"Puddle Duck" makes me smile.

Truth be told, I've been wanting to do a blog since I first got off my very large bottom last August (2016) and decided to walk a very slow half mile on my treadmill. I experienced so much over the past 8 months (wow. I can't believe it's been that long already!) and I wanted to record all of it somehow, but one thing held me back...I couldn't think of a name for my blog.
I texted and asked friends, I did web searches. On my runs I searched for inspiration, tried to think of witty blog names, or meaningful ones, or COOL ones. I wanted a name that said "hey, look at what I'm doing, you can do it too!"  I wanted something inspirational, as I had been so inspired by blogs like Fat Girl Running  and Run Selfie Repeat.
Unexpectedly, one thought kept sneaking back into my mind, mostly due to this quote:

So how did that quote lead me to just going with "Adventures of Puddle Duck", which is, in my opinion, NOT cool, not necessarily inspirational, and probably meaningful only to me? 

Let's jump in my time machine, shall we? 

When I was a toddler, I loved playing outside. I was out from sunrise to sunset until I was forced to come in. I loved to play in the rain. My amazing and wonderful mom would dress me in a rain coat and boots and she'd take her umbrella and she'd let me run in the rain, and I'd splash like crazy in EVERY puddle. She never tried to stop me or tell me to NOT do that because I'd ruin my clothes, or make a mess. She was a good mom. She didn't care. What she DID care about was that I was beaming with joy and smiling and laughing. As I said, she wanted me to be happy, even if it meant I wasn't being very ladylike.
In 48 years -so far- with my mom, the memory of me splashing in puddles and her smiling and calling me "Puddle Duck" is one of the best of my life.
I was Puddle Duck back when I was only 3 years old, maybe even earlier, but I remember getting that nickname from her in our first house on Helen Street in Garden City, Michigan. It's one of those sweet "mom and me" memories that I treasure more than most things I own.
It means even more now because in the past several years, my mom has been battling Alzheimer's. I have to remember these things for both of us.  The next time I visit her in Michigan, I look forward to asking her if she remembers calling me that. Often asking her things like that trigger memories for her, so I'm hoping it does. I don't think she'll totally understand the significance of me asking NOW, but I'm interested to find out what she says.

I was fortunate to be born into a very active, outdoor loving, sporting, somewhat competitive family. It helped that I was the youngest and the only girl. I had four older brothers. There was a big gap in our ages. My parents had the boys close together, took a nice long break and hoped again for a daughter. I finally showed up in 1969. I didn't realize it then, but being raised by four brothers didn't just make me a lifelong "tomboy", but looking back, it helped shape the person I am now, and who I always will be. It helped make me tough. I hated dresses, I played with cars. I played ball with the boys, I despised being forced to play with the local girls and would end up in a tree, hiding from them and playing with matchbox cars. My mom tried so hard to make me girly, but I fought it all the time. She wanted me to be happy but she also wanted me to wear dresses, have my hair done and be feminine. None of that appealed to me as a child.
I have a very fuzzy memory of probably my favorite story of something else I did as a child. At age 3,  I grabbed a blanket and a few things, including my Winnie the Pooh- who I STILL have by the way- and I announced that I was "Running Away". My mom thought this was adorable, me being so headstrong and stubborn, so she told a couple of my brothers, "follow her and see where she goes".  

May I add, this was great because back then in the early 1970's, parents didn't have to worry about predators and that type of thing as much. We lived in a close knit neighborhood in a safe suburb of Detroit. Anyway, I toddled along, clutching my bear and important items I guess I thought I'd need to survive, and I got almost to Ford Road, which is a HUGE five lane road. My brothers finally stopped me there. I often wonder how far I would've gone if they hadn't... anyway, I went roughly a half mile from home before being forced to head back home. This was foreshadowing, people.

In the past two and a half years, I've spent a lot of time meditating again, which I used to do a lot in the past. I started to work on letting go of the clutter and noise of life and worked on finding the me I was before growing up happened and messed everything up. Have I mentioned I love Peter Pan? I'm not a fan of adulting.
Long story short, I found Puddle Duck again. It's kind of my "Rosebud" (for you classic movie fans) only I can do something about it, and I can embrace it. It's a silly, cute name given by a loving, thrilled-to-finally-have-a-little-girl mother, to a goofy toddler who adored, above all else, splashing in puddles. Spoiler: she still does.

I did my first trail race, Race Rogue on April 1st of this year.
It had rained over an inch leading up to it, and I was probably the happiest person there because of that.
For 6.65 miles, I splashed through every single mud puddle I could find.
One of the volunteers laughed when I ran through one, then said "no, that wasn't good enough!" and went back and ran through it AGAIN with even more splashing and joyful abandon.
Puddle Duck is alive and well. My mom will be so proud.