1/7/08 The Ankles

I was hoping to run into another contractor at work today, who comes in sporadically, and who is a very serious runner. If he was there, I hoped to have an opening (as he's often tied up) to ask him if my painful ankles, worse this morning, were a common running injury. Not only was he there, but I had the opening: he hobbled in with a cast -- broken ankle! He twisted it on a rock while running and actually broke it.

Some Web-surfing and talking to him about ankles says that there is hope: gel orthotics and shoe inserts that conform to your foot, sports medicine doctors, certain types of stretches, and knowing when to lay off can all help. I found today that my ankles were the least bothersome after sneaking to the back loading dock and doing a few weights exercises, including lunges. If the answer is movement and stretching, I'm all for it.

Katrina was in a dazzling mood this morning, and also when I picked her up this afternoon, full of raspberries and squeaks and giggle fits. Melissa reported that she wasn't like that all day; crying after falling and hitting her forehead and refusing to practice walking after that. That is most decidedly not like Gabriel.

She was downright violent in rejecting her second course of dinner, one I know she likes (spaghetti). But she downed the whole thing after I brought her outside and let her point at things in the dark sky and watch a pickup truck park on our street. That reminds me of having to feed Gabriel on the front porch when he was a baby, taking advantage of the outdoors to distract him.

And it reminds me that I never had to do that with Julian. I can thank Katrina for making Julian's babyhood seem idyllic, even though his babyhood coincided with Gabriel's twos-hood, the worst, and so not idyllic, period of our baby-raising lives so far. But there was a reason I called Julian "Angel Baby."

Gabriel has been so focused on Julian's piano and the little music book that yesterday he was practically begging me to sign him up for "real" piano lessons. The way he tackles the music book reminds me of his foray into Morse Code, like he likes translating symbols. I'd toyed with the idea of signing Julian up for some sort of music class, but Gabriel? Hmm! At the moment, none of them have any scheduled activities; I'm reluctant to make the commitment when our lives are due to turn upside-down in a few months.

Besides, I'm selfish, and right now with work overwhelming my weekdays, the weekends have to work around my trips to the Y and running. My ankles may have a different plan though.

1/7/08