Pfun Run & Deuling Babies

This weekend was the Pflugerville Deutchenfest Pfun Run 5k. This was our first family race. I pushed Gwen and John pushed Jack & Madeline in the strollers. It was a nice race. Not a lot of people, which is key when running with a stroller. Gwen did great. She blew bubbles while I ran and yelled “Go Mommy Go” “Go Faster”. I was the first to finish pushing a stroller in 26:51, 2^nd in my age group! After the 5k Gwen “ran” in the kids K. She was SO excited about this all week and during the 5k she kept asking when it was her turn to run. But when the kids K began, all the kids started running, and Gwen stood there, fingers in her mouth. I walked with her, holding her hand, for 100 feet or so. She did not want to run. In fact, she appeared frozen. I carried her for a bit, then turned around to come back. When I put her down to run, she started to cry. Everyone cheered her on, she got lots of encouragement, but none of it mattered. She didn’t even want her medal. Gwen was sad. The only thing that cheered her up was a slice of pizza. On the way home, she told John and I all about her medal, how she ran and had a great time. I’m glad she remembered it better than the reality.

All in all it was a successful outing for the Mills.

Another note for the weekend, we have 2 crawling babies. Madeline is army crawling all over, going after anything that interests her, including Jack’s feet and anything he is playing with. Jack is doing the worm to get around, mostly trying to get a different toy, since Madeline has taken his. We are starting to see a little bit of jealousy. If one gets picked up, the other cries foul and gets upset if they don’t get picked up too. If I sit with them on the floor, they both make their way over to me and try to crawl in my lap.

This brings us to #60 – baby proofing. John got the gates out last night, so we are tying to figure out how to zone the house. Biggest concern is the stairs and all Gwendolyn’s little choking hazzard toys. I think some things, like the tiny little doll shoes, may get “lost” for awhile.

#101 – do something that I am afraid to do. Skiing? I have never been skiing, and really had no interest. But Jenna and I are planning a trip for the fall/winter and I am actually considering going skiing. It is a debate between sitting on the beach, drinking, or falling on my butt in the snow. Hmmmm…

#22 – Oprah’s stupid book club list, I finally finished Anna Karenina. Worst. Book. Ever. I am now on to a totally different genre than classic Russian literature – Twilight, high school vampire literature.

Bath Time!

Tuesday night the little ones had their first bath together. I think they like taking bath's with Gwen better. Madeline was a little stressed out about keeping all the toys for herself.

My babies are growing up....

My new pet

Look how pretty! Thanks to lil' sister for buying me this sweet new purse. I love it! I want to take it with me to all my meetings.

Amanda's List

My college roomie Sandy read my blog and 101 list. This is her response:

Amanda's List

My friend Amanda made herself a crazy list of 1,000 things she wants to do by May 1st or something. I guess she did this because she has all kinds of free time now that she has baby-o-rama going on at her house. I don't know.

But as soon as I saw that nonsense, I told her to stop it right away. It's not that I'm averse to getting things on a list done, but this list was like some kind of list you might put together if you had spent all day at the engineering building at MSU and came home and were still in that mode of thinking. All people MSU will know what I'm talking about here.

So, I offered to make her a new list. This list, I think, is more practical and certainly more fun. You won't find any rubbish about saving money or buying a new pair of sensible shoes on this list. No, this is far more daring and exhilarating.

1. Find the tallest tree in your neighborhood. That way, when people come to your house, you can say, "Did you notice the tallest tree in our neighborhood?" I'll tell you right now that nobody will notice because people (unfortunately) are not usually that perceptive. Then, when they tell you no, you can point and say, "Yeah, it's that one over there."
   
   
2. Plan a day to clean the gutters on your house. Tell everybody that the day you've planned is gutter cleaning day. Make a big deal out of it. You could even send out an email. Then, when gutter cleaning day comes, get a ladder and go up on your roof. Then, take off your clothes to reveal your new snazzy bathing suit. And then get out your secret stash of suntan lotion. And then just lay out in the sun all day. When the day is over, come down off the roof and tell everyone it was a lot of hard work and the reason you're all hot and sweaty is that you were trying to get all this junk unstuck from the gutters. Then just go lie down and say that you're tired and need a nap. People will feel really sorry for you.
   
   
3. Come to Michigan and go real sledding. I almost cried when I saw the Texas sledding video.
   
   
4. Go to this website. It cleanses your soul and clears your mind.
   
   
5. Clean your house and get everything put away. Then, call someone from the National Association of Professional Organizers and ask then to come by and give you an estimate on how much it would cost to tidy up your house. Really talk your house up on the phone like it's really, really awful. Ask questions like, "What about if I just put all of the pizza boxes from the last five years in my closet? Then what?" or "How do you dispose of sour cream containers that have been left out on the counter for like...35 weeks?" or "I know I've heard of black mold, but what if it's magenta?" or "Do they sell things for like throwing away dirty baby diapers? We just put them all in the attic." Then, when they get to your house, be like...what?
   
   
6. Walk by a karate studio that has a big window out to the parking lot, and when the people inside look out at you, pretend to be a ninja. I did that the other day. Daryl was scared for my safety, but it was lots of fun.
   
   
7. Tell everybody that you smashed your car up and it's in the shop. Then, go and rent a Porshe and then when people ask, tell them that's what the rental shop gave you because they were fresh out of Ford Focuses. Drive it around for a week or two. Oh yeah, it should be yellow.
   
   
8. Give a little money to charity. What did you expect? You need to do something to make up for all the lying you'll be doing throughout the rest of this list.
   
   
9. You're going to need to take a few days off of work for this one. Read Twilight. Then, you'll of course want to read the next book and you will be addicted and...well, you need to take a few days off of work for that.
   
   
10. Listen to this song. Because how can you not be in a good mood when this song is on? Bobbyitsaybobbyiton.

So - what would YOU add to my list?

This is from our visit to the strawberry farm a few weeks ago. Cute little buggers. Gwendolyn received the dress from Grandma that day. I asked her to put on jeans before we left, and she complied right away. I obviously wasn't specific enough with my request.

Sigh... light years away

What happened? It has been over a month since I posted anything. Really, I never spend time on the computer at home anymore. If John isn't in here, then I am busy doing other stuff (dishes, cleaning, laundry, working out, sleeping, and occasionally watching TV). I do check in and read everyone else's posts, but I just can't be bothered to do my own. Lame? Yes. But necessary.

20 - Date nights. We have had a few. Moilanen's housewarming, daycare parent's night out, and Moilanen's wedding. We also try to meet once a month for lunch.

27. Catch up on photo albums. I did add a few pages to Gwen's and got all my supplies organized. I am looking forward to getting our office back so I can have my own work table.

46. Read to Gwen daily - nightly bed time story is embedding in the routing now. I do get tired of our selections though. We have a book of "baby lullabies". Who knew that lullabies are so disturbing? Geese knocking old people down stairs, babies falling from tree tops, children playing in the street at night? All terrible.

47. Get Gwen off crack, I mean, the pacifier. I can't believe this is done! A few months ago Gwen was complaining about her mouth hurting (teeth coming in). We pounced on the opportunity and blamed the paci. If was a few rough days, and I nearly broke a hundred times, but we are over it! There are days when I would like it back, and I still try and give one to the babies sometimes, but we are a pacifier free home.

49. Potty train Gwen. Wow, failure. From what I can tell (ie interpret from the daily notes), Gwen is potty trained at school as far as pee goes, not poo. But if we even hint about her going to the potty at home she gets uber pissed and punishes us for the rest of the day. As of last week John and I decided to ignore the whole thing and start over. Actually, it is convenient, when we take our 20 hour trip to MI we won't have to bring the potty for the ride.

54. Get new baby on a schedule. This is as done as we can get. Jack and Madeline sleep through the night and go to bed without a fuss. Nap time is a totally different story, but I'll take what I can get.

55. Find a babysitter in the neighborhood. Thank you, Lord, for Alex. She is so great. Alex is one of our after work helpers who comes twice a week. She does all the stuff that has to get done every night that beats us down and she helps with Gwen and the babies if one of us isn't home. She also babysits occasionally. I am always on the lookout for other babysitters though. I don't think I can have TOO many.

75. Take a family vacation. Impending doom June of 2009. Road trip. To. Michigan. WTF.

35. Get Waxed. Technically, I did get waxed, but it was my eyebrows. That was not the original intention of this "goal" and I still intend to get a bikini wax at some point.

22. Read 2 Oprah's book club books (Anna Fucking Karenina almost done 5/09). I am seriously pissed about this stupid fucking book. It has taken me years and it isn't even good. I am about 20 pages from finishing and I don't even care.

40. Use all the fun kitchen appliances and tools that I have. I use my steamer all the time! For cooking veggies for dinner and for preparing the babies' food. Easy peasy.

92. Beat 5k PR (23:36) - wow, I can't believe that is my PR.

82. Take a fitness class - there is a yoga class in my neighborhood that I occasionally go to (whoops, it was tonight).