Death by YMCA-Sports

3 kids
3 games
3 different locations
1 Saturday
2 hours
1 Mom
Repeat each Saturday morning for 6 weeks

I know I can skip my workout on Saturday mornings, because I feaverishly clean the house in the morning, sprint to the car 4 or 5 times in between games, my blood pressure rises, and I don't eat because I'm too busy running back and forth between games. But I don't recommend it for getting in your cardio.

What I was thinking when I signed them all up for a fall sport, I have no idea. Now I'm paying for my impetuousness. And, I realize that this is the problem when you encourage your kids to learn a sport... they actually want to play it.

You think they're learning positive lessons: getting good exercise, being a team player by passing balls, confidence and assurance when they score that goal, frustration tolerance when they don't, getting up and trying again when they fall, not whining and crying when they smash into another player. There are lots of great reasons for kids to play sports.

Except that it harries their mother when she's an Army wife.
Wake me up when it's November.

And if I Wasn't Feeling Old Enough...

Evelyn completed one of her DOT PUZZLES tonight. (remember, "color each of the spaces that has 2 dots in it.") and the picture that emerged was of an old wood burning stove.

Evelyn: Mom, what is this picture?
Me: It's a wood-burning stove. This is what people used before electricity. You put the wood inside and it would heat up the top so you could boil water and cook oatmeal and stuff.
Evelyn: Oh, did you use one of these?
Me: Well, no--
Evelyn: Oh, you probably just got your food from the woods.

(Yea, me and my other cavewomen friends...)

Happy 37th

This morning it seemed, would turn out to be oh just another day. Except that it was my birthday, so proceeding with just another ordinary day is a little, well, sad and disappointing. That there was nothing special planned, that the husband is not here, that the kids are at school. Just another day.

But then, as the day wore on, it turned out to be not so bad after all.

Pretty much everyone in the family called to wish me a Happy One, even the brother, via the sister-in-law, all the way from the Sudan.
And even Ric called (actually by accident) from Qatar. With days and nights completely reversed for us, I'll give him a pass this time.
Ethan came home from school and created a pop-up card for me.
Alex gave me $.20 from his piggybank.
Evelyn and I baked a cake together for me, and with the kids next door, we spread homemade icing all over that baby before we lit into it as our "after school snack."
Then all the kids burst into "Happy Birthday to You" as we headed out to football practice.

And then, the kids got invited to someone else's house for dinner, and then I got invited to someone else's house for dinner, and then I got to see a movie with my girlfriend, probably the second one in the movie theater in about a year.

So it turned out to be an a very unexpected, very happy birthday. Thanks guys.

Day 5 Vegetarian

Thought I'd give you the update, those of you who are interested, on my progress into the meatless world. After the "Why??!" comment, I got a couple others:

"Where will you get your protein?"
um, nuts, beans, eggs, yogurt, leafy green vegetables, peanut butter, soy, the list is quite long actually.

"You don't eat that much meat anyway." and "People having been killing animals for food forever."

Well, yes, and yes. But still. It's not like I go down to the farm 5 miles away and put an order on a cow- a free-ranging, grass-fed cow that will feed a family through the winter. It's so easy to pick up a package of meat at the grocery store, I don't even give it a second thought anymore. That the animal was penned, given antibiotics to stay healthy under unhealthy conditions, hormones to grow bigger than nature intended, and hauled to the slaughterhouse with many, many, many, many, many others. Because I like meat.

I read two articles in the paper in the last two days. One talked about the FDA considering lifting the ban of sales of meat from genetically modified animals. The other was that the dairy industry in China has come under scrutiny for adding a chemical to their milk to artificially increase the protein content. Yea, it's China, but they export. (And the Chinese don't even normally have milk as part of their diet. That is, until they became more westernized.) This is a little scary.

I like a big 'ole whopping cheeseburger off the grill as much as the next guy. But where does it end? It's also a whole lot easier to throw away all my paper, plastic, aluminum, and cardboard in my open garbage can at home than to haul it 10 miles away downtown. But then, at what point do I start caring that our landfills are filling and start doing something about it?

It's the same thing. If I can't even bring myself to read about what happens at a slaughterhouse, when do I start caring about it? And if I care, when do I do something?

So, in short, that's my reason "why." And so far, at least, I don't miss meat.

Bring on the Veggies!

I decided today that I would try being Vegetarian for 30 days. The first person I told exclaimed: "Why?!"

Oh. I guess real vegetarians are used to this sort of jarring reception, I wasn't. I think I spewed some nonsense about getting more socially aware, evolving. The next words I heard were, "How can you do that with 3 kids?!"

Oh. Um. They're not the ones who are giving up meat. I am, as I handed her my leftover chicken salad. But thanks for your support.

I found some thought-provoking material about nutrition in a very unlikely place, the small book, Skinny Bitch, written by 2 former models and self-proclaimed know-it-alls. As if.

Well, for some reason, this book struck a cord. In between all their rantings about the "sh** we put in our bodies", and the "f****** abuse that goes on the slaughterhouses," somehow I found some sense in what they were saying.

I've thought multiple times before that I could become vegetarian, but I just liked having the choices. Maybe chicken, maybe fish, maybe a yummy cheeseburger. Maybe my kids' leftover chicken nuggets. I never wanted to give up the options. But yesterday I realized that I could give it a dry-run for 30 days. Not forever, just a few weeks. If I'm totally unhappy and craving a side of pig, then I'll just switch back, right? No harm, no foul.

So here goes my personal social experiment to save an animal or two.

Oh, by the way, it's an ovo-lacto-vegetarian experiment. Not ready to give up the milk and dairy products as of yet. One step at a time, thank you.

My Puzzle Girl

The instructions at the top of this page read:

"Color in each spot that has exactly two dots to see the hidden picture."

Now, would you rather poke your eye out with a sharp stick than do this puzzle? Yea, me too.

Some spaces have one dot, some have three. Only color the ones with two dots. One of these puzzles is in each of the Puzzlemania magazines we get each month. Most of the other puzzles, Evelyn can't really do because they're crosswords, word searches, word scrambles. She can't read all that. So this is her thing. Each month.

It takes her like three days working on and off- before bed, in the car, on the couch- but darn it she colors all those spaces that have 2 dots until the hidden picture is revealed.

Not sure exactly what motivates her to tackle a task. Maybe it's that it's something that she can do in the big kids' puzzle book. And that's all it is.

It's her puzzle.

On Patriot's Day

I started today's blog with a "Thank You" tribute to the men and women of the military. It was going to be short and sweet.

I erased it. Not that I (along with many others) aren't thankful. I'm just too conflicted to lavish praise today. It just has a hard time coming.

I have very mixed feelings on this day. I mourn for the thousands of families who lost loved ones during the attack in 2001. That was certainly an act of war by an evil group. I mourn for the many thousands more who have died fighting this war. Seven years. And still, American men and women are being killed, innocent Iraqis are being killed. The country mired in civil unrest, struggling to stand up a government. Billions of dollars a day. Violent atrocities still coming. And for what?

Are we safer now than we were before 9/11? Some would have us think so. Are our husbands and wives (sons and daughters) in the military safer? Will they come home when they go? Will they come back in one piece? No attacks on American soil they say. What about the London subway bombing? Madrid? The terrorist plot foiled in NJ? The seemingly innocuous yet infringing restrictions on travel, tourism, security checking down to the lowest government entity. I used to be able to stand on a line to see a tour of the White House on a whim. Now I need tickets, reserved 6-12 months in advance only after submitting name, address, SSN and Date of Birth, and only for parties of 10 or more. Do you feel safer? I certainly feel like there's more security. But safer?

September 11, 2001 is a sad day in American history. The day our president convinced us that we needed to attack Iraq is sadder. I was united with the rest of the country on the days following 9/11. My husband was in Afghanastan within days of the attack with no word from him for about 7 weeks. I trusted our president and his advisors when they told me that if we didn't go into Iraq, there would be further attacks. That Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein were inexplicably linked. That the threat was imminent. I believed him. It was a time when we were all together in the fight; of course, we believed
our president.

I am thankful to all the men and women of the military, the reservists who have been called up, the retirees who have been called back, the first responders, the Red Cross, and the many more who bravely serve both here in America and overseas for the rest of us.

But mostly, on the anniversary of 9/11, I feel duped.

Happy First Day

This was Evelyn's last first day of preschool. She has grown so much since I started taking the kids to Holy Apostles. First in my belly, then on my hip, now going through the classroom door. She was so excited to start school again, but on thinking about all the new kids who would be in her class, declared "I like all my old friends."

You are more than ready, littl girl. Here's to a great year!

This is my 7th kid-year at Holy Apostles Preschool... hard to believe that this is our last "first day." With warm teachers and a great director, this little preschool has been part of our lives for the past 5 years. Evelyn has the same teacher Ethan and Alex had on their last year, the one I dropped Ethan off to while Evelyn was still on my hip. The one in whose classroom hangs a flag, flown in Iraq, sent by Ric to thank the school for their well-wishes during his deployment. This school and its teachers hold a special place in our heart. For a military family to have the consistency of all the kids going through one school, is quite a feat. We'll be sad to say 'good-bye' at the end of the semester.

The World According to Alex

Why would one bother sitting in a nice, cozy couch when one could perch precariously on the edge of the coffee table.

And don't begin to think that I just caught him here tonight. Over the weekend, he played almost an entire game of Monopoly perched on the edge of this table, hanging on by his toes.