I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike...

"Life is like a ten speed bicycle. Most of us have gears we never use." ~ Charles M. Schulz


After my accident three months ago, my activity level has been about as painstakingly slow as growing out my bangs. I honestly thought that once I could be weight baring on my left leg again, I would be back to normal. I had this image in my head of tossing my walker off to the side and slipping on a pair of 4 inch wedge sandals.
Yeah, not exactly.
My shoe selection has mainly been relegated to flats, which are not my first choice. There's only so much flair and fashion you can add to a non-existent heel. I look at websites like Zappos and ShoeDazzle and longingly gaze at platform heels, cork wedges and leather flowered sandals like a crack head looks at a pipe.
I have a board on Pinterest that I've named "Foot Porn." I don't think I'll be able to wear most of those shoes for a very long time, but it still gives me a rush to look at them.
And in addition to my recent orthotic choice in foot wear, I feel like I spend so much mental energy every time I start walking, or get up from a seated position. 
It's like a mental flow chart in my head whenever I'm going to step out of the shower:
Is the floor wet outside the shower?
If no, continue to carefully step out.
If yes, assess possible scope of damage, grab the towel bar and  curse silently.
One of the activities I really wanted to start again was riding my bike. I felt that was a good cardio option without putting too much pressure on my leg. So tonight my dad got all our bikes ready. He checked the tire pressure and found every one's helmets.
"This will be so great!" I told the kids excitedly. "I used to ride all the time when I was a kid." They rolled their eyes and asked how long we were going. 
What's the saying? "...it's just like riding a bike..."
Well, there's nothing like dislocating and fracturing your hip to make you question absolutely everything that deals with maintaining your balance and an upright position. I wobbled down the driveway, like a 5 year old without her training wheels for the first time. I don't think I completely exhaled for the first half mile.
Once I realized I wasn't going to face plant into a ditch, I started to enjoy the ride.
My daughters, however, weren't relishing in the miracle of their mother on two wheels.
"This hurts my crotch!"
"My crotch hurts, too. How many more miles?"
"Now my butt hurts."
Good grief. I looked at my 7 year old son, waiting to hear his complaint. He shrugged. "My balls don't hurt at all."
Well, that's good. We continued on our way home. After a few miles, my thighs began to hurt. I kept telling myself it was a good hurt and it meant the muscles were working again.
As we finished our ride, my son announced, "I'm really proud of you, Mom. I'm proud you didn't fall and break your other hip."
He looked at me and smiled, then high-fived me.
Oh, thanks...you sweet talker you.
After I did the shaky dismount in our driveway, I felt a stirring of hope. A hope that things may someday be more normal in terms of my activity levels. A hope that I can eventually hop on a bike and go for a ride without wincing every time I go up a hill. A hope that my kids will want to bike with me too, and not complain the entire time.
And dare I say...a hope that some day I will be able to slide into a pair of heels that sparkle and shine.
A girl can dream.

Where's the Convent? And the bubble wrap?

"Oh, high is the price of parenthood, and daughters may cost you double. You dare not forget, as you thought you could, that youth is a plague and a trouble." ~ Phyllis McGinley

I know worrying comes with parenthood.
I get it. I do.
I've been worried since I've been pregnant, actually. My mom said she was the same way, so in my extended family we call it "nurturing the worry gene."
When I first thought I was pregnant for the first time, I was hung over. I mean, big time. Fantastic, right? Mother of the Year, here I come. I stared at the pregnancy stick, with one hand covering my eye...trying to focus and confirm if I was seeing one or two lines. I thought it was just one, so I tossed it into the trash.
Two hours later I dug it out and very faintly saw a second line.
Wait. What?
I drove to a drug store and purchased not one, not two, not even three but FOUR more pregnancy tests. Excess Vaness strikes again. I drove back home and tried to will myself to pee on a stick.
Not easy to do when you're dehydrated and craving food from Perkins.
Eventually it was confirmed that I was indeed going to be a mama.
And life has never been the same since.
I started worrying about a possible miscarriage. Then, when I was beyond the first trimester and still pregnant, I started worrying that I hadn't felt the baby move. I had an ultrasound and was overjoyed to see that I had a healthy and very active baby growing inside of me. I told the ultrasound tech that I absolutely did NOT want to know the baby's sex. After she printed out photos and gave them to me, I scrutinized them carefully. Based on the images, I couldn't tell if the baby had indoor or outdoor plumbing.
I asked the tech, "So...were you able to tell the sex of the baby and you're just not telling me?"
She laughed. "No, I couldn't tell."
I went home and promptly began to worry. When she said she couldn't tell, did that mean she really didn't look close enough or did she mean she couldn't tell because my baby didn't have any visible sex organs and therefor might possibly be a hermaphrodite?
The mere thought of that kept me awake many, many sleepless nights.
Several months later I gave birth to a baby girl; there was no mistaking it.
Followed by another baby girl less than two years later.
And yet another little girl just three years after that.
Obviously my crazy hadn't hit full throttle, because two years after our last little girl came a little boy.
NOW we were done.
But with each baby came another set of worries...
What if I don't love this new baby as much as the others?
What if they succumbed to SIDS?
What sort of developmental delays could it mean if my baby isn't crawling yet?
What if they have allergies to all sorts of things?
Blah, blah, blah...the worrying never seemed to end.
Then they got older and the worries changed.
What if they don't make friends in school?
What if they end up with a bad crowd and end up in juvie?
What if one of them ends up pregnant and I'm a grandma in my mid 40s?
I used to think that once they could walk, talk, feed themselves and wipe their own butts, I would be able to breathe a sigh of relief. I remember back in the 70s when I was a kid, my cousins and I would disappear for HOURS. We'd play on rusty farm machinery, chase bulls in their pens, try to climb on top of cows and go for a ride, ride our Big Wheels (or in my brother's case, his Green Machine)... we'd come home late in the day, covered in dirt and sometimes fresh scabs. Honestly, I'm not even sure our mothers noticed we were gone half the time. They certainly didn't sit around and worry like I do now.
My son is not quite 8, and is still in the Big Wheels/Green Machine stage. My concerns with him usually center around possible broken bones and busted teeth. My girls, however, are getting older and I have less control over their environments when they're not with me.
Sure, I don't need to wonder if they can wipe their own butts anymore, but I do sometimes worry about other external forces that I have no control over.
What if they drink too much at a party some night, develop alcohol poisoning and choke on their own vomit?
What if some boy gives them the "just the tip" speech in the backseat of a car? And she believes him??
This list could go on and on. Some times I manage to keep the worry monster in check. I tell myself that I can't live with all the angst that parenting gives us. I can sometimes keep the thoughts away.
Then, we have to deal with an event that happened at the end of last week.
One of my daughters' classmates was killed in a car accident, right after school let out. She was riding with a couple friends and the unthinkable happened. I, along with every other parent in our school system, keep thinking the same thing: What if that had been my child?
We can't keep our children wrapped in bubble wrap until they retire.
We can't prevent them from what life throws at them.
We can try to give them good advice so they make (somewhat) intelligent decisions.
We can make sure they know how much we love them.
We can let them take off on their Big Wheels and not worry about skinned knees so much, because in the grand scheme of things...that's going to be one of the least of our worries.