best conversation ever

seamus crawled into bed and gave me hugs this morning. we had the following conversation:

"I love you mommy"

"I love you too, sweet heart."

"Why do you call me sweet heart?"

"Because that's what you are."

pause...

"I love you mommy sweet heart."

horrible dream

sirus was an early riser this morning, the first of the kids to wake up. i stood in the kitchen and watched as he concentrated on eating his cereal. i love that little guy so much i can barely stand it some times. he just goes about his business, happy as can be. he has a funny new thing that he does when he is excited about something. he will rub his little hands together and his little eyes krinkle up while he asks about playing a video game. i have never seen anything like it. he is funny too, because when you look at a book with him he doesn't point to things, instead he lays his hand on the book with his palm facing upwards, almost as though he is presenting to you, much like vana white does or someone from the price is right. also, when he handles any one of the many remote controls we have, he will pick them up and set them on his hands, and once again, will present them as though the remote was the glass slipper being offered to cinderella to try on. its kind of funny because everything else he just grabs at and throws.
i was alsmot ready to head out the dorr this morning when i heard "mommy! mommy!" coming from seamus's room. i went in there to find her in bed and when i asked what was wrong she said she had a horrible dream. she dreamt that a little bike and a tire both "growed" and chased her into her bedroom. she jumped into bed and then the bike, tire and a box all went to the garage and shut the door. I don't know what she meant by the growed, it could have been growled and i didn't hear her right or maybe they grew bigger, i don't know, but it was scary for her and i can only wonder what it takes to put together a dream like that. i hugged her and she said she was feeling better. she got out of bed and got some hugs from eric, they walked me to the door and everyone waved as i walked out the gate. i hate leaving them in the morning like that.
i think i am sick. again. not sure where i got it. maybe cuz i met with the trainer here at work for the first time and even though i used only 5 and 8 pound weights, i am sore as sore can be. i did not go swimming as planned this morning because of the sickness and the soreness. i hope to get better soon.

something exciting

so i will find out on monday if something exicting will change a lot of 2008 for me. once i know if its happening i will let you know. and for any of you anxious annies, i am not pregnant and there is no possibility of it, so its something else.
i went for a run today. it was cold but there was no rain whichw as good. i went out planning on taking it easy. 6 miles later at an 8:29 pace i was done. it felt good and i was happy to have done it, as always. i was time constrained otherwise i would have made it to 7 miles so i could hit 20 miles for the week, but instead i finsihed at 19.1. this is amazing to me. remember this? or what happened when i ramped all the way to this? so granted i was coming off of 9 months of pregnancy followed by 11 months of nursing followed by anohter 9 months of pregnancy and my body was a complete crazy place, but over time i can now go for a good run and actually call it a run.
we got a catalog in the mail for some kids clothes place. i liked a lot of their stuff so i went to their website and started putting stuff in my shopping cart. $840 later i decided to not check out. i will revise my order and the proceed at some time.
seamus's is going to turn 4 here pretty soon. 4. good lord where has the time gone? is started this blog late in 2004 when seamus was already 7 months old. i wish very much now that i would have been blogging all through that pregnancy and through her first year because i didn't have a new entry until almost a year later when i was allready quite pregnant with sirus, 35.5 wks. no, i wasn't counting or anything. one thing i did do while i was pregnant with seamus and with sirus, too and every day between them and since them, is keep track of pretty much every one of my vital signs in an excel spread sheet. like i know that jan 23 2004, just a few weeks before having seamus i weighed 174 pounds, and oct 1 2005 i measured 44 inches around right before having sirus on the 3rd!
and now seamus is going to be 4. and then there is sirus! he is so big he is starting to outgrow his size 6 diapers!! he is of the age that we really need to get him interested in the potty but really he has zero interest. we will likely wait till this summer before we strong suggest it to him, but keep your fingers crossed that he decides it on his oen before then.

12.5 is the new 26

update from the nookachamps race - i came in 49:44, so that is over a minute faster then my previous 10k pr so i am pretty stoked about that and i came in top 10 overall women, that is if you kick the overall woman out. and i wsa top 4 in my age group, once again if you kick that overall woman out. good times even if it left me in the terrible mess i was last week. i didn't mention that in that last post where i had ice cream for lunch followed by crap and more tasty crap that eirc went and got us a pint of ben and jerry's cheesecake icecream that night and the grahm cracker crust pieces in there are just a little bit salty and i love'em so i had to consume my fair share.

i broke the fast i was having from exercising on saturday. i went for a run in the pooring rain. pooring. cats and dogs. i was only planning on 1/2 hr but after a while i was feeling good and the routes never work out quite right so i wound up going almost 5 miles at a whopping 8:16 pace.

saturday night we invited feather and dave and starla over for a rock band party. good fun right there. feather is quite the singer and we went on tour making it all the way to LA.

sunday, oh glorious sunday. we loaded all the kids into the trailer and we went for a family bike ride on my fancy NEW BIKE. i become very attached to my bikes, my first mountain bike is still in the garage. eric is going to poach all the parts from my old trusty cannondale.

but this bike was a long time coming. i couldn't believe what it felt like to ride a new bike. despite not having ridden since august i wasn't hurting. and shifting! it was like butta, let me tell you. hopefully this ride leads to many, many more, much longer rides this summer. big goals for 2008 require big miles. after we came home did some trailer to stroller transformation and went out for a family jog.
i took seamus to a birthday party in the afternoon. it was so fun!! seamus is so funny. within 10 minutes of getting there she collided with another little girl. seamus came out of that one ahead since the other wound up with a bloody nose, but all in all it was a good party.
this morning i did something interesting. always wondering what is going on with my body and my fitness, i read that there was hydrostatic body fat testing happening at the gym near my work. so of course i signed up. way back in the olden days of my moutain bike racing career i did a vo2max test and the electric whatever testing done. i hooked up with a facility who was just getting their systems set up so they hooked me up in exhange for being their test subject. anyway. back then i tested at 17%. i was about 20 pounds heavier i think but i was riding my bike for 2 or more hours EVERY day. i was unemployed at the time too so that helped the situation. i didn't really understand the whole body fat thing back then and that 17% was actually quite good despite my bubble butt. i then retired from mountain bike racing to pursue making money. my fat, or should i say lean mass suffered. my bubble butt deflated and was flat as a pancake. then by golly i had some babies. after the second one came out i went right to brookstones and got one of those body fat scales. despite having just given birth two weeks earlier and having monsterous size DD boobs, i was only slightly alarmed to see 33% on that scale. eventually all the baby weight came off and an additional 20 pounds but my fat was still at 26%. was i really 1/4 fat? i always thought i was leaner then that but who the hell knows. so today i went and did one of the scariest things i have ever done. at 6:48 AM i went into the back of a truck, stripped to my swim suit, put a weight over my lap, pushed all the air out of me and layed down in some warm water. it was creepy and weird and i was totally scared for my life. the dude was super nice and totally professional and the whole thing is rediculously safe but for some reason i was totally freaking out convinced that i was going to drown in that 6 inches of water. alas i did not. after two dunks and a compliment on how well i pushed all the air out of my system i was done. i didn't tell him that i was good at pushing out that air because that is also part of the pushing the baby out process and i have done some of that in my past. final reading: 12.5%. He suggested i toss out my scale, although he did say those scales are pretty accurate for weight, which i did agree with. after all this time not knowing, i think 12.5% is not enough and a little concerning to me, so i had to have some fritos for lunch and a nice cold beer after dinner to add a % or two.
i will not comment on how eric has been playing rock band for the past hour... he is on a solo world tour.

so grown up

eric just installed a dishwasher in our kitchen. this is very strange for me. i have been dreaming of one in the same way that i have been dreaming of a minivan. it comes when i feel totally overwhelmed and exhausted and i become deparate. i start thinking that a dishwasher might make it all better. well. let me tell you. i had no intentions of really acting on this until one day eric came home saying that so-in-so has a stainless steel dishwasher that is only a year or so old and they are upgrading to a fancy bosch thing or something. now, i thot it was a little ghetto taking someone's used dishwasher. until i looked up how much new stainless steel dishwashers cost. so eric picked it up, and to make it more ghetto, he put it on the deck and hooked it up through the kitchen window. just kidding, but he tore out a cabinet or two and put it right in. we loaded it up and started it up. and then in the morning the dishes were clean. magic!
we just made our water bill go down by $34 for two months. if this damn dish washer makes it go back up i am going to be totally annoyed. BUT the good thing is that we are totally accstomed to handwashing and can make the quick change. we will only have lost the the cabinet space.
that brings us to american idol. i am liking it for a few reasons. one is that simon is looking less gross these days and he is kind of funny. i think they are showing more of who e is as apposed to his just nasty comments.
we had some snow.
i am taking the week off from exercise. and from eating anything remotely healthy and in an reasonable portion. hence: lunch today: 1 scoop chocolate fudge & one scoop coffe oreo icecream. snack: cool ranch doritos. dinner: left over pork chop with Quaker Steak and Lube special mail order ranch sauce and giant bowl of cereal chased down with an alaskan amber. i am tired and i might be on the verge of illness. or maybe i am getting over it? it is all coming out on my face which is awesome cuz i look GOOD!!

seamus can't keep a secret

i was going to go swimming friday morning. i woke up 8 minutes early so i grabbed my watch in my hand and fell back asleep. and then slept through the alarm... i did not going swimming on friday. we dropped the volvo at the daisywagon to get fixed so eric and the kids drove me to work in the other car. work was work although i managed to eat 12 chocolate covered pretzels AND 2 reeces peanut butter cups AND a bag of sun chips. i started to get a sore throat in the last hr and 1/2 of work. when everyone picked me up, i asked seamus the question i always ask "hey seamus, what did you do today?" she promptly responded that they road on the ferry. i was suprised because i couldn't figure out why they had gone on the ferry and since she hadn't ever been on one i didn't think she was fibbing. eric said no no, we didn't go on a ferry to which she went on with yes we did, we picked up your bike! we visited joe to get the bike and then daddy put it in the closet. i was practically in tears as was eric because apparently they had rehearsed that i was a suprise and she wasn't supposed to tell me. but she just kept telling me more and more of the details. silly girl, it was so cute. more on the new bike later.
we then went to the cheesecake factory and had some mini hamburgers. we ordered strawberry cheesecake and when it came out sirus almost fell over with awe of the glorious dessert. he hadn't ever seen anything like it and it was obvious. my sore throat continued...
i was planning on doing the nookachamps 1/2 marathon and smashing the 2hr mark but with this sore throat i just wasn't sure, especially if it was going to be raining.
christie picked me up in the morning and we picked up dana. we went to the race site and i decided that despite it not being raining and probably actually being perfect running weather, i just couldn't do the 1/2. i was also not up for putting in all the effort needed of a 5k so i settled on the 10k. everyone started as the same time. the 5k split off first. at the 2 mile maker the time said 15:03 which was shocking to me because i actually didn't feel terrible. at the 3 mile mark i was just over 22 minutes, so had i opted for the 5k i would have done not so bad for me. but at this same time there was a hill. a hill that went on forever. a hill that even though you got to the top, you then turned kind of to the right and just kept going up. at 5 miles i accidentally hit the stop button on my watch but didn't realize it. then it was the start of the the terrible terrible saw dust trail. although there was some downhill, once it flattened i got a cramp in my side. i hadn't ever had a cramp like that. i couldn't breathe and contemplated stopping. this is when i realized i had stopped my watch because i was now not able to determine how much longer it was going to be. the path went to the left then onto the pavement! the cramp was gone and i could see that the clock at the finish said 49:something on the lowish end. so i ran practically as fast as i could go and crossed before it turned to 50!! since there weren't chips and since i seem to be the victim of times and placings changing, i sure hope it shows as 49something in results. christie finished 3rd in her age group and got a special 3rd place ribbon which was very exciting!! i came in 5th in my age group i think but we'll have to wait for results to be sure. the woman who won mhy age group came in 1st overall so really they should bump her out and move me to 4th. it was a fun race and i am glad i did it despite the sore throat.
now i have to figure out what to do about all of the poundages i have been putting on lately,m likely due to the massive amounts of candy and desserts i have been stuffing in my pizza hole.

drama - again!

so, sirus is in the habit of going to the er. his first time was alarming, his second time was alarming as well. his 3rd time was drama, but eric took him in the middle of the night. i didn't write about it, but it was drama. man, was it drama....but he was fine.
but then there was yesterday. i was at work and got a message on my voice mail. "sirus poked himself in the eye and has been crying non stop ever since. i called the doctors but they are taking too long so i am taking him to the er." as soon as i got it, i jumped into the car and headed to childrens hospital. when i got there all in a panic, i went to the front desk said my husband brought in my son with a poked eye. he told me they were already discharged. what? it had bee 20 minutes since they left to go there. then lady said, no no no, there is another kid here with a poked eye, and they sent me back to room 222. i went back but couldn't find it. i asked and a nurse said "oh! that adorable little boy asleep with the sunglasses on!" Sure enough, sirus was asleep in eric's arms, wearing sun glasses. apparently the sunglasses made him feel better. for sirus to be asleep like that was alarming to me. it was almost his naptime anyway but our kids don't normally fall asleep out in no where. in the ar maybe, but not being carried. but eric said he had been crying for a few hours straight, so he was tired. seamus and i played a game guess what the doctor would look like: short, red haired lady wearing doctor clothes. turned out, she was mostly right, it was a short grey haired lady wearing doctor clothes. they woke sirus up and he because whailing instantly. seamus and i left the room because she was getting scared and right away was telling me she wanted to leave. we went out of the room, shut the door, down the hall and around the corner to the waiting room. there was a guy there watching tv. as sirus's screams started to fill the entire hospital the guy continued to just turn the tv up. it was terrible. i knew they were going to numb his eye but i didn't know what else they were going to do. but the screaming just kept coming. louder and longer. i tried to just ignore it and play with seamus but i was ready to break down. after a 1/2 hr or so, eric and sirus came out and we went home. after they put the numbing drops in his eye, they put the dye in there and then some other disinfectant goo. tey turned his eyelid up and found a spec of something stuck up under the top one that was scratching is cornea. eric said it took him and the male nurse that was there all of their strenght to hold the little guy still. they gave us a perscription for eye drops and oxycodone for pain which we had no intention of giving him once it connected with us what it was. eric took sirus home and put him down for a nap. seamus and i went to get the perscriptions filled. sirus slept straight through until 8pm when eric changed his diaper. he was in need since it hadn't been changed in a long long time. we kept the lights low but he kept his eyes totally closed. he made his way from his room all the way to the kitchen without any help. then he ate his dinner, including 3 servings of applesauce without spilling anything. once we started talking about playing some with his cars, he opened his eyes and everything seemed better for him. we played for a few hours then put him back to bed. he went right back to sleep and slept al night. this morning you would never guess that there was so much drama the day before.

creepilicious in the new year

going out for new years was way fun. i did miss the kids and was happy to hear their loving calls of "happy new year" when we walked back in the door but it was fun to go out. i loved my new dress but it was not giving in anyway after my uber dinner of lots o' baked brie and other tasty goodness. my body couldn't expand cuz it was stuck in there and i was a bit uncomfortable, but i looked damn good. we walked all over seattle in the cold night and then i got stuck in my dress. the zipper broke and i couldn't take the thing off. it reminded me of back in my drunken youth i went to the company xmas party, the one where my stockings lasted only one trip to the ladies's room before i tore a hole in them and had to take them off, the one where i was wearing a little red silk chinese style dress that buttoned all the way to the top but when i got my drunk arse home i couldn't get the buttons undone so i decided to pull the dress up over my head only for it to get stuck up there and i had to sit on the edge of the tub and then fall in... ah those were the says of single life living in my creepy capitol hill basement apartment. anyway, here i am goofing off in my fab dress at the hotel :























and a close up, in case you missed it:

















but also looking uber creepy as i discovered that i was stuck in all that fabulous bright pink!