"You are the Parent."

Pre-parenthood, that sentence made total sense to me. You are the parent, you are the boss. The child needs to defer to you, and you need to do what it takes to impress this fact upon the child.

I stood at the counter at Trader Joe's this morning while Sawyer made consecutive screeching noises. I was explaining to the checker that last night was a long night: the moose bit the sharkey, Thomas couldn't find Percy, and the other fishy died and was flushed down the toilet in the box.

Luckily, I think the guy was stoned. He just asked me questions about how the moose got into the ocean, and wasn't that a tough fight between the moose and the shark? Sawyer continued to scream. I gently put my hand over his mouth but he didn't stop. I assessed the situation and knew, KNEW, he wouldn't stop screaming for anything, so I just ignored it.

I'm pretty sure people were staring at me. But don't they know that addressing the situation would only make things worse? Screaming? That's nothing!! He wasn't throwing things! He wasn't spitting!! He wasn't recreating a seizure in a cart!!! Screaming was the smallest thing he could do. I just wanted to tell people, "Oh, you think this is bad? Do you SEE these scratch marks? Just consider yourselves lucky you're not within arms' reach." But we don't get to explain to strangers do we?

You know what, me-from-3-years-ago? I AM the parent. And sometimes the bad behaviour is angelic compared to worse behaviour. So just suck it up and pray for bad behaviour.

Fine Line

I've been working on this post in my head for a few days... But then I came down with a nasty respiratory infection (= a cold) and it's given me even more sleeplessness to ponder this thought:

What's the difference between motivating and nagging? Between being enthusiastic and obsessed?

I have a few hobbies in my life that tend to wax and wane. Running is one that's pretty consistent. But then there's general "working out" as evidenced by my foray into the Jillian Michaels world. Cooking at home is another favorite pass-time, not only for budget reasons, but because it's just healthier. The last few weeks brought to my attention the "Real Food" movement that tries to encourage whole, unprocessed ingredients in cooking and snacking.

I also love to have a tidy house. I wasn't doing too great with this one, so I looked up this phenomena  that adds one small house keeping chore every day until you really have a handle on life and organization. And if you know me personally you know that I live by almost every word that this guy has ever written.

But in my enthusiasm I'm afraid that I really annoy the people around me. I was once told, "Hey, can we just not talk about running anymore? Like, ever? Is that ok?" And I try to respect that. But what if I have a REALLY GREAT IDEA!!!!! that I think you'll TOTALLY LOVE!!!!!! It's not in my nature to casually mention the idea. It's in my nature to research the idea, put together a list of resources, go out and buy a binder for you, print out schedules, create a club, and mail you weekly motivating phrases to keep you motivated.

That's annoying, right?

Go Long

Remember when long runs were 10-14 miles? Or 16? Or... 20?! This week's long run was 5.

Five.

5.

But it was a true "long run" in that my brain turned off. The miles clicked by, but I wasn't counting them. On long runs the pace doesn't really matter as long as you're somewhat consistent. It was nice to have enough time to remember that how I feel for the first mile has nothing to do with how the entire run is going to go. The first mile took me 11 minutes. The fifth one took only 10 minutes and 15 seconds. It was a perfect long run. Wind, sun, pace, everything was exactly what I needed.

Overall I finished in 52 minutes. That's crazy fast for me!! I looked back at my long runs from last year and they were all 11 minute or MORE. So I'm faster now!

And I look pretty good.

Reflecting

Apparently, the end of March just isn't all that inspirational for me.

Ready, Set, no-Go

Laundry drying, dishes washing, lunches made, kiddo eating a snack, running clothes on.... then....

Nothing. Stephan heads out the door to take a test I forgot about, and it's just Sawyer and me staring at each other. Without Stephan in the house I can't run. Usually I set Sawyer down for a nap, put the baby monitor next to Stephan's head, and take off out the door.

No Stephan, no run.

Boom.

Remember When

This week's insanely warm weather keeps reminding me of the weeks that led up to last year's Nashville Marathon. It's that moment in the training year when all the time it took to put on 3 layers of pants and shirts gets taken up by putting on sunblock.

We're still only doing 3-4 miles per day. We have 10 weeks until the 10-mile race. I am very tempted to scrap training and just phone in the 10 miles. But heck, what fun would that be?

I keep feeling like something is missing in my runs lately. Then Stephan reminded me!!

Whisky!!

[Insert wailing baby-cry here]

It's too hot.

It's too sunny.

I'm too tired.

I ran 4.0 on Monday because I was too busy to do it on Sunday.

 Today is Tuesday and the schedule calls for 3.5. I don't wanna run today...................