Cozi Blog

I Know Why They Call Them Shopping Trips

My hairdryer blew up yesterday. It popped and shot sparks. Exciting! While the younger version of me might have said, “Oh, I’ll give it another shot—what’s a little spontaneous combustion in the name of beauty,” the middle-aged me thought back to her days at orchestra camp.

One of my fellow campers, an impossibly cool older girl named Helen, had the misfortune of having her hair dryer explode in her hand. It left a huge burn on her palm, am unforgettable sight that really put me off my morning oatmeal. 

Rather than cook my palm, I decided to take the girls shopping for a replacement.

Ordinarily, I avoid shopping with the kids. It’s exhausting. Take, for example, the time we were at REI getting wool socks. The girls figured out if they moved at high speeds through the clothing racks, their hair would get charged with static electricity and stick out of their heads like dandelion fluff. They made like groundhogs and burrowed through every rack in the women’s department. I bleated their names feebly, but it was no use. I don’t compare to static electricity.

Since then, shopping trips with the girls have been few and far between. But I needed a hair dryer, so Target it was. I don’t know about your kids, but mine think everything at Target is awesome, starting with the doors. They like to pretend they have magic fingers, and they run at the doors at top speed with their hands extended. Like magic, the doors open.

Unless you’re Alice and you run with your magic fingers toward the EXIT door. Then, it’s a good thing you can come to a quick stop in your golden sneakers.

The girls also like the security camera, which projects images of shoppers on a TV suspended from the ceiling. Lucy likes to perform for the benefit of the camera and whatever security guards happen to be watching.

But it’s when we get to the actual store part that the excitement truly begins.

Lucy is convinced she needs a new bathing suit. “Mine shows my bottom.”

Alice thinks a tiny trench coat like mine is an urgent and necessary purchase.

Lucy wonders, loudly, when she will be able to wear a bra.

Then Alice wants to get a giant Hallmark card with a puppy on it to give to Lucy, who is standing right there and won’t be surprised and who already has a live, grown-up and housebroken version of the same kind of dog at home.

But it is when we get to the toilet plunger aisle that things really get wild.

I do not understand why they put toilet plungers on the bottom row of the store. Do they think it’s possible for the lowest-slung shoppers—kids under the age of 10—to walk by a toilet plunger and not play with it?

If we were in the market for toilet plungers, I definitely would have picked up one of these, though. They had excellent suction. Lucy and Alice learn this when they stick the plunger to the linoleum.

“IT’S STUCK!” Alice says.

“PULL!” Lucy says.

“I’M TRYING!” Alice says. “HELP!” 

Pulling together with all their might, the girls finally unstick the plunger from the floor. The sound it makes strikes them as hilarious. But it’s not as funny, apparently, as the way I try to gently discipline them.

“Girls,” I say. “Plungers are for the toilet, not the floor.” 

“TOILET!” Alice says. “MAMA SAID TOILET!”

“Plungers are for your butt, not the floor,” Lucy says.

“LUCY SAID BUTT!” Alice reports. “LUCY SAID BUTT!”

“Yes,” I say. “I heard her. Everyone heard her. Gaaaa!”

By this time our cart is full of cleaning supplies, thank you cards and Valentines, but I have the nagging feeling that something is missing. I just can’t remember what.

As I steer the cart toward the check-out aisle, Lucy says, “I need a paddle brush for my hair. It’s tangly and the lady who cut it said a paddle brush was the best so I really need to get one.”

Hair! Hair-dryer! The thing I’d come for in the first place! We turn around and head for the hair-care aisle.

Alice wants me to buy a pink one. Lucy thinks I should get the one with leopard spots. I compromise, and using the parent’s definition of the word, buy the one I liked best. And Lucy gets her paddle brush.

On the way out, Lucy asks for a Snickers bar. I say no. Alice asks for a Reese’s Peanut Butter cup. “There are two,” she says. “We could share.”

It’s another “no.”

Behind me, a mom stands in line with her teenage daughter.

“Sound familiar?” she says.

The stranger’s daughter laughs. Then she says, “Hey, mom. Can I have some gum?”

--Martha Brockenbrough

 

Humbled by Love

I didn't grow up in a touchy-feely house. My parents are perfectly loving people, but they weren't so much into the hugs and kisses. And no one in our house said, "I love you" except maybe one of the talking dolls we got second-hand from kids whose parents believed in toys as opposed to, say, coffee cans and sticks.

As a result, I had a hard time saying the word when I was a child. I couldn't even read it out loud. Things weren't all that different in my husband's family.

Adam and I managed to survive, but something weird happened to us in the intervening years. I don't know if it was the effects of watching "Free to Be You and Me" or more likely, altogether too much "Love Boat."

But we are both huggy and kissy and pretty free with the "L" word, especially with our kids.

As a result, Lucy and Alice say "I love you" all the time.

They say it when they wake up. They say it during meals. They say it whenever they can't think of anything else to say. Mom? Yes? I, I, I...well, I love you. Well thanks! I love you, too.

They also say it after they've dropped poster paint on the floor, as a sort of preemptive strike.

"Um, mom? I love you. And I just spilled a lot of paint! Also, I love you."

And they say it with their friends. Just last week, I picked up Alice at school. The new boy in class - who happens to be adorable - said, "I love you, Alice!" as they were parting. She replied, "I love you, too!"

Overall, I think it's a pretty healthy thing, even if it's not quite the sincerity-fest I'd imagined. After a snowstorm that kept us pretty much housebound for two weeks. Alice said this:

"I love you, Mom. Even more than I love snow. But I really hate snow."

This weekend, we were playing a game of What Would You Do to Save My Life. I asked Alice, who hates fruit, "Would you eat a blueberry to save my life? One teeny, weeny blueberry?"

"Mom, I tried a blueberry before," she said. "I didn't like it."

"But Alice," I replied. "It's to save my life."

She remained unmoved. "You're a grownup," she said. "You'll land on your feet."

I don't know about landing on my feet. But it's certainly nice to know where I stand.

For more adventures in parenting, check out Martha's Family Journal. Record and share your own family moments - start an easy family website today.

 
Brought to you by 1-800-Flowers.com. Get free shipping and no service charge on your Valentine’s order. Dazzle her! Shop now.

--Martha Brockenbrough

In Which My Kids Pass Me By

I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, where it is perfectly normal for people to report to work on Monday with tales of their extreme weekends—skiing, rock-climbing, kayaking, squirrel rodeo. Well, maybe not that last one, but only because the environmentalists would object that it’s demeaning to squirrels to make them wear chaps.

Anyway, when I was a kid, most people I knew were skiers. Even my dad knew how, and as the family lore went, that’s how he broke his ankle, which to this day is a bit on the dodgy side because he soaked the cast off rather than wear it for the prescribed length of time.

(Sort of embarrassing moment: During back-to-school-night event at my middle school, Dad reinjured his ankle while going up the stairs. Parents! Try not to break a leg at school! Really, it would be better if you farted audibly because no teachers would want to ask you about that the next day.)

My mom promised we’d learn to ski when we started high school, but that didn’t happen for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is how much it would have cost to outfit five kids in gear. Some of my more enterprising siblings figured out ways to learn, but I am clumsy and don’t particularly enjoy landing on my face at great speeds, or even at slow speeds.

So, anyway, I can’t ski. Adam can, and last year we signed the kids up for lessons. I didn’t have particularly high expectations. After all, they are half my genetic stock. And from experience, it’s usually taken more than one series of lessons for my kids to really pick up a skill.

Swimming? Lucy took months. And Alice still does what we call the Creepy Cheater Legs on the bottom of the pool. They’re still in the beginning stages of dance, though they’ve been in classes for a few years now.

Apparently, though, skiing is a skill you can pick up a little more quickly. After the first few weeks last year, both Lucy and Alice were gliding down the slopes. This year, they’re riding the chairlift with ease (and usually remembering to get off). 

I sit in the lodge and watch them through the foggy window, usually sharing a beer and a cheeseburger with Adam, and it’s a huge thrill to see them zing down the slopes.

Every so often, things go awry. A few weeks ago, Lucy’s class went one way and she went another, resulting in some dramatic arm gestures and duck-walking as she tried to get back on track. And Alice is of the mistaken belief that she will go faster if she flaps her arms. It does not bother her that she is the only person on the slopes doing this.

For the most part, though, the girls ski really well. And I am struck that this is the first thing in their lives that they can do that I can’t. I’ve talked about taking lessons and joining the rest of the family in the snow, but part of me wants to keep it this way.

It’s so easy for parents to always be the experts in everything. One part of letting our kids grow up is allowing them to try things—and encouraging them even when they’re doing something we can’t or don’t know how to do.

It takes a certain amount of letting go, but the feeling of it...well, if I knew how to ski, I’d probably say it’s like the wind in my hair going down a powdery slope. Exhilarating.

--Martha Brockenbrough

A Birthday Cake Mixed With Vanilla And Light

Alice had a plan on Monday, and from the moment she slipped out of bed in her little orange and purple pajamas, she was all about putting it into place.

“It’s his birthday,” she said. “And we will bake him a cake.”

It took me a minute to realize whom she was talking about. Martin Luther King, Jr. Monday was a day off from school in his honor. I hadn’t planned anything in particular to celebrate beyond the standard, “Martin Luther King, Jr. was brave and helped make the world a better place” business.

I tend not to deliver huge and long messages to my kids on days that are big in the adult calendar. A lot of these important days are more easily understood when you’re older and have a little experience in the world.

Mostly, though, I don’t want my kids to think they’re chumps who have to fake interest in the things that really get me going, things like social justice, poverty, education... I felt like a chump a lot when I was a little kid, especially in church and around the family dinner table.

As usual, though, Alice was several steps ahead.

“I have a dream,” she said, “that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

I had to ask her to repeat herself, just to be sure. But yes, she did remember the sweet spot of Dr. King’s “I have a dream” speech. For some reason, it stuck with her enough that she wanted to share it with me and Lucy at the breakfast table.

“OK,” I said. “We’ll make a cake. What kind?”

At first, Alice wanted to make chocolate cake. I was fine with that. I will always be fine with chocolate cake. But then she changed her mind.

“Vanilla,” she said. “With chocolate frosting so there are brown and white together.”

This sounded like an even better plan.

I started pulling the ingredients out of the pantry when I noticed the vanilla beans I’d brought back from Tahiti when we flew there to bring home my dad after his accident.

They were my one souvenir of the trip, purchased at a covered marketplace we’d walked to during one of the long blocks of time we weren’t allowed to be in the intensive care unit with my dad. I had less than zero interest in shopping at the time, but my brother really wanted to get a Tahitian dancing costume for his daughter. Who was I to stand in the way of a six-year-old and her wee coconut bra?

I do love to cook and had heard great things about Tahitian vanilla, so I picked up a small bag of beans, carried them home, and promptly found myself unable to revisit that trip or that time. It’s hard to explain, but I didn’t want to fold any of that sadness into my food. 

On Monday, though, they seemed like the right ingredient. Just the right ingredient. So I took the bag out of the cupboard and placed it on the counter next to the sugar, the flour, the butter, the eggs, the salt and the baking powder.

Alice and I do quite a bit of cooking together, and I coached her through the steps. She knows how to  measure out ingredients, and she can even crack eggs pretty well. This time, though, she dropped one on the counter. 

Right away, she saw the irritation in my face and teared up. I felt like a jerk, so I gently lifted her off the counter, wiped up the mess, and put her back with a hug.

Then I went to split the vanilla bean so Alice could scrape the insides into the mix. She leaned her head over the bowl to smell. “It sort of looks like dirt,” she said. “But it smells so good.”

“Do you think you’ll remember doing this when you’re all grown up?” I asked her.

What my children remember of their childhoods is a lot on my mind these days. It’s the turning of the year, I suppose. I want to be a better parent this year than I was last, and giving them memories of being thoroughly loved—even when they drop eggs—is part of that.

Her answer floored me.

“I will look into the light and remember everything,” she said. 

I don’t know what she meant by looking into the light, or where she’d heard the expression. It’s certainly not anything I talk about outside the context of “Ghost Whisperer” reruns. But I like the idea of Alice growing up next to a source of brightness she can look to for happy memories. I like even more that she’s discovered it on her own.

Alice is literally half the size of some of her peers, with hummingbird bones and pale, pale skin. I worry about her all the time—until she says things like this.

We decided to make six small cakes using the miniature bundt pans, because that way we could deliver cakes to our friends and neighbors. When they’d cooled, we mixed some frosting, adding a triple portion of melted chocolate so that it was nice and dark. The girls frosted the cakes together while Jimi Hendrix played in the background, and it definitely felt like a party.

Then, one by one, Lucy and Alice delivered the cakes to the neighbors. First, the one who had a stroke two weeks ago and has to relearn how to walk. Then one who lives by herself with barking dogs. Then the one they like to play with. And another for the Brazilian couple that cleans houses.

That left two cakes. One for us, and one for my dad. We drove over to my parents’ house to drop it off and ended up staying for dinner with one of my sisters and her kids. Lucy cut the cake into eight small pieces, and those of us who eat solid foods each had a slice. I sat next to my dad, glad to still be able to enjoy such a simple pleasure.

The cake tasted sweet: of a world that’s getting better all the time, even when it feels like it’s not; of vanilla marinated in sadness and joy; of the light that Alice has discovered in some secret place, and in her innocence, shares with me.

It was a day well spent. Then, the next morning, we had our own cake, the very last one, for breakfast.

--Martha Brockenbrough

In Defense of Quitting

When I was growing up, I had a brute of a swimming coach who’d say things like, “How many points have you scored for the team lately?” He also once pulled my fellow swimmers out of the water and had me swim the length of the pool so he could use me as the “what not to do” example.

And yet, I stayed on the team for seven years because of another of his maxims: “Winners never quit, and quitters never win.”

I kept hoping that if I stuck with it long enough, I’d eventually be one of those kids who was fast enough to score points for the team. It never happened, and to this day, I only get in a pool when my kids beg me to do it.  Even then, I watch the clock until I’ve hit the Fun Mom threshold and then I make the kids get out, usually by bribing them with candy or TV.

On the one hand, I’m glad I can swim and I’m sure I’m a better athlete today because I was in the pool for so much of my childhood. On the other hand, I learned another lesson that’s taken me ages to unlearn: that we don’t have to stick with everything we try.

This week, Lucy stopped taking violin lessons after giving it a three-year go. I’m not saying she quit, because I hate that word and all the stuff it implies.

Part of me is disappointed. I learned to play the viola when I was a teen, and I made so many friends and had such great experiences playing in chamber groups and orchestras. It’s horribly nerdy, but it was beautiful to me. (And, as impossible as this sounds, there were some very cute boys at orchestra camp.) I was hoping for the same sort of thing for Lucy. Even the cute-boy part.

Sometimes, these hopes pan out for parents. I know one remarkable family where the father writes and illustrates picture books, and all three children have made writing and art their careers.

Other times, though, the parent’s dreams are nothing more, and if you’re not careful, your dreams can become a kid’s nightmare.

It became increasingly clear as the months passed by and it got harder and harder to coax Lucy to practice that she wasn’t getting the same joy out of it that I did. She made the same mistakes ten, twenty, thirty times and it was almost impossible—actually, it was impossible—for me not to lose patience. Why wasn’t she learning this? Where was her focus?

It wasn’t a problem with the teacher. We love the violin teacher, who is much better than I am about staying patient and making music fun. The problem was, violin just wasn’t Lucy’s thing.

In the end, it was harder for her to let go than it was for me. She wept and worried that she’d be hurting her teacher’s feelings. When the time came for Alice to go to her lesson yesterday, Lucy tried hiding outside in the rain rather than face her teacher. Then, when the teacher gave her a hug, Lucy had to blink back tears and hide her face behind a book.

She did it, though. She faced what scared her most—that she was letting someone down—and she made it through the day. And she’s already decided what she wants to spend her time doing instead.

My disappointment that she will not grow up with a violin under her chin is far outweighed by the pride I feel in her for knowing herself, and for honoring that more than her strong desire to please other people.

You only get one childhood. You only get one adulthood, for that matter. It’s easy to let days fill up in an effort to please and impress other people, or in an effort to avoid looking like a quitter. But when you fill your time with things that don’t feed your soul, you never really get to find out who you are and what you’re meant to be doing with your life, nor do you get a chance to be the best you can be.

Sometimes, when you set out to teach your child something, she ends up teaching you. Thanks for the lesson, Lucy. You make me proud.

--Martha Brockenbrough

 

The Hard Shift Back

There’s nothing like the first day of school after a long vacation, especially as bedtime sneaks later and later into the night. The transition is brutal—for parents and kids alike.

When Monday morning rolled around, I practically had to flip Alice out of bed with a spatula. There we were, twenty minutes from the time we needed to leave for school, and Alice was on her bed, pasted to the sheets.

I shook her. No response. That I didn’t panic and get ready to administer mouth-to-mouth resuscitation is a mark of how far I’ve come as a mother. I don’t immediately assume my children have died just because they’re deep asleep. Progress! I’ll take it where I find it.

I lay down in bed next to her and started whispering in her ear. 

“Alice...Alice...it’s time to wake up.”

This time, I did get a response.

If it’s possible to shout and whisper at the same time, that’s what she did.

“NO. I’M TIRED.”

Then she rolled over.

This is the time where a parent starts to feel the first stirrings of panic, stirrings that can often lead to the dreaded loud voice. I had nineteen minutes to feed her, get her in her clothes, brush her teeth, and into the classroom. That is not a lot of time. Not nearly enough. AAAAA!

And then I remembered something from my middle school years. My favorite math teacher had us lie in a circle with our heads on each other’s stomachs during a school camping trip. We said, “No. No. No. No. No.”

As you say this word, your stomach bounces up and down. If you do this enough times, you start to laugh.

Using my hands as giant spatulas, I lifted Alice on top of me. She’s still small enough to fit there, miraculously. And I said, “No. No. No. No. No.” Her eyes opened.

And pretty soon, we were laughing, then sitting up, then walking down to the kitchen for a quick breakfast.

Not long after that, we were off to school. Lucy and Alice held hands and ran ahead of me. I watched them race away, looking big and small at the same time, and I was glad that I remembered what it was like to be a child, at least for one morning.

It’s sometimes so easy to get caught up in our grownup world, with all the schedules and responsibilities. And so much about this business of parenting comes to us from pediatricians and scientists and behavioral therapists. We’re supposed to be consistent, be clear, be firm, be gentle, be kind, be these paragons when we are at the same time working and managing a family.

It’s not easy. But probably more often than we realize, the best training of all comes from our childhoods. We know what it’s like to be five years old and sleepy and not quite ready for school. We know what we found hilarious when we were in kindergarten, in third grade, in middle school. And there’s nothing like starting the day with a belly laugh—for moms and kids alike.

--Martha Brockenbrough

Behold the Paffle

Lucy and Alice have discovered their individuality lately. They're reveling in it, but it's killing me.

It started with the observation that Lucy has curly brown hair and brown eyes, while Alice has straight blonde hair with blue eyes. That was proof enough for the girls that they cannot--indeed they must not--like the same things. It's their destiny, as written in their genes.

Now, Lucy won't wear dresses and Alice won't wear pants. And Lucy wants me to read a graphic novel as a bedtime story, while Alice wants a picture book. Lucy says no to fish, while Alice says yes to it.

It's like living with Donny and Marie, only instead of a little bit country and a little bit rock'n'roll, which are merely two different kinds of music that could be satisfied with one Lynyrd Skynyrd album, I'm stuck trying to negotiate a truce between the elementary school equivalent of Israel and Palestine, or clowns and mimes if you find the inclusion of an actual war to be in poor taste.

It's one thing to say you really value individuality, and another thing entirely to face it. Especially at the breakfast table.

Here, Lucy wants waffles. Alice wants pancakes. And while these things sound Donny and Marie-ish—just swap a muffin for Lynrd Skynrd!—they're not.

The distance between a pancake and a waffle is vast and mysterious. If you don't believe me, try putting pancake batter in a waffle iron. It will stick like nobody's business. I think this is because waffle irons are angry at the way we've taken the word "waffle" and made it mean indecisive. Just because a waffle is squares within a circle doesn't mean it can't make up its mind. At least I don't think that's what it means. I guess I don't really know. Hmm. I could go back and forth for hours thinking about this...

In any case, I was amazed to learn that there is a new pan on the market that does something miraculous. It makes things that are half waffle, half pancake and entirely delicious. The bottom half, shaped by the pan, look like waffles. You don't flip them, so the top half comes out flat. Flat as a pancake, you might say.

We haven't decided whether to call them paffles or wancakes, but the proper name will come with time, I am sure. I'm just relieved Lucy and Alice haven't figured out they could fight over what to call them.
Meanwhile, I've made many batches of pafflecakes and they are a hit. Nobody cries or says uncalled-for dramatic things when I put fresh ones on the table. And I would say that perhaps the Breakfast War has come to an end, except for one thing.

The last time I took out the pan, Alice said, "These are good, mom. But next time, I want you to cook the pancake side down."

It's physically impossible to do this. But that sort of thing won't stop my kids from exercising their individuality. Up! No, down! No, up! It's enough to make me want to listen to some Lynrd Skynrd, really loud.

--Martha Brockenbrough

(Martha is on vacation this week, so this is an encore of a previously published post.)

Consider the Possibilities

We're on a family road trip, which means we all have a bit of extra time to think about life in general. And this is exactly what Adam and I were doing yesterday while Alice slept and Lucy listened to an audio book about a brave young princess who preferred armed combat to magic (obviously the princess had never tried to get stains out of the carpet).

Adam mentioned the he wished he had less responsibility in life. I felt momentarily guilty because lately, I have allowed him to fold and put away all of the laundry. It's meant that I find Lucy's panties in my drawer, but if he's doing laundry and under the illusion I could fit my caboose into those wee things, well, I have nothing to complain about.

Still, it made me feel a bit guilty that Adam is feeling a bit stressed. I am quite familiar with this unpleasant sensation, and if there's one thing I didn't want, it was for both of us to wake up in the middle of the night hyperventilating about things undone.

So I said, "Hey, at least we don't have a boat."

Adam understood immediately. A boat is an insane amount of responsibility. It's expensive, hard to park and potentially lethal.

"We also do not have a Winnebago," he said.

"Or a horse," I added.

After a moment's thought, Adam said, "I'd rather have a boat than a horse." (Perhaps I have not mentioned that Adam has a very wee caboose and finds horseback riding to be excruciating.)

On that point, we disagree. Which is fine. Because until we both agree that we want one or the other of those things, we're simply not getting one. (Even if we do agree, we're not getting one, but that is a source of stress for another day.)

The list went on.

"We also do not have a Vietnamese potbellied pig," I said.

"Or an insatiable need to jump out of airplanes or go hang-gliding," he said.

"Pregnant rabbits. Not a one at our house."

And on we went until we reached our destination. Sometimes, the way to feel better about everything you have to do is to think about what you don't have to do. Parallel parking a Winnebago at the boatyard while my pet rabbit is giving birth is a stressful event I will never, ever experience.

As it turns out, Lucy wasn't listening to her brave (but inexperienced) princess story as raptly as I thought. She'd taken in some scraps of Adam's and my conversation.

"Mom," she said, "nothing interesting ever happens to us."

"What do you mean?" I said. "We're on vacation. That's interesting."

She gave me a look that was one part pity, one part irritation, and one part a reminder that she has another appointment at the orthodontist coming up soon.

"Hopping vampires," she said. "We never see them."

She had a point. I should have added that to the list. I asked her what other things were missing in her life, things that would make things more interesting.

"Well," she said, "if your computer came to life, that would be interesting."

Indeed. And, at my urging, she drew a sketch of my computer with flapping bat wings and monstrous legs made out of letters. As usual, she was making excellent sense. My computer never does such things; in fact of late, it has been acting more like a creature that's about to die.

Lucy also drew a monster under the bed complete with angry eyebrows. We do not have such a creature in our house, but perhaps only because there are so many books, doll heads and shoes under the kids' bed, there is no room.

Her list lamented the sad fact that our lives are devoid of giant spiders; the one in her sketch was approximately the size of 10 Winnebagos, each stacked one on top of the other. Its curving fangs were huge. The pair of them could crush a full-grown man and his laundry basket.

"MONSTERS," she wrote, as if I had somehow missed the theme of her Things Missing from Lucy's Life List.

So here's to princesses who someday grow up and learn the value of magic over armed combat, and who also learn to appreciate the sweetness of life without monsters. And here's to all those years between now and then, complete with fearsome illustrations. As parents we do carry the weight of the world on top of our shoulders. It's nice every now and then to get a good laugh at the monster underneath the bed.

-Martha Brockenbrough

(Martha is on vacation this week, so this is an encore of a previously published post.)

Snow Days

A lot of things can make you toss your schedule out the window for a day (even if it's only the metaphorical tossing of an online calendar).

In the past couple of weeks, I've had to adjust mine because our car broke down and I had to get it towed to the shop. Earlier this week, I had to leave work early because Lucy said she was going to barf at school. The same thing happened yesterday afternoon when Alice's babysitter called in sick.

Over the years, I've discarded the schedule for more serious reasons, too.

Lucy, Alice and Adam have all spent time in the hospital. Adam even had a life-threatening heart infection, though I didn't know how seriously sick he was at the time or I might not have been sitting by his bed cheerfully updating his resume.

So when the phone rang at around 6 a.m., I woke up with a pounding heart. Early morning phone calls are almost never a good thing. But it was nothing bad. Just the robo-call from school letting us know classes are canceled for the day.

Even though I have a lot of work to do, and even though I had many other plans that I now must reschedule, I am celebrating the snow day. As soon as the sky is no longer black, I'm bundling up the kids and clipping the leash on the dog, and we're going to play.

When snow days hit, we like to pick our way slowly up the steep hill to a neighborhood park. We like to make snow angels on the grass. We like to toss soft snowballs at each other and for the dog, who finds them delicious and confusing. Where did it go? Did I eat it? Make another!

Once everyone (but the dog) is too cold for this, we go to our favorite coffee shop and have cocoa and cinnamon rolls the size of Alice's head. Then we walk home, pink-cheeked and sticky, and read stories on the couch.

When I was little, I loved snow days because it meant we didn't have to go to school. Now that I'm a parent, I love them because it means ordinary life is suspended. All the chores and obligations that seemed so important and felt so heavy, it turns out, aren't. They aren't as important as staying safe and warm. They aren't as important as playing outside and reveling in a world that's gone from green to white. They aren't as important as cocoa and cinnamon rolls and the warmth those things represent.

Usually, we only stop to be grateful for all the good things when something bad has happened. When we've found out a friend has cancer, or that someone's house has burned down, or that we're trying, ourselves, to hold on to hope when we're feeling awash in despair.

So I'm grateful for the glorious inconvenience of a snow day, where all is calm, all is bright, and everything else can wait for another day.

-- Martha Brockenbrough

(Martha is on vacation this week, so this is an encore of a previously published post.)

Unexpected Gifts

I was looking for wrapping paper yesterday so I could get a few things that need to be shipped all wrapped up and crossed off my to-do list.

There was just one problem. I couldn’t find the wrapping paper—and I knew we had some because I’d seen it just the day before.

Missing wrapping paper is the sort of thing I really shouldn’t bug Adam about when he’s at work, but I have none of those boundaries. I once called him to get his opinion on a shower curtain. A shower curtain! If I had any shame, that would make me feel it.

More frequently when I interrupt Adam’s day, it’s not even for anything of shower-curtain-level importance. Instead, I’m blaming him for stuff the kids have done, which I do so that I’m not always on their little backs for things that don’t matter in the grand scheme of life but are nonetheless Very Annoying.

For example, I will type: “Adam, I noticed you wiped your strawberry flavored toothpaste on my towel. So glad you didn’t go to school with that on your face!”

And Adam will reply, “You are welcome. And I wanted to thank YOU for throwing the hand towel on the ground after you were done with it. That was a big help.”

It’s the little things that make a marriage work.

Though it represented a new low, I pestered Adam about the wrapping paper because I had a dim memory of him saying the day before to Alice and her little playmate that “the wrapping paper tube is not a sword and if you keep swinging it like that, you will break a lamp.”

While Adam did keep our lamps intact, he didn’t know what had become of the wrapping paper. Grr. I soon found it beneath the Christmas tree wrapped crazily around a variety of misshapen objects.

Now that Lucy has become a full-fledged member of Team Santa, she’s taken it upon herself to put gifts beneath the tree. She’d taken my fine red-and-gold paper and wrapped it around some unknown object, finishing it off with a note that said, “To: Alice, Mery Chrisemas.”

In retrospect, I was not surprised. A few days before, Lucy had sneaked a present below the tree for me.

“Who’s this for?” she said.

“I’m not sure,” I replied.

“Aren’t you going to look?” she said.

“Not right now. I’m cooking dinner.”

“It’s for you,” she said. “Don’t you want to open it?”

“Oh, no,” I said, wanting to demonstrate restraint. “I want to save my presents for Christmas.”

“It’s office supplies,” she said. “I know how you love office supplies.”

So much for restraint. But at least now I know where I will be able to find my scissors and extra printer paper.

Still, Lucy knows more than she realizes about the power of gifts. I do love office supplies, especially the ones I have already purchased and am constantly chiding the kids not to steal for their art projects.

(To wit: Alice ran into my office a couple of weeks ago to report it was snowing. She dragged me into their bedroom and showed how they’d covered the window in paper snowflakes. My heart melted into a puddle on the floor, but was quickly soaked up by the scraps from said paper snowflakes.)

What Lucy had wrapped for Alice was a stuffed witch—one of the much-loved Halloween decorations I’d recently boxed and put back into the basement. For Rosie, she packaged a handful of dog kibble into a festive lunch sack. Adam’s getting a ruler, some painting tape, and a handful of loose screws—all things he can use to do projects around the house.

I’ve put a lot of thought into the presents I’m giving the kids this year. I don’t want them to have too much stuff, and I don’t want to spend money on things that will be discarded quickly, or things that won’t help them grow into their full selves. It’s sort of a tall order.

This is why it’s humbling to realize that Lucy, in her innocent zeal, has me beat. Her gifts say, “I know you, and I know what gives you joy.” Better yet, they were a reminder that in each other, we have everything we really need.

It’s true that kids can make a mess with the toothpaste and towels. But the gifts they give us, without knowing it, never fail to take my breath away.

--Martha Brockenbrough