Scenes From A Snow Day

It’s snowing again as I write this, which means it’s now been snowing for over 24 hours. I’m not sure of the total accumulation from this Valentine’s Day storm; looks like there’s over a foot on the picnic table, and that’s on top of several inches that we already had on the ground.

I love the snow. Our first two winters in Vermont were uncharacteristically mild. This has been a more “typical” winter (if there is such a thing), and I’ll take it. In my opinion, cold is much more tolerable if there’s snow to play in. Plus, it’s so beautiful. Whenever it starts snowing, I’m like a kid again — looking out the window, hoping for maximum accumulation, rooting for a snow day.

Except that lately I don’t root for snow days.

Today is a snow day.

It’s a snow day, and it’s Valentine’s Day, and it’s Friday, and next week is Winter Break. Which makes this the first of ten straight days of having all my kids at home.

My two oldest daughters recently went to see the new animated Disney film, Frozen. This was a BIG DEAL because it was the first movie they’d ever seen in a theater. (Our town’s little movie theater has only two screens, so there aren’t a lot of kid-friendly choices). They loved everything about the movie and the experience.

I mention this because today — this snow day — I feel like my life has become the Frozen movie. There’s the seemingly endless snow; this time of year, it’s easy to imagine eternal winter. There’s my oldest daughter, who’s been vamping around singing the movie’s Big Hit, “Let It Go” all morning long. (Note to self: Apologize to my family, who endured me belting out “Memory” from Cats for an entire year all those decades ago. There’s nothing worse than a six-year-old attempting a power ballad). Also: there’s the fighting sisters. Throw in a couple of trolls, and that’s basically the movie.

Then again, maybe I’m the troll.

I’ve said this before, but I can’t relate when I see other parents post on Facebook that they’re thrilled when there’s a snow day because they get to spend all that extra time snuggling with their kids and playing in the snow and baking and crafting. I think those are lovely sentiments, and I know that some parents genuinely feel that way. But I don’t, and I feel badly that I don’t.

After I got the snow day call from the school district, I posted a slightly snarky comment on Facebook about how the kids would be in school until July if these snow days kept up. Some people interpreted that to mean that I considered it a bad thing that school would run into July, as in: “Don’t steal my precious summer vacation time with the kids!” On the contrary, making up snow days on the other end is the payoff, as far as I’m concerned. I’ll take all the school I can get!

I love being a parent (most of the time). And I LOVE my children. Honestly? I just don’t love them all together, all day long. It’s challenging to be an introvert with four children. I’m aware that we “chose” to have four kids, and thus are responsible for spending time with them. Perhaps someday I’ll genuinely look forward to snow days and weekends and summer and school holidays; maybe when the kids get older and aren’t constantly underfoot, or can put on their own snow boots.

Here are some scenes from our snow day:

-One daughter had a tantrum at breakfast because the blueberry pancakes her father had made didn’t include chocolate chips.

-One daughter proclaimed it “The worst Valentine’s Day ever!” and pouted for an hour because I didn’t praise her quick teeth-brushing.

-Erick left for work. (The college didn’t have a snow day; the students — i.e. tuition-payers — can all walk to class). He had to dig his car out at the bottom of our driveway, but he made it.

-Once we got those fires under control, we resumed our regular routine, in which I fielded nonstop, rotating requests from all four daughters (non-verbal, in Abigail’s case).

-I tried, unsuccessfully, to interest the girls in Valentine’s Day crafts.

-Mid-morning, I attempted a baking project, like a good mother: The three oldest girls helped me make pink buttercream frosting to decorate our Valentine’s Day cupcakes. This entailed ten minutes of heart-stopping chaos: each girl demanding a turn with the hand mixer, confectioner’s sugar spilled on the floor and me, Georgia eating frosting by the spoonful, and sprinkles everywhere. (Did I mention I was holding a baby the entire time?) They loved it; I needed a nap.

-Naptime! I put all three big girls on the floor of their room in their sleeping bags, and allowed them to watch the entire DVD of The Lorax.

During my 86 minutes of naptime quiet, I sat at my computer and was reminded that my Valentine’s Day blog post had just published. I was reminded that, in this blog post, I wrote that love usually means doing things that you don’t want to do; dying to yourself on behalf of the ones you love. I realized that this snow day had asked for that kind of love from me, and I’d been pretty trollish about it.

Easy to write, hard to do.

After naptime, a friend and mother of two who lives down the street invited all of us — the four girls and me — to go sledding on their hill. So we all bundled up and went out to play in fluffy snow that came up to my knees. And then, this friend invited us all into her house for hot chocolate. Six children and two parents; can you even imagine what her mudroom looked like after we’d all disrobed and tromped through it??? THAT is love. And on this day, when I’d been so grumpy with my own love, it was also grace.

One Flu Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

The challenge of writing a bi-weekly column as a mother of four young children is this: Most writing benefits from the writer leaving the house. Seeing the greater world. Having new experiences. While I do occasionally manage to leave the house, it takes 30-minutes to get out the door, and then my attention isn’t so much on the greater world as on the wriggling little people in my care.

Last month, my usual challenge was made even more challenging when our entire family fell sick over the course of a ten-day period. So, because I’ve left the house even less than usual in the past two weeks, I’m going to write about what I know: illness.

Click here to continue reading my “Faith in Vermont” column for The Addison Independent. I promise it’s not depressing….

From the Annals of Bad Motherhood….

It's not easy being the fourth. (Photo of Abigail by Campbell, because nobody else bothers to take pictures of the baby). — It’s not easy being the fourth. (Photo of Abigail by Campbell, because nobody else bothers to take pictures of the baby).

I’ve written before about my propensity for dropping my babies. You’d think that by the fourth time around, things would be different. You might expect that I’d have learned something from my first three babies, or at least exhausted all possible disastrous scenarios.

Poor Abigail. Parental experience aside, I really think that the fourth child has it the worst in terms of personal safety: the house is now designed to accommodate big kids, and nobody has time to look out for the baby. In her seven months of life, Abigail’s sister has pulled her off the sofa — by her feet. She’s been improperly snapped into her high chair (I thought it was good enough to get one leg buckled in, but I didn’t count on her wriggling that leg free and sliding under the tray onto the kitchen floor). I’ve even repeated the manicure massacre that I first tried on Georgia, in which I sliced off the tip of her finger while trimming her nails.

But today, my friends, I’ve really outdone myself. Today, I brought innocent bystanders down with me.

In retrospect, it was a poor choice to push Abigail in the stroller while running errands in town with my three youngest girls. The stroller in question is one of those “Snap & Go” types: a frame with wheels into which you insert the infant carseat. This stroller has been through three babies already; it’s rusty, the fabric basket is torn, and I fully expect a wheel to pop off any day now. But it only has to last a few more months.

This rickety stroller was my choice for Abigail’s transportation the day after a decent snowstorm. Although our town has been shoveled and plowed, mounds of snow are heaped along the sidewalks, and deep puddles of slush precede every crosswalk. So every few feet the stroller would get stuck and I’d have to puuuuuuush it through the slushy snow.

But I decided to soldier on with the stroller; with two bags and two additional children in tow, it was my best option. Of course I didn’t fasten the belt that’s supposed to secure the carseat to the stroller frame; I haven’t done that in four years — who has time? Also, Abigail wasn’t buckled into her carseat, because she’d been fussy in Ben Franklin’s and I’d had to take her out and carry her. But since we weren’t driving and she can’t exactly get up and walk out of her carseat, I figured it was fine to just lay her back in.

The girls and I crossed Main Street, which took about ten minutes. Then, at the curb by Two Brothers Tavern, I hit a slush trap. The stroller was stuck, and it wouldn’t budge. I was going to have to lift it over the curb and onto the sidewalk.

At that moment, my good Samaritans appeared. This happens a lot when you have young kids in our nice little town, especially when you look as frazzled as I do — someone’s always offering to help me out. In this case it was a young couple — a childless young couple, as I later deduced.

“Do you need some help?” asked the husband.

“Oh, thanks, I think I’m okay,” I grunted, as I wrestled with the stroller and my two older daughters ran on ahead.

He wasn’t buying my independent act, so he circled to the back of the stroller. “Well, okay, maybe if you can lift that side,” I said gratefully.

At which point, he lifted not the stroller, but the carseat that was sitting atop the stroller. And remember how I didn’t have that carseat belted on? So, he lifted the back end of the carseat out of the stroller frame, which flipped the carseat right over.

And remember how Abigail wasn’t buckled into that carseat? So, when the carseat flipped over, Abigail flipped out and landed on her stomach in a puddle of slush.

The husband stared at me and said, “Holy s*#%t! There was a baby in that stroller?!?” Apparently, when he saw my other daughters run ahead (good thing they did, so that I didn’t have to define “s*#%t” for them later) he assumed that I was a normal person with two children, using my empty stroller to carry things.

The great thing is that, when I picked up Abigail (unhurt, just a little soggy), she was totally unfazed. She even smiled at the man who’d just flipped her out of her carseat. Her entire demeanor said: Yup, I’m a fourth child and I have no concept that my life is supposed to be safe and easy. That’s my girl.

The couple didn’t notice how fine she was; they just started apologizing profusely. They even offered to give me their names — I suppose in case I wanted to sue for damages. In retrospect, I probably should have jumped on the opportunity and asked for a scholarship fund. But I took the high road.

“It’s okay, it’s really okay,” I reassured them. “She’s a fourth child. This sort of thing happens to her every day. If anything, it’s my fault; I knew there was a baby in the stroller. Excuse me, I probably should catch up to my other children now.” (At this point, Campbell and Georgia were small dots in the distance; Abigail’s near-death experiences don’t phase them, either).

As I trudged away, I’m sure that the nice young couple stared after me with horror. Perhaps they still felt guilty, or perhaps they were starting to wonder whether they should call social services. In any case, I figure that’s one couple that’s going to wait a while before having kids.

Burrs Make For A Sticky Weekend

Georgia's post-burr look. — Georgia’s post-burr look.

The second weekend of January — after a December ice storm, several snows, and freezing temperatures had covered the ground with a thick layer of solid ice — the temperature shot up into the 40s and 50s. That mild weekend, our family traded the Brrrrr of winter for another kind of burr.

Click here to continue reading about our various burr run-ins at The Addison Independent.

How to Enjoy Freezing Temperatures…With Kids

[Abridged version: Stay indoors. Drink Scotch.]

Last week’s sub-zero temperatures across much of the continental United States were Big News. We all heard the reports and saw the pictures of children blowing bubbles that froze solid, polar bears sheltering inside their zoo houses, planes grounded due to freezing fuel, lighthouses covered in buttercream-thick ice, schools closed because of cold.

As most Vermonters are aware, however, last week was a fairly unremarkable week in our own state, as winter temperatures go; the temperature hovered between the single digits and teens, with one bizarre rainy thaw into the 30s.

Vermont’s own sub-zero temperatures came the week before the rest of the country: the first week of the New Year. The National Weather Service recorded negative temperatures in Middlebury every day between January 2 and 5; on January 3, the high was -3. I witnessed a -17 reading on our outdoor thermometer; one afternoon as I prepared to meet the school bus, I found myself thinking, “Oh, good, it’s warmed up to -5; otherwise, it’d be really cold out there!”

Click here to continue reading my latest “Faith in Vermont” column for The Addison Independent.

A Break From My Break

In early December, I announced that I would take a “Pickle-cation” from writing for this blog. The break was to extend through the holidays, and I envisioned it as a time to “write…reflect…and to enjoy the holidays with my family” without the pressure of writing weekly posts for The Pickle Patch.

Well, folks, this is me checking in from my self-imposed exile to give you the update: there has been NO writing, and NO reflecting, but an overabundance of “enjoying the holidays with my family.” In other words: Holidays: 1, Faith: 0.

Please don’t misunderstand: I love the holidays, and I love my family. The Gongs had a wonderful Christmas season. There was skiing and sledding and skating and hikes in the woods. There were grandparents. There were holiday parties and sleepovers with friends. There were “Mommy dates” with my oldest, who’s usually at school all day. There was baking and crafting. There were many candles lit and books read. There was the joyful hysteria of Christmas morning. There was the Christmas pageant in which Campbell performed a moving interpretation of an attention-seeking cow with poor impulse control.

It was lovely.

But every holiday or vacation time, there are moms who post something like this on Facebook: “So glad for the school break! It’s wonderful to have all the kids at home.”

And every holiday or vacation time, I’m reminded that I am not yet that mom. Maybe I never will be; maybe that kind of selfless desire for togetherness requires a special kind of temperament — or medication. I prefer to think that it requires time; that, when the girls are older and school holidays don’t just mean that I have double the number of voices calling, “Mommy! Mooooommmmmy!” every two minutes, perhaps I really will welcome extended times of togetherness.

For now, though, holidays mostly feel draining and confusing. I know that holidays can feel that way for everyone; there are errands to run, events to attend, and the expectation that every single second should somehow be “special” and “memorable.” In my case, I also forgot one crucial thing: at this point in my life, “writing and reflecting” and “enjoying the holidays with my family” are not compatible.

You see, during our regularly-scheduled life, I’m able to write and reflect due to the presence of certain structures that are built into the day to keep the kids away from me: school, naptime, and bedtime. I also wake up an hour earlier than any of our kids so that I can get dressed, wash my face, and start the day in peace. But during vacations and holidays, all of that goes out the window.

It starts first thing each day with this dilemma: Do I keep to my regular, pre-dawn wake-up time, or do I sleep in? Every morning, I decide to sleep in. It’s vacation, after all, there’s no need to rush the kids off to their schools, and I need the rest. And every morning, when the girls come racing down the hall (much earlier than is warranted by their way-too-late holiday bedtimes) screaming, “I have to go potty!” or “She hit me!” and I’m stuck wiping bottoms and resolving disputes without having had the chance to get dressed and centered, I think, This is horrible. I NEED to get up earlier tomorrow. The next day, it’s the same scene all over again.

Each day of holiday vacation is a nonstop marathon of togetherness, without the separation imposed by school and universal naptimes. About midway through the vacation, Erick can see that I’m starting to fray, so he’ll say something like, “How about I take the girls to see the train display, so that you can have a break?” And almost without fail, I’ll respond, “You’re going to see the train display? But I want to come, too!” The next day, I’ll feel overwhelmed and put-upon, with thoughts like, “Why is Joan of Arc considered a martyr? I could teach her a thing or two about martyrdom — she didn’t even have kids!!!” But then, when Erick says, “Hey, how about I take the girls out for breakfast tomorrow?” I’ll say, “Can I come, too?”

I think I read somewhere that the definition of insanity is repeatedly doing the same things, but expecting different results. You can draw your own conclusions, but when I examine my own behavior during the holidays, I do not look sane.

I’m coming to see that the problem isn’t with what I’m doing; the problem is my expectations. It’s okay — healthy, even — to sleep later and adopt a more relaxed schedule during the holidays. It’s more than okay to sacrifice alone time — even if that’s time normally spent doing things that feed your soul, like reflecting and writing — in favor of time spent with family. In general, I think it’s important to be selfish about things that feed your soul, but it just may be that Christmas week isn’t one of those times.

This reminds me of this year’s Apple holiday commercial, which went viral because it touched so many people. You know: the one with the awkward teenage kid who won’t put down his iPhone throughout the family holidays, and then on Christmas morning he plays the holiday video he’s been recording all along, and everyone weeps as if to say, “It’s okay that you’ve spent the entire holiday tethered to your smartphone, since you were using it to create this digital memory!”

I HATE that commercial.

I get that it’s supposed to be about understanding, and how the person on the sidelines might not be as tuned out as they seem. But the first time Erick and I saw it, we looked at each other and burst out laughing, because it was such a naked attempt to justify our culture’s electronics addiction.

Here’s the thing: all the time, but especially during vacations and holidays, YOUR FAMILY WANTS YOU. Who cares if you’ve spent a week making a digital video, if it sidelined you from participating fully in your life? Let’s face it: in a decade, that footage will probably be unwatchable, anyway, because Apple will have developed some new video technology. Likewise, my daughters could care less if I’m carving out daily writing time during the holidays, even if I’m writing beautiful and thought-provoking pieces about the holidays; they do care that I’m available to play and bake and read and participate fully in our family’s holiday.

So, I’ve learned something: next year I will again take a Pickle-cation, but I will NOT expect to get any writing done until after the New Year. Which is to say: I now need a break from my break, and so I will be extending my Pickle-cation through January to do the writing and reflecting that didn’t happen in December. See you in February!

Resolution: Take Kids Cross-Country Skiing

I no longer remember who gave us the advice, but when our family first moved to Vermont some wise soul told my husband and me: “The winters are long and cold. The best way to survive them is to find an outdoor activity that you enjoy.”

For the first couple of years, we stumbled around trying to settle on the optimal winter recreation. Snowshoeing was pleasant and could be done in the woods right behind our house, but it required substantial snow and willing children – both of which were lacking during the past two years. Sledding was fun for the kids but not for the parents; on our end, it mostly involved lugging 80 pounds of little girls uphill. Ice skating was lovely in concept, but since my husband claims he can’t skate due to “flat feet,” it required me to navigate inconvenient rink times for the pleasure of skating around picking up fallen children who flopped around on the ice like eels out of water.

This year, however, our family has a newfound sense of clarity: we cross-country ski.

Click here to continue reading my latest “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

What Shall I Give Her?: Thoughts on GoldieBlox, William’s Doll, and the Confusing World of “Girly” Toys (Part 2 of 2)

INTRODUCTION: In the first part of this piece, which appeared yesterday, I related how I’d been bombarded by the viral video commercial for GoldieBlox — construction kits that are being marketed specifically to girls in order “to get girls building” — while considering Christmas gifts for my own four daughters. After an initial rush of enthusiasm from consumers, GoldieBlox experienced some backlash for peddling pastel toys while simultaneously claiming that they wanted to “disrupt the pink aisle.” All of which raised interesting questions that get at the heart of our culture’s confusion about what it means to be a female: Are traditionally “girly” toys and games (dolls, tea sets, princess play) inferior to traditionally masculine toys and games? In order to encourage girls to engage in more “masculine” play, do we need to make separate-but-equal toys (i.e. traditional boy toys in pastel hues)? And if we answer “yes” to the two previous questions, aren’t we being demeaning to girls? So where does that leave us?

I’ll attempt to tackle some of these issues based on my own experience.

Click here to read Part 2 of this post over at On the Willows.

What Shall I Give Her? Thoughts On GoldieBlox, William’s Doll, and the Confusing World of “Girly” Toys (Part 1 of 2)

In our house, we try to fight against Christmas becoming all about gifts. Our children get presents, but since we buy sparingly I spend a lot of time considering what to purchase, because I want it to be meaningful. We have four girls, so while considering toys this year I couldn’t avoid the GoldieBlox phenomenon.

For those who missed it, GoldieBlox is a toy company whose stated mission is “to get girls building.” Concerned that men vastly outnumber women in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) jobs, GoldieBlox designs storybook and construction sets for girls. Their “Princess Machine” commercial, in which three girls design a Rube Goldberg machine throughout their house, went viral this fall — and, no doubt, sold lots of GoldieBlox sets.

My own finger hovered over the “Add to Cart” button on the GoldieBlox website. Then I stopped, because something I couldn’t quite name was bothering me.

Click here to continue reading over at On the Willows. Because this is a long-ish article, it’s divided into two parts, with the second part publishing tomorrow.

Advent-ures: My 24 Days of Christmas

Life with four young children being what it is, I don’t spend much time looking ahead at the calendar. Most days I can tell you the number of minutes until bedtime, but I’d be hard pressed if you asked me the specifics of next week’s schedule – let alone what’s happening next month. This past November was a particularly busy month for our family, so all of my energy was focused on just getting through Thanksgiving.

Right after Thanksgiving, I ran into a friend at a Middlebury College family dinner. She asked about our holiday, and I said, “It was wonderful, and I’m feeling much more relaxed now that we’ve survived November.”

“That’s great!” she said, “November must’ve been pretty crazy if you’re feeling relaxed with only three weeks until Christmas.”

That’s how I learned that, this year, there were only three weeks – THREE WEEKS!! — between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Click here to continue reading about my 24 days of Christmas in my latest “Faith in Vermont” column for The Addison Independent.