This is Me Being a Parent

By this time tomorrow, these two lovely ladies (plus a whole other cast of characters) and I will be setting up for the second annual Live Like Addie Run.

I'd like to publicly thank these two for, well, everything, and I'd like to personally thank the 583 people who've already registered for the run. So, if I don't get to speak with you personally tomorrow, please know that I appreciate you coming out for the run so much. I'm continually amazed at the amount of support our friends, our family and this community continues to give to us.

A-mazed.

And that's what this run is really about: Giving back to the community that's been so good to us.

It's about remembering Addie, a little girl who gave us so much to remember.

But for me, it's about a little bit more.

This run is me being a parent.

This run is my basketball tournament on a Sunday afternoon.

My piano lessons.

Orthodontic appointments.

The time I spend typing in registration forms for the run is the time I would've spent staying up all hours of the night with Addie so we could create the perfect volcano for her sixth grade science project.

This is my time spent shopping for birthday presents - for the friend parties she would've been invited to and for the one she'll never have.

This is my "Addie, it's time to get up" each morning and my "I love you" each night.

This is it.

This is me being a parent.

To a child I have to remember through pictures and videos and notes I come across while cleaning out the playroom.

This is me being a parent.

To a child I can hold only in my heart.

This run is me filling my time because, believe it or not, even with wiping and re-wiping runny noses, changing diapers, checking over first grade math homework, curbing meltdowns over ill-fitting socks, intervening in the most irritating of shouting matches, and putting various little ones in time out and to bed, I still find that I have an inordinate amount of time on my hands.

Time that should be taken up by the schedules, the wants and whims of four beautiful children, not three.

And I've got to fill it.

Time.

Or it fills me.

With thoughts I can't escape.

And questions.

It takes me there.

And there. And there.

And I'm there often enough.

So this sitting in on a city council meeting to get the run approved, overhauling a website, putting together a flyer, asking businesses to please display them, going over the details of the run on a Sunday afternoon, sorting through t-shirts, fielding texts and emails from people wondering whether there's still time to register, that's me filling my time.

But mostly, it's me being a parent.