The Broccoli Incident

*UPDATE* I just learned that there were 14,940 finishers in the Disney Marathon today. There were 7801 men and 7139 women. Overall, Matthew finished 2148th. Of the men, he was 1640th. I'd say that's darn good, especially considering his knee!!

Intriguing title, eh? Well, you'll just have to wait until the end to find out what it means. Believe me, it's worth it.

We'll start with a funny conversation that just took place here at the Amick dinner table. (We're listening to some kids' music.)

"This is 'Mary Had a Farm.'"

"No, Andrew, this is 'Mary Had a Little Lamb.'"

"What happened to the big lamb?"

"Oh, I'm not sure."

(After some thoughtful consideration...)

"It must be at the farm."

AND, while listening to "Row, Row, Row Your Boat," I pulled a Paul (my dad) and substituted words, singing at the end, "Andrew is a dream."

To which I was then indignantly informed, "NO! Merrily is a dream."

My bad.

Things here are going well considering I've been without my terribly helpful husband since early Thursday morning. In fact, I have actually been mostly more productive than when he is here because I've had to be. Here is news from the Disney front:

Matthew ran the Circle of Life 5K on Friday through Animal Kingdom. He ran the 3.1 mile race in 19 minutes, 20 seconds. He was 17th out of roughly 4500. WOW!!!!!!!!!! He and his friend Shayne then went to Epcot and Hollywood Studios (formerly MGM). The next day they did the Magic Kingdom.

Today was the marathon. The runners ran through all four Disney parks (Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom). It started really early, before 6 a.m. So at 6:35, I got an email from "Disney alerts."

It read, "Your husband has passed out already."

Only kidding. That would be horrible.

Here's what it said:

"MATTHEW AMICK, 00:41:09 @ 5 Mile. Pace 8:13 , Predicted 03:35:25.00. Walt Disney World Marathon and Half Marathon presented by CIGNA, Disney Destinations LLC"

For those of you unfamiliar with what this means, as I was just a few months ago, it is just his per mile pace and predicted finish at the five mile marker. Just for a little background, here are some marathon stats:

Fastest marathon ever run by a man: 2:03:59 (Yes, that's 26.2 miles in two hours, 3 minutes, and 59 seconds.)

Fastest marathon run by a man at the 2008 Olympics: 2:06:50

Qualifying time to run in the Boston Marathon (the "Big Daddy" of marathons): 3:10:00

Matthew's goal for his first marathon (Chickamauga Battlefield Marathon in Nov 08): 3:40:00

Matthew's time in his first marathon: 4:25:00

Matthew's goal for this marathon: 3:40:00

Soooo....at five miles into it, he was running an average of a mile every 8 minutes and 13 seconds. Had he continued to run at that pace, he would have finished the entire race at 3:35:25. I was so excited when I read that! But...that was only five miles in so I was cautiously excited.

Let me tell you of a little more background before I continue because I'm nothing if not exhaustingly thorough. After Matthew ran his first marathon (at which he stopped running and had to walk at around 19 miles, where he walked/ran the remaining 7.2 miles), he was dutifully training for his second one, and his knee started to hurt during running. He saw a doctor who referred him to a physical therapist. He has been going to PT three days a week for about a month. He hasn't done any long-term damage but basically it just hurts when he runs. It will get better when he's able to stop running and rest for awhile, but he obviously couldn't do that while training for a marathon. His physical therapist and doctor both told him that with his particular injury, he won't do further damage by running when it's painful, it will just hurt and thus prolong the healing. So he was ready to run on it as long as he possibly could. (Also, for the record, his longest run ever without stopping (without a bum knee) up until today was 22 miles.)

My next email came at 7:14 a.m. It read:

"MATTHEW AMICK, 01:20:35 @ 10 Mile. Pace 8:03 , Predicted 03:31:03.00. Walt Disney World Marathon and Half Marathon presented by CIGNA, Disney Destinations LLC"

So at ten miles, he was doing even better!

At 7:38 came the next one, marking the halfway mark, which is 13.1 miles:

"MATTHEW AMICK, 01:44:50 @ Half. Pace 7:59 , Predicted 03:29:18.00. Walt Disney World Marathon and Half Marathon presented by CIGNA, Disney Destinations LLC"

WOW! He was doing tremendous! Did I mention I was excited? (For those of you wondering, each runner has a chip on his/her shoe which tracks his/her official time, and he signed up for the alerts to come to my email. We didn't know he'd have the option of doing this, so it was a great surprise to wake up to this morning.)

The next email came at 8:38 and was for the 20-mile marker:

"MATTHEW AMICK, 02:44:11 @ 20 Mile. Pace 8:12 , Predicted 03:34:59.00. Walt Disney World Marathon and Half Marathon presented by CIGNA, Disney Destinations LLC"

So he had gotten slower but he was still about five minutes (predicted) under his goal. But this is the final stretch. I kept praying and praying, knowing his knee was probably killing him, wondering how long he could go without stopping.

I got my final email (with the results) at 9:55:

MATTHEW AMICK, 04:01:21 @ Finish. Pace 9:12 . Walt Disney World Marathon and Half Marathon presented by CIGNA, Disney Destinations LLC"

Darn. So good, it's true, but I was dying to know what had happened. I called his cell phone immediately and left him a message. He called back in a little while and said that he ran as far as he could on his knee, and he was able to run his longest run ever, which was 23.9 miles. He ran that far without stopping. Wow. And then once he started walking, it made it harder to run more. But even though he didn't make his goal *this* time, he did so well and I'm so proud of him!!!!

After he went back to the hotel and showered (and iced his knee), he and Shayne went to the Animal Kingdom until it closed at 5:00. Right now they're back at Hollywood Studios. They'll check out tomorrow morning and drive home. What a trip!

Back home it's been much of the same. Benjamin is doing fine, mainly b/c I'm not feeding him any solids. He's only spit up a few times recently and it hasn't been that bad. My only concern going into the surgery is that he hasn't pooped in almost two weeks, including after his upper GI last Tuesday. (They told me that b/c of the barium he'd poop white.) The determining factor in when he can go home from the hospital after his surgery is that he has to poop normally first. Well.....he's already really backed up. He isn't horribly uncomfortable and is only getting breastmilk (much of which is absorbed) but I don't know if he should poop before going in for surgery. I'm going to call the surgeon tomorrow and leave her a message, asking if I should give him a glycerin suppository tomorrow. I'm kind of hoping they can just clean him out before the surgery. Sure would be a lot easier on me. :)

The hospital is going to call tomorrow and let us know what time to stop feeding him Monday night, what time to be there on Tuesday, and what time the surgery is. All I really have to do tomorrow is pack up Andrew's clothes for my parents' house, pack some things for Benjamin and me for the hospital, and make sure things are straightened up around here. Once Matthew gets home, I'll do all his laundry, plus anything we have.

I'm kind of hoping to be able to come home and shower every day since the hospital is only about 15-20 minutes away. It sure would be easier not to have to take all my stuff. But we'll see.

Now for the pictures.

On New Year's Day, Matthew, Andrew, Benjamin, and I headed off to Chuck E. Cheese's to spend some tokens we had already from an August 2007 visit. Andrew had a good time but was admittedly afraid of some of the rides, like the monster truck ride below:

This Bob the Builder ride was more his style:

Matthew's favorite part of CEC was that all rides/games were only one token each. He had never been to a CEC and loved it! We got there at about 10:30 and it wasn't crowded at all.



Though the smell of pizza at CEC was *very* enticing, I didn't feel like shelling out the bucks for one, so we got in the car and headed to Northgate Mall where we ate at Chick-fil-A. A friend of mine sent us a CfA gift card after Benjamin's surgery, so this meal was free. Actually, it was better than free b/c we used three coupons. So it was only $3.63 taken off the gift card.







We couldn't go to Northgate without playing for awhile at the indoor playground. He kept standing on things and saying, "I'M TALL!"



The moral of this picture is: Never let Uncle Justin around a baby and a bowl of cheap candy.



Last Saturday, the four of us once again ventured out. We spent a gift card we had at my *favorite* restaurant, American Cafe'.



This is quite possibly the best ever Grand Chicken Caesar Salad w/buffalo chicken I've ever ordered here. And believe me; I've ordered a lot of these puppies. Look at how the cheese is oozing off the bread. Yum. Yum. Yum.



The other day I became aware that I didn't know where Andrew was and it was awfully quiet. I let a few more minutes pass (hey, ignorance is bliss) before checking on him. Here I found him, quietly reading books in my bedroom. Ahh....I snapped a picture and was just about to compliment him when he barked, "No, you go back in the kitchen!" Moment over.



Here are two of my sweet boys waiting to meet the surgeon last Wednesday. I love how the sunlight was coming in.



Benjamin giggles like a baby when Matthew tickles his neck. :)



Last Friday my mom gave Benjamin his first haircut. You can't tell from the front because he only needed the hair above his ears trimmed. It was coming down waaaaay too far over his ears. I like all of my boys to have nicely trimmed, short, boy hair.



Nicely trimmed around the left ear...



And around the right ear!



My silly fireman



Oh, the life of a fat housecat...



I have sad news to report. There was a five-car pile-up (you can't see the firetruck very well in the back, right-hand corner) on my bed the other day. No one was injured, thankfully.



I got pretty adventurous on Friday and took both boys to the store! And because I used one of these carts with the seat in the front, I had room for groceries! Benjamin took a little nap and Andrew enjoyed "driving" the cart.





Then we stopped off at my mom's school and there was a letter explosion in her office.



Love this boy!!!!



And now...the moment you've all been waiting for...

The Broccoli Incident of 2009 occured last Monday night at dinner. Let me first say that the broccoli did have butter and cheese on it. Matthew and I thought it was delicious. Andrew did not, however, as is evident in this first picture. It is especially entertaining if you click on the picture to enlarge it.



Gagging and disgust then turned to demon-possessed anger... (I *love* Benjamin's face in this picture!!)



And now, the video. Here's what to do:

1. Hit control-end to go to the bottom of the page.
2. Push pause on my music.
3. Be sure your speakers are turned up.
4. Hit control-home to get back to the top of this page.
5. Scroll back through this post to get to this video.
6. Sit back and enjoy. And maybe eat some broccoli tonight in honor of Andrew.