Snip, snip

Not a sight you want to walk into the kitchen to see.

Somebody gave themselves a haircut on Sunday morning... can you guess who?

I have to say, I always figured this would happen sooner or later... until she turned about three. She seems totally old enough to know not to do something like this. Or so I thought.

The funny thing is that I took her for a haircut on Friday night - her first in a couple of months. And within 36 hours, she felt the need to put her own stamp on it.

The good news is that it is really not all that noticeable. I mean, she cut it, we went to church, and we were back home before I figured it out - and that was only because I saw the pile of hair on the floor and scissors on the countertop. She cut a chunk near the front, where she has lots of scraggly bits that never quite seem to grow long enough to make it into a ponytail anyway. It's a little more pronounced now, but could definitely have been much worse.

Who knows... maybe we'll decide bangs are the way to go, after all??

Another week bites the dust

This week was marked by Liam having either several consecutive sicknesses or else one single sickness that kept morphing. As a result he had a fever, headache, two completely different rashes, one trip to the walk-in clinic, one sick day home from school, one appointment with our family doctor that was cancelled at the last minute because he seemed to be doing better and then a trip to the ER the following day when he suddenly started complaining of neck stiffness and pain (and as a parent your first thought is always: MENINGITIS!) When we walked into the ER on Friday night they immediately quarantined us, because the second rash Liam developed looked exactly like chicken pox. I don't think it really was chicken pox, though; the spots were not itchy. Or at least maybe I am just telling myself it was not chicken pox, because the doctor we had seen earlier in the week told us Liam was not contagious and said to send him back to school, so we did, and I even put a note in the bag to Liam's teacher saying I know he looks like he has chicken pox but he doesn't, so please don't worry about him infecting the entire class. Perhaps I should have gotten the second medical opinion before writing that note. Regardless, he had some sort of viral infection, we think, which may have been a mild case of chicken pox, possibly, which raises the point - so why did we bother getting him vaccinated against that disease then??Anyway, this all serves to explain (somewhat) where the past week has gone. In between all the medical goings-on, we did manage to sneak a few other things in. The kindergarten class took their skating trip, and I'll be darned if Mallory didn't have a grand old time hot-dogging it around the ice, showing off to the other kids (whose parents are not mean enough to enroll them in ringette).Liam took advantage of his sick day at home, during which he was a little too active for my taste and did not allow me to get as much work done as I probably should have, to continue to decorate his bulletin board. Here's the latest incarnation.Aside from a couple of soccer medals and a paper decorated with football team logo stickers, it is 100% hockey related. I think Liam needs to branch out a little and get some more hobbies.Close ups of a few pieces of new artwork.Mallory decided to get in on the action, too; here's her bulletin board - a far cry from the organized full-to-the-brimness of Liam's, but she's working on it.Too bad I could not follow the example set by these two and get some things done as well. I have six framed pictures sitting around our bedroom that I am agonizing over hanging, because despite having worked out an arrangement for the frames and sizing the photos and having them printed and working out on paper the measurements of where the prints should go... I am chicken to start putting them on the wall, lest they turn out the least bit asymmetrical or unlevel. Procrastination is my middle name. Hoping to make that the big accomplishment of the day.

The thing about Aunt Amy

Over the Christmas holidays, Amy came to spend a few days with us, and they were probably among the happiest days of Mallory's life. Amy played Barbies and basement hockey and polished Mallory's fingernails and did I-can't-remember-what-else, and Mallory fell in love.

Amy is now legendary in our house. Mallory cries every time she sees a picture of Amy because she misses her so much, and yet the first thing she wanted to hang on the new bulletin board in her bedroom is this picture of the two of them together in December. She has already made Amy three Valentines and a birthday card. She told me one night a few weeks ago that she wishes Amy was her mom. And she asks a lot about when Amy is coming back.

Aside from nearly throwing Mallory out the window with the "I wish you weren't my mom" comment, I have mostly taken this in stride, and have commiserated with her about how much we miss Amy and pulled out the craft supplies every time she wants to make another card. I did try to talk her out of having a picture hanging up in her room if it means she cries every time she sees it, but I think having it in plain sight is actually helping and the tears are coming less often. Common sense tells me this is just a phase and that Mallory would not really run off from me if given the chance.

But, I may have a work trip coming up to Amy's neck of the woods, and I am keeping that quiet just in case. The last thing I want is a little stowaway in my suitcase.

Cousin Lilly, at almost two months

Resolute

I've kind of missed the boat on New Year's resolutions, but it's February 1st now and I figure better late than never. I started the year bemoaning the fact that I injured my back during Week 2 of my half marathon training plan, essentially putting the kibosh on doing the Burlington half marathon in early March this year. But after wallowing in sugar cookies for a month, I snapped out of it and am moving on with a plan.

My plan for this year originally included a lot of races and then after I injured myself again, I sort of settled down and said I just wanted to be healthy enough to go out and do things - not necessarily train for anything in particular. Well, that didn't last very long. I am still going to go easy on the training (i.e. I will not attempt another speed workout on the treadmill anytime soon, because while I pleasantly surprised myself by being able to complete it... the injury came 4 days later... and I am not entirely convinced that the two were not somehow related.)

Instead, here is a list of the events I hope to complete, not for time but for fun, assuming that I get the training in for them, and if I don't then I don't and there is always next year:

January - Pub Brrrrun - check! (OK, fair enough - a run like this can't really be considered a goal race!)

April - London half marathon - it's on April 29th so if I start now, I still have time to train for this one
May - Muddy River run (maybe)
June - Tomatoman sprint triathlon
July - Bluewater Olympic triathlon (twice as far as a sprint... so this is my stretch target for the year)
August - Bulldog sprint triathlon - I have something to prove on this course this year
September - maybe Lakeside sprint triathlon; maybe the Harvest Run
October - Detroit half marathon
November & December - resume wallowing in sugar cookies

I've been enjoying using the Garmin I got for Christmas for the last few weeks. I put it on, go for a run, come within a few meters of my computer and my run data is instantly zapped onto it - a map of my route, my pace, etc. It's pretty cool and pretty accurate - you can even see on the map (pictured) where I crossed the street to run on the other sidewalk. A gadget like this and some cool tunes downloaded from iTunes make going for a run a lot of fun these days. Hopefully I can keep it up and stay injury (and pneumonia) free this year.

(PS - while I am definitely a sloooow runner - this screen shot was taken from a very snowy run with superbad footing. While I am sloooow, I am not normally THAT slow. But hey, it's still moving faster than sitting on the couch, so I will take it!)

A very fun weekend: part 2

This was the weekend we were planning to go snow tubing at Boler Mountain... except that, this winter being what it is, there was no snow. On Wednesday I got an email back from the staff there saying they "planned" to be open on the weekend, but by Friday night the website was broadcasting that the hill was closed.
Since this was one weekend day this winter when Liam didn't have hockey - and those are few and far between - we didn't want to let it pass without taking advantage. So with another six weeks or so to go before our Detroit Zoo membership expires, we decided to make another trip.
We knew the temperature would be hovering right around freezing, but we were not anticipating snow... after all, wasn't that the very problem with going tubing? Check out the kids' footwear, which grows increasingly inappropriate as the day goes by. (Here come the first few flakes!)

We had the place virtually to ourselves. It was amazing. Thinking back to our trip last March when it was wall-to-wall people (throngs of school groups to boot)... it was an entirely different experience. Not every exhibit was open, but the ones that were open made up for the lack of numbers. We had never been inside the giraffe barn, for example. We'd only ever seen the giraffes from a great distance in their outdoor enclosure. Here, we came face to face with them. Or face to knees, as the case may be.
The Arctic Ring of Life (my favourite exhibit - or at least it was, until we got into that giraffe barn!) seemed much more realistic with the snow coming down.
Watch out, Liam, you're going to get eaten!
(Mallory finally tires out and cops a ride...)
The polar bears were much more active than they are when we go to see them in 90-plus degree summer heat - go figure, right? They were playing a game with each other - throwing their food dish into the water, jumping in after it, and trying to wrestle it away from each other. It was pretty cool to watch.

The only disappointment of the trip for me was that the lions were not out. In a real life turn of events that I couldn't have made up if I'd tried, two of the Detroit Zoo's five lions were actually rescued from a residential neighbourhood where they were kept to guard a crack house. The Detroit Zoo is so stately and beautiful that it's hard to believe it's in the same city.
After almost 4 hours, it was time to go... but not without first having a snowball fight. At the front gate. Which was utterly deserted.
We'd already achieved our goal of getting outside for some exercise and fresh air. This was just the icing on the cake.
And it led to a great family picture (camera propped up on a garbage can). Maybe my project will expand to become Four People Twenty-Four Times, because this one is a keeper. In the full-size shot below you can actually tell that three of the four of us have hucked a snowball at the camera (not too precisely, of course). Only one person has chosen to hold on to hers. In about thirty seconds she is going to try to stuff it down her daddy's back.
Goodbye for now, Detroit Zoo. I have a sneaking suspicion we will be renewing our membership for another year.

A very fun weekend: part 1

We had a very fun weekend - in fact the most fun weekend in a long time. (Or maybe not. Certainly that time off at the beginning of the year was lovely, but it seems like for-ev-er ago right now!) This was in spite of the fact that I came home from work on Friday night feeling lousy; we are all fighting scratchy throats and coughs right now. We had plans to go out Friday night, which almost never happens, and I thought about bowing out. But two Tylenol and a 20-minute power nap later we were out the door.Chad and I signed up for the Pub Brrrrrun hosted by Chatham's new running store, Up & Running. (The store opens the first week of March.) And so it was that we met downtown in an empty parking lot after dark on Friday night to do some jello shots and then go for a group run.

(Disclaimer: I stole the rest of these pictures from the event's Facebook page.) The run took us to 5 local bars over the course of almost 7 km (well, that included the run back to the car - it had been billed as a 5 km-but-not-officially-sanctioned event). Each stop was long enough for a drink and some sort of game/activity. I won two prizes - some gloves and a stick pony (don't ask). Chad made out better with a technical shirt. At least Mallory was briefly entertained by the stick pony...
I like to run but am pretty much a running hermit - I've never gone out with a group before. This night made me wonder why not. It was actually a lot of fun, even if I only knew a handful of the people there. And hey, after 20 years of living in Chatham, I *finally* made it inside the Montreal House!!

(So THAT's what all the fuss is about?? Yikes.)There's talk of another Pub Run but this one being maybe in July - when the weather is warmer. I may well sign up for it, too. It turns out that I kind of like this type of event. Maybe we'll even put a group together to do it. Don't be surprised if I come to recruit you.