New day, new adventure

I can't believe I forgot my camera! That's what I thought as I watched Paige toddle happily around Snakes & Ladders 'indoor adventure playground' today for the first time. Because she absolutely LOVED it. We went from slide to toy car to swings and back again, Paige giggling all (well most) the while.

Probably the best thing about it is that the age groups are separated -- so Paige wasn't being knocked over by rambunctious 5-year-olds, like at the Lollipop club (an earlier, less successful, adventure). Of course, rambunctious 3-year-olds aren't much better (we were in the up-to-3 area), but there weren't that many kids, and Paige can certainly hold her own.

The amazing thing to me is that these places even exist... amazing what you learn when you have a kid!

Reading monster

Paige has always loved books - but in the last week or so she's developed even more of a passion for them. Combined with her increasing walking coordination, that means she now no longer is content to simply throw all the books off the shelf. No, now she selects a few to throw off the shelf... and then picks them up and brings them to the closest available reader, and plunks herself down for a story. (Or climbs on the couch for a story -- all depends on where the reader may be!)



It's very sweet, and I'm thrilled by her early love of books (long may it continue)... but sometimes wish she wouldn't get so stuck on the same book. As cute and well written and illustrated and clever as they are, it's a little hard to maintain enthusiasm for Each Peach Pear Plum and Moo Baa La La La when you're reading it for the 17th time in a row that morning...

Suppose I shouldn't complain too much - and just be happy she'll sit still for that long!

Nike+ minus

I'm quite happy to see that 10 days in, I'm 6 miles over schedule. Or 4.2 miles over if you only look at my Nike+ log. I've discovered the quite frustrating fact that it doesn't aaaalllways work. Like last Friday, when I quite excitedly did a brisk and short invigorating run that felt just great, saw the total would put me just over 10 miles, plugged my iPod in to sync, and.... nothing.. The run just disappeared. I was more deflated than anything. Which was silly of course -- *I* knew I did that run, why did it matter so much to see it on the little Nike+ totals screen?

But it did. And does. The back up site I found, RunnerPlus, just doesn't interest me as much, even though I can add my own runs to make sure my personal challenge total is more accurate. Which brings up that old philosophical chestnut: If a run doesn't sync through your Nike+, did you really run it?

100 minus 4 days and counting

For the maybe one person who stumbles across this blog who *didn't* get the e-mail I sent out... my 40th birthday fast approaches, and I've decided to run 100 miles in the 100 days leading up to it. Not just for myself, mind you. My willpower is such that without some sort of external pressure I'd probably hit about, oh, 17 miles before finding one sort of excuse after another and before you know it, my birthday would arrive, and so much for that challenge!

So I'm making this public, and putting some $$ / ££ on the line by running for a charity: Quilts for Kids. Wanna donate? Easy-peasy lemon squeezy... Head to my donation page on Firstgiving, all major credit cards accepted!

So far I've done 2 runs in 4 days for a total of about 5 miles... so right on track. My aim is to go for about 8 - 9 miles / week so that I can build a buffer, just in case I get some super busy work times, or horrid weather days. (Horrid weather in London? Never!)

I'm trying to find a way to put my Nike+ monitor data straight on to this blog, but it looks like they may have taken that widget function away in favour of the Facebook link-up. Oh well - I'll try to put at least weekly updates here, and will also have the Facebook link.

Thanks to those who've donated already -- I'd originally hoped to raise $500, but as I'm half-way there already, I may have to revise my target up a bit... $1000 is a nice round number!