Books to Read Aloud

There are some things that are annoying about being a parent.  The constant need to supply them with edible meals, the buying and stain spotting and washing of all of the clothes, the cleaning and manicuring of their bodies that is never ending, and of course the frequent whining about unimportant or unchangeable things and the asking for things they could technically do on their own (The tags on my clothes itch!  The sun bothers my eyes!  I need a bandaid!  Wait, now I need another bandaid!).  Just to name a few. 
 
But there are joys that come with it too, and one of them is reading aloud.  If I was stuck on a desert island with them all I would want is an unlimited supply of books.  It would be awesome.   I would go to my dehydrated grave full with words and upturned smiling faces.  It really is my favorite thing to do with them.  But choosing the right books can be difficult to keep a 10 year old girl and a 7 year old boy interested (Viv doesn’t read with us much yet but she is getting closer to being able to concentrate on the story).  One challenge is the age spread and another is the gender difference, but even then you would think there would be tons of choices out there.  It ends up it is harder to find than you think.  Also, the third challenge is that I am picky about what I’m reading too and I want it to be good; I don’t want to waste my time on tired stupid plots that lack interesting prose.  When I tell people this they will often recommend classics, and I do try to get some of those in, but I’ve read a lot of those already so I don’t really want to read them again out loud (although I do for the kids sake).  But normally I want something fresh and new for all of us, so I’m constantly on a hunt for something that meets all my criteria. 
 
We have a local small bookstore called Rediscovered Books and we have found the staff to be really helpful in giving us some guidance.  It was through their summer reading list that we ended up with TumTum and Nutmeg: The Rose Cottage Adventures.  We just finished it and really enjoyed it.  It is essentially 3 different stories inside the one book and while it clearly was not the first book in the series I thought it stood on its own well.  The one line synopsis is that it is about 2 little mice that live inside the house of a lower class family and the mice sort of watch over the kids while also getting sucked into different adventures and therefore the children also get involved.  Asher lost interest from time to time, but Avery liked it more than I thought she would; I thought it might be too “babyish” for her but she actually really got into it!  It is pretty gentle as far as the plot, very innocent but with enough adventure to be good for boys or girls.  Definitely a lower elementary target age as far as topic but at a reading level more for a 3^rd or 4^th grader (based on my guess), which is why I think it was good for reading out loud.  I even liked it!

People sometimes ask me what Avery and Asher are into reading on their own right now and I think Avery’s favorite books of the summer have been The Twistrose Key, The School for Good and Evil, and A Tale Dark and Grimm. Asher’s favorite books right now are the two Life of Ty books.  If you have a first or second grade boy and are looking for something to start reading to them and then transition to them reading on their own I would recommend these.  Even I laugh at parts of the books!

Please feel free to share any books that you think are great to read aloud to a family, we are always looking to beef up our list! 

Food Thoughts/Game On! Diet week 6

Many of you already know that Andrew and I are playing this competitive diet game, Game On! Diet.  It has been fun and effective for us (I lost 4 lbs the first time I played in April, gained a couple of pounds back and restarted the game 2 weeks ago and have lost 3 lbs since then, so net negative 5 lbs).  Andrew is also losing weight (not that he really "needs" to, but if he wants to be closer to "race weight" for biking then I guess, according to him, he has to lose some weight).  It has been great for us, because it combines camaraderie and support with competitive challenge, which is what is so great about so many sports.  So it makes dieting a sport, which is cool, and works for us!

I will tell most anyone (and probably have told everyone) that the best part of the diet is actually not the diet part.  It is the "habit change" part of the game (you have to get rid of a bad habit of your own choosing by 'not' doing something everyday AND start a good habit that you actually do every day).  I have been trying to do this on my own for the past year unsuccessfully, but the accountability of the game has really driven me to do it!  The great thing is that I really can see how, when you stop a bad habit for 2 weeks, it truly stops and you don't have quite the same drive to do it again; you have the self control and power to make a choice.  My best example is my phone, because that was my first bad habit, I made the rule for myself that I couldn't touch it in the car when I was driving.  The first week I failed several days, I was subconsciously picking up my phone without even thinking about it.  The second week went better, but it still would really bother me when it was ringing and was sitting RIGHT THERE in my purse, I could just reach in and... but I didn't.  And by the 3rd week I didn't even think about it, I didn't care if it rang or beeped or buzzed, ignoring it became easy (so much so that I started ignoring at home too, when I wasn't even in the car!).

As far as the food rules go, I think both Andrew and I feel better eating the smaller portion sizes that the game makes us eat.  Particularly the afternoon snack is a great diet addition for me.  It means that at 6 pm I'm not so STARVING that I could eat the entire state of Idaho.  So I can make a healthier choice for dinner, eat slower, and eat a smaller portion.  The other good food rule is that you get to have 100 calories of "anything" during the day.  I love having this exception, it means that if I am totally jonesing for some chocolate I can have a little bit.  And it ends up that a little bit is enough to feel satisfied (sometimes!).

Which brings me to the point I was trying to get to.  The other day Andrew asked me if I think there is a place (not a real place, but a mental place) where we can be eating healthy (like we are on this diet) but not being so obsessed about portion size and what we're eating.  I wish I could say "yes" to this unequivocally, but I'm not sure.  I would like that, and I have certainly been in a place that the author of Game On! Diet describes as "fat and happy."  I have had times when I have been content with my body even though my body is not ideal and thankful that I have strength and endurance and an ability to move around the earth and eat good food and breathe fresh air and all of things that go into appreciating being a living human being without caring about how "big" I am.  And then there are times I think, "I really want to be the healthiest I can be, and I know that if I lose 15 lbs I will be at the weight my body should be at to be it's healthiest; to avoid atherosclerosis and metabolic syndrome and all of that, so I need to make changes to be healthy and live longer."  And then there are times that I look in the mirror and think, "If only I could lose those 15 lbs I would look so much better and not be so afraid to put on my swimming suit."  Which of those is reality? Or something to aspire to?  Or something to use as motivation? I don't know.

And then today, as I was reading my new dessert cookbook, the Momofuku Milk Bar cookbook (inspired to purchase based on so many pinterest and facebook food porn pictures and then furthered by my desire to BAKE because I'm on a diet that doesn't allow WHITE FLOUR OR SUGAR which is clearly food of the Gods!) I had a moment where it all sort of made sense.  And it had very little to do with me or my perception of me.  It was about the cycle of community involved in food and where our society is with food right now and how we make change in ourselves.  Because one thing I've been thinking is how HARD it is to play this game outside of our house.  If we go out to eat we are very limited, there are very few restaurants that serve food in 1) the appropriate portion 2) the appropriate ratio of protein/carb/fat 3) don't use processed foods/fats and 4) don't use sugar or white flour.  We are fighting an uphill battle against what society is telling us.  Which makes me think, how does ANYONE stay at their ideal body weight?  Ever?  Or is it a fight for everyone? 

But I digress (as usual), we have strayed so far from the concept of eating for survival, from the idea of a community producing food for each other.  And so (and this is not a novel thought by any means) the whole "farm-to-table" concept is really where we may be able to change all of that.  Right now it's cool, almost cliche, in areas of the U.S. to talk about farm-to-table.  In other countries that is HOW YOU GET FOOD, at the place where it is grown, by the people who grow it.  Which, is maybe why other countries are not as fat as we are, right?  But the thing that really struck me, this time, was how beautiful farm-to-table is in it's essence.  Maybe it's because I spent so much time at my grandparent's cattle ranch as a kid, watching farm-to-table at it's origins (which was WAY more manual labor than beauty to be sure).  This passage from the head baker/creator of Momofuku Milk Bar, Christina Tosi, actually made me cry:

We closed down our kitchen one day this past summer, and went to see where the darling jugs of impossibly creamy and flavorful milk came from.  We left with a deeper understanding of how to smile when it rains, the knowledge that skinned knees are as badass as sheet-pan burns, and a line drive to our hearts as a reminder that each jug of milk is made by a small family with skill, thought, and drive.  Every drop of milk counts on that farm.  The pigs and chickens are fed any leftover milk; a jug sold is part of a loan payment or a piece of used farm equipment to help expedite the milking and pasteurization process.  Each jug, therefore, must count in our kitchen.  We are a kindred family that survives, fortunately, by doing what we love.

When I read this it made me really think that this is probably the way out of our constant need for food consumption, to REALIZE WHERE IT COMES FROM for everything you eat and to value that.  Ok, so taken to it's natural end we end up in the Portlandia episode where they sit down at the restaurant to eat the chicken and then end up going to the farm to make sure it had a good life and end up in a cult.  I don't mean THAT, but in a more reasonable way I mean thinking about food before we put it in our mouth.  If we would all just pause and think, for even 1 second, before that bite went into our mouths, or before we put food into a skillet or oven, or before we pull it off the shelf at the store, we might make different and healthier choices.  Again, this is not a new concept, mindful eating has been a buzzword for awhile.  But why can't we do it?  I think it's habit.  Just like the habits Andrew and I are changing in our 4-week longgame, this too is a habit, created out of ease, but a habit all the same.  Changeable.  A choice. So maybe the answer, to Andrew's question, is a "yes" after all, because we all have the power to change our habits.

Not giving up on Minimalist Advent yet!

So it has turned into a list, no themes, just a list.  But I’m still doing it!

Day #10 – old rain coat – it had several baby/coffee/dirt stains, but I loved it, so it was hard to part with, but it needed to be put down.

Day #11 – protein shake packets – I don’t know why I kid myself with these things, they work for weight loss because they are extremely low calorie and full of protein so they fill you up, the trade off is they are disgusting.  I’ve decided I would rather eat the calorie equivalent of something that tastes good and feel hungry afterwards than to choke down one of these.

Day #12 – extra address labels – I was looking through my office supplies and had some sheets of random sized labels (the leftovers from previously used boxes) why on earth did I keep these?  One consistent size is more than enough for my once or twice a year address label making needs!

Day #13 – Set of blue and white mugs/lids/plates/saucers – I’m counting these for 4 days because this was such a big thing to get rid of.  These were our “hot chocolate mugs” and “treat plates” and they were quite cute with their little lids for the mugs and everything.  And when I got them (I think for my wedding) they were surrounded with so much hope for cozy blizzard days with hot chocolate around the beautifully set table with my yet to be born children that I could cry just thinking about it (Thank you Williams Sonoma for setting that expectation).  Ends up they aren’t practical; we use them once a year and typically when we have used them a child has chipped the delicate porcelain or spilled (they are very “spilly” cups, you know what I’m talking about, some mugs just spill a lot).  You will not be surprised to find out that we have as cozy of days as I had imagined with hot chocolate in regular mugs at our table set with plastic mats.  There is more screaming and hitting and whining than in my imagined scenario pre-children, but it’s still pretty nice.

Day #14 – as above

Day #15 – as above

Day #16 – as above

Day #17 – baby gates – we don’t need them anymore, yay!!!

Day #19 – a pair of jeans – how many jeans does a person really need?  Discuss amongst yourselves.

Cheaters Never Prosper

This weekend I had an "aha" moment about this experience.  I actually tried to cheat the system on Friday.  I put aside about 4 articles of clothing that I am going to donate, thinking that I would use one of them for day #6 and then keep the rest in case I have a busy day later on this month or I run out of things to get rid of (Ha ha!  As if I could run out!).  But despite having some things knowingly set aside to use, I still keep running into new things on a daily basis, without any preplanning whatsoever, that I want to get rid of simply because I am more observant about my surroundings with this mindset in place.  It is interesting because I have done big “spring cleaning” sorts of things in my closets before, and I really enjoy them, but the smaller daily living mindset is actually really nice too and keeps me more present and aware of my use of various household objects. So even though I planned on cheating it didn't even work!  Although they are still in my closet just in case...

Day #6: “An item of clothing that doesn’t fit”

I wore a pair of pants today that I haven't worn in awhile and they started out the feeling like they fit, but 30 minutes into wearing them I realized they are "saggy butt pants."  I’ve lost a little weight over the past year (through a lot of sweat and tears) and my body is just different now which means clothing fits different.  I have been selling my in-good-shape clothing through Thred Up (an online consignment store) and I’m happy with their process, so into the Thred Up bag they go!

Day #7: “something that needlessly takes up surface real estate (my own term for flat spaces: tables, counter tops, etc.)”

I got rid of my alarm clock today.  It worked just fine, but it was sort of old and pretty big, plus I don’t even use it any more as an alarm clock, I use my phone.  It was starting to be crowded on my bedside table and now it looks so nice and empty; my phone has it's own real estate now!

Day #8:  “an item of clothing that is worn out, and should not be worn in public”

I have a tendency to hang onto sweaters.  As someone who knits I love the texture and color and everything about a sweater.  But sometimes they get worn out, and pilled, and just smelly.  This particular sweater lives on the bottom of a stack of other sweaters that I actually wear.  I keep thinking I’ll wear it some day for some dirty indoor task where no one else will see me and I will never go outside in it.  Which means it will probably never get worn.  Because who wears a sweater when what you want is actually an old sweatshirt?

Day #9: “something useless taking up space in the kitchen cabinet”

If you have little kids you know that sippy cups are sort of annoying, but also necessary if you don’t want to be constantly mopping your floors.  There is always a “new and better” sippy cup that comes out and I am exactly the person they are marketing those for.  And then I get them home and I’m acutely disappointed in their performance.  I got rid of a couple of them today and it’s like a sippy cup size weight has been lifted off my shoulders.

Just in case you thought I forgot...

I didn’t! I just don’t have time to blog about stuff every day so I’ll have to chunk it.  Also, for the fun of it (and for potentially repeating the process next year) I’ve added themes that complete the directive, “Pass along something…”

2^nd day: “…that is broken.”

Today we sold a desk and matching chair on craig’s list.  It had a broken drawer, and had been well used by our whole family for the past 8 years.  The drawer was fixable, but neither of us wanted to do that, or pay to have it done on something that was already in fairly worn out condition.  Plus it doesn’t match any of our other furniture (which is no crime, we definitely lived with mismatched furniture throughout college, grad school, medical and vet school, and 7 years of residencies).  Furniture that plays well together is enjoyable for me and so the broken desk is now gone.

3^rd day: “…that is an unnecessary duplicate.”

Today I donated our old duvet cover.  It was one of those things I had thought of keeping because it was still in decent condition, but really, when am I going to use that, ever?  Plus it was annoying because it had pin tucks.  Have you ever tried to tug gently on something with pintucks? (when you are making a bed for example)?  Don’t do it, it rips them out, which looks bad.  Not a good purchase choice on my part and keeping it reminded me of my failings.

4^th day: “…that you’ve been holding on to only because it was a gift.”

Today I donated a piece of pottery that was given to us as a wedding gift.  I liked it for the first 6 years, then I stopped liking it as much, and now it doesn’t fit with anything else we have and the guilt surrounding getting rid of it because it was a wedding present is cloying.  But, it is gone.  Sweet relief.

5^th day: “…that is uncomfortable/annoying.”

Today I sorted through my sock drawer and got rid of a bunch of socks.  I need to remind myself not to buy socks in sets, because inevitably half the set has colors I like and the other half I don’t, so they get shoved in the back of the drawer and never worn.  I also have a bunch of socks that annoy me because of the way they feel inside my shoes (my kids are super sensitive about sock seams, I wonder where they get it from…) so those are gone too.  The remaining socks can now luxuriate in their spacious drawer.

Minimalist Advent

I’ve always loved the idea of an Advent calendar but I’ve never actually had one.  A couple of times we’ve bought the inexpensive chocolate deals for the kids and it just seemed so excessive to have a treat every day (and the chocolate is often gross) and so it just never really “took” as a family tradition.  But I like the idea of “marking the days” which is what it seems like it is all about.  Based on my very brief research (5 minutes of google) advent calendars have only been around for 100 or so years and the ones that have gifts in them for only about 60 years, so it’s not like Jesus said “give them loads of stuff every day leading up to and including my actual birthday!” right?  And I don’t want to send the message to my kids that “you get a new ‘thing’ every day” and then there is just more junky stuff around the house, which drives me crazy. 

I looked around on the internet and I found some really fun ideas like this one http://www.theminimalistmom.com/2012/11/clutterfreeadventcalendar/

but even that requires more time and planning than I am capable of at this point.  So I decided to do something that kills two birds with one stone (on a side note, that is really an unfortunate metaphor isn’t it, with the killing of the birds and everything?).  I’m going to donate or get rid of one “thing” every day leading up to Christmas, and I’m going to document it here so that I can hold myself accountable.  Not only will it free up more space (and be less stuff to move to our new house) but it will passing things on that could be of potential use by others.  I’m going to try to talk the kids into doing it too, to make some room for whatever new might be coming into the house this holiday season but we’ll see how that goes.  Wish me luck!

Day #1 – Our Crib – ok, so this is totally picking the low hanging fruit because we were going to get rid of it anyway, but give me a break, I just finished working 60+ hours over the past 4 days and I’m tired.  Plus, it’s been sitting in our garage for the last 3 weeks and it really needs to go.  Surprisingly, even though all 3 of our kids slept in there as a baby, I have no emotional attachment to the crib so this is not really a painful one to give away.  So tonight we will put it on Craig’s List!  (I would absolutely donate it but there are no charitable organizations that will accept cribs in our city that I can find due to safety risks).  If you’re looking for a free crib let me know.

Sleep and the Sleep Cycle App

 As a doctor I often end up talking to people about sleep; about how important it is, how truly critical it is to our health, and in talking about it I see how many people have abnormal sleep patterns.  It is one of those chicken and the egg issues; is it their comorbidities affecting their sleep or their sleep affecting their comorbidities?  I usually don’t have the answer for that, other than that many people I see who are struggling with their weight also have abnormal sleep (ok my friend over at Go Maleo, I’m just waiting for you to blog about this!).  Anyway, sleep is critical, there is no debating the evidence for that: if you don’t sleep at all you will die (in the short term) and if you don’t sleep much you will definitely die sooner than you should (in the long term).  So why, when I am knowledgeable on this subject do I personally suck at taking my own advice?  Probably for whatever the same reason most people tend to lack insight about some of the things that negatively affect their life the most (it would take a lot of psychological theory to delve into this and it is not the point so I’m just going to gloss over the “why” right now and move on).  Anyway, the point is, I don’t sleep as much as would be healthy. 

            I’m not the only one you know!  Our whole society is burning the candle at both ends, you can read all about it all over the internet I’m sure!  Somehow that makes me feel better, that I’m not the only one, but in the end I really know better than to fall back on a group mentality like that. I have read a lot about this and I have gone to lectures given by doctors who specialize in sleep medicine (that’s right, there is an ENTIRE FIELD OF MEDICINE DEDICATED TO THE TOPIC) and it is pretty clear to me that I have probably shaved 5-10 years off my life expectancy by shorting myself on sleep in a chronic fashion.  That means if I was going to be average and make it to 75 or 80 I’ll now be lucky to make it to 70.  I better get crackin’ on some of my life goals because 70 is just around the corner!

 I could blame my career (damn you medical school and residency!) but the reality is that I was the kid under the blankets reading books with a flashlight past my bedtime and then waking up at 5:30 am for swim practice long before my profession got a hold of me.   Recognizing you have a problem is the first step they say.  Personally my next step is always “data collection.”  It’s just my nature to want to fully analyze the problem before I work on the solution.  So 2 months ago I started using an app called Sleep Cycle.

Sleep Cycle works by sensing your body movements in your bed at night (you lay your phone near your head – I don’t even want to think about my increased brain cancer risk right now so don’t go there!).  If you’re moving a lot it puts you in the “awake” category and if you’re moving less it puts you in the “sleep” category and if you are completely still you are in the “deep sleep” category.  I can’t really speak to the validity of the methods of this app because while body movements are part of your sleep cycle I don’t think this method alone can really say what sleep state you are in (unless they also make an EEG app and little electrodes pop out of your phone and attach to your scalp).  But in the morning you get a nice little graph showing you your sleep cycles based on your movements throughout the night.  It ends up that, like most humans, I have 90 minute sleep cycles, which doesn’t really surprise me.  What did surprise me is how little I have been sleeping!

Now, you might say, “but you just said you have never slept that much” and yes, I know that is true, I said that!  But when I actually looked at the hard data that was showing me what time I went to bed each night, what time I wake up each morning, how much sleep I get total and what the relative “quality” of that sleep is and then look at a graph of those numbers (with averages as well) it makes the situation look much more dire.   

As a fun side note, it has an option where you can add notes about your day and then correlate them to your “rating” of how well you slept.  For example you can click “drank coffee” or “stressful day” and then the next morning it will give you a frowny face, a “meh” face, or a smiley face so that you can rate your night of sleep and it will then correlate those factors over time with your opinion of your sleep quality.  Again, not hard science there, but kind of a fun little correlation tool for personal use. 

Using that part of the app I have discovered that I feel like I have slept better in the morning if I have green tea at night before I go to bed.  So, let me emphasize, this is CORRELATION not CAUSATION.  I am not saying green tea helps me sleep, but that somehow the two tend to happen at the same time.  If I had to guess I would actually say that when I have green tea before I go to bed I tend to sit and meditatively drink my tea and relax at the same time ,which, if we’re looking for causation, seems more likely to be the underlying cause of the improved sleep quality.

Another fun little feature of this app is that it has an alarm clock in it that is supposed to wake you up at the natural point of being “most awake” in your sleep cycle.  You give it a window of time (I have mine set to 30 minute window) and it notices when you start having “wakeful” body movements and the alarm goes off at that point, avoiding your “deep sleep” time.  This works great if you have a somewhat flexible schedule or if you’re ok with potentially waking up 30 minutes before you really need to be awake.  I really like this feature so far although I can't really tell how well it works because I have small children who are serving as my true alarm clocks.  I do think I have had fewer or those really really groggy awakenings you sometimes get from an alarm when it wakes you out of a deep sleep by using this app as my alarm clock.

Moving on.  I collected the data.  I have numbers.  NOW WHAT? If I was sitting down with myself in my office I would say:  make small changes, set achievable goals. And this is where it gets hard for me, and hard for everyone who tries to make behavioral changes (because if it was easy we would have all done it already, right?) the actual change part is so painful!  I honestly love sleep and I am fortunate to be a really good sleeper once I get there, so again, you would think it would be easy to do more of something you love to do!  But I also like getting shit done, especially with my level of daily anxiety.  I have become accustomed to having more time in the day to do the things that I feel are important and if I spend more of that time sleeping, I will have less time.  The thought of having less time in the day may just throw me into a panic attack right at this very moment!  I know I need to shift my paradigm; what needs to be done all comes down to perspective, but again, those big shifts in thinking are hard and so I’ll try to refocus on the small stuff.  My first goal is to try to get at least 7 hours of sleep a night for the next 4 days; small and achievable.  I have noticed, through this sleep cycle app, that on the rare occasion I do get more than 7 hours of sleep, that I tend to choose the “smiley face” when I wake up.  This is not going to be easy, but more smiley faces has got to mean something good.  I’ll let you know how it goes!

The Best and Worst of our Bend and Crater Lake Trip

I already said this on Facebook, but I’m going to repeat it for posterity (and mainly so that “I” remember in the future), that at least some of my satisfaction with a trip comes from creating appropriate expectations for myself and properly labeling what the trip actually “is” instead of just calling it a vacation (which it wasn’t, and pretty much never is when you travel with kids, unless you travel with a nanny, which is dreaming for us).  “Vacation” is really a lot of pressure to have fun, and calling this trip fun would have definitely been overstating the case.  The correct label is that the first half of this trip was “travel to Bend and care for the kids while Andrew participates in a 100 mile mountain bike race” and the second half was “take the kids to a national park and go for a few hikes in the area.”  Those things I did do!  Every night at dinner with our kids we do a roundtable “best and worst” and here is the consensus for each day of our trip:

Friday Best:

            Well behaved children and baby on a long car trip to Bend!  Everyone took a nap (except me of course, because I was driving)!  A nice dinner with our friends the Warnock’s at the condo we were sharing in Mount Bachelor Village with a beautiful view looking onto the river and hearing it’s gentle roar in the background.  

Friday Worst:

            We arrived slightly later than planned and Andrew Gendler still went out for a ride, leaving the ladies to multitask child care and dinner prep in a kitchen the size of a small closet while the children alternated between running, screaming, harming themselves or each other, and damaging the premises.  Clearly it was less than ideal. 

Saturday Best:

            Andrew Gendler survived his race!  It started at 5:30 am and he rode 100 miles of mountain bike trails on a very hot and very dusty trail at significant elevation!  It was an extremely well supported race the aid stations and volunteers were amazing!  The kids got to go swimming twice and were very happy about that!  Also, I was so lucky to have another mom to share in the torture with me of the whole experience; Sarah was awesome and even took my older two off my hands for over an hour when we were waiting for Andrew in a very hot parking lot.

Saturday Worst:

            I had a lapse in judgement and decided to go to two of the aid stations with the kids to cheer Andrew on when we had originally planned on coming to “maybe” one of them.  I figured the whole point of us being there was for his race and wanted to show him our support.  BIG MISTAKE.  It was hot, really hot, and we were only guessing as to when they might come through the check points, we had no way of knowing.  We ended up waiting for over an hour on the hot and dusty trail with no shade and the kids at both of the spots (after driving 30 minutes to get to each one) and then a long time at the finish too.  I stupidly didn’t bring enough water and was trying to conserve it for the kids so I didn’t really have anything to drink.  The kids were grumpy and tired within the first 5 minutes (in fact Asher refused to leave the car and stayed in there while we burned through a half a tank of gas throughout the day running the car to keep it cool).  I also had not had enough coffee to get me through this kind of day and so I desperately wanted coffee and I decided to go get some before the race finish but when I tried to go downtown I found out the whole area was cordoned off for a criterium race and could not find coffee anywhere.  It felt like a disaster.  Add on top of that that I am already jealous that Andrew spends 20+ hours a week training on his bike instead of spending time with us and then here I was torturing myself and the kids over seeing him for 5 minutes at an aid station and that was it, I was done!  In addition to the difficulty of a grumpy 9 and 6 year old I had toddler issues too; Vivian was repeatedly trying to injure herself.  She tried to drown a couple of times in the baby pool and then kept wanting to jump in (and have Avery catch her) but wouldn’t jump quite far enough and actually hit the back of her skull on the pool deck one time (one of my least favorite injuries from my life guarding/swimming lesson years).  Fortunately she is a tough kid and bounced back from everything really well.  Additionally she kept trying to pull the glass top off of the coffee table in the condo.  It was rather stupidly not attached to the table in any way, and I got so tired of telling her “no!” and having her keep doing it that I finally took it out of the room and put it on the deck.  When we came home that evening it was completely shattered (I thought that since it was in the shade and not getting direct sun light it wouldn’t matter whether or not it was tempered, guess I was wrong about that!).  She also fell down the stairs at one point (she can handle our stairs at home but for some reason these stairs were more difficult) and I just wanted everyone to just hold still and not whine about anything for 5 minutes but that is really asking a lot with 3 kids.  Ok, I will stop with the negativity now, LESSON LEARNED, I will not take the kids to another bike race again (and I probably won’t go myself either, on a scale of 1 to 10 for fun spectator sports watching anything other than a criterium or cyclocross race is somewhere around 0.5).

Sunday Best:

            I had a nice road bike ride in the morning with Sarah, we climbed 10 miles up Mount Bachelor (the Scenic Byway) and then turned around and came back down faster than I normally do (to the point that felt unsafe but it was really fun!).  That road was wonderfully smooth, like riding on butter!  Plus there is nothing quite so cathartic for your anger about how much your spouse rides their bike than riding your own bike!

            Crater Lake was amazing!  We got there around 4 pm and checked into the Crater Lake Lodge.  Andrew and I both love those old lodge buildings; it’s like they are wrapped in a cocoon of romantic nostalgia that is almost palpable.  We took the kids to a Junior Ranger activity before going to dinner and they got badges which made their day!  I was happy I had planned in advance (I made the dinner reservations 3 months ago, on the first possible day you could!) and dinner was really fun, the kids were amazingly well behaved and the food was bland and overpriced but we didn’t care because we had WELL BEHAVED CHILDREN AT A FORMAL DINNER FOR ONCE!  It almost makes me cry to think about it; I will remember it forever!  After dinner we went for a 2+ mile hike to Discovery point which leaves from the Rim Village area and goes out to the high point where the lake was first accidentally discovered over a hundred years ago.  As we were starting our hike we stumbled across a young couple getting engaged and they asked us to take pictures of them, so romantic!  (it caused about 300 questions to come out of Avery’s mouth after we left the scene).  The lake was so blue and so beautiful and the sunset was amazing and the kids did really well on the hike especially for it being at the end of a very long day.  We let them stay up late and Andrew took them down to the lovely veranda for some stargazing before we fell asleep with our windows open to the cool mountain air.

Sunday Worst:

            We forgot our baby backpack!  (thank goodness the Warnocks had theirs and let us borrow it otherwise we were going to have to go buy another one and there is nothing more painful than buying a duplicate large item that is rarely used that your kid is on the verge of growing out of anyway!).  We got eaten alive by mosquitos on our hike because we forgot bug spray!  (seriously, the one time I don’t make a 200 item long organized packing list is the time we forget this stuff!).  I had specifically planned this trip for some really good stargazing as Avery really loves studying astronomy this year in school and it was a FULL MOON that made it bright as day outside that night and not so favorable for stargazing.  Maybe my planning was a little off after all!

Monday Best:

            Planning pays off again!  We had a nice breakfast at the lodge and were able to squeeze in two fun hikes because of my planned-down-to-the-minute itinerary: Annie Creek Trail with a trek into an interesting canyon and some fun time playing in the creek and the Cleetwood Cove trail which is the only way to get down to the actual lake.  As the desk clerk told us it’s “one mile downhill and eleven miles back up.”  It’s so steep that we actually saw people who were coming up while we were going down and then PASSED THEM ON OUR WAY BACK UP because they could barely make it!  We had initially been disappointed because we had wanted to go on a boat trip but they won’t take kids under 3 and in the end it was fine.  We all swam in the VERY cold water (even V got in to her waist because she kept shrieking “SWIM! SWIM!” when she saw her brother and sister get in!) and it was really fun!  We slowly doled out gummi bears and dried mangoes on the hike back up to maintain motivation.  Everyone was tired after the two hikes and took naps as we left the park and moved on to Diamond Lake (again except me, but I can’t sleep in the car anyways).

Monday Worst:

            Diamond Lake Resort was a total disappointment.  It was the worst place I have ever stayed and they should remove “Resort” from the name.  It was dingy, dirty, nasty, old, broken down (the door barely even worked and had about an inch of open air space underneath with bugs crawling in!) and gave me the heebee jeebees.  My planning failed when it came to this place; I had trusted the agent on the phone who, when I was booking the Crater Lake Lodge through the National Park line told me that I was booking rather late (several months ago) and so there was only availability for Sunday but that Diamond Lake was a really nice place to stay and on our way out of the park for Monday night.  LIAR LIAR PANTS ON FIRE!  We decided to make the best of it and took the kids swimming in the lake after I had checked with the front desk staff to make sure it was safe to do so (there wasn’t anyone else swimming…) and they said yes.  The kids had fun playing on the black sand beach and walking in the shallows and as we were leaving I saw the sign saying “Swim at your own risk, TOXIC ALGAE PRESENT”  Say what???  We got the kids in the shower and all rinsed off (no tub in this hotel but crazy slippery showers, everyone was slipping and sliding all over the bathroom, poor V smashed her face on the floor multiple times until we essentially created a wet carpet out of towels) and then tucked them (and ourselves) into very tiny and dingy double beds, the kind that dump everyone into the hole in the middle.  The window air conditioner spewed a steady stream of way too cold acrid air straight in our faces all night.  When Asher woke up at 5 am we all popped up and WE WERE OUT OF THERE!

Tuesday Best:

            Another great car trip with the kids, they are such troopers!  My faith in our ability to travel with them has been restored!  8 hours in the car and they act like it was no big deal!  Plus some nice time for Andrew and I to just chat.  I love him, even if I have to share him with his bike!  (which I will probably continue to bitch about on a regular basis!).

Tuesday Worst:

            The bittersweet sensation of coming home when the reality of everything that has to get done (including unpacking) sinks in.  Maybe our trip was more vacation than I thought after all!

For my Dad on Father's Day

Things get busy with kids and work and everything tumbling all together in the time warp that the speed of life seems to take.  I read a quote the other day somewhere that said, “The days are long but the years are short.”  That seems ever more true with each passing year.  But in that jumble of what seem to be unforgettable moments I often fail to reflect back and piece together the meaningful points but sometimes they jump out of the past and surprise me, which is what happened the other day when I was talking with Avery.  And sometimes there are days, like today, Father’s Day, that despite being commercialized and driven by consumerism, are another opportunity to pause and appreciate people, like my Dad, who has contributed so much to who I am today.

The deja-vu memory that jumped up in my face happened the other day when Avery and I were talking about Italy.  In her elementary school the entire school studies a different country each month as part of their International Curriculum.  She loves this part of school and has learned about 18 different countries/regions since she has been there the past 2 years.  Her favorite country so far as been Italy and she got really engrossed in studying it and still carefully pours over the map.  Once she met someone who had lived in Italy for a long time and peppered the woman with so many questions I was almost embarrassed!  She dreams of going there some day and when she grows up she wants to become a photojournalist and a writer and travel the world telling stories with pictures and words. 

So it is particularly painful for her that Andrew and I are taking our big (belated) 10 Year Anniversary trip to Italy this fall.  She was having a tough month because of her broken leg and being relegated to sitting around a lot and at this particular moment she was complaining about her life and feeling sorry for herself about all of these things.  She was also complaining about how she doesn’t like learning Spanish in school when she really wants to learn Italian.  Without thinking I said, “well, what if you could learn Italian, would you really do it?” and she said, “Yes, but it’s a waste of time if I never get to go there!”  And I said (without thinking it through first), “Well, if you become fluent in Italian I will take you to Italy.”  And she said, “Really?  You would do that?”  I realized at that moment that even though all of the realities will probably never allow it to happen (time, money, effort, etc.) that yes, if she reaches for her dream and actually becomes fluent in a second language, then I would do that, in a heartbeat.

And then I had a flashback to my own childhood. One of those really clear memories that you can see like it had just happened. I remember being out on the sidewalk in front of our house.  I had a little microscope and I was looking at bugs and grass and leaves while my Dad mowed the lawn, I was probably around 10 or 11.  As he was cleaning off the sidewalk I told him about what I had seen and how I wanted to be scientist someday and go to a really good college so I could learn everything about microbiology.  He asked what college I wanted to go to and I said Harvard, but that I didn’t think that was possible; too hard and too expensive.  And then he stopped and looked me in the eye and told me very seriously, “You can go to any college you want to go to, you can be anything you want to be, and I will do everything I can to help you succeed.”  I said, “really?” And he said, “yes, I will sell the farm to send you to college if I have to!”  And that was serious to me, and I remember thinking, “wow, he would do that?  He truly believes I can do it!”  I didn’t have an idea at that time what it is like to be a parent, how desperately you want the best for your kids, how much you want them to succeed.  And now I know.  My Dad could have squashed my dream with reality: what were the chances a Montana girl would end up at an Ivy League school?  What are the chances there would be a way to pay for that expensive education?  But instead he let me come to that crucial point where a dream that floats around in your brain gets the corner nailed down.  And each step forward nails down another section until what was a dream becomes a real thing.  That was a pivotal moment in my childhood and I am thankful for it.  

My Dad is very pragmatic but he allowed me to dream and grow and supported me along the way with words of wisdom and advice (and he still does).   So I am trying to channel him more when I talk to Avery, because sometimes I am too practical with her and give her too much reality.  I want her to dream.  I want her to imagine all the things she could be and the places she could go.  I helped her nail a corner down that day and we’ll see if she can keep up the work to make her dream a reality.  I’ll sell the farm to help her get there if I need to.

Thank you, Dad, for being who you are and for shaping my life in such a positive way.

My Bio

I’ve been procrastinating making my bio for our work website for the past couple of months.  I don’t know why, other than that all the things I wanted to say I knew wouldn’t be appropriate.  The real bio ended up being pretty standard material.  Here is what I wanted it to say:

Dr. Julie Gendler grew up in Kalispell, Montana.  She then spent a really really really long time going to school, longer than the average person even thinks a person can potentially go to school.  She completed her residency in Family Medicine in Boise, Idaho, not that the average person knows what a residency is either other than what they see on Grey’s Anatomy, but it was enough to get her a medical license and that is what counts in the end, right?  She then worked her ass off for 4 years practicing full spectrum family medicine, hardly ever sleeping, and having her soul sucked out of her body via a piece of electronic medical record software appropriately named Epic.  Despite meeting some really nice people and making some great friends in Wisconsin, the alternately freezing temperatures and unbearable humidity as well as the threat to life and limb by all matter of nature’s creations such as floods, mosquitos, tornados, and blizzards led her back to the more temperate climate of Idaho.  After a short stint as a full time mom she joined the faculty at FMRI to escape the incessant screaming of “Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!” that still haunts her to this day.  She enjoys teaching residents and has a focus in preventive care and women’s health.  She doesn’t enjoy being yelled at by patients or prescribing narcotics but it ends up that is part of the gig.  In her free time she enjoys…  Wait, hold it, she actually doesn’t have any free time, but in the hour of time that she carves out for herself on a daily basis she exercises frantically in hopes that she will either one day turn into an athlete again or shed the baby weight that clings to her body like the monkey on her fucking back.  Outside of work she enjoys spending time with her family, not that her 3 lovely children appreciate any of the sacrifices she has made to act as their personal assistant/chauffeur/chef/event coordinator.  When not wasting time on facebook she stares desperately into the mirror wondering where time has gone (duh, all that school!) and what is the meaning of life.  She gets through the mess of it all by telling herself that things will work out in the end and tomorrow is a new day and any other trite, convenient, positive Jack Handyish statement that comes to mind.

Article on 40 Proven Strategies to Improve Public Health

Yesterday I posted this on Facebook:

So... the new obesity data came out last week, and it doesn't look good: "No state met the nation's 'Healthy People 2010' goal to lower obesity prevalence to 15%. Rather, in 2010, there were 12 states with an obesity prevalence of 30%. In 2000, no state had an obesity prevalence of 30% or more." (big sigh) This makes me feel like a failure; I know it's not my fault, but I talk to people about this stuff every day that I'm at work. We should probably just start putting the metformin and statins in the water supply now.

http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html

I didn’t really mean to sound defeatist; I do try to look at things positively when possible.  So I have spent the past 24 hours racking my brain as to how to fix this.  I know I’m not the only person doing this, there are far more powerful, smarter, and important people than me who are racking their brains too.  I was also contemplating how hard it is for those of us who are trying to help; how often we see one person succeed and see 9 others fail. And by “those of us” I mean the doctors, nurses, nutritionists, health coaches, spouses, family, friends and really anyone who cares and supports someone trying to lose weight and create a healthier lifestyle.  We’re pouring our daily energy into this problem and not getting a very good return as far as outcomes.  I am not blaming people out there for their weight and I think the evidence above pretty clearly points that there is a problem in our society.  It is escalating so quickly that even though each of us are individually trying to help, we’re not even slowing down the rapid increase in obesity. 

I was feeling a little down about it, and then I saw this, and while it’s no easy fix it is actual evidence based examples of things that have been PROVEN to work (and by that I mean scientifically, not by some ya-ya pseudoscience person on the TV).  So check it out:

http://consumer.healthday.com/Article.asp?AID=667787

My First Triathlon: Post Race Analysis

For the first time in my life it totally paid off to be OLD!  I won my age group in the beginner division.  Don't believe me?  You can click here and then choose "results by division" and scroll down to "Female Beginner 35-39."

This was a big jump for me to do this triathlon last night.  I have been thinking about doing one for years, really, years!  But I’ve always had a bunch of excuses and fears about it.  Will my shoulder (that I had surgery on almost 17 years ago) start hurting again?  Will I even be able to run after swimming and biking?  I’ll have to learn how to ride a road bike, how will I do that?  How will I learn how to transition?  What will I wear?  How and where will I practice open water swimming? I have no idea what kind of workouts to do, how will I figure that out? Can I even do this without a coach?  Will I be able to stay motivated?  When will I even find the time to train for one sport, yet 3 different sports?  But given time and help from Andrew I just pushed all of that aside and kept talking myself down from this being a big deal and telling myself it was just a trial thing (it is called “Y not Tri”) so I should stop thinking about it and just do it already!  And I’m so glad I did because it was so much more fun than I thought it would be! 

I haven’t really competed in anything in a very long time (I don’t count that half marathon a few months ago, that was not about competing for me, I just wanted to finish) and I was very nervous about the competition aspect, imagining all these amazing athletes in excellent condition.  I was relieved to find a wide array of shapes and sizes and to really see that shape did not predict ability!  And I surprised myself by getting a little bit competitive as I was racing. As soon as I got in the water I started to feel that little bit of competitive spirit coming back, I kept thinking, “well that person is not that far ahead, come on, work harder, you can pass her!”  And that is a fun challenge! 

I definitely wasn’t prepared for this in the way I would have liked, I feel almost like I was faking it a little bit because of that.  In the last couple of months I have only done a handful of actual rides on my bike and the same amount of swim practices.  I have been running 2-3 times a week so at least I had some running training, which is good since I am truly a terrible runner, I don’t think I’ll ever be fast!  (my excuse is that I’m probably 95% slow twitch muscle fibers, so I have endurance but no speed, at all).  I much prefer to feel over prepared, so being underprepared made me very anxious too.  I was so thankful that Andy really helped me out; he made sure all my gear was set up right and that everyone was where they needed to be on time and gave me a lot of encouragement to just get out there and try it.  He sent me a text message every couple of hours while I was working that day in clinic reminding of when I was supposed to be eating and reminding me to hydrate, it was awesome to have someone play the support crew role!

Even though I was anxious and underprepared it felt good to just go for it, and the way I made it through was to just focus on the part that was right in front of me; before the swim I was saying to myself, “ok, just figure out how to get into the water, ok, so where is the buoy?  Yes, I see it, just get to the buoy, just get there.” And once I got there I was thinking, “just get back to the shore.” And from there I was thinking, “just put on your stuff and get on the bike.” You get the idea.  I don’t know if this is a good strategy or not, it meant that I probably road the bike slightly harder than I should have.  I came out of the water 3^rd in my heat of 40+ people and that felt pretty good, and while biking someone passed me about half way (it was a 6 mile ride, so not very long) and I was annoyed by that and so I kept up with her and ended up passing someone else (which shocked me).  The one thing I was really not prepared for was the way my legs would feel when starting the run because I haven’t done any stacked workouts.  That is a bizarre sensation!  For the first mile of the run my legs felt like they weren’t my own, they were moving but I had very little control over them, they felt like jello, but not in a tired way, just in a weird nonfunctional way.  I can’t really describe it very well.  The run was only two miles and so fortunately during the second mile they finally felt like my own legs again and I could move them a little faster (not fast enough to keep me from getting passed by some people who were clearly very good runners!).

So here is the breakdown of things that went well and things that could use improvement, this is where you are welcome to throw out suggestions that might help me next week when I do a “real” sprint triathlon! 

Things that went well:

-I remembered to bring all of my gear and I even brought back ups for some things!  (thanks to Andrew)

-The pond was not nearly as gross as I thought it was going to be, I pushed thoughts of all the ducks pooping in that pond out of my mind while swimming and pretended it was a lake, which worked.

-I had an extra water bottle at my swim/bike transition and sprayed my feet off before I put my socks on and that helped get all the sand off (supposedly if you’re serious you’re not even supposed to wear socks, you’re supposed to leave your bike shoes clipped into your peddles and put your shoes on while you start the ride, that is WAY out of my ability level!).

-I clipped in fairly quickly without falling down

-The biking portion was flat so I didn’t have to do much changing of gears, I chose to grind up the small hills which I “think” was good?

-I really like the triathlon shorts that I bought, I paid a little extra for nice padding in the butt (like bike shorts) and I was happy I did that, they were super quick drying too!

-I was faster than I expected at both transitions, and at the time I was just wishing I could rest and catch my breath, but I was trying to gain as much advantage as I could going into the run because I knew it would be terrible.

-I wore a number belt/strap instead of pinning the number on for the run, so glad I did that!

-I focused on extending my stride length throughout the run, which always seems to help me when I’m tired (any other running advice is greatly appreciated!).

Things I didn’t expect/could be improved:

-I didn’t know they wouldn’t let us into the transition area during the youth race and so I got anxious about not being able to set up my stuff and had to wait until just before the race to do it (the kids started first and had their own transition area but had to go through the adult transition area to get on the bike course which I didn’t know).

-I need to antifog my goggles, I had to pause halfway and do a little bit of breaststroke to clear them out.

-My shirt could have been tighter, when I bought it earlier this week (paying more money for it than I planned, which means I’m pretty much stuck with it) the woman at the triathlon store told me I might want it tighter but the idea of running in a really tight shirt didn’t appeal to me (I have postpartum flabbiness that I prefer stays hidden under a “partially relaxed cut”), but it did feel like it was billowing around me while I swam.

-I somehow, given my years of not swimming, have gone back to having a 2 beat kick, which is a habit I broke a long time ago, but now I guess will have to work on breaking it again (or should I?)  the good part about a 2 beat kick is that I basically don’t use my legs while I swim, so at least I save energy?

-I could have laid out my transition stuff slightly better so I could have stood on my towel after the swim, this wasn’t totally my fault because a girl racking her bike near me was like, “um, you need to move your bike over because I’m not going to have room to put on my shoes” so she got 3 feet of space and I got 12 inches.  I need to be more assertive.

-I should have had some big gulps of water in the transition area before getting on my bike.  This coincides with the next one:

-I can’t get my water bottle out of the holder without swerving all over the place.  I HAVE to learn how to do this because my mouth felt like a wool sweater from being so dry during the entire 6 miles of the ride (worsened by my total sucking of air).

-I almost missed a turn off into a neighborhood because I didn’t analyze the route enough before the race (assuming there would be a big group of people in front of me and that I would follow them). Fortunately I was not too far off from the girl who had passed me so I was able to follow her.

-I almost hit a person while on my bike, it was another athlete and he was trying to cross (not at one of the designated places and he didn’t even look before he stepped into the road) and I screamed, like a real scream, which I didn’t mean to do, but it made him jump back, so we avoiding colliding.  Glad to know that reflex was there when I needed it but I should probably learn to use my brakes and how to handle my bike better.

-My cadence on my bike was not fast enough, my guess is that it was around 60-70, and Andy has told me it needs to be 80-90 because it’s more efficient, but I really enjoy grinding it out, I like the slow and steady turn of the pedals, is that really a waste of energy?

-I pre-tied my running shoes so that I could just slip them on, and I purposely didn’t double knot them because I didn’t know how well that would work.  Ends up both of those things were a mistake, my shoes felt awkwardly loose AND they came untied, so I ended up wasting 30 seconds retying my shoes about ½ mile into the run.  My husband had bought me some Yankz earlier in the day but I was nervous about trying them for the first time during the race, definitely will next time I run!

-My sports bra was really wet throughout the whole race, anyone have advice on a certain brand or type of sports bra that is ultra quick drying (and relatively tight but also flexible?).

-I drank water (from the little cups they hand out at water stations) while I was running because I was so incredibly thirsty after not being able to drink water on the bike.  Ends   up I’m not very good at drinking water and running hard at the same time because I choked and sputtered both times, maybe I should have just stopped and drank my water?  (I normally carry a water bottle when I run so I don’t know why it was so much harder out of a cup?).

Wow, if you read all the way to the bottom of this then you could totally do a triathlon, it’s less effort, seriously!  And advice about anything triathlon related is totally appreciated!