First Day of Preschool (kind of)

Well, we just got back from Ian's first day of school. It wasn't really his first day, but more of a meet & greet. You may recall, Ian is part of the Childhood Development Program at the High School, so in the room were: 10 preschoolers, 20 parents, 20 high school kids (each preschooler gets 2 high school 'buddies') and the teacher. Good thing it is a VERY large classroom, but there was plenty of room for the kids to all play and meet each other.

It was really cool walking in because you could see how excited the high school students were to meet their charges. We walked in the door and the teacher asked Ian his name, so he replied and the two girls who were assigned to him came up and introduced themselves to him and to us and they both started playing with Ian.

He had no problem whatsoever adjusting to the atmosphere. Within 3 minutes he had a police helmet on (with the shield), and his two buddies had a firemans helmet and a chef hat. After about 20 minutes the HS students had to go to their next class, so then the preschoolers got to meet their OTHER set of buddies. (the meet & greet wasn't at the normal school time, Ian will get about an hour with each class of kids).

I got to spend a minute or two with each set of buddies just giving them the general rundown on Ian. The biggest thing I wanted to let them know was about Ian's speech: He doesn't say 'S' or a few other letters. I just gave them examples of what words containing those letters would sound like. They'll be able to pick up on it fairly quickly, but I just wanted to give them the heads up.

The teacher we met last year moved away this summer, so this new one kind of got thrown into the mix. She seemed nice enough, but she is kind of a scatterbrain. Allison's hairdresser's daughter is in one of the classes and she has said the same thing about her, so I was on the lookout for it today. I'll give her some slack, but here is an example of her being kind of all over the place: She had said in a letter last month that she'd hand out a schedule during this meet & greet. Someone asked for it and here is her answer why she didn't have it, verbatim: "Yesterday I sent two students to the store, they got hung up so I couldn't print out the schedule this morning". What the hell does that mean? Obviously the kids aren't attending Harvard, so it really doesn't matter...but I think that shows the lack of preperation of even the most basic things.

Overall, I think Ian's gonna have a great time at school and will enjoy all the students. By the way, the preschoolers are split down the middle: 5 boys, 5 girls. We even ran into a couple that we met during our Birthing Class with Ian. The dad was there checking his blackberry every minute (no exaggeration), and the mom was busy with the nanny handling their 3 month old daughter. The dad even mentioned something about the nanny "We both work, but we make sure someone is home with our daughter.". Jeez. I should have said "Yeah, there are lots of people home with Ian too: Clifford, Curious George, Diego......"

And on the potty training front, everything is going AWESOME. He tells us if he has to go, even if he's watching a show, he'll say "daddy, I gotta go potty...I gotta poop!" and then run to the bathroom. He also like to pee standing up, like daddy.

He's had some accidents here and there, but hey're few and far between and whats even better is that he gets bummed and bothered by them. Today, when the first group of kids left to change classes I mentioned to Allison that it was a good time to show Ian where the bathroom was, and to take him as it had been awhile. As I was walking over to get him, he went up to the teacher and said "excuse me, I have to go potty". WOO HOO!!!! So I took him, but he didn't go. Hehe, Ian's pee-shy! But Allison took him again later and he went.

So overall, today was a good morning and Ian is gonna have a BLAST at school!

What I learned today on my run.

Today I had a 15 mile training run, which was the furthest distance I've ever covered. Before this, my furthest run was a half marathon, 13.1 miles.

So what did I learn today on my run? That 15 miles is a long fuckin' way. And 26.2 miles is a hell of a lot further than that....and to be honest, I'm a wee bit nervous.

I felt good up til about 11.5 miles, then my feet started to get heavy and the humidity began to take it's toll. It's been 2 weeks since I've run even 13 miles, so my body didn't quite remember what to do at that point in time. But afer all, I was able to get my mental game in order and got through it. I ended up walking from 13.68 miles to 13.88 miles, but other than that and 4 water stops, I chugged along the entire time.

I actually kept a pretty consistant pace, except for that 14th mile there. So in reality, it was a really good run. It just felt tough those last few miles. I'm very stoked that I've now covered that kind of distance, but its nowhere NEAR what I'll be facing in oh, just 8 weekends from now.

I have 8 weeks to prepare this lumbering shell of a body of mine to go 11.2 MORE miles than what I did today. Well, if we want to get technical, I only have 3 more runs that are longer than what I did today....and the longest one of them being 20 miles. That means that come race day, I'll have 6.2 miles of unchartered territory to cover. That's 6.2 miles above and beyond only one run of 20 miles that I will have previously done. Am I fookin' high???

I'm pretty damn nervous about it now that I know what a 15 mile run feels like. But after thinking about it today after the run, I know I'll be fine considering several factors:

A) I'm not the first person in the world to run a marathon 13 months after running my first half marathon. Other people have done it, some who probably were in worse shape, so I know I can do it.

B) Today I only stopped for water 4 times. If you really care, they were at miles 3.8, 5.0, 10.0 and 11.2. The marathon will have 12 water stops...thats 12x I can grab some water, walk a bit and gather myself. In 15 miles, there would have been 6 water stops and a 7th just half a mile later. So today I 'rested' less than I would have on the marathon course. (side note: I know that I don't HAVE to run the whole thing, but I have discovered that if I walk at any point other than water stops, mentally its THAT MUCH tougher to not stop again just .25 miles down the road. I try to only use walking as a last resort.)

C) Dispite my Nervous-Nellyishness, I know that I'll be fine and that I can do it. Even if I have to walk at times other than the water stops, which I understand is most likely going to happen. Even though my race history shows that I'm good at just plugging along mid-race, 26.2 miles is a whole new ball of taint hair. (you thought I was going to say wax, didn't you? Thats right, I said taint hair. I'm here to keep your eyes from getting too comfortable and keep them on their little eyeball toes).

D) Running longer distances is as much about conditioning your mind to handle the abuse, as it is your body. This was told to me by a runner-friend and I certainly understand now and believe it. But I know that I will prevail because I'm much stronger psychologically now than I have been previously. I obviously can't say I can condition myself for 20 miles, as I haven't run that distance yet.

Even though I wanted to stop and walk around mile 9.5, I know I didn't have to. I also got the urge around 12.5 but I kept on going. I know people say to listen to your body...fuck that. My body was trying to take the easy way out, but I wouldn't let it. In runs past, I would have easily obliged. But it wasn't as hard as I thought today to just tune out and listen to my feet hit the pavement and focus on my breathing. When I do that, I'm unstoppable.

So for those reasons and more, I know that I'm gonna kick ass in Philly.

not-so poopypants

We just had a breakthrough in the potty-training department.

I was filling in some nail holes on the garage door trim when Ian blurts out "daddy, I have to go poopy!" He runs into the downstairs bathroom, drops trough, drops on on pot and drops a few logs.

This is friggin' HUGE for us. Usually Ian will just casually lean against the coffee table to take the weight off his feet and quietly squeeze out some odoriferous waste products. I don't actually know that he's taking the weight off his feet. For all I know, he's applying abdominal pressure to help work out all thats in there...kinda like squeezing the last bit of remnants out of a tube of toothpaste.

Yeah, kinda like that.

Either way, that's his usual M.O....but not today! I made a HUGE deal out of it and we even called mommy on speakerphone to tell her our great news. It would have been better if SHE had US on speakerphone!

What made this whole thing even better is that Ian said that he started to poop in his underwear (no evidence though) but then realized that he should go on the potty. Fuckin' A. I don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves here, but school IS starting on Tuesday. I think Ian was just toying with me and playing headgames all summer.

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In other news, my Marathon training is going well. I have my first ever 15 mile run tomorrow morning. I have yet to run anything over a half marathon (13.1 miles), but I know if I take it slow and easy it won't be a problem.

Oh my, how life is changed. On Friday afternoons I used to call up my friends and we'd talk about what bar we'd meet at and proceed to get annhililated. Now I"m blogging to anonymous (and not so anonymous) friends about my son's methods of shitting himself and how I'm running like an antelope out of control.

Have a great weekend, and don't forget: It's fun to poop on the potty!

It's his potty and he'll go if he wants to.

There may be hope for us yet on the potty-training front.

As you may (or if you're getting old like me, may not) remember, we gave up potty training several weeks ago because it was a losing battle. Ian had no desire what-so-ever and couldn't care less if there was crap in his underwear.

Well yesterday, while wearing a pullup even, he told me he wanted to poop on the potty. yeehah! He didn't though, just peed, but hell that's a start!!

And just this morning, out of the complete blue, he told me he wanted to wear underwear because he wanted to "go to school and learn". Looks like I'm starting the process all over again:
*Dragging him (and most likely Leah) to the potty every 30 min no matter where we are
*Hauling 3 changes of clothes wherever we go
*Carrying the portable potty in & out of my car as often as I do Ian

But hey. If Ian is on board with us now, I'm all for it! Maybe 3rd time is the charm.

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Oh, Allison: hurry home. Leah is thisclose to crawling.