Lost in the Snow

Families can sometimes suffer from too much togetherness. That was the case during our trip to Lake Tahoe over New Year’s.

We woke on the first morning in our favorite lodge to a steely gray sky, the air streaming with snowflakes. I couldn’t wait to step into the downy landscape. But first we stopped for breakfast to feed our boys, 9 and 14. Then we ran into a K-Mart to buy snow pants. We were already back in the car when my husband Dave remembered he wanted to buy board games for later. He and the boys returned to K-Mart while I sat and waited, worrying the beautiful storm would pass before I ever felt a flake on my face.

Crowded in the car cramped with snow gear, we drove slowly through unfamiliar roads searching for a hill where the boys could sled. They bickered in the back seat while Dave and I bickered in the front. Finally we found a quiet spot off a barely plowed road that offered a hill on one side and an empty campground buried under several feet of snow on the other.

Continue… »

A Clock Ticks As A Mom Tries Not to Be Pissed

I used to sit near someone at work who didn’t like her younger brother. At least that’s what it sounded like whenever he called. I could tell he was on the phone because her voice would tighten as if her teeth were grinding and she’d scold him regardless of whatever topic they discussed.

He was wrong to invite so-and-so to their mother’s birthday party. He was being immature for worrying about what gift to buy for their cousin’s wedding. And didn’t he know not to call her at work? That she was busy?

Continue… »

Not The Kind of Big Ticket Items You Want to Buy During the Holidays

Before you know it the holidays will be here. That doesn’t mean buying toys for our kids. This tells us it’s nearly time to buy new appliances for our house. They love to stop working at just about the same time that the holidays are breaking our bank accounts. 

Instead of Toys R Us I’m scurrying to Best Buy or Sears to replace some expensive but can’t-live-without-it item, like the dishwasher that just fell apart all over my kitchen floor.

Last year, it was the central heat and air conditioning unit that whirred and buzzed for a few days before shutting down altogether right before Christmas. Temperatures in Sacramento where I live were dipping into the 30s and 40s at night and my kids complained they could see their breath. A contractor spent two days on the roof fiddling with the unit before he could determine how to fix it, which he managed to do the day before my mother arrived from Connecticut and I hosted 13 people for dinner.

Continue… »

A Stranger’s Note of Love and Grief Reminds a Mother Of What She Has

I was on a walk the other day, my every step pounding frustration into the pavement.

“How am I supposed to get this all done,” I whined to myself. It was a typical mother’s complaint towards the end of a typically busy week. How am I supposed to keep the house clean, the refrigerator filled, the children supervised?

I work outside the home. I’m active at my church and volunteer at my children’s school. I help out neighbors and friends who need me. There just isn’t enough time for it all.

Continue… »

Who Likes to Clean?

Growing up, I knew two things: My mother loved her four children. And she hated the ancillary jobs that came with raising us.

My mother detested housework and considered cooking an unpleasant necessity to be gotten over with as quickly as possible.

For Thanksgiving when I was thirteen, she presented a pre-cooked turkey roll she had purchased at the grocery store. My mother’s pride in finding a shortcut to the burden of preparing a holiday feast wasn’t diminished in the least by my father’s complaint that it didn’t look like any turkey he’d ever eaten. She placed the steaming tube of poultry concentrate on the table with a “tah-dah!” next to the cranberry sauce that still showed rings from the can from which it had emerged.

Continue… »

What’s Write About Life

I am a mother who writes.

I steal precious slices of time away from the demands of my life to practice my craft. Last week, I had planned for a rare two-hour writing session by plopping my six-year-old in front of the otherwise forbidden TV.

Just as my fingers had touched the keyboard, my eleven-year-old son tore breathlessly into the room. It was his turn to bring a snack to his sixth grade class. He had told me two weeks earlier, but I had forgotten. I considered ignoring the matter altogether, but then I remembered the promise. I made it the last time it was our family’s turn to bring snack. I had used it as an opportunity to create a “healthy” dish. I made cookies out of whole wheat flour and rice bran. The result was a platter of brown blobs that tasted like baseballs. My son returned home that evening humiliated. He begged me to make “normal” cookies next time it was our turn.

And I promised I would.

Continue… »

A Foreign Visitor Teaches Us About the Language of Families

When we got a puppy a few years ago, my friend, Mary, scolded me.

“Just what you need. Another thing to take care of,” she said shaking her head.

Mary had heard too many complaints about my frantic life as a busy mother – caring for two active boys, keeping house, maintaining a job outside the home, volunteering for various charities.

She was right, of course. As soon as the puppy passed through the doorway it was as if another toddler had been set loose and my workload increased exponentially.

Continue… »

A Mother’s Instincts Prove Correct About A Cyber Maniac

At the salon where I’ve been having my hair cut and colored every two months for the past six years, the conversation among the women styling and being styled often turns to our children. As layers were being snipped into my newly highlighted hair recently, I asked my stylist, Sheri, how her daughter was enjoying her first year at UC Davis.
  

Continue… »