Hunkered Down. Bulking Up.

Since the last post:

1) The show I was working on at Nat Geo has been ordered to a second season, and I'm working double my usual hours to find landowners in the Vermont area who need/want a cabin. I spend most of my days doing Skype interviews with people on the other side of the country, which means I now have to wear a nice shirt and do my hair every day. You'd be surprised how much time that eats up. On the plus side, I can still wear my pajama pants. 

2) Your dad has done a few stints with the Naval Reserve this month, flying to San Diego for 3 or 4 days at a time. The single parent thing is tough. We've been treating all of our time together as sacred these days, and spending as much quality time together as we can. 

3) Your dad got food poisoning (pork chop at Outback Steakhouse, we suspect) and was down for a few days. He was on the rebound when he got hit by a severe cold, which put him on the couch for two more days. Here's something no one will ever say about your dad: "I know he's sick, but he's just so damn pleasant."

4) Grandma Sue had a birthday. Laney said, "For Grandma Sue's birthday, I want to take her to see Frozen!" On the spectrum of self-serving gifts, that one's right up there with the boyfriend who says, "For your birthday, I'm going to get you this scratchy lingerie!"

5) On a much, much sadder note: your dad's uncle David (Grandma Sue's brother) passed away this week. It was sudden and heartbreaking, and we'll be thinking of Sue every minute as she goes down to Hawaii for the memorial service next week. Our love to all the Tetzes who are hurting.

6) Hagen is now in the 2-3 yr old program at school. He didn't like being dropped off the first few days, but he's coming around. Last week, his teacher said, "Sometimes, he's pouty in the morning, but he can sing and pout at the same time." Nice. 

7) I taught Laney how to cook frozen waffles in the toaster. We have a fridge with the freezer on the bottom, so she can pull out her own waffles, push a chair over to the toaster and cook 'em up. She even puts on her own butter and syrup. This morning, at 4:48a.m., your dad rolled over in our bed and whispered to me, "Do you smell waffles?" I went downstairs to investigate, and discovered Laney had gotten out of bed, dressed herself for school - including tights and cardigan - and gone downstairs to make waffles. She was standing on a chair next to the toaster with an oven mitt on each hand and was well on her way to toasting the entire box. "Laney, why so many waffles?" "I thought I'd make some for the whole family." Three hours later, when we officially got up for the day, we all had a cold hard waffle, because it seemed like the thing to do. 

8) A little over a week ago, I joined a gym and started going for an hour a day. I don't know what made me do it. I'm not known for caring all that much about fitness, I know. It would have been like your dad telling me he was going to attend a two-month long crochet intensive. Lots of other mom bloggers have written beautifully about raising daughters to be healthy and confident, so I'll skip it here. But rest assured I'm familiar with the world we're living in...a place where if you don't like a female politician's platform, you talk about her fat ankles.  I have a personal rule that no matter how I"m feeling about my appearance on a given day, you will never ever hear me say, "I'm so fat," or "I wish I looked more like..." etc. On an average day, Laney is told three times that she looks just like me. What would she start to think about herself if all I did was complain about how terrible it is that I look like me?

So I decided to get healthier and I went to the gym. I signed up for a 60-Day Challenge, so on the first day, we all did these fitness tests so we'd have a baseline to compare ourselves to at the end of the two months. One of the tests was to jump rope forward 150 times and then backward 150 times. Look, I've never jumped rope backward in my life, and I haven't done it forward since 1985. I started jumping, and within 30 seconds, I thought my heart was going to explode. I was still jumping long after almost everyone else had finished and in the end, it came down to me and a 70 year-old woman. I was huffing and puffing and chanting under my breath, "Just gotta beat Grandma. Just gotta beat Grandma..." It was not my proudest moment. In fact, it's possible when I completed the final jump that I shouted an obscenity. That's when I learned that I have an acute case of aerobics-induced Tourette's.

I came home from that first class, and Laney met me at the door. She hugged my legs and said, "Mom - I'm just so proud of you." I don't know if her dad coached her to say it, and I don't care. It still made me tear up. 

Love,

Mom