things to do on a snowy day

Around 3am this morning it started snowing and didn't stop for about 12 hours. As a result, we had about 18" of snow to enjoy and it just so happened my husband was off of work and my boys were out of school. So we had a busy day together.

We went sledding, and there's nothing like having your two year-old say, "I love it!" as you're about to take off down the hill for the seventh time with him on your lap.



We built an awesome fort with our neighbors and then had a snowball fight:



We made cool things out of clay (this one compliments of my middle boy):



We had a play date with two of the boys' favorite friends and drank hot chocolate with way too many marshmallows. My husband managed to serve it all up with a crow perched on his head. He's so talented (actually that was just a funny camera angle, the bird is up on the cabinets.)



But even with as much fun as we had, I think Fangun had the best idea of all:



I guess it's just a little hard to curl up on a cozy bed as the snow falls outside when you have three or five little boys to keep busy. I have to say, snow rocks.

extended family

Sometimes, a lot of times actually, I feel like I was born at the wrong time. The 21st century just isn't for me. I don't like new houses with their miles and miles of white sheetrocked walls. I like old, rickety, musty homes with real hardwood woods. I don't like technical thingies. I don't own a flatscreen tv, an iPod, a laptop and I just don't care about them. I am grateful for the internet, of course, but I could live without it if I had to.

I've read a couple books in the past few months that talk a lot about how in the American "old days" and in many other cultures still, extended family is a huge part of life. When a new baby is born into a family, the mother, sisters, aunts and grandmothers are there to support the new mother, offering advice and helping out with the huge task of raising a child. Children have many adult role models within their family to look up to and learn from and parents have the emotional support they need to best raise healthy kids.

It seems that our society has become very individualistic in recent decades. Now, parents are expected to do it all on their own. Discipline, teach, love and all the other work that goes along with parenting. It's a huge undertaking and going it alone puts a strain on parents, marriages and children. I'm willing to bet that the divorce rate has risen because this seperation of family.

Sometimes, lack of extended family is not a matter of choice. People often have to move far away from their family because of jobs. But a lot of times, even if family is nearby, people are still in their own little bubbles. Often grandparents are afraid to "butt in" and give advice. And a lot of parents like it that way. We may not realize the value of their experience and how much we can benefit from it, or how much our children could. And so we happily turn our children over to daycares and our aging parents over to nursing homes. And everyone is so damn lonely and can't figure out why.

One of the solutions I read about is simply to build a new "extended family" around yourself. People that are not blood relatives but people you can still count on when you need help. I'm happy to say we've had some success in this area since moving out-of-state. I have a wonderful neighbor who I can call if my kids are sick and she'll help in any way she can. Although we are both very self-reliant, we have let down our guard and reached the level that we can borrow humidifiers and vacuum cleaners from each other when necessary. We also have another set of friends we really enjoy that our sons have pretty much adopted into the family. Our two year-old even calls them "Gram Gram" since he associates that with family. We are thankful for them all.

Basically, we need all the help we can get. And it feels good to help other parents out, too. I just wish that as a society we could go back a few dozen years and remember that people are what matter. Not the rat race so many of us are running toward a finish line that will be here before we know it. We need to turn off the cell phone, iPods, even the computers and really, truly connect.

family folklore

I read something recently reminding me of how important it is to tell your children stories about your life to keep the "family folklore" alive. So last night as I was visiting with my oldest boy, as is custom at bedtime each night, I decided to tell him a story about his Aunt Lisa. A story my mother had told me many times when I was little.

One day my mom and sister were at the mall doing some shopping. My sister was very small, maybe two or three. As they were coming to the top of an escalator my sister put her hands down on a step and was about to have them pulled under the grates at the top of the escalator. Out of nowhere, as the story goes, a man swooped down and picked her up, saving her fingers from being pulled into the machinery. He handed her off to my mom and disappeared before she could even say think you. According to my mom, he must have been an angel. Possibly my sister's personal guardian angel. There at the right place, the right time, and then disappearing mysteriously.

Cole was captivated by the story. But I didn't realize just what an impression it made until a while later he told my husband that the story "made him feel like crying tears of joy." This from a very non-melodramatic kind of kid. So I know he really meant it.

Just wait until he hears some of the other tidbits we've got hidden in our collective family histories. Stories involving bb guns, leopard frogs, haunted houses, scrapes with death and ex-boyfriends and girlfriends. Well, maybe we'll leave that last part out. Some things aren't worth keeping in the family folklore. I'm sure my mom would agree. Just ask her about "Torchy", but be sure to duck after you do.

mama says om theme: life

She stepped up to the podium that day carrying what looked like a miniature black suitcase and explained to us how she'd gone to the biology department to borrow something for her speech. As she spoke, she carefully opened the case and gingerly removed the contents. Slowly, she began unwrapping the mysterious item as she gave further detail about the endangered animal species she had based her speech on. At last she revealed a delicate, spotted egg to the class. The egg of an endangered bird! We were stunned that she'd been able to talk anyone in the biology department into allowing her to take the valuable egg off their premises.

She asked if we'd like to see it close up. We nodded in silence and she stepped forward, catching the corner of the table with her hip. In slow-motion, she fell forward and the fragile egg went flying out of her hand. A collective gasp of horror went up from the class as it hit the linoleum floor and shattered into a puddle of shell and yolk. No one breathed. We watched her reaction, expecting her to run crying out of the room, but to our amazement she composed herself and returned to the lectern.

She gave us a moment to let the shock wear off and then surprised us again. The egg was not an unusual egg after all. Just an ordinary bird's egg she'd found near her dorm on campus. We were relieved but perplexed. She asked us why we were so upset when we thought it was an endangered species she had just destroyed. After all, it was just an egg. Not a living thing. She was leading us down the path of a totally different subject we had not seen coming. The true topic of her speech: abortion.

She had a point. Why did we panic when she dropped what we thought was an egg containing an endangered animal? It wasn't fully developed yet. It hadn't hatched. If we acknowledged that given time and left uninterrupted it had the potential to grow into a full-fledged bird, how would that translate when it came to a human fetus? An animal with a soul?

Years later when I heard the heartbeats of each of my three children at just six weeks of pregnancy and felt life fluttering within me a few weeks later, I knew that my body was no longer just mine. It was a vessel for their bodies. They had their own hearts, their own tiny hands with unique fingerprints already forming. They had all the ingredients needed to create the beautiful people they are today. All they needed was time.



for other mamas on "life" check out mama says om

the coast

We'd been dating just a couple of months when we headed down to South Padre Island to spend a couple of days with his parents and sister, all of whom he was very close to. I was nervous about the trip because I knew he'd had a lot of girlfriends in the past and I didn't know how I'd measure up in his family's eyes.

"D" and I got there a day before everyone else and stayed in a cheap motel on the bay side of the island. It was a dark, wood paneled little room and we went to sleep around eight o' clock in the evening. I didn't realize at the time that my boyfriend was starting to slip into a bit of a depression. I thought he was a little subdued and withdrawn but I was so smitten with him I let myself ignore it. I didn't want to think he might be unhappy with me, so I just pretended I didn't sense the darkness coming over him.

We each had such different memories and feelings about the Texas coast. While I was growing up, every couple of years my family would visit friends there and stay a couple of days. My mother was from Corpus Christi and my father from the tiny town of Aransas Pass. They both had bad childhood memories of growing up in their respective homes on the Gulf of Mexico and I remember their moods becoming more and more sullen as we drew closer and the air became thick and salty. By the time I started seeing oil refineries from the backseat window of our VW bus, the mood in the car would become downright blue. My siblings and I were always excited to get to the beach but I could tell my parents took us there out of obligation. It was usually a joyless, anti-climactic visit after which we were herded back and hosed down to get the sand out of all our crevices. It was fun sorting through our buckets of seashells, but we would soon return home to San Antonio and I could sense their relief the further we got from the water.

D, on the other hand, had magical, warm and fuzzy memories of the coast. He was an avid fisherman and remembered fishing out on the sandbars at nighttime even as a child. That's right, as a child. I guess his parents instinctively knew he was a capable, responsible boy even then. He was also entrusted with a BB gun when he was five but that's another story. His family would spend a month at the beach almost every summer or fall and he would cry most of the way back home to Kerrville (a mere seven hours). He wanted to live there someday. I told him I would never want to. The flat, scrubby landscape and rusty cars did not appeal to me. I guess that deep down in my DNA I was jaded from my parents' painful pasts.

The next morning I persuaded D to go with me to see the "Turtle Lady", a 90-something year-old woman who was a self-taught turtle expert. She had built a haven for injured turtles where she nursed them back to health and released them back into the wild. I loved turtles, especially sea turtles, and thought I might become a sea turtle lady myself someday. It was awesome to see the turtles close up and even touch their leathery backs. D hung back and seemed disinterested. I was annoyed.

Later that day his family arrived and we all checked into the condo together. I had met his parents once before at his 24th birthday dinner and I had the impression they saw me as the latest flavor of the week for their son. I probably was. That evening as we were getting settled, his mother came out with a candle and placed it on the coffee table in the living area. She lit it and we were all drawn in like moths. We sat cross-legged on the floor: me, D, his sister and his mother. His brother was there in spirit but not person. Everyone seemed so excited to see each other and get caught up. As they looked at their mother, I could see the admiration and respect on their faces. I was extremely shy at the time and I was spellbound by her presence. She began going around the table asking interesting questions and guiding the conversation. My own mother is very soft-spoken and timid, so I was especially intrigued by this "other" mother. Confident and sharp. And very funny.

The next day, D went fishing while his mother, sister and I went to Mexico. We browsed the gift shops and talked about sea turtles. D's sister was fluent in Spanish and I loved listening to her talk to the cab drivers. They didn't know what to make of this blonde haired, blue-eyed American girl who was so interested in talking to them. She was so open and friendly, it was disarming and they would smile and chatter back to us, glancing at her in the rear-view mirror. Her mother bought me a blown-glass turtle in one of the shops and I was very grateful. As a starving college student at the time I didn't have any cash to spare but I really wanted it. After we returned to the Island, she treated us to some ice cream on the way back to the condo. When we got back, I found my boyfriend sleeping again.

That afternoon we went out onto the balcony overlooking the gulf and stared down at D's father. He was on the beach struggling to set up a canopy tent. We weren't sure why he thought it was necessary to do that, but he was very determined, even with the wind fighting against him the whole time. He finally got it together and stood there under the tent with his hands on his hips facing the gulf. It was as if he was defying the wind to tear down his little tent. We all watched him and chuckled a little. But no one made fun of him. The love and respect in that family was very apparent. And I wanted badly to be part of it.

A day or so later it was time to head back to our lives as students. But something had changed between us during that trip. I had fallen in love with his family but he seemed to have fallen out of love with me. The drive back was quiet and a little uncomfortable. A couple of weeks later we went our separate ways.

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Just six more days until we get on a plane with our three sons and fly back to Texas. We're landing in Houston and then driving the rest of the way to the coast. The blonde haired, blue-eyed girl will be there with her husband and two red-headed children as well as my brother-in-law and his wife. The family's matriarch, my mother-in-law, and mildly eccentric father-in-law will be there, too. We'll probably eat too much, drink too much, and sit around a candle and reminisce. After almost nine years in this family, a lot has happened and we have all changed and grown. We have even fought and cried. But the love is still there and we have many more years to look forward to as a family. Because apparently, he didn't fall out of love with me after all.

cold reality

When my son comes home from school each day, he usually tells me about his art class, who he ate lunch with and what he may have done in computer lab. But yesterday he came home talking about something I never wanted to hear from my first grader. Something called a "lock-down". I don't know if it's because we live less than ten miles from Columbine and thirty miles from Bailey, which had it's own school tragedy last week, but the schools here are stepping-up their efforts to stay safe.

Thankfully, I don't think he knows exactly what they are really talking about. He was told by his teacher that in case a "bad man tries to come into the school to steal things", they will lock all the doors to keep him out. And the children are advised never to open the doors for anyone, ever. Even if it's their own parents. All visitors have to come in through the front office. He was also told that in case the "bad man who wants to steal things" comes into the cafeteria while they're eating, their teacher will take them to a "secret room to finish their lunch." I almost cried when I heard his little six year-old voice innocently explaining these procedures to me. In my mind I can see the images of the Columbine cafeteria that have been shown on the news. Images of deserted backpacks and lunches. And blood.

I'm glad they're taking precautions, but still, the fact that our schools even have to have plans in place in case some nutcase pervert decides he wants to play out his dark fantasy there is infuriating. What the hell is wrong with or society? Our culture? So many things I don't even know where to start.

Locking the doors may be a deterrent but we all know it could never keep out someone who is determined to get in and attack innocent children. Someone who is pure evil. Some might say that home-schooling is the solution. That may limit a child's exposure to the danger but it does not eliminate it. Danger lurks everywhere. We have to keep a close eye on them when they're playing in our own front yard. And heaven forbid we ever leave them in the car for two minutes while we run in to pay for a coke at the convenience store. Predators are just watching, waiting for their golden opportunity.

So there is no solution. If I allow myself to be consumed by all the things that could happen to one of my boys, I would never sleep again. In the end, all I can really do is pray for their safety as they go off to school each day and eventually out into the world as adults. And I never underestimate the power of prayer.

more autumn colors

This post is dedicated to my family and friends in Texas who may be contemplating a move to a state where there are four seasons. I had a recent post about the Aspens up in the mountains, and I thought you might have the impression that we have to drive far to see the fall colors. So here is a sampling of the colors that are showing up just on our street.

These bushes and trees at my neighbors' are practically neon!



This is a nice fall collage we can see in our backyard.




And this one looks out of a Dr. Seuss book.



We never want to take this for granted!