My first 5K

I just realized that it's almost been 2 weeks and I haven't posted pictures of my race!! AAHHH! I'm a bad blogger.

So, I'll tell you all about it now (complete with pictures). This was my first 5K ever. I was nervous and excited, I was afraid to eat in case I threw it up, but afraid not to eat because I didn't want to faint. And Brian kept reminding me it's not really more than I usually run...but I knew it was different.

The race was at the fair, but of course it started before the fair opened. So, we parked where we know there's free parking (not like any of the parking lots were open anyway), which happened to be REALLY far away from the gate where we were supposed to enter. I got a nice little warm up walk. And Sadie did really well in her stroller.

Sadie hanging out in her stroller waiting to watch mommy run

When we got there there were people anywhere from limping to heavy-duty like their life depended on this event. I was somewhere in between. I was trying not to make it a big deal. I had two goals, to run the entire way, and to finish in under 45 minutes. I achieved one of them.stretching and getting ready to start!

starting out with a smile on my face!

Anyway, it was fun to run with a big group of people, and it was hot, so I walked for about a quarter of a mile towards the end, but seriously, if I had known we were that close I would have pushed through. But my final time was 34:27, which was WAY under 45 minutes. Brian actually said he wasn't ready to take pictures when he saw me coming because he wasn't expecting me so quickly.

At the finish line (that girl in front of me came from nowhere and sprinting to the finish line)

Finishing felt really good. And since then I've run the full 5K twice without stopping. It really gave me confidence for the half marathon coming up in January. Although, running 35 minutes without stopping is different than running over 2 hours without stopping!!

yay!! Finished!!

The perfect banana

I swear I am not a blog addict, and in fact came upon this through the twitter feed of some sports writer I enjoy. There has been no contact with the author and I've never even read another post by this author. However the credit for the inspiration of this post is here. It is well worth the read.

A lot of times we struggle with the idyllic perception of perfection only to come up short. Recently I had a bulbous pimple right on my sit spot that forced me, in humiliating fashion, to ask my wife to examine and perform surgery. My wife, the great sport, sympathetically told me, "No." My struggles in marriage.

Earlier today my wife exclaimed that I should attempt to feed Sadie. All of my previous attempts involved massive baby meltdowns complete with mucus spit ups. When our crying alto soloist gets worked up into a nice sweaty ball of uncontrollable angst - she'll calm down a moment and then wretch, bulge her eyes and then eject viscous clear liquid I can only describe as "sticky" and "ew." My association of feeding Sadie solids has been one of hazard. She actually did not work herself into a tizzy today, but instead tried a new tact. Her mouth became a sealed vault where nothing shall pass. After 10 tries of ramming a banana puree loaded spoon against her sealed mouth, exacerbated, I handed over the tools to my wife. Immediately my daughters mouth became unsealed, wagged, and pleaded for mom to insert her favorite food into her cavernous welcoming gobbling spot. Hands into the air, hmpth's stated, I sat on a couch watching my daughter ravenously devour. My struggles with daughter.

I am the king of poorly executed DIY projects. I am a perfect engineer in that I understand how to do everything, how everything works and why things need to happen in a particular way. I am however, poor in execution. Actually poor is a bit generous. In Arizona we do not have lawns. Actually lawns are frowned upon as they use a lot of water and generally have to be seeded twice per year for each season (hot and less hot). We do have a lot of shade trees and drought tolerant bushes.

Huge industry revolves around people trimming bushes to look like spherical lollipops or cubist paintings. Apparently it is totally taboo to have any sort of plant adhere to its natural shape; instead we must manufacture man's touch upon nature and turn these growing monstrosities into neat geometrical shapes. We have 9 bushes in our front yard of which 4.5 actually require attention more than once a year. When we moved into our house I was approached by a company who trims bushes.
"How much?"
"$40"
"Is that a yearly fee?"
"Each time - $40."
"I have 4 bushes to trim. Is that ten dollars a bush?"
"Flat fee per house."


I bought an electric hedge trimmer for 40 bucks 3 years ago. I used it yesterday. My shapes aren't very good, but they pass the almighty HOA's pay-a-fine-for-ugly-bushes test. I think my neighbors hate me. Yet I'm contemplating whether or not 40 bucks is worth it.

We have a pool. Standing water, potable water, is a precious resource for insects. Last year hornets laid claim to our pool. I know right where their nest is - approximately. Their lair of hatred and pointy stingers and terror is somewhere in the middle of the biggest bush. The one that requires the most attention. Yesterday I got out the trimmers, unrolled the extension cord, examined the biggest bush, and immediately rolled the extension cord to other bushes with less growth and no hornets. Once the weather cools they go dormant and I can trim the bush and attempt to kill their nest. It is not yet cool enough.

As I was nearly done trimming the last bush in my daily work (the size of my trash can limits me to two bushes a weekend) I got stung. By a hornet. On my thumb. I immediately squealed like a girl, fought off big tears, and stormed inside complete with a slammed door. I promptly held out my throbbing thumb to my wife who shrugged her shoulders and said, "Yes, it hurts" and continued doing whatever thing it was that didn't include sympathy to me. My struggles doing manly things.


I'm not perfect, my family is not perfect and all the people who I come in contact with - certainly not perfect. But I wouldn't change any of it. In fact, I revel in it.

Hopes and Dreams

So, I know everyone is DYING to hear about my race last Sunday (vain, right?), but I'm going to make you wait a little longer, because this is on my heart right now. I have a friend named Lexi (she likes to go by Lex now, but I refuse to call her this, she will always be Lexi to me) and she has been going through some rough times. But she is strong. What is interesting is how her facebook comments, although mostly ambiguous, perfectly reflect her mood. You could say she wears her heart on her sleeve, er, facebook page.

Anyway, this post is not about Lexi, I just bring her up because she wrote on her facebook page today that she has unrealistic hopes and dreams. I will save you my speculation about what that might mean, and directly apply it to my life.

Reading this made me think about my hopes and dreams for Sadie. Tonight we were in the tub and I was asking Sadie what she wants to be when she grows up. A scientist? A teacher? A musician? Because really, in my heart, I believe she can be ANY of these things. Is this unrealistic to hope for? Maybe.

But maybe not.

I think about this almost everyday all day long. Will she do great things from a wheelchair? Or will she dance with her daddy at her wedding? Will she learn to play the piano? Or will her hands continue to be restricted so that she becomes a singer instead? Will she show the world that a diagnosis doesn't mean a damn thing?

Maybe. Maybe not.

The important part is that I have these hopes and dreams, no matter how unrealistic they may be. Because they keep me alive. They keep me from pulling my hair out. The keep me from admitting myself to the loony bin. They keep me from sinking into a deep, dark depression.

I do know this for sure. Whatever Sadie turns out to be 1. She will be beautiful, and 2. We will love her.

The Story of Bouncy...

We said goodbye to a dear friend this weekend, Bouncy Chair. As you can see, he's been good to us.


When Sadie first started screaming (becoming "neurologically irritable") we found that bouncing her vigorously in this contraption was the best way to calm her nerves. What started out as a chair, a place to put the baby while we're eating dinner, quickly became like crack to us. We couldn't live without it. We took it with us to public places, to other people's houses, we even brought it with us to a wedding. It was our fail-safe.

Later, we learned about vestibular stimulation. Your vestibular system involves your inner ear, and some people with sensory seeking behaviors need their vestibular system stimulated to either calm them, or to excite them. For us it's calming, definitely calming. This is why you see people rock back and forth, or you see big swing-like contraptions in special education rooms. It's even why people like to swing or to ride roller coasters.

But Sadie was growing out of the bouncy chair quicker than we'd like. So, we started talking to the OT, Jessica, about something new. We looked at a lot of catalogues and many websites, but we weren't ready to take action yet. After all, we still had the bouncy chair, so we didn't need to. And who cares that Sadie's legs hung off the bottom almost to the floor, or that her head sometimes banged on the wire frame, it still worked. And we were comfortable using it.

Until this weekend.

The bouncy chair finally broke. It snapped right in half...on the metal. (I'll have you know, this isn't the first bouncy chair we've broken. But the last one had a cheap plastic joint obviously not meant for 5-month-old babies. And in our defense, it was kinda old and out of practice due to under-use.)

I'll say it. Brian broke it. I wasn't even home. I got a text full of bad words while I was driving. Even though I laughed, I was definitely feeling Brian's pain. I had to refrain myself from a complete panic attack at this news as I could have become dangerous to others sharing the road.

We kicked it into high gear. As some of you know, Brian had to be with Sadie alone on Monday for 6-8 hours, because I had to go in to work, and without the bouncy chair, he had no way to calming her, helping her sleep, etc. Saturday afternoon, we went out and bought this.

The idea was to hang some kind of hammock contraption in order to swing Sadie back and forth. (Long term the idea is to get her a special needs swing designed for vestibular stimulation, but it was Saturday afternoon, and we needed this to work by Monday morning, so we were desperate.)

But as you can see, the hammock we have didn't quite work the way we imagined.


Sadie didn't like it that much either.


We didn't know what to do. We spent most of the evening talking (more like yelling over the screaming baby) and coming up with ideas on how we could build something, but we were down to one day and if it didn't work, Brian was gonna be SOL.

The next day, we caved in to our addiction and started searching Craigslist.

Luckily, we found what we were looking for (many of you who DON'T have an addiction to a bouncy chair may not know that there are several different types. They all basically do the same thing...if your child is under 10 pounds and 1 month old. We needed a certain one. This one.), and it was cheap too.

(*angels singing in awe of the beauty of the bouncy*)

We quickly learned that this bouncy chair is "inferior" to the one we had. It basically boils down to the fact that it hasn't been used as much as ours was. It just needs to be broken in. And the fabric is slippery.

Brian had a solution to that, and went to fish out the old cover from the trash (don't worry, we washed it and sanitized it, and there wasn't really anything else in the trash can anyway).


And now that it's Tuesday, and we've had a couple of days to break in the new bouncy chair, we've finally found success.

(this is obviously NOT meant for a 9-month-old child, no wonder we broke it!)

I should note that Monday went fine with daddy and child. And that we are still working on a special needs swing...we're thinking this one.

If you want to check out the other swings on this website, you can go here. And there aren't just swings...it's a pretty cool website.

So, thank you, those of you who have bounced Sadie, who have let us use your bouncy chairs, even those on Facebook who offered to give us yours when ours broke. Really, it's a bad habit we need to break. Maybe we can find some kind of bouncy chair rehab, heaven knows we need it around here!

More (Banana) Confessions...

1. Even though my neighbor is beautiful and skinny and has a perfectly clean house, I still find some comfort in the fact that she knows what I'm talking about when I tell her that the zit on my face feels like there's a rock growing under my skin.



2. Those diapers are STILL in the dryer...it's now Sunday. It's almost time to wash diapers again!



3. I still cry everytime I hear "I Can Only Imagine" by Mercy Me. Ever since that one day when I heard it, it gets me everytime. Luckily, I only listen to KLOVE when I'm in the car, and usually only when I'm by myself or just have Sadie with me (Brian doesn't like to listen to it), so it's not that embarrassing.



4. We bought another bouncy chair. There will be a whole blog post (with pictures) coming soon. But for now...the bouncy chair broke, we took it as a sign that it was time to "grow up." Then we realized we're not quite ready for that step yet, so we bought another one. We're addicted to convenience...and I'm strangely excited about it.



5. I laugh at Sadie when she gets scared. I know, this is like horrible mother material, but sometimes Sadie has this motion sensitivity to where when we lift her up high, coming down is REALLY scary. Sometimes I do this just to laugh at her. Then she cries and I feel bad, but then she does the cry where the bottom lip sticks out and I laugh again. I know, I'm mean.



So, to make up for it, here's this week's banana picture. I stole Brian's post for the day.

Confessions

1. I don't really mind going to bed at 8:30-9:00. It always baffles me when people on Facebook mention going to bed early at 10:00. I don't remember the last time I CHOSE to stay up until 10:00. The other night, Sadie's mouth hurt and she had a hard time going to sleep, and by 10:00, I could barely keep my eyes open!! And since we're usually up before 6:00am, I'd rather be in bed early.

2. I sorta like when Sadie *has* to sleep with me. Granted, it's uncomfortable if it goes on all night, but sometimes I lay there around 1:00am or 2:00am and kind wish Sadie'd wake up so I can pull her close to me and cuddle with her. I love how she just curls up and melts into my body like she was meant to be there.

3. Cleaning toilets doesn't bother me. There are SSOOOOO many things I hate more than cleaning toilets. Going grocery shopping, mopping, to name a few.

4. My diapers are still in the dryer. I washed them Thursday, and I'm writing this Saturday morning. I'm a little ashamed to say that all day yesterday I went to the dryer to get a clean diaper, but I never got them ALL and actually put them away.

5. I don't miss TV. Sure I watch Glee and Bones online every week, but it's sorta nice because I can get to them when I have time. We don't have cable, and therefore don't watch TV. We haven't had it for over a year now. I think it's really kept us from wasting time, and it probably makes it easier to keep that 8:30 bedtime!!

Sadie's Famous!

Ever since some other mommy blogs have been sharing about my fundraiser/marathon, I've had some donations come in from people I don't know. So when I got a generous donation from Adrian Larsen and Miridia Technology Inc. I didn't really think much of it. It was Brian who googled them. He was shocked to realize they are the creators of the technology used by the acupuncturist to create those acugraphs I showed you. He suggested that I look them up, find a way to contact them and send a thank you note. I had no idea I'd find this:


It's the facebook page for acugraph, and it introduces Sadie, it gave me chills. I thought it was just a link back to my post about Sadie's acugraphs, so I didn't click on it t first. But it's actually a link to HIS blog post about Sadie's acugraph!

Here, read it for yourself. It made me cry a little.

There's a somewhat new blog out there called Band Back Together. I will admit I haven't visited yet, but I have a good reason. It's a community blog in which people with any experience with any kind of trauma come to share their stories. The idea is to come together and offer support to one another via this amazing tool called the internet. Joslyn of Stark.Raving.Mad.Mommy was the most recent person to suggest I visit this blog and contribute. I told her I haven't gotten up enough courage to go there yet. As I said a couple of days ago, it still hurts. I'm not sure a. I'm ready to read others' stories of trauma, or b. I'm in a place yet where I can offer support for them. Joslyn said to just think, "what would I tell someone who just found out their baby has CP?" I told her I still feel like I just found out, someone should be supporting me still!

But after reading Dr. Larsen's blog tonight, I realized that Sadie's story, all parts, is powerful just the way it is. She is an amazing baby, and I'll brag a little, we're good parents to her and we constantly are seeking out the best things for her (isn't that what all good parents do?). We just have more research to do than most parents! So, why if I am so willing to broadcast our story on the radio, or run 13 miles to raise money for PCH, am I so afraid of this blog?! We're obviously effecting others, why would it scare me to offer our story in such a profound community forum?

I don't know.

Maybe tonight I'll finally muster up the courage to get involved.