A Minnie disappointment

Charlotte has always loved Minnie Mouse. Well, at least as "always" as a 3-year-old can. She snuggles with her stuffed Minnies. She plays elaborate scenes with her plastic dress-up Minnies. She dresses up as Minnie. And, she watches a lot of "Minnie's Bow-tique." If you don't know what that is, well, you probably don't have a child in the pre-preschool set.

Proof that Charlotte loves Minnie (because you know that's something I would totally make up):

Seriously? How little was she?!? Big sister helped make 3-week-old Charlotte into Minnie Mouse.

10-month-old Minnie Charlotte.

Posing ...

And more ...

And even more posing.

The girl even asks for Minnie Mouse pancakes.

She plays a Minnie Mouse guitar.

And, we'll one up that. Here's Charlotte dressed as Minnie playing a Minnie Mouse guitar.

She sleeps with Minnies.

And poses as a Princess Minnie.

And, makes silly faces when she's supposed to be sleeping with Minnies.

So, enough proof? Yeah, I know, Charlotte overload. But, the girl loves Minnie Mouse.

All of this is to show why, when I heard that the Disney Store at the mall was going to be doing a re-grand opening (not entirely sure what that is, but whatever), and Minnie Mouse would be there, I thought immediately of Charlotte.

My little songbird

Even though I was in church choir in middle school and high school, I'm not really a singer. I mean, I can belt out a mean Journey song when I'm tooling around town in my car by myself, but, actually sing? Yeah, not so much.

My sister can really sing, and I did enroll each of my girls in Kindermusik classes for years when they were young. I want them to have some musical aptitude, even if it doesn't really come from me. If you remember last year, we had a little incident in which I had to cram a learning session of  "Jesus Loves Me" for Molly so she could sing in a church video. She did great singing that song, but when I approached her with the idea to join the children's choir this year, it was an absolute, definite "no."

Melanie, the director of the children's choir, and I slowly started working on sneaking the idea into her little brain. Parent manipulation at its best, right? We even brought my sister and good friend Leigh into the plan. Every once in a while, we would bring up the idea of singing in the choir around her. And, slowly (very slowly) she started to maybe, sorta, kinda come around to the idea.

I have no idea why she was so terrified. But, oh, was she. Molly is not a timid girl. She ran right into Kindergarten with nary a tear, the same for first grade and every dance class, art camp or gymnastics class I signed her up for. I could not for the life of me figure out her hesitance for this.

Finally, we found the right incentive. Jake! (Leigh's son, thus her involvement) We asked Molly if she wanted to join choir so she could sing with Jake. Now, we love Jake, but he and Molly don't go to the same school and everyone's schedules are crazy, so we honestly don't see a ton of each other. I really think that Molly was excited to be able to see Jake more.

She finally agreed. We went for the first time a little over a month ago. We waited for Jake outside, and they went in together. After that, it was all good.

Run like the wind!

Wow. I made it through. I made it through Chicago.

If you've been following along with this blog, you might know that I was talked into running the Chicago marathon by my friends Anne and Kelli. They had decided to run it, and somehow I didn't want to be left out of the fun, so I said I would do it, too. We worked like mad to get through the crazy computer system on the day entry opened, and finally got the notifications that we were in. (The number of people trying to sign up at the exact same time crashed the computer system this year and created whole debacle. I think the whole thing is going to be a lottery next year.)

Then, it was time to wait. Well, wait and train.  It seems like this all happened so long ago, yet, the time also crept up on me.

The girls and I spent all summer slogging out long runs in the heat and humidity and torrential downpours. We followed the training plan from "Train like a Mother," and I got in all my miles. I'd experimented with different fuels and tried different clothes. I knew what worked. I was ready.

But, I was nervous. Very nervous. Like, stomach tied up in knots, dream-interrupting nervous. You'd think, with this being my third full marathon, that I'd be done with nerves. Or, at least, they wouldn't be that bad. I actually think, though, it was because of my previous marathons that I was so nervous.

My first, in 2006, was in Dallas in April. It got up to 92 degrees that day. I think it was about 87 degrees with 80 percent humidity when I finished. Um, yeah, miserable. I immediately said I would never do another marathon.

My second was in Tulsa, OK, in 2010. It was also warm that day, even though it was November, with temps reaching 79 degrees. And, high humidity. I hit the wall around mile 22 and hated the last 4 miles with every ounce of my being. I said I'd never run another marathon.

While I was glad I had run both of these, neither of them were exactly "fun." Nor was I ever eager to do it again. I was so afraid of that happening to me again. So, this trip, I was nervous. So nervous. And, I definitely seemed to be the only one of us nervous for the entire trip. What in the world had I talked myself into?

But, let's step back a day or two to the beginning of the trip ...

Kelli, Anne, Marsha and I took off from KC on a plane bound for Chicago early on Friday morning. We wanted to get to Chicago early enough to enjoy time while we were there and not have to feel rushed.

At the KC airport. Apparently our barista thought we looked like an Emi and Kian instead of Amy and Anne.

Anne and Marsha on the L to get to our hotel.

And, Kelli and me.

We dropped our bags off at the hotel, grabbed some lunch then took off down Michigan Avenue.