Scottzilla

Not much new to report this week.  Just a few cute pictures.

Scott made his first art project in daycare last week for Valentine's day.  His teacher said he tolerated it.  I of course love it and have it displayed prominently on the refrigerator.  My first piece of mom art.

Also, Scott is NOT a morning person and prefers to sleep in as late as possible.  I caught this scene Saturday morning while Daniel was playing the guitar and Scott was passed out. 

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

He's starting to be a little more smiley, though not reliably so, so I haven't been table to capture it in a photo, and is definitely starting to follow things with his eyes- especially Daniel and I.  I know I say this every week, but it's hard to believe he's already 10 weeks old!

2013 Race Calendar

First a run down of the week's workouts:

Sa- 5mi at 10:20/mile
Su - Shred level 3
M - 4mi at 10/mile
T - 3mi walk
W - 4mi at 9:30/mile, 9:00/mile, 9:30/mile, 9:00/mile, weights at the gym
R - 3mi at 10:30/mile
F - 3mi walk

I'll do 6mi tomorrow, but otherwise next week will be an easy week before I build up again before the Shamrock Shuffle.

Now for the fun part - here are the races I'm thinking about doing this year.  Except for the Syttende Mai and Twilight 10k, all of the are old favorites.

March 17 - Shamrock Shuffle 10k
April 27 - Crazylegs 8k
May 18 - Syttende Mai 10 miler OR May 25/26 Twilight 10k or Madison 1/2 Marathon
August 17 - Madison Mini Marathon
October - Literacy Network 10k
October 26/27 - Haunted Hustle 10k or 1/2 Marathon
Thanksgiving weekend - Berbee Derby 10k

Any locals planning to do any of these races?  Got a suggestion for a race I don't have on the list?

Three Things Thursday

1. Scott had his 2 month old physical on Tuesday.  The doctor was pleased with his weight gain and developmental progress.  Scott was NOT pleased that he had to get 3 shots.  He grabbed my fingers and I held his hands while the nurses did the dirty work.  I had to close my eyes while he was getting stuck, but at least I didn't cry, too.  The rest of the day he was really sleepy and irritable and didn't eat much (I pumped 10oz in one go first thing Wednesday morning!), but he seems to be perking up now.  On the plus side, we found out that he weighed a little more than 11 lbs - almost twice what he weighted when we brought him home from the hospital.

I love this picture

2. I'm not going back to work full-time in March.  I'm going to reduce my hours to 75% time and to in to work Monday, Wednesday and Thursday and make up 6 hours each week at home.  I think it's going to be a good balance of getting out of the house and thinking and having adult interaction while also having time to spend with Scott and do all the house stuff that takes approximately 20 bajillion times longer than it did pre-baby.  I felt like, if I went back to work full-time, I would have spent every second of my time with him getting ready for the next day or week of work and not much time interacting with him and enjoying all the fun and excitement as he grows this first year.  Yeah, it probably means we'll have to dip into our savings for the next couple years, but maybe this is what we were saving for.  Also, I feel so blessed that my boss and coworkers are supportive of the decision and our daycare is flexible enough that we could change Scott's schedule

3. A day in the life of a teenage girl in the late 1990s. (Hat tip, Kerri)

This one took me back.  I did SO MANY of these things down to the "wash your hair with Herbal Essences shampoo and spritz yourself with Gap perfume".  I remember getting so excited for my YM magazine (so much more mature than Teen) and Delia's catalog to come in the mail.  And yes, I spent way too much time re-affixing glow in the dark stars to my ceiling.

It was a simpler time.  Now That's What They Call Music was on volume 1 (up to volume 45 as of February 2013).

"Wasting time on the internet" hadn't been invented yet.

And our versions of the iPod

iPhone

and iPad

were decidedly less cool than the real thing.

Book stuff

There are a lot of activities I enjoy that have either had to be cut back or discard since Scott was born; however, reading hasn't been one of them.  In the past 9 weeks, I've spent A LOT of time with a baby attached to my chest and not much else to do except read - much of it I've done aloud for his "benefit"*.  Here's a snapshot of the books I've read since Christmas:

Turn Right at Machu Picchu by Mark Adams

Part travelogue, part history (think Bill Bryson), the book details a middle-aged adventure magazine editor's trek through the Peruvian Amazon with his surly guide as he learns about the Inca and their incredible public works projects.  I hiked part of the Inka Trail to Machu Picchu when I was a senior in college, and it was fun reading about places I'd visited and learning more about them and their history.  It was a quick, easy, and fun read, although I don't really recommend trying to read it aloud because the Quechua (native Peruvian language) names are impossible to pronounce.

Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey by the current Countess of Carnarvon

This book is about the real Countess of Carnarvon who lived in Highclere Castle (where Downton Abbey is filmed) during the Edwardian era.  She was an amazing woman who, similar to some of the plot lines on the show, became a nurse during WWI and offered her home up to be a hospital for wounded soldiers.  In her spare time, she accompanied her husband on trips to Egypt while he was looking for antiquities.  Sadly she wasn't there when he, along with Howard Carter, discovered King Tut's tomb.  Again, this book was a fun and easy read with lots of cool pictures.  If you like Downton Abbey, I think you'd like this one.

Twelve Hours of Sleep by Twelve Weeks Old - by Suzy Giordano

Blah - I wish I could say I liked this book.  Actually, it wasn't that I didn't like it or think it was good, but for some reason whenever I read a book on parenting advice, my natural reaction is to rebel and do the opposite.  The idea is that by 12 weeks old, a baby is old and hearty enough to get four feedings, four hours apart during the day and sleep for 12 hours at night (plus about 3 hours of napping during the day).  This is good for the baby because he needs that much sleep and good for the family because they need sleep and time to do things that are more difficult to do when the baby is awake.  

While those things are all well and good, my rebellion comes in because it's not just Scott that finds it comforting to be nursed to sleep, I do too (well, I find it comforting to do the nursing), and I truly don't mind feeding him in the middle of the night.  Yeah, waking up after 4 hours makes you tired, but nursing at night is such an intimate (please don't take this in a creepy way) experience that I'd be sad to be done with it.  From reading comments on other blogs, many families have found this book very helpful, but I've decided I'm just going to let Scott continue to do whatever he does and not try to get him onto a schedule (more that we already are).  It might take him longer than 12 weeks to sleep through the night regularly and his naps might not happen with the clock, but I'm okay with that.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John LeCarre

This book was probably the biggest letdown of anything I've read in the last... I don't know how long.  I love British mysteries, and I mistakenly though that that's what this book was going to be.  Instead it was the most un-action-packed action story ever.  The main character, George Smiley, is an agent in the British secret service trying to discover a Russian double agent in their midst.  Sounds cool, right?  Wrong.  Waaaayyyy too many characters are introduced so it takes most of the book before you figure out which ones you are really supposed to care about, the main character discovers the mole, not by doing cool spy stuff, but by holding court for the whole book, and there's not enough character development for you to be surprised or really care once you find out who the mole is.  This is a book that lots of people love, but like The Lord of the Rings, it just wasn't for me.  I do plan to watch the old mini-series with Alec Guiness, though.    

  

Read anything good lately?

*He doesn't seem to care about content so I've just been reading things that are interesting to me.  And thanks to my reading of The Atlantic, he's been exposed to all the bad words.  Can't do that for much longer...

    

Cloth diapers

Before Scott was born, I decided I wanted to use cloth diapers for one single and very important reason: cloth diapers (or at least the covers) are incredibly cute*.

After some back and forth, I decided to use a diaper service rather than committing to the process - and it is a process - poop must be rinsed into the toilet, diapers must be pre-washed before they can be regular washed, etc - of cleaning them myself.  So far I've been happy with it.  Every Monday morning we get re-stocked with 70-80 prefold (flat, old-school) diapers, depending on how many we used the week before.  

And the old ones are carted off to be washed.  

Ew yuck.

The diapers we've been delivered have always been perfectly white and smelled clean without being perfume-y.  Since Scott is 100% breastfed right now, we don't have any trouble with diaper odor, but I'm aware that it might become a problem once he starts to eat solid food.

The "diaper" that is washed and returned by the service is only the inner, absorbent part.  These prefold diapers also need a cover (the cute part) to keep everything in place and keep his clothes from getting wet.  We bought several Best Bottom brand covers from the local diaper store which have about 50 snaps that you can use to size the diaper from "teeny tiny" to "should be potty trained by now".

We also have one cover that only goes up to 18 lbs and some rental covers from the diaper service that are just plain white and we use as back up when our other covers are dirty.  We do wash the covers on our own, but they don't have to be washed every time - only when body fluids get on them or they just start to feel kind of icky.

Before having a baby I had basically no diapering experience and we only used disposables for the short time while we were in the hospital, so I didn't have the preconceived idea that disposable diapers were "easy" and cloth diapers were "hard".  So far I haven't found that to be the case.  Maybe it's because I don't have to do any more work with the cloth diapers than I would with the disposables.  The only really important thing to remember is to make sure ALL of the diaper is contained by the cover.  Gaps by the legs = wet pants.

If you're interested, there's actually a ton of variety in cloth diapers and methods of cleaning them and attaching them to your progeny's lower zones.  You can read here for info on different types of diapers and how to wash them and  YouTube is full of videos of teddy bears having their cloth diapers changed.  The cost of the diaper service is about the same as with disposables, and, yes, we carry around some disposables with us for when we are out and about.  

I see us sticking with cloth diapering/the diaper service for the near future with the possibility of re-evaluating the situation once Scott starts eating real food and his poop starts stinking.  The diaper service provided us with a deodorizing trash can and liners and claims that odor will be controlled between the once a week pick ups, but we'll see...  At that point we'll have to decide if 

1. The smell is not too bad and we can continue with the service as is
2. The smell is bad and we want to go on with cloth diapers but buy our own and wash them more frequently (I have to keep reminding myself that he won't go through 70 - 80 diapers a week for the rest of his life and they won't ALL be pooped in)  or
3. The smell is bad and we want to use disposables

Any opinions on diapers you want to share?  Heard any good poop jokes lately?  Ever think about how many times someone else dealt with your poop when you were little?

*While I'm not the most environmental person in the world (not by a long shot- using cloth wipes, now that's environmentally conscious), seeing how many diapers Scott goes through in a week does make me kind of glad that I'm not adding them to a landfill.  

2 months old!

2 months at a glance:

We tried... he just wasn't having it.

Height/weight:

• Edited to add: 22.25 inches and 11 lbs 3 oz - almost twice his birth weight!  He's now in the 15th percentile for height and 22nd for weight, up from below the 5th percentile for both at his last appointment.

Clothing/diaper sizes:

• 0 - 3 month onesies and pants
• Size 1 diapers
• 6 month sleepers (these are too big now, but the 3 month size are hard to get on his legs)

Loves:

• Looking at lights - particularly the chandelier in the dining room
• His bouncy seat and hitting the little animals that hang down
• His pacifier (sometimes)
• Cuddles
• Having "dance parties" in the afternoon

Hates:

• Waiting to eat
• Getting his nose suctioned out (he's got his first daycare stuffy nose and cough)
• Edited to add: Shots

Working on:

• Smiling socially
• Looking at faces and following things with his eyes
• Grasping things
• Sucking on his hand/fingers for comfort

Running, running, run running, running

It's only been my first week as a (part time) working mom, but I've already had a major change in my thinking about working out.  Before pregnancy, baby, etc., I didn't feel like a workout "counted" unless I put in an entire hour - bonus points if I did more.  Now I'd 100 times prefer to do a quick (30 - 40 min) but hard   workout so I can go on with my day.

I went to the gym to do strength training twice this week during my lunch break, but I felt like that was even too much.  Not too much physically but too much in an "When I'm at work I want to focus on work so when I'm at home I can focus on home/Scott stuff" way.  I do think that strength training makes a huge difference in my running and helps keep me from being injured, but I also think that I can get that from one day in the gym (to do exercises like lat pull-downs, chest press and heavier squats that I really can't do at home) and one day doing Shred (or P90X or the like) at home.

I just want to do what I need to be in shape enough to enjoy running and doing some shorter races - no filler - nothing more.

Workout brain dump:

Sa- 5mi 10:30/mile

Su - Shred level 3

M - 4mi - 2mi at 10:30/mile, 2mi at 9:30/mile + weights

T - 3mi walk

W - 4mi at 9:30/mile + weights

R - 3mi at 10:30/mile

F - 3mi walk    

I haven't registered for it yet, but I'm ready to say that the Shamrock Shuffle 10k will be my first race back post-partum.  I've been doing a little race browsing - stay tuned for next week for my 2013 race calendar.

And now for something completely different (and cute)... dinosaur booties: