Wrong-side Out

I don’t mind folding clothes.   With two children—two messy children—there are lots of clothes to wash and fold.  What  I do dislike though is turning inside-out clothing and then having to fold it.   It strikes me as a wasted step, the whole turning inside-out of the clothes.   It may be easier to pull off a sock or a pair of underpants and put them in the basket.   It’s definitely quicker to take off a shirt by pulling it over your head and turning it wrong-side out, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

I have these “methods” to take off every single items of clothing and have it stay correctly-oriented as I do so.   I have ways to do this with my children’s clothes as well.   I’ve noticed now that my children are learning to do the same thing…some of the time…on occasion…okay, rarely.

The Big Boy Update:  We were getting ready to go and my son had pulled a lot of pillows off the bed and chair.   I said something and before I could finish my son said, “don’t worry mom, we’ll clean it up.”  And so they did.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My husband was shredding paperwork today.   My daughter asked what he was doing and he said, “I’m getting rid of the evidence.”   My daughter looked intently at the shredder and said, “I want to see some of the evidence go down.”

Fitness Update:  Eight miles running after my neighbor’s alarm system went off “basement motion sensor” at 5:25AM, followed by a, “failure to communicate” message.    We don’t know what caused the alarm to sound.   The basement was empty from what we could tell.

Braces

This post has been a year in the making.   I planned this post exactly one year ago, to the day.  I’m not very good at being patient, so to say I’m a little bit  excited about this post would be like saying my dog would be a little bit excited about being given a juicy, dripping ham bone with gobbets of flesh dangling from it.   I’m excited mostly because my teeth are finally finished.

To go back in time, there was the original dentist who retired and then the second dentist whom I didn’t get on with very well and then the third dentist who happens to be my next door neighbor, whom I like quite a bit.   There was the dental evaluation where my teeth were proclaimed, “not the worst I’ve ever seen, but yes, there is work to be done.”   I had lost one tooth at this point and some point not long afterwards there was a whole lot of commotion, root canals, surgeries and the ultimate loss of a second tooth beside the first tooth.

There were cavities, but not many.   There were crowns that were highly recommended and then there was the long, very long, wait to get the implants in place.   While I was waiting for the implant hardware to nestle into my jaw bone and become good, sturdy friends with the surrounding area, we implemented “Operation Braces.”

I had talked to my neighbor about how I was unhappy with my open bite.   When I closed my upper and lower jaws together, there was a gap between my front teeth.   I had had braces when I was younger and I am certain the orthodontist didn’t leave me with a hole between the top and lower teeth so it must be due to thrusting of my teeth over time.   I wore a night guard some of the time.   Some of the time meaning years ago, none of the time or rarely, but as it was apparent I was clenching my jaw, I starting wearing it more.   Bottom line, teeth moved forwards.

So what to do now about the braces.   I had a clear plan and I meant that in the literal sense.   I went with Invisalign braces.   You have a set of clear, retainer like appliances that go over your top and bottom teeth.   They’re tight and they move your teeth ever so little and then hold them in that new position for two weeks.   At the end of two weeks, you have a new set that move the teeth a bit more.

I had only twelve sets, or twenty-four weeks, to get the front gap closed and my teeth aligned.   Here’s a video of the plan from Invisalign;  you can see the missing back two molars on the right.   You might want to click the maximize button on the bottom right because it’s hard to see the twelve steps the teeth moved through in tiny video form.

When you look at the video there are little “buttons” on the teeth.   These are small tooth-colored things that are the shape you see on the video that grip the Invisalign set and help move your teeth.   One of the ways I notice people with Invisalign is those little spots sticking out from their teeth, but unless you know to look for them, most people don’t see them. 

Speaking of not seeing them, I decided to do a test of the true invisible component of the Invisalign product.   I wasn’t going to tell anyone about them.  I would only talk about the braces it if someone  noticed and brought it up to me.   Now mind you, for the last year I’ve had braces in my mouth for twenty to twenty-two hours per day.  Unless I was eating, they were in.    They were in and hardly anyone noticed them.

I told my niece, Nicole, because she had Invisalign and I wanted to know how she coped with the brushing and cleaning and, well, managing the strange feeling it takes a month or so to get over.   My brother-in-law knew because he was there when I was talking about it with her.   My husband noticed on day two and my cleaning lady (who is famous for noticing everything) noticed the second time she saw me.    There were a few other people that noticed, but on the whole, I can say after a year that unless you know the product and expect it, people really don’t notice it. 

There is one story I have to tell though because it was a true test.   We were in Florida in the spring.  I was in the hot tub with my son and father-in-law and my son was being a doctor and finding out what was wrong with each of us.   He checked Grandpa’s ears, his elbows, his nose and his teeth.   He then decided to check my teeth.   I had my trays in and my son said, “mom, you have ABC’s on your teeth.”  My father-in-law came over at my son’s urging to see what was very, very small writing saying Invisalign and some identifying numbers.   My father-in-law looked into my open mouth, probably thought I had blueberry or coffee stains on my teeth and said he didn’t see any ABC’s.   (It is important to note here that children have amazing close-up vision from what I’ve seen.)  

But back to the whole braces process.   After the twelve sets, my dentist sent molds to evaluate what “refinement” would be needed.   This is commonly done to ensure not only that the teeth look good, but that bite function of the teeth is in, “group function” and you’re gliding on your teeth appropriately as you chew food.   Without this in place, your teeth can move over time, you can have discomfort and you could even chip or break teeth.   

Five more sets later and my teeth were done being moved.   I still had those two missing teeth that had those now firmly situated implant screws in place.   I had the implant appliances installed and then had some final crown work to get all the teeth as happy as they could possibly be. 

So where are we?  Cavities: filled.  Crowns: crowned.   Implants: implanted.  Open bite: closed.   Teeth: perfectly aligned.   

I then moved into “retainer wear” for the next several months.   Wearing retainers is just like wearing the main Invisalign sets, only you can be a little less concerned about having them in for twenty-two hours each day.   At three months out now, I wear them overnight and about half of the day.  In another month or two I’ll just wear them at night.   And I like wearing them.   They’re comfortable and I don’t clench my jaw with them in.   I don’t know if that’s because my teeth weren’t well-aligned before so now I naturally clench less, but either way, I like it.  

The final step was to do fifteen days of bleaching and have end photos taken.  This was my idea because I wanted my teeth to look simply fabulous for the final shots.    Here are the before and after pictures my dentist took:

I didn’t expect there to be as much change from the side view as there was:

I am quite happy about the result.  Braces were sort of fun to be honest.   It was a bit of a chore and a lot of discipline, because it is far easier to forget or not put the trays in than it is to keep them in, but that’s the subject of an entirely different blog post.   For today, I love my teeth.   Hell, they look like movie star teeth in comparison to this time last year.   My thanks go to my next-door neighbor who is my dentist for making it all happen.

The Big Boy Update:  I was out to a dinner two nights ago and didn’t see my son go to bed.   Yesterday morning he said, “I missed you last night, mom.”  This is the kind of thing he never says.   I gave him a big hug and told him I had missed him too.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter’s short hair is looking cuter and cuter each day (to me.)   I’m think getting over the sadness of having it cut.  She’s loving no tangles when I brush it.

Fitness Update:  I ran eight miles this morning with my neighbor.   Strange how eight miles seems like just a standard morning’s jaunt now.  

Heart, Notes, Smile, Dinosaur

My children aren’t the best artists.   I’m not sure when children become skilled at holding a writing implement and transferring something onto paper or surface that is easily recognizable as an actual thing, but it hasn’t happened in my household yet.

I was never much for drawing.  I can do this elephant from behind thing that’s cute and curvy and pretty much my only drawing trick.   Other than that I’m lucky if I can get four legs on the dog my daughter has decided she wants me to draw on her paper for her.  

My children are interested in drawing things recently, though.   I don’t know if I should give them instructions (in which case I’d better start an online class to get some remedial skills myself.)  They draw in sort of loops and squiggles now that they can describe in either great detail or dismissively brief monosyllables but to an adult, it just looks like random, frenzied marks with a crayon.

My children are getting good at repeating something if you help them or give them an idea though.   Some time back my husband helped my son draw people via the stick figure method.   My son draws little stick figure-esque guys all the time now.   My daughter is good at tracing her hand and putting fingernails on the resulting handprint because Mimi showed her how.

My son recently came over to me with a drawing he was working on.   I asked him what he’d drawn and he said, “that’s Daddy and that’s Reese and that’s Mommy and that’s me.”  I asked if I could draw a little heart on my shirt (or the center-region of the blocked stick-figure he’d drawn,) because I love him.  He said sure.

Then he asked me if I could draw musical notes on his sister, because she sang all the time.  I did so and then he asked if I could draw a smiley face on Daddy’s shirt and I did that.   Then he thought and asked if I could draw a dinosaur on his shirt.   I drew a very tiny representation of a Brontosaurus and he was happy with that as well.

The next day he came home from school and he’d brought a drawing, which is somewhat uncommon for him.   I asked him what the drawing was of and he had re-drawn the entire family, including an attempt at the heart, notes, smile and dinosaur.

The Big Boy Update:  Pahmer Sighting!   That’s right folks, we now know what Pahmer looks like.   My son was eating his breakfast when I heard him exclaim, “hey, Pahmer looks like this.”   I went over to check it out and it turns out Pahmer looks just like Barney Rubble.   Thanks to the Flintstones Vitamins people for helping us figure this out.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter showed up downstairs a few nights ago for some reason in the middle of the night.  I’m not sure if she was cold or scared or lonely but I let her get in the bed.   We don’t encourage the children to sleep with us in general, but a frightened or lonely child needs to be comforted and we never mind that.   About five minutes later she said, “I’m going back to my bed.”  She got up, walked herself back up the stairs and went back to bed until morning.

Fitness Update:  I walked around the block for two miles today while listening to an audio book and catching up on email.   Nothing like getting three things accomplished at once.

When Are Hugs Over?

At what age do children stop wanting to be hugged for comfort?   I suppose we never completely get past the need to have another human being comfort us with a hug, but children seem to have a need that goes beyond comfort and into a level of dependance.  

Children need hugs regularly to make them feel safe and secure.   Hugs can keep them on a level keel.   Hugs help stop the crying and dry the tears.    Children yearn for hugs for the human contact of being with you, their parent,  relative or very special friend.

So at what point do general, everyday, anytime, “I want to give you another hug, Mommy” hugs go by the wayside?   At what point do children become confident and independent enough to not need a hug unless there’s a specific reason like a parent leaving for a trip?

I know it’s gradual, but I suppose I should start preparing myself for the day I become less-needed from a hugs-standpoint.    I don’t know when it will ultimately happen, but I’ll enjoy the hugs while I can.

The Big Boy Update:  On the way to school yesterday my son told me he was feeling car sick.   That’s okay, I told him because I was pulling into the Starbucks drive through and the motion of the car would slow down.    About two minutes later my son said in a very surprised voice from the back seat, “wait, I’m not car sick, I just had to burp!”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  We haven’t done much with mazes on paper with the children so the other day at a restaurant I watched my daughter work through a maze on the kids menu.   She was able to easily look ahead, moving by short dead end sections.   For the longer sections, she was able to back track to the last junction and resume her forward progress.   It was interesting to watch her work through the maze with her finger alone.

Fitness Update:  I ran seven miles with my neighbor this morning.   After taking the children to school I biked to the shopping center near us for seven miles of biking and then I visited the fitness room to get in my twenty-three weekly minutes of upper body workout.   I’m hungry so it’s a good thing I’m going out to dinner with friends tonight.

Adjectives and Metaphors

I was having lunch with my mother’s long-time best friend one day some years ago and we got to talking about writing.  I’m not sure if I was writing this blog at that point, but seeing as I’m something like thirteen-hundred posts in at this point, there’s a good chance I was already dabbling in writing here.    She told me something I have thought about many times since then.   I think I’ve thought about it enough times that this may well be the second post I’ve written about this very topic.   She said, “writing is all about the adjectives.”

I’m not sure that’s exactly what she said, but that’s the essence of her point.   She told me about a professor she had in college from which she was taking a creative writing course.   He had mentioned the thing about adjectives and she had endeavored to put some descriptive, evocative and creative ones in her writing.   She had done a good job apparently, because he told her about how colorful and vivid her writing was, by virtue of those very-important adjectives.

That may not be how the story actually went, but there was a course and a teacher and a discussion about adjectives and my friend’s ability to select with precision just the right ones to use to make her story something the reader could connect with in a way “good” adjectives wouldn’t have done.

I write a lot and I think about adjectives and I use some here and there that I’m proud of, but for the most part I get down to my computer at the end of the night and bang out a blog post so I can go get in a hot tub before bed.    That’s not fair really, I suppose.   Some days I make an effort to make this post illuminating and inspiring to read (or at least entertaining and mildly funny.)  But for the most part, I’m not writing a book and I’m not critiquing the little ditties I write here to a particular standard of literary quality.

Let me get back to the adjectives thing though because it’s on my mind a lot when I listen to audio books.   I listen to books and I think, “those are some spectacular adjectives he’s using, no wonder this book is so popular.”   Because the way it seems to me is most stories that have been expanded into enough words to become an entire book have a whole lot of adjectives.    If you take out the adjectives and tell the story in a sort of monotone collection of words, most stories can be distilled down into something rather short.   That’s what the Cliff Notes people did.   They could take a good story and make it into a fast and boring read.   But a fast and boring read in which you got the plot and could pass the quiz the next morning.

The other thing I think I want to add to my, “must haves to write well” list is the ability to come up with creative metaphors.    Sure, anyone can say, “it’s raining cats and dogs” but to come up with a metaphor that gives the reader an exact understanding of what you mean while at the same time causing the reader to think, “I would have never thought to compare it like that, but now that you mention it, that’s an exceptionally mentally vivid way to describe it.

My ability to come up with metaphors is one in which I have a dreadful time.   Even now, faced with the goal of coming up with one, single interesting metaphor, or just one mediocre metaphor and my mind is as blank as, well, dammit, I can’t come up with something clever at all to compare it to.   You see my problem?

The good news is I’m not setting off to write a book at this point.   This little blog has me occupied enough, thank you very much.   But were I to decide to write a book—and this would necessitate having a story to tell in the first place—I am going to have to learn how to wrangle up some metaphors and nail down some usefully creative adjectives.  

The Big Boy Update:  My son told my husband, “I can jump from North America to China. But I don’t want to do it.”  My husband asked, “why not?”  To which my son said, "because I will break my bones. I did it once when I was a baby.”  My husband asked him what happened and he replied, “I broke my leg.”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  We were waiting for lunch to arrive yesterday.   Apparently it was taking longer than my daughter expected because she told me, “I’m still getting hungry.”

Fitness Update:  I biked eight miles today.   It was hot and I wasn’t very motivated so I came home.

Him and Her

Tonight is about “him,” my son and "her," my daughter.

The Big Boy Update:  
My son has been somewhat interested in learning his letters (or sounds as they refer to them in Montessori.)   By somewhat, I mean every so often he has an interest in something but for the majority of the time he doesn’t care much about them.

Montessori schools don’t worry so much about what the letter is called, “W” for example is a mouthful of syllables, but what the letter sounds like.   They refer to them as “sounds” because when learning how to read, you need to know what a letter sounds like in a word, not what the name of the constituent letters are that make up that word.

Over the summer we’ve tried to remember to work on the letter sounds with both my son and daughter, mostly my son though, due to his eleven-months seniority on his sister.   She’s a lot more interested in the sounds, but she’s also not mentally where he is and then there’s the whole attention span (or lack thereof) and it’s not been a very productive summer as far as letter sounds goes in this household.

My son does know there are letters and he knows that together, they spell words.   Any time I spell something to my husband or anyone else, he immediately asks what word I spelled.    Sometimes I tell him, since he’s shown he is paying attention in many cases when I think he is definitely not even aware I’m talking.  

When Star Wars started earlier this week, we read for him the introductory text that scrolled off the page.   He listened and then watched the movie.   At the end of the movie, the credits started rolling and my son excitedly said, “can someone read the words to me?”   We explained what movie credits were and how lots of people helped to make the movie.

We’ve started letting him know if he would like to read <insert thing he just showed interest in> we could help him with his sounds.    So far, he hasn’t been that interested.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:
My daughter is charming.   She’s friendly.   She’s pleasant and even thoughtful.    I have come to realize only recently that she’s also devious and she’s known darn well she’s been so for some time.

She can say, “I’m sorry” with such an air of sincerity that I’ve missed that she most likely wasn’t that sorry, but has learned saying so in a soft, contrite voice will get her out of potential trouble.  

Recently, she’s even caught herself doing things she’s not supposed to do—saying “poop”—and said, “I said poop, sorry, I won’t say it again” with a smile on her face.    And I’ve been buying these stories.  

She has mastered the knack of acting like she’s not really heard what you’ve said because she’s so happy singing a little diddy of her own (off key) that she’s gotten out of a reprimand her brother might have gotten no matter what he was doing.

In short, through wielding her powers of cute, she’s gotten away with a whole lot of things she shouldn’t have gotten away with from the start.

I am wise now.    I have the power of “Mom who expects well-mannered and disciplined children” and my powers trump hers.   (Until she figures out her next super power I’m not expecting.)

Summer Days

We’ve had a week of just summer.   It’s been nice summer weather and we haven’t been over scheduled so much that we’ve felt like we were running around from one activity to the next.   We’ve have whole sections of days where we didn’t have a single thing planned and we figured out smoothing just beforehand.   It’s been relaxing.

My parents came into town today to see everyone.   They joined us for dinner tonight and tomorrow we’ll get to spend a lot of time with them.   My mother asked what a good time would be for them to come over; I looked at my calendar and told her, “we have nothing on our calendar other than to be with you all, pick your time.”

Next week the children have camp again, but next week starts the countdown to our New Jersey vacation in which we go visit my brother- and sister-in-law and their two children.   That’s a summer week worth waiting for.  For now, I’m just enjoying the easy-going days while I can before school starts back.

The Big Boy Update:  “Oil bath”   My son has seen Star Wars exactly two times now.   He’s seen it over the last week and tonight he asked if we could watch Star Wars again.    We decided this time we had a chance of my daughter staying awake for the full movie so we said sure.    We were about fifteen minutes in when my son suddenly said, “oil bath.”  As I looked up, it was right when Luke had gotten the new droids and was about to walk inside and offer C3PO an oil bath.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My children weren’t exactly getting along the other day so I decided maybe an assistant on my trip to the grocery store would give them some space for a while.   I didn’t care which one, so I asked, “who wants to go to the grocery store with me?”   My daughter and son ran by me as my daughter replied, “no one.”    I went to the store alone.

Fitness Update:  I’ve been trying to wedge in some sort of cardio here and there while my children are with me over the past week.   The Apple Watch has made it easier to tell if I’m doing a good job of this.   I’m doing okay on the exercise front.  Now, if I could just get into the “not wanting to eat everything in sight” mode, I think I’d have a calm and relaxing life.  

What Do You Want To Do For Lunch Today?

We have this question posed in our house all the time.   In general, it’s acknowledged by the other person and then not addressed.   It’s not that the question is a bad one, it’s just that it’s not an easy one to answer.    We’re always trying to find something new, something fun, something different.  I abhor doing the same thing all the time.   But to be fair, I also like certain places and I like to go back frequently (sushi and Mexican for example.)

So we hedge.   We avoid, not intentionally, until one of us says, “we still need to figure out what we’re doing for lunch.”   Today we decided to do something new.   We asked the children where they wanted to go for lunch.   I was not one bit surprised with what they cried out in happiness.    But we had to direct them in their answers to the question.   My husband and I had decided to bike them to lunch, and there were only so many places we could a) bike to in reasonable time, b) safely bike to from our house, and c) be willing to eat at hot and sweaty with biking gear on.  

We weren’t surprised at the request for Chic-Fil-A and said, “yes!  We’re going to bike there for lunch!”   Much merriment was had (over the destination, not so much over the method of getting there.)   We got dressed, put helmets on, took helmets off because we forget every time that they can’t get the harness on over their helmet once they’re in the bike seat.   After harnessing and putting on all of our helmets, we set off.  

We had decided on the longer route to get there, because my husband said that way would come out “right there” after we crossed the bridge.   There was also a very large, steep hill I knew how to run up, but wasn’t sure how biking up would go with a child on the back of our bikes.  

We went about seven miles in the park on dirt roads and crossed a bridge, going above the interstate highway and back onto pavement.   This was the part where we go just a bit and we’re, “right there.” It was a this point I became skeptical.

You see, the restaurant was at one exit, and we’d gone the long way around to the next bridge to then head back towards the restaurant.   I knew, but perhaps had blocked from my mind, that from that bridge we were currently crossing, you couldn’t even see the prior exit.   We weren’t even remotely close to, “right there” but at this point, we were committed.

It turned out to be not that bad, excepting a long, steep hill at a point my children were ready to eat.  We arrived at the Chick-Fil-A and as we parked our bikes this lady approached us, telling us we had just missed Santa Claus.   She showed pictures of him in his summer clothes on her phone and explained they were collecting food goods to distribute to children in our area who didn’t have enough food to eat each day.   My children were very interested.   They were particularly interested in the large, cardboard bin and how empty the bin was.   We talked about the importance of helping those in need.

We had a rather uneventful fast food lunch after that and then headed back home.  The rumbling of the bikes on the gravel was too much for both children and they fell asleep half-way home.   I had a nice time riding both there and back with the children and my husband.  It was a fun and different way to answer that question, “what do you want to do for lunch today?”

The Big Boy Update:  It was almost time to get on our bicycles today to head to lunch.   I couldn’t find my children for a minute and then I realized they were hiding under the dining room table.   I called out to them to hear my son answer, “we’re not here, we’re out of town.”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter and I did a lot of singing on the way to lunch today.   We biked there and back and she and I would sing songs together along the way.   She also wanted to work on her counting and we practiced counting to one-hundred.

Fitness Update:  We biked about fifteen miles to and from Chick-Fil-A today for lunch with the children on the backs of our bikes.   We all had fun.

Clothing Triage

I got rid of some of my children’s clothes recently.   Or, rather, I didn’t get rid of them as much as I took them out of circulation.   I took clothes that fit well, weren’t stained or torn and my children would have looked quite nice wearing and put them in the back closet.  This is as good as getting rid of them when it comes to fast-growing small humans.  

I did this because my children were overwhelmed with the amount of options they had in their drawers to choose from.   They had so many options they frequently would go to the same choices again and again.   They didn’t know how to rotate through a wardrobe and the large amount of items wasn’t exciting to them, it was confusing.

So I took all the things that were showing some wear or had stains on them and pulled them.  I removed any items that didn’t fit well and some that did fit well, but just didn’t suit my children’s lifestyle (meaning too fancy.)  I then made a choice of what I liked the best—what they looked the best in more accurately—and kept those things.   I added in some things they weren’t choosing because they weren’t familiar with them and then closed the now much less-full drawers.

Ever since that day, my children have had a lot of fun picking out clothes.   They know just what to do and they seem to like making matches with the options they do have.   They look great in everything they come downstairs in and I love seeing what they select each morning.

The other clothes will get shared with our neighbors and I’ll smile as I see them get worn again.   I have to remind myself again and again that less is more in so many things with children.

The Big Boy Update:  My children had been served dinner the other day and did not want to come in from playing outside to eat.   My son eventually came in to find his dinner cold.   He wasn’t happy about it but my husband explained how he had been called.   My daughter came in a few minutes later.   She didn’t particularly care the food was cold but my son helpfully informed her, “when the food is ready, it’s hot.  Otherwise you get to eat it when it’s cold.”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter got in trouble for using bathroom words.   She got in trouble for using them far too many times and as a result, she got her meal removed (she was mostly done) and sent to her room directly after bath time.   She was distraught.   She went on being distraught for half of the movie Star Wars.   I haven’t heard her wail for that long that I can remember.   She would open the door to the room, peek out, see me in the hallway, shut the door and recommence with the crying and moaning.   She was upset.    When she finally calmed down I let her come out and eat carrots and join watching the movie.   We had hoped the lesson would be a good one and I think she will most certainly remember it.  

The New Baby

We have a new baby in our family as of yesterday.   My husband and I heard the children pretending to be playing with, “the baby” a lot recently so we decided to go and get one they could interact with.

We went to Target and there were several options.   We opted for the fourteen-inch baby sitting in a feeding seat with a tray and some food.    We also got a separate small car seat/cradle the children could move the baby around in.

It has been interesting watching my two children care for this small, plastic model of a human child.    They have been both diligent, careful and reckless in how they’ve fed it, washed it and toted it around the house.  

Overall, I think the baby would be alive but bruised if it was a real child.   It would also be very over-fed, although I’m not sure how well it would have swallowed all the popcorn they decided it needed.

They haven’t said yet weather the baby is a girl or a boy.   They also haven’t named it.    We’ll see how their relationship with their new baby develops.

The Big Boy Update:  My son is still having trouble streaking his underpants.   Yesterday I was talking to him and he told me, “I don’t like my butt.   I want your butt.”  I told him he would learn how to hear the messages from his body and he would figure it out.    Today at lunch he was definitely not paying attention and unfortunately made a big mess in his pants.   I’m trying to find something that matters to him.   When we got into the bathroom stall I told him unfortunately we’d have to throw his favorite “Crusher” underpants away.   I didn’t want to throw them away, but I knew the punishment would be worse for him.    He cried and asked me if we could go back and get them and put them in a bag.   I told him we couldn’t and I didn’t have a bag.    Hopefully he’ll remember the lesson.   We shall see.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter’s friend is named Madison.   My daughter calls her, “Badison.”  We practiced today saying, “muh, muh, Madison.”  My daughter tried several times, but it always came out, “muh, muh, Badison.”

Fitness Update:  I ran about two miles going to and from the fitness room and adding a loop around the big block.   I did the upper body machine when I got to the fitness room and then when I left, something strange happened:  as I ran, my arms and shoulders felt heavy.   They felt huge and out of proportion.    Could it have been the result of all the blood flowing to the muscles from the workout I’d just finished?   The sensation went away after about two minutes.

Three Scoops

I was confronted with something today that made me make a final decision.   You know how you have something you’ve been thinking about, pondering, mulling over for a while and the decision you’ve come to every time so far has been to do nothing?    It’s been one of those things for me.   It would be easy to do the one thing, but I want to have the benefits of doing the other thing and if I do nothing, eventually I’ll have the, “other thing” I’ve been waiting for.

This morning was like a lot of other mornings in our house.   We woke up, my children did or did not come downstairs dressed—okay, my daughter came downstairs dressed, because she always does—and they were served breakfast when they had their clothes on.   Only it was a summer day without camp, so my son got to have breakfast in his pajamas.    

My daughter decided on yogurt for breakfast and I did the “oh wait!” dash I do lots of mornings which happens when I see her leaning over to messily eat anything she could get her hair in.   I ran to the bedroom, got a brush, an elastic band and one of the various lubricating sprays I use to help with her hair. 

My daughter’s hair is beautiful—when it is behaving, and that’s not that often.   It has been cut only once in her three-and-a-half years (although there was a tidy up second cut a week later, so technically there were two cuts, but who’s counting.)   She has fine, thin, easily breakable hair that doesn’t need to be cut, mostly because it cuts itself through any type of slight insult.  

It gets in her eyes, so we put it up in gentle, non-pulling hair ties. but the wear eventually does the tear thing and her very, very slow-growing hair comes out one or two strands at a time and never really catches up to gain any length.    Of late, she likes goggles at the pool and you do not even want to get me started on the damage one small girl can do to delicate hair with goggles over a two-hour pool visit. 

So today I said something to my husband about should we, yet again, consider cutting her hair?   We sighed and agreed we’d think about it for a little longer.    Then, as I was brushing my daughter’s hair to go to lunch, she looked at me in the mirror and said, “Mom, could you cut my hair off?”  I looked back and asked, “how much do you want to cut off?”   She told me without pause, “three scoops.”

I put down the brush, dialed my hair salon and asked if Sue was in today and if she had availability for a hair cut.    She was coming in at two o’clock and she could not only cut my daughter’s hair, but I got a second appointment for my son too.   I hung up and told my patiently waiting daughter. 

She wanted to know if we were going straight away to get her hair cut.   I explained it would be right after lunch.    She seemed excited.   I seemed nervous.   

It is done.   She even has bangs now.    She looks cute, although it’s not little girl long flowing hair cute I always wanted and most likely will never have.   But I like cute.    She looks remarkably like her cousin, Olivia, did at the same age.   Olivia’s birthday is tomorrow and I am going to have to take a picture of my daughter and send it to her to tell her we’re thinking about her a whole lot on her birthday, because every time we see our daughter, we’re reminded of her.  

The Big Boy Update:  We went to eat dinner at a fondue restaurant tonight.   We sat down, ordered our drinks and then my son told us, very excitedly, what super power we each had: “Daddy, you are the power of night night time, mommy you are the power of sun, Reese is the power of grass and I’m the power of fire.”   We were surprised when he remembered what our powers were a few minutes later.   Then, we realized he was basing our powers off the colors of our fondue sticks.   At that point, we spent a good bit of time combining our sticks to save people and fight natural disasters with our color sticks of super powers.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter was telling a story tonight. In here general fashion, she was saying “um” a lot as she spoke. My husband asked her if she could try to not say, “um” while she talked and was she aware. She continued to tell the story, but as she did so, every time she said “um” my husband pointed his finger at her. She started smiling as he did this and it became a kind of game. She made it past one sentence without saying “um” and then a second one. Then, she caught herself saying, “um” in the next sentence and broke out laughing. A little bit later, she and my husband were going walking up the stairs, going to bed. She turned to him and said, “Daddy, I say ‘um’ a lot."

Raise Your Hand If

My children have been playing a game lately.   I call it the, “Raise Your Hand If” game because that’s what you say every time.   My son is the most avid player of the game and loves to be the leader.    We’ll be somewhere where we can look at each other like at a park bench or sitting at the dinner table.     Suddenly he’ll start by asking something like, “raise your hand if you’re eating pasta.”

He’ll smile as we all raise our hands (because we’re all eating pasta, duh.)   Then he’ll ask another question like who likes to drink orange juice.    My daughter will get in on the act asking for all people wearing a red shirt to raise their hands.  

The kids love this game.   They love asking obvious questions and they love watching people raise their hands in response to their query.    The games usually goes on and on for a while and the rest of us get into the game, asking trick questions that make the children laugh after they figure out the answer.

Tonight, we had our friends Jen and Dylan over for dinner and they participated in the game too.   All the questions were happy and fun.   Then, out of the blue, my daughter asked, “raise your hand if you’re fus-ter-ate-ed?”   No one raised their hands.    We asked if she knew what ‘frustrated’ meant and she just smiled at us and didn’t raise her hand.

The Big Boy Update:  My son had a towel wrapped around him as we walked out of the pool this afternoon.   I heard him ask from behind me, “can someone put their finger in my nose?”   I asked him if it was itching and he nodded.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter may have a southern accent.   I got a hint of it the other day, but I’m not sure yet.  

Calories on Menus

The FDA has a new requirement for restaurants and other establishments to include calorie totals on menus in the coming future.   There have been extensions to the compliance date, but many restaurants are already adhering to the new standards and I, for one, am very appreciative.

I’m grateful for that single point of data mostly because foods can be sneaky.   Something that might look like a light, small salad may turn out to be more calories than I expected to eat for the entire meal.   It is a gauge, a guide as it were that can help compare one item against another.

So far with the places in which I’ve run into calorie-listed menus, I’ve made a different meal decision than I would have otherwise, mostly because the thing I might have thought about ordering turned out to be much more of a meal than I needed.

I like it.   I like the new guidelines a lot.    Sure, it doesn’t show you fat percentage or amount of daily  recommended percentage of protein, sugar count or sodium content, but that’s easily looked up on the restaurants nutritional data PDF or web page.   It’s also helped me understand why I like some restaurants far more than I should have (Cheesecake Factory for example) mostly because most of their meals are close to or over my daily caloric need.   I still go to those places, I just make different choices with the new information.

The Big Boy Update:  I poured my son and daughter some juice today.   I always pour about an inch in the cups.   Apparently my son thought he didn’t get as much as his sister because he said, “you cheated me!”   I have no idea where he learned that phrase.  Did I say it in some other context?

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter asked me today, “what does purple and ten make?”

Fitness Update:  Fourteen miles running today and then six miles biking with Uncle Jonathan.  

Informational Subterfuge

I was involved in a situation today that I haven’t had to deal with before.   My children are too young to really comprehending what adults are talking about when we get to talking about adult things.   My friend’s children are older and know when we’re trying to talk about something without letting them know.

Last night was a surprise birthday party for a friend of ours.   One of the wives didn’t make it because their son was quite ill, vomiting.    This morning I found out our friends were keeping the sibling of the sick child because his parents decided they needed to take him to the hospital, suspecting it could be an appendicitis.

I brought my two children over to their house and we all went to lunch and then came back to our house afterwards for some candy making.   I knew our friend’s son was in good hands and I don’t get particularly upset over these things in general, but his sister was worried about him and we spent time during the day making sure she was comforted and informed, but not too informed.    This was tricky, because the two nine-year-old twins were trying to look at text messages or figure out what the phone calls were about.  

My friend and I would sneak around the corner and whisper when we could about how things were going (it was an appendicitis and everything is fine.)   I’m wondering at what age informational subterfuge is going to come into play at our house?

The Big Boy Tiny Girl Star Wars Update:  My husband has been wanting to introduce my children to Star Wars for some time now.   Many of their friends are big fans.    We tried some time back but didn’t get much interest.   Tonight though, they watched and were interested.   Or at least my daughter did until she was too tired.   My son made it all the way through the end, asking many questions along the way.

Hey Siri…

I have had my iPhone replaced twice in the past two months.    It was due to hardware issues both times and each time I had a good experience with the whole process at the Apple store.    I didn’t particularly want my phone replaced, but it was necessary both times to get things working.

Yesterday I had a problem with my phone that was strange: I could talk to Siri some ways, but not others.   My husband and I diagnosed it by trying things and looking at other, similar issues on the internet.

If I used Siri via my watch, it was fine.   If I talked to Siri while I was in the car, connected via bluetooth, I was fine.   But if I talked to Siri directly, it didn’t work.   My husband turned on video recording and took a video of him talking.    Then he turned the phone to the outwards camera and recorded another video while he talked.

The video where he was in “selfie mode” didn’t work at all.  Nothing but static, which doesn’t help Siri at all.   But the back-facing video was fine.   It understood what we were saying.

The speaker on the front of the phone, which is the one used when you talk to Siri, wasn’t working.   I was mad.   I did not want to return the phone and have to get an entirely new one.   I didn’t want to restore from backup again and also, I like this phone.

My husband said he wanted to try something.   First, he go the vacuum cleaner out and tried to suck any dirt out.   Then, he blew on it with compressed air.    And that did the trick.    He fixed it.  

I was so relieved because I didn’t want to do another phone reset.

The Big Boy Update:  I asked my children if they wanted to eat their popsicles out on the deck because it was a nice sunny day.   My son said, “I want to eat inside so I don’t sweat.”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  The children had written in chalk inside the front door awning area.  I brought out a cloth, spray bottle and bucket of water to help clean it.   Close to a half hour later, my daughter was finishing the closet/.

Fitness Update:  Forty miles on the bike today.   I’m really starting to like biking.

Snakes in Tall Grass

My neighbor and I have been doing a lot of running in the mornings over the past several months.   We’ve done this in the past, but I think we’ve ramped up our frequency and daily distance since the beginning of spring.

During the early weeks of spring I would look at my phone as I got up and check what time sunrise would be.   I love sunrise.  This is an interesting comment coming from someone who would have told you the thought of being up so early as to see sunrise ten years ago would have brought on shivers of horror.   “No one should be up that early!” I can hear myself saying.  Well now I am and now I love it.

But back to the sunrise thing.   I would look at the time of sunrise and watch each week as the time would be earlier and earlier in the morning.   This was nice, because that meant less time we’d be running in the dark.   It also likely meant warmer and warmer weather had arrived.

At this point, even several weeks past summer solstice, we’re running barely in the dark, even starting at five-thirty in the morning.   What has changed though is the amount of snakes in tall grass we’re running past.

Let me explain.   I don’t mean real snakes and the grass in the yards around the neighborhood is for the most part only ankle high.   But these grasses need to be hydrated to remain lush and green and that means lots of sprinklers running lots of water on them.

At this point in my post I think of my sister-in-law who lives in San Francisco and has serious water usage restrictions.    We, on the other hand, live in the humid south-east and water is plentiful.   In this way, we are quite fortunate.   Unless you have frizzy hair.  But that’s another issue related to humidity, and the South can’t be held entirely to blame for unmanageable hair.

The way the sprinkler systems work is they have zones.   Each zone turns on for a certain number of minutes and sprays that area of the lawn or bushes or plants.   You can’t turn them all on at once or there would be a water pressure issue, so each watering zone has to take it in turn.    It’s also common to do the watering at a time when water usage is low, such as very early in the morning.   Watering when the sun is up and grass is heated makes for less absorption of the grass.  

This means our running time coincides with the watering cycles of dozens of yards around our neighborhood.    As the systems move from one zone to the next, the water lines are filled with water and the air is pushed out as water starts to spew or spray out.     To me, this sounds like hissing snakes in tall grass, happening again and again all around our neighborhood.

The hotter it gets as the summer goes on, the more sprinkler action we’ve been seeing.    I don’t mind the sprinklers.   I think I’m going to miss them when summer is over and I have to go back to running in the dark in the cold.

The Big Boy Update:  My son observed this morning, “when you yawn, your eyes get wet.”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Have we made it past the wet pants phase?  My daughter for the last few weeks has made it through almost every day in a single pair of pants.   She’s had a few near accidents and a bit of leakage, but not the rampant, not caring, wet pants of a while back.

Fitness Update:  Nine miles this morning with a lot of sprinklers hissing at us as we ran around the neighborhood.

The Roll Realization

My husband and I saw this documentary on Costco some time back.   One of the segments was about the toilet paper Costco sold and the amount of research that went into their anchor product.    We were intrigued, so we bought some.     We liked it, so we kept buying it.

Recently, we got a membership to BJ’s and decided to try out their toilet tissue.   It looked nice underneath the plastic, but it would take some at-home research to make a determination on the winner.

My husband unpacked the rolls and said, “these are smaller.”   Well, smaller happens, and at the time I didn’t think much about it.   And then I realized I was changing the roll a lot more often.  

You wouldn’t think the frequency of toilet tissue roll changing would make a difference, but it seems like we’re almost out all the time now, instead of having days of tissue left before we have to worry about looking for a new roll.  

It’s enough difference to matter where I’m going to buy my next tissue paper from though.

The Big Boy Update:  My son asked me, “what do boys need lips for?”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  I have finally found a way to do my daughter’s hair so it doesn’t look a complete mess.   I pull it up in a pony tail very high on her head.   It pulls back the “bangs” that are really just broken strands of hair.   It looks cute from the sides and back and she doesn’t seem to mind me putting it up that way either, which is always a bonus from a wiggle-perspective.

Fitness Update:  Slow day in that I only had time to run a mile before I had to literally run back to school and get on a conference call.  I think I’m going to run in the morning tomorrow to try and make up for the overindulgent dessert I had tonight (that was so worth it.)

Why Sirens Are Important

My husband, children and Uncle Jonathan had just finished eating dinner at a restaurant this evening and were driving over to a locally produced, all fresh ingredients, deliciously delectable ice cream store across the large street when we saw something that scared us enough we’re still talking about it.

We were at a stop light, preparing to do a U-turn when we heard sirens.   Whenever this happens, we tell the children to look and see if they can see what’s coming.   Children love fire trucks or ambulances or police cars and as we were already stopped, we were in a good position to look around.    We saw a ladder fire truck coming from a side street, slowly enter the main road and begin to carefully cross the lanes.   There were cars all around who had stopped to let the fire truck go “rescue people” as my son calls it.  

The next thing I know, I hear a crunch sound.   I said to my husband, “did the truck hit something?  It sounded sort of like it did.”   My husband said, “a car just slammed into the side of the truck.   They didn’t slow down, they didn’t hit the brakes, they just ran straight into it.”   I hadn’t seen it because my view was blocked by other stopped cars.   My husband and Uncle Jonathan had seen this car not even realize there was a huge, red firetruck with sirens blaring in the middle of the intersection and tried to stop.

I could be remembering it wrong, but everyone saw that truck.   Everyone heard the sirens.   We all stopped.   The fire truck was careful and was moving slowly.  I don’t know what happened with that car.    It was crumpled up under the passenger door area of the fire truck with most of the engine and front not visible.    The fire fighters got out and began to check on the occupants but by then our light was green and we turned to go to the outdoor ice cream store, only one block away.

As we got our ice cream, police, first respond vehicles and ambulance after ambulance drove past us. We wondered if more cars had collided with the fire truck.    When we left to go home, the area was blocked off and a slew of emergency medical personnel were visible as we drove around.  

It’s always scary to see something happen like that.   How did the driver miss all the visual and aural information letting him know he should be alert?  

The children asked a lot of questions.   There was some confusion on my son’s part on how many emergencies there were, what with all the sirens.   I think he understood though that one emergency was being driven to by the fire truck and then a second emergency happened when the car ran into the fire truck.   We talked about the EMS and how the ambulances were taking the people to the hospital to make sure they were okay.   My children don’t understand death really yet, but my son did ask if they could take someone who was dead and make them non-dead at the hospital.    We assured him the doctors would do everything they could to keep everyone alive and that doctors were pretty amazing people.

The Big Boy Update:  As we were driving to school this morning my son asked about another school we passed on the way.   I told him that was where I went to middle school when I was younger.    My son then asked, “a hundred years ago?   Two hundred?”  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Uncle Jonathan joined us at the pool today.   I had told the children he and Margaret would hopefully both be coming.   When my daughter heard Margaret couldn’t join us today she said to Uncle Jonathan, “well, I’ll just pretend she’s here.”  My daughter then waved and said “hi” to the Margaret who wasn’t here.

Fitness Update:  Seven miles running in the morning and then I did that twenty-three minute upper body workout at the fitness room today.   I’ve been putting off going, even though I like doing the workout when I get around to getting there.

The Breakfast and The Spaceship

The Big Boy Story of the Day Update:
This morning was a bad, bad morning for my son and eventually me.   I won’t bore you with all the details, but know it was related to morning hunger and control issues on the part of my son.   He got more and more defiant, used increasingly unkind words and there were consequences.

His food was put into a bag and he was going to be able to eat it in the car, except when we got in the car the situation didn’t get better.   He stepped up his level of whining and complaining so I stopped the car and put him out on the side of the road.  

Unfortunately, I wasn’t far enough away from the house, so he just decided to go home, figuring he didn’t want to go to camp anyway.   I called my husband to tell him I had made a poor choice and to watch for our child, who was incoming.   In the meantime, I was going to try and figure out another alternative.    As I came back around the block my son had decided he did want to get in the car after all.   It was at that point a nice neighbor came along and wanted to help.   She was nice trying to help, but ultimately it made no difference.

So now we’re very late and I’m chasing a child into the back of the car who’s decided he actually doesn’t want to get into his car seat or go to camp and I really lose my temper.    I think I finally lost it when I was thanking my neighbor and realized I hadn’t even brushed my daughter’s crazy hair she went to sleep on wet, because I’d been dealing with my son.

The snapping on my part was bad and involved some venting via screaming on my end and some rough handling with my son, who was physically (and not kindly) put back in his seat.  I went home, snatched the brush and bow out of my husband’s hands probably without thanking him and zoomed off.

I was worried because my son needed to eat.   He would be fine if he would just eat.   At about this time, my son told me he didn’t like it when I yelled at him.  I told him I hated it when I yelled and it meant I had failed as a mom.   I told him I never, ever liked yelling but I was so upset because I made breakfast for him and all he did was complain about it.    Then, my son got over everything.   Just like that.  Suddenly.

He told me he wanted to make me breakfast tomorrow.  He said he’d make me pineapple juice.  When we got to school he wanted to hug me.  And then hug me again.  Then he wanted to kiss me and hug me a third time.   And this is odd, because we’ve never done departure hugs as a family because drop-off at school is meant to be a brisk transaction, not a prolonged event that holds up the line.

When I picked the children up, my son said he wanted to play Legos with me later—just me.   He said he wanted to go to dinner with me to Pei Wei.    I got to thinking about it and decided we needed to do some separate parent and child time again so I told my husband.

We split off at dinner time and I took my son to Pei Wei.   We talked throughout the meal without interruptions.   He ate his entire meal and then decided he wanted to come home for mint chocolate chip yogurt popsicles.    He told me he wanted to be a kid astronaut.   He also said he wanted to build a spaceship.

I told him when we got home, we could eat our popsicles on the porch and I’d take a list of all the things he’d need to build the spaceship.    We did, and this is what he said:

We’ll need lots of hammers.   We need Rayan and Keira’s screwdrivers.   We’ll need Nicholas’ screwdriver.   The spaceship has a front, a back and a middle.   The back is made out of hot liquid to make fire.  The front is made out of metal so it can’t break if something crashes into it.  Our spaceship has weapons:  Fire Shooter, Ice Shooter, Water Shooter and Dirt Shooter.   <laughs>  Water and dirt make mud.   The middle is made out of very hard plastic.   Four people are in the middle and two people are in the front.   They’re eating popsicles since there’s hot air on.  It’s built by all the people in the town carrying it.   We put the bottom on first, then the middle, then the top.    Then we take off.  

I’ll let you know when he’s finished building his spaceship so you can book seats to view the launch.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter was very excited about selecting the restaurant for her dinner with just her and dad tonight.   She was so happy to have a dinner alone with him that she wanted to sit on the same side of the booth…in a two person booth.   They ate together, in close quarters, for the entire meal.

Fitness Update: I biked ten miles with my husband today.   We haven’t done a route I call, “the splash” in a long time because it involves riding through a creek that changes height and muddiness with the weather.   I’m glad I haven’t tried to go that route running, it’s messy enough on a bike.

Seventh Gear

I hated biking.   It was awful.   I mean I liked getting out on a bicycle, only it was murder on my thighs anytime there was the slightest uphill pedaling.   My bicycling experience had a huge gap in it from childhood until recently, when I got a bike and a bike seat for a child and a child to go in that bike seat.  

My husband likes to bike.   He can’t easily run due to a knee injury, but he seems to enjoy biking quite a lot.   It sounded fun to me, so I thought I’d try it.   It turned out I did a lot of grumbling and complaining.   You see, going downhill is free.   You don’t have to do anything other than just hold on.   But the price for that free ride is the pedaling you must do to get up the hill in the first place.    My legs weren’t used to that type of work.  

Sure, sure, I could run a marathon on hilly terrain without turning into a whining person, bemoaning every single hill because the course was just too terribly hilly.   But put me on a bike and have me go on that same course and you’d see an entirely different person emerge.

Mostly it was because—I think—my inexperience at bicycling.   I would see a hill and worry immediately that I wasn’t going to be able to make it up.   I would down shift (or is it up shift?) and before I’d even lost all my speed, I’d be pedaling in first gear like a toddler on a tricycle going down a steep driveway.    Because I’d killed my speed early and dropped into the lowest gear, I had a lot longer climb to get to the top of the gradual, short, measly little hill.   My husband would kindly wait for me at the top and then we’d continue.

But I got better.   I learned how to stay in a higher gear for longer and maintain a faster speed.   The next thing you know, I was two-thirds up that little hill and I was still in seventh gear.    And getting to the top from there took less effort and time.  

I don’t know how gears are normally referred to, but here’s how I think of them:  I have three gears on the left (1, 2, and 3) and seven gears on the right (1, 2, up to 7.)   If I’m in gear 2 on the left and gear 5 on the right I call that, “Gear 25” which probably is completely incorrect nomenclature, but makes sense to me as I normally read numbers from left to right.

A lower number on either the left or the right side corresponds to a single pedal rotation transversing less distance.  So for instance, first gear on each side (gear 11 as I would call it) is the “easiest” gear.   A single pedal rotation pushes the bike very little distance.   This is the gear I’d always get stuck in going up those hills.   I would pedal and pedal and pedal and get not very far, because I had no speed left.

A higher gear, say gear 17, would push the bicycle much farther in a single rotation of the pedals.  Gear 27—which turns out to be my favorite gear—will traverse quite a lot of distance in a single rotation of the gears.  

So with all this numerical stuff being said, what does it really mean?  What it meant to me initially was my husband was in great shape and could stay in higher numbered gears for a long time and more often and as a result, he was far faster and much more efficient at riding a bicycle.  I was envious.

I started noticing something as I began biking more, and that was I was spending a whole lot of time in gear seven (27 or 37 usually) and not needing to drop to lower gears at locations I had been struggling before.    So I made it into a game.   How long could I stay in gear 27 or 37?   I was very surprised to find out big, steep, long hills that had been my nemesis only months before, were something I could push through while staying in a high gear.  

It got to be not only a game, but a challenge I put on myself.   Today I went out for a bike ride.  I wasn’t sure how long I was going to go, but I ended up having enough time and energy and did my longest ride ever, at twenty-seven miles.    In that in entire time, I only used two gears: 27 and 37.   It was fun too.   I don’t hate biking any more.

The Big Boy Update:  My son got a lesson in sewing when he was staying with Nana and Papa last week.   When we came to see them he wanted to show me the stitches he had learned.   Nana got him set up on her sewing machine, let him pick the stitch and then I watched him go through all the steps you needed to do to run a pattern on the cloth.   He was very happy with knowing how to sew.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter has never had her bangs cut, but it looks like she has some.  Her hair is fine and wispy and it breaks easily.   It’s finally gotten long enough to pull up in a single pony tail high on her head that pulls back all the loose pieces so she doesn’t have hair in her face.   She also looks great with her hair up.

Fitness Update:  Marathon on a bike.  I wanted to ride 26.2 miles today on my bicycle.   I made twenty-seven miles and had a great time in the sunny, hot weather.

The Pliers and The Box

My children helped me out with a project this morning.  As we were finishing up, my husband came downstairs with an empty air filter box from the attic.   As he set it down, my son got up to claim it.   The room we were in is where I have all my craft supplies and my son had an idea for that box.   He had plans for it.   And those plans involved pliers…

He went over to the drawer where I keep my jewelry making tools, opened it up and hopefully asked if he could use the pliers.   I told him he couldn’t use those, but if he opened the bottom drawer, he could use any of those.   He grabbed as many pliers as he could and got to work on the box.

They weren’t all pliers exactly.  Some were round-nose or flat-nose or bent-nose pliers, but some were for specific things like making jump rings or opening split ring or performing crimps.   But that mattered not, because each of those tools could be used in some way to maim that innocent cardboard box.

My daughter got involved and the pliers started to be referred to by name, “the grabbers” or “the chewers” or “the punchers.”   They made all kinds of holes in the box together for the next half-hour.

Then it was time for lunch.  I’m going to fast-forward here to the part where my son and daughter continued to use the word, “poopie” in inappropriate and highly-repetitive ways, even with harsh warnings from my husband and me.   We got home and there was more trouble, resulting in my son being sent outside for poor behavior.   My son then made it worse on himself not once, but twice, with the end result in the two of them losing the privilege of going to their friend’s play date that afternoon.

My son was very, very upset.   I was glad he was upset because that meant he understood it was serious and he was unhappy at the consequence.   I texted our friend to tell her we wouldn’t make it.  She said she understood, but if the problem was with only one of the children, to please come on over if we wanted to.   So I decided to take my daughter, who is very good friends with Neel.  

My daughter and I had a good time and I had the best artichoke vegetarian pizza I’ve ever had.   When we came home over three-hours later, I called my husband who said it had been a good thing to have the children split up.   We both agreed sometimes separate experiences with our children is a good thing to have.

What was my son doing when we got home?  He was in the garage playing with that box, working on it with some pliers and a hammer.   That poor box…

The Big Boy Update:  We were coming out of the post office this afternoon when my son looked around and said, “I see a lot of pine trees…so we’re in Pinehurst.”  (My in-laws live in Pinehurst.)

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Egg Peeler.  My daughter helped me peel eggs this morning.  I knew she had done this at school, but I’d never see it personally.   I also heard (from her) that she didn’t like eggs.   Not only did she peel all six, she happily ate one when she was finished.

Fitness Update:  I ran a quick three miles after dinner tonight.

Highs and Lows

I had a low weight today.  I had been out in ninety-degree plus weather and it was all kinds of humid. When I got back, I knew I would have a low weight from the weight loss.   I also knew the weight would be low because it was already fairly low before we started out.  

This means something would normally be seen as a good thing:  I need to eat a lot.   The reason it can have mixed feelings is because for many weeks prior, I had worked hard to not eat big meals, to carefully watch my intake of calories and understand I had to go without food items I might want to have.

Now, today, this week, at this point and weight, I’m suppose to throw all that mental conditioning away and be ready to go eat a full, large, calorie-laden meal and NOT feel guilty about it afterwards.   Not feel as though I’d failed myself on my diet for the day.  

It is hard to change that frame of mind quickly.   It’s also hard to eat a big meal and not feel terribly over-full after several months of eating small meals too.    But I did it, because after having three full plates of food at lunch today I unexpectedly fell asleep in the car on the way home I was so full and lethargic.

The Big Boy Update:  My son is upstairs doing imaginary play with something he keeps referring to as, “the kung poos”   He just watched Kung Fu Panda 2 and is acting out bits of the story.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter has high skills at falling asleep in a position that looks like she’s awake.   Tonight we were singing the, “happy new job cookie” song and didn’t know why she wasn’t in the kitchen, eagerly waiting to have a piece of the big cookie we got to celebrate our friend getting a new job.  (Hence the happy new job cookie song.)   It wasn’t until we were eating the cookie that we realized she was asleep on the ottoman, looking like she was watching the television.

Fitness Update:  Five walking miles and five running miles with my neighbor today, who was recovering from a multi-day migraine.

Energy

Today my husband and I decided to bike to school to pick up the children and then bike them home.   It was hot, something in the ninety-degrees-ish range.   Let’s just call it sweat-a-lot hot.   We picked up the two children, put their helmets on and started to head home.  

Several things occurred to me at this point.   First, it is a lot easier to bike a heavy, unwieldy child on the back of your bike at the beginning of a ride, and then, when you leave them at school, your bike feels free, light and well-balanced.   You feel like you can move.   You feel like you’re powerful and you can pedal with the wind at your back all the way home.

Second, it’s cool in the morning.   The sun isn’t blaring down on you and, if you’re like me, you’re not full.  In short, it’s a nicer ride.

Third, you’re not partially tired from biking uphill to get to the school.   (It’s not uphill all the way, but the overall altitude is about one-hundred-thirty feet higher.)

And fourth, I was rethinking how smart it was when I said to my husband, “I’ll take the larger child. stick him on the back of my bike so he can act as a huge destabilizer, also doubling as, ‘precious cargo.’”

So we get started on the way home.   My son says things like, “go faster!”   He says, “don’t let daddy win,” when my husband pulls out ahead.  I am explaining all about safety in the fashion we adults do that to children that must sound like a lot of “blah de blah.”

Then, my son made me smile.   He said, “Mom, you never run out of energy.”   I told him thanks.  He was quiet for a bit and then he asked me as I struggled up the last of a steep hill, “Mom, are you burning calories?”

The Big Boy Update:  While my son was eating breakfast this morning, he said to me for no apparent reason, “Mom, someday you’re going to be a scientist.”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My children loved swimming in the lake at my in-laws house this past weekend.   One of the fun things they like to do when they get in the water to swim at the lake is swim under the boat.   The boats in their lake are only electric, which necessitates mostly pontoon boats.   My in-laws boat is fun to swim under, between the two pontoons.   When you go under, the color of the water is reflected differently and looks quite yellow.   My daughter asked why it was yellow.   I think my mother-in-law explained about refraction of light and reflection of, well, honestly, I’m not sure why the water looks like melted snow with pee on it.   I’m going to have to ask her myself the next time I see her.

Fitness Update:  Fifteen miles to pick up the children to bike them home on the back of our bicycles.   I wasn’t sure we’d get a lot of use out of our bike child seats when we bought them two years ago, but it’s been a great way to have some time to bond with a child.   We all love our bikes with bike seats.

Do You Work Out?

My neighbor and I both went on a “spring diet” at the same time.   My husband joined in and found an app we started using.   Then my neighbor’s husband got interested in the app and the progress we were all making from the support you get when you’re not the only one suffering.   The four of us, working on getting that winter weight off together, made it more fun and motivating all around.

I needed to lose seven pounds.   I know, it’s not a lot, but pick up a seven-pound dumbbell and it sure feels like a lot to tote around all day, every day.    Losing the weight in a healthy way took us over seven weeks, but we got there.   During that time, we did a good bit of exercise.   We mostly did so because otherwise, we didn’t feel like we had enough calories to eat that day and not feel hungry.

It is so much easier to lose weight when you exercise.   We got into the exercising and didn’t want to go a day without doing something, mostly for me because I love, love, love to eat.   We lost the weight and added some tone to our muscles as well.    And we looked better.  We definitely looked a little more trim, a little more lean and possibly a little more muscular.

That’s when the comments started.   I was getting them and my neighbor was getting them.   They were nice compliments, but they were embarrassing.   At one party I had one friend (who had been drinking) tell me several times she thought I looked great.   There was another friend at that same party who asked me what I was doing, because she wasn’t getting the same results, even though she worked out a lot.

They were flattering comments.   But they were unexpected and surprising too.   I mean, seven pounds and ten weeks of exercising a bit more than we usually did and we were getting strangers say things to us like I got at Bed Bath and Beyond at the checkout earlier this week.   I was asked, “do you work out?”  I said I did and then she said as she rang up the next item, “Every day?”  I said sometimes it seemed like it.   Then she said, “I wish I could look as good as you.”   I thanked her because I could tell she was being sincere.   I told her it wasn’t hard, it just took time.

I know I didn’t “need” to lose the seven pounds.   Lots of people told me I looked great.   But those seven pounds make me feel better and I think from the comments I’ve gotten, it’s made me look better too.

The Big Boy Update:  Who was married first?   My son asked this question tonight at dinner.   It took us a bit to get the, “who” part of the question figured out but when we did we told him Mimi and Gramps were married first, then Nana and Papa were married next and some time later mom and dad were married.   He was skeptical we had our facts straight, saying he thought Nana and Papa were the ones who were married first.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter said to me this morning, “I’m going back to put some of my hair behind my ears and some on my back.”   She proceeded to rearrange her hair to get it out of her face.    Then she said, “do I look pretty mom?”  I assured her she did.

Fitness Update:  Ten miles in the park with my husband.   Today was a lesson in proper tire inflation. I over-inflated them to say the least.   The PSI would have been fine on roads or dirt pathways.   We spent a good bit of time on very rocky trails including coming home via, “The Hateful Route.”   I told my husband I had to go into survival mode, trying to do my best to hold on as the bike bounced me all around.   My shocks were doing their job, but they were no match for the rubble and rocks.

Helmet Head

Yesterday I took my bicycle to the bike shop.   I had decided I needed a new bike.   The one I had was fine, but I’ve been getting into the biking thing lately and I have felt very uncomfortable on my current bicycle.   There were two main problems:  seat comfort and bike stability.   The seat comfort I thought was mostly a thing people with bony butts had to deal with, but I planned on getting a fancy, comfy, big as a house seat with some well-padded bike shorts to go with them.    The stability of the bike was going to require a total upgrade.

Kip came up to help me when I came in.  I brought my bike in, planning on not leaving with it and doing a trade-in.    Kip showed me crossover bikes per my request because I was doing trail and road/greenway runs. I have a neck issue with the spinal fusion, so I can’t lean way over as my neck doesn’t arch back like people with all their vertebral junctions do.  We talked about ways to possibly address that with changing out the handle bar part (the stem?  I can’t remember what he called it.)

Then he showed me mountain bikes.   They had big, fat tires that looked so stable to me.   The biggest thing I’ve not liked about the bike I have is I don’t feel stable on it.   I feel like the wheels could skip on a rock or slick terrain or fine gravel or mud and I’d be down and out.   It’s a serious concern I’ve been working through, especially since I have a thirty-pound child on the back on the bike most of the time with me.   So those big wheels looked grippy and solid and safe to me.

Here’s the thing:  I would have bought a new bike.   I would have paid twice as much as I did for the first bike I got, because I wanted to feel safe and I wanted to enjoy riding and being able to ride aggressively without worrying I was going to wipe out.   I wanted my neck to be comfortable and if possible, I wanted my ass to not hurt for two days after a ride. 

What happened was Kip talked me out of all the new stuff.   He said he thought all I really needed were some new tires on my existing bike.   He could replace the ones I had on my existing wheels and in so doing, give me a wider wheel that will be much more stable on both trail and roads.    

For the bike seat, he had me sit on this heavy foam thing for forty-five seconds so the bones in my backside (they have names, but I forgot them) would make a width impression.    He then showed me the seat that would work best for me.    It was tiny.  It was thin.   It was firm.  It didn’t feel particularly comfortable, but he told me to bring it back if he was wrong.    I asked about shorts and he pointed me to some that were made to go with that particular seat.   

I bought sixty dollars worth of tires and a fifty dollar seat.   Today, I went on a ride in the park.   Kip was right.   He was right about everything.   I love the tires, they make my bike feel like a totally new vehicle.   And the seat!  I forgot I was sitting on a bike seat.  I didn’t spend a lot of time scooting forwards or backwards because it was adjusted for me and it fit my body.    

I rode fourteen miles today on hilly trails.   I rode hard and made under five-minute per-mile average time for the trip, which for me, is great.   I was riding hard.   I was pedaling uphill and pedaling downhill—something I never did before because I was afraid I’d wipe out with too much speed on the old tires.   I was having a great time. 

At about eleven miles I reached up and scratched my head because I was pretty itchy.    Wait…I just scratched my head.   I shouldn’t be able to scratch my head because there should be a helmet on my head protecting me in case I fall.    Oh dear.    I rode very carefully the rest of the way home. 

Kip is working again on Thursday.   I’m going back to the bike shop to tell him thank you for the great advice and for helping me find a solution that worked, instead of just selling me a new bike. 

The Big Boy Tiny Girl Pool Swimming Update:   I was at the pool with my children today.  My daughter jump/dove (read belly flopped) in and then started swimming across the width of the pool.   I watched her swim for a while, take a breath, swim some more and repeat.   When she got to the far side I picked her up and cheered.   I told her I didn’t know she could swim across the whole pool.   Then, my son decided to do the same thing because he wasn’t about to be outdone.   When he got to the other side I did another hugging, cheering and kissing round.   I asked him, “who taught you to swim across the pool?”  He told me, “Margaret did.”   Margaret is Uncle Jonathan’s girlfriend.   She joined us for a pool date last week.   Thanks, Margaret for the swim lesson!

Fitness Update:  It was one of those days.   I ran seven miles this morning with my neighbor.   Then I biked fourteen miles to check out the new tires and seat.  I didn’t plan on biking fourteen miles, but I was having so much fun.    After that, we went to the pool and I swam some laps so my children wouldn’t glom onto me and instead, would play with the other children at the pool.   I got about a half-hour of laps in.   It’s interesting swimming laps with goggles on.   You can watch your children the entire time surreptitiously from under the water.    

"The Latest”

I tend to name things.   The things I name may have a name already, but there’s a name I think is more descriptive to the function, purpose, area or otherwise that causes me to coin a name or phrase that I believe to be altogether more informative of the thing’s true function.

In the park in which we do much of our running and biking, there is something I named, “The Hateful Route” mostly because going the other route is a far friendlier option (unless you want rapid hills and switch back turns early on in your workout.  We get water at these spigot things that also have outdoor water fountains.   There is a bucket and a hose for dogs and horses to get water and I decided naming it, “The Watering Hole” made more sense to me (even though there was no hole.)

In our house we have, “The Hub” which is positionally at the center of the house and tends to be a dropping of and picking up spot.   There is, “The Share Spot” which is where we put things needing to be given to or returned to other people.  

I’ve been on another rearrangement of the children’s toys recently.   While I’ve done this, I did what I always do first, which is clear out the under cabinet shelves of theirs that seem to collect toys and junk faster than anywhere else in the house.  Its sort of their and our dumping ground as we clean up the area.   (It is also no coincidence that this central dumping ground is also close in proximity to The Hub.)  I’ve told my husband before that I empty it completely, because it’s just going to fill up again in a few weeks.

What seems to be in that area are all the latest toys or presents or trinkets or coloring books or stickers or you name it they’ve gotten recently or have had a renewed interest in.    It’s basically the latest stuff my children have been playing with.   Shove it all back in at the end of the day and tomorrow more will come back out.    (I’ve been working on having them shut the cabinet doors behind them, lest they remain open all day.)

So, “The Latest” is what that spot is now named in my mind.   Mostly because that’s what it’s holding of my children’s.

The Big Boy, Tiny Girl Garbage Truck Watching Update:  My children heard the garbage truck last week and were very excited.   They both ran outside to watch it lift up the garbage containers with the fork lift and dump it into the back of the truck.   They carefully stayed out of the road while they watched the truck dump all of the containers on our street.   As the driver passed back by them he honked his horn and waved back at them.    

Fitness Update:  My husband and I biked twenty-four miles today on mostly road and greenway trails.   We had a very nice ride in the summer morning while the children were at camp.

Swimming In The Lake

Yesterday I got some bonus exercise in after I wrote my blog post for the day.  My husband and I drove to my in-laws house where my children had been on vacation for the past three days.   One of the things we were going to do during the day’s visit was go out on their pontoon boat on the lake they live on.   There was to be a boat parade for the Fourth of July and some swimming for the rest of us.

My husband had eaten a lot earlier in the day and so decided he wanted to get in some exercise swimming.   I didn’t particularly want to get in, even thought I knew I’d have fun once I did.   After we got to the center area of the lake we dropped the anchor and the swimming began.  

My husband was swimming away and then back towards the boat.   I yelled out, “I’ll swim home from here if you will.”   He thought I was joking.   I wasn’t, although it did look a little far away.   I figured we could do it.  

We then had an anchor problem accompanied by some strong winds that blew us closer to their house.   I made the mistake of offering the challenge again, and this time, my husband accepted.

The next thing I know, we’re swimming towards their lagoon.   We’re in the center of the boat parade area, so we had to hold for two or three pontoon boats to glide past (everyone on both sides made sure to keep good distance.)    Then we swam on.  

We swam on for some time.   I was expecting to get into an easier cardio swim shortly, but the wind and the waves was frustrating and I wasn’t swimming as well as I should have been.   That, coupled with the frequent stops for re-orientation and location of my husband and it took us longer to get in than I thought it would have.

No one timed the whole thing.   I estimated fifteen minutes of swimming, but my mother-in-law said it was more like twenty minutes.   We got home at the same time they did and I can tell you this: the best thing about the whole swim was being able to exit the water via the ladder on the side of their boat instead of walking through the deep muck in their lagoon.

It was fun.   It was more tiring than I had expected.   But it was definitely fun.

The Big Boy Update:  We were out on my in-law’s boat yesterday afternoon.   Most of the family was in the water but my son and I were up on deck.   It became apparent when the wind picked up the anchor wasn’t holding.   My son suddenly laughed out loud and said, “hahaha, just like old times!”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  You’ll know my daughter is about to tell you she’s hungry when she lifts her shirt, sticks her tummy out and starts to rub it.   This behavior will be accompanied by comments such as: “my tummy is telling my it’s hungry,” or “my tummy says it wants some more carrots.”  My daughter’s tummy is a powerful force in her life right now.

Fitness Update:   I ran a fast four miles this afternoon in-between visits with friends and outings with the children.

The Alcohol Consideration

I stopped drinking alcohol last year.   It took me a while to write about it here because I was distressed about the whole situation.   I had been drinking what I felt like was a lot.   Perhaps it was frequency more so than amount.   Or it could have been both, but either way, there seemed to always be a reason to have a drink socially.   One morning I woke up and I was still drunk from the night before.  It scared me so I stopped drinking.

I didn’t mark the date at the time but later I went back and figured out it was right before Labor Day in September of last year.   The question I have asked myself many times since then is, “how long do I need to stop drinking?”   Should it be forever?  I don’t think I was (or am) and alcoholic.   I was just drinking a lot.    Was I craving alcohol and did I have an unhealthy relationship with alcohol?    Perhaps I did.    So when do I want to have a drink?

There are many events in the summer that are fun.   Having a margarita or beer today, on the Fourth of July, would be a great way to add to the enjoyment of the day.  But I’d be fine without a drink too.   Going a full year would be nice as well.   I might wait until Labor Day, but I might not.  

I have said I will definitely have a drink to celebrate when we finish the Rock and Roll marathon in Las Vegas in November.  

The Big Boy Update:  My son said the other day in a firm and exaggerated tone: “I…Want…My…Daughter…Back!)   My husband and I were totally confused at where this came from, (he was playing with some toys and talking to them at the time.)   Then, we remembered the main scientist in Big Hero Six, one of my son’s favorite movies, and realized he was quoting a line from the movie.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter’s chin wound is looking better all the time.   We still put scar cream and sun screen on it daily in the hopes it will diminish in visibility more.   We’re going to have to do a “revision” surgery on her chin in the next year or so though, because of the original wound.

Fitness Update:  Ten miles in the neighborhood this morning to celebrate the Fourth of July and watch the sun rise.