Well... not really running. Mostly walking, punctuated with pathetically slow jogging.
For years, I have been telling myself that I need to get in some sort of shape (besides round) and that the way to begin doing that is to commit to a 5K. I've never been able to pull the trigger, though - until now.
Getting ready for the Color Run ("The Happiest 5K on the Planet!") has been difficult, because approximately 90% of the time I'm still convinced I can't do this. I have never been successfully athletic in any way. I've been overweight since puberty. I regularly trip over my own two feet and walk into things. In my entire adult life, I have never been anything but a lazy fat girl, far happier being a body at rest than a body in motion. I don't even have "once upon a time, I could do this and I can do it again!" motivating me, because I was never capable of this. There's nothing to get back to - I got Bs and Cs in gym class, for crying out loud. The fastest mile I ever "ran," even as a kid, was over twelve minutes.
Who am I kidding, seriously? Nine out of ten steps I take, that's what I'm asking myself. Who are you kidding, Sarah? You can't do this, at least not without humiliating yourself. My internal monologue is horrifically self-deprecating.
On that tenth step, though... I begin to believe that maybe this time it will be different. Maybe I'm not destined to spend life just holding down my side of the couch. Maybe it's not too late to be physically capable of keeping up with my extremely active children - and really, that's the motivation right there. There are so many things I can't give my kids, so many experiences and luxuries I grew up with that I can't even begin to provide for them. All I can give them is myself, my time, my energy, my focus. That means being healthy enough to not get winded chasing them around a park. It means being able to move fast enough to hold onto the bike seat while chasing after a kid learning how to ride a two wheeler. It also means not hesitating when my husband says he wants to go canoeing, or hiking, or camping... or even shoot a few hoops. That's one small thing I could do occasionally, back in the day - grab a rebound or two.
I just want to be healthy, for them. For him.
And maybe, for me.
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Monday, April 15, 2013
30 Things My Kids Should Know About Me
I found this list of questions on Pinterest, and while I don't necessarily think these are things they should know about me right NOW, they're things I'd like them to know eventually, and they're good writing prompts, anyway. I'm just going to park this here and hopefully come back to it to pick at some of it.
1. List 20 random facts about yourself.
2. Describe three legitimate fears you have and explain how they became fears.
3. Describe your relationship with your spouse.
4. List 10 things you would tell your 16 year-old self, if you could.
5. What are the 5 things that make you most happy right now?
6. If you could have three wishes, what would you wish for?
7. What is your dream job, and why?
8. What are 5 passions you have?
9. List 10 people who have influenced you and describe how.
10. Describe your most embarrassing moment.
11. Describe 10 pet peeves you have.
12. Describe a typical day in your current life.
13. What’s the hardest part of growing up?
14. Describe 5 strengths and weaknesses you have.
15. Describe when you knew your spouse was the one or how I fell in love.
16. What are your 5 greatest accomplishments?
17. What is the thing you most wish you were great at?
18. What do you think your spouse loves most about you?
19. How did you feel the moment you became a parent?
20. Describe 3 significant memories from your childhood.
21. Describe your relationship with your parents.
22. Where do you see yourself in 5 years? 10 years? 15 years?
23. What’s your favorite holiday and why?
24. What’s your favorite and least favorite thing about parenthood?
25. If you could have dinner with anyone in history, who would it be and what would you eat?
26. What popular notion do you think the world has most wrong?
27. What is your favorite part of your body and why?
28. What’s your favorite quality in your spouse?
29. What are your hopes and dreams for your prosperity?
30. List 10 things you would hope to be remembered for.
1. List 20 random facts about yourself.
2. Describe three legitimate fears you have and explain how they became fears.
3. Describe your relationship with your spouse.
4. List 10 things you would tell your 16 year-old self, if you could.
5. What are the 5 things that make you most happy right now?
6. If you could have three wishes, what would you wish for?
7. What is your dream job, and why?
8. What are 5 passions you have?
9. List 10 people who have influenced you and describe how.
10. Describe your most embarrassing moment.
11. Describe 10 pet peeves you have.
12. Describe a typical day in your current life.
13. What’s the hardest part of growing up?
14. Describe 5 strengths and weaknesses you have.
15. Describe when you knew your spouse was the one or how I fell in love.
16. What are your 5 greatest accomplishments?
17. What is the thing you most wish you were great at?
18. What do you think your spouse loves most about you?
19. How did you feel the moment you became a parent?
20. Describe 3 significant memories from your childhood.
21. Describe your relationship with your parents.
22. Where do you see yourself in 5 years? 10 years? 15 years?
23. What’s your favorite holiday and why?
24. What’s your favorite and least favorite thing about parenthood?
25. If you could have dinner with anyone in history, who would it be and what would you eat?
26. What popular notion do you think the world has most wrong?
27. What is your favorite part of your body and why?
28. What’s your favorite quality in your spouse?
29. What are your hopes and dreams for your prosperity?
30. List 10 things you would hope to be remembered for.
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Retro Post: Sleeping Beauty's Puppy
I originally wrote this on May 12, 2010, shortly after we returned from a trip to Walt Disney World. Elizabeth was almost four years old.
***
The morning we left, Elizabeth was upset. She didn't want to go to Disney World, she wanted to go to school and see her friends. Since I'd left plenty of time in our schedule, I took her to school so she could say goodbye and tell everyone where she was going. That helped a lot. While we were there, we talked to her friend L, who was just at Disney World a week or two ago.
S: L, what was your favorite part of Disney World?
L: Meeting the princesses! And I got to be a princess! Lizzie and I play princesses. I'm Sleeping Beauty and Lizzie is Sleeping Beauty's puppy!
Lizzie: Arf! *grin*
Can I tell you with some shame that my heart stopped during that conversation? And not for any reason you might suspect. I think a lot of moms - more moms than would admit it, I think - spend a lot of time encouraging their daughters to be like them, to do things they liked or wanted to do and couldn't. I'm certainly occasionally guilty of this.
You see, I was that kid who was Sleeping Beauty's puppy. I didn't want to be a princess. I didn't even want to be human most of the time. I don't know why I didn't realize it before now, but Lizzie is exactly like that, like how I was. Her pretend play is NOT centered on anything particularly girly. She prefers stuffed animals to dolls. When playing with friends, I usually had to find some way to work my preferences into games of Barbie or princess or other girly pretend stuff - it usually involved being the pet.
I think most women would be happy to see their daughter acting exactly the way they did as children. But for whatever reason, it breaks my heart a little for Lizzie. It was HARD to be that kid. It was hard to not care about Barbie, or She-Ra, or baby dolls. It made me different, right away. It made me weird, and made it so that a lot of other little girls did not want to play with me because I didn't fit their mold.
She didn't get why so many little girls were dressed as princesses at Disney World. She didn't want that, she had no interest. That's totally fine, although it pissed me off that I couldn't find a Lion King or Aladdin shirt for her.
I'm so proud of her I could burst. But I wanted things to be easier for her than they were for me. It's so much easier to be the princess than the dragon.
***
The morning we left, Elizabeth was upset. She didn't want to go to Disney World, she wanted to go to school and see her friends. Since I'd left plenty of time in our schedule, I took her to school so she could say goodbye and tell everyone where she was going. That helped a lot. While we were there, we talked to her friend L, who was just at Disney World a week or two ago.
S: L, what was your favorite part of Disney World?
L: Meeting the princesses! And I got to be a princess! Lizzie and I play princesses. I'm Sleeping Beauty and Lizzie is Sleeping Beauty's puppy!
Lizzie: Arf! *grin*
Can I tell you with some shame that my heart stopped during that conversation? And not for any reason you might suspect. I think a lot of moms - more moms than would admit it, I think - spend a lot of time encouraging their daughters to be like them, to do things they liked or wanted to do and couldn't. I'm certainly occasionally guilty of this.
You see, I was that kid who was Sleeping Beauty's puppy. I didn't want to be a princess. I didn't even want to be human most of the time. I don't know why I didn't realize it before now, but Lizzie is exactly like that, like how I was. Her pretend play is NOT centered on anything particularly girly. She prefers stuffed animals to dolls. When playing with friends, I usually had to find some way to work my preferences into games of Barbie or princess or other girly pretend stuff - it usually involved being the pet.
I think most women would be happy to see their daughter acting exactly the way they did as children. But for whatever reason, it breaks my heart a little for Lizzie. It was HARD to be that kid. It was hard to not care about Barbie, or She-Ra, or baby dolls. It made me different, right away. It made me weird, and made it so that a lot of other little girls did not want to play with me because I didn't fit their mold.
She didn't get why so many little girls were dressed as princesses at Disney World. She didn't want that, she had no interest. That's totally fine, although it pissed me off that I couldn't find a Lion King or Aladdin shirt for her.
I'm so proud of her I could burst. But I wanted things to be easier for her than they were for me. It's so much easier to be the princess than the dragon.
Elizabeth, totally unimpressed with Ariel
Elizabeth, totally stoked to meet Eeyore
Friday, March 29, 2013
On what becomes memories
My mom played Barry Manilow and Neil Diamond in the car a lot when I was little. I still know all the
words to just about every Manilow song there is, and I can sing along to
the entire soundtrack of The Jazz Singer. In some sad, sick way, I'm
sort of proud of this.
I remember one rainy day in particular when I was about five - I think I'd just started kindergarten, so it was 1984. My mom drove a tan Camaro from the time I was four until I was ten. People often criticized and questioned her for driving a sports car when she had two small children. Her snappy retort was that it was the only time we'd actually fit in the back seat, and what did they expect - her to have a sports car when we were teenagers and could wreck it? (I love my mom's attitude sometimes.) I was sitting in the front seat of the Camaro feeling sorry for myself. I think it was late fall, because I can remember the leaves and the fact that I was wearing my purple corduroy overalls - I was scraping my fingers across the cords to make the fabric look like a grid instead of striped. We were listening to "Heartlight", a Neil Diamond song about ET ("Turn on your heartlight... in the middle of a young boy's dream... Don't wake me up too soon... Gonna take a ride across the moon... You and me...") I was mad because she wouldn't let me keep rewinding the tape to listen to that song over and over again - she made me wait through the whole rest of the tape. I was mad but knew better than to sass her about it, and I was sulking while I watched the wipers squeak back and forth across the windshield. I can still remember what it felt like to be that small, and what the windshield looked like from that low angle in the bucket seat. I can still remember the reds and oranges of the autumn leaves rolling by as we drove past them, on the way to somewhere that seemed very far away at the time.
And while some things still seem so far away... I love the way my memory calls them back to me when I need them.
It makes me wonder what my kids will remember. What am I doing that is inadvertently being etched into their memories? Elizabeth in particular has given me some clues that she seems to remember finer details in the same way that I do. Is it the '90s music that I tend to play in the car? Or maybe the purple and blue skirt that she insists on wearing whenever it's clean? Or (most likely) something that I'm not even considering? I'd like to think it's the good stuff in general, but I know better. I remember a lot of the bad days, and I'm sure she will too. And that's okay. Rose colored glasses, especially looking backwards, never did anyone any favors.
If I'm hoping though, I hope she remembers how much she loved Joan Osbourne's "One of Us," personally. She calls it "The Bus Song" -
What if God was one of us?
Just a slob like one of us?
Just a stranger on the bus
Tryin' to make his way home?
I'll remember, even if she doesn't.
I remember one rainy day in particular when I was about five - I think I'd just started kindergarten, so it was 1984. My mom drove a tan Camaro from the time I was four until I was ten. People often criticized and questioned her for driving a sports car when she had two small children. Her snappy retort was that it was the only time we'd actually fit in the back seat, and what did they expect - her to have a sports car when we were teenagers and could wreck it? (I love my mom's attitude sometimes.) I was sitting in the front seat of the Camaro feeling sorry for myself. I think it was late fall, because I can remember the leaves and the fact that I was wearing my purple corduroy overalls - I was scraping my fingers across the cords to make the fabric look like a grid instead of striped. We were listening to "Heartlight", a Neil Diamond song about ET ("Turn on your heartlight... in the middle of a young boy's dream... Don't wake me up too soon... Gonna take a ride across the moon... You and me...") I was mad because she wouldn't let me keep rewinding the tape to listen to that song over and over again - she made me wait through the whole rest of the tape. I was mad but knew better than to sass her about it, and I was sulking while I watched the wipers squeak back and forth across the windshield. I can still remember what it felt like to be that small, and what the windshield looked like from that low angle in the bucket seat. I can still remember the reds and oranges of the autumn leaves rolling by as we drove past them, on the way to somewhere that seemed very far away at the time.
And while some things still seem so far away... I love the way my memory calls them back to me when I need them.
It makes me wonder what my kids will remember. What am I doing that is inadvertently being etched into their memories? Elizabeth in particular has given me some clues that she seems to remember finer details in the same way that I do. Is it the '90s music that I tend to play in the car? Or maybe the purple and blue skirt that she insists on wearing whenever it's clean? Or (most likely) something that I'm not even considering? I'd like to think it's the good stuff in general, but I know better. I remember a lot of the bad days, and I'm sure she will too. And that's okay. Rose colored glasses, especially looking backwards, never did anyone any favors.
If I'm hoping though, I hope she remembers how much she loved Joan Osbourne's "One of Us," personally. She calls it "The Bus Song" -
What if God was one of us?
Just a slob like one of us?
Just a stranger on the bus
Tryin' to make his way home?
I'll remember, even if she doesn't.
Sunday, March 24, 2013
That was then, this is now.
Today I am 34.
If you told me ten years ago that on my 34th birthday, I would quite happily spend my day attending Palm Sunday services, watching Peter Pan with my husband and kids, and then going roller skating with the Daisy troop I lead - I would have laughed so, so hard.
That's okay though. I just didn't know.
If you told me ten years ago that on my 34th birthday, I would quite happily spend my day attending Palm Sunday services, watching Peter Pan with my husband and kids, and then going roller skating with the Daisy troop I lead - I would have laughed so, so hard.
That's okay though. I just didn't know.
Sunday, March 17, 2013
It Doesn't Matter.
When you have a baby, everyone wants to tell you what to do and how to do it. They tend to speak in absolutes - you MUST do it this way, or you HAVE to do it that way, or the worst - this is what's BEST. You need to do WHAT'S BEST.
If you're not careful, you can start to feel like everyone knows best. Everyone except you.
I'm here to tell you, seven years' worth of advice later (because it starts before you actually give birth, of course) - Most of that crap? It doesn't matter. Most of the things you lose sleep over when your baby is brand new do not matter a hill of beans in just a few short years. And I would argue - they never really mattered that much at all.
For example:
I was on a high horse about breastfeeding for a long time. I was never really an evangelist (and there are some crazy ladies out there pushing the agenda, let me tell you,) but I was super proud of the fact that I nursed two kids, both of them exclusively for six months. I pumped 'round the clock when I went back to work, and they were still nursing from the tap when I was with them - Elizabeth until she was 25 months old and Jacob until he was 21 months old. Neither of my kids ever had formula. While I never actually bragged about that out loud... I did in my head. I patted myself on the back a lot.
Seriously, who cares? Feed your baby. Feed your baby in whatever age appropriate way works for that baby, for you, for your family. I might judge you a little if I see you trying to feed your three month old steak, but Similac? Have at it. Nobody asked me on Elizabeth's first day of kindergarten whether she was breastfed or formula fed. You know why? BECAUSE IT DOESN'T MATTER.
There are a lot of people both on the internet and in real life just ITCHING to judge parents, in whatever way they possibly can. Breastmilk vs. Formula. Cloth vs. Disposable. Cosleeping vs. Crib. Wooden toys vs. Plastic toys. Screen time in ANY FORM. "Overscheduling." Public school vs. Private school vs. homeschooling. The list goes on and on and on and on.
Other people have said this already, but I'm going to say it too - here's what it comes down to, no matter what:
Love your kid. Feed your kid. Spend time with your kid. Teach your kid.
Mostly, love your kid. And leave that other mom who doesn't do it quite the way you do alone.
If you're not careful, you can start to feel like everyone knows best. Everyone except you.
I'm here to tell you, seven years' worth of advice later (because it starts before you actually give birth, of course) - Most of that crap? It doesn't matter. Most of the things you lose sleep over when your baby is brand new do not matter a hill of beans in just a few short years. And I would argue - they never really mattered that much at all.
For example:
I was on a high horse about breastfeeding for a long time. I was never really an evangelist (and there are some crazy ladies out there pushing the agenda, let me tell you,) but I was super proud of the fact that I nursed two kids, both of them exclusively for six months. I pumped 'round the clock when I went back to work, and they were still nursing from the tap when I was with them - Elizabeth until she was 25 months old and Jacob until he was 21 months old. Neither of my kids ever had formula. While I never actually bragged about that out loud... I did in my head. I patted myself on the back a lot.
Seriously, who cares? Feed your baby. Feed your baby in whatever age appropriate way works for that baby, for you, for your family. I might judge you a little if I see you trying to feed your three month old steak, but Similac? Have at it. Nobody asked me on Elizabeth's first day of kindergarten whether she was breastfed or formula fed. You know why? BECAUSE IT DOESN'T MATTER.
There are a lot of people both on the internet and in real life just ITCHING to judge parents, in whatever way they possibly can. Breastmilk vs. Formula. Cloth vs. Disposable. Cosleeping vs. Crib. Wooden toys vs. Plastic toys. Screen time in ANY FORM. "Overscheduling." Public school vs. Private school vs. homeschooling. The list goes on and on and on and on.
Other people have said this already, but I'm going to say it too - here's what it comes down to, no matter what:
Love your kid. Feed your kid. Spend time with your kid. Teach your kid.
Mostly, love your kid. And leave that other mom who doesn't do it quite the way you do alone.
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Evolution
2001
Things are always so sparkly when they're new.
2005
Sometimes they even stay that way through the wedding! ;)
2006
But if you're us... you get pregnant on your honeymoon and by your first anniversary, you have a demanding little ball of needs...
...and by your second anniversary, an entire year can go by and suddenly there aren't even any pictures of the two of you together. (2007? What 2007?)
2008
Of course, babies don't usually stay quite so demanding... and for some reason parenthood tends to give people really short memories...
2009
So maybe you make another one.
2010
Once in awhile you might remember to have the photographer snap your picture when you're really there for portraits of the kids. Because you totally get caught up in babies that turn into toddlers that turn into preschoolers... and it just keeps going like that.
2011
I mean, you could occasionally get an evening out for a wedding or something like that.
2012
But mostly? You're juggling these little people and what they need - and somewhere along the line, things changed. A lot.
And that's okay. Because there's always a new path to go down, and honestly? What's the point of all this if you aren't going to let it change you along the way? I'm just happy to be able to keep changing with him.
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