Category: Being Present

Today’s First World Problem…Solved

Steve enjoying the solution to our first world problem.

It’s been hot. Ridiculously hot. Today’s mountain bike ride with hubby, undertaken at 10:30 a.m., was conducted in 91 degree heat. By 2 p.m. when we were driving to REI our car registered a balmy 102. Three days ago, we saw 104 degrees, just one degree shy of the highest ever recorded temperature in Denver. To make matters worse, the entire state is a tinderbox. Firefighters are currently battling thirteen wildfires, which is five more than they were battling this morning. The smoke hangs heavy in the air reminding us that not only is it hot but it’s flaming hot. I’m starting to wonder when Satan will drop in for a visit because Hell is feeling a little chilly by comparison.

Tonight we’d planned to go to a neighborhood concert in the park, but as 5 p.m. rolled around we realized there was no way we were sitting outside for two straight hours in the hot, hot heat. Instead, we came home and collapsed in the air-conditioned comfort of our house. Then, the seemingly impossible happened. There was cloud cover and a slight breeze. We ventured out into the backyard to sit on our lovely flagstone patio, a patio that we haven’t had much of an opportunity to enjoy yet this summer. As we sat at our wrought iron table in the shade of our Japanese maple tree, we were still mostly baking. While the sun had abated, the heat remained far too noticeably.

“How do people who live near the equator stand it?” I whined. “It’s summer. I’m supposed to be able to enjoy the nice weather. I’m supposed to be able to enjoy the yard we worked on during the spring. It’s too hot to sit out here. Next year I’m not going to bother gardening.”

“This sounds like a first world problem,” Steve replied, hoping to shut me up.

“Well…I need a solution to my first world problem. The folks in the Congo are used to this. I am not.”

“You can always go back into your air conditioned house,” he suggested. It was a delicately veiled attempt to get rid of me, though, and I was not going that easily.

“Wait a second. Wait just one second,” I perked up. “Didn’t your parents buy us that crazy misting fan years ago? Where is that thing?”

“It’s in the basement, I think,” he replied with interest.  “I’ll go look for it.”

A few minutes later Steve emerged with this enormous fan that his parents had bought us years ago. I balked when it had arrived, wondering when we would use such a thing and where we would store it when we weren’t using it. In fact, we’d only used it once, about four summers ago. The past several summers have been far too cool and wet to warrant its presence. Steve plugged it in, hooked it up to the hose, and voila! We were enjoying the wasteful luxury folks in Vegas and Phoenix know so well…a misted patio.

The misted patio, of course, needed happy hour drinks. We poured ourselves a couple cocktails, settled back into our chairs, and reveled in the comfort provided by our own personal patio saver. We spent a couple minutes discussing how fortunate we are to have first world problems and not third world problems. Our eleven year old, who had joined us briefly, inquired about the difference.

“Well, a first world problem is not being able to find the cord to charge your iPod. A third world problem is having the well in the town run dry,” I told him. “What happens if your well runs dry?”

“You die of thirst,” Joe answered.

“Right,” I said. “And what happens if you lose your iPod charger?” I asked him.

“You buy a new one,” he replied.

“Yep. You see the difference between the things we deal with and the things other people in this world struggle with?”

“Uh huh,” he said, thoughtfully, before departing for the frigid basement.

As we sat reflecting on how blessed we are to have only first world problems to deal with, I realized that the metal chair I was resting my flip-flopped feet on was a bit hard on my heels.

“I need a pillow for under my feet,” I told Steve, hoping he would take the hint.

“Looks like you have a new first world problem,” was his answer.

“Yes,” I said. “I need a new servant apparently. The old one is becoming more and more unreliable.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted on by Me 2

The Difference Between A Rut And A Grave

My brand-new, 13 year old Kona mountain bike gets a rest while I hydrate.

“The only difference between a rut and a grave are the dimensions.”  ~Ellen Glasgow

I haven’t ridden my mountain bike on a singletrack trail in about seven years. This morning, in desperate need of exercise but short on time, I decided I would ride the six-mile, singletrack loop on the open space park behind our home. I used to be slightly more experienced at negotiating the rocks and bumps on a mountain bike trail. I used to have a bit more confidence about it too. Although I’ve ridden over 900 miles so far this year, these have been road bike or trainer miles. And those, as you can imagine, feel very different than mountain bike miles. This morning I might as well have been piloting a moon rover over the pitted surface of that hard, space rock. I felt lost.

All the time I’ve spent in the bike saddle this year kept me from becoming winded on the incline part of the ride today, but that’s the only thing my training prepared me for. I forgot how freaking bumpy the bike feels on a rocky path. I forgot how my hands get tired from the tighter grip I need to keep on the handlebars while negotiating the twists, turns, and obstacles along the way. I forgot the nerve that’s required when you see what lies a head of you. I forgot how your personal space is invaded by plants that brush you as you ride and remind you how narrow your path is. Aside from the two-wheeled mode of transport and the basic skill of balancing on a bike long enough to propel it forward, these sports seemed very far apart from each other this morning. If road biking is a cheetah (or, in my case, maybe a blind, three-legged cheetah), then mountain biking is a mountain goat (or in my case, a blind, three-legged mountain goat).

I had to rediscover some things on the ride, like that I’m not currently coordinated enough to ride and drink while on a singletrack trail. This is why it would have been worth it to pull my Camelback out of storage. But, the most important thing I remembered is that to be successful while mountain biking you have to trust yourself and your bike. You have to believe that the bike will carry you over the obstacles and that you will be able to control it when it does. The problem for me is that trust is not ever been something I’ve excelled at. I’m suspicious. I’m cautious. I’m a recovering control freak. I’ve been conditioned to eliminate the variables to create a smooth journey. But, mountain biking is not a smooth journey.

The more I thought about it on the much less tenuous descent toward home, the more I realized that I need to work toward becoming a better mountain biker because those skills are skills I need in my every day life. I need to trust. I need to believe. I need to push myself just a little bit further than I’m comfortable with because I can do it if I just try. You can only grow if you ask yourself to move beyond the grooves you’ve worn into your daily existence. Once you jump the boundary and veer ever-so-slightly off course, things change. You change.

I’m going to get myself some clipless pedals and fun mountain bike shoes and start pushing myself a bit more to ride that singletrack trail behind my house. Maybe if I do I’ll become confident enough to try other nearby trails and branch out. And, if I can do that, I’m fairly certain I will grow enough spine to try other new challenges as well. This morning, I felt lost while out on that six-mile loop. Sometimes, though, being lost can remind you how it feels to stop going through the motions and actually live.

Posted on by Me 2

Let It Be

This is, for me, one of the faces of inner peace.

“We are not animals. We are not a product of what has happened to us in our past. We have the power of choice.”  ~Stephen Covey

Recently, I’ve been reflecting on what a shame it is when people can’t bring themselves to let go of unpleasantness in their past. Often, those memories from yesterday prevent them from enjoying a more productive and healthy present. I know people who are living daily with the negative reverberations of actions that happened decades ago. When I think about the brief time we have on this planet, I can’t fathom why anyone would willingly choose to waste a second of life stuck on past slights. Perhaps these people fail to grasp the downward, miserable spiral that is perpetuated when you let your past seep into your present? When you spend today reliving the pain of your past, you’re merely making today into a continuation of the very thing that is vexing you, which then means that your future will reflect more of the same misery, disappointment, and pain. Why would anyone make that choice?

Then it occurred to me…these people don’t realize they have a choice. They are so cut off and unaware of their response to their world, so convinced that all that is wrong in their life is the direct result of other people’s actions and not their own thoughts and behavior, that they are unable to comprehend the power they have to change their lives. Of all the human conditions, the lack of awareness regarding personal power is the saddest one I can imagine. Some people spend dozens of years convinced that their entire unhappy life is the result of what has happened to them. There is no acknowledgment that the only power we have in this life is over our reactions to the situations we encounter. The easiest way to perpetuate personal misery is to believe you are a victim, to live from that paradigm, and to refuse steadfastly to move beyond it. Indeed, some unfortunate things will befall you, but you choose whether those heartbreaks will break you or whether you will move forward unabated.

A while back I read A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle. It was a life-changing book for me because it pointed out truths I long knew in my heart but was refusing to acknowledge in my mind. One of the most powerful messages I got from the book came from a quote by J. Krishnamurti, and Indian philosopher and spiritual teacher, who offered up his secret for contentment. He stated simply this: “I don’t mind what happens.” How powerful that statement is. When you don’t mind what happens, when you let it wash over you and accept it for what it is, when you remove your emotion from it, there is stillness and peace and the room to let it go. It certainly is not easy achieve, but it’s worth the effort to keep it in mind.

I wish I could impart to those people in my life who can’t let go of the past the beauty of not minding what happens. Of acknowledging it, accepting it, and not owning it as anything more than another event in a hopefully long life. When I was a child, my mother and father owned The Beatles’ Let It Be album. I played that record (yes…record) until I thought I would wear it out. The lyrics from the title track have stuck with me. And when my children were infants and I would rock them in the middle of the night when they could not sleep and needed comfort, those are the words I would sing because they brought me peace in that moment when I was exhausted and too was seeking rest. So, as you go through the remainder of this week, my hope is that at least once you will stop reacting when something unexpected and unwelcome is happening and let it wash over you and see what peace comes from letting it be and not minding what happens. I promise to try it if you will too.

Posted on by Me 2

Surrender Isn’t Always A Bad Thing

Heading up Mesa Trail near Boulder

“Yielding means inner acceptance of what is. You are open to life. When you yield internally, when you surrender, a new dimension of consciousness opens up.”        ~ Eckhart Tolle

Yesterday, Steve and I decided it would be a great day for a family hike. So, we loaded up the car and headed up to Boulder. I found a 4+ mile hike just outside of Boulder near Eldorado Canyon on Trails.com that looked promising, so we went for it. Because we got a late start on the day, it was already 82 degrees when we pulled into the South Mesa Trail parking lot around noon. I knew the boys would whine about the heat, but we were there and Steve and I were bound and determined to get the exercise.

The boys, usually quite able bodied and semi-amenable to hiking, were in rare form from the start. Joe had consumed so much water on the drive up that he was wanting to mark his territory every half mile. Luke, a kid who hates to be either too hot or too cold, was moving slowly and in a constant state of whine about how sweaty he was. Being not the world’s most sympathetic person (understatement), I told them that if they’d stop using so much energy to complain they’d have more energy to hike faster and finish sooner. True story.

The first mile was a bit rough as the boys complained and dragged their feet, hoping we would suspend the exercise. We were annoyed but persisted in our determination to complete the hike. During the entire second mile, I was fairly certain my husband (who is one of the most patient people I have ever known) would eventually strangle Luke, who could not seem to tamp down his whining. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about children, it’s that they’re like animals; they can smell hesitancy and fear and will use your weakness against you. Luke was working it.

As Luke whimpered and cried foul, Steve went from grimacing about it to full on bitching at him while I went to my happy place. I’m not sure what it is about Boulder that makes me so dang happy, but I’m at peace there. As the war between Luke and his father began to escalate, I became increasingly calm. I took turns talking to both of them, positioning myself in between them as a buffer, and trying to resolve the situation with a positive attitude. The more they bickered, the less I seemed to care. I was able to focus on the beauty of the landscape, the pine scent rising from the trees, the cool breeze on my sun-warmed skin, and the joy of being somewhere that I love to be with the people who mean the most surrounding me. I escaped from the negativity of the situation by focusing on what I loved rather than on what I disliked. It was very zen of me, I thought.

As we got into the third mile, we hit the forest and Luke was shaded enough to stop whining a bit. Joe had at last peed himself out. Steve had nothing left to feel frustrated about. The hike became what I envisioned it would be, a fun little walk with my family somewhere new. I’m not sure if it was my attitude that diffused the negativity or the negativity that changed my own attitude, but something made the whole experience positive rather than negative and we ended the 4.5 mile hike feeling good about it overall.

How often do we tense up when things aren’t going the way we want and in our tension merely compound the situation? Sometimes, the best thing we can do when things get rough is to let go of expectation and relax. And, as we yield to the way things are rather than dreaming of the way we wanted things to be, we make peace with the present moment and life begins to look not quite as bad as we thought. Occasionally we waste too much energy on a battle when we should surrender instead. Sometimes making peace with a situation is not a defeat at all but a victory in disguise.

Posted on by Me

Boobies and Sea Lions and Giant Tortoises, Oh My!

Working on research for our trip

Two months from today, we will be embarking on a long, international journey. My very generous and well-traveled in-laws are treating the entire family to a 10-day excursion to Ecuador to visit the Galapagos Islands. When they first suggested this trip, I was intrigued. Honestly, I hadn’t had the Galapagos Islands on my list of places I must see on this planet, but how could I not want to go and experience what so few others have? How could I turn my nose up at an opportunity to see blue-footed boobies, giant tortoises, and marine iguanas (iguanas that actually swim)? How many people get to walk where Darwin walked and see what Darwin saw? People talk about “the trip of a lifetime,” but this one truly is.

We’re not just taking any old tour, either. We’re taking the National Geographic Expeditions’ Galapagos Family Odyssey trip. We’re traveling with naturalists and photographers from National Geographic. It’s a family friendly voyage where we’ll have opportunities to swim with sea lions, snorkel with sea turtles, and stand feet away from the islands’ giant tortoises and where the boys will be provided special activities to enhance their experience. We’ll take six airline flights and spend 7-days aboard a small cruise ship. I’ve had to buy new luggage, expedition clothing, and shoes that can get wet. We’re doing research and reading about both Darwin and the islands, their flora and fauna, and their history. This is no lightweight island vacation where you lounge on a beach. This is an expedition of the highest order.

This vacation has been planned for over a year now, so I’ve delayed my enthusiasm and excitement to live with the wait involved. But today, as I looked at the date, it hit me that it’s finally almost here. I’ve got to brush up on my Spanish, review the trip packing list and determine what we’re missing, and try to figure out how I am going to blog daily from a ship off the coast of the Galapagos. I know I often write about living in the moment, but this is one of those cases when you have plan ahead to be appropriately prepared and to get the most from the experience. Two months from today I will wake up early, fly to Miami before boarding a plane for Guayaquil, Ecuador, and then step foot in South America for the first time. August 3rd will be here in a flash. Time to start taking this trip of a lifetime seriously.

Posted on by Me 1

The Rules of Wine Club

Smiley. Must have been drinking  already.

Back in midwinter when I was annoyed about being cold and presumably sipping (all right, slugging) a glass of wine, I came up with the idea to start a small wine club. I talked with three other couples we know to determine if they might be amenable to hosting one wine dinner a year at their home. They all thought it would be worth a shot. So, our club was born. We have one basic understanding: we know nothing about wine other than we like to drink it. To expand our wine repertoire, we plan to sample some new wines each time and try to learn a little bit about them, even if that’s only that we don’t like them. Each dinner is up to the hosts and they have sole input into the food and drink for the evening. To keep things equitable among our members, I came up with The Rules of Wine Club, which run along the lines of The Rules of Fight Club from the Fight Club movie.

Our Wine Club Rules:

1) You do not talk about what happens at wine club.

2) You DO NOT talk about what happens at wine club.

3) If someone says stop or goes limp, they are cut off.

4) Only 8 people to a dinner.

5) Only one glass at a time. Empty yours and it will be refilled.

6) Try to keep your clothes on, at least for the dinner portion of the night.

7) Club will go on as long as it needs to until all the wine is gone.

8) When it’s all said and done, the mission of wine club is simply to be in the moment…with friends…and wine.

After all, it’s the time we spend with others that is important. The things we do at our jobs don’t matter. The kind of house we live in or the type of car we drive is unimportant. It’s our connection with friends and family that makes life worth getting out of bed for. And, I’m not just saying this because I’ve had…let’s go with…several glasses of wine and now I’m all “I love you, man” or anything like that. Sitting there tonight with our friends, laughing, teasing each other, and sharing stories, I felt truly connected to something outside myself and my own little world. In a social climate where we’re increasingly isolated and living within our electronic communications, it’s crucial to share a meal with peers occasionally, to converse face-to-face, and to pass some time personally interconnected with others like they did in the olden days before we had cell phones and Wifi. It’s far too easy to check out in this world we live in. Try to remember to check back in once in a while. That way, when you’re looking back on the film of your life, it will be a reel worth looking at.

 

Posted on by Me

When The American Dream Becomes The American Nightmare

Two little things I’m grateful for every day.

Just finished a long phone conversation with my youngest sister, the kind where you talk about life on the grand scale, where you are, who you’ve become, and why. I like to have conversations like that every once in a while, a little come-to-Jesus meeting with myself where I take a good hard look at my life and figure out where I’m at. My sister is a person for whom “bored” is a four-letter word. On some level, I think she’s unintentionally sought out drama in her life because she simply doesn’t know how to live with dull, humdrum, it-is-what-it-is life. But, that is the stuff life is made of. Life is not always parades and fireworks. Sometimes it’s leftovers and dirty diapers.

I think that we Americans truly mess ourselves up with an unrelenting focus on the fabled “American Dream.” We’ve come to believe we’re entitled to life in the highest order. We expect that we will be able to have it all. It’s a tall tale. You can’t have it all. There’s not room in life for it all. It’s like trying to cup running water in your hands; you can only hold so much and what you don’t have room for will fall away. Most people on this planet pass quietly through their lives, and their names don’t go down in history’s annals like DaVinci or Aristotle. Most people touch only the lives around them. That’s it. Somewhere along the line that stopped being good enough. It’s too bad.

We should have dreams and plans. We should pursue them. But, we should also accept that life is beautiful even without parades and fireworks. We’ve lost the ability to treasure the little things because we’re waiting for the next big thing. When was the last time you sat down in a forest and paused to hear the wind in the trees and to smell the pines? When was the last time you watched a ladybug in your hand and wondered at it and appreciated its small life? When was the last time you stopped thinking about what you were missing out on and honestly marveled at how much you have? I think, for most of us, it’s been far too long since we last took the opportunity to be grateful for the down times. What we’re missing in our run-around, 24/7 active lives is the peace that comes from being still and not asking anything from life, but simply existing momentarily in it without demands.

The happiest people in this world aren’t the ones who have it all. They’re the ones who are sincerely happy with what they have. When we keep looking for the next big thing, we’re missing the myriad little ones that are given to us daily…the parking spot close to the store on a snowy day, the first cup of coffee of the day that someone else pours for us, the unexpected hug. It’s only when you stop expecting big things to fulfill you that you can let the little things that have always been there fill you up.

Posted on by Me

Destination Unknown

The boys and I last July 20th…a day when we woke up with no plans and landed at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo.

I don’t often take the time to watch videos on YouTube, but when my friend Kim posted a link today to a commencement address delivered by Maria Shriver entitled The Power of the Pause, it seemed like something that might be worth 20 minutes of my time. It was. Maria, addressing the graduating class at the USC Annenberg School of Communication, spoke to the graduates not about how they could fast forward themselves into a promising and exciting career in journalism but rather about the need to press the pause button occasionally and focus on the present. Far too often in life the questions we receive are about what we will be doing next rather than where we are now and how we are doing in the moment. We miss the present while talking about and planning for the future.

Today was the last full day of school this year for my boys. This day is bittersweet for me each year. On the one hand, I’m mourning the lost of my freedom, my opportunities to have quiet time to myself or chances to meet with friends without noisy boys in tow. On the other hand, though, the last day of school means the last day of waking up early, the last day of making lunches, and the last day of being homework coach…all things I do not miss for the three months they are not part of my life. So, what do I do with all the extra time I garner with the end of school and my school year responsibilities? For years now it’s been my modus operandi to busily plan out a whole slew of events for the boys and I for their vacation. Heaven forbid we waste one moment of glorious summer.

Listening to Maria’s speech today, though, as I was compiling yet another list of activities and was focused again on future events, I pressed the pause button and stopped to reflect. I spend an awful lot of time in my house each summer planning out excursions for the boys and myself when I could simply go with the flow and live in the moment. Instead of concocting outings days or weeks in advance, I could just wake up, grab some gear, tell the boys to get in the car, and see where we end up. It might be a refreshing change if instead of rushing off to one thing or another we just decided on a moment by moment basis how to make the best use of our summer. My parents used to do this with my sisters and I when we were kids. They would throw us in the car and when we’d ask where we were going they would tell us, “Wherever the spirit leads us.” Sometimes we would end up nowhere but back in our driveway. Sometimes we’d end up having ice cream in a park. We never knew the ending until it was over. There’s something so freeing in that.

I know it’s unrealistic to think that I would ever be able to get out of my head entirely. I’m a thinker, and certain things must be planned because this is modern life and modern life includes schedules and appointments. But, I like this idea of pressing the pause button occasionally to make sure you’re not messing up the present by worrying too much about what comes next. Maybe it would do the boys and I some good to be human beings this summer rather than human doings? I don’t know. I guess we’ll see. I’m going to leave a lot of blank days on our calendar so the boys and I can see where the spirit leads us. Summer starts tomorrow and, for once, our destination is unknown.

Posted on by Me 1

How To Survive Chuck E Cheese

The birthday boy practices his Skeeball skills.

Eleven years ago, when hubby and I were the definition of semi-young, urban professionals living in Denver without children, we swore up and down that you would never catch us in Chuck E Cheese. We would drive by one and shiver. Why would anyone purposely enter an establishment with mechanical, singing characters, an underpaid dude wearing a large mouse suit, sub par food, and way, way too many noisy and germ-enhanced children. Ewwwwwwww. When we had our boys, we vowed we would never take them there. Never.

It turns out never is a really long time when you have a 4 year old and a 6 year old who have been invited to a birthday party there and don’t want to miss it. In fact, it’s amazing how quickly “never” becomes “imminently” when you’re listening to your children whine non-stop about a place they’ve never been. So, hubby and I decided that attending a soiree hosted by the incredibly popular Chuck E Cheese was simply a right of passage into the American Parenthood Club, and we caved.

Perhaps it was because we were so terrified of the place that our first experience there was actually not that bad. We quickly discovered what many parents already had; the beauty of Chuck E Cheese is that you can spend two hours without your children while still technically being with your children. We hardly saw our boys during the time we were there. They were off tearing through the place like squirrels on crack, and no one even noticed their behavior. With all the commotion, our kids’ usual decibel level (which hovers somewhere between snow blower and rock concert) seemed not at all off-putting. Steve and I somehow managed to have an hour’s worth of mostly uninterrupted conversation and we played video games for the first time in 25 years. It was very nearly a date. Our babysitter was a human-sized, baseball-cap wearing grey mouse.

Over the years we’ve come to embrace the occasional trip to Chuck E Cheese as less of a prison sentence and more of a night at the carnival. It’s not something we want to do all the time, but once in a while we can stomach it. Here is how we do it.

1) We bring a friend. Tonight’s friend was Captain Morgan. If you’re going to have kid-friendly pizza and soda for dinner, you might as well make it a meal you enjoy. It’s a little easier to palate the pizza and ignore the ambiance when you have a drink to take the edge off. Sure. Some of the restaurants sell beer and wine, but it’s not worth your money. Besides, it’s more fun to be a rebel, smuggle in your own booze, and spike your own punch. Come on. All the cool kids are doing it.

2) Set yourself up in a booth as far away from the party space as humanly possible. I mean, you can only tolerate singing mechanical animals for so long before your IQ begins to drop. And, it will only depress you when you realize that the animals are singing songs from when you were in high school, and that’s why now you’re singing them too. If you leave singing “Everybody Wang Chung Tonight,” don’t say I didn’t warn you.

3) Come prepared to spend a wad on game tokens. You’ll need an ample supply to keep the kids away, and you’ll need some for yourself too. Think of Chuck E Cheese as Vegas without the show girls. You’re not going to win big, but you’re not really there to win. You’re there to play. So, play. Check your decorum at the door, throw some footballs at a target, and play Frogger if you want. No one will judge you if you try to beat the high score you left behind in 1985.

Chuck E Cheese is not my favorite place. It’s certainly not where I would choose to spend my birthday dinner. But, it was where my 9 year old wanted to have his birthday dinner tonight. Five years ago, I would have freaked out at his suggestion. Tonight, I merely relished the opportunity to kick his little butt at Skeeball. Chuck E Cheese isn’t the Antichrist. It just seems that way at first. Like most things in parenting, it’s all about perspective.

 

 

Posted on by Me

Every Age With My Boys Is A Good Age

Our little boys

One of my husband’s college roommates came to breakfast at our house today. Because Scott lives clear across the country near Philadelphia, this was only the second time he’s had the immense privilege of hanging out with our boys. The last time he saw them, they were roughly 4 and 6, and a bit more difficult to manage than they are now. Today, while we enjoyed steak and eggs and a few hours of conversation with Scott, our boys played quietly either upstairs or in the basement. They interrupted us only once to ask us to look at the whale that had appeared on Wii Sports Resort while Joe was jetskiing.

A couple times during his visit, Scott commented that our boys were so well-behaved. I had to laugh. While I know our boys are pretty good kids, I never truly think of them as being well-behaved. I suppose that’s because most of the time I’m with them they’re driving me insane with non-stop chatter, fart noises, and references to “gunships,” “hot lava,” and “Sector 4.” But, today, they were quite accommodating while we were with our friend. They didn’t stay in the room eavesdropping or run in and out being noisy or even bother us for snacks or drinks. They were inconspicuous and borderline polite. It was pleasant.

Lately I’ve been doing a bit of walking down memory lane, reviewing old videotapes I recently found of our boys when they were roughly 4 and 2. The videos tug at my heart. The boys were so cute with their speech impediments, their mischievous grins, and their funny dancing. I watch those videos and feel a bit sad that I didn’t enjoy that time in their lives more. When they were at that age, though, I was exhausted. I was simply too tired to be zen about the whole thing and live in the moment. And, every time a woman stopped me and told me to appreciate this time with my little boys, I wanted to scream, “I’m too tired to appreciate them. I’ll appreciate them later when they’re bigger and I have the energy.”

So, now that they are bigger, I am trying very hard to live with them in the present and pay attention to this time in their lives. After Scott left today, my well-behaved boys and I spent a perfect rainy day afternoon watching Iron Man and Iron Man 2 together, curled up on the couch discussing how much Luke wanted to be Tony Stark. Having the time and energy now to appreciate them has helped me understand that it’s okay that I wasn’t better about relishing the present with them when they were smaller and such a handful. I was doing the best I could at that time. And, I did enjoy them. If I hadn’t found them darling and interesting, if I hadn’t treasured the place they were at, if I hadn’t understood how ephemeral it all was, I wouldn’t have recorded hours upon hours of video of them dancing, celebrating birthdays, taking baths, and playing with Thomas the Tank Engine.

I’ve cherished every phase with my boys. I’m sure in the end I will think they all went by far too quickly. But, for now, I’m not focusing on that. I’m busy being here with my guys. They’re amazing. And me? Well, I’m doing the best I can, and that’s good too.

Posted on by Me