Gift

When I picked Bentley up from school on Thursday, he was carrying his backpack very carefully and explained that inside it was a surprise for me. I was intrigued, but I know enough about 5-year-old surprises to not expect too much. It turned out to be a card which I was able to interpret as, "Dear Mom and Dad Holidays Happy Love Bentley," and a brown paper bag decorated with a Christmas tree. Inside the paper bag was a clay candy dish (which must be the updated version of the ashtrays we all made in elementary school), with a few candies precariously packed into it.


It's lumpy and small and basically worthless, but something about that little candy dish absolutely melted my heart. I cannot even begin to describe how much I love it. I will cherish it for the rest of my life.

May everyone's Christmas be filled with unexpected joys like this.

Need a Laugh?

I can't remember who showed me this blog, and I'll even admit that I don't get about 2/3rds of what it's talking about, but I still laugh every time I check out Feminist Ryan Gosling. I think it's something about the use of the completely anti-feminist phrase, "Hey girl" at the beginning of each post...

Go check it out!

Interpretation, Part II

I've already mentioned how we tend to get the lyrics to songs wrong around here. Recently, I realized that Bentley was singing along with my favorite Glee mash-up of Adele. Except instead of saying, "Rumor has it" he was singing, "The Roomba has it!"

Limits

My Dad likes to quote Dirty Harry, reminding his daughters, "A man's got to know his limitations." This Sunday I discovered one of mine.

Let me just begin by explaining that I hate to be late. Anywhere. Or to anything. Growing up, I was late to just about everything and I grew to hate it. I was always that kid waiting in the parking lot for someone to come and pick me up and wondering how long I should wait before I found a payphone and called home to make sure someone was coming. But thanks to that, I am now almost always on time. I'm actually one of those people who has to plan to NOT show up at a party the second it starts. But even that took a lot of nagging from Craig to persuade me that that was just tacky. But it's hard for me to do. Recently I've been working on being lax about this rule for things where it doesn't actually matter, like playgroup. Or hanging out with my friends. (Yup, I once completely stressed out because I was ten minutes late to playgroup. And I'm pretty sure that when I showed up, no one else was even there yet. It's not easy being crazy.)

But church is not one of those things that you're supposed to be late for. So even though we live about five minutes from the church building, I always try to leave by half past. This way, even when I'm running behind, we're always on time.

This is certainly a challenge, and it isn't getting easier. All this year, we've had church at 9:00am, which is kind of on the early side. And Craig usually has meetings before church, so I'm usually handling everything by myself. And currently I've got these three kids to get ready and none of them are terribly helpful about the whole process: Bentley hates to wear church clothes and cannot get his church shoes on his feet; Kendra moves slower than molasses and has hair that no matter what I do to it, always looks like she's a homeless person about ten minutes later; and Ryder has this great need to climb the stairs the second I turn my back on him and also likes to blow baby food raspberries when I'm in a hurry. It's lovely.

I'm not trying to claim that no one has it harder than I do. In fact, I would love nothing more than to hear why you have it harder than I do-- it would make me happy to know I'm not the only one who struggles with this! I'm just saying that this isn't easy for me and it doesn't come naturally. But so far, I'm very proud of my track record. If I've ever been late, I've managed to completely block this incident from my memory.

But this Sunday I finally hit that wall. Choir met at 8:30 and since I'd missed practice the week before, I decided that we needed to be there. I got up even earlier than usual (despite a lousy night's rest which included going to bed too late (my fault), and then being woken up by Ryder at 3:00am and Kendra at 4:00am). And I tried. I tried so hard to get us all dressed, fed, and out the door. But somehow it just didn't work. And despite all the screaming I did trying to hurry everyone along, we ended up being fifteen minutes late to choir practice, which was only a half hour long to begin with.

I walked into that chapel, handed Ryder to Craig (who was already there singing, having finished his meetings), picked up my music, stood with the other sopranos... and burst into tears. When it was apparent that I wasn't going to be able to sing at all right then, I quietly walked right back out of the chapel and to the bathroom where I could sob for another minute and then try to do damage control to my mascara.

It really wasn't anything worth crying about. Even in the midst of my wailing I knew that. But I just couldn't help it somehow.

So that's one limit for me to remember from here on out: I can be on time to church. But I can't do more than that. Maybe when the kids are grown. Or can put on their own shoes at least...


How do you manage to get to church?

Whoa. Just Whoa.

I'll begin by saying that a lot of you should probably NOT watch this. Because I'm posting a video of an elephant giving birth. Really, I am. And there's a substantial amount of blood involved. (And then it's all shown again in slow motion. Consider yourself warned.) But having said that, it's also incredible and amazing. I saw it on some other random blog I've begun reading, and had to show it to Craig. My second time watching it, I nearly cried. It really is that moving. I'll be the first to admit that I am something of a birth junkie. But in this case, it isn't the birth that's so impressive as what happens next: the baby won't breathe, and so the mother begins working to get her baby breathing. Who knew elephants were so smart?

Anyway, watch if you've got the stomach for it. Watch and be amazed.

Sometimes videos don't show up properly on my blog, so here's the link, too. Just in case.


And P.S. Baby elephants are one of the cutest things ever. EVer.

The Results

Okay, so I just got my race results. Apparently, I finished in 34 minutes, 14 seconds, which means I was running almost exactly 11-minute miles. I placed 1087th out of 4308 females, and 213th out of 791 people in my age division. So I was roughly in the top quarter of racers.

Not exactly major bragging points, but nothing to be embarrassed about, either. I'm happy with my results!

Aaaand, I got some pictures:

Vangie, Delilas, and me. No, Vangie and I hadn't planned on matching-- but we sure are cute, huh?

This picture turned out really well, if I may say so myself!

Thanks for doing this with me, ladies! I had a blast!

The 5K

This is a terrible picture, but I like it anyway.

Me, after some run, with Ryder awkwardly standing between my legs.

You may have already seen it on facebook, or I may have already told you all about it on the phone, but if you think that's going to stop me from blogging every boring detail about my race, then you must not know me very well.


I ran my first ever race today! And, no, I didn't win. But I was happy with how it all turned out.

You may recall that back in June I explained how I was thinking about taking up running. I also admitted this strange desire to Vangie, and she suggested that I run a 5K she'd heard about. She knew exactly how to hook me: it was called "Will Run for Chocolate," and was sponsored by Ghiradelli. The runners got fondue at the finish line. I was interested!

So I began working towards a goal. I needed to be able to run 5K. Which, for those of you who are Americans and couldn't care less about the metric system (and I include myself in that category), is 3.1 miles. So I kept running. I edged up to 1.5 miles. And then 1.9. When school started, Vangie helped by offering to run with me in the mornings. This got my butt out of bed and helped me to keep lengthening my distance. (Vangie also tried to convince me to go for the 15K instead of just doing the 5K, but I turned her down there. For my first race ever, I needed to start with a more attainable goal!) I actually registered for the race in September. (If I would have thought about how much colder December would be, I might not have!)

So Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays (unless it was raining!), we've been jogging. In order to be home before Craig leaves for work, I've had to get up at 5:20am. I am NOT a morning person and this has not been easy. But with Vangie jogging along chatting with me (and me occasionally grunting in reply), it's at least been fun, too. Since Vangie was doing the 15K, we actually got so we were running 3.7 miles together. Yes, this is more than what I needed to do. But I had been warned that the race had hills, so I figured being slightly over-prepared couldn't hurt. And I'm glad I was! Because those hills turned out to be big!

But I'm getting ahead of myself. As we were getting ready to leave for our Thanksgiving in South Carolina, I realized that when we returned, I would only have one week left before my race! So I had to force myself to run on vacation, too! That was super hard, but at least it meant that I didn't feel as guilty for all the eating I did there. In South Carolina, I had my best run yet: 3.8 miles with NO walking breaks. But my route was also incredibly flat and the weather was perfectly mild. So while I felt good about it, I wasn't convinced that this guaranteed a good run on the actual day.

So the big day came. I had carefully laid out all my running clothes, best socks, gloves & hat and iPod shuffle (with a carefully selected 5K mix!) the night before. This turned out to be a good thing, because-- true to form!-- I completely screwed up what time we were leaving! I somehow got it into my head that Vangie was picking me up at 6:30 instead of 5:30! Big oops. (And even more embarrassing since I'd gone to bed worrying about how we would get there in time with such a late start. What a dummy!) But I think I was dressed and out the door within six minutes of Vangie calling me and asking where I was. Points for that, at least?

We headed to the National Harbor. And got stuck in traffic. 20,000 people registered for the races, and that all formed one giant, mess of a traffic jam early on a Saturday morning. This turned out to be a really great time for my body to decide it needed a bathroom right now. I did manage to find a solution. And I won't give any more details. But let's just say that it wasn't having quite the start to the day I'd been hoping for. And it's a good thing I've lived in Africa.

The race started super late, since everyone had the same traffic problems. Fortunately, my friend Delilas had managed to finagle a way to run at the last minute, so she and I got to hang out and freeze together while we waited for it to begin. That was awfully nice-- I would have been bored to tears AND nervous otherwise! Finally they began calling the different corrals to begin and we began edging towards the start line (we had-- rather optimistically-- placed ourselves in the 9-minute mile group). And suddenly, I was crossing the start line and I'd begun! After feeling my toes slowly going numb, it was good just to get moving! And we started with a downhill, which seemed nice (although in hindsight that might have just been cruel).

Delilas waved me on, so I jogged ahead as best I could, trying not to run into anyone or trip over cones. And then it was just me with my music, trying to keep moving! The route went along the harbor, so it was nice seeing the water for a bit, then it wound past some businesses before suddenly climbing what looked like a tremendous hill. I kept climbing and felt slightly smug as I passed a few people walking, only to realize that they all passed me a minute or two later (such is life, huh?). The hardest part of the whole race was when there was another downhill, and I couldn't see where it led to. I began hoping that at the bottom of that hill would be the finish line and was getting pretty excited. So when I realized that there was another hill to climb before the finish, I began to think about taking a walking break. But I knew I would hate myself if I gave in, so I just kept plodding along.

And eventually, I made it! 3.1 miles, two substantial hills, and I kept jogging throughout! Yay me! When I crossed the clock said 36 minutes, but when you factor in the delayed start time, a few of those minutes should get shaved off. I'm hoping. But my only goal was just to keep jogging, and I definitely accomplished that, so I am completely happy.

Anyway, I finished, called Craig to let him know (he'd wanted to come, but we finally decided it wasn't worth it to drag the kids out of bed so early in such cold weather-- I think that was the right choice!). I grabbed some water and then sat and waited for Delilas to finish, too. And then we enjoyed our chocolate fondue and hot cocoa, before finding a spot where we could cheer Vangie on as well.

Despite the rather rough start, it was a good day and I have been enjoying a great sense of accomplishment.

The surprising thing, though, was my thought as soon as I was done. I'm glad I did that, I thought, but it was a lot of work for just a half hour of running. Next time, I should do a longer race...

What have I become?

A Very Merry Thanksgiving

With my voice gone, I find I don't spend any time talking on the phone or to Craig or my children. Which leaves me WAY more to blog! I'm not saying I'm enjoying whispering everything (actually, it's driving me crazy), but I may as well enjoy this particular aspect of it, right?

So! Time to tell you about Thanksgiving! Craig had this idea back in July when his aunt and uncle visited here, that we should all have Thanksgiving at their house. Of course, it can be tacky inviting yourself over to someone else's house. So in order to make it easier for everyone, Craig also suggested that his parents could rent a house for us to stay in. He generously offered to share that house with his brother and family (Jason & Jeni and their four children). And Craig's parents were nice enough to actually take us up on it. And his aunt and uncle were nice enough to find a perfect house for us to stay in.

And let me just tell you: it all worked out perfectly.

Lynda and Greg found a house right across the street from their own home. This made everything so nice and easy! When Ryder needed to nap, I could either go to the other house (no car necessary, which was a good thing, since he was pretty sick of his carseat) or Craig could bring the pack-n-play over to the other house. So convenient! And in addition to that, the house was also absolutely gorgeous. We were so spoiled!

Craig and I were both swooning over this kitchen. Craig made good use of it by making a quadruple batch of spritz cookies Thursday morning.

Dining room. It's approximately the same size as my entire main floor!

The living room, which was also huge, and had a lovely view during the day time.

Master bathroom (which Jason & Co. got to enjoy, but we at least took pictures of it!).
I'm pretty sure this shower is the same size as my entire bathroom!

Lovely sunset from our backyard. Nice, huh?

And here's the daytime view! Seeing water always makes my little islander heart happy!

We had lots of time to just hang out and, of course, eat like the complete gluttons that we are. It was a wonderful vacation. Here are just a few of my other favorite pictures:

Bentley and Grandpa run around-- ahem, I mean, play some serious golf!

We visited a fire station. (Well, okay, everyone else did. Ryder and I stayed home and napped.)

Ryder and Eli-- who are just two weeks apart!-- got to finally meet each other, as well as everyone else!

Kamryn took good care of Bentley

Cute Maya

Jeni holding my kid for me

Eli is so cute in his helmet! And unlike my kids, he would actually hold still AND not blink for the picture!

Eli and Ryder got along pretty well, on the rare occasion when they were both awake at the same time

Grandma busy reading to Kendra and Lindsy

Bentley looks so funny here that I can almost forget that he was throwing things at me so I wouldn't take his picture.
Almost.

Love this: the two brothers feeding their sons right before the feast begins

Bentley and I embark on an alligator hunt

Kendra and Bentley gazing at the alligator Daddy found

There, now you can see him, too!

For reasons unclear to us, Kendra insisted on being photographed with this tree.
Um, she chose that outfit when I wasn't around.

Bentley practices his swing

I was a little sad to come home (although my kids, particularly my eldest, were getting bratty enough that I was relieved to get them home and back to their routine again-- but that's a topic for another blog post. Or possibly an in-person rant...). But I'm glad we got to have such a wonderful Thanksgiving. Kudos to Craig for thinking of this, and more kudos to Jason & Jeni for driving two days with four kids just to join us. And tons of thanks and gratitude to Tom & Donna and Lynda & Greg for making it happen!

Thank you, everyone, for a lovely Thanksgiving!!!

Ryder: the stats

Ryder had his check-up today. And he's a bit of a shrimp. But we love him anyway! Here goes:

Height: 28.75" (18.33%)
Weight: 20 lbs (11.89%)
Head size: 51.4%

Make that a shrimp with a decent-sized head.

He also had five shots. FIVE! Usually I try to keep it to three at a time, and my doctor has been very nice about that. But the idea of trying to explain all this with no voice (I've been whispering all day and it sucks-- I actually had to pound the wall to convince Kendra to put her socks on this morning!) and then being rewarded for my efforts by having to come back again for the rest of them was more than I could bear. So he got all five. Poor Ryder! He was pretty hysterical as it was happening; in the middle of it, he was so upset he actually wouldn't breathe. I learned a neat trick for that from a previous round of vaccinations: blow on the baby's face. It surprises them enough to gasp for air! And then the howling really started...! But he calmed right down as soon as it was all over.

While we were there, Kendra and I got flu shots, too. I was totally impressed with Kendra. That girl didn't even flinch when she got hers. That girl is one tough cookie. Especially when she wants princess stickers!

I also realized-- and this is kind of embarrassing, because it shows how prideful I am-- that I was sort of hoping the doctor would be impressed that I've nursed Ryder for an entire year. But if he was, he didn't let on. Oh, well. That wasn't the reason I was doing it, anyway.

Happy Birthday, Ryder!

Yup, today was Ryder's 1st birthday! We actually celebrated twice-- last Friday in South Carolina with all Craig's family (other pictures of that trip to follow, I promise!), and then we had a very small party today at home, which was even shorter than planned because I lost my voice and Craig needed to try and fix our oven. It's been a crazy day!

Here are a bunch of pictures of my little 1-year-old!

Love this picture.
Love those blue eyes.
Love that blonde hair.
Love my little Ryder-Pyder.

He wasn't too sure about the pumpkin pie we tried to feed him

Contemplating his presents

He was a little overwhelmed by everything at first. I think the camera flash wasn't helping, either. He did calm down once I turned that off...

Playing with one of his new toys

And enjoying a ride on his new car

Bentley was all too eager to "help" Ryder unwrap his presents...

Finally! A picture where he's smiling!

An unconventional way to unwrap your presents

This was what happened BOTH TIMES when we put pie/cake in front of him and sang. Craig thinks maybe he's shy. Or just not used to this much attention! Poor baby...

Happy with his stacking toy from cousin Eliot (and Aunt Leah & Uncle Brian)

Happy Birthday to my sweet sweet boy! It never ceases to astound me just how much I love my little Ryder!

And Another (Glee) Thing

And while I'm obsessing about Glee in the middle of other blog posts, I may as well mention that I am officially in love with this week's mash-up of Adele's "Rumour Has It" and "Someone Like You." I've played it so much my kids all know it now (even Ryder likes watching it). (Bentley thought it was "Roomba Has It," though, which I thought was hysterical!)

Anyway. This song. Love it, love it, love it, love it, love it, love it. The dancing, the singing (I don't always care for Santana's voice, but she rocked this one), even the dresses... It is all things fabulous.

The end.

Are You Sure You Aren't Just a Loser?

I'm perfectly happy to admit that I really like the song "Firework" by Katy Perry. (Even better is Lea Michele's version of it on Glee. But now that I'm saying that, I have to go off on a major tangent as I point out that every version of everything is better on Glee. Of the hundreds of songs they have performed so far, only two were not improvements on the original-- U2's "One" and Adele's "Rolling in the Deep." And they still did a great job, I just prefer the original artists' versions. But for everything else, it's Glee all the way. Anyway, back to my actual post...)

But I sort of don't buy the message in "Firework." I mean, the whole point of the song seems to be, "Maybe things suck right now, but when the moment is right, you'll show everyone how awesome you are and it will be okay." And I like that message-- it's inspiring enough for me, considering it came from a pop song. But then I imagine any of the I'm-going-to-live-in-my-parent's-basement-indefinitely-because-I-think-I'm-too-good-for-any-of-the-jobs-I'm-actually-qualified-for (most of whom just finished Occupying some city or other) generation Y type listening to this song and feeling awesome about themselves and I want to turn it off, sit them down, and explain to them that, No, you aren't a firework. Grow up already and do something with your life. Katy Perry was talking about someone else.*

Maybe you should have to prove that you're a productive member of society before being allowed to listen to this song or something.

Anyway, the more I thought about this, the more it hit me that I really know how to take the fun out of a song, don't I?

On a more humorous note, have you seen the Divine Comedy version, "Firebolt?" It's really only for you Harry Potter fans out there. But if you're not a Harry Potter fan, you probably have no business reading my blog, anyway. Check it out! Now!




*Just for the record, if you're reading this, you don't count as one of those people. I promise.

And you thought I posted a lot of pictures before!

Did I mention that my brother-in-law, Brian, is a photographer? In fact, one of my favorite photos that he took is hanging in my dining room! And did I also mention that he was here this week? So would you care to guess just how many pictures he took? Not nearly enough, actually. But it was still a lot. And even with all the shots he got, I'm afraid kids in the 5-and-under crowd are a tough bunch. But still. He took a lot of pictures. Tons. And I'm going to only share my favorites here. But it's still a lot.

You have my permission to scroll through these quickly, if you would prefer. But there really are some gems in here. And some pretty funny shots, too, actually.

Enjoy!

Aunt Tracy with Eliot (who was enjoying a pants-free day. Um, Eliot was, not Aunt Tracy!)

Sister Shot

Do NOT mess with Buzz Lightyear.

Samuel demonstrates his wand skills

It's not often I get a decent picture of myself!

Bentley the goofball. I love that you can barely tell how wide open his mouth is. And Ryder just puts up with it.

Despite the random pillow, I'm pretty sure this picture captures Bentley's personality exactly.

Love this.

Cute Caleb. I used to suck those same fingers!

I love that Eliot is in focus here as he desperately tries to get back to his mommy!

And I love Bentley's look of utter annoyance here.

Now, Bentley looks like he's making up his mind to never have children. Ever.
And can you blame him?

Samuel is always excited to play with Bentley's Buzz Lightyear toy...

Trying to do something with Kendra's hair.

Natalie is already making sure her kids love dinosaurs

Ryder isn't sure how he feels about getting hugs from Kendra

Caleb and Eliot plot to shake down the baby gate together

Who doesn't love a trip to Kidwell Farm?