We are off on our first getaway as a family of five. We are headed to Grammy and Dad-Dad’s in our brand new car. Please wish us luck. And by luck, I mean no vomit from the twinkling trio during the drive, and a string of sleep-filled nights during our stay. I hope you have a great weekend wherever it takes you!

Growing up here in New York City, one of my favorite things to do was ride the carousel in Central Park. I remember going round and round, up and down, to the colorful music, the steel gates and green trees blurring by. I remember laughing so much.

This past weekend when I was flying solo with the girls, I decided that we would take a trip to the carousel. The big girls were pumped. I prayed that their car sickness would not translate to carousel sickness. Thankfully, all was good.

I placed each of my girls on her own horse and buckled them both in. I stood in the middle of them, my hands grazing the small of their backs as we traveled round and round. From time to time, each would try to proclaim independence and brush my hand off, but I put it back. And they let me.

Their smiles were grand and wonder was plain in their blue eyes. Their golden hair shimmied in the breeze. I asked them what their nice horses were named. Baby said Ella. (All of Baby’s animals are named Ella.) Toddler said Horsey. Then Baby said hers was in fact named Horsey too.

Baby evinced her bizarre and irresistible sense of humor, stroking her horse’s faux-mane, and saying, “Mommy, so fluffy!”

Toddler insisted we go again and again. And so we did. And as we did, as I held on to my little girls, I wondered which horses I used to ride on when I was their size.

Finally, I got them off their respective Horseys by promising them a treat. Thankfully, there was a nice man outside selling Italian ices. We stood there as he told us all the flavors… Cherry, Grape, Lemon, Mango, Rainbow… and Super Rainbow. Guess what the girls picked? Yes, Super Rainbow. I plopped them on a bench in the shade and watched them as they scarfed their brightly colored concoctions with true delight and deliberation. I snapped a picture of their dangling feet.

Before heading home with my rainbow-mustached babes, I took another picture. Of the trees and the sun and the day. It was a glorious day. A perfect day.

One I hope they will remember. I certainly will.

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What were some of your favorite activities as a child? Do you hope to do these activities with your own kiddos one day?

This past weekend, Husband was away in Buffalo for his cousin’s wedding. After much deliberation and ultimate deference to overwhelming instinct, I opted to stay home with my girls.

I’m so glad I did.

To say that this past weekend was an important one is both hyperbole and a bit of an understatement. Hyperbole because in so many ways it was just like every weekend – jammed with laughter and tears, toys and stories, tantrums and triumphs, early mornings and quiet nights. An understatement, too, because it was a time during which I paused and reflected on much – my life now, my needs, my desires, my successes, my failures – and felt the humble hum of existential evolution.

I learned, and realized, many things – about myself, about my family, about my life – over the past several days. Too many things to enumerate in one blog post – or even a handful. So I will not try. I will not try to boil it all down – the experience, the epiphanies, the elusive but gripping understanding that has only recently tickled my skin. Instead, I will spend time going forward talking about bits and pieces – some mundane, some magical, all meaningful – from the weekend and these days. And I will post pictures because I have taken so many. Of my beautiful babes, of the scenery I too often overlook, of the things that made me stop and think.

Of the moments.

Because that’s what life is, really is, right? A tapestry, a thicket, of moments.

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Have you had days or periods of time in your life when you realized many things at once? Do you find material for your writing and thinking in your own life?

Yesterday morning, the tiny one and I were up early. As per usual, I watched MSNBC while feeding my girl. I watched a report on the tragic tornado in Joplin, Missouri. The images were of course ghastly and otherworldly, the destruction almost not believable. From my perch on the family room couch, it all seemed surreal. And I literally thought to myself: I feel so distant from these things, these terrible things, because I have no personal connection to them.

Well, as fate would have it, it turns out this time was different. This was not just another in the litany of awful natural disasters that has been splashed across my screens of late. I do indeed have a personal connection to this event.

My aunt and three cousins were in Joplin during the tornado. I don’t know all the details – they are coming in bits and pieces still – but all four of them survived. From what I have heard (and I will correct these details if I learn differently), my cousin and her boyfriend crouched in a closet during the storm and when they came out, the entire house around them was gone. My aunt and two other cousins clung to each other in a bathtub. One was blown through a window into a parking lot and my aunt and my other cousin shot through the ceiling.

What matters today is that they are all alive. Being treated at various hospitals in the area.

I’ve never been a big believer in miracles, but that’s beginning to change. This? This was a miracle.

Today I’m think of my Mom’s family, of all the other survivors of this tragedy, and of those who were not so fortunate.

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Do natural disasters seem real to you or does it take a personal connection to believe that they happened? Do you believe in miracles?

**For every comment left here today (5/24/11) before 11pm EST, I will donate $2 to the American Red Cross’s Missouri Tornado and Flood Relief**

I’ve encountered a handful of people in my life who are excellent at making small talk with strangers. Somehow, they know just how to say hello, how and when to pony up an anecdote, how to achieve a level of humor and intimacy that is appropriate.

Alas, I am not one of these people. I’ve never wanted to be. Or so I thought.

It has occurred to me recently that there is something wonderful – and incomparable – about chatting with friendly strangers, about trading bits of bios, about indulging in random riffs of conversation.

And so. The other day I tried my hand at the art of small talk. I was in a salon chair. On the other side of the mirror another woman was having her hair done as well. I could only see her feet – a bit swollen in flats that appeared too small. And I heard her voice. It seemed young to me. But it was her words that captivated me. It turned out she was quite the talker. In no time, I learned that she was 39 weeks pregnant with her first child. A boy. I learned that her husband was traveling on business which made her nervous because she was having contractions. I learned that she felt huge and was ready to give birth. I also learned that she and her husband were just approved for a car loan even though they’d been rejected at first.

I smiled as I listened to her. I smiled because her words stirred up something familiar in me – that phase of giddy anticipation, of can’t-sit-still excitement. I smiled because three kiddos later, I still get it. The profound precipice of parenthood on which a young woman stands only once.

As fate would have it, this girl and I ended up in a little waiting area of the salon at the same time. I flipped through fashion magazines and she was focused on her laptop. I didn’t think much about it, but just did it.

I said something.

When are you due? I asked, making sure to smile. I asked this even though I knew the answer.

In a week, she said, and looked away quickly.

That’s so exciting, I said. I just had my third girl two months ago.

She smiled. Said nothing. Retreated to her screen.

And that was that. There was no conversation, no sprinkling of stories. There were just a few strained words and half-glances and then silence. Pure silence marred only by the nearby buzz of hairdryers.

Oh well. I tried!

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Are you good at striking up conversations with strangers? Do you think there is something important and instructive about chatting with people we do not know? Why do you think this girl was so willing to spill her life story to her hairdresser, but was almost unwilling to acknowledge me? Do you think blogging is in many ways akin to making small talk with strangers?