Month: October 2012

I haven’t run for a few days because the inside of my ankle has been feeling weird. Weird meaning that it hurts. And it’s a little swollen. It’s nice that you can google “pain inside ankle” and just self-diagnose yourself as having posterior tibial tendonitis and feel good about yourself that you didn’t need to go to some fancy doctor who would have told you just to stop running. So I’ve decided to take a few days off and maybe eyeball my new running shoes as the culprit and leave it at that. It just turns out that my running partner is not feeling well today – so luckily I didn’t have to be the only one bailing out of this morning’s run.

It was a lovely weekend – on Saturday, Jeremy spent the day in Virginia and Vince spent the day in southern Md and it was just me and Miss Edda all day. We spent part of the day with some of our friends with Rett Syndrome at the Blue Sky Girls event in College Park, MD.

We were a small but mighty group!

We ducked out a little bit early, Edda was starting to be unhappy with it all and I wanted to spend the day just the two of us together.

Our first stop was IKEA where we enjoyed the famous meatballs. And then we walked around the whole market place – Edda joyfully yelling “Bah!” and me window shopping at all the awesomeness that I wanted but did not need.

Second stop was at Target and the third stop was home. Once I got home, I had all the good intentions of studying parts of the skull, but really I lay down on the couch, put the book next to me, Boba sat on my chest and I fell asleep for a few hours. Edda watched TV and periodically sat on my head. It was a wonderful afternoon.

We went to Edda’s neurologist on Friday. He’s recently taken a job with Children’s as the Medical Director of pediatric neurology which started on Sept 1. So, more than a month ago, when we were in the midst of Edda’s crazy, unhappy moods, we made the earliest appointment we could which was on Friday because he wasn’t seeing patients for the first 6 weeks of his new job.

Of course, over the span of the last months or so, Edda’s moods have swung back to being more and more herself. Usually chipper, predictably pissed at waiting in line or going on a walk in the park. So we walked into the neuro appointment basically clueless about what to say about Edda.

We brought Dr. Difazio back up to speed with Edda’s summer and then he said we did everything that we could and got ready to pack up. We congratulated him on his new job and he ask (because I was wearing the T-shirt) if I had run the local half marathon this year – he’s also a runner – and I laughed and said that I had just volunteered this year.

So we were walking the kids to school – Boba, Ruby, Vince, friend and me. Minding our own business. Pooping:

and picking up the poop:

Just your regular morning routine. After Vince and pal were dropped off, I went behind the school to the tennis courts where I meet up with a few other doggie comrades. There we were – chatting about the crap that we always chat about – while the doggies enjoy their time running around chasing balls. After we were there a few minutes, the Rockville police comes by and tells us (very nicely and kind of apologetically) that even though we were in the tennis courts, we were still breaking the city’s off-leash law. So I got a written citation and Ruby and Boba and I are all semi-criminals now. I guess I need to find a private yard to hang out in. Sigh.

It was a really busy weekend – usually I don’t like packing so many things in a weekend (really one needs some time to watch bad TV and eat cookies), but somehow the schedule just worked out that way. So, in addition to celebrating turning 40 and having my in-laws in town, I also managed to squeeze in a 10K run on Sunday morning just before the rain started pouring. Originally, I signed up for this because I thought I would be training for the Disney princess half-marathon in Feb with (at least) two local Rett mom friends, but I’m just not that into it in so many ways the least of which is that I don’t really want to run for more than two hours in a row.

This 10K I ran in just slightly over an hour which is way better than I thought I would do – it was flat and fast and I had a pal to chat with the whole time.

I’m so pleased I’ve been running 4-5 a week for months now, it’s really been such an accomplishment for me 🙂

Edda found herself with a 38.5 C fever today – so it has been a day of Motrin, cuddles and TV. No school, no occupational therapy – just pacing the well worn carpet in front of the TV with frequent breaks to sit on the couch and just lounge in pajamas all day.  She was happy and smiling when the Motrin was in effect, but when it wore off, she looked a worn out and tired.  Still, she ate well and was in good spirits.

I’m glad she was well enough to spend the weekend happy and unsick with Jeremy’s parents. They were in town to see us over the long Columbus Day weekend – and we had a weekend packed of movie going, concert hearing and restaurant eating. And, I suppose unfortunately for Vince, a weekend of music practicing.

I have recently jump started Vince’s violin practice schedule (gotta whip out my best Asian mom impression) and we have been making good progress. Bob brought his cello to complete our little trio – Vince on violin, me on piano and Bob on cello.  Below is a snapshot of Vince, Bob and Kelly (Vince’s violin teacher) playing a trio at his lesson on Sunday.

A few years ago, my best friends from high school, who I generally had lost touch with, and I started getting together and traveling once a year. This year, we all turned 40, and we traveled around to see each other to celebrate, this weekend was one of celebration and lots of eating. We tried to recreate a photo of us in the high school yearbook.

1990:

today!

Ah, look at the glory of a nice picture taken by a real camera! We love Boba so much – he is scheduled to head home in the middle of October and we will be so sad when he leaves. He is 20 pounds and lets me hold him like a nursing baby. He sleeps on Vince’s pillow at night. He runs into walls because he is blind.

I know I said no more instagram photos, but it’s not true. I am a hypocrite.

After a tough, tough summer with Edda’s moods, we have now had a few weeks where Edda is happy and excited to be out and about,  I hope this mood never goes away. This weekend I took her Vince’s soccer game and it was fine. Almost relaxing. I was beginning to doubt myself that I could take Edda on my own into the outside world, but there I was on a beautiful day with my beautiful daughter just hanging out.

I almost can’t believe it, but I have been a diligent runner since the beginning of summer – I’ve found an early morning running partner, I’ve found a running club, I’ve found race friends. It doesn’t mean that I don’t run on my own, one of the best parts of running is that it is cheap and fast, you leave your house and you are back home at the end of the workout – no scheduled class to make, no drive to the gym – this week, I’m doing early morning runs by myself and Maxi – rocking out to my electronica music and wearing my reflective safely patrol gear.

Maxi is usually a very good running partner, eager and persistent and excited. All the motivation I need to head out in the dark and cold. Yesterday provided an extra challenge – pouring rain. I though I saw a break in the rain when I headed out, but by the time I hit the half mile mark, I was soaked through and Maxi was looking very, very sad and not going very fast. So I took a shortcut and headed home. As soon as Maxi discovered that we were headed home, she practically broke out in a sprint.

Hours later, it was still pouring – Vince convinced me to walk to school. That did not work out so well 🙁

Thank goodness for nice picture quality. No more instagram photos. Whew. (Well OK, maybe there will be a few more, but I’m going to try and go back to the DSLR.)