Hey, Batter!

Soccer and baseball are overlapping right now. That means that on Wednesday I needed to be picking Mary up from soccer practice at the elementary school and dropping Frank off for baseball practice at the ball parks downtown at the same time. Bill needed to be at the One Acts at the high school at the same time as well. Gah!

But anyway. Frank loves, loves, loves baseball. He got hit in the face with a ball during batting practice. They each get 10 pitches or something and he got hit pretty hard in the face. He was crying and his face was red and his coach was checking his eyes. (He ended up with a big shiner on his eye.) After the coach realized that Frank was ok he suggested to him that he sit out for awhile to rest and then called out to the rest of the team, "Who hasn't had their turn yet?"

"I didn't get to finish," Frank said, raising his hand.

The coach turned. "Did you want to finish up?"

Frank nodded. The coach grinned.

"Well alright then, get your batting helmet back on."

(When I told Bill this story he told me that when he played baseball he had a coach who would purposefully throw a baseball at someone's head and then make fun of them and call them a crybaby when they cried.)

I think the coach initially thought he had a bit of a cry baby on his hands and then when Frank wanted to finish out his batting time the coach was impressed. I saw glimpses in my son of the man that I want him to be - it's ok to cry when it hurts and you need to finish up your batting practice no matter what.

My Dog Ate My Camera

My Nikon SLR camera.

(This was before I became a dog kennel person. I think I bought the kennel the day after the dog ate my camera. It has cut down on the personal property damage and the hacking caused by plastic consumption. She didn't like the kennel at first - and it was hard for me the first few times I left and put her in it - but we've gotten used to it now and she goes in easily and doesn't whine and we are both happier - anyway, this is not about her kennel.)

I bought the camera about 6 years ago. I broke it almost immediately when I put it on a tripod to take a family portrait in a park in Kansas and the wind gusted through and knocked my tripod over with the camera on it. It busted the back cover so that the latch didn't work anymore. I took it in to be repaired, but the cost of the repair was estimated at a couple hundred dollars. I opted for duct tape. I would put the film in, push down on the latch that didn't latch anymore and then close the back and tape it shut. The film would load. I didn't notice any leaking light in the pictures, which was my main concern, so I got by that way for years.

So I had the camera out to get some pictures at soccer (I use it mainly for kid shots - I have a telephoto lens that I use for sports.) and left it on the piano when I went out again later that evening. While I was gone, the dog ate it. She chewed the strap and she chewed the tape off the back so the door came open and then she chewed the door and the body of the camera so that the door wouldn't shut right anymore even with the tape.

I threw it away.

I have looked at digital SLR cameras and the cost is prohibitive to me. So I looked at film SLRs on ebay and the cost has gone down a lot. People are selling their film cameras to buy digital cameras. Bill emailed me a link to a replacement camera with the observation that it cost less than a bag of dog food.

Ha.

Good Times

Sometimes I get the timing wrong as a parent. I try to plan something special and the kids are too young or too old or just not interested. In the meantime, I have spent money, allocated time, or simply built up an idea about how special it would be to share this Thing/Event with my kid.

For example, last winter I took my daughter to Denver and I took her to the Natural History Museum that I went to as a child. My favorite exhibit was the leaping prong horn. How did they do that? I would wonder. Well. The "magic" of the leaping prong horn was lost on my 9 year old.

"That's it?!" she said after I built up the exhibit and dragged her room to room looking for the prong horn.

"Well, yeah," I said.

Suddenly I felt stupid for once being fooled by a metal rod holding up a leaping stuffed animal.

Last night I loaded up the car with kids and fishing poles. I dropped the oldest off at the skating rink and then we drove to the reservoir which was recommended by another parent I know. I have not fished since I was a kid and I have never taken my kids fishing.

"Wow!" one kid said as we turned the corner and the lake became visible.

"Awesome! Where are we going to fish?"

They were almost overly excited and I worried that things were going to get out of hand quickly as their excitement caused fights or accidents or just anger on my part. But instead the excitement was perfect.

We walked out on a rock outcropping. They waited somewhat anxiously as I set everyone's poles up. The part of my memory that knows how to attach bobber, weight and hook came out of the grey folds. I reached in further and then I demonstrated a cast and then let them each give it a try. It only took a few tries before they were (carefully) casting. They avoided each others heads, faces and fishing lines. I was impressed.

The dog and I walked along the path around the lake and then came back towards the kids. The sun was setting over the reservoir and they were lit from behind. The effect was an orange sunset over a lake with kids blacklit in the foreground with fishing poles. It was Norman Rockwell-like without the cute drawings.

"How's it going?" I asked.

"Great!" they said.

The first fish - a bluegill - came soon after I sat down. The fisherman was literally jumping up and down and swinging his pole in excitement.

"I got one! I got my first fish!" screamed Frank's friend Nicky.

Mary and Frank put their fishing poles down and I came over to grab the line and keep the fish from hitting the ground. I held him up so the kids could see him clearly, and then, again using skills I thought I had forgotten, I firmly grasped the fish between my left thumb and forefinger and pulled the hook from his lip. I leaned forward and released him back into the lake.

The kids would not leave after that. We stayed until it was dark. I drove Frank's friend home and then took my kids to the grocery store near the skating rink. It was 9:45 and I figured we would just pick up a few things while we waited for Anna to be done skating at 10. Of course I ran into someone that I know. An occasional opposing counsel. He pulled his cart in behind mine at the grocery store. I suddenly felt very aware that we were filthy and smelled like a fishy lake and that I was at the grocery store with small children at 10pm.

"These are my kids Mary and Frank," I said. "We just got done fishing at Holmes Lake."

"Oh!" he said. "Good times!" He smiled at us kindly and I could see the parent in him remembering doing dirty stinky things with kids.

It was good times, I realized. I wasn't sure it would be, but it was.

Cowgirl Up

It did in fact rain, and the wind was horrible, but this is really about sitting on a curb and being pleasantly overwhelmed when you realize that you are more than you thought you were.

The Lincoln Marathon is a great route - good crowd, well marked, well timed, lots of aid stations, etc. The first 13 miles the marathoners and the half marathoners run together. Just before Mile 13 the routes split and the Half Marathon runners loop through the campus and finish. The Full Marathoners take the route around the football stadium and then head out to the Hill and the Lake. Mile 20 comes right after a hill.

I was awakened by thunderstorms in the night, but it was just rain by the time the race started. Rain is not that big of a deal to run in as long as it is not torrential. Which is actually what we had on Saturday - 18 inchesof water on our main street near the University. I worried about a delayed start and bad weather and for the first time I actually entertained the idea of just doing the Half Marathon if the weather was crummy and the start time was delayed.

I wore my running skirt, braided my hair, and then I spontaneously grabbed my cowgirl hat off the coat rack to keep the rain off and wore it the whole race. It was good to have a gimmick. Spectators along the route would callout to me, "Hey, Cowgirl!" "Lookin' good, Cowgirl!" "Love the hat!" It was great.

The first half went really, really well for me. When I got to the split forthe Full Marathon it hit me that rather than go finish the Half that I was going to go out and run another thirteen miles. And I mean that in the best way. It is hard for a non runner to understand, but I was really happy that I had trained to do 26 miles and not 13. I have run the Lincoln Half Marathon 6 times. This was my first full Lincoln Marathon. I have cut off from the Marathon Runners to finish 6 times, but this time I was only half done. When I took the turn off for the Marathon I felt myself begin to cry. My chest started heaving and I couldn't breathe. I was completely overwhlemed with emotion.

I sat down on the curb while I hyperventilated and another runner stopped and crouched down.

"Are you ok? Maybe you should just do the Half?" she asked.

"No!" I gasped. "I'm fine. I am just happy. I feel really good."

I stood and began to walk and forced myself to stop crying. It took me a good quarter of a mile to get myself back together enough emotionally in order to run. I grinned. And then I ran another 13 miles.

Because I am a Marathon Cowgirl.

Only Seven Cakes

My Least Favorite Cub Scout Mom, who has An Increasingly Apparent Mental Health Problem, won our cupcakes in the Cub Scout cake walk at the bike rodeo last night. We made yellow cake cupcakes with chocolate frosting and decorated each cupcake with a pile of peanut M&Ms on top of the chocolate frosting.

Who wouldn't want to win those, right?

"Are these peanut M&Ms?!" she screeched. "We can't eat these! My son has a peanut allergy!" And then she handed them out to people standing around. "You'll have to handle the cupcake yourself," she would say as a willing peanut eater approached. I half expected them to glow with radioactivity.

I was feeling a bit put out that I brought both a cake that spelled out "Pack 16" in M&Ms and a box of cupcakes and yet there were only 7 cakes (several of them were store bought and only one other could match ours in decoration) for the cake walk. I felt like others had shirked their cake walk donation obligation. But really, peanut allergy freak mom winning my cupcakes and then handing them out as if they were tainted made everything ok again.