Another Crazy Day...

So actually posted my "Crazy Day" post today, but it actually happened yesterday but for some reason the blog site wouldn't let me post it after writing it last night. So today is a new day...but not any less crazy!

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING BLOG CONTAINS BLOGGING OF A GRAPHIC NATURE AND MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR THOSE WITH WEAK STOMACHS OR AVERSION TO BLOOD!

I got up this morning after less than 5 hours of sleep (my fault for finishing my movie). Got my daycare kid off to school, sat the kids down for math (first day with new curriculum) and decided to take a quick shower before we got to the rest of school. They have new math manipulatives that they are using and I saw potential for fighting over them, but I hoped they could hold it together for 5 minutes while I showered. But as I was drying off there was crying (Bridget's) and yelling (Joey and Gus') which usually means there is an actual problem if all 3 are in agreement. Apparently the crying and yelling are due to Bridget's bloody nose. Joey told me "Bridget and Gus were fighting over the manipulatives and Bridget hit herself in the nose and there's a big bloody mess all over her math book and we need you downstairs now!" OK, another great start to the day. Bridget came to my bathroom so I could assess. She indeed had a pretty monstrous bloody nose. We rinsed out a couple of wash clothes and got it to stop after about 20 minutes. I had Joey clean up Bridget's (brand new) math book to the best of his ability and we jumped back into school. (See photo: Bridget's math book is 364 pages with triple hole punches and she managed to get blood on every single page including front and back cover, both sides) Gus and Bridget are both congested at this point so school is what it is and we aren't pushing it too much. We finished up school and had lunch and then her nose started to bleed again. It was even worse than this morning and since she is congested blood and mucus was coming out. Now as a mother there is just something disturbing about seeing bloody chunks coming out of your offspring. My MIL had a similar experience with my SIL and she said it looks like their brains are coming out. Yes, very disturbing. But I know that it is mucus even though it seems more sinister, but the blood really is a lot for a 9 year old to lose. So after rinsing out the 3rd wash cloth (and giving up on eating my lunch) I decided I should at least call the doctor to see if I should be concerned or when I should be concerned. I talked to a doctor who thought that since she had been bleeding the second time for 45 minutes we should come in to the doctor's office (in 2 hours though). There are about 8 doctors at our pediatrician's office and only one I won't see, he was the only one available earlier, naturally. I decided to wait for anyone else as I figured her nose was going to stop bleeding anyway so we could wait.

So I have been dealing remarkably well with the mishaps life is throwing at me since my husband went on his trip, but this was starting to push me over the edge. We drove to the doctor's office with plenty of time. We drove around the entire parking lot twice and there wasn't a single parking spot open. So we headed to the less convenient parking garage where we found a parking spot relatively easily, finally a break. I open the back door to let Gus and Bridget out when I realize Gus has "forgotten" to put shoes on. Seriously, now?? If everything had gone well today I am sure I would have been pretty upset with Gus. But since I was already a woman on the edge it was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud, deliriously, but I didn't want CPS to come so I kept my crazy on the inside. (See Photo: Gus' dirty feet at the doctor's office, even the babies there had shoes!)

So now we are home, rented some kids movies, treated the kids to Mexi Fries (tater tots to the non-locals) and I am looking forward to an early bedtime, a good book and my husband's arrival home tomorrow. Now if only I could focus some attention on this Half Ironman I am doing this Saturday......

Crazy Day......

So today is day 2 of 4 that my husband is out of town. I normally don't have the kids (or house) 24/7 and my husband has had the kids by himself for far more overnights than I have (although I am pretty sure I have more clock hours of solo duty). Normally my week includes a workout Monday through Friday from 6-7:00 AM followed by a shower and then I take over the kids for the day by 8:00. That's the deal we have. Well this week is crazy, my husband was picked up at 4:50 AM on Monday to catch his flight to Kansas City, MO for a ministry conference with our church. This week also happens to be the week before my first ever Half Ironman Triathlon. If you know anything about endurance training you may know a little about the taper. The taper week is a rough week because you feel physically sluggish (I must be doing something right) and emotionally crazy. It's really hard to cut back workouts drastically but that is what the taper calls for. So this week I had planned a run workout on Monday evening which I did, slower and shorter than I had planned. I was supposed to take it easy and go to spin class tomorrow and then a short easy run on Friday. Well I went to bed on Monday night late (about 11:30) and then my youngest coughed around 12:15 AM. If Joe were home we would have both stayed in bed but I was on hyper alert and had to get up and check on him. I gave him a drink of water and went back to bed. Then my alarm when off at 4 AM, wait...no...that's not my alarm, that's Joe's alarm going off at the time he needed to get up YESTERDAY to make that flight! I turned if off and went back to sleep for a bit before the real thing went off at 5:45 AM. We had planned to go to a natural water slide today with some friends and the kids were all really looking forward to it. When Gus finally woke up it was clear he wasn't feeling great. I had to be the mean mommy and cancel the trip. I told them I would let them do a short day of school and we could rent the Hannah Montana movie (that mom has secretly been dying to see for a while). So once the bus came for my daycare kid I loaded up the kids (sicko included) and went to Fred Meyer where I could buy cereal with a store coupon and a manufacturer's coupon as well as rent a movie at 8:30 AM from the Movie Cube vending machine. I am a mom that has it all figured out.

So we walk past the ice cream cases and the kids ask for ice cream (what the heck, it's a sick day and we are still doing some school) but I told them I would each let them pick a half gallon of $.99 "frozen dairy dessert" but we had to get it on the way out or it would melt. We run around the store getting our items, check out and forgot the ice cream (I mean "frozen dairy dessert") so we had to go pick out flavors and run the FDD through the self check.

Now to the Movie Cube...there's a sign saying that it is only set up for returns, no Hannah Montana and it is not even 9:00 so there aren't any video stores open (even though we can see one from Fred Meyer). Well I have gotten us this far we might as well take the quest to the other movie vending machine Red Box 5 miles away. Score, we get Hannah, and while I am there I may as well grab something for after the kids go to bed. So I got The Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. Feeling indulgent with two $1 movies in one night. This never happens when Joe is home!!!

We get home, hammer through...I mean thoroughly cover several topics for school and then we bust out the movie. It's cute we are about 30 minutes into it when BOOM (literally "BOOM") the power goes out (a transformer blew close enough that our neighbor heard it). We sat on the couch for about a minute to make sure it was going to stay out. Hmmmm... now what? So we had lunch. Then we played some Life. Bridget was a teacher with a summer job as an accountant. I was an artist, Joey a doctor and Gus a computer fix it guy of some sort. This is the new game of Life where there are lots of extra perks for different jobs. For example whenever anyone rolls a "1" that means they just bought a piece of art from the artist for $10,000. Bridget was funny she rolled a "1" and I requested payment for my artwork and she handed me $100,000. I said "whoa I am glad I don't have any kids in your school if that's how you teach money" (yeah, I am a good encouraging mom) and then Joey said "yeah and she's an accountant too!" It was pretty funny that he caught that and we all laughed for a while about that one and Bridget said I couldn't put it on Facebook (but she didn't say anything about my blog). The power was still out so we were getting a little loopy and hot as it was in the 80's today on the first day of Fall.

The power came on about 4 1/2 hours after it went out. The kids also realized when the power came on that we no longer get Cartoon Network or Animal Planet as there have been some cable changes implemented today, while the power was out. So we decided to get pizza and take it to the park. While the boys were playing, Bridget was trying to describe something funny that the boys were saying and doing. When it was apparent I wasn't getting it she just said "it only makes sense in my head". If only everyone could be that introspective!

We made it home, finished the Hannah Montana movie and now I finally know what Miley decided to do. It was killing me all day!

My 7 year old learned how to "hock a lugee" today. His being sick is causing him lots of mucus and he was telling me that he was swallowing it. I told him that was his body's way of trying to get rid of it and it wasn't the best idea to swallow it. He spend a large portion of his morning with the garbage spitting into it.

At bedtime we discovered that Bridget was getting sick too. Here we go again. I have 3 days till my race and I cannot get sick!

It was a long crazy day with way more going on than usual although I feel like I handled it at least as well as when my husband is here. I do miss the regulation of my schedule that I usually have. I miss waking up to work out every morning (man I miss it!) and I miss the voice of reason turning off the TV and sending us to bed at a decent hour (I ended up staying up till 12:30). But most of all I just miss having my best friend to snuggle with and sleep next to at night.

Half Ironman Training

So this spring our church did a series on marriage. (no I didn't forget the title of my post) During one of the sermons our pastor gave us some time to pray over marriages, our marriage, hurting marriages, future marriages, whatever was on our hearts. So Joe and I prayed together and as we prayed the Holy Spirit spoke to me (trust me this wasn't my idea) and told me that we should celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary in 2011 by completing (that isn't supposed to say competing) Ironman Coeur d'Alene. We were married June 28, 1996. It just so happens that Ironman CDA is the same weekend as our anniversary (usually, although I don't know the 2011 date yet). We also went to Coeur d'Alene for our honeymoon, so it just makes sense right? This wasn't how I planned to celebrate my 15th anniversary but who am I to argue with the Holy Spirit.

So once I accepted the Holy Spirit's plan for my life, I got out my calendar to start planning. Somehow I decided that if I was going to do Ironman (2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike and 26.2 mile run) in 2011 I should jump right into a Half Iron (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike and 13.1 mile run) this summer (I can't put that on the HS, that was me) after my marathon in June. I also convinced 2 friends that they should join me. I planned to do the Black Diamond Half Ironman which is a small local race that is heavily supported by Raise the Bar, the triathlon team I am on, and very reasonably priced. Well then my friends decided that if they were going to do a Half Ironman they wanted a road trip. So they looked into the Grand Columbian Half Iron. I was going to go on a road trip with them to check out the bike course but I happened to slip in the bathroom while hanging up my wetsuit and fell flat on my back and jammed my thumb into the wall on my way down. (incidentally it has been 3 months since that happened and I wonder if I broke it as it still hurts) So needless to say I wasn't up for biking and I missed the road trip.

When my tri buddies reported back on the course I learned that the first 3.8 miles of the bike course was an 8% grade (for 3.8 miles!!). That is a heck of a way to start a 56 mile ride. So 2/3 of those on the road trip decided to find a more reasonable course. There was talk of Canada. I wanted to do it with friends so I was still planning on the Grand Colombian. But after training a bit on the bike and talking to others I just decided to do Black Diamond and one of my friends decided to do an Olympic instead and the other decided to have sinus surgery. So here I am several decisions later doing my original race in Black Diamond by myself.

LOOOOOOONG set up!

So I finally went to ride the bike course at Black Diamond this weekend after 3 failed attempts due to family obligations or weather. So we arrived to meet our group to ride the full course (2 loops) for a total of 56 miles. One person was late so we got a late start. I packed up all my gear, helmet check, shoes check, bike glasses check, Garmin....Garmin....Garmin....ahhhh no Garmin! I didn't think it would be that big of a deal but I didn't know the course and I didn't know how far I had gone or how fast. The first loop I just focused on hanging with the people in front of me and memorizing the course but the second loop I was really irritable (poor Joe, he was the only one riding the 2nd loop with me) and it only made it more frustrating to know that my husband was tracking his own data with his own Garmin, which he remembered. I was really grumpy and kept asking what our pace was "right now!" and then he would tell me and I would be mad (not fast enough). I was not a good riding companion. I NEED to know my pace! I will definitely admit that my Garmin is a crutch. I am sure there are zen runners and bikers out there who can tell by the wind in their hair how fast they are going but I need cold, hard, indisputable facts.

So I learned something about myself that I had always suspected but I now know for sure. I NEED my Garmin when I race and train. I guess it's better to have learned 2 weeks before the big race.

Room Cleaning

So Bridget woke up on Thursday morning really upset. I sat on her bed to talk with her. She was reluctant at first to tell me what was going on. She said it was embarrassing. Finally she told me what was going on. She had had a dream and in her dream her room was painted blue (not magenta and pink like it is now) and it was really clean and she had her own TV and there was money and credit cards and a new wallet on her bed. Then she woke up to real life (and her usually messy room) and she said she felt "ashamed". I told her I would help her clean her room but I couldn't help her with credit cards and a TV. I generally tried to cheer her up a bit. The kids were going to my mom's for the day to hang out while I did a 50 mile bike ride with a friend (and her friends). I distracted her and got the kids off for the day. When the kids got home I found out they had watched PG-13 rated Hancock. Joey said "I said it would be OK because we have watched other PG-13 movies like Indiana Jones and Pirates of the Caribbean and Ironman". Hmmm that's 11 year old logic. Anyway when it was bedtime Bridget wasn't going to sleep and Joe was upstairs talking with her trying to get her to calm down and go to bed. I figured she was having "bad thoughts" after watching Hancock. It turns out she was still disturbed about this mythical clean room with amenities. Again we distracted her (books this time) and she went to sleep. Fast forward to today, Labor Day. We didn't have any plans so I told her we would get going on the room in the morning. I told her we would take before and after pictures and we could post them on Facebook for everyone to see. Well when it came time to take the pictures she was like a Sean Penn trying to take out the paparazzi! She was jumping up grabbing my camera wielding hand and making every shot blurry. She was not eager to clean her room and even less eager to document it. So I wasn't angry about her room (as is frequently the case) and I wanted to make it fun so I came up with a reward. I told her that if we got her room cleaned (all the way) that I would take her to Value Village and buy her a new wallet (to replace her cute, but too childish plastic Hello Kitty wallet). It helped that Value Village is having a 50% off everything sale today! So we managed to say goodbye to lots of stuff, unfortunately it was mostly paper scraps and broken toys but it is amazing how much cleaner a room is without those things. This will be interesting to see how long the clean room lasts as I will have it documented. So here are the before and after photos. There is only one "before" picture due to her paparazzi stopping tactics. She also got a sweet new wallet, although they had NOTHING at VV and we had to pay retail (well retail less 54% off sale plus 15% off coupon) at Fred Meyer.