Allergic

 I was allergic to most of last week. Mother's day was on the horizon AND the week began with a 36+ hour windstorm that blew every allergen known to humankind up into my sinuses, wreaking a specific sort of itchy sneezy havoc. Then it got hot. Not the "we're used to 50 degrees so 75 feels uncomfortable" kind of hot. No, in the space of a few days, we jumped from 50 degrees and cloudy up to 90 degrees and sweaty. Silver lining: even though I was sneezing and feeling run down physically this week, Jeff started feeling so much better than he has in months! The longer he goes without getting Covid, the better he feels, and now that it's been over 5 months since his last infection, he is starting to have more normal autonomic functions again. He's pretty happy about it! I am too.

In addition to my impossible allergies and the wild weather, my middle school track team amped up its antsy-ness this week. Last week, they were antsy. This week they were more than halfway checked out of the sport. Attendance was low, attention was lower, and kids kept claiming to be injured. Our momentum crashed and flopped. Practice became an experiment in survival, first bracing myself in the insane wind while herding cats/13 year-olds, then sweating gallons in the blaze while still herding cats/13 year-olds. On Tuesday the grounds keepers decided to water the infield with massive irrigation jet sprinklers during our practice. This was right before it warmed up all the way, so that practice failed before it began. It was incredibly frustrating to have my carefully laid practice plans sabotaged by the ground maintenance department of all things! More than half of our practices this week finished early. Two more days left of middle school track. 

Rewind really quick to Tuesday morning: I woke up at 5am, got ready, and drove to my PT's new clinic in the tri cities, 46 minutes away, arriving at 6:30am. Instead of leg strength workouts at the PT clinic, I am now focusing on getting my wimpy painful left shoulder back in business so I hopefully stop destroying it every other time I try to use it. That was a very early wake-up with not enough sleep preceding it, and even though it was worth going to the appointment, it definitely added to my exhaustion. Due to my early morning fatigue, I forgot to cook dinner before track practice on Tuesday. I felt my kitchen savvy slipping away yet again as I stood at the stove stirring a quick lame meal of frozen hash browns and sausage while feeling completely drained and worn out from the chaos of practice. 

On Wednesday morning, a work crew showed up to begin replacing the roof of our barn. They knocked on my door several times and it was discovered that they thought they were only replacing the top panels of the barn roof, not the slanted side roof panels. I did some furious texting with our contractor asking him why on earth we would only want to replace part of a very leaky roof?!? Eventually the workers agreed to order more metal for the rest of the roof, but now it will be another few weeks before the roof is done. Mistakes and miscommunication/zero communication have been the hallmarks of the last few repairs that we are still waiting on. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. I need to start doing yoga again.

On Wednesday night, Jay and Rose had a church youth activity at a member's house within easy walking distance just down the street from us, but Amber had a primary activity at the church so I still had to drive her to the church. I was so worn out from all of the things that if Amber hadn't been adamant about going to the activity, I would've kept her home. If that doesn't illustrate how I was feeling at the time, I don't know what could. 

On Thursday, I ended track practice 45 minutes early and let the kids leave whenever they were ready. About 8 kids stayed till 4pm--some to hang out and talk, and some to practice throwing. So I still had to stick around, but I was so bored! I visited the high school track team for a mental boost while the middle schoolers were working with our throwing coach. Blessedly, there was no school on Friday so we had a relaxing Thursday night at home after track practice. 

On Friday morning, Jeff and I worked out together in the barn. It was fun, but we both got pretty sore. Jay had his last regular season track meet on Friday afternoon, in Yakima (45 minutes away). Rose, Amber, and I went to support Jay and the 20 other kids we know and love on the team. It was HOT. We stayed from 3pm to the end of the meet at 8pm, with one quick departure for a Costco run in the middle. Jay felt the heat in his 1600 meter race, but held on to finish in 5:19, just one second off of his PR. 

Saturday we were all pretty tired, but Jeff and I did some yardwork first thing in the morning. Jeff worked on clearing our gravel back patio (lots of nails and construction debris, plus weeds), and I worked in the garden nearby. I pulled some new weeds and planted five tomato seedlings that our friends the Kannelys gave us. The poor tomatoes began to wilt almost immediately in the heat, and it was touch and go all day until Jeff and I were able to buy a soaker hose and get them some reliable water. At 10:30am on Saturday, the distance squad from the high school track team came to our barn for a short post-meet recovery run. Jeff made them crepes again, so we had a dozen teenagers painting our kitchen in Nutella again, haha. 

Annnnnd of course Sunday (today) was Mother's Day. Earlier this week, while driving all three of my kids in the car, I happened to mention that I was dreading mother's day. When they asked why in genuine confusion, I burst out "because you guys never do anything for mother's day!" Then I felt guilty for my outburst and I think I told them something like "I love you, I just don't love mother's day." I felt the familiar Mother's Day angst build up in earnest on Saturday night. Before bed, I prayed so hard for patience, acceptance, and goodwill towards all--my family for whatever they did or didn't do, towards church members and whatever they might sing, say, or not say, and towards myself, so I could manage all of the irritating assumptions and stereotyping and ignorance that might come up on mother's day. I also prayed a LOT to just feel God's love for me, because that's the core of what every woman craves on mother's day: to feel loved. Past mother's days have taught me that if I didn't end up feeling anyone else's love that day, I knew I could still feel God's love, and that would help. So I said those desperate exhausted prayers on Saturday night. Then I took 2 ibuprofen and slept like a rock. 

On Sunday morning, I opened three cards and two paper gifts that Amber had constructed at school and her church activity. One of the gifts had an odd plastic container of oil in it and a black and white copied paper wad of instructions for "how to give yourself a foot massage." Amber offered to rub the oil on my feet. I politely declined, haha. All three of my kids said happy mother's day to me before we even left for church! This was new territory for me. 

 Sacrament meeting was touch and go, but Jeff sat really close to me, put his arm around me, and kept me sane with ridiculous whispered commentary throughout the meeting. I felt very loved, seen, and supported by my dear husband as he fed my snarky mother's day monster with his wit. One of the painful parts of past mother's days for me has been when Jeff has been too mentally or physically ill or fatigued to even sit with me in church. Jeff's arm around me and his jokes in my ear alone made this mother's day a diamond in the rough. Along with the snarky feminist humor Jeff kept feeding me, I was surprised to feel the spirit pour love into my heart several times throughout sacrament meeting, even though I was not feeling particularly in tune or charitable enough to deserve it. But in the words of Thomas S. Monson, "God’s love is there for you whether or not you feel you deserve love. It is simply always there.” (Oct 2013 general conference)

The young men handed out chocolate to all of the women. As Jay got up to go help hand out the chocolate, he whispered to me, "I am so sorry that the treat we are giving the moms is chocolate." My sweet son knows how I like chocolate but can't eat it without major stomach troubles. Jeff joked me into laughter, wondering aloud why the mother's day candy bar said "king size" on it instead of "queen size," and then demanding that I feed it to him square by square since he was my king. HAH. Then it was time for Relief Society. Relief Society was wonderful. We had a normal lesson based on a normal general conference talk, and the only difference was the young women attended with us, so Rose sat by me. 

On the way home from church, I brought up the topic of dinner, but Amber was the only one who said anything. She volunteered to make "egg omelets" for everyone. The topic dropped, and I thought maybe I was pressing my mother's day luck. But in the spirit of open communication, I tried again after lunch, asking Jeff if he was planning on being in charge of dinner or if that was not going to be part of our mother's day. (We have "Shaina Day" in June which is meant to be a make-up day for my four-way-shared birthday and mother's day that happens during the exhausted dregs of track season, so I wasn't sure if Jeff was planning on doing anything on the calendar mother's day.) 

Jeff asked me what I wanted for dinner, but that question fell flat because I already made a meal plan and did the grocery shopping, soooo having him cook one of my recipes for me honestly felt like a drop in the bucket effort-wise and I wasn't sure the recipes I had planned were detailed enough for him to follow and succeed. I semi-reluctantly offered to let him use one of my "free pass" easy meals (frozen lasagna), but he counteroffered to make spaghetti instead to save my free pass for me to use another night, and so I didn't have to wreck my intestines by consuming dairy (even with a lactase pill eating cheese never seems to end well). I agreed to spaghetti. Then Jeff supervised the kitchen-cleaning after lunch while I drew my weekly art club picture. 

Rose gave me five triangular folded pieces of paper arranged in the shape of a flower, and as I accepted them I mentally sighed and thought how she always gets caught up in making art instead of writing a note on mother's day. I love notes and letters but my family rarely writes them. So I mentally resigned myself to appreciating an elaborate origami project with "I love you Mom" written on the back. Then Rose told me to open each flower petal, where I found a sweet message on each page. Rose told me "you are so loved, I had to make five cards, not just one." An actual pleasant surprise on mother's day? What novelty is this? My ice cold frostbitten mother's day heart thawed even more. Rose totally upped her mother's day game this year, and I learned a little bit more about how to accept the offered love from my kids, in whatever form it takes. Maybe I should let Amber oil my feet.

While we ate Jeff's spaghetti and meatballs and Rose's salad for dinner, I tried to remember the last homemade meal that the five of us ate at home that I did not cook or help prepare (excluding take-out). I couldn't remember. It was so nice, and Jeff made sure everyone cleaned it up too. I told my family, "I know the bar was pretty low for mother's day around here, but you guys did a great job today."

All in all, it was the best mother's day I've had in nearly a decade! (Unless you count last year, when my own amazing beloved mother visited us and we got to be together on mother's day.) Maybe now I can begin to heal from all of the disappointing sad selfish mother's days I have trudged through in the past. 

Last Sunday night Amber had to vacuum crumbs up, and her technique was hilarious. She pushed the vacuum straight under the table, then got up, walked around, and pulled it out the other side. Then she did the same thing crossways. I laughed so hard I had tears streaming down my face.

After my early morning PT on Tuesday, I went on a run on the pathway along the Columbia River. It was windy but so blue and pretty.

Happy run!

The tiny stack of barn roof replacement metal. This process is not very fun.

I took this picture of my family hanging out one evening because I haven't taken very many pictures lately, and I wanted the memory of an everyday scene.

Rose got up from playing the piano to dive bomb into my picture, haha.

On Wednesday night we were home alone for an entire hour while the kids were at their church activities!

My bread turned out so fluffy and perfect on Thursday, I had to take a picture.

Hanging around at track practice, excavating the damaged long jump board. Not sure if this will last another season...

Sunny run. I took two days off of running this week because my glute has been aching. This was my first run back, and I was happy! My glute is still achy though, so maybe I need more than two days of rest.

Work on the barn roof begins.

I gave Jay his shortest haircut in a long time on Friday before his track meet. After trimming the sides and back, I gathered Jay's top-mop in one hand and hacked it off at the base with scissors. Then I evened it all out.

Feel fast, run fast. Jay was very glad that his hair was short when he had to run on a sunny 85 degree track that afternoon.

This is Amber's mischief face.

The sun was not at a good angle for pictures, but doesn't this starting line for Jay's mile race look HOT? It was hot.

Go Jay!

The aftermath.

My cute tomato garden! I am hopeful that they survive and give us delicious tomatoes in a few months.

Tomato selfie! I didn't realize I was getting sunburned on my white triceps during this picture. I planted the tomatoes right before going on a run, and it was the first exposure my upper arms have had to the sun all year. So this is ended up being a double-entendre tomato selfie, haha.

Rose and Amber gave me a mother's day foot massage after dinner, with my unscented lotion instead of Amber's homemade foot oil.

We took our annual mother's day picture right before bedtime. I love my tall old kids so much.