Saturday, March 31, 2012

My First Race

For a year now, I've been trying to exercise more.  Starting last spring, I started walking with a friend in the evenings.  It started as 2 miles, then went to 3, and then went to 4.  I continued walking 4 miles a day with my friend, Monica, but it got too cold when fall came.  I found another friend, Jennifer, to walk with, but we never did more than 3 miles, and it really started getting cold.  I decided at the new year, I would buy a membership to the local rec center.

Since the first week in January, I've been going to the gym 3-5 times a week and doing 4-6 miles on the elliptical.  The depressing thing is that last year I lost 12 lbs from walking, and since I've kicked my workouts into high gear, I've lost nothing.  I've decided to use races as a distraction from my lack of weight loss.  I work our 3 days a week with a friend of mine named Tara.  It's so great to know I have someone counting on me to be there - pushes me to go on those days I don't really feel like it.  A while ago, she signed up for a 5K that was to be on March 31.  I felt there was no way I could run a 5K by March 31, and kept thinking, "I'll catch the next one."

I decided on a whim, to take the plunge and just do it.  I figured, even if I can't run the whole thing, it would give me something to work towards.  In a three week period, I was able to push myself to run the entire thing.  I think that's the longest I've ever run in my whole life!  I've been extremely proud of my progress.


I was able to run the race with 3 friends: Tara, Rachel, and Sam.  It was funny because each of us came in 2 minutes apart from one another.  Rachel finished in 32 minutes, Tara in 30, me in 32, and Sam in 34.  I came in 70th overall, and 17th for my age group of 31-34.  I really pushed myself and 32 minutes is the fastest I've ever run it.  I was feeling so good I signed up for another race on April 21st.

I'm hoping that I can keep with it.  Even though I'm not losing weight despite my efforts, I know that my body is getting healthier and having the races as my goals really helps me keep going.  I'd like to run a half marathon by the fall, but we'll have to see what my body tells me I can do.

Friday, March 23, 2012

From Big Wheel to Bicycle

Kyson adores his big wheel and I think when he officially becomes too big for it, it will be a sad day for him.  To try and ease the transition, I've been pushing the big boy bike.  Last summer at the Zufelt Family Reunion, Kris's mom put money into the drawings.  Kris put the tickets in a variety of things, and we ended up winning two bikes for her, and she gave one of them to us.  Last year, the bike was a bit big for Kyson and I'd let him ride it while I held onto it.  It was fun for him, but exhausting for me.

Even this year, I did that a few times, but knew this was no long-term solution.  We bought him some training wheels and I was determined to have him start riding a big bike.  Well, the maiden voyage was somewhat interesting.  He has no balance yet, and the training wheels don't hold him balanced unless he's on an even surface and really not tipping to either side.  He nearly ran me over while trying to videotape his first attempt.  Then we rode around the block, but I had to hold on to him most of the way - even with the training wheels!  I don't know if they're crappy training wheels or if my son is just really unbalanced, but I don't remember it being so unstable.

He enjoyed riding his new bike, but is a little scared still, and the helmet is too small.  We'll get him another one soon, and try to keep having him practice.  He'll get there soon enough.

Friday, March 16, 2012

Therapy Begins

Well Kodi has officially been assigned a speech therapist to begin working on her speech problems.  We decided to schedule her to come on my day off so I could meet her and it's nice to have both parents there for the first appointment since we set up goals.  Our appointment was at 11:30, right when Kyson gets off of school.  Kris picked up Kyson while I waited for Marcy.

At 11:45, we got a phone call from Marcy saying she had gotten a flat tire and was going to need to reschedule. When I mentioned that it was my only day off that month and it may be difficult for me to be there, she volunteered to come after she'd taken care of the car situation.  I was all for it and asked how long it would be.  She estimated about an hour.  While I had a lot of errands to run, it was worth it for me to sit around for an hour, than try to reschedule.

An hour passes and I didn't hear from Marcy.  An hour and half passes, two hours, and finally just over two hours had passed so I decided to call her and get an estimated time.  It went straight to voicemail and her voicemailbox was full and I couldn't even leave a message.  I was starting to get frustrated with the errands I needed to take care of.

About 10 minutes after I tried calling her, she pulled up.  I felt so bad that I'd been frustrated.  The poor woman had been trying to get her car fixed the entire time, and her phone went dead from all the phone calls she had to make.  Her GPS system went out on her car the same day, and with all the construction around our house right now, she had sat for literally 5 minutes at a time waiting to get through certain intersections.  She had had a terrible day and I was worried about my errands.

We only had half an hour to actually set goals because she had to be somewhere else, but she seems like a really nice woman, and Kodi warmed up to her very quickly.  She's very energetic and excited which Kodi really likes.  They even had matching outfits that day - I think it was meant to be.  I'm excited to see how things go with Marcy, but I'm feeling confident already.

Sunday, March 11, 2012

A Beautiful Day to Wash the Cars

We've had one of the mildest winters that I can remember and here we are, March 10th and we're in the 50s going on 60.  It's extremely nice.  Because it was a weekend and nice weather, I decided to wash the cars since they desperately needed a bath.  Kyson, the cute boy that he is, asked if he could wash his Jeep.  I agreed, and he drove it out to the driveway, so excited to give it a good scrub.  Kyson and I both went to change our clothes so we wouldn't get our good clothes all wet and dirty.  Kris started laughing at me when I came downstairs in shorts and flip flops in March.

When we went outside to get things going, I was getting the hose and hooking it up, while Kyson got a hold of the glass cleaner and started spraying his entire Jeep with glass spray.  He had used quote a bit by the time I found him.  Fortunately, he started listening to me and I showed him how to wash the car.  We got all the mud off his tires and he washed the body.  It looked a lot better, and so did our cars as well.  I can't even remember the last time I washed a car by hand when I wasn't at Bear Lake.



Wednesday, March 7, 2012

The Results

 For some time now, I've been worried about Kodi's speech.  At 18 months she was right now track, but hasn't really added any new words to her vocabulary since then.  In fact, she even seemed to go backwards for a time and not even using the few words she did know.  At her 2-year check-up, I asked about her speech and her pediatrician said that many two-year-olds will suddenly start talking.  because she has been a little late with everything, I've been hoping her speech would follow the pattern, but it's not.  She's nearly two and a half and still only says a handful of words.

I finally decided to call Early Intervention to have her tested.  This is the same program Kyson went through for speech therapy and then qualified for the preschool.  Kodi's testing clearly showed she qualified for the program.  In order to be in the average range a child should be between 16 and 84.  Anything below 7 would qualify Kodi for therapy with Early Intervention.  Her numbers were as follows:

Adaptive (self-help) = 27
Personal-Social = 47
Receptive Communication = 5
Expressive Communication = <1
Gross Motor = 63
Fine Motor = 63
Cognitive = 7

She qualified in three areas and her communication is so low that unless there is significant improvement in the next 6 months, we're looking at the preschool program, weekly speech therapy, and an IEP like Kyson.

While I'm incredibly grateful for the services that are available and the knowledge we have to know when there is a problem, but I don't understand why both of our children are having this serious speech delay.  I hope that with their help and our time, we'll be able to help both of our children speak without problems, and not have in impediments that will affect them the rest of their lives.

Monday, March 5, 2012

Cracking the Case

After the paper explosion in Kyson's bedroom, we started looking at the evidence and things didn't add up.

1)  The paper was spread so thoroughly and evenly about the crime scene - far too difficult for a two-year-old.

2)  The paper was all over the bed - they'd have to be wrinkled for a two-year-old to get off the bed after making the mess

3)  She was never alone long enough to be able to create such a disaster

4)  The door was shut and she wouldn't have shut the behind her.

After this new evidence, there is only one conclusion, the original suspect couldn't be the perpetrator.  While we didn't have a lot to go on, I found a witness.  After interviewing her, she gave some new evidence that totally cracked the case.  Because this new witness lives with the new suspect, we felt it best to keep her identity anonymous.

So I interviewed the new suspect to check for an alibi and motive.  The suspect claimed he was grocery shopping at the time, but no one could verify that for us.  We also found a motive - he's recently retired and needs something to do.  Our new suspect - Bill Tinsch.  According to our star witness, he borrowed our key and snuck into the premises while we were at church.  We'll keep you updated as new details are released.  

Sunday, March 4, 2012

OMG!

Today really was like any other Sunday morning, baths for everyone, get ready for church, and run at the door.  Sometime during our race against time, Kodi had a little time to herself.  I didn't realize it until we got home from church and opened Kyson's room to change his sheets.  When I opened the door, all I could say was, "Oh...my...gosh!"  I grabbed Kyson to see if he'd made the mess, and when he came up and looked in his room, he said, "Oh geez!"  Kris told me to grab the camera before we all started cleaning up.  This is the second time that we've had paper explode in our house.  The first was when Grandpa Tinsch babysat, and I believe that when my parents watched them yesterday, my father was nice enough to give them a new stack of paper - as is evident by Kyson's bedroom.  Thanks Dad, your generosity is overwhelming.


Thursday, March 1, 2012

Happy Birthday Leroy!

I know that most people do not have birthday parties for their dogs, but when he's a member of the family and the kids love to have parties, there really wasn't any other option.  Leroy turned 2 on March 1st, which also happens to be Justin Bieber's birthday.  I bought some simple party hats, cupcakes for the kids, and dog treats for the dogs.

When it came time to sing "Happy Birthday," I put a cupcake on the coffee table with two candles and dog treats all around.  Kodi kept blowing out the candles as soon as I lit them, and Leroy jumped on the coffee table and stole all the dog treats - but left the cupcake.  i was amazed.  These dog treats were filet mignon flavored, but who would have guessed that my garbage dog would leave a cupcake behind.

We had a lot fun cele- brating Leroy's birthday.  I now have a 2 year old in human years and a 14 year old in dog years.  Either way, it's not a fun age.