Me and The Boys

Chip Tops

Cue the Hallelujah chorus - the boys both slept until 6am this morning. That's two mornings in a row now that we've "slept in." And I'll tell you, an extra hour of sleep does wonders for your mood.

I would have woken up laughing anyway, though, because when Scott brought Dante in our room, Dante came running over to my side of the bed and grabbed my chapstick off the nightstand and put some on his lips, and in his little toddler voice, was chirping "chip tops! chip tops!"  At which point I started laughing, and he started laughing, and then he got all riled up and was literally hopping around our room with the chapstick yelling "chip tops!" over and over again.

If that's not a good way to wake up, I don't know what is.

He proceeded to majorly diss me, though, when we went downstairs. He and Scott were sitting on the couch, and I thought I'd go over and join them, so I got all settled in next to Dante, only to have him push me away and say "Move, Mommy."  I know Scott is his favorite, but geez - I didn't know Daddy and Dante time was that sacred!

As we were eating dinner tonight, it was just about completely dark, and Gabe commented on that, asking me "Is it dark yet, Mommy?" And I said "Yeah, it's just about dark." And Gabe said "No, it's not dark yet!"  And Dante, in a very somber, soothing tone, chimed in "Soon, Gabe."  It was just funny the way he said it, like he was wise beyond his years, and trying to calm Gabe down. All I kept thinking was that it was very Yoda-esque - "Soon, dark it will be, master Gabe."

I subjected them to nearly 3 hours of shopping this morning, and they held up remarkably well. Since I had them in the stroller, and they were each occupied with reading a book, I was able to buy a few Easter basket goodies without them noticing, so that was a bonus.

I also bought Gabe a coloring book that's chock full of Pixar characters, from the movies Monsters, Inc., Nemo, The Incredibles, and Cars. He pored over that book like you wouldn't believe. And I had to convince him that it was a coloring book, and it was ok to color on the pages.

And then he asked me to read it to him.

Have you ever read a coloring book? They do have words at the top of each page, but they are NOT meant to be read as a story. It was pretty painful sitting down and reading this coloring book to him. Did I mention that it's a very large book, with lots and lots of pages? I read the whole darn thing, though, and he sat there completely silent, just soaking it all in.

It's kind of frightening how effective the marketing is for all this kids' stuff.

I skipped the gym today. Bad. I know I shouldn't have, but I was really in the mood to get out and do something different, so shopping it was. And it was only one day off, so whatever....   

I'm going to try to swim tomorrow, if the pool isn't too crowded. And Scott is taking three days off next week - yahoo! - so there will be more than enough time for me to get in plenty of workouts next week.

A funny Gabe-ism - when he wants to know what something is used for, he asks us "What's that for usin''?"

And an even funnier Gabe-ism - Gabe will frequently tear around the house jumping, running and occasionally throwing himself down on the floor and yelling "Whoa!"  That's just what he does when he gets all riled up and hyper - and, incidentally, he now has Dante doing the exact same thing.

Anyway, one day when Gabe was doing this, we said something like "Geez, Gabe, you don't have to freak out like that."

So now, when he does the running/jumping/throwing/yelling routine, it's all punctuated by him yelling "FREAK OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!"

It's really fun having boys.

An Early Morning Run, And Some Stuff About The Boys

Three point four miles this morning, at an average 8:19 pace. Knee feels good. I'm going to be conservative with my mileage for a few weeks, and keep my long runs in the 5 - 6-mile range, and hopefully all will be well.

It was so nice to run today. Skipping the half was definitely the right decision. It's nice to be able to run, and feel healthy and strong, and not be terrified that I'm beating up on my knee.

Just a regular ole' day for us today, so I'm just going to jot down a few random funnies and observations about the boys.

When we come downstairs in the morning, the boys both have a cup of milk, and we've started this new routine now where Dante waits in the kitchen and gets both sippy cups and then delivers one of them to Gabe, who has already parked himself on the couch. It's so cute. Dante goes toddling over and hands the cup to Gabe, and Gabe says "thanks, Dante!"

Scott picked up some Transformers valentine's cards for them at the store the other day. They were on clearance, so they were super cheap, and he thought they'd get a kick out of them. And they are. It's so funny - they're just little cards with pictures of Transformers on them, but they were thrilled. Gabe even takes a few of them to bed with him every night.

We take Gabe to a pediatric dentist, and they have a play area in the waiting room with a small slide and some stuff to climb on. Of course he loves that part of the appointment : )   But today I had a dentist appointment of my own, and Gabe was crying, saying he wanted to go with me so that he could go down the slide. I had to explain to him that my dentist office doesn't have a slide in it. He was impressed when I got back, though, that I had gotten a new toothbrush, just like he did when he went to the dentist.

The bad side to the big-brother worship I talked about yesterday is that Dante does EVERYTHING Gabe does - the good and the bad. And he'll also do anything to get a laugh out of Gabe, which leads us into very dangerous territory, especially since Gabe has picked up on this, and is already egging Dante on to do stuff he knows full well that neither of them should be doing. 

For instance - the other day they were coloring at the table while I was working in the kitchen, and I heard Gabe say to Dante "Color on the table, Dante."  And while they're playing in the living room, I often hear Gabe encouraging Dante "Throw it, Dante. Come on - throw the car!"  And of course Dante does it, and of course Gabe laughs. I'm outnumbered, and I do not like it one bit!

Their new favorite post-dinner activity is pillow fights. Not the ideal way to wind down right before bedtime, but they seem to settle down ok once we get upstairs, and they have so much fun with the pillow fights, I hate to put an end to it. Gabe actually begs us to hit him with the pillows - it's pretty funny.

What's really funny is what he said to us at dinner tonight. I had made baked potatoes, and to try to make them more appealing for the kids, I melted some cheddar cheese on top. Am I a nice mom, or what?

Despite the cheesy goodness, they still wouldn't eat them. I think Dante would have eaten his, except that he saw Gabe turn up his nose at it, and we have that whole monkey-see, monkey-do thing going on, so it was no to the potato for both of them.

And Gabe, who was watching Dante pouting about the potatoes, chimed in to tell us that "He doesn't want his potatoes. He simply doesn't like them." 

Neither Scott or I talk like that, so I have no idea where he picked that up, but what's going to be hilarious is when Dante repeats it, and tells us that he 'simply' doesn't like something. 

Three Trillionth Time's A Charm

I've seriously lost count of the number of times we've told Gabe that when he wants something that someone else has, he needs to ask them nicely for it, rather than just reach over and grab it from them. Sometimes it really just seems pointless to remind him ONE MORE TIME of something that we've already told him three billion zillion trillion times. It's beyond frustrating.

But today, I was redeemed.

We were playing matchbox cars, and I was holding a particular car that he wanted to play with. He started reaching out his hand to grab it from me, but then he stopped. He hesitated. He pulled his hand back.

And he said very politely - "Can I have that car, please, Mommy?"

You would have thought he'd just won the Nobel prize, with the amount of praise I heaped on him. It seriously brought a tear to my eye - I was that happy.

It's the little things.....

One Down, One To Go

Dante (knock on wood) seems to be getting back to his more normal 6am wakeup time. And we're pretty sure that the reason he's been having all these sleep issues the past few weeks is that he was just completely overtired.

The problems started when he began giving us trouble about napping, and there were a lot of days where I just gave up trying to get him to sleep, and he skipped his nap, and I think losing that 2 hours of sleep every few days really started to catch up with him.

And then there was the night that he was sick, and that just put him completely over the edge, to the point where he was waking up at 5am every morning, and waking up miserable, too.

But after a week of making sure he naps every single day, he appears to be finally catching up on his sleep a bit. And the difference is amazing. Not only is he sleeping later, but he's waking up happy! He still cries when I put him in for his nap, but he only cries for a few minutes, and then is fast asleep and sleeps for two hours.

My interpretation of all this is that:   1. He's NOT ready to give up naps yet, even though he might think he is.  And 2. We're not changing his bedtime, or moving him into a big-boy bed just yet, now that things seem to be getting back to normal.

Now if we could just get Gabe to stop waking up at 5am, we'd be all set. He will go back in his bed and lay down until 6, so that Scott and I can catch a few more zzzs, but he doesn't go back to sleep, which means that he is constantly overtired, and I know that his exhaustion is a big part of the reason he has so much trouble listening and paying attention when we're talking to him.

We can't force him to go back to sleep in the mornings, but I did make a new rule today - if he wakes up too early in the morning, he has to go up in his room and have quiet time in the afternoon. I usually let him stay downstairs with me while Dante naps, but we've gotta try to get him to rest a bit in the afternoon. Even if he doesn't sleep, I think just laying quietly for a little while will help him. We shall see.....

After doing a whole lot of nothing last week, I was very happy to get back into our normal routine this morning. We went to the gym, and then ran a couple of errands, then came back home for lunch. And since it was very warm today, we went outside for a while in the afternoon. The yard is still somewhat snow-covered, but the boys preferred to play in the driveway with their trucks, so that's what we did.

They also wanted to shovel and sweep. I took pictures, so that 10 years from now, when they're hating us for making them do work around the yard, we can look back and remember how they used to beg us for the opportunity to do it.

The big-brother worship is in full blossom over here. Yesterday Gabe was really emphatic about wanting corn for dinner. He had been looking through our photo albums and saw a picture of himself eating corn on the cob at Mom and Dad's house this past summer, and went on and on about how much he loved it, and when we went shopping, he kept saying he wanted corn for dinner.

So I bought some frozen corn on the cob and gave it to them with their dinner. At first Dante was not at all interested in his.

But then he saw Gabe eating it and saying how yummy it was. Well, you should have seen how fast he dove into his own corn after that!

And after we left the grocery store yesterday morning, Gabe was whining that he didn't want to go home, so guess what Dante started saying whining?  "No home. No home. No home." Toddler whining - now in stereo. Lovely.

Almost time for me to hit the hay, since I'm planning on an early morning run tomorrow, but I'll wrap up with one choice Gabe-ism. He's really into puzzles, and is very good at them, and I told him a while ago that he was a puzzle master.

So yesterday I was sitting at the table with him while he did a puzzle, and I told him what a great job he was doing.

He looked at me and said "Well, I am the puzzle master, after all."   

Good Stuff

The boys were up early this morning, as usual, and I will admit that the thought crossed my mind that I'd have plenty of time to hop in the car and head up to Hyannis for the half after all.

But of course I didn't.

What I did do was strap on my Garmin and my iPod and go for a 3-mile run, and it was fabulous.

The roads were early-Sunday-morning quiet, and there was a a brilliant blue sky, with the sun reflecting off of the snow and the ice-covered trees, giving everything a little sparkle. 

It may not have been 13.1 miles, and I may not have gotten a medal when I was done, but I'll take what I can get - and if what I can get is a nice easy run on a beautiful late winter morning, followed by a day with my hubby and kids - well, then, I think I'm doing just fine.

Decision Time

Woke up to a steady snowfall this morning, but that didn't deter me from my planned run. I knew I needed to see how my knee would feel, so that I could make an informed decision about the half this weekend.

So off I went, for my first-ever run in the snow. And truthfully, I enjoyed it. There were a few times where the wind kicked up and the snow was blowing directly in my face, and that wasn't so fun. But overall, it was a pretty nice experience.

I stuck to the bike path, so as to not to be at risk of getting run off the road, and the inch and a half of snow cover made for a nice cushiony surface. I think I need to run on snow more often!

I covered three miles at just under a 9-minute per mile pace, and it felt really, really nice to be running again.

So nice that I am NOT going to run the race on Sunday.

My knee really felt fine during the run, but afterward it started feeling stiff and achy again.

All morning Evil Michelle and Good Michelle have been battling it out inside my head.

Evil Michelle keeps saying "Aw, go ahead. You know you want to do this race. Sure, you might end up hurting your knee more, but who knows - maybe you'll be fine." 

Good Michelle, meanwhile, keeps saying "You know you shouldn't do this race. You're flirting with disaster. If your knee is feeling achy after just three miles, imagine how it's going to feel after 13.1 miles!"

Good Michelle won.

I know exactly what's going to happen if I attempt this race Sunday. I'll feel great for the first few miles, and then somewhere around mile 5 or 6, my knee will start to hurt, but it won't hurt too bad, so I'll just push through it and finish the race, after which I know I'll be in serious trouble, and will have put myself right back to square one with this whole thing.

I'm upset, and I'm disappointed, but I'm also proud of myself for making the right decision.

I'd rather forfeit one race than be facing a really long layoff, and possibly serious damage to my knee.

I don't feel like I've aggravated it all that much with my run this morning, so I think another week or two of rest will be just what I need, and hopefully I'll be hitting the pavement sooner rather than later.

Sigh. I've never had to back out of a race before, and it's not a fun thing to have to do.

Now I just have to find something fun to do on Sunday instead.

Incidentally, Evil Michelle whispered something else in my ear this morning - "Tell Scott you're going to do the race, but instead, just drive up to the Cape and spend all day at a spa."  Evil, evil, evil.......  thank god Evil Michelle never wins these battles!

Slacker Extraordinaire

This is how much I've worked out this week: 

Zip. Zero. Nada. Zilch.

No running. No swimming. No weights. No nothing. 

A combination of factors has led me to this incredibly slothful week - 

1. The lingering effects of getting no sleep Sunday night, due to being up with a sick child.

2. Still fighting off my own cold.

3. Feeling slightly unmotivated to workout at all, since I'm not able to run because of the knee issue.

4. Not wanting to take the kids to the gym daycare, since they've both been sick.

5. Dante and Gabe both deciding that 5am is when they want to start their day - every day.

It's all added up to a week of extreme rest.

I'm not stressing about it, though. I think maybe a week of rest is something I needed, because I'm feeling ok with not doing much.

I am going to run tomorrow, though. I'm going to try 2 or 3 miles, and see how my knee feels, and based on that, I'll make my decision on whether or not I'm going to do the half on Sunday.

I will be upset if I can't do it. Not devastated, but upset. I was really looking forward to this race, and as of right now, the weather forecast looks great - sunny and in the low 40s - and I KNOW I have a sub-2-hour half in me, and I'll be bummed if I can't get out there and make it official.

But I'm not going to do it if it's putting me at risk of serious injury and an even longer layoff from running. So, we'll see what happens tomorrow.

Back to item # 5 above - I don't know what happened to my sweet little boy who used to sleep until 6:30, and then happily play in his crib for another 45 - 60 minutes before calling for us to come and get him. But that sweet little boy has been replaced by a crankosaurus who wakes up crying at 5am every day, and refuses to even consider going back to sleep, even when we bring him into our bed.

It's really becoming a problem. Scott and I are taking turns doing the early shift, but even still, it's wearing on both of us. We're trying to get to bed earlier, and we're also considering moving the boys' bedtime a little later. But we're hesitant to make any changes now, since we'll be changing the clocks in a few weeks. So after the time change, we'll see how they adjust, and if they're still getting up ridiculously early, we may gradually make their bedtime a little bit later, and hopefully buy ourselves a little more shuteye in the morning.

Speaking of sleep - after Gabe freaked about the humidifier the other night, I put it back in the box and put it away. And the next morning he came downstairs asking where the "fire" thing was.

As soon as he said that, I realized that he must have been scared of it because when we said humidifier, all he heard was "fire." Poor kid : (   I wish he had told us what was scaring him, and we could have talked to him about it.

As it is, he's now begging for us to put it in his room, going on and on about how he "loves that thing," and how "it makes such a nice noise."  Seeing as how we never even turned it on, I don't know how he knows what kind of noise it makes, but we'll give it another try tomorrow night, and see how he reacts.    

I had what I thought was a great idea yesterday afternoon. I thought we'd make rocket ships out of empty paper towel rolls.

It didn't go quite as I had planned, though. Instead of nicely coloring their rockets and helping me tape the nose cone and the fins on, they rolled their crayons around and off the table, got tangled in nearly half a roll of tape, and once I had finally managed to assemble the rockets, they promptly destroyed them by throwing them around.

They really didn't care that the nose cone and fins fell off, though. They continued to tear around the house throwing what were now just decorative cardboard tubes up in the air, yelling "rocket ship! YAY!"   

So I guess, in the end, the project was a success.

In addition to constantly asking us "what's that?" Dante now also likes to ask us what we're doing. But all he says is "Doing, Mommy?" 

It's so funny how we just have regular little conversations with him now. For instance, when I was making dinner tonight -

Dante:  Doing, Mommy?

Me: Making dinner. I'm putting the french fries in the oven.

Dante: French fries. In oven. Hot. No touching.

Me: That's right - no touching.

Dante: Hot now?

Me: No, they're not hot now.

Dante: Warm?

Me: No, they're cold now, but they'll be hot when they're done cooking.

Dante: Oh. Hot. No touching.

Granted, not the most interesting conversation, but it's just so much fun when they start talking. And it gets even funnier when they get a little older, like Gabe's age, and they still sometimes mix words up a bit, like when he was eating a brownie the other day and said "This is so much good!"

And I got a good laugh this afternoon - I let them watch Cars, and during the big race scene at the beginning of the movie, they were both jumping up and down and yelling "Go, go, go!!!!"

With that, it's time for me to go, go, go to bed, since it's my turn to get up for the early shift tomorrow.

Recuperating

Another quiet day. Everyone was up early again, so we're all still dragging a bit, and although Dante is back to normal now, Gabe is still coughing quite a bit with this cold he has, so I wanted to just lay low.

We made a quick trip to CVS this morning to get a humidifier for Gabe's room - I thought it would really help with his cough and congestion. He was thrilled, and kept asking me all about it, and what it was, and what it would do, and when Scott came out of his office for lunch, Gabe ran over to him all excited, saying "Look, Daddy! Mommy got me something to help me get my coughs out."  (Not really what I told him it was for, but I guess something got lost in translation...)

The excitement continued when we filled up the humidifier and put it in his room before bed. And Dante even joined in with some enthusiastic comments.

But then when Scott was getting ready to plug it in and turn it on, Gabe totally freaked out, and insisted that we remove the humidifier from his room, and that he was scared of it. We tried and tried, but there was no convincing him that it was not an evil, terrible thing that was going to attack him while he slept. 

And frankly, this is a battle that we decided isn't worth fighting, so there will be no humidifying happening in Gabe's room. Kids are weird.

It was extremely windy today, but relatively warm, so I got the boys out for some fresh air this afternoon. We stayed out for about an hour, and they had a really good time playing ball and pushing their big Tonka trucks around.   

Today at lunch, they were having some cheese popcorn, and Gabe had finished his lunch and gotten down from the table, and told me he wanted to 'help' Dante finish his popcorn, so I told him that he had to ask Dante, not me. So he went over and said "Dante, can I have some of your popcorn, please?" 

Dante answered by picking up a piece of popcorn and putting it in Gabe's mouth, laughing hysterically the whole time. He proceeded to feed Gabe the rest of the popcorn from his plate, and they both thought it was just about the funniest thing ever - as did I. We all had a good giggle over it.

Yesterday Gabe started using a new phrase when he's exasparated - he walks around moaning "Oh, it's no use!"  I'm quite sure that he has absolutely no idea what it means, but he sure says it with feeling.

He makes me sad sometimes, though, when he's trying to do something and it doesn't work, and he says "I'm not so good at that."  Poor kid. If he whined while saying it, it would probably just be irritating, but he just acts so dejected and sad, it breaks my heart.

But he's still so goofy, too. Every time he takes his coat off, he pulls it off with a flourish and yells "Mommy - it's me, Gabe!"  as if he had been concealed in some sort of disguise, and I didn't know who he was : )

The other day, Gabe came running into the room and said "Look at that, Mommy!" as he jumped up, spun around, and kicked his leg out. So this morning when I came downstairs, Dante spun around and yelled "Look that, Mommy!"

Dante's two favorite phrases right now are "I will do it," and "What's that?"  But when he says "What's that," it comes out more like "sssat, Mommy?"  And the other day he started to say Daddy, but then realized he was talking to me, and ended up saying "sssat, Dommy?"

He was on a real Daddy kick today, and gave me a lot of trouble after Scott went in his office to start work. They almost never go down near the office, but this morning Dante was banging on the door and whining "Daddeeeeeeeeeee...."  I think he's just still really wiped out from being sick and not sleeping much, and he's always been partial to Scott, so when he's not feeling great, that's who he wants to spend time with. Instead he was stuck with me all day....

When we were in CVS today, an older woman walked by us, and I had the boys in the double stroller, and although it is narrow enough to maneuver in stores, it takes up quite a bit of space, and I had to move to the side to let her get by, and I said excuse me as I did so.

She told me not to worry, and then looked down and smiled at the boys and patted Gabe's head and said "I know it can be challenging, but enjoy every moment - they grow up so fast."

You can get some very silly - if well-meaning - advice from strangers when you're out with your kids, but this is such sound advice, and something I will never tire of hearing.

It is so, so easy to get caught up in the trials and tribulations of daily life, the ups and downs, and the petty annoyances.

But in the midst of all that, I have to always be mindful of just how lucky I am, and just how good I have it.

You Want A WHAT?!

Our nice weekend of family visits took a turn for the worse around midnight last night when Dante threw up all over our bed - and the night just went downhill from there. He didn't get sick again, thank god, but he was completely miserable and whiny, and didn't sleep much at all. So, of course, neither did we. I estimate that I got about 2 hours of sleep all night, and Scott didn't get much more.

I finally gave up around 5:30 am and came downstairs with Dante, and we laid on the couch and watched Noggin for a while.

At one point he got up and walked over to the refrigerator and started asking for pickles. I had to ask him twice to tell me again what he wanted, because I couldn't believe that the kid who had just thrown up a few hours ago would want a PICKLE, of all things. But he did in fact want a pickle, and he was really, really mad when I wouldn't let him have one. But I stuck to my guns, because I really did not want any more messes to clean up - especially messes involving pickles. Ewwwww.

He improved throughout the day, though, and ate toast, graham crackers, pretzels, and then mac & cheese for dinner, and drank quite a bit of water, and it all stayed where it was supposed to stay, so I'm hoping he's officially on the mend.

And now I'm just waiting to see if any of the rest of us are going to fall prey to whatever nasty little bug he had. I spent all day washing sheets and blankets and spraying the house with Lysol, and my hands are raw and red from washing them so much. We'll see if my efforts pay off.

The poor guy was so exhausted this morning that he fell asleep on the living room floor around 11:30. I didn't even bother bringing him to his crib - I just moved him to the couch and he napped there for about 2 hours. He probably could have used a 4-hour nap, but 2 hours was better than nothing.

Joining him in the utterly exhausted club was Gabe, who has a bad cough and runny nose, and who woke up at 4:30 this morning, and then wouldn't go back to sleep. He was practically falling asleep at the dinner table.

With everyone being so tired today - myself included - there was a fair amount of whining (again, myself included). But we didn't do much other than lay on the couch and watch tv, and play with matchbox cars. I would have loved to read them a bunch of books, but I'm fighting off a cold, too, and my main symptom right now is laryngitis, so an afternoon of reading aloud wasn't really a possibility.

We had an ok day, though, all things considered. 

And despite Dante being sick and miserable lastnight and this morning, we had a fun weekend, with Mom and Dad visiting on Saturday, and Greg, Diana and the kids visiting (and spending the night) last night. The kids all had so much fun together. I always love to see them together like that - they get each other so riled up, it's unbelievable.

We had two playdates scheduled for tomorrow, but obviously that's not gonna happen. And the gym is out, too - I want to wait at least one more day before bringing him in there. So tomorrow is going to be another quiet day lazing around the house. I'll have to come up with some projects to do or something, though. We watched far too much tv today, and I don't want to do that two days in a row.

And in the midst of all this, honestly, running and the half-marathon are the furthest things from my mind. Even if my knee felt fantastic, there's no way I would have been able to drag myself out for a run this morning. I could barely drag myself up and down the stairs, I was so tired.

I think if I can get a couple of good nights of sleep, I'll try for a short run on Wednesday or Thursday and see how things feel. It would be really fun to do the race, but if I can't, I can't.

Speaking of a good night's sleep..... time to get started on that.

Tapering To The Extreme

So, um, I haven't run all week.

Well, I tried to run Wednesday, and it didn't go so great.

My left knee is still in rough shape.  What I thought was just soreness from worn-out shoes appears to be something a bit more serious.

Here we go again. First injury of '08.

Half-marathon next weekend is very doubtful.

Strangely, though, I am not terribly upset about this. Disappointed, yes. And of course I wish I could go out for a run, and continue with my training. But I don't feel devastated the way I have every other time I've been injured. 

I'm oddly at peace with the whole situation, and actually found myself feeling glad that I'll be able to swim and lift weights more, since I won't be running all the time.

I really have no idea what's actually wrong with the knee, but I do know that it hurt the second I started running the other day - the pain was instantaneous. I'm icing it and taking Aleve, and it has improved, but not to the point where I could even think about running.

I'm registered for the half, and there are no refunds, so if by some miracle I feel up to running it next weekend, I will. But I'm not counting on it.

I'm also not rushing off to the dr. just yet. If I don't see any improvement after a couple weeks' rest, maybe I'll make an appt.

But in the meantime, I'm going to do all the other forms of exercise I'm fortunate enough to still be able to do.

I had a great swim today. I probably should have done drills, but really felt like just churning out some laps, and churn I did - just over a mile in 43 minutes, and it was awesome!  And I think I finally, finally have my goggles adjusted correctly. It only took three weeks!

And we've even had some days lately that have been warm enough to think about pulling the bike out of the basement and taking it for a spin, so before you know it, I'll have that option again.

I will get back to running eventually, and I will do another half-marathon eventually, and I will do a full marathon eventually. The races will be there waiting for me when I return, whether it's two weeks or six.

I keep wondering why I'm so ok with this, and why it's not upsetting me more - but I guess that really doesn't matter. I'll just be happy that I'm not upset.

After all, there is more to life than running - especially when you have two hilarious little boys to spend your days with.

Talk about a perfect segue.....

Gabe loves to talk to people on the phone, and he actually does really well with it. But I get a kick out of the fact that no matter who he's talking to, the first thing he asks is "What are you doin' at your house?"

Dante usually just holds the phone to his ear and laughs when we ask him to talk to someone, but today he did actually try to talk to Grammy a bit. He told her he had tunafish for lunch. Scintillating conversation : )

His language skills are phenomenal. When we were at Scott's brothers' house the other night for dinner, the kids watched Cars, and the other day Gabe was saying something about that, and Dante chimed in "We watched Cars at Uncle Bill's house."

That's a SIX-word sentence!  Go Dante!

With all the Valentine's cards and packages arriving in the mail this week, Gabe has been very excited about getting the mail every day, hoping that there will be something else for him. And his way of expressing that is to say "Did the mail got somethin' for me?"  So cute.

Scott goes into New York for business sometimes, and he talks to Gabe about it, and now Gabe keeps asking us when he can go to "You Nork City" with Daddy.

When Gabe was eating his cookie after dinner tonight, he told me that he was going to dream about cookies. I told him that sounded like a nice dream.

Personally, I'm going to dream about the leftover cheesecake I'm about to eat.

If you're ever inspired to make chocolate-orange cheesecake, go for it - it is well worth the effort!

Oh, and there's also one more reason to be happy.