That's the whole point of the game

Trying to explain the rules of Hide and Seek to a 2-year old can be a challenge. Superman often counts and then yells out "Where are you?" before looking for whomever is hiding. Hot Wheels has tried to explain to him that the point of the game is for him to find the hider without being told where he or she is hiding, we've tried to tell him the same thing. Sometimes he gets it, sometimes he doesn't. The hardest part about playing Hide and Seek in our small ranch house is trying to make it seem like we don't know where the kids are hidden for 45 minutes when they used up all the original hiding spots in the first three rounds. Their current favorite is to hide under the covers of their bed. It's usually pretty obvious since the bed is made before the game starts and then there's a large bump in the middle of it.

We've had a couple decent workouts recently. Last Saturday morning we went to a local boardwalk along the beach that's a very nice 2 mile round trip. Super Dad pushed the boys in the jogging stroller while they ate waffles and I took Cutie in the baby carrier, also known as the "sweat-producing-heat-trapping-baby-sleeping-contraption", I actually was making some pretty decent time over much of the two miles, it almost felt like really working out again, and that felt good. I've been doing some moving-box-heavy lifting, and with Hot Wheels riding his bike more, the walks around the neighborhood while pushing Superman and Cutie in the stroller have gotten faster, too. Real speed and endurance builders? No, but fun.

I thought about the treadmill today,

Does that count as a workout? Actually we went out for a walk today so Hot Wheels could ride his bike and I added some short jog intervals while pushing Superman and Cutie in the stroller. It's not a jogging stroller and I wasn't moving very fast but it reminded me that someday I'll be able to go a little faster and I'm looking forward to that. Next goal - the 5k distance. The first one is in April so I've got plenty of time. Tomorrow we're having a family picture taken for the pictorial church directory and we get a free portrait. Cutie will be a month old tomorrow, too, so that's nice. We're going out for a walk first thing in the morning and the picture's early afternoon, it will be interesting to see how it goes with the kids, if Cutie could just sleep through it that would be perfect.
Now, here are some recent pictures. Take care.

Not Heaven, but really close

In the time that I've taken a break from posting, I've also mostly taken a break from the computer in general. Taking more time to be unplugged has been a good thing for me, I was starting to spend too much time partially spectating while the kids were left on their own and I was doing something on-line. I look forward to catching up on everyone's blogs, but I think that for the remainder of my maternity leave I may still be around sporadically. Especially since until I get back to the schedule of work, and the gym, I've got nothing exercise, triathlon or even physically related to write about. Except that Hot Wheels has started riding his bikes on our family walks and he's gotten quite good at it. He's mentioned a couple times that now he could do a running race and a biking race and pretty soon he'll learn to swim and then he can do races "like mom". That's a kick of motivation to get back to it, I'm just waiting until November because I don't feel like trying to juggle regular workouts into our routine. If I can find some time to hit the treadmill in the basement, fine, but I'm not going to stress over it.

In general, my life right now is about as close to perfect as I think can be achieved. We've been having an amazing time together as a family. Whether I'm ever able to convince (bribe) SuperDad that we should have another one, it doesn't really matter. We're a great family of five. The boys are completely in love with their sister, who will now be known as Cutie. It loses something in writing it here, but if you could here Superman talk about his new sister, he loves to kiss her and then tell me "She a cutie", and it's pronounce k-YOU-U-U-U-tee, in the way only a two and a half year old can make a word sound even better. There hasn't been a single instance of jealousy from the boys, even when I've got to stop whatever I'm doing with them so I can feed or change Cutie. Unfortunately, their only negative issue has been an increase in the number of times they're up overnight. We're not sure how that could be related to Cutie's arrival, since she's clearly not the cause of all of these sudden nightmares and scary stuff in their room, but they've been horrible about sleeping. She, on the other hand, is a dream. She's a relatively content baby and she's already started doing a four and a half to five and a half hour stretch of sleep at night. With the boys I never got more than three hours until they were over a year old, so this is wonderful. If only she could teach her big brothers to sleep better, mom would be a little more rested, and maybe slightly happier.

The start of the school year went fine. Hot Wheels is happy to be back at preschool and Superman tried his first "I'm Two" playgroup at the local Park and Rec. He cried for about 15 minutes but then settled down for the rest of the hour and came out proclaiming "Mom, I had fun at school!" So, all is going well.

We've had some aggravations with the whole house buying and selling process, but I guess there always are. We're hoping the closing will be six weeks from now, although the seller of our new home just found a place to move to so if she can close sooner, everyone else can as well. We're enjoying the last gasps of summer since the days still get up into the 70s around here. We've found a beach where the dogs can swim, but it's a bit rocky for people, Hot Wheels went swimming with the dogs last weekend. There's a local boardwalk along the water and we've been walking a couple miles there a few times recently. We've been spending time with some friends and generally enjoying ourselves. The next nine weeks will undoubtedly fly by too fast, but since last time I had to go back after six weeks, it will still be great.

I look forward to catching up with everyone as race seasons come to a close. I'm also looking forward to hitting next season with everyone, I've just got a little more work to do in the off-season getting myself back in shape. The only real negative to this post-pregnancy body is the adjustment to nursing. Trying to run with these bad boys is painful, but it's worth it. I saw a t-shirt recently that read "I make milk, what's your Superpower?", I thought that was pretty funny. The sad part is that the best food I'll ever make is something none of the kids will even remember eating. Too bad I can't cook meals that good. I do have a hate-hate relationship with the breastpump, but again, it's for a good reason. The boys were both exclusively breastfed and then nursed or got bottles of breastmilk until they were a year old. Not that formula would hurt them, but I was proud to do that for them and I intend to do the same for Cutie. I've always heard it helps with weightloss but I've never really found that for myself. I am back in my non-maternity clothes, those that I didn't already pack up, so I guess I'm on the right track.