You Know What's Awesome? **UPDATED!**

Having one of your kids wake you up 45 minutes early because she has a hangnail she wants clipped. Because at 45 minutes, you don't have time to actually go back to bed but you have lost out on enough sleep to be mad about it. When I told her, "Next time, you need to wait until it's time to get up before coming to get me" she of course started crying, and then stormed out of the room saying, "Why do things like this just have to happen?!" and slammed the door.

Which woke up her brothers. Fantastic. Now I get to start my day 45 minutes early with an emotional wreck of a daughter and two grumpy boys. I love, love, LOVE eating my breakfast with 3 kids yelling at each other around the table. It's like dinner, only in the stupid morning that I hate and with no backup from Boone.

We wrapped up breakfast, brushed teeth and did hair, and then realized we were running about 10 minutes earlier than usual, so I told Rylan she could watch TV for a few minutes with her brothers. When it came time to go to the bus stop, she told me she would just watch from the window because she didn't want to get cold wearing the new shorts she INSISTED on wearing today, because they are having an Easter egg hunt (nevermind that they can't celebrate Halloween in school because THAT holiday is about worshipping the devil -- but the Resurrection is totally acceptable to celebrate in public school) and she NEEDED to be wearing something "Spring-y" or she "just wouldn't look right", and I said "No, you need to go to the bus stop" at which point Branik pooped.

So now I had to backtrack, say "Fine, watch out the window while I change Branik's diaper" (and yes, he's nearly 3 and still not potty trained, thankyouverymuch) but while I am dealing with that, she hears a new commercial on the TV, leaves the window to go see what it's all about, I yell "Get back to the window and watch for that bus!" just in time for her to get back and say, "Oops, I guess I didn't hear it today because there it goes".

BAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!

Me: "That's why I told you to STAND THERE RYLAN!!!"

Rylan: "Now I have ruined this whole day!" (stomps off crying. Again.)

Me: "Everyone get in the car -- we have to take Rylan to school"

Rylan: "You probably just hate me because of my hangnail"


Drive to the school -- get stuck behind the bus, which I called "the stupid bus", which is a big problem because Keaton has been saying "stupid" and getting in trouble for it all week, and now I called the bus stupid because Rylan missed it, so now Keaton has the green light and starts with, "Is that the STUPID bus Mom? Did you say STUPID bus? Why is the bus STUPID Mom?"

Rylan (muttering from back seat): "Not my fault the bus is stupid and came early..." (it didn't come early)

Keaton: "Mom! Rylan said STUPID too!"

Rylan: "Mom said it first."

Keaton: "Mom, did you say STUPID?"

Branik: "Stupid bus"

Me: "Everyone quit saying STUPID!"

Get to the school and pull up to the front, at which point Rylan starts crying again and refusing to get out of the car because "It's embarrassing to get to school before my bus gets here", even though kids are pouring into the school and cars are backing up behind us.

Me: "Get OUT of the car Rylan. There are tons of kids here already and your bus is pulling into the back right now!"

Keaton: "The STUPID bus, Mom?"

Branik: "STUPID BUS!!!"

Keaton: "Branik said STUPID!"

Rylan (getting out of the car): "You hate me and think I'm ridiculous and all of this day is my fault!"

Door slams shut. I drive away.

Good morning!

***UPDATE***

I just went to switch the laundry (I told you, it's my favorite thing to do) and opened the washing machine to discover an enormous but also EXPLODED diaper in with the towels. Yay! Because the only way for laundry to get better is to cover it with gel nuggets that used to be saturated with urine.

This Is The One You've Been Waiting For!

Not really.


Okay, so I am doing laundry today (because it is my favorite thing to do) and I had an epiphany about the kind of person I am: only I don't know what my epiphany means exactly. I just know it reveals something about me. Am I selfish? Self-serving? Holding some sort of a grudge? Burying some secret resentment that is slowly poisoning my soul from the inside out?

Because I looked down at my mountain of laundry on the bed, and realized that I had folded 80% of the pile -- the 20% left unfolded? ALL BOONE'S. Every last item. Even the freaking dishtowels got their turn before his jeans.

Seriously, what is that all about? Why did I leave everything that was his in a heap while I folded and neatly stacked everyone else's? It was not anything I did consciously. He hasn't done anything today that has irritated me, so what gives? WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?

Does anyone else find they fold laundry in a certain order? All your own stuff first? Pajamas last? Am I the only one devoting hours of my life to analyzing the way in which I clean my family's clothing?

I hope I actually have no secret issue and the reality is that his clothes are the biggest and therefore the biggest pain to fold, but I sort of don't think I'm that nice (cue my friends telling me "You're nice, Nicole!" and my family telling me "Nope. You're mental. And mean.")

Sigh.

Pretty Sure I'm Dying

But at least my fantastic husband stayed home today to play taxi cab so I could sleep more. Which seems like a ridiculous thing to do considering that I went to bed last night at 5:15 and just stumbled out now (to a clean house, I might add) -- 9:20 am -- the next day.

So if I die, you ladies better start figuring out how you are going to catch Boone's attention so you can have him for yourselves. Did I mention that he does all the meal planning and cooks 90% of our dinners? Of course that's AFTER he takes all 3 kids grocery shopping on Saturday mornings so I can run/spin/sleep.

Who put this pea under my mattress?

AMBER ALERT

We interrupt regularly scheduled blogging to issue an Amber Alert for two girls:

They might appear to be twins, but one is slightly bigger than the other and will usually be looking downward.

The following are the most recent photographs that could be found of the missing girls:














No seriously. Where'd they go???




Okay fine, so I cut them off on purpose. But THIS ^ is a little less than I bargained for. Good gravy, there's hardly a shadow there anymore. If I keep running I am going to end up with inverted boobs.

(Maybe that would be a good place to stash my iPod and keys while I run!)

Well Clearly...

Albany Half Marathon 2009

Okay, so maybe I talk a lot about running now, but I like it, and it's the first thing I have done for myself in I-don't-know-how-long. If you don't care, don't read this:)

First of all, HUGE thanks to the Galans, who not only watched our kids for us, but watched our kids WHILE THEY WERE MOVING! Before you ask how I could be such a sucky friend as to let them do it, well, that's just how I roll. It's all about me, duh! Team Galan is awesome. And insane. But we really benefited from their lunacy this weekend and I'm sure our kids appreciated missing out on nearly 9 hours of driving in a 24 hour period.

This second half marathon was different from my first in a couple of ways: I trained for this one by myself (boo); I actually had a time goal instead of just a "finish" goal (wanted to come in under 2 hours); and I had my favorite person on the sidelines (AWESOME!) who is such a studly navigator that he managed to find me 3 times during the race -- pretty good for a first time spectator! Without further ado, here's how it all went down...

Boone and I made a mad dash to Albany, GA (4+ hours away) on Friday night so I could pick up my race packet in time. We made it with about 20 minutes to spare and headed to our hotel to start our raging party (we brushed our teeth and went to bed at 10:30).

I woke up at 3:15 and never really fell back asleep, so I still don't know what it would be like to race on more than 4 hours of sleep. It might be cool, if you're a sissy who thinks being rested is beneficial.



Here I am in the parking lot of the hotel, ready to go while it's still dark. Those of you who know me in real life know this is like the Twilight Zone already. In fact, when I asked Boone why he wanted to take this picture, he said, "So you can prove you were awake before dawn one time". Psshh. Whatever. I've been up before dawn like 4 other times in my life. It's overrated.

Pretty self explanatory here -- it's the starting line. I'm in there somewhere, but not visible in this picture. The 5 guys who are matchy matchy were the first 5 finishers for the half marathon, and the 3 Kenyans on the left were the top 3 for the full 26.2. I guess they had a good reason to be at the front of the line. More on them later...

We actually had timing chips and I managed to be much closer to the front than I was in Hilton Head. This was good and bad. Good because I didn't have to fight my way up to get enough room to go at my own pace, but bad because there is a natural tendency to try to keep up with those in front of you. This meant I went out way too fast that first mile, finishing in 8:17.

***Sonja, Tyler, Christy, Anna, Sara, and anyone else who is more athletic than me can quit laughing at my "way too fast" pace now -- let's all remember that I didn't really start running until November. Seriously, QUIT LAUGHING!***

Here what an action shot looks like when you are using a crappy outdated camera. This was the first time Boone saw me, right at mile 2. It was so foggy through the first 5 miles that the brim of my hat was literally dripping with condensation. This turned out to be helpful when I basically threw a cup of Gatorade into my right eye at mile 3. I looked like a pirate for about a mile until I had accumulated enough mist on my face to wash off. I'm pretty much the biggest dork you'll ever see on a race course, but I think my eye enjoyed the electolyle boost.

See how foggy? See my LOOONNNGG fanny? Good times. By mile 2 I had slowed back down to my goal pace of 9:00 miles and was able to hang out there until around mile 6 when my dumb foot started hurting. I knew my goal time was slipping away when I'd lost a full 2 minutes by mile 10, but right around that aid station the pain just faded and I was able to pick it back up a little. I think it helped that I saw Boone again at mile 10 and was able to ditch my hydration belt with him. It's not that it was super heavy or cumbersome, but I think it gave me a boost psychologically.

Boone pointed out that pretty much all the running pictures look the same -- it's a big-faced chick in blue with Gatorade in her eye and a fanny pack. I don't think you all could handle that kind of hotness over and over and over again, so I'll do you a favor and cut to the finish.


Yep, that's me, BARELY making my goal time, but MAKING IT! My official chip time was 1:59:24 -- a 9:07 pace -- which put me finishing 9th in my age group, and as the 62nd overall female out of 338 runners. I was secretly hoping for a 1:58 finish, but I was still really happy that I cut over 3 1/2 minutes off my time in 4 weeks.


See the happiness? So the crazy thing is when you finish running 13.1 miles, and literally 14 minutes later 3 Kenyans come cruising through the finish line as they finish the full marathon. Insane. It is just amazing to me that people can run that fast. On the other hand, none of those dudes has incubated 3 human beings in their bodies like I have, so I'm pretty sure I impressed them as much as they impressed me.



And just like that, I was back in full dork mode. Sigh.


It was a blast. I loved having Boone there to cheer me on, and once again I find myself antsy to register for another race. I think after I run one more half, I am going to have to go for the full 26.2. Who's in?

Signs Your Kids Watch Too Much TV

Last night we had burgers for dinner. Part way through the meal, Branik picked up his burger, dropped it back onto his plate, and said, "New. At Hardees."

Boone and I nearly peed ourselves laughing. And then we went back to threatening our way through our evening meal like usual.