Antibiotics, a 10 mile race, and the theater

What a weekend...Justine's cold seemed to get worse Friday night, and she had trouble sleeping, and with the way her breathing sounded, we decided it was worth a trip to Children's hospital on Saturday morning. Mike took her in, they gave her a chest X-ray, because her O2 saturation levels were only 93-94 percent, and based on the X-ray, she may have had a mild case of pneumonia. She came home on antibiotics, and a bagful of Xopenex. She took a long nap when she came home, and when she woke up, she insisted on helping me do the laundry: she climbed up on a step stool and put everything from the hamper into the laundry machine, and helped pour in the liquid. I honestly don't know where she gets her energy, but it was a comforting sight to see. By Sat evening, she slept so soundly and peacefully, that it was hard to imagine it had just been 24 hours since she sounded so awful..Justine is one tough lady! (she's showing off her hospital wrist-band in the picture)

With such a start for the weekend, and a gloomy prognosis for Sunday's weather, the challenge level was raised on one of my several personal goals for this year: the Cherry Blossom ten mile race loomed before me. With 3 hours or so of sleep on Friday night, and a non-stop Saturday, by Saturday at 9pm the prospect of getting up at 5:30am, tying on sneakers, and lining up for a run around the city seemed... well... challenging. Nonetheless, by 6am, in full running attire, a banana and gatorade for fuel, I set off. Standing at the starting line, I had no idea why I thought this was a good idea. But off we went, and between miles 1 and 4 I was feeling good, "Hey, I'm doing it!" By mile 5, I thought okay, "Half-way there!". Mile 6: "What was I thinking???!!!" There are 4 more miles to go, and this is the longest I've ever ran in my training runs!" 2 minutes later: "Shouldn't mile 7 be somewhere here?? Did we pass it already???" The real mile 7--the bargaining stage: "If I can just make it to mile 8, I can walk for 5 minutes". Somewhere around mile 8 a guy is standing under an overpass dressed in a red sequined skin-tight off-the-shoulder evening dress, cheering on his buddies, and handing out not water but beer cans (this was not a hallucination, just to clarify). Mile 8: "Wow, 2 miles left: everything below my waist is numb from pain, so I might as well keep running". Mile 9.5: I can see the finish line and some guy is cheering on the sidelines: "Almost there, this is the time to empty your tank!" Odd, I thought, why would I pee right here??? Then I realize he is talking about emptying a tank of fuel, or energy, giving it all I've got. Then, I hear my ChampionChip beep against the mat at the finish line, and somehow I've done it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 1hour and 44 minutes. Yeah! Big thanks to Mike, for his support and for watching the kids all Sunday morning.

Some Advil, a hot shower, and a 30 min nap, and we were ready to go: Sunday evening we took the kids to their first show at the theater, to see "Go, Diego, Go!" The award for appreciation of fine arts goes to Vasco, who enjoyed the show very much. Justine insisted on leaving after the first act, so we spent the second act running around outside the Warner theater chasing squirrels while the boys finished watching the show.