What a weekend; it seemed short, long, busy, fun and gloomy, all in the span of a couple of days.
Saturday morning dawned perfectly - sunny and nice. The boys slept in (if you call 6:30 sleeping in, and believe me we do), allowing Mandy and I both to get in some exercise before they got up. Mandy rode her bike to the Plaza for a tea, and got back as I was putting the finishing touches on my usual Saturday pancake breakfast for the kids.
Noah had an early game, so we skipped the farmer's market and headed to the soccer fields instead. We got there early, so Noah killed time by running back and forth between goals for 15 minutes straight, becoming red-faced and sweaty before the game even started. Naturally. His grandparents came to watch him, and while he didn't steal the show like last week, he did score a couple of goals in the win.
If I'd been suffering from any illusions of my own self-importance, they disappeared quickly when Elliot decided to pee on my leg while I was watching the game. No shit. He's been notorious lately for considering the world to be his bathroom, and when he gets the urge, there's a better than even chance he's going to run with it right then and there.
Well he took it to another level on Saturday, although I'm not sure he thought of it on his own. I heard him behind me, looked down and saw his pants down to his knees. I thought he was getting ready to go, when I felt the wetness on my leg. I was too shocked to even come up with a way to discipline him. He walked off while my brain was still trying to process it. We've been gently trying to steer him to more discreet places, where there isn't an audience of hundreds, but this time I caught up to him and read him the riot act. It must have worked, because later that day when Mandy tried to get him to go in the woods, he was very reluctant to do so. Fortunately I'd ridden my motorcycle to the game, because I needed to go to work afterwards. I ended up riding to work with my left leg int he wind to dry it out.
That night, we left the kids with Grandma to babysit while Mandy and I attended the annual auction at Noah's school. It is always a great time - especially since the Catholics aren't shy about indulging - with a dinner, silent auction, live auction and dance. We met some friends for a drink beforehand at a nearby pub, then went to the auction. A couple of glasses of wine later, Mandy jumped into the bidding to procure the pre-K class art project, which is almost like all the art we have of Noah's in the art drawer, except this one is framed. Mandy said "But this is priceless!" Not any more, judging by the price we just put on it.
She was more excited about bidding than actually winning anything, and it was fun to watch her. If I'd let her, I'm sure we would have come home with much, much more. You could tell she was serious about her bidding, because she wasn't content to just flash her bid number, but would stand there with her hand up the whole time, as if the auctioneer might forget that he had a live one. But it was fun, and we ended up with the picture, and front-row seats to the Christmas program and the Thanksgiving program.
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| What a priceless work of art looks like. Noah's heart is the all red one in the middle. |
The next morning was stormy as hell and we had plans to run the Trolley Run, a fun downhill race to the Plaza, at 8 AM. Mandy may or may not have been nursing a wee bit of a hangover, and hinted that maybe going out for breakfast instead of running four miles in the pouring rain might be a better use of our babysitting dollars. When she walked in the door after having picked up the babysitter, her face visibly blanched when she saw I had my race bib pinned to my shirt. After a few disbelieving looks, I finally convinced her that we could bail out in Brookside if it was too miserable, and that I was probably going to be walking anyway given that I was still rehabbing my knee, and I'd only run very short distances since the surgery.
Wisely, she had stopped for a few donuts for the kids for breakfast to make it easy on the babysitter. Fortunately for the babysitter too, who had spaced the job and had been woken up by Mandy knocking on the door, and didn't have time to eat before jumping in the car. Since we never buy donuts for the kids, Noah proclaimed his mom to be awesome when she told him what was for breakfast.
We parked near the start, and stood among several thousand wet participants. We were dressed for more severe weather than we actually ended up with - the rain and lightning tapered off right at the gun, and we encountered mostly sprinkles the rest of the race. I started off jogging, figuring my knee would begin hurting soon and that I'd have to walk. Partly due to the adrenaline of a race, and partly due to the fire of internal competitiveness, I kept going. Mandy, bless her heart, stayed beside me even though she could have easily gotten far ahead. First one mile, then two and three, and finally the finish line.
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| This is Mandy's game face. |
I didn't come within a country mile of a personal best, but I had a perverse sense of great accomplishment as I reflected a little on the last year or so. About a year ago, I had to bail from the
half marathon Mandy and I were training for due to IT band problems. Instead, I focused on plyometrics, speed work and cardio in an attempt to set a personal best in the Trolley Run a few weeks after that. I was in excellent shape, when I tore my medial meniscus. That was the last time I ran until just a week ago, when I jogged for nearly 10 minutes. Today, I jogged for almost five times that long. I've got some work to do, but it feels great to be getting back.
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| At one point during the race Mandy said, "They say slow and steady wins the race. I don't know, because I see a lot of people in front of us." |
Afterwards, we took a bus back to the start, and ducked into a
great little coffee shop nearby to warm up. I had my first coffee since Lent started (which is why I'm still up at 10:30 without feeling the least bit tired), and we both admitted we were glad we didn't bail out on the run. We engaged the babysitter for another hour, then went across the street for a great brunch.
When we got home, Noah asked me about the race. He had asked to go that morning, and when I said he was too young yet, he told me to "tell the judges that he was fast enough to beat all those old people". He was sincerely disappointed he didn't get to run. So when I got home, he wanted to prove it to me by hopping on the treadmill and running
a mile (at the exact same pace I had run, coincidentally), barefoot, and not even getting out of breath. I finally had to stop him because I wanted to go back upstairs. I think next year I will give him a try if he still wants to do it.
Afterwards, I went back into work. There have been an abnormally large number of things at work on my plate for a few months, and consequently I've been working way too much trying to keep up. I was determined that this would be my last weekend where I'd work most of it for quite a while. I really need to spend more time with my kids, and we've all been feeling it. Unfortunately, that meant leaving Mandy alone with the kids again, on a gloomy, rainy day, where they seem to do nothing but get on each others' (and mom's) nerves.
It was made worse by our decision not to get a dog that Mandy had her heart set on, and was set to pick up today. Mandy had been actively searching for a dog, spurred on partly by the golden lab puppy that St. E's was planning on auctioning off. While we had talked about it before, I was non-committal, and told her I'd leave it up to her. She'd found a sweet 10-month old blue tick hound mix that she really wanted.
What I really should have said was that I wasn't ready yet, back when she first mentioned it. While I would really like a dog, I was not ready to add another commitment to an already work-logged schedule, and wanted to spend more time with them and the kids before adding another obligation to the mix. It was pretty late in the game, but we talked about it this morning and we decided to hold off for a little while instead. I put her in the awkward position of having to make a last-minute call to the lady who runs the dog rescue operation to tell her we had changed our mind.
She was understandably agitated, but at the wrong person. I felt bad for disappointing them both, but especially Mandy. One of the things I love about her is that she would save the world if she could, and had already become smitten by the dog. If she held any resentment about it, she showed none of it, and in fact was very gracious. I know it made for a hard day for her though.
I wish it had ended better, but on the whole, it was a pretty good weekend. I think I'll go back to not drinking coffee though. I'm still not sleepy.
