Me and The Boys

Love At First Spin

My gym is finally going to start offering spinning classes - and the best part is that they're going to be FREE to members!  I've been wanting to try spinning for a long time, but never wanted to pay for it, so now's my chance.

I went to a 20-minute orientation tonight, and I am going to LOVE this. I was bummed when the 20 minutes was up.

They're not sure when classes are actually going to start, but I can't wait - this is definitely going to be a nice addition to my cross-training.

And my road bike is at the bike shop getting a tuneup, and will be ready to go on Friday, so as soon as we get a warm weekend day, I'm hitting the road.

Ran this morning, too, and it was definitely a recovery run, after Saturday's speedy 6.6-miler. Today's 3.5 miles was at just under a 9:00 pace. I needed a slow run today, that's for sure.

Boys are good. Nothing too exciting to report - just a typical day. Gym, park, naps, lots of fighting over playing with the new castle set.....   

A funny little Gabe-ism, though - we didn't actually open up the castle last night, because it contains roughly 3,000 tiny little plastic pieces. So when I was opening it up for him this morning, he was all excited and said "I can't wait! I hope this is gonna be really fun to play with!" 

And this afternoon when we went out to the store, they each wanted to bring one of the knight figurines with them, and Dante was holding his knight while also snacking on a bag of goldfish, and then he stuck the knight into the bag of goldfish and told me that the knight was swimming. Goofy kid.

Two Funnies And Two Workouts

This morning Gabe had to go to the bathroom, and I told him if he didn't want Dante to come in the bathroom and bother him, he should close the door. So he told me that he had to lock the door, because he needed "some energy."  In between giggles, I asked him if he meant "privacy," and he said yes.

Yesterday while grocery shopping, I was telling Dante about all the things we were buying, and as we walked by the cauliflower I told him what it was, and he leaned over to it and started sniffing. I did say it was a "flower," after all!

I dragged my lazy butt to the gym yesterday and swam. I didn't want to do it, but I knew I'd feel guilty if I didn't. It was far from a great swim, though. I had planned on doing a bunch of 50s, 100s, and 200s, leading up to a 1000, but halfway through the 1000, I had to stop and take a break. I could have finished it out, but I was feeling tired and I knew my form was getting really sloppy, so I thought it would be better to stop and split it into 2 x 500. I'm glad I did, because I felt much better after the break. I finished up with a few more 200s, 100s, and 50s, for a total of 2000 meters.

I timed myself for the 500s, and I completed both of them in just about 13 minutes. That seems faster than I thought I was swimming. I always feel like I'm so slow. And I know 500 meters in 13 minutes isn't super speedy, but like I said, it's just faster than I thought I was swimming. 

Got out nice and early for a run this morning. My Garmin flaked out on me, though, and I had to drive the route later with the boys to see just how far I had gone - 3.6 miles in 32:40. Sluggish, and that's how the whole run felt. Not terrible, but just sluggish. I'm not looking for a PR in the race this weekend, but I definitely hope to run a little faster than I did today.

It was snowing and sleeting last night, and I thought I was going to be running in cold, wet weather this morning, but it turned out to be around 35 and mostly dry, which was a nice surprise. I'm doing everything I can to avoid running on the treadmill. I'll run in the cold, and I'll run in the rain - what's going to force me inside is icy roads, so I'm hoping we don't have any of those for quite a while.

My knee is still feeling ok. And I just ordered my new sneakers from Zappos - free overnight shipping! - so if the order gets out today, I'll have them in time for my next run on Wednesday.

Finger Bud

We had our first music class today, and it went well. Gabe did a really great job of listening and following directions, which made me very happy, as that's something he often, ahem, has a little bit of trouble with. Dante was actually a bit more shy and reserved than I thought he'd be, but I think after we've gone to one or two more classes, he'll open up a bit.

It was pretty funny, though - at one point, we were singing a song and she told us to all get up and march around the room, but Dante wanted nothing to do with that. So I grabbed Gabe's hand and we started walking, and I was figuring that Dante would get up and come running after us. Nope. He just laid there on the floor covering his head with his hands and sobbing. Needless to say, we sat out the rest of that march.

It was a fun class, though, and aside from Dante's refusal to march, both he and Gabe seemed to enjoy it. Their favorite part was at the end of class, when the teacher opened up a suitcase that contained maraccas, tambourines, bells, cymbals, and just about every musical noisemaker you could imagine, and just let the kids grab whatever they wanted and make noise. And make noise they did. It was complete chaos, but they were all having a blast, so it was fun.

A few random Gabe-isms -

Last night he was whining about wanting to go outside after dinner, so I told him that if he helped me clean up, we'd get outside faster. He was happy to help, so I gave him a sponge and asked him to wash the table, which he did (well, sort of). And when he was done, he came running over to give me the sponge, and said 'Thank you for my help!" 

As we pulled out of the garage the other morning, Gabe started bidding farewell to all the stuff in the garage. "Bye, stroller. Bye, bikes. Bye, lawnmower."  And he did the same thing when we were going upstairs for bed last night. "Bye, table. Bye, couch. Bye, toys."   He also has little conversations with the cats now. I heard him in our room tonight talking to Chloe. "Hi Chloe. Are you sleeping? I'm going to bed now, too."

Oh, I almost forgot - Dante said TWO new words today!  He was wearing a pair of socks that had Pooh Bear on them, and a few times during the day, I pointed out Pooh and repeated the word again and again, trying to get him to repeat it. And finally, during dinner, he was looking at his socks and he said, clear as day, "Pooh." 

And then, as if that wasn't enough, while we were brushing his teeth tonight, he looked at the picture of a train that's on his toothbrush and said "choo choo."

I'm soooooo happy and proud of him!!!!! Yay Dante!!!!!!

Something I've been meaning to jot down for a while is how Dante now, in addition to the pacifier he has in his mouth at naptime and bedtime, also likes to have a pacifier to hold onto. And we still have a few of the soothie pacifiers - the kind they give you in the hospital.

Well, the funny thing about the soothie pacifiers is that they have a hole that is perfectly sized for a toddler's finger, and Dante discovered this, and loves to stick the pacifier on his finger. And even funnier is that we call his pacifier his "bud," so when he has the soothie pacifier jammed down over his finger like that, we call it "finger bud." So now he's got his regular bud in his mouth, and his finger bud on his finger. And yes, I am thoroughly dreading the day we decide it's finally time to lose the bud, as he clearly has a very unhealthy addiction.

An accomplishment for Gabe this week, too - he seems to understand counting now. He's been able to count for a while now, in the sense that he was able to recite the numbers in the proper order. But if we asked him to count something (blocks, or something like that), he'd just kind of point randomly, and count for a minute, ending at a number that was usually not even close to the actual number of objects we had asked him to count. But yesterday, he was looking at the box from the Hot Wheels car track, and it had pictures of 5 different matchbox cars on it, and he looked at it and pointed to each picture in turn, appropriately counting "one, two, three, four, five." I'm pretty proud of him. I don't know if that's something he "should" be able to do by now or not, but I think it's great that he can!

Just two more things, then I have to devote my full attention to the Sox game.

Gabe loves to correct us now, if we say something inaccurate. Last week, Scott said something to Gabe about how he was going to go to art school on Friday morning. Gabe got very serious and said "No, Daddy, it's art CLASS."

And finally, the funniest moment of my entire day - this morning I told Gabe that we were going to be going to music class, and he was asking me about where it was and who would be there - normal questions. Then he said "Mommy, are you gonna rock out?"

I was laughing so hard, I couldn't even answer him.

'Tis The Season

The season of sickness begins. Gabe has a full-blown cold/upper respiratory thing, complete with fever. He woke up at 2am and would not go back to sleep, so he and I came downstairs and watched TV. This is one of those times I realize why it IS a good thing to have a 24-hour TV channel of PBS programming for preschoolers. He was pretty miserable - and feverish - all morning, but seemed to be feeling slightly better around lunchtime, and ate a pretty good lunch, actually, so hopefully he's turning the corner. His cough and congestion started Sunday morning when we were in CT, and I was hoping it wouldn't turn into anything worse than a little cold, but alas, it did.

Dante's nose is running like a faucet, but no other symptoms as of yet, so hopefully it will stay that way. It's just a shame that Gabe is so under the weather, because it's an absolutely gorgeous day, and we've been stuck inside all morning. If his fever is gone, and he seems in good spirits, I think I'll take them outside to play this afternoon.

I was pretty exhausted this morning, after being up for several hours in the middle of the night, but I knew that since Gabe was sick, I wouldn't be able to get to the gym today, so I dragged myself out for a run this morning before Scott had to be in to work. I'm glad I did. I was a bit sluggish, but still managed 3.4 miles in just over 30 minutes, so not all that sluggish.

We were supposed to have playgroup today, too, but obviously we had to bail on that. Hopefully we'll be able to make it to the next one. I'm just glad I hadn't mentioned it to Gabe.....

So, we had a great time in CT this weekend. The kids had so much fun playing together, as always. I got a great video clip of Gabe, Dante, Mason and HR running around like maniacs after dinner. I'll be sure to upload it and post it later. Since I went down with them by myself, we all slept in the same room together, and as I expected, we all ended up sleeping in the same bed. It's not the ideal situation, but in some ways, it's kind of nice to be all snuggled up with them. Not something I'd want to do on a regular basis, but it is kind of fun.

Neither of them took naps on Saturday, and of course they were both completely wired and hyper Saturday night - and overtired, to boot - so there was a bit of a meltdown when I brought them upstairs to put them to bed, and Dante realized that I was planning on leaving the room. His sobbing caused Gabe to start sobbing, and in the end, I just laid down in bed with them until Dante fell asleep. Gabe seemed ok with me leaving, but after I went downstairs and listened to the monitor for a while, and heard that he was nowhere near ready to go to sleep, I went and got him and brought him downstairs, where he sat in the living room and watched the Red Sox game with Mom and Dad.

It was pretty cute to see him sitting there chatting with Mom about the game. We always tell him to say "Go Red Sox!", so he asked her where the Red Sox were going : )  When I see him having actual conversations with people like that, it makes me realize just how big he's getting.

The first thing he wants to do whenever we go to CT now is play with Mike. He and Mike go in the attic playroom and play matchboxes, or rescue heroes, or Legos, and Gabe is just in heaven. It's odd for me to just let him go somewhere without my supervision like that, and it's not that I don't trust Mike - it just feels wrong to not be right there with Gabe, making sure he doesn't do anything he's not supposed to do, or that he doesn't get hurt.....  I guess I better get used to it, though, because it's going to be happening more and more.

He's still my baby boy, though. Every morning when he gets up, one of the first things he asks is "Is Mommy readin' me books tonight?" Scott and I take turns putting them to bed, and Gabe always wants me to be the one to put him to bed. I think it's hysterical, though, that he's thinking about that practically before he's even gotten out of bed in the morning! And the other night, just out of the blue, he said "You're my great Mommy!"  And this morning, in his feverish state, when we came downstairs to watch TV, he hugged me and said "I love sitting with you on the couch."

A few more things about Gabe - we were eating some strawberries with breakfast the other day, and he said "Mmmm....these strawberries are nice and fresh and fruity!" And this morning, when I was giving him his Tylenol, he was trying to say 'This is going to make me feel better," but it came out as "This feel me better."

So many Gabe-isms, so little time....

Dante is doing well. He's occasionally saying "boo" for 'boo-boo," and says "uh-oh!" all the time. And he's saying "Hi," too. So his language is coming along, slowly but surely. And his sign language is still going well, too. He's using it much more deliberately now. Oh, and he peed on the potty again last night, too! He was so proud of himself.

This morning when I came home from my run, I was going through my usual 20-minute stretching routine, and when I was standing against the wall stretching my calves, he came over and leaned against the wall and put his foot up against the wall, just like I was doing. It was so cute!

He's a real mischief-maker, though. Just like his daddy in ALL respects. He's been climbing for a while, but he's recently discovered that he can push the kitchen chairs over to the counters and climb up and reach everything that's up there. Gabe, for one reason or another, never picked up on this, and I am none too thrilled that Dante has.

Finally, A Non-Biathlon-Related Post (Well, Almost)

Ok, so, forgive me for the seemingly endless biathlon talk. It was a pretty huge event for me, though, and it was hard for me to not bask in the glow a bit. I'm done going on and on about it - all I'll mention at this point is that I'm feeling nicely recovered now. I was actually pretty sore on Monday, and still a bit sore yesterday, too. I've still "got it" in terms of being able to complete events like this, but every year I feel it a little bit more, and I take a little bit longer to bounce back.

I made it out for a run yesterday morning, though, and although my muscles were sore, the run felt great - and check out the nice negative splits -

Mile 1: 9:25
Mile 2: 8:59
Mile 3: 8:00 !!!! 

Not too shabby for two days post-biathlon. I also went for a swim later in the morning (1650 meters, mostly freestyle, with some breaststroke and backstroke thrown in). No, I certainly didn't need to do a double workout, but now that I'm getting a good comfort level in the water, I don't want to lose it, and the best way to keep a good feel for the water is to get in it at least twice a week, so in the pool I went - and had a great swim, so I'm glad I did it.

But, ENOUGH about me already! I haven't updated on the boys in ages, so here goes -

Alright, this is also race-related, but I have to share a cute conversation Gabe and I had on Sunday morning. I told him that I was going to do a race, and he pointed to my shirt and said "Is that your racing shirt?" I said "Yes, I guess it is." He thought for a minute and said "Are you gonna get hot at your race?" And I said "Yeah, I probably will get hot when I'm running." Then he thought about it again, and said "Well, that's ok, you'll have watermelon." At his Youth Track meets this summer, they had watermelon for the kids, so I guess he thinks that all races have watermelon : )

Gabe had his first dentist appointment on Monday. It went pretty well. He let the hygenist check his teeth, and he let her brush his bottom teeth, but after that he refused to cooperate, and she wasn't able to brush any more. She said that was pretty typical for a first visit - and that he actually did better than a lot of kids do.

I learned a few things, too - we need to be better about brushing morning and night (we always do nighttime brushing, but aren't so good about the morning); we should really start flossing his teeth (that should be interesting!); and we should gradually switch him over to regular adult toothpaste, rather than the strawberry-flavored kids' kind. All in all, a good visit - the best news, of course, was that he has no cavities!  And he's on a regular dental checkup schedule now, so we go back in 6 months - at which time he'll be FOUR! 

We had an Early Intervention appointment this afternoon, to review Dante's evaluation and discuss the plan moving forward, which is as follows - he'll have a speech therapist come to the house every other week to work with him, and they'll also give me ideas for things I can do in the intervening weeks to help him with his language development. My first assignment is to work with him to make "m, p, and b" sounds. He can make an "m" sound, and yesterday actually said "boo" for boo-boo, so he can do the "b" sound, too, but that's still something I can work on with him.

In addition to that, I'll be taking both Gabe and Dante to a weekly music class that's run by our EI service coordinator. The class will include a lot of vocal exercises that she thinks will be helpful for Dante, and I think both he and Gabe will really enjoy it. And, um, it's free, so why wouldn't I take them??!!! 

So between the music class and the speech therapist, and just his natural growth and development, hopefully he'll be a bit chattier by the time his 2nd birthday rolls around. He also said "uh-oh" yesterday, for the first time ever, so he is starting to talk more all by himself, which is great. One other thing he says is "phew!"  If he lifts or pushes something that's kind of heavy, when he's done pushing it around, he looks up at you and says "phew!" It's a riot : )

And finally, as is standard procedure for kids with a speech delay, we're taking him for a hearing test tomorrow morning. I don't anticipate any issues, but it's obviously better to get it checked out, so that's what we'll do.

He may not be talking much, but he is making no shortage of LOUD noises, and is a champion roughhouser. Last night we were playing in the living room after dinner, and he was just running back and forth between me and Scott, throwing himself at us and laughing hysterically. And I remember Gabe doing EXACTLY the same thing when he was this age. Something that's really crazy to think about is that Dante is almost 21 months old now, which is how old Gabe was when Dante was born. I cannot even fathom being on the verge of having a newborn right now!!!!!!

Gabe is still a constant source of entertainment, of course. One night last week we were eating dinner, and Dante put a piece of roasted potato in his mouth, decided he didn't like it, and spit it out. I said something like "Well, I guess he doesn't like those, huh?" And I guess Gabe was feeling bad for me, so he said "I love these potatoes, Mommy," and popped one in his mouth and started chewing it...... and then promptly spit it out and said "yuck." At least he tried....

We've been listening to some Disney CDs in the car lately, and every time a song starts, Gabe asks me what the song is called and what it's from. He's obsessed with knowing what movie the songs come from, even when he has no idea what the movie is. They're not too bad to listen to - some annoying songs, but most of them are ok.

We went shopping one day last week and got a few Halloween decorations and got Gabe's costume, too. I was going to try to put together a clown costume myself, rather than buy one, but then I saw an adorable clown jumpsuit at the party store for $10, so I grabbed it. It fits perfectly, and he loves it. He tried it on that night, and wanted to wear it to bed!  I love how toddlers have absolutely NO concept of time, though - he kept asking me if it was going to be Halloween after dinner, or after his nap tomorrow. And he's been walking around just randomly saying "Trick or treat!" I guess he's warming up for the big day....

Last night we just happened to dress both Gabe and Dante in Thomas pjs, and they both thought that was the coolest thing. I think Dante was especially pleased to be wearing pjs that were just like Gabe's. They were really getting along particularly well that night, and when we sat down to read books, Gabe reached over and hugged Dante so nicely - it was so sweet. And when they were having their baths, after Scott had washed Dante's hair, Gabe looked at it and said "His hair looks great!"

They're quite a pair. We took them to the park Sunday afternoon, and they wanted to go play in the tennis courts. There was nobody playing tennis, but there was a tennis ball that had been left behind, so Gabe and Dante spent a good half hour running around the courts chasing a tennis ball around. It was a great way for them to burn off some energy, and now Gabe keeps asking to go to the park and "play tennis."

Gabe had me in hysterics the other day, too. He was running around upstairs and dancing - seeing him dance is funny enough,and usually that alone makes me laugh. But as he was dancing, he was also yelling "I'm rockin' out!"  And then he came over to me and yelled "Rock out!" Too funny....

And, as I like to sometimes do, I'll close with a classic Gabe-ism. He pushed Dante the other day at the park, and I made the mistake of saying "Gabe, why would you do something like that?"

His answer - "Because I can."

 

I never should have asked.

Who Needs Toys?

Yes, I could easily buy the boys some kind of plastic car track/garage contraption that they could drive their matchboxes on, and as a matter of fact, that's one of the things I'm planning on getting them for Christmas, but until then, this will do just fine -

 

That white box came from the local warehouse store, and used to hold many, many juice boxes. But once it was emptied, I held onto it, because I just knew it would come in handy for something. And did it ever.

Sometimes I think they like the handmade, improvised toys even better than the store-bought ones. To add to the fun, tomorrow we're going to decorate the box - stickers and markers and crayons, oh my!

I don't think I've mentioned how well Dante is doing feeding himself with a fork and a spoon. I don't like to compare my kids, but Dante's fine motor skills are way ahead of where Gabe was at this age. It's just something he obviously really has a knack for - he still needs some help with a fork, but he's doing really well with it already. And now that he knows he can use a fork to eat, he wants to use it to eat everything. it's great to see him doing so well with it, though.

And in case you haven't had your fill of Gabe-isms lately, here's a few choice ones -

Scott was at the office today, and he called me around dinnertime and I had him talk to Gabe for a few minutes. This was the last little bit of their conversation:

Scott:  Make sure that you're a good boy, and you listen to Mommy.

Gabe: Well......  I don't know about that.

This afternoon, before Dante woke up from his nap, Gabe and I did Play-Doh for a while, and he was really enjoying it. Then he wanted to get out the big exercise ball that we have, and since Dante wasn't around to get knocked over by the ball, I told Gabe it was ok for him to play with it in the living room. So he spent the next 20 minutes pushing the ball around, yelling "Make your OWN video show!" over and over again. If you're wondering what he was talking about, you're in good company, because I have no earthly idea.

I asked him why he was saying that, and who he had heard say that, thinking that maybe it was something he heard on a TV show. But he told me that "Grammy says that."  ??????   I can't think of a single instance in which Grammy would have said "Make your own video show," so now I'm even more baffled. But amused, too.

After we put him to bed, we usually come downstairs and read the paper or watch tv , so we're generally not making much - if any - noise. But tonight when I came down, I had to quick mop the kitchen floor, because we're having playgroup here tomorrow morning. So I'm mopping, and I hear Gabe yelling for me, and we had the following conversation:

Gabe: "Mommy, what are you doin' down there?" 

Me: Gabe, you need to go to sleep." 

Gabe: "Mommy, you cleanin'?  Why are you cleanin'?"

Me: "Gabe, lay down and go to sleep."

Gabe: "I just can't sleep."

Me: "Then play quietly."

Gabe: "Well..... Ok, Mommy."

I had really hoped there'd be nothing to write about potty training at this point, but we are unfortunately STILL having some issues with Gabe pooping in the potty, and I'm 100% certain that it's nothing but indifference on his part. And truthfully, I think it's partially a control thing - he knows that we can't FORCE him to poop on the potty, and it really doesn't bother him to poop in his pants, and he knows that we don't want him to do that, so of course, that's what he does.

It's not every day, but it's often enough, and my new - and final, because I am flat out of ideas - tactic is to have him clean himself up if he poops in his pants. I made him do it two days ago, and I made him do it again today. He seemed far more disgusted by it today, so I'm hoping that it made enough of an impression on him that he will STOP POOPING HIS PANTS! I was just very matter-of-fact about it, and I told him that I know he can poop on the potty (he does it at least 3 or 4 times a week), and that he should not be pooping in his underwear, and if he chooses to poop in his underwear, he's going to clean it up from now on.

Now obviously I still have to do most of the actual cleanup, but I let him do enough of it to see just how disgusting and gross it is. And I'll tell you, if this doesn't deter him, then hats off to the kid, because I don't know many people who wouldn't be grossed out by it.....

And in closing - every night Gabe asks me to sing him "Twinkle, Twinkle" when I put him to bed. And while I sing it, he likes to hold two of his favorite stuffed animals and "rock" them. Sweet, right? Except that he rocks them with enough momentum to give them a severe case of whiplash. He is a boy with a capital "B"!

Bloggity Blog Blog

Our Labor Day party was fantastic. We ended up with close to 40 people, and just about the best weather we could possibly have hoped for. It was warm, dry, and sunny - just gorgeous. As with last year, there were tons of kids in attendance, and they all had a great time playing together. That's one of the best parts of having parties like this, I think - watching all the kiddos run around.

Gabe and Dante had a super time. Gabe was so excited all morning, waiting for people to arrive, and when he woke up the next morning, the first thing he said was "Are we having a party today?" Unblievably, they both napped in the afternoon, too. I didn't know if they would, but I'm glad they did, because it gave them enough energy to hang out and play with their cousins Nick and Jake, who were the last to leave shortly after 7pm. (That's the best part of having a daytime party - even after all the cleanup, you can still get to bed at a reasonable hour!)

The rest of the weekend was fully devoted to the beach. We spent all of Sunday and Monday on the sand and in the water. The weather was perfect both days, and it was a really nice way to end the summer. And the boys were both so tired from Saturday's festivities that they took really good naps both Sunday and Monday, which gave Scott and I some quiet time on the beach, which was pretty nice, too.

So, summer is done. The wagon has been cleaned and put in the shed, the beach backpack is stored in the closet, and our weekends are no longer going to be spent coated with sunblock and sand. I'm sad to see beach season ending, but I'm also glad it's fall. This is by far my favorite time of year, and I'm looking forward to having our weekends back. As much as I love going to the beach, it occupies our summer weekends completely, such that we rarely get much of anything else done. So it will be nice to be free to make other plans on the weekend.

There is, of course, much to write about the boys, and I will just write it as I think of it -

One of Gabe's new signature phrases is "I wish I had...."  He was sitting on his little chair this morning watching TV, and he said "I wish I had some milk."  He also picked up on something I said last week - we were having ravioli for dinner, and I called it "ravioli-olie-olie-o," and he thought that was just hysterical, and that's what he calls it now.

As I wrote above, he had a fabulous time at the party on Saturday, and as our last guests were leaving and we were getting ready to head inside, he said sadly "I miss my cousins." I think it's so great that he and Dante have so many cousins who are so close in age, and that they get to spend a good amount of time with them. 

All summer, I've been dealing with a whine-fest whenever we get in the car, because it gets so hot when we're parked somewhere (at the gym, or the store). And when Gabe gets in the super-hot car, he sits there and whines "It's tooooooo hotttttttttt...."  Finally, a few weeks ago, I decided to turn the whole thing into a big joke, and I asked him if it was so hot that he was melting. He whined "yes." So I went even further and asked him if he was turning into a big gooshy, smooshy pile of gooey Gabe goo? It worked - he started giggling and stopped whining. Hallelujah! So now whenever we get in the car and it's hot, he says he's melting, and we go through the whole gooey Gabe goo routine. Thank god for humor.

Gabe is also seriously into rescuing and saving things. Largely because he watches Go, Diego Go! every night while I make dinner, and every show is about Diego rescuing some sort of animal. So whenever Gabe plays, there's always someone 'crying for help,' and someone else coming to rescue them. And the other day we were at a stop light, and there was a delivery truck in front of us, and Gabe asked me if the truck was going to save someone. He's also seen The Wonder Pets a few times, and they're always rescuing someone, too, so I think that's got something to do with it. And he LOVES the Wonder Pets song and sings it all the time. So guess what song I have playing in my head constantly?????

I asked him last week what he wanted to dress as for Halloween, and he said "I want to wear gloves." With a little more prompting, he finally decided that he wanted to dress as a clown. With a big nose. And a big red mouth. And, of course, gloves. I am THRILLED - I can't wait to see him dressed up as a little clown! And I think the odds are pretty good that this is the last year he'd be willing to - never mind WANT to - wear a costume like that, so I'm glad he's up for it.

Dante is going to wear the same devil costume Gabe wore two years ago, and it will be just as appropriate on Dante as it was on Gabe. I love my youngest son dearly, but he is truly testing his limits. And one of his favorite tests is the Screech At The Top of My Lungs Until Gabe Joins In And We're Both Screeching And Mommy Tears Her Hair Out In Frustration.

I fail that test miserably.

And truthfully, I would rather eat with a chimpanzee than share a meal with Dante right now. He has got to be the messiest child on the planet. Pigpen isn't even adequate as a nickname. And things have gotten even worse now that he's discovered how much he likes to dip things. Tonight, we were having some leftover veggies and dip, and in addition to dipping his veggies in the ranch dip, he was dipping his pasta in it, too. And at one point he whipped a piece of his pasta around so that some drops of ranch dip went flying across the room. I think that fully explains why Scott and I tend to eat dinner AFTER they boys are in bed on Saturday and Sunday nights. A meal that doesn't involve screeching and wiping up half-chewed-and-then-spit-out food is a beautiful thing.

Dante also has a real knack for losing an entire meal's worth of food in his booster seat. I took him out of the seat the other day and put him down on the floor, and as he went running into the living room, he left a trail of pasta, bread, broccoli, and grapes.

In one of my most horrifying parenting moments yet, I thought that I had broken Dante's finger on Friday. We were at the grocery store, and he was in the little car that attaches to the front of the carriage, and since those things are extra-wide, they tend to get caught against the edge of the cash register when you push them down the checkout lane. Well, that's exactly what happened as I pushed the carriage down the checkout lane Friday morning, not realizing that Dante had his hand outside the car, and that little tiny hand got caught in between the car and the cash register.

I felt sick when I realized what I had done, and scooped him up immediately to see how bad his hand looked. Since I didn't really see it happening, I didn't know if his fingers had gotten bent back, or just scraped. As it turns out, his thumb just got badly scraped up, and thank god, nothing was broken. But he was still screaming and crying, and I was desperately trying to calm him down while also trying to pay for the groceries while also trying to make sure that his hand wasn't swelling to the size of a balloon.

When we got home, I got him a band-aid and the boo-boo buddy (a cloth-covered icepack), and bless his little heart, he took the boo-boo buddy and held it to his head. Even though it was his thumb that had the boo-boo. Thankfully it actually looks fine now, so it wasn't a big deal, but I will definitely be more cautious when pushing the carriage through the checkout line from now on.

And one final tidbit. Since Gabe napped late in the afternoon on Saturday (from 3 - 5pm), and since the party didn't wind down until after 7pm, he was still pretty riled up when we put him to bed at 8pm, and he stayed up for a while playing in his room. When I went to bed a little later, I checked on him and realized that he had pooped (he still wears a diaper at night).

So I was getting him cleaned up, and I figured I'd talk up the whole "big boys poop on the potty" thing, using all his cousins as an example, since he had had such a great time with them. So I was going on and on, telling him how all his cousins are big boys and they all poop on the potty, and didn't he want to do his poops on the potty so that he could be a big boy like Nick and Jake and Mike?

He thought about it for a minute, and then said "No, I just wanna be Gabe."

And, well, I can't argue with that.

More Running Talk, And More Gabe and Dante Talk

Another day, another run - yippee! 

I did the same 4 minutes running/2 minutes walking routine, and I ran for a total of 26 minutes. I was running a tad bit faster today than I did the other day, though, so I think I probably came close to 2.5 miles running. It wasn't quite as euphoric as my run on Monday, but I think that's because it was a lot warmer - I had to run later in the day than I'm used to. But it was still really, really awesome! I want to run again tomorrow, but I know that's not wise. And I'm even going to wait another day, and not run again until Saturday morning. I know I'm still very susceptible to reinjuring this stupid shin right now, so I'm playing it real safe for a while.

I had my followup with the orthopedist on Tuesday morning. I never even wrote about that, as it was kind of overshadowed by the whole biopsy ordeal. But the orthopedist visit went well. I had to bring the boys with me, but I gave them each a donut, which helped keep them mostly quiet. And a very nice nurse also came by with stickers for them, so between the donut and the stickers, they did pretty well. So the doc's advice is to keep being cautious as I ease back into running, and if it feels like it's flaring up again, to go immediately to the Aleve and icing routine, and to keep up with the PT exercises at home.

Something he told me that I found interesting, though, is that it's not necessarily a bad idea to take Aleve prior to running. I had always thought that was a bad practice, as you'd basically just be masking any pain you might be having, and could end up running through a bad injury (and making it worse) and not even realizing it. But, as he pointed out, Aleve's primary function is as an anti-inflammatory, so if I'm feeling like my shin is on the verge of acting up again, it wouldn't be bad at all to take an Aleve before I run, to keep the inflammation from occurring - or at least keep it to a minimum. Obviously I don't want to be in a position where I have to take Aleve to get through every run, but it is good to know that I can use it to head off any potential problems in the future.

And now that I'm thinking that the biathlon is probably doable for me this year - even if I have to take walk breaks - I'm thinking that I really have to get back on my bike soon! I've been slacking with my biking the past few weeks - because I've been getting so caught up in the swimming and working on getting back into the running, and have been finding it hard to find time to do everything I want to do! But if I want to make a decent showing at this race in a few weeks, I have to find the time, so I will.

And that's enough blabbering about myself.....   on to the boys -

Gabe's pushing and hitting have been on the upswing lately. He seems to go through phases where he'll get really bad with it, and then he gets better, and then we have a really bad phase again. So this is a bad phase, and poor Dante is on the receiving end of all of it.  I'm really struggling with keeping my cool and not yelling, because it makes me SO angry when Gabe is just constantly pushing or hitting Dante. I hate to see him act downright mean, and I know I have to do better about remaining calm about the whole thing, but man, it's hard.

So last night, as I was getting ready to make dinner, I told him that if he did anything to hurt Dante, he wouldn't be able to go outside to play after dinner. And guess what happened?  About 15 minutes before we sat down to dinner, he kicked Dante. For absolutely no reason. So he and I stayed inside and watched Scott and Dante play outside after dinner. Gabe was pretty bummed.

And tonight, once again, as I was getting ready to make dinner, I told him that if he pushed, kicked, or hit Dante, he wouldn't be able to go outside after dinner. Not even 15 minutes later, I caught him hitting Dante in the head with a Matchbox car!  He sat in a time-out, I took the Matchbox cars away, and I told him that if he hit, pushed, or kicked Dante again, he would go straight upstairs to bed and I wouldn't read him any books.

He held out until after dinner, but about 5 minutes after we were done eating, there he was, giving Dante a very hard shove that sent him to the floor. So upstairs he went, and he was in bed at 6:45. He was NOT happy, and he cried a lot, and it's one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. I was almost crying as I put him in bed. But what else CAN I do?  Nothing seems to get through to him, and although I don't expect that he's never going to hit Dante again, I do expect that he should not be pushing/kicking and/or hitting him every 10 minutes. It's not really THAT often, but it has gotten out of hand. And he never really hurts Dante, but it's just a really mean way to act, and I feel like I've gotta stop it, and I've got to get through to him about how wrong it is to act that way.

I don't know. I don't know if I'm doing the right thing. I don't know if I did something horribly before now to cause him to act this way. I don't know if going to bed early with no books is drastic enough to get him to turn his behavior around. But if it isn't, I'm really running out of ideas.......

He's not a bad kid, I know he's not. And just as much as he takes out his aggression on Dante, he also loves him to pieces, and can turn around and be so kind to him. They were playing together last night in the hallway, just running back and forth and chasing each other, and it was the cutest thing. 

He is still very cute in other respects, too. Yesterday morning I had them all set up at the kitchen table with markers and paper, and I caught Gabe drawing on his hand, so I reminded him to color only on the paper. So he looked at me and said "It's just marker, Mommy!"  As the words came out of his mouth, I had a vivid memory of a recent occasion when he got some marker on his hands accidentally, and I said something like "Oh, it's ok, it's just marker; we'll wash it off."   Ooops. 

We came home from the beach on Sunday, and it was hot and disgustingly humid - just one of those classic August in New England type of days. And we had told Gabe he could watch a movie while we got dinner ready. His choice - the Christmas Classics Sing-Along DVD. So, with the A/C humming in the background, we were treated to a little December preview.

Dante is becoming quite interested in the potty. He likes to sit on it, but will usually only sit for about 2 seconds, which is, of course, not long enough. We try putting him on the potty every night after his bath, because he seems to have started a habit of peeing on the floor right after his bath. So now the new habit is that he sits on the potty for 2 seconds, gets up, walks across the room, and pees on the floor. He has peed right in front of the potty a few times, too - does that count as the "first step" in potty training?

What he lacks in potty skills, though, he makes up for with signing. It's funny, too, because if he doesn't know the sign for something, he'll just make random gestures with his hands, all the while with a quizzical look on his face, as if he's waiting for us to tell him what the sign is. I look up as many as I can, because it's so awesome to see him communicating, and he picks them up so quickly now. The last time we were in Target, he saw the dog on the Target signs and started doing the sign for "dog" - I was so proud of him!

And the kid has got some moves, too! He loves to dance now, and will play his musical toys and just rock out. There is nothing as funny as watching a toddler dance - they don't care one bit what they look like; they just do what they want to do, and they have SO MUCH FUN doing it! 

A Whole Lotta Random Stuff

Although I'm still feeling a bit giddy that I was able to write this earlier today, I'm going to refrain from going on and on and on and on about how excited I am to be running again. And how I'm already looking forward to going out again on Wednesday. And how I'm already pondering what my first race is going to be......  I'll save all that for another day : )

We had a fabulous weekend. Now that the end of summer is just around the corner, and since the weather was ideal for beachgoing, we packed up and went on both Saturday and Sunday. We're all pretty wiped out as a result, but we had two fabulous days. The past few times we've gone, the boys have actually both taken decent naps in the stroller. We have to walk up and down the beach with them to get them to sleep, but that's fine, because it's something we'd probably do anyway. And when they nap, they're decidedly more pleasant in the afternoon, so it's well worth it. 

We saw a few friends and relatives (of Scott's) there Saturday, too, which was fun. It's always fun to show off the boys to people who don't get to see them very often : ) 

Gabe has come up with a few Gabe-isms recently, which I will, of course, share here -

Lately when we ask him a question, before he answers us, he says "hmmmm......interesting....."

Also, in addition to exclaiming "Hey, that sounds like a great idea!"  he now also sometimes says "That's fantastic!"

One Gabe-ism that I did not find particularly amusing, though, was when I put him in a time-out the other day, and he sat there and looked at me and said "You gotta be kiddin' me, Mommy!"  (Ok, yes, it was funny, but really, really annoying, too!)

They're both enjoying having the train tracks back. One of the accessories we have is a little building that's made to look like an ice cream shop, and every time Gabe plays trains, he has the trains drive up to this little store and he says "Grammy, may I have some ice cream?'  And Grammy always answers "Of course!"

We're going to really have to watch Gabe around the phone now. This morning I was in the shower, and I thought I heard the phone ring, and sure enough, when I got out of the shower, I heard him in the other room saying "I'm three years old." So I walk in, and there he is sitting on the chair with the phone to his ear. Luckily it was a friend who was calling to rsvp to the party we're having this weekend, and she has a 4-year-old daughter, so she understood. And I'm not even worried so much about him answering the phone - I just don't want him accidentally placing any calls!

Dante was really funny at the beach yesterday. He kept going over to Scott's parents' cooler and trying to open it, and eventually he did figure out how to open it, and he just kept pulling things out and asking to eat them. He did nothing but eat while we were there yesterday, and half of what he ate belonged to Scott's parents!  Luckily they know that this is how he is, so they always bring extra snacks. He also kept wanting to drink out of our water bottles, and the water was very cold, so every time he took a sip, he'd shudder, as if to say "brrrrrrr."

We're teaching him so many signs now, and he picks them up so quickly. I taught him vacuum, help, airplane, and a few others. He does "help" all the time, which is a great one. And I think he's finally learning "thank you," which will be nice.

Oh, he did the funniest thing last night after dinner, too. I gave them both Jello, and I gave Dante a small baby spoon, but of course Gabe had a regular spoon, and Dante absolutely freaked out until we gave him a regular spoon, too. He's always wanted to do everything that Gabe does, but that seems to have intensified lately - I didn't think it could get any more intense, but it has.

Meanwhile, I'm still in waiting mode, and really hoping my doctor calls me tomorrow with the biopsy results. If she hasn't called by tomorrow afternoon, I'll be putting a call in to the office. A lot of times over the course of the day, I totally forget about this whole thing, but then I'll suddenly remember, and my stomach does a huge flip flop and I get all anxious. Luckily the boys keep me busy enough that those moments of anxiety are few and far between. There's not a lot of time to fret about waiting for biopsy results when you're busy refereeing fights and cleaning up a yogurt "painting" that someone created on the table.

To end on a happy note, though, I had a good laugh Saturday afternoon. It was Scott's turn to give the boys their baths, so he was upstairs doing that while I was washing and putting away all the beach stuff.  And when they all came downstairs, Gabe came running in the kitchen wearing one of Dante's shirts. And as if that wasn't funny enough, next came Dante, wearing a one-piece romper that had been put on backwards : )   

I count my blessings every day that that's the worst I have to worry about when it comes to Scott's abilities as a dad.

Bad Timing

It's going to be 90 and humid this weekend, and we'll undoubtedly be at the beach, but I won't be able to go in the water any higher than my waist, per my doctor's orders. I spent my afternoon undergoing a stereotactic (needle) biopsy of an area of calcification found on a recent mammogram. I'll spare you the gory details, but basically it was the equivalent of a nearly 90-minute-long mammogram with the added bonus of having a needle shot into my breast. ("Shot" was their term, not mine, but it was unfortunately rather accurate).

I'm very glad that part of it is over, except that now I have the other part - the dreaded wait for results. I should get results by Tuesday, which isn't that long, but also isn't nearly soon enough. Despite hearing again and again how "most of these things are totally benign," I can't help but be nervous. Waiting is not something I like to do. I'm trying not to even think about the possibility that it's not benign, because those just aren't thoughts I want to devote any energy to right now.

Physically, I'm feeling ok. Sore, but ok. I'm more emotionally drained than anything. But thankfully I only have to refrain from strenuous activities for 24 hours, which means I'll be able to go out for my run on Saturday morning. I know it may sound crazy for me to be thinking about that right now, but really, the thought of getting out for a run is one of the things that instantly makes me feel better. Running keeps me sane and centered, and I'm so thankful that I am close enough to my shin being healed that I can get back out there again this weekend. Especially since swimming is off limits until Wednesday.

To move on to happier things, though, the boys have been, and I'm sure will continue to provide endless distraction and entertainment for me through this waiting period.

When I was putting Gabe to bed last night, he asked me to sing him a song. Lately I've been singing him "Twinkle Twinkle" every night at bedtime, so I asked him if he wanted me to sing that. But instead he said he wanted me to sing "Itsy Bitsy Dinosaur." So, with him giggling the whole time, I sang "Itsy Bitsy Dinosaur" to him. He thought it was the funniest thing. It's nice that kids are so easily amused : )

Yesterday Dante woke up from his nap before Gabe woke up, and I got him out of his crib and sat on the chair with him. Usually he'd just squirm right out of my arms and take off running, but yesterday he sat with me and hugged me, and it was the most wonderful thing in the world. My babies aren't babies anymore, so those quite moments of cuddling are becoming more and more rare, and I cherish them that much more when they do happen.

Dante also learned a new word yesterday. He hit his head on something, and I said "Oh, did you hit your head? Ouch!" So the whole time we were reading books before bed last night, he was hitting himself on the head and saying "OW!"  Gabe of course thought this was absolutely hysterical, and was laughing his head off, which of course gave Dante that much more motivation to keep doing it....

Speaking of Dante's speaking - or lack thereof - he had his first Early Intervention appt. yesterday and it went well. She's certain he'll qualify for services for a speech delay, but she also said that she thinks he'll do great once they start working with him, because he seems totally on track in all other areas. So I'm looking forward to getting started with that. She was impressed with his signing, too, and said we should definitely keep that up.

One of the books we've been reading the past few nights is this - the first page is '10 kisses on baby toes,' then '9 kisses on baby's feet,' then '8 kisses on baby's nose,' etc., etc.  Dante loves it, because he likes to point to each body part - especially the page about baby's ears. And last night, as I was reading it, Gabe was leaning over and kissing Dante's toes, and his nose, and his ears. Seriously, how unbelievably cute is that?!

And yet another classic Gabe-ism. Apparently while I was in Chicago two Fridays ago and Scott's dad was watching the boys, there was some sort of little incident, and Gabe was putting on a big show with crocodile tears and fake crying, and Scott came out of his office to see what was going on. So Scott's dad said quietly to Scott "He's fine - there's no tears in his eyes."  But I guess he didn't say it quietly enough, because Gabe interjected with "Daddy, there ARE tears in my eyes!"  And last night, Dante accidentally drove a truck over Gabe's hand, and Gabe started up again with the crocodile tears, and before I could even say anything, he looked at me with a big pout on his face and said "There are tears in my eyes."

One last thing before I sign off to watch The Office - Santa brought the boys a train table and trains last Christmas, and it's one of their favorite toys, but a few months ago, we started having a problem. Dante likes to pull the tracks apart and throw them all over the living room, which is very upsetting to Gabe, because he wants to actually drive the trains on the tracks. And it's very upsetting to me, because I'm the one who ends up constantly having to reassemble the tracks and calm Gabe down.

We tried gluing the tracks to the table, but that didn't stop Dante. He still managed to pull them off. We reglued a few times, but we were starting to get some major glue buildup on the tracks, and now instead of having to just reassemble the tracks, I was having to reassemble them and glue them down to the table. So we decided to take more drastic measures, and all of the tracks are now firmly screwed into the train table. There's an area of track in the middle that I didn't screw down, so that they have some loose track to play with and rearrange, but the outer tracks are not going anywhere.

And if by some chance Dante does manage to pull out the pieces that are screwed in, then I will officially surrender - and I'll be on the lookout for a toddler bodybuilding contest, because any child (or adult, for that matter) who can take off those tracks without the use of a screwdriver is possessed of some freakish strength.