Running Re-vamped

Ryan bought me the chi-running book (he’s so sweet). I’ve been desperate to get through the 3 potty training books, so until wednesday I hadn’t read much of it, but so far, I’m really glad to have it. Yes, obviously he’s got all kinds of chi-’spiritual’ stuff going on, but there are definitely laws of physics that it’s all dealing with (that God created), so i’ve decided not to throw out the baby with the bath water. I really think this will help my body stop arguing with me about adding on the mileage.

Though in typical Jenn fashion, i read partway through, went out for my run thursday & tried to implement everything i’ve read so far. All in the same run. yeah. so I didn’t even complete the 3 miles, had to stop and walk once and was confused, sore & irritated. That night I read another chapter & realized, “oh yeah…I should probably just work on one thing at a time”

Sigh. But that means i won’t have instant gratification!

So once I start getting the hang of what my body is supposed to be doing, I’m going to need to borrow a video camera & have ryan film me running up at the track. Oh joy. That is, unless someone in orlando wants to be my ‘chi-running’ partner & we can just analyze each other (or someone wants to donate to the “send jenn to chi-running class” campaign).

I’m thinking this will definitely be a long-term process to really implement the changes & get back to running comfortably & happy again.

In the meantime, here is a transcript of the internal conversation from thursday:

Ok, breathe, relax…ahh relax….arg! relax your appendages already! how the @%&# am i supposed to be relaxing muscles WHILE RUNNING…I don’t know but the book says to do it so clearly it’s possible…ok, shake it off, breathe…relax…jenn, seriously, relax!…

definitely teaching an old dog new tricks here folks.

Shootin’ the Poo

It’s that time again. Helping a little human learn how to transfer bodily waste to the toilet. Potty training…or, the new ‘pc’ term (which honestly i do prefer as it helps me be more patient since i’m so responsive to semantics): Potty Learning. After the trauma I experienced training Asher (which included no actual traumatizing stories, it was just HARD & exhausting) when he was just under 18months (& had previously NEVER had interactions with a toilet), I had gotten to the place that I was perfectly ok with the idea of waiting till Grace was nearing 3 to begin the potty process. i’ve heard so many rumors that when you start late it only takes a few days. compared to 6 months of being on ‘high alert’ for potty cues when I was expecting he should be telling ME….3-year-old training sounded nice.

however, the past couple months i’ve been contemplating it & this month in particular I’ve realized that I’m ready. I know that sounds backwards to most books (waiting for the child to show signs of ‘readiness’), but though I do love my cloth diapers, I’m ready to not be washing them every other day.

With Asher I read one book (Potty Training 1-2-3) & then relied heavily on advice from other mom’s who had trained early (most tips in this book don’t really pertain to little guys). In retrospect i’ve realized I had wrong expectations of not only the process but the end result. I thought I would spend a week or two ‘training’ then after that he would always use the toilet, coming up to tell me when he needed to go. We did end there, but it took 6-9 months for him to get to where he ALWAYS told me & another year before he would just go on his own w/o any mention to me. If I had realized this, there would’ve been less frustration in the process (then again, I was 8.5 months pregnant, so maybe not).

This time I decided to re-review the 123 book & read a few others as well. In all areas of parenting I’m realizing looking at lots of different angles helps keep me from trying to pigenhole my kids/family into something that one author says works or is right. So i went to the library & came home with The no-cry potty training solution & Diaper-free Before 3. I was expecting to scoff at the ‘no cry’ book (the title makes me think of parents walking around on egg shells to keep kids from being upset). However, i LOVED it. While there were some practical tips, it was more the overall perspective i found helpful. The idea that (duh) this is a LEARNING PROCESS. Just as you take time and have to have lots of patient repitition for an undetermined amount of time for your kids to learn anything from eating to tying shoes…potty training should be a patient, repetitive process that can’t have a real time-line pushed on it due to varients in children, parents & family lifestyle differences. A few years ago the idea of “gradual training” sounded like “lazy parents” to be honest. But that’s exactly what happened, ‘gradual training’. it’s just that I went the route of me ‘being trained’ to read him until he was ready to take over the process for himself. I’m ok with that. Enter second book.

I enjoyed this book too, but will come away with much less of her actual advice (she came off kind of militaristic & had some rather silly ideas in my opinion: using training underwear & water-proof covers after a year old so they can feel wet…um…ever heard of cloth diapers? MUCH easier than pulling soiled totally non-absorbant underwear off). She basically goes for the long-haul gradual process but starting MUCH earlier, with first introductions to sitting on the potty at 6months. it’s sort of a mix of potty training & elimination communication. With the idea that by the time the kid is 2 they’ll be totally out of diapers.

since Grace was about a month old I’ve been hovering her over the potty for pooping (any poo that gets in the toilet is one less bottom to be wiped & diaper to be washed), but not with any real purposefulness. I’ve considered myself a “lazy EC’er”. I’ve been concerned that this could backfire with potty training that since she’s always had the option of either toilet or diaper, she won’t catch on to no longer having the diaper option. However, according to these books, sounds to me like we’re well on our way to having already started training long ago. now it’s just the last step of moving to underwear & learning to catch more pee (she also pees in the potty a decent amount)…then the gradual process of turning the reigns over to her (though the before 3 book points out that even adults need to be reminded to go potty before long trips ect….so if NEVER having to be reminded is your end goal, don’t hold your breath). I’m ok with this. Deep cleansing breath everybody….”d-day” is monday.

Oh & for any ‘readiness’ fans who i’ve traumatized, she does show many ’signs’. She even cheers for me when I go potty. She can’t talk very well, but she gets it & if i’m paying attention she usually tells me she needs to poop before she goes, she’s just not very demanding about it & i’m not super concerned, so I often don’t catch on & miss our potty opportunity.

Only stumbling block i’ve got right now is i can’t find our portable little potty. Gonna want that for the car for trips to places with no bathrooms…..arg.

Party Poopers

One day this week we had one of those super sweet “wow…that’s our son” moments in the van with Asher & I couldn’t keep it to myself any longer.

For those who don’t know Ryan & I have decided not to lie to Asher…about anything. If we reach a subject that he’s not ready for the truth, we just tell him we’ll tell him when he’s older or something like that (not to say we’ve never slipped up in this area, but we strive to not lie anyhow). So in the eyes of some folks I realize this makes us out to be a tad bit…grinch-y. We love to play pretend, but we like to make sure the kids know it’s just that - pretend. Asher knows there is no such thing as Santa, the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy (though we enjoy playing pretend about all of these…i fully intend to play tooth fairy when the time comes…it will still be a fun game, he’ll just know it’s us). There’s certainly a myriad of reasons we’ve decided to be upfront with him on the issue of what’s real & what’s not, but ultimately…we don’t want to lie to him.

So the other day in the van: He had been talking about or pretending to be a monster (new favorite activity) & then said, “but monster’s aren’t real”. I said, “that’s true” So then he went on to list other things (that he enjoys) that are also not real….mermaids, dragons, Diego, goblins & various talking animals. What was so sweet & a perfect example of why we’ve been so clear with him was that in the mix of naming off things that aren’t real he said, “God IS real…Jesus IS real….the Holy spirit is real…” then went on with his list of ‘non-real’ things.

I got a little choked up, but tried to play it cool. “Yep, that’s right bud. God IS real. You’re a smart kid.”

I’ll choose to be a party pooper any day if it helps my kids wade through the waters discerning the Truth through all the lies.

The Mommy Suit

I forgot my bathingsuit. Now that we’re in a hotel with a pool (& one that i feel ok to walk around barefoot in) we decided this was a problem. Since my bathingsuit is technically ‘broken’ anyway, we decided it would be acceptable to run by target & buy a new one.

1) It has become increasingly more difficult to find non-bikini’s that are not uber-ugly or uber low-cut (i can only assume the designers are trying to fix the problem of tankini’s being somewhat modest by making them cover as little cleavage as possible).

2) Try as I might to prove my opinion wrong, conventional one-piece bathingsuits just don’t look right on me.

So after trying on about 5 suits….I settled on a “swim dress”. I only picked it up as a half-joke, but it ended up being pretty cute (ryan verified). Even as I was putting it on I said to ryan, “nothing says “I’m a mommy’ like the bathingsuit skirt”. To which he replied, “but you ARE a mommy”. While I definitely think this suit is not your typical “mommy/old lady swim dress”….it clearly says “swim dress” on the label. There goes any thread of hope that perhaps i’m still clinging to coolness.

Here’s hoping that I actually get to use it this weekend, now that we went through all that.

Back on the Wagon

or is it off? i can never remember.

A few months back, in regards to running, I hit a brick wall of reality that made me realize perhaps running the 2009 Disney marathon was not quite an attainable goal due to limited training time (I’m just NOT willing to run @ 5am so i have time to cross train after to keep my knees & back ’safe’…i just want to run & stretch. The end.) & knee pain when i pass 10miles a week (+/-). Not attainable yet anyway…. there’s always the nebulous “someday when…”

This also coincided with my Nike+ stats being removed from the blog…suddenly I found myself running much less….i apparently am highly responsive to external motivation. Then it all fizzled when I decided to take 2 weeks off completely to test to see if some nagging back pain was related (it is not)…this stretched to nearly 4wks. Last week i finally got off my bum & headed back on the road. I’m not gonna lie. it was NOT fun. It was a major chore. i was sad, thinking that i was pretty sure i remembered being rather fond of the sport in recent history…

Then this week I gave up trying to run with the kids in the jogging stroller & getting my lazy bum out of bed on time to run in the morning. not sure if it was the alone time, the fact that i had a week of running back under my belt, the fact that it’s physically easier to run without pushing 2 children in a stroller or all of the above….but this week has been fun again. In fact, each of the 3 runs were progressively more enjoyable. Culminating in today’s just over 4mi run that i honestly didn’t want to end when i rounded the corner towards my house. The first mile always stinks & i think about stopping to walk…but that magic 2nd mile hits & all is well with my soul. I won’t go into details about the feeling, but it was great. makes me want to run tomorrow. But i think i’ll be kind to my knees and wait till monday.

I also tried to incorporate a few posture tips from the Marathon Training guys…haven’t heard a whisper from my knees all week…think i may look into reading a ‘chi running’ book….i’d heard of it before but never really been in the mood for sifting through pseudo-spiritual athletics.

Odd Ebay Change

i saw this today when I went to my ebay acct. to check on something ryan ordered last week:

seems odd…seems like i’d hesitate to sell. but they’re probably not concerned much with ‘little guy’ sellers & the ebay businesses probably aren’t concerned too much about retribution/clarification. Guess it goes back to the debate about “does the seller provide feedback upon payment or upon recieving feedback?”. I personally think they should wait, b/c who’s to say the buyer isn’t going to come up with crazy complaints ect &/or threaten negative feedback for you or something like that. The feedback is for the whole transaction right? If i leave it before the transaction is complete, the feedback may not be accurate. Though perhaps all questions are answered in the “new seller protections” policies that i didn’t read.

Also, unrelated: I am trying to figure out how to post pictures from yesterday’s swim lessons. Not successfully so far. I need help from the IT guy. Boo for the new wordpress picture stuff. Though maybe it’s ‘easier’ once you learn it.

Just starting to settle

Over just the past couple weeks I’ve been thinking about how I’m starting to feel more comfortable here in Winter Park, and beginning to get beyond the uncomfortable “getting to know you” phase with a few friends (i.e. less worry about them thinking i’m weird now that i think they sufficiently know that i am in fact weird). Something that got me really choked up the other day though was a discussion with asher. To preface: since we moved here in january the sentence, “momma, i don’t like our florida house, I just want our virginia house” was common. Even after discussions about a fun day or something, he would often end it with that.
So one day last week, he was listing his “best friends” (which were all boys from VA). I didn’t say anything, was just listening (honestly i had my eyes closed, head in hands trying to mentally will him to finish going potty so i could get back to whatever it was i was doing). He was quiet for a bit & then said,

“mom, i think i like our florida house now. i don’t want our virginia house anymore”.

He’s said it now a few times since, always completely out of the blue & unprompted. There are 4 boys from VA that he always lists first when talking about who his friends are (John, Jude, Jack & Jack), but he’s beginning to add a few “florida friends” in the mix as well.

In my experience & that of others (as well as what the ‘experts’ say) it takes 1-3 years to really get settled in a new place. Some days are harder than others, but it’s nice to have hit kind of an upswing here lately.

3-hour tour

So I had my much needed hair appointment today. As I mentioned in that last post I went to the Aveda Institutes (aka salon school), which just so happens to have a brand-new branch opened up 13 minutes from my house. It was GREAT. First let me start off with: It was $12. But that was not a “i look like i got a $12 haircut” $12. I’ve had PLENTY of haircuts under $20 in my lifetime. VERY rarely was I completely satisfied with them or the experience. In fact, until 3 years ago when my sweet husband set me up with an appoint with Mary Jo (seriously…HOW do they not have a website?? I find this phenomenon odd if not irritating more & more lately **update, turns out they do have one: www.imagohair.com **). Previous to this i typically went somewhere different each time, often falling for the Great Clips annual $5 sale (i once had to return to get a $5 sale-cut fixed as it literally looked like a 5yo hacked at it)…and what I’ve discovered is that when it comes to nice hair…you need an “artist” not just someone who cuts hair. I usually walked in with a picture or a detailed verbal image of what I wanted. Often the stylists would either come very close to imitating it or imitated it right on…but it just wasn’t right. What was awesome about Mary Jo was that I would sit in her chair (as she looked over her notes she took from my previous visits) and tell her what I wanted. Then she would tell me what she was going to do. It was always loosely BASED on what i asked for, but tailored to my face, style & need for a non-complicated morning routine (& fear of having to buy “product”).

The woman had a 1-2 month waiting list (I would just pre-book for every 3 months at each appt.) but it was worth the wait. So now i’ve been spoiled. That was a bit of a rabbit trail. Back to ‘derek’ at Aveda.

Ok, so what could be a very long story short(ish): I really like the haircut. Not sure i LOVE it just yet, still getting used to it (i fried it good, had to cut off about 1.5 inches), as it’s a bit more edgy & ‘modern’ (i.e. not as soft & flowy) than i am used to, but I do definitely like it. I like change.

As I sat down & he was getting my cape-thingy situated around me, i had the thought, “I wonder if I’m his first client…this is some long-takin’ awkward cape putting on going on here”. When we were almost through he did admit I was his first head of hair attached to a body. But what was so great was that it was sooo apparent that he was taking care to do a good job, and to back it up, he had instructors that had to approve each “checkpoint” before we proceeded, where they would give him tips, correct any mistakes (very very few, mostly just missed hairs i think) and consult on taking the next step. So really I had 4 stylists collaborating on my haircut. It was pretty sweet. it also included the typical Aveda salon scalp massage followed by shampoo & then styling after the cut was finished.

The funny thing was it took…might want to sit down for this…3hrs & 15min. HA! For a (glorified) trim!! I’m laughing even as I type. I had NO IDEA that would be the case. In retrospect it kinda makes sense. Luckily ryan was home with the kids & it wasn’t incredibly detrimental for him to have the afternoon shot…and we ended up hitting up chick-fil-a for dinner when i got home (at 5:30). Though to defend poor Derek, yes, he was incredibly slow (..careful..?), but he also had to take steps that ‘trained’ stylists do not, like sectioning the hair & clipping it up & cutting each section individually. That & the time spent waiting for an instructor to come over to check us off. he did it all right, it was just obvious that he wasn’t quite comfortable with the techniques yet. I’m glad to have offered the practice time for him. I’d definitely go back…just probably on a saturday or some other planned ‘rest’ day that we can be prepared to have me gone for hours on end.

New phrases

One of the things I enjoy most about our life in the toddler stage is hearing new phrases that they pick up. Some have a clear origin, such as Asher’s latest, “Got your/my feathers in a bunch”. He picked that gem up from watching Little Bear. He said it the first time 2 days ago. He was huffing about something ( i think cleaning up) & he sighed & said, “mom, I’ve got my feathers in a bunch”. I asked if he knew what that meant…”yes, it means i’m grumpy”. One of Grace’s newest phrases is from the 3 of us playing hide & seek & peek-a-boo all the time: “Dada (or any name), where are you???” (very sing-songy enunciation).

Then there are ones that you’re just not sure where they came from. Such as Grace’s new & official first sentence…well..not really A sentence. She’s started tagging names to expressions. Such as, “hi mom” or my personal favorite, “no, dad!” when he’s tickling or kissing her….she sounds just like a teenager saying that one. Pretty much hilarious. Of course all it does is incite more kisses & zerberts.

Every Little bit…

I’m a fan of the idea of ‘every little bit counts’ mantra.  From an “environmental” & “frugality” perspective, I figure every time I use a washcloth instead of a paper towel…that counts.  Not much, no…but it counts.

Below is certainly more than a ‘little’ bit…except in relation to the massive numbers who need aid.  But I find this woman’s contribution particularly amazing….and worth “counting”

Chinese Policewoman’s quake effort contribution

Next Page »