As you may know I am raising money for the Ironman Foundation.
I love racing for a cause because I love giving back to something that has given me so much. I am really excited to work with the IronMan Foundation and all the good work they have done and will continue to do.
Each year, a select group of athletes from around the world race on TEAM IMF to support the mission of the IRONMAN Foundation. Together, we share a passion to create positive tangible change in our race communities and prove that “Anything Is Possible.”
Since 2003, over $50 million has been provided through IRONMAN charitable giveback programs including the IRONMAN Foundation to more than 8,300 local, regional, national and global nonprofit initiatives. Through these partnerships, IRONMAN athletes are powerfully linked to the community and together we leave the IRONMAN legacy behind in our race communities long after race day. We #RaceForMore.
In order to raise money for the foundation I am hosting a 5k virtual run.
I ran for me. I ran because I enjoyed it. I ran to collect my thoughts.
I started running at the athletic club where we belonged. In high school my mom canceled that and I had to run outside on the street. Which I found I enjoyed more.
click picture for source
I loved clipping on my walk-man, yes that says walk-man, and heading out of the house. There was so many directions I could run, to change-up the scene a bit. My mind would wonder and clear. When it got hard, I would push through and keep going, because I had to get back to the house somehow.
Eventually, it was harder to find the time. We lived where it wasn’t safe for me to run alone. We lived where it was too cold to run outside. Many reasons, well mostly excuses on why I stopped running.
For a while now I have wanted to start running again. I didn’t because I had a mental block. I knew I couldn’t just run like I used, I had to start out slowly, and run intervals. However, I just couldn’t figure out how to start.
click picture for source
Sometime last October my cousin was talking about how she started this Couch to 5K program. Which I thought was just a name she thought of, cause she is funny like that.
Turns out it is an actual program. Someone sat down and thought about the best way to get people to run a 5K (about 3 miles) in nine weeks time. It is specifically designed for people who have not run in a long time, or have never been running. It is designed for a 30 minute workout, three times a week.
There are a lot of resources out there, some are free, some you pay for. I like this website because he has complied a whole list of resources for you to get started.
In October I joined a gym and I started running. I am too old for running in poor weather right now, so I run on a treadmill.
I downloaded this free app. There was some complications and then the holidays, so I didn’t quite keep on schedule. I still ran, but sometimes I repeated some of the days. I am now on track to be able to run a 5K in two weeks time.
I am not gonna lie. It has been hard. My lungs are not happy, my knees hurt and I need a new sports bra. I have to learn to breathe again.
My run on Monday night was the most difficult yet. I was just sooo tired, Baby Sid is teething, and both him and Ian woke me up a number of times the night before. It was the first time since I started that I had to sneak in a minute of walking during a running interval. Because I felt I was going to fall over.
But here I am now. I am a runner. I run. I run. I run. I am a runner….well almost.
I cry when I am happy. I cry when I am mad. I cry when I am scared or hurt. I cry when I laugh. I cry when I watch movies, TV, or commercials. I cry when I read. I cry when I am frustrated. I, of course, cry when I am sad. I cry [insert emotion here].
I cry. I cry. I cry.
I don’t cry, however, when I cut onions.
The other day I was reading a blog post a woman wrote and I started crying. While at work. Earlier the same day I dropped off a very tired three-year-old boy at preschool and there was an incident at the hand-washing sink that made him cry. Mostly because he was so exhausted he didn’t know how to deal with his emotions.
As I was leaving I felt bad because I knew he was going to have a particularly rough day, and predicted there would be quite a few tears shed that day. So that day really got me thinking about crying. And boys crying.
I have two boys. And I HATE that phrase “boys don’t cry”.
My husband sometimes cry and he is a boy. (But don’t tell him I told you…About the crying part.)
“Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was better after I had cried, than before–more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
I understand the need for men to be men and all that garbage. But who decided that showing you emotions are not manly? Some other man probably.
Ahh…but I digress.
I have never wanted my son to think he couldn’t cry about something, when his emotional response was to cry. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want a child, be it boy or girl, who cries about EVERYTHING. But I don’t want my child to be so embarrassed about crying that he doesn’t learn to share his emotions. And he is three, he is gonna cry about things.
So when he gets upset about something and starts crying, I have never told him to stop. My response is that I need him to calm down. He often gets more emotional when he is tired, come on, we all do. When this is the case I tell him “I know you are tired but I need you to calm down so we can talk about it.”
I know, sounds like a lot of “new age” (is that even a term now?) mumbojumbo. A little too ‘get in touch with your sensitive side.’
However, it works. If he is throwing a fit or got hurt or is just so upset about something and doesn’t know how to express it, these words helps him. Sometimes I say “slow down, breathe slowly and try to calm down.” Cause you know how kids can get when they are crying so much they start to hyperventilate.
Of course sometimes he says “I canna calm down, I cryin’ too hard” which is just adorable! After someone else has stopped crying he will ask me “did dey calm down now?” Isn’t he just the cutest?
I still have to get mad at my husband sometimes when he tells Ian to ‘stop crying’ because that is not the road I want us to travel. We should all be able to cry when we want to. When he is just throwing a temper-tantrum I just tell him we can talk or do whatever, when he calms down. It is hard not to say “when you stop crying” but I really don’t want to use those words.
I try to validate his feelings and let him know it’s OK to have them, but eventually he needs to stop the tears so the day can go on.
So I say, let it out. Cry. Cry often and cry hard, if that is what is called for. Be you man, woman or child. Don’t be ashamed to let others see you cry. Carry your hankie embroidered with your initial on it, and cry.
“…you know that a good, long session of weeping can often make you feel better, even if your circumstances have not changed one bit.”
― Lemony Snicket, The Bad Beginning
I think it happens a lot, I am probably over reacting.
It doesn’t help that he is not a huge fan of wearing shoes on a regular basis.
Which is funny cause he loves shoes, he always wants to buy them.
This past weekend, on a Friday afternoon, he got stung by a bee. Again. He was stung the week before on his finger.
We were swimming at my mom’s house, and I was on a lawn chair feeding Baby Sid. Ian left the pool and was walking the grass. I was watching him, he got about four steps in the grass and stopped. While looking at his feet he brought his right foot back and kinda shook it. Then he put it down and started crying.
While this was happening I was calling to my mom, who was in the water, that Ian was getting stung by a bee.
She rushes out of the water and brings him back to sit on a chair while she gets the stinger out and washes the venom off his toe.
The bee stung him inside the big toe on his right foot in the joint between the metatarsal and phalange. My mom put a poultice of baking soda and water on the site of the sting.
On a side note:
Growing up we had a pool, the property behind our house was home to a farmer who also raised honey bees. He thought the far end of his property, next to the cedar trees would be a great place for his bees. Since that area butted up against the back of my mom’s property, we didn’t really agree that it was a great place for bees.
The bees were constantly coming to our pool for water, which meant we got stung all the time. Luckily none of us had any bad reactions to the bee stings. Every time we got stung we would make a poultice of baking soda and water, just like our mom taught us.
Poultices have been used forever as a way to draw out toxins from the body. Making a poultice out of a neutralizing agent also helps draw out the venom from the site of injection. Some claim mud works just as well.
A paste of baking soda and vinegar (mainly apple cider vinegar) can also help with bee stings. This is an endothermic neutralization reaction, it will bubble up some when they are add together. It is said that the vinegar helps with the pain, but I haven’t tried it, so I don’t really know if this is true.
You may have heard to make a poultice with meat tenderizer, supposedly there is an enzyme in the unseasoned meat tenderizer that helps to break down apitoxin.
I suspect the best would be a paste would be made with vinegar and mixture of baking soda and meat tenderizer.
After a while the pain subsided and he was back to his normal self, ready to tackle the yard filled with clover flowers and more bees.
About 12-15 hours later, at 5 o’clock in the morning, he woke up in tears telling me his foot hurt.
Ian: my foot hurts. I got stinged by a bee esterday.
Me: I know honey, do you want some medicine to help the with the pain?
Ian: ok….No mama not my mouf, I need medicine for my foot, not my mouf. My foot still hurts
Me: I know honey, this is medicine we put in our mouth and it makes the pain go away.
Ian: but it still hurts. I needa band-aid
I had given him some Tylenol and he eventually went back to sleep, still thinking he needed medicine on his foot.
When he got up at a more reasonable time his foot was swollen and still hurt. It was red up to his ankle and on the ball of his foot, which was also hot to the touch. He didn’t have a fever, nor did he have any trouble breathing.
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
I wish I had a comparison picture for you to see how bad it was.
Since this was a Saturday I called our pediatricians advice nurse. She told me to give him some Benadryl to help with the swelling.
We had a birthday party to go to, so while the Benadryl made him a little slower, the swollen painful foot didn’t stop him. He couldn’t put any pressure on his big toe so he was walking on the outside of his foot and limping around.
After the party we went to my mom’s house for my Aunt’s birthday dinner.
His foot continued to swell and turned from red to a purplish color. His foot was still hot, so the purple color was not from lack of blood circulation. He was also starting to complain about the pain again. He could not bend his toes, they were huge!
He had a bath to soak it and we added another baking soda poultice, thinking it might help draw out more venom.
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
My family had me convinced I needed to take him to urgent care, which was now closed.
So I called the advice nurse again.
She told me watch for a fever, if he starts to have trouble breathing, red streaks going up his leg or his face gets swollen. If any of those happen then I need to take him to the ER, otherwise we could wait to see the pediatrician the next day.
The next day was Sunday, so our Dr wasn’t there, but one of his partners were. By the time we got to the Dr office Ian was walking and jumping on his foot. It was still red and swollen, but not as bad as the night before.
What Ian had was a local allergic reaction to the bee venom as opposed to a systemic allergic reaction. This means he is not allergic to bees. If he was allergic to bees he would have had hives, difficulty breathing, or swelling in the face. Any of those symptoms can indicate an allergy.
If he had any streaking up his leg, that would have indicated an infection.
The Dr said it could take a couple of days to a week for his foot to be back to normal. And it would probably start itching.
Since my husband was out of cell service on a fishing trip, he know about it until he got home Sunday night. To which he replies “I used to swell like that when I got stung as kid too.”
Would I have still been panicking the night before if I had know that?
I Tri and Craft 