On Growing Up

Noah, I don't ever want you to grow up. Will you stay four forever?


Um, nope.



Please? 


But mom, remember, I'm not the person that controls that!



Oh.  Right. Well, who does control it?


Well, God. .....  Or maybe Santa.



What if I ask Santa to keep you four forever?


....Oh, I remember. It's God.

The Naked Guy Post

I promised my fellow Meals-on-Wheeler that I would write a blog post about The Naked Guy.

The Naked Guy is one of the stops on the Meals on Wheels route that my company volunteers for. We run our route on Fridays. We have a handful of volunteers in the office that are signed up for this, and we rotate among ourselves, in pairs. I end up running the route usually every 5 or 6 weeks or so.

Yesterday was one of those days. Erin and I were signed up to run the route together.

We had run the route together sometime in October as well.

That run in October was when I got to experience The Naked Guy firsthand.

Certainly, I'd dropped his food off before. He's always odd, but had heretofore been fully clothed when I knocked on his door. I'd heard of his propensity to be naked, but not ever experienced it.

Let me try to paint this picture for you.

Firstly, you need to know that we usually place the food (which consists of a hot meal, a sack lunch-type meal, and two little cartons of milk) inside a plastic Wal-Mart or similar bag. Otherwise it can get a little cumbersome to make the transfer, particularly when many of the recipients are using canes, walkers, wheelchairs, etc.

On this fateful day in October, Erin and I had no plastic bags.

There's usually some in our office that we grab before we head out. There were none.

We stop at the headquarters to pick up the food, and they may well have had some bags there. But we forgot to check.

So we're on the route, with no plastic bags. It wasn't the end of the world, by any means, a tad more difficult maybe, but we made do.

We were nearing the end of our stops, when we made it to the apartment complex where TNG lives.

In this apartment complex, we have two stops fairly close to each other, in two buildings about 50 yards apart. We normally split up the drop-offs, one of us takes TNG, the other one takes Erma, the elderly lady on the bottom floor.

I headed over to TNG's apartment building.

TNG is an older African-American gentleman that lives on the second floor of his apartment building.

I made my way up the stairs, and knocked on TNG's door.

"Coming!!!"


Moments later, the door cracks open, and TNG peeks his head around the door.

I realize that he probably is, in fact, naked; thus the reason for positioning himself so oddly behind the open door.

I say, "Meals on Wheels," and start to hand him the food.

He responds, "tee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee!"


I can't describe his reaction in any other way except that it sounded like a nervous pre-teen girl tittering about some guy she's got a crush on.

I keep handing him the food, one piece at a time. I just want to get out of there so I don't risk seeing too much of him in all his naked glory.

"Tee hee hee hee hee hee!"


He just continues giggling. I'm not sure how to deal with that.

Finally he says, "You don't have any bags today?"


I respond, "Nope, we ran out of bags. Sorry!"

"I have some bags in here; I'll go get some for you."


I did NOT want to wait around for some type of plastic bag exchange with The Naked Guy. I laughed nervously and said, "Oh, no, don't worry about it, we're just about done anyway...."

"Tee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee!"


It seemed to be taking forever to make this hand-off, mostly because I could only hand him one piece at a time, and he could only accept the items one-handed because his other hand was strategically holding the door in place, and then he had to twist around behind him to put each item down as I handed it to him.

Finally, the food had been transferred.

I stammered, "Have a nice day!" and bolted out of there.

I could hear him giggling behind me.

I ran for the safety of Erin's car, got in, slammed the door, and regaled her with the details of my TNG experience.


Fast forward to yesterday, when Erin and I were assigned to run the route together again.

My first words to her as we started the route were,

"It's your turn to do The Naked Guy stop."

When we made it to that point in our route, I dropped off Erma's food, and was waiting in Erin's car for her to finish up her TNG experience.

I see her darting down the stairs as fast as her boots could carry her, she hopped into the drivers seat, and we sped away.

Laughing, she regaled her story. She had knocked on the door, and TNG had yelled, "COME IN!" She hollered out, "Meals on Wheels!" and he had yelled again for her to come in.

Not wanting to know what on earth might be awaiting her if she had cracked that door open, she instead left the food outside the door and ran away.

She asked me, "Would YOU have gone in?"


Not a chance. I'll make sure TNG gets his food, but THAT, my friends, is where my obligation ceases.

The dance is over: A Video

And now Noah joins in:

Talk about working overtime.

We were with family over the Thanksgiving weekend, and my sister-in-law told me something that her son had asked her that I find absolutely hilarious.

They had been talking about Christmas, when Nathan, her five-year-old, asked her,

"Do Santa's slaves like making toys?"

Of course, she informed him that they are elves, not slaves, and they went on about their business.

My nephew Nathan -- well, he's well-known for his quips. This kid comes up with some humdingers.

But I can't stop laughing about Santa's slaves.

And truthfully, he may be on to something there. I mean, how much free will do these elves really have? I don't know that the job market is really that plentiful for elves. If they wanted to leave the North Pole, where would they even go? As far as I can tell, Santa's pretty much got a monopoly on available livelihoods for persons of the elf persuasion.

I can only assume they are treated fairly up there. Who knows, by now they may even have a Toy Workers Union (Local 1225), whereby they negotiate fair labor standards including holiday pay and benefits.

Otherwise, I'm just not sure how an Underground Railroad from the North Pole would even work.

A new Thanksgiving tradition

I've got a pretty established routine going.

I have nervous dreams before race day.

I signed up for a 5K Turkey Trot this morning, and I tossed and turned all night long, dreaming random nerve-wracking race-related dreams, like I drove my father-in-law's police car to the race, but then I locked all my race gear inside of it and didn't know how to get it unlocked.

And another one where I forgot my iPod, and then I found it, but the earbuds were gigantic and there was no way to fit them in my ears.

Then a brief glimpse of a dream where my shoes started falling apart during the race.

And another one where there were two different race courses and they wouldn't tell you which one was which so you just had to guess if you were following the right path.

Finally, after a restless night of unsettling dreams, I woke up. It was nearing time to get up and get ready to go, and Noah and Sophie were both awake already.

Ben grumbled to wakefulness, then started telling me about how he had a nervous dream about my race. He dreamed that he was in charge of the technology for the whole thing and somehow it kept getting screwed up.

Apparently my restlessness is contagious.

Anyway, my running buddy picked me up, we went and picked up our other running partner, and the three of us made our way to the race.

Thankfully, the weather was decent for a Thanksgiving-Day run, and overall I felt pretty good. Plus I've been working really hard at interval training over the past month to build up my speed.

The course was decent, a couple tough hills, but it felt good.

My previous 5K best was a month ago, the Fall Frolic, at 28:31.

This time, I timed myself with my heart rate monitor, and after fumbling with the 'stop' button after crossing the finish line, the display showed 26:41 finish time. Final results will be posted soon, but I'm thinking my training paid off pretty well this month. I'm no super-star, by any means, but I'm happy with it and feel like it is a respectable showing.

Getting in some fresh air? Burning some calories? Beating a personal record? That's a pretty good way to start a day.

I've been unfaithful.

It's true. I've cheated.



On my running partner.

My four-legged running partner, to be exact.

You see, Canada and I used to run together quite a bit. But it's getting harder to run with him. He gets tired too quickly. And I'm faster than I used to be.

The other day, one of my human running partners came over to run with me.

Canada saw me putting on my running gear, and got ecstatic.

He ran in circles around me, ran to his leash hook, ran to the front door, then back to me. Tail wagging, tongue hanging out, super excited, ready to run.

When Melissa came to the door and I walked out with her, leaving Canada behind, he stared after me, utter dejection and betrayal displayed on his doggy face.

How COULD you?


What's so special about HER? 


She doesn't even TRY to get into the neighbor's flowers. What fun is THAT?!?




Today, I went on a run by myself. I didn't take Canada. He slows me down.

It was the same routine. As I slipped on my knee brace and laced up my running shoes, Canada bounced around me, never for a second considering that I might not be taking him.

Again, he was betrayed.

I feel guilty. I really do.

And I do run with him occasionally. I did last week. But sometimes I just feel like, you know, not having to yank someone out of the pile of leaves along the sidewalk, or pulling someone back from chasing after that kid on the bike.

And luckily Melissa only jumps into the leaves occasionally.

Spalling Rear

"I want some spalling rear!"

This, from Sophie, in the back seat, as I drove all three kids home from taekwondo practice.

We normally never take all the kids to taekwondo, but I had no choice because Ben was out of town. 

My initial plan was just to drop Travis off and then come pick him up in an hour, but now that the weather is so miserable, it is literally easier to keep my two- and four-year-old in a confined space at taekwondo school for 60 minutes than it is to bundle them up, load them, unload them, unbundle them, then rebundle and reload. 

So Noah and Sophie plopped themselves on the floor next to the taekwondo mat and watched Travis practice his form and technique and all sorts of good stuff.

Sophie also showed Mr. Adams some of her own taekwondo moves, which is a sight to behold, trust me. I've not done my duty as a blogger by not yet uploading a video of this gem. I'll do it, soon, I promise. 

Anyway, in practice, the kids practiced sparring.

Most of the kids have their sparring gear.

Travis....not so much.

We haven't made the commitment to buy the sparring gear, mostly because I'm not 100% sure Travis is ready for this stage, and we just haven't had the time to devote as much time to taekwondo as I think we should.

Those two things are probably related.

Anyway, Travis can still participate, even though he doesn't have sparring gear, but his experience is admittedly somewhat limited, given that he's kicking and striking at pads and fake targets, and not at real people like most of the other kids.

Anyway, after class, I asked Travis if he wanted us to get him some sparring gear. Last time I asked him, he was a little hesitant, but now that he's seen it more in use, I think he's more excited about it.

His response was an immediate "yes!"

And then Sophie chimed in. For the remainder of the trip home. Repeatedly, and loudly.

"I want some spalling rear! Mom! MOM! I WANT SOME SPALLING REAR!"

This kid. She doesn't know what she is talking about 90% of the time, but she is certainly passionate about it nonetheless.



----------
Edited to add Sophie's taekwondo video. You are welcome.

Speed Reading

I was an early reader.

I learned to read by watching my older sister read Serendipity books when I was three.

When I was five, I read Charlotte's Web.

What can I say, I was a prodigy.

So, I am delighted to see how hooked Travis is on reading.

Every night, he reads a few chapters from a Junie B. Jones book. He gets through a book in about two or three nights. We always pick up a couple from the library every time we go.  Two weeks ago, I bought him a set of six in a bookstore sale.

He's already through them all.

We went to the library tonight, turned in our other Junie B. books, and picked up two more. Since he's flying through them, I suggested we check out some other chapter books for him.

I picked out a book from the "Freddie Fernortner, Fearless First Grader" series and showed it to Travis.

I'd never heard of this series before, but I picked it because, well, it's about a first grade boy. And Travis is a first grade boy. He looked at it, gave it a nod of approval, so we added it to our stack and checked it out.

That was two hours ago.

Two minutes ago, he finished the whole thing.

All 89 pages. All fourteen chapters and even a bonus chapter from Book 2 in the series, which was included at the end of the book.

He soaks this stuff up like a sponge. He just can't get enough.

He's his momma's boy, all right.

Now, let's just see if he turns into a spelling champ as well.

Or a laundry-phobe.


Either one seems pretty likely.

Mommy brain? Over-35-brain? Whatever it is, I've got it.

I've sunk to a new level of idiocy.

I forgot to put peanut butter in my no-bake cookies.

The worst part was, I had already measured out the peanut butter, so it was sitting in my measuring cup on the counter, just awaiting its addition to the cocoa-y sugary buttery goodness that was boiling next to it.

And then, it was done boiling, and the kids and I dumped in the oats, and I plomped them down in overflowing spoonfuls onto some wax paper. At the time, something seemed off with the consistency, but I was too busy keeping Sophie from grabbing handfuls of the glop and making off with it, so I just moved on.

Ten minutes later, I spotted the measuring cup of peanut butter on the counter.

Luckily, the cookies had not set yet, so I was able to salvage them by dumping them all back into the bowl, adding the forgotten ingredient, re-mixing and re-dropping. The taste seems not to have suffered from my lack of attention.

Then, at the gym this week, I changed into my gym clothes and realized I had no gym socks.

Thinking back to that morning, I even explicitly remembered grabbing the pair of socks from the chest at the foot of the bed where I set out my clothes each night. I remembered because they were separate from the rest of my workout clothes, which I had actually loaded into my gym bag the night before, sans socks.

My first thought was that I KNEW I had those darn socks. I emptied my entire gym bag and handbag. Nothing. I unfolded and refolded my work clothes that I had just removed, thinking they maybe got caught in there somehow.

Nope.

I patted down my locker, making sure they hadn't rolled into a corner.

Still no luck.

I glanced up and down and around, on the floor, the bench, thinking perhaps they rolled out of my bag, I even checked the bench on the other side of the aisle in case they had gathered some momentum and gotten some actual distance.

Nothing.

I had to come to grips with the fact that, although I had grabbed my socks in the morning, I had not actually followed through with depositing them in my gym bag.

I've got lots of crap going on in the morning. It is not terribly surprising that this level of distraction might occur.

I worked out sockless.

Luckily, it was weight lifting day, which is decidedly less impacted by Naked Foot Syndrome then, say, running.

It was uncomfortable, but not horrible.


BUT.

This isn't the worst part of the story.

When I got back from showering, I came back to my locker.

And THERE WERE MY SOCKS.

On the floor. Under the bench.

Pretty much half way under, where it was possible to miss seeing them from either side without bending all the way over. But still, hard to believe I missed them, given that I'd been so reluctant to actually believe I didn't have them and had spent so much time looking for them.

So, not only am I apparently easily distracted, I'm also a blatant idiot.

Awesome.

A surgery story

Ben had knee surgery today, to repair a torn meniscus and clean up his ragged patella.

I took today and tomorrow off of work to tend to Ben's every need.

And by "tend", I mean begrudgingly throw a ham sandwich in front of him when he complains of being hungry.

Just kidding, I'm not quite that bad, but I'm admittedly not super high on the doting-wife scale. I'm somewhere between "here, let me clip your toenails for you" and "sure, I'll get you that bag of ice for your knee after I've finished this here glass of wine".

At any rate, surgery was scheduled for noon today. We had to be at the hospital at ten.

We got to the hospital, and they shuttled us back to the pre-op prep room pretty quickly. They told me I could stay with Ben until he left for surgery, and that if I left the hospital, to make sure to leave a contact number so they could reach me.

Ben and I had agreed that, since I wouldn't have time to work out on my normal schedule (which, on Tuesdays, is usually my lunch hour at work), that I would run to the gym during his surgery. But when we got there, we realized it would take me about 20 minutes each way to get back and forth across town, and his surgery was probably only going to last 30 minutes or so, and I really wouldn't be likely to get back before the end of surgery to be able to talk to his doctor unless I left right away.

So I did.

It's seems maybe a little heartless, now that I think about it, me leaving my husband alone in the hospital to go to the gym, but what can I say.... I'm really excited about my new workout routine and it's possible I'm getting a little obsessive.

My plan was to get back by 11:30, so I could catch Ben before he went in for his surgery.

On my way back, I was doing pretty good on time, so I stopped by CVS to pick up some crutches. We used to have some years ago, but they must have up and hobbled off by themselves somewhere, since we couldn't find them anywhere.

CVS?

Out of crutches.

So I went to the Wal-Greens (naturally, just across the street).

And they? were out of crutches.



I was not aware of the sudden crutch-shortage crisis in northern Indiana.

I didn't have time to shop any other drug stores, so I just gave up and went to the hospital.

Ben was hospital-gowned up and ready to go....but the doctor was running about an hour late. He finally got wheeled back for surgery and I went back out to the waiting room to check my e-mails and read books on the iPad with a bunch of elderly people who eyed me and my fancy "computer thingie" suspiciously while they rattled their newpapers in my general direction.

After the surgery, the doctor called me back to talk about how it went.

I walked into the room, still wearing my workout gear, including knee brace because I mistakenly didn't wear it when I ran intervals yesterday and paid for it all night last night, and the doctor looks at me, puts his clipboard down and says, "So what's wrong with YOUR knee?"


Seriously, doc? You're trying to recruit new knee surgery candidates in the hospital waiting room?

Maybe the economy is worse than I thought.


So, surgery went well, I was taken back to the recovery room to wait for Ben to show up.

He did, a few minutes later,  wheeled in on his gurney. I could tell he was still a little 'stupored' by the anesthesia. But don't tell him that. He will DENY it. Vehemently.

The nurse was asking him how he was doing.


" Hungry."


"Yes, you told me that already. We'll get you some food soon. What I meant was, are you having any pain?"


"..... Hunger pains."


They got him some muffins, and he was mostly appeased.

We got to leave shortly thereafter, and we drove to another CVS to get his script filled and pick up those crutches.

They had one set of crutches.

But they were out of Percocet.

They made me wait fifteen minutes to tell me they didn't have what I needed.

I'm getting a little tired of dejectedly stalking out of drug stores empty-handed.

Now we're at home, the kids and the dog did a remarkably good job of not jumping on Ben's leg for most of the night. Since leaving the hospital this afternoon, Ben has eaten a Chick-Fil-A meal, two slices of pizza,  a cheeseburger, and some pumpkin pie.

Yup. Totally back to normal.

A tale of twelve-teen marbles

For several months now, we've had marble jars for the kids.

I went out and bought some Ball jars. I took the kids with me, and they each got to pick out whatever color decorative marbles they wanted from the craft section at Meijer.

Travis picked blue, Noah picked rainbow (iridescent), and Sophie picked green.

I wrote each of their names on a jar in paint pen. Then we set the jars up on the server in the dining room.

When I see particularly good behavior, they earn a marble. When they misbehave, they lose a marble. When they earn 25 marbles, I take them to buy a toy.

Travis and Noah each made it to the 25 marble mark a few weeks ago. This marble experiment has worked pretty well for them in reinforcing positive behavior and punishing negative behavior.

For instance, Noah was in the habit of getting up multiple times a night to ask for something. We offered him marbles for a few nights of staying in bed, and it worked like a charm. We rarely see him anymore.

They get marbles for sharing and compromising, for helping me or their dad, and other nice things. It's not an exact science, it really is more about my gut feeling. Although I prefer to catch them doing nice things without thinking about marble-earning, I suspect there are often times when the marble is the end goal. Truth be told, that doesn't bother me too much. I figure it is still reinforcing in them what the right behaviors are, even if the reasoning is a bit off. They're still young yet, they don't always have to have the right reasons.

Like today, I heard Sophie wailing about some tragedy. I walked into the kitchen to find Noah retrieving Sophie's grape, which had rolled off her plate and onto the floor.

Sophie said, "thank you Noah!"

Noah says, "do I get a marble for that?"

Ummm...no. Handing your sister dirty food does not exactly qualify as marble-worthy.

At any rate, the boys have done quite well with the marbles.

Sophie.....not so much.

She couldn't care less about the darn marbles. For instance, when she looks like she's about ready to hit her brother over the head with a toy shovel, and I remind her that hitting equals automatic time out, loss of toy, and plus I take away a marble.....

....she looks at me with mild interest, then whomps the shovel down directly on top of Noah's head.

Needless to say, she has struggled with earning, and keeping, marbles.

Now that Noah and Travis have each earned their first toy, we emptied their jars and started over, and they now have to earn 30 marbles to get another toy. They are each well on their way.

Sophie...well, she has eleven marbles.  She almost lost one today when she threatened to kick Noah, but I decided against it when she changed her mind and gave him a hug instead.


Travis earned a marble today by letting Noah go first on the Wii when they both wanted to play.

Oftentimes, after the kids have earned a marble, we all head over to the server together and count each child's marbles. It keeps them excited and motivated.

So, we dumped Travis's marbles on the table, then dropped them back in one by one to count his progress.  We then did the same with Noah, who is one behind his big brother.

Today, for the first time ever, Sophie showed some mild interest in the marbles. She wanted to dump hers out and count them, like her brothers did. So we did, and counted them together, Sophie counting out loud just a split second behind the rest of us, so she could mimic whatever we were saying.

"one....two....free...furrrr....five....six....seven....eight....nine....ten.....eleven!!  Hooray! I have twelve-teen marbles!"


Noah and Travis doubled over in laughter at Sophie's imaginative counting.

But I'm encouraged. The fact that she cares at all that she even has marbles means they might soon start being an actual useful tool in her behavior modification.  Which is good. Because otherwise, I'll have to sell her to Goodwill.

You just can't trust those cats, you know

I've been chastised for not updating the blog in a while.

Sorry.

I don't have any super good reasons. Just not feeling it, I guess.


So, I haven't written much about the kids at school. Kind of purposefully, because I don't want this blog to become some kind of measuring stick for the kids' performance in school.

But I have to share this.


Travis has really been excelling, does great at his school work, has aced all his spelling tests, works diligently on his homework. He seems to have outgrown the trouble he had in Kindergarten, where he had a hard time getting focused enough to finish his work during class.

On Fridays, his teacher sends home the work the kids did during the week. Some papers they are graded on, and others are just for practice, and they get a smiley face or a star instead of a grade. His teacher asks that we go through the papers and review any mistakes and errors with the kids.

A few weeks ago, included in the packet of work sent home was a reading comprehension paper. There were various sentences with a word missing, and the kids had to select from a multiple choice selection which word made sense in the sentence.

I was going through it, and noticed that Travis missed one. He hadn't answered the question at all.

I asked him about it.

Travis -- why didn't you answer this question?


Well......"one" is the only one that makes sense.


Yes....that's true. That's the right answer. So why didn't you answer that way?


Well...um....Max is a CAT. So he really can't give hugs.


............



I was a little taken aback. It was clear from the rest of the questions that Max was indeed a cat. And I kind of liked that Travis was doing some critical thinking about the meaning of the sentence beyond just the words. And he clearly knew the right answer.

So I just talked to him about how part of what he is learning in school is the right way to construct sentences, and that a sentence may not always have to be "true" to be a sentence. And that maybe Max gives 'cat hugs' by rubbing against people's legs or something.

He seemed satisfied.


Then, last week, he brought home his weekly stack of paper. In it was the below exercise, where the kids were to write the word that best described the picture, from two given choices.

He missed this one. He wrote "glad".

I'm sorry, but that cat hardly looks upset. We're supposed to just assume he's sad because he is sick? (Or, allegedly sick. I haven't seen any medical test results or doctor's notes or anything.) As Ben said, maybe he's happy because he gets to stay home from school. We have no way of knowing whether this cat just said he was sick so he could lay in bed and eat chicken soup all day, and we all know how much cats love chicken soup.

I can hardly fault the kid for answering this way.

Now, lucky for us all, I'm not so intense about this that it bothers me. I don't mind Travis learning that some things may not be exactly as they seem. It makes for good conversations and, hopefully, learning experiences for him. Plus, I super-like Travis's teacher, and I don't think this is horribly unfair, or hurting his school experience at all.

But, secretly, I'm also insanely proud of him. He's so gosh-darn clever.

No you CANNOT have my free T-shirt.

Last weekend, we loaded up the camper and made our way to beautiful Wolcottville for a camping trip with the Friends.

The kids got along tremendously (Ganon and Sophie have formed a special bond; Shawn has already warned me that I will be paying for that wedding. But I'm not worried, Shawn, because we're just going to throw up a tent and have a hog roast in your backyard after the kids get back from the courthouse, so joke's on you.)

If you've never been to Gordon's Campground in Wolcottville, well, okay. Can't say that I blame you.

I mean, don't get me wrong, it was certainly a nice time, and I would go back. But the place has got some, uh.....personality, and might take some getting used to, depending on your expectations.

For instance, they have daily activities that they announce and advertise all over the place.

On Saturday, we headed over to the Bingo Pavilion for Craft Time. 

Not a soul was in the Bingo Pavilion. We waited. We called the front desk. We waited some more. Right then a golf cart pulls up, and a woman with a ratty Gordon's T-shirt and a cigarette hanging out of her mouth gets off the golf cart and brings over some bags of beads for the kids to make into bracelets. 

Not once did she take that cigarette out of her mouth the entire time we were crafting. Tiffany and I looked at each other, both kind of indignant about this woman smoking directly at our kids, I mean, I get it, we're at a campground, we're in Wolcottville, Indiana for pete's sake, what did I expect, but come on, this was the kids' arts and crafts director, do you really have to smoke while you're doing arts and crafts for the kids???

But, cooler heads prevailed, we simply had our kids sit at a separate table and we brought the craft stuff to them instead of having Ms. Chain-Smoking Bead Lady blowing smoke in their faces the whole time. The kids made their bracelets, and all was well.

Me helping Noah

Here's Sophie modeling the finished product for you

Then there was the playground equipment.

I mean, the kids liked it, but like I told, Ben, "It's like taking our kids to 1981 to play."

There is a newer playground at the front of the campground, with updated equipment. That's what you'll see on their website. What you won't see is the rusty tractor in the playground across from our campsite. Which, of course, all five kids were instantly drawn to.

Nothin' dangerous here, ma!

Then there was the gigantic rusty tower with teensy little chains for barriers and slippery gigantic fifteen-foot tractor tires as bridges.

Don't worry about us, kids, we're just seconds away from a heart attack here watching you guys prance around on this equipment, you kids who are so used to your twenty-first century playground equipment with all those silly government playground safety rules, you have no idea it is even possible to get hurt at a playground, nevermind the image we have right now of you falling fifteen feet from that ridiculous tractor tire and breaking your neck, which means we'll miss the pie-eating contest later, and heaven knows we don't want to do that.

Look, I'm by no means a super-over-protective mom, and I'm okay if my kids do things that they might get hurt on, you know, it's a good learning tool for them.

But this stuff was terrifying. We let them play on it for ten minutes, then shook our heads, called the kids down, and steered them towards the merry-go-round for a while just to save us from collapsing from panic attacks on the spot.

Speaking of the pie-eating contest, here's some pictures. It wasn't actually pie. Just bowls of pudding.

Shawn and Ben. 

As Ben said, "My whole life has been one giant training session for this moment right here."

And of course, he was the victor.

It's possible Shawn was a bit of a sore loser.

Other pictures:

This kid's got it figured out.

Walking to the Bingo Pavilion. Ganon and Sophie had to hold hands everywhere.

On the hay ride

All five kids turned into certifiable monkeys on the jungle gym right next to our campsite. Thankfully, this thing was old, but not death-trap material. Climb away, kiddos.

(Travis, Ganon, Noah, Tanner)

And now Sophie.

Tanner really gave it his all. Sorry, dad, I think you're gonna have to pull it this time.

We got to keep the pudding tub following the contest. Sophie was pleased.

All in all, we had a great time with great company. Even if we had to steal Ben's winning T-shirt back away from Shawn at the end of the weekend.

Keep practicing, Shawn.  Maybe next time.

The one where I think I am being stalked

Last Wednesday evening, Erin and I took a run around the neighborhood. We do this fairly regularly, usually every Wednesday evening, and usually with Melissa as well, but due to a whole lot of random circumstances, it was just Erin and I.

We came to a spot on Firefox Drive where someone had written in sidewalk chalk on the sidewalk.

It wasn't your run-of-the-mill hopscotch board, or pretty, harmless little pictures like sunshine and rainbows.

No, it was a threatening message from a homeowner to whoever had let their dog leave his "marks" on the sidewalk and the yard in front of his house.

The message was something along the lines of "I'm looking for you and by golly I will find you and then I will give you a chocolate sundae. Just come knock on my door."

For clarification, "chocolate sundae" is a euphemism for what was actually written, which I would like to avoid putting in my blog in case there are impressionable young readers here.

At any rate, Erin and I kind of chuckled about it, boy that guy takes dog poop seriously, then went along our merry way.

Fast forward to tonight. We got home from a super-fun camping weekend (pictures to follow, including, if we can recover an accidentally deleted video from the FlipCam, Ben's smashing victory in the "pie" eating contest. You will not be disappointed.) and I decided to take Canada out for a run.

There was a slight, misting rain; but it was a nice night for a run.

As I turned the corner on Foxfire Drive, I noticed that Mr. Sidewalk Chalk had been busy. Anywhere a stray piece of dog poop had landed -- and there was a lot, apparently the dog in question had been busy too -- Mr. Chalk had circled each piece and written NO in giant letters next to each circle.

There were also a couple other messages like "STOP IT, bring a bag with you" and "You WILL get caught" and my personal favorite, "It's against the law to not pick it up! The fine is $75, If I catch u, you will pay a higher price"

The messages spanned about a quarter mile along the sidewalk.

Clearly, this guy meant business.

It was impossible not to notice it, but I didn't do much else other than read it and think, boy that guy is on a mission.

Fast forward to a few minutes later. I was running down one of the dead ends in our neighborhood, had come to the end, and was turning around. I noticed a sullen little boy that looked about nine years old, who seemed to be in a really bad mood, I thought perhaps it was because his parents had asked him to run some errand outside in the misting rain.

I noticed a guy on a bicycle riding really slow. I thought that was weird, most people don't ride bikes really slow, particularly if they are older than twelve. If you're riding for exercise, you obviously want to ride fast enough to get your heart rate up, and if you're riding for some other reason, especially in the rain, you probably have some kind of an end-goal, meaning you'd still probably ride with some marked purpose. This guy just seemed to be coasting.

Weird, but whatever. I kept on.

Fast forward again, to ten minutes later and the other side of the neighborhood. I had reached another dead end and was turning around again.

I spotted the same guy on the same bike riding at the same ridiculously slow speed.

I came to a realization.

This guy was following me.

My first thought was mild panic. This can't be good.

Then I thought it through and calmed down a bit. I mean, it was still broad daylight, I live in a busy subdivision, and I have a dog with me that I'm fairly certain would try to protect me in at least some mild fashion if I was in danger.

Then I thought maybe this guy was just some creep that liked to watch girls run.

I was rounding into the last loop that would lead me back home, when it dawned on me.

This was Mr. Sidewalk Chalk.

He must have seen me running by his house with my dog, and decided to follow me to see if I was the poop culprit.

That realization was at least a better alternative than Mr. Creepy Exercise Stalker and Mr. Creepy Abduction Stalker, so I'll admit I was relieved.

I finished my loop, and made my way back home. I relayed the story to Ben.

He was not pleased.

I'm gonna go find that guy and give him a chocolate sundae.


Ben, I don't think that's a very good idea. I mean, he was just following me to see if I was the one who let my dog poop all over his sidewalk. I don't think he meant to DO anything to me.


No, I think he already assumes you are that person and he was just following you to find out where you lived. Which he found out. 


Hmmm. Interesting point.


And this guy is clearly on the edge of sanity, what with all the threatening sidewalk messages, just imagine all the retaliation he might be planning. I don't want to wake up in the morning with dog poop smeared all over the front porch or anything.


After some thought, I admittedly agreed that I was a little concerned that now this guy had it in for me, seeing as how I was running past his house with a dog and without a poop-scooping bag.

To be clear, I just don't let Canada poop while we're running. If he looks like he's going to, I just yank him along. He holds it 'til we get home. Maybe that's mean, but I already hate having to strap things to my body like my iPod for music and the Droid for the MyTracks app, and I draw the line at strapping pooper-scooper bags to my person.

Anyway, back to the story. After stewing over the situation for a few minutes, I started to share Ben's fear that this guy totally had our address and was probably at that very minute working on a shrine in his basement with my picture and Canada's picture and all sorts of gruesome plans of how he was going to get back at us for allegedly defiling his yard.

Ben comes up with a plan.

I'm just gonna go talk to him.


Are you sure that's a good idea?


Well, I'm going to tell him that I don't like him following my wife around. And I'd rather face this situation head-on than wait until this guy completely loses his marbles and starts pipe-bombing our mailbox or something.


Well....okay. But I don't want you to get into trouble. Or get hurt.


To which Ben rolls his eyes at me and walks out the door.

He walked to the guy's house, which was pretty easy to identify what with all the chalk messages, particularly the one inviting the offender to come knock on the guy's door, and basically pointing to Mr. Sidewalk Chalk's front porch.

On the way, he snapped photos of the sidewalk messages. See Exhibit A, above.

He knocked on the door, and the guy answered. And said, "I'm the guy that was following your wife on my bike."

Ben said, "Yes."

Then the guy goes into this explanation that he just wanted to find out who was leaving the poop on his sidewalk and he wasn't trying to do anything threatening, and he just reacted when he saw someone with a dog run by his house. And he basically apologized and then Ben started talking to him about how to set up security cameras if he really wanted to catch this person, and they talked about the cost of cameras and where he should put them. Ben says he was really a passive guy, despite the seething anger he displayed in his sidewalk messages.

They chatted for about three minutes, and then Ben was on his way.

Disaster averted.

Good Clean Fun

This past weekend, me and eleven of my bestest co-workers participated in the 7th annual Marine Mud Run here in South Bend.

It was a 3.1 mile course full of obstacles and, of course, mud. And more mud. And did I mention the mud?

My team before the race. Look how nice and clean we all are.

That's me, on the ground. This was the last obstacle before the finish. That guy in the red "Staff" shirt was there for two purposes: a) to yell at people to get off his course and b) to rub mud on any mud-free area of clothing of the racers.

 After finishing. I told you it was muddy.

 Here we are after getting hosed off by the fire hose. Ahhh, refreshing.

 Me 'n' mah work peeps. 

We had a great time, my knee held out, and we supported the Marines' Toys for Tots program in the process.

Gettin' dirty in the name of the kids. Can you beat it?