But, I really want a little place to document my struggles and triumphs in life. And just life in general.
Right now things are humming along. I ran my 6th marathon in Houston a couple of weeks ago. It was sort of awesome. I had piss poor training this cycle and sometimes only got my 1 long run in during the week. I hate excuses though. I was proud of my time 5:30 flat. Proud that I took this 35 year old body that has the scars from 3 c-sections over that finish line. Proud that I took the time to talk to that woman at mile 23 who had just gotten a divorce and who so desperately wanted to beat her ex husbands marathon time and when she realized it wasn't going to happen gave her some inspiration that just finishing a damn marathon is enough. It's about YOU not him. We ran together for a bit, drank a sip of the free beer together and then I had to call it. I had to get a move on. She ushered me on with tears in her eyes. So I stopped. I went back and gave her a hug and told her that she was about to be a marathoner!!! Who cares what her jackass ex husband did?! She could do it! And she did.
So I wrote that little blurb about the marathon....oh, 3 weeks ago. Forgot to try and find pictures and post it.
Since then things have been fun! Logan is still doing an arduous ABA schedule. Isabel had indoor soccer training for a couple of months. I pulled Logan out of martial arts. It just wasn't working out. Hopefully he'll get in his teacher's Jiujitsu class soon. Izzy is still doing dance and Girl Scouts. Her outdoor soccer season actually starts this week.
Logan is doing pretty well in school. We've had a couple of meetings about getting his speech evaluated again. They did and he still doesn't qualify for in-school therapy. I'm still pissed about this, but I've tried. His teacher is fantastic this year and I'm very nervous about next year. His teacher has assured me that he will do everything he can to get Logan with the right Kinder teacher for him. The principal at the school is on a medical leave of absence for the rest of the year. She is absolutely amazing and is one of the main reasons that the school is so highly rated and so well known and sought after....even more so than the newer elementary school in the newer section of very expensive homes. I hope that gets well and is back next year.
Logan seems to excel at numbers and counting. He's still very hit or miss with almost everything. Some days he'll count things up to 30 and will identify most letters. If you ask him to do these thing though, he will usually tell you the wrong answers.
Brian and I recently watched the Temple Grandin movie. It was fantastic. So bittersweet. We both just watched with our mouths open and were like 'Ho.ly shit. That's Logan.' If you get a chance to watch it (it's on Netflicks!) you should. Claire Danes plays Temple and she knocks it out of the park. She did so well that I'm really shocked she wasn't nominated for awards. Anyway, I HIGHLY recommend you watch the movie, especially if you know Logan. Or really anyone with autism.
Isabel is doing great in Kinder. She is learning to read and likes to insist that her books sent home by her teacher are too 'babyish' and 'easy' for her. They aren't, but I can see why she gets bored with them. She still loves her art projects and has recently started writing sentences and stories, which is adorable. She got her DARS scores back and is ready for 1st grade! :-) She spelled all but 2 of her 32 sight words correctly. Brian immediately wanted to know which ones she got wrong. Turns out we hadn't had those on her wall and hadn't been practicing them. Oops. Anyway, she did great and we aren't worried about her academically.
We are really working to get her off of her Singular. The emotional side effects are so nasty and she's been on it for over 3 years straight. It stinks. Hopefully we will start to wean her off in April or May and see how the Summer goes. Fingers crossed she can get at least a few months break. She actually has an asthma/allergy appointment tomorrow.
Brian and I were able to get away last weekend to San Francisco! We had an amazing time. It was the most fun I've had in 3 days in a long time. I saw some silly commercial that said something like 'vacation brings out the best part in you.' Or maybe it was 'if you're not happy on vacation you're a miserable person.' Something like that. Anyway, I haven't laughed so hard in a long time. Being back in Northern California felt so good. We got in Friday night and headed over to Mark and Chelsae's house. They have two cats, so I was fully expecting to have to bag it and head to a hotel last minute. I took allergy pills beforehand and started taking inhaled steroids, but I was fine! It was almost like I wasn't allergic to cats! Brian, poor Brian, did not fare so well. He was a trooper though. We stayed up until 1:30am talking and catching up. I had been up since 4:30am and it was 3:30am Texas time before we went to bed. Saturday morning we headed out to Berkeley to catch up with Larry and Guillermo and have breakfast with them. We gave sweet Nadia a pat and then headed back over the Bay Bridge into the city. It took us 40 minutes to cross the damn bridge.
After getting back into the city we headed over to Fort Point. That was about a 2 1/2 hour haul with traffic. I'm glad we went though, we had never been.
Saturday night we checked into our hotel and got ready for dinner. I showered and put on a dress and high heels. The elevator was a little sketchy, so Brian suggested we take the stairs from our 5th story room. Um, ok. So down we went. As we were heading into the lobby from the carpeted stairs I felt myself falling. I grabbed the railing as if my life depended on it and ended up turned around with my feet about 6 stairs up from my head. It was sort of like I was in my own little hurricane or hurricane force wind storm. It was all slow motion. I didn't dare let go or I knew I was going to do somersaults down the stairs. I, of course, got up and laughed it off and strutted out into the streets of San Francisco like the boss I am. The next day I noticed that I actually had a nice blister on my hand from gripping the damn railing so hard and a lovely bruise on my knee.
After shaking it off we were planning on eating dinner at this place in North Beach known for their seafood. They didn't take reservations for less than 4 people, so when we got there the wait was 2.5 HOURS long. Uh, no thanks. So we headed a couple of feet up the street to another lovely Italian joint and waited just an hour for some good Italian food. After dinner we headed to this beer bar Brian wanted to go to. It was fun, but I was getting super tired so we headed back to the hotel shortly after.
Sunday we got up and went for breakfast at the famous Yerba Buena. It was so fun. The tables are communal, so you basically sit in any open seat, even if it's a teeny tiny table and you don't know the other couple sitting there. We sat down next to a couple from Houston. Small world. They were very lovely and we enjoyed chatting with them. After breakfast we did the touristy Fisherman's Warf stuff. Then we had chowder in bread bowls at Neptune's Palace. How is sourdough SO freaking good in SF?! We headed over to Dan and Meredith's house after lunch.
Meredith is probably the world's best hostess. Ever. We almost got in a fist fight over her trying to give us their brand new bed to sleep in. They actually got a new bed the night before because 'Allyson and Brian were coming and our bed was old.' They won and we claimed their room. She invited all of the Moms over from Mom's group 2005. Including Donna! It was awesome. I loved seeing all of the kids so grown up. They all looked the same, just older versions. I can't say enough how amazing Sunday night was. Even though I rarely talk to most of the Moms anymore I know they would be there for me and my family if we ever needed anything. Preben made a homemade Danish (he's from Denmark) and it was heavenly. I could have eaten the entire thing. Mer made cupcakes and homemade chocolate mousse. And Shepard's Pie. And meatballs. And sausage. And stuff for the kids.
My flight was too early Monday morning. I really wanted to stay and extra couple of days. I had a terrible nightmare about Izzy Friday night, so I really missed the kids Saturday and was feeling homesick, but by Sunday I was feeling better and ready to relax some more!
Brian stayed in SF for work the rest of the week and made it home late Friday night. We had a fun weekend celebrating one of my best friends' birthdays, so it was a nice way to cap off a fun couple of weeks.
My parents are also officially hired as babysitters. Not only did they take awesome care of the kids, but they cleaned out the garage (if you've ever seen our garage you know what a huge task this is), cleaned and vacuumed out my car, did laundry, shuttled the kids around and there was a damn pot roast in the crock pot ready for me! Amazing.
