Nebulizer City

It's been Nebulizer and Antibiotic City at my house for the past 10 days. Christian was diagnosed with left upper lobe pneumonia and a double ear infection and JJ had a runny nose, a cough, and icky ears, so both were given nebulizer treatments. Do you know how hard it is to give an 8 month old nebulizer treatments? I don't recommend it that's for sure. It involves lots of flailing and screaming...and that's just me.

Yesterday was the last day of Christian's antibiotic and an Xray done earlier this week revealed that the pneumonia was all gone. Thank God. That was a little scary for a moment there because Chris got really weak (he wanted to be carried) and he refused to eat for a couple of days. He said no to happy meal, pizza, macaroni and cheese and chicken nuggets, so you know something wasn't right.

Fortunately, he's all better now. JJ on the other hand still has a runny nose and a cough, so we've had to hold off on the things that the G.I. doctor wanted us to do. I refuse to do a cry it out when he is sick. I did stop on the pumping though (on Cinco de Mayo). It was starting to get a little tedious. Why is it that I always choose to stop pumping around a holiday? For Chris I stopped on St. Patty's Day. I just noticed those are both drinking holidays too...ha ha. That totally makes me look like a lush.

The weaning has gone smoothly because JJ is taking formula like a champ now (still hates food though). I still nurse him at night to go to bed and in the wee hours of the morning when he's in my bed (4am-7am) so I'm not completely done, but it's very minimal. I think because of the fact that I'm weaning is why I've recently gained 3 pounds all of a sudden. This totally sucks because I haven't finished my 20/20 plan (it's more like 7/11 at this point) but oh well, I guess it will have to be extended. 20/30 perhaps?

Speaking of 20/20, I'll be doing another 5K in about 2 weeks. I enjoyed the first one so much that I'm ready to do it again. Hopefully this time I can take a picture...you know to have proof that I was there and that I did it. Ha ha.

Last but not least, I've entered Jordan in a baby picture contest, so please vote for him (once daily until May 18) so we can win $5000. It would really help us to get his college fund going. Pass it on to your friends too! I will do a more thorough post about this tomorrow. Thanks y'all.

Someone ran a 5K yesterday!

That's right, yours truly. I ran my first 5K race yesterday at the Mercedes-Benz Corporate run. This was my first time participating in this type of event and it was so much fun, I plan on doing more of these in the future (Disney, here I come!). I'd been running at the gym and at home for a little over a month now, so I was able to run the whole thing without stopping, well except for that one time, but I'll tell you about that little fiasco now.

Unfortunately our "company" didn't' have a tent for us to hang out and leave our stuff in, so we had to only take with us what we could run with. With this in mind, I bought an arm band for my iphone and car key and ID. Wouldn't you know it, the day of the race, I couldn't find it anywhere. I had to use my old ipod arm band (which does not accommodate my iphone very well and is a little wobbly and has no pockets for keys and IDs and such). I had also purchased a nike+ sensor for my ipod so that I could check my pace, distance, etc. This is a wonderful little gadget that helps me stay on pace (thanks for the suggestion R!).

So I lined up with the thousands of people ready to start my run. They were starting to count down so I turned my ipod on and guess what? The screen wouldn't turn on. It didn't work. Fabulous. Fortunately, the music came on, but since the screen didn't work, I had to listen to whatever song the ipod wanted me to hear (the same 3 songs over and over again) and forget about turning on the nike+ sensor. It looks like I would have to wing it. Fortunately, I have a Runkeeper app on my iphone, so I turned that on instead so it could track my run. That one isn't as user friendly though and doesn't give you updates at the touch of a button.

The cannon went off and the people began. I had managed to squirm my way to the front half of the group so it was only a minute before I was able to get running. The weather was fabulous and it helped compensate over how mad I was at my ipod. I was basically running with no way of monitoring my progress (which I totally hate). As soon as I stared running, my arm band was jiggling and bopping all over the place. I thought to myself, oh no, this won't do. I tried to put the phone towards the underside of my arm to hold it against my body. So now, I was running with no speed sensor, repetitive music, a wobbly arm band and the use of only one arm. Can it get any worse? Actually, yes it can (I should have known better than to ask that). I dropped my car key! Fortunately, I felt it and heard it fall. I immediately stopped and looked for it to pick it up (I found it THANK GOD). Note to self: when running in a crowd of 20,000, it's not a good idea to stop all of a sudden...I'm just saying.

After the key fiasco (thank God it didn't fall when I was going over the bridge otherwise, my key would be in the Miami River at this point because the street has holes in it) I took my arm band off and held it in my hand along with my key. My nonfunctioning ipod was in my other hand. I was sure that I had totally lost my pace at this point. There is no way I'm beating my personal best (34+ minutes) with all this crap going on. I soldiered on and kept running as best I could. I didn't stop for water because it was too much of a hassle, plus it's not like I had any hands to hold it with.

After going over the 2nd bridge I didn't see how I could continue any longer. Running over bridges was not part of my training regimen, so that was pretty tough but I refused to walk at any point. I kept on and I saw the final turns ahead. I mustered the last bit of energy to run just a little faster. I was mad because an 8 year old was totally kicking my ass just ahead of me. As I turned the last corner I noticed the clock in the distance said 31 something...Oh my god, could it be? Wow, I'm actually running faster than I thought. I put in a final sprint and made it past the finish line at 32:09, estatic that I had beat my personal best despite all the issues with my equipment.

My happiness was short lived though, when I found out that the course had been shortened to 2.89 miles (or something like that), but that's OK, because I probably would have beat my time anyway. What an awesome experience, I can't wait to do it again.

Go Me.

Oh, and my ipod? It started working about a minute after I was done running. Nice.

4/3

It's been a month since I mentioned my little 20/20 plan, so in the spirit of accountability, here's an update. Although I haven't kept up with the pace that I initially set for myself (a pound a week), I'm still happy with my progress. Four weeks have passed and I've lost 3 pounds, so I'm not too far off my mark. It's not a lot but it's progress. Everybody say it with me....Yay progress!

I've also managed to change my eating habits substantially. Whereas before I would eat fast food approx 10 times a week, now I only do it maybe once a week. I've been going to the gym every single day (except on weekends) and I've only missed 2 or 3 days the whole month. I feel like I have more energy and my clothes is feeling kind of loose. So much so, that I need to find new gym pants. The ones I wore today felt like they were going to fall off and that totally killed my concentration on the treadmill today. Run run run...must keep pants on...run run run....must not let pants fall...run run run...aw crap the iPod battery died...run run run...pull pants up....run run run.

You know, the more I work at this, the more I wonder why I didn't do this sooner. As long as I can remember, it seems like I've always had an excuse. I'll make an effort to lose the weight for my 15's, before the school year is over, over the summer, before grad night, before prom, after graduation, in college, after Thanksgiving, after I get a job, after Christmas, before I get married, after the honeymoon, after my birthday, in January, before I have a baby, after the baby, before the next baby, after the next baby. You know what? It was time. Time to stop making excuses. I figured, if I don't do this now, I will never do it.

Go Me.

The Craziest Loser

Every week I watch the Biggest Loser on TV. I love watching this show because it's inspiring to see these people lose the weight and feel great about themselves. I especially love the finale show where you really see what a change they've made. It's great! The irony of course is that I would watch it while snacking on some Doritos or cookies and milk. Ha ha. This year is different though. Since I am no longer planning on having more children, the time has come to lose the extra weight that I've been jostling around. As little as 7 years ago, I was at a pretty good weight, but then came marriage and school and kids and the weight went up and up and up.

Since the peak of this last pregnancy I have managed to drop 40 pounds. I would still like to lose 20 more and be around where I was seven years ago. I think the breastfeeding has helped tremendously with these first 40, so I kind of want to keep going since I have this running head start if you will. I'm setting a goal to lose 20 pounds in 20 weeks. I shall call it mini-me my 20/20 plan. Let's see how well this goes. I guess I'll be doing my own Biggest Loser except without the screaming trainers and the nationally televised weigh ins (thank God for that).

In the spirit of my new weight loss goals, yesterday I went to the gym, but I forgot my towel. If you don't have a towel, you can't go into the main room where all the machines are so I had to find an alternate way to work out (I could have paid a dollar for a towel rental, but I don't like using other towels....plus I'm really cheap like that). I thought about doing one of the classes, but realized that I had just missed the last class. I then remembered that there were some machines on the 4th floor. Perfect, I'll do that! I climbed the 1,001 stairs it took to get to the fourth floor and noticed that only one machine was empty. Ah I'm in luck I thought. Until I got on the machine that is.

The impending trap of death was precariously perched on the edge of a flimsy little railing four floors up (I am not comfortable with heights). And of course it had to be a stairmaster machine. A machine that would make me feel like I'm climbing even higher and higher just about to step off the rail. I worked out with much trepidation and held on to the machine for dear life. I realized this was going to be a long 30 minutes because I couldn't figure out where to focus my eyes. If I looked down, my knees got wobbly. If I looked straight ahead and saw no floor my knees got wobbly. If I closed my eyes, I was afraid of falling off the machine and over the railing. I finally decided to just stare at the controls on the machine. I was only on the machine 1 minute and had already broken into a sweat, not from working out, but from freaking out.

At this point, my mind started making up scenarios. What if this platform collapses and I fall over the railing? What if the machine goes bonkers and it catapults me over the railing? Could I hold on to the railing for dear life? If so, for how long? How could I hoist myself back up? Then the sane side of my brain tried to talk me off the ledge. Claudia, the building is well constructed, the platform will not collapse. Besides if it does, it doesn't matter what machine you're on, you're still fucked. The machine is a quality machine and will not break. If it does, it will not catapult you over the ledge, it will simply stop functioning. Then the freaky side would start again. What if I'm trapped on the ledge and I have to jump all the way over there, could I make it? What if someone pushed me over?

Like I said, it was a long 30 minutes.

After my freakout workout, I headed down the stairs and noticed that part of the stairs jutted out past the fourth floor platform I was on. So I realized that if I indeed did fall over the railing, if I could just manage to hold on to the railing and scoot over to the left for a couple of feet, I would be able to let go and land on the stairs. Well now, that changes everything. In that case, I think I CAN workout on the fourth floor. You know, since I have a back-up plan and all now.


Insane people should not be allowed to go to the gym.