MS Walk Adventure

The morning proved to be a great adventure for all of us.. riding the glass elevator and watching the traffic from the skywalk, stopping to talk to a big white bear that was collecting money for a new non-profit that donates diapers, walking along the fountains and sculptures downtown, going up to the top floor of the parking ramp to look out and see how far we could see.

We bundled up in layers, and I carried a backpack filled with water and bunny snacks and spinning toys and bubbles and hats and gloves and blankets.  We turned in our money and got our picture taken with the mayor and some some other "important people."  We dressed in orange and picked up a new 2012 MS Walk t-shirt for Sam.  (Eva wore last year's shirt pulled down over her coat.)   Sam ate a peanut-free donut and Eva scarfed down two bananas.  I managed to recognize Tracy and Andy and their boys so we could take a Sam's Squad LaCrosse team picture.  Everything was as good as could be considering the forecast for sleet.  The rain was supposed to end just before the 10 am start.  And when we filed out the big doors with all the other walkers, we were hopeful.  The light rain looked more like a mist.  But soon other walkers popped open umbrellas and pulled on disposable see-through rain ponchos and the rain didn't look like it was going to let up.  We were prepared for cold but not for rain.   After a 1/2 a mile of listening to "Why is it raining?  I don't want it to rain.  I don't want to get wet.  How come we have to get wet,"  while Sam hung on the stroller that seemed to be dragging at a glacial pace, I made the decision to loop us back to donate some cash to the polar bear and ride the glass elevator back up to the top of the parking ramp and see what other fun things we could find to do.

We didn't walk the whole thing, but that wasn't the point.  When we were riding home and Sammy told me from the back seat that he saw a lot of people in wheel chairs at the MS Walk and that he hopes we can find a cure so they don't have to use wheelchairs any more, I knew we were doing important stuff as a family. So proud of my boy.

Thanks to everyone for their generous donations!

Earth Day 2012

We started our morning peeling back the germination cover on the seeds that we planted last week.  We now have dozens of little basil, cilantro, and tomato plants leaning towards the sunlight coming in through the dining room sliding door.  Our sunny morning walk was shorter than we expected because of the windy cool chill in the air and a toddler that spent most of the time wanting to be where she wasn't... from riding in the wagon to walking behind the wagon to riding her big brother's trike to being carried by Mommy.  Up, down. In, out. Sam enjoyed looking for interesting seeds and bugs and rocks along the roadside, but it wasn't until we were safely back in our own yard that Mommy really enjoyed the outdoors.  Out of the wind and down on our knees weeding the gardens around the rose bushes we found worms and pill bugs and crickets and beetles and ants... all of which were much more interesting under the magnifying glass.

Reverberations

My sister and I used to stay out in the driveway with my father long after the sun had gone down and the chill had returned to the air. We would bounce and dribble and bang the ball against the backboard mounted just below our bedroom windows, and the whole house would reverberate. Sometimes my mother would join us, challenging my father to hit as many free throws in a row as she did. We would play Around the World and HORSE, the cold ball almost painful in our hands, until we could barely see the ball anymore and we’d head inside to eat ice cream and watch Telly Sevalas or James Garner or Carol O’Connor.

In general I don’t think of our single parent family as missing anything, of being different from any other family. I drop my kids at daycare or pre-school and go to work. I come home at the end of the day and cook something resembling dinner and shove food in to their mouths. While they run around and destroy the living room I rinse spaghetti sauce off dishes and sweep up blueberries and mop up milk and place the errant shoes and coats back in the foyer near the garage.  I get down on the carpet and do puzzles and play tickle monster and ride in imaginary spaceships while aliens try to catch us.  I change diapers and pull off dirty clothes and replace them with clean (although probably stained) pajamas.  I read books about furry kittens and the colors of the rainbow before rocking Eva and placing her in her crib.  I do Lego and Tinkertoys and drawing games with Sam before reading his three bedtime books, books that lately have been about animals-- sea tortoises and poison frogs and jelly fish.  I stand my ground when he begs to stay up for one more story or one more bedtime snack or one more drink of water.  I change cat litter and heap laundry into the washing machine and dig through piles of unsorted clean laundry looking for matching pink socks for the next morning. Once in a while I remember to bathe my children or trim their growing nails.

And during all of this, not for one second do I think that our family is missing anything.

But lately I’ve been reading blogs and watching other 4-year-olds, and when I lay in bed at night trying to fall asleep I feel a pang of something resembling sadness.  On my friends blogs I see fathers who have time to toss a ball to their son and teach him to catch.  I see fathers who play basketball out in the driveway for long stretches, dribbling and tossing and lifting their kids up to the net.  I see fathers bent over holding hockey sticks while their kids guard the goal.  Is Sam missing out because I simply don’t have time to give any more, because there are two of them and one of me?  I want my children to know the love of sport that my father taught me.  I want my children to stay out long past bedtime throwing a cold baseball into worn gloves or swinging tennis rackets at balls they can barely see.  I want my children to be part of family that plays.

I know my memory of my childhood is probably more idyllic than reality, but is there anything wrong with wanting my children to have the idyllic memory too?  Why is it that as parents we want to give our children everything right now?  I have to remind myself that Sam has years ahead of him to learn ball and chase his sister in the cold grass as the sun goes down.  He’s four.  And if he doesn’t play ball until he’s 7 or 8 or 10, it doesn’t mean he’s behind or that he won’t ever have the same love of sport and family and cool spring air that my father instilled in me.  In the mean time I’ve signed him up for T-ball and I’ve upgraded our faded plastic basketball hoop and I’m ready to admit that I’m really missing my dad.

This story originally appeared here.

Home

 A weekend at home.

Impromptu Adventure

 

 "Mommy," Sam said.  "We're having an adventure and Eva is coming along!"

We had just come from a quick jog along the sidewalk near the railroad tracks and we were winding along the river heading towards Perrot State Park.  It turns out that when you file electronically in Wisconsin and you paid your taxes in Minnesota, you STILL have to mail in a form that explains that you filed with another state and here are all the supporting documents.  (I sure miss reciprocity.)  But a Saturday morning trip to the post office (in our pajamas) turned into an impromptu adventure, and we ended up spending an hour in the woods touching moss and peeking in to caves and collecting acorns and knocking on hollow dead logs and hugging really large trees.  I think the highlight was the old water pump we discovered near the parking lot after we finished the trail.  Eva was glad to just be standing in one place rather than having to chase after Sammy on soft, wet, uneven ground, and Sam, as always, wanted to know why it was there and how it worked.

 

 

Easter Road Trip

 

Kelly and Eva at the Milwaukee Zoo

As we drove over the skyway bridge on I-90 east of Chicago, I tried to get Sammy's attention by pointing out Lake Michigan to the north.

"But I can't look for very long," I said, "My tummy doesn't like being up high.  My tummy doesn't like this."

"My tummy thinks it's pretty cool!" Sam said.

We had left Muskego around 9am, and we were closing in on lunch time and both of my kids were calm and quiet in the back seat despite two hours of tense Chicago traffic and nothing to eat but a bag of Pepperidge Farm goldfish.  I was trying to entertain Sam, anticipating the whining and meltdown that were sure to come as he and his sister started to get hungry and tired.  Thankfully. that moment never came and despite MY tiring of the car, the kids were real champs during our whirlwind Easter trip to Milwaukee and then on to Kalamazoo.

 On our last night at Aunt Judy and Uncle Ron's as Sam and I lay in the daybed whispering so that we wouldn't wake Eva (who was in a pack n' play a few feet away), I reminded Sam to be quiet, but he couldn't. He just had something that he had to tell me.

"My favorite favorite favorite part of today was Uncle Johnny on the swings!"

 

Considering the day included football and baseball and bubbles and wrestling and a dance party and strawberry shortcake and mudpies and an Easter egg hunt that will live in his memory for eternity, the fact that his favorite thing was Uncle Johnny says a lot.

 You can see more pictures from our trip here, but the antics of Uncle Johnny are best enjoyed in video form:

Little Pieces of Me

 

Fools Five with Sarah

 

Three deep red lines wrap around my wrist, and although I’ve tucked them underneath the band of my Polar heart rate monitor, the sweat and constant motion have moved them up on my arm. I’m approaching mile marker 4 and I can hear Freebird blasting from an old country farm house on the right side of County Road 29. I wrapped the red string around my wrist last Tuesday night during an informal gathering for a friend preparing to have her second child. She was less than a week from her due date and her first child had been born two weeks early, so we were all surprised to be sitting there with her, still not knowing whether her second child was a boy or girl.

This wasn’t the first mother blessing I’d been to. My friends had thankfully forced me to have one the week before Eva was born and many of my friends have since had their second child. I’ve witnessed candle burning and feet washing and lavender rubbing. I’ve told stories and presented beads and read excerpts from The Prophet. I’ve listened to prayers and sung songs and visualized easy births and smooth transitions. Every blessing has been different, tailored to the mommy-to-be. During our speeches to Robyn I admitted that I hadn’t brought anything to read and no beads to present, but it was important to me to be there. I told the story of how Robyn had stopped at my house during a training ride last summer, how she had gotten off her bike and clip-clopped in to get some water, the back of her legs wet and covered with the dirt that had spun up at her during her 100+ miles of biking. She was the picture of strength, and she told me she was anxious about her upcoming triathlon. It was hard to believe that someone as strong and prepared and together as Robyn could ever have any doubt that she could do anything.

Before we stood in a circle and wrapped the red string around our wrists one at a time but after we’d all told Robyn how much we admire her strength, she showed us that she still had the string from Joy’s blessing on her wrist.  We were sitting in Joy’s living room, her two-week-old daughter quietly asleep in the arms of another mother while Joy made sure we all got sparkling apple juice and homemade berry pie.  Robyn told us all how she had accidentally cut through her livestrong bracelet when she cut off the hospital wristband after her son was born 2 and ½ years ago.

“I hadn’t taken it off for 5 years before that,” she said, “And just like that it was gone.  I guess it meant I was starting a new chapter of my life.”

I thought about this and how becoming a mother had meant putting so much of my own stuff on hold, how I’d nearly stopped reading and writing and running, how finding any time for myself meant I had to steal it in tiny snippets in between laundry and dishes and diapers changes, how only now as Eva’s on the verge of turning 18 months old I’m just starting to return to those little pieces of me that have been scattered.

As County Road 29 becomes Fremont Street, I jog the slight incline and come around the corner on to Main Street.  People line the sidewalks and at the top of the hill I can hear them announcing runners’ names as they cross the finish line.

Robyn headed to the hospital the next morning, and I got an email just after midnight telling me that her daughter had been born, that Robyn was once again entering in to another new life chapter. 

I push myself faster, the muscles in my calves pulling, my heart pounding strong within my chest, as the distance to the finish closes.  I glance down to check the time as I cross the finish line, and once again I see the wet red string around my wrist, a string that reminds me of my friend and her strength and my own determination to make small commitments to myself this year.  I have no intention of cutting it any time soon.

This story originally appeared here.

Getting Noticed

I woke up at 1am this morning, and after peeing and getting a drink of water, I laid down and began tossing and turning.  When I had gone to bed, Sam's peanut allergy had not even been on my radar, but somehow those middle of the night sleep cycles bring the subconscious mind to the surface, and from 1am until 3am I flipped and kicked and wrestled with my blanket as I composed emails to his school.

He came home with another piece of non-peanut-friendly candy yesterday.  On Tuesdays and Thursdays another mother from our daycare picks him up, so I didn't get all the details, but Jamie handed me a little blue plastic egg with a chocolate bunny inside, and we stood on the sidewalk and discussed our disbelief.  The other mother who had done the preschool-to-daycare shuttle earlier in the day arrived and she handed me a bag of peanut-friendly candy, "because I felt bad for Sammy."  Sammy's eyes lit up and I reminded him to thank Pandy, and then we three mothers again talked about how it made no sense that this was still happening.

At 2:30am I finally got out of bed and went to my computer.  I opened up Microsoft Word and typed NOTICE in big bold letters at the top of the page.  I wrote a brief note about how there is a child in this classroom that has a peanut allergy and that peanut allergies can be fatal.  I asked for help in keeping my child safe and I included a list of peanut friendly snacks for parents who want to bring treats in to the classroom.  I then composed an email to Sam's teacher and attached the document.  I told her I didn't think the gentle reminder in last month's newsletter had been enough, and could we perhaps post this NOTICE outside Sam's classroom and include a copy in all the kid's cubbies?  At 2:58am I hit the send button.

At 7am I was secretly dreading our arrival at school, a little nervous about having to discuss the issue with Sam's teacher, afraid of being "the difficult mom."  But before we even got to his classroom I saw a bright yellow copy of the NOTICE posted beside the classroom door.  And as I helped Sammy take off his coat and hang it on the hook below his name, another parent set down the pile of papers in her hand while she helped her daughter.  On the top of her pile was a yellow copy of the same document, the big bold letters at the top saying NOTICE.  I peeked in the classroom and saw Mrs. Heather sitting at her desk smiling, and I waved and said thank you.

Only after I got in my car did the relief and gratitude bring tears to my eyes.  I'm still learning how to navigate the world as a peanut allergy mom, and I'm so grateful to those around me who support me in keeping my child safe.