Monday Musings

Our gym is remodeling the men and women's locker rooms. They gave the project a 3-day deadline. It's been 10. People are asked to use the family locker room instead, which is located in the dungeon basement and is carpeted (gag), has two changing areas, about 30 small lockers, one toilet and a communal shower.

I use this locker room a lot with the kids after swimming, but cramming about 20 senior women into this thing who are all complaining about their large carry-on luggage (seriously) not fitting into the lockers is totally entertaining. I honestly wanted to pull up a chair and listen to them ranting about the locker room travesty.

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Saturday morning, we took the kids swimming (see above for description of the super fancy dinosaur-aged locker rooms) followed by a Costco run. The kids ate things like ham sandwiches (they were giving out generous samples) and other things they never ever eat willingly at home while commenting how delicious they were. Those Costco sample people are magicians.

Then we came home and I went for a 3-mile run. I ran three loops around our neighborhood and as I started each loop, the skies were blue, the sun was shining and it was a perfect spring day. A half mile later, it began to snow and wind picked up to blowing it straight in my eyes. It was a horizontal blizzard. But then, I started another lap and it was bright and cheery again with no snow in sight. Rinse, repeat. It was the weirdest day and also, did you know snowflakes that shoot straight at your eyes with strong winds feel like small daggers? Well now you know.

We had friends over for dinner Saturday night and I made BBQ chicken pizza and a cheese pizza, salad and oversized cookies with dark chocolate gelato, whipped cream and sprinkles to top. Everyone loves sprinkles.

Sunday, we woke to 28 degrees, grabbed a pizza after church (because who doesn't want pizza for every meal?) at a local joint, and were at the park with barefoot kids in the afternoon. We flew kites in perfect 70-degree weather that the kids got in Easter baskets. Benjamin's Cinderella kite was a point of serious discussion as he expressed great concern for Cinderella flying so high in the air that she might be injured and then again when she took a dive into a neighbor's yard that housed three dogs. Shoot, I was even concerned for poor Cinderella's wellbeing at that point. Benjamin also actually rode his bike for probably a distance of close to a mile for the first time ever. Each other time he simply entertained the idea with marginal effort. I give him a B effort which is saying a lot, because #lazylion. By bedtime, it was in the 40's again. Spring is crazy.

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Benjamin's school just sent home the emergency card and packet for next year. We have another set of friends moving out of state. People are dropping like flies around here, and I was actually questioning who to put on the emergency contact card!

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I'm running a 10k later this month (which reminds me, I should actually sign up!). It's my first "official" 10k race, but I run that distance often. I ran 5.5 miles at the gym this morning and average about 10-15 a week, running about 3x. It's not something I think I'll ever aspire to compete hard at, but I've always been able to run a decent distance without much effort. I'm trying to pick up the speed and maintain endurance and hope for a race in under an hour. I'm fairly certain I'll be able to manage that well with minutes to spare, but the terrain is rather challenging. Regardless, I love the feeling of a runner's high and have been really enjoying my runs lately.

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Benjamin's behavior last week was rough. It reminded me of those dark days between 2.5-4 when he would have out-of-body tantrums and be impossible to please. I took them to a bounce house place Friday because I was feeling guilty for not indulging more during spring break (but really, he's FOUR so what does spring break even mean when the only change is not going to fun preschool for 2.5 hours a day like usual?). After, he pushed Claire out of the way of the hand sanitizer and insisted he be first (the battle of the firsts is raging lately). I wouldn't help him reach, so he lost his mind because I wouldn't entertain his crap behavior. Instead of dinner out, we had to have dinner in. I hate when punishing them means punishing myself!