But all that changed today with soccer class!

It started off well with Eli crying & screaming when I tried to put his name tag on his jacket. From there, he moved on to clinging to my leg and sticking out his bottom lip for the first fifteen minutes of class. He kept his head down, refused to join the other kids sitting on the rainbow parachute and wouldn’t interact with the coach at all. I’m not sure who had it rougher: him or me.

It was only when the coach told the kids they could run and kick the cones over that Eli started to think the whole soccer thing was fun. He also really enjoyed cleaning up the cones, stacking up the cones and once again, kicking the cones.

(Except that he still hasn’t gotten the hang of kicking the soccer ball. He keeps picking it up in his hands and running with it. Cute, but not exactly the proper technique.)

Watching & listening to the coach made me realize the phenomenon happening in front of me during this toddler soccer class: organized chaos. The coach had activities planned but, during the course of a drill, he had to deal with one crying kid, one kid wandering off to the playground and one kid laying down in the middle of all the soccer balls. And that’s not including the parents. Craziness. But the coach made it work and was able to keep his cool during the whole thing. Plus he ended class by giving everyone balloons. I wanted to tip him afterwards.

One class down.

And any excuse to think about David Beckham my son’s physical development!

I needed new headshots.

We traded services and it was a win-win for all involved. Especially because Jen takes amazing photos and the client of hers that I was modeling for was a local caramel company, Helliemae’s. Seriously? I love it when the universe presents such a wonderful opportunity.

In the end, I got some amazing new pics to use AND a bag of caramels for my time. After eating them all over the course of a single day (they’re bite-sized! and delicious!), I can easily recommend them. And I’m not just saying that because they also gave me a free t-shirt.

Although you can see what a cheap date I am, right?

The key takeaways from this awesome experience…

–Modeling is actually harder than it looks. Everyone always says this but Jen was giving me directions and the sun was in my eyes and I had to do my own hair & makeup. I don’t think I’d want to do it all the time but everyone should have a fun photo shoot at least once in their life.

–It’s easy to take awesome pictures when you have Boulder’s beauty as your backdrop.

–I love having talented friends who think I’m funny. That being said, Jen’s an easy laugh. I asked her to take a pic of me looking taller than the Flatirons.

–Finally, it’s not so bad having small perky boobs.

And in case anyone forgot, I’m a total dork.

One of my worst fears came true the other day. I was heading out on my bike to pick up Eli and decided to take a different route to shave off a couple of minutes. As I started out into an intersection, my back tire stopped moving. As in completely frozen. Fortunately, there were no cars on this busy road at the moment and I was able to hop off and drag my bike to the sidewalk.

Let me just say that I’m not anything close to a bike mechanic. I can change flat tires and that’s about it. I know that I should know better. So when my bike stopped working and I was on the side of a road with cars whizzing by, my first instinct was to panic. A little bit.

And here’s how my thought process played out after that…

Holy shit, I hope my bike is not totally fucked up.

Holy shit, if my bike is fucked up, what the hell am I doing for transportation? I’m going to have to call my husband to arrange to pick up my child from daycare.

Holy shit, all of that sounds awful. Why don’t I take a deep breath and start troubleshooting what’s wrong?

I went with that last one and began to logically look at what could possibly be wrong. I forgot all about the cars, about the fact that I had somewhere to be and just focused on my back tire. Of course, while I was diagnosing and blindly shooting the trouble, it started raining.

Of course.

But you know what, I fixed my bike. On the side of a road. In the rain. Without anyone’s help. All while staying calm, breathing and not letting my emotions get the better of me.

I was only five minutes late to pick up Eli. The rain stopped, the sun came out and my bike is back in working condition. It ended up being a lovely day.

We’ve been doing a lot of handstand push-up work at the shop lately and I had a minor breakthrough the other day. After kicking up to the wall into a handstand, I was able to lower my head and then push myself back up.

With the help of three mats.

But whatever. It was still the closest I’ve ever come to doing one of those monsters. This little event got me thinking. If I could make progress in a skill like this by consistently putting in small amounts of practice, perhaps there were other Crossfit skills I could improve.

(I know right? It’s only taken me three years to decide I want to be better at this whole Crossfit thing.)

So over the course of the next couple of months, I’m going to pick a different skill to focus on and work towards mastering it. Or maybe not mastering it but just simply doing it.

Welcome to Handstand month! Better known as May.

Basically, each day this month I’m going to spend a bit of time (5 minutes max) kicking up. There’s one good spot in my house so when the weather’s bad, I’ll be there. But once the snow melts, I’m going for the free-standing handstand. I figure after a month of practice I should be able to feel comfortable enough to kick up anywhere and balance.

We’ll see about walking on my hands. Or doing more handstand push-ups.

Integration, my friend Julie, the handstand pro pictured above, advised me. Think integration as you’re in the handstand.

Color me integrated. And hopefully upside down.

I decided it was finally time to (wo)man up and give back. So I applied to be a Personal Motivator with the Skirt Sports Kick Start Colorado program and was accepted.

Kick Start is an amazing program that provides beginning runners with the inspiration, the training plan and the skirt to help them finish a 5K. No excuses. Just empowerment.

As if you needed any more reasons to love Skirt Sports. (I’ve already expressed my devotion here.)

But what’s more is that Nicole DeBoom, the CEO of Skirt Sports, in addition to making quality running gear, pretty much exemplifies what it means to be a woman these days. You can choose to have a child or not. You can choose to run or not. You can start your second career in your mid-30′s or not. But whatever your choices, you can still look cute and feel good about yourself. And you can definitely take a little time to help out another lady.

So that’s what I’m doing.

It doesn’t hurt that my own running has been lacking in motivation. I blame the winter & my seasonal hibernation but it’s spring, snow is melting and I’m ready to get back to training. Running has helped me through so many of life’s transitions and I’m super-pumped to share my love of the sport with someone else. Not to mention all of the hard-earned running tips I’ve learned over the past 15 years.

(Always say no to the bacon. During a race. But not after.)

Claire and I will see you ladies at the finish line!

March may be the snowiest month in Colorado but April features the sneakiest snow. Probably because it goes from 73 degrees one day to 23 degrees the next. Everyone is ready for spring and yet Mother Nature has to be sure to express her dominance once again.

She’s reminding us to be patient. That we still need the moisture. That we may not be ready to wear shorts. And that she is most definitely the one in control. People who have lived in Colorado for decades still get riled up about the big spring storms. As if this doesn’t happen EVERY year. As if you weren’t just riled up about this very same thing last April.

But these messages don’t faze my family. I love spring snow. It’s wet, mushy and normally melted the next day. It provides us with what may be our last chance to put on boots and play in the snow.

It also gives us a good reason to stay inside and think about all the bounty we’re going to have once the weather is nice again.

So we plant the seeds that we’ll be eating this summer.

(And some of us show off our serious skill with spoons…)

And we all grow together.

Not bad. And actually better than I thought I’d be doing at this point.

(This is a small summary. You can see the full set on Flickr if you’re really interested.)

I like that the 90+ pictures I’ve taken so far this year present a color palette that accurately conveys what it looks like outside during most of January, February and March. For me anyway. The new year consists of grays, whites and blacks made up of snow, rocks, trees, dirt and winter sun.

Of course there’s a lot of Eli, but I’m glad a few selfies and bike shots made it in there as well.

I also like that I’m working on a creative project that I have absolutely nothing riding on. I’m not submitting my pics anywhere or worried if anyone sees them. Nope. I’m simply focusing on taking a picture every day as an act of documentation and mindfulness. I’m just doing it. For myself.

And that feels good.

Yesterday was an interesting one on the bike path. After a day of rain, the precipitation had stopped but there were puddles everywhere. I noticed that it was wet and started pedaling to the nanny. About halfway there, I began to look down at my bike, instead of checking out my surroundings. That’s when I saw the worms.

Not like a worm here or a worm there. LOTS of worms. All over my pedal piece, on my tires and even one on my shoe. The first thing that I thought was Wow. That’s a lot of worms.

The second thing I thought was about how Eli must be doing back in the bike trailer.

Back in the bike trailer without a lid on or the top down.

Poor guy had a worm on his cheek, worms on his blankie and a few on his jacket.

Sigh.

I cleaned the boy up, put the lid down and we continued on our way. I’m pretty happy that I covered him up for the remainder of the ride since this is what I saw when we arrived at our destination…

Can you see all the worms on there? No? How about this view?

Lots.

It makes me want to gag a little but it also made me think about life, death and the short nature of it all. The worms pulled me into the present. It’s easy to zone out on a bike ride but when I started looking, I couldn’t quite believe how many worms were everywhere.

Now imagine if the worms were stories and I could just do that when I’m not on the bike.

(Also, should I feel like a bad parent for getting worms on my kid’s face? I mean, they’re essentially non-toxic and people pay good money for them on the internets, but we’ll see what kind of trauma this causes him. Just add it to the therapy tab.)

This year, I’m hanging out with him.

It was worth it.

Happy day of birth buddy. Let’s start rebranding those Terrible Twos as the Terrific Twos.

Or at least let’s start another morphine drip for mom, amirite?

You might remember a little hot springs trip we took last year over St. Patrick’s Day weekend. It was basically awesome.

Well, by the luck of the Irish (but really just our super-organized & forward-thinking friend Lesley), we were able to score ourselves another cabin with private hot springs for St. Patrick’s Day weekend this year.

What-what. This is one yearly tradition that I fully support.

Another is the family soak. I want my kids to have memories of hanging out in hot water with friends in a completely non-sexual way.  Is that weird?

This year, there were more rocks…

more sticks…

more cute…

and more friends.

It snowed off and on all weekend long and I must admit that soaking in hot springs while it’s snowing is one of those magical experiences. The still, the heat, the quiet and the calm. Not to mention the complete lack of cell service.

Disconnect. Reconnect. Soak it in. Enjoy the moment.

And whatever you do, try to get the toddlers to eat something besides animal crackers.

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