I have had worse nicknames...

I ran into the boys' basketball coach at gymnastics. She wondered if the boys were playing basketball this year and I enthusiastically chirped, "Yes I will see you at registration on Tuesday." She patiently explained that registration was actually yesterday, but if I could make it to the general meeting across town before it was over in 20 minutes, I would be okay. 

We raced over to the meeting and arrived with about 5 minutes to spare. Of course Boy 2 refuses to get out of the car. Against my better judgement I agree to let him stay in the car to play on my phone. I race in, fill out forms and wait impatiently while the coaches discuss the intricacies of which team my boys should be on. What felt like hours but was probably 10 minutes later, I burst out of the building to realize the sun had set. I feel a full-out panic attack rising, thinking, "oh God, he will be freaking out, he's all alone in the car, oh God, he's in the dark, what if he tries to get out of the car, oh God, he will get run over..." As this loop plays in my head I start to pick up speed, cross the road, and break into a full out sprint down the street in an effort to get to my poor abandoned baby. As I sprint I start clicking the unlock button on my keys. Click, doesn't seem to be working, I can't see the lights flashing, click again, oh God, he is probably losing it, click, he's probably terrified, click, why can't I see the lights? What is going on? It was like one of those nightmares where you run and run and can't get anywhere. Then I realized I was at the end of the block. I stop running, turn slowly around and think, "Frack, where is my car?" Click. Oh there, half a block back, about where I started clicking unlock frantically. I run back to the car to find my poor abandoned baby hysterically LAUGHING. He says, "You went by like a BULLET, Mom." 

A bullet. A panicked, slightly mentally challenged bullet. Awesome.

The Perfect Race

So, it was a really long winter and we got a bit loopy at the MacFuddle house. 

WARNING! If this post begins to seem strange/obsessive or plain boring, feel free to skip. As background, you should know that I belong to the best running group, possibly in the world, but definitely in this city, called "I Beg Your Garmin".  There are six of us with what I mentally call "Gold Status" as we have been running together consistently for almost two years, now. I use the term running loosely because as much as we run together we also gab together, travel together, do girly stuff together, etc.  I haven't cleared the "Gold Status" concept with the group so it is subject to heated debate, and change, if we don't get distracted by something else shinier.  We have other, newer members of "I Beg Your Garmin" who are terrific, too, and I promise to make something special for them when they reach "Gold Status". (Some of these ladies successfully completed another either 5K or half-marathon last Saturday and deserve some recognition so here you go: woot woot!)  For now, to the special "Gold Status" members of "I Beg Your Garmin", this post will eventually, unbelievably, circle back to you. There is a possibility you will be glad you suffered through. Everyone else has my permission to pretend to not see this post and I will never mention it again. 

So, the day PHD and I launched into a diorama discussion (Yes that is a TV in my hallway) and I had to Google dioramas to show him, I started obsessing over dioramas and minatures.   Not old-guy-creating-trainsets type minatures, these are cute ones! I have seen them called them "Art Boxes".  I think that is a better description and it doesn't seem so silly if I call them Art.  I created a display of Art Boxes in my hallway:

I had to crop the photo tightly so you couldn't see all the fingerprints all over my walls...

The Art Box in the centre is called "Magnets" to represent this post: I wouldn't lick that if i were you .  It may be hard to tell from this picture but the little guy is leaning against the monkey bars, with his tongue.

I call the bottom Art Box "Terry Fox" to represent the post QCM Race Report:

Meanwhile, Boy 2 was entertaining himself by building a square turtle on a pile of rocks,



 trying to determine how many shirts he can wear at once.



The answer is 5

 and catching a few rays.

Yes, that is snow in the background

PHD and Boy 1 went a different way...

Can you tell what they are trying to do?  Can you tell me?

While they were doing whatever that was, I made the Art Box on the top of the collection.  Here is the part where it may (or may not) get interesting for my running friends. The art box on the top of my collection (in the bad picture at the beginning of this post) is called "The Perfect Race". 

The picture doesn't do it justice but each one of the little people looks like one of the ladies in our group, Michelle, me, Maryann, Cindy, Margaret and Leanne.  I imagine the little members of "I Beg Your Garmin" running their perfect little race saying things like, "Training Works!",  "Surely she sees that pylon", "I'm not cold, do you think I have too many layers on?", "What a beautiful day!", "Can we go farther?" and "I didn't cry once!!". Then after at least one of them gets a medal, doesn't matter who, they all stop to talk and laugh.  See? The Perfect Race. 

So, we have learned two things today - spring needs to stay or I am in danger of losing my mind and I need a new camera along with some photography lessons, quickly!

H1 Birthday and Superheroes

Happy Birthday H1! His birthday is actually October 14 but I am dragging out the joyous occasion as long as possible.  He was not as excited about his birthday as Boy 2 was about his own the day before.   Boy 1 didn't help matters when he sat beside dad on the couch on the morning of the big day and told him, "It sounds like there's a creaky old door inside your body."  Awesome - just what you want to hear on your birthday!

One piece of advice if you want to fit in with the young kids, H1, - cut back on the Facebook posts like this one:

this site is ridiculous . cant navigate my way around. i ended up deleting a bunch of stuff , including my friends list. sorry about . not on here much.

Don't worry H1, you haven't changed a bit since I met you.  Maybe I will call you Superman instead of H1. 

Oddly enough, as I was giggling over this post, my friend Carlene sent me this video http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/7398253/.  She and her brother Bob are famous food bloggers: http://www.bsinthekitchen.com/.

Superheroes seem to be a theme at the MacFuddle house, lately.

 

QCM Race Report - My First Marathon

Yup - won't be doing that again!   Queen City Marathon in Regina, September 12, 2010. Two of my dear running friends, Margaret and Cindy, and I, ran our first marathon.  The rest of our running group attended as our pit crew.

Here's what I liked:

• The pit crew wore funny signs and wigs to cheer us on.

• One second at the 32K mark where there was a sign that read, "This marathon just turned into a 10K".
• I can insert phrases like "That was the weekend after we ran the marathon," or,  "Well, it wasn't like when we ran the marathon, but it was a solid achievement", into pretty much any conversation.

Here's what I hated:

• Everything else.

That's right - I hated the long training runs, I hated how cranky I was the whole summer because I was so tired, I really hated that I didn't enjoy the race, at all, and I hated that once I didn't need to back down stairs anymore (about 2 days post race), I started finding bruises, blisters and chafing that I hadn't noticed to that point, in places too gross to talk about. 

When I finally finished the race with a time of 4:51:13 (No, not a typo!), I was a bit lost because there were a bunch of different people handing out medals then JOHN STANTON tapped me on the shoulder and said, "You just finished a marathon, I think you need a medal."  So he put the finisher's medal around my neck.  So, I guess I can add that to the  like list.  But then I have to cross off the one about bragging because when I said to Boy 1, "Well, I did just run a marathon", he said, "Terry Fox ran a marathon every day."
   

For now, I will stick to a reasonable distance the still respectable half marathon - 21.1K.  And I will only insert the braggy phrases into casual conversation when Boy 1 isn't around.

Our First Half Marathon AKA the day I lost Boy 2

Back in April my running group ran our first 1/2 marathon.   I didn't post a report because I didn't have a blog then.  I recently came across Boy 1's cartoon about the event.  It tells the story best:

Yup - we were all on the third floor enjoying a post-run burger and in the 15 seconds that I had my eyes off him, Boy 2 wandered off, down the elevator and climbed a pillar in front of the Bess, where he balanced until we found him. The event was sponsored by the City Police so I kept thinking, I am in a room full of cops and I can't find my kid.  I don't understand the thought, either, but it seemed almost meaningful.  We did a re-enactment recently.  Boy 2 stood on the pillar at the scene of the crime.  He is lucky he is cute.

And here is Page 2 of Boy 1's cartoon.  It seems like losing his brother wasn't that big a deal...