Boxes

I think I know what S is getting for Christmas this year. It turns out a box is the best toy ever!

Pole: 1, My car: 0

There was an incident. It involved a pole. I won't name the guilty party, but now my car is in the shop. I hope it takes less than a month to fix (which is how long it took last time).

Happy Halloween!!!

From the monkey boy.

vibram fivefingers shoes

Here's me at the top (if you look closely you can see my little nerdy feet).Here are my shoes on the trail.

I bought a pair of vibram fivefingers shoes to run barefoot in. I wore them climbing Mt LeConte this weekend. The Alum Caves Trail is 5.2 miles to the peak and then back. The best way to describe wearing the shoes is really, being barefoot. I found them mostly fun. I probably should have picked a shorter hike for their first long use though.

I've only run a few miles in them. I'll update when I've run more.

Pros:

Comfortable.

The full-coverage did keep the rocks out.

Very light (compared to hiking boots).

I usually felt like I was just strolling along, that was fun.

Cons:

You can't wear socks, my feet were cold when we started.

I slid on some of the rocks going downhill.

I really had to be careful on some of the rocks, one wrong step can really hurt.

They really, really smell right now. I need to put them in the washer. I don't know if this is the shoes or me.

My calves are so sore it's crazy. I think it's from using them to stabilize my ankles (instead of letting my shoes help) and from just walking differently during a climb.

Calories by Day

Here are the past 30 days of my eating. That huge peak is the hamburger, etc that I ate right after the Chattanooga Triathlon. I have another race on Saturday, I'm looking forward to another hamburger peak.

Food Lessons

Not good: Glenny's Low Fat Soy Crisps.

Here's some warning signs I should have seen (while in the grocery store):
an entire bag has 140 calories.
It says "Tastes great" in more than one place
Low fat soy? What was I thinking?

Good: Ben and Jerry's single-serve containers.

These aren't exactly environmentally friendly, but I lack the self control to stop at exactly one serving. That makes these a godsend.

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Locations from AMIA

Smokey Mountains

We went hiking in the Smokey Mountains this past weekend. We hiked the Clingman's Dome to Siler's Bald and back. It's a distance of about 10 miles total. One of our hiking books (at which I am very angry) said the hike was "easy" and the other said it was "moderate." I would call it moderate to difficult. However, it was enjoyable. Most of the trail was a portion of the Appalachian trail (AT). I will just mention that a 25 pound baby gets very heavy during a hike. Phil carried him 7 miles and I carried him 3. It's not really a fair split of distance, but man am I glad we didn't have to do a fair split.

S had a really great time though. In the parking lot he stamped his little feet and cried so we would put him in the backpack for hiking. Here's a picture of him and Phil at the AT shelter (which I thought was pretty fancy).

And here is one of our views.

And here's part of the trail.

Finally, here's my favorite picture from the hike. I used my zoom lens.

15 month check-up

S had the 15 month well-baby visit this morning. He had a great time playing with his robe. Here are his stats: 

31 inches long (50th percentile).
weighs 25 pounds (56th percentile)
head circumference is 48cm (74th percentile)

Perfectly normal and growing happily. When the nurse asked if he could run, he ran across the room. When she asked if he said "hi" to strangers, he said "hi." Way to go S.

Muddy Buddy

This past weekend Sarah and I competed in the Nashville Muddy Buddy. We had a great time. The race was fun. The course is divided into five sections, each just over a mile long. You and your buddy takes turns biking and running. You switch biking/running at each obstacle. So we put a camera in the bike bag and took off!

Here's us (and Heather and Kathy - our competition) before the race.

Okay, I ran the first section and Sarah biked. There was a lot of big gravel but it was okay. The first obstacle was a balance beam. Then I biked the second section (and therefore Sarah ran). It was another section on gravel.

This is me going over the second obstacle.

Okay the next section (the third) of the race was much harder. This had a steep, steep downhill grade. I'm pleased that Sarah rode the bike, I'm well-versed at running on trails, but not biking on them. She did awesome. Then, we had to go up a really steep hill. It kind of sucked, but we made it up. And now we get to the third obstacle. 

This is a picture of Sarah climbing under it.

Okay, the next section was back to just normal trails (me biking, Sarah running). And the fourth obstacle was awesome. It was a 1-2 story high inflatable slide. You climbed up the back on a rope ladder and then slid down the front. I loved it. 

This is Sarah getting ready to climb, look at her snazzy socks. That was our "uniform."

Finally, this is the last obstacle of the race. Sarah biked off and I ran behind her to finish the last leg. When you get to the end you have to wait for your buddy and go through the mud pit together. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of us after the mud pit, I couldn't really get the camera out. But it was fun. We'll be back next year. 

The mud pit.

Sugar

Holy crap, that's a lot of sugar. More here. 

Flying Pig Marathon

Here's a picture of me and S before the race. 

Another marathon come and gone. 

It was in the 60s and a little drizzly. The course was nice, and as an aside, I've never seen so many people handing things out along a course. There were people with oranges, jelly beans, water, and I saw a lady with an entire fruit salad (really!). Unfortunately, I was taught not to take food from strangers :). The downer was that I was sick. I woke up feeling kind of crappy Friday and by Saturday I had a fever and chills. This didn't really stop me from going to the zoo that afternoon (I did take a nap in the middle of the day, I rested, really). I felt okay on Sunday morning (not great, but I was also really nervous). I started the race and I only made it 22 miles. It sucked. I finally stopped when it hurt to walk and I could feel the fever.

However, my trainer (Stephanie) had really trained me well for the race. I was going to PR but I didn't. Next year.

Flying Pig Marathon

On Sunday May 3rd I'm running the Flying Pig Marathon in Cincinnati, Ohio. My goal is to finish in 4:30 or under. 

And today's good news is:

  You can set up your email or phone to track me during the flying pig marathon!

  Go to www.flyingpigmarathon.com and then click under "swine line"

If you need my last name (if there's a chance that someone doesn't know me that reads my blog, leave a comment with an email address)

A day in the life of Stephen

Since I did this once before, I thought I'd update to what life is like now. It's been almost a year since my last one of these.

6:30 am - wake up, nurse (I'm weaning him now, so this isn't quite every day)

8:00 am - eat breakfast

8:30 am - fight getting dressed

9:00 am - daycare

11:30 am - lunch!

12:30-2:30 - nap (only if he's at daycare, he doesn't nap well at home)

3:30 pm - snack

5:30 pm - go home

6:00 pm - supper!

7:00 pm - bath (most nights, not all)

8:30 pm - start reading books in his room to get ready for bed

9:00 pm - sleep

It's really a good day when you think about it. All unmentioned times are pretty much running around and playing. He's a good boy.

Yarn

I have been neglecting my blog lately, too much to do. I'm pleased to be outside again in the spring weather and S can run around with the best of them (he plays with the big kids* outside at daycare!).

Either way, today I decided to update with what time of yarn I am. I took an online quiz (it's easy that way). Here's the link, and here's my yarn description:

You are Mercerized Cotton.
You are always very crisp and neat. You are very playful and are happiest while outdoors in the sunshine. You are sometimes accused of splitting hairs, but in the end people find you pretty easy to live with.

Huh.

*big kids = toddlers

S's 1 year stats

S had his 12 month check-up this morning. Here are his stats from the visit.

Height: 29.5" (42nd percentile)
Weight: 21 lbs (33rd percentile)
Head circumference: 47cm (69th percentile)

I like lemons?

This wasn't his first lemon (the last ones he just devoured), but it was fun to watch him put it in his mouth, make a face, then go back again. I guess he loves them?

The Monkey Story

Marmie was watching S yesterday while Phil and I went to pick up a vanity from the Home Depot Expo (that has a long and boring story behind it). We have two books right now that S seems to love, "Where's Spot?" and "Dear Zoo" both "lift-the flap" books (pictured here from penguin.com.au and from overstock.com in case you need childhood reminders).


After going through the spot book (where you open a clock, a piano, etc and look for Spot but instead find other animals), Marmie and S read the zoo book. One of the animals the zoo sends is a monkey. When Marmie and S got to the monkey, he paused, reached for the spot book and opened the up the page with the monkey on it (I don't remember what it's hiding behind). He then compared the two images. He recognized that they were both monkeys! He is so smart!

(And if you have a 10 month old, maybe even as young as 9 months old, I highly recommend flap books. These two are cardboard and have flaps, ideal for chewing and "reading.")

Short Walking Video

I have better ones, I'm trying to upload them to flickr right now. But here's a short one of a few steps S took this morning.

Swimming Lessons

On Sunday we had S's first swimming lesson. The lesson consisted of him going underwater a handful of times (slowly) and him "floating" around on his back. He wasn't really happy, but he was never scared. He cried after his first dunk, but after that he just stared around and watched other people swim by (there was someone swimming laps near us). 

We go back next week for the second lesson (more of the same). The goal here isn't really to teach him strokes now, but to keep him from being scared of the water and learn how to hold his breath. We will work on blowing bubbles in a few weeks.

ENT

Yesterday we went to see the ENT (ear nose and throat) physician for a consult for Stephen's ears. We talked to him about the benefits and risks of getting tubes placed in Stephen's ears. I now have a lot of information on the subject (if anyone is actually interested). But the
short answer is that Stephen is now eligible because he's had four ear infections in less than a year and he's been through 5 different antibiotics.

The tubes are actually little grommets. They provide a little opening for the fluid to drain out of his ears (and therefore not get infected). Basically, it gives him the chance to grow some more and have his eustachian tubes angle (adult's tubes angle, kids are horizontal - this is why kids get more ear infections than adults).

The tubes would be in his ears from about 8-18 months or so. They would most likely fall out on their own, but if they didn't, they would require surgical intervention to take them out. It's a common procedure although he would need to undergo anesthesia. However the whole process should only take about 10 minutes. He would need to wear ear plugs in the bath and in non-chlorinated water (like a lake), but he could still learn to swim (that's what I took from it anyway).

The main reasons I've read for putting in the tubes are:

• -Stephen's comfort (ear infections hurt)
  
• -concerns about hearing loss (this could delay his speech and language development, although it's not permanent)
• - balance (the doctor told us sometimes older kids had trouble walking because of the fluid)

I must admit, I just don't really want to unless I have to.

And there's my ear update.