Easy On, Not Easy Off

I am sure I've mentioned on this blog how incredibly fortunate I am that I have not had issues with my weight. I have never had to seriously diet, and simply eat as I usually do and keep active to maintain my weight. Now? Well...

Back in January I was diagnosed with a condition called Hashimoto's disease.

Sounds terrible, doesn't it?

It's actually so NOT terrible that I forgot to tell my dad I had it. It's basically a thyroid condition in which my body attacks my own thyroid (don't you know it's one of your own?!) and prevents it from creating the hormones my body needs to operate at optimal efficiency. While there isn't much doctors can do to keep my body from attacking the thyroid, it's easily treated with thyroid hormone replacement drugs.

Symptoms of Hashimoto's include fatigue, irregular bowel movements, weight gain and irritability. The only symptom I had was irritability (someone hand mama a drink!) so I was somewhat surprised when this diagnosis came back. I began taking the thyroid meds and the irritability got better. Who knows if that's actually related to the thyroid condition, maybe it's related to my kids not standing on my last nerve.

Then I developed that pesky third symptom: weight gain.

I managed to pack on 10 pounds in 6 months. Me, who has never in my life gained weight unless I was growing a baby.

What. The. Hell.

I managed to gain this weight during my most active time of year; summer. I trained a minimum of 20 miles of skating each week for at least 8 weeks while preparing for the NorthShore Inline marathon, not to mention a couple of 5ks, running around with the kids, and normal crazy summertime stuff, including going to the pool wearing a swimsuit. A swimsuit, I say!

What is going to happen when I start hibernating in a couple of months?

This is not "toning up" weight; there is nothing "tone" about a muffin top hanging out over the top of my pants. My pants which are now too tight which I refuse to replace because I do NOT wear the next size up, I don't care how comfortable they are! Seriously, who can afford to gain this kind of weight? I certainly don't have money to spend on a brand new wardrobe.

I went back to the endocrinologist and they agreed -- yep, I've gained a surprising amount of weight in a short time frame. They are doing another screening and expect to find that my thyroid production has reduced again due to continual antibody attacks (again, it's YOU, what are you doing, antibodies?) and that they'll need to increase my thyroid dosage.

This does not make the weight I have already gained come off magically. It just means I should stop gaining weight.

Guess what takes the weight off? Taking in fewer calories than you burn.

*Simmer. Fume.*

Fine.

So I have begun counting calories, a good first step to determining what I'll do next. Because I will tell you what I won't do: diet. I won't follow some plan that I can only actually follow for a few weeks or months and then will eventually go back to my "regular" eating in which I'll put the weight back on that I just took off. I would rather adjust my daily intake to something I can stick with and track my activity to make sure I'm burning more than I'm ingesting.

I've only just begun but I can already tell you one of my guilty pleasures that I'll be saying good-bye to: Caribou. Fare thee well, oh medium skim mochas with Guittard dark chocolate and whipped cream! How I love thee, but alas, you are too bad for me. (340 calories, yowza.)

I may update this blog again with progress, I may not. In the big scheme of things, it's really not that important. There are people out there who set for themselves much more daunting weight-loss goals, who wish to lose 20, 50, even 100 pounds to get their health back. I bow to them in admiration for the commitment and willpower that it takes to set and reach those goals. Now THAT'S an achievement. 

So while I've got one goal ahead of me, I'll look back and reflect on one goal I've already achieved this year. 

The final 100 meters of the inline marathon.

Kinda Proud. A Little.

Okay, so I don't plan on getting a tattoo anytime soon, like my husband did to commemorate his qualifying for the Boston marathon.

But I am kinda proud of my recent accomplishment of completing an inline skating marathon. So I commemorated it by buying a couple of magnetic bumper stickers for my car.

I couldn't find a sticker that put the skating and the 26.2 together, so I did the best I could.

Left side.

Right side.

"Real" marathoners might be offended that I claim to have done a full 26.2 when I skated it instead of running it.

Tough shit.

Marissa Time

Lindsey is at a friend's slumber party tonight. The perfect opportunity for Wayne and I to get special time with just Marissa, our second child. Our "ignored" child. Our "I don't get as much time with you as Lindsey gets" child.

We celebrated by going out to one of Marissa's new favorite restaurants, Olive Garden. She got to order anything she wanted. She talked to us whenever she wanted, with no interruptions from an older sister who also wanted to tell us the latest news.

She ate as much as she wanted, and holy cow, that child can eat.

Best of all, when we got home she got to play with her toys all by herself, and she is amazing at entertaining herself (and us). She sat and sang and played for an hour or more until we finally had to say it was bedtime. She puts vibrato into her voice when she sings, and it is adorable. She makes up songs with silly words, and it is precious.

She got kisses and kisses and kisses galore.

What a wonderful evening.

We are Hard-Wired

We are all products of our environment. Or are we?

My sister and I often talk about how different we are, yet we grew up in the same family. "Isn't it strange?" we both laugh, we can't believe sometimes that we came from the same set of parents. Clearly, some of those differences are hard-wired into us.

I am finding the same in my two girls, and it is fascinating.

Great example:

One of the expectations of Lindsey and all her other 3rd grade classmates is that they will read independently for 20 minutes every night. Each evening Lindsey records what she read, how many pages, and one of us has to sign it.

This is not a hard task for Lindsey -- she LOVES to read. Her reading list of books she wants to tackle next is longer than mine. She's got the Laura Ingalls Wilder set, the C.S. Lewis "Chronicles of Narnia" set, and now she has discovered Roald Dahl, author of "James and the Giant Peach," and is currently picking up every Roald Dahl book she can get her hands on.

The first night this instruction and the corresponding chart came home Lindsey couldn't wait to start filling it out. Lindsey wanted to use a timer to track her minutes so she could accurately record how much she reads.

"Mom," she calls, "Set the timer for 25 minutes."

"25 minutes? But you only have to read for 20."

"I know, but I want to do more than that. Set it for 25."

What is it in her that makes her, at age 8, want to exceed her teacher's expectations? We didn't tell her she had to do more, she set that goal for herself. Is it because she loves reading so much? Is it because she wants to please her teacher? Or is she an over-achiever, who always wants to go above the standards?

We'll have to watch for other clues in her behavior as to what's motivating her. In the meantime, I am fascinated by learning how my kids are hard-wired.

Underpromise, Overdeliver

That was one of our mantras in the client service world: you will always exceed your clients' expectations if you underpromise and overdeliver, no matter the product. Works for me in business and perhaps also in life.

Take this past weekend, for instance.

Months ago I signed up for the NorthShore Inline Marathon to be held in Duluth, MN on September 17th. It's a marathon on inline skates. And in case you don't know, a marathon by definition is 26.2 miles. There is no such thing as a 10-mile marathon. If it's 10-miles long, it's a race but not a marathon. If it's 13.1 miles, it's a half-marathon. So I always find it funny when I tell people my husband (or I) are training for a marathon and they ask how far that particular marathon is. Same as the other marathons: 26.2 miles.

I digress.

I trained for it. Kind of. I tried to log about 20 miles per week over the course of the summer. I felt silly when my skating miles were put up against those of others I know who are training and they logged loads more miles than me. Because, of course, they are running, not skating; their miles are infinitely more difficult than mine, and they are logging twice as many as I am. God I'm a wimp, I thought.

I went on a few long skates, my longest being 22.8 miles which I completed in about 2 hours. I did the math: if I had to complete 26.2 miles that means I would finish in around 2 hrs and 15 mins. Works for me. And I will not feel wimpy about this, I told myself. It may not be as difficult as running a marathon, but it depends on your point of view. I heard lots of people (veteran runners included) tell me they could not imagine being on skates at all, much less covering that kind of ground while staying upright on wheels.

I signed up for Wave 5, for those who expected to finish between 2:11 and 2:20.

Except I didn't.

I finished in 1 hr 58 mins 22 seconds. My average speed was a little over 13 mph.

I surprised myself in a good way, and that feels great. I was really, really happy with my time. I wouldn't have been if I had expected to finish under 2 hours and did so. I would've just met my expectations. Instead, I exceeded them.

Maybe that's just wrong -- set the bar low so you can get over it. But I don't feel like I set the bar incredibly low, and it was grounded in data (per previous training).

I actually had energy at the end of the race; I passed lots of people the last 4 miles, I was so thrilled to be near the end. I probably could've gone faster the whole way, but I didn't want to chance a faster pace at the beginning only to peter out at the end.

Best of all, I had fun. I met fantastic people. And I got to know my co-worker, Becky, much better, as she was gracious enough to let me stay at her house the night before.

If you know me you know I'm not usually one to toot my own horn, to pat myself on the back. But I was really proud of this accomplishment. It felt GREAT.

I will be signing up again for next year. This was too much fun not to do it again.

Comfort Zone? What Comfort Zone?

Image from http://www.gosmellthecoffee.com/

The CEO of my former employer LOVED pushing people out of their comfort zones. He was always asking more of those around him, be it staff, vendors, even (or should I say "especially") clients. He encourages people to stretch themselves, to try new things, and then they'd get hooked on that feeling they'd get when they succeeded at something completely out of their box. It's one of the reasons why people love him -- he somehow convinces people that change is good, and that they have talents that can be used in more ways than currently being used.

I have determined that even though I am nearly two years into my new gig at Gillette Children's, I am still outside of my comfort zone.

It happened when someone on my staff asked me a question related to the work I used to do. The conversation went from, "Are there lists available with this kind of information?" to a discussion about statistical modeling, the effectiveness of behavioral selects over demographic selects, and so on and so forth into all kinds of industry jargon.

I couldn't believe how quickly and easily I spewed information that's in my head from the work that I used to do but hadn't for nearly 2 years. It was easy. It was instinctive.

It was comfortable.

That's when I realized it -- what I do nearly every day here at Gillette is out of my comfort zone.

What are good incentives for our employee giving campaign? What worked in the past? Let's see what we can come up with.

How do we measure the success of a stewardship event for major gift prospects?  I don't know off the top of my head. Let's find out.

Which is the best month to host a fundraising event? Let me do some research on that and get back to you.

And guess what? I'm loving it.

I am learning new things every day, and expanding my experience to include new "key skills" that weren't on my résumé previously. I am glad to be in a place where I can dabble in all kinds of projects I didn't have direct experience in but have the skills to take on.

Guess what's happening to my comfort zone? It's getting larger. And that's a good thing.

Graphic from JewelDiamondTaylor: http://www.donotgiveup.net/

Sometimes I Reach My Limit

I have heard it said often: raising girls or boys are two totally different experiences. Girls tend to need more emotional support, while boys tend to run roughshod on the home with their activity. Don't bother getting any new furniture until those boys are teenagers, it'll just get ruined. At least that's how the stereotypes go.

We thought my eldest was our emotional one, and used to jokingly call our youngest "our boy," because she was so emotionally resilient, not prone to burst into tears at the slightest provocation like our eldest.

And then our eldest continued to grow and mature, while our youngest reached the age when the eldest used to be incredibly sensitive, and the tables turned.

Take Sunday.

It began at the breakfast table, when Marissa asked me to put butter and syrup on her pancakes while she used the bathroom. So I did and I also cut her pancake up, like she usually asks me to do. She returns to the table, pushes her plate away and refuses to eat her pancake because I cut it up when she didn't ask me to. Fine. So I take the pieces of pancake and split them between Lindsey's and my plates, and give her another two pancakes, which I put butter and syrup on and give back to her.

She looks at me. "Cut my pancakes, please."

"But you wouldn't eat the other ones that I did cut up," I say.

"That's because I didn't ask you to do it. But I'm asking you now," she says.

I look at her. "Figure it out, kid, I'm not cutting your pancakes."

She ate her eggs, not the pancakes. Because I cut the ones she didn't ask me to, and wouldn't cut up the ones she wanted me to.

It continued throughout the day. She got mad because she wanted to play at the bottom of the stairs but Lindsey already was, even though Marissa had been playing happily somewhere else. She insisted in reading books loudly two feet away from where Lindsey was playing quietly, and got mad when Lindsey asked her to move (I managed to convince her to read with me in my bedroom). She resolutely refused my offer to help her get dressed, then cried when she wanted me to help her two minutes later and she couldn't find me because I'd gone downstairs.


Hard to believe this little girl can be so demanding.

The last one of the day came at bedtime, when she sat down and cried because I refused to change the clean sheets that had been put on the day before for her blue polka dot sheets because she "didn't want to have the same sheets over and over and over."

Wayne had to deal with that one, I was officially tapped out after a day of illogical demands and ridiculous outbursts.

I can't wait until this stage is over.

A Change in Scenery

"Mommy, can we go to that playground in the middle of the street?"

"What playground would that be? The one I tell you to go to when you don't listen?"

"No, that big blue one. There's a dragon there."

"Oh! That park. Yes, let's go."

Marissa pretends to be a booger in the dragon's nose.

Lindsey rides the dragon.

The only piece of equipment (besides the dragon) that is NOT blue.

This playground is in the Seward neighborhood, close to where Lindsey used to take art classes. It's in a triangular green space surrounded by three city streets, which is why Marissa said it was in the "middle" of the street.

It's an area that's pretty ethnically diverse - Somali and Hispanic families were in equal representation. One little boy was trying to get Marissa to chase him, and she unwittingly did for a while until she realized what he was up to, then she got shy and didn't want to play anymore.

They kept posing on the dragon and asking me to take their pictures. I sure have these girls trained well! What an incredible way to spend an unseasonably warm September day.

A Tough Decision

Our dog Dax has had various eye issues through his life, being the bug-eyed little canine that he is. Recently he had some inflammation in one of his eyes, so I began putting drops in his eyes left from the last incident and when it didn't get better in a couple of days, dutifully took him to the family vet for "the usual."

Unfortunately his diagnosis is nothing but "usual."

Turns out that at the ripe old age of 13 his ligaments holding his lens in place have given out, so his lens is flopping around inside his eye. He is currently looking over the lens and is farsighted, though he does have his vision. As long as the lens is towards the back of the eye it's not much of an issue, but if it moves to the front of the eye he would have intense pain, inflammation and it could cause a plethora of other issues which would need to be dealt with immediately.

The recommended treatment is surgery to remove the lens, leaving that one eye permanently far-sighted, but at least without pain and swelling.

Unfortunately this surgery is expensive, and that's for the procedure alone. It does not cover the cost of the medications he would be on for weeks after, or the required four follow-up visits. All told, we would be paying several thousand dollars.

Did I mention he's 13?

The challenge with this condition is that it is not nor would it ever be terminal -- it has everything to do with quality of life. If we were told he had cancer, that treatment would cost several thousand dollars and he may get one or two good years after recovery, that decision would be easy. If this eye condition goes untreated and worsens he will be in pain, but it won't kill him. That's not really fair to the dog to ask him to live with that kind of pain.

The other challenge is that if we really wanted to we could swing this, and for that I feel immensely fortunate. For many others, if their dog was given this prognosis surgery would be completely out of the question. It's not out of the question for us, but it does not come without sacrifice. At the same time, we are anticipating some major repairs on our aging house (see prior post about our 1928 sewer line) and need to be saving money for pay for those things. And did you know that our property taxes have gone up by double digits each of the past 5 years?

I know, these are all first-world problems, and I will say it again -- I am very blessed. But I also feel very blessed to have Dax in our girls' lives and want to keep him in their lives for as long as possible.

I feel strongly that when you accept a pet into your life you accept them for the entirety of their lives. As pet owners we do this willingly knowing that we will outlive these creatures that we come to so love. But when it comes to decisions like this, I have to remember he is a pet, not a human.

For now he is on medication to help with the pain, reduce the swelling and hopefully keep it from worsening. Right now I'm looking for more options, and would love to hear some from you.

Wordless Wednesday: Cousins' Summer Fun

The Great Minnesota Get-Together

It is time once again for us to perform our duty as good Minnesotans and make our annual pilgrimage to the Minnesota State Fair. My second ever post on this blog chronicled our trip of 2006 when Lindsey was 3 and Marissa was 1. What little peanuts!

We first visited some of the animal barns. After checking out huge sow and her nine piglets, some sheep and goats, Marissa and I managed to catch an event called pole bending in which horse riders weave through six poles without tipping any over. It was very exciting to watch but only for about 10 minutes, as that's when Marissa decided she wanted to move on to something else.



Each year a new fried food is unveiled at the fair. This year it was deep fried chocolate chip cookie dough. We didn't find the booth, and I'm not sure I would have tried it for fear of craving it during the other 353 days of the year when it's not available.

Add this to the list of other strange fair foods: A breakfast lollipop (sausage deep-fried in corn muffin batter, served with maple syrup), Minneapple pie (deep-fried apple pie), chocolate covered jalapenos and sweet corn ice cream. And of course my favorite to ponder but never to eat:

We tend to stick to the traditional fare:

Chocolate milk shake at the moo barn.

 

A blue raspberry sno-cone.

Then a trip to the kiddie midway, where my girls have spent hours in past years. Marissa happily skipped off with Wayne from ride to ride. Lindsey, on the other hand, wandered with me, looking for something she would find fun to do. Finally she said the words I have been dreading hearing:

"These are all kiddie rides, Mom."

My baby's growing up! Regardless, she managed to find one ride that she wanted to go on with me, kind of like the Tilt-a-Whirl. We got our car spinning so fast that she and I were laughing hysterically inside of it. The world was still spinning even when the ride was over, and Lindsey got a stomache ache from the spinning which ended her desire to go on anymore rides.

We had gotten there somewhat early in the day and watched the crowds increase as it warmed up and the day went on. Finally, around 3:00, after purchasing a stuffed horse on a stick for Lindsey and a pink cowgirl hat for Marissa, we declared our day complete and went home. Just in time, because the crowds were getting...well, crowded.

The Minnesota State Fair has the highest attendance of any fair of the 50 states. Last year 1.7 million people attended over the 12 days of the fair. The day before we visited 215,847 had attended - turns out over 223,000 were there the day we visited, a new record for that day. Despite this, we managed to run into my friend Laura and her family, who also blogged about her fair experience. Crazy that we ran into each other out of all the people there!

The Less Than Ideal Workplace

Imagine that you have a job in which you work with a team of other people. Because you all work on the same project, you work in close quarters, in cubes surrounded by your team mates.

Unfortunately your building is not air-conditioned. So in the hot weather your employer brings fans out and blows the air around for circulation; despite the fact that you are hot and sweaty, you are expected to perform and get your job done.

In cold weather the old radiators tick and rattle away, and because you're on the first floor, you get to roast so that the heat can make its way up to those working on the third floor, since the radiators up there are frequently under repair and having air leached from them to improve the heat flow. Those poor employees get to sit in thick sweaters and boots in their cubes. Again, do your best work, everyone!

When you're hungry, you may get to eat your lunch. But because the lunch room only accommodates a fraction of the workers at a time, you may have to wait until much, much after your stomach started rumbling, because other workers are in there eating in shifts. At least you've got a granola bar to get you through. Or, you could be one of the lucky workers who gets to eat just two hours after breakfast, but because those employees aren't actually hungry when they get their lunch break, they don't really feel like eating and end up snacking later on in the afternoon.

When you do finally get to have lunch, you have 20 minutes to retrieve your lunch, gobble it down and possibly go outside for a quick breath of fresh air. But then it's back to your cube again, doing your best to concentrate on your work.

Your boss decides that he needs more employees to get all of this work done, so he reconfigures the cubes to be a little smaller and puts a few more cubes on your floor. It's snug, but not too bad. Because there are more workers to accommodate for lunch, your lunch break gets pushed back even later because he had to add another lunch shift to accommodate everyone, since the lunchroom holds an even smaller percentage of all of the employees.

A year later yet another new group of employees come in, and once again the cubes are made smaller to accommodate this. If you push your chair back too far you'll hit the chair of the person sitting behind you, and you yourself are frequently jostled by others trying to move around in order to get their jobs done. All the floors are being used in this way -- there is no talk of perhaps taking over another floor in the building, or finding a building more suitable for all of the employees.

How likely would you be to stay at this job?

Sounds like a Dilbert cartoon strip, doesn't it?

It's actually a school.

It's my children's school, one of many Twin Cities metropolitan schools that are facing higher enrollment. While schools get operating money on a per pupil basis, they do not get capital money on a per pupil basis. The message that the state sends the schools are: you got your money to teach these children, go do it with the facilities you've got.

And if you don't fit into the space, go to those taxpayers and ask them to help you build a new space. Good luck with that, because property taxes have steadily increased year after year in this state, even though incomes haven't gone hand-in-hand with that. And while everyone says they support education, from the politicians to the general public, when it comes down to voting to increase our own taxes to make that happen, many of us aren't so keen on that. (Oh, you mean you want ME to support schools? I thought you meant those people over there.)

I attended a meeting at Lake Harriet Community School in Minneapolis last night in which we are at critical enrollment levels. We're not the only one: schools all around us are crammed full, re-purposing music rooms and teacher lounges into core classrooms to accommodate the students. And while no one likes increasing class sizes, the bald fact is that there is physically no more room to cram more bodies into these classes. At what point do we stop thinking of our children as head counts and start realizing that they are people?

While I have an extremely vested interest in my children's school, I know that parents all across the metro area have the same vested interest in their own children's schools who are all facing the same issue. We are all approaching the same source for that funding: the state of Minnesota.

We need to take a fresh look at how we pay for education in Minnesota.

First Day of School 2011

Who are these little posers? Where did the big grins go, the ones where you can practically hear "CHEEEEEESE!" by looking at the photograph? And really, who taught these girls to pose this way?

Today marked the first day of school for the Minneapolis school district. Marissa is now in full-day class as a first grader, and Lindsey is now in a different building as Marissa.

Marissa didn't seem phased by all the preparations. She wasn't nervous or scared, she was just excited and couldn't wait to see her friends.

Lindsey, on the other hand, was nervous about being the lowest grade in a big school (her school is 3rd through 8th grades). She was nervous about the "big kids," and didn't know where she should go in the morning for Minneapolis KIDS.

This all melted away when we walked in the door and she immediately saw two of her best friends hoola-hooping in the cafeteria. Turns out the cafeteria is where the Minneapolis KIDS group hang out. They showed her where to store her backpack, then grabbed another hoola hoop for her.

What a way to start the day!

Marissa has a little bit of a different day, in that we were unable to get her enrolled in Minneapolis KIDS. So I went to work and Wayne went back home with Marissa and she played happily with her toys until it was time to go to school. He escorted her straight to her classroom and helped her turn in school supplies, then put things in her desk and get settled. (Thus no pictures of Marissa's start to the day.)

I can't believe it's back-to-school time already. I am so thankful that I was able to take a lot of time off this summer to spend time with the girls. It makes the return to school easier to know that we took advantage of the summer days as much as we could.

My Problems are Not Problems

Friday marked my last Friday off of the summer. We had errands on this day's agenda, starting with an appointment to get our main sewer line cleaned, a task we do every year to prevent problems.

We may have problems anyway, though, in that the sewer pipes are separating and may eventually break. We've seen it happen up and down the street, invariably in the middle of winter when the ground is frozen. Neighbor after neighbor has had their lawn excavated, new pipes lain and had to re-seed or sod. It seems bound to happen in an old neighborhood like ours. We could prevent this by re-lining the pipe, basically creating a new pipeline inside the old pipeline. (There's more to this, but that's the basic idea.)

Estimated cost? $11,000.

Ugh.

Later in the afternoon I took the girls to get their back-to-school haircuts. The stylist got halfway through Lindsey's cut and called me over.

"She has lice," she says quietly. "I can finish the cut, but if her sister has lice too I can't cut her hair."

Sure enough, Marissa's got nits, too.

Awesome. Weren't we just through this?

I posted something on Facebook about this, and how the news of this day was bumming me out. A few people commented in sympathy. And then I thought about my other friends on Facebook who would be reading this.

My friend Anita, who is still recovering from a brain injury after a bicycle/car accident that happened seven weeks ago.

My friend and former neighbor whose 6-year-old daughter is in the midst of difficult treatments to battle her cancer back in remission. She first had leukemia at age 3, when they lived down the street from us and Marissa and Annika were playmates. She is now six and will not be starting 1st grade along with her friends, as she will be too sick to attend. Treatment this time around is more difficult, because at age 6 she knows more of what's going on and resists the pokes and prods, and the treatment is stronger and harder on her body.

My dad, who is home again recovering from major abdominal surgery to remove colon cancer. He was home for a while but then was in so much pain he ended up back in the hospital, and only recently came back home.

My problems are not problems. They are insignificant hiccups in my life, compared to the challenges that others are facing.

While I am thinking about and praying for my friends' and family member's situations to improve, I will also remember to be grateful for what I have.

Lake Harriet's Got Talent

This past week I attended the Minneapolis KIDS talent show at my girls' school. Lindsey had signed up to dance to Katy Perry's "Hot N' Cold" with friends of hers, and was incredibly excited the day of the talent show. She and her friends had been practicing for weeks. She'd had her outfit picked out for days, and this morning insisted on pigtails to complete her look.

I was surprised to see Lindsey out front for her performance. In prior years and similar opportunities, she has been a background dancer or singer, happy to have someone whose moves she could follow. I was pleased to see her take a leadership role, even if it is just a dance and not in the classroom.

While I was thrilled to be there and love sharing the video of her performance with you, what I didn't capture was the incredible spirit of all of the performers together.

There was the double-jointed girl who made her fingers bend at the first joint.

The boy who walked backwards quickly back and forth across the stage. (Yep, he can walk backwards faster than anybody I know.)

The "swinging my belt" act, in which a girl swung a belt around in a circle and hopped up and down on one leg, in time to music.

The kindergartener who did ballet, repeating first and second position over and over, as those were the only two positions she could remember. (if you don't know, 1st and 2nd positions are about the least exciting but most basic required steps of ballet).

The two best friends who danced together, even though neither of their moves coordinated with the other girl on the stage.

After every act, the performers smiled, bowed, and ran off to stage to enthusiastic applause.

I was amazed at how supportive the kids were of each other, and the parents of not only their own kids, but of the other children there. I loved the creativity, that something so seemingly simple as "swinging a belt" was presented with such flair. The simplest of talents, like walking backwards, was embraced as something to celebrate.

You could tell that some kids worked hard on their performances, developing skills in teamwork and cooperation with the hardest of those to work with, their closest friends.

It was the best hour of my day. Possibly my week.

An Outing to the Zoo

I took the meterologist's advice to heart: when she said, "Make plans to be outside on Sunday, it's going to be gorgeous," I thought it would be fun to see the new penguin exhibit at the Minnesota Zoo with the girls, giving Wayne some time to recover from his 22-mile run this morning.

As it happens in our house at times, Marissa lost the privilege of going to the zoo. I could hear the girls' squabbling while I fixed pancakes, then heard it escalating until finally Marissa pushed Lindsey. She and I talked at length about what you should do if someone makes you mad (tell a parent, use your words, walk away), but the one she remembers first is the one that's not allowed. Perhaps her loss of the trip to the zoo will continue to reinforce this for her.

So before lunchtime Lindsey and I headed off to the zoo. And I can say it was a glorious day.


How bactrian camels keep cool in Minnesota, surrounded by algae in a pool.

We saw whichever exhibits Lindsey wanted to see, for however long she wanted to see them. Our timing was such that we happened to catch the dolphin show with a minimal amount of waiting. We hadn't seen the dolphin show in years, usually due to poor timing or the strong wish of one or more other family to NOT see the show.

Not a dolphin -- an amur leopard.

Afterwards we took the monorail around the whole zoo, looking down on all of the exhibits. This was a great idea because we got tired and worn out before we could walk many of the paths, so the only way we saw many of the animals was by an aerial view.

We ate some lunch, saw the penguins, then started down the tropics trail. We first came across the lemurs, who were all snuggled up together looking adorable.

Ring-tailed lemurs.

"Awww," Lindsey said, "That makes me miss Dax. Let's go home."

And so we did.

This is not to say that Marissa and I would not have had a great time -- I'm sure we would have. But it is so much simpler to have only one child to go on excursions like this, it doesn't matter which one. There is only one child whose desires matter, who's state of tiredness or hunger needs attention.

I'm sure that some other weekend Lindsey will be losing privileges, and she'll be the one who has to stay home with one parent while Marissa goes someplace fun with the other. But for now, I will enjoy the day that we had.

City Pride

A few weeks ago I drove to South St. Paul for an industry gathering, and had an opportunity to go through cities I had no idea exist.

Sunfish Lake: population 504
Lilydale: population 618
Mendota: population 210

How do these little tiny cities exist in a metropolitan area? How is it that they have not been gobbled up by a larger neighboring city? I can only assume that there is not a Sunfish Lake High School, but is there a Sunfish Lake mayor?

Later on I had to go to yet another city in the Twin Cities area for business. The difference between these two neighboring cities, just across a highway from each other, was striking.

Here's the sign on the south side of the highway:

To protect the identity of the citizens of the other city, I shall simply say that there was no "welcome to" in front of the city name, followed by this disclaimer:

No Tresspassing.
All roads and land are private.

From "Welcome!" to "No trespassing."

And what makes a city "private?" Do the citizens actually own the town? Reminds me of the towns in Wisconsin that are so small they don't even give the population, they just say "unincorporated."

On the subject of city pride, a group of us were recently comparing notes on our small town festivals. We all had them, a local gathering to bring in visitors, drum up some business and have a party. My hometown had "Falls Fest" (consider the city name, Sheboygan Falls); my husband's hometown hosts Boxcar Days, thanks to an active railroad line that came through to pick up harvested grain.

Other names: Daze and Knights (St. Michael, MN), Corn Chaff Days (Hector, MN), Buttered Corn Days (Sleepy Eye, MN).

The tilt-a-whirl, the scrambler and the zipper seemed to make the rounds to all of our small towns. There was always a food tent, carnival games and don't forget the beer garden. Such fun memories.

The Eldest Child

Our dog Dax turned 13 on August 1st. I happened to have the day off work that day, and the girls and I tried to make him feel special that day.

He was greeted with birthday wishes from the moment the girls got up.

He got to chase bubbles outside, one of his favorite activities.

He opened presents, which he actually does because he loves to rip paper. It is a guilty pleasure of his, one he rarely gets to indulge.

Special treats were purchased and plied upon him throughout the day, for which we were richly rewarded with stinky toots late in the evening.

And he got special snuggles from the eldest.

Lindsey likes to think that we made Dax feel special on his special day, the way we try to for our girls on their birthdays.

But I have a feeling that Dax would've been happier had we all been at work and school and he could have slept all day.

No Words.

This is a blog. I know that. It takes words to write, to read. But I have no words for what happened this afternoon.

I spoke to my friend Anita today, a month and a day after her accident.

She was articulate. She did not have to search for words. She remembers everything up until the accident and doesn't remember the 3 1/2 weeks she was in the hospital until a day or two before she was released. She is walking. She was on Facebook earlier in the week. Typing comes easy to her, though apparently old-fashioned writing skills are more difficult.

A few days ago I saw her "friend" a couple of people on Facebook, and wondered if it wasn't her husband doing it on her behalf. But then, a status update, thanking family and friends for helping her family during her hospitalization. And even better today: a joke.

She cannot wait to be through with the hours and hours of therapy that she is currently doing to sharpen her brain function. She cannot wait to be back to where she was. And in particular she's disappointed for the month of summer that she's missed. Her nonprofit, Extreme Moms, is going hang-gliding in a few weekends. She's especially disappointed to miss that, because hang-gliding was her idea, and she's bummed that she can't do it. Doctors told her that another head injury in the next 6 to 8 months would be, as she put it, really really bad. As if what she'd been through wasn't bad enough. She herself has no idea.

I cannot put into words the joy that this puts in my heart. Her recovery is nothing short of miraculous. For those of us who know her, it's just one more way in which she is amazing Anita.

A Party of Princesses

I heard from our neighbors how charmed they were by Marissa's birthday party Saturday morning.

Marissa had asked for a princess themed party, so the invitations went out with a request to have the guests arrive wearing a princess or fairy costume. One, then two, then suddenly 7 and then 8 little girls in pink and purple were flitting around our house, and flitting down the street. (Her friend Chitra came a bit later and wasn't in the picture above.)

I loved watching the girls play. They were so sweet together, pulling out toys and imagining worlds filled with princesses, horses and monsters needing to be conquered. My friends who have boys would be shocked at how quiet the party was at times.



They made tiaras from craft foam, stickers and glitter, then my friend Paula and I facepainted. Neither of us had done that before, and you could tell which kids had been painted first as we began to develop some skills as we went along. A lunch of pizza, and then some cake.

A perfect princess party.