It’s been a hard sell.

Without preparation, I find myself at the first Bill Koch youth ski race of the season, hoping to lay a healthy skiing foundation for my kids.  Thanks to the wonders of modern snowmaking, we drive north to an icy granular loop of white stuff.  My girls have only skied once since last February. Still, we gamely load the car with skis, boots, poles, snow-pants, hats, mittens, extra clothes and snacks, and make it to Grafton Ponds 20 minutes before the start of the Lollipop Race.

I’d been pushing the lollipops—hard—in hopes of raising the enthusiasm level.  But my girls are too old for that trick. They’ve enjoyed enough bank drive-thru lollipops in their day to get excited about one more.

“I don’t really want a lollipop today,” says A coolly.

“I think it’s going to be a BLOW-POP,” I say.  “You know, the kind with G-U-M inside!”

Gum is a rare and beloved delicacy in our household, and at its mention C’s ears perk up like a puppy hearing the word “treat!” At age 4, she is newly decked out in big-girl ski gear, and this will be her first Lollipop Race.

Ten minutes to the start and it’s time to divide and conquer.  My husband and I each take a child and zip up jackets, wrestle on snow-pants, retrieve hats and lace up ski boots.  My bare hands are raw and chapped, working in the cold.  The girls are whining about itchy socks and ill-fitting mittens.  I’m hustling to outfit my progeny for skiing, but my mind is flashing back to summer.  How I long for the ease of warm weather, the quick grab of bathing suits before a swim outing!

Sometimes I feel a quiet despair about all the GEAR.  Why am I pushing this dang sport, anyways?  Because I love it? Because I want to share it with my girls?  I wonder if this early effort will be worthwhile, or if they’ll harbor childhood memories of cold, grueling days of cross-country skiing, a forced Nordic death march orchestrated by Mom.

We clip their little boots into their bindings and watch as they shuffle off in the icy snow.   A immediately falls and gets her legs twisted under her.

“See!  I’m terrible at skiing,” she says to me, glaring.

“No, honey, it just takes practice,” I console, using a peppy tone of encouragement that disgusts even myself.

I ski alongside my oldest as she strides, glides, trips and falls.  The snow conditions are trick, at best.  She’s wearing new, longer skis.  But A’s biggest obstacle is her relentless perfectionist attitude– inherited, of course, from her mother.

“How come YOU don’t fall?” she demands, furious.  Then— “I HATE SKIING!”

Once these three words are uttered, my veneer of patience cracks imperceptibly.  I look around at the other happy ski families, the smiling moms who are content to be sherpas, coaches, and cheerleaders for their children.

C on skis, AGE 2

I, on the other hand, selfishly crave my own personal ski.  I’d love to leave my kids with a Ski Nanny and head off into the woods for an hour or two, gliding rather than trudging, stepping around corners, accelerating up hills, leaving the Bill Koch races far behind.  I want to get a workout rather than frozen fingers, experience the exhilaration of this incredible sport.

But then there’s C, trucking along in her bulky red snowsuit. She’s thrilled to be off her strap-on toddler skis.  This child, her father and I suspect, will take to racing like a duck to water, competitive animal that she is.  Sensitive A, on the other hand, hates competition and is astute enough to pick up my emotions about this sport, responding with her own complicated feelings.

Some kind volunteers are lining up little kids by a big START sign. My girls huddle in the back, looking confused.  One dad, who’s been warming up with his 6-year-old, pushes his daughter forward onto the front line, in prime position to take the lead.  I refrain from rolling my eyes and instead snap photos of my cute kids in their race bibs, ready for this new adventure.

Someone yells “GO!” and the mini-skiers are off!  Mercifully, A stays on her feet.  Some kids get tangled up but soon they spread out around the track, following the rainbow lollipop signs.  But where’s C?

Why is she still standing at the start? I watch two concerned moms go over to her and then launch into panic mode, sprinting to her side.  My child is having a tantrum at the Bill Koch Lollipop Race.

Her face is balled up red and screaming like her colicky infant days.  C’s shrieks are loud as an air raid siren, and she’s holding nothing back for the occasion.  Maybe she expected the other kids to wait for her to go first, as I do when we play “running race” around the driveway.  Maybe she was just taken by surprise.

“Carmen, honey, what’s wrong?” I kneel down beside her, despite my throbbing eardrums.

“Go AWAY Mommy!” she screams, louder.

“How about we ski together?” I suggest in a cheerful tone that belies my embarrassment.  Other parents are looking at us.  The rest of the Lollipoppers are ¾ of the way around the course.

“NO MOMMY!  GO A-WAY!” C is in full-on hysterics, and I have not a pea’s worth of patience left to coax her along.

“Fine,” I say. “You can scream there.  I’m going to cheer for Ava.”

At this, C bends down, unclips her bindings, picks up her skis, and throws them across the trail like two missiles.  They skitter over the icy granular and nearly trip some 10-year-olds warming up.

I retrieve the skis without any reaction.  Here I am, trying to walk the Middle Path between hard-core Tiger Mom and hands-off Laissez-Faire.  But what I really want is a Ski Nanny.

Almost immediately, A follows suit.

“Ugh— I had to leave,” she announces.  “There’s a song about… K-I-S-S-I-N-G!”  She carefully spells out the offending word.

I suppress a smile.  “Really? What?”

“It keeps going “I kissed a girl and I liked it”!” says A indignantly.  She makes the icky face she uses when coerced into sampling something green at dinner.

Oh dear.  My new Katy Perry craze may be fun for dancing, but is clearly inappropriate for the First Grade set.  Little ears have grown bigger of late, and now keenly hear every word sung, spoken or spelled aloud in our home.

“Yeah, I guess that’s not really a kid’s song,” I apologize.  “But— why don’t you like kissing?”

“Because it’s GROSS!”

“Even when Daddy or I kiss you?”

“ Well…” A considers this a moment.  “How about hugging?”

Later, at bedtime, I press further into the origins of her sudden disgust.  As I’d suspected, a boy in her class had teasingly sung the old classic: “X and Y, sitting in a tree…” Even though the song in question hadn’t (thankfully) referenced her, A had deduced that kissing was embarrassing, a bad word to be spelled aloud.  As with other recent dislikes that begin at school, she’s latched onto this one with the tenacity of a crab.

“MOMMY!” she warns, when I land a quick peck on her cheek.  After several such rejections, I re-train myself to hug her without making lip-contact.

At least C still relishes kissing with an enthusiasm that more than makes up for her sister’s denial.  My youngest has been known to plant huge, wet, French kisses on me and enjoys sucking on my cheek in a dangerously hickey-like fashion. I assume this behavior is a healthy manifestation of attachment and affection, a snuggly outgrowth of our 3 years spent nursing, rather than some expression of nascent sexuality.  But with C, anything is possible. And since children are sensual creatures, perhaps it’s a bit of both.

At what age does disgust merge with curiosity?  Or is curiosity already implicit in the disgust? I’ve talked (a few times) with the girls about the Birds and the Bees (“Facing The Facts of Life”).  I’m satisfied that A has positive regard for her body and a decent understanding of the mechanics of procreation. Sometime between age 6 and say, 10, I know her repulsion towards kissing will shift into genuine interest.  If I want to be a supportive mother during this transition, I need to remember my own conflicted history…

My first kiss was a brief, unremarkable peck during a game of fifth grade Truth or Dare.  Tucker Wentworth had pouty lips and an adorable mop of curly hair prompting the nickname “Brillo,” but I remained unmoved by the experience.  It didn’t change me.  I wasn’t even sure it had happened.

My second kiss—in sixth grade— was another story.   I’d moved to a new school in a new state, and managed to be invited to a popular-crowd, boy-girl dance party at The Little Red Schoolhouse.  Parent chaperones chatted in the foyer while boys in parachute pants jumped off the miniature desks to Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It.”

In the midst of the chaos, Rick Tagliatelli maneuvered me into the bathroom.  There, by the preschool-sized sinks, with his best buddy Jason Shepherd as witness, Rick placed his hands on my hips, drew me close, and kissed me several times with warm lips.  He knew exactly what to do.  Rumor had it Rick was actually 13— not 11 or 12 like the rest of us.

Anticipation had been building for weeks, discussed in notes passed back and forth in Social Studies.  “Will you kiss Rick at the dance party?  Check one:

YES ___ NO____ MAYBE___ “

My answer had always been MAYBE, but after the party I crossed into new territory, the early wonderland of K-I-S-S-I-N-G.  I was a girl who’d said YES.  The once-hazy activity was now concrete— a meeting of flesh, a viable option.

That spring, Nat Grubner slow-danced me behind the boiler in Stephanie Richards’ basement and proceeded to grope my mouth with his tongue while Madonna crooned “Crazy For You.”  I loved that song, and I thought I loved Nat, but it was, to quote my daughter, kind of gross.

“Heard you got some tongue sushi at Stephanie’s party on Friday!” laughed Jay Wilder, the coolest boy in the sixth grade.  He was standing on the four-square court surrounded by his athletic gang of boys, all hooting and hollering as they spiked the red ball.  I hung my head and skulked away, trying to disappear into the blacktop.

Last night, A told me it was the tongue that bothered her most about kissing.  We figured out how to do a dry lip-press that avoided all wetness.  This, she said, would be tolerable.

Click HERE to read about life on magical Star Island.

I love turning the corner of the year and looking ahead to the wide expanse of a fresh calendar.  The promise that 2012 brings a new dawning of the Age of Aquarius has got me full of astrological hope.

And what relief to pass by the Winter Solstice and survive the accumulated pressure of the holidays.  However sweet, there are always pressures.

So on New Years Day I was bopping around the house, happy to be domestic while A & C were occupied by a playdate.  Sometimes the threesome dynamic is a disaster, but for some reason, these 3 girls (ages 4, 6, and 7) played beautifully.  I made a big pot of carrot-potato soup, singing along to my favorite 80s station on Pandora.  Here were some of my favorite, long-forgotten gems from adolescence:

Rick Springfield- Jesse’s Girl

Pat Benatar- Hit Me With Your Best Shot

Boston- More Than a Feeling

Tears for Fears- Don’t You Forget About Me

Yes, as a relatively new iPhone owner I am head over heels in love with Pandora.  I can get my dance groove on with Lady Gaga or punch in Hanukkah music and sing along to rockin’ Jewish tunes with the girls.  And there’s nothing like the classic 80s songs to bring back a flood of high school longings when I’m chopping onions…

Why do I forget how good music can make me feel?  What a simple way to uplift a low mood.

This year, my resolutions are to:

-DANCE and sing more

-keep a sense of HUMOR

-listen to my INTUITION

-express more GRATITUDE, and

-INVITE ABUNDANCE into my life in all ways

THANK YOU FOR BEARING WITNESS TO THESE RESOLUTIONS.  What are your intentions for 2012?

Episode 5 of The Desha Show: Wild Night on the Catwalk from Desha Peacock on Vimeo.

from Visipix.com

The moon rose huge and red over Searsburg Mountain as we drove home from my mother’s. I stopped the car to marvel at the impossible color, a glowing apple suspended in the winter sky.

“Look, girls, the moon is red!”

But the girls were absorbed in Judy Moody, MD and didn’t care about lunar phenomenon. I turned off their audiobook and they exploded in protest.

“Mommy, turn it ON!” shrieked C.

“And keep driving!” ordered A.

“Just look out at the moon, quick,” I pleaded.  “It’s enormous.  They call it the Long Nights Moon, because it’s full in December.”

“I know,” said A.  “Now turn on Judy Moody. PLEASE.”

There’s some inherent sadness in Sunday night, especially when you are driving back to a dark, empty house where the thermostat is turned low and no dinner is waiting.  Winter weekends when my man is away, I can’t bear to be home alone for long.  I take the girls out for pizza or Chinese or drive through the dark to visit family and friends, seeking out light and companionship, hot food and conversation.

But then there’s Ma Ingalls on the Minnesota prairie, alone with three girls during a raging, three-day blizzard.  Ma had no car, no neighbors, no take-out, no cell phone— no way to call or text Pa, who’d walked to town for tobacco and gotten caught in the storm.  Bravely, she lit the oil lamp for him and placed it at the window.

For three days and nights, Ma never cried or complained, not when she had to trek through blinding snow and screaming winds to feed the stock and milk the cow.   Not when icy snow blew in beneath the doors and windows, swirling on the floor of the little house while her girls huddled shivering at the stove and still Pa did not come home.

Ma’s situation puts my rare solo time in perspective.  How privileged I am with my oil furnace and all-wheel-drive wagon and two phones.  How mobile we all are in this high-tech modern world—and how restless.

I can’t imagine staying put for three days in a 20 x 20 house alone with my children.  Though I would do it if I had to, if it was a matter of survival.  And I suspect I would rise to the occasion, might even experience the relief of absolute commitment, the absence of nagging anxieties about health insurance, caffeine addiction, and what I should be doing with my one life.

If you have to milk the cow in a blizzard to feed your children, you milk the cow.  There is a kind of pure presence that comes with crisis, an intensity of focus that elevates the spirit.  As Anton Chekhov put it, “Any idiot can face a crisis—It’s this day to day living that wears you out.”

C with her Nonna, Christmas

That Sunday night driving home, I longed to share with my children the wordless magic of watching the moon.  Despite everything, there it was.

My heart trilled with the wonder of being a lonely human in the 21^st century— iPhone humming in my pocket, CD blasting on the car stereo, and the red moon rising like a portent just before the Winter Solstice.

Earlier that morning I’d visited my grandmother, Deedee, in the nursing home where she’s starting to die.  At 93, she sleeps most of the day.  When my mother woke her, her startled blue eyes searched our faces, then stared off unblinking into the middle distance.  I held her hand, stroked her silken white skin, kissed her papery-fine cheek.

The oxygen tank huffed in the background, rhythmic as a metronome. My mother sat with Deedee and rubbed her shoulders, told her she was beautiful.  Time kept churning on, the unstoppable cycle of generations.

It was impossible not to flash-forward two decades and imagine myself at my mom’s bedside, or double that time and imagine A sitting at mine.

When I bathed the girls that night, the moon had grown distant, a white disc poised above bare black trees.

“OW, Mommy!” A cried as she brushed her teeth, as usual directing anger at me when something hurt.  But the flinch of pain turned to delight when she discovered a wiggly tooth—her first.  At age six, she’d been waiting a year for this rite of passage.  The incisor looked tiny in her big-kid mouth, a pearly relic of babyhood.

“Honey, that’s wonderful!” I said, and A threw her skinny arms around my neck.

I felt a pang of loss, realizing this very same tooth—the lower left incisor– had been the first to cut through her 6-month-old gums.

One night she’d sat plump and naked in the tub, chomping madly on a frozen washcloth, growling like a baby tiger. Later I’d put my finger in her mouth and felt the sharp ridge of the new tooth, a nub arisen from the darkness of her jaw.

Maybe we love the moon because it cycles each month, while our changes are linear, never to repeat.

This season, at least, there are moments of pause. When I go to all-school sing with C, she burrows into my lap and we sing a round to welcome the Winter Solstice.

A- 6 months old

“Light is returning,” chant the cherubic preschoolers.“Even though this is the darkest hour… No one can hold back the dawn.”

Then my doe-eyed hygienist, nine months pregnant, told me she’d gotten a jump on the holidays this year… because of the baby.  She already had her tree up and decorated, all the presents wrapped and waiting beneath it.

A wave of nausea came over me.  The sickly-sweet cinnamon toothpaste burned my gums as I contemplated the energy and motivation required to be such an organized mother.

It’s the same energy I’d need to organize the hats, mittens, and wool socks currently stuffed in a jumbled basket in our living room, pawed through every morning by adults and children alike, strewn all over the floor for someone (Mom) to stuff back in.

There are organizational solutions out there, how-to books and women’s magazines chock-full of helpful tips.  Once I stumbled across a blog called “The Mom Writes: Fun and Frugal Solutions for The Work-at-Home Mom.”

This prolific and tireless blogger offers detailed posts on de-cluttering the home, but my brain starts to zone out when I scan through them, much as it does when my husband tries to explain our income tax return.  Restless, it simply won’t let me absorb the minutiae of de-cluttering drawers, closets, and kids’ rooms.

Does this really NEED to happen now? a voice asks when I contemplate tackling some tricky organizing task.  Wouldn’t it be more productive/rewarding to… make soup/ answer emails/ call my mother?

I’ve heard a rumor you can hire a life coach who doubles as an expert in de-cluttering and home organization.  I imagine a large, indomitable woman arriving at my house with a clipboard and a whistle around her neck, stoic as my high school track coach, Carol, whose grudging praise made me aspire to sprint my fastest every workout.

Likewise, my de-cluttering coach would stand by and keep me on target.  She would not flinch as I opened the downstairs closet door and took stock of the camping equipment, vacuum bags, wrapping paper, ice skates, extension cords, knitting supplies, and bags of old photographs and winter gear piled inside.  With quiet brilliance, compassion, and large plastic bins, she would help me sort and organize.  If someone happens to know this woman and wants to hire her for me as a Christmas present, I would be deeply grateful.

In the meantime, my holiday to-do list is growing daily.  I’ve been trying to downplay Christmas to my girls and have somewhat succeeded.  C wants a unicorn and A wants a trampoline, but that’s about all I know.  Call me a Scrooge, but sometimes I want to press fast-forward and zip right into January without pausing for presents.

The holidays can trigger my worst perfectionist impulses, the expectation that I will engage in an orgy of baking and decorating, whip up a gingerbread house from scratch as an after-school project, make potato-print wrapping paper and cranberry garlands with the girls and deliver delicious sugar cookies to their teachers. All of these projects are potentially joyful in and of themselves, if done with a light touch.  They require proper timing and a relaxed attitude, the surrender of ego-driven, compulsive “good mother” goals.

December is the darkest time of the year—today [I wrote this on December 9] the sun sets at 4:15 and twilight descends one minute earlier each afternoon.  An internal darkness tends to creep over me like a dull shadow in response to the season.  Existential questions circle like crows in gray clouds:

-How do I create the magic of the holiday for my family?

-How do I model charity and selflessness?

-How do I mediate my desire for the abundant, American Christmases of my childhood, mounds of presents under a dazzling tree?

After the shocking oil bill and the snow tires and the new winter gear, we’ll be hard-pressed to buy gifts for the kids and all our relatives without running up credit card debt.  Not enough, not enough… the crows caw in my head, rasping.  This, instead of the traditional carols, the simple and holy melodies.

But then we go out on a dark cold Friday to Brattleboro’s Gallery Walk and see the fairy-lights twinkling in bright storefronts.  Friends and neighbors share conversation and hot cider on the street.  We visit the annual Children’s Craft Fair where several dozen enterprising local kids are selling their handmade goods. The great hall buzzes with young voices and live guitar, a hive of creative energy.

My girls are enchanted.  We feast on organic brownies and choose a paper-mache ornament for $2.  I vow then and there to buy all my holiday gifts locally, to balance pleasure and restraint in my shopping, and remind myself that nothing is ever finished or perfected.

The universe is abundant.  We are blessed with good health.  Maybe, like the lamp oil in the Maccabees’ temple, our resources will last longer than we think possible.

“Sometimes you just have to get out and shake it!” said one vivacious friend, a young pretty mother of three who has a new gleam in her eye now all her children are sleeping through the night.  Maybe a sweaty evening of dancing would shake me out of my late-fall funk.

But the band didn’t start till 9:30 pm.  At which time, I am usually sacked out in C’s bed or curled up with a novel in my own bed, or sometimes, in a burst of creative energy, writing at my desk, but rarely, if ever, downtown and dressed to dance.  I imagined putting the girls to bed and then slipping into tight jeans and a silver tank top.

Could I navigate the negotiations and demands of Bedtime— what books, which bed, the flossing and brushing and fluoride and jammies, the recent, indignant refusals from A to lie down calmly and stop spinning or hopping (“You’re not the boss of me!” she shouts.  “Why do I have to do what you say?!”  Or, once, tearfully— “Mommy, I feel like a pet and you are the owner!”)

Could I snuggle and read about the Ingalls family and Ma’s enviable starched white curtains sewn from old sheets and trimmed with her girls’ outgrown calico dresses and still not fall asleep?  Could I, after that whole motherly ritual, rally the energy to leave the house?  The inertia was overwhelming.  Without a good friend to drag me out, I simply could not pull a Clark Kent and transform myself into enough of a MILF to venture into a downtown bar.

Then a miracle occurred but one week later.  I conspired to have the house to myself for 24 hours, on the very same evening of Wild Night on the Catwalk, the gala fashion show up at the Putney School (benefitting Brattleboro Area Hospice).  Jazzed with anticipation, I planned a Moms’ primping and Prosecco pre-party at my place, starting at the respectable hour of 5:30 pm.

We blasted Lady Gaga and got dolled up, trading jewelry and make-up, eyelash curlers and glitter.  I zipped myself into a red silk halter dress I’d found at Boomerang and—making the va-va-voom statement of my life— slipped on some 4-inch, leopard-print stilettos.

I threw the booster seats in the back of the station wagon and managed to squeeze six fancy moms into one car (our collective nine children in the care of their kind fathers and grandparents). Freed from the drab Vermont garb of jeans and wool, my friends were a gorgeous bunch, decked out in retro black mini-dresses, royal blue strapless, and animal-print chiffon.

“Do I need some more glitter?” I kept asking as we zoomed north on 91, trying to make the red-carpet scene with TV show host Desha Peacock.

Now I know why I’ve spent most of my adult life in clogs, Uggs, and running shoes.  The high heels felt fine for the first 30 minutes, and I reveled in my newfound height, the sheer glam of those pumps.  But when I tried to walk my feet slid down, my toes pinched, and I minced along taking tiny ridiculous steps on the stiletto points.  My entourage of friends sashayed off toward the red carpet as I hobbled along behind like a lame old lady.

Is this what it means to be Jessica Simpson, on display in crippling shoes every time you make a public appearance? I survived another hour of teetering, then slid off the heels and watched the show in my stocking feet.

Truly the night was unforgettable.  We mingled with 600 guests decked out in wild finery, nibbled gourmet hors-d’oeuvres from local caterers, and drank vodka tonics without fear of consequences.  I hadn’t expected to be so moved by the designers— how they restructured used clothing to create one-of-a-kind fashion statements.  The act of fashion as art, as self-expression, had never felt so palpable before— not a remote spread on the pages of Vogue, but alive, right in my hometown.

Talking, watching, dancing, I felt energized by the crowd, young and free. Not young like the 15 year-old size-zero models vamping it up on the catwalk, but not venerable and over-the-hill yet either.  At the end of the night I came home alone to an empty house. Almost eerie to do whatever I wanted.

For a moment, I was perplexed.  Should I could clean up the sticky cocktails and snacks in the kitchen or get online and post my photos on Facebook, or take a steamy shower and fall into bed, knowing no one would wake me up? What luxury to be at such a loss.  Then I saw the bowl full of pomegranate seeds I’d prepared to go with our pre-party Prosecco.

First I kicked off my glamorous, wretched shoes.  Stood over the sink in my red silk dress and ate those pomegranate seeds with my bare hands.  Crimson jewels exploded juice in my mouth. Some say the fruit Eve ate back in Eden was  a pomegranate, not an apple.  Alone, I ate the sweet knowledge of my self, my identity separate from my family, shifting but intact, a live kernel. Then I went up and went to sleep.

Desha Peacock in action

Just Saturday night I went out to a gala Fashion Show– WILD NIGHT ON THE CATWALK– where my friend Desha Peacock hosted the Red Carpet scene. Desha is a blogger and has her own TV show and there she was, all decked out in designer sequins, interviewing models and guests in her enchanting Southern accent, looking like she could be on E! or something.

Except Desha is one-of-a-kind, not a plastic Hollywood-clone– she’s funny and warm and drop-dead gorgeous to boot, an authentic, artistic, tres-chic Vermont-transplant.  (Plus she’s the loving mom of an adorable 5-year-old who plays with my girls!)

All dolled up and (finally) someplace to go!

Yes, on Saturday I actually WENT OUT with a group of women friends and felt alive surrounded by their fun energy and sheer good looks.  (Everyone looked HOT that night, clad in tight frocks and freed from the usual drab VT uniform of jeans, wool, and clogs.)

These women are strong and smart, they have both children and jobs.  They give to their families, clients, patients, customers, and/or students every day.  They also somehow, despite the demands on them, despite being tired or down or sick or lonely sometimes, find creative outlets in their lives.

H. is a talented landscape gardener who creates beautiful spaces with flowers and shrubs (she also knits one-of-a-kind children’s clothing).  L. gardens with passion and drive and opens her generous heart and warm home to share with friends and family from all over the country. O. makes handmade quilts and sews dresses for her daughter and paints oil and watercolor landscapes in a makeshift home studio. D. has started her own grassroots volunteer organization that provides support to women with new babies.  A. is a genius with food and cooks gourmet meals for her friends– both intimate birthday dinners or rockin’ big house parties.  P. weaves fabric and scarves on her own loom and still, sometimes, writes a poem or two. The list goes on…

These are only a very few of the talented, inspiring women I know. None of them are getting awards, accolades, fame or fortune for their efforts (at least not yet)– but that’s not the point.  The point is simply to create, to express yourself, to be in that flow state of doing what you love (even if it’s an hour, every week or month).  If I could I would pay homage to each and every woman who is LIVING WELL– not perfectly, of course, not like some celebrity, happy-family, get-rich story in People magazine, but as best as she can, often stumbling, sometimes dancing, one day at a time.

I must also give a big shout-out to my more renowned artist friends– Tiffany Hilton, an amazing potter who runs her own business.  Her smooth, robin’s egg blue hand-thrown mugs are my favorite for drinking hot chai.  And Evie Lovett, a world traveler whose latest photography exhibit (backstage with drag queens) opens minds and moves hearts.  And Suzanne Kingsbury, a brilliant novelist and editor who inspires other writers (like me) to express themselves through words and take joy in the creative process.

another stunning photo by Julia Sabot

Then there’s my incisive mentor and kind friend, Robin Westen, stellar writer and spiritual yogi and overall wise-woman. And of course, my one and only sister, Julia Sabot, photographer extraordinaire who bravely picked up and moved across the country to take a new job as an associate photo editor at a fabulous design magazine.

So often, we women are damn hard on ourselves.  Self-laceration is our default mode.  We feel we need to be all things to all people, as Elizabeth Gilbert smartly observes in a recent article about failure.  We expect daily greatness in our work, our relationships, our parenting, our homemaking, even our yoga practice!  And then we condemn ourselves for not having airbrushed, perfectly-toned bodies on top of all we do.

Well, I don’t want perfection in my friends and sisters.  Perfection is boring, cold, inaccessible.  (“Perfection is terrible/ It cannot have children,” wrote Sylvia Plath in a poem).  I want my friends to be the imperfect, unique individuals they are. When I see them, I see big smiles and warm arms, not the few wrinkles (endearing) or the little muffin-top (sexy) they might occasionally worry about.

THANK YOU, Fabulous Women, for being you.  Thanks for helping take care of my kids, lifting me up when I’m down, listening to my worries, and encouraging me in all my endeavors.

So now I want to know:  Who are the women who inspire you?  How do your friends give you support?

Then she turns and bounds into her First Grade world of friends, teachers, table time, power words, recess, and yogurt parfait.  Sometimes she’ll slide onto my lap at home seeking a spontaneous snuggle.  But out in the world, she is her own girl.

I’m grieving her newfound independence, all the while trying to trust the push-pull process of growing-up.   A loves taking the school-bus home and mentions a First Grader named Mikey— a tough-looking kid with a flat-top and a gap-toothed grin.  He wants her to meet him at the big soccer nets at recess.

“What for?” I ask, immediately suspicious.

“To go to the nets,” she replies.

“To play soccer?”

“No, Mommy.” She sighs with exasperation at my adult ignorance.  “To GO to the NETS.”

Who is this Mikey character and what does he want with my six-year-old? Is he smitten with her blue-eyed, honey-haired figure prancing across the playground like a leggy fawn in denim leggings? She talks about him everyday, so the curiosity must run in both directions—the kind of inexplicable energy current that travels between two beings, however small.

I don’t remember feeling any spark of interest in boys at age 6. I was in love with my First Grade teacher, Kathy Kahn, and I lived to read her cheerful red comments in my writing journal.  I’d survived Kindergarten and the unwanted attentions of one Julio Rodriguez, a tall brooding fellow in wide-whale corduroys who chased me all over the playground yelling that he was going to marry me.  I was traumatized, and a parent-teacher conference was called to discuss Julio’s aggressive courtship.  No, it wasn’t until 4^th grade that I developed a fledgling crush on a boy, and I was counting on my daughter to follow the same time-line.

Insiders in the toy industry have coined an acronym called KGOY— Kids Getting Older Younger.  Whether it’s Fashionista Shopping Spree Barbie for 4-year-olds or cell phones for 10-year-olds, the KGOY phenomenon has spread through our culture over the past few decades, even into the organic backwaters of Vermont.  Blame the media, blame technology, blame Mattel and Disney…  The external forces of society are pressing in on our children in myriad ways we don’t understand or condone. Is this what lies behind A’s behavior?

Sometimes I get the urge to try to shelter my girls from the world.  Ban all media consumption, ban all toys except books and blocks, and change our family model to become a homeschooling mom instead of a part-time working mother who feels lucky that her progeny are taught by professional educators.  I know local families who have made the commitment to homeschool, and I admire and respect them tremendously.  But I also know myself, and I don’t have the temperament or the patience to be with my kids all day, nor the skills to be responsible for their education.

There’s no instruction manual on how to be a good mother to a school-age child. I’m trying hard to do it right, volunteer in her classroom, make berry smoothies for after-school snacks, keep track of the newsletters and homework charts, schedule playdates and activities, be available for talking and hugs if and when she wants them.  Can I trust my intuition to know her foundation is strong?  To believe her public self-consciousness is but a temporary phase—a natural evolution on the path?

In some ways (sleep deprivation aside) it was simpler when she was an infant, and a bevy of nurses could instruct me in the art of breastfeeding, colic holds, burping, bathing, and other essential skills.  So much of parenting a newborn is instinct.  “Let the baby be the teacher,” my mother said at the end of my first pregnancy, when I fretted that I didn’t know how to take care of an infant.

And the baby was the teacher, and the next baby too.  And so I became experienced on life in The Baby Cave—the basics, if not the subtleties.  But beyond the mouth of the Cave the wide world yawns open, alternately thrilling and scary.  Each choice we make has more at stake.  My wise neighbor (a mother of three) once remarked that while parenting a baby is physically demanding, parenting older children is emotionally demanding.  At the time I would have committed a felony for eight solid hours of sleep, and I didn’t understand what the hell she meant, but now I do.

“Childhood is but a whisper, ask any grandparent,” says C’s preschool teacher.

And so I am savoring all the six-year-old hugs I get like precious gifts, memorizing the moments when my lanky girl jumps into my arms and wraps her skinny legs around my waist.  I am trying to take nothing—nothing at all—for granted.