Flutters and Flurries

It's been a whirlwind week of activities for my son's school...the volunteer load, so far this year, has increased relative to last year.  Which is not a good trend.

On the other hand--after the week to come, the amount of time I need to spend on those school activities will decrease dramatically.  Which means, finally, finally...my other life--what I can hopefully call a "career" in about three months--will take off.  Or at least, flutter its wings.

Running into Old Age

I don't feel old.  That's the simple truth.  I'm almost 52, but I'm running races and doing it faster than ever...I have a 7-year-old boy, and therefore find myself hanging out with 30 and 40-year-old women (other moms of 7-year-olds), and don't feel like I'm looking conspicuously haggard compared to them...sometimes I catch my reflection in a window and think, "Boy that person needs more sleep," but I feel like I'm holding my own, as a woman moving well beyond 50 years of age.

However--I do feel like time is passing by very quickly now.  When I think about what I still hope to accomplish in life--yes, there's not that much time left.

On the other hand...we've fallen into a good rhythm as a family, these days...which feels good.  For the 2nd year in a row, we all participated in a 5K where I ran the distance and my son and husband did the trail walk.  Jesse happily announced at the end, "Mommy, you'll be proud of me because I walked the whole distance without stopping."  And I was--because my son's favorite thing to do when we're out hiking is to stop after 20 minutes or so and have a snack.

And I managed to run much faster than I've ever run 5 kilometers before.  It's about six hours after the race, and it still feels damn good...I'll probably have this feeling of post-race euphoria for the next day or so.

Of course, there were ten and eleven-year-old children out there, running the whole 5 kilometers faster than I did.  And, there was one 60-year-old woman running it in less than 20 minutes.

There will always be faster people--that's one thing road racing teaches you.  And it's true in every field of endeavor--there will always be faster, smarter, better people.

The trick is to enjoy the hell out of the fact that you, yourself, are right now better than you've ever been.  And as I start to slow down (as I inevitably will, as I get older), I'll have to enjoy the fact that I'm doing better at 57, 58 or 62 years of age, than I ever dreamed I could.

Cool Gray City of Love (and Lunacy)

As I read Gary Kamiya's Cool Gray City of Love, I'm reminded of my experience as a new mom, exploring the hidden corners of San Francisco with my baby boy napping in a stroller.  (I wrote about many of those explorations in the 2009-2010 posts for this blog.)  I do miss those days.  And yet--do I really wish to return to my old life in San Francisco?

Yes and no.  I will always hold a soft spot in my heart for The City.  Ever since I took Caltrain up from Palo Alto at age seventeen, then rode the 30 Stockton up to North Beach--feeling a tremor of excitement race through me as the bus passed the Jack London birthplace plaque, on the wall of a Well Fargo Bank on 3rd Street; ever since I discovered City Lights (best bookstore ever) and Cafe Puccini (best cappuccinos ever); ever since I moved to a little efficiency apartment at Bush and Jones (on the edge of the Tenderloin or the base of Nob Hill, depending how you looked at it) at age 18, then spent most of the next ten years moving from one rental situation to another, one cafe to another, one poetry reading and bookstore to another.

Kamiya writes about San Francisco with the same enthusiasm I felt in those days and which I still feel to some extent.  He turns something of a blind eye to the noise and dirt, the junkies and the schizophrenics, the filthy rich in their SUVs cruising to the opera, to the latest "hot" bar or restaurant, or to one of their absurdly expensive private schools.  Some would say that those extremes--the homeless and the extravagantly wealthy--are always present in any big city; but in San Francisco in the first part of the new millenium, the extremes are ever more observable, and problematic.  Dozens of homeless sleeping in the Powell Street BART station every night; women in neon-glow evening gowns taking their poodles to the Opera...pedestrians getting rammed by bicyclists, people shouting obscenities as they walk down the street...it gets old.

However--I do understand Kamiya's undying love for San Francisco...and share it, though in my case it's a love tempered with a fair measure of disgust and caution.

Revving Up While Slowing Down

So much happening right now...hard to know where to begin.  But continuing with the theme of countercultural activities for a moment...

Fishing is one way to slow down, enjoy the beauty of nature, and keep my son focused on something BESIDES video games.  Last Sunday at Santa Cruz Pier was part of that low-technology campaign.  And it will continue this weekend, as I've signed us up to participate in Coastal Cleanup Day at Half Moon Bay; we might take advantage of that trip to get in some more fishing, probably at Pillar Point Harbor.

Another activity that my son will start to pursue this year is 4-H, which has a great chapter in Cupertino.  I've got Jesse signed up for the rabbit project, which meets once a month, starting in October, and basically covers all aspects of rabbit care.  We don't even have a rabbit; but we've held them many times on "Bunny Day" at the local pet store, and Jesse gets so much pleasure from that--his whole system seems to slow down and a special, quiet smile spreads across his face when he's holding a bunny--that I'm pretty sure he'll enjoy being a part of the 4-H rabbit group, for the next year at least.  And who knows, it could inspire him to get involved with animal care in a more significant way.

Last Saturday we took a tour of the 4-H farm at McClellan Ranch in Cupertino.  Two boys, about eleven years old and as excitable and awkward and wonderful as eleven-year-old boys can be, took us past the goat, mini-horse and chicken enclosures; with pride in their eyes, they held up a couple of beautiful chickens and let us stroke their feathers.  They'd raised them from when they were tiny chicks to their present, full-grown splendor.  It was, again, a pause and a step away from the computer and video-oriented world my son is steeped in, and I'm very grateful that he can have that experience once in a while.

My husband and I periodically dream of stepping away from Silicon Valley for good, buying a little house out in the middle of Montana or Washington State...the chances of that seem to be fading at the moment, for a variety of reasons.  But even as I start revving up for a series of fall activities, I'm enjoying these little moments to slow down, breathe more deeply, and just shed myself of all the trappings of contemporary, Silicon Valley life.  It makes a big difference.

Fishing at the Triathlon

This weekend, headed to Santa Cruz with husband, son and brother, for a little fishing at the Santa Cruz Pier.  To my surprise the Santa Cruz Ironman Triathlon (70.3) was happening as we drove up; exhausted people in wet suits were lumbering out of the water right next to the pier as we drove by.  The swimming portion is just the first leg of the event, but several of the competitors looked like they were already ready to quit, and at least one woman was being helped out of the water by race authorities, so she was definitely done.

My husband and brother set up the fishing gear while Jesse and I went down to the beach to get a bucket of water.  I watched more of the Ironman.  I'm all but 100% sure that I will never, ever subject myself to that much coldness and misery.   Okay, yes, I have set myself the goal of completing an olympic triathlon next year, sometime in the spring or summer...but I'll do it in a place where the water temperature is at least 64 degrees, not the frigid 55 degrees or less of Monterey Bay or the Pacific Ocean.  (Even 64 degrees scares me...but we'll see.)

We went back to the pier, where my brother and husband had already caught a couple anchovies and thrown them back.  My husband caught another and handed the rod to our son before it had been reeled in; "You caught a fish!" we both exclaimed to Jesse, who looked proud; but then about twenty minutes later, he caught a fish all by himself with his own cast, and said to us, "Wow, the first fish I really caught by myself."  Which teaches my husband and me a lesson about trying to fool a seven-year-old.

The atmosphere on the Santa Cruz Pier, even in the middle of a triathlon on a Sunday morning, is "totally chill," to use the popular lingo...you cast, sit back in your portable chair, and take in the seagulls and sea lions, or grab a cup of coffee and a pastry from one of the many restaurants and cafes on the other side of the pier.  We released all of our anchovies back into the water when we were done, just dumped them out of our bucket (I hope they survived the fall), and the man fishing next to us shouted, "Free Willy!" and commented, "They're gonna tell their friends how they were just abducted by aliens."  Most of the people fishing were men and boys.  It was Jesse's first fishing trip where he learned to cast the line himself (our previous fishing trip, on Lake Almanor, was completely controlled by the fishing guide, with his deluxe boat, fish finder and four fishing rods set up at each corner of the boat--not very hands-on for our son, and we only caught one tiny fish even with all that gear and expertise).

What a different cultural experience fishing is, compared to a triathlon...compared to most things in our extreme-fun, hurry-up-and-relax culture.  I don't necessarily love fishing myself, but I can understand the allure (pathetic pun intended).  To feel that wiggle at the end of your line--suddenly your life and that fish's life are completely bound together.  Whereas, in a triathlon, you're pushing yourself through the water like a machine, hopefully not smashing your arm against the body of the nearest competitor, trying not to think about how much pain you're in or how difficult it is to catch your breath...you're not connected to the ocean in any way, you're just trying to get past it and onto your bike.  I had a few moments of euphoria during the sprint triathlon I did last year, but they didn't come during the swim in San Francisco Bay; they came when I was zooming through the last part of the bike leg of the race and realized "Hey, I can do this."  But they were fleeting, and had nothing to do with the beauty of my surroundings or the wildlife in the vicinity.

I guess I have some qualms about the whole triathlon experience...then again, fishing is pretty nasty for the fish.  Let's face it:  neither of them are activities I want to pursue on a regular basis.

10K Without Tears

Well, it's done.  Woke up at 4:30 this morning, wide awake.  Just started reading a book and tried not to let it bother me that I'd only gotten five hours' sleep; jazzed up about the race I suppose.  After stretching and a cereal bar, made it out to the car at 6:20, happy to be on schedule.  Turned on the engine, and a "Check Tire Pressure!" notice appeared, which hasn't popped up in, well, years.  I checked all the tires; they were at 25 psi.  Low, but not ridiculously low; decided to risk it.

Two friendly teenage girls waved me into the parking lot with big red flags.  It was the overflow lot; "the other one is probably full," they said.  It wasn't too much of a walk.  The race was well-organized, not too crowded, and low-key overall, which is just what I wanted; and it was almost entirely flat.

I started pretty fast, for me, then after a quarter-mile, realized what I was doing and slowed down.  After one mile a big, ridiculous grin attached itself to my face.  The effort of slogging through 10 kilometers soon got rid of it; but the same thought kept coming back to me:  "I'm so happy to be in decent enough shape that I can do this race, at this speed, without killing myself!"  Good health--maintaining it, celebrating it--is the reason I do these races; and I was enjoying mine enormously for those first few miles of the race.

Things got harder at around Mile 4, but not drastically so.  I was about 80 percent sure that I could make it to the end without slowing down.  The nihilistic thought crossed my mind:  "Why on earth are you even doing this?  What's the point?"  But I chased it away and breathed in the crisp, early-morning air, thought about the cappuccino I would enjoy after the race, but mostly just stayed focused on the present moment, my body and my breath.

I have to admit:  for me, the best part of any race is after it's done...but in some crazy way, this race was almost fun.

10K or not 10K

My first 10K tomorrow...it's going to be hard because I'm trying to do it in under an hour.  (I know...really easy for most runners; hard for this mediocre runner.)  I'm not super-excited.  Plus it's at 8 a.m. on a Sunday.

But the knowledge that I had this race coming up pushed me to run 7 or 8 miles, several times this summer.  Pushed me to put in some interval training when a nice slow run would've felt much better. Pushed me to get out there and run, swim or bike, almost every day.

We need these self-imposed deadlines, sometimes...

But right now my only true motivation to run is the feeling I get when it's over and I know I can grab a cappuccino, go home, take a bubble bath and curl up with a good book.

Busy Week / Dull Week

It's been a bad week for the writing...I just haven't been doing it much.
It's been a good week for just about everything else.  Family is well; school is going remarkably well for Jesse; my biggest volunteer activity at the school has gotten off to an excellent start; I'm exercising.
But somehow...life loses its pizzazz, its tough, beating heart, without the writing.

How Much Is Too Much?--Is Not Always the Right Question

Jesse really balked about checking off the 100 things to get his "prize."  My husband (who is no softie) said it was too overwhelming; and, looking at it again, I had to agree.

We had a serious talk with Jesse, after his mini-tantrum a couple days ago, about the fact that we can't keep buying new video games for him every week; especially, not ones that cost $29.99.  He doesn't understand money yet; but I think he understands why we're trying to limit his video game-playing.  And he agreed that he shouldn't play video games more than about two hours a day (which is already a lot).

He will wait until this Sunday for the new video game; and, he was fine about working more on his writing, reading, math, and basic life-skills; and on following our directions.

I think it helped him that I spoke calmly and respectfully, and listened to his point of view--which is that he did, indeed, feel overwhelmed about checking off 100 items to win something.  The check-off system might work for some kids, but my son just really hates it.  And that doesn't make him a bad kid.

How much is too much (of anything)

Jesse is a big-time video gamer, like a lot of kids his age.  The games are not too violent, and his favorite right now is Minecraft, which is actually somewhat creative.  But--he spends too much time on them.

Yesterday he asked for a new game, which costs $29.99.  He fell in love with it through the videos of a man who has made tutorials for about ten different games.  Jesse absolutely adores these videos; he finds them amusing and very informative.  So of course, he falls in love with all the games this man introduces to him.  And wants them, badly.

I told him that he can get this new game if he does ten things that he doesn't enjoy doing, but needs to be doing every day or almost every day, like brushing his teeth in the morning, clearing the table, and reading/writing/doing math, 15 minutes each every day.  (The school year just started and he's only in 2nd grade, so the teacher hasn't assigned homework yet.)  I told him that he needs to do each of ten different things at least ten times for this new game.  If he does them once each over ten days, he will get the game.

He's so frustrated by this turn of events, and the fact that he's not getting his video game when he wants it (now), that there's a big crisis happening upstairs right at the moment.

Part of me wonders if I overdid it with the "Check off 100 things and you'll get the game" idea.  But I think one way or another, he has to learn that he's not going to get everything he wants without some work.  Especially expensive video games.

On the other hand--I haven't used the check-off strategy very often, and he really, really hates it.  He is generally a good boy, who will do things that we ask him to do...but maybe for him this feels like I'm dumping too much on him all at once.

Lovely Days

What a much-better day...at age 51 (almost 52) I'm learning how to appreciate the days where almost nothing happens, where one's mind has time to drift and to dream, where, yes, there are a lot of housewifely chores, but none of them are too onerous...where the son is mostly doing his own thing (and this mostly involves computer games or Magic Treehouse videos, but this makes him very happy)...where no one in one's little family group is injured or harrassed or especially troubled about anything.

The only thing I did with Jesse is take him to downtown Los Altos, our favorite downtown in Silicon Valley (and the only one, as far as I've seen, which makes a conscious effort to cater to kids) where we visited a pet store with a huge macaw, where he bought the Minecraft Redstone handbook and where he ate a chocolate ice cream cone at the local Baskin-Robbins.

Nearly perfect day in other words...easy for both of us and just what we needed.

Not Great

What a not-great day...

Many things went wrong but the most important thing was Jesse falling off his bike on the way to school--falling hard onto the pavement so that he badly skinned his left leg.  We made it to school and got some help with his injury in the office.

My son will be all right.  But he fell in the street--near the sidewalk, and thankfully, there were no cars coming, but it could have been worse.

I am going to rethink the whole biking-to-school part of the day.  Either he goes very slowly and stays mostly on the sidewalk, or we give up the whole bike-to-school project.  The traffic in this part of Silicon Valley is just a bit too intense.

Beyond Tragedy (a kind of light?)

Yesterday, shopping for a secondhand bike, I met a woman whose son was severely injured playing high school football.  He's in a wheelchair, perhaps permanently.

They live just a mile away; I met her briefly yesterday, standing and talking on her front steps, and might never see her again.  She spoke matter-of-factly about the injury; I made feeble noises of sympathy.

Coming home later, I could hardly breathe.

American football is insane, and we are a mentally ill country to be so fascinated by it.  A country that (like the ancient Romans) likes to see beautiful young men destroyed before their eyes.  Why?  Why on earth?

I think we can do better.  Flag football is a wonderful game; my brother and his friends played it a lot in the streets when we were growing up.

This woman, going through such a horrible experience, seemed utterly calm.  Not joyful, but calm.  Her quiet expression was filled with a kind of light--maybe I'm seeing it through the lens of my emotions at that moment, but I don't think so.  I think she's experienced just about every kind of hell a mother can experience, but has come through it with a sense of purpose.  I took a lot of inspiration from her in those five minutes I spent with her, talking mostly about her son's bike.

Late-night Blather

It's 11:30 and I'm still up which is a tragedy...

Have gotten seven hours' sleep a night two out of the last three nights, which is something of a record for recent weeks--usually the average is down to about six hours a night these days.  For no one good reason, more like, a combination of stupid ones.

This post will be lightning-quick.

The school year has started really well...for one thing, Jesse biked to school every day last week, which he hasn't done since kindergarten; but it was a short week, just three days.  This week will be the real test.  Can he adjust to the entire school routine, including the twice-a-day bike ride (four miles total) without burnout?

I think it'll have the opposite effect...that is, after a mile-long bike ride, he'll actually be settled enough, mentally, to start learning right away.  We'll see.

Making Good Choices

Seeing the Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte flail in front of the television cameras--or Donald Trump for that matter (he's raised flailing and buffoonery to a kind of art)...and, on the other hand, seeing others from the Olympics shine, or once in a blue moon, someone in politics do something heroic, it's hard not to think, "What did your parents teach you about life that perhaps helped you fall/rise to such a level?"

I read Barack Obama's first autobiography, and what stood out was his mother waking him up at 4:30 in the morning to make him study, as well as the fact of his father's very brief appearance on the scene, after his parents' divorce when he was very young.  The absentee dad from Kenya walked into his life again for just one week when he was around 10, and gave him a basketball.  Both parents, in their very disparate ways, pushed him to excel--his mother in a day-to-day, slogging-through-the-trenches manner (at least for the early part of his upbringing--his grandparents mostly took over while he was living in Hawaii) and his father, by having created an almost mythical aura around himself through his absence.  Apparently Obama suffered an identity crisis in his teens, which isn't surprising...but he weathered it with remarkable grace, and a remarkable certainty about his future as a global change maker.

What we do every day as parents really matters...but sometimes our absence from our children's lives is just as influential on their development as our presence...I can't pretend to read Lochte's psyche but it's pretty clear that he was ignored by someone; Trump as well.

I don't ignore my son, but perhaps I commit the opposite sin--perhaps I listen and support him too much...he probably could use a mother who makes a little more room for other influences in his life, including all the not-completely-positive ones.  Then he can learn to make good choices, when confronted with less than stellar individuals like, perhaps, a low-grade Lochte or a Trump.

Why Do This

What is the purpose of this blog?   I've written about that before--but here's a review of that, one more time:

--I'm writing it mostly for myself--to check in and help myself switch gears every day from my "Mommy" life to my life as a writer.

--I'm writing it to record my day-to-day experience as an older mom working to find her way towards a career as a writer and videographer.

--I'm writing it to amuse my son when he's older, and to preserve certain memories of his younger years.

--I'm writing it so my son will understand his mom better.

There's a possibility--slim, I will admit--that my musings about life as an older mother will make their way into a book that I will attempt to publish.  But we'll see--that's not the main goal here.

Sleep is Everything

Second day of the "new schedule," and my brain feels like tiny people are using it for a trampoline...five and a half hours of sleep last night.  I woke up at 4:45 in the morning, dismally wide awake for no good reason.  But what can I do?  Carry on as if everything is normal...

I finished the one hundred short-short stories sometime this spring...then got caught up in school volunteering, then a trip to Hawaii, then...it was June.  Past the deadline for spring submissions for most literary magazines.  Most will accept submissions again starting around September 1st or 15th.

Missing that June 1st deadline put a hole in my stomach that hasn't really gone away, but...once again, no point in lingering on that.  It's time, absolutely time to grab hold of whatever writing talent I have, and run with it.

First Day for Both

My son's first day of second grade today.  My first day back on this blog, and first day back in my writing life.

By the way, I'm getting tired of calling him "my son" here, i.e. not using a name, though I want to retain our anonymity...so I'm going to call him Jesse.  It's the name of the main character in Minecraft Story Mode (which he adores).

The summer was excellent for both of us, although in terms of work on anything to do with writing, it was nearly hopeless.  I was a full-time mom every day, with the exception of about nine days when "Jesse" was in half-day or full-day summer camps.  Then towards the end of the summer I was scrambling to put together an event at Jesse's school, which takes place in less than two weeks.

On a brighter note, I managed to restart the exercise routine, and am in reasonably good shape...right now I'm scheduled to run a 10K in early September, a half-marathon in November and an olympic triathlon next May and July...that's the plan anyway.  Just doing these races to encourage myself to improve physically and because, well, they're a kick sometimes.  I don't have any dream of winning or getting on a podium for my age group.  After the triathlons next year, I'll probably stop doing them for the most part, and do more hiking.

To take on any of that physical stuff, one thing I must do is improve my sleep habits...have gotten only about six hours a night for the past several nights.  I've heard that poor sleep patterns often occur when one is perimenopausal.  It also happens when you have a cat who sometimes meows for attention at midnight or two or five a.m.  But I simply MUST start turning out the lights no later than 10:45 p.m., if I'm going to function at any sort of decent level--mentally, emotionally, physically.

The send-off to second grade went reasonably well.  It will be something of a shock for him, being back in a classroom; his summer was very relaxed.  I'm not the kind of mom who believes in eight weeks of summer camp and umpteen projects during the summer months; everyone needs a break.   He only did one week of half-day camp and one week of full-day camp, plus sixteen swimming lessons...an easy schedule.  We also had play dates, a trip to Washington state, bike rides and hikes, trips to the library; we played badminton and swam in our backyard; he played Minecraft, and other similar games on his computer.  It was all very low-key...but now, second grade, and a much more challenging schedule.

Trying to Roll with It

Back from Arnold, California, one of our less-than-ideal vacation experiences.  The vacation cabin we rented had not been cleaned up after the previous guests left--towels piled up in bathrooms, beds unmade, crumbs everywhere...we immediately called the owner, who apologized and said he would summon the housekeeper, but we thought for a minute and asked him if we could just have a refund.  He graciously accepted.

Found a hotel in town...unfortunately it was in one of the busiest sections of downtown Arnold; plus the first night it snowed which meant, at 5 a.m. the next morning the snowplows were at work, which in and of itself might not have awakened us, but the snowplow operators kept shouting at each other across the street...

Another unpleasant moment of this trip was during our short hike that first afternoon in town, when the skies threatened rain or snow and it was already getting dark.  We stopped at White Pines Lake, then hiked a small portion of the Arnold Rim Trail.  About ten minutes into the hike, when my husband had gone on ahead because our son was going too slowly for him, a medium-sized brown dog with a big muzzle came up to us and snarled at my son, who instinctively hid behind me.  The owner, an older woman, apologized and said, "He's not good around children"; even after that it took her a long time to catch her dog.  But either he got out of her grasp or she released him soon after, because we were continuing up the trail when the dog suddenly came chasing after us again, the woman far behind him.  

He gets to within five feet of us and is snarling and barking excitedly while making movements as if to attack.  I pick up a large stick and wave it toward the dog.  The woman catches up with her dog a second time, but she does not succeed at corralling it.  My son and I continue down the trail (I'm still clutching the stick), and luckily the dog seems to have lost interest in tearing us limb from limb.  

We woke up after the first night to a winter wonderland.  It was still snowing, so we stayed indoors until around noon.  Had lunch in a kitschy western-themed cafe (ominous cow skulls balanced on copper milk jugs in front of the fire, poster of John Wayne over the mantel).  The proprietor, a potbellied man with a hard stare that softened up only a little when he smiled, served up some tasty scrambled eggs, hash browns and toast.  At one point my son looked up at a sign and said, "That sign doesn't make any sense."  The sign said, "WHEN YOU'RE HERE YOU'RE FAMILY."  What can I say, my son is a literalist.

We ended up eating dinner twice at a spacious and inviting family restaurant called the Snowshoe Pub.  The service was great, especially since the waitresses were being run off their feet by the crowds that piled in each night.  

That second afternoon we found a decent spot at a turnoff (Black Springs, I think it was called) for my son to go sledding for the second time in his life.  (The first time was in Klamath Falls, Oregon when he was 3 years old.)  The first slope we tried was too steep for him.  I found myself idiotically yelling instructions at him which he wouldn't follow simply because it was too much to take in. Why on earth did I start yelling?  Not one of my stellar moments as a mother.

The whole experience turned around when we tried a smaller slope which he mastered quickly.  Then a group of about ten children (ages 2 to 15) and one man (the most good-natured man ever, which was necessary considering the army of excited kids he was leading) stopped at the same spot and started blasting down the really steep slope, tumbling into the snow several times and almost breaking their necks, but laughing and having a great time.  They soon found a better place after that, a rock about four feet high covered in snow in front of a medium-steep hillside.  We followed them to their new spot, and then my son truly mastered the art of sledding, going farther once than any of the other kids (was I proud?  Yes, of course).  "You get extra points for hitting a kid," the man joked, when my son almost started down the hill with a kid still in his path.  

That sledding experience was the highlight of the trip.  We also visited Bear Valley Cross Country center, where they had three beautiful slopes for sledding, and not much of a crowd even during the President's Day ski week, and my son had fun, but it was somehow not quite as enjoyable as our semi-private sledding adventure.

I also had a mishap at Bear Valley, which might have influenced my opinion somewhat:  walking back to the car to get my husband's cell phone, I took a "shortcut" off the ski tracks and my foot sank three feet into a hole, which quickly filled up with water.  I could only pull my foot out without the snow boot; then, after a minute of struggle, I finally managed to extricate the soaking-wet boot.  Trudged back to the car, I dried my foot off as well as I could with one of my son's socks, and put on my rain boots (thank heavens I'd brought them) and lumbered back to the sledding slopes, where my son was having a blast.  Yes, it was well worth it, freezing wet foot and all.

We came home a day early because the hotel room, though pleasant enough, just wasn't very restful; the second night some noisy neighbors stomped into their rooms at midnight, talking loudly and laughing, waking up my husband and me (my son sleeps the very sound sleep of a six-year-old).

So the "ski vacation" became a mostly-enjoyable sledding vacation...which was just fine with all of us.   

  

Ski Day

Our "ski week" will probably be a ski day...but it'll be the first day in my son's life...if he makes it to the ski slopes, that is.

We're going to a small town near the base of the Sierras called Arnold, then making quick excursions further up the highway to Bear Valley for the skiing.  Except that there's supposed to be a rain and snowstorm tomorrow, into the next day.  That will be wonderful for my son to experience, of course--the very first falling snow of his life--but it will impede any skiing we were intending to do. However, we still have Friday and Saturday to give it a try; we'll see.