sunday nuggets, 12/18/11: minimal

I've come back to running recently, after a long hiatus of more than two years. A colleague sold me on the idea of "minimalist" running, on the grounds of aesthetics, as well as for practical reasons such as hoping to remedy a persistent knee ache.

our strollers, our friends' kid, and random runners

I am still only a few chapters into Born to Run, the bible and inspiration of the minimalist movement, and I have zero time to google stuff, so I glean most of my advice from my colleague and from hearsay. It would be fair to say, therefore, that I am gloriously uninformed about the whole thing.

I understand that I need to transition slowly from running with foam-padded Nikes to running with shoes that approximate a bare foot, and I understand that I need to be mindful of what my feet are doing. I pay far closer attention to how I step than I ever did before, and I try--hard--not to "overdo it."

Yet, finding the balance is a tricky thing. For years now I have "wanted to love running," as Christopher McDougall puts it, and I've loved running in theory, if not always in practice. I'd like to believe that, despite what the naysayers say, running can be a safe and contemplative form of recreation. I've had enough of those runs which leave me spiritually cleansed and mentally exhilarated to want to have many more of them.

For over a week now, I've also been trying to resist making a facile analogy between minimalist running and everyday parenting. I give up.

Like parenting, minimalist running requires unconditional commitment and full attention. If I get distracted even for a moment--stare too long at a passerby, fiddle with my music, scratch an itch--my pace stalls and I find myself having to stop and start again. Maintaining the pace means always being fully present.

best part of the hike? building castles from dried, caked drit

At the same time, there are those moments in running when stuff hurts--a knee, an ankle, a heel--and I just know I need to stop. Sometimes (make this often) I don't, and then I end up nursing an injury which sets me back for days on end. Knowing when to stop, take a deep breath, walk for a minute, and then resume refreshed makes all the difference in the world. 

I probably don't need to elaborate a whole lot the other side of the equation. When I am tired, cranky, and stubborn, determined to have things my way rather than theirs, life with kids almost never works out the way I'd like it to. Finding the presence of mind to pause, rewind, and attend to the details of the moment never fails to bring my focus back to the delightfully unbearable lightness of our being.

Though I know there is a world of "literature" out there on minimalist running, a part of me also wants to believe (foolishly?) that much of this is the stuff of instinct. There is only so much any of us can absorb from reading that we can then make relevant to our lives. My body's history is different from that of every other runner's, as is my body's capacity to work in tandem with my mind. If I am never to despair, I need to believe that this particular body can figure out running without spraining an ankle or wearing out a knee. I need to believe also that, while every kid is different (and our kids so wildly different from each other), with patience and attention, a good life can be had for all. Amen.

nuggets.

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There is so much stuff the kids say which goes unrecorded that thinking about it brings me to the aforementioned despair. Therefore, here is what got recorded.

ya think she's got the right book?

When I came upstairs to get Raya for bed tonight, she said (and I quote literally, as I ran to our room to write it down as soon as her rosy lips had uttered it): Mama, mama, help me build a train! I broke it into smithereens like Goldilocks!  I kid. you. not.

Sava hates doctors and likes to remind us so daily. While expounding on the subject yet again yesterday during a car ride, he threatened never to go to the doctor ever again, and when we told him that this is likely impossible, he replied: Next time then, I'll bring my axe and whack him! 

Have I mentioned that he (like all boys in Kindergarten, apparently) is into weapons lately? Lethal weapons.

Earlier in the week, we somehow got to discussing vegetarians. After I'd given my dictionary definition to Sava, he thought for a second and declared, I'm a chickerarian! 

A dear friend from my childhood who now lives in England sent us a Christmas card with the madonna and child on it. Sava looked at it expecting photos of friends, as we plead guilty to participating in the holiday-card craze over here that has taught our children (already) that we send pictures of ourselves at Christmas to everyone we know. He taught the madonna was our friend's daughter named "Emma," and somehow Raya's radar picked that up immediately; Sava also had heard in school the story of Jesus being born on hay, and he identified the baby as Jesus because there was hay around it; he does not have a flickering idea who Jesus is. 

So tonight, in the middle of playing "swords" with her brother, Raya picked up the card and walked over to me, exclaiming, Mama, this is baby Jesus and this is Emma holding him! At that moment, Sava shouted from the other room, Hey, Raya, hold your sword!, to which Raya replied, testily, No, I'm holding baby Jesus right now! A holarious moment if there ever was one.

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We went on a hike in the Palo Alto Baylands with some dear friends this morning. Halfway through the hike, Rado and I noticed that Sava was engaged in the typical bodily contortions which to us indicate one thing: he needs to poo or pee. Since he'd pooped the day before, and, well, schedules of everyone's bodily functions around here are fairly common knowledge, we assumed he just needed to pee. So, despite repeated avowals from him to the contrary, we ordered him to the restroom as soon as we got to the parking lot. About thirty second after he went in, Rado went in as well, and almost immediately I heard Rado's voice rise quickly to a pitch that bordered the hysterical. When Sava walked out a few minutes later alone, I asked him what had transpired. Grinning ear from ear, he said, I made a P O O P! (sounding out the letters). 

Suspecting a minor mishap, I asked him if he had soiled his pants, to which he replied with a cheerful No! Then I asked him why his dad sounded upset and why he was still in the restroom, to which Sava replied casually, Well, I made the poop in the place where you normally pee! 

Yes, dear readers, our son had pooped in the urinal and, as we spoke, his dad was in the process of scooping that out with toilet paper and trying to clean up the stinky mess. And yes, even seeing Rado's dejected face as he walked out couldn't keep the rest of us from howling with laughter.

leaving for pajama day at school

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Lots of leftover pictures with not a whole lot to comment. Happy to have at least one child who likes sweets.

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All of a sudden, Sava is really into posing for pictures with his sister. At random moments when I don't even have the camera, he'll stand next to her with a plastered smile and beg, Hey, mommy, take a picture! So, I have a few of those. They're fake but cute anyway.

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Hiking with kids is such a hoot. It took us over two hours to cover about two miles last weekend, this with two bikes and five kids in tow. Here's what the end of the hike looked like (I'm pushing a trike while shooting the photo).

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Happiest moment of last weekend? Visiting our dearest friends in their new home in Oakland. 

It never will cease to amaze me how well and how easily these two get along.

I love their silliness and their energy.

Favorite photo of them ever:

Of him, too:

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And lastly, how many swing photos can this blog endure? Many more.

Raya loves swings more than just about anything right now. She begs each day to be taken to the park, where she can get on a swing and do a "super blast" with one of us. It is quite dear, really.

Happy holidays to all.