Dry Needling

A friend of mine recently went through a... training, I guess?  A workshop?  A certification?  Something magical and clandestine that only physical therapists (and I think a couple chiropractors) can take part in where they lock themselves into a room and poke each other with needles until all their various aches and pains have abated and they have unlocked the secrets to a reliably good night's sleep.

That's how I imagine it went, anyway, based on the details she shared and my natural gift for confabulation. 

Anyhow, I asked this friend if she'd bring her magic needles with her when she and another friend came over last weekend.  She kindly agreed and even made us feel necessary by saying she needed plenty of dry needling practice. Then she stabbed us until we begged for mercy!

Okay, so not really.  She was very precise and professional about the whole thing- she even brought her own wee sharps container- calmly talking us through every step of the process and answering my questions with the utmost patience.  While I laid on my front, peppered her with questions, and tried to take a picture without moving any of the muscles in my posterior chain- the section she was needling- I soon realized that I wasn't feeling much of anything. 

Excuse the dead fish look on my face- I really really wanted to see what she was doing back there.

As a matter of fact, the only real sensation I felt was when she needled a certain spot in my right hamstring and elicited a twitch response.  I kept asking if the needles were in, if she'd already put one in, etc.  I couldn't feel much of anything, excepting that one spot, throughout the whole thing.  Somehow this feels like it must be connected to the fact that I can only be massaged by those with impressive upper body strength; my response to the question, "How's the pressure?" is almost invariably "MOOOOOOORE!"

The freaky part to the whole "I am an unfeeling robot" revelation was when I watched Anne dry needle our other friend, Mindy.  Not only was Mindy's response different than mine- nothing crazy, she just clearly could feel bunches of needles penetrating her flesh- but I could see how long the needles were going into her calves.  They had to be at least two inches long (currently holding my index finger and thumb up to try and gauge how long those needles looked), and most of that length went into her calf muscles.  I had to ask because it seemed so implausible, but sure enough, it was those big mamas that I wasn't feeling.  Google searches asking what the opposite of a highly sensitive person might be have so far only told me that I am a pitiless turd. 

I'm not even going to pretend to be able to explain what the proposed benefits to dry needling are.  I'll just tell you what I told Anne:  my range of motion was better for around 48 hours post-needling, especially in my right hip, where I usually suffer from limited range of motion and almost daily pain. 
Example:  normally I have no problem executing this stretch on my left leg, while my right takes a few minutes to relax into place.  It's one of my very favorite hip opening-type stretches, a kind of standing pigeon for you yoga types. 

That knee is usually floating several inches above the counter, at least at first.  After the dry needling, however, it slid right down onto the counter, parallel with my foot.  Amazing.  Also I don't know what that means.  Ask a PT.  Of additional note:  this picture was taken in the back room at work.  I take regular stretch breaks, and you should, too.


It was all a welcome break from the we're-moving-life-as-we-know-it-is-over chaos. 






Gratitudinals

1.  Not having to pay to call people long-distance anymore.  Or use those ridiculous pre-pay phone cards for the same. 

2.  Roasted pine nut hummus.

3.  The fact that corsets or stays or girdles are no longer required as part of women's daily attire.

4.  Adelaide, and not just because is even now telling me to type this.  She is a marvel.

5.  My youngest sister, Stephanie, who I can always use as a sounding board to determine what the kindest course of action is.  I don't know if it's a function of being the youngest child, or an inborn trait, or what, but she reliably points me in the nicer direction.

News of Two Sorts

First off, I feel I should deliver an update on Daughter's performance of Lumiere, given my last post.

Sorry for scribbling out your face, girl over Adelaide's shoulder

She did so well!  She sang, she danced, she spoke in a French accent that was still understandable- a real worry of mine weeks before the performance, when I tried to gently remind her that yes, she was supposed to be French, but the audience still needed to be able to understand the words coming out of her mouth.

As for those candlesticks:  she made around 80% of them herself.  Did the hot glue drippings, the painting, glued toilet paper tubes inside so she'd have something to grip- nearly everything.  The only thing I helped with were creating the papier mache flames.  That and tailoring that blasted men's suit jacket from Goodwill.  It hung on her like a garbage bag when we first got it, and silly me thought it would be a relatively straightforward matter to extract the oversize shoulder pads, amend the lines of the opening and way it hangs, add gold filigree, and so on, and so on.  

After copious seam ripping and repeated plunges into the bowels of the jacket, however, I realized that men evidently require a lot of padding in their clothing.  Then I got mad thinking about how you would never find this in women's clothing; our fabric instead trends toward the uncomfortably sheer.

One of many fistfuls of shoulder padding

As for the musical itself, well, we listened to Adelaide wail about how poorly practices were going and about how this person kept storming off stage and how that person couldn't even be bothered to show up for the (hours long) practices- etc, etc.  Our expectations for the outcome of the show lowered accordingly each time she uttered such a critique, so said expectations were subterranean by the time we arrived at opening night.  But somehow, through seventh grade magic or possibly just lots and lots of hard work, those kids pulled it off.  It was so entertaining.  Adelaide and her friends acquitted themselves admirably, and we were so proud.

Also of note:  my sister Kelli and her family braved predictions of a winter storm, car problems, and the reality of sticking three tiny children in a car for hours and hours to make the drive up and surprise Adelaide that weekend.  I got almost no pictures while they were here, possibly because I'm a terrible sister/aunt, but mostly because I was trying to soak up every second of their presence. 

That is our giant daughter carrying all the toys Kate felt she needed from the second floor down to the first while also making sure she made it safely downstairs.  Please also see that the shirt Kate is wearing is one that Adelaide wore when she was that little.  Which was forever ago, but simultaneously three seconds ago.

Just two other details pertinent to the story of that weekend:  

One: people approached me after both performances multiple times to tell me that they didn't at first believe that Adelaide was a girl.  She was so convincing as a boy, they claimed, from the sound of her voice as she sang to her mannerisms as Lumiere!  My response to this the first couple times was to laugh, but after that I wasn't sure what the appropriate response was.  "No, please, you're too kind"?  "I bet you get that all the time, too"?  

Two:  Adelaide's dear friends got friendship necklaces, which they presented to her that weekend.  They look like matching puzzle pieces that, when fitted together, read "Always together, never apart, maybe in distance, but never in heart."  (Commas added by yours truly because why on earth wouldn't I?)  The girls gave her this because she's been struggling with the fact that our family is moving.

To Connecticut.

More on this tomorrow.

Three Rivers Trail Half Marathon Race Recap, with Loosely Related Gifs

My goals for the half marathon I ran over the weekend, in descending importance:

1. Not have an asthma attack.
2. Treat it as something I get to do, not have to do, because for crying out loud that is what it is.
3. Run a smart race; specifically, not get caught up in the energy at the start line and go out too fast, fuel appropriately throughout, do frequent checks on my form to keep myself light and upright.  
4. Do my best in whatever circumstances I find myself in Saturday morning.
5. Beat my previous half marathon time.
6. Finish somewhere around the two hour mark.
7. *Secret stretch goal* Finish under two hours.

Let's break it down.

The list, I mean.  Although if it's hammer time and you want to break it down, I say do it.

1.  Remember two years ago when I had an awful asthma attack around miles 4 through 7 of my first half mary and it slowed me waaaaay down and I wanted to die and the whole running+asthma thing wore me out so badly I got home, went straight to bed, and slept like the dead for two hours?

I do.  I remember that.

Asthma isn't something that's easily controllable in the moment; I mean, that's kind of the nature of the beast.  There are things I can do to set myself up for asthma success (or... something), however, like doing my best to remain calm, taking my allergy meds, and keeping my inhaler with me.  Allergy pill an hour pre-race: check; inhaler in my fuel pouch thingy: check; remaining calm: well, that one's more or less on Mindy, my amazing friend who informed me a week ago she would be accompanying me to my race, even though it meant getting up before 5 AM and dedicating the bulk of her Saturday to an event she wasn't even participating in.  Having her to talk to in the car for the hour and a half drive there kept me calmer than anything, as it prevented me from dwelling in a pit of race anxiety and despair.

2.  Between various small injuries and an autumn jam-packed with change (all three kids in school, going from staying at home for ten years to two part-time jobs, etc, etc) and just being plain tired, I was feeling pretty burnt out on running.  I still loved it, but I was feeling more resentment than excitement over this stupid meany race I'd signed up for many moons ago.  This is ridiculous because NO ONE WAS MAKING ME DO THIS.  This one basically involved remembering gratitude and keeping the following in mind:

3.  I was in the middle of the pack at the starting line, and as soon as the gun went off (aka the app blared on the race director's phone, as this was a pretty small race), I was passed by a large number of the people running for the first half mile or so.  The following three miles, I stayed in the same position relative to all the other runners, then spent the remaining ten miles slowly passing most of those people who went out way too fast at the start.  This was exactly what I wanted to do, so hallelujah and pass the peaches.

My fueling was perfect thanks in large part to the race fuel fairy/ my friend Anne, who surprised me by dropping off a baggie of goodies at my front door last week.  Included was a packet of Huma gel, and as I discovered at mile 6 Saturday morning, this is my new favorite running gel.  I've tried GU, and it's fine, I've tried Clif gel, and the caffeine in it makes my stomach cramp, I've tried gummy bears, and while those work for me on my training runs, I've discovered I am unable to chew and run with any speed at the same time [insert walking and chewing gum joke here].  SO if you are a runner or endurance athlete-type person with a gut that is such a diva you've considered naming it after one of the Kardashians, I (and Anne the Wonder Triathlete!) recommend Huma.  Also of note is that the consistency of Huma is considerably less nasty than that of GU, at least to my palate.



4.  Stomach, weather, whatever, I wanted to make the best of whatever circumstances happened to occur Saturday morning, all toward that same goal of not being a miserable cow.  It's a good goal.



5 & 6.  My previous half marathon PR (personal record, rubes) wasn't great, due to the asthma and it being my first race, thus having no earthly idea what I was doing.  My primary goal in that race was to finish.  Fine, mission accomplished.  Anytime someone asked what time I was aiming for (as people are wont to do, I have found), my answer was around two hours.  I felt these were reasonable goals and well within my abilities.



7.  The goal I felt I could only accomplish if circumstances lined up and I had a great day was to finish in less than two hours.  Still within reach, but not if my stomach was acting up or it was raining or windy or the course was unexpectedly hilly or treacherous or strewn with hinkypunks.  I averaged a pace a bit under nine minutes per mile and finished comfortably under two hours, beating my previous time by 26 minutes.  This is a slow pace to many runners, but not this one. All this meant the first several miles felt great, the middle few miles still felt pretty good, and the final few felt hard up to the end, where believe me, I was toast.  But mentally, I was doing this:

Matter of fact, I still can't do that because HOLY HAMSTRINGS.  SO SORE.  Also I am not M.C. Hammer.  M.C. Hammerstrings?




Big fat juicy thanks to Derek for never ever ever complaining when I want/need to go for a run- even the multiple-hour ones that take up so much of our Saturday mornings;

to my mom for watching over our chitlins race morning and going above and beyond the call of duty by taking them to IHOP for breakfast, then shoe shopping, then walking on a nature trail, then introducing them to the wonders of Miracle on 34th Street when I made it perfectly clear she was welcome to just park them in front of the tv whilst I was running and Derek and Mark were golfing,

to Mindy for getting up hours before sunrise to distract me from my own horrible brain and being on the course at mile 3 to take my various layers I was suddenly too hot for and throwing at her feet, then at mile 12-point-something to take my phone because it was suddenly too heavy to carry anymore, then cheering and yelling me across the finish line, along with innumerable pep talks and being a darn good friend,

to Anne for the race treats and encouraging texts mid-race and always being willing to accept with good humor the unflattering selfies I take mid-run, along with innumerable pep talks and being a darn good friend,

to Derek's mom Becky for giving up her Saturday morning to drive up to the race and cheer me on, even though it wasn't the kind of course that easily allows for spectators and it took quite a bit of effort on her part for just a few seconds of "Hi, Kristy!" that nonetheless were encouraging to me,

to all the other people I'm forgetting because I'm a terrible person, and to you, because how on earth are you still reading this?,

and

to chocolate chunk brownies, forever and ever, amen.

All right, so these clearly aren't chocolate chunk brownies, but this *is* a gif that apparently has a subliminal image of historically-inaccurate white-skinned, blue-eyed Jesus.  HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO RESIST?

Good Stretching and Bad Running

Recently a friend of mine asked if I'd be a guinea pig of sorts.  She's a physical therapist, and needed some of her runner friends to come in so she could practice getting video and analyzing exactly what's wrong with us (or... something).  She first said this is in a way that indicated I'd be doing her a huge favor.  Based on past race photos, I knew I had a janky stride and something was up with my form, so my response was something like, "Sure I'll help you out!  When do you want me to come in?  This afternoon?  How about right now?  Is yesterday too soon?"

So a couple days ago I went to her clinic and got to see my friend in all her Physical Therapist glory.  This was fun and unusual because normally we're all sweaty and in running clothes when we're together, or, as the case was last weekend when I went to watch her in a triathlon, I was in civilian clothes and she was in costume.  I think she said it's actually called a "kit" but growing up a dancer I'm much more comfortable with the term "costume."  It was the first triathlon I've ever attended, and after watching her and several hundred other sadists compete my thoughts were, "This is so cool!  So amazing!  So inspiring!  I would never ever ever do this to myself!"  I have read multiple times that triathletes suffer far fewer injuries than straight runners, but I have to think my lack of injuries would be a small comfort when I'm drowning in a lake trying to swim over a mile.

Anne had a student with her at the clinic, and they started by pumping my ego, oohing and aahing over my flexibility, diminished as it is by this hamstring injury I've been nursing for the past couple months.  Speaking of which, our middle child may look more like his daddy, but this kid's flexibility is courtesy of yours truly.

He's always been like this, too.  I mean, I know most babies and toddlers enjoy relative flexibility, but Atticus has always had crazy range of motion.

He frequently falls asleep like this,

and it's one of the first things we do when he's in the midst of a night terror- unfold his body from whatever position it's pretzeled itself into and back into a straight line. To a certain extent I can I understand this sleeping position, because every time I do this in yoga, I can feel myself begin to doze off if I stay here too long.

Then again, that might be the sleep deprivation talking.  (Photo by Atticus, who loves to hang out next to me while I do yoga, trying to imitate the poses, but always ends up lying on floor asking to take pictures.)



At the clinic, after testing my flexibility and strength, it was time to hop on the treadmill for a few minutes, followed by some outdoor running.  Then it was time to pop the helium-filled balloon that is my pride and gleefully watch it plummet to earth.  This was done by the time-honored way of watching a video of myself run

from behind

in slow-motion.


Gravity, thou art a cruel mistress.


In the end, I got to see how specifically wonky my stride is, and Anne gave me some great advice on things I can do to begin to correct it.  Why correct it?  Well, because that wonkiness likely led to my apparently-not-so-random hamstring injury.  Plot twist.

I've spent the last three days attempting to implement some of her exercises and tips, and as a result I feel much like this when I'm running:

At least the scenery's been pretty.  Run early enough and there are only trees out there to judge you.

There is a tree I avoid running past two blocks from our house, though, as the owner has attached a scary face to it.  It's one of those that you don't even notice until you're close enough to do one of these:

I keep meaning to take a picture of it, but I'm too scared to because two things are possible here:  1) This is a tree with an actual menacing face that grew out of it and it most likely does not care for scared runner paparazzi, and 2) the owner of the house and tree are people who do things like attach mean faces to their trees to frighten unsuspecting passersby.  One of these is admittedly more likely than the other.  Guess which one I believe to be true.  

Three Things

• The other day Adelaide said to me, "It seems like a long time ago girls liked Elvis Presley the same way girls like Justin Bieber now.  And that's just not fair!  Elvis Presley is so much better than Justin Bieber!"  This was after we fell down a Youtube wormhole that started with videos of The Shirelles and The Platters and ended with Elvis Presley singing "Hound Dog."   Adelaide has a classmate who is just the tiniest bit obsessive about Justin Bieber, which has flummoxed our daughter since this girl first pontificated on the subject of her idol.  We also watched a 70's-era video of Elvis, and Adelaide was aghast:  "What happened to him?!"  I said, "DRUGS, Adelaide.  Drugs and a reckless lifestyle happened to him.  So just remember:  You can have all the musical talent in the world, but if you do drugs, you'll end up a laughingstock who dies on the toilet."  This seemed to horrify and amuse her in equal measure, which meant my motherly work was done for the day.

I feel like I'd be more likely to read celebrity rags if all the pictures were of celebrities eating sandwiches.

• My friend Paige and her herd of children came for a visit the other day.  The only thing wrong with Paige is that she moved to the other side of the state a couple years ago, and so I only get to see her a few times a year now.  Because of this, there is never enough time to say all the things we need to say.  It always feels like we're racing the clock, trying to cram as many topics into our short space of time as possible:  "Stitchfix-Sherlock-Harry Potter-Parenting-Books-Church-Peeing Boys-Guns-Blogging-Wait!  You can't leave yet!  I STILL HAVEN'T ASKED HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT THIS AND THIS AND ESPECIALLY THIS!"  Caedmon's already asking to go see "the Other Atticus"; he feels the same way I do on this matter.

• Derek and I are almost done with Midsomer Murders, which means we're about to be in need of another television show to watch together.  Suggestions?  Please?  We loved Sherlock and the aforementioned MM and Friends and Frasier and I can't think of what else.  I tend to be the tiniest bit difficult to please with tv, losing interest after only a couple episodes, whereas Derek's a Finisher to the bitter end- but still, we need help!  What program needs to be in our lives?

'Friends' Philosophy

One of the things Derek and I enjoy doing together is watching old episodes of Friends.  Working in television, Derek tends to take the whole experience to the next level, and while he thankfully spares me his thoughts on shot composition and lighting and blah blah blah, he does point out things I'd never notice, like how in one scene Mike's scarf goes from tied to untied about a dozen times each time the camera cuts away from him, or how one scene with Phoebe and Monica has some random dark haired girl standing in for Monica.  Once he pointed it out, I had no idea how I'd never noticed.  With me you get Friends 110, where I laugh at all the jokes I can recite by heart, and maybe even ruin it for you a bit by saying the punchline along with the character, which I'm sure isn't annoying at all.  With Derek you're taking the graduate level course because he's not as gentle as God- no, he will rip those scales from your eyes: "Hey, look, she's wearing a completely different outfit but it's still the same scene," and "Why is that guy in the background walking down the steps when a moment ago he was just entering the building?" and "Wow, that's not even Monica."  Somehow it's enjoyable, and will make you feel like you're now part of some kind of elite pool of Friends viewers, which is exactly as pathetic as it sounds.

In addition to Friends viewing, I find myself thinking about certain episodes way more than I should- such as the "There is no selfless good deed" episode.  In it, two of the characters argue over whether or not truly selfless good deeds exist.  One maintains they do, but can't think of any examples, and one says they don't, that there is a selfish component to every good deed, intentional or not.

I don't know why I think about that so much.  Perhaps because I do feel so good after doing so-called good deeds, which keeps them from being truly selfless.  I've agonized over this for years (seriously.  These still waters don't run so deep.), trying in vain to come up with a selfless good deed.

But finally, finally, I think I may have found one.


It was shortly before Christmas.  I had made it through the day, the children were finally in bed, Derek was at church helping with rehearsals for the Christmas program, and I had a nausea-inducing, crazy painful migraine.

I started getting migraines in my early twenties, and averaged about one a year for several years before having a glorious migraine-free streak that lasted around three years.  That streak was broken on this night, the night of the selfless good deed.

Now, when I have a migraine, I need utter darkness and total silence.  Basically I need an ibuprofen-stocked cave, but those are hard to come by, and pretty boring after awhile anyway.

So I was lying on the couch, my hands pressed hard on either side of my head (because sometimes that helps, too; someone needs to make a migraine vise), listening to Doctor Who; notwithstanding my need for silence and darkness, for some reason Doctor Who is comforting to me when I don't feel well.  I had my eyes closed and the volume was on low, but the blue light flickering through my eyelids was proving to be more than my head could handle, so I had just decided to turn it off and retreat to our bedroom when someone knocked on our front door.

Obviously it was the devil.  No one else has such impeccable timing.  (You didn't know the devil had great timing, did you?  Well he does.)

Shockingly, it was not the devil but a group of smiling tweens who promptly started screaming at me.  They did not stop for two full minutes.  And by "screaming" I mean "caroling."

That's right.  A group of well-meaning kids, led by two kind adults, had come to our house to sing one of my favorite Christmas songs, Oh Holy Night.

Being a native midwesterner- a species of beings whose niceness is rivaled only by Canadians, and who will stop at nothing to be as helpful and polite and kind to family and complete strangers alike, who, upon meeting someone from New Jersey who talked about his loud, raucous Italian family didn't believe him at first because she thought that stuff was made up for tv along with vegetarians and people who meditate- there was nothing to do but hope my painful grimace could pass for a grin and lean heavily on the front door for support.  I almost passed out.  Toward the end there was little silver confetti sprinkling itself across my vision; despite that, I managed what I hope was a genuine-sounding "Wow, thank you so much!  That was lovely!  Merry Christmas!"

Then I crawled upstairs and vomited.

A selfless good deed:  pretending to enjoy and be thankful for somebody else's good deed when in fact it makes you want to die.  I finally found one.  It was not worth it.

Memories, or Lack Thereof

Yesterday was my birthday.  I celebrated by forgetting something.  It's just what I do.


The family of our beloved baby sitter Hannah kindly invited our children over to make cookies and do other fun things.  (I have no idea what those fun things were; I tend not to ask too many questions when people volunteer to watch our kids.  Parenting at its finest, friends.)  The plan was then for Hannah to take our kiddos back to our house, feed them and put them to bed.  Great.  Super.  Whatever.  As long as I'm not there having to help.

But as it turns out, a key is required to unlock doors that have been locked.  This would have been helpful information to remember after I left the house and locked the front door and before we dropped our children off but not our house key.

You should have seen Derek's face when he got the text from Hannah's mom about the lack of a house key.  (The text went to Derek's phone because my phone was, of course, dead as a doornail.  I also forgot to charge my phone.  Are you sensing a trend here?  No?  Just wait.  I'll hammer that point home before this post is over.)  It was a bit of a cross between mild surprise and grim resignation.  I'm pretty sure there was a sigh in there, too.

It's not like this has ever been a secret in our relationship.  A few days before we were married, we drove 45 minutes south, crossing the state line to visit the courthouse in the county our wedding was taking place to apply for the marriage license.  Upon arrival, I realized I had forgotten the letter from our pastor stating we had completed a premarital course.  (That's right:  The state of Oklahoma gives you a discount on your marriage license if you go through some kind of premarital advisement, course, or counseling.  Bravo, Oklahoma.)  Fortunately, I was able to call the church office (where they know me well enough to know that if we're talking memory work or an academic test, well, I'm your gal!  If you want something that's actually useful to everyday life, I'm one very small step up from worthless), and they were kind enough to fax a copy of the letter straight into the office there at the courthouse.

Then, just to make sure Derek knew what he was getting himself into, on our wedding day I forgot the marriage license at my mom's house- again, 45 minutes away- didn't realize it until after the ceremony when it was time to sign it, and a very kind guest drove to my mom's house and back to the wedding so we could sign it and, you know, legally be married.

His reaction was a little more pronounced all those years ago.  Not terrible, but not just a simple sigh and shaking of his head.

I wonder if it will even register when I forget something important in another ten years?  And what are we going to do if I ever develop dementia?  It's gonna take forever for him to differentiate between the red flags of the disease and my normal quirks.

I'm pretty sure I meant to go somewhere else with this post, but I've forgotten just where that was.  How peculiar.






P.S.  What's a doornail?  Seriously?

Thanksgiving Travels

Our family spent the last week down south, eating and seeing family and eating and going to movies and eating and visiting with friends and eating and enjoying warmer temperatures and also eating.

I took half a million pictures (but still missed a bunch of stuff I wanted photos of), so I think I'll spend this week highlighting a few per day.



First up:  The Best Movie Theater in the Entire World.





Or at least in the midwest.  And if not the midwest, then in Kansas.  Or maybe just in southern Kansas.  Or just in the Wichita area.  Definitely the best movie theater in the Wichita area.  Also in the world, as far as I'm concerned.

ANYWAY.  The Warren Theatre ("theatre" because Wichitans like to pretend they're British?) on the east side of Wichita is my favorite theater ("theater" because I'm perfectly aware no one will ever mistake me for a Brit) ever.  But I think I've already established that.  It's huge and everything is art deco and covered in gilt and velvet, there's a fireplace in the bathroom, a balcony in the biggest theater (the one pictured above, where we watched Catching Fire) where 21+ can sit and have a meal and be waited on while watching the movie, and there's an old-fashioned diner just off the lobby and everything speaks of old Hollywood glamour.  Derek and I drove an hour north just so we could see the movie in this theater.  Oh, and so we could double date with old friends we don't get to see enough of.  That too.  (Somehow I got a photo of the movie theater but not of our friends.  Priorities:  I have them.)  Big thanks to Mom and Mark for watching the kiddos so we could visit the theater!  And our friends.




We also jumped on the trampoline:

That's Derek, Adelaide, and me, although Adelaide and I were the only ones who made sure to spend plenty of time jumping every single day we were at my mom's house.

I also finally got to meet my friend Megan's baby Iris, who is beautiful in fact and in name:

She's pretty and tiny and petite in a way our children never were.  (They were never tiny and petite.  Of course I thought they were pretty.  Most of the time.)  Well, Adelaide was petite for about five seconds after she was born then she discovered eating and started growing and hasn't stopped, which I realize is a good thing, but I'm still a little freaked out about the thought of my children someday being taller than me.  My sisters and I never reached the height of either of our parents, so it's sort of unimaginable to me.  Don't get me wrong; I want our kids to be taller than 5'4", but still... it's hard to picture.

  

We also got to ride in a horse-drawn wagon, and our friend Liza, the driver, invited Adelaide and Atticus to come sit beside her, which they jumped at.  She gave them an impromptu lesson and answered millions of questions.

Liza's sister Anna was there with her adorable baby Kenyon, but of course I didn't get a picture of that.  It would have made too much sense.

I also didn't get any pictures of Derek and Mark golfing (que lastima), or any of the portion of our trip at Derek's parents' house, which actually is a shame.  

Never fear, though!  There are still plenty of baby pictures to look forward to this week!

Definitely Not a Happy Camper

What is with all the camping talk lately?

It feels like everywhere I turn, people are talking about camping.  The weather turns warm and people decide to eschew their comfortable, bug-free houses and sleep outside.  Scratch that- they drive hours and hours away from their comfortable, bug-free houses and then they sleep outside.


Here's what springs to my mind anytime someone mentions the word "camping:"

Being excited about getting to sleep separately from the rest of my family in a two-person tent (my dad is a camping purist; no pop-ups or campers for us, oh no; if you're not in an uncomfortable, leaky tent with nary an air mattress in sight, then you're not really camping) with the friend I'd brought along (pretty sure the fact that I always got to bring a friend on our annual camping trips was my mom's way of keeping me from revolting; she's the polar opposite of my dad in that her favorite place to camp is the Holiday Inn).  We'd borrowed the special, just-Kim-and-me tent from our family friend Teresa.  I'm pretty sure I had visions of something like this:


[UPDATE:  Derek read this post the day after I published it, and wasted no time in texting to assure me that if I didn't remove the photo I originally had posted below- of the twins in a pup tent in the original The Parent Trap movie- we would be sued and burned on a pyre, probably at the same time.  I was scared to do a Google search for "girls in tent" for a stock photo, and besides, the Hayley Mills picture is really what's in my head.  So I decided to craft a near-exact duplicate via Microsoft Paint.  Behold, then click on this link so that you can compare how awesomely similar my version and the original photo are.  You're welcome.]

You should definitely click to embiggen.

But what I got instead was a tent that absolutely reeked of dog poop.  You seriously couldn't walk within ten feet of that thing, let alone crawl inside and cocoon yourself in the Plastic House of Crap.  So instead, we decided to sleep in an open-air cart-trailer-thing that a fellow crazy camping family had hauled behind their van.  The problem with the cart was that it was on two wheels, meaning it was always sharply canted one way or the other when unhitched.  Because we're brilliant, we first tried sleeping head down, but it turns out it's difficult to sleep when clouds of mosquitos are swarming your face because of all the blood rushing to your head.  We next tried feet down, but gravity decided to show us who was boss and our sleeping bags kept slipping out of the cart.  This all seemed vaguely funny to a couple high schoolers, but we stopped laughing when the severe storm- featuring pouring rain, lightning, and a tornado- ripped through the area.  By that night we'd decided to just sleep in the minivan, which was dry and way better at muffling the sounds of our impending doom than flimsy tent walls.



Know what else I think of?  Trying to canoe with a different friend on a different family camping trip, but being unable to because a boy in our party decided that it would be just hilarious to spend forever (read: probably about five minutes) trying to tip our canoe.  And it was all fun and games until someone decided to jab her canoe paddle into someone's else face to make him stop.  No means no, Brian.  (In his defense, Adolescent Me did this weird thing where she'd laugh and use a jocular tone of voice even while saying things like, "Stop it," and "Cut it out."  So going from thinking everyone was having fun to having his parents try to separate his lips from his braces was probably a little bewildering.  My bad.)



You can therefore understand why I find this article, Stuff White People Like: Camping, absolutely and unequivocally hilarious.  Like, can't-breathe-while-I'm-reading-it hilarious.



Please tell me none of you are going camping this summer.

Smooth Operator

Hello, all!  I hope you had a pleasant, joyous, and stress-free Easter weekend.

Let's see, how did ours go?

Saturday I cursed the person who invented the entire concept of the Easter bunny.  Then I cursed myself for deciding to ever take part in all that nonsense.  Don't get me wrong; I am most certainly not one of those parents who seems to treat Easter like Second Christmas.  Our kids got some prunes and some banana chips and some yogurt-covered raisins, and yes, even some candy.  But I was just so irritated, stuffing their baskets Saturday night, mostly because it's nearly impossible to try and get a 4-year-old to focus on Jesus when there's candy in the running.

Then I did a mental face-slap and told myself to lighten up.  Which helped, and made for a much happier Easter day for the rest of my family.

Easter morning there were special Easter outfits to don (Adelaide's outfit:  Easter dress from last year, cardigan from three Easters past, shoes we already owned; Atticus's outfit: already owned khaki pants and shoes, $1 garage sale Ralph Lauren button down shirt; Caedmon's outfit: already owned khaki pants and shoes, hand-me-down shirt from Atticus; total Easter outfit cost:  $1.  BOOM BABY.), Easter candy to snarf when Mom's not looking, and pictures to take.  Our children once again must have conspired to ensure that in no shot would all three of them be smiling.  They were more or less successful.

Then we went to church, where I got to hold a gigantic 1-year-old as he cried himself to sleep while I was helping in the children's area.  I also learned that it is very difficult to maintain any pride or modesty while sitting in a chair with said sleeping toddler (seriously, that kid was bigger than Caedmon, who's no delicate flower) sprawled over you while wearing a white sundress and four-inch wedges (me, not the boy- but that would have been kind of hilarious).  

After that, we went to our friends' house for Easter dinner (remember Hannah*? It was her family).  We all ate delicious food, Atticus was about as subtle as a Mack truck around Hannah, and the kids enjoyed an Easter egg hunt.

Caedmon managed to latch on to one of Hannah's younger sisters, Hallie*.  Hallie's a couple years younger than Hannah, and took it upon herself to help take care of Cade while we were there.  Caedmon, for his part, loved the attention and its associated perks.

For instance:  Cade and Hallie were both seated at the children's table (you know what's awesome?  Getting to the point where your kids are all old enough to sit at the children's table BY THEMSELVES), and she helped him with various food-related tasks, such as buttering his bread.  I had noticed, by occasionally glancing at the kids' table, that she had given him three or four pieces of buttered bread, but I wasn't about to quibble when I was getting to eat all by myself.  If bread and butter is what it takes to get me un-interrupted ham-eating time, then bread and butter he shall have.  What Derek eventually pointed out was that Caedmon wasn't actually eating the bread, he was merely licking the butter off, handing the piece of bread back to Hallie, who would then slather another layer of butter on, and the whole process would repeat itself.  Again, I would have put a stop to it, but I had ham and mashed potatoes in front of me.  I will not apologize for my personal hierarchy of priorities.

A short time later, Caedmon asked Derek and I for dessert.  He got a red-velvet cupcake, and a few minutes later we cleaned off his red velvet-laden face, hands, neck, chest, and shirt.  

At that point he was expected to scamper off so that I could eat my own cupcake.  Maybe halfway through that cupcake, however, Derek motioned to the kids' table, where lo and behold, Caedmon is again seated, now with a slab of four-layer cake in front of him.  It didn't take long to deduce that Cade, in his two-year-old boy wisdom, had skipped the part where he asks his parents for more dessert (knowing what the answer would be), and gone straight to sweet, soft-hearted Hallie, who of course gave him some.  

She then helped him hunt for Easter eggs, putting off her own search until his basket was full.  

After all that, he wouldn't hug her good-bye.  He did ask about her (twice) after we returned home, but I explained that he had had his chance to bid her a fond farewell, and had missed it.  I also may have wandered down a confusing path that included a lecture on the dangers of playing hard to get and how girls that go for that kind of thing generally aren't worth getting.  Fortunately for me, he was struggling to peel an orange and generally ignoring me and my drivel by the time I came to and remembered to whom I was speaking.

There you go.  Our Easter in a nutshell.

*Names changed to protect the innocent.

Secret Ingredient(s)

Yesterday afternoon, Caedmon was down for his nap, Derek and Atticus had just left to go play a round of golf, and Adelaide was sulking because she didn't get to go with them.  In an attempt to cheer her up while simultaneously fulfilling a promise to bring dessert to a friend's house that evening, I suggested we make cookies.  She agreed with enthusiasm.

We were working together quite merrily, watching our mixer cream the butter and peanut butter together, when I opened the drawer that contains our large utensils.

The interior and its contents were crawling with hundreds of tiny ants.

I recoiled, squealed, then paused, debating what to do.  I was on a bit of a schedule, knowing I needed to get these cookies made and ready to go before Caedmon woke up.  Surely our friends wouldn't notice a stray ant or two in their cookies, right?

Before I go any further, just let me say I have been faced with this kind of quandary before.  A little over a year ago, I was once again making cookies for a little get-together a friend was having.  I had a little baby Caedmon perched on my left hip, and was mixing with my right.  Suddenly, Caedmon-- who had been leaning over the bowl to see what was going on and was coincidentally one of the spit-upping-est babies you've ever met-- ejected a remarkable amount of spit-up, right into the mixing bowl, on top of the almost-completed cookie dough.

I'm not gonna lie- I was tired and really didn't feel like starting over again from scratch with a second batch of cookies.  Surely my friends wouldn't notice a little regurgitated breast milk in their cookies?

Then I remembered that Friends Don't Let Friends Eat Cookies That Contain The Ingredient "My Baby's Vomit."  I tossed the bowl in the sink and started over.

With this in mind, I realized that Friends Also Don't Let Friends Eat Cookies That Contain Insects.  I sighed, tossed the contents of the drawer into a sink of steaming, soapy water, treated the kitchen with insect spray, cleaned and disinfected the kitchen until it was immaculate, and started over.



I am such a good friend.

In Our Defense, That Reptile Is Pretty Realistic-Looking

Lately Adelaide and I have been talking about our plans for this summer.  She has a few upcoming activities, and we've been discussing those, but her main concern right now involves her friends from school.  She's afraid she won't get to see them once school lets out for summer.

It's easy for me to dismiss her concerns; as a matter of fact, that's pretty much what I've been doing.  She'll have plenty to do this summer, and I'm sure she'll see all kinds of people.

Yesterday, however, I started to think about what to post on the blog.  My last post was on Monday, and believe it or not, I try not to let too much time pass between posts.

I've been turning over a specific post in my head for the past few months.  I've been planning on writing something about a friend of mine, and wasn't exactly sure how I wanted it to go.

As I was going over different ideas, a thought struck me about this friend:  We met in preschool or Kindergarten, I can't remember which.  We were just about the same age Adelaide is now when we became friends, and I can't imagine my mom trying to keep us away from each other for an entire summer.

Several of my favorite memories of Megan involve summertime events.

I'm pretty sure it was during the summer when she had a slumber party that included a friend of ours who didn't happen to attend our little parochial school with us.  When we learned she hadn't been baptized, our little Lutheran souls cried out in panic, and we baptized her right there in Megan's basement.  Now I'm wondering if we even asked Molly if she wanted to be baptized before dumping cups of cold water over her head.  Poor Molly.

I'm thinking it was also summertime when I was again over at Megan's house one night, and we were watching an episode of Days of Our Lives she had taped during the afternoon.  (Wait, you mean all young girls don't watch daytime soap operas?  Weird.)  We were pretty enthralled with the episode, featuring a demon-possessed Marlena.  We watched right up until there was a close-up of Marlena's face- her yellow demonic eyes were the size the baseballs on Megan's parents' big-screen TV.  We decided to do something else- like make our own soap opera and video tape it- and turned it off.

I know it was during some summer or another when we were at my house, and decided to walk down the hill to the creek.  We had just reached its banks when Megan suddenly began screaming, wheeled around, and ran as fast as she could toward my house.  I looked and began screaming and running, too, until my brain caught up with my body, and I began laughing hysterically, hands braced on my knees, struggling to breathe because I was laughing so hard.  To be fair, if you saw an alligator sunning itself mere feet away from you, you'd probably freak, too.  I somehow managed to communicate to Megan that the alligator was a statue that belonged to the neighbor whose land runs parallel to the creek.  It's the only gator I've ever seen in Kansas.  We still laugh about it today.

Living two states away, I don't get to see my friend as often as I'd like, but since returning to the Midwest, we do get to see each other a couple times a year.  We laugh and catch up and she does things like paint Adelaide's toenails.  It's the kind of friend she is.

(Pardon Molly-the-doll.  In addition to being a bloodthirsty nightmare in our home, she's kind of an attention hog.)

What kind of mother would I be if I kept Adelaide from friends like that?