Little Runner

Lijah loves to run!  At school they have running club 2 days a week during recess, which means that the kids can choose to run laps around the track.  Every 4 laps equal a mile.  Then to motivate the kids each trimaester they have an assembly and award the kids with a little ribbon each time they pass the 5 mile mark. Kolby and Lijah both enjoy running club, and have fun comparing how many laps they each run on running club days.  But Lijah especially really seems to love running.  Here's a little clip from his teacher's weekly class newsletter e-mail:

Running Club Success!!!! I am so very proud of all my terrific runners in Room ___! On Friday afternoon every child was on stage with me earning a Running Ribbon! Together (including me and Miss Veihl) we have logged 1,074 miles since September!!! We had several students receive their 70 mile ribbon! I earned my 20 mile ribbon and can't wait to earn my marathon shirt! We have so many talented runners. I love seeing their enthusiasm as they jog with me around the track. A big pat on the back to Elijah B for logging the most miles so far at 78 miles!! I know there are several students right on his heels!

Dining Table

I have been trying to figure out what the best plan would be for a dining room table, because we decided we'd really like a table long enough to seat our family and have room for guests too, and our old table only seats 6 (Courtland was still in a high chair when we got that table) so it just doesn't really cut it anymore.  I've seen this table at a store called World Market, and I really like it a lot.  I love the idea of a long pedestal/trestle table with two benches for the long sides, and a couple of pretty chairs at either end:

Although this one is only about the same size as the table we have now, so it's not nearly as long as I'd like (yes, it does have two leafs that fit in on either end, although those still wouldn't make it as long as I'd like, plus I don't think leaves that stick out on the ends would hold up over time with kids leaning on them, plus the bench would only be the length of the table, not the table + the leaves -- so anyway, this table has the look I like, it just doesn't quite fit all our needs).

So then there's this table, from Restoration Hardware (I'm pretty sure this table is probably the inspiration for the other one from World Market).  This table comes in several different lengths that would be long enough for us, but there aren't matching benches and the finish of the reclaimed wood is really pretty, but it looks to be raw wood without a stain or any finish, so I can't imagine how you'd clean it if the kids ever spilled a glass of milk or anything on it.  Plus it's thousands of dollars, just for the table (and then you'd still have to find chairs/benches).

So I was just looking on Google Images for pictures of trestle tables to get some ideas, and I cam across this one that they built on This Old House, and it looks so cool:

It gives all the details about how to build it, step by step, on the website here: http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/how-to/intro/0,,20438427,00.html  And the coolest thing is this is something I could actually do.  The legs are made up of newel posts (like the post at the base of a hand rail on a stairway in a cool old house), with corbels at the bottom, and the support beam across the middle is just a hand rail like you might attach to a wall next to stairs.  I'm totally going to build us a dining room table!  Picture this one in their picture, except about 8 or 9 feet long and with a dark wood stain instead of paint.  I'm so excited!  Guess I'll wait until we actually get moved into the house first, but I'm so excited to do this.

Traffic School

So, I did it.  I got a speeding ticket a few weeks ago.  (Yes, this may be a shock to anyone who has driven with me and had to endure my usual slow driving).  It was in the morning, in between dropping Camden off at his school and taking the other boys to their school.  But I wasn’t even in a rush.  We had left the house and dropped of Camden in plenty of time, and we were just making our way to the other school.  The boys and I were listening to an audio book and I just didn’t pay attention.  So I was surprised and frustrated with myself when I saw a police officer signaling me over to the side of the road and I realized my mistake.  I had been driving 5 miles under the speed limit.  Unfortunately for me, it was on a road near a middle school, and even thought I was going under the speed limit, I wasn’t going slow enough for a school zone.  Aargh! 

Michael has taken advantage of this opportunity to give me a hard time about my speeding and the cost of the ticket (I guess he’s conveniently forgotten about the time that he rear-ended a car right after we moved here).   :)   But I figure it’s only a matter of time until I’ll have a chance to tease Michael about a speeding ticket someday too (we both know that I generally drive slower than he does) – and no one can spend too much time on the road and avoid getting a ticket forever.  [Although, in my defense, I’d say the more time you spend driving the more likely you are to have an accident.  And since I would guess I spend an average of about 11 hours driving per week (on the weekdays) and Michael only spends about 6 hours a week, then logically I should be allowed nearly double the traffic tickets he gets without any extra teasing, right?  Sure, that makes sense, just take my word for it].

Anyway, when I got the ticket I found out that you can pay a little more and take traffic school to avoid the ticket going on your driving record and increasing your insurance costs.  So today I finally decided to stop beating around the bush and get it over with.  I spent several hours today reading through the wordy text in the online traffic school courses (the DMV requires all traffic school courses to include a minimum word count, so apparently that means that the text needs to be excessively repetitive, use longer phrases than necessary to explain simple things, and occasionally even throw in extra random words that don’t fit in the sentences just for good measure).  And for some reason, the traffic school that I chose from the list of approved schools has text that mostly makes sense, but just doesn’t quite sound right, almost like it was translated from a foreign language or something.  It keeps using the word “learnt,” but don’t worry – I looked it up to make sure, and “learnt” is a real word, it’s just the British form of “learned.”

And then some of this stuff is just downright dumb.  For example, I learned that according to the traffic school course, “More children are killed in car collisions than in any other type of collision.”  [Really, ya think?  I would have guessed more children were killed in helicopter collisions.]  I’ve read entire sections about the difference between road rage and aggressive driving, I’ve seen the same picture of a car’s blind spots 4 different times so far (and I’m only on section 8 out of 11 so far), I’ve re-memorized the legal alcohol drinking limit just because I knew I’d be quizzed on that one – even though I’ve never had a drink in my life and I never will, and I’ve learned some very important facts that I didn’t know before.  For example, I learned that “sharrow” is the name for the markings on the roads that mean you need to share the traffic lane with bicyclists (this is different than a bike lane).  No, the incredibly helpful traffic school course did not show a picture so we would know what a sharrow is, but fortunately it told us the name of a sharrow and then quizzed us to make sure we never forget the name of this marking. 

By the way, these are what sharrow markings look like – thank you, Google Images.

Anyway, as you can probably tell, I’m actually just postponing finishing the last few sections of the traffic school by taking the time to write this, because if I don’t take a little break I might go crazy from reading for the 87^th time that the highest cause of collisions is speeding and the second highest cause is drunk driving (or if I didn’t take a break, at least I might have fallen asleep while reading the driving facts, again). 

I guess that’s one good reason never, ever, ever to break any traffic laws – besides the fact that it might not be safe, tickets cost money, it’s not a very good example for the kids to see their mom get a ticket, and apparently you can avoid being teased by your spouse if you have a perfect driving record – surely no one who has ever had to endure traffic school would do anything to have to go through that again. 

[Ok, seriously, it’s really not all that bad.  Just a waist of a perfectly good day that I actually didn’t have anything big planned except getting kids back and forth to school so I could have spent that time doing something, anything, more enjoyable than traffic school.]

Good News

Good news!  Camden hasn’t had any more stomach problems at all since I posted our concerns about a possible allergy a few days ago.  We contacted the pediatrician, she asked me to keep a running list of all the foods he ate, when he had stomach pain, when he had skin reactions, and when he used the restroom and then to come in for an appointment on Friday.  But since then his stomach hasn’t hurt at all, and he did have hives the following day, but no more skin problems since then.  So I’m just crossing my fingers that whatever it was, he is over it for good.  I think we dodged the bullet on this one – I really didn’t want to have to add cooking for a child with a food allergy to my ‘to do’ list.  Don’t know what caused the problems he was having last week and earlier this week, but hopefully whatever it was is done with (and luckily apparently whatever it was wasn’t contagious, knock on wood, since the other boys all seem fine).  We’re pretty blessed!

Food Allergy?

So, our 6 year old son, Camden, suddenly started having a bad pain in his stomach 4 or 5 days ago.  It comes and goes, so he will be acting totally fine, and then later he will be crying in pain for quite a while.  He says it hurts on the inside, and it's also sensitive to the touch.  Sometimes it is after he eats, and sometimes it's just in the middle of the day or he will wake up in the night crying.  And it’s pretty bad – the poor little guy just sits and cries, and refuses to eat or drink while this is happening (and for those of you who know Camden, you know that refusing to eat means he’s seriously not feeling well).  He hasn't thrown up, had a fever, or diarrhea – just the pain in his stomach.  Oh, and it’s just Camden – none of his brothers have been sick at all, so it’s not very likely that it’s something contagious.  

I would think it was just some GI bug, but on Saturday the front of his ankles and tops of his feet were bright red and looked like a bad sunburn (but he had previously had on jeans, socks, and shoes so we knew he wasn't burnt), then that went away.  Then Sunday his face looked puffy, especially his cheeks and under his eyes.  And this afternoon his face looks a little red with small dots, possibly like hives.  I asked Michael what could cause stomach pain and skin problems, and he said maybe it’s a food allergy.

We keep waiting to see if maybe he’s just sick and he’s going to get over it.  (And he had last week off of school for spring break and his school has this week off too, so we don’t have to worry about him missing out or anything).  I thought maybe he was getting better yesterday because last night he slept all night without crying or coming in to sleep in our room for the first time in 4 nights.  But then today I took Kolby for a doctor’s checkup and Camden went with my mom to institute and then they went out to lunch afterward, and after lunch my mom called to tell me he was crying and crying in the car.  They came home, and he calmed down after a while.  And now he’s acting totally fine again.  But now I’m wondering if it really is a food allergy.  The idea makes me sad for Camden – the idea that he may always have to be careful about finding out what ingredients are in foods at home, friends’ houses, and restaurants for the rest of his life.  And it could make it harder to plan meals for the family.  Of course we’ll do what we need to do to fix this problem for Camden, but I can still cross my fingers that maybe it’s not really a food allergy, right?  

None of our kids have ever had any allergies, and neither have we, so we’re new at this.  I’ve left a message for the pediatrician, but I’m wondering if we go in and he’s not having any of the symptoms at the time of an appointment if she will be able to make a good diagnosis.  (Do food allergies really come on all of a sudden like this?  I thought since our youngest is 4 years old the boys were all past the stage when an allergy would have shown up, and we were lucky enough to be allergy free).  And if she does think it might be a food allergy, are we just going to have to keep track of all the foods he eats every day and try a process of elimination to figure it out, or is there some kind of test that can tell us for sure what is causing it?  Or maybe we’ll go in and the doctor will think it’s something else entirely.  I guess we’ll just wait and see.  But hopefully we can get him over it before too long, poor little guy!