Learning Pride

 

On Saturday, Tony and I ran a 10k with the kids in strollers.  It was a flat course, and only the third 10k I’ve ever run in my life (the other two being The Great Columbia Crossing twice).  I ended with a time of 1:00:46, which means that I did NOT meet my goal of finishing in under an hour.  Next time, I guess.

 

I do this thing where I focus on the failure, not the win.  I don’t know why.  It’s certainly a part of my personality that has driven me to do better and work harder my whole life, but it doesn’t make for much satisfaction with accomplishments.  I’m getting better, though.

 

I never give a compliment just to be nice.  They’re always genuine.  And I am a part of organizations (my business, Baby Boot Camp, Rotary, other clubs and groups) that routinely recognize people for their accomplishments, and when I have a part in giving that recognition, it is always genuine.  For example, we recently finished our MOLO challenge, and we were asked to nominate one of the 14 participating moms for a special award.  Many of us, myself included, nominated a woman who was between 5-7 months pregnant during the challenge and continued to run in every class.  She did squats, all the ab work, all the cardio… she was amazing.  I’ve told her how in awe of her I am and how proud of her (on behalf of all mothers) I am, and I meant it. 

 

So why do I brush off compliments and accolades when they’re given to me?

 

Maybe it’s the nice weather, or maybe it’s because I just had a birthday and people are nice to you on your birthday (and repetition of compliments apparently breeds belief of them in my brain), or maybe it’s just because recognition comes in waves or cycles, but for the past month I have received a lot of recognition and compliments for the things that I do, and it feels really nice.  I was given the Iron Mom award for MOLO because I am tough and work hard.  And I do, and I should be proud of that.  I am proud of that.  I might not be able to do a pull-up (YET), but I am strong and I work hard and I love that about myself.

 

When we ran this 10k, people gave us high fives as they passed us going the other direction (it was an out-and-back) and said things like “Go family!” and “Nice job!” or “That’s awesome!”  One guy said, as we passed him, “Aw, man!  Passed by strollers again!”  That last, in particular, warmed my heart in a glow of pride.  Not because I wanted to pass people or I wanted that guy to feel badly about his pace, but because that was me.  That was me at every other race I’ve ever run.  I thought I would never be someone to push a stroller and pass other racers.  But now I can, even at a 9:45 pace, and I am proud of myself.

 

Last night, my Rotary Club gave me an award, and as much as the stupid part of my brain tried to marginalize it by pointing out that 5 other people got the same award, the healthier part of my brain was proud.  Proud that I work hard for an organization that I love, proud that I belong, proud that the others in my club recognize my hard work.

 

Pride may be one of the seven deadly sins, but its total lack is a real detriment.  I’m learning to be proud of myself.  I am amazing.  If I keep saying it, I’ll begin to believe it.

Charles Calls It the Green Lantern Car

When you’re 29 and a bachelor with your own business, one that after five years is finally profitable enough to allow you to live comfortably and with a few splurges (like a car payment) rather than like a pauper with no disposable income, you buy yourself your dream car:

 

 

What kind of car is that?  It’s a Lotus-Amelia-Is-Too-Damn-Old-To-Ride-In-It-Elise.  This car does not play nicely with 32-year-old mother with balance issues and a low center of gravity.  It sure looks nice, though. 

 

Leland is my favorite brother.  He’s my best friend.  He’s always there for me.  He’s fond of saying, “Didn’t I tell you everything would be fine?”  He loves my kids (Jamie just started saying “Eeee-An!” every time he sees Leland or a photo of Leland or we’re even just talking about Leland).  He loves Slayer.  And gargoyles.  And skulls.  And dragons:

 

 

…so I made him a dragon cake (rice krispies treat with frosting).  Because as much as he is an awesome brother, I am an awesome sister.

 

Happy birthday, Leland.  Thanks for pulling me out of your car, because I didn’t really want to stay there forever, and I sure as hell wasn’t getting out under my own steam.

Just Watch This Again and Again Until You Feel Better.

I was awakened this morning by Charles at 6:30, which in and of itself isn’t bad, but I had a terrible headache that slipped toward a migraine within an hour.  Charles was disobedient all morning.  Jamie took off his pajamas and diaper and peed all over me.  Tony came home later than I expected from basketball, which I used as the catalyst for a mini tantrum of my own.  I forgot Jamie’s bag at home, but then I got half a mile away from his school and remembered that I tossed it in the way back of the car, so I had to turn around again.  It’s raining.

 

Today is the birthday of a dear friend who died in high school.  Some things still hurt a long time later.

 

Perhaps you need something to soothe you after a rough start to the day, too?  Try this:

 

 

Time for me to hang my head out that window and breathe in life.  May the rest of the day be awesome and the weekend be grand!

Our Commercial Debut

About a week ago, I got a call at 8:30 pm (witching hour). 

 

“Would you and your family come act in a commercial for Skagit Valley tomorrow morning at 7:45?”

 

Of course we would.

 

We love our community.  Maybe I don’t say that enough, but I am really, extremely happy we landed where we did. 

 

It’s beautiful here.  Mountains, rivers, lakes, the Puget Sound, islands, farmland, and only an hour-long drive to get to a giant city (Seattle).  Skagit Valley is much bigger, population-wise, than where I grew up, and the opportunities afforded us in our careers, in raising kids, in education, healthcare, and numerous other aspects of life are so much more abundant.  But it’s also NOT a nameless, faceless city.  There is no rush hour.  There are community parades and street fairs.  There are all-comers track meets.

 

 

I think I always knew, in the same way that you know that your heart pumps blood to your organs (like, it works and it’s great, but you don’t ever think about it), that I-5 pumped money into the local economy.  After all, my business relies on I-5 and our proximity to it for shipping forty plus packages a day, not to mention the weekly freight shipment of a pallet or two.  And I knew that Canadians liked to drive down and shop at the Outlet Shoppes (I can’t stand that spelling of ‘shops’) and I’d even heard the statistics of 71,000 cars and trucks going by us on the Interstate every day.  But when the bridge went down, much like having a heart attack, our community fully realized the impact of all those drivers.  Because now they’re not there, driving on I-5, getting off the freeway to eat at IHOP or shop at Costco.  They’re clogging up the county roads and city streets, so even those of us who aren’t using the interstate to get around are experiencing congestion and often deciding to stay home.

 

In three weeks, just about every restaurant and retailer, from Wal-Mart to the corner convenience stores, has experienced at least a 60% loss of business.  They’re cutting back staff hours and worrying about paying bills.  I know this is true, I’ve talked with many of them.  And the fact is, you can still get to them.  I have done my grocery shopping this week.  I bought paint at the local paint store to redo the trim on our house.  Charles and I are going to make a special trip this weekend so that he can pick out a present for Jamie’s birthday (he wants to get him wooden train tracks for his trains) at the downtown toy store.  I took my brother to the airport shuttle in Burlington (across the other bridge) this morning in what should have been the second busiest part of the day for traffic, right before 9 am (5-6 pm is the busiest).  It’s slower, sure, especially on the main detour routes.  And the congestion causes idiocy (see previous post), but the lack of I-5 is not going to keep us from visiting the berry farms for a flat of fresh, sweet, local strawberries this weekend.  After we run a 10k on Saturday, eat breakfast at a restaurant in our sweaty running clothes, and watch the Berry Dairy Days parade, that is.

 

We’ll bounce back, because we’re a community, in every sense of the word.  The temporary bridge will be up soon, and maybe things will feel more normal again.  Maybe blood will return to our extremities.  Maybe people who see this commercial will want to come here, despite the traffic.  Because it really is a wonderful place.

 

 

Charles, Jamie, and I are in the crosswalk at about 0:25 walking with someone who is not Tony.  I am completely obscured, but Charles and Jamie are not.

Douchebaggery Abounds: A Traffic Rant

With the interstate bridge out, the past three weeks of driving around Mount Vernon and Burlington have been nothing short of frustrating.  There are giant trucks and a whole lotta cars using downtown thoroughfares and residential streets in place of I-5.  Of course, there are also plenty of people who use these same streets to get to the grocery store, pick up kids from school, drive to work, etc.  Imagine, if you would, that 71,000 extra people, each of them with a car or a semi truck, moved into your town and started driving around on the small streets.  Traffic moves very slowly, stoplights are always backed up (especially an oft-used left turn lane that can’t accommodate more than two semi trucks per light), and frankly, people start acting really strangely.

 

I’d say that driving behavior now falls largely into two categories: those who are more courteous and cautious, allowing people into traffic, paying attention to pedestrians in crosswalks, waving cars in front of them to turn when they are stopped, maintaining a decent following distance, and following the normal rules of the road (you know, like you’re supposed to do); and those who have gone batshit crazy because the detour routes and extra traffic have given them an aneurism in the part of the brain that controls common sense.  These people follow too closely to the car in front of them, speed through school zones, assume that if they can see the light is yellow even if they’re three cars back from the intersection, they can totally still make the light (they can’t), cut in, cut people off, don’t stop for pedestrians, block intersections, and generally act like total asshole drivers.

 

Some of the bad-crazy stuff was expected, by me at least.  We’re all in a hurry, we’re all frustrated with the extra traffic, it’s starting to get warm so cars get hot, we’re late, kids are cranky.  But some of the bad-crazy stuff makes me really mad.  A school zone, for Christ’s sake?  You don’t tailgate someone like they’re going so slowly that you’ll be late for your grandma’s last rites in a school zone.  That’s just wrong.  Plus, I bet your grandma isn’t even dying right now, you just think you’re more important than the safety of all those kids on the sidewalk over there.  And gunning it through a yellow light?  In what world is that okay?  Just stop.  At most, you’ll wait five minutes for the light to change if you’re at a super-heavy traffic intersection where the light timers have been changed to accommodate bridge traffic.  Otherwise, two minutes.  You can wait two minutes.  And blocking an intersection?  Just.  Just don’t. 

 

I worry a bit that some of this terrible driving behavior will stick around even after the temporary bridge span is opened next week and the major traffic is (theoretically) kept on the interstate.  With any luck, police will hand out tickets left and right to those people who persist in acting like complete jerks, but I’m not counting on it.  Since when are there any real consequences for being a douchebag?

Go Fly a Kite

There’s a really sweet 7-year-old who lives at the end of our street and who is ALWAYS playing outside.  I don’t know the story, maybe he likes being outside, maybe his parents tell him to leave the house and go play, maybe it sucks for him to be home.  He plays with Charles a lot, whenever we’re around.  I feel for him – the only other 7-year-old on the street is sort of mean and plays with the “big boys” (13-year-olds) a lot, so this kind-hearted kid settles for hanging out with my 4-year-old.

 

I don’t quite know what to do about it, or if I should do anything at all.  When Charles has to come inside for dinner, this kid quietly rides his scooter up and down the street until Charles can come out again (or he has to go home for his own, much later dinner).  We’re always doing something, wearing the kids out before bedtime, filling our days with things other than the television (maybe that’s why this boy plays with Charles; many of the other kids watch TV and play video games in the afternoon).  Yesterday, we went to the park to fly kites while dinner was baking (my oven has automatic/timed bake settings).  Should I have asked the neighbor kid’s parents if he could have come with us?  Perhaps.  I probably will next time, because I get the impression that the boy doesn’t get to go many places and do many things.

 

Sometimes I forget how easy it is to have very simple, very inexpensive, very fun, active family time in the spare hours of the day.  It is worth it to drop everything and play with your kids.  This is quality time.

 

I have sixteen photos of increasing silliness.  Kid is a ham.

Sheer joy.

I highly recommend buying your kids a couple of $15 kites and spending an hour or two each week this summer running around a park.  Exercise, fresh air, parental attention.  It’s the best of what summer has to offer a kid.

Appreciate the Ridiculous

Oh, my kids.  They are often little shitballs of annoying and mess and tired and even though they both seem to be sleeping and eating much better than in the recent past, I am still exhausted most of the time.  But beyond that first cup of delicious coffee in the morning, my boys’ antics are what I look forward to most every day. 

 

This morning it was gooey kisses, Charles asking to have Jamie in bed with him to snuggle (it ended in screaming tears, of course, it always does), initial skepticism at the oatmeal offering on the table eventually reconciling itself to “I LOVE this breakfast!,” and the three boys showering together (I have only recently been able to have showers alone – the boys are finally sleeping in past 6:30, which often puts them firmly in “daddy shower” time – and Lordy, do these kids need to bathe often).  And then, this:

 

Yes, he’s towing the blender base around like it was a toy puppy.

 

It’s important to note that I am the patient parent.  I am not super strict (I like to think I have firm lines that must not be crossed, however) and I do not hover.  I take immense pleasure from observing my children do something entirely unexpected and totally hilarious before I lay down the law and inform them that the blender is not a toy.

 

It’s a tough road, parenthood.  It’s late nights and early mornings and financial burden and schedules and skinned knees and snotty noses and poopy butts and excessive laundry and exhaustion, but it’s also sheer joy on a daily basis.  As long as you have an appreciation for the ridiculous and can suppress the part of you that wants to shout, “No!  Don’t do that!”