Stepping Forward

Day 165 - 10:35am, 15 June 2019

The step challenge at work has shifted up a gear with the final mini challenge, involving earning a badge according to how many steps you achieve over the week. If you take 70,000 steps, you qualify for the first badge, the second badge requires 95,000 steps, the third takes 120,000 steps and the highest badge you can gain is a steep 150,000 steps away. Being stubborn, I decide to go for the full-on 150,000 steps.

I get up early, walk into town and back to get 15,000 steps. I walk my daughter to her dance class and home for another few thousand steps. After lunch, I walk second son to his party, stay on and then we walk back. All in all, I generate over 35,000 steps in one day. This reduces the pressure for the remaining days.

The thing that pleases me most about this personal best is less the figure on my step counter and more that when at the party, I join in some of the games and find that I actually have the puff to chase the kids. I am not sure whether this is due to upping my steps for the step challenge or because I have started taking my preventative inhaler every day in the hope of being able to start a cardio regime that doesn't trigger an asthma attack. Either way, it's a step forward.

Never Standing Still, Let Alone Taking a Breather

Day 164 - 5:45pm, 14 June 2019

We've taken the decision to skip Cubs tonight, not something that I would normally encourage or advocate, but it's football, which he won't play and Little Miss needs picked up from a party, while the Scouts are off on a hike on the Pentlands and so Little Mister needs dropped off at a friend's house at the same time.

I don't remember life being so frenetic when I was a child. Not being in anyway sporty, I had Brownies/Guides, youth club and orchestra. Every day, after school, I worked in a mail room from mid way through my high school years through until I left for university. So I was occupied, but I did not need a social secretary to manage my out of school hours, as it feels at times like mine do. 

I do worry sometimes that we feel we must keep our kids occupied and give them lots of different experiences, rather than just give them the freedom to play as we did. No wonder screen time seems so appealing to them! If they are not exhausted, then I am.

When It Rains on the Inside

Day 163 - 07:05am, 13 June 2019

I'm not immune from silly arguments, no one is. The heat rises, words are said, feelings are hurt. But it is pointless dwelling on the negative, particularly when we are tired and so not at our best. Much better to get ourselves back standing, say sorry, then dust ourselves off and move on. The adventure continues.

Two Sides of the One Coin

Day 161 - 1:30pm, 11 June 2019

This photo shows what you see if you are looking directly down from my spot on the bridge to the river below. Were you to move to the other side of the mini island, the faster-flowing water prevents you from seeing the rocks scattered across the river bed. On this side, the water is idling along, barely bothered to move forward. It only picks up speed again, once the other side re-joins it and pushes it along. For these brief few moments, the water is both fast and slow, still and active. Two sides of the river, polar opposites, but able to co-exist. Maybe something us humans could learn from.

I Hate My Job!

Day 162 - 9:13pm, 12 June 2019

I might have described today as a washout, were it not for the P7 play. On a day when it rained without stopping and then some more, the play Madagascar Junior was a bright shining spot in my week, if not my year. 

Little Mister was playing the lemur Maurice, King Julien's sidekick. He acted miserable so well, and even ad-libbed the line, "I hate my job" with such a deadpan expression as to get the biggest laugh of the night. Watching his primary school era begin its final countdown, I am proud of what he and his classmates have done, how they've grown over their seven years together and I know I don't need to worry about his future.  He will find his role; he will be whomever he wants to be. Let's just hope I never have to hear him say, "I hate my job!" for real.

Counting Down to Summer

Day 160 - 7:31am, 10 June 2019

I cannot sleep, so rise early and set about the household chores. I hang out two loads of washing and get the dishes done by 6:30am, and still I am rushing out the door for work later than intended. (Even if, to be fair, I was intending being in work an hour earlier.) Today is a day for making progress or, at least, drinking lots of coffee. I bounce back and forth between the two positions and somehow make it to the evening more or less intact. I even think I am scoring things off the to do list faster than I am adding them. Nothing is complete, but inroads are being made and the holidays are in sight, Roll on July.

The First Will Come Last

Day 159 - 3:39pm, 9 June 2019

It's competition time. Little Miss is eager to show off her trampolining skills and has her heart set on a medal. This is the first year she will be competing in the club competition and she has been warned by us that it is likely that the gymnasts she is competing against will be of a higher standard than the entry level class she competed in last year. Bless her, this does not phase her.

It turns out that she is the only competitor in her age group, which means that she is an automatic gold medal winner. On the one hand, this is good, but on the other, I am disappointed that she doesn't get the chance to win it in genuine competition, particularly given how well she executes the routine.

I watch her warm up with the older girls and her feet are perfectly pointed in an easy box split. She is in her element. She is still in he element as we wait for her the medals presentation and I remind her that being the only person in her class also means that she is automatically last. "Mum!" Today is a good day and nothing phases her.

It's Not Shakespeare, but it Warms Your Heart to Hear It

Day 158 - 11:17am, 8 June 2019

The boys are having a play date with two of their friends at our house. Bless them, they are all playing together, even Little Miss. We have left them to it, but I can hear the interactions across the hallway. Little Mister is pretending to be a baby - I think - and every time someone interacts with him is squealing like a pig in a frenzy. Again, not sure why. He has now declared himself dead, but it seems very hard to play dead when there are four other children clambering on top of you. He tells them to stop, but me thinks he doth protest too much, given the laughter all round!

A Practically Perfect Craft

Day 157 - 7:50am, 7 June 2019

I loved spending time this afternoon learning bookbinding as part of my work's office outing. It's been a bucket list item for a while - what's not to love, a chance to be creative and to take home something that is both beautiful and functional. It seems to make the things I write in it feel all the more important and personal to me just by virtue of being written inside it, even when it's a mundane list of things, like a clothes line and a reading book for Little Miss, to be looked out before we go on holiday.

Dance Like An Egyptian

Day 156 - 9:11am, 6 June 2019

I took a half day to go into school for Little Miss' open classroom on the Egyptians. She seems to have identified with the theme, more so than some of her previous projects, because we have been regaled with pyramid facts for weeks: I think she sees herself as Cleopatra. 

But oh my word, people overload! There is no room to move in the classroom after each pupil has brought in their mum and dad, grandma and grandpa, next door neighbour, Lord Lucan, the family dog and younger siblings. Ok, I exaggerate. But I have no idea of how they danced in their performance section, because her class went through to the other classroom to perform it. We were left standing behind the parents of the other class out in the corridor. Fine if you are hubby, over six foot, but if you are one of us five footers and not much more, then you can forget it. 

With a little forethought, it would have been different. If the parents at the front had moved forward and sat on the vacant seats, there would have been enough room for us all to get in and to arrange ourselves so that everyone could enjoy the show. As it was, I was rather glad it was over and we could retreat home. 

Little Mister and his class is in the playground having returned from their day trip in the Pentland hills. If Little Miss is effervescent about her learning, he is taciturn. We barely get a "good" out of him when asked to describe his day. He says he will tell us about it later, but when he gets home, he has forgotten. Either he is developing the brain of a goldfish, or this is how it's going to be until he navigates in and out of his teenage years.

Rain, rain, go away

Day 155 - 9:11am, 5 June 2019

The ire of the inflamed river is driving the water forward at a rate of knots that makes me feel sick just watching it. I am taken aback by just how swollen it is after a single night of rain, and there's most definitely more to come.

However, today's ever-present rain seems fitting given the 75th anniversary of D-day tomorrow, and the fact that the weather was such a big factor on the day, and on the lead up to it. There was only a small window of opportunity. For all we humans think we are in control of our destiny, we are often still enthral to the vagaries of the weather. The world as we know it would not exist as it does today were it not for the break in the storm.