Little Jack Horner

My kindergarten son got the opportunity to recite a poem of his choosing from the list of "Mother Goose" poems. I guess the traditional mom would have made sure that he knew his poem and practiced several times with him. In our case, being non-traditional, we had to include a costume and props. For those of you that don't know the little rhyme:

Little Jack Horner sat in the corner
Eating his Christmas pie,
He put in his thumb and pulled out a plum
And said "What a good boy am I!"

Dylan was amazing. He had to recite the poem in front of the entire class. Remember, he only has 1/3 of his brain so sometimes memorization is rather difficult. His version included sticking his thumb into the plum but he got the point across. I'm such a proud mom!!!

SWIM - BIKE - RUN

Here's a little bit of what this non-traditional woman did this last summer. I recently lost a considerable amount of weight and chose to take the next step... a triathlon. It's definitely something everyone should do and enjoy. I chose to take part in a sprint race, which is 800 meter swim, 12 mile bike and a 5K run. The adrenaline rush that you get right before the start of a race is overwhelming. The swim, most intimidating, was definitely a lot different than I expected. I trained in a pool and not in open water. Next, getting the wetsuit off, shoes on and then try to make your legs work to ride a bike. Hmmm.... traditionally, racers have their wetsuit off before they even reach their bike... not in my case as I'm not doing anything according to tradition. My transition time, well, just needs a lot of work. Next, make it through the 12 miles on the bike, not so bad but it's not over... time to run! I don't like to run, in fact... I'd rather give birth to triplets, breach! I simply do a run/walk combination and just keep going. The biggest thrill... crossing the finish line with several friends and family there to say "good job".

Cece's "F" day!

Cece, my 3 year-old, is attending BSU's Preschool. It's an amazing program that I feel so blessed to get to be a part of. They spend a week on each letter of the alphabet and also a main color. This week was "F" week so we chose to make and take football ginger cookies. She really wanted them to have the Bronco logo on them but I thought that would definitely throw me into another category beyond "non-traditional" but more like over-the-top crazy.

Snack Pack!

For my son, in kindergarten, snacks are now a controversy. We can't provide anything with any kind of a nut, which rules out peanut butter. We can't allow fruit snacks because apparently some children are sensitive to smells and we can't have any "sweets". I'm thinking we are now down to just broccoli, carrots or apple slices. Well, being the "non-traditional" mom, I chose to be as creative as possible with our limited options. This is an "apple" that actually has apple slices and a small container of caramel dip inside.

The instructions are easy: simply insert a snack-sized baggie of apple slices into a balloon with a individual caramel dip. Blow up the balloon. Wrap the balloon in Red String. Paint it with a solution of glue/water. Allow it to dry. Pop the balloon which will then shrivel, pull it out. You are then left with an apple shaped item that encloses apple slices and caramel dip. Add a leaf and it's perfect!

The teacher's loved this so much that they didn't even allow the kid's to eat their snack. They sent it home for the parents to enjoy too. That's "non-traditional"!

Next break.... Thanksgiving!

Dictionary.com defines nontraditional as "not conforming to or in accord with tradition". Returning to school, after graduating from high school just 24 years ago, has been more of a challenge than I ever could have imagined. Not only have I been labeled a "nontraditional student" but also am treated so much differently. For example, I was the only student in my Comm class to be named "someone with children" because I look much "more experienced" than anyone else in the class. I didn't get any recruiting fliers for any of the sororities during rush week. I always get the door held open for me at the library but was not given any special treatment when it came to standing in line for Bronco tickets because of my age, that's for sure.

I heard one of the "traditional students", meaning the 18 year-old that just left their parents house for the first time and is starting to miss mom's great cooking, complaining about not having any free time because they have a lot of studying to do in two of their four classes. I almost spit water out of my nose. She also mentioned how she had no time to keep her nails done and that was really depressing. Wow, really?

I've gone to the non-traditional side when it comes to studying. For anatomy, which I'm beginning to understand why it's considered the "hardest class on campus", I've written all of the body parts on my 3 year old and washed them off during bath time... she now knows that the popliteal is the back of the knee. When I cook dinner, I put everything into a linear equation and just add x=??? to every recipe. My dashboard of my car used to have quotations heard from Pastors or friends to keep me motivated and humble during the day.... now there's only flashcards made with things that need to be memorized for the week.

I took my pre-college life for granted. I wonder what it would be like to have all of the laundry done at the same time, how it would feel to sit down and actually eat breakfast, get to volunteer at my son's school, sit down at the computer to update facebook rather than see what's happening on blackboard, or just breathe. I guess I'll find out in December, but for now I truly am "enjoying the journey".

SkyDiving Fun!

Redefining non-traditional has actually taken a whole new turn. It's not just deciding to do things differently than the average 42 year-old but to do it with flair and fun. This last weekend, in hopes of making my "bucket list" a little shorter, I went skydiving.

When I woke up on Saturday, I couldn't believe what I was actually getting ready to do, JUMP out of a plane. What was I thinking? I've got two babies at home that may not like the idea of becoming orphans and why would anyone jump from a perfectly good plane? I called my very good friends and after several minutes of begging, I could see that I wasn't going to be able to talk them out of jumping... oh well, might as well eat. We got together for our "last supper". I could see the theme of the bbq was saying our last goodbyes. There were several comments made about what we should eat for our last meal, what we should wear as our last outfit, and what would be our last thoughts before we plummeted to the ground. Noone mentioned that we were actually going to pay someone to do this.

It was time! We all piled into cars and made the very short trip to Star. We all agreed that the reason the site is so desolate is if any accident does happen, they can just bury the body and noone would be the wiser. The weather was beautiful and everything was perfect. We watched a 10 minute video about how important it was to sign all of the boxes on the release form promising not to sue or punish the company in any way in case of death... hmmm! Then we gave up our $165 and said, "wow, can't wait"!

I next met my instructor who let me know that this was only his 4th jump and he wasn't sure how to land yet but thought we could figure it out. Apparently he had made the person that packed our chute angry the day before and he hoped it wouldn't be a revenge today. He made several similar comments as he was tightening my harness and "trying" to remember everything.

Chase, my friends 18 year old, and I were going to jump first. I waved goodbye to the kids and said "I'll be right back"... a famous line from the movie "Castaway". Next we got into the plane, if you can call it that. The inside was about the size of my desk so all personal space boundaries become obsolete. Let's just say we got rather cozy. Then we started the climb. My instructor was very witty with his version of the song "because we got high"... I was just trying to keep from puking. He would tell me "1", then "2" then "3" for how many 1000 feet we were climbing,...we had to get to 10. The door opens, Chase and his instructor went first. I don't really remember too much about that. The next thing I thought "I hope I'm actually attached to this guy and he has no desire to commit any kind of suicide". I looked out of the plane and we did it, fell right out! Screaming at that point was a major understatement! The fall was amazing and short... then a quick jerk and everything stood still. It was beautiful. I could see all of the surrounding lakes, the hills, the farms... words can't describe God's beauty and how peaceful! My instructor gave me the chance to "drive" the chute, which was fun. We did a few twist and twirls and then he told me to "take a seat" and we were down.

One more quick "woohoo" and wow, thrill city! The entire experience was everything I wanted it to be, and more! Even though I don't see myself ever doing it again, the adrenaline rush was definitely worth it and highly recommended.