dig this chick

I remember the first time I was able to set Ruby down on her feet, Margot standing next to her. I had two bi-pedal children. I was so accustomed to operating with one or two kids on me, using three fingers to carry groceries, wipe a nose and open the car door. To have two arms and 10 fingers felt like a superpower.

Last fall, Andy asked me if I wanted to talk about getting a season pass to our local ski hill. I haven’t had a pass in 10 years and I grimaced at his suggestion, holding onto the throes of hand-holding, bunny hills and hot cocoa in the lodge. But then I noticed my two arms and 10 fingers, our daughters running around in clothes they picked out and put on themselves. Maybe it is time. We made a plan: if Andy sold a painting or two at his November exhibit, we’d buy passes. The universe delivered on opening night and ta da! The Clines are skiing this year.

Skiing seems the perfect metaphor for our current parenting season: fast, independent, breezy, falling and getting back up. Every single weekend, Andy and I can be heard having an exchange like this:

Me: Did you SEE Ruby’s turns on that run?

Andy: Totally. And did you see Margot ski those trees and take a jump at the bottom?!

Us: Beaming, smiling, amazed, proud.

The progression is just so dang exciting! Margot is skiing black diamonds (!!!) and Ruby isn’t far off. We ski together. For hours.

And the chairlift is one of my favorite parts. Good, rich conversations with my daughters as they lean their little bodies into mine.

Another new part to this year on skis: skiing with friends – exercising my own independence, falling and getting back up. Have you ever felt anti-social and insecure, even with your favorite people? Do you have dreams about having a six pack instead of stretch marks? Do you remember when you lived with three men in a studio apartment with one jar of peanut butter and no furniture? I am over at Mamalode today with an essay about these things.

Cliché and so, heart-achingly true: it feels like yesterday and a life-time ago that I nursed Ruby in the lodge while Margot learned to ski, that Ruby learned to ski along side her sister.

Ruby, 3 yo ^Margot, 3 yo ^ Margot, 4 yo // Ruby, 2 yo ^ Margot, 1 yo ^Ruby, 2 yo ^ Ruby, 1 yo ^Ruby, 2 yo ^ Margot, 4 yo ^ Ruby, 3 yo ^

I have been asked a lot about methods and tips for skiing with kids. A few things:

* Our guiding philosophy, always: we are here to have fun. It is such a great mantra on those days when we want our kids do something that they don’t want to do. We figure if they always have fun on skis, they will always want to ski. Some days, that means very little skiing. We always have snacks and take water breaks. Stop mid-run to lay down or throw snow balls.

* Most ski hills offer free or super cheap skiing on the bunny hill. And, young kids ski free all over the mountain. At our hill, kids under 6 ski free and our bunny hill is free to everyone.

* Cheap, used kid gear is easy to come by via craigslist, ebay, your local ski swap or a personal call on facebook.

* Our favorite gear that we buy new:

1. Bern helmets. They are so streamlined and comfortable. And, they are multi-sport – the furry insert pops out and voila. Bike/skate/scooter helmet.
2. Edgie Wedgie. A must-have for tiny beginner legs.
3. Warm, long-lasting outerwear. Living in Montana and playing a lot outside, this is an obvious must. We bought Margot’s one piece suit for a song at the Patagonia outlet in Dillon, Montana. The staff is super helpful and they take phone orders too: (406) 683-2580.

At ages 2 & 4 // ages 4 & 6:

Andy worked out of town, off the grid last week. He came home to my gimpy thumb, a sick daughter and a very messy house. He grinned through his thick auburn beard, two kids clung to his legs and told me I’d done a good job. Really, I suppose I did. The kids and animals were fed and warm. I was partially fed and warm.

He talked about the week he’d had with four other dudes at the cabin which I am pretty sure I’m not allowed to go into here. Let’s just say the whole work hard, play hard bell rung loudly, daily. He said it is always so weird to be so disconnected for days, to come back and realize how much happens in a week of our life. This led to a long conversation about plugging in and unplugging and what we want, how we want to live.

My mom bought us the Little House series for Christmas and we dove right in. We read a few chapters every night and I love this routine so much.

There’s the wonderful conversation about how it was for our great great grandparents to live – here – not so long ago. And there’s the excitement over reading, each kid wanting my arm around them. And there’s the dark cold outside, our bodies flat under down and wool, our worn book lit by the warmth of my bedside light.

Ruby falls asleep within the first two pages. Margot snuggles her cheetah and chews on every word stopping me every so often to say things like “I especially like real stories like this.” I ask why. “Because then we get to hear a cool story and also learn stuff. It’s awesome.”

It’s easy for me to imagine Andy as Charles, building our log home and telling fireside stories to our girls at night; it’s easy to imagine Margot and Ruby as Laura and Mary, fetching firewood, playing all day in a tree and milking our cow. I could have been Caroline. I would have loved it, I think. It’s easy to imagine me mending clothes, making cornbread and cheese, spending my days caring for the home and family and noticing every detail of the day’s weather, every undulation of the landscape. I know it was harder than hell. But it is oh so easy for me to romanticize pioneer life.

In our world of grocery stores, cars, instagram and running water, I am thankful for the conveniences of today. AND I want a little bit more of less. Our family unit thrives in screen-free, dirt-digging togetherness. I want to appreciate and take advantage of the benefits of technology and advancements, always with one foot in the homestead life of my ancestors. I am Ma. With a headlamp and an iphone.

The weather is affecting my mood. I believe this is natural, but something about me, in my nearly-36-year-old body, right now. I feel like my palms are on the moon, my heart beating with fahrenheit, my hips in cadence with the sky’s hue. Things feel electric and heavy, as if the plight of humanity depends on the sun’s proximity to the horizon.

Am I making sense? I didn’t plan to write about that and then opened a window and wrote it in an exercise to begin writing when I didn’t feel like it but knew I needed it. When does that start happening – when we do things because of our soul’s greater good rather than doing exactly what we feel like? You know, like my kids. They wouldn’t have cleaned their room when they would rather scale their bunk beds, even when there was a little spark of remembering how great it feels to have a flotsam-free floor, shirts in the shirt drawer and beds without hair barrette shrapnel.

When do we learn to acknowledge and reject the sirens who lull us into the tempting waters of irresponsible indulgence, instead choosing bigger-picture satiating shore?

When do we grow into pushing ourselves to be better humans, make better choices, love better, live better? What does that mean? My kids think about better differently than I do. To them better means skipping a monkey bar seven times in a row, writing pages and pages of phoenetically spelled essays without fear of doing it ‘wrong’, the glee in skiing fast and in control.

And while I envy my daughters’ faithful commitment to this very moment, I also appreciate the beauty in my experience, learned behavior, distraction and forethought. I am thankful I know my dog is aging and I know what that means. I get on my knees and circle her torso with my arms, memorizing her happy grunts and waggy butt. I am thankful I understand the strength that follows a effortful run, especially when dreaded. I am thankful to know that honesty and authenticity are the most important elements of everything, always. I am thankful to choose my daily mantra and then rechoose it. I am thankful for wrinkles and humility and fucking up and growing from it. I am thankful to witness and learn from the spontaneous, microcosmic whimsy of childhood, as a grown up.

I am thankful for these things because I have experienced the other side of some things; I have stories and I benefit from their outcomes. There is redemptive, explosive beauty in our corrupt, saturated, brokenness. I remember the other side of my experience and that informs the next time. I know that I don’t know! and in the not knowing, a giant exhale lives. That exhales roars.

So this lunar, precipitation preoccupation I am in. It’s moving. I know wind is fickle. I know a season’s blood pressure is affected by my own and vice versa. Maybe the question isn’t when do we do things because of our soul’s greater good rather than doing exactly what we feel like? Maybe the question is how do we do exactly what we feel like because it is also our soul’s greater good?

Maybe we possess perfect wisdom as children, grow into injured, skeptical adults and further grow into perfect, sage, healed-injured skeptics looking to the stars for answerless fodder.