Could you help bring a little “magic” to the our area?

Published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat, Weekend Edition on February 17, 2012

Kesem.  It means magic.  For the children who attend Camp Kesem, they need miracles more than magic.
 
This free, weeklong overnight camp is run by college student volunteers every summer and serves children ages six to thirteen.  It is a chance for children to share the joys of childhood and remember to laugh and celebrate youth.  And it is a chance for them to forget.

The children who attend Camp Kesem are identified by oncologists, hospice caregivers, and grief counselors.  They share more than youth and a week of fun. They all bear the devastating mark of cancer.  The one thing that unites the children of Camp Kesem is the thing that scars them: They each have a parent who is or who was diagnosed with cancer.

I don’t want to be ugly or dark in today’s column.  You may tell me that, genetically, this is unavoidable for me, regardless of my topic.  But I think you know what I mean.  Cancer pervades us.  Sometimes it invades us or those whom we love most dearly.

Nearly 12 million people in the United States were diagnosed with, or already living with, cancer in January of 2008.  The American Cancer Society’s website defines this as cancer prevalence, which is different from cancer incidence.  The “incidence” of cancer is the new diagnoses each year.   This year, statisticians expect 1,638,910 new cases of cancer in the US.

For the children whose world is unraveled by learning their parent, their pillar, has cancer, this is likely the only incidence that matters in their world.  Mom is sick, or maybe Dad is sick - very, very sick.  There is an upheaval of priorities.  Their childhoods, their homes, and their routines – everything changes.

I was in the ninth grade when we found out that my mom had cancer of the larynx.  When I reflect now, I marvel at my parents’ fortitude.  She was only forty years old when her persistent, inexplicable cough was finally given a name and a root cause.  She had never smoked.  I can still remember my Latin teacher whispering to another teacher that my mom had cancer.  That was the first time I comprehended the gravity of cancer.

My mom is now 72 years old.  That’s not to say she hasn’t had her challenges; I think her medical charts outweigh her.  But she has survived.  Her vocal cord was removed and left her with a raspy voice and a series of tracheostomies that required suction to keep her airway clear.  She cannot raise her voice, and often claps to get our attention.  But those are minor. 

The thing that saddens me is that she lost her ability to sing.  My mother loved to sing.  Don’t tell anyone, but so do I.  Like me, she was never particularly good at it, either.  But, oh, she loved to sing.  While cooking or doing housework, she would sing the plaintive love songs of the old Hindi black and white films.  That simple joy was taken with the vocal cord.

I have only heard her wistfully mention this once.  She has seen her children graduate, marry, and have children of their own.  She has seen grandchildren graduate too.  These joys she would not be denied.  She has lived and thrived and survived.

But all are not so fortunate.  And for some who linger, the pain is excruciating and overwhelming.  For those of us who are not oncologists or research scientists, the most we can do is to pray and hope and offer comfort and support.

Many choose to assist research efforts by fundraising, and we can take heart in the advances in earlier detection as well as new treatment methods. 

But those are for the patient.  Camp Kesem serves those children who stand on the periphery of cancer, watching their parents’ lives be overtaken and swallowed up by cancer.

Begun over a decade ago at Stanford University by four college students, Camp Kesem served 37 campers in the year 2000.  “Kesem” means magic in Hebrew.  In the last decade, Camp Kesem has spread to 37 chapters in 22 states.  In 2011, nearly 1,500 campers had a chance to forget their worries and just be children.  They were served by almost one thousand student leaders on campuses across the nation.  While these college students serve, they learn to lead.  The purpose of Camp Kesem is really two-fold.

In our area, the University of Virginia, the University of Richmond, and George Washington University already offer camps.  Last year, my eldest daughter at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore helped to bring one to their campus as well.  This August, JHU students will host their first Camp Kesem.  It will serve children in Maryland, greater DC, and Virginia. 

While the camp is free and the student labor is too, there are real expenses involved with such an enterprise.  The students need to raise about $ 20,000 to run the camp.  If you are inclined to help in this endeavor, please visit www.campkesem.org/jhu to learn more or donate, and specify JHU on the form. 

Thank you so much.

Remembrances from the other earthquake zone

Published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat Weekend, Aug. 26, 2011

I have recently met more readers than I dared to suspect I had. Thank you for stopping me. I love meeting you, because our dialogue is so often one-sided. When you stop me at the post office, pool, grocery store, school, or even at the polling station, it leaves me ebullient. The only time I ask that you don’t stop me is if you are an officer of the law - in the line of duty.

Who can forget our earthquake last week? We lived in Northern California for nine years, and I don’t recall one. But when I was sent on a weeklong business trip from Long Island, New York, to Los Angeles, we experienced one then.


My husband, being a creature of higher intelligence, always accompanied me on business trips. We had a single toddler in tow. When he had business trips to exquisite destinations, I was always the idiot who felt compelled to stay at work. Then, I would suffer pangs of jealousy and regret as he described sunken tubs of black marble in posh hotels. I know. You didn’t think they let scientists out of the lab, right? He was serving as an expert DNA witness in court.


When I started my life of stay-at-home-dom (which equates to martyrdom for some), I longed for another such opportunity to escape, but it never seemed to appear. Or perhaps, my husband, being the creature of higher intelligence, never let on to such opportunities.


There was the one trip to Santa Barbara when the three kids and I tagged along. It was a gorgeous holiday, despite my being newly pregnant, and the youngest, a two-year-old boy, insisting on wearing a girl’s bathing suit to the beach. He was having none of this trunk exposure stuff. We acquiesced, realizing we couldn’t get to the beach otherwise. We coached our girls, then five and seven, not to hint as to gender of their sibling. We didn’t know anyone there. What would it matter?


It is the same liberating anonymity as when you go camping, know no one, and feel fine walking around with Einstein’s hairdo. Who will know? Who will care? Perhaps this is also the danger with out interactions online. It is easy to become too friendly with people we have never met – “e-quaintances,” I believe they are called. Who will know? Who will care? Trust me, someone or Someone knows and cares.


We had barely set foot on the beach, when our second daughter squealed, “Hey! Why is he wearing a girl’s bathing suit? He’s a boy!” She then dashed about, delightedly repeating this to random, arbitrary strangers. It was the nineties’ version of sending out a public tweet. She’s in college now, and surprisingly, she isn’t pursuing journalism.


When we went to rent the quadricycle, the girls were thrilled. Each child had to be helmeted, which seemed a simple enough business. The two girls donned their headgear. The man went through his entire inventory of children’s helmets, but our little XY shrieked the moment any helmet approached his head. We couldn’t get that thing near him. It was like an invisible force field around his body that inflicted pain or an electric shock every time the helmet approached him. So, he retaliated by inflicting pain on us, in the form of piercing screams and embarrassing public tantrums.


This is why I avoid any joining in of eye rolling at stores when someone’s child is having a fit. I realize that we all think we are smarter and more astute than the inept parent who doesn’t understand proper parenting techniques the way we do or did, whether we have children or not. But some kids are just different. Way different, and we need to be as thankful for them as we are for the ones who help us believe we are sane and competent.


The shrieking and body writhing never stopped until I walked, defeated, back to the hotel room with the creature still struggling, and got out his sister’s bright pink bike helmet (odd, why HAD we packed that for the trip?), and put it on him. Putting that helmet on him was like the tranquilizer dart hitting home on a charging rogue elephant. Ah, peace. All was well with the world. I trudged back to the quadricycle, fatigued and annoyed. If this was peace, it was a disgusted sort of peace.


If I recall, my husband had to do all the pedaling for the whole family. He fixed me with accusatory glares. Me, the mother of the contented boy who could finally be calmed by that glaring pink helmet. The girls were oblivious to our tension. (It’s so nice when they are young.) They gleefully enjoyed the fruits of their father’s labor and delighted in everything the beach had to offer.

Maybe that’s why this was the only business trip I was invited on as a stay-at-home mom. And maybe that’s why we never experienced earthquakes as Californians. We always seemed to have our own built-in version, right at home.

The struggles of parenting stragglers

Published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat Weekend on July 8, 2011

I think of my six children in pairs. The two eldest girls were born in Long Island, New York. Technically, at ages 21 and 18, they are women, but that sounds weird to say that I have adult children since they are both in college. There are the two teenaged boys born in Northern California, ages 16 and 13, who are in high school and middle school respectively. And finally, there are the last two, born in Ohio: a girl who just turned nine and a boy who is six.


One would think with this record of producing two children per state we might have been hesitant to move again, but after six years in Virginia, this is proving to be a fairly safe place to live.


I call the last two “The Stragglers” because they emerged on the scene twelve and fifteen years after the first child. With my Stragglers, I’ve gotten to experience parenting a second time around. I wouldn’t say it’s like parenting afresh; it’s more like pulling some leftovers out of the fridge just before they mold. They might look presentable because they were (perforce) popped into the microwave, but on the inside, this stuff knows that it is old and wilted. Also, as its parenting techniques are under constant surveillance by the older children (hereafter referred to as The Originals), not to receiving their unsolicited and expert advice on the care and rearing of youngsters, this leftover parenting material can sometimes suffer the effects of uneven heating. There may be pockets that are cold, but occasionally, the leftovers inexplicably explode.


The Stragglers have done things in much the same way as the older children, except that (according to The Originals) they get away with capital crimes, do not work as much or as hard as they did/do at this tender age, have poor eating habits, and have been given no standards to achieve.


Ah, the joys of parenting, again. It’s like bringing the boxer back into the center of the ring while he is yet reeling from the last blows he received. Still, it has its moments that make it all worthwhile. Children in the house are the best home entertainment systems invented.


I remember when my youngest daughter was three or four, she began to see me as some sort of superfluous artifact. If my husband were offering me a goodbye kiss, she would dart in between us, and give me a shove. With her arms wrapped around his neck, she would glance back at me and shout, “Get away from me, you crazy old woman!” This was uproariously funny. The first time.


Soon enough, that stage came to an end. Who knows? I may have hurried it along into obsolescence. We all know we’re a little crazy, and most of us realize that we are old. We just don’t need it to be trumpeted out by others, no matter how close the relationship.


By the time she was in kindergarten, she seemed to have outgrown her Daddy’s Girl Syndrome. She brought home the classic portrait: The stick figure family. Everyone had some distinguishing characteristic. For example, she had drawn her eldest sister with loads of curly hair and her eldest brother was wearing glasses. I don’t recall how I knew who I was in her picture. Perhaps I was wearing an apron, or perhaps, by this time, she had relinquished her claims and allowed me to be paired back with her dad, the lone towering figure in her drawing. He was the only one who had a facial expression. She had given him angry eyebrows.


This is not to give the impression that my husband is a grouch and that I am Mrs. Cheery Sunshine. When my middle son was a couple of years old, he made an astute observation: whenever my eyebrows furrowed, many unpleasant side effects ensued. He figured if he could stop the expression, he could stop the chain reaction. Whenever he sensed displeasure or impending wrath, he would take his thumb and desperately apply it upwards at the center of my forehead, wailing, “Don’t get angry! Don’t get angry!” The Lord has designed children to be so cute that it’s hard to be angry with them for too long.


I first chuckled when I saw the drawing with my husband’s eyebrows, but I was a little disturbed too. (More so than usual, anyway.) You know how they say there is a kernel of truth in every hostile joke? It was late on a Friday night that I showed this revealing family portrait from the eyes of a five-year-old to my husband.


The next morning, without so much as a discussion, my husband located and popped the spare car seats into his commuter car. He had errands to run, but he decided to take The Stragglers with him. They had breakfast out and visited the pet store.


I guess what they say is true: “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Much was restored that morning – relationships and eyebrow placement.

Camp Ribeiro Rides Again

Published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat Weekend on July 1st, 2011
Summer can be a difficult time for working parents, and even more so for those at home. Ten weeks of free time can be a little daunting unless it is well carved out. Often this includes camps, vacations, activities, and play dates.


People ask if I send my kids to camp. I don’t need to. Right here, at home, I have the amazing and thrilling “Camp Ribeiro” running once again. It doesn’t promise any life-changing experiences, just life skills, plain and simple.


Here’s how a day at Camp Ribeiro works: First thing in the morning, we study Place Values. That is, we empty the dishwasher and put everything away. There is great Value in having everything in Place. Some children can do this quickly while others manage to let time yawn before them, stretching any given task out. Adding a timer to routine domestic chores ensures focused task completion and efficient time management. Those unable to complete the task in the allotted time are given extra practice time with yet another chore, timed of course.


Right after the lesson on Place Values, there are concurrent seminars on Nourishment and the Declaration of Independence. That is, if a child can maneuver to and open the refrigerator, I Declare him/her to be Independent enough to get his/her own breakfast. Also, while the independent young learners are gathering their breakfast, can they make the younger ones and me something to eat too? Now we have even incorporated a lesson on service.


Immediately following is my workshop on “Cleaning the Environment,” also known as put your dishes in the sink and wipe up the table around you. Also, if you have spilled crumbs, go get the broom, gather your offerings in the dustpan, and place them in the trash. Like a game of musical chairs, if you are the one left with trash that just won’t fit into the liner, you get to empty it in the dumpster outside. One lucky child each morning will be chosen to do further studies on Purification by loading the dishwasher.


Soon after that come Horticulture and Early Child Development classes. For the younger ones, it translates to “time to play outside.” For others, it involves learning to identify weeds and carefully collecting these specimens by their roots. This could be mistaken for weeding, so you must be careful not to use that term. Those interested in younger children can monitor their activity and possibly engage their attention with sidewalk chalk or other outdoor toys. There will be a quick Place Values refresher before we come indoors.


Then follows Hygiene, mostly having to do with washing of hands after playing outside, before eating, and after flushing. (Yes, there will be Remedial Flushing for those with severe attention deficiencies.) As a bonus, there will be Technology Training, but this will be reserved for “gifted” children who possess special mechanical aptitude. They will be taught to replenish the toilet paper roll. For others, this skill will likely never be used, and is considered a futile effort, right along with capping toothpaste tubes. Therefore, to preserve my sanity, these are omitted from the curriculum of Camp Ribeiro.


If it is too hot outdoors, we progress to “Treasure Hunting” indoors. This might involve emptying out the kitchen/junk drawer, wiping it down and sorting items into piles. As a reward, loose change can be counted and divided amongst the hunters…(see that math lesson sneaking in there?). For older children, there will be “Exploration and the Value of Open Space.” Basically, this entails opening up mystery boxes that have been designated repositories of junk.


Then there is my Creative Cooking class – how can we use rice/pasta/potatoes to form the base of yet another quick but healthy lunch for a number of hungry children? We can’t figure out a new dish? This is where we combine Thankfulness with Nutrition. Whoever said, “Hunger is the best sauce” probably did not have access to a drive-through for fast food where there are at least five or six different sauces to choose from. A few children will be chosen for this task while others help set the table, straight out of the dutiful dishwasher, and so on and so forth.


After lunch, we rotate tasks so others have a chance to “Care for the Environment” while readers take small children along to read them a story. There might be a chance after that to just relax and play, color, or draw while we listen to a story on tape.


Who knows, if there is free time before starting supper, we might combine Apparel Care (known as folding laundry) while we (gasp) watch a TV show or movie. Just as the entertainment ends, we apply Place Values to Apparel – put away the hanging and folding.


Before you know it, the day is gone, but my brain cells are not. The children will have little time to complain about being bored. All that’s left for me to decide is the camp uniform. What do you think of orange jumpsuits?

Cooking and Kids - Cooking with Kids

Published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat Weekend on June 24th, 2011

My mom always says that the hardest thing about cooking is deciding what to make. Once she visualizes the menu, it all comes together. Correction: It flies together, three burners madly bubbling away with the fourth dedicated to puffing up the hand-kneaded, hand-rolled, hot chappatis that could make a meal in themselves. She always whips together a couple of chutneys on the side in the midst of this culinary tempest: one fiery and the other sweet and tangy. Everything is served up pronto, piping hot, pungent and salivatingly delicious. Here’s another remarkable thing about my mom. The woman cleans up the kitchen as she goes along. When she finishes cooking, you have something that you’re prone to overeat just because it tastes so good, and she has a clean kitchen. When I finish cooking, I have a disaster in my kitchen, and what’s on the plate are the survivors from that wreck.


Alas, I did not inherit my mother’s cooking talents. I may have had a better chance had I spent more time in the creative side of the kitchen rather than specializing, as I did, on the consuming end. Hey, I can appreciate good food. I won’t even turn my nose up to mediocre food either, because that’s how I’ve survived in my own kitchen.


The only hope of cooking salvation is that I’ve pushed my own children into the kitchen every summer, weekend, holiday, and at any other time they appear to be idle. Depending on the child, this can be quite often.


Better were the homeschooling years when you could have some time in the kitchen together “doing” fractions, discussing nutrition, and munching ingredients. We made quite a mess, but we also made some amazing things: our own doughnuts, lollipops, ice cream, even corn chips from scratch. They also made enchiladas, baked chicken, soups from scratch, and big, soft pretzels.


Not every child learned to cook. Some just learned to look busy.


This summer, I am supposed to be living the life of luxury. With school out, I’m not teaching. We have five children largely at home, so I’m not rushing them places. (The eldest daughter, working on campus with a summer internship, has abandoned her role as chief household baker and assistant chauffeur.)


The luxury is that my eighteen-year-old daughter, the second eldest, is cooking dinner every weeknight. Here’s an even bigger boon: she cooks more than four things, so there is something different every night. In my household, this is the dangerous and revolutionary sort of thinking that is bound to cause unrest in the fall. What will I do in the fall when she returns to campus? Last summer my daughter Tevy and I teamed up to teach cooking classes for children at Tagaloo, a nifty little shop that specializes in children’s themed parties and classes for both adults and children. It’s located in Old Town Warrenton.


To tell the truth, the classes, menus, shopping, and planning were all done by my daughter. I was there helping out, taking pictures of the children in their colorful aprons, or working with children as they wrote out the recipes in their recipe books. Basically, I did what I have always done best in the kitchen: assist, support, laugh, and eat.


This summer, as a young adult, Tevy is again offering the cooking classes through Tagaloo. You might be surprised to learn that none of the cooking the children did required the use of a stove or oven. There was cutting and microwaving, and each day had its own theme. The children were taught about nutrition and to clean up after themselves, too. Even children as young as five really enjoyed and benefited from the class.


There was a day of Summer Fun of making fresh squeezed lemonade, a big fruit salad in a watermelon basket; a Mexican Fiesta with fresh guacamole and salsa, a bean and cheese soup in the microwave, and an English tea party complete with hot tea and cucumber sandwiches.


The classes are being offered again this summer. Each is a week long, from Monday through Friday. The July 25th – 29th session is in the mornings from 9:00 – 11:30, while the August 1st – 5th session is in the afternoons, from 1:00 – 3:30. I’ll probably be there as the support crew again.


If you’re interested, give Kimberly Entrican a call at Tagaloo, 540-229-1656 or visit http://www.tagaloo.com/.  

Now you might think to yourself that I have just used this whole column as shameless advertising for my daughter, but that’s not true. I still have the ability to feel shame.

Bedtime stories and the tales they tell

published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat Weekend edition February 4th, 2011

This week, I’ve been reading a story to my two youngest at bedtime. It isn’t relevant that it’s Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift. The most significant thing, to me, is simply that I’m reading to them, because it’s been ages since I’ve done that.

It’s hard to have to admit that, considering that bedtime stories were vital when I was younger and newer to this parenting thing. Nightly reading was a must. It was a delicious time to bond together and to talk of the things that really mattered, to explain what words meant, and to go over life’s lessons. It was a time to delve into the next chapter and to hear how the Ingalls family had fared during The Long Winter. Or, for my young and male pyromaniac, I would read Matches, Lighters, and Firecrackers are not Toys by Dorothy Chlad. It never mattered then how tired I was.

Naturally, the children were never too tired for a bedtime story. They always seemed to be full of energy no matter what, and they relished this time. It was not to be taken from them. I now understand why kids have so much energy and we don’t. They sap it directly from us, right through the pores or something. Consequently, parents tend to be short stocked while the children have an ample supply – an overabundance, really.

Having the time and the leisure to read to my younger children (much less just for me) has been one of the “collateral damages” of my working outside the home. It has, sadly, fallen by the wayside. There just isn’t the time to squeeze everything in, because those 24 hours are as fixed and rigid in any given day, no matter how much you plan to accomplish.

Having been a stay at home mom for seventeen years, I almost felt like a professional at it. Granted, it had had its darker and duller moments. I had had those moments of self-doubt, but more often, it had had its supreme joys too. I feel that the time invested in the children then was something that has had a tremendous impact for them.

Apart from the cleaning, laundry, and cooking, I had loved being a stay-at-home mom. I know it’s not sophisticated to admit this, especially if you have set aside a specific training or education or have forgone a potentially lucrative career. I had come into stay-at-home-dom after having been the “working mother.” I use quotes to affirm that no matter whether you work outside the home or not, you’re pretty much always working.

For two-and-a-half years, I had left my firstborn child in someone else’s hands, right from the time she was six weeks old. I had hated every day of the separation. On occasion, when I got to work and got a whiff of the spit-up smell that was coming from my shoulder and hair, I realized that our separation was not quite as neat or complete as I had imagined. I used to swallow that lump in my throat every morning after dropping her off at the babysitter. I would pray bitterly, “Okay, God. Is this how You want it?”

Our move from Long Island to Northern California, where we lived for almost nine years, allowed me to be a stay-at-home mom without even feeling a financial pinch. When God answers our prayers, He not only meets our needs, He so often exceeds them.

It didn’t occur to me that my daughter would remember what had seemed part of the distant past. When she was four or five, I had pulled out my long dress coat from the netherworld of the back of the closet. Her eyes brightened when she saw the coat, “You used to wear that to work, right Mommy?” I was curious. I asked if she remembered that time. “Yes, Mommy,” she said. “I used to cry for you from the door.”

It is so tempting, especially in a country where material things are easily attainable, to think we need to give our kids this and that, when what they really need from us is our time and our love. You must weigh what you want for your child. If you want them to grow up with lots of things at the expense of training, you miss a tender time in your child’s life when you have the ability to help mold their character.

I feel the two biggest things you can do for your kids: be there for them, and be content in doing so. Success can be gauged daily: if your child has learned something and has a grateful heart, the day has been a success.

I can’t say whether I’ve been or am a successful mom or educator. Kids are like baking a cake that takes 15 years to cook. While I might feel that the aroma coming from the oven is a good one, I am reluctant to say too much lest the cake flop, burn, or undercook. Only time will tell - but that’s no reason for me to let it slip away.

Why I Hate Halloween

This is my least favorite holiday of the year. It’s when innocuous places such as your local greeting-card store start hanging cardboard skeletons on their front doors. Not that I mind my children learning anatomy and respecting a skeleton for the incredible feat of God’s design that it is, or knowing that we carry a version (plus or minus a few floating ribs) inside of us all year long. Why should they fear their own bodies?

It’s not the skeletons that disturb me. Nor is it the underlying ancient celebration of evil. It’s just the amount of candy I, as a loving and caring parent, am annually compelled to eat. My kids do not go trick-or-treating. Yet I like to keep at least a 4-lb bag of miniature chocolates for the kids who might knock at my door.

I don’t want to look like a cheapskate and give them a 30-minute lecture on my feelings about Halloween when all they really want is candy. With my upbringing in an Indian family where my mother could keep four burners on to whip up a feast for unexpected visitors, I wouldn’t know what to do if I ran out of candy.

You can’t open a roll of lifesavers and drop them one-at-a-time, can you? You’d be suspected of poisoning or lacing the candy with drugs. (Not that the germs on the fingertips of many meal-preparers are a desirable alternative, but still, you feel some obligation to health standards.) Parents of trick-or-treaters should demand that participating homes turn on porch lights, and display a Department of Health certificate showing that their candy is safe to eat, nutritious, and of course, low in fat.

Remember the lady in your childhood who refused to distribute candy? What a party pooper! Her porch light was on, but when she came out with her “goodies” there was an awful thud as a big red apple crashed into your bag, pulverizing your Smarties to look like old-time medicinal powders. Not only was this accursed apple devoid of added sugar, fat, preservatives, artificial colorings and flavorings, it also occupied half the volume of your bag! Who would dress up and pound the pavement in the dark for a healthy snack? After all, this was back in the 1970’s, when French fries and ketchup counted as two servings of vegetables. That lady was an extremist in her day!

I expect to be stuck with 3 pounds of artificially flavored and colored sugar and fat, neatly wrapped in morsel-sized packaging. And like any other conscientious mother, I’m not going to let my kids eat any of it! Okay, maybe they can have one or two of pieces on the days when they’ve eaten all their dinner (gratefully), done their school work and chores, tidied their rooms, played nicely, not whined, taken naps, and in general, made sycophants of themselves. But that will still leave me with at least 2½ pounds’ worth. I wouldn’t dare stuff that into their growing bodies, and also, out of consideration for all those I have ever seen going hungry, I won’t throw any of it away either.

So, the choice is obvious - I’ll have it in the dark of night as I’m cleaning my kitchen (if I’m cleaning my kitchen) when the entire household is asleep: the epitome of maternal sacrifice for my children’s health.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be so selfish. I should care as deeply for the children who come to my door as I do for my own kids. Let’s give them something healthy too. Can you get individually wrapped edible Styrofoam (AKA rice cakes)? How about little bottles of drinking water or boxed raisins?

I’ve got it! Boiled eggs – all natural, biodegradable, tamper-proof packages of protein. And children, you needn’t worry; I’d never be so heartless as to give out apples. That incident alone has scarred me for life, or I’d have trick-or-treated into my teens…you know, like the “big kids” who pop one pillowcase on their heads and carry another as the treat bag.

While I’m in this altruistic mood, what shall I punish myself with? Whoppers are good: they keep well in apron pockets, and, should anyone happen to suddenly intrude, can be discreetly pushed to the side of one’s mouth without serious breath alteration. And as long as I plan to suffer, I wonder if Whoppers come in gallon-sized jugs.