner, just the three of them, and talk and laugh and reminisce.

Then they give her a little box. Inside is a beautiful birthstone ring . . . her first serious gift.

It’s called a “promise ring.” The parents explain that they want her to wear it every day until her wedding day. It is to symbolize her family ties and their hopes and dreams that she will choose the “true love waits” approach to sexuality, waiting for marriage to give herself in love.

Cheesy? Backward? Victorian? Maybe.

But guess what? It works.

THURSDAY: Cre8iviT

A SHAMROCK WORTH SHARING

Nothing chases away the March blah's like an attitude of gratitude. So in the days leading up to this St. Patrick's Day, prepare your corned beef and a slightly corny centerpiece for your kitchen table or office wall.

Take green photocopy paper or construction paper and cut and tape together a four-leaf clover. In the middle, write, ''Luck and blessings.'' On each leaf, write a different category: ''Home,'' ''Work,'' ''Play'' and ''People'' might be your choices.

Then, as the days pass toward St. Paddy's Day, as you think of ways that you have been lucky or blessed in those categories, write them down.

Start accounting for all the good things in your life, and even if you're not Irish, you'll see you've had their luck all along.

WEDNESDAY: Family Funnies

SPECIAL OCCASION PARTY HATS

We wound up with about 10 really cheap paper party hats somehow. They're stacked in a corner of the storeroom for no special reason. Some have Buzz Lightyear on them, some have Scooby Doo, and some have Cinderella. It's a cornucopia of cornball comic figures.

Well, the other night, the toddler in our household finally -- finally! -- boldly went where she had never gone before. That's right: her first toilet-training success.

It so happens that our firstborn, who is away at college, was on the phone when this happened. She heard the shouting and screaming, and thought we were being robbed.

Meanwhile, I ran downstairs for the party hats. You just can't let a special occasion like this go by without 'em. We each strapped one on, and danced, and entertained our long-distance spectator with our shouts of glee.

The star of the show got a Hershey's kiss and a cheapo blue plastic ring, too.

That's the good news.

The bad news is, she thinks it's going to be like this for her EVERY time, for the rest of her life.

Hope those party hats can hold up!

TUESDAY: Hot Potatoes

FIGHTING ABORTION

For those who would like to make legalized abortion moot by convincing women and girls that it’s destructive and unthinkable, here are five factoids:

First, the No. 1 health fear of women is that they might develop breast cancer. Yet 16 out of 17 statistically significant studies have shown an increased risk of breast cancer among women who have had abortions. This is thought to be because of the hormonally-induced explosion in the number of breast cells that starts in early pregnancy. Those breast cells are not given a chance to differentiate into milk-producing cells when the pregnancy is terminated. They remain cancer-vulnerable as a result.

For more, see the Coalition on Abortion / Breast Cancer

Second, the No. 1 reason that girls and women list for considering and having an abortion is the lack of concern and support by the father of the unborn child. This fact needs to be included in abstinence education programming for teenage girls so that they have the truth about what is likely to happen should they have sex outside marriage and become pregnant – they will be basically abandoned.

For more, see the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates

Third, the same organization reports that 88 percent of pregnancies that end in abortion occur outside of marriage. Implication: teach teenagers not to put themselves in that position in the first place.

Fourth, the symptoms of post-abortion trauma have been documented and are being dealt with, but are totally preventable if options other than abortion are chosen. Here are the post-abortion symptoms:

Guilt
Anxiety
Psychological numbing
Depression -- thoughts of suicide
Anniversary syndrome
Re-experiencing the abortion
Preoccupation with becoming pregnant again
Anxiety over fertility issues
Interruption of the bonding process with present and/or future children
Survival guilt
Development of eating disorders
Alcohol and drug abuse
Other self-punishing behaviors
Brief reactive psychosis

For more on treatment, see Ramah International

Last, but not least, according to the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, 75 percent of women abandon plans for abortion once they have seen ultrasound fetal images. That’s why one of the most effective things to do to stand up for babies’ lives is to donate money to emergency pregnancy centers to purchase ultrasound machines to show, not just tell, women and girls the miracle of life.

MONDAY: Show 'n' Tell for Parents

$CHOOL$: CUT CO$T$

Q. Classroom teacher pay is only about half of our district’s total costs. Our costs are going up. I don’t want to hurt teachers. How can schools cut costs and still pay teachers well?

Nobody wants to see a dime less spent on schools than the students and the teachers actually need. But in some cost categories, things really have gotten out of control. The “entitlement” mindset, that any additional expense an educator might want is justified because it is “for the kids,” does real harm to the relationship between schools and their patrons – parents and the taxpaying community.

The need to contain costs is apparent. But so is the need to continue to offer good programs, and good salaries and benefits that will attract good people to education jobs. So what to do?

Think out of the box, that’s what. Don’t visualize cost-cutting as spending less money on teacher salaries and classroom equipment. Visualize cost-cutting in the nonclassroom, noninstructional spending categories of K-12 public education:

-- Reduce governmental regulations, requirements, monitoring and personnel to save huge dollars that are marginally productive, or even counter-productive, to quality education. This means reducing or eliminating state and federal education bureaucracies and excessive mandates.

-- Demand performance audits of district budgets that will reveal excessive, nonstatutory and even fraudulent spending patterns. Make sure this isn’t an “inhouse” function that district administrators control, but from outside the educracy.

-- Reduce “mission bloat” and force educators to pare down nonessential, nonstatory, nonrequired programs.

-- Pension reform.

-- Insurance reform.

-- School boards should have cost-cutting advisors.

-- Demand much better information about school spending.

Homework: School-finance charts on Education Intelligence Agency Online

SUNDAY: Radiant Beams

HANKY PANKY

Let all the earth fear the Lord: let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him.
– Psalm 33:8

Our daughter had a darling new friend named Hank. We heard about him all the time. Even though they were only 6 and the real attraction seemed to be her extensive collection of Matchbox cars, we teased her that he was her boyfriend.

We even gave him a unique nickname: ''Hanky Panky.''

Well, one day Hanky Panky was over at our house playing Matchbox cars when the man of the house came home unexpectedly and raced into his room to change for a hockey game.

Yes, at this particular stage of his midlife crisis, my husband had joined a Deranged Old Men's Hockey League . . . Deranged, Smelly and Beset With Aches and Pains, that is. That day, he had forgotten to bring his room-sized sports bag with all his pads and regalia to work, so he had had to rush home.

When he came back around the corner with his tattered, 25-year-old hockey jersey over enormous shoulder pads, a battered helmet under his arm and scuffed old skates tied together over his shoulder, I happened to be looking at Hanky Panky.

The boy was on the floor with a Matchbox car, but when he caught sight of the man in the hockey uniform coming his way, it was like a religious experience. His jaw dropped. His big, blue eyes widened as they absorbed the colorful hockey socks and uniform, widening even more all the way up to the spectacularly broad shoulders and cool-looking helmet and skates.

''Hi, Hank,'' my husband said, eating it up.

Hanky Panky just stared at him, open-mouthed. The awe on his face was astoundingly intense. It reminded me of that '80s ''Wayne’s World'' act where the two goofy guys prostrate themselves and moan, ''We’re not worthy!''

''My dad plays hockey'' our daughter told Hanky Panky proudly.

What she DIDN'T tell him is that it was against a bunch of other balding, washed-up has-beens whose tongues hung down so low when they had to skate for more than 10 seconds in a row that you were afraid they'd run over them.

This league was so lame that we didn't even go to see him play more than once a year, if that. There were only two teams in this league because that's all the washed-up, pot-bellied, former hockey jocks they could find dumb enough to subject what was left of their bodies to this weekly abuse and become human beads of sweat keeping the town's cardiologists in sports cars and leather shoes. With a two-team league, there was very little drama from week to week about the other team's strengths and weaknesses. Actually, it was considered a strength if you didn’t fall down much.

So this was hardly a classy deal. The same guy who sold you tickets also worked the concession stand, swept the bleachers, ran the Zamboni, cleaned the toilets and refereed the games.

On one of our annual visits when we arrived in mid-game, we were not too surprised to see that we were the only fans in the seedy little arena. We walked in, and play kind of stopped and all the faces in both uniforms turned our way, to see whose family we were – just to give you an idea of how totally un-NHL this was. A few seconds later, they all seemed to fall down except my husband, who staggered right up to the open net and sluggishly thrust in the puck.

Again, all the faces in both uniforms turned our way to gauge our reaction.

The referee skated over to the microphone, and crowed, ''Goal scored by DAYYYYYYYYVID WILLIAMS!'' as if to a roaring Stanley Cup crowd of tens of thousands.

The four of us clapped self-consciously, mustered a weak ''wave'' and spent the rest of the game with red faces, trying to look inconspicuous.

Anyway . . . little did we know that Hanky Panky was a little boy with a dream. He wanted to play in the NHL. Hockey was his favorite sport of all time. He had little skates and he was learning to use a stick. He was on a little team. So the sight of a full-grown man in full hockey regalia was a thrill beyond belief for him.

Well, soon thereafter, we happened to have rinkside tickets for a professional hockey game. The Omaha team was among the best in the country at that time. We had an extra ticket, and so we had our daughter invite Hanky Panky.

He was vibrating with anticipation as we walked into the huge arena, heard the peppy organ music, saw the Zamboni, got our frosted malts and took our seats right by the glass.

The action began. Boy, these young men could skate fast! It was exciting to be so close to the action: the scraping of sticks on ice, the grunts, the shoulder jabs jockeying for position that reminded me of the lunch line at my sorority house. . . .

But Hanky Panky was frowning. He was looking at my husband, perplexed.

Finally, he piped up.

''Heyyyyy!'' he said. ''Why aren’t YOU in there?''

I was in awe of my husband's quick-thinking reply:

''Oh, I’m injured.'' Actually, he was: he had bruised his behind the week before in his cheesy little league game when his edge caught in a rut and he fell down. No other player was within 20 feet.

The explanation satisfied Hanky Panky, though, and my husband and I exchanged winks over his head. We enjoyed the rest of the game and a good time was had by all: deranged, deluded and all those in between.

We kind of lost track of our little friend over the years. But the memory sure brings up a spiritual slapshot: be careful who you idolize. Awe is for God. Anyone or anything else will play hanky-panky with your heart.

Besides, God never gets hurt, never falls down, never high-sticks you . . . and on His team, you get infinitely more goals even if you’ve got bad knees and a pot belly.

SATURDAY: Kicks

50th BIRTHDAY SURPRISE PARTY

“He’s not 50, he’s 18 . . . with 32 years’ experience.” The clever party invitation set the stage for a rollicking 50th birthday surprise party. It wasn’t all that unusual for the wife to set up the Saturday night dinner at their favorite restaurant. But what WAS unusual was that 50 of their friends and coworkers were hiding in the restaurant’s back room. The minute dinner was over, the surprise was on. The birthday boy had absolutely no idea, despite all those years of experience. Gag gifts and dancing in the restaurant’s lounge topped off the fun.

FRIDAY: Vitamin Mom

THE PACI-FAIRY

We all know you’re not supposed to let your child use a pacifier outside the crib, but many of us do it, anyway. Then boom! You’re faced with a savvy 3-year-old or 4-year-old who’s addicted to it and there’s no such thing as A.A. to help. You start imagining your child at graduation holding a diploma with “Binky” still in.

Well, you can still make the transition to pacifier-free living with a few common-sense steps. Choose a good time for the transition and don’t just “spring” it on your child. A few days before a birthday or holiday is a good choice to help distract the child from the absence of the longtime friend.

Make sure your child isn’t sick or dealing with out-of-the-ordinary stress, and then talk over the process so your child will know what to expect.

A few days before the big split, buy some stickers or stars and make a daily chart. Give your child a sticker or star for each day he or she takes a nap without the pacifier. Practice other forms of comfort and ask your child for suggestions: cuddling with Mom, holding a stuffed animal, putting stickers in a book, whatever.

Then the Big Day arrives. Make sure your child expects this to happen. In the middle of the night, the Paci-Fairy comes and takes away the pacifier . . . but leaves in its place a wonderful new toy, a sack of lollipops, some stickers, some trinkets . . . making the Tooth Fairy look like a piker, and giving your child something wonderful to make the transition and pose for that graduation picture pacifier-free.

THURSDAY: Cre8iviT

ICE CANDLES

If you live in a wintry climate, here’s something you can do that those poor, deprived souls of the southern persuasion cannot: make ice candles.

Save a few large tin cans in 48-ounce or 64-ounce sizes or larger, such as from chicken broth, group-sized stewed tomatoes or baked beans for a crowd. On a day that’s definitely below freezing, and you plan to be home for a few hours, fill them with water and set them outside.

Watch them carefully. When the water is almost frozen into solid ice, a few inches in the central core should still be liquid. Slip the ice “candle” out of the can and dump out the remaining water. Set the ice in place to dry and continue freezing.

In the evening, place a votive candle inside the opening in the ice. If you’re having people over, there’s no more elegant welcome at your front door than several lovely specimens of “fire and ice.”

WEDNESDAY: Family Funnies

WHO NEEDS DRUGS? JUST LISTEN TO A 2-YEAR-OLD AT BATH TIME

Here’s an idea that could save the nation hundreds of millions of dollars in substance abuse treatment expenses. When you realize it’s time to kick a nasty habit – or when a stern-looking judge sentences you to that task – instead of checking in to an inpatient treatment facility at tremendous expense, just spend your evenings with a family with a 2-year-old child, and give that child his or her bath.

Talk about your mind-bending experiences, mood-altering conversations, and altered states of consciousness. Nobody would need psyche-changing drugs or alcohol after they tune in and turn on to the 2-year-old worldview.

Last night, it was a 45-minute monologue during our toddler’s bath. The naked rubber baby floating in there with her is a girl named “Scottie,” and one night “the bad guyth” tippy-toed into our house and put Scottie into a “mousie hole,” but our 2-year-old found her and tried to pull her out of it by the legs, only Scottie’s head was too big and got stuck, so our 2-year-old had to “go around the other way” and get inside the mousie hole and shove the dollie OUT the mousie hole, and THEN. . . .

That was only 30 seconds’ worth. There’s more. Much more. Enough to fill the typical four-week drug-treatment treatment regimen, and then some.

After listening to a little one get clean, you can get sober real, real fast.

TUESDAY: Hot Potatoes

MOMS AND DADS VS. GAY ED

A Zogby International poll of more than 1,200 parents of K-12 schoolchildren found that they strongly oppose the “normalization” of homosexual behavior in the classroom and on the school grounds, adding more pressure on educators on how to handle that hot topic and please all sides.

The poll, released Feb. 13 and described on www.zogby.com, found that parents don’t want schools to teach children that homosexual behavior is normal or that homosexual relationships are comparable to heterosexual ones.

Pro-homosexual material can be delivered in preK-12 curriculum, sex education classes, “safe schools” programs, “diversity” or “tolerance” programs, anti-discrimination codes, teacher training, student groups and by outside guest speakers.

Schools around the country have reacted to studies in prestigious journals that point to sharply increased risks of mental, emotional and physical health problems in homosexual and bisexual youth. Schools have sharply increased the amount of time and the intensity of the content in teaching children about homosexuality.

Most school discipline codes already deal with bullying and violence, but content directed at protecting students because of sexual orientation is added on top.

Around the country, litigation is showing that it is expensive to ignore bullying on school grounds, but now the traditional lawsuits involving kids who are teased, harassed and abused for being fat or short are now being joined by harassment suits claiming harm to students because of their aberrant sexual orientations. A recent $312,000 settlement to Timothy Dahle of Titusville (Penn.) Area School District is a case in point.

In addition, threats of lawsuits from homosexual activist groups such as GLSEN, the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network and government requirements in California and elsewhere also put pressure on schools to ratchet up the homosexual programming.

But have schools gone too far? Could be.

Critics point to the flip-flop in the percentage of teenagers and young adults, subjected to pro-homosexual advocacy in schools for years, who now accept facets of homosexuality that their parents and religious institutions do not. It is problematic to have school curriculum that is in diametric opposition to the sincerely-held religious beliefs of the families that pay the taxes that run those schools, especially since in many cases the parents’ anti-homosexuality points of view are not given equal time.

Parents in Novato, Calif., recently filed suit against their school district for authorizing pro-homosexual assemblies that exposed children as young as 7 to gay and lesbian content in skits performed by outsiders invited to school, without any prior notice to or obtaining the written consent of the children’s parents.

There also is litigation risk in findings that teenagers engaged in homosexuality commit twice the mean number of risk behaviors as the overall population of teenagers. That includes increased cocaine use; increased drug, alcohol and tobacco use before age 13; increased instances of sexual intercourse before age 13; increased instances of having four or more sex partners, and increased sexual contact against one’s will. That is according to a Harvard Medical School study of 4,000 high-school students published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

So public schools face legal liability for negligence in case a child experiments with homosexual behavior and suffers illness or damage, after being told by homosexual teachers, counselors or guest speakers brought in to school that it is normal and “OK.”

But the same liability's there if they don't take reasonable steps to educate the student population about bigotry, and protect all students to the fullest extent of their abilities, or if they raise the ire of pro-homosexuality groups if they teach that it is not normal and not "OK."

It’s the old “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” paradox.

But there is help for educators who wish to navigate these choppy waters: see the November / December 2002 article, “Homosexuality and Children” by Peter Sprigg, Family Research Council.

An excellent resource to send to state board of education members, school board members and school administrators is the downloadable report, “The Legal Liability Associated With Homosexuality Education in Public Schools,” by the Cincinnati-based Citizens for Community Values.

MONDAY: Show 'n' Tell for Parents

CARPOOL MATH

Q. I couldn’t believe it when my 11-year-old had to ask me what “6 times 4” is. Don’t they teach the times tables anymore?

In most schools, kids are still memorizing and drilling on their math facts – addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. They may not spend as much time on this in class as past generations did, which is another reason smart parents should buy flash cards and other at-home aids to build computational skills in their children.

But growing numbers of schools have switched to “whole math” curricula with an emphasis on abstract problem-solving, not basics.

The hope is that kids will gain “higher-order thinking skills” from “creative” assignments such as group projects and discussions about math. But that’s not true. They need the basics to do the advanced.

Standardized tests and international comparisons are clearly showing that American students are falling behind past generations, and other nations, in their computation skills. Erosion is showing up in the abstract problem-solving areas, too. Why? Deficient basics.

Unfortunately, most parents do not recognize innumeracy until the child is in middle school. Without automatic math skills that come only from lots of practice with the basics, that child may struggle with algebra and geometry and have limited options in college and life.

If school won’t teach math facts and you can’t afford a math tutor such as the Kumon organization, try things like carpool math:

-- Drill your child and the carpool on math facts while driving them places. Kids love to have fun while learning, so make it a game. How many problems can they solve per mile?

-- Key off the day of the month. If it’s the 15th, use “15” in your questions: 15 x 3, 15 + 19, 1/15th as a decimal, and so on.

-- Use distances to ask percentages and decimals: 8 blocks is what percentage of a mile? Express that in decimals.

-- Math teaching aids in cars: gas mileage, odometer, maps, tire gauge . . . gentlepersons, start your math engines!

Homework: More ideas on Math Nerds.

SUNDAY: Radiant Beams

SPINNING HER WHEELS

Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.
– Proverbs 16:18

One day in junior high math class, the janitor stood for several minutes outside our classroom door trying to scrape masking tape off the glass. We all sat there and laughed . . . because the tape was on the INSIDE.

How well I know the feeling. I’ve stood many times in the produce aisle struggling to get the little plastic sack open and feeling as though I have the brains of the Roma tomatoes I would put in it, if I could get the dang thing open.

Every time I leave a tag showing at the back of my neck all day, or can’t find my car in a parking lot, or forget to plug something in and think it’s broken because it won’t work, or forget the secret password that controls access to our entire financial fortune (what there is of it, after four children), I feel stupid. And that’s even without a snickering audience of know-it-all junior-high kids.

Nobody likes to look dumb. But everybody does dumb things. You know what the secret is: a sense of humor. If you don’t laugh, by golly, you’ll cry.

It took a REALLY dumb thing to make a friend of mine get this.

She’s one of those outrageously gifted people that you just want to slap. She has an IQ of 9 kazillion and a dress size of 2. She never messes up, never snorts accidentally or on purpose, never loses anything, and never has the hair on one eyebrow pointing ridiculously up while the hair on the other eyebrow points the regular way.

If you are gleaning from this that she is my diametric, antithetical, polar opposite, you would be correct.

If you tell her you have made an exciting, new, gourmet dessert, she has already made it, with two cherries on top, not just one, and served it to the Queen of England at her last soiree.

If your child walks into school proudly carrying an igloo made of sugar cubes, HER child brings an authentic scale model of the Louvre as it looked in 1793, complete with a replica of the Mona Lisa that the child painted holding the brush between her toes while singing “La Marseillaise” . . . in French.

You always leave an encounter with her full of admiration, but also feeling as though, compared to her, you are spending your days scraping masking tape off the wrong side of the glass.

But one cold winter night, us lesser mortals got our sweet revenge. There was a big meeting of school volunteers. Everybody who was anybody was there. Old business and new business were addressed and disposed of, chop chop, all the way down the terribly efficient agenda, typed, I suppose, by Mrs. Perfect right after she ghost-wrote the inaugural speech of some Third World president.

We all went out into the icy night together. Mrs. Perfect had a big, beautiful SUV. It was awesome. It was powerful. It cost more than my house.

As some of us chatted on the sidewalk, Mrs. Perfect started up the Perfectomobile and revved up the engine preparing to back out of the parking space . . . but it wouldn’t budge. She was just spinning her wheels.

She revved it some more with her expensive leather boots, and the wheels spun and the ice chips flew backwards like a rooster tail, but it wouldn’t back up. Wouldn’t pull forward, either.

She announced to all of her admirers on the sidewalk that she must be “stuck on the ice.” It was a perfectly flat parking space, but winter does dastardly things around here.

Several of us went over to see if we could help. Mrs. Perfect had us pushing and pulling. She even put the floor mats under the front tires for traction. We strained and struggled. No go.

Finally, she pulled out her cell phone and called her husband. You could hear the irritation in her voice, that there was something wrong with this fancy big car and a bunch of pinhead women couldn’t budge it, either, so he’d better get on over there. Chop, chop.

Several of us waited with her. He arrived. He got in the car, and . . . don’t miss this, it is key . . . released the parking brake . . . and backed up several feet, then looked at her. Voila.

In the streetlight, the look on her face . . . the look on HIS face . . . the look on my fellow pinheads’ faces . . . it was surreal.

But then Mrs. Perfect did what none of us expected. She burst out laughing. It was a full-throated, jolly, helpless, sincere laugh. “Oh . . . my . . . God,” she chortled. “I can’t . . . believe . . . I did that.”

We all joined in, surprised and relieved. She had made a mistake in front of people, and she could laugh about it! She made a lot of friends that night. I always felt a lot more comfortable around her after that, and reminded her of it many times, to our mutual delight.

It’s no fun up on a pedestal. There’s no one to play with.

When pride has you stuck and on thin ice, humor and humility can get you going again.

SATURDAY: Kicks

MALL ADVENTURES

Sending a group of preteens to a shopping mall is a routine Saturday excursion. But you can make it special by adding just one thing: a disposable camera. Tell them they can’t disrupt any store and certainly can’t make a mess or interfere with other shoppers. But they can have fun without spending any money by going from store to store and taking pictures of each other in funny poses. Trying on an outrageous hat with a grandma-style purse and fuzzy slippers is fun and makes a great picture; then everything goes back on the shelf and the kids can move on to the next store. Once the photos are developed, split them up for everybody’s scrapbooks.

FRIDAY: Vitamin Mom

NOTHING LIKE A TOUCH FROM MOM

The best, cheapest, easiest, most effective and longest-lasting child psychiatry is . . . drum roll, please . . . loving touch. That's right! What do you think we have skin for? Children who aren't touched a lot by their parents in loving ways grow up thinking that they are somehow less-than, untouchable and even unloved.

Don't underestimate the profound power of human touch to communicate caring, to soothe, to encourage and to show love. Even if you don't think of yourself as a touchy-feely person, there's no time like the present to become one, because that's the best kind of person to be. You will naturally vary those touches as your child grows, from the constant cuddling of the months of infancy, to the lap time of the preschool years, and the unbreakable habit of bedtime hugs and kisses, and off-to-school pats on the back.

Mothers who breastfed their children for many months often report that in the toddler years, it takes only one loving stroke from them to quiet the child. That's because of the hours and hours of skin-to-skin contact and the trust relationship that was established early on.

You would be amazed how many grown men "wake up" in middle age and report that they can trace some of their personal problems to having had "under-nurturing" mothers. Perhaps they were afraid of making their sons sissies or weak . . . but the truth is, the toughest, biggest, strongest people come from moms who had that special loving touch and used it over and over and over, day after day after day.

THURSDAY: Cre8iviT

A YARD ORNAMENT FOR ALL SEASONS

Every neighborhood needs somebody with a creative flair for making passers-by smile. Ours is a family who purchased a metal cutout of a cowboy for out by their mailbox. Along the way, they decided it would be fun to decorate him. Right now, he's wearing a bright red knit cap and scarf. In the spring, it's bunny ears for Easter. In the summer, he wears an old beige cowboy hat. During football season, he wears . . . what else? . . . a Nebraska football helmet. I don't even know their name, but as far as neighborly spirit goes, my hat is off to them.

WEDNESDAY: Family Funnies

THE GOOF AT THE GAS PUMP

She was filling her Suburban with gas – a car she calls “large, black and obvious.” She had run inside to pay for the gas and met up with an old friend in there. They talked and laughed for a few minutes.

She returned to her car, chuckling all the way. She put the large, black, and obvious car in “Drive” and moved away, still chuckling to herself and self-absorbed. She was just getting ready to pull onto a busy road, when something caught her attention.

She turned and saw people running after her, flailing their arms, and yelling. They were bug-eyed and frantic.

She looked back and saw a 20-foot gas pump hose dangling out of her car. She looked at the hose and then at the people . . . beginning to see $$$ signs in front of her eyes and hearing her husband’s voice stretch over three octaves, "You . . . DID . . . WHAT?!"

She immediately knew she wasn't going to tell one single soul what happened. But then she saw her friend, back at the gas station, doubled over, laughing, with tears streaming down her face.

Friendship . . . it can be such a gas when you’re in the right place at the right time.

TUESDAY: Hot Potatoes

BIOETHICS, PROS AND CONS

Science news today is the stuff of sci-fi comic books from a generation ago: medical research on human embryos . . . aborted fetuses as sources of stem cells . . . cloning . . . even claims that the biggest science fiction of our day, the theory of evolution, is true despite the mounting evidence that it is fiction, not fact.

The complexity of the issues just makes it doubly important to define terms precisely and to use our language to promote understanding, not confusion.

Basically, it comes down to one’s definition of when human life begins. At conception? At birth? Some other time?

At what point should a human being be considered a “person” whose life deserves respect and protection? At the instant of DNA transfer from both parents? Or at the first breath into his or her own lungs?

And at exactly what point do positive ends (research findings and possible cures) justify negative means (entangling taxpayers with abortion by using aborted fetal tissue for tax-funded medical research and a sure step away from rationalizing use of human embryos and live fetuses in the future)? The Nazis used “the ends justify the means” as their rationalization for the unethical research they did on Jews and other Holocaust victims. How is that different from what is being done in some of the nation’s leading-edge laboratories?

Fortunately, there are some excellent websites with information to help you decide where you stand on some of these thorny issues. Here are some good ones:

President’s Council on Bioethics

The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity

Pro-fetal and embryonic stem cell research

Pro-adult stem cell research

MONDAY: Show 'n' Tell for Parents

ALL-DAY KINDERGARTEN

Q. Our school board is having a public hearing on whether to switch from half-day to full-day kindergarten next year. It will bring more money into the district. But is it best for kids?

There doesn’t appear to be any strong evidence that doubling the amount of time in kindergarten class gives academic benefit to the vast majority of children, especially middle-class, suburban ones. Young children should be spending as much time as possible at home with their parents as loving, adult role models, and away from structured, out-of-home settings like day cares and schools.

They need “lap time” and exposure to books with their parents, good naps and a low-pressure environment. They need freedom to choose their own activities, manage their own time, try new things at their own pace, and most of all, read and think in peace and quiet.

Of course, with half-day kindergarten programs, working parents have to make child-care arrangements for the other half-day of the kindergarten year. Others choose to work part-time so that they can be home with their child that half-day. But those are matters of private choice, not public policy. All-day kindergarten programs do cost taxpayers extra money, after all, and as such, should be analyzed on a cost-benefit basis. And for the most part, costs outweigh the benefits, and so all-day programs aren’t advised.

Now, disadvantaged children and those from non-English speaking homes do show an academic benefit from a full-day kindergarten program that can compensate for various deficits in their homes. Most experts believe these families should be offered full-day programs free of charge for their 5-year-olds. But it is questionable in these days of government budget deficits whether taxpayers should be funding all-day programs for all the rest of the kids, whose homes are fine, and who don’t need them. In fact, we shouldn’t.

How best to approach this issue and the hearing:

-- Educate your administrators and school board members privately, quietly and in advance. To avoid hurting feelings or polarizing people, avoid pejorative terms like “glorified free day care at taxpayer expense” and “enabling child neglect.”

-- The two key tasks of kindergarten are (1) to build phonemic awareness and to teach children phonics, the building blocks of literacy, and (2) give them a taste of school before first grade begins. Those services can be delivered in just a few minutes a day, and anything more than that really is just babysitting for parent convenience. From a cost-effectiveness standpoint, all-day kindergarten doesn’t measure up to the standard of tax-funded programs that should be delivering services that the private sector can’t or shouldn’t. Child care is a private-sector service, for the most part, and government should not be engaged in it.

-- Tell them you can’t find any scientific evidence (not just opinion) that full-day programs provide academic benefit on down the road. Without the data, why make the change?

-- On the other hand, there is significant research pointing to increased aggression, difficulties with attachment to parents and self-esteem issues, and “sour attitude” about school, in young children who are placed in controlled, out-of-home environments at too young an age and for too long of a time period. Surely your district doesn’t want to do anything to increase children’s behavior or learning problems.

-- Recruit other parents and older taxpayers to your cause; most people think “more is better” when it comes to spending on school programs. But that’s not true. Position this as a tax-saving issue, because it is.

-- Recognize that schools are under a high degree of peer pressure to adopt all-day kindergarten, even though it is clearly not in the best interest of most children. If neighboring districts offer all-day programs, they feel they must, too, to attract enrollment. Offer to help lead a public information campaign to discredit all-day kindergarten, promote strong family relationships, and praise districts that understand early childhood development and put the needs of young children ahead of “featherbedding” and “empire-building.”

-- If the all-day program goes through, anyway, ask that it be made optional. Also ask that parents be made to pay for the extra half-day of service, since it is a “frill.” And insist that systematic, intensive, explicit phonics instruction be part of the half-day your child will attend, for 20 to 30 minutes daily.

-- Read and interact a lot with your child before first grade begins. Voila! You’ll “grow” an excellent learner at no charge to taxpayers . . . and in just minutes a day. Parents can do what no school ever can: love that child with all their hearts.

Homework: see the book “Miseducation” by David Elkind, background on pre-literacy at the National Right to Read Foundation and Darcy Olsen’s work on what’s wrong with universal preschool programs at Cato Institute.

SUNDAY: Radiant Beams

THE BIG RESTAURANTS

But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night . . . the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
-- 2 Peter 3:10

Sometimes we have real trouble understanding our 2-year-old, Madeleine McGee McGoo McGuire Mufasa Mimi “Whoopsie Daisy” Williams.

And sometimes she makes herself crystal clear.

As an example of the mystery of the 2-year-old mind, no armchair cover is safe with her. You know those little sleeves of fabric that go on the arms of chairs to keep them from wear and tear? She hurls them to the floor wherever she goes. We have no idea why.

No one could predict what she thinks about. She refuses to get out of the car unless I go around to the passenger side and let her imaginary friends out first. I am still living down the day I accidentally stepped on her imaginary dog, “Spike.” Fortunately, he didn’t bite.

She wears a battered aluminum colander on her head and runs around the house proclaiming herself to be “a fire engine boy.”

We have eight inches of snow on the ground. But for the past few days, she has insisted on wearing her little pink flowered swimming suit and jazzy sunglasses. A pox on anyone who would dare suggest more suitable attire for the dead of winter.

Woe to anyone who would dare to attempt to put her to bed without making sure the Tweety Bird nightlight is off, not on. She hates the Tweety Bird nightlight’s light. But she likes how the nightlight looks in the daytime. She won’t let us take it away. So it stays in place, useless and unused. A 2-year-old majors in paradoxes, I guess.

Woe, too, to anyone foolish enough to try to put her to bed without giving her, in this precise order: Binky, Blanky, Fop (the pink elephant), Bunny, Baby, her fluffy blanket, her pretty blanket, the bathroom light on, the bedroom light off, “blow away the ghosts” in the closet, a “talking” story and a “song” story, a kiss blown to her just so, the words, “See you in the morning light!” and “I love you!” and a final artful tiptoe dance down the hall.

All that, or it’s a grand mal seizure. I mean, it’s more intricate than a chemical formula devised by the biggest craniacs at MIT.

But she does have her sophisticated side, too. She can get her point across with grace and style. Once, the paper cover fell off a chunky yellow crayon and she chortled, “It’s a NUDIST!”

And when she had the flu recently, she communicated perfectly in just a few words: “Yucky lunch came out of my mouth.” That was apt. So was her description of feeling tired the next day: “I need new batteries.”

She’s my fourth 2-year-old. I’m quite used to being bossed around by short people with dimpled elbows and dimpled knees. But I still was taken aback, floored, mystified, puzzled and a little scared by something she said the other day.

Of course, I’ve been paying attention to the rumors of war on the media. I’m well aware of all the speeches and protests and predictions, and friends’ sons and daughters being called up and all of that. We haven’t talked about it much around the older children, and certainly not at all with little Maddy. But war and rumors of war have been on all our hearts.

Well, the other day, Maddy went over to the sliding-glass door in her little pink flowered swimming suit with her colander helmet on. She looked outside, and frowned, and said:

“All the houses are going to melt.”

I was standing in the kitchen, but heard her as clear as a bell. I hurried over to her and crouched down.

“My bicycle is going to melt.” Her lower lip jutted out dramatically.

WHAT?

And then she said, “All the big restaurants are going to melt.”

I put an arm around her. I couldn’t help thinking that the biggest buildings she ever went into were probably restaurants, and to her, a vision of skyscrapers falling down in wartime would be like “big restaurants melting.”

My insides clenched. I mean, I’m no end-time fanatic. But I know what the Bible says.

I took a hold of her hand. “What about us, Maddy?” I asked.

Instantly, she replied, “We will be OK. We will be on the carpet. We won’t melt.”

Hunh? Carpet? I know Jesus said He was the “door,” but never the “floor.” Could she be trying to say “carpenter”? Or will we be whisked away from nuclear war, as on a magic carpet? The Rapture on a piece of Scotchguarded plush?

Hunhhh?

Was this the Holy Spirit speaking to me through my little girl?

Or just some innocent babbling by an imaginative child, spurred by the sight of the afternoon sun on a backyard snowbank?

I don’t know. But I know this: she seemed pretty sure about it, and not a bit scared. She kept holding my hand, and started chattering about something else.

So maybe as this war talk goes forward and a future that is scary at times unfolds, we should all take a clue from Maddy.

We may not understand all that goes on and all that we see . . . but we ought not to be scared as long as we remember Who it is we stand on . . . and we ought to just keep holding hands.

SATURDAY: Lookin' Up

MOSES GOT IT RIGHT; DOES YOUR STATE HAVE IT WRONG?

They say Moses wrote the Book of Genesis thousands of years ago, and said that God created the whole shootin' match, including the Earth and everything in it, in a particular order, on purpose and deliberately. That's Genesis 1.

But most state education departments have busily rewritten their standards of learning for science education to white out that truth, and direct science teachers to tell kids that noooooo, Genesis 1 has it wrong, and actually, the universe and everything in it, including the kids themselves, all came about through mindless, undirected random chance, mutation, and gradual change over lots and lots and lots and lots of years. That's according to evolutionary theory.

Consider Nebraska's science standard, which defines evolution this way:

"Evolution is a series of changes, some gradual and some sporadic, that account for the present form and function of objects, organisms, and natural and designed systems. The goal is for students to recognize that objects and systems change over time."

Doesn't that seem to suggest that the teachers need to assume that evolution explains life and its diversity on earth, and that it is a done deal and a true fact?

Of course, the theory of evolution is NOT true, and fortunately, science is advancing to where we can PROVE it: the Human Genome Project is blasting holes in the theory of common descent from mutual ancestry . . . astronomy is showing that the Big Bang probably did happen and its evidence is more consistent with rapid, directed creation rather than mindless, purposeless random development over billions of years . . . more and more people are learning about the science behind Intelligent Design theory, including the mathematical impossibility that the 3 billion base pairs in human DNA arranged themselves in order by chance, and the irreducible complexity of so many biological structures and processes, from the reproductive system of the humans to the intricate motion "machine" complete with flagellum of the common bacterium.

Be sure to browse my new report, "Show 'n' Tell on Evolution," for more: it's posted on the Nebraska Civic Digest and I hope parents, teachers and students will use it as a great starting point for study, discussion and, I certainly hope, better science education, both in our classrooms and in our government.

FRIDAY: Vitamin Mom

Helping Your Child SOAR

Here's a good acronym for helping your child develop leadership skills. You could write this on an index card and tape it to the inside of your child's closet, or somewhere he or she will see it every day:

S . . . Serve others patiently

O . . . Obey God completely

A . . . Accept God's plan for your life willingly

R . . . Rejoice for yourself and with others at all the things that are good

THURSDAY: Cre8iviT

VALENTINE'S FRIENDSHIP CROWNS

A fun Valentine's Day activity for children or maybe elderly folks in a group setting would be to make Valentine's Friendship Crowns. Cut pink construction paper into lengths to fit around people's heads, form into loops and staple as the main part of the crown. Cut sections of red pipe cleaner and tape six or eight around the edge with about two-thirds of their length sticking up vertically. Then write the first names of the child's or person's Valentines and friends on six or eight small, pink construction paper hearts. Tape them onto the tops of the pipe cleaners. It's fun to go around wearing your friends' names like a crown . . . because friends, after all, make you feel like a king or queen!

WEDNESDAY: Family Funnies

PARENTHOOD: TURNING THE TABLES ON THE WILD CHILD

My cousin has a birthday on Valentine's Day. I love him with all of my heart, mainly because he supplied our whole family with so many laughs when he was younger.

There was the time he buried the car keys and refused to tell where, and my uncle had to borrow a metal detector to finally find them.

There was the time he spread peanut butter over the entire bathroom mirror when my sister was babysitting and got them both in trouble.

There was the time he was getting ready to throw a bucket of water at a friend at the country-club pool, only at the last minute the friend ducked . . . and the water doused a well-dressed, well-coiffed (well, she was well-coiffed BEFORE) society matron.

But now I have heard a report from a reliable source -- my OTHER cousin, his sister -- that the sweet revenge of parenthood has finally caught up with him. Yes, Michael now has a wild child of his own.

She got her older sister in trouble and the two of them were sent to their separate rooms to think about it before they could come out. The older sister, who has never been in trouble for a nanosecond of her life before this because she is just like her mother, who is NOT a wild child, spent the time sitting on her bed sobbing. But the YOUNGER sister, the wild child, the one whose genes most closely express Michael's, spent the time in the adjoining bathroom doing SWIRLIES.

For the uninitiated, "swirlies" usually are inflicted on weaker kids by bullies in the bathrooms at school. The bully holds the weaker kid's head in the toilet and flushes. The net effect is that the weaker kid's hair "swirls." You get the picture.

But this wild child was totally unremorseful. She spent her penance time not doing a whit of punishment, nor penance. She was happily doing swirlies on her very own self.

Have fun during her adolescence, Michael!

And Happy Birthday, you wildhair.

TUESDAY: Hot Potatoes

MOTHER KNOWS BEST ABOUT GAMBLING

Since the Nebraska legislature and most of its citizens have been discussing the possibility of expanded gambling in the Cornhusker State, including full-blown casinos, it's time for the only legitimate authority figure on questions like this to speak.

And I am happy to serve as the temporary spokeswoman for that influential force. I am a mom -- speaking on behalf of the Sisterhood of Maternal Political Power and Cupcake Distribution, almost all of whom, I would bet, if I were a betting woman, and of course I am not, but I suppose almost all of us moms see it this way:

No more gambling. No way. No how.

Expanded gambling violates the following Rules of Motherhood. Legislators who violate these rules will "get sat" in the corner to think about it. Those who obey these rules will get an extra cupcake in their lunchboxes. Low-fat, of course. Who loves you, Baby?

And here they are:

1. If Mom doesn't know who you're going out with, you can't go out.

What in the Sam Hill are we are doing even considering getting involved with the kind of people who are behind organized gambling in this country? And why on earth we would even consider expanding their influence and power over the good people of Nebraska? Hey, you pro-gambling legislators: you're grounded.

2. You can't get something for nothing.

This is what we teach our kids. But gambling suggests that you can. Well,
you can't. Why work at cross purposes with Nebraska's mothers? We have a
hard enough time as it is.

3. Don't hurt weak people.

Gambling hurts the weak. The last thing we want to do as a society is to
make money off people's weaknesses and foibles. We teach our children to
protect the weak and try to make life better for them. Why would we do the
exact opposite with public policy that allows such a destructive force that
hurts people, especially the low-income citizen?

4. Do the right thing and resist peer pressure.

We hear a lot of people complaining that Nebraska dollars are going over the
river to the boats and if you can't beat 'em, you might as well join 'em.
That's the same peer pressure that we mothers work so hard to help our
children resist, whether it's drinking, cheating, Britneywear, you name it. Gambling is NOT the right thing to do and we should NOT bring any more of it into our state. We can't help it if Iowa and South Dakota already have. That's their problem. Meanwhile, a common-sense solution would be to ask those states to pass a law making their casinos share the proceeds of gambling with Nebraska charities in proportion to the amount of Nebraska money that is wagered in gambling facilities in their states. Happier now?

5. The best offense is a good defense.

What does all this excitement about expanded gambling say about Nebraska?
That it's boring! People are just looking for something to do. We need to be
developing our own attractive alternatives in Nebraska to keep those dollars
turning over and over within our state. Expanded gambling cuts the throats of our own existing restaurants and other businesses by allowing casinos to take those leisure dollars. It sends a lot of our money down the drain into
Las Vegas, where it's no good to any Nebraskan any more. What's the best way to make new entertainment options happen in Nebraska? Give government a business bath: cut government spending on all levels. The only way to grow new businesses and attractions is a solid tax cut to put the money in people's hands who'll do things that are positive for Nebraska and keep our money here.

6. If you can't make ends meet, cut your spending.

We moms sympathize with public officials in Nebraska who are faced with
enormous challenges in dealing with our budget deficits. But let's get real
here: with anybody's budget, when expenses exceed revenues, you cut spending. That's what we moms do. Why can't you? Gambling may seem like an easy way to be a hero, but encouraging it to metastasize in our state just makes you a villain in the eyes of us moms. Is that what you want? I don't think so. We just want our children to grow up in the best possible Nebraska, the most G-rated environment possible for our kids, with the most opportunities and the highest quality of life. Cut spending! You can do it!

7. Mother Knows Best.

Amen.

MONDAY: Show 'n' Tell for Parents

DOES YOUR CHILD HAVE THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF LITERACY?

In almost every case in which a child is struggling in school, the problem revolves around reading. Unfortunately, years have usually passed before parents are aware that the child's reading foundational skills are lacking. The reason, just as unfortunately, is likely to be poor reading instruction in the early grades of school.

Is your child getting what he or she needs to become a strong reader? There are five levels of reading readiness that build upon each other. The first ones are the most basic, but the vast majority of schools are not delivering the skills that deliver mastery in those first few areas. Why not? Because they use Whole Language methods of reading instruction instead of traditional, orderly, systematic, intensive, explicit phonics.

If your child hasn't mastered the first two skills, your child does not have the tools to master the next few skills, at least not well. This is why many children flail away at reading and get so frustrated; it's very similar to being up a creek without a paddle. Without phonics, they are pretty much left to their own devices on how to figure out what a page of text means. It makes them vulnerable to bad mental habits which are increasingly being misunderstood as "learning disabilities." They're not: they are just the signs that the child didn't get the reading basics and is now struggling to make up his or her own solutions.

So as you assess your child's abilities in these five levels, decide whether the steps to literacy have been well-ordered and well-placed for your child . . . or if your school's reading program needs an immediate remodeling!

1. Phonemic awareness: the ability to hear and remember the order of the sounds that letters make in words.

Does your child know the alphabet? Does your child enjoy rhyming and rhythm? Can your child "glue" and "unglue" words? For example, have your child say the word "jumprope." Now ask your child to take away the "jump." Can your child remember the proper response, "rope"? For a child in third grade or higher, see if the child can speak in "pig Latin." Remember? Ou-yay an-cay ake-tay is-thay est-tay. If the child can't rearrange the sounds in words like that, the child most likely was never taught to discern them.

2. Phonics: the ability to match the sounds that the letters make to the written symbols on a page and decode those written symbols (words) quickly and accurately.

Does your child know the short vowel sounds? Long vowel sounds? Does your child know the 70 phonograms, or the various sounds that the English language makes by alphabet letters alone or in combinations?

3. Fluency: the quick, efficient and accurate decoding of words, read rapidly and with expression.

Give your child something to read that is NOT that day's schoolwork, but that you think is about grade-level complexity for your child's age. Example: a library book. Listen to your child reading aloud. Does he or she stumble? Pause? Skip words or entire lines of text? Does he or she read in a monotone? Does he or she get tired really quickly? These are symptoms that the child is having to work too hard on decoding the words and has no energy left for actually reading them, a sure sign of a phonics deficiency.

4. Vocabulary: does your child use a lot of different words, or are they all very simple, common words?

Again, show your child a book from outside the classroom with words that are about that child's reading level. Ask your child to count how many words on each page he or she has no idea about the meaning. Estimate the percentage of unfamiliar words. It should be pretty small. A stunted vocabulary is another sure sign of a phonics deficiency, because without the fast decoding power of the sound-symbol connection that you learn with phonics, a child is limited to remembering the visual patterns of letters -- "sight words" -- which is the main decoding strategy of Whole Language reading instruction methods, but a weak one, since it is silent and misses out on the power of sound that comes with phonics.

5. Comprehension: how well does your child interpret the meaning of text and enjoy the reading?

A sure sign of decoding distress is if a child's reading comprehension is poor. If you can understand the meaning of spoken language -- if your "listening comprehension" is good -- then if you cannot understand the meaning of written language, the problem isn't with you. It's with the weak ways you were taught to decode text. Without the accuracy and fluency that comes with careful phonics instruction, the reading comprehension of the average Whole Language student begins to show declines right off the bat, and the difference in comprehension skills between Whole Language readers and phonics readers becomes dramatic in the secondary-school years.

For more on this and related topics involved with reading problems, see No comments:

Oops! Proper link for the last line of the reading story is LDOnline

And on to . . .

SUNDAY: Radiant Beams

HOG WILD

And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ.
-- Ephesians 3:9

We have these friends. They seemed totally conventional, out here in suburbia. And then we heard about their first date.

It's a great Valentine’s Day reminder that love really does triumph and God works in mysterious ways. Sometimes the Lord of Love uses some mighty unusual kindling to fan the flames of romance.

Mighty unusual.

See, our friend started off in life as an agricultural entrepreneur. He had a cow / calf operation and also raised 150 Yorkshire brood sows with some champion boars on 800 rolling acres in Iowa.

OK, OK. He was a pig farmer.

But he's a hunk and he cleans up nice. And somebody introduced him to her. They hit it off and made a date.

Now, she's a city girl, or as close to it as you can get out here in the sticks. She is the type who ''gets nails'' and is beautifully dressed, petite and feminine all the way.

He told her he was busy ''farrowing'' and asked her to come over to his place and they could go out on their date from there.

She wasn't entirely sure what ''farrowing'' meant, but thought it sounded very manly and hands-on and so forth. So she arrived in her flirty little tube top and white shorts with brand-spankin' new white clogs.

''Miss Prissy,'' he describes her now.

Well, he wasn't at the house but the door to the outbuilding, which she later learned was the ''farrowing house,'' was wide open. So she went in.

It's not clear exactly why she shut her eyes. It might have been the blast of methane gas that erupted onto her hair, her clothes and her skin like a tidal wave of stinky.

Or it might have been the sight of her newfound flame . . . down on one knee with his arm all the way up a mama pig's behind.

Love at first sight is not supposed to be like this.

Whatever made her close her eyes, they snapped back open as soon as she heard him ask her to come over and stick HER arm all the way up the mama pig's behind.

''She’s already had eight, but this one's breech and it has to be turned,'' he was shouting. ''My arm's too big. Will you come over here and do it?''

Standing there in her flirty little tube top and white shorts and brand new white clogs, she just stared at him. He was filthy, and he was kneeling near the manure pit up to his armpit in moanin', squealin' mama pig, and we're talkin' 500 pounds of moanin', squealin' mama pig.

She stood there, speechless and squinting in the methane cloud.

He saw that she was hesitating, so he smiled his manliest, most entrancing, most persuasive smile. ''I’ve got a glove you can wear!''

You know, I'd like to be able to report that she was overcome with love and devotion for him, heard bells, was struck in the heart by Cupid's arrow, et cetera, et cetera, so she ran right over there and did it.

But I believe her actual response was closer to what most of us females would have said:

''In a pig’s eye, Buster!''

Another ending to the story might have him asking the sow to marry him. He was already down on one knee and was feeling very, very close to her, I'm sure. But that didn't happen, either.

What did happen is that our friend DIDN'T run out of there squealing like a . . . well, a . . . stuck pig. She stayed. He tried one more time with the breech and it worked. He finished farrowing all by himself, winding up with 14 nice piglets. Then he dashed inside, washed up, and left with the reluctant midwife out on their date.

They had a wonderful time. I mean, they already had something to talk about. Sort of.

But he didn't need to entertain her or impress her. She had already fallen head over heels in love with him. The pig stink and ridiculous position she'd seen him in didn't matter.

It was that smile. That's all she saw. That's all it took.

They were married shortly thereafter.

OK, you men: forget the red sports car. Forget the diamond bracelet. Forget the hours in the weight room and the tooth whitening regimen. Forget all the things you think are your best shots at wooing the woman of your dreams.

I’m not saying you need to get up to your armpits in pig dip to get her attention. But I am saying the Lord works in mysterious ways.

And brother, when it comes to winning the one who's meant for you, relax. He's on your side . . . and He's got moves you’ve never dreamed of.