Lucky

I have now officially become one of those moms who forces her children to be outside any time the weather is not downright terrible. Of course, this summer and fall it was glorious and we were out for lots of hours every day - walking places, at the park, at the pool, in the sprinkler, riding bikes and scooters - but now that it's sort of winter, I'm still at it. Only, my standards have fallen. This morning, for example, I took advantage of the approximately 7 minutes of sunshine after dropping Annie off at school by popping Jemma into the jogging stroller and getting in a decent run. Now, anytime it's over 40 degrees and not technically raining (even if the sky is black and everything is wet because it was previously raining), I'm all "Hey! It's nice out! Let's go play outside!"

Yesterday, this got me into trouble.

I heard Jemma wake up from her nap ridiculously early (before 2:00), and I knew that Annie had never fallen asleep in her room, so I switched on The Weather Channel (old lady, I know) to confirm if what looked like semi-sunny, semi-warm conditions were, indeed, going to continue throughout the afternoon. And right there on the radar, it showed South Haven, location of our much-loved vacation home. (Ahem.) Next, it showed the seven-day forecast, which featured a daily dose of ever-colder temperatures combined with rain and snow. My brain went into overdrive, and in less than a minute, I had convinced myself that it would be an awesome idea to pack up the girls, jet down to South Haven, and do all the raking that needed to be done before the snow sets in. Why waste a perfectly good Saturday dragging the whole family down there to do it in the sleet? I would just throw a few things in the car (rake, soccer balls, snacks), pop the girls in, and be back in time for dinner.

We were there by 3:00 and the skies were indeed sunny. I brought the girls to the backyard, where they were delighted by the swingset for the first fifteen minutes. I began raking - tons and tons of wet, heavy, rotting leaves - and quickly realized that I should have brought many other things along: gloves, crappy shoes and pants, a sheet, another adult, perhaps a leaf-blower . . . . yeah, I was that desperate. When I found myself standing knee-deep in a giant pile of leaves that represented about 1/5 of the backyard, I switched my plan. I decided I'd rake the backyard leaves into a giant pile on the old garden and just leave them there to rot. Then I'd focus on the front yard and rake all those leaves to the curb.

So I'm raking, furiously raking, and I'm sweating and my socks are trashed and I'm wishing I'd changed out of my favorite jeans or at least brought along something else, but I'm just not organized like that. Instead of traditional raking, I'm doing a move where I stand in the middle of the giant pile I've made and use my rake like a golf club to fling the leaves forward, slowly moving the entire pile towards the front yard. I'm thinking it's a great core workout. I'm getting a blister on my right thumb. I'm making progress, but I'm stopping every five minutes or so because:

Annie touched squirrel poop;
Annie needs to go in the house to pee;
Annie took Jemma's ball away and ran around the yard with it until Jemma cried;
Annie won't push Jemma on the swing;
Annie won't share the pretzels with Jemma;
Annie thinks it's funny to lock herself in the front porch and scream at me from inside;
Annie is trying to get Jemma to go play underneath the deck.

I finally reached my breaking point with Annie. I threw my rake down and marched to get her off the front steps, intending to put her in her carseat for a time-out until she could leave Jemma alone and/or listen to me. But as I was turning to carry her down the steps, my shoe slid on a wet leaf and I started to fall forward. I staggered, pulling Annie's head in toward my chest, and managed to land in a crouch position, my left leg bent, my right knee coming down squarely on the cement. Those jeans? My favorites? They have a hole in them, now. (I do have a few designer Citizens of Humanity fibers stuck in my knee today, though, amid the scabs, so I guess I can think of them as being a part of me from now on . . .)

I managed to finish the front yard, sort of, and decided around 5:00 to leave one whole swath of back yard untouched because the girls were All Done. As I was literally throwing things back into the Subaru, I was so frustrated - fuming, feeling sorry for myself, upset with Annie, and, yes, still pissed about my jeans. My knee hurt, I was thirsty, I was hungry, and I was mad at myself for thinking that any of this would be a good idea.

We stopped at my parents' for dinner, which was very brief but also very calming, and I brought the girls home and tucked them in. While I waited for The Office to start, I leafed through a recent O Magazine (because, again, I'm an old lady), and was brought up short by an article by Martha Beck. She started off by relating how hard it is for her to summon sympathy when others complain to her of "First World problems." (Her examples were a delay in scheduling cosmetic surgery and the difficulty in finding a good lawn service.) And I realized, that's what I have: First World problems. It's hard to find time to do the yardwork at our other house? I put a hole in my fancy, expensive jeans? My pre-schooler is acting like a pre-schooler?

It was a little wake-up call, and I'm hoping it might get me to stop complaining so much about the little things. There are bigger things; there are people who are struggling every day with things I've never had to face and probably never will. I'm still going to get annoyed with things, but I'm going to try to have more perspective on what my problems are (small), and what real problems are (big).

So I tended my wounds with Hershey Kisses, a good beer, and an hour of Thursday night TV. Today, I have blisters on my hand, but I am inside with my family on a chilly November night, and I have everything I really need, and more.