champion spoon-thrower

During mealtime Maggie likes to grab the spoon from me and feed herself with it. Then, when she's done she throws the spoon on the floor. Today it looked like she takes aim when throwing her spoons. Notice the two spoons under the table:

3-day weekend

We didn't do anything exciting for the Memorial Day weekend but it was very nice to have the extra day to spend with Maggie, run errands and of course sleep. We watched a couple movies on Netflix (The Mechanic which was completely absurd, and Kick-Ass which was actually pretty good). I also watched a bunch of episodes of Grey's Anatomy - I think I'm somewhere at the end of season 2 now since I just started watching it this year. Marlon's not a fan though so I just watch it by myself, which is better than making him watch something he doesn't want to and being unable to listen to the dialogue over his commentary.

I also managed to not cook anything until today. We're having some chicken lentil curry for dinner (chicken, lentils, onion, garlic, carrots, curry, turmeric, and cumin) and Maggie's having lentil-brown rice-carrot slop for the week. She really likes it though :) Our fridge is completely full because I finally went to Costco and we also have a few months worth of toilet paper and paper towels. Whenever the toilet paper starts running low it makes me feel uneasy for some reason. It's as if we don't live less than a mile away from at least five different places we can buy toilet paper, half of which are open 24 hours.

So Maggie's been doing a lot of standing practice lately. She loves standing, particularly when she gets to do it in front of the mirror and scream at her own reflection. Actually these days she just babbles all day and every once in a while she'll emit a random scream. I have no idea why or what about but they seem to be just because she likes the sound of them.



Well I managed three runs this week and my ankle is probably about the same as it was a week ago. Okay maybe it's slightly worse because yesterday was 10 miles, probably not the brightest idea, but I wanted to see what would happen so I could decide if I should do the race this weekend. I think I would do it if I could come in within 5 minutes of my original goal and not have to take off more than a week afterwards. But I'm not really sure of either of those, so I'm having trouble deciding. I think I'll give it a few more days and see how it feels (as if anything miraculous or unexpected is going to happen in the next 3 days, but who knows).

This week's running:
Wed: 4 miles easy, no watch
Fri: 6 w/ 3 @ (6:55, 6:51, 7:06)
Sun: 10 @ 8:18

diagnosis

I was just looking through all my pictures of Maggie and she has just changed so much. Here she is at two weeks:



I think she actually had more hair then than she does now. She also made lots of funny faces. This one (at 3 weeks) always cracks me up:



I really miss when she was just a teeny tiny thing. Now she is just getting tall and even her tummy seems to be thinning out :(

I've been gradually giving her new foods to try - the latest ones have been baby yogurt (banana and vanilla) and lentils cooked with rice and sweet potato. So far the only thing she hasn't enjoyed is carrots and broccoli that I added too much garlic to. Oops. Dinnertime almost always ends up being a huge mess though because she insists on grabbing the spoon and feeding herself, as well as smearing the rest of her face and body with food before throwing it on the floor. Oh and she also eats Cheerios now! I like giving her Cheerios because they are mostly mess-free unless I step on one that has been dropped on the floor by accident.

Anyway, so I haven't run now in 2.5 weeks, or really more like sometime in April if you don't count the couple unsuccessful short test runs I did. My ankle has been improving but very slowly, and last week I did some biking and elliptical. Yesterday I finally got a MRI done and went to the doctor today for the results. It was good news - well, good compared to the alternatives - just tendonitis, and not tendonosis or another stress fracture. So now I have bilateral posterior tibial tendonitis. The MRI also showed an inflamed achilles tendon (which I've felt on and off for the last few months, but goes away when I'm good about stretching and massage) and some old ligament damage from all the times I've twisted my foot over the years.

So the doctor actually said I could run my half-marathon next week just based on the amount of damage in the MRI but for me to just go with what I can handle given my symptoms. Right now I think it's unlikely that I can do it because I walked a little the other day (to the library and back, about 1.5 miles) and I definitely felt a little more sore afterwards. Also I've lost so much time at this point that I wouldn't even be able to run it well. Of course, I don't want to lose yet another race fee...and if it seems like I'm going to risk making the tendon worse then it's totally not worth it. I'll probably just see how I feel next week and decide the day before.

little miss muffet

It's fun playing dress-up with Maggie. This bonnet, which was crocheted by Marlon's grandma once upon a time brings to mind nursery rhymes.




So today I went to the doctor and didn't get a diagnosis, because I need to have a MRI done, which won't be until next week. But here are the takeaways:
1. I could have any of the following: posterior tibial tendonitis or tendonosis, scar tissue around my posterior tibial tendon, separation of my accessory navicular bone from the navicular bone, or a medial malleolar stress fracture. But he thinks it's probably the tendon.
2. I have "unmanageable" feet which are hard to correct with orthotics and an "enormous" accessory navicular bone (as seen on x-ray). Unmanageable because they splay out instead of moving straight up and down. The accessory navicular bone is an extra bone that some people have, I already knew I had one in each foot but didn't know that they were that big.
3. I can cycle in the meantime, and use the elliptical trainer as long as it doesn't hurt.

sedentary

Well I haven't done any exercise all week, which makes me pretty grumpy. Actually I did have two short stints (20 min and 30 min) on the elliptical but I don't really count that. I didn't do any more because I wasn't sure if I should be even doing that. My left ankle still hurts despite the fact that I haven't gone running in over a week, and sometimes doesn't even feel any better than it did when I hurt it initially, so I'm pretty frustrated. I have an appointment with the doctor tomorrow so I'm hoping to find out what is wrong finally.

Unfortunately, being sedentary doesn't seem to decrease my appetite so I'm probably going to gain some weight. Doesn't help that my workplace is basically an all-you-can-eat buffet all day long. Incidentally, we also just went to a seafood buffet for lunch today. I got five plates of food but on the way home I realized I still wasn't full! Grrr. We had to leave because Maggie was getting upset because she was late for her nap.

But other than that normally she has been pretty happy. See?

She's also been trying to eat everything these days.

It's so fun to see her become interested in everything around her, but I guess it also means it's time to get some gates and/or a playpen and start watching her every second. We used to be able to just leave her sitting in her carseat at a restaurant without being strapped in but now when she gets mad she just tries to launch herself out and she seems pretty close to making it.

rowdiness

Happy Mother's Day! This is how part of the day was spent:



I also slept a lot, as usual, to catch up. Sadly, I did not run at all this weekend because something is wrong with my left ankle (the other one). I'm not really sure what is actually wrong with it but I do know that it's probably something I should take more seriously because taking a few days off hasn't alleviated the problem. I should probably pay the doctor a visit but who has time for that.

Anyway, we had some pancakes for breakfast, and I received an antique framed print of a pretty landscape from the family, a card from Sydney, a card from Marlon, and a card from Maggie with some crayon scribbles :) One of the scribbles was even in the shape of a heart which Marlon and Sydney swear she drew by herself...hmmm. Maggie's been continuing to say Mama a lot, but now I'm starting to think that she thinks it refers to my boobs rather than me, because that looks to be what she's going for whenever she says it. Or maybe we are one and the same to her. Hehe.

bedtime is fun

Ever since we got the new crib, Maggie seems to like going to bed.


There are all these fun things to look at! But she does go to sleep quite quickly, probably because she is tired out from the day. Yes, we are very lucky (for now, at least). She generally goes to bed at 7pm but sometimes we are bad parents and keep her up because we want to go out to dinner.

So my other ankle is now acting up, so now I have two sore ankles. But I am planning on cutting way back this week, and I am getting my new orthotics tomorrow, so maybe the combination of the two will get rid of my problems. One can only hope. I wanted to do a 5k next Sunday but my main goal is to make it to the half-marathon and not waste yet another registration fee, so if I have to take the whole week off and/or miss the 5k, then so be it.

Last week's running:
Tues: 7 w/ 5 x 1000m@(first one 6:40, others 6:36), 3 min jog recoveries on treadmill
Wed: 7@9:16
Thurs: 6@8:36
Fri: 8 w/ 6@7:19 tempo on treadmill
Sat: 4@9:14
Sun: 13@8:50