Seriously?! Seriously?!

Getting Better

2012-02-13T10:07:00.003-05:00

I think we are on the mend. I ended up getting a bit sick but it was very short lived and actually don't know if it was related to what P had or to baby 2 hitting a nerve in my back that shut me down on Friday. Although P is still a bit on the cranky side, I think she is definitely feeling better. The stellar parents that we are gave our child cookies and ice cream for dinner last night since she wouldn't eat hardly anything and the medication she has to take she has to take with food. But she needs the calories too after not eating much for the last week. This morning though she took down a whole nutragrain bar plus a few bits of banana and then ate cheerios at school when she got there which is a good sign.

Still no pictures from me...but I did get a picture sent from daycare this morning as they decided to try out a ponytail in her hair (she won't keep bows in):

Getting Sick

2012-02-08T13:55:00.002-05:00

As long as P has been around, she has been really healthy. Hardly ever getting sick, only a few times really getting high fevers, really only a few trips to the doctor for sick type things in almost 19 months. Unit this past week. Last Wednesday she had a fever at daycare so I left work to pick her up. No other symptoms for 5 days but an up and down fever. I thought she was done with this virus on Monday so I sent her to daycare hoping she would make it through the day, but no, she ran a fever and had to go get her. Luckily, I had made an appointment for the doctor in the afternoon anyway just because I wanted to double check. Lo and behold, ear infection. First one, which is apparently pretty good at 19 months old.

Monday night antibiotics and yesterday EZ stayed home with her, by the time I got home she seemed pretty good and happy. Very playful in bath and everything. Good deal I thought, maybe I would stay home half a day today with her and then take her in if things were going good. As I laid her down to sleep in her bed she threw up all over the crib. Yikes, she was a bit scared, but ok after I gave her a little water. First thought was the medicine, or just too much milk with running around and guzzling bath water.

An hour later she cried out and I looked on the monitor and she was standing there in her crib, then she roamed around and laid down on the opposite side and I pointed out to EZ it looked like she had thrown up again based on the colorings on her bed. We head up there and holy cow, she had thrown up a couple times, over the side of the crib and in the crib, walked around in it, everything. Man oh man, we got her up, cleaned her up switched the sheets and wiped down as much as we could and she went back to sleep. At 1am she cried out again and everything got repeated as she had thrown up again...clean up, new sheets, pjs, ect.

Luckily that was the last time she did and she hasn't done it again. I spend the morning disinfecting her room and doing lots of laundry. Called in to the daycare and they said there is some stomach bug going around. And I thought to myself, really...she was there for only 6 hours on Monday and somehow picked up this bug.

So after 19 months, we had our real first bout of sickness (besides common colds, ect), ear infection doubled on top with a stomach bug. I still have to remember how lucky we are that it too this long!

Must repeat again...I pray that baby #2 is as great as P! :)

9 more weeks

2012-02-06T15:35:00.002-05:00

Wow...how did it already get to be 9 weeks until due date for baby #2. I'm not at all prepared for what is about to happen again. Not ready for the no sleeping again and breastfeeding. I am fully prepared though for baby 2 to probably not be the "angel child" that P is. I can honestly say, I feel very fortunate that P is so laid back and easy going. So cooperative and happy (98% of the time). All of this makes me think that baby #2 is probably not going to be so easy. I can always hope that we could be one of the lucky ones that get two easy kids though right??

I'm still running/jogging a few times a week and trying to walk on days I don't run. I have more pressure and uncomfrtableness than I did with P but the doctor says that is very common with the second pregnancy. P's new room is painted and we just got a dresser to put in there and ordered a few things. I plan on moving her into a new room and then having her room (since nothing has changed) be the new nursery. We also caved in a bought a minivan. Never thought I would be one to drive a minivan but they are super practical for little kids.

As for P, she is growing lots and lots. I feel like she says new words everyday. She loves crackers and hot dogs, loves to read books (or have books read to her) and color and loves to go to the park and swing and go down the slides. She also likes sitting on her own chair at the kitchen table with us so we are planning on switching to a booster seat and getting rid of the high chair until baby #2 needs it. Stills loves baths and blowing bubbles and getting water dumped on her head. I feel terrible, as I haven't taken any pictures since xmas of her....will have to change that soon!

Potty Training and Other News

2012-01-25T15:09:00.004-05:00

At daycare P has been interested in the bathroom and for most of the month of December he sheet at school would say that she tried to use the toilet. We were super impressed by this, I guess when you see other kids doing it, you do it too right...peer pressure. After the holidays we decided we would casually introduce it at the house. Really we just have one right next to the bath tub that we started sitting her on before and after baths and then I try in the mornings to put her on it when she gets up before we get dressed. That is how most days goes.

Last week she actually used it for the first time and then since Friday has gone at least once in every day, even at school. She isn't really telling us she has to go, we just sit her on it and she will sometimes go and she gets super excited that she actually went. We still aren't pushing it at all, but it is fun to watch the progression. I have no hopes/expectations for her to be potty trained by the time baby 2 comes in a couple months.

Her language is really progressing it seems at rapid speed now. Lots of new words and constantly trying to say a word for something. I still love that she wont say horse, but just "neigh" and wont say sheep but just "baa" and typically cow is just "mmmm", and monkey is "ee-ee". Although when I ask her where a certain thing like a horse is in a picture, she points to it (and then says neigh). New words are blueberry (booberr) and cheese, hot dog, pig, fish, boots, pants, shirt, but "ta-tas" is still my favorite for cracker.

I'm still working out. Some days are better than others. I was running quite a bit a month ago, but that has slowed down. Incorporating a lot more walking into my runs and it varies on the day with how I feel. This morning I ran/walked 4 miles but ran probably 3.5 miles of it and only walked 1/2 mile. What is interesting is that I am much faster than I was at this stage of my pregnancy with Piper. I am still running sub 10 min pace, somewhere now between 9:30-9:45 which I am super thrilled with.

We still haven't picked a name for baby 2. But might be narrowing down the list...just over 10 weeks now to go. Crazy.

18 month Update

2012-01-19T11:24:00.004-05:00

P had her 18 month check up earlier this week. We are 24 lbs (50th %) and 32 inches tall (also 50%). And I'm a bit late on uploading photos from the holidays. So here we go...

Unwrapping my gift from Great Grandma and and playing with the blocks!

My Christmas outfit and a close up:

With the nieces in NY:

Opening presents at Papa's:

Amelia reading to P:

Uncle Ethan (or E-E as P calls him) reading to the girls:

A took P for a few rides on her new jeep:

My sis and I bought matching running shirts and ran a bit while up in the cold...and here is evidence that yes I really am preggers:

Bit Behind

2012-01-13T11:35:00.002-05:00

I have been meaning to post about xmas but have been busy and lazy and I just keep forgetting to bring the picture card from the camera to work and usually don't bring my laptop home from work to upload photos. Oh well.

We had a nice 11 day trip to visit both families. P was an angel in the car. One of us sat in the back with her to keep her happy and entertained, but it was worth it to have a 12 hour trip, then a 7 hour trip and then 14 hour trip all go smoothly! We spent xmas with EZ's family in Buffalo and then drove to see my family in Michigan for New Years. P loved running around with all the cousins. I think she is going to like being a big sister (after little sister grows up a bit to play with).

She has started becoming very vocal. Lots of words now all the time, some make sense and some don't, but she is babbling away like she has lots to say. Last night she stated she wanted blueberries which came out somewhat like boobare but I actually realized that was what she was saying. And this morning, she found a heart label on one of the insoles of her shoes and kept saying heart. We haven't ever even used that word yet and she seems to know it (thanks daycare!) She still loves playing peek and boo and is such a fun easy going toddler. She really has a good time and makes me laugh.

We started using the potty this past week too. Not enforcing it by any means, but we put her on it as we get ready for bath at night and then right after. She has actually gone in it twice, but she still doesn't recognize that is what she is doing. We weren't planning on doing this so soon, but most days when I get her report at daycare it says she has tried to use the potty, so we figure we might as well start using it a bit at home too to enforce that.

She also has become super picky on the eating front. She use to be such a great eater and now, she could eat something one day and love it and the next day she won't touch it. Her favorite food right now is crackers (which she says "ta-ta's" for which I find funny).

I'm still cruising along...almost 28 weeks. Are we ready for number 2, absolutely not! I guess we still have about 3 months to get ready!

GF Cookies

2011-12-22T15:06:00.004-05:00

I baked a bunch of GF cookies over the last few days to bring to the families for the holidays. Here is what I made and my thoughts:

Crockpot Chocolate Peanut Clusters- These made A TON. Holy cow. I did use some butterscotch chips and white chocolate chips in place of 1 bag of the regular chocolate chips. These are yummy and addicting and would be great for any occasion.

White Chocolate Peppermint Crisps-This I kind of just made on the fly. I usually make peppermint bark with White chocolate chips and candy canes, just melt the chocolate down and stir in the crushed up candy canes and spread it on a flat pan to cool, then break apart. This time, I threw in some GF rice krispies and dropped little spoonfuls on parchment paper to cool. These are super super sweet, but fun for the holidays.

Oatmeal Butterfinger Cookies-I got this recipe off of Gluten Free Cookie Swap on facebook. Currently they are having their GF cookie contest, so I saw these and thought I would try them out. I really like them. They are a little crunchy but good. EZ however didn't care for them all that much. Here is the recipe:
1/2c butter [room temperature]
1/2c sugar
1/2c brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup Jules GF Flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/3 c gluten free oats
1 Butterfinger candy bar [the big kind!]
MAKES ~ 2 DOZEN (adapted from bakingbites.com)

1) Preheat the oven to 350 and line a baking sheet with parchment paper
2) Cream the butter and sugars together
3) Beat in the egg then the vanilla extract
4) In a separate bowl whisk the flour + baking soda + baking powder + salt together
5) On low, mix the flour mixture into the butter mixture then add in the oats
6) Add in the Butterfinger (after mashing it into tiny bits with a hammer outside [the hammer part and outside part is optional])
7) Drop 1 inch balls 1.5 inches apart on the baking sheet and bake 10-13 minutes until brown on the edges

Fantastic 5 cookies-Again from the GF Cookie Swap. These were by far the simplest to make as there is hardly anything in them, I choose to use hershey kisses to make them like PB blossoms, and they are decent. Some people said they were the best cookies they had ever had, and one of my friends loved them. I thought they fell apart pretty easily but had a decent taste.

1 c. creamy peanut butter
1c. brown sugar
1 egg lightly beaten
1 tsp baking soda
1c. chocolate chips, reeses pieces, m&m's or other chips. (you can also choose to not put the chips in and top with a hershey kiss or reeses peanut butter cup immediately after taking them out of the oven.)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix all ingredients together with a spoon until blended. (Do not use a mixer). Drop by spoonfuls (size depends on you) onto a greased cookie sheet. Cook 9-10 minutes. Let cookies cool before removing from cookie sheet.

Monster Cookies-I grew up making these with my mom and still have the recipe. My mom's recipe is practically identical, hers called for a little more peanut butter and a little more M&M's plus a bit of corn syrup. I took Paula's recipe and made it with only 4 cups oats as that all I had and did half as is with the recipe, then followed my friends advice and added a bit of cinnamon and added raisins and made the rest. This recipe made 7 dozen regular sized cookies even though she said it only makes 3 doz. I have a lot of these too but wow are they super good and so easy to make GF by using GF oats. Yum.

I also made a recipe for Banana Blueberry Muffins out of the book "Free for all Cooking" By Jules Shepard that my sister gave me for my bday. These are wonderful too! Oh man, I must admit, these are the best GF muffins I have had, SOOOO light and fluffy. Yummy. I have made a few things out of this book and so far all have been superb! Highly recommend it for any allergy issues. She has recipes for all sorts of allergy free dishes not just GF but vegan and eggs, nuts, ect. It is a great book so far!

Alright, enough about food! Happy Holidays!!

Ramblings at 24 Weeks

2011-12-19T12:17:00.004-05:00

How did I already end up at 24 weeks pregnant and plus a huge amount of weight, I don't know. Last week at the doctor when I stepped on the scale I had gained 10 lbs in the last month. I about lost it. I never had that much of a jump with P but the doctor didn't seem to care. Since then, I have worked out every day (but still have been eating cookies and ice cream.) :) I thought running was going to go out the window, but I am still able to run 3/4 miles 3/4 times a week. And managing to run 9:15-9:30 pace most days which is impressive to me for as much weight as I have packed on.

P still has no concept of what is going to happen. I finally said to her there is a baby in mama's belly the other day, but she could care less I think. She is happy as can be and is lots of fun. Running around and babbling up a storm. The talking is coming very slowly. She definitely says mama, dada, piper, all gone (all ga), more (she signs this too), papa, go, car (ca), dog (da), cat (kind of), bye, hello, hi. and tries to say a few other words for people she knows like her friends at school and in the neighborhood. She can also sign a few words too like please, more, baby. The cutest thing is her trying to say I love you which you can tell she says the I and love part but doesn't get you.

And she can do a few animal sounds, cow (which she only does mmmmm), bear (grrrrr) and lion (roar). Quite fun.

I finally finished up the semester of 4 tues/thur classes which was exhausting. My spring though will be super nice. Just one class that will meet 3 days a week but only for 8 weeks, so I am done at the beginning of March. It is a brand new class, but having only one will be super nice. I am hoping to get two papers written and submitted to be published though before baby number 2 arrives.

Last up a few photos:

Having fun in my new P sized chair:
Hello:
I can fit inside a file box:
Loves to read:
Close up:

Helping decorate the tree:

Photo Shoot

2011-12-02T11:37:00.006-05:00

We had a mini photo shoot at the end of October and got some great photos with Two Clicks Away Photography. Here are a few (minus the one we actually used on our xmas card so it can be a surprise). How can you not love her!

Happy Thanksgiving

2011-11-26T09:48:00.004-05:00

We have a lot to be thankful for, too much to even list. Sometimes when things get stressful or things are not going great, I become too self absorbed to step back and say that these are all little petty things that don't matter in life. It is always good to get a reality check sometimes that we have jobs and a house and can feed our family all of which all healthy. For all of that...Thanks.

Odds and Ends

2011-11-15T11:01:00.002-05:00

It got really cold out the other weekend so we found a beanie that we put on P and headed to the park. Our weekends usually consist of lots of park time and outside playing. And as usual she enjoyed it.

It has been warm though yesterday and today and today was grilled cheese and tomato soup day at school (yes, how does a 1 year old eat soup...) so we needed to send her in something that could handle lots of mess. Turn out she needed to wear her Math shirt...love it! Yes, I am a dork I know.

Last but not least...tomorrow is the big day. We find out if baby number two is a boy or girl. Yup thats right for those of you who didn't know I'm preggers again. Baby 2 due date is April 9th. P will be a big sister in just 5 months! Yikes!

Not Nice

2011-11-10T17:09:00.003-05:00

At daycare, they try to avoid using the word No, and we try to as well at home. Instead when a child does something like hit or push or bite another child, they said "Piper that is not nice." And then they would say something like "Laurie, tell Piper that is not nice." (if she had hit me or something).

Now we have yet to use this at home, and no P doesn't ever get sent home with a report that she is hitting/biting or anything. But I have witnessed other kids doing this when I drop her off or pick her up. The other day, P was chasing Killer around and pulling his tail and we told her that that was "not nice". She immediately pointed to the cat and said "not nice" (is P language, which sounds more like nah nye), and she even shakes her finger a bit and her head. It is quite funny. We tried not laughing and explaining that Kitty was being nice, that is was her that was not nice. But that didn't work. Now, sometimes she just points to the cat and says "nah nye". It cracked me up last night in the middle of dinner when the cat walked by and there she goes. Too cute.

Halloween 2011

2011-11-01T11:18:00.005-04:00

Luckily my sister gave us Amelia's old costume, so we reused and put it on little P. She had a blast walking around outside seeing her friends. And then just took to sitting on the porch with us and we let her have her first sucker, a dum dum, which she did quite well at. Many people said she could be either a monkey or a bear...either way, she was quite cute!

Pumpkin Picking Farm

2011-10-26T13:38:00.004-04:00

We headed out to a local farm that has animals and a tractor ride, a little maze, some bubbles and a pumpkin patch. P seems so shy when we take her places she has never been. It takes her a while to warm up to any place.

Styling in the wagon:

Oh, goats! Even though we went in to pet them (along with other animals) she didn't want to touch them. :)

Close up in the hay on the tractor ride:

Walking through the maze (she loved the flowers)

Lots of pumpkins:

This is the one I picked:

It is so funny that she doesn't smile in new places. We thought for sure she would be excited to see the animals since she loves looking at books and points out the cow and goat and horse and chickens and everything. She is very go with the flow though and while hesitant she still just follows along with what we are doing. But get her in an environment she knows, like at home or at the playground and she is smiles galore. Last night she was miss chatterbox too and actually said dada and mama correctly and attempted kitty. We are making progress. :)

Back to the Beach

2011-10-21T11:25:00.005-04:00

We headed to the beach for a few days and we had perfect weather. Highs in the low 80's and sunny, it was beautiful. P had tons of fun!

Claire and P riding the bike:

Loved being in the sand:

Walking around with dada:

Played in the tidal pools and had lots of fun:

She thought it was fun to have the waves crash into her:

I love the beach:

Family photo:

In brief other news: She had her 15 month check up and is in the 90th percentile for height and in the 50th percentile for weight. She seems to be interested in trying to talk a little and can repeat some sounds pretty well or she tries. Typically her response to anything is "dah".

Fun on the farm

2011-10-13T15:03:00.003-04:00

Little P turns 15 months old today. The words are coming very slow, but she seems to be making progress with mama and dada and doing them correctly along with trying to say other words and sounds. She still loves reading books and we sometimes read about 10-15 a night which hanging out. She has become more picky with foods and gets a bit crazy at the table when she doesn't want what is on her plate. She has started to figure out the spoon pretty well and the fork is slow, doesn't quite understand the stabbing part. She also has decided that all her teeth should come in now so we have the top and bottom molars working their way through (which leaves us with cranky P).

We headed to a fall farm last weekend with some friends. I didn't have my camera, so thanks to them, they took some cute pictures of P!

Crawling through the tunnel:

P and J:
Riding in the cow train:

Wanted to ride again: (looks like she had more fun with him!)

Charlotte

2011-10-03T12:09:00.004-04:00

We went to Charlotte the other weekend to visit some friends of ours. We had a good time.

Claire teaching Piper about acorns....promptly followed by P then wanting to eat the acorns:

We headed to the playground at the park and they both enjoyed running around:

Then we had a battle of who could make it down the slide first (they both seem super excited here)

Then we tried out a helicopter carnival ride. After putting them both in the ride, EZ pumped them up with a few high fives:

And they were off...as they went around, we kept saying "yeah" and clap your hands, so of course they did...

Pictures

2011-09-21T14:28:00.005-04:00

Been meaning to post some photos, so here we go...Enjoy some of P's crazy outfits too!

Piper has learned how to give kisses (and blow kisses too):

Love bouncing on balls!

We went to see some cows...although she didn't seem that interested.
The chickens were a little more exciting:
Fun outside riding our little scooter:

We can get by with old oatmeal cylinders as toys and use them for stacking toys inside and then dumping them out:
Love clapping our hands (and stomping our feet too):

Happy girl:

It's fun to climb into the play kitchen's oven!
Styling in my sunglasses:

Go Blue:
Learning how to throw the football:
We headed to the carousel festival last weekend...two days in a row....Piper was unsure of the carousel:

Loves the window...and I just had to post this of her angle outfit with tutu (which is actually a pajama set we got as a gift but we chose to wear it as clothes even out to the carousel festival in the previous pic!)

14 month Stats

2011-09-15T12:19:00.003-04:00

Piper just turned 14 months. And we are slowly progressing in the verbal department. I am still not quite convinced that she can say mama and dada even though she can say the words, actually using them correctly is a very different story. But she is starting to try and repeat sounds when we ask her. They don't quite sound the same, but you can tell she is trying to change her sounds.

On the flip side, waving hello and bye are things she loves to do and she has started blowing kisses to us at night when we tell her we love her. She also has started to sign more and eat. But only using more when I ask her if she wants more and only signing eat once I ask her if she wants to eat. I don't think she has figured out that if she signs it first then I would understand. She also has a huge level of understanding that sometimes blows my mind. She is obsessed with books and pointing at things and us telling her what they are. So now basically we ask her where things are and she will point to them. She can even see a picture of the same things like a fish and be able to pick it out in different colors or forms or whatever.

She finally got some more teeth. She sprouted two more that are almost done on the bottom to make a total of 4 on the bottom and she has one that is slowly coming in on the top to make 3 on the top. She is not a fan of a lot of foods now either. I have a feeling a lot of it is the texture now as she used to eat just about everything. But she is not a fan of rice or anything like it at all. And many vegatables now are thrown on the floor-carrots for one she used to like and now won't touch them. Currently we are on a peas, broccoli, and corn mix and that is it for the veggies.

She got sent home from daycare on Monday for being sick...and she has a bit of pinkeye. At the doctor they weighed her and she is a whopping 21lbs. She is also starting to show lots of frustration when something doesn't go her way. This could be if we aren't getting her down out of her highchair fast enough when she is done eating, or when she is trying to put a shape in a hole of some toy and she can't get it to fit right. She gets upset and cries/whines, but then she tries it again. Very interesting how physical and problem solving oriented she is and could care less about really communicating. She wants to climb up stairs on the playground and slide down the big slides. She loves climbing up on the couch or chairs, and throwing balls in the house to see how far they go and then running after them. Lots of fun.

I'll post pictures in a few days!

GF Food

2011-09-07T09:34:00.002-04:00

I've been on a mission lately of creating some good GF foods that I have missed. The other night I made my own teriyaki sauce using equal parts soy sauce (La Choy is GF or you can use Tamari sauce) and brown sugar with a little bit of rice wine vinegar and it turned out really good.

This morning I made my own Cream of Chicken condensed soup to put in the crockpot with some chicken and rice and celery. It was super easy and I know it is not only GF, but so much healthier for you then the canned stuffed which has so much added stuff. Here is the recipe I used.

I also will be making these cheesecake cookie and cream desserts this weekend which I am super excited about and I think I might try making donut holes soon too, since I really miss those.

All in all, eating GF hasn't been that hard, but there are things I do miss...mainly some good yummy cake or cupcakes and a lot of asian food. Now I have to make it all at the house which is fine, but sometimes it would be nice to be able to go out to eat some not so good for me asian take out!

Falling Behind

2011-08-28T12:30:00.005-04:00

Yes, it has been awhile...things just got busy! I started back at work almost 2 weeks ago and since then, it has been nonstop go go go. Piper seems to be adjusting to the full blown daycare and everything which is good. I was a mess the first few days she was there but I am feeling better and better about it now.

As for stats on PZ, we totally think she is close to talking. Finally saying mama and dada and directly it at us sometimes. Although she still does say mama or dada to other things too. We have mastered the wave for hello and goodbye, and loves to clap her hands and stomp her feet and dance (shake back and forth). Yesterday she signed more for the first time and we think she actually meant it. We also think she is trying to say "all done" and "up" and "ball" but not completely. All of the communication stuff has all happened in the last couple days.

Her top two teeth in the front are maybe halfway down, they are moving super slow. But she does pretty good chewing with just her two bottom teeth and those two on top and it looks like she might be cutting two more on the bottom too.

She is still super active, running around nonstop and is very into reading books (or having us read them to her). After 10 times of the same book though, it isn't so fun for me! And she also has started whining. If she wants something or wants our attention she will start to whine until we help her. This is not a good habit! I haven't even taken many pictures in the last month, but we did take a few of her at the pool. She absolutely loves the water and wants to go in as far as she can barely keeping her head above the water. She seems to have no fear at all which is fun and scary at the same time!

Still love the laundry basket:
Clapping our hands:

Updates

2011-08-09T15:40:00.002-04:00

Lots of stuff happening...EZ climbed Mt. Rainer and had a blast, I just came back from a math conference in Kentucky and have started getting everything together for classes. It always comes up so fast.

Our daycare/nanny is moving up north to NH where she is from which has caused me a serious amount of stress over the last month. Trying to decide what is best for P (and any future kids) is hard for me. In the end she because of circumstances, she will start at a real daycare next week. I know she will be fine but in some location in my mind I feel like I am not as good of a mother because of it. Why, I don't know.

In Piper news...she still is not saying any words yet. But she finally has started waving Hi and occasionally Bye, and she just started clapping her hands (sometimes). And now she will give you a kiss (or at least she will give EZ and I a kiss). It is quite cute. She increasingly understands more and more which is great but it will be nice once she says Mama or Dada.

I should post pictures, but need to take some. Hopefully soon!

The Beach

2011-07-27T21:40:00.007-04:00

P and I headed down to Ocean Isle Beach for 5 days while EZ is off climbing Mt. Rainer. I met up with two other women and each of their children (Claire who is almost 1 1/2 and Elliot who is 11 months). It was fun to hang out at the beach, get a little sun, run a little, eat some amazing homemade ice cream, and just relax a bit.

Piper absolutely LOVED the beach. She wanted to run around, play with the sand, run in the water, just about everything possible. She did not want to just sit still. She kept getting mad that I wouldn't let her go deeper into the ocean and she loved having the waves "crash" into her! It was lots of fun. We typically aren't beach people, but I think after this, seeing how much she had fun, we will have to go back!

Some Photos:

Getting 3 little ones to all look at a camera is impossible, but here is a few attempts:

On the Beach

Styling with our shades

Cozy on the Couch

And my all time favorite of P and C...you can't beat their expressions!

Party Time

2011-07-18T19:59:00.006-04:00

We threw P a little party. It was fairly simple, as in we had the sprinklers going and a few kiddie pool type things that the kids could run around in. There were a lot of people though. We debated on whether or not to even throw a party and as I was running the other day thinking about things, I realized that life is too precious to not celebrate. I don't know how many days I will have with P, so we should celebrate her life.

She had her 12 month check up today and she weighs in at 19.8lbs (25th percentile) and is 29 3/4" long (75th percentile). And she is happy as can be.

Here are a few photos from the party:

Playing in the kiddie pool

Hmmm....cupcakes???

Double fisting the cupcakes:
Presents:

We had a great time and were so happy to share the joy with our friends!

Happy Birthday

2011-07-15T12:48:00.004-04:00

Our little sweetness turned 1 on Wednesday. How quickly this year has gone by it seems. We did nothing exciting, and in fact I had an endoscopy done to check on my progress since being diagnosed with Celiacs (and in the 5 months of being on the diet, apparently my insides are happy and almost all healed up).

Some 1 year stats: We are pretty much eating anything and are in the middle of transitioning to whole milk (yeah no more formula) and to a sippy cup (yeah no more bottles). Right now she is about 2/3 whole milk and 1/3 formula in her bottles and we are split with 2 bottles and 2 sippy cups. She has been trying to get two more teeth for like a month now. They are moving so slowly. Eventually she might have 4 teeth!

She is running around like a little champ. And is a very busy person. Loves to look at books and point at stuff. She still isn't talking, not even saying mama or dada. She does babble a lot and she knows some sign language (milk, eat, all done), but won't sign back anything. It seems as if she knows a lot of words and can point to her belly button, toes, hair, or find her Pooh Bear, or blanket, or a ball. If I ask her to close a door or cabinet, she will push it close. She knows that when we say "yucky" or "dangerous" to stop what she is doing.

She also understands a lot about how things work. If she wants to go outside, she goes to the door and points at the doorknob. She points to the keypad on our garage to get the garage door open so she can get some toys when we are outside. Last night, EZ told her it was time to take a bath and she went over to the stairs and pointed up the stairs, so he opened the gate and she climbed up them and then went to the bathtub.

I am really impressed by how much she seems to know and understand but it is still a little frustrating that she hasn't said any words, or that she won't wave bye bye or hi. We really have been working for like 6 months on that and nothing. Oh well. In due time. What she will do is give you a high five (but only if she is in a swing), or put her finger to yours like E.T.

Little P is a wonderful baby and I feel so blessed to have her as my daughter. Here are a few photos that we took on her actual birthday:

Learning about numbers

E.T. phone home and our first encounter with spaghetti.

Buffalo-Part 2

2011-07-12T12:10:00.001-04:00

We had a great time with EZ's family with some celebratory July 4th picnic fun!

Learning how to play cornhole!

Crawling through our makeshift tunnel with Ella

Anna teaching P how to ride a tricycle

Karleigh was super fun!

Buffalo-Part 1

2011-07-11T11:42:00.005-04:00

After MI, we headed through Canada to Buffalo to see the Zack's. The beautiful weather continued and we had a wonderful time. Piper loved all the playgrounds!

We loved the school bus!

Yeah! Grandma has a piano too!

Slides are so fun!

Why am I riding on Clifford?

Tractors!

Fun with Grandma

Oh the joy of playgrounds!

Michigan Part 3-TVC

2011-07-06T10:20:00.005-04:00

We had fun up north in Traverse, hanging out with my sister and her family. Amelia and Piper seemed to have fun together and Piper just loved chasing her around.

Bubbles!

Checking out the baby chicks

Getting a ride

Getting ready to go outside!

Playing together

Amelia showing P how the puddles work

Oh...this is fun!

Ahh...I'm all dirty now!

Yum Yum

Michigan Part 2-Bath Time

2011-07-03T20:03:00.002-04:00

While at Papa's house, we took a bath in the jet tub. Man oh man did little P have fun.

Facial:

Getting soaked:

My favorite:

Post bath smiles:

Michigan Part 1

2011-07-01T15:38:00.006-04:00

I have been gone with Piper for almost two weeks now. I drove up to my dads by myself with P. Suprisingly, she handled the trip fairly well. I made stops at places that had playgrounds and let her run around and burn off some energy. Thankfully, EZ will be helping me with the drive home in a few days. We took a few bad falls (you can see some brusing on her left cheek from a hard crash into the coffee table) but had lots of fun. Here's some photos from Papa's house...

I love tennis balls!

Funny Faces :)

So many things to do at the playground!

Hugs with G-ma

Trying to figure out what Papa is saying!

No baby gate means climbing (and falling down) stairs. And learned that newspaper is a fun toy!

We had a great time with Papa and Gma!

CVX Half

2011-06-28T15:21:00.003-04:00

My sister, dad and I had planned on running this race together after my mom passed away. My dad had been running and training but then hurt his knee and had to have surgery and wasn't able to run. My sister and I originally both were on a lets try to break 1:50 goal. Her goal then switched to 1:45 and then finally switched to a super high goal of breaking 1:40.

In my head, I wondered if I really could break 1:50. My training had been pretty good, but I really didn't do to much "speed" work. And then race day came...

We woke up early (4:30) to eat some breakfast and headed out around 5:15 since it was over an hour to the race. About 5:45, a deer ran out across the road and we hit it. What could possibly go wrong...K and I each called our sleeping hubbies back at the house in a panic as my dads car was leaking fluid. He was heading back to town and we were trying to get the boys to drive out to meet us and swap cars.

A little after 6 we were back on the road, with K driving like a mad women wondering if we would make it to race start. We had multiple plans for what to do once we got there...hop out pick up our registration so we would have our bibs and timing chip. That way if we didn't make it to the start right at 7:30 it would be ok.

We actually got to the race with some time to spare, it was 7:20 as we were picking up our bibs. Then wait in line for the port-a-potties. Then right before 7:30 while we were still waiting, a volunteer told us the bridge across the river goes up automatically at 7:30 so we might want to go across now and use the ones on the other side. Off we go and ran further to the potties as they were saying 2 minutes to the horn. As we were running back from the bathroom they sounded the horn. K and I got our music ready, said good luck and ran off at the back of the pack.

I actually ran the first half really controlled, which is surprising since my heart was racing. I hit the halfway mark (turn-around) at 55:15. Thought to myself how I just had to pick it up just a little to break 1:50. So I just started running hard. I have no idea how I managed to really pick up the pace and run that last half hard. I kept thinking of my mom and her strength and how whatever little pain I was going through would only last for so many minutes and how I could suffer that for her. And then crossed the finish line is 1:48:37.

What an almost magical race to me. I really felt her with me and was thankful we made it to the starting line. My sister used all her powers and ran 1:39. Both of us had probably one of the best races of our lives (in running sense). Perfect race course, perfect temperature...What a beautiful day.

Two Funny Things

2011-06-23T10:53:00.002-04:00

First up, my department chair sent me this video last week. So funny, cracked me up:

Then my sister shared this with me this morning...a story about picking your battles and a large metal chicken. And this story is just so freaking awesome!

Getting Sick

2011-06-17T10:24:00.003-04:00

Piper picked up a stomach virus over a week ago. Although she never had a fever or anything, just straight up poop everywhere for a week. For the first few days we thought it was the fact that we were mixing formulas to try a new formula, so we stopped but the poop did not. We gave up the cloth diapers after a couple days (so sorry to EZ for he dealt with most of those) and switch to just disposables until it passed.

It was so bad we were doing a load of laundry a day just to keep up with all the sets of sheets we were having to change after diaper explosions during naps and to wash towels from taking a few baths a day just to get the mess cleaned off her. Fun times. Worst up was the explosion while sitting in her highchair eating. There was no where for the poop to go but up her back and she ended up sitting in a pile of gooey poo. Oh good times.

I think we are done with it now, we are back on eating somewhat normally again and not refusing food which is good. And she seems much happier. I will say, I think she is getting ready to get a couple new teeth too (FINALLY, she still only has the two bottom ones).

Some other stats...so still only two teeth. Still not really saying any words but will sometimes repeat mama or dada but definitely doesn't say mama or dada to either of us specifically. She does do a lot of babbling and pointing at things. And she will point or look at things if you ask her where certain things are like the fan or clock or belly button. She also knows a lot of her toy names, like ball and Winnie the Pooh Bear, ect. I have worked for 5 months on trying to get her to wave but she wont do it. Oh well. In due time right!

In other news, we bought a fancy new camera! It just came and here are a few photos from the other day:

Memorial Day 2011

2011-06-13T10:06:00.004-04:00

We headed up to meet some friends that will be moving overseas for a few years. It was a brief trip to Petersburg, VA to some playground where we ate lunch and hung out and talked. Meanwhile Ashley took some great photos of Piper with her great camera (totally inspiring us to buy a camera which should arrive soon). Here are a few of my favorites

I will post some slide pictures in a few days!

GF Bread

2011-06-10T11:19:00.004-04:00

I haven't ventured out too much in the realm of GF baking but I finally got my act together and went out and found some of the products I needed and found an awesome bread recipe here.

What I loved about this recipe is that you can make it into whatever you want. She has a basic bread recipe with a liquid amount that could be anything you want. She also gives some suggestions. I first tried this bread as a blueberry lemon bread and it was yummy. It just so happens when you buy a can of coconut milk (which she recommends in the recipe), it will leave you enough for another loaf. So I then tried this bread a banana peanut butter chocolate chip and it was good too. EZ liked them too. While they were a little more dense and crumbly, they were both still super moist and had great flavor.

I am super thrilled about this recipe as it leaves me with lots of possibilities and I used Bob's Red Mill GF flour since I couldn't find some of the specialty ones she talked about if you want to use your own, and it was super easy to make. And you can turn them into muffins if you want to. What a great recipe! Will be making this one again and again. Once my zucchini come in in the garden, I think a zucchini chocolate chip one will be in order!

Fearless

2011-06-06T10:42:00.004-04:00

We have had some fun times over the last week or so with little P. First up, we have decided that the playground is lots of fun. Loves climbing around on the contraptions, crawling through tunnels and loves going down the slides, even the fast ones!

We also have been heading up to the pool now that it is open. And wow, she loves the water. It is so cute to watch. She runs all through the spraying dragon and plays with the water sprouting up from the ground and actually likes putting her face in the water. She actually tries to swim which is so cute. I just hold her on her belly as she moves her arms and legs and puts her face in and takes it out. It is a lot of fun watching her take on the water.

We got the bike trailer hooked up to EZ's old mountain bike. I went on a 5 mile bike ride this morning with her and she seemed to do ok. I did stop half way through to go to the playground for a little bit. She doesn't seem to like it as much as the jogging stroller. At least not yet. Here are just a few photos. (Sorry we don't have any from the pool we have forgotten the camera each time we head up there).

Trying on the bike helmet

Very into Climbing on things

Fun crawling through the tunnel

Oh, and for updating milestone purposes...We are now able to standup to walk without holding on to anything. And as for words, EZ and I think she says dada and means it. (Although she calls other things dada). She does try to say "kitty" when she sees the cats, and in the past week she also has been trying to say her own name, but she just does the "p" sound. We think she has also said "ba" a couple times for ball. Sadly she doesn't show much interest in saying "mama".

Pushing Away

2011-05-31T15:18:00.004-04:00

The other week APZ's friend Tyler came over for a visit. It was a yucky day outside, but the two of them enjoy watching the rain:

To have a little fun, I put Tyler in the car scooter thing and let Piper push him around. It was quite enjoyable for us to watch and for them to do:

In other news, P has taken a liking to Killer. She chases him around and he lazily tries to move away but we know he secretly enjoys the attention:

Lastly, a couple funny pics of P and how she constantly has something in her mouth:

Happy Anniversary

2011-05-25T10:09:00.003-04:00

Nine years ago I married my best friend in a glass chapel in the Ozark mountains. What a wonderful and beautiful day.

New Piper Pics

2011-05-23T15:46:00.006-04:00

I've been meaning to post some photos of APZ, but just have been lazy. She is full on walking and no stopping her. She actually got really good pretty quickly. Probably in a matter of a week or two and she is no longer walking to things for support, but just walks everywhere. We are now working on walking in the grass since it is pretty uneven but she is getting better at that too.

Anyway, here are a few photos over the last month.

Fun times:

Lots of Smiles:
Hugs with Dada:
Loves reading (or flipping the pages):

Spends a lot of time figuring out how to put the largest toys she can find in her mouth:

Most of the time though we crawl/walk with something hangout of of our mouth:

Had fun playing with Dad in the sleeping bag:

Going GF

2011-05-20T12:38:00.000-04:00

It has been a few months now of eating gluten free and it really hasn't been that bad. I miss many of the dessert type things, cookies and cake but that is about it. I will say that I had a major dumb moment the other week...

I was at the Jimmy Buffett concert and the amphitheater where it is at only serves wine and beer, so they make their margaritas with wine (and a little at that). One of the people there had bought one which was pretty pricey and said it wasn't all that great. So I thought, well I guess I will just get a beer. Totally had a brain collapse as I really don't ever drink beer since I am not a big fan of it, so I typically order wine or mixed drinks. See, when I started gluten free, I knew I could no longer drink beer and I thought, alright, no big deal, I don't drink it anyway.

I will say I didn't have a bad immediate reaction, typically stomach stuff. But about 24-36 hours later it wasn't too great. So now I know maybe the type of reaction I might have in the future if I consume gluten after not eating it.

I have found lots of good and yummy things that are gluten free though. Here are just a few of them:

While I was out in California in March, I found these chips:

OMG they are so awesome. So I got online since I couldn't find them here in my stores and ordered a whole box of them (I have already run out so I will need to order another!):

This brand also makes an awesome multigrain chip/cracker that is really good too and Costco sells them in the super size bag which is wonderful!

Lastly, the other week we tested out Betty Crocker's GF cake mix which was pretty good. It was a little dense and tasted a little like pound cake but that was ok. Then I found this recipe that uses the cake mix for banana bread and wow, it was so good! Totally tasted like my banana bread that I used to make that I loved. Really excited that it was that good. They also have a recipe for blueberry muffins using the cake mix and cornmeal that I want to try too.

Running/Biking Update

2011-05-17T15:00:00.003-04:00

Yes I have been running. More and more lately. In fact, I bought a pair of these:

(the Nike Free Runs +2).

I started out doing 2 miles at the end of a run every other run. I am now doing my 4 mile runs in them 2x per week. Total last week: 30 miles total and 10 of them in the frees (2 4 milers and then a 2 mile hard effort at the end of a 5 mile run).

What do I think so far...well I like them so much better than flats or lightweight trainers. For some reason these just feel better on my feet, more free. :) Just much more flexibility in them and I like that.

My knee pain came back last Sunday at the end of my long run. Was planning on going 11 miles but around 9 my knee started hurting so I only did 10 1/2. I don't know if I am running too much in the frees or not, it is hard to say. I had knee pain before, so really it hasn't changed. But I am hitting the most miles I have run since pre baby so maybe it is just me trying to catch up. Or maybe I need to stretch more....A LOT more. I go for my runs and don't have much time to stretch with Piper...or maybe that is my excuse. And then I run around after her all day or pick her up and carry her around all of which probably doesn't help with tightness. Maybe some biking would help.

Which leads me to a goal this summer has been to get my act together and buy a new bike. Or rather another bike. I would like to bike a little this summer towing Piper around and the carbon cervelo soloist isn't really the bike for that. So I have been looking at bikes on the internet. I don't really want anything fancy, but something that rides well (hybrid perhaps). Just planning on cruzing around the neighborhood, no major roads. EZ and I seem to disagree as to which is safer-pulling PZ behind in a trailer or having her in a seat hitched to the bike. Anyone want to weigh in?

Walking

2011-05-08T20:16:00.002-04:00

I know I posted last time that APZ had taken her first steps. I am a bit behind on updating, so I thought I would show a progression of her getting up to the walking stage over the past month.

On April 1st, she decided to use the kitchen stools for the first time as a walker around the house so we took a little video:

She progressively got better and better using the stools and then we remembered we had a little car things from my sister and so we brought that out and she got the hang of it pretty quick, even turning it around to use it in the reverse direction:

Lastly, Piper just in the past couple days has really started just walking around. She was in an extremely good mood tonight and we kept trying to take the following video because she was walking and then falling into the pillows. But of course, as soon as we started to take a video, she started falling every couple feet because she was so hyper and giggly. Eventually we got a pretty good one:

First Steps

2011-04-26T12:39:00.003-04:00

I typed up the blog yesterday too soon stating that Piper hadn't walked yet. Yesterday afternoon though she decided that it was time to let go of some furniture and take a few steps to me or EZ. So I thought I would put a post up as this is my "baby book" of recording moments. She won't let go and walk far...if it is more than a few steps she still thinks it is better to drop to her knees and crawl, but we are making progress of deciding it is ok to let go and take those few steps. :)

Easter

2011-04-25T10:58:00.003-04:00

We drove up to my grandma's yesterday for a afternoon Easter lunch/dinner. Got to see many of my aunts and uncles, even was surprised to see two of them had driven down from Michigan. We were only there for a few hours to accommodate Piper's nap schedule...drive up while she took her morning nap and drove back while she took her afternoon nap. She still isn't walking yet and we are trying to just let her do what she wants in that regard. She will walk pretty good along furniture or walls and even takes a step or two from one object to the next, but if it is more than a couple steps away, she will get down and crawl over.

Her 9 month appointment was last week and she is 18lbs (30th percentile) and 28 1/4 inches (75th percentile). Healthy as can be. She eats everything and anything I give her and we are eating finger foods now. The only interesting thing, is that I decided to buy organic baby food with meat in it instead of making my own and she isn't a fan. I tasted the jarred baby food and it really didn't have much taste. I then mixed in some of my own baby food with it and she will eat it. Glad to know that she likes my food better!

I got a few Easter photos taken and here they are.

My favorite:

Ramblings

2011-04-12T14:49:00.004-04:00

I am so ready for this semester to be over. I am tired and exhausted and need a break. I feel like I am like this towards the end of every semester. But for some reason I feel like this one has been more exhausting than others. Maybe it is creating the new cryptography course so that takes up some time. And I feel like I never can get out of the pile of papers I have to be graded. On top of that, I am teaching an online course that starts first of June and I need to have the course content put together and online before then.

Have I mentioned that the lady that watches Piper is preggo and due soon. While that is great for her, for me it would be a nightmare. I am hoping she makes it through 3 more weeks and so Piper has childcare. Otherwise, it becomes pass Piper around to different neighbors for a couple weeks until I am done with school and can watch her. Oh yeah, and then I still have to get that course created! :)

Running has been dragging too. I feel sluggish and horrible. EZ is trying to get to work on my form, and while I feel like I am, I still feel like a mess and run SOOOO heavy on my feet which is the opposite of what I should be doing. I have decided to try the Nike Free's and will be purchasing a pair this weekend and see how that goes.

Piper has been oodles of entertainment lately. She is totally coming in to her own personality. She has decided army crawling is for the birds and has taken to crawling "normal" now but she is still kind of slow at it. She has also learned to play peek-a-boo (or "where's mama") and finds it hysterical. She even takes a blanket and puts it up in front of her to hide herself. In addition she thinks plowing head first onto pillows is very fun too. Lastly, she found that our kitchen stools were the perfect height to use as her walker and she has started to become more bold in letting go of things and will take a step or two every now and then.

Don't have time to post pics or videos right now...more to come.

Be at Peace

2011-04-04T20:29:00.004-04:00

Sadly my grandfather lost his short battle with cancer and passed away this past weekend. I can't begin to explain my feelings, almost a year after my mom passed away. And I can't even begin to imagine or comprehend what my grandmother is going through, to lose your only daughter and spouse within such a short period of time. All I can hope is that my papa is now at peace, and is a place where he can be with his daughter.

I grew up spending a lot of time with my mom's parents, they spent their winter months living with us as I grew up while we would spend our summer months living with them. They were like second parents to me and I will always have such wonderful memories of all the things we did together.

Our last fishing trip in fall 2009:

Spending time with Little P in Jan 2011:

He was a veteran, a fisherman, a golfer, a handyman, a gardener, a magician, a friend, and I will always love him.

Perhaps they are not the stars, but rather openings in Heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy. ~Eskimo Legend

Fun Piper Pics

2011-03-24T19:42:00.004-04:00

Here are a couple videos and pictures of our sweet daughter!

She absolutely loves the window and she is the perfect height for it:

One of her favorite things to do is to stand at our "changing" area and pull all the clothes, diapers, bibs, etc off the table:

She thinks the Octopus is hysterical and has taken to doing headstands with it:

And as I said earlier, she has learned how to climb. Here she is mastering the laundry basket:

Lastly, she really likes the jumperoo thing we borrowed from our neighbor (and it plays an awesome song that reminds us of our Arkansas days!)

The First Race Back

2011-03-21T14:48:00.003-04:00

Yesterday I finally ran in my first race in a couple years. I am now 8 months post Piper, and I actually feel like I am finally starting to feel good again running. I haven't been as dedicated to working out as I once was. I committed to 4 days a week of training and that is all. It is really about all I can squeeze in with Piper and work and keeping my sanity and some relaxing and family time. And to be honest, I am perfectly fine with that. I enjoy spending what time outside of work I have playing with Piper or taking her to the park, or being lazy on the couch, or reading a good book. I don't need to consume that part of my life once again with all things athletic for awhile.

So slowly I have begun to feel fitter and fitter with my 4x per week running. I actually have done really no running for speed or distance. Everything has been just running "easy" or however I felt and running mainly on time. I think I run about xx pace so I I want to run 10 miles, just multiply my pace by 10 and go for that long. I kind of liked that approach for these past months. It leaves me with no pressure whatsoever to just go out and run.

I really didn't know what to expect come race day. I figured all this time running that I have been running probably about 9 min pace. So I set a secret goal to myself to see if I could break 1:55. I should say that my PR for a 1/2 is 1:52, granted I really think I could run faster that that, but have only done 2 half marathons before.

I started the race pretty controlled and felt good just ticking off miles around 8:40 pace give or take. I even had it in my to really push the last couple miles. My knee held in there too and really I only had a little pain the last mile which is quite an improvement on that side. I finished in 1:53:49 and am thrilled by that time. I love the tobacco trail and love running on it, so the course was great. On the logistical side of things, the race was a bit of a disaster. I already sent an email to the race director of my complaining of many things. I would have said that this is a great race for anyone looking for a 1/2 or full marathon, but unless they make some major changes to the organization, I would pick another course.

The current plan is to run another half in 3 months up in Michigan and my goal there is to break 1:50. We'll see how training goes these next few months. What I do know is that there will be a lot more pushing Piper in the jogger since once school ends it will just be me and her. Hopefully that will be to my advantage. I have also started to think about switching to running in more minimalist shoes (perhaps the Nike free's) but am not sure, still thinking.

It felt good to be racing again.

BF No More

2011-03-18T16:06:00.004-04:00

I have had some ups and downs with breastfeeding PZ over these eight months, but alas I am finally done. I was planning on still nursing once a day in the mornings like I have been doing but a combination of blocked ducts and bleeding issues and then Piper biting me was all I could handle. I am still pumping 2x a day but that's it. Just trying to now get myself healed up. I plan to continue to pump 2x a day for awhile but we are supplementing maybe 6-8 oz a day now with formula. I still don't think that is too bad and as she eats more she will drink less so that formula amount will drop a bit.

I must say I still can't wait until I am done with the pumping too. The whole breastfeeding thing just isn't for me but I am happy I went as long as I did and am still giving her mostly breast milk as I know it is technically healthier for her. I think the breast milk is part of the reason why she hasn't been really sick yet (that and the fact that she is at an in home daycare so not around a lot of other kids).

In the meantime, here are a few photos of our happy girl...

We have mastered climbing (in fact she climbed 1/2 way up the stairs last night)

My Aunt, Cousins and Gigi came for a visit, she thought Thayer's hat was fun to have on

Visit

2011-03-12T10:30:00.004-05:00

While I was off in Cali visiting my grandparents, EZ's parents came down for a few days to see Piper. Of course the timing was probably good since I wasn't home they could help out a bit with Piper. It was my first trip away from her and it was sad being gone for so long.

I had a wonderful visit with my grandparents. I helped out as much as I could and did as much as possible for Papa in the facility he is in now. My last morning there he got moved to a bed by the window so at least he has some sun and light to brighten his day just a bit. I consider them like second parents to me as most of my life they lived with us for probably 6 months each year or we stayed with them in the summer. I only wish there was more I could do for each of them. We all (EZ, Piper and I) plan on heading back out there in May once I am done with school to visit again.

Piper has mastered standing and sitting. She can pretty much pull herself up on anything. And she is still just as happy as can be. Here are a few pictures from the last week:

Hanging out with Grandpa Z

All Smiles

Grandma Z taught me how to play the piano

Can we go outside

Running

2011-03-04T09:56:00.002-05:00

I have been running...maybe jogging but none the less I am getting outside and working towards a race. This half marathon is creeping up on my very quickly, only 2 more weeks until race day. My knee pain was coming and going and when I did a 9 mile run about a month ago, it hurt pretty bad. I talked to EZ about some of the issues and we changed one thing...just to add a few stability exercises before I run and a little more stretching and so far it has worked. I made it through 11 miles last weekend and things seem to be getting better.

As I was out running the 11 last weekend, I was thinking about my running form in general, and how horrible it is. I am a quad runner. I don't use my hamstrings or my calves. I knew this before I got pregnant, but EZ and I were trying to work on it a little. Well now I feel like I am just all quads. I basically run/jog as this slow pace and can't seem to change it. That is probably because I don't have the muscle strength and technique to use my hammys and calves. I don't want to change too much before race day in a couple weeks. But after this first 1/2 marathon of the year, I think I will try to change up some different things and try to get my running more together.

Yesterday I ran 8 miles and thought a little more about how I was running and tried to work on my technique a little. Usually I go out and just run and space out or think about other things, but I made it a point to think about using my legs and "pushing off" to run. I actually ran pretty fast for me lately, but at a cost of my legs and body being super tired and a bit sore today. Although, it could have been that I ran with the baby jogger too and I haven't done that in quite a while.

Busy Busy

2011-02-27T14:35:00.005-05:00

Seems like things come and go in waves with everything, just like the ocean. School has been busy as of late and I have lots of things to do over the next few months with work. It will all get done eventually. I have had some pretty productive days lately.

I had planned on getting a lot of work done over spring break but looks like things change. I am now headed back to CA to see my grandparents for part of the week since my grandpa isn't doing too well. Hopefully EZ will survive 5 days of being with Piper by himself! This will be my first time away from her and I am kind of nervous.

This week I decided to start supplementing with formula, not too much, just 2 oz in two of her bottles. Just testing it out to see how she does. Only been a couple days but she drinks it just as if it were breastmilk. She has been waking up at all crazy hours during the night over the last week. I thought it had to do with standing up, EZ thinks maybe it is the fact that we are feeding her more solids and therefore she is drinking a little less breastmilk. Who knows.

She is a pro at standing up (pulling herself up) and is now starting to "walk" along the furniture. Scary scary that probably just a few more weeks and maybe she will be officially walking. Yikes!

Here are some photos from the last week:

She absolutely loves bathtime:

Standing up with dada:

Happy Girl:

She has figured out how to pull up on everything:

Latest Pictures

2011-02-18T14:19:00.005-05:00

I figured the families might want to see some of the latest photos of APZ. She has been lots of smiles and babbling lately. Luckily both her and I avoided some serious stomach virus that EZ had this past week, and hopefully we will avoid the flu that has run wild here in NC. Our latest foods include potato, lentils, rice cereal and apricots and she still hasn't disliked anything if I mix things up. Next up is green beans, papaya and yogurt. And just recently she has started pulling up on everything. EZ and I have repeatedly walked in to her after a nap to have her standing up holding the crib bars...I have a feeling she will be an early walker. I know that I walked early, around 10 months, but at the rate she is going, she might beat me!

Here are some photos:

Chillin in the Hood

Naked Baby

Go Heels!

Playing under the exersaucer

Look mama, I can stand up on the foam roller

Devious smile

Buds

2011-02-11T11:15:00.002-05:00

Over the past week, Piper has really begun teething. We now have the two lower front teeth sprouted up. She seems to do really well and doesn't cry all that much with the teething, so that is good. I know though that this is only the beginning of what is to come. She also has become very efficient at crawling (army style) and going from crawling to sitting up to play. She has started to try and climb up on me too. Yikes!

Still doing well with all the foods too. She wasn't a fan of the peas, but ate them, and we have also done apricots, carrot and rice too. So far no problems and she seems to eat anything we give her. She loved the carrots, so I gave her a frozen pea cube with a carrot cube to make the peas taste better. She has pretty much (95%) dropped her last overnight feeding around 5am. In the past month or so I think she has only gotten up maybe 3 or 4 times to eat. So things are going well there.

I can't believe she is about to be 7 months old in a couple days. Just crazy. She had her 6 month appointment last week (yes a little behind) and she weighs 16lbs and is 26inches long. They told me that she was in the 75% in height and 50% in weigh, but we think they are measuring that based on if she was 6 months not almost 7. In that case she would be in the 50% for height and 35% for weight. Either way, she is doing very well.

How did we end up here?

2011-02-04T10:29:00.005-05:00

I have had some questions about how did I end up getting tested for Celiacs so I wanted to provide the lowdown...

My sister had some stomach/acid issues for a long time and we had been bugging her to go to the doctor and get it checked out for awhile. She finally went back in the late fall. They ran all sorts of tests, and what came back was a most likely positive for Celiacs. So she gives me a call and tells me and then says, you have way more of the symptoms that I do, so it is probably likely you have it to. (It is genetic).

So I had to go in to the doctor for some bloodwork in December for my anemia (a symptom of celiacs) and so I asked if I could get bloodwork done also to test for celiac's too, and they did, and it came back positive.

I recently had my first doctor's visit with the GI specialist. I have to go in in another week and a half and get an endoscopy done to biopsy the intestine to get it confirmed, and then I will probably have another bunch of tests done. My sister had her endoscopy done a couple weeks ago and it was positive, she has also had a bone density scan and some more blood work to test for vitamin deficiencies. I imagine I will probably have all this stuff done too in the coming weeks/months.

As of now, I am still eating gluten, but know my days are most likely limited. Once the confirmation of Celiac's, the only "cure" is to just eat a gluten free diet, which will involve a dramatic lifestyle change in the house, at least for me. I am more concerned about eating out at restaurants and finding suitable things than eating at home. I am not a huge bread eater anyway, and don't eat many sandwiches, so that is good, but there are definitely things I will miss. I am also waiting to introduce any gluten to Piper until after I have talked with her doctor and my GI doctor too post endoscopy.

It is amazing all the gluten free stuff out now and I find it reassuring all the things I can still eat by buying certain products. I can still eat (most) ice cream, so that is a huge plus, but will have to learn how to make special cakes/cupcakes/cookies/ect that taste just as good! To celebrate my ending of gluten, I had to make one last funfetti cake to eat. EZ even let me have all the inside pieces since those are my favorite:

Yum yum!!

Burst of Sunshine

2011-01-30T16:42:00.005-05:00

We had a wonderful warm weekend, and we took advantage by getting outside some. The sun was plentiful today, temperatures hitting 70 and yesterday was in the upper 50's. We decided to test out the jogger with Piper sitting in it without the carseat. She seemed to enjoy the change of scenery:

Then we headed to the playground and tried out the bucket swing. She didn't know what to think of it but we had a good time, even testing out the sunglasses:

I managed to get out for an 8 mile run and EZ got out to the driving range too. What a great nice warm weekend! (Too bad the forecast is showing snow and 30's for Friday!)

Odds and Ends

2011-01-27T20:36:00.002-05:00

We had a nice weekend with some friends coming up from Charlotte. They have an 11 month old and Claire and Piper had a fun time together. We had lots of competitions egging on our own children to take toys away from the other or knock each other over (Piper took down Claire in one blow)...all in good fun of course! Piper definitely won the who can sit the longest with the best posture and Claire won the how many toys can you collect contest. Fun times watching the two interact a little, but mainly they both just did their own thing not caring too much that there was another little person around.

It was impossible to get a picture of them together...here is our best one:

I think Piper learned from Claire how to really get crawling and so we are full speed ahead. Last night she ventured into the dining room and had her first taste of trying to crawl on the hardwood floors. On the way there she stopped at a floor vent that was blowing out heat and thought it was really funny. She would just put her face over the air and laugh...too cute:

Grains

2011-01-24T11:48:00.002-05:00

I had some mixed feeling about trying a cereal for Piper since I was just diagnosed with Celiacs (more to come after my appointment this week). And Amelia was allergic to rice, so I debated and debated on to what type of grain to try. I also was worried about iron levels as they say that babies use up most of their iron stores at 6 months, and since I am anemic, I was looking for something that had iron (like the iron fortified cereals).

I ended up choosing millet. I had never heard of it until I was diagnosed with Celiac's, but it is a gluten free grain. Turns out it is like a super grain loaded with lots of vitamins and iron too, so great for babies. Piper seemed to like it just fine, and loves it if we put pears in it. She isn't quite as big of a fan with peaches, but that is fine. After the millet, I tried gluten free steel cut oats to and ground them down with a coffee grinder. Again, she was happy to eat those too, with pears.

I think I am going to hold off on other grains for now and stick with these two. I have read some recipes for combining them which is similar to cream of wheat, and so we will see where it takes up. Plus, I want to see if we can try some more fruits and veggies. I am trying to stay clear of the constipating ones since Piper has some serious constipation. We have been giving her some prunes every day and it really hasn't seemed to help. I think we are going to up the prune intake and see how that goes.

I am making most of my baby food, but buying the prunes and apples in the store. Since she loved the sweet potato, butternut squash and pears so much, I mass produced those and have them frozen in ice cubes in the freezer. So far we haven't had any reactions to anything we have tried and she likes everything except she isn't a fan of the peaches but will eat them. Our list is currently: butternut squash, sweet potatoes, bananas, avacado, peaches, pears, millet, oatmeal, prunes, and apples. Next up: acorn squash, peas and mango.

Training

2011-01-17T07:52:00.002-05:00

This blog started out as a triathlon blog which has turned into a Piper blog. I thought it would be nice to come back and talk a little about my training.

I have been running a little since Piper has been born but nothing too dramatic and not fast. I have lost all of my pregnancy weight but still feel very heavy and sluggish running. My knee pain is still there so I guess I have to really work at keeping it under control. I though maybe things would be better after all that time off. I really wanted to run some more races this year and I looked into lots of different marathons/half marathons. I felt like a marathon was a little out of reach right now so I decided to train for a half. It isn't too much time commitment and I thought my knee could hold up.

I signed up for the Tobacco Trail 1/2 Marathon towards the end of March. I picked this one because this happens to be close to where we lived before moving to Burlington and I ran most of my runs on this trail, especially when I was training for the marathon I did back in 2006. I feel like I am honoring the place that treated me so well for the 3 years we lived in Apex and I loved running on that trail.

Currently my long runs are only 6 miles, but that is ok. I have no goal for this race but to run the whole race hopefully with no pain.

Then I plan on running another half marathon with my sister and dad in honor of my mom something later this year (tentatively June). It feels good to getting back to some sort of resemblance of my former athletic self.

Happy 1/2 Birthday!

2011-01-13T09:02:00.003-05:00

Wow! Piper is already 6 months! How crazy time flies by! Here are a few 6 month stats.

She is eating pears, sweet potato, applesauce, and prunes now. Next up is peaches and rice cereal. We have yet to try a grain yet but I have decided to try rice first and stay away from any gluten stuff first. I am making most of my own food though, or try to at least.

Here she is acting like such a grown up in her highchair (this photo just makes me laugh):

And a couple action shots:

Sleeping is going great. She goes to bed sometime around 7pm and sleeps until around 5 or 6 now and wakes up to eat a little and then goes back to sleep for another hour or two. We are extremely lucky now that we can put her to bed and she goes to sleep on her own.

As far as breastfeeding, I started my own weaning this week. I feed her in the morning at 5 or 6 and then again around 8 when she gets up and then I am only pumping around 2 and then around 9 at night and that is it. I had some problems in the past couple weeks with some blistering and serious pain and I just can't do any more. Either way, with the supply in the deep freezer and me still pumping twice we should still be able to go quite a bit longer on just breastmilk.

We say lots of ba ba ba ba all day which is cute. Can't really get her to do any sounds or mimick me though. She doesn't have much interest in trying to talk.

On the other hand we were getting really close to crawling and just in the last couple days she has figured it out. So just shy of 6 months and we have a crawler. Granted she isn't great at it yet, she can get where she wants. I guess it is time to start baby proofing! Here are a few videos (taken at daycare):

Cali

2011-01-06T09:03:00.006-05:00

We decided that a trip to California was in order to celebrate my mom's passing. So my dad and my sister and her family and all of us headed back to Cali for a nice mini vaca. It was a whirlwind of a vacation though as I wanted to see a few of my friends from high school.

Piper did great on the plane both ways and adjusting to the time difference and she was a trooper being moved from place to place. I only hope that now that we are finally back after 2 weeks of trips, we can get back into a routine.

Our first night in CA was a trip to one of my mom's (and my) favorite restaurants overlooking the ocean in La Jolla. Our whole family met there to eat on the terrace (it was freezing too) and celebrate. Then a trip down to the ocean where my dad walked into the water and to pour my moms ashes in. He got pummeled by a wave while doing so which was quite fitting. We then set off a wish lantern into the sky as well. It was a nice wonderful evening celebrating my mom's life.

Here is my dad in the ocean (sorry the picture quality is poor as it was pitch black out):

And my dad and Amelia watching the lantern go up in the sky:

The next morning, we had a mini swimming reunion of my closest group of friends. 5 of us with our families and it was a great time. Monica and Sumner were kind enough to let us crash at their house and hang out for a while and Tenley and Piper had fun too:

Mommy and daughter:

After a quick stop to see my old coach and our old neighborhood, we headed up to my grandparents house and settled in for the night. Just one night though before heading out to Palm Springs area for a few days since we had a condo out there too for all of us to stay at.

We spent a day a Joshua Tree NP (more on that in another post) which was great and very cold (even snowed coming home that night at dinner) and a day at a place called the Living Desert (like a zoo) and then back to the grandparents house to help get it all cleaned up and ready to go for them. They arrived that afternoon and we we got to spend just a few short hours with them before one last trip to my good friend Matt's house to watch Arkansas lose to Ohio State in the Sugar Bowl. Then we flew back home. What a whirlwind trip it was but a great time too.

Here is Amelia being a great fun cousin with Piper. She was constantly making Piper laugh!

And here is Miss P having fun:

Last but not least...Piper and Grandpapa:

What a wonderful trip!

Merry Christmas

2010-12-29T10:33:00.005-05:00

We headed up to Buffalo for Christmas this year. We ended up making it in one day, which was nice that we didn't have to stop at a hotel, but threw of Piper's schedule too. She did very well sleeping at Grandma and Grandpa's house and the pack n play. She has been a little sick with a cold too so maybe that helped her sleep at night. She managed to do three whole nights of sleeping 12 hours straight! We had a nice mellow Christmas up in the cold. Lots of hanging out and eating cookies and good food.

I just tested positive for celiac's disease (gluten intolerance) and so this trip might have been the last time I will get to eat my favorite lo mien and the last apple pancake from original pancake house too. :( I go see a specialist at the end of January to figure out what to do from here.

A couple days at home now before shipping out to Cali...should be a fun trip to see the family and friends too! Here is a couple pictures of Piper and then all the grandkids on Christmas:

We also had a few pictures taken of Piper a couple weeks ago. One of them (the first picture below) we used on our Christmas card. But here are a couple more of our darling daughter:

I absolutely love this close up of her:

This one we thought was too funny...we almost used it on the Christmas card, but couldn't bring ourselves to do it:

Lastly, I had a photo taken of me holding Piper's hand holding the necklace with my moms thumbprint. It is a beautiful photo and I have to share it too...

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas with their families and friends.

Relaxing Weekend

2010-12-20T10:04:00.003-05:00

I felt for the first time this weekend that we were somewhat relaxed. Piper is really starting to get into a routine which is good and she goes down for naps and bed so much easier. This of course will all go out the window when we travel to NY and then CA I am sure. But it was nice just to kind of hang out this weekend.

Because of our schedule we opened up some xmas gifts we had for us from my dad and for Piper. She of course has no clue what is going on, but had fun with a few of her new presents and definitely enjoyed the wrapping paper.

Here are a few photos:

5 Month Stats

2010-12-15T07:30:00.002-05:00

Piper turned 5 months old on Monday. Time just flies by it seems but at the same time moves slowly too (when was the last time I slept well...)

A few stats...

She weighs 13.5 lbs (50th percentile) and her height is the 75th percentile
We just moved into 6mo clothes
She was trying to learn how to crawl but has stopped that and is content just being on her belly and turning around in circles
She can kind of roll from belly to back but I still don't think it is intentional.
She can sit on her own for a little bit but is to fidgety to stay there and work on sitting. She almost immediately wants to go to her belly or grab her feet or go to the side.
Saturday we tried two new things-we had our first food of bananas and I cut out a feeding, so we are down to every 4 hours of feeding now- 4am, 8am, noon, 4pm, 7pm to bed. That 4am one has just kind of stuck there the past month and we tried different things to change it but nothing has worked yet. So I have a feeling it is there to stay and so I basically have been going to be between 8-9 so I can get a good nights sleep.
She pretty much holds her bottle all on her own now.
I am still breastfeeding but most of her feedings are with the bottle. Just turns out that way unless I am home with her all day, then most feedings are with me with the exception of the 8am feeding and the 7pm feeding. The 7pm is always with a bottle and depending on my timing in the morning, I might pump and give her a bottle rather than waiting for her to wake up.
She seemed to do well with eating the bananas and took to opening her mouth and everything really good.
She likes her sippy cup. Of course there is nothing in it, but I have started giving it to her just to learn how to hold it and she does pretty good and chews on the suction piece.
She is starting to nap better.
Her reflux seemed to flare up a little but the doctor changed her amount of medication and it seems ok again.
She constantly has her hands in her mouth and is chewing on her fingers. I keep think that she is teething and going to sprout some teeth soon, but still no such thing has happened.

Here are a few photos...

Piper loves the exersaucer:

Kelsey (9months) came over for a little visit:

Happy baby:

I tried to take a picture by myself of the two of us while EZ was out of town, but it was hard to get her to smile at the camera:

Happy Birthday Mom

2010-12-10T10:53:00.002-05:00

It has been almost 8 months since you passed away and I still miss you and think about you all the time. There is still so much sadness inside me and I hope with time I am able to turn that sadness into happiness of all the wonderful memories I have with you. Know that I will always love you and continue to tell Piper stories about you. Happy Birthday Mom.

Almost Done

2010-12-08T10:49:00.002-05:00

Ahhhh....the semester is almost over. This has been a really hard one for me. I thought going back to work two days a week and staying home the other three days was going to be a great compromise. What it turned into was basically compacting almost a weeks worth of work into two days and then staying home with Piper the other three.

Don't get me wrong, staying home with her has been nice. But it has also been exhausting. I have to try and squeeze work in on those days too when she is napping or playing or whatever and that has been difficult. If I had do do it over again I would have either just taken the semester off and maybe have felt less stress from work, or paid for an extra day of daycare and had a day each week to myself where I could get work or anything for that matter done.

I am so thankful that I had prepped my entire course before I had Piper. I don't think I would have survived otherwise. This way I really only had to do minimal stuff during the week plus grading and writing tests and worksheets and emails, ect.

On the other hand, I am teaching a brand new course next semester and I haven't done a single thing for it. And this isn't a course that has a textbook or anything, it is a course I created for what is called a first year seminar. I picked the topic of cryptography and coding and I have a semi book but that is about all. I basically have to create the entire course and I haven't done a thing. Yikes, I have some stuff to get done before Jan 10th.

Classes end today and my two finals to give are Friday and Monday. I am hoping to have my grades done by Tuesday and can start working on this new course-at least get a week or two prepped!

In other news, I am home all week by myself with Piper while EZ is at a conference. So far, so good. I decided to make one huge meal for myself Monday night and will eat leftovers the whole week. That makes my life just a bit easier. I also have lots of things planned this week on the days I am home with her-outings with friends or a work xmas party on Thurs, so that will make the days go by a little quicker. And thank heavens, that the last two nights by myself, she has slept very well, not waking up from 8-4:30/5am, and I am going to bed right after she goes down, so that has helped too. Alright...she is waking up from her nap so I better go!

Week in Pictures

2010-11-29T19:15:00.004-05:00

Piper has taken to going to bed really well and sleeping until about 4 or 5 in the morning and gets up to eat. I was bringing her to bed but wanted to break that habit so we set up a place in her room next to her crib where I can lay down and after I feed her I try to get her to go to sleep. If it works then I lay down there to be there when she wakes up (it is a very light sleep the last couple hours) to try and keep her asleep. If not, I lay down with her and let her sleep for a few more hours with me there. But she seems to be slowly pushing that wake up time a little later and later which is good. She is also starting to take better naps too. Slowly but surely things are coming together. Here is a few pictures from the week. We have become addicted to our feet: And then now putting the feet in our mouth: Happy Thanksgiving outfit with mama and dada: Wooooo Pig Sooie! Way to beat LSU!: Last but not least...she has found a new voice when she sees the kitties and likes to talk to them:

Thanks

2010-11-25T07:20:00.001-05:00

A few things I am thankful for...

Patient Husband
Happy Daughter
Loving Family
Wonderful Friends
A job I love
Being healthy
Fall colors
Ice Cream
Starting to run again
Beautiful weather
Those that serve or have served for this country
Having spent 30 wonderful years with my mom

Happy Thanksgiving!

Ups and Downs

2010-11-15T15:41:00.005-05:00

We have had our shares of ups and downs over the past few days. The in-laws were in town for a visit and had fun hanging out with Piper. She is either seriously teething or has so little bug-possibly an ear infection but with no fever. EZ was sick last week and now I am sick with some sort of cold and last night Piper went to bed and an hour later was screaming her head off, finally I got her back to sleep and she woke up a couple more times and then at 3:30 she was screaming her again. I am not sure how many days we should let her be cranky like she has been before I take her to the doctor to see if she possibly has an ear infection or something.

Another mother told me that everything shall pass, nothing usually lasts longer than a month and everyone can handle whatever it is for a month, right! She has become ridiculously upset and impatient when breastfeeding now too. I can start feeding her and she will only eat usually 5 min tops off one side and then the flow is either too slow or she is waiting for another let down and is to impatient so I have to switch sides and then usually can get her to go for awhile on side number 2. This is however opposite of what they tell you to do...let her drain one side and then go to the other. And she has starting chewing on me at the end...not pleasant. Each and every day I talk about how it is going to be my last day BF and I am going to switch to just pumping, but I find myself still doing it. :) We have started giving her more bottles during the day though.

Anyway, here is a photo of our little daughter eating with grandma-she is learning how to hold her own bottle and does pretty well.

And last night after she was super cranky and we gave her teething drops she was like this: (EZ thought the drops were like baby marijuana):

Bad Habit?

2010-11-12T10:03:00.004-05:00

Here are a few updates on miss APZ:

We were sleeping really well. Then we learned how to roll onto the belly and would wake up doing so. EZ and I put rolled up towels around her which helped for about a week until she would wake up because she was mad that she couldn't roll over onto her belly.
Now we are to the point where most nights she rolls onto her belly at night and most of the time puts her head down and stays asleep. Other nights we are up every hour or few hours going in to flip her over or calm her down for some reason she wakes up and just can't fall back asleep.
She still hasn't figured out how to roll back to her back from her belly. She just gets upset and tired of being on her belly and will start crying. She occasionally will roll back during the day but I don't think it is intentional. We try to get really excited and cheer for her when she does, but not sure she understands what that means.
She LOVES to sit up. EZ doesn't want to put her in the bumbo since some studies show that if babies can't really do it on their own then putting them in contraptions like the bumbo seat will have some developmentally issues with their spine. Same goes with the exersaucer before they can really stand and hold themselves up.
She does like to stand too (obviously with us holding her). She gets stronger and stronger every day with her legs.
She might be teething but we really aren't sure. Seems like she has been gnawing on things (her hands, rings, our hands, ect) for awhile now but nothing has happened yet. It does look like there are two white buds though on her bottom front that might pop out one day but who knows.
We are getting better and better with our hands and grabbing things. Still working at it, but she is getting the hang of looking for stuff and grabbing at what she wants and then bringing it to her mouth.
There are lots of smiles and giggles all day long which is very fun and refreshing

So here is our possible bad habit...On the nights she keeps waking up but isn't hungry and where we just go into her room and roll her over and try to get her back to sleep, eventually EZ and I are exhausted, so we have taken to bringing her to bed with us once we both can't take it anymore. This usually ends up happening around 4am. Some night it seems like she is hungry then, so I feed her, but other nights it just seems like she can't get comfortable and flails around. But for our sanity we need some rest, so I just curl up with her and try and settle her down and she eventually falls asleep. I hope this phase doesn't last long since I hope we aren't creating bad habits, but at some point you have to do what works right?

Here are a few photos from this past week.

Sitting up with mama:

I love to stand:

Fun Smiles:

Starting to really like the floor gym:

Book Update

2010-11-07T17:48:00.002-05:00

It has been awhile since I posted about the books I have read, since the whole baby thing got in the way, so I thought I would comment about a few books I have read lately (as in the past 4 months).

I just finished Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortinson. It is a true story of a humanitarian building schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan over the past couple decades. I found the story inspiring but the actual book was rather slow. Still it is quite amazing to see how one person could affect some much change and that is very motivating.

Other recent books:

Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chealier was the story of two women in the 1800's in England that were fossil finders in a time when it wasn't appropriate for women to do work of that kind. She did a good job setting the time in the novel and made it believable, but I found that the book was a bit slow too. It didn't really draw me in.

The Poisoner's Handbook by Deborah Blum is a nonfiction story of the birth of forensic science in the early 1900's. The story basically goes chronologically through how there was a race for scientists to try and figure out different chemicals used to kill people and how they could prove it with killers using different chemicals once one was proven in science. It was an interesting book and rather horrific in parts (like learning about radon before they knew how deadly it was).

Loving Frank by Nancy Horan was a historical fiction type book of the story of Frank Loyd Wright and his affair with Mamah Cheney. I didn't really care for the book and it seemed like it was extremely slow. It was beautifully written at times when talking about how much they were in love and not knowing that one of the people that worked for them in their house ended up killing her and her children was tragic and I couldn't believe it. FLW was extremely arrogant and that bothered me throughout the novel too.

These were all our book club books for the past 4 months that I got in. Granted I didn't actually read any of these but rather listened to them on tape, but that is what it is now as I don't have too much time to actually sit down and read. Next up is Eat, Pray, Love.

Meechigan

2010-11-01T21:15:00.003-04:00

I headed up to MI for most of a week for fall break. Spent a couple days with my dad and then grandparents and then my sister and her family came down and she threw a post baby shower for me that my mom had wanted to throw before she passed away. I made the 12 hour drive up with Piper by myself and we survived. She did very well and only got upset the last 5 min of the trip. EZ flew up and drove home with me and the drive home didn't go nearly as well with screaming child the last 1 1/2 hours. It was wonderful to see everyone. Here are some photos of the week:

I headed to see my mom's gravesite which was difficult but nice at the same time:

Dad and Piper:

Amelia reading Piper a story (Hot, Flat and Crowded by Thomas Friedman)

Piper laughing with Papa

Family photo:

3 Month Update

2010-10-13T20:54:00.000-04:00

Little Miss P is 3 months old today. I still can't believe how quickly it has gone by already. Here are some stats...

She was sleeping through the night, 10-12 hours until a few days ago. In the last week we have encountered some serious meltdowns at night. It use to be that we could feed her and put her down and she would fall asleep. But in the past few days we have had some nights where it has been 1-2 hours of trying to get her down. Along with some serious screaming on some nights.

In addition, a few days ago she starting waking up in the middle of the night. This has been compounded with the fact that she also has learn to roll over onto her tummy, and really likes to roll onto her tummy, but then doesn't really like being there and can't get herself back to her back without a lot of effort. So this ends up causing her to wake up and work herself up. We can go in and put her back on her back and put the pacifier in her mouth and she could fall back asleep only to do it again 30 min later.

She really likes to be held sitting up. I really think this is because she has some form of reflux as she spits up A LOT all the time. What is strange though is that she only spits up if she breastfeeds and doesn't after the bottle. But the spit up comes up almost immediately in pure milk form or will come up 30min-2 hours later (multiple times) in curdled form (lovely).

Pooping is still pretty crazy. Lately it has been every 6 days, and a couple weeks ago she went 9 days between poops. I was a little paranoid after 9 days and was planning on calling the doctor but then she finally went. Apparently, this is normal for breastfed babies.

She seems to be growing lots and getting bigger and heavier and starting to get some fat on her, but she is still pretty lean. She smiles a lot and is really a happy baby. She has begun to giggle, but only every now and then and we can't seem to figure out how to make her keep giggling or to get her to start, but it is really funny when she does laugh.

As for me, I have lost all my baby weight plus a couple. I am running quite regularly now, 4-5 times a week, but only 3-4 miles so far. Or I run that far and add in some walking. After going to the psychiatrist, I had some blood work done and a lot of my levels relating to iron were really low, so I started taking an iron supplement. I went to see my general doctor the other day who did another work up and they are still low, so I am now on quadruple the amount of iron I was taking to see if that helps. I have always been borderline anemic, but the levels that I am at now are much lower now. I think this also played a huge factor in my PPD.

Here are some photos of our happy baby and a short video of the roll over (plus the bald spot on the back of her head!):

PPD

2010-10-10T15:11:00.000-04:00

Postpartum Depression (aka Post Piper Depression) is a something I have been meaning to post on but just haven't gotten around to it. Most women go through a form of PPD after they have a baby and while I don't think that mine was all that serious, I do want to at least share my story so that others who read my blog don't always think everything is always rainbows.

Around one month after Piper was born is about when things started to go downhill. I think the lack of sleep was the biggest contributor. I already have a hard time falling asleep and staying asleep, I always have. So getting up every few hours at night was really more like staying up all night long because by the time I would fall asleep, she would be up again. I also had some disattachment issues, where I didn't feel connected at all to her and I think staying home by myself was a hard adjustment for me. I would cry sometimes because I was tired, or because she was crying, or just because.

Then I just started crying all the time over my mom. Every time I thought about her I would cry, and I was starting to think about her all the time. I would see a picture of her and start to cry, I would think about what kind of mother I was crying all the time and not feeling connected and feel that I was failing my own mom in some way, which of course would cause me to cry some more.

This all lead me to go see a psychiatrist. I cried through an hour session with her. Where afterwards she gave prescribed some medication for depression as well as some sleeping medication. This was right around 6 weeks postpartum. The depression medication though made me sick so I stopped taking it after a couple days. But the sleep medication was amazing. This was right about the time that Piper started waking up maybe 1-2 times a night, so EZ was taking one of the feedings and I was now getting sleep.

I would say about a week after visiting the psychiatrist, I was feeling better. I had stopped taking the medication for the PPD and was then just taking the sleeping medication. I still have the sleeping pills and I take them now only every now and then when I feel like I really need it.

All being said, I did have a rough few weeks mentally, emotionally, physically. I also really think the lack of sleep played a huge role. After I started sleeping more and feeling better, Piper also started being a little more engaging too and smiling which helped. I can honestly say now that I don't have any feelings of disattachment anymore which makes me feel good.

I know that from my experience this is really nothing compared to other moms who experience PPD sometimes for months and months. But I do feel like at least sharing my story so that others who read this (who haven't gone through pregnancy) have something to look at and realize that it is what it is and feel that if they need help, not be afraid to ask for it. Or just to know that while a lot of times, people says they are doing fine, behind closed doors they could be falling apart and just not want others to see.

Being Mindful

2010-10-08T08:30:00.001-04:00

Thanks to my friend Jo for this video. Hopefully it helps everyone that views it in some way.

Pictures

2010-10-06T10:32:00.005-04:00

Here are some recent photos:

We are smiling lots and lots now:

We headed up to the mountains with some friends...here is Piper's buddy Claire who is 7 months old:

We really enjoy sitting up and facing out to see everything:

One of my best friends came for a visit for the weekend and she had lots of fun taking photos of Miss P:

Here is a little video of some smiles and giggles:

Work and Day Care

2010-09-23T09:53:00.002-04:00

So I am back at work and things seem to be going alright. Piper is in her second week at day care. By day care, I mean I drop her off at someones house two days a week. She seems to be enjoying her days as her nanny hasn't seen her cry yet, except for when I pick her up. :( The last two days I have gone to get her, when I pick her up and take her from Jaime, she has cried. Kind of depressing.

She is all smiles and giggles with me in the morning though and the last two nights she has slept for almost 12 hours each night. I am not sure what she is doing, but we did switch to putting her in a gown and swaddling and I think with the gown around her feet she can get out of the swaddle as easily. Both nights she has gotten her arms out, but the rest of the swaddle stays around her. She doesn't nap much during the day and we are usually lucky now if she takes one good 2 hour nap. Usually it is a lot of cat napping 30min here and there. But I can't complain because she is great at night. Usually we have just one middle of the night feeding halfway through, so it isn't bad now.

We finally got the baby jogger rigged up with the car seat adapter and I tried it out yesterday morning for the first time. I went to take pictures only to find that the camera battery was dead. She seemed to enjoy the wind blowing across her and the steady running and took a little nap during the run. I managed to run most of the time, walking up a few of the bigger hills in the neighborhood. Just have to get use to pushing an extra 50lbs for now until she can ride in it without the car seat.

Spaghetti Squash

2010-09-16T11:34:00.002-04:00

We received a spaghetti squash in our CSA last week. We have both never had one before so I went searching for a recipe to make.

Here is what I ended up making: Recipie

I swapped out the olives for zucchini since EZ doesn't like olives and we got zucchini in the csa too. And it was sooo good! Really easy to make too! I did cook the squash longer and cooked it in a baking dish cut in half with a little water in the dish and it turned out great.

Spaghetti squash is an interesting veggie...it totally seems like a cross between spaghetti and has a hint of squash flavor. We both really enjoyed it and would highly recommend it!

Look what I can do!

2010-09-15T13:41:00.005-04:00

Piper is becoming smarter by the minute...only if we get her to hold on though!

Piper Update

2010-09-11T10:43:00.004-04:00

Here are some recent photos of our dear daughter:

We put on our Arkansas onesie for the game opener last weekend...its a little big but that just means it should last the season:

But we fell asleep before the game even began:

Tummy time is getting better:

I enjoy sitting up:

Napping away:

We start our nights swaddled tight and having our head face the near side of the crib, and usually wake up completely unswaddled and turned around 180 degrees:

Liquid Gold

2010-09-08T11:58:00.003-04:00

I started back at work last week and so I have had to start pumping at work now. I have only been at work 3 days and of those 3 days, 2 of them have been mini fiascoes! Last Thursday I was pumping and in the process of switching one container to another spillage...5 oz of liquid gold onto the floor of my office. Yeah. Then yesterday I was trying out these pump and save bags where you pump right into a bag you put into the freezer. Well the bag wasn't quite open enough and as the milk was going in it could and built up back into the pumping tubes and started cycling through the tubing. Good job LZ!

Then this morning I head out to the deep freezer to transfer said bag I used yesterday at work plus the bags I had in the freezer in the kitchen and I open up the freezer and it smells rancid. What in the world...somehow it lost power and all my breastmilk I had been pumping for the past 2 months is spoiled. It is everywhere. This stuff is liquid gold and the fact that I had made it this far after my "I hate breastfeeding" post is a miracle. I am completely bummed that I lost almost 200 oz of it. I want to stop breastfeeding as soon as possible (yes I am one of those) and my stash was my crutch to be able to continue longer as I kept going. Wonderful!

I called EZ who was really apologetic...all that work for nothing, he said he would look into an alarm for the deep freezer so it won't happen again.

Time to go eat some ice cream or something (yes it is the middle of the day) to lift my spirits! :)

Poop

2010-09-07T11:26:00.003-04:00

According to EZ, our daughter doesn't poop.

So APZ has some erratic pooping schedules as babies do, but we had gotten on a pretty regular every other day poop deal. I went back to work this past week and EZ stayed home with our darling angel and of course her pooping schedule was MWF not the TTh he was home. Well he had a three day weekend and so our scheduled day was Sunday for our next adventure and what do we have...no poop. And what about Monday, nope, still nothing. Now we are going on 4 days and what person would be comfortable after 4 days of not pooping...so little miss APZ has been a bit fussy. So fussy I was up with her at 4 this morning and we were up and down from 4 on.

So at 7:15 I sit down to feed her again before I need to go to work and EZ heads off to work. Literally the minute he walked out the door after saying goodbye, bam! Oh my sweet daughter, your dad is missing out here! One of these days you need to grace him with the biggest present possible as you have done for me so many times!

OBX

2010-09-01T13:00:00.000-04:00

We headed to the Outerbanks for a quick weekend trip to meet EZ's brother and their family there. They had rented a house in Salvo for the week and graciously let us come and stay with them for a couple days. We could have forgoed the trip and they could have driven out to see us on their way back to NY but we took them up on the chance to get away for the weekend.

This was our first trip with APZ, and geez, we need a lot more crap to bring her along. Not just the packnplay but all the other essentials-diapers and wipes and pump stuff and clothes for every occasion, the stroller, borrowed a pop up tent for the beach for her, just about everything under the sun.

We had a great plan. She has started somewhat of a pattern at night waking up for a middle of the night feed, anywhere from 1-3 and then again around 5am. Our plan was to be packed and then when she got up at 5, feed her and head out. We went to bed at our usual 9pm at night and then the unimaginable happened. By 5am she hadn't woken up at all. What do we do?? It has been 8 hours already...so we got up and ate breakfast and packed the car. Still she slept. At 6am, I woke her up and changed her and started to feed her but she was pretty much dead asleep. It took 30 min to feed her when it normally takes about 15. In the car, more sleeping. Woke up briefly to eat and then back to sleep.

We made it to the OBX and hung out for a little and she was actually awake for a couple hours and then fell back asleep. After another feeding, she fell back asleep at 3:30 that afternoon. And she slept, and slept, and slept...until 11:00pm. I kept asking EZ if we should wake her...is something wrong, but he said, she obviously needs sleep, so we let her sleep. She went back to bed too and slept until the morning. In a period of 36 hours, we probably had only 4-5 waking hours. It was truly bizarre and what I am attributing to a growth spurt (she had been feeding a lot preceding this). Now we are back on our being awake all morning and sleeping in the afternoon for our nap.

It was our first trip to the OBX and it was beautiful weather and EZ had fun in the ocean while I hung out with Piper under the tent. Here are a few pictures from the trip:

Our 3 nieces with Piper:

At the lighthouse:

And a couple photos of her many faces:

Some Thoughts

2010-08-21T17:24:00.004-04:00

Just some random comments:

1. I have my postpartum checkup the other day and all is good. I can start doing sit ups now. :)
2. I ran 25 min on the treadmill the other day for a total of 2.5 miles. Yes that is 10 min miles. But running continuous for that long was impressive for me at this stage.
3. I have 8 more pounds to lose to pre pregnancy weight from the 34 that I gained. I feel very good about this.
4. I start back to work in 9 days. And while I am sure it will be hard to leave, I think it will be good for my mental state.
5. We still aren't on a sleeping schedule. Some nights she has slept as much at 5-6 hours (YEAH!!) and other nights it is every 3. There is no rhyme or reason.
6. I got my hair cut today and feel like a new person. I just got it trimmed as I am growing it out to donate but it felt good to have a little me time and feel pretty again.
7. Lance Armstrong is going to be the graduation speaker at HPU this year and I am super excited. I have already had conversations with EZ about what I should get signed (he said too bad we didn't just sell the yellow aerohelmet!)
8. As a perk at work, the president gave us Ipads. It is basically just a ginormous Itouch but I think it will be great to watch movies on when traveling.
9. I am planning on doing a 5K in the beginning of October. Just to have a base of where I am at. I then plan on doing a 7 mile trail race in December and a half marathon in March. That is all my running ideas at the moment.
10. I have good days and bad days (or rather good moments and bad moments) and I think it is sleep that triggers if I am have a little meltdown.
11. We started trying out the cloth diapers yesterday and haven't mastered down quite the right tightness so that they don't leak. Or maybe they don't quite fit yet.
12. I starting watching Glee on netflix and OMG it is fabulous. I have only seen the first 8 episodes so far but it is hysterical! Love it (and EZ likes it too!)
13. Last but not least, Piper has found a new nap position with me...the boppy: