Quad Venti Caramel Macchiato

Yes.  Four shots of espresso.  And it did NOTHING to dent my fatigue Tuesday while I was in the city with both the boys trying to do all of Berry Boy’s Back To School shopping.  At that moment, I could not figure out why on earth it is so freakin’ difficult to go to the city with the boys.

I figured it out on Wednesday.

Wednesday, I went back to the city sans Berry Baby.  Just with my big guy.  And I discovered that the problem is in fact the little guy.  Shopping is truly more relaxing when you don’t have an overactive toddler standing up in the shopping cart seat trying to jump to your arms when you are five steps away trying to find a size 12 shoe for his brother that looks cool.

Berry Boy and I had a lovely morning together.  We finished up his shopping, got him a Back To School haircut, saw his Dad at work, got a few groceries, and STILL made it back to pick up Berry Baby around noon.  Incredible.

It also made me realize that doing things alone with Berry Boy is a good thing for him and me.  He had a morning of my undivided attention, and I was much less crabby (and maybe, just maybe, a little…fun?) since I didn’t have to catch leaping toddlers who refuse to sit in shopping carts for more than a nano-second.

But back to the espresso.

After I had downed my Venti four shot macchiato on Tuesday, we made it (finally – I totally messed up last time and missed our original appointment a month and a half ago, and this was the first available time I could get in after that fiasco) to the Pediatrician to discuss Berry Baby’s inability to sleep more than two hours in a row at night.  I love the pediatrician.

We agreed to put Berry Baby back on his reflux meds, but we also both agreed that it was a mixture of a medical problem and a bad sleep habit problem.

So, the plan is that once he’s been back on his meds for a week or two and the reflux has settled down, I will tackle the sleeping issues.  Which will likely mean moving Berry Boy to another room temporarily, or that Berry Guy and Berry Boy will be camping in the tent for a few nights.

Should be loads of fun.

I’ve been doing a little research on Sleep Training for toddlers, but any tidbits of wisdom are appreciated.  As are virtual hugs.  And real ones.  And coffee.

Which brings me to running.

You may notice I am not doing too much of that as of late.  I’m feeling a bit of a slump, which is highly unusual.  Normally, when something like this happens, it’s a good thing to sign up for a race, or pick up some new shoes or shorts or something to motivate yourself.

So, I am signed up for a race – my favorite race, which is a 10k up at a nearby resort.  I head up there every Fall with three other girlfriends that I don’t get to hang with very often.  We go up Friday, stay the night, do the run on Saturday, putz around, and have an amazing supper at this fabulous little restaurant that’s on our way home.  So that alone should be motivating me.  But it isn’t.  So I also picked up new shoes at my favorite running store’s Stinky Sneaker Sale.  And they’re awesome shoes.  But I bought them almost a week ago , and I’ve only run in them twice.  TWICE!  That’s really unheard of for me.  Buying new shoes is like buying new cereal – I always have to try it right away.

Even the two runs that I’ve done in the last week have been kind of *meh*.  This summer I’ve been feeling like a superhero after my runs, and this week not at all.  More like a superhero without any real powers or motivation.  It’s discouraging.

And, that’s probably all I have to say.

There Goes My Heart

Like it wasn’t enough that he was going off to Grade 1 tomorrow.

As a side note, his little brother had a total freaking out meltdown complete with shrieking and wailing, because he was not on “da Bie” [the bike].  And then he spent the next hour playing with a little toy “bie” [motorcycle] and *talking* about it.  With much angst.

Happy Camper…

Here is a small recap of the 4x4 adventure that we went on with our friends…

1. We spent 2 and a half days driving to our “destination”, and it rained for 1 and a half of those days.

a. on the one hand, the area we were travelling to really needed the rain for forest fire control.

b. on the other hand, our Jeep leaked.  A lot.  As did the metal locker box that was storing all of our hikers and rain boots and rain jackets and windbreakers.

 

2. The temperature on the top of the mountain where we were camping and 4x4ing was approximately 3degrees.  Or less.  And damp.

 

a. on the one hand, the damp was great for the prevention of forest fires.

b. on the other hand, all our “wet wear” was, well, wet.  And it was 3degrees.  See 1b.

 

3. Berry Boy walked through a huge mudhole.  In his only dry pair of shoes.  See 1b.  I have nothing else to add.

 

4. The 4x4 trail was very, um, technical

a. on the one hand, it made for a great adventure

b. on the other hand, my fingerprints are firmly embedded in the dash.

c. on the other hand, the carton of apple juice and the 4 cans of Coke that I had inexplicably left loose in the 4x4 camper we were towing were caused to burst since the camper was bouncing about 2 feet off the ground as we 4x4’d.  Yes.  Yes they did.

 

5. We departed from the 4x4 mountain and hit the lake to visit my sister and her family.

a. on the one hand, it was nice and sunny and warm.

b. on the other hand, it was nice and sunny and warm and dry.

 

6. We then drove home for two days.

a. on the one hand, we got a sweet deal on a cushy hotel room with a king-sized bed, fireplace, jacuzzi tub, free hot breakfast and Starbucks just across the road.

b. on the other hand, we had to use the massive jacuzzi tub to soothe Berry Baby’s flaming diaper rash.  Resultant from him *unloading* into his diaper earlier that day, in his carseat, such that he required a complete change of clothes and that I *really* needed to wash his carseat cover when we got home.

c. on the other hand, Starbucks didn’t open the next morning until NINE A.M.  And I couldn’t convince Berry Guy to wait the extra half an hour, and I was forced to be satisfied with Tim Hortons for the rest of the trip.

d. on the other hand, Berry Guy appeased me by stopping later in the day at Dairy Queen for blizzards.

 

7. We got home safe and sound on Wednesday evening.

a. on the one hand the boys were psyched to be not in the Jeep and playing with their toys.

b. on the other hand, I had to kill 20 moths that night.  And 8 the next night.

c. on the other hand, my marriage almost came to an abrupt end because Berry Guy had *forgotten* to throw out all the meat from the soft-sided cooler, and we had taken it all home with us.  In the heat.  And he had packed my Starbucks Ethiopian Sidamo coffee in there.  Which was really the clincher.

d. on the other hand, I was just really glad to be home.

Scenes of Serenity from our adventure:

up in the mountains, in the boat with my great friend, our coffees, and our books, stealing a bit of peace from our boys…

 

at the lake, visiting my sister…

on the way home (who knew you could find good iced coffee in a small mining town), I had my coffee break…

while the boys had theirs…

SERENITY NOW!

What I need to accomplish by Wednesday morning when we leave for a 4x4 adventure with our friends:

wash/fold/put away 50 bazillion loads of laundry

prepare spaghetti sauce and freeze it

grill chicken breasts and freeze them

chop sausage and freeze it

buy French bread, buns, lunch meat, more treats, water

Pack clothes, makeup, medicine, sunscreen, bug spray, hats, inhaler, various necessities for four people (well, not the makeup, that’s just for me…)

type minutes for the last Preschool Committee meeting (which was back in JUNE) and email them out to the committee members

take out all the garbages

iron any clothes that will be taken along that need ironing

print off posters for the Preschool registration night and get them to someone to put up around town

pack food

pack camping gear

work for 4 hours Tuesday morning

 

What I have accomplished:

eating ice cream.

 

Good night.

Points to Ponder

I keep thinking that I should be able to drop 5lbs no problemo.  Problem is, I do this thinking while eating a marshmallow cookie.  And/or a Crispy Crunch.  And/or drinking Pepsi.  I have no idea where the problem is.

It takes me approximately 5 minutes to boil water for my coffee press, and an additional 4 minutes to brew the coffee in said press.  I give the sorters 10 minutes for coffee break.  I’m going to have to start giving them longer breaks.

Berry Boy asked me why I was wearing my hat, and I told him it was because I had bad hair.  Later after supper, I took my hat off and he said “Hoch, you DO have bad hair…”  (thaaaanks)

Yesterday morning I was ignoring Berry Baby and continuing to snooze as he called yelled from his crib, when I was brought back to consciousness by Berry Boy yelling “I CAN’T SLEEP WITH BERRY BABY MAKING ALL THAT NOISE” over and over and over.

I am at the point (again, yes, I’m sure you’re all sick of hearing it) where I would give almost anything for a solid night’s sleep.  Almost. Anything.  Including, but not limited to, non-essential body parts.  I’m getting really tired.

In Which We Sometimes Don’t Hit The “Sweet Spot”

We have family around from Far Away right now.  And by Far Away, I meant a different continent.  Berry Boy has been playing with his cousins and they are getting along like bandits.  It’s so fun.

So we had a family brunch this morning at 10:30am, during which I met my caloric needs for about 2 days in the space of an hour and a half.  If loving food is wrong, then lock me up and throw away the key baby.  I’m a lost cause.

Needless to say, a run was definitely going to have to be in the plans.  Unfortunately, consuming half a pound of bacon and sausage, a helping (or two) of bacon mushroom breakfast strata, fresh strawberries and melted dark chocolate, and (several) waffles with whipping cream and Saskatoon Berry sauce, along with coffee, and then having a two hour nap, and feeling like crap, does not lend itself to a good run.  I almost didn’t even make it out the door.

But I did, and it sucked just as bad as I thought it would.  So I cranked up my iPod and cranked out my miles.  And stopped once in a while to gasp and heave a little.

I finally hit my “groove” (or as close to a groove as I was going to get on this run) in the last mile and a half, which only means that it finally felt a degree less crappy than it had in the beginning.

So I was settling into my “groove” (such as it was) and getting ready to run the hill that comes before my driveway.  I had been doing quick shoulder checks to make sure that no cars were sneaking up behind me, and I did one again as I passed my neighbor’s house.

Where before there had been nothing there was now a large dog standing in the middle of the road, behind me, looking at me.  I gave an involuntary yell (“AH!!!”) and jumped about 2 feet off the road.  Since my iPod was cranked up (in order to drown out the crappy run feelings) I had not heard him come up or bark or anything.  He was just standing there, all German Shepherd-ish, and staring at me.  And all the things that I’ve heard to do with dogs began to flash through my mind, and I was not doing ANY of them.  You’re not supposed to run away (I’m pretty sure he’d been there for a minute already and I’d been “running away” that whole time), you’re not supposed to yell at them (I yelled), you’re not supposed to make eye contact (I was totally making eye contact)…

Thankfully, either his owners were on the yard, or he was just really nice, because he just watched me and then walked back onto his yard and out of sight.  I spent the rest of the run running fast (adrenalin) and looking over my shoulder (neck cramp).  Good times.

So no sweet spot for me today.  But it’s ok, I cheered myself up with a little Ben & Jerry’s.  Totally makes the run worth it.