1m2aSandbox

I spent yesterday living as close to the life of a typical soccer mom as I have, and let me say, I was exhausted.

And I don’t think I’ll be enlisting any time soon.

I know I’ve waxed rhapsodic about our recent family vacation, but in the interest of full disclosure I feel honor-bound to tell you about the worst part of our trip – just to even things out.

That would be our first travel day.

Anyone else's kids completely entranced by the Olympics?

We recorded it the whole time we were on vacation, so now we're catching up and pretending we don't know the results. Every night we eat dinner in the living room - a HUGE first, I assure you - and watch another evening of DVR'd Olympics. The girls adore the gymnastics portion, of course, but are much more into other sports than I'd anticipated.

When my husband and I go on vacation someplace gorgeous, we love to be outdoors. We’ll explore national parks and pull over at scenic vistas and climb through tunnels and traipse up to see cliff dwellings – love it. And if we’re in Hawaii, our two favorite things to do are hanging out at the beach, and taking long hikes. Pre-kids, we’d do 8-11 mile hikes in a day, then collapse for a couple hours on the beach to clean up and cool down. Heavenly.

Now, we knew going back to Hawaii with kids would be different, and it was. We knew we wouldn’t be able to do our 4,000-feet-in-the-air, clinging-to-a-cliff’s-edge, 11-mile hike. We knew that. But we also wanted to expose the girls to hiking, and see if we could give them a taste of it so they’d love it as much as we do. So we picked out a few of our favorite hikes, ones with really spectacular, one-of-a-kind views very shortly into the hike, and prepared the girls. We grabbed walking sticks, water bottles, hats, and sunscreen, and headed out.

The verdict?

Happy Hikers, the Next Generation.

Last week I read a series of essays (while lying on the beach, heh heh) entitled Because I Said So, all written by mothers, on a variety of topics but all in some way tied to motherhood. A few of the essays resonated with me, particularly one about a single mom and her thirteen-year-old daughter: as the mom tried to find her way in the newly-single world, she had to take a good look at her daughter and figure out a whole new way to parent, and in the process she asked the question, What is it that makes a good mother?

“As far as she could ascertain, it seemed to boil down to a fairly simple set of issues. A lousy mother was someone who looked at her kid and said, ‘Here’s who I want you to be’ and ‘Here’s what I’m going to give you.’ A good mother was the one who looked at her kid, really looked at her, and asked, ‘Who are you?’ and ‘What do you need from me?’”

I have tried to find a flaw in this – perhaps because it’s sometimes more effort than I’m willing to put out – and I cannot. Who are you? What do need from me? I ask these questions, and my parenting style shifts. Subtly, but distinctly.

Well, I’ve had the vacation of a lifetime and unfortunately it had to end, so I’m back.

Not that I’m bitter.

Seriously, I think that’s the best vacation I’ve ever had – a long week in Hawaii with my family. And yes, I know, Hawaii is amazing, but beyond that, I had a really excellent time with my kids.