whoa.

'They' say that this is nothing. My life is only going to get busier. Well, good grief, I don't know if I can handle busier. I already find myself looking around the table when we've managed to find a night where we can actually eat around the table and going, 'when did we last do this?' And my kids are 7 and younger.

I now have a third grader and a kindergartener. I'm going to be 'home-schooling' C everything she needs to know for Kindergarten next year, so I don't really call her a preschooler officially because it's going to be so casual. She already knows the alphabet and most of the letter sounds, counts to 25, and can say her address and spell her name. So I'm not going to sweat anything with her, she picks it up so easily.

S  is headed to camp in a couple weeks, she'll be sleeping over the last night. This will actually be her first sleepover by herself that wasn't at her Grandparents' house. She's stoked and her sister who shares a room with her is not. A is very dependent on S and is NOT looking forward to that week.

We have friends coming up from Ohio next weekend. That will be incredibly fun but my brain is already thinking on what needs to be cleaned. Everything, of course, but I need to have a list, that just being the way I am. :)

We just put up a new swingset, and C, the fearless child that she is, climbs the climbing wall. Y'know the kind with the rocks, like a professional climbing wall? Well we have one of those that goes 5 feet straight up and she now climbs it with no help. We've taken to calling her our little monkey.

Here's a link to our YouTube video of her.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pm7yvqM7z5Q



A has also learned our address, and passed the Kindergarten screening with flying colors. I think that because her birthday is so early in the year, thus missing the cut off dates and making her one of the oldest in her class, we will actually need to pay attention so that she doesn't get bored in her classes. Once a teacher asks her to do something she's off and running, and I don't want her to get ahead and get bored. I'm ready for her to be in Kindergarten, she's so eager to learn and I think she's going to love it.





S is finishing up another season of softball and thrilled to be a third grader. She's really looking forward to summer. I think she's really ready for that break. Now that school is really getting into some challenging things, she doesn't get overly excited about every single day anymore. She still likes it and gets along well with teachers and classmates, I'm glad she still has such a good attitude about it.




I have discovered the benefits of running with a barefoot stride instead of heel-striking. Those of you who know me on FaceBook are probably sick unto death of me talking about this, and Hubby keeps teasing me about being an evangelist about it. But that's okay. I have a pretty new pair of Nike Free Runs and I love them and running like this. You strike with the mid-foot, as you do when barefoot, instead of the heel, as you do when wearing rigid running shoes. It strengthens muscles in the foot, ankle, leg, around the knee, and in the hip. It also keeps you from putting so much shock on all the joints. The heel, people are discovering, is not built to take hard shocks, even when walking. So, running and landing on the heel like most do, sends shocks through the heel and up through all the joints of the legs and into the back. Hence, knee injuries, hip troubles, and back problems, all of which are higher in those of us who wear a lot of shoes (us Europeans/Americans), and especially in those who use expensive running shoes. Shocking, huh? The expensive shoes that people are using are actually making their injuries worse and happen more often.

Well, that was long. I can't blame you if you skipped most of that last paragraph. You did, didn't you? That's okay. I've been thinking about that a lot lately, and maybe now that I've put it on here I'll be able to shut up about it elsewhere. ;-)

I found out from my ENT that I need to have another (very minor) surgery to have my vocal chord put back into place... I'm not looking forward to it. I get so nervous before surgeries, even this one that is so minor. The last time they forgot to give me the 'feel-good' IV before and I had an emotional moment in the operating room. Ugh. So if you feel so inclined, send up a prayer for me. I'll try to get a date up here soon. I just have to get daring enough to schedule the appointment, and find a date that I actually could do it.

It's raining like crazy here now and I love it. I always have loved rain. Perfect way to end the day.