A Calendar of Mistakes

I like to keep a paper calendar. Several, in fact. I have my work calendar. I have the family calendar.
I have my personal calendar. It starts out every month like this.




Just a few birthdays.










 I will eventually fill in my days off. Then I fill in any doctor or dentist appointments, teacher conferences. I'll fill in Girl Scouts, Cub Scouts, after school activities, sports events. Finally it looks like this. This is just the necessary things that I have to be aware of. If I'm lucky, I can add something like a girl's night out, a date night, or a short trip to somewhere fun.


I'm not unique. I'll bet that every mother or father has a calendar somewhere like this. Maybe it's just in their heads, but it exists, and it's important. It keeps us from forgetting things and making mistakes like dropping the wrong kid off for swim lessons, or forgetting to pick up another one from an after school club.

I started keeping a calendar because of one notoriously "Bad Mommy" mistake from my life. I forgot to take Hannah to preschool. I forgot to take her on her first day. Her first day of preschool. This huge milestone in both of our lives, and I forgot it. I felt like failure. On first days of school, parents take photos, cry a little... I just forgot. It's not like you can take pictures on the second day, even if it's your first day, because that's just admitting that you forgot to be there in the first place. I forgot. I cried. I beat myself up over it. My little girl was growing up (she was four) and I was already tuning her out. She was blissfully unaware of my Mommy Drama. She had no clue what she had missed (in retrospect, not much.) When I recently admitted to her of my failures as a parent, Hannah looked at me blankly. "I went to preschool?" she said.

I've always remembered my mistakes. I remember turning off the timer when my mother was making kolaczkis for my dad on their anniversary when I was five or six. The timer went off. I wanted to help. I turned off the timer. I'd seen Mom do it hundreds of times. I knew what I was doing. I was making her life easier while she was outside in the garden. The kolaczkis burned. Burned to a nasty crisp. She yelled at me because it was a present for Dad. It was the only present she had for him, and I'd ruined it. She might have cried. I know I did.

I recalled this story thirty two years later to Mom, and she looked at me blankly. "I don't even remember that," she told me.
"Seriously?" I asked. "Because I remember it so well."
"No. I don't remember it. Are you sure?"
Was I sure? I had deep seated guilt about this for my entire life. I had royally screwed up my parents' anniversary. I was sure they would get divorced, or at the very least sell me to gypsies. I knew that this was why I wasn't a favored child and was cursed with acne. This is the reason for my deep seated ambivalence towards baking. "Yeah. I'm sure."
"Oh. Well, I'm sorry."

My calendars are an attempt to alleviate the mistakes in my life. They don't always work--especially the family calendar. Other people have to look at it for it to be effective (not that I'd complain, but if you need gym shoes at school one day a week, check the calendar for what day that might be!)
Mistakes are transient. We don't always know what sticks or what will be remembered once an event is over. I just have to remember which kid to drop off at the park and which kid to drop off at the pool. It's not that hard.

To be honest though, I've never let the kids near the timer on the stove. I don't want to scar them with the same mistakes I made.

Sunrise Yoga....you kill me.

I have decided that it's time for me to get into shape. I swear that this has nothing little to do with the advent of shorts weather. This decision has come about because I'm feeling like a slug.

I jog...occasionally. I used to jog a lot more, but I have fallen off. Truthfully, I'm not very good at it. I'm not going to break any land-speed records. I just kind of just chug away. I don't even jog outside much. I'm always afraid that someone is watching me and laughing at me shuffling down the street exactly unlike a runner should. Treadmills are more my style. I have a nearly foolproof method of motivating myself to get on the treadmill. It involves television shows and movies that I really, really want to see. Usually programs and movies with lots of running in them work well. Explosions are good too, but not necessary. I have an arrangement with myself: if I begin a movie on the treadmill, I must finish it on the treadmill. So, if I want to find out what happens to Jason Bourne, or James Bond, or Doctor Who, or Optimus Prime I have to get back on the treadmill and run/jog/stumble slowly. This keeps me distracted enough that I don't pay attention to how bored I truly am.

But it's not working for me right now. I need something new. There are no movies or television shows that are holding my attention. There are only so many times I can watch Iron Man. I know the dialog by heart, and as sweet as RDjr looks in that movie, his smugness has begun to wear on me.

So I needed a change of pace. Luckily we have a membership at the YMCA. We've used it so far to get the kids swimming, and to take a Tai Chi class (which I dropped out of when we began homeschooling. There's only so much I can do.) I tried lap swimming, but it was like jogging without the television. I also kept running into a certain breed of swimmer who thinks that the Olympics unfairly passed him by in 1980, but he's going to keep training to show someone something (usually it was just to show me that he could kick water into my lane.) But I decided that it was time to step up. I thought a step class might be fun, but there were no step classes at convenient times.

See, that's the major problem. We haven't had to put the kids in daycare because George and I work at different times. We've managed with a few hours of babysitting here and there, but one of us is always home. One of us. That means that I have to find someone to watch them if I want to do something for me. The kids are getting old enough that they can be left alone for a few hours at a time, but I'm still worried that I'll come home to find Caleb tied up in the basement, or Hannah locked out of the house. There are times that my children get along like best friends, but there are other times when they get along like brother and sister.

There are a few  hours in the day that I've found, however, where both George and I would be home. No, there still isn't a step class at a time when I can step, but there are other classes that I've discovered that some kind soul has scheduled for the convenient hour of 6:00am. With school just about done, I signed up. I signed up for three classes. The first was Monday morning at 6am. It is appropriately titled Sunrise Yoga.

This is what I'd like to think I looked like. Probably not.

I will not go into details here--you can read all about yoga everywhere these days along with anyone's personal private journey yoga took them on--usually to India or Tibet, or Hawaii, or Pago-Pago--and that they just have to share with the world because their lives were changed, and they no longer smoke (good for them) engage in destructive relationship habits (hooray) or drink coffee (crazy-talk.) Good for them and their wonderful journey. That's not the journey I'm on though, so I'll just say that I had a good time. When it was over, I was as tired as someone who had worked all night and thought that 6am was a good time to engage in moderate physical activity should be. I met some wonderful chipper people. It seems that most people see Sunrise Yoga as a time to prepare for the day. Not being a morning person, I couldn't relate. I was seeing it as time to unwind from the day. I was also probably the youngest person there. Some of those 80 year-olds could probably kick my butt though, so I didn't point that out to anyone.

I just want to know where she gets her hair done.

When it was over I dragged through the rest of the day. When you have to work until 5:30am, 6am is not necessarily a good time to start a workout. It's an even worse time to suddenly remember several errands that you have to run and phone calls you have to make and, heck since you're awake you may as well make them now...I didn't get to bed until after 8am. The "normal" world was already up and working, but I was past due for bed. I believe that Namaste means "go to bed before you fall over." It was the last thing the instructor said to me before I left, so it makes sense. I just trust that this will get easier as time goes on.

We'll see what happens in my spin class tomorrow. I just hope that I'm not the youngest one there.

You want to do what?

Wow. Over 700 page views. Thanks everyone. I'm thrilled. :-)

I'm also recovering from some kind of flu. I love going to swimming lessons with the kids when I feel like this because the Y keeps the pool deck heated at about 85F and 100% humidity. It feels great when you're sick. Of course, it feels sick when you feel good, so there's the trade-off.

The kids can't take swimming lessons at the same time any more. Hannah is at one level (Porpoise) and Caleb is several levels below her (Fish) and they only offer Hannah's level on Saturdays. This is great when I'm not feeling well because I can get up and go to the pool and sweat like a pig.

Mom always insisted that we all learn to swim. She said that we had to be able to swim well enough to save her if the need ever arose. But that practicality aside, I agree with her. Everyone should swim. It's great exercise, it might save your life someday, and if you do it well enough, you could have a better job than McDonald's during the summer months. Who wouldn't rather lifeguard after all? Not that I'm knocking McD's. I worked there for three years. I still have a hard time eating french fries. When you come home smelling like a fryer, it kind of turns you off to it for awhile...forever actually.

The Y offers a lot of programs, but one of their sponsored events is a kids triathlon offered in tandem with their regular triathlon. They encourage all of the swimming lesson kids levels Fish and above to enter. I'm not sure why. Being able to swim doesn't mean that you can run or ride a bike for that matter, but since my kids can do all three activities, they've started training. At least that's their excuse for running through the house like my halls are a race track.

Hannah did the triathlon last year, and both she and Caleb want to do it this year. I was Hannah's support team. I had no clue what I was getting into. I struck up an agreement with Hannah. She could do the triathlon, but she had to do the best she could in every category and she had to try her hardest to finish, no matter how long it took her. This year I know a bit more about what I'm getting into. I've made the same agreement with both of them and I can say that I'm really proud of my kids for wanting to do this. I'm not thrilled, but I'm proud.

Before the swim--inked up.

I am really not thrilled at all.That sounds awful, but it's true. I'm not thrilled. Last year it was 45F and windy and drizzling on race day. We started before 8am--a special kind of hell in and of itself. For anyone not familiar with triathlons, you start off swimming. With the kids' triathlon that's a swim in lap pool--not the 80F pool, the other one; the one they keep at about 35F so it doesn't freeze. The kids have to swim 200m in the 7-10 year old category (yes, we're mixing our measuring systems. Sorry. I'm American.) This isn't far, but it's far enough for kids who might never have swum laps before. Hannah did okay. She didn't pace herself though and had to switch to backstroke for the last 50m. No problem. It's a triathlon. You get through it any way you can, as well as you can.

After the swim, you have to ride a bike. Again, no problem....except for the 45F and windy...and rain...and the kids were wet and cold. The "transition" station was outside in the middle of the track. The wind was whipping around. I was cold, and I wasn't even wet. I gave Hannah my gloves. I gave her my ear warmers. I told her that if she finished she could pick where we were going to eat dinner. She was so cold she couldn't even tie her own shoes. And she had to ride a mile on her bike. She was nearly crying. I think I was crying, but we had a deal. She was going to try her hardest. Not only was I crying by this point, I was terribly, terribly guilty that I was making my child do this. Not that she hadn't begged to do it. Not at all. I had not only let her do it, but I felt as if I had forced her to do it.

Many of the kids got out onto the street where the course was mapped out, and turned around and came back almost immediately. I know this because the kids were all chip-timed, and there is no way 7-10 year olds would be able to ride a mile in under 2 minutes. Hannah wavered in the face of the wind, but she didn't stop. She pushed and pushed and was soon out of sight. Nearly 10 nail biting minutes later she came back into sight. I was relieved. Now just a half mile to run.

She ran it. I didn't run it with her, although I ran alongside of her for a bit. "Don't embarrass me," she requested through chattering teeth as she rounded a turn. I fell back. I was embarrassing??...but George and Caleb were there with their "go Hannah" signs, hooting and hollering and that wasn't embarrassing at all.

And she finished. Soaking wet and nearly crying she finished the run and got her finisher's medal. She picked Barnaby's for dinner. At dinner, Caleb announced that he was going to do it next year.

So here I am. happy that they are going to do this, but knowing that my own misery will be compounded as I watch both of them struggle, shiver and maybe cry their way through the triathlon course. But I will support them. I'll be their cheerleader and their coach, and I will encourage them when the going gets tough, and I won't embarrass them any more than is completely necessary. I'll do it because it's good practice. As they get older, that's the role I'll have to fill in their lives.

And no matter where they finish, I'll be proud of them. Getting through...that's what matters after all.

Now he wants to do it too.