Sustainability Success Story

The movement towards sustainability continues to be a larger concern in our world as the years progress.  Recently, I had an experience that turned out to be easier instead of more difficult related to sustainability.

Our school is focusing on sustainability where possible throughout all facets including the student's day, materials that had historically been printed for the parents and the staff and administration needs.  When we first started at the school I remember noticing the little basket in the adult bathroom for paper towels.  There was a note that said, "deposit used paper towels here for the guinea pigs." 

This year, we're trying to go further than prior years by reducing consumable usage and encouraging families to bring their own plates, cups and utensils for school events.  We don't expect to have one hundred percent success in the first year, but we're hoping to see good progress in comparison to last year.

 Last weekend, we hosted the staff and board retreat at our house.  Shortly before, the head of school emailed me and asked if we had enough plates, utensils and cups so that we could avoid plastic and paper waste.  I checked and yes, it would be tight but we had enough to serve lunch and breakfast to thirty six with the exception of coffee cups.

I was glad we had the items, but I was not looking forward to the washing of all those dishes.  What happened though was the opposite.  By the end of the day everyone had chipped in, one load of dishes was already finished and there was almost no trash to speak of from the event.  Instead of it being harder, it was just as easy and we all felt better about the day as a result.

The Big Boy Update:  My son likes to let you know when he wants to talk to you.  He's in that stage where he doesn't understand it's not polite to interrupt anyone and everyone when they're talking.  He frequently says, "hey, listen to me," or "daddy, hey listen to me."

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Last night she was walking around with me in a house under construction.  She looked into a back room in the unfinished basement and said, "I see dark."

Tri-A-Lot

I did my first triathlon today and before you wonder how I trained up for it and how I snuck in biking and swimming practice in between all the running, it was a mini-micro-triathlon.  That doesn't mean it wasn't meaningful or significant, just that the lengths of each segment weren't overly long.

I signed up with my niece, Olivia.  The swimming was four-hundred meters, biking followed at seven miles and then we ran one point eight miles to the finish.  I felt confident that I could do all three lengths with ease so I didn't do any training. 

I'm glad I went to the preparation clinic the coordinator held, because I was not aware at all how the transitions from one event to the other took place and the requirements for when you could bike and when you had to walk as well as what was recommended to take or wear and what was going to be a hassle as you progressed through the race.

At that clinic we did a bit of swimming, biking and running to get a feel for the transitions and it was at that point that I decided I hated the swimming first leg.  I had run eighteen miles earlier in the day so I was tired, but I didn't expect to be gasping for air while doing a one hundred meter swim. 

This morning, my niece wisely suggested that I do some warmup swimming and I decided that was good advice.  I swam five hundred meters to warm up for the four hundred meter swim in thirty minutes.  That warmup made a big difference in the comfort I felt during the swim.

I transitioned to the biking portion of the race fairly easily and biked the seven miles (three laps around the shopping mall.)  Then I moved into what I thought would be the easiest leg of the race, the running.  But no, my legs were unexpectedly tired from the other two activities and how they were used differently.  My shin splints came back with a vengeance and I had a hard time just running for a while.

When I crossed the finish line,  I had a surprisingly new perspective on how multiple exercises, combined together, can be more challenging than a single exercise over a longer period of time.

The Big Boy Update:  In the car today he sang, "A-B-C-D-E-Your Buggers..."  I promise, he didn't learn that verse from me.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Yesterday at the lake at Nana and Papa's camp ground she discovered how to pee in the grass.  She would take her pants down and we'd try to hold her up over an invisible potty but that suited her not.  She preferred taking her pants off, sitting down in nature and going on the spot.  She did this more than once and was very happy about it, no matter what uncomfortable surface she was sitting on.

Fitness Update:  First mini-triathalon:  Four hundred meters swimming, seven miles biking and one point eight miles running with my niece, Olivia, who beat me hands down.

Party at the Lake

My in-laws decided to camp out at a lake near us this weekend.  They're avid campers and they thought this would be a good opportunity to give the children a chance to see what camping was like during the day as a first camping experience.  Since I have no camping experience other than the days of summer camps back when I was a child, it was a first for me as well.

We met them at their camp site this morning.  They had arrived yesterday, had set up camp and were ready for us when we got there.  My children liked their camping spot right by the lake; they went down to the shore and tested the water.  We did a small hike through the woods to get to a playground that also had a swimming area cordoned off.   That's when the first nakedness of the day happened...

My son saw the other children taking off their shoes and socks to wade in, so he began to do the same.  He had on jeans and I didn't want them to get wet so I took them off as well.  As he splashed around, Papa and I thought we might need to take the shirt off too and at that point my son decided underpants were overrated and just got naked.  We pondered the legality of nudity in the park and decided a three-year-old probably didn't qualify and we'd slide by.  

After some lunch there was some attempts at napping in when lots of sand got into Nana and Papa's sleeping tent and no naps were taken.  Naps were not taken in the car seats with the doors open and naps were also not had in the double stroller as a long walk was taken around the park.  Running, jumping and getting exceptionally dirty in the sand, dirt and rocks was had by all children though.

What did happen was more nudity.  My son finally got the hang of going in the "wee wee bushes" or watering the trees.  He's been resistant to going out of doors for some time now but today was a success three times.   His sister also figured out how to go in the grass.  After a bit we just kept her in her underpants and if she needed to go, she'd take her underpants down, sit in the grass and be utterly happy that she had gone.  One time she sat in the rocks and peed, which looked uncomfortable to the rest of us but was completely satisfactory to her.

We ended the evening with a bonfire roasting marshmallows.  Both children ate lots of s'mores and then fell asleep immediately once they got in the car.  We had to wake them when we got home for a bath, which they were both irritable about, but suffered through.  They then went to sleep a whole hour before bedtime without a whimper or complaint.

Oh, did I mention it's my husband's birthday today?  The s'mores were his request that his mother made sure happened.  We also had cup cakes and sang the happy birthday song over a citronella candle that he blew out.  I hope daddy had fun on his birthday.  It was a nice day at the lake camping with Nana and Papa as well.

The Big Boy Update:  Wee wee bushes and pee pee holes.  My son has finally decided it's okay to pee outside on a bush.  This afternoon he even peed on the sand at the shore of the lake.  After going, he looked to Papa and said, "I made pee pee holes."

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter spent more time today working with the small pebble rocks that were on the campsite ground.  The rocks were laid there to make a nice foundation for parking and camping and were about a quarter to a half-inch in diameter.  She would pick up handfuls of them and spread them all over the bench on the table.  Then, she would brush them off and giggle.  She did this over and over.  She got a cup and would fill the cup up and pour the rocks on people's knees, chairs, other areas of the ground or anywhere else that looked interesting.  She spent more time on little rocks than any other single activity I've ever seen her focused on before.

Super Reese

My daughter has absolutely no interest in being a princess.  She has an older brother who is into cars, trucks, excavators, dump trucks and super heroes and that has some impact on her.  But don't tell her she looks like a princess, because she'll have none of it.

We had several super hero shirts for my son, mostly because he likes them and they're easy to find for boys.  I didn't realize my daughter wanted to be a super hero too until one day she wanted to wear his super man shirt.  After that, I made an effort to find her some super gear of her own.

I now have a super girl dress, replete with cape.  I also got her two "night night" outfits that have what looks like a super girl with a cape on it.  I asked her if she wanted to be "Super Reese," and yes, indeed she did.  She loves being a super hero.  One of the outfits has different super girls all over it with different faces, races and hair styles.  She likes to point to them and say, "Super Reese" and then point to herself.

She really likes being a super hero and I like having Super Reese around to save the day too.

The Big Boy Update:  Stuck.  Somehow, I don't know how because I wasn't there, he put a felt trash can on his head and then got his arms through the handles and got stuck.   He walked down the stairs without falling, arms sticking in the air, went to the garage and was trying to find daddy (who was at the grocery store.)  Uncle Jonathan got a picture and then saved him.  Apparently he was saying, "daddy, I need help.  Daddy, I stuck."

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  She is my Super Reese household super hero.  She loves wearing her super girl outfits far more than any other clothes she has right now. 

Fitness Update:  22.25 miles and a new distance record.  We're coming in at just under eleven minutes per mile on average.  But that includes stops to drink and stretch and today, we ran far enough that we got to the next city over and made it to a junior high school.  We went in and got cool water (so wonderful) and even used the facilities.  So, I'm guessing we'd be a little faster on our times when we're running the marathon in November.  

A Year of CL and the Fading Ice Cubes

We've had an issue with our ice machine since we originally purchased it. Or at least we think we've had an issue. We didn't know about the issue for a good while because we didn't understand how the machine worked and what the little CL that flashed meant.

At first, I'd open the door and see first, "Ice" and then "CL" flash shortly afterwards.  I didn't remember it doing that before, but we'd only had the machine for about eight months.  I told my husband it looked like maybe it was doing a clean cycle and was letting us know. 

A few months later I realized it was always doing the clean cycle so I did some more investigating.  The manual didn't answer all my questions.  It talked about putting the machine into clean mode and most importantly about how you had to use the manufacturers cleaning solution, because it was special and formulated and, of course, they made money from you buying their specific product.  (It didn't say exactly that in the manual, but I got that impression.)

So I called the company for more information.  I got a very nice lady on the phone and she explained that that little flashing CL was the machine telling us it needed to be cleaned and could we please schedule it into our week to empty the machine of ice, pour in a pack of cleaning solution and then press the magical combination of buttons to put the unit into a forty-five minute clean cycle.

After talking to her I did decide to order their cleaning solution.  The price was reasonable and I couldn't find a similar product online that was more competitive.  Then, when the solution arrived, I prepared the machine to be cleaned. 

And this is where the problem started.  Because we couldn't get the blooming thing into clean mode.  We read the manual, we followed the instructions, we went online and read forums, we watched the YouTube video.  We were doing everything you needed to do to put it into clean mode, but the display wasn't registering.

Here's what you need to do:  Hold down the power button.  Wait, it's not a button, it's a touch-sensitive panel.  While doing that, press the Light button three times.  Hold for ten seconds.  Boom, cleaning mode is activated.  Only our buttons flickered.  We would try to press the button once and we would get seven fast flickers.  Or, we couldn't get the power button to register we were touching it.  In short, it was a picky display. 

Finally, after about thirty minutes of button pressing, swearing, closing the machine, another twenty minutes of button pressing (or contact pressing rather) we somehow got clean mode initiated.   When it was done, I wasn't sure it was all that different in the ice we got, but hey, it didn't flash CL anymore.

The representative told me it would need to be cleaned every six months or so and when it started flashing again, I was ready.  Only we've never been able to get it into clean mode since that initial time.  It's been close to two years now and the main issue is thinning ice cubes.  Our cubes were very thin and we needed to do something. 

With another issue on another appliance as well, I called service.  The technician said he was well aware of the issues with these touch screens and that the company will most likely replace the control panel.  I called and yes, they would be willing to replace the panel for their newer model, one with real buttons (which makes me think we weren't the only ones with the problem.)  In the meantime, he told the repair man to disconnect the control panel, wait forty seconds, reconnect it and see if we could get it to work better.

And that did it.  We had unplugged the machine, but that didn't change things and yet this worked.  We got it into clean mode and the very next cubes that came out felt like little bricks of ice in comparison to the diaphanous cubes we'd been getting the day before.  We have a replacement panel coming in soon, but for now, we have sturdy ice again.

The Big Boy Update:  Napping in the box that's a house that held a car.   We had a large cardboard box that had a children's car in it.  The children colored on it and their teacher cut out a door and windows.  Yesterday, he had a nap in the "house" with his blanket and Mickey Mouse

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Home in the same pair of pants from school.  This doesn't happen often: my daughter comes home in the same pants as she was sent to school in.  This is largely due to her desire to do water work at school coupled with not making it to the potty in time.  I hardly recognized her in the same clothes at pick-up it was so unexpected.

Fitness Update:  The ten miles didn't happen because my neighbor's husband had to unexpectedly go out of town.  We plan to run long tomorrow afternoon.  Today I ran three miles with my neighbor who's training up to run the army ten-miler next month.

Everybody Is Dead Dave

My daughter is at this stage where she'll ask you a question and after you answer the question, she'll ask you the question again.  She'll then ask you the question in a slightly different way and then, after that, she'll ask you for the same information again.   Every time this happens, it reminds me of the first episode of Red Dwarf, a BBC Science Fiction series from the 1980's.

In the first episode, The End, the main character is on a space ship and has to be put into stasis.  No time passes to him from the point the door is shut and then opened, but much time has passed, three million years.  The computer, Holly, tries to explain this to Dave, the main character who has a difficult time understanding.  The computer tries to phrase the same answer to the same question differently, with increasing exasperation as the queries continue:

HOLLY: They're dead, Dave.
LISTER: Who is?
HOLLY: Everybody, Dave.
LISTER: What, Captain Hollister?
HOLLY: Everybody's dead, Dave.
LISTER: What, Todhunter?
HOLLY: Everybody's dead, Dave.
LISTER: What, Selby?
HOLLY: They're all dead.  Everybody's dead, Dave. 

<LISTER is still trying to understand what HOLLY is saying.>

LISTER: Petersen isn't, is he?
HOLLY: Everybody is *dead*, Dave.
LISTER: Not Chen?
HOLLY: Gordon Bennett!  Yes!  Chen, everybody.  Everybody's dead, Dave.
LISTER: Rimmer?
HOLLY: He's dead, Dave.  Everybody's dead.  Everybody is dead, Dave!
LISTER: Wait.  Are you trying to tell me everybody's dead?
HOLLY: I wish I'd never let him out in the first place.

That's how I feel when my daughter starts to ask me, "where's daddy?"  "Where's daddy gone."  "Where's daddy?"

The Big Boy Update:  Yesterday my son told me, "hi mommy, I have a skirt."  I said, "you do?"  To which he smiled shyly and said, "yes."   (He was wearing pants.)

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  I learned something yesterday.  It was one of those C-minus parenting moments.  My daughter is very interested in feeding the dog, watching the dog eat and even helping the dog eat her food (yes, I've caught her with dog food in her mouth.)  I saw her holding and carrying over the very full water bowl I had just replenished.  I yelled out, "no ma'am!  Put that down!"  She looked immediately stricken and dropped the water bowl right where she was and started crying.  If only I had walked over and assisted her, calmly, in putting the bowl back in its spot, everything would have been fine.  Alas, next time hopefully I'll remember.

Fitness Update:  One mile.  I know, right?  Only one mile?  There were technical difficulties with the morning schedule and that's all that got run.  Tomorrow I think it's a ten-mile morning.

Adventure

I had some friends growing up that had parents working in the computer and technology industry when things were new and exciting and the breakthroughs were big and yet slow at the same time.  I wish I could figure out exactly what year it was when this happened to me, but I'm going to have to make a guess.

My friend's mother worked at SAS.  I don't know what she did, but she frequently would go over at night and do things for work.  Her son and I were friends and we played together a lot.  It must have been around  1982 when we went to her office one evening.  It was dark outside and I remember being impressed with the big open center area of the SAS building in which she worked.  We ran around the atrium and her son showed me some big machines that were computers doing computer hings.  Then, he took me to a terminal and introduced me to Adventure.

It was a game.  It was one of the first computer games I had ever played and I was entranced.  You started the game and it told you, in text, where you were.  You were in a woods somewhere and there was the entrance to a cave in front of you.  You would then enter a cardinal direction (N/S/E/W) that you wanted to move in.   After entering that, you would be given a description of your new location.

You could die if you moved in a direction that turned out to be inhabited by a fierce monster.  Then, you would have to start over.  I don't remember how far we got and I don't think we could do more than move in directions, but my memory of the game experience itself is one of a rich world underground with exciting things happening in all directions.

Was it exciting?  To me, certainly, I have loved video games ever since.  Were a few lines of text on a terminal truly that exhilarating?  No, but the mind has the capacity to fill in the details and my mind, at twelve-years-old had plenty of imagination to do so.

The Big Boy Update:  Food stealer.  He was reaching over and taking his sister's food off her plate.  She was looking away and didn't notice at the time.  When my husband asked him what he was doing, he said, "I  was just borrowing it" as he chewed on the food he had just taken.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Head stand.  She is like me in that she likes to do things like forward rolls, climbing, jumping, and anything that an almost two-year-old can do that's in the realm of gymnastics.  Last night she had her head in the crack of two pillows on the sofa and was standing in a piked position with her butt in the air.  She worked for five minutes to be able to kick her feet backwards and do a head stand against the sofa.  And she succeeded.  We were all impressed.

Fitness Update: Five miles.  Tomorrow we're planning for ten. 

26.3 (But Not By Me)

Uncle Jonathan, my neighbor and I have been training for a marathon that's in early November.  We've each had our longest distance runs not that long ago.  Uncle Jonathan was beating us by about a mile in longest distance, but we were all three up there in the, "close enough to be able to run the marathon tomorrow if you needed to" category to make no never mind.

Uncle Jonathan usually can't run on the weekends for a long run due to his work schedule and my neighbor has a hard time during the week because of her work, so it's been tough to get us all three together for runs other than mid-week medium length runs or other general runs during the week. 

Uncle Jonathan left this afternoon for a run of indeterminate length shortly before I went to my eye doctor checkup.  I had a long appointment as they made sure everything was as expected.  I ran another errand, came back, fed the children dinner and then daddy and I were talking about what we wanted to do for dinner.  Hm, wait, where is Uncle Jonathan?  Hey, he's still running!

We wondered if he was going for the full marathon distance and right after that my phone rang.  It was Uncle Jonathan calling.  I was scared for a second because he could have been calling to say he was injured or in need of help.  But he was fine.  He asked me if I could meet him, "in approximately seventeen minutes" to run in the last two miles of the marathon distance he was about to run.

Well hell yes I was available to run him in!  I grabbed my running clothes and dashed out the door.  I didn't know which way he was exiting the park so I ran back and forth in front of the two exits waiting for him to appear and in short order he broke through the trees and crossed the street.

He had another two miles to go so we ran around the neighborhood.  He was doing really well after running for over four hours.  He said he wanted to run not only the marathon at 26.2 miles, but he wanted to go to 26.3 miles.  What a great idea.

Everyone we passed along the way I shouted to, "I have to brag and tell you my friend here is just finishing his first marathon."  I am most certain Uncle Jonathan was super thrilled I was doing this.

Congratulations Uncle Jonathan.

The Big Boy Update:  Late nap through bedtime.  He didn't nap and got very cranky.  He and his sister have an early school year runny nose and when I finally got him to sleep he slept until almost bedtime.  We woke him up to give him some Bendaryl for his very itchy skin (it's a bad week) and he hardly argued when we put the blanket back over him.  He rolled over and went right back to sleep.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Tickle Finger.  She was investigating our fingers tonight and daddy told her one of his fingers was ticklish.  She touched the fingers until she got the right one and daddy pretended it was so ticklish that he couldn't stop laughing.  She was so excited she did this crazy giggle laugh.  She touched his, "ticklish finger" again and again and we all three laughed and laughed.  Little girls laughing can sure make adults laugh.

Fitness Update:  Three miles running Uncle Jonathan in from his first marathon distance run.  So fun.

The Wireless Technology Phone Survey

I'm trying to remember when this occurred, but I know it was before 1997.  I was living in my first home when I answered a call one day and was asked to participate in a survey on wireless technology.  I didn't know much about wireless technology and the image that came to mind was computers not needing power cables and mouses not needing connector cables.

Today, those things have become a reality, but what this survey was about was wireless internet connectivity technology.  "Sure," I said.  I'd be glad to take time to answer the questions.  I had a spare ten minutes. 

Most of the questions were along the lines of, "do you think you would take advantage of wireless communication if it were available in an airport?"  The questions were all about when and where wireless connectivity would be and if I might take advantage of it.  There were questions about my willingness to adopt wireless access hardware in any computers I might be buying.   There was nothing about phones; this was way before the advent of the smart phone.

I answered in the affirmative for most of the questions, but I was skeptical.  Were we really going to have wireless connectivity in the future in all those locations?  Would people use it and if so, how much would it cost?

We know the answer now because wireless connectivity is so prevalent in our lives and our devices rely heavily on the ability to communicate consistently.  For that matter, we rely on it too.  Imagine not being able to check your email, or the weather forecast, or look up a movie review and movie times whenever and wherever you are.

At the time I took that survey, I didn't imagine at all what we have today and how we're all connected all the time.

The Big Boy Update:  He had a plastic slinky he and his sister were playing with the other day.  They played well together for a good while and then I saw him sneaking off with it when she wasn't looking.  I followed him into the kitchen and saw him open the warming drawer, put the slinky in and then close the drawer.  He looked up and said, "I'm hiding the slinky so my sister can't have it."

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  She likes to sing on the potty.  Recently, she got on the big potty, went and then flushed.  But she wasn't done getting on and off the potty and, apparently, she wanted to be alone.  She shut the door to the toilet room and told me to walk away.  I heard her get on and off the toilet several times, flush and sing to herself, all in the dark of the room.

Fitness Update:  Longest distance ever at 20.2 miles today.  I'm about as tired as I was when I ran the sixteen miles and about the same level of tired as I was a week later when I ran eighteen miles.  So, it looks like this training plan is working; my body is becoming accustomed to the longer distances.  Two or three more weeks of long runs and then we drop back to very little running the last two weeks before the marathon to rest our bodies.

The Crown Cement and the Kind Dentist

Last night, while eating rice, my temporary crown came off.  "Damn," I thought.  I want to be a good patient.  Did I do something wrong?  I got the distinct impression on Thursday, the day I had the temporary put on, that it was loose, so I'd been treating it gently.  But rice?  I wasn't eating taffy or chewing ice or doing any of the naughty things I was told not to do, so what happened?

I debated contacting my next-door-neighbor because it was almost nine o'clock and I didn't want to bother him.  I wasn't in pain; I had temperature sensitivity with the tooth core exposed, but I could manage.  What I didn't know was if it was hazardous to the tooth to be exposed like that.  I could chew on the other side and go in on Monday to have it reglued, but would that cause trouble and a possible ill-fit with the final crown?  I just didn't know.  So I texted my neighbor.

He said it was fine and he'd go get some glue at his office tomorrow and he could re-cement it back for me.  "Wait, but, no" I thought.  I didn't want him to drive into his office (a twenty-five minute trip) just to get some glue for my tooth.  I could wait until Monday.  He apologized over text and said it wasn't my fault.  I told him to please not go to the office just for me and that I was fine waiting until Monday and that be assured, I wasn't in unreasonable pain or really that much discomfort.

Today, we had a board and staff retreat at our house.  Thirty-six people were here most of the day and I didn't have time to think about my tooth other than to note that even luke-warm water feels like a huge temperature differential when you have tooth nerve exposed.  In the afternoon, I got a text from my neighbor saying he'd been to the office and gotten the glue and some tools.  I really hoped he didn't go just for me.

I texted that I was available and he came in from playing with the children outside to mix some cement on a piece of newspaper and clean my tooth.  We talked about the type of pain I was experiencing and it appears that I've got a healthy nerve, but almost certainly a cracked tooth.  And alas, that means a root canal.  But that's okay, I don't mind because I've had one before and after that, there is definitely no pain or discomfort. 

He put the tooth back in place under the light of his kitchen table and we went back outside.  I spoke with his wife a bit later and told her I really hoped he didn't go in to his office just for me.  She said he was on call and was surprised he wasn't called in, but that also, he had to take some pictures of his office without cars in front.   She also said he said he wanted to make sure my tooth was taken care of. 

What a nice guy.  What a nice neighbor.  What a nice dentist.

The Big Boy Update:  We sat outside at the restaurant for lunch yesterday and it was windy.  My son picked the placard holder stand up from the middle of the table and removed the card it was holding.  He then held up this piece of metal with a ring at the top and said, "I got a thing to stop that wind."  We're not sure what super powers he had to stop the wind with a six-inch piece of metal, but then again, we don't have the minds that toddlers do.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  She loves our neighbor, Bryna.  She remembers her name and asks about her all the time.  Yesterday when we were leaving to go to the store, she saw our neighbor's garage door was open and said, "Where's Bryna?"  I think very soon Bryna is going to have an honorific added to her name because our children love her as much as they do their family.

The Unexpected Proximity Situation

We have nice neighbors.  We've made many great friends with people who have moved into our neighborhood and onto our street.  The first neighbors we had moved in after living alone on our street for a year-and-a-half.  They have a child that's right between our two children in age and now they have a second child that's nine-months-old.

We see these neighbors out in our yards frequently as our children love to play outdoors during the warmer months.  I enjoy having a beer with them and frequently bring out more than one beer because I know someone will be glad to have a cold drink on a hot day.

We borrow things from each other and have recently introduced a "toy swap" because fresh toys seem like new toys to toddlers and keep interest levels up and play time more fun for everyone.  In short, we've got a good thing going with these nice neighbors next door.

And then yesterday, something unexpected happened: I found my head between my neighbor's husband's legs and his hands in my mouth.  I know what you're thinking, "but I thought you were a happily married woman!"  And I am.  The thing is, he's a dentist and I started seeing him for my dental needs this week.

So, everything was on the up and up, but it was an interesting thing when it happened.  My prior dentist was an older man that was always just, "my dentist".  I never thought about how he had to get quite close to my head on his stool so that he could see in order to do his job.  Of course he had to put his gloved fingers into my mouth to work on my teeth.  He was my dentist and that's what they do.

And yet here was my friend, who's wife and I commiserate about the joys and traumas of diapers and loss of sleep.  And he's such a personable guy in a social setting; he's funny and fun and a good dad.  It's just that when I got into his dental chair and he started ripping up the tooth that badly needed a crown, I started realizing that both the dentist and his technician needed, by necessity, to be quite close to me: closer than you are in a general social situation.

Did he do a good job?  Yes, he did.  I'm very pleased.  I'm glad to have switched to him.  Most dentists don't check up on you after their long work day as your kids play together in the back yard.

The Big Boy Update:  While we were riding on our bicycles to school the other day I told him that the trails we were on were called "bike and bridle" trails.  Mostly because they were for bicycles and horses.  I told him that horses had something called a bridle that they wore to help them know where we wanted them to go.  He suddenly said, "Mimi has a pony!"  I didn't know what he meant until I asked him what the name of Mimi's pony was.  "Giddayup," he said.  And then I realized what he meant; Mimi rides him up and down on her bouncing knee and sings the Giddayup song to him. It's his favorite.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Potty progress?  It's touch and go but today something happened that surprised me.  She loves going on the big potty and had been successful about an hour before.  I was trying to get her brother to go when I realized she was no where to be found.  She came running out of the bedroom saying, "I go potty again!" carrying her pants.  And yes, she got her pants and diaper off and did go in the potty. 

Connotation, Part Deux

I wrote a post some time back about the power connotation has over denotation.  We can have an association with a particular word in our minds that may have nothing to do at all with the actual definition of that word. 

For instance, one of my daughter's teachers is named Pearl.  She is kind and sweet and my daughter just loves her.  When I hear the word "pearl" now, I don't think of something that comes out of an oyster, I think of a specific person: Pearl, our teacher.  That's a new association I have with that word.  Her sister is named Precious and that word meant cute and adorable and cuddly and sickly sweet (and it still does,) but the first thing that comes to mind now when I heard the word "precious" is our friend at school.

I was talking to my husband about the boating trip he just went on.  He went to the coast and met up with the crew of the boat he would be on for the day to go out deep sea fishing.  They not only had a successful day catching fish, they also caught a record-breaking Wahoo at over eighty-eight pounds.  The fish was not only the largest for their boat, it was the largest for that harbor their boat docked in.

I heard stories of the harbor master weighing the fish and I pictured the docks at the harbor and the happy fishermen and crew as they took pictures of their record-breaking fish.  It was a nice thought.

Then, yesterday, I saw a television show about a boating accident in which people died due to a tragic mistake in 2001.  The location this happened at was right outside Pearl Harbor. 

"Pearl Harbor"--two words I have a positive association with individually, but said together bring images of war and sadness to mind.   The connotations we have for words can be dramatically different than what those words mean by definition alone.

The Big Boy Update:  "That will make you itch."  The itching from his food-based allergies must be something he doesn't want to experience if he doesn't have to.  If he's interested in a food, even if it's candy, and you tell him, "that will make you itch" he has absolutely no interest in eating it.  And he will remember too.  I offered him some Biscoff spread yesterday morning.  He looked at it and said, "um, that looks like nuts" and would have none of it, regardless of my explaining how it was nut-free, even after his sister was eating and loving it.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  "Hammer hammer"  We tried cheeseburgers yesterday again to see if we could get the children to go in a direction other than chicken.  Generally, they prefer chicken over other meats.  My son had no real interest but my daughter was all about it, leaving the chicken nuggets uneaten on her plate.  I explained what it was she was eating and she kept calling the hamburger a, "hammer hammer."  When she woke up hours later from her nap she asked for more hamburger, so she must have liked it quite a bit.

Fitness Update:  Ten miles this morning in the dark.  Preparation for our twenty-mile run on Sunday.

Sing A Song of Who Knows

There is a lot of singing going on in our family of late.  My daughter started it some time ago with her never-ending renditions of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and now the music is getting more prevalent.  It's mostly in the car, or when one of the children isn't occupied with something specific.  It's also mostly my daughter, who seems to love singing.

The thing is, my daughter doesn't know, or understand, many of the words in the song.  For instance, she sings, "kwinkle kwinkle little staar" usually.  The second line, when she decided to sing it, isn't the traditional words either.  In fact, it's usually completely unrelated and regularly-changing words.

She sings the "This Old Man" song a lot lately, with the words, "kee kee one" as the second half of the first line.  She then doesn't remember what the man does once he plays one, so she makes that up too.  You can sing it back to her and she'll sing her own version after you.

She and my son have also been working on Frere Jacques, which doesn't cause them any problems in a second language because they're not getting the English words correct a lot of the time.  My daughter was singing the English words in the car after school today saying, "daddy's sleeping, daddy's sleeping" to which my son got very upset and insisted daddy was not sleeping.  My daughter didn't care and kept singing.

A lot of this has happened recently because we've been playing more children's songs while riding in the car.  My husband and I have gotten several stuck in our heads, including, The Grand Old Duke Of York, which is now going to go round and round in my brain for the rest of the night, just because I typed this here.

All in all, it's been fun to listen to them sing and fun to sing with them.

The Big Boy Update:  Our neighbors put up some impressive Halloween decorations the other day (I know, early, right?) and when we drove by their house and saw the giant inflatable pirate ship and pumpkin with the ghost coming out of it, my son said, "Hey, listen to me.  Let's go see Hudson's pumpkin."  So after we parked the car, we did.  I thought they were great.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Not afraid.  We went to the Halloween store the other day.  My son was scared by the motion activated displays with a scary dog jumping out at you or a skeleton doing something spooky.  My daughter not only didn't care, she thought it was hilarious.  She commented after seeing a zombie munching on a rubber limb, "yummy yummy yummy."

Fitness Update:  Mid-week half-length run at 10.5 miles this afternoon with Uncle Jonathan.  He made me run, "The Hateful Route" as I named it a while back because of all the steep hills and switchbacks.   

The Tree, The Bark, The Needles and The Straw

We bike our children to school from time to time.  The weather was not too hot and not too cold for a morning ride today so put the bike seats on the backs of our bikes, pumped up the tires, put on the helmets and headed off to school in time to make the carpool drop-off period.

Normally I have my daughter on the back of my bike, but lately we've had a bit of a problem with my son spending more time with daddy than anyone else and he's begun to get attached.  So we've been switching things up.  He's heavier, but I found out he's far more interesting as a biking partner than my daughter is by the end of the trip.

He has a lot more words and can carry on a full conversation with you.  She says things, but mostly sings "kwinkle star" or This Old Man and kicks you in the back while you pedal.  My son asks questions, looks around, makes observations and enjoys hearing about things as you pedal along.

This morning we talked about trees.  I pointed out the pine trees and how their bark would flake off and you could use it to draw on the driveway like chalk.  We stopped before exiting the wooded park to get him a piece of bark (which he held on to the rest of the ride).

We then talked about the pine leaves and how they were called "needles" because they were so thin.  I told him we had pine needles in our yard and that were so soft to lie on once they'd fallen from the trees and turned from green to brown.

We caught up to daddy and his sister and stopped to pick up a fallen twig of pine tree with some fading needles still attached to it.   He proudly held it up to daddy and told him he had, "pine straw".

That's when I had one of those moments when you realize what a monumental task a child goes through to learn language.  He was holding pine bark that came from a pine tree from the tree trunk.  He had a tree branch that had on it pine needles.  Once those needles were on the ground, separated from the tree itself and had turned brown, those same needles would be referred to as pine straw.

It's a lot of words that are used in specific ways.  But he didn't seem to mind.  If he got something wrong, I'd say that the bark was from the trunk, not the limbs and that the needles weren't considered straw yet because they were still green and on a branch.

I told my husband on the way home after dropping the children off to school that he was a more interesting passenger and it was going to be fun when she got to that age too.

The Big Boy Update:  He was very interested in the piece of pine bark he held on to all morning on the way to school.  He was going to show it to his teachers and tell them what he learned about pine trees this morning when I dropped him off.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles: The puffer fish.  There is this book that has a puffer fish in it.  It seems to be the one item in the book that is my daughter's favorite.  She loves that page, loves to point to the puffer fish and loves to say, "puffer fish" in her tiny girl voice.  She will turn back to that page and look for the pop-up version of the puffer fish on the final page.  I tried to video it the other night when Mimi was reading the book to her but I couldn't hold the camera still I was giggling so much.

Fitness Update:  Eleven miles biking the children to school today in great early-fall weather.

Marathon Memories

I knew very little about what a marathon was as a child.  My parents weren't runners and we didn't have anyone in our neighborhood who was a runner.  But I do have two specific memories of marathons from my youth, both of which gave me an understand of how long an grueling it must be to run one.

First, I remember watching something on television.  My parents didn't watch sports that much, but for some reason they were watching a marathon.  I want to say it was around the time of the summer Olympics, but I'm not sure.  I have a feeling the race was in California, but I'm not sure of that either.   What I do remember was my parents telling me how far they were running.  They used a comparison that I was able to grasp, like that it was almost as far as running to your aunt and uncle's house.  I remember being amazed that people both could and then would run that far. 

The second memory was from when I was much older.  We were at the college my mother worked at and a marathon ran by the front entrance.  At the point we were watching, the runners were quite close to the finish line.  I remember my father calling out to them at one point, "great job, you're almost half-way there!"  I couldn't decided if he was funny, clever or mean for saying that.  I was hoping those tired runners knew they were very close to the end either way.

I don't know what marathon that was that we watched, but it could well be the one I'll be running in November as that marathon also runs by the entrance to the college my mother worked at that I eventually went to. 

The Big Boy Update:  He likes playing in those play areas at the fast food places.  In order to conserve space and get the maximum value for the footprint, most of the places are multiple levels high with a maze-like structure that adults can climb in, but wouldn't really want to.  My son doesn't get consequences enough yet to realize he must come down or we'll a) leave him stranded (empty threat), b) eat the rest of his food (he doesn't care) c) make him take a nap when he gets home ("I not nap") d) remove toy privileges ("okay") or e) anything else you can come up with to have him comply.  It's either wait for him to slide down the slide or go and get him. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  "I want to go outside."  She is getting better at enunciation every day.  This afternoon she told Gramps she wanted to go outside in a very clear and concise voice.  When he didn't open the door immediately, she explained again and pointed to the swing set.

Tri-a-Lot

I've signed up for a mini-triathlon with my niece, Olivia.  She's done these kinds of things before and I have not.  She is an excellent swimmer while I can make it to the other side of the pool.  She and I can both ride a bicycle and I am fine on the running portion, while she dislikes that leg of the race.

Today the organizers had a clinic to help you understand what will happen as you transition from swimming to biking and then biking to running.  We brought our planned gear and then we set up our things beside our bike.  The organizer, who has a significant amount of experience in the area of triathlons, gave us a lot of information on what works well, what takes longer, what might be frustrating to you and what her personal preferences were.

Overall, I was glad I'm a minimalist and had worn only what I would need for the event.  I had considered what would be unnecessary and what I would have to have for the event.  And I think I'll be fine in what I brought to the trial run today as long as it's not very cold.  If it's cold, it's going to be a whole other event.  Or raining.  Let's hope for no rain.

We went to the pool and I did some laps in the processional order they had discussed.  I gasped for air at the end because I'd already run eighteen miles today and I was tired.   I put on my shoes quickly and ran to the staging area with the bikes.  The gasping was over at that point because, hey, my body knows how to run, but it sure seemed to dislike swiming.

I got on my bike and got to see how you can't mount until the starting area for that segment; I rode around the parking lot several times and then I came back in, parked the bike and did a bit of running on the sidewalk to finish off the clinic.

It was very helpful to see how everything flows through the three stages.  It's a short race overall at 400 meters swimming, seven miles biking and 1.8 miles running.  The race is in two weeks.  I think it's going to be fun.  I also think Olivia is going to beat me pretty darn easily.

The Big Boy Update:  No so nappy.  He's either a great sleeper, taking a long nap, or he never gets tired and refuses to sleep.  Today is a non-napping day.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter didn't want to sleep in her bed for nap.  She made a bit of a fuss and then got quiet.  When my husband went to check on her, she had climbed onto the chair and then climbed onto the top of the dresser, laid down on her stomach and went straight to sleep. 

Fitness Update:  18.2 miles this morning.  We were fine.  Completely fine.  Tired, yes, but if we had needed to run to twenty miles, we both agreed that wouldn't have been a problem.  Would we have wanted to go to 26.2?  I don't think so.  But we're only eight miles away from that magic marathon distance.  Oh, and it was fifty-six degrees when we started running and never got above seventy, which we both agree made a huge difference.

The Poop, The Phone and the Not Again Groan

Yesterday my son came home with underpants on the outside of his shorts.  His teacher was giggling as she delivered him to me, because he had decided he wanted to wear his pants that way.  I giggled too.  It's great when children don't care about societal norms and do whatever feels natural or fun.

Later, after lunch, my son was quiet in a corner for too long.  One of those, "damn, when was the last time I sent him to the potty" thoughts came into my head and sure enough, he was sitting in a messy pair of pants. 

The pants were messy, but what made it worse was it was un-contained because his underpants were on the outside of his pants and there was no elastic waste band to keep the solids in place.  At this point, it was more a general region of smushed-ness with debris barely holding on at the edges.

When I got him to the potty, I already had a mess to clean up on the tile floor.  Then, he realized the diaper rash he had was being irritated by the mess and he started to squirm on the potty, which made a bigger mess on and around him.  And by "around", I mean in places it shouldn't have been, such as his shoulder. 

I tried to get him undressed in the most calm fashion I could muster and I stuck him in the tub with instructions to stand against the faucet to get clean.   I will tell you right now, poop was everywhere and I was not happy.  Then, his sister tried to change the temperature to first all-hot and then all-cold and I was even less-thrilled at everyone in the cramped bathroom. 

It was about this time that I heard a strange clunk in the bathtub that I realized with horror a half-second later was my iPhone.   "Nooooo!", I mentally cried as I grabbed it out of the water, dried it off and tried to get water out of any openings I could while keeping the small children under control.

After cleaning both of them up (her too, as she decided to make a mess herself to add to the chaos), I went to check on my phone.  Not another dead phone due to poor owner-management, I pleaded.  Alas, the screen was going wonky.  It was going hazy.  It was messing up.  In short, water got in.   Damn.

I put one to bed and the situation was no better.  I put the second one off in a safe place to play and got out the hair dryer, not expecting anything to come of this attempt to dry it out.  But it did help, miraculously, and the phone is utterly fine.  I am grateful, although I know not to whom, for making the phone so resilient in the face of moisture.

The Big Boy Update:  "I want the red one."  He has a color preference regularly now and that color preference is more likely to be red than any other color.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  The very soapy morning.  This morning both my children were on the counter, feet and legs drenched in the sink with their sleeping clothes on, repeatedly washing themselves.  They had used up the entire bottle of soap and had gotten water everywhere in the process.  I was, needless to say, thrilled to start our morning that way.

Fitness Update:  Electric Run last night in which we ran a 5K in the dark.  We ran (or mostly walked) with friends and some children and had a very fun evening.  Next year, we're taking the kids along.

The Security Blanket Straight Jacket

I was talking on Facebook the other week with my childhood friend.  She is concerned for her father because he is on so many medications.  At this point, he's on medications he doesn't understand well and some of the medications he takes he's not sure why they're necessary.  But he does take the medications because he has significant pain and multiple medical conditions that need to be treated.

My friend, who has recently become more involved with her father's life and care, is concerned that he doesn't need all the medication, that it's excessive and the possibly he is being over-prescribed because every time he goes to the doctor, they seem to add an additional item to his daily regime.

Of particular concern to her is his use of methadone for pain he has as a result of surgeries and degenerative conditions.  She feels like he is not "all here" and that the amount he sleeps is as a result of the medications and not normal.

And while  I can't give her specific advice for her father's situation as I don't know his history or need, I did tell her that some of what he's going through I've personally experienced.  Yes, the medications can cause you to be less present than you might otherwise be were you medication-free.  But that also, you gain a tolerance to them and the deleterious effects people experience from narcotic pain medication in the short-term are not the same as someone who is taking them consistently and regularly.   That she shouldn't consider him to be, "high" from a normal condition his body experiences on a daily basis.

I told her that yes, I did sleep more, but that her father, at seventy-five, might just need more rest as he gets older and this is a common occurrence we all may face as we get older. 

I also told her that while it's important to help him understand his medications more and that a re-evaluation of all the medications he's taking might be in order, that those medications may well give him the comfort of being in less pain and provide relief from worry of a possible bad outcome, such as a heart attack (and they may be most definitely necessary.)

When I was on the most medications I've been on in my life, I experienced something similar.  Doctors would commonly want to add an additional medication to my regime.  In retrospect, I don't know that I needed more medications to make me better or more healthy.  I believe now that my situation is better with less medication.  But at the time, those medication were like a security blanket: they kept me in comfort and out of pain.

But they were also a straight jacket.  I was tied to them and I felt I needed them to function normally.  It's a tough situation to be in both personally, and as someone watching a person you care about going through it.   I hope she can help him understand his situation more and I hope she can come to appreciate the situation he's in.

The Big Boy Update:  Captain Underpants.  He was delivered to me at pick-up today with pants one and underpants on the outside of his pants.  He liked this arrangement.  He was fine in this reverse-outfit until something solid happened in his pants.  Then, mommy was not fine about any of it.  And it was everywhere. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  She has started hitting her brother.  Damn, I was supposed to call Aunt Brenda when that happened and I forgot.  This afternoon her brother was jumping up and down and sitting on her when I came around the corner.  She was screaming and crying.  I grabbed him by the arm and popped him on the diaper (which sounded loud but wasn't that bad).  Then I put her to bed for a nap.  When I came back I gave him a hug and apologized for losing my temper.  I explained that people don't like to be jumped on and that his sister didn't like it when he hurt her.  He said to me, "she hit me in the face."  I hugged him again and told him I was sorry and that I didn't realize she had done that but that even so, it still wasn't nice to retaliate (thinking how terrible a mom I was that I had just spanked him, sigh.)

Fitness Update:  Five miles.  Hot.  But we're getting faster.  Down to 10:15 per mile, which is over a minute faster than we've commonly run in the past.

The Night Dive and the Glow Sticks

Some time back went to Grand Cayman for a week-long scuba diving trip.  It's a great place with wonderful reefs, marine life and weather and was a very nice trip overall.  For some reason I got to thinking about it earlier today as I was marshaling stacks of glow sticks into separate bags in preparation for our "electric run" 5K event tomorrow night in the dark.

The run (or walk most likely as we'll be with friends and some children) should be fun.  There will be good music and great sights to see.  As an added bonus, it's very close to our house.  As an added negative, there's a Taylor Swift concert that will have competing traffic to and from the same area that the 6,500 participants of the race will be sharing road-space with.  

So back to Grand Cayman and the dives.  We decided to do a night dive one of the evenings.  There was a location at the top of the island where there's an nice outcropping.  In this relatively rural area away from the city, there was one restaurant bar that was also a dive shop.  We went earlier and explored the reef just offshore that you could wade into.  Wade carefully into because there were sea urchins all around. 

After the late afternoon dive we ate conch fritters, fries and drank beer while we waited for it to get dark.  We were going to go back in and see the same areas at night.  I had brought glow sticks--I'm not sure why I decided to bring glow sticks on an international trip, but I did and I took them for the night dive specifically. 

We got into the water and yes, it was exciting looking and wholly different than the same location had looked hours before during the day.  It was then that I realized the visual distance of glow sticks wasn't so hot under water.  It was then that I decided what I'd really like was a nice strong regular flash light (the one I carried on my suit was quite small and low in power.)  It was then that I thought about sharks.

Right after that, around a large coral outcropping just before a drop-off, there was a bright light and a flash.  We had other diving guests and they had brought something that nearly lit up the whole ocean from a candlepower perspective.  We swam over and followed them around for a while.  That was fun.

After a bit we decided to head in--head in with our now-fading glow sticks.  We also hoped we knew which was was in.   After some navigating by surfacing and honing in on the lights from the restaurant bar we had come from we made it back safety. 

I'm not sure I would have done my first night dive the same way if I had to do it all over again, but it was certainly an exciting experience at the time.

The Big Boy Update:  Nightmares!  Twice now he's woken up in the middle of the night yelling for help and saying he's scared.  Unexpectedly, he asked to come and "take a nap" in mommy and daddy's bed because the fear of alligators in his bedroom was a bit too much.  Neither child has ever slept with us so for him to come up with this idea and specifically ask for it made me realize how scared he was.  He came down and did sleep with us for the next two hours until morning.  Two nights later it happened again but we had talked to him about how his room was a safe place and daddy was able to calm his fears so that he could go back to sleep in his own bed. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  "I want to lie down."  She loves to do this with a towel after a bath or at the pool or just any time there's a towel around.  She wants to lie on the floor, fold in half and put her head between her feet and be covered up by the towel.  Then, you can ask where she is and she will come out and giggle, but she's not in any hurry to do so.  She loves being covered up.

Proportional Storage and the Wood Farmer

I have this thing about storage; I have a thing about living space and I have a thing about walkways.  Well...I have lots of things about things, but specifically, I like to have a reasonable amount of storage for any location in which I live.

When I moved into my first house--a townhouse--I had closets and one of those pull-down attic stairs things.  The attic had space that was hardly high enough to crawl into and there was no light, but it provided storage for infrequently used things like childhood memories and seasonal decorations.  In the closets and other storage areas I put other things that I didn't want out and visible all the time.   That first house had a good amount of storage given that it was a small townhouse and it fit my needs perfectly.

When I bought my next home, It had an attic I could walk up to from the bonus room.  Walking into an attic is sheer heaven to me.  It's easily-accessible storage space and so I put many more things there that I might have otherwise kept in a closer location.  I had office supplies and paperback books and puzzles and many other things that didn't need to be in a temperature-controlled environment.  It was great.

The home we live in now also has a set of stairs leading to an attic that is in reasonable proportion to the size of the house.  We have room to grow both two children and the stuff they seem to generate as we move through the years.  Storage space is important to me.

What I don't understand is people who want to "finish" all the storage space in their home into rooms.  Attics can be turned into media rooms and garages can be turned into offices and you can take unfinished storage and make it into a sewing room, but then what do you have left to store all your accumulated junk in? 

We have a neighbor who has a very large attic that is proportional to his house.  With all the construction going on in our neighborhood, he's been going through the designated trash piles for extra cast-off wood.  He has collected lots of wood.  It is quite impressive.

He gave me a tour of his house a while back and showed me all the work he was doing personally to finish off the rough areas of the home.  Every space in the basement that wasn't filled with a hot water tank or ventilation tubing was designated for this or that general living area space like an extra bedroom, bathroom, game room and media room.   Then he took me to his attic.  He was converting the vast majority of the space into a suite for him and his wife so that his mother could move into the main master.  But...he was building a nice loft above in the top of the attic space.  Oh, I thought, that's where he's going to put all his long-term storage.   But no, that was going to be a sitting room.

He's not the first person I've spoken to with aspirations to finish off so much of their home's storage.  I value my storage space and the ability to access any items in storage too much to want to sacrifice it to some use-specific room.

The Big Boy Update:  While we were out at a school function the other night my son wanted to go find us.  He looked all over for us and after being gone for some time, Uncle Jonathan went to find him.  He was lying under the bumper of the car in the garage, seeing if we were hiding there.  Uncle Jonathan told him about how that wasn't a safe place to hide.  Scary times!

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  The flight of the balloon.  She accidentally let a helium balloon go on the deck yesterday.  It was almost flat so it rose very slowly.  She wanted it to come back.  Then, she wanted to let more balloons go.

Fitness Update:  Nine miles today as a half-distance run in preparation for our eighteen mile run on Sunday.

The Happy Birthday Party

Yesterday we had the honor to host a surprise birthday party for a friend of my family that I haven't seen in many years.  He was the father to one of my first friends and next door neighbor through high school.  She and I still keep in touch here, in the electronic realm, as well as in person from time-to-time, but I haven't seen her father in over twelve years.

She coordinated this party and we were the hosts, under the ruse that it was just a dinner since we hadn't seen each other in so many years.  Changes have happened, as they're wont to do over time, such as getting married and having two children.   From just the standpoint of seeing him again, I was very excited.

So the party was planned, guests arrived and we're hiding around the corner lying in wait to drop the "Surprise!  It's a party for you!" cheer when he came in the door.  And at this point I'm going to change the subject for just a bit and talk about something I like to call "The best kind of party guest."

There was a lady, let's call her Jnet (because that's what she calls herself) who I don't believe I'd met before.  She arrived and started preparing the salad she'd brought.  Then, for the remainder of the evening, she was almost an honorary member of the household.  If something needed to be done, (like get a beer for my friend's father), she was on it.  Forks for dessert?  Oops, we forgot to get water glasses and a pitcher of water?  Not a problem Jnet was there to help.   And help she did, all night long.  It's that kind of party guest that's my favorite.  They make themselves right at home and everyone has a great time together.

So, back to that surprise.  He was surprised.  He was excited to see his old friends and to meet new friends, small friends, excitable friends, namely my two children.  We all reminisced and talked about old times and we planned new times.  Dinner was delightful and the wine was a great compliment to the meal.   His favorite pecan pie was so good we all had some and the key lime looked so nice we all had a bit of that as well.

He had presents, one from a long-time friend in Japan that was very special.  And then the night was over.  He said he hadn't had a party for him to celebrate his birthday in many years.  I'm so glad we were able to be a part of it.

The Big Boy Update:  Tying it up.  My son is good at "hooking" things as he likes to say.  He will hook anything and yesterday morning I noticed the blinds in his bedroom were in a strange arrangement.  He had taken one of the cords and looped it around and around a single section of the inner support strings.  I counted eighteen loops he made to get the pull that tangled up.   But he must have been gentle because nothing was damaged.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Tattletale.  She did this for the first time yesterday.  While eating breakfast she got upset at her brother, came into the living room and looked at me.  She pointed back into the dining room and said, "he stole my raisin!"

The Back Yard I Imagined

Shh...don't breath.  Don't move or even think about email because if you do, more will surely land in my inbox.  One of the things I love more than anything is having an empty inbox.  Most of the time it isn't possible because I have things I'm waiting on, such as a package to arrive or a birthday party to occur, but as of right this minute, my inbox is empty.

This is great.  I can write a blog post and not feel hurried to get it done as quickly as possible because the children will need to be picked up soon and they're going to need to be fed and there are eleventy-twelve more things that need to happen before the day is over and oh, don't forget, you're hosting a surprise 75th birthday party tonight you need to get ready for.

But I'm not complaining.  A busy life is a fun life.  I've been completely not-busy before and it's not nearly as nice as it sounds.  Having lots of things to do to keep you happy and occupied is the way to go for me.

Now about that back yard...

When we started building our house we knew there would be dirt that was dug out from the front to accommodate our walk-out basement.  At the time I told our builder that I wanted as much back yard as possible and that I wanted that back yard to be flat.

I remembered playing in the yard as a child at my house.  Having grass and a flat location to play ball, badminton, freeze tag or any other imaginary game a child can dream up is ideal.  Only we bought a lot on a fairly decent slope.  So that dirt was going to be key.

We were able to get a good bit of flat yard by the time the final grading was done.  Last night, for the first time, I really got to see that flat yard in action.  The children from the surrounding houses gravitated to our yard and they started running around and screaming and having a great time.  They were taking turns on the swings and sliding down the slide and then there would be more screaming and running.

I stood back and smiled because this was what I had pictured in my mind several years ago and I'm glad it's happening now.

The Big Boy Update:  We were at a hamburger and hotdog outdoor stand the other day.  You can look in and see the people making your food through large plexiglass walls.  My son was excited to watch them preparing the hamburgers and the french fries.  They couldn't hear him through the wall but he talked to them anyway.  He said, "Hi.  Hi in the cooking.  Hi cooking fries." 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter likes the big potty.  If you take her into the bathroom, she prefers going on the adult-sized potty far more than the toddler-sized one.  She will pull up the stool, put the foam smaller-sized seat on top, climb up and then do what needs to be done.  But the best part is watching her get down.  She does this all the time without an issue but it never fails to look like she's either going to fall off or fall in.

Fitness Update:  Five miles that started in the dark and ended in the dark as we had to be done by 6:00AM to accommodate my neighbor's schedule.  But it worked out well.  I got back, showered and got the grocery shopping done, all before the children woke up.

Impromptu Zoo

Sunday morning and daddy and I tried to sleep in late.  Have you ever tried to sleep in when you have toddlers?  The amount of banging and clunking and crying (is it serious or is someone just angry?) and after a while it's not really possible to keep sleeping.   Besides, the children are getting hungry and you don't want a morning food meltdown on your hands if you can prevent it.

Breakfasts had been served and coffee made, I informed my son that no, I wasn't putting Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on the television but a cooking show and that he could continue eating at the table.   That's when the phone rang. 

The caller ID said it was my in-laws.  My husband began a conversation with them and I could tell he wasn't that keen on whatever it was they were suggesting.  He didn't want to drive three hours today.  What in the world was he talking to them about?  He said he'd talk to me and call them back.

They wanted to meet at the zoo.  What a great idea.  We haven't been with the children and I had no idea what to do with them today so I was ready to pack the car and get on the road.  After a bit of discussion we planned on leaving in a half-hour. 

The decision was really made for us after daddy asked my son if he wanted to go to the zoo, to which he replied, "the animals are at the zoo."  He then told daddy lots of other things about the zoo we didn't know he knew.

We had a busy, fun, tiring and hot day at the zoo in which my children loved seeing so many different animals.  My daughter wasn't quite able to make it to the elephants before falling asleep.  We didn't make it to all the exhibits so we plan on going back.  I think my son would be ready to go again in the morning, he had such a good time today.

The Big Boy Update:  My son somehow managed to squirt or pour the majority of his juice out of the new sippy cup I had given him this morning.  His shirt was drenched and his pants were soaked.  As I took him to the bathroom for a change he handed me the cup and said, "this is a waterfall-tainer." 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  "Uh oh!"  We watched a seven minute video with clips from one of the Ice Age movies today in a small theater at the zoo.  It was dark and my daughter was sitting on my lap.  The squirrel in the show was having trouble keeping control of three eggs and as they went rolling down the snow-covered hill away from him my daughter pointed at the screen and said, "uh oh.  UH OH!" and she looked back at me to make sure I knew there was a problem happening on the screen. 

Fitness Update:  Why is it I can run for hours and be fine but pushing a stroller around and picking up a child from time to time to show them animals at the zoo and be far more tired than I feel I should be?

The First Week of School

(and what I accomplished.)

Having my mornings back during the week has given me the time to get more done than I would have expected possible given that we're only into the first full week of school.  Wait, there was Labor Day on Monday so that's only four days this week of child-free mornings and yet it seems like I've got a month of backed-up task list items done.

The main thing I got done was the decks and bricks.  We have a deck, a covered porch and a bricked area under each of those two areas.  The wood was in desperate need of an oxalic acid treatment, a power washing and then a water sealing treatment.  Each of those steps takes time and organization of the items on the surface to start (which means moving lots of things around while you work.)

The brick surfaces needed to be pressure washed and then re-sanded.  The bricks were placed in a sand matrix and over time the sand washes away with rain and general wear.  It's fun to brush sand between the cracks and I even got help from my children, but it's a longer process than it is fun and it's nice to be done with the job. 

Then, those same bricks need to be water sealed as well to help cut down on the efflorescence (a seeping of salts to the top of the bricks that leaves a white covering.) 

The decks and bricks look great and I had a chance to water seal the play structure as well.  I also got caught up on all my emails and computer-based "to do" items for the school.  So all in all, it was a great week to have the children in school. 

The Big Boy Update:  As we were leaving from eating lunch today my son saw the painted handicapped sign on a parking spot.  He looked at it and then said to me, "that man is very blue."

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Mashed potato stealer.  She liked daddy's mashed potatoes.  Her brother didn't.  When he wasn't at the table she would walk around and sit in his seat, use his spoon to put his mashed potatoes onto her plate, walk back to her seat and then eat the stolen mashed potatoes with her own spoon.  She did this more than once.  He never noticed. 

Traditions Shared

We have neighbors now, which is a fantastic thing.  Living in your neighborhood without the "neighbor" part is not nearly as much fun.  We have interesting neighbors, fun neighbors, quirky neighbors and even a neighbor we talk about in hushed voices because we never see him come or go and, "what the heck is that guy doing in his house?"  But for the most part, it's great neighbors and good times.

Our next-door neighbors have become fast friends with us.  They have two children who are twelve and thirteen.  They like our children and we like their children.  Right now, their children are watching my children.  They both have their baby sitting certificates and I ask from time to time if one of them can come help.  Today, they both wanted to come help.  Apparently (so their mother told me) they had an argument that ended by them deciding to both come over.

So if that wasn't wonderful enough of a family, they decided to include us in their celebration of Rosh Hashanah yesterday.  Admittedly, I am quite ignorant of Jewish traditions and religious beliefs but we were made to feel welcome and just included with nothing other than the thought that, "you are our friends, this is important to us and we want to share our happiness with you."

Yesterday, they came over with apples and honey and we ate this sweet so that we would all have a sweet upcoming year.  Need I even tell you how much my children loved dipping apples in the honey?  They also brought over some of their sweet kugel, which I ate and ate from for the rest of the day.

They had to go off to put bread into a river for another tradition that I forgot the name of after teaching me how to say, "happy new year" in Hebrew or, "Shanah Tovah".  It was very special to be included in our friends celebration.  It's so nice to have great friends.

The Big Boy Update:  "I like bugs."  This was not a statement of his preference for bugs, but the name of the book he pulled out of the cabinet.  He is starting to do that thing where he knows what the book says on the page without knowing how to read.  We got him some more stage one readers today because he's been enjoying them so much.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  "I want a pony."  Yes, she said this to me.  I couldn't help but laugh after I asked her to repeat what she said and she, very clearly, said the same thing again.  Isn't she a little young for the, "I want a pony mommy, pleeease?" stage?

Fitness Update:  Five miles, not the long run we had planned but something.

Purely Splendid

I was torn between "Purely Splendid" and "Splendone" as a post title for today.  Either one is equally cheesy, given the actual topic of the post, which is about finishing the artificial sweetener packets I bought so long ago.

Way back in time, probably after the dark ages but before the Renaissance was over, I went to Costco and got two boxes of artificial sweeteners: Splenda and Purevia.  I was dieting to lose the weight I had gained from two pregnancies and I needed to cut back on caloric intake in many small ways, one of which was using sugar or honey in my coffee and tea. 

Costco was right there for me with 1000 packets of Splenda and 2000 packets of Purevia in large boxes.  At the time, I didn't think about the lengthy obligation to these products I was making when I pushed the cart into the check out line. 

I lost the weight after some number of months and yet I still had vats of packets to use up.  I gave them away as Halloween candy and still, we had buckets full.  I wrapped them up as holiday gifts and they still managed to take up a large amount of storage in my cabinet.

But, as of today, I have prevailed.  With the help of hapless trick-or-treaters and house guests that unknowingly went home with extra sweetener packets zipped into their travel bags, the lot is gone, used, consumed and finished.   Let the celebration begin.

The Big Boy Update:  On the motorcycle...literally.  Yesterday daddy went into the garage to find my son on his motorcycle.  And I don't mean my son's plastic motorcycle.  He had figured out how to climb up onto daddy's motorcycle.  He was happily sitting on the seat and playing with the buttons.   I was worried it could have fallen over on him but daddy reassured me that it's very heavy and quite well balanced and that that wouldn't happen.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Walk away <insert your name here>.  Yesterday at lunch my daughter was practicing sentences.  She was telling everyone to walk away and then adding her name to the end.  She even told herself to walk away once, all while quietly sitting in her chair and smiling that cute little girl smile she does.

Fitness Update:  We went to the gym to see our personal trainer for the first time in several weeks this morning.  I let him know he would see very little of me until after I complete the marathon at the start of November.  Then, I plan to be back much more regularly.  Although, maybe I should reconsider.  This morning he said, "let's see if we can get you two to pass out today."

De-cluttering

Are there spots in your house that seem to collect stuff?  We have several and it's a constant effort to keep the piling of stuff beaten back into a reasonable amount. 

The main area we have this trouble with is the children's toys on the main floor.  They have a toy corner and I put five or six toys there, one usually with lots of pieces like alphabet blocks.  They like to play with them and they carry them all over the main floor before they put them back (with assistance, encouragement and discipline in most cases as who wants to clean up?)

But somehow, those six toys seem to multiply.  Sometimes, we do get new toys and they usually go there.  Sometimes family members bring new things for the children to play with.  We get hand-me-downs from our friends children.  But I think the biggest culprit is toy migration. 

Toys are in multiple areas of the house, but the spot we spend the most time in is the main floor so they bring things (or parts of things) down and when they're tided up later, that toy corner gets busier and more toy-packed.

At least once each week I feel like I remove as much from the toy hub as was in there to start, dropping it by half in total toy-count.  We have other spots in our house that collect stuff, but nothing can compare to the collecting powers of toddlers.

The Big Boy Update:  Scowler.  He scowls at the television.  He can see fine, but he's focusing on watching whatever is on.  He scowls at people too when he's trying to figure you out.  It's a funny look and it makes people laugh.  He doesn't realize it's him they're laughing at for being funny though.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Screamer.  She has suddenly, within the last two weeks, figured out how to do an ear-piercing scream.  Now that she knows how to do it, she has started to use it as ammo against whatever she likes, dislikes or finds funny.  It was cute the first two times.  Now, it's something we're "working on".

Fitness Update:  Eight miles this morning.  The training continues.

The Bonk

I was reading a while back about a supplement for runners doing long distance running in which they described a situation known as "bonking".  I was reading this aloud in the car to my husband and Uncle Jonathan and I had to stop mid-article to go look up this term, "bonking".

It is something that happens to athletes frequently.  I was more familiar with the phrase, "hitting the wall," which is synonymous in meaning for the most part.  Hitting the wall sounds painful, bonking sounds more like you're jumping up and down on one of those bouncy balls we played with as children.    But at any rate, via either term, it's not fun.

Yesterday my neighbor and I were running in relatively hot weather that was very humid due to both our location in the southern United States and the recent down pouring of rain the prior day and night.  We knew it was going to be a tough run, but we were prepared with some Gu packets we'd take to help replenish our energy stores at certain points in the run.

What we realized part-way through was that we should have brought more Gu packets each.  Two each and we were struggling.  Uncle Bob and Uncle Brian biked past us in the park and we waved to them, knowing we had only four more miles to go, but even so, we were tired.

I had to walk on three occasions, twice due to cramps (most likely from a hydration issue) and once because I was just too tired to start running again when we exited the park and re-entered our neighborhood.

It was right before we stopped to walk for a bit in the neighborhood that I experienced some of the "bonking" phenomenons mentioned in the Wikipedia entry.  Yes, I was tired.  Yes, I needed hydration badly, but I could run that distance and I was okay in many other ways.  What was strange was that the world went a little psychedelic on me for a few minutes.  Visually, things weren't as the should be in and I felt sort of mentally strange.

I didn't feel in any way like I was going to pass out, it's hard to describe.  There was a story from one fitness expert who said he saw imaginary creatures at one point, knew they were imaginary and yet there they were.   It was for a very short period as the house was almost in sight, but for the time it persisted, it was, shall we say, "wild."

We're looking forward to cooler, less-humid weather in the weeks of training to come.  Yesterday, stopping to guzzle water on six different occasions, I still lost four pounds in water-weight by the time I was done running.

The Big Boy Update:  My son has an issue with the number five.  He used to say five a lot when he counted.  He would add in extra fives in the sequence of numbers.  Now, he mostly forgets it.  Last night daddy asked him, "what comes after four?" To which my son replied, "six."  Daddy said, "Five." and my son said without hesitation, "five it is!"  We both couldn't help laughing.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Remember the incessant singing of, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star with her own variations of wording and ordering of lyrics?  Has she moved on to other, more complex or even just different songs?  Has she shifted her obsession to another song if for no more reason than to give mommy and daddy's ears a bit of a break?  Not a chance.

Fitness Update:  Weight management.  I've gained ten pounds from my original weight loss target.  I wasn't planning on gaining ten pounds, but it seems to be the proper weight with the additional muscle mass I've added.  I don't look too thin, but I also don't seem to be stopping gaining weight.  I'm not going to re-look at my weight until after the marathon, but I might need to trim back a bit then.  I have added muscles, but I'm not continuing to add pound after pound of them.  At some point it's just overeating and dare I say it?  Fat.

The Tree, The Rock, The Car and the Chalk

Before you get worried, this story ends well.  I chew on my fingernails enough for all of us some days so I don't want to add any undue stress and as my blog posts commonly have very serious subjects where the future of millions sway in the balance, I thought I'd prepare you in advance for a more mundane story.

My neighbor told me some time back how her twins drew a heart on their father's car for Valentines day.  They drew this very special message with a rock, in the paint.  So far, we haven't had any stories to match that one and as you can well imagine, I hope our lives will be so utterly boring in the mischief and mayhem area with our children that none will ever come to light...but I highly doubt we'll get off that easy.

Today we pulled out the sidewalk chalk and my two children started marking up the driveway.  My son decided he wanted to mark on the brick stairs, which was fine and my daughter discovered the low-voltage lights would accept a change of color most readily. 

My husband and I weren't paying attention but we did notice my son taking a rock onto the driveway for more chalk investigations.  That's when he disappeared.  Sometimes, when a small child disappears, it's a good thing.  They're not bothering you to entertain them or asking question upon question or being a general impedance to your getting whatever other task you had on your list completed.   But most of the times with toddlers, silence is bad. 

Toddlers can get into all manner of trouble without having any idea they're getting into trouble.  I noticed my daughter had wandered over to the tree and was trying to color the tree trunk with chalk.  Mental note: "good, she's not wandering down the street like she tried to do earlier."  But where was my son?

The next thing I hear was daddy shouting things like, "No!  Never!" to my son, who was dragged outside and told chalk was meant for the sidewalk and driveway.  What had he done?  He had colored our cars with the chalk.

He had made some nice doodles and fortunately, chalk wipes right off.  But we had to help him understand you don't write on the car.  Ever.  This time, we got lucky.

The Big Boy Update:  Drawing on the car...in chalk.  He decorated our cars in chalk.  While a nice touch, it's a precedent we had to squash in case he gets ideas to draw on our car with other things in the future.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  "Go Gabba Gabba"  She has seen the show Yo Gabba Gabba recently and liked it.  She must like saying the syllables together because she says it several times a day.  That, or she's asking for the show to be put back on.

Fitness Update:  16.4 miles on a very humid and hot morning.  It was tiring.  I'm still a bit tired.  I'm looking forward to cooler weather and easier runs.

On The Pontoon

For the holiday weekend we're visiting my in-laws at their home an hour-and-a-half away.  It's been a fun trip as we've had the added family company of Uncle's Bob and Brian as well.  More family makes for more fun and we've been making the best of this great end-of-summer weather.   Daddy and Papa won their flight in the golf tournament and we've been downtown, to the park, on the beach and out in the boat as well.

Nana and Papa have a "beach" at their house.  They live on a lake and right at the edge they've made a little area cordoned off by railroad ties in which they can put bags of play sand for the children to play with.  When I first came up here, I watched my niece and nephew play in the sand.  They're a little too old for that type of fun now, but my children are just getting started in the sand era of their lives.

I watched Nana build sand castles with them.  My son loved putting water around the "moat" and my daughter loved stomping on the bridge to take out the whole structure.  I watched and tried not to cringe too much because the amount of sand in my daughter's bathing suit made me want to shudder.  Sand in my bathing suit has been a pet peeve of mine since I was quite young.  But at their age, they know very little of discomfort and annoyance, so they played on, messy and happy.

This morning after breakfast when the fog had receeded, we went out on the pontoon boat.  My son had a make-shift fishing pole he drug along in the water and my daughter jumped up and down to the music playing on the stereo.  When we got to the middle of the water, everyone jumped in while I manned the boat.  There was a large innertube and many noodles floating around and my children loved being in the water in their life jackets.

My children also loved the snacks and ate the entire time they weren't swimming.  Our dog also enjoyed being out on the boat.  After a few hours we headed in for lunch and naps for the children.  We leave tonight, and it will be sad to say goodbye to the beach, the boat and the grandparents.

The Big Boy Update:  Not so mean afterall.  I question if my son has a consience sometimes, but I realized today that he does care and he does get upset when he hurts someone or is unkind.  He shut the piano lid on his sister's hands this morning and became very upset when she kept screaming.  He said, "I take a nap" and went to the bedroom, got in the bed and lay there for a while because he was upset he had hurt her.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Boat Floating.  She liked being in the water on the lake today, but her comfort level could change quickly.  Sometimes she just wanted to be back on the boat and other times she was incensed that she wasn't in the water with everyone else.