Two Little Tootsies

So one of my friends from one of the clubfoot groups emailed me last week, her daughter is a few weeks younger than Riley and she has another daughter right around Jacob's age.  Her oldest is bilateral clubfeet like Riley and they just went for a check-up and her daughter may need the same surgery Riley had.  I told her I'd send pictures.  So I took some pictures of Riley's feet for her.  Riley is about 8 months post surgery.  I think they still look pretty darn good, I was worried about her right foot for a bit but it seems to look ok here!

Hardly any scars here!

This is the worst of her scars and thank goodness it's on the inside and the back.  Still it's not horrible!  All of the others have pretty much disappeared!

Yeah, that red on her foot is silly putty!  The scars aren't visible!

And on top of it, Riley participates in Dashing Dolphins at least once a week which is a running club at school.  So proud of her and the fact that clubfeet has never held her back.  I still remember the Drs telling us that she would never be able to keep up with her peers when they found the clubfeet in-utero.  Well she has more than proved them wrong, and every week that she gets another mile under her belt it's a few more steps in our fight against her birth defect.  Drs know a lot and but they don't know the spirit a child can possess and that it can defy the medical statistics.  I love watching her run with her classmates and friends and seeing her pride for each dolphin tail that she earns (they get a dolphin tail for every mile they run) and what it took to get to where we are today.

This Guy!

I haven't blogged about this guy in a while but Jacob deserves an update.  He's doing absolutely FANTASTIC at his new school.  He's so chatty, friendly, personable, playful.  Don't get me wrong he definitely has his terrible 2 moments but he has come a LOOOONG way since early-August when we moved him to Bright Horizons.  He has a best buddy, Evo, at school, they talk about Giants all day long together and his mom and I always pick up at the same time so they leave school together.  They are like two peas in a pod and it's so stinking adorable since Jacob was SO anti-social just 6 months ago. 

Jacob is talking up a storm.  He graduated from speech therapy a month ago but he's speaking full sentences, he's really blossomed.  He tells me about his day, the walks they go on, what they have for snack (he apparently doesn't like hard boiled eggs so he just eats two crackers), that he only ate two corn dogs and two are left, what they did in school, who he rode bikes with, the list goes on and on.  He's speaking like 12 word sentences, this is a kid who 6 months ago could barely speak 2-3 word sentences.  He's due for an evaluation and I think Miss Katie will be SUPER impressed with his development.

And his temperament, WOW!  What a change, he can still be difficult but he is quick to use his words and not his mouth, hands or feet!   I picked him up from school today and one of his friends was climbing on his back, hitting his head and back and Jacob was crying and yelling, "I don't like it.  Stoooop!"  I was so proud of him using his words when 2 months ago he would have turned around to bite him.  The school's District Manager was there because the Director is on medical leave and she said he was having a great day other than this incident
 and I told her that I saw Oscar hitting him and two months ago Jacob would have bitten him but today he cried and used his words so I was super proud of him. 

Potty training has been a sore spot, especially #2s but {knock on wood} we have gone 3 days without an accident.

And finally, Jacob's new favorite activity...riding his new Spider-Man big boy bike!

I can't believe my baby is going to be 3 in less than 2 months!

Jacob had pajama day at school last week and he LOVES mustaches so of course he had to wear his mustaches

Listening to story time

Go Giants!

Every night when Jacob goes to bed he says "Mommy, can I please hold your head?"  Then he grabs my head, presses it into his squishy cheeks and hugs forever.  I love it!

Jacob got scared watching Monsters Inc (which he's seen a million times) this past weekend so he wrapped his arm around Riley for comfort

Jacob is obsessed with Despicable Me so I bought him Minion (which he calls Onion) underwear, apparently he liked it a lot!

More Half Marathon Pics

So I'm a little behind on what's been going on with the kids, especially Jacob, but I got some more pictures from the agency that orchestrated the Half Marathon, they definitely do the amount of people participating justice.  They also got some nice shots of us finishing! 

Try Your Best and Never Give Up

That's the advice my 5 1/2 year old gave me when I asked her if she thought I could run a 1/2 Marathon.  Thank goodness for her advice because I am VERY proud to say that yesterday, I attempted and completed my first 1/2 Marathon in 11 years!!!  The Nike Women's Half Marathon in San Francisco.  I found out 6 weeks ago that my company had some golden tickets to run in the half because our Morningstar Farms brand was sponsoring so a group of 5 of us ventured out and ran it with very minimal training.  I signed up about 6 months ago for a Disney Half but it's not until mid-November so I had accelerate my training.  My goal was to NOT get picked up by the pace wagon AND to finish under 3 hours, especially since I didn't do any hill training (which I am paying for today). 

We decided to make a weekend of it and got a hotel room off of Union Square where the half marathon started from.  We headed to the Expo Saturday which was very crowded.  The city was also abuzz because of the Giants' being in the World Series so we sought out family World Series shirts.  We had a nice day walking around and had a dinner and then early bed for the kids and I while Marc enjoyed the bar the Marriott Marquis where we were staying.  I did not sleep well at all.  I was so nervous about the race, not waking up in time, etc that I tossed and turned all night long.  Alas at 5:15, I was up, dressed and off to Union Square to meet up with my teammates.  Our brand manager and the agency put us up in the VIP start, which meant we were steps away from the start line with the sub-6:00 min mile runners.  I texted Marc that I really hoped that I didn't get run over...like seriously.  But the vibe was awesome.  I ran with my friend Aimee, who continues to amaze me in every way, her husband passed away in early March and she's a single mom of an almost 4 year old and a 15 month old.  She was an awesome running buddy and I'm not sure I could have made it the entire 13 miles running without stopping.  We chatted the whole run until about 11 miles when we needed a boost from our music to make it the rest of the way.  The weather was perfect, the course I felt went fairly quickly.  The first few miles were tough, but they always are for me, and the last 2 were also tough because I could see the finish line but couldn't quite get there fast enough.  Mile 10-11 was AWFUL!  It was a pretty much vertical hill which we ended up walking about a quarter mile or so of (I think we walked faster than we were running it!).  It was so intense that they actually had medics about every 10 yards on the hill.  Overall, we finished in 2 hours and 27 minutes and 07 seconds which way exceeded my expectations.  It also put me in the top half of finishers which I was pretty proud of! 

Marc was tracking me through Nike's app, I guess Riley was SUPER upset that I didn't win (note that the winner ran just over a 6 minute mile to win the run, I ran like an 11 min 14 sec mile so as she was finishing the race, I was on mile 7).  Riley couldn't comprehend this and for the life of her understand why I wasn't upset that I didn't win.  So here came the lesson of the day...

Riley: "Why didn't you win?"
Me: "Remember when I first told you I was doing this and it was 13 miles which is really far and did you think I could do it?"
Riley: "Yes."
Me: "What did you tell me?"
Riley: "Try your best and never give up."
Me: "Right, and last night I didn't sleep well and I was really nervous, and tired and there were times when I just wanted the run to be over because my legs were tired but I knew I wanted to finish, that you and Jacob and Daddy were waiting for me at the finish line, so I tried my best and I didn't give up.  I didn't win the race but I finished it and that's because I never gave up.  Remember when you told me reading was too hard the other night and you were no good at it?"
Riley: "Yes."
Me: "What do you think you should do next time?"
Riley:  "Try my best and never give up."
Me: "Right."
Riley: "I still think you should have won."

At least she has faith in me!

Checking into our hotel!  The kids were so excited they slept with their suitcases next to their beds

Little dude ate his way through the Expo and the city munching on fries and sliders

He REALLY likes ice cream

Excuse the bathroom selfie but everyone was sleeping and I wanted a pre-race photo

Meeting up with the team the streets were electric with runners

The start line

Team Morningstar Farms!

So many runners

Runners for blocks!

Crazy close to the start line!

Finished and enjoying the VIP tent

Tiffany's necklace

My official results, overall rank was 10,374 out of 25,000 and 1071/2924 in my Division

Coming into the finish and hearing the kids cheering for me was awesome!

My running buddy, Aimee!

Would I do it again...absolutely!  Can't beat that runner's high...even though I am pretty sore today (mostly my hips from the hills!)

Annual Trek

We made our annual trek to Joan's Farm this weekend.  It was H-O-T!  I have a fundamental issue with it being 97 degrees in mid-October and picking out pumpkins.  You're supposed to be drinking Pumpkin Spice Lattes, wearing sweaters and feeling the crisp Fall air at pumpkin patch but instead we sweated.  But I digress, the kids have fun and that's all that matters.  Of course they wanted to ride the train.  Riley rode the ponies right off the bat but Jacob was scared.  Jacob was actually scared to go to the pumpkin patch once we got there, he's "scared Halloween" thanks to all of the creepy decorations at Safeway (reason 5000 I hate Safeway) but I convinced him it wasn't scary and we should check it out, once he saw the miles of pumpkins he was good to go.  After Riley rode the pony he decided he wanted to try and he "promised" he wouldn't be scared.  Welly my baby boy has certainly grown up because he was not scared one bit.  He was so proud of his big boy status telling me over and over that he had fun and he wasn't scared.  Ri of course had a blast and was kind enough to humor us with taking our normal pictures.

We ran into Ri's friend Eli at the Pumpkin Patch

Jacob was still unsure about this pumpkin patch thing

Starting to feel more comfortable

Love these two

They love each other a little

My pony girl!

It's tradition

Here come the annual pictures

A little bit taller...

Still catching up to big sister

Jacob was so excited to ride the choo-choo so fast...poor guy learned the hard way it only went 5 mi/hr

Still having fun!

With a little help from little brother

My handsome pants

Paying for his pony ride

Jacob was so proud that he wasn't scared, he's been talking about the pony ride for days

4 little pumpkins sitting in a wagon!

Another year in the books, it's now been 5 years that we've gone to Joan's Pumpkin Farm!