August Race Recap

before the race started

Saturday I completed my August race, which made it my 8th race of the year and the 2nd towards fulfilling my 40 by 40 goal.

It was 8 weeks since my last race, the 4th of July 5k, and just under 6 weeks since Ocean was born. So this race was done without any training, but was a good check-in to see where my body is at and how everything's feeling. I did the race with my friend C, who's about 5 months pregnant and we had planned on walking the whole race. We were both feeling pretty good though, so we started the race at a slow jog and alternated between walking and slow jogging for the duration of the race.

I remembered my insides not feeling great when I started running after giving birth to River, so I erred on the side of caution and wore my pregnancy support belt. It fits a lot different when it's not supporting a baby :) But it still helped stabilize my hips and put pressure on my abdomen so my uterus didn't jiggle around.

And I felt pretty good while jogging.

While 6 weeks of sitting on the couch didn't prepare me for a 4 mile race, I also didn't injure myself because we went at such a relaxed pace. My lower back is a bit stiff and my upper thighs and IT bands are a little sore, but really, I've had much worse sore muscles on other occasions, so I'm not complaining.

I've been chafing at my inability to exercise, and it felt glorious to be outside and moving again.

The race was 4.02 miles and I completed it in 1:00:18. I went into this race without any expectations at all, so I am more than happy with my finish time.
1st mile- 14:40
2nd mile- 15:22
3rd mile- 15:42
4th mile- 14:21

sunrise through the mist on the fields

The race is a small race on tree-lined country roads that run between farm fields and over small rivers with a view of our local mountains. There aren't any steep hills, just gently rolling hills that aren't challenging at all. C and I both agreed that it was a gorgeous course and definitely worth doing again. It costs only $20 and has a much, much smaller field of runners, which makes it a great alternative to the more expensive and way more crowded other 4 mile race I've run. It didn't hurt that the weather was almost perfect: cool and low humidity at the start, and while it was warmer and more humid by the time we finished it wasn't horrible. The other 4 mile race is scheduled for this coming Saturday and temps are supposed to be in the 90s. Glad I'm not running that one.

2015 races

Month	Race Time
August 4 mile		almost 6 weeks postpartum
July 5k	47:44	38 weeks pregnant
June 5k	41:19	34 weeks pregnant
May 5k	40:05	29 weeks pregnant pushed River in the jogger
April 5k	42:36	28 weeks pregnant pushed River in the jogger
March 5k	35:32	22 weeks pregnant
February 5k	33:55	20 weeks pregnant
January 5k	33:25	12 weeks pregnant

40 by 40

	Date	Event	Distance	Event Type
1.	July	4th of July 5k	5k	Pregnant
2.	August	4 Mile Fun Run	4 miles	Road Race

Where'd Summer Go?

who wouldn't want to snuggle with this sweet baby?

Summer is winding down here- random red or yellow leaves are appearing on the trees. The last couple days temperatures have cooled off a smidge and humidity levels have fallen a bit, which means it's actually been bearable to spend time outside.

I know there's plenty of hot and humid days left before fall settles in for good, but it's nice to catch glimpses of it.

I've been enjoying lots of baby snuggles, but it's really hard to accurately type one handed, so I've been taking a break from blogging. It's been nice but I'm feeling ready to get back on schedule. Mr M is working and Sunshine has started school, so we're gradually getting back into our daily life routine. The next few weeks should help me figure out when I can squeeze projects and writing into my weekly routine.

Ocean prefers to be held whenever possible, so I haven't made a lot of progress on projects to blog about. And I'm still healing from giving birth and haven't been cleared to start exercising again, so there's nothing to report on that front either.

Mr M's mom is hanging out until we bless Ocean and she's always up for baby snuggles, so now that Ocean isn't eating every half hour (though it is still pretty frequent during the day since he goes long stretches at night without eating) I've been able to start working on projects here and there. Once I have time to finish writing posts about them I'll start posting again- I should have several ready for next week.

Sunday Funny

I caught Sunshine and River playing in the homeschool cupboard after I unloaded all the school supplies and removed the shelves, but before it got hauled outside. They both like to make forts out of whatever they can find. River found this spot first, but Sunshine made it more comfortable with the blanket.

peekaboo!

Let Sleeping Babies Lie

Ocean sleeps well at night- 3 hours, 4 hours, 5 hours at a time, waking up at the end of a stretch to nurse. This means I get more sleep at night, but I don't get much done during the day since he's eating every half hour or so to make up for not eating most of the night.

Ocean's nickname for his first two weeks has been "coma boy" since he pretty much slept 23 hours of every day, only waking to eat, and sometimes I had to wake him to feed him. Even then he'll frequently fall asleep while eating- my milk has soporific properties apparently. River thought so too, because I remember struggling to keep him awake long enough to get enough milk in his tummy.

Despite the struggle to keep Ocean awake while eating, because he eats so frequently during the day he hasn't had any trouble gaining weight. He had a checkup the Friday after he was born and he was already back up to his birth weight. He had his two week checkup Wednesday and he weighed in at 8# 14 oz. That's 1# 10oz more than his birthweight. The pediatrician said he went from the 33rd percentile to the 56th percentile for weight. So mommy's milk definitely agrees with him :)

I've been taking advantage of all the time on the couch nursing Ocean to organize my computer- cleaning out my inbox, my bookmarks, filing photos, etc. I can do that one handed while holding Ocean in place.

Well, last week that was the case. This week I've been making twice daily trips into town taking Sunshine to and from Irish music camp. I can leave River with Grandma, but I have to take Ocean with me so I can feed him before we head back home. He doesn't seem to mind his carseat too much, except when he wakes up and realizes Mommy is not holding him. Since being held is his preferred state of affairs he doesn't hesitate to let me know that he's displeased.

We've got nature camp next week (I dropped the ball on registration and the only opening that worked was the week after Irish music camp, which was not what I had intended for our schedule), and the drive is a bit longer, so we'll see how he does.

Locks of Love, Part 2

look at how long her hair is!

You might have noticed a couple pictures recently (there's a pretty good one in this post) where Sunshine's hair looks a lot different. We've been growing her hair out for the last three years, since we cut her hair and donated it to Locks of Love. Sunshine has also been growing out her bangs for the last year (since cutting them short herself), and the other day I noticed that her bangs were down to her jaw. I mentioned that if we cut her hair, it would be one length and she wouldn't have to worry about those bangs anymore. She's forever messing with clippies to keep the bangs out of her face.

bangs down to her jaw

She wasn't on board right away, but I think that mentioning that shorter hair would be cooler helped sway her. The next day she came to me and said she wanted to go ahead and cut her hair. We talked about when we'd have time, and set the day for two days later. The next day she asked if we could do it then, rather than waiting another day. Hmmm, sounds like me- once I make up my mind to do something, I want to move forward with it and not sit around.

After measuring her hair, we realized that it was long enough to donate to Locks of Love again, if I was careful when I cut it. We went to a salon last time, but I figured I could do it this time.

It did end up a bit shorter than I intended (cutting pony tails off is harder than it looks, even with good scissors) and I'd like to shape her hair a bit, but she's resisting. She likes how floofy it is in back. She's been blessed (cursed?) with Mr M and my thick hair (seriously, our kids have no chance- they will have lots of hair), which doesn't actually do super well in a bob. I want to shape it into a bit of an A-line with some layering in the back, but she hasn't let me yet.

I do think it looks nicer around her face with the hair all one length and not having bangs that are a different length will be easier to style as we let it grow long again.

While I work on getting her to let me do a bit more trimming, we're experimenting with encouraging the curl in her hair. Most of my sisters and I have hair that started turning curly as we hit our early 20's, but Sunshine's has already started showing curly tendencies. I'm not sure if the curls will stick around while her hair is short (my hair is curliest while longer), so we'll see what happens. So far we haven't had a lot of success with it, but we'll keep trying.

sock curls are cute

Gratuitous Cute Baby Pics

A few days ago I was taking pictures of Ocean, trying to get some good poses for his birth announcement. It took two days and multiple tries, but eventually I got some pictures I could use. I also ended up with some other cute pictures that I didn't use for the announcement.

the identifying information-less version of Ocean's birth announcement

Just like River, Ocean was born with dark hair that we noticed right away. Poor Sunshine was a blond baldy for her first year and a half, but her brothers lucked out with the dark hair. I think Ocean's hair is a little longer than River's was when he was born. Hopefully his sticks around as well. Ocean doesn't have the cowlick that River does though.

River's cowlick is visible just above his right eye

no cowlicks for Ocean

Ocean is a smiley little baby- he smiles a lot in his sleep, which is super cute.

Remember River's scrunchy face?

Ocean does it too.

Though this wasn't on purpose- I just happened to randomly catch the expression.

He likes Sunshine singing to him- if he's fussing when she's holding him, she'll sing primary songs to him and he'll calm down.

He's got a very expressive face and I've lucked out on some funny pictures of some of those expressions.

the thinker

concerned

Leave me alone, I'm having a bad day

(really just a matter of timing and catching his eyes open a slit while he was sleeping)

surprised about something

Slowly Progressing Towards a Workout

River all ready to help daddy move firewood

I came home from the hospital Wednesday (almost two weeks ago) and weighed myself Thursday morning- I was already back to my pre-baby weight. I kept my weight gain to about 10 pounds, so it's not surprising that I was able to lose the weight quickly. Most of that weight is accounted for just by Ocean. Add in amniotic fluid and placenta, and that's the 10 pounds right there.

It helped that I was only on the IV for about an hour since it got knocked out and they didn't put it back in, so I didn't have to worry about getting rid of excess fluids.

Of course, I was overweight to begin with, so the challenge is to keep losing weight and making progress. I have continued losing weight and have lost another 5 pounds so far. I struggled to balance my nutritional needs (and food issues) with breastfeeding, running, and weight loss after River was born, so I know it's most likely not going to be easy this time around either. My goal weight is 50 pounds away, but I'd be happy with a 40 pound weight loss.

I also lost the baby weight very quickly after River was born, but the weight came back on because of my food issues. Since I don't want a repeat of that, I'm going to try to avoid a repeat of the recurrence of food issues and the resulting weight gain.

Last Thursday my pelvis and hips finally started feeling close to normal, though walking around Target still left me sore. After months of hip and pelvis pain and discomfort, I'm looking forward to being able to do run and move and be active without that pain.

So I'm making progress towards being able to run, but at just two weeks postpartum, it's still too early. Can you tell I'm getting a bit stir-crazy? :)

Sunday Funny

Sunshine and River are enjoying this a bit more than Ocean appears to be

Sunshine loves to hear this story- she thinks it's absolutely hilarious.

After Sunshine was born, the doc handed her to Mr M and she promptly pooped in his hand. Since it was meconium, it took him forever to get his hand cleaned properly. If you know Mr M, you know that he's a bit OCD about having dirty hands, which is why Sunshine thinks this is so funny.

River didn't poop on either of us, so no good story there.

Ocean, on the other hand, has his own story to share.

When Ocean was first placed on my chest, he peed on me. It was just a little, so the nurses cleaned me up and we went on snuggling. Later on, he peed again, but the volume was a lot more and I got a lot wetter. At that point we had to change my gown and clean me up again.

It's set a bad precedent though. River has peed on me once in almost two years of diaper changes (Mr M can't say the same thing though), but little Ocean has peed on me 5 or 6 times already in less than two weeks.