Learning From Our Elders

Angela Lansbury was no dummy. She knew a murder was coming every week when I was a teenager. And so did Granny.

"There’s a-gonna be a murder," Granny would say, shortly after "Murder, She Wrote" began. And so we’d watch, and sure enough, there would be.

Watching that television show each week was one of many predictable comforts Granny and I shared together.

I learned a lot about parenting my two sons years ago from Granny through the routine activities we did together. We’d meet some cousins for breakfast at a local buffet on week-mornings before school. At the beginning of each month, we would visit the Sears’ under $30 dress rack (where we rarely bought anything – it was the act of doing it that seemed to be the point), and then go by Richard’s for a slice of pie. Perhaps that was the real point. Those were the days.

I remember these routines with great fondness not only because they were precious times with a thoroughly adorable woman, but also because these routines taught me how to stay steady in times of change. To this day if I see a Sara Lee pie on sale I simply must grab it. While I enjoy making delicious pies when I have time, I don’t always have the focus or the succession of minutes it takes to make my own. That taste always brings the familiar comforts I remember having in my younger years with Granny.

For those of us who do not naturally fall into routines – who get harried and sidetracked easily – routines are the salvation of our waking and sleeping hours.

Managing a busy family can be a daunting task. And for mothers, moments of respite are few and scattered. I find that having my own habits for quiet time and for family time go a long way in helping to keep my ship running in the stormy sea. One way I do this is through sharing predictable little comforts with my family. And when I become distracted by the cares of busy living, it is my own children who draw me back to the basics that keep this frazzled captain on course.

With this winter’s snowstorms, school delays and cancellations, my world was rocked considerably. Maintaining a work schedule for both my husband and me became quite a chore with cabin-fevered kids at home. To add chaos to the mix, I learned that the heating coil in my minivan was going out, causing a strange, greasy film of antifreeze on the inside of my windshield. Never mind that it was cold. As I hauled the kids to a spur-of-the-moment babysitter and friend of the family, I wondered if we would end up stuck in a pile of snow because I couldn’t see to the far right of me.

My boys were full of excitement at that possibility, wondering when the thrilling wreckage would occur. When it did, my Thomas would move the van with his bare hands and James would keep Mommy warm – they had it all planned out.

After safely leaving them to play on snow sleds with our friends, I inched my way to work, around town on errands and finally collected the kids and headed home. I was a mess. The days had just thrown a little too much toward this mommy. Now as I trekked through even deeper snow I was thinking of what I even felt like fixing for dinner. I wished for an angelic chef to appear in my kitchen and prepare a delicious meal for my family, because on this night, the chef definitely would not be me.

But to my surprise, I had forgotten that I was the chef, but I had a little help. On Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, my habit is to throw a big piece of meat into the crock-pot while I brew the coffee. We were greeted at the back door with the aroma of a picnic ham. On we went with the back-door routine of discarding our boots onto the boot tray, hanging our coats and feeding the critters (two dogs, seven fish). Ahhh – routine, at last!

While I tried to think of what to fix with the ham, my James tapped his finger on his chin in thought. "Are you thinking what I’m thinking?" he said. Puzzled and distracted, I was at a loss. He walked over to the freezer and pointed to the peach pie I’d thrown into the grocery cart the week before. And then I knew this shaken ship had found a moment of respite. The lighthouse of routine had drawn our craft home to share another special time together. The only thing left to do was to call Granny and tell her about our day and talk about the dress rack at Sears.