22k(ilograms) for 22q - a Challenge I am Struggling With

Running. I have a long and complicated, even stormy relationship with running. I often joke that if you ever see me running, don't ask questions, just you start running too because something horrible is chasing me.

I loathe it. I think that may even be a kind way to put it. Just reading about my wonderful friends joyously 5k running or mapping their energy boosting jogs makes me throw up in my mouth a little. Not because they love it, but because the idea of running for fun make me feel ill and like punching someone all at the same time.

I love walking. I love swimming (in clean water free of man eating giant prehistoric shark turtles). I love cooking, dancing, swinging in the trees, soccer, even riding a bike now and then. But running elicits the fevered terror of gym class, reminds me of being the last one to walk around the track, being yelled at because the class won't meet its goal if I don't MOVE faster, and walking in the hot sun anyway. Forgetting how many laps I had already made and being forced to go one more time. It reminds me of humiliation of the locker rooms, shower checks, being locked in my locker as a joke. It brings back being mocked for not being physically able to meet the goals of gym class. I was healthy enough, but I was physically small. I am a midget, a dwarf. My legs are shorter. I have less muscle mass. I also did not enjoy the aggressive competition.

I remember doing really well at badminton, something I played at home for fun. I made it to the final round, against the class athletic star. The longer our game went, the angrier she got. She grunted something about not letting this girl beat her. She said it with such ferocity that I immediately let my game go to crap. I stopped playing. If I beat her, she would later beat the crap out of me. That is the scenario that comes into my head when I think of exercising or athletic work of any kind.

So how do I stay fit? I dance while cleaning. I walk with my kids. I farm. I do any number of things that also completes a needed productive task. Hauling buckets, carrying produce and freezer inventory, moving laundry baskets are all things I do near daily with ease. Sure sometimes I also run, chasing pigs back to the pen or out of the way and over the fence when Blizzard the ram gets to remembering that he hates me. I can move fast under those circumstances. I have to.

Still, as a child I loved sports. I actually competed in a regional free throw competition and won at age 9.  I never played on a team though. Now I use my near magical shot to slam dunk dirty diapers into the laundry pail or toss apples from a tree into a bucket. Useful. I have athletic ability and I am capable.

My sister was the team sports player, but even then, she fought to play baseball instead of softball and lost when we moved to Iowa. The unfairness of that hurt me too. The gender bias in sports is still something that makes me bitter and hold me back from enjoying recreational sports watching.

So why am I sharing this?

Because I am going to run.

Because my son has 22q deletion syndrome.

Because this is bigger than even that. I need to stop running from all the awful I associate with everything and recover from everything I have been through.

My friend and fellow 22q mom Samantha Block has posted a challenge:

Some of you may have heard of the International 22q Foundation's 22k for 22q event.  The idea is that you run, walk, bike, or swim 22 kilometres to spread awareness and fundraise for 22q.  It's a great idea!  Sign up for a couple local races, or form a team and sign up for just 1 local race then add your kilometres together.  Wear a 22q shirt and get some pledges from friends and family. 

I thought I'd do a spin on that.  22 *kilograms* for 22q.  What do I mean?  I mean let's all band together and support each other while we work towards making ourselves healthier.  In doing so, we make ourselves better equipped to face the challenges of raising a 22q child.  22 kilograms is about 48.5lbs.  I would love for a couple dedicated followers to join me in pledging to lose a combined 22 kilograms in the month of September.  If I get 10 people to do it, we only need to lose about 4.8lbs each!  Totally doable!  If you all spread the word and we get more people joining us, I might just get to add a zero to that number and make it 220 kilograms for 22q!  Wouldn't that be awesome?!

All day long I thought about Sam's challenge. I grumped and grumbled. I listed all the reasons that I can't do it. I can't run. I won't run. I hate running.

I am running away from running? How ridiculous is that? So, I'm in. I am doing this. My posts about this will have the labels chasing normal and 22 deletion syndrome so they will end up under the top bar tab. I hope all of you will cheer me on as I do this crazy amazing thing for Isaac and for all the 22q kids out there.

Because I need to do it my way and make it mine, I will be running while doing things at the farm. It may look more like a pastured run. The sheep can verify my progress. I won't do things like public races, because I am not there emotionally and I will not torture myself with that yet. I will do that when I am ready. First I have to stop hating the idea of running and that means gaining ground on my own turf. I bought the shoes. I broke them in. Now I need to step on the ground and just do it.

Also, there will be pie. There will always be pie. I am doing this my way, after all.

I will run so I can be even healthier and be that much better at what I do as a mom and farmer. I will help others with recipes and encouragement. I will be a part of this team (and no one will beat me up afterwards, right?). I can and I will do this. Every single step Isaac takes on the ground has come to him with three times the work as it did for his sisters, 22q has done that to him, a big boy trapped in a baby's body. Yet, every single day he wakes up laughing and gets up, works hard until the end of the day, and earns his good sleep. If he can do it, I can too, for Isaac and one step at a time.

Heat Wave

We have had a lot hot days here at the farm. This summer has been exceptionally lovely, warm enough in the day and cool at night. Usually July is hot and humid and that heat lasts into August. We have to set up window air conditioning to cut the humidity and make our house safe to live in. Our upstairs has central air, but the downstairs and the kitchen do not. This summer has been so cool at night though, that the window units stayed in storage.

This week though, the heat finally arrived. We've not had much rain the last month either, so the wallows for the pigs are dried up. The downstairs of the house is hot, but not humid (drought) so we figured we could wait out the heat and save on the electric bill. So far so good.

The weather isn't just dangerous for humans though, it can also be deadly for the animals. We moved the sheep to the pasture with the deepest shade and the taller grass, made sure the pigs were set up with shade too. We check the waters each day.

Yesterday the cow was spooked out of her pen. Luckily she found the duck pool and got water from there.

Then we discovered the pigs were out. We still h ave no idea how that happened, all the gates were tethered shut and there were no breeches in the fence large enough for a 400 lb sow or two to escape. None. Yet, we found one pig in heat stroke and the others missing.

It was 100 degrees out. The sun was blaring down. No humidity.

I heard Chad yelling for help when he found the pig (she was ok, btw, once she got water) and I set the kids up with netflix and walked out. Walked. Running in this heat is not an option, it would be deadly stupid.

The dog was out too. Zim helped me track the missing pigs while Chad secured the fencing and set up bait. Chad was frustrated and mad at that point, also in the heat and harsh sun. I was not about to argue, but I did anyway. I flushed out three pigs, one of the big sows went back in easily.

I stayed slow and calm and made careful progress. Still it was dangerously hot. I got caught up in the bramble and scratched and scraped and my boot laces tangled. Chad and I got separated and couldn't hear each other. It was a mess. Even though I flushed out both the remaining pigs, they didn't go where we set up and they ran in two different directions.

I was too hot and headed back to the farmhouse. Chad got mad and frustrated and kept at it. I was mad and frustrated too. I was also loud and probably could give the FCC a run for their money if it had been a live broadcast. Oh my. Not my proudest moment.

My approach was to think through while I got hydrated. Chad took a different approach and thought that staying with the pigs was the better option.

In the end, the pigs were all rounded up and penned back up, given fresh water and food. All the sheep were accounted for. The llama was healthy and well. The cow was put back on her plot and her fence checked.

The people however were overheated and exhausted and flushed from being frustrated and angry. I made a light dinner and we headed to bed. Days like this are how we earn our farmer cred, though I wish we had fewer of them.

Dinner was simple: 
Elbow macaroni boiled and strained
Crushed tomatoes from the garden, simmered with granulated garlic
Italian sausage and onion browned and added to the tomato
Mix all together and serve hot



It all came together in about 15 minutes (while the noodles boiled, I cooked the meat and the tomatoes).

We ate, showered, and went to bed early.

We still have no idea how the pigs escaped and the worry that they will get out again is lingering like this heat. I am really looking forward to the cold front predicted for Sunday night and the bit of rain that might come too.

Mrs. Amelia Davis, 5th grade class, Thank You.

A recent conversation with a very sweet friend got me thinking about my first day of 5th grade. On one hand it was the most horrific day of my young life up to that point. My mother curled my short hair and it ended up like a clown wig, we had pulled up in the moving truck the day before and the only clothes I had were the jeans and t-shirt I wore on the drive from Colorado to eastern Illinois and my farm sneakers. It was raining. I had never ridden a bus before. The bus was late, I got lost in the building, the entire class was dressed in their Sunday best, right down to shiny black shoes and ties. Late, I was offered a seat at a desk in a sea of strangers and the chair broke from under me.

I wish I was kidding. I sat there, being stared, in a we muddy pile of mortified farm girl, for what seemed like an hour while someone got a new chair from a different classroom. I cried silently and on the inside.

My teacher though was the most jarring of the picture. She was black. I had never seen a person with black skin. My classmates were a rage of colours too. Sure I had seen the Cosby's and Michael Jackson, but being from rural Colorado, I honestly, at age ten, thought that they were Hispanic. That was my range of experience. I had Hispanic classmates, but never any teachers. I don't think I had interacted with any adults who were not white before that day.

Yet, here was this very dark skinned black woman standing at the head of the class. I have no idea what she thought of me. Oh, she was gorgeous and fierce. She didn't bat an eye, or roll them like the students did, when I presented my report on the "real" Thanksgiving feast, massacre and all. That was my first foray into the untold histories and making sure someone educated my classmates. I also wrote about Peabody Coal Company. She presented me with Black History Month and a goldmine of history that I had never read, people standing up to oppression and hatred. Those became role models to my tiny framed white farm girl mind. Heroes.

Mrs. Davis kept me in at lunch recess. It was probably for losing my homework. Though, I loved it. I caught up. She gave me more things to read. She encouraged my writing, both journalistic and poetry. I worked hard at both. I felt heard.

I never forgot her.

My friend said she didn't remember our teacher as the description I provided, stunning and beautiful. Then again, I also see that friend in the same way and I am quite sure that's not how she'd describe herself either. Sometimes, children and the adults they grow into, do not factor things like extra flesh into an assessment of character. To me, Mrs. Davis remains in my memory the captain of a very stormy ship in my childhood. Without that experience, I would not have set my foot on this journey.

The rest of the year, and quite honestly the rest of my time spent in Kankakee school district, was painful and horrible. Bullied and mocked daily, I dog paddled in shark infested waters, retreating at lunch to the library and escaping into books and writing stories and poetry. I knew recess could be calm and nourishing from those 5th grade afternoons spent with Mrs. Davis. Quite frankly, sometimes I would pretend to have lost my homework just to stay in.

So, wherever you are Amelia Davis, thank you. Thank you so much.

Girls, Public Breakdowns, and Rape Culture

Many of my friends have asked my opinion on the VMA performance that Miley Cyrus gave. Probably because I have opinions, little girls, and have taught American women's history, my thoughts on this pique curiosity.

Interestingly enough, I do have thoughts, but not the standard ones I am seeing floating around. My thoughts are not about the appropriation and even propping of black people and culture, not about the objectification of child stars or women in general, not about the artistic horribleness that surely was not her idea. All of those things are being discussed and rightfully so. Still that was not my reaction.

My gut reaction when I watched this train wreck was the same one I had when I watched footage of the public mental break of Britney Spears.....that girl was raped. Clearly I don't know that for sure. But when the Britney Spears drama was happening I started searching for smaller blogs, articles, and references from the months just before it all went so publicly downhill and I found this. I don't necessarily find this a credible source per se, but it was exactly what I was looking for.

Every single woman I know that has had a breakdown like these women, public and self destructive, began their downward spiral by an incident of rape or sexual violence, myself included. (Though, for the record, not every rape victim reacts this way.)

So when I watched Miley, once a sweet girl with a very lyrical voice and so much talent, on stage doing what she was doing, all I could see was a replay of my own history. I was not raped, but I witnessed a violent sexual assault and it forever changed me. I set myself up to be in the same set of situations over and over again until I could gain control, relive it until I could win the game. Instead I fell hard and had a wonderful support system of friends that kept my head above water. These girls on television don't seem to have that, they have folks making money off them instead.

I see a troubled girl, trying to reclaim a sexuality through regaining the power of it, publicly and distastefully. Any names we call her, her actions on stage warrant them. That's power. Her choices on stage are being targeted, but that's her choice. It screams out to me that she has recently been powerless and these choices are her way to regain a sense of control over her own body and sexuality.

The fact that the performance segwayed into a duet thing with that gender bashing summer song Blurred Lines and her costuming reflected the degrading video that goes with it, was affirmation for me. As Miley participated in the degradation she was taking back that power of choice. She is also asking for us to call her out, call her the names that she calls herself. Making that narrative true, but not because of what may have happened to her, because of things she is choosing to do.

It is messed up, but that is how I have seen it play out over and over again. Historically women who work in the sex industry have a significantly higher likely hood of having been raped or abused, prior to working in the industry. That is interesting considering these statistics and these too and these. Let's not kid ourselves, the music industry, when it puts on productions like what we all got to see at the VMA, is just a sub genre of crappy porn.

I hope that I am wrong. I also hope that if I am right, she gets the help and love and support she needs to get through the pain and terror that never goes away, just becomes more manageable with time.

As far as this goes down in the cultural history of women in music, as far as a lot of music in the last three years goes, I am quite sure we will all look back on it with collective shame at how degrading to women and to human beings so much of it is. That is the legacy of this, that our culture of rape is being danced to and sung aloud by children who hear it on the radio. Art is the propaganda of our culture and this is what it is teaching us. It makes my stomach turn. Think. Think before you call that child any more names. Think about the untold history that is unfolding publicly and that we may just be seeing the edges of the storm.

Those are my thoughts.

National Sexual Assault Hotline - 1.800.656.HOPE