VIEWPOINTS FroM Know-it-all to uninForMeD Half way point

So many things in life are a matter of perspective and summer is no exception.

It seems like it was only a blink of an eye ago that we were celebrating Memorial Day and the Fourth of July and now it is August already.

This is the half way point of summer, before we know it, it will be Labor Day.

But here is where perspective comes into play.

It is all a matter of looking at the glass as half empty or half full, negatively or optimistically.

While it can be easy to think of this in some negative light, summer being half way over already and it seems like it has barely started, there is a lot of optimism when we look at it with the right eyes.

Summer is only half way over; there is still plenty of time to enjoy it.

After a slow start to spring that saw cooler temperatures as well as several days with hazy, smoke filled skies from the wildfires in Canada, summer seemed tentative. Our area also saw some days of intense heat with warmer than average days and now as August begins, we are seeing cooler temperatures.

All of these swings can make it hard to plan your days, but no matter the weather our area has a bounty of events, activities and attraction to take advantage of.

The important thing is to make the time to enjoy it.

There are the unavoidable realities of life, our duties and responsibilities from work, to chores around the house and innumerable others.

But it is also important to remember that we all need to stop and take some time for the responsibilities we have to ourselves, our families and the other things we probably don’t give enough time and attention when we are caught in the day to day obligations of our lives.

But it seems summer is a time when many make a point to pay at least a little more attention to these important details.

There is that cliché of the long lazy days of summer, maybe it is the memory of summer vacations when we were younger, maybe it is the number of activities that correlate with the season, but whatever the reason, it seems this is a time when everyone wants to shake off some of their daily cares and spend a little time enjoying something special.

Take some time, use these weeks of summer that are still ahead and find what will make you happy.

We are fortunate to be surrounded by the bounty of nature in Central New York.

With numerous lakes, trails, nature sites and camping, there are innumerable opportunities to get outside.

For some it is as simple as a backyard fire and toasting marshmallows and making s’mores with the kids.

For others it may be taking in a ball game and having a hotdog.

For others it will be a concert or the bigger events still to come like the New York State Fair.

But whatever it is, take the time to enjoy the long days of summer as much as you can and find the time to kick back and relax even for a little while.

No one likes a know-it-all, leastwise those of us who were raised to be just that. I speak from deep personal experience.

I am the oldest of four children and the recipient of my father’s directive to be a leader rather than a follower. My siblings fought hard against such hubris but somewhere along the line, either individually or in collusion, they let me think that I was the leader and one with superior skills. I mean, who could do the housework better than me, or the dishes or cook the evening meals or mow the lawn?

Any effort at these tasks by two of my siblings was carefully scrutinized by my hyper-critical eye, and if their work was poorly executed, I simply redid it. I can remember repeating that phrase, “If you want something done right…”

It was amazing, though, that my youngest sister, so poorly adapted to household work, could whip up a new outfit on the sewing machine in a trice or that my brother, all thumbs at just about anything around the house, could learn any musical instrument and start up several bands. Seems that one of the things that this know-it-all didn’t know was when she was being, what is the current word … played?

My other sister didn’t even try to do things poorly, she just hid out in the bathroom until I went to college. Amazingly, they survived their seeming lack of skills and have prospered in their own ways with homes that are organized and clean. But, as the eldest, I still hold the scepter of know-it-all and have been known to Type A it through many an assignment. Most know-it-alls aren’t aware of their situation until they come in contact with another similarly-trained annoyance. And so it came to pass that I met up with not one but two of this genera. It seemed that no matter what I said, there was always a contradiction to be made, always a comment about how they had more experience, knew more people, had preferred and, of course, more effective ways of getting things done. One would even do my work for me. Even when they were dead wrong, they were right and could convince me that I had erred. That was a lesson to be learned! Enduring the dynamic of the paramount font of perfectionism is really a pain in the neck … only a lot lower in the anatomy.

And how did I deal with this epiphany? I didn’t. I saved my ego by simply separating myself from them. I changed jobs. I continued smug in my know-itall world, until a higher power pointedly intervened.

God drew me up short with the ultimate antidote ... motherhood. Having children just about drained my psyche of any trace of belief in my sense of competency or control. I should have suspected this early on when nausea interrupted my plans in graduate school to become a world-renowned anthropologist, but that passed and, armed with books on childrearing, I mapped out how I would maintain my home, develop extraordinary culinary capabilities, take a few more graduate courses and become the model of young motherhood. I even wrote these plans down, you know, to pass on to those not as well informed as I. I posted them on the door of what was to be the nursery. God’s lesson revealed itself in all its power somewhere in the first hours of the first night after I brought my first born home from the hospital. There he was, my darling baby boy. Why weren’t the neighbors bringing gifts to celebrate his arrival? I lay my child, freshly bathed, changed and fed in his fashionably appointed crib, cleverly situated under his educational mobile. I smiled and began a lullaby that was interrupted by colicky screaming that lasted for three months. The section in Dr. Spock that dealt with colic was ragged in a few weeks, but not more so than the reader who was alternately stumbling around the house trying to implement her naïve plans for housekeeping while caring for a very unhappy baby or simply crying copious tears at her inadequacy.

I walked the floor for hours every night, rocked him, sang to him, tried all kinds of folk remedies recommended by older, more experienced mothers. I read somewhere that colicky in- fants don’t cry when you use the vacuum. My floors were immaculate and my child continued to cry. We drove over the county roads at all hours of the night, child in the back seat, hoping that something we read about babies liking the rocking motion of the car would work. To this day, I associate some roads in the area with the hair-raising sound of a baby taken from his bed by his rookie parents, miserable in the back seat.

Nothing got done around the house. I tried, but beyond the vacuuming, dishes piled up in the sink, laundry was done on an emergency-only basis and I don’t think I combed my hair for weeks. At the end of six months, only one of the tasks that I had taped to the door of the nursery had been accomplished on a regular basis: vacuuming the floors.

Finally, exasperated beyond anything I could have imagined, I took the screaming child next door to my neighbor who was also my family doctor and held the child out to him saying, “I give up. He just won’t stop crying.”

Doc Daly smiled, as those who are in the know often do, and said, “Well, I’ll bet he has a milk allergy. Try some soy formula and see what happens.”

Screaming child in tow, I raced to the store and bought Isomil. I spent the entire first night after his formula change checking my quiet, sleeping child to see if he was still alive.

Equipped with all of this