Tag Archives: parenting

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Real Boys do Cook Quiche: a Reflection on Fathers’ Day


(in memory of Sam’s daddy Dino–Happy Fathers’ Day from far away)

Much to our delight, my nephew Sam came to visit Sara and me this weekend.  His mother, my younger sister Lynn, is in Cuba for 10 days, so Sam has a series of family, friends, and camp to keep him company.

And his stop Friday and Saturday just happened to be our home.  Goodness–what a gift to us!

The boy is precious–kind, smart, creative, with not only a soul of gold, but also a spirit bright and brilliant.

Sam is eleven.  He plays football, basketball, and a bit of soccer.  He golfs.

But his primary passion is in the kitchen.  He loves to cook, to bake, to create.  I don’t imagine there are many eleven-year-old boys in Kentucky whipping up quiche in the kitchen.  But Friday morning that’s just what Sam did.

So today–a journey in photographs–a quiche-cooking boy–a foodie’s young life:

Aunt Kathy holds her new-born nephew–Sammy’s first day of life:

for the love of nephew!

He’s grown a bit and is visiting Aunt Kathy again:

rock-a-bye-baby

Sam and Daddy–(Sam’s daddy died when Sam was only six.):

Sam adored his daddy!

Sam and big brother Johnny visit Santa:

seasons greetings from the nephews

Sam graduates from pre-school:

entering the land of "Big Boy"

Sam tends to under-arms:

Sammy does deodorant.

When Sammy was six, we rode together in our town’s 4th of July parade:

I pedaled and pulled. Sammy sat.

Sam’s school picture:

Our boy is growing up.

This weekend Sam and I ate dinner at the Atomic Cafe, a block from our house in downtown Lexington:

We each ate shrimp linguine.

When Sam visits, he and I almost always collaborate on an art project:

Sam adds a logo to his painted bottle of wine.

Saturday morning we visited our local farmers’ market:

Sara and Sam

Smoothie goes green at Farmers’ Market:

pedaling toward smoothie

Yet another bike invloved in Sam’s Saturday:

Riding home fom Farmers' Market

So Sam is off to camp this week, but with Daddy gone, our boy has big pants to fill, as Fathers’ Day approaches:

Sam pulls himself up, britches better than boot straps

Happy Fathers’ Day, Dino!  We love you and know if you were here, you’d assure your son, that real boys do cook quiche.

But then Sam knows that already!

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Re-naming America?


(I know I’m supposed to be blogging about Haiti and I promised a post today about the Port-au-Prince airport—but, I swear, the issue I address below is an “event horizon,” of sorts.)

In case you missed it, yesterday, BabyCenter.com posted its list of top 100 names for 2010—an annual event that’s more than making a name for itself!

So—I hate to ask a seemingly indelicate question.  But—What’s up with baby names these days?

Why are the first names of most newly-born kids in the US names that merely decades ago would have been nothing other than good, old-fashioned last names?

Why are we so obsessed with family names, we’ve nearly abandoned the sacred tradition—centuries, rather millennia in the making—of assigning “Christian names” to our newly hatched Madison’s and Mackenzie’s?

I know the American “family” is in decline.  I know many now say America a “post-Christian” nation—(which is itself a misnomer, I might add).  Does this underlie the confusion? 

Seriously!  What’s up?

Why is every Tom, Dick, and Harry now named Taylor, Devon, or Yale? 

And what about these names with oblique, more often than not overt, allusions to the aristocrats of academia? 

My own nephew, born last month, is named “Rhodes”—God bless his little, “high-IQ-ed” heart.  I know his grandfather is a professor, and his aunt, yours truly, spent WAY too many years not making NEARLY enough money in academia—(thus, the high dollar move to blogging)—but that’s a lot of pressure on a little guy!  How’s that for a “you-better-make-the-grade-or-else” kick-in-the-ass?

Now, I know I should keep my family out of this.  I know my brother could and probably should kill me. (But he has a really great sense of humor; his name is “Tyce,” by the way, if that tells you anything about the DNA of naming in my family.)

I know, as well as you do, that a rose by any other name should smell as sweet, but what about poor “Baby Rose?”

Why has she morphed into little “Reagan?”  Yes, I kid you not; she’s number 66 on this year’s list of most popular girls’ names in the US.  I love the old Gipper as much as the next left-leaning, non-Bible-toting, “doesn’t-give-a-hoot-about-Hollywood,” Democrat in America.

But—PLEASE!

Enough is enough!

My mother called me “Kathryn” for a reason.  I was named after my grandmother, her first name, I might add.  And there were a total of three “Kathy’s” in my kindergarten class—I was born in an era, now sadly past, when “normal” naming still happened in America—was right up there with good breeding!

Speaking of breeding—does it say anything about all that’s vogue in naming that my dogs are “Ralph” and “Lucy?”

What’s next?

BabyCenter.com has itself used a “top-secret algorithm” to determine what names will climb in popularity next year, and according to the “online parenting and pregnancy destination” the boy’s name “Max” is predicted to “gain momentum in 2011”—climbing from its current spot at number 46.  Are the sons (and daughters) of America already being named after their canine companions?

Or am I barking up the wrong tree?

(And tomorrow—I’ll yap about the Port-au-Prince airport—I promise!)