Surviving Summer Break

Nothing makes a school aged child happier than the thought of summer break, that wonderful 3 month hiatus from all things related to school.

As the person responsible for driving said child back and forth to school every day which takes 45-50 minutes daily or a total of almost 4 hours a week simply transporting, I should be thankful as well. Instead, I am now forced to find things to occupy the time of the soon to be second grader and to play referee to keep him and his 2 year old sister from fighting and yelling at each other all day long.

Sidenote, I thought the sibling crap wouldn't start til much later but they each seem to enjoy making the other one as aggravated as possible.

One of those lovely peaceful sibling moments ... fleeting just like the sunlight behind them

We had our summer vacation immediately after school let out and spent a week on the beach in Pensacola. The timing was perfect as it wasn't so hot as to be miserable AND the children hadn't spent so much time together as to be completely on each other's nerves ... yet. Had we waited til later in the summer, I don't think anyone would have enjoyed it as much as we are now firmly stuck in the desperation of "when will school start again??

Apparently it is frowned on to leave one's children buried in the sand to their waists so we HAD to pull them out

I wish I was one of those really creative mommies, like my next door neighbor who invited Gremlin over the other day to do science experiments with her kids. I really need to be more like that but let's be honest - that's just not me.

I have attempted to plan at least one adventure a week even if that adventure is something as simple as using our season passes to Six Flags Hurricane Harbor. I also enrolled Gremlin in a piano camp for the week after vacation which led him to declare that he wants to start piano. Now we have a fine digital instrument upstairs and a task that I can send him off to do every day when I am nearing my wit's end of Power Rangers, PlayStation and iPad.

Now most are likely thinking, why stay inside? Go out and enjoy the beauty of nature! That sounds all good and well but we now live in the Republic of Insanely Hot Summer (a.k.a. Texas).  I would love to get out and enjoy the outdoors, but there is nothing I want to do less when it's 95+ degrees and humid than stand outside and sweat. With hardly a tree or shade to be found, one can't even go down a slide without fear of ending up with 2nd degree burns. I know I'm not the only child who once learned that lesson on a metal slide while growing up

This will be a lesson to me for next summer when I can only assume that the sibling "let's drive each other crazy" issues will be even worse.  I need a gameplan for activities and perhaps some inexpensive camps to keep everyone sane. Of course as Gremlin doesn't return to school until September, there is still time to become a better summer mom and plan better. I'll add that to my list of things like exercising and dieting that I really need to get to. :)

In the mean time, there is plenty of coffee to be had and lots of space in the home for separating the warring children and most important of all - a two year old who still takes a long nap each afternoon and gives us all a rest from the constants yells of "No! That's MINE!" and "Stop it! It's MINE!"

Momma and her "little" Gremlin

Time for a plan

At the moment I am sitting on the couch watching Gremlin play a Star Wars game on playstation (sidenote, it is hysterical how physical he is when playing -jumping, lunging, kicking, holding his controller above his head as if that will make his character do better) while Lil Bit is still singing over the monitor in her crib as she avoids sleeping while the husband is reading.

Life really has changed since getting married and now being a family of four.

We are smack dab in the middle of the Gremlin's summer vacation which means I am doing all I can to remain sane. I'm already rethinking not signing him up for the 4 week summer school session at his wonderful Montessori school which we absolutely LOVE! I'm sure it makes me a crappy parent but he is absolutely happy to spend endless hours watching YouTube or playing games on his ipad or of course playing Lego Avengers or Disney Infinity on PlayStation. I know I should encourage more worthy pursuits but it's Texas and it's freaking hot out and let's face it, at my core I'm fairly lazy. It's something I need to work on, I know.

The two year old is generally the one I have to keep a close eye on. That one is tricksy and prone to finding trouble if she can. Thankfully she goes to daycare two days a week which helps my sanity greatly. I love that girl but she is non-stop and stubborn.

So right now I work two overnights a week at a local NICU and occasionally pick up an extra half or full shift here and there. I also volunteer as an advisor at the local chapter of my college sorority which is often a part-time job in and of itself. I'm also in the process of applying to graduate school as with 20 years of work ahead of me before retirement, I realized that I don't want to spend it doing 12 and 1/2 hour shifts at the hospital.

All that said, there is still plenty of time in the day to waste. Whether it's with binge watching Outlander or The West Wing (yes, I have varied tastes) or simply wasting time on social media and random internet searches, I really could be more productive.

That leads us to my current thought - I need to find the time to exercise again. I've put off "getting back into shape" for too many years. It's just about the way I look but about the way I feel. It's hard enough dealing with aging (shit! I'm in my 40s which means I'm officially middle aged!!!!!) without getting out of breath just running around with the kiddos.

I haven't figured out my game plan because let's face it, a game plan is needed. Obviously it's going to include exercising somewhere, somehow and probably focusing more than a little bit on a healthier diet. I like the idea of doing triathlon again, but it isn't easy to do the swimming and cycling training with a 2 year old. Not to mention it's Texas and it's hotter than . So I'm going to muse on that for a few more days and come back with a game plan. 

Until then, I might need to start blogging more to get back into the habit of writing as I hear grad school involves papers.... ugh.

Blog Reboot

I was recently thinking about when I started this blog and was on my fitness journey 9 years ago then I looked in the mirror and at the numbers on the scale and thought, "Fitness journey? Seriously?! When were you ever fit?"  It feels like a lifetime since I was an overweight, out of shape relatively new nurse who decided to do a triathlon with a college friend.

I didn't have the faintest clue what to do so I bought a few books, hired a personal trainer, took private swim lessons and had the bike shop put some slicks on my old mountain bike. That same year I completed 3 triathlons, a few 5Ks and my first half marathon. I also left my first nursing job to become a travel nurse and had a few adventures before meeting my now hubs which was the start of an entirely different type of adventure.

So now almost a decade later I am coming full circle. I look in the mirror and don't like what I see... at all.

On the bright side I know what I am capable of as I did make an amazing transformation in how I looked and my overall wellness. On the bad side, I am now plagued with aches& pains and prone to overuse injuries.

Looking at what's happening in the rest of my life, I have two kiddos now as opposed to the two furry kids I had back then. Gremlin is in 1st grade and Lil Bit is 17 months old and sadly both of my furry kids have gone on to the Rainbow Bridge.  As far as jobs go, I took a one year break from working at all, have been working 4 times a month since November and just started a regular part-time job in a NICU. I haven't done NICU since Gremlin was born so this is a big change right there. And just because it seems life isn't crazy enough, I'm currently applying to graduate school and I have to take the damn GRE in 10 days to beat a deadline.

All of this does not bode well for starting a *new* fitness journey, right?

Well the reason I started this blog in the first place was because some magazine article I read recommended blogging as a way to hold yourself accountable to goals. For me it worked. Perhaps if I commit to my blog, this will work again.

For the time being, let's break it down to small manageable chunks as I really can't think about doing much more than going for a walk in the neighborhood which sounds like a perfect start.

On days when I am not working, I will put that precocious toddler in the trusty BOB jogging stroller and go for a walk of at least 20 minutes in the neighborhood. Then when I get home I will try to resurrect the long lost art of algebra, geometry and statistics from the depths of my brain so that I don't embarrass myself on that damn GRE in 10 days.

Let's just see how it goes shall we? And maybe if you're lucky I can throw in occasional witty commentary and banter just to keep it all fresh.
Until next time, let's just hope this blog reboot goes better than the Fantastic Four 

Yes, I'm still alive

I can't imagine that any of my old readers from 2006 - 2007 are still here. That was back when I was single, footloose & fancy free. It's almost staggering to think of all the changes that have happened since then.  Nowadays blogs are EVERYWHERE and commercial, back then it was more a way to have an online journal and share it with random strangers. I used to enjoy typing out my thoughts but after Gremlin came, it was more of a chore and all about posting adorable photos and milestones.  I can use facebook for that right?

So now I am trying to revive my lost art of blog writing as I present just another boring Mom blog. No sponsors,
no giveaways,
nothing fancy.

Just my ramblings on a rather ordinary life.

Today my topic will be boots. I am one of those people that has always had "thick" calves. No, that's not a code word for being fat, even when I was slender for some reason I had oddly muscular calves. I remember getting fitted for ski boots in Breckenridge and the nice shop person even said, "you have a lot of muscle there." Ummm, thanks?

I never gave much thought to it until boots became in style about 5 years ago. Especially really tall ones that would look so cute with a skirt.  Low and behold I learned that there was a down side to having these awesomely muscular calves - boots are not designed for people like me.  If they were the pull on type, I could barely get them past my ankle, sort of like the evil stepsisters' attempts to get on a glass slipper. Then I tried the zip up ones and could perhaps manage to get the zipper halfway up my calf before the circumference was too much to handle. I settled for some lower boots that ended at the lower part of my calf. Not as cute but they worked.

In the intervening years, boots are still all the rage but now it's more the style to wear skinny ass jeans or leggings and wear your boots over them. Bryan hates it, the internet mocks it as a Han Solo trend,

but it is clearly here to stay. I'm definitely not a skinny ass jeans or tights girl, especially as I'm still carrying around some weight from Lil Bit but I do have one pair of skinnier jeans. Today when getting dressed for Gremlin's Christmas program, they were the first jeans I grabbed. I somehow managed to fasten them despite them being straight from the dryer which ALL people know makes jeans about 25% smaller than they were before the wash process started.  As I pondered which shoes to wear I thought, hmmm, will these fit inside my boots? I mean there's no way in hell these skinnier jeans will fit OVER my boots, so maybe? Just maybe?

And Voila! I have managed to finally appear somewhat in accordance with local style. Granted these boots are at least 4 years old and not necessarily the kind I'm seeing now, but they are boots and my jeans are INSIDE them.

When I arrived, my super observant husband said, "How did you manage that?"
Yes, he knows that this is not a style that was designed for a person like me, but sometimes we just make it work.

And just because she is so stinkin' cute, I'm adding a gratuitous picture of the Lil Bit

Hit me with your best shot

The Newtown massacre has really got to me.

I haven't cried over a news story - as in real sobbing with tears - since 9/11. The difference with this story is that I intentionally avoided all television news and video footage. I think being glued to the tv for days on end with 9/11 made it even more difficult to move forward so I intentionally made the decision last Friday to only read the news. I found out about the shootings on twitter and used that as well as CNN and BBC web feeds for my source. I did watch the NBC news that night but it was an abbreviated version of what I'm sure was going non-stop on cable news. Despite avoiding the videos, the interviews, and the gratuitous horror stories gleaned from interviews with mere children, I was able to feel quite a bit. I think being a parent makes it all too real - the idea of your child being fine one minute, and then for completely inexplicable reason, gone the next.

Today the NRA comes out with their "solution" to the problem. We just need trained folks armed with guns in the schools to protect our children. My first response is, "Seriously??? Give me a fucking break!" Then I sat and mused a bit on how my ideas on guns have changed in the past 25 years. I am far more moderate than I was as a 12 year old but I still would never give one dime to the NRA.

Let's first go back 26 years to junior high when eighth grade Jenn was giving her first ever persuasive speech for Language Arts class. It was a pro-gun control argument that I crafted all on my own. I honestly don't know where my pacifism/liberalism came from. I grew up in the country on a farm and politics were not a hot topic in my home at the time. My parents kept a shotgun in their closet though I'm pretty sure it was unloaded and the shells were kept elsewhere. My father did not hunt but we certainly knew people who did and were happy to partake of the deer jerky when a hunter got a deer in our timber. I don't remember hearing arguments for or against guns from my family, but my Great Uncle Glenn was a huge gun collector and my Great Uncle Gene was known to carry a pistol when he traveled across the country.

In the 80's, I was a fan of Reagan. I'm not quite sure why, but he seemed to mesmerize most of the country with his speeches. I remember being at a rally or speech he held at the Illinois State Fair grandstand while the crowd was chanting to repeal the 22nd amendment given that he was in his second term. It's funny to think that by 1988 I would be campaigning for Dukakis before I was even old enough to vote (yes, I even met him and got his signature) and would soon turn far away from the GOP.

Of course my views at this time were also shaped by the assassination attempt in 1981. Though I was only 7 & 1/2 when it happened, I remember it quite vividly. For some reason I was not in school that day and my Mom and I were in Springfield. I'm thinking I had a dentist appointment because it was a school day. We were in some department store like Montgomery Wards when it was announced over the PA system. We and most of the other shoppers headed to the electronics department where all of the televisions (those "massive" 19 inch screens in super fancy wooden consoles) were tuned to the broadcast discussing that someone had attempted to shoot President Reagan. I don't remember exactly how the rest of the day played out. I do recall my Mom talking about her memories of being in high school when President Kennedy was assassinated. I remember never feeling real fear that Reagan was going to die that evening though we now are aware that his injuries were in fact life threatening but the press never had full access to his medical condition. The big thing that came out of the incident was the devastating injuries to Press Secretary Jim Brady who had been shot in the head. That quickly became the main story - that and the crazy ass shooter who was trying to impress Jodie Foster.

The attempted assassination of President Reagan and the injuries sustained by Jim Brady truly fueled the gun control debate for the next decade.  It became a political hot topic and by 1987 when I was crafting my arguments for class, the Brady Bill had been introduced into Congress. It was obviously not an easy sell as it was not passed into law until 1993, long after I had graduate high school and moved on to college. I wish I had my handwritten note cards to look at now but I know that they had statistics on handgun deaths and a call for better background checks and the banning of certain weapons. I don't remember how the speech went over, I don't know what grade I received, but on my own I started thinking in a liberal Progressive way that would continue to this day two decades later.

My view on guns didn't change through college or my 20s. I never felt the need to own a gun and I frankly afraid of them. I never wanted a gun for my "safety" even after the house I was living in was burglarized in 1999. It happened when we were away for the weekend and came home to a smashed window, missing electronics and clothes all over the floor indicating that the thieve(s) had gone through all of our drawers.  I did have a sense of fear after that event, especially at night when my then boyfriend was out of town. Despite that fear, never once did I think of getting a weapon.  Later I moved to Colorado which is a sportsmans' paradise. I knew LOTS of people with guns, most used for hunting. I then moved to Missouri (also lots of hunters & guns) and remember having several good-natured arguments with a pro-gun friend. By this point in time, I still felt pretty strongly about gun control - especially in regards to handguns & assault rifles. I never had a problem however with my hunter friends who were responsible gun owners.

Then I moved to Arkansas.

For some reason things changed when I moved to Arkansas. Probably because for the first time in my life I dated and then married a "gun guy."  My husband does not hunt, but he does have personal defense weapons as well as a concealed carry permit. I don't remember when I learned this but it did make me VERY uncomfortable. I was freaked out when I learned that he was packing a 9mm on one of our earlier dates when we went hiking together in the afternoon.

Me, "You had your gun with you then??"
Him, " We were hiking, of course I did! That's why I was carrying a fanny pack."  
Me, "Holy shit! You could have been a crazy man and shot me, we barely knew each other."
Him, "That's why I didn't let you know I had it with me."

It seriously unnerved me to think that I had been hiking with someone I had only known two weeks who was carrying a gun. He could have killed me and left my body in Petit Jean and no one would have been the wiser. It NEVER occurred to me that someone I knew would have a concealed weapon, let alone be in the wilderness with me. It just bothered me - and I didn't even learn that he had that gun with him until months later when we were engaged. This showed that I definitely wasn't in the North anymore ... as well as explained the fanny pack he had been wearing.

My relationship with guns remained quite unchanged for the first year of our marriage. When we traveled, he always let me know if the gun was in the console. I knew where it was kept loaded and I stayed far away from that location. As a matter of fact, it became a bit of a joke around the house. If he ever wanted to hoard candy from me, he just stored it with the gun because he knew I was too afraid to look there.

At some point when our son was walking, I decided it was time that I learned how to handle the weapon. (For the record as soon as the kiddo became more mobile, the loaded gun was secured in an appropriate manner for a house with children while still being accessible for defense). We sat down on the kitchen table and I got my first lesson on dealing with a gun. I was afraid to touch the damn thing and I broke out in a sweat as I cleared the chamber.  Even handling the bullets and putting them into the clip made me very nervous. "Should we have bullets on the table with Gremlin in the next room? Can they go off if I drop them? Don't let the Gremlin SEE the bullets!!!"
Clearly, I was not drawn to guns.

Later I went with a friend to the shooting range and she taught me how to shoot. It wasn't as scary as I thought but I was still cautiously afraid of the power I held in my hands even as I unloaded a few clips into the pretend man target.
For the record, I'm not a bad shot.

Slowly but surely, I've come to a more moderate relationship with guns. I'm still quite the pacifist and I'd cry if I was forced to shoot Bambi or any of his friends, even for food. I continue to have no problems with hunters though I wish they were more careful with their targets as it seems every hunting season some bozo shoots his hunting partner or a person in the woods who wasn't wearing enough orange. I have come to appreciate that there is a gun in my house and if someone were to break in and threaten my family, I would not hesitate to aim at my target. (Yes, that target is all you would be robbers and violence makers) I have seriously considered getting my concealed carry permit and have talked with  my husband about what type of a gun would suit me best - he says 9mm, I'm thinking .380 ACP. There are definitely moments in the car and running on the trail where I have thought it would be nice to be armed with more than a cherry limeaid from Sonic.

I have NOT however wavered in my personal opinion that owning a gun is a PRIVILEGE. As such, one must be proven worthy of that privilege through an appropriate and thorough background check. This whole bullshit about it's my right and making me wait three days is a violation of my rights is ridiculous. I can't drive a car without proving my worthiness for a license, taking a written test and demonstrating my skill. It does not seem like an imposition to expect the same of owning a weapon. Perhaps if more people demonstrated the skills to own a gun, they wouldn't accidentally shoot their children and family members by removing the clip and not realizing there was a bullet in the chamber. I am always amazed by reading of accidents like this when the first lesson I was taught was to never pick up a weapon without clearing/checking the chamber first before my finger goes anywhere near the trigger.

I do NOT believe that people need semi-automatic rifles. Call them assault rifles, call them "modern sporting rifles," or call them people killers. I do not think anyone but law enforcement needs to own them. Obviously I am not a person who subscribes to the theory that I need to be ready to take up arms against my tyrannical country at any moment, so I'm cool with passing on the AR-15.

In the wake of the slaughter of innocent children, I'm not naive enough to think that stricter gun control will prevent crazy bastards from doing crazy things. I'm sure that criminals will continue to obtain guns illegally just as sure as I am that every person in the country carrying a gun will do nothing but get more bystanders shot. I have no data to prove anything, but in my heart I don't think that more guns is the answer. I certainly don't want to send my child to a school where every teacher is packing heat. Now if he goes to a military school, maybe I'd have a different opinion.

Mediating on this horrible tragedy I realize that I am now a 39 year old who knows how to handle a pistol and has no qualms about taking out any mother fucker who would dare threaten her beloved child. However, I still believe in many of the seemingly common sense gun control arguments brought forth by an idealistic 12 year old way back when.
And I think that's ok.