Love Lounge: What were your childhood vacations like?

I once saw a news
clip on one of those morning shows instructing parents on how to plan the
essential family vacation. A mini television to dangle down like a
disco ball. A pint-sized laptop perfect for your pint-sized five-year-old. Even
some hand-held video games disguised as “learning tools.”
 
It’s an electronic wonderland. All so the little tykes would have something –
anything – to occupy the long and treacherous trip to grandmother’s house.


I
scoffed and quickly changed the channel. For some 20 years,
my family and I descended on the Deep South
not by plane or train, but by our good old-fashioned family Ford. It was bare
from the start. A couple suitcases, a pack of snacks and a few blankets and matches
to stay warm should the car breakdown on a snowy, icy Tennessee road.

We didn’t have a
television or a camcorder to lose ourselves in a fantasy world. Our
television was America,
just a stone’s throw away through the car window. We marveled at the barren
landscape of the wintry Midwest and clapped with glee as we saw the first
patches of green grass peek through the northern Alabama red soil. In the early years
of our travels, we didn’t even have a CD player in the car. To pass the 20-hour
trip, we’d sing everything from The Twelve Days of Christmas (the way it’s
supposed to be sung – each person sings one of the 12 days) to my mom’s
spectacular rendition of the Broadway hit On The Street Where You Live.


In fact, the most
high-tech gadget in our tight yet lovable quarters was rather low-tech by
today’s standards. A simple ‘80s tape player. And we didn’t even use it to listen
to Paula Abdul or Phil Collins. My sister and I sat in the back seat recording
ourselves onto a blank tape. We’d laugh, sing songs (I’d sing loudest and
proudest, of course) and sometimes even interview each other. A few years ago,
my mother found some of our “early demos,” and we discovered our sessions
occasionally broke out in raucous fights, but even through the bitter words, we
laughed a sweet, hardy chuckle.

See, we didn’t
need to be “occupied” or “distracted” to enjoy the family car ride, and
my sister and I didn’t end up climbing the walls of the car by the time we
reached the sunny shore, either. In fact, we all looked forward to the ride
home. It was the happiest time of the year. We knew we’d be together. And at
that moment, we knew that was all we needed.

What were your family vacations like when you were growing up, friends? Did you end up fighting with your siblings in the back seat? Or did you fight for the window seat on the plane? What’s your favorite vacation memory? I’d love to hear all about it! xoxo

[Photos from one of my favorite movies]

Family Photos: Sister love

With my mom in Alabama with my grandfather this week (he’s starting radiation next Monday; thanks for all the well wishes, friends…), I’ve been thinking a lot about family. I came across these photos a few months ago, and they brought back so many childhood memories. My sister and I were quite inseparable, apparently…
I loved reading to her (one of the major responsibilities of a big sister)…
We loved playing together…

And, of course, we were each other’s travel buddy!

Ahhh, the memories. There’s nothing like sibling memories, is there, friends? What favorite memories do you have? If you don’t have a sibling, do you wish you did? xoxo

Childhood photos

Don’t you love going through family photos? We pulled out a whole bunch of photo albums a few weeks ago, and the memories just came flooding back. Look for a Family Photos Week coming up, but in the meantime, here are a few fun snapshots — gotta love the ’80s, right?

Do you have a lot of family photos from your childhood, friends? xoxo 

An Open Letter To My Father: On milestones

Dear Father: 
Remember when I talked about all the milestones you’ve missed in the nine years that you’ve been gone? Well, we reached another one over the weekend. It’s the sort of milestone I’ve been turning over and over in my head for the past two days, trying to make sense of something that, quite frankly, I never expected to hit me as hard as it did.

So Saturday morning went something like this: Janelle is getting certified in phlebotomy and starts an internship in a couple months — at 4 a.m.! Naturally, she’ll need a way to get there, so my mom thought it was high time she got a used car. As luck would have it, some family friends were selling a car — the green little beauty above — and it was the perfect car for Janelle. It was the perfect first car for her. Yes, Father, you read that right. Her. First. Car.

The husband of the couple that sold us the car took Janelle under his wing that morning in her own private auto-repair crash course. He showed her the inner workings of the car, took her to give the car a shiny wash and showed her how to put the license plate on. He did all those fatherly things, and he did them with such tireless enthusiasm, just like you would have. Needless to say, it was a very grateful day, one of those days when you realize just what good people you have in your life. I forget that sometimes with you gone. I know I shouldn’t. I know that your death should have made me realize how many people love me. And it has, for the most part. I just have my bad days every now and then.

Anyway, I’ll admit that I didn’t really expect to get all that choked up and emotional about the whole thing. But as the morning rolled on, it became clearer and clearer just exactly what this whole milestone meant — for all of us.

We got to talking about things later that night. We wondered if you were looking down on us and on everything that was happening. Were you as sad as we were that you couldn’t be there? Because we all knew that you would have loved this day with all your heart. You, too, would have made a big production out of things. That was just in your nature, which was one of the many things we
all loved — and miss — about you.

I’m sure you would have uttered the word “proud” a lot, too. Proud of Janelle for doing so well with her phlebotomy class. Proud of her for owning her first car. Proud of her for being responsible enough to own her first car.

You were always so proud of your family. I wish you were here so we could be proud of you, too. But something tells me that you were watching us. Were you smiling that classic smile of yours that I remember so well? I hope so. I love you and miss you, Father. xoxo

Love Lounge: What’s your place in your family?

Speaking of siblings, the science behind birth order has always fascinated me. A few years ago, I wrote an article on birth order for Pregnancy magazine. As it turns out, birth order is just as much a part of a person as eye or hair color and is most intense at home. Every baby is born with a personality, and the general tone of a person seems to be developed in the womb.

“Birth order is to the personality what the skeleton is to the body,” says Clifford Isaacson, birth order expert, psychotherapist and author of The Birth Order Effect: How to Better Understand Yourself and Others. “What the skeleton does for the body, birth order does for the personality.”

He’s mapped out 5 birth order personalities and traits associated with each type…

Only: organizing, feeling, private

First: dreaming, indecisive, researching

Second: perfectionist, logical, sensitive

Third: creative, helpful, spontaneous

Fourth: analytical, unpredictable, reclusive

What I found really fascinating, though, was Isaacson’s look at birth order later in life. There are some 20 different combinations of birth order in marriage. “The challenge in marriage is to understand each other. Birth order knowledge will help a great deal,” says Isaacson, who also authored The Birth Order Effect for Couples. Some of his tips for wedded bliss…

*Try thinking like your partner to grasp the birth order differences. This helps with communication.
*Choose to enjoy two or three of your partner’s birth order characteristics. These can be a source of humor between the two of you.
*Compensate from your birth order behavior for things lacking in your spouse’s birth order behavior. That way, both of you contribute to your relationship.
*Increase your understanding of each other’s birth order to do away with anger. What seems unfair may simply be birth order behavior.

Growing up, my younger sister, Janelle, and I each had distinct personalities. As the leader of the pack, I bossed everyone around and dreamed of doing everything from riding a bike to baking my grandmother’s famous almond cookies with my mother. Janelle, on the other hand, was sensitive and somewhat of a loner and would spend hours in her room creating beautiful works of art that she’d enter in the local grocery store’s coloring contest. Our little selves may not have known it then, but we fit the mold perfectly.

Isn’t that interesting? Your turn, friends: What “spot” were you born into in your family? Were you the oldest? The youngest? An only child? Did you like where you were, or did you wish you could trade places with someone? Did your personality match the corresponding birth order characteristics? Have the characteristics followed you into adulthood, or have you “outgrown” them? xoxo
 
[Photos by Charles Gullung]