Winter Break 2011: Good Riddance

I have to be honest. I sort of hate winter break. It feels like the kids are just getting settled back into their school routine, when bam!, suddenly they are off from school for a week in the middle of winter.

And who doesn't want their children home with them for a week in subzero temps after a nice long winter? Blah. It's almost like a punishment to the parents.

As is our ritual, I work with two friends to cover each other's working days. It is our version of a child care co-op and it has worked fabulously for us over the last few years.

On Monday, I had my boys and two other children, our friends Ellie and Casey. After a morning of play around the house, we went to a very packed movie theatre to see Gnomeo and Juliet where we tested the free refill policy of the giant popcorn bucket. Free refills, hurray!

On Tuesday, my boys went to my friend Angela's house to play with her son David. They played a whole lot of Wii and went out to lunch at a local restaurant that features indoor games and hockey.

On Wednesday, my boys went to my friend Christine's house to play with their friends Ellie and Casey. They made homemade cotton candy, went out to lunch and built snow forts in their backyard.

On Thursday, the boys were home with Chris's parents, where they soaked up a day of playing in their pjs.

On Friday, I had my friend Angela's son David, with my boys. After a morning of Wii and air hockey, we went out to lunch and ice cream and spent the afternoon sledding in our backyard.

And now break is over. I think the boys are more tired after break started. I know I am, but we survived. I have a feeling that I am going to like Spring Break a whole lot better than winter break. The beach, the waves and giant margaritas - now that is a break I can get behind.

Cake Boss

The boys are in love with the show Cake Boss on TLC. I love that it is a show that we can watch together and actually, have all of us find it interesting. On a recent Cake Boss airing, the boys saw that the next show was a cooking show hosted by Buddy of Cake Boss. They begged to watch it and I agreed.

Cake Boss ended and Kitchen Boss started up. After a few minutes of watching the cooking show, Aidan turned to me and said, "I'm confused. How did Buddy get from his bakery to the kitchen in his house so fast? We just saw him there!"

Ah, the wonders of television.

A Family Kind of Weekend

We soaked up some family time this weekend. The boys did not have their normal Saturday basketball game because it was school break, so we took the opportunity to cheer on my cousin Nicole's basketball game for Nardin High School. We chatted with my aunts, my brother Travis and my sister in law Lynda, while we hooted and hollered for Nikki's starting basketball prowess. (She is fairly amazing.)

After basketball, we went out to lunch with Travis and Lynda. And then after eating more pizza than we should have, we decided to try the cupcake bar at the bakery down the street. The boys were entranced with the cake creations at this bakery. They oohed and ahhed so much that the owner stopped her cake project and came up front to talk to the boys about how she makes cakes. After impressing them with her gigantic gorilla cake topper (made out of rice krispies!), she then asked them if they had ever seen Star Wars.

Star Wars? It turns out the bakery owner was selected to compete on Food Network's cake battles to turn out a Star Wars themed cake. The boys were in love. The love only grew when they slid up to the cupcake bar to pick out their flavor cupcake, their type of frosting and their toppings. Even I admit to being a bit giddy as I watched the attendant frost my red velvet cupcake with from scratch cream cheese frosting. Yum.

On Sunday, we continued our family theme of a weekend and had my brothers, sisters in law and my mom over for a lasagna dinner. Travis hooked up his XBox Kinext and battles were fought over sports, bowling and well, maybe even a little bit of dancing. I am just sad we didn't have a chance to break out my Glee Karaoke. Next time.

It was a wonderful weekend enjoying quality time with the people who matter most. It's all about family. It always should be.

Griffin's Imaginary Monster

"Mom, you know what?" Griffin asks me before bed as I tuck him under the covers.

"What?" I ask, giving him a kiss on his forehead.

"I have a monster."

"You do?"

"Yes. He is really big and blue and he has antlers that come out of his head like this!" Griffin gestures to the top of his forehead while he simultaneously makes a scary face.

"Wow. Is he a good monster?"

"Yes. He is a nice monster. He is my friend!"

"That's good, then."

"Yes. But he does like to eat moose."

"Moose?"

"Yes. Moose. He eats them right up!" Griffin pauses, then cocks his head to the side and asks, "Are moose good or bad?"

"Um. well, I guess moose can be either good or bad."

"Oh. Well, my monster eats them good and bad. Just moose though."

"Good to know."

A furry blue moose eating monster. I have not one clue where this one came from. Not a clue.

Ski Bums

While Chris was in Jackson Hole snow boarding his head off and hiking to peaks of mountains, the boys were learning to ski and snowboard in our little ski hill at KB. Given that I do not ski, (well, I can, but I sort of hate it) I was very proud of myself for getting all three kiddies and their ski/snowboard gear out of the house on time to make all three of their lessons.

I felt like Super Mom. And I only yelled once. Really!

The boys have grown tremendously this season. Aidan is now in the "mountain" group and spends his two hour lesson snowboarding runs with his instructor all over the place. Brennan is snowboarding his way through the bunny hill (only one lesson away from joining Aidan on the mountain.) And Griffin is learning to snowplow and turn.

Griffin is still unsure of the whole skiing thing. He does it because his brothers do it and his best buddy Ryan is there in the lesson with him, but he still gripes a bit about going each time. Aidan and Brennan seem to love it. Brennan tells me it is "exhausting," but he always seems happy to be on the hill. Aidan never wants to leave. He loves that he is now chair lifting and snowboarding all by himself. It is quite a sight to see.

As a mom, I love how worn out they all are by the time their lessons are complete. Anything that can get all three of them to agree that they are wiped out is a good investment.

My mini ski bums and I survived Chris's guy snowboard trip without incident. As I mentioned last year, every year it gets easier. And for that, I have to thank my three sweet little guys who behaved admirably well in their father's absence and even shut my bedroom door on Saturday morning to let me sleep in as they built giant forts outside their bedrooms.

I think I will keep them.

Stealing a Day

I stole Saturday. I didn't plan it. We were all set to head out into the blustery, snowy winter day to go to the boys' basketball game and then maybe a stop off at the library to stock up on books. But as we got closer to the time we had to leave, the boys begged me to let them stay home and skip basketball just this once. I knew we probably should go, but sometimes the things you should do aren't necessarily the things you need to do.

We needed a pj day. A day at home to hibernate, to play games, watch movies, read books and make a giant cupcake. I loved our stolen day. I loved having the time with the boys, watching them build giant forts that covered the upstairs, staging gigantic lego battles and cracking eggs on the side of my mixing bowl to bake up some cake.

We are happiest when we take a break now and then from the rushing around, all the doing of the things we feel like we should do. Sometimes, we need to just be. A stolen day to just be, my boys and me in our pjs soaking up a day of nothing. There is nothing like ending a day changing out of one pair of pjs right into another. That is a day well spent.

Reading Reader

I was over the moon ecstatic when Aidan fell in love with books. He loves to read. He brings a book with him everywhere, from the car, the school bus, the kitchen table to his bedroom. Aidan devours books faster than we can keep them in stock. And there is nothing that makes a reading mom prouder than having a reader child.

Books are good. Reading is fantastic. How could it ever be a bad thing?

It started a few weeks ago with a few test grades that were below Aidan's normal grades. Aidan does well in school. He enjoys it and works hard and his grades reflect that fact. But the weekly test folder started to show a few Bs mixed in with his normal As, until finally last week he brought home his first C. The mistakes on the tests were not from a lack of comprehension, but rather it just seemed like Aidan was rushing through his work to get it done as quickly as possible. He even skipped a full page on one of his tests.

We set up a meeting with his teacher. His teacher confirmed that he did seem to be rushing through his work, trying to be one of the first students done in the class.

"Well, what does he get as a reward if he does finish his work quickly? What does he get to do with his free time?" I asked the teacher.

I think you know the answer. He gets to read.

It may have been the first parent/teacher conference that ended with the teacher agreeing to ban a child from reading during free time in class. I almost can't believe it myself. But then I remember, back in the day, how I used to sneak books into my textbooks to read during class in grade school. And well, it all made sense then.

Winter Ice Cream

Ice cream still rocks in the winter. Especially when you are the only ones crazy enough to visit a Cold Stone on a day straight out of Antartica.

Save Me From Snow Days

We have had quite a few snow days this year. And while, of course, we are used to having a snow day here or there over the winter (we do live in Buffalo after all), it seems like we have had a few more than is normal. (And by normal, I mean normal to a Buffalo winter.)

I always start out the first snow day of the season embracing the free day at home with the kids. It will by idyllic! There will be hot cocoa with marshmallows, sledding and board games in our pjs! We will bake cookies and do crafts! I conveniently forget that nine times out of ten the snow day falls on a working day which means that I must juggle my lawyer persona with my mom persona. (It is a very rare day indeed that the dad must juggle his working persona with his dad persona. In my case, Chris usually greets the snow day with a cautious "So, what's your plan for the day?")

The meeting of the mom persona with the lawyer persona causes nothing but stress. Instead of basking in sledding runs while hot chocolate bubbles on the stove, I screech at my kids when they demand a snack and I am trying to get this one last important email sent to a client. Instead of board games in our pjs, I barter a movie with unlimited sugared candied snacks for the kiddies while I take a conference call in my pjs holed up in the laundry room. (Here's the thing about the laundry room. No one seems to ever look in there. It may mean they would have to, I don't know, do some laundry?)

My stress level rockets when I try to balance two almost impossible tasks: working and motherhood. I can't do either of them well when I try to do them in tandem. I short them both and end the day feeling like no one get the best parts of me.

Save me from the impossibility of juggling snow days. Or at least freedom from believing a woman really can do it all. Because if there is one thing you learn as a mother is that you can't do it all. You just can't. Something has to give. I guess that is why I made the emails wait this morning while I played Operation and Bop It. But, I have a conference call this afternoon that is bound to find the kids watching bad tv with a bag of marshmallows to split between them while I am hiding behind baskets of dirty laundry talking to a client. We do what we have to do. We do the best we can. Snow days and all.