I love kindergarteners!

Wow, the things a kindergartners can do.

About 2 months ago Soren surprised me one early morning with breakfast in bed! It was for no reason at all but just to show me he loves me. Sooo sweet! We have never done breakfast in bed for anyone, so I am not sure how exactly he came up with it or how he knew just what to do. He made me some cherios and fruit and a glass of milk all on a cookie sheet that he carefully brought into me with Xander in tow. Talk about make a mothers day! I couldn't believe how sweet/thoughtful/and capable Soren was.

This morning I woke up at 6:30am to a very excited Soren yelling "Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom" as he dashed around the house looking for me. You see Xander had his tonsils out on Tuesday and we have had some rough nights. To help Ryan sleep better and decrease my distance on the very frequent trips of comforting and drug dispensing to Xander, I have been sleeping in the guest room for the last couple of nights. So needless to say, Soren didn't didn't know where I was.

"What is going on Soren?" I groggily slurred out.

"Mom, I am already for school. I even made my lunch." Soren was fully dressed and had his coat and backpack on. Life quickly flooded into me as I investigated this "lunch" he made. Could it be? Will I forever be off the hook of lunch making? I opened his lunch box to find a bag of chips, 5 pieces of candy, 5 little pickles nicely placed in a plastic bag, a plum and a sandwich tupperware box. "So far so good.....although perhaps we should cut down on the pickles and candy and perhaps add some carrots, but please this is a self initiated lunch - I am not going to be picky!" I thought to myself.

"Did you make a sandwich too?" I inquired as I began opening the tupperware.

"Yeah, but the bread is a little weird."

I have been making all our bread for a couple of months now and so you have to cut your own bread slices to make a sandwich. His sandwich was a turkey and cheese sandwich and the bottom crust although uneven was one piece, but the top crust was a jigsaw puzzle of 3 pieces - but still oh so edible. Wow, was I impressed. "Your hired" I thought to myself.

Q -"Soren, that is so great. You did a wonderful job. Wow! You are such a big boy. Thank you!"

Soren beamed as he stated, "Yeah, so I am already for school. Lets go!"

Q - "Well, I am sorry to be a barrier of bad news but it is 6:30 in the morning and school isn't for another 2.5 hrs. Your friends are probably still sleeping. Sorry kido. Why don't you make something with your legos." And so he did.

As I dropped him off to school my mind has been thinking of all the independent possibilities.

In the world right now, there is a disturbing pattern in some young adults that come from functional, loving, hardworking families, but these young adults are a little handicapped in life. They struggle making things happen for themselves, have poor self esteem, don't have many skills ect. They often have even gone through college, gotten a degree in something, but still are what I call "floating" around. I have noticed this a lot amongst people I knew from high school and have reconnected with via facebook. I have also read several articles confirming what I have noticed. Even close people I know, come from families with very handy Dad's, but often the sons are not handy at all. What is going on?! One of the things I want most for my boys is if they want something, they will have enough self-esteem, knowledge, determination, and/or confidence to go out and get it - whatever that "thing" is. So this little pattern I have seen disturbs me greatly, because like I have said these adults come from great, involved families. So what is happening? My sister Janea told me about a good friend of hers that is very handy, capable, and hardworking. She told me all his siblings are like that and they learned everything from their Dad. You see, their Dad has cerebral palsy and is in a wheelchair. His father must be brilliant because although he can't physically fix a leaky pipe, he somehow learned how and so his kids were his hands for him. As the father sat in his wheel chair passing tools to his kids, he gave them directions to fix and build what they needed. End result - highly capable, hardworking and confident children. As I pondered this I realized that I came from a family of 8 with a lot of financial issue and parents that were stretched quite thin at times. My mom would describe many of my younger years at "just surviving." Because my Mom and Dad were stretched so thin and couldn't pay for the holes, they were depended on us to step up and be responsible. They couldn't give us everything we wanted. Some of my siblings might argue they couldn't give most things they wanted. Needless to say, we had to be very involved to make happen what we wanted. Turns out this lack of ability to provide, provided us with way more skills and abilities that has served us with even greater rewards ever since. Even though we all have different interest, all my siblings are very capable in what interest them. And despite our handycaps (like ADD, dyslexia, turrets, poor memories ect.), we all pretty much have positive self-estems and think we can do anything.

So, as mother of 2 with finances way better then my parents, how do I make sure my kids get what I really want them to have, confidence, capabilities, hard work ethic and positive self esteem - because it seems being a loving, good, providing family, doesn't always get you these results. What my society says I should provide my kids with do not seem to be the key one needs to unlock these attributes. This is something I must ponder now, because it is apparent to me that today I build the foundation and the frame work for such attributes. Today Soren reminded me he is way more capable then I have given him credit for. I hope my own selfishness of saving time, getting things done "right", preventing messes ect, doesn't clip his wings. This boy wants to fly. My situation isn't forcing me to depend on him to rise to the occasion. So now I have to figure out this balance since I have so many options. Options are really great, but if you want the best then you have to choose wisely.......and when you have kids young and have options, that means you have to get smart fast. I hope I can pull this off.

No good deed goes unpunished!

Last night we were doing some "ding dong ditches" Halloween style. We targeted our neighborhood predominantly. The boys and I made some sugar cookies and frosted them - they looked very homemade but also were very tasty despite the extra ingredients. Cooking with my boys can be somewhat challenging because they are so excited to be a chef, they struggle not taking the lead. Every time I turned my back to rinse my hands they would take handfuls of flour, an extra egg, more vanilla ect - to the batter.

"Deep breath Quinae, we can fix this. Just because it seems like they want to destroy everything you do with them, doesn't mean they actually want to. They are just excited. Yeah, that's it."

When we were rolling out the cookies Soren was basically rolling in the flour too. I really should have taken a picture of him. It was quite impressive. No matter, we survived the cookie making activity with only one banishment per kid - that is pretty good since this was a several step process.

The boys were pretty excited to give the cookies out. We walked around the neighborhood in the dark which was enchanting in of itself. And then to knock at someones door and run as fast as you can and hide sealed the deal of awesomeness in my kids eyes. We have done this activity a few other times as a family but this time was so much more fun because they were excited about giving away the cookies instead of concerned that they weren't going to have enough for themselves. Yes! Service point #1. We have arrived! As we were walking back to our car holding hands in the dark talking about how fun it was to do something nice f0r people, I thought, "It is all worth it. This is the moment of joy to remember. I love my little family."

Now fast forward about 15 minutes later as we are hitting up another house that we chose to drive to. I try to quiet the excited giggles, we ring the door bell and we are off. Xander gets ahead start and I hear a "smack"! Oh crud he tripped on the single step that is pretty much invisible in the dark. I run and scoop him up before the breath is fully drawn to let out the scream of pain. 3 steps down the driveway I hear another "smack!" Soren has gone down right behind us on the same step. Ahhhh! Staying anonymous seem imposible as I rush two screaming boys down the drive way and around the corner where our car is, all the while trying to hold in my laughter. I mean really? Their knees are bloody and their hands are red and they cry in pain feeling betrayed by service. I try to console them best I can but it is all so funny and I can't quite rein in the laughter.

Silver lining - we had one more house we had planned to do, and despite the pain and blood they insisted on finishing the job. "Mom, we need to give out those cookies." Yes! Service point #2!

I love my little bloody family.

13.1

That is right! I am now part of the half marathon club. 3 of my good friends were signed up for a half marathon that was 2.5 hrs away. Crazy I thought. Why would you do a race so far away? You would have some serious child care issues. And then I realized that if you resolved your child care issues, you would then have a mini trip. Hmmmmmm. Plus I have always wanted to run a marathon just to run a marathon and knew I needed peer pressure so thought I might give it a whirl. So I ran 8 miles with my friends 6 weeks ago and it went really well, so I signed up........and then the next day happened and I was soooooo sore! I was regretting that decision immediately. Turns out I am really quite busy too and to find the time to train properly was difficult. With Ryan's unusual schedule of working a week on and a week off, I really didn't run much his week on because I would have to run between the hours of 8pm to 5am - and lets face it, those are my useless hours. Then of course I was working more then normal getting trained in the ER so my training was full of holes and the longest I ever ran was 9 miles with very little running during the last 3 weeks before the race. As the date approached I realized I am going to need something more then training to make me successful. So I devised a plan. I was going to capitalize on visualization, positive thinking, prayer and trial my sister homeopathics. I know, you guys are laughing at me right now, but that is all I had to work with at this point. I also knew from my past endurance activities, success is largely your frame of mind and merely just keeping your body moving.

The day before the race I dropped my boys off at my sisters (Ryan was working) and headed down with one of my friends to stay at her parents house that was 30 min away from the race site. I had psyched myself out for success by this point, was confident and very optimistic - To accomplish this I just disconnected the rational part of my brain and ignored the lack of miles that I had logged. It was as simple as that. It was almost a running joke between the two of us. The weather was suppose to be terrible on race day with a 60% chance of rain and temps in the 50's, but I was positive it was not going to rain and 55 deg is perfect running weather - right everybody? (I swear there has been more then once that sheer positive thinking has staved off bad weather for me - and so I applied it now. History had my back.) The course was described as "rolling hills." We all wondered what that meant and when we saw the "rolling hills" our hearts sunk just a bit. But what does a positive thinking semi-delusional person say? I am glad you asked. They say, "oh, no worries. As you get closer the hills get flatter. It won't be a problem at all." Again the rational portion of my brain had been disconnected so this was an easy sell. You don't even want to know how homeopathics work. All you need to know is if they work, and that day, they would. I just knew it.

And so the race began. As I began running I told my self stuff like, "Quinae, this is your reality now. Get use to it. You are going to be doing this for a long time. It is not a problem, it is just your new reality. Adjust." This speach with some good moving music, I felt pretty good. I hit a wall around 7- 8 miles which honestly is delayed for me. I usually hit a wall at 4 miles, so I was well pleased. The 4 mile wall though is usually psychological and this wall was a fatigue one which was pretty much right on time. It was just harder to move my legs. They were tired. So, I visualized my fat stores breaking down glucose, and flooding my blood stream for some quick fuel for my muscles for about a mile. This didn't really get me results. So, I said, "Body, you are just going to have to figure out how to do it, because I am going to expect more from you starting now." The reason why this thought even came into my head is because I have noticed there are some people that can get so much better and consistent behavior out of my kids and one of my theory is because they expect more (and are really consistent) and the kids eventually rise the occasion. I wondered if this would work with my body. I was the boss of it doggonit. It was just going to have to figure out a way to please the boss. I picked up my pace a bit and it actually seemed to work. My legs were still tired but it wasn't as hard. Hitting the 9 mile marker was uncharted territory, but "it is not problem. I am just running for a really long time. That is all. That is just what I do." At 11 miles we hit our biggest hill. "That is okay. No worries. It going to be hard, but that is what I do. I am a doer of hard things. In a few minutes it will be over. All I have to do is keep moving." Mile 12 - this is where I had to really yell at my pscyche. Knowing I was so close and there was only one mile left was when I wanted to get distracted and expect the end at every turn. I tweaked my ipod for my best running songs and knew I just had to run through 2 last songs. "Ignore the next curve. You have to get through 2 songs before the next curve can mean anything. Remember this is just what you do! You are a doer of.... " and then without permission another voice said, "Oh shut up! I know the end is near." Apparently my rational brain turned back on. "ignore the mean voice behind the curtain." I tried to save face. Sigh "legs just please, please don't stop that is all I am asking."

For the last half of the race there was a girl that I kept passing and she kept passing me. The last .5 miles she passed me again. Till now the longest race I had ever done was an 8K (5 miles ish) and I was 16. However, on all my past races I can usually give a good sprint in the last 100 yards or so. So I banked on that because I couldn't seem to keep up with her at that moment. In the end I was surprised I could sprint at all, but sprint I did and we tied. It was awesome. We both giggled as we crossed because once she caught wind of what I was doing she started to book it too. It was absolutely anaerobic those last 100 yards. That sprint sucked every last ounce of oxygen out of my muscles - I was almost numb, but it was totally worth it.

I crossed in 2:01 and 44 seconds. I was very pleased. It was faster then my training pace. My goal was 10 min miles and this logged me at 9:18 min miles.

Verdict

-I won the psych race of a half marathon. - Even though it was hard it was not emotionally painful at all which when it comes to running and me, that is saying something. I totally believe in personally psyching myself for success. Based on my training this should have gone much worse. The human mind rocks.

-I am so happy with the results. Yeah, it may not be that fast but it was the best that I could do.

-I do not have a need to do a Marathon -EVER

-I don't have a need to do a 1/2 marathon - ever again either

-I re-learned that running is not that fulfilling to me compared to other physical activities

- Even though I don't really like running, I love the energy of races and will probably keep doing them. 10K is now my personal max - guilt free.

P.S. It never rained. The weather really was perfect running weather.