5K for Father's day

I tell my dad EVERY year that I am going to train for the Father's day race her runs every year in Fairhaven. This year, I am going to do it! I swear! (and I actually do!)

Today I went to the track near my house to "get my feet wet" and discovered that I am going to need a lot of help! I am the type of person who likes instant gratification and as far as training to run 3.1 miles, it's going to be anything but instant!

So with a little help from my friend Mike, I have a schedule to help me out in the coming weeks! I hope I will be able to stick to the schedule this year and actually run with my dad for Father's day!

Wish me luck!

This week, its all about just getting out there. If you have a school nearby, use the track because its nice and flat, and don't have to think distance, just time. Go out for a 3 minute walk, then 5 minute jog, and end with a 5 minute walk cool down. Make Sunday your long day, and try extending the jog to 7-10 minutes.

Next week, again 3 minute walk, 10 minute jog, 5 minute cool down walk. Sunday extend the jog to 12-15 minutes.

Week three. No more starting walk, just do a good job stretching.
Day 1 - 17 minute jog, 5 min cool down
Day 2 - 20 minute jog, 5 min cool down
Day 3 - 25 minute job, 5 min cool down
If you can fit in 4 days, do day 2 twice.

Week 4,
Day 1 - 30 minute jog, or 3.1 miles, with a cool down.
Day 2 - 20 minute jog, with a 5 min cool down
Race Day.

Any Guesses?

On a warm and breezy, sunny day...where did Erin go to play?

Not Me Monday

I am not obligated to plan a non- preschool graduation for June 12th and still only in the "coming up with ideas" stage of planning. Of course the night has been planned down to the food since September and I haven't been dreading this night since I took this position last June!

I have not been dealing silently with my case of pericarditis since September and today, the 3rd echo. I have had since September did not still show fluid around my heart! I am not secretly thinking it is all due to the toe nail infection I have had (untreated) since pregnant with Erin!! Yikes! That could be dangerous!

I have not been visiting my blog daily just to see that I have still no comments since returning to the bloggy world a few weeks ago. Was the first post back really that bad?!! I have not been singing the song that my mom used to sing to me when I complained that I had no friends, "Nobody likes me. Everybody hates me. I'm gonna eat a worm!" in my head every day!

A mom at Erin's school did not approach me and suggest that we exchange phone numbers so that Erin and her daughter get together for a "play date" sometime this summer. Erin is still a baby and wayyy too young for play dates!

I did not have a fabulous time with Erin, all by myself, at little ole' Slater Park this past Saturday and it certainly was not the high point of my busy weekend and this is not the picture I will use to prove my point!





Tag! You're it!

A post written by Erin...

Could you think of a better way to spend a Saturday morning? All of my favorite things...milk trucks, fire trucks, tractors and ...



my daddy!

Mother's Day...**WARNING>>>I haven't posted in a while, so this could be pretty lengthy!

I'm not sure if I am the only one who remembers things like this but I remember the exact day I became a mother. It was May 5, 2006. Now of course you all know that Erin was born on January 19th and not on a sunny day in May so you can do the math (I also remember that my LMP was April 21st) these are just things that I remember. When you are TTC (trying to conceive) for 7 months, you tend to remember things like that. Everything was charted and planned for those 7 months and when it finally happens it kind of stands out in your memory for a while (or 3 yrs.)

Mother's day was May 14th that year and I remember sitting in a little restaurant in my hometown having breakfast with Greg's family thinking, "I could be pregnant. This could be my first Mother's day"...and it was!

I also remember that it wasn't until May 19th that I found out that I was going to be a mother. It was a typical day in May. I decided to sleep in a little late that morning because there was a thunderstorm happening and I hate lightning.

**Back when I didn't have a 2 year old I could do stuff like wake up late on a work day. The only person I had to worry about was me and doing that takes about 10 minutes!

As I said, we had been TTC for a few months and so I had some spare HTP (pregnancy tests) lying around. Not sure what made me take a test that morning but I am glad I did! Greg had been telling me all week that he thought I was pregnant and I kept insisting that he was wrong. I just had a sinus infection and that afternoon I would go to see a dr. and have it taken care of. But he knew...

Of course the test came back positive and the urine test at the dr's that afternoon confirmed it. I was going to be a mother...finally!!

**Ok, this would be the part of the post where I insert all the funny pregnant belly pictures and such, but thanks to the old hard drive on our PC I lost all of those when our hard drive crashed a year ago. Hopefully some day we can retrieve them...

So here I am in my little silver car driving to work on what is now a sunny Friday morning now that the rain clouds pass, I hear a song by The Fray playing on my radio station, Mix 98.5..."everyone knows I'm in over my head, over my head..." Wonderful theme song for the mother-to-be!

I was sick for the first 3 months of my pregnancy with Erin. From morning until night I was full of nausea. I would get home from work each day and head straight for my bedroom upstairs. The smells that were coming from my first floor was making me sick to my stomach and I couldn't stand to be down there for any longer than I had to be. I lived on Cheerio's and Zantac and I couldn't wait to be out of my first trimester once the second finally came around.

While pregnant I went to 3 concerts and visited Disney World. I enjoyed every second of my "special treatment"...not having to set up cots at nap time, eating the rest of Constantina's lunch from Town Pizza (Just to be clear, I wasn't stealing the lunches of my students! Her family owns the restaurant and once and a while she would have her lunch delivered and let's face it, how much pizza and chicken fingers can one 4 year old eat?!)
I brought a HUGE lunch box to work with me and I ate ALL THE TIME! It was heaven. Normally suppress my appetite and now I was given strict orders to embrace it! I can honestly say that the best thing about pregnancy is all the food you eat during your second trimester!! I would get pregnant all over again just to have that healthy appetite...oh yeah, and for the baby too!!

Of course I gained a good amount of weight and wish I had the pictures to prove it. Greg and I had lengthy discussions (or you could call them arguments!) in the parking lot of Target each trimester. He never did understand my need to buy new clothes every 2 1/2 - 3 months. That was frustrating!

I acted like anything but a mother the day I became one. I was such a baby! After many painful attempts to turn my stubborn baby around we scheduled my c-section for January 19, 2007. I was totally freaked out about the whole surgery and I did nothing to hide my fear. My mom sat with Greg and I while I waited to be prepped for surgery. Actually I think they were the only ones who sat because I was shaking like a leaf! The shaking didn't stop until hours after the surgery and hours after I finally decided I wanted to "play with my baby". (minutes after Erin was born I was asked if I wanted to see her or hold her...or something and I told the nurse that I didn't want to play right now. Who says that?!!)

Once the meds. wore off, I was able to use the bathroom unassisted and my milk started coming in, I was sent home and I was finally able to enjoy being a mother. Everything seemed to come naturally and I was less freaked out about having a baby than I thought I would be. I really didn't mind the around the clock feedings once we got ourselves organized and realized that there was some sort of schedule forming (I'm ALL about organization and schedules...really...I am! Visit my classroom sometime just not my home!) Erin slept in our room with us in a pack and play on the side of my bed. It didn't bother me that we had to sleep with the bathroom light on for those early days, something that would normally annoy me. It didn't bother me that she was feeding around the clock and that I would often fall asleep while nursing and wake up when she was finished. I look back on those days and smile. There's nothing like the euphoria that you feel when you have an infant!

I sit here writing the early days of motherhood listening a CD that I made myself just one month after that positive pregnancy test, playing through a baby monitor. I made the CD for myself and my unborn baby and I remember listening to those songs daily in the shower..."Somewhere over the rainbow, blue birds fly,..."Some say love it is a river that drowns the tender reed"...,"the sun will come out tomorrow"..., "everyone knows I'm in over my head, over my head"!

Happy Mother's day! I hope you all take a moment and celebrate my interpretation of Mother's day and not some Hallmark holiday!



I feel like I should be giving you a present today, Erin. I wouldn't be celebrating today if it weren't for you. I love you Bubba!

Correction...

You know the last post that I posted last Monday? Well, forget you ever read it!

As quickly as it came, it went. I posted Monday night and by Tuesday morning I was back to the same grouchy, depressed, anxious, annoying person I had been just days before.

Blood work on Saturday and probably a visit to the dr's sometime...can't go the 30th, Erin has an appointment, can't go the 2nd I have a work thing all day...(sorry, I was just thinking (typing) out loud!)

What am I going to do with myself?!

Living life with a broken thyroid

** I apologize ahead of time for my many typos, misspelled words and run on sentences!


I will never be fixed.

Sure, I will take a pill once a day for the rest of my life but that doesn't mean that I am "cured" of this disease.

Hypothyroidism.

It's annoying beyond words and the past few months have been hell for me. I have been working with my doctor on trying to regulate my medication. The dose has been lowered time after time but my symptoms of an "normally" under active thyroid turned over active were lingering on and on (and on...)

I really wanted to write about it and share just what exactly was going on and why I hadn't really been "seen" for a while, but I couldn't do it, literally couldn't! My memory had escaped me. I couldn't form a sentence let alone write one down. I would come to the computer every night and read all the familiar posts that friends, family and strangers had written. I had wanted to write so bad at times it was painful that I wasn't able too.

I wasn't able too do a lot of things I enjoy. I wasn't able to come home on a 1/2 day and take Erin to the playground or enjoy the outdoors. I wasn't able to keep my eyes open past 3:30 PM and for many weeks, Erin sat in front of the television on those 2, 1/2 days a week watching Noggin until I dragged my exhausted butt off the couch and scramble to make her dinner. She would bath on Sunday or Monday and not have another bath until Thursday because I just didn't have the energy.

My laundry somehow got washed, but they stayed unfolded in the basket, sometimes until it was full of week old dirty laundry again. I could care less about what I wore to work and am amazed that I never wore the same outfit twice in one week.

I felt like a caged animal. My doctor brought this to my attention. I told her at one visit when I was at my wits end that I felt like all my emotions were on the surface, raw and exposed. I felt like I was one wrong look from someone, anyone, away from going off the edge. She described it like being a caged animal and the person on the outside just dragging a stick back and forth along the cage. Then that person opens the cage!! Can you imagine?!! It's a HORRIBLE feeling. A horrible way to feel all day long for weeks on end and having to work with 4 and 5 year olds all day. Talk about lack of patience!

I was inchs from walking in to my boss' office and telling her that I was not cut out for the job and demand for her to demote me. It felt as if my classroom and the world around me was swallowing me whole and there was nothing I could do about it but just stand there and watch it happen. I was frozen.

Thankfully I have a husband who loves me unconditionally. He's not actually that patient in the midst of it all and really isn't much of a help at all when I am feeling down and low (nice Jen, nice!) But during times like those, the only one who can help me is my mom so there really isn't much he can do that can help. But once the meds have started to do their purpose, Greg is ALWAYS there to just jump back in with me.

And that is where I am at today. I have been on the new dose for about a week and a half. I was miserable and trying to schedule a consultation with a therapist one day and the next I was alert, alive and feeling much better. I know I am not exactly where I should be yet, but it's a welcome start. It's 9:30 PM and I am awake, showered, fed and content. My laundry is washed, folded and hung. Lunch for Erin has been made and her outfit for school tomorrow picked out. She has been bathed and her hair in elastics and out of here face. Greg is out playing basketball and I am not curled up on the couch in the fetal position waiting for him to come home.

I will enjoy this energy while it lasts because like all those other moments of clarity that happened back when I had been feeling well, they are fleeting. At the drop of a hat things could change and I could be back to the way I was before. I'm just going to take this all in and make up for lost time (and posts!)

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Our visit to Boston and drop off our Pennies for Patients donations:

Erin, Caroline and I



I walked these hallways with Erin everynight while we were in Boston passing other "heart moms" trying to get their unconsolable child to sleep. It felt so good to be able to walk down that same hallway hand in hand with my healthy hero!


Our healthy family


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St. Patrick's Day

Picture day

random day

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Easter (my mom made the adorable dress!)


Pa's hat is more fun to wear than a bonnet!



We waved at the Easter bunny at Swansea mall for 3 straight Saturdays but never had our picture taken. Erin did however find these bunny ears on the ground in the parking lot on the way home!




**I hope I will be back soon!