The LionHeart

... Well, that's what my 5K training app calls me anyway.  LionHearted.  For starting to run.  The first day.  And that's how I felt.  Today, on day three, the app awards the Determination Badge.  But I don't feel determined.  Just old.

#3 is a talented, kind, intelligent, awesome kid.  Unfortunately, along with her great musical ear she also inherited her athleticism from her mother.  I had none of the latter to give.  When she was 5 and 6 she played on the local AYSO team, and liked the idea of being part of a team.  Actually playing and practicing?  Not so much.  After a couple of years of listening her complain from about week 2 of the season on, we decided to go with her interests and strengths and focus on music.  She has thrived and excelled with that.

#3 does not want to give music up, but she is really wanting to get involved in a sport now that she is in the throws of middle school.  I understand.  I had that desire, too.  I didn't do a whole lot with mine, however.  She is determined to join cross-country in the fall.  And I am ecstatic for her.

To that end, we decided to start a training program.  I installed the app mentioned above.  I knew I'd be a better partner for her than #2.  #2 conditions with a 5 mile run "warm up" followed by sprints, crunches, planks, etc.  #3 is nowhere near so fit.  Neither am I.  We are also nearly the same height. (I won't mention who is taller.) Good partners, right?

Well, in theory, that would be true.  The first day we were definitely on the same pace.  Day two we both felt like we were getting our trash kicked.  Day three ... well day three we were both still really feeling it, but during the last half of the workout, times we were supposed to be running #3 could go quite a bit faster than I could.  I'd watch her sprint ahead, and I'd long to catch up, but there was no way I could make myself go faster.  No way I could make my legs stretch further.  I'd call out to her when it was time to walk, and she'd walk back to me while I walked forward and we'd continue on from there.

Now, I'm not stupid.  I have 26 years on her and 20 extra pounds on my frame.  I figured that there may come a time when she would out-pace me, when we may need to put the app on her iPod and we'd train together, but not side by side.  I guess I was imagining that day coming after a few weeks.  Not after day three. 

Which brings me to what is really bothering me.  I wanted to do this to help my kid.  To train with her so that she can be (to quote her) "super fast and super awesome" this fall ... or at least so that she can keep up.  This is not the first time I've started a 5K program.  I've never gotten past the first 2 weeks.  I frequently decide to start up with walking 4 miles per day or with a Zumba class or with something.  I just don't stick with it long enough to make any sort of habit.  Today is Saturday.  We had planned to go running at 9 am.  I did not want to get out of bed.  The only reason I did is because I knew #3 was waiting for me.  That she needed me.  We got going (only 15 minutes late) and as it turned out, she didn't need me.  I need her.  And I'm holding her back.  Already.

Next week: Week 2 training.  THAT is when I will need courage.  THAT is when I will need determination.  And that, frankly, is when I will need humility to continue on, realizing that even at different paces, maybe some good will still come to #3 because I am there behind her, cheering her on and training my hardest to "help her" get in shape for the fall.

Can you say "midlife crisis"?

An Open Letter to the Baby-Boom-Age Man I Encountered Whist Grocery Shopping Today:

Dear Mr. Walmart Shopper,

Some may call you snobby, others, ridiculous. But me, I call you an inspiration.

Your spiked hair-do lifted my spirits as I remembered back to my college days in the very early 90s when my boyfriend sported the same style. Of course, he was blond, and you are heavily salt-and-pepper, but it still took me right back. Who doesn't love to feel like a college kid again?

And nothing takes one's mind off of being in Idaho in November like spying a good, dark, fake tan peeking out from behind Ray-Bans worn indoors. No need to be pining away for the summer past or lusting after Christmas Caribbean cruises when the tropics come strolling down the deli aisle in the form of your pre-skin cancerous self!

A cream colored turtleneck sweater, a fine Italian leather blazer, and black dress slacks. It worked for wealthy sea men in the 1930s, afro-picking swingers in the 1970s, and remains a classic today. Well played, my friend.

Lastly, though perhaps I should have mentioned it first as it was what originally caught my eye, I thank you for your air of superior derision as you graced the rest of us lowly Walmart shoppers with your very presence. It sent a signal of solidarity--a reminder that although some of us would rather be at Neiman Marcus, these hard financial times have reached all walks of life.

Thank you, Mr. Walmart Shopper. Thank you for your style and class. Thank you for a fine example of holding your nose, er, I mean your head high in the midst of the undeserving. Thank you for reminding us all to leave our holey sweats at home. Thank you for the opportunity to practice stifling a laugh.

Most sincerely yours,

The Mousey Mom in the Cape Cod Hoodie in Aisle 9

Too Cool for School

This week we had rain.  So, being the good mom that I am, I made sure that everyone had an umbrella in their backpack.  (I will pause here for nods of approval.  Thank you.)  #3 informed me that she needed a new one.  "Is yours broken?" I asked.  "No.  ...  But Mo-om!  It's Hello Kitty."

#3 is in the fourth grade this year.  She'll be 10 in January.  And I guess this is the age when little girls start to want to grow up, disassociate themselves from their baby-ish interests of the past.  It's interesting to watch.  Because it's not as if the girls suddenly find little-kid things unappealing.  It's just that they believe they will not be cool if such a penchant is made public.  So every girl in 4th and 5th grade puts on the too-cool show for all the rest.  My theory is that if they all knew that every one else still liked Barbies and baby dolls and Polly Pockets and My Little Pony, they'd all be a lot happier.  But no one wants to be the first to admit it.

... until about eighth grade or so.  Then all things "little-kid" are suddenly not only cool, but verging on retro-chic.  The girls have established their maturity by this point, and now are willing to indulge in reliving the good old days of their youth, way back four or five years ago.  To this level of self-confidence #2 has finally arrived.  Of course, she and #1 had an advantage over #3 even during their too-cool phase.  They had a younger sister they could "have" to play with.  Even #2s friends would be so kind as to humor #3 with little-kid play when at our house.  Poor #3 only has a little brother, and as her interest in Star Wars and Legos is severely limited, she's just forced to play it cool for a while.  

Now a very generic, very mature striped umbrella sits in #3s backpack.  And on #2s cut shin is slapped a Hello Kitty Band-Aid.

Me, I'm digging Star Wars chat with #4.

PHOTOS--   top left:  #3 at age 3 with Strawberry Shortcake

bottom right: #3 at age 9 with the big girls

Even New Music Makes Me Feel Old

So I have a little bit of a thing for John Mayer.  It's mostly the guitar playin' and the sexy voice and all.  What can I say, I have a history of falling for guitarists with sexy voices.  Ask Larry.

Many mornings as the kids are eating breakfast and I am making lunches, Room for Squares is playing over our marvelous sound system.  (Yes, it is the first album, but it is still my favorite.)  He's also frequently on throughout the day right now in a little of a rotation with Ray LaMontagne, Paul McCartney's Flaming Pie album, and the occasional Carly Simon.  I'm in a mellow music mood at the moment.

I also have this slight internet compulsion.  Maybe you've noticed.  When I read on Erin's blog about John Mayer's Twitter page, I enthusiastically signed right up.  I don't check it out often.  But it's a little interesting.  I sometimes wonder if he's trying to sound more deep than he is, in a random sort of fashion.  (Randomness is difficult, by definition, to create.  A lot of bloggers try.  For most, it's not a great idea.)   That's probably just me being skeptical.  Well, tonight I read this twittered gem:

Since when did news headlines come with question marks? "Is Talking To The Taliban The Right Approach?" I don't know! You tell me, THE NEWS.

3:17 PM Mar 9th from web

 Wow. I'd hardly call myself wise, or very politically savvy, but it occurs to me that the answer to that questioning headline would be what's called editorializing.  In other words, not fact.  Opinion.  Political commentary.  Spin, perhaps.  Sunday morning panel fodder.  Not the job of THE NEWS.

Is THE NEWS supposed to tell us what to think now?  Plenty of them do, but we take that with a grain of salt, right?  And we're a little put off.  Am I a fuddy duddy?  I'm only 4 years older than this guy, but I suddenly feel like his mother's bridge partner.  Maybe that's not a bad thing. 

Especially considering the fact that I can't figure out why this composing formatting has a tendency to go all funky on me when I copy and paste.  Like huge letters, and the wrong color font.  Trying to fix it makes it worse.  It usually publishes correctly.  It's a gamble.  See.  I fit right in with that canasta and pinochle set.  Rambling on about crazy kids today, muddling my way around these complicated machines ...

Nativity?

Well, before the actual post begins, I need to take care of a little bloggy business.  

First off: ThAnK yOu!!! to all who voted for me over at Mormon Mommy Blogs.  I came in third of nine, which I could hardly believe, and which may have had something to do with my husband, an employee of whom started talking to me about my blog the other night.  Anyway, thanks everyone!  It sounds like they are going to run spotlights on the top three blogs.  Cool.  (I probably would have known this is how they roll if I headed over there more often.  Sorry, Motherboard!)

Secondly: Less than 2 days left to enter my GiVe AwAy!!!  If you have left a comment on the original post, you are entered.  Many of you are entered multiple times.  I'll have to count, because I'm unsure if there are enough BINGO numbers for all of the entries.  If there aren't, we'll have to change plans just a tad and use tickets instead.  (Which I have on hand as a few years back I had a great plan for doling out TV watching privileges.  I never did it.  Don't ask me why those aren't in long-term storage, like the photos I'd love to scan in for the following post, because I'm not sure.)  Deadline= Tuesday, Jan 20th, 8:pm MST.  The winner will be posted Wednesday night at 8:pm.  Good luck!

Every year, as the date approached, my mother would begin to tell again the story of the most special birth we knew.  I learned the events of the weeks preceding, those of the birth itself, the visitors to the baby, and the gifts they brought.  I knew all of the details as if it were the story of my own life.

Wait a minute.  It was the story of my life.  Forget the birth of the Savior (although I knew that one very well, too) when I was growing up the most important holiday of all was my birthday.  I won't bore you all with the story in the detail that I annually heard it recited, only with the most important fact that my dad had been drinking Dr. Pepper at some point that morning.

With that kind of build-up, you may imagine the day itself.  It was always  over the top.  Even if I wasn't having an actual party there were flowers and streamers and balloons and once little silk flowers hanging with the balloons.  Always my favorite dinner and always a chocolate swirl cheesecake.  My birthday was just a huge deal.  And it was my favorite holiday.  

Then came my 18th birthday.  I was living in the dorm at college.  My mom had made me a cheesecake over the Christmas break, just so that she wouldn't miss it.  I was afraid my big day would be not so special at all.  Then came the box.  Jenny, you'll remember.  There were not only presents, but decorations and plates and forks and napkins.  And it was good she included those paper goods, because she used the BYU food department's service of sending me a chocolate cake complete with balloons.  Not only that, but that day on campus there was a guest speaker--Rosa Parks.  So I went.  That was amazing.  She was living history, and I got to hear her speak.  What a birthday!

Then came my 19th birthday.  Six of us girls were renting an apartment off campus.  My mother had sent me back on the airplane with pink carnations (among my favorites).  I can't remember if she'd made me a cheesecake, because I made one myself for the actual day.  I got a big package from her on my birthday, balloons from one of my roomies, a dozed beautiful red roses from a, ahem, friend in the Navy, and chocolate turtles from Larry, who wasn't sure what message he was trying to send with them.  That day, I'd had to see my social psych professor about an assignment I needed some guidance on, and he told me that I could be a mouth model.  Again, if I had to be away from home, I couldn't ask for a better day.

Then came my 20th.  I'd been married for three and a half weeks.  I wasn't yet as good as I am now about bluntly telling Larry my expectations for any given event.  In fact, I wouldn't do it at all.  Because that's not romantic.  (Don't worry, I've learned!)  So we went to a play that I had to attend for a humanities class, and I think I made myself dinner, and Larry got me the movie "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead."  Have you seen this?  It's great.  It's Hamlet told from the perspective of, obviously, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.  I love it.  And I loved it then, which he knew.  Um, but not for a birthday present.  I think I cried that night.  I learned that birthdays are not such the big deal for every family that they were for my mother.  My husband began to learn that he'd need to put a lot more effort into holidays than he thought if he wanted a happy wife.  I say "began" because this was a lesson years in the learning.

Now?  Well, now birthdays are not the major holidays for me that they once were.  And I say that entirely honestly.  I sometimes don't even have any dessert at all.  And I don't care.  Rarely flowers and never balloons.  And that is fine.  As long as I don't have to cook dinner.  I don't care if Larry takes me out or brings home take-out, I am happy.  No cooking, no dishes, happy birthday to me.  And as for my kids, I certainly try to make a special day for them, but I'm also trying to not set them up for disappointment on that first married birthday.  If they're having a party, though, I do tend to go all out.  But that's a subject for another post.

This year I will turn 35.  I am teaching an art lesson to #3's class in the morning, and I'm going to see if Larry will then meet me for lunch.  #3 also has a guitar lesson to go to and that night #s 1& 2 have Young Women at church and Larry has Scouts.  I'm guessing I'll need to remind him that I don't want to cook.  And that's fine.  It's certainly better than being pissed that he forgot.  I'm not seeing cheesecake in my near future.  I'm getting an awesome present though.  (I'll tell ya how it went later.) 

And, maybe, if they're interested, I'll tell my kids the story of the birth of their mother.  In detail.  Just this once.

More On Aging

How does one go from looking forward to getting older to resenting it in less than two years? If I think about it, the process has actually only taken three months.  It began when we moved to Idaho.

During the four years we spent in the mountains, I had always been the youngest by one or two if not the youngest adult at church.  My friend who had children the age of my children and who served with me in Primary that entire time, was 11 years older than me.  The other women were retirement age.  At school there were moms younger than me, but it seemed that more of them were older.  At least that was true of the parents I hung out with.  Getting older did indeed give me added validity.

Here we live in a community filled with families.  There are certainly parents older than I. More seem younger.  Many of my kids' teachers are younger than I.  

Though I've had this blog for 2 1/2 years, it's only since we moved that I've really entered the "blogging" community.  (What can I say?  I'm a little lonely.  It's easier to sit here and make pretend friends on line than it is to go "out there" and find real ones.)  I am finding that many of my fellow bloggers are very young.  Like, I-would-have-hired-you-to-baby-sit-my-kids-or-could-have-been-your-Young-Women-leader-a-few-years-back, kind of young.  I am grateful for anyone over the age of 30 who blogs.

It's not really age that's the problem.  I'm fine with that.  I have no reservations telling anyone who asks.  I am 34.  I will be 35 in January.  This is not ancient.  It's the increasing number of adults who were kids when I was already an adult that makes me feel old.  Twice recently I have been "complimented" on the fact that I don't look old enough to have two middle schoolers.  Ok, yeah, that's nice, thank you.  But this really says to me, wow, you are OLD.  Suddenly I feel it.

Today, I was helping in #3s class.  Her teacher had read them a book about desert life and was pulling up the internet right there on the classroom pull down screen to research both the author of the book and desert life.  He was having trouble getting their attention.  I couldn't believe it.  This was such cool technology, amazing compared to the reel to reel films I watched in  elementary school.  And I said so.  The kids gave me a blank stare.  They have no idea what a film reel is.  The teacher (only about 6 years my junior) said, "Oh come on, you're not that old."  Well, yes.  If having watched films on a projector makes me old, then yes, I am that old.  Video technology was certainly there in the very early 80s, but it was expensive, I never saw it in a classroom until maybe 6th or 7th grade.  

You know,  it's a lie that my attitude changed only with the move.  I suddenly remember posting about the girls' middle school dance.  That made me feel old, too.  And that was June.  Well, perhaps the move has just accelerated the inevitable.  My baby is about to turn 7, and I am about to turn into a fogey.  Maybe that's okay.  I'll be good at it.  I have a lot of old person habits already.  I'm always cold, I knit, and Larry and I do the crossword.  I'm sure there's more to that list, but I can't recall.  My memory is going.

Where's my flannel blanket?

On Age

There are several cassette tapes of me recorded when I was young. This was my graduate student family's answer to most people's home movies. One of them records me, on or near my 5th birthday, being interviewed by my father. I discuss in a very serious voice my concerns about my readiness to take on the new age. I think this was the first year I'd noticed the correlation between age and maturity. I felt unfit to advance--no older than I'd felt as a four-year-old last week. I evaluated my actions and feelings and came up short.

Nearly ever since, however, I have felt older than my age. Sometimes only a year or two, sometimes many years. People generally assume I'm older than I am. Most of my friends are older than me, some a decade older. Now rather than coming up short in my behavior, I come up short in age. I desire a validity of years that continually eludes me.

I thought being in my 20s would provide my needed fix. I was a grown-up, a wife and a mother. But then I was thrilled to turn 30. I no longer had to be embarrassed that I was just in my 20s--practically a kid still. Now I'm pinning for my late 30s or even my 40s to be taken seriously as an established adult with experience and maybe even some wisdom. I can't say I'm excited about straggling grey hairs or the beginnings of crepe-y skin around my eyes and neck, but there is certainly a way in which it is something to be proud of, something to perhaps mention in conversation if the topic arises.

I suppose that for me the grass is always greener a few years older than my current age, odd as that sounds. But maybe that's a better vice than being continually in search of prolonged or returned youth. After all, I will get older. I need no fountain or elixir, only patience and time.

Officially Over the Hill

Late last year the camera that I got as a High School graduation gift finally died. Instead of opening the battery compartment, I opened the film compartment and then the camera thought it was out of film, which sent it into a mechanical panic. I got the film out, but it will no longer accept new film, and makes lots of atrocious noises at me when I try.

So right now "our" camera is in reality #1's camera. It's a not-too-expensive digital number which is perfect for her and her photography penchant. It does the job, and she has no problem letting us use it whenever we want or need. On Saturday, Larry was looking for agreement from me on how convenient it's been to have use of it. First off, I'm not totally sold on digital. I guess I'm not used to it, or maybe I just need a better camera, but I did just fine with film, thanks. But that is really a whole other topic. The big complaint that I submitted to Larry (for I MUST have a complaint!) is that the camera doesn't zoom, and so to get a good close up picture, I need to be right on top of the subject. Besides this being a little uncomfortable and sometimes impossible, it throws off the center of the photo significantly, the lens being below the view finder.

As I was saying this, nine year old #2 picked up the camera and within seconds was showing me how to zoom. I'm quite sure she had not tried it before. I laughed an incredulous, slightly embarrassed laugh. Larry reassured me that it was just a sign of being old (a very reassuring fact, indeed). He said that when he was a kid he could easily and intuitively set up any electronics that his parents brought into the house, and knew exactly how to work every aspect of it. Now, at 35, he has to read the manuals. Technology, he claims, is only instinctive for a relatively short segment of life for most of the population. And this, coming from my computer nerd husband.

I suppose I am in good company, at least. I must admit, though, that I was never very good at figuring out technology. I did have an easier time learning it when I was younger. Currently I am proud of the fact that I can usually remember with out being shown how to turn off the auto flash on #1's camera. It's helpful that there is a little lightening bolt by the button and I only occasionally don't notice it. However I AM going to have to have #2 train me on the zoom feature again.