I know whenever I do bento posts, it seems that there are a lot of you who say that there aren’t enough BOY bento items out there. Well, I just placed an order for some new stuff to try to get us through the end of the school year without burning out, and I ordered two new boxes … partly because I like divided boxes, but partly because I will eventually have a boy who will need fun boxes, too.

Who, me?

Anyway, here are the two I purchased, and I love them already …

spider box – $6.99

robot box – $6.99

They have three sections – a nice big one for sandwiches + chips and two smaller ones for fruit and veggies and treats. A great size for big kids, too!

I also really love this little aluminum box — it’s a great size for maybe a sandwich and some fruit if you’re going to send a yogurt container or sandwich and goldfish crackers with a banana on the side. [We have the girly version of this box]

Currently, the site is having a huge sale on bento boxes, so if things are out of stock, just asked to be notified when it’s available – they restock often and sell out fast.

I purchased these items with my own affiliate money, and I am blogging about them solely for the purpose of telling you about them.

Why don’t you take real pictures anymore?

I hear this question a lot, and I wanted to take a minute to address it.

My camera is sick. I dropped it on our concrete driveway about 3 years ago … I sent it to Canon and had it repaired, and it worked great for a while but now has some soft focusing issues. I find myself using my phone for everything. And while I still LOVE photography and want to be a part of EVERYTHING going on right now [including my friend Erika's amazing photography course], I am just really frustrated and sad about my camera.

Since we close on our new house in 26 days [!!!!!!], I can’t buy another one right now, but I’m hoping to maybe have enough left over after everything to talk Ken into letting me replace it.

The following pictures are ones I took of Emma the afternoon of her seizure … I’ve just now gotten around to opening and editing them.

I can’t believe it’s been over a month.

I’m going to try to pick up my camera more often, especially since we are only going to be in this house for a few more weeks … the house we’ve called home for almost 7 years as a family.

I think we turned a corner in week 4, and now we are just tearing it up out there. Speaking for myself, I am really feeling STRONG!

I missed boot camp on Monday, because Henry woke up as I was walking out the door – but I did end up getting a run in later that evening [even thought I truly HATE running at night]. I was able to go Wednesday morning, so that was my cross-training for the week.

I ran a total of 12.38 miles — my first double digit week in a while.

I’ve reached that point in my training where I feel good enough to go out and run ALL THE MILES FOREVER … but I have to keep reminding myself that I’m basically a beginner who needs to take it slow and easy for a while longer. As Dimity says, “I’d rather run forever than run one race.”

I originally planned on putting in one half-marathon this year, but I’ve decided to hold off on that until Henry weans. Lucy weaned while I was training for the half-marathon that I couldn’t run due to my miscarriage, and I’m not sure if it had anything to do with my supply or if she just chose that time to wean, but Henry is my last baby, and I’m just not ready to give that up, yet. So I’ll keep my mileage low for a while longer, keep on trucking, and then I will hopefully get to run my first official half-marathon in 2014. Finally.

Weekly high: my fastest 5k since before Henry was born! I turned one day of training into speed work, and I ended up running my fastest 5k in a very long time. That felt kind of awesome.

Weekly low: sneezing through every run. I guess this is the trade-off of having beautiful weather in April … but by the end of my workouts, I’m usually a total snot-dripping, swollen-eyed MESS. [That's hot]

I don’t know if it’s because we are busy moms who make time to run or what, but other moms tend to tell Erin and I why they can’t run or run early or get out of bed or find time to workout with kids.

It’s kind of odd, actually. We don’t ask. We don’t brag. We don’t judge. We just post about how things are going to get encouragement or feedback or as a virtual diary, and someone always randomly busts out an excuse as to why they can’t do it.

So we thought we’d take this week to talk about how WE overcome the excuses in our heads, because, trust me, we don’t LOVE getting up early and running on cold, dark mornings.

I will be the first person to say, I’m not perfect. I am a mom who chooses to make time for working out. Sure, there have been times I’ve skipped a workout because the kids were up sick all night or the weather was junk or blah blah blah. I’ve been there, done that. I’m also the first person to beat myself up over the dumb excuses, but at the end of the day [or beginning of the day, in my case], I really just have to get over myself and get my tushy out of the bed.

The biggest excuse I tell myself is … “I have a 9-month old who still doesn’t sleep through the night, so it’s really hard to get up that early.”

But I remind myself of three things …

a.| how GREAT I feel after my workout
b.| how I will be DONE in an hour
c.| Erin gets up an hour earlier than I do and then teaches all day … now THAT is amazing to me!

I love getting it out of the way so that I don’t have to think about how I’m going to squeeze it in — or how I’m going to excuse my way out of it. Believe me, if I had all day to figure out a way to get out of it, I probably would! I’m also lucky enough to have a husband who is at home to listen for the kids [who are usually still sleeping] so that I can go out and get it done.

If you want to start getting into a workout routine, it CAN be done. There are so many options … Gyms with childcare. Yoga classes in the evening after hubby gets home. Walking/jogging with kids in the stroller. Workout videos [they've really improved since the Jane Fonda days, ha!]

I’ve always preferred running because it’s something I can do right outside my front door for free.

[I'm sure I could make up something that is really prolific and motivational, but I'm cheap and don't like driving places. The end.]

Anyway, if you are a busy mom who wants to start running, a great site to visit is AnotherMotherRunner.com — there are so many inspirational stories of normal moms who lead extremely busy lives, single moms, moms coming back from injuries or babies [hello!], moms who work full time, etc.

source: Runner’s World

The first excuse is the hardest one … once you excuse your way out of one workout, the other excuses come a whole lot easier. But at the end of a long list of excuses is this truth … it’s 30 minutes. I spend more time checking twitter and facebook in a typical day.

This was truly the first week where I really felt good about my training. I hit every run and then some! We still had some lingering sickness in the house, but I was able to get out early to get my workouts in. [Thanks, Ken!]

Our neighborhood has a small boot camp that meets at 5:45 on Monday and Wednesday mornings, so I’ve been doing that as cross-training. I obviously have to re-figure my schedule since the AMR 5k schedule has runs on Mon/Wed and cross training on Tues/Thurs.

I ended up running a total of 9 miles last week. I can’t believe that I was running 9 miles in one weekend a couple of years ago, but I try not to think about that.

I tried to make up some lost days from the 3 weeks of sickness, and I somehow ended up working out 6 days in a row, so by Thursday, my legs were DONE. I took Friday off, and then had an amazing run on Saturday.

Weekly high: the weather!! Things are starting to get much warmer here, and I’m definitely feeling much better about getting out and running without having my face feel like it’s going to fall off. Shorts! Tank tops! No gloves!! I know Erin is annoyed at me for even talking about our weather, but I can’t help it. This is why I will live in South Carolina forever.

Weekly low: this doesn’t really have anything to do with running, but I am so so so SO tired of this never-ending sickness. Emma started the week with a cold, then Lucy had strep throat over Easter weekend, and Henry now has snot and cough and a fever. I am just SO OVER IT. I guess it has affected my running, because I’d probably run better if I wasn’t so daggone exhausted.

This week, Erin and I are jointly talking about shoes. I never ever thought I’d obsess about shoes. I’m just not into shoes. AT ALL. But give me the latest issue of Runner’s World, and I suddenly start dreaming about running shoes.

I’ve been a Saucony wearer FOREVER, but I don’t know if it’s getting older or having three kids or what, but my latest pair of Saucony ProGrid Ride’s were just not doing it for me. I kept having a lot of knee pain after runs. I did a bit of research on my foot strike, my arch and how I pronate, and I kept seeing Asics as a recommendation. I wore Asics in high school, but I was a sprinter, so I didn’t really think they’d carry over into “distance” running – not that 3-5 miles is considered distance, but it’s a lot longer than what I ran in high school track. I have been reading runner reviews and articles and Amazon user reviews for months, so I decided to give Asics another shot.

I ended up with the Asics Gel-Blur 33 2.0, and after about a week of running on them, I love them! I have no knee pain AT ALL.

I also transitioned into a much smaller drop [the height from heel to toe] so it’s more natural than the Saucony’s I was wearing … I went from 15.1mm to 11.2mm. So far, so good! They are also lighter, so that’s a huge plus. I think these are a winner – which is good since Ken will probably leave me if I keep buying tennis shoes. [In my defense, I don't buy any other shoes, so he's a lot better off than some husbands, ha!]

Now, I just need to send our awesome running weather on up to Erin, and we’ll be good to go!

pbbbblth.

That’s about how week 3 went.

Let’s recap, shall we?

Sunday through Tuesday – Lucy had a stomach bug
Monday through Thursday – Henry had an ear infection that required 2 antibiotics
Thursday through Saturday – Emma had a stomach bug with HIGH fever
Friday and Saturday – Henry had roseola

And with Emma’s epilepsy, I was constantly on watch to make sure she stayed hydrated and kept her medicine down, although 2 doses ended up hitting the eject button. High temps used to never freak me out until she was diagnosed. But we survived! Everyone seems to finally be on the mend, and neither Ken nor I caught it, so we were able to take care of the kids.

I did get a chance to run twice — 3 miles on Saturday, 2.6 miles on Sunday. And MAN, that felt good. It was cold and rainy both days, but I didn’t care – I had cabin fever so bad, I probably would have gone out during a monsoon.

I’ve gotta be honest, I’m kind of cheating on the AMR 5K plan. I keep forgetting to check the plan before I leave, and then I’m far too lazy to come back inside and pull it up on my computer … so I’ve just been running a comfortable pace for a comfortable distance.

The high this week: Saturday’s run. It felt SO GOOD to just be OUT and running and all by myself. [Sorry, kids - mommy loves you, but mommy also needs to take care of herself] Also, the run itself was just amazing – good playlist, good weather, strong legs.

The low this week: three sick kids. This better be the end of it – I’m officially over winter and germs and winter germs.

This week’s question … how do you dress to run in the cold?

Erin and I joke about this a lot, because I am a cold weather wimp, and cold, for me, is pretty much anything under 55. ;) So I usually wear MORE than her even though it’s warmer down here. My latest runs have been in low 40′s with wind, so I wear BCG cross training leggings a dry-fit long sleeved tee [usually something from races], Columbia fleece vest, Columbia fleece headband to cover my ears and North Face gloves. If it’s raining, I skip the headband and wear a cap.

One more week down … we are getting closer!

When Erin and I started texting about training for this 5K together and then decided to write a blog series, we really just thought that would be it. Okay, I was honestly just excited about having something to blog about again since I have had writer’s block for … oh … about a year and a half.

Then Erin posted a link to our blog posts on the Run Like a Mother FB page to talk about how we are training together even though we aren’t together. And lo and behold, Dimity messaged her to see if we would like to be profiled on the Another Mother Runner website.

I mean, if you HAVE to do a profile, I guess I’m in …..

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and

!!!!!!!!!

And one more …

!

Talk about accountability. And awesomeness.

But in being a mother runner, we’ve both experienced an almost hilarious turn of events … literally DAYS after we agreed to do the profile, our families were both hit with a round of sickness that has been going on for close to 2 weeks, now.

So week 2 stunk, and I only ran twice, and it was just super bad as far as training goes. I’ve already told Erin that she MUST be mean about it and text me / call me / whatever is necessary to get me OUT OF THE BED. Unless I’m dead. Which, as sick as this house as been lately, is a very good possibility.

My high of week 2 was getting 2 runs in. I’m trying to just go with it and say the cliche, “Well, it’s two times more than not running at all.” My low was obviously the hospital stay with Emma and the days that followed where I just didn’t have it in me to get outside and run.

Here’s hoping this weekend and next week is a back-on-track kind of week!

If you are visiting from another mother runner, hi there! I’m so glad you stopped by :)

Here’s some stuff about me:

Keli Hoskins
Age: 35
Lives in: South Carolina with her husband and 3 kids – Emma [5], Lucy [2] and Henry [9 months]
Favorite running music: Fun., Alex Clare, Carly Rae Jepsen and Matisyahu
Loves: her Saucony running shoes and her pink Garmin Forerunner 10
Doesn’t love: running in cold weather
Running goals for 2013: run a strong 5k at the end of the AMR Virtual 5K, get my average pace under 9:30/mile, run my first official half-marathon

twitter | daily mile | instagram

These last few months have been a blur of activity and meetings and paperwork and speech therapy and daily life. So I just realized that we’re half-way through March, and I haven’t posted about two very important things that are going on in our lives.

a. we sold our beloved house of 10 years

I took our realtor’s name off for her privacy, but if you live in our area and need a realtor, let me know – I’ll be happy to pass her info along.

We are very fortunate that the new owners are letting us lease it back until our new house is built. Have I even talked about that? Okay, I just did a blog search and realized that I haven’t. Um, wow … this is going to be one massive catch-up post.

b. we are building our dream house

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We are not moving far … less than 5 miles from where we currently live. But we are so excited about where we will be living, and I can’t wait to have a much bigger yard and rooms for ALL THE THINGS and … space. It’s no secret that we spend almost our entire day in the family room and kitchen when we’re inside, and I’m just ready to spread out a bit.

Anyway, we are getting closer and closer to our closing date, and while this excites me to no end, it also makes me extremely nervous. I’m an eternal pessimist.

I just want it to be DONE.

Anyway, our closing date is 3 days before Emma’s birthday, so maybe a birthday / house warming party at the same time? You’re ALL invited!

The very first week of training started out great. I ran a few times, had to skip one day due to mastitis [I'm not about to stuff mastitis into a sports bra, people], but I did yoga that day, so it wasn’t a complete bust.

By Thursday, I was feeling confident that I was starting to form good habits about getting up at 5:30 and running.

And then Emma had her seizure Thursday night, and we were in the hospital until Saturday, and then the rest of the weekend just kind of revolved around her. AND THEN DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME KICKED ME IN THE BUTT.

But … it’s time to resume life as normal and get back to it. If Emma can go back to school and pull her own tooth her 2nd day back at school, then I can get my butt out of bed at 5:30 to run.

Erin and I thought it would be neat to tackle one question every week so you could see how, even though we are training many many miles and states apart, and even though she works outside of the home and I stay at home, we still deal with the same issues that most running moms deal with …

Do you feel unsafe running at 5:30am?

Not really. When it’s dark, I stay in our subdivision, which is large, fairly well lit and packed full of houses. I do listen to music, which is probably not the wisest thing to do, BUT I leave one earbud out and keep it fairly low, so I can always hear cars or other runners approaching. I’ve also had a lot of people ask me why I don’t run in the late morning or afternoon with a jogging stroller, and I have two reasons – 1.| I really really don’t like pushing jogging strollers when I’m running, and ours is a double jogger that is a TANK, and the two kids I’d have to push around add another 50+ lbs to that, sooooo … NO. And 2.| early morning is the ONLY time I have to myself all day, and I really enjoy going out without anyone whining at me to turn around or crying for a cup of water or fighting over the last cracker or throwing toys all over the road.

Okay, but aren’t you exhausted by noon?

There’s this commercial I see for some medication that says, “A body in motion tends to stay in motion,” and that is SO TRUE. On days that I get up early and run, I have WAY more energy than on the days that I sleep in. I also tend to WANT to stay moving, so I get more housework done, I feel more like taking the kids out of the house, I eat healthier, I drink more water … it’s this amazing cycle that I just can’t explain. On days that I don’t run first thing, I stay in my pj’s, eat crap food, never leave the house other than school pickup, etc.

I also love having it over and done with first thing in the morning, because I am the queen of excuses, and I would NEVER run later in the day if I could find a way out of it. Also, anyone who has kids knows that they screw up plans faster than anyone else.

Okay … see you next week!

I’ve gone back and forth about sharing this story, but it really doesn’t make sense to NOT share it since it’s all over the internet, anyway. If I feel like making it private one day or if Emma EVER asks me to take it down, I will. But she’s okay with it, now, and I feel okay about sharing it.

Emma had a massive seizure that lasted for over an hour on Thursday night. She is doing great, now, but here’s her story.

Thursday was a very typical day. Emma had school, Lucy had speech therapy, Henry had 97 jars of food – just a normal day. Emma got home from school and played outside while Henry and Lucy were napping because it was SO nice. She climbed our front tree, had a snack and rode her scooter.

Ken had tennis that night, and the pinto beans I had put in the crockpot didn’t get done in time, so we had waffles for supper. Ken left around 6 for tennis, and the kids and I played downstairs and then went to Lucy’s room to get ready for bed. I got Henry and Lucy changed into pajamas while Emma changed into her pajamas and played in her room. Then, she read a few books to Lucy while I nursed Henry. I put Lucy down for bed and then told Emma to play in her room while I put Henry down. Ken came home from tennis while I was rocking Henry to sleep, so he got Emma’s teeth brushed and put her to bed between 8:15 and 8:30.

We went downstairs and got a little snack before heading up for a little tv time in our room. On the way back up to our room, we passed Emma’s room, and I peeked in and saw that she was asleep.

Ken and I laid down, and I fiddled a little on a blog header while he started doing some work on his computer. We had the tv on, but I can’t remember what we were watching.

Around 9:30pm, we heard a thud … Macey [our dog] was still downstairs, so when I said, “What was that?” Ken said, “Macey probably knocked something over.” I said, “Go check,” and then I got up to check the kids’s rooms.

Ken looked in Emma’s room on his way downstairs, and I was right behind him. I don’t remember exactly what he said, but he said something that made me turn her light on, and that’s when I noticed her on the floor. She was on her stomach with her arms down by her sides, and she was facing the foot of her bed – so it was obvious that she had tried to get out of bed but had fallen.

We both said her name to see if she was playing, but within a split second, we realized that she was having a seizure. I won’t describe what she looked like, because that’s just too personal to share, but she was not thrashing around like you see on tv or what you hear about with many seizures. [We later discovered that there are many different types of seizures, so that's not always what happens anyway]

Ken stayed with her while I ran to grab my phone and call 911. I spoke to the 911 operator, who sent the first responders, which happens to be the fire department right down the road who came when I had my placental abruption with Lucy. These guys are so amazing, and they always get here so fast [except when you're in the middle of it, and it seems to take forever].

They arrived and started working on her and asking us questions about what she had done that day, if she had a fever [she didn't], if she had hit her head [she hadn't], if we had a family history, etc.

While they were working, Ken stayed with her, and I called my parents to let them know – they started getting ready to drive up here immediately. By that time, the EMT’s arrived, so I showed them to her room, and they took over for the firemen. By this point, it had been about 10-15 minutes, and she still hadn’t come out of it. She was having a lot of trouble breathing, so they gave her oxygen and continued to try to get a response from her. She was so pale.

Another EMT arrived and when he walked into her room, he noticed that she was still unresponsive, so he immediately said that they needed to get her into the ambulance. They picked her up and carried her downstairs where there was a stretcher waiting in our living room. She was put into the ambulance where they gave her an IV with valium to try to stop the seizure. At this point, her seizure had escalated from a focal seizure, which only affects one part of the brain, into a grand mal seizure, which affects the whole brain.

They put Ken into the front of the ambulance and worked on her a while before they took off to the hospital.

A few of our neighbors had come to see if they could do anything, so one of my neighbors came and stayed with Henry and Lucy [who were still asleep in their rooms, thank goodness] while her husband took me to the hospital. My parents were on their way from Georgia while Ken’s mom was on her way from a nearby town – Ken’s dad met them at the hospital. By the time I got to the hospital, Emma was still having post-seizure activity, which was still very scary to see.

They took her back for a CAT scan, which came back clear. At this point, it was very late, and they said she would probably sleep it off, so I stayed with her while Ken’s dad took him home to get one of our cars. During this time, she woke up and cried quite a few times, and she also asked to go potty once. But if you ask her about it now, she doesn’t remember it. Once Ken came back, it was around 1am, and I realized that I needed to be at home if Henry woke during the night, so he stayed with Emma while I went home.

The hospital rooms were full, but they were able to move her into a more private room in the Children’s ER where they monitored her through the night. She finally came around and was pretty much back to herself around 3am. I don’t think any of us got much sleep that night. Once Henry and Lucy woke up Friday morning and were comfortable with my parents, I headed back to the hospital.

Emma was then sedated for her MRI, which came back just fine. Her brain is completely healthy and perfect. After the MRI, we met her neurologist for the first time, and boy do we LOVE him. He is an amazing doctor and so wonderful with her. He explained that she had an epileptic seizure and that their main concerns were that it lasted for so long and that it progressed into a full seizure even after medication. He told us that she was scheduled for an EEG that afternoon, and that it would hopefully give us a little more information.

She was finally moved into a room in the Children’s Hospital …

… and later that afternoon, she had the EEG, which showed many abnormalities, especially while she is asleep. Even though most kids are not diagnosed as “epileptic” until they have had two seizures, Emma’s seizure lasted so long [she was unresponsive for over an hour and needed oxygen for 2 hours], and her EEG showed so many abnormalities, that her neurologist didn’t hesitate to diagnose her as epileptic and put her on a twice-daily medication [Keppra] that afternoon.

Epilepsy.

It’s not a word I ever thought I would hear about one of my children.

But there it is. Her new normal. We have hope for a seizure-free future for her, but for now, we are trusting in God and doing what we need to do to keep our beautiful girl safe and healthy.

She had a great night of sleep Friday night and was released from the hospital Saturday afternoon.

Now, we start our lives with a child who has epilepsy. I’ll be honest – we’re pretty much helicopter parenting right now. We don’t let her nap alone [and she has napped both days since she got home], and she did sleep in our bed last night. But I know that we will eventually become more comfortable with letting her be a kid, and things will go back to normal. A new normal.

In the meantime, I sure do enjoy having her near me.

I started writing this on Sunday, but now it’s Monday, and we let her sleep in her bed last night and go to school today. Her teacher took a class on how to respond to seizures, and her school nurse is aware of what happened. Obviously, Emma can come home WHENEVER she wants or needs to, and we aren’t making her do anything she doesn’t want to do. But at the same time, while we explained seizures to her and what her brain does sometimes, we don’t want to scare her by having her stay home and right by our side 24/7. She has to get used to her new normal, too.

So if you have any extra prayers or good thoughts left, please just say one for her and for us as we adjust to this new diagnosis and life.

Lucy and Henry are so unbelievably cute together … I have a feeling these two will be best buds forever.

[for I Heart Faces "Framed" photo challenge]