Chicago Sports Family Fails to Agree on a single Team Jersey for Annual Holiday Photo.

Dateline: November 30, 2008, Oak Park. Sports Family Steadman was today unable to agree on a single team, much less a single jersey, for their annual Christmas Photo. "Blackhawks are the best Chicago team!" cried Sarah "Roku" Steadman. "The Cubs blew it at the end, the Bears are mediocre at best, who knows what's going on with the Bulls (though I acknowledge that Rose is a huge upgrade), and the Wolves are minor league!"

"You don't know nuthin," rejoined William Steadman, resplendant in his green-eyed Wolves jersey. "The Wolves have more championships in the last six years than any team within 100 miles of Chicago. When was the last time the Stanley Cup resided here? Oh, yeah, I forgot, it was before dirt was invented. Before Mom was born! Come on, get with the now!!!!!!"

"Beawrs!" shouted Emma Steadman. "Foo!"

Mom and Dad just looked on, sadly wearing their Cubs jerseys and wishing it were less than 100 years since the last title for their baseball team.

Masters Swimming Masters Maraya

Dateline: September 24, 2008. Supermom Maraya Steadman's first Masters swim class -- the first step of her preparation for a triathalon -- is complete. Our correspondent writes as follows:

Ted, the coach, who was young enough to be my son, albeit if I had been a teenage mother, looked at me blankly as I tried to explain to him that I was going to take it very slow. I told him I had not swum competively since before he was born (25 years to be exact), and I was not going to push myself. He asked, "Uh, what are you injured or something?" I responded, "No, I'm 41." And explained that at my age, it takes a really long time to recover from an injury and I just didn't want to go there.

I got in the pool and after four laps, 100 yards, I was basically done. But I decided I would try to do the kicking drills and such and see how it went. First up, 6 X 25 butterfly kick, 4 x 50 one arm butterfly with kick, 4 X 50 other arm one arm butterfly with kick, blah, blah, then we moved on to the sprint work.

I looked up at Ted and told him, "I don't know how to swim butterfly." Ted responded in his usual way, "Uh." As if he really was absolutely dumbfounded and I mean that quite literally, by me. Then, thankfully, a triathalete surfaced in my lane who looked up at Ted and said, "I don't know how to swim butterfly." She then explained to him that she only learned how to swim a year ago! Wow! I was impressed. This woman was actually doing the entire workout! Wow. So, Ted, to his credit explained a bit about how to do a butterfly kick, brought out some flippers and I actually got him to smile when I expanded upon my already established freakishness by telling him my shoe size.

After 20 minutes I got out of the pool, put away my kick board, and my flippers and told Ted I was leaving. I was smiling as I told him, "I told myself I would do this for 20 minutes and now I'm done."

I didn't tell him I hurt my shoulder.

So, I will sit out my Thursday practice, hope for some recovery by Sunday and try again. That's how it went.