By Derek Brown – AKA Alex’s dad, Leah’s Uncle

I chose to run a half marathon because I am in fantastic shape, I knew it would be easy, and I thought it would be a pleasurable experience.  Well, not really.  Actually, I chose to do it because my 11-year-old, Alex, decided to do it and asked me if I was up to doing it   with him.  What would you do?

Now, just a bit of friendly advice here:  if you are going to run a half marathon, there is the way to do it, and then, of course, there is the way not to do it.  Alex did it the way it is supposed to be done.  And I, of course, chose the road less traveled (pun intended).

Here is how Alex prepared:  He trained for several months with a kids’ running group.  He ran three days a week with them, starting with just a few miles a day, and later worked up to the point where he was running 6-8 miles in a day, several times a week.  He trained, conditioned, and even did the obligatory “carb-load” the day before the marathon.  He was fit, rested, and ready to go the morning of the marathon.

Now for my pre-marathon training schedule.  It consisted of energy performance drinks (Diet Coke), finger exercises (returning hundreds of e-mails daily), regular stretching exercises (standing up occasionally at my desk), and the lifting heavy objects (like stacks of paper on and off the desk.)

Actually, Alex and I did have one thing in common:  when the race was about to begin we both felt great!  We started running with Team Coleman/Strong Enough, and I lost track of Alex after the first mile or so.  I started to look behind me, scanning the crowd to see if I could spot Alex someplace in the mass of people immediately behind me.  Several of our Team Coleman/Strong Enough teammates asked me who I was looking for.  I replied, “I’ve lost Alex. I don’t see him.”  They all started laughing and said, “If you want to see him, why don’t you quit looking behind you!”  Apparently, Alex was way ahead of me within the first mile or so, and that never changed.

Alex, of course, has a kind heart, and at one point he waited for me to catch up to him and then we ran together for a while.  Within a short period of time he was way ahead of me again, but he then waited up for me.  After the third time doing this, he said “Dad, do you mind if I just kinda keep on going?”  (Translation:  “Dad, you are a major drag here.  How am I supposed to run a serious half-marathon when I’m pulling an out-of-shape lawyer behind me?  Seriously, man, be sure to hydrate, call a cab if you pass out, and I’ll see you at the finish line.  That is, if you make it.”)

That was about mile three.  From that point on, as I was jogging, I saw a lot of people along the route that I recognized.  They all shouted, almost word-for-word, the same thing:  “Good job!  Did you know that Alex is waaaaaay up there ahead of you?  Did you know that?  Like, waaaaaaay ahead of you!”  My response was always “Yeah, isn’t he amazing?”  (Translation:  “Man, you’re slow.  Your 11-year-old son is completely dusting you.  Seriously, pick up the pace.”  Translation of my response:  “Thanks for telling me something I didn’t already know.  Wow, I feel so much better now.  Except that my ankles are still screaming at me, my knees are still pounding, and I would give anything if I could just do something so much more enjoyable, like have a cavity filled or get a root canal.”)

When I hobbled across the finish line, Alex was there waiting to greet me, with a big smile on his face.  “Good job, Dad!” he said.  In the end, he finished about ten minutes ahead of me, and got a bronze medal for his age group.    It was so rewarding, however, to see so many Signing Time fans and friends at the finish line.  Leah looked fantastic, Lucy had just been on her first half-marathon, and Rachel and Aaron looked like they had just warmed up and were ready for a real run.  Alex then proceeded to spend the rest of his day playing with Leah, running around, and doing what kids do (as I tried to recover on the sofa).

The next morning as I got out of bed, my ankles and knees refused to work, and notwithstanding my Advil, I could hardly walk straight.  And stairs?  Forget about it.  There was no going up or down stairs.  For the next few days I walked as though I had just added about 50 years onto my body.  Seeing my condition, Alex assured me that he, too, was sore.  (I didn’t buy it, of course.)  In the end, it took several days for people to stop asking “Hey, what happened?  Why are you walking funny?”

So, the real question:  would I be crazy enough to do it all over again?  Absolutely!  (Next time, however, I will follow Alex’s training schedule to prepare.)

Since the release of our new website and blog, many of you have requested that we post this article written by Lex de Azevedo, President of Signing Time, and father of Rachel Coleman and Emilie Brown. We included the original article in one of our newsletters that we put out earlier this year, but like it so much that we want to share it again. If you would like to begin receiving newsletters, visit our Monthly Newsletter Home Page.

This article is an excerpt from Out of the Chaos: Notes on Raising Nine Independent Children

Ransacked!

June 2008

by Lex de Azevedo, President of Two Little Hands Productions, and father of Emilie & Rachel

Another survival technique we learned was, “Never do for the child what the child can do for herself.” It works. It really works. As soon as the child is old enough to pick up after herself and make her own bed, the child makes her own bed. It’s as simple as that. As soon as she is old enough to do the dishes, or cook the meals, guess what? You got it. The problem, however, was getting them to actually do their chores. Now, kids are getting smarter all the time, but I can match wits with any 7 year old any day of the week. I just used my magic word, “nevertheless.”

Rebecca: “I don’t want to do my chores.”
Dad: “Nevertheless, you must do your chores”
Rebecca: “I can’t clean up my room; I have homework.”
Dad: “Nevertheless, your room needs to be cleaned.”

Finally, they would just give up trying to argue. The one argument that always got to me was: “I don’t have to wash the dishes, ‘cause I didn’t ask to be born into this family.” For a parent, that is hitting below the belt. But I never let on. I just used my magic word “nevertheless.”

Truthfully, often things were not picked up, beds were not made and dishes remained in the sink until there were no more clean dishes. At times the level of chaos was almost intolerable, at least for me. One Sunday morning comes to mind. We had hurriedly herded all the kids into the black and silver Dodge maxi-van in the vain attempt to arrive on time to our 9:00 AM church meeting. A little while later the church received a call from a neighbor of ours asking to relay the message that burglars had broken into our home and ransacked the place. In the process they had set off the alarm and the security police had responded. Horrified, Linda and I got up and left the meeting, leaving the kids at church (risky, very risky indeed). We drove home to survey the damage. Geri, our good friend and neighbor, was waiting for us at the front door and warned us as we entered that what we were about to see was not a pretty sight. Ah, what blessed relief we felt, mixed with a great deal of embarrassment, upon discovering that there was nothing wrong. The house wasn’t ransacked at all. It was just the way we left it that morning. No burglars, either; it turned out that McBarker the cockapoo terrier had set off the alarm.

Hard Work

Excerpt #2 from Out of the Chaos: Notes on Raising Nine Independent Children

The Azevedo Family 1985

By Lex de Azevedo, President of Two Little Hands Productions, and father of Rachel Coleman and Emilie Brown, the creators of Signing Time

From 1974 through 1986, because I worked in the music business, we lived in a community called Toluca Lake outside of Los Angeles. I was determined that living in the city would not deprive my children of the opportunity to work. Since life in Los Angeles required year-round mowing, edging, raking, and weeding, I felt this would be the ideal opportunity to teach the kids to work. I bought all the necessary garden tools including a gas mower, edger, and weeder, and started to train the kids how maintain a yard and even how to wash and detail the cars.

The next-door neighbor, an old man named Jim, laughed at me.  “It ain’t going to work,” he chided. “I’ll give you one, two months at the most and you’ll be hiring a gardener.”

“Look, I’m not mowing lawns, I’m raising kids!”  I replied.

Well, there weren’t many kids in our neighborhood, let alone families with nine children, so I doubt if the neighbors understood. I have to admit that trying to manage a team of gardeners ranging in ages from 2 to 18 was less than fun. Just more chaos! Our yard never did look as good as the neighbors and every Saturday left me exhausted and stressed, yelling and screaming. Sometimes I was so frustrated with the kids that by the end of the day we weren’t talking. Their allowance was based on the fulfilling of their chores – and children never seem to have the same standards for completion as parents do. Again and again I was tempted just to hire a gardener, but then, I wasn’t maintaining a yard, I was raising kids. Continue Reading »