Lucky

This morning I cracked three eggs into a blue ceramic bowl and discovered that two of them had double yolks. Must be my lucky day.

As the girls and I ate breakfast, I told them they each could make a wish because of our lucky eggs. I tried to get Nina to tell me her wish but she knows better than that now. The last time she made a wish, it didn't come true and I told her that some people believe wishes don't work if you say them out loud. So, now she has a second chance and she’s not going to say a word to me about her wish.

This whole incident started me thinking about luck. What is luck and how do we get it? Do we make it for ourselves? Are we born with it? Or is it just about how we view the world?

I hear that advocates of The Secret, that much-touted, Oprah’s list book, believe that if you merely think positively – if you just wish hard enough – then all of your desires will be realized. It’s like the ultimate get-rich-quick scheme (and it seems to be working for the book’s authors). At the same time, these people also believe that you can give yourself cancer with your negative thoughts.

If you want my opinion, this is just bunk. Luck is all a matter of perspective.

One of our family traditions each summer is to spend a weekend on the Cape. We head out towards the end of June when hopes for summer weather are high, but the hotel rates have not yet risen to match them. The girls really look forward to this trip and I’ve written about it before. We always leave our house with high expectations for our long weekend adventure but reality sets in about an hour into the journey. There is something about vacationing with small children that is very challenging. So while we are building really great memories with our kids, we are also trying to keep our sanity while driving four hours in our car and then sharing a small hotel room for three or four days.

Each year, as they get older, the trip will get a little easier. Perhaps one of these times, they won’t flop themselves into the ocean fully clothed within the first five minutes of seeing the beach. Maybe they will eventually learn to use an indoor voice in the hotel’s common breakfast room or maybe I will just ignore the looks I think I’m getting from other guests.

As the mother of these two lovely and rambunctious girls, I typically spend part of the weekend feeling annoyed and frustrated. But this year, just as I was beginning to feel unlucky, we met the family staying two doors down from us at the hotel. There was a single mother with two kids, a boy and a girl. It was clear that the son had some developmental issues and was hard to deal with. But this woman was doing it alone, smiling and patient the whole time. To me it seemed as if she had figured it out, even though you could tell it wasn't easy to deal with her energetic son. She was amazing to watch – calm and loving, where I would probably have been tense, anxious and cranky.

Maybe we do only get as much as we can handle in life. Maybe good luck and bad luck are just flip sides of the same coin. Maybe in those moments when I start to feel unlucky, I should remember to pay attention to the beauty around me.

Watching the girls as they run and play together on the beach, seeing the excitement in Nina’s face as she watches the waves (usually with her mouth open), and the wonder in Rita’s eyes when she figured out that the “statue” in downtown Provincetown was actually a real person (she couldn’t take her eyes away). These are the moments I need to pay attention to. I like to listen to them as they tell each other stories or play pretending games. They are much more relaxed and fun when we don't interfere with a correction or shushing. These two little girls are such a treasure and we are lucky that they look out for each other and love each other so much.

My work is in learning to let go of - or at least loosen - my expectations and be okay with the fact that things are not always going to go exactly as I think I want them to. I have to try to find the beauty in what comes instead of always trying to control it. And, I have to remember that I am lucky.

Snuggle Time

It's 7:15 a.m. There are dishes in the sink, unfolded laundry in a basket by the chair that we pile the folded clothes onto before we decide we want to wear them, and cat hair tumbleweeds blow freely across the floor. My husband is making the lunches but breakfast still needs to be prepared and I am sitting on the couch under the comfortable heft of my three-year old, while her older sister sits beside me, holding my arm in a vice-like grip. She's trying to train herself to stop pinching me but it's slow-going. They are drinking milk. It's our morning snuggle time. I try to forget about all of the things that aren't getting done around me as I sit, tethered to the couch. I try instead to inhale the smell of my daughter's hair and enjoy the cozy warmth of their little bodies.

This is how most days start at our house and I've learned that when we miss our morning snuggle time, things don't go quite as smoothly as when I surrender to it. Someone eventually starts screaming or refuses to get dressed or brush her hair. These are alternatives that I can do without. It's hard enough to get all of us out the door on time in the morning when things go well.

Despite my knowing that morning snuggle time is the key to peacefully starting our day, it is not in my nature to sit like this. I constantly work at it. I am a chronic putterer. I do my best thinking and problem-solving while meandering around the house putting things in order - doing dishes, folding laundry, sorting socks.

To the casual observer, it may appear that I am simply performing mundane tasks, but in reality, I am solving the world's problems. Okay, that's not true, but I am considering the various predicaments under my jurisdiction at home and at work. My puttering time is typically when creative solutions pop into my head, so I relish it. Besides, when I spend time this way, there are definitely fewer cat hair tumbleweeds in the house.

However, I also know just how important is to make sure that I take the time to really be present for these strong-willed, bright, funny girls. Making space for them to talk and letting them lounge on me without my being distracted is the best gift I can give them, but sometimes I find it so difficult to do. My mind will be racing along at top speed, working on who knows what, and I'll abruptly be pulled back to the present and realize that I have two kids climbing all over me. When I do give them all of my attention, the payoff is so great. Everyone feels happy, heard and valued. Isn't this what we all crave? Why do I struggle so much with giving this gift to my girls? Each day, I have to set an intention to do this small thing because I know it is what really matters for them in the long run.