What a week we’ve had. We’ve all been fighting this cold/illness/evil bug of doom for over a week and it decided to kick us while we were all down. On Tuesday, I took OP with me to the walk-in clinic for pink eye. Does my daughter have pink eye? Thankfully, no. Yet somehow Mommy has pink eye, but OP’s eyes are perfect. I have no idea how she missed it and how I got it if not from her.

On Wednesday, OP was sent home with fever. The Husband took her to the regular doctor and she has a sinus infection. Thursday, the Husband went to the walk-in clinic and came home with a diagnosis of sinus infection. Everyone’s on some sort of drug and everyone is tired of being sick. The Husband and OP are getting noticeably better. I, on the other hand, no longer have a pink eye. I’m feeling better overall, but not as well as the rest of my antibiotic-filled family.

I have snot!

On top of all the illness, this was my first week of my class. I was a little nervous before hand. First, as we all know from my non-graded, knitting class I NEED AN A. Second, I’m feeling the old. I’m only 35, but I’m almost twice the age of the freshmen. For those who don’t have a calculator, half of 35 is 17.5. Freshmen are 18. I’m old.

The first day of class was…frustrating. The professor is an expert in his field and I’ve heard he’s very good, but he’s the type of teacher who should be teaching barefoot, sporting love beads, and playing bongo drums. I’d say he would be smoking, but it is an exercise science class. The first class was devoted to the professor learning all 45 students’ names and having random conversations about something everyone said. My little inner Baljeet died a bit inside.

The second class was much better, although, again he was missing the bongo drums. Class covered an intro to what Exercise Science is and progressed into homeostasis, steady state, and inner control systems. I learned a lot. Thankfully I read the assigned chapters before class (go inner Baljeet!) because the book content was rushed over thanks to the intro and some outside conversations about health. Of course, the best part were the outside conversations.

So far I like the class, although we haven’t really gotten into the knitty gritty of it yet. There was no lab this week, so I’m sure I’ll be nervous next week before lab. I think I have to wear exercise clothing for lab. Oy. Hopefully I can exercise without hacking up a lung next week or I really will feel old.

Look, I'm mommy after a slow walk. Sick makes mommy's exercise funny.

The Husband recently completed his first Ironman! Of course, I braved the heat to watch him do amazingly well throughout the day.

Minutes after the Ironman and he's not falling over!

We all have a visual of what someone competing in an Ironman looks like, right? He or she is either cut with rather impressive (not necessarily big) muscles or just a skinny runner type (like the Husband). That’s not always the case. I was amazed by people competing who looked like normal, albeit pudgy, people. One gentleman I met was a second-time competitor at this Ironman and had at least four more lined up for the year. If you didn’t know he was a finisher, you would think that he might have a heart attack going up the stairs too vigorously.

The following week, the Husband did a short race. I know, I know. Why, if he just spent a little over 13 hours swimming, biking, and running 140.6 miles, would he do a 5k within a week? Wouldn’t he just want to take a couple weeks off to rest? Well, in fact he did take the week off by only doing the 5k and not the 15k on Sunday. As we watched the 9k racers cross the line, I saw someone who was overweight cross the finish line. Let me rephrase that. I watched someone, who society feels is lazy and can’t sit up from eating fried chicken, french fries, and chocolate in front of the TV without getting winded, cross the finish line (not last) after running 9 miles and looking quite good after.

Now, I could tell you that this is an excellent reason why you should never judge a book by its cover. I could tell you that it’s not about size, it’s about health and that so long as you are exercising the size doesn’t matter. I could tell you that stereotypes are stupid and you should try your best not to buy into them. I’m not going to tell you any of that because you are smart enough to realize that on your own. What I am going to tell you is that it was inspiring. All these people you would stereotypically consider to be unfit were doing things that most people in this country would never ever do, no matter how fit. All I’ve ever done is a 5k and a tiny sprint tri and I had rationalized not doing any more because I have bad knees. I felt very wimpy.

Don’t get me wrong. I have had bad knees ever since 6th grade where the joints were apparently overtaxed during a massive growth spurt. At least, that’s what my parents said the doctor said. Ever since then, my knees just never quite were as good as they should be. In high school I tore a ligament in my knee and surgery seemed to make a lot of it worse. But, are my knees really that bad or are they an excuse to get out of doing more? Am I just intrinsically lazy and have an excellent excuse built into my joints? I decided to test it out and challenge myself to a 10k race (that’s 6 miles). Originally, I was going to do the 10k next year, but we found one in November that not only is in my town but goes around my neighborhood. It can’t get any perfect than that, and I’m going to aim for it.

If I can’t do it, then I can’t. At least I’ll know that I made the attempt. Do I see myself doing more? I honestly don’t know. Yesterday I would have said that this was it, but now I’m thinking, if I can do 6 miles, why not 9 or 13? Or even *gasp* 26.2? Yeah, maybe not a marathon. It just sounds boring. I do blame the Husband though.

You can tell by the title that I have an admission to make. A dirty, little secret. I know what you are thinking. You are thinking that I just admitted to having a lot of shoes, how can I have more secrets? Well, I do. I’m just a complicated woman I guess. Please feel sorry for the Husband who has to put up with all this drama.

So, where was I? Oh yes, dirty little secret. I actually like running. I know! I’m just as horrified as you. I started running because the Husband made it look like fun. He lied. I kept running because I wanted to see if I could be just as brainwashed as all the limping, knee-busting, PR-attaining, fartlek training, mad runners out there. It took several years, but it’s done. I’m one of the brainwashed masses. I am now working on a sub-30 minute 5k which I have done on a treadmill but not yet outdoors. I purchased running sneakers that I only use for running. I shun cotton t-shirts. I even look forward to the occasional 5k races.

I hang my head in shame.

I figured since today is National Running Day it was as good a time as any to admit my new like for running. If anyone is thinking of trying to run, I say do it. As cliche as it may be, if I can do it, you can do it too. And don’t be all, but you already exercised a lot when you started blah blah blah. I could barely run half a block without wanting to pass out. I am just not designed for running. Sitting on the couch with some knitting watching TV? Yes. Zumba? Sure. Not running. Yet I kept trying.

The thing that kept me running was a weird sense of accomplishment after each run. It felt good to have gone out there and run, even if it was a lame, excuse-ridden, woe is me sort of day. So I kept at it, albeit not regularly and often grudgingly (and not at all while pregnant for fear of shaking OP loose). Recently though, something just clicked (or snapped), and I actually like running. I don’t even cringe anymore when I say that! The mental block I had that prevented me from improving just stopped and suddenly I’m pushing a 9:40 pace easily! The other day I bought a jacket that I thought would work for winter running.

I’ll pause a minute so you can let that sink in.

Winter running. Me.

I wonder what the Husband has put in our water. Could he be whispering in my ear at night? “You will like running…You will like running…” If that’s the case, you’d think he’d go with something more like, “You will stop being cranky…You will stop being cranky…” That would make his life much easier.

So as I said, today is National Running Day. Will I run today? Actually no. I ran yesterday (5k in 29:51!!! on the treadmill). Today I swam and hope to do Zumba. But I’m writing about running and I think that will count as good enough. You can go run for me today.

Last week was probably the week from hell for our little girl. Tuesday we received a call from daycare notifying us that OP had a rash. It didn’t sound like a major rash; all over her body, yes, but just an allergy. We decided to wait and see what she actually looked like in a few hours when we picked her up.

Our daycare is awesome and we are very happy with it, but occasionally we get a call that, “OMG come quick get the child! She’s diseased!” and we dutifully leave work and she’s 100% fine. Since the rash started in early afternoon and didn’t seem to be bothering her, we decided to wait. Of course, we called the doctor’s office first to make sure she was okay to stay but that we should get her in to see someone that night or the next day.

And here’s the fun part that you must remember for later in our story. Our doctor’s office was closed on Tuesday and Wednesday because there was something wrong with the building. No doctor was physically available.

The Husband and I walked into daycare to get OP. Our plan was to take her to dinner and the store before bed. That plan was derailed when we saw how bad the rash was. It had been getting worse with raised red bumps over a good portion of her body. Much screaming from the Daughter because THE NURSE LOOKED AT ME! and THE DOCTOR USED A STETHOSCOPE! and THEY! LOOKED! IN! MY! EAR! and we find out that our poor little girl had an allergic reaction to the antibiotics for an ear infection. Poor thing went into this appointment hating all things medical and that did not ease up after Tuesday.

We were sent home with a new antibiotic script and ben@dryl. Shortly after we got home, OP looked like this:

You have to love her attempt at a smile.

This was much better than when we saw her at daycare. You can imagine we were extremely relieved. That is, until found her in the morning looking like this:

Needless to say, we were worried, but we figured the ben@dryl just wore off and the rash came back like the doctor warned. Unfortunately, ben@dryl makes OP’s heart pound, teeth chatter, and body shake. Yup, some kids become hyper from the drug and ours was one of them. To be fair, she really enjoyed having teeth that chattered.

As the day wore on, she developed a temperature and her red spots started looking like bruises. Call the emergency line for the doctor’s office that is currently closed and get sent to their partner doctor 30 minutes away. Fever of 103, negative for flu, and the bruising spots are normal. OP screamed throughout BUT got her very first ice pop and that seemed to be almost worth the torment. I bet if they had given her a good flavor and not orange, she would have learned to love the doctor’s office.

Unfortunately as we were leaving, we were told to go the next day to our regular doctor to check on the fever. Our poor little girl who has been tortured by stethoscopes, suffered a fever, looked like she had the plague, and to top it all off had ears that hurt, had to go back to the doctor for the third time.

In three days.

At least she got a script for something to help with the rash.

Thursday OP still had a fever and the rash. Her fingers and toes had turned blue, but her oxygen levels were fine she just had to suffer the injustice of the oxygen clip on her finger a couple times which of course she did not like.

By Friday, she looked like this:

Much better, no? Her fever was gone and she was a happy little camper. Until Monday when she had a follow-up appointment. If I had my way, she’d be away from doctors for a while because it is so traumatic, but she needs to do it and eventually it will get better. We are thinking of buying her a stethoscope to play with so maybe that part will be a little more fun.