Nearly six years married, two kids later. This past Saturday.

In a desperate attempt to stay on track with the ridiculously over-zealous training plan for my September walking half marathon I struck out for the bike path. Five miles. Can I reach a 14 minute/mile pace today? I tried to ignore the temperature that was steadily creeping towards 90 degrees. I also tried to ignore the bickering from the back seat.

Oh…didn’t I mention?? Paul was up at the boat, washing it, and trying to get it in the water. That meant, I had the distinct pleasure and honor of trying to “do something for myself and get some exercise” with the girls in tow.

My reality was distinctly different then theirs. Oh, you know them. The “super fit”. They are the cyclists, walkers, and runners zipping by on the bike path at an unbelievable clip. Sometimes they are in packs and sometimes they are alone. They are intense. Focused. In the zone.

The only zone I was in was the no parking zone of the parking lot. This I realized after unloading my car, reassembling the Burley, situating snacks, sippy cups, My Little Ponies, books, and the girls. I moved the car, strapped on my iPod and set the timer on my watch.

Five miles, 70 minutes.

Finally…I push out onto the bike path. People smiled and waved to the girls, who seemed oddly content. My iPod sent Dolly Parton coursing through my veins (the first song on my walking mix). I started to notice some of the regulars…The super-walker woman in her 50s (thin, tan) who always walks while reading a book…they guy on the recumbent bike that looks like the Speed Racer car…the man who pulls his big red dog in a bike trailer.

Five miles, 70 minutes.

At then…at mile 1.5…

Don’t touch me. Mom, she’s squishing me! I dropped my cup (binkie, pony, book). I’m poopy. I want out. I want to walk. When are we going to be back at the car?

I tried turning up my iPod so I couldn’t hear them. It didn’t work. Neither did positive reinforcement or the promise of candy at the end of the walk. Neither did threats of moving toys to the garage, timeouts, or telling on them to dad (don’t judge me for resorting to this periodically, please). It was awful.

As I tried to ignore them, I found myself feeling more and more envious of my husband. Sure…he was up in the heat cleaning the boat…tired, sore, sweaty. But at least his exhaustion and near-heat stroke was occurring in a virtual solitude.

At about mile 2.5 I really began to get more and more angry. Can they really keep doing this for anther 40 minutes? I started to think that I wasn’t going to make it. That I was actually going to start to cry.

All I had wanted was my 5 miles, my 70 minutes.

And then it happened (this is true). Two deer jumped out of the bushes, stopped, and stared right at us.  I have never seen deer during that time of day and in that kind of heat. The girls were mesmerized. They were awestruck. They spent the next 10 minutes laughing, bantering back and forth, looking for more deer…and then…

Don’t touch me. Mom, she’s squishing me! I dropped my cup (binkie, pony, book). I’m poopy. I want out. I want to walk. When are we going to be back at the car?

I still had at least 20 minutes. This was crazy. I was crazy. I was going to be “the crazy lady on the bike path who screams at her kids”. And then…

…(really, this is true)…a coyote walked right out in front of us. I stopped. The girls stopped. Never, ever have I seen coyote on the bike path. The girls didn’t know what to do. They were stunned.

We made it back to the park (yes, I got my 5 miles, just not my 70 minutes) and waited for Paul to bring us our picnic lunch. I sat in the shade and watched the girls laugh and run around. I saw one of “them”. She was tan, fit, perfectly outfitted and rode towards us on her expensive-looking road bike towing a bike trailer behind her. As she approached I heard “Stop screaming. You are not being a good friend. Mommy is very, very angry.”

I couldn’t help it. I laughed out loud.

Last night was the 5th night of Passover and, although we’re not Jewish, we hosted a seder with some friends who are. I actually love Passover (and Jewish food). Its a great tradition and a wonderful way to mix food, family, and some thoughtful reflection about people who have suffered and offer some hopeful anticipation of a future better than the troubling past.

Our seder couldn’t have happened at a better time. Last December, my sister gave birth to twin girls at 30 weeks. Preemie twins is a scary enough situation, but her twins were an extremely rare form of twins called monoamniotic twins. This means they shared a placenta and an amniotic sack. To put it bluntly, these are the type of twins that could have been conjoined. They aren’t conjoined, but they were extremely compromised at birth and have continued to have "typical preemie" issues (whatever that means). Both girls have been home from the hospital about 2 months and are thriving and doing well.

Last Friday we found out that both girls had some problems with the growth of their brains. As it turned out, Evelyn (twin A) had water on the brain. Yesterday, after an MRI (a very scary experience with such a wee baby) we found out that even though it looks scary on the MRI, all is well.

So, as I ate up my raw horseradish in remembrance of the "bitterness" of past suffering, I couldn’t help but think about all the trials, stress, and suffering my sister and her family have had to endure since last August when she first got the diagnosis on the girls. Those little girls are fighters and their mom is amazing.

Maztal tov!

PS-My sister keeps a blog and it is far better written and more interesting than anything I could ever think about doing http://thirdfloorhome.blogspot.com