Henry's first ice skating lesson

Last night was Henry's first ice skating lesson. Henry was excited, but I was a little nervous. Henry didn't know there wouldn't be a parent out on the ice with him. Whenever I have skated with him before I always had a strong grip on him and never let him fall. I doubted this would happen again.

On our way to the ice rink, Henry fell sound asleep. We woke him up and he was a little disoriented and passive. I thought that was what he would be the whole night. He skipped the off-ice exercise, but willingly went out on the ice with the teacher. The first thing the instructor had the kids do was fall down on the ice so they could learn how to get back up. Henry plopped down like he was supposed to, but when he reached his hands out on the ice to get up, he realised the ice was pretty cold. I saw him take his hands off the ice. Immediately I thought "we should have brought gloves." After touching the ice once, he tried to avoid it the rest of the session. The instructor had everyone put their arms out to the side and take baby steps. Incredibly, Henry started doing it and actually inched his way forward. He was a bit slower than the other kids and had the habit of turning, but he still did good. Eventually he fell to the ice and then just waited for the instructor to pick him up. Once the instructor started helping him, the more he relied on her. It seemed like the rest of the lesson Henry was either holding her hand or standing still waiting for her to hold her hand. I wanted Henry to try again to skate alone, but he never did.

The picture above is toward the end of the lesson. He has a worried look on his face that we saw quite a bit at the end. After the lesson was over he got a sticker and got off the ice. We asked him if he had fun, and surprisingly he said he did and wanted to come back next week.

So, all and all a success. Can't wait until next week, and this time I'll bring gloves.

Visitors

We had a busy and fun weekend. It started off with the Malec's coming. They had a 1/2 of a day to spend in Kansas City. It was hard to decide what to show them. I guess I ended up boasting about the whole city. For instance, I showed them: the best beer (Boulevard), the best popcorn (Topsy), the best Barbecue with the best fries (Oklahoma Joe's) and the best coffee (The Roasterie). Leah did say it was the best barbecue sandwich she has ever had, so maybe I am not too far off base. Still, maybe I should tone down my Kansas City pride (I didn't even know I had this). We took them to Kaleidescope in Crown Center Plaza and then Loose park. All the kids worked off their excess energy. While driving to these places, I tried to make it as historical as possible (talking about the Plaza, Westport, WWI museum, etc). Henry liked to point out all the different people and dogs. I believe between the two of us, we presented a solid educational front. With all that was crammed into their time, I hope they liked KC and will come back. It's not often we get Minnesota folk visiting.

The next day my mom, sister and little Malcolm came. That was also a lot of fun. We didn't do too much because Malcolm was recovering from a cold. We did get to go to Paradise Park as a reward for Henry not having accidents. We also went shopping and ate at Waldo Pizza (see below).

This was the only good picture I took the whole weekend (and they aren't even looking at me). Malcolm is an amazing signer and expresses himself very well for a kid of his age. It's fun to watch him take off with language. I remember Henry at that stage. It's a new thing every day; very exciting.

Now everyone is gone and it is back to work and life as usual. There are definitely things I have to get done, but still it's a little lonely when everyone leaves.

Laura

Valentine's Day

I had the whole day off this Valentine's day which was great. Last week I did all the nursery rounding and weekend calls and I was ready for a bit of a break. We went out for lunch at Avenue's Bistro here in Brookside and it was very nice. Afterwards we walked down to the Roasterie for some coffee.

We stepped into Reading Reptile on our way. This is a great little children's book store that we should really spend more time in. Today they had a great display of the new Madeline books. That night we had planned to see the author of these books at the library. I said to Aaron "we should buy one so the author could sign it tonight." Then the guy right next to me said "or I could sign it right now." This was the real author, John Bemelmans Marciano.

The first Madeline books were written by his grandfather and he has picked up the tradition. Henry really loves the first Madeline book. We also have read a book called Louie (or something like that), which is sorta a biography of Lugwig Bemelmans. I mentioned this to Mr. Marciano and he said something like it isn't the real truth. He should know. Not only is he this guys grandson, but he has written a biography. Later that night he told the real story on how his grandfather started the book series, and even though it wasn't exactly correct, the story was pretty similar to the Louie book.

Anyway, this man was very kind and talked to Henry a little, and when he signed the book, this is what it said. It was a unique experience and we have this book to always remember it.

My day with Henry

Since the snow started melting, Henry has been anxious to go to the park. Yesterday he told me "The snow is melting and I can go to the park and I can play baseball and it's going to be fun." Today the weather was perfect and I was up for taking him to the park. As soon as Henry heard that, he grabbed his bucket of baseballs and bat. Unfortunately, the baseball diamond was still soggy and filled with snow and it took some convincing for Henry not to take the bucket. Once we got to the park, we had a blast. We had a lot of snowball fights, running and playing on the playground. As you can see from the picture, he had a lot of pent up energy to expend. While we were there, I was being goofy and he said "Mommy, you are so funny." Really, that's the best thing he could have said.

After that we came in and all of his clothes were soaking wet. We changed his clothes and he got a nice cup of hot chocolate.

Tonight we made asparagus for dinner, which Henry loves. While we were doing his bedtime routine he peed in the potty and promptly said "something smells bad." I had to tell him it was his pee and it was from the asparagus. He accepted that fact and we moved on.

Now it's night time and he is quite in bed. Good night Henry.

New Babies

This week was baby week. Jenny finally had little Ashley, and Sarah had little Lottie. It very exciting. This will be number 2 for both and I'm sure the older sister is going to have to adjust. Still, in about 15 years they'll be best friends (hopefully). Congrats for everyone around!

This week has been busy for me. I have hospital duty (he he duty), which means getting up early and spending 1 1/2 hours in the hospital before clinic even starts. I was also able to exercise every day, but that made one tired mama. It's not even 9 pm now and I am having thoughts about my bed. Because I worked this week in the hospital, I get Monday off, so I only have a 3 day week and then I get visitors. How fun!

I'm reading the last in the Steig Larsson series (The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest), and I'm loving it as much as the previous two. He does such a great job with character development. I am trying to pace myself to only read at night, because sometimes I might waste a whole day reading (well maybe not a waste). There is just other things I should be doing.

Alright, goodnight.

Self Portrait

This is what Henry thinks he looks like. I can see the resemblance, can't you? He does a great job at drawing faces, but sometimes he gets upset because the head is not exactly a circle.

Hope you like it as much as I do.

New Goal!

Everyone, this is Jackie (and baby Malcolm about 1 1/2 years ago). She is going to run a half marathon with me at the end of the year. I talked to her last week and although she seemed very interested, she also was a little hesitant. By posting this, I'm hoping I will give her the motivation she needs.

I've been running for about 6 months now and it is great. I think I'm ready for a big goal. Eventually a whole marathon sounds great, but a half marathon is a good, solid start. Jackie has always been in shape, and in fact we ran a 5K back about 6 years ago. She has never ran this distance, but I believe she has it in her. We could do a half marathon at someplace fabulous and then enjoy the whole weekend. Sounds great to me. We'll probably run sometime after August so it won't interfere with Minnesota Brass for her. Most training programs are about 10-12 weeks, so official training won't start until June or so.

Now I have to figure out what to do from now until June. Well, I got it. This may sound silly, but I have always wanted to do a pull up, but never had the strength. I officially signed up to continue working with the trainer for the next 3 months. He said he is going to get me to do a pull-up. I can't wait.

I got bit by a dog!

It's true, I really did, but it wasn't that bad.

Yesterday Aaron and I had this marvelous plan. I would walk to the gym, he would come later with Henry and then Henry and I would swim while Aaron ran. Quite a perfect plan.

While I was walking about 1 block to the gym, this fat little pug started running toward me. I swear I didn't freak out at all. I kept my hands in my pockets and I think I might of said hi to him or something. Then I kept walking. I guess he was excited or mad or something, but I felt a scratch and looked down and he bit my leg and then was bitting the heals of my shoes. It didn't really hurt that bad, but I couldn't believe it. The lady who owned the dog was calling the dog the whole time. I told her he bit me and she said "oh, really?" I told her I was okay but there are a lot of kids in the area and I have a 3 year old and it makes me uncomfortable. Then I walked away.

I think I was too polite. Thinking about it more, I should have been more forceful. One, I think it is illegal to have a dog unleashed in a private area. And two, if you are any kind of owner, you know your dogs temperament, and a dog that runs up to people, disobeys your orders and bites people is not a dog you want to roam free!

Today the scratch mark is gone from my leg and now only the emotional wounds remain....

Oh, and by the way, the rest of the plan went great. I ran 7 miles and had a great time swimming with Henry.

Morning Mistake

This morning Henry and I awoke at exactly 7:00 (he was watching the clock and knew that was the earliest he could get up). We went into the kitchen and started baking. I found a good sounding recipe at www.foodtv.com that was called "banana muffin crunch". Henry helped me all the steps along the way: mashing the bananas, stirring, cracking the eggs and licking the batter. After the muffins came out of the oven, I realized that I forgot one crucial step, spraying the muffin tins with cooking spray. I had thought about it earlier and noticed it was not on the recipe. Well, it probably was originally, but I wrote it down on paper and probably didn't write that part because it is too obvious. This morning I thought "well, maybe there is so much butter it coats the outside of the muffins so you don't need any spray." Tell me, what muffins don't need spray? They all do! What was I thinking.

I let the muffins cool a little bit and carefully carved each individual muffin out of tin. To top it all off, the muffins were just okay. They tasted more like a cookie than a muffin (too sweet). Ugh. I guess that was 2 hours of my life wasted, oh well not really. Still, so much for morning efficiency.

Updates from Grammy

Henry always says funny stuff, but it is so hard to remember. Luckily, Mary remembered some from yesterday when watching Henry. Here they are.

#1. Henry said to Mary, "I'm not good at swords on Wii Resort any more. I keep losing because my power is gone. I keep banging my head and if I banged my head one more time we had to turn it off and go downstairs. I banged my head one more time so it got turned off. We went downstairs and had mac & cheese."

I do remember this incident. He gets frusterated when he is loosing. Sometimes he does just the practice mode in the game just so he won't looe. This particular time he was hitting his head on the carpet and we pulled the plug. He had a little rug burn for a few days after that.

#2. Henry and Mary were looking at a photo alburm from Mary's recient trip to Spain. They were looking at a picture of the ocean.
Mary: " Have you ever seen the ocean in real life?"
Henry: " No, but I would like to. Today when my daddy picks me up I will ask him to take me to see the ocean and he will and we'll go see the ocean, then when I get home I'll play Wii."

I should mention that when he was 4 months old we went to California for my cousin's wedding that was on a boat in the ocean. For some reason, he doesn't remember it.

Well, thanks for the help Mary/Grammy.

Milestone

I have now reached my first major milestone. According to the medical definition, I am no longer obese, just plain overweight. Isn't that great? It seems so funny looking at me, but the American definition is much different. The medical definition is based on BMI. A normal BMI is 20-25, overweight is a BMI of 26-30 and obese is anything about 30. BMI is weight for height based and although it does have its limitations, it works for me. My final goal is to be in the normal range, but to be honest, I have never been there. Right now I am 5 pounds away from the heaviest I ever was before Henry. When I started medical school, I had a BMI of 29. I started exercising and brought it down to about 26. Then I got married, had Henry and here I am.

These last 2 weeks with a personal trainer has helped a lot. It really breaks down the monotony of exercising and it makes me feel stronger. I can already tell I can do more sit ups than before. I read somewhere that it takes at least 4 weeks to really feel a difference, so we'll see at that time.

I am also cooking more, and when I cook, I choose to do healthy foods. I am enjoying the cooking (but not the clean-up). Sometimes it is hard to think ahead for grocery shopping and preparation time, but really not too bad. I think Aaron and Henry like this new plan too. My Henry is such a great eater I never have to worry about cooking special meals for him.

My weight loss was starting to slow down, but with these two things listed above, it has kick started again. It is a great feeling of self satisfaction that I can do this, although I never really doubted it ( I am glad it is working faster than I feared) . I don't think I have as much emotional attachment to food as some and I don't really mind working out. I am in the best shape of my life and look forward to all the new things I can do.