Rub My Bum

My daughter and I planned to run a 5k road race this past Sunday.  She loves to run and I love to run with her so it was exciting for both of us.

We had a busy weekend otherwise - and one of the things I had to do on Saturday was pick up our race packets with our numbers.

I had heard that the pickup spot was INUNDATED with people and the line was over an hour long.  Sure enough, when I got there the line was out the door.  I walked up to the race organizer and said, "If I'm going to be here anyway, can I help?"

"YES!" she said.

I jumped behind the table and started pulling bib numbers out of a pile of over 2500 numbers.  Honestly it was sort of fun.  It was chaotic and stressful in a way that totally doesn't matter so there was a great adrenaline rush along with the camaraderie of all of the other people behind the table.

After a couple of hours the line was gone and I picked up my numbers, a new pair of sneakers and went back to my house for my son's 9th birthday party.

The party was going to be EPIC.

With a couple of minor challenges.

The first challenge was this: My son had chosen to have his party at a place called 5 Wits.  It's an AMAZING place that is truly fun for children while encouraging them to use their brains.  It's an immersive show where children have to solve puzzles to get from the entrance to the show to the exit.

But that wasn't the issue.  The issue was that my son had invited 7 friends and 5-wits is an hour from my house.  That meant we were taking 9, 9 year old boys + a 7 year old and 6 year old girl on a 2 hour round trip car ride to get to a 2 hour party.

This party brought to you by Excedrin.

Challenge #2 - last weekend I bought my husband a new SUV.  It's awesome except that it seats 7 instead of 8 like our last SUV.  OOPs.

That means that 7+5(capacity of my car) = 12 and we had 13 people to transport.

No worries, my AMAZING neighbor offered to lend me her car.  That was AWESOME - except it's  a top of the line SUV and has 5 million buttons and I didn't know what any of them did.

I got back to my house with her car as parents started dropping off their sons.  "4 hours?" one of the dads asked me.

"It sounds a lot worse when you say it like that." I told him.  He laughed and walked away.  There was pity in his eyes.

We loaded up the caravan - my husband in his car with 7 kids and me in my neighbor's car with 6.  It was the LOUDEST 55 minutes I have EVER spent in a car.  Also, possibly, the grossest.  9 year old boys are very fart-centric.  If they're not farting, they're talking about farting, threatening to fart or telling stories about farts from glory days past.

We got to the show with about 18 seconds to spare.

The kids LOVED it.  I can't say enough good things.

Then we had pizza.  I couple of kids had so many slices of pizza that I told them they were forbidden to have any more because I didn't want them throwing up in my car.  

They were disappointed.

We left the party and got back in the car.  My 7yo daughter has a crush on one of the boys and she BEGGED me to be able to come in my car with him.  I let her and I think she has been scarred for life by the disgustingness of boys.  Not only did they fart but they had a stinky feet contest and her crush won by such a wide margin that when his shoes were off I felt faint.

The party was a TREMENDOUS success and despite the raging headache I still had when I woke up this morning it was worth it.

In addition to a raging headache, I also had - as a reward for ebding over looking for race bib numbers about 300 times on Satursday - the WORST hamstring pulls you could imagine.  I was hunched over and walking like a 90 year old woman.

Not the best way to start a 5k but I'd promised my daughter so I laced up my shoes and tried to walk it off.  

I did okay and the race was great.  My daughter did GREAT.  I'm so proud of her.

After the race we walked around and the clouds came in.  The temperature dropped about 20 degrees but we were in line for face painting so OBVIOUSLY we couldn't leave.

I could HEAR my hamstrings tightening.  It sounded like a creaky spring.

Then I took my son to his flag football game and stood in the cold.  I was like the tin man at the end.  When my son's team lost 50-0, I cheered because the damn game was over, raced back to my husband's new car, dove into the front, cranked the heated seats up to 11 and sat their rocking back and forth in the fetal position.  

I ran hobbled into the house, crawled up the stairs and took a 35 minute shower.  Then I put clothes on and took my other son to Flag football. This time I was much smarter and wore a thick down jacket.  Unfortunately it wasn't long enough to cover my legs.

After the game (a 50-0 win with my son's team the victor this time) I went grocery shopping, came home and made dinner.

Then I crawled into bed while my hamstrings retracted into themselves.  Tomorrow I will likely be 3 feet tall - unless you want to come rub my bum?

Comments

[Kana]

I love humorous-complaining anecdotes, reading and writing them. What blows me away is how you're somehow so positive while doing so!

The idea of seeing a million-man queue at your event, and immediately volunteering to HELP (instead of milling around hating life everybody there, and everything in general) is simple, emotionally obvious, and yet so rarely done as to not be considered a normal option. Evidently no one else in the throng thought about it.

I didn't either...something I will be thinking about, along with your wonderful, sensible positive reaction. Thanks for giving me the food for thought...I think you're on to something, here! :)

[Holly Folly]

Whiskey. Whiskey will fix it.

[John (Daddy Runs a Lot)]

I hate the feeling of hamstrings tightening....but I know, precisely, what you're talking about. Heck, I'm even thinking that I need to get up and start stretching. Right now.

That party sounds awesome - and it's so great that you're running with your kids . . . I'm very hopeful that at least one of my kids catches the running bug from me. But we'll see. They enjoy couches, too.

And yeah, boys are disgusting -- totally. Really, they remain disgusting until such time as they actually would rather be in the presence of a woman. But then you have the hormones to deal with.

I do not envy you.

[joeinvegas]

Nice age for boys, to bad you couldn't take a video for us.
That last question is kind of, um