Guys that brainy girls have to like

I may be wrong but the first two I think are definites
1) Jim from the Office
2) House from House

I was talking to my husband for some reason this came up and he said "Oh you like Jim on the Office I didn't know that- and I said- It is a rule- all brainy girls like Jim- brainy might not be right but I have my PhD and whereas you really don't need to be super smart to get it it sort of just automaticaly conveys smartness or brainyness which is the sole reason I got on- Just Kidding on the sole reason part but I will say one of the nice perks is in non academic company I no longer have to prove I am smart unfortunately academics still think I am a dumbass.

Anyway - I was thinking surely there are more - but I think they may get more into personal taste but here are some more possibilites
3) You'd think McDreamy from Grey's but i contend it is really Mc Steamy- I think the brainy girls find McDreamy too whiney and sensitive we secretly like guys with an edge.
4) Jack from lost- he almost falls in the too whiney category but he does have an edge that saves him.
5) Sawyer from Lost- we don't want to admit it becasue he is such a bad boy but still wouldn't kick him out of bed.
6) Jack Bauer- 24- he should be higher up- he is awesome.

That's all I got. No one ever comments but it is fun to pretend that I will get arguments and additions nevertheless.

Some pics

Now he can never deny how much he once loved me even when he is a surly teenager.

my beautiful little girl

It is long overdue but it is hard to make the time. The things I would like to remember about this time with Kaitlyn. Almost every night when I put her to bed she begs for me to tell her stories- sometimes I actually make them up but often she gives me the basic plot and tells me to run with it. She is imaginative and I am always tickled at some point where her mind has gone. She now has this dress that has balloons all over it- it looks homemade and her Aunt bought it for her. I think if she could wear this dress everyday she would. It is hand washable but she will keep it absolutely spotless so it hasn't gotten a stain on it yet.

She often tells us out of the blue how she loves us. Out of nowhere- "mommy I love you" It never fails to melt my heart. Every morning she comes in and wants to snuggle with me before we get up to face the day. The other day I was out running and she was quite put out- Daddy offered but she told him to go away she would rather snuggle by herself. She comes in complaining that she doesn't want to go to school- we used to empathisize with her on this then realized we were adding to it - so I started saying the fun things she could do going to school. Her current favorite is to yell out what she hopes is for breakfast along with what her brother and the rest of us would like to eat. Just last week she came in crying - which always prompts me to go into the fun things that are school- so I stopped and said "you don't have to cry- you can just snuggle with me and ask me to tell you what is fun about school." Every since then she comes hops into bed and tells me "tell me what they will have for breakfast today at school"

She shares much better than most adults- she really has this pure giving heart that often makes me a little sad because I worry the world will take advantage of that. She has plenty of spunk though evidenced by this conversation this a.m.

Me "You had trouble sleeping last night"
Her "No, I just cried a little because He (meaning her daddy) sometimes doesn't do what i want him to do."

Fair enough

She is learning so much every day and for some reason I guess it is a growth spurt she has lost any baby/toddler that ever was in her. She also started testing limits big time- it has only been after we got a handle on this that I had enough time to realize that part of my incredible anger when she started misbehaving was that I resented no that isn't the right word but mourned that she wasn't at all my baby anymore. It is just one step on a road of adventures where she will pull away and I will have to adjust.

My heart really aches at how sweet smart and loving she is. Neither of these posts have done the real wonder of my children any justice but I hope they help jog my memory in times to come.

My favorite compliment of the week was a mother stopped at day care last night to tell me how cute my kids were-

yes Yes they are!

Owen

A while back I took Owen too see my friend in Alabama. While there he and I were having a blast sliding down this roller slide. Well he got quite comfortable with the process and decided to throw himself forward and in the process of trying to save him with a big bulk of a child moving all his bulk the opposite direction I intended to go- I saved him quite well but cut my knee up something fiece.

Owen was just facinated with this. He continually talked about my boo boo on my knee as did every other kid in playgroup. So he has taken too still to this day- bending down on one knee and kissing the boo boo on my leg.

The boy is beyond in love with me and still belives that even well above 30 lbs he should mostly be a Koala in my arms. On said trip he slept so much my friend actually nicknamed him Rip Van Winkle.

He also has always believed in the vital need to ennunciate each and every syllable. So it isn't ba for book- never was but always BOOK!!!! Not yah or yeah for Yes but YES! TRUCK- Etc. seriously I beleive he must have some german or other hard non romance language in him.

He has been quite terrified of the doctor due to recurent and nasty ear infections and waxy ears. Seriously for such a sweet boy his temper tantrums are quite legendary in our house. But today he went to the doctor and was an angel.

The doctor "So will we find Diego in you ear?"
Owen very seriously "Yes"
How about this ear is Boots in there
Owen thinks "No!"

This conversation can occur about anything
My friend took advantage of Owen's rather thoughtful and varied NO's and Yes's
"So Owen do youi think there will ever be World Peace"
"No"
Do you think that George Bush is a bad president
"Yes"
DO you think there is a conspiracy among gas companies to raise gas prices
No
"well that is where you and I part ways Owen"
Yes

He has a dog that is lovie item that i called rusty- he has become Ra Ra for everyone and like his sister all blankets are Mimi's - don't know why never will.
I was just told by his teacher that whenever he sees his sister across the playground at school they say is that your sister and he goes "No Mama: Mamam Mamam Mama- as if to say just wanted to let you know I want my mamam here.

He makes me laugh on a regular basis he is good with his hands and putting things togeher and may be one of the sweeter boys I have every met. But he is all boy and is tough as nails. he is getting bit regulalry at school which is a pain for all of us. But his reaction is to tackle the kid and often tackles kids at school- I shouldn't be proud of that but I am. What's more he is like the enforcer of his class- kids rarely touch Ra Ra and when they do he demands it back. If Ra Ra is lost he will call out and all the kids start looking for him. He can give as good if not better than he gets from his sister- because frankly she is a gentler soul than Owen.

So those are some of my fleeting memories of Owen and now I don't have enough time for Kaitlyn's but hopefully that will be coming soon- but if not well it is probably because like always she demanded I do something with her now rather then letting me capture memories. Though it makes me sad that a lot of this magic is lost forever - it is better to be with them and making memories than losing chances writting them down.

Don't know if this is where I will do this

I keep getting surprised with how quickly both kids are growing up and how much I forget regularly about what they are doing. Someone who doesn't know me very well gave me a "mommy journal" when Kaitlyn was born. Though it is nice- it really isn't quite me and even if it were my handwriting is so bad that even after I wrote in it- I can't read it so how will my children if they care when they get older. I was telling a story to some friends about a cute thing Owen did and they said you should write that down. They are right I should. This blog has always been mostly about these kids but it has been about other things. Then I think no one really cares about the little things they are doing- but really does anyone really care about most of what I write about. Which leads me to this should probably just be a private journal on my own computer that I can look back and the kids can if they care. Oh well but this is here and set up. I am not sure I'd want them to read every post here but I can't really remember if there is a reason why not. So now I have talked a long time about nothing. Which surely no one cares about. Oh well.

A little bit of this, A little bit of that

I run my first 5 k this weekend and am pretty excited about it. The last few weekends have been a little tough- lots of company and I am looking forward to getting away with my husband and having some time alone.

I keep thinking of my kids and how funny it is how things change. I have found three in lots of ways to be a difficult age for me. She is still as sweet as can be and I love her more than anything but she is smarter than me and seems to find a new way to test limits every day. Between the whining, temper tantrums (I thought they were supposed to be a problem with 2!) and the latest sassing which thankfully seems reserved mostly for her father right now I spend more time annoyed with my daughter then I would like. This is very uncomfortable for me- I am used to just simply loving her and finding myself relieved when it is my night to put my son to bed frankly makes me feel awful. I really feel like a crappy mom who loves my son more than my daughter and I don't know how that could be. After all didn't I post when I was pregnant with him how I worried I wouldn't love him enough. Having one be my favorite isn't an acceptable option especially leaving behind my beautiful charming daughter who captured my heart so long ago seems so incredibly unfair. I am the baby of the family and I always envied my brother the first born for all the good things that seem to come from being first. Now I find myself feeling sorry for my daughter- we make all of our mistakes with her and I am harder on her because I just didn't know what I was doing and still don't. But with Owen I realized many of the mistakes I made with her and much of what I worried about was just a waste so I don't do that to him. But Kailtyn is still stuck with being first so I don't know how to handle the whining - how strict should you be? and every new thing she starts makes me pause to try to think of what to do and I have to fight the psychologist in me to not pathologize my beautiful little girls probably very normal behavior.

Case in point- we have worked so hard to get her to stop whining because frankly I hate whining more then just about anything and I don't like how I feel about her when she whines- for family peace and for her to not be yelled at too extremely I need her to whine less. So now when she is feeling whiney because she wants something, is hungry, tired etc. She says "X hurts' either she bumped her foot mildly, horrors her brother hugged her too tight or if nothing like that happened she goes to the old standby "my tummy hurts' Well her aunt who loves her dearly and doesn't have to discipline, gets her ice and dotes on her so why wouldn't you do this- if you whine you get yelled at but if you whine because x, y or z hurts you get hugs, ice and love from Auntie and more than likely daddy as well.

Well I think it is wrong and don't want to "reinforce" this behavior - frankly in my field it looks like a set up for somatizing and all the associated disorders- since I came from a stiff upper lip quit your whining family this whole cluster of disorders is one of my least favorite. So I tend to ignore her or tell me she needs to tell me what she wants rather than something hurts- I have even gone as far to tell her the little boy who cried wolf story along with a "I can't help you because I never know when you are really hurt since you cry about everything." This is not who I want to be to her- I want her to see me as the kind of mother you can run into her arms and have her hug you and kiss you and make all you boo boo's go away- after all she is 3 and when else can you really do this. I want her to associate my scent and arms with comfort because even a poor mother is comforting, warm and inviting to a child this age.

Most of all I don't want to favor her brother over her. I think it is the age in that I am finding 3-4 more complicated then an infant or toddler. After all she is smart and can vocalize very clearly what she wants and for her wants are needs there is no distinciton. He well I can say oh he is crying for x but we have to do y so we'll move on- it is really different for me when a child cries in his crib vs. cries out Mommy, Mommy- I can ignore the first much better then my name being called out. I think this is so funny because when Ms. Kaitlyn was a newborn I had a very hard post partum period. It was so difficult for me that I would feel an ache in my whole body when I would see older children probably her age now- I'd think I'd give anything to be there with her- so she was sleeping, eating and telling me what she wanted. Now that she is hear I have found that I seem to have a love affair with children ages 6 months - it seems somewhere after 3 for my sweet little girl. Before this time period honestly once she got to 6 months it was the sweet uncomplicated love that you dream of having for your children. She could do no wrong- she never really went through the terrible twos and the few behavior problems she showed well they were easily changed though easy discipline. Even things that were harder didn't really make me annoyed with her- maybe I am remembering it romantically but really I am rarely annoyed with Owen- once he started sleeping well and hit that magical time for me 6 months he can get on my nerves when he cries and won't let me put him down but deep down I love it and it is just a passing annoyance. But when she whines, throws a tantrum and then tells me to put her shoes away after I just asked her to
"Kaitlyn put your shoes away"
"Mommy you do it!"

Well let’s just say it is more than minor annoyance. I hope for my sweet babies sake that Owen is a hellion at 3 and that the age 5 is another blissful age- after all I will hate it but she should feel that kind of love again and unfortunately no matter how much you try not too - when you have two you compare and they will too.

Progress

I am about one month away from my first race and just finished another on-line trainign program that was about 8-10 weeks. So I ran a 5k pushing myself for race pace to see what progress I had made. In the midst of trying to figure out how to round out my training without injuring myself before the race I was surfing running sites and saw a thread of people who were just finishing the first training I basically did couch to 5 k. They were now doing a program that had them working up to running an hour in a session. The first 3 weeks are 30 minutes 3 times a week and they were discussing how hard it was to still run 30 minutes. I stopped myself shocked as I thought- Oh that's not too tough. Less than 6 months ago I was having trouble running 2 minutes. After the first training I ran 30 minutes then finished up the 5 k running and walking it. I remember talking with my husband about how I didn't want to start off running 30 minutes every day becasue that was still to otough for me. I had done a 6 week version of the couch to 5k so I started with finishing that up and then moved on to this program that has me go 30 minutes two times a week and on the third day I worked up to 4 miles with 5 minutes running, 1 minute walking intervals. It is amazing because while you are doing this you get lost in the process and forget how far you have come in a short time. You get inpatient or so focused on where you want to be your forgot where your starting point was.

So the new running time is below. As for push ups I realized that my form was all wrong for the modified pushups I was doing- I was keeping all my weight back which is why I could do them endlessly and never get stronger. I have been working hard on my form- started with 2 sets of 12 wall push ups, and worked my way up so now I am doing 2 sets of 7 modified push ups -correctly -and then do planks afterwards. I have head one rule of thumb that when you can do 3 sets of 30 you should be able to do one real one. Both these areas are long roads for me but I am getting there.


Goals
X Complete initial 5 k training program
X Run 5 k on own (41.30) (37.30)
Complete 5 k race
Run 1.5 miles in 14.30
Do 38 crunches in 1 minute
Do 1 Push Up
Do 18 push ups in 1 minute
Get to goal weight

My journey so far

In my quest to lose the last of the baby weight- I have been also on a weight loss journey. This time I have coupled my normal- eat less exercise more with more positive body image work. I promised myself if I lost weight this time I would be happy where I was and still not hating body parts or grimacing when I saw pictures of myself. The world will teach Kaitlyn to hate her body enough I don’t need to be one more example of that. I don’t’ kid myself that I can make that much of a difference after all my mother rarely bitched about the way she looked and though often not slim was always pretty comfortable with her appearance. But still I spend a lot of time hating myself. I can’t say I have been completely successful but I am doing better than ever before.

I gained 10 lbs before I became pregnant with Owen. I then gained 40 lbs with him. I literally was the heaviest I have ever been in my life. But still I took 3 months off of worrying about it after he was born- I promised I would. I then joined Curves- for many reasons
1) It was 5 minutes from my house
2) It was a 30 minute workout
3) It wasn’t too hard for me

I was out of shape plain and simple- I had been walking prior to Curves and started the Couch to 5 K program- I think I did the first run wrong but what I did was run/jog 90 seconds and walk 90 second or a minute or something like that. I did this about 5 times and felt like I would die and I was sore the next day. The first two reasons counted because I was now a full time working mother of 2 with a husband that was beyond busy in school. I simply didn’t have time to travel 20-30 minutes to gyms that had a workout I was more used to and I didn’t have 1 hr Plus to do it when I got there.

After Kaitlyn was born was one of the second best fitness times of my life. There was a gym around the corner- I could literally walk to it. It was all female and they had child care. I went about 4-5 times a week and spent a good hour there at least each time- longer if Scott was watching Kaitlyn. I lost all my weight with her by the time she was 9 months and I was in great shape if I do say so myself. The first time of great fitness was when I started going to the gym with a friend who was preparing for officer training for the military that was when I first began running. I almost made it to running 3 miles on the treadmill in 30 minutes and I did weight religiously. Then I got pregnant but oh well such is life.

Anyway back to Curves- I did Curves and WW on-line for 9 months and lost 35 lbs and over 35 inches. Then my Curves closed down and though I was pissed in reality I had outgrown the work out. About half way through Curves as Owen got older I had added in 2- 20-30 aerobic workouts to that normal routine and sometimes some extra weight training mostly for my abs.

I still had the same problem with gyms they are too far from where I work and too far from my home. I believe personal obligations aside if exercise isn’t convenient you won’t do it. So I signed up to blockbuster on line to be able to try new exercise DVD’s and then soon started a version of the couch to 5 k program for running. I can now run 30 minutes consecutively with no problem – a big change from the woman who died running a couple of 90 second intervals. I have signed up for a 5 k race in early May and ever since I ran on that treadmill with that friend I have wanted to run one and I will finally do it-barring natural disasters. I am also starting to focus on weight training a little more seriously and ironically find myself thinking what will help my running and help prevent injuries rather then what will help me lose weight faster. Weight training was always a chore I did to increase muscle mass to be able to burn more calories at rest and lose weight or maintain weight. When did this happen- when did my focus get so much better?

I always liked exercise once I made myself do it for a bit. But always in the back of my mind was how many calories did I burn- did I work hard enough- in short though I liked how exercise made me feel the ultimate goal was always weight loss. Pilates/Yoga- I scoffed at since they didn’t provide enough calorie burn to be worth the trouble. Now I find myself caring about how far I can run and thinking about training schedules that will increase my endurance without injury so I can work on speed down the road. I think well maybe I can do a 10 K after a couple of 5 Ks- hmm who knows a half marathon someday- that is crazy- I doubt I’ll ever want to run 13 miles but I never thought I’d run ever. Back in grad school when I first tried I thought- well I will support my friend but I doubt I’ll get far with it. I looked at the air force officer requirements way back then I could do the run at the speed they recommended and the crunches/sit ups- but never the push ups. I figured oh well 2 out of 3 ain’t bad. But now I think why not- I can’t do one push up but I also used to not be able to run 2 minutes. Why can’t I work up to 18 in 1 minute. Why not indeed.

I have lost 42 lbs total now- If you count the 5 I gained at Christmas and lost again it would be 47 but oh well I’ll get there. And that today is the most amazing thing of all. I won’t I don’t’ care about the scale or how I look, or what size I am. Because I still do and I think no matter how much progress I make I always will. But right now I probably care more about this upcoming race and how well I run and improving my strength then I do about how quick the last 8 lbs come off. I want to get to my goal and honestly I’d love it if I lost 5 more after that but seriously I probably look and feel better then I have in a long time. Sure I’d rather be fit and lean than fit and a little fat but still it feels like a huge step to have the pendulum swinging the other way for a change. I think Oh when the kids get older I want to go hiking with them, biking with them, I think how will this exercise make me stronger in my life to do things I want to do like go skiing without being sore and biking across the golden gate without being sore (did that right after I was married so much fun but the next day I could barely walk) rather than hey how many calories have I burned and how quick will this weight come off. I’ve had stalled points throughout this journey and will probably have more- the biggest being last June and then Dec-Jan but right now I feel strong and confident.

Goals
X Complete initial 5 k training program
X Run 5 k on own (41.30)
Complete 5 k race
Run 1.5 miles in 14.30
Do 38 crunches in 1 minute
Do 1 Push Up
Do 18 push ups in 1 minute
Get to goal weight