Daring Young Mom

I worked out for the first time today since I overdid it trying to beat that hunch-backed old lady in the race and ended up flat on my back for 2 weeks from the strain. It felt great to be sweatin’ it out again, pumpin’ up the music on my MP3 player and reawakening the muscles or more realistically muscle that had been sleeping and decomposing for the past few weeks.

This past weekend Dan and I watched Darkon, a documentary about people who spend their spare time building armor, playing Dungeons and Dragons, and acting out epic battles. Although they take things WAY further than I’ve ever considered taking them, there was something appealing about the way they live out their dreams with such abandon.

I think an active fantasy life is super important and when I’m on an adrenalin high after around 36 minutes of working out, my mind starts to drift and imagine all sorts of crazy fun things. I used to exercise for the recommended 30 minutes and wondered why everyone talked about getting a “high” but once when I accidentally went overtime, I found that my high doesn’t come until minute 36 or 37. It’s NICE.

So today I was working out on the elliptical trainer next to a spastic tween boy who kept flailing his arm out to the side and whacking me with his hand. I’m in the zone. I’m sweating. THWACK! “Sorry.” I’m working back into it. I’m in the zone. I’m sweating. My eyes are closed. I can feel the fat melting off me. THWACK! “Sorry.”

I was worried that the high would never come amidst the beating I was taking but luckily the boy gave up around minute 31 and I was able to crank up the tunes and meld my mind with the sweat. And it came and as usual my imagination ran wild. When the high comes, I always imagine myself as thin, fast and gazelle like. This time however, Dan was part of my fantasy. I spent the last 10 minutes of my workout beating the cheese out of Dan at basketball in my mentals. I mopped the FLOOR with him. He grinned in shock as I pivoted around the court sinking 3-pointer after 3-pointer and dribbling through his legs and around him at light-speed.

If you’d ever seen me play basketball, you’d know why this was such a ridiculous fantasy. Generally my best contribution to any basketball team is fouling out. I use my brute strength and lack of knowledge of the finer points of the game, such as the rules, in order to shove around the other team, allowing the real players to shine. Then I get thrown out of the game before I have the chance to do any real damage to our score. It works nicely.

I really dominated him though, slaughtered him with a great and vicious slaughter and it felt OH-SO-GOOD. Maybe this stems from our real life interactions. Lately I’ve been playing a pretty mean game of Dr. Mario. Even with a handicap, Dan is woefully unskilled at this mindless Nintendo version of Tetris. I wow him with my cat-like reflexes and thumbs of steel.

But I’d like to take this to the next level with some serious physical domination, get the chance to whip out a b-ball at the next family gathering and take him by surprise as I soar through the air over his head and dunk it in a way that would make Shaq stand back on his fat feet and say, “GIRL! Where did you cultivate those fine and skillish skeelz?”

I think it’s time to look for an old basketball hoop on freecycle to hang on the back of the shed… once we build a shed.

When we arrived at the Long Beach airport in May for our family’s Disneyland vacation, our plane had to sit on the runway for an hour and a half waiting for one of the three parking spots to open up so we could exit the vehichle. We were cramped, hot, annoyed and tired by the time we made our way down the ramp and picked up our luggage.

I called the airport shuttle we’d booked and paid for and was told that they’d given our van away to someone else because our flight status had said “ARRIVED” for the past two hours and they assumed we’d made other arrangements. No we had not. It was 11pm, we were exhausted, out $50 and stranded at the Long Beach Airport.

I’m not ashamed to say that a few choice words and a few tears escaped my face before I calmed down and we decided to head over and pay another $50 for a cab to the hotel. At that time of night in that dust speck of an airport, cabs arrived about every 10 minutes and we stood in a line waiting our turn and whining to anyone who would listen.

The senior couple ahead of us in line took pity on our small pathetic band of sticky travelers and offered us their cab. The woman was so very kind and I was so very done that I didn’t even fight her. I didn’t say, “You’re old and you were here first and you’re probably on the verge of an arthritic fit. You take the cab and we’ll wait a few more minutes for our chariot to Mickeyville.” All I could say was, “Thank you,” as we slipped into the grimy leather seats and headed off, my arms serving as human carseats. Both kids fell asleep as we sped along.

Then yesterday, a month after our trip, I walked into the kids’ bedroom and found Laylee standing upright, staring straight ahead with a strange expression on her face. Noticing me, she looked up and said, “Oh mom. I had to stop cleaning. I was just thinking about that lady who gave us her taxi at Disneyland and I was so happy because we got to drive there and so sad because she’s still there waiting and my eyes are red like I’m gonna cry but my mouth can’t stop smiling. I’m just so medium right now, I don’t know if I’m happy or sad.”

Maybe I should tell her that it’s likely the lady is not still stranded on the curb of the airport. But maybe not. It makes a better story that way. So much more medium.

The differences between filth and progress are very subtle so I will walk you through a few of them. [read more at Parenting.com]

Today Magoo marked his territory in the baked goods isle of The Family Grocer. It’s much “grosser” now than it was before.

He stood next to me as I perused the canning supplies and suddenly let out a huge, “OH. NO!”

I looked down to see a yellow puddle growing below him. Apparently he is somehow freakishly able to hold a volume of liquid greater than the apparent volume of his body. He then evacuates the liquid wherever he happens to be standing.

At least he’s starting to seem concerned about it. When he lost it in the grocery store, he kept saying, “I’m sorry Mom. I only pee in the potty now. I PROMISE! I’m sorry Mom. Can I get a present?”

To his credit, he did run to the potty several times today without being asked. Now I did promise him a Swedish fish for every time he emptied his contents into the proper receptacle. A friend told me that bribery is perfectly acceptable and no 6th grader ever still needed to be promised candy in return for doing their business on the pot.

I take comfort in that as I send him happily into a dehydration-aggravated diabetic coma. At one point he seriously went potty 4 times in a ten minute period, squeezing every last drop of liquid from his body.

Sitting here on the family room couch I’m not sure if I can actually smell pee or the scent is just permanently emblazoned on my memory.

**Update** I’m very obsessed with containers but I didn’t realize everyone else would like them as much as I do so I didn’t include a link. I got them here. I bought the 4oz size and they hold half a cup of spice each. You have to buy a minimum of 144. If you buy more, I think the price goes down. I’m planning on selling some to my next door neighbor and using the rest for Christmas gifts, filled with a spice rub people can use on meat.**

For years I’ve been looking at spice tins, craving them, caressing them and making plans for our highly organized life together. I dreamed of finding the perfect containers, opaque to keep in the freshness, wide enough for my biggest measuring spoons to scoop, uniform in size, shiny and beautiful. I would then purchase them, label them and we would ride off into the culinary sunset together, possibly even alphabetizing as we went. Ahhhhhh! Sends a tingle of joy right down my spine.

Finally I found them at the right price (if I bought a pallet) and today was the day of joy and gladness. I took all of these:

And all of these:

Pulled out my most beloved office tool.

Filled.

Labeled.

Stacked.

And marveled. My life will honestly never be the same again. Now I need to find trays the size of my spice cupboard put them in and then label the trays A-C, D-M, etc., fill them with my little tins of flava, and stack them away to be pulled out fortnightly when I whip up a delectable culinary masterpiece. Then I can refill them forever from bulk and when I’m lonely I can hold their smooth surfaces up to my cheek and smile my wistful smile of organizational contentment. Yes. Today was a good day.

**Potty update. Yesterday he had 2 accidents, and was not a bit chalant about the whole thing. He just acts so oblivious sometimes, standing with a blank look on his face and unleashing his raging liquid fury. Today there was one accident followed by some great self-awareness and emergency potty runs. I’m completely unsure about how tomorrow will go.**

Laylee to me: “It’s so much more fun to cuddle with you because you’re so much more fatter and it’s just more comfortable.”

Laylee: “Can I get a whoop whoop?!”
Magoo [very sternly with raised eyebrows]: “No. You. May. NOT!”

Apparently Laylee’s not completely deaf. She overheard us having a “tickle fight” in our room the other night. (That was the only viable scenario I could throw at her in a pinch.) Now she wants to have them all the time. Eeep! I wonder when she’ll be old enough to have that “Aha!” moment that turns her off tickling for life.

The sanity is not.

We’re doing it. We’re saying goodbye to diapers and hello to stench and stains and public restrooms and plastic bags in my purse waiting to be filled with little peed-in Lightning McQueen special pants.

Magoo’s been ready but lazy for a while.

I’ve been not ready AND lazy for a while.

But I’ve decided it’s time. The weather is perfect for airing little baby man parts and whizzing on the grass. My back is just well enough to allow me to laze around asking Magoo if he’s wet or dry hundreds of times a day but not well enough to be running all over the world.

The fear of little yellow liquid surprises will keep me close to home which will be good for my back. I’m at that dangerous stage of recovery where I feel “okay” so I want to plow through everything that’s piled up while I was taking it easy. But I know my body’s not ready to go full force yet.

Full-time potty training Magoo could be just the road block I need to keep my feet planted safely at home. I should leave the house every once in a while though so I’ll have the experience of smelling the air outside our giant litter-box of a home and when I come back here I’ll know how bad it is and take steps to regulate it.

**Update – The first day of Potty Boot Camp is over and he’s had one accident and managed to spontaneously run to the potty 5 times listening only to the inner voice of his clueless little bladder. He’s doing really well! My main concern now is the uncushioned nature of his tender little nuggets in those big boy pants. I fear that he slams around this house with far too little concern for his future children.**

In my church none of the teachers or clergy get paid for their time or expertise. To be honest, none of us really have expertise and very few of us have any time to speak of. We just all pitch in and do our share. The bishop (also unpaid) prays for inspiration and then issues specific jobs or “callings” to the members of the congregation. He gets his calling to be bishop from someone higher up who gets his calling from someone even higher up, all the way up to the apostles and prophets who do get paid something because they work for the church 24/7 and their families need to eat and buy Mormon Tabernacle Choir CDs and Jell-O crystals and whatever else prophets’ families spend money on.

This is a long lead-in to tell you that I’ve been serving as the Sunday teacher to some 9-year-olds for a while but was recently asked to be an advisor/teacher to a group of 14 and 15-year-old girls. I was giddy with glee to receive this calling for several reasons.

1. I can scout out all the best babysitters in our congregation.

2. I love this age group with all the drama and angst and life-changing decisions they’re facing. They’re really down to the hard work of deciding who they are and what they choose in the next few years will have a huge impact on how their lives go. I’m so excited to be a part of that transitional period.

3. They’re a ton of fun to hang out with and I fear I have more in common with them than I maybe should… at my age.

4. I think the very best thing about teaching them is that I really need to stay on my toes and work hard to make sure my life is in order so that I can be a good example to them. I don’t want them to say, “Kathryn’s a lazy skuz ball so I guess it’s okay if I am too.”

I’ve really been examining my life lately and each time (twice so far – woo-hoo bow in awe of my extensive experience) that I prepare a lesson for these girls I feel the need to pray so hard and think so long about what I can say to them to help them choose what they need to choose to be happy.

Today we talked about having an eternal perspective, which really just means thinking about our actions in terms of the big picture, life before we came to earth and life after we die. What will be the long-term consequences of what we choose today?

I told the girls that sometimes I struggle just to have a 5-minute perspective. I frequently don’t consider what consequences my actions will have in the extreme short term. I just want to do what I want to do and I want to do it now. So I suggested that they look at various aspects of their lives and try to broaden their perspectives just a bit. Maybe broaden the way they think about their relationships with their parents to a 5 year perspective. “How will the way I treat my mom today affect my life and her life 5 years from now?”

I want to work on having a year-long perspective with raising my kids. How will my actions or inactions (because I’m so flippin’ tired that I’m running on auto-pilot as a mother) affect how they feel about themselves and who they become a year from now… then stretch to 10 years from now… then think about eternity.

It’s really amazing to me how tunnel-visioned I can become living from one day to the next, getting out of bed and shlumping around the house all day until it’s bedtime and then repeating the cycle without stopping to think about what I’m doing and why.

So I’m hoping to get better at remembering to think about 4 questions:

1. Who am I right now? A daughter of God, a woman who says she’s a writer but rarely finishes a writing project she starts, a mother who adores her children but not enough to get up early and be ready to help them get a good start to their days, a great cookie baker and eater, etc.

2. Who do I want to become? A morning person, a spiritually full and peaceful woman, someone who serves others naturally without hesitation, a published author with steady work, the leader of a dance-battle-winning hip hop dance crew made up of frumpy moms, someone who’s not asked repeatedly if she’s pregnant when she’s not, etc.

3. Who does my Heavenly Father know I can become?

4. What am I doing right now to achieve these goals or sabotage them?

It’s a lot. A lot to think about. When I prepare lessons for these girls, I get all passionate and focused and I just want to plead with them to be a little better and do a little more with their lives. In the end I think I was given this calling so I could learn to be more passionate and focused in my own life, so I could find the motivation I need to be a little better and do a little more myself.

Last week my body fought back. After months of pushing and pulling and running and jumping and multitasking to the point of insanity, my body decided it had reached its limit. The only way to get me to agree and give it a break was to shut down one of its vital functions. It chose walking. [continue reading at Parenting.com.

Since my back’s been bad, I’ve spent a lot of time alone. Alone with my bed. Alone with my thoughts. Alone with my current choice of natural deodorant. I’ve sworn off aluminum in an attempt to detox my body and help prevent dementia, Alzheimer’s and that pesky beeping sound at the airport metal detectors.

But I have to ask myself, “Would I rather live a life that ends in a slow and depressing degradation of my mind and memory or would I prefer to live a long full life where I forever remember perfectly how bad I always smelled?”