Deals with this devil

Sometimes I promise him things so he will stop making the "duh" face at the camera when I'm just trying to commemorate a good lip gloss day.

Sometimes those things are smooches. Sometimes those things are mango popsicles. Sometimes those things involve hunting for tiny Lego Star Wars duel-bladed light sabers in the back of a car caked in granola bar crumbs and parking sticker residue.

Sometimes it's just the promise of taking a goofy-faced picture next that he can look at and laugh at every time he asks to play on my phone.

It's all good.

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Run around

Last week, a mom at preschool drop off stopped me in the hall as I was racing in to my son's classroom carrying an aluminum Darth Vader sippy cup full of whole milk and the sheet for his nap-time cot I'd hastily hand washed in the sink the night before. I was clearly in a hurry. She was giggling, her blond bob covering her face as she did. She was holding a pink and purple tulle ballet skirt in her hands.

"I read your post," she said, smiling big at me while I felt caught, just like the day 30 years ago my mother found me reading Forever while huddled secretly in my bedroom closet.

I stared at her blankly. The same way I'd stared at my mother, praying silently she wouldn't confiscate that novel (she did).

"The one about your...your..." She was still giggling. Could barely get it out. "LAZY ASS!"

That's when it became a full-force laugh. She was alone in that hilarity. That day, at least. I've gotten used to my family, friends and now apparently the preschool parents I barely know poking fun at my diagnosed muscular issue that has kept me from running as far away as I can as fast as I can.

She went on to tell me how funny it was (the post, not my ass, I swear) and I thanked her graciously. I can't blame her. It is funny (the diagnosis this time; the post is aiight). It's just that this condition has become a part of my routine now. Or rather, it has become a part of the weeks during which I almost completely abandoned by running routine.

I'm back to it now. Slowly, surely, I am overcoming lazy ass.

My sports doc told me to do a week of intervals -- alternating periods of running and walking every time I worked out -- that I stretched out for three weeks. I tried to convince myself I was taking it at my own pace, doing things differently than when I sped out of the gate in my training over the winter.

Really, though, I was regaining cardiovascular fitness that fizzled while my backside and hip and knee and everything else that was screaming at me as a result of lazy ass irritation was healing. I was supposed to ride the fitness bike, and I did three or four times. But then I fell off the wagon and went a few more weeks without working out much at all.

I felt it. A lot. My body felt full and slow and blecky. I wasn't sleeping as well. I felt stress creeping into my shoulders, neck and constricted blood vessels in my brain. Once I recognized all those ways not running was impacting my life, I suddenly craved the activity. That's when I pushed past the intervals and just went for it.

Something surprising and wonderful happened. I was exhausted but I wasn't in pain. I was slow but I wasn't hobbling. I was wary but I wasn't worrying about whether my body could keep up or if I'd ever feel as good as I did back when I ran the fiver.

I knew I was striving -- breaking out of that now-comfortable intervals mindset wasn't easy -- but I also knew I couldn't beat myself up. The first day went fine, the second a bit better, and on the third, I decided to forego the just-warm-enough temps and sunshine and get back on the treadmill. As I climbed on the conveyer belt, I thought to myself, "Well, let's see what my body can do today."

That day, my body cranked out three miles. I walked for a minute here and there but when my warrior mentality kicked in, I really relaxed my shoulders, set my squinting eyes on the bar sign across the street, flex my abs, pulled up my glutes into my new and better stride and ran as hard as I could to my new goal.

It's not five miles. Yet. But it feels better because I am back, just running what my body tells me it can every time I lace up my shoes. Today, that was 2-1/4 miles. Wednesday, I am hoping that will be just over three. Because I clearly need a goal to stay on track, soon I hope it will be measured in Ks not miles, events not minutes.

I'm learning, just as deliberately and slow-motionly as I ran that first set of intervals, that being gentle and forgiving with my body is not giving up, is not failing, is not the end.

By the end of the summer, I might be a great 5Ker. Or it could turn out that, one day, my body's ready to train for a marathon. No matter where I am, I have to learn this hard lesson that rest can be good. And while my muscles and heart might change and tense and need tending to and my warrior mentality might get shaken, all of it can be kicked back into shape.

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Unlatched

I've been holding out getting Lil E a new car seat for months. For nine or ten months, since my parents bought a booster style seat and Lil E started to take notice that all of his friends' seats use the "real seatbelt" rather than the 5-point lock dealy, have cupholders, and are lower and loosey-goosey and allow small children to roll down their own windows.

I've had a list of reasons to steer clear of a new car seat, at least for a little while. Lil E hasn't yet hit the max weight of 40 pounds (he's a peanut). I've reasoned that being higher has eased his motion sickness (he's an urper). And I've held on to the safety of the latch system and big, heavy, paddedness of it for his dear life. I said adamantly that there was no reason to spend money -- even if it was less than fifty bucks -- on a new seat when this one -- that I am sure was well over a hundred -- still works out just fine for us both.

Still, I've known that soon we'd need to switch out the car seat and that adequate was slipping away.

Just fine completely slipped away a few nights ago when I realized that we'd be picking up Lil E's friend for the day and we'd need a carseat for her in our car.

I was thinking it through out loud and said, "OH! I need to remember to get the carseat from Grandma and Grandpa's car and put it in ours."

Lil E saw the opportunity, leapt.

"Orrrrr," he raised his eyebrows at me as he drew the word into seven or eight syllables, "we could buy me a NEW carseat and let her use my old one."

"Hmmm," I said. I drew that response and my thoughts about it out as well.

I decided to put it back on the boy.

"Since the carseat you have now works just fine, tell me why you think it is a good idea to get a new one," I challenged.

He was up for it.

"Think about it this way, Mommy," he said seriously but not sternly. "What if you had a moon bracelet and you really loved it and it was pretty. But then your friend Lulu got a moon bracelet and it was sparkly and bigger and SO BEAUTIFUL. Wouldn't you want to have a new moon bracelet?"

I smiled. He was not just working it, he was deep in negotiations. He was somehow Donald Trumping this carseat deal. He kept on.

"That's how it is for me. I just really want two cupholders and maybe to roll down my own window. AND...annnnnnd, I could put the seatbelt on all by myself. That's why I think it is time."

I asked for clarification but I knew the answer already.

"Are the carseats your friends bigger kid carseats? Is that why?"

He nodded.

There's no way in the world I could say no to all of that, no way to veer away from being sucked in by an analogy of some kind of celestial jewelry and the lure of multiple cupholders. So I made him a deal that we'd stop by Target after school the next day and get a new carseat, and I lived up to my word.

I'm not going to pretend that going from full-baby protection to big-kid booster hasn't triggered the same maternal instinct that made me seriously contemplate buying a diaper wipe warmer or sterilize the bottles after every single use. Every time I strap him into the new seat (and no, he can't quit click it in himself yet), I saw a quick little prayer that he and this wobbly contraption and all his internal organs stay where they are supposed to be for that car ride.

But he's happy, flanked by two water bottles near his knees and even a few little lights for "evening child activity" on each side of the headrests. I'm working on it, trying to rest assured that he's big enough for a little less protection. And knowing that he's wise enough to get me a really good deal on my next car.

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