A vacation alone

Have you ever taken a vacation alone?

Over the years, my answer to this question has changed. As a kid - no way. As a teenager and college student - hell yes. As a wife and mother - why would I?

Last year, I took a vacation alone. I went surfing for a week in Costa Rica. When I decided to go, I didn't really think much about the fact that I would be traveling by myself. I craved the time alone but I was returning to a familiar place with familiar faces. I was returning to surf camp. En route to Costa Rica, it dawned on me that this was my first solo vacation. I assumed that I must have traveled alone in my college or post-college days but I never did.

I needed the time away from home and for myself. I have learned that I definitely have to carve out "me" time in order to recharge, and I fiercely protect this time. There are so many demands on my time and attention and so many people that I want to care for and support that it can become overwhelming. I am the first to admit that sometimes I need a break from parenthood, work and life. Having this time alone to take care of myself lets me regroup and reset so that I can (hopefully) be a better wife/mom/friend. 

So have you or would you take a vacation by yourself?

{Linking up with Pour Your Heart Out at Things I Can't Say}

Conquering Fears in the Pool

My older son Jasper has always loved the water and swimming. While he would hesitate and show some apprehension when trying activities like soccer or tumbling, he would dive feet-first into the pool without a trace of fear. We signed him up for swim classes when he was about 18 months old. He's been taking classes ever since and is starting to swim on his own. The first time that he put his head in the water, pushed off the wall and swam to his teacher, my heart swelled.

Jasper at 2.5 years old

So, when he started protesting going to his swim class a few months ago, I wasn't sure what to do. When he started screaming and crying on the pool deck, I was at a loss. I expected this kind of reaction when we introduced him to skiing in February. But with swimming? No way.

He gave a number of reasons for why he didn't want to swim but I knew that something had spooked him and had started to erode his confidence. I knew that he didn't like using the kick board but the barbells were OK. He didn't like swimming to the deep-end but jumping off the diving platform into the deep-end was OK. He tried to coax and encourage him. We tried to bribe him. We tried everything that we could think of.

As a parent, it's hard to watch your child lose their confidence, especially when it's something that you know brings your child so much joy. As a parent, it's also hard to be that parent at the pool / birthday party / playground with the screaming, kicking, whining child. My husband and I were so ready to throw in the towel, to give up and to let Jasper win this battle. I was so frustrated. I could feel the frustration pouring out of my pores. In part, it was because I love swimming and want to share that with my children.

But, since we had already committed to lessons for the summer, we decided to switch him to private lessons with his favorite swim teacher - his first teacher who he loves and practically would do anything for. If this didn't work out, we'd give swimming a rest for a while. Since then, it's been a slow process of rebuilding his confidence as a swimmer and making it fun again. By the second lesson, he was laughing and smiling. By the third lesson, he was using the kick board and learning to do the backstroke. I started to breathe a sigh of relief. 

This experience reminded me of a few things:

• Don't push but don't give up. For me, I felt that it was important that Jasper keep trying. In life, he's going to encounter many situations that he doesn't like and that are hard but he needs to learn the skills to face those situations. Maybe that's the Tiger Mom in me coming out but I do feel that it's an important skill to learn. If he refused to swim and wasn't having fun, we would have stopped the lessons and taken a break from swimming.
• Don't underestimate the power of being silly. I swear that the reason that Jasper got back in the water and was willing to continue with his swim lessons was because his teacher is hilarious. He makes jokes and makes Jasper feel like he's the funniest kid ever. 
• It's a big deal to conquer your fears. Celebrate the small accomplishments along the way to help to build confidence. It's important to recognize the progress that our kids make. I know that it was a big deal that Jasper swam in the pool by himself without his teacher in the water with him and we celebrated that.

I am hopeful that this is a turning point for him. Our mantra through these last few swim lessons has been Brave and Calm. Yes, both Jasper and Mommy have to be brave and calm - the latter more so for Mommy.

How do you encourage your children when they are scared or lose their confidence? How do you build resiliency in yourself and in your kids?

{Linking up with Pour Your Heart Out at Things I Can't Say}

A Case of the Swirly-Whirlys

I was planning on writing a different post today but I can't seem to quiet my mind enough to focus. I've been feeling very scattered lately. Busy with work and head deep in a project that frankly, I'm not that excited about. Don't get me wrong. I'm thankful for the work but I just can't seem to motivate myself to sit and actually do it. I spend most of the day with a genuine intention to work 4-5 solid hours before the boys come home from school but I am inevitably distracted by Twitter, Facebook, blogs, physical therapy exercises...you name it. I guess one of the downsides of working from home and for yourself is that you are ultimately accountable to yourself. Just. Can't. Do. It.

(By the way, I totally suffer from an involuntary Twitter twitch. Before I'm even conscious of doing it, I'm moving my hand to click and check my Twitter feed...every few minutes.)

Normally, I like having a lot on my plate. I like when my days are packed. It forces me to get organized, pull my shit together and just do it. However, my normal bag of tricks do not seem to be working for me. Part of me wonders if my lethargy and lack of motivation is tied to the fact that I can't workout. Exercise is a huge outlet for me and helps to set my mind straight.

I know that I promised that I was going to stop making excuses and to take things one step at a time. However, lately, my mind feels like it's racing a million miles a minute and I can't even slow down. I feel like my son in these pictures, drawn into the bright swirly lines and compelled to spin on and on until he finally falls down.


How do you manage the case of swirly whirlys?

{Linking up with Pour Your Heart Out at Things I Can't Say}

No Turning Back - Injury Update

Last week, I went to see my doctor again. It had been four weeks since I injured my knee and things were not improving. I take that back. I could walk without limping so that was an improvement, but my knee still wasn't normal. It was still wonky and unstable if I changed direction too quickly. You know those vitamin bottles that have a child-proof top and clicks when you turn it? Yeah, that's how my knee feels.

When I walked into my doctor's office, he turned to me and said, "You know that this means that we're talking surgery, right?" I let out a big sigh and nodded in agreement. At first, I thought that he meant he was just going to scope my knee to clean up my meniscus and scar tissue. Wishful thinking. He was going to do a revision of the ACL reconstruction that I had about 15 years ago. Apparently, while my ACL was still in tact (hence zero swelling after I injured it), it had become too loose and wasn't doing its job anymore. So, he was going to snip my ACL and replace it with a new one.

Over the past week, I have been in denial about the whole thing. While I knew that there was a good possibility that I would need to have surgery again, I didn't think that it would be another reconstruction, complete with its attendant recovery period. After my first knee surgery, I was not allowed to put any weight on my knee for 3 weeks. It was scary and frustrating to watch all the muscles in my right leg shrink and atrophy. Thankfully, physical therapy wasn't too bad and I regained my range of motion fairly quickly but the journey back to full strength and activity levels took some time.

But I'm kind of scared this time. I'm not 21 this time. I'm in my mid-30s and I know that recovery is going to be different. I know that I'm still young and active, but things just move slower these days. Muscle soreness lingers a day or so longer than it used to and a few days off from working out feels like a month. I'm worried about gaining weight and backsliding in my fitness. I'm frustrated because this wasn't supposed to happen again, especially because I had just returned to running and my legs felt stronger than ever. I also have two young active boys who may not completely understand why Mommy can't move around much. But if I want to keep doing these things, surgery makes the most sense for me.

After we decided on the surgery, I asked my doctor to tell me exactly what to expect in terms of rehab and recovery. I will be in a brace for two weeks. While I can put weight on my leg (hooray for the small things!), I will likely be hanging out at home and not doing much of anything. Then, it will be a 4-6 month recovery period and 9-12 months before I can train for anything seriously. 9 to 12 months. Those words echoed in my head and all I could managed to say was, "DUDE! That's a long time!"

I'm scheduled for surgery on March 26. I have roughly a week and a half to be as active as I can, strengthen my legs and have fun.

{This post is linked up with Pour Your Heart Out at Things I Can't Say}

Lessons from Ski School

I had my first ski lesson when I was four years old. It was a disaster. I remember that one ski boot kept unbuckling from my ski every time that I tried to move. I cried lots and lots of tears. After about a hour or so, my instructor lifted me up, hoisted me over his shoulder and skied down to the bottom of the bunny hill and returned me to my parents. Despite that first experience, I agreed to try again and ended up falling in love with skiing. 

My brother, sister and I grew up skiing in the mountains of Vermont and then Lake Tahoe. After we each had kids, we started talking about when we could get our kids up on skis. We questioned other parents and ski instructors. How early was too early? 18 months? 2 years? 4 years old? 

I have been so excited to share this sport with my sons and desperately want them to love it as much as I do. Since my husband doesn't downhill ski, I needed the boys on my side. Otherwise, how could I convince three non-skiers to head up to the mountains so that Mommy could ski while they hung out and waited for me in the lodge? At the same time, I was scared that my kids would have a first experience similar to my own and walk away hating the sport and never getting to experience the thrill of skiing down a mountain.

In particular, I was worried about my five year old son J. He has always been a cautious child, more comfortable sitting on the sidelines watching as his friends would dive head first into any new situation that presented itself. It takes him a while to warm up to new people and situations; he doesn't like to try things that he's not familiar with or good at. (No, it's not lost on me that he will not know if he is good at something until he actually tries it. I try this argument all the time. It doesn't work.) I signed him up for a tumbling class at 18 months and for 45 minutes for the first 4-5 weeks of class, he screamed and cried through the entire class while I held him and tried to pretend that crawling up and over different obstacles was SO MUCH FUN! 

Once we planned this trip to Lake Tahoe, I would occasionally mention the idea of skiing to which his response would be, "Never. I don't want to ski." When I brought up the topic again, I received the same response. I didn't have high hopes that he would try skiing on this trip but I resolved to let him make his own decision. I didn't want to push him to try it and then get upset with him when he would ultimately choose not to ski or worse, refuse to participate after I shelled out a $100+ for a lesson. Truthfully, I didn't want this to ruin our trip or my week of skiing.

Well, funny things happened on the way to Lake Tahoe. First, I injured myself which meant no skiing for me. Second, J decided that he wanted to try skiing. I tried really hard to play it cool and not to jump up and down with excitement when he delivered his decision. We agreed that he would try once. If he didn't like it, he didn't have to try again. I worried that while he agreed to these terms, he would balk when he saw the equipment and had to put on the big heavy ski boots. But he didn't. He went along with his cousins and ski instructor Marcel and learned to ski. 

As parents, it's often hard to disentangle our children's experience from our own expectations. We want so many things for our kids. But, do we end up pushing our kids to play certain sports because it makes us happy or offers a chance to live vicariously through them rather than because it's something that they truly enjoy? 

I asked J a couple times if he was having fun. He nodded yes. He had a blank look on his face so I wasn't sure if he was being completely honest with me. But then he turned around and told me how Marcel told him he "ripped." The biggest smile spread across his face. He then told me that it wasn't so hard - all he had to do was make french fries with his skis and then gently make a pizza, and then french fries and then gently make a pizza. He wanted to keep skiing after his lesson ended as well as that afternoon. Then I knew, he really did like it. 

At the end of his two-hour lesson, Marcel took J on the chair lift. Watching J ski down the beginner trail, all by himself made my heart swell. It was one of the proudest moments I've experienced as a parent. It made up for the fact that I couldn't ski. Almost. Of course, my two-year old son wasn't one to be left out of all the action. He got his own pair of skis and raced down some gentle slopes. We couldn't get him off the mountain at the end of the day.

I learned a couple of things over the last two days. 

• It's a fine balance between encouraging children to try new things and allowing them to make their own decision. As they get older, it's important that it is their own decision.
• Introduce the new activity and let it be that - an introduction. They don't have to love it right away or commit to joining a team. If they enjoy it, great. If they don't, you can try again another time. Maybe the circumstances weren't right this time around.
• Different kids take to different activities and sports at different ages. Like I said, J is more reserved. There is no way I would have tried to get him on skis at 2.5 years like his younger brother.
• As hard as it is, don't push. We all know that kids have a sixth sense when it comes to things that Mom or Dad really want them to do. They will do the complete opposite.

I'm going to try my hardest to remember these lessons when I try to convince J to give surfing a go.

{This post is linked up to Pour Your Heart Out at Things I Can't Say and Wordful Wednesday}