Tuesday, April 30, 2013

6 Months

Our sweet girl is the big 1/2.  6 whole months old.  This post is a day late, but she had her 6 month check up today, so I have her current stats for you today.
 
Another photo shoot, mom?
 
 
Well, if I must...

 
Momma!  Are you seeing this?!?!  No hands!! and no Bobby pillow to catch me!

 
 
Here's the one that made the cut for the picture frame:

 
Can she pose or what?
 
Then I realized, I've been doing this wrong all along.  The sun from the window is behind her.  No wonder I have so much trouble getting the shadows off her face.  Duh.
 
 
A little repositioning and we were ready for round 2.  Well, almost.
 
Me:  Ahem.  Sweetheart?  I hate to interrupt your break, but we have a photo shoot to finish here.

 
Oh! oh...no worries, momma!   I'm all set!


 
Whoa...wait...You're getting a little click happy there, aren't ya??

 
A girl can't work under this kind of pressure!  I'm losing it!
 
 
Mom?  How 'bout a hand here.  Or a Boppy?  Anything?
 
 
Whoa!
 
You're not gonna tell anyone about this are you?
 
Of course not, honey...
 
Hehe...We'll have 'em all fooled!

 
So, what is happening at 6 months?
 
She is still loving to smile, laugh, and squeal, especially with her daddy.
 
He doesn't stand a chance.
 
She can sit briefly unsupported, but eventually topples over backwards every time.
She can roll front-to-back and back-to-front.  The fact that she only chooses to do so once every other week is another story.
She still loves to stand.
She still loves to "swim" in the big tub.  And splash water all the way up the walls. 
Her hair is still dark and growing long.  It is wavy/curly on top and stick-straight in the back.
She is starting to love the dogs.  She laughs when they come close to her.  She likes to pet Copper when he lays next to her.
She went on her first walk in the stroller without the car seat attached and loved it.
She can sit up like a big girl in the cart at Walmart. 
She can also sit in the high chairs at restaurants. 
In addition to the foods she tried last time, she has tried squash, avocado, green beans, and baby oatmeal. 
She hates them all.
How do I know this? 
First, she makes a terribly icky face, then gags.  Yes, she actually gags. 
Poor girl.  She must have inherited my aversion to any foods with a snotty texture (oatmeal, yogurt, etc).  That's pretty much all she gets to eat right now.  Different flavored snot.
Oh well, we will keep trying.
 
She is still drooling...
 
No, she doesn't have any teeth yet.
 
She weighs 16 lbs 8 oz.  Babies typically double their weight by 6 months.  She almost hit that one right on the nose! (Her birth weight was 8 lbs 2 oz).
She is 26.25 inches tall.
She wears size 2 diapers.
She wears size 6 month clothes and is starting to wear some 6-9 month and 9 month clothes.
 
She still goes to bed around 7:30 and wakes twice during the night.
She loves to sleep with her hands behind her head.
 
 
Don't you just want to kiss those little cheeks?  Or pinch 'em?  Then kiss 'em again? 



Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Progress

It's been a long time since the last running update (or any update for that matter).  I thought I'd share a little of the progress made over the past six months since my first postpartum workout.  You can read about that first 30 minutes on the treadmill here.
 
I haven't devoted as much time as I would like to my training, but somehow, snuggling a baby always pulls rank over running on the treadmill at 5am.  Despite having a disjointed and sometimes dysfunctional training schedule, I have somehow managed to semi-train for a full marathon and a 200-mile relay.
 
I say "semi-train" because while I have eeked out just enough miles to make it through these races, I haven't had enough high-quality training to actually excel in these races.
 
I made it to the end of the Southern Indiana Classic Marathon on April 6th even though I wanted nothing more than to hitchhike a ride to the end by mile 16...then had to run 10.2 more miles...
 
Well, I actually walked most of the last 3 miles, but I made it.
 
 
My friend, Laura in the picture above won 3rd female overall.  She has a 10-month old baby girl.  I wonder if I could be that speedy in 4 more months.
 
Probably not.

But in any case, I have made progress.  The picture on the left is my workout from 10 days postpartum.  Barely 1.5 miles in 30 minutes.  On the right is my workout from today.  7 miles in 1 hour and I played with the incline a bunch through the run so my elevation gain was 1099ft.

Now I am eating a cookie. A really big cookie that is attached to another cookie by a layer of icing...


Below is a picture of Rylie sleeping through my workout at 10 days old.  On the right, is her playing through the first 30 minutes of my run today.  She dozed off during the last half of the run. 
 
Next week I will be running a 200-mile relay with 5 teammates.  We each will run 6 legs of the race.  My total mileage will be just over 33 miles.  It will be an adventure and a challenge, but it is what waits for me at the finish line that keeps me motivated through every run.