That Time of Year

So.  I'm about half into with my dad about a toddler chair that they got Maddie for Christmas.  The problem is that we got her one too.  I like ours better, and now we're at a stalemate as to what to do with theirs.  It's actually getting ugly; I got a very mocking, condescending email from my dad about it.  And ya know what?  That's not the Christmas spirit.  Nor is what I want to do and reply with FUCK YOU BOTH, FUCK CHRISTMAS, AND DON'T EVER SEND US ANY GODDAMN GIFTS EVER AGAIN.  So what is the proper response here?  Do I just keep the chair and scrap what I actually wanted my own child to have?  Do I donate it?  Do I send it back (I already talked to the company and have a shipping label in my email ready to be printed off)?  Dad says if I send it back, it will be WW3.  Hmm.  Really?  It's a duplicate gift that I have to keep to make the gift giver happy?  And at the same time throw away $130.  Yes, it cost that much.  Hmm  HMM.  HMMMMMMM. 

It must be me, right?  I keep having issues with family, so it must be me.  If you know me, you know that I am crazy.  BUT.  Then you'll also know that my family is way more fucking batshit than I'll ever be.  After getting that asshole email from my father, I really want to go ahead and send the chair back just to stick it to him.  He lives with her, not me.  More than that, though, it's the rational thing to do.  We have this chair.  We don't need it.  Let's send it back and use the money for something else for Maddie.  Because isn't that who this is for?  For Maddie, right?  No? 

Christmas brings out the best in every one, huh?  Fucking hell.

BABY.SITTER.

Maddie is at a sitter's house right now.  I met the lady on my local FB cloth diaper page, and we've messaged back and forth about kid stuff in the past.  Today, she's watching my kid.  She used to do a daycare in-home and now watches kids on her days off from her internship for her master's (in counseling).  Not a bad find.  She even called to let me know how Maddie was doing and that she is napping.  She was real tired after playing with the other kids!!  *Happy squeal*  I may even do this again tomorrow.  I love Maddie, but it's so nice to have a break!!  I think I'll be a better mother with a little time away.  In trying to get everything done around here there are some days I feel like I don't really see her.  Ah motherhood.  Hopefully this helps both Maddie and me.

Now a quick running update before I go run some errands...

Last weekend I got to run by myself...and with music (I don't listen to music when I run with Maddie so I can keep all my mama spidey senses on high alert).  It was glorious, and I managed to make it five miles.  My best distance yet.  Then, Monday evening I decided to try an interval training run.  It was sundown.  I'd left Maddie with Joe, and beef stew simmering on the stove.  I ran one minute higher intensity to two minutes lower, couched between a five minute warm up and another five cool down, totaling 34 minutes and what ended up being about a 5k.  It was probably my best run to date.  I felt like a million bucks: the sun setting behind the mountains was beautiful; the crisp, chilly air felt amazing; the Christmas lights on the passing houses were fun to look at.  Overall, it just gave me such an energy.  I tore it up.  My splits were 11:02, 10:25, 10:46, and those are my best times ever.  IT WAS AMAZING.  By the end of the three miles, I was snapping along to the music and still felt great.  I tried to recreate that feeling yesterday...under the big desert sun, pushing a stroller, with a head wind, uphill, and it fucking sucked.  My splits were 11:36, 11:51 (stopped and walked during this mile due to a side stitch), and then I got just incredibly pissed off because it was going so awfully and cranked out a 10:25 third mile.  Not every run is your best, no, but I run so much better without the sun or a stroller in front of me.  However, I am grateful because without that jogger stroller, I wouldn't be running at all.  Can't have it all. 

I also did a strength training circuit for runners this week, and it was pretty great.  I didn't realize how much I was working until the next day.  Sore.  Good sore, though.  It was the second circuit of the two listed at the bottom here:  http://www.runnersworld.com/workouts/build-better-body?page=single.  I so want to do the first circuit but gotta look up an alternate exercise to the back extension...don't have one of those.  And I guess have Joe put up the chin up bar.

With that, I gotta try the post office while I'm still sans child.  I'll proof this later.  Or, someone else do it.  Cheers.