Beautiful Day for a Bike Ride

I consider myself to be both a Californian and a New Yorker and, as such, I continually find myself comparing my two home states to one another. After four and a half years of comparison I feel confident in saying that the biggest difference between New York and California is the weather. Coming in a close second is NY’s profound lack of decent Mexican food…

In general Southern Californians rarely consider the weather. The school calendars don’t have to leave room for snow days. Theme parks don’t have to close for the winter. And invitations to summer barbeques don’t have to come with the disclaimer, “Weather permitting.” Basically, it’s always pleasant in So Cal- heck, you can practically wear flip flops year round!-  and even when it rains people are in good spirits just because the rain is such a novelty. No one frets about the forecast in California. In fact, the only reason we watch the morning weather report is to find out whether or not we need to throw a hoodie into our beach bag on the way out the door.

But to New Yorkers, weather is everything. Our entire lives are impacted by the slightest change in climate. We hesitate to make plans too far in advance because we need to see the forecast first. Our hottest summers are unbearably humid and our coldest winters are far below freezing. So when it’s 30 degrees and sunny, like it was earlier this week, a New Yorker doesn’t hesitate to get outside and enjoy the beautiful weather!

When I saw the forecast for Wednesday I knew exactly what we were going to do that day. Jamie’s grandparents sent him a gift card for his birthday so I took the kids to Toys 'R Us and we picked out a couple of new bicycles. While checking out at the register I was asked if we wanted to pay the extra $10 for assembly and come back the next day to pick up our bicycles. I was very tempted, but knowing that the weather was supposed to take a turn for the worst, I declined and decided I’d assemble the bikes myself. Josie and Jamie were so excited about their new bikes that they refused to fall asleep on the car ride home even though it was late in the afternoon and they were both exhausted from a busy day. Jamie, especially, kept his eyes fixated on the shiny new bicycle sitting in the folded-down back seat beside him. I think he was afraid that if he was to lose sight of it for an instant it might mysteriously disappear. Once we arrived home I moved quickly to break open the box, locate the tools, and begin assembly before we ran out of daylight. I didn’t bother telling the kids to take their naps. There was no waiting until tomorrow to ride bikes, because tomorrow was bringing rain and snow.  I worked as quickly as I could and we hustled outside with our helmets. My construction work was faulty and the bikes were close to collapsing into pieces while the kids attempted to ride them down the street. But they didn’t care in the least. They were just too happy to be outside, breathing in the fresh air, playing and laughing. It was a beautiful day for a bike ride.

This scene reminds me of racing my brother and sister down the dirt road that ran beside our house as kids...minus the snow banks.

I am so happy that we took advantage of the opportunity when it arose because, sure enough, today we are snowed in. New Yorkers have a deep appreciation for beautiful weather that Californians will never understand. And what do Californian’s have (besides great weather, that is)? They have unbeatable Mexican food.

Sky Blue Splurge

There are times in our lives that we do things against our better judgment. We know full well going into them that we shouldn’t and that there will be consequences to pay afterwards, and yet we do them anyways. We eat an entire tube of store-bought Nestle cookie dough in one sitting. We spend way too much at the store because there’s a sale that we just can’t pass up. We watch a scary movie before bed…..And almost immediately, we regret our decision. Our stomachs ache from the sugar overload. We drive home afraid to tell our husbands how much we spent. We can’t fall asleep because bloody horror scenes keep flashing under our half-closed eyelids. If I had to put a name to this type of activity, I would call it a splurge.  It’s an act of extreme indulgence. Unfortunately, such immediate gratification almost always comes with a price.

Yesterday’s household activity would most definitely be classified under this category. For some reason or another I decided to let Josie and Jamie help me paint the upstairs bathroom. I’m not even going to attempt to explain how I came to make this choice because, as is true with all splurges, my decision making process was comprised of a long strain of meaningless justifications and very little well formulated reasoning. Before I knew it my 4 year old and 2 year old were up to their elbows in sky blue wall paint with smiles that stretched from ear to ear, and once my better judgment had kicked in there was no going back. Thankfully, I was thinking clear enough to strip both the kids of their clothes. There’s nothing wrong with an occasional lapse in judgment, but soiling perfectly cute Gymboree outfits is completely unacceptable. Every moment of the activity was supervised. I took turns showing each of the kids how to use the paintbrush and the roller and as soon as I took my eyes off one, the other would dribble paint across the floor or fling it on the walls.

Every time Josie splattered paint in an inappropriate place she would look at me with her big dark brown eyes and say, “Sorry Mommy.” But her face said more. It was saying, “I’m so sorry, Mommy. Please don’t take my paintbrush away. I’ll be more careful.” I just smiled and said, “It’s okay,” and reached for the paper towels. Then she would resume her energetic strokes. 

 Jamie in particular had very little understanding of the properties of wet paint. He bumped just about every surface of his naked body against the wall. By the end, his hair, his lips, his hands, his feet, his belly, both his butt cheeks, and even the tip of his little penis were a beautiful sky blue. (I realize that if he ever reads this when he is older he is going to be mortified, which makes writing it all the funnier).  

Every portion of the wall that the kids painted had to be repainted later, in order to flatten the thick, globby brushstrokes. Very little progress was made.

By the end, the kids were covered in paint that had to be scrubbed so hard before it came off that it left their skin raw, and even then we didn’t get it all. The bathroom floor, the bath tub, the toilet, and the sink are still speckled with paint and it will probably take me more time to scrape it off than it did to paint the walls.

But for a while it was really fun. I think the kids knew how special it was for mommy to have actually agreed to let them help. They were giggling with excitement. Maybe it was because the paint fumes were short circuiting my brain cells, but there were a couple minutes when I forgot about all the other problems facing me in the outside world and was able to just enjoy my little happy family, all crammed together in a sky blue bathroom. I love eating a tube of cookie dough as much as anyone, but letting my kids paint with me…now, that’s a splurge worth paying the consequences for!

Get My Kids to the Church on Time

My life is full of amazing moms. My friend Kristen works professionally part-time but always engages her children in heartfelt & informative conversations, giving them her un-divided attention whenever the opportunity arises, no matter how big of a headache she may have from her stressful day. My friend Chrissy uses cloth diapers, communicates with her babies using sign language, and cooks gourmet organic meals using flax seed and wheat germ. My friend Colleen takes her kids to weekly music classes, serenades them with her beautiful voice on car rides, and has instilled in them at an early age an inspiring passion for music and dance. To top it off, they all have rockin’ hot bodies, immaculately clean houses, and solid Christian marriages. I know that they will be angry at me for comparing myself to them in a belittling blog post, but that just further proves my point that they are truly amazing people! And it’s not just them. My friends Erin, Laura, Heather, Joy, Lindsey, and Shelby are all amazing women raising young children who continually go above and beyond. They take my expectations of what it means to be a mom and raise them.

Now I’m not one to back down from a challenge. I am eager to improve. I love to strive for bigger and better things and I am thankful to these women for their rousing examples of motherhood. BUT….

Being surrounded by amazing moms makes me conscious of my own perpetual shortcomings. I don’t sing to my kids, I don’t use cloth diapers, I rarely have the patience to answer my kids’ endless questions, I don’t make them eat all their veggies, I don’t take them outside to play every day, and the list could go on and on and on. At the end of every day, I am filled with guilt thinking of the things that I did not do but should have, and I am ashamed at the ways I am constantly depriving my beloved children of the upbringing they deserve. Sometimes it’s enough to make me want to throw up my hands in surrender.

And in that moment, when I am tempted to admit defeat and accept that I will never be as amazing as Kristen, Chrissy, and Colleen, I decide that it’s important to stop focusing on the things that I don’t do. I have to give myself credit for those things that I do do.

One thing that I do- and I do it well!- is get my kids to church on time. It might not sound like much, especially to those people who either don’t have kids, don’t attend church, or who aren’t without a spouse, but there’s something to be said about getting a family or four fed, dressed, and out the door by 8 AM. My mornings usually start around 5 AM, when I am dragged out of bed by the hungry cries of baby Johnny. By the time I am finished nursing him (for what is usually the third or fourth time of the night), Josie and Jamie have pulled themselves out of bed and are waiting for me by the nursery door. We all herd downstairs together in a big pajama clad mob. My first line of business is to crank up the furnace, then let the puppy outside before he does his business on the carpet, and finally to turn on some Sunday morning cartoons. Sesame Street doesn’t air this early so thank God for DVR’d episodes of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. One twenty minute episode is enough time for me to email James and inform him of any and all important family developments (which is a vital responsibility of a supportive Navy wife) and I can usually sneak in a facebook status update here too. Next we shuffle into the kitchen for breakfast. I have found that it’s important to make a big breakfast on Sundays so that the kids don’t accost me for food between Sunday school and worship service. Of course, the kids want to help cook so Josie cracks the eggs and Jamie whisks the batter and I clean up the resulting mess. While the pancakes are on the griddle I empty the dishwasher, run upstairs to plug in my curling iron, flip the pancakes, fetch some meat from the basement freezer to thaw for dinner, and start a load of laundry. Some mornings I have to throw a sausage casserole into the oven because it’s my turn to provide snack for the Sunday school class. We all finish our food and after wiping the sticky syrup off little fingers and faces it’s time to head upstairs to get dressed. Picking out outfits is one of my favorite parts of the day and if at all possible I try to color coordinate the kids and sometimes even me. It never fails that an accessory or two of the chosen outfits has gone missing so I spend the next ten to fifteen minutes upending mattresses, combing the closets, or wrestling the dog to retrieve socks, belts, and curly hair ribbons. Around the time I have Josie, Jamie, and Johnny in their clothes, the littlest one decides it’s time for a nap- which actually works out perfectly to give me a chance to get myself dressed. I can slip into an outfit in minutes and then I twist some curlers into my hair. If mother nature necessitates it, this is the time that I pull my snow boots on over my dress slacks and head outside into the freezing cold morning to shovel my car out of the snow or chop the ice off my windshield. Once I’m back inside there is just enough time to pull the curlers out of my hair, slap on a thin layer of make-up, and then cram some fresh diapers into my diaper bag. On especially efficient mornings I am able to put all the toys that were pulled out that morning into their appropriate bins and run the vacuum over the living room floor, because there’s nothing worse than coming home to a cluttered house and tripping over a Potato Head as soon as you walk in the front door. Finally, we all line up in front of the stairwell and put on our boots, jackets, hats, and gloves and scurry out to the car. Off we go!

Six days out of the week I feel like a disappointment, but on Sunday mornings I feel like an amazing woman. I walk through the church parking lot carrying Johnny in one hand and holding Jamie’s hand with the other, who is holding Josie with his other. I am proud to be me in that moment. There are a lot of things that I don’t do, but I do get my kids to the church on time….and that’s really saying something.

Shameless plug: If you need more amazing women in your life then you can find lots of them here, at The First Baptist Church of Ballston Spa. Come join us on Sunday mornings! Sunday School @ 9AM followed by Worship Service @ 10:15.