Category: Perspective

A Modern Housewife’s Life On The Edge

My completely amazing, homemade banana bread…or what’s left of it. (The things in the background are not my secret ingredients. They are snacks for later.)

This is my second post in two days about my husband. He is not all that happy about it, but he’s made some suggestions about ways I can fix things between us. Most of them revolve around me “owing” him. (He might have left some letters off that word when he told me that, but this is a rated PG blog so we’re going with it.) Anyway, to repay him for what I am about to disclose, I decided that what I owed him was the best, homemade banana bread in the world. So, that is my olive branch to him. I’ve already eaten half of it (because it is the best banana bread in the world), but I figure that’s about right because he only gave me half my inspiration today. The other half of the inspiration came from Aron Ralston but he’s not here so I ate his half of the bread. You snooze, you lose, Aron.

This morning I decided I needed some exercise. I decide that every morning, but today I actually committed to getting off my lazy butt and getting some exercise rather than simply deciding it would be a good idea to get some exercise if I got around to it. Subtle difference. Anyway, I pulled out our books on local hikes and began rifling though pages looking for a 3-4 mile jaunt that either we had not yet done or that we hadn’t done in a long time. I narrowed it down to three possibilities and then, being the kind and thoughtful mom I am, I allowed my boys to have some input into which one they thought we should do. Of course, they both picked different options. Luke wanted to go to Boulder and Joe chose Morrison, so I made the unilateral and unalterable decision to go to Evergreen.

As is my custom, I made sure to inform hubby of our plans because he is, after all, Safety Dad. He doesn’t like it when we go on hikes without letting him know where we will be. I suppose this is just good practice. I mean, look what happened to Aron Ralston when he went off to do some canyoneering in Utah without letting anyone know where he would be. I don’t think any of us need to lose an arm over a little hike. I texted Steve.

Me: I’m going to make the boys do Alderfer/Three Sisters with me.

Steve: Cool. Take the bear spray. It’s in my nightstand. Your rain jackets are in the yellow cube in my office.

Me: Bwahahahahahahahahaha!

Now, what Steve didn’t know at this point was that what I was laughing about was the fact that he actually thought I would take bear spray and rain jackets on a 3 mile hike with the boys in a heavily traveled hiking spot in Evergreen on a day with hardly a cloud in the sky. He clearly does not know me at all. While I am in many ways in my life quite organized and good about planning, the kids and I more often than not fly by the seat of our pants all summer long. We get a wild hair and go with it. We do not plan. We do not organize. We do not pack well. We simply go.

Steve: Are you laughing about the bear spray in my nightstand?

Me: I’m laughing about all of it. You are on crack. I even forgot the sunscreen. We’re still going. We live on the edge when you’re not around.

Steve: Love you.

I love that he thought it was necessary at this point to tell us that he loved us…as if we would not return from our journey alive. I’m sure it would be in all the news stories. He would tearfully report that he had told me to bring along the bear spray and if I would have listened to him perhaps he we wouldn’t have been ingested by that black bear. And, as I was having that thought, another thought hovered in the recesses of my mind, waiting for its chance to get some attention.

Me: Why is the bear spray in your nightstand drawer?

Steve: In case a bear breaks in, of course. 

I assumed he was joking about this, but wanted to make sure so I tested the waters.

Me: Ha.

No reply from him.

Me: The kids want to talk to you about the bear spray in the nightstand.

At this point, I think he realized that he was in trouble.

Steve: You do NOT get to blog about me tonight.

Me: Too late.

Steve: Then, you’re going to owe me.

And now we’re back to the banana bread. The sad part is that this entire story is all true. Every last word. I actually checked. The bear spray, swear to God above, is in his nightstand drawer as I type this.

The boys and I had a great hike. No one lost a limb or got attacked by a bear or even needed a rain jacket. I did get a tiny sunburn on my shoulders, which I deserve for forgetting the sunscreen. Still, I think that somewhere between Aron Ralston’s missing arm and my husband’s bear spray in the nightstand is a happy medium where most of us live. We try to be good, we do our best, and we cross our fingers. Sometimes we get a little sunburned, but it all evens out in the end.

 

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Lonesome George: The Rebel Tortoise With A Cause

A page of the itinerary for our upcoming trip to the Galapagos Islands. The page lists a stop on Santa Cruz to see Lonesome George, the tortoise that is sadly no longer on our itinerary.

I’m in a bit of a mourning period. I haven’t been wearing black or weeping uncontrollably, so perhaps you haven’t noticed my sadness. Still, it persists. Two weeks ago, on June 24th, the world lost its last remaining Pinta Island Giant Tortoise, whose moniker was Lonesome George. I came to know George (we were on a first-name, no-descriptors-needed basis) last year when I started research for our upcoming trip to the Galapagos Islands. George’s kind had been pushed to extinction by humans who hunted them as if they were an inexhaustible resource. Surprising, I know. I was looking forward to meeting him in person. But, in his typical, stubborn, I’m-the-last-of-my-kind-so-don’t-push-me way, he would not wait for me or my family.

When the report of George’s passing came across my iPhone news feed, I uttered an audible sigh of disappointment. Joe, ever observant, asked me what was wrong.

“Lonesome George died,” I told him.

“You’re joking,” he replied, assuming as we all do that any tortoise that could live to 100 would certainly live to 101 so we could meet him.

“Why would I joke about something like that?” I told him. I showed him the story and we sat and read it together, disheartened.

George was the rarest creature on Earth, which made him uncomfortable. He was removed from his native island to the Charles Darwin Research Station on Santa Cruz island, where he was photographed, studied, and manually “stimulated” by humans in an attempt to get him to mate. (Leave it to humans to push something to the point of extinction and then force it to have sex while we watch so we can ease our consciences.) George would not comply. I liked that about him. I’ll admit it’s a bit anthropomorphic on my part, but I like to believe George would not produce offspring on command not because he couldn’t but because he simply chose not to. He knew we wanted to right our wrong of ostensibly exterminating his species. He preferred that we suffer for our crime.

I’ve always liked tortoises. They’re slow, they’re tough, and they just keep plodding along. There’s something incredibly profound about their way of persevering on this fast-paced, crazy planet. I mourn not because I won’t get to see the rarest creature on earth, but because he is no longer a creature on this earth. If we take anything from George’s life, I hope we stop at least briefly to consider how fragile life is. Some creatures, as exhibited through Darwin’s theory of natural selection, do become extinct. This is part of life on this planet. More creatures, however, become extinct because we humans decimate their habitats and carelessly destroy them. I know many people believe God gave us this planet for our use. I prefer to believe God entrusted us with the sacred duty to steward and protect this unique and incredible rock and all her creatures. We did not protect the Pinta Island Giant Tortoise or the Dodo or the Tasmanian Tiger and now they are gone. So, I’m sorry that I won’t get to meet George, but I’m mourning because there will never be another tortoise like him.

 

 

Posted on by Me 2

I’ll Be Counting Sheep Tonight

“Dear nasty, wretched crow…SHUT UP!”

Thus began my day. Curled up in my sleeping bag, one eye open to the encroaching daylight, I wished for the first time in my life that I was in possession of a loaded pellet gun. I started to wonder what I was thinking when I suggested and arranged this last-minute camping trip.

Despite its unpleasant and abrupt beginning, the rest of the day unfolded into one well worth waking up for. After packing lunch and loading the FJ, we headed out of Marble up Colorado 133 toward Paonia, searching for adventure. We had done a little research and discovered we were just 30 miles from a dirt road that would take us over Kebler Pass and down into Crested Butte. Couldn’t pass it up. And, at the very least, it would get me away from the thieving crow that had robbed me of my peaceful mountain slumber.

We knew from our research that we would get a view of the world’s largest aspen forest. What we didn’t know was that our simple trek to Crested Butte would be delayed by free-range livestock. Our first meeting was with a rancher and his cattle. With the bovines marching down the center of the dirt road in front of our SUV, I could imagine the tourist postcard opportunity: “Colorado Rush Hour.” (Of course, as any Denver resident knows, our rush hours involve a lot fewer cows and a lot more stubborn mules and other assorted asses.)

Once we had safely bypassed the miniature cattle drive, Steve pulled off onto a small shoulder where we decided to picnic before the rain set in. While eating my sandwich I noticed a few sheep nestled into a meadow at the edge of a grove of aspen. I walked closer to investigate. There were easily 60 sheep resting there in among the trees. When they noticed me, they began bleating to one another. From across the road, more sheep called out to the larger flock. We had stopped for lunch unaware that we were in the midst of a sizable herd of free-range sheep. We finished our food, took some photos and video, and started down the other side of Kebler Pass on our way to Crested Butte, all the while rambling on about seeing those dang sheep.

On the way back up the pass heading back toward camp, the mountains offered us a different and even prettier view than before. We marveled at the immensity of the aspen forest which, in the intermittent rain showers, oddly resembled a rain forest. We began to look for the sheep again. Near where we had seen them before we saw a rancher in a bright yellow rain slicker walking with two large, white dogs. Simultaneously, using our vast and largely worthless knowledge of dog breeds, Steve and I both blurted out “Anatolian shepherds!” Anatolian shepherds are Turkish sheep dogs that live out with the flock full-time and serve as protectors. They are known to be incredibly independent and fearless. We used to joke that we needed an Anatolian shepherd to protect our wimpy Labrador retriever.

We drove beyond the dogs and rancher looking for the sheep. That’s when we realized that the large herd we had seen earlier was roughly one-quarter of the size of the entire herd now gathered at the top of the pass. I’ve never seen so many sheep in my life. We might as well have been in New Zealand. We stopped to stare at massive flock because we were suddenly feeling small and outnumbered. Steve grabbed his fancy camera, got out of the car, and headed back up the hill on foot for some sheep photos. Suddenly, his car door reopened and he jumped in.

“There’s an Anatolian shepherd running toward the car,” he huffed once safely inside.

Sure enough. Standing right there next to Steve’s car door was one of the large shepherds we had seen. He eyed Steve cautiously and then walked around to insinuate himself between the car and the sheep. I unrolled my car window to get a photo of him. He looked at me cautiously but without ill intent. He was doing his job, protecting his flock. As the hundreds of sheep moved through the ferns and underbrush beneath the towering aspens bleating calls to each other, I was in awe. It was odd and pastoral and yet perfectly Colorado.

Sometimes, the adventure you set out on is quite different than the one that opens before you. We had planned nothing more than a pleasant afternoon drive to Crested Butte. Instead, we ended up in the middle of one of the coolest things we’d ever seen in the Colorado high country. Colorado is consistently breathtaking, but it’s the unexpected treasures that make living here a privilege.

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Hell…Swimsuit Shopping Be Thy Name

Me in the least disgusting option I tried on.

Today I did something dangerously ill-advised. Against all better judgment, I went swimsuit shopping. This is a feat far more hazardous than being one of the first shoppers in the door at Walmart on Black Friday. We’re going on this family trip in about a month, and it occurred to me that perhaps I should have a more modest swimsuit for this journey. No reason for my in-laws to have to see me with my midriff showing. (Truthfully, there’s no reason for anyone to have to see me that way, but I don’t have to look strangers in the eye again.) Anyway, a friend told me that she had bought a good suit recently at the Eddie Bauer outlet. She is an excellent bargain shopper, so I figured I should check it out. Nothing worse than spending a lot of money on something you don’t want to buy in the first place, right?

Well, wait a minute. I take that back. There is something worse than going shopping for a swimsuit and spending a bunch of money on something you don’t even want to buy in the first place. You can take your 9 and 11 year old sons to the store with you when you do it. I can’t decide if I am a candidate for sainthood or the insane asylum. Anyway, Joe had his iPad and Luke was playing games on another device, so I figured that would buy me about 20 minutes. I set them outside the entrance to the fitting rooms in a couple chairs and hastily started my search for a one-piece suit that would not make me look like either my 9 year old self or my grandmother.

I hurriedly grabbed four suits, found an open fitting room, and began the insidious process of stripping down to my skivvies in front of a dubiously lit, full-length mirror. Shudder. I quickly turned my back to my image and coerced my body into the first suit. I turned around for the grand reveal. It was less than grand. As is the case with many one-piece suits, this one flattened my tiny chest into a barely discernible fleshy wrinkle. Ick. I rid myself of that suit, and started on the next one. Before I knew it, I was through all four with nary a candidate in sight. I got dressed to search for more suits, hoping that when I got back out there a curious and ethereal light from heaven would be illuminating my dream suit.

It did not happen. The boys were still semi-quiet, however, so I grabbed six new suits and headed back to the changing room. As I was in there, squeezing myself into suit after suit like sausage into casings, my boys seemed to get louder. I could not figure out why this was. Then I realized they had entered the fitting rooms and now were right outside my door. Apparently my 20 minutes were up. I adjusted myself into a suit and opened the door.

“What are you doing in here? You need to be quiet,” I chided.

They stared at me and said nothing.

“What?” I said, feeling suddenly quite self-conscious in my mom suit. “Is it bad?”

“Nice,” Luke said. “Good. Like it.” (Have I mentioned that Luke is my favorite child?) He was obviously trying to hurry the process along by being my Yes Man. Still, I appreciated the positive comment.

Then, just when I was feeling good about Luke’s approval, Joe laughed. I glared at him with the burning heat of a thousand suns. Finally realizing his misstep, he tried to cover with a quick, “Nothing. Never mind.”

I decided to ignore him, shut the door, and get back to work. One thing was certain. I was not going to go to another store to endure further torture. I was leaving Eddie Bauer with an appropriate suit for our trip. It no longer mattered which one. I just had to get out of there because the confidence I had entered the store with was shattered. Ten flimsy pieces of fabric had taken me from intelligent, self-assured woman to whimpering, whining child. I was broken. I tried on two more suits, grabbed the one I despised least, and headed to the check out counter with my bona fide “mom” swimsuit. I was done.

Buying women’s swimwear is a total crap shoot. Hubby could not believe I tried on 12 suits just to find one that didn’t make me want to vomit or cry. It doesn’t matter what size a woman is, either. The experience is the same. We all have what we perceive to be figure flaws. We all try to minimize them. The goal is to find a suit we can be seen in that doesn’t make us feel bad about ourselves. If we find one that makes us feel confident and sexy, that’s a total bonus. Most times, however, we’re content to find one that makes us feel not totally unattractive.

Sometimes I think about the Victorian era swimsuits…short-sleeved black dresses worn with bloomers and black stockings. As uncomfortable as that costume would be for swimming, at least you had no concern about baring your midriff roll or your post-baby stretch marks or the cellulite you inherited from your grandmother. Everything was covered up and left to the imagination. There’s some wisdom in that somewhere. I find it right about the time I start to try on the first of twelve impossible swimsuits.

 

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Some Things Are Worth Saving For Later

One of four pages of ticket stubs I have from my sordid teenage years. Concerts have always been my thing.

Tonight I’m going back to the 80’s to see The English Beat with a few girlfriends. Two of these friends have known me for a very long time. I’ve known Kerry since grade school, and I met Kayla in the 7th grade. I liked Kerry right away because she had a nice Polish last name like mine, and I thought Kayla was so sophisticated because she had an eyelash curler and had heard of U2 before anyone else I knew. I try not to think about the things these girls witnessed because I’m still trying vehemently to deny some events from my teenage years. (Hopefully their ability to remember is as poor as mine.) One of the reasons I hoped I would not have a daughter was because I was once a teenage girl. I never liked teenage girls. Not even when I was a teenage girl. Oh…the game playing, the conniving, the rumors, the theatrics! I could fill books with my idiocy. Wait. I did. I kept a journal all those years. It’s horrifying.

All this preparing myself for a night out with friends I’ve known for over 30 years got me to thinking about the first real sleepover party I attended. I was 13. It was at Sandy’s house across the street from my own. Sandy, like Kayla, was also very sophisticated. She had moved here from North Carolina and she introduced me to great music from Elvis Costello. She and Kayla slowly divested me from my parents’ music, which consisted of Sonny and Cher and Barry Manilow. Not kidding. Anyway, the sleepover that night was typical. There was music, candy, and silly girl antics.

At one point, someone took my bra, got it wet, and stuck it in the freezer while I was off doing something incredibly lame like jumping around singing songs from Foreigner 4. When it came time to go to bed, I crawled into my sleeping bag to find it wet. There I discovered my once-frozen training bra (which never really got much beyond the training stage, sadly), which had been placed inside the flannel bag and was now completely thawed. Ugh. I was beyond annoyed. Being a teenage girl, I pitched a little hissy fit, took my sleeping bag, and in an overly dramatic fashion stomped myself right out of the house and right across the street to my own comfortable and dry bed. Party pooper.

I look back on those days now and roll my eyes. (Some teenage girl behaviors are never lost). So many stupid things in so few years. Most of them done in the name of some silly boy whom I can barely remember now. Luckily, most of my friends from those days lived those naive, childish moments right along with me. Kerry and I once drank too much and upon hearing her parents come home dumped the remaining contents of our opened beers into her fish tank. Brilliant. Kayla and I used to spend hours sitting outside the Rainbow Music Hall talking to cute, mod boys while waiting to hear bands who hadn’t yet made it big…bands like The Cure and INXS…hoping we’d meet them or at least catch a glimpse of them getting off their tour bus. We did get a signature once from the drummer of Wang Chung (back in their Dance Hall Days, before the horribly overrated Everybody Wang Chung tonight nonsense). I suppose it was all part of being a teenage girl.

I don’t miss those days, but I am infinitely glad I’ve still got some friends from that time in my life now. I’m giddy to see Dave Wakeling and The English Beat tonight at the Bluebird. For a few hours, I won’t even care if their music makes me feel 13 again. I won’t stop myself from singing “Tears of a Clown” too loudly, all the while remembering the immature boy who broke my heart when I was so much younger than I am now. And, as I’m dancing with my friends to “Save It For Later,” everything will be right with the world. Although I’ve put drama of my teenage years behind me, the best things from those days still make me happy.

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I Love A Good Food Fight…Just Not This One

My green-eyed house cat eats his bowl of tuna.

“As a child, I was what is known as a ‘fussy eater.’ ‘Fussy eater’ is a euphemism for ‘big pain in the ass.'”  ~George Carlin

My kids are weird eaters. Some would say they are picky eaters, but they’re not. They’re just plain weird. Joe likes foods many kids eschew (that is, won’t chew), which is why he is weird. My oldest loves all kinds of fish, except for frozen fish sticks. He once ordered trout at a restaurant and ate the entire serving on his plate, including the fish skin. He will eat any vegetable. He loves milk but won’t touch fruit juice. As a rule, he’s a fairly healthy eater, although none of the foods on his plate can touch each other and he has to eat his meal one item at a time. Heaven forbid he get a piece of corn on the fork along with his chicken. Luke, on the other hand, is your typical kid. He love chicken nuggets, pizza, and peanut butter and jelly. To the best of my knowledge, he has never ingested and then actually digested any vegetable. Ever. He will only eat two fruits…bananas and applesauce. He will eat organic strawberry yogurt but you couldn’t pay him to touch an actual strawberry, and Luke will do nearly anything for money. They both love french bread, bacon, and brownies. Neither will eat lettuce, cheese, or ketchup. Today for lunch Joe ate a can of tuna. No. Really. A can of tuna. If I start turning the can opener, he comes running like the family cat. (Recently, though, he learned about mercury in fish so now he limits himself to one can of tuna per week.) Weird.

For a while when they were younger, I tried to force the food issue with Luke to get him to branch out. Due to his gag reflex and aversion to certain textures, though, all that usually got me was a handful of Luke puke. The more I pushed him to try new foods, the more resistant he became. So, I stopped. Our pediatrician, the sweetest older gentleman in the world, told me to let it be. He had overseen the health of over 15,000 children and he assured me the boys were growing along on a steady curve. They both had excellent muscle tone and healthy skin. They need calories and as long as they’re getting them and growing, there is no reason to be concerned.

I grew up in a house where if you didn’t like dinner, you went hungry. We ate what was served or else. That was how it worked. There are starving children in Africa, you know? This is why I took up the food fight initially with my kids. It was a power thing. My parents had carried out this battle with me and, out of familiarity, I fought with my own kids about food. Eventually I understood that the food fight I was waging with my kids was more about control than it was about food or health. When I let it go, I began to see a change. Since we decided to stop pestering them about their food choices, both boys have become more willing to try new things. Go figure.

My kids are not the first humans in the history of the world to be weird, fussy eaters. The Beaver wouldn’t eat Brussels sprouts. The brothers in the commercial never thought they’d get picky Mikey to eat a bowl Life cereal. In the holiday family classic, A Christmas Story, the mother told her son to show her how to “eat like the little piggies do” to coax him into eating his dinner. My father-in-law, who has traveled the world and eaten the cuisine, went through a phase as a boy when all he would eat was bread with cream and brown sugar. My awesome friend Tracy will not eat “vegetablows” (her term, not mine). And, let’s not forget the dude in the Dr. Seuss book who flat out refused to eat green eggs and ham. Yes. My kids can seem a bit high maintenance with their food aversions, but wherever we go we can usually find something they are willing to eat. While I know it bothers some people (like my entire family) that they’ve got their particular tastes, it no longer vexes me. Weird eating habits notwithstanding, my boys are great kids. I’m sure they’ll turn out just fine. They might not, however, eat your special green bean casserole at Thanksgiving.

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My Kids Are Sucking The Brain Cells From My Skull

I’m devolving. In my next photo with other adults I’ll be putting rabbit ears behind someone’s head. Wait and see. It’ll happen.

Summer vacation is a mixed bag for me. It’s hard to give up my freedom when the little monkeys come home for the summer, but I do enjoy sleeping in and not making lunches and not stressing out with them over busywork school projects. Summers have become more of a blessing for me and less of a curse than they used to be. The boys are bigger and more independent. They amuse themselves and grab their own snacks. They play outside with friends for hours on end. There is far more freedom in my summers now than there used to be. I’m truly grateful for that.

Still, even with their absences from home, they’re still around many more hours now than they are during the school year. The decibel level in my house increases exponentially in summer. I had no idea I should expect this. One thing I heard before I had kids is that boys are not as talkative as girls. I can’t believe how misguided I was in believing that tall tale. My boys talk non-stop at me all day…and not always about the same things.

To exacerbate the situation, my sons aren’t talking to me non-stop about topics that interest me. We’re not spending hours together discussing alternative energy or world religions or cultural travel. They’re carrying on about their latest fixation, and I’m trying to stay plugged into what they’re saying because I’m supposed to be all zen and living in the moment. When the summer started, we were into Iron Man. From Iron Man, we went on to discover Thor and then Captain America. Of course, from there we were full on into The Avengers after seeing the movie. From the movie, we jumped to the cartoon series Avengers, which assaulted me for what seemed like years but was actually only about a week. After The Avengers, we springboarded right into the Fantastic Four, of course, before landing where we are now…smack dab in the middle of Skylanders. Yes. I am using the term “we” here because if they’re into it I get to be into it, whether I like it or not.

Today, the boys and I went out for a letterboxing hike. Letterboxing, for the uninitiated, is a hobby where you use written clues to find a treasure box. Inside the treasure box is a logbook so you can record your find and a rubber stamp so you can stamp the hider’s unique mark into your logbook. It’s a simple pastime the boys and I took on last year when I decided they needed to learn how to follow directions. (Don’t ask me how that’s going.) Anyway, we were hiking along in between two separate caches, and both boys were rambling simultaneously about equally mind-numbing topics. Joe was telling me the attributes of his Skylander characters while Luke was discussing inventions he thinks Tony Stark should create and market. At that precise moment I realized exactly why my ability to converse with adults has deteriorated to the point where I get the hives at the prospect of a cocktail party: my kids are sucking the brain cells out of my skull. One by one they are disappearing, vacuumed from my head by my Dyson-like children.

They were still chattering on like monkeys on four shots of espresso when I finally lost it.

“You boys are sucking the brain cells from my head. I’m going to need a drink by 3!”

This tirade caught their attention and for two complete seconds they stopped their spouting and looked at me. Then, Joe laughed and Luke raised his hand waited for me to acknowledge his intent to speak again. I shook my head.

I struggle as a parent to tune into what interests my boys. I don’t want them to think that I don’t care about their world. But, how many times a day can I honestly be expected to hear the words “hot lava” or “gunship” without wanting to hang myself? I know I chose this. I could work outside the home full-time, which would greatly decrease the number of hours a day I have to listen to them quiz each other over “Who would win? Thor and his hammer or four nuclear bombs?” If I were in an office, I could have adult conversations and perhaps then I wouldn’t notice my brain in the final stages of atrophy. But, then I remember that work is work, and I don’t like work. I’d much rather be hiking and then hitting Sonic before playing 18 holes of mini golf. I guess when I think about it that way, it’s really not such a bad trade off….a little mindless chattering in exchange for 7-day weekends. And, truthfully, how many brain cells do I need for mini golf, anyway?

 

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Stormy Weather Ain’t All Bad….Except For The Hail And That Kind Of Sucks

Best kind of light show

Went to dinner with my buddy, Heather, tonight in honor of her birthday tomorrow. She’ll be 25ish. Anyway, as we were sitting at dinner we were discussing how summer in Colorado is the greatest thing ever. It really is. I know other people think their locale has the best summers, but they’re wrong. Colorado is incredibly beautiful year round but during our summers, which are normally warm and dry, we get the most amazing storms.

As if on command, the Universe summoned for our separate drives home an astounding light display. It was non-stop cloud lightning with the occasional cloud-t0-ground strike. Unbelievable. It was so constant that despite the darkness after 10 p.m. I was able to get several photos with my iPhone.

All I can think when I see storms like this is how awesome life is on this planet. The good. The bad. The ugly. All of it. Life on this planet is powerful and interesting. I feel badly for the people who miss that truth, who don’t take the time to stop and appreciate and marvel at it. Life is a gift. Any amount of time we’re allowed to exist here is a blessing. When you feel like things in your life are too much, sit and watch a storm and remember how small you are. And, instead of being depressed by that knowledge, revel in it because it’s freeing. No matter how big your troubles seem, they are insignificant in the grand scheme of life on earth. Just like the storm, they will pass.

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Folding Up My Map So My Kids Can Unfold Their Own

Yes. That’s my 11 year old wearing a swim mask in the zero depth pool. He’s cool like that.

You know how you want for your children all the things you never had? I cannot tell you how many times that has screwed things up for me and for my kids. You would think somewhere along the line I would figure it out and stop trying so hard to give them what I missed out on and focus rather on helping them find what they want or need. You would think that. You would be wrong.

One thing I always wanted for my kids was for them to be able to swim well. By “swim well,” I mean the kind of swimming where your face is in the water and you know how to time your breaths and you don’t hit the wall with your head. Basic stuff. I simply wanted them to swim better than I do because the best thing I can say about how I swim is that so far I have managed not to drown. Knock on wood.

To ensure that my kids would be able to swim well early, I had them on a swimming time table from birth. I enrolled in Mommy and Me swim classes with them when they were infants. They were both in regular swim classes when they were 3. They loved the water. Loved it. Yet, they each failed to pass the first level class two times before I decided that the community pool was the wrong place for my kids to learn to swim. I reasoned that the large class sizes, the too cold water at the rec center, and the myriad distractions there led to their lack of swimming success.

Next, I enrolled them at a pricey, private swim school. The water was warm (90 degrees) and the classes were only four students. This was just what they needed, right? Wrong. After a traumatic incident where Luke fell into water over his head during class and bobbed for a while before being safely recovered by his teacher, he refused to go back. Honestly, my confidence was then shaken too. I figured my dreams for them to become great swimmers were just dreams. I tried to move on, determining they would learn the way I did…over time with lots of informal practice. It wasn’t what I had envisioned. I pretended to make peace with it.

For the past four and a half years, our boys have been allowed to view the water as fun. They’ve slowly gotten braver and a bit more skilled at swimming on their own. We didn’t push them. They merely began to figure things out. Still, they have not become truly proficient swimmers. So today, once again pushing my luck, I enrolled them in a different swim school. This move was precipitated by our upcoming trip to the Galapagos where being able to swim and snorkel will be a really good thing. They’re 9 and 11 now. I was certain they were ready, but what is more important is that they were certain of it. You know what? They LOVED practicing in the pool with their instructor today. As we were leaving the school, they excitedly mentioned they wished they could go back again this week. I smiled as they told me all about the class I had witnessed via video camera from the lobby. Finally. Now we’re getting somewhere.

It’s okay to want things for your kids. It’s even okay to set them up to discover more about the things you want for them. But, it’s not okay to push them into what you want according to your time schedule or your plans for them. When my kids failed to pass out of swim class that first time, I should have backed off and realized they weren’t ready. I didn’t do that. Instead, I forced the issue, which then led to a worse situation from which we spent years trying to recover. We all want the best for our kids. Sometimes, though, we forget that what’s best for them will only be uncovered when we allow them to decide what interests them when they’re uniquely ready for it. If your child gets accepted into Harvard because you nagged, pushed, and henpecked them into living your dream, I suppose you can count that as an accomplishment. But, wouldn’t it be better if your child got into Harvard because it was what he wanted and worked incredibly hard on his own to achieve? I guess that if I want my kids to find their own way, I’d better stop handing them my map.

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Facebook Is Simply Show-And-Tell For Grown Ups

One of my Facebook profile photos. What does it tell you about me?I don’t know and I don’t really care. I just like it.

I was thinking today that Facebook is the ultimate exercise in show-and-tell. Remember that from kindergarten? Stand up there, show off something you like or care about, and tell people all about it. And, I think that if you treat Facebook (or any social media) that way, it’s a fairly innocuous thing. But, if you find you’re concerned about the number of replies you get to a post or if you’re using your posts to validate your decisions or any other aspect of your life, it might be time to take a step back.

I’ve got 288 Facebook “friends.” The “friends” is in quotes for a reason. All that word means in Facebookland is that I have viewing rights to 288 other people’s lives. I joined Facebook in 2008, so I’ve had years to study the way people use it. Some use it as a soapbox. Others use it for braggadocio. Some, quite sadly, use it to pump up their self-esteem. Some use it to avoid loneliness. Everyone gets something different from it, which is why it fascinates me. But, it all comes back to the notion that we all like to talk about ourselves. With Facebook, we can do it all day and all night and our spewing about ourselves ad nauseam is never considered narcissistic or obnoxious. It’s par for the course. It’s genius, really. Everyone is the center of their Facebook universe. How appropriately human.

I’ve always liked this quote: “What other people think of you is none of your business.” I more or less live by this notion. I learned early on that I am not for everyone, which is just fine with me because there are oodles of people I can do without as well. It’s nice to be liked, but if I’m not it doesn’t affect how I feel about myself. I’m here to find my own way. I don’t want to get to the end of my life and realize I was living someone else’s. Still, it’s easy to get sucked into caring too much what others think of you, especially when you throw yourself onto a social media site and pay too close attention to the responses you get. When you live that way, though, you’re not being authentic. I’ve seen my fair share of folks who clearly use Facebook for personal validation. I know, on occasion, I have been guilty of it too. But, what other people think of you is none of your business. It doesn’t matter. When it’s all said and done, the only person whose opinion about you should matter is your own. So, the next time you post something and no one seems to notice or care, throw yourself a dozen or so mental thumbs up Likes and move on. Facebook is show-and-tell. That’s all it is. Letting it be more than that is a waste of your precious energy on this planet.

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