Snowboarding and Motherhood Part 1

Snowboarding and Motherhood

Yesterday was Big E’s birthday party. I had planned to have a small group of his friends come play in our six feet of snow, but a blizzard made driving to our house dangerous. Over a foot of snow fell yesterday, which is great for a snowboarder like me, but makes regular Mom life a bit tricky.

Snowboarding and motherhood have both been on my mind. That may seem like an odd pairing, but for me they are two great joys in my life. Snowboarding and motherhood are inseparably connected, and to explain why I need to tell you a story.

This post is the first half. Be sure to come back to read Snowboarding and Motherhood Part 2. Continue reading “Snowboarding and Motherhood Part 1”

Be a Force For Good

Thanks to everyone who entered my Beat Black Friday Giveaways. It’s made me think about Thanksgiving and the entire holiday season. This year my gift to the world is to be a force for good.

Be a Force For Good

Years ago during a Change-Your-Life-By-Making-Goals conference, I was asked to come up with a personal mission statement. Several people at the conference shared a paragraph or more of what they considered their core values, what goals they wanted to achieve and where they saw their life headed in the coming years. My personal mission statement was much shorter. In fact it was only one sentence long. Continue reading “Be a Force For Good”

Motherhood Moments: Disability in the Outdoors

This week’s #ThankfulforFamilies #OutdoorFamilies Instagram Bonanza got a bit of my Thanksgiving Spirit flowing early and it’s made me think about disabilities in the outdoors. Continue reading “Motherhood Moments: Disability in the Outdoors”

Motherhood Moments: Survival Mode

For the last two and a half weeks straight someone in my family has been sick. Puking, diarrhea, fevers, stuffy noses, headaches, infections, chills – we’ve had a pretty rough time recently.

It started on the drive home from a weekend campout in Moab, Utah. We’d spent a few days off-roading with my sister and her family. On the drive home I heard a funny noise coming from the back seat followed by giggles by Little G and Big E.

“Baby L just threw up!” Little G said. Then the toddler heaving began again. By the time we pulled over on the interstate my poor baby was covered in sick. So were her clothes, car seat and the truck bench. We’re lucky her siblings stayed clear.

While I cleaned the car seat, Mountain Dad changed the baby and our two other kids decided to make a side-of-the-road potty stop. That would’ve been fine, except that it was private property and within five minutes of stopping, a gray pickup truck started patrolling the other side of the fence. Luckily no shots were fired before we hightailed it out of there.

When sickness comes to your kids it’s always a high stress situation. But when it hits you as well, it’s a tragedy. I’m usually the one up at night with the kids, making doctor appointments and cleaning up vomit. It’s not a fun job, and anything else on the agenda is shoved out of the way pretty quickly. Forget grocery shopping, floor sweeping or any kind of computer work. Sick kids means you enter survival mode. Getting sick yourself means you live in survival mode.


Survival mode: Your energy is completely focused on feeding, clothing and sheltering yourself and your loved ones.

Survival mode isn’t pretty. Everything that falls through the cracks does. After taking care of others through a week of illness, I got the full force of both the stomach bug and fevered head cold. I spent several days curled in my robe, moaning into my handkerchief. I suppose it makes sense that Baby L using me as a kleenex would expose me to more germs, or cleaning up Big E’s vomit at 2 am might make me more vulnerable, but it just doesn’t feel fair.

Survival mode meant watching my home fall to ruin and being powerless to stop it. It made me appreciate my husband, who was well enough to pick up my slack. It also made me appreciate every single day that I can accomplish more than just sit on the couch. Made breakfast today? Gold star! Got the kids to school on time? I’m amazing!

One interesting side effect of survival mode is realizing the nonessential things that suck up my time. Have you thought about this recently? How could your time be better spent? I bet it’s not in cleaning your cupboards.

Sick kids, sick husband, sick self make for a pretty terrible time, but when I cut myself some slack I can realize that I accomplish a lot when I feel good. And that’s gotta be worth something.

When was the last time you were sick? Who helped take care of you? Did you reminisce about your momma? That’s what I did.