Jog-a-Thon

Melinda and Jacob got to participate in the biggest school fundraiser of the year this week - the 2nd annual Jog-a-Thon. Each student was asked to get pledges from friends and family, either a flat rate or a per-lap pledge. Our family has been so generous, which we're so thankful for! It definitely motivated the kids to do their best.

Our schedule was so crazy on the day of the Jog-a-Thon. It was supposed to be a Walk & Wheel Wednesday, where students are encouraged to walk or ride a bike/scooter/etc. to school if at all possible. After looking at the schedule, I decided that it sounded simply far too crazy to add walking/biking into the mix, since it takes a good 15-20 minutes each way.
8:00am, had to have Melinda to school.
9:00am, had to be back at the school to cheer for the Melinda and the rest of the 1st Graders for their Jog-a-Thon scheduled slot time. They finished up at about 9:35, and then we had to head back home.
10:45, Jacob had to be fed lunch (I still have issues with lunch before 11am).
11:40, Jacob had to be at school. (Normally, if we walk, we're leaving the house at 11:15. You can see how we wouldn't want to shorten our home-time anymore than necessary this day.)
1:05, back at the school AGAIN to see and cheer Jacob with his turn at the Jog-a-Thon. They finished ~1:40.
And, at last, 2:30, we had to be back to school to pick them all up at the end of the day.

We further complicated this schedule by deciding to go to the mall and switch to Verizon for our cell phone plans, securing an awesome deal on new phones (which I desperately needed). We squeezed it into the slot between dropping Jacob off at school and the start of his Jog-a-Thon running. We badly misjudged how long it would take to finalize our contract, and we didn't even leave the mall until 1:15. At 1:05 when I couldn't stand the anxiety anymore, I speed-walked across the length of the mall while Jesse finished signing papers, got to the car, buckled Alex into his seat, and drove to the entrance of the nearest department store by the Verizon kiosk. When Jesse FINALLY emerged, he was running to me, and once he was into the car I drove as swiftly as I could back to the elementary school. I felt like I was going a million miles an hour, though I was barely going 5 over. I was just so heart-sick that I wanted to cry, thinking of Jacob starting his running without us there to cheer him on. He knew we were supposed to be there, we told him we would be there, he saw us there for Melinda, and he was so excited for the event.... but thinking of his typical reaction to hiccups in his day, and his ability to take everything very personally, I could only imagine him in a crumpled heap on the school field, crying his eyes out inconsolably. I was so afraid of what we'd find when we arrived at the school. We kept hoping for the best-case scenario, that maybe they'd spent 10-15 minutes discussing rules/expectations/encouragement, and warming up, and we'd be arriving just a couple minutes after they really started.

When we got to the school, Jesse hopped out of the car and headed quickly over to the field to find Jacob and run with him (Jacob asked for Daddy to run with him, I ran with Melinda... part of the way, at least!). I went to park the car and strap the now-sleeping Alex into a carrier to go join them at the field. By the time I got there, the PE teacher was announcing through the megaphone that they only had 30 seconds left!! I quickly scanned the field and found Jacob and Jesse at a water-cooler station just a corner before the finish line. I didn't even get to see my boy run! He sort of half-jogged to the finish, getting his last punch in his card. He and Jesse both came over to see me, and Jacob so proudly showed me that he jogged TEN (!!!) laps. The laps were 220 yards - half a normal lap on a track. Ten laps is 1.25 miles, and he did that in 20 minutes of allotted jogging time. Jacob!! The boy who I can hardly drag to school (0.8 miles) if he's not on a bike. The boy who non-stop complains about not having enough energy on a simple, flat walk. Jesse told me they did 2 laps in the time it took me to park and get back to them. Which means Jacob did a FULL MILE before his lame-o parents even showed up to cheer him on. It was amazing!!!! I've never been more proud of him and more impressed. I'm simply astounded that he could do that. I suppose it was the element of competition that kept him going - all those kids, running at the same time! Jesse said that Jacob told him a few times that he "had to catch up to Luke". And Jacob was all grins!! Did I mention that?!? When I apologized to him for being so late, all he did was grin and say, "Yeah! Good thing I had enough energy!" He was pink-cheeked and sweaty, but upbeat and proud of himself. I wish I could bundle up that attitude and put it inside him every single day. He was so amazing. I just wish I could have seen him running myself. Maybe I would have cried in amazement.

Melinda was just as great. In her 20 minutes in the morning, she did 12 laps, for a total of 1.5 miles. She only took walking breaks a couple times. I couldn't keep up with her. I probably only jogged 4 of those laps. But she kept right on going! I was originally just as amazed with her: In trying to guess how many laps they might do, I thought that tops, Melinda and Jacob might be able to do 8 or 9 laps, which is slightly more than the distance they walk/bike to school. I thought they'd get tired and have to take long breaks for walking. But nope, Melinda started the day by blowing my high guess out of the water. I'll know better next time!!

Here are a few pictures and videos of their day. Thank you so much for those of you who supported them and their jogging! And if you'd like to make a pledge still, we have until October 12 to have the pledge sheets and money turned in. Just let me know!

The 1st Graders begin their warm-up. Melinda's at about the left-hand third of the picture, in a light pink shirt and long purple pants, with her arms up in the air and her hand holding her yellow punch-card. This picture makes me smile because Melinda's morning teacher in on the right (in her blue school shirt), in the middle of a jumping jack, joining right in with the kids.

Here is a video of the start of the jogging! The PE teacher leads the group in a pacing lap.

Melinda jogging her 2nd lap. Woo!

Melinda's class at the end of the jogging, holding up their punch cards proudly, and enjoying their ice pops as a reward for all their hard work. (Melinda's in the back, clearly interested in something off to the right of the camera.)

Jacob's last stretch to the finish line

Jacob eats his ice pop and shows me his TEN LAPS punched on his card! (See his sweaty, pink face?!)

Jacob's Kindergarten class sits down to rest with their ice pops, their teacher in the white jacket behind them.

The PE teacher congratulates them on all their hard work, giving them final instructions on what to do with their cards. You can kind of see Jacob's head in between the two blonde boys right near the middle. Jacob loves to be up near the front of a crowd.

By the way... we had *just* enough time in between Jacob's jogging and the end of school to run and get food before picking everybody up at the end of the day. Phew!! So much back and forth. But the kids sure had so much fun!! And slept so soundly that night! And cooperated with each other all afternoon!! Maybe we need to run a mile every day. ;)

2 hours later....

I have a baby-shaped sweat mark on the back of my shirt.

Seriously.

We went for a walk this morning, and I was feeling all ambitious and ready for a bit of an adventure, so I took the kids for a walk around a nearby neighborhood, planning for just a mile or two. I'd looked at the layout of the neighborhood on Google Maps before, but I didn't bring a map with me. Which turned out to make for a very .... interesting walk.

An hour into it, I had no idea where I was (silly me didn't think to use the sun as a compass), but I hoped I was coming closer to a main road, when I suddenly realized that the road ahead was not the one I was expecting it to be. No, looking at the map later, I discovered that I was about half a mile or so off my mark. And unfortunately, my path had led me down a fairly steep hill, and of course, it would be impossible to get back to our original destination without going back up the hill.

In the end, our little excursion was 2.6 miles and lasted a full two hours....with one baby on my back and two in the stroller. Although, I did make Melinda walk when we were going uphill, because it was just too hard to push her extra weight, otherwise. Google Maps thinks our route should have taken me 51 minutes. Do you think I can justify taking twice the amount of time with the fact that I was transporting over 90 pounds of children (plus a stroller) on top of my own out-of-shape self?

Still - it was a lovely morning outside. Not too hot, not too cold. We saw a pretty spotted butterfly, a bunch of big mushrooms, acorns, a chipmunk, a friendly little dog, and "helicopter" seeds from a maple tree. It was a good morning to be outside.

But next time? I think I'm taking a map with me. Facing the giant hill after already walking for an hour was a little too much like self-imposed torture.

S-t-r-e-t-c-h!

You should always stretch your muscles before and after exercising. Anyone with even a middle school physical education knows that, right? You definitely should. Always.

Not that I learned the hard way, or anything. Oh no, I wasn't the one who agreed go on a 4-mile walk with steep inclines with a 16-pound infant strapped to my back, who went straight to the shower after getting home, didn't stretch for more than 2 seconds, and then woke up this morning with calves as stiff as a board, practically causing herself to fall out of bed, and who was hardly able to walk all day long.

Nope, wasn't me! And you can't prove that it was.

Unless, maybe, you're my husband, who has heard me complaining all day long.

6 weeks

Yesterday was technically 6 weeks postpartum. But today was my 6 week postpartum visit with my midwife. Enter big sigh - I got the go-ahead to resume normal activity and exercise. On the one hand, I'm a little eager to get working on losing some of this extra weight. On the other hand, I've always hated exercising, so I'm a bit skeptical about my eagerness, thinking it will probably wear off pretty soon.

And if I'm going to work towards losing weight, I need to be more accountable for what I eat.

Like... I shouldn't go ahead and finish off the rest of my baby shower cake that was sent home with me just because I can. Or, I really shouldn't have two bowls of super chocolate fudge brownie ice cream in one day just because the kids have driven me crazy and it's a nice source of comfort. And I definitely shouldn't let Jesse come home with a dozen of my favorite "colossal" donuts and then not think twice about eating 4 or 5 in one day.

Now, I suppose since I'm nursing, and extra helping of veggie-filled pasta won't hurt me too much, but I really need to find something that will cure my HUGE sweet tooth cravings without packing on a million calories in one sitting. And I may need to work on some emotional issues... It recently dawned on me that I'm somewhat of an emotional eater. For instance, if the kids are extra tough to handle, I'll crave chocolate that much more. Not crave it, but need it. There's not a physical reason I can think of to actually need chocolate just because you're having a hard day. Or often, if I'm feeling bored, I'll start rummaging through the kitchen to find something to snack on. And this often happens in the 10-11pm range, which is not good for losing weight. So I need to work on how I treat food, I guess. Please allow me to be pouty and sulk about it, though, because I just enjoy treats so much. I guess I just need to moderate how much treats I consume.

But yeah, the postpartum weight has me feeling pretty down. With both of my previous pregnancies, I was back to my postpartum weight by my 6-week checkup. Not so this time, not by a long shot. I was somewhere in the 165-170 range when I discovered this surprise pregnancy. And I was a solid 187 still at my a checkup today. That's a pretty big chunk of weight that I still need to lose....and I wasn't terribly happy with my pre-pregnancy weight, anyway. I'd love to get down to about 150-155. My ideal would be to hit my marriage weight of 140, but considering the changes my body has been through, I've gone ahead and put that weight into the "impossible dream" category for now. But yeah... 20 pounds to pre-pregnancy, 30+ to my ideal. I'd better start doing something. I guess I can't count on just nursing to take care of it for me, this time. Especially not with the crappy eating habits I have.

Otherwise, all is well, aside from a possible plugged duct my midwife felt during my breast exam. The same spot was tender about a week ago, but it had gone away after I worked on it in the shower. Guess I haven't cleared it totally yet.

And we weighed Alex really quickly before we left. Fully dressed and with a bit of a wet diaper, he was at 14lbs 6oz!! What a little chunker. (Come on, can't he count as some sort of exercise, carrying him all day?? Oh yeah, it's not my arms that need help... it's the tummy and butt and thighs...)

Oh, I was also happy to find out this week that our insurance did in fact cover our homebirth like they finally said they would. It took talking to 4 different people... my midwife's receptionist finally got in touch with someone over the phone that said they would. We had gotten a confirmation number sort of thing from that conversation, but in all honesty, I was half expecting a fight, and an oh-so-fun appeal process, thinking they would go ahead and try to not cover it. I'm glad they did. I'd rather not stress about it all! So I happily wrote the check for my responsible amount this afternoon.

I'm also very grateful that Jesse left work early and came with me to the appointment today. Jacob was tired and crazy, and we were there for an hour, and Alex ended up tired and cranky, too. He had his hands full in the office foyer...and I'm so glad I could focus on talking with my midwife instead of keeping the kids' hands off of all the office equipment, or hanging my head in embarrassment at their usual habit of running up and down the office hall as loudly as possible. My husband is wonderful.