some kind of LOVE

i kind of felt like i was on a first date again. even though the number of "first dates" i've had probably wouldn't even fill one hand. but this date was important. i yearned to hold his hand but didn't know if it was appropriate or not. so i waited. and when he made the first move i couldn't have been more relieved.

because these days are numbered. and there was proof of that thought on every side of me as kids only a year older than my Dallin B kept good distance between them and their mama. the concert exalted to awesome as my little boy watched it from my lap. Taylor Swift stated what she thought to be the two most intense feelings- finding love and losing love. i couldn't agree more. and although i found myself in neither predicament, i felt more depth in my love at the very moment because i was appreciative. through him i had found love.

and as a test- as if that wasn't love enough- an impostor came along.......

forgive the crappy picture but i'll take what i can get. this little surprise made his way onto the stage and some force unknown to me threw me out of my chair and had me screaming like a 13-year old girl. screaming is kinda the word, but more correct would be something like "shrilling." and i wasn't alone. imagine the Staples Center filled to the max when justin bieber made his appearance....high decibels. Dallin, of course, hates JB....but his eyes were peeled and his giddy smile was present. but "i hate him and didn't even look at him". 

i live for these kind of moments. and to share them with the ones i love the most....well i guess that's why i live for them.

2 seconds matter

And those 2 seconds have kept me up at night on more than one occasion. They have left me laying in bed, doing a play-by-play of the day's event, willing a change to the ending. It has yet to happen and my conscience has yet to cut me a break. They have spurred me to write hate texts, but left me unable to hit the send button. 2 seconds can drive you crazy. It all happened the first weekend of last October-although that's not where it all started. It started 16 weeks previous to that as a group of friends discussed the Manhattan Beach 10k over dinner at Stanley's. The conversation turned from casual and inclusive when Laura singled me out and declared her personal goal......"Well I just want to beat Gay." An uninvited challenge thrown directly at me, no way to divert it. The directiveness caught me off guard but inside I allowed myself a good chuckle, thinking if she didn't beat me she would be feeling pretty stupid. That thought was never uttered aloud. I'd let it be my own opinion.

Well game day arrived. I had put in my time and hard work to prepare- running the hills, putting in a few runs each week. To be honest, I was surprised at how strong I was feeling. Maybe the joke would be on me.....maybe, just maybe, I would cross the finish line before Laura. My aversion to competition outside of myself led me to get lost in the crowd of 3000, camouflaging Laura in with the rest of my competitors. This would be the only way to let me run easy the next 6.2. And that is just what I did after the blow horn sounded. She was lost from my sight and mind, allowing me a solid- although very challenging- run. But it would have been too kind of her to allow me that serenity the whole 6.2. Instead she gave me 6.1. And then out of no where, she came into my peripheral. I was shocked. Where in the world did she come from and how come I'm seeing her pass at a full sprint? But I felt a surge of hope. I summoned my sprinting muscles and called them to duty. And they did their job. For about 20 seconds. And then the real me shined through- I saw there was no way to cross the line before her and chalked it up as good effort and finished the last little bit at a comfortable pace. I mean, 16 weeks ago my mind didn't even let me entertain the possibility of finishing in the same league as her with my 23-week-pregnant self. I forced comfort, insisting that I should just be proud that I finished, and even more so that I gave her the competition that I thought would be impossible. You win some, you lose some, right? And all these condolences were working....until later that day when the "real time" results were posted. That's right.....real time vs the standard race clock time. How could the staggered start detail flee my mind in my time of need? Where was that reminder? My official time started after Laura's, allowing me a few grace seconds. And what did I do with the grace time? Loafed them away. Causing this, the final standing- Laura Anderson 52:44, Gabrielle Hansen 52:46. It doesn't matter that I never thought this time possible 16 weeks ago. Or that I was 23 weeks pregnant. Or that I'm not competitive. Or that Laura didn't completely rub the win in my face. Or that Laura deserved the W. All that matters is that it's a lost 2 seconds I surrendered to mediocrity.

I'm sure I must have returned the challenge to Laura for Manhattan Beach 10k 2011, but I think she was a little nervous of this and went ahead and made sure she'd be 38 weeks pregnant for the event. Bad news, Laura.....a forfeit still equals a win for me.....it's 1-1. Can't wait for the rubber match..........

To be Con't.................................

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Trying to figure out how to use Blogpress. Maybe this will help me be a better blogger? Vamos a ver. For the next 13 days I'm going to be swimming everyday and roasting all varieties of s'mores and need to be documenting these important happenings. Maybe tomorrow I'll learn how to use my camera adaptor....


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Love Birds love birds

So often times I ask Yosh if I drive him crazy. Because let's be honest, I drive myself crazy. And then I wonder what it would be like to live with me....if I wasn't me. You get what I'm saying right?

Top on list of annoyances (please note- these are simply annoyances, not the real "drive-me-crazy" things...):

1) I leave my chewed gum in random places, like everywhere BUT the trash cans. (Yes, I even found ABC gum in the shower the other day....gross.....)
2) I leave bobby pins everywhere.
3) I chew my tongue. Which Yosh says makes me look like a cow chewing cud. Who wants to be married to  anything resembling a cow?

Now let's not act like the list ends here, I'm simply indulging you with a few. Can't give away all my secrets or else it would be impossible to maintain my totally-distorted-blog-image! {Insert literal LOL! cuz I literally LOLed.}

Just been thinking about marriages, how hard they are and how lucky I feel to be married to the person I'm married to. I swear, the longer I'm married the more I think, "Wow, I could only be married to Yosh. Don't think I'd make it with [anyone else]." Very grateful for young, guppy love and acting on it and jumping in head first to marriage without giving it too much (in retrospect....) thought!

Flashbacks

I like days like today. Where I had a lot of flash-forwards of the flashbacks I will one day have. As I sat reading Deeter his truck book for the tenth time today while he ate his lunch, I saw myself in 20 years looking back to this exact memory and smiling as I remembered it. As I remembered the sweet 2 year old that knew how to finish a lot of my sentences. "The truck is....." ........."stuck," always shouted. I nostalgically remembered the innocence, the light that was hitting us just right.  Even though it was happening right now. I remembered that is was just him and I. I felt the same way as I fed Kaia her rice cereal. As she was smiling up at me, I briefly had a memory. That when I was a little girl, I dreamed of feeding babies baby food, and after I put the food in their mouth, of wiping the excess with the spoon. Because for some reason, that was the most inviting part of the whole process to me. Today I thought how I don't get to do that much longer. And it made me sad. And then I saw myself in 20 years, reflecting back on this very moment as my sweet daughter gave me nothing short of huge smiles as I filled her tummy. I would remember these as the good ole days. Before she ever talked back to me, before we ever fought, before she ever told me she hated me. Because those days are bound to come. And that too makes me sad. These everyday things of feedings, changing diapers- while they may appear mundane- are what I know. They are my comfort zone. And while it's tempting to wish them away, I want to remember- right here, right now- to slow down. Because while they may not be the most pleasant things, I know how to do them. I know how to almost always get the babies to laugh while they're getting their booties changed, I know how to talk to them while I'm feeding them. And there are so many things that I don't know how to do. I don't know how to tell my kids that they are still loved and priceless when they're getting picked on at school. I don't know how to help my kids make good decisions when their peers aren't. I don't know how to teach my kids that it's cool to not be cool. But to laugh and joke and take care of and feed- I can do that. I want to hold onto this golden stage of life for as long as I can. Or at least soak it up while it's here.

I love these glimpses into the future that quickly take me back to today. They are little reminders to enjoy right now. They are gifts to remind me to slow down and don't fret the small stuff. Amazing reality check...flash-forwards of flashbacks of today.

Because who doesn't want to be the Cool Mom

There are some highly-sought after titles out there to be obtained. Some are completely out of my grasp, others out of my interest, but there remain a select few that are both desireable and obtainable. And guess what? Sometimes I want to be the cool mom. The good news? I know how. The answer comes in one word. Really that simple. So simple that I think it's the first word Dallin ever spelled.

There is nothing more satisfying than the boys hanging out with their friends and hearing one (it's always the same friend!) of them say, "Dallin, should we ask your mom for some Oreos?"  I always get a coy little smile before the question shyly escapes. And there is never hesitation...the answer is always yes. Even if we just got done with 10 other treats. Because no friend will ever be denied Oreos at my house. And for those of you that have ever caught me at the grocery store with a basket full of Oreos, you know that I'm not messing around. That's one of very few items I'll pay full price for if I'm desperate enough. And when I get lucky and find them on sale....watch out. The other day, I kid you not, they were 99 cents. Look, I couldn't even find a cents sign on the computer because sales like that are unheard of anymore. But that was the going price. The catch: limit 2. I'm not even going to divulge how many times I visited Ralph's during that little sale period. And I may or may not have had Dallin in line behind me with his $2.09 in hand to get us an extra 2 packs. But I refuse to be caught off guard. All it takes is hearing the kids reaction one time when you say "yes" and you'll be sold. Not only will you be sold....you'll feel pretty cool. Unfortunately that's about the only tip I have thus far on being a cool mom.

Always in a pickle

You know I think I finally pinpointed what is possibly the most frustrating thing about parenting for me. This came to me as I had just finished a 2 hour bout of repeatedly putting Deeter back in his pack n play after he climbed out time and time again...times how ever many times you can do that in two hours. Because that's what I saw Super Nanny or Nanny 911 do once on a show that I probably caught a bit of some 5 years ago. And that's what I had to go on. No other tools in the shed you know. And after this incident, that is when I put my finger on the overwhelming frustration of parenting....and that is that you never really know that you're doing what's right. Or what's best. Or that you're for surely going to get the outcome you're seeking. I'm probably not alone in that I push ahead with my fingers crossed....but I really don't know. As I "parent", I'm simultaneously doing the nervous foot twitch because I simply am going off my best guess. And who wants to be putting all this time, effort, energy, and emotion into something that is nothing more than a "best guess"? It's quite a pickle. I'm coming to learn that when you decide to become a parent, you decide- most likely unconciously- to put yourself in many a pickles. Because so often we find ourselves stuck in the middle with no sure way to run.

A couple of months ago, I had a short interval with the two little kids before I had to run off with the two big kids and I wanted to make the best of it. With Kaia in arms, I asked Deeter if he wanted to go for a walk. By "walk", I meant to the end of the street and back. We reached the end of the street and Deeter was ready to turn the corner. I, on the other hand, was not ready to turn the corner. I tried the lawyer solution by explaining my definition of walk, but that little not-even-2-year-old wasn't buying it. And we were turning the corner. And the next corner. And the next one. Now surely the question in your head right now is...."Did you keep turning right?" Because by this point we would have been right back where we started if that were the case. Unfortunately the answer is NO. We were getting further and further away from home. Deeter did not have shoes on. I did not have a stroller for either baby. And Deeter does weigh somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 pounds. And with each step we took, I KNEW I was getting myself in a pickle. But I kept praying I'd be able to outrun the defense. But Deeter's a hard-baller and finally three blocks away, I knew I was stuck. We/I made the turn around and not a chance I was looking back. Because eye contact ruins everything. I was just praying that he was following. "Come on, Deeter, just this one time and I promise I'll never ask another thing of you." You know those desperate pleas you throw out from time to time that make absolutely no sense and have no chance of ever being adhered to. Well, that's the kind of dialogue I had running through my head. The one last plea. And it worked. For about 6 steps. And then there was no option, I was hauling his large self in one arm and that tiny little Kaia girl in the other. And we rounded a corner and before my arm fell off and he went down with it, I surrendered. He was going to have to walk. I kept up my pace and stopped to look back at the next corner and there he was face down on the tummy, arms a flailing, demonstrating your stereotypical tantrum. And I was out of pleas. I had spent my last one. And to think it only bought me 6 steps. And you know things are bad when some guy is on the street with his car door open, standing there changing clothes for all the world to see and looking at you like, "You should be pretty embarrassed right now." But I just stood and watched. Not the clothes-changing session, the tantrum. Because that's all I could do. It was another one of those parenting moments where you have absolutely no idea if you're doing the right thing, the best thing, or the thing that is going to work but you've picked it and are sticking with it. And I waited until that little Deeter popped up a couple minutes later with some casual comment like, "Oh....Hi, Mom." And if he was going to keep it casual, then I was going to keep it casual. So I kept walking, and miraculously so did he until he couldn't, and then I carried him until I couldn't and then I put him down and.......repeat previous tantrum minus the naked-starer. And eventually we made it home. Lesson learned. Better yet- reiterated. Because I knew better in the first place. But all in all, pickle was over. Until the next one came around. Because like I said, there is no escaping pickles as a parent. Get used to being in a pickle.

Biggest yet best pickle of all....you love your kids way too much to run away for good!