SchlegelRock

Tru and I were walking home from the bus the other day and he all of a sudden got very animated and was asking me to stop.  I was totally perplexed and asked him why.  He said, “I want to climb that pole.”  Oh.  My first instinct was to tell him no (Pretty sad huh?  No is always my first instinct.).  Then I thought, “What the heck.”  So we stopped and Tru climbed the Stop Sign down by his bus stop.  He got almost to the top but started to slip when I finally got my phone out to take a picture.  Thank goodness we stopped.  He was thrilled and I was thrilled not only to watch him do something so cool but to see him so happy.

Then, no kidding, we got in the car and in front of me the car had a sticker on it that said “Cullen College of Engineering.”  Wasn’t I just asking you the other day if I would ever see a sticker that reminded me of Edward?  Now I know it should say College of Medicine but what if it’s Jasper’s school?  Who’s to say Jasper doesn’t acquire and affinity for engineering?  The bottom line is, I am ridiculous enough that this made me happy. (The Cullen’s are the good vampires from the Twilight series.)

And just now Truman ran out to the living room and said, “Mom, you’ve got to see this.  It’s so silly.”  So I went in to the bedroom with him where he was watching Mythbusters and he showed me a clip from the intro to the show where Adam says, “I’m making a rocket out of meat!”  Tru was so excited he said, “A rocket out of meat!”  He thought that was fabulous.  He came out again and asked me if we could try it.  I was sad to squash his dreams but I told him probably not.  Unless the Scouts has it as one of their activities, hint, hint, I really doubt I am going to personally involved in that project.  And that’s not for years to come.

Anyway, just a few things that made me happy recently.

We headed over to the Schlegel’s on Saturday to wash the fast car.  All of a sudden I looked up and Tru had taken his shirt off just like Scott.  Without asking or anything.  If it’s good enough for Dad, it’s good enough for him apparently.  The funny thing is Tru looks just like Scott so it’s silly to me that he would be the one to do it.  Like it’s not enough to look like him, he’s got to be like him also.  The other two left their shirts on.  They didn’t even seem to notice the shirt off theme that was running around.

So when I sat down on Tuesday and wrote about Oli going to school I was a little lonely but totally in control of myself. That started to change when I picked him up from school and he was totally distraught. He looked like he had been tortured for 2 1/2 hours rather than playing with new friends. I asked him if he had fun and he said, “No.” We talked about going back to school on Tuesday and he said he didn’t want to go. He spent the rest of the day in between pouting and throwing fits. It totally threw me for a loop. Majorly catching me off guard. I felt like I had made a terrible mistake sending him to school. My poor baby!

Well, that set me up for panic attacks. I made it all the way until 7pm before the first one hit. Luckily (or unluckily), I have a lot of practice dealing with panic attacks. So I sat on my bed and let the waves of panic wash over me. I can deal with the physical symptoms of a panic attack pretty well. For me, that’s the easy part. The hard part is when Satan jumps in and tries to get me to hurt myself. What a jerk. Totally kicking me when I’m down. Telling me, “This will never end. You’re never going to get better. You’re going to feel like this for the rest of your life so you might as well end it now. Scott’s better off without you anyway. You just bring sorrow and pain to him. Someone else would treat him much better than you possibly can. They could take care of your kids better too. They wouldn’t have to deal with all of your episodes. etc, etc.” He just goes on and on until I feel like I’m losing my mind because there’s a really stupid, gullible part of me that believes him. Then on the other hand Scott has told me before that he would lose it if anything happened to me. And I think of my kids and what it would feel like to grow up with a mother who killed herself. How it would give them an opening I would never want them to consider. The icing on the panic cake is that I have flashbacks to my hospitalization when I have an attack. It makes me want to vomit how real it feels. In the end, I win. But not without suffering a great deal.

So I’m sitting in my bed having my third panic attack and I lose it and call my mom to come sit with me. I don’t know if it was just having her in the house, or what, but I didn’t have another panic attack after she got here. Thank goodness. I felt really fragile all day Wednesday but in control. I even made it out to the bakery to get myself a pick me up. There’s nothing like chocolaty baked goods to help ease the pain.

Now we made it to Thursday and Oli still didn’t want to go to school. He went though. I talked to his teacher when I picked him up and she said he had a great day and was shocked when I told her he was reluctant to go to school. That’s a huge relief. It makes me think that given a few more weeks Oli will be a pro at going to school. Then I wont have to feel guilty about sending him and enjoying my time to myself. And truth be told this is why we wanted to send him to school at 3 in the first place. We had a feeling he’d have a hard time with it. Which is silly because it totally caught me off guard when he did. I know, I’m ridiculous. But what would you do without me writing about my ludicrous experiences? Seriously, what would you do?

Well, it actually happened.  Oli is in school and I’m sitting in a deathly silent house all by myself.  I’m ashamed to say, I’m a little lonely.  I’m sure I’ll get over that though.  This is supposed to be my workout time but I’m obviously squandering it on less strenuous activities.  Oli was excited about school until this morning.  He kept saying he didn’t want to go because “We’re going to do bad things at school.”  What does that mean?  I don’t know.  He wouldn’t explain.  Then he didn’t want to go because we didn’t buy him new school shoes like the other boys.  Whoops.  Kind of dropped the ball on that one.  It must be confusing for him to see the kids in their uniforms and new shoes and not think he needs the same.

Scott stayed home to take him to school with me and it was just so weird.  He’s my baby.  He’s not even four yet.  The kids been running around the house the last week making baby noises and totally reverting about a year.  The nice thing is, I totally trust the teachers and the school that he’s going to.  We started there with Max and except for a few minor run ins with the office staff we’ve had a great experience with them.  The main thing is, the kids have had a great experience with them.  Not one complaint from either of the older two.  Not one.  They loved their teachers and going to school.

So in case you’re wondering, he’s going to Community Preschool.  I would highly recommend it.

This morning Max started 2nd grade and Tru is a big Kindergartener. Tru wanted to make sure he showed off his Transfor

mers backpack. Max is still sporting his tagged backpack from K. We’ll see if it holds up through the year. Tru has half days for the next couple of weeks and then he’ll be on a full day schedule with Max so they can ride the bus home together. Tru seems pretty excited to ride the bus by himself too but the boys were totally excited about sitting together and walking home together. Thank goodness they get along. They’ve really grown close over the last couple of weeks. It’s been really sweet to watch as they do nice things together or play with each other. What good kids we have.

So it’s just Oli and I now at home. I told him he’d have to wait a while to watch a movie so he laid down in the hall and moaned, “Mommy. Mommy.” Over and over again. This is definitely going to be an adjustment for the two of us. Thank goodness preschool starts next week.

First, Scott did another Tri two weeks ago and he bettered his time by a minute. It was the same course as the last one he did so he knew what to expect this time. He was even so fast that the shutter on my iPhone missed him as he ran past. How ridiculous is that. Do you have a problem with that? I can never time my iPhone shutter right on action shots. Anyway, good job babe.

Then I had to go to Kaiser to drop of a Medical form for Oliver’s preschool and ran into a van with all these Indian wolf stickers on it. Of course it immediately reminded me of Jacob and his pack of werewolves (or shape shifters if you want to get picky on me). It just totally tickled me. I really doubt that I’ll run into any stickers that remind me of Edward. What would they be? A picture of a diamond? I seriously don’t know. Have any ideas?

Then, an update on swimming.

I was terrified to get back into the pool after that first encounter. Every time I thought about going back in any kind of water I was gripped with fear. So I started out slow. I took the kids down to our pool with the idea that I would just get in and not do any swimming. Well once I got in I was totally fine so I did laps for about 15 minutes with occasional stops to play with the boys. It was a really fabulous experience because Tru would wait for me to turn back to the shallow end and then he would swim towards me and shoot me. This was just so hilarious to him that it really brightened my experience.

So it was time for a trip back to the big pool. I didn’t touch the 13 feet. I swam in their smaller pool that’s meant for water aerobics so it’s shallow all the way through. But I swam for about 30 minutes without getting scared once. Now I just have to get back into the big pool and the circle will be complete. All I have to say is thank goodness I tried swimming before doing the Tri. Now I can try to prepare myself for the breathing and the open water factors. Although, I do think the open water is going to freak me out. At least I know if I can swim I can make it through it if I stay calm. I’ll keep you posted.

So I’m behind a little bit with my pictures. These were taken at Almaden Lake in San Jose where we went for our friends Alan and Erika’s birthday party. It’s actually a pretty cool place to party. They have paddle boats you can rent and they have lifeguards on duty so you can play in the lake. The only drawbacks were the heat and the duck poo EVERYWHERE. Why is it so much hotter in San Jose? Sunnyvale is like the perfect little spot that stays cooler in the summer and rains less in the winter but is close enough to the bay to get a great breeze. I love Sunnyvale!! Oh, and the kids had a great time playing in the spiderwebs with Scott. We didn’t know there was water so we didn’t bring their suits but it was still a good time had by all.

I was in my room when I heard a loud bang and Maxwell and Truman screaming. I went running to find out what had happened and found the top bunk of the bunk bed fallen down at an angle trapping Truman against the wall. When I lifted the bed up and Tru climbed out the end I didn’t even have to ask to know what had happened. Any of you who grew up with bunk beds can probably guess yourselves.

Max was lying in the top bunk because his stomach hurt. Tru decided to go in and bug him so he was pushing up on the backside of the bed. The front side of the bed dislodged and fell down creating the triangle that Tru was stuck in. He’s just lucky the whole thing didn’t fall down on him. Anyway Max went tumbling to the ground in between his mattress and the top rail of the bed.

I asked Tru if he was pushing up on the bed and he said “Yes.” I asked him if he was going to do it again and he said “No.” As you can see from the picture the bed fell down all the way after I got Tru out. Just ridiculous. I know this isn’t just boys because I used to push up on my brother when we slept in bunk beds. Has this happened to any of you?

This morning was a comedy of errors. First I left the house without my helmet and when I rode past the group of painters that are always standing around during my runs or bikes one of them said, “What, no helmet?” Crap, I had left my helmet at home. Well I was too embarrassed to turn around so I made the big loop back to my house the whole time terrified that I was going to get hit by a car and get brain damage.

So I make it back home and get my helmet on. Then I was too embarrassed to ride past the painters again with my helmet, so I went the opposite direction of my normal ride. Instead of all right turns it was all left turns which meant crossing the street with two lights for each turn. I get the first light at the end of my street and take my right foot out of the holster to put it on the curb. I decided to kind of angle myself so I could easily take off to the left when the light changed and boom. On the ground. I totally fell over on my bike. Luckily there was no one at the intersection, which is a rarity, so I got up and picked my bike up and got back on and waited for the light.

When I got to the next light and it turned green I started to go but swerved a little bit as I got my balance. Apparently I scared the guy in the car next to me because he yelled something at me. I’m just not that good at riding bikes. “I’m learning,” I wanted to shout back at him but didn’t.

The thing that made it all worth while though is when I got home and realized I’d been riding around with blood dripping down my leg. How cool is that!!? It was a sissy amount of blood, no gushing, but still, it was blood. It made me feel proud of myself that even though it was kind of a crappy ride I still did it, blood and all.

The pictures are of my bike. When you get into the higher end racing bikes you don’t get fun detailed seats or swirly frames. I’m glad I got an entry level bike if only for the pretty factor. And the fact that I’m going to fall down a lot.

Can you believe it? We have a 7 year old! I didn’t feel like time went that fast when he was a baby but now it’s flying for sure. Max is a really great kid. He’s very soft spoken and mostly even tempered. He does have brothers so his mean side comes out but for the most part he is a really great friend. He tends to look out for them and make sure they’re taken care of. I couldn’t have asked for a better first child. My heart swells just thinking about him.

On the 19th, Grandma and Grandpa Schlegel and Grandma Sandy stopped by for some cake and ice-cream and presents of course. Thanks guys and thank you to Grandma and Grandpa Walker and the Burger kids for their presents too. And Walkers, Max got your message and loved it.

Scott took him to buy a new bike and was trying to sell him on a cheap BMX style bike with the knobs on the front and rear wheels for tricks. He wasn’t having it. “I don’t know any tricks,” he said. So he just got a totally generic bike that has hand brakes for a little excitement.

I try to make the kids birthday cakes for them and let them choose the flavors. Max said he wanted a layer cake; chocolate cake with white icing. I didn’t like the idea of white icing (just didn’t sound good to me for some reason. I do like white icing though) so I showed him a cooking show which just happened to be on, talk about kismet, with a chocolate layer cake with chocolate icing. He said that would be fine. So I make this cake all from scratch. Melting chocolate, giving the icing an ice bath, etc. and I’m totally pleased with it. We serve it up at the party and he eats it up so I thought it was a hit.

The next day, looking for an ego boost, I asked him how the cake was. He says it was sort of good. I said well what was wrong with it. He said he wanted white icing (dang, that came back to bite me) and he wanted a layer cake. I was confused and told him I had made a layer cake. It turns out he didn’t want a layer cake, he wanted a tiered cake. Like a wedding cake. Boy does this kid have some lofty aspirations if he thinks he’s going to get tiered cakes for his birthday. Who knows maybe next year I’ll buy a couple of new pans and make him one. One things for sure, I watch too many cooking shows with the kids!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAX!!

So we just got back from Pleasanton where Scott ran his second Tri for Fun. I’m going to tell you about both triathlons briefly since we haven’t heard from the illustrious Scott Schlegel. The Sacramento race, featured on the right was a 1/2 mile swim, 16 mile bike, 3 mile run. The Pleasanton race, featured on the left, was a 1/4 mile swim, 10 mile ride, 4 mile run.

The first race he ran was in Sacramento with his cousin Todd. There was a pretty competitive crowd there that day including two teams full of thirteen year olds that were ripped. It was kind of creepy looking but then again maybe I was just jealous. Today’s race was in Pleasanton and Scott did it with his co-workers Armin and Greg. Greg’s fiancee Jamie was there to support him so we got to hang out more than the guys did. This race was much more laid back. A good one for beginners.

So in this first shot in the top left corner you’ll notice two nuclear silos. (You may need to enlarge the photo.) That’s right, Scott is swimming in the cooling water for the power plant. Now before you freak out, it’s actually the water that goes into the plant, not the water that comes out of the plant. Fun story though, huh? You might also note that my man is rockin the speedo. Oh yeah!! In the second shot Scott is behind the big blond head. He has graduated into tri shorts which are meant to be worn for all three legs of the race. You’ll have to check them out in the next two pictures cuz you can’t see them here. Thanks blondie.

In Sacramento I was able to get up close and take a picture of Scott dismounting so you can see what a kick butt mountain bike he has and how cool he looks getting off of it. In Pleasanton I wasn’t able to get that close so you’ll have to bear with a faraway action shot. That’s Scott on his new road bike (which I regret not being able to capture) wearing the blue bike shirt which is a step up from the white t-shirt he wore in Sac.

Now, I don’t know if you can tell but soccer shorts wearing Scott is worn out at the end of the Sac triathlon. He hardly prepared for this race but he still managed to finish in in the middle of the pack. Incredible. Doesn’t it just make you mad? If I had tried that I would have drowned. I wouldn’t have even made it to the bike. But anyways, Scott did quite a bit of training for the second race and bettered his time by an hour! You can tell by the sexy little swagger with the shirt ripping open from the hottness.

So the bike upgrade helped a ton. The upgraded shorts were a big plus. The next step is the sleeveless shirt like the guy in the black in front of him. Then the super transformation will be complete. Bwah, wah, hah, hah.

That’s me with my new bike! Can you believe it? Spandex pants and all.

So there’s no way you guys would know this unless you spoke to Scott or myself in person, but Scott ran a Sprint Triathlon a couple of months ago. I say there’s no way you would know because Scott was supposed to post here and never did. He’s running another one this Saturday so maybe we’ll hear from him then, hint, hint. Anyway, when he did the first one it made me want to do one so I’ve been “training” for the past month. I’ve just been running around our neighborhood but I’ve gotten up to 3 miles on my good days so I’m pretty happy with my progress.

So then there’s the ride. I have a sweet cruiser but I didn’t want to be one of those people who ride the race on a cruiser. I don’t have any statements to make so I like to blend in with everyone else. After going to quite a few bike shops and being fitted to many different size men’s bikes I finally found this one. It’s an entry level women’s bike so it doesn’t have any fancy components but it’s a good sturdy bike and I love it. Notice I don’t have clip-in pedals. In fact, I ride the bike in my Vans. No fancy stuff for me. I am actually afraid of the clip-in pedals. I’m not that coordinated on the bike and every time I get off of it I almost fall over so the added stress of getting my feet out of the clips is too much for me right now. That is a goal of mine though someday way in the future.

Now to the swimming. I haven’t touched a pool. I’m so afraid to find out how out of shape I am that I haven’t even tried yet. Chicken, I know.  I was on the swim team in high school so at one point my body did know all the strokes but a lot has happened since then. A 7 year old, a 5 year old and a 3 year old to be specific. Plus I’ve always had this fear of drowning. Not as bad as my fear of burning to the point of death and then still living but still a great fear. The two triathlons that Scott has done or is doing have been in open water which is freaky to me. Not being able to touch the bottom is enough to give me goose bumps. There are some triathlons that are swam in pools so maybe I’ll just have to start with one of those. I would like to conquer my fear though and do an open water one at some point. Heck, maybe I’ll get in the pool and find I can do the whole 1/2 mile without blinking. I doubt it but anything is possible, right?

So my friend Victoria came over to cut the boys’ hair today and for sure Max’s hair was the biggie. He’s been asking to go short but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it until today. Truth be told I really want to listen to my kids and let them wear what they want and have their hair the way they want it to be. Sometimes that’s hard though. We all have ideals of what we want our kids to look like. Some people are preppy, some people want their kids to look like princes and princesses, I just happen to subscribe to the surfer/skate look myself. Now I feel like Max looks like everyone else’s kid and not mine. I’ll get over that though. I always do when I let them make their own decisions. The good news is, I still love him.

Speaking of decisions, Tru and Oli only got trims today so we don’t have any before and after shots of them. When Oli jumped in the chiar he told Victoria he wanted all of his hair gone. After having a mild heart attack I asked him if he meant like Daddy (who has a buzz) and he said, “No, I want all of my hair gone.” I took that as proof that he is totally insane and went for my own plan of a trim. Oli doesn’t get as much of a say as the other two do.

Tru is the one that is driving me insane though. We tried to grow his hair out. I thought it would look great shoulder length but his hair grows at a snails pace. We barely got it down to his ears when we gave up. A couple of weeks ago after asking and asking for his hair to be cut like Scott’s we came up with a compromise. We cut his hair like a really long mohawk. This pleased everyone involved. The only problem was he kept asking me to put it up like a mohawk; I don’t like the way his mohawks look when the hair is as long as it was. So today when Victoria came she cut his hair up top so we could put it into a mohawk. Then I catch him playing the Wii pushing his hair down. I call him on it and he says, “I don’t want a mohawk anymore.” It’s been like 20 minutes!!!! The good thing is that even if he wont let me put his hair up again I still like the way it looks when it’s down and I got a picture of it up.

Thanks Victoria!!

So we’re driving in the car the other day and Max see’s something on the window of the sunroof and asks what it is. We tell him it’s poo and ask him if he knows where it came from. Here’s how the conversation went:

Scott: “What kind animal did that poo come from?”

Max, in all seriousness: “An Alien.”

Scott: “I’m not sure an alien would come all the way from outer space to poo on our car.”

Max: “Oh.”

Scott: “What lives in the trees?”

Max, very excited: “Ooh, Monkeys!”

Scott: “How many monkeys have you seen in our trees? What else lives in trees?”

Max, after some thought and in a defeated voice: “Birds.”

To which we all congratulated ourselves for solving the mystery.

btw Thanks Scott for finding me the alien monkey.

This was such a cute photo I couldn’t help but share it.  These are some of the kids in our walking group that we have in the morning.  This morning Truman decided to stick his head through the gate dividing our complex from the park and got it stuck.  I couldn’t get it out.  I tried and tried and finally Cynthia suggested I call the fire department.  As I was on the phone and a fire truck was being dispatched Laura L. came over and with superhuman strength pulled the bars apart and got Tru’s head out.  What a relief.  After reassuring the dispatch lady that I didn’t need an ambulance to check him out for injuries I hung up the phone.  He’s still pretty shaken about it but he is just fine.  I am really glad Laura got him out of there before the fire department was actually dispatched.  I asked Tru why he put put his head through the bars and he said he was trying to show Oli something.  What that something was I can’t figure out but I don’t think he’ll be doing that any time soon.  At least I hope he wont.  At least I know who to call now if he does.  That’s right, it’s you Laura.

I had the greatest time talking with my kids at bedtime last night.  Truman asked if jet packs were real since he plays Boba and Jango Fett on Lego Star Wars.  Well thank goodness I watch Mythbusters because I was able to tell him that they were in fact real, but not practical to use.  I then went on YouTube and found some jet packs for him to check out.  You see, the problem is that you can’t carry enough fuel to get very far.  You carry more fuel and then the pack is too heavy to lift off the ground.  Quite the problem.  So the jet packs that I have seen only stay in the air for like 30 seconds.  Not really long enough to get you to work.  It could get me to the park, but then I couldn’t get back.  Oh what would I do then?  I’m attaching one of the videos that Truman and I found.