Still trying to wrap my head around the fact that my baby turned three yesterday! I am 100% certain that I am done having babies, so I'm honestly not all that melancholy about missing the baby days - it's more just disbelief that three years have gone by so quickly.
He looks like such a big boy in this picture!
He's really coming into his own, now that he's a full-fledged toddler/soon-to-be preschooler. He enjoys bossing everyone around, and we spend much of our day reminding him to say "please" and "thank you." He also, for some reason, calls the news "Monday." We don't watch the news very often with the kids around, but do sometimes turn it on to catch the weather forecast, and whenever we do, he yells "Hey, it's Monday!"
As a regular at the gym daycare, he walks around like he owns the place, and lately when I come to pick him up, he points to the door and tells me to "go walk over that way" - his way of saying he's not ready for me to be there yet. It'll be interesting to see what that translates to when it comes to dropping him off at preschool in the fall.
Scott brought him to the gym last weekend, and when he arrived to pick Carmine up, the staff told him that Carmine had been walking around saying he had "voices in his ears." Cue the 'Twilight Zone' music..... or 'The Sixth Sense' music - either way, although I know it was just him babbling nonsense phrases, I have to say it creeped me out a little!
Like any kid, he's got his little quirks and idiosyncracies (hopefully hearing voices in his head is not one of them!), and some of them are a little OCD-ish. When we get in the car, I put his cup in the cupholder, and the other day he completely freaked out because he wanted it turned around so that the spout was facing a certain way. And if he's putting a book or toy away, he'll often place it down somewhere, start to walk away, then run back and reposition it ever so slightly, and say "there, that's better!"
And like his big brothers, he's loud and crazy and all about roughhousing. The three of them spend a good majority of their time in a pile on the floor, pushing and pulling climbing all over one another and laughing hysterically. It almost always ends with someone getting hurt, but it's fun while it lasts.
With his birthday following right on the heels of Dante's, we're all a little partied and cake-d out over here. Well, the boys probably aren't, but I am!
Carmine loved Dante's cake - at his very young age, he already knows all the 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid' characters, and when he saw the cake I made for Dante's party, he yelled "Zooweee MAMA!" He was pretty excited for his Perry the Platypus cake, too. As much as I love making (and eating) fun cakes, I'm thankful we have a little break before Gabe's birthday at the end of March.
I had been hoping that we'd enjoy another unusually warm (and snow-free) winter this year, but so far it hasn't panned out that way. It hasn't been awful, but it has seemed colder and snowier than last winter, and this week has been particularly tough - lows in the single digits, and wind chills making it feel even colder.
The cold typically doesn't force me inside on the treadmill - I'm willing to bundle up and get out there, especially for a long run that would be especially torturous on the treadmill. But snow and ice are definitely a deterrent for running outdoors, which is why I was at the gym for my track workout the other day.
Speedwork is actually one of the things I don't mind doing on the treadmill. The intervals break up the workout nicely, and you don't have to worry about maintaining the correct pace - you press the buttons and you're forced to keep up!
The schedule this week called for mile repeats, and I crushed it - 6:44, 6:39, and 6:37. And I would not go so far as to say they felt easy, but the pace for all of them - including the last one - felt almost comfortable. THAT was a confidence-boosting workout for sure!
This week has also been an appointment-filled one for me. Today was my orthopedist appointment, which I was anticipating to be kind of just a formality - I had a good idea of what was going on with my hamstring/glute/piriformis, and felt pretty certain that the prescription would be PT.
And I was right. The doctor did note that, without an MRI, it's tough to pinpoint precisely what's going on, but her diagnosis was either gluteus medius tendinopathy, or some type of piriformis strain - doesn't really make much of a difference, since they're both literally a pain in the butt, and the remedy for both is almost the same - deep tissue massage, stretching, icing, ibuprofen, and any other exercises my physical therapist recommends.
Given how much better it's felt just since I started doing my own regimen of foam rolling and tennis ball rolling and stretching at home, I'm confident that with the addition of PT, I can get through this training cycle and still go after my PR in Boston - and that makes me a very happy runner : )
Friday is my trip to Boston for a second opinion on my exercise-induced anaphylaxis. Those of you who read this blog regularly might have noticed that I haven't mentioned any kind of allergic reaction in a while, and that's because I haven't had one since November 23rd. I haven't wanted to talk about it with anyone, because I'm afraid I'll jinx myself.
It definitely has me wondering if the colder weather has something to do with me not having had a reaction in two months. And I'm also wondering (and hoping) that maybe the condition has just mysteriously ended, as suddenly as it began?
I've heard of that happening to people, and I've always hoped it would happen to me at some point. But the thing is, I'll never really have any way of knowing if it's truly just 'gone,' or if I'm just enjoying a long respite from any type of reaction, so I don't know if I'll ever feel comfortable running without my safeguards (epi-pen and phone) again.
As I've said before, though, it's a very small burden to bear, so I need to remember to count my blessings and be thankful that I'm able to get out there and do what I love to do.
Just over 11 weeks to go......
He and L are so close in age! Too funny about the news being Monday. :)
I just read the update from your dr visit... I guess it's good there is nothing obviously wrong, but it would certainly be helpful if they understood the condition better. Fingers crossed that it won't bother you in marathon training. And awesome job on the 3x1600 workout!
Posted by: Laura @ Mommy Run Fast | January 30, 2013 at 09:28 PM