Victory!!!!!!!!

I did it! I did it! I DID IT!!!

For the last 9 weeks I have been working on the Couch to 5K program in preparation for my church's annual 5K on May 4th.

Some history: I am not a runner.  I have never been a runner.  Especially since I hurt my back in 2002, running has been difficult.  I've always envied runners, though.  Especially the calories burned per minute in a run versus the walking that I do.  Last year at this time, I was barely able to get out of bed.  At night my arms and shoulders were so uncomfortable in any position that I was barely sleeping.  I woke up every day with fibromyalgia-like pain.  In July of last year, I re-injured my low back, requiring a return to physical therapy.  Sometime during the course of physical therapy, chiropractic therapy, and a visit to Duke Integrative Medicine, I learned that I do not have fibromyalgia, just chronic pain disorder or some such nonsense.  The effect is the same-chronic unexplained pain. I also learned that the best way to combat the pain was through intense exercise. My low back is also less likely to hurt when my core muscles are strong.  I started exercising.  A LOT.  Through the course of exercising (and carrying my non-walking son until he decided to get on his feet at 18 months old), I injured my upper back.  I wanted to cry with the hopelessness I felt.  All the exercises I had done for my low back and to combat the chronic pain now hurt with the new upper back problem.  I am blessed because God knew I would face that moment.  I used to see one particular therapist at this physical therapy office.  It just so happened that, the week I re-injured my low back and returned to PT, he was on vacation and I had to go with someone else.  I started seeing Laura and she has been amazing!  She has been extremely supportive emotionally as well as therapeutically and full of suggestions as I has to return to low level exercises to try and build my strength up (again) without causing more problems or aggravating the ones I have.  She helped me through the beginnings of the Couch to 5K program when I decided to start the program 3 months ago.  She helped me when I started to add upper body exercises back into my routine and gave me the confidence to try some harder workouts

Today I finished the Couch to 5K program.  In the last week, I did 2-30 minute runs on the treadmill and one 30 minute run in the real world.  Today, I ran past the 30 minutes for the final C25K run and RAN 3.2 MILES at a 12 minute mile pace!!!!!

I cried.  I'm not completely clear.  I stopped going to physical therapy at the end of March but didn't DC completely so I could go back in case of further trouble.  I am happy to say that I have had NO PAIN beyond the usual sore muscles.  I did go back today because my sleeping is deteriorating some without the weekly PT treatment.  We changed my plan to include weekly massage of just the upper back and neck to help combat the problem. (I have a prescription for massage, which is AWESOME by the way. :) )

Even with those issues, I am crying because of where I have been and how far I have come.  My next test is the actual 5K next week but I am feeling just a bit more confident now that I have actually run a 5K distance.

Praise to God for the goodness he has worked in my life these past few months.  I hope I have finally learned the lesson he has been trying to teach me for the last 11 years since my first back injury.

If you're local, come cheer me on at the 5K next week.  If I'm crying, don't mind me.  I'm just celebrating my victory.

A Boy's Life

Christian's grandfather's first word was "bug," uttered when he saw a moth flying around a light.  Christian now has many words ("car" was the very first, and "train", "truck", and "bus" not far behind - the kid likes his vehicles.)

Yesterday Christian climbed up on the 8-in-1 playset, up through the tunnel connecting the two towers, and he stopped on the platform at the top of the big slide.  He spotted an ant or two crawling around the platform.  He sat down on the platform and watched with rapt attention as one of them tooled around the platform alongside Christian's leg and under his shoe and back into view again.  Then Christian decided it was time to go, so he got up on the slide, got into position, then raised his right hand in the air to waive as he slid down, saying, "Bye, bye, bug!"

Tae Kwon Do

Katie has wanted to take Tae Kwon Do for a long time.  She has seen and participated in many Tae Kwon Do demonstrations and had expressed interest in taking classes.  After seeing yet another demo last spring, we went to a demonstration class at a local TKD school and she had a great time!  They offered a summer camp and we signed her up to give her a chance to try the TKD before signing her up for long term classes.  It was awesome.  The only downside of the camp was that they taught all of the moves but didn't really focus on when to use them or the respect and discipline that is taught as part of the classes.  The instructors were impressed by Katie and they thought she was a natural.  We went ahead and signed her up for classes and just last Wednesday she had her first graduation from white to orange belt.  She has also been recommended  by the instructors to start black belt training and leadership training, two extra classes that she can take.  We have a meeting with the instructor next week to determine whether she is right for the classes.

I'm such a proud Mama!

Katie's favorite part, yelling REALLY LOUDLY!  AYAH!!

Fierce tiger Katie!

One of my favorite parts, Katie learning to sit and watch respectfully, like a black belt. :)

Receiving her orange belt.

I LOVE watching this guy teach Katie and the other kids.  I feel like I can learn so much as a parent and a teacher from his calm focused approach to teaching.  He is everything I could want in an instructor for Katie.

My proud orange belt!  Go Katie!

Time to catch up!

Time is flying!  So much has been happening and the pace is picking up now that we have entered my favorite season, FALL!! :)

We have lots of plans for this fall including a trip to the State Fair, the pumpkin patch for play and pumpkin picking, Halloween parties (a LOT of them!), trick-or-treating, and LOTS of yard work.

Here's a little round-up of what we have been doing for the last few months.

In July Katie started first grade!

She loves her new teacher and is doing fantastically in school after a slightly bumpy first month.  Her reading is off the charts awesome and she has started reading chapter books like the Magic Tree House and the A-Z Mysteries all by herself.  We even had a Mother/Daughter reading day one afternoon.  We sat on the screen porch together some weekend afternoon in July or August and each sat in a chair reading a book.  It warmed my book loving Mommy heart! 

Christian has been learning and developing as all little ones do.  His current desire is to learn to eat with a spoon.  

As you can see, he still needs a little work...

Fortunately, Katie is a little more practiced!

Christian is movin' and groovin'!  He is crawling and cruising, pulling up and climbing, but still not walking.  This photo, taken in September, was taken just after I turned around found Christian, totally full of himself, standing in the middle of the coffee table.  I wasn't fast enough to snap a picture of him standing but got this one right after he plopped down.

 Can't wait to go to the Fair tomorrow!

Candy Art

I saw this activity here on the Play at Home Mom blog (they have the BEST ideas!) and I knew that Katie would love to do it.  Then I thought, why not have some friends over to do it too?  It could be a cool fun play date!  So a date was set, supplies purchased, and a couple of neighbor friends invited.

Then...I started getting cold feet. What if the chocolate chips (the background) didn't melt the way they needed too?  What if it took too long to melt the chips and one kid was done before the next was?  What if...?  AH! I decided to do a practice run earlier in the day so I could smooth out any problems or come up with a plan B if I needed too.  The practice run went very well so I set up the invitation for Katie and her friends.  I was super excited about the whole activity.  I was imagining the kids faces as the walked in to this:

The invitation

The framing: She decided not to use the pretzel rods to frame her picture, she preferred to use gummy worms. 

How much candy can I put on this?

The one downside of this activity is that it didn't take very long.  They were done in about 15-20 minutes but managed to stretch it to 30 by putting candy on every. single. millimeter. of "canvas".  Everyone seemed to have a great time.  We did this a couple weeks ago and we STILL haven't finished eating ours!

Developmental Milestone Alert!!!

No, he's not walking yet, but today, Christian pulled himself onto the sofa by himself.  Yikes!  He had an easier time of it when he had my leg to grab on to in order to pull himself up but he was also able to do it just by holding on to the cushions.

He also had a great time at the playground today.  It had rained last night and it was muddy and wet so he only spent a few minutes crawling around the playground, the slippery slide, and the sand volleyball court.  He spent at least 15 MINUTES crawling and walking (holding my hands) up and down the hills to and from the playground and volleyball court and then crawling across the parking lot.  He especially loved climbing on and off the curb of the sidewalk into the parking lot.

Yes, I let my toddler crawl on hands and knees all over the (empty) parking lot, something I would never have done with Katie.  However, Katie was full on walking by the day after her 1st birthday.  I find, with a 15 month old non-walker, staying inside or on nicer crawling surfaces all the time is impossible.  He has the same energy depletion needs that other 15 month olds have who can walk and run and jump and climb playground equipment.  Since he doesn't do most of that, we have to punt.  He had a great time and I literally had to strip his dirty clothes off and hose the mud and sand and grass pieces off when we got home before taking him in the house.  I think I am going to wish I had an outdoor shower attached to my house with this one!

Sand!!

Christian loves the sand!  It is one of the few things that almost always keeps his interest for a long period of time.  He likes to dig, throw, taste, and squish.  He especially likes matching it with water so I made these two sensory bins for him to play in.  

 Eventually, he got tired of just playing with his hands and he started to get the rest of his body involved!

So, I bowed to his desires and created a poor man's sand box.  This is an under the bed box full of sand.  He loves it!  Katie also loves the fact that they can both play in the sand at the same time.  :)

Yay for sand!  Now I want an outdoor shower so I can rinse him off before he comes back in!