The little things...aren't really little.

Coleman,
You make me so happy, my little Buddy.  You have such a sweet, special heart that just melts mine.  I have really enjoyed watching you turn five and start to figure out more and more things about life.  You are learning to "control your anger" and learning to think of others' feelings and needs even above your own.  I really like that I am your mommy and am able to watch you grow and learn from my wonderful front-row seat.

Yesterday, it was supposed to storm really bad right after school, so I rushed to pick you and Shelby up, then we all rushed through Wal-Mart because we really needed dog food and bread.  When we got home, we all battled the gusting winds to get inside the house...the sky was dark and threatening, but it still hadn't started storming yet.  About 5 minutes later, without telling anyone, I went back out to the car in the driveway to bring our bags in.  Of course, there were many bags beyond just bread and dog food, because it was MOMMY in WAL-MART!  Duh!  

There were more bags than I could carry in one trip, and I gathered as many as I could into my hands, but there was just one too many. I was starting to wish that I had asked you or Shelby to come help me, and as I was huffing and puffing to gather all the bags, I even thought, "I wish I had kids who would just be thoughtful 'for once' and offer to come help me."  (I was having a pity party in the driveway.)  As I was climbing into the back of the car, trying to reach that last unreachable bag (and getting very frustrated,) I heard this sweet little voice from behind me, "Mommy, do you need any help?"  ...and it was YOU!  You surprised me and made my heart smile with your thoughtfulness.  I was so proud of you for noticing that Mommy had gone outside to get grocery bags, thought that I might need help, and come outside to find me and offer that help.  Then, we walked in with our bags (one trip, thanks to you!) and you held the front door open so I could pass through with my full hands.  You were a perfect gentleman, taking care of your mommy.  Thank you, Buddy, for doing sweet things even when I don't ask for it.  Thank you for reminding me that I DO have those sweet, kind-hearted children that I wished for.  It was just a little thing yesterday, but it means something...you possess a thoughtful and selfless heart that is developed way beyond your short 5 years. 

You are lovely and special, thoughtful and kind, and I love you!

MOMMY

Do your best! Then shhhhh.

This winter, Shelby’s soccer team played in an indoor league in Southlake just to keep up their physical activity and try to build on their skill level after playing together for one season.  And also just because they enjoy the sport and wanted to have fun.  After registering, their age level league did not “make” so they had to play a league up, with 7 and 8 year olds.  Looking back, this experience helped them tremendously but it was not always fun.  Besides being younger than them, the other teams in this indoor league was obviously just at a very high skill level.  Our girls never won a game.  They scored once or twice all season.  It was a wonderful learning experience for them and I think that continually being “beat” but continuing to do your best, game after game, is very character-building.  They kept up the practices and games, and put in all their effort, and there are benefits to reap from that experience.  They are playing so well and have a record of 2-0-1 for their first 3 games this season about at the outdoor spring league.  That first victory felt so good.

Now, this is a recreational league and I get that we are supposed to teach our children that it is about more than just winning.  And I think, after this winter, they have learned that.  But when they won their first game last weekend, they were so excited.  We all were.  Think about it- this is a group of girls and parents who have been to practice after practice and game after game for 4 months without even one win.  I never saw one negative comment or discouraged look from a girl, but I also never saw such huge smiles as this first win, an accomplishment they had worked toward for a LONG time.  4 months is a long time for 6 year olds (and the parents in the stands, too!) 

On top of it being their first win, it was Shelby’s first goal that game.  She scored for the first time after playing for over a year.  She was happy- and she should be.  So after the game, as we all congregated on the field to slap hands and say “good game,” Shelby was just overjoyed and from across the field I saw her jumping up and down, surrounded by her team and a conglomeration of parents, and just looking around for people to celebrate with.  Her sweaty little face had a smile from ear to ear I was so happy for her.  Her coach walked behind her and she turned around and said, “We won coach!!!”  … And then my heart broke a little bit.  He leaned down to her to her eye level and sternly told her that we do not say that and cannot celebrate like that.  Her sweet little face turned from joy to a look of complete shame in one second flat.  There goes a little piece of innocence from my baby…I saw it leave her.  She was in trouble for being excited about all their hard work paying off.  And in that instant I wondered- just what are we teaching our kids these days? 

Now, I do not blame the coach for this at all.  It is his job to make sure that the girls show good sportsmanship, and he felt that what she was saying might hurt the feelings of the girls on the other team.   I actually think that most adults these days would have a similar reaction....so this is definitely not about the coach.  We love him!  But still, when did it come to this?  This place where we, as society, have become so politically correct that we have to teach our kids to DO THEIR BEST and PRESS ON and that YOU CAN DO ANYTHING if you just put your mind to it- “If at first you don’t succeed, TRY TRY again!”  …but when they finally do meet their goal… “Shhhh, be quiet about it.  You don’t want to hurt any feelings.”  I mean, come on!  Life has victories and life has failures for ALL of us.  Are we really teaching our kids anything by making sure that when they DON’T come out on top, they don’t have to watch the joy of those who did?  We are all in the same boat- we all have wins and losses every single day.  Wouldn’t it be easier on all of us to all-together celebrate the wins?  Personally, I am pretty sure that I’d rather see any child caught up in that moment of joy, jumping up and down and proud of her hard work that day, than to watch her keep her mouth closed, silently wondering if she should be ashamed of the joy she feels…even if that child is on a team that scored more than my child’s team.

I don’t know the best answer to this, and maybe no one does.  There’s got to be a happy medium.  A fine line.  I haven’t talked to Shelby about it yet, but I want to tell her that I am okay with her celebrating her successes, because I am proud of her and she should be too.  She will learn where that fine line is between celebrating and hurting others’ feelings by “rubbing it in”…but I also want her to learn that she can and should be proud of her hard work, and that we are proud of her too, and will always be there to celebrate with her.  I believe that a child should know this.  And they should also know that when they lose, they can be bummed about it, but can recognize that it is someone else’s turn to celebrate.  We can even learn to be happy for others in their time of success.  Humility.  Compassion.  Joy.  Celebration.  I think experiencing a combination of all of these would make us all better people.

Soccer 2012

 

After a LONG few weeks of rainouts, cold-outs, and schedule changing, we finally had our first weekend FULL of soccer.  Coleman’s first game was supposed to be on February 11th but after all that mess, his first game wasn’t until this past Saturday, March 3rd.  And he was READY.  Shelby and Coleman each had a game on Saturday AND Sunday, so we had 4 games this past weekend.

First, we watched Sissy play.  She scored her first ever goal in a game right at the beginning of her game!  They have really been practicing on staying in position and passing, and having someone up there by the goal to boot it in---and she was right where she was supposed to be for a pass and kicked it right in hard.  Her coach keeps telling us how great she is doing.  He has been putting her at offense, defense, and she usually is the 1 backup goalie and plays one quarter per game there.  Baby girl is worn out after a game!  We love our little soccer team and love seeing the bonds growing between the girls as they continue to play together.  There are now 5 girls from Shelby’s preschool class playing together (Shelby, Natalia, Jaylee, Ryann, and Linnea.)  --- Great beginnings never end!  <—their school motto.

On Sunday I caught the team doing “The Butterfly.”  I need to bring my zoomier lens to the games.  Sister is in the middle there, 5th from the left.

Coleman was very sick of being a soccer spectator and was ready to play (his game was next!)  He cuddled with Nonnie for a bit to get his gripies out.

Finally, it was GO TIME for the Scorpions.  Coleman played the second and fourth quarters of his game.  Really?  More waiting?!  He was very patient and sat on his bucket to watch the first quarter.

Finally!  All that waiting was over and he was finally on the field!

As soon as he was in, he took that ball down the field and scored.  He is so quick and athletic- like his Daddy.  Such a patient little boy too!  (And yes, I’m a proud mommy!)

Just look at him go!

Watching 5 year olds play is a little- ummmm- different.  Frustrating.  Patience-requiring.  I cannot believe how frequently and hard they fall and get right back up.  But it is fun to watch and they are having fun, being active, and learning all about teamwork, practice, effort, and much, much more. 

GOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!

Cowtown Half Marathon!

This was my first half marathon.  13.1 miles. 
I trained for 12 weeks, running 185 miles in preparation for this day.  Over the course of training, I lost about 9 pounds, and lost a pants size.  I don’t even want to add up the amount of time that was spent in training.

I was very devoted to the training schedule, but grew very weary and tired of it those last few weeks.  I enjoyed the runs up to 7 or so miles, and then they became such a chore.  I know this is partially because of all the other things going on and not wanting to devote 1.5 – 2 hours in the middle of my weekend to go run.

The race day weather was pretty great.  It was chilly, with a slight wind but could have been worse.  When we left for the race it was 42 degrees out, and probably climbed to about 48 during the run.  The wind bothered me at times, but wasn’t terrible.  It got really windy after the race ended so I was just thankful it held off before that!  I wore short sleeves with a light running jacket over, which I was able to keep on the whole time, just pushing my sleeves up or pulling them back down throughout, and knee-length running leggings.

I woke up at 4:45 am and ate some oatmeal and 2 pieces of toast with butter.  I had coffee and water.  Got dressed.  Waited with anticipation. 

Millie and Anna picked me up at 6:00 am sharp, and we got there, found parking, and waited in line for a port-a-potty at the starting line for about 10 minutes.  After using the restroom, it was about 10 minutes til the start time of 7:00 am.  Millie suggested we say a prayer so we hugged up and put our heads together while Millie said an amazingly touching prayer for us sisters.  My emotions and adrenaline were high and I even teared up.  This adventure was such a cool thing to do “with” my sisters!!  We said AMEN and headed off to our corrals.  Mill & Anna were in corral 2 with an estimated time of 2 hours, and I went to corral 4 which was for 10:00 – 10:30 minute miles.

I started the race at about 7:10, being in the 4th corral.  I had my music in my ears, gloves and and warm headband/earband on and off we went.

I don’t think I’ve ever run a race that had time corrals and it was very nice because there was not a lot of passing or people weaving in and out of each other – everyone was kind of just running at a similar pace together.  I spotted a couple of girls who looked about my age and pace who I dubbed “my pink girls” who were dressed just like me (black capris and pink tops) and I secretly decided I would pace with them.  Not sure why I decided on them, besides they were keeping a good pace and looked like girls I might be friends with!  Haha.  I kept up the same distance behind them for the first 6 miles.  They didn’t stop for water breaks but I always got right back with them.  I took water or gatorade at every single water station (every 1.5 miles) because I read that you need 1/2 cup of water EVERY 15 minutes to stay hydrated while running.  I think it helped keep my energy level high and give me a great finish time.

When we reached the 5 mile marker this was the first time I looked at my watch.  It had only been 46 minutes so I knew I was making GREAT time above my usual 10 minute mile.

Sometime after mile 6 I lost my pink girls.  I am pretty sure I passed them.  I also noticed I had passed the 10:00 minute mile pacer, who had started several minutes before me in a lower corral.  I decided that I was going to finish ahead of that pacer!

The hardest part of the race was still ahead though.  The furthest I’d run in training was 10 miles, and we had this hill ahead during mile 9:

Yuck!  That hill was long and steep, and the road was straight, so I got to stare at it for about 10 minutes before I actually hit it.  (This was on Main Street heading from the stockyards to downtown…which should be called UP town, no?)

Running through the Stockyards was cool because people lined the streets just like they do for the Stockyard parades, but the streets there are very uneven cobblestone brick, and were not nice on the feet.  Our spectators said they saw a couple of bloody faces run by and I said I bet their falls happened on those bricks!

I walked two times during this race and up that hill was one of them.  I only walked for less than a minute but it definitely helped me make it up the rest of the hill.  Mill told us that Dad had given her some advice to pass along to us:  Before you hit the hill, establish a good breathing pattern and then shorten your stride while going up the hill.  I thought about those short strides the whole way up and it doing that made it way more doable than any big hill I’ve ever done before (Thanks Daddy!)

At the very top of the hill was the Courthouse, and more importantly, my cheering station!!

Do you like the signs Daddy made for us?

Here’s a picture they got as Mill and Anna passed.  Laughing and smiling after that hill…I’m impressed!!!

When I saw my family I knew I needed a Shelby and a Coleman hug and kiss.

and a hug from my mommy was nice, too!

Jeffie was the one taking pictures so he got a high 5

The rest of the run was through downtown and then back down Lancaster to where we started.  It was very gusty through downtown, and we were in the shade because of the sky-scrapers so I was glad I’d kept my jacket on.  After separating from the full marathoners at mile 10 and thinking no way in hell could I only be 2/5 of the way done, I felt so good at the 11 mile marker that I took that next mile pretty fast.  I wasn’t sprinting by any means but I was smiling and celebrating and thinking, “Only two more miles!!!”  Then we hit mile twelve and I was hurting and that last mile was HARD.  That was hardest mile of the race for me.  It was the second time of the race that I walked.  I walked in the last mile!  One minute I was thinking, “I can’t believe these people are almost there and are giving up and walking!!” and then the next minute I was stopping to walk and thinking that I couldn’t take another step.  My ankle was killing me.  Looking back, I wonder if I hurt my ankle during that 10th or 11th mile.  3 days post-race, I know I have some type of injury on my inner right ankle beyond just soreness.  It hurt so bad after the race that it’s probably all I talked about all day…just amazed at how sore it was.  But now the rest of me is done being sore and the ankle is continuing to be swollen and the pain has even increased a little bit, walking around on it all day.  It’s a mystery though.

Back to the race:  Of course, I didn’t walk for long that last mile, and picked it back up before we hit the big road-lined cheering section.  I took my headphones out for that last few minutes so I could hear all the cheers…though I really wasn’t impressed with the cheering.  Mostly people were watching quietly- the crowd was huge but could have been MUCH MUCH louder.

There was a bottleneck at the finish as they were handing out blankets and medals, so that I had to completely stop right after crossing.  I felt like I might pass out a couple of times just standing still there.  (I didn’t!)  I grabbed my medal and followed the signs into the “Runners food” area, where I filled my bag with goodies and got my Finisher shirt.  Our cheer section was waiting for me in the adjacent room, which was designated for family reunions.  You could barely get in, all the family members crowding up the entrance looking for their runner.  My family was waiting smack dab under the P sign (P for Peck!) and my bestest fans ran up to greet me!

 

See how empty this room is?  And all those people just crammed at the entrance?  Makes you wonder why people don’t just use the room how it’s designed.  It has letters designed to help you find who you’re looking for!  So easy, if you actually DO it!

We took a few pictures before deciding to go find the beer truck

Outside we all enjoyed a Sunday morning post-race beer

The kids were such great sports, with all that waiting around all morning, and I am so thankful to have them there, along with Jeff, my mommy and daddy, and Zach (Anna’s bf).  Thank you all so much!

 

After the race we enjoyed a lunch in Ft Worth with “bottomless mimosas” and then a lovely family nap for a couple of hours.  I was too sore to sleep comfortably though.

My final result was a time of 2 hours and 8 minutes, which is a pace of 9:50 per mile.  This is better than any of my training runs!

The race results link to this cool little snapshot of how I finished.

This was definitely an experience I will remember forever.  The training, the sore bones and muscles, the adrenalin…It was definitely character-building.  It helps a person to believe they can do anything they put their mind to (but might only put their mind to it once.) 

Daddy Daughter Dance

My sweet girl and her sweet daddy had a date last Friday night.  A week earlier, she had her very own card  in our mailbox:



(She said yes.)

After school on Friday, we were in a little rush to get her ready, so we could meet Daddy at my school so I could get to class on time and they could head off to the dance at our church.

So, like any good mama, I taught my girl about multi-tasking.  She colored my lab homework while I fixed her hair.  She is way better at coloring epithelial anatomy than I am!




Of course I provided her with the disclaimer that this is WAY different than her ever doing or sharing work with another friend in her own school…until she is 31 years old and is asked to color something.


She was all dressed and ready, so after a quick couple of obligatory front yard snapshots, we were off.







We met Daddy in the parking lot and had a little time for a few pictures.  She was very excited for their night.  She even helped Daddy put on his tie.



I couldn’t decide between these 2 faces.  In this one she is happy:



And in this one she is like, “Yep, this is my daddy.”




A kiss on the cheek, and they were off!



They stopped to get Sister a corsage.



At the dance, they had a catered meal and danced the night away.  They sat with 2 of Shelby’s little friends, her bestie Natalia and another friend from church AND soccer, Sophia.  All the girls at the table won one of these sweet hand-made dolls.



It was a fun night for sure!