32 Weeks - Squash

I've been really bad at veggie intake. These just make me feel guilty.

 

How far along: 32 weeks. It's flying by and dragging ass at the same time. Funny how that works.

Total weight gain: 25ish, I guess I'm in the "pound per week" stage

Stretch marks: We've already covered that.

Sleep: Non-existent. I hate running at night. HATE. I skipped my early morning run today in favor of hopping on the treadmill later this evening because I was up from 2:30-4. Alarm went off at 4:30, just as I had finally fallen back asleep. I guess the bright side is that I was already awake when Charlie came padding down the hall because he had a bad dream about a "big smasher, that smashes people." (I giggled in my sleep-deprived state because it sounded like he was saying "dick smasher." I'm a horrible parent. And incredibly immature)

Exercise: Had a great 10-mile run on Saturday, hoping that I've figured out a good plan. Weights on Sunday and Monday, running tonight and Thursday, hoping for 14 miles on Saturday.

Movement: All the time, getting more painful as she grows. Hoping she's back to being head down at my appointment tomorrow.

Food cravings: Saturday was bad - I ran, so I don't feel as bad as I should, but I had a donut for breakfast, ice cream for lunch (I couldn't pass up the long-awaited arrival of Coffee Coffee Buzz Buzz Buzz in my local grocer's freezer section!) and then a birthday party for dinner, complete with 10 different kinds of pizza, buffalo chicken dip, and possibly the best cupcakes I've ever had.

Happy or moody most of the time: It really varies hour to hour and by the company I'm in

Looking forward to: Still no progress on the moby or sling. Or the laundry. Or the room organization. Or decorating. Lots and lots to do.

Heart Mini 2013

So here it is, my hugely pregnant half marathon effort. It was ugly. First of all, the course sucks. But I knew that going in, it sucks every year. Full of non-stop rolling hills and bridges. Challenging enough when I'm setting myself up to run it in 1:51, and pretty much absolute torture 31 weeks pregnant. My hill stamina has been slowly but steadily dwindling over the past few weeks - I don't think I've made it up a full grade since January - so I knew it was going to be slow and full of walk breaks.

I probably didn't start out very smart. I had helped my neighbor train for this race, her first half marathon, so we were running together doing 6 minutes of running and 1:30 walking. After our 10 miler last Saturday I resolved to lengthen the rest intervals after the Heart Half. Probably should have done it sooner. So we started out using our standard run/walk interval, which was actually fine at first, other than the fact that I had tied my shoe too tight and my foot hurt. That started by mile 3. Then by mile 5 I realized that there was no way I could sustain our run/walk system, so I told Angie to go on ahead of me with her cousin. Just because I was headed toward a 3-hour finish didn't mean I'd need to drag her down with me! So off she went, and I was alone.

It was a whole new experience, being pretty much all the way at the back of the pack, soldiering on long after the cheering crowds had packed it in. There wasn't much to look at and there weren't many people to talk to. I set my intervals at 3 minutes running / 3 minutes walking, but then threw that out the window and decided to run the flat and downhill sections and walk the uphills. Which was fine, but holy shit, there were a lot of uphills. A LOT of uphills. And my foot hurt. Running put a lot of pressure on my bladder and walking hurt my foot, so there was really no preferred way to keep moving forward. I know I should have just stopped to pee, but there was always a line and I just wanted to keep making progress. I'll keep that in mind for the Pig, though it won't be as much of a problem because that course has much better support. By the time I hit mile 11 the run/walk had mostly turned into a walk/run/limp. The bridge from Newport to Cincinnati has never felt so long. I finally made it to the finish line with a time of 2:50:something. A full hour slower than last year, but I still felt like I had accomplished something because how many people complete a half marathon 31 weeks pregnant?

I've never been more happy to not show up in any race photos. I was an absolute train wreck by the end. As you can see, I'm flashing my trademark "smile even though it hurts" grimace.

 

 

The best part of the whole thing is that I was able to help my friend go from being a total non-runner to running 13.1 miles. And that was pretty cool to see.

 

Even though this experience was a total suck-fest, I'm not giving up on the Pig. I'm going to revise my run/walk strategy until I find something that works. I also need to figure out if my foot hurt because my feet have just gotten bigger/wider and, if so, whether or not I can find a running shoe that will get me through the last 9 weeks of pregnancy. So don't count me out yet!

Hump Day Bump Day!

Again, a slacker pic from the bathroom mirror. Poor baby who is still unnamed.

 

 

Today is the first day of spring and the forecast is calling for a balmy 45 degrees. I'm pretty much done with winter, especially because last year at this time we were in a freakishly warm spell - we hit a record high of 83 that day. I'm not only tired of my winter maternity shirts, but I'm growing out of them! Thankfully I have a longer cami to wear underneath everything. I have a very healthy collection of spring clothes, though! Hurry the eff up!

 

I also keep thinking that I'm so far behind in terms of baby prep and organization, but looking back at my 2008 blog I can see that I hadn't gotten much done at this point last time, either. That makes me feel better. I still haven't figured out what I'm going to hang on the wall, though. I have lots of good ideas and sadly, they don't exist anywhere.

31 Weeks - Pineapple

Who doesn't love a pineapple?

 

How far along: 31 weeks. Holy cow.

Total weight gain: 24ish

Stretch marks: We've already covered that.

Sleep: Charlie spent his first night on the couch last week. First night ever on the couch in the history of our relationship. Apparently, I snore.

Exercise: Holy shit I ran the half marathon. It hurt. More details to come, probably tomorrow, when the feeling in my foot has returned.

Movement: There are a lot of cervix jabs going on. Very unpleasant. That and she's back to breech, so I'm very unexcited by that. I did get a surprise ultrasound to verify the position, though, so that was nice!

Food cravings: I could eat.

Happy or moody most of the time: Excited to get these last 10 weeks over and done with!

Looking forward to: Still no progress on the moby or sling. I'd really like to get those done at some point. Still have a lot of organizing to do, which is something I love.

Pi Day!

I'm usually well-prepared for the annual Pi Day celebration, but it snuck up on me this year. So instead of tasty Pi, here's earworm Pi. Prepare to hate me for the rest of the day :)

Hump Day Bump Day

Another week, another crappy selfie mirror pic. This is HDBD in St. Louis! Excuse the cranky look on my face. I went to the hotel gym at 6 yesterday and every.single.piece of cardio equipment was occupied. I went at 5 this morning to guarantee myself a spot on a bike - I'm taking full advantage of being able to get in some no-impact cardio. 60 minutes on the recumbant bike isn't quite as taxing from a cardio perspective, but my legs certainly enjoyed it.

I'd say that the king-sized bed I had all to myself was nice, too, but I didn't sleep well thanks to nosebleeds. I actually snored so loud that I woke myself up, as I mentioned yesterday.

I've reached bowling ball status - I officially can't physically bend over to tie my shoes.

Yay for going home today! A full day early, and I'm so thankful.

30 Weeks - Cucumber

I can't even talk about the fact that I've never seen a foot-long cucumber without it sounding incredibly dirty, so we'll just let that go for now.

How far along: 30 weeks, but I keep telling people I still have 11 left.

Total weight gain: Not sure, I refuse to step on the scale unless certain things have happened the night before. I'm guessing about 22.

Stretch marks: After googling pictures of stretch marks, I guess I should just be glad that mine are thin white lines. Knock on wood.

Sleep: I'm out of town in St. Louis this week (for work) and actually woke myself up snoring last night. Between that and the nosebleeds, I'm not very well-rested.

Exercise: Running, lifting real weights, kettlebells. Had a very rough 10-mile run on Saturday, so I'm taking advantage of the elliptical machines and exercise bikes in the hotel gym and getting in some good low-impact cardio this week. Running a Half Marathon on Sunday!

Movement: Yes, and it's starting to hurt!

Food cravings: I could eat.

Happy or moody most of the time: Crankier than usual right now, since I'm wasting my time being out of town. Sad to be away from the family. Also cranky because running is getting more difficult and I don't know what else I can do for cardio.

Looking forward to: Taking Friday off and picking out fabric for my homemade ring sling and moby wrap!

Bigger Fish to Fry

As a former catholic, that's my lame attempt at humor for a Friday during lent.

As though I needed additional stress and anxiety-causing decisions, we've had a pretty awesome opportunity fall into our laps. Charlie is currently in a Montessori pre-school class and is doing incredibly well. At the risk of sounding like one of "those parents," he's already reading and writing and spelling and working on basic math, at four. I've always been a little hesitant to send him to our local public school, for a variety of reasons, but watching him progress in his current environment just makes it even harder to happily accept - when he turns 6 and starts 1st grade, he's going to be in a class that's just beginning to develop reading skills and hasn't even considered math. There are going to be kids who don't know their letters. Which is fine - we're lucky enough to have had such a great pre-school environment for him. So the plan has always been to keep him where he is for kindergarten, and then figure out where to go from there.

Part of that "figuring out" has involved me researching the hell out of all of our local private school options. There are a ton in our area, but it was easy to narrow the list based on religion (no, thanks), proximity to home and/or office, and budget (there are three schools that charge $20K/year. AYFKM?). One of the schools that ended up on my list is a Montessori school that runs ages 3-9 and is about to expand to age 12. We set up a tour and put in an application for a first grade spot the very next day, without a lot of hope because the program is pretty much always full. A few weeks later, I got a call asking if we would be interested in starting Charlie there this coming school year, for Kindergarten. It would guarantee us a spot for grades 1-6, and guarantee his sister enrollment at age 3, as well.

And so the past week has been a whirlwind of decision making, touring the public option to make sure that we were making the right decision, budget adjusting (it's actually a $ saver), and, most importantly, figuring out how to make the logistics work. I work a normal schedule and elementary hours run from 9-3, so there has been lots of talk at work about what would be an acceptable arrangement that would allow me to continue to work a full-time schedule but still be able to run drop-off and pick-up, since the school is right down the road from my office. In addition, we're searching for a new infant care center, since husband will be the one dealing with that set of drop-off/pick-up. It doesn't make sense to stay where we are and have him drive 60 miles in a day when he works from home.

I'm feeling a little overwhelmed with how I'm going to manage the new work schedule and how we're going to handle a normal school calendar rather than the always-open-daycare schedule - obviously this day was going to come at some point, I just figured I had another year to worry about it! Also sad about resigning from the school we're in now - he's been there since he was 12 weeks old and we've been so happy with both their infant care and their pre-school. But in the end, I know that this is the best long-term decision that we can make, from the Charlie perspective. I think he's going to be happy there, and that's all that matters. That's what parents do, right?

29 Weeks - Acorn Squash

I've only had acorn squash once, at a neat restaurant when we went to Gatlinburg with my sister. It was covered in brown sugar and quinoa. The quinoa made it healthy, right?

 

How far along: 29 weeks - 11 to go, but I'm psyching myself up for a later delivery (again) and calling it 12.

Total weight gain: 21.5

Stretch marks: Yes, ALL.OVER my butt. See yesterday's post for formal complaint.

Sleep: What's that?

Exercise: Running, lifting real weights, kettlebells. Got my 16 miler in on Saturday, with a very desperate pitstop 10 miles in. Learnings:

1. I need to get over my stage fright, I should have used the bathroom at the park but my running partner was in there with me.
2. I miss my immodium-fueled long runs.
3. Running 6 minutes and walking 1 minute is good for pregnant me
4. Turn off the pace tracker on the Garmin to save ego

Movement: All the time some days, not so much on others. I can tell she's getting bigger, as the movements are very visible from the outside when she gets going.

Food cravings: I'm hungry all the time. Ravenous, really.

Happy or moody most of the time: The crankiness continues

Looking forward to: Organizing and (hopefully) Fridays off starting next week. I have a lot of stuff that I want to get done and no time to do it.

I'm Walking in a Spider Web

So leave a message and I'll call you back....

More accurately, I'm a walking spider web. As i feared, the one stretch mark that i noticed snaking across my right butt cheek last week has branched and spread like cracking glass, tracing a web of pale white lines across my already-pale derriere. I guess two pregnancies without mom scars was just too much to ask.