The Knights of Henry

Maybe it was because I wrote about it, maybe it is because Henry is getting tired or matured, but whatever the reason, the last couple of nights have been great. Each night he has come into our room once and easily goes back to bed... and that's it! It's amazing how refreshed you can feel with a solid chunk of hours.

Henry has been saying some funny things. Wish I could remember them all, but the most recent one was driving in the car. He said " I bet the clouds are saying ' no, don't get night time.'" Isn't that cute? He not only empathizes for people, but clouds too. My boy is definitely not autistic, although I could have told you this long before.

He has also been trying to negotiates more, which means he just states what he wants things to be. For example....

Me: "It's time to get in the car"

Henry: "No, it's not time to get in the car. It's time to play Wii"
Me: "Let's go"

Henry: "Okay, but after the car I get to play Wii" Then he willingly gets in the car with the expectation to play Wii later. Tricky guy. What am I supposed to do with that? Usually when we get home, he does not forget.

Gotta love him.

1-2-3 Yodo

Last night Aaron was searing some steak (very very good by the way) and there was a lot of steam. Henry and I were in the dining room and he got a little scared. He asked for it to stop, but we couldn't. Then, he put it hands over his ears and kept repeating "1-2-3 yodo, 1-2-3 yodo, 1-2-3 yodo." He was upset, but he wasn't crying or anything. I asked him where he heard of that and he didn't know. Strange, but kinda cute at the same time.

These last few days nights with Henry has been pretty miserable. Aaron and I have been pretty consistent on not letting him come to bed until 5:00AM, but that doesn't stop him from trying. Man, he comes in every 2 hours or more and then usually has to come 3-4 times each round. It's almost like having a newborn.... I thought it would get better by now. I guess we spoiled him for so long it takes time. We might have to change tactics a little. If it is attention he wants, then maybe we shouldn't talk at all to him and shouldn't re-tuck him in. What a hole we've gotten ourselves into. I dream about the day when I'll have one big block of uninterrupted sleep, but I think so do most parents.

I'll keep you guys posted.

Who needs a personal trainer?

So, with being a member of the YMCA, you get three free sessions with a personal trainer. This last month or so, I've been very static with my exercises and I felt I needed a change. I have thought about seeing a trainer before, but it always scares me. I guess I feel like he would be very negative and I would come out exhausted and unhappy. Not exactly sure why, but that's how I feel. Now is the time.

Last Monday I had my first appointment. Before I started, I was quite nervous. It felt like a basketball try-out or something. While walking in the gym I was rehearsing in my head what I wanted to say (why I'm here, what I want to get out of this, why I let myself get this way, etc). I always want to be prepared.

Once I got there, things were fine. He felt circuit training would be good for me, so we went at it. It really felt funny to start doing pop-ups, and planks and things like that. Some of it was hard aerobically (but not all) and there was only a couple of moves that I couldn't do muscularly. The trainer said he was impressed and that made me feel good.

I fear this blog post is getting boring, but I wanted to give and update. I am meeting this guy once a week for 2 more weeks. A few days ago I did the routine with Aaron and I believe we got a good work out (we're going to do it again today). It is hard to find time for running and circuit training.

Also, since I am using a trainer, I thought I would put in an extra effort to eat better. I went on epicurious and they have a great meal planner that we are using this week and so far it is going really well. I made some great ginger pumpkin muffins, a winter bean-pesto soup, a Thai tofu red pepper thing and more. Honestly, it's hard to keep up. Exercising and cooking take a lot of time (not to mention Henry and my sewing).

Don't get me started about sewing! All I have to say is that there are too many babies in the family for me to keep up with (really it is not bad, but I don't like to think I am behind).

Henry does well with the cooking. He really likes to help and now has started cracking eggs for me. The only down side is that it takes so long with him "helping." It's worth it. Maybe someday he'll be a chef, or at least cook me some meals.

We'll see how this week goes.

New Years Resolutions

Everyone has them, right? Eat healthy, exercise more, live with no regrets.

I never think exclusively of new years resolutions, but I do have goals. This year Aaron piped in; he wanted to run more races and run more every day. He made a goal of 15 miles a week. I figured I was running about 10-12 miles a week so the extra 3 wouldn't be so hard. Also, it is a nice concrete goal. Really, you either do it or you don't.

These last few weeks have gone relatively smoothly for me. Unfortunately, not for Aaron (he's having a lot of shin pain). For week 1 and 2 I did 15 miles no problem, and for week three, I did 21 miles!!! Woo hoo! I finally got a little sore last night, but I welcomed it. I just keep pushing my body and it responds well. I ran 5 miles twice and then 3-4 miles the other times. I did one run in intervals and ran parts of it under a 10 minute mile (tough for me). That was a little rough. As I walked home, my body didn't know if it wanted to puke or go the other way (if you know what I mean). That was the only time I felt bad.

Right now I'm sorta running on an extended half marathon training schedule. Every few weeks I'll increase my mileage. Not to bad. All this running kinda makes me feel that the rest of my muscles are getting neglected. I don't want to stop running to do other things. Isn't that a funny phrase that I never thought I would say? Before this exercise excursion, I never liked running. It was just a means to the end. Now, I actually like it and enjoy it during the process, and especially at the end of the process. When something makes me mad or frustrated, I think "I want to run." I think my brain has changed, and that is great.

Anyway, tomorrow is the big 6 miles.

Hidden Benefits of Exercise

Alright,

I think everyone knows that when you exercise you can loose weight and your heart gets more in shape (mostly by increasing your stroke volume), but there are things that happen even beyond this. I was reading up on the subject and wanted to share some cool things.

Let's start with the muscles, shall we.

When you exercise, the muscles can break down (that is why you are sore), but they they actually increase in the end. Mostly it is by increasing the slow twitch muscles. These help with overall strength (and not the fast twitch ones that are instrumental for the sprinters). When you are using the muscles over and over, the capillaries around the muscle actually grow so there is more oxygen sent to the muscles. This sounds pretty crazy, but great. In the muscle cells, the mitochondria, which is responsible for most of the cells energy, will increase in number so you can have more energy at the cellular level. The muscle cells can also store more glycogen (glucose in the storage form) and they can utilize fat much better. This is all pretty great. In a nutshell, muscles have more energy available to them, and they can use all more easily.

On to the heart.

Like I said before, there is an increase in stroke volume, which is why your heart rate goes down. This makes the heart more efficient. I always wanted my heart rate below 60 because I felt that would be a good number. Let me check it right now. Hold on... okay right now it is 74, but I just had my morning coffee. Still not bad. Exercise can also decrease your blood pressure modestly. This is a little bit more medical, but it can help with coronary artery disease (why you get heart bypass surgery), by both making the vessels larger and protect the vessels from getting smutz in them.

The lungs, well not too much. More blood vessels will come to the lungs so you can extract more oxygen, but that is about it (sorry to disappoint).

Immune system.

Exercising moderately actually boosts your immune system. It seems to improve the function of most of the immune cells (B-cells, T-Cells, NK cells and macrophages). This is for moderate exercise. Once you get extreme, your immune system goes down. Working at a pediatrician's office gives me lots of opportunity to get sick, so any extra help I get is a bonus.

There is also some hormonal stuff that gets better but it is too complicated to write, so lets just say it helps.

Lastly, and in my opinion, the most interesting is that exercise extends the telomere length of cells. Well maybe not extends, but people who exercise tend to have longer telomere's that comparred to others. What is the big deal with telomere's anyway, right? Well, they are at the ends of every DNA and usually consist of some pattern and they are just there to protect the goods in the middle. When we age, they usually start to get cut off and then once they are gone the real damage can happen to the cells. In my opinion, I want the longest telomere's possible, and if exercise is going to help, so be it.

Those are the most direct benefits. Of course, there are life changes that occur (less depression, less obesity, less cancers), but not as basic as listed above.

These are all really great things to have happen to your body and totally worth the effort. Hope you enjoy these facts, and if you don't understand them, let me know.

Christmas Bonanza

Hello everyone, here are the pictures of the Christmas gifts as promised. I will start with the most time consuming....the scarfs.



These are all the scarves I made. In total I made 10 of them. There is a boy and girl version. Both are with suiting and blue velour to make it wonderfully soft. My inspiration came from and Amy Butler pattern I noticed online (really can she do any wrong?). I didn't see the actual pattern, but only glimpses, like this one.




This is from a blog http://needled.wordpress.com/2007/10/12/patchwork-scarf/ She has good inspiration. To make the scar I made 16 x 16 inch squares of stripes and then broke them down to smaller squares and rectangles. This made some continuity and helped with blocking the scarf. After that I laid all the pieces together and that was it. Unlike most projects, I was able to keep one for myself.



This is me when I was sick getting cozy with my scarf, my son and a good book. Really, what could be better?

My next projects were tablecloths for Mary. I knew I wanted to try sewing free hand (which means without a presser foot). The top one is the actual, and the bottom one is my inspiration from etsy.com.


Initially I tried to do everything free hand, but seemed to messy. My singer sewing machine is a good machine, but it doesn't handle embroidery thread very well and the tension gets off. Also, my hand is not steady enough. So I drew out the pattern and did a sewing machine satin stitch for the outside of the leaves and the the free style part for the veins. It worked out really well and I was happy with the final project. It is always fun trying something new.

The last project I will include is for my sister. I found place mats on etsy.com (the one on the bottom) that I really liked and I wanted to make them for myself sometime. Instead of making them for me, I decided my sister might like them. They are great for little kits to know where things go. If every she is having professional people come over (not sure who qualifies for this), she can flip them over and then they are just normal place mats.

I was not the only one who made Christmas gifts in our family. Aaron sewed some great shirts for Anna, Malcolm and Luna. He posted them on facebook if you want to see. Having him sew just makes me happy.

I also made some more place mats for Ben and Leah but can't seem to find the pictures. I will post it later. This has been a photo filled post and while it looks nice, it was a pain to upload everything. Maybe I'll get used to it.

Until next time.

Catch Up Time

I guess it's been a month since I last wrote. I think about writing often and now all the ideas are piling up and it almost seems too much. For now I will write what is on my mind and fill in the rest later.

I realize I like reading blogs. It's good insight into the person and a real glimpse of what is going on in their life (of course biased by their eyes). Still, since I read blogs, I should make sure to give more effort in case anyone else reads mine.

After my last blog I was at a furious pace to finish all the Christmas gifts I planned for. Originally I wanted it all home made, but that wasn't possible. I guess it would have been fine, but sometimes I think that the gifts I make aren't enough. I suppose I should just value my gifts more and then we wouldn't spend so much money

I shall include photos later, but I think I made some great pieces and for the most part it was fun. Since Christmas, I haven't touched my sewing machine (even though I need to). I am having post-Christmas... um something! I just don't want to do all the setting up, sewing, cutting, ironing, putting away. Such an endless task. That, and we also have Beatles Rock Band!!!

Renae and Phil gave us Christmas gifts that allow us to play Beatles Rock Band and our whole family is addicted (Henry very much included). The songs are so great and playing along is just so fun. I even have a callous from playing the drums (I've got blisters on my fingers). Henry usually has a guitar and believes he is playing with us. Usually he rocks out and dances, but sometimes he just sits with the guitar and watches. Either way he is happy. I think he will be a Beatles fan and I need to get him a shirt. He is going to be one cool guy in kindergarten, that is unless he punches everyone like he does now (we're working on it).

One thing we have changed with Henry is his sleeping habits. He has pretty much eliminated his nap time and I am sad to see it go. We are implementing a quiet time in his room, but this sometimes does not work well. He usually acts well, but towards the night gets quite crabby and clingy. His constant grabbing on me and hanging on me really does wear me down. Hopefully things will be more routine now.

Henry also now has a clock and is not allowed into our room until 5AM. This was a big change that probably needed to occur years ago. We just didn't have the strength for the fight, until now. Honestly the beginning wasn't too bad. He understood the new rules quickly but kept coming into our room to check. We would have to walk him back and usually he stayed. Right now he comes into our room about 1-2 times a night and that is it. Could be worse. I definitely think I am sleeping better because it is usually a surprise that it is 5AM when he comes in.

Until later.