Ageless Passions by Karen Putz

Tag: kids

  • Life is Too Short to Pout All the Time

    Many years ago, I began writing for a website that produced product reviews and I had to come up with a personal tagline or quote to reflect something about me.   Mine was simply:  “Life is too short to pout all the time.”  That line came to me years ago, when my kids were four- and two-years old, and my youngest had just been born.

    As you can imagine, life back then with a four-year old, two-year old and a crying baby included days where the kids would pout and whine.   After juggling everyone’s needs, keeping track of who was fed and who needed to be fed, refereeing two fighting toddlers, all this on top of attempting to keep the house in some semblance of order–by the end of the day, I was pouting myself.  As soon as the hubby arrived home from work, I whined and unloaded on him.  Then one day, after a particularly trying day with the three kids, I said to them, “Come on, guys, life is too short to pout all the time.”  We took off for the kitchen and made brownies together.  Soon we were all happily chomping away on warm brownies.

    I learned a valuable lesson from those younger days with my kids:  life is meant to be enjoyed with your family and your friends.  The toys on the floor could wait to be picked up, after all, we were busy playing and learning.  So what if the house was in shambles– it was more important to connect with my neighbors over a pizza while the kids played together.

    There was another lesson to come.  One day out of the blue, (that’s usually how it happens, doesn’t it?) my husband learned that his close friend, Tod, was dying.  Diagnosed with cancer at Christmastime, he only had a few months to live.  We talked about taking a dream trip somewhere together with our families, but Tod was too sick to travel.  So we called up a bunch of his friends, piled them all in a van and drove down to see Tod.

    We spent a magical weekend together filled with laughter as well as tears. “Remember this? Remember that?”  We asked each other, as we relived memories and fun times together.

    That night, the snow fell, covering the trees in a glistening white.  We had a quiet moment gazing out into the backyard and seeing the moonlight bounce off the snow.  Tod’s wife came up to us and simply said, “Thank you for this weekend.”  We knew what she meant, because we were all feeling it:  happy, sad, connected, and at peace.   Just weeks later, Tod passed away.   He gave us a gift: a gift of appreciating life, of appreciating family and friends, and the gift of appreciating love.

    After Tod died, I reflected on what I wanted to do with my life.  How did I want to be remembered when it was my own time to go?  I had three deaf and hard of hearing kids that I was raising—what could I do with my knowledge, my skills and my journey?  I took on projects, volunteer work and paid work that brought meaning to my life.  I have to say that Tod’s death raised a lot of questions inside of me and drove me to appreciate life more.  Just weeks after he passed away we made some changes in our lives and did some things that we had been putting off.  We quit decorating the house and bought the used boat that we had been talking about for years.  We took cheap vacations with other friends.  We spent more time up in Michigan visiting my parents and the in-laws.

    Of course, I still have some days when things go wrong and I’m about to tear my hair out.  I had a day like that not too long ago, grumbling and venting to anyone who would listen.  My daughter took one look at me and said…

    “Mom, life is too short to pout about this.”

    Originally published on Chicago Mom’s Blog, April 2009

  • Lions Camp for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Kids

    My kids are still talking about this year’s week at Camp Lions.  Every year, they look forward to that one, magical week with all their friends.  The conversations last all year–via sleepovers, Facebook sharing, texts that fly back and forth and videophone calls.

    My kids spend all day in the mainstream going to classes with students who can hear so they cherish their time with deaf and hard of hearing friends.  Those friendships are deeply important, because communication isn’t an issue and being different isn’t an issue.

    At a deaf picnic this summer, a young mother came up to me and signed, “Do you remember me?”  I looked at her–she looked vaguely familiar but I couldn’t place the moment in time where we knew each other.

    “You were my camp counselor at Camp Lions!” she said.

    Back in the mid-80s, I did one summer as a camp counselor for the Lions Camp.  I also did one summer as a waterski instructor at Camp Endeavor in Florida.  It’s easy for the kids to remember the counselors, much harder for counselors to remember the many kids!  But I did remember the young girl at camp and it was amazing to see her as a mother to her own kiddos years later.

    I have several friends who attended the Lions Camps as young kids and thirty-plus years later, they can recall the fun they had and the connections that were made.  It’s no surprise that Camp Lions continues to fill up year after year.  They are now in their 51st year of providing camps to deaf and hard of hearing kids in Illinois.

    So I’m writing this to publicly thank the Camp Lions of Illinois and the Lions of Illinois Foundation because if not for the tireless efforts of every Lion group in Illinois who fundraise each year– the deaf and hard of hearing kids in Illinois would have no magical week to remember.

    Thank you.

    Camp is Over, It’s Back to the Real World


  • My Kids Go to School Tomorrow, For One Hour


    Ok, can someone please explain this?

    Tomorrow is the last day of school for the kiddos.  The middle kid goes to school for an hour and half.  The youngest goes for just an hour.  The oldest has a final to take and will be done at 10:30 a.m.

    Can anyone explain the logic in firing up the buses, rounding up the teachers and turning on the lights to gather a bunch of students together to do–

    Nothing.

    I’d like to meet the brilliant guy/gal or group of people who came up with this idea. 

    “We have to send the kids to school a certain number of days/hours– we have an hour left over, let’s just tack it on to the last day.”

    The Illinois governor just announced that we have to figure out how to balance a $60 million dollar budget that is two billion dollars out of balance.  So, instead of dragging our kids out of bed and putting them on gas-guzzling buses to sing songs for an hour, why don’t we tack that hour on to one of those “half-day” scenarios that keep popping up throughout the year?

    It might not make much of a dent in a two-billion dollar budget, but it sure beats wasting a perfectly good day with nothing to do.

  • “Alone In The Mainstream” Makes an Impact

    “After I wrote yesterday’s entry,” says Sarah, in her blog, The 8th Nerve, “I ended up on the bathroom floor in a fetal position. That is the only position we are capable of when a lifetime of pain is finally allowed to pour through the body in a few moments. This is the beginning, after 28 years, of my acceptance of my hearing loss. Acceptance of the fact that I truly have a loss that can never be changed. In retrospect, it is unbelievable to me that I never emotionally processed any of this before.”

    I found Sarah’s blog through a comment that she left on mine. She had Googled “Alone In The Mainstream A Deaf Woman Remembers Public School” and found my review of Gina Oliva’s book.

    As I read through Sarah’s blog, my heart went out to her as she shared the beginning of her journey of acceptance– after 28 years, she was just now examining her life as a solitaire, a term that Gina Oliva uses to describe those who grew up having little or no contact with others who are deaf and hard of hearing. But an important point to note is that working through the pain paves the way for new explorations on the road to acceptance. Perhaps this will be a turning point for her and a chance to meet others that she can connect with.

    Gina’s book also made an impact here: What’s That You Said?

  • Socialization and Deaf/hard of hearing kids

    Last Friday, our school district participated in an Advocacy Day at a local high school. Deaf and hard of hearing students from several districts came together for a field trip to learn how to advocate for themselves and their communication needs. A football coach at a private high school shared his experience of being hard of hearing and handling communication issues in his daily life. In our district, my son was the only one to attend this event.

    So this all has me wondering about deaf and hard of hearing adults today–did many of you have contact with other deaf and hard of hearing kids when you were younger? What do you wish your parents had done differently?