Here's How Thankful I Am

Do your kids write thank you letters? I know it's the bugbear of every child and every party, yet it is nice to acknowledge that that thoughtfully wrapped gift didn't just disappear in to the void. If my Aunty can get a gift to Anna from Switzerland, then we can get a thank you to her as well. At some point...

When Anna was little I used to transcribe emails from her, asking carefully staged questions like "Dear Aunty X, thank you for the Y, the thing I liked most about it was....."

It was always funny to see how she saw fit to fill in the blanks. Sometimes I edited. When you see what happened below, you'll know why...

Anna is now at the age where she can put pen to paper herself, and as long as we just do one thank you letter a day she doesn't get overwhelmed. She sits at the table, and I sit across on the couch and shout out requested spellings. The other day she had taken a break from writing her magnum opus "The Spooky Old Pickle" and she was writing a thank you note to her friend H.  There she is above, deep in concentration. H's Mum was kind enough to get Anna a gorgeous swimming costume and the first two books in a horse series - something obviously very dear to Anna's heart.

This is what she wrote:

Dear H. 


Thank you for the swim suit and horse books. I wear the swim suit to camp every day. I love the horse books and have read them both. Tell your Mom to go get me the other ones.


Love, Anna


You can lead a horse to water.......

Fortunately Robin is a good friend and has a good sense of humour, because hell yes I sent it.

Now We Are Seven

A tiger Mum makes every waking moment a learning opportunity. If you want to have a birthday, then you have to make your own invitations.
Yes, that is how we spell Saturday in California.

After hosting a birthday party for one of my girls, it's always me that feels like I've aged a year not them.

Birthday parties are hard work.

This year Anna did me a huge favour by requesting a bowling party birthday. She'd gone to one earlier in the year and it's all she's thought about since. This was one of those parties where you pay a set amount per child, you get a party room and an attendant, and you actually get to sit back and enjoy the fun. I may have only thrown a few birthday parties since becoming a Mum, but I do know that the ones that are the most enjoyable are where there's

a: no house cleaning,
b: an attendant,
c: the mind-numbing effects of alcohol
or d: all of the above.

Bowling may not seem like a no-brainer for a seven girls aged between 3 and 10, but it was a blast.

How does a 3 year old bowl?

With the help of an alligator of course.....

Pity me at your peril, fools. This gator and I are going to dominate....

If it wasn't for her penchant for 1960s pink satin birthday dresses, this girl would be packing up and moving to Milwaukee to drink PBR and bowl every night.

Clearly having quite a lot of fun.

Then it was time for cake, presents and a sack of tokens each for the arcade. I may have nicked a few tokens from the more gullible children to have a go at the wheel of fortune, but as has been proved many times, I am not the fortunate one. I won four (4) tickets. My oldest daughter.....798 tickets.

Hitting the jackpot on her 7th birthday. You can't write this stuff......

She traded all those tickets in for 700lbs of candy, and she has not stopped bouncing since.

How much did all this cost? Well, according to the bill it was eleventy hundred dollars priceless.

And that was just LK's bar tab. 

Fathers Day

LK caught in the act of fathering his children.

Wait....that didn't sound right did it?

Disneyland in Pictures

The faces tell it all.....which is a good job, because apparently when I take a camera to Disneyland, all I take is close-ups of my family. We could have been anywhere. Anywhere selling ridiculously overpriced stuffed animals.

Their faces never lost this expression for 12 hours.

Oh lollipop. How I love you.

Those bubbles were terrifying.

It's takes a real man to carry this around for 8 hours.

I have never seen Lucy 'coy' before, until she met a real live princess. Personally I thought Sleeping Beauty was a bit saccharine, and Anna's dress is the one that kicks ass.
Am I the only one that gets Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella mixed up? 

No, they don't serve booze to the general public at Disneyland, so we had to refuel at the Rainforest Cafe. This  Coronarita, for the record, was INSANELY good. Or maybe we were just ready.

Poor Lucy getting a bit squashed here.

Yes that is a baby pegasus.

$200 to enter the park - and only because we 'pretended' Lucy was still 2.

$700 in plush toys.

Birthdays

I'm terrible at keeping secrets, which is why the fact that we're planning on heading down to Disneyland this morning for Anna's 7th birthday is killing me. Fortunately it's a very last minute decision otherwise we would have given the game away days ago. Even LK almost blew it last night by saying 'which car do you think we should take tomorrow, the red one gets better gas mileage' quickly covered with 'but either will do on that short trip to school!'

Nice save LK. Swift.

We'd offered Anna the choice of Disneyland or a party for her big day. I think she chose a party because of the opportunity for extra presents, so she elected to go bowling, which my iphone insists on translating to 'boweling'. Nothing says happy birthday like an invitation to bowel with a bunch of small children. I was quite glad at the time, because Disneyland in June - on the week that most schools finish for the summer didn't sound like my idea of fun. But, due to a too-good-to-be-true break in LK's schedule, we're now heading down to LA to join the rest of Southern California in that Pirates of the Caribbean queue. Sorry, line.

This time of year is birthday-tastic in the Aliblahblah household. It has been non-stop.  LK's was a real winner this year. He's always hard to buy for, because what he really wants is either a Honda S2000, a fully loaded camper van, or gin. Nothing price-wise in the middle. That's why I was chuffed to bits to find a groupon for glass-blowing, something he used to do many years ago in college. Not quite a gift with paperwork from the DMV, but fun and a little different - plus we now have four beautiful pieces of glass  just itching for the girls to break them:

Still, I wanted to make him feel special on his birthday, particularly as he was going to be putting in a looooong day at work. I woke up very early and on a whim decided to sneak out of the house and go and get him surprise early morning bagels and coffee.
What a nice wife.

Of course, it would have been more helpful if I'd switched off my 6:30am alarm before I snuck out of the door. When I returned twenty minutes later, bagels in hand, LK was sitting blearily at the computer having had a rude awakening AND found his wife had mysteriously left him in the middle of the night.

He never said whether that was a good or a bad thing.

It was only later that day that I remembered another surprise birthday present I'd planned to get him. A big berry manzanita bush, a junior version of one we both think is beautiful at the local Botanic garden. I'd popped up there a few days before his birthday to pick one up. I also managed to sneak in a quick photo op - because our botanic garden is too beautiful not to share.

So, midway through his actual birthday I suddenly remember the manzanita hiding outside on our bedroom balcony. I immediately called LK to let him know he was such a lucky bloke there was yet another surprise present waiting for him at home.

"I know" he said "I watered it yesterday".

Big Berry Manzanita

So, not exactly a genius when it comes to surprise birthdays. I bet you can't wait to find out how the girls responded to their Disneyland surprise. Any guesses?

Sitting Pretty

Watching all my fellow Brits braving the downpour at the Queen's Diamond Jubilee was a good reminder of how we take weather for granted over here. Want to play tennis outside a week next Thursday? No problem. Planning an outdoor party, a night in a roofless tent or a two hour run? The weather won't ruin it - because it's not going to rain until at least October.

But before you start thinking it's all daily margaritas by the pool over here, consider the downside to so much sunshine.

I know this may be hard to take if your four day Jubilee weekend now has a severe case of rising damp - but there are real difficulties with living in a warm climate. I'm sure you can agree that having to apply thick gloopy sunscreen to two small children several times a day is no picnic, but the real challenge is maintaining that perfect pedicure. I know. Hard times.

Every second shop in Santa Barbara is a pedicure place. Everyone (and I'm including a lot of metrosexual men here) get a pedicure at least every couple of weeks. Open toed shoes are part of the Santa Barbara lifestyle. Several of my co-workers wear flip-flops daily. Having nude toenails means you're just not trying hard enough. You're practically letting yourself go, and the California lifestyle is less about fun in the sun as it is about relentless self-improvement. You will be judged for your barren toes, so you'd better be a triathlete or a hippy to wear flip flops with bare nails.

-- Interesting aside -- my Aunty used to be a nurse and when she was in training in the 1960s they told her if a woman came in to the hospital with painted toenails they would ALWAYS test her for syphilis. How times change --

In an effort to prove I was syphilis free training for my run meant that for over six months I remained without a pedicure. They advise you to buy brand new shoes when running, for the sake of your knees. LK bought me a brand spanking new pair of Sauconys - but I'm not sure I exactly broke them as much as they broke me in. I had developed a perfect road-map of callouses on my feet. I nurtured them, knowing that each callous meant one less blister on my next run. A pedicure was out of the question.

It was inevitable - the way to celebrate finishing my half marathon was to go and get a pedicure, and I took Anna with me. It was a big treat. She's had her nails done once before, with a group of tiny ladies for her sixth birthday party nearly one full year ago. Leaving her twelve months between pedicures meant that Anna had come up with an elaborate and much mulled-over pedicure plan. She presented the poor Korean lady with four nail polishes - she wanted red and turquoise on alternate toes, each with a different glitter top coat. I could sense a big tip was in order, and that June, our pedicurist thought I had more money than sense (only wrong because I don't have any money either).

I chose to go for a very deep navy colour, that the elderly lady next to me seemed fascinated with. There I was sitting next to my six year old who was getting multi-coloured alternate nails, but no, she was fascinated by my Boots #7 Navy polish. "Well" she said "that's bold, where did you find that colour, it's very.......impressive". Impressive? Not a word I'd usually associate with toenails, but then, maybe I've actually achieved self-betterment through toenail polish. The American dream.

Widow Maker

Can you see how lethal this thing is? Can you spot the hidden danger?

I know, the idea of a bike trailer always made me nervous. I'm not the best on a bike to begin with:

Only I can make a quiet bike ride and a tree into an 'extreme sport'.

LK was adamant though. When the girls were small, he wanted us to be able to go on family bike rides down to the beach, and he would tow them in the bike trailer.

I thought it would be a bit like those mothers you see with pushchairs thoughtlessly flinging their children out in to moving traffic before they'd even stepped off the curb. I thought cars wouldn't see the trailer, that my two tiny daughters would be hurtling along in an aluminium and canvas frame below eye-level of even the tiniest European car.

I was wrong. The bike trailer worked a treat and no-one hit us. Unfortunately the girls HATED it. Strapping the two of them together in such close proximity to each other, both wearing over-sized mushroom-like helmets was a disaster. I've searched our photo library looking for a photo of the two of them in it - but it doesn't exist because there was never a point where one or both of them wasn't screaming.

So the bike trailer sat unused by the side of our house. Until I decided it was more than time that we sold it in a garage sale.

Who would have thought that would be the dangerous part of the whole exercise?

Look who had made a comfy new home in our bike trailer:

A massive black widow spider.

OMFG.

Preventing my curious, scientifically-minded 6 year old from 'taking a closer look' was hard. Persuading them both to go inside while I - no spider-lover myself - disposed of it was another thing. Taking the time to get a photo, convinced it was going to lunge at any minute (they do not really lunge - or do they??) was testament to how badly I need blog content dear readers.

Eventually I 'guided' it with a trowel in to a huge jug of water (to slow it down and/or drown it). Keeping my eye on it, doing the front crawl around its watery prison, I carried it as far away from our house as possible.

I know they're everywhere over here, but to think one had been living where we were strapping our kids down (albeit a few years ago) just gives me the willies.

Yuck.

Memorial Day vs Veterans Day

Memorial Day sunset            

Anna asked me this weekend what the difference between Memorial Day and Veterans Day was. Good question I thought. A three day weekend? Barbecues? The United States is hardly dripping with public holidays, so it is a little peculiar that of the ten holidays or less observed by the working drone American, two are so similar.

Apparently Memorial Day is to observe those who died in service to their country, and Veterans Day honours all military personnel, alive or dead, active or well, passive? de-active? They both seem like good reasons for some time off and a bit of reflection if you ask me, so I hope the current administration doesn't see fit to bundle them like they did with Washington's and Lincoln's birthdays.

Lucy reflecting on our fallen heroes and Pirates Booty.
Mostly Pirates Booty.
Pirates Booty is a puffed corn snack by the way, not an actual Pirate's bottom.

Once again, it is hard to be on this side of the pond, trying to revel in a three day holiday when the UK is whooping it up with yet another Jubilee hard on the heels of a bank holiday Monday. And they call Britain the workhorse of Europe.

Sheesh.

So what did you fill your time with this Memorial Day? Chez K we cleaned and scoured, painted and purged. We almost completed a long overdue spring clean. I have a balcony stuffed to the brim with garage sale items. I bleached and buffed the kitchen cabinets. I really, really wanted my car to get the same treatment but sadly our trusty car detailer has been deported. No bueno. I called around and got various quotes, inside only for $100 +. That coupled with the fact that I am literally too ashamed to take my goldfish and chocolate milk encrusted car to a garage meant that I spent a good chunk of my weekend cleaning my car with a toothbrush. It was like an archeological dig. Layers of matter, weeks of art projects, glitter, McDonalds happy meal toys, odd socks, half-eaten lunches, stickers, lollipop sticks. Bleurgh. I got it as clean as possible and now feel like banning the girls from stepping inside. Certainly no food. Art projects are questionable.

Despite all this Martha Stewarting - we had a brilliant Memorial Day weekend in the end. LK had a whopping two days off in a row - the weather was amazing, no May Grey in sight, and we were delighted to take our friends up on outdoor barbecues with live music, trips to the beach, and an afternoon at the pool.

It's not such a hard life out here after all is it?

Nasturtiums growing wild on the path down to the beach. 

Camping

Lucy and Anna roughing it under canvas at our yearly camping trip. I say 'our' yearly trip, but this was the first time I'd bitten the bullet and decided to stay the night. Usually I hang out at the river for the afternoon then beat a hasty retreat as the sun begins to fade, back to the comfort of my own bed and exclusive use of the remote control.

I don't really know why this year was different. LK managed to score a ridiculously cheap tent at Costco, we had an inflatable mattress, and as you can see from the image above - a Pottery Barn duvet cover hardly screams pioneer woman does it?

Camping divas with a serious case of mattress-head

I was actually quite excited about sleeping under the stars. For one night and one night only. The real novelty of living in California is being able to sleep with nothing but mesh between you and the night sky. Not quite the sluicing down rain in a muddy cow-pat strewn field that I remember from camping with the Girl Guides.

LK told me it'd be the best nights sleep of my life, and I have to admit, as the girls and I snuggled down, cosy in our bed, and I watched their breathing slow and eyes close, I was having a great time.

It's amazing how noisy the wilderness can be though. Crickets and ciccadas chirped and whirred. Things rustled. Girls farted. Plus there was this queer periodic booming sound which might have been a Californian bittern, a truly giant frog, or most likely some dodgy missile testing from the Air Force Base up the road.

Then the temperature dropped. The sky exploded with stars. There seemed to be more stars than night sky. I buried myself in Lucy's monkey pyjamas trying to extract some heat as she slept blissfully. I resorted to stealing Anna's woolly hat that I'd made for our recent trip to England. Then I pulled on a goose-down gilet.

Anna sporting her handmade hat - before I stretched it over my giant melon.

The air mattress began to sag, every movement created a ripple effect like the cheesiest of 70s water beds. Somewhere across the campsite another child cried out for it's Mum. The river gurgled endlessly down the hill and I tried not to think about needing the loo.

LK finally climbed in the tent, sending shockwaves through the deflating air mattress. It got colder. Lucy kicked off her blankets as she does every night, except now they were mine too and I was freezing. I pulled them up to my face, my beanie down to my nose. The cold air night air kissing my face, babies sleeping next to me. It was - finally - a good night's sleep.

I'm Only Half Crazy

About a fortnight before the race my left knee started to hurt. It never felt right after I ran twelve miles in training, and it started to hurt on hills. Then it started to niggle when I would walk up and down the stairs, which given two children and their propensity to leave the house without; their lunch, their jacket, their knickers etc meant a lot of stair climbing. Dr. Google diagnosed me with runners knee, so for the last ten days before my race I ran only five miles on perfectly flat ground, and the rest of the time I tried to ice and elevate as much as possible. This was sadly not much. For a start the girls are obsessed with their trampoline and like a muppet I'd been joining them on it, and then the day before the race I volunteered like the *keen* mother I am to help with a school field trip to the beach. Four hours of chasing small children around in the soft sand dunes had my knee begging to go back on the trampoline.

Plus, I was hardly over-prepared for the race to begin with. I'd only run further than ten miles on two occasions in my life, so to spend the last two weeks trying to do as little as possible was really disconcerting. I could feel all my hard-earned fitness seeping in to the couch. LK was really supportive 'you're tapering' he would say, and 'what's the worst that could happen? You walk for thirteen miles and hit every water and bathroom stop along the way - that way you get your money's worth, right?'

Except I didn't want to walk any of it, I wanted to keep chugging along for thirteen miles, I wanted to feel like I ran the race. I really wanted to justify all the time and energy and jelly babies of the last six months.

The night before I was a bit of a mess  a lunatic. I panicked that we'd run out of pasta (who runs out of pasta?!) and I couldn't carbo load. LK said "I think you may be over-thinking things". Convinced my knee was going to buckle within the first five minutes, I lay awake at 11:30pm aware of my alarm set for 4:30am. I could feel a migraine coming on from lack of sleep, pretty chuffing ironic considering the reason I'd started running in the first place was to help my migraines. I kept telling myself it was good to get out of my comfort zone. You know you're getting old when you keep doing the same old stuff just to be on the safe side. Whatever happened, I was going to push myself and make some memories. Then I would think of the 7am race start, my stomach would clench and I would be back at square one.

Well, I'm a complete nutter. There, I said it. It was so much fun.

Here's my posse at the start line:

It was freeeezing cold. 6:45am with a heavy drizzle marine layer, I'm surprised Anna managed to crack a smile for this picture. The queues for the loos were pretty intimidating as well but the adrenalin was definitely flowing and people were so friendly and approachable, not the pack of uber-athletes I had supposed them to be. I think the race was over 70% female which was quite surprising, but then 99.9% of females in Santa Barbara do wear black lycra yoga pants and look like they're just off for a quick power-marathon so perhaps that explains it. 

My brother had warned me about the porta potty queues.....

I ran a lot of the race with my friend Chilly, who is definitely one of the people who inspired me to sign up in the first place. Not that we were chatting away mind you, when that race gun started I plugged in my headphones and it was Lady Gaga and Rhianna all the way, with a little 'Mull of Kintyre' because my iphone likes to keep it real.

Someone told me before I embarked on this insanity life goal, that it's the first 2-3 miles that are the hardest in running. Well I thought, that would explain it then, as that's all I'd managed to run before and I was about as far from a runner's high as I was from crossing the finish line of a half marathon. It is true though. The first 2-3 miles can be really hard, as that's when you're finding your rhythm, both pace-wise and breathing-wise. I always had trouble with the latter, but the more you train, the more your body accepts the torture you're putting it through, and you're much less likely to gasp for air like a dying cod.

The first 2-3 miles of this race were amazing, but we were running in a vast crowd of over 2500 people. The atmosphere was electric, and there was no time to think about having to run another 10 miles. Then, just as with a transatlantic flight, reality sets in when you've already done 5 and you have a further 8 to go. Plus we were running past signs advertising lavender farms, wine tasting and pick your own fruit - all the wonderful Sunset magazine-esque things that the Santa Ynez valley is famous for, and I started to wonder why I was slogging away behind a sweaty 'I'm doing it for Cherie' bloke instead of sampling the local Viognier. Just as that happened though, two of our good friends appeared like a mirage out of the early morning fog, and their cries of "you guys are awesome" and "why are you stopping!" and "really, don't stop!" were truly uplifting. Actually, at that point it was so awesome to slow down for a high-five and a brief natter, that after five minutes (actually 15.2 seconds) I was ready to keep going. Thanks Jen and Mooks!

The rest of the race was a bit of blur; rows of grapevines, people dotted along the course screaming encouragement, a random woman in purple who would break in to a run whenever I caught up with her - and then all of a sudden (not really) I only had one mile to go and I knew I was going to make it. My legs were doing a weird cartilage-less Inspector Gadget impression but my knee was holding up, and then I spent a ridiculous ten minutes being able to hear the finish line without being able to see it (we must have been turning corners every half block at that point).

I grabbed my two girls (Lucy initially reluctant) and we jogged sedately over the line where I collected my medal. Which became Lucy's medal five seconds later. She's a bit like that my youngest child.

The big question is - what next? Well, after a week off and lots of cake that is.

Half Time

I did it! My first half marathon. Two hours twenty-one minutes. 99% running, 1% waiting to go to the bathroom. 10lbs lost over six months and nearly 200 miles of training runs. It has been an amazing, exhilarating and crazy journey. 

 The icing on the cake was feeling good and being able to enjoy the whole race, having friends cheering from the sidelines, and then running across the finish line with Anna and Lucy. What a perfect way to spend Mothers Day weekend.

I'll write more when I crash-land from this cloud of endorphins.

Don't Wear A Wonder Bra To Sports Day

Anna's School Triathlon

This was the setting for Anna's school sports day on Friday. Not a bad backdrop I think you'll agree. I didn't get to participate last year, but as her school is a 'progressive' school, being an 'involved' parent is encouraged, so I was there in my standard Mum black capri yoga trousers at 8:30am looking both helpful and sporty.

That proved to be my downfall.

The first event was the run. The little kids would start first, followed by the 'big ones'. Anna's teacher was explaining the route as I sipped my travel mug o' coffee. I heard "Alison, could you do that?" and realized I shouldn't have been making a mental grocery list, I should really have been paying attention.

Turns out they needed a front marker, to stop the little darlings hurtling like lemmings off the cliff or in to traffic. I looked around me at the gaggle of under 7's, and feeling dizzy with the confidence that I'm running a half marathon in a week, I said "sure!" because at least it got me out of bathroom duty.

In hindsight, I think Anna's teacher might actually hate me.

Something I hadn't realized as the mother of two girls. Young boys are fast runners. The route was up the cliff in the photo you see above, and then for a further mile uphill until the turnaround point. As the gun went off I started jogging up the bike path surrounded by a herd of tiny boys all desperate to out-sprint each other. I kicked the pace up a notch and they stayed right with me. I looked like I was being pursued by a swarm of angry black bees. As we neared the top of the cliff I was rather hoping they'd start to slow. 'The thing with inexperienced runners' I thought to myself sagely, 'is they don't know how to pace themselves'.

In actual fact, the thing with 7 year old boys is, they don't need to pace themselves. They are bottomless pits of energy. We raced around that course like our lives depended on it. The only time we slowed was when I pretended I didn't know which path to take - but it was for the time it takes a hummingbird's wings to flap once, and then we were off again, hurtling towards the finish. I must have clocked two four minute miles.

I was gracious enough to let the leader pass me at the finish, so he could truly claim his glory, and then when the other bees in my swarm buzzed past the finish I gave them a hearty eyebrow raise, as that was all I could muster after my two mile sprint.

All I could think of was that if I'd been foolish enough to agree to the same thing last year I would very probably have died, surrounded by a gaggle of 5-7 year olds all wondering where they hell they went next.

I'm actually quite proud of myself for tearing around the course and not being bested by Skyler or Jayden or Indigo. Of course my left knee now has a worrying achy click, and I will never turn up to sports day again wearing a push-up bra, but hey, it's a small price to pay, right?

Anna crossing the finish at a much more sedate pace.

Tips From A First Time Runner

Orchard to Ocean 10k - March 2012

 It's the beginning of the month, a chance to start something new, so here's a little inspiration for any would-be runners out there (thanks to Radmegan for sending some my way!). You can do this. I started from scratch and you can too.

These are just some of the things that have worked for me in my journey towards my first half marathon. It's now less than two weeks away *yikes*!

• Mix it up - I run three times a week. Thirty minutes twice a week with a longer run on Saturdays.  When I was starting to train I found it helpful to run different routes each time. That way you don't get discouraged if you run out of steam earlier in the run than before. No run is the same. Some days you feel sluggish, and some days, miraculously, you can jog up a hill or two, but if you mix up your routes you will make steady progress without getting discouraged by a bad day. Then, maybe a week or so later, revisit a previously run route and you'll be really pleased at how much further you can go without slowing or walking. Plus if you mix things up the FBI will find it harder to track you.

• Treats! - Ideally, running should be a reward in itself, but for most novice runners dragging your carcass around two miles of sidewalks fails to create that elusive 'runners high' and can leave you feeling like you're two breaths short of an asthma attack. It's hard work. You need a treat. Two inexpensive things that worked for me;  

• Treat yourself to a new music download each time you run. If you have terrible music taste like I do, most of the songs to purchase cost a measly 99c. That way you increase your arsenal of running tunes, and you have something to look forward to next time you head out of the door.
• Second, invest in a really nice body wash that you only use after you run. My current top pick is Paradisiac Pink Pepper Pod by Molton Brown. Yes it's expensive per bottle, but if you only splash a little on after your run it will last for ages. And you smell great. And you just ran, so you're chuffing awesome. You'll be swatting the men away with a stick.

• Complete The Course - If you set out to run five miles, cover five miles. Doesn't matter if you run, walk, shuffle or crawl. You'll feel much worse if you give up half way round, and chances are, next time you attempt five miles you'll do a little more running and a little less crawling.

• Use Digifit - This is an exercise app from a Santa Barbara company. It's free, and if you run with your iphone it keeps track of your times, your splits, your route and all your recent runs. It buzzes you when you've run a mile, or 1/2 mile (you choose), even if you're currently listening to a different app like Pandora. I've found it really useful to track my progress, find out how fast/not at all fast I run, and to prove to LK that yes I really did just cover 12 miles, even though it took me *rather a long time*. I know Nike has a similar app, but I'm supporting our local company. Plus, it's free! What's not to love.

• No excuses. - Fair enough, it's not often that I can't run due to inclement weather in SB, but I ran on vacation, and at 6am on the morning we were due to fly out of the country. I ran in North Yorkshire where my arms froze like armcicles in the frigid easterly wind. Fit your runs in. Otherwise you'll just make it harder on yourself next time.

• Jelly Babies -Who knew? The girls got a lot of sweets while we were in England. It was Easter, they like candy, and quite frankly England does candy very, very well. One of my Aunties had given them both a bag of jelly babies. I offered one to my brother, and he pulled a face. Apparently he'd used them as fuel when he did his marathon with my sister in law last year. Now just the sight of them brings back hitting the wall at mile twenty (or eight?). I immediately withheld the bag from the girls and have been using them during my training runs. I don't know the science behind them - but the psychological boost of eating a jelly baby at mile six works wonders.

•  Training Program - My friend Fluffy told me about Jeff Galloway's half marathon training and that's what I've been using to build up to the race. He breaks the schedule into weekly workouts and makes it doable. Come back in two weeks to see if it was effective!

I'd be really interested if anyone has any other last minute helpful tips. Blister prevention? Push-up running bra? All the crucial stuff.

Eddie Izzard Saved Lucy's Life

Last week I Heimlich'd a diamante heart out of Lucy and she started breathing again.

I couldn't write about it for a while, because it was so shocking and surreal and such an incredibly close call. We'd just come home from work/school/preschool. The 45 minute loop from my office to their respective schools to home is hard to do at the end of a long day. I love picking them up, learning about their day, who pushed who (Lucy) and how baby zebras can tell their Moms by their stripes (Anna). It's a long drive though and it quickly devolves into hungry tired whining. And that's just from me.

As soon as we walk in the door I make them a quick snack, turn on the TV and head upstairs for 15 minutes of decompression. I've found this works wonders for my blood pressure and my parenting.

But parenting is a full time job, and last Tuesday, 10 minutes into my zen time I hear Anna screaming "Mom, Mom, Lucy's choking". I could tell by her tone of voice that something was really wrong, and by the time I'd flown down the stairs I could see that it was serious. Lucy was bright red and gagging, saliva filling her mouth, clutching at her neck. It was horrific. Anna was terrified, she shot upstairs crying "I can't see this". I started thumping Lucy on the back but it didn't seem to be doing any good. I couldn't get at the object because it was too far down her throat. She was going more of a purple colour, and was making sporadic small choking gasps, so my rational mind knew that some air was getting in, but I couldn't think of stopping what I was doing to get on the phone to call 911. I couldn't just leave her there to struggle. I had a flashback to some first aid classes I'd done in the sixth form at school, and then Eddie Izzard leapt to mind with his Heimlich maneuver. Lucy's stomach was going rigid, and it was hard to get sufficient resistance because she's only three, but eventually by holding her against my leg I could push hard enough up on her stomach to help. I'm not sure if it was the Heimlich, Lucy's own body finally kicking in a defence mechanism or what, but she finally heaved up the piece of jewelry and it went skidding across the kitchen floor.

Two minutes later, after I'd hugged and cleaned her up, she wanted to watch Yo Gabba Gabba. Anna and I were still shaking, hearts like hummingbirds, and then LK walked in and the front door took one look at us and said "what the hell just happened?"

Of course he suggested I could have picked her up by her ankles and shaken her, but it's amazing how the that kind of clarity of thinking doesn't strike you in an emergency.

This is what was actually going through my head during those nightmare three to five minutes:

•  This cannot be happening. 
• At what point do I call an ambulance? 
• Her stomach is rigid, oh shit that's not good. 
• This cannot be happening. 
• Breathe, Lucy breathe. 
• We have a $4,000 deductible. How much is an ambulance. 
• Please no, please no, please no 
• Oh God, what should I do? 
• Think! 
• Heimlich - it's a maneuver! 

Here's the Eddie Izzard link that shot in to my brain during those critical three minutes:
 

I think maybe it's time to take a first aid refresher course, because it's very clear that these things can come at you from nowhere, and there's no guarantee Eddie Izzard has covered that particularly medical emergency.

I had really thought we were past the choking stage, with a six year old and a three year old, but apparently not. The girls had been playing nicely together. Lucy was pretending to be a dog, and was feigning biting Anna's necklace. The quarter sized diamante heart attached to Anna's chain pulled off in Lucy's mouth and must have fallen straight to the back of her throat. It's that bizarre and that easy. We went from a normal evening to Lucy fighting for every breath in two minutes.

Thanks Eddie.

You Can't Get There From Here

It took six flights to get us to and from England:

Santa Barbara to Phoenix
Phoenix to Philadelphia
Philadelphia to Manchester

The first time I saw that itinerary I thought Expedia was having a laugh. Who flies to the UK via Phoenix and Philly, except people who can only fly through cities beginning with P?

To say I was dreading the flights would be a massive understatement. Last time we flew home, two years ago, we also had six flights. But then we also had an Icelandic volcano and a one year old lap child to contend with. Both equally volatile. As we finally began our descent over Ireland I remember thinking 'I don't care if we die. I'm so tired right now that at least we'd die together and this hell will be over'. Lucy had refused to sleep for the entire 24 HOURS of traveling and she wouldn't sit still for a nano-second. LK now swears he is the only man alive to have walked the length of the entire f*@king Atlantic Ocean.

Two years and two iphones later, and things were a different story. Lucy was enthusiastic and sweet on the (short) SB to Phoenix leg. She was relatively easily entertained or asleep on the (longer) Phoenix to Philly leg. By the time we were about to board our (loooong) flight from Philly to Manchester she took one look at the aeroplane gangway and said "hmmm, not so much really". In actuality she said 'I wan go hooome' and envisioning how popular we would be carrying a screaming, tantrum-throwing 3 year old on to a trans-Atlantic flight, LK and I immediately went in to Defcom Delta 'persuade this child she wants to fly mode.'

In the end Anna cracked it with 'doesn't this flight have TVs for every person'? Lucy shifted her gaze to her sister. "And don't you get to pick whatever you want to watch?" Lucy's eyes pleaded with us for agreement. When we said that yes - all international flights have headrest TVs she was racing down that gangplank like she might miss all the fun.

That was it. They watched TV, they ate, they slept. This lifestyle may be giving all American children type 2 diabetes, but it makes them AMAZING international travelers.

When we finally got off in Manchester, surrounding (no doubt relieved) passengers complimented us on our 'angelic' children. No-one was as surprised as we were.

Of course, if you yourself are finding it hard to while away the time on a long haul flight, let me suggest this from www.laughingsquid.com:

Airplane Lavatory Self-Portraits in the Flemish Style

Click on the link for more photos. Absolute bloody genius.