The Weak Arm, The Grip, The Shoulder and The Elbow

I am imbalanced.  I've known it since I started working with the trainer a year ago, and it hasn't gotten better.  I have been working on it, but it's still plaguing me.  Initially, I asked the trainer if I should be concerned because my right arm was weaker than my left and he told me several times not to worry about it, that it would correct itself over time.

It made sense; if I focused on the exercises we were doing, everything would get stronger.  After a while, I didn't pay attention to it.  Then, this summer I did one movement in a friend's car to push back her seat and, bam, I thought I tore my rotator cuff.  It turns out I didn't, or if I did I'm asymptomatic now, but it put me in a position where I was favoring that same right arm for a while.

I had troubles from the start because all the spine problems gave me issues on my right side.  Couple that with being left-handed and triple that with having that injured elbow on the right side and I had a perfect recipe for favoring the right arm.

The shoulder is better today--as in it doesn't hurt at all.  The elbow is healing, meaning it hurts dramatically less.  I'm still not sure if something is torn, but for now it's not that much of an impedance.  That leaves the historical favoring I've had from my spine issues that I need to work hard to overcome.

It's pretty spectacular how you can look like you're doing a particular exercise such as pullups or pushups or squat thrust evenly, when in reality one arm is doing a significantly larger portion of the work.  I didn't realize this was so until I spent time focusing on it; and I started doing that, because I couldn't open a jar one day...

I'm left handed, but I still do some things right hand dominant, including opening jars.  With the elbow pain came gripping pain--opening a jar or even lifting a cup of coffee was painful; so I favored the right hand and arm degraded in muscle strength.  When I couldn't open the jar I thought, "this is odd, I've never had trouble opening a jar of tomato sauce before.  I wonder what the trouble is?"  It was particularly strange because I had been exercising the past year and that was something I hadn't done before.   And I'd never had trouble opening jars ever.

So now I'm focusing on balance in my workouts and I'm realizing how much I have to do to catch up my lazy right arm.    I suppose it's nice to have a goal to work towards, though.

The Big Boy Update:  We got a text message from one of my son's teachers today.  He apparently told her, "my daddy unties knots all Saturday.  I tie them and his job is to untie."   I texted her back saying, "you taught him how to tie knots.  THANKS."  To which she laughed. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter was banging on something with a plastic hammer from their tool belt set.  I asked her what she had and she said, "a bam".

Fitness Update:  I don't like it when he has the door to the basketball court open.  It usually means rounds of terribly uncomfortable or extra difficult exercises that day.  My least favorite is when he has us get in the pushup position with our feet on a little cloth.  Then, you get drag yourself down the court and push yourself back, using your hands only.  The term "gasp-worthy" comes to mind.  This morning, the door to the basketball court was open...

Because They Make You Laugh

Children make you laugh all the time.  They can also make you cry...or scream.   Here are some things my children have done recently have have made us all laugh.

The Big Boy Update:
Me, "did you like the show about animals we watched last night," I asked?  "It was great.  It was my favorite one," my son replied.  It was also our first nature show about animals we'd ever watched.  David Attenborough didn't appeal to my three-year-old as much as I hoped he would.

"Mom, I need a wipe!"  This is new, but greatly appreciated.  My son will now let us know when he's done on the potty so that we can come help him.  This is a great improvement over sitting on the floor and having to ask the question, "are you done yet?" again and again until he decides he's finished.  It's also better than him pulling up his pants (or leaving them off altogether) when he gets done.

"I'm a Cookie Monster," my son declared this afternoon at snack as he crumbled up his cracker, crammed parts of it in his mouth and made a gobbling sound while cracker fell all over him and the ground.  His food was removed until he cleaned it up and he had a lecture about not being Cookie Monster in the house.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:

"Make a half," my daughter told me.  I looked at her, not knowing what she meant as she pointed to the white hand cloth in my hand.   We give these cloths to the children all the time, folded in half or quarters, as a napkin at their table when they eat.  Realizing what she meant, I folded it in half.  She smiled and said, "make another half," so I folded the cloth in half again.  We repeated this until I couldn't fold the cloth in half any more and then started over from the top. 

She was eating candy and I told her that if her brother saw her he would want some too.  She looked at the candy and said, "people want candy."  I suppose she's right, candy is pretty delicious.

Today at lunch I took her to the potty.  We were waiting as she didn't seem to be in a hurry to get off the potty and get back to her table.  I heard a noise and said, "did you put poop in the potty?"  She replied, "that's not poop, that's gas!"

Fitness Update:  Empty gym.  Not many people showed up this morning due to the still partially icy roads, but those of us that did had fun.

Ernie Newbie Money Mo

Sometimes, autocorrect isn't helpful.  That was suppose to be, "eenie meenie miney mo" but when I looked up after typing it on my phone, I saw something entirely different.

That's not what today's post is about though.  Today's post is about how we got flurried in and everything cancelled due to an inch of snow.  It was a highly-anticipated inch.  There were predictions of four inches.  Public schools cancelled before a single flake fell.  Later, around six pm, flurries finally started.  

Today we played in the snow.  My son loved it and played for a long time, jumping around and laughing and having no problem whatsoever with the cold.  His sister, on the other hand, didn't enjoy it quite as much and wanted to come in after half an hour. 

But back to the, "eenie meenie miney mo" title.  Both my children can do the entire chant.  They learned it from daddy at bath time.  Some days they do the chant to determine who gets out of the bath first.  They love doing the chant; they hate getting out of the bath.

The Big Boy Update:  We were using the nasal aspirator on my daughter and she was very unhappy; okay, she was screaming.  My son associates discomfort with lotion because he's had such bad skin for so long.  He came over and told us, "let's put some lotion on her so she feels better."

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:   We're not sure if her face gets red because her skin is dry or because she's got congestion she's rubbing on her face while she's at school.  Some days her face is red, some days it's not.  We're trying to see if it correlates to runny nose days.

Sound The Cutest Alarm You Can Find

It's been one of those days around the house; we've had the threat of a snow storm all day but it wasn't until after six o'clock that a single flake fell.  The anticipation of snow seems to be infectious though.  Uncle Jonathan came over and we've been joking about the theoretically impending snowpacalypse and the probability that we'll get a few flurries.  In the meanwhile, it's been a funny day with the children.

After school my son and daughter had been given iPads because our builder was here and we were in and out of the house and unfinished areas and we needed to know they were occupied and not in trouble.  I found out later that my son took the iPad to the little potty and had no interest in getting off any time soon.  My daughter decided that was a good idea too so she got the very unstable potty seat and put it on top of the main toilet and began to try and climb up.  She had brought the iPad into the bathroom but we whisked it away while she wasn't watching. 

Later, I hear Uncle Jonathan say to my son that's he's going to pretend to be him.  The next thing I see is Uncle Jonathan's legs standing up out of the sofa--he was standing on his head on the back of the sofa just like my son does.  My son thought it was hilarious and there was a whole round of head stands and laughter.

Later, I couldn't find my son and went downstairs.  He was curled up on the couch with Uncle Jonathan in the crook of his knees.  Shortly after that he fell asleep on him and was out cold for several hours. 

In the meantime, my daughter was having a very happy afternoon playing with Mimi and Gramps.  She (for some unknown reason) kept singing the Ring Around the Rosies song and spinning around on the hardwood with her socks.  She fell into the cabinets countless times but didn't seem to mind.

After dinner, my son and daughter got excited about the snow (which had finally decided to vaguely fall down).  My son got his shoes and jacket and they went out on the deck and porch to investigate.  My daughter wanted to go out, got her warmest pink jacket and put on her pink rain boots.  She was missing her pants though and every time she wanted to go out, she decided it was too cold to cross the threshold. 

My son was outside trying to find, "the animals" in the snow.  He told us to be quiet and that if we saw the animals (we were inside doing a puzzle) that he would yell.  Shortly later, we heard him yelling on the porch.  He came inside and told us, "I was looking for the animals, but they are asleep."

After that, suddenly a lot of energy was found by both children.  My son decided some foam letters my daughter and I were sewing with laces were, in fact, lassos.  He grabbed them and said to his sister, "I am a cowboy.  And you are a cowboy!"  My daughter replied, "I am Superman."

Then, my son turned to Uncle Jonathan and said, "You're a cracker" and walked away.

The Big Boy Update:  See above for a busy day of cute.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  See above for cute day of busy.

Wacky Weather

It's been below freezing here lately.  We had a snow party for the children at our school this weekend where a company comes and makes artificial snow all over the playground and for a donation to our Annual Fund, you can come and frolic in the weather.

For someone in a cooler climate, this might seem ridiculous, but as we're living in the south, it was a fantastically fun morning.  The weather was cold, well below freezing, and the snow is still on the playground today.  It was above freezing this morning but even so, some remains late this evening as I left the school from an evening meeting.

Next, I stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few things.  It was crazy at the store.  People were getting staples and preparing for terrible weather to come.  Wait, what?  What's going to happen, I thought?  And yes, we may have actual, real, natural snow coming down tomorrow late afternoon and evening.

None of that sounds unremarkable given that it's January and it should be cold.  But here's the anomaly, this afternoon I went running with my neighbor in shorts and a t-shirt--because it was sixty-two degrees.

It's a wacky weather winter here in the south, that's for sure.

The Big Boy Update:  "It's a beautiful..."  My son said this on the way to school this morning, but he didn't finish his sentence.  What was so beautiful?  Was it the yard maintenance truck in front of us laden with all sorts of exciting tools?  Could it possibly be the sunrise?  I asked him if it was the sunrise and he decided it was.  I'm still not sure that's what he meant from the start though.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:   Snow Bunny obsession.  We found her snow gear from last year's ski trip.  I wasn't sure it was fit her still, but we had to put her in something.  As it turns out, she still fits in one of the outfits; it's a one-piece pink jump suit with a hood.  She is obsessed with this outfit.  She wants to wear it all the time.  It looks fairly hot to wear, but we've compromised and let her wear it only wearing underwear underneath.  She is very happy when she's in her snow bunny gear.  Who knows, maybe she'll need it for the impending foul weather to come tomorrow.

Fitness Update:  Ten miles.  Has it been a long time since I ran or is it just my memory?  No, it's been a long time.  I had a great run in over sixty-degree weather today.  I'm not sure when that will happen again before spring.

Crushing Sadness

I know there is poverty.  I know cruelty exists.  I believe injustice happens far more often than justice does; and I also know I can't solve the problems of seven billion people personally. 

I don't watch the news and I don't read the paper because while I know all these terrible things are going on, I don't believe wallowing in them makes me a better person if I fall into hopeless despair and can't function and take care of my children.  The phrase, "pick your battles" comes to mind.

But I do become overwhelmed with the sadness of our overall global situation at times.  Recently, I heard thirty percent of the students in our county were on meal-assist plans for the public schools.  Can it really be that almost one third of our local population may go hungry without assistance from the government?   How terribly sad.

I remember being at the hospital with my first child.  They were lavishing me with gifts of, "here, you can take the blanket and the pacifier and here are some packets of formula."  I wanted to shout, to yell, "save them for the people who need them, I can afford formula," but I accepted some to be polite.  Not too much though.

That thought, the thought of mothers terrified of not being able to feed their newly born infants, was the single thought that could have pushed me into post-partum depression.  I was fine, my child was fine, and I could afford to feed him. 

I know the world isn't a perfect place.  I know I can't solve it all personally.   But I hope I can make some difference in some lives just because I have the capability to.

The Big Boy Update:  Neither my son or my daughter suffers from separation anxiety.  Last night were were planning on leaving to go to a birthday party.  One of their favorite sitters, Tristan, had come over.  We told them we had to leave in five minutes and they needed to get their clothes on after their bath so we could go.  My son said, "daddy, you go to work.  Mommy, bye bye."  And that was that.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter is both independent and in need of help.  When working on the iPad she will commonly tell you, "I need help."  We usually tell her if she can't figure it out she needs to pick another app.  This morning my son thought she needed help.  We hear her complaining from the other room to him, "I can do it!"

The Cold Consideration

I have been cold for most of my life.  Well, rather, when most people put on a jacket or sweater and are fine in chillier weather, I'm always cold, about to start shivering, and wondering when we can leave this wretched location and go somewhere more reasonably warm, like inside a sauna.

The only time I specifically remember not being cold at all was when I was pregnant.  And no, I am not currently pregnant; didn't I mention that two children was two too many some days?  At any rate, for some reason this year, I'm not as cold.

I don't know if it's the exercise or the running in the cold weather.  It's definitely not that I've put on a layer of blubber that's insulating me. But for some reason, I'm just not as cold.  It does seem that I go from a garage that's not that cold, to a car that's warmed from the garage, to a parking spot that's close to the building I'm going in on most trips.  The amount of time I'm out in the elements isn't that long. 

I did a mental double-take the other day when I realized I was debating if I needed a jacket or not because, "it's up to thirty-seven degrees,"  I thought.  Today we had a school snow party event in which the school grounds are covered in man-made snow and the children romp around and slide down a slide as a school fundraiser.  It was below thirty throughout the hour we were outside. 

I was definitely aware of the cold during that hour.  Maybe I'm just not outside as much these days?

The Big Boy Update:  My son was playing in a big pile of snow this morning.  He had gone to get a small scoop and was digging and moving snow around in the pile.  This snow was rather dense and it was hard to scoop; when I came over my son said, "I'm not very good at this," smiled and then kept right on digging.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  She didn't live up to her middle name, Winter, today.  She was not interested in the snow and didn't want to slide down the slide.  She mostly wanted to take off her mittens, touch the snow for thirty seconds, decide her hands were cold in the windy weather and them complain when we couldn't get her mittens back on because her hands were wet.  Maybe next year.

My Back is Back

I have spine issues from time to time.  I've had surgeries and years of pain and medication and some of it's resolved but some it will always be with me.  Some of it's degenerative and will worsen as I get older, but we're all wearing out our bodies as we age, some people just have parts that are on an accelerated track.  In my case, it's my spine.

Usually when something gets bothersome it goes away fairly quickly.  It might be high up, like T1-T3 vertebral area, or it could be as low down as the sacral region at the bottom of my spine.  I'm not on any medications regularly to manage pain, inflammation or muscle tightness but I do take an over the counter anti-inflammatory when it becomes bothersome which helps it resolve more rapidly.

Every so often, something will show up that won't correct itself in a short period of time.  I go to a chiropractor when I have a need and they have helped me find pain relief without medication for years.  I've had a situation where it felt like a bone was pressing up in the middle of my clavicle for months--which is distressing and painful.  I've had floating ribs in the middle of my torso take weeks and weeks to get back to normal.  This time it's all lower back and it just will not give up.

It started over two months ago.  It's sometimes hard to bend over because the muscles are so tight on the right side low down.  It's moved up to my lower ribs now and it is tiring mentally to fight the pain every day.  It's been waking me up at night and I really, really dislike anything that keeps me from my sleep.

I recently realized I'm favoring that side and in so doing, I'm not standing and sitting in a straight position always because I want to avoid the pain.  I think that's making it worse.  At least, I hope that's what's making it linger.  I'm trying to correct my posture and be aware of how I sit all the time right now.  I'm hoping it will fix the problem.  I don't like pain, but who does?

The Big Boy Update:  My son told me two interesting things today.  First, he told me, "somebody's poopy."  He was right, she was.  Second, he told me an important lesson he learned from his sister earlier today when daddy lost his temper at her, "we never put feet in the potty."

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter needed to wash her feet.  She decided the potty was a good place to do so--it's full of water and there's a nice oval seat to sit on.  Daddy was unthrilled.

Fitness Update:  Cold outside, warm in the gym.  It was below twenty degrees this morning and I went to the gym in lots of over clothes.  I  left the gym in a tank top and shorts and I was comfortable in the cold air as I walked to the car.  That's what exercise does to you.

Trading Two Knowns for Four Unknowns

I substituted at school for a short while today.  There was an all-staff meeting and they needed some substitutes to step in and help with the after school classes.  I've substituted for this particular class before and the first time I walked in the room I was a bit anxious.  Ten minutes later, I realized I was in over my head.

This particular class is four to six toddlers two and under.  Potty training is ongoing, but accidents are frequent.  The students have been in school long enough to know expectations, but they also know you're not their main teacher and they like to see what they can get away with when the main teacher isn't there. 

In most classes when I've substituted, I am one of two teachers and the other teacher can let me know what is and what isn't appropriate or allowed.  In this class that I was in today, I didn't know what materials the children could select, what the rules were outside with the sand box and about seventeen other things I didn't realize I didn't know until I was all alone with small children swarming around me.

We had fun though and when the teacher came back I voiced my suspicions and found out I was right in most cases.  They had gotten away with some things, but not too much. 

It's much easier dealing with two knowns (my children) than four unknowns (students in an environment I'm unfamiliar with).

The Big Boy Update:  Random napper.  When my son decides to go to sleep, he likes to sleep for a long time.  Lately, we haven't been asking them to nap, but on occasion one or both of them will decide to.  When he does, we have to open the door to his room after several hours, bang pans around, make a commotion and sometimes have to go and physically wake him up.  It's great that he likes to nap, but then he doesn't want to go to bed later, and that's not fun for the grown ups.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Adamant.  When she wants (or doesn't want) something, she can sometimes be easily convinced otherwise.  But on occasion, she is absolutely adamant about her decision.  When you try to sway her the other way (or when you tell her what she wants isn't an option), you may well be met with a scream.  We try not to laugh, but it is cute.

Fitness Update:  Fitness room this afternoon with Uncle Jonathan.  We did cardio and the weight machines.  There's this one that does loads of exercises for arms and upper body.  It's fun.  I like that machine the best.

Water Works and The Cabinet Quandry

My children like water.  I hear that's very common.  Recently we've found them sitting in their bathroom sink with four little feet in the sink, drain stopper up and water everywhere.  And boy, were they happy kids when we found them. 

I don't want to squash that enthusiasm, but I do want to protect the walls, floors and cabinets.   We got them a nice stool they can stand on and lean over to wash their hands, play in the water and float all sorts of things (they shouldn't be) in the sink.  Hopefully that will contain some of the water. 

They're not allowed to do this water works play by default, but sometimes they just have a notion and my husband or I don't realize what's happening until it's a soggy mess all over the bathroom.  The counter tops aren't an issue, they're granite or marble.  The floor is tiled although I'm sure enough water would find a crack somewhere and seep into the sub-flooring if enough water were present.

It's the cabinets we're most concerned about.  We've noticed at the kitchen sink some areas where the cabinet doors just below the sink have started to flake.  This isn't the fault of my children, it's probably from all the water that's splashed out or dripped down since the day we moved in.  We're diligent now to try and wipe off any water when it happens.  What worries me is water that drips down and is left there to dry. 

What worries me more is the cabinet company that made our cabinets went out of business.   I wouldn't worry so much if I could call them and have them re-paint or stain the doors at some point in the future, but at this point I don't have a known solution.  I've been talking with our builder about other companies he's worked with that would be willing to do a color-match/stain match in the future if we have a need.

For now, we are being mindful of how water can be damaging over time.  We're also looking forward to summer when the children can play in a pool or sprinkler outside.

The Big Boy Update:  Edamame beans.  He was asleep in my husband's arms until the edamame beans arrived at dinner.  He woke up and ate almost a whole order without complaining about being woken up.  It's his new favorite green food.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  A mouth full of beans.  My daughter likes edamame beans too.  She needed to go to the potty at dinner tonight (or so she said) but before she would go, she stuffed her mouth completely full of beans.  Her mouth was so full she was still chewing on them even after we were done at the potty.

The Invisible Hallway

We were at the grocery store tonight when my son said he had to go potty.  I took him out of the shopping cart and realized I didn't know where the bathrooms were in that store.  And then I realized that was odd. 

I've been going to that same grocery store since 1997 when I moved near it.  I'm not altogether surprised that I haven't had a personal need to go to the bathroom while shopping, but how could I not know where the bathroom was?  It would be in the back somewhere, maybe in-between sections.  But I had never noticed it before.

I had seen a documentary once about how complex grocery stores are--that they are the most densely-packed informational environment you brain has to deal with.  The way we manage to find what we're looking for is by narrowing down from large categories to medium categories to smaller categories.  For instance, you go to the canned goods aisle, look for the vegetables section, find the corn area and then look for the white shoepeg corn you came for. 

The show further said that we're so focused on the thing we're looking for that we may not even see something out of place right near where we're looking.  In the case of the bathroom tonight, once I started looking for it, I quickly found the very large sign on the back wall saying, "Restrooms".

As I walked over to that area I noticed it was in the middle of the chilled meats section.  There was a wall of refrigerators housing bacon, sliced meats, sausage, hot dogs, etc. and right between two was a double-wide opening where the bathrooms were. 

And it was a full corridor with a bench and a water fountain.  How had I never noticed it was even there before?  In my mind, the refrigerated meats section was a seamless wall of chilled meats.  Amazing.

The Big Boy Update:  He is getting really good at toileting.  Tonight before bed he was watching television.  He suddenly ran into the bathroom saying, "I have to go potty."  He hurriedly went and ran back into the living room.  Only a month ago, he would have gone in his pants he was so engrossed in the television show.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter was putting clothing magnets on a magnetic doll tonight.  She had found the skirt and shirt but wasn't sure what the small thing she picked up next was.  When she realized what it was she said, "oh, it's her underpants.  Yay for underpants."  Then she put the underpants on the doll's chest.  She found three more pair and put them on her torso.

Fitness Update:  My lower back and sacral area has been driving me batty lately.  Last night was particularly bad as it woke me up all night long.  I didn't know if I was going to make it to the trainer this morning, but once I got there we did things that didn't bother it much.  Sitting here writing this blog post is giving me more fits than all the work we did this morning.  Go figure.

The Moving Away Dinner

We went to a dinner tonight for a friend who is moving away at the end of the month.  I've known him for a long time and our lives have crossed in many ways.  He's lived here for twenty-three years and is moving away now for multiple reasons.  Everyone is going to miss him.

I met him many years ago in the early nineties at Electronics Boutique.  I would shop there regularly and the guy I was dating and I became friends with Matt because we were in the store all the time.  We invited Matt over and got to know him well.  

Later, I stopped dating that guy and at some point started dating Matt.  We dated for a while and then realized we weren't to be and both moved on.  He met and then married someone who also became my friend.  

He and she were married for ten years, adopted an older child who is now eighteen and on his own and then divorced.  But she and he have both remained friends of ours during all the changes in our lives.

He's going to New Hampshire in support of the Libertarian Free State project and will work remotely with his company down here.  I hope he meets nice people and makes great friends up there.  His long-time friends here will miss him.

The Big Boy Update:  Left handed.  He's left handed I can say with a high level of confidence.  He usually uses his left hand for things more than his right.  We haven't paid attention at all or made suggestions so it's his natural choice.  I think his sister may be left-handed too but we're going to need more time to evaluate her as she's not completely decided yet.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  "It's my pumpkin!"  I was moving things around today and she saw her Halloween Jack-o-lantern she carried around the neighborhood to collect candy in.  She picked it up, looked in it and said, "there's no candy."  She wasn't overly upset that we had to wait until next Halloween to get more in her pumpkin but she did decide she wanted to put some beads in it and walk around the house carrying it.

Crème de Menthe Parfait

On my birthday as a child, I was allowed to select the restaurant I wanted to go to for my birthday dinner.  There was one special restaurant I loved to go to that was unrivaled.  It wasn't a children's restaurant, they didn't have a children's menu and children were only welcomed there if they were well-behaved.

You had to dress nicely and the food was largely targeted at adults including fancy steaks and a large selection of wines.  I'm not sure why I liked going there other than it was expensive.  I think it might have been their dessert though.  They had vanilla ice cream with Crème de Menthe on the top. 

I have no recollection of anything I ever ordered at that restaurant as a child, other than the dessert.  There was alcohol in the topping, but it wasn't much.  What it did do, was give an amazing taste to the ice cream. 

Tonight, we went with friends to this same restaurant.  For dessert, I looked through the list of items they offered and then saw the Crème de Menthe parfait.  When I asked what it was (because parfait sounds fancy) it was vanilla ice cream, mint liqueur and a cherry.  Maybe that cherry made it into a parfait. 

There were other desserts that were more appealing to me as an adult, but I ordered the boring ice cream because I wanted to remember it from my childhood.  I had forgotten how good it was. 

Today, for over half my life, I've had Crème de Menthe sitting in my cabinet in my house.  Why is it I never think to put it on ice cream at home?

The Big Boy Update:  I heard something I never expected to hear this afternoon.  After my son had watched television for a while, he got up and as he walked out of the room said, "It's enough T.V.  Pause it.  I mean, would you turn it off?" 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Face scratcher.  She gets back at her brother some times by scratching his face, or at least trying to.  She moves her hand with her fingernails extended in a slow swipe.  He can easily get out of her way...but sometimes he doesn't. 

Mental Organization

Our house is very tidy.  Things have places they're suppose to be and when they're not being used, they're back in those places.  At the end of each night the house is put back in order so the next day we can start making a mess of things again.

I get teased by people that I'm very organized.  I don't deny it, I am organized.  I like to organize.  My mother taught me to organize as a child and I find it fun, going through things and coming up with better ways to utilize space or keep things together of like kinds.  But organization is an iterative process.  Getting all the food in the pantry would be "stage one" organization; getting all the cans in one place and the spices in another would be "stage two.  I'm not sure how many iterations of organization I have, but it's more than two. 

Things need to get re-evaluated over time as well.  The attic and garage are great examples.  Things get put there and left there and after time has passed, the once organized area needs a re-staging and some evaluation of what you're going to do with all the added junk you have and what current junk you don't need any more. 

The second storage area has gone through an initial organization shortly after we moved in.  It looks very organized outwardly, mostly because things are in similar bins and it looks neatly done.  The contents inside many of the bins isn't nearly so organized.  It's been a goal of mine to revamp the entire room when I had time (which is infrequent with two toddlers). 

Today we had a sitter and I got a few hours started on the process.  I had a good time going through stuff I haven't really looked at in a long time. 

The Big Boy Update:  Headstands.  He loves to do headstands on the chairs or the sofas.  He puts his head in the crack at the back of the seat and kicks his legs up over his head.  While he's balancing there with his legs dangling over the back of the seat, he asks for us to turn on Mickey.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Messy hair.  It is growing so slowly.  It is so messy looking.  Some days it has static cling and other days it looks perfectly adorable.  I am looking forward to longer hair. 

The 4:10 AM Burglar and The Door Lock

At 4:10 AM this morning I say bolt upright in my bed because a small green light was flashing around the entrance to my room.  Everything was silent and I couldn't tell what was happening or who was in the room.  Then, I discovered it was my son.

We had several discussions over the next twenty minutes about how he should be in bed.  He explained that he wanted to read a book, which is interesting because he can't read.  He can view the pictures though, and I told him he could do that in his bedroom or in their playroom, which has a light on all night long.  He said okay and walked away. 

A few minutes later I got up because for some strange reason there was a dim light on in our bathroom and the door was mostly closed.  As I walked towards the bathroom, I stumbled over a pacifier.  Then I saw what had happened:  my son had gotten up, walked downstairs in the dark with his pacifier, gotten the small stool from the side of our bed the dog uses, taken it into our bathroom, shut the door most of the way and turned on the light with the dimmer on low.  Then he'd gotten his light-up toothbrush and went off to get some books to read.  It was during that last bit that I woke up startled.

It was quiet so I figured he was back upstairs.  I took his pacifier up to his room and found him nowhere.  I looked all over and finally found him on the main floor beside the under counter light we leave on at night so the house isn't completely dark.  He was, "reading" he told me, only could I help him find Mickey Mouse because he didn't know what page he was on.

I took him upstairs and he agreed he was tired.  Today, I put the child-proof cover back on the door to his room (which isn't that child-proof).  I reinforced it with duct tape.  I don't think I want him investigating the knife block in the middle of the night any time soon.

The Big Boy Update:  After I turned down the music in the car this morning because it was too loud, my son said, "quiet is available right now," to his sister.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  We had Pei Wei for lunch and I got edamame beans for everyone.  My son loves them and my daughter has decided she does too.  She wanted to use her child's chopsticks on them and I had little faith she would be successful, but time and time again she picked up a single bean, moved it around to show us or offer it to someone and then ate it. 

Fitness Update:  It's been group circuit work at the gym lately, and I really like it.  Today was a non-stop cardio day with lots of weight work and pushups and other additions that made it a tough morning.  But fun too.

The Fire and The Painted House

Yesterday afternoon the doorbell rang.  It was my neighbor's son who told me, "our yard is on fire, the fire truck is coming."  He told me my son most likely would want to see the fire truck.  After getting more information by way of the phrase, "your yard is on fire?!" and discovering everything was under control, I ran downstairs and brought my children outside.

We had a nice time looking at the blackened grass (that had caught due to a spark from a tile saw) and we all looked at the fire truck.  My son and daughter sat on the back, got to sit in the driver's seat and even pressed the horn.  They got fire fighter stickers from Amber, one of the firefighters who had come on the truck.

I asked which fire station they came from.  It turns out they were from what I like to call my, "home fire station".  It's the fire station I knew as a child and it's the one I've driven by regularly as an adult.  If anything happened to my parents house, the first town home I ever owned, my second home or my current home, that fire station would send out trucks to help us.  You can't get more, "home fire station" than that.

When I was young, my parents decided to paint their house.  They looked around for someone to do it and happened upon a gentleman who was a firefighter at that very station.  He liked to paint houses when he wasn't working as a fireman.  It took him a good while to paint our house, by hand, on his off days.  I thought it was cool.  How many people get their houses painted by a fireman?

The Big Boy Update:  "I jump over the floor."  Children have a different perspective on things at times.  My son was jumping off the edge of the bed and daddy was catching him, which technically is jumping over the floor.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter was working on the iPad, doing a puzzle game she loves to do.  When she completes the puzzle there are clapping sounds and balloons float up from the bottom.  You can tap the balloons and they pop, which might be her favorite part of the app.  Daddy was watching her this morning and she said, "wanna pop the balloons?" to daddy.  Daddy said he would be glad to and she said, "kay" and let him do the fun part.

Fitness Update:  Today was tough at the gym; so tough Don sent us home five minutes early, saying, "that's enough for today." 

The Chase

This isn't about chasing my children around the house.  It's not about chasing a boy as a youth in the hopes he would become my boyfriend.  It's not about a chase at all; it's about the lack of a chase.

When my husband and I built our house, we tried to think of everything.  We got a lot right, prepared for contingencies that most likely will never arise, but in a few cases we totally missed something obvious.  Today, we discovered one of those oversights.

Our builder has decades of experience and he made suggestions we're glad about now.  One of the things he told us was helpful was adding a chase tube from the attic all the way to the basement.  A simple PVC pipe from the top of the house to the bottom of the basement is a great way to save on problems in the future.  We have two of those chases in place.

Let's say we needed to do something crazy like wire a speaker at the far back of the basement from the television at the front of the basement.  The Floor is poured concrete.  The ceiling has joists and the walls have studs.  It's a messy proposition all around.  But, we could use our handy chase from one side of the basement, up to the attic, across the attic and then down the other side of the basement, plug in the speaker and disco, we have sound.   And yes, that's an outrageous example, but we could do it if we had to.

Today we were talking about the remote control situation in the great room and how there were some issues that might be addressed by the newer model universal remote.   We looked online, discovered a "way cool" option that would not only provide the features we wanted, it would remove having to point in multiple directions with the remote when you used it for some things, and there was an app for your phone if you didn't even want to use the remote.  Oh, and it was inexpensive too.

That's when my husband realized we had a problem.  We would need to have a new connection from the television over the fireplace to the cabinets off to the left.   "Ah, we can use our chase," I said.  Guess where we forgot to put a chase?

But we eventually worked through a solution.  There was long bits of copper wire involved and some red string.   We were lucky to have a three inch square hole in the side of the cabinet that held a fan that vented hot air into the chimney space from the components.  (As an aside, that was a cool idea of my husband's--putting a standard computer fan into the wall to vent heat.) 

We strung up a flashlight and hung it down into the empty space behind the fireplace and we jiggled a wire until we finally caught it with the hook and pulled the long string through.  When we got everything back in place, you can bet we left that red string there in case we need to pull something through in the future.

But back to the new remote control system.  I'm in the basement right now but if I wanted to turn on the television upstairs, change the channel and lower the volume, I could do so without even being on the same floor.   I almost want to go watch something right now just to play with the controls.

The Big Boy Update:  I don't really know that I want to put what my son said today here, but it was both innocent and horrifying so I think I'm going to to.  He was hungry and about to sit down to eat a snack.  He also had an itchy crotch.  I asked him if he needed any cream to help the itching when he said, "I like eating penises.  Penises are good.  Mommy, you eat my penis."  See?  You're horrified, right?  I told him that probably wasn't a good idea and was there another way I could help?  He said, "yes, go get the cream as fast as you can!"  And so I did.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Daddy was playing hide and go seek with my son yesterday.  My daughter was upstairs with me getting a change of clothes and was in no way participating in the game.  But her mind was.  She heard her brother trying to find daddy and said, "I can't find daddy.  Daddy's hiding."  Then, after another few seconds of my son running around my daughter told me what was going to happen next, "Daddy wanna whistle."  She was right; daddy whistles when the children can't find them to help them figure out where he's hiding.

Olivia's Favorite Ticklie Water

Children sometimes like something new.  They'll try it without a second thought like splashing into the pool deeper than they can swim or eating something spicy, even when you warn them in advance.  Other times, you can't get them to try it no matter how appealing you make it sound.

"The slide is fun, you'll love it," may be met with a resounding "no" that the child won't budge from the entire afternoon.  My son told me today that they had popcorn for snack at school.  I asked him what kind of popcorn he had and he told me, "red and blue popcorn".  Later in the day for their afternoon snack I put a few pieces of caramel corn on their plates.  Both of my children refused to even touch it.  My daughter looked at it and told me it was, "yucky".  Saying it was "candy popcorn" helped not one bit. 

One way we've found to get them to try or keep trying something they may not like initially is to tell them it's someone's favorite.  Tonight at dinner we got them Sprite instead of lemonade.  It's pretty much the same: sugar, water and flavoring, with one having carbonation and the other having coloring.  I wondered what they'd think of it.

My children have had carbonated beverages on rare occasions in the past.  My son dubbed them, "ticklie water" because of how it makes his mouth feel.  Tonight, after they took their first sips and made strange faces, I jumped in and said, "you have Sprite tonight.  Sprite is your cousin Olivia's favorite ticklie water." 

It worked, they kept drinking after hearing that.

The Big Boy Update:  My son went to the bedroom in the afternoon and came back with his arm over his mouth, just like he was preparing to cough into his elbow.  What had he done?  He had decided he could sneak his pacifier out of his room and keep playing if we didn't see the pacifier in his mouth.   After Mimi and I got done giggling, we told him he had to take it back to his bed.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter, after seeing her brother do the sneaky pacifier trick, ran off to the bedroom and came back mere seconds later with her pacifier in her mouth and her arm hiding the evidence.  Quick learner.  It's a pity their ploy didn't work.

Strawberry Jello With Bananas

My best friend from all the way back to elementary school gave my mother an unexpected present at the baby shower for my first born.  The gift was a book for grandmothers.  It had lots of questions in it that the grandmother would answer, such as, "where were you born?" and, "who was your best friend when you were young?"  I had never heard of a book for Grandmothers before.

My mom worked on it on and off for some time.  It doesn't sound like something that would take a long time to complete, mostly because the book isn't physically large, but some questions needed thought or research like, "what was the address of your first home?"   Every so often, my mother would tell me she was working on the grandmother book (by this time, I had two children) and I'd tell her how much I'm sure they would appreciate the effort she was going through for them.

This Christmas, which is just after my son's third birthday, "Mimi" gave her book to our two children.  They can't read.  They don't have an understanding at all about the career choices their grandmother made in her life and what hobbies she liked to do as a child.  But they will some day, because she wrote it down for them.

I read through the entire book and there were so many things I didn't know.  I found out my mother loved strawberry jello with bananas, something her grandmother used to make that she said, "I could never get enough of."  So recently, when she came over for dinner, we had strawberry jello with bananas for her.  My children loved it almost as much as Mimi.

When my mother gave the children her book at Christmas, I took a picture of it on my cell phone and texted it to my friend who had given it to her.  I told her, "thank you for the wonderful gift.  Mom has just finished it and we will cherish it always."

Then, I ordered one for my running friend.  My friend's mother was recently diagnosed with cancer and she was having a radical operation on January 6th to remove her esophagus and in doing so, the cancer.  My friend has had her mother's mortality on her mind so much since she was diagnosed two months ago.  She had also never heard of a grandmother book either and was very touched by the gift.  Her mother has four little granddaughters she can think of as she fills out that book now that her surgery is over and was the success we all hoped it would be. 

The Big Boy Update:  "We're going to get our shoes so we can sing songs outside while swinging."  He told us this this afternoon when he and his sister decided they wanted to go out in the back yard.  They were both wearing only underpants and a shirt at the time.  He got his shoes and went out.  She walked around in the wet grass for a while and came in saying her feet were cold.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:   Wellies.  She has these pink Hello Kitty rain boots she likes to put on.  She gets them out of the drawer, sits down, usually gets them on the wrong feet, and then stomps around the house in them.  Tonight after it was dark, she put them on and went out in the front yard for a while wearing only a shirt and underpants as accompaniment.   She didn't seem to get cold so I had to lure her (and her brother who was similarly dressed) back in with the promise of a game of hide and go seek.

Fitness Update:  The cortisone shot in my elbow has reduced the pain a good bit.  But I can hear it make a crunching noise every time I do something with it under tension.   The MRI didn't show anything much (like floating debris) but something's going on still.  Oh, and I went to the gym this morning.  Don't tell my trainer, but 7.0 speed at 7.0 incline isn't as hard as it used to be.

Put Soap In Your Eyes

I've been having some dryness in one of my eyes, which can happen for some time after PRK surgery.  As I had PRK on one eye only, I only have one eye that has this bothersome "feature".  We've tried several things and they all help some, but I wish my eye would hurry up and get back to pre-surgery hydration levels.

My eye doesn't seem dry, but I have symptoms that cause my vision to be less than ideal when dryness does occur.  I get the sense there's a sort of haze that I can't quite wipe away.  It's confusing because this hazy sensation isn't there all the time.  When it does happen, it fools you into thinking you need to wipe or rub your eye to make it go away, only that does nothing to help.

I've learned a lot about ocular hydration as we've been working on the problem.  First, we tried temporary drain duct plugs.  That helped.  I have permanent ones now and they help.  I have drops that help with hydration that I use fairly regularly.  It turns out that when your eye is dry, adding moisture right then (let's say you burst into tears and started crying because you were watching a sad movie) will help for that moment, but it doesn't solve the problem over a longer period of time.  By the time the movie is over, your eyes will be dry again.  You need to have a sustained amount of moisture on the eye so that the tissues can maintain the proper hydration level.

Now let's talk about oil.  Not only do you have tears that keep your eye moist, you also have a film of oil produced by your eyelids that flows over the moisture from the tears.  The bit about oil and water not mixing is exactly what should be happening in your eye.  If everything is working well, the balance of oil to water is good and your eye stays hydrated.   I was told I have "viscous oil".

It appears my oil is of the thicker variety.  It can get backed up and block the pores it comes out of  or flow more slowly than desired.  This contributes to an overall dry eye situation.  There are things you can do to help get the oil flowing more readily, such as putting a very hot towel up against your closed eyes to heat the oil.

The best suggestion though, was to literally put soap in my eyes.  It sounded awful, but it turns out to be fairly easy and not painful at all.  When you're in the shower, take a bit of baby shampoo on your finger tips and rub it into your lashes on the top and bottom.  Then rinse.  This will unclog or help the oil flow.

Remember how baby shampoo is touted as, "no more tears"?  I can personally attest, it's true, it doesn't bother your eyes at all.

The Big Boy Update:  Crackers.  I gave my children some cheese on top of crackers yesterday.  My son really liked the crackers.  He wasn't as interested in the aged white cheddar cheese.  He negotiated a swap with my daughter, giving her his cheese and taking her crackers.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Cheese.  She liked the cheese on top of the crackers yesterday and asked for more cheese after all her crackers were bare.  She loves cheese.  She gladly took her brother's cheese and didn't even care that he grabbed her crackers because she was too busy stuffing the cheese into her mouth.

Fitness Update:  Last night (for some strange reason) I decided I wanted to do two-hundred pushups.  I did them...just not all at once, while I watched something on television.  Other than that, it was a lazy weekend.

It's Only Two Blocks Away

This afternoon I had a flashback to a cold memory from years ago.  It's the middle of January here and much of the country is having record lows.  What is our temperature today?  Over sixty degrees.  Several days ago it was in the teens, but it's nice outside now.  It's been rainy all day and we had a wild storm pass through with tornadoes (rare for us) mid-afternoon. But other than that, it was a very nice day.

My two children and I were at our next door neighbor's house for a while and when we came home, my two got very excited about the water running down the curb towards the drain.  They splashed their way all the way down to the cul-de-sac and I had to corral them in, only to find out they wanted to go back for more splashing.  It was nice enough weather so I told them to take their pants and socks off, put on their crocks (fully plastic shoes) and have at it.  It was tough to get them in, even after it started to rain and we were all getting a bit wet overall.

While they were splashing around following, "the river" my son decided the rivulet was, I had a flashback to a January many years ago when I was doing some business in the city of Calgary in Alberta, Canada.

It was cold.  It was twenty-seven degrees below freezing.  I discovered several interesting things during that week there.  First, my curly, frizzy hair became straight and smooth with the complete lack of humidity in the air.  Second, I had to go buy something called, "nasal gel" to put in my nose to keep it from cracking internally as a result of this same dryness.  And third, I found out they put sand on the streets instead of salt, because salt only helps to a certain temperature because after it gets below that temperature, it's not going to help with any melting.

Also, I found out about something called the "Plus Fifteen."  I was teaching two buildings over in the downtown area from the hotel in which I was staying.  There was a sidewalk that took me straight to the entrance of that building and I planned on Monday morning to walk there.  When I spoke with my on-site contact, he told me about this plus fifteen thing and how I could get to their building via these walkways on the second floors that connected all the downtown buildings together.  They were called "Plus Fifteen" because they were fifteen feet off the ground.

I went to the lobby and got some directions.  To get two blocks over, I was going to have to walk seven blocks going out of my way via this enclosed walkway network.  "Pft," I thought.  "I can make it two blocks, easy."  Monday morning I walked out the front door and started walking to the site.  That's when I realized I didn't know what I was talking about.  Good grief, it was cold.  I fairly stumbled into the building one block over and stood there for ten minutes warming up before walking the second block to the site.

For the rest of the trip I praised the wonder of the Plus Fifteen and was thankful for remaining warm.   As a life-long tenant of the south, it was quite an experience.

The Big Boy Update:  Pacifier separation.  He is down to two, sometimes one pacifiers.  One, he likes, the other he doesn't want at all.  When the one he likes has gone missing (fallen under the bed) he doesn't seem to care much and goes to sleep with out it at night.  I think he's about done with pacifiers and we might suddenly lose his favorite one in short order.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Pacifier dependence.  She is only allowed a pacifier when sleeping, but with the new freedom to get in and out of their room at will, she keeps getting her pacifiers and toting them around the house.  She had one "thrown in the trash" yesterday when she wouldn't put it back in the middle of the day.  She was quite upset.  We're going to have to put hers up and out of sight until she gets into bed at night if she keeps this up.  Before, when they only went into their bedrooms to go to sleep at night or for naps, she didn't seem to care as much.

Three Cents From a New Car

This is a post about stocks and how they go up and down and how we like to hope they go up a whole lot and what we plan to do with the money if that were to happen.  That is, if they went up a whole lot and we decided to sell them at that high price.  Wait, did we factor in capital gains?  That's going to take a significant chunk.  And is it really good to sell it and spend it or would it be better to just sit on it and let it grow (hopefully) over the years?

Stocks tend to cause more theoretical speculations on money than almost anything other than the lottery.  And I've done enough speculation over the years.  I have been fortunate to have both stock options and stock shares from one of my prior companies and over time, those shares have increased in value.

Or rather, they did until the economy fell down a deep, dark, dismal hill, at which point I pretended the stocks weren't there for a number of years, because looking at the net value of them only made me put on one of those sad faces and shake my head. 

But things are improving, and this company (the one I used to work for) has been pacing well with the economy.  Back some years ago, my husband and I had these "magic numbers" that, were our respective stocks to hit, we would spend money on something big.

It's been some years since we had those dreams for higher-valued stock shares.  I've been excitedly watching my old company's stock price because it has been getting closer and closer to that magic number that, for me, meant I was going to sell some and get a new car.

The other day on a Friday, it closed at just three cents below that "new car" price.  I couldn't believe it had gone that high.  On Monday, it dropped over a dollar and I was, I have to say, a bit relieved.  As much as the idea of selling stock shares to buy a car sounds fun, I'm not sure I was really ready to do so.  It hasn't gotten close since that point, but hopefully it will not only get there, but exceed that price as the months go on.

I asked my husband what his stock was doing and his stock is well over his target price.  Only we couldn't remember what, if any, he had planned when that happened.  It looks like we're just going to sit, watch and continue to speculate for now.

The Big Boy Update:  "You are very cute," I told my son as he went off to play with some toys.  "I know," he told me as he walked out of the room.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  V8.  I wanted to try something new with the children today so I offered them each a small can of V8.  Both of the children decided it tasted good, but my daughter was the one that really liked it.  I told her Gramps loved V8 and I was glad she did too.  She got overly enthusiastic at one point and it poured down her shirt and pants.  But she liked it. 

Fitness Update:  These circuit workouts we've been doing lately have been fun.  He's been pushing us on one component, the running part.  In between rounds of circuit work he'll have us do some cardio.  He puts one of us on the treadmill and has the other one do something like burpees with two pushups each.  The one on the treadmill is running at something like 6.0 pace/6.0 incline for a minute and then we swap roles.  That's not bad, but since we were doing well at that he's decided to keep pushing us.  Today he got us up to 8.0 pace/8.0 incline.  We're panting getting off the treadmill and falling into the first burpee.  I don't know that I want to know how fast and high the treadmill goes.

Soup is Available (and Other New Expectations)

We have been intentionally flexible with our children when it comes to food.  We want to give them options on what they can eat at meals, while kow towing to their demands.  For example, I give them several things for breakfast like grapes, dried craisins, yogurt and toast.  They may eat some or all of a particular item and they may choose not to eat all of some of any one choice.  And that's fine.  I stick the remainder back in the refrigerator and offer it again at a future time.

We're starting to see patterns now.  For instance, they love bananas, but only for a period of time.  At that point they decide they've had enough bananas and any bananas we offer for the next several weeks will be largely wasted.  I don't mind a child phasing through foods--I do that myself.  But what I do expect is the child to eat what is offered to them without expecting a replacement meal just because it doesn't suit their mood.

For example, my son would like pancakes for breakfast most mornings.  He doesn't get pancakes very often and when he does, it's usually on the weekend.  I expect him to eat the toast or cereal or English muffin (which is equally delicious) because that's what we're having this morning.  And I don't expect either child to pitch a fit about it.

However, giving them choices and expecting them to eat what's offered to them can be somewhat in conflict.  Last night we decided to offer our children soup for dinner.  If they ate their soup, they could have dessert.  My daughter ate lots of soup and had two helpings of Jello.  My son decided he didn't want soup and rebelled for two hours, almost going to bed without dinner, until he gave in and ate the soup (that he loves).  He had a small dessert as a result.

These children are one battle after another.  If you're not prepared for a fight to make them flexible and able to adapt to all kinds of situations, you can give in any time you like, thus making your like more difficult in the long run.

The Big Boy Update:  "I want a close up."  My son came downstairs this morning and announced it was light outside so it was time for breakfast.  He looked at the clouds, which were just getting some color as the sun rose, and said, "look at the purple clouds.  I want a close up."  At which point he moved closer to the clouds by walking towards the window. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  "They're upstairs."   This morning she brought down her pacifiers when she and my son escaped their room before breakfast.  I told her she had to put her pacifiers upstairs before she could eat breakfast.  She disappeared for a few seconds, came back and said, "they're upstairs."  And they were--she showed me where they were, upstairs two steps from the bottom step.

Fitness Update:  I missed a running opportunity with Uncle Jonathan today where he ran a half marathon (so jealous) but I did make it to the fitness room for some upper body work.  That was fun in a whole different way from workouts with other people as I was alone the whole time.

This Drinking Is Going to Get Me Yet

It's not what you think.  It's not the alcohol.  It's the delicious hot beverages.  I love a delicious hot beverage.  I love them all day long.  I love one when I wake up in the morning and I love one just before I go to bed.  In fact, as I write this at nine o'clock at night, I'm holding my mug with a delicious beverage in it.  (Okay, I'm not holding it right now, because I'm typing, but I was.)

This holiday season has brought me additional beverage choices and I have been over-indulging in them all.  There was the Russian Tea my mother made for me that sent me down memory lane.  I was drinking that daily and making more mix for friends and family. 

Then there was the hot chocolate Keurig cups from Uncle Brian.  I do love a good cup of hot chocolate.   I also got some specialty hot chocolate mix from Uncle Eric and Aunt Kelly.  Uncle Eric did some extensive research and this mix he made for us, he says is the best.  And it is very good. 

Oh, and chai latte.  I always have room for a chai latte.  I also like hot teas.  I like English Breakfast, Indian Chai and Earl Grey in particular and I have gone through a lot of K-cups over the past two months in teas.

So what's the problem?  It isn't the caffeine, that doesn't' bother me.  It's the calories.  I like my tea, hot chocolate and lattes with lots of milk, say a third of a cup.  Some of those drinks already have a decent number of calories in them without adding milk on top.  And don't get me started on the Russian Tea, which is mostly sugar with a power punch of flavor added in for fun. 

I prefer to "eat my calories" instead of drinking them.  It's why I don't have a soda or lemonade or other drink with calories at meals.  But when I'm drinking lots of calories during the day via tasty, hot beverages, it's adding up...but they're so tasty!

The Big Boy Update:  "Seat belts are my favorite."  For anyone who's seen the movie Elf, I swear, my son said exactly that statement...and I had to laugh.  He was driving around in his plastic car/plane thing and he had fashioned a seat belt out of a Mardi Gras necklace.  When Mimi told me he had made his own seat belt, he proudly showed me and said, "seat belts are my favorite."

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Wedgie.  I hate'em.  Truly.  My daughter, on the other hand, cares not.  She put on underpants tonight both inside-out and backwards.  The waist band was partially folded under and she had pulled them way up in the back, making the front part (which was on her back side) even higher up on her little cheeks.  It looked so uncomfortable.  I asked her if I could help her with her pants three times, but she said she was fine and carried on jumping on the bed. 

Because We're Cold?

I'm from the south.  I've heard all the lines about how we're terrible drivers in snow.  I don't have a problem with that, because we are terrible drivers.  We lack experience and we have fluctuating temperatures that often cause nice snow to turn into icy slush--and that can be a hazard to drive on for anyone.

When I was a child, we would get out of school if there was snow.  It didn't have to be much snow, and let me tell you when we saw those flakes falling down out of the classroom windows, we couldn't wait to hear the dismissal bell.  It never seemed to come quickly enough though.  It was as if they wanted to make certain it was going to stick not only to the ground, but the roads too.

That was many years ago.  There has been a trend since of being more and more cautious when it comes to snow and dangerous road conditions.   Not too long ago if it even flaked for a few minutes, school would be out--just to be safe.  Sometimes if there was a solid and confident prediction for snow they'd even delay or cancel school--before a single flake fell.

Today, something happened I am still flabbergasted about:  schools were on a two-hour delay due to cold.  Not snow, not ice, in fact no precipitation at all.  The grounds weren't wet and the streets were in no danger.  It wasn't even that cold.  There was a preemptive delaying of many schools for two hours simply because the temperature was going to be in the teens.

This morning was sunny and not quite as cold as predicted.  There was no frost on the ground.  I'm not sure why some schools needed to delay (ours didn't).  I heard it was because buses needed to be started early so they could warm up and something about thermostats in the schools needed to be turned on earlier than usual.

I'm not sure I understand why that's a valid reason for delaying school.  Was it because people wanted to be more comfortable--two hours later--when it was a mere four degrees warmer?

The Big Boy Update:  Looking for toothpaste?  I found him in our bathroom, on the counter with the water running in the sink.  He had the drawer with the children's medicines opened and had found all the toothpastes.  He had taken all the caps off and was sampling the flavors and using all the toothbrushes (we have more than one child's toothbrush in there.)  Fortunately, he didn't open the salves and creams also in tubes.  I suppose there weren't any interesting pictures on those.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Asleep with the iPad.  This afternoon I gave her the iPad so I could get dinner ready.  My parents arrived just as I went to check on her.  She was on our bed, slumped over asleep, watching some video on the PBS app with two bakers making cupcakes.

Someone Once Said:  You can't please everybody, because people want different things.

They Escaped

This morning, not too long before seven o'clock, I heard my son say, "mommy?" and I was jolted awake.  He didn't say it overly loudly, it was where the voice came from.  Normally, I hear him calling out in the bedroom and we hear it over the monitor.  We don't jump to react immediately because many times they same something and then go right back to bed.  But this time, I heard his voice from outside his room...from the bridge on the second floor.

Their room is at the end of the bridge, but hearing his voice from there meant he was out of his room.  I was mostly asleep and it startled me, because he shouldn't have been there when it was dark and we were still asleep.   That's when I remembered about removing the door lock.

I almost fell back asleep when I heard little tiny feet running across the floor on the main level.  I heard two sets of little feet.  They were in a hurry, but they didn't really know what was going on.  They'd never come to see us in the middle of the night before, so it was a new experience.  They came up to the bed and called out our names.  Then, they decided to climb on the bed and say a proper hello.

We didn't get back to sleep, much as we told them they could wait quietly with us until it was light outside.  If this happens all the time, I may well find that lock and put it back on their door.

The Big Boy Update:  He didn't want to go to bed tonight.  After daddy put him in bed and left, he opened the door, leaned out, said, "walk away, daddy" and shut the door. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  "Where's my fas-sier?"  This morning in bed with us she wanted her pacifier.  I told her it was upstairs in her bed.  She got off the bed, went upstairs, got her pacifier, and came back to get in bed with us (something they haven't done before).  She tried to lie down with me, but she was too awake at that point and was taken over by both the wiggles and the giggles.

Fitness Update:  My neighbor's mother had early morning surgery so we got to the gym at five o'clock instead of our normal time of five-forty-five.  It was only forty-five minutes earlier, but it seemed strangely outrageous getting up at that time.

They Can Escape Now

For a while now we've been locking the children into their bedroom when they go to sleep either for a nap or overnight.  Not locked so much as they couldn't work the child-safety knob on the door to get out.  At first, my son was the only one who could work the door, then my daughter could.  We've been debating if they're old enough to give them the ability to leave the room if they want to. 

 For some time at nap time we would leave the door cracked if we wanted my son or daughter to come out and downstairs when they woke up.  Sometimes we'd even open the door and bang around pots and pans or socialize loudly downstairs when they were sleeping soundly (they're both excellent sleepers). 

Three days ago we decided to see how it would go in the morning to give them their freedom.  We didn't expect it to be a major change, mostly because they're accustomed to spending time in their room playing when they wake up.  Also, we didn't think they'd notice right away. 

They did figure it out on Saturday morning and both came down.  This morning only my son came down.  I didn't realize why my daughter wasn't coming down as well, especially since I was telling her breakfast was ready, and then I realized she'd gotten herself stuck.  She was calling out asking for help to get down from the desk she'd used a riding car to climb onto, only to have her brother remove the car later. 

Last night, my son didn't want to go to sleep and he tested his freedom several times.  I sat in the room with him and we talked about how he wasn't invited out of his room until morning and that it was his time to sleep.   He was good the rest of the night.

The Big Boy Update:  Apparently there doesn't need to be water in the tub to have fun.  This morning he put lots of tub toys in the tub, got in and out lots of times fully dressed and had a great time.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  "Do you want a band-aid for your finger?"  My two-year-old wanted to make sure Mimi's finger was taken care of.  Band-aids are very popular for "boo boos" in our house.

Fitness Update:  Six miles in the park.  I like the park in the winter as well as the summer. 

The Surprise Shoes

My son needed some shoes when school started and while my daughter and I were out shopping, we stopped in to get him a new pair of Crocs.  I asked my daughter which pair she liked for my son and she picked out the camo pair over the basic blue pair.  I rather liked the camo pair (I was hinting in that direction as I took her to the shelves) because my son likes camo pants and he just looks good in camo colors. 

We got the shoes, got home and she gave him the pair.  He's loved them ever since.  Flash forward in time to Halloween and we're at our neighborhood party and one of my neighbors is in some sort or redneck outfit or something.  I asked him what he was and he told me some name and I still didn't have any idea who he was.  His wife said, "from Duck Dynasty," but that didn't help because I'd never heard of that band before.  She told me it was a television show and asked what rock I'd been living under to not have heard about it. 

I forgot all about it and then at my son's three-year checkup he was wearing his camo shoes.  His pediatrician said to him, "I see you're wearing your Duck Dynasty shoes."  I looked down at those camo shoes and didn't say a thing to the doctor. 

Later, I told my husband to look at his shoes carefully.  They weren't traditional camo, they were these reed and grass things that, while definitely in the camouflage realm, weren't the standard pattern.

So it turns out my son had Duck Dynasty shoes all along.

The Big Boy Update:  Oh shit.  That's right, he heard me swear and immediately repeated what I said.  I'm only surprised it hasn't happened before now, given the total number of swear words that must have come out of my mouth in his presence by now.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  "No thank you, Fox."  My son's middle name is, "Fox" and for some reason today that eludes me, my daughter decided to call him by only his middle name.  He was bothering her and she kept saying, "no thank yo, Fox!" to tell him to leave her alone.

The Doctor

If you know, then this is not a surprise.  If you don't, then this is a Doctor Who post.  I am a fan.  I have been a fan since I was a child.  My doctor is Tom Baker, but I love them all.   My niece is just beginning her adventure, and I hope it is a meaningful one for her.

My children are too young, but I hope they will grow to enjoy it as they grow older.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  The Tiger.  She dressed up as the tiger and had a fun afternoon with our sitter as as tiger.

The Big Boy Update:  He was a gentleman.  We hope (but don't expect) the trend to continue. 

Where Did TheSweaters Go?

I had an unusual day today, I had several hours of time, just to myself.  We have school on weekdays with the children, but that three hours between driving them to school or picking them up from school usually gets taken up with lots of things that need to get done when children aren't around.  But today, I had a sitter--for five hours.  And five hours of freedom when you have toddlers, is a long time.  A wonderfully long time.

My husband and I had been working hard over the break to get caught up on everything, and today I decided I was going to do several things I'd been wanting to do for a long time.  Sure, I could have made time for them before, but things related to Christmas and family maintenance kept getting higher priority, so my "leisure goals" had to wait.

I ran a marathon on November third.  Prior to that I didn't want to get a pedicure (much as I needed one) because my toenails and calluses were just fine and there was no need to mess with them and cause some sort of irritation that would bother me during the run.   The pedicure (and manicure to boot) were something I haven't done in probably six months.  It was so nice.  

After that, I called home to get food orders for the family and brought sandwiches to everyone.  As soon as we were done eating I dashed back out because I still had over two hours to accomplish my other goal: finding some winter sweaters.

I have some sweaters, but only a few that fit me well or aren't old, out of fashion or worn out.  It's winter, I thought, it's the perfect time to go get a sweater or two at the mall.  Off I drove and I went to the same department store I mentioned here the other day, expecting, like always, to find everything I need in one location.  Only there weren't any sweaters. 

That's not exactly true, there were sweaters, but not what I was expecting.  There were these diaphanous, open-weave things that you had to layer with another sweater-ish thing on top to work with what was apparently the current style.  They were hanging poorly on the hangers and only the dummy models looked good in them.  They looked awkward to wear and I was afraid I would break them as soon as I got home and put them in my closet, much less wore them.

There were long, cardigan-type things that went to your knees, but I didn't want a cardigan, I wanted a pull-over sweater.  I also wanted something that would keep me warm--the whole reason I was looking for sweaters in the first place.  Weren't people cold this winter?

I left the department store and walked by another twenty stores, gazing in to see if they had substantial sweaters I could browse for purchase.  I hardly saw anything.   I got all the way to the end of the mall and one very large chain store and I found the sweaters.  They must have all met up in this one store to be together.  I was on the phone at the time and couldn't believe my luck.

You know how you think you can pay attention when you're on the phone but you're really not?  That's what happened to me.  I hung up and started to find all those great sweaters I was seeing.  And yes, there were sweaters, but they were mostly in the wrong size and most of them were some sort of fashion statement and not designed for warmth. 

After a while I took three options to the dressing room and left with one sweater I'm hoping will work with lots of pants options.  It was a strange shopping trip.   But it was my morning off!

The Big Boy Update:  Branded socks.  We started with boring underpants, solid in color, and at one point someone told us to get fun underpants with characters on them to get the children into wearing them and potty training, and that worked well.  It never occurred to me to do the same thing with socks until we were given some Avengers socks for Christmas.  My son loves them.  But he only wants to wear the ones with the pictures of the characters.  The ones with the big A logo for the Avengers means nothing to him because he doesn't read yet. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  "Woooosie"  I call our dog, Lucy, when she's outside and we want her to come in by yelling out her name and drawing out each syllable.  My daughter likes to help me call her, only she says her name with a "woo" instead of a "loo".

The Non-alcoholic Success Story...Sort of

In November I decided I drank too much alcohol.  And by that I mean I felt like I really wanted to have a drink of alcohol more than I thought was healthy.  Any time this happens, I stop drinking for a while.  I think I mentioned this before.  When I was in my twenties I went an entire year without drinking, just to make sure it wasn't an issue.

These days, I know I don't really have a problem, but that doesn't mean I don't go overboard from time to time in my mind.  November seemed to be one of those months.  It was a month in which I was looking for a reason to "need" a drink, and that, I didn't think, was a healthy attitude.

So I dubbed December, "non-alchoholic month".  I've done this recently and honestly, it's a pain from a social perspective.  If I never drank (and we have friends that have never drank) then it's an easy proposition; but it is so not worth the hassle to explain why you don't want to try the lovely wine the neighbors are so excited about when you're at their holiday party because you're not drinking for the month.   And it's not because I don't have enough courage to explain or gumption to stick to my resolve.  It's just so much easier to get a glass of wine or beer and hold on to it and sip it slowly, than it is to go into the whole thing about how you think it would be better for you if you cut back a little for a bit.  Trust me, I've tried the explanation route and it's a lot more hassle than just holding a glass of wine.

I think it's mostly because you get two types of responses.  The first is, "oh, you're fine, you should have another drink, here, let me go get you one."  The second response is of the, "oh no, she must have a serious problem and that is such a shame" kind of thing.  For some reason, alcohol seems to polarize people and I don't quite understand why.

So back to the non-alcoholic month and how it was only a sort-of thing.  I decided that unless it was a social event (and mind you, December is packed with social events,)  I wasn't going to drink anything.  And at those social events, I was only going to have a very small amount of alcohol.  If I was able to do that, that would accomplish my goals.

And that's what I did.  I had a lot less desire to drink alcohol whatsoever for the month and the little bit I did drink was just part of the evening, and not some sort of goal or destination.  These types of resets help me keep a good balance in my life.  

The Big Boy Update: "Camels have one hippo."  "Do you mean 'hump'?"  "Yes."

The Tiny Girl Chronicles: "What's that?"  "It's rice."  "Oh, it's wice!  I want wice."  (goes off to find bowl to put uncooked rice in.)

Fitness Update:  Last day of the year and I ran seven miles with my two best running buddies.  It was a fun afternoon.