White Water Parenting

Traveling with children always presents a certain set of challenges, but vacationing with two teenagers and a tween has occasionally pushed my husband and I to our limits of the "Fun Family Memories" parents, turning us into "Just Get in the Car and Be Quiet" parents.  While planning this summer's trip,  I tried to find something that we'd all enjoy, but didn't have to drive eight hours to get to, or fork over money we don't have to wait in long lines for over-priced activities.  Or that wouldn't  lead my husband and I to AA.

When I hit upon going to Leavenworth, a Bavarian-themed town in Eastern Washington (a mere 2.5 hours away), I was sure I had a winner.  My husband was excited to go white water rafting, we could invite his mother along, and with the hotel serving up putt-putt golf, a swimming pool and a game arcade, there was something for everyone.  Our oldest quickly voiced his disapproval--he had "plans" for that weekend, complaining loudly and often about the injustices of a family vacation.  Our middle child was unimpressed and the youngest had some serious misgivings about bouncing around on a raging river in a glorified floaty.

I don't care, just get in the car and be quiet.

Our journey started off smoothly enough--having Grandma in the car with us damped down some of the outbursts of teenage irritation.  (Note to self:  bring mother-in-law along on all trips.)  When we got to our rafting trip, however, I started to feeling some doubt.  I looked around at the other participants and noted the lack of children in the group.  I worried they all knew something about this adventure that I had somehow missed in the fine print.  Was this not appropriate for the under 20 set?  Were they all judging me for exposing my children to danger?  It didn't help that our guide, in giving the training speech, was talking about what to do should you fall out of the raft.  Or as he specified, were "forcibly ejected" from the raft.  Um, wait...What?!

Once we went through the first set of rapids (class IV, huge wall of water in my face, felt like I was about to be forcibly ejected), our two younger children began to have a few doubts of their own--younger daughter was clinging to my arm and asking when it would be over--but nothing says family togetherness like fighting a wall of water in a glorified floaty.  We paddled on.

As the trip continued some amazing things took place.  After we passed the roughest of the rapids,  our guide let a few members of our rafting team try out the kayaks.  Our oldest teen got in one and was immediately transformed into a smiling, confident young man who seemed to be a natural on the river.  Our middle child went in a two person kayak with her father and they ended up tipping themselves into some lesser rapids. Once they managed to right themselves, she was no longer so blasé.  This river was the real deal and she'd have to work to get to the end--and she enjoyed the challenge.  By the last leg of our trip, our youngest, the one who had to be talked into this whole thing, was sitting on the edge of our raft, paddling along with everyone else and hardly flinching when splashed or bumped.

I sat in that raft in the middle of the Wenatchee River and was amazed at the confidence of our children and their ability to adjust.  I was proud of each of them for finding their way in this adventure I'd forced on them,  And then I gave myself a small little pat on the back for coming up with this idea (and for having such wonderful children).

Parenting, if you will, is like white water rafting.  You head out on your adventure with excitement and energy, but when you get a look at what you're in for you start to wonder if you're up for it (but by then it's too late).  You hit those first big bumps and you learn you'd better hold on tight and paddle for all you're worth.  Once you reach a patch of calmer water and get a chance to look back at where you've been,  you realize you're a little tougher than you thought.  And you just keep going.

Or parenting is like white water rafting because you do a lot of yelling and praying, praying that you're going to make it out of this alive.

While this is an actual photo of our trip, identities have been changed to protect the innocent (and so you can't tell how much I was screaming).

Thanks to Osprey Rafting Company for a fine afternoon of adventurous parenting.

Serious Business Stuff vs. Important Life Stuff

It is a fact that I have a slightly above average head size, a family trait I have passed on to two of my three children (sorry kids!).  I like to tell people this makes more room for all my brains, but I suspect my husband sees it as a sign of my hard-headedness.  However you look at it, there is one thing of which I am convinced:  there is a finite amount of space in my head and I am guarding access to it like a shotgun-toting father of a teen girl on prom night.

There are some things I choose not to let into my consciousness on principle, like the name of Kim Kardashian's baby, the minute details of Lindsay Lohan's time in rehab or anything to do with the "Real Housewives" of anywhere.  None of these people are allowed anywhere near my synapses.  As Gandhi once said "I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.”

I am not generally a facts and figures kind of gal ("gal" is a word my husband uses in everyday conversation--it always makes me think of one of the female cast members of Oklahoma).  Any seminar titled "How Algorithms Can Improve Your Life" would be a sure sign to me of the coming apocalypse.  I was a liberal arts major; I'm more about ideas, different view points and no wrong answers.

Unfortunately, there are all sorts of situations in adult life where there are very wrong answers.  My husband owns his own business and I, as Empress of the Office (his Gal Friday, if you will) am in charge of accounts payable/accounts receivable/payroll/taxes/insurance/etc./ad nauseum.  Here, there are wrong answers up the ying-yang and if you slip up some government-type person will come audit you, hanging out in your office/dining room for three days straight, looking disapprovingly at your filing system.  (Or so I've heard.) In this instance I must put my large noggin to work and store all sorts of tax code, procedures and accounting software. 

For the most part I am okay with this--we have a CPA who oversees the important stuff (and doesn't laugh at me when I screw up)--but other times I feel the facts and figures encroaching on my brain cells.  Today I received an email from our payroll company that made me want to pull up the drawbridge and call for the hounds:  "Are you compliant with these employment regulations?"  Huh?  What regulations?  Where?!  I don't want to know about any regulations!!!!

In order to protect myself from this evil, I immediately called upon the Angel Gabriel Garcia Marquez, flipped open my thesaurus (safe, unmolested, impervious) and quoted the first line from Pride and Prejudice ("It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.")  I quickly deleted the message.  Crisis adverted...this time.

What if the minutiae of Serious Business Stuff knocks out of my head something I think is really important?  What if the tax rate in Moclips bumps out the lyrics to Bohemian Rhapsody?  What if the method to run corporate credit cards through QuickBooks replaces the spot where I kept the plot summary of Jane Eyre??  Could my ability to twirl Double Dutch jump ropes be taken over by my supreme skill in billing air compressors to third party leasing corporations that are being dropped shipped out of state?!?

So I put up my walls, I listen to my music loudly as I work, maybe dance a little, and I refuse to open any email that contains the words "permit", "policy" or "accreditation".  Occasionally I allow my husband to talk business to me, but only if he buys me dinner first and has my mind back by 11pm.

Not-So-Super Mom

Today I realized I'd thrown out my youngest child's important school paper, complained about having to attend my middle child's track meet and turned my grumpy teenager into angry teenager by not agreeing right away to his request.

Sigh...Maybe I wasn't meant to have children.

We all have those days where nothing seems to go right.  The oven breaks before a big dinner party, you stain your favorite shirt before an important meeting, the dog needs to go to the a vet when the check book is empty.  When you're a parent, however, particularly a mother, it always seems to be your fault.  No more juice in the fridge? Mom... Can't find your favorite shirt?  Mom!  Late getting up for school?  MOMMM!!!  (I've often threatened to change my name to something they can't drag out in that whiny tone.  Maybe Bob.)

I realize some of this is my own fault by doing too much for them.  If I never washed their clothes, they couldn't blame me when they were out of clean socks.  If I never made dinner, they wouldn't notice it was late.  If I didn't love them unconditionally, their complaints wouldn't even bother me.

Ah, there lies the rub. 

Who doesn't want to be Super Mom?  Faster than a puking baby, more powerful than a two-year-old's will, able to leap a pile of laundry in a single bound.    But I am normal, everyday mom who wants what's best for my kids, but some days I'm just too human to pull it off.  Or too tired, or "Do you really need sequin shoes to go with your Dorothy costume?"

So I spent a half hour digging through the recycling bin and located the important school paper.  It may be a little wrinkled and slightly damp (and it just may smell like beer), but it'll be signed and turned in tomorrow.  Middle Child agreed that track meets aren't all that fun, even though she likes the practices.  We decided that maybe next year I could just come watch one of her events and then go home to make dinner.  Grumpy Teenager is still grumpy that the decision he thought was a simple yes or no question needs to weighed in by his dad.  This one, at least, will be blamed partially on my husband (and, no that doesn't make it any easier, but it gives me something to hold onto as I face the wrath of our son).

It's a bird, it's a plane...Oh never mind, it's just my mom.



Today's motherly misdeeds were brought to you by Not Enough Sleep, Too Many Details in One Middle Aged Brain and ARGH, You Need What When?!

Swimsuit Season: Terror in the Dressing Room

I did it, I tried on the first swimsuit of the season.  Men cannot understand how traumatizing this is, they who spend their summers in baggy, elastic waist swim trunks. Most women, however, know that feeling of dread as you walk to the dressing room, a variety of choices in your hand--something colorful, something black; something teeny something tent-like.  None of them will fit right, you tell yourself, let's just get it over with. Or maybe you're optimistic:  They're all so cute, it'll be hard to  pick just one!  (Note:  If that's your internal monologue, you are obviously under the age of 21 and your actual weight matches that listed on your driver's license.  You may stop reading this now, as it doesn't pertain to you.  Or better yet, bookmark this post and come back to it ten years and two kids from now.)

My husband and I are getting ready to go on our annual anniversary trip to Las Vegas (read:  No Kids!!!) and I realized all my swimsuits make me look very matronly.  While some may consider me to be a matron--mid 40's, three kids, minivan and the prerequisite wedding ring--that doesn't mean I want to dress like one. I am hardly obese, but with age comes not only great wisdom, but a slower metabolism.  A few parts of me may be a little rounder, and squishier, than they once were, but that doesn't mean I want to dress like my grandmother.

A few years back I read an article about choosing swimsuits which claimed less is more.  The idea is that if you wear the skirted, cover-up type suit you will look heavier than if you have more skin showing.  The article suggested a string bikini, since the fit is adjustable and therefore will not cut into your flesh, causing...spillage.  In theory this made sense and, feeling adventurous, I went to the local Walmart (first mistake) and choose a couple mix-and-match pieces from the Juniors section (mistake #2) and took them home without trying them on (and three's a charm!).  Let's just say these so-called swimsuit pieces didn't quite cover all my pieces.  I then got to experience the joy of waiting in Walmart's "customer service" line to return them.  The next two summers were very matronly.

This year I planned to get into better shape before our trip through better diet (lots of fruits and vegetables!) and exercise (gym workout every day, maybe running).  As happens all too often, life got in the way.  While I am eating healthier and exercising three times a week, this has not budged a single fat cell.  Apparently my body thinks my family is going to set me adrift on an ice flow, so it is guarding those fat reserves as if my life depended on it.  Let's just say I am not what any self help magazine or lingerie catalog would consider swimsuit shape.

 

So I walked into Target thinking I'd just get a boy-short style swimsuit bottom and maybe a tankini top.  I looked at the choices, which weren't that different from what I had at home, and felt defeated already.  The bikini styles were so much cuter, with more variety and more colors.  And then I remembered that article.  Well, what the H-E-double toothpicks, I thought. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

Which is how I ended up in a dressing room in a bikini--black bottoms with tie sides and green and white polka-dotted top.  And it wasn't horrible.  It's unlikely that the pool boys will be throwing themselves at my feet, but it wasn't horrible.  I will probably not even frighten any small children, though I may provide a cautionary tale to those hard bodied 20-somethings.  The way I figure, most of those at the pool will be drunk anyway, who'll notice if I brought my muffin top with me ?  I myself may partake in a blended drink with an umbrella and fresh fruit garnish (for my diet regimen, of course.) so perhaps I might not notice either. 

And there it hangs, on the back of my bedroom door, reminding me every day for the next three weeks that fruits, vegetables and exercise are the holy trifecta of swimsuit season.
 

If Loving You Is Wrong

Sometimes it's a guilty pleasure, maybe the desire for the unattainable, or just an obsession with a bad boy.  Many of us have had at least one love that we know is wrong, but just can't seem to quit.  I have three.  The objects of my affection may never reciprocate my feelings, and while I know it's wrong for me to care for them so, I just can't--no won't--live without them. And my husband isn't even jealous.


First I will come clean and admit that I love my dishwasher.  Before you start googling "human/dishwasher love", let me state emphatically that this is a spiritual love and not anything base or, ahem, dirty.   Most of the places I've lived as an adult had either no dishwasher or the cheapest model available, possibly purchased on a street corner in the dead of night and very likely from a third world country (whose inhabitants had no idea why we crazy Westerners couldn't just wash our dishes by hand).  One of these could barely even be called a dishwasher--dish rinser would have been a more accurate term.  It absolutely would not wash off peanut butter--this had to be hand washed first and then put in the dishwasher, thereby negating the purpose of this appliance.  The model we have now, a Bosch (which those of you in the know will recognize as the Cadillac of dishwashers) will clean pretty much anything.  I like to test it every once in a while to see its devotion to me and my dirty dishes.  Lasagna pan?  Sure.  Old moldy coffee cup that's been sitting in the back of my husband's work truck for a month?  Clean.  Knife with peanut butter on it?  Hallelujah!  I believe!!  My dishwasher is that love that gives you everything you ask for and never lets you down.

My next love is as big of a shock to me as it was to my teenage daughter.  Who would think that a middle-aged mother of three would fall so hard for the rap song  "Thrift Shop" by Macklemore?  The first time I heard it I was just flipping through radio stations, went past it, then had to go back.  But then I knew:  we were meant to be.  It has a catchy beat, quirky lyrics and will get stuck in your head before you can say "I'm gonna pop some tags." By a Seattle-based rapper, the song and video do not talk about drugs or contain half naked women (which seem to be the staple of the rap world), although I'm sure "your grammy, you aunty, your momma, your mammy" would not approve of some of his language. But that's part of the fun of this song--I get to remember the me that could use swear words with impunity. Now my kids looked scandalized when I sing along with "I'm in this big ass coat."  Thrift Shop is that bad boy we've all fallen for--sure he's fun, but you can't take him home to meet the parents.  Or you kids.

This last love has left me so conflicted, I can barely say it here.  I love Amazon.  While this local company lets me purchase everything from rain boots to MP3 downloads from the comfort of my own laptop, delivered to my door in two business days, I am wracked with guilt every time I log in.  In my former life I was a bookseller at Elliott Bay Book Company a well-respected, independently owned bookstore.  Many independent bookstores are slowly being forced out of business by competition with huge companies, who can bargain for higher discounts and therefore offer lower prices.  This sounds all well and good to the consumer (competition is good, right?), but when you consider these smaller bookstores are staffed by real live people who actually have a say in what appears on their shelves (as opposed to say Costco, who has a corporate book buyer determining their stock), Amazon is the devil.  But I love Amazon!  It all started when I got a Kindle for Christmas a couple years ago--I was hooked after the first ebook download. I can read, play games, stream movies, search the internet and then toss it in my purse and take it with me.  The Kindle was my gateway drug.  Soon I discovered all the wonders that Amazon.com had to offer.  Not just Kindle books (which I download for free from the library), but clothes and shoes and toys and and ipod cases and movies and...Oh, I was hooked big time.  But what about my bookseller friends?  Was I being disloyal?  Was I shopping them out of a job?  It doesn't count if I don't order my books there, right?  I'm very likely going to bookseller's purgatory, where the none of the books have spines and you receive 20 cases of  Donald Trump's rewrite of "Pride and Prejudice."  Amazon is that boyfriend that showers you with attention, but treats your friends like shit.

Barbara Mandrell, that country songstress who rose to fame in the 1980's, knew the turmoil a heart goes through when your love is forbidden. 

Your mama and daddy say it's a shame

It's a downright disgrace

Long as I got you by my side

I don't care what your people say

If loving you is wrong, I don't want to be right.

 

 

 

 

A Dog's Life

Many of us have memories of a favorite pet from childhood.  My family's dog Ralph came to us when he and I were both one.  My mom said that during my toddler years he would follow me around the yard, guarding me from trouble.  Of indeterminate parentage,  Ralph taught me the unconditional love only dogs can offer.  He made me a dog person before I even knew what it was to be a person.

Yet, if you had told me that I would one day spend what roughly equals a mortgage payment on medical bills for my current dog, I would suspect you'd been dipping into the kitty's catnip.  However,  I recently financed (yes, financed) cancer treatment for a dog who only cost $250 brand new, straight off the show room floor (complete with new puppy smell).

Granted, this is not just any dog.  Jack is a 6-year-old yellow lab who is known and loved by the entire neighborhood. He was named after the dog in Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House series and the main character from the book I, Jack by Patricia Finney.  As a puppy he loved nothing more than chewing up anything left unattended:  shoes (especially if they were new), the kids' toys (several Polly Pocket dolls lost limbs one summer afternoon) and even the pump hose while it was still attached to swimming pool, thereby flooding  the entire backyard with water.  Luckily for us all, he grew into the best dog ever.   He knows how to sit, spell (W-A-L-K) and when to act ashamed ("Uh-oh, Jack, what did you do?").  He is a bird dog extraordinaire--pheasants and ducks alike quake at the mere mention of his name.  He is the giver of kisses and the healer of broken hearts.  Jack is a good dog. 

So when we found the lump on his lip the size of a blueberry and the vet mentioned the dreaded C word, I was more than a little upset.  I knew Jack couldn't stay with us forever.  Maybe one day when he could no longer keep up with the younger dog retrieving the birds, after our son went off to college, when our girls had grown past the age that a snuggle with the puppy boy made a bad day a little brighter, I knew we'd have to let him go.  But not yet.

My husband's parents were originally farmers.  Any animals they had served a purpose:  cats killed mice, dogs kept away coyotes, pigs were bacon.  My husband always told me he'd never let a dog sleep in our house--they'd be in a kennel outside.  Today our dogs each have a memory foam bed next to the fireplace.  He always said that he wouldn't pay large amounts of money to keep a dog alive--he'd just go back across the street and buy another lab for $250.  Yet we agreed that Jack was too good of a dog to let go without a fight.  And this kind of fight costs roughly the same as our house payment. 

Yesterday the vet removed the tumor, took chest x-rays and an aspiration of his lymph node to see if the cancer has spread.  Now we wait and see if our future holds a dog named Jack.  And while we make payments on his medical bills, we love him and spoil him and let him give us as many kisses as he wants. 

When the day comes that Jack is no longer a happy dog, when going for a walk no longer makes him wag his whole self with excitement, when his body no longer lets him enjoy this life, I will have to let him go.  That is what good pet owners do.


Jack is the dog our kids will remember their whole lives.   He will be the dog that sets the benchmark for every other pet they ever own.  When they come back to visit us as grown ups and we reminisce  about the old days, I know Jack will come up with every other memory.  Remember when we first got Jack and his coloring was so much like Sam's we said they were brothers?  How about when he was a puppy and used to stand on top of the dining room table?  Or how he ate half of that birthday cake and then got sick all over the house?  Now that was a good dog.

White Girls Can't Hula

(I am a week and a half into my Lenten Facebook Fast and realized that without my addiction, I have lots to do.  Like lots of stuff I wasn't getting done because I was busy dinking around on Facebook.  So, being busy, and therefore exhausted, I also haven't been writing much.  I was determined to get something written tonight, when I discovered this post I started in January and never finished.  Here I give you the reason why I'm giving up my Caucasian Membership Card.)


I recently returned from a family trip to Hawaii and I have come to a startling conclusion:

I am entirely too white.

Yes, it's true--with a ethnic background made up exclusively of Northern Europeans, I spent a week in tropical sunshine and never got more than a shade past pasty.  I have tried to embrace my milky skin tone, but having married into a family of olive-complected sun-lovers does tend to give one a bit of a complex. 

How I look to Hawaiians

While I would have liked to come home with a Coppertone tan, I realized during our trip that it was more than my skin color that pales in comparison to the Hawaiian natives.  It became clear as I listened to tour guides, talked to locals and watched the dancing at a luau that perhaps my personality was also too white.  Have let myself slip into a stereotype of a "typical" Caucasian American?  I might as well been wearing Bermuda shorts, socks with sandals, and camera draped around my neck.  As the locals talked about traditions and local culture, I felt like I must seem pretty bland and boring to them. 

While I don't mean to suggest that being a Caucasian American is a bad thing, let's face it, we don't always embrace differences, which doesn't make much sense, living in a melting pot of a country. (Give us your tired, your poor--unless they speak a funny sounding language or worship a god other than our own.)  We also don't have the best reputation when dealing with native people (smallpox anyone?) or those with skin color any darker than taupe (I'll take a side of segregation and Jim Crowe laws, please).  What did we Northern European Americans contribute to the cultural landscape?  White bread, fast food and strip malls, to name a few. I can proudly say my own ancestors brought you Ballard and lutefisk.  (Ohh, how exotic!)

One of the bus drivers in Honolulu explained the meaning of aloha as "sharing the breath of life" and that Hawaiians used to greet each other by breathing through their noses into each other's face, thus sharing their spirit.  "Haloe", he said, meant "one who doesn't share the spirit."  Apparently some non-natives took offense to strangers exhaling in their face. 

I have decided to be haole no more.  I will breathe in your face and accept the spirit of my fellow humans.  I will learn about other cultures and step out of my comfort zone. 


How I think I look in Hawaii

I will not wear socks with my sandals.


A recent issue of Sunset magazine has an article about the Hawaiian lifestyle, by Kaui Hart Hemmings, author of The Descendants. In it she describes the kind of laid back life style and spirit of community many would envy.  I am ready to embrace my place as a true Hawaiian cousin.

I may have been born an uptight white girl, but I believe I have the soul of a wahine (who just happens to burn unless she's wearing SPF 30 sunblock). 





(In researching the term "haole" I stumbled across an article entitled Haole? The Unbearable Whiteness of Being.  I wish I would've come up with that title first.)