Wednesday, October 10, 2012

B-Leve Giveaway winner

Thanks to random.org, Barb is the lucky winner of the B-Leve coupons! I hope you enjoy it!

If you're still interested in winning coupons, hop on over to The Happy Runner who is doing her own giveaway. 

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Grooves

If it weren't for the lack of pooping, Lightrunner would be the easiest baby I have ever had. He caught on to the Eat, Play, Sleep routine really quickly. He sleeps in his crib (or cosleeper at night). When he has good days I can predict when he will need to sleep pretty easily and I usually have to wake him up to feed him. Yes, I wake him up (during the day).

When he doesn't poop, which is often, the whole thing can get out of whack. 2 hour naps become 45 minutes. He cries. He's gassy and cranky. I gave him brown sugar water a couple of times and it worked but it seems to have stopped. Today is day 4 of no poop, after 2 days of brown sugar water. BUT he is happily sleeping in his crib. I will have to go wake him up in 10 minutes or so. He doesn't seem to be quite as bothered as he used to be. The only change is that I'm cutting down on my dairy. I seem to be able to have milk in my tea and cereal in the morning. But a big glass of milk--or two--before bedtime will result in a night of gassiness. I bought American cheese from Organic Valley and it's SO GOOD and I've had that at lunch time and a few times the following nap was less than stellar... I'm still trying to figure out what our limits are... can I have ice cream before bed? Yogurt seemed okay.  Is it just whole milk? It's possible that all those times he was crying and I thought it was not pooping it was actually just dairy-related gas. He's not constipated--breastfed babies are rarely constipated and the signs are more about what's coming out than how often it comes out. So for now I need to forget about big glasses of milk, double up on my Vitamin D, and hope he gets over this soon!

Other than this little hiccup, everything is going swimmingly. The big kids have adjusted to school (well, I shouldn't say swimmingly, homework with SkyWalker is still a battle. He does his math work without hesitation, but he has to write a paragraph a week and it's THE WORST THING EVER.). The Princess is doing well in kindergarten and it feels like she's been in school forever. Chewie is doing GREAT in preschool. It's just what she needed. She's happy to go and listens well and enjoys it. She loves gymnastics and is often one of the best listeners in the class. When we go out she stays in the stroller with Lightrunner and is helpful and listens. It's insane. But once the big kids are home, she once again becomes the little kid and the screaming/crying starts. If she's going to misbehave at any point during the day it is most likely when they are home. Which gets really annoying. Our mornings together are quite nice though... I can run on the treadmill and shower and she entertains herself with Reading Rainbow on the iPad or her toys. She behaves. Doesn't whine or cry for me. It makes things a lot easier to get done.

We're all fitting into our grooves.

Monday, October 1, 2012

Adding miles

September is usually a busy month for us. We have back to school crazies, SkyWalker's birthday, and this year we have TWO soccer players in the house. Busy. Busy. Busy.

But I managed to run 16.9 miles in September. At one time I would not be proud of that... but I'm coming back from virtually no running during pregnancy and I have 4 children and their schedules to work around. I *could* run while Chewie is in preschool and Lightrunner sleeps, but I don't want to. I've been going to the library and reading (which is as lovely as it sounds) or to Target to get stuff without big kids around.

I'm still not where I want to be, but I ran 9 days in September (not including a failed attempt during Lightrunner's fussiest non-pooping period). For the first time ever I also did 6 days of cross training! Yoga and pilates and core work and all sorts of stuff. I took time off right after school started and then again during a week that Lightrunner was up at night A LOT and really fussy. Normally I don't give a crap about cross training, but I've got a wee bit of tightening to do and I'm determined to be a better runner now than I was before I got pregnant. I don't really *like* other exercise, but I've been doing the 10 minute workouts and I can tolerate those. I found something called Thin in 10 on the On Demand exercise channel which naturally was gone a week later. But I managed to locate a YouTube channel from the same person & I've pre-ordered the DVD with the workouts on it. Hopefully I can strengthen my core, make my pants fit better, and be ready to run a half marathon a year from now. I was toying with the spring, but I'd rather be completely done nursing. It's tough to go run for 2 hours if you're breastfeeding every 3 (not impossible, I know plenty who have done it, but I also know what works for me and my babies.)

I ran my longest post-baby distance yesterday. It was slow--as long runs should be--and rather than remember that my long run before I was pregnant was 9 miles, I just focused on the fact that I was running and not walking. I managed 3.3 miles and probably could have done more had I not known I needed to feed a baby soon (and when I walked in the house I was greeted with the sounds of baby crying). I looked at my garmin at the 5k point and it was roughly 36 minutes, which is roughly what I ran while training for my very first race. I think I'll get up to speed, pun intended, much quicker this time. When I was first starting out running I had no idea what I could do. Now I do.

(Check out my shampoo giveaway here! There's still time to enter! Spread the word!)