Fight Night

The other night, after I quickly checked my email on the kitchen computer, I trudged over to the fridge.  As I was staring into the nearly empty freezer hoping that dinner would magically appear, I heard a scuffle break out.  For the past couple of weeks, the Princess and the Pirate have been hovering near the computer like harpies circling for food.  They've been constantly arguing over who should have access to the the computer, and they've filed numerous complaints with the Court of Mommy. 

The Pirate has recently abandoned his quest to locate the most asinine online stunt videos imaginable (like people flinging themselves off roofs and souping up cars to fly them off ramps).  Now he's obsessed with a purportedly educational online video game that he maintains will prepare him to be an architect.  In presenting her case for computer access, the Princess has countered that if she doesn't visit her Webkinz to dress them up for fashion shows, they might die from loneliness.  Do any of us want Webkinz blood on our hands?  Not to mention that the Princess might decide to be a fashion designer someday, so Webkinz World is providing her with valuable training.  She also needs to visit the PBS Kids' website, which is educational too; if she doesn't get her quality time with Ruff Ruffman, her brain might just atrophy to the point where she can no longer function.

As I stood at the fridge, the shouting escalated and I knew that blows were being exchanged.  Instead of rushing in to mediate the dispute, I decided to take a different approach.  Dropping the frozen broccoli that I had just picked up, I dashed over to the computer and started enthusiastically screaming:  "Fight!  Fight!  Fight!"  The Princess and the Pirate dropped their arms and looked up at me like I was crazy.  "Hey,"  I said gleefully, "some people pay a lot of money for pay-per-view fights.  I get a ringside seat to Godzilla v. Mothra for free!"  Sensing that they were the butt of my joke, the Princess and the Pirate slunk away to play with their Polly Pockets and Legos.  I returned to the fridge and continue to root about for food, basking in the glorious victory of sarcasm over stupidity.

The Secret to Happiness

As I was bounding through the sunshine on my five mile run this morning, flirting with the RayBan clad mailman who cruises through my neighborhood, I was reveling in pure joy.  Belting out tunes as I sprinted past dog walkers and people pushing strollers, I didn't care who heard me singing.  I was on fire, and people were either going to participate in my infectious happiness, or I was going to ignore them.

When I reached the final stretch of my run, Ne-yo's butter-smooth voice came over my ipod:  "Girl let me love you, and I will love you until you learn to love yourself."  Ne-yo's selfless offer got me thinking about happiness.  Over the years, I've learned that it is impossible to be truly happy unless you love yourself unconditionally.  As parents and friends, we would never dream of uttering demeaning words to our children and loved ones, and yet, I've met so many people who continually berate themselves.  I refuse to engage in such negative self talk.  As corny as it may sound, I try to treat myself with the same dignity and respect that I give to others.  I take time to do things that I enjoy every day and let my inner-cheerleader celebrate my successes and console me for my failures.  I love myself unconditionally and that is a huge part of my happiness.

Of course, I didn't always treat myself so well.  Twenty-one years ago, I met a man who changed everything because he was willing to love me until I could learn to love myself.  His unwavering devotion and love taught me to let go of my perfectionist ideals and to laugh at and embrace my weaknesses and idiosyncrasies.  I learned to see myself as he sees me, and I've been happy ever since.

Sometimes we all need someone to sweep in and love us unconditionally until we can learn to love ourselves.  Now that I've found my happiness, I try to give the same unconditional love that I give to myself to my children and friends.  Happiness really is contagious, and if you let someone love you . . . you may end up loving yourself. 

Intellectual Diversity

I'm embarrassed to admit that when I was younger, I was under the mistaken impression that achievement in school was an excellent measure of intelligence.  A classic overachiever who would settle for nothing less than an A, I sacrificed my intellectual integrity many times to please dogmatic professors.  I also routinely underestimated my classmates' abilities. 

As I've grown older, I've learned to appreciate the diversity of humanity and marvel at the differences in the way that people think.  As the mother of a dyslexic, I've learned through first-hand experience that school grades are neither a proxy for intelligence nor a predictor of future success.  As Albert Einstein once said:  "Everybody is a genius.  But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."  

How to Beat Back the Winter Doldrums

In the past three hours, our weather here in Vermont has vacillated between sunshine, rain, something that sort of seemed like sleet, and a raging blizzard.  At least we got a peek of the sun.  But seriously, this time of year is enough to make even the most sane and highly functioning person feel like they are going to come completely unhinged.  "Cabin fever" doesn't even come close to describing the absolute desperation and dreariness that can take hold of even the most resilient person.  So to help you get out of your funk, here are my ten favorite ways to beat back the winter blues:

1.  Go to the store and buy flowers.  Today I purchased a cheery bunch of yellow tulips from my local florist.  Trust me, ten dollars is a lot cheaper than a therapist's bill.

2.  Go ahead and have that chocolate bar.  It's scientifically proven that dark chocolate releases endorphins.  So what are you waiting for?  Eat up!

3.  Plug in the disco ball and turn up the music.  Nothing beats dancing in your living room until you sweat.  Don't just sway back and forth . . . really bring it.   No one's watching.  And who cares if someone is watching?  I'm sure they'll enjoy the show.  If you are feeling more adventurous, take a dancing class like Zumba or go to a club.

4.  Go for a drive in the car, blast the radio, and belt out some tunes.  Singing in the car will not only make you feel better, it will bring a smile to the people in the cars around you.  Don't hold back, really let it rip.

5.  Invite some friends over.  I know your house is probably a complete post-Christmas disaster zone, but who cares?  Your true friends honestly don't.  They will be happy to get out of their own hovels.  You don't have to make anything fancy to entertain.  Just serve pasta for dinner or pancakes for breakfast.  The point is to get together and laugh.

6.  Make something unusual for dinner.  Go buy some fresh lemons, limes, cilantro, or other leafy green herbs.  Find a recipe online and try something you ordinarily wouldn't cook during the winter.  Fresh fish tacos anyone?  With a side of chipotle-lime mayo and fresh pina coladas?

7.  Browse a summery magazine.  I like to delve into the pages of Coastal Living at this time of year.  If you can't afford to go to Fiji, at least you can daydream about it.

8.  Dress up!  I know that the easiest thing to do is pull on some sweats and layer up with turtlenecks.  But this is the perfect time of year to throw together an adventurous ensemble that looks fresh out of a magazine.  There are great post-Christmas sales and this weather is a perfect excuse to wear some textured tights.

9.  Take a long, luxurious bubble bath. 

10.  Read a romance novel or buy one for your significant other.  Winter is the perfect time to cuddle up next to your loved one.  Again, research proves that hugging produces endorphins.  But why stop there?  I always say go big or go home.

The Christmas Slacker

It's Christmas time and that means that almost all of my friends who are mothers are in a perpetual state of panic, worried that they will fall short of some self-imposed standard of what constitutes an acceptable Christmas.  At this time of year, mothers are infected with a menacing, insanity-provoking plague of expectations that makes them feel overwhelmed, confused, and just plain exhausted.  The symptoms are easy to recognize.  Go to any grocery store and you'll find an ordinarily competent, organized, and intelligent woman with dark circles and bags under her eyes, staring vacantly at the shelves, trying to remember a forgotten ingredient for some recipe.  Go to any toy store and you'll find grown women stampeding for check-out counters, desperately stuffing their carts with as many wishes as possible before time runs out and Christmas morning arrives.  Peek behind the door of any of those homes with Christmas lights strung all over the front lawn and you'll find the not-so-subtle signs of a stressed out mother:  growing mountains of laundry, dishes, and paperwork; bitter husbands who are afraid to offer any assistance because they will inevitably face recriminations; and children who can sense that their loving mother has been stricken by an epidemic of temporary insanity.

Now . . . I'm not too proud to admit that as recently as yesterday, I too was one of those hapless victims of Christmas madness.  But as I stood at my kitchen counter ripping through piles of Christmas cards, knowing that I had yet to send out a single card . . . something inside of me screamed "ENOUGH!"  I opened a particularly exquisite card from a friend who had obviously employed a professional photographer to produce an elaborate folding photo booklet, and I knew it was game over.  The quest for the perfect Christmas card was pointless.  Even if I could somehow find clothes at the bottom of the kids' drawers that were not riddled with stains and manage to get the kids clean and looking somewhat presentable, there was no way that I was going to come close to replicating the splendor of this Christmas card.  And just like the Whos in Whoville who start singing in defiance of the Grinch's evil tactics, a voice started welling up inside of me rebelling against the ridiculous expectations to which I had allowed myself to fall victim.  I finally remembered who I am.  I've never been a conformist, and I usually could care less what people think of me.  While I'm all about enjoying every possible second with people I love, loving someone does not mean that you have to shower them with perfectly presented gifts and flawless Christmas cards.

Today, I've finally settled in to my newly discovered state of Christmas tranquility.  I'm no longer trying to be a Christmas overachiever.  I am now officially a Christmas slacker and proud of it.  If you are lucky enough to be on my reduced Christmas card mailing list, I hope you enjoy our "good enough" card.  If you're not on the list, let me just wish you a Merry Christmas right now.

 

Adrenaline Junkies

Yesterday, my husband and I loaded the Smokin' Pirate and the Princess into the car and headed to an outdoor high ropes course.  This might be the absolute last place that you would expect to find my husband given his overwhelming fear of heights, but my husband has never been someone who runs away from his fears.  Instead, he charges forward and confronts them.  In fact, I'm sort of surprised that he still feels apprehension about anything. 

I still vividly remember being seven months pregnant with the Pirate and listening to a surreal conversation unfold between my husband and our life insurance agent.  The agent went through a battery of questions designed to suss out people who would be a poor risk for the insurance company because of their propensity to engage in irrational, dangerous acts.  Needless to say, I was not particularly comforted when my spouse, the man with whom I soon would be raising a child, started rattling off affirmative answers to all of these questions.  Cliff jumping?  Done that.  Sky diving?  You betcha.  As my husband marched further and further into the territory of the uninsurable, the agent stopped him, looked him in the eye, and said:  "You need to promise me that now that you are having a child, you are not going to do these things anymore.  No more sky diving."  For the past ten years, my husband has kept his word and avoided all high risk activities . . . until yesterday.

After piling out of our car, we headed to a little log cabin and squeezed into harnesses and hard hats.  Somehow the staff at the facility did not look nearly as uncool as we did in all this inelegant safety paraphernalia.  Accepting the fact that I was going to look like a frumpy miner for the next couple of hours, I ambled out onto the course with my family.

We started our adventure by scrambling up a net to a wooden platform high above the ground that was swaying in the wind.  After attaching our harnesses to the thick metal wires that were strung between the wooden platforms, we transversed a half-built suspension bridge and arrived at another platform.  Our instructor hooked the kids up to 450 foot dual zip lines and told them to just step off into the air.  The kids made it look incredibly easy.  Of course, in the blissfully sheltered lives of the Pirate and the Princess, bad things do not ordinarily happen; they have not lived long enough to be inundated with stories of unfortunate accidents and negligent mistakes.  After the Pirate and Princess were safely on the ground, it was time for my husband and I to huddle at the edge of the platform and then step off into thin air.  We hesitated just long enough for our minds to race through several unsettling possibilities and then . . . we did it.  We stepped off and zipped down the wires with neutrino-like speed.  Suddenly, a wave of pure exhilaration swept over me and I was hooked.  I came to a grinding halt in the gravel at the bottom of the line, searching for the instructor and the next challenge.

Over the course of the next two hours, we climbed telephone polls, stood at the top, and leaped into the air.  We were pulled high above the ground by a system of pulleys and were left dangling by our harnesses until we pulled a cord and became a giant human pendulum, swinging rapidly through the forest.  We wobbled across wires working as a team to keep everyone off the pine-needled floor.  We skittered up rock-climbing walls and balanced on logs that were suspended twenty feet above the ground.  We were awash in the pleasure of trying something new and facing down our fears.  My husband and I were flooded with parental pride as we watched our daughter calm herself down and jump from the top of a telephone pole.  We were revitalized as we watched our son fly through the air screaming and laughing.

At the end of the day, we hobbled back to our house and collapsed.  While we were exhausted from our repeated displays of courage, we were also invigorated by our bravery.  We were left wondering what our next challenge will be.  Sky diving?  Probably not.  But these four newly minted adrenaline junkies may just hunt down another zip line adventure next weekend.
  

"UNCLE!"

As I was trudging down the driveway this morning (in my suit and dress coat) behind the sputtering snowblower, I couldn't help but think about the unique challenges that February presents.  At this point in the winter, absolutely everything that I own is filthy.  From the salt-splattered snowbanks on my front lawn to the food-encrusted back seat of my car, every last thing in our household needs to be scrubbed and disinfected.  My kids also look completely disheveled.  No matter how many times I wash the Princess's bright pink coat, she emerges from school looking like she's been dragged through a mud puddle.  The fuzzy fleece hats that my kids slip on every morning ensure that their hair is in a state of perpetual disarray.  And their once sparkling white sneakers have been reduced to a dingy grey color that can only be achieved by plunging your feet repeatedly into slush-filled potholes.

While I have been driving myself crazy trying to fight the entropy that comes with winter, the Smokin' Pirate has been growing more comfortable as each day passes.  That child thrives on disorder.  From his perspective, winter means less work.  Really, what is the point of brushing your hair if it is just going to get messed up by your hat?  And why even bother picking up food wrappers from the back seat of the car?  It's not like your mother's going to notice when there is so much other filth in the car.

By the time I had finished clearing the foot high piles of snow at the bottom of the driveway this morning, I was ready to cry "uncle."  But as I emerged into the house in my soaking wet dress coat, I was greeted by the most amazing sight.  Somehow . . . while I was toiling in the driveway, the Princess and the Pirate had actually managed to feed themselves and get dressed.  They were ready to roll out the door on time even though I wasn't there pestering them every step of the way.  Just when I was ready to throw in the towel, the dynamic duo restored my hope and made me realize that we will all (most likely) survive the unbearable month of February.