Brownie Stew

I might be a little closer to the edge than I’m comfortable with. A few days ago I launched into a full-blown tirade about SOUP while driving Little Big Boss (LBB) (13) home from school.

LBB has Annie Jr. rehearsals with a community theater one weekday evening from 6:30 to 8:30 but also has drama club after school the same day, requiring a 4:10 pick-up and putting us home around 4:45. This leaves a navigable but not crazily generous window for dinner preparation, consumption, and clean-up, so I have to have at least something resembling a plan. I shared my envisioned menu with her on the ride home: make-your-own pizza (“MYO pizza,” among the cool kids dorky moms). Long a surefire hit among almost all household residents! Big Daddy (BD) is the “exception” that truly proves the rule. He claims to not like MYO pizza but then always tries to mooch a little from everyone once those perfect pies come out of the oven, piping hot and gooey and smelling so, so good.

With BD off working a swing and LBB’s evening extracurricular on the near horizon, I thought MYO pizza the perfect dinner choice. But LBB’s raised-eyebrow sigh when I presented the idea screamed otherwise.

“What? You don’t want MYO pizza?“

More sighing. “Not really.”

“It’s MYO! Except giant! Because I couldn’t find the individually-sized ones we usually use. So more like MYO 1/4 pizza. Ha ha ha!”

“Oh, fun.”

Not “Oh, fun!” with an exclamation point. “Oh, fun.” With a period. As in full stop. Flat line. The same kind of fun as being the parent of an almost 14-year-old doing everything in her power to quash your enthusiasm. It’s MYO pizza! What did MYO pizza ever do to deserve such disdain? Could it be that this dish is not actually as much fun as I think it is?!? That hardly seemed likely. Perplexed, I took a moment to regroup. At the next stoplight I asked what she had in mind for dinner.

“I don’t know. Just not pizza.”

I am not a fan of Team Your-Plan-Is-Garbage-But-My-Plan-Is-Nonexistent. Still I tried to remain calm thought about what else was available, mentally scanning the contents of the fridge and the pantry.

“Soup? You want soup? There’s always soup.”

LBB lit up at that suggestion. You would have thought I said I was going to make breakfast for dinner.

“Yes! Soup sounds perfect!”

“You really love soup.”

“I really do. I was just looking at this meme that said, ‘The only thing I can think about when the weather starts getting a little colder: soup, soup, soup, soup, soup.’ That’s me!”

Then it was my turn to have a big sigh.

“If you have soup, then I have to have soup.”

“No, you don’t! Why are you saying that?”

“Because all the soup MUST be consumed in one sitting. Whenever there is leftover soup, I move it from the pot to a storage container and put it in the fridge. But it just moves around in there for the next week to 10 days. It stays near the front of the fridge for the first few days, with everybody taking turns picking it up, inspecting it, and turning their noses up at it once they realize it’s leftover soup. And then at some point it makes its way to the depths of the fridge and then just ages off in lonely isolation. Then I chuck it when I do a fridge clean out. That’s why I have to have soup if you have soup. We have to finish it all in one go because if we don’t I’m just going to end up resentfully throwing away the leftover soup 10 days from now! The whole process is a waste of time and energy! And we’re also wasting food and wasting water to wash the container and then I have to feel bad about that, too. No one ever wants the leftover soup. Ever!”

LBB eyed me with concern and waited a bit once my rant ended—presumably to make sure it was really over.

“I don’t have to have soup.”

“Oh, you are having soup.”

“Are you having soup?”

“Of course I am having soup! I have just lost my mind over the anguish leftover soup causes in my life, so now I have to have soup whether I want soup or not!”

“Well, OK then.”

“But I am still making MYO pizza because there’s no way That Dude is going to want soup. And because I want pizza! I am having soup AND pizza.”

That Dude (TD) (12) still loved MYO pizza, to my knowledge at least. Then again, I thought LBB still loved MYO pizza until this very car ride. TD didn’t have a particularly stellar track record with actually executing the “MYO” portion of MYO pizza, to be sure, but that didn’t really matter this time since it was giant MYO pizza anyway.

The remainder of the ride home was pretty quiet, with LBB probably wary of triggering another impassioned diatribe about soup and me exhausted from the first one.

By the time we had gotten ourselves in the door and I had gathered the soup and pizza makings, I was feeling calmer. I opened a can of chicken noodle, dumped the contents in a small pot, and set it to simmer on back burner, out of my way. I focused instead on the Zen vibe of painting a thin layer of olive oil on the pizza crust with a pastry brush. The hypnotic calm of using the back of a spoon to make concentric circles of pizza sauce out to the edge. The satisfying process of grating mozzarella cheese into a heaping mound on the cutting board. No finnicky soup-loving teenager was going to rob me of my MYO pizza joy.

LBB worked on homework at the kitchen counter as I prepared dinner, so my tantrum obviously hadn’t scared her off completely. Halfway through the pizza’s 15 minute bake time–just exactly on cue–the cheesy, tomatoey, doughy goodness that is pizza started to emit its irresistable aroma. I watched LBB from the corner of my eye as I prepped a salad to go with the meal and saw her inhale deeply more than once as the pizza smell gained control of the airwaves. I eyed her directly and threw down the gauntlet. 

“Smells good, doesn’t it?”

“Mmmmmm, really good.”

“Was that a 5-M or 6-M ‘mmmmmm’?”

“Six! Do you think there might be enough for me to have a slice of pizza and my soup?”

“Yes, Ms. Just-Not-Pizza, I think there will be enough for you to have pizza AND soup, like me.”

“Are you mad at me?”

“Nope! I am vindicated! You have confirmed the irresistable nature of MYO pizza! It is super fun; it smells heavenly; and you cannot deny its power even when your precious soup, soup, soup, soup, soup is simmering away right above it.”

“I feel like you’re really close to bursting into diabolical laughter. What can I do to talk you down?”

“Just make sure we eat all the soup.”

In our family, “Starfish!” is what you holler triumphantly when you manage to snag a big bed all for yourself and lie spread-eagle upon it, limbs outstretched toward the four corners to prevent any interlopers from trying to join (or rejoin) you. Calling “Starfish!” is simultaneously a victory cry and a dare–as none of us seems able to resist flexing about the luxury of big bed solitude. Thus, when I solicited ideas for what sand sculpture to build on this year’s beach trip, Little Big Boss’s (LBB) (13) suggestion of a starfish immediately appealed to me. 

I almost always build a turtle (Go Terps!) but thought better of it this year. Walking down the beach on our first full day of vacation, That Dude (TD) (12) and I had gone no more than 100 yards from our house when we spied a massive sand turtle already under construction, complete with a color-coded shell pattern to distinguish the underbody from the top shell and the top shell from the flippers. He looked very official, all roped off and underway, clearly the subject of a multi-day endeavor. There was no way I was going to try to compete with that. So a starfish it would be.

Shell collection for “Patrick”–as Big Daddy insisted on calling him–began right away, although low tide in Surf City, North Carolina reveals such a bounty of shells and stones that I was not at all concerned about gathering enough. I never quite know when the inspiration to embark on a day of digging will hit, but I like to have at least a bit of a stockpile amassed when it does. In the meantime, we jumped waves, flew our kite, visited the sea turtle hospital, ate too many donuts, and availed ourselves liberally of the community pool. 

LBB and TD prefer the pool to the ocean for reasons that will never make sense to me, so my quest for the perfect beach rental centers on finding an oceanfront property (for Big Daddy) that is nicer than our actual house but doesn’t bankrupt us (for me) AND has access to a pool, preferably a private one (for them). Typically one of these conditions has to give. I was pretty proud of myself back in April to find a destination that largely met the criteria and even boasted to LBB and TD that the pool was only shared among four dwellings!! Not private, but private-adjacent, right? In reviewing the trip details right before departure, however, I realized that the pool actually serviced about 80 homes. Womp womp womp. In my defense, the pictures on the website really did make it look as though just a few houses shared the pool. LBB and TD were initially pretty salty about my mistake, but not enough to deter them from a daily pilgrimage across the street to the pool.

Fortunately, the ocean is absolutely the main attraction in Surf City and the pool was blissfully uncrowded each time we went. But it did have another household of faithful daily visitors: 4-year old Tanner and his family, whom we first encountered on Sunday, when he was refusing to leave the water around 3 pm, even after an apparently full day of ping-ponging between ocean and pool. His family was trying to tempt him away with the lure of sustenance, which he was adamantly resisting, “I don’t want too much nuggets!” LBB and I ruefully observed the battle in silence, both fighting the desire to tell him that the correct phrase is “too many nuggets,” and hoping that some food and a rest might restore him to good humor. 

Alas, our paths next crossed a couple days later–again at the pool later in the afternoon–where Tanner was pleading with his grandma to return to their rental for water guns and the “good” googles (relatable), and Grandma was having none of it. “If we leave the pool, we are NOT coming back.” Tanner tried another tactic, offering to go on his own to retrieve the desired items, and Grandma gave him the longest, weariest look before reminding him that he was 4-years old and could not make a solo run. After several more minutes of Tanner continuing to lose his mind about guns and goggles, Grandma whisked Tanner (and an innocent bystander sister/cousin) away. True to her word, they did not return.

We’d see Tanner and his family down by the ocean, as well–not too surprising since we were staying in the same community–and our vacation strategies were in sync: beach from the morning until mid-afternoon and then off to the pool. On Wednesday, a delegation from Tanner’s family (minus Tanner) arrived at the pool about 30 minutes after us. One member of the delegation was tasked with going to invite Tanner to join the group, which they reluctantly did. When they returned a few minutes later, Tanner-less, an undercurrent of joy rippled through the group upon learning he had declined the invitation. Tanner was clearly a lot. But the whole family was kind of a lot. On this particular visit, they decided to drag pool chairs into the 3-feet to sit on. LBB, TD, and I were enjoying our accidental front row seats to the Tanner & Co. Show, and had started to look forward to what might transpire next.

Thursday we awoke to an overcast day in Surf City, and with beach days now running out, I knew I should take advantage of the cloud cover to bring Patrick to life. Dig day is serious business because a sand sculpture of any scale takes hours and hours. Nothing else can be on the day’s agenda. I was hard at work by 10 am, slathered in sunscreen and geared up in long sleeves, capris, and a bucket hat. (Big Daddy calls these “Go to hell!” hats because anyone who wears one clearly doesn’t care what anyone else thinks of them.) For the next four and half plus hours, I worked sweatily but contentedly on my starfish, being sure to stay hydrated and taking a brief lunch break around 1 pm. No doubt other grown-ups sitting serenely on the beach–reading, napping, enjoying the breeze on their faces–had plenty of side eye for this middle aged sand sculptor, busily excavating my dig site with shovels and claws and contemplating seriously just exactly how a sand starfish should look. Big Daddy helpfully brought me buckets of wet sand up from the shoreline, and we worked together to gather more shells and stones when we realized the existing stash would be insufficient.

Around 2:40, Patrick was finally finished, complete with a protective ring of shells to alert beachgoers to his presence. LBB pointed out later that the ring also made the sculpture look like a sand dollar from afar, so a 2-for-1 creation! I was pleased with the outcome, although the process itself is really the most satisfying part to me. Digging in the sand, shaping it, placing the shells and stones atop like crowning jewels. Standing back gazing at Patrick in all his glory, I was really happy I had decided to build something other than a turtle. And since I built him right in front of our rental, we got to watch passers-by stop to admire him and snap pictures as they took their Thursday evening and Friday morning strolls.

We set up our baseball canopy on the deck early on Friday to provide shade throughout the day and to hopefully lure the beach-weary (I’m looking at you, LBB and TD) outside for a final marathon beside the sea before our Saturday departure. Surf City is a very breezy beach, so even on the hottest days there are cooling winds. Add shade into the mix and you can be out there for practically forever. I ate my breakfast and drank my coffee under the comfort of the canopy, perched on a tall chair, absorbing beach energy. I watched people and their pooches making their way up and down the shoreline; folks fishing and wading and swimming and boogie boarding; families setting up camp for a day on the sand. Tanner’s family was among them, ready–like us–for a last beach hurrah.

They stayed for a few hours before starting to pack up around lunch time. An older brother/cousin of Tanner’s hesitated just outside Patrick’s ring for a moment or two before stepping inside. The perimeter had been breached. Brother/cousin peered intently at the starfish. Big Daddy, seated to my left on the deck, looked at me to see whether we’d be intervening, and I shook my head. We would leave Patrick to his fate. LBB, seated to my right, was indignant. Suddenly brother/cousin stepped back out, leaving Patrick unharmed. We could breathe again. 

Just as suddenly Tanner swept onto the scene. He leapt over the shell barrier and instantly started kicking furiously at one of Patrick’s arms, sending sand, shells, and rocks flying. Brother/cousin looked at him mesmerized, a newfound respect for his bada** little relative dawning on his face. Tanner went ham on another of Patrick’s arms before Dad noticed the carnage in progress and mustered a half-hearted, “Tanner, no,” before shrugging his shoulders and declaring it too late. They were all headed for the beach access point when brother/cousin–apparently emboldened by Tanner’s nonchalance–sprinted back, crossed into the circle once more, and pocketed a few choice shells to take with him.

We sat blinking at one another on the deck for a while before laughing our way through various fantasy revenge scenarios, which included razing Patrick completely and then spelling out with the shells “We know it was you, Tanner” or the more succinct “It’s on, Tanner”. But sand sculptures aren’t forever art and the beach is a public place and the finale of the Tanner & Co. Show did not disappoint. So we would leave it at that, all the more convinced that “Starfish!” is both a victory cry and a dare.

We welcome February with snow. Not a blizzard, but enough to cover the lawn and keep me home from work. Little Big Boss (LBB)(13) and That Dude (TD)(11) happen to have a scheduled day off from school that day, so technically not a “Snow Day” (with a capital “S” and a capital “D”), but a day with snow, at least. I am excited to survey the white world outside when I awake, knowing I don’t have to go anywhere and that LBB and TD don’t have virtual learning to tether them indoors. Our last decent snow had been about two years ago–and marked a sweet milestone: both LBB and TD were at last both self-sufficient in putting on their own gear AND they finally stayed outside for longer than they spent gearing up. We were past the days of my painstakingly layering them up only to have to speed-strip one or the other down for a sudden potty emergency before ever making it out the front door. We were past the days of their chubby chilly cheeks sending them retreating inside for cocoa after 20 minutes of play. We had finally made it to the Fun Zone, when a day in the snow could be enjoyable for all–even Mama. Hurrah! And then–of course–we didn’t have a respectable snow for two more years. Womp, womp, womp. Welcome to the mid-Atlantic, where each winter can bring a little snow, a lot of snow, some snow, no snow–who knows?

So I’m thinking here’s our chance: the end of the 2-year snow drought, no work for me, no school for them. Big Daddy and I had the foresight as winter approached to ensure that everyone had winter coats and snow boots that fit. I am a little uncertain about our inventory of snow bibs–LBB appeared to have shrunk during quarantine and TD had definitely grown. (Maybe they could just swap? Big Daddy’s insistence on sticking with gender-neutral snow bibs is starting to seem pretty genius.) But I grow more optimistic as I haul up from the basement our considerable snow bib stash: surely each of them would find something suitable among the bounty. I am up early to get coffee going. I cook a big breakfast, hoping that we might just need to fuel up with eggs and biscuits for the hours in the snow ahead of us. Big Daddy had been working overnight, so I also need to go out and make sure the driveway is passable for him on his return. When I emerge from the house, shovel in hand, the snow is still falling. I can feel the flakes landing gently in my hair as I work: the benefit of preferring ear muffs to hats. I breathe in the cold air deeply, enjoying the morning quiet and repetitive productiveness of clearing the drive. Work now to play later. A preview of the fun to come.

Big Daddy arrives home safely, showers, eats some breakfast, and then lays down to rest–his typical post-midnight shift routine. Safe to say he is not coming out to play in the snow any time soon. LBB and TD both get up sometime in the nine o’clock hour and wander downstairs separately for breakfast. Both comment on the presence of snow outside, but neither appears in any hurry to get out there. They’re just waking up, I assure myself, despite the doubts now starting to buzz about my brain. There hasn’t been a snow opportunity like this in ages, and we’ve been cooped up around here for almost a year. They’re definitely going to want to play at some point, right? I play it cool, giving them time and space to feel the call of the great snowy outdoors for themselves. I write a letter to my penpal (a 7-year old across the street who likes getting snail mail), sharing the woes of being a mom to a tween and teen who don’t seem to like spending time with me so much anymore. I inform her that it’s OK to do things on your own, that you should do the things you want to do and have fun doing them even if no one else wants to do them with you. I believe what I have written, but I wonder–heart a little heavy–whether I really have the courage to live what I have written.

Fast forward to 1 p.m. They’ve eaten breakfast. They’ve eaten lunch. They’ve putzed around on computers and phones and the Switch for plenty long. I essentially order them to come play in the snow with me. They groan and roll their eyes and make flat tire sounds and secure assurances that I will make them hot chocolate with marshmallows AND whipped cream once we come back in. An appropriate bargain is struck. We identify the correct snow bib for each child. We retreat to our respective rooms to gear up. I am teary-eyed as I step into my bib. Was the Fun Zone really just a one snowfall event two years ago? The perfect balance of self-sufficiency and snow enthusiasm was destined to arrive and depart in a single day? I push away my blues before they can settle in any further. 

Out in the yard with my babies, we forge paths for the sleds, an operation which involves me taking a hold of the rope attached to the saucer and lugging a kid across the snow until the trench is established enough to support free sliding. But I used to be younger and they used to be lighter, so I am not quite feeling the Fun Zone vibe yet. We sled for a bit–it’s an icy snow that makes for some slick running even on the little hill in our yard. They seem to be enjoying themselves. Yay! Then TD’s spirits dip when he hears the sound of laughter from the “good hill” across the street. In the Before Times, we would have been sledding away over there with neighborhood friends, but we’re still keeping largely to ourselves. The kids veto my suggestion that we find a way to head over there and still keep our distance. Too complicated. Stressful for us. Less fun for our friends. I realize the kiddos are probably right. 

We head for the backyard for a bit to explore what the snow has done there. Ice over snow means the snow comes off the square tops of the deck posts as ice bowls and off the top of the tree stumps around the fire pit as ice platters. A phenomenon they’ve not seen before. Cool, but only cool enough to hold their interest for a couple minutes. TD declares himself ready to go inside after about 45 minutes total. I reluctantly release him from my well-intended clutches. LBB hangs in there with me somewhat longer. The coast is clear at the playground across the street, so we sled on the hill (more of a gentle slope, really) over there for a while. The snow is so icy that we glide more than halfway across the open field that fronts the playground. I sled on my stomach. I am a penguin! We take a break to go swing on the swings, and talk about the joy of swinging. We sled some more before heading home. I am satisfied with our outing, yet feel like I am at the cliff’s edge of the Fun Zone.

Once inside again and out of my snow gear, I deliver on my promise of cocoa with the works for both TD and LBB. I sit down by the fire after dinner to relax with a book, but can’t concentrate. I have the sudden notion that we should go night sledding. Yes! Even if the snow has lost some of its daylight appeal, the lure of sledding in the dark has got to inspire them for a Round 2, right? Wrong. No one is remotely interested in coming back out with me. Big Daddy, now pretty well rested after having worked the night before, still looks at me like I’m nuts. TD and LBB both take a hard pass. I sink back down into the couch, and sheepishly take another crack at reading my book. I promptly give up again. I still want to go outside. The thrill of whooshing down a snowy hill wins out over my reluctance to sled alone. I suit up once more. 

The sledding paths we carved in the front yard earlier have gotten slicker now that it’s dark and the temperature has dropped. Snow is falling lightly again and stings my face just a bit as I zoom down the hill over and over. The course is running faster and faster, sending me careening into the middle of the street on some runs. I indulge in nearly half an hour of non-stop solo sledding in the dark before my sense of self-preservation wins out over my love of being a penguin. I am happy and tired, but not ready to come in. I light the bio-ethanol tabletop fire pit Big Daddy got me for Christmas and sit on the front stoop for another half hour watching the wind push the flames this way and that, and the new snow fall onto the old snow. My rear end is nearly frozen to the concrete by the time the fire dies out and I rise to head back inside. But I feel a little less like I am on the cliff’s edge of the Fun Zone and a little more like I am still me.

“We’re going to have matching PJs for Christmas again this year, right, Mom?” That Dude (TD) (11) eagerly inquired about 2.5 weeks before the big event.

Coordinated holiday jammies are NOT a tradition in our family, but I had snatched them up last year when I found Mickey and Minnie ones in stock in our sizes on sale. Our 2019 summer vacation had been a week of full-on Disney Magic TM in Orlando, so it felt right—serendipitous. But it was a whim—not the start of anything. Or so I thought.

“We could wear the ones from last year,” I ventured, only to be reminded that TD had outgrown his. We blinked at each other for a few beats.

He had me on the ropes. I should have just confessed that, no, I hadn’t calculated for family pajamas this year, but I couldn’t. He seemed so authentically jazzed by the prospect of being matchers once more—a true rarity in COVID times when his inner Eyeore has been on near-continuous display—that I just couldn’t. I assured him brightly that, of course we would have matching PJs again! And then promptly sequestered my fibbing self in the bedroom to figure out how to make it happen.

A couple hours into online searching, I still had nothing in my cart. Any sets that I liked AND had availability in all our sizes would not arrive in time for Christmas Eve. I needed a new strategy. OK: coordinating shirts only, and we’d just be mix-match on the bottom. Etsy to the rescue! I found red, short sleeve “2020 Stink Stank Stunk” shirts—with the Grinch hand disdainfully dangling a surgical mask to the side—that would fit us all, be delivered on time, and be on trend! I made the purchase and felt briefly jubilant to add some happiness to Christmas Eve night.

But the next day I found myself on the hunt again, this time for matching PJ pants only. I kept jumping down different rabbit holes, only to run into the same problems as the previous day: this pair was only available in 3 people’s sizes; that pair wouldn’t arrive until 2021. I forged on, now determined to succeed mostly for the sake of the quest. Dead end upon dead end for any style that I thought all four of us would like. I was nearly out of steam.

Half-heartedly, I clicked on a busy green design featuring line after line of snowflakes, reindeer, and various other festiveness from top to toe. Definitely not my first choice, but time was running out and I could take one for the team if everything else aligned. After all, they’d contrast well with the Stink, Stank, Stunk shirts and likely be acceptable to the rest of the family. All our sizes were in stock and the order would come on time: December 23rd, to be precise. Looked like this big-bottomed, wide-thighed mama would be rocking horizontal stripes on Christmas Eve.

The Etsy shirts arrived around during the week before Christmas and were perfect! But December 23rd came and went with no stripey jammie bottoms in sight, and Amazon seemed unsure of exactly where they were on their journey. I went to bed that night resigned to the idea of matching shirts only. But when I checked my notifications early Christmas Eve around 7:00 am, I was greeted with those words we all love to see: “Your package has been delivered.” There would be time to get the shirts and pants washed and dried before nightfall. And somehow, what I thought was just pants actually came with coordinated long sleeve “I’d Rather Be Sleeping” shirts. Fairly rich given that TD, the inspiration for this year’s matching jammies crusade, sincerely believes that sleep is for the weak. He would never “rather be sleeping.” Ever. Weirdly, my long sleeve bonus was a slightly different shade of green than the other three—but maybe it would distract people from focusing on my stripe-enhanced hiney.

Just before dinner, I placed the four sets of freshly-laundered (and mostly matching) PJs in a single box and wrapped it for a post-dinner reveal. TD and Little Big Boss (LBB) (13) opened the box together, and both were delighted. They dashed upstairs to their rooms immediately to change. I felt a surge of real happiness to witness their genuine enthusiasm at an age—and during a time—when we’re honestly struggling a bit achieve true harmony as a family. Who knew that uniforms was the answer? (Well, who knew other than TD?) Big Daddy and I quickly followed them up to change as well, and I felt nothing but love for those horizontal stripes as I did.

For years Little Big Boss (LBB) (13) and That Dude (TD) (11) have bemoaned our lack of holiday inflatables in a neighborhood awash with them. I at last relented this year—first at Halloween, then at Christmas—desperate to bring them surprise and delight in this tough year. (“I shopped my way out. Bought up everything I could see…”) The Halloween Jack-o’-lanterns were no trouble at all, functioning flawlessly from the start. The JOY, however, has been more troublesome. It runs on a timer, scheduled to arise in triumph at the same time the outdoor lights turn on. But LBB and I (apparently) unwittingly set it up too close to the house.

Invariably at least one of the letters gets caught under the bottom of the bump-out each day, and just struggles there sadly—as if the Wicked Witch of the West had survived Dorothy’s house falling on her—until I remember to set matters to right. Since mid-December, we’ve displayed “J,” “O,” “Y,” “JY,” “JO,” and—of course—the 2020-perfect “OY” for some amount of time each day. Prince claimed, “There is joy in repetition,” and indeed, I have repeatedly fixed our “JOY,” every blessed day since we set it up. Except for Christmas itself, when we left it down due to stormy conditions in the forecast. No JOY for Christmas for us! The day after Christmas, I found giant chunks of ice had formed all over it in its deflated state on the ground. I peeled the glaciers off as carefully as I could, fingers crossed that I wouldn’t tear apart our JOY during its seasonal debut. Fortunately, I did not.

Every time I have thought to reposition the inflatable and put a stop to this nonsense, it has been too windy or too dark or too cold. And then the thought leaves my head again until it is too windy or too cold or too dark. At this point, as we contemplate when to start packing up the decorations, I am genuinely curious every evening to find out what mischief JOY has gotten into this time: Which letters will be trapped under the house and need freeing? Which one will be wrapped around itself and need untwisting? Most importantly, will JOY ever arise triumphant without help? Um, no. Because joy takes work, work that I rediscover each day I am willing to do. (Work that may or may not include finding JOY in another location next year.)

On Thanksgiving day, I posted on my Facebook page a photo collage of my family’s 2020 Virtual Turkey Trot experience. I proudly announced that Big Daddy, Little Big Boss (LBB), That Dude (TD), and I had paid for the privilege of meandering about our own neighborhood in snazzy matching T-shirts. That snapshot shows one version of events: the TL;DR idyll of a suburban American family spending some healthy, safe holiday time together and–bonus!–earning some credit toward the impending carbo-ganza. Check and check. But there’s another version of our early morning 5K, my friends, and it is U.G.L.Y. (As in “you-ain’t-got-no-alibi ugly,” for those of you who went to high school sporting events in PG County, Maryland in the late 1980s. For those of you who didn’t, you’re just going to have to take the leap of faith that U.G.L.Y. is very, very, super ugly.)

In the two months between sign up and race day, I largely failed at getting my teammates to train with me. Last year, LBB (13) and TD (11) participated with me in a “real” Turkey Trot, one that involved timing chips, free snacks at the end, and a lot of other human beings with whom they hadn’t been trapped on Coronavirus Island for the last 8+ months. Getting them motivated to prepare for the 2020 event was understandably challenging, but it’s not as if I set the bar very high. When I am going for a “run,” I always use air quotes to remind everyone that I will not really be running. I alternate between a brisk walk and a slow jog. (TD swears my walking pace is in fact faster than my jogging pace due to my comically small “running” stride. He might not be wrong. Mama’s not trying to eat concrete any more often than absolutely necessary.) Still, my offspring rejected a good 80% of my training invites. When LBB did come along, she refused to interval (or wear proper sneakers). When TD accompanied me, he’d invariably poop out at the halfway point, skillfully leveraging our house’s central location in the neighborhood. Big Daddy was willing to do the full course, but our schedules rarely aligned to train together.

All that left me mostly on my own for training. I’d make my way methodically around the neighborhood every couple of days, listening to tunes, using my interval app, trying to improve my time little by little. I was feeling ready as Turkey Day approached. The night before the race, I announced we’d be shooting for a start time of between 7:45 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. LBB was on board; this plan would get her back inside in time for the Macy’s parade. TD responded with an “OK,” which could indicate anything from actual concurrence to “there’s no chance I’m going to willingly cooperate with you on this.” I chose to interpret it as the former, and went to bed Wednesday night with hope in my heart for some quality family time out there on the course.

Race day dawned with slightly overcast skies, temps in the low 60s, and no wind: ideal conditions. I was up and going in time to do cute race hair (Minnie Mouse buns) and to sidewalk chalk the Start and Finish lines on the corner for a more authentic trot experience. By 7:30 a.m., Big Daddy and LBB were diligently preparing themselves to run as well, but TD had shown zero signs of getting out of bed. He’s almost always up and about by 7:00 a.m., so I went in to shake his fake-sleeping self “awake.”

“Time to get ready for the run.”

TD adopted Oscar-worthy groggy mode. “Wait. Whaaaat? Is that today? I’m so tired.”

“We’re starting within the next 30 minutes.”

“I caaaaan’t. I’m sooooo tired.”

“Yeah, nice try. We’re doing this. I’ve been telling you for 2 months that we’re doing this. I told you last night we were doing this.”

“But it’s soooo early.”

“It’s really not. Get yourself together. I’ll be checking on your progress shortly.”

I headed downstairs and made myself half a slice of peanut butter toast. When I ventured back upstairs 10 minutes later, TD has moved from his bed to the couch in the office, staring at a computer screen. I threw my head back, stared at the ceiling, and exhaled loudly.

“What’s wrong, Mom?”

“You’re supposed to be getting ready for the Turkey Trot.”

“I am getting ready.”

“You haven’t changed yet, and I am going to guess that you haven’t brushed your teeth or been to the bathroom yet.”

“Yeah, no. I’m preparing my mind.”

“By doing stuff on the computer? Be out front in 5 minutes.”

I returned to the Start Line to find LBB itching to get underway. She had a parade to watch at 9 a.m., after all, and the clock was ticking. I reluctantly declared a staggered start, and bid her and her father adieu, as my vision of happy family fun run time absorbed another blow. They were out of sight up the first hill by the time TD stumbled out of the house, one shoe on, the other in his right hand.

“They left without us?”

“I sent them ahead. It’s you and me, dude.”

As soon as he finished shoving his other foot into his shoe, I started my timer and we set off up the hill. No more than 90 seconds in, he complained once again about how exhausted he was and how I walk too fast but run too slow. We were probably about 5 minutes behind Big Daddy and LBB, but we didn’t see them coming back down the first court for complicated reasons involving courts off of courts on the course (which you must now say aloud quickly five times before reading any further). TD and I kept muddling along, and his running commentary of lament prompted me to abandon any thoughts of listening to music. We caught sight of Big Daddy again about halfway through when he was gliding down the biggest hill on the course on the other side of the street from us. TD and I had just paused for a shoe-tying break (his, not mine) when we saw Big Daddy, no LBB to be found, despite all of his pre-race assurances to her that they would stick together. Another minute or so up the hill, LBB popped into view, stomping down the other side of the street, her stare fixed straight ahead. We called and waved; she made a brief, curt movement with her left hand that appeared to be directed toward us. This was going well.

I tried valiantly to stick to my intervaling strategy, and TD pretty much stuck with me, though he was definitely running his mouth with more dedication than his legs. Then, a bit under two-thirds of the way in, the course took us past our house again. TD pleaded to stop in for some water, but asked that I not leave him behind. The garage door was open; there was water in the second fridge. He could be in and out in seconds. Go for it, dude. As soon as he had my blessing, he seemed to start moving in slow motion. He lumbered up the driveway ponderously, meandered his way to the fridge, and slowly opened it. He planted himself before it, legs spread wide, left hand clamped to the open side, slightly hunched over, peering inside thoughtfully. It was as if he had stumbled upon a TV in there. A TV showing his favorite program. Several very long moments later, he called down to me as I stepped in place at the bottom of the driveway, “There’s no water bottles in here.”

“Sure there are.”

“They all look like they’ve been opened already.”

“Just pick one and come on.”

“OK, well, if you want me getting someone else’s germs in COVID times…”

“It would just be someone from the family’s germs.”

“No, I’m not doing that.”

“Then just come on.”

“I have to have water.”

“It’s a 5K, dude. We have like a mile left.”

“Just really need some water. I am going to stay here if I can’t get some water.”

Mostly everything in me wanted to leave him and his pitiful fake-dehydrated self at that point. But the part of me craving that happy family holiday time was powerful enough to propel me up the driveway to locate–practically immediately, of course–a pristine, unopened bottle of water on the fridge door. “Here you go!” He accepted it from me with eyes full of admiration for my Mom Power for finding things. Yet that admiration was apparently not enough to motivate him to truly get back on track. I set off briskly down the driveway and toward the next court, only to hear TD call out to me to slow down as he was still trying to unscrew the top off the water bottle. I turned around to find him lollygagging his way along the sidewalk, fiddling with the bottle. Something about his leisurely demeanor broke me. I was done being patient, done being a cheerleader, done with happy family fun run time. I called back,”You’re on your own, man!” and took off in a tearful huff.

The next court was one to be run twice. I lapped TD my second time around, finding him plodding along, drinking his water, carefree. “Hey, Mom, what’s up?” he offered casually as I chugged past him. “Oh, just out for a run!” I responded with an overly cheery tone through my tears. TD suddenly looked a bit concerned, but didn’t quicken his pace. My fury accelerated, fueling me not to a faster speed (alas!) but rather into a multitasking frenzy: I kept moving, tears still falling, and pulled up Hangouts to send TD a strongly worded text on my feelings about this situation. “Wow. Your willingness to sabotage my 5K experience is impressive.” TD did not have his phone on him, so there was no way he’d see the message in real time. And he never stoops to responding to my snarky messages anyway. But I needed to get it out. I would be waylaid no further by his shenanigans!!

I zoomed onward to the next court on the course, which also needed to be circled twice, and saw TD moving at a snail’s pace toward it as I completed my second lap. Then I headed for the front of the neighborhood, where I saw LBB making her return trip toward home, again on the opposite side of the street. I shouted to her from across the way to “finish strong”, and she gave me a friendly wave this time, having had a moment to forgive her father for ditching her and with her spirits further buoyed by the proximity of the finish line. I never crossed paths with Big Daddy again after our single encounter on the big hill, and realized he was probably done by now, waiting for the rest of us to trickle in. I completed the turnaround at the entrance to the neighborhood and headed for home myself, encountering TD as he was coming out of the second 2-lap court, presumably for the second time. He called dejectedly from across the street, “I don’t want to do the rest by myself!”

“I’m going to go finish, but I will circle back for you once I do.”

“Don’t leave me out here!”

“I’ll be back!”

I probably had about a quarter mile to the finish line by that point. TD had closer to three-quarters of a mile remaining. I didn’t look back again until I had crossed the line, shared high fives with Big Daddy and LBB who had cheered me in, and stopped my timer. But when I did look back, TD was making his way speedily up the quarter mile home stretch, barreling toward our house with a focus heretofore unseen during the race. There was no way he actually went all the way to the front of the neighborhood and turned around. Absolutely zero chance that he hadn’t just blatantly cheated. I stood there gobsmacked as Big Daddy and LBB yelled out encouragement to him as he ate up the last stretch of sidewalk on approach to the finish line. He crossed triumphantly, marveling at how he had really turned on the jets at the end. I immediately called him out on it, expecting him to sheepishly admit that he hadn’t gone the full distance. But he maintained that, indeed, he had gone all the way. He had suddenly found his inspiration and speed after our most recent encounter, and–lo and behold–here he was, a mere 2 minutes behind me. An amazing recovery and comeback! Downright astounding.

He would not be shaken from his story, no matter how pointed my questions, and Big Daddy gave me the side-eye and started gushing about how we should ALL feel a sense of accomplishment and should go inside and ENJOY our breakfast. The captain of Team LetItGo had spoken, even as I did mental calculations on which neighbors I might subpoena to acquire their security camera footage to determine where TD really did turn around.

And that is the U.G.L.Y. version of our Turkey Trot. Didn’t start all together. Each finished separately. Icy stares. Broken promises. Willful sabotage. Pathological lies. But still home in time for the parade. And probably signing up again next year. COVID willing, we might even make it out of the neighborhood.

We’ve been going to “Lights on the Bay”–Annapolis’s drive-through holiday lights display on the Chesapeake–since Little Big Boss (LBB) was in Kindergarten eight years ago. She brought home a flyer with a coupon for $5 off a weeknight visit, and a family tradition was born. A tradition that was even COVID-proof! Huzzah! No one brought home a coupon this year because no one is physically going to school, but—no matter—we were willing to pay full price to continue the annual trek.

We identified a date that Big Daddy wasn’t working—he’d been pulling a lot of evening shifts in recent weeks—and dutifully reserved a ticket for Saturday, December 19th. No need to choose a time; the ticket allowed for entry at any point from the 5 p.m. opening to the 10 p.m. close. We’d never had to buy a ticket in advance before, but I didn’t think much of it; a lot of things are different this year. We saddled up with happy hearts around 4:45 p.m. to make the 15-minute trip from home to Annapolis. Something normal! Something fun! Something together! Something outside the four walls of our own house!

I even remembered where I had put the 3D glasses that magically show you reindeer or snowmen around the lights. At least every other year I forget what “safe place” I have squirreled these away—or just don’t think about them at all—and we have to buy new ones. But not this year! We were ready.

And not only ready for Lights on the Bay. We planned to make an evening of it: coffee stop, donation drop, lights display, and then pick up a nice Italian dinner on the way home. A pretty ambitious outing for our crew in COVID times; we have stuck so very close to home that the real world’s kind of big and scary now. Still, the mood was light as we set out, chatting and listening to holiday tunes on the radio. Shortly into the drive, Big Daddy and I had to process the stunning realization that neither LBB nor That Dude (TD) know what Go Go music is or that Chuck Brown is the father of it. Parenting fail, for sure, but fixable. We drove on undeterred.

First stop: fancy coffee. I am not much of a Starbucks person. Ordering there elevates my heart rate and makes my palms sweat. So complicated. So hard to sound smooth. So much to pay to stress myself out. So I usually just don’t go. An unforeseen side effect of this aversion is that LBB and TD consider Starbucks a MEGA TREAT. I didn’t realize quite how into it they were until I took them on a whim the first Saturday in December. TD asked with excitement whether we could come every Saturday. LBB—more in tune with Mama’s redlines than TD tends to be—declared there was NO WAY I would agree to that. She was stunned when I proposed “Saturday Starbucks in December.” Anything to get these kiddos out of the house a bit more and lift their spirits.

Armed with a Grande Caramel Brulee Latte, a Grande Nonfat Caramel Brulee Latte, a Grande Cinnamon Dolce Latte, and a Grande Peppermint Hot Chocolate, we journeyed to the nearby hotel that was accepting donations for a backpacks for the homeless program that—in a normal year—LBB and TD help pack the bags for. LBB came in with me to drop off the blankets we had brought, and we took a minute to appreciate the holiday decorations and lights that gave the lobby a warm, festive glow. On our way back to the van, LBB observed wryly, “Now I can say that I have been to a hotel in 2020.” Indeed you have, girlfriend.

On to the main event. We hopped back on Route 50 East to make our way to Sandy Point State Park where Lights on the Bay takes place. We hummed along for a bit before ending up in traffic backed up in the right lane nearly a full exit before the park. Surely this wasn’t Lights on the Bay traffic? There must be an accident—or some sort of other glitch. It was about 5:45 p.m. by this point. Maybe vehicles entering the park hadn’t quite hit their rhythm yet following the 5 p.m. opening and a bit more time was needed to stretch the accordion out. We’d sip our Starbucks seasonal beverages, enjoy each other’s company, and hold tight. No problem. Our driver, Big Daddy, would aggressively ensure that no would-be line cutters could get in front of our van, an activity which he takes VERY SERIOUSLY and results in those cheaters and scofflaws securing spots even further ahead of us than if we had let them in ourselves. Happy Holidays!

We entered a weird time warp at this point, so committed to this tradition that we batted not an eye at advancing perhaps 50 car lengths in as many minutes. We listened to more holiday music, played some guessing games, continued to enjoy our Starbucks. Everything was fine. LBB and TD were actually getting along. We cheered each new milestone achieved: off the highway, on the actual exit ramp, around another big bend. We scoffed at the U-turn bail-outs from the line—marveling that they would abandon the quest so far in. We called them quitters. We got out the 3D glasses to discover (and delight) in the fact that we could turn the moon into a reindeer. LBB and TD busily swapped playlist recommendations, complete with 45-second audio samples for the whole family to experience.

At the 90 minutes and counting mark, our collective good cheer began to waver. I finally did the math on why there are only ever coupons for weeknight visits and why advance tickets were required on weekends. Big Daddy asserted that we had been behind an SUV with Minnesota plates long enough to invite them into our COVID bubble. LBB and TD remembered that they hate each and started trashing each other’s taste in music. Everyone but Big Daddy’s Starbucks was long gone. Our window for a big pasta dinner had already closed. Minnesota traitorously bailed out on us with no warning. But hope remained for us for Lights on the Bay. We had turned on to the final straightaway into the park. Traffic was still moving slowly, but the pace of the creep had definitely picked up. We had made it so far!

And then—the undoing. TD gave voice to those four words every road-tripping parent everywhere throughout the history of road trips dreads: “I need to pee.” I knew the jig was up as soon as he said it. We were on a bridge; there was no brush to hide in. And LBB would NEVER EVER consent to TD peeing in a cup in the van. She would sooner walk the 15 miles home than be even an auditory witness to such horror. Big Daddy wondered if I might walk TD up the road a bit beyond the bridge to a more discreet location. Alas, I also needed to pee (and probably had well before TD’s announcement) and thus could not safely take such a stroll. Besides, we were realistically looking at another 45 minutes to an hour of waiting. During our Disney vacation in 2019, we—with our coveted Fast Passes—mocked guests who waited 3+ hours for Avatar, one of the most breathtaking amusement park attractions ever created. Were we really going to wait 3+ hours for a drive-through lights show we’d seen nearly 10 times?

An escape toward home was available a hundred yards up the road. Big Daddy and I held a silent eyebrow talk to decide the matter, and then broke it to the kiddos. TD was relieved to know he’d soon be…relieved, but LBB was livid. All the careful planning. All the patient waiting. For what? A very long drive for Starbucks? No lights, no Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo. Everything undone by a Saturday night crowd and not just one, but two tiny bladders. We hopped back on the highway as soon as we could, LBB weeping dramatically in the seat behind me.

I suggested to Big Daddy that we head for a Wendy’s that I knew was a couple exits up; we could solve our bladder and hunger issues in a single stop. He cruised by the turn-off, explaining that we would have to cross to the other side of the highway to get to the Wendy’s. WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? We just tanked two hours of waiting for Lights on the Bay so that TD (and I) could get to the facilities POST HASTE, and you don’t want to take the exit because the proposed destination is on the left side of the road? Instead, we drove for 5 more minutes down the road to a different exit so that we could drive another 10 minutes to a Kohl’s which—phew!—was on the right side of the road. We had driven nearly long enough to have been home if we had taken a direct route. Sadness.

As fate would obviously decree for this outing, Kohl’s consistently puts their restrooms ALL THE WAY in the back of their stores, so TD and I had to sprint a respectable distance to make it to the promised land. My easily distracted sidekick—having not seen the inside of a retail establishment for months—earnestly asked if we might do some shopping on our way back out. I said, “Sure.” We’d get to scratch TD’s itch AND make Big Daddy wait awhile—as we had so recently been made to wait. Win-win.

When we eventually moseyed our way back to the van, LBB had stopped crying but was not speaking to anyone. We were now well into the 8 pm hour having eaten no dinner, making the van a mobile ticking time bomb. We resumed our journey home, but Big Daddy soon pulled into a McDonald’s on the left side of the road (almost immediately after passing a McDonald’s on the right side of the road)—belated and bitter evidence that Big Daddy can make stops on the left when he is good and ready to. LBB declined to place an order in protest of being promised good pasta and somehow landing at Mickey D’s. She even rejected the McDouble Big Daddy ordered on her behalf in case she changed her mind. (She told me later she ate Pringles and a box of raisins for dinner once we finally made it home.) I spent the rest of the ride home dipping nuggets in sweet-n-sour sauce and staring moodily out the window feeling sorry for myself, being salty with Big Daddy, wishing my teen and pre-teen got along better.

Yet by some miracle—a Christmas miracle, if you will—this Saturday night misadventure did not deter us from making another run at it two days later. As families, as humans, it’s the only sensible way. Stay hopeful. Keep trying. Get back up again. We got our 2020 Lights on the Bay fix in the end—on a Monday, using the ticket from Saturday. No Starbucks on the second attempt and saved the good pasta for Christmas Eve, but the tradition lives on, proving COVID-proof after all. Minnesota, if you’re out there, we hope you gave it another shot, too!

That Dude and Little Big Boss, at 11 and nearly 13, share my weakness for supermarket sushi (don’t judge us!), though they’ve ventured no further than the meekest and mildest of all the options: your standard California Roll. My top picks—Spicy Tuna Rolls and Shrimp Tempura Rolls—don’t exactly qualify me as a maki maven, either. Still, I’m met with solid approval when I arrive home from a Saturday morning grocery run with these rectangular plastic trays of Japanese-inspired goodness. Typically I will buy one package for me and another for TD and LBB to split, as their taste for rolls is rather easily satisfied.

Today was one such supermarket sushi Saturday. They don’t happen every time I go as I tend to shop early on weekends—usually before 8 a.m.—before the day’s selections have even hit the case. But today I didn’t make it out of the house until after 10:30, after “sleeping in” until 7:30, getting some things done around the house, and then waging a protracted battle with TD to get him eat some breakfast. He’s a better human being when he eats properly in the morning, but he doesn’t want to dine with the family anymore. Too much togetherness over the past many months combined with a naturally contrary nature and the pushing of boundaries innate to tweendom. Our chewing annoys him. Our conversations annoy him. Our use of napkins annoys him. He and I are not in a good place.

I am not thinking about this as I approach the sushi case. I am only thinking, “Yay, there is sushi in the case!” and I pick up the usual fare. Big Daddy is not around and TD is upstairs when I arrive home, but LBB helps me unload and is delighted that I have come bearing gifts of fake crab and real avocado. By the point we finish unpacking, lunchtime is upon us. I ever so briefly consider calling TD down, but rationalize that he parlayed breakfast into brunch and probably won’t be hungry yet. And I want to be able to talk to my girl and use my napkin with abandon and not think about how I am chewing lest it trigger an outburst from TD. I want to enjoy my supermarket sushi.

LBB and I eat our lunch in peace, chatting about nothing and everything, mulling whether her blueberry yoghurt is naturally purple (yes), why today’s rolls look a bit different than last time (different chef), and how come I didn’t realize until now—2 weeks into the semester—that she has PE this quarter (jury still out). She eats her allotted half-tray of sushi and eyes the rest longingly. “I have to save these for TD, right?” She knows the drill. She’s surprised when I shoot back, “Nope! Have at it!” She pauses. “Really?” I shrug my shoulders, “Sure. Just eat them because you’re still hungry, not just to spite your brother.” She clarifies, twinkling, “Can I eat some because I am still hungry and some out of spite?” I purse my lips, but my eyes are merry, “Fair play.” She eats two of the remaining five—one for hunger, the other for spite. I ask which one tastes better. “Duh! The spite sushi, of course!” We collapse into giggles for a moment, but I sober quickly. “Leave the rest.” She nods solemnly, knowing as I do that we are crossing a line.

Next supermarket sushi Saturday, I will call TD down for lunch.

We are not camping people. See, I just wrote “camping people” instead of “campers”. No true camper is ever going to use the term “camping people”. Whoever they are, we have never been them. Until now. Maybe. We didn’t undertake our usual summer vacation this year due to Coronavirus uncertainties, but during the final week of August, as my favorite season hurtled toward a close, I realized that I needed to get myself, Big Daddy, Little Big Boss, and That Dude out of here for at least a couple days before the post-Labor Day start of the school year. We weren’t ready to commit to a hotel stay anywhere, so camping seemed a logical next choice. Besides, I have carried years of guilt for nearly always insisting that the family’s summer travels lead to a sandy beach (MY happy place) rather than at least attempting to venture to another terrain. (I can find the perfect beach house rental on VRBO in about 20 minutes flat; I can search for a mountain getaway for 5 hours and not identify anything approaching acceptable. Seems a bit suspect, I know.)

Armed with a strong dose of summer-is-slipping-away panic, I key in on Rocky Gap State Park, about 2 hours from home, for our camping adventure. There’s hiking! There’s boating! There’s a lake! There’s a BEACH! (Stay focused, girl; this is not only about you.) I check the reservation system for the nights we’re interested in and discover we have our choice of campsites (woot!). The final day of August and first day of September, a fine symbolic transition from summer to fall, I think to myself. I select a site with a view of the beach (shocker!), not far from the bathhouse, and close to the Camp Store, and reserve our 2-night stay, which costs us an economical 50 bucks. How thrifty! We are on now our way to being camping people! But with only 8 days between booking and actual camping, I must enter hyperdrive mode with the online #camplife shopping and making ALL THE LISTS.

Within hours of securing the campsite, I order an 8-person tent (for our party of 4), 2 foot-pumped queen size air mattresses (you didn’t think we were going to sleep on the ground, did you?), a couple of lanterns, and the cutest set of camping cookware ever (there’s an itty bitty tea kettle!). I run a mental inventory of “dual-use” gear we non-campers already own like sleeping bags (sleepovers) and hot dog roasting sticks (backyard firepit). I print checklists I find online of things we may need. I make my own handwritten lists of things we will bring, things we still need to buy, meals we will make, things we will do. Traveling lists are the best lists. I am a truly happy camper at this stage of the game. I confide to a friend that the intensive list-making may be the most enjoyable part of camping. I do not check the weather forecast.

The tent arrives quickly (thanks, Amazon!), leaving enough time to do a test run, so I recruit LBB and TD one afternoon a few days before the trip to help me try to figure out this big beauty. TD (11) offers approximately 4 minutes of “help” before assessing the project as beneath him (also it was hot) and heading back into the house. (Despite having long been a shoo-in for the “Least Helpful Quaranteamate” award, TD continues to rack up mad points in this category.) LBB (almost 13) hangs in there with her mama as we puzzle it out. On the IKEA Furniture Assembly Scale of Difficulty (IFASOD), the tent is probably only about a 4 out of 10, but the magnitude of the dwelling works against us a bit, so we bumble along with less-than-impressive progress for awhile. Big Daddy pops up on the scene out of nowhere (as he tends to do when his Spidey senses alert him to an engineering project in the vicinity) and suddenly the tent starts to actually look like a tent. (Coincidence? Probably not.) Alas, just as our soon-to-be home-away-from-home takes shape, the 5 o’clock skies open up upon us (also from out of nowhere) for a serious 5-minute downpour before we can get the rain flap on. The inside of the tent gets drenched. I wonder if it might be an omen to us almost camping people. I check the weather forecast for our trip.

The forecast calls for some rain, some of the time. We don’t have leeway to reschedule the trip. It’s either camp as planned or call it off. I dither briefly, but we need to get away from here. Also, I have a recipe for double-baked potatoes that you bake at home, slice partially open in a wedge-like configuration, shove bacon and shredded cheese into the slots, wrap in foil, pack in the cooler, and then chuck into the base of the campfire for 20 minutes to reheat. They’re going to be amazing. I am not canceling. (It does not occur to me until literally the moment of this writing that I could make these potatoes and reheat them in our backyard firepit. Or the microwave. I am committed to eating these potatoes near our big beautiful tent with its view of the beach.)

I forge on with the shopping and the gathering and the prep cooking and the packing. The number of bags, boxes, and various other types of containers in our “vacation staging area”(AKA the playroom) grows rapidly and alarmingly. Big Daddy raises one eyebrow, then the other, and observes, “That’s a lot of bags.” I assure him it will all fit in the van. His desire to be able to see out the back window strikes me as selfish and unreasonable. I keep on stockpiling. I counsel the children on the need to be ready to be warm or cold or wet (or warm and cold and wet); the importance of bringing many, many pairs of dry socks; the criticality of extra tennis shoes. LBB sees me headed downstairs with my bag of clothes the day before the trip and asks drolly, “Already overpacked?” Laugh it up, tween sage! When you’re down to zero pairs of fresh socks and trudging around sadly in soggy sneakers, don’t come crying to me.

Big Daddy cleans out the van the afternoon before the trip. I stare into the spacious cavern created by folding down the third row of seats but still feel a nervous twinge about whether everything’s going to fit. (My previous assurances to Big Daddy were pure bluster and I am fully aware that one day he will call my bluff.) Our purchase two summers ago of a cooler we proudly named “Goliath” seems of questionable wisdom when it comes to packing for vacation–especially this one. Goliath is the man for day-trips: local baseball tourneys, quick dashes to the beach, but he’s a total space hog when you’re also trying to get in a canopy, 4 chairs, a tent, air mattresses, sleeping bags, towels, tarps, cooking gear, non-cooler food, clothes, games, etc. Everything must be planned around where Goliath will be residing for the trip. I manage, with relief, to cram the contents of the staging area into the rear of the van. I realize almost immediately that LBB and Big Daddy have not packed their clothes yet (or at least did not present them for inclusion in the Great Stuffing). I inform them of the good news that I have succeeded in packing the van, and the bad news that they have missed their chance to bring any clothes. I eventually relent and allow them one checked bag and a carry-on a piece, which we somehow create space for.

Departure day dawns, but check-in is not until 3 pm and we have morning running around to do, so we hit the road around 11 am. One million checklists notwithstanding, I forget the loaf of bread that is critical to my back-up menu plans, and realize it only a few miles from the park. We keep on rolling beyond the park to a Love’s truck stop, grab some McDonald’s for lunch and pick up the very important loaf of bread. Big Daddy thinks Bill (my 18-year old stepdaughter ) will be delighted to know we have purchased “truck stop bread,” for reasons that he was not able to articulate to me in the moment and are perhaps best left to all of our imaginations. We are able to check in to the campsite early (huzzah!) around 1:45 pm, under ominous but holding skies. I have had the brainstorm en route that we should set up our canopy first so that we will have a dry space under which to set up the tent, and–more importantly–retain some hope of not getting the inside of the tent soaked (again). But the canopy was among the first items I packed since it’s bulky and heavy, so we have to take out 867 small things to get to the canopy.

We find our campsite, which apparently only has a beach view when there’s substantially less foliage at play and also turns out to be a the bottom of a hill. We (and by “we” I mean everyone but TD, who is here under extreme protest) swing into action to make camp. The rain holds off until the canopy is up and most of the 867 small things are out of the van. I am feeling like a genius for packing three tarps: one on which to rest the tent, one on which to rest the things, one with which to cover the things from the rain. The rain comes down steadily, but we assemble the tent and secure the rain flap without getting almost any water inside! We might be camping people! Some of the things go inside the tent; some of the things go under the canopy; some of the things go back in the van. We place the canopy beside the tent and Big Daddy backs up the van to the canopy so that we can open the tailgate to access things but stay dry in the process. LBB and TD are pumping up the air mattresses in the tent when Big Daddy has the light bulb moment that we have positioned the tent entry the wrong way. It does not face the canopy. It faces the picnic table. We need to turn the tent 90 degrees if we want to enjoy the cover of the canopy when entering and exiting the tent. We need to turn the tent 90 degrees if we want to have any hope of preserving the “No Shoes in the Tent” rule AND keeping our shoes dry. I ask whether Big Daddy could have had this idea about 20 minutes ago. He does not respond. We re-position the tent with two partially-inflated air mattresses and four sleeping bags (but no children) inside. We might not be camping people.

With little hope of making a decent fire in the non-stop rain–and multiple objections to the idea of eating truck stop bread PB&J for dinner–we decide on Subway for dinner, and Big Daddy makes a run. LBB, TD, and I play a board game in the tent while we await his return, and I think, “OK, this is quality family time,” until they start arguing over who controls the “floor lantern” and what’s the appropriate setting for the “ceiling lantern”. The forecast now calls for rain for essentially our whole trip. Can I endure 48 hours of lantern wars? They’re also mega-freaking out about the high volume of Daddy Long Legs traffic between the rain flap and top of the tent. Can I endure 48 hours of spider panic? More importantly, is there going to be an opportunity to reheat my lovingly prepared potatoes?

I am subject to more panicking about the bugs when we trek after dinner to the bathhouse for teeth brushing and facility use, since various kinds of insects and spiders seem to enjoy hanging out there. My attempts to add perspective by noting that I am more concerned about bears than I am about harmless Daddy Long Legs don’t go over well. LBB gulps, “Bears?” looking for reassurance that isn’t forthcoming that Mama “I Got Jokes” Watkins is kidding, right? Fortunately, LBB is too busy tongue-lashing TD over his subpar lantern-bearing skills on the way back to the campsite to remember to hyperventilate about possible bears. We are bedded down by around 8:30 pm–completely unheard of in a household that typically goes lights out no earlier (and frequently later) than 10 pm–exhausted from our first day of real camping. TD, hyped to “tell scary ghost stories” as we lie in bed, is momentarily miffed when I nix the idea, buts warms to the telling of any stories. We share early childhood memories, learning–among other fascinating facts–that Big Daddy still remembers the first and last names of nearly everyone he went to Kindergarten with. Impressive and odd at the same time.

Everyone struggles to fall asleep, the unfamiliarity of the setting and really annoying sound of rain against polyester winning out over our exhaustion. I make another trip to the bathhouse with TD, who has secondary business that he failed to complete on the previous walk through the dark and rain, before everyone eventually conks out. We wake to the beautiful sounds of not-rain, and I check the forecast to see how long this miracle might last. Ninety minutes. We have 90 minutes–give or take–to build a fire; heat water for cocoa; warm sausages; and make pancake batter and cook 8 pancakes one-by-blessed-one in our tiny (but super cute) camp cookware. My sweet neighbor-friend’s advice to keep the meals simple is echoing through my head on high volume. Seeing the urgency of the situation, we futz with the air mattresses for about 20 minutes to restore some of the air they have lost overnight. Eventually Big Daddy gets the fire going as I poke around the back of the van playing a world-class game of “Where the Heck Did I Put That?” since my original organizational system was destroyed yesterday when the priority was to get bags back in the van and out of the rain. We succeed in heating a kettle of water, burning pre-cooked sausages, and making 7 pancakes before it starts pouring again. TD’s first pancake cannot be salvaged after falling to its peril on a muddy tarp, so I give him my first pancake (which also turns out to be my only pancake because the other one with my name on it doesn’t make it to the pan before the rain resumes). I make LBB and TD cups of hot cocoa using the water from the kettle, planning to make myself some Chai with the remaining water, but as I deliver their warm drinks to them in the tent, Big Daddy accidentally knocks over the kettle. No pancakes for me! No Chai for me! (#momlife) Luckily Goliath brought along some cold coffee and I am all about iced coffee in summer, so I get a caffeinated drink to start my day after all! I also get cereal and a boiled egg from the back-up menu. All is not lost.

The forecast assures us that the rain will eventually stop, so I play Mad Libs in the van with TD as we wait it out. I accredit Mad Libs with helping to teach our children the parts of speech, even though we have to restate every time we play that you can only use the word “toilet” once during any given session and that we’re not accepting “wenus” as a body part. After a time, we start reading previous entries, including a few where he was the writer at a very young age. Given what a terrible sleeper (and go-to-sleeper) TD is, among the best of these oldies is “How To Go To Sleep,” which includes, “Breathe luckily and think about something beautiful, such as green volchers [vultures]. Do not think about your furry enemies or entertain any other chunki thoughts.” The rain gives way to just clouds around 11:30 am, and we scurry lakeside to see whether we might rent a kayak or two. But the boathouse is closed and the staffer at the nearby Camp Store advises that if the boathouse isn’t open yet, chances are it’s not opening at all. LBB looks very, very sad. The only thing she really specifically wanted to do on the camping trip was to go boating. A simple request that seemed easy enough to fulfill. The staffer suggests that the boathouse at the resort might be open. We head back down to the beach to ensure that the camp boathouse has not somehow miraculously opened in the 5 minutes since we last checked (it has not), so we decide to wade in the lake for a bit and find ourselves in a family rock skipping session. Big Daddy and TD are both rock-solid rock skippers, so watching them achieve 6 or 7 bounces that end up halfway across the lake is very cool. LBB and I each succeed in some modest 2 or 3 bounce skips, tickled with ourselves whenever we avert a “plonk”. Everyone is having fun!

We mosey back to our campsite after a time so that Big Daddy can make another run at a fire. I see double-baked potatoes in my future. I call the resort to see if their boathouse is open (yes!) and ask whether you have to be a guest to rent a boat (no!). LBB, TD, and I jump in the van, leaving Big Daddy to tend to the campfire and magic up some hot lunch. I am so eager to get LBB in a watercraft that I fail to follow the most basic rule of parenting: make sure everyone goes to the bathroom first. We rent a 3-person canoe and gear up; I give the requisite lecture on not tipping the canoe; we crew our way out to the middle of the lake; LBB looks very, very happy. The sky looks threatening, but we think positive thoughts and toodle around for a contented 30 minutes (minus the 2 minutes after TD (in the front) clocked LBB in the head with the butt of his paddle). TD announces he needs to pee. LBB fumes and rages. “How long can you hold it?” I ask. TD doesn’t know. I start steering us back toward the launch. LBB fumes and rages some more. I remind LBB that 2 hours ago we thought we might not get to boat at all and now we are going to get about 45 minutes in. Think of this as gravy! She rejects this gravy. She rages and fumes harder. I stop talking. She has a right to reject this gravy. I would have rejected this gravy at age 12, too. The boathouse attendant doesn’t see us come in, but–without any help–we manage to land on the beach and all get out of the canoe without anyone ending up falling in! We hand over our gear and scramble away to get TD some relief. LBB continues to rage and fume. Her stamina for the raging and the fuming is extraordinary.

Back at camp, we eat hot, cheesy, bacony, double-baked potatoes for late lunch. They are delectable.

Later I take TD to the lake to swim, although he spends the first 15 minutes skipping more rocks. He revels in the rock skipping and the swimming and the dedicated attention from me. (“Watch this, Mom!” “Can you do this?”) He seems very content, so I venture, “Maybe camping’s not so bad?” He sets me straight immediately,”Oh no. Camping is terrible. I am never camping again. I just like the lake.” LBB–beset with a headache from the raging and the fuming–has hung back with Big Daddy at the campfire, which we have decided to feed continuously–and keep cooking things over–until the rain returns. After TD and I finish up at the lake, we find LBB diligently roasting hot dogs wrapped in crescent dough. This is another “easy” recipe I have included on our menu, but it proves super tricky to get the dough to cook evenly–and it takes approximately forever. LBB makes herself a nearly perfect one, then sets it aside to continue cooking more for others. Once TD dries off and changes up from swimming, he joins us by the fire and immediately pitches a fit about not wanting dough on his. We send him to the picnic table, where both LBB’s perfect finished dog and the not-yet-cooked-wrapped-in-dough dogs are, and instruct him to take the crescent rolls off one so that he can roast the hot dog by itself. Which dog does he remove the crescent roll from? LBB’s perfect finished dog, of course. Of course. Of course. In no sibling tale could the outcome have been any different. He is questionably remorseful. She loses her mind. The raging and the fuming of earlier seem like amateur hour. She sits in the front passenger seat of the van and screams at the universe for a solid 10 minutes. To her credit, she calms herself eventually and doesn’t injure TD.

We go to bed crazy early again the second night. It’s easy to see how electricity has really messed up our bodies’ natural rhythms. We tell more stories from our childhoods, at TD’s impassioned urging. The rain comes back. Big Daddy, TD, and I all wake up at the same time in the deep of night and need to use the facilities. I am the only one who actually ventures off the campsite to do this, braving my way up the road with the “floor lantern” and wishing one of my bickering potty buddies were with me. Thankfully, the rain has ceased for the time being and Big Daddy’s watching for my return so that he can show me these luminous glowing spots–maybe eyes?–on the forest floor around the campsite. Are they frogs? Glowing plants? Who knows? But it’s kind of magical, whatever it is. We clamber back into the tent, performing for what seems like the 100th time in two days the awkward ritual of shaking our shoes off onto the tarp outside before crawling into our temporary lodging. We’ve successfully honored the “No Shoes in the Tent” rule so far. Feels like we may be getting the hang of this, so naturally it’s almost time to go home.

Once more we wake up to a pause in the rain, but the forecast says more is coming, and the forecast has been painfully correct so far. I believe the forecast. The forecast is my new best friend. Big Daddy makes a final campfire and we (and by “we” I mean everyone but the sulky, slow-moving, never-camping-again TD) dart around the campsite crazily (cue Benny Hill chase scene music with no chasing and more clothes) trying to pack up and have breakfast at the same time. All the small stuff in the van must come out once again so that all the big stuff can go in, which results in a picnic table full of vulnerable things because now all the tarps are super dirty and cannot be used for protection as they were when we set up camp. We triumphantly outpace the rain with our speed packing! (I refuse to count the few sprinkles that rudely insinuated their way in to the process.) On the way home, we pull over in a “No Stopping Anytime” zone on the highway because LBB and TD end up in a slap fight in the back seat over a Caprisun that LBB has confiscated from TD’s snack bag to prevent him from drinking it too soon (and possibly necessitating a premature potty stop) and TD has unbuckled his seat belt to more fully pursue the slap fight and pouch drink, and refuses to buckle back up. LBB has a conniption over stopping in the face of a clear “No Stopping” mandate and TD moves at sloth speed to re-engage his seat belt. In fairness, this particular gem of sibling dysfunction could have happened on the way home from a beach vacation, too.

We arrive home without consuming a single slice of truck stop bread. We break one of the tent poles when we reassemble the tent to hose it down and air it out. But we achieved the goal of getting away. And we stuck out a really rainy trip when we could have bailed completely or cut it short. We made pancakes and potatoes, hot beverages and hot dogs. No one got hurt (except maybe in the slap fight on the way home). We skipped rocks and paddled a canoe and went swimming and played games and told stories. We didn’t bring our shoes in the tent. We are still not exactly camping people, but we are closer than we were before.

I wrote this last June, but didn’t post it. I put it out there today for all those mamas and daddies who go all-out, non-stop, all the the time for their babies.

At 7:30 this Sunday morning, I was still in bed. STILL IN BED. Par for the course for some, but a serious accomplishment for me, who ascribes–at least in part–to my 10 year old son That Dude’s “I’ll sleep when I die” philosophy. Make-or-break moment: do I lay here some more (as I probably so badly need to) or do I press “Play” on the day and nab some downtime later?

I really just wanted to have a reading marathon: sink my teeth into the WWII novel my 11 year old daughter Little Big Boss picked out for me for Mother’s Day, make some real progress on the Anne of Green Gables prequel I’ve been flirting with for over a month (during which time LBB has wolfed her way through approximately 10 300-page novels, not that I am bitter). Do I bag the day? Play hooky from church, chuck plans to make an afternoon run to stock up for the big 5th grade pool party I’m hosting at our neighborhood pool on Friday? NO! I can do it all. Those are the only two items on my schedule; surely there’s time to read, too! Day of leisure, here I come!!

We make it to 9 o’clock service without me screaming at anyone in the car on the way, but my peaceful energy is not completely in tact–LBB has raised the topic of end-of-the-year teacher gifts en route, and I practically have to pull over the car as dread instantly overtakes me. This is the last week of school–and LBB’s final year of elementary school–and I have been so wrapped up in 5th grade pool party planning logistics that have given no thought to teacher gifts. Like zero. My Sunday plate just got a little fuller.

During the service, That Dude tries to rattle me with his bizarro church chatter. (“Mommy, I like your elbow.” “I like how pointy it is.” “Did you know that technically we were Siamese Twins at one point because we were joined together before I was born?”) But I just nod sagely at him, put my finger to my lips once in awhile, and manage to make it to the end without laughing or putting a death grip on his shoulder.

Home by 10:15–woot, virtually the whole day still before us. We can knock out teacher gift shopping and party shopping later, and I can still read. I got this. I’m just going to whip up some crab cakes now so they’ll be ready to broil come dinner time. How long can that take?! Twenty-six ingredients and 90 minutes later, I have my answer. But they’re going to be amazing, so it’s worth it, right?

Maybe it took so long because while I was making them, LBB declared herself too tall for her bike (she’s not wrong) and that I should get a bigger bike out of the shed in the backyard for her. Alas, the shed and I are not friends. We’ve lived in this house for 9 years and I still cannot unlock that bad boy for anything. My husband (AKA Chief Shed Opener) is not around, so I tried to demur, but there’s little point in fighting LBB (on pretty much anything, ever), so I agree to give it a shot.

I spend 5 minutes trying to open the shed with the key to my parents’ condo (that was a bust, by the way). I spend 7 more minutes trying to open the shed with the actual key to the shed (also a bust). I break down and text Big Daddy for tips on how to open the $&@($&$ shed. He replies almost immediately (hooray!) with the news that it’s probably already unlocked. Say what now? Is Mr. Security actually informing me that the shed is just sitting out there undefended? That someone (other than me, clearly) could just waltz on in there and steal from under our noses the Little Tykes slide and Radio Flyer wagon that all of our children are way too big for? “Use fingertips or a pry bar.” Why, thank you! I am in.

I wrangle a cobwebby, flat-tired bike around the house to the driveway. I successfully locate a pump after several minutes of rummaging in the garage, but now it is raining and LBB is going for frozen yogurt and shopping with her neighbor friend and no longer cares a rat’s patootie about her too small bike or this dusty right-size bike with its deflated wheels.

But LBB’s joy is That Dude’s sorrow, as is often so frustratingly the case. Another crossroads moment for me: do I heed the call of my books or the cry of my son? Not much of a choice, really. So off we go, just the two of us, to tackle teacher gift shopping and eat warm cinnamon sugar pretzels for a naughty late lunch. He sees a giant inflatable Mountain Dew that’s anchored to our local Royal Farms, and calls it “the most gangsta thing he’s ever seen), and I tell him we’ll try to keep it that way. It’s still only 1 pm when we get home, so I’ll just do a few more things before I read so that they’re out of the way. I make their school lunches for tomorrow and cut up a quart of strawberries and a pineapple and move the laundry along and gather the trash for Monday trash day. That Dude helps me shuck corn for dinner and entices me to play some Mario Kart (which I am so bad at that I kind of wonder whether my real-life driver’s license is legit).

LBB makes it home eventually–on a cloud from her outing–and I turn to drafting and printing the photo cards that are part of their teacher gifts. At the same time I’m text coordinating with my neighbor friend who’s kindly online party shopping for me with her Sam’s Club membership. And then it’s time to get dinner together and serve and eat and clean up. But I am in jammies by 7:30 and come out front to sit in the evening breeze and READ!

But instead, I write this.