oh, I just don't know

Here are some loose associations for you all:



1. I want to personally thank 2 of my 5 dedicated blog readers for noting my grammatical error in my spelling of Haiku. I actually have no idea how I managed this because I know it is not a Haiko but I appreciate being called on the carpet. It has been rectified.



2. I want to make sure everyone knows the sardonic nature of my comments about my running speed. When I looked at my half-marathon results I was very humbled to know that I came in 515th place, that the winner crossed 55 minutes before me, had time to eat pizza, stretch, shower and learn German before I crossed the finish line and that the top finishers ran between a 6 and 7 minute mile THE WHOLE TIME!



3. On a similar note, we drove past a woman running yesterday, looking strong and striding along and Ella said, "Momma that's what you look like when you run." God love her.



4. Ella came home from school the other day and told me that since bats are essentially blind they find each other and their food using "echolocation" in caves. And once again, I fell in love with Highland Preschool.



5. I am that woman now, of that age, of that mindset... when we went to the grocery store this afternoon and I saw two male Hannaford employees outside at the staff picnic table yell to another young guy driving by at a crawl with his windows down, rap music pumping "Hey, Joseph you faggot!" I yelled to them, without even thinking, "Hey, let's watch the faggot talk OK?" They hung their heads in shame and mumbled apologies, likely fearful for their jobs, and all that was missing was a "Sorry, Mrs. Carver."



6. Ella made a picture the other day and hung on the window in the living room. Facing out. "It's for the world. It says, 'I love you world.'"



7. Ella had a complete meltdown the other day because her new Hello Kitty purse did not match either of her winter coats. Now Maya will only wear clothes with pockets. And I wonder how this all went so terribly wrong.

8. Ella just came in to me and said, "I'm the nicest person in the world." And the most humble... And that was followed by, "It's a miracle. Skyler was here to visit yesterday and Brady is coming today. It's magical."

9. I am a mom. That means I have snotty tissues in my pocket. I carry dum-dums in my purse to tame the lions. I get kisses on top of my head when Maya rides my shoulders. I park on the sixth floor of the parking garage just so my kids can walk through the super echoey hallway and play "rollarcoaster" on the trip down the ramps. It means I eat discarded crust off bread for breakfast and sleep on a twin sized mattress next to a five-year-old for hours so she can stop coughing. It means I know which stores have the most awesome carts and will do almost anything to score one. It means Sandi and I spend our dates shopping for our children, eat meals with kids crawling on us, and somtimes go into a room in our house, shut the door and wonder how long before they find us.

Being a mom also means crying yourself silly as you lay next to your newly minted five-year-old on the night of her birthday wondering how she could be growing so fast. It means not being able to get enough of Maya's "morny momma" in her deep base voice and can't stop gazing at her tender blond curls and pointing them out to anyone who will look. It means embracing the silvery stretch marks tattooing the skin under my belly, getting really good at pretending to like wooden play food, and having strong arms more from wrangling and less from push-ups. It means running to save my sanity, thinking that sleeping until 6 is sleeping in, believing 9 pm is a reasonable bedtime for an adult, and often writing children's books and speaking in rhyme in my head.

10. I am a family member so that means that I go a baptism because I love my niece and nephew even though I am incredibly angry at about 75% of churches right now. It means that I work (and sometimes I work really, REALLY hard) to extend love instead of anger. It means I call my mom on it when she double dips her shrimp in the cocktail sauce at a party during swine flu season. It means that I can call my sister in the middle of the night and she will always be more concerned with how I am than the sleep that she is losing.