tiffany's spot

I've been meaning to post something about my father's day half marathon for weeks now, so here it is! I've always said I wanted to run a half someday , but in the last few years I've either been pregnant or I've recently had a baby, or I've simply chickened out. This past Christmas I told myself that this would be the year I did it, so I logged on to the Manitoba Marathon site and registered. It was still six months away, so I'd have lots of time to run and get ready. It sort of seemed a lifetime away, until it wasn't. I had full intentions of going to bed at 9:00 pm on the 18 th . A good night's sleep couldn't hurt, right? Well, I chatted on the phone for a while, did some dishes, and decided to go to bed. Then I remembered just one more thing I had to do. And another, and another. I ended up in bed around 11:30. This always happens. My alarm rang at 4:20. I leaped up and showered and dragged my poor family all out of their beds to accompany me...

I know, I should be blogging about the run, since it's all I've talked about for six months now, but first things first. Do you ever watch movies or sitcoms where the kids are over-the-top atrocious? They're climbing the curtains, swinging from chandeliers, running screaming through the house while chasing each other with dead things found in the yard? Before having kids, I thought that it was a little ridiculous the way they exaggerated the behavior of children that way. I also used to be the woman in the grocery store who shook her head at the mom in the isle whose kid was tantruming on the floor, or whining and begging for stuff. If that was my kid I'd just spank him already. Yep, that was me. Ever see the movie Cheaper By the Dozen ? I haven't seen the whole thing, but I've seen parts of it. My house is totally like that. It's noisy in here. They run, they jump, they scream, they fight, someone's always doing something with the baby powder some...

when your four year old heads off to an outhouse at a soccer game with a slice of pizza in hand do you holler at him not to take his dinner into the outhouse with him or do you just pretend you're oblivious to the cheesy sticky mess about to accompany him into the disgusting little box? when your four year old exits an outhouse without his slice of pizza and then remembers it and turns to go back in and fetch it, do you allow it? Thought so.

Steph and I decided to play an entire game of scrabble while freely cheating, although we wouldn't have had to, because we totally would have come up with these words on our own.

My big run is in nine days. Nine. 9. I've seriously slacked off in the last couple of weeks (couple, few, it's all the same really). I think part of it has to do with a recent stressor that's resurfaced in my life. Those of you who know me in real life will know what I'm talking about. Those of you who don't, but are curious are welcome to email me and ask what the heck I'm talking about. I'll share. I've also gained back five of my hard-lost pounds and lost all control of my emotional eating habits. I can't help but think it's all related. Even though I know it's all emotional/stress eating I can't seem to bust out of it. Whatever. But I digress. Where was I? Oh yeah - slacking, less running, nine days until race day. All that being said, I ran twice this week and knocked off a cool nine miles each time. It felt good. I'm still mostly confident about the upcoming race. My goal is to run the entire thing and do it in 130 minutes. Or ...

I was googling pictures online and I came up with this picture of the Souris Swinging Bridge. It wasn't the picture I was looking for, but we actually visited this bridge two summers ago. Have you been? It's horrible! The stupid bridge swings alright, back and forth and back and forth, threatening to hurl your children into the depths of the murky river. With my luck I'd hop in to save them and with the habit of making things difficult for me they'd somehow manage to avoid being rescued. I didn't enjoy this bridge at all. You know what made it even better? A husband who thinks the frightful creaky bridge is something to be jumped up and down on. The entire thing ripples. Ugh. Makes me uncomfortable just thinking about it. My advice? Go see the Winnipeg Zoo. Sure, all you see there are living versions of the roadkill on the highway on the way to Winnipeg (read: deer, raccoons and prairie dogs), but at least you won't fall eight million feet into the grungy rive...

This morning I put on a summery tank top. When I came into the kitchen, Tennyson looked at me and said: "Mommy you're looking beautiful today." Then he came and hugged my leg and mumbled something about being a prince and marrying me. What a guy. :)

This morning's diaper gym was just swimming along - we had a pretty good turnout, the kids weren't fighting (much) and conversation was flowing. Then guess whose kid pulled the fire alarm? Hey, did you guess my kid ? Uh, not nice. Okay, it was Tennyson. He was sitting up on the radiator, and aside from throwing toys, kicking down other kids' block towers and using his horse-head-on-a-stick to sledgehammer stuff he had been pretty good today. From his spot on the radiator he had a perfect view of this odd little red box attached to the wall, with a very tempting little white handle on it - a little tempting white handle that his little hand fit perfectly around. Suddenly there were sirens going off and scared little kids with their hands over their ears. I realized right away that my kid had pulled the fire alarm - probably because he was sitting on the radiator looking as stunned as could be. I leaped from my chair and ran across the room yelling "No! No! No!" Did...