Running

I started running a few weeks ago, right around the time we hooked up with Noah.  One mile one day, two miles the next.  Nothing noteworthy.  I don’t particularly enjoy it.  In fact, I could make a quick list of at least ten things I don’t really like about running.  It’d be a lot easier to eat a cupcake, order a pizza, drink a beer.  But I don’t want to take my healthy body for granted.  I wish, so much, she’d had more time in hers.

When I run I’m reminded not to think so much about the size of my thighs or the centimeters around my middle, but about the fact that I can.  Running makes me feel strong.
I’m well aware, though, of strength not just measured in muscles.

He did it.  Pleasure Bay, Boston

We're all riding the same spinning planet, running from one thing to the next, we run and run and things run together.  Noah's run stands out.  He ran for children who can't stand up, for children he never met.  What Noah has done for the Batten community is extraordinary.  He carried her curls across the country and cultivated awareness from coast to coast.

 Instagram images of Noah on Broad Street, downtown Columbus in October, with Grandma Jan

One of our favorite news segments covering Noah's cross country crusade
Noah made a Facebook video on Saturday, acknowledging every footfall for our firstborn
Noah's website Run Coast 2 Coast ought to soon be updated with documentary of the finale
Sea to Shining Sea, our post about Noah's 2011 Run

course correct

It could have been the boys, in their meandering, that made us late.  We were not as organized as we should have been, and the morning got off to an ugly start.  Everyone in the four piece band of our family wielded an instrument of attitude and our quartet's jingle sounded a little out of tune.  We needed to say sorry, to go back to sleep, to start over.  We were already a couple hours down the wrong path, past breakfast and beyond school drop off, before Andy called a do-over.

It's not always easy to take the day by the reigns, and it never feels entirely possible to regain power, but it doesn't hurt to try to guide things where you want to go.  We slowed our pace and changed our tune, sipped coffee and read books, back-tracked and pressed the reset button.  It could have been the boys, in their meandering, that made us late, but not too late to choose a better course.

field and forest

This season I seem to see her in the trees, ruddy swatches against blue sky, there one day and not the next.  I imagine her drifting through the branches back down into my arms.

I got work in Cincinnati last week.  We had planned to head to Hocking Hills, but since Andy already had the time off, it was easy for him to be home with the boys while I was gone.  Although we co-parent four days a week and pass the household baton back and forth on a pretty regular basis, it's always nice to switch routines for a bit.

I worked with people I don’t ever expect to see again -- an obstetrician and an infant, a wardrobe stylist and the craft service girl.  Conversation turned inevitably toward children and my answers were a little different with each new query. When I'm with people I imagine will be part of my life for awhile, I don’t hesitate to talk about Celia, but last week I stumbled over what should be simple answers to straight-forward questions.  How many children do you have?  Is your oldest a boy or a girl?

We made it to Hocking Hills just in time to crawl in bed.  We woke to a sunrise that stretched open its arms, an invitation to explore the rambling woods, to throw sticks and climb rocks, solid reminders that nature builds the best playgrounds.  I felt anchored in moments that hadn't yet extended into the future.  And also vaguely aware of the past, her presence like a floater in my field of vision.

Disclaimer:  Pictures can create the illusion of an airbrushed reality.  What you can't see is that none of us got enough sleep, and all of us got colds.  Tolliver was not confident walking in boots on uneven terrain and Tucker was too comfortable close to the edge of cliffs.  I had to sacrifice most of my morning coffee to create a carrier for a slew of salamanders, and the back of the Jeep is full of ladybugs and at least eleven layers of leaves and dirt.  Yet we're actually all four looking forward to going back soon.  

small world, big hearts

In order to make a change, all we have to do is imagine that things could be different.

It feels impossible to appropriately thank everyone.  All the people who, for the fifth year, organized the event.  All the people who travelled - from northern Ohio, from West Virginia, from Gallipolis, from Pennsylvania.  All the people who walked and ran and strolled and rolled, all the friends who talked and cried and cheered and battled with us yesterday.  Together we celebrated the things we learned from Celia and supported the science that will make life different for other families.

A rare disease is only rare until you know someone who has it.  Nurses do good work outside the hospital room, donations link to a baby shower two states away, shy colleagues make introductions and connections, raffle items come all the way from Iowa, neighbors bring the whole 'hood.  People not only imagine but believe that things will be different.  And the world seems so small when hearts are that big.

photo credit, again, to Mary Wendel, Karen Raver and more Instagrammers

more pictures, mostly cousins

Last year, CW12

Specific information re participation total and funds raised has not yet been released by Premier Sports

BB5K&CW (in pictures)

I'm hoping this can be part one, and that maybe tomorrow I can find some words.

 

photo credit to Karen Raver, Mike Wendel and several Instagrammers

Pass the hat

Hats off to parents who are able to convince their children to don all the right parts of a costume.

Also.  Hats off to parents who are able to convince their children that one piece of candy is enough.

Halloween 2013: 
Tuck was an explorer and collected candy in his net.  
Tollie was a cowboy and said "yee-haw" instead of "trick-or-treat."

architect

He wakes up along the fading fringe of a dream, trying ardently to tell the tales he sees behind his eyelids.
He wakes up ordering new words for breakfast.
He builds stories like sand castles, shaping granules into grandeur.  It’s an inventiveness I hope will never be washed away but will get bigger with the tide of his burgeoning body of language.

He runs screaming, pretending to be scared, away from a small wooden chair.
Fock...kiss.  Fock-iss.  Fox.  
Fox.  Chair.  Eat!  Me!  
Here Fox,  Ball.  Play!
(fox, by the way, is currently my favorite word of his. He has to work so hard to say it.)

He understands concepts I’m certain I under-define, and architects new terms with accuracy.
He spends time scooping, spooning, shoveling, packing his brain like a pail, upending buckets and unveiling ideas for the world to see.
Determined and delightful, he owns the stories that he tells and the space that he occupies.

He also harbors a ghostly flicker of our girl.  Whether you're able to walk with us or not, please join us in remembrance of her on Sunday.