On to the Other Hand!!!

Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday to Cooper… *sobbing now*… Happy Birthday to you!!!

I am only half kidding this year. Oddly, as you continue to grow, the differences in you between birthdays are both less noticeable and vast. I no longer look down and see a child that went from infant to crawler, or crawler to walker, or walker to talker, or talker to story-teller, or pre-school to school. I see you, a growing boy who has changed in those sneaky ways – the less obvious ones – the ones that creep up on me as I am blessed to see you day in and day out, and thus the tiny shifts are almost too small for the eye to see, but when you stop and take stock and compare the Cooper today to the Cooper a year ago you get smacked in the face with the magnitude of change that all those little changes have added up to. THAT kind of difference.

But the thing that amazes me the most about you is when acknowledging all the changes, I still see the same sweet, good natured, loving, compassionate, bright, curious, focused, intelligent, thoughtful child I met 6 years ago today. Sure, school has changed you some, and while we sometimes want to pull our hair out at the influence certain unnamed children (ok, a certain unnamed CHILD) has had on you, I constantly remind myself that it is actually a good thing… you making a friend so unlike yourself (or the “yourself” I had pigeon-holed you into) and adapting to school (I was, in fact, admittedly nervous that you wouldn’t be able to act like other 5 year olds, of course seeing you are the unique little snowflake you are) and getting along with so many diverse personalities… and the GREAT thing is how, despite being sometimes a bit more sassy or a bit more silly, you are still that same sweet, good natured, loving… and so on and so forth… that we have always known and love.

For example: At Christmas this year, we gave you $12 to spend at your school store to buy presents for your family. I am a big believer in gift giving, and quite honestly enjoy it as much as, if not more than, gift receiving. The picking out of things, the anticipation of knowing how much the other person will like it… I hoped you would enjoy it, too, and given your generous spirit, wanted to afford you the chance to do it on your own. And you so did. You picked out something for me, something for Daddy and something for Daphne, keeping all of your selections a secret from the receivers (except for what you got Daphne – that you spilled to Daddy, because you just couldn’t help yourself and you kept on saying “I just KNOW she is going to love it!”). And love it she did:

(This is Daphne sleeping with the little pink bunny you gave her).

For your Dad you got a pen that he can use at school – your shared domain, with the school name on it and everything.

And for me you purchased a pretty pink bracelet, a rainbow pen and a flower pen. I wear the bracelet to work, and save for my wedding ring, it is my most precious piece of jewelry. The pens sit in my pen holder and I use them sparingly, knowing I will keep them long after they run out of ink, but not wanting to waste them and not even needing to use them to enjoy and appreciate them. You made us all feel so special – you always do.

I can give countless other examples – how when you guys are having a slumber party you always agree to watch a Mickey Mouse, though you would prefer Jake or Transformers (or anything really, we are all a little Clubhoused out over here), because you want to make your sister happy. Or how you know your sister always wants to have the same as you, so when I ask what color of straw and she says “PINK!!!” and then I ask you, you will say “I guess I will have a pink, too” and kind of give a good natured shrug and then smile when you watch your sister get pumped up and sing the “We got the same” song (yes, this song exists, if only in our house). How even when we were making your birthday invitations and came to one for a classmate that you said was “kind of mean sometimes” you followed it up by saying “but I still really want to invite her and still like her” – it doesn’t occur to you to find a way to be mean back – you find the good.

As previously disclosed, you have done well in school this year – becoming an excellent reader, which still amazes me, but also, apparently, showing a propensity for math. You still are obsessed with all things transformers, but have also agreed that Jake and the Neverland Pirates (I cannot type that without signing the song from the show in my head) and 7D (which I don't quite understand) are ok, too, thus expanding the shows you watch to...4 (as Daphne still regularly forces Mickey Mouse upon us all). You got hit in the face (the nose, to be exact) at baseball last week. I immediately tensed up and said under my breath "we have a broken nose" and fought against every fiber of my being that wanted to come scoop you up. I waited (and your dad was right there with you on the field) and sure your eyes watered up and it took you a minute, but you shook it off. You stayed out there. You kept going after the next ball and the next ball.   When did you get so big?

I am infinitely proud of you. You remain so sweet and loving and yet your are ever growing bigger and stronger.

More grown up.

My little man. My little Boopa.

Happy Birthday
Love, mom

Run!

In some crazy moment of oh-why-the-hell-not, I let my friend talk me into signing up for a half marathon.

Whilest those who have met me since children may find it harder to believe, I actually ran my way through law school (and a bad relationship or two in my younger years), and toyed with the idea of registering for a race a time or two... but there was a level of apathy and lack of motivation to run for any other reason than stress relief and to counterbalance the beers or wine I would, at times, imbibe. Then, of course, along came the littles and the million hour a week job and ... well, I stopped running for any reason for a while.

After the misery that was the Spring of 2014, it took a while, but I finally decided that I had to do SOMETHING. Something to get rid of that baby weight that I clung on to for comfort or as punishment (I am still not sure which), something to focus on other than everyone else, who I tried to get lost in because being alone gave me time to think. For a quick second, I needed to focus on myself, no matter how hard "me" time was.

So, I did. And slowly and surely, I started running again. I took some "me" time in the dark quiet mornings before everyone else got up. I took some "me" time in the dark quiet nights, after the littles in our house were tucked into bed. Slowly each step brought me back to the people I had thought I had immersed myself in all along. And I had, in a way, but I had also kind of lost myself, making it hard to really be there for anyone else. Not in the fully focused, energetic way I wanted to be.

So... at some point I agreed to this half marathon. Without thinking about it. Without really researching it. Definitely without reading or understanding the topography of the course.

And, because it is a story of the Cox-Kowalski family, of course the night before we are set to head to Austin, Daphne wakes up every hour (at least) projectile vomiting, and ONLY wanting me for comfort. Me on that tiny, uncomfortable trundle bed. Me holding her while Steve changed her sheets. Again. Me, thinking I should be sleeping, but knowing that I couldn't leave her for a moment.

I felt completely deflated by Saturday morning, both in energy and enthusiasm, and because I thought that, given the prior night's events, I would be trekking to Austin alone and running the race early Sunday before trekking straight back. We changed all our plans to meet and see friends in Austin and we spent the day tending to our littlest's needs, hovering with a bowl should see seem nauseous...

But, as longer and longer passed with no act of sickness, Steve finally insisted that we were all still going to Austin. So we loaded the van, strapped in the kids, and drove - Cooper playing his Kindle and Daphne passed out the entire way. We quarantined ourselves in the room, with my friend bringing my bag from the expo, a matching shirt and dinner right to our doorstep, and all of us turning out the lights to go to bed at 8:30. In a rare turn of events, everything went smoothly. We all slept through the night, I got up on time, got ready and snuck out of the room to meet my friend for the start.

It was hard. It was brutal. The hills... oh the hills. But I did it. I ran my goal race - actually beating my goal pace by 2 seconds (not much, but good considering my goal pace had not factored in the hills (oh the hills!).

Wonderful friends surprised me between miles 8 and 9 and I got tingles (the runner's high feeling that had long since passed) when I heard them cheering my name and looked over and saw them supporting me. After an especially brutal hill at mile 12, I almost started crying when I saw my whole crew waiting to cheer for me at mile 13.

Nothing about those 13.1 miles could make me forget last year, but I ran so far and kept going and I think there is something to that.

 Even when it hurts, just keep running. 

Girl Time: My Other Half

Hi there Doodle. Did you come all the way to Austin for me?

Well thank goodness because I might not have made it the last mile without knowing you'd be there to cheer me to the end. 

Love you!

You make my exhaustion fun. 

Here you were saying "way to go, mommy!!!"

Thank you, baby girl. 

It flies.

I truly cannot believe it is February. TWELTH, no less. No excuses for my complete and utter lack of maintaining this baby/childhood recordbook, other than, perhaps, laziness? (Does that count as an excuse or an admission?)

It has been busy, I am in denial. There is, as always, too much to talk about, so I appear to avoid talking about it at all.

Daphne continues to be hell on wheels...

(in a GREAT, if exhausting, way)

With a dimple that keeps her just out of perpetual timeout...

and Cooper was the equivalent of a student of the week in January, so I feel as though I did some documenting when making his all about me book and doing the extra "homework" that came with that. Not to mention the ACTUAL homework that now comes with him 2 days a week. I don't know how I feel about how grown up this all feels, other than to say, as we have a birthday coming up, it is all too likely I will get lost down that rabbit hole in the near future...

I really hope I do a better job of keeping up with this as we are HORRIBLE about otherwise documenting things, and if my ability to recall the past 6 years is any indication about my ability to recall these moments 6 years from now, then I will be sorely disappointed. There is just so much good right now. Even the bad. To do lists are getting checked off, life lists are getting written, checked off, re-written, scrapped... Once again, like always, we are in a steady rhythm of life, where everything is working and flowing and going great, while simultaneously we are in limbo... But that is how we roll...

To sum it up (???), pictures of the children:

So fancy for a baptism.

CHEESE!!!!

Cooper has a future in modeling, perhaps?