Mother was from Florida and part of each summer was spent in Pensacola visiting my grandparents.  Days were spent on the water or on the beach: one of white, white powder-fine grains of sand and sea oats.  Hunting for shells and fiddlers, chasing Sand Pipers, fishing and building sand castles kept us kids occupied.  Those sand castles were built with the aid of paper cups, straws, shells and shards of sea glass and other found objects.  They fueled our imaginations and we took great pride in ownership.  And, yes, we cried whenever a wave demolished our creations!  I can’t imagine how many tears would have been shed if our sandcastles looked like any of these created by sand sculptors and featured in an article in the May Coastal Living.  It’s a true art form with big prizes!

Another summer memory from my teen years always recalled those earlier years of building sand castles.  Pat Boone had a big hit titled Love Letters In The Sand.  He even did the whistling.  “On a day like today we pass the time away writing love letters in the sand. How you laughed when I cried each time I saw the tide take our love letters from the sand.”  I always thought it was a song of the 50′s but recalled my mother singing it when we built those sand castles.  The song was first published in 1931 so it would have a lot more meaning for my mother.

Everyone has loads of memories of their childhood summers.  Care to share any with us?

-  Lorre Lei

I don’t want perfume, flowers (although I love flowers) or chocolates.  When the children were young I’d request peace, quiet and cooperation.  They are grown and now I can count on at least two out of the three requests!  Between High Point Market and our One Kings Lane sale, Casart has kept me pretty busy.  What I’d really like is some time to sit down and read something humorous or enlightening about child rearing.  I found a few possibilities at Barnes & Noble.  There’s been time since I raised children that I won’t have any guilts about what I may have done wrong.

Bringing Up Be’Be’ sounded promising since French children always appear so well-behaved.  Pamela Druckerman is a former foreign affairs reporter for the Wall Street Journal and has a master’s degree from Columbia in international affairs.  All three of her children were born in Paris and she set out to investigate why French infants sleep through the night at two months, French children have good table manners, don’t interrupt adults or eat between meals. She concluded that it begins with calm, sensible French mothers, who don’t become overly self-indulgent during pregnancy.  Most American mothers rush to stimulate or satisfy a child while the French mothers allow the child to discover on their own and develop autonomy.

Since my girls used to call me Joan (as in Mommy Dearest), I can hardly wait to read Denise Schipani’s Mean Moms Rule.  Schipani is the mother of two and a freelance writer.  She explains her book thusly.  “Being a Mean Mom is, in my view, the surest path to creating good kids and ultimately, of course, good adults, good citizens of the world.”  She asserts that parents who coddle their children, try to be their “friend,” or take a child-centric approach to parenting aren’t doing their children any favors.   She goes on to say that her approach is mean because it doesn’t follow the parenting heard and involves the no word.  “And it’s mean because overall it entails taking the long view of parenting by often placing more weight on future outcomes than on present-day happiness. It’s like the slow burn of a warming campfire, as opposed to the brief flare of a match.” she concludes.  I think I’m going to read this one first then pass along to my children with a note, “See, I’m not the only mean mom!”

Pulitzer Prize winning author Anna Quindlen explores the realities of aging and the complexities of parenting and other relationships in Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake.  She offers a graceful look at growing older, the joy of solitude and the difference between being alone and being lonely.  About the importance of female friends she says they are, “what we have in addition to, or in lieu of, therapists. And when we reach a certain age, they may be who is left.” About parenting-”We are good parents, not so they will be loving enough to stay with us, but so they will be strong enough to leave us.”  On second thought, considering my age and the number of people I know in the paper’s obituaries, perhaps I’d best read this one first.

To every mother reading this, I hope you get what you truly want for Mother’s Day and to my children, it’s not too late to stop at Barnes & Noble!

-  Lorre Lei

Years ago when the children were little, we used to have an egg hunt on Easter.  Whoever found the most eggs got a prize and whoever found the one-and-only gold egg got a prize.  At the end, we’d count the total number of eggs to see how many were still hidden.  It was never a problem because Duke, our dog, thought it was then time for HIS egg hunting skills to shine and they always did.  I was very grateful because I routinely ran out of culinary ideas for using hard-boiled eggs!

Dessert at the end of the traditional Easter dinner was always a homemade Easter Basket cake.  Here’s a picture of the last one I made.

Ashley has a long-established tradition in her home of an Easter Brunch with family and friends.  She has been carrying on the cake tradition making one for the last 25 years!

In Germany a family decorates an Easter Tree each year with more than 9,800 hand-blown and hand-decorated eggs.  They have been doing this for more than 40 years.

Each egg has to be emptied first to prevent the egg from rotting.  Then it is hand-painted.  The egg is a pagan symbol of rebirth, widely used in spring festivals before its adoption by early Christians as a symbol of the resurrection of Jesus.

Carefully packed hand-decorated eggs

Thank goodness we just bake and decorate a cake instead of a tree and there’s nothing left to store at the end of the holiday.

Holidays are a time for family, fond memories and reflection.  What are some of your Easter traditions?

-  Lorre Lei