Mom, I'm only going to have one meltdown this week..

And I'm saving that one for Thursday night, just so you know

Duly noted. Thank you for the advance warning, if only we all could be so regulated. I expect a periodic meltdown from a kid taking 3 AP classes, pre calc, spanish 4x and international foods. Certainly it's the food class that sends her over the edge. Add to that a strenuous marching band schedule, a part time job working for her dad and nurturing her first teen romance and I'd say the kid has a lot on her plate. What else could I expect from a kid with remarkably diverse tastes?

My main concern is that she doesn't limit her meltdowns for my sake. A primary driver in my constitution is that my kids not take on responsibility for my emotional health. In other words, I don't expect my kids to carry the burdens of my soul. This is not to say that I won't share how I am doing, or be authentic with them, but rather, I won't hold them responsible for how I feel and I certainly hope to not hold their emotions hostage by my crises.

I tend to be one of those people who think about how they feel. For instance, I might begin a sentence with "I think I'm feeling sad today about..." and these sentences appear after several days of rumination. In contrast my hubby is one of those folks who feel their thoughts, generally out loud, and might begin a sentence with "I feel like (insert fact)...." and his sentence appears within a brief moment from the origination of the thought. He thinks out loud and works things out accordingly. I think in the deep, wide spaces o

f my mind. In this way we are remarkably compatible and remarkably incompatible depending on the day. I'm thankful for "broad shoulders" as I have 3 external thinker/emoters in my family and on any given day that can mean a lot of life to support. I find it no surprise that two of my closest friends are internal like me.

Last week the weight of my world pressed hard. I find it little coincidence that I separated my shoulder. More specifically my clavicle separated from it's A/C joint and one of my rotator cuff muscles decided to impinge. Most specifically, that hurt like hell. Three days of Vicatin nights to sleep. I took a long hard thinking walk, did some corrective exercises and all is better now. It's amazing to me how our bodies are created to know how to heal themselves. The best solution to my impingement was sleeping with my arm extended back over my head, which allowed the muscles to relax and return to their rightful position. I went for what felt good, and low and behold, it was right.

"Mom, I've had a lot of warnings, don't you think it's about time?" Well, given your size 10 feet and your size small frame, I think you have one last growth spurt to go before "IT's TIME". Are you ready, are you scared, do you have a supply of products in your locker in case you start at school? This one is a little slower to grow up and that is just fine by me, although she is "star struck" by one boy in particular and is planning her high school enrollment around where he might attend. I have become an advocate of the return of marrying them off at 14. Sort of. But really? I don't recall planning my life around Boy X. Perhaps this is because Boy X didn't come around til a bit later. I remember pre teen conversations about who had kissed who and who held whose hand, and it was all meaningless for the most part. In the crowd my oldest runs with they aren't dating until they are juniors, only holding hands for months and contemplating a first kiss for a very long time. In the age of one night stands and casual hook ups they are taking their stand and being counter cultural. I kind of like that. No, I really like that.

Did you know that every time a woman engages in physical intimacy she secretes the same hormone that is released when she nurses with and bonds to her baby? Did you know that one of the major causes of suicidal depression in college age girls is frequency of sexual partners. So, girls who should have the entire world as an oyster are wanting to cash it all in because their bodies are wacked out from sleeping around. I say give yourself the absolute best shot at living your hopes and dreams, the world around you is waiting.

****News Flash***** apparently Thursday's meltdown arrived a day early. Oh boy.

At least the general grounding of The Tribe from all forms of media concluded today. I suffer under the delusion that a 14, 12 and 10 year old should be able to survey the room around them and find it unacceptable to sit on a pile of unfolded clothes with dirty dishes and chip bags strewn around, watching television. I apparently also suffer under the delusion that I should be allowed to go one night a week to class for the betterment of my psyche and return home with the dinner dishes cleaned up, the counters wiped and the food put away. I am hopeful that a 48 hour ban from television and computer time might move us closer to agreement on the domestic front.

As long as we are on the topic of things that tax me mentally, we might as well throw in the delusion that it was a good idea to return to school after an 18 year hiatus and attempt to learn the dead language of Koine Greek. Had I realized this required learning a new alphabet where an R is a P an N is an E and a V is an N and three of the letters aren't letters at all but really sounds, I might have thought twice. Had I known that the second session would entail reading this new language out loud for the enrichment of the entire class I certainly would have reconsidered. I'm reasonably certain that I so tortured my share of the dissertation that the Apostle John himself rolled in his grave so violently that the earth quaked. My apologies Los Angeles. I had no intention of opening the fires of hell upon you these last few days. I will study this week. That or I'll make a point of sitting by the Korean gal who is trying to learn a third language in a second language. My class is quite a collection of characters, I'll try to report more later.

For now it's time to oversee homework, pick up from youth group and spend some quality time with the spouse.

Realizing none of this has anything at all to do with running or children in Africa or marathons, just endurance. What do you expect? It is taper week!