I never thought...

Back when I was in high school I knew I would go to college and expected I would live a decent life, similar to my mom's. I had hopes of being a physician, but not a whole lot of confidence that would happen. I didn't know what else was out there, but I never thought I would go further then getting a college degree.

When I was in college I knew I had to do something after graduation. I didn't just want to work away in a doctor's office for the rest of my life, no way. I had to do something, I needed to move on, but I honestly never thought I would actually graduate with an advanced degree!

I confessed to my husband a few years ago that when I started grad school my goal was to get out of town and try something new for a few years, I never thought I would actually finish! When I started, my goal was to write a paper. So that when I had a family one day, and grandchildren, that I could point to that paper that I wrote and my grandchildren would think me smart. And my name would live on long after I had passed. Somewhere buried in the journals of a library. My "publication list" pales in comparison to many of my friends and colleagues due to the nature of my work, but it goes beyond a single entry.

Once I made it through grad school my confidence increased dramatically. When I didn't get the same answer as the back of the book, I checked my work and went on, knowing that the answer in the back could very likely be wrong. And I was often right. I hope for a good and stable job, but I never thought I would be where I am now.

I started at the lab shortly after the group I was joining had won an R&D 100 award. I was proud to say I worked with that group. They were proud of their accomplishment. I occasionally met others who had won the award, but the Oscars of Innovation are few and far between. I never thought I would win one.

Then on Thursday, I found out we did!

(Link to the press release, official announcement coming next Wednesday.)

On kids and sports

I remember pontificating one time, okay, maybe more times than once, that I thought kids were overscheduled and that *my* kids would only participate in one activity at a time outside of school (Spanish lessons, music lessons and Tumblebus aside since those are extracurricular through school, during their time). If there was more than one activity they wanted to do, then they had to make a decision.

This week my son has two tennis lessons, one soccer practice and swimming lessons.

In my own defense, tennis is ending this week and soccer is just starting. So there is really only one week where this craziness of three sports has taken hold.

Swimming lessons are every Saturday morning. Leif could kind of care less about swimming, but his sister is a fish. It would be easy to let swimming fall off Leif’s schedule, but both AB and I feel that swimming is an ultra-important skill that our children must possess. Our family cabin is on Puget Sound, about 100 feet from the water. There are boats and watercraft of all sorts during the summer. Not to mention that AB grew up swimming and it was his sport of choice. Oh and did I mention that we are hoping for a trip to Hawaii this coming year and want the kids to be able to swim... like in the ocean.

Then you toss in there the sibling factor… Skadi lives every day of her life looking forward to Saturday swimming lessons – this IS her one activity. She knows all the swim teachers and they know her... well. Since she was in parent-tot she was a little swimming star. The teachers love teaching Skadi because she does anything they ask. (This is the one time every week that Skadi does as she is told.) Check out the picture from the one session where her teacher decided to pass her up - way up. She did quite well, but it looked pretty funny in the picture her standing there with a 6, 7 and 9 year old and she was 2.5 and in a swim diaper.

We opted to put her back with kids her own age and the teachers promised not to let her stagnate - so far they haven't!


We did the divide and conquer thing one session where I took Skadi to swimming and Leif stayed home with daddy. And it isn’t that it didn’t work… it just wasn’t ideal. We like being together as a family, even if it is just for an hour of swimming lessons with mom and dad on the sides watching the kids perform.

This was really that turning point when we realized that one activity a week wasn't going to work for long.

Tennis. When I was five years old my mom put me in tennis lessons and I wore the cutest little white skort and went to Mike Cedar Park for my lessons. One of the older boys in my lesson made a snide comment to me – he made fun of me for having Kool-Aid in my water bottle. I responded in the manner that most girls that age would – I stuck my tongue out of him. My mom saw too. I thought I was going to be in so much trouble, but she thought it was hilarious. I played racquet sports off and off through my life. Mostly racquetball, like my mom and stepdad, but I also dabbled with tennis. Leif became strangely intrigued with tennis after playing it on the Wii. A few months ago he started asking for tennis lessons and I scrambled looking for options.

See as a working mom, you are terribly limited in summer sports activities. No one wants to teach summer sports on the weekends! I finally bit the bullet and signed Leif up for four lessons over a span of two weeks as an introduction to tennis.

I sort of expected he would take the class, realize he wasn’t Andre Agassi (not that he knows who Andre is), and move onto something else. Instead Leif has declared that he “loves” tennis and it is “even better than baseball”. And not terribly surprising since the kid loves sports, he isn’t half bad at it. He was sporting his wicked backhand today. Yes, he knows what a backhand is now.

This is where mommy guilt stings. Because I can’t justify to continue taking off at 9:30am Monday and Wednesdays to go grab Leif from school (where he misses ultra-important calendar work) to drive across town for a half hour lesson, then drive back, deposit him back at school and run back to work and get there by 11am in order to further his tennis interest. Can I? I keep telling myself he is only 5 and 11/12th. There are going to be plenty of summers when I am clamoring for camps and such to enroll the kids in. He will probably get his fill of tennis then.

Soccer. Oh soccer, the most beloved of Leif sports. We do soccer through the YMCA in the summers as well as indoor soccer in the winter. And this year, given Leif’s enthusiasm over soccer, we have registered him for the competitive league that starts this fall. I think this officially makes me a soccer mom putting Leif in this league. Leif is all about soccer and during every recess at school he can be found on the soccer field. Daily he begs me to allow him to wear his cleats to school. Today he wanted to "just bring them in case" his teachers decide he can wear cleats on the playground. The boys cheer when he arrives in the morning and direct him to which team “needs help”. Leif very willingly complies because like his father, he likes to help the underdog. Not doing soccer? Not really an option unless I want one unhappy little boy.

I know people who slam sports, who think it ridiculous that we spend time running our kids around for sports practices and events. To each their own. Both AB and I were raised in families that prided physical activity. AB and his brothers were diehard swimmers. I was lucky, my mom worked at the YMCA and so I was able to take every single class I wanted to (hello disco dancing!) and my mom was lucky that she didn't have to pay for childcare.

I played volleyball and basketball from 5th grade through 9th grade, competed in track and field and competed in gymnastics through 10th grade, until I got an afterschool job instead. I ski both downhill and cross country, played tennis and racquetball (2nd in State Juniors in Wyoming), softball (which I absolutely despised though), swam and most recently ran (which I really need to get back to).

My parents taught me I could do anything and enabled me to pursue my interests. I wasn’t great at every sport, but I enjoyed them (except for softball) and learned the value of physical activity.

So when I run home from work on Monday and race to fix a quick dinner to eat on the run to soccer practice that starts at 6:15pm… yeah, it’s not ideal. But it’s the best we can do right now as working parents who are striving to enable their kids’ dreams. Not every child dreams about sports.

Mine does.

Into the Wild and into one's head

I finally got around to watching Into the Wild this weekend. AB and I had every intention of seeing it in the theater, but it never happened. We finally sat aside a night when we got both kids to bed by 8:30am and were able to stay up and watch it.

I loved it. I really, really liked it.

Of course this comes as no surprise given that it is one of my favorite books ever.

We read this book for book club about a year or so ago where I was flat out surprised that the vast majority of my book club, did not hold the book in the same regard as I did.

The phrase, "dumbass" was thrown around with wild abandon that night. Most people liked the writing and the fact that Krakour did an amazing job with investigative journalism. But very few people could identify with the protagonist and therefore, had little interest or regard for the book.

Have you ever longed to walk away? To survive? To test the limits of your body? To reject social stature? To know what it feels like to scrape by? To move yourself where the wind carried you? To escape the criticisms looming over you?

Both as I read the book and as I watched the movie I marvelled that my husband hadn't done more of this growing up. He IS that type. He is fascinated by survival and the wild. He grew up in Alaska where I think you need to have a little of that survivalist nature within you to love the place. My husband has A LOT of that in him.

After the movie AB did remind me that when Chris (the main character) died in the backwoods of Alaska, he was in fact sleeping on a beach in a tent in Alaska. AB worked and earned a good wage that summer, but saw little point to having a roof over his head when the money would go better towards tuition. For Chris, the money he had would go better to feed someone.

When we were in college, AB would head out walking by himself. He would walk into the foothills of Boulder and make his way around. After we had been dating for awhile I often went with him and I loved walking without really knowing where we were going or how long we would be gone. One trip in particular I remember walking in the hills outside Steamboat for about a day. Another time it was Moab.

I get Chris.

I tend towards being the solitary type and I think AB does as well. I understand finding peace within nature and the desire to live off the land.

My dream of living off the land has always been in retirement where few people will depend on us for their needs or worry about us. The last thing I would ever want to do is worry someone. In my dreams I see a cabin in the mountains with a garden where I grow food and preserve my own food. But I also see having a vehicle and a town to drive to for groceries... and an internet connection... and an airport nearby so I can go see my kids anytime I want. Still, some level of self-sustainability under my own energy is something I want to experience.

Chris was finding himself. I found myself at a few different points in my life. First was a conscious decision in college to quit dating and figure out who I was and what I liked. It scared me when I realized I could name my ex-boyfriend's favorite bands, but couldn't name my own. The next time I found myself was when I left Colorado and in a more urban sense than Chris, was forced to figure things out for myself as a grad student living paycheck to paycheck.

Where my criticisms come of Chris are in points left off of the movie. In the book, it was known early on that the Bus he died in was about one mile from a regularly traveled road. I am sure this point was neglected in the movie to escape the notions of "what a dumbass" instead of sympathy for the lead character dying alone and lonely. Still this was a criticism in the book, that he landed at the Bus and never ventured far enough away from his home point during those long months, to really know what surrounded him.

AB added to this notion the other night when I told him the Bus was a mile from the road by saying, "well duh, anyone could have figured that out. Buses don't just get dropped out in the middle of nowhere Alaska. There HAD to be a road nearby."

Oh yeah. Good point.

Second, Chris was unprepared. My friends and I have routinely teased my husband about being prepared for anything. When we have gone camping with friends, AB will frequently pack every coat in our house. Not because we will need them, but someone else might not have one. He carries boots in his car and gloves nearly all the time. And we always have food in our car for long trips - and not just because we get the munchies. In case of emergency. AB is my ultimate boy scout. Prepared for anything.

So while I "get" Chris, I also feel he should have been smarter. And he should have let his parents and sister at least know he was alive.

When he was.

Just cool

Leif thought it was pretty cool too. He wore his space shuttle shirt today and has used this as an excuse to launch himself off the couch multiple times today.