At home: I get up and run around behind kids all day long and fall asleep, early and exhausted, on the couch.

On the road: I get up at the crack of dawn and try to find a suitable workout to use all the energy I usually spend on the kids all day. I can’t sleep at night because I have so much energy yet to burn.

At home: I am consumed with at least 3 consecutive to-do lists.

On the road: What are we going to do?

At home: I cook or oversee three meals a day.

On the road: You wanna eat?

At home: I go outside and dig in the weeds, deadhead roses, fight with sprinklers and tell the kids to move the sprinkler to the areas of dead grass when they go out to play in the water.

On the road: What are we going to do now?

At home: I take breaks to blog, tweet, check my facebook, etc. throughout the day

On the road: What computer?

I look forward to spending my first weekend home in a fortnight. I love my busy life.

I never hear the implied, “We should get together, I didn’t know we lived so close to each other.” Or the implied, “I like to ride my bike too. We have something in common.”

All I hear is, “You geek! You must really like riding your bike…you must be one of those pedestrian nuts…”

Which is crazy. Who cares? Yes, I like riding my bike. Yes, I look like a geek in my bike helmet. No, I don’t have all the bike riding gear, but it’s not for lack of interest. I would sport every last piece of bike gear if I finally accomplished my goal of riding my bike to Lake Michigan.

And I don’t care. Until someone tells me they saw me riding my bike, and I get all embarrassed.

Who knew middle age was so much like adolescence?

My little kids were excitedly chattering away in the girls room this morning.

Today is the day they get to stay up late–11 o’clock, Esteban says.

I heard him shouting, (Esteban has loud and off as far as his voice is concerned) about lighting sparklers, trying to explain everything to Chanya, who has yet to see fireworks.

My watch alarm went off. 7 AM. Good luck on that staying up til 11, Esteban.

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This picture of Joy’s first 4th celebration is my favorite. She carefully walked from her Daddy, who lit the sparkler, to the bucket to put it out. She took the task very seriously, excited as she was to get to hold fire.

My kids get really excited about the 4th. One of them conjectured yesterday that our Nation’s Fathers must have been really excited on July 3rd.

Well, actually, …. I began.

Of course that meant tennis.

I mean, I hadn’t been to the court in over a week.

Today I got Xay to go with us. That’s exciting to me, because he actually had a few sessions of tennis lessons a few years ago, and he just makes the game more fun. Usually, I go to play tennis with Imani, Joy, and Esteban. The younger the child, the more enthusiastic, the fewer skills. So we usually play for half an hour to an hour with maybe two volleys.

On a good day.

The kids don’t see it this way. They are quick to point out to me how we manage to volley every time we play. And the fact is, I can see that we are slowly, as a group, getting better at tennis.

With Xay there today? We started volleying much sooner, and sustained the volleys longer. Esteban and Joy started out the day playing on the playground with Chanya. Imani surprised me by wanting to be on Xay’s team, setting up the precedent of several rounds of two on one, until Esteban joined us, and we played doubles. (Joy had traded places with Imani first, then Esteban joined us).

By the time Esteban joined us, the sun was directly overhead, and it was getting hot. I was especially hot, after running all over the court fielding all manner of serves. It was exhilarating!

Soon after Esteban joined us, I suggested we gather all the balls and divide up for M drill, one of my favorite warmups from my days at cardio tennis at the Y. I thought I’d trade Esteban for Joy, to give me any kind of chance at competing against Xay. By the time we’d collected the balls, Imani and Chanya had joined us from the playground, and Imani joined Xay’s team again. So, I ran two legs of the M drill relay.

The M drill is: sprinting from the baseline to the net, then galloping in a diagonal to the service line, galloping in a diagonal back up to the net, and then running backward back to the baseline. You make an M when you’re done, see?

The teams turned out to be evenly matched. I ran the first leg against Imani, then it was Joy vs Esteban. Joy finished enough ahead of Esteban to give me a head start on the last leg. I was mid gallop when I heard thunder on the other side of the net. My heart stopped just a bit as I contemplated that I was actually racing against Xay, who was point guard on his basketball team this year. I sped up a tad, scared of falling on the asphalt, which would not be at all forgiving to someone my age. Xay complained that his shoes weren’t made for this. (he was wearing his Adidas indoor soccer shoes–those are for fashion; he has never played indoor soccer, btw). I laughed at his comment and did my best to finish ahead of the 16 year old.

We finished at exactly the same time. That’s my story and I’m sticking with it. Don’t talk to Xay about it. Just don’t.

The upshot of it is that I called my sister in law and asked her how she potty trained her girls–before 2. She said something very simple. Too simple, it seemed to my confused, complicated mind. She said she rewarded the child with candy for using the potty, and punished them for willfully going in their pants.

I thought ok, what did I have to lose? I might as well try it. And then my husband reminded me that he’s been telling me to do that for years. I reward desired behavior and reward undesired behavior; different rewards, same system.

I was shocked and humbled at how quickly Chanya went from being oblivious and unconcerned with the potty to going every few minutes. “I want some candy, so I’ll go potty!”

I’m real quick, so I needed more information. What about if she lied about going to the potty? I had to see evidence that she actually went, or no reward. Oh.

So far, the hardest thing has been keeping the older kids away from the candy rewards.

It is hard to believe that someone with all this facial hair and deep voice could have ever been my child.

And yet, here we are.

You joke with your siblings about your real ninja identity. Maybe there’s something to that.
You are ninja in your ability to evade photographs. This is a rare shot you posed for in the recent past.

You are ninja in avoiding the crowd scene that has become your family. I know some people who have never laid eyes on you.

You are ninja in your mad bike skillz. I’m sure ninjas ride bikes, right?

And now you are 16. May this be your best year yet.

Chanya has a habit of slipping away to her room and changing her clothes. This usually means she’ll take off pants I chose for her in exchange for leggings. I don’t remember what she had on first thing this morning, but it was definitely not her pajama looking pink polka dot leggings that she had on in the afternoon.

After dinner, Chanya came and showed me her new pants, black (capri) leggings. She did a little pose as she showed me. I asked her where her other pants were, and my articulate toddler was suddenly dumbstruck.

At bath-time, Chanya jumped up on the potty and used it. I noticed that she was wearing panties, instead of the pull-ups she was wearing when I last checked.

I have never had a child take such control of her own potty training before.

The last time I remember it that warm in March was 16 years ago when I was waddling around expecting my second child. One day I was wearing summer maternity clothes, opening windows and marveling at our great luck of an early spring. The next day, the temperature dropped precipitously. By the time Xavier was born, on the actual first day of spring, the weather was much more seasonal. It snowed a day or two after he was born.

So, when Chanya came around from the back yard complaining about the sun being too bright today? I told her you’re not allowed to say the sun’s too bright today.

My first impulse was to scream no. I was in the middle of cleaning, and she didn’t have on a diaper. But I half thought I should bathe her in the swim suit, for fun.

The next thing I knew, Joy was happily remembering the times she’d gotten to bathe in her swimsuit. I didn’t remember having made an event out of it. Maybe after going to the beach or something? But Joy recommended it so highly that I told Esteban to go get his suit on and join in the fun.

They splashed and kicked and ‘swam’ in the tub, followed by their sisters, who wore their swim caps and goggles and took a shower.

Everyone was in high spirits until I turned out the light for bed. Maybe a swimsuit bath is just a little too exciting right before bed?

We made it out there in the 6 PM hour. I am still cold.

Chanya was cold, but she wanted to hang out until everyone was done. Yanni, who didn’t join us, looked like she wanted to, but preferred central heat.

We heard our neighbors shouting and playing. Spring is right around the corner.

I heard it’s supposed to be 60 degrees in a couple days. My toes will be ready for sandals, even if the weather’s not.