THE core workout

I realized here, during a run in the rain while wearing a white t-shirt, that some ab work was in order. But I didn't do anything about it.
Then I remembered here, while skating with the squid, how important core work is and that it needed to become a regular part of my exercise/life regimen.
There are so many possible core/ab workouts to do, all of which come highly recommended by whoever does whatever one... how to choose?
My husband swears by the P90X Ab Ripper workout... but just thinking about Tony Horton started me giggling.  I don't know why, but that guy just cracks me up.

Then my husband found THIS...




Yeah, baby!

This is the one I want to do!  And it looks like it'll help with my upper body strength, too... BONUS!

So I have started.
I am in the visualization stage right now.  That is where I watch the video wipe up the drool and then visualize myself doing it.  I take myself through each stage, breathing, tensing, clenching...
as if I were doing the workout myself.

I haven't noticed any results in my own core yet.

Might be time to ratchet things up a notch...
and actually do it ;-)

What sort of core work are you doing?
– prior to starting this visualization training (lol), I was sitting up in bed every morning. Bending over to put my shoes on. Reaching and twisting to put groceries away.  That's about it.

Skating with a Squid

On Monday, Miss C turned TWO!  And so we enter the Terrible Twos...

The older three kids had the day off ... yes, you read that right... another day off.
After all, they do go to the school that seems to have the most holidays in the whole entire universe.  You can read more about that here.

Given that it was a holiday and a birthday, I thought we should do something special.  We had been talking about doing a family ice skating outing.  The older three take skating lessons and Miss C always has to go along and is just fit to be tied that she is not able to do it yet.  So it was decided... ice skating for her birthday.  Sounds fun, right?

You must also live in my World of Delusion ;-)

Here is Miss Cuteness getting geared up...

Ice skating with a two-year old is like trying to skate with squid! Imagine that, and you have a great sense of what it felt like on the mom end.  Holding 25 lbs. of sliding, boneless body... while teetering on skates yourself.  In the 45 minutes that it took us to do three laps around the rink, I realized two big things:

1. I am no longer what I would call a "strong skater."
2. I need to do start doing core work.

Even though my back would disagree, it was fun.  Miss C LOVED it!  So much so that she flipped out when it was time to go....

Is it mean that I filmed that?

I would have liked to have gotten more pictures, but I was the only adult in our group and was hard-pressed to just stay upright (more like hunched over yet not fallen down) let alone get some photos of the event. I tried enlisting the older kids to that end, but to no avail...they seemed more interested in bickering over who was going to get what kind of candy bar from the vending machine when we were done.


I do give the experience two big thumbs up, however.  And I look forward to doing it again :)  Really.
After I do a little core work, maybe... and Miss C learns a little more about 'body tension'.


Do you like ice skating?  Roller skating?  Which do you think is easier?

My Magic Baby Turns Two!

Miss C is my magic baby.  For so many reasons.

She was a most wanted surprise.

When you have a lot of kids and when you have kids and you are old, people ask a lot of probing questions.  "Was she planned?" has been the most frequent one.

Ummmm... it is pretty hard to plan a baby when you are 45 years old!?

I knew she was special (yes, they all are, but this one is different) when I was about 8 weeks pregnant.  My husband was very worried.  Knowing there would be lots of negativity from family.  Ten kids is a lot.  Money.  My health.  Baby's health.  His age.  My age.  One night in the midst of all this worry, I woke up and I woke him up.

"She wants to be wanted.  She wants to not be feared."

Little Baby inside told me this.  I know it sounds all new-age-y and airy-fairy, but she did.  It was strange because I had been convinced baby would be a boy (and this conviction was strengthened by my acupuncturist's prediction).  We found out 12 weeks into it that she was, in fact, a she.  I had genetic testing (CVS) and so it was certain... as was the fact that she was genetically healthy :)

It was an amazing pregnancy, and I looked at it as the gift it truly was.  It would be my last.  I relished every part of it... especially the baby moving part... my favorite :)  My due date was given as Q-Man's birthday... March 6.  He told me he wanted to be 4 before the baby came.  She complied.  I went into labor at 10 p.m. on his birthday, and she was born the next afternoon.

Her birth was different from the other 3 kids'.  I was the calmest ever.  The nurses and doctors in attendance were so fun and friendly!  It was almost like a party!  I sang to the anesthesiologist (he said that was a first... it was "Good ship lollipop"... for real).  A mere 7 minutes from "ready to go" to baby on my chest.  And she was born in the caul (en-caul according to this article).  I wouldn't let them break my water because my oldest two had dipped into distress when that was done.  The doctors were really excited to see a baby born in the bag!  I wish I could post pictures... it looks really cool... but some people are not "into" birth pictures... and I am not so sure I want that view of myself on a public blog :P

So here she is... my magic girl...

Less than 5 minutes out of the oven...

Been out in the world just under an hour...

  Less than 24 hours and meeting her brothers and sister for the first time... 

Six months and figuring out how to crawl...

She fits right in!

Three days before her 1st birthday... loves to play patty-cake!

Mittens!

18 months old... look at those teeth!

And today...

we went ice skating for her birthday.  

It was her first time on the ice...

and she LOVED it!!

Tomorrow I'll put up more about the skating :)

Right now it is time for the cake!

Super score. Hard fall.

Trying to find an activity that all of the kids like has not been easy.  Swimming works but is best for the summer as coordinating class times is possible.  Once fall rolls around, they would be two on a team and one in lessons... so someone would be cold and wet and two others would be swimming more than they really enjoy and entertaining a toddler at the pool is just so NOT fun or safe.

Well, we finally found something they all LOVE!  Ice skating!  I have a fondness for this as it reminds me of my childhood.  I took figure skating lessons for about 3 years.  The smell of the rink is so nostalgic.  I smile every time we go inside.  The only small hitch is that the older two have flat feet and over-pronate pretty significantly.  Rental skates suck.  Watching them try to go straight on one foot, do cross-overs, etc. is painful... their ankles bend in so severely.  Their instructors recommend we buy them skates, even cheapies.  Anything would be better than rentals, they said.  Hmmmm.  How much will THAT set us back?

I started looking in the usual cheapskate (lol) places... craigslist and ebay.  Nothing.  Then I looked on the bulletin board at the rink (didn't know they had one or I'd have checked sooner).  There were some in Baby X's size looking in fairly decent shape from the not-so-great photo for $35.  Called the number, arranged a meeting to try them on ... at the rink during a public skating session on Sunday.  Cool, I thought.  I'll take the kids skating!

The skates fit.  Yay!  And were in much better condition than they looked to be in the picture.  Yay!  And the same skates were $279+ tax in the skate shop new.  And we got them for $35!  THAT, my friends, is a Super Score!

Then I fell.

I didn't remember ice being that hard.

Kind of like not remembering childbirth being that painful.

It really hurt.  Not as much as childbirth, but that moment when all of my weight landed on my hip bone and I lay there sprawled out on the ice, it really hurt.  And I had to work to keep my "game face" on.  I tend to be more of a "c'mon, brush it off.  You're fine" kind of mom and I needed to do that to myself in front of my kids!  Put it all in a new perspective, for sure!  I think I'll be checking in with them a little more carefully and compassionately from now on when they take a tumble.

No pictures of the nice, round, silver-dollar sized bruise... but trust me, it's there and it's blue and it hurts.