Heads Up

On Saturday I'm swimming a mile as part of a triathalon relay.  I do the swim, another person does the biking and a third person does the running.  Pretty cool, right?  Ironically I have far more experience running and biking but I'd like to be a better swimmer so I signed up in hopes that it might motivate me a little.  If nothing else, maybe it would help with my efforts to lose weight. Of course I didn't really think through the fact that I'd be swimming in a lake...cuz I have some issues.  You see, when I was eight, I had a traumatic water experience.  In fact, you might say it was an extreme traumatic water experience, not to mention extremely traumatic.  I once blogged a very detailed post about it  but it was more about recording details than providing entertainment so I don't blame you if you never read it.  I'll give you a quick run down now.

I was eight, my Dad was teaching my brother and I to swim in a river, in Central Africa...and he encountered a hippo...right there in the river with my brother and I.  Now it's hard to garner a lot of sympathy from your family for having witnessed a hippo attack when another member of your family was the one attacked.  Because of course they're all going to think it was more traumatic for the person who was attacked.  And they're probably right.  But still, it was VERY traumatic for an eight year old girl to watch her father collapsing on the shore in a bloody mess and wondering whether or not he was going to live (because lots of people were voicing their opinions that he would not). And for the record, the rest of the week continued to be traumatic for that eight year old girl.  I won't get into all that now - suffice to say, I have some water issues.

Oh...and let me tell you one more thing.  When I was about fourteen years old, my parents took us on vacation to Bujumbura, Burundi. One day they took all of us kids to Lake Tanganyika for a swimming outing.  Some parts of Tanganyika are not open for swimming because of crocodiles but they drove around until they found a spot with no signs telling you not to swim.  I'm not sure why the crocodiles haven't figured out that the eatin's good if they just come around the bend but who am I to question the waters that my parents deem safe.  (Though, now that I think about it, from now on I *may* start questioning.) 

Okay, okay, I do think it was a public beach so don't go retroactively calling child services on them.  At any rate, my brothers and I ventured into the water with great delight.  Danny and I were enjoying the surf when one of us happened to look back and notice that my parents were behaving quite erratically on the shore...and Ted and Jonny were no longer in the water.  Mom and Dad were jumping around and shouting something.  We couldn't hear what they were saying above the roar of the waves so we went in to see what was going on and guess what?!  About twenty feet from us there was a hippo.  Yep.  We hadn't been able to see it over the waves when we were in the water, but they could see it from the shore.  And as you can imagine, my entire family is a little jumpy about hippos.  (That's apparently where my parents now draw the line.  I mean, crocodiles around the bend, that's one thing but hippos in the surf, nope that's it, you're coming back in.)

I joke but I probably ought to thank my parents for their approach because I did overcome my fears enough to continue to swim.  I still get out there and do it.  I don't like deep, dark water - particularly the dark part - but I'll endure it as long as I'm not alone.  And I'll be the first to admit that I have a few funny quirks.  It terrifies me when I try to touch and can't.  When I'm with a group of people, once we've gone out over our heads, I'll never try to touch again until someone else in the group verifies that they can touch.  If somehow I end up alone in the water, I will seriously swim until my knees drag in the sand because it terrifies me *that* much.  And this is probably something I shouldn't admit but I'm always scoping out the other swimmers around me and determining whether or not I could beat them in a mad dash back to shore...away from the shark.  Now, I'd like to think that if a shark really did attack my companion, I wouldn't wimp out and that I would actually try to help them.  But don't hold your breath...just sayin'.

So...anyway...like I said, I'm swimming a mile on Saturday in deep, dark water. If I think about it too much my heart starts to race.  For a while I was working really hard towards the goal of swimming a proper crawl with my head under the water but I've since given up on that.  Now I just want to finish the race. I'll still wear my goggles and maybe I'll surprise myself but pretty much I've also just accepted the fact that I may very well swim a mile with my head out of the water the entire time.  Or maybe I'll just swim with my head under the water for long enough to get away from the spectators.  I mean, I do have my pride.

Band-Aid

So much for this new box of band-aids...

Sibling Rivalry

Yesterday we finally taught Oskar to tie his shoes.  Once he learned, Annika was determined to learn so today *she*m learned how to tie her shoes.  That's sibling rivalry for you.

Entropy

Oskar just informed me that he doesn't want to be outside "because of entropy".

Edit 3:20pm

As I mentioned on Facebook, he was explaining to me that entropy causes your cells to die and clearly he didn't want that. He also had concerns about Blackbody Radiation.

We just got home from soccer, where we were, and I told him that I was going to look up Blackbody Radiation in his Physics book. He said, "Look under "Hot Stuff". Sure enough - here they are entropy and blackbody radiation.

Breakfast Convo with Osk

Oskar: Mom, where should I live when I grow up?

Me: Close to me.

Oskar: I was thinking close to the Natural History Museum.

[pause]

If I have kids, I could take them to the Natural History Museum. And I was thinking you could come with us.  I'll call you up, and then you can come meet us, and we'll go to the Natural History Museum."

I've Got the Travelin' Bug

Yesterday my brother jokingly - or perhaps not so jokingly - called me a "babysitter whore".  (Though I would argue that I'm actually more of a babysitter pimp...just sayin'.) But I'll tell you what, I totally feel like that's true. And frankly, it's no laughing matter.  I think this has been the hardest thing for me about motherhood for me - the constancy of it.  I know that probably sounds ridiculous and maybe my situation is a little extreme (with four young children and all) but truly, I wasn't prepared for how trapped I would feel.  I mean, I love my kids, I think you all know that.  And I love doing stuff with them...and taking pictures of it.  But there's so much MORE that I want to do (and used to be able to do).   

This seems like a good time to acknowledge a few saints in my life.  First there's my very kind sister-in-law who comes over and watches our children several times a month so that my husband and I can spend a little time together doing SOMETHING.  I appreciate it so much.  It's a luxury we would not otherwise be able to afford. I try so hard to not additionally take advantage of her, because it already feels like so much.  And I do try to let her know how much we appreciate it but the fact that she does this for us, without even having children and understanding how desperately I long for time to myself...well...like I said, she's a saint.  That's all there is to be said.

The other person who deserves a public thank you is my next door neighbor.  She has five children of her own so she totally understands why I don't relish dragging my troop to doctor appointments or shopping or oil changes or whatever it might be.  Many a time I've called her up for a favor, "Can so and so (or more typically, several of them) come over while I run and do XYZ".  She's a really good sport about it and I'm pretty sure I owe her about a week's worth of solid babysitting.

But contrary to the experience those two have had with me, it's actually really hard for me to ask for help. I hate to be a bother.  And neither of them are really able to help me scratch my traveling itch anyway (though not for lack of willingness on either of their parts, I have no doubt). My mom was such an awesome help when the kids were younger but then she moved out of the area (hopefully not just to get away from my perpetual requests for help!!).  At least once Mom came back and watched all four kids for a long weekend but quite frankly, I think she found it a little overwhelming. It'd probably be easier now that the kids are a little older and more independent, but still, it's a lot.  I have another sister-in-law who would no doubt be very willing but again, she has a job and plenty of responsibilities of her own.

So yeah, traveling is tricky these days.

Why don't we travel with the kids?!  Ha!  I'll tell you why.  One thing that I hadn't considered before we suddenly found ourselves the parents of four children was how expensive everything would be.  I would love to take them out west for a ski trip or plan a family cruise but plain and simple, WE CAN'T AFFORD IT!! 

*sigh*  Becoming a parent has forced me to plant my feet on the ground much more solidly than I ever intended too.  Instead of making plans for the near future, I daydream about the distant future.  (And anyone who knows me well probably also knows that patience is not one of my fortés.) So who knows when I'll actually be able to start traveling again but it WILL happen, I promise you that.  Someday...someday.

First Day of School

Oskar and I were both up bright and early for the morning bus.  Afterwards, several of us gathered at a neighbor's house for a little back-to-school celebration. (I was the only slacker who showed up empty-handed. Oops!)

Waiting for the "afternoon" bus (which arrives at 11 in the morning).

The kids got home from their first day of school and Annika was immediately telling me all about her new friends and the things they did and who invited her for a playdate and so on and so forth.  Eventually I was able to ask Oskar how his day was and he responded, "Average" and quickly added with a whine, "But it's too long."

Assistant

The other day Kardynn was being particularly clingy.  I was trying to get the house cleaned up and it was challenging with a child attached at the hip (literally).  So I tried to think of ways to distract her.  I thought maybe I could get her to "help" me.  We proceeded to have a conversation that went something like this:

Me: Would you like to be Mommy's assistant?
Kardynn: I not She-shen, I Kardynn.
Me: No, not Kiersten, A-SSIS-TANT. Do you want to me by A-SSIS-TANT?
Kardynn: Sheshen's downstairs. I Kardynn Engen.
Me: An assistant is someone who helps someone else. You can be my assistant.
Kardynn: No, I Kar-dynn.

And on it went.  Eventually I gave up and continued to carry her around on my hip.  For the record, typically she doesn't even call Kiersten "She-shen" anymore.  She's moved on to calling her Kir-sten.