The weeks are flying by

I am always amazed how the start of school has the ability to speed up time, at least for a mother.  I certainly don't remember time flying by when I was still a student.  In fact, during my last few years of high school, upon the reception of my agenda, I would immediately flip to the last day of school and write the number one; I would then count backwards until I arrived at the first day of school which would be numbered near 200.  I would then do the same for all the days with the exception of the weekends.  Thereby I would have a running count of how many school days (not counting the weekends) were left until the end of the year and how many days in total remained until the end of the year.  In retrospect, I was obviously desperate to break free of public school.  I am definitely not looking to go back.  I often wonder why I got my bachelor of education.  But then I hear my mother's words:  What will you do if you lose your husband?  Optimism is not inherent in my family of origin.  Thus, the teaching degree.

Another rare quality among my sisters and me is athletic ability.  Well, now that I write that, I think that I need to qualify it.  My sisters and I are all very devoted athletes:  not one of us tends to miss a day of individual exercise without a good reason.  Good reasons count as sickness, injury and labour.  You will notice that I said individual exercise: we all pretty much (for lack of a better word) suck at group sports.  I am not so sure about my younger sister but I know that my older sister and I spent most of gym class either ducking the ball or forgetting our gym clothes.  My older sister actually forgot her gym clothes so many times that she passed gym by only 1 or 2%.  This makes me laugh now because my older sister has to be one of the best female runners that I know.  She's a speed demon despite a distinct lack of sleep and three children under 5 (which at one point were all under 4).  But, I digress.

Gym was consistently my lowest mark.  Not so for Dave.  Dave loves to hear me tell stories of my gym fails:  staring at the rope hanging from the ceiling and wondering how in the world I was meant to get my body more than two feet off the ground, let alone to the ceiling; telling the gym teacher that I was unable to even attempt a hurdle because I was sure to suffer flashbacks to horseback-riding injuries when confronted by the actual hurdle; earning Participaction each and every year in the Canada Fitness Test; and, last but not least, breaking my foot while standing in line for the vault.  My gym teacher was incredulous regarding the last incident and made me keep my shoe on and 'get back out there' as there was no way that I could have possibly broken a bone while standing still.  I clearly recall walking home with a broken foot while being hit by snowballs by Devin Bhatt.  I arrived home crying where I was told to be quiet as not to wake the baby.  When I finally did go back to school after a failed Ace bandage, an eventual cast and a bottle of Tylenol, I acted up during the national anthem and my grade four teacher yelled:  Culshaw, just because you have one leg doesn't mean I can't kick you out of here!  I think that school is markedly different now.  But back to athletics.

The funny thing is that most of those superb athletes of my childhood couldn't run a step if they tried now that they are adults.  I have learned that early blooming ain't what it's cracked up to be.  I am a relatively late bloomer.  I started running at 18 and managed to do so while wearing turquoise jogging pants and a grey sweatshirt that had some sort of animal on the front.  I did, however, keep at it.  I kept at it so much that a jogging stroller is a second vehicle around these parts and race times are frequent discussion points.  Then I injured my foot in the early Spring and had to start biking.  Consequently I became that mother of five who runs and bikes.  Little do these people know that I was once the chubby kid with the overly-pronated feet, weak ankles and the bad haircut.  Late blooming sometimes makes all the difference.  But, once again I have digressed.  Onto Dave.

Dave is another story when it comes to gym prowess.  I don't think that he would have married me if we had gone to the same elementary school.  He yearly achieved Gold in the Canada Fitness Test and actually signed up for gym in high school when it was no longer mandatory.  What a weirdo.

So, all of the above is simply a prelude to the following statement:  my children's athletic abilities astound me.  They can run really fast and long; they can hurdle over high jumps; and, wonder of wonders, they can do the monkey bars.  I can still only hang pathetically from the first rung.

Consequently, from time to time, I might sound a little overly proud of the kids' athletic feats.  Here goes:   Jacob and Hannah have hit grade three and are now allowed to compete in the upcoming Partridge Run.  The run is 800m cross-country and in order to compete they have to place as one of the top six girl and boy runners in their class.  They consistently place first.  Hannah's first win came despite wearing a pair of crappy shoes that kept coming undone and causing her to stop and re-velcro and then re-pass the other girls.  I am amazed by this.  The funny thing is that they are not.  Running comes so easily to these kids that they simply can't understand the kids who need to stop.  "Mom, so and so actually had to walk!" they tell me.  They don't seem to grasp that I was so and so.

Anyway, if I happen to post way too many pictures of them crossing lines and receiving ribbons come next week, I apologise in advance:  something vicarious is going on.