When did I become such a MOM?

Believe it or not, I used to be kinda fun. Staying out late dancing and partying with my friends. Making midnight runs to BK or KwikShop. Having an all day movie marathon. Taking off on a road trip with no specific plans. Gettin' jiggy with it.

Now I plan meals and cook dinner, make sack lunches and do laundry. I say things like "Use your eyes," and "That's too loud," and "No, you cannot have a piece of candy." A fun night involves a great TV show and sleeping. Instead of rushing off to school, I am the rushee and spend many a morning finding library books, appropriate socks, and lost shoes before the school bus arrives.

My mind is full of very important information like who wants peanut butter and honey sandwiches, who prefers mustard AND ketchup on his hot dog, who wants their ice cream in a bowl and not a cone, and who likes to sleep with his light dimmed, and not off.

I used to worry about being cool at school, if I was wearing the "right" outfit or who would be my date to the prom. I would strive to have a golden tan in the summer, and have an artificial tan in the winter.

Now I worry about education, bills, swine flu, school bullies, the influence of video games and TV on a young child's brain and if my six year old will EVER learn to tie his shoes. I wear sunscreen and don't care if my legs are white. OK, I do care, but I don't go to the tanning salon anymore. And all that tanning...yeah it's payback time in the form of wrinkles and brown spots.

Gone are the summer lazy days by the pool, going out with friends at night and best of all, no school.

Now summer means yelling "WALK" at the swimming pool, worrying about sunburns, bee stings and drowning, and insisting that yes, you must take a shower EVERY night.

Instead of friendly debates with my friends of which actor is cuter, which car is cooler and which club we should go to that night, I referee arguments about who gets to unload the top rack of the dishwasher, who got the bigger scoop of ice cream, and who gets to brush their teeth first. And my answer is always the same...life isn't fair and it doesn't matter.

I tell my children to go outside and get fresh air and exercise.
I tell them if they watch too much TV, they're brains will turn to mush.
If they tell me they are bored, I give them some entertaining chores to do.
I teach them the dangers of high fructose corn syrup and sodium.
I worry when they eat hard candy.
I make them get white milk at McDonald's instead of chocolate milk.
I make them AT LEAST take a jacket to school (you don't have to wear it.)

I've turned into my mother.

This girl....
20 years later...is now this mom.

Spring Break: Day 8 & 9

Spring Break 2010: Day 1
Spring Break 2010: Day 2 & 3
Spring Break 2010: Day 4
Spring Break 2010: Day 5 & 6
Spring Break 2010: Day 7

Saturday, March 20

We left Eagle, CO at 9:30 a.m. The boys kept themselves entertained for about two hours. I'm not sure what they were doing, but there was lots of laughing, explosion sounds and screeching. The roads were not slick, but were wet and slushy. We saw several cars that had gone off the road, but we're not sure if it was today, or yesterday during the huge snowfall. The I-70 stretch between Denver and Salina gets longer every year. The boys colored and played with transformers for a while, then we put in a movie. Twitter and Facebook kept me entertained. I know these are hard to read, but you can see I didn't lack conversation.
Both KU and K-State were playing March Madness games, so that kept Scott occupied. We arrive at our hotel in Hays just as KU went into overtime. The boys and I checked out the hotel pool while Scott listened to the last few minutes of the game. (KU lost, in case you didn't know). In between the KU and K-State game, Scott took the boys to burn off some energy at the pool. I continued to be entertained by facebook by posting this, which resulted in lots of comments and "likes." K-State won their game (in case you didn't know).

Sunday, March 21

Are we home yet?

Spring Break 2010: Day 7

Spring Break 2010: Day 1
Spring Break 2010: Day 2 & 3
Spring Break 2010: Day 4
Spring Break 2010: Day 5 & 6

Adam and Zach have been quite the helpers during this trip. If you've ever been skiing, you know that the actual skiing is NOT the hard part. Carrying all the gear is. Skis, poles, boots, helmets, goggles, ski pants, coats, gloves, hats.

Scott carried his skis and mine, plus both of his ski boots. I carried the boys' skis and boots, plus one of my boots. The boys wore their helmets and goggles. Adam was in charge of poles. Zach carried one of my boots. About halfway to the ski slopes Zach decided the boot was too heavy. So I carried the boot and he carried his skis. After a few steps that was too heavy too. So I ended up carrying both boys' skis and my pair of boots. Zach helped by not whining.

We have skied three FULL days. We leave the house before 8 am, and get back around 5 pm. The first two days the boys were in ski school from 9 am to 3 pm. On Thursday, we skied from 9 am to 4 pm, with only about a 45 minute break for lunch. That's a lot of skiing.

BeaverCreek saw 10 inches of new snow today. The powder was heavy, and if you weigh less than 50 pounds, it's really hard to plow through. It's a good thing Scott and I are decent skiers, because we ended up hauling the boys down the mountain. We think Adam's skis had no wax because he was going nowhere. Scott had to hold him up and ski down blues just to get some speed.

I skied with Zach's skis between my skis. Once we got speed, I would hold my poles horizontally in front of us so that he had something to hold onto. Then we'd hit a huge pile of snow and come to a dead stop. I had to push not only myself, but Zach too. About halfway down, Zach started crying because he was cold, wet, hungry and tired. He cried the whole rest of the way down. It took us about an hour to get down the mountain. We met Scott and Adam at the bottom, rode the Gondola one time, and then called it a day.

We saw lots of other kids taken down by ski patrol. Note to self: Do not ski in 10 inches of fresh powder!

Spring Break 2010: Day 5 & 6

Spring Break 2010: Day 1

Spring Break 2010: Day 2 & 3

Spring Break 2010: Day 4

Wednesday, March 17

The boys ended up wanting to do another day of ski school. Actually Adam did, and Zach SAID he did, but then this morning, said he didn't want to. We told him it was just one more day, and then we could all ski together. He seemed a little sad when I dropped him off. Since Adam moved up a level, they were not in the same class, and I think that had something to do with it. And the fact that Adam moved up and he didn't.

Another beautiful day. I think it reached 58 degrees. Scott and I skied a different mountain this time. Beaver Creek is made up of three mountains. This trail map shows how big the ski area is.

When we picked the boys up at 3:00 p.m., Zach was so excited because he could stop on his own and got to ski down the training runs a couple of times. Adam wanted to ski some more, so he and Scott skied down a few times, while Zach and I rode the Buckaroo Gondola.

Thursday, March 18

Olympians in training for Winter Olympics 2022.

Wow! What a difference a day makes. All four of us skied together and the boys did great.Temps in the high 50s again with plenty of sunshine.

We rode the Gondola and skied down several times. Then headed to the two person chairlift. I rode the lift with Adam, who told me the "rules" of the chairlift. (Put the tip of your skis on the red line. Then follow the chair in front of you until you reach the blue line. Then squat down and wait for the chair. Lower the bar when you get to the yellow sign. Make sure you hold onto everything.)

I took this picture of Zach below on our ride up.

We ate lunch (burgers and chicken nuggets) and then decided to try the quad chair lift that goes halfway up the mountain. Here we are on the Centennial lift.

And all of us at the top of the chairlift.

We skied all greens ("Cinch" run on the map). We did accidentally go on a blue, which was quite exciting. But we all made it down in one piece. We rode up the Centennial lift three times, and skied down. The boys even went through some easy paths through the trees.

The video below shows Zach in the light colored coat, and soon you'll see Adam zoom through the trees. Adam is wearing a red coat. If you can't see the video, it's on my facebook page.

Spring Break 2010: Day 4

The view from here:

Kid's ski school is not for the faint of heart. It's chaotic, with parents trying to prepare kids for a day of skiing. We had rented the boys boots and got them signed in the day before. However, we still needed helmets and goggles. Scott had parked the car and called me twice to ask where we were. I told him we were in the same place as yesterday. He walked through the mess three times before he finally found us. We were told to stand in this line, put on this sticker, make sure your child has sunscreen, go talk to this person, and then they wisk your children away to the "parent-free zone," behind a curtain. I forgot Zach's pull over so I asked if I could run back and give it to him. Denied! No parents allowed! They wrote his name on a sticker and said they would get it to him.

We couldn't have asked for better weather. It was 50 degrees in the afternoon and the boys were in just their turtlenecks and bibs when we picked them up. Scott and I got quite a few runs in, including a some of the most difficult black runs. Scott even went on an "unmarked" trail. I chose to meet him at the bottom.

We mostly skied blues and greens. We stopped by the ski school to see if we could see the boys, but it was really hard to see with all the kids in helmets. We picked them up about 3:30 p.m. and Adam wanted to do the training run with Scott. Zach said his feet hurt, but then perked up when we found out that we could ride the gondola. We ended up riding it up and back four times. Adam and Scott did two runs before we headed home. 

The ski instructor said the boys were very well behaved and nobody whined. They made friends with their classmates and enjoyed the day. Adam was ready to move up to the next level because he could stop on his own. Zach can stop with help.