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I give up.  I can’t fight it any more.

I’m accepting the fact that no matter how hard I try, I can never be cool, calm, and collected.  I must embrace the spaz in me.

Usually I disrupt the peace with inappropriate comments or impromptu bodily expulsions.  But today, I’ve crossed into the area of hysterical mommy emotional outbursts.

You see, Varmint and Critter performed in the Monocacy Elementary School variety show today.  This is Varmint’s last year in elementary school…her last cute-as-hell variety show there, too.  She was in two numbers.  One was dancing with a friend, and the other was a solo song.

It was the song that got me.

She had told me she was singing to something from Miley Cyrus.  Ok.  Whoop-dee-doo.  I can handle Miley Cyrus in small batches. No problem-o.

Boy was I wrong.

She sang a heart wrenching song about butterflies flying away.  My fifth-grader-about-to-graduate-into-middle-school was singing a song about changing and leaving…a bittersweet song about caterpillars turning into butterflies and flying away.

And the floodgates opened.

And the tears gushed forth in unstoppable waves.

My Captain, who had been enjoying the charming elementary performances, was not prepared to have his wife burst into what appeared to be an accurate impression of an Italian grandmother at a funeral.  He put his arm around me and held me awkwardly.

I had not expected this.  He had not expected this.  Neither one of us had tissues.

Varmint sang like a nightingale throughout, ripping my heart into shreds.

Didn’t she know she was singing my worst fear?  That she was blossoming into a butterfly and was on the verge of flying away?

No!  No!  Don’t leave, little butterfly!  No! No!

This is a good thing, My captain reassured me.  You want her to grow independent.  She has to.  You would not want to hold her back.

The hell I wouldn’t!   It’s a big bad world out there!   I have to protect her!

It’s natural for her to grow away and mature.  You’ve done a good job.  Now stand back and trust her.

Are you crazy?  I haven’t poured all my blood, sweat, and tears into the child just so she could leave me!

Yes you did.  That is exactly why you did.  So she would be able to leave when the time comes.

Oh that’s a low blow.  Using my own guilt techniques against me.  That’s just totally low.

If anyone needs me, I’ll be in the fetal position in the corner, singing ‘Butterfly Fly Away’ over and over and over……

So like I said, I got Cortisone shots in both of my knees and was reborn.  A new woman.  I felt like I could dance a jig. (Note: When a 230 pound woman says she feels like she could dance a jig, back away slowly.)

The doc told me the shots could work a long time, or a short time…only time would tell.  Well, hell, I thought, with answers like that, he could be a meteorologist.

But I was feeling frisky tonight during Varmint’s softball practice.  So much so, in fact, that when the team needed runners while they practiced their fielding, I got in line. (Usually it’s the younger siblings that get that honor, but there were other parents getting in on it tonight, and I was not about to be left out.)

Know this:  I wear crocs all the time.  And tonight was no exception.

So there I am, on Home Plate, waiting for my chance.  Crack goes the ball, off I go lumbering down the line in my super spiffy crocs and my re-born cortisone osteo-arthritic knees.  And baby, I made it!  SAFE!

I would like to be able to say that I was graceful in my 1st base success.  I would like to say that I was the perfect role model for good sportsmanship.  I would like to say I’m a size 6, but none of these things would be remotely true.

I hooted and hollered and taunted: “I’m crippled AND wearing crocs and my old butt is SAFE on 1st!  What do you think of THEM apples, Ladies?!”  And I danced that dangerous 230 pound jig.

They nailed me on 2nd.

But I didn’t care.  I had made it to 1st, dagnabbit!

I’m limping again.  My knees are burning again.  My daughter is probably wishing she had just about anyone else for a mother, again.

But man! It was worth it!

I know, I know, I’m a BONEHEAD.  It’s Pathetic.  Absolutely pathetic.  Clearly I have issues.

Varmint and her friend, Amber, decided to run in the Frederick 5K last weekend.  Evidentely, she’s been bitten by the running bug.

It all started when I asked her if she would accompany me on a St. Patrick’s Day 5K put on by our town’s Biggest Loser Gail Lee.  Varmint came along to make sure I didn’t call a taxicab halfway through.

I barely got through the 5K, but she got hooked.

She ran another 5K with My Captain (The Run Amuck).

And then last weekend she ran another 5K with sweet Amber (The Frederick Runfest).

Amber and Varmint have known each other since 2nd grade.  They have been in many sports together …most currently they are on the same softball team.  Varmint is a pitcher, and Amber is a catcher.  Both of them are naturally athletic, and so it is only fitting that they do these things in tandem.

Varmint shared with me that Amber’s mom is doing a half-marathon this spring.  Then she looked expectantly at me.

“What??” I said.

She blinked innocently and gazed imploringly.

“What??…..Oh…. HELL no.”

I’m lucky to make it to the table for dinner with these knees.  There is no way on God’s green earth I’m going to do a half-marathon.  Or a quarter marathon.  Or an eighth marathon.

A seamstress, a gardener, a cook, a medic, and a mother I may be, a runner I most emphatically am not.   (And let’s be honest, I only did (read: walked) The St. Patty’s day 5K because I was hoping there was green beer at the end of it.)

Sheesh.

I have SEEN THE LIGHT!!!

My knees have ached horribly since I was a toddler, I think.  I can’t remember when they DIDN’T hurt.  But lately, they have gotten so bad that I have been limping and dreading going up and down stairs, and frankly, feeling about 100 years old.    I finally went into my family Doc, Dr. Amar Duggirala (AMAZING doc…go to him if you if you need a doctor!), and asked him to point me to the nearest ortho-quack.

He knows I have a low tolerance for arrogant surgeons.  Maybe he knows this because his highly developed medical intuition has taught him how to read a patient’s needs.

Or maybe it is because I flat out said, “Don’t send me to a dick.”

It’s ok, he’s used to my frankness.

So he sent me to see Dr. Raffo today.   I wasn’t sure what to expect.  I’ve seen surgeons with good bedside manners, and surgeons with brusque bedside manners, and surgeons who are, in essence, dicks.

Oh, by the way, if you haven’t seen the movie “The Doctor” with William Hurt, drop everything, and go rent it.  Thank you.

So I went to Dr. Raffo.  He walked in, a handsome, clean-cut strongly built man, about my age, who sported a genuine smile, met my eyes, and extended his hand for a real shake (not a dismissive one.)

He checked out my knees, did the X-ray thing, established I have the body of a 90-year-old, gave me two shots of Cortisone and sent me on my way.

But before he did, I told him: “You know what, I like you.  Dr. Duggirala sent me to you because you aren’t a dick.”

He paused.  I let it register.  Then he laughed.

“No one has ever said that to my face before.”

Well, the injections worked for now.  I’m happily able to jog down the basement steps to do the laundry, and I’m nicer to my family because I’m not in agony.

So life is good.

Although, I’m not sure Dr. Raffo will ever forgive Dr. Duggirala for siccing me on him.

My Captain has been working a boat-load of overtime lately in an effort to meet our many bills.  He and I agree it is nobler and wiser to live ahead of the Visa bills than behind them, so we do our best to stay in the black.

That means, though, that he works a lot of extra hours.  For example, in the past 72 hours, he has worked all but 12 of them.

That is brutal.

I am so grateful to him and proud of him.

It’s a double-edged sword, though.  We miss him like the Dickens.

So we decided to take matters into our own hands and take lunch to him today.  To spend time with him. To thank him for working so hard so that mama can stay home with the kids.  And to remind him why he works so hard!

I packed him only the most delicious lunch EVER….Peppered roast beef, onions, swiss cheese, Dijon mustard, cream cheese with chives, and sharp new york cheddar on whole grain bread, added a fresh pear/strawberry/navel orange salad for the side, and finished it off with Black Cherry Greek Yogurt and Granola for desert.

Some people show their love with words.  Some with deeds.  Me, I show it with food.

But you may have already surmised that about me.

ANYWAY, Critter had brought along some of his ‘Can You Find’ books….he and My Captain enjoy solving these together.

They’ve done lots of these kinds of books together over the years.

(I think they are on to the fact that I’m taking pictures of them.)

This new seek and find book was a tough one, though, and we had some of the guys on the shift at station 23 come in to help.  There is nothing more touching than a bunch of grizzled, manly-man firefighters huddled around a 9 year old’s seek-and-find book to try to help him out.

LOVE THESE GUYS.

These are the same guys who would risk their lives in a blazing inferno to save a complete and total stranger.

To them it’s all the same:

Helping.