Z’s suit for a Living Museum presentation at school last week.
Kid Leashes
I had to run to the Galleria to pick up a watch I had in for repair. M was down in the area doing something so she met up with me and we had lunch at Corner Bakery. While ordering our food I turn around and notice that there is a woman ordering at the other register. This woman has a child. This child has a harness on. This child’s harness is attached to a leash which the woman is holding on to. While I have seen these “leashes” before at places like amusement parks and the like, I’ve never noticed one in a mall. It struck me as odd but not extraordinarily so. What happens next did strike me as extraordinarily odd. The child who at this point is a little wound up starts to wander. The woman yanks back on the leash like she is attempting to heel a dog. Not saying a word to the child, just yanking like the kid is a dog. At this point I began to notice other details about the woman. She’s dressed very well with a nice dress and heels, all for a day of shopping in the mall with child. Obviously she pays a primary caregiver to take care of her daughter and is not used to having to venture out on her own with her child. Another detail that I noticed, the child was old enough to talk, I know this because she called the woman “mommy”.
I really do wish I was clever enough to capture this incident with my camera phone. I believe I was probably more stunned by the mother’s behavior than anything else. It just goes to show you that some wealthy people, those that don’t care to take the time to treat their children like humans, really shouldn’t have children. I say “wealthy” but really this statement applies to anyone. This little girl will probably end up in therapy at some point down the road.
P90X Reset and a Missed Half Marathon
Where to begin. First off let’s do a reset on our P90X program. Since I wasn’t able to get back into the swing of things I decided to do a reset and start over at week 1 again. Given my level of fitness and that I didn’t even complete the previous week 1 workout’s I don’t see any problem with this. As a matter of fact it’s probably not that bad of an idea since I’ll be more familiar with the workouts and the techniques. So, today we get a reset and start over Week 1 day 1.
The problem with P90X for me is not that the workouts are too hard. I take them at my own pace and with my own weights. I’m not dumb enough to even attempt to keep up with Tony and his crew. The problem is the time commitment. Having a full time engineering job, being a professional photographer and having 4 very active kids takes up every bit of time, spare and otherwise, that I have. It comes down to adjusting our time during the week to provide for the P90X commitment. It’s not impossible, it can be done but it’s no simple task.
Moving on to the half marathon. A while back we started training for the inaugural Dallas Rock n Roll Half Marathon. Of course the aforementioned time constraints affected that training as well. That and the fact that I just simply HATE running in my current state (it’s the “need to lose weight first” double edged sword thing). So, I quit training and didn’t think much about it until the time for the 1/2 marathon came around. Last week when it started coming up in conversation I was under the impression that it wasn’t worth doing it just so I can say that I walked a 1/2 marathon. I’m the type that unless I’m going to give it my 100% I just don’t want to do it because it’s less than what I know I’m capable of. Anyway, M talked me into it and as the week went on I started looking forward to it. I was getting excited about it. We had dinner with family on Friday evening, some of which were going to be doing the race with us and that just made me more excited about it. Saturday following a photo shoot we made time to head downtown to the convention center and pick up our race packet and wander through the Fitness Expo that they had going on. It was a blast. It was something else to get me excited about the race. I was ready to go, I wanted to go, no matter what my time was I knew that I could finish it even if I ended up walking the entire way. I just wanted to go and have fun and enjoy the race like we used to do in the pre-kid races and events all the time days. But, it just was not to be.
Late Saturday night our 3 year old woke up coughing, crying and vomiting. Uh oh. M went to check on him and he felt warm so she took his temp and it was 102.9. Hmm, guess that means that we’re not going to the race. We can’t get him out if he’s got a temp that high. She came back to bed and said, “Well, you can go ahead and turn off the alarm.” That meant that sick kiddo = no race for us. However, since the folks that we were going to the race with were friends and her family I said, “You get some sleep, you go to the race and I’ll stay with A.” No big deal, if he’s sick he’s sick and I have no problem stopping the world until he gets better. I’ve done it before and will gladly do it again anytime it’s needed. He takes priority over anything that want or need to do. That’s part of the job. No big deal.
However, it was to be a big deal. See, M got up and went to the race. I couldn’t go back to sleep. One, because I was already up and about between making sure she knew that Hwy 75 was going to be closed and telling her bye and making sure that A was ok. She left and I made coffee and did some work for a bit proposal that was due this week. What made it a big deal is that when A woke up he was perfectly fine. No fever. No feeling bad. No coughing. He RAN into the office to greet me good morning and was back to his usual self. This irritated me a little bit. Not at him, not at her, just the whole situation irritated me. How could I be pissed off. I wasn’t even concerned about going to this thing a week ago. As the morning went on I began to get pictures, Facebook and Twitter updates from friends who were there racing or there helping or there watching. This put me in a very foul mood. With each update that came in I got more and more irritated. Looking back it was really silly that I let it get to me but it also made me realize how much we missed these events. I was apparently looking forward to it more than I realized. Knock that one up to a learning experience .
When things aren’t going your way and you decide to quit training, just remember that in the end you will end up wanting it more if you don’t do it. No matter the reason.
You also have to accept the fact that life throws little obstacles at you. These little obstacles come from the things that are important to you. Your priorities. It’s ok to be mad but be careful who you direct your anger at. Don’t make the people in your life suffer because you are sad or mad or angry that life took place. Deal with it. Realize that there’s always another race, there’s always another event, there’s always another. You can catch the next one. IT’S NO BIG DEAL!
Something else, this whole thing reenforced that M has a heart of gold. She ran the 1/2 marathon and did it well considering it’s been many years since we have done any type of racing at all. She finished strong. She also put up with my seemingly endless bitching and moaning, pissing and ranting, and over all crankyness. At the end of the day we laughed about it and had a great dinner as a family. Even though I dragged her up stairs at dinner and then grocery shopping before the evening was over.
She deserves one more medal than she got for running the Dallas RnR Half. She deserves a medal for putting up with me.
Know how a 2 year old teases you?
I have a prime example…it is when said two year old tells you that he is going to put is pacifier in the trash. This is greatness. We were so excited but I had to wonder in the back of my head if it was going to stay that way. The thought lingered in the back of my head all day and tonight when putting him down it happened. It didn’t play out exactly like I had pictured but the end result was the same. I ended up going downstairs and getting his paci’s out of the trash, washing them and returning back upstairs. Despite my excitement that he may actually be rid of them.