Occasionally I feel like I must be a horrible mother. Exhausted from a day's work, I face 2 children who alternate between wild and whiny. I look at them, I love them so much, however at that moment I just wish they could magically disappear. And it's at that moment when I start to feel badly. Maybe it's my fault. Maybe I'm doing something to make them this way. I should be able to manage. I shouldn't wish my children gone. They're precious, they're perfectly themselves. WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG WITH ME!!!!!?
And then comes along a total stranger, some man I've never met before. And with a single song he manages to calm my fears, comfort my anxiety and help me to realize that I am not alone. I am not a bad mother, I simply am living the crazy life called parenthood.
That was brilliant! It's good to know I'm not alone!
Oct 29, 2007
Aug 14, 2007
When life hands you zucchini
If you are a parent of a 2 year old, chances are you've experienced the joys of picky eating. Try as hard as you might to make something healthy taste delicious, your toddler still rejects it, criticizing your culinary skills with the dreaded "it tastes yucky"! It's frustrating, it's infuriating and at times it's devastating because you've worked so hard to make something healthy taste really good, hoping that your child will accept your loving offering and grow healthy and strong.
Living in the city, we get an order of fresh, organic vegetables delivered to our home about every other week. It's my one real luxury. And it helps us eat better. I only find out a few days before what is coming, and for the most part I don't have any say, so I have to make things that are new, and eat things I normally wouldn't pick out. I avoid the overwhelmed feeling I have when I walk into the produce section at the grocery store, but we still enjoy produce. And normally I also get some fruit for my girls to enjoy as well. And we love it!
This past week, however, something strange happened. Instead of the extra order of fruit we normally receive, there were extra vegetables. Extra vegetables?! I was annoyed and disappointed. This was no good. First of all, I have 2 toddlers who eat few if any vegetables on a regular basis. Secondly, I don't even like most vegetables unless well disguised, and being on a diet my disguises are limited. For instance, I probably loathe zucchini as much as my children do, though I can choke it down provided it is only an every-other week event.
But when I got home that day, there were 2 big zucchinis staring out at me from my vegetable drawer. Disaster was looming. The kids won't eat it, I don't like it, and the only way I do like it, my dearest husband doesn't. What was I to do?!
At that point I remembered something an exuberant friend of mine had mentioned a few weeks ago. She had served fried zucchini to her 3 year old, convincing him it was french fries. What the heck! Anything was worth a try at this point. I got out my golden flax seed meal and garbonzo flour (trying not to abandon my dietary principles with actual flour), peeled and cut that zucchini into sticks approximately the size of french fries. Then to complete the masterpiece, I spread catchup on them on the little darlings' plates.
Lo and behold, my oldest gobbled them up and asked for more...and more! I was nearly in shock, and about to dance. It was all I could do to scream "My daughter is eating zucchini!" to the whole world to demonstrate my tremendous mothering talents. However, I was somewhat afraid that if I said the Z word, she would stop gobbling up those "fries"
Quietly I learned an important lesson: sneaky is best when it comes to serving vegetables. From here on out my food motto is "when life hands you zucchini, make french fries!" I will continue to find ways to disguise vegetables in our evening meals. For instance, did you know that a medium summer squash properly blended into 4 potatoes makes for wonderful mashed potatoes? My kids never knew, neither will yours!
Living in the city, we get an order of fresh, organic vegetables delivered to our home about every other week. It's my one real luxury. And it helps us eat better. I only find out a few days before what is coming, and for the most part I don't have any say, so I have to make things that are new, and eat things I normally wouldn't pick out. I avoid the overwhelmed feeling I have when I walk into the produce section at the grocery store, but we still enjoy produce. And normally I also get some fruit for my girls to enjoy as well. And we love it!
This past week, however, something strange happened. Instead of the extra order of fruit we normally receive, there were extra vegetables. Extra vegetables?! I was annoyed and disappointed. This was no good. First of all, I have 2 toddlers who eat few if any vegetables on a regular basis. Secondly, I don't even like most vegetables unless well disguised, and being on a diet my disguises are limited. For instance, I probably loathe zucchini as much as my children do, though I can choke it down provided it is only an every-other week event.
But when I got home that day, there were 2 big zucchinis staring out at me from my vegetable drawer. Disaster was looming. The kids won't eat it, I don't like it, and the only way I do like it, my dearest husband doesn't. What was I to do?!
At that point I remembered something an exuberant friend of mine had mentioned a few weeks ago. She had served fried zucchini to her 3 year old, convincing him it was french fries. What the heck! Anything was worth a try at this point. I got out my golden flax seed meal and garbonzo flour (trying not to abandon my dietary principles with actual flour), peeled and cut that zucchini into sticks approximately the size of french fries. Then to complete the masterpiece, I spread catchup on them on the little darlings' plates.
Lo and behold, my oldest gobbled them up and asked for more...and more! I was nearly in shock, and about to dance. It was all I could do to scream "My daughter is eating zucchini!" to the whole world to demonstrate my tremendous mothering talents. However, I was somewhat afraid that if I said the Z word, she would stop gobbling up those "fries"
Quietly I learned an important lesson: sneaky is best when it comes to serving vegetables. From here on out my food motto is "when life hands you zucchini, make french fries!" I will continue to find ways to disguise vegetables in our evening meals. For instance, did you know that a medium summer squash properly blended into 4 potatoes makes for wonderful mashed potatoes? My kids never knew, neither will yours!
All things work for good
"all things work together for good for those who love God" Romans 8:28
Several months ago, I found myself in the midst of a full blown crisis. My husband was in the hospital. His prognosis was unknown. His recovery time unclear. I was at home, not sleeping with all the anxiety, trying desperately to hold it together for my girls, failing at memorable moments. I was inclined to scream at God, and ask why He was doing this to us. However, I found instead this passage continually coming to mind.
How could this possibly work for good? How could God redeem this situation? How could it be a part of His good plan? I'm sure most people would wonder the same faced with a similar crisis. And yet the thought persisted in me, and I had no choice but to give in to it. All things work together for good...even though it seemed as though we were tied to an enemy, even though recovery seemed much too far off, even though I was living my worst nightmare, I couldn't let go of the thought. I had the sense that some day, I might understand how this applied to what I was living. Someday I might look back with a smile and see how perfect God's plan had been all along. Someday I would know why I had to live through the pain and the sorrow, and I imagined that someday would be a couple decades or more into the future, when the distance between my life then and what I was going through in the present was great enough that it didn't sting to recall the pain anymore.
But I was wrong. Here I am eight months later seeing the good unfold before my eyes. I am blessed in so many ways. For one thing, God didn't let me give up. Comfort was all around me, and He sent messages of hope through those who didn't even know what they were giving me. He lifted me up and carried me along a difficult path that has led to abundant blessings.
I am now living about as close to my dream as I could have imagined. I can walk to work. I like my work. I work with nice people, and they seem to like me. And my husband is doing much better. Though he won't return to his former job, he has a new opportunity that he can also walk to. We're living our urban lifestyle dream. We only need the car for family outings, everything else can be done on foot or by bike. How amazing is that?! A crisis helped us align our lifestyle with our ideals.
There is a deep sense of satisfaction that comes with seeing God's blessings through hardship. I was walking home from work the other day when it hit me like a wave that I had held onto Romans 8:28 for weeks in darkness, and now I was experiencing its truth in the light.
Several months ago, I found myself in the midst of a full blown crisis. My husband was in the hospital. His prognosis was unknown. His recovery time unclear. I was at home, not sleeping with all the anxiety, trying desperately to hold it together for my girls, failing at memorable moments. I was inclined to scream at God, and ask why He was doing this to us. However, I found instead this passage continually coming to mind.
How could this possibly work for good? How could God redeem this situation? How could it be a part of His good plan? I'm sure most people would wonder the same faced with a similar crisis. And yet the thought persisted in me, and I had no choice but to give in to it. All things work together for good...even though it seemed as though we were tied to an enemy, even though recovery seemed much too far off, even though I was living my worst nightmare, I couldn't let go of the thought. I had the sense that some day, I might understand how this applied to what I was living. Someday I might look back with a smile and see how perfect God's plan had been all along. Someday I would know why I had to live through the pain and the sorrow, and I imagined that someday would be a couple decades or more into the future, when the distance between my life then and what I was going through in the present was great enough that it didn't sting to recall the pain anymore.
But I was wrong. Here I am eight months later seeing the good unfold before my eyes. I am blessed in so many ways. For one thing, God didn't let me give up. Comfort was all around me, and He sent messages of hope through those who didn't even know what they were giving me. He lifted me up and carried me along a difficult path that has led to abundant blessings.
I am now living about as close to my dream as I could have imagined. I can walk to work. I like my work. I work with nice people, and they seem to like me. And my husband is doing much better. Though he won't return to his former job, he has a new opportunity that he can also walk to. We're living our urban lifestyle dream. We only need the car for family outings, everything else can be done on foot or by bike. How amazing is that?! A crisis helped us align our lifestyle with our ideals.
There is a deep sense of satisfaction that comes with seeing God's blessings through hardship. I was walking home from work the other day when it hit me like a wave that I had held onto Romans 8:28 for weeks in darkness, and now I was experiencing its truth in the light.
I gave up
You may recall that a month or so ago I was resisting the world of diets. Looking into my shopping cart, you would find a variety of not terribly unhealthy food items that would tempt and tantalize my palette. However, as the weeks passed, something changed: I gave up.
There are many reasons I joined the dieting world I had brushed aside so certainly just weeks before. There was the ever increasing size of clothing I found myself wearing. Faced with a size 18 pair of jeans, I realized I was dangerously close to not being able to shop in "regular" stores. And then there was that pesky scale; either it was broken or the needle was going up and up because I was *gasp* getting heavier. Yes, those were fairly compelling reasons in and of themselves, as was the chest pains plaguing me, that may well have been anxiety, but with a family history of heart disease like mine, who wants to take the chance. But truly, the most compelling reason of all was diabetes. Not that I bare that diagnosis mind you, but the threat of it was there.
I had been borderline diabetic during my last pregnancy. It was not fun poking myself with a needle 4 times a day to double check that I'd eaten correctly. But it was a good lesson: this is your future if you're not careful! And I got to know my body and how I responded to high blood sugar, I got to the point that I could tell by how I felt if my sugar was too high. So there I was one day, fat and puffy (it was the swelling that first captured my attention), reading online about what could cause water retention. Suddenly it clicked: I felt exactly like I did when my blood sugar was too high. And that frightened me. At age 25 (for the 5th time), being diabetic threatened the whole future of my life. It's one thing to choose not to eat sugar, it's another to know that by choosing to eat sugar you are killing yourself one cell at a time.
So there it was, the swift kick I needed. I jumped on the band waggon and got myself a diet. Atkins is what I chose. It offered a yummy variety of foods, and the lowest glycemic level of any other diet out there. I can eat as much as I want as long as it's "legal" within the Atkins plan. And like a true Internet junkie, I joined a Low Carb diet forum.
So am I miserable? No, actually I'm not. I'm 17 lbs less than when I wrote my waisting away post, and I don't have to go hungry. I exercise daily, and I have more energy than I've had since, well, probably since I got married and started packing on the pounds. And best of all, those size 18s are now so big I'm thinking of sending them back to the goodwill for someone else to enjoy. Perhaps I should slip a card in the pocket to let them know how well Atkins has worked for me so far...or maybe that would just be rude. In any case, I'm glad to say "I gave up!"
There are many reasons I joined the dieting world I had brushed aside so certainly just weeks before. There was the ever increasing size of clothing I found myself wearing. Faced with a size 18 pair of jeans, I realized I was dangerously close to not being able to shop in "regular" stores. And then there was that pesky scale; either it was broken or the needle was going up and up because I was *gasp* getting heavier. Yes, those were fairly compelling reasons in and of themselves, as was the chest pains plaguing me, that may well have been anxiety, but with a family history of heart disease like mine, who wants to take the chance. But truly, the most compelling reason of all was diabetes. Not that I bare that diagnosis mind you, but the threat of it was there.
I had been borderline diabetic during my last pregnancy. It was not fun poking myself with a needle 4 times a day to double check that I'd eaten correctly. But it was a good lesson: this is your future if you're not careful! And I got to know my body and how I responded to high blood sugar, I got to the point that I could tell by how I felt if my sugar was too high. So there I was one day, fat and puffy (it was the swelling that first captured my attention), reading online about what could cause water retention. Suddenly it clicked: I felt exactly like I did when my blood sugar was too high. And that frightened me. At age 25 (for the 5th time), being diabetic threatened the whole future of my life. It's one thing to choose not to eat sugar, it's another to know that by choosing to eat sugar you are killing yourself one cell at a time.
So there it was, the swift kick I needed. I jumped on the band waggon and got myself a diet. Atkins is what I chose. It offered a yummy variety of foods, and the lowest glycemic level of any other diet out there. I can eat as much as I want as long as it's "legal" within the Atkins plan. And like a true Internet junkie, I joined a Low Carb diet forum.
So am I miserable? No, actually I'm not. I'm 17 lbs less than when I wrote my waisting away post, and I don't have to go hungry. I exercise daily, and I have more energy than I've had since, well, probably since I got married and started packing on the pounds. And best of all, those size 18s are now so big I'm thinking of sending them back to the goodwill for someone else to enjoy. Perhaps I should slip a card in the pocket to let them know how well Atkins has worked for me so far...or maybe that would just be rude. In any case, I'm glad to say "I gave up!"
Jul 3, 2007
Manly Camping
My husband suggested at the last minute that we take a camping trip with our 2 darling toddlers this weekend, so we packed up and headed out to St. Augustine and a beautiful state park there. While I can't recommend camping with 2 toddlers, we had a pretty good time, although it didn't seem much like camping to me. Yes, we did have to walk to the bathrooms...far enough that I was discouraged from doing so in the night unless bladder explosion was a possibility. And yes, it did rain and we got to experience the joys of a leaking camper and soggy bedding, but something was missing. And each evening I realized exactly what it was as I smelled the intoxicating and ever so familiar scent of the campfire.
I have been camping a number of times in my life. As a girl scout there were weekend trips as well as overnight summer camp. As a family, we camped with some regularity, and even once took a family camping vacation. I must have been 7 or 8 because it was at a time when my parents would actually consider spending time in a car and a tent together and were enough on speaking terms to decide what to eat etc. I went camping in college with my brother his wife, her family and their many kids, and after college with what's-his-name. I even went camping for some of my honeymoon. My favorite part of camping, that which holds the most nostalgia for me, is the campfire. It's fun to watch the flames dance, leap and hear them crackle. Sometimes it's fun to cook things over it, or burn things in it. The smell seeps into your clothing and camping equipment. It fills your hair until your next shower. It lingers in the air into the wee hours of the morning and it alone says "we're camping" for me.
There has been but one other camping trip that lacked campfire, and it has to have been the most interesting camping adventure of my life. I never intended to camp that night, it just sort of happened. And I will never forget it as long as I live; it has become a bit of Koala legend.
I was dating this guy who I had a really good feeling about. And though we'd only been dating for about a month, an opportunity to meet his parents arose. Since they lived in Florida, and I in Rhode Island, we didn't think such an opportunity would present itself for some time in the future. As it happened, his sister was graduating from college in Western Massachusetts, a mere 2 hour drive from my place. His parents graciously extended an invitation for me to join them for a small lunch and then a larger dinner, but it was clear that it was only for those 2 events. I was not invited to do anything beyond that, and that was fine really. I was going to meet several family members that day, so that was enough excitement for me from a guy I'd known for a little over a month. And there were logistical issues. Housing all those people was complicated, so they'd all be staying in different places. His parents were just over the Connecticut line with distant relatives; his older sister, husband and new baby were in a camper at a camp ground. His Uncle was in some motel, his cousin and her fiance at a bed and breakfast, and he and his 14 year old cousin were to have a manly camping adventure in a tent at a nearby campground. It was to be the first camping trip for the young lad, and he was looking forward to the manliest of times, and even thought it should be defined by the 3 "f"s which were something like "fire, farting and forest".
Things were going well in the meetings. I made it through, all the way to dinner. And as we were sitting around, the transportation logistics came up. How were "guy" and "cousin" going to arrive at the campground we had set the tent up at earlier that afternoon? It was on the way for no one, being about 11 miles outside of town to the north west, and everyone else was either in town, south, or east of town. I volunteered to drive them out and help them collect firewood and food along the way. We left around 9:30 or so in the evening, which didn't seem too bad. However, by the time we got some "food" and some firewood and made it to the campground, it was nearing midnight, and it was starting to drizzle; I was also getting sleepy, and I was way the heck out in the middle of nowhere without street lights or cell phone coverage, and I started to be concerned about what could happen.
The manly men invited me to stay the night. They had for themselves a 3-room tent, 2 camp cots and 3 sleeping bags (just in case), and so really they thought it fine for me to join them as long as I wasn't put out by the testosterone. I agreed, and we set about trying to light the manly fire. First, however, I donned appropriate clothing, a turtleneck sweater and my light wool jacket, along with a pair of gloves I had in the car. The guys on the other hand just had t-shirts and shorts, which was a little chilly at this point. Remember drizzle? It had developed into rain. No worries, really, I produced a large golf umbrella from the car, big enough for the 3 of us to stand under and keep dry. However, it was apparently too wet for fire. I suggested we spray the logs with some of my hairspray and then light it...and it worked, until the hairspray burned off. Some drunk college students stumbled over to help, and opine over the fire, but they were too drunk to offer more than beer. After about an hour, we gave up the first "f" of manly camping. No worries, we still had forest and flatulence to keep us on track!
Gallant young cousin gave up his camp cot for me, and decided to be most manly and sleep on the cold hard ground. We arranged ourselves each in a room, with me on one end, and the guy all the way on the other. We had privacy and I had a camp cot and warm, fuzzy jammies (I had packed them just in case, one never knows what's going to happen when you go to meet the parents of a new boyfriend). I also had a fickle tummy that began seriously bothering me around 2 or 3 in the morning. I put on my shoes to walk over to the bathrooms, but when I stepped outside, water covered my whole foot and started pouring into my shoes. While honoring the gods of porcelain, I thought about the situation some. Upon returning to the tent, I woke up young cousin and insisted he take my cot as it was getting colder and he would soon be wet if he stayed on the ground. I headed across the tent to cuddle up with my guy on his cot. I hadn't planned on sleeping with him so soon, which was good, since every time I started to drift off, he started snoring in my ear, and I didn't actually get any sleep.
I started to get really cold. I kept begging my guy to hold me, and particularly to cover my back. I kept checking and my jammies were not riding up, I was not exposed, and yet I grew colder and colder. I couldn't sleep, between snoring and cold, it was too uncomfortable. Soon my nose had that icy feeling that comes when the temperature drops into the freezing range. I guess I must have drifted off at some point, because as dawns light was just beginning to break, cousin came in in shorts and t-shirt and announced he was going off to explore a little. As he left, I noticed that the tent roof was sagging a lot more than I would have expected from rain, but I was too tired to think much about it.
Cousin came back in less than 5 minutes, he was shivering. "Guys, it snowed" he announced. He went back to try to warm up in his sleeping bag, but having left it for a while, it too was now cold and he couldn't get warm. "Hey, can I come in with you?" he called. Within seconds, he'd dragged his cot and sleeping bag over, and piled in with us in our new, double-cot setup. Cozy doesn't go far enough to describe the situation.
Did I mention the dog? Yes there was a dog, a poodle to be precise. And she was shivering away in a corner of the tent, more accustomed to a warm house than cold woods in strange places where it snows in late May. In seconds flat, she too had joined us to try to take advantage of group body heat.
So there we were: 3 people, 2 camp cots and a dog, piled in one large heap, doing all that we could to stay warm. We thought about leaving, but that would mean getting up, that would mean getting cold, and the boys only had summer clothes. For me it was not too tragic since I had warm fuzzy jammies and that nice wool jacket. But trying to figure out what to do was more than our cold, sleepy brains could process at that moment, so we stayed put until 9 AM.
Around then a car horn sounded, and we heard a voice calling. It was the guy's dad. Panic raced through me as I thought "Oh no, what if he sees us all in bed together, what will he think?" Which was probably ridiculous since he'd likely think it had snowed, and we were camping, so we did what reasonable people who cared about not freezing to death would do and piled in together. Dad had come to rescue us and take us for a nice hot breakfast. I retreated to another room while we all dressed. We grabbed the golf umbrella, got into the car and drove off for the nicest, warmest breakfast I'd ever had.
So that was manly camping. As we mulled over the situation, relived and recounted it, something funny came to light. Remember my warm clothes, my fire starters, my large golf umbrella? Cousin noted that in manly camping, I had turned out to be the manliest camper of them all...that and that he had "slept" with me.
5 years later, I found myself with the same guy, our 2 children, and on only my 2nd camping adventure without a campfire.
I have been camping a number of times in my life. As a girl scout there were weekend trips as well as overnight summer camp. As a family, we camped with some regularity, and even once took a family camping vacation. I must have been 7 or 8 because it was at a time when my parents would actually consider spending time in a car and a tent together and were enough on speaking terms to decide what to eat etc. I went camping in college with my brother his wife, her family and their many kids, and after college with what's-his-name. I even went camping for some of my honeymoon. My favorite part of camping, that which holds the most nostalgia for me, is the campfire. It's fun to watch the flames dance, leap and hear them crackle. Sometimes it's fun to cook things over it, or burn things in it. The smell seeps into your clothing and camping equipment. It fills your hair until your next shower. It lingers in the air into the wee hours of the morning and it alone says "we're camping" for me.
There has been but one other camping trip that lacked campfire, and it has to have been the most interesting camping adventure of my life. I never intended to camp that night, it just sort of happened. And I will never forget it as long as I live; it has become a bit of Koala legend.
I was dating this guy who I had a really good feeling about. And though we'd only been dating for about a month, an opportunity to meet his parents arose. Since they lived in Florida, and I in Rhode Island, we didn't think such an opportunity would present itself for some time in the future. As it happened, his sister was graduating from college in Western Massachusetts, a mere 2 hour drive from my place. His parents graciously extended an invitation for me to join them for a small lunch and then a larger dinner, but it was clear that it was only for those 2 events. I was not invited to do anything beyond that, and that was fine really. I was going to meet several family members that day, so that was enough excitement for me from a guy I'd known for a little over a month. And there were logistical issues. Housing all those people was complicated, so they'd all be staying in different places. His parents were just over the Connecticut line with distant relatives; his older sister, husband and new baby were in a camper at a camp ground. His Uncle was in some motel, his cousin and her fiance at a bed and breakfast, and he and his 14 year old cousin were to have a manly camping adventure in a tent at a nearby campground. It was to be the first camping trip for the young lad, and he was looking forward to the manliest of times, and even thought it should be defined by the 3 "f"s which were something like "fire, farting and forest".
Things were going well in the meetings. I made it through, all the way to dinner. And as we were sitting around, the transportation logistics came up. How were "guy" and "cousin" going to arrive at the campground we had set the tent up at earlier that afternoon? It was on the way for no one, being about 11 miles outside of town to the north west, and everyone else was either in town, south, or east of town. I volunteered to drive them out and help them collect firewood and food along the way. We left around 9:30 or so in the evening, which didn't seem too bad. However, by the time we got some "food" and some firewood and made it to the campground, it was nearing midnight, and it was starting to drizzle; I was also getting sleepy, and I was way the heck out in the middle of nowhere without street lights or cell phone coverage, and I started to be concerned about what could happen.
The manly men invited me to stay the night. They had for themselves a 3-room tent, 2 camp cots and 3 sleeping bags (just in case), and so really they thought it fine for me to join them as long as I wasn't put out by the testosterone. I agreed, and we set about trying to light the manly fire. First, however, I donned appropriate clothing, a turtleneck sweater and my light wool jacket, along with a pair of gloves I had in the car. The guys on the other hand just had t-shirts and shorts, which was a little chilly at this point. Remember drizzle? It had developed into rain. No worries, really, I produced a large golf umbrella from the car, big enough for the 3 of us to stand under and keep dry. However, it was apparently too wet for fire. I suggested we spray the logs with some of my hairspray and then light it...and it worked, until the hairspray burned off. Some drunk college students stumbled over to help, and opine over the fire, but they were too drunk to offer more than beer. After about an hour, we gave up the first "f" of manly camping. No worries, we still had forest and flatulence to keep us on track!
Gallant young cousin gave up his camp cot for me, and decided to be most manly and sleep on the cold hard ground. We arranged ourselves each in a room, with me on one end, and the guy all the way on the other. We had privacy and I had a camp cot and warm, fuzzy jammies (I had packed them just in case, one never knows what's going to happen when you go to meet the parents of a new boyfriend). I also had a fickle tummy that began seriously bothering me around 2 or 3 in the morning. I put on my shoes to walk over to the bathrooms, but when I stepped outside, water covered my whole foot and started pouring into my shoes. While honoring the gods of porcelain, I thought about the situation some. Upon returning to the tent, I woke up young cousin and insisted he take my cot as it was getting colder and he would soon be wet if he stayed on the ground. I headed across the tent to cuddle up with my guy on his cot. I hadn't planned on sleeping with him so soon, which was good, since every time I started to drift off, he started snoring in my ear, and I didn't actually get any sleep.
I started to get really cold. I kept begging my guy to hold me, and particularly to cover my back. I kept checking and my jammies were not riding up, I was not exposed, and yet I grew colder and colder. I couldn't sleep, between snoring and cold, it was too uncomfortable. Soon my nose had that icy feeling that comes when the temperature drops into the freezing range. I guess I must have drifted off at some point, because as dawns light was just beginning to break, cousin came in in shorts and t-shirt and announced he was going off to explore a little. As he left, I noticed that the tent roof was sagging a lot more than I would have expected from rain, but I was too tired to think much about it.
Cousin came back in less than 5 minutes, he was shivering. "Guys, it snowed" he announced. He went back to try to warm up in his sleeping bag, but having left it for a while, it too was now cold and he couldn't get warm. "Hey, can I come in with you?" he called. Within seconds, he'd dragged his cot and sleeping bag over, and piled in with us in our new, double-cot setup. Cozy doesn't go far enough to describe the situation.
Did I mention the dog? Yes there was a dog, a poodle to be precise. And she was shivering away in a corner of the tent, more accustomed to a warm house than cold woods in strange places where it snows in late May. In seconds flat, she too had joined us to try to take advantage of group body heat.
So there we were: 3 people, 2 camp cots and a dog, piled in one large heap, doing all that we could to stay warm. We thought about leaving, but that would mean getting up, that would mean getting cold, and the boys only had summer clothes. For me it was not too tragic since I had warm fuzzy jammies and that nice wool jacket. But trying to figure out what to do was more than our cold, sleepy brains could process at that moment, so we stayed put until 9 AM.
Around then a car horn sounded, and we heard a voice calling. It was the guy's dad. Panic raced through me as I thought "Oh no, what if he sees us all in bed together, what will he think?" Which was probably ridiculous since he'd likely think it had snowed, and we were camping, so we did what reasonable people who cared about not freezing to death would do and piled in together. Dad had come to rescue us and take us for a nice hot breakfast. I retreated to another room while we all dressed. We grabbed the golf umbrella, got into the car and drove off for the nicest, warmest breakfast I'd ever had.
So that was manly camping. As we mulled over the situation, relived and recounted it, something funny came to light. Remember my warm clothes, my fire starters, my large golf umbrella? Cousin noted that in manly camping, I had turned out to be the manliest camper of them all...that and that he had "slept" with me.
5 years later, I found myself with the same guy, our 2 children, and on only my 2nd camping adventure without a campfire.
Jun 28, 2007
The Secret Lives of Dolphins
A couple of weeks ago my husband and I decided to go sea kayaking. I’ve been kayaking on numerous occasions. It was a past time of mine in the days before babies to check out the various kayaking locations around the state of bliss I lived in. So I was game for a little paddling adventure on the Atlantic Ocean, at lest I thought I was. As it turned out, paddling was half the issue really. Getting in the kayak was another thing altogether. Though the water was relatively calm, my beloved insisted on getting in right at the shoreline instead of on the lovely sandbar I could see was just ahead of us. Having grown up on an island, I know a sandbar when I see one. He was not aware that there was a shallow spot looming ahead of us. And the problem with getting in where we were was the waves. They kept crashing right in my face as we tried to get past them. At one attempt at getting in they knocked me out of the kayak. And I’m not as small as I used to be. I have a feeling I looked something like a sick whale attempting to climb into a small boat. Eventually, though, after much swearing, a threat to quit and a large scrape on my knee, I did make it into the boat and we got out past the waves.
It was a nice day on the water. Out past the shore there were no waves; it was quite calm. We were enjoying ourselves, paddling around a short distance from the beach, when all of the sudden we saw and heard dolphins jumping. We paddled as quickly as we could in their direction, and soon found ourselves in the middle of their pod, with dolphins jumping near and far in several directions. It was an amazing experience; the first encounter I’ve had with dolphins in the wild. So we tried to figure out where they were going, and position ourselves nearby. However, when we would paddle, the dolphins would stop jumping. It was a constant challenge to get to a good spot, and wait long enough for the dolphins to reappear, but not so long that we found ourselves too far away from them. It was amazing to hear the gentle blowing sound they made as they surfaced for air and to realize they were so close. At one point, 2 came up just behind our Kayak close enough to have touched them with the paddle. What a thrilling adventure.
Now I have been a lover of marine life for years. The ocean was all around me as a child, and I delighted in learning all about it and the animals that lived in it. At one point in my life I wanted to be a marine biologist, until I learned it was hard to eat on their average salary. Dolphins are one of those amazing creatures that I’ve never been able to get too much of. For my birthday, on our honeymoon (yes, the 2 event coincided) I asked to go swim with dolphins while we were enjoying the Florida Keys. It was thrilling experience.
So now that my 2 year old also loves animals, we indulge her requests to head over to Sea World regularly. Our first stops are very predictable: Manatees and Dolphins. While other folks line up for hours in the hot sun to feed the dolphins, we know what they do not discover until after they’re hot, sweaty and sunburned: there is an underwater viewing window that allows you to get even close, and it’s AIR CONDITIONED! We head there and watch as long as we like.
Yesterday we visited our friends the dolphins once again. They were swimming, playing, eating and…what were those 2 doing over there? Was that what I think it was? Oh my goodness, right in front of our eyes 2 of them were going at it! There was absolutely no denying what was happening. I was a little shocked and embarrassed for them. Such graceful creatures, only sex while swimming appears to be a bit of a challenge. I’m sure it wasn’t made easier by the relatively small enclosure they swim in with several other dolphins, and all of us humans standing there gawking at the, um, “activity”.
I have to say that while I have loved dolphins for much of my life, I have never exactly felt a need to see dolphin love. Sex has always been a rather taboo subject in my life. I suspect my mother thought it was a bit dirty. I wasn’t concerned for my girls, they’re too young to have noticed. But there was a mother, and her son, maybe 10 years old, standing behind us. He pointedly asked “Mom, what are those 2 dolphins doing?” Embarrassed, she tried to offer a polite, and misleading answer about maybe they were fighting. However, this was no stupid 10 year old, he turned to his mother and said “I know what they’re doing, they’re mating!” It was kind of hard to deny it at that point. I felt badly for that mother. One doesn’t normally take the kids to Sea World for sex education!
Jun 1, 2007
Waisting Away
I was standing in line at the grocery store checkout the other day. Being blissfully free of children (which those mothers of you out there will know is second only to lying on the beach with a fruity drink in your hands), I was not too wrapped up in mediating sibling tensions to peruse the wide selection of magazines targeted at women like me. I was briefly distracted by a magazine that claimed to hold the key to turning your passions into employment, until I noticed that it was a magazine for women age 40+. While that is fine and good, and certainly women age 40+ should have magazines just for them, I felt like it would be cheating to read it. You know, like the beautiful young blonde who is under-qualified, under-experienced, but overly buxom, who comes in and steals a coveted position from the older, more experienced, more intelligent mother of 3 who sags a little more around the curves than her perky young rival. That is not to say that I’m perky or young, or buxom or blonde. But I felt like it would be wrong, nevertheless, to steal wisdom intended for my esteemed elders, and appropriate it for my own use.
So I turned my gaze to the other side of the aisle and my eyes landed an a pseudo tabloid I suppose. A magazine on newsprint called Woman’s somethingerother…I’m not exactly sure. This was a magazine targeted directly to me. The thin, smiling woman on the cover was offered up as proof that you could start shedding belly fat TODAY! Now that is something that was meant for the under 40 housewife in me with an enlarged belly that appeared when I got pregnant the first time, and has never since retreated. This magazine had no age limits or guilty pearls of wisdom intended for others.
I turned quickly to the page that promised to help me shrink my grand belly. “Foods that help you burn belly fat” it promised. I was quickly captivated and read the break out sections, and bullet points they highlighted for those of us with little time or attention span. And quickly I was terribly disappointed. It was as if any idiot could write a weight loss article. The promises of new revelations faded quickly in the face of information I already knew!
Limit you calories to 1400 daily: What? 1,400 Calories?! Anything more than 1,200 daily for me and I grow more rapidly than one of those magic dinosaurs in a capsule that expands to 15 times its original size in 24 hours.
Eat meals of no more than 500 calories: It went on to say that while a woman over 30 couldn’t burn a 1,000 calorie meal as well as her younger counterpart, there was little difference in how both women burned a 500 calorie meal. Let me just point out to my reader (who is no doubt of higher intelligence than the writer of this article) that it would be rather STUPID to eat a 1,000 calorie meal when you’re limited to 1,400 a day. Eating 71% of your daily caloric allotment in one sitting is rather like spending 75% of your monthly budge on a single item of clothing.
Eat 6 times a day: Okay, small, frequent meals is a popular diet strategy, proposed by many of the most popular diets including weight watchers. But if we take the first 3 items together, it would be impossible to do this diet. I’m supposed to eat 500 calorie meals, but 6 times daily while not exceeding 1400 calories…you do the math!
Avoid refined carbohydrates: So I see the author has read the South Beach diet, and probably Dr. Atkin’s book as well. Thank you very much for adding nothing new to the diet dialogue!
Avoid highly processed foods: You mean I can’t live on wonder bread, hotdogs and velveeta?! What a shocker!
Eat lean protein: Here we go again with the south beach/ atkins wisdom. I’m glad to know the author of this “article” can at least read and comprehend a book, even if he has nothing original to add.
Do aerobic exercise: the point here is to choose whole body workouts instead of targeted abdominal work. I’ve done enough sit-ups and abdominal isometrics in my life to tell you they don’t work.
So I put the magazine down, thoroughly disappointed. Yes, I was the intended target reader, the frazzled mother with more belly to lose than will power. However, I was supposed to have those children in the cart wrestling over control of a pocket pack of tissues snatched off the shelf next to them. I wasn’t supposed to have time to pre-read the article and find out that it had NOTHING NEW to offer, or that there were no magic fat burning foods.
Hanging my head in disappointment, I placed the contents of my shopping cart onto the conveyer belt. Yes, there were 2 half gallons of ice cream (I know, that’s a whole gallon, but somehow it feels better to say half gallon). And here is where the truth comes in. I know all of this stuff already. I’ve read and tried Atkins, South Beach and Weight Watchers. I’ve lost weight in the past, I’ve walked miles and miles in the process. I know how to do this.
My problem at this point in my life is that I don’t want to give anything up. I want to be able to eat my ice cream and still watch the pounds drop off. I decide to try one diet, and then another in rapid succession. And apparently it doesn’t work to eat an Atkins meal for lunch and a weight watchers dinner. I don’t want to stick to any one plan and miss out on the flavors I love. Frankly, at this point, I like food more than my size 4 dresses that hang ever hopefully in the back of my closet.
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