All posts by Kirsetin

Welcome Home from the Caribbean (Or How to Rescue Abandoned Baby Birds)

May 16, 2012pets, Wise WordsKirsetin

I’m interrupting the Wise Words series for this breaking news…

baby bird rescue — photo by Lin Pernille Photography via flickr

If, early on a Monday morning, you walk outside and hear the sweet sound of new baby birds chirping, it will make you smile. “The world is good,” you will think.

If later that Monday afternoon those baby birds are still chirping, but now sounding desperately hungry, you’ll begin to worry. You’ll start keeping your eye out for mama bird. But you won’t see her.

On Tuesday morning, you still won’t see her. Or Tuesday afternoon. By Tuesday night, the baby birds won’t sound so quite so chirpy. You’ll begin to wonder about the goodness of the world.

On Wednesday morning you will rise early and go straight outside to listen for chirps. You’ll hear them! They’re still alive, no thanks to mama bird, who has either flown the coop or met her match in the neighborhood cat.

By Wednesday afternoon, you’ll begin to feel desperate, right along with the chirping birdies. You’ll recruit your tallest son to climb a ladder and peer down into the basketball hoop post, where the aforementioned negligent mama made her nest. The smell from the nest will be bad. Your son will report that at least one bird is dead. He won’t volunteer to inspect any further.

For all your bravado in the rest of your life, you won’t even pretend to be able to stomach peering at a dead bird. You’ll worry that it’s the mama, who flew down into the post keep her chicks warm, and found herself stuck beneath the fat, metal bolt.

You’ll call a friend, whose husband is in town this week, unlike yours. She won’t answer. You’ll call another. She won’t answer either.

You’ll Google. You’ll consider feeding them wet dog food. You’ll wonder how to accomplish this without actually looking at a dead mama bird.

Soon enough, you’ll walk over to your neighbor, explain your dilemma, and he will be your Knight in Shining Armor. He’ll spend the next hour climbing up and down a ladder trying to save the baby birds, who are rather far down in the post, with long spoons and tongs and other kitchen accessories. His brother will arrive, dapper in the kind of plaid shorts I love. Together they will hatch a plan until, finally, the brother will plunge his hand way down into the post, pluck the 3 living baby birds from the nest, and place them into the small cooler you’ve pulled from the garage.

I know it’s hard to believe, but what will happen next is this: You’ll put that cooler into your car, and drive 75 miles an hour on the highway, in a dark, stormy, downpour to the home of a woman who does animal rehabilitation and rescue. You found her on Google.

how to rescue baby birds — Operation Baby Bird Rescue

You’ll also call another friend and ask her to pick your son up from the movie theater. Thank goodness she agrees. She’s nice that way.

And that, my friends, is how my week back from the islands began. If you should ever start a Monday this way, I suggest Googling “animal rehabilitator,” just in case.

My Top 6 Reasons to Travel With Kids

May 9, 2012perspective, travelKirsetin

Last month wrote about travel, and I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time lately planning travel. As such, I thought I’d post an update of an old popular post: My Top 6 Reasons to Travel With Kids:

Traveling with children is almost never easy and, needless to say, is an entirely different experience from traveling without them. Although the latter can be perfectly lovely, and peacefully quiet, there are certain advantages to packing the bags and heading out as a family. Here, I offer my top 6 reasons to include your kids on your next vacation:

1. A book or photograph can never give your kids the sense of place or understanding that actually being there gives them.

2. Every parent ought to test the limits of their patience on an 8-hour flight or car ride sometime. Come on, isn’t that one of the bonuses to parenting: learning how very deep you can dig when you really need to?

3. The forced family togetherness can create crankiness, sure. But it can also promote brotherly bonds like no other.

4. Peer detox. See #3. I’m always amazed at how well we all interact without the excess, external noise from pre-teen friends.

5. The world is a BIG place. Travelling to other places helps all of us understand that our small corner of the world is not the center of the universe. It’s so easy to get caught up in our schools and our sports and our social network that we don’t stop to think about how this same thing is happening in towns all over the world. Traveling gives kids a better perspective of how it all fits together.

6. When a child knows he can look at a map and find his way around Rome, he’s less likely to be daunted by the little bumps and bruises of life.

Of course there are innumerable other benefits, many of which aren’t measurable, aren’t tangible resume-building benefits. But I contend that travel will build the resume of the spirit and the soul. It will promote empathy and understanding. It will boost the desire to reach across the border–whether it’s a border between school districts, or board rooms, or cultures.

And the desire and ability to reach across those divides? That’s life changing stuff. Surely it’s worth a few hassles in the car or on the airplane.

Have you seen other benefits? What are your top reasons for traveling with your kids?

How Travel Affects Whether We Wear Lipstick to the Bus Stop

May 2, 2012life, perspective, relationships, travel, Wise Wordslife, travel, wise wordsKirsetin

You read the “Why I’m Not A Dirty Mom” blog post, right? If some way, somehow, you missed it, well, there’s the link. In it, the writer explains why she prefers to look her best, whether she’s headed out for dinner or driving to the pre-school drop off line.

I watched the ensuing uproar with a touch of amusement. Must we always argue, ladies? If a girl likes to wear lipstick to the grocery store, I say let her wear lipstick. If another prefers yoga pants and a baseball cap, more power to her. One doesn’t diminish the other.

If you see me out and about I’ll be wearing high heels, flip flops, tennis shoes, leather boots, dark jeans, khaki capris, dresses (holla, Athleta), yoga pants, black pants, and who knows what else depending on the day. I have kids. I work. I like yoga. I play basketball. I have girlfriends I MUST meet for lunch. I don’t make the same effort every day. And this doesn’t bother me one bit.

My hair and clothes don’t define me.

And what does all of this have to do with travel, the theme I’m writing about this month? I’m glad you asked!

Here’s the quote for this week:

“When you’re traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don’t have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.” – William Least Heat-Moon (pen name of William Lewis Trogdon)

Stop and let that sink in.

“You are what you are right there and then.”

Fantastic. And I love this part:

“No yesterdays on the road.”

When we’re in a new place, with new people, they have no idea what we wore last week. They don’t know if we’re kind or cruel or a little loopy, either. There’s a weird kind of beauty in the not knowing, I think. Travel gives us space, a freedom to be our truest self.

I would argue, though, that the purpose of finding this self when we travel is to bring her home with us, to continue to pursue, and fully define, our own sense of self. Our values. Our important things. Instead of worrying about whether we “should” wear lipstick to the bus stop, we need to figure out if we want to wear lipstick to the bus stop. That, my friends, is the key. And it’s harder than it sounds.

But when we answer to our truest self, we’ll be one step closer to making decisions that are right for us. And one big step away from worrying about what anyone else thinks. Maybe it’s time to book a flight.

Have you experienced this kind of freedom when you’ve traveled? Leave your thoughts in the comments, or link up if you’d like to write your own post on these Wise Words.