holiday tipping

I'm kind of a cheapskate, but the internetz (and Emily Post?) tell me that some people tip mailmen, garbage men, and other similar service people...

A woman on a message board I follow was nice enough to tip her mailman (I've never even met our mailperson, so sorry if you're out there, no tip for you) and this is the thanks she got.

I'll stick with tipping my hairdresser (and a special tip to daycare for the holidays).

first week

So my first week of weight watchers was a mixed bag.
Downside: no weight loss. I actually was down 1.5 lbs on Friday, but then ran out of "extra" points and didn't track all weekend. fail. so back to where I started.

Upside: I've determined my HUGE issue is I eat almost no fruits and veggies and a SHITTON of candy and other assorted bad for you things. Omg. I don't even LIKE candy that much.

So here is my December goal:
(pretending this weekend didn't happen)
Stick within my WW points (including activity and weekly) for the entire month.  I'd like to aim to lose 5% of my weight (about 8.5 lbs) by Jan 1, but I know that is a stretch.. so sticking with points will be it for now!

Turket Trot

My dad and I (and my mom and a friend of mine) did our annual Thanksgiving 5k this past weekend. We started running it in 2009 (I even managed to blog about it in 2010).  I ran it in 29:02 (on my watch, the chip times were all screwed up. I didn't run a 23:xx nor did my mom do a 40:xx (she did come in under 50 minutes though which is a huge PR for her, not that she keeps track...).

It's a great race, sizeable (at around 2k runners) for a local run, if crowded at the start. I can't blame the runners for me time (ok, maybe for 30 seconds of it). I can only blame myself, my walking on the hills and my lack of general training.

In other news I started weight watchers today.

the Race that Wasn't

It's not big secret in the world of social media that  the NYC Marathon was cancelled this year in light of Sandy (which I won't go into any detail on, since unless you've been living under a rock you probably know that parts of the Jersey Shore, Staten Island, Queens and Long Island are quite literally in the ocean now - we were lucky, losing just some shingles and holding onto our power. A week out and millions are still in the dark.).

I will say I am WILDLY disappointed in how this was handled by NYRR, and I suppose, given the source of the announcements, the Mayor's Office.  Any idiot could have said on Tuesday, seeing the wild destruction, that it needed to be postponed. Not held. Whatever. I can't speak to the motivations for not doing so immediately (though I imagine they were financial), but it was really disgraceful and disrespectful to both the runners (many of which were traveling from far away, and travel to NYC is by no means cheap) and the city as a whole. And cancelling 36 hours before the race due to (I assume) wild backlash in social media and a general feeling that the runners might not be safe (from people, much less the environment)? Salt in the wound.

That said, I am glad it was cancelled, though I admit I am (perhaps selfishly) dying to know what will happen to our entries. We went to the expo Saturday, spent a good deal of money (some of which is supposed to be donated to the relief funds) and got our numbers and tees for The Race That Wasn't.  I know these things take time, blah blah, but I do want to know. To be honest, in light of our questionable training and the fact this is a bucket list item for Chris, we are not registering for another marathon this fall but just riding this out. We'll run if it is rescheduled, though I would prefer automatic deferral to next year (and donation of this year's entry fee to a relief fund would be nice, are you listening NYRR?). I promise to train properly next summer if you make this happen Running Gods.

Now, in light of my fake taper, I basically haven't worked out in weeks, so I have 3 weeks to try to get into shape to try to PR in the Thanksgiving turkey trot. Given that my 5K PR is around 26:30 or something like that, it should be achievable. Except I am still 172 lbs and haven't been training.

weighing in

173.4 today.

I think I'm going to start some weekly reporting.

D-day

well, whatever.

My last couple of posts have been kind of pathetic, and centered on the exact same thing. And I'd like to note, 2 months apart.

If you flip back, which I don't feel like doing at the moment, you'll see the same old crap in 2009.
Its an endless cycle.
One of my biggest issues is "I already had 4 mini twix, might as well stop counting calories today". That's where I am today. It's 2:24 pm and I've had 1500 calories.  Since I track my calories, I can say this is actually pretty normal for me. And I am embarrassed to admit about 20% on a good day of my diet is junk.

A friend forwarded me a new article by Jennifer Weiner yesterday which is so poignant. Maybe I need to either a) accept my size and like of food, including my poor use of it or b) change.
To be honest, I'm not sure what the right thing to do is. I don't want to be a bad role model - but is being a kind of chubby but otherwise healthy mom ok? I know talking about my weight to around the girls over and over isn't ok.  I don't want them to have issues. Or be fat. Or think about their weight. Over and over and over.


In the old days, sometime in college when I got fat then thin-ish (actually I was kind of fit/hot, if not thin), I did Thursday weigh-ins. So here goes. Tomorrow. We'll call it. As much as I'd like to be all aggressive and lose-2-lbs-a-week-superwoman-never-get-fat-again, I don't think that's realistic, so I'm going to go for a net of 1500 cal/day, which should yield about a lb a week loss.

Tomorrow is go.

(right?)

so...

We're still doing the NY Marathon, though in all honesty just running to finish. no time goal. We're both mildly injured (well, C is more than mildly injured and is in PT) and I'm overweight. Finishing at all with 2 one year olds is good right?


It kind of pains me to "waste" an entry to NYC on racing to finish, but I'm kind of over it. It's a fun, huge, crowded race, and we're running it together. It'll be a lot more fun than running with time pressure.  I can save that for a less cool race someday (though I doubt I'll do another marathon anytime soon).

In the meanwhile, I'm setting my sights on a 5k PR for this Thanksgiving (starting training this week) and losing some weight. I was 175.6 this morning, the most I've been in a while. Granted, I am probably bloated etc yuck etc, but ugh. I need to stop fucking around. Its been nearly 4 years at this weight and I just keep bitching like that'll change something.

So small goals, 10 lbs by Thanksgiving (8 weeks).

so what now?

The marathon is in 12 weeks.

We're still following this low mileage training plan. I have a 17 miler to do this weekend. (I know that sounds ridiculous, but I ran exactly 3 miles last week. whoops. It IS a low mileage plan though with a good internetz reputation for running-to-finish).

My whole body creeks.
I am so tired.
I'm not sure if these things are related.

Am I tired from having twins who don't sleep through the night? Am I tired because I drink too much caffeine and eat too much sugar? (both of those answers are probably yes) Am I tired because my potassium is low? (more on that next week sometime) Am I tired because I'm fat, and I drink too much caffeine and eat too much sugar, and I don't sleep enough so I drink more caffeine and eat too much sugar, and circle back around? Well, that's likely.

I realized recently I am pretty afraid of failure. And if you never try you can't fail.
And I have some pretty ridiculous and negative self talk, which mimics my mom in a scary way. And her eating habits, which I criticize a lot. I mimic those too. I never realized how similar my bad habits and issues are to hers until I lived with her for a few months recently. Scary. I don't want that for our girls.

It is time to make a change. Time for me to lose 30 lbs. Time for me to stop drinking an embarrassing amount of soda daily, and stop eating candy pretty much daily.

I'm nervous though. Of not meeting calorie goals, of not losing weight, of gaining it all right back.It sounds like it would be easier not to change than to change and then revert. Then the failure and issues are public, and failure is embarrassing.

more interactive BBC stuff

The BBC rocks.

After finding my Olympic Body Double, I poked around their page a little more.

Seems at my current weight, with a BMI (sigh) of 28, I have a lower BMI than 59% (!!) of 30-44 year olds in the US. I am fairly chubby, though not obese even by BMI standards, but I admit I am shocked by this.
Of course, my BMI is HIGHER than 77% of women in the same age bracket internationally, so I think it is safe to say Americans are just fat.
If I were at my goal (hah), I'd have a lower BMI - at 23 -  than 83% of my American peers and 54% internationally. So I guess my goal is pretty average for international weight for my height...


Also, I'm roughly 4,533,454,396th person born/currently living on Earth and 79,171,698,182nd person to have lived since history began.


Random scary BBC factiods:

Battle for resources: It is estimated that your group of the richest countries consumes double the resources used by the rest of the world. The UN estimates that if current population and consumption trends continue, by the 2030s we will need the equivalent of two Earths to support us.
Did you know? By mid-century, the world's urban population is likely to be the same size as the global population was in 2004.


Yikes.

olympic body double

I saw this on Ben Does Life...

The BBC has a fun little Olympic Body Double site.

My body double is a weightlifter named Jack Oliver from Great Britain. Not only is he a guy (duh) but he's also 10 years younger than me.

He placed 10th in his event, so no medal for "me".
He did PR though, apparently, with a snatch of 308lbs and a clean and jerk of 374lbs, omg.


For kicks, I checked my goal weight (well, the theoretical one if, you know, I was trying to lose weight), and then my double would be British soccer player Elizabeth Brown. I'm more on board with being an awesome footballer :)

so that fall marathon

So this November, my wife and I are running the NYC Marathon. This is a bucket list item for her, and I wanted to do it again, so we're going to run together.

Truth be told, we're running to finish, not to "race" it. This is good for a couple of reasons:

• it is her first full (and likely my last, at least as far ahead as I can think), and anyone with marathon experience knows running to finish is a good game plan for 26.2 miles.
• we have infant (almost toddler, omg) twins

So, in light of these issues (plus that we work full time and don't by any stretch of the imagination have enough babysitters at our disposal for childcare for an intense running schedule), we opted for a pretty basic and stretched out (eg, flexible) marathon training plan.  So far so good. I had a set back about a month ago when I strained my hip (actually i strained by back, and then I strained my hip. I can't even remember if I wrote about this but I don't want to relive it so we'll just move on). Due to some weather/timing/laziness issues, we're currently a week behind, but since the schedule has so much room for flexibility, I'm not too concerned. This weekend we need to do 14 miles. My in-laws will be visiting for the girls' birthday, so I am hoping we can knock them out all at once, sans stroller, Saturday morning.

On a related note, the race is 14 weeks from this coming Sunday. I currently weigh 16 lbs more than I did when I ran it in 2007. Should I try to lose the weight? I don't know. The biggest most ridiculous hurdle to that for me right now is I don't want to have to admit to anyone I didn't/couldn't find the motivation/whatever if I do try...ridiculous.

almost. almost.

We are going to finish the kitchen before the 1 year kitchen-versery.

This past Thursday, we got the tile grouted. It only took 5 weeks to get around to doing a 4 hr project. Oh, life post kids...

its not really a mustard yellow....i need to learn to white balance...

My In-Laws are coming out in two weeks for the girls' birthday, so we really need to get this sealed and caulked by then - I'd love to finally hang the outlet covers!!! We also have a couple of cabinets to rearrange for practical reasons, and I am entertaining painting it a different color (right now the kitchen is the same yellow and the LR/DR and hallway).

Old age

Today my mom asked me how old I will be at my next birthday (which us this weekend). She wasn't sure if I was turning 30 or 31. Now, granted, this was in person...i like to think she could have figured it out, especially since my dad's birthday was only 5 days ago and I'm pretty sure she remembers his age, and he is 30 years older than me (much like I am 30 years older than my kids!).

I can't help being a little insulted though. I am her oldest kid. Shouldn't she remember how old I am??

My minor confession though: I sometimes screw up my age. I default to 26 (hahaha) or my wife's age....and she is a year older than me. At least I can remember how old she is.

I think I am at that point age really is just a number that doesn't matter a bit.

Another 10K PR

Sadly, I don't have the official results of placement. I know I wasn't in the top 10 of my age group though (lol). I emailed the scoring company when neither of us turned up, and they said they fixed it, but the result they assigned to me is about a minute slower than my Garmin PLUS in the wrong age group, so I'm just writing it off and using my Garmin time. Boo hisssss.

Anyway, the race was nice. This is the same race where I did the two miler last year and got 1st in my age group. This year, my dad got third in his age group, but they did away with medals in the two miler except for the top 3 M/F. boo hiss.

Aside from these issues, it was really nice for a local race. Probably 600 runners total, and a good set up area with water (even pre-race), bagel, oranges, and a bounce house for the kids. The teeshirts kind of sucked, but whatever, straight into the goodwill bag. I wish races offered a discounted entry for no teeshirt. I don't need more teeshirts (unless it is a special race) and would rather save $5 or $10.

Start of the Two Miler

Chris and I both did the 10k. She is a beast and did it with the stroller in about 1:11 (11:30 mile or so) and just a couple of starts. I did it on my own and finished in 57:45 (I think, about a 9:25 pace, a 45 sec PR - sidebar,

still not quite done...

We did SO much to our kitchen before moving in.

as it came. without a fridge.

Then we moved in. With 3 month old twins.  It all kind of ground to a halt.

certainly an improvement - notice the bottom half of the crown molding went up about 6 months ago!

After a couple of months, we got the cabinet hardware installed, and later most of the crown molding.

We have some friends and family coming to visit this summer, so we're really trying to finish it up.

Instant PR

This morning I ran a Memorial Day 10K in a lovely nearby community.  I have to say, this is one of the best organized races I have ever attended.  Of course, its been running longer than I have been alive, so they've had some time to perfect it!!  It was a good sized race - 3500 people between the 10k, 5k and fun runs - which is a size I love. I don't like small races -- too lonely on the course.

I started out a little fast. It was just around 80, and humid (when the race finished the car said 86, and weather.com said the heat index was 90ish while Accuweather/the paranoia network said 100). It felt good to be running without the stroller. Alas, it was hot and I am not as fit as I think (not to mention I do have mental toughness issues). I'd planned to walk the water stops, but added in walking the 1/2 and 1 mile points from 3.5 miles on.  It was rough.

I did manage to keep my overall pace under 10 min/mile, which I guess is good. (Considering I'm carrying around 20 lbs more than I was 5 yrs ago at my marathon, and 30 or 35 more than I should be, I suppose its respectable even though I am still clinging to my 40 min 5 miler PR from 2007...)

Splits:
1 mi - 8:47
2 mi - 8:52
3 mi - 9:20
4 mi - 9:44
5 mi - 9:51 (see me walking more and more!)
6 mi - 9:33
0.2 mi - 2:28/9:05 pace
58:33 overall, 9:25 pace
591/934 (looks like there was 1500 or so in the 5k, but we left just before it was starting...there was also an elite (like 5 min qualifying times) mile race and a big kids' fun run)
199/409 women
F30-34: 26/47

This was my 1st ever 10k, so it is an instant PR. Score.

Outlet surgery

Because sometimes vintage isnt a good thing.

Crown molding

Everyone uses kitchen utensils to help install crown molding, right?

$15 or so

What a difference two cans of spray paint, a small can of paint, and a brush makes...

BEFORE:

Terrible shot - on our way to look at the house the second time.

same day

$15 or so (and 10 months)

Tired

I think part of my weight gain this year has to do with lack of sleep. I know I'm not working out like I should be/used to, but really, I don't sleep much either. Not enough anyway. It is better than it was, but I am still tired and looking for snacks a lot of days.

I need to break the sugar to stay awake cycle. Getting much more sleep isn't really in the cards at the moment, unless I start going to bed at 8 pm. I already drink a lot of caffeine via bad-for-me diet soda. Should I switch to coffee? Is that even an improvement? Thoughts?

224

As of May 7, I have run 224 miles this year. I've had this goal in the back of my mind since late 2007 to run 1000 miles in a year. I think I hit 700 that year, a year when I was "single," young (lol), pretty fit, and running a lot. And 20 lbs lighter than now.

To hit 1000, I'd need to run 3.26 miles/day for the remainder of the year. Just about 100 miles/month, or 25/week. I'd really need to pick it up. Should I try? I'm not sure.

I feel like a bit of a health and fitness failure these days. I've put on 20 lbs in 4.5 years, 10 of that in the last 9 months or so.

on the road again

How many times have I used that title?  I've been running 10 miles/week or so since my half in March, which is more than zero, but less than I "should" be running.

I went for a run tonight. Chris and I had taken the babies out for just over a mile, and I went back out after dinner and bedtime for another 2. It was nice. I haven't run in the evening in, well...over 9 months, since before the babies came (not on my own anyway and not this late). I felt like I was flying without the stroller.

Of course, when I checked my garmin....I ran a 9:54 and a 9:35. Right on par with normal. Sigh.

Porch re-do

Sort of.
Our house has this snazzy enclosed front porch.

ok, maybe it isn't snazzy.  It has windows which leak air (though I am sure they were top of the line in 1960, like most other things around here...) and no insulation, and a radiator that may or may not work (we have the valve closed) . But it is THERE and is good extra space for our little house (especially since we're currently living on the 850 sqft first floor, with random not unpacked stuff upstairs and in the basement.

porch when we looked at the house. Note the awesome vinyl floor.

We (er, my wife) pulled up the nasty floor months ago and found some pretty darn decent (painted) wood flooring. It looks like it was painted shortly before being covered up. Excellent.

A friend lent us some (giant and noisy) toddler toys, so we decided these needed a new home. At 9:30 on a Friday night. Did you know Home Depot is open until 10 pm?  I DASHED over there and snagged some paint samples (so I could buy said paint at 7 am the next day), and we set to work cleaning the space up a bit. We scraped the radiator (and spraypainted it with high heat spraypaint to hold in the flaking), and washed down the walls/floor a bit.

A coat of paint and a trip to BRU for flooring later...

play area! All toys and gate on loan!

So far it is a hit.

Of course, this was 2 weeks ago now, and the other side still looks like this.

Maybe this weekend...

formula/come see us

The babies are moved/I am an idiot who can't mix formula: http://dilbatotini.blogspot.com/2012/04/formula.html

Babies are moving.

Well, they're trying to. Avery is anyway. Quinn's pretty happy to play in one place for now :)

But the babies are moving like I'd talked about months ago to here: http://dilbatotini.blogspot.com/

Baby people probably don't want to read race reports and theoretical race people probably don't want to read about poop.

Bookmark and Reader updates, GO.

Georgia Half Marathon

So once again I didnt come anywhere close to my two hour goal. Blame my 15 mile per week training, my extra 20 pounds, my lack of mental toughness. All and especially the first.

I'll start with the bad. As it turns out, they are NOT kidding about Atlanta being hilly. Or humid. Of course, given that it is March, I didnt really anticipate it being 70 and humid at the start line. That made the first few miles really rough. It kind of baked off after an hour or so so it could have been worse.

The start was also not a good as it could have been. The corrals were totally unmanaged, and unlike most big races, the calls to line up weren't audible from the gear or bathroom areas. I went to get online at 6:40 and never made it to my corral. The pacers only had small signs and I have no idea where the two hours pacer was....the only one I ever saw online was 3:55.

Ok.

Overall this is a super well run race. The expo was nice (though parking was $10) and the finish was organized. I'm not really clear why the food bags weren't given out with the medals (mini shoppers prefilled) but they were near gear check (which was painless) and there wasn't a line.  They also had heat sheets (grabbed one for the ride home) and both wet and dry towels. My wet one is  still on my neck as I write this on MARTA. They had water and chocolate milk at the finish (nice in theory but maybe better with food. I love chocolate milk but in an overheated state couldn't grab one).

The course itself was hard. This was my 12th half and definitely the most challenging course (which made my fairly dramatic undertraining and the heat more of a problem). Around mile 5 the trip hour pacer passed me. Awesome. Around mile ten the 2:10 pacer flew by. I'd stuck with a walk water stop plan till then, after that walked every 5 min as well. At mile 11 I knew I couldn't hit my 2:07 time from October and kind of gave up. I walked a lot at the end and finished in 2:11.

Sigh.

Mom guilt

We are working on sleep training. Quinn sleeps 7-430 easily, and often until 6. We are working on making it always 6!

Avery is not the great sleeper (she goes to sleep fine but is up at midnight and 4 looking for food). She is 7 months now, so we are really working on ending that business. She had a cold last week but was recovered by Monday, so we started Ferber (again). She cried from 11:45 to 1:40 am, then slept until 730.

Tuesday she alternated crying and playing in her crib from 12 to 1:50 and 3:30 to 5:15.

Ferber lies.

Or maybe not.

She got sent home from daycare with a low fever Wednesday. The fever alone wasnt the issue - she refused to be put down. She was a clingy mess for her grandma Thursday.

Thursday night I broke down and brought her to the pedi. Double ear infection, which appears to be a dramatic first diagnosis as the pedi (who we haven't seen before) commented "she's not even a frequent flyer".

So today, I am home with her waiting for the antibiotics to work their magic.

finalized

We're legally a family.

Even if the federal government doesn't think so.

Master bedroom

As I said yesterday, we haven't done a ton in the past few months. But, we have made SOME more progress!

"Master" when we were looking at the house.

Same view now...

excuse the pile of junk, re, my work bag and coat and a random shelf. and the half made bed.

See that doorway? On the left side is an under-stair closet. On the right is a linen closet sized closet. That's our closet space. Yeah, not going to work, hence the IKEA PAX addition. For what we paid, I'm pretty happy with it. We DO have a lot of clothes and its kind of packed (in addition to the "linen" closet), but I'm slowly paring down and bringing things to the Goodwill bin (4 bags so far...).

This is also from when we were looking, but a bit to the left.

The "now" view is from the doorway.

Nursery

It's been a while since I posted an update to our house. In all honesty, we lost a lot of steam once we moved in (which coincided with my wife going back to work, so that's not shocking).

But the nursery is the CLOSEST we have to a complete room...
To refresh your memory...from when we were looking at the house (this is the view from the corner to the left of the window when looking at the window):

I'm reading something on the wall there...

same vantage point now:

There's not really a giant candle on the wall...its a shadow from the light fixture

From just before we had the floors redone, about a week before moving in (this is the view from the doorway)

crafty

I'm not creative. Or crafty. But I can aspire.

One of my internet friends did this project from Pinterest and I loved the results, so I decided to give it a shot since I had some free time this weekend...

Shockingly easy (though now I have 3/4 of a medium bottle of Mod Podge left - I didn't know how much I'd need - and might need to find more things to slick it over).

I ordered prints through Snapfish, since they a) have pick up at Walgreens b) will print bigger than 4x6 and c) I could have them same-day (mail order is cheaper, but even the 8x10s were only $2.99).

So here goes...

scrapbook paper and one photo glued down.

The instruction post said to make the sides a smidge small.  I didn't do this, and it worked out ok since I was able to wrap them around to the back...

with a layer drying on top....

I bought two extra "just in case" canvases and couldn't stop. Of course, I'd only gotten 2 8x10s....so I improvised...

I am not old yet

Elderly??

I don't super love the term Advanced Maternal Age, though I more or less follow the reasoning....and I am sure it wouldn't fit on the form. But ELDERLY???

yum

At the girls' 4 month well visit, our pediatrician advised waiting until closer to 6 months to start solids since a) they were a month early and b) Quinn's muscle control is a little behind.  At their 6 month well visit, she was impressed with their muscle control - even miss Quinn's! - and basically implored us to start solids asap given their weight for length and Avery's drop in percentiles (I DO think that was due to the Sickness more so than her solids intake, given that we've (well, Chris) has gone from being 12 hrs ahead on milk to 24 hrs ahead without thawing any...).

So after I picked them up from daycare on Friday, we popped into the grocery store to get some baby cereal.  The pediatrician said to get a whole grain (rather than white rice) so I opted for oatmeal. I don't really think there's any nutritional value to baby cereal, but figured we'd give it a shot as a first food (and we haven't had time to make anything for them yet).

We made the first batch super thin. Avery loved it and sort of whined each time Quinn was fed instead of her. She also grabbed the spoon and tried to eat it.

Quinn was on the fence.

On Sunday, we gave avocado a shot.

6 mo well visit/peanuts

Our 6 month well visit was sort of a failure, given how the babies have been sick for a week now. Quinn got an official croup diagnosis (and it's likely Avery had it, we just didn't know since she had lost her voice. Most pathetic thing ever, a 6 mo old who can't make noise crying).  So we got weighed and measured and generally checked out, chatted about sleep and solids (more on this later), and sent on our merry way with a script for new vitamins and steriods for the croup.

Our last well visit was at 4 months, and they're more or less managed to grow on their curve. Both dropped a smidge in weight percentiles, but in all honesty, I think it is from The Sickness, as they'd both been eating around 60-70% of their norm for a few days. 

percentiles from this site for actual age. It uses the CDC and not WHO charts, but whatever, good for scanning curves at least. It also reports anything at 5% or under as 5, which is ridiculous...Quinn is more like 3rd, if that, in weight when you look at the chart.
Quinn

Who's excited to start solids?

Birth: 3 lbs 8 oz & 16 inches
1 month (40w gestational): 5 lbs 13 oz (5th) & 19 inches (5th)
2 months: 7 lbs 13 oz (5th) & 20.5 inches (5th)
3 months: 9 lbs 9 oz (5th) & 22.5 inches (29th)
4 months: 10 lbs 9 oz (5th) and 23 inches (16th)
6 months: 12 lbs 0 oz (5th) and 24.75 inches (24th)


Avery

but today, we're watching Baby Einstein

Birth: 5 lbs 0 oz (5th) & 17 3/4 inches (5th)

sick babies suck

I don't have much more to say on this topic today.
I am tired.
And now I have a cold.
I know this is JUST the beginning.

yes, I look well rested. I made Mommy sleep on the couch with me.

But its been almost a week.
Let's get the happy babies back.

6 months old

How is that possible? They've been outside babies 70% of the time they were fetuses!! Crazy.

Where are we at 6 months?

so we're sick for our 6 month birthday...

But we are REALLY FLIPPING CUTE most days!

(our home photo shoot trial a couple of weeks ago)

Avery

Quinn

We go to their 6 mo baby well visit on 2/1, so no height/weight stats yet, but I think they're doing amazing.  They're pretty much caught up to their peers (I guess that as many months as weeks early thing is about right)..  In short:

Cloth diaper reviews, part C

disclaimer: these were all purchased with my own money and I receive no compensation for reviews.

Our newest addition: Bum Genius Freetime
In short, I LOVE love love this diaper. I am finding I really love AIOs (my Grovia AIOs (and AI2s), my Swaddlebees Simplexs and these are the first I reach for). I think it is because I am lazy. Stuffing pockets is annoying (though they certainly have a place in a stash, for nights and car trips especially).  This is an awesome diaper design, with the two half attached soakers and the stay dry top. Avery is sensitive, so the stay dry is a plus, and I can hang these diapers in my basement overnight without the low cycle I usually put my AIOs through before hanging to dry. They're generally half dry before I even pull them from my water-sucker washing machine. I picked up half a dozen of these to add to my daycare stash, and may get more as I finish selling off our NB/size 1/stuff I don't love. I am a little concerned about absorbancy for the toddler stage, but I think you could put a small soaker under the flaps, and we can cross that bridge if we ever come to it.  Next time I sell off some stuff we don't use/have outgrown, I might get more of these. I just LOVE how easy they are. Also, so far so good on the aplix for daycare - its sturdy!

Baby of Nerds = HAD to have the Albert print!

Sustainablebabyish fitteds. 

more guilt

Avery has her first cold. I'm sure its coming for Quinn, but for now, we only have one snotty baby with a low grade temperature.

Tuesday and Wednesday nights she didn't sleep well. She's never been a champ sleeper, so we are slowly letting her cry and work on self soothing more (we'll probably officially sleep train sometime in March once they're 6 mo adjusted - I think adjusted age is relevant for sleep issues). Thursday she got sent home from daycare for excessive crying.

Awesome.

So now I feel guilty for bitching and moaning most of Wednesday night and Thursday morning about the lack of sleep. Its hard to sleep through that screaming.

Chris picked her up (and Quinn) and brought them to the peditrician. Even though she didn't have a fever, this is weird behavior and we thought maybe it was an ear infection. Two copays later, they have colds.  What's my guilt here? My job isn't work from home friendly at all (besides that I've been there a bit under 6 months), and barring some giant emergency, I'll never be able to be their emergency pick up. I also can't drop off, since I start at 7:30 and work 40 minutes away (Chris is more flexible, for now anyway, and works 20 minutes away). Guilt.

I did let her sleep on me a lot of Thursday night, and am wearing her in the Ergo now. Doesn't totally stop the guilt (mom guilt and wife guilt) that I'll likely do a lot less sick days than Chris since she can work from home with a baby...

Guilt.

It was bound to happen.

This is our house 10% of the time or so... Oh, the noise....

Mom guilt.

It hit me hard for the first time Wednesday night. Avery was cranky and crying on and off. She's touchy at bedtime - going to sleep is SO upsetting, what if you miss something? - so I put her on the floor of the nursery to play while I got Quinn ready for bed (we usually do this together, but I think Chris was in the shower). About an ounce into Quinn's bottle, Avery lost her shit. She flipped onto her back and just started screammingggggg with her arms reaching up. Now, at not quite 6 months, they haven't mastered the "pick me up" move, but this was the closest she's come. She locked eyes with me and just cried pathetically.

Its generally my policy to attend (when we're talking about sleep) to the less upset baby first, get that one settled, then move on.

trying

I'm really trying to be better about meeting my goals. My big goal for the spring is to break a 2 hr half marathon. I think losing 10 or 15 lbs would assist greatly in this (and get me back to where I was when I ran my half PR in 2008, not to mention be close to being out of "overweight" on the stupid BMI chart), but I haven't made it a priority yet (same 10 or 15 lbs I've been talking about for eons).

So...8 weeks to go.

The first two weeks of January went ok.  I missed my first long run (5 mi) of the year due to a personal fiasco I don't want to get into right now. Last week was good. 2 4 milers and a 6 miler. I only stopped twice (that I recall) during the fridid 6 miles, which is a huge accomplishment for me. The pace was ok, about a 9:20. I need to drop that at least 10 seconds/mile to hit my goal...

On tap this week is 3 3 milers and a 7. One run down, three to go... (and I need to get to Crossfit twice. I'm planning on Thurs and Fri mornings).

Old

OK, not really. But they are almost 6 months old.

We were REALLY lucky to be able to keep them home until now. Chris was out of work until almost 4 months, and then her mom and my mom split watching the girls during the week. My MIL has returned home to StLouis, so the girls are now going to daycare three days/week (my mom will keep watching them Mon and Tues for a bit longer).



Today is their first day.

After much turmoil and back and forth, we went with a brand new center around the corner for our house. Its fairly average priced for the area (but much more than the bizarrely cheap center we almost went with). The location and hours are terrific, and so far we really like the staff. Hopefully that will keep up :) They're also friendly to our green/frugal tendencies - using breastmilk and cloth diapers - so that's a bonus for us.

Last night I dropped off their sheets, jackets, and about a zillion changes of clothes for them. Then we packed up the diapers, diaper cream, and 90 9 or 10 labeled bottles for the babies. We're used to reusing bottles until empty, so we had to buy more for daycare (we made 4 oz bottles for them, and send 2 2 oz snack bottles in as well. At home we just use 9 oz bottles and let them share until its gone!). SO many more dishes will be awaiting us tonight.  We also got out their outfits in the evening so it was all ready to go in the morning. I leave for work about an hour before Chris will be bringing the babies to "school" so I can't be of much help, so anything to make the transition smoother!!

I have to admit I was pretty super nervous this morning. I left my phone on the counter, so I had to call Chris for an update. Given that there were only 4 infants registered when we signed up 3 weeks ago, and now there is only one space left  in infants, I think we made the right call going right to this center instead of trying to get in in a few months (We were considering trying Cheapo Center for a bit first). Three other new babies started this week! Other than the chaos of several new infants starting at once in a brand new center still working out the kinks in their registration/check in system, it sounded like drop off went ok.

Now to see how things went when I pick them up tonight...

swimming

I have a short video that goes with this photo, but its not uploaded. The voice over is "who wants to go swimming??" "SCREAMMMMMINGGG"

Really though, they love screaming swimming. They were just overdue to naps and not super excited to be put into their fleecy coveralls. We usually just use a blanket in the car, but it was about 20 and windy, so we added these. They're thin, no thicker than a fleece jacket (which I am told is OK for a carseat), so I figured it would be ok. Of course, they fell asleep in the car, had fun in the pool, then returned to their carseats for the remainder of their nap (and take out dinner for us, woot!).

We start swim lessons at the end of the month. So big, these girls are.

getting out

We're pretty good about getting out with the babies. Maybe its a function of the renovations we are/have been doing to the house (resulting in 1938472 runs to Lowes and Home Depot), or perhaps its a function of our somewhat limited social life since we don't have a lot of friends here (and we have two babies).

Regardless, we go out at least once a weekend, usually at least once a day if not more. We had a four day weekend for New Years, and over the course of the weekend went (with the babies, there were a couple of other stops too) to Lowes, Home Depot, Ikea, the Y, the park and a friend's house.  They are 5 months old now, but we've always been doing this and its actually a littler harder now than it used to be since sometimes they won't nap while we're out (carseats used to be a SUREFIRE nap). I know (well, I think anyway since we don't have much to compare to) we have fairly easy babies - low reflux, relatively good sleepers (especially Quinn), not particularly screamy if not overtired, no special needs - but I can't help but judge a little when I read on mommy message board how hard it is to get out of the house with a baby (well, one presumably without issues as mentioned above). I actually think its going to be 10 times harder when they're toddlers, can run, and have opinions.

One of my favorite things about the weekend (besides family time in general) is dressing the girls up.  I leave for work before they're awake most days, so its a weird joy to pick them out coordinating outfits (and repack the extras in the bag to go with them...). For another two weeks, they're hanging out with their grandma's during the day.  Their Grammy usually gets them dressed in super cute outfits she puts together from their drawers (or coordinating sleep and plays).

My mom is another story. Yesterday I got home and they were still in their pjs from the night before. On Tuesday she'd watched them at her house, and while I'd repacked the diaper bag with extra tops and pants to coordinate with what they had on, I came home to find them entirely mismatched and wearing stuff she'd dug out of the bottom of the bag (like under the changing pad). Not a big deal in life, but a red shirt and pink pants with a green hoodie? What was wrong with the (more accessible) gray shirt and white sweats (which would have matched the hoodie just fine).  I know this is a first world problem, and not a problem at all, and I'd never complain to her about this, but it still irked me for some reason (maybe because I had spent 3 minutes putting coordinating replacement clothes in the bag?).

Anyway...here is a shot of the girls on our walk this Sunday at the park. They fit perfectly in the 3-6 Gymboree hoodies their Grammy got them for Christmas, so I have to assume Gymboree runs a little small. Avery IS a good fit in 3-6 now, but they're mostly (except this) huge on Quinn still :)

staring at the ducks while Mommy flaps the blanket around trying to get them to look at her/the camera.

who needs sleep?

Our babies were not those miracle babies who sleep through the night at 8 weeks (though I always wonder for those people who brag about that, are they talking medical sleep through the night (STTN) of 5-6 hrs, or legit STTN of reasonable bedtime-reasonable wakeup time?).  The first couple of months with these two was exhausting. Like physically painful, could barely lift the bar at Crossfit exhausting. I imagine it was a level of tired no one without multiples or a VERY bad sleeper can comprehend. I have no idea how anyone can manage triplets+ without a serious amount of full time help.

It HAS gotten better though. Right around the time Chris went back to work (they were 3 mo old, and the date escapes me, but they were around 10 weeks adjusted which  I think is super relevant for sleep issues), they started STTN from the medical perspective on occasion. Who decided 5 hrs was through the night is beyond me. Of course, they never slept for 5 hrs at the SAME time.  For a while, we put them to bed around 7:15, and would feed around 11, 1, 3 and 5, give or take a little bit. Obviously/Thankfully, we are no longer feeding the SAME BABY that much overnight, so we ended up alternating. Someone with a colicky baby once told me that once you sleep four hours in a row, the rest is icing, and I tend to agree. I am very functional with 4 hrs + some icing. Not ideal, but function. Under 4 hrs and I might as well crawl into a hole until I have my IV of diet coke drained.

Recently - very, very recently, like the last 10 days - we've been blessed with legit STTN medically, and are getting so close to a more practical definition. Its not consistent, and some nights we're up a lot.  This is especially true with Avery, who is totally in what the internetz calls the 4 Month Wakeful - she HATES going to sleep and gets pissed off when she falls asleep because WHATIFIMISSSOMETHINGOMG. But, last night Quinn slept from 7 to 3:30 and Avery from 8:30 or 9 (I'm not sure when as I had thrown in the towel and was reading, but  she went to bed after Chris gave her an imprompto bath last night) until 5. Not bad. We could get used to this. Of course, poor Chris is still up overnight to pump...

They won't be 6 months adjusted until the end of February, so that's the earliest we'll think about true sleep training, but I'm crossing my fingers this is a sign of good things to come (and that we can avoid having to sleep train in a serious way).  I will admit we do a light modified Ferber now... We try not to rock them to sleep for practical reasons, so we usually let them fuss for 5 or 10 minutes to see if they can self sooth. Quinn is a champ. In fact, she'll often shreak with exhaustion until in her crib where she'll promptly pass out. Avery...well....if she's not ready for bed and isn't out in 5 or so minutes, so ends up in hysterics. I am a sucker for letting Avery fall asleep on me, as it less painful than the yelling, and I am hoping this also resolves itself a bit before we have to just let her cry it out someday.


bonus points for long + disorganized post.

baby versus food

This is kind of a large pancake, no?

There is another one under it.