Well, today marks precisely one year since we got the positive lines on a pregnancy test and learned that our lives were about to change in a very big way.

I remember calling the Kaiser advice nurse because suddenly I was pregnant and was signed up for a 10K the next day and didn’t know what to do.  She told me it was too bad I couldn’t run it now but it would be worth it in the end.  I hung up and promptly ignored her advice because that’s what I tend to do with advice I don’t like.  Ignore it and it goes away!  Just like that!  It’s a great system.

A year later and I would have to say that we definitely have our hands full!  What did I do to celebrate today?  Baked three pies of course.  What else would the mother of a teething three-and-a-half month old do?

Which brings me to my Thanksgiving Resolution that I need to remember for next year.  When offering to bring something for Thanksgiving, I resolve to immediately punt to the green bean casserole.  I don’t care if the closest I’ve ever come to making it is snacking on the fried onions. It has to be better than offering to bring all the pies and realizing in the middle of the conversation that you’re saying things like, “And do you mind if I bring a caramel apple pie that I make…” and knowing that with those words you can’t even run to the store and cheat if you need to.

So I hearby resolve that elaborate homeade pies can wait until I have no small children in diapers hitting big developmental milestones.

I guess somewhere in my mind I’ve viewed using the nursery as a bad thing, as though there is something highly virtuous about a person who manages to get their small child to sit through church quietly or who bounces the baby around in the back with pacifier in hand to keep the little one quiet.  Now, I will grant that I’ve not only thought about using the nursery so that I can go running (horrible to admit, I know) but am also the woman who wondered, right after giving birth, if I could just leave the sleeping baby, run a mile, come back and check on him, and repeat.  That all checks out as just fine in my mind, but using the nursery so that I can sit through the sermon?  Not so much.

And then we attended a three-day Theology and Philosophy conference with a three-month-old in tow.  That changed everything.  I was just along for the ride at the conference and Isaac was quite literally along for the ride, drooling all over everything from his Baby Bjorn.  I am accustomed to sitting through academic lectures with no problem, in fact, I enjoy it.  Oddly enough, all of this changes when you have a baby.  This meant that, except for when Clint took Isaac, my session choices looked something like this:

Session on human evil and suffering – bouncing around in the doorway and back of the room.

Lady Jerusalem and Lady Wisdom in conversation – late, because you never make it anywhere on time with a baby.

Discovering Relief from our worst pain: The view from the cross and the empty tomb –sitting on the floor with the baby, emergency exit for an unexpected nursing session, and more hanging out in the back during Q and A.

Locating Zoar: An Exercise in Biblical Geography – bopping around outside the doorway, humming and letting Isaac chew on my knuckle.

The Ethical Implications of Birth Control – sitting outside the door while my adorable child who would not keep quiet in the room coos at the ceiling while drooling all over his blanket.

So when I woke up this morning and got both of us ready for church and thought of the nursery I decided it was time.  Because goodness knows, I was ready to sit all the way through something for a change.

We both behaved ourselves; number 52 never flashed up on the screen and I never once had to fumble frantically for a pacifier.  Oh glorious hour and a half!

So apparently all it takes to get me to use the nursery is three days of baby wearing in an academic setting.  Who knew?

when this starts to look like a plausible idea.

Tomorrow we leave for New Orleans where we will be celebrating our third anniversary and attending the annual ETS conference that will forever fall on our anniversary.  I would be excited but for the daunting task of packing for myself (which I hate already) plus a baby that seems to require more of everything because who knows if there will be accidents or blowouts or who knows what kind of disaster.  I guess I will just pile as much into a suitcase as I can and hope it’s enough.

I guess this will serve as our trial run packing for and traveling with an alert baby (Airport layovers, here we come!).  Four days is nothing when I think of the 9 day trip we have coming up at Christmas in California.

I guess if everything gets dirty we can just wrap him in a towel and carry him around the city, right?

Today we’re celebrating Clint’s birthday.  Isaac kicked things off by sleeping entirely through the night again (down at 7:30, dream feeding at 10:00, woke up at 6:45).  That was probably the best present he couldn’t have given his Dad.  I could ramble on and on about my husband, but I will suffice it to say that I’m so glad that he was born!  I love being married to someone who has broadened the way I see everything around me; someone I can laugh with, cry with, and who helps me enjoy the journey when I get too focused on the destination.

Happy birthday, Sweetheart!

So we bought our plane tickets for our Christmas whirlwind tour of family in California (LA, Fresno, and the Bay Area all in 8 full days and 2 travel days… Weeeeeeeee!).  I was certain that in California, home of the many running events every weekend, there would be something near LA on the 19th or something near San Fransisco on the 26th.  There is nothing that I can find and I am so disappointed.  This was going to be my chance to run an event in nice weather, without worrying about getting the right gloves or whether I was wearing too many layers.  I mean really, what is the point of a cross country plane trip if I can’t run somewhere?  I keep hoping that some race planner is just behind this year and hasn’t posted the event, but I might just be out of luck.

This makes me ridiculously sad.  Running an event in sunny weather and shorts… was that too much to ask?

Dear Isaac,

From your first days with us you seemed very alert and observant for one so young.  Now that you’re three months you continue your careful observation of the world around you with an intensity that is slightly unnerving at times.  What do you see when you watch me so intently and what is going through that (enormous) head of yours?  This month, your powers of observation found a voice and also reminded me that you are indeed the product of two very different human beings.  I vaguely recall experts writing about women needing to use more words during the day than men.  Dude, you are so not following that rule!

Hearing you find your voice has been one of the most entertaining and endearing bits of motherhood to date.  The way you catch my eye and begin contorting your mouth to make all of these new noises is a sight not to miss.

You love getting our attention and you love keeping it by “conversing” in some unknown language.  I am willing to say that you know the word “hi” and can actually repeat it back to us.  Of course, when we then move onto hello, salutations, bonjour, and buenos dias you look a little lost.  I did not know that saying things like “ah-goo” were actual developmental milestones, but when I read that fact I was thrilled that you’ve been saying noises like that all month, a feat which effectively weakened my resolve not to cave into the typical goo-goo baby talk.  I tried to get you to do the hi bit here, but you proceeded to not cooperate, although you do look very cute.

Not only are you willing to talk all day but you also find yourself awake and chatty at, say, 4:00 am.  You will then proceed to talk to yourself until you get tired enough to fall asleep.  As cute as this is, the fact that your Pack N’ Play sits right by my ear is leading me to believe that you will be moving to your room soon.  You also talk yourself to sleep at nap time and bed time, sometimes fussing a few minutes and then quieting down and complaining to yourself about how your mean parents want you to sleep again until you drift off to sleep.  Then you wake up talking too, softly at first, then raising the volume until I come and get you.  You rarely cry unless I wait to long, which is nice but which also becomes a game as I start trying to figure out just how much I can get done before you go from happily babbling to roaring Woman get me now!

We’re still working on teaching you that talking with your mouth full is impolite but we haven’t had much success on that front.  I suppose I should just be glad that on those occasions when you both try to air your grievances and eat you haven’t started biting as well.  Let’s put off teething for a bit, okay?

We are still swaddling you but A) you don’t like it much and B) you no longer resemble the cute little eggroll we brought home from the hospital.

You are quite strong now and our attempts to swaddle you are met with immediate resistance as you work your hands out of the wrap and up to your mouth.  Because nothing tastes as good as your hands!  Nothing!  While trying to wriggle out of your bindings you flap your feet up and down, looking like a beached muslin wrapped whale whapping the ground with it’s fin.  It’s pretty funny watching you get so annoyed.

You are a big baby.  I was a little surprised at your two-month appointment to find that you were in the 90% for head size and weight.  I know that it shouldn’t have phased me at all, but it did.  And when you hit 15 pounds the other day… how are you already eating and growing like a teenage boy?!?  You are completely out of the 0-3 month clothes and moving up into the 3-6 month selection like there’s some sort of prize at the end for the fastest grow-er.  You also have the most adorable dimpled thighs… the type you might see in a Ruben’s painting.

I know, I know, someday you will be horribly embarrassed that I ever made the comparison, but they are delightful!  Your size is actually quite nice now that the weather is turning cold.  You keep more of me warm when I snuggle you against me and (I hate to admit this) your head is an endless source of warmth.  This led to your Dad trying to defend you the other day as I rested my hands on your head.  Wait, are you really putting your freezing cold hands on our son’s massive cranium? I think I gave him some answer that involved my giving birth to you and therefore having some right to your warmth.  Something like that.

You are not stingy with your smiles these days.  You are delighted to grin and babble at us, to grin when we pick you up, to smile when I say I love you.  Thus far you seem to have a delightful sense of humor and enjoy being with people.

The latter especially is good, since now that I stay home with you all day I’m more than willing to pass you off to nice people who don’t look like they’ll run off with you.  Fortunately you are good-natured enough to oblige.

Sleep is another thing you do well.  A couple of naps along with a broken up 12 hours at night seem to work well for you.  I’ve discovered that The Baby Whisperer’s “dream feeding” really does exist, and that if I put you down at 7:30 and nurse you at 10:30 without waking you up you’ll let me sleep until 4:30 or 5:00 which is about as blissful as it’s going to get for a while, I think.

At the beginning of this month you didn’t seem to know or care that you have hands.  Somewhere in the past few weeks you discovered they exist and can be used to hold onto things.  Mainly to hold onto things that you’re trying to shove in your mouth.  It’s starting already.  Whenever possible you try to taste things, opening your mouth like a baby bird and trying to eat your rattles, clothing that goes over your head, and the cloth we use to cover you in the middle of a diaper change.

You are so excited to be able to eat your clothes that you no longer struggle during the epic battle to get shirts over your over-sized head.  Instead, you squeal and shiver in delight knowing that the shirt passes right by your mouth and you can catch it as it slides by.  You have also discovered the joy of pulling hair, which is not nearly as funny as watching you try to eat your clothes.

You’re growing up so fast, little guy, that I can hardly believe that you’re the same tiny newborn we brought back from the hospital when we knew nothing about babies and you knew nothing about life.  I love your excitement, when you flail your arms and look like you’re running in place, I love that you think it’s hilarious when I make buzzing noises with my lips and that your response can get me to do that in public without thinking about it, I love it when I’m singing to you and you stop nursing, look at me, and start making noise like you’re trying to sing too, I even like your newest trick of quivering your lips when something goes wrong.  You really are growing up way too fast.

You are, however, still small enough to fall asleep on my lap, and I don’t think that will get old for a very long time.

Love,

Mom

But wait!  There are more pictures that didn’t fit all the words I had!

Cue the William Tell Overture and shoot the arrow at the woman who dared think of taking this picture…

When you really want to get things done, involve the baby.  You don’t seem too keen on playing the piano yet.

Our attempt to introduce you to the joys of literacy was met with the same apathy.  One of these days…

Yesterday marked four years since Clint and I met at the 99 Cent Store.  In my mind, Kelly Clarkson’s song, You Found Me will forever be the song that captures the essence of that meeting and Clint will forever make fun of me for that.  I sort of can’t blame him.

Anyway… we made a day of it in Ann Arbor, complete with Mongolian BBQ (YUM!), used books, and Starbucks.  There was also a U of M game that day and I have never in my life seen so many people wandering the streets in blue and yellow.  It was a little creepy.

Then we came home and I ended up running a 102 degree fever.  Not the best end to such a great day, but that still didn’t detract from the fact that I’m so glad he found me in the candy aisle four years ago.

I feel like this post should have some sort of disclaimer that this is from the perspective of someone who has been body and weight conscious for a long time and had (has?) some unrealistic expectations of both weight gain during pregnancy and loss afterward.  I don’t want it to sound as if I’m obliviously complaining about being so close to my original weight so soon after being pregnant.  This is just my experience and the thoughts (good or bad) that accompanied it.  I didn’t know going into this that you really could feel and look normal again (even though people told me you could) after having a baby.  To all the people who told me that, you were right.

There’s the disclaimer, for what it’s worth.

So at twelve weeks, I figure it’s time to address the whole post-baby weight loss.  I know, you were all wondering when I’d get around to that, right?  Especially since I feel like I was trying to figure how to get the pregnancy weight off before I even gained it (Oh wait, that’s because I was…).  I have to say that I don’t regret at all keeping close tabs on my weight and measurements, partly because I’m neurotic about that, but partly because I think what our bodies do for us and in spite of us during pregnancy is fascinating.  If I could go back a year and talk to my newly pregnant self I think I’d tell me to not stress out as much about how much I gained per week, that it would all even out eventually, and that someday soon my body would feel quite normal again.  Of course my pregnant self would have brushed me off and burst into tears, but it would be worth a try.

So all you pregnant women out there, don’t stress out, okay?  And don’t compare yourself to every other pregnant woman out there either.  If I had a quarter for all the times I googled “weight gain at X weeks” I’d be rich.  It didn’t help much either, because there was the whole range of weights that women were at and my body could care less about the info on google.  It would do what it wanted thankyouverymuch.  It didn’t matter how many stories I heard about how many pounds people gained (a friend of mine wasn’t able to run during her pregnancy and gained 16 pounds and lost it all in a week – how is that fair?) none of those stories were good for anything except anecdotal information.

Now I know that articles like this advocate the whole nine months on, nine months off, philosophy.  And for what it’s worth, my doctor told me at 6 weeks postpartum that breastfeeding keeps an additional 6-7 pounds on you, for about a year.  So in light of all of this helpful information I figured I would be back to normal in, I don’t know, maybe six weeks at the most.  Because I’m fairly rational like that.

A note to all the still pregnant women.  Let go of all of your post-baby weight loss fantasies now, it will be much easier in the long run.

I did not, and I spent nearly nine months gaining weight and wondering just how quickly my body would lose it.  I’m not kidding about fantasies either.  I spent the nine months when I could have visualized, when I would have been allowed to visualize, in great detail, the ice cream sundae I wanted to eat, thinking about if somehow I would gain weight while pregnant and then never lose it.  Kingdoms may rise and fall but God forbid I not lose the pregnancy pounds.  Isn’t funny when we realize how seriously we take things that just aren’t that serious at all?

I have to admit that it was somewhat disorienting finishing up my first 6 weeks postpartum and having to learn to live with myself not quite back to normal.  Six weeks seemed like such a long time I thought by the end I would be my old self and all things pregnancy related would have passed.

Or not.

Those pesky fantasies that I kept sequestered in the back of my mind were so well concealed that I didn’t really realize they were there I found myself very disappointed.  Who knew that in the back of my head I secretly hoped that I would give birth, immediately drop all 22 pounds of pregnancy weight, and then drop another 15 pounds while not exercising and eating at least 2500 calories a day.  Of course this all would happen in the first six weeks and I would say to people around me, “I had no idea it would all be this easy.”  Yeah, that is seriously what I hoped postpartum life would look like.

It was not like that at all.  In fact, I think I liked my two weeks postpartum self better that I liked the me at seven weeks.  I liked my stomach better.  I liked how quickly I was within just s few pounds of 129.  And then… nothing.  Not a thing.  I exercised and ate balanced diet and could not get closer than 3-5 pounds away.  Talk about frustrating, aggravating and discouraging.  I was sure I’d be one of those people who would drop all the weight but be unable to fit in my clothes.  Instead, I could fit into all my clothes within a week but couldn’t for the life of me get the last few pounds off.  I knew that was a possibility with breastfeeding that my body would hold onto a little bit of the weight, but it just seemed wrong on so many levels to eat less, run 10 miles, and not see any changes.  Oh, cruel universe.  My body’s seeming inability to lose the weight also coincided with our move to Michigan, which immediately made me think that just by moving to the state of delicious casseroles I would somehow never lose the weight.  All I had to do was think of a casserole topped with Ritz crackers and butter and those pounds would be permanently on my body.  I am so rational, aren’t I?

Well, my worries were unfounded.  I sort of stopped stressing out and kept eating well and at exactly eleven weeks postpartum found myself back at my pre-pregnancy weight, doing my first tempo workout (4 miles at a 7:45 pace) since I’d found out we were pregnant last November. I came home from that run finally feeling normal.  At twelve weeks I’m a few pounds below where I started and feeling like I can breathe a sigh of relief.  The pounds really do come off!  Maybe I’ll come back and read this next time around, just to remind myself.

(Pregnant ladies, please please please let go of all expectations right now….)

So there you have one person’s experience of the fun postpartum weight loss roller coaster ride.  Now the question is, as a runner, where to go next…

Yesterday Isaac turned twelve weeks old.  We were sitting on the couch, talking, after he toddled his way over to the scale so that we could discover that he weighs 15 pounds (15!?!).

I asked him if, after being out the womb for twelve weeks, he had anything he wanted to say to the world at large.

First, he wanted to let you all know that cottage cheese thighs are making a comeback and everyone will be sporting them soon, just in time for the Christmas season.

He also wanted to let you know that he really hates tummy time, but has a modified motto that he uses.  When the going gets tough, the tough shove their fist in their mouth as far as it will go and suck it for all it’s worth.