Taylor's first swing ride

And Rychen.....

This photo is hilarious, because he was NOT posing. I was just clicking away with the fast shutter speed and happened to catch this!

Pocatello marathon in 3 weeks!

I forgot to mention, I AM DOING A MARATHON IN THREE WEEKS!!! Holy crap!

I am way excited. I have been running about 30 mile weeks, four days per week. I run an hour at a time except Saturdays I run 2-3 hours. My longest run was 20 miles and I have one more of those in a few days, then taper.

The first half of the race will be downhill so I have been running the decline treadmill at the gym to prepare. Good thing I have that resource! Cuz my hips hurt! Better now than during the race.

Rychen and I are running it together. I would be thrilled to get a time under 4'15" and if everything lines up right it could be closer to 4 hours. I divide my runs into chunks and check my progress. I usually run 6 miles the first hour, then 7 miles each additional hour. And that's on flat ground, so the race will be faster. I just hope I can keep running the last few miles, I know I will be hurting!! I wish I could have trained for longer runs, like Jeff Galloway recommends. Oh well. I will be carrying fresh OJ, my secret weapon. It has never failed me on race day! I keep my energy up the whole time.

Here is a cool video I found. I might like to do something like this. Would anybody want me to document it during the race?

Pocatello Marathon  Sept. 5, 2009

More big milestones

No, I am not talking about Taylor. We are STILL waiting for him to cut his first tooth! But it's gonna happen any day now, he is showing signs. Thank goodness for homeopathic Chamomille and that after several years I remembered and recognized the traits to treat with it (fussy and wants to be carried).

Anyhow we are talking about Elisabeth's milestones! Two big ones we have been waiting for, that she has been refusing to do. The first is playing the piano. Haha now I realize how funny that sounds. But I am serious! She has been going to piano lessons for years, doing bows and finger exercises but was too shy to touch the piano by herself. She had a deal with her teacher that when she turns four, she will do it. But this past week she just wanted to learn Mary Had a Little Lamb, and now she memorized it and is doing it all on her own...with proper fingering, I might add!

Aaaaaand....drumroll.......She is FINALLY going #2 in the toilet!! We thought this day would never come! But it has now been 5 days since she went other than in the toilet (I won't even mention the previous method...which was WORSE than diapers!) woohoo! So I had been trying to bribe her for the past several months to no avail, and making a big loud deal if she even got close, etc... Until finally it dawned on me that Elisabeth is a private, shy person. She didn't want me screaming from the rooftops when she used the toilet! So I began to whisper quietly, "how about going in the potty instead? I won't tell anyone!" she never took me up on it when I offered but it did the trick, because she started to go without telling me and coming to me afterward saying "I have a secret!" and when I figured out what she was talking about I said "What does the secret start with?" and she said "P" so we did a quiet happy dance and I went to check it out. Now she says that every time. "mom I have a secret!" and I say "does it start with a P? Cool! I will go flush your secret!"

The other thing I did, if anyone reading this is n the same boat (she was potty trained for #1 a year ago, or more, and has been getting a daily diaper to do her business in) is talking about control and coming to a compromise. After reading the Internet about control issues, I decided to talk openly about it with her. I asked if she gets told what to do too much and if she wanted to be in charge more (about various, unrelated things). She definitely wanted that. So we made some deals about what she could be in charge of...brushing her hair, picking out clothes, etc. I stopped forcing her to have her hair brushed. Instead I would just let it curl up after her bath. That had been a battle also, so I was willing to let her win that one. Another time we talked I told her i needed her to poop on the potty but she could choose lots of options, like should mom be in the bathroom too? Do you want the light on? Do you want to flush? Do you want to sing while you go? And other silly things like that, just so she could make a choice. But she didn't go that day. I just think the conversation planted some seeds and showed her I respected her, etc.... She gradually made the choice herself, with some successes and back to accidents a few times, etc. until she finally just did it.

The day finally came! I have been wondering when it would be OUR turn with our little girl... She took the scissors to her hair!

I was on the deck...She stepped outside and immediately I see all the neat little snippets in her hair, framing her face.

At least she waited until she was practically 4, so we could have a conversation about it. I said "Did you want to be Junie B. Jones?"

"No, I just wanted the hair out of my eyes." 

Good. A girl who solves her own problems. You can't argue with that! She definitely has NO hair in her eyes now.

[This picture was taken after a bath so its less obvious. I think with her curly, messy hair, it won't really be noticeable, just this chunk up top! Nothing I can do about that.. I'm not about to cut the rest of her bangs short enough to match!]

What I think: Shooting & Violence in Movies

I am hearing all this great talk about the new Batman movie and wanted to see if for myself. I am not usually a big action movie junkie and had to get caught up. So last night Rychen and I rented The Dark Knight (movie 2 in this triology) ... we didn't make it through it but that's a different tale to tell. For today I want to talk about the opening scene.

 Movies like this today are chock FULL of violence. That is not a horrible thing for those of us who can separate fantasy from reality. (Nevertheless still begs the question, WHY are we so attracted to such violent Fantasies? But again that is a post for another day) The problem here is that very few of us have real-life experience with guns and shooting people so we don't know what reality is. Especially not the children watching these movies.

 When you watch enough of these movies with little real-life experience of relating to people and problem solving in healthy ways, or healthy normal ways to gain power and popularity, I fear it leaves a certain subconcious imprint on too many of us...

 See the problem with this opening scene in The Dark Knight is the way is portrays shooting.
 - Guns make a person powerful
- Guns make you a winner
- Guns make you better than the guy who got shot
- Guns are quick and easy with no clean-up required
- You can shoot someone without making them bloody or hurt
- Victims have no family to mourn over them
- There are no consequences

 Did it bother anybody else in this scene, that a dozen people get shot but there is no blood??? Yes I am actually complaining about a movie being too violent AND that there was not enough blood. Why? Because blood and guts is reality and will freak out the young viewer. If we are going to learn about violence, let's at least learn about it in truth. The TRUTH of the matter would be a room with blood EVERYWHERE, dying people moaning and being taken to the hospital, families sobbing with running mascara. The reality is that these victims were real people living real lives and that they are not coming back. The reality is that their families will forever have a hole burned in their hearts and will never be the same again.

 But in movies we don't see this, do we??? All we see is how cool and powerful it is to beat someone up and leave them laying there.

 What are your thoughts? Let's discuss.

I'll Read to You, You Read to Me

Elisabeth's favorite book, we read together e-v-e-r-y-d-a-y... !! She is getting better about reading aloud to me. This is a really great book where the words are color coded. There are portions for Person A to read and then Person B to read, and then a third color for them to read together.

The Cutest Baby on the Block!!

Guess who is 6 months now?? That means lots of fun milestones! Rychen P. says Taylor is "zero and a half" which happens when Rychen P. has his birthday so there is lots to celebrate around here.

**PRECIOUS**