The Dry Run

My boys wanted to flip their grilled cheese sandwiches last night. I let them, too. They were grilled to perfection! Crispy golden on the outside and the cheese thoroughly melted and trying to escape only minimally. I sliced one on the diagonal and one straight away using the spatula. I remember being asked to consider ways to cut a child's grilled cheese once while babysitting for a wealthy family out on the boulevard in Rye, NH. To me it made sense to cut it in fourths and the shapes would be either square or triangular and the mother of that child thought it best that I offer the child the choice of which shape she'd like. So I thought of this last night while slicing the sandwiches and I laughed a little bit because i recalled conversation with that mom years ago and I wanted to be a smart ass so bad and say "as long as your daughter doesn't want circles, I'm cool". I was tempted to cut Levi's into circles but I am trying to encourage him to eat the crusts. There just comes a time in every child's life when they must start eating crusts! I suppose there is an endless list of things that children must learn to do and not all result necessarily in increased independence; this list of things they must learn are just behaviors we consider to be normal and acceptable. There comes a time when they must learn to tie their shoes and going to sleep without milk and ditching the sippy cup and quit running through the parking lot and no screaming at the toy store and no eating boogers and no pressing all the buttons in the elevator or dumping out the entire contents of board games on the floor and carrying the guinea pig not by the head and keeping your tips together while skiing and solving disputes with your brother without punching and saying excuse me after a variety of noises escape the body and no rummaging through mommy's stuff and quit referring to girls as crummy.
The boys both touched the side of pan for a nano second, nothing major. But I mean it's awkward to flip, in Levi's case, your first sandwich! I kinda remember doing it or at least it's not difficult for me to imagine how tricky it feels until you grow accustomed to the 'it's all in the wrist' motion. The little bit of stress when it's just about to flip, the singular sweeping motion and the sandwich is in flight and it looks like a tracer and it's not floating in slo mo. It's fast! And you almost have to close your eyes, like in a sneeze, and hope that it will work out in the end, that when your eyes open it will be flat in the pan and not up the side a bit or goddess forbid on one of yours shoes down below, or adjacent.
It hurts to touch the pan. It doesn't feel good. Not like how getting a little jolt of electricity feels good. You know that first surge of power followed by the ticking vibration and then the numbness and then, well, feeling ill. There is just all pain with the burn, plus it worsens exactly at the same rate as you realize what just happened. Poor guys. The only thing good that can come out of this, at least for Levi, is knowing what mom means now when she's says "be careful. it's hot." He got schooled in "it's hot" last night and will never forget.
For Elijah, his experience is a little different. His desire is to avoid the burn by perfecting the motion. To aid in this process, I will make him a pb & j and let him flip it in a cool pan until he builds his confidence. Because you really only have once chance to get the fated grilled cheese flip right. The dry run. He recognizes the benefits of practice! Being willing to practice is a wonderful attribute in a child who is growing and gaining knowledge and loving learning.
Yes, it's true. I have an achilles injury. I'm scared to even think about it really. BUt if you've gotten this far in my blog, then maybe you'll keep reading for the hell of it. Oh, today is day three without a run.
I added a lot of mileage last week after the half marathon, covered almost 60 miles throughout the week. I'm getting ready for my 10 days/One hundred miles challenge that I created in my head for myself. This challenge is part of the training I need for ultra marathon running. I figure if I can do that much damage to my muscles in those 10 days and continue to walk and feel good and reach a new level of fitness, then I can run an ultra. Plus it would be fantastic to run the Shamrock Marathon in March and have it be almost easy.
But the achilles.... I deserve the time off from running, this is what I tell myself. And I am learning to take cues from my body and make smart choices so that, in the long run, I am actively doing what I love the most and that is being in the run. If I weren't injured, I wouldn't be taking the time off like I wanted to after the half marathon was over. So here I am.
RICE, same old same old. Rest. Ice. Compression. Elevation. only except there are two I s. Ibuprophen is the other and I have it in the gel and the tablet. This time I know with confidence that I am not losing fitness and this is because I've done this before.
Just like Elijah and Levi with their sandwich flipping skills, I too have practice in negotiating an injury.
I'm not going to be too sad. I'll be back at it soon. I'll also be skiing soon, too, and this just makes my heart sing.
Love to you,
Sarah