Finally taking commands!

I've waited for this day for a long time. All of Faith's life, I've asked her questions:

What do you want for lunch?


Do you need a fresh diaper?


Can you believe the Mideast peace process is stalled again?

She never responds or even raises her eyebrow at my questions, until recently. Now if I suggest something to her, she actually communicates with me. I was so excited the other day when I realized if I asked her to point to the cat in her book, she actually did it! If I ask her to move a toy, she'll move it! Now I just need to train her to clean the house....

I've always known what you're saying

But now I enjoy your reaction if I actually do what you ask

"Move the piano" you say. What am I, your servant?

I don't think you can make me relocate my toys until I'm 13

Faith and I read her picture books at least 46 times a day. I think that's why she can always point to the right picture if I ask (practice makes perfect!). She will literally smack me in the head with this book until I read it to her.

Every chapter is a cliffhanger

Read it again Mommy!

Don't make me stomp my adorable foot!

Now Peanut isn't the only one who sometimes listens to me in the house when I give a command.

If you say "Peanut, go to sleep!" I'll do it

I'm going to try a command on you: Enter my Fisher House raffle! Haha, if half of you listen as well as the baby or the dog, we might get 1 or 2 more entries. It's only $5.00 to enter and if you donate $50, you have the option of requesting that I wear your name somewhere visible as I run the Marine Corps Marathon. :)

If you could teach a small child any command, what would it be? My husband thinks "Get Daddy a beer" would be a good one for developing motor skills. :)

You know you're a runner when...

When someone mentions a 100 calorie snack and this is your first thought:

When you don't remember what it's like to shower without being coated in sweat first.

When chafing makes the shower more painful than the run.

When your running shorts have left a tan line that's longer than your normal shorts:

Who needs the top of their head in a picture anyway?

When you are cleaning up the baby's mess for the 57th time and your only thought is "Wow, this is a great hamstring stretch!"

You have no idea how much I need those cabinet child locks

When someone is talking to you about something normal and you're still thinking about running.

When you find yourself using terms like "PR" and "negative splits" in normal conversation.

When the neighbors know you as "the chick who is always out running"

Who wouldn't want to run with this view?

When your baby prefers a Camelbak water bottle to any of her sippy cups.

When you justify doing crazy things like signing up for a 50 mile race by thinking "Well, at least I'm not a cyclist. Those people are NUTS"

He has worse shorts tan lines than I do

When you see a video like this, at least a part of you is thinking "Man, I need that squirt bottle on my next hot run!"



Now it's your turn! You know you're a runner when....

Team Fisher House Raffle!

As I have mentioned, I am running the Marine Corps Marathon this October for Team Fisher House. The Fisher House is a fantastic charity that provides free housing to military families when their loved one is in a military hospital. This lets the family give support to their loved one without having to stress about excessive travel or hotel fees. The Fisher House is more than just free housing, it's also a family environment (it's usually an actual house, not a hotel-type building) and the families can give each other support through a stressful time. I'm excited to raise money for this charity because it's such a great cause and I know that if I had a military loved one at a hospital far from home, the Fisher House would be a great resource.

Two great companies have agreed to donate items for the raffle: Allied Medal Displays and Road ID! The third prize will come from yours truly.

Prize 1: An Allied Medal Display of your choice!

Here are some of my favorites:

I already  have one of these on my Christmas list. I know a lot of runners out there really enjoy medals (cough, cough Alyssa) and this is a great way to display them versus shoving them in a drawer like I currently do.

Prize 2: A Road ID of your choice!

The selection of Road IDs is great: you can get one for your shoe, or as a dog tag, or as a cute bracelet. Every runner and biker needs to have one of these! I have the shoe one for myself and a wrist one for Faith since she comes running with me. I feel better knowing she has her information on her in case a bear pops out of the woods and eats my shoe with the Road ID. :)

Prize 3: Mystery Surprise Fun Box!

I want to make this prize special for whoever wins it. If you're a runner, it could be a box full of great gear and if you're a mom, maybe it's a cute outfit for your little one! If you're a big fan of desserts, maybe it's a cookie delivery! Once the winner is drawn, I'll ask a few questions of the winner (or just read their blog if they have one) and go from there!

How to Enter: Go to my Donation Page and for every $5.00 you donate, you get one entry into the raffle. With 3 prizes, you have a good chance at winning! If you already donated, I will make that count for the raffle, so for every 5 dollars, that will be one entry. Just let me know that you want to be entered so I don't accidentally award a prize to someone who isn't interested in awesomeness.  

I get an email notification when a donation is made, so there is no need to leave a comment on this post to let me know. I will keep a spreadsheet of everyone who donates and I will pick a winner on August 3rd. 

Please blog and tweet about this raffle so we can raise more money for a great cause!

My husband and Peanut say: Don't go to sleep tonight without entering this raffle!

And he claims to not like the dog...HA!

The Hunger Games is detrimental to my parenting

Every now and then I come across a book or series that sucks me in. I started the Hunger Games on Sunday night and I'm about half way through the third book now. I've been very impressed with the books so far, especially since I originally thought it was a diet book. :)

While I was caught up in reading, Faith decided to clean out the pantry.

Mommy, do we have ingredients to make cookies?

I want cookies

Well, if you're just going to read, I'll make cookies

I'm glad yesterday was a rest day because it's hard to read a book and run on the treadmill at the same time. :)

I'm running 7-8 miles today per my 50 mile training plan. I have changed my training plan because I found another that actually accounted for running the Marine Corps marathon. I liked the weekday running of the first plan, but the weekend running of the second plan, so I'm just going to mash them together. The second plan was more conservative on the weekend runs (in terms of 50 mile training anyway) and since my goal is to finish, not place in my age group, it seems like if running 6 hours a weekend will cut it versus running 9 hours, I'm going for the 6 hours. The less time I spend away from Faith and my husband, the better I'll like a training plan!

Tomorrow I'm going to be announcing a raffle to raise money for the Fisher House charity. I have fun prizes lined up and I would want all of them, so it's going to be good. :)

Have you ever won anything in a raffle? I won walkie talkies in a raffle during the "Graduation All Night Party" raffle in high school. Other people won things like T.V.s, but you can't have conversations in code and say things like "Roger that" with a T.V., so I was the real winner.

So, that makes you a MILF, right?

It's official: I'm too old for the bar scene, or at least the bar we visited on Saturday night for my best friend's bachelorette party.

Saturday started pretty early because I got up at 4:50am for a run with a few brave friends. It was already 81 degrees by 6am, so it was a sweaty run. We finished up 10 miles in 1:35 and then I got cleaned up and headed to northern VA for the bridal shower.

The bridal shower was really fun. The games were a hit, especially the team competition to make a wedding dress out of toilet paper:

Who needs a real wedding dress?

 We had a great spread of sandwiches from Cosi, but there was something strange about the veggie platter:

Scallions?

It seems like they ran out of celery and put green onions on the platter instead. Shocking, but no one munched on straight green onion or the whole radishes. :)

After the shower in Ashburn, VA we all headed to the Westin in Arlington to get ready to go out. My best friend's fiance was nice enough to book us all a suite so we could crash after going out since I and another bridesmaid lived 2 hours away.

Sleeper sofa sleeping!

The hotel room was great, except for the heat wave making the whole hotel hot. We thought it was just our room, but I think everyone was jacking up their AC and the system just couldn't keep up. We had to get the bride-to-be ready in front of a fan so the make up wouldn't just sweat it all off.

They're not pooping, I swear

Eventually, we were all ready to go out to Georgetown!

Don't you just want to buy her a drink?

We went to some new hip place that all the young kids like called "3rd Edition". I'm pretty sure they just checked my ID out of politeness. I can tell I'm getting older because my first thoughts were "Why is the music SO loud? And what is that girl wearing? For shame!"

Nothing like standing in a bar with a bunch of sweaty people

When we first got there, it was pretty fun. The DJ played great "white person bar music". You know what I'm talking about: the songs like "Sweet Caroline" and "Billie Jean" that drunk white guys with popped collars love to sing while drinking. Anyway, that's our genre, so it was a good time.

As the night went on and the general population got more intoxicated, it got less fun. The DJ switched over to more of "Jersey Shore" house music that was just painful to my ear drums. Andrea (the girl in the cute red dress) and I were the sober ones and the only 2 married ones in the group, so we occupied ourselves with dodging overly friendly drunk guys. I followed Alyssa's lead on making friends with bouncers and getting this guy to hang around with us helped keep the riff raff away:

Guess who is sober here

Around 1am, I felt pretty ready to head back the hotel, but the bride-to-be was nowhere near being done. We managed to drag her and the other bridesmaid who had been drinking out of the bar around 2:40am. Luckily, taxis were plentiful and we were all able to squeeze in one. 2 guys from the bar decided to follow us back to the Westin, but luckily the hotel had doormen, but it was still strange (in a pathetic way). These guys had been hanging around us all night. Initially, the one guy had started talking to me, but when I told him that I was an old married woman with a baby, he responded "So...that makes you a MILF, right?". Exactly dude. I just left my official MILF shirt at home. 

There was a lot of this

We got back to the hotel room and I tried to go right to bed, but it was hard because it was so warm. I feel asleep a little after 3am, but I still woke up at 6:30am, which seems to be as late as I can sleep. I made good use of my time and hit the hotel gym for a run. I was going to run outside, but I thought it would already be too hot. After about 3 miles in the hot hotel gym, I realized that my only benefit of being inside was the shade from the sun because it was so hot and humid in that gym. I did 6 miles in 55 minutes and even did some weights, just because they were there. 

When it got close to 10am, Andrea and I went to the Starbucks and got breakfast for the two hung over sleepy heads back in the room. We figured it was nicer to wake them up with breakfast in our hands versus waking them up to go for breakfast. I had the sausage, egg and cheese english muffin from Starbucks and it was surprisingly good, but I was very hungry when I had it, so maybe it's just OK if you're not starving. 

My little bitch of a GPS made me drive through Anacostia on the way home, but I did make it back in one piece. Seriously, why isn't there a "Avoid ghetto" option for GPS yet? I know I'd pay extra for that. I was completely trusting that little device and it keep randomly saying "Recalculating" while I was driving in a straight line and making my blood pressure spike. I don't have a ton of experience driving through SE D.C. (I like to stick to N.W.), but I'm 100% certain that driving past the National's stadium was not the fastest way home.

I was so glad to get home and hug my little stinker (and my husband too). Faith seemed to have a lot of fun while I was gone, so that makes it easier to be away. When I got home, she wanted to show me her new game of sitting in her toy box:

I just need some snow and then I'm going somewhere!

So many choices, so little time

She likes to think inside the box

Today is the first official day of JFK 50 mile training! Like all good training plans, this one starts with a rest day. :)

What's the best or worst pick up line you've ever heard? On Saturday night, one guy came up to me and just said "I want to get married." and I just said "That's nice, I'm sure you'll find someone one day" :P

Self timer and 7 links

I have ground breaking news: I have figured out how to work the self timer on my camera. That means I might actually start including photos of me on the blog, instead of just baby and dog photos! For example, you are going to start getting lovely pictures like this: Me after a 6:45am 4 mile run:

Peanut photobomb!

I can almost promise that Peanut will find a way to be in every picture.

No one actually tagged me for this, but I'm not going to let that stop me...Time for the 7 links!

Most Beautiful: Since Faith is the most beautiful thing on my blog, I'd have to say her 1st birthday post is the most beautiful since it had so many great pictures of her growing up.

I didn't authorize the use of my cuteness

Most popular: For some reason, the post that gets the most traffic is Dog of My Dreams. It only got 3 comments, but it gets a ton of traffic from people searching for information about the dog breeds I discussed. Go figure. :)

Peanut thinks people read the blog for her

Most controversial: I don't stir up a lot of controversy here with my discussions of running and poop, but my one post about Disney princesses and their negative images did stir a little controversy. Also, I learned a very important lesson: never blog about Disney princess if you have the word "lick" in your blog title or else you'll get some strange search terms leading to your blog.

You searched WHAT?

Most helpful: I don't consider myself to be an expert in much, so I've only ever written one helpful post: So You Want to be Crazy Like Me? about getting into running. It has some good tips, but nothing ground breaking.

This is just gibberish to me

Surprise success: I think the fact that anyone other than my mom reads this blog is pretty surprising. :)

Not Enough Attention: My post about Faith's milk protein allergy and reflux is one entry that I wish more people would read. It's so, so common for newborns to have reflux and I had no idea about all of those issues before I had a baby and I want to tell everyone who has a colicky baby to try reflux meds and special formula. I would seriously write a love sonnet to Neocate for making a formula that solved my baby's eating issues. :)

Most Proud: My recap of my first marathon. That was the toughest race I've run (to date) and I think the recap really captures that. It could use more pictures, but I didn't run with my camera. :)

Now it's my turn to make 5 other people do this fun 7 links thing (even though I did it as a renegade, so it's probably not binding).

• Kari at Running Ricig
• Alyssa at Chocolate is my Life
• Emily at In The Between
• Sarah at Running On Words
• Brian at Something to Chu On

Feel free to just do it anyway. Not being tagged didn't stop me. :)

Post 50K workouts and crazy baby

After last month's 50K, I didn't take much time off before diving back into running. This time I want to do things differently because I want to be in a good place physically before 50 mile training sets in (July 30th is day one!).

Monday: Off completely. I was very sore from the race on Sunday, so I didn't do anything beyond my usual 2 mile morning walk with the baby and the dog. Even that walk felt like hard work!

Tuesday: I felt much better on my walk in the morning, but I didn't want to run just yet. One of my nice neighbors gave me an Insanity workout DVD (Cardio Resistance or something like that), and I decided to do that instead of running. Most workout DVDs don't give me a good cardio workout, so I went into it thinking I'd get some good toning and maybe break a little sweat. Wrong! This was a pretty tough workout! I was sucking wind at some points with all the jumping and ended the 40 minutes dripping with sweat.

Wednesday: Woke up pretty sore from the Insanity workout, but only in my back. I guess that's my punishment for slacking on push-ups lately. For my workout, I ran one mile, walked a mile, ran another mile, and then walked another mile. My legs felt good, just a little fatigued and sore.

Today: I'm back to running. I'm going to do 4 easy miles with a friend in the neighborhood at 6:45am in attempt to run before it gets too hot. I'll have the baby and the dog, so I'm not expecting this to feel like an easy run.

I'm going to be gone Sat-Sun for a bridal shower/bachelorette party thing, so I don't think I'll get a long run done (beyond 10 miles) on Saturday morning, so I'm probably not going to take Friday off from running like I usually do.  My first weekend of 50 mile training has an 3 hour run (~18 miles) and a 90 minute run (~10 miles), so I should try to enjoy this weekend of no long runs. 

In other exercise related news, Faith was bouncing off the walls today. Maybe it's because she actually ate all three of her meals today with minimal throwing of food (she must have read my blog post). 

I'm wearing bear pajamas while holding a bear!

Wait a second...

I have to go check something...

Aha! Mommy, you forgot to plug in your lap top!

Faith got this pony for her birthday and she's a big fan. She has some problems with the mount and dismount, but that's what I'm here for...to endlessly lift her on and off the pony:

This is my excited face

The pony needs a name. It came with the name "Rody" but that's just not adequate. What would you name this pony? 

Free will is overrated

When we first brought Faith home from the hospital, she ruled our days and nights. Most of our energy was spent trying to desperately figure out what she needed (Diaper? Probably. Hungry? Probably. Gassy? Probably.) She never stop dictating our days and nights, but things did get easier as we learned our way.

After a few months, you hit a pretty sweet spot where the baby is just wowed by the light reflections on the wall and they can't move any where on their own. Eventually they learn to move and before you know it, they start having "opinions" about things.

Lately, Faith has been asserting herself more. I think it's connected to the walking. The better she's getting at walking, the more assertive she's getting about everything else. She doesn't have a large vocabulary, but that doesn't mean I don't know exactly what she's trying to tell me.

Geez Mom, I'm not a BABY anymore.

Problem 1: Random Naked Baby

On three separate occasions now, I've gone up after she's woken up from a nap and found a naked baby in the crib. She somehow Houdinis herself out of her sleep sack without even unzippering it and then she likes to play with the velcro on the diaper. One of those times she had poop in her diaper and you can imagine that mess. I normally just put her in the sleep sack with just her diaper on because it's so warm, but I guess that is going to have to change. The real concern is now she is also trying to take off her clothes when she's downstairs too. She can take off her shirt, but hasn't figured out pants yet. I am going to be that parent with the naked toddler streaking through the house.

Problem 2: Bratty Eating

This is completely a problem of my own creation, stemming largely from my fear of the kid going hungry. Her food throwing is getting really out of hand and I thought training the dog to the stay in the other room would make it less fun to throw the food, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

I take one bite out of each and then I'm done.

I know the key is to not give her more food if she throws her food. We are starting today with a new rule: Eat what Mommy puts on your plate or wait until the next meal to eat again. I'm giving her foods that she likes, so it's not like I'm trying to force her to eat kale or something, but she's just holding out for goldfish or crackers instead of real food. I'm positive once she realizes that she doesn't get an alternative meal after she throws her food, she'll stop doing it. I just have to stay strong and not cave in and give her Goldfish or some other "baby snack food" instead of real food. She gets a mix of Goldfish and Teddy Grahams in a little container when she's in the stroller, so she really doesn't need any in addition.

Here's a video of what's been happening at almost every meal:



I have to admit that I'm not looking forward to feeling like a mean Mommy, but it's worth it to nip this in the bud before I end up with a 5 year old who refuses to eat real food in favor of snack food.

Also, because she never gets credit for doing anything good, Peanut deserves a gold star for being so patient about staying in the other room while Faith is throwing tasty treats on the floor.

No one appreciates me

Does anyone have an toddler feeding tips? Am I wrong in thinking that 4 bites of ravioli isn't an adequate lunch, or is that how other toddlers eat too?

What was the one food you drove your parents crazy about always wanting? For me, it was Kraft blue box mac 'n' cheese (and it HAD to be Kraft).

3 years ago today...

That hair took HOURS

Kneel in a wedding dress? Yeah, super easy.

So glad to be done with the "hard" part!

I didn't even trip!

A limo! It's like prom, but we don't have to share!

So ladylike

Our own golfcart!

It's a good thing he's driving that thing

Getting married in mid-July is HOT

Screw these pictures, let's go back inside

Ah, AC

So glad I went with the 4 inch heels

Best wedding planning decision I made was this cake

Guess which one is Brian?

Wait, why do we have to cut this cake? Isn't there waitstaff for this?

What I wouldn't give for another piece of that right now

I don't even know

Breaking my bustle was kind of a buzz kill on the dancing

I could get all lovey-dovey and talk about my husband, but that would be a kind of "anti-present" for him since he greatly enjoys NOT being discussed on my blog, so I'll talk about the wedding photography instead.

For all of you ladies out there who aren't married yet, this is my biggest piece of advice: be cheap about many things, but not the photography. I found a very cheap guy and thought it wouldn't really matter because how hard can it be to take pictures? (Very hard apparently)

At one point during the ceremony, he must have gotten bored and he went off and started taking self portraits. How do I know this? Because he didn't bother to delete them when he gave me the disc of the wedding pictures. I guess I know why we only have a few pictures of the ceremony. :) Also, all of the church pictures are orange-y. Photography savvy people have told me that's a lens issue (or a filter issue, I don't really listen), and it's a pretty basic skill to mess up.

Orange you glad to see me?

I'm not super happy with any of our wedding photos taken by our photographer. I actually preferred the ones that Brian took with his fancy camera, and he was just there as a guest. Maybe one day while I still fit into my dress I'll do one of those "trash the dress" photo shoots with my husband. It seems silly at this point, but it's not completely out of the question.

Picture by Brian

Also, our engagement pictures were strange too, but the time was so cramped (I planned the whole shebang in about 6 months) that I didn't have time to find another photographer. In my understanding, engagement pictures are of the couple, but he kept insisting on taking pictures of just me. So I have a bunch of random pictures like this:

Really?

And not so many couple photos. He was a strange dude.

What part of your wedding (past or imaginary future) did you not scrimp on? I went all out for the cake and that was a fantastic decision. It was such a good cake that there weren't any leftovers, which means almost everyone had to have eaten more than one piece.