What Did I Do Before....

What did I do before we had kids…I honestly don’t remember….I really don’t…and I don’t think I want to remember…because that would be a dull life…a really dull life…

Let’s review…on December 19, my mom came to help out with the impending baby only to fall in my foyer and had to have a rod and pin put in her hip on December 20. On December 22, my wife gave birth to our fourth kid…Kyle Ryan.

So….over the last month….we have been making it happen….and by that I mean, getting kids to their activities, making sure homework was done….and all along the way me making sure I get to work on time…and Quatro gets fed…every 3 hours or so…day and night.

On the good nights Kyle is sleeping 7 straight hours….

We have had so many gracious people bring food by…and our dear friend Gillian has watch Kyle from time to time so Bren can get some things done. In times like these you really find out who your true friends are…and Team Elliott is blessed in that area.

My mom flew back to Lubbock after 2 weeks of Rehab here in North Texas…she is doing exceptionally and plans on a return trip within a month.

So….Luke has crossed over to Boy Scouts and went on his first weekend outing sans dad…by spending the weekend on the Aircraft carrier, USS Lexington….very cool. Baseball kicks up in about a month for him at which time he will be in overdrive.

Macy and Hope are both in Girl Scouts…and Hope will play Soccer this spring….Macy Softball…

Kyle will only observe at this time.

...and OH!...I almost forgot...we have 4 JAnuary birthdays within 13 days.

I will relinquish my Cubmaster duties in February….

And Training…the all important fitness realm….I got a trainer for Christmas…that lets me ride my bike indoors. It is amazing that how it feels exactly like I am riding on an open flat road. Despite some sleep deprivation, I have not missed a work out…although I did shift a few of them to the evening. It seems as though I am back to a regular 5:30AM workout schedule…my cardio has seemed to improve. I ride a minimum of 2 hours on Saturdays….and try to keep an average heart rate at 165 bpm. I know come spring I want to be the one causing the sufferfest….and not the sufferee….Next event will be March 24…as 100K with hills in East Texas….stay tuned…and press on!

?????I really do not know what I did with myself before kids….WOW….

Training and Kids...and other stuff too!!!

Everybody’s sense of history datum point begins with their own origin. Whoaaaaa! I just wrote that…but heck, am barely smart enough to know what it means…Let me break it down like this.

My wife and I were telling our kids, who sometimes struggle to think of our lives before they were born, that their mom and dad were once cool and hip…and had a life together B.C…..Before Children. That’s right…our Saturdays were planned to what ballgames were on T.V…or what sales were going on at Macy’s….long before planning on how were we going to get 2 kids to 2 ballgames simultaneously or if Macy had to go sale Girl Scout Cookies. The house stayed perpetually clean…and eating out without ordering Chicken nuggets was normal. You actually had some free time to catch up with the latest Newsweek or in my wife’s case, Goodhouse Keeping…which by the way now seems like a moot point since there wasn’t much “house keeping” to really do. We had duel incomes…did what we wanted, when we wanted…and really…WOW…what did we do with all that time…I can’t remember….I do know I could knock out a 500 page novel in a week…and didn’t know what “sippy cup” was.

Oh those days…

Luke was sleeping through the night at about 5 weeks…and not till he learned to crawl was there really much trouble he could get into…that seemed like a month ago…he is now 9…more worried about base runners stealing 2nd than learning multiplication tables.

Macy was always trying to keep up with big brother since she could walk…that was 3 weeks ago…she is now 7…reading like a monster, dancing…hitting about 0.678 on her softball team.

And…

Hope…she is now 4…thought she would never learn to talk…in the last 6 months she hasn’t hushed…the happiest kid more interested in making you laugh than anything else…always go for the laugh…always…and then smile big letting them know your cute.

Why am I writing such nonsense…well it came up in a conversation with some of my ultra running buddies the balance of family, training and other stuff.

Free time is no longer a luxury…last night at 9:00, we were finishing up school work after a baseball game…trying to get Hope bathed…making sure Macy brushed her teeth…and Luke telling us how the posters he was working on would help him in his campaign for student council….

I need more time in the day…and more money for that matter…and so I have to admit there are frustrations. My wife sometimes calls our 3 rug rats “Heavenly Sandpaper.” Great description…Somehow God has saw fit to bless them with Bren and I as mom an dad…which raises the eyebrow of many…especially after looking at me as a Dad. With all the joys of having kids…well, it’s all not a gravy train with biscuit wheels.

I was lamenting the fact to a blog buddy last month that a race I really wanted to run fell smack dap in the middle of one of my children’s events…something they were really looking forward too…I was so disappointed…not to be able to run the race…and worse felt like a bad dad for even being disappointed. They wrote back...something like…”No, it’s natural to be disappointed…and that doesn’t make you a bad dad…but running the race and missing the event…well that’s a bad dad.” I need people like that in my life…it helps me keep perspective.

It seems that there is always a balance…training time…money for racing fees, equipment…whatever. People will say, “Dave you are hardcore…you run all night long.” Ok…here is the secret…I would rather not run all night…but sometimes that is the best I can do without impinging on the family schedule…take off at 11:00PM on Friday night and running to 5:00AM on Saturday morning…and still making it to a baseball game by 8:00…There you go…the cat’s outta the bag…that’s why…and some other things but that is for a different blog for a different time.

My list of races I want to run is so long that I may have to live to be 200 to get it all done. But for now God has seen fit to give me 3 beautiful kids. Parenthood is not for the weak and timid…there is nothing worst than watching your kid go through a really bad disappointment…or helping them through a life lesson that is tough to stomach. Sometimes there is some big time frustrations….how many times do I have to tell Luke to pick up his shoes and if I step on one more Lego barefoot…well…you know…I have a lot of races to run…to train for…but…

One day, there will be no Legos to pick up…and the laundry loads will be a lot smaller. There will be no fingerprints 3 foot up the wall to wipe up…and the milk won’t be left out…with remnants of cereal to be swept up off the floor. In about 2 weeks…or so it will seem…we will have 3 “guest” bedrooms…the house will be quite…my race schedule will be full, uninhibited…and I won’t run all night long to in order to coach a 8:00 AM game.

The photos on the walls will speak of good times past…and those “times” I will miss terribly….even though they now may not seem so as much…and so I Run On…ok…guys who put this Lego in my running shoe?!?!