What makes you run?

Yesterday afternoon I had some strawberries to clean and wash- about 6 pounds left from what we picked over the weekend. I was standing in the kitchen for a while. As is expected, the boys followed me into the kitchen and then wandered around a bit lost because there aren't any toys in the kitchen because, it's the kitchen, not the family room where I left them surrounded by toys. After their baby-bird imitations to get some strawberries I remembered that the Boston Pops CD was in the kitchen player, the best of John Williams movie soundtracks- so I turned on Darth Vader's theme- you remember it- dun, dun, dun-n, duh-da-duh-n-n, duh-da-dun-n-n, I just wanted it to be stuck in your head, too. Anyway, as soon as I turned it on, the running began. All of a sudden our kitchen was a starship and Hot Wheels and Superman were being chased by Darth Vader. Superman got bored relatively quickly and moved onto stacking some containers from a cabinet. Hot Wheels, however, ran and ran- around our kitchen island. The island's 2'x4', so that's a 12 foot perimeter and he probably ran about a half foot to a foot or so outside that so let's say it's 3' x5', a 15 foot path. Well, being that I've got some OCD tendencies, I started counting after a while how many laps he was doing and I counted 57 laps. I don't think he had done all that many before I started counting, so let's estimate he did 70 laps at 15 feet per lap, that's 1,050 feet and there are 5,280 feet in a mile, so he covered 0.199 miles- in the kitchen! Just for fun. I guess being chased by Darth Vader would motivate me, too.

Last week we went to Hot Wheels pot luck supper to celebrate the end of his first year of preschool. A whole year done already? I remember going to our "goal setting conference" back in October. The teacher asked us what we'd like him to accomplish, in his first year of preschool?! We said we'd like for him to have fun, learn to interact with kids his own age and maybe run around a bit. Well, he did all those things, we think it's been a great success. It really makes me laugh, though, that some parents are so competitive. I've been asked whether he can write his name yet, does he know all his letters and numbers, is he working towards reading? Some yes, some no. Are my kids going to be brilliant, probably not. Are they brainless lumps? Probably not. They'll likely be somewhere around average. It wouldn't be called average if that wasn't where most kids are. People just need to calm down and let kids be kids, it's preschool, run around, paint, play with cars, make some friends and have fun. Everything else will come with time. He's looking forward to going back next fall, so that's good enough for us.

Over the weekend we went strawberry picking, the boys had a blast. Superman was very focused, he only likes the biggest red strawberries and he did almost fill his own basket before he started eating them. Hot Wheels, on the other hand, had an empty basket and a full tummy. Well, it was strawberries, not Hershey kisses, so I didn't really care. The people running the stand joke with all the kids that they should weigh them on the way in and again when they leave. Judging by the number of red-stained shirts in that field, most kids did quite a bit of sampling.

It's been a good couple weeks at the gym. Last week was 4 mornings 30-45 minutes on either the bike or eilliptical trainer. This morning was 35 minutes on the elliptical, I hope to make it another 4 day week after I skipped yesterday. I'm at the great point of pregnancy where I'm really tired and I've got insomnia- what fun. I looked at the clock yesterday at 5am, but I'd been up for a couple hours and decided I'd try to get a few more minutes of sleep. Turned out to be a nice hour rest, these days that beats the gym, hands down. I've had a few dreams lately where Critter shows up early, I hope they mean nothing, I've got a lot of stuff to get done before the arrival. Critter's also been a girl in a few of the dreams- is it a sign? Then again, my neutered male cat also gave birth to a litter of kittens in my hospital room in one of the dreams, so I'm not putting too much stock in a link to reality there. We'll find out, in around 54 days.