Separating Hazards

When I was in driver's education class back in High School, my instructor had his driving mantra.  He said one of the best ways to avoid a collision was to always separate hazards.  He said it was always easier to focus your attention on a single "hazard" than two hazards at once.

For example, if there's a pedestrian walking on the side of the street and an oncoming car on the other side, speed up or slow down so you're not passing both at the same time.   It seemed like good advice to me and I always try to separate hazards when I drive.

As an aside, he also said that the term "accident" was really an excuse more than a term to describe what had happened and if we ever got into a collision, we should call it by the proper term.  Strange that I remember these advice points from my instructor, but I have no idea at all what he looked like or sounded like.  Ah, memory.

But back to the separation of hazards.  My two children are each hazards in their own right.  They are both completely capable of getting into trouble, hurting themselves and making a mess.  Putting two hazards together makes the chance of disaster, injury and damage that much higher.  As a parent or someone watching them, you have to be on double high alert when they're playing together.

My son will play with his own toys, unless he sees that my daughter is playing with something else and then he must have those toys.  My daughter is fine playing with her toys, unless she sees her brother playing with something else and then she's interested in what he's doing and crawls over and gets all in his way.

Sometimes the two of them play well together for periods of time and it is very cute and intriguing to watch.  Other times, they're in a delicate balance of her bothering him and him tolerating it of him annoying her and her putting up with it and of him hurting her accidentally or sometimes intentionally and it being not that bad. 

But that's not always.  The best thing for family harmony is to have both babies in separate places.  Separate those hazards.  But it's not ideal and they're siblings and must not only survive together, but thrive together.  So we shove our hazards together and hope for the best most days.

The Big Boy Update:  The Grinch.  He was so being the Grinch today.  Remember when the Grinch went to Hooville and stole every last present, decoration and morsel from the town?  He made sure not a single crumb was left behind.  My son was in just that kind of mood today.  He had two handfuls of  plastic toy spoons.  He had more than he could hold.  When he would drop them my daughter would pick one up and be so happy she had a piece of something to play with.  He would not rest until he had every last spoon in his possession and had ripped the final one out of my daughter's hands, making her cry.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Snot gone, face healing.  Her snot is finally gone.  She must be so glad to be rid of the nasal aspirator.  Her face is healing nicely, redness and swelling gone and only scratches to finish healing. 

Someone Once Said:   Many theologians believe that no human social organization could stand up under the strain of absolute honesty. If you think their misgivings are unfounded, try telling your friends the ungarnished truth about what you think of their offspring—if you dare risk it.

Reality Shows and the State Of Our Nation

What is it with our nation and our fascination with reality shows and the personal lives of politicians?  Do we have nothing better to do than talk about and laugh about and spend excessive amounts of time watching people talk about other people?

I just don't get it.  I don't understand why people love reality shows where it seems the majority of the show is about the drama between the participants.  I've never watched Survivor before, but I did see a bit here and there from the first few seasons.  It looked pretty intense.  My girlfriends had me watch a recent season of Survivor and it seems all about alliances, talking badly about the other participants, lying about what was being said and then voting and debriefing to kick people off.  Where was the surviving part?

They said that's how the show is now.  And don't even get me started about shows like The Bachelor because I might just have to gag myself with a spoon.

I do watch Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe because he's an entertaining host and I'm impressed with the difficult, thankless, dirty jobs people do around the country and how we take their hard work for granted.

I also don't understand how we can be so focused on our politician's private lives.  Yes, it is important to know if they're an accountable person, but birth certificates?  And yes, it was a scandal back in the Bill Clinton and Monica Lewenski days, but our country's media just wouldn't let it go.  It went on and on and it was crazy.  I was in New Zealand working for part of the time and the people their said they didn't understand why we cared so much.  I still don't know why as a country we care so much.

Last night at Movie Night they watched The Hunger Games.  I'm starting to feel like our nation is a collection of people who look just as silly, foolish and superficial as the capital people in The Hunger Games.  Is that how we look to the rest of the world?

The Big Boy Update:  Forceful ignoring and the pink balloon.  These temper tantrums out of nowhere and without reasonable provocation are challenging.  Challenging to momma.  Challenging to daddy.  Challenging to my son.  Not so much bothering my daughter though.  This morning all was well.  There were four balloons from yesterday's birthday celebration.  I asked my son to give one to his sister while she was on the potty.  He picked the pink one.  He had three others.  He changed his mind and decided the only thing in the world he wanted was that pink balloon.  She was blissfully ignorant about him trying to get at her and tear away her balloon as I blocked him.  He went on and on and screamed and yelled and threw himself down and eventually all the balloons got taken away.  Eventually he sat in my husband's lap and they looked at the wall and he calmed down.  The start of time out has begun.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Hanging in the crib.  Not in a gangsta kind of way though.  When she's not tired or not ready to sleep or has woken up, she likes to grab at the things dangling down from her mobile and prevent the mobile from spinning around.  This makes a strange click click sound we can hear in the baby monitor.  At first there was one piece she could reach, but now she can grab at most of the dangling items so it's getting harder to stop her.  Also, she's been practicing standing while doing this so it has a useful purpose.

Fitness Update:  Fourteen miles today.  We were going for our longest distance yet.  We were going along just fine until we got to about eleven miles.  This means we're three miles from home and there's no faster way to get back other than those three miles.  My neighbor was struggling.  She was very tired and her legs felt very sore.  She was also cramping.  When we talked about it she said she realized only too late that she hadn't eaten enough for dinner last night and had not had breakfast because we were going running.  The combination of lack of calories was too much after twelve miles.  We walked about 1.5 miles at the end, and I'm glad we did as she said she was feeling light-headed and a bit dizzy.  She was out of Gatorade, so I ran some over to her in the hopes she would recover more quickly.  Other than that, I feel great.  Heck, we made 14 miles.  We just walked some.  Next time, we'll run the whole thing. 

Someone Once Said:   An honest politician is one that stays bought.

Liquorice Allsorts

Can you think of a time when you were much younger and you were introduced to something you'll forever associate with that time and period of your life?  When I was eight-years-old my family went to England.  While I was there, I had liquorice Allsorts.  To this day, I always think of England and the amazing summer abroad I experienced from my childhood.

There were lots of things that were different in England.  The food was different, the air smelled different, the people talked different.  They had different toys on their playgrounds and the public transportation was different than what I knew given that I came from a smaller town.

We were with a large group of college students and my parents were teaching courses during this eight-week abroad program.  As they were all students, it was like I had fifty baby sitters at the same time.  I got lots of attention from these sweet college girls.  I also had enough energy for two children smoking crack after three cups of Starbucks coffee, but somehow my parents managed.

Speaking of managed, I managed to spend six of the eight weeks in casts during that trip.  I fell off Kennelworth Castle, got a concussion and broke my arm as I tried to discover the secret, hidden room in the ruins.  Two days before that cast came off I broke my leg on some playground equipment which caused my parents to buy a stroller and push me around for the next several weeks during our daily walks and sight-seeing tours as a child in a leg cast doesn't move that fast.

I remember foods the most though.  The breakfasts in the college cafeterias, the ice cream and how it had an entirely different taste than what I knew from the United States and the candy.  I remember all kinds of different candy than I'd never seen before.

I wasn't allowed to have as much as I wanted or to even try it all, so I had to make choices.  I don't know if I selected it or if someone got it and I tried theirs, but I became an Allsorts fan for life that summer.

First, there are lots of different shapes.  There are tall stacks with white and some with orange and some with white and brown and they have liquorice sandwiched between the layers.  Some have more layers than others.  There are little jelly bean shaped ones that are covered in balls of colored sugar.  There are disks of an outer coconut with an inner liquorice center and then there are just solid liquorice pieces.  I love a good variety.  I love coconut and above all I love liquorice.

I found some at the drug store today and as I ate them while we waited for a prescription to be filled I thought back and remembered England from my childhood and the fun times we had that summer.

The Big Boy Update:  School is going well.  He's been coming home with no dirty training pants.  He's been staying dry during the morning and he's hopefully going in the potty more now.  Next task will be to start on the potty training in earnest at home.  I'm looking forward to potty success stories here at the house very soon.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Victim of violence.  Her brother whacked her with the door to the deck yesterday.  When the door didn't close (because she was in the way) he tried to shut it on her again.  I'm not sure why the screams of terror, indignation and fear didn't make him stop but he was still trying to shut the door when we rescued her from the situation.  Today she has a large bruise/scratch/raised area on her forehead and face.

Fitness Update:  Long run tomorrow morning in plan; regular run with Uncle Jonathan this afternoon.  I missed an opportunity to run a long afternoon run with my neighbor today as our timing was off.  Overall, I'm glad we didn't do a long run.  I'm looking forward to a nice distance run tomorrow morning. 

Someone Once Said:  ‘Nakedness is often seen but never noticed.” Except that sometimes I do notice, hot diggity dog and other comments.

Mine Look Better Than Yours... But Why?

Ever see your dog, cat, child, niece, etc. in a picture and think how much cuter your whatever looks in comparison to all the other people's whatever's in their family pictures?

My mother and I were talking about this a while back.  Clearly, she thinks her grandchildren are far cuter and much more adorable than those other grandchildren pictures she sees from those other grandparent friends she has.  I'm those cute kid's mommy so of course I think the same thing too.  But why?

With a logical head, given any two baby pictures in a magazine, we can easily say which child is the cuter (in our opinion.)   In a puppy training class, who's puppy is positively the most adorable?  Why, yours, of course.  I know mine was.  And yet every one of those parents in class thinks the same thing you do.

I know in part it's because we become invested.  We're emotionally attached to this thing (dog, cousin, guinea pig, baby, etc.) and as a result our brains tell us we've made the best choice and we have the most outstanding one of the batch and we should be proud.  Also, we should make sure to take care of our charge and do the best we can for it.   Biologically, that makes sense to me.

But pictures do another trick on us.  My mother and I agreed that my two children seemed to be more interesting looking (maybe they have just that winning smile you love to see) or maybe they look like they're in the middle of discovering a proof of an impressive mathematical theorem and you're so proud they're so smart.   And yet pictures of those other kids don't give you the same thoughts.

Mom and I talked about how knowing the child can make a difference.  When you see a picture of someone you know, your brain may fill in the gaps and although you don't see the picture move, you can picture the child in the situation, exploring, thinking, having fun.  And that makes the picture and the child more appealing (and clearly much more cute) than those pictures of those other kids.

It's just a theory.  The other explanation is my children are both the most adorable and most intelligent kids on the planet, and while I think they're great, I'm not foolish enough to believe that.

The Big Boy Update:  Cooling it down.  He understands hot.  He has seen us blow on things that are "hot" to cool them down.  Today he took the cooling process into his own hands.  We were at lunch and he had a mini slice of pizza from the kids menu.  He was displeased with the temperature.  Both daddy and I said it would be cooler in just a minute.  Daddy blew on the slice and put it back on his mini plate.  He tried it again.  Still too hot.  Then he picked up his plate and both daddy and I were on high alert for dumping/throwing signs.  But no, he was holding the cooler plate up to his face so he could blow directly on the slice of pizza.  Anomaly?  No, as he did it again on the next slice.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Uncycling.  She likes to go through the recycle trash can and look at all the pieces of paper and decide if they're good reading, or tasty, or both.  I'm not sure uncycling is a word.  Perhaps she's into the second R of the three R's of Recycling (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.)  She's reusing them, perusing them, abusing them.  Toys don't have to be toys to be fun when you're ten months old.

Fitness Update:  Around the neighborhood for four miles.  Running at six in the morning is taking longer to get light enough to enter the park as the weeks wear on.  This morning, due to lack of time and lack of light, my neighbor and I ran for a bit over four miles all in the neighborhood.  My husband said he heard us.  Heard us?  He was going up to check on the little girl and thought he heard ladies chatting.  When he got upstairs he looked outside and we were doing one of our runs by the house in the semi-light.

Someone Once Said:  A skunk is better company than a person who prides himself on being "frank."

Conversational Versus Informational

I've spent most of my career writing in an informational style.  I developed classroom materials to educate students on complex software products offered by IBM.  I loved my job.  I was good at developing slide materials.  Here's an example of a slide I might have created for writing a blog post. 

Writing a Blog Post

• Title

• Content

• Formatting

• Publishing and Editing

We'd spend at least five minutes on this slide in a classroom environment.  I'd talk about each point and probably give a demo of creating a blog post.  Since some of the points on this slide are more involved, like formatting, there would be follow-on slides with examples and more details.

After I'd presented the topic, there would be a hands-on exercise to give the students an opportunity to practice the subject matter.  Exercise materials usually went something like this and would have pictures galore to reduce confusion and decrease frustration:

1. Select the Title entry field at the top of the page to the left of the orange "Publish" button.  
2. Enter the title. "My First Blog Post" in the field.
3. Click into the body area of the blog post and begin typing.  Enter several lines of text.
4. Press enter to get to a new line and add the text, "This text is underlined"
5. Hold down the left-mouse button and select the text "This text is underlined"
6. With the text highlighted, select the U at the top of the page.  
7. When you have completed your blog post, select the orange Publish button to publish.
8. To view your post, click the "View Blog" button at the top of the page.

Oh how dreadfully boring, right?  Informative, detailed, hopefully clear and concise, and nothing you'd want to read at night with a nice cup of tea.

When I started this blog, I wanted to build some skills at writing in a more conversational tone.  The first few months I felt like I was struggling mentally to find a voice or a tone or just words that flowed together in a non-jerky, awkward way.

At this point I think I've got the hang of it.  I can sit down at the computer here and just bang out a post.  It sounds like banging to me because I seem to try and hurry through it so I can get to other things.  But it's also a fun part of my day.  It's sometimes memories, it's sometimes recounting events and I get a good feeling that I'm at least documenting something  my children are doing each day because remembering in years to come will be more difficult.

I still have aspirations to write something fictional.  I may start with blog-post-length fictions.  I don't know when this might happen, but it's in plan.  As soon as I get an idea.  And as soon as I get the nerve.

The Big Boy Update:  Departures.  He's all about the departures.  When he leaves something or someone or someone leaves him he likes to say, "Bye bye X" to mark the event.  There's a humidifier in his room right now.  We looked at it and he discovered there's hot steam coming out.  Hot is associated with food and cooking to him.  As we were leaving the room he said, "Bye bye hot.  Bye bye cooking."   Also, wait for it, pee in the potty!  Yes indeed, we had a note that came home from school that said he was, "Dry the whole morning and pee in the potty once @ 11:30." 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Drool.  There is lots of drool today.  I don't know if this is a sign there will be teeth to come shortly.  I asked the pediatrician about her teeth the other day when we came in for the snot and cough check and she said all is well, that she's currently growing her permanent teeth.  The first round of teeth are on their way, they just erupt at different times for different children.

Fitness Update:  I ran the 4.5 miles culminating at the Popsicle store yesterday.  It's strange that I'm not even tired running that distance now.  I talked to Uncle Jonathan and he wants to work on speed, versus distance running.  I'm interested in both.  Although, speed is more difficult to build up I hear.  Uncle Jonathan reminded me that he was a glutton for punishment, and so clearly he'd want to take the harder route.  So it's going to be speed building drills for me soon.

Someone Once Said:   An adult doesn’t panic at a snake, she just checks to see if it’s got rattles.

Before The Last One...

This is one of those pet peeve posts.  I know, I said only positive things here.  So let's look at this as a suggestion of strategy as opposed to a complaint of behavior kind of thing and maybe I won't look like such a complainer.  Maybe.

I don't like to run out of things.  I refill the Keurig reservoir before it's empty so when I'm ready for a cup of coffee, the machine isn't out of water.  If I'm getting low on paper towels I'll make sure we get more before we have only one remaining sheet stuck to the cardboard roll.  When we're getting low on baby squirts (what I call those new food pouches for staged baby foods) I'll go to Amazon and order three bucket-loads.  In general, I don't like to be left hanging. 

Those things are convenience things though.  There are some things that are more of an issue when the last is used.   Interestingly enough, they all seem to be related to babies and their bottoms.

Babies have messy bottoms.  Babies are squirmy and don't like to sit still on a dresser to be changed.  And there are things that should be right there, ready for use, so the changing process can move swiftly to clean up and not make more mess.

Imagine a baby with a diaper that's been dirty for some time.  You just noticed it and it's a doosie.   This little baby doesn't want to hold their legs still for the diaper change.  The baby wants to flip over and look at the carpet.  This baby wants to put their hands between their legs or maybe they've figured out they can reach around the leg to see what kind of mess is smelling so lovely.  Also, this baby is getting strong.  You need to be fast.  You need to have your tools on hand.

Someone used all but the last wipe and you're in the middle of a three-person train wreck of a diaper?  Arrugh.  Someone used the last of the bags to put the dirty diapers in and didn't replenish them?  Grrrr.  Someone crammed the prior diaper into the diaper pail and the pail bag is full, at the end of it's capacity and you can't get your wad of diaper and wipes into the container without taking it apart and emptying it?  Oh, and there aren't any diapers to put back on the baby because someone used the last one at the last change.  Ugh...

These things don't usually happen all at the same time.  I have had them each happen to me within the past twenty-four hours.  There's always a reason things didn't get refilled or replaced.  It's called babies.  And they're distracting.   But there is a way to prevent this from happening.

Don't wait for the last diaper to be used.  Make sure the stack of boy and girl diapers has plenty of diapers in it.  Half stack?  Make it a full stack.  Wipes looking low?  Fill the container up so even the most horrific of diaper changes can be dealt with.  Diaper bags running low?  Go grab a stack from the pantry when you have a chance.  And if that diaper pail is full enough for you to have to cram in this diaper, it's time to empty it.  Think of the poor, next diaper-changing victim.  Think of them and make sure they've got the tools they need right where they need them.

Most of the refilling I do is between diaper changes.  It's being pre-prepared.  It's making sure I never leave the area with "just one" of anything because a crazy, busy, distracting diaper change when there's "just one" of anything is going to result in a "there are none" diaper change next.

But even with preparation, things can go wrong.  When I mentioned something to my husband earlier he said, "oh drat, I meant to refill that and got distracted."  He's a great dad and we all make mistakes.  Only an hour before, he was changing my daughter and he said, "I'm sure you told me already, but where did the wipes go?"  And this was funny, because I had just gotten done completely filling the wipes.  I had filled the container, turned around, and put the container away with the refills.  He wasn't left with few wipes or even an empty wipes container.  He had no idea where the wipes had gone off to.  Distractions, it's a way of life with babies.

The Big Boy Update:  Apples.  Everything is apples right now.  He's obsessed with apples.  It's more the word than the item, or the juice, or the squirts, or the sauce.  It's anything that looks like an apple or that sounds like an apple, or that has apple in the word like "pineapple."  When he's not sure what to say, "apple" is his current go-to word.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Cough and snot.  She has so much snot I'm afraid some of her brain is being systematically replaced with mucus.  Yellow mucus.  Gross mucus.  We spend lots of time during the day doing "brain suckering" with the nasal aspirator.  She does not like this.  I find myself tense all over through the entire process because I hate having to do it to her.  Today, after hearing her make a disconcerting cough for two days, I took her to see our favorite pediatrician.  This is the pediatrician who we love so much because she always makes you feel like you're doing the right thing as parents and that your children are just perfect.  Her chest is clear, so good news there.  The cough is from so much sinus drainage that it sounds like it's from her chest.  Humidifier with Vicks Soothing Vapor for the next several days for both children and they'll hopefully be happier kids.   Well, she's pretty happy now.  She charmed the doctor.  She's my best girl.

Fitness Update:  Hey, I'm not sore.  Whew, two days of sore and I knew I'd given my legs a good workout.  Today I feel great.  There's a fun run tonight at six I'm thinking of doing.  I hate leaving daddy with the kids through bedtime to go running though.  The fun thing about the run is it ends at a Popsicle store.  How awesome is that?

Someone Once Said:   How is this place run? Is it an anarchy? No, I wouldn’t say so. It is not that well organized.

Cloying

Are there some flavors that you find too sickly sweet?  For a friend of mine, he couldn't manage cotton candy because he said it was sweeter than he liked.  And yet this same friend would drench his pancakes in so much syrup they were practically swimming.  Syrup is that way to me, being so overly sweet in large quantities that I resort to dipping the edge of the pancake or waffle or french toast so I don't overdo the sugar whammy.

Is it how we process flavors on our tongue or is it how our brain percieves things that makes one thing more sweet than another?

And here's a strange thing, why does cake batter taste sweeter before it's baked into a cake while brownie batter tastes less-sweet than the resulting cooked brownies?  The cake batter fluffs up and becomes more airy after cooking while brownies stay more dense, but either way, the sweetness-factor changes after baking in different directions.

My husband makes cookies for movie night fairly regularly.  The sugar cookie dough tastes so much better to me than the resulting baked cookies.  This weekend, Uncle bob made some cookies.  The cookie dough was delicious.  It was peanut butter and oats and chocolate chips and M&Ms and the cookies were good.  But I'd rather have one cookie in dough-form than two cookies in baked form.

I don't think I'm the only one that feels this way.  Have you noticed how common cookie dough is in ice cream these days?  And then there's the cake batter, birthday cake and brownie batter options you find at virtually every frozen yogurt store.  So there must be something attractive about flavors in certain formulations that are more appealing in certain situations.

The Big Boy Update:  First Choo.  He likes trains.  He says, "choo choo" and "train" and he loves to play with anything train.  There is a train book, a crumbling set of Lego trains (with him as the crumbler,) and an interactive train walker toy with lights and annoying sounds.  And they're all fun.  Yesterday, he got to have his first ride on a train.  There's a historical one-third scale train at a local park you can ride on for a dollar.  It's a good use of a dollar.  He quietly sat and enjoyed the whole ride without commenting.  After the ride, when he had processed it somewhat, he'd say, "choo!" when he saw the train going around the park with other riders.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  First Carousel.  My daughter missed the train ride due to napping in the stroller, but she was awake and ready for the carousel ride that came next.  She rode in Grandpa's lap on one of the seats and looked all around the whole ride.  The music from the calliope was exciting and the motion was thrilling.  She kept looking back at Grandpa as if to say, "hey, this is great, thanks for bringing me."

Fitness Update:  Oo, sore.  lots of miles and my legs are sore.  But sore is good.  Sore means it was a good workout.  No running for me today.

Someone Once Said:  A baby has a unique virtue. It is always the hope of our race. It’s only hope.

Be a Parent

Words we use when we're trying to be encouraging, or cajoling, or just plain annoyed... "be a parent."

The first time my husband said this to me I broke up laughing.  Everyone has different tolerances.  My tolerance level for a child crawling around on the floor, putting things in their mouths, making a mess or getting into things is in many situations, higher than my husbands.

One day, I have no idea how long back nor do I remember the situation, whatever was happening with the child/children was beyond my husband's limit of acceptable.  He said across the room in the most serious voice, "Be a parent!"   I looked at him, realized what he meant, started laughing and kept laughing while I addressed the situation.

It's been an infrequently used, yet definite message we can send to one another when we've about gone over the edge, or we're pushed to our limits or just if we think the other parent is not being diligent in their parenting duties.

When it's said, we always take it seriously in meaning, and we always laugh together because it's a diffuser as well as a message to get your mess together and get back on task.

As a couple, we're not perfect.  For the amount of time we spend together we get along far better than most couples I hope, but we have our moments.  I wish we could find more "be a parent"-type sayings that accomplish their goal while lightening the mood at the same time.

The Big Boy Update:   There is this temper.  And there are these tantrums.  I am referring to his almost-two-ness.  It's not all the time, but he's got a lot more will of late.  Don't want to go potty?  It might end in screams.  Don't want to stop going potty so you can go back to the trains you had a fit about leaving in the first place?  It might end in screams.  Usually, this means he's tired.  So far, he hasn't won yet, but he's testing our limits.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:   Stephen Hawking girl.  She sits in her car seat, which has lots of room for her as she's tiny and it's her brother's old car seat.  She slumps in various directions from time to time.  Lately, I've been in the third row seat behind her as we've had a full car and I've noticed her slumping in just such a way as you see Stephen Hawking slumped in his chair.  It wouldn't be as striking a resemblance if she was asleep, but she does it while she's awake and looks around with her eyes only while keeping her head still.  It's both errie and cute at the same time.

Fitness Update:  After running over eight miles and walking over two miles yesterday, my neighbor sent me a text that she was up for a run at 6:15 this morning.  Who am I to refuse.  We got to chatting and we decided to go to our "vista" which is a big joke because it's a little pile of grass.  But it's our "vista" because it's at the top of a big hill and we think of a beautiful vista as we plod up the hill.  So, we got committed and we kept going just a bit further and we ended up running a bit over twelve miles.  Twenty-two miles in less than twenty-four hours and my little legs are having a discussion with me right now about the prudence of running for so long. 

Someone Once Said:  Sovereign ingredient for a happy marriage: Pay cash or do without. Interest charges not only eat up a household budget; awareness of debt eats up domestic felicity.

Hunger and Dilemma

To bulk and cut,
To gain and stay,
To eat or not,
I cannot say.

So many thoughts running through my head daily about eating, weight and exercise.  When I had extra weight I needed to lose, there was a clear goal.  I had to eat less.  I could exercise and eat more if I wanted, but whatever I did, I needed to eat less than I burned.

Things are less clear now.  How much should I weigh?  I haven't had muscles before, and I know those muscles weight more than they did in their prior, whimpy form of six months ago.  How does that additional muscle weight factor into my ideal body weight?

I'm running longer distances and running more per week.  How does that affect my metabolism?  Can I sustain more calories per day as a general intake rule because I'm exercising more in general?

Should I "bulk and cut" by gaining some pounds and letting them turn into muscles (as well as fat) and then cut the fat by follow-on dieting?  If so, how much is enough to gain and then subsequently lose?

And can we talk about desserts for just a minute?  Because I'm having a problem with desserts.  All of them.  All I want is desserts.  And candy.  And sweets.  And chocolate.  I think I've got a little sugar problem of late.

The sugar problem is nothing new, it's something I've had all my life and no, I'm not an impending diabetic.  It's like many things, the more you have, the more you want.  It's the same with alcohol with me.  While pregnant, I wasn't drinking.  I lost the taste of alcohol and just didn't want any.  But when I've been drinking regularly at meals or social occasions, I've noticed I want alcohol more than if I was drinking none.  It's the same with sweets.  The more I eat, the more I want.

So let me summarize:  I am struggling with hunger levels and appetite.  I'm struggling with it being okay to gain weight (I have gained a few pounds intentionally.)  And I'm struggling with turning the appetite and cravings back off so I can get back to the spot I was in while I was dieting where I only wanted what my body needed.

Food shouldn't have such a draw to us.  I watch my children, who don't understand how high-value a particular food is like a brownie, and I marvel that they don't need it and don't care about it.  I want that brownie because I know how decadent it is and how much I really don't need it.

Eating is such an important part of our lives that it's hard to put food in it's place and look at it appropriately.

The Big Boy Update:  Pacifier oh no.   He was doing so well that we thought he didn't want his pacifier for bedtime and naps.  Only he was having a hard time going to sleep.  And he would wail.  And he was taking long times to go to sleep.  But if you offered him the pacifier he'd tell you, "no no no no" and push it away.  If he had only said another word he knows well, "broken," we would have figured out much sooner that he desperately wanted a pacifier, but one that worked.  Sleep time is going much more smoothly now.  It's quieter too.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Juice.  I have no idea if I wrote about Juice or not.  But she knows how to ask for juice.  It sounds like "jooose" but it's close enough.  She says "dadda" or sometimes "daddy" and she says "hi" back to you too.  She is so smiley.  Also, she has diaper rash.  She's not smiley when you change her diaper.  But other than that, she's a happy baby.

Fitness Update:  Four days of no exercise.  Today I ran to the art museum and met my family there to look at the exterior art work.  It was about four miles there.  My husband rode his bike and my in-laws and brother-in-laws met us there with the children in the car.  We walked around a good bit and went up to the big bridge at the far point of the museum.  I ran back when we were done.  10.25 miles total, but about 1.5 was walking.  A good day though.

Someone Once Said:  I can recognize a fact when I fall over it.

The Leftover Blues

I admit it.  I don't like leftovers.  I like food that's just been prepared and is ready to eat right now.  I get excited about something new that I didn't have last night or two nights ago.  I don't look forward to leftovers.  Hardly ever.

Do people really like leftovers though?  I can see the draw of having a "free" meal because you paid for that meal two days ago and so today's lunch is free-ish.  I can see the draw from that perspective.

Wait, wait.  I do like leftovers, but only certain dishes.  There's a vegetable soup I make that gets better every day it gets older.  There's a roast that I can't possibly eat enough of the first day I make it.  And yet my appetite is large enough for four meals of it.  I have an Asian dish I adore that mellows and becomes more flavorful at the same time on day two.  But these are specific dishes that I always make extra of because I do want more than one serving and I do want leftovers.

My ideal meal is one that is just the right amount of food.  It's from a restaurant that doesn't serve huge helpings of food just so they can make sure you can't eat it all and have to take the extras home.   It's a meal that's appropriately priced for a single serving.

I would love to find meals served at the right size per helping so I wouldn't feel guilty if I didn't take home the remnants.  If I don't take them home, I feel wasteful.  If I do take them home and I don't eat them, I'm wasting the container that could have been put to another meal.

Ideally, all I need is what I can eat on my plate.  Oh, and dessert.  Can't forget about dessert.

The Big Boy Update:  Potty Buddy.  He had on training pants this afternoon and must have decided it was time to potty.  But where to potty?  On the potty, but where is the best place for the potty?  He dragged the potty left; he dragged the potty right; he dragged the potty into the bedroom.  He tried to sit—somewhat successfully—on just the potty insert.  Then he wanted to potty on the shelf in the closet.  I brought the potty back to its home spot and said I'd be his potty buddy and potty with him.  So lots of potty action, but no action in the potty itself.  Maybe tomorrow.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Off to school... eventually.  She's getting close to walking and we'd like to get her into school at the place her brother is going.  You need to be walking to join the Toddler Houses classrooms, but it was close enough that we wanted to submit an application for her.  She's going to be evaluated by the head toddler teacher to assess her readiness.  Soon she'll be baking bread and polishing shoes and arranging flowers and doing all the other funky, life-skills the toddlers do at school.

Someone Once Said:  Don’t explain computers to laymen. Simpler to explain sex to a virgin.

Grandma's Banana Nut Bread

My grandmother made the best banana nut bread.  She would send it or bring it or have it any time we saw her.  It was moist, nutty, banana-filled and so delicious.  Everything she made was that good.

My brother-in-law is visiting.  He's a great cook and he always comes with a freshly baked loaf of bread when he arrives.  I don't know how he brings bread without smashing through the travel on planes, but he does.

This time he brought a banana nut loaf.  It has that same delicious, unctuous, creamy quality of my grandmother's loaf.  I keep having small slices.  The loaf keeps getting smaller. 

He told us the loaf has a full stick of butter in it.  I wish he hadn't told me that.  I know how many calories are in a stick of butter.  But I also now know why the bread is so delicious.  The only difference, that I can tell, is that his loaf doesn't have a sugar coating on the top.

This coating always tasted like sugar and brown sugar and butter and maybe some cinnamon.  It was probably held together with some flour and then smeared on top of the loaf so you'd get a few bites that were better than the best, more tasty than delicious, and even better than you remembered from the last time you had the loaf when you ate them.

Today, when the babies were sleeping, I tried to remake that topping to recapture my childhood memories of Grandma's banana nut bread.  It wasn't exact, but it was close enough.

I've told Uncle Bob he's not allowed to bring that loaf of bread on future visits.  I told him he's required to bring that loaf of bread on future visits. 

The Big Boy Update:  Glow sticks.  He's never played with them before.  Daddy opened a pack of bracelets and showed him, in the dark, how they connected with the connectors by making three into a necklace.  Not long enough, my son decided.  He studied and studied the sticks and connectors until he knew how they worked together and eventually got the whole pack into a long necklace.  And he did it all in the dark.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Standing standing.  She stood in place, while holding my cell phone and waving it around for close to a minute today without any additional support.  She stands up well, as long as she doesn't realize she's doing it.

Someone Once Said:  A man who bets on greed and dishonesty won’t be wrong too often.

Level Expectations

My son has lots of bruises on his legs.  But for the most part, it's not from falling down from not looking where he's going.  It's from crashing into something he's running towards at full speed; or it's from trying to climb up on the table and banging himself because he's not tall enough to quite make it.  It might be that his shoes skidded on the floor and he fell forward.  But it's not from not watching what's in front of him.

While the falls he makes can be spectacular, what impresses me more are the falls he doesn't make.  Back when he was walking fairly well, but not well enough that anyone was comfortable with him toddling down the driveway and into the street.  He looked like he was about to fall over onto his face at any moment, but for the most part he made it without incident.

I would internally cringe as he approached the edge of the driveway from the road.  There's a little inch step up from one paved surface to the next.  His feet and his step were so small, I fully expected him to trip on the little edge.  But he'd clear it every time.  There is a similar edge in the garage as you come in from the driveway, but he'd make that one too.  In the attic, there are wood beams that stick up a few inches you have to step over.  Adults need to be warned, my son just steps over them.

So what's the difference?  I think as adults, we expect surfaces on which we walk to be flat and free of obstructions.  He's just a baby and doesn't have any notions of what should be where and that there shouldn't be balls and toys in the middle of the walkway.

I'm prone to stumbling on something if it's in the middle of an area I've marked in my mind as a "walkway" or if there is a surface that should be flat like a driveway, that has a mini step in it.

I don't see him look down, but he's surveying the area around him as he moves through it.  I don't look down because I'm assuming the area will be as I expect it to be.  I fall down less than he does because he's a baby, but I get tripped up in situations he wouldn't because he's not conditioned to expect certain things from his environment.

The Big Boy Update:  Hopen?  We were in the craft room yesterday and my son was trying to open various bins and containers.  He spent some time with a bin of small toiletry containers like mini-shampoo bottles, toothbrush holders, lotion containers and cream pots.  He needed help unscrewing the tops because while he understands the concept of screwing something open, he doesn't get that you have to reposition your hand and continue unscrewing in the same direction to get the lid off.  After playing with those for a while, he cleaned them up and then went over to a large bin.  He wanted me to help him open it.  I told him maybe later (as the contents weren't child-friendly)  He started saying, "Hopen?  Hopen?"  Was he saying, "help" or "open" or "I hope you'll help me open this?"

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Where are those teeth?  She still has only two teeth.  The first two came in at around six months, but so far, no other teeth and she's over ten months.  My son had a lot by now.  I don't feel the upper two about to erupt, so I'm not sure.  It doesn't seem to matter to her as she'll gum anything you give her to eat, but I'm wondering when she's going to get a more toothy grin.

Fitness Update:  Two days of not running.  Feels strange.  Feels lazy.   Maybe tomorrow.  Uncle Bob is visiting and he's done lots and lots of running.

Someone Once Said:  I don’t flatter myself that I have a monopoly on common sense, nor on originality.

Laminatrix

I've been volunteering to do little things for the toddler classes at my son's school.  They're not hard, in fact they're pretty easy, but they're not exciting either.  But today, I got to fulfill a life-long dream as a result.

First, I punched cards for sewing.  Apparently the toddlers sew with needle and thread.  I've seen pictures.  They're real needles and they're sewing through little card stock cards I punched with S-shaped or V-shaped patterns.  They also do punching.  I marked cards with sharpies shapes like  rectangles, triangles, circles in dots for the children to follow as a template to punch with a puncher.

For the next task, I cut out nouns.  Lots of nouns.  Nouns of all sorts of things from magazines that will be sorted into the twenty-six letter sounds of the alphabet.  Then each letter sound will be used as the sound of the week.  The children are learning how to glue now, and once they can glue they'll glue the nouns to paper and practice saying the words.

Next, I saw in the basked of, "things we need help with," two books of birds.  Two of the exact same book of birds.  I cut up two entire books because the picture of the bird on the left matches the description of the bird on the right.  But if you take the description of the bird on the right, you lose out on the picture of the bird on the next page (because it's on the back of the description page.)  So you need two books.

The process goes like this:  cut pages out, collate pages and do not mix up bird picture X with bird description Y because if you do—and I did—you have to do a lot of reading to figure out which bird goes with which description.

Eleventy-twelve bird/description pages later, I had a large stack that needed to be trimmed evenly and glue-sticked onto quarter sheets of card stock.  I called in for reinforcements because while some people go batty, I was going birdy.  My mother helped me glue the final birds down and next I was off to the office on my special, reward mission... I was going to become a Laminatrix.

That's right, I was going to get to use the big, industrial lamination machine at the school's office to laminate my towering stack of bird cards.  It was always my dream in school to use one of those cool machines.  Lightning and rain?  Not a problem, I held my head high and headed across the school yard towards the administration building. 

Alas, the lamination project and my term as "The Laminatrix" ended all too soon.  Now, I'm back at home cutting up the results into shiny, laminated bird cards.  But I'm not too sad, I hear there are noun cards that need preparing and laminating next.

The Big Boy Update:   Meltdown.  He did well at school today.  He was happy in the car coming home, he was glad to see daddy and his sister.  Then, he realized he was hungry and all hell broke lose.  He wouldn't eat anything because he was too upset to eat.  He didn't want to eat anything you offered to him, unless you gave the piece of banana, or strawberry, or raisin he refused, to his sister.  Then it was the only thing he wanted to eat, unless you offered it to him again, and then he screamed at you and threw it on the floor.  It was a power play, and it was fueled by hunger and tiredness.  We were reasonable but firm.  Neither my husband nor I are going to let a toddler run our house.  When it was clear he wasn't going to settle down and eat, he got to have an early nap.  He's still napping.  Maybe the food will be more appealing after he wakes up and is less-tired.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Bye Bye.  Oh she has so got bye bye now.  In just the past three days, she's started saying, "bye bye."  Today she's figured out the situational reason for saying it and she's doing the delayed reaction thing where after you've left the room, she says bye bye to you.  Only it's well after you've left that she says it.  If you open the door and tell her to say bye bye again to daddy, she'll just look at you, because hey, she's a baby, and we all know babys never perform on queue.

Someone Once Said:   A “labor-saving device” often isn’t.

Ya Ya!

It's been one month since school started and I think we're getting the hang of things.  We've figured out how much time it takes to get ready in the morning, even with a child that isn't in a hurry to eat his breakfast.  We've factored in additional time for traffic and we have a route that seems to work best for the drive there.  Once we get on that morning drive, I've discovered I'm reminded of many childhood memories along the way.

We drive past my junior high school, which has been rebuilt to such an extent that I hardly recognize it.  On the way I see my best friend's childhood home, which has had so much remodeling it also doesn't look anything like I remember it.  And we drive by and through an apartment complex that looks almost identical to everything I remember from well over thirty years before.

The little entry sign for the Palms Apartments must have gone through multiple renovations, but it's always maintained the same general appearance.  The apartment buildings must have had new roofs put on them, new toilets put inside them and I'm sure they've had general updates all around, but the buildings are in the same places, have the same external appearance and just look reminiscent of apartments from decades ago.

I remember a story about these apartments from when I was so young that I don't remember the actual event.  I do, however, remember the re-telling of the event which happened many times as I grew up.  My mother was driving me to school—possibly the same school I'm driving my son to now, although I could have been older—and she discovered there was a relocated family from Sweden (I think) who needed transportation to get their little girl to school.

My mother offered to pick up this little girl, drive her to school and then return her at the end of the day.  The first day (so the story goes) my mother showed her the, "blast-off seat" in the back that she could sit on.  That blast-off seat was the arm rest between the back two seats.  This was pre-car seat days.  The blast-off seat was a popular place for kids to sit.  That seat helped to calm a child more than anything else because it was special.

So this little girl gets in the car and is scared.  She goes to school and doesn't speak much (if any) English but she makes it through the day.  We're driving back to her apartments and when we round the corner, she recognizes the only thing she knows that connects her with her family and starts yelling, "YA YA!"

It was a sweet reunion for her and her mother, I'm sure.  That little girl probably has children of her own now, but I still think of her and other memories of times spent at the Palms Apartments when I drive by each day.

The Big Boy Update:  Singing ABC.  He's just beginning to get the gist of singing.  We sang the ABC song on the way to school this morning.  He doesn't make it past the first set of letters and he's not in time or in tune, but he's trying to sing at the same time you are, which is something he didn't understand just a few weeks ago.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Mimi went to Kindermusik with my daughter today.  They both had a good time singing and bouncing and shaking rattles and bells together.  There were bubbles and happy babies and a very enthusiastic teacher that makes every baby beam with excitement.   She is now napping as Kindermusik can be tiring.  Who?  Ah, both Mimi and the baby.  Didn't I mention Kindermusik is tiring to the adults too?  After forty-five minutes of lifting the baby, dancing with the baby, marching with the baby, swooping with the baby and zooming with the baby, we adults need a nap, more than the babies.

Fitness Update:  Dirty Rotten Trick.  Uncle Jonathan ran with my neighbor and me this morning at six o'oclock.  I tricked him and didn't set my phone app on interval training.  So... no voice telling us we get to walk for a minute after ten minutes of running.  How did he do after he realized he'd been tricked?  Four miles of running is how he did!

Someone Once Said:   There’s no virtue in being old, it just takes a long time.

Movie Night - It's Not All About The Movies

We've been hosting Movie Night on Fridays since shortly after moving into our current house.  I look forward to Movie Night every week.  I like having friends show up, come in casually, bring their meals and then spend a night in a relaxed, non-structured way.  Movie Night is the "anchor" of my week in so many ways.

The friends that come vary; sometimes it's only a few people, sometimes it's packed.  There are frequently children who watch kids shows upstairs, but not always.  We have frequent birthday celebrations, with cakes and ice cream and presents and the traditional birthday song we all sing but don't really know why we sing it.  Movies are selected through a friendly, elimination/suggestion process and even if it's a movie some people know they're not going to like, no one really complains because there will be a second movie.

There's a table in the back of the room that people sit at who may not be as into the movie or maybe they're working or perhaps they're playing a game or scrap booking or making jewelry.  Frequently in the back of the room there is chatting—which we try to keep at a low volume, though we don't always succeed.

If there's no birthday to celebrate, there may be cookies between movies.  Cookies my husband bakes to just the right level of perfectness, just like The Oracle did in The Matrix.  He is that skilled, I swear it is so. 

But bottom line, Movie Night is all about what you want it to be.  Some people (for example me) don't usually watch the movies.  I stay upstairs with the children, take care of the babies and then get in the tub and go to bed early.  Other people like to watch the movies, but they never seem to look away from their smart phone, tablet or computer.  Other people are there for the movies and have a great time selecting, watching and discussing them.

Whatever it does for people to start their weekend, it's the anchor to my Friday night and the best ending of a work week. 

The Big Boy Update:  "Make it vacuum.  Make it working."  I have mentioned before my son's love of the vacuum.  It is an undying and unwavering love for any loud, sucking, hose-laden device.  We were in the attic this morning and he found the old upright.  He pulled off the hose attachments.  He put the hose attachments together.  He unrolled the extra hose.  He talked to the vacuum the whole time.  When he realized he couldn't turn it on by himself, he came over and asked, "Make it vacuum.  Make it working.  Help vacuum." 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Standing is the first step to walking.  She's started to free stand and look around now.  She's even taken a lunging step or two, but nothing that I'd consider real walking yet.  However, I predict she'll be spending even more time upright soon.

Fitness Update:  Three-way run.  This morning my neighbor asked if we could run a little later and would I mind if her husband joined us.  Her husband and she take turns running or exercising usually, because they have four little girls that need a parent around while the other one is out.  But last night, the girls went to their grandparents.  We had a great run of almost eleven miles, even if it was raining, and three people chatting made the run seem to go by even faster. 

Someone Once Said:   Games are important; they mark that we are not just animals trying to stay alive but humans enjoying life and savoring it.

Gratefullness and Thankfulness

From time to time sometimes your whole life can crystallize in a way and you see things clearly.  It might be a life-changing event such as getting married or having a baby, or it might be that you were having a lovely bath after a long day and it just whammoed you in the head.  I am not sure "whammoed" is a valid term, but that's what it can feel like.

Maybe you've realized that while things aren't perfect in your life, you have a lot to be thankful for.  You realize that hey, you're not hungry, you have clothes, you even have clothes you like to wear. You have reasonable health.  You might be in pain, but it's bearable and you can deal with it.  There are lots of people in much worse pain that have a hard time managing.

You have a good family.  You have a great family.  You have family that likes to visit you.  For instance, Uncles Bob and Brian are coming to visit next week.  Uncle Bob is great.  He cooks, he makes pies, my children love him, he always has good conversation and we love when he can come to visit.  Uncle Brian is the same, although Uncle Brian is smart enough to let Uncle Bob do all the cooking and sit back and just eat.  Uncle Brian is a comforting person to be around, he's kind and friendly and the type of person you're glad to have as a friend.

The following week, Aunts Adrienne and Brenda are coming to visit.  They're coming all the way across the country, and they're going to spend time with us and we're going to see if they're fooling enough to change diapers and oh, they read this blog so maybe I'd better not say too much about our master plans.  But we are very thrilled they're coming to visit and have a relaxing, family week with us.  We'll be celebrating Aunt Brenda and daddy's birthdays, because they're on the same day.

We're going to have not one, but two sets of parents stop in to visit during the next few weeks.  From prior posts, you know we love it when the grandparents come to town.  The only down side is they keep leaving.  I'm still working on my plans of entrapment...

Suffice it to say, we have great families, we have a good life and we have lots to be thankful for. 

The Big Boy Update:  Daddy cook. My husband is making pizza from scratch for lunch.  He got a big stool my son could stand on to see the counter so he could help make the dough.  He kept repeating, "cook" and "daddy cook" and his level of excitement and thrill was just a delight.  My daughter wanted to help, but she's a little young yet.  The cutest was when he got down from the stool, went to his plastic cooking supplies, got the plastic catchup bottle and pretended to add some to the mixing bowl of dough. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Hi.  Hi.  Hi.  Her new word.  And it's one you can request.  You can say, "hi" and she'll say it right back at you.  She'll look you in the eye and say it without hesitation.  "Uh oh" still requires an appropriate situation.  And speaking of uh oh, let me tell you about her unscrewing skills.  Her brother wants to interact with lids of all sorts, but he has yet figured out how to unscrew something.  Today, we heard her in the pantry and she was making a clunk sound that meant she'd stood up and pulled down a spice from the low spice rack.  I was impressed.  I was more impressed when I came around the corner to see her with the lid off and Zataran's seasoning all over her and the floor.  The smell of that, intermixed with little girl poo was overpowering.  She and her spicy self got naked on the deck and redressed at the changing table. 

Fitness Update:  Eight miles of ow.  Yesterday afternoon, after my neighbor was done with clinic and off work for the week, we went for a medium-length run.  Seeing as it was afternoon, we were pleased when our timing for the first mile was under our average.  Expectations high as we continued through the first half of our run that I like to call, "The Hateful Route" due to lots of steep hills and switch backing trail, kicked my butt.  I was so out of breath.  We had eight miles in plan and once we're committed, there's no real turning back as it's a loop.  We made it.  I drank and drank at the watering hole at six miles but owie.  Some days you win, some days you're not even in the race.  She and I commented that we were more tired yesterday than we had been on our half marathon distance day. 

Someone Once Said:  The phrase “we (I) (you) simply must—“ designates something that need not be done. “That goes without saying” is a red warning. “Of course” means you had best check it yourself. These small-change clichés and others like them, when read correctly, are reliable channel markers.

The Very Expensive Night Light

It's been over a week now since the iPhone death in the park during the deluge while on the run.  With supremely good timing, Apple announced the iPhone 5 this week and this morning I placed an order for a new phone.  But what's the status of my pseudo-dead iPhone 4S?

It is working here and there.  And some bits are still over-working.  The LED on the back of the phone that's there as a flash of sorts for pictures has been on since the rain run.  I've reset the phone and I can get into an app, any app, as long as that's the only app I want to get into.  The touch screen works and the speakers work but if I want to exit the app, I have to reboot the phone.  So choose wisely.

I have a hope that I can sync my music on this phone and use it as an iPod to go with my music dock.  But the phone behaves in other hinky ways, so I'm not certain that's going to pan out.  However, the one area the little crippled phone is doing better than expected, is the LED light.

The phone has been on for over a week now, sitting in my nightstand drawer.  Every time I open the drawer I expect the light to be dead, but no, it's still shining brightly.  I wouldn't have expected such a bright light to be able to run for so long on a phone battery.

So very expensive night light or gimpy MP3 player?  I'm not sure what the final home will be for my old phone.  I still say a little, "I'm sorry" to it every time I see it in the drawer, knowing how it was mistreated and how it's still trying to go on.

The Big Boy Update:  Blanket Issues.  He's got the snots and he doesn't feel well and he was asking for his blanket this morning before school while we tried to get his clothes on.  He's getting strong and he was being quite difficult so I went upstairs and got him a blanket.  He's never asked for his blanket before really so I thought it couldn't be a bad thing.  He took his blanket to the car and held on the whole ride.  When we got to school, Mr. Bill couldn't get him out of the car seat on account of the blanket being in the way.  When I took it away, crying commenced.  Bill decided to send him into class with the blanket.  They would put it in his bag when he got in.  But from now on, no blanket when going to school.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Penned out.  We forgot about the baby pen.  It's a hexagonal pen we put my son in a lot.  My daughter so far isn't getting into as much trouble as he did.  With one exception.  She likes the computers under our feet.  She wants to optimize our hard drives, unplug the network cables, test the stability of the cases and cause commotion and chaos under the desks.  This morning my husband got out the pen, took the six sections and zigzagged them to pen our desks and us in and her out.  She has full use of the room beyond, but I swear, she's still looking fondly at our PCs.

Someone Once Said:   Animals can be driven crazy by placing too many in too small a pen. Homo sapiens is the only animal that voluntarily does this to himself.

Processing Change

This is not about giving change, or counting your change or turning in change to the bank to get bills.  This is about life change.   It's about those big changes that take time to process and how our brain can be in autopilot mode until someday we realize we've fully processed the change.

It's not unlike learning a second language and not feeling like you're really fluent in the language until you find yourself thinking in that language some day.  When I first got married I knew I was married, but I didn't know I was married without thinking about it.  I answered the phone with my job all day and I easily made the change from my maiden last name to my married last name because I answered the phone by stating my name.  But, "Mrs.?"  Accepting that part took a good while to process. 

Being pregnant.  Not difficult to accept.  Pregnancy forces itself on you with all the physiological changes to your body.  But the moment that little baby is born, suddenly you go from a non-mommy to a mommy.  And your brain has to catch up.  I have two children now and I know I'm a mother.  I talk about, "my son" or "my children" all the time.  But sometimes, I forget I'm a parent and when I realize it it's a novel feeling.

And don't even get me started about being a, "family of four" because that one is going to take a while longer still to accept.

The Big Boy Update:  Noooooooo!  He's realized there's separation happening now at school drop-off.  He cries.  The staff whisk him away so quickly that he's redirected and hopefully not sad for long.  When school started it was new and novel, and quite frankly it's more interesting than being at home is, but he's decided departures are sad.  It's a good thing the teachers are all experts at dealing with children.  I have not one worry he's in the best situation possible.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Unhappy snotty.  She got the snots from her brother.  It's cramping her style and her ability to nap peacefully.  Oh, and drink her milk.  It's ticking her off on multiple fronts.

Fitness Update:  My neighbor and I ran six miles today.  We talked about how six miles seemed like not very much when we ran over thirteen the other day.  And we know that's a strange thing because we ran for over an hour to run those six miles.  That's a long time running, and it's a good workout to start the day.  I told her about my friend who emailed yesterday that she can't sign up for the race my other friends are signing up for because she will have run in a 50K race the day before.  50K!??  That's over a marathon.  Good Grief Charlie Brown.

Someone Once Said:  Always listen to experts. They’ll tell you what can’t be done and why. Then do it.

The Ultralight and The Steeple

Taking my son to school in the morning takes me down a road I've traveled all my life.  Literally.  I live one zip code away from the one in which I was brought home from the hospital and raised.  I walked up and down this road to go to elementary school and I kept walking the road to and from junior high school.  I lived one street off the road for over seven years and now, I'm just three miles away from the road, and it's one I take every weekday when I drive my son to school.

We don't live in a particularly hilly area, but there is a good-sized valley this road traverses.  When you're coming down the far side, you can see a church steeple in the distance.  That steeple would have probably not made much impact on my childhood or my childhood memories except for a strange event that occurred when I was very young.

Imagine first, that this steeple is the only thing that sticks up all around.  It's on the top of this ridge, and all around it are houses.  And one day, a plane crashed.  And it crashed into the steeple before ending its journey, and the life of the sole pilot, on the ground across the street.  It crashed through the only tall thing in it's way.  A steeple of slenderness and tininess in an ocean of empty sky. 

I was too young to have an idea of how big planes commonly were.  The fact that this plane, this ultralight, had taken out a steeple and then crashed into the small front yard at a frighteningly, shockingly, steep angle just across the street was over my head.  It was about the right size for a plane I supposed.

The wreckage was cleaned up and the grass regrew in fairly short order but that steeple went missing for many years.  Eventually enough funds were raised to replace it.  Today, when I look across the valley and see that lone steeple, I often think of the unknown pilot and his terrible misfortune.

The Big Boy Update:  After all this time... the potty received a deposit.   Three months of potty time and my son not one bit interested in doing anything in it.  He is training in school now and he has even sent home five soiled training pants from a single three-hour day.  But no productions in the potty.  Yesterday, my husband caught him straining and like we commonly do, sat him down on the potty.  Our suspicion is that he likes to go standing up and the change of position isn't helping.  But yesterday, he did it.  Breakthrough or accident?  We're not yet sure. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Free standing.  She's starting to stand up without holding on to anything now.  She's not doing it as a precursor to walking, she'd just interested in an item while she's standing and decides she's interested with two hands.  Suddenly, she's not holding on to anything and she hasn't even noticed because, hey, crinkly thing! 

Fitness Update:  No running in two days.  Hunger level rising.  Isn't it strange that the more you exercise, the less hungry you are?  But it's a known phenomenon.  Hopefully I'll run with my neighbor tomorrow morning.

Someone Once Said:  One must accept death, learn not to fear it, then never worry about it. “Make today count!” as a friend whose days are numbered told me. Live in that spirit and when death comes, it will come as a welcome friend.

Coffee Dog

My husband and I divide responsibilities for the babies in lots of things.  He excels at getting up in the middle of the night and finding out what's wrong with the baby that's making the commotion.  I do better getting up early to prepare breakfasts and get the dishes put away.

In the mornings, after I've gotten the children downstairs and the small one bottled, my husband helps to get my son ready for school and I head off into the throes of traffic, or, preferably, the lack of traffic.  Some days you win, some days you sit in a long line of cars.

Each morning there are multiple breakfasts to be prepared.  My coffee, things for my son to feed to himself and a bottle for my daughter.  Oh, arugh, and I almost forgot the dog's food.  And that exact scenario has happened too many times.  On a very few occasions the dog has gone without breakfast for part of the morning.  One time she even went without dinner.  Several times she's gotten dinner hours later at the adult's bedtime.  And I feel terrible any time any of these scenarios happen.

The dog was number one for so long.  She is patient and kind and always available to clean up any food matter the children drop, or throw, or drool.  So I had to come up with a way to make sure I don't forget her.

One of the first things I do when I come into the kitchen in the mornings is turn on the coffee maker.  While it heats the water up, I start preparing breakfasts.  I decided if I said to myself, "Coffee Dog" when I turn on the coffee machine, I'd go next to get her food and she and I could be served first.  The dog and I will still be first, even if we're lower priority sometimes.  So far, the Coffee Dog system is working and I haven't gotten the sad look of, "you forgot me again, mamma" from the dog.

The Big Boy Update:  Cleaning up the room all by himself.  A few mornings ago I got my son up and changed him.  I put him on the floor and told him we were going to go eat breakfast after I changed his sister.  He had some toys on the floor that he'd thrown out of his crib from earlier as he'd been awake before breakfast so daddy had given him some things to occupy himself with.  At this point, those toys were all over the floor in front of his crib.  I asked him if he could put the toys up while I changed his sister.  I didn't expect too much, but he's seen us clean up all his life and he does practice putting things away at school.  As I looked around, he was putting the pieces into the container toy.  He got every one in.  Then he carried the container into the closet and put it away.  He came back, got the two books on the floor next, put one through the slats of his bed and then went to his sister's crib to give her a book for later reading.  The floor was completely cleaned up.  I was very impressed.  Go baby.  Also, he's just turned twenty-one months old today. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:   About that pacifier...  She likes her pacifier.  This is good, because for a while we thought she was going to get attached to her thumb.  But even the pacifier is not ideal, as no sucking dependency would be even better.   So we're starting to measure how dependent she really is on the pacifier.  We've removed the permanently attached pacifier from her car seat.  This was the one she could get to all the time for self-soothing while we're driving.  Otherwise, she doesn't get a pacifier unless she's in the crib, but she always expects one and whenever you go into the room and she's awake in the crib, she always has it in her mouth.  So we're not in a terrible state, but it's going to take a bit of work to remove it from naps and bedtime.  Today she's ten months.  I think we've got a little time before we should be concerned.

Fitness Update:  5K Uncle Jonathan.  Uncle Jonathan has been in running training too.  I've seen him go from one minute runs to four nine minute runs yesterday, running over 5K.  He's signed up for a four mile race with us in October and the 10K portion of the half marathon my neighbor and I are running in November.  If my son could say, "Congratulations Uncle Jonathan," I think he would. 

Someone Once Said:  There are human beings who have very little but are rich in dignity and self-respect. Their hospitality is not for sale, nor is their charity

Magnetic People

Do you know someone who's just magnetic?  They're the person that everyone turns to look at all the time.  They have just the right smile, a friendly look about them, maybe they're attractive or there's just something ineffable about them that makes people want to look at them, listen to them and be friends with them?  I met someone like that today.

My daughter started Kindermusik this week and this morning was our first class.  You dance and sing with your baby and the babies just love it.  They sway back and forth, they rattle the bells and laugh at the bubbles and they get a good foundation of music and rhythm.

In general, there are mothers or grandmothers in these classes with the children.  We had twelve babies and thirteen parents today.  One family had both a father and a mother with their son.  Initially, this man walked in, with no baby.  The instructor greeted him and introduced him to the class. I wondered if he was an instructor in training.  Shortly we introduced ourselves and he said his wife and baby were out in the waiting room, waiting for  his son to wake up. 

This man was the magnetic person about which I'm writing the post.  First, he looked a lot like Orlando Bloom, so he was nice to look at.  But he just looked happy and friendly.  He had an easy voice and was very outgoing in a caring, sort of kindergarten teacher kind of way.  We all know it's easy to look at someone attractive, but there are lots of attractive people out there and they all don't capture my attention like this guy did.  Yes, he was the only man in the room, but that wasn't it either.  It was the combination of everything that can be summed up as "charisma."  This guy had more charisma than three regular men.

Later, his wife came in with a cute little chubby boy.  I don't think the wife said two words, if any, during the class.  But he did.  He was nice to the other little girls and boys that crawled or walked over to him.  He asked my daughter if she could please teach his son to crawl.  And throughout it all, I found myself trying to not look at him more than any of the other, very nice mommies, who were saying and doing the exact same nice things.

So charisma.  A powerful thing.  And there is the opposite too.  There's the anti-magnetism.  There was a lovely mother with a very cute daughter that was a delight in class.  But the mother had one eye that looked, rather drastically, in the wrong direction.  It took me three times looking at her—and feeling like I was rudely staring each time—to determine which eye was the proper eye to look at so the strange feeling of lack of eye contact would go away. 

The Big Boy Update:  Ice!  He likes ice cream.  But he can't say "cream" so he says, "ice" repeatedly.  Yesterday after lunch we started walking down the sidewalk towards the frozen yogurt place we frequent.  He started saying, "ice ice ice!"  When we left, he waved at the store and said, "Bye bye, Ice."

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Kindermusik.  She's not shy.  She crawled all around the room, sat in the middle of twelve children and parents, shook the shakers, made a friend named Ty, who was so fascinated with her white hair that we dubbed them boyfriend and girlfriend by the end of the class. 

Fitness Update:  Weight Up.  It's so hard to gain weight.  Mentally that is.  Physically?  Bring on the ice cream and milk shakes.  I'm up a few pounds from my lowest, and target weight.  But I have these calf muscles and thigh muscles and abdominal muscles and probably butt muscles that have been being built over the past several months that I'm trying to think of the weight gain as proper and appropriate and not overindulgent.

 Someone Once Said:  The human body is often pleasing, frequently depressing—and never significant per se.

They Didn't Clap

Yesterday at lunch we were eating at a popular deli restaurant in the area.  There's a nice big salad bar and lots of choices for both the adults and children.  I had gotten the kids settled in and they were shoving a muffin in each mouth while my husband was up placing our orders.  I heard a loud crash and the sound of a plate or two breaking behind me.  And I thought, "They didn't clap..."

I saw the lady in a moment, embarrassed or annoyed or both that she had dropped a plate, split food and was now the center of attention of everyone in the restaurant.  So why did the thought, "they didn't clap" come into my mind?  I had to think hard and then I remembered high school.  Ah yes, where everyone is so very kind to one another.  Do something stupid where other people can see you, and they'll make sure everyone else knows what a clumsy clout you are.

I remember the few times someone dropped a tray in high school.  We were all already self-conscious about everything, but given an opportunity to make an embarrassed person more embarrassed and it only takes a few mean or insensitive kids to start a round of applause that will infect the entire cafeteria.

I didn't want to clap, I liked the geeky person from the grade below me that was overweight and didn't have a lot of friends, but my friends were clapping.  What compelled them to clap and why am I now finding myself clapping?  For shame.

So there was no clapping yesterday.  We, as somewhat more civilized adults, just looked away and tried not to make the embarrassed lady feel more eyes on her while she and the staff cleaned up the mess.  Maybe we do mature as we get older.

The Big Boy Update:  Blankie Baby.  He doesn't like "loveies" much and has shown no interest in stuffed animals as comfort devices.  But he is getting more and more attached to blankets.  Not a particular blanket, but baby-sized blankets in general.  He wanted to take his blanket to breakfast today.  As we were about to walk down the stairs like we do each morning, with me holding his hand and him holding on to the rail, he said, "hold on."  It appears he's been getting advice from everyone on the traversal of steps for some time now and he wanted to let me know he's gotten the message. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Milk integration.  We're starting to work in milk with her formula so that when she's a year, she's off formula all together.  She's at 1/4th milk now and hasn't seemed to notice yet.

Fitness Update:  U Can Do It (Part II) - Still with poo.  13.4 miles with my neighbor today.  We can relax because we just ran over a half marathon and the November race is weeks away.  She has a friend that's going to join us for our long runs on the weekend and we're going to drop back in miles a bit to help her build up distance.  That message in poo?  Still there, fading and being eaten by bugs but I got a shot of it today.

Someone Once Said:  If a grasshopper tries to fight a lawnmower, one may admire his courage but not his judgment.

Childhood Phone Memories

I was young during the rotary dial days.  I didn't realize how long ago and far away that technology was until we got a retro phone for the children with a clicking, rotary dial and my niece asked me how these phones worked.  I explained that each number on the dial had an associated number of clicks and the clicks told the switching office how to connect your call.

Later, I was thinking of phone memories from my childhood.  I was able to use the phone at a fairly young age to call my best friend across the street to see if she could come play.  As I grew older, we learned about some phone numbers that you could dial and hear messages.  I wasn't much of a prank caller.  I just had no interest.  But calling a phone number and listening to a recorded message was a pretty neat thing to do.  There were two numbers I remember.

The first was a bank that had the time.  I'm wondering if they also gave the temperature, but I think it was only the time.  You could call the number, hear an automated message that told you the time, even though there was a clock right by the phone.  This probably annoyed my mother because I would call it and then tell her her clock was off by two minutes.  I liked to make sure her clock was correct.  That, or I just wanted to call a phone number.

When I got to junior high school, one of the boys told me there was a number you could call to hear a message from the KKK.  I didn't know what the KKK was, and when he told me I remember thinking there was no way.  People aren't hateful, are they?  Well it turns out, there was a recorded message.  I thought it was a prank, but the voice was that of an older man.   I have no idea what he said, but there was a number, and I guess in the early eighties someone cared enough to pay for a phone line and record meeting messages.

When I got to high school, we had a cordless phone.  Cordless phones were just so darned cool.  I have vivid memories of our Radio Shack one I about wore out from talking to my high-school friends.  Every now and then, my phone would connect with my neighbor, who was in the super popular crowd.  I've never really been interested in hearing what other people said, but I did listen in once for about five minutes to see what being popular was all about.  Popular people talk about boring stuff I realized and hung up.

The Big Boy Update:  Will I have to visit him in prison?  It's so easy to blame behavior on, "the terrible twos," or "it's because he's a boy," but it does worry me that he seems to have no moral compass some of the time.  The good news is that every single parent I talk to says this is normal, and their son(s) did the exact same thing.  Yes, they spent more time yelling than praising some days, and that it will work itself out and not be concerned that I'm raising a budding psychopath.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Happy food dance.  Both children do this thing where they sway back and forth when they have a food item they're particularly pleased with in their little sticky hands.  You can see the happiness on their face when they're smiling and shoving something they love in their mouth.  My daughter has a happy song dance that matches the happy food dance as well.  Put on a good song and she'll sit on the floor and sway back and forth to the music and beam at you.

Fitness Update:  Toes.  Ouch.  When I did the long run of phone death on Thursday, I should have stopped and tightened my shoes when they got completely drenched.  My feet were sloshing around in them too much and I rubbed two toes too much.  I had an inkling something was going on, but I was too preoccupied with the phone and the rain and getting home to take the time.  Tomorrow I'm scheduled to do a long run with my neighbor and her friend.  It's been healing well, so I think I'll be fine.  Next time, I'll pay more attention.

Someone Once Said:  Anybody can see a pretty girl. An artist can look at a pretty girl and see the old woman she will become. A better artist can look at an old woman and see the pretty girl she used to be. A great artist can look at an old woman, portray her exactly as she is…and force the viewer to see the pretty girl she used to be…more than that, he can make anyone with the sensitivity of an armadillo see that this lovely young girl is still alive, prisoned in her ruined body. He can make you feel the quiet endless tragedy that there was never a girl born who ever grew older than eighteen in her heart. (about Rodin’s “Caryatid Who Has Fallen under Her Stone”)

U Can Do It (in poo)

It was an expensive run. 

Yesterday I felt like I was slacking off on the exercising front.  Hm, let me rethink that.  I think I'm just concerned that I haven't made the half-marathon distance yet and I feel my confidence wavering from time to time.  I've even shortened a few runs lately. 

So I went out, thinking I'd do a long run and planning on doing the 13.1 miles accomplished.  It was a bright, sunny day.  I had some tan lines when I got in from the portion I ran out from under the trees.  I was tired initially.  I wasn't sure I could make it, but then I got into a stride.

I had run about five miles when I passed some strangely arranged horse poo on the trail.  I turned around and realized someone had arranged the poo into a message... it said, very clearly, "U CAN DO IT."    Who arranges poo on a trail?!  I ran on, took it as a message and about a half-mile later was kicking myself for not getting a picture of it.  Ah well. 

So I'm in a stride now.  I'm doing mental mile markings in my mind and adding a new leg to the run so that I can get back to the house at close to the 13.1 mile mark.  A little early and I'll just run around the neighborhood to finish it off.

At around nine miles the skies grow ominously dark.  The bright sun is gone.  Then, there is thunder.  At about 9.5 miles there is rain.  The rain turns into crazy downpour.  This is the bit where the run got costly.

I am drenched in sweat.  There is nothing on me that is anything other than dripping in sweat and rain.  My little phone, my favorite iPhone 4S with the cool heart rate monitor that only works with the 4S is in a water-resistant pouch.  But resistant doesn't hold up to deluge of rain.

At the ten mile mark the sound had gone out.  I hoped water got into the speaker and I just couldn't hear it.  At about eleven miles I got to the watering hole.  I pulled out the phone to find the LED "flash" permanently on and the main button not working.  Blast it.  I was still 1.5 or more miles from home. 

13.1 miles didn't matter now, I just needed to get home and blow-dry the phone.  I got in, and crazy enough was able to check the distance on the running app I use and end the workout.  But the phone was a casualty.  There are lots of technical things to explain about what bits work and what bits don't work but Apple said, sorry, new phone for you.  

The iPhone 5 announcement is in five days so for now I'm passing on replacing the phone and borrowing my husband's old iPhone 4. 

The Big Boy Update:  Traumatic Meals.  He is going through a phase with eating lately.  Just woken up?  Too upset to eat.  Over-hungry?  Too upset to eat.  Thinks you might offer him food instead of elephants for a meal?  Too upset to ponder any food item, even if it's his favorite.  We're discovering two things.  First, do not try to get him to eat anything.  NEVER shove a spoon at his mouth when he's upset.  This will make him less-inclined to eat the food.   Second, don't offer an alternate food.  What you offered him was find, he just needs to calm down.  What seems to work best is putting him in the high chair (or better yet, let him climb in himself,) sit the food down and walk away.  In less than two minutes he'll most likely be eating the food. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Napping on the floor.  She likes her bed, but she can be convinced the floor with a fluffy blanket is a nice napping spot.  She's trying to get comfortable on the floor now.  Bambi is on the TV and she's got her pacifier.  We'll see if she makes it to sleep...

Fitness Update:  12.6 miles, one dead phone.

Someone Once Said:  If you get more mileage out of your sins by regretting them, that’s your business.

I Can't Tell You, You'll Have to Read About It

When I get an idea during the day on what I plan to write here, I send myself a note.  While I'm waiting to get to the computer to get the idea written, I do some thinking about what I'm going to write.  Sometimes when I start to write, it comes out pretty much like I'd planned it; sometimes it ends up entirely differently.  But I have a general rule, I don't talk about the post before I write it.

For some reason, talking about it before I write about it can abort the idea.  Am I processing it in some way by speaking on the subject aloud?  I know from a therapeutic perspective, talking about something can help a person deal with a difficult issue or help someone make a decision they've been putting off, or even have terrible, awful, painful memories fade somewhat.  All that, just from talking about it out loud.

If that's the case, I shouldn't have any stress, worries, or problems in my life because I sure do wedge in enough talking throughout the day.  But that aside, something happens in our brains when we verbalize thoughts that changes things.  The brain is both curious and wonderful.

The Big Boy Update:  Rail Reconnaissance, or how long will self-preservation prevail?  He keeps getting up on the railing of the crib, but so far, he's not willing to get out.  You hear him talking and calling your name.  You go investigate.  He's sitting straddled on the railing.  He's very pleased with himself.  But why is he not out?  Does he have a sense of self-preservation?  Does he remember that it hurt when he fell out before?  He's started climbing up on the backs of sofas, comfy chairs, dining room table chairs, office chairs, and he's caused a few to fall over.  So far, he hasn't injured himself.  But I fear it's coming.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  We can keep her!  Whew, sighs of relief all around; my daughter likes her father's pasta.  Had she rejected it, well, I don't want to think about the ramifications.  On the hair growth front, it's still blonde and growing.  She's got a second layer of hair that seems to be coming in as well.  Soon it's going to be bows and ribbons.  From a verbal perspective, she seems to be able to approximate sounds given the right situation.  We were on the bridge the other day and daddy and her brother were practicing saying, "echo" as there is a nice sound bounce in the vaulted area of the house.  After we'd all said it numerous times we realized she was saying two syllables repeatedly, and they sounded somewhat like, "echo."  I think she was just joining in on the verbal fun, but it was impressive to see the connections she had made.

Someone Once Said:   'Sense’ is never ‘common’. The two terms are contradictory.