I don't know about you, but my kids produce an insane amount of artwork.  Between school projects, Saturday afternoon paintings and doodles on napkins and placemats at every restaurant in town they are downright prolific. My husband and I have always been artistic and we encourage our girls to embrace their  creative side but after nine years the sheer volume of art produced in my house on a weekly basis has gotten a little out of hand. 

Juliana is a vegetarian. Or least she said last week that she wanted to be a vegetarian. So I went out of my way to try and teach her about making sure she gets enough protein and to tell her that going veggie doesn't just mean eating toast and cookies for every meal and then she hits me with:

I have a confession to make: I'm a Bears fan. i realize this is nothing short of blasphemy in Wisconsin but I tell you, I really can't help it.  It's in my bloooood. But seriously, as much as I love Milwaukee I'm a Chicago girl at heart.  Well, technically I grew up in Rockford, Illinois but we'll forget about that little technicality. It's much cooler to say you are from Chi-cah-go right? And I did go to college there so…where was I?

Ah, yes. Da Bears.  It takes a special kind of person to keep cheering for a team that seems perennially doomed. (See also: Chicago Cubs)  For me though, I learned all about football in the year 1985. You know, the year of infamous '85 Bears, Walter Payton, Jim McMahon, the Super Bowl Shuffle. I still remember that fall when I was 7-years old-and I asked my dad to start explaining all the rules to me.  I loved getting to sit on the couch with him, eating Doritos and yelling at the tv when there was a bad play (whether or not I even understood what was going on.)

 It was the first sport I ever cared about and the first team I ever cheered for and they made it all the way to the Super Bowl and WON!  How exciting!  My parents had a Super Bowl party with all their friends and I made decorations. At school, my second grade class made posters to hang in the hallway. You couldn't go anywhere without hearing that song, "We are the Bears Shufflin' Crew…" Remember how awfully awesome that was?

These days it's a little different. Painful, you might say.  1985 is a mere memory and here I am living in Packer Land.  My beloved team has not been on top of the mountain since and they had a disastrous appearance in the Super Bowl just couple of years ago. And let's not even mention last Sunday's game, shall we?  

But still I soldier on.  I wear my blue and orange to the grocery store on Sundays to pick up beer and snacks despite all the dirty looks.  I watch every game and even when they are down and out I still believe!  I could live in Wisconsin the rest of my life but I'll still cheer for my scrappy, infuriating, Chicago Bears.  I keep on cheering in the name of da SNL Super Fans, for Clark W. Griswold in his Bears hat, for Ditka and for The Fridge.  And I cheer because I know my dad is at home cheering as well, mostly likely tearing off his cap in frustration and hurling it at the tv shouting "STUPID D@$#  BEARS!"  

Hey, and at least they didn't sign Favre. ;)

A lot of people ask me what it takes to find the time to stay in shape when there are so many things in life to distract you from doing so. Honestly, there is no magic piece of advice that I can bestow upon you. It sounds reaallly boring but really the only thing you need to do is be fully  committed and dedicated to making a change. It seems that there is always an excuse NOT to work out: you're too tired, chores to do at home, the kids need your attention...  It's not supposed to be easy.  Sure there are days when I'm feeling great and I've got my endorphin rush on but there are others where I'd really just like to curl up on the couch and watch Law and Order reruns with a bowl of ice cream.  (Hey, I still do that too!  Hopefully after a good workout.)

One thing that helps is that my family is totally on board.  I don't mean that they are fitness nuts, but they respect the fact that I am one and that going out to run for a couple of hours on a Saturday morning makes me happy (and let's face it, keeps me sane.)  When I was training for the marathon I  gave my husband a heads up as to what days I would be running in the evening so he knew ahead of time when he'd be in charge of bedtime. Some afternoons I would drop the kids off at my best friend's house to play while I got a few miles in. When the girls wanted to go for a swim at the gym, I would work out for an hour first while they played in the daycare room, and then we all got in the pool. On the days when I couldn't get out of the house at all, I  made sure I did some sort of routine at home. I splurged on an elliptical machine last year and I keep that in the attic family room along with some hand weights, resistance bands, and a stack of fitness dvds, (recommendation: Jillian Michaels' 30-day Shred. Ouch.)

My point is that there is almost always a way to do something if you really want to. Sometimes when I'm complaining about not having enough time to do stuff I add up how many hours of tv I watched on my dvr that week or think about all the time I wasted away reading blogs or window shopping on the internet.  Each week I make a rough schedule of what my workouts are going to be: how many miles I'm going to run, whether I'm going to do any weight training at the gym  or cross-training on the elliptical.  Now I'm not so hardcore that I get everything to the letter every single week but I come darn close. I may mix the days up a bit but I will get everything in because I made a commitment and I'm going to try my hardest to stick to it!  Maybe it's just my innate stubbornness but I find that when you make something a real priority it will get done one way or another.

So that's enough of my speechifying. You want it? Do it. Let's go.  Now if only I could muster the same attitude when it comes to cleaning the basement.

This past Sunday my husband and I drove the girls to Madison to see the band "They Might Be Giants" perform at the Barrymore Theatre. If you're not familiar with who they are you may have heard some of their songs on television. They sang the theme song for Higglytown Heroes on the Disney Channel as well as the opening song "Boss of Me"  for the sitcom Malcolm in the Middle. They've also been featured on PBS and Cartoon Network and their kids cds, "NO!",  "Here Come the ABCs", "Here Come the 123s" and "Here Comes Science" are wildly popular- especially in my house.  Originally an alternative rock band, their shift to writing children's music has given me an common interest with my kids that I wasn't expecting.

My husband Jason and I have been huge fans of the band for more than fifteen years now.  (Yes, I said FIFTEEN years and just writing that number down kind of took me back a bit. Geez.) Jon Flansburgh and John Linnell started out in the early eighties as a quirky rock duo and gained popularity during the nineties with the alternative music crowd.  Their most popular album, "Flood" just went platinum  nearly twenty years after it's original release.  I have great memories of going to see the Giants with my friends back in high school and I love the fact that we are now able to take our kids to see the same rock band we saw back in the day. At the same venue nonetheless!  Walking into the Barrymore Theatre, it felt like I had just been there jumping up and down and singing with the crowd of people in front of the stage.  Now here I was with my two kids standing in the exact same spot.  If you would have told me fifteen years ago...blah, blah, you get the rest.

Probably the best part of a TMBG kids show (besides the CONFETTI MACHINE!) is listening to all the parents sing along.  Most of the Giants earlier work is very kid-friendly so you can count on them to throw in an oldie like "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" in between singing about alphabet letters and balloons.   Plus, there is something just great about seeing a grown man shout the words to "Particle Man" while dancing with a baby.  I dare say some of the adults had more fun than the children.

I love the fact that my kids and I can enjoy this music together. It's such a battle in the car these days over what we're going to listen to but this is one thing we can agree on. I can put up with a certain amount Hannah Montana but it's far more rewarding to overhear my five-year-old singing the lyrics, "I'm a Paleontologist, That's Who I Am..."

Go ahead and learn all about TMBG here:  http://www.theymightbegiants.com/about/

Cold, dreary, grey... You know that feeling you get after the holidays are over and you have months ahead of you until spring? I guess you could say I've got the post-marathon blues.   Don't get me wrong, I'm THRILLED that I accomplished my goal, however there's always that weird in between stage after you complete something big where you start to wonder, "Ok, what's next?"  

I'm kind of late to the game realizing that it's autumn already.  I've been so wrapped up in training for the past few months that I hardly noticed that the seasons have changed and we're now rolling quickly downhill towards Halloween.  I've been smacked in the face with the realization that Target already has Christmas decorations on display. Eeek!  Time to take a deep breath, do some list-making and start planning for the hectic months ahead.  As I get older I feel like time keeps moving faster and faster, like I'm gong to wake up tomorrow and find that it's suddenly 2015.  

One goal of mine is to try to stay active durning the cold, Wisconsin tundra this winter.  I don't want to backtrack and lose all the progress I made over the summer. I'm eyeing a new gym, planning for some shorter races and buying some outdoor running gear.  I'm hoping to keep it up even though November and December can be notoriously stressful even without trying to maintain a strict fitness regimen. It probably doesn't help that I'm such a stubborn perfectionist.  I'm still working on that.
 

Anyone have a strategy for staying healthy and stress-free this holiday season?   Help a mom out.

 

I am apparently raising two little social butterflies. I was always a  shy kid growing up so the fact that my girls are so outgoing is very interesting for me to watch.  Basically they want to join every club, class, or sport that comes to their attention.  Currently between the two of them  we are involved in gymnastics, ballet, tap, Girl Scouts, piano and baton.  This is  before the after-school pottery and cooking classes start next month.  Juliana also played soccer for a couple of years until she decided to quit because it made her "too sweaty." Hallelujah! I loved watching those games but with two practices a week it was a huge time commitment.

I made a decision years ago when we signed up for that first ballet class that I would let them try just about anything. My plan  was to expose them to as much as possible and then whittle it down to their absolute favorite things as they got older.  A former dancer myself, I don't want to push anything on them but the fact Ava  loves her dance classes right now does put a smile on my face.  We are getting to the point though lately that there's just not enough time for them to participate in every single thing out there.  Not to mention the expense!  Ava has been expressing an interest in soccer now and Juliana has been hinting around at trying softall. Frankly, there's just not enough days in the week for it.  Something's gotta give! 

I say this the day after the kindergarten girls brought home a note about starting a Daisy Scout troop. Guess who volunteered to be a leader?

How do you manage scheduling/over-scheduling your kids' calendars?

 

This Sunday I'm running in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure here in Milwaukee. This cause is especially important to me since my mom had breast cancer and passed away in April of 2001. This will be my third time participating in the race (my second time running  it) and though I enjoy taking part, I always have mixed emotions about it.  The energy at this event is so positive and hopeful yet I always end up with feelings of jealousy when I see all the beautiful, smiling faces on the women in their Survivor t-shirts.   I am happy for them but I can't help wishing that my own mom was there, smiling and sporting a pink shirt as well.

My mom died when my first daughter, Juliana was eight months old. She barely got a chance to be a grandma.  When she passed I was just learning to be a mom myself and suddenly I felt set adrift. A mom without a mom.  I was 23, we lived in Chicago, and had no other family in town. While my husband was at work it was just me and my baby girl every day, and though I loved being home with her, I felt like I didn't have anyone ask to questions to about all the little things that come up when you're a new mom.  My best friend had a baby girl too and she was also struggling, but she was over two hours away in a different state.   What I needed was someone who had been through it before- someone who had experienced what I was experiencing  and had come out ok.  I needed my mom.

Now that my kids are older that feeling has intensified in some ways.  Babies are difficult but oh, it's so much harder once they develop their own opinions and feelings about everything! What I would give to be able to ask someone how I was at this age and how they dealt with me.  My dad can shed a little bit of light on this at times but he doesn't have the best memory when it comes to recalling my brother and I as kids.  Plus, there's just something about a mom's perspective, right?  Especially when it comes to raising girls.  I feel like I should have paid more attention back then, but obviously I was too busy being a kid and not taking notes on my mom's mothering style. There are questions I will never have answered but I have to be okay with that since I don't have a choice.

The week after my mom died I remember being at Target with Juli and seeing a mom shopping with her teenage daughter.  I got really upset right there in the store and came home crying to my husband about how jealous I was of how that girl and her mom could go out shopping at Target together.  I remember he said to me, "But YOU were a mom out shopping with YOUR daughter."   It sounded so strange to me at the time.  Of course, I knew I had a baby but I hadn't begun to think of myself as being in the same category as my own mom yet.  I identified more with the teenage girl.

It's taken me a long time to feel completely like an adult but that was definitely a jumping point for me.   I feel now as if I have made the transition from fumbling kid with a baby to full-fledged, confident mom. (Well, most of the time.)   I also feel like the best thing I can do to honor my mom's memory is to be the best mom I can be to my own daughters.  I still have days where I feel a bit lost and yes, jealous, but I keep trying to focus on the role I have now.  Sometimes I feel like I am free-styling it out there, but I'm trying my hardest and I think she would be proud.
 

If you would like to support the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation you can make a donation here:

http://www.komenmilwaukee.org/make-a-donation/

 

Since my youngest daughter began K4 last year I've been volunteering in the kindergarten classroom on Fridays.  I didn't get a chance to do so with my first child because I had a toddler at home, but now I'm happy to get a chance to spend time with these littlest of students just starting out.  Each class at our elementary school has around thirty children and I can only imagine how difficult it is not only to stay in control of these kids but to also give them one-on-one instruction time- especially the four, five and six-year olds.  The sheer amount of noise that thirty-four kindergartners can produce is astounding at times.  My ears are literally ringing by the time I leave around lunch. 

What keeps me coming back though, are all the little conversations I get to have. At this age, they genuinely like having a classmate's mom around and many of them wait in line to chat or give me a hug in the morning. Everyone wants to tell me about what they ate for dessert last night or who they are going to play with over the weekend.  Once, I ran into a student while buying groceries and now every time I see her she says to me, "I saw YOU at the STORE."   As if I don't really exist outside the little bubble of her elementary school world.

My favorite kid conversation has to be last year when one quiet little boy came up to me in the hallway and said solemnly,  "I'm sorry I was calling you Mrs. Poop."

Me:  "Uh......."

Now, I had no idea that he or anyone else had ever called me such a name so an apology was not really in order, but apparently the burden of having called me "Mrs. Poop" was too much to bear and thus, the  confession.  Stifling a giggle I thanked him for his honesty. A part of me thinks he just wanted to say the word "poop" to me and get some sort of reaction.  Luckily, I am not fazed by such things.  One of the first things I have learned as a parent to two young children is that yes, poop is funny.

Things like this are why I stop in to help wash fingerpaint off little arms and open all the pesky Capri Sun pouches in the cafeteria. Thank goodness my daughter Ava still loves having me around because I figure it won't be long until she will loathe the idea of me being anywhere near her school and request to be dropped off a few blocks away because GOD FORBID anyone know she has a MOM.  Until then, Mrs. Poop will be hanging around.
 

If you know me in real life (or on Twitter) you probably know that I am training for the Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon in October. In fact, you probably wish that I would stop talking about it all the time. Training for something this big is a bit all consuming- especially for a first timer- but I want to talk about something else running has given me outside of the wackadoodle idea that I can complete 26.2 miles in a few short weeks.

This summer as I’ve been out racking up the miles along the lakefront I’ve realized what a positive effect all this running has had on my mind in addition to my body.  I know all about endorphins and the fabled “runners high” but what I’ve experienced is more of a calming effect.  When my girls were home all day for summer vacation I relished the evenings when I could lace up my running shoes and head down to the bike path for some quality time just for ME.  Now that school has started again I find myself putting off washing those breakfast dishes in order to go jog along the lake. The laundry can wait another hour or two before being tucked back into everyone’s drawers.  Sometimes I use this time to plan out what I need to take care of for the day. Sometimes I think about long term goals and things I want to accomplish in the future. And sometimes I just zone out and don’t think about anything at all.

I often hear moms talk about how important it is for us to make time for ourselves. To stop saying “yes” to everything that comes down that line and learn to be a little bit selfish now and then.  I can remember nodding my head in agreement with this sentiment but I don’t think I’ve ever really taken those words to heart enough to put it into action.  I think I’m finally beginning to understand how those couple of hours early on a Saturday morning can leave me more refreshed and ready to deal with the rest of the weekend.  Even though my family kind of thinks I’m nuts when I head out for another 10 miler I also know that they wouldn’t like to have a frazzled, stressed out mom at home.  I’m not saying that mom doesn’t make her occasional appearances but overall I think her visits are fewer and far between.

We all have a first day of school story, and if you’re anything like me, you try your hardest to get everything just right. You’ve been to Target with the supply list weeks ago, the carefully selected outfit is laid out on the bed, the refrigerated tube of cinnamon rolls are ready to go for breakfast. But no matter how hard you try, there is always something you’ve missed and in the end some drama unfolds.

At my house, I forgot to set out the prepared backpacks by the front door the evening before. At 7am, my 5-year-old daughter Ava realized she had no idea where her brand new backpack full of her school supplies was. We looked EVERYWHERE. How can you lose a gigantic blue and green froggy backpack filled to the brim with stuff? 

I tore apart her room, pulled the bed out from the wall, and threw all the toys around in the attic looking for this thing. I had the horrific vision of me being the only parent to send their kid to K5 on the first day with no backpack, no supplies, NOTHING. Ava started whimpering and while I tried to tell her that it was really my fault and not hers, it was not making her feel any better. As for me, I was a complete, frantic mess.

Then I burned the cinnamon rolls. 

I had forgotten about them in the midst of the Great Backpack Fiasco of aught-9. And they weren’t just a little bit dark .My girls stared at the blackened pan wistfully as if they had just seen their last glimmer of hope for the new day fade into the sunset. They went to bed dreaming of these things and I had scorched them into hockey pucks. I dumped them into the trash, handed my oldest a cereal box and headed back upstairs for one last ditch effort at find the missing bag. I dumped out a bin of dress up clothes in the back of the closet and behold - Le Backpack.

The three of us eventually made it to school a little bit ruffled but in one piece. I sent them off to class lunch boxes in hand, new knee socks pulled up high and complaining a bit about how much stuff they had to lug around on the first day. Crisis managed.

So what is the point of this story? (Obviously, plan better next time for the big day. Have everything you need double and triple checked the night before.) But also, sometimes when we set out to make everything perfect we end up setting ourselves up for disappointment. 

I started our summer with grand plans to be at the pool every other day, have road trips and afternoons by the lake and sleepovers galore. Last week when I saw the final days of vacation slip away, I felt guilty that I hadn’t lived up to the glorious image of summer I had painted in my mind. It seems I set out about the first day of school the same way. I pictured them smiling cream cheese frosting smiles and skipping hand in hand up the street to school when in reality life is a bit messier

There’s probably always going to be a mishap or two along the way and I need to deal with these situations without a full on freak out.  If I can just learn to do this then I think we will all be a little happier in the long run.

Also, I’m totally making a checklist.