A Toast to the Skiing Years & Legacy Making

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There is a photo wall in my mother-in-law’s house of their family skiing. At the center are photos of Brett and his older brother Shawn learning to ski as toddlers in the 80s, when they donned sunglasses with a strap around the back instead of goggles, and fuzzy hats with a puffball on top instead of helmets. One of the photos is when Brett was maybe 8 or 9 years old and Shawn was 11 or 12. They are both wearing ski jackets hand-sewn by my mother-in-law, Karen.

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Taking Thoughts Captive

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October in New York City is beautiful. The tree canopy in Central Park is a blanket of orange, red, and yellow. The humidity fades and the temperature is perfect for taking long strolls through the city instead of cramming into public transportation.

But there’s another side to October in New York City that isn’t so lovely for mothers of very observant young children. New Yorkers go all out decorating for Halloween. Yes, there are beautiful displays of fall foliage and pumpkins of every color climbing the steps of brownstones. There are also horror movie advertisements on almost every bus and taxi, gory figures hanging outside brownstone windows, and skeletons dangling from trees. When my daughter was almost three years old, October felt like the entire city was a haunted house and I was trying desperately to shield my small child from all of the scary images around her. I was also praying every single day for God to show me how to explain these images to her but was equally nervous about messing up those conversations.

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Something Important

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“Hey Mom”, Norah asked as we sat at the table – one of us coloring and the other meal planning. It was a rare Sunday afternoon when the apartment was quiet while Conor took an extra long nap and Brett went for an extra long run, allowing for slow, uninterrupted conversations with my first grader. “I have a question for you. When I’m a mom someday, what if I want to have a job but I also don’t want to hire a nanny? What do I do with my kids?”

Apparently Norah wanted to bypass a couple decades of tough conversations and jump right into the mom guilt arena.

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Children, Children, What Do You See?

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The line is a familiar one if you’re a parent or a teacher. It’s from a sweet book about a brown bear and purple cat and yellow duck and a blue horse. It has singsong phrasing and can be memorized after only a couple readings. Yesterday I pulled it out to read with my 4-month-old before his afternoon nap. He was cooing on my lap as I read the question about each animal, Brown bear, brown bear what do you see? and so on. But that last question caught in my throat. My mind was not on the book filled with colorful animals and creative pictures. It was instead on our world filled with hurting people and hateful ideologies.

Children, children, what do you see?

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From One to Two

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“What was the hardest transition for you? Zero to one? One to two? Two to three?” This question was posed at a baby shower for my friend who was pregnant with her fifth child.

I was pregnant for the first time so I listened in eagerly, rubbing my 4-month baby bump and silently taking notes.

“Definitely from no kids to one kid,” she answered. “But maybe that’s just because my first was a difficult baby and she never slept.”

I braced myself for a tough transition five months down the road. And then Norah was born.

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