All the preparation

Moving day is almost here. In a few hours we're picking up a rental truck, dropping the kids off at grandma and grandpa's house and packing like crazy for the rest of the day. Tomorrow the moving company comes to move the large furniture and Friday afternoon we close and move in! It's going to be a crazy couple days, but it will be so worth it once we're settled in the new place. I can hardly believe all that has happened over the course of the past two and a half months. Of course, Cutie's arrival dwarfs all of this in importance, but this has required far more work than Cutie- she's such a dream baby. Yesterday afternoon she sat on the couch or laid on the floor for two hours and was entirely amused by herself and her big brothers. Not that I hope to leave her alone for that long, but I had some stuff that had to get done and she obliged. She's found her hands, she likes to play with them when she can intentionally get them together. She's learned to reach for some things, maybe by accident or luck, but then she holds on for a while to get a feel for the world around her. When she's awake and hanging around she loves to smile at people and has wonderful "conversations" with anyone that wants to sit and talk for a while. She's just so laid back and happy, I'm amazed. Maybe I've already said all of this, but I'm daily reminded of how wonderful she is. Of course her big brothers have been troopers through all of this, too. Superman enjoys "helping" us pack boxes, which often have to be repacked, but he feels helpful. Hot Wheels helped me scrub the bathroom tub and has been doing some cleaning jobs with us.

Last week we went to the zoo and children's museum for the day, the kids liked the animals but weren't as excited as we had anticipated. The museum had a water room, though, and that was a huge hit. Monday afternoon it was in the mid-70s here, in October! We went to the park and the boys played a game of air baseball with SuperDad. The best part about air baseball is that every "hit" is a home run. There was much base running done by all, Cutie and I were enthusiastic spectators. Yesterday we went to the aquarium and had a good time as well. Here are more pictures, enjoy.

Hardware scandal and a new career

Yesterday we drove almost an hour for a fun run with Spiderman. Neither SuperDad nor myself participated in the 5k or even 2 mile fitness walk, just the kids run and then home. When we got there, Superman decided that he would run along with Hot Wheels. At not yet three years old, he was youngest in the race by quite a bit, although he's almost as tall as some 4-year olds so I don't think anyone guessed how young he was. We heard that the course was an out and back around some cones so before the start we walked with the boys down to the cones and told them they had to run all the way to that point before they could turn around. They lined up with the other kids and we were very surprised that Superman didn't want either of us to come with him, he was going to do it by himself, just like his big brother. They started out and Superman faded quickly, along with another boy. SuperDad was farther down the course than I was just in case one of the boys fell or needed guidance. Well, we tried to get that race course part correct, but when the first two kids rounded the cones and started coming back, Superman turned around, too. He didn't hear SuperDad trying to tell him to turn around again and run to the cones. He picked up some speed and since I was carrying Cutie in the carrier, I couldn't run out to grab him so when he crossed the finish line it looked like he was in second place. I didn't want to leave Hot Wheels on the course without cheering and getting his picture so I didn't get over to the finish line for a couple minutes and that's when I realized they didn't know that Superman hadn't done the whole course and that he was supposed to get a medal. Apparently, Spiderman runs at a lot of events and he always comes in third so the top three finishers get medals while everyone else gets a ribbon. This part really confused Hot Wheels and he was asking how a super hero could get beaten by some little kids. We told him that Spiderman wants all the kids to do their best so he slows down a little and sometimes lets kids win. We also mentioned that Spiderman was really just someone in a costume, to which he replied "yeah, I knew that". (and yet he still asked how the kids beat a super hero) Anyway, by the time we got over to the finish and realized that Superman's pull tab was ripped because they thought he came in second, the fun run was over and the race director was over at the 5k start. I felt really bad that the kid that came in fourth should have gotten a medal and not Superman but almost all the kids were already gone. I found the race director after the 5k start went off and explained the mistake and apologized that I didn't stop him before the finish. She started laughing and said I should relax because it's a FUN run, and there's no harm done. She gave me Superman's pull tab and told me to go get his medal since we weren't staying for the awards. So, we came home with hardware. At first I told the boys it was a special medal because they were the only brothers in the race but then we realized that wasn't a good idea, so we told them it was a mistake that Superman won the award because he didn't really run the whole way. Apparently they couldn't care less WHY they have the medal, they just like wearing it around. It was a fun morning although Hot Wheels was disappointed that he came in towards the back. I think he crossed the line seventh out of eight and there were two Rosie Ruiz imitators ahead of him, too, since Superman's not the only one that turned around early. He asked quite a few times yesterday whether we were proud of him for running his race and we assured him we were very proud, although I was a little worried about how important it seemed for him to hear that repeatedly.

Two new runners in the family. Registrations could start getting expensive, but at least we'll always have t-shirts to wear. I'm just thrilled they think this is fun.

Back by popular demand

Thanks for asking, Duane, here's Cutie, and her brothers. A real post will follow soon.

Who needs practice?

A couple weeks ago Hot Wheels mentioned that it's been a long time since he's had a running race, so he'd like to do another one. As luck would have it there's a race next Sunday, with Spiderman no less, and it's close to my brother-in-law's house, so his cousin will likely come to run as well. He's mentioned a few times that he needs to practice and he'll run laps of the house. Then every now and then we have weeks like this. Wednesday we went apple picking and to a corn maze at a big farm where the kids ran around plenty (although not in the maze, they did follow the no-running rule there), Thursday night we met up with friends at the playground and the boys ran around for almost three hours- sunset was 6:24pm and we left about 6:40pm. Yesterday a bunch of boys from his class all met up at the local park after pre-school, there was two hours of non-stop chasing, running, jumping, etc and last night we were at my friend's house where the boys ran around the yard with her three kids for another two hours. It was so much activity this week and I didn't think they'd be up for running at the boardwalk this morning. Of course they were, and they wanted to play on the beach as well, you guessed it, running. I had Cutie in the baby carrier and for a while I had Superman on my back along the boardwalk, there's a decent workout for walking. On the beach I did some walking lunges, with Cutie still in the carrier, and I was reminded in ungraceful fashion that my quads are quite weak. Something to work on when I get back to the gym. It did remind me that I can get in a bit more exercise than I have been, little opportunities arise all the time and I ignore them. But I'm fine with that for now. On the way home from the boardwalk this morning, Hot Wheels mentioned that he hasn't practiced much for his race next weekend, it made me laugh. He's excited about another race, he really hopes to beat Spiderman, I'm not sure how fast Spiderman is.

On another note, if I could take a picture of their shins it would be embarrassing to show how many bruises the boys both have. At least they were all self-inflicted through activity. Then I look down at my own shins and realize they have likely inherited my complete lack of grace. But if they've got my determination they'll make it through the bruises and be active anyway.

That's the whole point of the game

Trying to explain the rules of Hide and Seek to a 2-year old can be a challenge. Superman often counts and then yells out "Where are you?" before looking for whomever is hiding. Hot Wheels has tried to explain to him that the point of the game is for him to find the hider without being told where he or she is hiding, we've tried to tell him the same thing. Sometimes he gets it, sometimes he doesn't. The hardest part about playing Hide and Seek in our small ranch house is trying to make it seem like we don't know where the kids are hidden for 45 minutes when they used up all the original hiding spots in the first three rounds. Their current favorite is to hide under the covers of their bed. It's usually pretty obvious since the bed is made before the game starts and then there's a large bump in the middle of it.

We've had a couple decent workouts recently. Last Saturday morning we went to a local boardwalk along the beach that's a very nice 2 mile round trip. Super Dad pushed the boys in the jogging stroller while they ate waffles and I took Cutie in the baby carrier, also known as the "sweat-producing-heat-trapping-baby-sleeping-contraption", I actually was making some pretty decent time over much of the two miles, it almost felt like really working out again, and that felt good. I've been doing some moving-box-heavy lifting, and with Hot Wheels riding his bike more, the walks around the neighborhood while pushing Superman and Cutie in the stroller have gotten faster, too. Real speed and endurance builders? No, but fun.

I thought about the treadmill today,

Does that count as a workout? Actually we went out for a walk today so Hot Wheels could ride his bike and I added some short jog intervals while pushing Superman and Cutie in the stroller. It's not a jogging stroller and I wasn't moving very fast but it reminded me that someday I'll be able to go a little faster and I'm looking forward to that. Next goal - the 5k distance. The first one is in April so I've got plenty of time. Tomorrow we're having a family picture taken for the pictorial church directory and we get a free portrait. Cutie will be a month old tomorrow, too, so that's nice. We're going out for a walk first thing in the morning and the picture's early afternoon, it will be interesting to see how it goes with the kids, if Cutie could just sleep through it that would be perfect.
Now, here are some recent pictures. Take care.

Not Heaven, but really close

In the time that I've taken a break from posting, I've also mostly taken a break from the computer in general. Taking more time to be unplugged has been a good thing for me, I was starting to spend too much time partially spectating while the kids were left on their own and I was doing something on-line. I look forward to catching up on everyone's blogs, but I think that for the remainder of my maternity leave I may still be around sporadically. Especially since until I get back to the schedule of work, and the gym, I've got nothing exercise, triathlon or even physically related to write about. Except that Hot Wheels has started riding his bikes on our family walks and he's gotten quite good at it. He's mentioned a couple times that now he could do a running race and a biking race and pretty soon he'll learn to swim and then he can do races "like mom". That's a kick of motivation to get back to it, I'm just waiting until November because I don't feel like trying to juggle regular workouts into our routine. If I can find some time to hit the treadmill in the basement, fine, but I'm not going to stress over it.

In general, my life right now is about as close to perfect as I think can be achieved. We've been having an amazing time together as a family. Whether I'm ever able to convince (bribe) SuperDad that we should have another one, it doesn't really matter. We're a great family of five. The boys are completely in love with their sister, who will now be known as Cutie. It loses something in writing it here, but if you could here Superman talk about his new sister, he loves to kiss her and then tell me "She a cutie", and it's pronounce k-YOU-U-U-U-tee, in the way only a two and a half year old can make a word sound even better. There hasn't been a single instance of jealousy from the boys, even when I've got to stop whatever I'm doing with them so I can feed or change Cutie. Unfortunately, their only negative issue has been an increase in the number of times they're up overnight. We're not sure how that could be related to Cutie's arrival, since she's clearly not the cause of all of these sudden nightmares and scary stuff in their room, but they've been horrible about sleeping. She, on the other hand, is a dream. She's a relatively content baby and she's already started doing a four and a half to five and a half hour stretch of sleep at night. With the boys I never got more than three hours until they were over a year old, so this is wonderful. If only she could teach her big brothers to sleep better, mom would be a little more rested, and maybe slightly happier.

The start of the school year went fine. Hot Wheels is happy to be back at preschool and Superman tried his first "I'm Two" playgroup at the local Park and Rec. He cried for about 15 minutes but then settled down for the rest of the hour and came out proclaiming "Mom, I had fun at school!" So, all is going well.

We've had some aggravations with the whole house buying and selling process, but I guess there always are. We're hoping the closing will be six weeks from now, although the seller of our new home just found a place to move to so if she can close sooner, everyone else can as well. We're enjoying the last gasps of summer since the days still get up into the 70s around here. We've found a beach where the dogs can swim, but it's a bit rocky for people, Hot Wheels went swimming with the dogs last weekend. There's a local boardwalk along the water and we've been walking a couple miles there a few times recently. We've been spending time with some friends and generally enjoying ourselves. The next nine weeks will undoubtedly fly by too fast, but since last time I had to go back after six weeks, it will still be great.

I look forward to catching up with everyone as race seasons come to a close. I'm also looking forward to hitting next season with everyone, I've just got a little more work to do in the off-season getting myself back in shape. The only real negative to this post-pregnancy body is the adjustment to nursing. Trying to run with these bad boys is painful, but it's worth it. I saw a t-shirt recently that read "I make milk, what's your Superpower?", I thought that was pretty funny. The sad part is that the best food I'll ever make is something none of the kids will even remember eating. Too bad I can't cook meals that good. I do have a hate-hate relationship with the breastpump, but again, it's for a good reason. The boys were both exclusively breastfed and then nursed or got bottles of breastmilk until they were a year old. Not that formula would hurt them, but I was proud to do that for them and I intend to do the same for Cutie. I've always heard it helps with weightloss but I've never really found that for myself. I am back in my non-maternity clothes, those that I didn't already pack up, so I guess I'm on the right track.

Coming down

I'm sure this feeling will be familiar to anyone reading this, similar to a race let-down period, I'm hitting a wall. The past month has been completely nuts with Baby Girl's arrival and all the house stuff. I think that I'm a pretty good person to have around in busy and stressful times. I do well with a bit of chaos and can keep my head and organization to the extent that people have often commented they have no idea how I'm doing it- it being whatever needs to be done. Well, she's here, the house inspection is done, and I've got, say, maybe a tad more hormones running around my body than usual, so I can feel a crash coming on. I haven't hit the random crying-for-no-reason post-partum point yet. For me that's been about 5 days after, so by the beginning of next week that's where I'll probably be at. I'm trying to just enjoy the absolute blessings I've got in my life but there's something about my personality that leads me to dwell on small trivialities to keep my brain occupied when there isn't enough external stress. So, I'll cry "because" this is our last baby, because we're leaving this house, even though I can't wait- because this is where Superman was born, because I don't really like pink and we've already gotten about a dozen pink outfits for her. I'll cry because I'm not quite sure what to do with a girl, and I don't think girl toys are nearly as cool as boy toys, but also because I'm a little scared about the whole mom-daughter relationship thing and how I know that there will likely be times when I'll push her away by trying to do what I think is the best thing for her. Or, I'll just cry, no reason.

I think I'll be taking a blogging break for a little while to get myself together again. Right now I don't have a lot of interest in, well, anything. I'll get through it, I've been here before, it's just not the fun part and I'm not sure I'll be up to sharing. Thanks again for all the well-wishes, I'm sure I'll be back soon and I'll be keeping tabs on everyone else until then.

Pictures and info

Thanks for all the congratulatory responses! Just to let you know, we do have a name in-real-life, but I don't have a blog name for her yet, to go with Hot Wheels and Superman. I realize that anyone could probably find out who we are relatively easily, but SuperDad prefers that we not use names, especially for the kids. You never know these days, it's sad but true.

She was 8lbs 4 oz and 20" long. I'm told that's long for a girl, but she still seems so tiny. She's asleep right now, the boys are looking forward to her waking up so they can "help" me give her a sponge bath. They've been so great with her, she may be the most-kissed two-day old ever since Superman kisses her just about every time he walks by her.

Here's a picture of all of us at the hospital, and her close-up. Thanks again for all the well-wishes.

"Race Report"

Well, we're home and Critter has arrived. Or, I guess I should say Critterette. Yes, it's a girl. She's not quite old enough for me to have figured out a suitable name for her, I guess we'll just go with Baby Girl for now.

The whole induction thing was much less invasive than I had expected. The dr. broke my water about 11am and she shot into the world a little after 2pm. You don't need all the details, things were steady from 11am until about 1:15pm. Then at 1:15pm the nurse said we could walk around the maternity ward if we'd like, I was going stir crazy in the room so I said yes. After three laps I was feeling really uncomfortable, we got back to the room and she was on her way. There were about 25 minutes of some intense pain and a little nervousness due to a compressed cord and the fact that they couldn't find her heartbeat. Finally they got the monitoring back and the dr. barely had his gloves and gown on before he reached up and caught her. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about being in labor for only four hours, but that last part was quite overwhelming.

She's doing well, her brothers are thrilled to meet her and they've both shown much more interest and concern for her well-being than I had anticipated. I'm pretty exhausted because we probably got a total of three hours of sleep at the hospital, I don't know who can rest at a hospital- it's impossible. Glad to be home, our family of five.

Thanks for the many well-wishes throughout this pregnancy. I'm looking forward to getting back into shape after the next couple weeks of recovery, another journey I'll be sharing.