Running and Running and Running

There are so many folks to point the finger at with this running thing. I have a good friend at work that ran a half marathon, my co-author ran a half marathon, my good friend with two kids in Tennessee (there are hills there, sigh) ran a half marathon, several of my oldest friends are running, so I figured what the heck, I'll run too. I'll drink the running kool-aid. I can be hip. It's trendy, and I can jump on that bandwagon  just as well as anyone. And this one is for my personal wellness! Let's Run!

Argh. Running is hard. However, it would be a personal triumph to be able to run just at 5K. I have never been a runner partly because, it's hard, and partly because I played tennis in high school, not much running there. I must admit that it's harder than I though. Knowing enough not to just go out there and run 10 miles on the first day (or 1 full mile) would be unrealistic, I bought the Couch to 5K app which I think will work wonderfully, but that's hard too.

Today I am supposed to run again today. It's rainy, cloudy and gray outside. We are going to Trunk or Treat at church tonight, seems like a lot of effort to run. More than likely I won't run today, I officially site the weather as my excuse, but I do have a gym membership. I keep waiting for that running high to kick in (just after a couple of runs) but Eliot swears that he has never felt it even when he ran cross country. So now I worry that I will never truly be a runner and have allowed the whimpering to take over my motivation.

The goal must be easier to attain. I must but the 5K on hold. Thus the New Goal: Running AGAIN next week....

Little Surprises

When I get the chance to take a shower I typically start the water first. Now before any nutty environmentalists get cranky, I understand that I shouldn't do this or leave the water running while I brush my teeth and someday because of my carelessness I will be responsible for the demise of human existence, nevertheless I remain a creature of my routines and thus I digress. I take my time getting a towel, undressed and quite honestly pick at my face like an awkward adolescent which should know better not to. That is neither here nor there, last night when I finally stepped into the tub, I almost took a slide on a soaked Bed Bath and Beyond advertisement. At any other point in my life, I would have put my hand in the air in protested at the injustice but it was a little surprise from Lydia.

after eating an ice cream cone

Lydia has a favorite bath toy and it's awesome. It's a Yookiddo Stack and Spray fountain. She got it for her birthday. It squirts water and has all these interchangeable items that make the water do different things, one sprays, the other spins, etc. She is always trying to get to this toy. So if the door is open she will go into the bathroom and stare inside the tub. She usually has something in her hand. As the wheels in her head turn you can see that she is struggles with the ideological quandary of how to get the bath toy without having to let go of the other items. Her latest strategy has been to throw in her toys, or in this case Bed Bath and Beyond ad, and then try to climb into the tub to retrieve them all. She can't make it in the tub, thus we find little surprises.

The Good Wife

How much TV is too much TV? Lydia watches TV, mostly cartoons, but she runs around and plays. She babbles all day long. For  being 13 months, she does pretend play with her toy kitchen, her music stand or barn all the time. Matter of fact at 11 months, she would sit and take little people and put them inside her barn and move them around. Thus I am fairly certain that she is completely on the appropriate developmental road, at this point and God willing will continue to be. Who I am worried about is...well  is me.

At the end of a long day dealing with darling adolescents, I get home, I play with my own daughter and once she goes to bed I usually crave vegging out and watching TV. At one point I thought that my tastes in television shows would best be described as vintage. I rather watch a sitcom like I love Lucy or Happy Days  than any silly Housewife from any silly county. I like gangster movies like Goodfellas and The Godfather so it would bare to reason that I would enjoyed The Sopranos and Criminal Minds. The girly part of me liked Sex and the City  and the gen-Xer in me liked Friends. Since my life has radically changed in the last year, family themed television has become more prominent, shows like Modern Family or Parenthood, even the new show, Up all Night, is targeted towards me and I buy in. My love for food, houses and craft puts me in a faithful watcher of Top Chef, HouseHunters and Project Runway. Sigh. There is just a LOT of television in my life. And I wonder, are my brain cells melting? Is the screen time sucking the intelligence out of my brain?

I spend a lot time on the computer at school either creating assignments, reading emails or responding to them. I shop online. I have relationships that are strictly online through social networking. I travel from point a to point b with my cell phone in hand to fill in any gaps of time. Whether its the need to find out a piece of information immediately or calling a friend, or playing Words with Friends. It is on hand. If I do have time to read, which I don't always, I use my IPad, yet another device. Because my reading time is limited I now download magazines on to my IPad kidding myself that it is an environmentally sound decision. I wake up in the middle of night and I am unable to fall asleep I pick up my phone and play in pinterest to get ideas or trulia to look for our "forever" house until my eyes tire and close for the rest of the night.

Am I trapped under the progress of my technology? Is there too much screen time for 35 year olds? Or is it just a concern for the young? Can I develop ADHD?

I love the show the Good Wife. It very well may be my favorite...

Ketchup, Apple and Mickey Mouse

Out of the corner of my eye I saw the tip of Lydia's ear. It looked like it had been skinned as I look closer her hair was matted down with blood. In that split second Lydia's last 15 minutes flashed before me and my stomach propelled out of my body and into an unseen pit of panic, instantly I remembered, Lydia likes ketchup. It has become evident that Lydia likes ketchup. She will lick it off a french fry or nugget and leave the ketchup holder on her plate. Just a little earlier I was trying to entice her to eat meat since she is seemingly too young to make choices on behalf of animal rights or diet, I am encouraging her to consume any protein. This time it was in the form of an Applegate organic nugget. I had squirted ketchup on her plate and as previously mentioned she ate the ketchup (more like splattered the ketchup) and left the meat. The skinned ear was a thin layer of Heinz and the matted hair was perhaps more of a future punk rock revolt with ketchup. In a period of a millisecond all of these things things flash and the result was tears. My face simply sweetly released what my head had processed, it was not a broken headed toddler before me but a messy one.

Everyday there is a new thing. It is such a fun time in human development. Everything is amazing. You can ask her what sound a dog, snake or lion makes and she will appropriately bark, hiss or roar. She can come when you ask her, grab something you ask her to grab, and take things from place to place on command. Lydia can say many words: Mama (me), Dada(eliot), Papa (grandpa), Tata (grandma), bye-bye, agua, and donde esta.  The other night she amazed us with her ability to say: apple.

Over the long weekend we went to the Magic Kingdom. We had eagerly been waiting to take Lydia and the Abuelos to see the happiest place on earth. While it was certainly the wettest place on earth, I couldn't help but think of the last time I had gone. It was about 8 years ago, perhaps in a slightly more introspective time in life. I remember thinking the magic had been sucked out of the kingdom. That everything looked used. Eight years later with two healthy parents, a loving husband and a blessing of a daughter, I walked off the monorail into a true land of joy. The childlike amazement of Disney World had returned. Every detail from decorated pumpkin Mickeys' to the glimmering Cinderella castle reminded me of so many treasured memories of family vacations and the joy that my own mother always has had for the world that Disney created. There was nothing more magical or heartfelt than watching Lydia laugh at the Country Bear Jamboree, smack Donald Duck on the bill and attempt to consume every iota of  "It's a Small World."

At the risk of being overly sentimental my mom loves "It's a Small World" I think because for her it was a symbol of even though she had left her own mother behind in her country that the world  was small and her mom not too far. It also conjures up the idea  that people at heart were good, and that someday there would be a magical world where everyone could be together. My mom shed a tear watching Lydia and thinking back to her first ride with me on that very ferry boat 35 years ago. In that tender moment, I saw in front of us a Muslim mother with a hijab riding with her own daughter who was about 4 years old. As the ferry turned into the middle eastern part of the world with little girls dancing with head coverings, I shed a tear.  I thought about how that little girl has such few images in popular culture of joyful Muslim women. It was in that very moment, that it really was "a small world" and that as a collective we could share in a world of laughter and a world of cheer with our daughters together. Nothing else mattered.

Octoberish Halloweening

October 1st has come and gone and the weather here in Florida has been absolutely delightful. The slight crisp air in the morning. Amazingly blue and warm but not suffocating days and breezy evenings. We have gone on lots of walks and visited many playgrounds in just the last couple of weeks. Last week Eliot worked mostly evenings so Lydia and I had walking/play time with so many friends: The Rohrs, The Broadaways and The Newmans.

Since the holidays are upon us I have successfully gotten down the  Halloween/Thanksgiving box (meaning Eliot got into the attic and pulled it down) and decorated the house. My crafty bug kicked in and I put together a kid Halloween wreath for the inside of the door. And the front door stoop is decorated with pumpkins and skeletons too.

Over the weekend we did manage to go to our first pumpkin patch with Holland and her parents. It was the same one we went to with them last year when Lydia was only about a month old.

Wow how they have grown! This year they had so much fun! And we the parents worked hard to take as many pictures of them looking in the right direction as possible. The girls loved dragging the wagon and towing around pumpkins. We are hoping to go to a couple of other Halloween festivals in the area in the month to come.