Can't believe it's been 7 years!

7 years ago I woke up and thought, "WOW today is 04/04/04 what a great day to have a baby!"  And two weeks prior to his due date, Maximum Paul Melang came into this world with a bang!

Jeff and I had a long standing agreement, he'd name the boys and I'd name the girls - obviously I got the short end of the stick.  Jeff named him Maximum because after the second child, he was done - at the maximum limit - that was it.  So rather than Maximus (would think of butts, where do my children get this) or Maxim, he's Maximum and he is the most.

Children teach you humility, they teach you to forget about yourself and live for helping others.  They astound you with their innocent questions, their wise observations and the truth they tell you about yourself.  They teach you how precious life is when they get in trouble, how joyful life is when they achieve something they thought they couldn't do.

Children teach you to laugh again with one liners that put comedians to shame (without a single curse word) they teach you patience when you come upon a wrecked room right after you cleaned it, you learn with them to be a responsible adult, to love and respect each other, and to love yourself.

So my Maximum, nicknamed "the burrito" has given me WAY TOO MANY grey hairs and he's only 7 years old, but I wouldn't change a thing 7 years ago.....it was a great day to have a baby and a birthday I'll never forget!

Trying to do the unthinkable!

This morning, I'm scheming, coniving, working my tail off, trying hard-----to be cheap!  You see, in my year's I've become cynical in "deals."  I've tried the get the free bottle of champage for looking at our seaside property and walked out after writing a down payment on a condo (luckily, I stopped payment on the check after i drank the bottle of champage AND that was a long time ago when I was young and naive) this time I'm holding the coupon in my hand thinking hmmmmm.....

Kids get in free to the circus and it's buy one, get one free for adult tickets.  What a deal!  My champage experienced minds stops immediately and says, "What a minute, how do they make any money?"  I go and start trying to get my BOGO adult tickets and figure one way.  The computer won't let me get the GO ticket (get one) it keeps telling me that I owe it 36 dollars for two tickets.  I politely inform it that it doesn't understand BOGO but with what is the equivalent of a finger back, it tells me to just shut up and put my credit card number in and just buy it.  Now I'm picturing kids standing behind a parent crying about the circus and can see said parent getting to the,"screw it, it's only 36 dollar" phase and just buying the tickets.

The computer also then displays some very nice Circus T-shirts and Cups and crap and I find another way they'll make money.  I sit my boys down and prepare them,
"Do you want to go to the circus today?"

"YEAH!"  One is now dancing around the house.
"If we go, there's no buying stuff, no souveniers, nothing."
"What?"  little one stops dancing, "No swirling lights?"
"No"
"No elephant head snow cone cup?"
"No"
"No cotton candy?"
"well....."
They both dance that they are going to the circus.

So here we go, trying to get something for nothing.  I'm going to buy my tickets there and bringing my coupons for free kids tickets, if I can keep them on bread and water rations at the coliseum then maybe we can do the impossible........

Seeking Journey Athletes!

Do you obsess? Do you pour over information? No, this is not a late night infomercial, but something I have recently decided to quit doing. Why? Because obsessing and races do not go hand in hand when getting older! I remember my coach saying to us gym rats (yes, you can be old and be a gym rat) “You’ll not be as fast as you were when you were younger!” And I thought, “What? When did that happen?”

I finished a race with some friends recently and went back to the times, pouring over everyone’s splits and finishing times, then I went and complained to my husband, “Man, they really did well. I can’t believe they beat me.” He sipped his coffee and looked at me and simply said, “Well, they are 15 years younger than you. Give yourself a break.”

Hmmm, maybe that is a point. As I started to go back to the times, I tried to think about why type of athlete I am, not armchair, not elite, then what am I? I think about all the races I’ve done (never add up what you’ve spent on races and cheerfully tell the other half who doesn’t race) and find that now as I approach that starting line, I’m there for the experience, there for enjoying being fit and showing it off when I can finish a race, there because others talked me into it (believe me, there were a few times I WASN’T happy someone talked me into a race) there because I want to do it to prove to myself that I can do it, not to anyone else.

What type of athlete are you? Do you pour over times wondering where you could shave off a few minutes? Do you obsess about the length of your workouts (yes, I am guilty of that but being a businessperson and Mom and wife means I’ve got to carve the time and sometimes it may not be the time I want) Or are you a journey athlete, enjoying the journey and getting to the point of “doing well” and “being competitive” without freaking out about it?

OK, so my OCD came back again and I had to go back to the numbers one more time. This time rather than looking at my friends times compared to mine (I mean, they are, afterall, 15 years younger than me) I went to my place in history – where I land in my age group (old farts) and 75th in a race that’s got over 6K people wasn’t that damn bad. Going to lace up the shoes.

Wait for me! A race report from Virginia Beach....

Remember when you were a child, with your friends and there was that younger sibling running after you as fast as their little legs could carry you yelling, "Wait for me!"  As a child what did you do, I know what I did....

This weekend I got to spend with my sister as a "girl's weekend" we've moved out of those weekends of doing nothing and drinking beer to this weekend of adding in a half marathon to make something of it.  So this morning we got up to windy weather in our Shamrock Half Marathon in Virginia Beach. 

I'm a competitive person, but at 45 know that most of my competitiveness is left to the cerebal activities but I was working out with a friend  and I remember saying, "I'd like to be compeitive in this race, I mean I am training for a marathon."  I wasn't really saying I'd leave someone behind, OK, I was saying I'd leave someone behind but when the gun sounded and we followed out waves out I was just as exited as my sister competing her second half marathon!

We ran a familiar route talking along the way, me surprised at her great pace wondering if she can keep it up the entire way.  I mean she came up for the weekend saying, "I am SO not ready for this...."  (quick memory trip back to a time when I said this)  We carry along talking about people we are passing, wondering if we should wear tututs the next time (we were already talking about the next time) trying to look under kilts , pacing with two wounded warrior men that ran the race with gas masks on!  (sure, we wondered at the beginning of the race if there was something we didn't know but after 10 miles we finally couldn't stand it and asked them why there were running with gas masks)  We came to the last five miles and she said, "my legs are cramping" so I told her to high knee for a while (thanks yoga) and turned the last mile and ran the boardwalk together crossing the finish line at the same time, (OK, I was SLIGHTLY ahead of her).

When we came to to the last mile I turned to her and thought, I should improve my time but was pleasantly surprised at a 2 hour half marathon and the smile on her face at cutting 15 minutes from her time was joy enough to finish together!  I told her the race time and celebrated all those times I hit a PR with her as she celebrated this milestone (it was a PR for me because it was the first half marathon I'd run in 5 years!)  As a big sister, I remember all those times I left when hearing, "Wait for me" and now watching her take a nap with a smile on her ace was worth it, and that extra 5 minutes I could have bought for myself so not worth it when it comes to actually WINNING a race.

So here's to all the sisters out there, or friends that realize winning the race is about enjoying the journey and being there for the people you love.  Why did we run this race?  Some will say it's because of the free beer at the end (we got our money's worth) but I'll say it's the free time I got to spend with my sister!  Now, of course if it was a 5K that probably would be a DIFFERENT story!  What's your story of sibling rivalry and the real world!

Hanging with the adults, do you know where your children are? COUSIN TIME!

Growing up as a child, there's that special time - something you never really talk about with your friends at school because it was different - and special.  Cousin time.

Some of our best friends we acquire by blood, others by thinned blood, and others not by blood, but those blood relatives that you see on those specific times of year are the best bonds that are always unbroken.  Cousin times are when you get the exotic nature of people that don't live where you live BUT they have to accept you because you are related by BLOOD, and there's no one else to play with if they don't.  It's these times that the adults gather and possibly add a highball or two and talk like adults and let their children play because it's cousins, it's a safe and fun area for children.

Little did they know that we were putting together concoctions of hotsauce and Mayonaise for the little kids to drink, or making the two "kissing cousins" actually kiss whether they liked it or not.  Now, it's "Nasty Soup" complete with a few sprays of gold paint into the bucket (luckily not in anyone's face).  Ever played the game of "Fart?"  There's always those types of cousins:  the one that always gets hurt, the one that's sensitive, the one that comes up with the ideas, the one that enjoys providing the muscle, the one that hangs out with the adults.  jokes are made up, bad words are taught but you can't mistake the love and affection between these kids forever tied together by blood.

As they grow, the strange concoctions may turn into texting each other, the kissing cousins may not speak to each other for years, but the bond formed by these times as they are young will remain forever.  Years later as an adult when I see my cousins, there are many things that we laugh about, a few secrets (those fireworks) we'll keep still but we always pick right up from where we left off.  We laugh about bending all the pots banging them together on New Year's Eve, about riding mini bikes up the hill, about "Smear the Queer" and running through the Peach Orchards saying, "I think I hear the dogs coming."

Good times always start and end with family, especially when you're a kid and it's "Cousin Time."  What memories do you have of cousin time?

How to feel old part 2!

Wanting to be involved in my children's school I was asked to man a table for "Multicultural Night" so of course my immediate response was "Erin Go Brach!"  So I went and pulled all my Ireland stuff and got ready for my night of spreading culture.  KNowing how children are, I included some food because that always attracts kids!

The kids came to my booth and asked many questions, many making me feel pretty old.  "Why are those pictures so long?"  Me?  "They are panoramic pictures, taken with a camera."  "Why are they in a book and not on the screen?"  "Uh that's because they were taken with a REAL camera, not a digital camera, so these are REAL pictures."  I look at the pictures and my long hair and skinny body and feel a prick of age creeping in....

"Why type of money is this?"  I look at the coins and answer again, "That's the Irish money before the Euro, now all the European countries use the Euro, so these coins aren't really circulated in Ireland, but here's the pound, the pence and a penny."  Hmmmm, I'm beginning to sound like my grandmother.....

Then they look at the clothing, the beautiful handknit woolen sweaters, mine from the Aran Islands and my son's that he wore when he was......gosh, 6 months old?  I look at the small sweater and sigh, I remember telling people that time doesn't pass that fast now I'm sounding just like them with "Man, time really flies!"

I look at my treasures and think about the memories and smile, it's these things that make me feel old but the memories that come with them that keep me oh, so young!  What memories do you have?  Are you finding your toyes in the antique shop yet?

There's something about a quiet house.......

I can lay there in bed and talk myself into the extra 30 minutes of extra sleep from 430a to 5am but honestly, I tell myself, all I'll be doing is lying there thinking of all the things I have to do then trying to talk myself into sleep so might as well get up.  There's something about a quiet house......

A quiet house is so full of promise, it brings me peace to sit with a cup of coffee, and yes the computer and think about the sounds I don't hear in my quiet house.  The quiet holds so much promise, the black of night waiting patiently as I do for the dawning of a new day, the quiet painting of the sky as the Earth slowly opens her eyes.  If each day is a gift, the quiet of my house is that night before my birthday, I know something good is coming it's just a waiting game for everything to happen.

A quiet house reminds me of who I am, I remember sitting up at this time holding a baby listening to him breathe, I remember pacing at this time many worries on my mind, I remember the times of inspiration and getting up before it left never to be found again.  Then there's the time like these, where I can sit and ponder the quiet, I can accept what I may not want to accept, I can plan for that bright and beautiful day before the color hits the sky.  Take that dark night and tuck it away, let alone the things I didn't do, couldn't get done and let them drift away with the dark sky.

This quiet house soon will be full of the noise of arguing, drawers opening, dog nails on the wooden floor, toilets flushing, showers running, all the things that make life what it is.  For these last few moments, though I'll enjoy that cup of coffee, enjoy this time that gives me peace, and wait in quiet anticipation for opening my beautiful gift that is today!

What do  you do when the house is quiet?