Help wanted: A Mother

I enjoy writing race reports, it's fun to reflect on a race and how it went.  I write about them and how I did, what I did and why I did the race.  Then often are left to wonder: "who cares?"

I'm just about to finish a different race, it was kind of a relay where my part was 5 days long and now I am about to pass the baton back to the other runner in the relay.  Her role in it is a lot, lot longer than mine.  The last 5 days I got to experience some of the race she does.

My wife's sister is getting married later this year - my wife has been out of town (in NY) with our youngest kid for the past 5+ days helping her sister get ready for it and throwing a Wedding Shower.  That left me at home with tweedle dee and tweedle doo.   (Not the greatest of nicknames for our children - and we don't actually use it very often).

No Soccer games over the Labor Day Weekend, but the last couple of days of a school week still meant getting kids up each morning, making lunches and sending them off to school.  After school are soccer practices, carpools and each day taking care of 2 needy horses, a stupid dog and an even more stupid cat. 

I had a plan - sort of.  Fortunately I am a highly trained parent, full of expertise and wisdom when it comes to taking care of my children when left alone - a plan that involved meals of pizza, ice cream and cereal, each available at whatever time of day (or night).  We could sit on the couch watching movies or football all weekend long.  If we got bored we could always go for a run together, or go watch a movie - surely we could pass the time.

Actually, I didn't have much of a plan, was really just going to wing it.  We survived the whole experience and I think we all still like each other.

Friday after school we went to the USAFA Womens Soccer game at the Academy.  The coach of that team is also co-coach of my oldest daughter's team - and the team was invited to walk on the field pre-game with the team for the National Anthem.  Quite cool.  We then stayed for the whole game - which went to overtime.  And then because we were already there, we watched the Mens team play.  These games are free and for the close proximity to where we live - is good value, especially for the soccer crazy people in my house.  We might go back a few more times.   By half time of the men's game, it was dark out - we figured out it that I was also responsible to feed my children.

Great job Dad, keep your kids out late, don't feed them and then send them to bed 2 hours after their bedtime.   Actually, we did eat, then because I felt bad for not feeding them, the sugar rush from ice cream therapy kept us all awake a little bit.

I had a plan for Saturday, sleep in.  We did okay and then we decided it was time to go for a hike.  My son and I convinced his sister that Barr Camp was doable and she would like it.  She actually did.  We all did.  A fun hike up although she did keep on asking us when we would get there.  We told her it was only about a 10K to get there - and she has run one of those before (admittedly on much less steep terrain).   It was her first time there, my son's 4th time.   Took us about 3 hours to get there, under 2 hours to get back to the car.   We jogged much of the way back and the look on my daughters face when we got back to the car and telling her that we had just covered 13.7 miles - more than a half marathon - she was beaming with delight.

The next 2 days were "hang around the house and work on the list that the taskmaster had left us".  A good chunk of the list was erased.  We had a bit of a scramble to clean up the house before Mom gets home later this afternoon.  Overall, some good, fun times had by all of us.   Waking them up to get them on the bus this morning was even okay.  But then it was tempting for me to go take a nap. 

Being a Mother I'm sure has it's rewards - but it is exhausting.  I am ready to pass the baton back to her.  It's her turn to take over in the race.  However, she doesn't write race reports for the things she does in the race of raising children.  However, after 5 days of seeing it a little closer, I'll tuck along beside and try to be a better support crew member.