TGIF

It's Friday and I'm not working! Hooray! Today was meant to be a shouldless day but it's going to be a shoudless half day instead as Taco's daycare is closing at 12:30. The closure is for a very sad reason, though. One of the co-owners, who is 2 years younger than me, sadly passed away from breast cancer a couple of weeks ago and her memorial service is this afternoon. We got to know this co-owner so well as she filled in last winter when the director position was open. Taco ADORED her and she made drop-off so easy since Taco was happy to hang with her. We just saw her earlier this summer at a family event and while we suspected she had cancer since she has always worn a head covering, we had no idea she was so ill. 

A book I am reading this week is ‘Summer Romance' by Annabel Monaghan. This is my second book by this author and I am loving it. I opted to skip her 2023 release as it seemed like infidelity was featured in the plotline (a woman runs into her high school boyfriend while touring a wedding venue with her fiance). Folks, I am not here for infidelity plotlines unless they adequately show how much they can blow up someone's life (see Nicole's post from this week that includes books where infidelity is handled well). To be clear, to my knowledge I have never been cheated on so this doesn't stem from PTSD in my own life. But I've seen it in others' relationship and it is almost always terrible, plus as an enneagram 1 my thinking around cheating is black and white. *steps off soap box* But this novel does not feature infidelity and it's been a delightful read so far. I like that Monaghan's protagonists tend to be women in their 40s. 

The high of my week was my work trip! This time I traveled with another woman that I work with which rarely happens. We had so much fun at dinner and enjoyed wine at the airport bar on the flight out and again on our return. Our meeting also went really well so I am optimistic about the outcome of that meeting. And I was gone for barely 18 hours so it was a very quick trip. Quick trips can be tiring but I traveled last week and travel again next week so was glad I only had to miss one morning/bedtime.

The low of my week was losing power for the weekend for 36 hours. Our power went out at 1am on Saturday night during a huge, loud storm. It did not come back on until Monday afternoon. I still went for my 7 mile run on Sunday morning even though we had Florida-like conditions, I had only eaten a banana with peanut butter because that was the only GF breakfast-like food available (because I did not want to open the fridge to increase the chances that the food would go bad), and I did not have coffee (because no power). And then I came back from what was my worst run in many years to a warm, muggy house. We spent the afternoon at my MIL's suburban home so we could enjoy the A/C but we all slept in our guest room in the basement on Sunday night and wow that did not go well. Taco is so reliant on a white noise machine so getting him to fall asleep without one was A PROCESS. Plus I had to present on the national sales call on Monday which means I had to look camera-ready and presentable. I did a lot of fanning of my face with a book that morning to keep coolish so as not to sweat my make up off. Taco touched my skin that morning after I was showered and ready and asked if I had gone for a run…

A show we are watching is season 2 of Welcome to Wrexham. Admittedly we don't LOVE it, but it's good enough to keep watching. I like that the shows are 30 minutes long which is the sweet spot for me. I've also watched most of The Bear - I have 2 episodes left! I've heard mixed reviews but I am liking this season overall.

For workouts I ran 3 miles on Tuesday morning before work, did a lower body strength training workout on Wednesday in my hotel room, and I will do my long 7-7.5 miles this morning since it’s going to be nice and cool! I am nervous for this long run after how horrible the last one went. Hopefully being properly fueled and caffeinated plus cooler temps helps!!

The best money spent was on a water pik during Prime days. I kind of hate Prime days because of the consumerism vibe around those days kind of raises my hackles. And yet, one of the posts with the best deals prompted me to buy a water pik. So I am part of the problem. But I did get it for half off and I am hoping the addition of a water pik will make future cavities less likely (I've had 2 in the last year!). Plus flossing has been so painful due to the flare in my right pointer finger. I try to adjust how I floss so I don't use that figure but it's just awkward to floss using your thumb and middle fingers. 

My plans this weekend include not much! This morning I will take it easy after my run and either read or watch the last 2 episodes of the The Bear before picking Taco up from daycare around noon. It's going to be a beautiful day so we are going to the zoo for the afternoon. Paul got a solo trip to the zoo with me in June so I figured Taco should get one, too. I'm hoping to take the boys to the pool on Saturday afternoon. On Sunday, I plan to run 4 miles and then we are going to Phil's friend's house on a lake in the afternoon for a gathering of high school friends. 

Bonus photo:

How cute is this flamingo in the Tampa airport? I did not get to see Stephany since I was there for about 18 hours (I literally flew in for 1 meeting but it was a BIG meeting).

Bath time shenanigans. Ignore the dingy water. Boy do the kids get dirty in the summer. And yes, the loud environment notification went off during this bath, as usual.

A beautiful Thursday night at the goose house!

How was your week? Do you have a water pik? If you are a runner, how do you bounce back from a epically bad training run? 

Taco at 3.5

I’m a little overdue in capturing who Taco is at 3.5 but better late than never! I recognize that these posts might be boring for others but it’s been a great way to capture my boys’ childhoods. I often go back and read them because the details can be very foggy but they are likely a snooze for others.

Taco continues to be our big-hearted snuggly little guy with BIG FEELINGS who gives the absolute best hugs. He needs so many hugs and kisses and squeezes before he leaves the house with Phil on the days I don’t do drop off. He is my stage 5 clinger that just can’t get close enough. He's the kid that will stroke my skin while I sing bedtime songs to him in the rocking chair. Can anyone say Oedipus complex? ;) 

Growth: He weighs about 33 pounds so is just a few pounds lighter than Paul. He mostly wears size 3T but definitely has a slim waist so needs elastic waist bands or the shorts will fall off. He has a very long torso so wears some 4T tops.

Likes:

- He is still obsessed with Mickey. He wears a Mickey shirt almost daily and has 2 different Mickey stuffies that he sleeps with.

Wearing one of Mickey shirts while playing with Mickey toys. He would prefer to only wear Mickey shirts.

- Popsicles are his favorite summer treat but he also loves ice cream. 

Note that he is wearing a Mickey shirt in this photo. I had to buy 3 Mickey shirts for the summer.

- He loves going to Starbucks for a cake pop. I love this tradition, too, as I get a latte typically.

- He is very into his stuffies. He sleeps with so many different stuffed animals. He also likes to take his stuffies places. 

Bear enjoyed a stroller ride to Starbucks.

Showing sock monkey the costumed geese

- He has gotten very into Paw Patrol lately. Chase and Marshall are his favorite pups. 

- He is very into pretend play which is a delight to observe.

Chef Taco at your service!

Dislikes:

- He still hates mornings. 

Eating: He’s a pretty good eater overall. He definitely eats way more things than Paul does. His favorite foods are yogurt, cottage cheese, Mac and cheese, Dino-shaped chicken, and pizza. He also loves all kinds of fruit but especially loves apples and blueberries. 

School: He has been happy at his daycare and has made some good friends. We love everything about his daycare EXCEPT THAT THEY HAVE A SANDBOX WHICH IS THE BANE OF MY EXISTENCE. We are not a daily bath family since the boys are prone to eczema and we are, well, kind of lazy but frequent baths are necessary since Taco basically rolls around in the sand like a dog, it seems. He loves to take his shoes off in the car and dump the sand out so we've learned to empty the sand from his shoes before he gets in the car. Phil and I joke about what dollar amount we would pay the daycare to remove the sandbox.

His daycare is a lot more play based which I feel is best at this age. Let them play and enjoy life - there will be a time for more academic focus when they are older in my opinion. His teachers are working on letter recognition with him but he just doesn’t seem to have any interest. We try at home too but he has a ‘shoulder shrug emoji’ attitude when we work on letter recognition. Paul was so interested in letters and numbers at this age but I am telling myself that each kid is different and he’ll take interest eventually. We are planning to enroll him at the school-based pre-K program in the fall of 2025 so we figure that program will probably be more academic focused and hopefully by then he'll have more interest in learning his letters. He's definitely more drawn to numbers, though, which isn't surprising given his finance nerd parents. He can count to 20 in English and Spanish and loves to count things. 

Potty training: He potty trained in April and it was pretty easy all in all. We waited until it was clear that he was ready so he took to it very fast! It is wonderful to be done with diapers! 

Sleep: He dropped his nap in June when he started to get up way too early and also fight bedtime. I miss his nap but bedtime is so much easier now and he's not waking before 6 anymore. Once he dropped his nap we got rid of his crib. We were able to pass it along to another family on the block that had a baby this spring so that worked out well. Taco is currently sleeping on a twin mattress on the floor but we orderedg him a bed with a trundle bed that will arrive this weekend. We did the same ‘mattress on the floor’ transition for Paul, too, and it seems to work well. Taco of course has Mickey bedding! 

Brother relationship: The boys mostly play pretty well together but there is of course some fighting over toys. They also like to wrestle which is not my favorite thing because someone always seems to end up crying. 

Bath time shenanigans. Bath time is LOUD. I often get a loud environment notification on my apple watch.

They loved going to Frog and Toad!

My 2 water babies!

It's kind of hard to believe that Taco is over 3.5 years old now but at the same time we also feel like we've felt every day of those 3.5 years if that makes sense? Time is weird. Most of my friends have much older kids and often tell me how I will miss these years. People told me I'd miss the baby years, too, though, and I honestly do not miss that stage. I enjoyed it for what it was and soaked up lots of cuddling and rocking of babies, but was nothing but happy when our kids exited that stage. But I seem to be fairly immune to nostalgia for whatever reason so time will tell if I miss the toddler stage. 

I do feel as though things are getting a little bit easier as Taco approaches age 4, though. So I'm soaking up his cuddles and desire to be as close to me as humanly possible while also recognizing that I seem to be best suited for parenting elementary-aged kiddos. 

TGIF

Hey hey - it’s Friday! This week flew by since I was traveling for part of it. Here is how the week shaped up!

A book I am reading this week is ‘Wavewalker’ by Suzanne Heywood. It’s my book club’s July read. It’s a memoir about a family’s around-the-world sailing adventure in the 1970s. I’m only a couple of chapters in and it’s clear there is some willful neglect of their children, plus the author’s note at the beginning made it clear that this is not a happy story, so it should be an interesting book.

The high of my week was feeling good about how my work trip went. I hadn’t traveled with this sales rep before and he has a reputation for being very good at his job. He was one of my former’s colleague’s favorite people to travel with so I had a feeling he’d be fun to spend time with. He asked me to come back in October so I must have done ok!

The low of my week was: continuing to deal with this stupid RA flare. My doctor reviewed the MRI and said it appears to be a flare. She doesn’t know why it’s not responding to the injections and oral steroids so the next course of action is to see a radiologist who can do an imaging-guided injection so they can more precisely target the impacted area of the joint. But the earliest I could get an appointment is August 1st!! I plan to call every couple of days to see if they have any cancellations. Hopefully they don’t get sick of hearing from me. I am so tired of dealing with this flare. I really hope my infusions prevent flares like this from happening again. Theoretically the infusions should help with this flare but I think the flare is so acute that even the infusions can’t remedy the flare.

A show I am watching is the latest season of The Bear. The ratings of this season aren’t as high as the other seasons but I am really enjoying it! Interestingly, the show is too intense for Phil. I’m usually the one bowing out in a show due to intensity but I guess I am a bit more immune to the intensity after years of waiting tables in college. 

For workouts I ran 3 miles on Monday morning before work and did a strength training workout in my hotel on Wednesday after a full day of 7 (!!!) client meetings. I really did not feel like working out after being ‘on’ from 7:40-5 that day but I told myself that if I packed workout clothes, I was going to use them! I will run again this morning. My plan is to run 7 miles on Saturday or Sunday.

The best money spent was on our 2023 family photo book! This is the latest I have completely a family photo book but at least it got done! Paul and I have been looking through old photo books (I started doing them in 2018 - the year Paul was born) so I am excited for our new one to arrive! 

My plans this weekend include not much! It’s going to be in the 90s here and humid so we will do something by the water each day. I will take the boys to the pool one afternoon and we will probably go to the beach with Phil when he swims on Sunday morning. But other than that, we don’t have any specific plans. 

Bonus photo:

The boys played My First Orchard Game (the best pre-K game ever!) pretty much independently!

How was your week? 

4th of July Recap

We had a nice 4th of July weekend up at my parents. The drive on Thursday was NOT good, though. Taco asked if we were almost there 5 minutes into a 2.75 hour drive… He was entertained by his iPad for about 30 minutes and then alternated between yelling very loudly and asking if we were there yet. Listening to Taylor Swift helped at times but it was not a great drive. We were all happy when we arrived at my parents. Had it not been 11:15 am, I would have otherwise helped myself to a glass of sav blanc but that seemed a bit aggressive. 

Taco was happy to dig into the toys of my childhood

It rained each day but we had dry periods each day. Phil helped Paul, Taco and my cousin’s son fish off the dock on Thursday. 

Friday was a nice for most of the day so the boys played in the sand and water quite a bit and my dad took us out on a pontoon ride. 

Paul and his namesake, Papa Paul 

This bucket is meant for washing off feet but Taco decided to make it his own little bathtub

My parents hosted a very large family party on Saturday with 50+ people. There is a big bean bag tournament which I passed on this year since my hand still hurts quite a bit. It was a gorgeous afternoon until the wind picked up and a big thunderstorm moved in. Everyone moved into the garage so it didn’t hamper things too much. 

Most of the kids at the party were much older than my boys. But Paul was happy to follow his cousin Matt around like a little puppy dog. He is so obsessed with Matt and has been for a very long time. 

How it started..

Matt was 10 and Paul was around 4 months old

How it’s going… 

Now Matt is 16 and has his license but he still has a special connection with Paul! 

We drove home on Sunday morning so we could get groceries, do laundry and prep for the week. 

I fly to Michigan this afternoon for a 2-night trip. July will be a bit of a whirlwind as I travel 3 weeks in a row. So much for a quiet July! Next week’s trip is just one night so at least that is a short one. The results of my MRI came back on Wednesday so I am hoping to hear from my doctor about next steps today. 

How was your weekend? 

What We Read in June

First off, Happy Canada Day to my Canadian friends! 

Now onto the topic at hand - reading! I lucked out and had an incredible month of reading. There was only one sort of disappointing read. Most of what I read I rated 4 or even 5 stars! I read 9 books in June, bringing my 2024 total to 52. I don’t set a goal for number of books read as I don’t want to ever focus on quantity over quality. Last year I read just below 100, the previous years I read over 100. We will see where this year shakes out! I have included children’s books that I read out loud to Paul in the total but I spend hours reading them so figure they should count, too. 

Best of the best:

After Annie is Anna Quindlen’s latest character-driven novel. It’s about a family grieving the sudden loss of their young matriarch. I didn’t love this as much as Every Last One but it was still a very good 4-star book. The Wives was raved about on Sarah’s Bookshelves Live and lived up to the hype (I gave it 5 stars). It’s a memoir written by the wife of a man who enlists in a special ops unit of the army. I gifted this to my sister as part of a gift to acknowledge her family’s cross country move. I can’t wait for her to read it so we can discuss it, hopefully in person! It gave me better insight into what her life has been like (her husband is in the military.) I gave it 5 stars. Real Americans was also raved about by Sarah but her co-hosts did not care for it. This was another 5-star read for me. It’s a multi-generational novel about a family that flees from China. I thought it was so well done. This is another character-driven novel. The last 2 books, Yours Truly and Just For the Summer were my first foray into local author Abby Jimenez’s catalog of work. Both books are set in the Minneapolis area which made them extra delightful for me to read. I really enjoyed both and they filled my need for something lighter with a happy ending. I think I preferred Yours Truly but both were great.

Other mostly great reads:

Colton Gentry’s Third Act is a romance novel about a country music star that speaks out about gun control after losing his best friend to a mass shooting at a musical festival, putting an end to his career as a country musician due to the backlash. I really liked this but not as much as Jimenez’s. The People We Keep was an excellent book about a young teen in a situation of neglect that goes out on her own after a conflict with her father. It’s a found family kind of novel. The Secret Book of Flora Lea is a historical novel about the children that were sent into the countryside of England during WWII. A child goes missing and this book is about the sibling’s search for the missing child as an adult. I liked it but historical fiction hasn’t worked as well for me lately. River East, River West was my least favorite read of the month. It was another rec from Sarah’s Bookshelves Live so not all of her picks work for me. It’s set in Shanghai and is told by dual narrators. It’s sort of a coming-of-age story which are hit or miss for me. I didn’t like the mother or daughter in this story so that made it harder for me to enjoy this book. 

The boys’ reads:

Paul and I have not been reading together as much lately because he would rather read graphic novels on his own. Below he is reading a Geronimo Stilton book at the library. It’s fun to see his love of reading take off but I would like to get back to reading some chapter books together! 

We did finish the 3rd Paddington novel that we were gifted at my baby shower. These were very delightful reads! 

Taco is mostly into picture books but will still pick out board books at bedtime occasionally. Board books are far shorter so it’s not the worst thing when that happens. Ha. So we will keep his board books out for now but I think I will winnow down the collection to our favorites and find a new home for the ones he isn’t drawn to. The picture book we read the most in June was The Gruffalo which is a favorite of mine, too!

Did you read anything great in June? 

5 things Friday + mid-year thoughts

Happy Friday and happy almost end of the first half of the year! I had a really great trip to the DC area for work this week. We did 10 meetings in 2 days which is quite a lot. I haven't mentioned this but my little sister and her family are moving to the DC area (in the coming days!!) and this trip made me extra excited that she is moving here because a) there is so much to do and b) it's only a 2-hour flight from Minneapolis!

Here are 5 things on my mind this week: 

1. Let’s start with that, ‘wow the year is going so fast’ cliche convo that we all tend to have. Phil absolutely loathes those kind of conversations because he is extremely practical and will challenge comments about time going faster because the passage of time does not change. And yet our perception of how fast time goes does seem to change as we get older. Remember how loooonnnnggggg it took for Christmas to arrive when you were a kid, if you celebrated that holiday? Now Christmas comes far too fast and I’d like December to have 6 weeks (but then I want Feb or Mar to have 2 fewer weeks because I hate the final months of winter). 

2. Since it’s mid-year, many of us assess how the first half of the year went which might involve looking back at goals. I had honestly forgotten what I decided to do about goals (I had set 2 quarterly goals for Q1 and then never looked at them again. Whoops.) This is not surprising because I have a tenuous relationship with goals. I feel like I don’t necessarily need them because I achieve a lot without detailed goals and will be hard on myself if I don’t achieve what I set out to do. I look at what I’ve done in the first half of the year and it’s a lot - some of it was planned, much of it wasn’t. 10 business trips, 1 family vacation, 200 client meetings, I made some big decisions about how to better manage my RA, we established a quarterly date night routine, we potty trained our toddler, we ordered a big boy mattress for him so we can start that next big transition, and on and on and on. I do see how goals are so very motivating for others but I might be team ‘no goals’ for life? I am required to set them for work so I comply but otherwise I am tempted to take the counter-cultural approach of avoiding them. SHU, can we still be friends?!? All that said, I really do enjoy reading about the progress others have made towards their goals! 

3. I wish I had good news about my flare subsiding but I don’t. It is just as bad as it was before and is especially painful in the am when I have gone almost 24 hours without prednisone. So I will not be tapering off that bastard of a drug anytime soon. Sigh. This time I contacted my doctor through my chart right away when 5 days had passed with no improvement. She was quick to respond and said it’s time for an MRI because the flare should respond to everything we have thrown at it. Luckily I was able to get my MRI scheduled for this coming Tuesday. I really hope there is a clear path forward but I might need to see an ortho and she mentioned a possible biopsy and GAH! Why is this all so hard? 6 months ago, you might not have even known I had RA and now a week can’t seem to pass without some sort of reference to this stupid disease. And to be honest, one of the worst parts of being on prednisone (besides the sleep issues and irritability) is that I have put on weight and I feel like I look a little bit puffy. I know body image is a challenging topic to address but I can’t pretend this hasn’t made this whole situation worse. 

4. I also get my 2nd infusion this coming Monday. I think this is the last 2-hour infusion and then they will speed it up to an hour if I continue to tolerate it well. I must say the set up in the infusion center is quite nice. I sit in a comfy recliner and there is a lap shelf thing they can lower so I can work on my laptop. The chair also has a massage feature so it’s not the worst 2 hours. Last time I worked with my feet up at a very minor recline while getting a chair massage. The kind nurses also brought me a warm blanket since I am always cold, especially in air conditioned buildings. If I ever had a desire for a side hustle I might create something similar for tired moms - come sit in our comfy, massaging chairs, take a load off for a bit, and feel free to doze off. We can even pretend it’s a medically-necessary appointment to assuage any guilt about taking time for yourself. 

5. Next week is the 4th of July which my brain thinks of as the mid-point of summer since I was on a mid-August to Friday-before Memorial Day schedule when I was in school. But it is decidedly NOT the mid-point of summer as an adult with a child who has only been out of school for 2 weeks. It’s the beginning. Which is good because it feels like summer weather has finally arrived what with all the rain we have had. Our family will be going to my parents for the 4th of July weekend which I am so looking forward to. Only one other sibling will be there but I will see a bunch of extended family and Phil can actually come with us for a change. He is busiest in the first 4 biz days of the month but will cram 4 days of work into 3 days so he can come to the lake with us. We haven’t been up there since February so are very overdue. The boys love sand and water so it’s the best place to be with them on a hot summer day. A change of scenery is a thing of wonder when you have small children and it’s extra wonderful when that change of scenery is the house of grandparents on a lake who are happy to help out as much as they can. 

How was your week? Did you set any goals for 2024?

It finally stopped raining

Friday and Saturday were rainy days but things finally improved on Sunday thank goodness. This is how the weekend shaped up. The subtitle to this post could be: we did all the things.

Friday afternoon/evening: I got an injection into my tendon which made my pointer finger/palm numb for the next several hours. It hurt like heck getting this tendon injected - way worse than a joint injection so it better work. It could take 3-5 days to notice a difference so now I wait. If it improves, I can reduce my prednisone by 2.5 mg every 10 days. It’s a gradual taper since I’ve been on a higher dose for nearly 3 months. But that means it will take almost 2 months to get fully off it. Hopefully once I am below 10mg I will feel less jittery and will sleep better. 

Post-injection comparison. The right pointer finger/joint area was extra swollen and red.

Saturday am: I was up at 5:30, but not by choice - steroids continue to mess with my sleep. Paul was up shortly after me and Taco was up just after 6 so the day started early for most of us. We had a break in the rain so I ran 6.25 miles and then we hit up the library where we were surprised to find llamas! Llamas visit the different library branches and this was our library’s weekend. That meant the library was extra busy. Paul enjoyed meeting the llamas; Taco was terrified. We ran into lots of different friends from our neighborhood and former daycare which gave the event a ‘small town’ feel which was nice for a change. It made me think of NGS’s recent Mooseum event! The llama we met had as much interest in getting his photo taken as Phil does. Lol. The real high was seeing Paul curled up with a book (a Geronimo Stilton book). 

Sunday afternoon: I was wiped by the time we got home from the library to have lunch so I tapped Phil in and laid in bed with ear plugs for 75 minutes while Phil managed the boys. I planned to take them to a splash pad/wading pool/park so had them change into their suits and then Phil checked the weather and said - um another thunderstorm is moving in. WOMP WOMP. So we pivoted and I took them to an indoor playground. We are dropping Taco’s nap this weekend so we needed to get out of the house for everyone’s sanity. 

This building area was a hit

They also loved this trampoline type of thing. Taco stuck to the edges bit Paul is really getting some air in the background.

Sunday am: I woke at 5 and could not fall back asleep for read for a bit before starting the day. Paul was up at 5:30 and Taco was up just before 6. The boys are such early risers! Phil does a swim club course at a local lake on Sunday mornings so the boys and I joined him since it was finally not raining!! It was a beautiful morning.

Sunday afternoon: I once again tapped out to lay in bed for an hour to recharge my batteries. The boys and I headed to a local splash pad/wading pool park at 1:30. It’s kind of a haul to get to this place (20-25 min) but it’s a zero entry set-up which is what Taco prefers. Plus it has a really nice park adjacent to it. We were there for about 2 hours and then got ice cream on the way home since it was the first weekend of summer. 

So that was the kid-centric part of our weekend. We divided and conquered a lot but Phil did stuff around the house like mowing, laundry, and getting groceries. Plus I wanted to give him some alone time since he solo parents again this week while I am in DC for 2 nights/3 days. 

Llamas, indoor playground, beach, splash pad, and ice cream. These kids sure have it good. Although the only things we paid for were the indoor playground ($12/each and worth every dollar to entertain the boys during a rain storm) and ice cream so it wasn’t a big financial outlay. I do hope someday they look back on their childhoods and think - wow, mom and dad did a lot for us/took us cool places. I had a great childhood but the boys do more things in a weekend than I did all summer. But that’s the difference between being 1 or 5 kids and living in a rural area (population 500) that didn’t even have a library!!

How was your weekend?