Wonderful, Wonderful Weekend

Thanks to my mom, Adam and baby Zooey combined with good luck and good weather this was a perfect weekend! Highlights:

1. SLEEP!! Z only got up once in the middle of the night Friday AND Saturday. Friday didn't feel that restful because she got up at 1:30 am and then at 5:30 am (which I'm counting as morning rather than middle of the night) but Saturday by ANY measure she "slept through the night" from 7:15 until 3:30 am! That's over EIGHT hours!! We, of course, want to replicate this but we have no idea why it happened. Maybe she matured just enough, maybe her fussy spell earlier in the week was the developmental growth spurt that allowed for this? Maybe it was the busy busy day with lots of stimulation at the Chicago Botanic Gardens on Saturday? Maybe it was that Grandma has sleep gifts we do not because it was indeed the first night in months that she was put to bed by someone other than Mom or Dad? Whatever it was, it shows she is capable of long sleeping and while I know this won't happen every night it was a taste of a more sleep filled future!

2. EXERCISE!! 19 mile spin on Friday and Lake Michigan swim on Sunday gave my mental health a boost. Mom and Zooey walked with me to the swim and along the lake as I swam today which gave me the extra motivation I needed to deal with the HUGE waves in the lake. It was a tough swim but I got it done. Phew!

3. ZOOEY TIME!! Zooey has been waking up smiling and ready for the day lately. She even entertains herself in the crib for 30 minutes to an hour before requesting our attention in the morning. What a sweetie:) Then it's smiles, smiles and more smiles when we come to fetch her. She has a favorite toy- Mr Monkey- that makes her smile even if she is hungry, tired, or otherwise cranky. And Sunday, she rolled over for the first time! My mom, having a sixth sense about these things, announced to Adam and I that Zooey was about to do tummy time so we were loitering around and we all got to see it happen! Zooey laid on her back sorta stunned for a minutes afterwards ("What just happened?") then went about playing in her activity gym. Fun stuff.

"Hello, Mr Monkey!"

Grandma and Z

4. CHICAGO ADVENTURES!! The four of us (Mom, Adam, Zooey and I) went up to the Chicago Botanic Gardens on Saturday. It was an absolutely beautiful day with the flowers in full bloom. We tried to recreate one of the pregnancy photos with Zooey which was challenging to say the least but the result is still good. Note that Adam's head is partially cut off- he says that's just what happens when your head is "too big" :)

March 2013

August 2013

5. VAL AND ADAM TIME!! My Mom is the best. Seriously. She stayed the weekend (rather than going back home to Cherry Valley) just so Adam and I could have a few hours alone together at Lollapalooza. I really wasn't sure if going to see Mumford and Sons was the right thing to do- we are so tired! But I feel if we don't keep doing the things we like now we could easily become those folks whose lives so revolve around their kids that they lose themselves- not the kind of parent I want to be! Plus, I think it's vital for the parent relationship to be maintained as a separate entity- Adam and I need our alone time together to keep our relationship healthy and happy, which is certainly a good thing for Zooey! I think the technical term is 'trickle down happiness' :) Or it should be, anyway. We really had a great time at the show! We found great standing room on the steps just stage left so we had an unobstructed view. Folks were super friendly, everyone was in such a great mood- all 150,000 of us watching the show! We left a bit early and stopped by to catch a couple Postal Service songs on our way out which was great fun as well. And home by 10, followed by a 5 hour sleep! All in all, the best weekend we've had in a long while!

Annual 4th of July Long Run

Starting in 2010 (and maybe even earlier- I can't remember) I've done a long run on the 4th of July. I usually have the day off and I usually overeat at the 4th of July cook-outs so it makes good sense to burn some calories while enjoying a quiet morning on the lakefront path. I had hoped to continue this tradition this 4th of July but as you can imagine not all plans work out when you have a (then) 2 and a half month old at home! Mostly I was too tired to even contemplate a long(ish) run, plus the time it would take to get little Z all ready for a big day of seeing friends and family would have required me to start pretty early. I opted to get an extra hour of sleep. I think that was a good choice!

We had a very nice 4th of July with Adam's family and the Boyles. Z was well behaved (though a little overwhelmed by all the people to share too many smiles) and we kept her on a good nap schedule. On the ride home, the little stinker didn't want to sleep- we could hear he swishing around in her carseat. To keep her entertained, Adam sang 'The Rainbow Connection' in Kermit the Frog's voice which elicited giggles and smiles from our little backseat passenger which was awesome:)

But back to running. Despite only running 1 mile on the 4th, striving to maintain my 4th of July tradition (even though I failed at the execution) was a worthwhile endeavor. Soon after delivering in April, I made the goal of running 10 miles on the 4th, as a way to keep myself on target building up miles slowly but not too slowly. This worked well and I was on target, having run 8 the week before, at 10 weeks postpartum.

Today I ran 12. And it was absolutely fabulous which was reflected in my 8:37 min/mile pace which is FLYING for me on a run of this distance. To put it in perspective my PR for the half marathon (13.1 miles) is 1:56:44 which is a 8:54 min/mi pace. So 8:37 pace on a relatively slow easy long run is astounding. I know I will be very sore when I get up for the multiple middle-of-the-night feedings tonight, but it's totally worth it! Certainly, there is some degree of "baby doping" going on here, but I'll take it and hopefully I can continue at these faster speeds even as my blood volume goes back to normal over the next few months. As Z gets older my sleeping duration should be increasing so perhaps the two effects will balance each other out.

I must give a shout out to Adam and my Mom, who did not think anything of me leaving them with Zooey duty for a two hour run on a random week night. There's absolutely no way I'd be in this good of shape this few weeks from pregnancy without their support. I know there are folks who think it's crazy that both Adam and I still work out every single day with an infant at home but I truly believe it is better for us and therefore better for Zooey if we continue to maintain good health habits even though it means we see her a little less. We are role modeling that exercise is fun and an integral part of life, which she may not notice now but she will eventually. As she gets bigger she will be able to participate in more and more of our activities. I have no doubt we are doing the right thing by her by carving this time out for our physical and mental health.

And lastly, I want to pat myself on the back a little. I am tired. Having an infant who still doesn't sleep well or much is HARD. Pumping every 2-3 hours during the day and after every nightly feed is HARD. But I have been dragging myself through most of my workouts with the occasional pay out being a great workout like tonight. I have every excuse in the world to take some time "off" from training. But I will continue to fight that urge. One day I will not be able to run. TODAY IS NOT THAT DAY.

Three Months!

Last Wednesday, our dear Zooey turned three months old! It has been an exciting month with lots of milestones reached. She is more interactive and fun every day. Soon after her two month birthday she began smiling intermittently and now she has developed into a generally easy going smiley baby who can be distracted into a smile even when tired or hungry....most of the time. She also giggles which is awesome. Love the giggles.

HELLOO PEOPLE!!

I know something you don't know......

I think there is something to the theory I've read so much about that infants have a rough few days prior to acquiring a new "skill". Last weekend was really rough- she was so tired but couldn't sleep no matter how much we tried to help. Her eating was totally disorganized. She was withdrawn and not interactive probably because of the former two issues. I was really bummed because that was our last "free" weekend of the summer with neither of us working. But I think Zooey was hard at work developing hand/eye and foot/eye coordination because now she can swat at objects, and can spin the toys on her Baby Bjorn chair intentionally with her hands OR her feet! I don't see her all that much during playtime (which is a huge bummer, mostly I feed her and get her to sleep), but I don't recall much lead up to this. One day she's just staring at the toys, the next she's very clearly making them move. Crazy!

Still in staring mode here.....

Babybison continues to meet and visit with the important people in her life. Aunt Bonnie and Uncle David came in from Denver to meet her which was very special. We even went out to dinner at a nice restaurant and aside from 90 seconds of crying (just enough time for us to get the bottle out) she was an angel. Only two patrons even realized she was there! And Cousin Karin came back for a half marathon in Chicago and some quality Z time as well!

Getting to know Aunt Bonnie

Hanging with Cousin Karin

We haven't been on many adventures this month with me being back at work but we hope to get to the Botanic Gardens soon for a repeat photo shoot, this time with Zooey OUTSIDE of the womb. And we're getting to the point in her cuteness and interactiveness where we should think about our next formal photo shoot. Without it being planned, it's hard to catch us all not in our pajamas or work-out clothes!

Mom and Z

4th of July at the Boyles

We are so lucky to have my mom staying with us this summer. I hope she is enjoying it as much as we are! In addition to being the best possible caretaker to Zooey (Z is in much better hands with my mom than she would be with me!), she's is getting some great shots of our little girl. I'm so grateful we'll have her photos since we are way too busy to get many of our own!

Naked baby on the loose!

That's it for now! Life is too busy right now especially in the middle of the night. I look forward to the day when our little one acquires the "skill" of sleeping for more than two to three hours at a time on a regular basis. She had one glorious night when she was up only at 1 am and 5 am but otherwise she is keeping me up WAY WAY WAY too much. Thank god she's so darn cute!

We Have Smiles!!!

About a week ago babybison began smiling with regularity, clearly in response to us and playing as opposed to the random smiles of her newborn days. The smiles are still rare enough that they are a special treat to see and hard to capture on camera. However my mom got a few good ones, enjoy!

"I love my Grandma Nelson"

Look at those fat legs!

I finally fit in my chair!!

My attempt (and miss) at capturing her smile, but you can see it in her eyes
  (that's how you know it's a "real" smile and not a "gas" smile)

I couldn't resist including a few non-smiling poses including this series showing Zooey's skill at getting her socks and booties off:

Booties intact.

"Shake, shake shake...."

"Shake, shake, shake. Shake your booties! Shake your booties....off!"

Zooey thinks she's a squirrel with those fat cheeks. I had to remind her that she's a babybison!

Until next time!

Two Months Old!

Babybison is two months old today! She has changed a lot since her one month milestone, but in many ways is still the same. Still tall and skinny though developing new fat rolls and bigger checks every day. She now can successfully breastfeed. She smiles frequently though still not directed at anyone in particular (I tell her if she directs her first true social smile to someone other than me, she is in trouble). She's a good eater, an okay sleeper though nowhere near "through the night" and is still very easy to comfort and basically a content baby. She's learning how to put herself to sleep. She still spends most of the night in the stroller due to spit up but is getting in naps here and there in the crib which is a step in the right direction. She has met all three of her great-grandparents, and most of her aunts, uncles and cousins. She's been to the zoo, the aquarium, and on numerous runs with Mom and Dad.

My maternity leave ends this week- I had 9 weeks at home. I'm definitely ready to go back but am worried about the amounts of caffeine I'll need to consume to function at work. We are so, so lucky to have my mom coming in to watch Zooey for the summer. I am really amazed and so, so grateful that my mom wants to dedicate her summer to helping us raise Zooey. It will be so good for our little girl to get one-on-one nurturing from the best mom I know.

The newborn sized outfit we brought her home in finally fits!

On the exercise front, things are coming together nicely. I had an awesome tempo run last week (7:52 pace for 3.1 miles!!), and am starting to feel a little stronger with consistent strength work-outs. Swimming is happening but needs to happen more frequently and for longer durations. I look forward to getting back to spinning next week! I have the feeling between Zooey-care, out-of-town visitors, and training, not to mention going back to work, the next few weeks are going to FLY by. I'm trying to convince Adam of the importance of us taking a vacation this fall with Zooey before the whole first year of her life flies by without us having the chance to really enjoy her! I'm so looking forward to when she starts smiling and interacting! The rare moments where she is calm and alert now are great but they are still pretty infrequent and fleeting. After all she's only 6 weeks old in "preemie time".

So what has babybison been up to? In the past month, she's met a bunch of her family members including great-grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. She has spent quality time with her grandparents on multiple occasions. Zooey continues to enjoy running in the jogging stroller. She loves motion and noise. She is also very interested in light and does focus a bit on some colors and lines. She occasionally will make eye contact with us and definitely smiles and coos when she is happy or entertained but has not had a true confirmed social smile yet. Seems like she's waiting until I'm no longer her primary caretaker to give out that reward. (What a stinker!).

Zooey with Cousin Maya

Zooey with Great Aunt Kathy

Zooey with Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa Monson

Zooey with Great-Grandpa Monson

Zooey and me with Cousin Gwyn at the Shedd Aquarium

Zooey now has a clear awake and alert state that can last up to a couple hours. On Father's Day, she treated us with multiple long awake, alert and content phases and multiple long naps- the perfect combo to enjoy her but still get some work done! She now will sometimes wake up and keep herself entertained a bit before alerting us to her needs- she used to always wake up crying because she was so hungry, but now that she's taking in more food at a time, she can sometimes play for a while before eating. She definitely knows our voices, and looks around for us when we come to fetch her from the crib. Today she grabbed onto and shook a rattle for a good 5 minutes. She had no idea what she was doing which was pretty funny, but she kept hearing the rattle as she moved her arm and was clearly puzzled. We do the requisite tummy time (as recommended) and practice walking (which, btw, no one recommends but is hilarious, see photo). We also tried on her noise canceling headphones to prep her for concerts in the park this summer at Pritzker Pavilion:)

Tummy time success!

"Help, Mom what are you doing to me??"

Rockin out to silence.

Post-tummy time melt-down.

Sleep is still an issue and I expect it will be for a while. Apparently (according to my baby book) I slept "through the night" at 4 weeks. Anyway you look at it, Zooey is nowhere near "sleeping through the night". She still needs to eat at least 3 times, but if the doctor says we can (based on her weight) we might try a bit of sleep training to get it down to 3 times (as opposed to the 5 or 6 we're sometimes dealing with). The consequences of her not sleeping through the night are painful as shown by this photo of an exhausted Val reading Lancet Oncology with a perfectly content DAY SLEEPING Zooey. Hmm...sleep AT NIGHT, little girl. AT NIGHT!!

While she certainly is a lot bigger (now 7 lb 13 oz!) than she was when she was born (and she's so tall she wears 3 month clothes!), and she has made some clear developments, she doesn't seem all that different than when we brought her home. I expect the next month will bring dramatic changes, especially because I won't see her all day everyday so the differences will really stand out.

Zooey at two weeks with bison.

Zooey at two months. She finally fits in her
"coming home from the hospital" outfit!

Zooey helped us celebrate Adam's first Father's Day yesterday. We had a little picnic in the park and Zooey was fun and interactive for a good hour, which was great. She really enjoyed being outside in the shade without the stroller covers between her and the wind and birds. One of Adam's gifts was a photo of Zooey right after her birth which provides a nice comparison to her now.

Hi Dad!!

Family at two months.

That's it for now! Stay tuned for month three!!

The New Hardcore- Post Partum Edition

(Title is tongue in cheek- I consider myself far from hardcore!)

Today is the day. Today is the day when I declare that this is officially harder than medical training. We are almost at 9 weeks. It has been 9 weeks since I slept more than 4 hours in a row, more typically 2 or on a good night 3. The total nightly sleep is not enough. I'm dying. Well, I guess technically we are all dying, but I'm sure this degree of sleep deprivation speeds up the aging process. But this post isn't to complain. It's to celebrate that I have overcome this sleep deprivation again and again to continue my training for the Chicago Triathlon in August. It is a reminder that exercise is good in all situations, and when the choice is sleep or exercise, in many cases one might be suprised to hear that exercise is the right choice.

Today, for example. Now that I am trying to do every feeding for baby Z, I get at best one 2 hour block of sleep and the rest are between 40 minutes and an hour and a half. Last night was no exception. With me going back to work on Thursday I am a bit concerned about my job performance but we will take it one day at a time.

Given my fatigue, my relatively modest exercise agenda for the weekend- 1200 yard swim on Saturday and 7 mile swim on Sunday- seemed daunting. Getting out of bed seemed daunting. Raising my arm to my mouth to eat seemed daunting. Let alone Zooey care. But as Adam explained to Zooey this morning when she woke up crying and hungry, no one cares when adults cry- we are expected to suck it up. So what did I do instead of cry? I picked a (short lived) fight with Adam. I suppose the more mature thing to do would be to have said 'look, honey, I know you are tired too but 8 weeks of near full time Zooey care has ready worn me down, I need some free time stat", but that's not what I did. Luckily Adam got the point anyway and demanded that I swim or sleep or do something sans Zooey for a bit.

Every aching bone and muscle in my body (not to mention my overly fatigued brain that literally aches every time I'm woken from sleep these days) told me to take a nap. Sleep. Get vertical. 'Nothing is more important than sleep' every cell of my person screamed. But a small part of my brain knew. Knew that if I slept now it would be a good 3-6 hours before I had another chance to swim, if at all, given the huge to-do list in my head (plus Adam's to-dos). I honestly didn't know if I'd be able to swim with how tired I was, but I went through the motions, put on my suit with running clothes over them and headed down to the gym and pool. An hour later I had a 8:12 minute mile and 1200 yards of swimming under my belt. Now, two hours later, I'm tired again. My joints, muscles, and brain all hurt again. I still am not sure how I'll function at work on this little sleep. All I think about is when Zooey will big enough that we can sleep train her (she still needs to eat frequently now). I wish, wish, wish I was less tied so I could enjoy these early months of her life. But I know if I hadn't run and swum I would feel all that but worse because I'd feel the additional unhealthy lethargy of A Sedentary Day.

So for me the new post partum hardcore is pulling it together and getting into the pool today. Everyday in June except two I've exercised beyond the requisite one mile run. With no sleep and a newborn, that's hard. Really hard. And getting out for my 7 mile run tomorrow will be hard. Really hard. But I never let my job, or my pregnancy, or any other hardship be an excuse for fitness complacency in the past and absolute, total, I'm-not-sure-how-I'm-going-to-get-off-the-park-bench-where-I'm-writing-this-to-walk-Zooey-upstairs fatigue is no exception.

And to me, that's hardcore.

9 Months of Pent Up Motivation

Hi all. I'm back. Ready to talk about exercise and training goals once again. Hallelejah. I've missed myself, my exercising self. And I'm VERY excited to re-emerge from the pregnancy exercise intensity restrictions with plans to be a much stronger, faster athlete than ever before in the next year. First let's recap where I've been in the past year....

Last summer I completed my first and second triathlon, both while pregnant though I didn't know I was pregnant for the first one- the Chicago Triathlon in August 2012. I had just finished a very difficult, time consuming year of work so was starting to re-build my fitness and was excited to throw biking and swimming into the mix. I had my sights set on Ironman Wisconsin 2013 though since Adam and I were hoping to get pregnant I knew it was very possible that I would have to delay the Ironman. And sure enough, over Labor Day weekend, we noted I was a couple days "late" so decided to take a pregnancy test really more for fun than anything else. I thought the chances that I was pregnant after only 1-2 months of trying at my advanced maternal age was very unlikely. Luckily I found out I was pregnant about a week before registration for the Ironman so didn't lose the registration fee!

I have a handful of posts on exercising during pregnancy so I won't rehash here. Here are some of my previous exercising during pregnancy posts:

--Exercise During Pregnancy...In General
--Exercise During Pregnancy...What I've Done (so far)
--Pregnancy Fitness Goals
--The New Hardcore...Running at 30 Weeks
--The Ultimate Pregnancy Niggle
--Running Year in Review 2012

The bottom line is I stayed pretty darn active right until the day of delivery, keeping up my daily mile of running and also spinning, swimming and weight training until the end. My final pregnancy mileage is as follows:

549 miles run
24 miles swum
261 miles cycled (doesn't include the months of October, November, December as I didn't keep track of spinning mileage those months)

Because our Zooey was small and breech the decision was made to have a c-section at 36 weeks and 5 days. I knew a c-section was certainly possible since up to 1/3 of women end up delivering this way, and I certainly have no romantic notions of "labor" and am sorta glad I got to bypass that process. However, returning to exercise after pelvic surgery wasn't really part of my fitness plan for Spring and Summer 2013, and I have had to re-build much more gradually than I would like. But I've stayed as aggressive as I thought I safely could, kept up with my mile a day including the day after delivery, first with walking and then with intense hill walking as soon as my incision healed. At one month, I was really starting to feel the emotional and physical toll of not running. My knees and shoulders were starting to hurt. No amount of hill walking, even at 15% grade provided any endorphins. So after one false start (I ran 0.25 miles a few days before 1 month and felt it in the incision), at exactly one month after my c-section I went for a mile run.

For more detailed info on my early recovery:

--Turns Out I'm Just Like Everyone Else

I've worked up to 3 miles as my "long" run and hope to be up to 10 for my annual 4th of July "long" run. I still think a marathon in September is possible and I have my sights set on the Mill Race Marathon in Columbia, Indiana, a great suggestion made by my cousin Karin, also a runner. There is a half as well so Karin, Adam and maybe some other family members can run as well!

But my short term goal needs my undivided attention for the next few weeks- the Chicago triathlon in August. Last year I did the sprint, but this year I plan to do the International Distance. I've talked some great friends into participating as well, providing additional motivation ensuring that I can't back out! My plan is to continue my slow mileage build for running with occasional ad lib speed work. Running is also the core of any training plan for me. It is the activity I most enjoy, that provides the most mental benefits, and that I'm most comfortable with. But the sport that I'm weakest at really needs some attention- swimming. Ug. Once I'm back at work (read: have full time child care) I need one or two lessons to adjust my form but in the meantime I need to log some serious pool time. I'm in a post-natal strength training class that meets twice weekly (and allows the babies to come to class) and if I can muster a third session a week on my own that takes care of strength. I'm going to actually delay any focus on biking until I go back to work, partly because I definitely need child care for this activity and partly because I feel like I can ramp up to 22 miles biking without much problem. I may not be fast, but I can get it done, so time to focus on swimming and strength is probably most important for the next few weeks.

Well, there you have it. My rough plan to return to fitness glory. I don't have a day-by-day plan as I suspect it would be very constricting and bound to fail given Zooey duties. But as long as I get in one work-out most days and two work-outs one or two days, I should be good.

I hope.

Wish me luck.

This is going to be hard.

!