Me and Math...

I'll be totally honest, I hate math.  I'm handicapped.  Not stupid... just slow when it comes to numbers. I'd like to think I'm just more creative than the rest of the world.

One of the things I love to do is keep track of the miles I run.  I write the mileage of each run onto the box that my current running shoes come in.  The list starts out with the date I purchased the shoes on then proceeds to march down the box, in a nice tidy row. I also write where I ran and sometimes with whom and my time if I like it.  At the end of the month, I tally up the miles and, Voila!  My favorite number of the day!  It brings me SUCH satisfaction. 

This month it was time for a new pair of shoes mid way through.  I retired the old pair, which means totaling out the entire list of numbers (I use a calculator for this) and breaking the numbers into three different categories.  Total for each month, and total over all mileage, number of days run and days rested.  For the most part I need a fairly accurate number so I know when to buy new shoes. 

This last month has been phenomenal! (If I do say so myself!) Record breaking, or so I thought.  I added up all my numbers, making sure to add in tomorrow's miles because, unless I die over night, I'm running 8 in the morning and that brings my total miles run for October to 150 miles!  I'm thrilled!  That's 21 days of running, 10 rest days.  I decide to compare that with last months figures.  I pull out that box from the closet and SHOCK OF ALL SHOCKS!  I ran 5 miles more last month in one less day.  My inner Miss Clavel speaks "Something is not right!"

I get the calculator out and run those numbers again...

All I can say is this, I have a handicap.  I have NO IDEA how I got that number, and I still have about 40 miles I can run in my last pair of shoes, regardless of how they make my feet ache. 

Looking on the bright side, it's a little like getting a late birthday present...

My Alternate Reality...

I am not a silly woman, nor am I a dumb blond. However, I've noticed that I have started doing really stupid things.  The following story is just an example...

I use my phone for just about everything, calendar, alarm clock, music, movies etc... Every night I set the alarm labeled (I'm in now way kidding) "GET UP AND RUN".  Usually it's set for somewhere between 4 AM and 6 AM.  Some mornings I hop right out of bed and get going. Other mornings I hit snooze.  This morning was not a hop up morning, and not a snooze morning it was a...something in between morning.  Here's how the scenario plays out...

Beep beep beep... fumble, fumble, fumble...finally off. I tapped the off button probably six times, and finally that obnoxious noise stops.

Mr. Bergholm says, more to his pillow than to me,"You are not going running.  It's pouring down rain."

I say "  I don't hear rain, you're just hearing the fan."

He says " Nope, I can hear it falling on the roof."

I say "It can't be raining, my phone said it would be clear." 

Mr Bergholm "It's raining..."

At this point I sit up and hit the Weather Channel app and shove it into his face (bright light and all) and say " See!?!  Clear!  It's not raining... the little moon doesn't have clouds on it!"

He says " Honey... get up...out of bed and look outside." 

I huff, throw the covers off and leave my warm bed.  I'm muttering to myself the whole way down the stairs 'I'm going to prove you wrong buddy and your gonna have 10 minute to find your running gear and your coming outside, in the clear night, to run with me, just because my phone is right, and so am I!'

I open the front door to rain...pouring rain.  Not just a drizzle, POURING RAIN.  Mr. Bergholm was right, not my super phone.  I was stunned, amazed...flabbergasted. I opened the Weather Channel app and there it was...a bright moon with no clouds covering it, with a big 44 degrees right under it.  I go to the next page, where it shows the hourly weather.  There it is again, a big beautiful moon...no clouds.  I look up and out the door and there is STILL rain pouring out of the sky. 

I re-set my alarm, walk up my stairs, crawl back into bed and say nothing. Mr. Bergholm has the covers over his head.  No comment from him.  Oh, he was not asleep...he was not giggling...he was probably wondering where his smart wife went and who was this dumb chick in bed with him!

Maybe I ought to leave the weather forecasting to the old American Indian method..."If the rock is wet...it's raining."

P.S.  When I woke up one hour later and walked out of the house to go to the gym to see my Personal Trainer, there was not a cloud in the sky...stars everywhere, and it was colder than 44 degrees.

Grocery List

Thursday, I went for a quick trip to the grocery store with child number three. Just us two...ALMOST grocery store bliss.  Here is a copy of my list:

Fruit
Veg
Chocolate Milk
Snickers Bar (use free coupon)
GU (buy case)

That was the whole list.  2 different stores.  You can't buy a case of Chocolate Outrage GU at the regular grocery store. That you get at REI.

I just pulled the list out of the car with my trash and had to laugh.  If I had, perchance, picked up a cart with that list still stuck to it, I would automatically assume that that person was a runner.  Those are all the things you need before, during, and after a long run.  Heaven knows that you certainly carb load with good carbs the whole week before the big run. Drink chocolate milk right after as a recovery drink. Squeeze in a GU every 40 minutes during, and inhale a big ole' Snickers bar as a reward for pushing yourself that hard. It's all perfectly thought out and a formula that works great for me. 

I'm glad I didn't leave it on the cart. Because if a stranger doesn't know that formula, it just doesn't look that great.  One's shopping list says a lot about one to others.

Things I Wish I Could Do

(Honestly, right now I wish I could go to bed...HOWEVER...it's EONS away and I'm overdue for a post.) 

Here it is... 

THINGS I WISH I COULD DO...

1. Read a book without falling asleep
2. Clean a room like Mary Poppins...been practicing my finger snap, and no luck.
3. Attend school at Hogwarts. Just so you're aware, I would NOT do well in potions.
4. Write a book that would become a favorite in every language...a la Jane Austin
5. Date The Count (yes from Sesame Street)
6. Be a Roadie for a REAL band, like Led Zeppelin, or AC/DC
7. Finish the College degree I started a million years ago in Art History (when I was young and foolish) and get a job that didn't pay less than a Batista at Starbucks. (They get pretty good Benefits by the way.)
8. Get a Camaro...a CLASSIC Camaro, you can get car seats in the back of a Classic Camaro.
9. Speak Italian... beyond, 'Prego' and 'pronto', which ARE real Italian words. Added to that I'd like to be able to eat carbs without filling out in my middle section.
10. Meet Joseph Smith, have a chat... HECK if I'm meeting famous dead people add Lincoln, Regan, Jane Austin and Elizabeth I to the list.  I'll bring the finger sandwiches.
11. Get wings tattooed on my feet, in white ink. 
12. Run faster... Olympian fast...Gold medal fast..win the prize money fast.

This is in no way a pity party, if it started to sound like one... Just things I think about from time to time. Mostly when I'm sitting waiting for the bus, or folding laundry or walking home from school, or grocery shopping, (because we all know how painful it is to fork out $150 bucks for stuff we can't wear). My 'me' time mind wanderings. I think I must not be alone in these adventures. Do all Stay-at- home Mom's have this list?  I bet we do.

Don't Pass Out...

Dearest MOMMY,

I'm so far behind on my Mother's day gift I'm not sure what to do. Sorry Mom!  Hope your not holding your breath... Bad child that I am...you'll probably die from it. I've even had some good ideas lately about blog posts. The sad fact is this...I can't even remember to get Elley to her piano lessons, let alone remember what I was thinking about 15 minutes ago in the grocery store to blog about! Please know I've stuffed post-it notes into my purse (good luck finding those EVER AGAIN!) to write stuff down on, and I've made a half-year resolution to start writing again, again...

PLEASE, please start breathing again.  I promise to do better.

Love your Bad Kid,
Kate

PS...Nothing new and exciting is happening here anyhow...(LOL, SNORT, sigh...)

For All of the Times I Wish I'd Had a Camera...

I don't take many pictures. I probably could take really great pictures if I tried, I just don't have the desire to constantly be whipping a camera out to document my life. I am however married to the "Picture Nazi". Every photo is staged, thought out, planned, scrutinized...re-shot until it's perfect. This is the only reason I have any pictures of my kids. Thank you Mr. Bergholm. I mean this most sincerely.

Our number three child makes me wish I had a camera in my pocket all the time. (I conveniently forget about the camera in my phone. Really it's an OK camera, but it doesn't have gadgets, which truth be told, is my weakness.) I'm going to set the picture up for you in words...maybe that will be better, because I'll think those words out, scrutinize, plan, and re-shot until I get it perfect and hopefully you'll be able to see the picture I would have shot, had I had that camera in my pocket.

PICTURE THIS....We are walking on a beautiful sunny Seattle afternoon on the trails that surround our home. The light is green, because we live in a rain forest, and filtered through the tall trees. All three kids are running on the path ahead of us ducking in and out of the forest on either side of the path to jump out and scare us and each other. Liam is falling behind, slowly, slowly, slowly... he can't run and hold the great stick he has found that is the perfect height for him to use as a walking stick in one hand while trying to hold up his ten pound cargo pocketed shorts, with the other. His shorts are filled with big rocks from the storm water pond, little rocks from the path, full blades of grass, with the roots still on , and a few little sticks that we are "going to NEED to pack in the car and take to Lake Powell with us to start a fire". Every pocket is used, every treasure picked up. His shorts, which fit under normal circumstances are falling down around his legs as he tries to keep up with Elley and Anders, who are much older, and faster.

We suggest, "drop the stick."

"No!"

"Empty your pockets."

"No!" (this is where you get the dialogue about needing those rocks "just in case a crocodile comes out." )

On he runs, not fully frustrated yet, but trying so hard to maintain a good pace. Yelling ahead to his brother and sister to "wait for me!" At which point he stops and turns his dirty little face in our direction, smiles his sweetest innocent smile and laughingly says, "Mom! Look! I'm at Butt Crack Junction!" while wiggling his quickly-becoming-naked-butt in my direction. That is when I would have snapped the picture. While his little sense of humor was glowing, and his smile was as bright as the sun, and his little moon was just beginning to peek out.

Cameras are overrated.

An Open Letter to First-Time Mothers

Last night we got out a video that was all footage of the first year of our first child's life. I remembered as I sat and watched, how for that first year I could barely breathe. I was so worried that I was going to mess up so badly that she would eventually be a teen pregnancy statistic , or do all sorts of illegal drugs in High School, start ditching school in Junior High...you name it, the thought passed through my mind. That, on top of not sleeping and forcing that baby to breast feed, because it was "best for baby". (And in not considering WHAT actually was best for baby, practically starved her, because I never did produce enough milk, and she was having allergic reactions to what I ate.) I was a mess.

Oddly enough, in those videos you couldn't really tell. Thankfully.

What I could tell, however, was that she was happy, despite being hungry, and sleep deprived. She knew that she was loved, and that our entire world revolved around her. She was totally content.

I watched a movie the night before this home video experience in which the mother, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, is explaining to her grown daughter, that babies don't come with instructions, and it's just a big guessing game with each child, and sometimes you just do your best to set a good example, and then pray for the best result.

I wish I'd have believed that when she was a baby. I wish I'd have enjoyed every little moment. (Probably not possible, because she just didn't sleep, and there isn't much you can do about that. ) I wish I would have known that I could have asked for help, and that wasn't a sign of weakness, or that other more experienced mothers wouldn't think I was a "Bad Mother". I guess what I really wish I'd know is that eventually you just stop caring about what other people think of your ability to be a good parent. Because truth be told, they are just as worried about what their world looks like to everybody else, and that we are all just trying to get by without losing one child to the big bad monsters of the world, and we all go about it differently.

Fast forward 12 years. Number one child is a lovely, talented, well rounded young woman and I'm a different Mother. Thank goodness for two more children who came to help me understand that babies aren't as fragile as we think. If you don't breast feed they probably won't break curfew and get arrested in High School, and if they do wander off of the path you've set them on, it's probably not something you did wrong in the first years of their lives. It's a choice they are making for themselves. Really, really all we can do as Mothers, is teach them to do right, set a good example and pray for the best results.

I Prayed For This...

I've been paying a personal trainer for a couple of years. Three I think. I've changed trainers one time, so a year and a half with each trainer. Both very good. I do this because I'm not a creative gym go-er, and because I'm not about to do 5000 squats on my own. Occasionally I'll put together a work out for myself, but there is just something about having someone else do the coaching, and prodding. Often, my cute trainer (and I say cute like little brother cute) comes up with an exercise that KILLS me. During the course of the exercise, I will start chanting, "I paid for this, I paid for this, I paid for this..." Scott usually laughs maniacally, and says something like "only 1000 more to go, your doing great! Dig deep! Keep it up!"

I write about this because I'm seeing a parallel in my life. Spiritual Training through Motherhood. I have One Personal Trainer and three junior apprentice trainers. I get an amazing work out with my three junior apprentice trainers; every day. Except they don't do really well with the words of encouragement. Mostly it's all about the breaking me until I'm so worn out that I'm ready to cry. It's those moments that I have to remind myself "I prayed for this, I prayed for this, I prayed for this..." I'd compare it to spiritual prison camp, but maybe that's going a bit too far. Maybe spiritual boot camp...

Thankfully, I do have moments where my One Personal Trainer shouts down from on high with words of encouragement, or at least a small break from the madness before it starts up again. "You're doing a good job! Try the exercise this way it might work better, or move your feet to this spot, and you'll get a better result. Dig Deep, keep it up!" It's those moments when I feel like the training is worth it, and I remind myself that "I prayed for this, I prayed for this, I prayed for this."

Happy Mother's Day

In my efforts to be a good and kind, loving person I often fall short. Here is an example....I missed Mother's Day. I'm apologizing publicly to my Mother for failing to send a card, or to call. I don't have a good excuse except that I was recovering from running a half-marathon the day before and was caught up in my own activities. LAME EXCUSE...I know, but there you have it.

I've been thinking about what I could do for my Mother that would make up for my extreme lameness, and what I came up with is this...One blog entry a week for the year. She has been hinting that she misses me, and my blog.

So week one, and I'm sorry it's so short Ma, I'm trying to get dinner on, and get to Stake Conference, and Mr. Bergholm is out of town, so I'm flying solo...the timer is going off to get the pizza out of the oven, Anders is screaming because he just fell down, and Liam is probably off somewhere free peeing, or drawing on the wall...

I love you MOM. Happy Mother's Day.