Category Archives: Cub WIlliam

365 New Days, 365 New Chances

A few weeks ago, I redid the bathroom off our kitchen. By redo, I mean I gave it a fresh coat of paint, changed out the shower arm and shower head, added a new towel hook and hand towel bar, and patched some holes for the previous owner’s mistakes. Oh, and I also replaced the outlets and light switches, of which there were way too many for a bathroom that is barely 12 square feet.

Anyway, I bought a sign to hang in the new bathroom that says, “365 new days, 365 new chances.” I love the sign, because it reminds me that no matter how bad the previous day was, I can change the day to come. Obviously no two days are alike, and this could not have been more true this morning.

I woke up to a 21 month old heel kicking my hip bone. This is what I call a rude awakening. (Insert ba-dum-bum here). After yelling for the pain to stop, I scooped him up and put him on the floor where he proceeded to swipe everything single thing off my night stand. Fine, I’ll get up….

Upon standing and taking a step, I literally fell over in pain. The inside of my right ankle felt like it had a knife sticking out of it. The usual “walk it off” did not help, so I hobbled around until I finally went to get dressed and pulled out my trusty KT Tape. I’m telling you, it is glue for the body. The best stuff ever created! I hopped on Google, figured out what the pain probably was, then went to YouTube to see how to KT Tape the shit out of it. Pain gone. Crisis averted.

My point in telling this story is that life is sort of like a long run. There are minutes where you think you can’t make it any farther, and then there are times when you are coasting and think you can go on forever. Every day, every mile, is a new chance to get better, change, move forward. This is hard to remind yourself of some days, and I have had a few of those days lately. We all have them sometimes.

Now excuse me while I go get my son out of the bathroom sink, because apparently that is a place we like to climb to and hang out now… Keep Moving Forward!

2017: Expectations, Hopes and Goals

Happy New Year!

While I certainly wasn’t up at midnight my time, I did manage to make it to midnight Eastern Time while I was finishing a riveting episode of Dateline. I can’t tell you the last time I actually rang in the new year, or even a new day for that matter, at midnight. I am quite often awake at 1:30, 3:30, 4:30 and 5:30, as those seem to be Cub’s preferred times to start screaming and send me from dead sleep to complete and udder panic.

I normally write a pre-new year’s eve post where I outline my challenges for the coming year. I decided not to do that this year. I always have high hopes starting a new year, as I do this year, but I undoubtedly disappoint myself by not being able to keep up with my aggressive challenges.

So this year, I have decided to do something a little different. I have one resolution/goal, items that I would like to accomplish but am not going to kills myself over, then I hope to have a number of smaller goals for a month at a time.

For my Resolution/Goal: To be a better mom. I am an ok mom, but there are so many times of my day where I put Cub on the back burner so I can just do one more work thing, or start dinner, or get that load of laundry in. Honestly, it can all wait, because he deserves every bit of my attention, and in 2017, I am going to do my best to give it to him.

For my smaller items I would like to accomplish: I have wanted to get this plank wall done in my living room since we moved it. I also would love to organize my storage room, write more, and organize my pantry. All in good time…

My January Goal: I want to walk Lucy more. She has so much energy, and deserves a good walk every day, and some days, I just send her in the back yard with Milton to play for a while. She’s getting a walk today, and hopefully many more days this month.

I wish you all good and happy things in 2017. The Thompson’s have big plans on the horizon, and I am excited to reveal those to you in the days to come.

The State of the Thompsons

It is a big day here at the Thompson house!

  1. I already have our Halloween decorations down! YAY!
  2. Cub is at daycare, meaning I had time to take the decorations down without tripping over a sippy cup.
  3. I put creamer in my coffee. That’s right folks! Living large today!

Ok, really, I know those are non-important things that you don’t care about, but my point is that we are status quo here at the Thompson compound, and I  couldn’t be happier about it. Chas’s season starts on Thursday, and being at status quo going into that is an accomplishment with a 16 month old. Oh by the way, he thinks he is two and throws temper tantrums like it as well. In fact, I took him to school this morning, and before I could even walk out of the room, he hit his teacher. I bolted like I was on fire. I already suspect that they don’t like him there, simply because I spend half of my day not liking him some days.

My goal for November is to work towards a more regular week so that I can get more done. I spent last night creating an hour by hour list of how my day was going to go, and I am happy to report that in hour 3 of the day we are on schedule. Yes! The whole motivation for trying to start November differently is that I have some big personal goals in mind that I want to have time to work on. I recently went to a conference where the hashtag #StayHungry was used. I really like that hashtag for multiple reasons:

  1. I am always hungry, or hangry.
  2. It’s certainly motivating.
  3. It gave me something to write on my white board instead of a grocery list that consisted of diapers, toothpaste, and paper towels, all of which I finally just subscribed to on Amazon because I forgot every time I went to the grocery.

While I would like to continue to tell you about what I have in mind, I am on a schedule, and with only 4 minutes left in my “writing a blog post ans drinking coffee hour”, I have to wrap this puppy up.

I hope you all had a wonderful Halloween and a great start to November!

Change is a comin’

Change is of course inevitable. Over the past 10 months, Cub has grown and changed more than I could have ever imagined. He waves, kisses, laughs and cries. He loves brushing his teeth and feeding Goldfish crackers to the bulldogs. He is such a fun kid… when he is in a good mood anyway.

As a family, we decided to make some changes that would be beneficial, one of them being our location. While we have no intentions of leaving Hays in the near future, we did feel that our family would be better off by change where we lived, so we decided to try putting our house on the market. We worked so hard for 3-4 straight days sorting through closets and decluttering everything. Much to our surprise we easily sold the house in just 2 days. And even more to our surprise, we found a house that met almost all our criteria in a very desirable neighbor (and well within our price range) almost just as quickly. So July 8th, we will be closing on 2 houses and moving to a place that will allow our family to easily grow with no problem at all.

We are so excited for this new transition, and the best part is that the week before we close, we get to go celebrate at Walt Disney World for Cub’s 1st birthday!

Day 38/366- The Irony of Parenthood

668bc110c6fa8462fda88543f5e47eeaThere are basically 3 elements to my life nowadays. The first is Parenting. The second is work, and the third is attempting to get back into shape. I am taking the first day by day. I mean, how else to do you parenting. Very little planning can be done, and the messes are inevitable. I still have yet to sleep for more than 3 hours at a time in going on 8 months. However, my little boy is growing up to be a fierce, tough and determined young man, but then again what else should I have expected? He is half Ginn after all.

Work is as busy as ever with no end in sight. It is satisfying to help the company grow, be in charge of a lot of the daily going abouts, and watch kids blossom into wonderful journalists. As we continue to grow, I am hoping that my role will continue to expand, as I feel like I am a good advocate for the brand and have spend the last 4 years of my life dedicated to its well-being.

The final is really what this blog is all about, right? I mean, I started The Running Year to not only document my goals and achievements, but I also wanted to hold myself accountable by having those things written in a place that more than just I could read.

dailyburn-logo-colored_0As I have told you on my last post, I have started using a service call The Daily Burn. It basically gives you access to workout videos via an streaming device. I have found it very convenient because I don’t have to pack up Cub and got to a gym or class. As soon as he goes down for a nap, I can flip on the Roku and work up a sweat. I highly recommend it to moms looking to get their body back. It is only about $15 a month, and I definitely feel like I have gotten my moneys worth in just the 3 weeks I have been using it.

So anyway, I decided to try a little bit different of a workout the other day. Instead of the normal tabata workouts that I had been doing, I found a hip hop dance workout to do. I thought it would be fun to try, as well as amusing, as I am not a dancer. I am just not coordinated in that way. Well I definitely didn’t disappoint. Honestly, I don’t know how one person could possible be as impossible at dance moves as I am. The coach would show a move and with all the confidence in the world, I would swivel, shake or shimmy the way I felt was appropriate to make myself look just like her… NOT HAPPENING. I was TERRIBLE! Honestly, I finally just laughed at myself and made up something that was as close as I could to what they were doing. It was a comedy act. Needless to say I am not elegant or graceful on my feet in the dancing sense.

Now, back to the title of this post. The irony of parenthood and trying to get back into shape after baby… When you are trying to get into shape and lose weight, exercise, healthy eating and water consumption are so important. Yet, as a nursing mother, I am getting absolutely NO sleep (I was up at 3 am turning on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse for my 7 month old last night, and OMG that hot dog dance). A tiny human is sucking you dry every 3 hours, so if you sweat, you have to drink 2 times the normal amount of water to even break even. I am also hungry ALL THE TIME, partly because I get my furnace running when I exercise, so I burn calories more easily throughout the rest of the day, and while nursing, you need extra just to sustain your milk supply. It feels like a constant uphill battle. Let’s face it. It IS an uphill battle.

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Here’s the good news. I only have 2 pounds to go before I am back at pre-baby weight. I am feeling strong and confident about my body again. I am eating healthy, which is the best thing I can do for Cub, because what I eat, he eats. And finally, I am setting a good example for my son. Making time to exercise whether it be doing a Daily Burn class, running, taking a walk, whatever shows Cub how important it is to move, and hopefully that is a lesson that he will take with him for the rest of his life.

Day 33 of 366- The work is getting done

This year is already flying by, and my little baby is 7 months old. He’s crawling, talking, standing up on everything and is turning out to be this stubborn, tenacious little person. He is such a great combination of both Chas and me. We went to the doctor the other day, and he is in the 19% in height and only the 5% in weight. We are a little worried about that, but the kid is an eater. We just have to work a little harder I guess. Another light weight in the family.

I have spent the last 5 weeks working really hard to make good decisions and lose weight. After speaking with a nutrition coach, we decided that I was getting too few calories as a nursing mom, and that was one of the reasons why my weight had plateaued. After increasing my calorie intake, I started dropping again, and am getting closer and closer to my pre-Cubby weight.

I am super proud of my workouts lately. I actually have been doing some running and walking, but I have been taking at least one workout class a day, and I am always exhausted and starving the rest of the day. I have subscribed to the Daily Burn, and I really love it. It gives me so many workout options, and I think it is really worth it. I like pushing myself to do the workouts, and even when I feel tired, knowing that I can push through it gives me a lot of pride.

I need a direction right now, as I am feeling sort of lost besides work, dieting and raising Cub. I feel like I am drifting at the moment, and I need to find a project or something. Any suggestions? I’m open!

Looking Back, Moving Forward

It’s been the best of years. It’s been the worst of years. My baby was born and has made our life full and sent us in a new direction. I haven’t slept in 6 months. Life is so vastly different when you become a parent. “I” have taken a back seat, which means running, health and fitness have all fallen to the bottom of the priority list and shear survival remains at the top of it.

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Yesterday was Cub’s half birthday. He is doing so well, with 2 teeth, eating (what seems like) gallons of baby food a day, and can play by himself with not much help from mom for a few minutes at a time. I finally feel like I am in a good place where I can move up the list just a few notches. And what a perfect time of year. January 1st always gives you hope for a new start and a refresh.

I am ready for a refresh. Being a new mom is so full of joy, but at the same time, it can make you feel completely deflated. I find myself trying to make it from nap to nap (Cub’s naps, not mine), and have to adjust my thinking as to cherish all my moments with him, not just when he is happy and cooing, but when he is crying and crabby too.

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With that being said, I have been pondering my New Year Challenges, which I post every year. I started this blog a few years back to hold myself accountable for my running challenges. It has since turned into a Jen’s life blog, which is fine, but has strayed from its original purpose, sort of like my life.

With just a few pounds of baby weight left to lose, I have upped my weight loss challenge. People only know what they are taught. I, fortunately, had parents that made sports and fitness a priority in their lives, as well as ours. Cub deserves the same. He deserves fresh, healthy meals, opportunities to run, jump and play, and a mom and dad that do everything in their power to stay healthy so that they can live a long, happy life with him.

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So… Here it goes! My 2016 New Year’s Challenges:

  1. Lose 20 lbs.
  2. Eat a cleaner, more simple diet
  3. Keep better track of the good things that occur in my life
  4. Judge less, listen more
  5. Attempt to run at least 1 mile everyday in 2016
  6. Document my strength and struggles here for you all to read

I know there are some lofty goals in there, but I am going to attempt to be a better person than I was this year. I think that all these challenges will make me a better mom as well. Cub deserves the best me, and I am going to do everything in my power to give that to him.

So here’s to being better, stronger, healthier and smarter in the new year.

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The road is long and winding

Well motherhood has certainly had its ups and downs. Baby Cub will be 3 months old tomorrow, and he is more than I could have ever hoped for. He is so fun when he is happy, cooing, kicking and learning new things. When he is not happy, he lets you know quickly and LOUDLY. Cub had found his voice in the past month, and he is not afraid to use it. In fact, one of his favorite past times is howling on command with his dad… yeah I stay out of that one.

When I say he is growing quickly, I am not exaggerating. He is already teething people! 3 month and we have teeth cutting through and making our little guy miserable. We have been on a constant stream of Tylenol and Orajel to keep him happy, and I have spent many more hours nursing than sleeping over the past 2 weeks. I just feel terrible for him. It’s really trying when you have a baby in pain because you want nothing more than to sooth them, but it just isn’t that easy. We are making it through, but wow, it is exhausting.

Cub is already in 6 month sleepers now. He is getting long and is close to 13 lbs. already. My little narcissist loves watching himself in my phone and really enjoys going to watch Chas’ wrestlers workout. He loves the movement and noise. This kid is going to be an athlete!

As for dad, Chas is finding it harder to carry him for long periods of time as he is getting heavier, but loves playing with him and getting him to talk back. Cub spends a few hours a week up at Chas’ office while mom has conference calls or appointments to attend. He had made friends with many of the volleyball players, and it seems that he hasn’t met a human he doesn’t like.

Mom, well I am doing better. The post-delivery issues I was having seem to be dulling with time, and I have started walking more with Cub in the stroller. I even finally hit my 10,000 steps a day goal this past week. I haven’t done that in almost 6 months. Running again is the next thing on my list, and I am planning on that happening sometime in the coming week. I continue to drop the baby weight, which I am working hard to get off. I still have about 10-12 lbs to go, but we are getting there, and I feel like I look better with each passing day.

Motherhood is hard. Like my mom told me, it never really gets easier. It just gets different. When we have gotten one thing figured out (sleeping for more than 3 hours at a time), something else arises (teething). We are taking it all in stride, and learning a lot along the way.