Free at last

Something very exciting is happening this week.

I've been counting down the days and circling this date in red on my calendar.

The waiting and watching and wishing is almost finally over!

Drumroll please...

My six month Boot Camp gym membership expires this Friday!!!!

(Fireworks! Trumpets! A chorus of Hallelujahs!)

If that isn't enough to bust out some Martina McBride and sing Let Freedom Ring at the top of your lungs, I don't know what is.

The relief is palpable.

I want to be clear, a lot of people really like this gym. I liked this gym...at first. I wouldn't want anyone to not check out this gym because of my personal feelings. It's just... I realized after a few months of it, it's simply not for me.

It's not the exercise, don't get me wrong. I have been very committed to exercise in various forms for over two decades. I actually like to be active and feel healthy and fit. I have not stopped exercising since my attendance at this class progressively dwindled down to zero. I have just gone back to methods of working out that I know work better for me. Because you see, this class taught me something very important.

At forty-five-almost-forty-six there are some things I am not willing accept anymore in the name of fitness.

They are, in no particular order:

1. Burpees.

2. Sprinting up hills.

3. Burpees.

4. Push-ups on street corners.

5. Burpees.

6. Running outside.

7. Burpees.

8. Running, period (for any distance beyond the width of a tennis court).

9. Burpees.

10. Being scolded for talking too much to my friend because we are affecting the "focus" of others when the music is at approximately a gazillion decibels and no one can hear anything beyond a two foot radius. (Eye roll).

11. Burpees

I think by now you have picked up on my main hot button issue. Because the truth is, I would have probably stuck with it even with #'s 2, 6, 8 and 10 But #'s 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, and 11 are non-negotiables.

There is really no greater indignity than the physical act of burpees. I will do planks, mountain climbers, push ups (just not on street corners), or squats until the cows come home (which could take a long time since I don't have any cows).

But burpees....shudder. 

Tell me to do 10 burpees in a row and you are risking eliciting something really scary from me. Like an icy stare. Or a dramatic sigh. Or visibly slumped shoulders and tears in my eyes. (I don't have much of a "scary" repertoire. Passive-aggressive is about all I can muster).

Still, it isn't pretty. Nor is me doing burpees.

So, that's it. My burpee days are done. And as God as my witness, I will never perform another burpee as long as I live. Even if I were to join some other class or gym or suddenly enlist in the military... I swear on Buddy the Elf himself that I will simply say, "No", should someone ever again try to tell me to hit the floor and crank out some burpees.

And if I have to, I'll top that off with a, "You can't make me."

'Cause you can't.

We also call him Coach

I have yet to find the man, however exalted his station,

who did not do better work and put forth greater effort

under a spirit of approval than under a spirit of criticism.

~Charles Schwab

We call him Superdad because he's, well, pretty super. He's a super hard worker, he's super patient, he's super positive, and he can make a super duper grilled cheese sandwich. But what you might not know is that among all of those other super qualities, he is also a super coach.

I don't think I always knew to appreciate the fact that my kids grew up having their dad coach the majority of their sports teams. Ben has coached 14 years of soccer (some of those were spent coaching two teams at the same time) and somewhere around 12 years of baseball. He has coached little kids and big kids, boys and girls, winning teams and not-so-winning teams. But there are still players to this day who, when bumping into him at the grocery store, or down at our neighborhood village, will see him and call out, "Hey, Coach!" 

You don't know to be grateful for all of the great coaches out there until you encounter the not-so-great coaches. Sometimes it would be the coach of our opposing team who would leave me wishing I could gather up all those other little players and bring them onto our side. Coaches who scream, who belittle, who yell profanities and encourage their players not just to play hard, but to play with the intention to harm. And then there are the coaches whose offenses are more subtle. They are disinterested and unengaged. They don't really know the sport and they don't care to learn. They are the coaches who don't really care if the kids grow as players or as people. 

Sadly, these coaches exist. Thankfully, they are in the minority.

Soccer is really Superdad's sport, but he learned to be a good baseball coach, too. He learned by watching other good coaches and offering to be their assistant when our kids were young. He never minded being the co-pilot and enjoyed the camaraderie coaching with other like-minded men whose goal was as much to model good character as it was to build a winning team.

Superdad has won some championships in his time as Coach, but more importantly he has helped to raise champions. He never allowed foul language or poor sportsmanship on his teams. He made sure all his players played and felt valued. And he modeled an appropriate competitive spirit by ending every game with a smile, pats on the back and encouraging words regardless of the outcome.

The other day we heard about a coach who, while viewing the film of the previous game, called out a single player as being solely responsible for the goal that lost the game. Not only is it rare in soccer that one player can truly be identified as the lone weak link in the string of events that lead to a goal, but my mother's heart couldn't help but lurch in response to such an overt act of humiliation by a coach. But I'll admit that in my head I thought to myself, "I don't know...it's really competitive at this level now. Maybe that's what coaches do." It wasn't what I would do but, heck, I'm not a coach.

But my heart's response was vindicated when I saw Superdad shake his head and then heard him mutter,

You praise publicly, you correct privately.

And I was reminded yet again why parents loved having their kids on his team. Because he knows what it means to be a coach. He knows how you talk to kids. He knows what motivates a kid and what just tears him down. He knows that being a coach is really about being a leader and the basic principles of good leadership apply whether you are running a business or trying to get 8 year olds to kick a ball down a field. You communicate, you affirm, you inspire, you teach, and every once in awhile you get a rousing game of Sharks and Minnows going- because you gotta have some fun.

Superdad's coaching days may be winding down. He got to coach Tim longer than we anticipated when he was asked to assist on his club team last year, but this year Tim will be moving on to a higher level and we will turn him over to a new club, a new team, and a new coach. We feel good about what we have seen from this new coach, but it still feels like an act of faith. Because like teachers, pastors, music instructors, and so many other adult mentors we bring into our kid's lives, coaches can have a dramatic impact for better or worse on the development of these young minds and spirits.

Synonyms for coach: guide, counsel, lead, mentor, shepherd, show, instruct

The best coaches are those who truly understand the power they wield and they do so consciously and carefully. Sports will not always feel fair but it should never feel unjust. Players may not always get what they want but they should always be treated with respect. And my personal belief is that when you are coaching kids below the college level, the development of the person should be as much of a priority as the development of the player. Actually, I believe that should be true at any level of sports, but that's just me.

So, this is my little tribute to our Coach. A thank you for the countless hours he has given not only to our own kids, but to the dozens and dozens and dozens of other kids he has tried to encourage and motivate along the way. I know it hasn't always been easy. I know there have been kids and parents who pushed you to the limits of your patience. I know you reach the end of every season exhausted and spent but also sad to see it end. I see how much you give and it is so very appreciated.

We call him Coach, because that's what he is. Always.

Freedom

The minute I stopped caring about what other people thought and started doing what I wanted to do, is the minute I finally felt free. 

~Phil Dunphy

The school year has officially begun.

And I have a cold. 

The cold started a few days ago with a mighty sore throat which fizzled into sneezing, watery eyes and a runny nose, and now I feel mostly fine (sorta, kinda) except I sound like I am walking around with a clothespin on my nose. 

It's that voice where when people ask, "How are you?" and you mumble something about "having a little bit of a cold", they tilt their heads, take a few steps back and say..."Yeah. You sound like it."

Sorry about that, everyone I have spoken to or come in contact with in the last 24 hours.

But in spite of all that, I was up with plenty of time to get Annie up and ready, feed her something that resembled breakfast (none of my kids are good breakfast eaters), make her lunch, take a first day of school picture AND get to school ON TIME. BAM!

That is some stellar parenting right there, People. 

On. Time. Day 1 and we are batting a 1,000!!

Even Annie said as we pulled up to the parking lot and saw millions of uniformed children still running around the playground waiting to go inside, "Wow! We aren't even late!"

That's right, Sister. Mom is going all out this year.

I was riding high on the euphoria of our on-time arrival right up to the moment I started looking around at all of the other beaming, on-time moms and dads. Okay, mostly the moms...I don't care what the dads are doing. 

I'll tell you what they were doing. They were looking showered, freshly coiffed (yep, coiffed) and dressed in clothes that can only be described as an "outfit" is what they were doing.

Standing out in the parking lot this didn't strike me as too much of a big deal. The children were creating a huge distraction and were still the focal point of all those cameras, cellphone cameras and iPads (Seriously, who are you people who take photos with an iPad? I'm sorry but I fail to see how holding up something the size of a small television to take a picture is a step forward in technology). We were just a sea of parents waving goodbye to our little lemmings as they marched off the cliff.

But once all those little cuties disappeared into the building, the smoke and mirrors were gone. Poof. 

All of the parents started dutifully moving toward the church where the First Day Parent Coffee Get Out Your Checkbooks And Sign Up For Stuff Thingy was going on. That's when my skirted yoga pants, clunky running shoes, and going-on-day-two-without-a-shower-hair became a bit more of a liability. Inside that church hall it became glaringly evident that most parents felt showering and getting dressed (not only dressed, but dressed cute) was part of the First Day of School regimen.

Rats. I missed that memo.

There was a time this might have really bothered me. There was a time I wondered why I couldn't quite manage to be as pulled together as those other moms. There was a time when I might have left that gathering worried about the impression I had made and given myself a good 15 minute lecture on the way home (even though it's only two minutes to get home, but I would have sat in the car for the extra 13 minutes finishing my talking-to) about how it really should not be that hard to get up in time to shower and look presentable on your child's first day of school.

There was a time....but not anymore.

One of the things I've learned over this past year as I have tried to live with heightened awareness of my children's growing, changing, learning and eventually leaving is that as they are doing all of that growing, changing and learning, hopefully we are too.  And somewhere along the line in these 18 years of growing, I stopped worrying about little stuff like dropping off your kid in workout clothes and possibly picking her up still wearing those same workout clothes. 

I don't think you ever want to get to a place where you truly don't care what other people think of you. Because if you take that to it's furthest extreme that is really the root of narcissism. Of course we need to care about the feelings, perceptions and perspectives of others. We need to care insofar that we don't go around offending people and behaving like boors and showing up at weddings in a tube top. But while I applaud those moms today who had freshly washed hair, cute cropped jeans and the perfect top (I really do, I don't know how you do it), I don't feel badly that mom wasn't me today. 

It might be me tomorrow. You just never know.

But, seriously, don't hold your breath...

Lost and Found

One of the many hats I wear is that of substitute teacher at my daughter's school. Long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away I received my Masters in Teaching and spent one year as a full time teacher before moving on to my next career as a full time mom.  Many moons later I have been lucky to get to put my toe back into the profession that was always as natural for me as breathing.

The unique advantage I have in my situation is that I have chosen to only substitute teach at my daughter's K-8 school. This has given me the opportunity to really get to know all of the kids in the school. I know each of them by name (even if I occasionally mix them up now and then...there are a lot of them) and it's a real advantage as a substitute when you can walk in a classroom and immediately be on a first-name basis with the kids.

Recently, I had a moment of triumph when I was unexpectedly called in to sub in the jr. high because a teacher suddenly fell ill. The kids weren't anticipating having sub since they had seen the regular teacher there earlier in the day so they were surprised to find me standing at the front of the room. But I won't lie, I was pretty pumped when one of the 8th grade boys walked in and looked at me quizzically and said, "Are you subbing today?" Upon hearing that I was indeed going to be at the helm for the afternoon he thrust his fist in the air and said, "Yes!"

Now, that could have been because having a last second sub in jr. high usually means some version of study hall and a chance to get your homework done early but still...I decided to take it is a compliment. With that age group you have to take what you can get.

The last few weeks I have had several opportunities to spend the day on the opposite side of the school building with our littlest students. Anyone who knows me knows that in the depths of my teacher's heart my affection lies with the primary grades, even though I have grown to enjoy different aspects of all the grades (another advantage of being a sub-you get to see it all). So, I'm not kidding when I say that I really do enjoy teaching the Kindergartners...but...

Lately, as we get closer and closer to the end of the school year, days in Kindergarten have started to feel like feeding time at the zoo...for six hours straight.

Last Friday, as I was watching the clock and willing it to inch closer and closer to dismissal time I noticed one my little peanuts had tears welling up in her eyes. Some of her loyal little friends rushed up to me clearly in a state of utter panic.

Mrs. S! Gracie can't find Pink!

I needed clarification.

Wait. What? She can't find Pink? What or who is Pink?

Looking at me like everyone should know who Pink is they cried in unison:

Her baby doll! 

And then they all fell all over themselves trying to make the urgency of the situation abundantly clear.

She sleeps with Pink every night! She's had her since she was baby! She never goes to bed without Pink! It's the most important thing in the world to her!!

I pride myself on staying pretty cool under pressure but even I was picking up on the fact that this was a BIG deal.

Search parties were formed. Backpacks were dumped out. Children were crawling under tables and chairs. All while poor Gracie became increasingly inconsolable.

Wiping the sweat from my brow, I looked at the clock and saw we were mere seconds from the final bell of the day. We had no choice but to start gathering everything back together at lightning speed and get ourselves out to the carline. I've noticed Kindergarten parents in particular get concerned when their small children don't appear at the end of the day so I was now focused on not being the cause of unnecessary heart palpitations for 25 parents out in the parking lot.

I held little Gracie's hand as we walked down the hallway and assured her I was going to turn the classroom upside down until I found Pink and that once I did I would bring her to her house.

She was still weepy and looked skeptical but I could see she was trying to be brave.

Gracie was being picked up by another mom so I went up to her and gave her the news as calmly as I could. I didn't quite know what to say but figured it was best to just give it to her straight.

We can't find Pink. 

Her eyes flew open wide in terror. She literally grabbed my shoulders and said in a restrained whisper,

Dear God, NO!

I nodded solemnly.

It's true. We looked everywhere but I'll keep searching.

She patted my shoulder gravely, her eyes weary with resignation, and told me she'd be praying my quest for Pink would be successful.

At that point, so was I.

I went back to the classroom and enlisted my daughter's help to search the room. My own child was tired, hungry and ready to go home but when I told her it would be like losing her own precious Pinky Bear she was eager to help.

I knew they had been playing in the Kitchen Area during Centers and figured Pink must have been a central feature of their game of House so I concentrated my efforts in that general area.

And then I saw a little, dirty pink foot poking up out of the rubble of a tub of blocks.

I'm not ashamed to say, I shrieked.

Pink!

Annie and I both did a little dance around the classroom feeling victorious and relieved at having fulfilled our rescue mission.

I realized then though that I wasn't sure if I was going to have to leave Pink on their front porch. It was starting to sprinkle a little so I went in search of a plastic bag to put her in.

I found a group of teachers standing out in the hallway so I inquired if any of them might have a bag I could put the doll in.

One of the teachers wrinkled her nose and said, "What is that??" (I will admit, Pink does look like she's seen better days. Well loved toys usually do.)

I quickly explained it was Gracie's special doll and it had been lost but, thank goodness, I found her. I'm pretty sure I was beaming, still basking in the glow of victory.

Another teacher said, "Why did she even have it at school?"

I was a little confused then because at that point it seemed irrelevant to the good news of something so precious having been lost and now found.

I told them that in Kindergarten the children are allowed to play with an appropriate toy from home during Center time at the end of the day (they are five- remember?)

I asked again if anyone had a plastic bag because I wanted to be able to take it to her house and wasn't sure if they'd be home. I didn't want to just leave Pink lying on the front porch at the mercy of the elements. She may not be much to look at but I wasn't going to be responsible for her ending up soaking wet.

One of the teachers disappeared into her classroom to get a ziploc bag and another one looked at me half-smiling and said, "You're too nice, Lori."

I just grinned as I made sure Pink was safely tucked into the bag and shrugged.

When I got to Gracie's house, her older brother and a friend were playing in the front yard. When they saw me, her brother asked excitedly,

Did you find her??

I held up the bag triumphantly and he went tearing into the house yelling,

Gracie! Mom! Mrs. S. found Pink!! She's here! She's here!

Gracie's mom and I met at the door at the same time and without hesitation she folded me into a huge hug. Over her shoulder I saw little Gracie peeking around the corner smiling shyly with red-rimmed, puffy eyes.

I handed her Pink and felt a little teary myself as I watched her squeeze that ratty baby doll close and heard her whisper to me,

Thank you.

I knew within that household, for a moment, peace had been restored. Redemption had found a sad little girl and a worried, tired mama and hopefully everyone would be able to sleep that night.

I know that I, myself, slept like a baby, completely comfortable with having allowed myself to be consumed by a small child's sorrow, a lost baby doll and the journey to see them reunited.

I'd do it again in a minute.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
** Names have been changed to protect the innocent. Except Pink. She really is just Pink and I'm hoping she is okay with having starred in this little narrative.

*** This is not intended to be a criticism of the other teachers. They teach older kids and sometimes when you don't work with the little ones you forget what issues are very real to that age group. Everyone is also a little war-torn by this time of the year. That is another thing I enjoy about being a sub- I always get to see things with fresh eyes and don't get as worn down by facing the same mini-dramas day in and day out.

And just like that

With the arrival of the telltale large, white envelope from "The Office of Admissions"...

....and this letter containing the most glorious greeting we could have asked for....

...suddenly we have a child bound for college in the Fall of 2013.

We are still 9 months out from our official launch, but I'm happy to say...I think he'll be ready.

I hope I am.

Teenage Boys are from Mars

I gotta say... Superdad and I have really stepped up our game.

We are both on the same page of demanding encouraging more responsibility and participation in household chores from our crew and all of our nagging effort is really starting pay off.

Dishes are routinely being cleared to the sink.  We are working on Step 2- putting the dishes in the dishwasher- which we've discovered will require a series of home management lessons entitled: How to Determine if the Dishes in the Dishwasher are Clean or Dirty. Who knew that was such a puzzle?

Timothy appears to have established his own once-a-day routine for gathering all of his water bottles and garbage from the downstairs and depositing them into the appropriate receptacles.  Once-a-day is totally A-Okay with me.

While Annie and I were spending time with family on the Other Side of the Mountains again, the boys were given the responsibility of keeping the pup adequately exercised and loved. They performed their duties admirably and seem to have developed a deeper bond with our fluffy, funny guy as a result.

We have yet to tackle meal planning and preparation but those tasks will be easier to incorporate into our routine once we have a routine again. In other words, once school starts.

So, I'll say it again...we are making progress around here!

But part of being able to celebrate these baby steps toward greater independence is accepting that success may not always look exactly the way you envisioned.

After our "failure to communicate" and providing a bit more "education" as to what a clean room entails, Jack promised he would give it another go in the very near future. True to his word, I received a text while I was away, complete with photos, of his new and improved room.  Not only did Jack make great strides in getting his room picked up and reorganized, he went one step further and cleaned out his closet and dresser of all the clothes that no longer fit him. When he informed me that he had a bag of clothes ready to be donated, I sent him back a text telling him where he could take the clothes and drop them off.  Next thing I know, I receive another text informing me that the donation drop off was complete.

I told him, You know what that's called, Jack? Finishing the job!! Woohoo!!

I'm not sure his level of enthusiasm matched mine.

The photos of his freshly cleaned room were definitely a pleasure to behold. I particularly appreciated that he included a shot of his windowsill, devoid of plastic bottles and soda cups. He really hit all the angles so I could see that he hadn't just piled all of the garbage into a corner and then photographed the rest of his room.

The kicker is that in the process of cleaning his room, Jack also decided to do a little rearranging of his furniture.  This has occurred several times over the years and I am always impressed with his creativity for coming up with new arrangements in a relatively small space.  A particular favorite of mine was when he came up with Mega-Bed which involved pushing his two twin beds together and turning the mattresses horizontally across both beds, resulting in a quasi-queen-size bed.  It didn't look comfortable to me but he left it that way for a good six months, so he must have thought it was just fine.

But this new layout really takes the cake.

Standing in the doorway of his room you wouldn't find anything amiss...

But take a few more steps into his room and you would know for certain that you are in the dwelling place of a teenage boy.

Because a teenage boy, and ONLY a teenage boy, would think that this is a good idea...

For the record

It seems only fair to the three baby birds to clarify at this point that it is not as though they have never heard the word "chore" in their lives. They are decently self-sufficient on the basics in their own lives.  We do not tie their shoes, we don't do their homework for them and they have, in fact, already performed many of the tasks on the Countdown list (but they could stand to be a bit more proficient).  Our kids have always been expected to be helpful when asked. Frankly, we are the ones who have been a little lax on the asking part. Anytime I hear parents lamenting their children's lack of helpfulness, or responsibility, I always want to say, If you want to know who is really to blame, look in the mirror.  Which is what I say to myself, too. 

Kids will be kids, which means they will be as lazy and self-centered as they are allowed to be. I don't know who those super-human kids are that you see on the Today show who wake up one day and decide, completely without adult intervention or involvement, to sell all of their worldly belongings for the sake of some heartwrenching cause- but they aren't my kids.  My kids are just your average, everyday, middle-class American kids. They are polite to adults, well-behaved in school (most of the time), decent to their siblings, 90% respectful of their parents and do not appear to be on track to have a criminal record at any point in their lives.  They are good kids, but they are kids. They tend to think more about what they want for themselves than what they can do for others. They will avoid hard work if at all possible unless there is a clear benefit to themselves. They will comply with any direct request/command but rarely feel the need to instigate helpfulness on their own. They are kids.

But, when I have my eyes open to potential and possibilities rather then limitations and lack- I do see many signs of hope that the seeds we hoped to plant are slowly taking root.

You know how there are some basic household tasks that are so mundane, so obvious, that you wonder how it is possible that you still have to remind the young people in your life to do them every single time? Clearing one's dishes is one of those tasks to me.  How is it not immediately evident that one should not leave one's plate/bowl/cup/bag of tortilla chips/half-eaten bowl of salsa on the counter for someone else and/or the magic fairies to clear? And, how it is not especially evident when you have been reminded/asked/threatened to clear said items at least a million times before?!?

Well, in the last six months, Timothy has single-handedly begun to restore my sanity on this issue. I'm embarrassed to say that it took me a little while to notice, and he provided no fanfare to his newfound dish discipline, but one day I watched him finish his lunch, pick up his dishes and carefully clear them to the sink.  Then, as my jaw fell to the floor, he even asked, Are the dishes dirty or clean? When informed that they were dirty, he placed his dishes in the dishwasher (incorrectly, but I was wise enough to let that go for the moment). And from that point on, I noticed that 99% of the time now he peforms the same mind-blowing routine. 

There you go, folks. When they tell you that you will have to teach your kids the same thing several times before they are able to master it, what they really should tell you is that you may have to teach your kids the same thing a million times before they master it- but then they will. 

Patience + Perseverence = dirty dishes in the diswasher

Next up: What happens when the dishwasher is full of clean dishes?!?! I'll let you stew on that one for a bit because apparently it's a head scratcher.  I know that my kids are completely stumped.