Life before 2008 18 Feb 2006 10:04 am
Interval Training
My friend Sandy shared an experience that she had with her children earlier this week during tea time. “Tea Time” is a set aside part of each of our weeks with our kids to sit and read poetry, nibble on special cookies, and set the table. It is sucessful by varying degrees. For instance, I learned that my little pyromaniac children can’t handle having candles on the table or the whole thing’s a bust. Something about the temptation of having wooden match sticks and the responding high flame detracts from the rhyme and meter of the poem…
Still, each week, we keep on. With toddlers around there are many interuptions. Getting frustrated can be easy. It never looks like the sweet and rosy imagined expectation a mother could set herself up for: spilled tea, kicking siblings under the table, ringing phones. But if one leaves that behind there is something else to discover.
The Last Duchess, read by Sandy in bold, comments in italic:
That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall
Sit down in your chair P before you fall
Looking as if she were alive. I call
No he can’t call her if she’s dead. Let’s just listen and see what he means
That piece a wonder, now: Fra’ Pandolf’s hands
(giggles over Fra’ Pandolf)
Worked busily a day, and there she stands
I’ll pour you another bowl of cereal in just a minute
Willl’t please you sit and look at her? I said
“Fra’ Pandolf” by design, for never read
Yes, honey, they do talk funny
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance
Ds - I don’t know what he’s saying but I think this one has got some rhyme in it
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)
P, put all four legs of the chair on the floor
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Hey, there’s another rhyme!
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, ’twas not
Her husband’s presence only, called that spot
Me-do you notice that each line stands on its own but also carries over to the next line? Oldest - huh?
Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek: perhaps
Fra’ Pandolf chanced to say “her mantle laps
over my lady’s wrist too much,” or “Paint
P, sit down before you fall!
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat”:such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
Hey, I think I get that one line to another that you were talking about now.
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart-how shall I say?-too soon made glad,
Middle ds - Mom, are we going to play the piano next? Me- yes, honey, as soon as momma finishes reading this poem. Ds - I like my poems better.
And so it goes. I read this on a day when I’d begun running again. I’m struggling with insomnia and going to bed earlier was no help at all. I’d decided to try more excersize; I do a basic yoga routine daily but some cardio probably wouldn’t hurt. We had this gorgeous high spring day and one of my kiddos was out with dad for the day. I packed up the rest of them and we headed for the Greenbelt. It looked like this:
Set up the stroller, tie little laces on the roller blades, ask the daughter for the 10th time if she’s sure she doesn’t want her skates; we are going a long way.
“No Mom. I just want my basketball”.
Stretch. Buckle baby, cover his legs with a blanket, wipe his nose. Walk 50 feet.
“Mom” said he… “my skate is toooo tight”
Squat athletically, loosen skate. Kiss forehead. Walk 50 more feet.
Speed up. Almost jog. Make it about 100 feet.
“MOM! My basketball fell into the creek and is floating away!”
Okay….instruct dd to run down to the bridge and see if she can cross. Do standing leg lifts while waiting. When she comes back to say it’s fenced off, console her tears at loosing the ball her daddy said not to be careless with. Set off on a good walking pace.
Make it to the bridge and start to run. Look behind and see daughter dear lagging behind.
And so forms a pattern: run 100 feet, jump in place for a minute or two while she catches up, warn W not to go too fast on his roller blades and scare the other walkers, run 100 more feet and start the process over.
Down to the cemetary and talk to all the dogs. Notice the waterfalls and stop to sniff the first daffodill in bloom. Roll daughter dear’s sleeves and wait for the little boy to water a tree. Run 100 more feet.
Finish it all with standing pushups on the playground while they swing and play and get mulch on thier socks.
When I am done I am sweaty and have had a hard work out. Mission Accomplished.
The baby slept the whole way.
Running, like poetry, assumes you will maintain a certain pace. For real endurance though, interval training is recommended. It builds strength and the ultimate ability to go longer. When I set out to do that intentionally the frustration level is greatly diminshed. And there’s that confrontation with expecation again. Life with little kids around means intervals. It means stopping along the way to answer questions, smell flowers, meet thier needs. We will stop. Start. Go slow, push hard. It doesn’t mean the process is futile just because it doesn’t look like we imagine it should. As Michael Card would say: there is Joy in the Journey. I might not have a cute little ipod with favorite tunes and a footprint that matches the beat, ponytail bouncing behind me. I can’t clock my mile. My kids though, beg for the park like they beg for the special cookies and book of poems. Something greater is at work. Sucess is being measured by a different stick.
