Marathon Update

Did I mention that I'm training for a half marathon?
I haven't given it a lot of press, mostly because when Mike and I first started dating, he hung out with all these other runners and all they talked about were PRs and fartleks and injuries and all I heard was "wah wah wah wah" like on the Peanuts.
But, since this is my blog, I thought it was worth mentioning that I am doing a half marathon in ehem, 6 weeks. You may also be interested to know that I am not doing so hot with the training for said 13.1 miles. I was doing pretty well in late November and early December, doing a boot camp twice a week at my gym and running 2-3 days a week besides getting up to 6 miles on my long runs. Then Christmas season came along and I got an ear infection from JM (which I haven't had since I was like 10) and then I started making Pioneer Woman cinnamon rolls and sugar cookies and pumpkin cream cheese muffins (all of these recipes are phenomenal, btw- YUM) then it was Christmas and Mike and I brought our running stuff to Dallas, but at that point we had Mimi and Grandpa to watch the kids while we slept in, so we did (yes!) and never ran, then I fell out of a door of a bar and got a drinking injury wherein pulled a muscle in my leg (I don't get to go out very much anymore, so yes, I overindulged a little on one of my less than 10 nights of drinking out in 2010, so kill me. It was fun! :)

All that being said (oye, the excuses,) I ran this morning for the first time in probably 2 weeks. I'm a little worried that I'm not going to be able to make it. We'll see. So yes, goal for 2011 besides making bed every day= get butt moving. Can one pick up the pace and run a half being this out of shape in only 6 weeks? To be seen.

Happy New Year! And happy 25th birthday to my awesome sister! Hope 2011 is a good one for all of you.

Peppermint Ice Cream/Noah in Tree

We just got back last night from 5 days in Dallas, Christmasing with Mike's family. It was great. We visited, drank, slept in, ate and ate some more. There were 6 adults and 5 kids at Mike's parents' normal sized 4 bedroom house, but it was good visiting. Christmas celebrations with my family included, the boys had a total of 4 Christmas celebrations. JM was so much fun to watch this year, as he "got it" a little more. He was in hog heaven playing with all his cousins on both sides and was totally on his best behavior in Dallas, playing hard all day and then hugging everyone good night each night in his sweet little toddler way. Noah slept great at Mimi and Grandpa's and was a doll, too. In the past week, he has gone from simply rolling once or twice, to rolling all the way across the room! Oye, he's on the move and no looking back now. Today I left the room and came back and found him 15 feet from where I left him, under the Christmas tree! eating some lights!!! Oh, no, Noah! Time for mama to start babyproofing. Yes, he is holding a saw in this picture, as well. He can also trim a tree. So advanced! :)

As there are mounds of laundry to be done, I'll keep this short. We are fat and happy and it's time for New Years dieting to begin. That said, I got a new Cuisinart ice cream maker for Christmas and made some peppermint ice cream tonight. You know the pink kind with the crushed candy canes? It's possibly my favorite ice cream flavor, right up there with mint chocolate chip and butter pecan. This was delicious.

Custard-Style Peppermint Ice Cream (adapted from Allrecipes.com)
Serves 8

• 4 egg yolks
• 1 1/2 cups half-and-half cream
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups whipping cream
• 4-5 dots of red food coloring
  
• 2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoons peppermint extract
  
• 1 cup crushed peppermint candies

Directions

1. In a heavy saucepan, whisk egg yolks, half-and-half, sugar and salt. Cook and stir over low heat until mixture reaches 160 degrees F and coats the back of a metal spoon (usually about 10 minutes). Remove from the heat. Place pan in a bowl of ice water; stir for 2 minutes. Stir in whipping cream, food coloring and extracts. Press plastic wrap onto surface of custard. Refrigerate for several hours or overnight.
2. Fill cylinder of ice cream freezer two-thirds full. (Refrigerate any remaining mixture until ready to freeze.) Freeze according to the manufacturer's directions. Stir in peppermint candy. Allow to ripen in ice cream freezer or firm up in the refrigerator
3. Freeze for 2-4 hours before serving.
4. Lick bowl
   

Hungry Mungry

Noah's lunch today:
20 minutes of breastfeeding
container stage 1 peas
container stage 1 turkey
3 oz 14 gram fat per serving peach yogurt mixed with rice cereal (no honey :)
sugar free applesauce

He is a bottomless pit! He loves real food as much as his brother did. It's totally crazy to me that he's eating this much so soon into starting solids, but he gobbles it all up. I was only planning to give him the peas and half the turkey, but he wanted more. If this keeps up, I can't wait to see how much he's gained at his weight check after Christmas!

Christmas laugh

Oh, how I love this little scene. Mike's soft voice. Noah's giggle. JM saying "you like this!" and trying to make him laugh. Mike is off for two weeks and it's awesome! A break for both him and ME! Yay!

Merry Christmas! And good job on the frog gift, Peter and Sarah!

Noey at 6 months!

Okay, so Noah has been 6 months old since Monday, but the week has gotten away from me!

So we had his well check appointment on Monday and I was somewhat shocked to learn that the little bugger is down to damn 8th percentile for weight. He was 14 lbs 10 oz. I made them weigh him twice I was so shocked. He is 60th percentile for height. I'm not totally surprised about the weight thing, as the little duder just isn't all that interested in breastfeeding. He does great at night and in the morning, but the time in between is hard to keep him on the breast. Mike and I were just talking about Christmas plans, for example, and I was trying to feed Noah, as it had been 3.5 hours since his last feeding, and he would eat for 2 minutes, then crane his head around to listen to Mike and smile at him, then would get back to it, then would stop again and listen to Vince Gill, then eat, then he laid on the Boppy for a while and ultimately after 20 minutes of trying to force feed him, I gave up. If Noah was indeed hungry, I sure wouldn't have known it.

Obviously with JM's history of infant weight issues (now he's 34 lbs!!!), the fact that Noah went from 50th, to 25th to 8th percentile bothers me. I'm not sure why my babies are long and lean and it's frustrating, but as my mom said, "at least he's 6 months old and not 6 weeks old." And, maybe it's just one of those things that is the way it is. As JM gained 10 pounds between 6 mo and a year, I definitely know how to fatten up a baby with food. I'm sure some people would be tempted to give up breastfeeding at this point, but I love it, so the game plan as of now is to continue trying to feed Noah every 3 hours with breastmilk and add a lunch and dinner solid. We do a weight check in a month and hopefully stuffing him with food will help.

Speaking of stuffing him with food, my mom mentioned that I should try to give him some yogurt and I thought "oh great, I've got some honey yogurt in the fridge that is super fatty. He'll LOVE that!" And absentmindedly gave him some mixed with some cereal like a complete dodo and then an hour later remembered that he's not supposed to have honey until a year and had to call the emergency nurseline. We are hence on botulism watch over here and I'm diligently and prayerfully watching him the next 30 days and trying not to worry that I've killed him with my Greek yogurt. Thankfully, the honey was only 5% of the total formula, so it wasn't like I gave him a teasponful or anything, but still scary. Sigh. He seems fine so far. Our ped told me not to worry, but to keep an eye on him.

So yes, my Noey at 6 months.... Seriously, if one could bottle up joy, it is Noah. If you are having a bad day, there is no way you could be angry or sad being around him. He is always smiling and loves to cuddle. I confessed to Mike that he's kind of like a dog that way (yes, I compared my child to a dog), just constant love and always happy to see you. He loves to shriek at ear piercing volumes and "talks" quite a bit. He rolls all around the floor and puts everything in his mouth. He still can't sit and is definitely not crawling. He still takes 3 naps a day. He's so easygoing. Usually you put him in his crib and he doesn't fuss at all at naptime. Better yet, lately we've put him down to bed at some random houses and places and he'll also go right to sleep. JM never did this and liked to sleep best in his own bed. Hopefully, he'll continue to do well with this at Mimi and Grandpa's over Christmas :)

We are so blessed to have him!

Pride officially out the window

I should be writing about how my Noah is 6 months old as of yesterday!
But instead I'm going to write about how my 2 year old is home from school with a yucky nose.
And, since I didn't want to take both kids to my dermatologist for a recheck on my moles, I called sweet Uncle Peter to babysit this morning.
Said 6 month old took one look at Uncle Peter and freaked out and wouldn't stop crying, and Peter seemed a little bewildered, so I had to take a one Mr. Noah to the dermatologist.
He wouldn't stop crying in the waiting room, so I started feeding him, and of course right then they called my name, so I had to unlatch him and take him to the exam room. More crying while I got checked in.
Then the poor male doctor walked in on my feeding him again and got all embarrassed and asked if he should come back.
5 minutes later, he came back and I unlatched Noah again. More crying.
Noah wouldn't let me put him down, so I was sitting there wearing a paper gown trying to keep him happy on one side without feeding him even though I knew that was what he wanted, and he is back and forth switching between tears and trying to eat! the paper gown and at the same time the doctor is trying to check out a mole on my rear end.
Then Noah tears the paper gown down the front kind of like Priscilla Presley in the Naked Gun.
Then they leave and let me feed the poor baby.
Then they come back and remove two moles and do a biopsy.
It was all very dramatic.
I am sure both my doctor and his assistant will go home and talk about their crazy appointment this morning with the cute and frazzled mother and paper-gown eating baby.
Thankfully, being a mother the 2nd time around I can laugh at this whole scenario. And, hopefully my moles are okay. Damn Slovak Mediterranean skin.
Life as a mom is hard and humiliating sometimes.

Flattery

I am not making this up, y'all.
Yesterday I asked JM if he could "help" me pick out some clothes to wear so I could look pretty on my hot date out with Mike (thank you, mortgage snafu and ensuing $125 gift card to Flemings and ensuing celebration of our 5 year engagement anniversary over wine and Flemings potatoes! yum!).
I digress. We were in my closet and he was making all sorts of suggestions for different green shirts and green dresses and green sweaters (love him).
Then I was trying on pretty much every semi-formal outfit I have, realizing that all my dress clothes are summery and all my wintery nice stuff is from my corporate days and at least 6 years old.
Then he said, "Mama, you look pretty."

No way! It had been about 15 minutes and a good 5 outfits since I had said anything about looking pretty. I was really impressed that he knew to say this to me without prompting! Talk about buttering me up! He is talking like a grown up lately and it blows my mind. Yesterday he was pretending to talk on the phone to Froggy and I told him to tell Froggy I said "hi" and asked how Froggy was doing and he said, "He's good!" like any of us would say and I giggled. I have to wonder where he gets some of the stuff he says. The pretty remark was the perfect thing to say and was almost enough to make me forget that he has been a little shitzkedobra, as my Slovak great aunts and uncles used to say, lately, when it comes to naptime and bedtime, getting out of his bed all.the.blasted.drivemeupafreakinwallsantareallyshouldbebringingcoalinsteadofagreenscooter.time.

These kids.

Double-fistin

Today I was in the grocery baby aisle and spied the rice cereal. Noah's one week away from 6 months, so I thought I might as well buy some. Since we were feeling jolly around here, we gave some to Noah after his "lunch" nursing. And, he LOVED it. He kept trying to hold the spoon, so I gave him his own. Between me trying to stick my spoon in there and him eating his spoon, it was a big mess, but a fun one. Here he is "double-fisting." It was adorable to watch his wonder at this new substance, but I admit that I cried. I don't want him to be out of the baby stage quite yet. 6 months to a year was a fun time for me with JM, but it went by way too fast. Actually, it seems like one day JM was just sitting up at 6 months and it's been an utter fast forward to now, flying by like all the grannies in HEB said it would. (Sobs)


Noah's enjoyment of the food was a far cry from his brother, poor thing! JM didn't like plain cereal one bit. It wasn't until we added some bananas that sire came around. It's nice to not be worried about Noah and just introducing the food for fun, I must say. Now, if I only I could keep him little! :(

1 Corinthians 13- Christmas Version

Last year, I saw this in my church mom's group monthly email. It's a bit dated in some regards, but I love the basic message.

1 Corinthians 13- Christmas Version

If I decorate my house perfectly with plaid bows,
strands of twinkling lights and shiny balls,
but do not show love to my family,
I'm just another decorator.
If I slave away in the kitchen,
baking dozens of Christmas cookies,
preparing gourmet meals
and arranging a beautifully adorned table at mealtime:
but do not show love to my family,
I'm just another cook.
If I work at a soup kitchen
carol in the nursing home,
and give all that I have to charity;
but do not show love to my family,
it profits me nothing.
If I trim the spruce with shimmering angels
and crocheted snowflakes,
attend a myriad of holiday parties
and sing in the choir's cantata
but do not focus on Christ,
I have missed the point.
Love stops the cooking to hug the child.
Love sets aside the decorating to kiss the spouse.
Love is kind, though harried and tired.
Love does not envy another's home
that has coordinated Christmas china and table linens.
Love does not yell at the kids to get out of the way,
but is thankful they are there to be in the way.
Love does not give only to those who are able to give in return; but rejoices in giving to those who cannot.

Love bears all things,
believes all things,
hopes all things, and
endures all things.
Love never fails.
Video games will break,
pearl necklaces will be lost,
golf clubs will rust;
but giving the gift of love will endure.

Author: Sharon Jaynes

Taken from Celebrating a Christ Centered Christmas

www.sharonjaynes.com

Santa

This year we went to the Domain to see Santa. He was SO sweet and it was such a nice experience as we were the only ones there and I was able to park 200 feet from Santa's little house, making it an easy in and out, wham, bam, thank you Santa, so much appreciated by this mama! Last year we went to Barton Creek and had to stand in line for a half an hour, so this was great!

And, yes, I made my boys wear their embarassingly cute Christmas outfits! Love them.

Favorite quotes from the excursion from JM:
"She no have a face!" regarding a headless mannequin in a store window
"He coming to my house! I'm so 'cited!" after talking to Santa (I've never hear him name his emotions and I had no idea he knew what excited was!)