A Barrier Day

Wednesday was a Barrier Day. Nearly all of my undertakings were hindered by a significant barrier sprouting up at the most inconvenient moments. I dropped or fumbled well over half of the objects I picked up. Every time I looked down to read a scripture verse, I was immediately interrupted. A trip to the toilet was accompanied by cannon-blast-pounding on the door or shouts of "MOMMY! WHERE ARE YOU! I NEED TO TELL YOU THESE TWELVE THINGS RIGHT NOW!"

Before school, Jay and Rose have to get dressed, do the dishes, and practice piano. On Wednesday morning, Rose delayed loading the dishwasher for a solid 20 minutes because she was "too cold" and she couldn't move well enough to unload while wrapped in a blanket. She stormed and negotiated and complained at me, shooting down all of my most sensible suggestions, like "if you're cold, put on a jacket!" All of her storming, stomping, and mourning practically screamed "STOP BEING RIGHT AND STOP BEING SO SENSIBLE!" with the less-than-subtle undertone of "I'm tired!"

Rose wanted to ignore my practical helpful advice and think of her own solutions, but she wanted to run me through her emotional gauntlet along the way. This is her favorite way to get through any of her difficulties: ignore advice and shred the adviser. She worked herself into her trademark Rose state of stubborn irrationality and the simple five minute task of unloading the dishwasher turned into an ordeal of mountainous proportions. Eventually she finished unloading, but she never did put on a jacket.

After the lengthy emotional dishwasher debacle, Rose was struggling to switch gears to get in her piano practice before the school bus arrived. In a brief flash of motherly intuition, I realized that she was done for the morning--completely maxed out. So I stopped encouraging her to hurry, hurry, hurry up to practice and instead sat on the couch, held out my arms, and hugged my intense little daughter. I tried my best to soften my heart enough to forgive her and show her love. After some effort, I managed it in the end.

"Do you want to practice piano after school instead?" I asked her. She nodded.

We sat snuggled on the couch together for the entire final half hour before the school bus came. Rose thawed out under my huggy attention. She has always been a snuggler, so I let her into my personal bubble. She talked and talked, and I listened without opposing her. It was tough to let go and just listen with the before-school clock ticking, especially when she retold the entire Curious George story that she had heard at school in long-winded, excruciating detail. I reminded myself that this was a morning that I would never regret, hard as it was in the moment. The thought softened me up considerably and I kept listening to Rose's cheerful chatter. At the end of our half hour, Rose had regained her center and was all plucky, recharged, and ready for school. She boarded the bus with a confident spring in her step, leaving her drained shriveled shell of a mother to yank on some clothes and get moving on the day's errands. OH my thorny sweet Rose-barrier.

Right after the kids left for school on Wednesday morning, I gathered my remaining wits and took our van to the dealership in Yakima (40 minutes away) to have one of the sliding doors repaired. (blessed warranty, covering the extravagance of automatic sliding doors!) The repair was supposed to take two hours. Amber and I went on a run on the Yakima bike path while we waited--she in the stroller with her purse full of books and ponies, me behind the stroller with my knee high rainbow striped compression socks and sunglasses. On the roadside, we passed a couple of guys wearing woven tasseled hoodies and dreadlocks. One of them called out "your socks are awesome!" His voice was reminiscent of the sea turtles on Finding Nemo. I waved and kept running. It's nice to know that my socks inspire admiration in roadside van-dwellers...

As I jogged along the Yakima River, the blooming yellow sage brush caught the mellow September sunshine in such a friendly way. I was feeling all of the autumnal joys until I decided to get creative on my way back to the dealership and a single wrong turn took me an extra two miles out of my way. My enjoyment and refreshment in the run waned and I shifted to endurance mode. For the rest of my run I pondered whether "going the extra mile" counts if it is done by accident. I'm still not sure. About 3/4 a mile from the dealership, I stopped and walked it in, fielding Amber's frequent questions. Whew.

When we arrived back at the dealership 8+ miles after we left, (rainbow knee socks and all), I was informed that our van was still in pieces and the replacement part that they had ordered was just as faulty as the original. They had to order yet another part to replace the replacement, and the van would not be ready till tomorrow. I sagged. The dealership guy gave me his last loaner car, a dusty VW Jetta which was so cramped and low to the ground my knees came up practically to my ears while I sat in the driver's seat. We transferred the car seat, stroller, and my purse into the Jetta and drove the 40 minutes home, stopping briefly for a few groceries on the way. The gas light came on halfway home. Since when do they give a loaner car with an empty tank?? I sighed, pulled over, put a couple of gallons into it, and finished the drive home.

When I pulled up to our house, I realized that our garage door opener was still clipped to the visor in our van back at the shop. My house key was on the key chain with the van key, back at the shop. I considered my options: Jeff's parents have one of our spare garage door openers, so I could drive the 20 minutes to their house to retrieve that. I could search around outside for the house key which we hid so well that none of us can find it. I could attempt to get Amber through a window (undesirable because I detest removing window screens). At last I hit upon my first step: check the back door to see if somehow someone had left it unlocked. I lucked out. It was unlocked. 

"See, Mr. Frodo! Some luck at last!" 

When I opened the back door (which leads into the playroom), I encountered yet another barrier, this one more literal. A wall of boxes was piled all the way to the top of the doorway. Jay and Rose had dutifully cleaned the playroom the day before, tossing all of the cardboard boxes that they love to play with into a big heap against the playroom door. This was probably the first and last time I ever wished they hadn't cleaned the playroom! I clawed a small opening in the box-heap, lifted Amber through, and asked her to go open the kitchen door for me. She actually DID it without delay, miracle of miracles, and at last I was inside our house. 

Next I had to carry the groceries from the car, across the lawn, into the house, then down the steep narrow basement staircase to our spare fridge and pantry in the basement. Normally I bring groceries in through the garage, straight into the basement. I could've gone down, opened the garage, then run back around and moved the car into the garage, but it seemed ever so slightly easier to stay parked outside and carry the food across the yard. This is totally starting to sound first-world-whiney, but I had just run 7.5 miles pushing the stroller, I was tired, and Amber has a knack for being underfoot during delicate operations (like carrying three milk jugs down the steep basement stairs). I got everything put away, turned a movie on for Amber, and then had about 90 minutes to breathe before cross country practice.

Cross country practice brought my daily total distance run up to nine miles on Wednesday. It was a barrier day for the books. At the end of the day, I was drained dry both physically and emotionally, but craving quiet alone time too much to go to bed for some [also] much-needed sleep. The endless dilemma of an introverted parent: sleep or quiet alone time? Note: sleep does not fill the same needs as quiet alone time. I chose a little of each, which of course resulted in neither requirement being filled sufficiently.

Conclusion: Wednesday was a Barrier Day, but I soldiered on and eked out a few victories amidst the difficulties. Success feels good, but boy was it hard-earned. Why is it so hard to feel successful at the end of a Barrier Day?

It was tough. I prevailed. That is all. 

Pictures from that lovely run in Yakima:

• This pond took green slime to the next level.
• My layered view: hand, stroller, pathway, rocks, Yakima River, shrubbery, brown hills, blue sky.
• Fall colors in the Yakima Valley are vastly different than my beloved Shenandoah Valley back in Virginia, but they are still rustic and pleasing.
• Sage brush: the prickly bushy wild growth that takes over uncultivated areas around here. It blooms yellow during September and that burst of happy color is always a pleasant surprise.
• I propped my phone on a trash can to attempt a picture, but I didn't know how to pose/didn't get into position fast enough, so it was weird and I gave up.
• Attempt #2 at a picture together: that sunshine was bright!
• The pathway passes through Sherman Park--a cool shady green area with a few benches and a dog park. This tree, hinting at future color, caught my eye.
• Above the Yakima River, just before I discovered my wrong turn.

After the wrong turn, the blissful beautiful photos stopped. I also had to go into Yakima to get back to the dealership so the views were much less nature-ific.

In the loaner car: my weight was all on my tail bone. This picture does not really illustrate my discomfort, but I had to try.

The back door: a victory, then a barrier...

Here are a few behind-the-scenes outtakes snapped while I was typing this post. Sometimes it's worthwhile to pause in the middle of the storm to sneak pictures like these to remind myself how AMAZING I am for ever getting anything done.

Box breathing

Today was the kids' primary program at church. We all had parts to contribute: Jay wrote his own mini talk, Rose carefully memorized her assigned scripture verse, and even Amber said a few charmingly garbled words in the microphone. Jeff sat with the biggest class to keep them relatively still and quiet, and I played the piano for seven of the eight songs. For the eighth song, the five of us went up front and sang Families Can Be Together Forever with another family group. It all went quite smoothly, in spite of the rough practices we had on the previous two Sundays.

That is the bare bones of the events. Now for the actual STORY on top of those bones...

I could write a novel about the primary program practices alone, but I do not feel like reliving them. Suffice it to say that being primary pianist is a big stressful job, and our first program practice left me emotionally lacerated, drained, and weepy. Contributing factors to that low point include an exceptionally long, exhausting cross country meet the day before and the ever-present monthly cycle. It was a perfect storm for a post-church breakdown. I recovered, though, and the second practice was much more bearable. During the week leading up to the program, I learned that I am really only capable of living in mortal terror of one thing at a time. I can stress about at least a dozen things at once, but I can only focus on one source of sheer terror at a time. On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday before the program, I experienced my first three days of coaching cross country alone. That intimidating responsibility proved distracting enough to keep my piano performance nerves in check. I practiced the primary songs-a-plenty during the day, but the various demands of solo-coaching left me no mental real estate to spare for stressing over the pending performance.

The day before the program (Saturday), we had a cross country meet in Wenatchee (a 2 hour 15 minute bus ride away), which had us up and at 'em and coaching from 4:30am-5pm (including 20,000 steps). I did not even touch a piano on Saturday. Sunday was the day, ready or not, groggy or not. I put on a comfy long dress and twisted my hair into a functional no-nonsense bun so I could focus on the piano, not on tucking my hair or outfit into place.

Before church, I played through all of the songs at home. Spikes of ice worthy of Queen Elsa jabbed through my stomach every time I thought about what I was about to do. Every time I felt that cold wrench in my middle, I got all shaky. This was not good. Shaky hands can't play the piano. I needed to work through the fear and figure out how to function. Throughout the previous weeks, I had been brainstorming ways to handle the performance terror, and I figured that my best bet was to keep it at bay--not to attempt to overcome it or remove it entirely--simply hold that crippling fear back just enough to function. But how to do this? My efforts in the past had all failed abominably.

Out of nowhere (hello, inspiration!) an article I read online a few months ago drifted into my mind. It listed coping strategies for people with anxiety. The technique that came to my frozen brain was "box breathing:" breathe in through the nose for a count of four, hold it and pause for a count of four, exhale through the mouth for a count of four, hold it and pause for a count of four, then repeat as needed.

After a dog attack this summer, I tried box breathing to calm down. Unfortunately it didn't work because I was much to out of breath from the adrenaline rush, sprinting for my life, and screaming my head off with a dog snapping at my heels. I wrote box breathing off as a lame idea invented by some coach or doctor who had never actually tried it in real life. But I was desperate before the primary program so I gave it another go, breathing, counting, and holding while I sat on the piano bench at home. After a few cycles around the box, I opened my eyes and was surprised to find how much calmer I felt. Yay! I prayed again for help and then continued practicing.

We arrived at church early so I had time to reacquaint myself with the piano there (it's a beauty) and work out some nerves. When we walked in to the empty chapel, Amber asked "where are all the people?" For some reason, the act of walking up to the front of the chapel slashes a dagger of terror through my gut, even in an empty room. I practiced my box breathing and dodged the dagger as I walked through the empty room to the piano. People began to arrive as I played, and I felt the floodwaters of anxiety rise again. My hands started to shake. I paused and breathed through a box or two. The floodwaters receded just enough--I was still uncomfortably close to the deep end, but my hands were steady again. I played the piano until the organist arrived to play prelude.

Before the primary kids came to sit up front and do their presentation, we had the usual opening song, prayer, announcements, and the sacrament. In order to avoid the dangerous floodwater-drowning, hand-shaking terror of walking up front in a room full of people, I elected to sit up front the whole time, slightly hidden by the bulk of the piano. I was poised for action to scooch onto the bench and play the piano to muffle the commotion while the kids found their places.

During the opening song, I stared at the hymn book and focused on singing the alto part, doing my best to ignore the sea of faces in front of me. It worked because I'm no great singer, and it takes a lot of brainpower for me to pick out the alto part. As I looked out at the congregation after the song, I thought,

"Everyone out there is rooting for me and the primary kids. They won't be mad or upset if I mess up. They are all on my side!"

It was a comforting thought. I felt a wave of love soothe my abraded nerves. Several more times before the kids came up front, I had to alternately box breathe and pray away the waves of panic. It was exhausting! Then the sacrament ended, the kids came tromping up to take their seats, and it was GO time.

The theme in primary this year was I am a child of God, and thank goodness for that beautifully simple song, written in the friendly key of C. I played that with my cold clammy fingers while the kids bustled and bumbled into their seats, and then we were off! Amber about swallowed the microphone whole when it was her turn, but she got out a few intelligible words while the helper whispered hints in her ear. I was so distracted watching the cute kids that I found myself thinking "why is it so quiet?" before jumping to attention and starting the next song.

The songs in the program were:

• ·        I am a Child of God (easy)
• ·        My Heavenly Father Loves Me (moderately easy)
• ·        If the Savior Stood Beside Me (moderately easy)
• ·        Build an Ark (tricky)
• ·        I Will Follow God's Plan (moderately tricky)
• ·        Baptism (HARD)
• ·        Families Can Be Together Forever (moderately tricky, but I didn't have to play it)
• ·        A Child's Prayer (tricky)

So, how did it go? The short, honest answer is: I nailed it. I was able to keep my head above the tide of anxiety and play the songs smoothly with minimal stumbles. I am still a little bit in awe over how smoothly it went. A performance that I can look back on without wanting to move out of the country? Unheard of. I was less than an inch from panic the whole time, but I did not panic. My nerves were strung so tight I could almost hear them humming, but they did not snap. I was tense but controlled. Box breathing to the rescue!

While I was playing the piano during the program, waves of emotion would periodically wash over me, bringing with them different thoughts, impressions, and memories. During If the Savior Stood Beside Me, I felt the simple sweet spirit of the truths in the song. I felt that musically connected feeling--a connection between my fingers playing the music and the kids' voices singing it. It was a big shining feeling of joy to be a part of the spirit of their performance.

Playing each song brought to my mind a highlights reel of sorts, of all the hours I spent with those songs, hating them, loving them, practicing them over and over and over and over and over. We got to know each other so well. A few months ago I sat down to practice If the Savior Stood Beside Me after a rough morning. The words to the third verse hit me with such a vivid force and it was as though the Lord was speaking those words for the first time, straight to me during that moment: "He is always near me, though I cannot see him there, and because he loves me dearly I am in his watchful care." It came into my head like "I am always near you, though you cannot see me there, and because I love you dearly you are in my watchful care." It was a personal, beautiful, brief flash of a moment/feeling that came back to me as I played that song again. 

I felt a wave of something like nostalgia for the struggle of learning these eight songs on the piano. It was truly an agonizing, refining process. I'm still the pianist, so the process is far from over; it is just at an ebb in the cycle.

When it was time to sing Baptism (notoriously the hardest song in the children's songbook), I clambered over the mental barrier trying to barricade me from those running stretching eighth notes and three flats, and laaaaa! It flowed out smooth as butter. All of those hours of playing the rocking notes till my thumbs hurt came back to me in a rush. It worked. I practiced my brains out and it actually helped! Tangible, visible success is sweet.

Every successful song I played was accompanied by a rush of gratitude and relief. I still had to box breathe a few times between songs, and I fidgeted worse and worse right along with the kids as the program wore on, but my focus was acute and I was in the zone! I felt the confidence of hours of practice in my fingers helping me play. I kept reminding myself that I was READY. I had put in the work. The work was done. Now it was time for faith. And box breathing. Alongside my well-practiced fingers, I also felt a distinct presence supporting me, calming me, and smoothing out the rough edges of my playing. I still had to do my part and manage the anxiety with measured breathing, but the breathing made me able to notice the spirit that was there with me.

I experienced the beautiful truth that God's grace is available for everyone, even obscure unsure pianists.

Our double family group singing Families Can Be Together Forever went smoothly. Sister M. took the piano bench and I filed up front with my kids. Amber and her counterpart in the other family stood on the stool behind the podium. They were very interested in the microphone. I tipped the microphone way up high and asked Amber to fold her hands on the podium to keep her from grabbing for the microphone or poking her neighbor. The other little girl folded her hands too, and it was such a cute sight, with those two little hands folded next to each other on the podium. They kept their hands folded for the entire song! It was a relief because Amber is always a wild card, and microphones are tempting toys. We sang our no-frills no-parts (all melody) two verses, and I returned to my place behind the piano.

For A Child's Prayer (the second to last song--almost done!), the teachers all moved to one side up front to sing in a group. I played the song all the way through while they got into position. Since the song has a built in introduction, when I finished playing the song through, I went back to the beginning to play the introduction again since that's the first line of music. The chorister started singing with the kids during the intro! I tore my eyes away from the music and quickly caught his eye and shook my head. He stopped them and I finished the intro (thankfully I didn't lose my spot or my cool when I looked up), and they started singing again at the right time. Crisis: averted. Since the piano does not play the melody during this song, it was a bit nerve wracking when the kids and teachers sang their two parts together. I stuck to the tempo and was even able to enjoy the complexity of the three lines of music (piano part, teacher part, kid part) weaving together. Whew, that song can be a beast! We held it together, though, and it sounded good from my piano perch.

The program ended with I am a Child of God. The kids sang the first verse, then the congregation joined in for the last two verses. I pounded the keys as hard and loudly as I could to keep up with the volume of 150+ voices, and reveled in the heady rush of providing music for the entire ward singing together. Before my piano calling, I never appreciated how unifying it is to sing together, and what a privilege it is for the pianist (or organist) to be the glue that holds the group song together. The feeling is hard to describe, but it's unique and happy! With piano playing, I am slowly learning to find enjoyment in the midst of (and in spite of) tension and anxiety.

I took videos of Jay, Rose, and Amber saying their parts before church, and Amber surprised me by saying the first sentence of her part without a reminder! She has never done that in all of the weeks we've reviewed her part. Amber does not perform on demand. She needed assistance to say her part during the actual program, but I was reassured to discover that she had at least been paying attention to all of my attempts to teach her those two lines.

Amber: "Heavenly Father's plan is for our happiness. I will be happy when I follow God's plan."

When Rose got up to say her part in church, she spoke in a small quiet voice (normally Rose is so loud and confident!), but she said each word slowly and clearly. After a few exuberant rushed recitations at home, I had explained to Rose about speaking so people understand the words rather than speaking as fast as possible. In her classic intense Rose way, she embraced the advice and implemented it as precisely as possible.

Rose: "Hearken ye unto my words. Behold, I am Jesus Christ the Savior of the world. Doctrine and Covenants 43:34."

Jay wrote his own part with minimal parental guidance. Since it was a talk and not a few prescribed lines, I did not hound him to memorize his words. I sure don't memorize my church talks! He read it carefully off of his crumpled handwritten paper and it was sweet. The question/writing prompt for his talk was a little confusing: "how does your testimony help you know you are a child of God?" I wondered if we should have encouraged him to dig a little deeper while writing it, but he did it himself and it's hard to figure out how much to interfere when coaching kids to do things for themselves!

Jay: "If you have faith and a strong testimony, that will increase your faith that you are a child of God. When I was getting baptized I felt the spirit around me because I have a strong testimony and I knew that I was a child of God. I believe that my testimony strengthens my faith in God."

My sweet kids. The primary program is not easy for anyone, but we all survived!

Exactly one year ago, on the day of the 2017 primary program, I was called as the new primary pianist. I was raw, totally inexperienced, hadn't practiced piano regularly in well over a decade, and utterly terrified. As I sat playing smoothly through the primary program today, a few times my mind's eye zoomed out and I saw the Lord's hand in my piano playing over the past year. I also saw the painful beauty of the uphill struggle and the endless hours of practicing I put in to get to this point. It is humbling to dig in, put in the work, and see both the results of my hard work and the divine assistance given little by little along the way. I keep reflecting on the process and marveling at it. Spiritual progress is hard to mark, but when a physical task like piano playing is given as a spiritual assignment (aka a church calling), the spiritual growth can be tracked right alongside the physical improvements. It was such a nifty, singular experience!

My sister took pictures for us back in July, and I have been hoarding them close to my bosom ever since.

This is my piano. I will not be touching it this week.

Coaching solo

The title to chapter four in my assistant coaching memoirs is “coaching solo.” My progression along this coaching path has felt similar to a baby’s first year condensed into three weeks. On my first day of practice I was a new baby, blinking in wonder at the wide wide world and simply copying the actions of my mentor/head coach. At my first workout with the team, I had to blow a whistle every 2-3 minutes, in conjunction with Jeff’s shouting and waving. During my third team workout, I sat in the shade with a collapsed runner, picking grass out of her hair and consoling her while she recovered.

At the first meet I drove a school van several hours but still didn’t have to think too much; I just followed the van in front of me. During the next meet I was handed the responsibility of six girls and tasked with getting them warmed up and to the starting line on time. My first independent thinking! Everything sped up and came at me faster and faster after that. During week two of my development, I re-certified at first aid and CPR and officially applied for the job I was filling–resume, cover letter, references, diplomas, and all. At the third and fourth meets, I was in charge of both the JV and varsity girls’ teams, doing all of the pre-race prep twice: warming them up, talking them through a pre-race visualization, and getting them through the team cheer.

Then this week, on my three week birthday as an assistant cross country coach, I conducted my first practice alone. Jeff was home with a migraine and practice was up to me. My training wheels were ripped off. My cozy safe cocoon was rent in twain. I emerged as a trembling tender little butterfly, gasping for air amidst my taut nerves. I was not sure what my leadership style was, or if I even had one. I guess the best place to learn to fly is at the edge of a cliff…

On Tuesday, September 18th, I bearded a den full of lions with my weak wrinkly wet butterfly wings and conducted my first practice alone. It was terrifying: 35 rambunctious teenagers (25 boys/10 girls) and me with my feeble vocal chords and incomplete knowledge of their names…I rode my bike alongside to keep them mostly honest on their tempo run, but I wasn’t sure what to say to them and they were not even all listening anyways. I told the team “I have many talents, but shouting is not one of them.” For the most part they listened, but they were quite reluctant to do everything I asked them to do.

The kicker was after our tempo run, during the core work. They do three circuits of core work, led by the team captains. 90% of the team inexplicably got up and didn’t do their last set of core work. I called out, “hey, you guys still have a third set to do!” I was so surprised that the captains had stopped the core work early that I let it go. Also, I wasn’t sure my quiet voice would even be able to get them to finish that final set anyways and I straight up chickened out. Six or seven of the kids stayed in position and finished their last set, bless them. I simply lacked the vocal volume and gumption to force them to do their third set of core work before they dispersed.

Summary: I survived, but just barely, and the entire night I kept wondering over and over what I could’ve done better and feeling thankful that Jeff would be back at practice the next day.

The next day, Jeff was not feeling better. He did not go to practice. I braced myself for another solo practice, outlined a few different speeches for different scenarios, gave my hardening wings a few experimental flaps, and marched into battle–I mean practice. I cast around the cross country supplies for some sort of megaphone and landed on an orange cone. I placed the cone-phone to my mouth and yelled into it, calling practice to order. The first order of business was to finish the third set of core work that they skived off the previous day. I was dreading making them do it, but I was also glad that the order came from me. If Jeff had come in and told them off, I would’ve felt like an impotent wittle tattle tale. But the alternative required copious courage. Deep breath. Lips to mega-cone.

“Before we go on our run today, you owe me one set of core work.” I shouted, trying not to think about how high and thin my voice gets when I push its volume to the max. I felt a little bit bad about making the kids who had stayed to finish their core do it again, but I couldn’t remember everyone who had finished it so I told them this is a team effort and we are in this together. When the kids who had completed the ab work the day before complained, I told them, “your abs will be one step ahead of the rest of the team’s for the rest of the season.”

Next up: I announced the 50-60 minute run on the grass around campus. Due to the plethora of aches and pains that they had bemoaned so thoroughly the day before, they were relegated to a soft surface easy run on the dread “grass loops.” Cue loads of grumbling. Negotiations opened at “can we please run somewhere else?” I stood my ground and reminded them how horrifically sore they had all claimed to be yesterday.

Them: “But we aren’t sore! Yeah, I feel great!” (scattered responses)

Me: “Do you mean to tell me that you’re only sore on workout days?” I asked. “How very strange and convenient!” I said in a mock-confused voice. I conceded to allow them to run the last 10 minutes on the sidewalk. That started a bidding war, which I actually rather enjoyed:

Them: “Can we do 30 minutes on the grass, 20 on the road?”

Me: “no.”

Them: “How about 33 minutes on the grass?”

Me, snagging a wily idea from thin air: “Did you just say 41 minutes on the grass?”

Them: “How about 35 minutes?”

Me; “42 minutes?”

Them: “37 minutes. Final offer.”

Me: “45 minutes? Sure!”

Them, to each other: “Stop! She keeps adding time!”

Me, mentally: “muahahahahaaaa”

We ran on the grass. I am not the type of person to engage in power plays, but coaching is a different beast, and it requires me to constantly adapt, figuring out how to remain amiable and approachable without losing my credibility and authority. In short, it is draining! But FUN when I hit upon an effective strategy (see above).

During our pre-run negotiations, I forgot to tell the team to stick around after the run so we could do strides and drills together. Consequently, only about a third of the team was around when I returned from the jog with my group. I got out my mega-cone and called them to do strides. Then I asked if my cone-phone was helping at all. They said no. I tossed it aside and told the scattered, inattentive group to “COME CLOSER! I may not have as much HAIR as my husband, but I have just as much authority! It’s time for strides right now!”

First they negotiated and tried to talk me out of doing the strides completely, then tried to talk me down to just accelerations, then attempted to weasel it down to less sets. I stood my ground, trembly on the inside but made of stone on the outside–stone dressed in knee-high heart-patterned socks. Stone that smiled benevolently while solidly denying their varied demands.

Me, mentally: “muahahahahahaaa!”

They did all three sets of strides and drills (3 each of high knees, butt-kicks, bounding, and accelerations). I love how Jeff has trained the team captains to lead all of the post-run core work and strides. I merely stood there and supervised. When they were done, I told them “nice job, team!” And we walked back to our tree to await the parental pick-ups. As the kids left one by one, they said “bye, coach!” or “later, miss!” (funny Sunnyside culture tip: kids call men “mister” and women, married or not, “miss.” I prefer coach, but “miss” is bearable.) Some of the kids gave me fist bumps on their way out.

All in all, it was exhausting but successful. On Friday I have to sub for the middle school cross country team’s practice.

It’s time to fly.

Run down

As I was sitting here, drowsily snuggled up under a blanket and basking in the warmth of my laptop, I realized vaguely I was losing the battle between taking a nap and writing a blog post. "Wow, I am abnormally tired for a Tuesday afternoon," I thought to myself. Mid-doze a little while later, I found my mind wandering off to count the meanings of the phrase "run down." Slowly my brain caught hold of the expression and I began to feel slightly more alert. There's nothing like a good list to wake me up!

When Amber's video tape reaches the end of its reel, it has run down.

If a summary is needed, I will give you a brief rundown.

When I am at the top of a hill, I can run down the other side.

When I am feeling exceptionally worn out after three intense weeks of balancing regular parenting with a rigorous cross country coaching schedule (including all of the literal running involved), I feel rundown.

Now this is starting to look like third grade vocabulary homework: define each word on the list and use each word in a sentence. Today my most personally applicable form of this expression is the last option on my list. While I am not completely destroyed, I am feeling a little bit rundown. A cross country coach feeling rundown? The various potential puns are almost too obvious to be amusing. And yet the fact remains: I am tired.

The POINT: here's the rundown of why I am rundown. Noun, adjective, BOOM.

Last week we had two cross country meets nearly back to back and right in the middle, I caught the first-wave back to school head cold. Since the illness wasn't bad enough to force me to stop, I didn't stop. I kept running. I kept mom-ing. I kept coaching. Sudafed and ibuprofen were my buddies.

We had a pleasant Thursday afternoon league meet in Yakima. The travel time to Franklin Park was less than an hour. Angel-of-mercy Grama Leslie watched our kids and it was extremely liberating to be 100% coach at a meet rather than 30% coach, 30% mom, 40% crazy like I have been at all of the other meets so far. We arrived home on Thursday night around 8:30pm and it was all very manageable.

On Friday night, Jeff and I set our alarms for 3:30am and went to bed a little after 10pm. My brain was concerned about getting up and at 'em on time, though, so I woke up at 1am and laid awake for close to two hours, finally beginning to doze off around 3am. Our alarms rang at 3:30am right on schedule and I groggily clawed my way awake and rolled out of bed. We got our kids up at 4am and drove over to the school, boarding the school bus and rolling out of the parking lot by 4:30am.

Amber was wired the minute we climbed onto the bus, so we got out our ammunition: Jeff's phone, a Ziploc baggie, and some masking tape to implement an innovation that occurred to me after our first bus ride with Amber. We put the phone into the baggie and taped the baggie to the back of the seat in front of the kids so the phone hung down at eye level. They watched movies the whole bus ride. Without a five point harness, movies were the only way to keep Amber from pummeling the entire population on the school bus!

Three and a half hours later, we arrived at Fort Steliacoom Park, the venue of possibly the largest cross country meet I have ever attended. 93 teams came, and during the coaches meeting before the meet began, we learned that there were 1400 more runners at the meet this year than ever before. It was an awesome meet. Of course there was an open race on the 5k course before the high school races, and of course I couldn't resist entering and running. It was my third race in three weeks. I have not raced that frequently since college! This was my favorite race out of the last three weeks though. The course was firm and fast, and I felt fabulous as I flew along the trail, cruising to the finish line in 22:24--my best 5k since Amber was born!

My parents came to the meet to say hi, cheer, and whisk the kids away for a few hours of quality grama-grampa time while Jeff and I continued coaching (we had runners in six of the races). It was so much fun to run a cross country race with my Dad cheering me on. It was just like the old days of my youth, and the deja-vu/time warp feeling was a bit disorienting for a few seconds. Then Amber got lost and my parents, Jay, Rose, and I spent an anxious 5-to-7 minutes combing the crowds looking for her before we saw her, propped up on Jeff's shoulders, heading towards us through the milling throngs. She had wandered off of the playground and thankfully run into a few members of our team. They rescued her and brought her, quivering lip and all, back to Jeff. He put her in plain sight up high on his shoulders until we saw her and breathed collective deep sighs of relief.

My parents took the kids for the large middle chunk of the meet, and Jeff and I were free to exhaust ourselves running back and forth across the course, cheering and encouraging our athletes to greater speeds and personal records. After a day with their grandparents, Jay, Rose, and Amber were back in time for the final race of the day, and we gave my dear parents two dozen garden fresh tomatoes as a parting gift of gratitude. The only downside to the arrangement was that I didn't get to spend the day with my parents too! Back on the bus, we paused for a nasty McDonald's dinner (which had me reflecting why the only restaurants that seem to give coaches free meals are the unhealthiest ones). We arrived back at Sunnyside High School on Saturday night around 9:30pm, 17.5 hours after we left.

Almost simultaneously at 9:00pm, (just before we got home), all three of our kids passed out in a deep exhausted slumber. They had lasted 17 hours awake (even Amber!!), and they could not handle another second. It took great effort to wake them enough to stumble over to our van, where they slumped tiredly once again. Rose actually woke up enough to try to convince me that she had never been asleep. That girl. At last the high schoolers were all gone and we drove home, arriving around 10:30pm. I still needed a shower. Saturday was a lengthy day.

These two tiring meets plus daily cross country practices and two consecutive Sundays of sitting at the piano for two hour primary program practices are my valid reasons for feeling a bit rundown. Now, to catch up on sleep before the next early XC wake-up call!

I'm learning just how much coaching is a labor of love. Who would go through all of this if they didn't love the sport and care about the kids? The more time I spend with these big-scary-spirited-stubborn teenagers, the more I care about them, their running, and their progress. They matter to me.

As Anne Shirley said, "It's so hard to keep from loving things, isn't it?"

Captions, then photos:

• Franklin Park: this cute cheerful girl's finish had me all sobby in my throat for a minute. She worked SO HARD and succeeded! The back-of-the-pack success stories are often my favorites.
• After the Thursday meet, we stopped at a local legend, Miner's Burgers, which feeds all coaches and bus drivers for free in the kitchen at the chef's table. It was my first experience eating there as a coach, and it was fun, even though the massive burger was a bit of a tummy ache.
• Miner's
• Friday morning practice: stroller caboose. There was no school on Friday. It was lovely. We did a short easy run with the team, then went home and relaxed around the house all day. It was the calm between two storms/xc meets.
• For funky Friday cross country practice, we dressed up as each other, right down to the socks. Jeff is trying to get the team more excited about funky Friday, but so far we've mostly been the only ones who do anything goofy. Amber's photography skills are still developing...
• Saturday morning, 4:30am, snuggled into the school bus.
• I didn't get a better picture of our rigged school bus movie theater, but it worked wonders.
• The tent jumble at Fort Steliacoom: everyone sat much closer together than usual because it rained off and on the whole day, and we only have the one tent.
• One of the enormous race start lines. The starts were such ground-shaking stampedes towards the bottle neck of the first turn.
• Back on the bus with my Amby.
• 9pm…
• Across the isle from Rose, same position, same time. (that beer bottle looking thing is Jeff's water bottle--he won it at a road race that was sponsored by a local pub)
• Amber slipped over sideways in her bench while watching a movie, and Jeff rescued her. Our wild Amber child never falls asleep during movies and never sleeps in our arms. I guess a 17 hour day was enough to change that. Our kids are such troopers!