Loads of pictures of the cute one

Here, let me help you with that bag, Grandpa.


Taking the dolls out for a walk.


Playing in the pool.


A budding thespian.


Leave me alone, I'm licking my lollipop.


Cruising with Grandpa.


Hiding in the hammock, sorta.


See, Mom, I did too eat my vegetables.

Memorial Day 5k results

It is that time of year again. Our little borough had their 2nd 5k run and I took part. 240 people took part in this years run. There was some concern about whether or not I would be able to run this year. Earlier posts went over the process of recovering from the injury after the Thanksgiving Day 5 miler. And as recent as yesterday I was limping from having pulled something on my hip. Happily this did not cause any problems and I was able to finish running. Since my training was interrupted these last few months I had very modest expectations for my performance. Just getting out there was a victory. That said, I did better this year than last! My time this year was 31:06 minutes, more than two minutes faster than last year. My average pace was almost exactly 10 minutes a mile. This is very encouraging for my hopes to continuing to improve my times. If the aim to improve a few minutes year over year is modest when compared with the results of the top runners in this race. The first place mens was almost exactly half my time. The top finishers in my age bracket are ten minutes faster. So I have a ways to go before my name has a chance of showing up on those lists. Wish me luck!

and here are some pictures...

Here are some pictures of our little one.


Hanging out in the airport in ones pajamas.


Helping Dziadek (Grandpa) in the garden.


"Tell me again how this becomes soup?"


If they can eat this stuff, can I?


"Ok, now poop!"


"What else needs watering? I know, the same plant I have been watering all afternoon!"


The work day is done, now we play! Please note that he has moved from throwing pebbles to throwing small boulders. Not a surprise, as they make much better splashes.


"Ok, I let you out of your pen but that does not mean you can put your cold nose on my belly, no matter how much I may giggle."


"What do you mean its not zoned for this structure?"

Home is where the heart is

And since my wife and son are with her family in Poland for another two months, I am feeling a bit homesick today. The rainy weather we are having is not helping too much either. We do get to talk via Skype occasionally and email fills in the gaps, but it is not the same as being able to be in the same room as them.

Don't get me wrong, I am enjoying this time to myself. I have seen movies in the trheater on my own for the first time in years. I am burning through those netflix movies I know my wife has no interest is watching. My schedule is mine to mis-use as I see fit, which is always a nice thing. Laundry, dishes and cat litter still get done so it is not like a vacation from life or anything that liberating.

The language experiment seems to be paying off. Polish words are already entering his vocabulary and his pronuciation, in general, has been improving. He had been using just the start or ending sounds of words when I left and that has already started to improve such that more of the other syllables in longer words are getting incorporated.

One story for this past week comes from when they were visiting friends of the family and he got to play with the pet hamster. The full two hours they were there he carried this thing around. He gave it rides in the wagon, pretended to feed it from toy dishes and giggled like only a three year old can when it ran up his sleeve. And he has asked about it every day since the visit. I think it is the first animal he has had direct contact with that is that much smaller than him. He has been around cats and dogs since being born, but even the small ones come up to his waist and can knock him down if they are too friendly. (Keep in mind we have a 20lb cat named China that really is half his size and she can knock over full grown adults if she decides to flop down in your path. We used to put his growth in fractions of the cats size to keep it in perspective. He is now almost equal to 2 China's.) So I can only imagine what he is thinking as he finds a place in his mind for small pets that are more on his scale in terms of size. *sigh* Really wish I could have been there for it. Hopefully we will get to visit that same family when I go back in July, and it will still be as much fun for him.

I hope to get some pictures posted from my recent visit.

*smiles*

further updates

Two things have captured the attention of our son.

The first is throwing stones into a small pond. Hours have been spent searching for stones of all sizes to use to make a splash. When stones are not immediately obvious he will settle for clumps of dirt. Occasionally he will even lower his standards enough to grab handfulls of dandelions or grass and toss them into the pond. I wonder if the water level will change by the time he leaves later this summer.

The second thing to capture his imagination is chicken poop. Yes, you read that correctly. Chicken poop. Fowl excrement. There is no real way to make that sound good. What happened was that on the first day of our visit his grandfather was showing him the chicken coop. He brought out a chicken to show our son up close and much to everyones surprise the chicken took the opportunity to defecate . Obviously our son was amazed at the process and, in his own almost three years old manner, said "again, again!" The next chicken that was brought was kind enough to perform on demand and a tradition was born. Now whenever we see a chicken there is a demand for "chi poo!"

The rest of our trip is going well, if not as planned. We had hoped to visit Zakopane, a resort town in the mountains along the southern border of Poland. When we called around to get some rooms, all of the hotels were booked. It was so unusually busy there for this time of year it made the evening news. We had a similar problem when we tried to find a place to stay for a couple of days in Krakow instead. So no tourist type of stuff this visit. The fall back plan has been to hang out at home, watch the kids run around the yard and drink beer each afternoon. Since the weather has been very nice each day, this has worked out well for us. Luckily there have been no Papal visits resulting in the halting of beer sales, so there has been no interruptions like during our visit in 2002. We went to a national park yesterday and walked through a castle. The day before we walked through the pine woods on the far side of the village. So if nothing else we are keeping busy.

the great experiment has begun

So I am posting from the computer at my in-laws house in Poland. Here is a link to Google maps showing the village where they live:
Rudy Rysie, Poland
We landed last Wednesday afternoon. Our son was better than we had any right to hope he would be on the flight over. I think Saturday was the first day he was all caught up on his personal clock. The rest of us have just been napping at odd hours as needed. I have managed to get in two runs so far. The first was for three miles and the second was for four miles. Most of the distance is on country roads with feilds more often than houses. The only problem so far is the occasional unchained dog. Most are fairly small and the worse they have done is bark at me. Most people nod and say "dzien dobry" which is Polish for "Good day." Some are clearly wondering what idiot is out running around but they are nice about it.
The big experiment is that after two weeks I will come home but my wife and son will stay on until the middle of July. His language skills have been going through the roof, as is expected for children almost three years old. So we are really hoping he will learn enough Polish this summer to lay a good foundation for the future. The end goal is he be able to use Polish communicate with his family in Poland. We talked about this trip when we started thinking about children and we bought the tickets back in December. Now we see what happens.
I am curious how my wife will handle being a single mother living with her parents. There is also the reality of my having to deal with only seeing them via Skype or email. Should be interesting. Some friends have asked what I will be doing when I am "single" again and I have correct them by saying that instead of "single" they should just think of me as "unsupervised" for the duration.
Enough for now. I hope all is well in your neck of the woods!
*smiles*

the joys of running again

Words can not describe how nice it is to be running without pain!

About two weeks ago I finally finished the physical therapy and the two weeks of breaking in the orthotics. And I can run again without the crippling shin splints. Not at anywhere near the speed I was at before the injury, or even where I was a year ago but I can live with that detail. I was able to keep some of my endurance during the last few months by using the eliptical a few times a week for a cardio workout. So now the plan is that each week I will increase the speed a little bit while still going the same distance. I am planning on running in the neighborhood 5k at the end of May. I think I can get back to the speed I was at for this race last year by then. We shall see!