Running on Fumes

When my boy/girl twins were born, I experienced the same mixture of joy, dread, and anticipation that most other women feel when they realize, for the first time, that they are actual mothers with all the weight of responsibility that the title entails. Just as I was forewarned, the first year was a blur. "Baby brain" made me forget almost everything besides my name. And despite following the admonishments to "sleep when the babies sleep", I could not shake the fatigue that seems to have permanently lodged deep within my bones.

A bevy of well-intentioned mothers encouraged me over and over telling me, "Don't worry, it gets better as they get older." Of this population, there was a subset who egged me on with, "Wait until they are walking; it will get much easier then." My mother was quick to correct this piece of misinformation. I regretfully concur with my pessimistic but sadly correct mother. Once my children could walk, they could suddenly run -- away from me and in opposite directions. It wasn't any easier than carrying and breast feeding them in tandem and now my fears of injury weren't based simply on insecurities about my own abilities; I now had a whole wide world of uncontrollable variables into which my stumbling toddlers many MANY times waddled headlong into.

Once they had learned to follow instruction (somewhat) and they had finally developed sturdy "sea legs" (the kind that don't cause me anxiety watching them climb down a steep uneven bank into a rocky stream unassisted), then I started to see the proverbial "light at the end of the tunnel." They began to play more harmoniously together. I heard less crying and screaming and more conspiratorial giggling and secret conversations. They started spending hours (okay, maybe ONE hour) together in a bedroom playing make believe, constructing fantastical stories of imagination that would make J.K. Rowling proud. Their physical coordination rapidly developed and I no longer had to hover over each of them fearful of unintentional physical mishaps. (Intentional mishaps were another issue altogether, as in, "Mommy! He hit me on the head!" or "Mommy! She pushed me!") There were still bumps and bruises and, my all-time favorite, when my son somehow broke his nose on the play structure at preschool, an event that was oddly unwitnessed by ANYONE. Still, they could pee in the toilet, dress themselves (with cajoling), and eat unassisted (when motivated). I thought I had finally entered the penumbra of the sweet spot in parenting. They were still young and adorable yet I was no longer their only hope for survival in this world.

And then my husband left me.

We had been struggling along financially for a while so when the opportunity came for me to increase my work days and since the children's dependence on me was rapidly dwindling, it seemed like a viable option. My unemployed husband was frustrated by an unfriendly job market and expressed his willingness to be a SAHD until he could find suitable employment. Unfortunately, the nature of MY profession follows the motto "In for a penny, in for a pound." My work hours steadily increased as my husband's job prospects became more and more grim. Just as I was coming out from under the fatigue and pressure of "perfectly parenting" (HA!) my young helpless progeny and grooming them into self sufficiency and resilience, I shouldered an equally heavy burden of a stressful job and maternal guilt as I watched my children shift their previous "Mommy" loyalties to my husband. It seems I couldn't win for trying.

Then, lo and behold, my husband DID finally get a job. In Wichita, Kansas. He received the official offer on a Tuesday. By Friday, he had packed up his essentials into our SUV and he was gone. I was suddenly faced with an unchangeable work schedule (under contract until July), new childcare challenges, and all the tasks of household management that are more easily handled with two people rather than one. This ranges from who does the dishes at the end of a meal (me), who makes the meals (me), who shuttles the kids to activities (me), who takes out the garbage (me), who does the laundry (me), who bathes the kids and fights the good fight at bedtime (me) ... You get the picture. While my husband is languishing in a temporary residence 1600 miles away from us wishing we were with him, it is difficult for me to muster up an ounce of sympathy. That would require my exhausted brain to actually form a coherent thought.

There is only so long a person can endure repetitive stress and extreme fatigue. I believe this is why one of the most effective methods of interrogating prisoners of war is sleep deprivation. I was burning out. I vaguely recall an old Bill Cosby skit that I had once heard. It is a hilarious monologue about his father's car. In his typical exaggerated self deprecating manner, he describes how one day his father came to him very irate because he (Bill Jr.) had used his (Bill Sr.'s) car the night before and then returned it with an empty gas tank. Bill Sr. sticks his son's nose by the open gas tank and asks him to smell for fumes. That's pretty much how I feel. My gas tank is empty. I've been running on fumes. Most days I am in survival mode, mechanically shuffling from one task to another. I would probably notice how stiff my back and neck are from the constant pressure except my entire body aches all the time. My back and my neck are a drop in a sea of pain. And my mind feels like it is constantly swaddled in cotton; my life is a fog right now, the proverbial "new baby blur" -- only my children are not new babies. They are four and a half years old. It is a cruel twist of fate that has landed me here, just as worn out and overwhelmed as when my children were first born. There is a horrible resentment brewing inside me somewhere I am sure; I am just too tired to find it.

In a fit of nostalgia and curiosity I searched for the old Bill Cosby skit on YouTube. I had not heard it since I was a teenager. Here's the funny thing: I had remembered it wrong. When Bill Sr. sticks Bill Jr.'s nose by the open gas tank and asks him what he smells, it isn't fumes. He smells nothing, NOT EVEN fumes.

Considering what I've been going through, yeah, that feels about right.

This is an original post to Year of 4s.

What would YOU do for love?

It's the cheesy kind of question I would never have posed to myself 4 1/2 years ago. Back then, I had nothing to prove. No aspect of my love for my darling husband was ever in question. We courted, argued, broke up, reconciled, and eventually married almost 8 years ago, all against the wishes of friends and family. In marriage, our relationship flourished and we effortlessly proved wrong all our past nay-sayers. It is no exaggeration when I declare my husband to be my best friend and confidante, the only man I desire at my lowest points and all the other points in between. While our marriage is far from perfect and we still quarrel, I know that he is the yin to my yang.

And then my boy/girl twins were born.

Like most (hopefully all) mothers, my love for them grows exponentially every day. I find that all the old cliché's are true. As one new mother declared to me, I never knew I could love someone as much as I love my children. All at once the daunting power of unconditional love has been wielded before me, reflected in the wide-eyed innocence of my son and daughter. I devote my time, attention, and affection to making them happy, keeping them safe, and staying connected to them any way that I can. In short, I adore them.

The problem is, this doesn't leave much time, attention, or affection left over for my beloved spouse. When my children were babies, the allocation of my limited resources of energy was clear. I had helpless infants to care for; my fully grown husband was fully capable of taking care of his own needs. But somewhere along the line, what had originally been a necessity became a habit. My children are now on the threshold of elementary school. They are not the vulnerable infants they once were yet I still cater to their every need at the expense of my patiently enduring husband.

Surely he must wonder what happened to his beloved bride. Where did our loving terms of endearment, tender moments, and sensual glances go? More importantly, are they gone forever?

I had a long day at work today. As I wearily walked through the front door, I was instantly bombarded by clamoring children. I love them, I adore them, and I wish so much that I had more of me to give them than the withered human spirit that I am reduced to at the end of an exhausting day at the office. Sometimes, MANY times actually, I wonder if it is even possible that I am still the same girl my husband fell in love with 11 years ago. And then I looked up and there he was, apron wrapped about him, my favorite Korean beef marinating between us. The slices were so thin that when he finally went to grill them outside, he had to pick up the delicate morsels with his bare hands. With his eyes burning from the smoke, he bravely forged through 3 full pounds of the succulent meat, expertly flipping them on the foil lined surface with a deft flick of his wrist, each piece grilled to a perfect mix of slightly smokey crisp and tender juicy meat. It was perhaps the sexiest thing I have seen in a long long time. Much like Elizabeth Bard's adventures in "Lunch in Paris: A Love Story with Recipes", the sensual connection between food and intimacy apparently weaves a thread through our family as well. The power of this sensuality is comforting, sustaining, and thrilling all at once extending beyond the food on our plates and the satiety of our stomachs.  Without a single word being uttered between us, we are reminded that we are still mysteriously united in the tantalizing bonds of seductive affection and palatable romance.

I adore my children. I adore my husband. What would I do for love? I guess I'm already doing it.

Disclosure: This post was inspired by Elizabeth Bard's book "Lunch in Paris: A Love Story with Recipes". While I received a complimentary copy of the book, the opinions expressed above are my own. This is a "From Left to Write" book club post.

Strange Places

I'm in a strange place these days. That's not to say that Sacramento is so unusual, but being absent from my family for a week at a time each month is. Prior to the initiation of these long distance job assignments, I had spent a grand total of 4 nights away from our twins over a period of four years. That's an average of one night a year and even then I had to be pried loose from my precious children with a crowbar, kicking and screaming. Now I am absent 5 nights a month. I've just multiplied my annual average times 60! But as the recession has continued to cast a pall on our household (see my prior blog post "Living with Mr. Mom") I have increased my non-maternal work hours exponentially to sustain "the lifestyle we have become accustomed to."

Of course I always envisioned that lifestyle as one where I was a SAHM but then my dh had envisioned it as one where he was gainfully employed. I guess the joke's on both of us!

As if working weekends and holidays weren't bad enough, now my latest job (one of FOUR that I currently hold) requires these weeklong overnight trips away from my husband and children who, until recently, were the centerpiece around which I designed every one of my days. Instead, now each month I drive up to Sacramento where I hole away in a small hotel room with a kitchenette and shuttle back and forth each morning and evening to my given assignment for that week. The first night away from the warmth of my children's squirmy bodies in bed was rough, really really rough. I missed the nighttime giggles, the gentle hands that clasped my arms around them, the snuggly kisses and hugs. I barely slept four hours that night, if even that much.

The next night was our first time trying Skype. It only made me miss them more. I didn't want to hang up but I didn't want them to see me cry either. Again, I slept very little. I could see that this would be problematic since my job requires me to be clear-headed and alert, not sleepy and weepy. After a ridiculously difficult day at work because of my sleep-deprived state, I vowed that the next morning I would check out the "gym" at the hotel. The "gym" turned out to be two treadmills, a stationary bicycle, and an elliptical machine in front of a small television that blared the 6 o'clock news. Still, it was better than nothing.

And it worked. That night, I slept like a baby. Speaking of which, I am slowly realizing that the quality of one's sleep is actually enhanced by the ABSENCE of a tiny person laying next to you in bed kicking you all night long. And there are actual benefits to being able to sprawl across the bed without worrying about waking anyone up, child or adult. Hmm. I now make a point of visiting the pseudo-gym every morning that I am away on assignment, something I very rarely get to do at home. Which got me to thinking about other things I could do that I rarely get to do at home, like watch trashy t.v., openly indulge in unhealthy snacks, and eat Asian food (I have the misfortune of being married to a non-Asian eater). I also get to indulge in movies, shopping, and salon and spa services without wondering who will watch my kids or how to get home in time for the sitter - because I know who is watching my kids (dh) and I'm not coming home until the end of the week. It's as if for a week at a time I shed my Mommy identity and become someone else. And that someone is single and childless.

I am in this awkward phase now where I am still kind of in the throes of mommy guilt for abandoning my family on a monthly basis (albeit necessarily) and kind of enjoying parts of it. It's like a rainstorm while the sun is still shining. I'm not quite sure how to feel yet. Teresa Strasser expresses this ambivalence between maternal instinct and human solipsism best in her memoir about her pregnancy entitled "Exploiting My Baby". I know there are PLENTY of mothers and/or pregnant women who are truly offended by her anti-Nancy O'Dell rhetoric and her scathing criticism of "overmommying". Personally though, I find it hilarious. Heck I don't even know who Nancy O'Dell IS and it cracks me up! Especially during these long absences away from my children I remember very well all the insecurities I had when I was pregnant, my fears about what kind of mother I would be and whether or not I would embrace the maternal instinct that I was certain lay dormant within me. Like Strasser, I was not one of those "I-always-knew-I-wanted-kids" type of moms. In fact, dh and I devoted very little time on the topic and made the decision fairly hastily, so as far as I'm concerned Strasser and her husband have one up on us already! Reading her book while laying in my hotel room in a bed that had been made for me while I was out, my kitchenette and bathroom cleaned and restocked with supplies, I realize I am not alone. There are plenty of mothers out there (or mothers-to-be) embroiled in the same selfish versus selfless battle.

So how should I feel? Sad because I miss my kids or kind of relieved because I get to spend some time selfishly taking care of my needs alone? I think Teresa Strasser would snort in disgust at my over analyzing. I'm here, for better or for worse. As she says, "Let's not be bound by our scrutiny, but by our communal attempt not to screw up."

Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of "Exploiting My Baby" for review. The opinions expressed in this post are my own. This is a "From Left to Write" book club post.

Watching My Inner Helicopter Parent Fly Away - NOT

We carry into motherhood the baggage from our childhood. For those who have been blessed with a happy one, there is a wonderful connection running through past, present, and future that is a precious rarity much envied by those of us who are less fortunate. As for the rest of us, we strive to avoid the mistakes of our own mothers, mistakes that ironically helped mold us into the caring, sensitive, and vigilant beings that we are today.

The current generation of helicopter parents are a product of childhood cautionary tales combined with a veiled form of comparative parenting. We are the modern day Smiths striving to keep up with the elusive Joneses. A helicopter parent will very rarely say, "If it was good enough to do X while I was growing up then it is good enough for my child." We also very rarely think, My child doesn't need to do Y; I didn't and I turned out fine. We are motivated by a desire to create an environment BETTER than that which we grew up in, whether that means more toys, more vacations, more time with Mom, or just more attention. And our materialistic monetarily based society is more than happy to accommodate. For anyone with enough money, there are products and services out there that our mothers never even dreamed of, much less desired. For starters, there are vast libraries of books covering topics from sleep training to homemade baby food recipes to early toddler emotional development to early childhood discipline. For the generation before us, there was little more than Dr. Benjamin Spock and even that was viewed with skepticism. The notion of reading books on parenting was mostly considered preposterous. As my mother contemptuously told me when she saw my library of child rearing books, "Parenting is something you DO, not something you READ."

Consider also the bevy of classes available to entice even the most closeted helicopter parent: baby sign language, infant massage, music together, dance, gymnastics, infant swimming, toddler skiing, immersion Spanish or Chinese, and many more. Like the a la carte menu of a five star restaurant, they all sound so good. So we sample and survey and exchange notes with the other helicopter parents. We flock to the "right" classes with the "best" teachers. Maybe it's all hype or maybe we will stumble upon the one who will recognize and nurture the secret latent talent in our child that we do not yet see. If my mother was contemptuous of my books, she was beyond disgusted with the multitude of classes in which we enrolled.

Of course there is the piece de resistance, the Holy Grail if you will, for the helicopter parent: the RIGHT school. Forget the minor expenses of books and classes; this is where the REALLY BIG bucks are spent. For the price of a small kingdom, the average helicopter parent can buy the reassurance that if her child does not get into an Ivy League school it will not be her fault. Just before my twins turned three years old, we enrolled them in no fewer than 3 preschools. One was a drop off with extended care for the days that both of us worked. It was play-based and came recommended both by other mothers in my network and by online reviews, criteria that are crucial in the decision-making process of any helicopter parent. The second was an expensive academic preschool which I had toured TWICE the year before. This was also a drop-off program and was in session only a few hours twice a week even though it was more expensive than the first school which offered extended childcare hours. The third school was a parent participation preschool which met for a few hours on Saturday mornings, markedly less expensive although much more heavily laden with after school responsibilities - for the parent. In a bout of indecision, I maintained this ridiculously busy and somewhat confusing schedule for a semester before withdrawing my children from one of them. For the first four months of the school year, they would ask me every morning, "Where are we going today?" A very good question indeed.

We are now at the age of kindergarten planning. While the very notion is beyond ridiculous to my mother, we the helicopter parents spent many hours agonizing over the age old question for the parent of a child born in the fall - send them ahead or hold them back? For my mother's generation, this question is a no-brainer: Get the child out of the house into the public school system as soon as possible. From my mother's perspective, why on earth would anyone in their right mind elect to keep their child underfoot in the household, the mother's domain, for a second longer than is absolutely necessary? After all, we want to FINALLY see our tax dollars put to good use and regain the solitude and privacy of our household for at least some small portion of the day. I suspect that were it in my mother's capacity she would have thrown a ticker tape parade on the day her last child (me) went to kindergarten for the first time.

But here's the thing: I am not my mother. While my children drive me absolutely crazy from time to time and I have moments when I desperately want to run and hide from motherhood if only for a few hours, I actually really like my kids. Unlike my own mother, I am not chomping at the bit tempted to yell, "Don't let the door hit you on the way out!" I want to savor every moment and memory with them, from the smell of their downy baby hair to the unexpected gentle touch of a soft palm on my bare arm. The good and the bad both have space in my heart for them. I would rather have the pain of a thousand heartaches and be fully engaged with my kids than be spared a second of pain and lose a fragment of an inkling of who they are becoming. I don't want to miss it, not any of it. Because as they are growing up, so am I. The beauty of my children is that I get to live a new life with them and experience the world around me with them.

Why would anyone want to rush through that?

So hover away. Study them. Plan for them. Obsess over them. And enjoy.

This is an original post to Year of 4s.

Are my children enough?

I am not typically an adventurous person, especially with four year old twins in tow. But at my husband's request, we recently spent four weeks in Mexico where my mother-in-law has lived for the last twenty years. This wasn't Club Med Ixtapa or Puerto Vallarta or Cabo San Lucas. We stayed in historic places on the Yucatan peninsula where it is not unusual to wake up with a tarantula, a scorpion, or a boa constrictor on the back porch. There was a beautiful lagoon, awe-inspiring Mayan ruins, expansive colonial mansions over 400 years old, and festivals in the evenings in the town square where men and women danced and sang about love and the glory of their city. There were also plenty of days and nights when the heavy humid heat in the air was oppressive leaving me scratching my MANY mosquito bites in frustration, wondering if I would ever feel really clean again. 

Both my MIL and dh were often attuned to my more frustrated moments (a wallflower I am not) and it was during these times as well as late into the evening after my defiant and mischievous children reluctantly fell asleep that I would peruse David James Smith's most recent book "Young Mandela". I had recently read Mandela's autobiography from 1994 "Long Walk to Freedom" which turned me into an instant fan. I was impressed by his steadfast and enduring devotion to a cause which required so much personal sacrifice, in particular over 27 years in prison away from his wife and his young children. To never see my children grow up is a sacrifice I could not imagine making under any circumstance.

So I hid in my sadly un-air conditioned room from time to time under the lazy whirl of the ceiling fan and read about the world in which Nelson Mandela grew up, a South African apartheid society where mosquito bites and humidity were the least of a black man's troubles. In "Long Walk to Freedom" Mandela's regrets over his personal sacrifices are quite muted. However, in "Young Mandela" the voices of his family's regrets can be heard loud and clear. While the book covered many other contrasting elements in perspective between Mandela and several other freedom fighters, it is the familial component that strikes me to the core the most, for obvious reasons. 

Take our extended trip to Mexico, for instance. I had kept a running journal of our experiences, the trips to the beaches and ruins and marvelous dinners both homemade and at various eating establishments. But I heavily edited out the emotional outbursts, by both children and grown ups alike, which were a product of over exhaustion, stifling heat, and a multitude of insects with vociferous appetites. Did I re-write history the same way David James Smith implies in his book that Nelson Mandela did? Will my children, on some level, resent my subtle propaganda in the way I have chosen to remember their childhood versus the way it really was? Nelson Mandela's children clearly do. And based on Smith's account of the acrimony between the Nelson Mandela Foundation and his first family, resentment unfortunately pervades his familial relationships.

My newest part time work assignment obligates monthly visits to Sacramento for weeklong periods, just myself, no kids. Granted, it is a far cry from 27+ years in prison. Still, will my young children feel some vague sense of abandonment at the far end of the spectrum of what Mandela's daughters, Zenani and Zindzi, clearly feel? More importantly, I wonder what aspects of their childhood I will be missing during my absences. New games? New playmates? The gradual and insidious evolution of their personalities? Will there be an indefinable distance between us that, over time, will become more and more difficult to bridge as my children grow older without me? I often wonder how much Mandela really regrets not getting to know his oldest son, Thembi, before his untimely death. The time we spend away from our children is unfortunately lost forever. One of Mandela's comrades was asked if all his personal sacrifice was worth the struggle against apartheid. His response was less than satisfying.

But the most uncomfortable and unsettling issue that arises for me after reading "Young Mandela" juxtaposed against "Long Walk to Freedom" is this: 

Unlike Nelson Mandela, I have no noble cause which would compel me to sacrifice my family life in the ways he did. Reading both accounts of the relatively peaceful revolution against apartheid in South Africa, I am still unable to irrevocably resolve in my mind and my heart either position - neither his, which can be described as "freedom at any cost", nor his children's, which is a tragic lamentation of the family life they never got to have. Both perspectives are valid and virtuous - and sadly incongruous. I don't believe I could have made the choices he had, even knowing the inevitable outcome. So I ask myself with hope and some degree of trepidation, when I am 92 years old like Nelson Mandela, will I reflect on my life with satisfaction or with regret? Will I be fulfilled by my devotion to my family or feel a personal void for not contributing a greater good to our society? Will I have secured a good enough future for my offspring by concentrating my efforts on the home life before me, or am I being short-sighted by not investing my efforts into the future of the generations beyond? Mankind is rife with causes and struggles, many of them right before us in our own small corner of the world. But these causes are not where I choose to invest the vast majority of my energy and effort. No, that bottomless repository resides firmly with my family and I can't see that changing for any reason. I consciously make this decision every day. But I still ask myself: Will my children be enough for me? I sincerely hope so.

Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of "Young Mandela" to review. All the opinions expressed in this post are completely my own.


This is a "From Left to Write" book club post.

Happy Un-Thanksgiving!

After publishing a post complaining about our over scheduled holiday plans, I ironically found myself suddenly faced with the prospect of a Thanksgiving Day with no plans whatsoever, no family or friends or feast even. The idea was both relaxing and somewhat depressing at the same time. This would be the first time since I could remember when there would be no flurry of activities to prepare for a huge elaborate mostly-home-cooked meal, no frenzied rush to hide dirty laundry and put out clean bath towels, no frantic scuffle out the door racing down a chilly road to someone's home before the turkey was carved. In fact, since none of us are big fans of the typical turkey dinner, there would be no turkey at all this year as there was no motivation to erect the traditional facade of choking down forkfuls of dry meat drowning in chunky globs of mottled brown gravy.

It was ironically a tradition that I became misty-eyed at the prospect of missing for the first time since my childhood. And now with two of my own small children, the thought of skipping it was further compounded by a large portion of maternal guilt. Was I a bad mother for allowing this to happen, the un-Thanksgiving?

In the past, if we had not been invited elsewhere to celebrate the repast, I had always magnanimously hosted at our home inviting friends, family, and anyone else whom I thought might have been forgotten by their own friends and family that particular season. Of course, this year WE were the forgotten, and while, in all fairness, we had received an invitation to dinner from a friendly family, they had a last minute change of plans. Interestingly enough the many folks whom I had so generously welcomed into my home in years past were strangely silent. Hmm. Does this make me feel like a more gracious, magnanimous, and, therefore, BETTER person than all of them combined? Why, yes it does!

But I digress.

So there we were, two days before Thanksgiving, my holiday blues waffling over whether or not to perch on my shoulders, when I saw it sitting innocuously in my email inbox: Dodge Ridge now opening. Due to an early generous precipitation, our nearest ski resort (still 3 1/2 hours away) would be open on Thanksgiving Day. Initially, I didn't take the notion very seriously. After all, we were strapped for cash, definitely NOT in ski condition, and totally unprepared. It actually didn't register on my radar until the next day, i.e., the day before Thanksgiving.

But my dh, dreamer that he is and oddly attuned to my shifting mood swings, perhaps sensed my impending disconsolation. The next thing I knew, he had dug out our old snow gear from storage, bought a few road trip snacks, made us sandwiches, sweet-talked my stepson into an hour drive to pick up our dogs (as the kennels were closed at 7 p.m. on the eve of Thanksgiving), and hustled us to the nearest Sports Basement for some cheap ski rentals within a half hour of closing for the holiday. That's the thing about my crazy impulsive husband; when he sets his mind to something, he makes it happen. He is the quintessential rainmaker.

So at 7:30 am on Turkey Day, about two hours later than we had hoped for, we set out on the road for an ambitious day trip, our first skiing venture of the season, on a shoestring budget and an impulse.

My amazing four-year olds were delightful essentially the entire trip there. Of course I already had this expectation due to a prior surprisingly fun car ride to Carlsbad last summer but it is always nice to have a repeat performance. Chattering away happily and munching on pogie bait car treats, they gradually fell asleep as my dh and I took advantage of a rare opportunity: hours of adult conversation. Forgoing a much needed nap, I basked in the glow of my love's undivided attention, something I hadn't experienced in a looong time. As the miles stretched on, the air grew slightly thinner and though the California sun still shined brightly above us, the outside temperature gauge dropped ever so slightly as the passing patches of grass grew more and more sparse replaced first by frost then by thin blankets of snow. (The quote of the trip was from my newly wakened son who asked me wide-eyed with wonder, "Mommy, is the white stuff snow?")

It was already 11:00 when we reached the resort, sunny blue skies, crisp air, and a perfect parking spot in an uncrowded lot. The day already held great promise! After slipping my tousle-haired children into their snow wear and watching them squeal with delight over dirty chunks of icy snow next to our front tires, it occurred to me that they would have been just as happy playing in a dirty parking lot as on a pristine groomed ski slope.

With the forethought of a seasoned veteran mom, I took multiple pictures with my smart phone while we were still standing by the car in the lot. After all, who knew what kind of day lay ahead of us? I wanted to capture the memory of this trip while we were still smiling! Clomping across the lot in our ski boots lugging our skis clumsily, in a flash I remembered how arduous skiing really is and I silently cursed my silly romanticized highly edited memories of ski trips past. We made a beeline for the bunny slope with our excited children in tow where I got a rude awakening from the rope tow.

I had not skied in at least 5 years. I had not comfortably skied at least 50 pounds ago, long before children and even before marriage. So lugging a 34 lb. child between my legs while frantically gripping a rope tow hauling my own lugubrious form was quite an endeavor the first time. And the second. And the third. Well, pretty much the entire duration that we were there.

But, oh, the ironic bliss of being with my beloved family, my children glowing with the thrill of their newfound love for skiing, and my beloved husband flushed with the return of a forgotten love for the sport. He even managed to squeeze in a solo run sans wife and kids finagling an unauthorized trip on a chair lift which we soon followed as a treat to the kids. Their first chair lift ride. It was nothing short of magical.

As we sat at the picnic tables basking in the sunshine reflected off the snowy slopes with our bellies full of a splurged meal of chili and fish and chips, from the depths of my heart and soul I was incredibly and spontaneously thankful to be where I was at that exact moment in time, sore calves and cramped toes and all. It was breathtakingly perfect. And I realized in that moment that there was no better way for me to truly experience Thanksgiving.

We limped off the slopes, tired and happy with the kids yearning for more, a fantastically positive sign of success as far as I am concerned. My happy contented children slept for most of the ride home, and the words exchanged with my beloved as the sun set and the dusk powdered the sky with hues of orange then purple were more intimate and honest than we have spoken in years. I did not think it possible, but our perfect day was actually outdone by the renewal of our vows to each other that night, vows to be each other's ally and friend for life, to always be on the same team, and to never give up hoping and dreaming for our family and for ourselves.

We still bask in the glow of the memory of that day. As averse as I am to use superlatives, dare I say it? It was the perfect Thanksgiving.

This is an original post to Year of 4s.

Burning the Midnight Oil

Midnight? Try 3:36 am which is precisely what time I woke up and realized yet again that while my entire household sleeps, I cannot. Two four-year olds, my darling husband, my loyal Schnauzer, even the new 5-month old Yorkshire terrier on her first night in our home lay in deep slumber. I am listening to the symphony of their breathing, snores and quiet wheezes, the life breath of my family. Even though I know I should be fast asleep with them, that tomorrow there will be Hell to pay because a poor night of sleep for a mother of two active young children is a recipe for disaster, I honestly can't help myself.

Dare I say it? I love my family intensely always - but they are so much easier to love when they are sleeping.

When they are in sweet slumber, I can pretend that I am the perfect mother, wife, and dog-lover. All needs at the present time, in this magical late-night instance, have been met. I need not feel guilty for buying my kids hoagies for dinner because I was too tired to cook another meal, or for responding to my husband with an ill temper because I am overwhelmed by work and household chores, or for not taking my patiently loyal dog for a walk (yet again). I once heard a fantastically hippie-dippy speaker once say, "You don't need to change anything in your life to be happy right now, right this instance." Yeah right, buddy. Tell that to my waistline and my bank account.

But here, in the quiet and calm darkness amidst those whom I love the most, I can see how his words ring true. I know it will be a different story when the dawn comes and the first streaks of sunlight penetrating the darkness will beckon me to the kitchen to whittle away through the litany of to do's that roust me every morning before my mind is flooded with the rest of the day's chores, worries, and responsibilities. But for now I am at peace. I am so incredibly grateful for my beloveds. I am happy.

This is an original post to Year of 4s.