February happened. To avoid writing anything of consequence, here’s a poem about last month, titled Leap Year, by Annette Wynne:

Little month of February,

You are small, but worthy—very!

Will you grow up like the others,

Like your sister months and brothers?

Every four years with a bound

With a leap up from the ground,

Trying to grow tall as they—

All you stretch is one small day!

Even then you’re not so tall

But just the shortest month of all.

And isn’t that just like motherhood? You try and you try and you work and pray and cook and love and clean and pray and laugh and train and cry and pray, but no matter what your mothering seems mediocre despite all that and then the kids grow up and suddenly you’re the shortest one in the house and those taller kids do amazing things and frustrating things and then the back to back birthdays are over, even though they happened in March and not February, and now you can sit down for a little bit again since you’re no longer wrapping a billion presents or frosting the seventh tier of cake and yet you’re wishing you had an extra day every month* because you haven’t soaked it all in enough and all I want to know is what’s with the homemade rocket paraphernalia in my driveway and why is it always James?”

* There’s no way. YOU WERE PANICKING EVERY DAY, AND ASKING ME TO DO EVERYTHING! YOU MOST CERTAINLY DID NOT WANT MORE OF THAT. ~Anna

So, I survived our family’s ski trip, and I can’t tell you how happy I am to be this much closer to sea level again. There are few activities in life that strike fear, anxiety, and panic into my heart quite like skiing does. Just the sight of the mountain alone, as we pull into the driveway of the resort, makes my hand reach into the candy bag for soothing sustenance. Where you see a white-lathered mountain of possibility, I see whitewashed terror. 

I don’t know who invented skiing, but I’d love to smack them with one of my poles if we’re ever introduced. My guess is that whoever it was picked up the mechanics immediately, because if they ever skied like I do, they’d be frozen at the side of the trail where they fell, and we’d never know about this method of getting down a mountain. And I would be okay with that. Alas, my whole family enjoys, ENJOYS!, the torturous sport and so we ski. 

Do you know what happens when you’ve got one ski on and you’re trying to fit your boot into the other ski? You do a split, that’s what happens. The biggest unwanted split you’ve ever done in your life, as the ski slowly slides your leg away from the rest of your body. Not only do you need to keep your body parts from slipping away, you have to become a contortionist so you can clean the bottom of your ski boot with your pole before clicking it into place on the other ski, all while balancing on one leg. To do this, you have to be a flamingo.

At one point, immediately after securing the boots into them, I totally forgot I had skis attached to my feet and couldn’t figure out why I was “walking” weirdly. I mean, I was walking weirdly and uphill too! Just to get up onto the trail that I was then supposed to ski down. All so that I could jump on a lift that would take me back up what I just skied down so that I could do it again. Do you know what it’s called when you do the same thing over and over, often expecting different results but not getting any? A learning disability. Why wasn’t I getting off this chairlift of insanity?!

They say there’s learning in falling, but I thought the whole point of skiing is to not fall, so I found it really difficult to know whether I was supposed to wipe out or stay on my feet, I mean, skis. It’s such a confusing sport. At one point you’re going so fast thanks to an icy patch, yet at another point, you’re getting passed by your seven year old son who has only skied three days before in his life. Three days. That’s all it took for him to be better than me and that was two years ago. 

When I was pretty sure I had put in enough time on the slopes, only an hour and a half had passed. Why does time go so, so slowly when you don’t want to do something?? Anyway, Danny kindly escorted me along the right trail that would lead to the bottom of the mountain where a shuttle would pick me up and bring me back to our condo. Because you can actually move your joints in snowboarding boots, he bounded down the set of steps in a flash. Do you think my husband was looking at me with unabashed tenderness or was I clomping down the stairs behind him like a bumbling, peg-legged pirate while he waited at the bottom?

In case you think I’m making all of this up or exaggerating my poor capabilities as a skier, I got my elbow stuck in the shuttle bus railing. It just so subtly slipped right in between the rail and the side I was sitting up against. Quietly, so no one had to know how clumsy I am, I maneuvered my elbow out of the space, closed my eyes, and dreamed of palm tree-studded beaches. 

From beginning to end, I am not good at any part of the skiing process. Just kidding, I’m terrific with the end; sitting in the lodge is a talent I have perfected. I can suit up a child, one-handed if need be, find the right equipment for the right kid, prepare the hot meal to be ready for their lunch time break, set out a plateful of goodies, and read tens of hundreds of pages of my book in front of the condo fireplace, all while they monotonously just go up, then down, a mountain, times too numerous to fathom. 

Despite my grumblings, I do love seeing my children ski, from the safety of the lodge, of course. I’m in awe of their excitement and abilities and opinion that it is a fun activity. But next time we go on vacation? I’m going to make sure we don’t miss the turn for the palm trees.

Now that I’ve proven I can maintain a blog with somewhat regular updating, it’s time for the next phase in my plan to take over the site: making it pretty. As a military coup, beautification is pretty pointless, but as a cyber attack on Danny’s old blog, I believe there’s an art in asking Isaac, in just the right way, to help me. 

In the age of IG stories and YouTube shorts, blogs are nearly obsolete. They live in the murky, digital realm alongside flip phones and CDs and are now being defined as “words, because I don’t know how to make a reel.” Since I’ve decided to steal it, I really wanted to put the ‘own’ in ownership, so there have been a few minor changes. Thanks to the hours we’ve put into kicking Isaac off computers for the last several years, he was able to figure out how to implement many of the renovations I wanted. Hopefully there will be more to come, but when Danny isn’t looking.🙂

Speaking of hostile takeovers, did you know there is another person living in my house besides the eight of us? I discovered this a few years ago, but this seems like a good time and place to complain about it. This person is virtually invisible and therefore extremely elusive. The only way I know they’ve struck again is when the kids tell me. 

For example, one day I removed eleven bath towels from the hooks in the children’s bathroom. The number of towels was extremely disproportionate to the number of children who were taking regular showers at the time. When I asked each child who needed that many towels, easily giving up the culprit, they each replied, “Not Me.”

Another time, I walked past a bathroom and noticed there was no toilet paper on the roll. To be more specific, the brown cardboard roll was on the hardware with zero ply attached to it. Someone had to have used it up on their last go and didn’t bother to replace it. What a shock when I discovered, upon inquiry of all the children as to who the guilty party was, that “Not Me” had been using our bathrooms again. 

The blame gets placed squarely on the shoulders of “Not Me” for many other infractions outside of the bathroom too, lest you think we have a restroom ghost, but I think you get the picture. I’d really like to corner this “Not Me” though because he (she?) needs to account for his deeds. Instead of being a tactical troll, they need to become a contributing member of this family.Until then, I’ll have my children keep an eye out; they’re sure to catch him before I do. Assuming they’re on my side… 

But if Danny asks who took over his blog, I’m definitely going to tell him it’s Not Me.