Motivation Monday: Five Trail Races Between March and May

The whole family got muddy on New Year's Day, me trail running
and Mike and Muffin mountain biking.

Last year I ran around somewhat aimlessly, just trying to recover from injury while still wanting to run the Army Ten Miler. I had no real training plan, other than going to my chiropractor regularly and making sure to do yoga and strength training. After a Did Not Finish at the Blessing ten-mile race in Narragansett in July, I was more determined to pay attention to my injury and caring for it. I also started looking at my diet, too. I absolutely did not have to lose weight and that was not my goal. However, eating a little healthier has not only given me strength for injury recovery and running more, but jeans and t-shirts that were beginning to feel uncomfortably tight started feeling comfortable again.

With injury prevention and running more in mind, I came to the realization that I was bored running on roads. Last spring I'd started seeking out trails to run on a regular basis and began enjoying it more than my road runs. The slower pace seems to suit my aging body without exacerbating injuries. So I started looking at trail races in the area. I found that Virginia has tons of them. After doing a bit of research, I decided to sign up for The North Face Endurance Challenge half-marathon distance at the end of April. Once I signed up for that, Facebook started advertising even more trail races in my feed. They are all so tempting. When I came across the Backyard Burn trail race series, I saw that they had a five-mile option for each of the four races. Three of the races occur before TNFEC so I thought that shorter races would give me the feel for trail racing without taxing my training at all. So I signed up for all four in the series during the early registration discount period. The last one is the weekend after TNFEC. I figure even if I'm still exhausted from the half marathon the weekend before, I can still fast walk it within the time limit and get my series finisher prize.

Weekly and yearly mileage as of
Saturday, January 5

January is my base mileage month. I'm already eating tons of food and taking naps at every chance. I'm setting small goals and taking it day by day. I'm doing a lot of yoga. I'm managing my time and planning and prepping meals as much as I can.

I don't plan on running the Army Ten Miler this year. After three years I'm ready to try something else. There's a fall Backyard Burn series as well. Maybe by then I'll be ready to run all four of them at the ten-mile distance rather than five.

For now, it's one day at a time. Run, eat, sleep, repeat. Work and parent and be a good partner in between those, too.

Motivation Monday: Snow Days

Frozen Narragansett Bay at low tide back on Run Streak Day 60

Today will be day 71 of my run streak. Between the cold weather, school holiday break, and snow days, it’s been difficult to get outside and it’s been difficult to find the time for more than one mile but I’m keeping the streak alive so far. Today is another snow day and I’ll get down to the fitness room in our building for another mile on the treadmill. I’m reminding myself that the running makes me a happy, healthy person. That it’s okay for Kiddo to play with my phone for fifteen minutes so I can get it done. She sometimes hops on the treadmill next to me for a quarter mile or so, then plays with the giant exercise balls. (A current favorite activity of hers is to bellyflop onto one and roll it across the room.)

It’s only January 8th but it already feels like it's been a long, dark winter. I have no specific races in mind this year. I have nothing specific to train for. I don’t know why I’m doing this daily running, except I guess I want to have a decent base for when I do decide on a race.

On Friday’s snow day I took Kiddo to the climbing gym. It was nearly empty, which surprised me. Since it was a cold-weather day, not a bad-weather day, I expected more people to have gotten their kids out of the house for some indoor activity to wear them out. But Kiddo and I pretty much had the run of the place. After a few climbs where I belayed her, we decided to go to the bouldering side of the gym, where you climb without ropes. Kiddo attacked the wall. She was at the top before I could blink. And she wanted to keep trying over and over again. I managed to get her to sit still for a few minutes so I could get some climbs in. It was wonderful to hear her cheer for me when I got to the top. I realized that I need to see her boundless enthusiasm to continue encouraging me and she needs to see me continuing to try new things and tackle new challenges even if I’m tired or in a bad mood.

She and I spend so much time together, she watches everything I do and gets her cues from me.
And I guess that’s why I’m going on with the run streak even on these dull, dark days. I have no physical or mental reason not to. Kiddo sees me having my activities, my life, and making it a priority, even if it’s only for fifteen minutes out of the day.

Follow-up to My Previous Post

Kiddo likes to wear cool jewelry and those shirts that have the sequins that have a color or design in one direction and a different color or design in the other direction. I want her to express herself and feel comfortable with her fashion choices. I do not want other kids grabbing her pendants or touching her sequins uninvited.

I feel guilty over an incident at the bus stop this morning. Kiddo was wearing a cool pendant and a little boy her age ran up and touched it because he thought it was cool, too. And neither Kiddo nor I said anything. It did cross my mind to say something. But so did: Kiddo didn’t say anything and her body language didn’t give me any clues toward her comfort level. Was she simply surprised, but not bothered? Or was she annoyed? I didn’t want to cause a scene with a seven-year-old child. (This kid is loud.) I didn’t want to cause a scene with his mother. (She scolds her kids all the time but it doesn’t seem to stop any of their grabby behavior.)

In the past I have confronted this child when he has grabbed something. It's usually a little toy Kiddo has in her hand. His sister tried to take my Kindle out of my hands one afternoon when I was reading while waiting for the bus to drop off and I told her, “No,” very firmly.

Sometimes I just don’t want to cause a scene and I feel terrible if it’s happening at Kiddo’s expense.

I’m exhausted.

I want to protect Kiddo and defend her. But she and I talk so often about appropriate interactions. I want other parents to be having these talks with their kids, too. We’re reading Ramona the Pest and Ramona wants to kiss a boy and pull another girl’s beautiful springy curls and I stop to remind Kiddo these things are not appropriate if the other child does not want them to happen. I’ve warned her about hugging friends who do not like to be hugged. (She’s a hugger.)

I am not against physical contact. That’s not what this is about. Kiddo has friends that she does hug upon greeting. She has a close friend, who’s a boy, who she greets by hugging tightly and they knock each other to the ground and wrestle until his little sister jumps on top of them. And it’s fine because all three kids are totally on board with interacting that way with each other. And they’re also all fine with saying, “I don’t feel like wrestling today,” and not wrestling.

And in this household, this is not considered a feminist issue for the females to deal with. Mike has these talks with Kiddo, too, so I'm not totally alone. But we are just two parents in a world of millions. It's still overwhelming.

I don’t know what I’m going to do when Kiddo gets home from school, if I should bring it up or not. If she’s forgotten about it I kind of don’t want to remind her. I’m afraid she’ll think of it as her doing something wrong because she didn’t call out this boy, when I feel like I’m the one who’s totally in the wrong. If she mentions it or if it somehow comes up naturally of course I’ll discuss it. But I can't do this by myself. Other parents have to have these talks with their kids, too.

To bring this back to my previous post:
“Cool necklace!”
“Thanks!”
Perfectly nice interaction.

“Cool necklace!” said while grabbing for it and ignoring the look of surprise on Kiddo’s face is not appropriate.

I want Kiddo to be able to defend herself but I also want her to not have to.

Expectations vs. Limitations

"You'll never be more than alive
You'll never do more than survive
Until you expect it"
~10,000 Maniacs - Few And Far Between

Yes, I've gotten to the point where I'm quoting favorite songs from my teen years for inspiration. (On that same playlist, "I think about the time, I kicked a boy 'til he cried," The Sundays.)

I've been loosely following a training schedule to get ready for my two ten-mile races. This is the first week where I'm feeling the craziness of trying to fit it all in. Mike's out of town and I have some volunteer commitments at Muffin's school. I can only run during her school hours anyway, which limits me if I have any other plans during the day. A couple hours of writing/working is nice to accomplish regularly. I also need to eat, and feed Muffin, which means I need to make time for grocery shopping and cooking. I'll let the dishes and laundry pile up for days, though. It's not as urgent as the eating and the running.

My weekday runs this week are supposed to be a five miler and an eight miler. Yesterday I planned to run but when I woke up I wasn't feeling it and went to the climbing gym instead. I'm perfectly happy with that decision because I felt great by the end of the day and I woke up ready to run this morning. With my IT band acting up, though, I was hesitant to commit to eight miles. Generally I tell my body, "Run X miles," and my body does it without questioning me. I think that's how I got injured in the first place, however, so I need to rethink that strategy.

Part of me really wanted to get the eight miles over with because this morning was the only time I have until next Monday to fit in a long run. The me of two or three years ago would have said, "Fuck it! Run the eight miles and care not about the tiredness and injuries. You'll bounce back!" But the me of right now really doesn't want to be in pain if it can be avoided.

I chose a route that put me at Metro stations at mile five and mile eight so I could gauge how I felt along the way and decided when to bag it and head home. I kind of knew I was only going to run five miles but I didn't want to rule out eight until I'd honestly assessed how my IT band felt.

Things felt not great. Despite rolling and stretching, my quad was tight and there was some tenderness in my calf. Between miles three and four I had a running dialogue in my head between younger me and current me about stopping at five miles or not. Older, wiser, lamer, safer current me won. I detoured off the path and around a small park before arriving at a Metro station at 5.1 miles. It was absolutely the right choice. By the time I'd gone through the turnstile and gotten onto the train platform, my left calf had seized up in what I assume is anger at having taken it out running. 

Four days of walking and yoga should prepare me for a longer run on Monday. I've trained for enough races to know that I still have plenty of time to get those eight- and ten-mile runs in before the first race at the end of July. I'm still trying to figure out my new limitations before I can tell my body what I expect from it.

Time for Some Changes

I got caught in the rain this morning.

Dang! I completely forgot about the movie challenge. I'll pick it back up soon. I still have a lot of great movies to talk about.

I've been jotting down a lot of notes and random sentences and paragraphs the last few weeks. They are not going to become one very long blog post but I think it's time to start developing them into something I can share.

Last week I signed up for two ten-mile races, one in July and one in October. I haven't raced any distance since the Marine Corps Marathon last October. My longest run since then has been about seven miles and that was back in March when I thought I was going to run a half marathon in April. I knew I wasn't ready for it, though, between the injury and some other health issues that cropped up so I backed off running and started doing some serious thinking about my health and my habits.

I'm recovering from an injury that came up during marathon training, disappeared with ice, stretching, and rest, and then hit me like a sack of bricks during the race. At this point I feel like I will probably be managing it for the rest of my life, but at least I can manage it with stretching and strength training and cross training. It's my IT band across my left hip and sometimes in my left calf. If I sleep wrong, I wake up in the middle of the night with pain in my hip and I have to figure out how to fall back to sleep and rearrange my workout routine for the next day.

Since I turned forty a little over a year ago I feel like I've been in a constant battle with my body. One friend put it this way: At forty plus one day, all your warranties start expiring. I know my body isn't the same as it was in my twenties and my thirties and there's only so much I have control over of my forty-year-old body. I'm not thrilled with my body right now. Summer clothes from last year don't fit and it's not because I got so muscular from marathon training. It's because I've eaten too much macaroni and cheese.

I'm trying to come to terms with the difference between accepting my body and accepting the changes that I have to make in order to maintain a body that I want. I need more quality rest. I need more water and less sugar. I need more stretching. I need to make the time to be cognizant of the little changes I need to make regularly in order to fit back into those favorite shorts and skirts from last summer. I'm pretty sure that eating less junk food and exercising more is going to be cheaper than buying new clothes.

I'm not on a diet, other than the gluten-free one that I have to be on. I am being more aware of the calories I choose to put into my mouth, although I've decided that some of those calories are going to be chocolate and wine. I've got a ten-mile race training plan that involves a lot of cross training in order to take the pressure off my injury-prone areas while still building strength and endurance. I'm making my family eat more vegetables, since I'm the one who does most of the grocery shopping, meal planning, and cooking, and I'm not inclined to make different snacks and meals for every family member. If I'm putting this much effort into our food, it's going to be good for all of us.

One of the things that has held me back from wanting to make some changes is struggling with how my child might perceive these changes. She's six. I don't want her to know that I'm unhappy with my body right now. I want her to see exercise as a fun activity that sometimes we do as a family and sometimes Mommy and Daddy do as individuals, and that eating healthy gives us the energy for everything we do, whether it's swimming with friends or going to work or school.

This is hard. 

Back-to-School Edition

Ahem.

We moved to the Washington, D.C., area. We are still surrounded by boxes but the place looks a little more put together every day as each box goes out. Mike started his job. Muffin has started school. I've started two volunteer jobs and a part-time job.

I'm still marathon training, slowly but surely. I have to run nineteen miles this weekend, my longest run ever. I ran seventeen miles two weeks ago and I have no reason to believe I can't complete a marathon in, what, seven weeks? Six weeks? I'm measuring my time by days between long runs right now. Nineteen miles, ten miles, twenty miles, ten miles, etc., for the next few weekends. It looks like the heat has broken, so that's something. There were many miserable miles run this summer by me and others and I'm ready for some cooler weather. You can still contribute to my fundraising for Soldier On, if you'd like. Click here.

Muffin has been in public school in Virginia for all of two weeks and we are dealing with a kind of culture shock. I feel like we have to be on top of everything to keep politics, gender stereotypes, and helicopter parenting at bay. I feel like we are definitely the weird parents with the weird kid because I don't care that Muffin pokes around in the dirt at the bus stop (other parents don't let their kids play before school) but I'm concerned about political parties handing out leaflets on school grounds. (I posted about my encounter with that on Facebook -- in the near future I'll modify it for posting here.)

I've got an idea for NaNoWriMo this year, too. I'm researching and planning right now. More to come on that later, as the event grows closer. It starts two days after my marathon. I'm a sucker for long, slow, arduous tasks, apparently.

And that's about it for now. How are you doing?

I'm the Mom Who Doesn't Care for Mother's Day

Over the weekend I had a huge blow-up with Muffin. I still feel terrible about it but I'm going to stand my ground. She wants to throw a big party for me on Mother's Day. I want a quiet day with several hours of alone time. She doesn't think that's special enough. I tried explaining to her that I'm not a huge fan of Mother's Day to begin with and that I'm going to insist on my quiet time. For a little girl who loves party planning, this is a big problem for her. But it's Mother's Day. I'm the mom. I get to choose.

On the radio yesterday morning the DJs were discussing a poll that said seventy percent of mothers just want to be left alone for several hours on Mother's Day. So if you know a mother who says that's really all she wants, please let her have it. Going to Mother's Day brunch in a crowded restaurant is one of my personal circles of Hell and I suspect that might be true for many women.

Even now that I'm a mom, I don't care for Mother's Day. There's no genetic code that made me love brunch and pastels the moment I gave birth. To me it's another commercial cards-and-flowers day and it holds little interest for me. (If you really like flowers, that's totally fine! I love flowers and I hope my florist friend does good business this weekend because of all the others who love flowers, too. But only get someone flowers if you mean it and they love them, not as an afterthought because it's just what people do.)

I read too many blog posts from moms whose children made them breakfast in bed and left her a messy kitchen to clean up. And the moms shrug and say, "Oh, well. I'm the mom and it's my job to clean up after them, even on Mother's Day."

No. Otherwise what's the point of the day?

If you have a mother, ask her what she really wants for Mother's Day. If you are a mother: Be. Honest. You will be subjected to endless noisy brunches or messy kitchens coupled with good intentions unless you are honest and tell your children and whoever else is helping them plan the day what you really want to do. If you don't want to wash dishes on Mother's Day because you do it every single other day and it's your least favorite chore, take a stand and tell someone. Otherwise, accept the fact that it will be like every other day and don't get miffed. Commercials build up expectations that can never be met. I like to keep the bar low.

My ideal Mother's Day would be Mike and Muffin going off for a nice adventure on their own for a few hours and bringing home amazing cupcakes for us to share. However, that's pretty much my ideal Sunday year round. And with Mike coming home this weekend for good, I should be able to realize that dream for several upcoming Sundays.

Mothers, I hope you get what you want this Sunday, whatever it is. I'm so happy that my family is safe and sound and will be back together again, it's really all I need.

The Problem with Parenting Magazines

When I was pregnant a friend gave me some advice: Never read parenting magazines. “You’ll get put on the mailing list,” she said. “’With our complements,’ the card will tell you. Take the time to throw out the magazines and remove yourself from their mailing list. I promise this is one of the best things you can do as a parent.”

For the most part I followed that advice. I even threw out What to Expect by the time Muffin was three months old because she wasn’t following any of the directions the handbook gave and it stressed me out. Recently, though, I saw this headline, “Am I Supposed to Be My Child’s Playmate?”, from Parenting magazine. The mother of all magazines I try to avoid.

I am no expert in parenting, other than keeping my own child relatively happy and healthy for the last five years, but like most parents, regardless of my feelings on the topic, I’m going to click on a lot of parenting articles. Personally, I think it’s fine to find a balance between playing with children and giving them time and space to play on their own.

The very first paragraph made me uneasy. The author’s mother would make dinner for the family on the one night a week she wasn’t home for dinner because she had a graduate school class. Okay, that’s fine. But her father would throw away the pot roast, hiding it deep in the garbage can, order pizza, and hide the boxes in a neighbor’s garbage so that the mother would never find out. “It was our little secret,” the author says.

That is a terrible secret. Her parents were so held down by traditional parenting roles that her mother could not say to her father, “You are responsible for dinner this one night a week.” Nor could the father say, “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of dinner this one night a week.” She felt the need to make a dinner that her family would throw away. (Why throw it away? Why not carve it up for sandwiches or save it for another night?) I would be pissed if I found out my spouse and child were doing this after the trouble I went through to make the meal.

I realized as I read that this article taps into the insecurity many mothers feel about being Mean Mommy versus Fun Dad. I haunt parenting groups to see what other parents are up to and I see the Mean Mommy issues brought up by women all the time. Mothers are meant to nurture and be caregivers for their families. Fathers are meant to be playmates.

I call shenanigans.

Both parents are parents. Fathers are not playmates or baby-sitters. (More men are professional chefs but more women are still expected to cook for their families? Don’t even get me started on that… Maybe a future blog post.) Both parents can play to their strengths, of course, but at some time they are going to have to step up to both roles.

That is, if both parents are present and if they are a heterosexual couple.

There’s no reason why, if both parents are present, then they can’t share the nurturing and the playmate parts. Single parents have to do both. Same-sex parents take on both roles. There’s absolutely no need for it to be gender divided, or divided at all. So many parenting articles reinforce these gender roles without taking into account that families are not as nuclear as they were a generation or two ago, nor with taking into account the different personalities and strengths that different parents have. They continue to reinforce the image of the ideal superwoman who can keep a perfect household and hold down a career or further her education while dad occasionally baby-sits.

Families aren’t like that anymore and many media outlets continue to subversively keep that out-dated model alive.

And that's why I don't read parenting magazines. Really, I don't.

Leaving Bamako Behind

I’m going to start with a sequential order of events then try to sort out my feelings. It’s been hard for me to sit down and write this post but it is something I want to get down before I forget everything.

The week before Thanksgiving there was a terrorist attack at a hotel in Bamako. The hotel is near our house there and the attack not only changed the dynamic in the neighborhood but the entire security profile in Mali.

On December 1, the State Department put an authorized departure order in place, which is a sort of voluntary evacuation for nonessential employees and family members of all State employees in Bamako. But if you leave the country for any other reason during that time, you are not allowed back in until the order lifts.

Mike and I decided we would stay in Bamako until school let out for the Christmas holiday, then, after a family vacation, Muffin and I would return to the U.S. while Mike returned to his job in Bamako.

We had a wonderful safari vacation in Kenya. Mike and I were happy that Muffin’s last memories of Africa were fun adventures with animals, not being stressed out over bad guys in Mali.

On New Year’s Eve, we separated in Nairobi airport. Muffin and I landed in Boston the next day; Mike landed in Bamako.

The authorized departure is ongoing but even when it ends, Muffin and I will not be returning to Bamako. We’ll be staying in the U.S. until Mike’s assignment ends later this year.

It’s hard. We arrived to shocking winter cold with just a couple of suitcases and had to figure out some logistics, like winter clothes for Muffin, right away. There are loads of good things, however. We have a house, and a car, and lots of support from family and friends. Muffin is back in the same class she was in before we left for Mali, which helped her transition. The dust allergies we’d been suffering from in Bamako cleared up within a couple day of leaving there, so our physical health improved greatly. We no longer have the stress of living in the security situation in Mali.

But it’s still hard. We left with so little time to really process it. We were so sick and stressed out in the last couple of weeks in Bamako that it became difficult to say proper good-byes to all our friends, especially with all the stress of Christmas parties and other seasonal social obligations. I broke down toward the end and couldn’t really leave the house. I was so sick I couldn’t hold a conversation without coughing uncontrollably, which made me anxious and self-conscious. Muffin was visibly worried about bad guys all the time and we felt horrible about our decision to move the whole family to Mali in the first place.

We arrived to a house we’d bought but never lived in. I’ve slowly been bringing it together, but there are still days where I just sit and stare instead of put shelving together and measure closet space. I always have culture shock when I return to the U.S. but it seems doubly difficult this time. Some days all I can do is the minimum to get Muffin to school and provide decent meals. I’m running as often as I can, which is something. It’s been almost impossible to write, though. The seven hundred words or so of this post are the most I’ve written in weeks.

Friends and family members would ask me about what it was really like in Bamako during and after the attack. Eventually I caught on to a sort of glazed-over, yet slightly horrified, look in their eyes. I'd forget that I'd lived with the Bamako story for so long that it wasn't shocking to me anymore, it had become the status quo. But events like that and living in conditions like that aren't normal for most people in the U.S.

Last week I felt like I started to wake up from a fog. I feel healthier, mentally and physically. Muffin and I miss Mike but we all know this was the best decision for our family and we'll be together again soon.

So that's where we are now. We're in this weird limbo. We're waiting for Mike to come home safely. We're guilty about being healthy and eating good food. Most of our belongings are in Bamako and we can't get it back until Mike's assignment is up. I'm already tired of the U.S. and want to go back to Africa. I'm trying to get by with what I've got.

It Really Is That Simple -- Just Go Run

From Runner Girl.

I had a couple good runs last week but on Saturday morning I didn't get up and out early, like I'd thought about doing. I made coffee. I tried uploading some photos (after twenty-four hours, they finally loaded!). I watched Muffin watch cartoons. Then as I was scrolling through my Facebook feed I came across this image on Runner Girl. I put on my shoes and went for a run. Mike and Muffin were riding bikes. It was cloudy, so not too hot, but the kind of cloudy that doesn't reveal what's happening next. Within an hour it was either going to be clear and too sunny to be outside or there was going to be torrential downpour and thus too dangerous (street flooding) to be outside. It turned out to be torrential downpour. It's a good thing we all got our outdoor activities in when we did.

I ran. My road isn't quite as scenic.

I ran three miles, picking my away along the road. Even with the trail conditions and stopping for traffic at busy intersections, I'm averaging about ten-minute miles, so I'm happy with my overall pace. I'm still getting confused  -- wait a minute, didn't I approach that statue from the other direction last time I ran? -- but recognizing enough landmarks to get me around.

Last week we made one of the best food investments ever. We bought a tortilla press. We've made fresh corn tortillas three times in the last week and I don't think we'll ever go back to store-bought, even once we're back in the States and can buy them easily. We don't have it down quite perfectly yet and I'll probably never be as good as an abuella. They are darn tasty, though, and with a big pot of beans plus the last of the seasonal mangos and avocados, soft tacos have been a great treat.

Happy running and eating this week!

How to R2-D2

This year for Halloween we had a three year old who wanted to be R2-D2, accompanied by a Princess Leia mommy and a Han Solo daddy. Leia and Han seemed easy. Buy, borrow, or steal appropriate clothing and get a fairly popular wig. R2 was going to be more of a challenge because I wanted something more charming than store bought. I searched Google Images and pinned to Pinterest. I came up with a plan:

We spent an afternoon at a craft store trying to find just the right materials: foam, felt, glue, and something to craft the headpiece from. For the headpiece we ended up with a plastic army helmet glued to the inside of a salad bowl, both from a dollar store.

We crafted.

I bought a full Princess Leia costume, complete with hair-buns wig and ended up hating everything about it. So I Freecycled it and started from scratch, changing my concept to Hoth Leia. White yoga pants on sale for $5 and a beautiful white vest and snow boots that I'll wear this winter anyway paired with a long-hair wig that my mom helped braid. Han had to buy a henley shirt and black vest, supplying his own pants and boots. We bought $5 blasters and decided to keep them fake looking by not painting them black.

Star Wars family complete!

This was Muffin's first Halloween in the United States so we had to go the extra mile for her. Although, she's only three so the extra mile didn't have to be too far. We drove to a nearby neighborhood where a friend of ours was having a small party. We trick-or-treated at about five houses then went to our friend's for pizza and "grown-up" treats. Muffin ate too much candy but she didn't have school the next day so we could have a later night than usual and manage her the next day without too much difficulty. (Friday night she slept for twelve hours.)

I'm going to skip over Thanksgiving this year -- dinner is at my aunt's house and Mike most likely won't be home for it anyway -- and jump right into Muffin's First U.S. Christmas.

One Week Later

What a difference a week can make. Last Wednesday, Muffin had had a terrible first day of school on Tuesday. She had Wednesday off and I was filled with dread about Thursday and Friday. She did a successful half-day on Thursday but when I tried to drop her off on Friday she clung to me like we were glued together. For an hour I stayed in the classroom, cajoling her to let go of me and go play. Eventually we left and I told her she had to endure a boring day with me with no complaint and with no Dunkin' Donuts and no television. By the end of the day, as my Facebook status noted that afternoon, if she'd ever seen Arrested Development she'd have been saying, "I've made a huge mistake." I stuck firm to my promise of not being able to play with her because I had work to do. She had to entertain herself and at first she met my challenge with cheerful exuberance but quickly bored when she saw I wasn't going to give in. She spent the better part of an hour screaming at me while I tried to ignore her because I was "working." I wasn't really working. Who could with all that screaming? But I had my laptop open and was determined not to play with her.

I was feeling pretty hopeless and was dreading school again on Monday. I emailed her teacher on Sunday asking for a little more help in getting Muffin involved in activities right away to get her engaged.

Between Muffin remembering Friday afternoon and her teacher's engagement, so far this week she's been going willingly. This morning I didn't even have to sneak out while she was busy; she said, "Bye!" and turned her back on me.

I feel so relieved. And I've gotten so much done this week. I've gone running. The house is coming together. We have our new carpeting so I've been able to unpack the bedrooms. I've been doing paid work, which I haven't done in a long time. I like it so much, I've accepted more! Working and getting paid is so nice. I'm keeping my promise to Muffin, though, that I'm not going to do any work while she's at home. She goes to school and I do my work and then we play together in the afternoons and evenings.

Also, we've had some awesome weather with lots of outside time. That helps a lot. And Mike and I got together over the weekend, leaving Muffin with Grandma for an overnight. That helped a lot too.

Aloobari Monastery: Escaping Darjeeling to See Some Nature. And Losing a Shoe.

Day Three

Our host at Dekeling Resort finally understood that we wanted to take a nice walk rather than sit in the car. He suggested we take the Toy Train up the mountain to Ghum, then hike to Aloobari Monastery. We'd stopped by the train station the day before and the train was already sold out so we decided to take part in one of the Darjeeling travel traditions -- the taxi-share. We packed up Muffin, some snacks, and some dry clothes (because it was raining) in the backpacks and walked into town. We took a wrong turn, then ended up at the wrong taxi stand. A driver pointed us in the right direction. We passed another taxi stand and then another one. And a driver there pointed us back toward the last stand we'd passed. A driver there pointed across the street. It seemed like we'd been walking for nearly an hour and we'd finally found the right taxi. We decided to pay for four seats so we could have the large back seat to ourselves and have room for the backpack. We then had to wait for the taxi to fill up. Three more guys climbed into the front and a man and two women climbed into the wayback, and we were on our way up the mountain in a taxi-share!

The driver stopped a couple times to let off other passengers. No words were spoken; we were hoping we'd either see a sign or the driver would indicate to us when it was time to get out. We wanted to get out just after Ghum. We passed the Ghum train station and then saw a sign for the next town. And then we got stopped in pooja traffic again. More people celebrating the lunar holiday by parading through town with Buddhist texts on their heads. They were also tapping the heads of people on the sidelines so while we were stopped, Muffin stuck her head out the window and got herself blessed with a Buddhist text.

We inched along in traffic until a T-intersection came into view. The driver pointed to it and said "Aloobari," so we got out and walked from there.

Traffic

Taking a left at the intersection

The walk was great.

Every fifteen minutes or so we'd see someone and ask them if we were still going in the right direction. There had been a couple intersections; also, we had no idea how long the walk was going to be and if someone told us "short distance" or "long distance" it was completely irrelevant. We knew we were on the right path and we decided that if we were out there for six hours and still hadn't found the monastery or our way back to town, we'd flag down a car and pay any price they asked for a ride back to our hotel.

Luckily it didn't come to that. After maybe an hour of walking, some of it at Muffin's pace, we glimpsed this through the fog:

Aloobari was under renovation but the caretakers let us come in to take some photos.

From the monastery we could continue along the same road to return to Darjeeling. We were told "long distance," but we hoped that the man who told us that meant "long distance for tourists," which actually wouldn't be as long for us as it is for other people because we are hearty walkers. We were getting hungry and the weather was turning cool and rainy so we were ready for lunch.

Somewhere between this photo:

 and this photo:

Muffin fell asleep and when her foot relaxed one of her Crocs fell off and we never saw it. By the time I noticed it was gone, it was out of sight and none of the locals had seen it and picked it up for us (which often happens when one of her shoes fall off). We were too tired and hungry to back-track more than a couple meters so we wrote it off and figured we could find some fake Crocs in town.

The road brought us to Chowrasta, a pedestrian plaza in Darjeeling about two kilometers from our hotel. We stopped at a restaurant and ate some of the worst Indian food we've ever had. Muffin didn't even eat her dosa, and she loves dosa.

Chowrasta:

One of the roads off Chowrasta was a Cheap Chinese Plastic Mela so we browsed there for a new pair of shoes. Only one guy had fake Crocs and he didn't have a pair small enough for Muffin. On the way back to the hotel we stopped at every shop that looked promising but couldn't find anything appropriate. This meant a trip to the Western mall, as opposed to the Mall, a pedestrian walkway lined with shops and restaurants. So we went to the mall and not a single store sold children's shoes. We'd heard about a Thai restaurant and on the way we found a children's shoe store. The Crocs were all too big for Muffin and most of the sneakers were too but we finally found one pair that fit and, even though I thought they were ugly, Muffin thought they were cool so we bought them. (Two days later she announced they were too small and has refused to put them on since.)

We had an early dinner of terrible Thai food and took a taxi back to the hotel. We needed to get an early start the next day for our drive to Bhutan.

Day Four Coming Soon

Day One: 8 Days on the Road from Darjeeling to Bhutan. With a Preschooler
Day Two: Some Enforced Site-Seeing in Darjeeling

No Smelly Lake 5K on Sunday

We didn't make it to the second 5K on Sunday. I'm sick -- again. My root canal is still not finished. I have the permanent filling but no crown. A friend of Mike's was visiting this weekend and on Saturday afternoon when I realized I wasn't in the mood for being congested, having an achy jaw, and running around the smelly lake at 8 o'clock in the morning, I released Mike of his obligation to race, too, so he and his friend could stay up late on Saturday night. We all went out for a nice breakfast on Sunday morning and met up with some of the racers (who shared their specially ordered Shamrock Shakes with us! Thanks guys!).

Our housekeeper has a twisted nerve from her fall on Friday. She's on bed rest for several more days and is wearing a support belt. She sent a friend over to our house today to do a little cleaning in her absence. I really appreciate having someone here to wash dishes and fold laundry. Our house in the U.S. must have an automatic dishwashing machine. It is non-negotiable. Doing dishes is the worst. I'm without a baby-sitter for a few days, though, so no yoga classes and no treadmill. I've got the jogging stroller and I've got my Jillian  Michaels DVD. I'm also expecting some yoga DVDs in the mail any day now (birthday present to myself) so I am not entirely without a workout strategy. And there's always Just Dance on the Wii, which Muffin loves.

From AnotherMotherRunner.

My new shirt arrived on Friday (above). It made me feel like taking charge of my life. Until I got so sick I could barely stand. I'll have to take charge in a few days.

Motivation Monday: H'bad Grethon 5K Recap

Image from Pinterest.

We ran around the lake yesterday for the Hyderabad Grethon 5K, so boy, did we earn our showers. The lake is so smelly that even after you shower and throw your clothes in the laundry, something still lingers with you all day, like the BO episode of Seinfeld.

I had no clue what to expect from this race and we (Mike and me, with Muffin in the jogging stroller) were telling ourselves that it would be fun because it would be someplace to run other than the treadmill or the park we always go to. We were right about that part, and had to admit afterwards that it was nice to run somewhere different. "In the now," though, as the morning was going on, we lost sight of the fun a couple times.

There was no formal registration like you would normally expect for races. I bought two tickets online and they never asked for any personal information for registrants. The event started at 7:00 a.m. but there was no indication if that was when the race actually started or not. To be safe, we arrived around 6:45. And the race didn't start until about 8:15. "Registration" consisted of showing printouts of online receipts to get tickets and then turning in those tickets to get t-shirts, water bottles, and hats.

The t-shirts were plain white. And so oddly sized that I have no idea who could actually wear them.

There was a bunch of thanking of sponsors and "Hip-hip, hooray!" about things. Every few minutes they mentioned another cause that the race was supporting -- polio-free India, illiterate orphans, English dictionaries for students, and my favorite, being "green," all while people were throwing chai cups and sticker backings on the ground. We finally moved into the street and there was more thanking of sponsors and cheering -- in the middle of a road that had not been closed to traffic, so cars were honking and trying to edge by.

The race finally started. Fortunately it wasn't too hot and sunny yet, although the fog was starting to burn off. (So if they'd started an hour earlier the weather would have been just about perfect!) Most people started off way too fast and it didn't take long for us to find plenty of running space and then start picking people off. Cars kept stopping to look at Muffin in the jogging stroller to the point where there was nearly a pile-up. Lots of people needed to take her photo but once we started running we didn't stop for the paparazzi.

We ran along and I glanced at my Garmin every few minutes. Eventually we reached 1.5 miles, but there was no turnaround in sight. We turned around at two miles. The question became, is the finish going to be exactly where we started or are they pushing it up? Are we running one more mile or two? We decided to gamble on two. And we were right. A 5-kilometer, 3.1-mile race was 3.98 miles in length according to my Garmin. Even if my Garmin is off by a little bit, our finish time indicates that the race was longer than a 5K.

When we crossed the finish line I mentioned that to some of the people who seemed like they were part of the organizing group but they didn't seem very concerned. They were more excited by us being the only white participants and having a baby with us, too. I may have even been the first female finisher. I don't know, I didn't stick around to find out. They wanted us to stay for the final presentation, but we couldn't. Muffin was tired and Mike and I were, too. We didn't want to be part of the show anymore.

There's another race in the same location by the same organizers next week. We're torn on if we should go or not. It might be more fun now that we know what we're getting into, but it was an exhausting morning, dealing with Muffin and the crowd.

And we still smell like the lake.

Muffin's View of Pattaya, Thailand

I mentioned in my previous post that Muffin and I were on a girls-only vacation last week in Pattaya, Thailand. As a single mom for the week chasing after her, I didn't have time for lots of gorgeous scenery photos. I had to get quick snapshots of Muffin being cute to post to Mike's Facebook page.

Road through the resort. No cars allowed!

Beach across from the resort.

I highly recommend Rabbit for a family vacation.

Road between resort and beach; during the day no cars are allowed.

Shrine at the resort.

And to the tiger at the zoo, Muffin just said, "Pooh, pooh."

Last day at the beach.

Kapa maki at the Bangkok airport.

We stayed at the Rabbit Resort, which I recommend for families visiting Pattaya. The owners go by Mr. and Mrs. Rabbit and they were very accommodating. No cars are allowed on the resort compound, and the road along the resort is closed to car traffic during the day so it's safe for kids to run around. There's an adults' pool and a kids' pool, and the kids' pool was perfect for Muffin to test out her swimming skills. The ocean is just across the no-traffic road, and the beach and water were pretty good for letting kids run around. A little debris after a storm blew through, but nothing worse than you'd find at a lot of U.S. beaches. On the best days at low tide the water was very shallow for quite a ways out and safe enough for little legs like Muffin's to wade without fear of undertow or giant crashing waves. There is no spa at the resort but they will arrange for a car to take you to a nearby spa and will arrange for a baby-sitter. (And Mrs. Rabbit herself checked in on the sitter while I was gone.) Pattaya is about a 90-minute drive from Bangkok airport. You can arrange a car with the resort or you can book an airport limo upon landing.

There is a water park within walking distance of the resort, although Muffin and her friend were a little too young for it. Muffin was more impressed that there was a 7-11 within walking distance. Every morning she asked if we could there for a chocolate milk. A good zoo is about a 45-minute drive. We had perfect timing on zoo day, with overcast weather while we walked around; the rain waited until we were back in the car on the way back to Rabbit. There is not much in the way of playgrounds or other kid-friendly areas in Pattaya. There are good restaurants and coffee shops within walking distance; outlet shopping is a short tuk-tuk ride away. The resort restaurant is pretty good and we ate most of our meals there.

We were there during the last weeks of the rainy season, which is the least expensive time to be there. If you are a sun bunny, this is not the best time of year to go. But if you want weather that is warm enough for splashing around in the pool or ocean without too much time in the sun, and afternoon rain storms that are conducive to napping, then it is the perfect time to go.

Thailand has Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts, so if you live in a country that doesn't have those do you really need any other reason to visit?

Motivation Monday – Ham and Birthday

“Ham on biscuits, ham on toast. Ham is the thing that I like most.” Muffin’s favorite parts of Bread and Jam for Francis are the songs that she sings about jam. Replace “jam” for “ham” and you have our weekend. Between a trip to the Minerva Pork Shop, where the butcher fills Muffin up with so many free samples of ham and salami that I feel obligated to buy some each time we’re there, and Mike bringing home a pack of parma ham from the Swiss Butchery in Singapore, I was feeling like Francis by Sunday afternoon. “I know how a ham jar feels. Full… of… ham.”

And we have a lot of cupcakes coming up later this week. I need to run more.

I DVR’d the women’s marathon on Sunday and was able to watch most of it this morning. Muffin woke up early but Mike got her back to sleep. I was already awake so I got up to drink some coffee and watch the marathon. I can’t believe they ran a whole marathon in less time than it will take me to run half that distance.

I woke up this morning with the nagging feeling that I should be running, but then I remembered that I wanted to be home when Muffin woke up because it's her birthday and we'd put out her presents to surprise her.

Here’s the two-year-old birthday girl:

We’re having a quiet birthday today. She opened presents and requested a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for breakfast. I don’t feel the need to do anything too elaborate for someone who doesn’t know more elaborate things exist. I'm confident we've done just the right amount of what she can appreciate. She has a notion of what a birthday party is but I don’t know how much she understands about one coming up for her this weekend.

I think a run in the park with Muffin is in order for this afternoon. After we both have ham for lunch and then take naps.

Operation Short Shorts

We are still enjoying our U.S. vacation. We've been in Rhode Island for some time now, where Operation Short Shorts has not been as successful as it was in Palm Beach. Call me acclimated to the Hyderabad weather, because 65 degrees and cloudy has me grabbing my running leggings or my jeans.

The weather has been great for my running times, however. Mike and I ran a 10K road race last Saturday and I finished in 55 minutes. I was hoping for under an hour so I was pleased with that. All my easy running days on my half-marathon training schedule have been less-than-10-minute miles, which is surprising to me because I was struggling to hit that mark in Hyderabad. I'm glad I'm doing the first few weeks of training here, where I can get a good base going and be motivated to continue with it when we return to Hyderabad.

We've been ticking off our list of vacation things mixed with shopping for things we can't get in Hyderabad. Test-driving new jogging strollers, eating gluten-free pizza from real pizza parlors, retail therapy at Target, going to movies. Muffin has been getting a lot of time with grandparents, aunts, and uncles and more family is flying into town this weekend.

The house we are renting doesn't have internet and has 10-channel basic cable, which was charming for about two days. After a week of damp, foggy weather, with a couple days of downpours, staying inside is becoming much less charming. We are getting outside at least once a day, but we are not spending full days at the beach or anything like that. We are spending coffee breaks each morning at the nearby Dunkin Donuts with wi-fi. We are getting a lot of reading done at night after Muffin goes to bed.

At this moment Muffin is taking her first real nap in days; Mike volunteered to stay home while I spend some alone time with a hot chocolate and Google Reader at DD. Some of the most relaxing moments of vacation have been exactly the same as relaxing moments at home.

Low-Key Christmas

Muffin has been down with a fever for the last two days which has put a halt on my Christmas preparations. This morning she seemed closer to her regular self except for a congested cough, so I think we're in the clear as far as the fever goes. We took her to the doctor on Thursday night to confirm that she didn't have an ear infection or the nasty throat infection that Mike had a couple weeks ago. Just a cold. Her first cold ever, but just a cold.

So, there won't be any gingerbread houses tomorrow. I've got the dough made already so I might be able to bake a batch of cookies, but I'm not worried about it if I don't. Two days of sitting with a hot, sleepy baby on top of me has been exhausting. I finished sewing our dresses so we'll have something to wear if we feel up to going out tomorrow. By a little mix-up we've ended up with two invitations for Christmas Day.

Mike's cooking our duck for dinner tonight. Since we brought it home on Tuesday, Muffin has been insisting on taking a look and saying "Hi" to it every time we open the freezer and then refrigerator. If she's not too crabby we'll make dinner early enough for her to join us before bedtime because, as I said to Mike this morning, she loves food and she's been so excited about the duck all week long.

Muffin had her first visit with Santa this week.

Santa on his own didn't bother her too much. She freaked out when the crowd of people watching cheered for her for not freaking out.

I hope everyone celebrating this weekend has a nice holiday, whether it's big or small, at home or far away.

Travel Photo Friday: Bangkok, Thailand

Recently Mike had to go to Bangkok for about three hours' worth of work. We decided to turn the trip into a long weekend for the family.

We loved Bangkok. It's a big, modern, clean city but it also has some of the charming things we like about India. The food was great. The people were friendly. There's an easy train system (much cleaner than Metro and BART!). It's kid-friendly, but not particularly stroller-friendly. No worries for Muffin though. She just started walking, so while she tolerated the stroller for getting through the airport, she was anxious to try out her new skills to the delight of everyone who saw her.

Lumpini Park, which is a nice place for a stroll; we were surprised by the number of people out jogging.

You have to share the park with the local water monitors. Related to komodo dragons, but less poisonous.

Walking in the park.

Outside Central department store, where there's a fabulous grocery store with hot and cold food bars, and a Sanrio store.

Water taxi.

Asleep on the water taxi.

Family tuk-tuk ride.

Yum! Pork on a stick.

Photo Friday is hosted by DeliciousBaby.com.