Steal the Duck

Fortunately, Biff has quickly and amazingly gained the ability to discern the difference between baby's toys and his own.  Lately Biff is {apparently} fed up with how many more toys baby has than he does and how much more attention baby gets than him because he has invented a game I lovingly call, "Steal the Duck."

Here are the rules/steps to the game:

 

1.Biff finds one of baby's many rubber ducks (he has about 10, thanks to his great Aunt Collette)
2. Pick up the duck in his mouth (how else would a dog pick up a toy duck? but I digress).
3. Find mom and show mom that he has the duck while prancing around playfully.
 Side note: this game has nothing to do with actually wanting to play with the duck or destroy the duck all that matters is that he gets the duck and shows me.
4. Mom chases Biff around to get the duck back.
5. Mom takes the duck away and hides it from both baby and dog until it can be cleaned.  This usually involves bribery (a treat) to get him to drop it.  And yes, I know that I am reinforcing his bad behavior by giving the treat, but this has been the only way to get it back.

This game has long since been a staple of entertainment in our house, but before the baby came along it was called steal the empty toilet paper roll, steal the q-tips from the garbage can, and steal the dryer sheets from the laundry basket.  All of which involved bribery to get the item back.

This game was invented by Biff because the games of steal the toilet paper roll are no longer fun since mom just lets Biff have the toilet paper roll because you know, priorities.  Finish changing baby's diaper or get a toilet paper roll back from the dog? Tough choices.

Thankful for Everything

Sometimes people post status updates on facebook that are absurdly long.  I kept trying to think of what I wanted to write (in a status update) that I was grateful for this year and I couldn't decide because I am thankful for everything.  Here's just a few...

-Legs that can run
-Strong arms to endlessly hold my fat baby who wants to be endlessly held
-A stinky, but lovable dog who is constantly underfoot
-A peacemaking introvert husband who enjoys being home with me
-a professional snuggler of a baby who shares his gummy little smile a lot
-The ability to stay positive in the storms of life
-Jobs to pay the bills that are also jobs that don't make us miserable
-The somewhat strange and amazing ability to make milk to feed my chubby baby
-Faith in something bigger than me
-A mind that can read, think, and dream
-A heart full of love

What are you thankful for?

grand re-opening

So last year, from October through June I was pregnant.  For me, being pregnant is like being occupied by an alien (oh wait, basically the same ).  All hormones and brain doesn't work correctly and nausea and nesting and cravings and...

But, now my baby boy is 4 months old and lately I have been feeling like me again.  And me blogs. or blogged. past tense. obviously.

I've been reading my favorite blogs and I think I am ready to come back.  I can't let my 9 followers down after all.  (I think I am actually up to 11 now).    So it's time to dust off the cobwebs around here and reopen.

I feel like I need to address an elephant in the room though.  So many people post so much about their children online.  Some of my favorite blogs are mommy blogs.  I love reading silly stories and seeing adorable pictures of their kidlets.  BUT this one time a couple of years ago I read an article.  An article about children and their online identity.  It posed the question of whether or not it was fair for adults to post their children's life events on the internet when these minors had no choice in the matter.  No matter what the privacy settings, would the children grow up one day and regret the online choices and occasional overshares of their parents? Now everyone has got to make their own choices here and no judgment towards others,  (in fact, I love this post about not being a better mother than you) but for me I have decided to keep the blogging about my son minimal.  The only reason I bring it up is because I don't want my blog to come across as if the birth of my son wasn't a life altering event or as if I don't love him like crazy. 


I will post about me as a mom person, but I will try to keep it about me, rather than about my son.

I will also post about me as teacher person, a wife person, a runner person, and just a person person.  In case you've got anything against moms or something.  So look out blog world, I'm back.

ashamed of myself

I am so ashamed of myself! How did I not know that January was National Oatmeal month?

I don't know about you, but oatmeal is a major staple in my diet and eating it on the daily makes me so happy, healthy, and helps me stay full and energized far longer than any other breakfast food.  Sometimes I even eat it for dessert! 

I know it's like National Pancake Day today or something, but pancakes? Who even cares about those? Whatever. They can be delicious, but when I make them, my recipe includes oatmeal!

I like to flavor my oatmeal with a little bit of maple syrup (homemade) and I like to eat it on a bit of wheat toast! Yum!  You can try it with anything though, blueberries, apples, strawberries, honey, peanut butter, chocolate chips, whatever you want guys, for real, endless flavor opportunities.


You can read about some of the health benefits of oatmeal here.

I'm going to enjoy a bowl right now and watch the drama play out on the bachelor.  Oh, the drama!

Are you watching the bachelor?  Do you think Tierra is seriously that crazy or is it all in the editing?

Januarys and Mondays

Isn't January just like some great, big, looming Monday?  We start our weeks with Monday and our years with January.  What makes them so darn tough to make it through?  My husband's birthday is in January, and even he dislikes it.  I'm relieved to say hello to February.  There will still be plenty of snow hanging around (Utah anyway) until March at least I'm sure, but something about Valentine's Day just reminds you to hold on tight, spring is coming. 

Even though we have a lot to be grateful for in our life right now, it just seems like we've hit a rough patch since September.  I have been hoping 2013 would start us off right, but January is always a little tough.  So, 2013, I won't judge you by January.  February and I have hope for you yet.

It's amazing how in tune dogs can be to your emotions.  I am sure glad I've got this smelly puppy to sit next to me and rest his head on my leg when he knows I need it.  Lately he'll find an occasion to gently rest his head on my tummy and I think he knows something big is going down around here soon. 

We're going to hunker down on the couch to watch the super bowl (meaning Lee is watching the game, I am perusing the internets and waiting for the 'much anticipated commercials') while eating marshmallow popcorn until we're sick.

And if you're into that sort of thing, here's a quote which brought me a little cheer when I read it at church today...

“My young friends, there is an opportunity for you to become great—just as great as you wish to be. In starting out in life you may set your hearts upon things very difficult to attain to, but possibly within your reach. In your first efforts to gratify your desires you may fail, and your continued efforts may not prove what may be termed a success. But inasmuch as your efforts were honest efforts, and inasmuch as your desires were founded in righteousness, the experience you obtain while pursuing your hearts’ desires must necessarily be profitable to you, and even your mistakes, if mistakes you make, will be turned to your advantage.”  

^{President Lorenzo Snow (President of the LDS church from 1898- 1901)}

 
PS: Wish me luck at the dentist tomorrow! I'm really hoping to keep up with my cavity free streak despite the baby in my belly leaching away all of the good nutrients and calcium! Yikes!

oh, the marathon

Warning: This is the longest post ever. It's about running. Only. 

Well, it's been 7 months since I ran the marathon back in June.  In some ways it seems like yesterday, in other ways it feels like it was an eternity ago.  I really don't know why I've put off posting about it forever.  I have been thinking about running quite a bit lately (aren't I always though?).  Since I am pregnant now, my running has (obviously) changed.

The first trimester I was so tired I would have to take walking breaks every mile. In the second trimester I feel the need to take potty breaks every mile (but I never really have to go?).  I finally solved this problem by doing push ups between each mile to get rid of that feeling since going to the bathroom actually did little to help.  Yesterday I finally had a great day of running for more than 5 minutes (actually 40 minutes!) without feeling like I had to run straight to the bathroom. 

So far, I am not really 'showing,'  just lookin' a little pudgy so I haven't had to deal with any unsolicited advice from strangers that my baby will fall out due to my running or something crazy like that, but in case you are worried about me (or any other pregnant runners) just check out the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology's website for their recommendations on exercise.  Which if you are too lazy to read is: to do it (exercise)! For 30 minutes every day (at least)! AND that if you ran before pregnancy you can generally continue to run throughout pregnancy (as long as your pregnancy isn't high risk) So there ya go, but really if you aren't a doctor you really shouldn't give out medical advice anyway, but that's just my feeling.  So you should talk to your doctor about what's right for you and I will continue to do the same ;)

So back to the marathon; I have been thinking about running and how I am really going to miss out on all of the races this year! Which to me, is sad.  Especially because I was planning on winning some... No that's a joke, I am as slow as molasses.  I was going to say especially because I remember the first thing I thought when I finished the marathon was, I can't wait to do that again!  So I can do it better! Okay, maybe it was 2 hours, 1 nap, and a trip to Arby's later.  Needless to say, I knew I wouldn't be doing it again for a while (if I was lucky) since this was a planned pregnancy.  Knowing we were planning to make room for baby in our life didn't stop me from wanting to run a marathon again though.

So since I won't be running a marathon this year, I wanted to write down what I learned from my training and the race day so I can do better next time.  If I don't write it down, I'll just make the same mistakes again.

Training

1.  Slow down on long runs, no really.

           While training for the marathon I kind of fell in love with speed work and I realized that my regular pace that I run at is kinda too easy for me, I could go harder and faster and I loved it.  It felt great.  I thought, "Why would I run my long runs so slow if I want to run my race fast? Shouldn't I get used to running fast?"  To me, this sounded like great logic.  All the books and websites say, run slow on long runs.  I poo poo-d that real quick and moved on with my own way since I was exploring my pace and what was fast or slow for me.  This is what basically killed my race and killed my time.  The longest run on my training schedule was 20 miles.  I had every intention of doing all my long runs outside.  Then I got shin splints.  And at that point all the long runs after about 13 miles got put on the treadmill.  I know right?  So I'm on the treadmill, obsessed with my newly discovered ease at running faster and pushing myself.  A real comfortable pace for me (maybe too comfortable) is 6.0 MPH, so the books say stay there or slow it down beyond that, but I was pushing it up to 7.0 MPH.  In fact, I ran my whole 20 miler at 7.0 MPH on the treadmill (at the gym, watching UP! twice, kill me now).  I did this partly because of my new need for speed and partly because a friend asked me to meet her for lunch and I felt like I couldn't turn her down so I was cramming the run in as fast as I could so I could go to lunch with her.  So the 20 miler took me about 3 hours.

Here's where the problem is:  My longest run was 20 miles and it took me 3 hours.  Even if my race day went fabulous and I ran the first 20 miles in 3 hours I'd still have about another hour of running to do beyond that point (4 hours of straight up running).  There is a BIG difference between 4 hours of running and 3 hours of running, at least to me.  If I had run slower, my 20 miler would have taken me longer and better prepared me for the TIME running versus the MILES run.  Next time, as much as it kills me and bores me, I will run slower at least on the very long runs.  A longer (time) run would've better prepared me mentally and physically.

2. Plan your day around your run, don't plan your run around your day.

       This goes back to my messed up 20 miler.  It's okay to ditch out on an outing with friends or family once or twice to fit in your training.  I can see how this can annoy your friends/family if you are constantly in training for a marathon, but you're probably not, I'm not.  So if you occasionally have to say, "No, it's not going to work for me today, I have my training."  They should forgive you and be supportive.

I did my long runs on Saturday.  Saturday was the day I did grocery shopping and chores.  This made for rough going and exhaustion.  Get other people to help out more, or rearrange your schedule to make sure you get what you need to done, hopefully on another day.

3. Don't miss any runs, but don't freak out if for some reason you do.

     I didn't have any issues with this, but I probably would have freaked if I missed a training run.  If I wrote it in my planner it was going to happen.

Race Day

1. Don't wear new gear.
       Everyone says that.  I wore new pants, it wasn't a tragedy or anything, but the waist band wasn't tight enough and I felt like my pants were falling down the whole time.  No bueno.

2. Do talk to others/meet new people.
       A marathon has such a great environment.  Head phones are great and music can really help you make it through rough points (Hello, cue a few glistening tears during Kelly Clarkson's 'What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." LMAO!) but it's also great to talk to others and find out where they are from, how they trained, is this their first race.  Everyone is so nice and encouraging.

3. Do wear your wedding ring.  Awkward....
        I never wear my wedding ring when I work out.  When I weight lift it literally hurts my hand, when I do cardio, I am paranoid it is going to fly off my hand and I won't notice and will never find it again.  So running the marathon I just thought it was safer to leave it at home.  As I already mentioned people are really nice and talkative at the marathon.  I think it's rude not to chat when people try to chat you up so I talked to a lot of people.  If it naturally came up that I was married I mentioned that, but I didn't want to say, "Hey, just FYI, I am married!" every time a man said anything to me, because that felt arrogant as if I assumed they were talking to me because they thought I was attractive.  Well, needless to say, I got myself a little stalker during the race. I don't even know how long he ran with me, probably at least 6 miles.  Off and on; he kept finding me again. and again. and again. The whole I'm married thing, never came up naturally.  Then it became clear it needed to.  Oh dear. It was pretty funny, sad, and awkward all in one.

4. Maybe you are like Deena Kastor or something, but if you are just a regular joe like me, nothing can really prepare you to run the marathon except to do it.
     I felt like I heard comments like this a lot. And it drove me crazy.  I also heard that 20 miles is the first HALF and the last 6 miles are brutal.  I didn't believe this going into it and I don't think it has to be true, but it was for me.  As I mentioned, I really messed up my training by running too fast and the last 5 miles were truly brutal.

 

Me at mile 21; feeling great before I "hit the wall" pretty sure a more accurate expression is

"a truck hits you!"

5. Don't start too... slow?
    Everyone will give you the advice, don't start out too fast.  I took that advice way too seriously. Which made no sense to do given the way I trained.  I started too slow.  I could have come out running under a 10:00/mile pace for the first chunk at least, but I tried to go slow to 'save my energy' but for me going slow used up more energy because it took more time, which I already mentioned, I wasn't prepared to run the time, even though I was prepared to run the distance. 

I had a goal to finish the marathon in 4:30 (about a 10:30 mile pace) VERY doable for me since a 10:00 mile is basically my very easy sweet spot.

Then I had a 'secret/dream' goal to finish in  4:00 (about 9:15 mile pace) not too crazy for me since I've done half marathons in under 2:00, but I knew it would be tough.

At the 21 mile mark I was all set to finish in my 4:30 goal.  That means I only had 5.2 miles left to go.  Somehow I didn't finish until 4:53:50.  Let's just NOT do the math there to see how slow I went.  I honestly wondered how I could ever finish at certain points.  But I did.

 The marathon was a great, wonderful, amazing experience.  Sometimes I felt like I would be defeated by it, but I wasn't.  And I honestly think anyone can run a marathon, anyone that's crazy enough to want to that is.

I can't wait to do it again, probably in the summer of 2014 if all is well.  I wasn't even sore the next day! That is one MAJOR sign for me that I could do it about a million times better.  For now, I'll be in training for labor and running for fun.

and then I ate a family sized bag of potato chips in one sitting

If you are my friend (on facebook) you would know that we are having a baby in June! If you aren't my friend, you wouldn't know that, and then I would wonder why you are reading my blog, but I guess it's because I am so darn riveting.

So there he/she is at 13 weeks; which was way back in December.  We've moved on to bigger and better things (18 weeks) and things like constantly wondering if that was the baby moving or just my own heartbeat or even lingering nausea?  Who knows about these things? Certainly not me.

I have been lucky in the nausea department, although I can't say I got off scot-free.  It was touch and go there for a while, but I have been able to continue my 12-13 year vomit free streak so I think I definitely deserve an award for that! A purple heart anyone? 

I know a lot of women would do anything to be pregnant so I definitely won't be complaining or anything, but one thing is funny.  I thought I had an idea of what being pregnant would be like and I was oh so wrong.

We will be finding out what this baby is in a little less than two weeks; although one thing is for sure.  This little yam sized creature loves potato chips.  According to the old wive's tales that would mean a boy, but I am kind of thinking a girl, but then again, what would I know about these things?

I guess I am going to try to blog more often, so I figured I better mention the whole, I am having a baby thing.  We are pretty stinkin' excited, but it also seems surreal in some ways.

Now I am going to sign off and finally take down my Christmas decorations. Or maybe just eat more potato chips.