So in case you haven’t heard, I have a couple of routes I take when I run/walk the pups.  My favorite and most-used route starts with a moderate hill that I walk up.  I walk fast, but I walk.   Except for the part where I stop to let Luke poop.  I try to get our cardio 3 times a week, sometimes less sometimes more.  Last week I decided to do something totally crazy.  I decided I was going to run up the moderate hill.  I walked to the corner from our house to “warm up,” turned the corner and said, “Let’s go pups!!”  We then proceeded to run up the hill.  To clarify, I’m not sure run is the correct word for what I was doing.  I would call it, “aggressive jogging.”   I pushed my way up that hill, pups in tow, and Luke didn’t poop and before I knew it – or forever later – I was at the top!  I made it!  I ran/aggressively jogged up the moderate hill!  I so badly wanted to jump up and down with my arms in the air, Sylvester Stallone style in “Rocky.”  I didn’t, though, because it’s a busy street and someone I know always passes by me and by then I had probably already had triangle sweat down there and a line of sweat under my up-tops, plus one line straight down my lower, lower back.  So I held back my excitement and continued on my aggressive jog/walk journey and when I got home my time was (obviously) the best ever.

As soon as I got home, after I drank two sports bottles of water and walked around trying to get rid of the shakes and splashing cold water on my face I called Beth, Hot Joe and Mom (probably Hot Joe first, though) and told them all, “I ran up Ventu!!  I did it!  I can hardly believe it!  I mean, it wasn’t like a fast run, but it wasn’t walking either!  Best. Day. Ever!”  Then I listened to them each rave about how awesomesauce I was and how proud they were of me and I drank it in and walked around the rest of the day like I owned the world.

The next morning after dropping the kids off at school I decided to clock my mileage so I could be even prouder of my accomplishment.

A whopping 0.2 miles.

Honestly, my bra looks like that. Only I don’t look like her.

I read a riveting article today that I found on Yahoo all about the new-found benefits of going braless.  According to the article, “Researchers spent 15 years studying the breasts of over 330 French women, and concluded that wearing a bra does not prevent sagging or ease back pain as commonly thought.”  They further went on to state that, “by not wearing a bra, muscles around the breast actually strengthened and the nipple raised 7 mm per year toward their shoulder.  However, the scientists did not recommend all women abandon their bras since their muscles had probably already degraded.”

To be clear, this study was performed on women between the ages of 18 and 35, so at 42 I totally don’t count, but even at 35 I was postpartum, and so here’s what I want to know:

• When they mention the nipples moving up 7mm per year toward their shoulder, I need to know if they mean the top of their shoulder or the side, because the shoulder is rounded and typically my nipples – when left to roam freely – tend to not face forward.
• What about nipple ‘awareness,’ when my body is naturally informing the world, “Hey, it’s cold in here!”?  In all actuality, my nipples perpetually stand erect, a genetic predisposition I inherited from my mother, who I know will mention the little band aids you can buy to place over them but leave that out of your comment, Karen.  You aren’t consistent in wearing yours.  At least in a bra we can look in the mirror and notice when one nipple is facing forward and the other is a looking upwards and to the left, which is often a problem my mom experiences but Hot Joe notices everything and would NEVER let that shit fly in our home.
• What about the sweating and rashes that occur underneath the boob when there is no fabric to protect it from the skin of my torso?  Did anybody figure that into the equation?
• What if the day comes that I accidentally zip my nipple into my pants?  Is that covered under my insurance, and where do I go to get that taken care of?  WHAT IF MY NIPPLE GETS ZIPPED COMPLETELY OFF?
• Will Salvation Army take used bras?
• Does this include sports bras sized small that I wear when I run?  I’ve had two friends – yes two – tell me they’ve seen me run and the girls bounce a lot.  These are the two friends who were nice enough to tell me.  I have people tell me weekly they saw me with my dogs.  Before my sister introduced me to ridiculously tight small bras that are impossible to remove until you have no sweat on your body, who knows how many friends, acquaintances and family members watched my boobs bounce from belly button to throat.

What about that?

If you have concerns about the destruction of your boobs by wearing bras, go ahead and check out Going Braless (what I’m calling it) and decide for yourself what you are going to do.

I’m sticking with the bras.

Read More

If any one of you reading this right now knows the meaning of the title of this post, you can skip the next paragraph, or you could just read it for review.  I’m going to try to keep it as simple as possible.

In about April or May of 2011, Noah fractured the hamate bone of his right wrist during practice, ending his track season.  Later that fall, halfway through the soccer season Noah broke his right ankle during practice.  He was out for the remainder of the season.  Just before the following track season, in about February or March, Noah again broke another bone in his right wrist due to an unfortunate incident at school.  This time it was the radius bone.  He never even got to start track.  During the following soccer season before games even started Noah sustained a badly sprained left ankle.  He never got physical therapy for any of the above.

We all joke that Noah is Glass Boy, he’s fragile, he should stay home and read a book, but the reality of it, backed up by multiple orthopedists, is he’s just got bad luck.  He gives it his all and sometimes that gets him injured.

For example, in November of last year Noah’s school had a 5K, which he participated in, placing in 4th place for his grade.  In other words, as per Noah’s M.O. he went all out.  After this he intermittently complained of hip soreness but it never went past an occasional complaint.

Track started again in March.  Almost immediately he started complaining about hip pain and by week three he was begging us not to make him practice.  I saw him practice; I could see he was struggling.  I took him to a orthopedist.  Noah pointed out three specific spots that hurt and the doctor smiled and said, “Those spots are exactly where his major muscles attach to the bone.  As a sprinter, if he continues he runs the risk of ripping the muscles right off the bone and possibly even breaking the bone in the process.”  Holy crap.  He said Noah needed physical therapy for his deconditioned hip/thigh and that he would again run track and play soccer but football is out of the question (I’m pretty sure Mom sent a ‘donation’ to his practice with a nice little note).

Physical therapy started.  His therapist, Alicia, is teeny tiny with the strength of The Rock.  This is what we learned just from the first visit:  Noah’s broken ankle remained stiff and sore, altering his gait and throwing his pelvis out of whack.  She adjusted his pelvis from the front and the back.  She also ran her thumb up the ligaments and muscles of his thigh.  None of this was without pain, but Noah is a trooper.  When he returned two days later his knee was red and swollen to twice the size of the left.  It’s all related.

So now it’s been about 5 weeks of physical therapy and an additional diagnosis of patellofemoral ligament strain (strain of the ligament under the kneecap).  His ankle is still stiff and sore, his knee remains swollen and tender and he has kinesiology tape around it and up his thigh.  Not to mention the heat, ice and ibuprofen.

And this is almost 2,400 words of just the beginning.