Today:
- Ran 11 miles, half of which were cross-country and trail;
- Painted the basement walls
- Painted the porch pillar and the repaired tuck pointing in the foundation
- Mowed the lawn
- Repainted the bathroom door, where Gabe threw a fit and bashed it because Sam was taunting him on the other side
- Got stuck in traffic due to an incredibly bloated 5K being held downtown, directly in front of the church where the kids had play practice
- Felt like collapsing. Several times.

For the record, ventilation when painting is hugely overrated. The dancing spiders in the basement agreed with me, just before offering to choreograph me into their strange yet beautiful reel…

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I’ve been cleaning, organizing, purging, what have you, in our thrust toward getting out of this place. This week, it’s been all about the kids’ rooms. You would not believe the amount of crap I’ve tossed or donated, or maybe you would, if you’ve got kids. I’m working on a theory that it multiplies…mates…breeds when you’re not looking. Look here:

SpongeBob doesn't even wear a watch...

I remember buying a SpongeBob watch for Gabe – one watch. So why did I find two? And this is just one example of the mysteries I’ve given up trying to solve. Don’t even speak to me of Legos. I mean it; I’ll have to start throwing them at you. And the next kid who asks me for a piece of paper gets pushed into the towering pile of notebooks, each with two or three doodles contained inside, I’ve plumbed from every corner of their playroom.

Still in my pajama pants; I didn’t even manage to get dressed today. Good thing I decided upon waking that it was going to be a rest day; my lats are destroyed from my brilliant plan of doing ten burpees after each mile of my six-miler on Tuesday. I can barely lift my arms. But it’s a good agony, right?

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Days pass like that, and weeks, and before you know it, you are going to start forgetting those moments you were too tired to recall just then but didn’t really want to forget.

I don’t want to forget.

In April, Sam and I ran two 5Ks. I need to recap those more thoroughly, and I will, but let it suffice for now to say that they had their ups and downs, and that he continues to run and plan for his triathlon next month, as well as for another 5K (Race for the Bacon!) and possibly one of the shorter Lighthouse Run distances (two or four mile).

The week after the second 5K, on May 5, I ran the Wisconsin Half-Marathon on a complete whim. I needed something to cheer me up in a huge way, make me feel strong and mentally whole again. See, the week before, our house got burglarized. Yes, again. Yes, really. This time, they kicked in the door; I was only out of the house for a few hours, but when I came back, I found the door standing open, lock smashed, and most of our electronics gone, as well as my jewelry. Needless to say, this second violation (within two years!) has us all feeling very traumatized in various ways. We’ll be moving as soon as we can; I hope that helps.

That’s one set of feelings I wouldn’t mind forgetting, actually. Somehow, I doubt I ever will.

On a better note, Sam got into the second of the two charter schools, the smaller one. We’re thrilled! Also, one of his school friends got in, too, so he’s happy he’ll be seeing at least one familiar face there. Now, to get through the rest of this year! I can’t believe how quickly it’s coming to an end; I nearly missed signing them up for their playground programs, since my brain didn’t register that it was That Time again. We’re just getting from day to day; looking ahead more than a few days into the future feels impossible. Swimming, basketball, running, church…it makes a pattern that keeps us constantly in motion.

I hope to be back with more details soon. Here, have some pictures:

Robo-Gabe

Sam's first 5K

Empty jewelry box

Lego time

At the pool

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*sniffle*

Eric told me you guys wouldn’t buy that I’d be naive enough to fall for it; should I be offended, then, that a few people did believe I was? I liked Gabe’s prank on Eric, honestly; he woke him up by “tearfully” confessing that he’d accidentally hit a neighbor’s car with his basketball when he was playing outside yesterday. The lingering drowsiness and plausibility of the tale had Eric going for a good ten seconds before he realized the date.

Procrastinating, now; I’ve got quarter-mile repeats to run, and I feel stubborn about it. Oh, I’ll do them, but am feeling very “grrrr,” for some reason. I think it’s the weather; so sunny outside, but that temporary teasing with warmth a couple weeks ago makes the low fifties feel chilly by comparison. Want it back. (Not much warmer – I’m picky – but Just. Exactly. Like THAT.)

Twist my arm, make me go…

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(Note: it’s a good thing I finally got texting turned on when I got my new phone! Never needed it before, and neither have my parents much, but I guess it came in handy for them tonight!)

Mom and Dad are in England, stuck. I knew they were going on a trip soon, with Mom retiring, but I didn’t have any details, so it was a surprise to hear they were there. Well, my grandma and her sister used to do that sort of thing, take off for Scandinavia and not tell anybody, so maybe it’s not so weird. But here’s the thing: they got mugged. They’re okay, thank goodness! But…no money or passports anymore, and thus no way to get home or to pay their hotel. Mom’s flipping out, not even spelling words right (and if you know Mom, you know that’s practically unheard of).

I couldn’t get hold of Eric, who’s out, but I managed to figure out how to use Western Union to send some money their way. That should help, though I’m not sure it’ll be enough; don’t know a thing about passports, and Mom says they may need more money to replace them? She’ll text again soon, she said.

Man, this is nerve-wracking.

So send some thoughts their way; hopefully, we can get them home soon. And, tangentially, I bet good ol’ Myrtle Beach looks pretty sweet as a vacation spot to them at this point. Sun, golf, and no passports required. Oh, well. Didn’t get any details about why they chose England in the first place, but maybe we have family there (I got an email last week about a distant relation there who I’d never even met who left me some money – a lucky thing, under present circumstances…).

Might try to sleep now, waiting for the next message.

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Wondered how my shoulder would take it. Since the injury in November, it’s been steadily improving, and I hardly notice any pain at all these days unless I particularly tax it, but some of the movements yesterday were certainly more than I’ve asked of the joint in months. It feels…okay…today, but I do think I’m going to baby it and watch it for a little bit. I want strength back there, certainly, but easy (still) does it. It was primarily the overhead exercises yesterday that worried me.

Sam and I ran during Gabe’s swim yesterday, which ended up being, well, not exactly “miserable,” but not a cheerful happy time, either. Should have brought a hat along for him; his wet head after his own swimming lesson made him feel very chilled in the wind and cold air. I was in shorts, myself, but I’m used to it; he griped and moaned for almost the entire run about how his ears hurt. Mind you, his legs and lungs did fine; it was just the temperature that bothered him. So I’ll still count it as a decent run for him – just not a decent day. (He had trouble with listening and working in swimming, too, so it’s likely he was having a bad day all around. He seemed confused when I brought that up, though.)

Here’s something interesting, though (and I’ll be as vague as I can, because he is definitely growing and finding some things very definitely “private” lately). Sam has never been a kid who keeps feeling locked up; he’s got as much of a poker face as I do, which is to say that neither of us should ever expect to leave Vegas richer than we arrived. (I am also not allowed to attend any high-pressure sales events; Eric told me, after witnessing me at one, that the salesman immediately zeroed in on me in particular as his “mark.”) A couple of nights ago, Sam scraped his knee slightly, and he began to freak out about it, whimpering and whining. After only a few seconds of it, though, he abruptly stopped himself. “I’m not going to whine,” he said. “[Name of girl] wouldn’t like a boy who whines.”

I really like this girl, and I’ve only met her in passing.

Yes, Sam has fallen hard for a classmate, in exactly the manner I suppose I could have predicted he would from when he was a dreamy preschooler: saying their names together, making her necklaces and giving her flowers, writing her notes. For her part, she’s giggling with friends and doing the whole “group think” flirting behavior typical of the age group; messages get passed like, “[J] says that [M] says that she likes Sam and one other boy. Giggle, giggle.” I remember when I was a fifth grader, and I’d say fully half the “relationships” in our grade took place between kids who may never have spoken about it face-to-face between the two of them. Sam is…well, he’s Sam. He doesn’t do things that way. On Valentine’s Day, he bought a silk rose and handed it to her himself – in front of her friends. That takes nerve, for an eleven-year-old boy, I think.

Anyway, we like her. Apparently, she has the power, without saying a word, to stop whining. She also has the ability, without being present, to get Sam to try sushi (under my suggestion that a girl who practices Ninjitsu might well like sushi), even if he spat it back out immediately after valiantly popping it into his mouth (“For [M.]!” he cried). I just hope this all doesn’t end in a precociously broken heart and bad poetry about never finding love again. Ah, my young romantic.

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(Side note: I didn’t put two and two together about how tired I was, given the relatively manageable level of my own running mileage, until I realized that I’m actually doing 6-7 more miles a week on top of that with Sam. Okay, that makes more sense now.)

Sam’s doing so incredibly well, now that the weather’s turning a bit milder, and Gabe is scary in how he morphs into this Big Kid when he’s working outside our family unit. He got pegged hard in the face with the basketball during the last practice, and I watched him reel and stagger…and hold in his tears until he was “safely” away from the other kids after practice ended before letting out his cries. Nobody told him to be tough, but he felt compelled to act the role, which is so strange for me to see. I think I might have cried, honestly; it made a big smack as it hit him, and we all winced.

And then there’s church stuff (Holy Week coming up, so extra choir practice), school stuff (apparently, it’s field trip season), and lots of other little activities sprinkled in, and it’s getting harder and harder to make sure everybody is where they’re supposed to be and doing what they need to be doing, but at the same time, it’s neat to see all these things happening in their lives, isn’t it? Love seeing them make choices and grow.

As for me, as I said, I’m running moderate mileage, but I’m sticking to my guns about the resolution I made early in the year about working on speed. I ran another 5K this month, a couple of weeks ago, and was mildly disappointed not to have made much improvement since the Run Into the New Year; I actually finished in 25:44, which is slower – but, then the RINY 5K was on a flat course, whereas this one had a couple of big climbs and featured winds gusting near 40mph in parts. (I actually ran part of this course way back in 2008, and I was hoping I remembered the hills wrong, having been in worse shape then…my memory was, sadly, accurate.) Okay, so I’ll cut myself some slack on the time, but the part where I was disappointed is how I allowed myself to slow down so much when I began feeling tired in the middle. Unacceptable. Therefore, I’m bumping up the intensity a little with speed training. Ow, tempo runs hurt…

Like I mentioned, Sam has a 5K in a few weeks, and I’m doing it, too, of course. I’m looking forward to celebrating with him no matter how I do, myself. That’ll make up for any wind-sucking I have to do. Really, 5Ks are hard, if you do them “right.” Now I remember why I liked going longer…

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We also have a budding devotion to league play. Unfortunately that “right place” he found was inside a mall a little over a half-hour drive away on the interstate. I mean, it’s a great little group, run by the fun young people working at the Board Game Barrister, and they’ve done a bang-up job at making the experience welcoming and positive for everybody (there’s this precocious little guy, probably a couple of years younger than Gabe, who’s been there every week we have so far, and he’s hanging in with everybody else). I love that mall, and it’s right next to an awesome coffee shop, and there’s a Trader Joe’s right there, and if it were closer, I’d have no objection at all to this. But it isn’t, so it’s sort of a commitment.

This week, though, I ran past another gaming store which is closer to our house, and hey! There was a sign in the window about a Pokémon league every weekend! Well, that’s convenient! I ran it past the kids, and they were game to try it out.

Cutting to the chase, it was…different. I could tell the moment we walked in the door that “different” was going to be the best way to describe it. For starters, the only kids I saw were hanging out around the edges of the store, playing on handheld video games; the tables were occupied by adults. Well, I say “adults,” because that was the initial impression. Can you really use that term to apply to folks who start pounding the table with their fists when the play goes against them, yelling, “Cheater! CHEATER!”

Eric asked one man a question about how things were run, and the next thing he knew, he was getting schooled by a senior citizen who can only be described as “intense.” The man CARED. Deeply. Pokémon is Serious Business, apparently. Eric nodded and disengaged as quickly as he could. I hovered on the outskirts, taking pictures of models.

Sam and Gabe played each other, while in the background, the grownups raged against each other. The guy running the event seemed unsure about how to deal with them; he tried to get them to settle down, but that simply wasn’t happening. When a few of them finished their battles (including the woman, who whined and grumped loudly about losing and missing her “goal for the day”), they began circling and actually came up to where my kids were playing and began trying to coach them along; it took everything in me not to grab the kids and run. I stood there instead, trying to be “a presence,” so that hopefully the atmosphere of madness wouldn’t grow to envelope my boys.

Luckily, an official tournament started after that, and Sam and Gabe decided they’d had enough, so we left. “I like the other league better,” Gabe said. “There were kids there. This wasn’t as fun.” I hastily agreed with him. I’d rather make the weekly drive to avoid jumping into this particular experience again. We went to the next-door restaurant, and when the hostess heard where we’d been, she rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, they come in here after that, and they are so strange,” she said. Gabe and Sam nodded. Very unsettling way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

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I heard the garbage truck coming down the street. Suddenly, inspiration struck. “Boys! I hear the garbage truck. The garbage truck is coming!”

“WHERE? WHERE?” They ran to the window, as fast as their legs would carry them. “Can you see it? Is it here yet?” Their hands and noses pressed to the glass in anticipation.

All is right with the world, and my Big Boys are still my Little Guys.

Way back when, only yesterday...

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The collage hanging in our stairway

Guys? This is the part where you lie to me, tell me that, no, it was just the little kid years that flew by like I was blinking, that the rest of it slows way down, that he’s going to stop morphing into a man while I’m standing here, watching it happen.

He went to “shadow” at the second hippie-dippy middle school yesterday, and I’m really going to need to come up with another nickname for it if he gets in, because that sounds like I’m not 100% on-board with the whole concept. It’s not exactly far off the mark when Eric calls me a dirty hippie, myself, so, sure, I’m down with Sam potentially calling his teachers by their first names and stopping to pet the school dog on his way down to the bathroom where they’re growing the hydroponic tomatoes. Cool with me, y’know? More importantly, cool with him. Yesterday’s visit was a particular success, since he actually got to know a couple kids by name, and he got to sit in on a comics class. No kidding. So he likes that school, I’d have to say.

We’re in the waiting game now, where we’ll chew our nails and check the mail to see if his name gets picked in the lottery to attend either charter school. If not, well, he’ll go to Mega-Middle and be a good little cog. I know, I know. I’m not telling him that! I’m being all sugar and cream about the whole business, talking to him about each school’s pros and cons, and he thinks he’d probably be happy anywhere. (Mega-Middle has ROBOTICS. That soothes a lot of worries for a ten-year-old boy.) ALl the same, I heard him pray last night to get into one of the hippie schools, and darn it, I’m not a rock. That twisted my gut.

This is stupid, really. We didn’t do this when I was a kid. You lived in a neighborhood, so you went to that school. My elementary school fed to three different middle schools, and if your parents didn’t like the one you were supposed to go to, well, then, it was the Christian school for you, where they had to hold their hands folded at their waists when they walked demurely down the halls. (I had friends who went there.) There wasn’t a whole lot of anxiety involved, so far as I was aware. Maybe we have too many choices these days. Maybe if this wasn’t going on at the same time as my friends with younger kids are frantically doing the “which elementary school?” dance, which is constantly keeping it at the forefront of my brain. Gah.

In the meantime, little Gabe is obsessed with Pokemon, and that’s JUST FINE. He can stay small, and obsessed with small child things, just as long as he wants.

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Trying so very, very hard to maintain a level of calm and predictability around this place, even as little complications creep in. Sam has a trip to one of the hippie-dippy middle schools tomorrow morning (and the other one next week), to shadow an older kid around the place and get a feel for things, in the ever-tense situation of “where the heck will I be next year?” Gabe is going through another bout of separation anxiety, with tears and pleas for hearts drawn on his hand before he leaves for school every morning. Swimming lessons are going, well, swimmingly for Sam, not so much for Gabe, though I may go broke on Pokemon cards, since they seem to motivate cooperation in Gabe more than anything else I’ve tried.

Sam’s officially signed up for a junior triathlon this summer. I took him with me to an expo this weekend, where he tried on a pair of little tri shorts and was immediately struck with a rip-roaring case of Quaker-level appalled modesty. Too short! Too tight! Not in public! We ran into a church friend a few minutes later, a man who does tris, and he tried to encourage Sam to “just do your thing, and nobody’s going to care what you’re wearing!” A friend of the man was there, and he offered to sell us a pair of knee-length jammers he’d bought for his grandson that hadn’t been worn; Sam seemed almost okay with that, so I agreed.

Carl, our friend, handed them off to us last night, and Sam tried them on in his room. For a moment, there was a strong sense of

So, I hear there’s a football game this weekend. Since there are no Mountaineers or Packers involved, I’m pretty sure I couldn’t care less. You?

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So we were in the car later, and Gabe started chattering about it. “And I think you need to have a body to have a real funeral, right, Mom?”

“Well, not necessarily. What if somebody drowned, and they couldn’t find the body? Their family could still have a funeral to say goodbye.”

“Okay, but Sam and [neighborhood friend] said ‘rest in peace.’ I don’t think that bird could rest in peace if it’s gone.”

I muttered, apparently not quietly enough, “It’s resting in pieces…”

Sam: “MOM! That’s awful! It was just a poor defenseless bird!”

Gabe, without a pause, replied, “You don’t know it was defenseless. Maybe it just lost!”

I swam today! Been waiting on my shoulder to heal properly enough to allow me to swim for a long time, and now I can do a breaststroke without more than occasional small twinges when I lose form! Still can’t do a crawl without pain, but I’m just happy to be back in the water. It brightened my whole morning.

Eric’s medical prep peaks tonight. I don’t intend to get into details, except to say that we both snorted when we read the section of the instructions that referred to me as Eric’s “responsible adult.” So, anyway, keep him in your (vague) thoughts for tonight and tomorrow. Poor guy.

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Of course, this week, I’m taking things really easy, running-wise. I think I’m putting the kibosh on the Newton running shoes, once and for all, or at least for the foreseeable future. Every blasted time I put them on, my peroneal tendon – which developed tendonitis years ago, and that stuff is chronic – starts complaining, and it takes a solid period of babying it to get it to shut up again. I swear, I only went on a few very short runs this time wearing them, two weeks ago, and I’m still with the icing and resting. So this week I’m going to stick to other cardio for the most part and just let it be completely. I’m not a “Newton runner,” I guess.

Anyway, this week is already going to be goofy. The kids are off school today, which meant I had to go to the Y early to be home in time for Eric to head to work. Then on Wednesday, Eric’s got some medical tests for which I need to be on hand to help chauffeur him; might be able to get a workout in around it, but also possible I’ll want to be at his beck and call, so I’m not counting on anything. Saturday night is his company’s holiday party – a bit late, but nice to have, nevertheless. Lots going on, so juggling will have to happen.

Honestly, though, I have to say that probably the main reason I’ve had success with fitness since I started running (five years ago in June!) is that I decided it wasn’t going to be “optional.” Exercise had to be non-negotiable, like a medication I need to take on a regular basis. It’s not something I allow myself to skip on the basis of “I don’t feel like it” – that way leads to more skipping, and more skipping, until I’d have completely fallen off. I know myself well enough to accept that. I try to plan no later than the night before for the following day’s workout; early morning sessions necessitate having the gear and clothes lying right beside my bed, so all I have to do is step into them and go. It took a long time to become habit, but now it is, and I’m happy about that.

Speaking of habits, housework calls. Trying to make Mondays “Kitchen Days.” Rockstar life!

Sundays are for bathrooms. I think I got more satisfaction from this than from the Packers game...

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Among other things making me feel decrepit and ancient, we had the second middle school orientation. I don’t feel quite as frantic as I did when we were struggling to keep Sam out of his home elementary school; this middle school, although huge and with a reputation toward conform-or-be-bullied, sort of has the flavor of my own middle school: tons of what we used to call “related arts” classes (cooking, shop, technology, etc.), lots of extracurriculars, and a brief lunch period that seems to rely heavily on pizza. (Seriously, the teacher discussing lunch mentioned the pizza no less than five times within two minutes, including the “special pizza” on Fridays.) Part of me wants to believe that with a student population so large, there will have to be other boys like Sam around to, I dunno, share the load of being goofy and frequently strange. I mean, hey, I ran into an old friend there with whom I hadn’t spoken in a couple of years, and she’s nervous about her son going there, since he, too, tends to be the short, skinny kid who doesn’t fit into the group. Maybe Sam won’t be so alone?

Still crossing my fingers for Hippie School #1 or #2 (I visited the second one, and it turns out to be a smaller version of the first charter school in most ways). I get good feelings about Sam fitting in well in those. Heck, everybody I tell who knows Sam agrees. But not going to get my hopes up too high; there are only 75 spots at HS#1 and 50 at HS#2. (Joy, I’d have no problem home-schooling Gabe, but I can’t see it working with Sam. Maybe he’s too much like me; I have enough trouble just getting through a single work session with him. I’ve been having him use Khan Academy to help with some math issues, and for some reason, he takes it as a insult to his pride whenever I so much as glance over his shoulder. Mom is NOT ALLOWED. )

We finally have snow. I’m already over it.

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Told Mom I was going to make this shirt. She could have one, too, I said, since it affects her like it affects me; obviously, if I’m old enough to be sitting in a gymnasium for a freaking middle school orientation, then she, as my mother, must be ancient.

But for real. This kid isn’t old enough for middle school!

Right? And obviously this girl isn’t old enough to have a kid old enough to go to middle school…

…shut up.

(Oh, the memory; she plays cruel, cruel tricks.)

Anyway, it was a very nice middle school, if I have to send my kid off to the dark and horrible place that middle school holds in the recesses of my recollections. This one is a charter school, and it’s all alternative thinking, and no bells, and random dog in the hallway, and calling teachers by their first names. Sam would probably love it and thrive there, once he got past the initial bump of realizing that he would have to be more of his own boss. Then again, it’s a very competitive lottery, so I’m not getting my hopes up, and I’m trying to discourage him from counting his chickens, too. The orientation for his home middle school is tomorrow night, and maybe it won’t be so bad…maybe all those police calls for fighting are, y’know, exaggerated in the newspaper…(somebody hold me!)

So, say Sam doesn’t make it into the hippie-dippy middle school, and my little free spirit becomes a target for bullies at the home school. There are other options, too. Another charter school, from which I’m waiting to hear back. Maybe the Christian school, though it’s private and expensive. And maybe the home school wouldn’t be so bad, after all; some people are reassuring me that it’s not. Demons always seem to rear their heads more vividly in your rear-view mirror than they do through the windshield. He’ll probably be fine wherever he goes…probably.

Man, do I wish I was sending Gabe with him. Not wishing Gabe’s life into fast-forward, of course, but if ever there was a brother willing to step up and defend his brother against all comers, it’s that one, bless him. But they won’t be in school together again after this year – unless, of course, they get into one of the charter schools, which are sixth through twelfth grades. Another reason to keep fingers crossed!

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But the only thing sore this morning are my calves, which is completely unfair. I broke out my Newton running shoes again yesterday for another try at adjusting my form (I got them in June but quickly decided I didn’t have time to deal with a slow adjustment period before gearing up for JFK), and I did exactly what was suggested in Natural Running, right down to only a “slow, ten-minute jog to warm up.” Well, ouch. Darn it.

Side note: I did the workout in my “prison gym,” which is the dismal, run-down basement of the Y where they keep the indoor track. I wanted to jump rope and do the form drills, so it seemed the best place, but it was hilariously awful; I half expected to hear wardens yelling at inmates around me. Also, when’s the last time you jumped rope? I hadn’t since perhaps middle school, so that, too, was hysterical. I think I made it up to 45 jumps once before my wrists and feet got off-track from each other. Perhaps that lack of coordination, plus the balance problems revealed sharply as I was doing the form drills, explain why I fall down so much?

Anyway, going to be a slow run today, and in my regular shoes. Baby steps, y’all. On the plus side, my shoulder feels much better; I think I’m almost getting to the point where I could consider swimming again! Not now, but maybe in another week or two…

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Unexpected, this, to place in my age group after a year of basically running longer-longer-longer and pretending that things like speedwork and track time didn’t exist. Of course, it helps when the race gives medals ten places deep in each age group, which is practically unheard of, but still. After no speed training for more than a year, and minimal running for the past six weeks on a bruised knee and with a bum shoulder, I logically should have been midpack at best. Guess the legs remembered a little of what they used to do.

Not much to talk about with a 5K; it’s over too fast for a lengthy report. The sun shone, it was chilly but not cold, and everybody was…5K-ish. I told a friend who was there that I think I prefer the low-key “non-energy” before an ultra; no point warming up or doing striders and skipping if you’re going to be running all day. The corral was crowded, full of folks who were Super Serious and those who looked like first-timers. Nobody seemed to have any inclination toward lining up according to how fast you expect to run; I saw plenty of folks near the front who were obviously not interested in trying to hold the pace the people near them were going to be doing. (Quickly scootched out from behind the pack of girls I initially took to be fast, but who began making giggly plans to run holding hands and jumping together. Yeah.)

Within thirty seconds of starting to run, I took an elbow to my sore shoulder from the very tall man running beside me. Ow.

But once I got out of the traditional 5K mosh pit, it was pretty much smooth sailing until the end. Honestly, I could have pushed harder, but, well, I’ve spend a long time now learning to push my endurance and not really having to visit the particular Pain Cave involved with running fast. That’s a different sort of willpower, and I’m out of practice.

Finished in 25:38, which is nowhere near my PR, but which is pretty good compared to what I’ve been running lately. It was even good enough, as I said, for tenth place in my age group. What it mostly is, though, is a benchmark. That Pain Cave I mentioned a paragraph ago? I’m going to be going there in 2012. This will be the year I regain my speed (relative though it is), with plenty of shorter races and such to test myself. I hope to round out the year with a very nice half-marathon. It’s not a “vacation year”; it’s a year of changing the focus. Long is good, but you can be lazy while going long. Sometimes, I hope, it pays to rev the motor a bit, even if you’re more of a long-range trucker than a sports car.

So. Here’s to the end of 2011, which had plenty of ups and downs for my running. Lots of injuries, but lots of milestones, too. I gave up my toenails, and I gained insight into gratitude for the miles. I got to learn about pool running when I was hurt, but I also learned to love swimming as a cross-training tool. I ran 5Ks and ultras, and they both taught me things I needed to know.

Tomorrow? I’m going for a run with my running club. Hope you’ll be out there, too.

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Sometimes, I just don’t know, and exploring deeper seems like a bad idea.

I have a race tomorrow morning, which completely just registered in my brain as something that’s happening. Just a 5K, but still. Like, “Holy crap, I have to go pin on a number.” Not looking to PR, with my knee still playing games with me (bone bruises are a pain, literally and figuratively), but it’s still a fun way to end the year.

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On the other hand, we did get to that basketball camp, and Gabe is in love. Love, love, love. He’s decided that he wants to be on a basketball team NOW, and since we grabbed a basketball from the toy store when we were out spending Christmas gift cards, he’s been dribbling it all over the house, demonstrating his Mad Skillz, yo. I mean, he’s still very much a seven-year-old beginner, but as far as he’s concerned, he’s Michael Jordan. (Sam participated and had fun, but he wasn’t as taken by the sport as his brother. He wanted to get back home and wire things. I kid you not, yesterday he and Eric built a freaking theremin with his electricity set.)

But then Gabe’s ear started throbbing, and he burst into a monster fever last night as he wailed, so we took him into our bed and cuddled him throughout the night until we could get him seen by our wonderful doctor this morning. He feels much better now, thankfully, and the doctor gave him her blessing to attend basketball camp tonight if he’s feeling well (he’s not coughing or sneezing, thankfully), so he’s happy. Hopefully, tonight will go better than last night; nighttime is always the hardest for him.

Enjoy your Wednesday!

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Low-key sort of day. Goose is in the oven – yes, it should have been for Christmas, but when I started to prep it yesterday, one of the initial instructions said to “scald and dry it,” which involved a 24-hour rest period afterward – and quite a lot of Eric’s prized “schmaltz” has already been collected from it. The kids spent a good amount of time destroying various things on their video games this morning, and now they’ve switched over to build mode, having unboxed their electrical sets. (I’ve teased them that when they get all that figured out, they can repair the poorly wired light switch in the upstairs hallway.) Amazing; I don’t understand a lick of it, beyond “must go in a complete circle.” Gabe knows more than I do at this point.

I wanted to get to the gym today, but I’m waiting on a call back about a program happening there for kids later this afternoon; if there’s space available for the kids, I’ll just go work out then. Hope there is. These holidays result in a sudden decrease in regularly scheduled and enforced large-motor-skill time that aggression builds up pretty quickly. I’ve taken to sending them out for runs around the block when they start going for each others’ throats. (Gabe, naturally, has embraced this idea; Sam has a horror of it.) Another session might be approaching soon, from what I’m now overhearing. Maybe I can con convince Sam to take another try on his Ripstik; he was frustrated yesterday by being unable to hop right on and ride, so he decided it was “too cold” and came in after a few minutes.

Goose is done. Smells awesome…

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(For the record, Skylanders is in the basement, wrapped and ready to go after he’s in bed Christmas Eve. )

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Eric was in Germany last week, and a few days into the trip, a coworker traveling with him posted to Facebook a picture of part of the meal they were eating. It was bread, and a bowl of…something. Immediately, there was dubious speculation amongst our friends, made all the more incredulous when the men said it was a bowl of goose fat, brought to the table as a spread, like butter. According to them, and to the disbelief of almost everybody reading stateside, it was delicious.

So Eric came home, and he wanted to share the “joy of schmalz” with everybody here, so he asked me to call the local butchers to see if they had any rendered goose fat. Failing that, he suggested some fresh goose or goose pieces we could roast on our own, in order to get the fat. Nobody had any fat, but one butcher was getting in some fresh geese this afternoon; did I want to reserve one? Well, Eric had told me to…

Fast forward. I came to the store, and was handed:

That is what we call a Whole Lot of Goose. It’s about ten pounds of previously honking, vicious, beaked and winged animosity, and it wasn’t cheap, either – not by a long shot.

I suppose I’ll be roasting goose tomorrow. I’ve never even tried goose before (let alone the rendered fat of one!). This’ll be an adventure, but I guess I’ll have to follow it through to the end at this point. Stay tuned…

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The PT actually scolded me a little at the last appointment, telling me to grab some “me time.” Well, ordinarily, that’s my run, but my knee is still grouchy. Had an MRI that showed just a little superficial swelling, and they said I could run “as tolerated,” but since I know I could easily “tolerate” myself into a major injury, I’m still being stingy with the mileage. Makes me grumpy to look at running logs of other JFK participants and see how quickly they bounced back.

At least I’m mostly done holiday shopping,  except for a couple of things…including for Eric. Is it me, or does shopping for a spouse gift get harder every year?

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One thing puke has going for it, though, over other forms of illness: total disambiguity. It’s not like a sore throat or headache, or even a cough. Throwing up means No School, with no room for subjectivity. Sam’s looking actually pretty healthy right now, playing Legos and being talkative, despite admitting that his stomach still hurts a bit, and if it hadn’t been for the undeniable evidence of illness, I’d be waffling over whether or not he ought to be at a desk right now. But puke is puke. No choice involved, so I feel mental relief on that end.

It’s easier that it’s Sam, of course. Not that I’d wish illness on either of my kids, but Sam is completely blasé about it. Gabe is my drama child; Sam takes what comes with some mild complaint, but doesn’t flail and scream. That’s my child; if you can’t change what is, well, then there’s no point thinking any further about it. (“Man, I hope my stomach stops hurting by lunchtime,” he says, and that’s the height of his frustration.) Gabe…well, I’ll get my chance to experience that side of things soon, I expect; Eric’s out of town, after all, so LET THE LORD OF CHAOS RULE.*

And now Sam’s making something involving rubber bands. I can’t wait to see this.

Gabe was unsure about heading off to school without Sam – the bus makes him nervous when he doesn’t have his brother on it with him – so I sketched a little angel on the back of his hand, which made him smile again. This is a child who likes something at which he can glance occasionally throughout the day, something tangible and reassuring. He was the one who required a heart drawn on the back of his hand, or often both hands, for weeks when he started kindergarten, so that he could stem the flow of homesick tears. Sam, Mr. “Take It as it Comes,” required no such thing. I wonder if his transition to middle school next year will be as seamless. Hope so, but middle school…man, I still get shudders.

Keep you fingers crossed that I don’t catch what Sam’s got. I don’t know which would be worse, Gabe or me, since at least if I stay healthy, I can keep us in fresh blankets and bowls.

*I never did finish that series. Bugged me when I found out Jordan had no plans to come to a conclusion of the story so long as folks were buying the books. Gah.

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Anyway, I also bought a bunch of mixed nuts today, out of some sort of weird sentimental urge; my grandpa always had a bowl of mixed nuts out during the holiday season (or was it all the time, and I only associate it with now?), with one of those cheap metal nutcrackers in it. Had to buy one of those, too, and the little metal picks that come with it. Gabe is entranced. He doesn’t particularly like nuts, mind, but he’s very impressed with his ability to smash open walnuts. “I must be the strongest person on the planet!” he says, cracking open the nuts and handing over their contents to his brother, who doesn’t like cracking nuts but who finds them tasty. He calls the walnuts “Boss Nuts,” and he defeats them handily, crowing his victories loudly.

Neither child likes the cinnamon candies I got to put on the cookies. So, yay for pork chops, boo for cinnamon, and a mixed judgment on nuts. I’ll take it, I suppose.

Send more walnuts, pork chops, and wine! And pray for Saturday, and Eric’s plane to get here soon.

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Yawn. “Sure, Gabe…”

“And my whole group was supposed to be working on it, and they’re all fighting. So I went ahead and did the work by myself, but that’s bad, too, because we’re all supposed to work together, right? Right?”

Yawwwwwwwwwwn…

I feel so completely wasted right now, exhausted because I didn’t get a run in today or yesterday. My knee has been bugging me, and since pain three weeks out from the original fall is probably not good, I went ahead and called the doctor again, who sent me for an MRI and said not to run until we got results. So I’m not, but, man, do I ever miss the energy I take from a good run. Sleeping in would have helped, a little, but Gabe doesn’t see it that way. (“…pshew, pshew! Aaaaaaaa…boom! Ch-ch-ch-ch…” Battle sounds in my ear, from where he lay in bed between Eric and me, wide awake and imagining soldiers and monsters at war.)

Eric left for Germany this afternoon. He’ll be gone for a week. The boys didn’t much care for that.

I’m not pleased myself, come to that. Miss him already.

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First, I didn’t really sleep well at all last night; my shoulder and knee inexplicably decided to start hurting more and more, which bothered me and kept me from getting any good rest. Then Gabe had a nightmare that brought him into our bed, which meant an end to even the little good sleep I was getting between tosses.

Sam woke up late and on the wrong side of the bed and threw a horrible tantrum about being hustled into the shower before eating his breakfast. While he thumped around and growled, Gabe began wringing his hands about how “I hate it when my family fights!” (Man, I just know he goes off to school and describes to his teachers about how we’re the most dysfunctional family this side of the after-school specials.) Then, while he was in the shower, I discovered a sheet of homework in his backpack that didn’t get remembered last night, so I had to rush him even more.

The homework threw Gabe into a tizzy, as he was convinced that now he’d be late for school and miss a planned field trip. “I’ll have to sit in the office all by myself until everybody gets back!” he wailed. “I want to get out and see my world!” Never mind that the bus wasn’t even going to come for another twenty minutes; he was heading toward a panic attack over it, running around in his coat and gloves as though everything was falling apart.

Eric was low on laundry, which was entirely my fault, I admit, but the added stress of that caused more tension. I especially need to catch up there, since he needs to pack for his trip out of the country in a couple of days. I worked a little on that, which ate into my run this morning – the run that might have ordinarily been my sanity-saving measure. On the other hand, the knee was still grouchy, so perhaps that was for the best.

The physical therapist said I looked pale and drawn; instead of exercises, we focused on pain relief today, and she suggested I take some time to recharge today. Ha.

Got home, pulled into the driveway, and a squirrel stared me down from the side of the neighbor’s house. I should interject that these neighbors are the ones with a great, gaping hole under their eave, which they know about, which they’ve addressed only when the squirrels living in the hole managed to nearly yank one of the boards completely off, and then only by resecuring that board with a smaller one across it. So the squirrels still live there, feasting on the seeds the neighbors put out “for the birds,” and they’ve become quite territorial. This one began chattering and hissing at me before I even opened my car door…and then it spun around and OH MY GRAVY it had one eye that was completely pale and blind-looking and was the CREEPIEST THING EVER. I sat there staring, door shut firmly, until the thing sauntered away on its own.

Then I took my sore shoulder and my drawn face inside, where I did more laundry, found another incomplete homework assignment of Sam’s, and then discovered that I’ve managed to accidentally upset, through careless words, somebody I don’t even really know, and even though I’ve apologized, you know? I just feel like giving up.

I don’t feel like Christmas shopping, baking, any of it. I just want to crawl back into my bed and pretend today never happened.

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Been some confusion about where, who, and how it’s happening this year; there was no news at all, and some folks said the original maintainers weren’t doing it (I messaged and heard nothing). I thought maybe Facebook, and then Kat asked me to join in on a standalone site, so there was that, and then other people started saying that other folks were doing it, and…well, somebody’s doing something, and since the WHOLE POINT is to write entries on your own site anyway, I figure I’ll just do that and just wait for somebody else to tell me where to put the links when it all gets decided.

Not that it matters to you. You obviously got here via other resources. So this is just all behind-the-scenes stuff that can safely be ignored, other than to say: this is what is irking me. A little. But not nearly as much as my annual irritation:

I know. I know. I’ve said it before, but every year the radio starts playing overly ornamented versions of the carol from various pop singers, and they’re all doing it wrong, and GAH. If Santa wasn’t staring down my chimney, that darn list of his in hand with pen poised at the ready, I’d be tempted to start throwing elbows.

But I’ll stay somewhat cheerful today, because my physical therapist was happy with me again. I’ve got lots more range of motion in my shoulder than when I started, and she gave me more strengthening exercises on top of the ones I have, and I feel optimistic that this whole thing will be a memory sooner rather than later. Of course, I did try swimming with a kickboard this morning, and that was a failure after only 400 yards, but I’ve got patience. No rush.

Also, cheerful because my kids are now happily enjoying me reading to them each night from the Wee Free Men books which…just YAY. So glad to have them liking good, fun books that don’t pander. Thrills my heart.

What’s making you happy tonight? If nothing in particular, try this:

Helium walks into a bar. The bartender says, “Sorry, we don’t serve noble gases.” Helium doesn’t react.

Ba-dump bump.

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Should get my toenails tattooed back on. I’ll bet there’re a lot of nerve endings in nailbeds, though. Hmmmm.

Here, have a picture of the ornaments my children made at the company Christmas party. A snowman and a star. I’ll bet you’ll never guess who made what…

Bonus: their letters to Santa.

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– It’s good when the forgetful child is old enough that, say, when he forgets until the morning before school to tell you that he needs an all-disposable lunch, you can stick a couple of bucks in his hand, point him toward the corner store, and say, “Run.”

– Gabriel informs me that his class is making Christmas ornaments with clay, and he’s opted to make a dreidel. Combine this with how, since he can’t draw ordinary stars, he’s been scribbling Stars of David on everything lately, and I wonder if we’re going to end up in an interesting conversation with a confused teacher one of these days. (No, we’re not Jewish.)

– Second PT appointment this morning. I ran yesterday for the first time since JFK, and within a few miles I determined that the shoulder tolerates running, but the knee is dealing with both the bruise and ITBS. Ow! Luckily, it looks like using the foam roller doesn’t put too much strain on my shoulder, either. Freaked myself out reading everybody’s reports online about how their shoulder injury absolutely required surgery, but then I reminded myself that these were dedicated swimmers and triathletes (the only folks I could find discussing it in terms of endurance athletics), and I don’t need to be able to swim hard for miles.

– Tree is up. The boys were both very gungo-ho about that this year, for the first time taking over a major role in decorating it. Nice ages, this holiday! I barely had to do much ornament hanging at all, since they both dove headlong into the boxes and started hanging stuff all over. But, being boys – and strange ones at that – it got weird quickly. Gabe gathered all the wooden Santas and had them stage battles with each other. Sam started perching cars on the ends of branches. Then they both pretended that the ornaments were terrified of being “hanged” on the tree, and I heard a jingle-bell football player squeaking frantically, “Don’t hang me! I’m Aaron Rodgers’ son! And I’m too young!” I’ve said it before: boys are weird.

- Eric heads for Germany again here in a few weeks. So much fun – for him, that is. For us, it’s decidedly less so. But I’m grateful he has such a good job with a stable company, and he enjoys the travel, so I’m happy he gets to do it. Wish he’d blog about it or something, so I could enjoy it vicariously through more than a few camera phone pictures. Some of us have never left the country, other than a brief childhood sojourn across the border to the other side of Niagara Falls.

Gotta get dressed and head out. Does anybody know anything about Holidailies this year?

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Music on the show comes from the Podsafe Music Network. Tracks used were:
42 shades of grey – State Unsteady
Ella Fitzgerald – Get Happy

You can subscribe through iTunes or Zune, or download the show here (mp3 version). You can email or leave a comment!

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HER: “Blood in the urine is pretty bad…”
ME: “But rhabdomylosis doesn’t go away because you drank a couple of bottles of water!”
HER: “…it went away? Oh!”

So she was all apologetic, and the rest of the appointment was fine. She did some quick checks of my shoulder, which continues to improve, and said it was pretty classic rotator cuff injury. The fact that I can now lift my arm over my head, even if it hurts some to do so, means that if there’s a tear, it’s not complete. She gave me a referral for PT, and she told me to stop wearing the sling, since as it heals, I run the risk of getting “frozen shoulder” if I keep it immobile. My knee, she says, is probably just bruised, since it didn’t show any signs of ligament or tendon damage.

I’ll continue to rest until my PT appointment on Tuesday (using the same PTs I had before, when I did Devil’s Lake; I like that they match my preference for aggressive treatment), when I can ask what sort of exercise I can do as I heal. Something tells me running might not benefit this shoulder, but what do I know? I thought broken ribs this summer would mean no running, but I was wrong about that.

In the meantime, Eric’s elbow is bugging him, which he’s apparently been ignoring for a bit, until it’s now gotten pretty bad. How on earth are the two of us going to get a Christmas tree up, I ask you?

One of the boys brought home this brochure from school:

Go on; read it. I'll wait.

Proofreading: it’s your friend.

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Here’s the thing: the boys elected, when asked their opinion, to have a later Thanksgiving dinner today than an earlier one, so the meal preparation has been happening through the day, leaving me to wander through the kitchen, trying not to snack (oh, pearl onions; you seduce my heart completely) but contenting myself with sips of a lovely Shiraz while watching Eric in action. He says I get this way when I’ve had a few too many of those sips, but I’ll contend that this level of maudlin has been reached not via grape, but by watching the man I love in action, serving his family in this very special way, hour after hour.

He said he was going to “wing it” this year, leaving behind fancy preparations and complicated menu options. A roast turkey, with a simple stuffing; green beans with mini potatoes; pearl onions in a cream sauce; mashed potatoes; cranberry sauce; giblet gravy. A homemade pumpkin pie to finish. Knowing that my version of “winging it” would probably have involved StoveTop and Sara Lee as guests, I grinned as I watched him positively dance around the kitchen, juggling pots and pans as everything came into form. He stumbled at the giblets, momentarily caught off guard trying to identify one from another (apparently, the liver joins the gravy well after the other organ meats), but he figured it out quickly. The pie was completed soonest, a humbly perfect pie that sits cooling on the entertainment center as we wait for the rest of the meal.

This is Thanksgiving then, and though I’ve been waxing poetic about the food, that’s not what I’m saying. Thanksgiving is in the feeling I get when I see this man, this man I love, working hard for hours to please us in any way that he can. Thanksgiving is in the warmth in my heart as I see him brush flour from his pants, red-faced from the heat, not slowing a moment as he spins from stove to counter to table and back. I remember that he started cooking when I was so heavily pregnant with Gabe, so tired from chasing a toddler around all day, and he stepped up to help, though it wasn’t something at which he’d worked much before that. My husband, the man of many talents: he works so hard, and seeing him work is to see art in action.

Okay, so I have been enjoying the wine.

Thanksgiving is such a perception-based holiday. It’s hard to deny that we are so much more well-off than so many people in this country, simply based on the way our table begins to groan under the weight of the dishes piling onto it. I’m not blind to that, and I feel sincere gratitude that neither of my children has known hunger. At the same time, I know that the real gift here isn’t the food. It’s the love behind it.

Thank you, God.

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Actually, at this point, most of the ordinary muscle soreness has abated. If my shoulder and knee weren’t aching from the falls, I would almost certainly be gearing up to (slowly) trot through either the 2-mile or 5K Thanksgiving Day runs I have around me. (Not the 10K yet, though.) But despite the fact that I think I am seeing improvement – I was able to use both hands to wash my hair today! – I’m still playing things cautiously. I’ve raced enough miles this year, and I don’t feel guilty for not doing two races inside one week when one of those races was fifty miles.

Sort of difficult to snap a picture of a slinged (slung?) arm.

The official race photographs are starting to be processed. While a few are really nice…

Heading up the first, long, hill.

Feeling goofy on the AT

I just don't even know.

…only one really captures my late-race feelings with crystal clarity:

Bear and grin it!

I recalled reading in The Hip Mama Survival Guide, back when I was pregnant with Sam, how Ariel Gore scrawled herself a note during labor: “NEVER DO THIS AGAIN.” That came back to me several times during the race, making me wish I had paper and pencil to do similarly, since, like her, I had a feeling that amnesia would kick in and make me forget just how bad this hurt. That photo does nicely. On the other hand, I can feel that the amnesia is sneaking in. Would I do it again? Well…

I need to seriously assess whether I can become a better trail runner, or whether I’m destined to forever be the Queen of Fall, no matter what I do. Would practice help? Ankle strengthening? Balance work? Improving form? Or is it a case of general clutziness that can’t be eradicated? That would at least determine what kinds of these races I’d consider in the future, if not totally dictate the yes or no. I love going long, so maybe I should just avoid crazy technical stuff if I want to do that? St. Pat’s was a blast, and I could totally see doing the twelve-hour!

Doesn’t really matter right now; I have time. I’m taking time away from distance for the coming year. Over the course of this training, I’ve noticed my speed ebb away as my endurance grew, and while the tradeoff seemed acceptable, it’s something I plan to fix in 2012. Lots of 5Ks and 10Ks, maybe rounding out the year with a very nice half-marathon, but meanwhile doing all the speedwork I’ve been ignoring for a year. Good news? Fewer 4AM Saturday morning runs. Bad news? I hate sucking wind. Good for the soul, though!

I can’t wait for these injuries to get better. My house is a wreck, but between the knee scolding me when I bend it too much and the shoulder yelling when I reach for things…well, the clutter will have to wait.

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So I mentioned I hurt my shoulder, right? And that I was going to the doctor when I got home? Well, yesterday morning, I called my doctor’s office right as they opened, chuckling over my joking prediction, made directly to my doctor, that I’d be seeing her when I got back. We thought it would be for my legs or something running-related, but it was true nevertheless. Point is, my doc knew what I was doing this weekend, and she at least sort of understood.

The receptionist and I joked around about why I was calling (“Fifty miles?!”), and she told me that my doctor was busy all day. I could either wait until Tuesday, or I could see another doctor, new to the practice. I went with the fast. BAD CHOICE. All I wanted was a check on my shoulder, mind you…

New doc’s assistant was mildly freaked from the get-go, as she took my history, but I didn’t think much about it. I mean, I recognize that ultrarunning isn’t what you’d call a common hobby around here, but since I was there because of a fall, not the running, I pressed on. She left, wide-eyed, and I waited, trying to keep the kids calm. (Thanksgiving Break! Such good timing! )

The doctor came in with eyes already pre-popped. For some reason, even the fact that Gabe was hiding behind the table (just for fun, because he’s Gabe) made her look more unnerved. I tried to tell her the basics of why I was there: shoulder hurt in fall; knee possibly hurt as well, but I couldn’t tell if it was IT band or from the rock that hit it. She couldn’t stop thinking about the race, though. When she asked what painkillers I’d taken, and I explained that I hadn’t had many because I wanted to let my irritated bladder settle down a bit after the single incident of bloody urine, she completely flipped out.

“I don’t know how to say this,” she said, actually holding my hands, “but I want you to go to the ER. You’ve exceeded what this clinic can do for you.”

“Really? I just wanted my shoulder checked…”

“Blood in the urine can be a sign of a very bad thing after exercise.”

“I do not have rhabdomyolysis. The blood went away after I drank water, I had no fever, and there’s no pain.”

“Painkillers can hide it.”

“I didn’t take them!”

“But the blood…”

“It went away! There’s no more blood!”

“I need you to go to the ER now, because you might need an IV.”

“Oh, for…can it wait until this afternoon? My kids have school conferences.”

Her eyes bugged more. “Can your husband take them?”

“I want to go to the conferences!”

“Do you promise me that you will go? I will call ahead and ask them to look for you.” Apparently, I looked like a danger to myself.

So I left, highly ticked off. I called back from the car, trying to double-check with my own doctor, but apparently new doc had already talked to her, and whatever she said had alarmed my doctor, too. I went to the conferences, and then we went to the ER, where – oh, glorious day! – I finally scored some medical professionals who understood. The nurse who came to me said, “I just ran my first half-marathon! They told me I had to take you, and when I saw your history, I understood why!” The doctor was a runner, too, and nobody gave me any crap; they were just interested in hearing the story.

Of course, I did not have rhabdo. I did have a mild bladder infection, though with my history of getting those asymptomatically, I’ll bet it was there pre-race. The x-rays of shoulder and knee showed no broken bones, so they said to ice and rest, and if things don’t improve in the next few days, I have the number of an ortho guy. Oh, and I got stronger NSAIDs.

What I didn’t get all day? Rest. So today, that’s what I’m doing, at last. And nobody better look at me like I’m nuts, either. Had enough of that to last.

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Flew into Maryland, got to Hagerstown; went to the expo to get my race bib. I had prepared my parents for a teeny-tiny “expo,” since their only experience with a race expo was in DC for the Marine Corps Marathon, but I was surprised at how much was there to see. Multiple booths, nice things! I nearly walked out without a JFK50 car magnet, since buying one felt sort of like a jinx, but when I walked out of the hotel and saw all the cars that had those magnets, I decided it must be a “thing,” so I went back for one. It was very intimidating to walk around that crowd, I have to say. The race shirts folks were wearing were all for races I’ve only read about – hundred milers, etc. – and then there were folks in Ironman things, multiple Marathon Maniacs, and lots of people wearing shirts that declared them members of the “500 Mile Club” (people who’ve done the JFK 50 at least ten times). I felt so out of my depth!

I did sleep well the night before, surprisingly. Woke up before my alarm went off, just lying there in the dark and…not panicking. Yet, anyway. I felt pretty relaxed as I got ready, telling myself it was “just a little jog in the woods.” My parents friends showed up, and we all headed to Boonsboro together, where a race briefing was held at 6:20. I saw Mike Wardian stretching out a little ways away from me in the gym beforehand, which was a pretty cool experience. Later, when the race director was having race veterans who anticipated finishing in a certain time stand up, a man sitting right behind me made a movement, and the director said, “David Horton, you’re not even running this year!” I spun around and stared in awe. Ultrarunning fangirl, ’tis I.

Thing was, everybody looked crazy fit and not a bit nervous, which was making me feel extra-nervous. Was everybody there as collected as they seemed? Was I the only “JFK virgin” in the room?! Gah.

We left the gym, and the weather was absolutely perfect. I decided I wouldn’t need the headlamp I’d brought, and I planned to exchange my fleece hat for a cap when I saw my parents at the end of the Appalachian Trail. We all hiked down the road to the starting line, about 1,000 yards away; before I got to that point, I heard the signal to start, and the crowd started moving, but I honestly had no idea where the actual start was. Certainly, there were no mats in evidence, even though it was a chip-timed race.

I fell in with a woman who did the race a couple of years ago, and as we chatted, sharing stories, some of hers sounded familiar to me…turned out, she was Dana, whose blog I’ve read! After the initial climb up the road to South Mountain Inn, where we found the trail for the first time, I lost her; there was no way I was going to try to stay with a specific person on the AT, especially somebody with whom I didn’t train, so I let her go and didn’t see her again.

The trail turns out onto fire road, which is another steep climb that seems to go forever. Honestly, you don’t really get onto the Appalachian until around five miles in, but once you do…oh, my. My regrets about not training more on the Ice Age Trail immediately evaporated; the only way to prepare for running on this trail would have been to run on this trail. Far rockier, far more technical than anything, ANYTHING, I had available to me. I nearly fell very early on, grabbing a tree with both arms and feeling very relieved that I didn’t “kiss the earth” then.

That didn’t happen until mile 8. I landed and slid hard on my side, arm outstretched, and I felt something go “pop” in my shoulder. I knew right away that I’d done a Bad Thing to it, but I also rationalized that you don’t need an arm to run, so I kept going. I couldn’t cross my arm over my chest without severe pain, even in reaching up to brush my cheek, but I had another arm for that, so I put it out of my head and kept going, ignoring the pain.

At mile 12, I fell again, this time gouging and bruising my knee. Surprised I didn’t tear my tights, really, which would have made me angry. I walked for a bit after that, feeling quite frustrated but determined not to be beaten; I did see one woman after that point whose fall ended her day out there, sobbing and unable to stand, so I felt lucky not to be worse off.

Once we reached the switchbacks off the trail, I honestly felt a little better; it was very treacherous and scary, but I finally felt like it wasn’t “just me” – everybody around me was struggling and going extremely slowly and cautiously. Mom and Dad were waiting at the bottom, and they said they saw lots of blood and injuries coming down, along with people tumbling the last part. I gave them my hat, jacket, and gloves and set off again for the towpath.

Now, at that point, I still had about 35 miles to go, and on a good day, that would have perhaps felt okay, but after beating the living Bejeezus out of yourself, it’s a different story. I went to my tried-and-true 9:1 run/walk intervals, which I was able to maintain fairly well, but I was exhausted. I started getting hot spots on my foot around mile 22, so I stopped and reapplied Body Glide then, and getting back up was hard. By mile 29 or 30, I was at an extreme low point. My shoulder was on fire, my knee was aching, and I wanted…something. Anything. I still had 20 miles to go!

Actually, just before that, I had a high point around mile 24, where a North Pole-themed aid station temporarily lifted my spirits. Got my photo taken with Santa and enjoyed a Christmas cookie and the BEST CHICKEN SOUP EVER. That high was great; just wish it had lasted. [EDIT: that was actually mile 34, not 24. My brain is so foggy about the sequence of events after such a long day!]

On and on and on. I leap-frogged particular runners, feeling pretty good if I could pass them with enough distance that they didn’t pass me again on my next walk break. (Blue shirt woman, you finally got the best of me; congratulations. ) I saw my folks a couple more times at different aid stations, but I was in such a haze that I barely recognized them. One interesting thing: several times, I was suddenly taken by an overwhelming urge to cry, out of nowhere, and a minute after that, I’d notice that I was having trouble drawing breath. I’d walk a bit, and both the tears and the chest tightness would pass.

We finally left the trail at mile marker 84, and I was given a reflective vest as we hit the road. There were only about 8 miles left, and I was feeling okay – exhausted, overwhelmingly sore, mentally in shambles, but at least confident of finishing. The roads rolled, and I tried to keep up my 9:1, making exceptions for the steep hills. And then, with about six miles left, the inside of my ankle, which had been aching, though not more than any other part of my body, suddenly decided to step up its game. I could barely walk, let alone run. It was so bad that I began to cry. I walked, and I walked, and I called Eric to cry to him, and I kept walking. When the pain dulled a little, I started doing a pattern of running 100 steps, then walking for 10. Repeat. Grit teeth.

Around the last couple of miles, I switched focus. Wasn’t hallucinating, but I focused hard on seeing Sam and Gabe on either side of me. They pulled me, grabbing my hands and giggling for me to hurry up. Sam told me he could run faster than me; Gabe told me to “man up.” I chanted their names and whispered to them, letting them drive me up the road, nearly crying when I saw the lights at the finish. “It’s here, kids. We made it!”

I finished in 10:19:35, 486th out of an eventual 941 finishers. My time would have been better had I not had to walk so much of the final miles, but I was elated with the time, as I stumbled over the line and immediately yelled for help with my ankle. They took me to the medical area and iced and bandaged me; they also checked my shoulder but weren’t as concerned about it. (Naturally, the ankle is fine today, but the shoulder? Yeah, I’m wearing a sling and going to the doctor when I get back. It’s in agony.)

A scarier moment came after I got home, went to use the bathroom, and urinated copious amounts of blood. Aaaaaaugh! I ran to the computer, reassured myself (it can be normal, from the jarring of the bladder, if there are no other symptoms like fever or abdominal pain, neither of which I had), then pounded water for the next couple of hours, until my urine was back to normal. Phew.

Anyway, I didn’t sleep at all well, due to the pain, and the soreness is getting worse and worse all over now, so the next few days should be interesting. I had been hoping to swim for a bit to help with that, but with a bum shoulder, that’s probably off the table. Not sure what I can do with that. But I’m wearing my medal, my JFK vest, and a huge smile, along with my sling, and I’ll limp with pride when I get to the airport and explain to the security folks just why I can’t get into the machine requiring me to hold my hands over my head. Because the pain? Worth it.

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Never done the whole “Go Go” airplane wireless thing before. I’m in the air, somewhere over…oh, who knows. Not Wisconsin anymore, probably, and not yet Maryland. On my way, and on a very uneventful flight, so far.

Sam was scared of me flying. Gabe was terrified of me falling off a mountain during the race. Nobody is allowed to give him any more scary race details, at least until after I’ve finished running; he was trying so hard to convince me to find another, less steep, path off the trail tomorrow.

Anyway. What time is it? Phone says quarter after seven, but I don’t know if the time zone has changed yet. Let’s just say we’re about 24 hours away from race time, give or take, and all’s as well as I could reasonably expect. Cross your fingers, wish me luck, and pray that this pilot is good at landing – because a crash right now would seriously torque me off.

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It seems that Gabe takes his holidays very seriously. He has been grousing for a couple of weeks, to anybody who’ll listen, that we’ve jumped straight from Halloween to Christmas, bypassing Thanksgiving. When we heard carols on the radio, he growled and muttered angrily; when he saw Christmas lights, he glared fiercely. Things belong in order, you see, and there’s simply no excuse for getting overeager and skipping around. (Well, except for one neighbor down the street, whose front yard is currently decorated with jack o’lanterns, wooden turkeys, and sleighs. By his reaction, Gabe seems graciously willing to allow those neighbors leeway to exist in their clear cases of dementia, bless-their-little-hearts.)

Anyway, we try to avoid confronting him with Christmas trappings for now, because if there’s anything you don’t want, it’s to get Gabe up on a soapbox; he doesn’t like to abandon it once he’s there, and if you don’t listen to him, the harangue grows personal. Simply better to fall in line, and it’s not as though we disagree, really – just a level of vehemence. I don’t decorate until after Thanksgiving, anyway, by personal choice.

Yesterday morning, we discovered a little of why Gabe might be into Thanksgiving so much this year. Eric was getting dressed for work, and he mentioned that he needed some new work shirts. “Maybe you’ll get some for Christmas,” Gabe said, then, “Or maybe the Great Turkey Spirits will bring you some for Thanksgiving!”

So that took some discussion. I’m pretty sure he gets it now, but I’m not sure he understands why both Eric and I screamed, “DUDE!” in unison. I mean, Spirit of Christmas, Turkey Spirits…they all sound pretty much the same to a literal-minded seven-year-old. (And (and do not read this part out loud, Carrie, if Gabe convinces you to read this entry to him before he gets much older!) I get the feeling he’s going to “figure out” Santa sooner rather than later, anyway. Sam’s still invested, hook, line, and sinker, thanks to the whole NORAD thing, but Gabe has been muttering that his friend Danny says Santa is just your mom and dad. He says he hopes Danny “starts believing soon,” but we’ll see what happens this year when Gabe starts watching us all with hawk eyes; he already says he’s planning to put up a hidden camera “to show Danny”…)

This year, I plan to do almost all of our shopping at local and small stores. No large chains or big box stores if I can help it. Both boys are on board, especially since the beloved downtown toy store went out of business earlier this year. That still chafes.

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That’s the feeling I want. I’ve been wearing my St. Pat’s bracelet for the past couple days as a reminder of that: I’m doing this race because I love to run. Running isn’t scary; it’s my playground. I can be spent and happy. It’s going to be wild.

And every time I start freaking out, I stare at the bracelet and think: “Happy. Happy. Get happy!”

So. Six days. I just gave myself a wonderful lower-leg massage, which I’ll continue to do, and I’m going to rest and chill and Feel Happy until game day. Whee! And if happy turns maniacal in the latter days, well that’s all part of the spectrum.

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And I had a sore throat and sinus headache for a good portion of the morning and afternoon. Guess how that played out for me, in terms of my calm. Probably just the heater, but still…

Tapering is destroying my mind. I have never been so in need of physical rest as I am this time around, and yet the act of stepping back is making me feel as though I’m throwing away all my training with wild abandon. I’ve never freaked about tapering for a marathon, or even for the other ultras, but fifty miles is a lot of miles, and how could I possibly be ready if I’m sitting on my butt right now? Ack!

Actually, I remember those potatoes from Devil’s Lake, and they were darn good.

Ten miles tomorrow – the last long run before the race. My stomach is in constant knots. I think we’ve finally hit that magical tipping point where I’m more afraid of the race than I am of the plane ride getting there, and that, my friends, is where I truly know that I’ve hit the great unknown. Wow…

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Swimming lessons went poorly tonight. Well, Sam did fine in his class, and I suppose the last third of Gabe’s was not so bad, but compared to the first two-thirds, it’d be hard not to be. Like the sensation you get when you stop hitting your thumb with a hammer, you know. When he stops howling and glaring death beams at everyone, it gets easier to tolerate the rictus on his face every time the water touches his head. (And yes, the cessation of yowling coincided pretty much with Eric’s arrival. That was predictable.)

I need sleep now, and a fresh day tomorrow.

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Silence. I peek at him sitting on the couch, staring blankly, his Bible in his lap. “Oh. That ‘Jude.’ I was talking The Beatles.” More staring with the suggestion of long-suffering.

I went toward the dining room, and he sighed. “You’re going to play them on the computer now, aren’t you?” he said. Apparently, I’m predictably pedantic. But why fight that at which you excel?

“Yes, I am,” I said, hitting “play” on the tune that started the discussion. “The Beatles are pretty darn important, you know. They influenced so many other musicians, as well as the entire sixties culture!”

“Music culture is boring,” he quipped, “except for Ke$ha.” I whipped around and caught a twinkle in his eye, which saved his life. I faked a swat at him, and he cowered in mock fear while Gabe laughed and repeated the funny phrase to himself.

The song changed to “Let It Be,” and Sam frowned. “Did they sing ‘Rockin’ Robin’?” I almost swatted him again before I realized he wasn’t yanking my chain.

“The Beatles, Sam! Not The Jackson 5! Nothing alike – not even a little! The Jacksons sang about the Robin…” I played that intro, then, “and The Beatles did “Blackbird.” I played that. “Two different birds; don’t confuse them!”

“Oh. But they did ‘Yellow Submarine, though, right?”

“Yes.”

We listened longer. Next came “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer.” Gabe said, “I actually like this song. Wait, is it still The Beatles? Then it’s boring.”

Sam asked, “So, did they have guitars back then?” I winced and played some Renaissance guitar music to prove a point. Sam rolled his eyes.

“That’s different,” he said, the twinkle glinting again. “That just sounds like ‘MagiQuest.’”

Y’all, don’t sympathize with my kids when I tease them; they give back in spades.

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Gabe’s “reluctance” (yes, let’s call it that) to take his medicine continues. Tonight, flipping Sam took over the role of cajoler, and that worked about as well as it does for Eric or me; Sam pushed hard with the “I’ll play video games with you if you take it,” and eventually Gabe caved. I can’t believe we have to keep this up for about another week…

Spent a chunk of time this afternoon annotating an elevation chart of the JFK course with aid stations, cut-off times, and possible paces. Obsessing? Who, me? I’d say it’s how I’m staying sane, but I’m pretty sure sanity is a realm I left long ago. (A cut-off I didn’t miss.)

Sleepy now.

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As I’ve said before, what’s the point of having kids, if not to mess with them on a regular basis?

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Both Gabe and Eric are now medicated, though Eric’s feeling slightly worse now as Gabe feels perkier. Rather unfair, that, as Eric is willingly taking his antibiotic, while Gabe…well, he doesn’t like liquid medicine, and that’s what he is unfortunately been given. Also, it looks like milk, and he HATES milk. So we’ve done three dosages now, and each has required bribing and arguing and deals extraordinaire. Eric really took it on the chin this last time, taking a spoonful of jolokia hot sauce in exchange for Gabe finishing the dose. It was a sight to see.

Sam and I remain healthy, so far, though Sam’s allergies are acting up a bit in the mornings now. Hopefully, that’s all it is, anyway.

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But that was grace from above for other reasons. Gabe spent all of last night, from about nine o’clock on, in agony from a raging ear infection. I gave him pain killers, which gave him periods of slight relief during which he slept fitfully, but when they’d wear off, he’d wail and gnash his teeth again. We kept him in our bed, so as to avoid disturbing Sam too much, which meant that his every thrash met my body with a solid thump. Eric took him to Urgent Care this morning and got him some antibiotics…along with a set of his own, earned when, while trying to reassure Gabe about the pulse-ox monitor, he and the nurse discovered that he was a few breaths away from a horrid case of walking pneumonia. Now they’re both in bed, languishing. My heart breaks for them (and my head whispers that I might want to wear a mask for a while…); they look miserable.

Related to nothing, I got a pair of Stabilyx tights – a gift from Eric for my birthday – and wore them for the first time today. It was an experience just getting them on the first time. “Put the X around your knee,” the instructions said, and there I was, huffing and puffing to get it to my…ankle. Wow. After much exertion, they seemed to fit all right, and I’m not all that sore post-run, but I don’t know how sore I was expecting to be, anyway; time will tell if they’re truly the magic so many people claim they are!

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The car that hit us from behind took us all by surprise. I quickly rounded the turn and stopped at the curb, putting on my hazards and getting out of the van…just in time to see the guy hit the gas and take off. Gabe was howling: “I’m sorry, Mommy! I’m sorry!” (Somehow he drew a line between his tantrum and the crash.) Sam was flipping out, too, terrified that the van was damaged. I couldn’t see any visible damage, but I quickly grabbed the phone and called the cops.

While I was on the phone, another van pulled up next to me. The man driving said he’d seen the accident. “I tried to follow him and get his plate, but he turned off his lights and sped off.” He showed me the partial plate number he’d gotten, described the car, and then gave me his contact information. The police got there just after he left, took down everything, then gave me an accident card and said goodbye.

And then? I drove the two blocks home. All that, practically within sight of my own driveway…

Took the van to the garage today, since it was due for an oil change and tire service, anyway. They said everything looked fine, so, all things considered, could have been way worse. But I’d just like it to go on record that A) Eric went away on business, and B) calamity struck. The track record continues.

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Of Sam, since toddlerhood, I’ve often joked that he was just waiting for the perfect militant cause to which he could attach himself. He’d shriek to the heavens when he saw litter on the ground; he’d rail against the system when he heard about bullies or cheaters. Now, apparently, he’s been assigned a class project – the details of which are sort of sketchy to me; maybe a position paper? – and his topic is whaling. Oh, my. He found his current cause.

He and his partner, a young lady with similar passionate feelings, are getting more and more outraged with every bit of information they uncover…and their plans to “fix” the situation don’t appear to follow conventional paths. “So, working through the system isn’t your style?” I lamely said this morning, when he told me that his friend planned to use pepper bombs against the whalers, as “red herrings.”

(“Yeah, our teacher taught us that phrase,” he said, proud of himself.)

No, it’s apparently much more his style to go all rogue here, with stealth ships and weapons. He is morally disgusted by the images he’s seen (sidenote: I think I’d have been a little more wary about letting a bunch of ten-year-olds go searching the internet for images of whale slaughter…), and moderation isn’t something he’s really developed yet. So now I get to walk a fine line between letting him do his own homework and trying, for the love of Mike, to get him to please consider the ramifications of joining the Youth Ecoterrorist Brigade.

Meanwhile, Gabe’s education is following a more ordinary path, though he’s regularly cracking me up with it. He prefers to work extremely independently, with the result that some of his assignments look as though they were penned by Nell:

Click to embiggen.

This is an older paper, and in case you can’t decipher it, he was talking about birds in a tree. Yes, “brs” in a “teyu.” Now he’s getting a little better at the phonics, but he still surprises us. This next was from a “Day of the Dead” assignment, where he chose to write about his late Grandma Richmond:

Well, sure! Who doesn’t love to eat some fresh, juicy Florida “oinchjis”? Or maybe have a glass of “oinch” juice?

The spelling isn’t the only creative thing he does, though. From a math paper. Note: the questions he missed were intended to be related to the one above:

Instead of doing the math, deciding whether the numbers could fit logically into the comparison provided, Gabe went straight for practicality. No, Luz couldn’t paint eleven rocks; it would take too long. I guess Luz had other things to do. On the other hand, two rocks would fit neatly into Luz’s busy schedule, since those would take only a “hoat” (short?) time.

Oh, Gabe. You don’t disappoint.

(I didn’t ask what was hanging from the belly of the…fire beast? My best guess is a saddle or a weapon, not what you’re thinking. For all his craziness, Mr. Gabe has a strong streak of Puritan-like modesty in that arena. )

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November, finally/already. This whole year has been just bizarre, feeling in turns hurried and crammed, and yet creeping and slow. I don’t think I’ll miss it, though you’ll have to forgive me if I revisit that thought after finishing JFK. Could be a redeeming factor (or otherwise, which I choose not to consider right now). I think I just want to get to 2012 and see if it can be a more consistent year – though I’ll also press my luck and hope for consistently good. Don’t I just want everything?

Halloween was the same mix of strange. On the one side, both boys were in miraculous agreement as to when they wanted to finish trick-or-treating, without one howling at the moon to go home while the other begged for “just one more block.” On the other hand, their agreement stemmed from the fact that rain was blowing in our faces and wind was turning our umbrellas inside-out. Then they happily agreed that they wanted to go to a particular restaurant (a rare non-fighting event!), which was supposed to be letting kids eat free in costume. Well, apparently, that offer was good for actual Halloween night only, and our town’s trick-or-treat was happening the night before. I guess the restaurant got off lucky on that bargain; don’t know too many folks who would have been willing to re-costume the kids for the next night. Oh, well.

Gabe, by the way was “The Dread Pirate Roberts” from The Princess Bride – a choice which, while awesome, would have been obscure enough amongst the first-grade circle, but he made it more so by introducing himself all day long as “Wesley.” Sam went as a World War II flying ace, and Eric said people kept asking him if he was “The Aviator.” He just blinked.

(“Wesley” was wearing a laced black shirt beneath his leather jacket, but it was too cold to forgo the coat. Sam’s coat was part of his costume, so he was thrilled to not need adaptations.)

Gotta go get them from the bus stop!

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Music on the show comes from my friend Scott Simons, as well as the Podsafe Music Network. Tracks used were:
42 shades of grey – State Unsteady
Scott Simons – Start of Something

You can subscribe through iTunes or Zune, or download the show here (mp3 version). You can email or leave a comment!

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Anyway, I talked to the director and found out the course was to be coned by 6AM, so that’s when I got there and started running, light in hand. I drove most of the course the day before, so I had a pretty good idea of what to expect, which came in handy in the tricky spots that hadn’t gotten fully marked yet. It was almost entirely a road course (about a mile on a paved path) and not closed entirely, but there was little traffic as I ran by myself. A bit chilly, but otherwise, it was very pleasant. I did 9:1 (in minutes) run/walk intervals, and I finished the first 13.1-mile loop in a little over two hours, taking it easy and enjoying myself.

There was a small crowd building back at the start, but I didn’t have to wait more than a few minutes for a portajohn. Then we lined up and took off! I kept going with the run/walk, stepping off the road shoulder into the grass to walk when I could, since there was only an extremely narrow strip of road marked off with cones for the runners. To top that off, we spent most of the race running with traffic instead of on the safer, opposite, side, so I got slightly nervous about the cars whipping past us.

In fact, midway through the fourth mile, I saw flashing lights and cars blocking half the road, and when I got closer, I saw a crying runner strapped to a back board with her neck in a brace. At the time, I didn’t know what had happened, but the story is slowly leaking out that she was hit by a car. The initial reports sounded minor, but now I’m reading that she may have been seriously injured with a skull fracture – a terrible thing to hear.

The second loop was harder in some ways and easier in others. I felt tired, of course, and where I’d been hoping for crowd support to buoy me, there was very little. On the other hand, running with others gives its own energy, so that did help. Also, knowing where the hills were to come (read: the last mile!) was better than turning the corner and being surprised. I finished the second loop a little faster than the first, in 1:59:18, for a total marathon time of 4:00:36 – not bad for a run-walk!

So now I taper. We now hit the period where I back off, rest more, and can finally see through to the end, when I’ll get to finally do – oh, crap…

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What put it into my head was that last night, we were doing our Bible lesson, and both boys are working to memorize Psalm 23. Sam’s pretty much got it, but Gabe…well, he gets the gist of the chapter, but the words are still elusive:
“He makes me lie on the grass and drink the water.”
“He sets a table with presents in front of my enemies.”
“You fill my head with oil.”

Last night, he got so frustrated that he declaimed the whole thing, yelling, “He leads me down the paths! Of righteousness! for HIS NAME’S SAKE!” and he reminded me so much of Homer (“Take thy beak from out my heart…”) that I couldn’t help myself.

They’re so funny, as they gather more and more tropes from which to draw their humor and references. I won’t spoil the surprise for Halloween, but I’m particularly pleased with Gabe’s choice of costume. Sam tried to base his costume choice around a toy gun that struck his fancy, but I drew a line; for one thing, he wouldn’t be allowed to take said gun to school, anyway, and for another, there are way better ways to choose costumes than by saying, “What will match this cheapo plastic Uzi, probably solidly constructed from recycled Happy Meal toys?” So we went head-to-head, and we came up with a costume that’s slightly more creative, while still allowing him to indulge his fascination in all things bang-bang-shoot-’em-up.

Sam’s trying so hard lately, struggling with the whole exit from young kidhood, that I hate, er, shooting him down like that. (Ow, tomato.) His math tutoring is going better than he expected it to, now that he’s seeing that the tutor is a fun young guy, not an extra taskmaster to please. A while ago, we had removed certain privileges, particularly online ones, and he’s trying to bargain to get them back in exchange for bringing up his grades, so I’m interested to see how this goes. In the meantime, though, I see signs of stress weighing on him; he’s becoming rather obsessive, for example, about making sure the last thing we say to each other at night and before he leaves in the morning is “Good night[/bye], I love you.” If I dare insert anything after saying that, it has to be repeated, as though I’ve negated the thought. The same holds for his interactions with Gabe and Eric. But he seems to be biting his cuticles less, so I suppose it’s a tradeoff…

Gabe has discovered Pokémon. ‘Nuff said.

Anyway, they’re off to have their heads filled for the day (with more book larnin’, not oil, Gabe), and as soon as I finish this cup of coffee (and the one after it), I’ll be running four miles in the rain. This is my last “peak week,” and then it’s taper time! Hopefully, this week beats me up less than last, though I’ve technically got more miles; my “Birthday Run” on Friday, at the Ice Age Trail, absolutely annihilated my quads, and they’re still a bit achey. I’ve got so much KT Tape up and down my legs, in various colors, that I look like a battle diagram. It’s sexy. Love the stuff, though. I wondered if it was just psychosomatic, but the times that I’ve removed the tape and delayed putting it back on, the aches that had faded have begun to return quickly, so I trust that it’s doing its job.

Still haven’t picked my own Halloween costume. What should I be?

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Music on the show comes from my friend Scott Simons, as well as the Podsafe Music Network. Tracks used were:
42 shades of grey – State Unsteady
Scott Simons – Keep On

You can subscribe through iTunes or Zune, or download the show here (mp3 version). You can email or leave a comment!

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“So, how does it feel to be seven?”
“I don’t feel different yet. I still feel six.”
“Well, what’s the difference?”
“When I’m seven, I’ll feel all excited and hyper. I won’t feel seven until I’ve blown out my candle.”
“Well,” I yawned, “Then you won’t be seven until late tonight, because you’re not having cake for breakfast.”
“Just kidding!” he yelped, bouncing up off my pillow. “I feel seven now!”

And just like seven years ago, I started my day snuggling with my baby in the big bed. Of course, this time he was much more chattery and far less change-me-nownowNOW. But the wispy hair and the sparkly eyes are the same, as well as the complete unwillingness to be anything less than the center of attention.

He’s crazy, this one, but I think it’s simply impossible to get through a day with Gabe without laughing out loud at least once or twice. He’s a whirlwind of the unexpected; he’s a dervish of emotions. Even at the worst, most volatile moments, so long as you don’t “feed the fire” (a lesson we’ve all learned and continue to learn), he’ll change directions within minutes, apologizing sincerely and trying to make up for his outburst of anger. He’s pure life without a filter.

I could write a book, just of his hilarious takes on the world around him. Last night, in his bedtime prayers, he thanked God “…for mankind, and also for ladykind.” He says that when he grows up, he wants to be a dancer (“I’m comfortable with my dancing!” he says, then, when Sam snickers, “I need to get a new brother.”) and a crossing guard. He loves school; when I picked him up for swimming yesterday, he said goodbye by name to darn near every kid we walked past, then said, with emphasized casual swagger, “Those are my peeps.” In the morning, he vacillates between playing with Legos and doing bona fide front planks on the living room floor (because he wants “washboard abs”).

To think, this was the child who came into the world in the middle of the night with a resounding roar. I don’t think he’s stopped roaring yet. Happy birthday, Gabe. You’ll always be my wild one.

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That was a FUN race! I mean, sure, I was wiped at the end, and there were moments where I felt more tired than others, but seriously – fun was had. The course was a little over three miles, and it was over groomed grass, dirt, and a small amount of asphalt. There was one short downhill that I loved, and one short uphill that was fairly impossible to run (sandy, very loose rocks of varying sizes), and I loved it for its imposed walk break. I loved the whole course.

I played fast and loose with my 9:1 run/walk intervals, running through the breaks when I felt like it, but only really walking more at the end, after I’d covered my mandated 50K for the day. Met lots of folks, enjoyed their company, and never once was really tempted to go for the iPod I had stashed in my drop bag at the start of the loop. (Okay, maybe when “Praise to the Lord” was stuck in my head and I couldn’t recall any of the actual lyrics after the first phrase…”Da da da DUMMM da-da da da da hope of salvation” can only carry you so far.)

Took gels every five miles or so, Endurolytes on the hour, and tried a bit of solid food, mostly to test whether it’ll sit well at JFK. (Mostly yes.) Made a big error before my last long loop when I took a cup of Mountain Dew – and chugged it. Oof, that made me nauseated for almost a mile before the bubbles died down and the sugar kicked in!

In all, I covered 34.68 miles in 5:55:37, according to my Garmin. (Official results won’t be up until all the racers have finished, including the 24-hour folks who won’t finish until 8AM tomorrow.) I did the last mile on a separate 1/2-mile loop they set up for folks who didn’t have time or energy for a whole 3-mile left at the end.

All in all, a gorgeous, fun, great time. I would totally do that again! And my first prize bag included a lovely stoneware mug, some Wright socks, a coupon for a new Road ID (which I needed!), and a big jug of Gatorade Perform powder. Sweet.

Oh, and supposedly it was windy. Advisory and everything. I barely noticed.

 

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Caribou this morning, since we ran plumb out of beans here at home, and do you think I could go for a morning without? Ha. Think again, son.

So tomorrow is race day, and as of the official registration cut-off, I stand as the only runner for six hours. This made me fire off an email to the race director, because, honestly, when we made our original plans for me to run in South Bend this weekend, the thought was for a single night at a hotel, then showering and heading back that evening. But the awards ceremony isn’t until the 24-hour finishers are done the next morning…and now I’m the de facto winner of my division. (Never stops being funny.) Would I need to stick around? The RD assured me that they could give me my prize after my race finished – an unceremonious procedure, but it’s an unceremonious win. I thanked her:

Thanks; that helps with planning.

I also wondered: this is my first timed run, and I’m not sure about the mechanics. I know from reading race reports that the 24-hour folks, and probably the 12-hour ones, set up small “camp” areas, where they keep their food and supplies, but for a six-hour, should I plan otherwise? Or should I plan to have a bag where I can keep gels, etc. that I might want? As I said, I’ve never done this before.

Her response:

You will like the timed event.
We will have all kinds of gels, fluids, and food for you.
There will also be an area for you to have a drop bag with things you might like in it. The area around and in the red barn is the area for the runners so feel free to bring a chair or two, change of socks, etc in case you get tired and want rest a bit.

Sounds good to me. This could be my kind of event! Chairs and everything! (Not that I’m planning on taking any extended rest periods; by my calculations, on a 3-mile loop, I have plenty of time cushion to accomplish what I want to do, even accounting for slowing down, but I’m not going to abuse it, either.)

Here’s the only part that has me nervous. From somebody who posted on the event’s Facebook page:

…The challenge comes when passing through the trees in the woods on the bluff section as there is quite a few roots under those leaves. And trees along the river have dropped quite a few of their leaves to the tune of 3-4 inches deep. This area along the river has just as many roots to feel out for. The sad thing is that a recent Xcountry meet took place and someone painted the roots a yellow color. Duh! All the leaves are a yellow color to [sic].

Good practice for the Appalachian Trail, I suppose.

Anyway, wish me luck and good times! I do think I’m going to do this thing with just a handheld bottle, leaving my needed supplies by my bag. It’s just too convenient a plan to skip.

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I’m running the 6-hour in two days, during which I hope to cover the 50K distance called for in the plan. As things stand right now, I am the only person signed up to do the 6-hour time during the event (everybody else is signed up for the 12 and 24-hour times), so…I’ll “win”? Right. Go me. I’m just keeping my eyes on the immediate finish, because looking ahead of that point is Too Much. When I posted my last entry, I made a critical error; next Saturday, I have to run 24 miles, not 10. When I realized that, I felt like crying, just because it was such a shock to the system. I got over it, and it’ll be okay, but…darn, man.

Everything else is progressing as it will. Sam is handling school okay, with the exception of math, but we’re exploring ways to help that (a teenager from our church will be tutoring him once a week, for one). He switched to trombone instead of trumpet, and he’s all excited over a new unit on architecture they just began in class. Gabe is chugging along, enjoying schoolwork and activities, except for swimming – that’s going poorly at the moment for him, but I have faith we’ll have another upswing sooner or later. He hates the water temperature most of all, despite wearing a shirt over his torso to help it. He’s turning seven in a few weeks, so that’s a big obsession for him, too.

Eric has the patience of a saint, putting up with all of our ups and downs. I’ve promised him less chaos from my end, at least, by mid-November. JFK is only about a month away now, and that just never stops getting freakier.

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Tomorrow I’m running 22 miles. This is not a problem; I can run 22 miles. Cool beans. Next Saturday, it’s 24 – also not a problem, though that, combined with 22 tomorrow and 22 last Saturday might just leave me a bit taxed. The Saturday after that, I only have to run 10, which sounds like a veritable tip-toe through the meadow. Might wear a tutu. (It’s not a taper – it’s a “taperette,” because…)

In three weeks, I’m driving to South Bend and running for six hours, attempting to get in around 31 miles in the course of the race. Whee. “Only” a few more miles over what I’ll have been running, but what I’m trying hard not to remember is how 31 miles felt last July. Of course, the difference between repeating a simple three-mile loop course until my head spins and running a “trail” designed by a descendant of the Marquis de Sade might bear mention, but…that’s a lot of miles, and a long time time to run.

In four weeks, it’s 10 more tutu miles, and then in five weeks, it’s 26 miles, which I intend to do as an “out-and-back” on a half-marathon course here in town. (Might go as a crazy person. Would I even have to change?)

Seven weeks, 16 miles…eight weeks, 10 miles…and then…then…

…it’s show time. (Can’t! Stop! Laughing! at those first fifteen miles!)

So. I’m just sitting here, wrapping my brain around it. In nine weeks, I go home, possibly to die falling off the freaking Appalachian Trail. This seemed like such a good idea back in June. After this, I might take up water polo, or competitive miniature golf.

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Eric has a short business trip this week, but it works out that the only night he’ll be gone is the night he’s typically out past our bedtimes, anyway, with his weekly Scrabble game, so it’ll only be the next morning that we’ll miss his presence. (Well, except for me missing him in my sleep, but that’s understood.) More little trips scattered over the calendar, though, and they do add up over time. Can’t be helped. When I think of friends whose husbands are deployed overseas, or who are single-momming it full-time, I don’t feel like I have a whole lot of room to complain.

I’m blathering. My brain feels too fried to type anything of value.

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Good thing I’m recovered; I had a 22-miler this morning that I definitely didn’t want to miss or reschedule. I started at 4 AM, running on the bike trail, and it was almost surreally peaceful; I switched off my flashlight after a few minutes and just ran through the darkness, soaking it in.

Anyway, so much for any family activities today, but that’s fine. Gabe’s perfectly happy to stage elaborate play scenes with his miniature figures – a little more subdued than normal, but still entertaining – and Sam’s actually doing homework without being forced into it, simply to have something to do other than focus on how miserable he feels, poor thing. Eric’s eating lunch, and then I’ll bet he’ll spend some time resting, too. Another reason I’m glad to be recovered; I don’t mind at all running errands and whatnot to allow the rest of the family time to get better.

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Somebody hopped off the bus with a plan this afternoon.

Now, we’ve had a few false starts with regards to music and my older son. Violin came to a tragic end when he couldn’t handle the idea of having (::shudder::) people adjusting his fingers for him, and he fought me every time I mentioned practicing; even lessons with the teacher, who was clearly an Educational Ninja, couldn’t resurrect his willingness to try. Choir was a a let-down for him, since it meant giving up all his recesses in the end, not simply the single one the teacher had said would be enough for the group. I don’t blame him for not wanting to do that again. And our church musicals made him uncomfortable, standing in the spotlight, so he’s the sole junior member of the scenery crew for those now.

There is a difference this time, though: with the violin, the choir, and the musicals, I have to admit to being the propelling factor. Well, can you blame me? (Don’t answer that.) I mean, music was my life for so long, how could I help but hope my son might want to share it with me? I didn’t actually force him (except for the church plays, since his age group at class is primarily based around the staging of plays for much of the year, and there’s no other class for him), but I didn’t hide my desire that he’d give them a try…and he did…for a while.

This time, I thought I’d learned, so after some initial asking whether the band started this year and whether he’d try it (“No!” he said “I don’t want to give up my recesses again!”), I let it go. Then, today, he jumped down the bus steps and said, “I want to play the trumpet!”

Okay, so I know the shtick. The band director goes around, demonstrates all the instruments for the kids and makes it sound like being in the band is the rockstar life. I can even remember my own elementary school band director doing the same thing. He let us try all the mouthpieces, and the only one on which I could make a sound that I liked was the flute, and so there I went for the next ten years before switching primary focus to piano (mostly based on instructor preference, but also on practicality; a piano is a much more useful instrument for an aspiring composer, especially with so much being done electronically). Apparently, Sam’s teacher didn’t go so far as to let them try the mouthpieces yet, but Sam liked the sound of the trumpet best.

Well, that was Eric’s primary instrument, so we happen to have a couple of them in the basement. Reasoning that, even if it goes south again, at least we can mitigate cash outlay, I pulled out some mouthpieces for Sam to try. He did a couple of times, puffing out his cheeks like Dizzy. “It TICKLES!” he yelled. After failing to get a good buzz after a handful of attempts, he sighed and said, “I guess it’s not for me.”

“What?!” I laughed. “Did you think you were going to be Louis Frigging Armstrong on your first try?” Gabe barked with laughter, and Sam shrugged and said, “Well, yeah.” At least he’s honest. I told him of my fledgling attempts and failures, and he seemed cheered.

I am not getting my hopes up again. I am not going to push it. If he wants to try this, I’m supporting him, because music education is so very important, and I want him to have every benefit I can give him. But I’ve seen what pushing brings. Time will have to tell, as it always does.

(Gonna suggest he puts down “percussion” or “flute” in the “Second Instrument Choice” blank, though. The latter will also save money, since we’ve got that downstairs, too, and the former is less likely than any of the above to hammer on his sensory issues. No spit valves there, you see. )

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Somebody who’s done this, please reassure me on the point? ::Frantically re-reading Running Through the Wall again::

School is progressing normally; due to Labor Day weekend, they’re only on their third day of school today. Gabe’s got his first test coming up at the end of the week, a reading test (small “sight words” that he should be able to recognize without sounding them out), and he’s a little nervous about that. Sam has his laissez-faire attitude going on again, and I hope that doesn’t extend again toward the bringing home of homework, but we’ll see. His new teacher, new to the school, said that he’ll be keeping us up to date on missing assignments (not that they won’t be marked down or even not given credit at all), so I hope that’s reliable.

Labor Day weekend itself was fun. We hit the closing weekend of the Renaissance fair, a bonfire with friends, and had lots of time to just relax and let sore muscles heal. Wait, maybe that was just me. It’s a running step-back week (FINALLY), and my body is thanking me profusely now!

Getting my hair cut now. (Might just get ‘em all cut. Ba-dump-bump.)

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SAM: “I have a very funny teacher who gives us a lot of time to read. I was very nervous at first, because I didn’t know how to act as a fifth grader, but then I got over my nerves and felt better. Two of my friends were in my class – well, three, actually – and I can’t wait to learn more in school.”

GABE: “I was scared and very nervous, because it was my first day, and I might not make any friends. But it was fun – I don’t know why I was scared! And my teacher is very nice. My favorite thing was when we were doing a scavenger hunt in my room. You have to find a friend that’s wearing red, and a friend that’s a boy, and a friend that’s a girl. And we had Spanish. I only cried at lunch, because they told us to sit where we wanted, and I sat down, and my whole class sat really far away, and I was scared, and they wouldn’t let me move. But then it was okay.”

There were some major teardrops shining in Gabe’s eyes as he got onto the bus this morning, but he had two Sharpie hearts drawn onto his wrists as a reminder of how much I love and was missing him (one wasn’t enough; he demanded one for both arms), and that seemed to help a little. Sam, meanwhile, didn’t show a blink of either excitement or nervousness until he looked around and realized that he was going to be the oldest one at the bus stop this year. Somehow, that brought it all home for him, and he was filled with the “importance of his position.”

For my part, I got in my run, and then I settled down and into the inordinate amount of paperwork required to send kids to school these days. Exciting times, I know. (RIP, acres of trees.) The boys were home, climbing off the bus (on the wrong side of the dangerous intersection, which had better not be the way things will be all year, or I won’t be the only disgruntled parent at our stop) before I could blink much, both full of stories and relieved that everything looks optimistic for a pleasant year. Hurray!

This may well be the last year they share a school. That feels momentous to me.

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I read to him, though early bedtimes often mean no story, and I tucked him in; he smiled with his eyes closed and melted into my hand as it stroked his forehead. “Mom? Can we do this every night?”

“Well…seven o’clock is pretty early for bed, Sam, don’t you think? You might wind up waking earlier than you want to.”

“That might not be so bad, with school…”

And I came downstairs, feeling both warmed at the nice time I’d spent with Sam and guilty at the idea that perhaps I’d really been neglecting him. He’s been very prickly lately, snapping at people for no reason, deliberately provoking Gabe and starting fights, rude when asked to do things he doesn’t want to do. It’s hormonal, I know, and I’m sympathetic, but it’s all new to me, too. When a kid’s refrains have become “Nobody talk to me right now” and “I just want to be alone,” it’s hard to know when he means it literally and when he just doesn’t know how to handle the storm in his brain and body.

At his eye appointment, he confessed to the eye doctor (when asked whether he’s focusing well on written pages) that he’s been sneaking out of bed at night into the bathroom, to sit and read. No wonder he’s grouchy and red-eyed in the morning.

Gabe is demanding of individual attention at all times, and Sam is pushing us away – sometimes gently, sometimes forcefully – as he heads into his tweens. It’s too easy to accept that as the way things are, to cuddle Gabe close while letting Sam drift. I’d already been giving Sam more and more privacy (both in our home and, if it hasn’t been obvious, online), but then moments like last night happen, and I get smacked in the face with the realization that it’s the toddler years all over again, when they push away for independence, then come careening back in terror when they think they’ve gone too far.

Instead of the terrified return, though, the reaction is subtle and easier to miss. The slight clinging to my hand as I stroke his head in the dark…the suggestion of a bike ride…the request to sit next to me in a restaurant. If I don’t pick up on it, he lets it go so easily, so easily, and maybe next time it won’t even be there at all. This is how it happens, maybe. I guess it’s different for all of them, but maybe this is how my Sam grows up and away.

He’s so young for ten. That makes sense to people who have or work with kids; there are ten-year-olds who act their age and more, and then there are ten-year-olds who cling to their “little kid” years with their fingernails, trying so hard not to go on. Sam’s in the latter camp; only moving into “big kid” activities when the closest of his peers can convince him that it’s worth the exploration. He’s the boy who’ll happily carry a stuffed animal with him into the grocery store, oblivious to any strange looks he’ll receive; he’s the one who wanders through stores, looking for something shiny to hang around his own neck, looking startled and appalled when clerks try to suggest he might be shopping for a girlfriend. Knowing that about him, it’s easy to forget that time is passing so fast that none of us had better blink.

He starts fifth grade on Thursday. If you can believe that, you’re doing better than I am.

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There were eye drops involved. No coincidentally, there was screeching and red-faced struggling, as well. In his defense, halfway through the appointment, he did stop, unprompted, to say, “I’m sorry I said mean things.” That’s my Gabe: shoot first, apologize later. (And, also in his defense, Sam did corroborate his story that the drops stung.) The eye doctor was very gracious and said that, aside from the drops tantrum, Gabe did very well. He even refrained from saying “I told you so” when she told him he didn’t need glasses (he had insisted quite loudly that this was the case, as she stood over him with the eye drops)…though he did barely restrain the eye roll when she had asked him to tell her when the letters on the screen started to “turn all fuzzy.”

“I know what ‘blurry’ means,” he said, sounding slightly offended.

So, I think that’s all the body parts that need checked, cleaned, or trimmed before school starts next week, which is a good thing for my nerves. I can tell they’re really fraying, because I lost my temper and laid down the freaking law last night at dinner. Among other things on their plates was a tiny slice of grilled zucchini, and you’d have thought it was fresh excrement from their reactions. After one too many rude remarks from Sam, I made a decision: “That’s it! I have one more zucchini in the fridge, and it’s for dinner tomorrow! And I’m hitting the farmer’s market for more zucchini, and there’ll be zucchini at every dinner from now on until it gets eaten without a fuss!”

Anybody got any good zucchini recipes? I’m thinking a gratin, maybe…

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(But we won’t talk about the dental hygienist who asked me, right in front of him, whether the whimpering, upset Gabe was autistic.)

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Perhaps Sam would have, too, but Gabe, the early riser, wanted Sam to get out of bed to help him with something this morning, so he prodded him awake with the temptation of one more full day of brotherly service. You know, in the hands of some older brothers, that could be a bad thing, but with Sam…I can see the attraction for Gabe. Sam hasn’t enslaved him – he’s knighted him. They’re outside now, where I can hear swordfighting lessons in progress.

I wish you could hear it, too. Some highlights:

“This isn’t a good idea, Sam.”
“No, it’s okay. I’m not aiming at you; I’m aiming at your sword.”

“Go!” Crashcrashcrash!
“Ow! Gabe, I have to say ‘en garde’ first!”

“You need a better sword, I think.”
“And a shield!”

And now they just came clamoring inside. Gabe yelled, “Guess what, Mom? Sam made me a prince! Because I’ve learned how to use my environment against my opponent!” Yep, I can see the draw in being one’s brother’s servant, I guess…for a day.

EDIT: Oh dear.
“Sam, I don’t want to ride that down the hill.”
“You’ll stop at the bottom, then stab me. Let me finish tying it…”
“When do I jump off?”

I think The Queen Mother may need to step in now…

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We were watching the construction crew across the street demolish an old driveway. A forklift was loading slabs of concrete onto a pickup truck, where a couple of guys attacked them with sledgehammers to break them into smaller pieces. Gabe looked thoughtful.

“I’ve always wanted a sledgehammer,” he said. I asked him why. He eyed me. “It’s complicated,” he said, waving his hand.

Sam, meanwhile, terrifies me in other ways. Little Mr. Daredevil wasn’t technically breaking any rules as he whipped up and down the street on his bike, but with all the construction equipment (small stuff, but still), he was making me nervous. I told him to get on the sidewalk.

“But, Mom! You told me I wasn’t supposed to ride like that on the sidewalk, since this is a serious bike, not a toy!” Well, true. I told him it was just the equipment, so he obliged…and came blurring down the sidewalk, moments later, barely clearing Gabe and me as we stood there. I told him to slow down for sidewalk riding; he gave up and went inside. (I did suggest, before he did, that he go over to the bike trail, which interested him until I reminded him that, as it was an hour before bedtime, he couldn’t really go on any really long trail rides.)

Is my hair grey yet?

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The kids are being kids, which, well, duh. It’s the last couple of weeks of summer vacation, and they’re apparently all out of energy, except what they can expend in manic bursts as shouts at a computer screen or video game or each other. (Oh, yay, there they go again. “IT’S MY LEGO PIECE! GIVE IT BACK!” as though we don’t have giant plastic tubs overflowing with Legos. That one is special.) We did almost all the school supply shopping yesterday, with the exception of Sam’s oil pastels and erasable blue pens. Beyond the weird specificity of the latter, haven’t we all decided that erasable pens are pure evil by now? They smear, they blot, they don’t really erase anyway…and he already bought some black ones, also found on the list. Why do we need blue ones, too? What’s the bizarre importance, here?

Perhaps I’d mind less in a better mood. But you should have seen the epic tantrum Gabe threw when we couldn’t find them at our second stop yesterday, before I managed to make him understand that we didn’t need to go searching in another place that day. Of course, he was only expressing the frustration probably felt by every one of the parents packed shoulder-to-shoulder in the narrow school supply aisles, but he was doing it with panache. And volume. And what we’ll call “interpretive dance,” so as to give his six-year-old pride a little break. Heck, I was hot and tired, too, so I can understand how his breaking point got smashed to bits there.

My ribs are still fiercely aching, and even my face still hurts some, usually when I forget about it and go to rest my cheek in my hand or put on moisturizer a little too slap-dashedly. Swimming on Monday morning was a failure from the get-go (had to use a kickboard for the entire workout, since stroking with my arms was agonizing), and I called the doctor afterward, who prescribed me some pain pills with instructions to call her if things didn’t improve after a while. Funny thing is, she wants me to take them at bedtime, but the pain is the worse when I wake. That’s when I need help; the first hour after getting out of bed, I’m creeping around like an old lady who can barely stand up without wincing. By bedtime, it’s not so bad; maybe being upright for that long just inures me to the pain or something. Who knows?

Need a cheer-up.

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One of the only “misses” on the trip was the Top Secret attraction, which Gabe was desperate to see, and which he begged and begged for us to go to, and which he happily pranced into…and which he and I had to flee through an emergency exit provided by the tour guide midway through, with Gabe howling in my ear, “THAT WAS HORRIFYING! Why would they SHOW ME that?! I’m going to be TERRIFIED FOR LIFE!” He even grabbed a little girl by the elbow, as she was crossing the parking lot with her parents, to say, “Just so you know, it’s really, really scary in there!” (As a footnote, when we left the Dells this afternoon after Gabe had exchanged an extremely tearful goodbye with his grandparents, he said, “Now we just need to go back to Top Secret! This moment is so bad, that would even cheer me up!”)

But that was the only down side, other than the occasional squabbling about whether we should be splashing in the water park or waving wands at Magiquest, or whether it ought to be the restaurant featuring paper moose antlers or model trains for dinner. That’s to be expected, and there were no catastrophes.

Well, I say “no catastrophes,” and that’s true, though I guess it did come close. I kept up with my running while I was there, and I saved my longest midweek run for a trail run at Mirror Lake. It was worth it; the views were incredible, and I had the whole trail to myself. I picked the one marked with the highest difficulty, a mountain bike trail, and it was very rolling, with plenty of steeper hills mixed in. No human souls, but plenty of wildlife; I shared the morning with wild turkeys, a doe with two fawns darting in front of me, and an adorable pitch-black squirrel that kept popping up. I was in a great mood right before mile four, when I passed a “Do Not Enter” sign; it made me giggle, thinking it really needed a pink ribbon tied to it (I guess I didn’t mention in the race report; the “course” was so rough that every time we saw a “Do Not Enter” or “Keep Out” sign, it was nearly always marked with a pink ribbon indicating that we needed to duck under any barrier and plow forward.)

So I was giggling about that, and my mind wandered for a crucial second, and a root jumped up and grabbed my toe. I took a hard fall to the ground, landing heavily on my rib cage and face. Ow. It took several long minutes for me to regain myself, just lying there, staring at the tree canopy, trying to breathe. After a while, I sat up and spat out big mouthfuls of mud, trying to see whether I’d broken anything really important; my hat had flown off my head and up the trail a ways, and I was a little worried I’d broken my face. My ribs were killing me, but my legs seemed okay, if scraped.

The last two miles were slow and painful, but, you know, you have to finish what you start, especially if you’re the only one on the trail and your car is at the end. Got back to the hotel and iced my face and ribs; happily, that kept my cheek from swelling up into my eye, but there’s still a shadow of a bruise there, and the ribs are pretty sore. My mother-in-law was a nurse, though, and she agreed that I probably didn’t need to go to the Urgent Care, since all they’d do is tell me to ice it and take ibuprofen. It’s not debilitating, just achy. Could have been a lot worse, I suppose.

Anyway, we’re back now, and there’s laundry to do and routines to resume. School starts in a few weeks, and I haven’t bought a single supply for that. Time to get cracking!

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I was at running club this morning, and one of our regulars brought a friend with him. I could tell from a distance what the guy was, in his mud-covered trail shoes, compression calf sleeves, bottle waistpack, and big bushy beard. I was right; he was introduced as a grizzled ultrarunner, with a few handfuls of 100-milers under his belt. So, naturally, I was thrilled to run with him and pick his brain, and the conversation was great; he was a really nice guy. It was a true pleasure to share the trails with him!

At one point, while we were talking, I asked whether he did set intervals when he was doing ultraruns. He laughed quietly. “I can tell you’re a marathoner,” he said. Only in the company of ultrarunners would that be a gently derogatory comment! I laughed, too, because he’s right; with only one ultra to my credit, I am much more of a marathoner. But it was a misunderstanding; he thought I meant, like, distance intervals, such as you might do on a track, when I really meant loosely-timed run-walk intervals. When I clarified, he said he often does 15-minute runs to 5-minute walks.

Then, skipping ahead an hour, I found myself in a drugstore, sweating profusely and waiting for Eric to get me. (Explanation coming.) While I stood there, an older man came up to me, clearly shocked and bewildered. “What’s wrong?!” he said. “Are you okay?” I explained that I was running just prior. “But it’s too hot out there!” he gasped. “And you’re just a BABY!” I’ll admit to having to hide my giggle when he said that. He left, shaking his head, after making certain I didn’t need help from him in any way.

So, I’m a marathoning baby. I’ll take that over the much more deserved teasing I got from Eric, when he came to get me from the store, three miles away from my car, where I’d run completely accidentally after missing a turn and getting totally, mind-bogglingly lost. It was hot, muggy, and I was exhausted and apparently had sweat my bloody brains out through my pores, because I have no better explanation for how I managed to get so confused. It’s a planned city. I’ve run there many, many times. I had a GPS on my wrist and another (my phone) in my pouch. I just…I have no excuse. Complete dunderhead. Good thing trail races are usually marked. (Also, good thing I have such an understanding spouse, who is willing to get out of bed and drive twenty minutes to rescue me, with only the aforementioned deserved ribbing in exchange.)

I’d kill for ice cream right now.

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ME: “…so you guys just go straight to the pool, and I’ll be in after I clean up, since I smell like a dead goat.”
GABE: “I know!”
ME: “Gabe! You’re not supposed to agree so fast. Say, ‘Why, Mother, you smell like nothing but the finest spring flowers.’”

There was a long pause, then…

GABE: “I can’t smell any flowers, just a sweaty goat. But I’m sure that’s not you!”

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“Bob,” he’s dubbed his temper. Yes, he gave it a name, and he views it as both the enemy and as part of himself that can’t really go away and maybe even shouldn’t, since it’s him. Pretty astute for a six-year-old. “Bob’s coming out again!” he yells in a panic. “I can’t control him this time!” He’s not trying to be funny, either.

Right now, we’re alternating between two different methods of dealing with Bob. The first is a code phrase, which he invented; if he comes to me and says “Tiny Cowboy!”, I’ve promised to drop whatever I’m doing and hug him hard until he feels more in control of things. I have no idea what “Tiny Cowboy” signifies, but that’s not the point. He feels freaked, and the hug helps him regroup.

The second method is a little more advanced, but he latched onto it. Basically, we drop to a seated cross-legged position, palms upturned on knees, and pretend we’re cupping a baby chick in each hand, feeling it breathe and wiggle slightly. Can’t grip too tightly, or we’ll hurt the babies! We breathe slowly and focus on the baby birds until things are all better. He even named the chicks (well, of course he did): Chick-Chick and The Fuzz. This morning, when Sam was bugging him and making him angry, he asked if we could switch to baby puppies, too small to crawl out of his hands, for variety.

Thing is, with Gabe, timing is paramount. As I said, if you can get to him, or he can get to himself, before he’s really and truly in the Red Zone, then these things have a chance at working. If we’re busy and don’t notice how upset he’s getting, or if something pushes him over the line too quickly for him to see it coming, then all bets are off, and any attempt to calm him down is going to backfire. I have yet to find anything to help in that situation; that’s when he’s screaming the worst things he can think, trying to throw things and hurt people, out of his mind. All you can do then is put him in his room – not simply to punish, but because most of the things in there are soft, unbreakable, and won’t hurt if hurled. Talking fuels the fire; hugs aren’t welcome. Nothing to do but let it burn out as quickly as it can, then regroup afterward, when he’ll still be upset, but he can see through to the other side.

In some ways, it’s more complicated than with Sam, who, like me, tends to get snappish instead of explosive, but lacks the attention span to hold the anger for very long once distracted. On the other hand, fire is about as simple as it gets, and that’s what Gabe is. The embers are frequently there, but he’s learning how to keep them as a controlled little campfire instead of a raging inferno. And he’s right when he sees “Bob” as enemy-yet-not. That fire is going to serve some purpose eventually; our sermon at church a couple of weeks ago stressed that anger itself isn’t bad, per se, but what we do in anger that can be great or terrible. He’ll get it, I have faith.

In-laws coming in this weekend! Exciting times ahead! I told Gabe to tell his playground leaders yesterday who was coming to visit him and he said, “Santa Claus?”

Anyway, lots of picking up to do before then. I warned the boys, but it’s their playroom that’s in the worst shape and in need of the most effort. That should be entertaining…

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That’s fine, but can a vegetarian and a Paleo eater coexist and dine under the same roof? I’m all “a bean, a green, and a grain” for a balanced meal, and he’s cocking his eyebrow at two out of the three. He’s in the “Slay me your finest beasts and bring me their flesh!” zone, and I’m going, “Um, tempeh, please?” It’s very weird. No idea how dinners are going to work, now that even our side dishes won’t match. (And I’m telling you right now, spaghetti squash might be all right in and of itself, but it is not spaghetti. This is not a viable compromise area.)

I’m telling you where this is really going to be bad: pizza. Specifically, Eric’s fabulous homemade pizzas, which are beautiful and delicious and do NOT need to be adapted to involve almond meal-based crusts. I mean, really? I’ll give it a try, because I’ll try anything once, but that just sounds bizarre.

Don’t get me wrong, though. Health comes first, and if this is the path toward greater health for him, then I’m all for it. It’s the logistics I’m sweating here. Might be premature, though; perhaps I need to wait and see whether he really enjoys the diet enough and sees strong enough results to stick with it long-term before I start fretting. (And, meanwhile, Gabe was gaping at both of us in horror last night as we offered him our options – leftover noodles with vegetables, or grilled skirt steak – for dinner. He lobbied hard for just being allowed to make his own meal instead. )

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This time, I feel…different. More dubious. I mean, I know I’m going to do it, but part of me is afraid in a way that I wasn’t before. Probably, it’s all the little injuries I’ve had this year, so that the idea that nothing will jump up and bite me if I so much as sneeze too hard is difficult to swallow. And fifty miles is fifty miles. Take your best marathon time, double it, and add two hours: that’s how they tell you to calculate your fifty-miler expected finish time. Ten hours seems like a ridiculously long time to be running, doesn’t it?

Today’s ten-mile long run marked the first time I’ve broken double digits since last month’s marathon. It was fine. Well, it was like running through a swimming pool, by the time I was done (seriously, my shorts were completely saturated and clinging to my legs like a soggy diaper, which is, I assure you, far grosser to experience than to read here), but I felt otherwise fine. Tomorrow, I’m meeting Rachel for a six-mile cross-country run in the morning, and I anticipate that, too, being fine.

Still waiting on my “Raar!” though. If you happen to find it, could you tell it I’m waiting on its return?

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So yesterday, I was picking up the boys from their respective playground programs, and as I approached an intersection with a stop sign, I became aware of a small buzzing sound in my ear just before the screeching started. Sam shakily announced, “There’s big bug on the door, and even I’m afraid of this one.” I turned my head and saw a Japanese beetle, clearly confused as it tried to parse its new location, away from the park trees. Now, the van side windows don’t open, so as I stopped at the stop sign, I pushed the button to open the door, hoping Sam would quickly brush the bug out of the opening.

What happened instead was that Gabe whipped off his seatbelt and yelled, at the top of his lungs, “PEACE! I’M OUT OF HERE!” and jumped out the door. Into the street.

Thankfully, there was no traffic coming our direction at the moment. I grabbed behind me frantically, snatching at his shirt and shouting for him to get back in the car, where as far as he was concerned, Certain Death by Insect awaited him with sharp, pointy teeth. He did come to the conclusion that the street was not a particularly safer place to be, though, so he climbed back in and stood between the seats, keening wordlessly while I tried to see whether the bug was even still in the vehicle. It seemed to have made a hasty retreat from us (who could blame it?!), so I managed to get Gabe to at least sit down and buckle up (thank you for your non-honking patience, car that pulled up behind us in the meantime) while howling.

So. Much. Fun.

Looks like the in-laws are coming to visit in a couple of weeks, which should be the better sort of fun. Every year, it appears, we’re destined to have family in from out of town during the week of State Fair. This is a good thing, since the more adult people keeping tabs on these children, the better. Stands selling Deep-Fried Butter (I’m so not kidding…) are probably bound to attract insects, and I don’t relish having to dash through crowds in pursuit of a terrified six-year-old.

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Ah, the faces of the heat wave. The manic, tired eyes and the humidity-wrecked hair…the sweat sheen that never dissipates…the pupils dilated from the sugar rush you get when you try to medicate with ice cream…the brain frazzled from the complaining and whines that inevitably follow said sugar crash…And we’re all snapping at each other for any and no reason. Lovely, right? This was the best of several pictures I tried to snap here before finally giving up and declaring it honest, if not flattering.

School got cancelled today, too. We’re in a nearby hotel, using Rewards Points Eric’s earned from all that travel that I sighed about earlier this year. (I’d say I’ll not sigh again in the future, but who am I kidding? ) It’s a luxury, but probably a necessity, too; Sam started barking with asthma coughs just stepping into the lobby this morning. This air is No Joke for people with breathing issues. Even I had trouble drawing breath during my very brief “run” this morning (which was meant to be in the hotel fitness room on a treadmill, before I found out we didn’t have one), so I have strong sympathy for anybody with involuntarily stressed systems.

Gabe’s having nightmares. Sam’s butting heads with me at every opportunity, and I’m butting back. Eric walked full-force into a door last night. It’s…it’s…

COUNTING BLESSINGS!
1. It’s only a handful of days a year, when you add them up.
2. Pistachio ice cream with almonds.
3. The kids are playing peacefully with cheap plastic army men, and nobody’s arguing!
4. Tomorrow’s a swim workout day, and I’m looking forward to that.
5. Post-sugar crash leading to lethargy now, which feels not unwelcome, all things considered.

Oh, swim workout: forgot to say. My plan for JFK is going to involve Saturday and Sunday long runs (well, long and recovery), sandwiched by cross-training days. Swimming will feature heavily, being so wonderfully non-impact. I’ve been continuing to go for about an hour a couple of times a week, and I think I’m really getting the hang of it now, with the Swimplan.com drills.

Lethargy hitting full-force now. Must lie down.

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I did my run today at 5 AM, hoping to avoid the worst of the day’s heat-advisory-level temps, but I was sticky before I even got out the door. Thank God this is a fall race, so I’m still in the low mileage zone.

This whole basement thing is creating an interesting phenomenon. My elementary school kids are turning into bona fide frat boys down there. They’re hooting and hollering over video games, sprawled out all over the floor (oh, by the way, want to know what’s better than $45 bean bag chairs for which you also have to buy your own “beans” to stuff them yourself? Giant doggy beds. You’re welcome.), completely oblivious to any kind of social mores; last night, unable to fathom cooking, I ordered pizza, and when I went down to check on them later, the scene was so very Animal House that I almost went looking for hidden togas and kegs. Terrifying.

Unrelated, Gabe now says he wants to be a judge when he grows up. This can in no way end boringly.

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And now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’m going to go barf.

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Only “down side” this week has been that I haven’t run. On Friday, the slight thigh twinges I’d been feeling on some of my runs began to make me nervous to the point where I decided that rather than risk worsening it, I would take some rest time and swim. So swim I did! I even went so far as to sign up for free swimming plans at Swimplan.com, which generates workouts based on your ability level and goals. It’s been an interesting little sidebar, and I think I’m already beginning to see some improvements in my skills! Not that I’m training to be a real Capital-S-Swimmer, or even a triathlete, but I figure that a thing worth doing is a thing worth doing well, and there’s no point in using swimming as a cross-training activity without working on developing it.

Going to hit a running form clinic tonight, at a brand new running store. Education and information, all around!

Sam had a playground field trip to a water park today, and Gabe had a “mess fest” through his playground program. You may remember when Sam had this experience:

Gabe has stayed home and refused to participate in the activity for the past two years, but this year, he decided to give it a go, reserving the right to not take part in anything too gross. He met with success:

That’s mostly paint, though at one point he sat in a chair, playing Musical Chairs, before realizing it contained spaghetti with sauce. Ewwww!

Back to the regular grind now!

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- Swam 1400 yards
- Washed and dried a load of clothing
- Emptied out a chest freezer full of rotten food, which got unplugged some unidentified time in the past without notice
- Aided Eric in vacuuming out the…liquid, we’ll call it.
- Mopped the floor around the freezer
- Called a haul-away service
- Re-dressed a child who refuses to admit that this weather is what Wisconsinites refer to as “summer” (i.e. not thermal shirt weather)
- Stripped said child’s stinky, sweaty bed linens (he also refuses to go without pajamas, for similar reasons)
- Made and am enjoying what I think is a well-deserved pot of coffee

Coming up next: dropping kids off at school, then mowing the lawn. Whee!

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Gabe is currently out riding his bike along the sidewalk, which…okay, awesome. It’s Sam’s hand-me-down Trek, currently with training wheels, and I’m not at all worried about anything going wrong, since he is beyond cautious over it. It took real strength of will for him to convince himself to hop on, but he’s going at it doggedly, and he’s hit a point where he feels he’s “going really fast!” (swiftly enough to make me break into a power-walk next to him). He did have a crash yesterday, when he tried to make too sharp a turn for his skill level, and, as I predicted, he immediately insisted he didn’t want to ride anymore. Luckily, we’d had that talk already, he and I, and I jumped right in, reminding him that he had to get back on right away and show it who was boss. So he did, and it was all good.

This morning, I discovered that at some point, the chest freezer in the basement got unplugged. The seal on that thing is impressive; I had no clue until I opened it, and then…oh, the humanity. I’ve plugged it back in, for now, hoping that letting it freeze a little bit before cleaning will make the stench a bit more tolerable.

Gabe pulled me over to a framed family photo this morning, propped against the wall where it will hang. “I saw this, and I don’t want it to change,” he said. I told him we couldn’t leave it there, since it would fall over and break, but he stopped me. “I mean, I don’t want that to change. I want us to stay just like that.”

“We look nice there, I know. We’ll have other portraits, though, that look nice, too, as we grow up,” I said.
“But…when I’m a teenager, will I still live in this house?”
“Yes.”
“Can I come sleep in your bed, then, too?”
“If you really want to.”
“I’m just going to miss us all.” Then he ran off.

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(Moment I came upstairs, Sam demanded to watch the video, giggling, “Do I really sound like that?” And the little rocking chair was safe from catastrophe, too.)

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Now, this has arisen before, only then, it was “K. can’t play with Gabe unless Sam is out there, too.” I get that. She’s about twelve years old, and her parents find it a little uncomfortable for her to be playing alone with a six-year-old, even one who sees himself more as a teenager trapped in a first-grader’s body. (Maybe even especially that kind of kid.) This was different, though; Gabe insisted that the new rule excluded him without caveat, which…what?

So she came to our house when finished with chores, and I went to learn the truth. As she explained, since she doesn’t play with her own sister, Gabe’s age, she’s not to play with Gabe either. That’s a bit muddled in my mind; if I had to guess, I’d say her parents are aggravated that she’s “too cool” to play with her sister, so they’re making a statement about that. But that leaves Gabe…devastated. “All right, then,” I said to her, “but if you guys are playing in our yard, Gabe will be allowed outside. I’m not keeping him in when you come over.” She agreed quickly. Then she and Sam went over to her house.

Gabe was forlorn. It’s not fair that he should be punished in this situation, and I had a hard time coming up with a way to console him. I suggested that we go see if K.’s little sister could play, but he didn’t want to play with her; he wants to play Big Kid games with Big Kids – his friends, as far as he’s concerned. I took him on a bike ride up and down the street, trying to distract him with the novelty of it, but he kept sighing. “What if they’re happy that I’m not with them?” he said. “What if they’re laughing and happier that I’m not there?”

Then they came back to our garage, entranced by the lure of shade, and Gabe decided to lurk on the sidelines. He took out bubbles, trying to attract their attention, but when it didn’t work, he whispered, “Don’t they miss me?”

I want to punch somebody for him.

Cleared to run yesterday by the podiatrist, who said my toes were healing “phenomenally.” I celebrated with a short run, using 2:1 run/walk intervals, and felt great. Then today, trying to come back cautiously, I went swimming instead. Yay, adrenaline.

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Happy Father’s Day to my wonderful husband, the father of our awesome little men. We love you so much!

And to my own dad, who I miss so much and cannot wait to see in a few weeks. Happy Father’s Day to you, too!

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It’s no secret that we’re, shall we say, less than fond of this house. It should also be no secret to anybody who’s watched more than a couple of news shows, glanced at a newspaper, or, heck, driven through their neighborhood and noticed at signs in people’s yards that selling a home right now is something of a risky proposition. Houses are sitting on the market…and sitting…and despite all our wishes to dump this house faster than we could blink, it’s probably not a good bet as something we could count on happening. I have friends in the area trying it. I also have friends who have given up and rented out their houses instead, which isn’t something we want to do.

So, what’s a family to do in a situation like this? They make the best of it, take a look around at the things that really, truly bother them about the house, and do what they can to make it better. In our case, that’s started with trying to purge and get rid of piles and piles of crap. I actually started to do this a while ago, when there had been a possibility of moving out of this place, but when it fell through, I lost my momentum entirely; now I’ve returned to the task with a vengeance.

On Thursday, the day before garbage pick-up, I started hauling things out to the curb, where I staged an “Alysia-style” yard sale; I tagged nothing, put up no signs, and managed to make $40 on stuff I just wanted to see gone. Most of what didn’t sell went to trash pickers overnight before the garbage truck came by the next day. Then yesterday and today, I hauled out loads of stuff out of the basement and took them to Goodwill; today, in fact, Eric helped by getting rid of piles of old hardware that has been sitting downstairs for years. Boom. Gone. It’s liberating.

Won’t lie; I’d rather focus on just dumping the place. But we’d have to do this part, anyway, wouldn’t we? No point in waiting until then.

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Well, somebody had the audacity to wake up ten years old this morning. Can you believe that? The nerve! I told him to knock it off right this instant and go back to being the little ball of baby he’s supposed to be, but he just giggled at me! In a voice that, while not exactly changing yet, is way deeper than the giggle I know he had yesterday, when he was pushing his little Elmo lawn mower around the yard, or even playing on a blanket, surrounded by soft toys. That was yesterday, wasn’t it?

Or perhaps not. This Sam has huge feet, and he’s “maybe, sort of” interested in girls, perhaps. This one wobbles wildly between sweet and gentle and filled with raging hormones with which he’s only barely acquainted at this point and has no hope of controlling. He uses that shower gel that’s supposed to surround you with women wild to run their hands through his hair. (Hasn’t happened yet, thanks this mom.) He rolls his eyes at the injustice of having parents who refuse to buy him video games that feature eviscerations and flying intestines.

But he actually cooed this morning when he saw the origami crane and butterflies his great-grandma sent him in his birthday card. He snuggles stuffed animals, and he sees absolutely nothing wrong with taking them out to dinner in restaurants with him. He draws in notebooks, frequently and with great detail. He still can’t quite wrap his mind around schoolwork and organization skills that many kids his age are beginning to handle with ease. And he’s singing to himself in the kitchen right now, completely without self-consciousness: “It’s my birrrrrrrth-day! Happy birrrrrrth-day!”

This Sam chose a bike for his birthday, as he did four and six years ago.

  

The bikes keep getting bigger. That’s easier for me to focus on noticing, not the fact that the kid riding them is also growing, up to my chin with no signs of stopping. In the end, it’s still the same look on his face as he flies down the street, laughing at the wind in his face and loving the way he can move so fast, riding farther and farther away from home, away from me.

And then he turns, looks back, and flies back to me. For now.

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After we left, we had another, longer talk. He was utterly appalled, thankfully, and I was very relieved that he hadn’t taken the time to help Gabe sound out the words on the locker. Thankfully, Gabe was uninterested in the actual vocabulary used; he was far more freaked by what had caught Sam’s eye first: the rest of the sentence, which made reference to hanging. (Can I just say, once more, that these are the milestones you really, really don’t want?!) I told them both that the sort of people who write those things on lockers are usually cowards, the sort of people who would probably drop the pen and run if anybody caught them at it.

I didn’t say that they wouldn’t have had much to worry about, anyway, being the “right” color of skin for this racist vandal. That lesson, the one about privilege, can wait.

I hope the graffiti is gone when the kids enter the locker room next time. Honestly, I’d be lying if I didn’t say I’m a little less comfortable sending them in there next time than I was today. The time they go in, the locker room is full of young kids, not grownups, but I don’t like it. Sadly, Sam’s just undeniably too old for me to take him in the women’s or the family locker room, even if Gabe wasn’t hitting the borders of that stage, himself. I felt fine about Sam being in there with Gabe before today. Now we’ve hit yet another of those bumps that make me want to whisk my family away to some safe, clean place…that doesn’t really exist, I know, but I can’t help wishing, and mourning yet another loss of innocence.

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And just like that, school’s out for the year, and vacation ends/begins. (How is it that I never fully appreciated just how much of an anti-vacation summer is for parents when I was a kid? Mom and Dad never seemed more stressed than usual during the summer…but, then again, I suppose they weren’t as shy about administering heavy doses of “eat your breakfast, then get outside and don’t come back until lunch.” I’d try that more often, but it seems to end in more tears and recrimination with my kids than I recall it being with me and my brother. I suppose we had more neighborhood foils to stand between us and distract tension than my kids do.)

Luckily, the playground programs began today, seamlessly bridging the gap between when school ends and summer school begins. Both kids enjoyed their programs, so that’ll take care of afternoons for a while. The rest of today was a bit madcap. I spent the morning on the phone with doctors and pharmaceutical providers, trying to argue my way into not having to mail out monthly paper prescriptions for maintenance meds (don’t ask), in between which headaches I managed to get the grass cut and the kids to the library.

Then, when they were at the playground, I got out the bike, intending to top off the tires with air and go on a ride…but after futzing with the valves and the adaptor for a while, I finally admitted defeat and walked the bike to the bike shop, pump on my back, for a lesson in how to do it properly. Turns out, “properly” necessarily involves a pump that isn’t broken. Well, who knew? At least it wasn’t my fault the tires wouldn’t get full. Rode home with a new (heavier, bulkier, pointier) pump in the bag on my back (jabbing me in the ribs with every jounce).

Then I fed the family, scrubbed the stovetop with the assistance of copious scrubbing powder and red wine (the wine for me, to make the task more tolerable), and sent the kids out to play (“and don’t come back until bedtime or until somebody’s bleeding!”). (No, not really.) (Though it was tempting.) Now I sit here, soaking my healing toes, counting down the minutes until bedtime.

I love vacations, don’t you?

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Gabe’s kindergarten class staged their “graduation” ceremony yesterday. It was an in-class thing, with no parents, so I have no idea what he did besides get a graduation cap and a diploma…and pick up a brand-new set of anxieties.

“I’m scared,” he mumbled this morning, curled into a corner of the rocking chair. “I’m scared of first grade.” Of course, he still has two days left of kindergarten before this should even be an issue, but never mind that; the cap was placed on his head, so in his mind, he’s on to the next step. “What if I get a mean teacher?”

I had Sam try to tell him about his own first-grade experience, for which he had a perfectly lovely teacher, but it didn’t help much. Gabe is a fretter, not the optimist Sam tends to be, and change – specifically, change that he hasn’t weighed in his own mind and made with deliberation and autonomy – isn’t anything he seeks, as a rule. It took him a fairly long time to adjust to kindergarten, and it seems like that might a recurring theme, not a one-off. Doesn’t help that, having the big brother that Sam didn’t, he’s learned about the concept of “mean teacher” as a reality, not a television show anomaly. Mean teachers exist at his school, and it doesn’t matter that he’s unlikely to get one next year; their confirmed presence is enough to inject uncertainty into his mind.

I sort of wish this could have waited until at least midway through the summer. The last few days of school are supposed to be about celebrating the end of one year, not dreading the next one already. Besides, first grade at this particular school is fun especially for a little ham like Gabe is. Remember this? They work on that musical for a huge chunk of the year, and if I know my second-born, he’ll love it. But he’s building terrors already, which means they’ll be huge and hulking by summer’s end. Wish I could know now which teacher he’ll have; if it’s the sweet one Sam had, we could really console him all vacation long.

Oh, well. We’ll just have to keep him too busy to worry much – although, with that child, that’s a tall order. In any case, both kids are signed up for summer classes (Gabe is taking a pottery class, which his friend Nathan is also taking, and Sam is in a science one where they’ll do crazy experiments to solve problems), and then they’ll be in the playground programs as well. (Sam wasn’t wild about how he’s aged into the program devoted solely to sports, instead of the mix of sports and crafts the younger kids do, but there’s nothing I can do about that part.) We changed our gym membership from the barebones gym we’ve been using over to the YMCA, and the kids will continue their swimming lessons and be able to do other activities there, as well. It’ll be a fun summer…if Gabe can get his mind off his troubles.

Oh, and if I can get back on the road running. Okay, four days of no running, and the novelty has officially worn off. Maybe it has to do with how this week’s oppressive heat broke last night, and now it’s perfect running weather out there, and I’m still benched, but…ugh. My toes are healing nicely, with very little pain, but I’d almost welcome a little (a very little, mind) discomfort if it helped to console me about not lacing up just yet. I feel fine! Waaah!

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Sitting here in the land of the nailless. When I went in to the podiatrist on Monday, he shook his head and said, “So close.” The nails did indeed decide to dive into the ends and sides of the toes, which meant, er, ejection from the game. I will say that if you’re going to have nails removed, a podiatrist is definitely the way to do it, especially one who takes you seriously if you happen to say, “Look, I go through anesthetic like it’s dime-store chewing gum. Gimme all you got.” He mixed up a couple different kinds of anesthetic, shot me up with them, and I didn’t even notice he’d removed the first one until he asked me if I wanted to see it. (No. No, I didn’t.)

He also gave me an Rx for some “accelerated healing gel,” which was a little tricky to lay hands on, but which works…in the most disgusting manner I’ve ever seen, but effective. It’s this stuff that, well, looks like this:

You break off a piece (sort of like flimsy, thin clay) and put it over the wound, and as it absorbs the nastiness coming from the (in my case) acid-scorched nail root, it turns clear. And (as was not foretold to me) turns sort of gelatinous, conveniently showing everything it has absorbed. I really don’t think there’s a word in English to quite encompass the squick factor, here.

So I’m off from running for two weeks, until he sees me again, but in the meantime, I can do “all the cross-training [I] want.” Since he knows me pretty well at this point, I’m trusting that he knows what that means for me. I walked six miles yesterday, and I’m going to walk more today, along with possibly a bike ride. My legs are still pretty stiff since the race, which I know wouldn’t be the case if I was able to run and loosen them up, so I’ve got to try other means of working out the kinks.

Three more days of school, and then the beasts are freed from their cages for a few months.

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When my alarm went off, I laughed at the silliness of the dream, and I felt calm about the real race. Put on my gear, had some toast and coffee with Kelly, and felt completely at ease with what we were going to do. Mind, I didn’t particularly enjoy the fact that at 5 in the morning, it was already in the upper 60s, with every sign of getting warmer by the minute, but you can only control what you can control. The heat was out of my hands.

I guess pink was the order of the day.

Sean drove us to the start, and we found our way to the crowded corral. I quickly found the four-hour pace group, and I was encouraged by the fact that everybody seemed very friendly, and the leaders seemed capable. One guy in the group led us in some sort of “Penguin Dance” warm-up, which was very silly and got our laughs going.

Then the gun went off, and we started running. We all chatted as we went, and I called out to a fellow running in shorts printed in the Maryland state flag. I don’t know his name, but I called him “Terrapin” for conveniency. “Hey, Terrapin! Where you from?” He was from the southern part of the state, but was happy to meet another Marylander. The chat kept us going through the first few miles, before things started to get tougher. The heat kept creeping up, and the slight rolling nature of going over bridge after bridge was making me wonder…

…and then we got to what was to be the first major climb, around the 7-mile mark, and it became crystal clear to me that there was no way on earth I was hanging with the four-hour pack. My training had been too cautious; in trying to prevent another injury, I hadn’t done much hill work, and Minneapolis is decidedly hillier than Racine. The group took off, and I let them go. Just over the 10K mark in a full marathon is no place to try heroics. (Far later in the race, after a turnaround, I saw that “Terrapin” had fallen back, too, and was well behind me. I hope he did well enough in the end!)

I noticed, around mile 9, that I was playing “leapfrog” with a woman in a black tank; she’d pass me on the run, and then I’d pass her when she took brief walk breaks. By mile 11, I ran up to her and asked her if she minded company. That turned out to be an excellent decision. Julie and I stayed together for the rest of the race, each going through ups and downs, but somehow managing to time our “ups” with the other’s “downs.” We took turns with the “You might have to drop me” and the rebuttal “No way!” I had nausea; she had a sore knee. It all worked out in the end.

Speaking of nausea, it was bad. I got very dehydrated in the heat, despite draining my entire 64-ounce water bladder and taking a cup or two of Powerade from almost every aid station. I hadn’t had time to train with salt back here, so I attempted to try the Margarita-flavored Shot Blox with extra sodium; that turned out to be a mistake, as they made me feel like I would throw up, so I switched back to my regular Shot Blox (Black Cherry) halfway through. My fingers were like sausages, barely able to bend, and at one point, I began getting goosebumps and chills, which frightened me a bit. Thank goodness for the aid stations with sprinklers, too!

The steepest hill, coming out of Fort Snelling, had been decorated with chalked warnings: “THIS HILL SUCKS!”, followed by “WE TOLD YOU IT SUCKED!” and “STILL GOING UP!” As we were power-walking at this point, it was much funnier than it would have been if I was trying to keep up with the pace group and running. Honestly, I didn’t see anybody running at that point. But Fort Snelling was the best part of the course for me, aside from that. When we left the pavement to run on dirt, I almost immediately felt spring reenter my step, and my nausea all but vanished. Wish that could have made up more of the course!

The end was tough, as I was flagging, and of course, the race ended on a big uphill. I wish I could have felt stronger at that point, but my quads were cramping painfully and I was exhausted. We finished in 4:30:44, which is my worst marathon time yet, but all in all, it could have been much worse, and you know what? There were such positive parts (the beauty of the course, meeting Julie) that it’s hard to feel bad about the negative ones. Kelly was at the end, having finished her first half-marathon well under the time she’d hoped for, and she and Mel, the friend I met the night before, cheered me in. (Mel and Sean now say they’re doing the half next year!) We had our photos taken, then Julie and I said goodbye, and we headed for home.

Kelly and I had Indian for lunch, and then I said farewell as she dropped me off at the airport – part three of “The Weekend of Impossible Things.” But this flight was even more smooth than the one out, and the merciful gate agent moved me up to a bulkhead seat so I’d be able to move my legs more freely and alleviate some of the soreness. (The soreness, incidentally, is exquisite; my quads have not forgiven me yet for the hills.) I have no good reason to complain at all, so I won’t.

Anyway, on to other things! The toenails did start to get a bit ouchy during the race, and last night they began stinging; I don’t think there’s any hope I’ll be keeping them beyond the podiatrist appointment later this afternoon, which means they’re gone for good. Good riddance, and don’t come back. So that’ll be interesting, right?

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I began calling it “The Weekend of Impossible Things” in my head, what with the flights and the race, but honestly, the flights probably couldn’t have gone any more smoothly. Eric dropped me off early at the airport on Friday mid-afternoon, and I drank a cup of coffee until it was time to board; the plane was a little late arriving, but they got us on as quickly as possible when it did, so I got to Minneapolis almost when I was supposed to. It was much warmer there than it had been in Wisconsin, which gave me some sense of foreboding, but what can you do?

Kelly and Sean picked me up, and we went for dinner at a sweet little Thai place, where I had a delicious curry; then we went home and I got to meet their adorable puppy, Jetta. Make no mistakes, Jetta is a Good Girl.

Got to take lots of walks with her over the course of the weekend, and she’s really taking to training very smoothly!

Next morning, a friend of Kelly’s came in with her mom, and they, Kelly, and I hit the Minneapolis Farmer’s Market. Oh, but before that, I got up and did a quick 3.5-mile shake-out-the-legs run around gorgeous Lake Harriet, which was only a couple of blocks from their house. Talk about convenient…and talk about busy! The paths around the lack were positively packed with runners, walkers, and cyclists. I was amazed at the number of active people out there! And Kelly and Sean told me that every lake is at least that busy on a regular basis! Most impressive! The Farmer’s Market, huge and bustling, reaffirmed the idea in my head that Minneapolis is powerfully focused on health. Wonderful!

After Kelly’s friend left, she and I went to packet pickup, which was quite well-organized and very “green” – no bag full of coupons and junk that would probably go to waste. Got my chip, bib, shirt, and hat, and then we browsed. I knew my New Balances were going to be officially retired after the race, and I scanned the sale shoes available…but then made a last-minute switch.

Baaaaaaa. Let’s jump on the bandwagon, shall we? But I’ve got assurances that should these Newtons not work out for me, I can deal with a local shoe store and head back to my motion-control clompers. Also got a copy of Danny Abshire’s book, all autographed. Neat.

Went home and showed off our stuff to Sean, his dad, and another good friend, Mel. Sean and his dad worked on various house-related projects, and then dinner preparation got underway; meanwhile, after having listened to me bemoan the state of my own house, Sean’s dad actually sat down and helped me sketch out some plans for fixing things around here! I could actually begin to feel optimistic, almost!

Shared a lovely meal of grilled veggies and some lentil soup, then retired early, a bundle of nerves…which somehow evaporated overnight. When I woke up the next morning, I was feeling bizarrely relaxed, not at all afraid of what was to come…

To Be Continued…

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Eep. I’m cleaning my living room in a frenzy (why do we have so many Legos? Where are they all coming from?!) because I can’t tolerate sitting still. Ack.

The weekend’s saving grace: Kelly! Hurray for hosts who are also running, and who have the impeccable manners not to be blissfully on the other end of the confidence spectrum over their own race. On the other hand, she says she does well running in heat, a talent I lack, so we’ll just see. (I keep trying to remind myself that Devil’s Lake was in the 80s and for a lot longer and harder running, but somehow, that memory isn’t comforting me much…

I also screwed up with my shoe rotation this training cycle, doing more runs in one pair than the other, and I just noticed that I’ve got over 400 miles on these New Balances in which I plan to race. Now, I haven’t noticed any problems from them yet, but I’d rather not have had that knowledge in my head at this point, I believe. Fret, fret, fret.

Somebody tell me something cheerful and fluffy?

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Just made these for a choir potluck tonight. Started as a thing where I thought, okay, I’m making my own baked beans to take tonight, because in years past, all kinds of beans showed up and smelled so gosh-darn good but were full of meat, so instead of feeling sad, I’ll bring vegetarian ones. So that was settled, but I wanted to bring something else, too, and since my mind was wandering along vegetarian/vegan options anyway (I’m making the beans from The Veganomicon), it landed on Katie’s Fudge Babies and how I’d been wanting to make them for a long while.

I went with the Cashew Cookie Bar and the Peanut Butter ones, since, truthfully, I don’t really like the Larabar recipes that combine dates and chocolate. It’s never either “chocolatey” or “datey” enough for me; the flavors fight and both lose, in my book. No chocolate in my “babies,” then. And they are goooooood. Oh, good heavens. Too easy, too. This could get dangerous. On the other hand, they have just about perfect proportions for long trail-running fuel (I know lots of people who use trail mix, dried fruit, or even Fig Newtons already), so now I’m wondering about that…

Have to get started on these beans now.

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Turns out, “lightweight” is really subjective. It’s been a while since I tried to actually run with him in it, and it was an effort. On the other hand, it gave me an opportunity to talk to him about the freshly placed flags, and we took a moment mid-run to read the decorated headstones and think about what it all meant. He was very quiet for a while after that.

The rest of the day has been very low-key, with a brief veterans’ parade in the morning, followed by lunch and a return to home so Sam could finish up his homework. It was warm today, warmer than it has been so far this year, I think. I took advantage of it to go out and finish some yard work, the latter half of which Eric came out and joined me to complete. Thing is, I hate yard work; we both do. Honestly, it’s probably one of the biggest motivating factors which makes us think that our next move might be to a condo. I get no pleasure from trying to tame green things. It’s not that I don’t like them; it’s that I like them best when I can leave them to their own, or someone else’s, resources. I don’t get the idea of trying to grow grass. It’s…grass. Look at a field; it seems to be growing quite well without help. Why does surrounding it with a fence, or putting a house in the middle of it, suddenly cripple its sense of independence? Sissy little plant; I didn’t sign on to be your mother…

I swear, though, the Attack Weed-Trees were in full force. Eric battled them. At one point, I heard a loud crack! and his shout, and I turned around to see Eric lying on his back, triumphantly gripping the tree he’d managed to yank from the ground, at cost to his own balance. Victory! We ended up with four big bags of yard waste of which I now have to figure out how to dispose.

Got to go call my dad now. He’s a veteran, so it’s his day!

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SAM: “Okay, I want to stop working.”
ME: “How many days do you have left?”
SAM: “…not counting days 14 and 15…five.”
ME: “So, seven?”
SAM: “Yeah.”
ME: “You had nine left when you started. It’s taken you this long to do two, and at that speed, there’s no way you’ll finish tomorrow without crazy work.”
SAM: “Okay, but can I at least take a break until four o’clock?”
ME: “That would be fine. But no arguing when I say it’s four, and you need to get back to-”
SAM: “ALL RIGHT! I’ll work now!”
ME: “Um, okay…”
SAM: “Stop talking to me! I said I’d work now!”
ME: “Okay.”
SAM: “STOP SAYING OKAY!”
GABE: “…I’m almost done my Lego guy.”
SAM: “NOBODY TALK!!!”

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Fourteen years today since the day we said “I do” to each other. The fourteenth wedding anniversary is traditionally the “ivory” year, though we’re forgoing that (or any other material gift, opting instead to spend the afternoon together while the kids are in school). I laughed at the website that suggested that couples could take a trip to Africa to admire elephants. That’s not exactly in the cards for us right now, though maybe someday it could be fun.

The modern anniversary calendar proclaims this year to be the year of “gold.” Ah, impatience. Is it that so few couples stand a chance at making it to fifty years, the real Golden Anniversary, together, or is it just that nobody feels like they can wait that long? I don’t like the modern calendar; it feels like it’s trying to hurry things that shouldn’t be hurried, rushing to get to the end of what’s meant to be savored. Gold is for fifty years, and it should take a while to get there. That’s the point.

I’ve been with my husband for fourteen years, and while that is a very long time, it’s simultaneously just the beginning of a journey. He sighs dramatically when I relate it to running, but this is just past the half-marathon mark…and we’re running an ultra. Still so much to see, to learn, to experience together. Those elephants are waiting, and there’s no pressure to get there tomorrow. What might we miss today if we felt like that?

It’s raining today, just like it was then. Rain on your wedding day is good luck, they say. I think luck is overrated, but there’s much to be said for standing in the rain (real or metaphorical) with your partner. Call it luck, or call it love. Just be together.

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GABE: “What? What’s funny?”
ME: “My book made me laugh.”
GABE: “Tell me!”
ME: “It’s complicated and long. I’d have to go back to the beginning.”
GABE: “So? Go back!”
ME: “It’s a grown-up’s book!”
GABE: “Tell me now!”
ME: “Well, okay…there’s a king who had a baby, and he invited everybody to see her, and he accidentally invited vampires, and they -”
GABE: “I’m going to laugh now. Ha, ha. See? It was funny, and I got it.” (He stomps off.)

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But I’ll live. ::sniffle::

By the way, that’s the teddy bear, in the picture, that the boys sent along with Eric on his trip. The photos are all tooth-achingly precious, especially where the folks Eric met decided to get involved. Nothing like seeing your teddy bear perched between a couple of grinning German hotel desk clerks to make a kid howl with laughter. Gabe actually laughed hardest at the photos showing Miles the Bear enjoying his meals, I think. Can’t wait to see the hijinks a stuffed animal can enjoy in Orlando.

Twenty days until marathon day!

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Went downstairs; heard silence. Opened lid…and saw washer full of soapy water. It had stopped near the beginning of the cycle.

Being mechanically minded, stared thoughtfully at it, closed lid, reopened it, closed it again, and finally gave it a slight whack with the palm of my hand. It started back up again.

This…this can’t be good.

(Crap, I can hear that it’s now stopped again. Any suggestions?)

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The kids brought home their new school pictures.

  

And I insta-aged about ten years, just looking at them. Seriously, between Sam’s “too cool to giggle out loud” facial expression and Gabe’s Casanova-ish swagger, I just…where did my babies go? I think I’ll just make myself feel a little better:

Ah, yes. There they are.

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So Rachel dropped by my place at 5:30, and we ran for a lovely hour, chatting and enjoying the morning; the rain never materialized, and my legs felt great. I was feeling really optimistic as I got home, grabbed my things, and piled into the car…and then, about fifteen minutes down the road, I realized I’d forgotten my gel for the race. Now, I didn’t panic too much. I had eaten a couple of prunes before running with Rachel (no time to eat anything substantial and have it do anything but sit like a brick in my belly), and I was eating a Clif bar in the car, so I though that I’d be okay for now, and surely there’d be aid stations with fuel along the course. (Dun-dun-dunnnnnnn… [huzzah, foreshadowing!])

Got there, and no rain appeared! I strapped on my race belt, wandered to the start, and chatted with some folks while waiting for the bathrooms (ooh, posh: hotel restrooms right by the starting line!). Then, right on time, we were off. Almost immediately, the people running the Euro Cross-Country route split off from us half and full marathoners, which was a bit confusing, since the guy directing us was speaking realllllly sloooooowly as we approached, and I was nearly on top of him before I knew which direction to go. The answer: up the hill. And for the next eight miles, that was to be the only answer. Up, up, up.

After about five miles, I was beginning to really regret the extra miles I’d done before the race. My hips and hamstrings, especially were unhappy. And perhaps the Euro runners were getting good scenery (they kept meeting back up with us, only to duck down between shadows into what looked like people’s driveways…), but what we got was cattle farms of the more pungent variety. Phew! But we did see one calf frolicking at us as we passed, which was precious and lifted my spirits a bit.

Eight or nine miles in, my hip decided to lock up a bit. Ran through it, and it went away. I was getting a bit annoyed, too, by how the mile markers were placed quite wrongly, and my assumption about the race course fuel had been wrong as well. No fuel. No gels. I did the race on Gatorade alone, which…well, it left me feeling quite bad by that ninth mile on. I wanted to stop, but that wasn’t an option. For one, I’ve never yet DNFed a race, and for another, this was a point-to-point course, and I needed to make it to the end to reach the shuttle back home. I kept running. At least it was flat at this point.

Around mile 12, there were two punishing downhills. My hips and hamstrings got joined by my quads and shins in the chorus of complaint. Everything below my waist felt like lead. Good times.

I finally reached the finish line at 1:57:42, which put me 5/11 in my age group and 95/259 overall. Grabbed my medal, grabbed my water, ran for the boat the finish line volunteer told me was the shuttle back, waited around a bit until it became clear that they were wrong, then hobbled to the bus that was the correct shuttle. I made it back home about 15 minutes before Eric got picked up for the airport, thank goodness.

Ow.

Mother’s Day, on the other hand, was as restful as it could be, considering my husband is in another country. I got bath salts from Gabe, and both boys gave me potted plants they assembled at church. We ate out at a nice vegetarian restaurant, then had gelato afterward. Nothing fancy, which was as my legs would have it. Oh, but I do wonder if I’ll ever be able to make it through a Mother’s Day sermon at church without tearing up when the kids come in to hand out little flowers or candies to all the moms…

Denny’s: not the vegetarian restaurant.

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(Watch: it’ll pour cats and dogs on June 5th, the day of Minneapolis.)

Wet doesn’t bother me much, but really, the whole point of picking Lake Geneva was to have a pretty race. I’d sort of like to be able to enjoy the scenery, you know? Anyway, it’s still fifty-fifty for showers, so the whole thing is all up in the air figuratively as well as literally.

After the race, I’m supposed to go to a Kentucky Derby party. Tomorrow, I’m heading to some thrift stores to find the base for what will hopefully become a lovely race-day chapeau. Of course, as always, I’m likely overestimating my crafting ability, and what appears in my mind’s eye as a tasteful accessory is probably going to look like a kindergarten craft project. A for ambition; (projected) D for execution. Keep fingers crossed that I at least manage to avoid hot gluing the brim to the coffee table. (I doubt my neck could support dangling furniture.) Gonna have me a mint julep, though, and that’ll take the edge off any fashion faux-pas I’ve made.

Yep, Saturday’s going to be fun. It better be, because it kicks off a two-week stretch without Eric again.

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Mind you, our long-standing policy is that if you try to eat your dinner, you can subsequently make something else for yourself (not doing it for you, though), but if you don’t at least try, the kitchen is closed. So there will be no snacking tonight for little gentlemen, which they both claim to accept.

Anyway, Eric’s almost recovered from the strep throat; he doesn’t feel great, but he didn’t feel bad enough to stay home from work today. Gabe had a bumpy day back at school, and Sam has had his rocky evening, so between all of us, it’s the sort of evening that begs for everybody to stick to his own corner as much as possible, avoiding interaction with everybody else.

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They go back to school tomorrow. Gabe’s been singing “Monday, Monday, going to school on Monday…”

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I hear there’s a wedding tomorrow. No, really; I’m not as “Get this crap out of my face!” as some folks I know, but I’m not as “OMG PRINCESS!!! (and ponies!!!)” as others. Honestly, what I am is nostalgic – for my high school European History classes. A discussion on Facebook evolved into debate over whether Catherine was going to be Queen one day or not, and I found myself desperately, and futilely, trying to recall that particular lecture for a while before finally breaking down and looking it up. (Answer: Queen Consort, but not Queen Regnant.) I loved that class, with all the tangents and sordid tales of intrigue we soaked in every day.

Spring Break is over halfway over, and nobody’s yet killed anybody else. Been quite a lot of this:

…which is fun, though it inevitably leads to the “Somebody please pick up all these pieces of fort!” stage of battle, which in turn leads to “He’s not helping!” So that’s not as much fun.

Easter was low-key this year; we never did dye eggs, but we did a plastic egg hunt in the house, as well as search for hidden baskets outside. (No snow for Easter this year, but it was too cold and damp to want to spend much time outside searching for much.) Candy was eaten, eggs were pelted at each other (“It’s a grenade, Mom!”), and another year passed without question of whether certain characters were real or imaginary. (Honestly, Sam still seems to believe in everything from Santa to the Tooth Fairy, without a hint of suspicion, but I’m not sure whether that’s genuine innocence or part of his complete refusal to want to grow up in any area of life, ever. )

Spring might finally be here; my bushes are starting to get green at the ends. Miraculously, the cherry tree seems to remain alive, too (the pear tree didn’t survive that summer). Someday, I have faith…it might have a branch. Perhaps two. (I won’t even dare to dream of actual fruit; those are things that happen to other people. )

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The first day of Spring Break has been a bit tumultuous. Sam had a check-up with his doctor regarding a recently-begun medication, and in the course of that check-up, she determined that the cough we’d been writing off as an allergic flare-up was something buried firmly deep in his lungs and needing to be treated in a different fashion. So we had to get those pills, and we had to grab construction paper for a homework project, and we stopped by the bookstore for some “Spring Break Emergency Quiet-Time Reading Materials” (Sam chose a book on the sinking of the Bismarck; Gabe picked a Pokemon handbook), and by the time we finally made it home, the boys were nigh on feral. They’ve been snapping and biting, figuratively, ever since. (And if you think homemade banana waffles would soothe their nerves, you’d, apparently, be wrong.) Eric wisely opted for an outing with a coworker tonight over the waffles, but that’s okay; I’ve got running club tomorrow morning, and he can deal with the early morning bickering.

We haven’t dyed eggs for Easter this year. Not sure we will; it’s one thing, as it was when I was a kid and we did Easter at my grandma’s church, when you’re dying a bunch to take to church for a big ol’ Egg Hunt, but it’s another entirely when the only people to see your eggs are yourselves, and not that many people in the family are wild about hard-boiled eggs, anyway, but it hardly seems worth it to break out the dye for the small number of eggs you’ll realistically consume (and egg salad isn’t a favorite, either)…isn’t there something else we could dye? Hot cross buns aren’t piquing their interests, in the alternative.

The secular celebration of Easter is definitely something that loses its charm on the other side of the adult-child equation, at least for me. Christmas? Birthdays? Sure. Not this one, though. Way more fun to hunt for a basket and squeal over chocolate eggs than to manage the behind-the-scene workings on this one. But perhaps I’m feeling a bit grumbly; I’ll probably be over it as soon as the sun makes another (fleeting) appearance.

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I have to do all my runs before dawn for a week, before Eric goes to work. Whine-whine-whine…

And tomorrow, that means having to do six miles in wind and rain and dark, and there’s no escaping it this time. But it’ll be nice and dry, though dark, for my long run this week. There’s that, anyway.

Sam came home from school with testosterone poisoning again. He’s got this sporadic attitude that I didn’t anticipate appearing for another few years, where everything anybody says to him is obviously the most idiotic thing ever spoken aloud by another human, or else it’s a horrid insult against his own intelligence (“I KNOW I have homework! You DON’T have to SAY it! MAAAAAAAAAN!”). It’s fun. Seems to appear most often right after school, which leads me to believe he’s mainly have trouble code-shifting when he goes from playground to my house, where we Will Not Be Having That. (But it also doesn’t help that Gabe’s forté is, often, insulting his brother’s intelligence…)

I need to get into the whole Spring Break attitude, I know, but it’s hard when Wisconsin is still firmly of a mind to stick with winter for a little while longer, at least.

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Eric’s home today. It started as a “Man Cold,” but now he’s running a fever and has chills, and his throat is killing him. He’s heading to the doctor here in a bit; they think it might be strep. (So help me, if either the kids or I get it…) Hope he gets better quickly; illnesses tend to linger with him, considering his other, chronic illnesses and the sleep apnea machine that likes to blow congestion into his sinuses.

It’s weird, having this snow and grey weather outside, and illnesses inside, after yesterday’s prettiness. Sam played outside with a friend, and I took Gabe (ostracized by the older kids after an argument) on a long, pleasant walk to a friend’s house. The reason for the visit wasn’t so pleasant; her adult son passed away this week, and I assisted with the funeral just before, so this was the mourners’ gathering. But the spirits were strong, and everybody was drawing comfort from the group. Gabe was very polite, talking with her about her dogs. Easier to think about that than other things, for all involved.

Anyway. This is the last week before Spring Break, for which we’re not doing much; Eric has a business trip, just for a day, in the middle of the week, which precludes any larger plans. Low-key is good, though. I’m learning to appreciate that as I get older.

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It was a swimming lesson night. After discussing the matter with both the boys’ teachers, it’s safe to say that both of them will be repeating this class for another go-around. The upside is that Sam’s teacher says that, with the exception of one little girl, all the kids in the class will be repeating. I’m not sure what that says, but whatever; Sam’s more at peace with the idea of not graduating so long as he’s in the majority. Eric and I are looking at it as though it’s simply a two-semester class; the kids will all come away stronger for it. Despite his best efforts, Sam still sinks and sputters when he tries to paddle for more than ten or fifteen feet, and Gabe has only just screwed up the courage to swim a yard or so using a kickboard, the teacher standing an arm’s length away, in chin-deep water. But there are no more shrieks!

Had a moment of panic trying to leave the Y tonight, when I put my hand in my purse and found my keys were gone. At first, I thought it was just my house keys, and I guessed that I had left them on the table after having them out with me when I went for a run earlier today (six miles, no issues or points of note). But my car key was gone, too, and since I distinctly remembered having driven to the Y in the first place, I was flummoxed. The kids helped me search the ground and ask for help, but no key was found. I nearly dumped my purse in the search…and then I found the small hole in the lining of the pocket that had held my keys. (Oh, Mr. Choo, you let me down. ) Stuck a finger in there, and found both house and car keys. Oops.

Now Sam is working on a report on ancient Roman military, yet another assignment in the long line of growing topics designed to make me feel thoroughly ignorant and uneducated. Meh.

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The long version: I had originally planned to do a three mile warm-up, then the race, then three more miles to accumulate my planned nine miles for the day. After fretting and worrying, though, I changed my mind and decided to do the whole six miles with running club before the race. I knew I’d be a little tired after that, but I figured I’d also feel mentally better for having done it, and it would eliminate a little of the time coordination. Running club’s route was right next to the race course that morning, so it was simple on that end. I ran those six miles with a new friend, casually and easily, which left me with some pep in my legs.

I went and registered for the race after that – nothing like the last minute! – and ran into another newer member of our running group. Nate and I hung around, waiting for the start; it was grey, windy, and damp out, with a chill that had us all shivering with chattery teeth. Greeted a few other folks, including a man from our church, whose son, Eli, just a year older than Sam, was running the race and expecting to do extremely well. The boy was perched right at the starting line, raring to go.

Nate and I headed off at the gun, doing a quick pace and feeling okay. About a mile into it, though, I found us passing Eli, who was visibly struggling. He had a hand clamped to his sides and his face was grimaced. I immediately fell back beside him, checking if he was okay and getting him breathing more slowly. Once he was more settled, I hung with him, encouraging him to keep going; a boy just ahead of us looked to be in his age group, and I muttered, “See that kid? He keeps looking back at you, scared. You got him!” And around mile two, we finally passed him.

By the final curve, just before the finish, Eli said, “When we turn, I’m going to go as fast as I can.” “You better!” I said, and when he kicked, I hollered after him, grinning. It felt awesome to see him fly over the finish. I was thrilled later to find that he’d finished second in his age group – that was more satisfying than learning my own place. (Nate, who had gone on ahead when I dropped back by Eli, came in fourth in his age group.) I crossed in 25:20 Garmin time (I forget the gun time; the results aren’t posted online yet, either).

And my legs felt just fine. Worries? What worries?

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I also managed, through total fluke, to bring along a book I was idly rereading…having completely forgotten that I’d promised to loan it to the friend I sat with for the meeting. She was all, “Are you reading that again?” and it still took me about fifteen minutes to put two and two together and remember I’d said I’d give it to her. Precious. I swear, the hair is naturally red, not blonde…

Yum, soup.

I’m theoretically racing tomorrow. Ask me if I’ve registered. Part of this brain still thinks that the moment I plunk down the money to run, my leg will immediately implode. Gotta love paranoia, don’t you? I’m also aggravated that new travel has made it back onto Eric’s work schedule, and it’s trying to mess with both the half-marathon I wanted to run in early May and the marathon I planned for June. Not completely, mind you, just nibbling at the edges, coming too close for comfort. Can I make it back from the race in time for Eric to catch his flight, you know? (He says it’ll be fine; I say that it’s not what I wanted to be worrying over as I run…)

Of secondary concern to me is that he’ll be out of the country for Mother’s Day. That’s secondary mostly because we can still celebrate another day, but it’ll be a bummer to wrangle the kids by my lonesome if I try to brave a Mother’s Day brunch. Not a huge issue, though. The biggest issue, beyond races and brunches, is my husband is going away again. At least it’s Germany this time; I won’t be nearly as terrified for his safety. (Note: this is not the cue to start telling me about bizarre violent crime sprees that might be currently happening in Deutschland. Seriously.)

Anyway, might go run in the rain now. Gently – not out of fear, though, of course! No, it’s just…taper! Yeah, taper! For a 5K…

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It can be really tough to be somebody’s hero sometimes.

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So I didn’t get many people this year. Apparently, it was more believable that I’d get a “GOT MILK?” tattoo or sign up for a stage race across the Sahara than that I’d edit books about boobs.

On the other hand…it turns out that some relatives read now that didn’t read then, and they’re not “onto me.” For posterity: April Fools Day is one of my most favorite holidays. I adore it, and I always do my best to participate in silly ways. I won’t do “mean” pranks; absurd is more my style. If something I write sends your eyebrows into orbit or seems 100% out of character for me…check the calendar.

By the way, Mom was totally in on it. Asking before involving someone else is just courtesy,  y’know?

Anyway, looks like I gotta step up my game for next year! But I swear, one of these years, the joke will be that it’s not a joke…

Ran twelve this morning. Building back up to my pre-injury levels is hard some days; those last couple of miles were much slower than the others. Getting there, though!

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Also, apparently Gabe works better if the bath toys used for the babies’ “splash class” are incorporated. Yes, my six-year-old will doggedly swim across the pool to reach a green rubber ducky. I don’t know what that says. Nor do I care.

Sam, meanwhile, is doing splendidly, outside than his reluctance to put his face in the water and risk getting water up his nose. I keep trying to tell him that if he puts his face in flat, instead of up and down, and if he breathes out of his nose, it’s not likely to be a problem, but so far, he hasn’t gotten the knack, so he keeps getting his sinuses soaked. It’s not dampening his enthusiasm, though; despite being the oldest one in the group, he also seems to be the least reserved about things, so I could hear him gleefully hollering from across the room, “CHICKEN…AIRPLANE…SOLDIER!!!”, swimming his arms in the accompanying pattern as the teacher towed him along on his back. (Part of the shouting was due to his ears being submersed; when he reached the end of the pool and stood, he asked, “Was I yelling?”)

Three more lessons. I don’t know if either kid will “graduate,” but at least there’s increased comfort in the water. Gabe was most impressed with his progress last night, asking me if I was proud of him, over and over. I tried to tell him that I’m always proud, but he knows well enough to be able to compare the previous weeks’ efforts with last night’s. He knows there was a difference, and I think we’re turning a corner.

(So long as next week doesn’t involve face-dunking, anyway.)

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Then I couldn’t help but return the familial love by picking up Cthulu Dice for Eric. I cannot wait to play it with him, and I think the kids could play, too, though it’s marked for ages 10 and up. At a five to ten minute game time, I know they’ll at least have no problem keeping their attention on the game. I’ll come back with a better review after we have a chance to try it out. (Also got Cuponk for the kids, but I’m not sure if I’m giving it to them now or waiting for Easter.)

While I was out, Eric called to ask if I’d gotten the Vitamix he’d told me to go ahead and buy before he left for China. Now, that’s a whole other ball game, a world apart from little jackets and dice games. I want one desperately, but it’s SO expensive that it well and truly crosses the line of comfort beyond which I have a huge block about spending money on myself. He can say “go ahead” all he wants, but…gah! Can’t! Didn’t! He reminded me that there was a store that sold them right there in the mall where I was, but even then…no. Can’t. (No, I don’t know how this barrier got erected in my brain.)

But I have a berry-colored jacket to console me. It can’t make soup or grind grains, but it makes me smile anyway.

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(Funny story about the purse: at customs, the man asked, “Did you buy any bags?” Eric answered in the affirmative, and the man asked what kind. “I don’t know. Brown,” Eric said. “Not Prada or Coach.” The customs guy let Eric through. I later chided Eric, laughingly, since he’s the one who watched almost every episode of “Sex in the City,” so he’s the one who really should have remembered Carrie Bradshaw’s fondness for the brand. The wallet brand, we both had to Google, though.)

Sam’s back, too, from the Dells. He’s lucky to be alive, that one; I discovered on Sunday night that he had hidden an inch-high stack of late homework assignments in the back of his closet so that I wouldn’t find them and make him work on them before (or possibly instead of) going on the trip. He’s being suitably punished; no screens of any kind until every single assignment has been placed into his teacher’s waiting hands. (She emailed me to check on the stack; that’s the only way I even would have found out about the ruse.) He’s taking it in stride, thankfully, after an initial freak-out and a few minor panic attacks over some of the work that he hadn’t begun because he thought it was too hard. Not that it isn’t hard stuff, some of it; I honestly have vivid memories of tackling some of these specific topics in high school.

Gabe’s bugaboo continues to be swimming. After yesterday’s screamfest, one of the senior teachers approached me and said that next week, he’d like to take on Gabe one-on-one in the therapy pool. Gabe, when he heard that, flipped out and tearfully insisted that he’d be just fine in his regular class (I think he got scared about the idea of not being able to “hide” behind the rest of the class), but he’s come to terms with it and told my mom last night on the phone that he was doing it this way by choice. We’ll see how it goes.

Dragging today. Last night’s thunderstorm got a little bit of an overachiever complex, pelting the windows so loudly that I had to close the doors to the rooms on the windward side of the house or the noise would have been deafening. I think there was hail, too, and the ground had a light covering of snow when we woke. Sheesh. And, yes, I’ll be going out to run in a few minutes, before the “wintry mix” kicks back up again.

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Eric’s on his way home, and not a moment too soon. I’m so incredibly excited to see him! He’ll be exhausted, but we’ll let him get some rest – after the initial attack, of course.

Gonna go snuggle my Gabe now!

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(Unrelated to anything, I woke up this morning with a wretched cramp in my calf that won’t go away. It’s demanding attention right now, pulsing at me. Argh.)

Anyway, it’ll be a quiet weekend here, though Gabe’s now lobbying hard for fun activities to mollify his disappointment. I’m down for some fun, but, sorry, kid, we are not checking into a waterpark hotel for kicks. After hearing the screams at your last swimming lesson (honestly, are you ever going to stop that?), I don’t know why you’d want to go to a water-themed place, anyway. By the way, it’s water in the pool, not acid-laced quicksand; I promise that if you stand up at the shallow end of the pool, you will be able to breathe and not “DIEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

Eric gets back Saturday afternoon; I’ll be able to do my long run, but not early with the running club. This past week was a step-back week, and this week I’m back up to a whole (gasp!) nine miles. I’m doing it right, careful and cautious as can be, but a little part of me is so frustrated at the slow increases. Then again, another small part of me is, well, afraid. This year has been one injury after another, and I can’t help but worry that every time I add on an extra mile or two, I’m risking yet another malady. I haven’t signed up for any races yet, even the 5K in a few weeks that I know I’m in fine shape to do. Just can’t wrap my mind around it; something could still Go Wrong. I know it’s not rational; like I said, the rational part of my brain is being patient and calm in the face of the slow-but-steady build-up. Those two little warring factions in the corners of my mind, though, can get pretty noisy.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day. Here’s a question: Lent is considered to be forty days, as Sundays are considered by the church to be “feast days.” But St. Patrick’s Day is also considered a feast day by the church, so why isn’t Lent considered 39 days? Just occurred to me this morning. Then again, I wasn’t raised in a liturgical church, so maybe this is a “duh” question that gets explained easily during confirmation or something.

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Eric just called from a bar in Changzhou, where his work contingency is spending a couple of days at another plant. I heard three women singing very loudly in the background; it sounded like a lot of fun was being had. Eric says that in many ways, it’s not all that different from visiting any other large city (though Changzhou is a little more rural); his hosts took them for lunch yesterday at Papa John’s pizza, and today they were given bao dumplings and Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Today is swimming lesson number three. (Cringing preemptively, I am.) It’s going to be very interesting if/when they get to the end of the class and Sam graduates, while Gabe, if he continues on his current trajectory, doesn’t. I expect fireworks in that “unfair!” situation.

Need more coffee now.

(By the way, today’s the last day of round one voting for my friend’s contest. I’d love to see them advance and get closer to a goal that would help Todd provide for his family when he won’t be able to do so himself any longer.)

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Sam is feeling a bit better, though he’s still coughing quite a bit, and when I sent him upstairs a while ago to rest, he actually went, and he was asleep in his bed when I looked in (having expected to find him on the computer playing Roblox or Wizard 101). Gabe seems better, too. He has a sore throat, but after an initial period of high drama concerning that, he’s just about completely returned to normal. Also, yesterday’s “full clean out” ended highly anticlimactically. Sparing you the details (you’re welcome), I heard him go into the bathroom this morning, where he loudly muttered, “Daaaaang!” in an impressed tone, and that was that.

Here’s to the coming week being just as anticlimactic as that. Things always seem to go wrong when Eric’s out of town, but we’ve had enough badness already. Met my quota, thanks.

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Gabe came home from school yesterday sobbing that his head hurt and he wanted to throw up. (That’s the good thing about Gabe; you don’t usually have to guess about when he’s sick.) He was burning up, so I gave him some fever reducers. Coincidentally, I just happened to be on the phone with the intake scheduler for his endoscopy, which we were in the process of setting up for this morning. Their criteria is that the patient can’t have a fever over 101 within twelve hours of the procedure, so we banked on his illness following Sam’s route and canceled for now.

Of course, he woke up this morning feeling mostly fine. It’s possible he’s running a low-grade fever; the thermometer said he was okay, but he felt slightly warm to me and I don’t trust these digital thermometer readings very much. The bigger thing was that he was chatty, perky, and insistent that he was going to school to have fun. So he did, but I’m keeping close to the phone.

It seems like these kids are getting sick far more often this year, and I wonder whether it’s that they’re both at the same school now? At least when they were at two different places, my chances were better that only one would be exposed to whatever plague was sweeping the playground.

Speaking of illnesses, though on a far distant stage, I found out this week that a friend of mine, who attended my church and was a member of the local mothers’ club with me…I found out that her husband was diagnosed with ALS last year.

I can’t even imagine the storm that sweeps through a family in a situation such as this. They have two young children, and the life expectancy for her husband is now around two to five heartbreaking years. The thought of what they’ll all be facing is unfathomable.

I have no idea how many people read this blog; a while back, it just stopped being important to me to know. I know there are at least a few, though, and it would be a great gift if we could all help Kristin and Todd out with what they’re trying to do at this point. There’s a contest – just a “click and vote” thing – where they have the chance to win the funds to be able to build a handicapped-accessible house. With so much else that they’ll need to handle, this seems like a concrete way to help take a little of the load off their backs.

If you’re on Facebook, just click through here and cast a vote for them. It would mean a great deal.

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Gabe scribbled and drew during choir practice, stopping frequently to ask me questions about what was going on and what we were singing. He tried to sing along with a couple of the songs, but that seemed like too much work before long. Sam didn’t appear, but I figured he had found a friend or a class full of toys, so no big deal; there were enough people we knew around the church that he wasn’t going to get into much trouble. Besides, I was a little distracted by “Why do the boy singers sit in the back?” and “Why isn’t she using a stick to conduct? Is she dancing?” and “Why are the microphones hanging so high? Do we need to yell?”

After rehearsal ended and we began getting ready for service, Sam wandered in. He…didn’t look so good. His face was a little red, he looked tired, and he said his head hurt. He sat on the pew next to Eric, giving off waves of miserable. Eric questioned me with his eyes, but I said that Sam had been fine over dinner, so he could probably make it through church. By partway through the first hymn, I leaned over to him and suggested that he go get one of the “Quiet Bags” fro the back of the church, since drawing usually cheers him up. He wandered out toward them, and he never returned. (He found a couch in the narthex instead, curling up and dozing.)

Meanwhile, Gabe was anything but unobtrusive. There were moments where it was okay; the pastor asked us to call out things for which we were grateful, and Gabe piped up, “My mom!” He also said the Lord’s Prayer with us, loudly and slightly out of sync, so everybody around us could hear. When the choir got up to sing, though, he began to panic and wanted to come with me. Plenty of chuckles around us; one man said, “Aw, let him come up!” I knew that wasn’t the answer, so I tried to get him to just sit in the front pew instead, where he could see us (and we could see him). Seemed okay…until the piano started, and Gabe got up to dance. For the record, I don’t think “The Monkey” can be legitimately construed as liturgical dance. I heard more laughter, and I tried to motion for him to sit down and knock it off.

Our director, in the middle of conducting, whispered for him to sit. He didn’t. He started to get agitated and unhappy. I envisioned myself having to jump down from the stairs and take him out of the church, midway through the song. The director eventually grabbed him and took him to stand in front of her for the second part of the song, where he was happier but more curious; I saw him try to pepper her with questions as she tried desperately to just get us to the double bar. (By the way, he was marched up to apologize to her after the service finally ended.)

So the sermon started, and he listened with half an ear while he scribbled more. I actually didn’t think he was listening at all, but I was wrong; when the word “ashes” was spoken, he was on his feet like a shot, ready to RUN to the front and get ashed. Had to hold him back until his turn came, at which point he cooperated nicely. When we got back to the pews, though, he started to cry. “This is making me SAD!” he whispered. “Jesus DIED!”

Service ended; the pastor invited Gabe up to blow out the candles on the altar. Went and retrieved Sam; bundled up and fled. Gabe may not be ready for primetime, but he does keep us on our toes.

(Sam’s home from school today; the fever’s getting hotter and hotter. Poor kid!)

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Ash Wednesday today. We’ll be at the church service tonight. Last year, Gabe was highly resistant to me talking about any of it, but this year, he’s a little more receptive. He even went so far as to very generously suggest that he give up his swimming lessons for Lent. Yeah, sure, little man. (I overheard the man I presume is in charge of the swimming lessons talking to Gabe’s teacher yesterday after lessons, telling her that she needed to “get tough” with Gabe. I actually agree; Gabe spent about 85%+ of the lesson standing next to the pool, wringing his hands and weeping loudly, while the teacher made a couple of attempts to encourage him to jump in and participate on his own. That was not going to happen in any universe; he needed somebody to take a firm hand and make the decision for him. It’s one of those things that he’s built up in his head as a horrible, terrible thing, and he’s not going to be able to wrap his mind around the possibility of being wrong until somebody presses it and shows him so. I eventually went and stood beside him next to the pool, doing everything I could to encourage him, but I wasn’t in the water to catch him, so he wasn’t buying it.

Sam, of course, had tremendous fun again. His only issue came when the teacher had to tell him to stop getting away from the wall when she wasn’t helping him dog paddle up and down the lane. This could have been a serious issue…was he not about a foot taller than most of the other kids in the class, well able to stand flat-footed on the bottom of the pool and in no danger. But he needs to listen, so that’s that. (Second verse, same as the first…)

Hmmm, I think Sam’s head might be feeling better; he’s perking up enough to play with Gabe – and giving me resistance about combing his hair and finishing getting ready for school. Better go deal with that now!

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More swimming lessons today. Cross your fingers we have more success with Gabe than we did last week.

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Sam samples a tiny taste before it hits the table. “It’s okay!” he says with a polite smile. I give him a small portion on his plate, which he picks at and picks at and shoves around with his fork, before he finally gives up. “I didn’t really like it,” he says. “I guess I was just saying that.”

Gabe clamps both hands over his mouth, refusing to even look at the new food. Attempts to get him to take a teeny taste are met with gagging (before the fork enters his mouth) and tears. He nibbles on the few items on the table that he recognizes (last night, it was dry taco shells and some bits of grated cheese). Just as I’ve given up, he suddenly folds. “I want you to be PROUD of me!” he says. “I’ll try to taste something new so you’ll be HAPPY!” And he unflinchingly pops a small bite of the offending food into his mouth, which he doesn’t enjoy, but which he chews and swallows. “There! I did it!”

Two sides of the same coin. At our parent-teacher conferences last week, most of the shared teachers (music, art, etc.) said that they wouldn’t have even known they were brothers if I hadn’t brought them in together. I can tell, though.

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It could have been an evening where Gabe got lots of pleasant, all-to-himself fun time with Eric and me, but unfortunately, his body decided to launch a new gastric attack instead. He spend the afternoon howling and crying and vomiting and moaning, poor kid. I really, really wish I knew how to help him; he’s taking an antacid, as prescribed by the specialist, and he has an endoscopy scheduled for later this week. Praying for an answer, once and for all!

It’s felt like an especially long weekend, anyway, due to both boys being on forced video-game “hiatus” for different reasons. (Gabe threw an epic – even by his standards – public scream-fest over a haircut, of all things, and Sam had an honesty issue.) Tomorrow is Monday, thank goodness, and we can both parole them and be released ourselves from the nonstop complaining. Actually, it’s mostly been Gabe; Sam was upset, but he got over it pretty quickly and found other ways to occupy himself. Gabe, though, has been quite persistent at trying to find ways around his punishment, with semantics and loopholes and attempts at trickery. No outright sneaking, though; at least he hasn’t gone that far.

Tomorrow is Empty Bowls! Eric can go with us this year; last year he was away, but this year he won’t be leaving for another trip until next weekend. Sam’s supposed to have Scouts, but when I mentioned that to Eric, he firmly said that Empty Bowls was more important. I tend to agree.

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And that’s pretty much how the whole thing went.

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Am still so very, very much getting used to it. Be gentle. The story basically goes as thus: I sat in the stylist’s chair, and I said that I had no skills at all at knowing what would look good on me, and all I knew I didn’t want was a medium length that was too short to pull up and too long to be out of my way for running. She played and toyed and finally said, “I think short!” I asked her if it would look okay on me, and she gushed that it would be perfect, so I went with her opinion.

Still thinking…

At least it won’t get in my way when I kiss him anymore.

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Kids have no school today, so at least there’s that. I cannot even imagine him putting a teacher through that experience.

Also thankfully, Eric comes home tonight. (And there was much rejoicing.) Then we have two blessed weeks before he heads off to Freaking China. This’ll be a new one; he hasn’t gone there before. I suppose it’s more of the same on our end, with the exception of having to figure out yet another time zone difference for phone calls. Souvenirs for the family will be different, too.

The boys’ swimming lessons start on Tuesday. I can’t decide if I’m looking forward to that with optimism or with the part of the brain that just likes to watch things burn.

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The scene: this morning, on the phone with our doctor’s office, trying to fix the situation.
The complication: the referral specialist can’t even find Gabe in the computer system, despite him being a regular patient. She’s obviously frustrated, and she takes out her frustration on me by becoming increasingly snappy and rude, hanging up on me before I can even thank her or say goodbye.
FUN LEVEL RATING: 3/10

The scene: driving to the gastro.
The complication: an ice storm hit last night, and everything is coated in a moderately thick layer of ice. The van’s side door wouldn’t even open, so Gabe had to climb in the driver’s door. Roads are awful, Gabe is making funny noises that might be related to motion sickness, and the van begins to make a strange, jack-hammery noise whenever I get to a certain speed. (In hindsight, I think it was from the corner of the bumper, which got torn away from repeated impacts with snow boulders after the last blizzard.) Couldn’t find the office; called on my cell and was told they were not in the building I thought they were. Circled around again and again; called back, got another receptionist, and learned that they were in that building. Drifted into the parking lot on gas fumes.
FUN LEVEL RATING: 7/10

The scene: the exam.
The complication: my son is a monkey on crack, refusing to cooperate or be quiet so I can hear the doctor talk. She’s suggesting procedure after procedure, and he’s hopping on the colored tiles on the floor, yelling, “IT’S LAVA, AND I CAN’T STEP ON LAVA!”
FUN LEVEL RATING: 3/10

The scene: gas station, on our way to radiologist and lab for tests
The complication: everything is covered in ice, including the pump and the card reader. It’s a pre-pay pump, too, so then I have to go inside, taking Gabe along so he can beg for every form of candy or beef jerky at eye level.
FUN LEVEL: 2/10

The scene: the lab.
The complication: Gabe realizes where we are and what’s about to happen. The lab tech sits in front of an impressively scary array of syringes and vials while doing the paperwork, allowing Gabe enough time to FREAK THE HECK OUT, run away down a corridor, and shout dire threats back at us should he be forced to comply with a blood draw. “I’m not even sick! I feel just fine! Sam should be here – make HIM get a blood test! I’m not doing it, and you can’t make me! I’ll beat you up!” In the end, it takes me (legs wrapped around his, one arm around his chest and unused arm, the other arm holding his head immobile) and two lab techs to get the blood, while he writhes, foams at the mouth, and screams loudly enough to thoroughly terrify the three children waiting their turns in the next room. He also manages to give me two bloody gouges in the back of my hand and some impressive bruises on my shins (before his boots went flying). We only manage one and a half vials before the lab tech completely freaks out and gives up, and then Gabe scrambles, Gollum-style, to a far corner, where he hunches in a ball and shrieks about how much he hates me. The techs wring their hands, looking close to tears (both very young women, probably second-guessing any plans they had for motherhood any time soon), and suggest sedation for future draws.
FUN LEVEL: 10/10

The scene: the radiologist.
The complication: Gabe’s still holding a grudge over the blood draw. Instead of sitting in the waiting room, he chooses to hide in the curtained prep room, muttering things I’m actually glad I can’t hear. A cheerful radiologist sees him and is startled, but luckily he finds it funny rather than alarming.
FUN LEVEL: 1/10

The scene: back home.
The complication: I’ve dropped Gabe off back at school, where I signed him in and walked him to class. Went to the gym, ran on a treadmill (sweat stinging my bloody gouges), then came home…to an answering machine message from the school, asking where Gabe is. Luckily, she had just missed my signing him in; when they checked, he was safely accounted for.
FUN LEVEL: 2/10

SHAVE AND A HAIRCUT: Eric’s in Mexico again. Twooooo biiiiiiiiiits!

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All the same, we’ve been here long enough that my ears start burning when national news mentions Wisconsin by name, and lately, my lobes have been in need of a fire extinguisher. The protests in Madison are continuing, and I’m really sort of grateful to be connected to people who are actually there in person, because if I was going by the news reports, I wouldn’t know whether folks are carrying torches and pitchforks or singing “Kum-Bah-Ya” in patchwork overalls. It turns out that the latter is closer to the truth, but since that doesn’t sell papers or ad spots, nobody wants to tell that story.

I suppose that I do have a dog in this fight, though it’s more of a beleaguered old Labrador than a rabid, mangy attack hound. (“You want me to bark? Well, okay, if you’re sure…”) I think that any government proposal, be it progressive or conservative, could benefit from wide review, and this one hasn’t gotten nearly the amount of review it needs, especially considering the huge changes it would entail. I also am a little gobsmacked over the notion that, rather than discuss and compromise, our governor would rather threaten use of the National Guard to quell protest.

I don’t often get political here. I don’t like conflict of any kind, and that’s what usually happens when politics are brought up. Maybe there’s a patchwork-wearing girl inside me. (Okay, that “maybe” should probably be a little less uncertain. Anybody want a daisy?) On the other hand, politics are heating up all around me, and there’s no escaping it; I’m hearing from all over, people wanting to hear what I have to say about it because I happen to make my home among the Cheeseheads. I don’t mind, because I do have those personal connections in Madison right now, and it’s good for people to hear more than what the news anchors care to spin. On the other hand, I feel pressured to froth one way or another, and I’m simply not the frothing type. I fret instead.

And it’s fret-worthy, don’t doubt. But as I sit here in my bleacher seat at this arena, one thing is certain…I’m finally starting to think Wisconsin is more than just “that place I live right now.” You don’t get these kind of stomach knots over a place to which you’re not personally connected beyond a superficial way. For better or for worse, I think I just became a Cheesehead.

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Had I not been injured (again and again…), I’d be seven weeks into a marathon training plan right now. As it stands, I’m just easing into the end of my first week back running, period – not even to the starting point of a plan. I did try to fiddle around with existing plans and other races – full marathons, half-marathons, etc. – trying to find something that would work, but the amount of tweaking necessary for making anything work was aggravating me a lot. In the end, this afternoon, I threw up my hands, hauled out my tiny planner (bought for this purpose, only several plans ago), and began doing the math. Start with this week; counting the gentle hour I plan to go tomorrow, I’ll have about sixteen miles for the week. Increase by no more than ten percent…do it again…do it again…

I know how it works. Every couple of weeks, you want to incorporate a “fall-back” week, with long runs slowly increasing in a jagged pattern: two steps forward, one back. I could be more bold – many are – but with these injuries behind me, I feel as though now is not the time to flout the common wisdom. And so my calendar fills up with numbers, cautious ones, that will lead me up to the distances I want. By early May, I’ll be hitting twenty mile long runs; if I feel comfortable with a two-week taper (though the decision would probably need to be made before that point), I could even be ready for a marathon, say, June 5th. (Hey, Kelly, I’m looking at you. ) It’s a thought, anyway. I’m also looking at doing either the Lake Geneva or the Wisconsin half-marathon on May 7th, and the Run to Spring 5K that my friend Carl has been trying to get me to do for the past couple of years. (That one actually has childcare! If Eric’s up for it, I might try to do that one with him. )

A part of me gets nervous now, planning again after seeing plans go up in smoke and pain lately. But…if I don’t plan, if I assume that anything written down will somehow “jinx” me, I’m making the assumption that my body will let me down again. That’s not the way I want to live. To write down these numbers is to make the statement, the promise to myself in a tangible way, that the game is back on. And it is.

Yesterday was a bad day; I woke up sick with a wretched head cold that had me dizzy and exhausted. (I almost never get sick when I’m running a decent amount, but slack off for whatever reason, and I get sick every other week, it seems.) What with the stuff going on in Madison and the teachers protesting, the boys were home from school, so I had no good way to rest and heal up. Thank God, my sympathetic husband took the afternoon off, so I could lie down for a bit and recover.

Hate being sick.

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My summarization ended with him shouting, wide-eyed, that he did not want to read it. “I don’t want to think about that! What if that happened for real?!”

I battled mentally with myself, Eric and I significantly silent for a moment in the front seats of the car, before saying something along the lines of, “I would hope people would stop things before they reached that point.” That seemed a bit lame, so, remembering a previous talk, I said, “This is why we’re learning about citizenship in Scouts. It’s important to know your rights. You have to know them in order to hold onto them.”

We all talked some more, discussing specific Constitutional rights (some of which he knew, some of which he didn’t), and I left the talk feeling moderately okay; there’s still plenty to discuss, and I thought the door was open for him to explore and ask more questions. He was thoughtful, which seemed like a good sign.

And then we woke up to this. Looks like I get to do some more discussing today. Wish I wasn’t trying to deal with a bad head cold at the same time; these conversations are tricky enough when your brain isn’t fogged up with Nyquil.

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For Valentine’s Day, I got Eric a carry-on suitcase, since he travels so much for work and his current carry-on bag has a busted zipped. This one rolls and is much nicer. He asked me whether I wanted him to get me a gift, and I told him no. This dinner, the one he was planning and for which he was not giving me any tempting details, was going to be more than enough of a gift. I was very, very right.

I had mentioned in passing to him that a blogger I follow had very concisely described the vegetarian approach to meal planning as being “a bean, a green, and a grain.” Eric took that and ran with it. Now, he’s not a vegetarian, but he planned four lovely vegetarian courses (the garlicky lentil soup was actually vegan) that left us both feeling perfectly satisfied in both belly and mouth. This beats flowers or boxed chocolates any day of the week, in my book! (I actually want to get him to write down the recipe for the soup, which, like most of the meal, he developed himself; it would be a perfect carbing-up meal for the days before a race).

Running is going adequately. My foot is fine; my groin is mostly recovered. I suppose all things work as they ought to, since I wouldn’t have had time for a long long run this weekend, anyway; Sam’s Scouting pack has “Mike Fink’s Winter Challenge” this weekend, which will involve spending a very long day out in the snow, playing games and such. It’s warmer this week and supposed to rain between then and now, so there’s a good chance the day will be spent in icy slush instead of snow, but I guess that’s what boots are for!

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The bad: assuming that I will exercise that sort of caution, there’s probably no way I can safely do a marathon this spring. I’ve been sitting here crunching numbers for various scenarios and races, and every situation that would have me doing a full 26.2 would require a quicker mileage buildup than I think would be prudent. If I were to throw caution to the wind, cross my fingers and try, it could mean risking injuries that would have me sidelined far longer than I have been already, and…it’s probably wisest to say, “Okay, I give,” and either back down to a target half-marathon or simply wait for the fall races that I’m anticipating more eagerly, anyway.

You’ll understand if my current disappointment is preventing me from embracing that reality fully or even considering which half-marathon I’d want to do. (It’d have to be one heck of a half to cheer me up, I think.) I thought I’d be more stoic about it, really; going into each of these injuries, I kept this possibility in mind, but now that it’s the result, it seems as though I never accepted it after all.

But I’m running – even if three miles isn’t nearly enough to make my brain feel good again. I’ll get there. I know I will.

“Training is principally an act of faith.”

– Franz Stamfl, Austrian-born running coach

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But I think it is getting better. I didn’t feel any twinging yesterday, and I began doing some gentle stretching, which is supposed to be the next step. We’ll see; I’ll try a gentle test run tomorrow, and if there’s no pain, I will not push things. Not that I think I did last time, but you just don’t know. Ugh. I also intend, no matter how much I hate it, to stick to the treadmill until I’ve eased my way back into regular running, so as to avoid the icy spots that might have encourage the groin pull in the first place. Yuck.

But I don’t want to have another bad day, so I’m combating it with my usually successful strategy of Getting Stuff Done. I signed both boys up for swimming lessons at the Y, starting in a couple of weeks. See, Sam’s Scouts den is going to be working on an Aquatics belt loop, and the den leader blithely suggested that the boys “brush up” on swimming skills before that. Sam’s skills = nonexistent, beyond splashing around in chest-deep water. Feeling like a rotten, neglectful parent, I found the class that actually would accommodate both boys’ abilities and signed them up. This will be interesting; Sam looked horrified until I told him Gabe would be in his class (at which point, for some reason, he began cackling and dry-washing his hands, and I choose not to dwell on the meaning behind that), and Gabe…well, Gabe just looked horrified. This is the kid who only in recent history was willing to wade into water up to his knees. Lord, have mercy on this teacher. (I did warn them while registering. Can’t say I didn’t.)

Also did some tweaking to Sam’s website this morning, fixing an issue with log-in. (Thank you, Andrea!) He’s having a “blog revival,” coinciding with his telling his school friends about it and seeing their interest piqued. Of course, he also inadvertently led them to believe that he could actually code games, instead of just making a link list of his favorite online games, so we had to settle that situation immediately. (“No, Sam, I can’t just help you make a game with helicopters and lots of guns, no matter what you told Tony.”)

Very much looking forward to Valentine’s Day. Remember last year? Eric’s already working up his Super Secret menu plan for Monday night, and the folks to whom he’s told those plans have expressed deep envy. Also like last year, we plan to bribe the boys to go to bed early, so it can be a grown-up meal in luxurious peace. (No holds barred on that bribe. It’s WORTH IT.)

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“If somebody has been burned,” the mother leading the meeting said, “put the burn under running water until it stops hurting.

Sam’s hand was immediately in the air. “But, what if it was a gasoline fire?”

The mother looked confused. “The treatment would be the same…” she said.

I knew where his mind was, though, so I said, “Sam, we’re operating under the assumption that the person is no longer actively on fire.” He nodded.

(Then the mother nodded, too, and said, “Yes, if they’re on fire, you want to get out a hose and douse ‘em!” I saw Sam’s eyes nearly pop out and his hand start to rise again, and I quickly patted him on the back before he staged a coup and took over the meeting entirely. )

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Well, it turns out that the podiatrist to whom my doctor unwittingly had referred me was a member of my church, and a runner, to boot. He was very much on the same page as I am, regarding getting me running as soon as possible, and he thinks the nails don’t have to come off. He used what looked suspiciously like a Dremel tool on them, and then he gave me an ointment. Also, he said that in four weeks, I should not make an appointment, but should instead grab him at church to see how they’re doing. I, in turn, listened to him talk about how he really wants to do his first full marathon, and I encouraged him to come out to join our running club. All in all, it was an awesome appointment.

Lots of other things getting done this week. I decided it had been too long since I had my running gait checked, and on the off-chance that my shoes are contributing to my string of woes, I went to the running store yesterday to be filmed on a treadmill. The girl decided I actually did need more stability than what my shoes are giving me, so I left with some New Balance 1226s in hand; I’ll alternate them with my current Sauconys (using the Sauconys for shorter, easier runs, since they’re lighter, and the NBs for long runs).

Car check-ups. Boy check-ups. Everybody’s getting examined around here lately, with no exceptions. Sometimes, when things are going off-kilter, it’s time to stop and reassess everything. So far, I’m still waiting for big payoffs, but I do feel as though baby steps are being made, and it’ll all come right in the end.

And with that in mind, as I finally get to what’s really on my heart right now, toss prayers my dad’s way today; he’s got some skin cancer on his nose, and he’s having surgery for that today. Faith, optimism, and calm – that’s what we’re all about right now.

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But after they stayed the night, enjoyed a lazy Saturday morning and then left, things deteriorated. I mean, they always deteriorate when loved ones have to leave, but…her baby didn’t want to go, and when Gabe tried to encourage him (and I do mean encourage! He wasn’t explosive then), the baby got mad and screamed at Gabe. As they were pulling out of the driveway, we turned and found Gabe sobbing his heart out, thinking he’d hurt the baby. Sam, meanwhile, had fled the emotional scene to nurse his sadness in private.

I had to throw Gabe into the car for a birthday party, around which neighborhood I planned to go for a run until pick-up time. And all was going well; my foot seems fine. (Interestingly, when I went to the multi-sport expo, a physical therapist pointed out that my foot looked fine, but my tibialis anterior muscle (the one along the outside of the shin bone) was very tight and a little swollen. He rubbed it, and bingo, pain in my foot. So…I’d been icing the wrong spot. ) Unfortunately, about 7 miles into the run, my groin, which had been a little achy, suddenly began to hurt. I stopped immediately, and now I’m really, really freaked and angry and agitated and sad. Things I’ve read have said that running on slippery surfaces can encourage you to tighten those muscles and lead to a groin pull, which would make perfect sense, but I just don’t want to deal with this.

Super Bowl today. There’s a party to which we were invited, but the kids weren’t, and…a sitter for Super Bowl Sunday? In Wisconsin? When the Packers are in the game? Yeah, sure. About as likely, it seems, as me getting a worry-free run in.

(Oh, and bonus misery: last night, just before bed, Gabe plummeted off the computer chair, whacking his face into the floor. Cue massive blood and hysteria. He seems fine now, but his teeth are a little sore. I, meanwhile, demonstrated my parental skills by almost fainting. Mom of the Year, that’s me.)

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Ugh. So today, in what was not a shining example of parenting finesse, I taught Gabe the old “I am rubber and you are glue” technique. NOT as a rebuttal, mind you; I said it was just something he could, you know, keep in his head, so when Sam called him a name, he could just giggle and imagine in bouncing back. I guess some things are universal, though, because he immediately ran to tell Sam, and soon enough, they were all, “No, I’M rubber! YOU’RE glue!” back and forth and back again. Good times.

But then there came the lunchtime post-game.

“Mom,” said Sam, “not everything bounces off rubber. Swords wouldn’t.”
“Okay, but this is just for name-calling, Sam.”
“And metal spikes.”
“And cheese,” said Gabe.
“Yeah! Shredded cheese doesn’t bounce off rubber!”
“Maybe little blocks of cheese!”
“If they were big enough! But not slices!”
“We were calling each other names, not throwing cheese!” I said, and then noticed the folks at the table next to us giving me funny looks.

School resumes tomorrow. Good thing, too; another snow day, and maybe the cheese-throwing wouldn’t have been so far-fetched…

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How much have we gotten? I have no earthly clue, because it keeps blowing and blowing and BLOWING. Last night, our power was continually sagging (accompanied by some very eerie flashes in the sky behind our house; we debated over whether it was lightning or something more terrestrial), and the wind was howling at epic volume, knocking things right and left on our porch. The kids were equal parts impressed and alarmed. School had already been canceled for today, and they’d even been released an hour early yesterday because of the impending storm, so that was a bit anticlimactic; there was no chance for questioning, “do you think they will…?”, even with the utter giddy certainty that the answer was “definitely.”

Then we woke this morning to find that Eric’s work was also closed for the day, which was an unexpected blessing. It’s ugly out there. (But what does it say that my father felt strongly compelled, over the phone, to instruct me not to try to go out running in it?)

Anyway. We have bottled water, toilet paper, and cookie dough. We’ll live. Even if it means I have to take an unexpected rest day from running. (New meaning to “cabin fever.” ALL WORK AND NO PLAY…)

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Sam brought home tons of unfinished classwork and homework this weekend, much of which revolved around the dreaded long division. I booted up Khan Academy, and he and I worked through lots of exercises before tackling the assignments. His sticking point is in looking at two unrelated numbers and trying to divide one into the other when the answer isn’t cleanly even. Nine doesn’t go into sixty-one well, for example, and his brain refuses to put the two together and come up with six. It’ll just take practice, which he dreads.

We’re about to get whomped with a couple of snowstorms over the next few days. I just hope the one starting tomorrow holds off until the afternoon; there’s a funeral in the morning, and though I don’t know the man who passed away, I’m singing at the service, and it would feel sad if the weather kept people from attending. (Actually had to go get a dress for the service; I didn’t really have anything that seemed appropriate. Lots of clearance sales, thankfully.) Anyway, when all’s said and done, there might be a few feet of snow on the ground, which somehow doesn’t bother me so very much. It feels like we’ve gotten off lucky so far this winter, compared to most, and we’re overdue for a whomping.

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My foot is improving. Interestingly, I think I’ve discovered one thing that aggravates it quite a lot: sitting in chairs. I mean, like our computer chair, and for too long. If I’m on a couch, or if I have my foot up, it’s fine, but the desk chair has it aching pretty quickly. Okay, got to remember that! Ran today in the blowing snow, which was beautiful and fun and silly. I looked like a snowman when I finished.

Then I sold popcorn at the kids’ school for four hours. Less fun and silly. (Bag, staple, load into boxes, repeat, repeat, repeat.) The look on Gabe’s face when he saw me made it worth it, though.

Busy weekend coming up, with the Pinewood Derby, an anniversary party for the boy’s old preschool, and a multisport expo that I try to attend every year. Eric has tomorrow off, though, so we’re going to try to go here for lunch. I’m looking forward to that!

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Thankfully, I was able to get in touch with Eric after that, and he was able to come home to help me with Sam; I was in no condition to help him make his dashes to the bathroom. I went back to being comatose, and Eric dealt with Sam (and Gabe, when he arrived home from school). Sam, besides the periods of nausea, felt fine, but that was a mixed blessing; he wanted actual food, and it wouldn’t stay down.

Bedtime was the fireworks show, though. I had gone up to bed so I wouldn’t have to smell the guys’ pizza dinner, which had made me feel worse, so I was upstairs when I heard Eric putting the boys into their bunkbeds. Sam, mind you, is on the top bunk. (You can see this coming, can’t you?) All was going smoothly, and Eric had just tucked them in and turned off the light when Sam called an ominous, “Da-aaaaad…”

“What?”

And then there was a horrible noise, which I’ll forbear to describe, and Gabe began screaming his head off, and madness ensued. I got Gabe into my bed, where he howled and shook and wrung his hands, alternating between supreme outrage and gut-wrenching guilt – “IT’S ALL MY FAULT!” – for having brought the virus into the house. Sam was most unhappy, as you might imagine, and Eric was making noises that spoke to barely-repressed stomach urges of his own. It was exciting.

So, Sam’s home from school today, though he seems to be a little better, and I’m feeling a bit better as well. No more fever, anyway. That’s gotta be good. Of course, now I’m looking at the clock, counting the hours until Eric’s car pulls into the driveway, the virus having claimed its fourth victim…

…I should wash some towels.

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Unfortunately, it all went downhill from there. Actually, the downward spiral started last night, when a nasty stomach thing hit – naturally – Gabe, who spent the night head down in the toilet, weeping for Eric.  I hit coffee with the running club only briefly after my run, heading home to fill my role as chosen puke-catcher while Eric went with Sam to his Scouts Pinewood Derby.

Only I misread the email. Derby is next week. Whoops. Eric was rightfully unamused.

So I spent the day babying Gabe, who is “that kind” of illness sufferer.  I myself prefer to be left alone to suffer, as usually does Sam, but not Gabe.  On the flip side, he is very appreciative. “Thank you for caring so much about me,” he actually said between sprints to the bathroom.

Tomorrow I sing in church, both services, and then I’m going to try to cram in a cross-training session before the Packers play the Bears and all hell breaks loose in this town. :rolleyes:  Actually, I plan to swim; I’ve been using a free trial at the “posh” gym in town, just to add variety, and I am sort of beginning to not grit my teeth to get through it…

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MICKEY: “Will you help me find some gooey fish?”
GABE: “Well, I’m not sure I want to. I mean, sticky, gooey fish…why would I want to do that?”

Sam, meanwhile, is upstairs; having gotten ready for school, he’s now confined to his room to finish the homework he didn’t complete last night, which was only a small part of what he should have been doing in the first place. He forgot to put the rest of it in his backpack – even after the teacher wrote it for him in his planner. And there was a lot of it, because he apparently had trouble getting anything at all completed during classes yesterday, when he was supposed to do it. This stopped being okay a long time ago.

You know it’s bad when Gabe stands at your shoulder, muttering that maybe you need to call Sylvan Learning Center for his big brother. Of course, he’s only doing what he’s done since discovering the joys of the commercial advertisement; I can “fondly” recall him stroking my hair a year or so ago and informing me that “[your] hair is so blah…you need Bumpits! Then you’ll look fabulous!” But now he is convinced that Sam is the one in serious need of help from the tiny people inside the television.

We’re looking into more possible solutions, really. I don’t think it’s that the work is too hard, but that he gets overwhelmed and bored very easily and simply checks out mentally. Not acceptable, but a different sort of issue than if he was really unable to understand what’s being taught. And, again, it’s all so familiar to me. Been there, I have.

Anyway. The day beckons. Onward and upward, right? Nowhere to go but forward.

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Today will be “interesting.” The kids have the day off from school for Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, and Sam is really just too big to be in the gym childcare room. I found out yesterday, though, that what I thought was a Couples Membership is really a Family Membership. Sam’s too small to use weight machines (not that I’d have allowed it in any case; no prepubescent chest presses, thanks), but they said he was just fine to use bikes and such. Today, therefore, he and I are going to work together. I want to do a little less extended pedaling (see: saddle sores), so we’ll do a hacked together High Intensity Interval Training, suitable for children. Ten on a bike, jump rope (we’ll see if I can jump on one foot!), balance board, more bike, etc. I want about 30 minutes total of biking today (did 45 on Saturday and an hour yesterday), and we’ll play with the rest.

Wish me luck!

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Of course, now I’m in limbo over the spring marathon. If I can start running again in another week, it’s possible I could do Lake Geneva, if I handled the first few weeks’ mileage in walk-run intervals, going slowly. I won’t have lost so much fitness, anyway. What I think I’ll do is hold off on registering until I’m absolutely sure I can do it. Hey, worst case scenario, based on this, I’m pretty sure I could handle doing the half. We’ll see.

So, back to resting, getting my foot up. Keep your fingers crossed for quick healing for me!

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So I had the MRI yesterday, and it’s a darn good thing I do have the Power of the Intarwebz at my disposal, for the information I don’t have coming fast enough from the doctor’s office. (Eric says they outsource MRI reading to India now. I say that outsourcing is probably meant to expedite things as well as make them cheaper, so READ FASTER, y’all.) Other folks’ docs have prescribed at least three weeks rest, so here’s hoping for minimal sentencing, but it probably axes Lake Geneva, considering I’d need to gently ramp back up after the rest, not dive in where I left off. And that’s assuming that’s all the rest I need. Could get worse.

(Interestingly, the X-ray also showed a bone spur in my heel, which I had been assuming was a mild case of plantar fasciitis. It goes away with calf stretching, so I wasn’t concerned. I intend to remain unconcerned until somebody tells me I should be otherwise.)

Other folks’ docs also treated with things like ultrasound and air casting, which apparently hasten bone growth. I’ll ask about those, praying insurance would cover. I’m wrapping, icing, using ibuprofen and Epsom salt soaks, and walking around in my old boot in the meantime. Proactive: thy name is running-deprived Carrie.

Running-deprived Carrie is also a sad, sad, dejected and depressed Carrie, though. Don’t be fooled by the determination; I’m sitting around, for the most part, feeling about as sorry for myself as I have in a very long time. Epsom baths are great opportunities for moping, as it turns out.

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I get this call as I’m sitting here shivering in a snow-covered house – lake effect snow falling like crazy all over the gosh-darn place – wearing PJ pants and feeling thoroughly grumpy about it. I should still be riding the high from my morning run, which would have been so much fun in this snow! But no, I’m instead resting an ACE-wrapped foot and waiting for a call back from the doctor to let me know whether yesterday’s X-ray showed anything. (Not that it will; even if it is a stress fracture, X-rays don’t usually show anything until after the fracture begins to heal. Unfortunately, insurance companies prefer to start with cheaper tests before moving to more pricey ones, such as the bone scan that would reveal stress fractures, so an X-ray it was.) The NP who saw me doesn’t think it’s a fracture, at least, so we’re treating it as a foot sprain for now. Ice, wrap, ibuprofen, no running until Thursday. Boo!

Mind, if it turns out to be something requiring more time off, I haven’t signed up for Lake Geneva yet; it’s possible that I could do a later race. At least there’s that.

So, my foot’s injured, and there is scariness lurking in my neighborhood. Think it might be a good excuse to say, “To heck with caffeine cutbacks,” and have an extra cup? There are worse things you could do when you’re feeling sorry for yourself, I’d say.

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Biggest thing on my mind right now: on Saturday evening, I did my regular long run, and in the last mile, I felt a pain on the top of my foot. I stopped and loosened my shoelaces, which made the pain disappear, but it came back very slightly at the end. I was too scared to run yesterday, though I could walk without pain and even squeeze my foot without feeling anything, and I’m a little nervous to go today. It’s above my big toe, and, as I said, I can flex and squeeze the metatarsals with no problem, so I’m fairly positive it’s not a stress fracture. Can’t stop worrying, though. Of course, it sends me into my usual tailspin of evaluating every aspect of my life and training – cutting back on coffee/caffeine, studying my calcium intake, etc. It’s not even as though I recently changed anything in a drastic way; one week of marathon training, with fewer miles than I’ve been doing, and only one “hard” workout (the pace did for the flawed pace run wasn’t challenging in itself, just wrong for what I was supposed to be doing), shouldn’t have been enough to cause overuse injury. Probably, my shoes were laced wrong. Doesn’t make me stop freaking, though…

But we played Kinect Sports as a family last night, which took my mind off it for a bit. I don’t understand how Gabe, when pitted head-to-head against me, can consistently wipe the floor with me on nearly every event. What’s that about?

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I suppose, in the grand scale, me coming down with the illness Eric had over the holidays wasn’t nearly the worst thing that could have happened, especially considering that A) there was no vomiting or anything dramatic, and B) I think I got a less virulent strain of it, or else my immune system was strong enough to fight it better than Eric’s was. Still, it’s annoying to have to deal with being sick when I have no backup, while he didn’t even have to go to work, let alone deal with the kids all by himself. My only real failing during the illness has been a greater-than-average amount of meals being of the pizza or mac-and-cheese variety, so I suppose it’s okay.

We pick him up from the airport this afternoon. There was a brief period of consternation when one of Sam’s best girlfriends invited him to a birthday party (a ninja-themed one; now I see why he likes her, and can she be one of my girlfriends, too?) at the time when the plane is touching down, but it’ll all work out, even with Gabe’s anguish over not having been asked to the party. (Uninterrupted Daddy Time mends a lot.) I can’t wait to have him home again; it’s lonely in these parts without my partner home in the evenings. I’m not the teenager I used to be, who enjoyed lengthy phone conversations; I need face time. Plus, the phone hurts my ear after a bit.

Had to postpone this morning’s long run until after Eric gets home, which meant no running club this week. That’s okay, though; we’ll call it a “punishment” for completely butchering yesterday’s attempt at a pace run…

(...)
Read the rest of Lost my train of thought (275 words)

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And I thought to myself, “Am I really intimidated by hills? Or am I wimping out because I just don’t feel like doing the work required?” Suddenly, it was clear. I am not starting out this year that way.

That’s part of what I meant yesterday when I said that I felt challenged by the year. I think I give in too easily on a lot of fronts, and I do it without admitting to myself exactly why I’m giving in. Honesty is important, and I don’t want to lie to myself here. Being brutally honest leads me, then, to the decision about whether I want to allow myself to be the wimp, or whether I’d rather take the bull by the horns, get in gear, and tackle the challenge effectively. I could do the race without preparing well, but it would hurt…and probably more than it will if I just do things the right way in the first place.

This is going to be the year of the Gut Check; the year of Bring It On. No lying to myself, no goldbricking. Eighteen weeks to Lake Geneva!

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I thought it was March that was supposed to come in like a lion, not January.  I just hope it’s a month mix-up, not a portent for 2011 as a whole…

Literally, the day began quite leonine, with the traditional running club “run in the year” being done in suddenly below-freezing temps and WIND LIKE WHOA.  Rough stuff! But that’s all good and worth it.  After all, friends make things like gusting weather way more bearable.

What’s not so much fun is figurative lion stuff, or, to cut to the chase, fleeing a football-watching party with a shrieking, struggling, flailing kid in your arms who’s trying to rip off your face.  I hate being “those people” SO MUCH.  So then Gabe got tossed in bed immediately, amid alternating howls of anger and wails of contrition (he was honestly sorry, but he still couldn’t stem the tide), and we all slumped our shoulders in exhausted surrender.  You win, 2011, but only the first battle…

I feel challenged, somehow, to up my game.  Marathon training begins tomorrow.  My primary resolution for the year is to get back to the strength and core training routine I desperately need, but I also want to focus my running a little more clearly.  Hills, speed work…I’m coming for you.  It begins. 

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February was about doldrums, which I seem to have dealt with by drinking lots of coffee and eating good food, much of which was prepared by my husband’s loving hands.

In March, Eric went to Germany, and I started training for Devil’s Lake. I also went vegetarian.

April saw more running (a half-marathon PR), another Germany trip, and an Easter trip to Madison.

May was thirteen years married to the love of my life. May was a marathon, the Green Bay one. May was Gabe graduating from preschool.

In June, Sam finished school and turned nine, which was the high point of the month. Low points: the ITBS smacking me in the knee, and then the house burglary. But the knee was fixed by physical therapy, in time for me to have one of the most awesome training runs I’ve ever had, on the Kettle Moraine trail, and, thank God, nobody was hurt when the house was burgled.

July…Devil’s Lake. Yes. Just yes.

August was about parents: mine came to visit, and Eric’s dad got remarried. But then Eric went to Mexico, and my dad had serious health scares, and the whole month spiraled down into bad…

…but Alysia came in September, which helped things improve. Needed that, because then school started and Gabe got sad. I ran a lot. Eric (who turned a year older while in Mexico…again…) started running. It was a whole big thing.

October was birthdays (mine and Gabe’s) and another marathon. Also, holes all over my kitchen (electrical work).

November was more travel! We went to Chicago for a race, Toledo for Thanksgiving, and Eric…went to Mexico a bunch more. We also had yucky medical stuff: Gabe was in the ER for puking, and I had my toenails removed. (Temporarily, alas.) But I got one more race in, even if it was a 5K and I was in pain.

And then we come to December. It’s been a lighter month, mood-wise, I think. Gabe became the object of his first crush; we had parties and relaxation time. Christmas was extremely low-key, too. And I ran my final race of the year, the Run Into the New Year 10K, which I finished in 51:05 (9/37 in my age group) on an unseasonably warm and lovely day. (The forecast rain even held off until the second of the two loops, when the sprinkles were just what I needed to cool me down!) Just a perfect ending to the year.

Tonight, the last night of the year, will be as relaxed as the month has been. Gabe has already staunchly insisted that he does not plan to stay up until midnight (the unspoken, “you freaky, freaky people!” hanging in the air afterward, obvious in his wide eyes), but Sam wants to give it the old college try. We’ll see; New Year’s is so anticlimactic when you live outside the eastern time zone. Who wants to just hang out for an hour after the ball drops in Times Square, watching whatever schmo is emceeing our celebration in Chicago? (I think it was Ryan Seacrest last year.) I bought holiday crackers to pop if we want to, which was a hysterical anecdote; the cashier actually scanned my ID because he insisted the crackers were fireworks. I couldn’t stop giggling. Maybe I should ready a fire extinguisher, just in case the little tissue-paper hats burst into flame…

But assuming your own celebrations don’t explode without warning, I hope you all have wonderful ends to your year, as well as lovely years to come. Smile a lot. I plan to.

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The nice thing about shorter races (ones I can finish in less than an hour) is that they don’t require nearly as much forethought. I don’t taper, and I don’t worry about the pre-race dinner, and in fact, we spent the evening at Dave and Buster’s. What can I say? It’s a fun time. Frankly, it’s a little terrifying to watch Gabe destroy everybody in his path with guided missiles, much in the same way that I get chills over his knack for knocking out everyone else in boxing games on the Xbox. Belly laughs were had, though, and all will sleep well – including me, which can only help my racing tomorrow. I don’t know how much I’m going to try to kill it, thinking about my typical paces of late, but we’ll see.

I need the ego boost, frankly. Today, I made the mistake of venturing back into another makeup store, and while I stood there looking bewildered, I was accosted by an overly helpful woman (customer, not employee) who informed me that the shade of lipstick I was wearing was very wrong and (her words, not mine) should really be worn only by…women of a certain ethnicity. She recommended mauve instead. I just don’t know how to handle that.

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Not too terribly
upset, in fact; it’s not that
I needed to vent

Wasn’t a bad day.
Not spectacularly hard
in any real way

Most days aren’t, I guess.
No huge screaming fits, brawls, blows
Just a steady flow

Of energy.  Out
it goes, patching leaks, filling
empty, hungry spots

Until there’s not much
left.  No reserves to sustain
the sustaining ones.

Sometimes, though, if we’re
very lucky, we find a
spring in a moment -

An unexpected
instance of giggles and love
that refills the soul.

I kiss my babies’
heads, saying, “Good night,” and I
feel God kissing mine.

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Not the best ending to a day, or the best start to “vacation week.”

Tomorrow’s another day, though. We’re going to have to regroup and refocus – better meals, more quiet time (the screen-free kind) interspersed between wrestling episodes or Nerf battles, and some planned time apart from each other for the boys, who tend to go all testosteroney when left together too long. (They forget that no matter who wins the fight du jour, the role of resident Alpha Dogs remains with the parental units.) Eric has to take his car to the shop tomorrow morning, so the enforcement of regular house rules will be back in my hands. I’m thinking it might be snow-man-making time; the snow’s a bit powdery for efficient sculpture, but that just means they’ll be out there longer, which will tire out any rebellious muscles. Then it’s to those books Santa made sure were present under the tree…

How many more days until regular routine can resume?

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After opening presents, Eric made a bunch of eggs, bacon, and hominy; then, when things were dying down, I put on my new running jacket (in purple!) and went out for a seven-miler. My stomach gave me issues, being full of candy and kringle, but it was still worth it to be out there on such a special day.

More relaxing is in order. I feel all cozy in my new holiday sweater Eric got me (it’s a tradition in our little family for everyone to find a festive sweater under the tree), and my coffee has spiked eggnog in it, which is adding to the lovely languorous atmosphere. Sam’s hit the “full and satisfied” state with all the Christmas goodness he’s unwrapped and eaten; Gabe is BOUNCING OFF THE WALLS, but I expect he’ll eventually hit his peak and descend into exhaustion. Eric is out, (fruitlessly so far) attempting to find a few ingredients with which to complete the dinner he’s got in mind, but if he can’t find anything, we’ll still be okay, as the boys have requested freaking Ramen for their supper. Whatever, man. I’m all about simple requests.

Hope your day is as full as ours. Can’t wait to spend the next week just chilling and resting up for the new year ahead!

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I had a nice run with my running club.

Gabe, though continuing to feel intermittently nauseated, never threw up, and he felt well enough to go out with me as my lunch date.

Both boys went to bed without much argument at all, eager to be asleep before Santa gets here.

The presents all got wrapped, and I finally found a stocking solution that lets them hang from my little decorative hangers without pulling them down onto the floor.

Eric and I watched It’s a Trap while wrapping the gifts, which was quite entertaining. (Not as good as Something, Something, Something, Dark Side, in my opinion, though; still, it’s satisfying to see all three.)

Cookies were baked; Eric’s dumplings were made.

I ran out to Walmart to grab a few items, and while that could have been a catastrophe, it ended up being one of the most hilarious experiences I’ve had in a while, just standing back and being amazed at the chaos. Seriously, how many lanes can there be per aisle in a parking lot? Let’s find out!

It’s not even eleven, and everything’s ready for tomorrow. Amazing.

Merry Christmas. Happy holidays. Silent night, peace on earth, and goodwill to all men. I love you guys.

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GOOD: Our regular babysitter posted on Facebook that she had nothing to do today. I commented that if she was bored, I had a way for her to make some money, and she agreed to sit the boys this afternoon.

BAD: On the way home from picking her up, Gabe started feeling nauseated. We got home, and he kept moaning and whimpering, so instead of getting to go party with my husband and friends, I had to call him home (luckily, from only a few blocks away) to stay with Gabe so I could drive the sitter home.

UGLY: On the way home from that, my van died in the middle of Main Street. I panicked. We were a little late on getting the oil changed, and I knew – I KNEW – that the oil was so low that the engine was now completely fried. Then I restarted it, and it went fine. At Eric’s equally panicked suggestion, I drove, heart in throat, to the nearest oil change place, where they determined that, yes, my oil was low, but not low enough that it should have caused the engine to die. The engine didn’t even feel very warm to them. Good news, but who knows why it died, then?

MADDENING: Gabe is still having spells that make him run to the bathroom and perch on the toilet, metal bowl on his lap for insurance. I am exhausted, and there’s no way I can handle getting up all night long to deal with it, so I just messaged Eric to beg him to take the night shift. He’s grumpy for having had his party stepped on so thoroughly, but he’s willing, in exchange for staying out later than we probably had in mind initially.

FRUSTRATING: To console myself, I ate a kabocha squash filled with lentil soup. It was delicious, but now my stomach hurts.

UNRELATED, EXCEPT THAT I’M SORT OF IN A “SALT THE EARTH” PLACE: Some of the characters on “Avatar: The Last Airbender,” which the kids are currently watching are extraordinarily irritating. Gah.

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That lasted about ten minutes.

After that, we were off to the races, if the racers were Labrador puppies on speed and the event was some sort of mashup of “Double-Dare” and “Jack*ss.” It took until abpu two o’clock to me to hear the first “there’s nothing to do”…which I suppose is what happens when you try to rocket through your day and cram everything into the first few hours.

They made a list, which is shown above, of all they’d like to accomplish before returning to school. It’s actually quite a manageable list, so long as it gets spread over the whole vacation instead of tackled head-on in one afternoon. Tomorrow will be either baking cookies or a trip to Stonefire Pizza; getting them to agree will be the sticking point.

I’ll have to run early tomorrow; Eric still has a day of work before his vacation starts, and I’m so close to my mileage goal for 2010, I can almost taste it. Not giving up or slowing down, no matter how exhausted I already am. (How is it that, for an at-home parent, “break” can mean the absolute opposite? Not that it’s not fun, but it’s certainly no “vacation”! )

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But then I was stupid, and instead of running right inside the moment I got home, I grabbed my own shovel and worked on the driveway and sidewalks. My reasoning was that I was already tired and wet, so there was no point in cleaning up in order to get tired and wet again, but the upshot was that by the time I went in, my feet were numb, and they started to burn ominously as things thawed. Idiocy: let me show you mine. Also, I was tired, as I said, and the added exertion of the shoveling meant that I spent the rest of the day feeling drained.

And tomorrow begins the kids’ winter break from school. Sam whined at bedtime, saying that since there was no school, he ought to be allowed to stay up late, but I rebutted that he had gotten up early today, and bedtimes needed to relate to the day we’re in as well as the one we’re entering. “You want to stay up later tomorrow? Sleep in in the morning!” I suggested. He won’t, though. His brain, like that of most small boys, is hardwired to get as much fun out of free days as he can. This kid actually got up at five-freaking-AM this past Saturday; I found him watching cartoons when I came down at 5:30 to get ready for my run. He’s twisted. At least Gabe will only climb into bed with us when he gets up that early.

Anyway, I don’t know yet what I’m going to do with these boys over break. Luckily, Eric’s company has a very generous holiday shut-down, so only a couple of days will be just me and the kids, but over time, that just means one more person who’ll be counting down the minutes until order and routine are restored in January. I know this, and yet I haven’t made any plans – even tentative frameworks of plans – to stave off that moment. Recipe for disaster, or embracing relaxation in the hopes that being more laidback will pay dividends in lessened stress? You tell me.

Tomorrow, I should really consider wrapping some of these presents. Maybe.

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Well, Eric’s been messaging me throughout the meeting, where he’s apparently the only father in attendance. And none of the mothers are interested in talking with him, either, so since the activities are, I gather, kid-only, Eric’s been sitting in a corner, feeling ostracized. “Not me [next time],” he says. I can understand; even though the other dads were always very friendly toward me at the old den meetings, I know what it’s like to be the “other parent” at these things.

And now the poor guy’s going to have to come home and stay up late making his dumplings for the company potluck on Thursday (he’ll freeze them and then steam them the day of the potluck). There’s no way around it; he simply will have not much time other than late at night to do them, and at this point, those dumplings have become practically a staple of the yearly party. If they weren’t there, I don’t think he’d hear the end of it until the next year’s potluck. I wish I could help him, too, but since the “recipe” is very much an internal process, all I can do is facilitate. Bummer about this meeting; if we’d known how different it was going to be, I definitely would have gone with Sam, and Eric would have been able to make the dumplings earlier.

(Gabe’s finished the card, as well as another picture for his teacher, and now he’s shifted into full-on draw-draw-draw mode. He’ll fill page after page with squiggly little scenes of aliens, monsters, and robots before he finally hits his point of satisfaction.)

We’re supposed to get some snow tonight, too. Since we haven’t really gotten much yet this season, compared to what it usually seems like, I hope we do get a couple of good inches worth on the ground. Unfortunately, they’re also saying we’ll have some “wintry mix” tomorrow morning, which means that my mid-length run could be less than completely enjoyable. Not that I’d skip it, of course. But icy drizzle is unpleasant. Also, my Garmin is behaving abominably this winter, either refusing to stop when I push the button or else going completely nuts and jumping backward and forward in time. I think sleet might inspire it to go completely on strike.

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But when he told them a bit ago that it was about time to leave, Gabe began to panic. Suddenly, he decided that the movie seemed scary, and he didn’t want to go. Moreover, he didn’t think Sam ought to go, either. I comforted him and told him it was okay, but that I thought he might regret not going. We looked at some trailers online, but he still thought he would be too scared, so off went Eric and Sam without him.

The minute the door closed, Gabe freaked and changed his mind; he ran for the door and yelled, “Daddy! I’m coming!” So I bundled him into his coat and sent him off with them, fingers crossed. It didn’t last. A couple of minutes later, Eric called and said Gabe was crying, so he was bringing him back by the house. The poor thing sobbed as I let him back in, saying he was “scared that the movie things were going to come through the screen.”

I set him up with Henson’s The Christmas Toy and a promise that it wouldn’t be remotely frightening at all. He has popcorn and an unfurrowed brow. Sometimes, when you’re six, that’s what you need, especially when so much of the rest of your life involves trying to keep up with and be as old as your older brother. Six is not nine.

A lot of parenting multiple kids comes down to crowd control, and it’s simpler to deal with them as a unit instead of as individuals. I look at videos and movies of Sam at this age, and he seems so much younger than Gabe does. He had more choices to be so, and he didn’t have the same motivation to be older. Today reminded me of that. We’ve had this movie sitting around for a while, too “babyish” for Sam, so Gabe wasn’t about to watch it. But he got his break, his chance to be six, and he’s happier for it.

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Tomorrow, we have the cantata performance, and then Eric has promised to take the kids to see Tron in the theater. It’s possible I’ll be pulled along in the wake for that, but it’s also a possibility that I’ll be back at the house, ostensibly wrapping gifts but likely instead wrapping myself in a warm blanket, eyes closed, brain turned off for a spell.

(But the artichoke dip tonight was transcendent. Yum.)

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And I’m pretty beat right now.

But I hope to hit the hay really soon now, which will give me some good quality rest time, which will hopefully let me spring from the sheets feeling refreshed and ready to go. I’ll need that rest, because not only will it be an early day, but a long one as well, with a choir rehearsal in the late morning and a company Christmas party in the evening. I don’t want to go into either feeling droopy. Shouldn’t be too bad, though; today, as a sign of energy to come, I paused at about five and a half miles into my run and dashed into my church, where a few other choir members were gathering to sing carols to a preschool cookie social. I may have been sweaty and freezing, but I could still rock some “Joy to the World.” (Of course, the remaining miles home felt a little off, having been “fueled” with a couple of peanut butter cookies, but still.)

Anyway, sleep. I need it. Honestly, you probably do, too! Go to bed, guys! Those presents will still be there to wrap in the morning, and you’ll feel better for the extra sleep. Say good night, now; pleasant dreams. Wake up and do it all again tomorrow!

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Gabe is less willing, as it turns out. In his kindergarten classroom, kids are encouraged to “write notes” to each other, which can be put into cubbies to take home later. Last week, one of his friends gave him her phone number, scrawled in crayon, which we found precious, if a little precocious; he didn’t see any sort of implications in the note, so we kept quiet. Today, he brought home a couple more notes from this girl; he only had glanced at one side of them, which featured her traced hand, along with a signature. I flipped them over…and found hearts a-plenty. Gabe, to put it lightly, was appalled.

(I will note: no actual farting happened during the filming, despite any attempts at character slander from my costar.)

I’m relieved that Sam, meanwhile, remains innocent of any further attempts at flirtation with him. He comes home with playground tales that involve both girls and boys, but unless the young lasses see romantic subplots in the recess adventures of “Spy Force Five” (which they’ve dubbed themselves, racing around and solving crimes), it’s all quite platonic. Very relieved to have boys, at moments like this. (Even when they’re fighting, as at present, over what – or whom – to blow up next on Roblox.)

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That was many churches ago. Now we attend a Methodist church, and there’s no book juggling or even robes. I miss that part a little sometimes, but the part I love remains: making music in worship, and especially getting to do so with my husband. I have to admit to silliness between us on occasion, but it’s in good fun. Something about coming together in music brings us back to the goofiness of college, and suddenly we’re picking apart bass lines, critiquing voice leading, or making guesses about the arrangers’ backgrounds. (“That’s no Gmaj9!” I heard him mutter behind me tonight. “And would a French augmented sixth kill anybody?”)

We’re working on a Christmas cantata right now. The bug may have bitten us to offer instrumental arranging work for the next cantata on the schedule; eventually, it seems, all things come full circle. Who knows what comes next? Thank you, Dr. Beall, for this, too. In your studio, I gained so much more than just an undergraduate degree. (And my husband. )

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My kids are many things, but forgettable isn’t one.  We’re at a Boy Scout pack meeting right now, and there’s a presentation going on about animals in the winter. The presenter is very dynamically giving facts about animal habits and tracks and…I somehow knew it was Gabe he was calling on to answer a question, well before I saw, and I knew Gabe wasn’t going to be on topic or know the answer to the pneumonic being discussed.  Sure enough, Gabe’s offering of wisdom was only tangentially related, if valuable: “Never eat brown snow.”

That’s my boy.

I uploaded to Facebook a bit ago some pictures of letters they wrote to Santa; we handed them to Santa’s helpers at the company Christmas party, so some of Eric’s coworkers got to see them, and I guess Gabe is now legend for having the only letter that began with an apology and plea for clemency. 

Again, my boy.

(Oh, crap; he just got a dirty look from the presenter, who was rousing the crowd by having them repeat, “I want pizza with anchovies!” Gabe loudly said, “But I like bacon,” which I guess was irritating.  Okay, then.)

Sam used to be the vocal kid, hand in the air with insights that may or may not have been on topic, but now he’s a little more reluctant to speak up.  On the other hand, he’s in the middle of a crowd of kids I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know, giggling and whispering and making friends.  I always said that Sam could make friends inside an empty closet, and that’s still true. Kids seem to remember him and come up to him in crowds to say hi.

I wish I could be that memorable.

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But nothing today is going precisely the way I wanted it to. I ran out when Eric got home, with the earnest intention of using a store coupon to get Gabe’s Christmas sweater. Well, the sweaters weren’t what I wanted…but I suppose that was okay, because the coupon expired yesterday. While there, though, I decided to try on some boots, since my trusty pink skull-and-crossbones casual shoes are pretty much dead now. I tried on a few different ones, but nothing really rang true to me. One pair was all sexiness, with stretchy leather to my knees, but I wasn’t sure whether heels of that nature are a particularly good idea in the kind of winters we get. Another pair was more practical, but I still hesitated. Carrie Bradshaw, I ain’t; the only time I can care about my footwear, it seems, is when it’s meant to carry me over many miles at a brisk pace.

It’s super-cold here right now, speaking of winters. Got more strange looks than usual while I was out running this morning, and my dad actually called later to tell me not to “do anything foolish, like go out running.” Whoops; too late, Dad.

But tomorrow’s another day, and it’s supposed to be marginally warmer, and maybe I’ll find a store that sells Christmas sweaters that meet my criteria (not too ugly; something festive without being explicitly Christmas only; must be heavy enough to get a body through Wisconsin cold), even if I don’t have a coupon. Perhaps I’ll even stumble across a pair of shoes that are perfect enough to turn even my head, though I have my doubts.

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But sometimes showers won’t cut it. I’m still dealing with the aftermath of the removal of my ingrown toenails a bit ago, and soaking my feet was recommended as a healing solution. I tried using a little basin with Epsom salts, but that got to be a pain in the neck. Also, ice baths after a long, hard run are exquisitely, indescribably painful, but they certainly do the job in moderating soreness, so I take them, amidst shrieks and moans. (My kids know to stay out of the way when Mommy comes home filthy, sweaty, and bearing bags of ice. Gabe tried to “help” once or twice, but I just couldn’t fake that it wasn’t so bad, and now he avoids the scene like the plague.)

And then there are days like today, when the winds are howling and the snow is blowing like crazy. I have no idea how much snow we did or didn’t get; they were calling for a bunch, and I don’t think we got half what was expected, but it’s hard to tell when it blows off sideways before even touching ground. It’s freaky out there, and my bones were feeling sore just looking at it. Then I saw an old Lush bath bomb under the sink, and suddenly the idea of sitting in a tub full of hot, hot water, even if my knees had to be bent, was powerfully appealing.

So I lie here, surrounded by tiny paper hearts, for some reason, and I’m remembering that enough hot water will make the ceramic tub warm enough that it doesn’t matter so much if I can’t be completely under water. I’ve only been interrupted a handful of times, but it’s okay, because I wasn’t particularly trying to escape. I just wanted to be warm, and this has worked wonderfully. Now, do I have to get out? Can’t I just conduct my day from here, like the captain of Golgafrinchan Ark Fleet Ship B? (And won’t somebody bring me some jynnan tonnyx, please? )

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I’m planning. It’s the time of the year when a lot of runners are laying plans, especially folks whose plans require greater time for training, as in for marathons. Discussion while running with the club this morning, and over subsequent coffee, revolved around our 2011 thoughts. Some people were thinking about timing (later spring races mean less snow training; later fall marathons avoid risk of super-hot race days); some were focusing on location. To travel or not to travel? We talked about pros and cons of various races we’ve already done, sharing with those who were considering them.

I’m an addict, and my plans, as many people’s do, boil down to a spring marathon and a fall one. After doing Devil’s Lake this summer, I needed a little time to muse and research (and heal…), but I tentatively began exploring the idea of entering the lottery for the JFK 50 Mile in November. Yeah, it’s fifty miles, but compared to the course at Devil’s Lake, it seems positively runnable; the middle twenty-six miles are all but flat, for heaven’s sake, along the C&O canal towpath. It wouldn’t be easy, by any stretch, but…with proper training, I think I could do it. Getting in, of course, would be the trick. It’s a tough lottery.

So I needed a backup fall race, as well as a spring one. Since travel was a possibility in the fall, I thought to stay local for the spring, and I narrowed my options to Madison, Lake Geneva, or the Des Plaines River Trail Marathon. Tentatively, I’m leaning toward Lake Geneva, though it’s purportedly quite difficult. We’ll see; I haven’t committed to anything. For a brief period, I was also entertaining the thought of Glass City, but it’s a bit early for those of us around here; I’d very likely have to do my 20-mile training runs through snow and ice, which I’d rather not.

As for the fall backup race, I hadn’t made much headway, until one running club coffee, when a friend started getting curious about the Dances with Dirt series, and, well, it looks possible that I’m going to be peer-pressured into doing the 50K in Hell. Rachel heard about the conversation, and she’s likely game, too. Road trip! It’s not too far from Ann Arbor, so it’s sort of “back home,” too. Interestingly, it’s in mid-September; if I made it into the JFK lottery, there’s nothing to stop me from doing both races, though they’re slightly too far apart to realistically use Hell as a training run for JFK. Not quite sure how I’d handle recovery between the two; I’d need to talk to experienced minds.

Anyway, I haven’t registered for anything yet. That’s the beauty of a new year and, as a fellow runner put it this morning, an odometer ticking back over to zero. The world is my oyster! For now, though, I’m focusing on two immediate goals: the Run into the New Year (haven’t decided yet if I’m doing the 5K or the 10K), and my 2010 mileage goal of 2,010 miles. I’m almost there!

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But the kids had early dismissal, and maybe it was dealing with their excited bickering that eroded my energy. By the time I was delivering boxes to UPS, I could hardly muster the strength to plop the stack on the counter.

Long run tomorrow morning. It’s a sign of Runner’s Mania, likely, that I’m sort of counting on it to give more than it taketh away.

I did spend a little time with Eric tonight, talking through some of my race plans for the coming year. That’s a work-in-progress; tune in for more details later. Let it suffice to say that though he’s supportive and encouraging, my husband thinks I’m loony. It’s okay. He loves me anyway.

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So when he said he wasn’t interested in choir, I may have pressed, though I realized I shouldn’t push and I stopped. Months later, when the actual sign-up information came home, I was surprised and pleased that he had changed his mind and was going for it. (It later became clearer; a couple of his friends were doing it, and he decided to join with them.) Not much more was said about it until he brought home a paper about the upcoming concert. He needed a white shirt and black pants, and the other parts of his outfit were to be provided by the school.

He brought home a brown bag earlier this week. “It’s my bow tie and my cubbernuckin,” he told me, and I was felled entirely. Do you know how long you have to wait between instances of mispronunciations when your child is nine years old? When they’re toddlers, and every other word is a cute little mashup of nonsense, you take it for granted, but trust me, you’ll miss it when they’re all big and intelligible.

The concert was pleasant and enjoyable, much in the way that elementary school instrumental concerts aren’t. (Again, as somebody who’s been through the system quite thoroughly, I’m allowed to say that.) Sam wasn’t the most enthusiastic singer on the risers, but he participated gamely. Meanwhile, Gabe sat between Eric and me, singing along to every word he could, beating our hands to the rhythms with good accuracy, and whispering that he wanted to be in the choir when he’s in the fourth grade. They sang lots of holiday songs, including one Hanukkah tune that Gabe liked. “But it wasn’t the dreidel song I already knew,” he clarified on the way out.

“No, it was a different one,” said Sam, “and we’re learning another song in Hebrew.” After a beat, he mused, “You know, Hanukkah really isn’t much about Jesus…”

…and I was felled again. Twice in one week! A seasonal miracle! (And yes, we had a subsequent discussion about the differences between Judaism and Christianity, and why Hanukkah would be really very light on the Jesus.)

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I can make Christmas cookies with my kids, even as late as Christmas Eve night, to leave out for Santa. I can let my kids decide what time we wake up to open presents without worrying about how it affects anybody’s sleep but Eric’s and mine. I don’t have to worry about wrapping gifts before we leave. I don’t have to worry about TSA screening procedures if I’m not flying anywhere. We can serve whatever foods we want for Christmas dinner, and I won’t necessarily have to assemble a meal out of side dishes in order to avoid meat. We can go to the Christmas Eve service at our own church, singing Silent Night with the choir while holding the beautiful little candles that make the sanctuary look positively magical.

But…

I miss my family. I want my parents to see their grandkids open presents, and I want them to see them all dressed up in their Christmas sweaters. I want to have Christmas dinner with other people, sharing stories of the past year with folks who haven’t heard them, let alone lived them. I want to sing carols with my mom. I want to share coffee with my dad. I want to go running with my brother. I want to see in person how big my niece and nephew got over the past year.

My childhood home isn’t “home” anymore, either, of course. If we were in Maryland for the holidays, we’d be staying in a hotel room; if we were in Eric’s hometown, it would likely be in a guest bedroom. (His childhood house has been sold, in fact.) Eric and Sam have adjusted to Wisconsin enough to call it home at this point, and Gabe has never lived anywhere else. I’m the only one in the family who still feels like a foreigner here. I don’t know when I’ll ever feel at home again, though I’ll hit the seven-year point early next year, which I’ve heard is the average amount of time it takes (can’t find the reference for that right now).

I feel like I’ve lamented about this a million times. Looking back in my journal, it seems like I mostly do it around the holidays. That’s not surprising, I guess.

Anyway, for now, I’m going to focus on that first list of things. There are lots of advantages to not traveling at Christmas. When I was little, I got irritated at having to make the rounds on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, leaving my turf and new toys for only a few hours. Traveling to far-away places for weeks has got to be even harder on my kids when we do it. We’ll have a little Christmas for our immediate family, right here at our house, and we’ll have our own traditions and our own memories made. It’ll be okay. We’ve done this before.

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Anyway, still had to get through today. Had my first “snow run” of the year, where I took my legs through piles of the unshoveled white stuff along the bike trail. It’s good for building character, you know. Those of us who live in snowy places spend a good chunk of the year convincing ourselves that the extra effort now will lead to bigger payoffs in the spring than if we were to have milder winters. (Might even be true…) While I was in the thick of it, something told me to stop for a moment; I thought it was just weakness, but when I decided to listen to the voice and switch off the music, within five seconds, a car pulled up next to me with a desperate-looking woman in the driver’s seat, hopelessly lost and in need of directions. If I hadn’t stopped, I wouldn’t have been in a position to help her, so I’ll call it a happy coincidence!

Then I cheered myself up further, knowing I’d have to go out for more Christmas shopping, by putting on this authentic 1970s tunic. It was my mom’s, and I liberated it from her when I was in high school and we had a Spirit Week with a “Flashback” day. Haven’t worn it in a long time, but it makes me smile when I do. I get looks from folks, and I enjoy seeing the double-takes. I just need a pair of funky boots to go with it!

So far, it’s working; I don’t feel grouchy at all tonight. Even picked up some pre-made gingerbread cookies for the kids to decorate tonight if they’re well-behaved! Ho-ho-ho! Sometimes, I think, you really do need to “fake it ’til you make it.” The more I pretend to be in the holiday spirit, the more I find that I’m not pretending.

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I never begin with an introduction, though I know a lot of people do. On the other hand, every now and again, I get email from people with whom I’ve lost contact over the years, and, what with all they changes that have happened in my life over the recent years, they’re often quite startled and not even positive that I’m the same Carrie who they used to know or who has been at this domain for more than a decade. (Yes, it’s been that long!) So…why not?

Yep, I’m that Carrie. I’m the one who studied music, who worked as a librarian, who had two boys at home (on purpose), and who’s married to Eric, the most awesome computer-dude/cook in the world. Somewhere along the line, we wound up living in Wisconsin, where it’s very, very cold a lot of the time, but we’re making do with it. The view of Lake Michigan in the morning, as the sun rises over the water and tints the waves pink and orange, makes up for a lot.

About three years ago, I laced up running shoes without much more of a goal than to get into good enough shape to push my son Sam on his two-wheeler. Things…snowballed, you might say. Now I’m a marathoner, and I completed my first ultramarathon this summer, with thoughts of more in the future. I lost a whole bunch of weight, but more importantly, I gained a passion for distance running that fills me with indescribable contentment. If you knew me before I was a runner, this might be one of the biggest changes I’ve ever made, outside of getting married or becoming a mother. Oh, and I went vegetarian, too, but that’s just because I like the way I feel when I run on a plant-based diet. Nothing against meat; it’s just not for me anymore.

Like I said before, I’ve been writing at redhairedgirl.com for more than a decade now. It started as a personal chronicle of our efforts to start a family, as well as record the day-to-day-ness of things, and it still does that latter. There’s a lot of running talk, kid talk, food talk, and general nonsense. Even in my running shoes, I’m still the same smart aleck I’ve always been. (You can tell when I’m really aggravated with life when I start journaling in haiku. It’s an odd “tell,” I’ll grant.)

So, welcome to my journal, if you’ve never been here. If you have, then pass the popcorn to a newcomer.

(Oh, and what I said about things being really, really cold here? Today exemplified that by having my Garmin literally freeze up on the run. Thing wouldn’t even turn off until I warmed it in my hands for a while. Oh, Wisconsin, you funny, funny place.)

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I have a tree up. (Missing a goodly portion of the important ornaments, since I wanted to do some decorating with Eric when he gets back.) My computer is playing carols. I have seasonally-scented candles sending smells skyward (say that three times fast). Blissfully hot coffee is warming my hands (in my Grumpy Donald mug, but no mind). Sam is doing homework with no complaints at all, because he gets to use the replacement laptop we got after the break-in, and Gabe is contentedly writing new movie scripts.

My back door is repaired, and the wall is getting there. Oh, and we spent the morning Christmas shopping, and I’d say I’m about halfway done, give or take. Not bad. I won’t lie and say that the kids were perfect angels at the mall, but they were at least helpful in parts, and they managed to charm a couple of young salesgirls (or else they were very good actresses hoping for a bigger sale to pad their commissions; either way, it’s all good). I even managed to get them to agree to, and mostly happily eat, Indian food for lunch, so I’m a VERY happy girl about that.

We might just save this holiday season yet!

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But then, a few minutes after Sam had come out to join us in shoveling the driveway, he blithely informed me that he’d locked the door to the house behind us. My phone and house keys were on the other side, unfortunately.

A neighbor helped us break in the back door, which wasn’t too difficult, in retrospect, but also in retrospect, it would have been better to call a locksmith and pay whatever they wanted. The doorframe was old, and fixing that wood will be complicated. Worse, our kicks broke the plaster on the wall around the doorframe. My stomach sank when I saw it, and I wanted to throw up.

But we went to the party anyway (why not, at that point?), and when I vented my frustration to one of Eric’s friends, the story carried to another friend, whose husband does home remodeling and repair, so they’re dropping by in an hour to take a look at the door. It, of course, needs repaired immediately; the exterior door still locks, but it doesn’t hold heat well at all…and it’s cold out there. Snow, you know.

Why does this crap always happen when Eric’s away on business?

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Sam went off to school today with a large green “P” scrawled on the back of this hand. He loathes having his skin written on, but (and therefore) I decided it was probably the most effective way to get him to remember to have his planner looked at by his teacher. I don’t really buy his story that he hasn’t had homework in three days again; after seeing the number of missing assignment at that teacher conference, and having verified again that he’s supposed to have homework most nights, I tend to be a bit skeptical of his claims. Part of me thinks I need to bite the bullet and let him discover the consequences on his own before he can begin to get in gear, but I don’t think I’m that brave yet. (Maybe it’s that I know deep down just how very like me he is, and I know how bad his procrastination efforts and results could get before he hits bottom. Been there, on the other side of the coin. Wasn’t fun, and I don’t think it would be more fun on the parent end.)

Snow “storm” coming tomorrow. Looks like most of it will be north and west of us, with only a few inches for us, but since it’ll be the first accumulation of the season, I expect traffic to be of the “OH SWEET MERCY WHAT IS THIS FALLING WHITE STUFF” variety. People: we live in Wisconsin. It’s only been about half a year since we did this. If I, the east coast transplant, can remember how to do it, so can you.

Okay, I need to find a way to get less cynical, stat.

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And then I decided to try Christmas shopping. Bah, humbug.

I dunno; I just can’t get into the mood for that this year. It doesn’t help that, as baffled as I am about what to get Eric, he’s apparently discovered a wonderful gift idea for me, and he’s positively crowing about it. Not that it’s a competition or anything, but…he’s totally going to “win Christmas” this year, and while I don’t mind losing, I do like it to be at least something other than a complete landslide. So there’s that, and then there’s the fact that honestly, my kids don’t need anything else. They’ve both raved about the idea of Pillow Pets (I’ll spare you the link to the website, complete with the obnoxious jingle), but when I finally decided to suck it up and find a couple yesterday, I found that they’re perfect examples of the worst, shoddiest crap around. I swear, from across the mall, I could see loose threads and offset eyes, and these were on the legitimate pillows, not even the knock-offs. No. I can’t bring myself to plunk down the cash for that.

So I came home and vented my frustration by clearing out the big particle board bookshelf in my living room and junking it. (Hey, trash-pickers: good condition five-shelf bookshelf; will be on my curb Friday morning. Enjoy!) We’re clearing out a lot, in the hopes of selling this house, and every load out of here makes me feel a little better. Maybe if I can get rid of enough stuff, I’ll finally be able to get into the holiday spirit.

Let’s just hope it happens before March.

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Had to go get a screaming-in-pain belly-aching Gabe from school, where his deafening cries had everyone in a tizzy.  (And stopped at the drugstore for a just-in-case antinausea prescription for him, where he terrified those folks, as well.) Got home…and he was fine to the point of giddy.

Went for my chocolate stash and found the boxes nibbled open and shredded by tiny little teeth.  Squick!

Banker friend called to talk to Eric; wouldn’t talk to me. I called Eric (in Mexico), who freaked and desperately tried to call the bank back, thinking something was wrong with our account.  Turns out it was a sales call; he wasn’t so much “evasive” with me as “didn’t recognize my name.”

Kids were naughty at bedtime. 

I didn’t sleep well in my big empty bed.

Here’s to a brand new day! (Hopefully with 100% fewer rodents and rodent-related discoveries.)

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For toes that healed enough to let me run.

For lungs and heart that held their fitness while the toes were healing.

For best friends who not only welcome you into their homes and family celebrations, but will run with you after a late night of partying and wildness.

For partying and wildness and bad cover band versions of “Freebird.”

For awesome husbands who prepare extravagantly perfect Thanksgiving meals for their families.

For families, especially little boys who positively glow with testosterone-filled camaraderie.

For road trips. For relaxation. For pumpkin pie and butternut squash soup. For coffee and jokes about turkey. For love. For life…

I give thanks, so very much.

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Sam is doing better behaviorally this year – no distracting or bugging the kids sitting around him – but his grades are suffering because he’s finally hit the level where late or missing homework gets counted against the grade. And has it ever… So his teacher and I chatted, and I told her that he has a planner that he’s reluctant to use, and we’re planning to have him get it signed by both of us regularly now. He’s not failing (yet), but he could be a letter grade higher than he is in just about every subject, which is maddening. When he does do poorly on a completed assignment, the majority of the time it happens because he didn’t read the directions well. That, too, is frustrating for us.

Basically, I have two smart, well-intentioned, very human sons. Could be worse.

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Then we went over to Ulta, which was a huge mistake and blow to my ego. All I needed was a blush, since the last one I masterfully picked out (Walgreens, as usual) is somehow the exact shade of my normal skin, so you can’t see anything at all when I put it on. I figured a big cosmetic store would be better, but my brain completely freaked out at all the products all over the place – stuff I’ve never even heard of – that I spazzed and left empty-handed and feeling like I need to turn in my Girl Card.

ERIC: “Didn’t you read ‘Cosmo’ or those other magazines? Didn’t they tell you what to do?”
ME: “When I was a young teen, until Mom made me stop.”
ERIC: “The sex articles?”
ME: “No, the fact that I couldn’t really process any of the beauty stuff very well, and it was becoming…mortifying.”

Oh, I’m such a little lady, with my un-primed (seriously? Primer? Like what you put under wall paint?) face and nailless toes. Why do I even try?

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My toes hurt.  I had the ingrown toenails removed on Tuesday, and I’m still recovering.  No running yet, which really sucks, especially right now when I could very much use a long, long one.

(I know. It doesn’t explain anything.  But it’s something.)

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This weekend was busy. Eric got in from Mexico late on Friday, and we all got up mega-early on Saturday to get to Chicago for my race. (In hindsight, the ER trip on Thursday night wound up working for me and the kids, since we were all exhausted enough to fall asleep early on Friday and be more awake Saturday than we might have been on less sleep.) We drove to Waukegan and took the train into Chicago, where I kissed them goodbye (left them in the warmer train station to kill the remaining time) and found other race-bib-wearing folks who were hoofing it over to Grant Park. Good thing, too; otherwise, I’d have been relying on my phone’s GPS to get me through the streets and to the start.

The starting corral was mega-MEGA-crowded. I couldn’t even push my way up to the conservative pace starting point that I’d intended to follow, so I just hung back with the 10-minute-per-mile folks and hoped that by the time we crossed the actual starting line, things would thin out enough that I could move up. Yeah, ha-ha! I did move up, but it was tricky! The course was completely bottlenecked, and there were plenty of places where passing at all was simply not an option. Also, I don’t mind running on gravel, or even large gravel, but doing it in a packed group where you can’t see more than a couple of feet’s worth of ground in front of you at any moment is really challenging, as far as foot placement. I finished in 1:22:17, which was 163/1193 in my age group. The crowd really held me to the slower pace I’d wanted to hold, being a week out of the marathon (heck, the main reason I chose the 15K instead of the 5K was that I didn’t want to be tempted to push myself), but if I hadn’t had that goal in mind, I’d have been really ticked about it. Many people were, I gather, from reading the race reviews in various places. (Why on earth did they start the 5K race before the 15K, anyway?!)

After that, and after the chocolate (yummy) and the kids’ fair (they liked it), the day went downhill, as everybody’s exhaustion started catching up to them. We did get to see Cloud Gate, which we hadn’t seen before, and we ate lunch at Weber Grill, which would have been good…but Gabe’s belly started to hurt again. Mind you, at his doctor appointment on Friday, we got no answers but a list of labs and tests to do. We’ve done the blood draw, are waiting for him to provide a stool sample, and are hoping like heck that those results come back quickly enough that we can avoid having to do an upper GI exam on him. In the meantime, though, his belly hurts at random intervals. He recovered enough that the trip back to and on the train were fine, but he fell asleep on the way, and when he woke up, he screamed and cried about his stomach until falling asleep in the car. At home…he was fine. Argh.

Anyway, busy week ahead, so I need to gear up. Now moving up my list of priorities are a couple of ingrown toenails than I now have the time to deal with, so wish me quick recovery from that!

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But then he wouldn’t respond to me when I tried to talk to him, and I couldn’t really tell whether it was because he was tired or if it was something else. After talking with Eric on the phone, I dragged poor Sam out of bed and hauled us all off to the ER. (Let me tell you how pleased Sam was about this development… ) It took a very long time to get back to a room, where Gabe fell asleep on the bed and Sam sacked out across both chairs. I hunkered down on the floor and waited…waited…waited. The doctor came and felt Gabe’s belly, which felt…normal. He ordered a belly x-ray – normal. By the time he came back with that news and some juice for Gabe to drink, Gabe woke up from his nap and was positively perky. (In fact, he was extremely sassy, tossing barbs at me right and left. I told him his cheeks looked puffy, and he said, “Maybe it’s adrenaline? Duh?” Also, a toddler was crying in an adjoining room, and Gabe growled, “There are a thousand noises right now, and most of them are that baby!”) The doctor was laughing and shrugging, saying Gabe looked perfectly healthy, while acknowledging how frustrated this must make me. Gabe asked whether he could go to school in the morning, which made him laugh harder and say, “No reason not to, if you’re not too sleepy from staying awake here!”

Well, he has an appointment with his regular doctor this afternoon, and I’m trying to stay optimistic that she’ll have some sort of insight into what’s happening, but how much can you tell from examining a kid who seems completely fine? It’s maddening! But I suppose I did manage to sleep through the rest of my worries last night – you know, after I finally got to bed. Four hours of ordinary sleep: better or worse than eight hours of fitful?

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Worried about Sam. He’s such a smart kid, but he’s battling the same stuff I did all through my early schooling years, and I remember just how much that stunk. (Also? Doesn’t stink less from the parent’s side of the equation. )

Worried about Gabe. Yet again, he’s got the pukes, complete with painful gut spasms (and bouts of fist waving, drama-laden shrieks of angst: “Why does this keep HAPPENING to MEEEEE?!”). This time, he sort of felt it coming on, so he didn’t even eat dinner before it all began. I had made an appointment for him to see a doctor tomorrow afternoon, after he had some very strange gastro stuff yesterday, but now I’m fretting about whether we just wait this out tonight or hit Urgent Care (at bedtime, with Sam in tow…). Between feeling bad, he’s positively normal, as he is now, so it’s easier to say, “We’ll wait,” but when he’s howling and wailing, I just don’t know.

Worried about the logistics of getting to this race-thing on Saturday. Not such a big deal, though; I handled the train by myself just fine today; it’s the idea of having the family along, so early in the morning, though they’ve all said it’s fine, and the kids are looking forward to it. They’ll all say something different that morning. I keep saying I’ll just go by myself, but then they scramble to tell me it’ll be good, so…

Worried about other stuff.

Worried about my dad, who’s mostly recovered from the kidney stuff, but whose back is now in need of treatment and who is adjusting to new, stricter dietary rules. Worried about my mom, doing so much to care for him.

I’m a ball of worries, and right now, I just want somebody to tell me it’s all going to be okay.

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We got through Sam’s family tree project last night, or as much of it as we could do at home, anyway. He’s doing the rest at school, where there’s apparently an art class component. That certainly threw a hitch in things when we weren’t certain about the exact due date; most of the folks with kids in Sam’s grade whose phone numbers I knew had art on different days, so the due dates were wildly different. We ran into the mother of a classmate last night when we had to run out for printer ink, and when I told her we needed to print Sam’s work to take in tomorrow, I thought her eyes were going to pop out. “Chris had better not come home from Tae Kwan Do to tell me he needs to finish it tonight!” Sam assured her that he didn’t think Chris had art for at least another day.

The work itself went more smoothly last night than the night before, since we’d gotten through the “dates and places” stage and moved on to the fun information part. Sam was fascinated by how many military veterans were in our family, as well as by how many coal mining families. That part sort of freaked him out, as did the part where I went back a little further in history and mentioned how the families got much bigger and had many more incidences of “Infant Son” and “Infant Daughter.” No amount of explanation about better medical knowledge, sanitation, and general health improvements made him feel any more reassured. Sam is not my little stoic. (And I rather love him like that – not tearful and worried, of course, but sensitive to the idea of a parent’s pain.)

Tomorrow’s going to be complicated, with having to take the train down to Chicago to pick up my race packet for Saturday morning. Has to be done, though! Wish me luck!

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I was in a bad mood because of homework. Once again, Sam put off a project until the last minute, so we had to skip Scouts last night to work on it. (It’s due tomorrow, and it’s definitely more than two night’s worth of work, but that’s all we have…) This one is a “Family Tree” project, which had the potential to be interesting, but not when we have to battle through it relentlessly like this. Also, I’m a little confused about the point on the rubric where he’s called to “note ethnicity of each relative.” With the exception of two great-grandparents, every single other relative on the chart is from the Appalachian region (and those two were born there, too, even if their parents weren’t), and other than “caucasian,” I have no idea how to identify them as anything other than Appalachian. I counted, actually; you’d have to go back about eight generations to get to anything other than West Virginia for many of the lines, and a few more leaps are required to get to England for one of the lines my grandfather traced.

(I wish he was still alive for many reasons, my grandfather, but one of them would be to go over with him the family tree notebook he assembled. It’s invaluable, but some of the details are “interesting.” One distant cousin, for example, has his name followed by a cryptic note: “WW I, sheep entrails.”)

I really, really pray that by the time Gabe gets to this level of homework, Sam has either grown into better organizational skills, or else Gabe has a far different work personality. Handling two of them like this would drive me around the bend.

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Now for the longer version. I went up on Friday with the family to hit the expo and get my race bib. My local friend Anna was also running the race – her first full marathon – but couldn’t make it to the expo, so I was getting her stuff, too, and planned to give it to her before race start. The expo was tiny and disappointing. I don’t know why I expected it to be bigger, as it was the first year for this race; maybe it was because the area is just so hugely runner-friendly. In any event, we were out of there within fifteen minutes and off to dinner. (Claddagh. I had the linguini, which was good, but I enjoyed the bread basket more than the entree itself. Oh, and we bumped into Maria there, the woman with whom I ran most of Green Bay! We were all set to meet and run together again for this race, which gave me a charge of optimism.)

I didn’t really sleep well at all, due to the typical “what if the alarm doesn’t go off” frets, but I woke up in plenty of time to have my usual peanut butter bagel and a couple of cups of extremely bad hotel coffee. Then I walked to the race start, met up with Anna, and it was almost time to go.

I hadn’t known before that previous night just how small a race crowd it was going to be; the website combined all three races (the full, half, and 10K) into one registrant list, and I hadn’t gone through and counted. Maria knew, though, and Anna also counted: the number of people registered for the full marathon was less than 500. That was fewer than did Kenosha which was horribly lonely. I thanked my lucky stars that Maria and I were planning to stay together, and that I had my iPod. Certainly didn’t want to revisit that experience! There was a four-hour pace group, which we also thought to use, but when the pace group leader, at the starting line, said, “Oh, is this course hilly?” we immediately lost all faith in his ability to lead us through. (In fact, we did end up finishing ahead of him.)

So we were off, and the first part of the course wasn’t too bad. It was what I would have described, in fact, as “slightly rolling.” It wasn’t flat, but the hills were very manageable, and before long, we were on some extremely lovely trails through a nature conservancy. The crowd support was occasionally a bit sparse though there, but we were in the middle of a nice-sized group, so it wasn’t a big deal. (Interesting: I never really got to much of an “alone” part, but when we’d double back and see folks behind us, some of them were fairly abandoned. I suppose I simply lucked out into being at the more common running pace this time around.)

Then, just prior to mile 10, we left the trails, and were on roads. And the hills began. I suppose that after Devil’s Lake, I could be embarrassed about being daunted by these hills, but the difference is that at Devil’s Lake, we walked a lot of the uphills instead of charging hard up them. We made it through three+ miles of the hills, but they took a ton of energy out of me, and I began to feel nauseated.

Here’s the thing: at Green Bay, Maria and I ran to mile 19 together, where she had to take a pit stop and insisted I go on without her. I went sub-four-hour there; she missed it. This was her sub-four chance, and I did not want to hold her back, but I knew I was flagging. By mile 15, when I was beginning to debate whether just throwing up and moving on would feel better or worse, I told her she needed to drop me. She didn’t want to, but I insisted. She took off…and she got her 3:54.

I didn’t puke. I also didn’t hit a Port-a-John, despite cramps that made me worry. (Every time I reached one, it was occupied, and I knew I didn’t want to wait to use it.) Instead, I used my music, gritted my teeth, and rode it out. I finished the second half slightly slower than the first, with my energy tank approaching empty, but I hit the finish line in 4:00:16. I didn’t feel as bad as I did at Marine Corps, by a long shot, so we’ll consider it even. Also, I only ever reached the point of wanting to punch a man in the face one time, when we were turning a corner and he, directing us, said, “Stay to the right when you go up.” Up. Another darn hill! But I let him live. And, hey, I beat a guy dressed as the god Mercury, though his bumblebee-costumed girlfriend trounced us both.

Good points for the race: the beautiful trails, the awesomely cheery aid station workers, the decorations (especially the one at mile 6, with gruesome signs painted in fake blood, with spatters all over the ground!), the costumed runners, the clear markings and clearly explained logistics surrounding the race.

Weak points: the expo, the pace groups (probably unnecessary to have them, the way they were, but, then, I can’t speak for the other two pace groups that were available; maybe they were better), the running out of bananas and typical post-race fuel before even the four-hour finishers crossed (there was plenty of greasy pizza and boneless wings, but my stomach wasn’t able to handle even looking at that), and the medals. Seriously, it was the tiniest medal I’ve ever gotten, about the same size as the teensy age-group medal I got at a 5K a couple years ago. It’s a cute design, though.

The ugly: after I showered up at the hotel and we grabbed lunch, I had to sit in the van for the two-hour ride home. Every exhausted muscle tightened up immensely, and I’m aching badly now. Stretching, rolling…hurting. The party we attended with Eric’s coworkers last night nearly finished me off, energy-wise! But it’s all good now, and I’ll make it through trick-or-treating tonight…somehow…

Oh, the details: I placed 150th overall, out of 354 finishers. Out of 59 in my age group, I came in 17th. Photos aren’t up yet, really, but you can go here to see an initial glimpse.

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Thank God I had to go down into the basement with a whining second child who needed me to check the dryer for his “skinny jeans” that weren’t in his drawer. Who knows how long that little trick would have kept going? Also, that robe wasn’t exactly organic cotton; it was going to melt long before anything else happened, so even if we got it before a fire, the smoke and stench would have been extraordinary.

(And yes, Mom, I know exactly where he gets it (says the mom who, when she was a girl, used to warm up her pajamas by briefly draping them across the top of the kerosene heater. Turns out you really shouldn’t do that, especially when the front of the PJs has plasticky pictures that melt quickly. Oops.)

Today is trying to kill me.

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My hair, post-run:

Gotta love it.

Oh, I forgot to finish my thought from the earlier post! Anyway, considering the 50-miler. I had two in mind, “easier” than Dances with Dirt courses, but this weekend at running club, I was chatting with another member, and…well, now he’s all psyched up for potentially doing Hell next year. It’s feasible, considering timing, that I could use Hell (the 50K) as a training run for a 50-miler…or else I need slapped.

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Getting my game plan together now. For a brief period, I debated going light for the race itself, since the website claimed to have water and gels at insanely frequent intervals throughout the course; then wiser heads in running club prevailed, gently reminding me that I was insane to trust what organizers put on the internet. After all, organizers were the ones who told me that my first marathon, in Kenosha, was going to feature loads of course entertainment. So, I’ll carry my own gels and water, and I’ve already made plans to run with Maria, the woman with whom I ran Green Bay back in the spring. Looking forward to that!

No costume for me, though. I’ll sit back and enjoy everybody else’s.

Here’s some humor. I had been debating between a couple of 50-mile races for next fall. I KNOW. But, honestly, the primary one I was considering looked positively idyllic compared to Devil’s Lake! Large flat portions! Road sections!

Uh, oh. I’ll come back in a second. Tornado warning, and everything says go downstairs now.

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Today, the newborn is somewhat different. (For that matter, as am I.)

But the next to last week of October has been established, therefore, as Birthday Week for 50% of this household, the days of our birth being a mere two days apart. Gabe turned six on Tuesday, and I entered a new racing age bracket by virtue of turning 35 today. (Extra five minutes to my Boston qualifying time, holla…) I imagine there will be some years that we celebrate together and some that involve separate parties; last year, for example, I didn’t really get a party, since I ran the Marine Corps Marathon that week, and so I was happy to share Gabe’s cake when I returned. This year, scheduling worked out so that nobody really partied, but Gabe got a special dinner on his birthday (he picked a tiny little Greek diner, for some reason, and loved it), and I…made crepes for the family. Whatever; they were good. And I went out by myself for a sushi lunch, as well as lots of free coffee from different places via internet birthday coupons, so it’s all good. (BOING BOING CAFFEINE WHEEEE!)

It’s therefore a low-key sort of Birthday Week this trip around the sun, and I think we’re all okay with that. ‘Tis a gift to be simple, after all. As I told the man serving me what I think was my fifth mug of coffee today, “I stayed alive another year! Go, me!” And go, Gabe, too. It might sound like a minor achievement, but from my perspective lately, and knowing and trying not to consider the alternative, I am thrilled beyond words to begin following my second son on yet one more orbit. Let’s go, baby!

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Also, cooking for the three of us remains a challenge. Tonight we had three different dinners; I had the base meal I’d intended for all of us (cheesy polenta), topped with mushrooms and onions in balsamic, and Sam opted to cook his own salmon burger. Gabe magnanimously decided to eat the meal he’d refused last night (pasta with carrots and broccoli in a cheese sauce) and that I’d put in the fridge for him to finish later. Oddly, he pronounced that it had turned edible by virtue of being cold. Weird kid. But we had interesting conversation over dinner, discussing the upcoming student council elections and why posters with Star Wars characters didn’t necessarily mean that the candidate was the one best suited for office. Not sure if Gabe even gets to vote, but Sam was strongly in favor of the Star Wars kid.

Had a checkup with Sam’s allergist today, just to tweak some things. When we were finished, I asked the doctor whether my “Where did the air go?” performance after Marine Corps (and which I felt almost start to happen again at Green Bay, before I started wildly walking in tight circles in the confined finishers’ chute area to keep from slowing down too abruptly) could be related to the asthma he’s wondered in the past about me having. He suggested a quick evaluation in the coming week, just to check to see if there could be something we could do to ward off problems in the future, so I might do that. Most of the time, the only real issues I have with breathing involve a few miles of coughing in very dry weather before my lungs adjust. Not usually so dramatic. Still, the return of the fall marathon must be making me paranoid again.

Fun note: the allergist said he’s trying to work up to a 10K himself. I invited him to come run with our group on Saturdays, and he said he might. This madness is contagious.

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Seventeen days.

But I’m tapering, at least, which is a very good thing, especially after this weekend. On Friday, I had a regular ten-miler scheduled, and I decided to sandwich my Worldwide Festival of Races 10K into the middle of it. Ten miles isn’t hard for me at this stage in the game, but I finished those 10K in a personal PR of 49:21 – not crazy fast, but taxing enough to leave me feeling a bit jelly-legged when I was done. (The slight break when my race course got bisected by a raised drawbridge and a slow-moving yacht, however, was an unexpected boost). I was fine, though, until I tried to do Saturday’s last remaining 20-miler several hours later. Ow. Muscling through that was challenging, and I feel nothing but relief to think that now, I won’t have to do another 20+mile training run for the rest of 2010. After the marathon, I could go on cruise control until 2011 if I want! It’s all up to me!

Now I have a very slight head cold, but at least this one is appropriately timed. No more long runs, and enough time before the race for a full recovery. Sure, I can be sick now.

Eric’s in Mexico (AGAIN), so I feel grouchy about that. Miss him.

Oh, postscript: anyone out there doing the Hot Chocolate 5K or 15K on November 6th? I’m doing the 15K and would love to meet up with other runners.

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Go ahead. Ask!

All day, since about 8:00 AM, there has been chaos in my kitchen.

Holes everywhere. Dust everywhere. An electrician, uttering such spine-tingling phrases as “Oh, my God,” “Whoa!” and “Man, there’s another one!” By the time he was “finished” (ooh, foreshadowing with punctuation), every last nerve in my body felt positively wrung out. And at the end, just before that, Sam and Gabe got home from school and the madness reached a peak with Gabe SCREECHING WILDLY at the injustice of being caught in a lie (he tried to accuse Sam of bugging him instead of the other way around) and Sam wailing about having forgotten his science book at school, and…DONE. I’m just DONE.

You know, until five minutes after the guy left, when Sam announced that we had no working light upstairs.

So now, with the guy back in our house, trying to puzzle it out (he seems truly mystified now), I think my mind has been truly broken, and I have no faith in its restoration this side of today.

Uploading fast now, before the computer decides to simply explode in front of me.

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Thanks to Stuart (Quadrathon) and Ted (You Don’t Have to Run Alone) for their contributions. Music on the show comes from the Podsafe Music Network. Tracks used were:
42 shades of grey – State Unsteady
Luma – Never To Be Seen

You can subscribe through iTunes or download the show here (mp3 version). Voicemails are always welcomed at 206-339-0556, or you can email or leave a comment!

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“I’m sick! I feel the worst I’ve ever felt in my whole life! This is worse than when I used to take naps, and I threw up in my bed! Do you remember that?! THIS IS WORSE!”

Gabe was sick on and off yesterday, and I thought when we put him to bed that he’d probably be okay, because there simply seemed no way that there was anything possibly left inside him to eject. I WAS WRONG. So he wound up in bed with us, since his entire bed needed to be stripped and I didn’t have an extra mattress pad to replace the saturated one. That, in turn, meant that I stayed in a state of semi to full alert all night, every time he moved, wondering if this sigh would be the one that heralded another puke-fest. Thankfully, we made it through the night without incident, but now he’s screeching wildly at having to stay home from church. Pleasant. And my ear, which has been hurting mildly for mumble-mumble-length-of-time has now progressed to full on OUCH, so that makes the screeching doubly fun.

And Eric is covered in bug bites of an indeterminate nature that have swollen into scary raised spots, and who knows what that’s about, and I just want to bathe us all in Lysol and erect a bubble around everything. Sterility now, I cry.

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On the other hand, a father of another boy from Sam’s old den was also there, and he and I briefly chatted about it. He, too, is crazy busy, but we did some figuring: with five boys who, according to the pack leader, still want to do Scouts, and with meetings every other week, that’s only one meeting every ten weeks that each of us would have to commit to running. I can manage to find a sitter for that, if Eric happens to be out of the country. So we’re going to dig up the email list and see what we can manage; the other father suggested that we phrase it, “If you want your kid in the den, you have to do a meeting,” and that sounds fine.

Meanwhile, I was doing my best to keep Gabe occupied. When he started going nuts, I frantically scanned the Android app market on my phone for a game that he could play that wouldn’t be too noisy and that wouldn’t eat up every bit of my memory. Found a very, very basic jigsaw puzzle game that he immediately latched onto, even though it was obviously geared for the preschool set. The bizarre thing? Some of the bigger boys spied him playing it, grabbed him…and the next thing I knew, Gabe was absorbed into a small herd of kids, each eager to try a turn at this game. Um, okay…

It’s been a long week already. I want my husband back home!

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Well, I didn’t tell you so, I don’t think, but I predicted it, both to the man on the phone and then over on Facebook. Our kitchen light, part of a ceiling fan, was flickering madly and making a…sizzling…sound when we turned it on. The guy on the phone, with the electrical repair company, said it probably needed to be replaced, and that we should buy a new fan and they would install it for us. I was all, “Sure, but, you know, when you guys were here before, the man said something about strange wiring behind the switch plate.”

And a guy came today, took down the fan, took the plate off the wall, and, to cut to the chase, I have NO FAN OR LIGHT anymore. He couldn’t in good conscience put the new one up, because (chant the refrain with me, folks) he had “no idea what they’ve done, here.” Figuring out the wiring to the fan will require opening up the wall, the ceiling, and possibly the wall on the other side of the room, since apparently the outlet there is also involved in the massive catastrophe that was the former homeowners’ idea of a fun pastime (which was obviously the gruesome torture of an innocent house). Seriously, if there’s a way they didn’t screw up this place, it’s only because they ran out of time before they popped out another kid, ran out of space, and had to move on to a bigger victim home.

I am in a pretty big funk. Doesn’t help that Eric’s in Mexico again, so we can’t hug each other for comfort.

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Gabe, meanwhile, continues to keep me gobsmacked. Dentist appointment for both boys today, and I went in with a clenched stomach. Last time, the dentist – who is really amazingly good – spoke to the necessity of getting through one solid appointment with Gabe. Gabe was absolutely terrified, but the dentist felt that if we could just get through a cleaning with no major trauma, Gabe would see that it was all right. He mentioned the possibility of a mild sedative – not to knock him out, but to keep him calm through the worst of it. Neither of us wanted to jump to that, but when Gabe burst into tears at the sight of the light over the chair, I felt hopeless. He had tried so hard to psych himself up, but it looked like it wasn’t going to happen.

The hygienist went to get the dentist, and in the meantime while we waited, she grabbed a picture book and started reading to Gabe. About halfway through the book, I felt him tense and draw himself up. “Wait,” he said. “Are you just going to brush my teeth and that’s it?” She said yes, and after he clarified a couple more times, he said, “Okay, let’s just do that.” It took a few extra false starts beyond that, but by the time the dentist came in, she’d managed to clean Gabe’s bottom teeth. The dentist did the top, flossed, and even just barely managed to get Gabe to cooperate with a minor polish. It was very helpful that Gabe leaped to embrace the idea of the water sprayer, asking for it every few seconds and demanding to hold it, push the button himself, and generally hog the whole office’s water supply until we had to cut him off.

“I can’t wait for the next time I come to the dentist,” he said at the end. And if that doesn’t beat all, I don’t know what could.

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Also, I baked dark chocolate brownies with butterscotch chips. Those, for the most part, are going to a cookie walk for the PTA at the kids’ school tomorrow, so I don’t have to worry about sugar overload. On the other hand, the likelihood of coming home with other cookies is pretty high, so I’m not out of the woods.

Look what Eric’s doing. My husband impresses me so much.

Sam’s actually reading for pleasure, finally. This makes me happier than I could possibly say.

Gabe is adjusting very well to school, at last. He likes his teachers, he likes his bus, and he didn’t even freak out when I was a minute late getting him and Sam from the bus stop this afternoon (I was stuck on hold with Sam’s allergist).

Dad’s home recuperating, and they were able to do the procedure to take out the stent and destroy the kidney stone, and he feels much better now.

In other words…it’s all good.

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(And this was after I delivered a lovely little self-righteous lecture to Sam about why he needed to study the Bible, using the reference about how babies have milk, but as we grow spiritually, we need solid food. Maybe Mama needs to put down the bottle sometimes, too.)

(Not that kind of bottle. Shut up.)

I got humbled on the run today, too, though not be any particular failure on my part. It’s just hard to maintain one’s poise while having gallons of water dumped on one’s head from heavy, lightning-streaked, clouds. “Squish, squish, squish” is not the sound of victory…unless you consider victory to be not throwing in the towel as water streamed over our faces. (Ah, running club: where insanity is actually contagious.) In that case, sure, I was successful – and then we all got to sit around looking like drowned rats over coffee mugs, while the other cafe patrons eyed us significantly and not approvingly. “But I don’t want to go among mad people.” “Oh, you can’t help that. We’re all mad here.”

Is there any other way I can have the rest of my self-image shaken today? I’m a little afraid to put that out there…

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Things that make me feel happy today:
- Sam headed straight down to the shower this morning with no debate or complaining. (It’s a new routine this school year that we’ve instituted, partly to help wake him up and get him level-headed and partly because, well, he needs it. Switching from evening to morning was a jolt for him, but he’s getting there.)
- Gabe seems to be in a good mood today, too, though that might be because there’s string cheese in the fridge, and this kid adores it.
- Also, Gabe finished up the school week last week by having “not a single tear all day!” so I have high hopes for continued adjustment.
- I had a really nice 20-miler on Saturday, despite the rain that lasted through nearly the whole run. I’ve decided to treat this marathon as a reward for a year’s worth of hard running, so I’m going into it with no time goal and just a relaxed mind ready to enjoy every moment and fun sight.
- Saturday night, a moment after “lights out,” I crunched my small toes really, really hard into a door frame, and I was convinced at least one was broken. Took the day off, rested, and now they feel okay, thank God!
- Eric’s running, and he’s enjoying it this time around. It’s great to see him start something new like this and have it slowly become a source of pleasure!
- I’ve got kale in the fridge and kale chips on the brain for dinner.

I have a step-back week in marathon training now, which will feel lovely. This is another reason I feel compelled to make this marathon “for fun”: when I’ve trained for marathons before, I don’t recall feeling quite so relieved to reach the first step-back week between 20-milers, and I know that’s because I’ve done so much work this year. I really didn’t get much recovery time between DWD and beginning to train for this. Everything seems to be holding up okay, physically, but my paces are a smidge slower and my mind a touch more reluctant to push things…so I’m going to be conservative, which feels right. After all, many marathoners feel that training for one marathon a year is plenty for the body to handle; I’ve already done 3 marathon+ distances this year (Green Bay, DWD, and one 27-mile training run), plus plenty of 20+-milers leading up to those. I’m just over 1,500 running miles for the year at this point; last year, for the entire year with two marathons, I topped out at 1,850. Crazy!

Anyway, have to go pack lunch for Gabe; Sam’s a big fan of the hot lunch option, for some reason, but Gabe is reluctant because he detests milk, and the idea of requesting a different drink from the lunch folks intimidates him a little. I don’t mind.

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Thanks to Rick, Frank, and Dan (Running the Golden Years) for their contributions. Music on the show comes from the Podsafe Music Network. Tracks used were:
42 shades of grey – State Unsteady
Matthew Abel – Trees

You can subscribe through iTunes or download the show here (mp3 version). Voicemails are always welcomed at 206-339-0556, or you can email or leave a comment!

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Rip my heart out, why don’t you? I know this is within the realm of “normal,” but that doesn’t make it easier. Yesterday, he told me he cried “only one time!” (which Sam told me had happened on the bus), but then he spent the next couple of hours at home being a raging terror, screaming about everything. I’m not sure that’s better.

But here’s the thing: last night, after I put them to bed with a story and a kiss, I was suddenly struck with a memory I hadn’t had in a while. I recalled lying on the floor in the hallway outside their room, waiting for them to drop off to sleep so that I could sneak down the stairs. At the time, it felt like such a crazy annoyance; why couldn’t they just go to sleep without me? Surely, they were big enough? But that period is long over, so that even the memory hasn’t drifted into my head for ages. I actually felt incredibly sad for a moment, because it struck me that the period of goodnight kisses and bedtime stories, too, would become nothing more than a memory in the not-so-distant-as-I-might-hope future. They’ll crash into their beds without Mommy even being a blip on their horizons, and the freedom to spend my evenings as I wish will taste a little bittersweet, I think.

Someday – soon, probably, as such things are reckoned – Gabe will climb onto the bus without a backward glance or thought. Soon, it’ll be a friend’s car instead of a bus. And I don’t even want to think about what comes after that, in those days when even a teenager’s rolled eyes at my peck on his cheek will be a precious memory.

So when he clings to my hand and tells me that a whole day is just too long to miss me, I’ll hug him and kiss him and tell him that, yes, it’s an awfully long time. But I’m right here, and I’ll always be right here for him, and he’ll carry my heart with him, on his wrist and in his own chest.

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But he likes his teachers, and he likes his classes, especially gym. He does refuse to buy a hot lunch, saying he’s “scared” to do that, but I certainly don’t mind packing a cold lunch for him. (Sam thinks he’s crazy, passing up opportunities for corn dogs and pizza.)

Tonight we pile on more, with our church’s Bible Blast kick-off. But both boys did it last year, so at least it’s not “new” for either kid. Sam, though, will be doing the highest level this year, with readings from an actual Bible instead of from the simplified graphic novel version, so that’ll be different.

Speaking of graphic novels, last night he “discovered” a graphic novel that’s been on his bookshelf for months, and it’s the “best book ever!” In a fit of exhaustion from myself, both boys were also led to discover Ramen noodles last night, which also got billing as “best ever.” Graphic novels and Ramen. Eric says I’m training them for college early.

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But he seems to be adjusting otherwise, at least. He had Spanish today; they learned “hola” and “adios,” though he scoffed and told me how he already knew that.

Sam…continues to attend school. He did have to write me a letter today, as an assignment, informing me of some of what they’re doing, which includes this. Pretty cool!