One Step at a Time

Ankle still bumming me out. I’ll swim tonight. Better swim hard, as I know chocolate consumption might be crazy this weekend at the inlaws. Eeeek.

Okay, something is on my mind … something that just makes me think, do I think differently than the rest of the world??

I’ve gotten to know a stay-at-home dad. His daughter and my Camryn are best buds, and we’ve started the typical 3-year-old playdating back and forth. I know his wife well, and our whole family has had dinner with them. Last time, when he came to pick up his daughter, he stayed for lunch, as the girls had just started eating when he arrives. At the table, he clears his throat awkwardly and he says to me, “I have to ask … is your husband OK with this?” HUH? I thought he was purely kidding … but he wasn’t. He truly felt he had to ask that, as he’s encountered that issue before, being a stay-at-home dad.

Kevin is soooo OK with it. He thinks this guy is great. Also, it has to be said, that Kevin is just the most straightforward, trusting guy on the planet. His motto in life is basically “if you said that’s what it is, then I hold you to that.” Strangely, he is rarely disappointed.

I have no flirtatious, goofy feelings towards this guy. And I’ll come clean here … I do have a “silly crush” on three men at present: Kevin (of course) … and the guy who pumps my gas very courteously at the full-serve, but is way too shy to look me in the eye … and a 90-year-old man who is at the library EVERYDAY who I can’t stop staring at because he’s always holding his wife’s hand as they pick out books. Okay … those are my crushes.

I have a great friendship building with this dad. We know lots of the same people, and his take on parenting just makes me laugh. Our conversations are full of laughter and swapping stories.

Now, I was talking about this whole situation to a friend of mine, and she completely disagrees with the possibility of male/female friendship. She quotes When Harry Met Sally constantly, and says that the feelings of friendship I’m having aren’t EVER just friendship when it involves the opposite sex.

Yeesh.

I’ve never not had male friends in my life. Maybe it’s because I’ve grown up with brothers, and a houseful of their friends, usually. Oh, I’ve always had girlfriends too … and I treasure my girl friendships. But there is always something great about male perspective, I think. One of my best friends as a teenager was my buddy Jamie. We lifeguarded together at an outdoor pool for years, and he knew every deep-dark-so-I-thought-teenaged secret that I had, and I never felt an ounce for him romantically. The two times in my life that I truly have been in love, I was friends … very good friends … with those men first.

Do you think that people who don’t have a true friend of the opposite sex are missing out? What’s your take on this?

My right ankle is starting to give me trouble again. Aching along the outside edge, from the ankle bone, on the side of my calf. Only ran about 10 minutes this morning and had to stop. This is frustrating. My shoes aren’t that old … surely I don’t need to replace them yet?!?!

… is in the puddle-jumping, I say.

3k this morning. 25:50.

I like Sundays.

All of the articles I read online about parenting, and specifically about encouraging daily physical activity in kids, makes me shake my head sometimes. I know, I’ve ranted on this before. The facts just bug me to no end:

–Kids are just made to move. (In my experience, boys are not made to stop moving!)

–Adults teach kids differently, or else they allow society to.

Troy had a friend over today after school.

** Let’s preface by getting this straight: I am not Granola-Mom-Who-Bans-Video-Games or anyone even close to that. Santa brought a Game Cube this year, and my boys have each had Game Boys for over two years. Camryn’s cousin even just passed on his Leapster to her, and she is thrilled to have her own “something”! (She also asked me the other day when she can get grounded … y’know, the third kid thing and all.) We like to travel, and those puppies definitely increase our mileage. I will admit that I do limit the time playing video games, and it is the first thing I take away as a consequence … probably because it’s the most adored thing to them.

That all being said, my boys favourite thing to really do is play outside. They would easily live in our backyard and only come in because I forbid them to pee in the yard. They love to climb on their playset, and Kevin built them a climbing wall against our shed last year. They’re big on catching earthworms and ladybugs and spiders and building them apartment complexes from materials out of the recycable container. They set up Mine Rescue scenarios that involve ropes and a lot of “victims” screaming. They play soccer and road hockey and climb trees. In other words, they’re active kids.

Back to Troy’s friend who was over. This boy is about 40 – 60 lbs overweight, and he’s 8 years old. It breaks my heart, I tell you. It always takes him a few hours here to even figure out what to DO with himself outside. It’s like he’s Tom Hanks in “Big”, only the reverse. I watch him with a great deal of interest, because he just doesn’t move much. He sits whenever he has the opportunity to. They played Game Cube inside for awhile, and they were all in their glory, but when I told them time was up, and they needed to get outside, he wanted to know if he could take Troy’s Game Boy outside. It was a serious question asked with big serious brown innocent eyes. Sigh. That just makes me sad, somehow.

It’s not about teaching kids to move. They know that part. It’s about teaching kids to keep moving, to never stop loving moving, to NEED to move in fun and different ways.

Whaaat?

You thought it was of ME??

No way!

Scroll down in the post below … I finally got Derek’s picture of the chicken in the bikini, as per our book, posted. Silly. Yeesh.

It’s “Live Out of the Box” week at my kids’ school … where they get prizes for not watching TV, or playing computer/ video games for one week.

Last night, I got to do one of my favorite activities with the kids.

We wrote and illustrated a book, called “It’s a Spring Thing”.

The text:

When a seven-year-old boy just can’t bear to sit still …

When a duck slathers sunscreen carefully on his bill …

When cows are heard saying “cluck cluck” instead of moo …

When worms play hide and seek in the morning dew …

It’s a spring thing!

When bees stop making honey and order pizza for lunch …

When silly goats practice rolling down hills on a hunch …

When donkeys in the pasture just can’t stop wiggling …

When goofy Grade One girls just can’t stop giggling …

It’s a spring thing!

When tabby-cats paint their paw-nails just for fun …

When chickens wear flashy bikinis to sit in the sun …

When filthy pigs blow gigantic bubbles all day long …

When puppy dogs spend all morning playing ping-pong …

It’s a spring thing!

When busy ants stop working to make angels in the sand …

When hummingbirds decide to form a rock and roll band …

When squirrels stop to pluck petals on a daisy …

When even the serious owl starts acting all-crazy …

It’s a spring thing!

When gophers in the field play a round of hacky-sack …

When the butterflies hum as they fly on their back …

When the loons in the pond start doing cannonballs …

When horses sing “The Hokey-Pokey” in their messy stalls ..

It’s a spring thing!

When moms and dads forget about bedtimes and chores …

When shopkeepers prop open their windows and doors …

When kids are muddier more than they are clean …

When teachers act nuttier than you’ve ever seen …

It’s …. a …. spring …thing!

********************

For some reason, my blog’s not letting me upload photos …. but I’ll try to post a pic of the chicken in the flashy bikini that Derek did …

Edited later: here’s the cool picture he did … he’s just figured out how to make art “run off the page”, and he’s doing it all the time now, which is just so darned cute!

Thanks for all of your support re: the previous post. Even all you thin people, thank-you. You’re all great and you’re the reason that I love the RBF.

On to today’s news ….

I am fanatically searching for a beach holiday for my family for early next winter. If we put it to a vote, we’d be on a plane now, four to one.

My husband is being extremely practical about these matters, as he usually is. We need to pay for renos. We have swim club and perhaps minor hockey (eeek!) to pay for next year.

Yes, it all makes sense. Of course it does.

But I wannaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeach.

So, I went online to cheapzippyvacationsincanadianbucks or whatever it is, and found out that my family and I could go to Mexico to an all-inclusive four-star resort for just $299 per person. Wowza!

Funny, how in cheapzippyvacationsincanadianbucks-type math:

$299 x 5 persons (including one who eats like a hummingbird) = $5999

Funny how that happens.

I’ll have to get my beach in Penticton this summer, I guess.

Warning: This post contains a high level of whine, which may be dangerous ridiculous to some readers. Discretion is advised.

If you’re naturally thin and reading this, please put in perspective where I’m at right now. Today, I find myself squinting hard at these people, desperately wishing that I was just a person who didn’t have to work hard to achieve any sort of shape or health benefit … that things just came naturally to me … but I’m not. I will always have to be a thinker, a planner, a work-really-hard-at-it-er. I will always have to think about food. Today, I am burnt out and completely envious of the people who just eat what they want, exercise only for joy and fulfillment, and just exist blissfully. People born with great abs who can eat Chinese food for lunch without thinking about the “best” choices. I wish I had some of that.