Half Marathon #2

Saturday, November 20th, I ran my second half marathon. It was a year and a half after the first and one baby later. My goal was to beat my time from last year, which was 1:58:45, or slightly over a 9-minute-mile pace. I was able to keep a steady 8:45 pace for the first 5 miles, and even ran an 8:30 on one of those miles. At mile 6, a side cramp hit me, and I knew I wasn't going to be able to keep up this pace for the rest of the race. I ended up finishing in 1:57:47. I was actually disappointed when I crossed the finish line because I remembered my time wrong from last year's race and thought that I hadn't beat it. I was still hoping to shave off more time, but it does feel good to have beat my time, even if it was just a minute. I finished 16 out of 122 in my class (Females ages 25-29) with 8:59-minute-miles.

It was interesting to compare last year's race and this year's. Last year I trained completely on my own and did a little reading up on taking care of my body as I trained, but not much. Fellow runners don't believe me when I say this, but I did all my training, including the actual race, without drinking water as I ran. I would drink some water before and after. I've learned since that you should be drinking water at least every 15 minutes while you run. I also didn't eat before my runs during my training. I heard late in my training that eating a banana before you run is supposed to help with energy, so I started doing that a couple of weeks before my race, including race day. During my actual race last year, every time someone I ran with stopped for water, I would think in my head "sucker, I'm going to pass you up." I've also learned about some energy gels that most runners take while running since my first race. I didn't do any of that last year. Interestingly enough, I had energy throughout the whole run, and I felt great and rejuvenated after I finished the race.

This year I am training with a group where they have seminars every other week with running tips etc. So being wiser, this time I stopped at all of the water/gatorade stations except 2 (spaced out every 1.5 miles). I switched off between drinking water and gatorade. I felt like all the water stations actually slowed me down, so my next competitive race I'll probably carry water on me. I still didn't use any energy gels, but I will for my marathon. After I finished this race, I felt like I was going to puke, and I wanted to just lie down and die. And I only beat last year's time by a minute. Hmmmm. Maybe the experts don't know what they're talking about. :o)

After I finished, I couldn't even imagine running an additional 13 miles on top of what I just did. I began to have thoughts of giving up on my marathon goal. After some more time, I decided that running a marathon is doable, just not at the pace that I ran my half. My full marathon is 4 weeks away. I have the dreaded 21 mile run next Saturday, which hopefully will be more enjoyable as I listen to a book on tape. My main goal for my full marathon is to finish. I'm going to have no time expectations whatsoever. I also want to run the entire thing, but I never know how my body will be feeling and a walking break or two may be needed.

At the start of the race, Caleb and Matt looking on as I took off.

Carter, still in his p.j.s, watching from his stroller.

This is about mile 9. I had just seen Matt and the kids, which gave me a boost of energy. The race was along the Galveston Sea Wall, which was great scenery.

To pass the time, Caleb, Matt and Carter played on the beach chasing birds.

We went to Galveston with some friends, Jacob and Kim. Jacob ran the race as well. Here is Caleb about to give Jacob a high 5.

Afte the race. (I was feeling much better by this point.)

Me and Jacob before the race. We had to carry our bib numbers because they ran out of safety pins! Lame. Even though I had registered early, they ran out of the t-shirt size I requested (Medium) as well. All they had left were XS, which I won't fit into until I lose 10 lbs. (highly unlikely). Double Lame.

After the race with our medals.

Roughing It

Weather was looking good prior to Thanksgiving, since on Thanksgiving day a cold front was coming through. So the day after Lindsey got home, we headed out camping. We went to a new campsite that was free, but it was definitely roughing it from what we were used to. No water and pit toilets. It was a good thing we just stayed one night. After the kids went to bed, the adults stayed up late playing games, and then woke up early with kids the next morning. We cleaned up and left around 10 am so we could get back in time to get the turkey in the oven!

Carter in the tent
Aunt Lindsey and Carter--love his smile
Me and Gavin after breakfast--his hair is starting to curl :o)
In the empty campsite right next to ours, a tall tree just randomly fell. It was a bit scary because the kids had been playing over in the general area earlier with Aunt Lindsey. The tree rotted from the inside. After it was down though, of course it made for great playing.
Uncle Matt and Dallin
Caleb and Daddy

Lindsey's Home!

Lindsey came home Tuesday 11/23 from her mission in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Spanish-speaking

Waiting at the airport for Lindsey to get off her plane.

She came running when she saw us all waiting.

Greeting the kids.

Cheerful and tearful reunion:

Hugging Mom

Hugging Dad
It was so fun to have her home in time for Thanksgiving. Her one request was camping, so we planned that for Wednesday night. She looks great, and we're enjoying the time we have with her home before she heads back to college.

Sleeping

I'm so behind on blogging, and I'm going to attempt to catch up this week. So look for several posts this week including my half marathon race, Lindsey coming home from her mission, and another family camping trip.

For now, I thought I would record some of my favorite things about Caleb's sleeping so that I won't forget them! Caleb is a really good kid, but he is not a good sleeper. He has the capability to go on less-than-average sleep and still be happy and pleasant all day. It was so hard to train him to fall asleep on his own as a baby. We got lots of advice about letting him cry himself to sleep. It would take around an hour for him to cry himself to sleep, and it was torture for me to listen to him. When he was old enough to stand, he would cry himself to sleep in a standing position with his head and arms resting on the top of the crib.

When we transitioned him to the "big boy bed," that created more issues with him getting out of bed. The bottom line about his sleep issues is that he's scared--of what exactly we're not sure. If he could have his way, he would have someone sleep with him all night. We've tried night lights, leaving his light on all night, hall lights, a picture of Jesus, and we've had several conversations about monsters, shadows, noises outside, etc. and how the Holy Ghost will protect him when he gets scared. We've also done motivational steps like earning toys and getting to make cookies with Mommy the next day when he sleeps all night. We've had weeks and maybe even a month where we felt like we were finally making progress, but at 3 years old, Caleb is still waking up most every night in the middle of the night. In the beginning, he would just wake up and then come sleep on the floor outside our door where we would find him the next morning. He's since learned to crawl into bed with Mommy and Daddy, and then the battle of taking him back to bed begins. We've now bumped the incentive up to getting an ice cream cone at McDonalds whenever he sleeps all night. Matt and I have been stumped about what to do, because he is genuinely scared at night. Caleb doesn't take naps anymore, and we've discovered that if we keep Caleb up later, then he tends to sleep harder at night and doesn't wake up. That's not a solution we necessarily like though, so we're pretty much just holding out for when we feel Carter is old enough to move into Caleb's room. We're crossing our fingers that this will solve Caleb's waking-up issues at night.

A few weeks ago, my parents babysat so Matt and I could attend a church function at night. They did the bedtime routine, kissed Caleb goodnight, then came downstairs. An hour later they started up the stairs to check on the kids, and this is what they saw. He just needed to be close to them (without them knowing because he didn't want to get in trouble), so this is where he ended up. I love this little boy.

Camping, Oct. 2010

We thought that Caleb's face-swelling would mess up our weekend plans to go camping, but we got the okay from the doctor and headed out for a family camping trip over Halloween weekend with some good friends. We left Friday afternoon and returned Saturday afternoon, so it was a very short trip, but still required lots of packing and planning ahead.

Friday night we ate dinner and s'mores, put the kids to bed, then sat around the campfire talking. It was too cold to venture too far away from the fire! Friday night's low was 30 degrees. Matt and I were so worried about our boys that we slept with them sandwiched in between us. It was a pretty miserable night for me. Whichever boy was sleeping next to Matt (and we rotated throughout the night) ended up sweating next to him. Matt has the warmest body temperature! He quite enjoyed the cold weather and happily wore shorts the next morning.

We ate breakfast huddled around the fire and sipped on our hot chocolate. Once the sun came out, it warmed up quickly. We played Ladder Golf, played card games during Carter's nap, and went to see the baby alligator show that the Park put on. Caleb loved touching a baby alligator! After lunch, we started packing up. We got home in time to unpack quickly, then get ready for the Halloween party that night.

Thanks to our friends for coming with us! We had a great time.

(Poor Caleb has a swollen cheek in all these pictures!)

Explain This

We have learned a lot over the years of how to treat the weird reactions Caleb has to certain things. Ant bites--start the Benadryl immediately or else the area will puff up like a balloon. And prepare yourself mentally for a very long night to follow. Any sort of bug bite--start the bleach baths, ointment on the area, and nasal swabs to prevent staph infections. The poor kid has had 4 staph infections in 3 years.

Last Wednesday, I noticed Caleb's left cheek/neck was swelling a bit. I had my sister-in-law look at it that night when we went over to her house for dinner. (She used to be a nurse before she stayed home to be a mommy.) She had no explanation as it was too high to be a swollen lymph node. Caleb was acting completely normal, and it wasn't bothering him, so I didn't worry. When Matt got home from work, he didn't think that the swelling was very noticeable, so we put him to bed without a second thought.

Caleb woke up screaming at 10:30 pm. The swelling had doubled in size! While Matt was consoling Caleb, I called the nurse hotline. He did not have a fever. There was nothing unusual inside his mouth; he had just had a dentist appt. 6 weeks earlier. The area that was swollen was not hot, or red, or hard. The nurse suggested giving him some Ibuprofen, and because the swelling was getting bigger, to go to the emergency room. Matt and a close friend gave Caleb a priesthood blessing. We felt like everything was going to be okay, but that we should go to the ER to figure out what was going on. Caleb, who is usually fearful of going to the doctor, was such a good boy! He let them look in his mouth and touch the area, etc. The nurse who took all of Caleb's vitals had no idea what caused the swelling. Three doctors looked at it and drew the conclusion that his parotid gland swelled. They said that something he ate that day that was sour caused it. (He had not eaten anything sour though!) They gave him some medicine (clindamycin), waited until it took effect (the swelling wasn't getting any worse), then sent him home.

Caleb acted fine the next morning, which was a preschool day, and said he wanted to go to preschool (preschool is at our house). All during preschool he was mostly fine. He did ask for some Tylenol about halfway through. The funny thing is not one of the kids at preschool noticed this huge lump on the side of Caleb's neck. When Dallin arrived, Caleb's cousin, I told him to look at Caleb's owwie on his face. Dallin looked all over Caleb's face and said, "where?"

By the end of preschool, I thought the swelling looked worse though. I wasn't really satisfied with the doctor's conclusions from the ER the previous night after doing a lot of research about the parotid gland on the Internet. What I read didn't seem to match up with what was going on with Caleb. Matt and I decided it would be best to talk the situation over with Caleb's pediatrician. So that afternoon Caleb, Carter, and I headed to the doctor. By this point, there was a harder area in the middle of the swelling that was also red. Still no fever, still nothing abnormal inside his mouth. The pediatrician thought it was a swollen lymph node that possibly got infected with staph which caused the swelling to intensify. She drew a circle around the harder spot so we could gauge if the swelling was getting worse or better. She gave him a shot of clindamycin to jumpstart the medicine, and Caleb didn't even cry!!! (because he wasn't expecting it).

The swelling finally went down slowly over the course of 4 days with taking clindamycin 3x per day. I don't feel that any of the doctor's conclusions were right. When Caleb gets a staph infection, he is in a lot of pain. For example, when Caleb had staph on his thigh, he limped around and at one point could not even put pressure on that leg. So I don't think it was a staph infection. The doctors at the ER didn't think it was a lymph node, and the research I did on the parotid gland didn't seem to match up either. The funny thing is that Caleb acted completely normal through it all, except for that first night when he woke up screaming in pain. I would ask him if his face hurt during the day, and he would say, "No, it's getting better." I also asked him why his face had an owwie, and he said it was because of his lion costume. I'm completely stumped by it all.

Here's a picture of the poor boy. This was pretty close to the biggest it got. I think the swelling is at least the size of a pool ball.

Halloween 2010

Cousin Sammy, Caleb, Cousin Drew, and Carter

Caleb insisted on being a lion because his favorite Primary song right now is "Follow the Prophet," specifically the verse about Daniel and the lion's den. (We have listened to this song non-stop in the car for about 3 months, and he's still not sick of it.) Carter was a dinosaur. He's 7 months old now and the costume is 18 months size. :o)

We actually spent Halloween weekend camping (I'll post that soon). After we got home Saturday night, we went to my parent's ward party so Caleb could participate in their "trunk or treat" since we had missed our ward party. I'm envious of Utah celebrating Halloween on Saturday. Caleb was sad that he didn't get to go trick-or-treating to all our neighbors.