A Lovely Weekend - Full of Pee and Fun for All

It really was a lovely weekend. Unfortunately, Ladybug is still a member of the potty resistance but luckily (and knock on wood) she has been unable to recruit Angelfish to join. She did much better at school on Friday (not sure that I told you all about her purposefully peeing and pooping in her pants at school a total of 5 times. How, you ask, do I know it was on purpose? She announced it to the playyard before doing the deed and when in doors would laugh at her teachers as she did it. As the head of school said, "this is the trouble with having a highly intelligent child. The other children just aren't smart enough to think this up." ), but then returned to the less then attentive potty habits by Monday. So it was a weekend full of pee, even if overall the weekend was fun.

Friday, we painted our foyer. It was a color called spun gold. When it dried, it looked like a school bus. So we headed off for paint samples and settled on a nice terra cotta orange color called La Fonda Sombrero. Purchased the paint and hit the furniture stores, with only the intention of purchasing either a foyer table or a sofa table. We ended up buying a chest for the foot of our bed, a foyer table, and a sofa table. All very lovely, all on sale due to Memorial Day, and all just what we've been looking for (the chest for 2 years mind you). Played with the girls a bit after we picked them up from daycare, and then painted.

Saturday morning I woke up to head to the gym for a 30 mile bike and a 30 minute run. The gym that I though opened at 6 am. Took one look at the kitchen and decided that sage green would be a lovely color and that whomever lived in this house with the bright orange kitchen was not related although it was a nice color. Got to the gym by 6:22 am. By 6:30 am, it was evident that I was the only car in the parking lot and the gym must not open until 7 am. So I ran the parking lot to make good use of my time. 30 minutes later, super sweaty, the gym opened and 32.4 miles on the trainer later I had a nice shower and headed to the emergency care to meet the fam so Angelfish could have her staples removed. Took all of 30 seconds to remove, Angelfish's only complaint was that the nurse (who was not the one she's used to seeing at the emergency care center) gave her only 1 sticker this time and that Ladybug got one too. We did some errands and played with the wee ones.

Sunday our friends Mike, Elaine & Josie came for a day visit. It was fun for the little ones to play and the grown ups to chat. I also went for a 6 mile run in the morning before the company arrived. Bill started to run with me, but the girls were fighting over territory in their blue car within 2 minutes, so he ran after I finished. All I have to say is, it was rather hot. To the point that I ran without my shirt on. Full coverage black sports bra in place, no need to call the police. I am not one to run without a shirt, so lets just say that when I passed the church I thought that I may have been indecent but it was better than passing out.

Monday I did about 6 loads of laundry (all of which are waiting to be folded and put away this evening), we did a few more errands and then wandered around Sea World for the afternoon until it started to rain. And I was rather naughty and skipped the 4 mile run and 1 mile swim I was supposed to do. It was a holiday and I wanted to be holidayish with the fam. Of course, Ladybug added to my laundry with her potty resistance, but I can hope for a day free from pee pee pants.

This morning it was back to work. A 4 mile run to start things off, which really is getting to be just an easy sort of run now. I have to say I'm most impressed at this fact. Then work, and now off to get the kiddies from daycare and attend Mr. Darcy's volleyball game downtown - if it's not rained out by the time we get there. The weather is looking a bit ominous, yet again. 7 straight days of rain turned into a gorgeous Monday until it's time for work to end. A cruel trick, but much needed rain.

Tomorrow is a swim... yay!

Catching up...

Sorry for the failure to post the past few days... I got a short lived (thank goodness) stomach virus that started later in the morning on Tuesday. So, Wednesday I did not work out but slept alot. Thursday, after chasing two 2 year old streakers around the house and finally getting them dressed, I went for a walk/run with Ladybug. (Angelfish and Daddy started with us too but Amanda was grumpy and they ended up heading back, even though Angelfish wanted to run with Mommy originally.). It wasn't super intensive on the way to the park, but little Ladybug helped with some interval training by running and then getting distracted and stopping and then running some more, then a little walking and then Mommy carrying her (she's 30 pounds so I'm calling it resistance training) the rest of the way to the park (it's about 1 mile away from the house) where we "raced" each other and then ran the bases on the baseball diamond. She is adorable when she runs - when she's thinking about running she does this thing with her arms where she holds them bent at her sides and swings them wildly left to right, but when she is just running without thinking about it, she has pretty good form! For some reason she didn't want to play on the playground when we got to the park, but when we were done racing on the soccer field and done running the bases, she said, "Mommy, I tired and want juice. Please go home now?" and two steps later asked "Mommy please pick me up." So the last mile of the workout (Mommy walking briskly while carrying Ladybug) gave me a good sweat! Ladybug had been intent on running with Mommy that morning, and I have to say it was a lot of fun!

Friday I did a 40 minute bike ride and then we took the girls to Sea World and had a good time (until the tiredness set in for the girls) riding rides, seeing the animals and watching Shamu and the dolphin shows again. Both Angelfish and Ladybug are obsessed with the idea of riding a roller coaster. We tried to get them onto the kiddie roller coaster, but they had to be 38" tall and they're both at 36" right now. (So, the good news is that Angelfish had a growth spurt and caught up to Ladybug... we'll see how long that lasts.)

Saturday I did another tri-brick. I did a 3/4 mile swim, a 40 minute bike at heart rate level 3, and a 10 minute run. To cool down I did a 10 minute walk and lots of stretching afterward. It was great! I tore up the pool that day to the point that another swimmer told me I was really tearing it up... I talked to her a few moments while putting on my shoes for the run and she had done 2 triathlons herself. Pretty cool! Although, I have to say I hate doing these tri-bricks at the gym, but the pool is too cold right now to attempt it in the neighborhood and it's a lot easier on my legs to train on the treadmill. Usually when I'm on my bike, 40 minutes is over and I think to myself - already? Biking on the stationary bike is boring because I don't get to see anything! But, I did 9 miles on level 5 and at a level 3 heart rate, so I can't complain all together. The 10 minute run was really a 4 minute run, 2 minute walk, 4 minute run but only because of my shin splints which were REALLY not happy with me this past week after last weekend's 10 minute run at the end of the tri-brick. I'm starting to wonder if my shin splint issues are really because of the fact that I naturally suffer from really tight hamstrings. I don't know if physiologically the two can be related but I have noticed that when I'm running, especially as part of a brick, that the pain I get while running isn't in my shin but in the calf muscle down by where my hamstring hits my ankle area at the back, and then the pain shift to my shin afterwards. It's a mystery, but I'm having fun while trying to figure all this out.

I'm not sure if I mentioned that Mr. Darcy bought me a book Women and Triathlons for Christmas. It's a good book, but rather technical for a beginner like me. I'm glad it wasn't the first training book I read (I highly recommend Your First Triathlon by Joe Friel) because I think I would have been scared off. But, it has some good tips, history, and information for training. I think I may get a heart rate monitor because it explained about training based on heart rate and (again while technical) made a lot of sense to me on how you can really improve by training at different heart rate intensities and I've been trying that when I'm on the gym cardio machines and I notice what the author means when she says sometimes it's surprising when you're in say heart rate level 3 because you don't necessarily feel like you are. And of course, since Christmas I think people in my neighborhood have gotten some bikes from Santa because I keep noticing people I haven't seen while biking on these great road bikes that look brand new. Maybe if I'm really good this year I'll get one from Santa next year... although probably not since they are not an inexpensive item and it's not like you can get a trade in on your old model like you do with cars. A girl can always dream of a lighter bike that you can put aerobars and have a more aerodynamic form and allow for more power in your pedal!

Today, is Sunday and I have shifted my training schedule so that Sundays are my days off from training instead of Mondays... that way I am home with the munchkins when they wake up on at least one of the weekend mornings. Our friend Bryan is visiting and we are taking he and the munchkins to Disney. I think Mr. Darcy may be just as excited as the girls are about it because now he'll have someone to ride the rollercoasters with while I watch the munchkins! It should be a good time!

Return from Christmas...

Hi, all! Yes, the training continued during the holidays... along with some overeating and presents. : ) Christmas Eve I did a nice bike ride because, well, I didn't feel like the gym on Christmas Eve and it was a gorgeous morning. Then after gorging ourselves at the Polish Wigilia dinner I made (with a little help from the Polish Deli up the road), Christmas Day was exercise free. Angelfish & Ladybug were super excited that Santa Claus had come and we had a blast seeing how excited they were and keeping them from seeing the tree until Grammie and Papa were up and ready. They loved the doctor's kit and golfing stuff that Santa brought them, and had a great time playing with those and reading the books that Uncle Rob, Aunt Sue & Cousins Laura and Julia gave them until Nanna and Poppop arrived. And then it was the unwrapping extravanganza! They were so excited about unwrapping presents that they were unwrapping every present they could get their hands on - even if it wasn't for them! We had to stop them, of course, but it was rather cute. I think they're favorite gift of Christmas was the kitchen that Grammie and Papa got them. Every night Ladybug tells us that she's going to make popcorn (her current favorite food) for Baby Jesus and picks up the toy kitchen phone at least once and calls God. Angelfish likes to play with the blender and serve up drinks and get the boiling sound going on the toy stove. She also assists in the cooking of popcorn for Baby Jesus. The two of them are a hoot!

The day after Christmas, I did another bike ride... in fact, I pushed myself and did my 40 minute route in 30 minutes. And then followed it with a 30 minute walk (shin splints are still acting up a bit). Then we watched "Belle & the Beast" as the girls' like to call it, and played on the playground a good bit, said good bye to Nanna & Poppop when they had to head home, and tried to find a nice, fake Christmas tree for a good price. All I have to say is that the Orlando shoppers do not mess around with the day after Christmas sales - everything good was gone and the stores were a bit messy!

Saturday, I have to admit, I did not work out... the girls woke up right when I did and I didn't want to miss the time with them, so we played instead by going to Cocoa Beach. Being spoiled by the white sands of my hometown's beach, Cocoa Beach paled by far in comparison, but it was a beach and the girls had a lot of fun jumping over the waves and "building Cinderella castles" in the sand.

My Sunday workout and subsequent activity may have made up for it a little bit! Sunday I did my first 3 sport brick ever and it was hard but great! I did a hard 3/4 mile swim training (working on technique and speed drills) followed by a 30 minute bike at 95-100 RPM, followed by a 10 minute run (and I ran the entire thing) and a 10 minute walk to cool down (plus stretching of course). This coming Saturday (I'm trying to rearrange my workout week so that from now on I have Sundays off instead of Mondays so I don't miss 2 mornings in a row of wake up and breakfast with the wonder twins. I love seeing their faces in the mornings!) will be my next tri brick with a little more time spent on the bike and the run. That afternoon we went to Sea World with the girls which was fun, but definitely not a good idea crowd wise after Christmas. We won't do that again! We got soaked by Shamu which was the big highlight for the girls I think (who didn't like it at the time even though we were able to keep them dry with a poncho we bought, but like to talk about it ever since and tell us that Silly Shamu got us wet!) But we walked all over and a lot of the time had to carry one of the girls. I think the best part was the dolphin show, which Anglfish slept straight through!

Monday was my off day and I needed the recovery time! The girls for some reason got up at 4:30 am and were playing in their room and while we got them back to sleep by around 5:30 am, they were up again at the usual 6:30 am wake up. (And we had a little trauma with Ladybug pooping on the living room carpet next to the Christmas tree... I still can't figure that one out.) So, we fed them and dressed them and Mr. Darcy took them to daycare (to keep with the normal routine) and after Mr. Darcy got back we slept until 10 am! I can't remember the last time that happened... then we went to daycare to chat with the administrator about giving Angelfish especially (but Ladybug too) more mentally challenging activities since they don't want to move the girls up to the next rooms and Amanda is appearing to need more challenge. We'll have to see how it goes... if they don't want to challenge her to the level she needs we may have to find alternate arrangements. They admitted that our girls are very advanced and that their teachers commented on that, but they just don't want to move them up because there are other children older than them. I had to explain that age doesn't mean much but that mental challenge is imperative. Anyway. We'll see how it goes. Afterwards we tried to see a movie, but everything looked like fluff or bad, so we skipped that and walked around the shopping area a bit and then watched "Becoming Jane" - the (fictional) movie about Jane Austen based on some true facts that Angelfish gave me for Christmas. It was really enjoyable and I'm glad she bought it for me!

Today was back to work... so this morning I did a 40 minute bike ride and could still feel some stiffness in my front quads during the ride. Hopefully that will be worked out for tomorrow's swim run. But it was a nice ride although you can tell more people are off than at work around here because the cars were still parked at the houses or people were just leaving while I was biking. A good ride even though it was in the low 50s. Of course, it will be in the 70's later in the day. We've been wearing shorts!

That's the update. I hope all had a very Merry Christmas!