Grateful - Day 2

So, I cheated.  Monday night was crazy.  Jason got home later than expected.  Jason and the boys went to the gym later than expected.  Dinner for me and Jason failed.  The remains of which still have to be scraped out of the pot, because it was unlikely that Jason was going to consume large amounts of this particular recipe if we were both eating it for dinner, he was definitely not going to touch it if I wasn't eating it as well.  The long and the short of it all was that we all ate dinner in front of an episode of Phineas and Ferb.

So, I asked the boys at breakfast this morning what they are grateful for.  Apparently, in the morning, the boys think a lot about food.

Josh:  Food.
Michael:  Santa
Ben:  Food (well, I am going to guess food since I couldn't get him to stop eating his smoothie long enough to answer my question).
Me:  My hour of peace from 6am to 7am.

Grateful - Day 1

I am clearly behind on posting things for which I am grateful, but I thought it would be fun the week of Thanksgiving to  go around the dinner table each night and have everyone share something for which they are grateful.

Day 1
Me:  My family - my wonderful husband and handsome boys.
Josh:  Boy scouts.
Michael:  Trees that grow leaves and then fall. (This might be related to the fact that he spent much of dinner pretending that his arms were tree branches with leaves growing out of them.)
Ben:  Chicken nuggets.
Jason:  Our two cars.

That is the Question

To potty train or not to potty train...that is the question.

I hate potty training.  The process is such a battle.  And then there is that super awkward period when they are on the verge of potty training and that is almost worse.  It's the time when they leave the house wearing underwear, but there is still a decently good (or bad, depending on how you look at it) chance that they will have an accident.  Or, if they are good enough to tell you they have to go, you have to run like a bat out of Houston to the bathroom because their ability to "hold" it is almost nil.  During that phase of potty training, I stake out all the bathrooms immediately upon entering a store as if I were on a SWAT team staking out all exit points.  Because when that child tell you he/she has to go, you have a 60 second window before he/she GOES.

Having gone through the process twice (and no, despite everyone's assurances, the second time was not easier), I had pretty much decided to wait until Ben walked up to me one day and said, "Mother dearest, I really do think that I am ready to be potty trained and wear underwear.  Could you help me please?"  And yes, I was going to wait until he said "Mother dearest."  

However, we have seemed to reach a point where he might be ready to potty train.  Not that he asks to go on the potty or anything wonderfully thrilling like that (and, as a mother I say that with absolutely no sarcasm), but he does seem to be really bothered by his diaper every time we change him.  It seems to me that might be a motivation for him to potty train.  So, we went to Walmart and he picked out Buzz Lightyear underwear, which he is not allowed to wear.  And on Monday, he sat "nakey" on the Winnie the Pooh potty eating Oreos, drinking milk  and watching Backyardigans.  No pee.  And we haven't done anything like that since.  Consistency was never my strong suit and with two older brothers and their activities, Ben has had the least amount of consistency of any of the kids.  

Poor boy.  We may have to go back to waiting for him to ask to use the potty.  Hopefully that will happen before he turns 12.

Vent

I have heard various friends and family complain about having a boss that is a micro-manager.  And it is frustrating to have someone question your every decision or try and make every decision for you.

I don't have a lot of sympathy.

I have Michael.

I live with my micro-manager.  For him, it isn't a leadership style.  It is a hobby...a talent...a calling.  There is not a single decision I make or action I take that he doesn't question.  And not just question...


Interrogate.

"What are you doing?  Why?  Why do I have to get up?  Why do I have to get dressed?  Why are we leaving the house?  Where are we going?  Why am I going to school?  Why? Why?  Why do I have to wear a long-sleeved shirt?  Why is it cold?  What is Batman's real name?  Why do I have to sit at the table?  Why do I have to eat pancakes?  Where are my pancakes?  Where is my milk?  Why do I have to drink milk?  Where are my vitamins?  Why do I have to wait?  Why do I have to eat pancakes?  Why do you want me to be healthy?  Why?  Why?  What is Batman's real name again?  What are you eating?  Why are you eating that?  Can I have an Oreo?  Can I have an Oreo after breakfast?  Why can't I have an Oreo after breakfast?  Why?  Why?  Why do I have to brush my teeth? Why do I want to have clean teeth?  What is Batman's name again?Why don't I want cavities?  Why do cavities hurt?  Why?  Why?  Why are you brushing your teeth?  Why don't you want cavities?  Where are you going? What is Batman's real name again?  Why are you going to the bathroom?  Why? Why?"

BECAUSE I (FREAKIN') SAY SO!  (I leave out "freakin'" when I talk to him, though.)

That is all before most people even get to their office.

I have read blogs and books of people who boast talk about how they believe in answering every question that their children ask because that encourages curiosity and intellectual growth.

Phooey.

Either they are lying, their children don't ask that many questions, or they get nothing done because it takes so much time to answer every. single. question.  Why do I say that?  Because for every single question that I take the time to answer, there is always a "Why?" question waiting in response.

Thanks for letting me vent.

Shenandoah Nat'l Park

Every year, we head up to Shenandoah National Park with my mom to see the changing of the leaves.  And every year we miss it.  Mostly we come too late, but a time or two we were too early.  We've considered making it a tradition to miss the changing of the leaves.  In which case, we did spectacularly well this last Wednesday, because when we drove up there we saw this:

And this:

That would make this the first time we have been so late for the changing of the leaves that we actually arrived in the mountains in a different season altogether.

Completely undaunted by the snow, Aunt Rachel and Josh scampered around on the rocks like mountain goats finding new areas to climb and generally making me a little nervous.

Aunt Rachel has been rock climbing the Alps...THE ALPS, people...so she knows her stuff.  

Michael was more of a climb around on the rocks at ground level kind of guy.  Or at least, he started that way.

And Ben was more of a Nana make me a snowball right now so I can throw it off the side of the mountain kind of guy.  Cute, but demanding.  

Then the boys discovered the snow.

And had snowball fight with Aunt Rachel.  Rachel used all her field artillery training to try and hit moving targets with snowballs.  She did pretty well, but was more successful when she could get up close and shove snow down the back of their jackets.

And here is a super cute picture.  Mom kept insisting that she was resting her head on Rachel's shoulder and that she really is taller than Rachel. 

We headed over to the restaurant where we always eat for a yummy lunch and then out on some more rocks.  Michael turned mountain goat as well and climbed all over the rocks with Josh. 

He was, apparently, victorious!

Ben, however, decided to stay with me.  I got a good upper body work out lifting him up and over the rocks.

Climbing rocks never really gets boring, but we did eventually corral the boys back to the van so we could do a little hike.  In the snow.  For Ben it was a nice cozy nap on my back in the carrier, for the rest of us it was a hike in a slushy winter wonderland.  It was fun to be able to hike in the snow and not have it be bitterly cold outside (those temps were waiting for us on Saturday instead).

The hike we did was so fun that Rachel and I decided to do it again after returning to the van and discovering that Ben had lost a shoe somewhere along the way.  It was much quicker the second time as I wasn't carrying dead weight on my back nor was I trailing a little boy who wanted to experience the snow with his fingers every couple of feet.

It was not what we expected, but we had a wonderful time.  I am so glad that we have this tradition and so grateful that Mom and Rachel came to spend the day with us.

The Difference a Day Makes

Only a week behind!  The race was foremost on my mind last week so I didn't get around to blogging about all the exciting stuff that happened in the week before the mud run.  On a side note, I am considering a new calendar system of Before Mud Run (BMR) and After Mud Run (AMR).  It was just that traumatic meaningful epic.

Here are the Sunday and Monday BMR pictures:

The boys went from snazzily dressed little gentlemen to tough superheroes/machines in a little over 24 hours!

On October 30th our ward had the Primary Program in Sacrament Meeting.  Fun stuff.  I love these programs for the crazy things that some kid invariably does in front of the entire audience.  In this case, one of our kids was part of the comic relief.  Michael and his BFF J spent most of the time goofing around.  There were headlocks, pushing, dancing, head rolling and finger gun shooting during the hour long program.  My mom was laughing so hard she cried.  Josh, in the meantime, very nicely read his part in the microphone and spent the rest of the program moving back and forth to get a better look at different people in the audience.  In any case, we glad to have Dad, Diane, Mom and Rachel there to experience this with us.

The next day, obviously, was Halloween.  The boys spent several weeks changing their minds about costumes.  In the end we had one Batman and two Optimus Primes.  Oh, and a Middle Eastern gentleman.  I am kind of glad that the boys are more into superhero (or supermachine as the case may be) costumes than into scary ones.  

We took them trick-or-treating at the local shopping center and then up and down our street.  Their candy haul was blessedly small and they don't have enough experience to know they could have gotten so much more.  While I think the dress up aspect of Halloween is fun, I find the candy part almost nauseating.  But they enjoyed themselves and still got to bed at a decent hour.

Primal Mud Insanity, er, Run

Yesterday was the inaugural Primal Mud Run.  

It was insanity.

Cold, cold insanity.

But first, a picture to show that Jason and I completed it.  Go us!

Four hours earlier, here are Jason, Rachel, Megan and I in our pre-race excitement.  Jason, showing his school spirit.  Me, being primal.  Rachel, trying desperately to be warm in the 30 degree weather.  Megan, in her easy to spot bright pink shirt.  Don't be fooled by the lack of winter coats, gloves, hats and scarves - it was cold!

We loaded up in Mom's Jeep and went over to the race to get labeled and pick up our t-shirts.  It was so cold.  Dad, Diane, Aaron and all six kids joined us just before the starting time.  Megan's friend, D, is not shown here, but also did the race with us.

Before we started the race, we were able to check out the pond (also known as the body of water that was as cold as water can be and not be frozen and will be featured later) and see some of the elite runners who had already completed the race.  At that point, I was hoping that everyone I talked into doing this race would still be my friend/relative/husband respectively afterwards.  Rachel straight up told me that I would not be in charge of picking the next race.

We got in line and finally made it to the starting line.

The first obstacle was this wall.  Jason, Rachel and Megan made it over and then came back to be stepping stools for D and I to climb over.

Next up, rolling huge tires up and back four times.

And then on to the cargo net.  Yeah, that is me struggling at the bottom.  I have been doing weights for a couple of months on and off, but my arm strength remains nil.  I did eventually figure out that if I stuck my arm through the hole and grabbed the net on the other side that I could get a more stable grip and climb up.

Having made it up and over the cargo net, we jogged on a bit to a spot where we grabbed 30 pound (I think) bags of sand and carried them in a frigidly cold stream that varied from mid calf to waist deep water.  The water was cloudy and bottom was covered in loose stones.  I copied D's idea and put the bag on my head, which helped keep me balanced and from falling in the frigidly cold water.

Which ended up being moot, because the next obstacle was the pond.  Looking at this picture, I still have a hard time breathing.  The volunteer lied to us told us this water was warmer than the creek.  And it was, for the parts of our bodies that had already lost feeling in the creek.  But, for the rest of our bodies, it was torture.  We all made it under the first barrels, but after that Megan, D and I cheated and went around them as the water was so frigidly cold that we couldn't breathe above water.  Rachel had the same problem, but she is Army Strong and went under them all.  And Jason is a superhero (at least my superhero) and went under them all as well.

The rest of the obstacle course took us out of the range of our adoring fans with their cameras so there is no photographic record.  It is mostly a blur to me now, but the rest of the race consisted of a lot of walls to scale, hurdles to jump, a huge water slide with a pit of water at the bottom (I got knocked into that and then down again by a very apologetic guy), hills to climb, tunnels into the water, hay bales to scale, monkey bars (which I completed on Jason's shoulders), a tire run, some other stuff I am sure I have forgotten and a lot of mud.

And it might have gotten up to 35degrees during the race.

Might have.

In the sun.

With no wind.

It was primal.

About half way into the race, I strained the ligaments or tendons in my knee so I gimped the rest of the race. My absolutely wonderful and amazing husband stayed with me the entire time and I could never have completed this race without him.  He was incredibly helpful.  Both physically, providing a leg to climb up and shoulders to sit on, and emotionally.  About every 10 minutes he told me that we were almost done and that he could see the end.  And yes, he could see the end, but we weren't almost done.  The race course zigzagged across the land bringing us closer to and then further from the end multiple times.  But, even though he lost credibility after about the third time he said that, his encouragement really helped.

Rachel, Megan and D went on ahead of us and finished together.  Here is a cool shot of Rachel going under the barbed wire at the end.

All together for the finish:

 Jason posing on the second to last obstacle:

Up top is the picture of Jason and I going over the finish line.  Here is our "after" picture with Rachel.  We got in about 20 minutes after everyone else and Megan and D had dispersed to their cars in a desperate search for warmth.  Which was hard to come by even after a warm shower, blankets and warm food.

So, we did it.  I ruined Jason's time, but I did complete every obstacle.  I pulled something in my knee and probably can't work out for a few weeks (or months) and have some lovely bruises on the back of my legs.  But, I did it.  Luckily, I still have friends/relatives/a husband - many of whom are contemplating the Warrior Dash in the Spring.  None of us ever want to do this particular November race again, but we had a good time.  

Quotes of the Day:

Megan: (something to the effect of) This race is like childbirth.  Really painful, but you forget how bad the pain is afterwards.

Me:  This is the stupidest thing I have ever done.

Jason:  You are overcoming your natural instincts...and your common sense!