Pink Camo Pants and Other Happenings

After 6 months of 4-5x/weekly barre attendance, and washing my single pair of ankle-length leggings (the Lululemon ones JP bought me for my birthday) nearly daily and always regretting it the few days I don't and have to resort to my much-less-loved backup workout capris, AND after ordering leggings from Gap, Athleta, and Target and returning all of them for not being as awesome as my bday Lulu leggings, I FINALLY gave myself permission to buy another pair. And, for whatever reason, had decided that Today Was The Day. So this morning, I tucked my beloved pair of leggings in my purse as an example and brought a friend along during our lunch hour (with promises of stopping at Jimmy Johns on the way back in for a #12 EZ mayo), to ask the first sales associate I could find for another copy of those leggings exactly.

Unfortunately, they sold out of that pattern six months ago, but the "Wunder Under" legging is a mainstay and there was a new pattern. A new pattern that was ON SALE. It was pink. It was camo. It was nothing I ever imagined buying in my life.

I adore them.

My new pants, my new top, and the little towel I bought because it was up by the cash register and I was remembering how much I sweated last Friday in hot barre.

I wore my new ensemble to barre tonight and my pants were basically the talk of class, and then I felt like I had to live up to them and didn't even cheat during the hardest relevé squat chair combo EVER. So a good investment already.

~~~

Landon has also had some athletic happenings! When we left off last week, I was about to head out to an 8-hour swim meet where I didn't know a single person, an hour out of town, with all three children by myself. I packed the car with a folding chair, a baby bjorn we got before Landon was born and never used, a bunch of towels, a little cooler of snacks, a backpack of books, cards, and coloring books for each big kid, and a diaper bag of diapers and chew toys for the poor dragged on baby, and headed out at six-f-ing-o-clock in the morning to Granbury, Texas.

Once I found the pool, loaded down the big kids like little pack mules, and figured out how to get Cora in the bjorn, I spent 10 minutes trying to find our team (there were 3 involved in the meet and I'd never met anyone on our team, so there was some trial and error), a very sweet woman, who did turn out to be on our team, took pity on me. Three seconds in to the conversation she realized I was "Coach JP's wife" and BAM, I had like 25 best friends. You guys, JP, my beloved little introvert who gets almost ovewhelmingly stressed out before any social engagement is like a minor god in the Fort Worth amateur swimming community. EVERYONE knew him. Everyone thought he was wonderful. Everyone's kids had taken lessons with him. I suddenly had holders of Cora and entertainers of Claire and cheerers for Landon. It was awesome!

And even more awesome, Landon swam his two events like a pro, despite having never been on a ready bench or jumped off a block before, and the WON both events overall! By multiple seconds! I know JP is a swim coach and we're both former nationally ranked swimmers, but he's been so busy coaching other kids and I'm so busy taking care of Cora and/or reading my latest Kindle book by the pool that neither of us has actually given him any instruction in over a year, and even that was more about water safety than stroke technique. But his technique on Saturday was beautiful and he was so fast and I was so excited and proud! Claire, intrigued by all the clapping from the stands that wasn't for her, immediately announced her intention to sign up for swimming next year.

And so our first swim meet went much better than anticipated. And I found out later that JP was getting up-to-the-minute texting updates from all his swim parents, so he knew Landon's times before I did. And after an internal compromise of "we'll try to get him to one meet this summer," we're now trying to figure out how we can attend all the rest of them.

~~~

Speaking of Claire, she has recently been inspired by the emergence of my inner yogi and taken to dragging out her old nap mat and doing some yoga all by herself. I found her like this on Sunday afternoon:

Wouldn't she look adorable in mini pink camo leggings? Thank god Lulu doesn't make kidswear or it would be one more thing I'd have to resist. [Edited to add: omg they do.]

~~~

The Corabunny has had a cold for FOREVER. It had thankfully resisted turning in to any other kind of infection for weeks until today when we landed a diagnosis of conjunctivitis. She has had a fever off and on for the last five days, and though we thought she was getting better, she was unusually fussy and clingy at a birthday party we went to Saturday evening.

Or maybe that was just the beer talking.

Either way, she passed out before cake.

And I got the rare chance to snuggle her. Usually she's WAY too busy crawling at the speed of light, pulling up on things and yelling because she can't get down, and squealing and squawking and chewing and smiling and tracking her big brother and sister with her eyes while desperately trying to do everything they do. But even a "fussy" Cora is a 98% delightful Cora. Here she is, that same night, modeling her latest in Honest Co. diaper patterns. I felt the anchors were necessary for the granddaughter of a retired Navy captain.

Though she'd really look smashing in some pink camo.

And then we wouldn't want JP and Landon to feel left out. Pink camo leggings for everyone!