Blue Steel

I am a model. A 32 year old, 5'3" supermodel. I just hope the paps leave my kids alone.

Check it out here.

Our friend, Kindzia, and his wife have this awesome company that sells ready made frames for all your races. Well, all the ones you want to remember at least. :) Finish Line Framing.

You know the races where you want to have your medal, race number and picture professionally framed but cannot bring yourself to drop $400 bucks for it? Their frames have holes for all the stuff and you just pop it in yourself and save a ton of $$.

So smart. And nice looking, too.

Wow. Sounds a lot like their models. ;)

Really not loving it.

Now, I am not one to spew negativity.

Well, not often, anyway.

But, the sinus infection that is making my teeth ache and ears pulse is keeping me from being in a very positive place today. (Well, that and the fact that I didn't workout on account of said sinus infection. I am a crankypants without a good sweat.)

Hence, my post today.

A very unpositive post of things I Do Not Like. The yin to the yang of yesterday's (much more positive) post. (a day that I worked out.)

1. Caillou -- can this kid whine more? Seriously. His parents should really address this. We just pretend that we can't understand a whiny voice. Maybe they could try that? BUT, Ella loves her some Caillou. Can't stand the kid.


2. The peanut butter recall -- Everything I (like to) eat has peanut butter as a main ingredient. It is the base of my food pyramid...well, that and hummus. All my delicious Clif Mojo bars are now inedible promising the possibility of a night spent over the toilet. I put my time in there with my two pregnancies, thank you very much.

3. New Hair Growth -- Something with the hormones related to pregnancy cause me to both lose (pounds and pounds) of hair while simultaneously growing tiny, little ones all along the crown. Causing me to look like I have purposely spiked my hair while in a ponytail...a kind of mom-mullet. A look I am not unfamiliar with. I am from Jersey after all.
I can't remember why I was yelling in this picture, but it does show all those tiny little buggers.


4. Baby Socks -- Can NO ONE make ones that actually stay on a baby's foot?

5. Summer Video Baby Monitors -- I love the video. When the darn thing works. Got one before Alice was born. Video screen went out a couple weeks ago. Just a black screen now. Babies R Us wouldn't take it back...awesome. Now we're stuck with a $160 monitor that refuses to let us know if Alice has her leg caught in the crib slat...again. Get new one @ Babies R Us. Video works for 10 minutes....then black. ARGH.

I feel better already.

Love it.

Just a list of some stuff I've been um, loving, lately.

1. My new Training Plan
Yes, that is Training Plan with a capital "T" and "P". Courtesy of my harda$$, ironman, friend, Justin. He is not messing around. And although, last week was a bust with doing all of them (with Alice so sick and so many doctor's appointments and blah blah blah...) this week, I am going to knock them out. I hope. If I can make it. Seriously...they are hard. I just had a baby. And there are a lot of them. Whine. Whine. (Just kidding, Justin!)

2.. New Training Plan purchases
NTP requires new swim paddles (XS Tyr Catalyst). And oh yeah, A TON more swimming than I was doing.
Hop onto swimoutlet.com (another love of mine.) Surf around. Decide if I am going to actually swim more than 2x per week, I NEED a new suit, right? And some new earplugs, too.


3. Shazam
New iphone application. I am sure you've seen the commercial for it...so cool. Hold up your iphone to a song that is playing and it tells you the name and artist. Right then. And then you can buy it. LOVE IT. The other day, I "tagged" and then bought Fink -- "This is the Thing". Never would have ever known who was singing that song on "Friday Night Lights" that was just awesome.

4. Runners World Online Smart Coach
I love this. Type in a recent distance you have run and your time...insert how many miles a week you are currently running....what race you want to run...when you want to run your long run....when your race is....and it gives you a totally customizable training program. So smart and so easy to follow. Not that I am...since I have a NTP to follow, but if I was just running, I would totally use this.

5. My toothbrush. Oral B Crossaction Power.
Sounds totally boring, right?
Yes...yes, it is.

BUT, Mike and I love these toothbrushes...they are pretty inexpensive ($7), but make you feel like you just left the dentist. Something on my mind since me, Mike and E all have tooth cleaning/plaque scraping long delayed dentists appointments this week. It is the little things, people. :)



Happy belated 60th to my dad. Below with Annabelle and his dog, Sophie. He came up this weekend to celebrate with some bowling, lemon bars, cupcakes, ziti and lots of quality grandpa time for Ella and Alice.



He and Ella "acting cool". Nice try, guys.

Sore legs.

Sore legs. (from the hilly 7.5 mile long run @ 7:57 pace)

Sleepy eyes. (from the ever-coughing 6 month old alarm clock sleeping in between us.)

The only cure?

Some serious couch time, a diet sunkist, chocolate chip cookies and pizza. AND (fingers crossed) some good, hard, cough-free sleep tonight.

Gotta love Saturday nights.

11

11 is the (insanely large) number of doctor's appointments that we have had since last Tuesday.

Seriously.

SERIOUSLY.

Way too many.

1 for Mike for a run of the mill physical.
1 for me to get some antibiotics for a sinus infection.
2 for Ella for a cold that just was hanging on too long.
And the rest?
For my 6 month old (today...Happy Half Birthday, Alice!) sweet baby. Visit after visit to the pediatrician, ER, and finally the pediatric pulmonologist to deal with the just diagnosed Reactive Airway Disease (huh?)...all in addition to the croup, the double ear infection and the RSV-like virus she already had.

She just was not getting any better from that virus that she had last week. Poor kid just kept coughing and wheezing, and coughing and wheezing and repeat. Scared us silly. We are finally, finally feeling better about how she's doing. She's still sleeping with us and has to stay on her breathing treatments for the rest of the winter. And is now at an increased risk of having asthma...but today is the first day in a week that I am pretty sure that we are not going to be making any ER runs for Alice.

I feel like I can finally breathe easier now, too.

At one of her many appointments this week.

First time...

...sitting solo. And still sick, but getting a little better.

Yay alice!

TGIS

Yes, Thank God it is SATURDAY.

Friday stunk. I am happy to see it go.

Started out with a 2:30 am wake up call from Alice and ended up in the children's ER.

Neither of those things are ever good.

After mid morning ped appointment on Friday (second time there this week) with two still sick kids, I learned...

Alice has the croup.
And an ear infection...in both ears.
Ella has the same virus that Alice has, but is just not as sick.
Alice does not like the nebulizer.
What a stridor is and what it sounds like.
Alice still smiles and is not at all cranky when she's sick as a dog.
A sick Ella is a quiet Ella....which is just unnatural.

My poor baby was still not doing great after the ped, (after 4 breathing treatments her breathing still sounded like darth vader) so we took her down to Children's Healthcare ER. Scary. Just to get her checked out...all was well. Okay to take home. Phew. Guess we can expect a few more days of keeping a close eye on her to make sure she's breathing okay.

So many meds for such a little baby. :(


Thanks to my mom -- who played tag team at the doctor with me and watched E while we were at the hospital, our neighbor, Amy -- who sat with a sick Ella for us until my mom could get here --, and Lauren -- who answered a random "do you know anything about croup?" text with a sweet call and tons of info. (she's a nurse) --- you guys made a tough day a lot more tolerable.

On the mend.

Reading stories to Alice helped.


As did playing "one of these things is not like the other".

Sick Day

Well, apparently, my prescription (Aladdin and blankie) didn't do the trick to heal Ella.

I knew something was up when I picked her up from the Kids Klub at the gym yesterday (after a not as hard as I anticipated 5 miler with the middle 3 miles at 7:12 pace.) and she was lying on the floor.

Then, I definitely knew a trip to the doctor was in order after she fell asleep in the cart at Publix. Not even the free Publix cookie would rouse her. (I love Publix.) Poor kid.

Alice decided to start a very good seal imitation as well...so both Parker girls got checked.

They're fine...just colds.

No school for E today. Just hanging around the house getting healthy is in order. Along with (hopefully) an hour trainer ride for mommy between tuck ins, nose blows (E), and nose sucks (Alice).

The three of us and a strangely large picture of a girl and a horse at the doc.

Lost in translation

E had a tough day at school today. Cried and wanted mommy at snack time...not really like her.

Apparently, the chocolate chip cookie "made me cold". And the yogurt "wasn't healthy for me".

Huh?

I guess it must have been "the rock in my tummy....that came in through my head....make me feel cold and not healthy."

Here's to hoping a strong dose of "Aladdin" and her blankie cures all.

Alice -- with no rock in her head and who is also, not cold.

2000...

...yards were swum (swam? who knows? seriously, does anybody know?) by yours truly today.

I know, I know...just a warm up for you fish out there, but for me?

A new post partum record. (Insert fist pump.)

Now, I just have to sit my butt down and cobble together a (hopefully kick ass) training plan that results in PR's for triathlon, 5k and half marathons for the spring. Simple, right?

All I require is a kid-free hour or so, Runner's World online, "Triathlete Magazine's Essential Week by Week Training Plans" and some fairy dust.

My Brain...

...is (thankfully, wonderfully) completely normal.

After months of weird symptoms (right eye not seeing right, heaviness of the right side of my body, feeling like I was going to pass out a few times), a visit to the ER, and a neurologist that seemed convinced that I had MS...I am so relieved.

Just got the results of my (too hellish to even discuss how scary it was being shoved in that torture chamber of a device for 40 minutes with a mask on my face***) MRI and MRA and my brain shows no signs of anything wrong.

Yahoo.

So....what is causing all this weird stuff?
Which, by the way, I had all the same symptoms post baby #1, as well...that just disappeared after about a year. (2 ER visits and 1 MRI with that bout.)

Most likely, migraine.

The neurologist's best guess is that this is an aura. (I get migraines and when I get them, I lose vision..yep, in my right eye.)

He prescribed some medicine, so we'll see if it helps any....

I am just SO relieved. My brain, with all of its obvious abnormalities (can't you just remember someone's name, just once, when you meet them?), appears normal.

Thank God.

Alice and I, MRI in hand, leaving the office with the good news.

***just wanted to add that if anyone is reading this that is breastfeeding and getting an MRI with contrast...it is okay to nurse right after. My neurologist and the radiologist both said I needed to wait 24-48 hours after to get rid of the contrast solution. (I was totally stressing about this, since Alice is 100% breastfed, poor kid would be wondering what happened.) BUT, according to my OB and 2 lactation consultants, you are totally fine to feed right after. The docs had some old school information.

Art.

"Wow! That's a great picture, E! What is it of?".
-me

"baby Jesus on a rocketship."
-Ella

Over the river and through the woods...

...to Mimi's house we went.

Rain+potholes+bee boots=one deliriously happy (already asleep) 3 year old.



Doesn't hurt to have a ride home from your grandpa either.

New Year.

New Baby.(courtesy ed hetherington - photo, not baby.)


New Goals.
1:40 @ ING Half.
Sub 20 5k -- been working on this one for a LOOOONG time. PR is 20:26...so at the very least get below that.
Beat my time from 2007 @ John Tanner.


New Furniture!
Coming on Friday....I can't wait for our new non-falling-into-the cracks-between-the-sections-sectional, our new cruelty-free (to kids not cows) leather coffee table with no sharp corners, and comfy, spinning, chair. Merry Christmas to us.

Old friends.

Celebrated the holiday with two of my college roommates and their families. Love you guys.

Happy New Year to everyone.