Rebellin

I read a great article on the Huffington Post yesterday about a woman writing a letter to her past self regarding Valentine’s Day. I thought it was such a great idea that I’m writing one to myself.

This is the recipient intended for this note:

Dear 16 Year Old Lynnette,

Happy Valentine’s Day! I can’t remember this specific Valentine’s Day for you, but I remember this holiday used to be a BIG DEAL for you. There was always excitement that you’d receive a surprise Valentine, or that the current boy of interest would get romantically inspired for the big day.

It often didn’t work out that way. I remember many Valentine’s Days where you pined away, just dreaming of the time in your life where you will have a Valentine, and imagining those days as romantic, with candlelight dinners, chocolate, flowers, and yes, perhaps some jewelry or poetry.

You will have Valentine’s Days where you get sweet sentiments from guys that are just NOT very exciting for you, and there will be a few Valentine’s Days with unrequited efforts, where you will be utterly depressed.

Do you know who your best Valentine of all times will be? Your Mom. There is a woman that remembered you every year, and gave you quite the care packages even when you lived far from home. There was also your Dad, who brought you one flower every Valentine’s Day, but the fact that you knew you could rely on that one flower each year you lived at home with him is a special memory for you now.

So what are your Valentine’s Days like now that you have that permanent Valentine? Not at all like you imagined. Your Valentine is proud that he isn’t a “sucker for that marketing scam”, and he doesn’t see much of a need for romantic gestures after making that one huge gesture of marrying you. But hey, he’s there, he’s opening a special bottle of wine, and you aren’t going to be lonely.

What is really special about the Valentine’s Days of your future, though, is your kids. Like your daughter, who made you multiple Valentines, and professes her love for you daily. The same girl that dressed in a tutu, heart tights, a heart shirt, and 80s style pink gloves for the occasion. And then there is your son, who isn’t sure he wants to give away his Transformer Valentines, and is covered in the Transformer tattoos and heart stickers that came with the Valentines he picked out at the store.

The Valentine’s Day of your future is busy, but fun, and not nearly as romantic and dreamy as you imagined, but much more sustainable and real.

So keep smiling, and rest assured that you’ll have to spend a lot less time on your hair in the future, and know that the dress you’re wearing in that picture will be the last hand-sewn dress your Mom will make for you because you will complain about it too loudly. You should just bite your tongue and realize what a treasure those handmade dresses really are.

Love,

Future Self

About a month ago, I was fishing out something from under my bed, and came across the Sound of Music box set my mother had given me a few years ago, with a note saying, “save this until your daughter is ready.”

Oh, she’s ready!  I thought.  Over the course of the next weekend, whenever we got a chance when the boys in our house weren’t around, we watched it.  I sang along.  It was such a special memory.  I remembered watching that movie each year with my own mother, and I was thrilled that my daughter seemed to like it and understand the story.

Next thing I know, the child is waking up early and popping in the DVD in the morning.  I have woken up numerous mornings to the sound of her singing along to the movie.  “I am sixteen, going on seventeen…”

It is adorable.  But it is getting to the point of her being obsessed.

She quickly decided she wanted to be a nun for Halloween, despite the fact that I told her most of her classmates wouldn’t even know what a nun was.  She then started talking about wanting to be a nun when she grew up.  She has watched the movie so much that she can recite all of the dialogue and songs by heart.

So last week, when I saw a mention in the newspaper about the nuns at a local monastery having an open house , I just knew we had to go.

We showed up on Saturday, and a nun greeted us at the door.  “There was a misprint in the paper,” she said.  “The open house isn’t really until tomorrow.”

Once I told her that I had a six year old entranced with nuns that just wanted to meet some real live nuns, the doors were thrown wide open and we were offered a personal tour of the entire facility.

You know what?!  Those nuns have a pretty sweet set up.  They live in a modern building on a huge plot of land with large, colorful trees and sweeping views of the valley.  They wear street clothes, by the way.  (They said they just decided the habits weren’t conductive to their work, and it didn’t make much sense to change in and out of it for worship.)

You should see the kitchen these nuns have.  Holy cow, it is huge, with modern appliances, granite countertops, and I can just imagine the amazing meals that get created in their kitchen.  They have a dining room with a big, beautiful table, where all 19 nuns eat together with a huge picture window backdrop.  I really wanted to join them for a meal.

As for the nuns, we met a lot of them, and they were so nice, open and receptive.  It literally felt like 19 girlfriends living together, which as I contemplate that, actually sounds like a pretty sweet life.  I wonder if they drink wine, though.  I described to my husband as a sorority house for older women (without the men and alcohol).

Anyway, we spent a lot of time touring the grounds, and Little Miss even asked to see their bedrooms, so we were ushered up to the living quarters to see their bedrooms and meet their dog that they keep onsite.  I then learned that the nun giving the tour was an avid skier.

A skiing nun!  How cool is that?!

We definitely bonded over skiing, and she told me that she skis almost every day in the winter.  (Once again, wow, not a bad life, eh?!)  It makes sense, though.  Living in this community, skiing would be a great way to do outreach, as you can talk to people on each chairlift ride.

They have a few nuns on site that are resident artists.  We stopped in to view the nun’s art and buy some greeting cards that the nuns had made, and as we were leaving, I asked my daughter if she still wanted to be a nun, and she enthusiastically said yes.

“But then you couldn’t have children,” I reminded her.

“That’s OK, I’ll be a nun at an orphanage.”

Looks like she has her long term career objectives all planned out.  She’ll be a nun that works at an orphanage, and does art, gymnastics, skiing and ballet in her spare time.

Looks like a perfect future nun, right?!

Woo0ps.  There went a month in blog-land.  Sorry about that.  I’ve had numerous posts composed in my head, and never managed to write them…  So, here is a random smattering of thoughts for you…

Olympics.  Oh, wow.  That is one way to turn my family of rather active people into a bunch of couch potatoes, ironically.  My daughter was learning about the Olympics in school, and was very excited to watch them.  I was very excited to watch swimming, and hoping that seeing the Olympic swimmers would inspire her.  I made sure to show her the interviews with Missy Franklin, who is tall, strong, and with such a lovely personality.  I think my daughter will be somewhere near the height of Missy Franklin, so I wanted her to see how good height could be for a girl.

But what did my daughter latch onto?  Women’s gymnastics.  Now, I don’t have anything against this sport, but those girls are TINY.  The women in our family are not tiny.  I even searched online for the “tallest Olympic gymnast woman”, and the answer was 5’5″.  We estimate that she’ll be about 6’1″.

So we had conversations about how she will be tall, and she should try sports where height will be an asset.  “Want to watch volleyball?”  “Hey, look, Missy Franklin won another gold medal!”

But she is still set on gymnastics.  So, next week, she is doing a trial class of gymnastics.  My mother giggled at this whole story, as I had a similar fascination when I was little, and as my mom said, I need to let her figure out if it is the right sport for her.  I’m betting it’s not, but I’ll just keep my mouth shut and let her figure it out for herself.

But, I made a deal with her – that if I was going to pay for gymnastics this school year that she’d agree to do swim team next summer.  She agreed, so I guess we have a compromise.  (How I’m going to get her to 2x/week swim practices at 5pm when I’m supposed to work until 5pm is something I have to figure out before then.)

Plus, the gymnastics school has a class for my son’s age group at the same time, so instead of trying to keep him occupied in a tiny waiting room, I’ll scoot him right into class, too.  That should be good for some entertainment!

And on a side note of the Olympics, I just love watching swimming.  I love watching the new techniques, the new suits, the new technology in caps/goggles, etc, and reminiscing on my days as a swimmer.  I’m so happy to see the sport get elevated status, and I totally idolize many of the swimmers on the men’s and women’s team.

Oh, and will someone please make a US men’s swim team calendar so that I can put that on my Christmas list?

Here is a picture of the next generation’s Missy Franklin and Michael Phelps.

On Biking…

Our son has had a strider bike since Christmas, and he is a real pro at it.  He does stunts, hops curbs, and can totally keep up with his sister on that thing.  We bought him a bike with pedals a few months ago, and promptly took off the training wheels, as he knows how to balance.  Well, he had some mental block about pedals, and avoided that bike for what seemed like the longest time.

Then, one day a few weeks ago, I look out in the backyard, and he had just hopped on his pedal bike (known in our house as the Rocket bike, as it says Rocket on the frame), and he is biking around using pedals like it was no big deal.  This happened the week after his third birthday.

We upgraded our daughter’s bike in the early summer as well.  We got her a mountain bike with gears and hand brakes, that is a bit big for her, but at the rate she’s growing, we decided that was the best choice.  Anyway, many nights you’ll find our family biking at the church parking lot in our neighborhood, racing eachother and coming up with different obstacle courses.  It is so fun.  I looked at my son the other day as we were biking next to eachother, and couldn’t believe that just three years ago he was a helpless newborn, and now he is a little boy that can ride bikes with me and share the funniest thoughts.

On Growing Up…

I put my daughter on a plane this week by herself.  She flew to the Bay Area to spend the week with her grandparents and aunt.  My six year old was excited and not at all afraid to march onto that plane without me.  It was the strangest feeling to watch the plane pull back from the gate.  I couldn’t help thinking about how recent it seemed that traveling with her was a big ordeal, and now I can just plop her on a plane.  They say that time moves fast when you’re a parent, and I would have to agree.

Those are my thoughts for the day…  Please don’t give up on me and my little blog! A few more random pics from our summer below.

Little Man being tossed in the air by his dad:

My daughter doing the bungee trampoline at Mammoth ski resort last month:

Today is the last day of school for my daughter. As of this afternoon, she will have completed Kindergarten. Everyone says that time flies when you’re raising children, and that is so true. This feels like a landmark moment, so I thought I’d spend a few minutes writing about my daughter, the Kindergarten graduate, at age six.

Her world is one of beauty and magic. Her fertile imagination has her believing in fairies, mermaids, leprechauns and angels. She is a budding artist, and all of her drawings consist of rainbows, flowers and happy, smiling mermaids or fairies (or a combination of the two into a mermaid fairy) that are smiling and look just like her.

Her teacher sent home a binder with her school work and art work from throughout the year, and it was so fun to look at.  The first page said, “What is special about me is my Mom and My Dad”.  Every single person she drew is happy, and she doesn’t like her own artwork until it leaves the satisfactory level of beauty in her eyes.

Last week, she did a project at home she titled  ”Map of My Heart”.  On it, she glued a picture of her parents, one of her as a toddler, and then she wrote all the things she loves, including, “dogs, dolls, bike, swim, girl scouts”.  She also wrote that she wants to dance and be a nurse when she grows up.

My daughter is the essence of the innocence of childhood right now.  I want to put her in a bubble to maintain this beautiful, happy impression of the world that she currently has.  One day something will happen to put a damper on her world of magic and smiles, but I will do my best to make sure that day isn’t for a long time.

For now, I will relish the moments where she thinks the light reflections on the wall are fairies watching down on her, and when we sing loudly and off key together as we drive around Reno.

Each night as I put her to bed, I tell her that she is my dream come true.  I can’t imagine what my life would have been like without her.

For Mother’s Day, I decided I wanted the whole family to go to the beach at Lake Tahoe and take my kayak, which I haven’t been able to use for years (between pregnancy, a new baby, and then a knee injury, it has been over 3 years).

The hubby suggested we stop by Mt. Rose on the way to the beach so that Little Man could ski. Doesn’t everyone stop for a quick ski on the way to the beach?!

Anyway, we got to Mt. Rose, where there was now a creek down the main run, and JB walked with Little Man in the mud and slush to get him to ski. Little Miss and I stayed back, as we were dressed more for the beach than tromping through slushy snow.

There was much crying from Little Man, and he did two extremely short “runs”.

Then, we were finally off to the beach. It was a glorious day, and I immediately put the kayak on the lake and took off with Little Miss in my lap. Let me tell you, we’re mighty close to the weight limit on that kayak, as Little Miss is almost 60 pounds now. That meant we sat low, lots of COLD Tahoe water was leaking in, and the smallest movement from her made me fear we were going to tip. Let me tell you, the water in Tahoe this time of year is frigid, and I absolutely did NOT want to tip.

JB took Little Man out twice. On the second time, I was sitting in my beach chair with my head tipped back and eyes closed when I heard crying in the distance. JB was far enough out with the kayak that I couldn’t tell what was going on, but it sure looked to me like Little Man was the only person on the boat.

Turns out that JB had flipped the kayak trying to do some sporty turn around a buoy. They both went in (thankfully Little Man had a life vest on), and JB had put Little Man on top of the overturned kayak. From shore, I couldn’t see JB. The first thing that came to mind was the recent accident where a man and his 2 year old son drowned in a Washington lake while canoeing.

But I rationalized in my head that JB is a strong swimmer, and has done numerous open water swims in triathlons. Still, the former lifeguard in me really wanted to go try to save them or offer help. I valiantly took several steps into the water, and my reaction was BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! I then saw that two women had beached their kayaks right next to where I was standing, so I asked them if I could borrow them to go help my hubby. They obliged, and I tore out there as fast as I could (realizing their kayak was much sleeker and faster than mine). I arrived at our kayak to find JB in the water, pushing the kayak towards shore, and with a smile on his face. Little Man was still crying, but he was safe. We decided it was probably better to let JB continue pushing the boat, and my help wasn’t needed.

After this ordeal, we asked Little Man if he preferred kayaking (and tipping over into the lake) or skiing. His answer? Tipping over into Lake Tahoe. Ha!

Anyway, it was a glorious day, but I do think our kayak will soon make it to a Craigslist posting, and we’ll soon be buying a paddleboard instead (after the water warms a bit more)!

The past two weekends, we have been going skiing as a family of four.  That is really special to me, considering my knee injury last year, and the fact that it is Little Man’s first ski season.

But ski outings with a two year old aren’t easy.  This is how it has gone the past four outings:

1.  We suggest skiing, and he gets all excited, saying, “I want to ski!”  He is happy the entire ride to the ski area.

2.  We get there, and once we get the jacket, helmet, goggles and gloves on him, he melts down.  This is about the time I send JB to the slopes with Little Miss, and I get to deal with the screaming toddler.

3.  I’ve learned we head to the lodge at this point, where he writhes around on the ground and cries for at least a half an hour.  This last week, he collapsed just feet outside the entrance to the lodge.  A man walking by with his two kids starts saying, “Man down, Man down!”

People in ski lodges think a kid throwing a tantrum in ski gear is REALLY funny.  I am pretty much over it.  I tend to grab a camera, take a few pics for future blackmail purposes, and then I sit down about 10 feet away from him until he snaps out of it.

Right after this picture was taken, I ran into my former boss.  It is a bit embarrassing to have your kid losing his s*#t on the floor.

This past weekend, after 30 minutes of flailing, Little Man came up to me and said, “I want to go see the dragons.”

Dragons?  I’ll roll with it.  “Let’s go, then,” I said.  “You need a helmet to protect you from the dragons, and the goggles will keep the fire off of your eyes.”

So then, we head to the chairlift looking for the dragons.  Whatever works, I’ll do it.

Of course the snow conditions here have been hideous — all man made at this point.  They’ve been making snow during the day, and I’m pretty sure he thinks the snow guns are the dragons.

4.  After he snaps out of his tantrum, things are fine.  He likes to ride the chairlift, and makes hilarious noises we’ve dubbed his ski noises, which usually include squeaks and squawks.  He’s a little trooper after he gets over his initial issues.

Last night, he told us that he wanted to take his basketball skiing, but that he’d hold on to it really tight so that the dragons wouldn’t get it.

JB said he’s going to take Little Man skiing on Sunday while I’m in Disneyland with our daughter.  I’m curious to see if he’ll pull this stuff with Daddy, and if he does, what Daddy’s reaction will be to a half hour tantrum.

Today, both of my kids started new things. Little Miss started kindergarten today, which was a momentous occasion in our house. I saw her off to the bus stop this morning, and it wasn’t until that bus drove away with my little girl that the tears filled my eyes.

I have always heard of mothers getting misty eyed when their child starts kindergarten, and I didn’t think much of it. It definitely hit me, and for a good hour, every time I thought about it, I would get tears in my eyes. It was so strange to put her on the bus and not escort her directly into her classroom. I can’t wait to go home and hear all about it later today.

Little Man also started with his new caretaker today. He threw a fit this morning, and demanded to go to his new caretaker’s house. Evidently I wasn’t getting ready fast enough for his liking. He practically ran to the new sitter’s house, and when I opened the door, he bolted for the living room with all the toys, not looking back at me once. I talked to the sitter for a few minutes, and when I went to leave, I called his name… He called back “bye” from the other room. So much for a sentimental goodbye!

People always say that kids grow up too fast, but you don’t fully understand it until you witness it for yourself.

I totally thought yesterday was Fathers Day. Perhaps it was because preschool celebrated it last week, I got thrown off for a week. I let JB sleep in. When he woke up, he requested omlettes for breakfast, which I dutifully made.

Later in the morning, he went back to bed, and I kept sheparding the kids away from him, saying, “Daddy needs to rest, it’s his special day.”

I then took the kids to the farmer’s market, buying all of JB’s favorite things for dinner — beets, steak from local beef, gourmet mushrooms…

I posted this picture on Facebook to commemorate the day, one of a drawing Little Miss did of her father for Father’s Day. (I wondered why so many people talked about Mother’s Day on Facebook, but no one mentioned Father’s Day for some reason…)

When I came home from the farmer’s market, I started fixing him quesadillas for lunch. I called up my Dad while I was cooking to wish him a happy Fathers Day.

“A what?” He asked, sounding perplexed.

“Fathers Day.”

“Today isn’t Fathers Day,” he responded. I checked the calendar in our pantry, and low and behold, I was a whole week early!

Darnit. I don’t think JB knew I was wrong. If he did, he was soaking it up anyways… His parents are in town for the real Fathers Day, so looks like he gets two this year.