This and That

Hazel is full-on riding her bike without training wheels now.  She is still wobbly, but she can start on her own and turn around and man, she is fast.  She is too fast.  She hasn't dared to coast yet, so she is always pushing the pedals if she's not breaking, and if she's on a slope, she just blows past you.   I thought I was going to have a heart attack watching her today, but part of the problem was that my heart was already bursting with pride and joy for her.  She is loving it. 

Growling up in the tree - she was being a jaguar.

 

 

 

I got a sewing machine and have been using it to prep for Halloween.  Hazel asked a month or so ago if she could have a Peter Pan dress-up, and I told her I'd make her one as a costume if she was Peter for Halloween, and she could keep it in the dress-up box after that.  She was sold.  (I love that - last year it took weeks for her to choose between Rapunzel and a bat.  It's been awesome to have a solid plan with time to get everything ready.)  Anyway, I bought her leggings and sewed the top, but I chose the wrong type of material; it's ripped already and I'm going to have to make another one in a stretchy fabric.  But she wears it, and just says her clothes of leaves are getting worn out.   

It's pretty typical to catch Peter and Smee jumping on the couch around here.  Good thing we still have ghetto newlywed furniture so they can live it up. 

 Jack's taken a few super rough spills lately.  This lovely lump was the result of getting accidentally bonked by Hazel into the outward-poking corner of the wall as he headed up the stairs.  Then not a week later he got another goose egg on the other side of his forehead when we were camping. 

 Speaking of Jack, he is his father's son.  He lives for a reaction and is learning to be quite a pest of a little brother to get those reactions.  He totally does stuff only to bother Hazel, like drink from her water bottle when his is right next to it, or steal food off her plate and quickly stuff it in his mouth to set her off screaming when he's got the same thing on his own plate.  Hazel has no grasp of the concept of ignoring him, either.  I'm trying to teach her, but so far it only results in her covering her eyes and peeking at Jack through her fingers, while she says things like, "I am not thinking about Jack right now.  I am not talking to Jack or looking at him."  Mmm, hmm.  A couple days ago they had an awesome fight at lunch time that I so wish I had recorded.  It consisted basically of:
J: Uh-uh.
H: No, don't say uh-uh anymore. 
J: Uh-uh.
H: No more uh-uh!
J: Uh-UH!
H: Don't uh-uh anymore!!!
J: UH-UUUUHHHH!
Hazel was fully agitated, and Jack could not wipe the grin off his face.  Fun times to come, folks.  Fun times... 

 

We set up bunk beds for the kids almost two weeks ago.  That's been  ..... interesting.  I thought we'd made a deathly mistake the first couple of days and almost asked Todd to take it all apart.  Jack's been a maniac, out of bed and into everything, and doing it all (we finally realized a few days ago) just to hear Hazel saying, "No Jack, get back in bed!" for two hours every night.  There's a child lock on the door so he can't get out, and the last three or four nights we've put Hazel to bed on our bedroom floor and then put her in her bed when we go to sleep.  Parenting, it's such a cycle of re-learning concepts again and again.  Todd and I finally put two and two together and decided we needed to sleep-train Jack, so he's been solo and we've been ignoring his cries and knocks at the door, and sure enough, all it's taken was a few days and he's doing much better going to sleep in there now. 

 I was even able to put Hazel to bed with him tonight.  We've been re-reading J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan and tonight we read a part where Peter climbs onto the pirate ship making a tick-tick sound and Hook thinks Peter is the crocodile and is super scared.  After reading that, Hazel wanted to pretend to be Peter pretending to be the croc while she climbed into bed tonight, and she was brokenhearted that I wanted her to sleep on the floor in my room again.  I caved decided to just give it a go and put her back in their bedroom.  And it worked.  Just a couple bumps, but they were both asleep in half an hour or so, which is quite reasonable, so I think we're making it there with Jack-o and the Bunk Bed after all. 

Alright, one last thing.  It took a while to get a picture because I had to snag one from a friend (Todd had drill and wasn't there and I didn't bring my phone) and then I forgot I hadn't blogged about this.  I ran my 5K on September 8th! 

I was so proud of myself for accomplishing this (huge and monumental for me) goal.  I had never run a 5K before.  Heck, I had barely ever run at all before.  But I was bound and determined to do it (striving for an 8-pounder here).  I trained well: 30 minute runs three times a week for two months before the race.  It helped me gain weight more slowly than with my other two pregnancies.  Assuming I gain a pound a week from here on out, I'm on track to gain 29 or 30 lbs instead of 36 (Hazel) and 37 (Jack).  So the running did me good. 

But no, I'm not still running.  I hurt my back right before the race, and prayed fervently that I'd feel better for the race, and did.  But then the next week I went running again and threw my back out and it kept me out of commission for four or five days.  My belly's just too big, yo.  So I'm back to walking and pilates and Jane Fonda aerobics.  ;)  However, if running can melt my love handles when I'm pregnant, I'm looking forward to seeing what it can do when I'm not with child.  I will definitely be giving it another shot next year.