Bicycle Race

There are times as a parent that your emotions are so twisted up in bittersweetness that it's difficult to distinguish one from another.

Today was like that. Big time.

After working with her daddy on riding her two-wheeler by herself over the past couple of weeks off and on, I took my firstborn baby girl out today and told her all she lacked now was confidence. That, I could give her.

You are good at this, I told her. You are strong, and bigger than that bike. Mommy knows you can do it.

Little did I know that with those brief words of encouragement she'd take off like a bat out of hell down the sidewalk and only look back long enough to grin from ear to ear.

Pride? Sure. Enthusiastic response? I put on a great show. True emotion? Absolute heartbreak.

Goddammit, what happened to her bibs and bottles? Where is my tiny, bald crawler? She was just here a minute ago, I swear! Where'd she go?

The fact that she starts first grade in a couple of weeks and will be gone from me all day long, every weekday, surely factors into my melancholy.

Oh, I'm thrilled for her accomplishment. She was so flippin' proud of herself. But I'm sad, too.

It's a jagged little pill for mommies to take, this independence thing.

Vertigo

It's true that my hair has gotten mysteriously blonder the longer I live in Michigan, but I've never really been called dizzy. At least not to my face.

I am, however, clinically speaking, dizzy. The doctor's official diagnosis is vertigo.

This sucks on so many levels, not the least of which is that I feel like there is a higher power watching over me as I get into any sort of healthy lifestyle groove...lurking there like a hungry wolf waiting to pounce with its all-powerful magic wand and say "POOF! You will NOT exercise regularly. HA!"

I hate that bastard.

So now I'm on an anti-motion sickness drug to take the edge off and I have an appointment with a specialist in about 10 more days. Thing is, I don't like walking around in a morning sickness/hangover type haze every day. And I really wanted to keep up my three times a week workout schedule.

Instead, I'm on a three times a day "please God don't puke" prayer schedule.

Feel lucky if you aren't dealing with this. I hope you never have to. There are far, far worse maladies I could be suffering from, I realize fully. But this one's not great either.

Linus and Lucy

So it continues to be wicked hot outside (as my New Englandy in-laws would say), but all my kids want to do is watch The Santa Clause with Tim Allen and listen to the Starbucks version of Vince Guaraldi's holiday music I bought them in December.

Coincidence?

I think not.

Those little people are intelligent lifeforms. Even if it is subconscious.

Rock on, Snoop.