While it may not matter a wit when I proclaim it to my adoring Beast… or to myself… in an effort to experience the weight of some real accountability, I will proclaim it here.
I am running today.
Before I lay my crazy, lazy-assed, pathetic head on the pillow this night, I will have gone running.
Mark. My. Words.
My Best Shot Monday came yesterday. A true, if brief, taste of spring.
My Fidgey and a pair of nine week old Bassett Hounds. Mmmmmmmmmmmmm………………….
In keeping with my rant against Mother Nature I woke up this morning, looked out the window, squeezed my eyes shut real tight, raised my fist to the heavens and went, “%&*#$%^@#&%@#$%&!!!!!”
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaargh!”
I promised The Beast last night that we would get out for a run this morning and I didn’t care if it was snowing. She looked at me with a dreamy gaze of complete worship as though to say, “Oh, thank you, my dear mummy. I can’t wait and I know, this time, you’ll come through for me. Because I just love you so much and despite your previous many disappointments I can see the commitment in your eyes and I just love you so much and am sure that this time. This time. This time. You will be true to your word and we will go out for a run. Cuz you know I love our runs soooooo much. Almost as much as I love you, dear mummy.”
Of course, when I made this promise to my perfect, adorable, lovely doggie, I knew She wouldn’t actually bring snow and that my word was a pretty easy one to keep.
Well, while She did not deliver snow to this here Western Slope, she did bring cold, rain and wind.
Triathlon is two months and counting. Doggie staring at me with expectation from doggie bed. I can see it in her eyes. The eternal forgiveness. Like she knows I’m gonna pee on her hopes and dreams yet again. But she adores me anyway.
Ugh! This is one helluva grudge.
It is a glorious morning here on the Western Slope. Cloudless. Blue as the best blue. Stunning.
Merely a tease, however. A luxurious anomoly. Oh, dear Mother Nature. Despite her generosity in recent years, she is truly a bitter bitch.
After this brief yet dazzlingly sublime taste of true spring-time, the Old Bag will go and pull the rug out from under of us, delivering only highs in the upper single digits for the remainder of this week.
What is she after, exactly? We recycle… while I dream of a huge SUV, I will likely never buy one… perhaps it’s a certain American president’s arrogance in screwing with Daylight Savings Time (believe me, the premature adjustment’s been a challenge for us, too)… maybe it’s that pressboard our miscreant boys inadvertently tossed onto the bonfire while we adults were too busy indulging in various forms of poor judgement…
Whatever we’ve done, Mother Dear, it’s time to just let it go. According to the most recent solstice- apparently you spit in the face of this so very obvious authority- it is officially spring.
For Chrissake, I’ve got a triathlon looming. And due to your little joke, I am painfully behind in my training.
So, please Lady. These games you play are taking their toll. We love you. Truly we do. And we promise to give you your props… show you proper respect…
Mommy Dearest… show a little mercy….
Yeah… well. Only his ass… of my comfy, cozy sofa, maybe.
Yes. It’s the weekend of The Masters.
It’s also the weekend of some real spring-time weather. Fucking finally! I’ll try to keep my resentment in check as apparently yesterday, our neighbors over the mountains were hit hard with a late season snow storm! Ha! I guess that’s what you get when your streets run free with money and your freaking SUV is encrusted with gold!
Anywho. I digress. Where was I?
Oh, yes. The Masters. And our very first, fair weathered opportunity to get things done in the yard.
Hmmmmm…… please say it’s only me that views these two things as completely, totally, fully and without any shred of doubt, mutually exclusive?!?!
I thought not. Shit!
Someone please tell me… what is the required amount of time a parent must listen to a six-year-old boy’s seemingly endless account of hand-to-hand battle with Count Duku and “his dudes” ?
A battle that entails the impaling of eyeballs upon blunt spears, or sometimes light “savers”.
“I go… mmmmmmbheezzzzzzzzzz…” flailing an arm with tremendous force. Presumably this is his light “saver”.
“I just stab the wobots and gasoline comes pouwing out of ‘em. Not like the humans, cuz that’s tons of blood.”
A battle that entaills the “deadliest mission”, where “I have to kill Count Duku without anybody cuz he killed all my dudes”. It’s gonna be the bloodiest….”
“Mmmm-hmmmmm….”
Honestly, this exchange will go on forever. If feels as though it almost has. I write in between nods and mmmm-hmmm’s. Despite my less than even vaguely- here he comes again…
“Guess what happens when he whistles. His dudes. 30 wolly (rolly?) dudes and- snort, snuff, snort- and y’know 30 more dudes… and I have to kill more than a thousand dudes- waaaaayyyyy more than a thousand dudes- like a hundwed, hundwed.” Blissful pause….
“I have to go save my last dude….”
-interested responses, he continues… “I have to kill at least one more of each of their wobots. So a wolly (rolly?) dude… and this guy….”
Oh my God… somebody please save me….
“I better say ‘good luck’ to myself… D’you wanna know why?… D’you wanna know why?… d’you wanna know why?…”
“Hmmmmmm-mmmmm….”
Cuz then I can move to the next level….” Runs off.
He’s back.
“I’m on the last level.”
“Wow!”
“I know.” Runs off. Brief reprieve….
“I have no more dudes…. Am I doomed?”
“Surely….”
Oh, please let it end……
My Zip. My Guga-roo. My youngest son. My middle child.
This is the day you were born. I remember it, as the cliche goes, ‘like it was yesterday’. Really. Not because yours was my first drug-free labour. Not because yours was our only birth here in our little Rocky Mountain community hospital. Not because yours was the birth that nearly made daddy a single father.
Yours was the birth that showed me how much more my heart could grow. After years of being convinced that I was destined to be the mother of an only child. Not believing a parent could really… truly… love more than one child. Certainly never believing I could love another as deeply and profoundly as I loved my first, your brother. After months of fearing what kind of mother I could possibly be to two….
The moment your dad announced you were a boy. The moment they flopped you on my stomach. The moment you breathed your first breath. I was lost. Right then and there, I grew another heart and you filled it up.
I was only able to hold you. To see you. For only a brief few moments before all hell broke loose. But during the chaos. I just wanted to see you, know you were OK. I could see you from my place across the room- with bed being madly raised to elevate my feet, needles being jabbed willy-nilly into my arm, blood gushing forth… and the soothing, background lull of the South African accent of the lovely dark haired, blue eyed (male… ahem!) anaesthitist- being weighed, measured and wrapped…. and passed to the waiting, welcoming arms of your daddy…
I finally held you. Dozy. I held you. I stared at you. A dark shock of hair on your tiny, perfect head. Fine. Downy. Soft as a baby bunny…. from then, you were my precious little Flopsy Bunny.
You allowed me to understand that love, my love, can be limitless.
Now as such a big boy. Now, with your sister among us, the middle child. Without a doubt you challenge me. Challenge me in ways, I never know I’m actually up for. Some days I am speechless at your antics. I am frustrated beyond my own comprehension. I want to tear what’s left of my hair out by the roots. Sometimes I do. I want to shake you by your slight, tanned, perfectly formed little shoulders. And some days I do. But as I step back, in my exasperation, and take a breath or ten, I realize these challenges are just your way of reminding me… that in the busy-ness of our days and the tremendous demands of siblings, older and younger, my precious Flopsy Bunny also needs me. Needs individual time. Time that is just for him. A walk. A story. A game. A seemingly endless conversation about his exploits at Halo. A big old hug. And most recently, long, juicy smooches.
You are a special dream. A beautiful, energetic, brutally intelligent, tiny, perfect, long-haired, blue eyed dream. Sometimes, during moments. Quiet moments as you colour your crazy creatures madly; or moments when you are a fighting Ninja, you and your own compact, coordinated little body, taking down hundreds of opponents at once; or moments when I catch you laughing histerically at some crazy thing on the toob. I just stare. Mesmerized. In absolute awe.
I don’t know that I can adequately put into words what your presence in my life and this family means to me. How special you are. How without you, our lives, each of us, would be less than. But always know, regardless the day… regardless the challenges… I love you as much as anyone can possibly be loved. Doubtless, even more than that.
Even as this big, six year old boy… you are still and will always be… my precious Flopsy Bunny.
For the past half hour I find myself in heated debate with middle child over whether or not I am nice. Why I, late-thirty-something-mother-who-knows-better, am engaging, only days-away-from-being-six-year-old hysterical child, very recently deprived of X-Box priveleges for miserable behaviour, is in an argument over my nice-ness, could certainly be a valid question.
Well… because I am feeling lousy. Brief session photographing perhaps less than wonderful images of local middle aged couple. Listening to incessant background noise of exasperated and frustrated boisterous WAH husband yelling into speaker phone to anxious and demanding co-workers trying to meet deadline all morning. Anticipating drive of several hours to Calgary to spend seemingly endless hours all weekend in stuffy, chlorine infused pool environment. And I’m feeling lousy. So, I’m getting a little perverse satisfaction out of ongoing misery derived from meaningless, mutually antagonistic, absolutely no point to be had, and unnecessary, overly emotional exchange with youngest boy child.
Essentially… you want to fuck with me this morning? Game on!
Mesmerized, 6 am, on my comfy-cozy sofa, staring into my laptop screen. I feel my girl-child settle into the blankets next to me. Transfixed, without averting my gaze and only somewhat conscious of her warm, sleepy presence, I instinctively lift my arm to snuggle her into my side.
We stare… the two of us.
After many, many moments, I turn to look at her… and she to me.
“You nevah said good mo-awning to me…”
I look down at her. She gazes up at me from her place, nestled into my armpit. I smooth her hair from her face and kiss her forehead. I can’t help but smile.
“Good morning.”
Credit to dooce and this amazing link, for some much needed early morning perspective….
Ugh! Another month. Another Gazette to the printers!
Now, my question to myself is this:
“A month is at least 30 days long. That’s a fair bit of notice of a deadline. Why the HELL can’t I get it started before the 29th?”
That’s a question I’m sure I shall ponder until April 29th, when I am inevitably busting my ass trying to come up with content: harassing local businesses for advertising and bothering neighbors for silly Q & A… blah, blah, blah!
While I managed to meet the newspaper deadline, we are all still sucking wind. Whether it’s the ongoing recovery from last week’s company or this GD early Daylight Savings Time, I haven’t been up to enjoy my usualy early, early morning for weeks! And I have a triathlon to prepare for. Training was supposed to start Monday….
It’s Tuesday. 7am is passed. That is designated running time, doncha know. If it don’t happen then… well, it just don’t happen. Less than 10 weeks and counting.
Keep on going, and the chances are that you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I never heard of anyone ever stumbling on something sitting down. -Charles Kettering
Most of our obstacles would melt away if, instead of cowering before them, we should make up our minds to walk boldly through them. -Orison Swett Marden
… when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason. - John Keats
Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. whole, clear, glorious life lies before you. Achieve! Achieve! - Andrew Carnegie
As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives. -Henry David Thoreau
