Relief

So, I am writing to rave about Active Response Techniques!! The past few months my back pain and tightness got out of control. It was making me miserable and unable to run. I asked around and was referred to an ART provider. It is working! After 3 weeks of treatment I am feeling better. ART is a form of soft tissue massage and stretching. It is not exactly comfortable to have done, but it seems to be working out my knotted up hip flexors and back. Evidently, being pregnant for 3 years and running has wrecked havoc on my hips. But, we are making progress. Yippee!!! I ran yesterday and for the first time in months I did not feel as if I was fighting my body. It was so liberating! You runners out there know what I'm talking about. A nice, good, fast, hard run that felt amazing. It made me remember why I love to run! So, any of you out there that are having back/neck/leg pain issues, look into ART. Google it and you'll get to their site to find a provider in your area. I'm too lazy to figure out how to post the link. :) I am fighting the urge to go on a nice, long run today, as I don't want to jinx myself, but maybe tomorrow!! Here's to happy, pain free runs! :) :)

Hitting the Wall

I have hit the wall....the Exhaustion Wall. Big time. Can someone pass me a spatula, a BIG one, so I can try to pry myself off?? Puleeezzeee!! This is terrible. The sinus infection has wiped me out, my new neighbors are insane with their Wednesday night partying, Graham is still waking up once to nurse and Marshall went and decided to have a bad dream and need mommy to come in bed with him. The change in weather is not helping, either. What am I going to do when the time changes and it's dark at like 4pm?? I'm really going to want to sleep then! And, to my doctor that I saw yesterday for my back, NO I am NOT going to train for any races right now. I'm BURNT OUT. He runs marathons like every other weekend. HA! Not me. His wife is pregnant with her third baby now, and all of their children are close together, like ours. I want to see the two of them hit the pavement running marathons next year!! But anyway....off to make breakfast for my little men. I'm thinking that I should have ranted on Monday just for the heck of it, because now her sisters, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday are giving me way too much trouble.

Halloween Here We Come!

We bought Halloween costumes! Yesterday I took the boys to the Gap outlet and let them search for costumes. I was sure they would pick out a bee, but much to my excitement they decided on dragons. Yay!! Now I can work on getting the Blind Melon bee girl image out of my brain. They were so excited about their costumes that they had to wear them all over the store, when we got home and even when they took a nap! They also had to put them back on right before daddy came home from work so he could see how great they looked. But, depending on their mood, they may be dinosaurs and not dragons. They are more than happy to tell you which they are at any given time, too. Now, if I could just get them to be nice dragons and dinos and not pull each other's tails and wings. I am also working on convincing them that they CANNOT fly in their costumes, even though they have wings. I am seeing a trip to the ER over this one. But, we can't wait for October 31st! Hopefully the novelty of the costumes won't wear off by then and they will still want to wear them.

My three little dragons running through the house!

My sweet baby dragon.

More dragons running through the hosue. AAHHHH!!

The big boys chasing Graham trying to pull his wings and tail.

My big dragons.

Wordless Wednesday

Patrick and the Dentist- Round 1

On Friday I took Patrick to the first of his several dentist appointments. Evidently, his failure to thrive and severe reflux wrecked havoc on his little teeth. He has 3 cavities that need to be filled now and some other teeth they are going to keep an eye on. So, Friday was round 1. He had his teeth cleaned and two teeth sealed. The only two teeth that were not decayed or that needed to be watched!

Patrick was such a BIG BOY at the dentist!! He sat in the exam chair, played with all of Dr. Plas's tools and was then ready to put on the nitrous mask. Once he was comfortable they began the cleaning and sealing. Patrick opened wide when told to do so and was quit the perfect patient. We go back several more times over the next month or so to get his fillings. Hopefully it will go as smoothly as Friday! Patrick only melted down one time in the car once he realized that his teeth felt different with the sealant. But, once I told him that I had those same sealants in my teeth he was good to go!

My little Patticakes in the big dentist chair

Monday Rants

Hello, Monday!! Well, believe it or not, I actually have nothing to really rant about this lovely Monday. I have had some yucky cold/sinus thing going on that has made me exhausted, but other than that it was a pretty calm weekend. Robert made it home from his guys' trip and our new neighbors were out partying at someone esle's house. Hopefully this is a good sign for the week ahead!!! Here's to Monday. Hopefully her sister, Tuesday, won't come to haunt me. I mean, I'm being awful nice to Monday, right?!

What We Do All Day

In my attempt to find ways to pass the hours until bedtime, excuse me, provide enriching learning experiences for my children, we have been having some disastrous fun. Thursday we ventured to the store to buy all the ingredients to make homemade play dough. Lots of flour, food coloring, kook-aid mix and cream of tartar. Why is cream of tartar so expensive?! I think I spent $15 on just that stuff alone!...So, after lunch we began our little activity. All three boys helped dump and mix. Patrick insisted that I add a TON of the kool-aid mix so that our play dough would be extra blue and extra stinky. I read that adding kool-aid mix would give it a "nice" smell, but I beg to differ. Our play dough smelled a little too wild grape for me!! Maybe because we added a ton of mix, I don't know. But, we "cooked" our play dough and let it cool during nap time. I just tried to survive sitting in a house smelling like cooked wild grape. Yuck!

My first attempt at homemade play dough. Lessons learned: lots of flour and little boys don't mix. My kitchen ended up looking like the flour bag had exploded! Too much kool-aid mix makes for stinky play dough. Food coloring (boys insisted we add this, too!) and little boys don't mix well, either. Cream of tartar is WAY too expensive, especially when you need 1 cup of the stuff! Overall, homemade play dough is WAY too expensive and a pain to make with children. Now I know why people just buy the store bought stuff! But, homemade play dough is less crumbly, which makes for easier clean up and making the stuff provides a little entertainment and encouragement for my boys to nap while it cools!!

Fast forward to after nap...The boys wake up and play with their fancy play dough. Graham just wants to eat the stuff, but it's so salty it makes him gag. So, play dough playing was a short activity for him! The big boys decide that it's tons of fun to throw their play dough and try to hit various objects in my house. This is not good! While I'm tending to this disaster I realize that Graham is a little too quiet in the kitchen. I go in to see what the little booger is up too...

On a mission...

Mission ACCOMPLISHED!!!


Now it's time to eat toilet paper!!


All of my boys in action.

At this point I just throw in the towel and join in the fun. Yes, there is play dough mashed into my needle point rug in the dining room and my antique oriental rug in the living room and every other place you can imagine. There is also toilet paper ALL over my kitchen. But, that's pretty harmless. So, I end up sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor letting them cover me in toilet paper, as I am now the "toilet paper monster." Evidently, toilet paper monsters like to be covered in toilet paper!!

Oh boy! It's time to head outside before my boys take down the walls in my house. I figure that's where we're headed at this point. So, we clean up our play dough and toilet paper, put on our shoes and jackets and out we go.

The boys promptly find the praying mantis that was unfortunate to find itself in our yard. This little guy has been a play toy of theirs for a couple of days now. But, how cool! I figure it may be torture, but it's all in the name of science, right?!

Patrick showing Marshall how you hold the praying mantis.


Patrick and his little friend. He let it crawl ALL OVER him!! He loved it.
Don't know if I can say the same for the praying mantis. :)
Notice the homemade play dough stuck in his hair!

I kind of think this is a pretty cool pic. :)

The afternoon/evening ended with the boys finally putting down our praying mantis and finding the one teeny, tiny puddle in our yard. They all splashed like crazy and got soaking wet. Graham even decided to try to slurp up the gross water. He seemed to think it was pretty tasty! So, what do my boys do when they get wet??? Well, they strip down to their diapers in the backyard and continue to play in the water. Yes, it was only 50-something degrees outside, but they didn't seem to care. I let this continue for a little while before making them come inside for a bubble bath and dinner. I figured that despite them telling me they were NOT cold, the blue, quivering lips told a different story. Off we head for bath and dinner...

Everyone is nice and snug in bed and fast asleep. Momma gets to head to bed, too! I'm laying in bed thinking about our day and laughing to myself. There are so many trying, yet funny and entertaining moments in my day. And, today's activities were pretty typical. Our "typical" days would have been pretty atypical days for me several years ago, before the joys of parenthood. But, these are the days to cherish. They will pass too quickly and I know I will enjoy what the future holds, but I'm sure I will miss the simplicity of the days when the boys were young. This is why I try to document so much on this blog. I know that as time passes I will forget all these little things, but reading old posts will be a way to remember. Hopefully the boys will enjoy reading them, too.