And now something for me: I get back to running

[Look how good my fake body looks in this fake t-shirt. Impressive, right?]

 It was time to recommit to running. I knew that in the back of my head, but the thought wouldn't leave me after I had dinner with Kim, a friend from grammar school last week.

She is a runner. She hasn't always been, but in a few weeks she will cross the finish line of the Chicago Marathon and wherever I am on 10.10.10, I will be cheering her on.

She dedicates her training runs to people who inspire her, support her or who need prayers. She posts those dedications on Facebook and many days, I've teared up to read them. Some days, they call to me as I lace up my own shoes or gut out just one more block.

Listening to her talk about the stories behind each dedication, hearing her words in person rather than seeing them on my screen, made me long for the focus and intensity I had last February when I thought I'd be running in an event of my own.

An injury prevented that. I kept on running but without the same warrior spirit I somehow dug out during hour-long treadmill runs in the dead of winter. I worked out with a trainer all summer, and seeing muscles in my arms appear and in my abs tighten was hard, good work. But it wasn't the release, it wasn't just me, it wasn't the same.

I'm not ready for a marathon like Kim. I am ready for more, though. So when I saw that Kim registered for a 15K a few weeks after she'll finish the 26.2, I felt called to give it a try, too.

I signed up. The most miles I've ever logged is five and that was a challenge and months ago. My body's used to 2-1/2 or 3, so I will be training steadily over the next two months to get to my own finish line.

I'm a little nervous. I'm very excited. I can't wait to say that, sure, I can run 10 miles. Perhaps I will also dedicate my workouts until then, including the inspiring lady who will be running with me. I will start with my friends who push me to go further than I think I can just by forging their own way.

But the day I stand at the start of that 15K, you know that run is going to be all mine.

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He's a kindy kiddo now

I was up late writing a mama-love letter of sorts, working out metaphors about his beating heart and mine, when I noticed the time. It was well after midnight. The first day of kindergarten snuck up on me and I hadn't even made lunch yet.

The next morning came quickly and I heard the pat-pat-pat of Lil E's feet and stuffed babies dropping and being picked up in the hall outside my door and then the audible gasp as he leaned over my bed.

"Can I get up yet?!" He was smiling from ear to ear.

"Happy first day of kindergarten!" I whispered it. Who knew it was possible? He smiled even wider.

"Happy first day of kindergarten!" He said it back in a barely-contained whisper.

Elation -- that is the only word I can think of to describe this kid, leggier now and so tan and seeming so much older and more confident than he did months ago when the doors closed on preschool.

He was elated to see his lunchbox filled up and stuffed into his Millennium Falcon backpack. He was elated to get dressed on his own, even in the "non-comfy shorts" I forced him to wear on the photo-heavy first day. He was elated to brush his teeth. He was elated to make his bed and carefully place magnets on that and every other line of the GET UP AND GO! chart we made the night before from an idea ganked right from the bad kids and worn out, worse parents saved by Super Nanny (no judging).

He was elated to pull the Velcro straps tight on his new Captain Rex light-up Star Wars shoes.

He was elated to sneak a peek at the note I stuck in his lunch box, ones that this year, will be created so he can read them on his own. He was elated to fill his water bottle.

He was elated to take his breakfast dishes to the sink and pull on his hat and backpack and head out to the brave new world on the other side of the playground from pre-K.

We stood in the chaos of the playground, the bell rang, and for the first time, Lil E lined up to wait for his teacher. I looked down at him, already talking to a boy he didn't know, and I felt the tears creep up. I breathed deeply. In the center of the storm, he was still and smiling.

I got to walk him upstairs on that first day, and crowds of parents clung to kids who looked bewildered and those who looked ecstatic and those who were a little weepy and those who were rolling with it all much better than the adults. There were cameras of all kinds and lots of kisses and waving and happy wishes and stuffing supplies into waiting cardboard boxes and school bags into tiny cubbies.

In June, he told me he "wasn't quite comfortable with the idea of going to kindergarten yet" and asked if we could talk about it a little bit every day over the summer until he was. We didn't talk about it every day but enough. We read books, mapped out scenarios, weighed the pros and challenges of moving on from the classroom he loved so much for two years.

Seeing him there in the midst of so much, you wouldn't have known any nervousness had been there last spring and even lingered last night. Even if some anxiousness was still beating somewhere underneath that tiny polo shirt, that would be OK. That somehow this skinny, almost-six kid was just self-aware enough to know he was nervous and how to resolve it and that it all was overtaken by happiness for the adventure -- that's what got me. The tears I was holding back were happy tears. This was his time.

Just before he went in, I bent down in the flurry to kiss his still-smiling face. He reached up a hand for me to kiss -- a ritual I'd almost forgotten in this new year -- and grabbed my hand and placed a smooch in the center of my palm.

"I love you." It was getting harder not to cry. "Have an amazing first day of kindergarten."

He loved me, too, he said, and then he was off.

The end of the day came quickly. We celebrated with ice cream with one of his favorite friends. They told us about their daily behavior charts and the tables where they are assigned to sit and tried to remember details five-year olds seem incapable of remembering.

On the way home, he beamed from the back seat.

"I just feel like kindergarten's going to get funner and funner every day," he said.

That night, he had homework, to draw his favorite part of the day and to write a little something about why.

He hastily drew stick figures of the teacher reading a book to several primary-colored stick figure kids on a rug. Across the top of the page, in bold orange marker, he wrote proudly that his favorite part was:

THE HOL DAY!!!!!!!

I agreed. There was no one little part, no one exact moment. It was a package deal, a journey, a milestone. It was momentous, the hol, entire, elated thing.

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It wasn't just the words. It was how he said them

There is so much to write about. From the first day of school to both high school and grammar school reunions to a renewed commitment to running, there are many stories jotted hastily on the post-it note stuck next to my laptop. All of that will have to wait patiently for this one.

I was on my way out to dinner with friends on Friday, a rare weekend night when Lil E is at home with me that I left him with a babysitter. He was playing the Star Wars game with the incessant beeping or watching "iCarly" with the incessant teen squealing while I put on heels and lipstick and dug my wallet from a purse full of Legos and broken crayons and taffy so I could be liberated with a clutch carrying very little with me for the night.

Our house was full of the sounds of us, clicking and laughing and singing along to something or other. I wanted a few minutes with him to talk and cuddle before the sitter came. And as I walked the length of the hall and into the living room, where he sat comfortably on the couch, Lil E suddenly peered over the armrest at me.

"MOMMY!" He was quiet but full of expression. "You are so beautiful."

He said it plainly. Even earnestly.

I instinctively cocked my head, curious.

"What makes you say that, love?" I was smiling and there was something so serious about that sentiment that it startled me.

"I just think you look so beautiful tonight. Annnnd I really like your outfit."

You know that flood of glowiness and sunshine and pride and ooeyness and rainbows and ponies with pink hair and diamond tiaras that fills you up the first time you feel the weight of your your child's tiny body on your chest, those moments he reaches his chubbers little arms up just for you to pick him up, hearing the cooed "ma ma ma ma ma" come from the crib in the other room in the early morning hours? That's exactly how that felt.

It's not his job to pay me compliments on my clothes or anything else. And believe me, I have thousands of before-picture moments in the house with my child.

What got me was the generosity and spontaneity of his spirit, that he offered that up because it struck him. Life and heartache and experience and anger make it harder and harder to offer up what we really see, make it easier to protect our feelings and vulnerabilities just in case. But I hope he holds on to this precious gift, to say I see you there.

One day too soon I will be in his way. He will have a life I don't know everything about and do things far beyond my control. His breath will be taken by, he will be ravished by, and his large and beating heart will be broken by real beauties.

I just wish for him, for this world, for the people who walk down other corridors toward him many years into the future, that he keeps putting big words like beautiful out there.

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