Sewing for Boys, the Accidental Cookie, and Further Adventures on the Bike Path

Am I a horrible person for admitting that I really wanted Sawyer to be a girl? And am I even more despicable for confessing that my number one reason for wanting a girl was so that I could sew cute little things for her? Shallow and selfish, I know, but I am being honest here.

But two boys I have, and two boys I love and of course I wouldn't have it any other way. (Sawyer could have done something other than scream for the first FOUR MONTHS of his life, but other than that, I suppose I can't complain. Too much.)

Sewing for boys kind of sucks. There are only so many pairs of pajamas and Halloween costumes that a sew happy mama can make. It's really hard to get inspired to sew cute little things for boys. But! Look at these adorable pants I made for Sawyer! It's all about the fabric with boy clothes and I picked this print up over the summer in Portland and stashed it away for something special. I love how the cuffs turned out.

And I'm so glad that someone finally told me to add an extra row of stitching across the top of the waistband to give the pants a more finished look. I really love how these turned out.

Brent and a few friends went out and picked Chanterelle mushrooms last weekend. I was all freaked out about us accidentally eating poisonous/possibly hallucinogenic mushrooms but Brent looked up mushroom identification online and found that Chanterelles are unique in that they smell like apricots. Who knew? So nobody got sick or tripped out and we all enjoyed mushroom lasagna and a mushroom and onion quiche this week. Even though Brent hates mushrooms. Which makes you wonder why he picked them in the first place...

Mmmmm. Dirty, earthy fungi. I love mushrooms.

We had Lily at our house for two evenings last week so her mama could work late while her dad is out of town. I love that she feels so comfortable at our house and fell into our family rhythm just fine. Everyone got tired so I just tucked Lily into bed with Jack and she was out like a light. It's so nice to have friends around to share in the raising of your kids.

This weekend was the last farmers' market and it was a cold and wet one. Instead of trucking down to visit dad at work, the boys and I kept busy in the warm kitchen making ciabatta bread, vegetarian chili, and oatmeal cookies. As we started the cookie dough Jack and I discovered that the sugar ants had invaded the brown sugar (how do they do that? It wasn't even opened yet) and so we made the cookies without much of the required amount of sugar and then, just for fun, I threw in some wheat flour. These cookies were seeming healthier by the minute, but I worried that they wouldn't be sweet enough, so Jack suggested that we add some coconut flakes. They turned out delicious. Oh, and if you are wondering if we make cookies on a weekly basis, wonder no more, we do.

Jack's Oatmeal Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 sticks unsalted butter (this is why I run!)

1/2 cup brown/white sugar (I had to mix the two)

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 cups wheat/white flour (again, I mixed)

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

3 cups uncooked oats

1/2 cup unsweetened coconut

1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips

Oven to 350. Beat butter, sugar, vanilla. Add eggs. Combine your dry ingredients and mix in to the wet. Stir in oats and chocolate chips. Bake 10-12 minutes, let cool on sheet before transferring to a wire rack.

And it just wouldn't be a blog entry if I didn't mention running, now would it? As you may recall, I have found myself in some interesting situations on the bike path near our house, but there has been nothing new to report in that department for awhile. No Lance sightings. No blood. No guns. Just your run of the mill bike path encounters. I am a totally bike path regular and over time I have discovered that there are other regulars on the path, as well. I often see the same group of people sitting under the same bridge and they often wave or call out cheerful greetings and words of encouragement to me as I run by. I am always friendly and sometimes engage them in small talk as I heave that stroller up the incline, because I figure that the friendlier I am the more likely these people will come to my defense if Bloody Drunk Guy comes after me. Or if I get in Lance's way. So anyway, I have developed somewhat of a rapport with the bike path locals, I guess is my point.

Wednesday afternoon I decided to go running, completely forgetting about that pesky daylight savings business. I coerced the kids into the stroller and off we went. They were being quiet and kicking back to relax and so I pulled out my iPod and started to listen to the podcast "This American Life", which many people had recommended to me but that I had never actually listed to before.

The topic was unconditional love, and the host, Ira Glass, was talking about studies done on monkeys in the 1950s which proved that the bond between a mother and infant goes much deeper than the feeding (duh!) but then he went on about the cruel ways in which this theory was proven and I started to sniffle a bit as I thought about those poor baby monkeys who had been taken away from their mamas.

As I rounded the corner that marks the halfway point of my run, I realized that there was no way I would make it home before dark. No choice to make there. I just had to keep going.

The kids were getting restless and started bickering about leaves and cups and whose boots were touching whose side of the footrest, etc. I just turned up the volume and ignored them.

So then Ira interviews this couple who adopted a son from Romania who (no surprise here) suffered from attachment disorder and their experience really tested the boundaries of unconditional love. It was a heartbreaking story and the mom spoke so candidly about raising this son who seemed incapable of love. I was really getting choked up at this point. The kids were still bickering halfheartedly at this point.

I turned on to the bike path. The home stretch! Only a mile and half to go! By now it was totally dark, but the path is well lit and there were enough bikers and other runners that I felt safe enough. Ira then goes on to interview a couple whose son had severe autism and they told the story of their excruciating decision to institutionalize him at the age of twelve. This story was so incredibly sad, you knew that the parents ultimately were doing the right thing for their child, but it was so hard to listen to them as they described the moment when they said goodbye and returned home to an empty house. At this point I was sobbing uncontrollably. If you've never experienced this before, crying while running is an interesting phenomenon that doesn't really work out so well. I would have stopped to walk, but the kids had reached their stroller breaking points and were now alternating between trying to jab each other's eyes out and shrieking. So I kept on running, trying to catch my breath, and making a sound that I could only imagine to be akin to that of an asthmatic donkey.

And then we see a large group of people coming toward us with a couple of dogs and a shopping cart or two. And then they stop me to ask me for directions. And then I recognize a few of those people as some of my regulars on the path. The kids are screaming and I am a sobbing mess. I try to answer their question but all I can do is croak out this raspy incoherent response.

"Are you okay? Do you need something?" They think that something is really wrong and that I need help. I can barely get the words out to explain that I miscalculated the daylight left, my kids are grouchy, and that I have been listening to this gut wrenching podcast about unconditional love. I then recognize how insane I must seem.

Ahem. So, crazies on the bike path. I am one of them.

Back to sewing! Look at this adorable shirt! I copied this tutorial and you should, too. This one was easy because I simply "repurposed" an old shirt of mine and so I did not have to bother with the hem. I really can't believe how easy this was.

The author of the tutorial uses a serger, but I just left the edges raw and I love the way it turned out.

In fact, sewing this shirt was way easier than trying to get a decent picture of Sawyer modeling it.

Many of our pictures of him end up like this...

He really wants to get ahold of that camera.

The half marathon is next Saturday at 9. Here's a link to the course map, in case you plan to come cheer us on. We'll be running (hopefully) 9 1/2 minute miles ish so you can do the math if you want to. Or just stay home in your cozy, warm house and make some of Jack's cookies. Which actually sounds like the sane thing to do.

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The Journey

Daylight savings is a bitch. This whole business of "spring forward" and "fall back" really screws up your life when you have small children who rise with the sun. And so it was that at 6:30 this morning (yes, I know, it could have been worse) I awakened to the sound of dueling high pitched voices calling out "Mommy!" (Jack, who is perfectly capable of getting himself out of bed) and "MAAAAMMMMEEEEE!" (Sawyer, who is still incarcerated in the crib). Just once I'd like them to wake up hollering for Dad. Just once.

Coffee. Breakfast for the kids. Running clothes.

Oh yes, today was the big day. Not the half marathon, that's November 20th, and I'll be providing you with all of the details in case you are bored out of your skull enough to come stand in the rain (just a guess) and watch people run for two plus hours. Today was the big day, though, because today was the final long training run. The twelve miler. My dad and I hitched a ride to Springfield and as we climbed from the cozy, NPR filled car and looked around at our dismal surroundings and the threatening clouds over our heads, we both had one of those "What the hell are we doing here?" sort of moments. The Subaru vanished and we had no choice but to run. All the way to north Eugene. And then back around to my car, which we had parked at EWEB. And so we did. And it was totally awesome.

But what about the race? Isn't that supposed to be the big day?

I realized that this half marathon isn't about the race at all. It's so much more important than that. It's been my reason for hauling myself out of bed, rain or shine, every weekend and lacing up my running shoes and heading out the door. It's been my motivation for doing those mid week shorter runs, even on the days when work has exhausted me and the thought of pushing the stroller, heavy with two kids, seems impossible. It's been my quiet, alone time to reflect, plan lessons, and to sort things out when I run by myself. It's been time with my dad, time that we've never had before, and that we might not have again for awhile, when we run together on the weekend. You really get to know a person when you run twelve miles together. I feel closer to my dad now than I ever have.

The journey has been more meaningful than the destination. I will be sad when the race has been run. I will miss the journey.

And yeah, I know, we could just sign right up for another half marathon, right? But really I can't. It's too much time. My kids need me. Brent needs me. I need to spend my Sunday mornings at home with pancakes and the newspaper and my family again for awhile.

Also, there are other journeys in my life that need my attention. The sometimes daunting and overwhelming undertaking of raising two kids to be decent human beings, for one. This world seems so effed up sometimes: people hate each other because of their differences, the gap between the haves and have nots widens, schools are closing... Sometimes it all seems so corrupt. I am constantly obsessing over how my actions of today, and the actions of those around them, will influence my children tomorrow. Will they go to good schools? Will they be happy? Healthy? Interesting? Empathetic? Funny? Athletic? Tolerant? Well-read? Most importantly, will they be themselves? I know I will miss this journey, too, once the destination has been reached, but damn, this is one hell of a ride.

Kind of makes that half marathon look easy now, doesn't it?

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For Chelsey

Halloween 2010- thank gawd that's over. I mean I've only been costume planning since August and all, but really I'm feeling ready to move on to bigger and better things, like Christmas! Yes, I know what you're thinking: Christmas?! WTF? It's barely November! But I have somehow become the person who starts thinking about the holidays waaaay in advance and obsessing over every minor detail to the point that I ruin the holidays by stressing out the people around me. Well, not quite... but there was that one Halloween when I was frantically (and grouchily) sewing a puppy suit on the afternoon of... And that's exactly why I've been planning this Halloween since August. I can learn from my mistakes.

So yeah, about Christmas. I'm excited! Already!

Back to Halloween. Jack got to dress up in his costume for preschool on Friday and posed for a shot with his old buddy Quentin. The Jack/Quentin friendship has endured some trying times this year, what with the new kid, Eden, joining the class. Jack and Eden hit it off and Jack's been snubbing Quentin whenever Eden is around. Quentin's mom even recounted to me an incident when Jack was holding hands with Eden and wouldn't let Quentin hold his other hand. Gaah- the drama! And so it begins...

Here's Jack with his preschool class. Pay special attention to the teacher with the long, brown hair. She'll come into our story later. (Eden was absent that day. He seems to have an attendance problem. I'm rooting for Quentin.)

Fall can be beautiful. Fall can be crisp and clean. Fall can also be a rainy, muddy mess. We stocked up on rain boots and I about threw a hissy fit at Fred Meyer about the fact that apparently only girls wear raincoats since the boys' section had none. Blatant sexism! I am so SICK of retailers who cater to girls- boys need cute clothes (and raincoats) too, you know! What the hell, Fred Meyer, what the hell? (I told you it was a hissy fit. I am still mad.)

And then it was the BIG DAY! Jack and I had been rehearsing the whole trick-or-treat routine and he seemed to have it down pat. Sawyer, as usual, was just along for the ride and dressed in the aforementioned puppy suit, which is now in its third year of use, thankyouverymuch. Our first stop was Doug and Mary's house. We pulled up in front and I quickly reviewed the procedure with Jack, "Take only one piece of candy" "Don't forget to say thank you" etc. He had his game face on. His eye was on the prize. This kid was ready! He shot me a confident grin, scrambled up the steps, and tapped gingerly on the door.

Little did we know, Grandpa Doug was in costume, too.

And as you can imagine, that did not go over so well with Sawyer. He may be traumatized for awhile. If not by the fact that his grandpa was wearing the monster mask, then for sure by the fact that his mother laughed uncontrollably and snapped pictures instead of coming to his rescue. Oops.

Nothing a little candy in the car on the way home couldn't fix.

Then it was time for dinner with Lily (Tinkerbell) and family and some trick-0r-treating around the block. The kids made a haul and we survived the entire ordeal without rain and with minimal antics (Sawyer managed to run into a few houses...)

And now it's all over and we are stuck with a mountain of candy and two cracked out kids who apparently think about NOTHING but candy from morning until night. I'm not sure what we are going to do about all of this sugar lurking around the house. Jack is way too skeptical for us to pull some sort of candy fairy business (the kid is already questioning the logistics of Santa!) and I simply cannot bear the idea of keeping it around and doling it out piece by piece. So far our strategy has been to let the kids have a piece after dinner and then Brent and I gorge ourselves after they go to bed. I guess at this rate that candy will be gone in no time...

(I think it's worth mentioning that Brent used a drill to carve one of the pumpkins this year. I'm not making any sort of statement, not passing any judgement, just letting you know that power tools were used on our Halloween decor this year. It was a git-er-done sort of Halloween, I suppose.)

And now I'd like to tell you about my new friend Chelsey. She's a friend of a friend, and you know how these things go... you're never quite sure when that line is crossed from being friend-of-friend to actual friend, but because Chelsey is now my facebook friend and because we have discussed things like whether or not I am too old to wear skinny jeans (she says I am not!) and because now she has been to my house to drink copious amounts of wine, Chelsey is my friend.

But this story takes place last summer, before the wine and the talk of skinny jeans and the facebook friending. Back when Chelsey was just a friend of a friend. I was at the park with the kids and they were being particularly annoying and so I was basically ignoring them and standing around wishing some adult would come and amuse me with witty conversation. No takers. But then I saw Chelsey and she came over and we started to chat it up about how annoying my kids were being and how kids are just annoying in general. And in my attempt at humor I made some comment about bringing them to the park so I could ignore them and talk to adults and blah blah blah. She told me she was there watching a friend's kid and I said something along the lines of "How did you get suckered into that?" and ha ha and more blah blah blah. I knew that Chelsey had recently gotten a new job and so I asked her where she was working.

And then she turned and looked at me like I was insane.

Which I am.

Because IT WASN'T CHELSEY I had been talking to! It was one of Jack's preschool teachers! And I am the biggest dumbest LOSER ever. What could I do? I had to own it. And now Jack's preschool teacher knows what a terrible mother I really am! She has never looked at me the same since.

And so, Chelsey, please return to the top photo to see that, in fact, you really don't resemble her as much as I had convinced myself that you did. Damn it!

In conclusion, Halloween is over, Sawyer will need therapy, I got a picture of the teacher to show Chelsey (!!), and there is now further proof in the growing body of evidence to support the idea that I am a total dork. As if you couldn't tell by that last sentence.

Anybody want any candy?

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Sometimes it Rains

Two funerals in one week.

One was more of a party, really. The death was not a surprise- we knew he was not long for this world, and we can only hope that he's found the peace in death that he never seemed to find in life. Still, it was a goodbye.

But the other? Oh, it was a sad one. The vitality of youth gone in the blink of an eye. Dimples, freckles, and an easy smile that once lit my classroom- gone. I knew this day would come, I knew that one day a student would die, I just didn't realize how sad it would be. I didn't realize that I'd sit in a church and watch parents grieve over their child and that I would feel the hollow pang of a mother's loss of her son. Bearing witness to the unthinkable, the unimaginable.

What can you do? I hugged my boys a little tighter when I came home and choked back a tear when Jack planted an impromptu kiss on my cheek and laughed until I cried when Sawyer went barreling down the driveway on his bike in the rain. This life is strange, but I suppose we just keep on putting one foot in front of the other and trying to make the most of this wild ride.

And it was also my birthday. So I chose to celebrate life, not forgetting about the deaths, but focusing on those who make my life worth living and who sometimes make the ride even wilder.

The rain came this weekend and filled the air with that unmistakeable smell of fall- wood stoves, wet pavement, and soggy leaves. This was a fitting weekend for the rain to come. Upon us all, a little rain must fall.

And so I spent a wet weekend loving on my family and friends a bit more than usual. A nine (and a half!) mile run with my dad, wine and cake with the girls, an afternoon visit with an old friend, hours in the kitchen with all three of my boys. Jack and Brent tackled a mountain of tomatoes and cooked a giant pot of pizza sauce for the freezer. And Sawyer helped by taking an epic nap.

The recipe is simple and I'm starting to think that we've finally nailed it. The last batch was just about perfect.

Pizza Sauce

a giant pot full of plum tomatoes (diced)

garlic

basil

oregano

crushed red pepper

salt

tomato paste

Employ helpers to dice tomatoes. Or spend about 45 minutes doing it yourself. Bring your giant pot full of diced tomatoes to a boil and then let simmer until reduced to half the original volume. This will take a few hours, be patient. Then add everything else to taste. Puree in the blender. Freeze for later or make some serious pies.

Brent has been amusing us by bringing home different colors of cauliflower. This week it was purple...

We had a rainbow stir fry for dinner. Oh, and the cookies. I mentioned to Brent that the rain made me feel like baking something. Every once in awhile I just get that itch to turn on the oven and I don't always know what I'm after. Brent reminded me of the Cocoa Oatmeal Cookies that I made last year and that idea just hit the spot. And so...

Cocoa Oatmeal Cookies

(adapted from allrecipes.com)

1 cup unsalted butter

(yes, I know that's a lot of butter, trust me, they're worth it)

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

2 eggs

1 t vanilla

1 1/2 cups flour

1/3 cup cocoa

1 t baking soda

1/2 t salt

3 cups oats

Cream butter and sugars, then add eggs and vanilla. Mix well. Blend in dry ingredients and bake at 350 for 10 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack gently. Store in an airtight container and they'll be even better the second day. Sure, you'll be brushing your teeth a little harder and doing a few extra laps around the track after you eat these, but they are perfect for a rainy afternoon stuck inside with the ones you love.

And really, what more could I ask for from this life? I am often humbled by the beauty of it all, even when it rains.

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When in Doubt, Just Bake a Cake

I really don't like Brent's latest batch of homebrew. I've tried to like it, really I have, especially since he brewed it with his own hops from the backyard, but it has this certain je ne sais quoi that lingers on my palate (oh alright, I think it tastes musty- there, I said it.) It's unfortunate, too, because we have not one but two kegs of the stuff. Two kegs! Who has two kegs of beer? Who do we think we are? Is this some sort of party house? Are we going to start having shows in our basement? (We do not have a basement, maybe that's for the best...)

I am really feeling happy about the old italicize button tonight.

So I am holding out for apple cider! Oh yes, this year it is all about the apple freaking cider around here. I can't wait! I can't wait! (And I don't even really like juice, which I know is totally weird, but I can get pretty amped up about some homemade apple cider!) (Because clearly I need to get out more...)

(I guess I am also digging the parentheses and the ellipses...)

We picked apples at our friend's grandma's property. And by "we picked apples" I mean that Brent RISKED HIS LIFE climbing a big ass apple tree, giving it the shakedown and then scurrying around to collect the fallen soldiers while I sat around and ate chips and tossed a few apples into a box as we were getting ready to leave. I was in charge of supervising the children and I'm happy to report that no one was lost or injured. See, I did my part.

(Oh my god. Seriously, somebody should do something about that child's hair.)

Sawyer flies on that Radio Flyer bike. He really loves to go for bike rides around the block and screams "BIKE!" repeatedly until someone agrees to take him. Every time we go in or out through the garage he jumps on that thing and peels out down the sidewalk. A habit that is very annoying when you are actually trying to go somewhere at a certain time. And the whole screaming-until-I-get-what-I-want thing is getting totally out of hand with him, too. He's also famous for going completely boneless when you try to pick him up and move him away from breakables or dangerous objects.

(I ragged on Jack a few entries back, so I figured it was Sawyer's turn this week.)

Speaking of Jack, we finally did it! A real haircut! Yes, I know, three and a half years old and he finally gets a real one. What can I say? We are slackers. Brent and I had been bugging him for the past few months about getting at least a trim, but he was adamant about keeping his long hair. Which I would have been fine with except that he just looked so scruffy all of the time and I just knew there was a sharp looking little man hidden under that mop of blond curls. I really wanted the haircut to be his idea or at least for him to be into it and thus we hit the roadblock. He was having a particularly shaggy day on Saturday when I finally got the idea to rephrase the haircut scenario to include the words "just like Dad's". Now believe me, giving Jack and Brent-like haircut freaked me out, but those three little words sealed the deal and I grabbed the clippers before anyone could lose their nerve. And...

Isn't he dapper? But oh my, biggest big boy ever. That makes me kind of sad.

But I do love the new and de-shaggified Jack. He liked it too, at first. He kept running back to the mirror to admire his new look and petting his freshly shorn head like it was a baby duck. When the afternoon fatigue rolled in, however, Jack discovered that his new haircut did not allow him to practice his time honored tradition of twirling his curls around his fingers. This has been a long standing habit for Jack and one that always indicated to us the degrees of his tiredness. One hand twirling meant he was a little bit sleepy but could easily be rallied. But every once in awhile he'd have a particularly taxing day and both hands would be twirling away in that mess of curls. Then you knew that he was going to be a disaster until bedtime. On that afternoon, I watched Jack as he brought his fingers to his hair and saw the painful look of realization on his face: his hair twirling days were gone. His bottom lip began to quiver and I went with the first thing that came to my mind- cake! Yes, I made a "Happy Haircut" cake for Jack. It was pumpkin spice, nothing special (except for the pumpkin, of course!) from the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook that is probably gathering dust on your shelf. I iced it with a maple cream cheese frosting. Mmmm. The cake provided the necessary distraction to get us through the afternoon and we caught Jack twirling Sawyer's hair as Brent read bedtime books that night. I guess little brothers are good for something every once in awhile.

Jack says he is knitting a white had for Dad for Christmas. Sweet. Now I don't have to worry about finding Brent a present.

What's wrong with me? Why do big boy haircuts make me feel so sad? Just the other week I was complaining about how I'm so over Jack and his terrible threes. So how come my eyes started to water when I tossed that pile of golden curls into the garbage can? And why did I get choked up when Jack walked down the hallway this morning and it took me a second to recognize him?

These kids are turning me sappy. I'm going to go eat another piece of "Happy Haircut" cake.

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Egg Beater, Chicken, Front-Back-Side-Pivot!

I butchered another pumpkin this weekend. This one went much more quietly than the last one, who kicked and screamed and took a few years off the lifespan of my blender. I think I am becoming obsessed with pumpkin puree. I want to spread this newfound gospel- to let the people know about the joy that is pulverized pumpkin!

Just what is it about that taste of pumpkin, mixed into something with plenty of butter and sugar and accented with cinnamon? I guess it tastes like fall. And so here is a taste of fall for you: my new favorite cookie recipe which I have blatantly plagiarized adapted from allrecipes.com:

Iced Pumpkin Cookies

2 1/2 cups flour

1 t baking powder

1 t baking soda

2 t cinnamon

1/2 t nutmeg, ground cloves, salt

1/2 cup soft butter

1 generous cup pumpkin puree (!!)

3/4 cup sugar

1 egg

1 t vanilla

Combine dry ingredients (except sugar) and set aside. Beat sugar and everything else together in the mixer then add the dry stuff. Drop tablespoons of dough onto a cookie sheet, flatten slightly, then bake at 375 for 10 minutes or so. If you can manage to wait long enough for the cookies to cool (we never seem to be able to do this), you can drizzle them with a glaze made from 1/2 cup powdered sugar, 1 t melted butter, 1/2 t vanilla, and 1 T milk. Or just eat them plain. Either way you'll love these cookies. So much that you just might make this face...

So it was a weekend of pumpkin slaughter, pizza sauce (Brent has tallied that we now have enough pizza sauce to last us through March 22nd. How did he come up with an exact day? There must be some sort of mathematical calculation for this? He is a talented man, that husband of mine), corn, and laundry. Oh yeah, the laundry. Snoozefest. But! I finally got caught up! As in the sheets and towels are all clean, too. This is momentous for me, okay? Seriously, I really do not understand how people with lots of kids do it. I guess if you have a big family you just designate one of your couches for clean clothes and nobody cares if your socks don't match? I truly do not understand this.

The laundry situation was made even more dire over the weekend by the fact that I ran a 5K on Sunday morning during a torrential downpour while Brent and the kids stood on the sidelines getting soaked through every fiber of their beings. But it was totally worth the extra load of laundry because it was MaryAnne's first race (and my first 5K, too!) and we killed it. I mean we didn't win or anything, but we ran steadily and finished strong. A pretty impressive feat for someone who five weeks ago laughed when I told her she should run it with me. We even shelled out the extra five bucks to do the chip timed run and so we got to wear these EXTRA SPECIAL green bibs and had the nifty chips laced onto our shoes. We looked totally legit, man, like a couple of real runners. Because we are.

I got to run an extra leg of the race because we got stuck in traffic on the way there so I had to jump out of the car on the Ferry Street Bridge and sprint over to Autzen in order to make the starting gun. Which they then delayed by ten minutes so as to allow those who had been stuck in traffic the opportunity to leisurely stroll the the start line. Of course.

But as I was making that mad dash to the start I began to think about how much I sometimes really hate running. I know, right? As I am running to the starting line of a race. But still, sometimes I really want to be lazy and sleep in my cozy bed instead of shlepping my entire family out into the rain so that I can run some arbitrary distance and get all hot and sweaty and red faced. My bed is so warm and cozy, you know, and I do so enjoy a quiet morning at home in my bathrobe with the newspaper and coffee and a little parenting break compliments of PBS Kids.

I guess we all need challenges. We must be driven to seek them out. It's a good thing when we dare to push ourselves to do something new or difficult. Rising to the occasion and meeting those challenges is what makes us feel fulfilled in our lives, I think. My challenges right now are to store enough fruits and vegetables in my freezer to last us all winter (this is ambitious, no?), to take Jack's mood swings in stride, to conquer that half marathon (November 20th!!), to keep my laundry demons at bay, to save some pumpkin cookies for tomorrow, and to remember to breathe and to savor the moments in my busy life that seem to want to slip away.

Back to the race. The turnout was impressive (hence the traffic snarl) and I scanned the crowd for kids from my school. I just figured that with all of this "I Heart Boobies" business running the middle school fashion circuit, I'd see some familiar faces out supporting breast cancer research. Nope. Lazy kids. Posers. I totally called them out on this in class today. I saw it as a "teachable moment".

So I'm wondering from you, blog readers, what are your challenges? How are you pushing yourself? I think it's inspiring to hear what other people accomplish when they channel their energy. Sure, this question isn't as exciting as writing about your most horrific public toddler meltdown, but I think it's an important one.

And to reward you for considering leaving a comment, I'll close by sharing with you an embarrassing story about a challenge that I recently faced, that I have deliberately avoided mentioning on this blog in fear that you would demand proof that this actually happened and that I would then have to dance the Hustle for you. Or that you would look for videos of this on YouTube (please do NOT tell me if you find any, I don't want to know!).

I can't dance. Not at all. It doesn't mean I won't dance, but I know that I look like an overcooked noodle with extra knees and elbows when I'm doing it. Give me a drink or two and put me into a dimly lit room with lots of other people and I'll shake my money maker with the best of 'em, but dancing in a public forum, as in for an audience? Not a chance.

But it was the first week of school and we decided to do a staff talent show and blah blah blah I "took a mental birdwalk" and suddenly we had agreed to dance the Hustle at an assembly! Huh? So everybody met in my classroom so we could practice and it was clear from the get go that I was not going to be able to do this. I started having flashbacks to 7th grade PE and the humiliating realization that I have no physical coordination whatsoever. I got super frustrated and tried to laugh it off, but really I was freaking out about this damn Hustle. Everybody else (with a few notable exceptions- you know who you are) seemed to master the dance after the first practice, but I knew that I was going to need an individualized plan of support. Enter my school BFF Kate, who patiently mentored me through the arduous journey of learning the basic dance steps. Then I went home and practiced with a little help from YouTube (see? it has its place) and finally my friend Melanie helped me put the finishing touches on my Hustle. (It's all about how far apart you spread your feet. Who knew?)

The assembly came and I totally rocked it. Or at least I did not fall down or trip over everyone else. I like to think that I rocked it, so let's just leave it at that, and like I said before, if you find and YouTube video evidence to the contrary you can just keep that to yourself.

So again, I pose the question to you, how do you challenge yourself?

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Perspective

I recently reread Little House in the Big Woods which, you may know, is the first book in the Laura Ingalls Wilder series. Of course I've read all of the Little House books at least once before and I'm pretty sure that I've seen every episode of the TV series at least twice, but once I picked up that tattered copy of Big Woods I just couldn't put it down. I mean, c'mon, the blizzard! Ma accidentally slapping the bear! The fiddle dance party and Grandma outjigging wild Uncle William! The action and adventure just doesn't stop with that Ingalls family.

Have I mentioned before the most amazingly awesome job perk ever? My school has thirty minutes of silent reading three times a week built into our master schedule. The entire school essentially shuts down so everybody can read. Yes, I am getting paid to read Little House books!

Which is why I am refreshed enough to haul the kids out for an afternoon run with the stroller. And some beautiful fall weather. And a praying mantis.

MaryAnne and I are running a 5K on Sunday. It's Race for the Cure- you should join us.

So, back to those Little House books. Man, life was hard back then, what with the panther attacks and the snowstorms and the isolation. That first book takes place before the family came west and had the luxury of shopping at Olsen's Mercantile (Nelly!) and they pretty much lived out in the middle of nowhere and only went into town once a year to trade Pa's furs and buy calico fabrics. I remember when I was a kid and reading these books I felt so sorry for Laura. She's pretty easy to sympathize with because she has that perfect older sister who can do no wrong and Mary has golden hair while Laura's is just "plain brown". Plus she has like a bazillion chores to do and practically no toys at all. Oh, and didn't your heart just break when the apples fell out of her dress in front of the entire school! OMG! Most painful-to-watch episode ever!

But now that I'm rereading the series I think Laura is kind of a brat and really the person to feel sorry for here is Ma. Damn that lady had to work. Churning the butter, darning the socks, cooking in what I can only imagine was a prehistoric kitchen, scrubbing the clothes on a washboard, the list goes on... Three kids and a husband! That's a lot of food and laundry. And then Mary goes blind? WTF? Poor Ma. She never had a book club to go to and sip wine while complaining about her husband. She never got a pedicure. Ma never stormed out of the house for some retail therapy. Ma was a martyr.

But did Ma ever get PMS? Didn't she ever get mad at Pa for playing that stupid fiddle all the time? Didn't Baby Carrie ever throw a temper tantrum? And just how do you live in a "little house" with three girls and a husband who works the fields all day long and only takes a bath on Saturday night? Ma is my new hero.

Perspective.

Ma has given me perspective.

My life is pretty easy.

See? My kids have actual pots and pans to play with. Poor Laura had to dress up a corncob and call it a doll. I guess I can still feel sorry for her, too.

(Jack is refusing a haircut. I just might have to do it while he's sleeping.)

In the spirit of Ma, I sallied forth with my food preservation obsession this weekend and cooked down veggies into broth for the freezer, baked and pureed pumpkin for cookies and pies, and let Brent tackle a mountain of corn. He can help. It's not like he was busy hunting bears or threshing a field or anything.

And then we went to a birthday party at Roaring Rapids Pizza and the kids got all cracked out on birthday cake and rode a carousel. I'll be sure to remind these kids that they live in the lap of luxury when I read the Little House books to them.

Sawyer's carousel face was... well, I'm really not sure what was happening here. Was he laughing? Was he crying? We couldn't really tell. But he seemed to want to ride it over and over again so we'll just assume he was having fun. Hard to say, am I right?

Friday night I got all fancied up with Amberlee (she brought me a dress from Spain!) and we went out for a swanky dinner, just the two of us. I ate pickled watermelon in a salad that literally exploded in my mouth (in a good way) and then we drank countless glasses of wine. Countless, I tell you, although I am pretty sure that I did not need that last one.

But that's okay, I was drinking one for Ma. Cheers.

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