Monday: Swim

This morning, Ivan and I were pretty much on time to swim. We had a bit of fit throwing upon nursery entry, but overall everything went well.  At the pool, I got in 2300 meters, which is a bit disappointing to me.  I definitely spent way too much time chatting today, and I have got to stop it.  I HATE getting out of the pool at sub-3000 meters.  It makes me feel like I have wasted time, which I have.  Now, I will say that I did several finless kick sets, which is great for me to do, but incredibly slow.  So, even though the yardage was shorter, it might have benefited me more in terms of practice.  Still, 2300 meters is rather sad.

At home, Ivan and I made lunch, I performed about one million phone errands, and then after Ivan's nap, ran physical errands.  At home, Ivan and I played frisbee and made dinner.  It was a nice afternoon.

Now, after Ivan went to bed, I headed out to Whole Foods for what are quickly becoming the most expensive and time consuming cookies ever made.  During my confinement, I have had all sorts of food issues, and have had to be careful about dairy and gluten and food dyes and honestly, I am so bored even recounting it to you.  SO BORED.

Anyway, this weekend, I was a reading a really boring blog called The Gluten Free Goddess, and it is all about foods that you make to substitute for real foods as it appears that I am never going to get to eat another cookie in my life.  I found a recipe for the best, chewiest chocolate chip cookies ever.  They are dairy and gluten free, and I have been salivating for them.  I was determined to make them even if I had to mail order tapioca flour.  The ingredients were things I did not know existed, like sorghum flour and again, I am bored even tell you this.

So, I put in an initial ingredient search at the local Publix, where I found half of the ingredients.  Then I searched Whole Foods for the rest of the ingredients and I am going to have to substitute coconut flour for tapioca flour, but whatever.  Surely it will still work out.  I thought the cookies would be made on Sunday, but ingredient acquisition has honestly taken up my whole weekend and Monday night.  Also, regular all-purpose flour like the good people at tollhouse recommend is cheap, friends.

When you start buying Xantham Gum, things get really pricey, really fast.  However, I have four weeks left of my confinement, I do want some cookies, and everyone is going to have to get over it and let me throw myself into baking on a bizarre level.

Also, I had these amazing gluten free cookies while I was in Montana, and they were honestly better than anything I have ever had, I felt fine after eating them, and there you are.  I clearly need these cookies.  Alas, now that I finally have all the ingredients, it is too late to do anything, but tell you all about it, go to bed and get to this cookie business tomorrow.

Saturday: Run and Swim

This morning, true to my last night's resolution, I was out of bed at 6:30ish AM.  I was really up at 5:45 to use the bathroom, but then laid around in bed sleeplessly until I gave up and got up.  It was nice. I made an oatmeal bake for breakfast, I listed a couple of things on Ebay, and talked to my sister about how much we love Kimberly Snyder and her Glowing Green Smoothie.  I then sat down to my needlepoint until Ivan roused himself, and then waited on my husband until he woke up.  Then I headed to the gym.

At the gym, I pursued my current course of:

• run one mile
• hustle to bathroom
• run next mile
• hustle to bathroom
• run final mile
• hustle to bathroom 
• head to pool

In the pool, I just swam a mile of 400s.  400 swim, 400 kick, 400 IM, 400 pull.  It was a fine workout, and I came home to a salad, some toast, and a piece of goat cheese.

Oooh, and in a note of tomfoolery not aforementioned, when I arrived at the pool on Monday, Carl the Lifeguard called me over with a smirk on his face and told me to wait a second, he had someone that wanted to ask me something.  Now, when said "someone" was summoned over by Carl and asked her question, THIS IS WHAT IT WAS: "Have you heard that the chlorine in the water causes birth defects?"

Yes, that was really her question.  And I will tell you right now, that those are the types of questions that make me wish I had jigger of hard liquor and a cigarette to light up;  Maybe a little cocaine to freebase.  What in the world?? This nasty person, whose name I never bothered to ask, was standing there in the saddest one piece, and there I am, all round like a planet, wearing a silly red bikini with a hot dog on front.  Carl was curled up in the fetal position in his lifeguard chair, leaving the water aerobics women completely unattended, laughing like a hyena, while I stood there with my mouth hanging open.  

I finally found the wherewithal to reply that this was actually a salt water pool and no, no, a thousand times no, I had never really heard anything about the dangers of chlorine. 

Anyway, it did not ruin my day, and I had a nice time recounting the episode to my swim group, and we all had a good laugh about it.  Whatevs.

Sunday School tomorrow!!

Friday: Yoga and Run

This morning, I made a resolution to myself, that regardless of the night's sleep I have, I am going to get up earlier.  My whole morning of sprinting about the house, leaving things undone and messy, was too familiar and too unsettling.  I did make it out of the house relatively on time, and managed to have everything that I needed to make it through my morning.  This particular morning, I had a doctor's appointment; one of the many that are becoming my weekly occupation.

The last time I had a childcare mishap, I ended up having to take Ivan to the doctor with me.  It actually went really well, we took the ipad, and he played docilely throughout the appointment, and it gave me a sense of false confidence that I chose to exploit this morning to my own detriment as well as that of the tranquility of the doctor's office.  Everything went pretty well, except for some loud talking that clearly means we need to discuss whispering, UNTILL we were called back to the examining room.  I am not sure what happened or what switch was flipped, but when I stood up to start walking proudly with my well behaved child, he threw himself on the floor, grabbed my ankles, and began to wail.  His face was bright red, and I honestly had to carry my bags, my raincoat and walk like Morticia Addams with Ivan clinging to my ankles.

When we went in to fill my specimen cup, you can bet the the privacy of the bathroom was used for the duel purpose of specimen collection and furious preschooler disciplining.  I felt like it was a movie moment where I went into the restroom smiling gamely as my child melted down, and turned into Mr. Hyde once the door was closed.  Then, as if the switch had flipped again, Ivan saw my method of specimen collection, was completely fascinated, and began asking questions like a normal person that had not just had to be dragged across the waiting room carpet like a mound of wailing dead weight.

If I had had to be dragged across a waiting room floor wailing at the top of my lungs, I would at least have the decency to be totally mute with shame following my episode.  My child, however, asked all sorts of brazen questions like nothing had happened; LIKE I HAD NOT BEEN SHAMED IN FRONT OF A ROOM FULL OF GESTATING WOMEN.  Ivan was polite with the doctor, quiet as a mouse during the visit, and left the office easily.

It is unfortunate when one's daily activities somehow result in the deep deep desire for alcohol, but I can honestly say that that is where the events of my day have lead me.  It is also unfortunate when one's state of gestation prevents one from drowning her sorrows.  For this reason, I got a Starbucks coffee and a chocolate bar and thought longingly of something stronger.

Afterwards, Ivan and I picked up his great-grandmother and had a nice visit at a local playground, before heading home for naptime.

At home, I got in a great yoga session and then a nice three mile run, though I walked the steep downhill of my usual route, as I was feeling somehow structurally unsound as started to run down the hill.

Four more weeks!!

Wednesday: Double Swim

So as is typical of my confinement, I had a terrible night's sleep last night.  This morning, despite significant exhaustion, I was able to get myself and Ivan off to swim on time.  Now, upon arriving at swim, I knew that AS USUAL, I had to go to the bathroom. I thought I would be able to make it into the gym to relieve my bladder, but this actually was not the case, and I had to go beside the car LIKE AN ANIMAL.  Ivan, who is not even fully potty trained, looked at me like I was trash.

At swim, I was able to get in about 2600 meters before loading up Ivan back into the car, and heading home where I got in a great nap on the couch.  Upon both of us getting up, we headed in for a swim lesson for Ivan and then sped back to the house for a quick dinner, before I pulled myself together for evening swim class.  I was able to get in about another 2600 meters.

About to put a few things on Ebay!!

Tuesday: Day Off

So yesterday, I did not blog and this is because there is no blogging allowed in sweat shops.  While I did make it to swim yesterday, and Cosco with my parents and on to a very enjoyable lunch at the Jason's deli, once I arrived home, I was all business.

Ivan and I walked in the door, he took a nap, and I:

• wrote a time-intensive diagnostic report for work
• put together Ivan's big boy trundle bed
• took the crib tent (it is really a cage)  off of Ivan's current bed
• measured Ivan's room for the imminent acquisition of new furniture 
• cleaned out all of Ivan's drawers 
• made a surreptitious pile of clothes to be sent to goodwill lest seen by our family pack rat
• reorganized all Ivan's drawers
• cleaned out Ivans' closet and moved clothes to reorganized drawers
• laundry, laundry, laundry
• ironed 40 pieces of clothing

Just as a side note, would you like to know how many pieces of clothing that I own that actually need to be ironed?? zero, and by zero, I mean zero.  If the wrinkles won't come out from hanging it in the bathroom while I shower, then I sell it on ebay.  I do not have time for the terribleness of ironing.  My son and his father, however, own 1000's of pieces of clothing that they wear mindlessly, without a thought as to who might remove the wrinkles from said piece of clothing.  If I did not have more pride in the personal appearance of my family, I would insist that they all wear pajamas all the time.  I would take a select few ironed clothes to photo ops and make them all change right before the picture was snapped.  I would force them to remove their clothes immediately following the picture, get back into their pajamas, and hand me back the clothes to put on hangers.  I actually have in my possession right now, the name of a person who will iron clothes for a fee.  If her price is less than five million dollars per item, it seems WORTH IT.  

AS IT WAS, however, I ironed all afternoon and night until 9:00 PM.  It seemed that I stood on my feet for five hours, which I guess I did.  And of course, I am in my confinement, so my feet were swollen this morning.  After I stopped ironing, I put the finishing touches on my diagnostic report and got in bed and other than countless trips to the restroom, I slept the sleep of the dead.  

Now, in other news, this morning, I pulled open one of our kitchen drawers and the whole face of the drawer pulled off and fell on my toes.  Even through my cowboy boots, the drawer cut into the tops of my toes.  It was too late to change, and I gimped through the day with my swollen feet and my cut toes.  

I continued my rampant nesting today with a massive broken and Happy Meal toy clean out (two garbage bags), then cleaned out all magazines.  My New Yorker's seriously PILE UP.  

Sunday: Swim

Church Clothes!!

Now, I guess I have given up on the lake for the season.  The water is cooling, I can't fit into a wetsuit, and blah blah blah, it has disappointed me in both my pregnancies that I am somehow no Paula Radcliffe.  Anyway, I had my usual third trimester terrible night's sleep, full of tossing, turning, feeling that my stomach might squash my lungs, and frequent trips to the bathroom.  I was woken up early with some histrionics from my child, we barely made it to Sunday school on time, and there has probably been way too much TV today, but I am cutting myself some slack and here is why:

About two years ago, I was on my way to a wedding somewhere outside of Ashland City, TN.  We stopped at a gas station, and I went in to get a bottle of water and stood in line behind a man with "Thug Life" tatooed  across the back of his neck. "Thug Life" was written in sort of a gangrene colored calligraphy in an abnormally large font.  He was your basic redneckinsh creature.   He was wearing a sleeveless undershirt and jeans that exposed his crack.  While I was in line, his daughter came up with a king sized Snickers.  She looked really more different than I would expect for the child of the man in front of me in line, and she asked if she could have the king sized Snickers, and here is how "thug life" responded, "No, we are not going to get a Snickers today, we need to go home and have a healthy lunch.  You have had too many sweets and not enough healthy food lately".

It was really a call to lay down my gavel.  I am not sure what I expected from "thug life", but it was definitely a response more along the lines of "shut up, you effing brat, everyone knows that twinkies are better than Snickers". Who would have thought that "Thug Life" would be a parent filled with love and concern for the health of his child.  Kids apparently grow up just fine and encourage redeeming qualities in their guardians at every turn.

Anyway, after a day like today, when I staggered around in a bathrobe, laid around on the couch like we had a carbon monoxide leak and ate sweet potato fries for lunch, it seems that tomorrow will probably be better. I mean, goodness, if a man that made a conscious decision to get "thug life" tattooed across the back of his neck can pull it together to participate well in the process of child-rearing, surely I can made a few good decisions in the coming years.

Anyway, swim in the afternoon; just a mile.  Swim tomorrow morning!!

Saturday: Run and Swim

Oh ho ho, this morning was big brother class at the yay old Baptist Hospital, and let me just tell you, I have a few ideas about some things that might need to be re-tooled.  I sort of felt like the gist of the class should be:

 "Hey, your mom is going to have a baby,  which should be abundantly clear from her mammoth alien stomach.  When the baby comes, do not touch it or try to pick it up. Now, let's all try to put a diaper on a doll and get on with our lives."

However, it sort of went a different way.  There was a lot of referring to the baby as "your baby", as in "Ivan, this is your baby," which I did not feel good about at all.  AT ALL.  It really is not going to be Ivan's baby and putting the idea into his head, just seems like not the right sentiment.  For one thing, when ownership is implied, Ivan really feels that he can dispose of his items at his own discretion.  For another thing, no one owns a baby.  I sort of felt like snapping "hippie, be quiet!!" at the whole affair.  There was a video, which was this family having a love-fest of breast feeding and togetherness.  Everyone looked well-rested and happy and the weather was nice.

Ivan did put a diaper on his Curious George doll, and we toured the hospital and went to the nursery where a little baby all dolled up for her newborn picture was so motionless that Ivan asked if she dead.  I felt like this cast a great pall over the whole trip, and we soon loaded up and left the premises with Curious George wearing a preemie pamper.

When I arrived home, it was time for my nap, and I had a great nap.  After nap, I loaded up and headed to the YMCA, as it was the last day of my membership.  SO SAD.  I had a great run and swim before heading to the grocery, which is such a lovely place to go alone.

At home, I made Glowing Green Smoothies for the week and settled myself on the couch to watch The Switch.  

Friday: Swim

So today, Ivan slept late and had pancakes for breakfast and we were late for swim.  SUPER LATE.  I got in the pool at 9:40ish and practice ended at 10:00 AM.  Pretty pathetic, but not a big thing.  I just moved down to the public lanes, and I only swam about 2000 meters, but not a big deal.  At home, Ivan and I cleaned, took naps and busied ourselves with learning to write our name.

It was pretty anti-climatic.  I did get in a nap, which is becoming a staple of my confinement.  I can generally count on falling apart long about after lunch time.  I mean, honestly, walking around in a catatonic  state that I would associate with zombies, unable to finish sentences or remember words.  It is just the silliest.  How is that Dugger woman surviving all her pregnancies?  I am becoming more simple minded by the day.

Anyway, tomorrow, Ivan has big brother class at Baptist Hospital.  He will be learning to diaper and bathe his Curious George doll and be responsible.  Someone probably should have forced me into some such class before the arrival of Ivan.  I will have to admit feeling completely shell shocked, and thinking to myself that I probably should have taken a class and maybe talked to someone about the whole birth process that I thought was going to take about 15 minutes and which actually took more like 15 hours.

Aaaaah birthing!!

Thursday: Run and Swim

So here is the thing with this running during my confinement, I am so worn out with going to the bathroom.  There is a lot of stopping on the treadmill and hopping off to the bathroom and then there is the getting back on the treadmill and having to start ALL OVER AGAIN with the acceleration and starting up again and all of it.  If I am running at home, I am stopping in someone's yard, and I feel for my neighbors who have seen all my nether regions a million times.  Of course, really, I am always stopping on someone's yard, and it might be more frequent now, but certainly not a new occurrence.  Aaahh, my poor neighbors.

Anyway, I made it almost three miles on the treadmill today and then my ipod ran out of charge and I had to go to the bathroom and I just marched off to the pool, where it is kosher to just urinate where you are, which just would not go over on the treadmill.  I swam for 1000 meters in the pool and then hopped off to hurridly change and pick up Ivan at nursery school where he had had a rather hard day.

I made his favorite beet pancakes for dinner in an effort to perk him up, which it seemed to.  Hard days at nursery school are the saddest.

Wednesday: Swim

So today, without potty training drama, I would have been early to the pool.  With potty training drama, I was 10 minutes late to the pool deck.  Potty training was more successful today, but it was quite tedious and made for a long day where not as much as I hoped was accomplished, though I did clean out two kitchen drawers and move a bit of furniture in preparation for the new addition.  The new addition is coming and I cannot deny it, and there are things that must be made ready.

At swim, I got in about 2600 meters.  My 100 meter interval is at around two minutes currently, though I noticed I swam significantly faster than on Monday.  This is most likely because I took Tuesday off.  When I am in my confinement, I always see a significant jump in my speed after I take a day off, and if I take a week off, I see a massive decline in my speed that does not recover.  Not that this matters in my confinement, but there is always a little bit of a frustration that I have to remind myself to "just let go of" when I don't make my usual interval.

Yesterday was so dull/ demoralizing with no workout and all sorts of sadness at nursery school and home that it was really more than I could handle to blog about.  Today has been an improvement, but just so much battling of the wills and butting of the heads that the victories were hardly rewarding.  In the evening, I attended a parenting class where vigilance was stressed, and it made me think that these last two days have probably not been the worst parenting experiences that I will encounter.  Bleh!!

Monday: Swim

You know, I talked to my friend Robin on the phone today, and I was telling her that I could not seem to get to the pool deck on time or get the house together and that I am falling asleep sitting up and today I took a nap like nobody's business.  She said that I am at the end of my confinement and should probably cut myself a bit of slack and get over it, which is a good point.

Also, there was a bit of testiness involved with my child.  There was some refusal to sit on the potty combined with some reluctance to get in the car, get dressed, ect ect ect.  And if I was the type of person who had my family rolling at 5:30 AM, I might could get places on time.  But, this morning was a 7:30 AM kind of morning, as I had a late night writing thank you notes and such.  So far, I have been on time to the first two days of nursery school and for that I would like a gold star or some sort of cash reward.

Anyway, Steven, our swim coach, had been to a coaching clinic last week, which is a bit scary as he comes back and expects us to work and hit it pretty hard.  My flip turns currently look like some sort of underwater dog paddle combined with a cartwheel, and it is just pretty silly.  My butterfly is worse than usual and my backstroke just looks like a cry for help in a riptide.  SO, when I saw that the schedule was a whole bunch of IM today, I knew that I was in for an ego-crushing.

Workout at follows:

• 400 warmup
• 4 x 100 IM
• 300 swim
• 3 x 100 IM
• 200 swim
• 2 x 100 IM
• 100 swim
• 100 IM
• 500 swim
• 2 x 100 IM
• 400 swim
• 3 x 100 IM
• Then we did some social kicking

I ran a couple of errands on the way home, and then Ivan and I got in our respective beds and crashed out.  It is all I have to report.  Work tomorrow and hitting the Maryland Farms YMCA.  My monthlong membership is almost at an end.  

Recipe: Zucchini Crust Pizza

So, my friend Becky Pommer-Jones shared this fabulous recipe with me and I made it tonight and let go of a lot of the guilt, sodium, and processed cheese that usually accompany my pizza experiences.  I totally recommend it!!  

Ingredients

• 4 cups coarsely grated unpeeled Zucchini 
• sea salt
• olive oil
• cornmeal 
• 4 eggs 
• 1/2 cup flour (I used spelt flour)
• 2 cups grated cheese (pecornino romano, which is sheep cheese and goat cheese)
• toppings of your choice (I used tomatoes and spinach, my husband used onions and peppers and tomatoes)

Directions:

• Place grated zucchini in a colander, salt generously, and set aside for 30 minutes. Squeeze out the excess moisture with your hands.
• Preheat the oven to 425. Lightly coat 2 cookie sheets with olive oil and sprinkle with cornmeal.
• Beat the eggs in a large bowl. Add the Zucchini and flour. The mixture should have the consistency of cooked oatmeal, add more flour if necessary.
• Spread half the mixture on one prepared cookie sheet and half on the other. Bake for 15 minutes until slightly brown and puffy. Remove from oven and reduce to 350.
• Sprinkle the toppings on as desired. Return to the oven and bake for 10 minutes until cheese melts. Serve hot or at room temp.

Sunday: A Workout Circus

This morning I decided that it was too cold to go to lake swim as I cannot really fit into a wetsuit, and then there was the water lice situation last weekend, and then it was Sunday school rally day, and we had to be at church at 10:00 AM.  I had decided all this last night, BUT THEN, Ivan woke up twice in the night.  My husband handled the first drama, which I am still not completely clear about, and I handled the second one. I rocked him back to sleep twice and he continued to melt down when I put him back in bed, siting "scary" and "itchy".  Now, "I'm scary" is a relatively common complaint when going to bed, and I normally pay it no mind, but to giggle to myself in my head about all the things about my child that "I'm scary" encompasses.  He is indeed scary to potty train, scary to take to dine in a public restaurant, scary to take to the grocery store, ect, ect, ect. "Itchy" on the other hand is not a common complaint, and it was ultimately found to be linked to the removal of a tick the night before, and his back was still itchy.  I finally gave up and let Ivan sleep in bed with us, which is not my favorite choice, but we all got to sleep.

Morning came way too fast, and I had planned to grocery shop before church and ended up barely making it to Sunday School Rally on time.  Ivan had an accident pretty immediately upon arriving at church, he was mortified and refused to go to Sunday school.  This meant that I had to sit with him for the entire lesson, while he buried his head in my hair.  He really just never got over it, and of course, he had used up all his spare diaper bag pants at nursery school this week, so all I could do was get him into a pull up and mop off his little church shorts.  I sometimes wonder if I have become immune to the smell of urine and am wondering around smelling like the home of a cat hoarder with a spritz of Chanel No. 5, which I feel covers all shameful child-related smells.

After church, Ivan and I went home for naps, and I huddled in bed reading Undaunted Courage about the Lewis and Clark expedition.  When my husband arrived home from his bike ride, I loaded up in the car with the grocery list and my swim gear and headed to the Maryland Farms YMCA.  Of course, when I arrived there, all the pools were shut down for an approaching storm.  I waited for a few minutes, returned some emails and then dragged myself to the grocery to stock up on ingredients for glowing green smoothies (are you drinking these yet? and if no, why not??).

My intent was to go grocery shopping, then head to the Indoor Swim Complex and swim there, as their pool is grounded and therefor never closes for lightning.  Of course, by the time I left the grocery store, it was really too late to get there either and I ended up driving grumpily home after shopping for groceries with my bathing suit under my clothes.  My bathing suit is really fitting about like a tourniquet these days, and my grumpiness was enhanced my uncomfortable suit, and I was in a STATE when I got home and realized that I had forgotten the necessary eggs for dinner tonight.

After removing my bathing suit, I went for a long walk/run, which felt great and was thoroughly enjoyable.  At home, I began on dinner and it turned out stupendously if I do say so myself!!

Swim tomorrow!!

Friday and Saturday: Swim and Day Off

Yesterday, Ivan and I made it to swim class on time, even though Ivan is now on a second round of antibiotics for his double swimmers' ear which tastes like (and I know because I tasted it after accusing Ivan of being dramatic) finger nail polish remover with a piece of bubble gum inside.  It is rugged, and he is actually being a trooper about taking it, though the whole process takes a while.

I was ten minutes late to the pool deck, but that is so close to on-time for me that I am calling it on time.  I swam 3000 yards and then my morning swim class threw me such a nice lunchtime baby shower.  We had fabulous vegetable tarts and grilled chicken and a lime torte that rocked my world.  I received several lovely things and my mother brought Ivan's new big boy bed, and my house looks like some sort of children's store exploded and left bales of baby paraphernalia scattered about the house.  Also, parts of the new big boy bed are all about the house, and I stubbed my toe most unfortunately as I was heading to the restroom for the 1000th time last night.  

Now, last night, I busied myself with tidying bales of baby things, measuring space for the big boy bed, and writing thank you notes while watching The Other Guys.  I did not have high hopes for this film, but it cracked me up pretty much the whole way through.  Mark Wahlburg came across much like they ridicule him on SNL, though I did like him in The Fighter.  

This morning, Ivan and I woke up and pulled ourselves together and headed in to have breakfast at Whole Foods with my mother, sister and nephew.  We had as great a time as is possible to have while herding toddlers about and trying to enjoy breakfast.  

We then took our herding to the next level by heading to the mall and shopping for nursery school clothes and winter coats.  While everyone was generally well behaved, it all seemed very difficult.  I spilled my coffee while trying to push the stroller while trying to keep my stomach from hitting all the clothing racks.  I got Ivan out of the stroller to check the fit of pants, and then he crawled away with his dump truck.  Then I got him a cake pop at the Starbucks for being good, then he wouldn't eat it, so I obviously had to.  Then we all got on the elevator, with strollers and shopping bags and forgot to push the down button, so we just sat there in a stuffy elevator staring blankly.  Then we went to another shop to try winter coats, then I had to change Ivan's pull-up in the parking lot, and then we all debated winter coats like it was world peace.  

By the time I got home, I was starving, but had to feed Ivan first.  Then, after I made my lunch, I fell asleep SITTING UP.  That is apparently how exhausting it is to take my child shopping.  After dinner and getting everyone to bed, I am sitting down to watch The Last Station. I loved reading War and Peace, and there is apparently a lot that I did not know about Tolstoy himself, that I should investigate.  Now, going to work on remedying my current needlepoint disaster.  

No swim tomorrow morning as the water temperature has dropped, and I cannot fit into any wetsuit without the potential stretching of the wetsuit to the breaking point.  So, hopefully, I will swim at the YMCA tomorrow!!

Thursday: Run and Yoga

Ivan's New Haircut!!

Ivan's Pic of Me

So since this has been the week that Ivan started nursery school, I have sort of devoted my Tuesday and Thursday to me.  I do not really think I will have this luxury next week, as I will be working at least one of the days that Ivan is in nursery school.  Anyway, today, I dropped Ivan off at school and headed to the YMCA, which was GREAT!! I ran on the treadmill and made it two miles before being overcome with bathrooming needs, then was able to come back and get in one more mile.  It felt good, but was so slow.  I thought I would have way too much time before yoga class started, BUT due to the slowness of my pace, I only had a couple of minutes to stop sweating before entering yoga class.

I don't know if you have ever seen the SNL skit where Tom Hanks is the sweaty person in the yoga class, but that was me today.  Everyone else was fresh as a daisy, and I was all sweaty and short shorts and probably more rotund than any of the senior citizens were expecting in their yoga class.  For that is what I learned today.  Most of the people in the 11:15 AM yoga class are senior citizens and the class was sort of geared towards them.  No big thing, but we never even did downward dog.  I usually spend yoga classes downward dogging my life away, but not today.  We did lots of stretching, and I did learn an alternate resting pose that accommodates my stomach.  Confession, however, the newly learned alternate resting pose felt, and when I checked the mirror behind me, LOOKED a bit dirty and obscene and was a tangible reminder not to wear my short shorts to senior citizens yoga.  Lesson learned the hard way; not the first time.  

After yoga, I showered and sprinted off to the doctor's office and then to pick up Ivan from pre-school where he was placidly napping.  I was smart today and took my book in to pick him up. I was able to read until he finished napping, and it was really lovely.  I am reading Undaunted Courage and Merriweather Lewis (who has a deep melancholy streak that worries me) has just been made attache to President Jefferson, and his writing is improving due to the influence, which is good news as he was a terrible spelled initially and his very rambly.

Spending the evening parked on the couch for Project Runway!!

Wednesday: Swim

So today is Wednesday and Ivan and I were actually at swim pretty much on time.  We popped into the car and drove to the gym, there was some great potty training behavior, and I got in a great swim.  There was some pulling, some IM-ing, and some kicking and more pulling and swimming that all amounted to about 3000 yards.  It was great.

Ivan had a little defiance drama when we visited my office and unfortunately lost his ipad privileges which caused great angst in the Sloan household.  After a nap, Ivan and I headed out to get his hair cut, a task I have been putting off since his double ear infection, since I have not let his ears come into contact with moisture.  There is no possible way that either of us can weather another round of ear pain.  His hair cut is lovely, and I neglected to take a picture of it, but will hopefully show you tomorrow.

At home, I have realized that I have made an absolute needle point disaster that must be remedied by many hours with the seam ripper.  Bleh

Tuesday: Run and Swim

Ivan's first hair wash since his double ear infection!!

So today was Ivan's first day of preschool, my first day of Bible study and I had a chance to get to the YMCA for a swim and run.  I only have a couple of more weeks of my YMCA membership, and I am determined to get every bit of use out of it.  If I play my cards right, I can get to the YMCA for yoga and a run or some such on Thursday before my doctor's appointment.  I am certain that I will play my cards right.

Now, after Thursday, I am committed to buckling down and getting ready for the end of my confinement and the arrival of a new member of our family.  I have a shower curtain situation to remedy and a bit of furniture to shuffle about.  Also, a few things to acquire and a big brother class to attend at Baptist Hospital with Ivan.  It seems that some of us are not excited about the impending arrival and some of us may need a bit of encouragement to embrace the inevitable.

Now, nursery school apparently went well but for some rather serious potty training missteps, that may or may not ever be remedied. There were several successes, BUT a couple of major mishaps that made me think this boat may not be turning around. At this point, I feel that I am prepared for the worst and I wonder if my child could turn his refusal to potty train into a reversal of fortune.  For instance, if he makes it into the Guiness Book World of Records for the longest refusal of a capable person to potty train, will that pay for college?  Is there any sort of scholarship for that?  Is a scholarship for that something to take pride in?

At Bible study we are going to study the Gospel of Mark, and I am pretty excited.  Our Bible study is very academic, and my only concern is that we have a new director, not a new teacher, but a new director, and she is a singer of songs who likes to kick everything off with some music.  This really gets in the way of the nerd-fest that is my life.  I enjoyed our classroom situation last year, where we walked in with our reading prepared and got right to it; Just taking notes like it was the last class before final exams. That aside, it was a great study.

Now, at the YMCA, I hopped on the treadmill and here is how my run went:

• go the the bathroom before I get on the treadmill
• begin to run
• run one mile before my bladder is at full capacity
• hop off the treadmill and sprint to bathroom
• get back on the treadmill
• run one more mile
• become overwhelmed by seemingly walnut sized bladder
• run back to bathroom
• run one more mile on the treadmill 
• GIVE UP

After this, I headed to the pool where you can pee freely and continue working out.  I just swam 1000 meters before showering and picking up Ivan from nursery school.  

It was really a pretty great day!!

Book Report: Nothing Daunted by Dorothy Wickenden

So my book club chose this book, and I have honestly not been able to go to book club in forever because one thing or another keeps crossing my wires, and I read the books and never go and discuss.  It is a bummer, because I am now missing my book club this month, and I would absolutely love to go and discuss our latest book, State of Wonder.  Alas something always comes up.

Anyway, the month before State of Wonder, we read Nothing Daunted.  Nothing Daunted is the story of two best friend who are from educated wealthy families who decide to go out to Colorado and teach school. The true story of Ros Underwood and Dorothy Woodruff, as written by Dorothy's granddaughter, is a really fascinating tale about the differences in our country at that particular time.  How Dorothy and Ros come from Auburn, NY and have fabulous educations and amazing world travels, and travel to teach school in the Elkhead Mountains; A place that is even remote by the standards of most Coloradans.

They live with a family called the Harrison's, who live two miles away from the school house, where Ros and Dorothy travel on horseback each morning.  They spend a good bit of time with the man who recruited them, Ferry Carpenter, and his friend Bob Perry.  They visit each of their students at home and see the range of bountiful and desolate lives that each student leads as their families try to make a life in the difficult climate of the American West.

Now, I found this book to be very interesting, I enjoyed the whole book, BUT as I am now telling you about it, I cannot really recall any touchstones that made it amazing.  It was a documented true story of a great friendship and two people who were excited about an adventure, which they carried through to the end of their commitment.  It was interesting the whole way through, and generally based from diaries and letters of the two women and their friends.  Each girl eventually marries, but spends longer than usual at that particular time unmarried.

An interesting fact that I did learn and love was that Woodrow Wilson, when he was President of Princeton University, tried to institute the idea of quads, which are totally commonplace now at all colleges, so that New England boarding school students would be forced to mingle with students coming from all other parts of the country.  He was voted down, but it is interesting all the same.

Anyway, the other interesting thing that happened is that while I was in Montana, I happened to be at a house party and who was there, but Ros Underwood's granddaughter, Roz.  How exciting!!  We spent a good bit of time talking about her grandmother, and it was interesting to hear where the western life of her grandmother had lead her.  Roz, the granddaughter, was raised in the West, where her grandmother ended up marrying and settling.  Roz married a rancher, had four children and lives there still.  So interesting!!

This book is certainly worth the read.

Monday: Swim

In a bizarre twist of Nashville weather, the temperature today is about 65 and it is pouring rain.  I usually think of this happening around November, when Nashville gets cold like Europe in the Spring.  It was quite cold and I actually turned on THE HEAT in the car. Insanity.  Also, I am not prepared wardrobe-wise for such a drastic change in the weather, and when you are in your confinement (as I am) it is doubly difficult to figure out what to wear in times of transitional weather.

Anyway, last night my plan was to swim at the Maryland Farms YMCA at 8:00 this morning, but as scheduling would have it, my husband had a Labor Day work breakfast which overlapped my time to swim so I moved to down to 9:30.  By 9:30 the temperature had dropped even further and the wind had kicked up.

It is on days like this that I realize that I have a freak flag, that I fly with reckless abandon.  My freak flag exposed itself today, by refusing to be daunted by the weather and climbing gamely into the outdoor pool in a bikini in the latter stages of my confinement.  The lifeguards were dressed in sweatsuits and openly disdainful of my ridiculousness.   The water was cold but not icy and as long as I kept my head underwater, it was a great swim.  When I wanted to kick, I had to head into the indoor pool, because it was far too cold to have my head above water and my arms clutching a kick board.

The indoor pool at the Maryland Farms YMCA is a bit swampy and dank, but still, I sort of love it.  I had a great swim and while outside, I swam by 500's.  Then, my friend Jamie and I went inside and kicked 1000 meters.

At home, I made oatmeal bakes and needlepointed and made the most of a desolate Labor Day Holiday, where there was nothing fun to do outdoors.

First day of nursery school tomorrow!!

Sunday: Lake Swim

I feel like today heralds my return to the real world after all of Ivan's sickness and staying with my parents and our return trip to the doctor and everything else that seems to have drained my soul over the last week. This morning, I was up before my alarm went off, I drank my "glowing green smoothie", ate some oatmeal bake and headed out to the lake, where I swam out to the buoy and back, somewhere close to two miles.  I am ridiculously slow and my swim cap kept slipping off my head, but it was a nice swim.

Now, the unfortunate thing that I noticed while I was swimming was that I was itching something fierce.  All in my bathing suit and up my arms.  It is lake water, and when I took off my bathing suit to take my public lake bathroom shower, I noticed that my entire suit lining was covered in tiny tiny white gnat looking bugs, and there were red streaks all over my body.  It is apparently water lice season, and I had been infested.  It was most unfortunate, and it was by far the scrubbiest shower that I have ever taken.  All day since, I have been a little itchy in sort of the same way you are itchy when you hear that someone got lice at camp or think that your pet might have fleas.

Also at the Lake, someone whom I have officially cataloged as a bottom dweller, asked if I was already past my due date.  And you know, the thing is, I am seven weeks out from my due date.  AND, if I were past my due date, I just would not be swimming a mile out away from shore.  If my water broke, I would have no choice but to swim back to the shore in full on labor, and that would be ridiculous.  It is still appropriate for me to be swimming, water lice or no, in the lake for a few more weeks.

At home, I had a cup of coffee and a glass of tea, before shuffling Ivan and I off to church.  We had a great lesson and got home for naps and such.  Tomorrow is Labor Day and I am forgoing our running group's Labor Day run, as I am really too rotund to keep up.

Swimming at the uber fabulous Maryland Farms YMCA tomorrow morning.  Very exciting!!

Book Report: The Little Stranger by Sara Waters

So, I actually read The Little Stranger in June, and I became pretty obsessed with it.  Sara Waters is actually a prominent lesbian writer in England and apparently wrote her masters' thesis on lesbian terminology in Victorian literature.  So interesting, right?  It is amazing the things that it never occurs to you could become a master's thesis, but it could clearly be anything. The Little Stranger has no lesbian overtones, but apparently the other novels of Sara Waters do have the element.

Anyway, from the beginning, I was enthralled with this gothic story.  It was actually reminiscent of me of Daphne DeMaurier's Rebecca on many levels.  The layers of mystery and sadness and intrigue smacked of Rebecca to me.  The story revolves around a dilapidated manor house called "Hundreds Hall".  Hundreds hall has been the victim of new tax laws following the war, there is no new money coming in and the Ayers family seem determined to keep their house though they live in abject poverty with tattered clothes whilst the house falls down around their ears.

The country doctor, Farraday, who used to come to Hundreds Hall as a child during better times when his mother was employed by the Ayers family in the nursery, is in awe of the home and family as well as pitying the state of their decline.  He begins to become more and more involved in issues within Hundreds Hall, as he is called to the house for various medical issues that begin to become curiouser and curiouser.  As Farraday, the narrator, becomes more involved with the remaining family (an aging mother and her two adult children, a son and a daughter), he finds that there are unexplainable goings on within the household.  The stranger the book becomes, the further Farraday becomes entangled with the Ayers family.

Farrday seems to fall in love with Hundreds or maybe the daughter of the house or maybe he is only concerned and kind, or could he be diabolical.  Sara Waters begins to encourage your suspicions, and you puzzle through various whodunit scenarios as you read further and further into the plot of the book.  I cannot tell you very much about this book, lest I ruin the brilliant story.  It is a quick read and such a great story.  The language is beautiful, and the tale is completely unique.

Please Read!!

Book Report: State of Wonder by Ann Patchett

So, several years ago I read Bel Canto by Ann Patchett and it wore me out.  It was evident what she was going for, and I got it.  It was a different approach, to strip people of their human comforts and see how they reacted over several months time of a pressure cooker hostage situation.  She showed relationships that never would have formed otherwise, social orders that fell apart and mindsets that disintegrated.  Something about it, though, was too dramatic for me.  Too much drama in a story, movie, whatever, begins to read unrealistic to me.  It is sort of my problem with Sean Penn, a fine actor I am sure.

Anyway, my book club is reading State of Wonder this month, and I was skeptical.  However, it turned out to be the perfect blend of denial of human comforts, strange environment, mystery and finding yourself.  I loved it, and mowed through it in a couple of days couch time while my son was down with the swimmers ear.

The gyst of the story is this:

A research physician finds out about the untimely death of her office mate in a remote jungle in  South America where he was doing fertility research with another more senior research physician.  The death seems to be strangely reported, and the research physician is entreated by her office mate's widow and her boss to go down to South America and find out from the elusive senior research physician the exact details.

It turns out that the senior research physician is guarded closely from being found, her ethics are dicey, her research is intensely personal, and she can't produce a body.  Oooh, Anne Patchett hooked me on all fronts.  The intrigue and frustration, the narrow misses and what you learn about yourself when you are locked in a remote South American jungle and lose all your luggage and clothes were fascinating.  I have to recommend it.

I felt like this book really did establish Ann Patchett as a believable teller of a tale that looks at our souls. Bel Canto began to snooze me with its grandiose nature, and I wanted her to sum up in a short story.  I was invested in every ounce of State of Wonder.

Saturday: So It Has Not Been A Week To Write Home About

So last week, it seems that things were going well and then Thursday was so dull it did not bear mentioning, Friday was busy and I did not have access to my computer, and then Saturday, Ivan mentioned that his ear hurt.  I acknowledged this.  It occurred to me that he had been swimming more than usual that week; that there could be some trapped water in his three-year-old ear canal.  We put in a few ear drops and everyone went to bed like it was their job.  Totally normal, totally pleasant.

We were staying at my parent's house, where Ivan has his very own big boy bed, and I was holed up in bed with a book.  We went to sleep at a reasonable hour and then at 1:00 AM Ivan started sobbing in his bed, I went in to check, his ear was sticking straight out and bright red and I knew that swimmer's ear was upon us.  Having suffered many a time with swimmer's ear, I was wracked with guilt for not recognizing the signs.  It is so painful.  I also sort of hated my life, because in this stage of my confinement, it is more unpleasant than usual to be woken at 1:00 in the morning to comfort and administer tylenol.  Tylenol was only had after tramping down a flight of stairs in the dark, rummaging through my mother's unfamiliar medicine cabinet and then feeling my way back upstairs to talk a miserable Ivan into taking it.  It was even more unpleasant when I had to do it again at 4:00 in the morning.

Upon waking, we counted the minutes for the opening of the convenient care where Ivan melted down as we had to allow a nurse practitioner to poke about his ear, before diagnosing and prescribing antibiotic drops for swimmers ear.  We left the convenient care and drugstore with a prescription, two kinds of pain reliever to bring down fever and quell ear pain, two lollipops, a picture than Ivan drew while waiting for the nurse practitioner, and a remote control car for our troubles.  At home, it took myself and my mom to wrestle Ivan down for the administration of ear drops while he howled.

After the administration of baby tylenol and eardrops, I hoped against hope for a good nap from Ivan which in turn meant that I could have a good nap, but he was only able to nap until the baby tylenol wore off.  I at least thought that Ivan would sleep through the night, but it was not so.  Nor would it be so for the next three nights.  Ivan woke up every time the tylenol wore off and that was four consecutive nights of waking every three hours.  It was brutal.

By the fourth night, when Ivan woke up crying, it was all I could do to drag myself out of bed and administer tylenol.  It was so exhausting that I just laid around my parents house all day like there was a carbon monoxide leak.  Ivan's remote control car broke, and I dragged myself back to the drugstore to purchase another as it bought me more couch time.  All I wanted was couch time.  Now, I will say, that after two days of prescription and tylenol, Ivan improved.  He was able to play with his remote control car and I was able to read.  AND READ I DID!!!

I read:

• State of Wonder, by Ann Patchet
• The New Yorker's study of the later career of Clarence Thomas
• Vogue's review of Tom Ford's New Makeup Line
• Vogue's study of Jon Huntsman
• W's article about Antony Hegerty or Antony and the Johnson's

I thought:

• State of Wonder was fabulous.  I could hardly put it down.
• I will never engage in any sort of argument about the constitution with Clarence Thomas or his wife.  THEY WILL ALWAYS WIN.
• I love Tom Ford, and I generally think he has loads of common sense in a fashion world where you don't see a lot of it.  Also, his new cosmetics line has a nail polish called "bitter bitch" and after my fourth sleepless night with Ivan, I KNEW that I would OWN IT and WEAR IT.  It became the summation of what I was.
• I like Jon Huntsman more than I thought, though not all of my suspicions are quelled.  
• Antony Hegerty has a haunting voice, and I found him kind of thrilling.  

Potty Training Update:

• A consistent dosage of tylenol, I learned the hard way this week, gives Young Sloan projectile diarrhea. 
• We completely stopped potty training during this bleak period and went back to full on diapers.
• When we arrived back home from my parents house, someone miraculously insisted on wearing his underwear and began using the potty like it was his job.

Anyway, then disaster struck again when on Tuesday. We noted that Ivan was having multiple other cold symptoms, and it was found that his swimmers ear had migrated into his middle ear causing terrible drainage, infection and cold symptoms.  We started another antibiotic. We stayed at home for three more days until both Ivan and I were so bored with each other that on Thursday afternoon we were each bleakly watching TV in separate rooms and groaning like Lurch from the Adams family when we passed each other in the hall.  

On Friday, we finally made a triumphant return to swim at the Indoor Swim Complex which reopened this week after being shut down for repairs through the month of August.  Today, I was able to swim in the outdoor lap pool at the Maryland Farms YMCA.  Ivan is virtually symptomless, and I feel that I can rejoin the living.  It is good times, with the sun shining a bit more brightly and the world seeming a bit more like Willy Wonka