Yesterday marked the end of the Fall Little League season. Max’s team was undefeated. He should have been ecstatic. But he cried all the way home. Why you ask?

He felt unappreciated.

The coach gives the game ball to the player who contributed the most to the team. Or, perhaps, to the player who showed initiative or improved greatly. But Max didn’t get a ball all season. (Neither did a few of the other boys.) The coach’s son, who I must say is a very good ballplayer, got at least three.

Tomorrow night is the end of season party at Pizza Hut. Every player will get a ball and a trophy. Neither has the meaning of a game ball. And these kids (who get prizes way too often, if you ask me) know the difference.

But the point of this post is this: we need to recognize our employees, our co-workers, our clients for their strong points. As we go along. Having a year-end recognition won’t cut it. Yes, it’s nice. But it’s not real. It’s contrived. It’s a group activity. What makes people feel appreciated is being appreciated.

Would it hurt to drop a note to someone telling him that the proposal was really perfect? Or that your assistant went beyond your expectations and made you look great? Tell her. Take her to lunch. Give her the game ball.

We all want that, right?

Have you ever seen what someone looks like in the process of getting highlights? (That’s not me, for those of you who don’t know me!) So, today has been a bit nuts so far.

This morning, I left the house for an early highlight and cut. Before I left, Andrew asked me if the baseball stuff and the chairs were in the minivan. He did. I’m sure. So I checked for the chairs and left in the other car.

Half way through the foil process, the receptionist came to see me. Andrew was, apparently, on the phone. My mind raced. Something terrible has happened. There’s been an accident. Oh no…. But actually, it seemed, I had the baseball stuff in the car. And I was on the other side of town.

Backing up a bit, you should know that Max had to be at his baseball practice at 9:30 am and Reed had to be at his game at 10:00 am. There was no time to spare. What to do?

So Rebecca finished foiling me and I jumped in the car. Can you picture this? And I drove like a bat out of hell across town. I haven’t been stared at that much since…well, ever. I kept telling myself people might think it was a Halloween costume. But, even I don’t believe that. I dropped off Reed’s baseball gear and raced back to the salon.

Rebecca had warned me that if I took too long, the color might be compromised. So I ran back in, got a wash (after a spot check) and lo and behold — the best color I ever had! She trimmed my hair and, with wet hair, I paid and left.

Otherwise, I might be late picking Max up from practice.

Reed came home the other day. “I have to tell you something, Mom,” he said. He looked very serious. He went on to tell me about a scandalous happening at his school. Someone wrote on the girls’ bathroom walls. Graffiti. Graffiti Art, as Max calls it. (Should I be concerned?)

The school buzzed. The teachers talked to the kids about the evils of property destruction. And a girl in his class told Reed that she knew who did it. She saw someone go into the bathroom with a writing utensil.

So, Reed asked, should I tell the teacher I know who did it? Since I so recently did my public duty and served on a jury, I was in a particularly good place to explain that hearsay is not admissible in court. So we talked about it and together decided that his information was probably not valid and that I would casually mention this all to the mother of the girl who had information (he was concerned I didn’t make a big deal out of it). I sent her an email and casually asked if she knew about the situation. Being the troop leader of the girl scouts, of course she did. Those girls can talk!

I was feeling pretty darn proud that Reed was so concerned about public property. This whole thing provided a great opportunity for conversation. Always good.

Okay, that was a few days back. Yesterday, at the Halloween Parade, I ran into that other mom. She asked me if I knew what the graffiti said. What a funny question, I thought. But I answered that I had no idea. So she told me. I would post it here, but a wise 13-year-old girl told me recently about the how distressing and embarrasing it is when parents say these sorts of things in public. So if you want to know, drop me a line!

If you don’t read J-Walk, you may not have seen this meatscape. I can’t remember the last time I saw a picture that did caused such a reaction to my stomach.

I just got back from the elementary school Halloween Parade. My kids are: Harry Potter, a vampire, and a hippy. You should have heard the conversation about what a hippy is! Here they are:

Andrew came home the other day, opened the door and asked the kids what they had done with their real mother. That’s because I decorated the lamppost with glittery pumpkin garland. Totally out of character for me, since I hate Halloween.

The crisis was not averted. Just postponed. Last night I was innundated with emails and overreactions. I can only assume that some people prefer dischord. Or that some people can’t see past the issue at hand to realize what the effects of hysteria are.

But, regardless of the motivation for the blow-out, I blew it. I reacted. And emailed back while I was angry for what this was going to cause. I forgot to stop and think.

Boy, this is going to take practice.

And all this pro bono. I have plenty of stress at my REAL job!

There’s a problem. Someone is really pissed. Or something is going to be when he finds out what happened. What to do?

Of course the first reaction is… react. And quickly. Contain the situation. Get it under control. But is that the best choice? I had a mini-crisis today. The emails hit the fan. But I said stop. I walked away. I thought about the ramifications of each choice we had. I consulted with a brilliant friend/collegue of mine. (thanks Megan) And I crafted, carefully and thoughtfully, a response that would benefit each of the interested parties. A response, that I hoped would not only solve the immediate problem, but possibly even improve the relationships between those interested parties.

Now here’s the part that was hard for me. I gained consensus. You heard it here first, folks. I did. I gained consensus. The people on my team did not initially agree that my solution was the right one. But we talked it through. I listened. They listened. And by the end, we agreed. So now I took action.

And guess what? It worked.

I hope I learned from this experience. Unfortunately, I harken back to the scorpion story.

I found Tim O’Reilly’s article, about how the web has changed, interesting. Not earth-shattering, though. More like a neat and tidy compilation of the thoughts and discussions I’ve had with many of my collegues over the past several months and, maybe even, years.

But what made me post this is that Tim O’Reilly put a link on the article for “blog this” with the code to post it. I think that’s brilliant. So here you go, Tim. You earned it. (Except, Tim, you didn’t code the link for the conference! Oops. I fixed it for you…)

What Is Web 2.0 by Tim O’Reilly — Defining just what Web 2.0 means (the term was first coined at a conference brainstorming session between O’Reilly and MediaLive International, which also spawned the Web 2.0 Conference), still engenders much disagreement. Some decry it as a meaningless marketing buzzword, while others have accepted it as the new conventional wisdom. Tim O’Reilly attempts to clarify just what we meant by Web 2.0, digging into what it means to view the Web as a platform and which applications fall squarely under its purview, and which do not.

There is a shoebox model of the Parthenon on my kitchen counter. No one is in it, but tomorrow, it will be filled with thrones and gods.

It’s book report time. All three of my guys have reports due by Monday. They all read their books lickety split – as soon as the assignments came in. Reading isn’t a problem at our house. We’re all readers.

And the reports? You’d think that since Andrew and I basically write book reports for a living (okay, a stretch, but not so much!), that the boys would be genetically predisposed to love writing reports. I admit that this first report of the school year has gone a lot smoother than any last year. The kids are getting more independent. They understand the teachers’ expectations. And comprehension of the books they read is not an issue.

It’s the projects that make my head hurt. Davis is illustrating all the major events in The Wish List by Eoin Colfer. It has typed descriptions of each scene and it’s really very nice. Max had a “paint by numbers” assignment to make a paper house with doors and windows that open to reveal the characters and plot lines of his book, Baseball Flyhawk by Matt Christopher. He did a great job with very little complaining. But the lack of creativity on this project makes me nuts. Reed’s book, It’s All Greek to Me, by Jon Sciezka (one of the Time Warp Trio books) is the reason I have a Parthenon on my counter. Yes, remember making dioramas? I hated those things when I was in school.

While I recognize that the purpose of these projects and reports is to get the kids to read books and think about them hard enough as to translate the story back in some “creative” way, do you remember the pain of book reports? I believe I first learned the word procrastinate during my first book report assignment. So I suppose that vocabulary-building is another benefit of these projects.

I worry that the love of reading can be killed with an inane-enough book report assignment. Or that my “hands off” attitude (I don’t help) gives my guys a serious disadvantage in the grading curve since many, if not most, of the parents “help” quite a bit. Some of the projects look like RISD graduate work.

Well, if all goes well, the boys will still love reading after their book report days are long over. If not, well, at least they’ll have lovely memories of working on dioramas and cut-out houses.

Instant vacation. We just got back from Great Wolf Lodge. We had a great time. The room was camping themed – the bunk beds for the kids looked like they were made from logs and “critters” were peaking out. The main lobby was like camp – with a big fireplace and storytelling. The place was decked out for Halloween. They had a door decorating contest and trick-or-treating. But the big draw is the water park. A huge indoor waterp park. Even I admit – it was fun. There were slides, a wave pool, a lazy river and more. Hey, they even sold beer right there so the parents could relax too.

But. There is nothing left to the imagination. Nothing to explore. No place exciting to find. It’s all there. Spelled out. Just add water.

It’s not just vacations. In order to simplify our lives, we’ve been handed ready-made food, ready-made brochures, ready-made everything.

Sometimes, I suppose convenience is a good thing. But what are we giving up?

We don’t have to take the easy-to-use, no preparation needed solution to everything. It’s our choice. The companies that approach their customers differently – and more personally, appear to be succeeding. (I believe that people who use that strategy succeed too!) It’s a bigger risk. And it takes more time. But hopefully, the rewards are worth it.

Last night was my monthly poker game. It was fun, as always. Everyone bought in for the same amount of chips. But at the end, there was too much money left in the pot. This group has some really bright women in it – not to mention a CPA. So it seems reasonable to expect we can all count and make change. I, for one, worked in fast food as a teenager — at Gino’s – and remember distinctly learning to make change. Without a computerized cash register.

And yet, almost 20 percent of the total was left over. Kind of like government surplus.

If this was a more serious game, I supposed we’d have a banker who counted everyone’s chips. But we’re a trusting group. And since the error(s) are in favor of the pot – I suppose there’s nothing to do but carry it over to next month.