411

5/17/15

13.1

2:05:08

Boston Strong ...

On April 16, 2013 -- one day after the Boston Marathon bombings -- I bought my first pair of running shoes.

I don't know what I was thinking, but what was going through my mind was a bit confusing.

I had planned to join my kids in a running clinic offered by a local running club, but I wasn't looking forward to it. I joked that someone would have to chase me if I was ever expected to run.

Har-dee-har-har. Imsooooofunneeeeeee.

But the green and gray shoes, still in their box in the back of my car, turned out to be an investment rather than an expense.

And in the eight (injury-filled) months that followed they went with me for more than 300 miles.

I didn't hate it anywhere near as much as I thought I would.

In fact, I loved the road and the routes. I have loved running with friends and family. I have even come to accept the wisdom of every pulled muscle as if it were a revered teacher.

I have so much to learn.

It was with this in mind that I followed Boston Marathon World Race, and signed up to run 26.2 miles in honor of the 2014 marathon. "Any Ability, Any Distance, Anywhere" was the theme.

It took me nearly six hours in six days (over two weeks' time) to run the distance.

Just putting one foot in front of the other.

What does Fantastic Mr. Fox say?

"Maybe a few of you might even read my column from time to time, who knows. I tend to doubt it."

Twenty days

I didn't feel much like writing, I guess.

That's my excuse.

That, and I was feeling sorry for myself.

Sorry that I hurt my stupid ankle.

Sorry that I couldn't run for nearly eight weeks.

Sorry that when I was able to start again I felt like I'd started from square -8.

It is humbling.

Almost as humbling as finding out your fourth grader tells the nurse "Mom is going to be mad if you call her because I feel sick."

And nearly as humbling as learning your first grader walked like a robot to lunch last week because he'd tied his shoes together. And then he cried when the teacher couldn't untie them.

But perhaps not nearly as humbling as being mistaken for a grandmother, being called a housewife, or being asked to have my husband call to authorize this transaction.

But here we are. ...

Hobbling into the Thanksgiving season no worse for actual wear, which I've decided has to mean I need to take all of this discomfort and walking it off.

eleventy

Lauren Malone of Muggyman has nominated me for a Liebster Award, which seems to be a somewhat obscure internet pat on the back for being a favorite, small-time blogger. You pay forward the favor by patting the backs of your own favorite emerging bloggers.

The gist is to answer 11 questions put to you and then list 11 facts about yourself. And of course, you tag five people you admire and pose 11 questions to them.

So now ... without further ado ... here are my answers to the lovely Lauren's questions:

1. What is your favorite season?

It used to be autumn. I still love the colors of fall, especially in the hours before sunset on those rare days when the sky is a deep blue and the trees against it seem to be lit from within. But now, since having kids, my love of winter has overtaken its precursor. Cold air and a fresh blanket of snow outside; a wood stove burning hot inside, waiting for us to return from skiing, sledding or sculpting snow people.

2. What do you love most about being a mom?

That it brought me closer to my mother. 

3. Who is your #1 celebrity crush?

Morgan Freeman. I once attended an art gala where he was a guest. It was a small party, maybe 75 people altogether, but I was so afraid to accidentally bump into him that I just stayed as far away as possible. I envisioned an entire scene in which I was just saying nonsensical, embarrassing things like: "You were the best part of The Electric Company," or "Do you ever just hang out with Rita Moreno?"

4. What is your first memory?

It can't be true, but since I was a child I thought I remembered being a newborn in the hospital. I remembered venetian blinds half-way open and a crow on the ledge outside the window. I told my mother about it when I was 12. She said it wasn't possible, but that the nursery did have blinds half-way open.

5. Who is your idol?

My dad. My mom, too. It's hard to put the why of it into words -- but I bet you can understand without me spelling it out. 

6. What inspires you to write/blog?

I usually say my kids inspire me to write, and I suppose that's true in a way. The writing I do here has definitely taken shape amid the premise that it would be theirs to read and get to know the me who was getting to know them. But the thing is I write. That's what I do. It doesn't matter if anyone reads it or if it just gets lost in the ethosphere; I have to write it down.

7. Favorite ice cream flavor?

Coffee. Coffee would be my favorite breakfast cereal flavor if they made such a thing.

8. What is your favorite method of relaxation?

Canada geese. It used to be yoga ... but that was before kids and trying to juggle teacher conferences, play dates, dance class, 4-H, soccer, gymnastics and soon (gulp) Little League. Now I just listen for the honking of the Canada geese as they flyover head on their migration paths. For some reason their calls always take my tension away.

9. Where would you live if you could chose anywhere in the world?

New Zealand. Or Vancouver. Or Seattle. Or San Francisco. ... Oh who am I kidding? Anywhere seems better when you're on vacation. Once you have to figure out how to do the day-to-day life stuff, though, it doesn't really matter where you live, does it? How a person lives, not where, is the crux of it all.

10. Early riser or night owl?

Night owl, dammit. Wish I were an early bird.

11. What is your favorite book?

Arundhati Roy's "The God of Small Things." 

Eleven Facts About Me

* I was born on a Saturday, 40 minutes before Mother's Day.

* I prefer celebrating Mother's Day than my birthday.

* I stopped being a vegetarian on a flight to California. It was airplane chicken that turned me.

* Halloween is my favorite holiday.

* I can wiggle my ears and whistle with my fingers ... though I haven't tried these feats simultaneously.

* I can recite the entire 20-minute Alice's Restaurant massacre movement (though not with four-part harmony).

* I twice walked past former president George Bush (41) in a small Maine video store and didn't recognize him. 

* The things I do obsessively tend to balance out the stuff I do "half-assed" (or that's what I tell myself).

* I see nothing wrong with "re-gifting."

* I rarely ever take down the Christmas tree before February.

* I'm trying to smile more. I need to try harder.

So here's the part where I tag people:

I'm calling out some old favorites and hoping to reconnect.

Stefanie of Mommymatic fame ...  
Kitten Pie ...  
My Daily Struggle ...  
Fairly Odd Mother ...  
All about the X ... 

Here are my questions:

1. Who was your favorite teacher?
2. If you could have one day to do over which would it be?
3. I'm springing for drinks, what will you have?
4. What do you miss most about the salad days?
5. Dog or cat?
6. What was your favorite subject in school?
7. What are you reading now?
8. Who is your favorite president of all time?
9. Did you have a family nickname as a kid?
10. What's your favorite restaurant?
11. When you grew up, did you get to be what you wanted?

Brother of Invention

At the helm of his "Space-Mo-Pod-o Motor Flyer."

Not pictured is the turbo rocket booster ...

Which ...

On a good day ...

Looks a little like this:





But if he's really lucky ...

And he plays his cards right ...

The turbo rocket booster could look like this:

Words of wisdom

What would I tell my younger self?



My awkward pre-teen self?



My newlywed self?



My pregnant self?

What would I tell her that would save her even one ounce of pain or regret?

The interwebs has been talking a lot about what sage advice we'd give our youthful selves in the hopes of maybe reducing our mistakes or merely dampening the turmoil they cause us.

Anything that, were we to have really listened, might have made a difference. Perhaps even providing a guide for weary, fearful Googlers as they make their way down the path we and generations before us traveled.

I've thought about this a lot over the years.

Thought about all the things I'd have done differently.

Of course I've grown and changed. I've learned how to listen to advice that spoke to me, and tried my best to ignore advice that wagged its finger in my face.

But I've loved and loathed so many aspects of each situation I've found myself in that I also find it hard to point to any one of them and lament … If somebody had just told me …

in this way …

so I could understand.

Life doesn't work that way. It isn't about doing the right thing the first time. It's about finding the right thing for ourselves in our own time.

Maybe we're supposed to have regrets.

One of my most painful regrets as a parent happened in the hospital, after the birth of my daughter, as my newly emptied body floated on a roller coaster of hormones and fear.

She had been with me for nearly 10 months, an active mass of fetal flesh that would change my life forever … and I was afraid to be alone with her. I sent her to the nursery every chance I got. “What if …” became the scariest proposition in my mind.

I'd done all the classes, talked to all the mothers I knew. But experience taught me the most.

Going through it. Waking around the clock. Spit-up. Crying. Dealing with the fear and uncertainty of every decision. Finding a solution after losing count of my failures.

And then having to find another solution when everything changed again.

When my son was born a few years later I was hesitant, too. Late-pregnancy tests showed a medical condition that could cause kidney damage later in life, or even be linked to Down Syndrome.

It was a frightening time filled with feelings that I hadn't done all that I could do. It was a time that I also wondered to myself: "What had I done?"

When he was born healthy but for the wonky kidney, none of it mattered. Only him.

I couldn't let him leave my side. The nurses had to come to find him for weigh-ins and tests. They had to wrestle him from my adoring gaze and serpentine arms.

Then the guilt.

The differences.

Nearly five years later I still want to have had a different first experience. I want to have made different choices.

I want to go back and give my daughter all the first-days' love I gave my son. And there's nothing I could say to myself that would change that desire. The only thing I can do is move forward and understand that this entire process of living is made up of experiences we'd either rather not have or have had differently.

By constantly looking back, though, don't we just build up a mountain of regret we must overcome?

Sometimes I think we think about what we could have done differently so often, we search for answers so exhaustively, that we forget life is a process built on missteps and failure. We understand ourselves best through experience. We trust ourselves best for having gone through it. We want to spare people something they maybe shouldn’t miss.

Instead of telling my younger self what to do differently, I will whisper to my future self: “Try to relax and enjoy what is now.”

Mixed-Emotions Midweek

Because sometimes things have a tendency of making me feel happy and sad at once.

What are your dreams?

I have a dream that our children will one day live in a world that has conquered its fear of others. That they will make a world that finds its strength in peace and not in war.

I dream that one day the struggle they face will be to do more for each other, not more for themselves. That they can be compassionate without being compensated.

I have a dream that when they discuss health care it won't be long waits that worry them, but whether or not the best of care is provided to everyone.

I dream that one day my children will measure their success is how well they've cared for others not in money or fame.

I have a dream that they will know equality by accepting and respecting that it is our differences that make us remarkable.

I have a dream that they will not follow in our footsteps, but that will fix our mistakes.

Updates and downgrades

My camera has decided it needs a break.

Its protests come in the form of noise, focus problems and exposure maladies.

It's almost like the surprise of film without the happy results.

More than slightly disappointing.

There's only a few days left before I conclude my 365 project ...

And I don't suppose Santa will be hitting up the Nikon elves on my behalf this Christmas, but there may be enough for a couple of rolls of film and brief return to the analog days.

I've been missing film almost as much as I've been missing life before Internets.

Really.

It's true.

Last weekend I turned off the phone. Barely touched the computer. And the world didn't spin off its axis. It was a relief, really.

There's something about imposing goals (on something you like to do) and trying to meet them (in a to-the-letter sort of way) ... It sucks the joy right out of it.

So. ...

I'll finish the project, but I'll likely be phoning it in.

When a simple 'no' would suffice

I called the number on the birthday party invitation ...

fully expecting to decline the Saturday afternoon party.

The RSVP date had already passed.

I'd waited to reply for no good reason, merely forgetfulness and dread.

Saturday is filled with things to do. A mid-day party would put us over the top and over extended.

Yet, when the mom answered the phone I inexplicably accepted.

What's another couple of hours? Another present to purchase? It's not as if we COULDN'T make the time.

I should really work on saying "No."

Change of Seasons

No more changing infant diapers.

No more late-night feedings.

No more la-la cries.

It only took seven years ... two hours and 45 minutes.

But it's gone now.

I give up

You nailed me.

I’m a mommy blogger. I can’t pass by a computer without checking my e-mail or browsing the internet looking for updates on a growing number of social clubs wherein I *talk-write-tweet* about life in no particular order and with no particular agenda.

My regular haunts include flickr, twitter, facebook and a couple of private forums, too. I also read the newspaper and magazines online whenever possible. I'd rather surf the net than watch television.

This network of random computer connections has lead to some extra income for me. So in that way I also fit the stereotype Jennifer Mendelsohn has teased out of her story on a blogging conference she wrote about for the New York Times, "Honey, don't bother mommy. I'm too busy building my brand.".

I can identify with the headline, too. I know how to tune out the dog barking and the television blaring. Worst of all, I know I tune out the kids.

My husband takes no pleasure in telling me how often the kids are unhappy that I’m not paying attention to their needs. I don’t even bother telling him how many phone calls have taken him away from the family.

It's a fight we don't need. We are imperfect, we readily admit. We are beta parents. Parent who just want their kids to go and play.

Our kids will likely have the memory of their parents always on our computers, always wanting just a few minutes to finish whatever it was we were doing. Whatever it was that wasn't them.

I hope they will also remember the crafts and the beach and the showing up at school unannounced. I hope they will remember the trips to places far and near. I hope they remember some of the "specials" we gave them. Most of all I hope they will one day find this little place and realize I was human, and that I had a mind that wasn't contained in only one place ... and that I loved them.

A lot of people are fired up about the snark and the headline of the Mendelsohn piece, not to mention the photos and graphics that ran with the article in the style section. They are digging in their heels and commenting in the hundreds taking the paper to task for sending more incendiary words into the mommy wars.

While I, too, wonder if the story would have taken the initial tone of distain had the conference been for self-employed men looking to brush up on IT, I don’t believe for a second it is worth as much consideration as it has gotten.

The story itself broke no ground. It’s the anger that it unleashed that’s what’s provocative.

Anger is something that doesn't seem in short supply anywhere these days.

As an employee of a newspaper, my very existence at this moment is focused on the internet and on getting readers anyway we can. On a personal level I disagree vehemently with the direction we are heading. It feels very much like an "If you can’t beat 'em, join 'em" kind of move.

But I'm done being angry.

The money is still the question mark for all types of media, and in the end it will determine what happens.

We can all be voices in the wilderness for only so long.

At some point we have to do something with our voices that has lasting value.

Eventually we all have to simmer down.

Random Question Thursday

Does your face always give you away or are you hard to read?

I think my face ALWAYS gives me away, but most folks tell me I'm hard to read. (I can only assume that means I always looked p*ssed off and they're trying to be diplomatic).

Starbucks (totally) delivers

I stopped by Starbucks today, thinking I'd treat myself to a mocha.

My heart started to race when the girl behind the counter asked for my name.

See, there are thousands of photos on flickr that evidence the butchering of names Starbucks' baristas write on cups. But no one has EVER asked for my name. I've even been to stores where the line extends near the door. They just seem to muddle through in order while people quietly wait their turn. No one ever jumps line and snags a drink that wasn't meant for to them despite the missing name, misspelled or not.

But here I was. ... the ONLY person in line and they were asking for my name.

Finally! I get to upload a photo of my name butchered on a wax-lined cup!

Then the air came out of my sails. She asked how I spell it.

I spelled it out: S. I. O. B. H. A. N.



When I saw the V where the B should be, I swear-to-god, it made my day.


*I'm still at it ... a picture a day for the next year. Check out my progress here.

Make no mistake

no oops, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

I've spent the last few months just being angry.

Angry and hurt that there are people I know who don't have much faith in our ability -- MY ability -- to parent.

I'm even angrier when these folks (who will remain nameless) feel the need to point out our parenting prowess when it happens, noting it to anyone who will listen, because they are surprised it exists at all.

I seeth with rage.

Somehow ... telling someone else that we are such good parents with such vim has become an indictment all its own.

Why do I care? My husband asks me this all the time. Why do I care?

It's a rhetorical question.

Rationally I know he's right.

What they THINK really has no basis in any fact. They don't know more than they see in any given snapshot, any given instance. Even in what they read here -- IF they ever read here.

Here is really just a snapshot, too. What I write is not as important perhaps to this equasion of good vs. bad or competant vs. incompetant as what I leave out.

We are all fallible. We all make mistakes. We all hover when we should let go. We all give in when we should stand our ground. We all zig when we should zag.

I know I make mistakes. I'm not June Cleaver.

I'm sure Mrs. Cleaver wouldn't give her kids sno-cones they would spill immediately. Or ice cream so late at night. Good parents would not keep the kids up past the time in which they are cute and amenable. They would not allow such insolence.

Good parents wouldn't let them pick out their own clothes, or go without baths or hair brushing. Good parents would ensure that children are seen and not heard. Good parents wouldn't be angry, or short tempered. They wouldn't say 'see, I told you not to run,' before they kissed a forehead.

Good parents are much more consistent than I am: much more consistent.

Or are they?

I know my parents made mistakes. And their parents made mistakes. And that people thought THEY were bad parents.

Parents throughout history have had to endure the glare of scrunched up faces as their life -- with all its loud, raucous imperfections -- made an assault on someone else's solitude ... or their idea of the way things should be.

But that is history. Not news.

I'm trying to learn from it. Then let it go.

Hand-me-downs

Every now and again I look down as I'm typing and I don't recognize my own hands.

I'm familiar with the tiny scar on the knuckle of my right ring finger, an accident from a summer job in my teenage years that could have been so much worse. You can barely see it now it's blended in with the folds of the skin.

I recognize the shapes of the fingertips; as I obsessively check them for curves and bulges that come with age. Was that always like that, I wonder? And then admit that it must have been.

There are now veins where I wanted them to be ... way back when I thought pronounced lines would make my hands look strong; less like they belonged on a portrait from the Middle Ages.

Now they are middled aged.

The skin of my hands is dryer; little lines more pronounced even as the overall appearance seems shiny under the right light. An odd combination.

They are showing their age; possibly moreso than even my face.

Sometimes I forget I'm not 20 ... until I look in the mirror.

And I remember.

Random Question Thursday

summerish, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

What is one of your favorite* summer-time memories?

*It doesn't have to be your favorite, just say the first thing that comes to mind.

I think for me "Summer" and "Memory" will always harken staying with friends (for weeks at a time) at their camp in Washington County. If I had to pull out a single memory from those days as being among my favorites, it would be playing hide-n-seek after dark: Danger, excitement and childhood all wrapped up into one activity.

Even my horror-scope mocks me

Five bucks

five bucks, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

The other portion of last week's stimulus money, which is $11 if you're keeping track, went for a cup of coffee for me, and some candy and trinkets for the kids' Easter baskets.

Getting out of the house by myself to browse at the used bookstore was kind of priceless.