When Aiden Picks Dinner

We have a fairly adventurous five year old who is not afraid to eat things that look like animals (see the Father's Day post regarding the calamari). This is what he picked from the fish counter at the grocery store for dinner. And he is VERY excited to eat it.

Prayer Request

A friend of mine had her baby on Saturday - a little girl named Kennedy. We got word the following morning that she (Kennedy) began to have seizures during the night. She was immediately transferred to Emmanuel NICU and remains there. They have done multiple tests and nothing is coming up as to what is causing them. She is on three different anti-seizure meds and so far, they are not working. Last I heard, it sounded like she is continuing to have numerous seizures per day and there is some brain swelling. Please keep them and the medical team in prayer as they try to work through this.

Father's Day Weekend

Just like we did for Mother's Day, we celebrated Father's Day all weekend. On Saturday, we let daddy sleep in and recover from the 50 hour work week he'd just had. He had worked 12 hours on Thursday, getting home at 9pm, then got up at 3am and went back to work, putting in another 10 hours. After hanging out at home for a while, we all headed out to the mall to buy the boys' outfits for their Aunt Laura's wedding in a few weeks. They're going to look so cute!

After the mall, we took John to dinner at Olive Garden. We had initially thought that going out to dinner on Saturday instead of Sunday would be less crowded, but that wasn't really the case. It was an estimated 30 minute wait, although they got us seated in less than 15. They were definitely very busy, as the waitress forgot my drink, and then gave John the wrong dinner. He had to wait a few more minutes to eat, but we'd gone for an early dinner so it's not like we were starving. The best part of dinner was Aiden trying a new food and LOVING it. You see, a few days before, Aiden was looking up squid online. I told him that squid could be breaded, fried, and eaten and it was called calamari. He asked if we could eat it and I told him that when we took daddy to dinner, we'd go somewhere that had calamari. When we got our menus, I asked Aiden what he wanted to eat and he said, "Calamari". I told him yes, we'd get calamari for an appetizer, but what did he want for dinner? Again, "Calamari". So he ordered ONLY calamari. When they brought it to the table, Aiden was fascinated by it. He picked it up and said, "It's a squid tentacle!!". I thought for sure he'd refuse to eat it, but he popped it in his mouth, announced that he loved it, and proceeded to have a plate of calamari for dinner. It was quite entertaining!

We skipped church the next morning because I came down with a sore throat late Saturday and the boys were dealing with a hacking cough, so we relaxed with daddy. We made blueberry pancakes and gave John his gift - Band of Brothers on DVD. The rest of the day was pretty low key, but it was just what we needed after a long week and dealing with prolonged illness.

To John: Thanks for being such a hard working, loving father to our children and for giving me the two best little boys in the world. I love experiencing parenthood with you!

Working It!

Thanks to some very motivational facebook friends, I began working out regularly again a few weeks ago. Holy cow. There are some muscles that have not been used in a while!

My first week was interesting. I started out really easy, but was still in a constant state of soreness all week. A few days into it, my appetite exploded and is still all wonky. I think my body is confused and is having trouble spreading out my needed calorie intake throughout the day. Instead, I'm barely hungry for half the day, then I'm starving at 2pm, again at 5pm, at 9pm, and at midnight. And I mean STARVING. Like I haven't eaten in days. I guess it's good that I'm not trying to lose any weight; just get myself back in shape and firm up some muscles after having two babies.

For now, I'm just exercising here at home. Eventually I'd like to sign up for a dance class, but I don't feel like my body is ready yet. I did a home instruction ballet video and ended up in tears. My legs have not been used like that since I was 19! My word, it hurt so bad. I was pretty sure that I used to train in ballet professionally, but after 45 minutes, I wasn't as convinced that I used to do that 40 hours a week.

One of the great things about our cable package is that we have OnDemand and ExerciseTV has an OnDemand channel. I LOVE it. There must be at least 100 videos available that cover any sort of exercise you could want. And from any time frame from 10 minutes to an hour. It's great and it keeps me from getting bored. I've done Jillian Michaels videos one night, then a belly dancing video the next, then a basic cardio, then weight training, then kickboxing.....it's awesome.

I'm loving how I feel. Although since the boys were sick, I spent five nights with just a few hours of sleep, barely being able to function during the day. There was no way I could work out - I'd collapse. My body just wasn't capable with the amount of sleep I'd been getting. So I didn't work out for almost a full week. And when they say that your body forgets quickly, they mean it. I felt like I was starting all over. But John noticed that my little love handles on the sides were smaller than they were before and I could actually feel my ab muscles starting to come back to life. I know I'll never be back to my high school professional ballet training days, but I hope to get close. I've got a ways to go still, but now that I'm beginning to see little changes, it's giving me motivation to keep going. Plus, I'm setting a good example for my children and we're beginning to eat healthier too. It almost makes me wonder why I ever stopped working out in the first place!