Mom Chronicles: Hints from the road
Hello, Bright Future: What Adventures Will Come?
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- by Brooke Stephens on Thu Jan 6, 2011 - (3) Comments
No big outdoor adventure for us this New Year's weekend, just a small indoor one.
We rang in 2011 in a family-friendly fashion. To kick it off, we spent New Year's Eve dinner at the Stone's house, where our suburbanite Adventure Parents highlight was the Dads shooting off some Fireworks (they are legal to purchase in AZ, a new change in 2010) while the girls covered their ears and shrieked with giggles.
This gathering is the first I've noticed that the girls, Chloe and McKenzie (the former our's, the latter not), are getting big enough to thoroughly entertain themselves. If you're a parent of young ones, you know what a huge step this is. It leaves us adults actual time with each other to relax, prepare dinner, and share stories.
The little girls still need some supervision, apparently. We had a huge hold-it-in laugh as Chloe and McKenzie came streaking out of the bedroom in the middle of dress-up time and ran bare-bummed across the living room. Mark was shocked and kept whispering, "Should I use the dad voice? I can totally pull out the mean dad voice right now." A funny discussion followed about who was the instigator of this naughtiness. How many times will we be wondering the answer to that question in the years to come...
If the kids aren't enough to keep us entertained, Ania's conversation on Skype to her Ukrainian teenage friends sure was. I love hearing her fluent Ukrainian when she calls home - the perfect combination of hard and soft consonants and European vowels. It's like rustling leaves on a breezy fall day. Her friends, in the midst of their all-night New Year's celebration, bravely spoke to Mark and me in English. Speaking to "real Americans" in English is something that scares most of her friends when we're around, but this bunch started singing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas...and a Happy New Year!" It was fun to see Ania's smile as she got to be one of the gang again for a few minutes.
We toasted the New Year around 9 pm- Martinelli's for the girls and Champagne for the four parents. It was much too early, but hey, we are parents. Isn't the New Year more about celebrating the great stories and the lessons learned from the year and looking ahead to a brighter, wiser year to come? Midnight is only magical if you're in a place like Times Square or a RCPM rock concert where the countdown ends and you can scream, drink, and celebrate with strangers around you. But our way was fun, too. It meant something...even if just to us.
Smaller doesn't have to mean insignificant.I think that's metaphoric for my entire outlook on the adventures and traveling we take on as a family. We're in a stage where small, family-friendly, intimate experiences are right. The big dreams of sight-seeing in New Zealand, driving through Africa, and exploring Ania's region in Ukraine can be goals further out in the future. But for now, bring on the mini-adventures. Like looking for seashells with the kids, exploring National Parks that we love, showing Chloe nearby cultures and languages, and camping with other families just to get that adult conversation time. Smaller doesn't have to mean insignificant. If we can do a little bit of that between our work and parenting responsibilities, then it looks like a bright future ahead for the Stephens. Happy New Year to you and your loved ones, and may you find satisfaction in the Adventures around you!
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