Some thoughts on motherhood..

No pics today...sorry. I promise to have some tomorrow.
I thought I would write about an interesting thing I have noticed so far as a mother. In some ways I think it is a fault of mine, but then I start to rethink this. Recently, I have noticed that I don't think things through as thoroughly as I should when it comes to being a mother. Two excellent examples came two days in a row this week. Yesterday it was beautiful out and so, as I often do, I loaded the twins into the new double stroller and thought of where I wanted to go. I decided to walk to the beach. It's a bit of a lengthy walk..about 6 miles round trip, but it was gorgeous out and, let's be honest, the workout wouldn't hurt. I get down to the beach, just about 3 miles into our walk, and I notice storm clouds approaching. Instinctively I panicked. What was I going to do? What if it started to thunder and lightning? I didn't have a car. I had my phone, but Felix was still en route from Manhattan. I quickly turned the stroller around and walked at a extremely fast pace to make it back before the rain. It turns out I beat the rain by a few good hours, the looming clouds I saw did just that...loom. But I thought...how could I have gone out with two infants with no access to a car or other form of protection from the elements? Why didn't I check the weather before I left? I often used to go running, and sometimes I did get caught in the rain (although never in a thunderstorm), but with two young babies it is quite different.
The other example came today. I went to visit my job today. It was great to see my colleagues and my students. The twins were a great hit! At school I mentor a boy whose name is Charles. Charles is from Brooklyn and is in our A Better Chance program at school where inner city youth come to Wesport to live and attend Staples High School. As a black student in a predominantly white school, Charles made the transition quite well and after four years at our school was recently accepted at Cornell with an amazing scholarship. Charles is also the captain of our volleyball team-a team that has gone undefeated and won the state title like 6 years in a row now. Today was the last home game (before the playoffs), so Felix and the twins and I went to see Charles play. He is phenomenal on the court, and I enjoy the games quite a bit. In the middle of the match, one of the Westport players spiked the ball, it bounced off the ground and hit the side of the stroller-more like the handle bar. The twins slept through the whole thing...but I sat there as we laughed it off and thought "Why on earth did I think it was a good idea to bring them here with balls that could possibly fly into the bleachers?"

I guess what I am getting at is that I think I need to think things through a bit better sometimes. I often thought that there would be a "mommy switch" that would just go off once they were born and I would know what is wise and unwise...but I don't seem to have that switch. Either that or mine has malfunctioned. Perhaps it comes down to the fact that I have always been more of an academic than a common sense person. Oh goodness Lucas and Liliana...how did you get stuck with me? :-)