Laurel typically enjoys quite a bit of generosity from her relatives during the holidays, so in the Christmas aftermath, it's particularly impressive when one thing captures her attention. And, well, ours too. This year, that thing is Katamino. Including an adjustable-sized playing board (increasing the size of the playing space increases the difficulty), different wooden shapes (pentaminos), and an impressively varied instruction manual, this game inspires seemingly endless spatial puzzles for one or more players.
Much like the Perplexus, Katamino has captured the attention of both the big and little people in our house. We're all busy taking turns, attempting to solve the individual levels (and yes, like the Perplexus, Laurel has already surpassed me on a couple of levels) that we haven't even gotten to the multiple player games. As we recover from the holiday season, it's been lovely to have a game that is simple and battery-free and also inspires quiet time! Added bonus: it's compact enough (yet with chunky wooden pieces that are easy to hold on to) for car travel too.

Also, a side note about the Perplexus (since many of you were pretty excited to learn about that game): Laurel mastered the classic version I wrote about and has moved on to the Perplexus Epic -- which will definitely provide challenging fodder for a while. I recommend getting the Epic if your family has mastered the Classic. We also bought my father-in-law the Classic and it was a big hit...it was fun to pad into the kitchen the morning after Christmas to find him playing it at the kitchen table!

Because I enjoy a little healthy debate (and also because I've been thinking about it a while), I posted yesterday on BlogHer about marital term limits. I actually don't care for that terminology, because it sounds like you're required to stop being married at some point, which was not what I was arguing for. If you want to be married, you wouldn't have to stop -- you just re-up. I actually like Mexico City's proposal (though two years seems a bit short):

The minimum marriage contract would be for two years and could be renewed if the couple stays happy. The contracts would include provisions on how children and property would be handled if the couple splits.

"The proposal is, when the two-year period is up, if the relationship is not stable or harmonious, the contract simply ends," said Leonel Luna, the Mexico City assemblyman who co-authored the bill.

"You wouldn't have to go through the tortuous process of divorce," said Luna, from the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution, which has the most seats in the 66-member chamber.

It might seem odd that someone happily married after ten years is a fan of this idea. On Twitter last night I took a lot of heat for banging on "the sanctity of marriage." I don't see it that way at all -- the promise and commitment you make to your spouse can be spiritual, it can be religious, it can be personal -- but it needn't be legal. We all know plenty of people who are deeply in love and committed to each other for life but for whatever reason not legally married. The sanctity part has to do with the relationship, not the legal marriage. I believe in the sanctity of the relationship, not the sanctity of the legal marriage. Give to Caesar what is Caesar's.

Legal marriage is a legal contract and has nothing to do with love. Usually, they go hand-in-hand, but legal marriage as an institution is rooted in property ownership. In Missouri, where I live, it means this:

There are numerous legal benefits to marriage. There are both federal and state laws available only to married people. Other benefits include Social Security benefits, inheritance rights, property rights, the ability to sue third parties for the wrongful death of a spouse or loss of consortium, and the right to make medical decisions on a spouse's behalf.

There is nothing about love or sanctity or eternal commitment in the legal definition of marriage.

In my BlogHer series How to Get a Happier Marriage, I kept coming back to the concept of daily choice. Whether you're legally married or not, if you're in a healthy relationship, you're aware every day that you don't have to be there -- you're there because your life is better with that person than without him or her. You're there because you want to be. You're not enmeshed with the other person or controlled by him or her. I'm not saying it wouldn't be incredibly painful to leave, but if something happened to that person, you could go on putting one foot in front of another. You have to believe that if you don't want the other person to worry themselves to death over you. 

I think it's actually detrimental to love to think to yourself, well, we're married, so this other person has to put up with me no matter how I behave. I wrote in April 2010:

The fact is that I can't see the future. I learned a long time ago that you don't just say "I do" and it's done. I'm a different person than I was when I got married eight years ago, and so is my husband. We have to wake up every single morning and -- without so much as coffee -- choose each other again. And when I choose him, I'm not choosing the man I married when we were 28. I'm choosing the man he is now.

If you keep choosing that other person with your eyes wide open over years of good times and bad, that love deepens. While bagging on Twilight, I wrote:

Diana's romance illustrates what I know to be true about many happy couples -- they met when they were young. Maybe they even fell in love when they were young. But, as she writes, true love -- the kind that lasts fifty years -- is something that brews over time spent bailing each other out from crises, from facing real life and sometimes mundane challenges and achievements.

I realize my opinion in favor of marital term limits won't be a popular one, even with members of my family. I do hope it's clear that I'm not talking about spiritual or religious marriage -- I'm talking about the legal documents that make separating in the case of two people falling out of love something that requires lawyering up and involving the family court system. Falling out of love with someone is bad enough -- to have to be financially devastated and prolong the experience just adds legal insult to emotional injury.

I do think people should be very sure before they get married. I do think people should commit to working things out if at all possible. 

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. has the highest divorce rate out of us, Denmark, Canada, Japan, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the U.K.

I have some other arguments for term limits in my BlogHer post. I hate to divide the conversation, so I'm going to close comments here and ask that if you'd like to respond that you do it there. 

I'm not anti-love. I'm not anti-commitment. I think it's incredibly romantic to choose the other person every day for the rest of your life, as I do every day with Beloved. I don't see how separating the legal from the spiritual hurts my bond with him in any way. I'm actually surprised people are unwilling to see the difference between the legal bond and the spiritual or romantic one. Am I insane?

Happy 2012 everyone -- I hope you had a wonderful holiday break! We soldiered through a plague-filled start to the vacation, but eventually recovered and enjoyed the relaxed pace so very much. I also did pretty well on my vacation week to do list and accomplished #1 (except we passed the plague on to my poor mother-in-law), #3 (almost...it will be out by the end of today...yippee!), #4, #5, #10 (oh my goodness I love my new site, feel free to take a peek), #11 (chocolate cake!), #13, #14, and #16.
I hope to knock off the remaining items this month, and will start with #7 (make an editorial plan for Boston Mamas), in a way, today. Over the break, even though I wasn't posting here, I was thinking about editorial on this site. As regular readers might gather, content tends to be organically inspired -- I don't have a firm editorial calendar (for example, specific topics on specific days of the week) and I don't crack the whip with the wonderful women who share words on this site. And while I love organically evolving content, I also feel that for all of our collective enjoyment/utility, I would like to feature more regular voices across a range of verticals. And get a little more organized in general. So today, I'd like to open a call for writers.

If you are interested in contributing to Boston Mamas, please fill out this brief application. In a nutshell, I'm looking for writers who are able to reliably contribute one blog post per month (compensated; either topic assigned by me or writer-pitched and approved) and who clearly enjoy writing and write well (i.e., posts must be thoughtfully crafted and spell checked). I am looking for everyday local moms who love sharing awesome ideas and finds (local or otherwise) and/or thoughtful editorial on deeper matters (e.g., family issues, child development quandaries).

Please note: I get pitched by a lot of businesses that want to guest post in order to promote their businesses. This is not what I am looking for. If you are a business and want to connect with my readership, please take a look at the contact guidelines.

Thanks so much, and I look forward to hearing from you! And please be patient while I sift through the responses. I will need to evaluate options and balance different variables across new and existing contributors, which will no doubt take a bit of tinkering!

Wishing you a beautiful 2012; thanks for hanging here! xoxo Christine

Image credit: Nutdanai Apikhomboonwaroot via FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The little angel looked so warm and pink in bed this morning. I crawled in with her, made one of the stuffed dogs she won at the kid casino over the break lick her face. She moaned.

"Is it daytime or nighttime?"

I laughed. I'm the one in this family who usually is the worst about getting out of bed. The fact that she honestly didn't know if it was day or night made me feel better about my own reservations about getting out of bed this morning. 

We got going. She had breakfast. She got dressed. Like walking through water. Christmas break always feels like sailing around the Cape of Good Hope to me -- it's a difficult passage with none of my familiar structure, in which things stand still and I wait to see if we'll start moving forward again. I have enjoyed this time with my family, but I'm also restless. I hate being stuck indoors, and even with the better-than-usual weather, days and days off make for a lot of restless indoor time, searching for things to do that will interest both seven-year-olds and thirty-seven-year-olds. I started to long for some time alone.

I was pretty excited about school today. I'm back at work and desperately needing to feel productive.

"Man, the bus is really late today," I said, as the minutes ticked by with her backpack packed and ready and her coat on.

"Really, really late."

I pulled up the school website.

Teacher professional development day.

She laughed and went back over to the television.

We seem to be stuck on a sandbar. Try again tomorrow.

My sister shared this video with me, and I laughed and laughed and laughed.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwwWqRV2RsI] 

2011 is almost over. I'm sort of sad to see it go. I've spent this year waiting and watching and biding my time for things to happen. But in the meantime, nothing bad has happened, either. As I've spent the last week thinking over 2011 and what it's been, I realized with great clarity that nothing bad happened this year. Bad things *almost* happened, but then didn't. And maybe with that comes happiness. Perhaps the absence of bad things is really as good as it can be.

That sounds more pessimistic than I mean it to be.

After a frustrating time, Beloved got a new job. It has him away more than I'd like him to be, but I'm happy to see he is engaged and interested in what he's doing. Though I haven't written about it much here, I've been very hard at work on my first real novel. It's one of the things I've been waiting about, and there were many times in this year that I wondered really what I should do about it, if I should do anything about it, so I just took critiques and revised and waited and sent it out and waited and revised it some more. And at BlogHer Writers '11, I solidified what I want the next novel to be and started an outline. It's not ready to come out yet, but it's there, humming below the surface in between drafts and revisions of my first novel, just waiting to be born. I keep asking it to please wait a little longer until I can push this first-born novel out of the nest. It is impatient.

Chateau Travolta unexpectedly got a new roof in 2011, thank you, hail storm. We've had Petunia the cat now longer than we had the monster-eating Bella, which sort of blows my mind. Somehow, while I wasn't paying attention, that milestone ticked over and she became more dear to me even though the vet hates her and my niece thinks she is the cat who only says HISS.

The little angel and I took down the Christmas decorations today, and as I put them away I realized how much she has grown since we moved to Chateau Travolta the year she was three and still in a toddler bed. Somehow -- while I wasn't paying attention -- she became a girl who is in second grade and wears skinny jeans and sings along to the radio and wears an apron and takes my order for dinner. In seven more years, she'll be close to getting a learner's permit and the car will be paid off and we'll all have our Internet passwords embedded in a small chip implanted behind our left ears. My parents will be in their mid-seventies and I will be almost 45 and maybe we'll all have subsidized healthcare. Or maybe the world really will end in 2012 and the aliens will find our tweets and wonder what the hell #shitmydadsays means, but certainly it must have been a prophet of some sort for all the attention we paid it. The Kardashians will be on their 52nd plastic surgery and cars will fly, but not mine, because I'll hold on to that Corolla for dear life and we'll finally have paid off the move of 2007.

When I think back over 2011, a lot of things happened to the people around me but not a lot happened to me, and that's okay. Because nothing really bad happened to me, either, and perhaps now that I'm 37 years old and almost 38, I've come to appreciate the lack of bad nearly as much as the abundance of good, because good can also be peaceful hamburgers on the deck when the light turns gold in summer and Christmas lights that all work and a furnace that still functions and a soft bed. I appreciate all that so much more than I did before I learned how easily it can all go up poof, like that, just like that.

It's almost 2012, and I'm still waiting for some things I've worked on so hard to come to fruition. There were many, many nights in 2011 that I cried over the waiting. But when I really think about it, maybe the waiting itself contributes to happiness, because when it finally comes, it will feel so much better than if it had just fallen in my lap.

Here's to the upcoming year. Here's to hoping you get what you're waiting for.

Hello wonderful readers! I have been waffling over whether to blog or take a break during the winter holidays, and then yesterday the universe decided to provide me directives by sending me and Laurel the dreaded stomach bug. Yesterday was beyond awful, but we are on the mend and moving forward with Christmas plans (though somewhat subdued, and with the mindset that we will pull back as needed). However, I will follow the universe's sign and take the holiday break off here! If anything truly timely comes up, I will share quick links via Twitter and Facebook so please feel free to connect there. Meanwhile, assuming my health comes back to me quickly, below are some things I'd like to do during the winter break. Have a wonderful holiday!

1. Enjoy Christmas with my family. (Hopefully not give anyone else the plague.)

2. Go ice skating with Jon and the girls. (Now pending depending on state of plague.)

3. Finish my book outlines and deliver them to my potential publisher.

4. Purge my closet.

5. Tidy up my office.

6. Take Laurel and Violet to see The Muppets.

7. Make an editorial plan for Boston Mamas.

8. Finally print, frame, and hang photos including Violet.

9. Order school supplies to donate to Laurel's classroom.

10. Revamp my professional landing page.

11. Bake something really delicious with Laurel.

12. Reconcile my financial paperwork.

13. Enjoy an evening out with Jon.

14. Celebrate New Year's with family and friends and set intentions for 2012.

15. If there is snow, take Laurel sledding. Also take some gratuitous photos of Laurel and Violet on a sled.

16. Learn some new chords on my mandola. (I recently learned to play my first song!)

Do you have any specific things you'd love to do this holiday break? I'd love to hear them!

I've been including poems with my holiday cards since I was 21 and I sent out Christmas pieces of paper instead of Christmas cards because I was too broke to buy cards. I'm 37 now, so that means I've sent out 16 holiday poems.

And this year, I didn't.

This year, I was working on revisions on my novel and all my creative energy went to that. This year, I sat down at least three times and the words wouldn't come. This year, I wondered if maybe that well had dried up, if I'd said everything there was to say about the holidays and family and goodness and light.

There were a few complaints. And I felt guilty. I'm really pleased people liked them enough to be sad when they ended ... but not enough to try to force something that just wouldn't come. I was telling Beloved about this problem when the little angel piped up that she would be happy to write one. Since I've already sent out my holiday greetings, this year, here are the poems she wrote. I think I'm passing the torch. From now on, there's a new sheriff in town.

Happy holidays to you from the Arens bards!

Snow

Nose

Only

Wow!

Man

Awesome

Nice

Sliding

Lightning-fast

Exciting

Daring

Christ

Holiday

Rejoice

Israel

Stocking

Tinsel

Mary

Angel

Santa

Dreidl

Exciting

Cradle

Elves

Mistletoe

Berries

Embark

Remember

Pursuant to yesterday's St. Thomas: In the Air post, I now want to share our experiences on the ground. As I mentioned yesterday, I embarked on this journey with both 7-year-old Laurel and 9-month-old Violet in tow to really put the family friendliness of the island to a test. I also paid to bring my mother along, both to fulfill my life list goal of taking her on a vacation and also to have an extra set of eyes for the kids. Below I cover transport, activities, accommodations, and food, and also address questions my readers asked, regarding traveling with kids.
This was my first time visiting the U.S. Virgin Islands and I was immediately taken by the juxtaposition of beauty and grit in St. Thomas. Unlike some destinations, which try to cover up anything short of perfect, St. Thomas clearly includes beautiful beaches and historical attractions that make for an active tourism industry, and also real people simply living their lives. When I travel, I'm not drawn towards commercial districts (unless they include indie stores), given that I have no desire to shop chains that I can find at home when I'm away. Instead, in St. Thomas, I was fascinated by the winding roadways, architecture, meandering roosters and baby goats, and roadside vendors offering local produce, baked goods (guavaberry tarts!), and drinks. The only problem about driving my family around was that it made it impossible for me to take photos (most of the roadways lack shoulders) of all of this gritty yet natural beauty. And of course, when we were on the beach, the beauty seemed almost impossible. Here are the major travel components I observed during the trip.

Transport:

Because I was traveling with my kids, the USVI DOT kindly arranged a rental car for me (other press trip members rode in a touring safari). I brought Laurel's clek olli booster (the compact size is perfect for travel) and reserved a car seat for Violet (utterly necessary...I truly would not have been able to carry one more thing). I became remarkably facile at driving on the left side of the road, helped no doubt by the fact that the steering wheel is still on the left side of the car. The only point of confusion was that cars (or at least the one I was driving) operate via a push button. You still have a car remote to lock/unlock the car but there is no key -- instead, press hard on the brake and push the button to start. Who knew?

When I return to the islands, my inclination would be to again rent a car so we have flexibility in getting around. Otherwise, the taxi network is huge in St. Thomas. I believe there are over 1,300 taxis on St. Thomas alone.

Activities:

As I mentioned, my preference when traveling is to explore local cultural attractions. Coral World Ocean Park is a must see if you visit St. Thomas -- it's manageable in size yet with plenty to see. My Mom and Laurel went especially crazy over seeing iguanas roaming around and feeding the rainbow lorikeets. And even baby Violet loved the Marine Gardens -- these indoor tanks (built into the walls and illuminated in otherwise dark rooms) offered plenty of contrast for her to see (I'm super impressed with the fish photo I captured, below) -- she was actually laughing out loud and clapping watching the fish dart around. My only regret was that we missed our sea lion encounter.

We also enjoyed an island tour that included a crazy ride to the peak of St. Thomas -- all the roadways are narrow and going up the mountain there were hairpin turns that seemed impossible to navigate but were actually doable. The St. Thomas Skyride would have been wonderful to try, but was unfortunately closed.

However, and perhaps not surprisingly, what made St. Thomas so special for us was the water access. Typically when we hit the beaches in New England, it feels like polar bear diving, even in the summer. The ability to get in the water and be comfortable was amazing. And whether you decide to do something like the Virgin Islands Ecotours (they offer kayak, hike, and snorkeling tours of the St. Thomas Mangrove Lagoon Marine Sanctuary among other options) or take advantage of your hotel's beachfront access, it's pretty amazing. We stayed at the Ritz-Carlton and also toured the Bolongo Bay Beach Resort and water activities were front and center at both destinations. We spent more time at the Ritz-Carlton beach because it was, well, utterly perfect, and it was fantastic to be able to access kayaks, paddleboats, standing paddleboards, and even snorkels. Laurel and I snorkeled for the first time together, which was a truly spectacular experience.

Accommodations:

After our family trip to California and this trip to St. Thomas, I have a new perspective on hotels. On the one hand, if you're out and about you mostly just sleep in your hotel. On the other hand, your hotel will be your home base and if you're traveling with kids there are amenities you will want and need. My default used to be to find the least expensive (yet not totally scummy) accommodation possible. However, when I booked our trip to Berkeley, Jon suggested we step it up a notch and get something we would be really happy and comfortable with. And it totally paid off, particularly in having elements like a café, pool, and family friendly service.

Staying at the Ritz-Carlton elevated that perspective to a different level. While no, I don't want to be completely insulated from the rest of the world at an all inclusive property such as the Ritz, after plenty of touring around in St. Thomas, it felt fantastic to spend the rest of the day soaking up the amenities and excellent service. Some of the highlights that made traveling with kids really fantastic:

Our room was equipped with a King bed + a pull out sofa bed. Normally I like connected rooms when we're traveling with kids, but my Mom did not want a separate room when I offered to get her one and I figured Laurel and Violet would want to be with me (I was right about that). Also, we just completely winged it with sleep (i.e., they went to bed late) and it worked out fine.

The hotel provided us with a fully appointed crib and a refrigerator for Violet's food.

At the pool or beach, staff would set up towels on your chair.

You could order food and eat beachside.

The resort activities were fantastic and the staff was terrific with kids.

The customer service was phenomenal. Incredibly helpful was a car valet service and also golf carts that would take you around on the property. (Especially helpful when I cut my feet on something in the ocean yet still needed to carry Violet around.)

The Ritz St. Thomas also has a kids program available for a separate fee. We didn't want or need that, but it would be a handy option if, say, the adults wanted to go on an Ecotour while the kids got to enjoy beach activities. They also offer babysitting service (which we didn't need).

So yes, I realize that the Ritz is a luxury property but the experience there was so phenomenal that I would totally go back. I think it's a matter of prioritizing and budgeting in advance, and perhaps taking advantage of cost-saving approaches such as traveling off peak. It also helps that most of the family travel we tend to do is by car so when we do embark on destination travel, I feel OK splurging.

That said, there are definitely other accommodation options on the island. The USVI DOT has a great accommodations guide, and while I was on the island, I did have a chance to tour Bolongo Bay Beach Resort. And while it's certainly not as fancy as the Ritz-Carlton, Bolongo is less expensive and offers immediate beachfront access, a small pool, restaurants, and water activities. I also like that this is a family owned property.

Food:

I was really happy with the food in St. Thomas. It was a great mix of local and standard fare to accommodate any appetite -- Laurel and my mother are both vegetarians and they didn't have any trouble finding tasty things to eat. Also excellent? Every single restaurant we went to -- whether at the hotel or downtown -- offered a kids menu or the staff was willing to make up something "not too crazy" (e.g., pasta with vegetables, no sauce) for Laurel. Not stressing about her finding something to eat was fantastic.

Reader Questions:

I queried on Twitter and Facebook in advance of this trip to find out top travel concerns from my readers. Below is the Q & A:

Q: Does the hotel have connecting rooms so adults don't have to go to bed at 8pm with the kids?
A: Suite options were an option at the Ritz (or our room definitely had connecting doors to the adjacent room) and I believe are also available at Bolongo. Definitely check with different hotels that fit your price range though!

Q: Is there a kids camp of kid-friendly activities?
A: Yes, at the Ritz. Again, you'd need to check your specific hotel.

Q: Are there "separate but equal" things for kids and adults?
A: I found that Coral World and the water activities in particular were fantastically fun for both kids and adults.

Q: Can kids eat in the main restaurant of the destination?
A: Kids were welcome everywhere we went, even at one really fancy restaurant (as evidenced by the fact that they had high chairs and were willing to make Laurel's dinner special).

Q: Is there a bar?
A: Yes, drinks were available at all the restaurants/hotels I saw.

Q: Is there a pool?
A: Yes, at both Ritz and Bolongo.

Q: Is there a place to put stuff up high so kids can't reach?
A: I found the closet to be the best place to keep things out of reach.

Q: Is there coffee in the room?
A: Yes, at Ritz.

Q: Is there babysitting?
A: Yes, at Ritz, though we didn't use.

Q: Are there kitchen facilities in the room?
A: Our room did not have a kitchenette, but even having a fridge (to store leftovers) was fantastic for cutting down on food waste/expense. Otherwise, check the USVI DOT accommodations guide for different options.

Q: Is there food my kids will eat?
A: Yes, as described above.

Summary:

In short, we had an amazing time in St. Thomas. It was a beautiful place to explore, there was a remarkable friendliness and ease and affection among the locals (everyone called me and each other "sweetie"), and it was so meaningful for me to take my mother along with my girls. I am very eager to return to the islands -- I'd love to explore St. Croix and St. John and am not so secretly contemplating booking a trip for me and Jon to celebrate once I finish nursing Violet. I highly recommend visiting the U.S. Virgin Islands -- not surprisingly, peak season runs from Christmas until April so if you'd like to make the trip more budget friendly, travel outside of that time window. But whether on or off peak, the escape will be magical!

Many thanks again to the USVI Department of Tourism for inviting me on this press trip.