2/8/08 It's all in the toes

I had my first physical therapy session this morning! I explained at length to Conrad, an Australian runner, the nature of my troubles. He explained back in far more detail than I can remember the biomechanics of the foot and leg.

After some testing, measuring and watching me move my feet, the results were in: I have weak toes!!

OK, there's more to it than that. Since there's no bleeding or obvious injury, all we can go on is highly educated guesses. My calves are actually very tight, not allowing enough flexion at the ankle and proper pushoff, especially up hills. Exercises to loosen calves, check.

But the real surprise was when he told me to curl my toes, and then was easily able to uncurl them with his fingers. The muscle that controls the toes also controls how your foot lands and pushes off, and should be much too strong for him to uncurl my toes. So it's a good guess that I must not be pushing off correctly, or in the right direction, especially up hills. So, exercises to strengthen my toes (no kidding!) are called for, like lifting a towel from the floor with just toes numerous times...isn't there a song about ankle bone being connected to the leg bone, the leg bone's connected to the....oh well. Exercises to strengthen feet via the toes, check.

So, ice, anti-inflammatories (I've heard conflicting things, but to heal the existing inflammation, OK), rest (wah), exercises, and then inserts/orthotics to correct the slight pronation and help train my foot to strike properly. All things I'd have considered to be minutiae -- but the persistent, nagging sensations around my ankles say otherwise. Oh yeah, or quit running. No.

Last night, Katrina got into some sort of snit when I tried to give her dinner -- food she likes, and she was hungry. I tried everything, including my usual final straw of taking her outside, still nothing but back-arching, screaming-crying, pushing my hand away. Fed up, I sat her down in the living room to go tend to the stove for the boys' dinner. I thought she'd come into the kitchen after a few minutes, looking for the sippy-cup of milk that can act as a moment-changer, but no, she pushed herself around on her back in the living room and cried angrily nonstop for a solid 20 minutes. I couldn't believe it -- a full-on, and LONG, tantrum (20 minutes is a long time for a 16-month-old!).

After I finally had the boys sitting down -- no mean feat, as Julian was giving me a hard time and I made several trips to the garage to put toys away -- then I tackled the toddler tantrum problem. I can't quite remember what I did, some combination of offering her something else, moving her somewhere new, distraction, and time, finally broke her down to take a few bites, and then we were finally on our way. Whew. She showed no signs of slowing down, either, it could easily have gone on had I not put my full attention to "redirecting.

I mentioned this episode to Melissa this morning, later thinking I was making too big a deal of it. But Melissa encountered the same exact thing today, unable to break her out of a major snit when her Plan for life was thwarted. Melissa remembers all the trouble we had with Gabriel, so she's prepared.

I can't believe I have another tantrumer on my hands! Yes, all toddlers have tantrums, but I know whence I speak when I say tantrumer!

One thing that's not like Gabriel, thank goodness: tonight, Dave was carrying Katrina, and for some reason, she bit his shirt. It wasn't quite malicious, but it's that classic experimental thing that can make it turn so, as Gabriel's pinching did (evolving into a nasty 1.5-year hitting problem). Dave gently scolded her, telling her nooo, not nice. And she pouted and cried!!!!! YIPPEEEE!!!!!

I love that I can decide at 8:35pm on a Wednesday night that the ends of my hair are too brittle and gross, and run out to Supercuts and get a trim and be home by 9pm.

Second night in a row I've felt the house shift. First one, there really was a small quake across the bay, so small Dave didn't even feel it downstairs (I was upstairs). Tonight, just paranoia. Or exhaustion. Or....?

2/8/08