Santa's Suit

Santa was late.

It was Christmas Eve and I was seven years old. My younger sister, younger brother, and I had been bouncing with excitement ever since dinner and now we were starting to get anxious.

“Mom, are you sure there’s enough snow for Santa’s sleigh?” I asked.

“Yes, Jodi. I’m sure.” Mom looked at her watch, then peered out the front window. She’d been doing that for the last hour. It didn’t inspire confidence.

A worrisome thought occurred to me. “MOM! Did Dad definitely give Santa his suit back?”

Mom turned and stared at me. “What?”

I explained how the previous summer I had found Santa’s red bag in our converted school bus camper. Inside was Santa’s hat, Santa’s suit, even Santa’s beard!

“DAD!” I had yelled. “Why is Santa’s suit in here?”

My dad’s eyebrows rose, and so did the corners of his mouth.

“Oh that,” he had said, waving his hand as if to brush away any silly thoughts I might have been entertaining. “Santa used our bus to change and forgot his suit. Don't worry, I’ll send it back to him.”

Dad’s explanation had seemed so believable to me then. But now I was worried that Santa was out there somewhere in just his skivvies. I would have brought up my concerns with Dad, but he was out running errands. He always just missed Santa.

Then suddenly, there arose such a clatter… Our front door opened and in burst Santa Claus.

“HO-HO-HOOOO!”

Santa beamed. His nose and cheeks were rosy. His grey-blue eyes twinkled.

“Have you been good boys and girls?” he asked.

“YES!” we yelled.

Santa pulled three unwrapped presents from his bag. I bounced up and down, hugging my new pink plastic tea set. My brother spun the wheels on his new Tonka truck and my sister gazed lovingly at her new drink-and-pee baby doll.

Santa kissed my mom, patted her rear-end and was gone.

Several years later, I was a little less naive when I stumbled across the Santa suit again. This time, when I stood holding the suit — and beard! — as evidence and asked my mom and dad about it, they looked at each other and shrugged. “Sit down,” they said.

That’s when I learned that Dad’s Christmas Eve “errands” had included donning a Santa suit for another family, then ours. In between his Santa tasks, he enjoyed holiday cheer at the local bar. People loved to buy Santa drinks. Eventually our Santa would arrive: late, red-nosed, and jolly.

I was shocked. “Dad was Santa?”

Finding this out was a loss for me, but also a gain. My dad, who yelled too often and drank too much, was now something more. Somewhere hidden deep inside my father was that jolly, twinkly-eyed Santa.

River

When I was in my twenties, I never slowed down.  My brain whirred and raced.  I talked non-stop.  I stayed awake at night thinking and worrying.

I had just moved across the country from Rice Lake, Wisconsin, to Bellingham, Washington.  Bellingham was full of hippy-wanna-bes and I wanted to be one too.   I became a vegetarian.  I wore long beaded earrings that I made myself.  I dressed in tie-dye and batik.  I wore a planet-earth harmony ball necklace. (Apparently you can buy this item at Sears.  And you should, because "The harmony that comes out of this pendant relaxes and soothes ones mind.")

I desperately wanted to be mellow.

I was definitely not mellow.

I stumbled across some Zen Buddhism books in one of Bellingham's new agey bookstores.  I liked the calm, smiling, exotic-looking faces on the back covers.  (I grew up in a town of 700 people in the Great North Woods of Wisconsin, so it didn't take much to be exotic-looking.  I thought people from Minneapolis were exotic-looking.)  I liked the idea of being "Zen."  Whatever that meant.  It sounded like the opposite of me.  The idea was soothing.

But the concepts in the books were almost impossible to grasp.  They said things like, "Throwing away Zen mind is correct Zen mind," or "You see that you are nothing, and being nothing, you are everything," or...

"Don't push the river."

Oh hell, I was totally a river-pusher.  I didn't go with the flow, I tried to wrestle that damn flow the way I wanted it to go.  As my step-father-in-law, who isn't Buddhist, but is a wise man nonetheless, likes to say, I go at things "like killin' snakes."

Just picture yourself with a big stick in your hand, surrounded by a rhumba of rattlesnakes (yes, really, a group of rattlesnakes is called a rhumba), and imagine the rattlesnakes start slithering toward you in a wriggling, rhythmic motion (kind of like this, but only less sexy and more threatening).  Slither, slither, rattle rattle... WHACK!  WHACK!  WHACK-WHACK!  That was pretty much my approach to life.  Flailing and hacking at whatever got in my way.

And it actually worked fairly well.  I was very productive.  I held down a full time job (whack!  whack!) while attending college at night (whack!  whack-whack!).

Except for my racing mind and lack of quality sleep, I was doing just fine.

I kept reading about Zen Buddhism and meditation and Taoism.  I wasn't able to incorporate much of what I read into my fast-paced life, but it made me feel better just to learn about people who seemed so at peace.  It gave me something to aspire to.  Maybe someday I'd figure it out.

Now, some twenty years later, I still don't know anyone who would describe me as mellow.  It's very unlikely that I will ever be the person behind that serene gaze of a Zen master.  But I am doing a little bit better at not pushing the river.

My river is not the lazy, reflective, pale blue stream, winding carefree through the peaceful valley that I imagined when I read those books. My river moves quickly and occasionally plummets into a jumble of whitewater that sends me reeling. Lots of things can get that water churning - my kids, my husband, work, my own perfectionism, and even hormones.

But now, thanks to years of failed attempts, I understand there's no point in trying to paddle back upstream.  I just need to avoid the biggest rocks, stay out of those massive, boat-flipping waves, and have faith that in the end, the river will carry me back out the other side.

Although, now that I've improved my paddling skills, I find myself wondering if the river really needs to go quite so fast.  And isn't it possible that there are forks in the river that could allow me to avoid a few of those rapids altogether?

I just dug out one of my old Zen books.  I still love the peaceful, smiling face on the back cover.  I flipped through and found this:

"Do not even expect to make progress.  Just to be sincere and make our full effort in each moment is enough."

Ooh.  I like that.  I think it's worth another read.  I wonder if Sears has any harmony balls in stock...

Browsing

Huh?  Whoa. Where am I?

Last I remember, I was checking my email.  An hour and a half later, I came to consciousness and found myself mindlessly clicking through photo galleries of homes for sale. 

How did I get here? 

Fuzzily, I remember checking Facebook, then following a link to a YouTube video of a teenage girl from Canada speaking about environmental degradation at a UN Earth Summit.  The video made me cry, which reminded me that I wanted to read more about Highly Sensitive People.  Then, after reading that one of the "Top Ten Survival Tips for the Highly Sensitive" is to surround yourself with beauty and nature, I thought maybe it would be good for my mental health if I were to buy a house near a park.  (I’m like the next in the series of “If You Give a Pig a Pancake” books:  “If You Give Jodi a Facebook Account…”)

And it’s not the first time something like this has happened.  I do this sort of thing in the real world as well as the online world.

Sometimes I’ll go to run a quick errand, like buying toothpaste, so I stop at Bartell’s and then I think, “Well, since I’m here, I guess I should look around and see what else I might need.”  An hour and a half later, I’m standing dazed and confused in the Random Seasonal Items aisle holding a super-soaker squirt gun in one hand and a bocce ball set in the other.  My phone is ringing -- it’s my husband with two crying kids in the background, wondering where in the heck I am with the toothpaste.  And I should NEVER be allowed to go to stores like Target or Fred Meyer where a person can bump into hammocks and tiki torches on her way to the diaper aisle.  (The vision of spending my days lounging in a hammock is my personal nirvana.  Tiki torches are optional.)

I’ve noticed that there is usually a precursor to my distracted wanderings.  Sometimes I feel an undefined restlessness.  A vague itch that needs to be scratched, but I’m not clear about exactly how to scratch it.  So I wander and browse.  The restless urge to do something, without an idea of what, finds me poring over racks of clothes I don’t want, flipping through magazines full of people I can’t relate to, and clicking my way through web page after web page of information I don’t need to know. Wandering aimlessly with no direction.  Squandering my time. 

But I’m slowly learning that wherever I’m browsing, I’m unlikely to find what I’m looking for.   If I slow down and focus on the itch -- spend some real quality time with the itch, instead of immediately grabbing my back scratcher (or mouse, or debit card) and mindlessly scratch-scratch-scratching, I often notice that the itch is actually a need.  And it's not a need for some new skinny jeans, or ninjabread men cookie cutters or a sweet hammock (ok, well maaaybe it is a need for a sweet hammock). 

I might need to get some exercise.   Maybe I need to connect with friends.  I might need to take a walk in a park (so much easier and cheaper than buying a new house).  I might need to spend some quality time with my husband or my kids.  Maybe I need to write in my journal or call an out-of-town loved one.  I might need to have some quiet time alone.  

Of all the possible things that I might need, these items are glaringly missing from the list:

•  To research online all the possible illnesses I may have
• To read 148 reviews of 16 different makes and models of toaster ovens
• To find out what has happened on Facebook since I checked 15 minutes ago
• To watch a YouTube video of a skateboarding bulldog
• To fondle clothes that I don’t plan to buy
• To purchase clothes that I’m certain to return 

Don’t get me wrong.  Browsing has its place. Shopping isn’t necessarily a vice.  We need to buy things, and it can be fun to make a new purchase.   And online browsing can be useful and entertaining.  I love seeing what friends are up to on Facebook, and there is a ton of information to be gleaned from articles and blogs.  (For example, I just learned that a small dog named Honey Bun recently ate $10,000 worth of diamonds.  Isn't that interesting?)

But I’m getting better at recognizing when the itch to browse is really an urge for something else.   And when it is, instead of browsing, I plan a date with my husband, take a walk, organize some friend-time, or read a book. 

Then again, sometimes all I really need to feel better is a video of a toddler in a Tigger costume dancing to the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive.”  (Whether you're a brother or whether you're a mother, you're stayin' alive, stayin' alive.  Feel the city breakin' and everybody shakin', we're stayin' alive, stayin' alive.  Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive. Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' ali-i-i-i-ve!)

Running Ragged

While serious athletes are running, biking or lifting weights to get in shape for their upcoming races, my training schedule includes stumbling barefoot onto small, pointy, hard-plastic animals (rhinoceroses and triceratops come to mind), startling awake four or more times a night to the blood-curdling screech of a toddler, and eternally attempting to finish a sentence.

How on earth does this get me in better shape, you ask?  It's simple.  The daily rigamarole of parenting, with all of its trials and its challenges, actually makes me stronger, hardier, more tenacious.

OK, I'm nowhere near a serious athlete.  I'm not a racer. I'm a finisher.  I've (slowly) completed a few half-marathons and a handful of sprint triathlons.  "Sprint" refers to the length of the race (short) and not the speed I race them.  I am definitely not sprinting.  Lollygagging might be a more accurate term.  If they offered lollygag triathlons, I'd sign up for those.

Even before I had children, I undertrained. I'd search online for training schedules, find the easiest one, and then remove anything that looked difficult or complicated (hill repeats, track workouts, any of those "10 x 300" thingies), until I came up with a manageable schedule.  Then I would go forth with my modified schedule, and proceed to cheat on that.  This type of training allowed me to be just prepared enough to make it across the finish line without quiiite puking.

But since having kids, the training schedules I find online look completely out of whack with my reality. When could I possibly find time to do all of that?  So this time, I chucked the suggested schedule and created from scratch a schedule that fits into my busy life.  I named this schedule "Jodi's Barely-Crawl-Over-the-Finish-Line Training Schedule."  It's perfectly doable and nowhere near the level of training I would need to finish an event comfortably.

Aha, but here is where my Secret Training Weapon comes in...  My kids.

It's true!  Before having kids, my long runs were exhausting.  I felt like I had to wring out every last drop of energy just to finish the final mile.  Now, those same runs seem so tranquil -- such a reprieve! -- I barely notice I'm running.  It's amazing!  I can think in complete sentences.  There are no tiny people tugging on my shirt, beseeching, "Mommy... Mommmmy... MOMMMMMMYYYYY!"

My first race after giving birth to my son was a 10K.  I placed 2nd in my age division. Ok, there were only like five people in my age division, but still.  My time for the race was a personal record.  Why?  I had gotten tougher.  I was able to push myself a little harder through the entire race.  For that I thank my pint-sized personal trainer, who woke us up crying (I'm sure it was a motivational yell) every hour or two all night long for two months, refused to ever ride in a stroller, and screamed non-stop each and every time he was strapped into his carseat.

So, while serious athletes work to increase their aerobic capacity, I'm increasing my discomfort capacity.  This week my training has included spending four hours -- starting at midnight -- trying to cajole my daughter into going back to sleep, 20 sets of my son yelling, "she hit me!" and 40 reps of my daughter flinging food across the dining room.

Luckily, like successfully finishing an event can make all those training runs seem like they were worth it, at the end of the day when I give my kids a snuggle, kiss them goodnight, and tuck them in (the first time), I feel lucky to have these puny yet uncompromising trainers.  They motivate me to be a stronger, more patient, and kinder person.  For that I am truly grateful.

That said, I really hope they've remembered to build some rest days into my schedule.  

Selfish

My husband has a selfish streak.  He laces up his shoes and runs out the door. Literally.  Or he clicks the chin-strap on his bike helmet and off he pedals for a two-hour ride.  He spends every Tuesday evening playing soccer in a co-rec soccer league.  And did I mention he has season tickets to the Sounders FC, which seems to me to have a home game every week for like 40 weeks a year?

How, you may ask, do I put up with this beast of a man?

As it turns out, it's easy.

He is as generous as he is selfish.  And he encourages me to be selfish too.  He is often the one to kick my distracted butt out the door and toward the gym.  He reminds me to call my girlfriends to plan a night out.  He thinks it's important that I take time for myself.

Of course, that's selfish too.  The happier I am, the easier it is on everybody - especially him, so it's a smart move on his part to give me a little nudge toward a more balanced life.  And I usually need the nudge.

It can feel like we're being selfless by putting work and family first.  But what if we're actually worse at our jobs because we don't give ourselves a break?  What if we're actually more stressed-out parents because we don't take time for ourselves?

Others have compared it to the flight attendant speech.  You know the one where they tell you about those floppy baggies that drop down if the cabin loses pressure?

"If you are traveling with a child, please make sure to secure your own face mask before assisting others."

It's true.  We need to be ok if they're going to be ok.  We need to take care of ourselves in order to properly take care of our families.  And the same can be said of our jobs.

More and more research is coming out to support the idea that making time for ourselves makes us healthier, happier, more highly-functioning people.

• Harvard Business Review researchers tell us that exercise, sleep and vacations help us be more focused and productive.
• Several different studies have shown that spending time with friends has as much effect on our health and longevity as not smoking.  
• And in case you happen to be a rat, the researchers at Princeton University learned that exercise can help rats deal better with stress.  I'm sure those robust rodents would make very patient parents to their tiny rat brats.  ("Yes, Ratbert, sweetie.  Just let Mommy change out of these sweats and then I can help you build a fort.")

The research is in: We're actually being generous to our families - and our bosses - by taking time for ourselves.

Wouldn't your employer appreciate a more focused, productive employee?  Don't you want to give your family a more relaxed, happier parent?

So go to the gym instead of folding the laundry.  Go to bed early instead of checking your email.  Go out with a friend instead of loading the dishwasher.  Do something you want to do instead of something you should do.

Consider this your free pass to get out the door and take care of yourself.  What's good for us is good for them.  Tens of thousands of flight attendants can't be wrong.

The Power of Pomade

When I was 18 and first out on my own, shopping was an exhilarating experience, flush with possibilities. I felt that I was almost — but not quite — cool, and that all I needed to tip me over the edge to coolness was the perfect pair of shoes. And possibly the right jacket.

I was certain — in the way that only the young can be — that if I could put together the perfect outfits, all of my insecurities would — "poof!" — disappear. I’d feel how I imagined the models in Teen magazine felt: totally at ease with themselves, able to throw on any outfit — with those perfect shoes and that awesome jacket — and look and feel fabulous.

And I did feel pretty suave in the brown distressed-leather bomber jacket I bought with my student loan money. It had an aviation patch over the left chest and a satin lining printed with little fighter planes. I mean, seriously — who wouldn't look cool in that?

Did all my insecurities go away? No. But that’s probably just because I never found the right pair of shoes.

As I’ve gotten older and wiser, I aspire to get joy from life experiences instead of consumer goods. Being cool is less important than it was, and I realize that quality of life comes from a deeper place than my pocketbook.

But occasionally I am hit with the familiar feeling that a certain purchase may hold some great power to transform me.

Take, for instance, hair product.

After a haircut, I always leave feeling a little more awesome than when I came in, especially if I walk out with a new jar of pomade or bottle of spray gel.

Before I’ve actually tried the new hair product, I am filled with hope and optimism: the whole world is open to me. This new hair product may be the secret ingredient for a hipper, funkier, sassier me.

That is, of course, before the post-new-hair-product letdown. Before I realize that by the end of the day, the pomade makes my hair feel like dirty dog fur or that the spray gel creates a helmet-like crust on my hair similar to that chocolate sauce my parents would never buy me when I was a kid that hardened over ice cream like a magic shell.

After my real-life experience with that oh-so-full-of-potential hair product, of course, I’m back to being my usual not-quite-cool-but-mostly-ok-with-it self.

But then, last fall, as I was browsing my usual neighborhood discount store when I should have been working, I glanced at a display and gasped.

Those boots!

They were casual, yet a tiny bit funky. They were just the perfect mix of greyish and brownish. They were priced just low enough. I tried to remain calm as I scanned for my size. Oooh! There it was! I held my breath as I put my extremely picky feet into the boots.

They. Were. Perfect!

I snatched them and ran to the checkout counter, filled with a rush of hope. These were the ones. These would change everything.

I wore them almost every day last fall, winter and spring. I wore them to play in the park. I wore them to business meetings. I wore them out on the town. (I would wear them on a train. I would wear them in the rain. I do like them, Sam I am!)

And you know what? Yes! Those boots did what years of self-exploration could not. I became cool. It was so simple. All I needed, all this time, were those freaking boots.

Tattoos, Triathlons and Tango Lessons

What do these things have in common: hiking the Applachian Trail, moving to an island, getting a tattoo, training for a triathlon or marathon or long-distance bike ride, taking tango or salsa or drum or guitar lessons, hiring a fashion consultant or personal trainer, taking a year - or more! - off work to travel, buying a boat or motorcycle or sportscar or RV, finding religion or meditation or yoga, going back to school, joining a choir, donning a kilt and tossing cabers in Scottish Highland games, and starting a blog?

They are all somebody's answer to the question: What's next?

We spend our lives looking forward to what's ahead. My son just turned four and he already wants to know when he'll be five. As a child I couldn't wait for my next birthday - oh, how I longed to be one year older. When I was excitedly looking forward to turning 13, my father told me that I should never say that I can't wait for something, because I'm just wishing the time away between now and the thing I can't wait for. And that in-between time is passing either way, so I might as well enjoy it as it goes.

Even when we aren't giddily squealing "I can't wait," we still measure our lives by milestones. Whether it's getting our driver's license, graduating from high school, going to college, getting one degree or another, traveling abroad, starting and advancing a career, buying a home, getting married or having children, there is an underlying awareness of what's next.

But what happens when we reach the end of our personal list of milestones? Or what if one of our milestones is on hold or seems unreachable?

What's next?

We find something that makes us feel alive or sexy or strong. We find a goal we can strive toward. We've been students and workers, we've been travelers. We may be spouses and/or a parents. But is that everything?

Personally, as a parent, I need more in my future than my children's milestones. I want to have something to look forward to beyond my son getting his driver's license or my daughter's first date. (Please excuse me for just a moment while I pick myself up from the floor after briefly visualizing those two milestones.)

So, I ask, what's next for me?

Not having an answer to "what's next?" brings my own mortality uncomfortably to mind. Retirement sounds wonderful and all, but I would really prefer to have something on my milestone list between now and snowbirding in Arizona or Mexico.

So I'm looking through the local event calendar for biking and running events to train for this summer. I'm pricing sailboats. I saw a personal trainer yesterday to set up a strength-training routine. And yes, I started a blog.

But if my dad was right - and I think he was - then I also need to appreciate this very moment that I'm living now. Sure, there's more out there, and I'm excited to continue to create new milestones. But it's also valuable to slow down and acknowledge the life we've created and the people we've become. Then maybe we can settle into ourselves a little and enjoy where we are. After all, this - right now - is what's really next.

A Cat in Revelstoke

"Very funny,” I texted back to our friend Steve.  He had just sent me a ridiculous message asking if we could pick up a cat on our way to their house.

We were on the second day of a two-day drive from Seattle to visit Steve’s family in Golden, a small mountain town in southeast British Columbia.  Steve has a dry sense of humor.  The idea of tossing a cat into our packed-to-the-brim car with our crying one-year-old daughter and whining four-year-old son for the last one-and-a-half hours of the 11-hour trip was obviously his idea of a joke.

I had to admit, when I imagined a cat amid the mayhem of two little kids and their tired, stressed-out parents, it was kind of funny, in a comedy-sketch sort of way. Like our own version of National Lampoon's Canadian Vacation.

Then my cellphone rang. It was Steve explaining that no, actually, he wasn't joking. His neighbor's cat had hitched a ride on someone's trailer the previous night and ended up in Revelstoke – a town which was conveniently on our route to Golden. It would be a huge favor to his neighbors and save them a three-hour round-trip drive if we could stop in Revelstoke and pick up their cat.

My husband Mike looked at me with raised eyebrows as I hemmed and hawed into the phone.

“What was that about?” he asked after I set the phone down.

“I thought Steve was joking at first,” I said, “but he wants us to pick up a cat in Revelstoke.”

“Shit.” Mike muttered, so the kids wouldn’t hear.

“I know.” I said.

***

I really wanted to be the kind of person who would pick up a cat in Revelstoke. When we were younger, before we had kids, Mike and I did things.  Adventurous things.  Mike lived in Taiwan for 3 years. I travelled alone for several months each in Europe and Central America. On our honeymoon we stayed in $5-per-night beach huts in Malaysia with unspeakable bathrooms and invisible bugs that left us dotted in red bites. We stayed in a jungle camp in Borneo where the rainforest floor was coated in a crisscrossing, crawling layer of millipedes.  We fed pancakes to wiry-snouted wild boars.  We handled adversity with good humor.  When a menacing monkey charged Mike on his way to the shower, we laughed about it.  OK, I laughed about it, and eventually – a few years later – Mike laughed a little bit too.  At that time in our lives, when things went sideways, we'd think about the funny story it was going to make later.

But after having kids in our late 30s, it became more challenging to just go with the flow. Sometimes the funny future story no longer felt like a good trade for the immediate pain in the butt. Things with kids were just... harder.  We didn’t want to trade our under-planned budget travel for all-inclusive kid-friendly resorts.  Bouncing across Mexico in a cheap rental car, eating tortillas, avocados and beer on empty beaches appeared doomed to turn into sitting at an all-you-can-eat buffet watching a guy in a Fred Flintstone costume dance by the pool.

Our kids weren’t very good travelers. Other parents would tell stories of their babies and toddlers instantly falling asleep when buckled into their car seats.  Not ours.  Our children immediately transformed into little howling Tasmanian Devils. Trips to the grocery store were torture.  Long car rides were hell.  I made myself nauseous and half-dislocated my shoulder as I twisted my body backward to soothe my screaming children. I held their hands, handed them toys and sang to them. Nothing stopped the crying for more than a few minutes.

But we were getting better at it.  As the kids got older, they cried less.  We fed them a constant stream of movies, kid-music and snacks, which mostly calmed the tiny back-seat beasts. They still whined, demanded urgent pee-stop in the middle of nowhere, and forced us to make inconvenient, messy, passenger-seat diaper changes.  But they also slept and sang songs and had toddler conversations.  Traveling was getting easier, but 11 hours was definitely pushing our limit.

If Steve had called ten minutes later, we would have been past Revelstoke and we could have honestly told him – alas - we had missed our opportunity to pick up the cat. But as it turned out, we were just coming into the town and had to decide on the spot: do we tell our laid-back friend Steve that we uptight Seattleites aren't going to help out his neighbor? Or do we stop and pick up the damned cat?

I looked at Mike.  “It’s probably really uncool to make Steve’s friends drive three hours to get their cat when we are driving right through Revelstoke.”  I said.

He looked at me, resigned. “Yep.”

***

Fifteen minutes later, we were continuing down the winding mountain road, past mountain sheep and elk crossing signs, with a smallish, fuzzy, orange, golden-eyed cat named Cheddar hopping around the car.  The cat leaped from seatback to lap to seatback, claws partially exposed, grasping for security. Cheddar was a bit shaken up after his recent adventure: his unexpected hour-and-a-half ride the previous night, his overnight in a 20-degree trailer, his discovery today by an unfamiliar family in Revelstoke, and his brief stay in a hastily assembled cardboard box in the back of our car. Now, having escaped the box, he was trapped in a moving vehicle filled with noisy strangers of various sizes. 

Our one-year-old daughter loved cats, but rarely saw real live felines - mainly because we were not "cat people" and we didn’t have many friends with cats. Her word for cat was "mao-mao," and we were to hear it in various pitches and decibel-levels over the next hour and a half. She emitted joyful shrieks of glee when the cat poised itself on the seatback in view of her car seat. Her hands outstretched towards the cat, she squealed, "Mao-Mao!!" in anticipation of the cat jumping onto her lap. Then, when the cat jumped past her outstretched arms and landed above her head, just out of reach (Cheddar was apparently no dummy), she screamed at the top of her lungs, tears streaming down her face, "MAOOO-MAOOOO!!!!" During Cheddar's brief lapses in reason when he did settle into Lyra's lap, she giggled and squealed excitedly, until her tail pulling caused the cat to seek safety elsewhere, and her distraught screaming began anew.

As it turned out, it was a little like a comedy sketch. I laughed at the range of emotion caused by the cat. My daughter even said her first two-word combination: when the cat curled up in her brother's lap for a snuggle, Lyra was SOOO infuriated that her brain rapidly developed new synapses and in her suddenly advanced state, she screeched, "MYYYYYYYYYYY MAO-MAOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!" I appreciated this developmental leap, while at the same time cringing at the rising volume level in the car.

It continued more or less like this for the hour-and-a-half drive to Golden. I tried to simultaneously soothe my screaming daughter, while protecting my husband from Cheddar. At one point, Cheddar got past my defenses and jumped onto the steering wheel. The cat barely got a chance to exhibit his driving skills before he was evicted from his perch by my husband’s arm and sent scrabbling for a grip along the dashboard, ultimately falling back into my lap.

We eventually arrived at Steve's house, safe and sound and slightly rattled.  The cat jumped out and was greeted with shouts of "Cheddar!!" by Steve’s daughter and another neighborhood girl.  The girls grabbed the frazzled cat and lugged him back to his rightful home. We human travelers were met with warm greetings and cold drinks from our friends.

After we had a chance to wind down from our drive and ease into our vacation, I was able to reflect a bit.  We made this trip happen with two small children.  Maybe this parenting thing was getting a little bit easier.  Maybe our adventurous lives weren’t over, even with kids in tow.  We proved to ourselves that we are the kind of people who would pick up a cat in Revelstoke.  And it actually does make a pretty funny story afterward.

Girl Next Door

How is it that I came from a home where my parents never read me a book, didn't notice when I played on a partially frozen pond or fell down the basement stairs, and didn't take me to the dentist for the first time until I was twelve, yet I ended up as a parent who stays up at night worrying about off-gassing toys and pesticides in food?

I recently was contacted via Facebook by my childhood neighbor, Libby. Libby was the embodiment of a wholesome midwest childhood. Her father worked for the Department of Natural Resources - a masculine, outdoorsy job. Her mother stayed home and took care of Libby. Her older brother Chucky was dorky and obnoxious, which added just the right amount of imperfection to the family to make it believable.

Libby was a sweet girl - quiet and kind and clean. Libby had sandy-blonde hair and freckles. Libby's family went cross-country skiing together. They had a purebred Springer Spaniel hunting dog with a nice, clean, new kennel. Libby's dad built her a tree-house in her backyard.

My younger sister and brother and I were a small tousled mob of children who lived next door. Our dog was a German Shepherd mix that ran loose most of the time, occasionally threatening the neighborhood boys who teased us. My dad walked around drinking cheap beer from a can and yelling profanities.

Libby's mom didn't relish her daughter playing with us. But at one point Libby told us that her mom liked that we were "creative," because she thought that would be good for Libby.

We were creative because our parents didn't buy us things and they didn't entertain us, so we had to use our imaginations. We made up games like "Squiggle," where one of us would draw a random squiggle and then the other one would need to make it into something distinguishable - maybe an elephant or a snake or a tree. We made up card games. We played charades. We even created and built our own board games, with game pieces and rules (the making of the games was fun, the playing of the games - not so much). For Christmas, we made each other gifts - occasionally very strange things. I remember sewing a fried egg for my sister and a stuffed "candy bar" for my brother. We wrote silly stories and bad poetry.

Libby's house was full of wonderful toys. She had several Barbie dolls, Barbie houses full of Barbie furniture, and a whole wardrobe of fashionable Barbie attire. My sister and I felt lucky that we each had one Barbie. Each doll had come with one outfit, of which we had long ago lost the shoes. When our Barbies wanted to go out on the town, we made their outfits. Out of socks, of course. Just a few creative snips for head and arm-holes, a strip of fabric for a belt, and "waa-laa," Barbie was red-carpet-ready. Or maybe red-neck-ready would be more accurate, since our Barbie was barefoot and we generally only had white cotton athletic socks to choose from for her dresses.

Hearing from Libby after all these years brought back many fond memories. Libby looks and acts (from what I can tell from our Facebook interactions) just like a grown-up version of the sweet, kind, girl-next-door that I remember. She is a lawyer now and a mother of two children - a boy and a girl. She lives 45 minutes away from the town where we grew up.

How different am I from my childhood-self? Maybe not very. The way I parent is certainly different than the way I was parented. I spend a large part of my brain-power thinking about my children's happiness, safety, health, and future. My parents didn't have the time or energy or inclination to focus on their kids.

But I do value the opportunities for creativity that I was given as a child, and I don't buy many new toys for my kids. When I watch my son pretending that his toy train is a snowmobile or his hat is a fishing net or just playing "Monster" (a game which, as far as I can tell, involves yelling "monster" and then screaming and running around in circles), I feel like I'm doing something right. I guess I've got my parents to thank for that.