The End of the Early Years

When I first heard of my mom’s group, it was officially a chapter of the international MOMS Club. A woman at church named Marie told me about it when she noticed my large pregnant belly. She told me about this mom’s club she was in, and I just shrugged her off. I wasn’t the type to join clubs like that. Play dates weren’t my thing. Besides, it was my first pregnancy and I didn’t think I’d need a group of moms to help me through motherhood. Really; how hard could it be?!

And then Tuesday, June 17, 2003 happened. I became a mom. It started off pretty well, until I took her home four days later. The panic set in and hit full throttle the following Monday. I remember being in the pediatrician’s waiting room for our first checkup, and I looked up Marie’s phone number. I called her from the waiting room to ask about that mom’s club she mentioned. Two days later, I met the group for the first time at a local park play date.

From the moment I said hello to these women, I knew I had found a place where I would be accepted and encouraged. One woman could tell that I was shell-shocked and in the beginning throes of postpartum depression. She sought me out while the kids played (and I held my fussy baby), and gave me some of the best parenting advice I’ve ever received: It will get better.

I joined the group, and found kindred souls. My parents died when my first child turned one, and I lacked any direction for the hardcore parenting issues. The women in my mom’s group became my saving grace. We discussed every single aspect of parenting: discipline issues (Time Outs or not?), breastfeeding vs. formula feeding, how to get my daughter to sleep through the night, how to introduce new foods, how to adapt my marriage around a new focus, and so many other things. In the group, I found women who would give me a break from holding my infant (I felt like all I ever did was hold her in those early months!) and women who would call me after play dates to make sure I was doing okay because they sensed despair in my eyes earlier that morning. I met people who have different backgrounds than me and much different parenting styles, but we all had one thing in common: raising our babies the best way we knew how.

But mom’s group went beyond parenting: I found some of my best friends through the group, and encouraged my already-existing-friends to join the group so they could share in what I’d found too. I found exercise buddies who trained for (and completed!) half marathons with me.

My kids made friends they still play with.

I learned so much about the town we live in and what cool things are available to do. (Who knew you could tour the trash center?)

I’ve traveled to other states and visited some members who have moved away.

I’ve road-tripped to Kansas City to attend a parenting workshop, and to Chicago for IKEA shopping trips.

One member inspired then encouraged me to start writing a blog.

I learned how to cook new things I never would have tried. (I still make Megan’s Biscuits and Gravy Casserole and Brina’s Buffalo Chicken Dip!)Others outfitted my children with outgrown wardrobes. We’ve shared inspiring books through a now-defunct book club. And even though it isn’t a religious-based group, I can trace my salvation back to two women I met through this group.

The impact from saying yes to one little invitation is astounding.

One day, I looked around and realized I was one of the moms in the group who was welcoming other parents (we had dads by then too!), and checking on them after play dates when they had despair in their eyes. That was one of the best parts of my mom’s group: I got to pay the gift of encouragement forward, to a set of parents who were new to the gig and still blindly feeling their way around.

And now, my time is up. I’ve been in the group for nine years, and both my kids are school-age. The end of July marks the end of my membership, and the end of an incredibly challenging, rewarding, growth-inducing chapter of my life. It’s been so much more than a play date; it’s been a living, breathing part of my life for nine years. I’ve seen 134 members come and go (yep, I counted ‘em!), and each one of them left a mark on my soul.

To all of you who ever were or still are part of my mom’s group: thank you for all the ways you’ve been a part of my family’s life!

“So much of me is made of what I learned from you. You’ll be with me like a handprint on my heart. And now whatever way our stories end I know you have re-written mine by being my friend.” (from Wicked)

Aimee, Rachel, Amanda, Gretchen, Jennifer, Heidi, Julie, Jamie, Lynna, Jennifer, Michelle, Michelle, Jennifer, Elizabeth, Jessica, Melissa, Heather, Erin, Whitney, Shannon, Lauri, Alieceia, Rachelle, Carol, Mary Jane, Andrea, Christina, Stacy, Amy, Leslie, Kelley, Kristin, Danelle, Patricia, Dena, Carla, Jana, Angie, Andrea, Janine, Patricia, Alice, Tina, Reisha, Donne, Krista, Molly, Brina, Erin, Ginger, Nick, Christina, Jill, Chris, Emily, Heather, Lisa, Shannon, Amy, Judy, Rachel, Laura, Mary, Tiffani, Leigh, Brooke, Sarah, Michele, Sarah, Carrie, Crystal, Mandy, Stacey, Wendy, Lea, Tori, Jennifer, Donna, Hope, Olivia, Beth, Joe, Suzy, Angie, Paula, Cynthia, Kim, Kim, Lissa, Lyndi, Petrissa, Kim, Denise, Emily, Cristyn, Christy, Michelle, Becky, Rebecca, Jodie, Peggy, Megan, Holly, Harini, Susan, Angie, Kim, Miriam, Kathy, Monica, Mary, Tammy, Jessica, Helen, Danielle, Kerry, Jeanne, Kelly, Julia, Michelle, Marie, Tammy, Shannon, Karen, Teresa, Sharon, Cathy, Nikki, Jennifer, Brett, Jenn, Jennifer, Elizabeth, Kurt, Renae

Three is a Magic Number

I finished up my third half marathon today and beat my time from the last two. Go me!

I feel pretty well this evening. My legs are a little tight, and my left toes are still cramping a bit because of some issues I’ve been having with my extremities for the last few months. I expected a big blister on my right foot, which barely formed due to a wonderful moleskin patch. All in all, I’m faring well. Dan has been my hero this afternoon, taking the kids off my hands and letting me nap and get a pedicure. He rocks!

Back in May when I started training for this race, I planned to do a full marathon. I started following a run/walk training plan, but realized in July that I was going to have to commit LARGE chunks of time to make the full marathon a reality. I decided to drop the idea and do just the half. And today? I am soooo thankful I did. I realize I am just not full marathon capable. A half marathon is about all I feel motivated to do, and I’m really okay with never checking “full marathon” off my Bucket List. My aspirations lie elsewhere.

This was the ninth and final Lewis & Clark marathon. I’m a little bummed about that, because it was such a great course for “hobbyists” like me. Next year, the L&C will become one of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathons in downtown St. Louis instead. After my St. Louis half marathon this past April, I have sworn off the downtown races. I’ll wait and see if some other half marathon (or similar race) catches my fancy in the future. But, for now, three IS a magic number!

I Did a Half Marathon!

Less than three hours ago, I made personal history. I actually completed a HALF marathon! Wow, what a rush.

And just to clarify, the time on the clock isn't correct because there were so many people in the race that we crossed the start line a good while after the clock started.

My team has been training since February. At some points, there were up to six members. Then we lost some and gained one, and four of us finished the race today. I'm so proud of us for finishing. We weren't the fastest (of course), but we weren't the slowest. And regardless of the speed, the fact is that we FINISHED. That's pretty amazing for us, considering some of us used to think a 5K was long.

I love that the race hands out medals to every single person who finishes. I don't know that I've ever won a medal before, so I will cherish this one. Silly to know that a medal can be so meaningful! And our coach, Joe, got two medals because he completed a different race a while back, and people who complete both races get a special second medal too. He's quite the coach and he's even competing in an Ironman in just six days (the Redman down in Oklahoma City). What a champ!

I also love that our bib numbers have our names on them. You have no idea how encouraging it is to hear someone say your name when you're in a slump.

And, yes, our shirts say, "Does this shirt make my butt look fast?" The best part is the saying is on both the front and the back (right across our fannies) and we had so many people who cheered us on just because of our shirts. We ordered them from One More Mile Running.

To thank our coach for all his hard work, we gave him a shirt with a quote from John Bingham on it. It says, "The miracle isn't that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start." Amen!

I am off to elevate my poor aching feet and sit around for a while. And then I'm going to get up and move around a bit so my muscles don't totally seize up. I feel pretty good after finishing, if I could just dull the ache in my feet!

Gimme Five/35

Alright, y'all. You had one week since I posted about the 5 Good Things booklet. Now I want to hear your five/35 good things for the week! Find the joy and let me know what filled you up this week. Maybe you forgot to do it? Then start today, and come back and comment next week. PLEASE share!

Here are mine. Some days even had more than five. Aren't I happy?

Sunday:

1. Music at church

2. Craft room almost put together

3. Steak, baked potato, salad - perfection!

4. Jackson's crocodile tears

5. Katie worked hard to find a good attitude

6. Dan's natural cologne when he grills

Monday:

1. chiropractors

2. Watching Katie at gymnastics, knowing she was ecstatic

3. purging toys, organizing - feels clean and happy and fresh

4. Being one of the first to talk to my best friend about her momentous day

5. Watching Dan come home and knowing he's mine

Tuesday:

1. Incoco nail strips

2. A cool breeze in the shade

3. Making TV my priority today

4. Dan called to tell me he loves me

5. No huge tantrum when Katie got in trouble - she took it without crying

Wednesday:

1. Love the new plexiglass on our craft table

2. Played Fashion Plates with Katie

3. Mary called to vent and chat

4. Love my new cell phone

5. Jackson's smile as he rode the Tonka truck

6. Took the kids out for ice cream

Thursday:

1. Sweet card from Beth

2. Cheeseburger, fries and custard

3. Lay with Dan and talk for 45 minutes

4. Cuddling with a puppy

5. My camera

Friday:

1. Chilly, breezy weather

2. Playing elbow-elbow or cheek-cheek or nosey-nose with Jackson

3. Katie learned a lesson about breaking the flagpole - and I didn't even yell!

4. Sitting in my newly cleaned, organized house

5. Nothing left on Tivo

Saturday:

1. Walked 13.1 miles today

2. Foot rub from Dan

3. Played game with Katie where she would complete a doodle I started

4. Rocking Jackson before bedtime

5. First birthdays - such promise

6. Beer

Lots to Say

Dude. I have a lot to catch up on. I'll try not to bore you to tears, but there are things I must say.

First up, I got a new cell phone. It's been about a week now, and I'm having such fun with it. I can actually TEXT now. Dan says I'm too old to text. But I do find it much easier than getting into a 10 minute conversation when I just need to know one little thing. The phone is new (and pretty rockin' cool), and we also changed to AT&T. We are bundling everything under U-verse, which is being installed this coming week. So that has caused Dan and I to be complete couch potatoes this week and sit every evening on the couch while we try to clean all the shows off our Tivo. Because once U-verse is installed, we lose all our saved shows.

The evenings have been full of TV time and the mornings have been full of some serious purging. I have been RUTHLESS in throwing out junk from our house. It started with the craft room, and then spread to almost every other room in the house. (It even spread a bit to the blog! You may have noticed a little change with my blog banner.) I have cleaned out junk drawers, barbecue tools, candles, dived into hidden cabinets, vacuumed in hard-to-reach places, purged the mantel, and finally bagged up all the baby bibs that are no longer a part of our lives. I feel so incredibly happy about all of this purging. It is awesome! And now my friend and I are planning a garage sale for September.

Katie and I are getting used to having a space to do crafts. On Wednesday, I pulled out a new treat to share with her. I've been saving it for at least three years, when I saw it at Goodwill and snatched it up. It is a set of Fashion Plates, just like I used to play with back in the '80s. And I also pulled out a set of Barbie fashion plates that I found in a resale shop a while back too. Katie LOVED playing with them and has already had her friend Sammi over to use them. My heart was so happy, showing her something from my childhood and seeing her have the same kind of joy in it that I used to.

And something else pretty awesome happened this week. I wrote this post back in November, and was asked permission so it can be used on a Daily Guideposts sister website. I was beyond thrilled about this. The link won't be ready until September 3, but I will make sure to post it that day so you can check it out.

We enrolled Katie in a gymnastics class and it started last Monday. The smile on her face was brilliant as she climbed up on the balance beam and got started in her lessons. Now I have to figure out how to entertain Jackson during the 75 minute class. He wanted to bleacher dive while we waited. Uh... no.

Yesterday, most of my half marathon team got together and did our dress rehearsal for race day. We wore all our gear, drank water only at designated intervals (where the water stations will be on the race route), and did the entire 13.1 miles in three hours and 45 minutes. I am sore today, but proud of myself and my team. I'm glad that we proved to ourselves that we actually CAN do this.

So, there's a recap of our life the last week or so. I know it isn't very glamorous, but it's kept us pretty busy.

Macro Monday & My Excuses

Yes, I've been an absent blogger for a little bit. It's just been a crazy few weeks! My family reunion in North Carolina (aka my adrenaline rush weekend of Harley riding and skydiving), then Camp Grandma at my Aunt Lucy and Uncle John's in Virginia, then a weekend at the Lake of the Ozarks, then desperately trying to get the kids back on a normal schedule. Which brought us to this past weekend. It was full of parties: the birthday kind and the pool kind. Not to mention paying the piper finally at Weight Watchers (I did some damage the past few weeks), then a nice leisurely three hour training walk with my half-marathon team. (We did ELEVEN miles!) And to nourish my soul, I finally got to go back to home, I mean church. Which is like home to me. I had missed two weekends in a row, and was starving for it. I think that was evident by the virtual dam of tears that were unleashed by the final song, It Is Well with My Soul. Wow.

Now I have to admit one more lame excuse. The few times that I DID have the ability to blog, I chose not to. Is that rude of me or what? Well, I have a good reason. I was determined to catch up on my scrapbook. I hadn't finished 2008 and therefore wasn't even close to starting 2009. I am proud to say I finally finished 2008 and have cleared the way for 2009. I think that deserves a pat on the back!

So, enough of my ramblings - just be glad I'm not posting ALL the details I could!

Let's move on to today's Macro Monday post. I found this little fella last week hopping near our outdoor trash bin. I grabbed him and went to show Jackson, and he peed on my hand (the frog, not Jackson). After releasing him, washing my hands, and grabbing the camera, that's the photo I got. For the rest of the day, Jackson told everyone about the "proggy" he saw. (He has trouble pronouncing Fs. Today he told me, "I don't peel so good." That's the new phrase he uses to catch attention, and I'll admit it does grab my attention to hear my toddler say he doesn't feel good! Then I find out he's just playing me.)

Happy Macro Monday! I'm going to go relax on the couch while my body heals from the abuse it took yesterday. (176 laps on the indoor track. Ugh!)

Weekend Recap

After Friday's fun day with Jackson, we had dinner plans with friends. My friend in real life, AbFab Geek, invited us over for dinner with her family. We used to go to the same church, and her two youngest geeks boys have been enamored with Jackson since he was an infant. They used to beg me to let them hold Baby Jackson, and it took me a while to trust these two boys (Who were ages 11 and 9!) with my baby. Eventually I caved, and they have adored him ever since. We went to AbFab's and got to hang out, and they fed us some GOOD food! Yum.

Saturday morning, I hauled myself out of bed at the CRACK of dawn to go weigh in at Weight Watchers and then meet my half-marathon team for a training session at 7:30 in the morning. Ugh! We did the longest walk of our training so far - nine miles in 2.5 hours. Yeeow! It felt good to push my body and accomplish something I have never done, but I will admit I'm a tiny bit sore in a few odd places today, like my abs and shoulders. This could be related to my lupus flare, or just from abusing my body.

While I walked, Dan took the kids to a nearby lake and walked the trail around the entire lake while Katie biked. I met them at the playground later and brought a picnic lunch to share. The playground had a water feature, so we broke open the "emergency kit" I keep in the car for occasions like this and dressed Katie in her swimsuit and let Jackson run in a diaper. It was a fun morning, and the weather has been fantastic these past few days. Even chilly enough for me to wear a jacket! Katie and I monkeyed around on the playground.

Then Jackson showed me an acorn he found.

Saturday after Jackson's nap, we had a special night planned. We took the kids to Grandma's house and had a date night. With Jodie. Yes! We had dinner by ourselves, then met Jodie in University City for our Love Light photography session. I have to admit that Jodie is a bit of a girl crush for me, so I was really excited to finally meet her in person after reading her blog for so long. And, of course, I was excited to "make out on a street corner" (as she phrased it) and have her take photos of it. It was a good time with Jodie. She is so good at what she does - and I can say that before I even saw any of the photos. She just knows her stuff and has an eye for things. It was a good date night, although next time we agreed NOT to buy the large pizza at Cicero's, because it was way too much food and our stomachs were hurting by the time we headed for home.

This morning, we sacrificed sleeping in so we could go to church before picking the kids up at Grandma and Poppy's. We ate lunch there, then got Jackson home for a nap. Katie and Dan went out on an adventure bike while I communed with my computer.

Tonight, we went to Dan's brother's house and got to see our good friends on their once-a-year trip back home (they live in Seattle now). The men in these families that gathered are guys who grew up together, so it's nice to see how they and their families have changed and grown. Here are the mommies from the group:

It was a very busy weekend, but also fulfilling and enjoyable too. We are so blessed to have good health, good friends, good photographers, good church, and good weather in our lives!

Playing in Traffic

Did I mention that I'm in "training" for a half-marathon next September? The reason I put training in quotation marks is because I'm not really in true training mode just yet. I'm keeping up with my regular workouts, but not doing anything hard-core just yet. I figure I can buckle down once spring hits.

Oh, and before y'all get all impressed, I forgot one little detail: we are WALKING the half-marathon. There are five of us who are doing this together and our team is called Team Turtleton. We don't plan on breaking any records. If we just finish the 13.1 miles, we'll be ecstatically happy.

Our team is meeting every three weeks for an extended walk as part of our training regimen. Today was one of those walks, and it coincided with a 5K. It was my first Team Turtleton event. There were supposed to be three of us walking together, but Coach Joe got sick. So my friend Michelle and I hit the road and walked the I-64 Fun on the Freeway 5K by ourselves. St.Louis has had major road construction and shut down a large portion of one of the main interstates. That portion is re-opening tomorrow (as they shut down the other part - ugh!). But before it re-opens, they are doing all kinds of festivities on the highway like carriage rides, music, and this little 5K.

Michelle and I showed up and got to watch all the crazy pros hopping around in their skimpy running outfits, while we were bundled up in our sweats and gloves. We walked the 5K in about 50 minutes, which isn't bad for my first time out of the gate. The best part is the shirt we earned by finishing the walk. Now we're official!