I love watching the Olympics. I’m amazed by the physical strength, mental fortitude and single-mindedness of the athletes. I’m moved by their stories and inspired by their dedication.

As a mom, it hits me harder. I can barely watch a single competition without tearing up. Every story is the story of someone’s child, drawn to invest so much of their life in the pursuit of a dream, culminating in a single moment. For the victors, for the rest, for all the families, these are poignant times, lived in front of the entire world. It gets to me.

This time, I’m different, though. I’m more a citizen of the world than I ever have been. The world is smaller now, to my mind, than I ever understood it to be before. And, I have two countries to cheer for now (but I think the Austrians are more a force to be reckoned with in the winter).

Benjamin, too, is bigger now. He’s just the right age to be captivated by these Games. He might see something that enthralls him and inspires a lifelong passion of his own.

He’s already told us that he’s sure he’s faster than Usain Bolt, so he’s already got his competitive spirit ready.

So often, I feel like I figure out the right way to do something or have some great epiphany about what my perspective ought to be — right AFTER an experience is over. (My hope is that I eventually start to realize these things while — or even before — they would be useful, as I go through my years of parenting.)

We did petty well with our family beach trip last week — we arrived on Saturday, and we started to figure things out around Thursday.

Partly as an attempt to help others, and partly because I’m hoping it helps me keep these things in mind for the future, I’ve collected some of the things we realized while we were having our fun in the sun.

Gone are the days of going down to the beach first thing in the morning and coming back in time for dinner. We knew the kids wouldn’t make it all day, but we were surprised at how quickly they were worn out and ready to go in. (We only lasted for about 2 hours each day.) We we’re also very surprised that (with one exception) we only got down to the beach once during prime beach hours each day. We’d been planning to do a morning session and an afternoon session (each a couple of hours long) and then maybe head back down to the beach to fly kites or go for a walk each evening. We only went out one afternoon, and only 3 days in the evening.

It’s a long walk down to the water. Longer when you’re carrying a toddler, a preschooler, or both. It’s also longer in the afternoon than in the morning (especially because now the kids are either screaming or half asleep). Take as little as you can manage to get by with for a few hours. The kids aren’t going to last all day, anyway. Rent whatever you can — it is so worth it to not have to worry about another “thing” when you’re carrying a limp, screaming toddler across scorching sand in the heat of the day.

The right stuff is essential. Even though we quickly learned not to bring too much stuff down to the water each day, it’s also important not to sacrifice safety or basic comfort to reduce the load. Bring sunscreen, towels, hats, snacks and water. Bring a few toys. Bring a shirt or coverup for adults and kids if you need extra sun protection. Rent or bring an umbrella or tent. Bring a blanket or towels to sit on. We didn’t use chairs at all, though, and we didn’t each need our own towels. We also didn’t need a great variety of snacks.

Let “nothing” be on the agenda (even if the weather is good). I come from a die hard beach family. All weather (other than lightning) is beach weather. We go to the beach to go sit on the beach — not to shop, sightsee or go to the movies. Every day at the beach that isn’t a monsoon should include time sitting on the sand and playing in the waves. So, it was really hard for me to accept the one day B declared he didn’t want to go to the beach … and we didn’t go. We watched a DVD, played, and rested. It was so weird. But, he needed a break, and, by that evening, both kids were back to full energy and enthusiasm. It was a day well spent.

Don’t let anything get in the way of having a fantastic time. Vacations are supposed to be fun, but they’re also tiring, complicated and stressful (especially with kids). It’s easy to let fussy kids, long days, long nights, cabin fever and messed up schedules turn into to irritation, grumpiness or disappointment. But these are times when memories are made, and it’s so important that we, as parents, don’t let anything take priority over making our vacation a peaceful, pleasant time for the kids — or, at least, being peaceful and pleasant parents.

Go with family. If it is at all conceivably possible, take a vacation with family. Our family helped us so much — with managing the kids, carrying stuff, making meals — all while they were bonding with the kids and sharing great experiences with them. That was the best part of our trip — being all together. And I’m hoping we’ll be able to return all of the favors they did for us if and when my siblings have kids one day, too.

Our beach trip last week was fantastic. We built sandcastles, played in the waves, swam in the ocean, played mini-golf, ate, slept, relaxed, and had a great time.

An essential part of any beach trip with my family is flying a kite. I have very fond memories from my childhood of making and flying kites with my dad and my brothers and sisters. In the evening at the beach, after most people have gone home, the heat has begun to abate and the breeze has picked up, it just seems to me like the best thing to do.

Benjamin had flown a kite a few times before, but he had never taken to it like he did on this trip. He got a couple of kites (to share with Liam) from his Aunt Mina, and he was so excited to get out on the sand and put one up in the air.

He was completely a natural. He confidently launched his kite and watched it rise as he unfurled the entire length of string. Once he got it flying, he didn’t worry about it, he just chilled out and watched it. He had an instinctive knack for adjusting and controlling it, too. (He managed to fly it on 3 separate days without crashing it once.) He was peaceful and relaxed, and he just loved it. (He definitely takes after his Grandpa.) He was able to fly the kite completely on his own until it was time to reel it back in. I didn’t know a 4 year old could do that.

Liam loved it, too. He was fascinated with watching the kites, and he loved to help us hold on to the strings as we flew them.

After a week at the beach, filled with lots of fun stuff, it was B’s favorite part. Flying kites with both of my boys was one of my favorite parts, too.

To my Benjamin:
Last Wednesday, you turned 4. The time has passed so quickly. I can’t believe you’re already so big — that you’re talking to us about big subjects, learning major new skills and traveling the world. What an amazing guy you are. I also can’t believe that i’ve only known you for 4 years — I feel like i’ve known you forever. It’s hard for me to remember what my life was like before you.

I love you so much. Every day with you feels like such an amazing gift. I can’t believe I have the incredible good fortune to be your mom. I am so grateful and so happy.

This year, you’ve grown up so much. You’ve started school (which had a rocky beginning but turned out great). You’ve travelled in Europe and back to the US – twice. You become even more of a wonderful kid every day and you are the best big brother I know. You constantly delight and astonish me with the things you remember, notice and think about. You are so kind and sweet and loving to all of us. You are learning and growing and being a great guy every day. You are so brave, so thoughtful, so enthusiastic, and you give amazing hugs.

I love watching you conquer new challenges. You learned to ride a pedal bike (no training wheels) in one evening. You had your first surfing lesson on your birthday. (You had a great time with your Uncle Adam.)

You are amazingly wise. You see so much about the world around you — more than most people (of any age). You feel things very deeply — but even now, you’re already becoming very understanding and capable of handling frustration and disappointment when they come your way. (The other day, you were eating a popsicle and dropped it as we were crossing a busy street. You looked at Grandma, who was holding your hand, and said, “That’s ok. Sometimes that happens and sometimes it doesn’t”.) You ask the best questions, and you really want to understand the answers.

You love to be with Liam. You are so thoughtful, and so often you are looking out for him (even though he bugs you sometimes). You love to share with him (most of the time), snuggle with him, and play together. He loves you so much. (And he tries to be just like you all the time.)

You love to play with cars, ride bikes, play video games and race around. You love to be outside. You love to play with Bailey. I love hearing you spell your name (or Liam’s), hearing you count up very high and read me letters and numbers wherever you see them. You also “read” many of your favorite books (at this point, I think you’ve memorized them, but you always get it exactly right). You can learn and sing songs you’ve heard only once, too. (You’re kind of amazing, kid.)

I am so happy that I get to be your mom. I would not change a single thing about you, and being around you inspires me, brings me peace and makes me smile.

I get to spend every day with you. I am the luckiest mommy ever. Happy birthday, my darling child.

Benjamin woke up from his nap yesterday absolutely set on “going to the playground”. Not just any playground, but a very specific one near where we used to live in Northern Virginia. (I think he must have had a dream about it during his nap.)

Today, Dan flew back to Vienna, so we left an hour early to take him to the airport and stopped by “the playground” that B wanted to visit. It’s a place we used to go fairly regularly, and going back today, I’m kicking myself for not going more often when it was so convenient.

It’s fantastic. All of the surfaces are rubberized, the edges are all smooth and rounded, and there wasn’t a single massive, jagged rock in sight. Other than the possibility of climbing to the top of a slide and falling from a height, there really wasn’t anything to get hurt on at all.

I remember, when B was little, we used to take him to this park and follow immediately behind him as he went from place to place, hovering over him and requiring that he hold our hand on all the stairs. I really can’t remember what we were so worried about, and I can’t remember when we changed, but that’s certainly not who we are anymore. We pretty much let the boys go. We we’re still with them the whole time, but we were playing WITH them, helping when we were needed, and witnessing many feats of strength and bravery from both boys. We were enjoying our shared playtime, not stressing about perceived dangers.

It was so much fun. I do really like the relative safety of American playgrounds (especially big, fancy ones like this one). But, we never would have enjoyed and appreciated the freedom it provides without experiencing the alternative. Our kids, too, have been changed by playing in Austria — they both have a confidence and a daring that I hadn’t seen before in this same space.

I like them both, and I think they’re both good for our kids. But for today, it was really fun to relax a little and just play.

Last night, I was sitting at my mom’s computer, finishing up my blog post, while Dan and my mom got the kids into their pajamas. From upstairs, I heard a crash and a gasp from my mom, followed by some serious crying from B. I waited a moment, but by the time my mom called me, I was already on my way up the stairs — too much time had passed since the crash and no one had called out “it’s ok”, like I expected. I knew it was bad.

I tore up the stairs, and found Benjamin, in Dan’s arms, with blood on his face and chest. Dan said we needed to go to the hospital for stitches, and I took B to the bathroom to clean him up. When I was able to get a good look, I found a small, but quite open, laceration on his chin.

My first reaction was to fall apart myself. I was holding my screaming, frantic child, and I was imagining him with an awful scar that would make him feel sad and insecure about his appearance one day. But, other than the bleeding wound on his chin, he seemed ok. His teeth were ok, his eyes were fine, no apparent broken bones or missing appendages.

He was distraught, bleeding, in pain, and completely freaked out. My first priority immediately became calming him down while we prepared to go to the hospital.

As we got organized, and as he calmed down, I regained a little perspective. Really, life was good. My poor baby had a major boo-boo (ow-a, in Austria) but in the greater sense, it’s not really a big deal. I knew we’d take him to the hospital, the doctors would fix him up, and he’d recover completely. At worst, he’ll have a small scar on his chin that probably won’t be noticed by anyone, ever. I doubt he’ll ever feel particularly bothered by it, and it’s possible it’ll heal so well that he will have to be reminded that it even happened. The much larger trauma would be to have his mom fall apart, right when he needs me to calm and comfort him.

We went to the hospital, and they fixed him up. (He got glue instead of stitches, though.) It was hard on him when the glue was applied (we had to hold him down) but it was a quick process, and by the time we got home (less than 2 hours after the injury) he said that it felt “great” and he told the story of his ER visit without sounding traumatized.

All is well. He’s going to be fine. And I realized that my initial panic about him having a scar came principally from an old issue of mine — wanting everything to be perfect. It’s not that I want Benjamin to be perfect — I’m his mom, and I already think he’s even better than perfect — it’s that I want to be perfect myself and I’m assuming he’ll feel the same way one day. Knowing that he might have a scar, I think into the future and imagine that it will make him sad. But, will it? Probably not — especially if he’s lucky enough to grow up without unreasonably wishing for his own physical perfection. He is wonderful and beautiful, with or without a scar, so me being freaked out about it helps nothing. It’s my issue, not his, and it’s not something I want to pass on to him. (Another part of my own unhappiness comes from feeling guilty that I couldn’t, and didn’t, protect him from getting hurt. That doesn’t realty do anything to help him, either.)

All is well. He will recover. I’m so sorry he got hurt, and scared, but I am so happy that he was feeling better so quickly afterwards. I am so grateful that we have such quick access to excellent medical care, and that my mom was able to watch Liam so that we could both go with B. I’m not going to waste my energy worrying about whether he’ll one day be sad about a boo-boo he got when he turned 4 — I’ll spend it instead helping him feel good now.

We just spent a fantastic week at the beach. The house we stayed in was lovely, the weather was perfect and I got to be with my whole family. I really could not have asked for a better vacation.

The boys had a wonderful time, too. B went from wading nervously at the edge of the ocean to surfing lessons from Uncle Adam. Liam went from screaming and crying about having a little bit of sand on him to insisting on being held in knee-deep surf and napping at the water’s edge in my arms (one of my favorite mommy moments ever).

We had ice cream, cooked burgers on the grill, played mini-golf, celebrated B’s 4th birthday and soaked up lots of love from our family. By the end of the week, B’s favorite part was flying kites (just like my dad).

We had so much fun. We spent so much family time together. It was one of the best vacations ever, and I hope we get to do it again.

Nothing puts me in the odd space of dealing with serious stress while simultaneously being in my “zone” like packing for a trip. All of my controlling/stress/freak out tendencies are activated. On the one hand, this makes me anxious, irritable and edgily unhappy. On the other hand, it turns me into an impressive specimen of organization and efficiency. I am good at packing and organizing for travel. It’s a skill and a strength of mine. I’m also “good” at being a grumpy stress case.

We are currently packing to go to the beach. And, although it keeps trying to sneak up on me, I’ve managed to not yet turn into a super grump.

There are a few things keeping me under control. First, I keep reminding myself that no “thing” is more important than the quality of our experience. There is nothing that I could remember or forget that is going to make as much of an impact on our enjoyment of our trip than me managing to maintain a good attitude. As long as I get both kids safely in the car, everything else is less than vital. Secondly, I can absolutely guarantee that even an astonishing level of stress and effort won’t prevent me from either forgetting, or failing to think of, something important for our trip. (Which is ok, because I can buy almost anything I need at the beach anyway. We’re going to Delaware, not Outer Mongolia.)

Add to that the fact that my mom is taking care of a lot of the details of the trip (towels, sheets, etc) AND the fact that this trip doesn’t require passports, Customs, or a 10 hour trans-Atlantic flight, and I’m doing just fine this evening.

We’ll see, though. We still have 12 hours before we have to leave. It could still happen. (But I’m hoping it doesn’t.)

Every so often I have a day like today — all morning I have this plan in mind of getting some things accomplished: going to the store, picking up lunch, doing some laundry, starting to pack and organize for our trip to the beach. It doesn’t seem like an unreasonable set of goals. But then, I suddenly realize that it’s after noon and although I managed to get out for a run this morning, I haven’t even taken a shower yet, the kids are hungry and about ready to pass out for nap time. I felt like I couldn’t get my day in gear, and I started to get really frustrated and overwhelmed trying to figure out the best way to salvage some productivity and efficiency (and fun) from my day.

Out of a desperate need to act in some way, I took a quick shower and then we all jumped in the car and drove in to town. We pulled up at the grocery store to pick up just a few things, and . . . Liam was asleep.

I was completely paralyzed by trying to figure out how to rearrange our day in order to squeeze out a little order and usefulness, but I couldn’t manage it. I couldn’t figure out the best or most useful thing to do, and it was stressing me out more as each minute passed. At that point, it was just time for plan B.

So, I stopped trying to figure out the best thing to do and just started doing something I needed to do. B and I went in to shop at CVS while Dan waited in the car with a sleeping Liam. I bought some things for our beach trip and some things for B’s upcoming birthday. I felt a little guilty for buying birthday things (like plates and wrapping paper) while he was there with me, but I kept reminding myself that it was better to buy it with him there with me than it would be to not get it at all or to turn into a massive stress case in order to get it as a surprise later.

It’s hard. I want to do everything right and I want to be orderly and efficient. But, if I can let go of those ideas, I really am happier.

I wadn’t efficient or organized today. But we got some stuff done and we had a good time doing it. It wasn’t perfect, wasn’t ideal, but it was ok.

We have a lot left to do to prepare for our trip. We had a pretty good day today. It might not be perfect, but we’ll get there. Eventually.

Even though I’m on vacation, I’ve been keeping up, more or less, with my exercise routine.  I’ve had to reschedule a few runs, but I’ve been running a few days a week and walking in between.  Yesterday was a running day — oh, how I have NOT missed the combination of humidity and hills provided by the mid-Atlantic — so I went for a walk today.  Dan, Benjamin and Liam joined me.  We walked for an hour, starting at my mom’s house, through some very cute and moderately upscale residential neighborhoods, past dozens of homes, several businesses and one high school.

And, in that hour, we saw exactly 3 people.

We didn’t see a single person out walking a dog.  We didn’t see a single person out for a run.  We didn’t see a single mom walking with a stroller.  We didn’t see a single child playing in the yard.  We pretty much didn’t see anyone.  (Of the 3 people we did see, two were running leaf blowers outside of a fancy house and one was a young guy mowing a lawn.  That was it.  And we didn’t see the first of them until over 25 minutes through our walk.)

It was really weird.  Almost Twilight Zone-ish.  Where was everyone?

I don’t know for sure, but I think they were all at work, and the kids are at daycare or camp.  If anyone was at home (it didn’t look like it) I guess they were inside.  It’s really different for us.  In Vienna, we live in the very heart of the city.  We would likely see 3 people out and about before we left the courtyard of our building.  We walk past a grocery store, a restaurant and a few shops before we even leave our block.  The only way we could walk for an hour from our front door and not run in to anyone would be if it was Christmas Day (and really, not even then).

It’s just a very different way of life.  Here, many, if not most, families have two incomes, and the kids spend the days at daycare, school or camp (since it’s summer).  People mostly don’t work near where they live.  Public transportation isn’t as readily accessible (although it’s not like we saw a lot of cars, either), and you don’t encounter fun public playgrounds every few blocks.

Even understanding the differences, though, I don’t really understand the COMPLETE lack of humanity we encountered on our journey.  No one walks their dog?  Not a single stay-at-home mom out for a morning walk?  Really?!?  I’ve never felt so isolated surrounded by so many signs of luxurious human habitation.  It was weird.