THESE PEOPLE DON'T HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT THEY ARE DOING

There has been a noticable lapse in blog entries (four months to be exact). I attribute this inability to write about parenting to living with a parent. In fact, for two weeks, we lived with two parents. We called them "the Moms".

We are back to living in our nest, just the two of us. I can reflect again on being a parent instead of a designated daughter. I was thinking about starting out as parents while framing some old pictures that were at the bottom of a box of -can't part with them- family artifacts. There is a picture that was taken in December 1982 in the Rocky Mountains. We were on vacation with Craig's family which we did every year for almost 20 years. The picture has two young adults with big smiles and one small baby. The baby is not smiling, in fact she looks pissed off. Erica was three months old when the picture was taken and we took her everywhere. She was wrapped in layers of blankets and was wearing a darling pink hat. Craig is holding her in one arm, face to the camera so that she could be properly posed for all to see. We were madly in love with her but apparantly did not consider that this little baby might not appreciate being out in the mountains in subzero temperatures. I imagine her thinking: these people don't have any idea what they are doing.

Well, we didn't.

But, I wonder if these early trips planted the love of travel. The children pretty much grew up in one town, one home. It is in the northeast region of Vermont and our home is located at the end of a mile long driveway. In the woods, no neighbors. We have a snowplow, truck, tractors, barn, shotgun, pond and many creatures of the forest. The three adult children live in LA, San Francisco and Philadelphia. Tommy lived in Berlin for a year. Erica regularly travels around the US and went to Germany twice last year. Chris lives in LA which in my mind is an exotic locale.

Where did they get the courage?