She Got Her Zone Cut!

If you’re not a swim mom, this headline won’t mean anything to you.  And if you are a swim mom, you will totally get it!  On Tuesday night of this week, my 13-year-old daughter acheived her first 13-14 AAA time (in swim-ese, she got her triple or got her zone cut.) She’s gotten triples before, but always AFTER zones.  Again, brief definition here – zones are a swim meet for which you must attain an age-group triple A standard time in order to attend.  I’m probably not getting the lingo correct, because, as I just said — this is her first triple in time for zones.  I probably still talk and write like a newbie swim mom, despite the fact that she’s been swimming competiviely for seven years.

Anyway, she’s been reaching for the ‘zone cut’ for two years, and I wrote about her disappointment in this post last year.  I wrote about how she rallied from a huge disapointment, but I only wrote about her rallying efforts that weekend.  Then, baby happened, and I neglected my blog.  What I wish I’d continue to write about his how she continued to rally ALL year. 

She went to practice six days a week, every week.  She went to bed early on Friday nights and skipped sleepovers so that she could be in the pool well-rested and ready to train early on Saturday mornings.  She missed out on social outings with friends, managed her time to complete school projects, began reading about her sport and even started taking a real interest in nutrition.   She moved up to the “senior” group with our swim club last Fall. Then she had the the short-course championship meet of her swimming career in February, making it to finals in all of her events, taking a first place, a second place, two third places and a fifth place.  She even won a a high-point award for her age group.

Shortly after that meet, she moved up to our club’s National Prep group and the REALLY serious training began.  She continued to work hard and never missed practice.  She was driven.  I know that there wasn’t ever anything I was willing to work that hard for at the age of 13. 

On Tuesday, her work paid off.  She finally hit the wall with a Zone qualifying time.  She got it in a short-course pool in the 100 back stroke.  Now, we’re at Long Course Champs in Carbondale, IL, and she’s trying to get a few more qualifying times so that she’ll be swimming more than one event at Zones in two weeks.

The Zones meet is in Indianapolis, and it’s not cheap to send her, much less for our whole family to go and stay in a hotel, eat out, etc.  Some parents won’t send their child for just one qualifying time.  But I will.  The way I see it — she put in the work and made the sacrifices.  Now, we need to make the sacrifices to get her there, whether she has one event or four.  So, I skipped the sidewalk sale at my favorite boutique last week, and we’ll make some other “budget” adjustments to make it happen.

Weight Watchers & A Great Leader

I may not have shared this before, but I’m a Weight Watchers member.  I joined in 2005 because I had gained some weight and wasn’t having any success taking it off.  I achieved Lifetime status in late 2005 (for you non-Weight Watchers types, that means you’re free for life as long as you stay within two pounds of your goal weight).  But, I became pregnant in 2007, which meant the goal weight thing went out the window for many months.

I returned to WW when DB was about six weeks old, and to my delight, I found a meeting I LOVED attending. I’m a big believer that meeting attendance is key to the success of the program, but sometimes I just didn’t feel like going.  That is, until this time around.  I found Alice’s meeting on Tuesday mornings at a Chesterfield Weight Watchers location, and I almost never miss a meeting now.  She’s the leader at this meeting. She is so motivational, so “real,” so “normal” and quite an inspiration since she lost 50-plus pounds on the program.  With Alice’s help, along with several other women with whom I became friends at that meeting, I lost 30ish pounds and returned to goal weight in April, about six months after DB was born. I’ve maintained my weight since.  Unfortunately, today we had to say good-bye to Alice.  She’s returning to full-time employment in the education field.  We are going to really miss her and her motivation, fun stories and leadership at our meeting.  But, in her honor, I pledge to keep attending meetings.  So, now I’ve got to visit a few others to see which leader I like second best.

Project Done Equals Water Park Fun

I finished a large freelance writing project this week and delivered it to my client on Wednesday.  So, of course, the kids and I had to celebrate.  On Thursday, we ran some “catch-up” errands — including my trip to Kangaroo Kids mentioned in this post.  On Friday, my older children each invited a friend and we went to the Ballwin North Pointe water park.  We were joined by one of my dear friends from high school, who remains single and has not taken the parenthood leap yet.  It was so nice for me to have company/adult conversation while I entertained DB in the baby play area.  And my girlfriend seemed to really enjoy spending time with my baby.

I plan to write more later about the differences in our lives and my observations about that, but I wanted to share these fun pictures, first.

Slingaroo – A.K.A. Baby Sling

I think I’ve mentioned before that I LOVE my baby sling.  I bought it at Kangaroo Kids in Kirkwood and today I went there to buy one as a gift for my sister-in-law who is due in August.

I keep my sling in my diaper bag and use it all the time.  I’ve had a lot women say to me, “I had one of those and could never figure out how to use it.”  In fact, my sister-in-law told me the same thing, but after seeing me use mine so much, she decided she wanted to try one again.

Thankfully, the kind women at Kangaroo Kids told me when I bought it that I would need to come back at least once for a live baby demonstration on how to use my sling once my baby was born.  I didn’t have to go back once — I went back three times!  It’s not hard to use, but it’s a lot easier if you’re comfortable and confident that you are using it properly.  And, there are several different ways to use the sling.  Some positions work for newborns. Some work for nursing.  Others work for carrying your baby on your hip (which is the way DB likes it best now.) 

Me carrying DB in her Slingaroo

  Sometimes when I’m at the mall or grocery store and she’s fussing, tired of the stroller or whatever, I get it out and carry her around that way for awhile.  She’s always happy to be held, so it usually solves my problem. 

Most of my daughter’s swim friends and their parents have seen me carry DB around in this sling at multiple swim meets.  And most recently, I found that I could nurse DB in the sling while standing in line to get my season pass made at Six Flags.  It was discreet enough that my 13-year-old daughter wasn’t absolutely horrified.

They sell for about $41 for solid colors and a little more for prints at Kangaroo  Kids.

Paintball Birthday Party

My DS, who was my “baby” for nine years until DB arrived last October, celebrated his 10^th birthday last week.  I honestly cannot believe he’s in the double digits.  Of course, his lack of “babyness” was, in part, the reason I began to long for and eventually talk my husband into adding a third child to our family.

We celebrated DS’s actual birthday – dinner out plus dessert and presents.  And then on Saturday we had his “friend birthday party.”  Gone are the days where Chuckie Cheese or a pool party at the neighborhood pool would make him happy.  Gone are the days when water balloons or bowling could satisfy my little boy. Now our fun involves some kind of guns.  Last year it was Laser Tag and this year it was paint ball.

We did a paint ball birthday party at Bushwacker’s in Pacific, Mo.  For a mere $275, DS and nine others got to spend two hours running through some elaborate “fields” where they hid behind concrete bunkers, defended hills surrounded by trees, crawled under and over multiple obstacles, and basically had a BLAST.  When I scheduled the party, the Bushwacker folks suggested that the boys would have more fun if a few Dads also played.  Okay – twist my husband’s arm.  So, our party actually included seven boys and three “men,” including my husband, brother-in-law and a friend.  I’m not sure who had more fun.  Check out the pictures on my Flickr photo stream.

As the pictures indicate, I chased the boys through the woods, snapping pictures for my scrapbook habit.  I managed to only get splattered with paint once and I never got shot.  Another woman who was there with older sons told me that she would NEVER go into those woods unarmed.  I guess teenage boys are more likely to shoot the person who drove them and paid for their fun?

The party included our own “referee,” who started each round of play, declared players “out” if they didn’t remove themselves from the game after being shot and who ensured everybody’s safety by making sure the face mask/goggles were worn at all times.  After the two hours of play, we got to use the party pavilion for lunch, cake and the opening of presents.

Of course, now my son is addicted.  He’s already talking about what a great family activity this would be.  Yeah right – I can’t wait to try to talk my teenage daughter into spending an afternoon running through bug-infested woods, sweating and getting shot at with paint balls.  Did I mention that it stings a little?  The boys never cried or anything, but several of them had welts.  And our referee told us he had turned the pressure on our guns down.  I can’t imagine how much it must hurt at full force.  Although, I did see some of the older players wearing vests.

Anyway, I think it would be a very expensive hobby, and it wasn’t an easy one to photograph, either.  I wish I would’ve taken my telephoto lens.   I’m just glad I didn’t bring the baby.  I originally had visions of pushing her along in the stroller while I watched the boys play.  That wouldn’t have worked at all.

I hoping next year I can talk DS into lunch at the art museum?

Introducing baby

 I’m baaack.

And, I broke my promise to myself. I promised I wouldn’t let time slip away from me and fail to keep up with my blog. But, my amazing baby happened to me, and time completely got away. In fact, she’s 8 months old. She’s amazing, and I’d like to introduce her:

Here is my dear baby, to be known herein as DB.

She’s a perfect baby. She smiles all the time and she has brought so much joy to our home. I can’t believe she’s eight months old. I am trying to cherish every moment with her, and doing a pretty good job of it. That’s the greatest joy in doing the baby thing again as an “old mom.” I have the wisdom of knowing how fast it will all go by, and I can remind myself of that whenever I grow tired of some task related to my baby. I wish I could’ve had so much peace with my first two, but that wouldn’t have been possible. I never would have thought that I’d blink and they’d be 13 and 10.

As I write this, my teen, DD, is returning home via bus from a swim meet in Lawrence, KS. I remember a time when I wouldn’t even let her ride in a car with a close friend – heck, I would seldom even let her ride in a car with her own grandparents. And I never would’ve put her in a car with a stranger, let alone on a bus with no seat belts. I admit, that was my quirky thing. I was overboard on it. I still worry about it. But, I’ve had to let go little by little. First, it was the school bus. Then it was carpools to swim practice. Now, it’s bus trips to meets. In a few years, it will be riding in a car with friends who are driving and then – NOOOO – driving herself. I bet I’ll get even less sleep than when DB was a newborn.