My Mad March Marathon Challenge: Day 2

After yesterdays effort I was really looking forward to going to bed and falling fast asleep. I could feel my eyes drooping as I wrote last night's blog. I got settled into bed and as soon as my head hit the pillow, I was asleep. Unfortunately it didn't last long as I was woken by Squiggle crying because he had been sick in the night. So thanks to the 4 am wake up call and struggle to get back to sleep afterwards, myself and Mr H have been walking around like zombies.

That said, I did make an effort to get back on my bike, in fact I made quite a few efforts, each attempt was interrupted by someone wanting something or other, but finally after getting Squiggle to bed tonight I've had a good peddling session - not as good as yesterday, but still enough to feel proud of myself.

So today's outcome is 35.50 km / 22.12 miles in 1 hour 35 mins and a bit of a sore bottom! - I think I might need to invest in a cushioned saddle because mine is just not comfy!

Monthly target - 1308.05 km
Cycled today -         35.50 km
Total cycled -          79.60 km
Left to go -         1228.45 km

Kids Club Cinema and a rant 'Bring back the interval!'

So as mentioned in my previous post, I woke up this morning bright and early at 7.30 am and promptly fell back to sleep!

Two hours later a rush ensued as me, Squiggle, and Mr H desperately tried to get ready to get to Kids Club at the local cinema. We thought we might try Squiggle out with another visit and decided upon watching Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs 2.

Bearing in mind Squiggle is still only 3, I do think it's a bit of a young age to expect a child to sit still for an hour and half, and he wasn't alone, many of the kids managed an hour before they started getting restless and wanting to go to the toilet and run around.

It got me thinking, back nearly 30 years ago when I first started going to the cinema with my mum there was always an interval during a film, with an ice cream seller who used to come and stand at the front selling tiny tubs of ice cream and bags of sweets.

Who decided to get rid of the interval? It would be such a good idea to bring it back especially for the kids, because it would give them a little break, give them chance to stretch their legs, go to the bathroom and restock up on popcorn and refreshments. Even now as an adult there have been times I have desperately wanted an interval so as not to miss any films - Titanic springs to mind, watching that much water on the big screen did nothing for my bladder! I haven't got room really to list all the good bits I've missed in films because I've needed an interval.

What do you think? Would you be welcome of a half time break or do you prefer to sit and watch films in one go?

My Mad March Marathon Challenge: Day 1

OK, so I woke up this morning bright and early at 7.30 am and promptly went back to sleep!

After a fun filled family day I finally got home and dusted off the exercise bike ready to begin my challenge.
I checked my weight and vital statistics*, put my favourite programme on the telly and then set off peddling.

I was so busy watching the TV I hardly paid any attention to what I was doing and managed to cycle 44.10 km ( 27.402 miles )** in 2 hours 12 mins 32 secs. - yay go me!

Monthly target - 1308.05 km
Cycled today -         44.10 km
Total cycled -           44.10 km
Left to go -          1263.95 km

*I am keeping my vitals a secret at the moment, depending on how well I do I might share them with you later in the month!
** My total calculations are in km because that is what my bike registers, but I will post the miles and km cycled in my main write up.

My Mad March Marathon Challenge

OK, so last June I took part in Juneathon, a fitness challenge where you jogged, logged and blogged every day for the month of June. The challenge also ran in January under the name of Janathon, unfortunately I wasn't able to take part due to my operation, so in order to make up for this I have decided to do a challenge of my own and call it Mad March Marathon.

Entering the spirit of the aforementioned challenge my aim is to cover 26 miles a day by foot or bike, log my miles, and blog about what I've done.

My ulterior motive behind doing this is to get fit for 35, which I will be in 23 days.

So tomorrow morning, I will weigh and measure myself, get my exercise bike out and attempt to cover 26 miles a day on it. Allowing for the possibility of getting saddle sore, I will take into account any miles I've walked and if I can do more on one day to have a rest on the next then I'll allow that too - my challenge - my rules right?

So as my bike only works in km let's do some maths,

marathon = 26 miles 385 yards = 42.195 km
31 days in March = 31 x 42.195 km = 1308.045 km , ( might as well make it 1308.05 km )

Best get to bed then, I've got a lot of peddling to do tomorrow!

How big should my 3 year old be?

Answer: (raise childs arms) So big!

I have found myself asking this question ever since Squiggle turned 3 in March 2013. In fact the Christmas before started the curiosity as my brother wanted to buy him a coat for Christmas and ended up buying an aged 5-6 years coat. It was a little big for him but by his 3rd birthday he had grown into it. At playgroup he towers over his friends whilst wearing his aged 5-6 clothes and size 10 shoes.

There isn't much information on the internet about what height a child should be, but so long as they are a healthy weight for the height then that's really all that matters. So after checking his BMI on the NHS website, Squiggle is perfectly in proportion, but still doesn't answer my question! I did some further searching and what I found out about his height at 2 years old made me pause with disbelief though. There is a general rule of thumb that at 2 years old your child is half their adult height. Squiggle was 36 inches tall ( 3 feet ) when he was 2, so that means he could be at least 72 inches or 6 feet tall when he's an adult!

Clothes shopping is becoming tricky because I'm never quite sure what size to buy, do I stick to what fits him now or buy a size or two bigger that will need hems/sleeves rolling up in the short term but will last him a bit longer?
Last night my husband and I decided to buy him a new coat for nursery and spent most of the time disagreeing over the size. Hubby wanted to stick with a 5-6 year old coat which I duly bought and then spent the rest of the evening trying to squeeze Squiggle into it when we got home. I had to take back today and swap it for a larger size ( which I wanted to buy in the first place ), the only size left being for a 9 year old!

Needless to say Mr Homer wasn't happy with the thought of his 'little' boy wearing such a large coat and thought it would look silly on him. It fits perfectly! I tried to explain to him that he shouldn't get hung up on the size but just to go with the flow and buy clothes that fit - speaking from experience here, I have been known to buy clothes 2 or even 3 sizes bigger just because they fit better, doesn't always mean that I am that size. Each manufacturer must have different measurements because no 2 shops have identical sizes.

The only downside I find is that whereas the young and smaller boys clothes have cute designs, the bigger and older boys clothes are more grown up and not cutesy. They don't seem to have the cartoon characters printed on them like George Pig or Jake & The Pirates, Squiggle is still my baby boy and I want to keep him like that for as long as possible because I did miss out on the first 12 months of his life with being in hospital.
I want young childrens clothes and designs but in bigger sizes, is there anyone out there that sells them?

If you spot any whilst out shopping, pop back and let me know please.