Tough Mudder vs. Tough Mother...

For months now, this sweet girl o' mine has been planning to participate in a Tough Mudders race. She has been training faithfully. It didn't sound like fun to me when she described it, but running in general is not fun to me...though I supposed that an obstacle race through mud might be more interesting.

And then this past Sunday night, in anticipation of the race this coming Saturday, I went to the Tough Mudders Website, clicked on "About", then "Obstacles" and began to hyperventilate.

To borrow a phrase, SWEET MOTHER OF PEARL, what is this girl thinking!!

*NOTE*  No one, I repeat, NO ONE may repeat ANY of this information to Caitlin's grandmothers. It may cause ill health. We already have one grandma certain that she will catch awful diseases from the mud; we don't need them to know that is the LEAST of concerns. So for their safety, and mine, NO ONE SAY A THING -- GOT THAT???

They can hear the story AFTER the fact.

Anyway, obstacles named "Electric Eel", "Trench Warfare", "Boa Constrictor", "FireWalker", "Underwater Tunnels", and "Arctic Enema" to name a few, put me in a bad frame of mind, and breathing into a paper bag. The poor Farmer had to endure a rant from me on the insanity of such a competition, and the now-questioned intelligence of our second child and only daughter. I was so wound up that I had to watch a Dateline murder mystery to calm down...How upset was I? I never fell asleep during the entire show!!

Unheard of in this household...

I decided that this girl MUST NOT PARTICIPATE, and I would do everything in my power to dissuade her. So I called her up at work and said, in my best mother voice, "I AM BEGGING YOU TO SKIP THE TOUGH MUDDER RACE!" and then, when silence was the response, "I'm prepared to pay you $100 to not go..."

Apparently, that wasn't enough because all I got was an "Oh, Mom..." and then a lot of reassurances about how she has been training for months, and she will skip anything that she thinks is dangerous for her, and that she just wants to see what she can do, and that her brother will be there with her...yada, yada, yada.

Not satisfied, I reminded her that her employers really need her to be at work, and if she is injured or exhausted, it will be a BIG COST to her life.

What I should have done is tried to get her boss to sweeten the cash pot...It should be worth something to them...Hmmmm...

I may just have to call her every day with a better offer...This could get expensive.

In the meantime, I have called her brother -- who was supposed to be her teammate until he got injured while training for it, as did his buddy, who started this whole debacle by telling Caitlin about it -- and demanded assurances that he would be present to take her to the hospital when the need arises.

I believe I heard an "Oh, Mom..." from him too.

And so I can't wait until it is Saturday night when we know how she has survived/triumphed, which in this case are pretty much the same thing.

Oh, children...even as adults they keep us on our knees...and I'm not even going to bring up the half-marathon she is signed up for on Sunday...I don't think I'll have to offer her money to skip that one.

But just in case, I'm heading for the ATM...