FREE Talk by Julie Lythcott-Haims on How To Raise an Adult

FREE Talk by Julie Lythcott-Haims on How To Raise an Adult

Julie Lythcott-Haims, former freshman dean at Stanford University and the author of How to Raise an Adult, will be speaking (no cost) at Beth Emet (SW corner of Dempster and Ridge) on Thursday, Oct. 8 at 7:30 p.m.  Her book has been characterized as the Anti-Tiger Mom Manifesto and takes on schoolwork, sports, extracurriculars, college admissions, online school portals, chores, play, adolescence, and mental health.  Click here for the New York Times review.

I am Worthy of a City Like Evanston!

This summer, June 2015, will mark our family's four year anniversary moving to Evanston and what a wonderful four years it has been. (I know it's early to write about summer, but a girl has to dream!) That's our Penske rental truck in the photo above filled with everything we owned upon arrival!

Moving to a new city without jobs and only one friend is a huge risk for any individual, let alone a family to take, but we had a hunch our new city would reward our courage. What we didn't realize is just how big of a reward Evanston would provide each of us.

Our two children (often referred to as roommates who don't pay rent) made wonderful friends both at school and in the neighborhood. Some friends are still around after four years but thanks to the ebb and flow of new citizens, they've both made plenty of new friends every year. That is a huge gift. They enrolled in amazing schools that offered extra curricular activities to support their sports and creative needs and in those schools they are supported by teachers and staff who welcomed them openly regardless of their newness. 

My husband and I have made friends, not as quickly as neither of us play organized sports or joined knitting clubs, who will be friends for life and we continue to make new friends both at work and in our neighborhood. After pretty significant searches we are both able to find means of income in our city, not having to commute more than 15 minutes on a bike. 

The list of benefits could go on but the truest benefits have been the friendship and connections that have come so easy in Evanston because the people living here are warm and open and excited to engage in the community they live in. 

This past year I've started many blog posts in an attempt to recognize this milestone and to thank the people of Evanston who have made us feel welcome. Tonight after watching a TED Talk, it's finally evident what my deepest feelings are about our move and that is "My family is worthy of living in a city like Evanston." Not my family "deserves" or my family is "owed" but my family is worthy and by that I mean the following; we are worthy of friendly neighbors willing to get to know the new people on the block regardless of how we look or how big or small our house is, we are worthy of a walkable city that provides resources like a robust public library and public transportation supported by the tax dollars of a giving community, we are worthy of an engaged City Government that polls citizens and answers emails and phone calls, we are worthy of a beautiful lakefront that is public and manicured and shared with everyone, we are worthy of a diverse community that supports artists and teachers and entrepreneurs alike and we are worthy of a community who opens its doors and hearts to newbies when they have lived here since 1904.

I am grateful for the City of Evanston and filled with joy that my family chose to live here. Watch this TED Talk featuring the great work of Brené Brown and hopefully you will feel the same way about where you are living now or where you choose to live next.

Evanston Summer Camp Lottery is Feb. 5 - 22

'Tis the season to sign your children up for summer camp for summer 2013 in Evanston. This year the Recreation Department of Evanston is mixing things up just to freak out all you parents who need to book your children's time for at least one week during the 9 weeks (or so) of summer.

Here's what you need to know: you must apply online for camp to be entered into a lottery. Below is a much longer explanation, but all you panicked parents, calm down, you've got until Feb. 22 to register online!

How to Enter the Summer Camp Lottery

If you do not already have an account with the Evanston Parks & Recreation online registration system, click here to sign up for an account.

Anytime between February 5 and February 22, log in to the recreation registration system.

Click the "Search" button, or the 'Browse Activities" link

Search for a camp, either by using the number from the Camp Guide, or by selecting an age and under "type", select Summer Camp Programs

When you find the camp you want, there should be a "Lottery" button next to it. This denotes programs that are eligible for lottery registration. Click the cart icon next to the lottery button to proceed.

Select the family member you want to enter in the lottery for this camp and then click "add to cart". Click "agree" to agree to the disclaimer.

Click "continue shopping" to enter for additional camps, or click "proceed to checkout" if you do not want to add additional camps.

Repeate steps 3-7 to add additional camps

To checkout, click checkout and you will recieve a confirmation .pdf. Click "submit" to have the confirmation emailed to you.

Lottery results will be e-mailed on Monday, February 25. Please check your spam folder for e-mails and add recreation@cityofevanston.org to your contact list to ensure you receive messages from Recreation in your inbox.

http://www.cityofevanston.org/parks-recreation/recreation/summer-camps/

Dispatches from the couch: The pain and pleasure of parenting

I love being a mother and parent as I am beginning to realize it's one of the few ways in life to constantly mingle intense pain and intense pleasure without getting up from the couch.

For instance just now I was sitting on the couch with my laptop open, reading the traffic stats for this blog and bemoaning the fact that in December alone more than 3,000 page views went to my post about the Downy Woodpecker that I saw out my window in November 2011. (Click here: Wildlife Sighting: Female Downy Woodpecker)

I showed my son the long list of search terms people use to find my blog; woodpecker, downy woodpecker, female woodpecker, birding, etc., and none of the search terms used had anything to do with me or Evanston - or at least the top 10 didn't.

"Isn't that pathetic?" I said to my son. "No one is searching for me or Evanston, they are only searching for woodpeckers." To this my son replied, "Mom, there are many pathetic things about your life."

This caught me by no surprise at all considering that just six months after I posted about the Downy Woodpecker I told my son about the traffic my site got for the woodpecker and he felt bad for me, saying I should be embarrassed and of course I wrote about the experience. Click here to read Humbled by a Woodpecker.

In both instances when my son reminded me how much more interesting Downy Woodpeckers were than anything I could possibly write about my "pathetic" life and "Evanston", I felt intense pangs of pain followed by pleasure. The pain centered on the truth he so quickly spoke to me without any editing to make feel better and the pleasure that followed had everything to do with the fact that I was so proud of him for being so critical so fast. What a jerk! I loved it! He's so young and has so much time to sharpen his mean-girls skills. Is it bad I want my son to grow up to me a mean girl? That's for another blog post!

I should probably care what my son thinks of me, but if I did he would have crushed me by his third year. And seeing as I don't care what the general public thinks of me, I'm certainly not going to let some kid hold court over my emotions or ego.

Thank you for letting me share this and yes, I am well aware that the only traffic I will get on this post is users looking for information on Downy Woodpeckers, but it's okay, I don't care what those users think! [Update the morning after: I do care what every user who comes to this blog thinks and that was snarky to say that I don't but I was just trying to keep the theme of the piece going.]

Thank you for reading my blog www.EvanstonNewbie.blogspot.com, a blog devoted to covering my family's move from El Paso, TX, to Evanston, IL, in 2011. We arrived in June 2011 and several people have pointed out that I am no longer a "newbie" and should start some other blog. But I disagree and want to keep the "newbie" status for a while longer, maybe five years and for several reasons. #1 - there are tons of Evanston families who have lived here for generations since the town incorporated in the late 1800s, so in comparison to them, I am very much a "newbie". #2 - I firmly believe this blog is a good branding tool for Evanston and it's the least I can do to thank our new town for being so AWESOME! If you have any questions or need to get in touch with my about this blog, Evanston, or anything else you can email me at thelisadshow@gmail.com. Thank you for reading and have an awesome 2013.

Two Personal Projects After Sandy Hook

Photo from window of Morlen Sinoway Atelier in Fulton Market, Chicago. www.morlensinoway.com

Hello reader: In a very round about way I am going to tell you about a book group the Evanston Public Library is starting. If you want to avoid my talk about raising boys to not shoot their peers, scroll to the bottom of this post where the book group info is.

In the wake of the Sandy Hook shootings there have been numerous discussions about the type of parents Adam Lanza had, specifically the type of mother given that he lived with her after his parent's divorce. Was she nurturing? Didn't she see how reclusive her son was and why train him to use weapons?

As we think about the type of parents who raise killers like Adam Lanza, we also look at the type of man Adam was. Just yesterday I read something in Salon.com, Adam Lanza: America’s crisis of masculinity personified, that made me think deeply about the kind of boys we are raising in America. We are raising boys who are killing one another from the streets of Evanston to the schools of Sandy Hook. Why are our boys killing?

As I think about these questions, I find myself turning a critical eye to my parenting practices (my husband and I are raising two boys) and it occurs to me that I don't lend enough intellectual energy to my parenting of two boys. I am a very reactive and emotional parent, and read very little about the emotional development and social needs of my boys. Could this approach be part of the problem of parenting in America? We’re all too reactive and worried about the wrong things, like if our children like us?

Whatever the answer, I am committing to two things in reaction to the Sandy Hook tragedy; I will become a more conscious parent of boys and men. (Of course lucky for me (and you) Evanston Public Library has an outlet for this change, a book group for parents raising boys. I'm in and you can join too, see the info below.)

Additionally, I am going to advocate that our elected officials change the law and ban assault weapons and demand background checks on all gun purchasing and licensing.

I am by no means Adam Lanza’s mother (click here to read I am Adam Lanza’s Mother by Liza Long), but I have two boys and should do my personal best to make sure they become men who are stewards of this earth and the people on it.

Here is information on Evanston Public Library's book club for raising boys;

Event Type: Family
Age Group(s): Family, Teen
Date: 1/31/2013
Start Time: 7:00 PM
End Time: 8:15 PM

Description:
In this book group for parents of boys from toddler to 8th grade, we will read quality children's/YA literature featuring fully-realized boy characters, discuss the story and its characters and discuss how the story relates to our experiences raising our boys. Co-led by Jarrett Dapier, a young adult librarian and father and Betty Mac Kune Karrer, a former family systems therapist at Northwestern University, this book group gives parents a chance to understand boys better and learn strategies for giving boys the support they need to flourish. Our first book will be JOEY PIGZA SWALLOWED THE KEY. Please pick up your copy at the children's desk once you've registered. BOTH PARENTS STRONGLY ENCOURAGED TO ATTEND (though not required).
Library: Main Library Google Map

Location: Children's Public Conference Room (First Floor)
Status: Openings

Mom, this doesn’t feel like home.

After a three week vacation in Northern California staying with their grandparents, aunt, uncles and cousins, my boys return home today. This is the second summer in a row where “coming home” means coming to Evanston and not El Paso. Despite the year living here, I worry it still won’t feel like home because as the title of this blog notes, my boys frequently tell me “Mom, this doesn’t feel like home”.

Although I totally believe there is merit in NOT listening to MOST things children say, I find it hard to ignore them when they tell me that their new home doesn’t feel like "home". They can’t really back it up and give concrete reasons, both of them just say “I don’t know, but it doesn’t feel like home.”

I hear myself responding “well boys, home isn’t always a physical location. It can be a feeling or a smell or temperature. Don’t worry about recreating what you used to have in El Paso but instead working on creating what you want in Evanston.” This normally just gets me blank stares.

For parents who move children numerous times because of career demands how do they recreate new homes? It takes so long to make good friends; there must be a speedier way to create belonging. I really haven’t done the research on creating a new home and a sense of belonging because I wanted our experience to be organic. Other than talking in a friendly tone to every human I’ve come across in our new town over the last year, I’ve let my children pick their friends and how they make them. I’ve let them pick the park where they want to hang and their favorite restaurant. More than anything, I’ve just given them a love for walking and that’s how they’ve discovered their new city. I think they’ve done a great job creating their new home/life all on their own but…

Will they come home today and say, “This doesn’t feel like home?” I hope the banners and the fresh flowers and the bag of Chicago style popcorn and the cake (see above) make them feel like they’re home. I’ll let you know what happens.

Humbled by a Woodpecker

Last night walking home from the beach with my older son Miles, we saw a male Downy woodpecker eating ants off the bark of a tree. With his red hat of feathers, he jackhammered his head into the bark; too busy eating to fly away as we gawked at him from inches away.

I was so excited and in a hushed hurried tone told Miles, “Oh I wish I had my camera! Last time I shot a picture of a female, she doesn’t have the read feathers on her head. And I posted it on my blog and you wouldn’t believe this, but more people have read that post that anything else! It’s amazing the traffic that a little post on a woodpecker gets!”

Miles looked at me in utter disgust and said “Mom, that’s awful. People don’t even come to your blog to read about you? They care more about a dumb woodpecker? That’s weak.”

I was about to challenge his scathing judgment on my reader’s lack of interest in me but I let it be.

Parents have to pick their battles with their children (and all children for that matter) very wisely.

And part of me thought, “Go right ahead, child. Believe that people think a woodpecker is more interesting than your mother.”

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Photo credit: Ohionature.com

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Thank you for reading my blog "Evanston Newbie", a project that I am using to tell stories about my new life in Evanston. You can also find my stories on Cowbird.com/LisaDegliantoni.

Collecting dead bugs for the dudes, spending way too much money on summer fun and thoughts on how to raise grateful children

Pictured above are two Cicada carcasses I recently collected off the sidewalk for my children. Ask yourself, “do I know anyone who collects dead bugs for their children?” Now you do.

These dead bugs represent the tip of the iceberg on my recent obsession with raising grateful children. But first to understand the depth of this obsession we’ll go back, far back, to the days when my kids were really young. Back in the day in our house, if I bought a bag of M&Ms, I doled out as many pieces as the children were old. If you were 6, you got 6 M&Ms candies in your hand AND you were psyched you weren’t 2 years old. Peers without children thought this practice was cruel, peers with children felt intense pity for my boys.

But I come from the lonely school that only deprivation can make the emotions of gratefulness come to life. And I was determined to raise children who were grateful for anything I gave them to include pancakes or a college education. Ungrateful children are at the top of my list of children I abhor. I also abhor children without self-control and bad manners, i.e. children with LAZY parents.

So as this summer approached and I found myself writing large checks to Evanston Parks and Rec for summer camps and a super cool babysitter who would take my boys to the beach everyday, I became totally obsessed with this single thought “those boys better be grateful for the massive financial sacrifices we are making for them this summer! My parents didn’t send me to camp! I had to sit and stare at the wall all summer! Kids these day!!!!” My boys’ were out of luck before summer even started, as I just knew they’d be ungrateful!

The best piece of advice my mother ever gave me was “If you have a problem with your husband, take it right to him, don’t sit around and talk about it with your girlfriends, there’s nothing they can do about it.” So, I jumped the gun and went straight to my children before they could even display an ungrateful attitude for one second. I sat them down and gave them a big talk and told them how much work it was for us to produce an amazing summer and that I expected them to be grateful for summer camp, their awesome babysitter AND Lake Michigan. Throughout my speech, they just stared at me and said, “Thank you mom, we are very grateful for summer camp.” I couldn’t have scripted a better response!

As I read books like Willpower and Hymn of the Tiger Mother, I marvel at Chinese-American parents who are able to raise grateful, disciplined and high performing children with the sheer premise that it’s just what’s expected. I want kids who understand what’s expected of them and that includes being grateful for the sacrifices I make as a parent, everyday of my life. It’s my job to communicate that, which is why we’re reading this blog post as a family after dinner tonight. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Sunday Breakfast: 6 boys, 24 pancakes, 3 minutes, 1 HUGE milestone

Warning: For those of you parents reading this who used to attend Pancake Saturdays, you are going to cry big crocodile tears mostly because like never before, you are going to miss ME and those quiet hours on Saturday morning when I would take your children off your hands for several hours and leave you to do laundry, nurse a hangover, make out with your partner, whatever you used to do. Know that I miss YOU too, and am crying with you.

When we lived in El Paso we used to host a Saturday morning social event for neighborhood kids called “Pancake Saturdays”. Adults were invited to drop off their children around 8 a.m. and pick up them up around 11 a.m. (that same day) and were discouraged from coming inside for coffee, as it was a “’kids only” thing. Between 8-11 a.m. (in no particular order) my children hosted up to 8 friends in our home and without any adult supervision (aka micromanaging) they played games, watched cartoons and hosted a pancake breakfast, all I had to do was make 40 pancakes on the skillet in my kitchen in my jammies.

Some of our fondest memories of El Paso are of Pancake Saturdays. Of course now that they don’t take place anymore my children have romanticized the breakfasts talking about the hundreds of children who attended and the buckets of candy I distributed. But the truth is, Pancake Saturdays were always small and totally sweet and catered to the neighborhood.

Our last year in El Paso the breakfasts didn’t occur as often as Saturday mornings got eaten up by organized sports. We talked a lot about having Pancake Saturdays but they just sort of stopped and me and my children missed them and then we moved. Would we ever have them again?

The first thing you need for Pancake Saturdays is a group of friends then you need the space to feed the friends breakfast. Upon arriving in our teeny tiny apartment it was obvious hosting more than 2 children for breakfast was out of the question and we really only had one friend who was a kid and her mom didn’t like her eating the pancakes I made and instead wanted us to try the healthy kind. We decided to table Pancake Saturdays.

And then just last month we moved into an apartment with room to host more than 4 diners in the kitchen or the dining room – my spirit lifted at the chance to host anything! And what did we host first? A pancake breakfast! It was totally on the wrong day (Sunday) and was part of an all-day Axis and Allies tournament that catered to 10-year old boys not necessarily neighbors, but we finally hosted a pancake breakfast and it felt so awesome. As is the case with the most of the milestones we experience in our new life, I find myself over analyzing and obsessing about every detail. I ask myself questions like “How does today’s milestone compare to the one in El Paso?” “How are these children different than the children in El Paso?” “Are my children looking homesick and sad?” “Do these pancakes seem dry?”

And as I sit and obsess, I look at my children for guidance and they seem to be so calm, not at all carrying the burden of overanalyzing every minute. But who knows with children! Sometimes they don’t talk about a thought or feeling for several months or even years. Sitting there eating pancakes at our kitchen table with 6 friends, my children looked calm and didn’t at all seem to be picking up the screaming message in my head that was blaring “THIS IS THE FIRST PANCAKE BREAKFAST WE’VE HOSTED IN OUR NEW CITY, ISN’T THIS INSANE?!?!?!” (Could you for one minute imagine being my child?)

Of course I learned a few things about my children and their new friends despite all the over-analyzing I was doing. Here are just a few things I picked up on;
1. Both of my children are so much more patient than I am when it comes to making friends
2. Boys do talk, they talk so much
3. When left alone, children problem solve with words (I sort of knew that already)
4. Six children can play together for up to six hours without video games. Imagine?!

It feels so great to still be learning so much from our move, I didn’t anticipate that would be such a huge part of it. And it also feels so good to carry over old traditions and make them new and unique to our new city and life. I am grateful to have children who are open and patient, they are both making me that way every day. And who knows, maybe we’ll switch it up and host Pancake Sundays from now on, we had such an amazing first run.

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Thank you for reading my blog "Evanston Newbie", a project that I am using to chronicle my new life in Evanston. Do you have favorite Evanston bakeries, bike shops, events that you can recommend? Send me an email at thelisadshow@gmail.com and I will post my review on this blog. -Lisa Degliantoni

On Shabbona Lake, Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom and managing your child’s idle time

I wanted one specific thing for my 40th birthday weekend (Memorial Day) and that was to spend it camping with my husband and children. We picked Shabbona Lake State Park a great little fishing lake 82 miles west of Chicago. Granted my older son said the camping “was so urban” with lots of trailers packed into the 100 campsites, the facilities were clean, beautifully nestled along the lake under a canopy of trees and the fishing was great.

We caught lots of bluegills, small-mouthed bass and one lake trout. And in addition to fish we saw all kinds of wildlife; geese, ducks, swans, toads, raccoons and one skunk.

My parents used to camp with a huge group of friends every Memorial Day at Camp Mather, about 45 miles south of San Francisco off Highway 1. I’m happy to carry on the camping tradition in my family as tent camping is such a fun way to survive for a few days. At least I think so!

After returning from camping, my birthday week continued with a lovely dinner for two at Bistro Bordeaux on Davis St. (review forthcoming), bubbly on the beach with my new friend Anne and a movie date to see Moonrise Kingdom with my other new friend Kindon.

Moonrise Kingdom is Wes Anderson’s (Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, etc.) latest movie and you should go see it because Hollywood is full of cookie-cutter movies where no director dare show his/her personality and Anderson is in every second of this movie. And you should go see Moonrise Kingdom if you’ve ever; gone camping, been a boy scout, fallen in love, used binoculars, talked to a lawyer, chopped down a tree, etc.

As my birthday week came to a close, I reflected on all the wonderful ways I celebrated turning 40 and the major theme this birthday (as opposed to my 21st birthday) was my parenting style. Let me break it down for you.

Camping
The camping trip to Shabbona Lake was all about carrying on the tradition of car camping from my grandmother’s generation (who grew up camping my Mount Lassen in Northern California) to my generation. Car camping and fishing are things I want my children to be familiar with as part of their family heritage and also because it’s healthy to sleep outside.

Grown Up Activities
Date night with my husband and time for girlfriends is something I want my children to see me try at. I want my children to see that I work at loving their father and enjoy celebrating our love together at a fancy French restaurant. And evenings spent with my girlfriends is also important because I want my children to understand that my world is bigger than them, that I have friends like they do and that although we don’t have Nerf Gun Fights, we do like to go see movies and drink wine on the beach.

Idle Time
Like Anderson’s entourage of adventurous, curious and super cool 1965-style children, at 40, I want children just like them all. I want bold, strong, adventurous, smart, crafty, brave, self-reliant children. And how do you raise children like that? According to Anderson, you create idle time full of music and the outdoors. This year and possibly this decade, I’m going to become the parent Wes Anderson would be, should he have children. I’m going to create more environments where my children experience lots of idle time (no electronics) outside. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Our one-year anniversary moving to Evanston from El Paso is June 10 and when we were scanning options for the city where we would raise our boys during the middle and high school years, access to nature was a big focus. Evanston is bordered by tons of access to the lake where you can fish and kayak and is only 75 miles from the nearest campsite.

I’m thrilled that as I turned 40, so many experiences crystallized in a positive way; new friends, parenting style, my marriage, access to nature, etc. I’m excited about this decade and I’m super excited to be somebody’s mother, now that I’ve an idea of the type of children I want to help raise. Thanks Wes.

Creating traditions that stick like custard to a child's face

Growing up in San Mateo, California, I distinctly remember the childhood milestone of being able to walk ALL the way from our house to the library down on Hillsdale Boulevard without my mom having to push me in the stroller for any part of the journey.

My mother used to walk us to the library all the time, a cute little building with big windows, lots of plants and the cutest children's reading room ever. This journey is still one of my earliest memories and before I even knew it, I started that tradition of walking to the library with my children when we moved to Evanston. (We used to walk to our library in El Paso but too infrequently to call it a habit.)

These days we walk to the library every week, each child in charge of their own late fees and library card, to pick up weekly reading. The staff is lovely, the facility is always clean and my children look forward to it.

It's also important to point out that we usually follow the library visit with a trip to Andy's Custard just up the street which probably guarantees my children are willing to go.

When we first arrived last summer, we would visit the library just for something to do and now we go because we are library patrons and readers and residents of Evanston. It's a new tradition, one that we do weekly, and I will lead the charge of making sure it sticks, like custard to a child's face.

Update: After I posted this, I sent it along to my mother, who emailed this reply, which was too cute not to share; When you were still in a stroller Karen, Denise, and I would walk to the library pushing you along. We would fill up the basket on the back of the stroller and with your sneaky little hands, you would toss a couple of books out quite frequently. It was a long hike home, but we perservered every Saturday! Congrats to you and the Boys

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Thank you for reading my blog "Evanston Newbie", a project that I am using to chronicle my new life in Evanston. Do you have favorite Evanston bakeries, bike shops, events that you can recommend? Send me an email at thelisadshow@gmail.com and I will post my review on this blog. -Lisa Degliantoni

Evanston Milestones: I wanted this first sleepover to be easy and fun damnit!

As my son helped his friend unroll his sleeping back last Saturday night, he proudly announced “This is my first sleep over since I moved to Evanston.” His friend looked at him and so “Oh”.

From the moment the word “This” left my son’s mouth, my heart leapt out of my chest, smashed through the front windows, hit the building across the street and smashed right back into my chest. I knew what my son was going to tell his friend, he and I had talked about it over breakfast (him super calm, me super freaked out) and I knew the day meant a ton to him. (Of course the day meant more to ME as I have been filled with endless amounts of guilt and anxiety since moving my children away from their happy social world and want them to be popular and happy RIGHT NOW!)

In our old house and city, my son celebrated every weekend with a sleepover as we were usually the house where kids would experience their first sleepovers. We were a good testing ground and I loved having kids in the house, even if they woke me up at 5 a.m.

In Evanston, we’ve all been sewing our social oats slowly but surely and although it felt like forever, we finally had a sleepover on the calendar after being here for 10 months. As I mentioned before, I was anxious and excited all at once and just hung out on the perimeters, kindly fielding requests for juice, popcorn, brownies, etc. I was way too excited to be in the service of 4th graders, but I wanted this first sleepover to be easy and fun damnit!

As the boys got ready for bed, I offered to build a nest to which my son said “Yes!” and his friend said “What’s a nest?” My son filled him in, “Oh she always builds them, it’s like lots of blankets on the floor and pillows and it’s super comfy to sleep in, like a big nest.” Luckily his friend said “Sure!”

So I got to building my nest and made a big comfy bed for the boys to pass out in while watching Jurassic Park, which they did at about 10:25 p.m.

I am proud of my son for taking this move in stride and waiting patiently for the right friend to invite over for a first sleepover. He is so patient and kind and was extremely grateful for the yummy crepes I made them for breakfast the next morning, another thing I always do in addition to making nests is making crepes for breakfast. (Holiday or not, we rock crepes.)

And I’m so proud of me for making myself totally available to facilitate the sleepover on my son’s terms and not pushing the issue months too early with a child that was socially advantageous to me and not necessarily my son. I always imagined that’s what a good parent did - listens, follows their child’s lead, facilitates. I promised myself I would do that in my 40th year, talk less, listen more and be a better parent, and based on last Saturday night’s behavior, I’m on it.

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Thank you for reading my blog "Evanston Newbie", a project that I am using to chronicle my new life in Evanston. Do you have favorite Evanston bakeries, bike shops, events that you can recommend? Send me an email at thelisadshow@gmail.com and I will post my review on this blog. -Lisa Degliantoni