Revival

A friend ask me the other day what the address to this blog was.
And then I remember, it's been ages since I have posted anything to my blog.

Time has just flown by, with my hectic schedule of home, work and my other personal extracurricular activities.

Blogger said it's been since August 2008 since I posted. YIKES!

But it's been a stressful several months, as I have endured and survived three rounds of layoffs in 2 years, only to see friends and admired colleagues leave my chosen profession.

I have seen my work responsibilities widen to the point where it is just too difficult to cover a lot of the things that were routine. I have to make hard choices with work.

And there's all the daily ups and downs with raising a son, keeping the house and trying to find time for myself.

So I guess I dropped the blogging. I've been very active on Facebook and I've got a burgeoning following on Twitter.

But I need this blog in a way too. For here, I can express myself in a way that I can't on the other social media. Not when my bosses can read it.

My plan is to post here again periodically, expressing some of those deeper thoughts that have no other home on the Internet.

And, knowing my few friends who know of this place, you'll get to hear them too.

Thanks for coming back. You know who you are.

Games we play

One of the joys having a boy who is almost 6 is that he is still young enough that I understand him and I know his personality so well that I can often think ahead to what he might do.

Or I am always right on our guessing games.

He started a game on the car ride home tonight from the local water park. His seat is directly behind mine and I lost the special rear-view mirror to watch him so he knows I can't watch him too closely.

And so the game begins
Mommy, can you guess if my shoes are right or backwards?
Backwards
What! (He is shocked and dumbfounded)

A few moments later ....
OK, so now are my shoes off or on?
Off

He thinks through for his next strategy.
OK, so what am I doing now?
You have one shoe off and one shoe on.

He is just bewildered.
How did you know that?
Well, I have eyes on the back of my head. All mommies do.
And you can see through that thing? (My head rest)
Yes
Can I see them?

He actually believed me and I tried to talk him out of his request, telling him it's secret and that Mommies can't show them.

The moment of truth came when were in the bathroom and he had finished brushing his teeth.
OK, show me the back of your head.
And I did dutifully.
No, no, move your hair.
I did. And he starts pushing my hair to study my scalp.
Where are they?

Then the light bulb.
Wait, you're just fooling me, right?

The mandate from heaven

One of the reasons I love National Public Radio is that their reporters give you a holistic approach to news, that gives you cultural flavor as well as the facts.

One of their stories on the killer earthquake in China is a perfect example of that.

Morning Edition offered a political analysis of the earthquake that included the concept of a mandate from the heavens.

According to Chinese culture, the heavens give a mandate to earthly rulers, but if the rulers fail in some way, then the heavens rescind that mandate and give an ominous sign in the form of a terrible earthquake or massive famine or another natural disaster.

So despite the official atheism, the Communists are a little worried about how the earthquake will play out.

As a student of Chinese culture, I find this fascinating.

And as an American frustrated with the current White House resident, that concept sure puts Hurricane Katrina in a new light for me.

Color code

The other day, I drove my son home as we discussed one of my imminent Mother's Day presents - a cake apparently destined for my home.

My son told me, "I'll eat this cake even though it's pink and pink is a girl color."

"Oh," I responded. "Who told you that?"
"It's just a rule I made up."

I continued to question him on this line of thinking, trying to figure out if there was something that specifically triggered it, or if he had simply absorbed the old cultural standard that pink is for girls and blue is for boys.

I was curious since I had never droned that into his head. He's had "girlish" toys before and it didn't matter for a long time. He had this wonderful fuschia polo shirt that I loved (though his dad hated it.) And I have tried my best not to instill any sexist stereotyping.

However, he has come to the age when he realizes that girls are different and that in defining himself as a boy, he likes to act tough and play with trucks and avoid all things pink. He'll say things like tell his grandmother that when she goes to China, he wants a "boy toy" as a souvenir. And all of his girl toys are now starting to pile up on my bedroom dresser, because rather than throw them away, he'll give them as a gift to Mommy.

Since Mommy should have all the girl toys.

Blogged out

I realize now that it's been months since my last blog post.

If you're still reading me despite that long absence, I'm sorry.

I guess I've lost the time and inclination to blog, though I still have funny stories that I like to share.

What I'll try to do is catch up on some of the more recent tales. Then I won't feel so guilty.

Origins

It's been months since the scandal over lead-paint tainted toys from China raged. I remember having to cull through the Thomas the train toys and track every new recall announcement to find out whether we had such toys.

I'm not sure who started it, but the strategy being taught in many local families was to discuss that you should never put toys from China in your mouth. Of all the discussions we had with our 5-year-old, that lesson seemed to stick.

Just last night, though, the subject of Chinese toys came up again. And there was a new element, the fact that my son can now read, and can therefore identify which of his toys was made in China.

At bathtime, he read the label on his squeegee dolphin. Made in China. Then the sleek bottlenosed dolphin. Made in China. Then the plastic crab. The lobster. The orange fish.

We were done with his bath so he stepped out and I started to dry him. But he was a boy obsessed.

He stepped away from me, still undressed, to the little toy bin under the bathroom sink containing his other bath toys. He wanted to read each and every label.

We quickly figured out all the normal hiding spots for the information. The bellies of the whales and fish. Sometimes their back fin.

But time and again, he recognized the word China.

Finally, I urged him to stop since it was getting late and I needed to get him dressed. He growled: "All these toys from China are making me grumpy."

Word play

Curious George has always been one of my favorite cartoons for my son. The humor is pure comedy, age appropriate, with no situations or innuendo that would ever concern me, unlike other kid's shows.

And now I have another reason to like the cartoon.

Today, at Easter dinner, I served my son an obligatory leaf of the salad I served. He has learned to eat the 2 or 3 leaves I give him. Hopefully, we will move up to a full salad one day.

I ask him if he knows what he's eating. He shrugs.

Arugula, I tell him. I love the sound of the word. I roll the r, and voice the g from the depths of my throat. I purr.

Oh, he says. I heard of that. The chef in Curious George cooked with it.

I am stunned by his response. Here I am trying to impress him with a strange word. But it turns out his cartoons are gourmet enough that arugula is nothing new.

Commentary

One of the chores that I can't stand doing is washing my car.
Not that I like having a dirty car, mind you, but I just don't like cleaning it myself.
So I regularly bring in my car to have the full service car wash. I always feel really lazy and bourgeois when I do it, but I won't do it myself.

On Friday, I brought the car in and instead of getting the lemon air freshener that I normally get, I chose vanilla.

The next day, my son hops into the car and gets a whiff of the new scent.

His response: "Mom, your car smells like it has fortune cookies all over the place."

You know you live in Florida....

when a conversation with your 5-year-old runs like this.

It was Monday as my son got dressed for school. He pulled out a short sleeved shirt and shorts. I was a little uncertain about his choice. I urged him to maybe wear long pants, just today.

Then he said: "But Mom! It's March."

The finish line

Of all the moments of my first 5K, I will probably never forget how I felt in that last quarter mile. How my right calf really started to tighten up and how I wondered how much longer I have to run.

I saw the last flag man wave me down to make a right turn. In the distance, I could see my goal - the parking lot of my church, where a crowd was gathered and a bright finish line archway, its silver flags fluttering in the wind. Finish strong, I thought. That is the goal, ultimately. To finish, yes, but to finish, running at a good pace.

As I approached, I heard the crowd, happy greeters cheering me those last steps and my family waiting for me, taking one last picture of me as I came in.

I DID IT!

In the end, I did my 5K in an official time of 40:34, which is better than any time I had achieved during February. And it had become my unofficial target, so I felt like I reached my goal.

Getting there was tougher than I had realized. The morning run was challenging some mornings, but I stuck it out, even when it was 40 degrees. The aches and pains concerned me, but I took care of them as best I could. Realizing that I am more out of shape than I care to admit, that may have been the hardest part.

But it was overall, thrilling. I had butterflies in my stomach as I drove in. I couldn't believe the size of the crowd - 200 runners and at least another 50 walkers and dozens of volunteers and family. I found all the steps in the process fun - getting my running number, pinning that on, and getting my little timing chip (which is this little marker that you put on your shoes so that you can get an official time.)
The actual start was a bit of a let down. I didn't feel a mad adrenaline rush, or at least I thought. It was just a big crowd that slowly started to move across the start line and I was with a bunch of walkers so they didn't really get a big start.

My opening split was decent - 11 minutes for my first mile. But I had been struggling with a serious foot pain, so it took a while for me to feel comfortable. I might have just rushed that first mile.
Second mile, I walked a lot more, but mentally, I didn't want to waste myself until the last mile.

But it went well. I finished and though I'm limping still, I have no regrets about how I did. I only wished I could have had a better time.
Which is why, I'm already thinking -- what will be my next race?