Week of Crapola You Have Been Ordered to Cease! The Hi Days are Taking Over!

Last Friday LOW: Tate does end up with conjunctivitis after fighting a cold all week.

Saturday HIGH: Run seven miles and Paige gets another goal at her game equally four for the season.

Sunday LOW: Sniffles invade. My voice is off. The first sign...

Monday HIGH: Swam race distance at gym with minimal breaks. Watch out White Lake

Tuesday LOW: Learned that NC ranks high in strawberry production while helping Tate with her project way too late in the afternoon. Paige home with strep for the third time this year.

WEDNESDAY WILL BE A HIGH AND THE CYCLE WILL BE BROKEN: Volunteer luncheon at school, a treadmill run if it rains, prep for painting must start, with zicam and lots of water I will ROCK the Cherry Blossom 10-miler on Sunday!

New looks and interviews

There are some new looks in the house these days. Dane got his helmet two weeks ago and is doing great. It may not seem like much but this week the measurements show an improvement of 3mm on the diagonals.  Here is the big reveal...

Six more weeks to go and then we will hopefully be done and get to smooch that cute head of his. When we take it off at night for an hour, he spends about thirty minutes scratching his head. Scott says he is getting the circulation moving. He immediately became a belly sleeper once he got it.

Tate and Paige are two weeks into the soccer season and they both have winning records so far! Go Fury and Magic! Below you'll see Tate kicking a goal kick. She has a foot on her for sure and now wants to punt the ball every chance she gets.

Paige got a new do last week. Out of the blue last Monday she came home wanting a bob. I went with it and said we would do it the next time we got our hair cut. Well, next time was not soon enough for her. She talked about it every day and then started telling her teachers and friends on a daily basis that she would be getting it done. She would then have to give them excuses when the next day she would come back to school with her long hair. I decided to go ahead and take it since it was the most important thing in her world at that moment. It makes her look older to me. 

Excuse the ice cream from the creepy ice cream truck. I'm plotting a way to sever the music cords while he is stopped in front of my house next weekend.

On to the interview....

Yesterday on the way to dance, Tate interviewed Paige. Below is the result of this impromtu exchange that I just thought was cute.

Age: 6
Food: Applesauce
Drink: Kool Aid (Interesting since she has only had it twice in her life)
Plant: Strawberry plant
Night or Day: Day
Sisters: 1
Brothers: 1
Pets: 1
Toy: None (REALLY! Nothing...not even my itouch she lost! Yes, it is lost in the house)

Now I want Paige to interview Tate. I just love the questions they ask. So random.

One running note...

Last Friday I ran 15 miles with Holly. It is the longest I have ever run. It was such a confidence builder and learning experience. I was hydrated, fueled, perfect weather, perfect running buddy, slow pace...overall awesome time. At mile 14 I learned that my body must become stronger before I run a marathon next year. I quads, glutes, lower back, and lower abs gave out on me at mile 14 and I finished with sheer determination. Now I know what needs to be done to get ready. Better now than next year during training.

A numbers game

10 weeks until my sprint tri and I seem to be avoiding the pool. I love my new bike and running is awesome right now. I must get my gills wet! I really need a new swim suit.

I bet I end up with 8 trips to the grocery store this week. I already have 3 under my belt. I always hit Trader Joe's on the way home from church. Then I did our regular shopping at Super Wal-mart. Tonight during soccer I had to go back to Wal-mart to get a carbon monoxide detector to replace the one that died yesterday just weeks after the 5 year warranty ended. Now we are out of dish soap. Can't go long without that. Does hand soap work the same?

My 9 year old is so cool. Today she fell belly first into the mud while playing soccer on the playground. While many would be embarrassed, she went to the office and got high water pants and a over sized shirt and went about her day. I love that she could care less about stuff like that!

I ran 7 miles on Saturday between Tate and Paige's soccer games. I still prefer any day to run with friends, but I am building my solo self confidence with some long runs lately. I'm running 15 on Friday with H to get out of my head the idea that I can only run 13.1. I'm super excited and hope it goes well.

Dane has had his helmet 6 days and it already stinks. He is doing great with it and has become a belly sleeper. We go back tomorrow for the first check. I'll be able to write a book about the things people say by the time these eight weeks are over.

I pruned 5 crape myrtles over the last week. Crazy how sore my arms are after all that clipping. I'm in need of some weights for sure.

Nothing like seeing 3 guys washing dishes at your sink. Scott and some friends are brewing their latest batch of beer and transferred it yesterday as they get ready to bottle. So funny watching them work and take notes in their handy dandy notebook. The beer is awesome!

2 weeks until Scott's birthday. We saw Seinfeld to celebrate. Hilarious!

T asked me to buy her 1 stick of deodorant. She is growing up!! She brought it down tonight to ask me when she is supposed to put it on. Cute! She was so serious.

0 books I have read in months. I can't get into anything. I need that "it" book to lure me back to the dark side.

My little man's noggin

Isn't he the cutest thing around? OK, I am biased I know!

You know how you hate telling the same story over and over again? Well, I thought this post could help me alleviate that problem because the next time you see my little man he will have a cranial helmet on to help correct some shape issues with his head.

The short version of the story follows:

At eight weeks I noticed that Dane always fell asleep in his swing with his head tilted to his left shoulder and when he drooled (all the time) it always leaked down his left cheek. A good friend of mine has a daughter who had torticollis when she was younger and I learned so much about it when she was little that I felt pretty confident telling my pediatrician at his two month visit that I thought Dane had torticollis. He did an evaluation and agreed. The scary part is that I don't think the doctor would have noticed anything was wrong unless I pointed it out.

We were referred to a pediatric physical therapist who agreed with the diagnosis. So what is torticollis? Well, in Dane's case he was a big baby in a small mama. His positioning led to a tight neck muscle on one side of his neck. It results in limited range of motion and can cause issues with physical development if not treated. We started physical therapy and Dane responded well to the stretches and exercises. While his torticollis resolved itself rather quickly, the time he spent during his first two months and especially the time at night on the back of his head led to some flattening behind his left ear. When you get flattening in one spot, it causes the opposite area to bulge. No one's head is perfect, but at five and six months we went in for scans of Dane's head to evaluate if he needed a helmet to help correct some of the issues the torticollis caused. Both scans showed him to be pretty borderline on a scale of 1 to 5. We found out his eyes and ears were slightly misaligned which often happens and the diagonals of his head if  you look from the top of his head are not equal.

None of these issues were severe. If you saw Dane on the street, you would not notice immediately unless I pointed them out to you. As parents we decided we wanted to give him the best start we could, so we made the decision to get the helmet. He is a boy who will likely have short hair. He may even want to shave his head for some crazy teenage reason and I don't want him to say, "Mom, I can't shave my head because you didn't get me that darn helmet." Also, once he loses the cutest baby chub ever the misalignment of his eyes and ears may be more pronounced and we don't want to wait to find that out.

So, today he got his helmet and over the next five days he will work up to wearing it 23 hours a day. He will likely wear it for 2 to 3 months. I'm hoping he can get it off before it gets super hot. He is handling it like a champ. I'm having the most trouble because I want to kiss his head so bad and the hard plastic is just not the same.

His head will not be perfect. You or I may not even notice much of a change, but the changes will happen and we will know we did the best for Dane.

So, hopefully sharing this will you will keep me from having to tell the story one million times. Now when you see Dane you can tell him how cool he looks with his soccer ball helmet. I don't have any pictures to share yet, but they will be coming soon!