Body Movin'

I bought a jogging stroller for a reason. But that reason comes and goes. In spring and fall I feel motivated to jog. Summer, not so much. It's no fun running in sticky weather. And winter, forget it. Jogging in freezing temps or inside on a track makes the task that much more of a challenge.

It's nice out today, I'm home and I'm inspired by my husband's plans to start running. And I need a break from this dissertation work. The perfect time to jog -- if there is such a thing. The last few years I've done the Couch-to-5K program which is supposed to allow my body to adjust to the fact that I'm asking it to do something I don't do very often. Run. I usually get through the nine weeks of the program and then am reminded that I really don't like running.

So now that I've communicated my ambivalence for running I'll let you know what I'd really rather do. Swim. But given that we're out in the woods, the closest pool is 20 minutes or so away. That I can handle, but in order to swim laps I have to join a gym (which doesn't make financial sense to do just for swimming) or swim at the my old high school pool which isn't heated and might not have lanes open for lap swim.

Long story, short. I need my exercising to be convenient. Running is that.  So I'm off. I'll let you know how day one of  week one goes ... be back shortly.

Later in the afternoon

Not tooooo bad. Before I headed out I downloaded a free running app for my iPod touch called 321run (thanks Jay : ). It lets you know when to run and when to walk so you don't have to use a watch to track the time. Anything that makes the process easier can help keep me moving. My iPod just might help make me a runner. Nothing can stop me now ... except maybe the snow we're supposed to get tomorrow.

Strolling into Spring

"Peoples! Peoples walking!"

Peoples were indeed out and about yesterday. I felt the need to get outside with Grace for a bit, so we took a stroller walk around in town. I contemplated jogging, but that urge left me quite quickly. Just being outside without a bulky coat was refreshing enough.  We went around a few parks and through a college campus so there was a lot for Gracie to see.

As we strolled I realized in many ways this was Grace's first spring -- at least a spring that she could interact with. As we took our walk she took on the role of tour guide calling out things and pointing:

"This way." (Directing me to cross the street to get a better look a what some "peoples" were doing.)

"Ooo, ooo. Catch." (Commenting on some college "kids" playing Frisbee.)

"Birdies! Aww. Awww." (That's her bird call.)

"Ooohhh." (In reaction to a skateboarder.)

"Go Mommy!" (Directing me to go faster up a steep hill. Great little personal trainer : )

Guess I didn't need to go for that jog after all.

Cutting Remarks

Grace had her first (real) haircut this weekend. Jay and I have trimmed her bangs a number of times over the past months, but she's never had a haircut-haircut.

Gracie has these curly curls. Very cute, but tangly. Her hair was almost to the middle of her back. It was getting caught in bibs and stuck in her mouth. And it was becoming great collector of stray bits of food. It was time.

No beauty salon for this girl. We took her to SportsClips where her dad goes. They have little TVs that we thought might help keep her distracted if things got a bit sad.

She had a few seconds of tears, but then caught a look of herself in the mirror. Then she was distracted by the others getting their hair trimmed -- two young boys. And then she realized there was a TV right by the chair. As a true 2010 mom, I brought my ipod touch with as well (that's my hand in the picture). I've loaded some Sesame Street podcasts and other toddler distractions on to the gadget.

Three inches were taken off and it made for the perfect length for a toddler. I kinda wanted to go a bit shorter, but didn't have the heart to have them cut out all of the curls ... yet.

** And of course she was offered a sucker before we left : )

Healing Words

I've been sick and/or injured for almost two months now and just so you know, I don't deal well with not being healthy. I don't whine about it -- I get frustrated with it.

A perfect example: I was coughing so hard a few weeks ago I pulled or tore something in my lower back. I felt a pop and knew that movement wouldn't be particularly fun from that point forward. While I spend my workdays at a desk, I spend my nights and weekends with a toddler. We spend so much time on the floor playing. We also spend time running around -- mostly doing races down the hallway. Some time is also spent on me picking Grace up to console her after a fall, give a hug or transport her to her time out spot. This back thing limited all of that.

Grace and I were alone (well Ella was there : ) in the house when my injury happened. As I forsaw my limitations I started to cry out of pain and frustration.

Gracie looked at me with her concerned face all scrunched up and asked, "Mommy sad?"

I explained, "Mommy's got an owie."

She looked at me and said, "I kiss it."

And she did.

The pain, of course, was still there, but my state of mind and heart were all better.

Weekly Wondering: Stuck on the Sucker

People seem to feel the need to give my kiddo candy, this is especially grocery store cashiers and even doctors. And not only is it candy, it's almost always a sucker.

Two problems with this:

1) They hand this to the child as you are leaving where ever it is you're at. That means after we get outside I'll need to pry the candy away from Grace as she wails, "Minnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnneeee!" Fun times.

2) I'm pretty sure Grace hasn't had a sucker before. At least not to my knowledge. This means if I do let her have it, I'd likely find it stuck on the seat of the car, in Elmo fur (see picture) or, even worse, her in hair.  Grace always drops things when she's in her car seat -- sometimes intentionally as if to say "Hey, I'm going to toss this on the floor and tell Mommy to get it because it's a fun game to play while she's driving." 

So, I ask, why suckers? There's got to be some other item that could work, something else that says: "Here you go, thanks for being a good toddler and not shrieking in our store/waiting room/urgent care office."

Weekly Wondering: The Case of the ipod Touch

A few weeks ago I lost the case that I kept my ipod Touch in. Since I toss the thing into my bag everyday when I head to work, I need to have it in it's own case so it won't get all banged up. When I looked around to find a temporary fix, I thought to look in our coat closet. And there it was, the yellow and multi-colored bootie was the perfect size. It serves its protective purpose. But I'm hesitant to take the "case" out of my bag when I am in public. I don't think Jay even knows that I've been doing this -- he does now.

Which brings me to a something I'll plan to post on a weekly basis to get comments, insights and responses. I'm calling it my "Weekly Wondering."

What does having my ipod Touch in a baby bootie say about me?

Monkey See

I don't like to cook, but I really do like to bake. So figuring out what kind of cake to do for Grace's birthday each year will be something I look forward to. Since Jay's on a diet this year, I thought it would be a smart idea to do cupcakes instead of a cake so that those who came to our birthday gathering could take the extra cupcakes home with them. It so happened that I saw some cutely decorated cupcakes in a magazine. They looked fun and easy so I showed the picture of them to Grace and she exclaimed "Monkeys!!!!" Yep, these were it.

The photo and recipe have been on my fridge for over a month but I never read over the ingredients or cupcake procedure that closely. I was in for an mini-adventure. (The use of this term will become clear shortly.) I added the cupcake ingredients to our weekly grocery list and headed to the store. Two products almost put a halt to my plan. It was all going smooth until I was trying to find mini-Oreos. I'd never looked for these before and assumed they'd be in the cookie aisle. I also assumed they'd be by the other Oreo products. I started to panic when they weren't were I thought they'd be. What else could I use? These cookies were the monkey ears, what other food would work? Then as I walked further down the aisle, away from other Oreos, I found them in a bag, right next to gingersnaps. How odd and how handy, all at once. I needed gingersnaps too. Phew. So now to the next mini-item. Mini-M&Ms. Here my assumption was that they'd be in the candy aisle. Being Valentine's weekend there were a plethora of bags of small packaged candies. I dug around and didn't find any that included mini-M&Ms. Ahghhhhhghhhh. Again I started thinking, what would be the same size as mini-M&Ms that I could use for eyes? The only thing that came to mind were those little red hot candies, but then all my monkeys would look possessed. I finally found an entire bag of little packages of mini-M&Ms that was tossed in the wrong bin. I grabbed 'em and thank goodness we had everything we needed. Lesson for Kate: Read the fine print in these magazine recipes.

So the day before Grace's party I started the baking process. This was the easy part. Even making the homemade frosting worked well. Then the decorating. It was make or break time. The prep of the decorating implements was fun at first. I needed to "clean out" the filling of the mini-Oreos. Tasty. (Yes, I used a knife, not my tongue!) Then I read the directions to the next part: "Cut the gingersnaps." What do they mean by "cut"? The first few I took a knife to promptly shattered. Then I tried a few other things which resulted in treats for my pug assistant. Finally I used a knife to score the top of the cookie and then picked it up and snapped it. It broke right where it was supposed to. Another phew. After opening seven packs of mini-M&Ms to get the necessary 36 brown ones for the monkey eyes, I was ready for the cupcake assembly line to begin.

First the mouth, then the ears. Mouth, ears ... on all 18 cupcakes. Now the part that could be tricky. The eyes. The tube of frosting I had was too big and if I put an obnoxious amount on the cupcake it could ruin it. I did a few "test eyes" on the back of some of the shattered gingersnaps using the non-brown M&Ms. One turned out very well so I felt I was ready to move on to the real thing. I ended up having two test monkeys. With not enough white frosting they looked ... eyeless. But then I got the hang of it. 

The last few steps. First, little bits of frosting for nostrils. Got it. Done. The last step, little tuffs of frosting hair on the monkey heads. I skipped this last step. I'd created some quite cute cupcakes and I had an inkling that this last touch could be the end of their cuteness. (I took this photo of some of them before I realized that a few were caged monkeys. Hee.  Notice that I have the magazine image placed way away from my cupcakes so there is not the opportunity for a direct comparison. Ha.) 

Grace's birthday party day arrived and I was wondering if all the work was worth it. When I saw this little face consuming a monkey face, I had my answer.