I am not the most relaxed [fill in the blank]

"I'm not going to cry today, Mama," Kai told me matter-of-factly en route to the mountain. "I'm just going to give you a GREAT. BIG. HUG." Context: Last week, Kai cried—sobbed—when we dropped him off at his snowboarding lessons. And then he was fine. 

Keeping his word, Kai did not cry. He hugged, great-big-style, just like he promised. And, then, from what I hear, Kai, age 3, proceeded to "kill it" on the hill. He rode down Sir Henry all by himself. With the five-year-olds. Julian, age 5, did not cry either. He gave me a hug and stoically waved me away. And then went on to connect S turns. First time. Fab day.

Tonight, gold-medal-guy Sage was called the "most relaxed competitor" in the Slopestyle.
Today, I earned the title of "most high-strung rider" at Smugg's.
#superlatives

Today, I cried - after dropping myself off at my snowboarding lesson. Last week had gone fairly well but I'd caught some edges and bruised my tailbone. All week, anytime I moved the wrong way, tailbone tenderness reminded me of my hard falls—and the UVM student who fatally crashed skiing at a different mountain on the same day. I worked myself up, bigtime. Adding to this was the fact Jon was staying in town to guest-lecture in a friend's class, so the responsibility of driving the boys to the mountain was all mine. Which also made me anxious. I convinced myself I didn't know how to get there (!!!) and actually GPS-ed the route (which seems completely ridiculous as I write it now).
Again, the boys' drop-off was entirely uneventful. Regardless, my anxiety continued to rise. To the point at which, after I left the little guys, I shut myself in my minivan and blasted songs like A-Punk and Oxford Comma in an attempt to calm the fuck down. It worked a little. It was time to go to my lesson. So I went. And then my instructor announced that since we'd been "rockstars" last week, we were heading straight to the lift and she was going to "push us." I protested. Weakly. She reiterated that we were ready to be pushed.

And that's when I started shedding tears and listing all the reasons I was scared shitless to "shred" on this day. I don't remember exactly what she said but it turned out to be the right stuff. My riding partner helped me rally. My tantrum meltdown was done. I was ready. Ready enough.

So we headed straight to the lift. My first few turns were tentative. My legs were super shaky (fear-adrenaline shaky, not tired-muscle trembly) at the end of the first run. But by the end of the day, I was snaking down the mountain and connecting tighter turns. I learned how to hold an edge to steer out of the way of speedy skiiers and a certain burgundy-clad beginner who always seemed to be riding wrecklessly out of control.  I even kept my balance and bantered back when Ben and Brian shouted to me from the lift. Basically, I kept up with my kids today. Physically if not emotionally.

It was a good day. A hard-won good day.

Next week: No tears. Just hugs.

Bull sharks live on land.

I was the kind of kid who spent many gorgeous summer days lying on the glider with a book. A biography of  Helen Keller or Babe Ruth, another installment of Sweet Valley High. Didn't matter. If I started it, I didn't want to stop until I finished. On these days, I didn't care who was playing baseball, racing bikes, swimming at the quarry or selling lemonade to fund the acquisition of GI Joe guys. I just wanted to read. 

So you can imagine how excited I am now that my boys love books and that Julian, ever since starting kindergarten some weeks ago, has stopped pushing away my finger when I drag it along the words of the books he's picked out at the library. The boy has taken a serious interest in learning to read.

He asks what the letters spell and now, each night, it's become our routine to have him "read" a book to me and Kai. For about a week that book has been about Star Wars Heroes and Villians. Eh. But tonight, that hero/villian book could not be found. And so I suggested my recent and fantastic Goodwill find, a book about sharks and rays. If you know me at all, you know that this equals awesome.

Pittsburgh Zoo, Fall 2009

But it gets even awesomer. Because when Julian reads, I mostly just listen to whatever story he gleans from the page. (Right... wrong, I don't know—but I'm going with right because it seems to be a great confidence builder.) Anyway, these are the fantastic things I learned about sharks today:

• Great white sharks have really big, big teeth, which makes them FIERCE. And they have pink tongues and they are white. And great.
• "Hammer sharks" (I couldn't resist correcting this one) have eyes on the the end of their heads.  Hammer sharks, I mean hammerhead sharks, are really FIERCE and they like to bang their eyes. Hmm....
• Bull sharks are really FIERCE and they have really big teeth. And they eat bulls. (There was a illustration of a bull on the page, people. This was a logical conclusion.) And that's why bull sharks live on land some of the time.  

I love age 5. So, so much. 

Boys will be... balanced.

I've got a fantasy football draft going on downstairs (Jon) and a kid who won't wear a shirt unless it has a number on it. And is mesh. This one also has taken to wearing a helmet around the house. Steelers, naturally.

Both little guys are all about forts and fighting—and, tonight at the dinner table, farting. (Reprimanded big-time. Boundaries.)  They're obsessed with superheroes and pirates, dinosaurs and rocks. "All boy," people like to say. I hate that—and they're not. Whatever that means. I love rocks. And dinosaurs. Fighting and superheroes (with the exception of Batman, a real person) not so much.

My stylist admiring his teeth.

Besides, J's favorite color is pink. He digs rainbows, gems and jewels. K asks to wear nail polish, which I embrace—using less-toxic formulas, and only on his toes. He's a thumbsucker. We tint them coral and teal, alternating (a new word for him). The polish mysteriously disappears after a trip to Grandma's. The other day Kai and I went shopping for his new shoes and he insisted that I try on a pair of hot-pink leopard-print jeans, topped with green-and-blue striped tank. "You look beautiful, Mama. Wear them." Um, no. But I like your style, kid.

I always say that Jon's best qualities come from the fact that he has two older sisters. I attribute some of my more likeable traits to growing up on a dead-end street with a bunch of boys—where we played backyard ball games and raced bikes, traded GI Joe guys and baseball cards. It helped balance all the hours I spent in ballet. A bit.

I don't know where I'm going with this except to say that while people like to say I'm totally outnumbered over here I really don't see it that way. At all.