August 19, 2013

Cheering on Stacey at the TransRockies

In the last week we've had solar panels put on our house, finalized the details of our new yard, made some dents in the piles of stuff in our house, and driven all over the state.

Thursday August 15 I (Meggan) packed the car and the girls and left the house at 6:10am.  I had hoped to leave a little earlier, in order to see our friend Stacey Cleveland start her trail race in Leadville at 8am.  She was running the TransRockies stage race: 6 days of running side by side with a partner, then camping each night with the group.  Jason has always wanted to do a big stage race, and I did not really know much about how they worked.  We went to watch day 3.

The runners left Leadville at 8am but ran down the road a little ways before going into the trail, so we were able to scramble around to see Stacey at the edge of town.  It was only 36F, and the kids were still in their pajamas, but we rang our cowbell and cheered 'Go Stacey!' before she ran by, and then we got dressed and organized.  Each aid station/view point was about 6-7miles apart, and we saw Stacey 4 times including the finish.  In between each aid station, we had a chance to eat/feed Ava/change a diaper/play a game, etc.  Rachel rode her bike a little bit and harassed Stacey's husband Dave in his VW van.

The trail was not nearly as technical as many of Jason's races, and it felt like we were able to see the runners often.  The leaders were really flying.  There were different categories of runners, but Stacey and Mel (sponsored by North Face) had won stages 1 and 2.  They had pink leaders jerseys on, just like in the Tour De France.  They had 3 min, then 5 min, then more on the second place women's team as they went through.

The finish was set up with a huge camp of tents for the athletes to sleep, and a different area of tents for volunteers and organizers to sleep.  Portable bathrooms, showers, a huge tent for a dinner and awards, massage tents, and the finishing chute were all fun to see.  Rachel threw rocks into the lake for a while, then lost steam as she became more tired and hungry.  Stacey and Mel came into the finish smiling and looking fresh.  Clearly seasoned athletes and hanging out with the VIP runners.  We had a picnic lunch and then Stacey and Dave helped me get the kids back in the car to go home.

By the time we got home, all 3 girls had runny noses / head colds!

Rachel rings cowbell for Stacey

Stacey comes to high 5 Rachel



Other pictures on facebook

August 12, 2013

Georgetown Rest Stop

Sunday our friend Dave Cleveland, from Penticton BC, did an adventure race at Copper Mountain.  His wife Stacey is doing a TransRockies Stage Race this week in Colorado.  So we got up early and drove to Summit county to say hello and cheer Dave on.

Notes about the day:

- Rachel decided to name Dave 'Sid' from the Ice Age movies, so continued to say 'Go, Sid, Go!' and ring her cowbell.

- Rachel enjoyed playing at the beach of Lake Dillon, but unfortunately threw some plastic utensils she found into the lake for the fish.  Apparently watching The Little Mermaid teaches kids that forks (dinglehoppers) are good toys for mermaids and sea creatures... so Rachel though the fish would like it.  Our environmentalist selves were ashamed.

- Dave did awesome, coming second and giving the winner a real run for his money.

- Ava slept most of the day away and was very, very easy.

- Jason was not feeling well and took the day off.  I had an excellent ride on the bike path.  Although it was sad for Jason, it felt wonderful to be able to exercise more than him for a change.

- We had the worst possible service at our restaurant for dinner.  Rachel managed to steal free candy out of the gumball machines, and then picked food off of Stacey and Dave's pizza to further their elegant dining experience.

- Stacey and Dave are wonderful people and we really like them.

- When I asked Rachel at the end of the day what her favorite part was, she said "Ringing the Cowbell."

- The traffic home was easy.  Sadly, the girls were not.  We pushed them to go out for dinner and then try to drive home, making it a late bed time.  Ava was crying and crying on the drive home and we didn't know what to do to calm her.  We even tried giving her a pacifier and she wouldn't take it.  We pulled into Georgetown's rest stop and then Rachel started up screaming.  Jason and I had to smile and share a look as we sat in the car, helpless, as both girls screamed and screamed and we wished we could disappear.  Thankfully, everyone fell asleep in the car shortly after that and I drove them home to bed.


6 weeks already?!

We can't believe our Summer is almost over.  Jason returns to real work.  Ava is 6 weeks old on Friday.  The weather is turning slightly cooler.  Leaves are starting to turn and soon Colorado will be a mass of red, yellow, and orange Aspen leaves.  Rachel knows her birthday is coming up (in 'Tober) and is starting to dress her dolls in ski clothes and slide them down imaginary hills.  We haven't told her yet that we didn't buy ski passes for this coming Winter...

Here are a few thoughts about things going on with Ava, and the dynamics in our changed family of four.

DIAPERS
We put Rachel in cloth diapers when she was 8 pounds, which was 2 weeks old.  Her belly button had just healed, and we were thrilled with the cloth Bum Genius diapers that grew with her as she got bigger.  We recently switched Rachel to night time 'pull ups' for night time potty training and Ava now has all the cloth hand-me-downs.  Ava weighed 8 lbs, 13 oz. at birth and as soon as her belly button healed we tried the cloth diapers.  They leaked.  We waited a few days and tried them again.  They leaked.  In Virginia we tried again and had leaking problems.  We returned to disposable diapers and continued to be shocked as how much garbage (trash, to all my fellow Americans) that generated.  Now we are at home and determined to make cloth work.  We have a few other cloth options that we have been given and they are a bit better.  This last week things are improving and I feel confident that we will be able to make cloth work out well... but I'm not thrilled with them like we were with Rachel.

So... why do we have leaking problems with Ava and not Rachel?  Ava is less fussy so perhaps we changed Rachel more often?  Are the diapers so well used that they aren't as absorbent?  Has Rachel worn them as she got bigger and stretched them slightly, so they don't go as small?  Is Ava's long body just a different shape and it doesn't work as well for her?  Do they have different 'styles' of making a mess?  This sounds crazy, but Rachel and Ava do seem to mess up different areas of the diaper.  Rachel never, ever had an 'up the back' explosion.  Ava has already had several - regardless of the clothing or diaper.  I always thought it was weird that other babies did this and Rachel never did.

Anyway, we hope things improve here as Ava grows and we will have less leaking issues.  For now, we are using disposables at night and cloth during the day when we are at our own house.

NURSING AND SLEEPING SCHEDULES
Ava is all over the place and doesn't have any kind of routine during the day.  Sometimes she's very alert for most of the day, nursing every hour and sleeping for 30-60 min here and there.  Other days she's zonked out most of the time and hardly eats.  Generally Ava will be in night time mode from 9pm until 7am.  She will wake up to feed every three hours or so, and settles very easily with milk and often doesn't need changing or soothing in any other way.
Example:
Ava goes to sleep at 9pm.  I feed her at 10pm and then go to sleep myself.  She'll wake at 1:30pm, I will be with her until 2:15am, then sleep until 4:30am and then be with her until 5:30am, then Rachel will wake up and I'll send her to Daddy and I'll doze with Ava until about 7am.

I consider this a very good schedule.  I think I will need to start establishing feeding times and napping times a bit better during the day, for my sake.  Then I could know to leave Ava with someone else and go out without worrying as much, and know how much milk to leave in a bottle if I go out longer than 30 min.

Nursing is much, much better that it was with Rachel.  I found the first week uncomfortable and since then things have been getting easier.  The difficulty this time is Rachel slamming into me or snuggling into my chair with us or me trying to nurse while walking around and getting Rachel dressed.  With Rachel I was in tears of pain while nursing at 7 weeks post partum, and didn't enjoy the experience at all until about 9-10 weeks.  I think there are several reasons for this, but I would like to encourage any mom that it is easier!

MY OWN EXERCISE
As a PT, I have my own beliefs about women exercising after childbirth.  I believe most women are stupid and go back to too much exercise too quickly and end up having problems later that are much trickier down the road.

When I had Rachel, it took me a week to be able to walk down the street and back.  I started walk/jogging at 6 weeks because that's about how long I felt like I needed and, as a PT, 6 weeks is a magic amount of time during which most acute injuries heal enough to start stressing the area.

When I had Ava, I could walk down the street and back the day after I had her.  At 3 weeks I started some very cautious jogging.  Because we had access to Grandma, I started walk/jogging a little more in Virginia.  I feel horribly out of shape and can now walk/jog for a total of 40 minutes with 30 minutes of it be jogging.  But mentally and physically it feels great to get out and do it.

I have only had a chance to swim lengths 2 times, but I have had no concerns with my body since 3.5 weeks post partum in the pool.  Except my left shoulder is sore with some impingement from carrying Ava and nursing in weird positions and reaching back to help the kids while in the car on our road trip.  It is improving but I don't want to push it swimming.

I have been on my bike twice.  15km seems way longer than it should!  My bike needs tuning very badly as my chain keeps falling off and changing gears is a challenge.  Last week I rode around our neighborhood, and I was intimidated and nervous.  I thought "I would love road biking if it never rained, there was never car traffic, there wasn't gravel or holes or huge bumps, there were no cattle guards, there were no sharp corners, and no screaming descents."  In other words, I could grow to like longer rides on smooth paved paths without cars and gentle rolling hills or flat land.  Well... on Sunday I rode the bike path from Frisco to Copper in Summit County.  It took me over an hour but I LOVED it.  I can't wait to do it again after I get my bike tuned.

Abs.  Jason's sister Karen is doing an awesome ab challenge right now and Jason is attempting to do it too.  Although, as a PT, I don't believe people should bother with crunches 90% of the time, as an athlete, I think they are fun.  And they make me feel good.  But I am resisting the urge to do the challenge.  It's definitely not ok for women post partum to kill their abs with head lifting exercises until their abdominals have fully healed from childbirth.  Thankfully, I didn't have much abdominal splitting and I will be able to do some soon.  Maybe I'll start the challenge in November.

In terms of getting back into shape, losing weight, and fitting into my clothes again - I have a very long way to go.  My initial fitness goals are: jog a continuous 30 min safely, bike for an hour safely (check!), and swim a continuous 500m safely.  I want to join Masters swimming in the fall and join a group spin class twice per week.  I see Sept as a new beginning time for new routines and a great time to get right into the swing of routines.

MENTAL HEALTH
Up until this week, I have been spoiled.  Both girls have been great.  The delivery was great.  Jason has been off school.  We've had a lot of family help.  But having both girls on my own for full days without help... ?>!  That's scary.  I did it Saturday while Jason was out running and after 5 hours I was crying and felt like a terrible mother as I yelled at Rachel.  Today I did it much more successfully as both girls seemed to have better days and I had a decent night last night.  The hardest things for me are:

- Sitting still while nursing Ava and not rushing her and being ok with it.  I sit there and think of many things I could do if I could just move around.  I don't feel like I'm doing anything productive.  And if Rachel needs me while I'm nursing, I have to make some decisions about how to proceed and it is a tough balance.  I have to constantly remind myself, even while playing some silly game on my phone while I'm nursing to entertain myself, that I am doing something productive and sitting still to calmly feed my child is a valid thing.

- I am attached to Ava and only have as much freedom from her as her feeding schedule will allow.  I can go out for a run if I have someone else to watch the girls only if I've just fed Ava.  And then I feel comfortable that she could make it for an hour (longer in the middle of the day, maybe not an hour in the evening) before things might completely break down.  This will change if I start pumping and storing milk but I haven't figured out when to pump yet.

- I am still watching others around me exercise like crazy while, for me, an easy flat hour on the bike or a 20 min slow jog is still a challenge.  It's hard for me to feel confident if I don't feel strong and fit.

- Hours and hours can go by and I don't feel like I do anything.  I can look back at my whole day and feel like I got nothing accomplished.  I might have fed Ava for 120 minutes and changed 3 diapers and made Rachel 2 meals and cleaned up 7 toys and played 3 games and sang 20 songs and read 10 books.  I might not have had time to eat or brush my own teeth.  But it doesn't feel like I was doing anything.  It is hard to be satisfied with that.  It's a very strange kind of 'busy'.

WHAT NOW?
From now until Sept 3rd, things will continue to be nothing like routine.  Next week I will take the girls to BC to see all my family and friends on the west coast.  Jason will spend these two weeks getting organized with the start of school and trying to get as much altitude, hill training, and mileage as he can.  He has a big race at the end of Sept.  The girls come back homeSept 3rd... and then life should settle into a routine of a real stay-at-home-mom lifestyle with a busy working dad and two growing girls.

Before we go to Canada, though, we still have an adventure or two.  More to come!



Road trip home

Apologies for the lack of editing and pictures in these posts.  We forgot our camera cord at grandma's, so we will have to add pictures later.  And we haven't had an Internet connection at home until today because of some work that was done on our house... So I have done my best to write in pieces while nursing at night..!


Road trip home days 1,2

Sat august 3, we drove with our trailer from northern Virginia to Charleston, West Virginia.  Pulling our little family up and down the rolling hills made our gas mileage terrible, but we made it.  We arrived at the beautiful home of uncle Jim, aunt Beth, and cousin Matthew in time for dinner and some fun play time with Matthew's remote control car.  

Sunday Jason had a great trail run in the morning before we went to the river and spent the afternoon cruising in the power boat.  It was lovely!  Ava was hilarious in her life jacket and Rachel slept on the floor of the boat for a decent nap!

That evening Jason and Jim went out in the Porsche.  While out, Meggan got an alert from the Krispy Kreme app on Jason's phone that said the 'hot light' was on in South Charleston.  We had been joking about this for weeks as Meggan has never been inside the actual donut store (it's not as big in Canada) but it was a big thing for Jason's friends while in college at NC State.  So Jason and Jim returned with a box and we enjoyed one...or two... or three...

They were very good.  Not helping the pregnancy weight thing, but they were good!

Monday Aug 5 - Road trip home day 3
From West Virginia, we checked off Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri to make it to St. Louis for dinner.  We were out of the house at 7am after a rough night with Ava, but were happy to have a good day on the road.  We made it to see our friends Mike (and Cindy - who we didn't actually see because she was working) Montana and stay at their place.  Rachel chased the cats around while our friends Scott and Kit Meddles brought over pizza dinner.  After a nice visit, we decided we would push off the next morning instead of exploring St. Louis for an extra day.

Tuesday Aug 6 we drove west and north so we could hit Iowa.  We spent the night in a hotel ($49, awesome breakfast and pool) in Lincoln, Nebraska.  We found take out cheap Thai next door and went to bed early.

Rachel funny comment of the day ...
Daddy bangs foot and groans 'I just broke my toe!'
Rachel says 'you couldn't break your toe off, daddy!  They are attached and kind of wooden so they can't come off!'

Wed Aug 7 - road trip home day 5
Nebraska and eastern Colorado are boring and difficult to stay excited through.  We had a great lunch stop at a park with animals and a cool steam engine you can explore.  Other than that, we just tried to push home.  Everyone was tired and a little cranky but we made it home for dinner.

At home we saw our new patio /basic back yard, and started emptying the trailer.  Our house looks like a bomb went off and flung random things in every direction.  Rachel was ecstatic to be home and brought out every toy she had missed in the 3 weeks we were gone.  She had a very difficult time getting to bed and staying asleep because she was so excited.

It's fantastic to come home to a freezer full of food, thanks to the friends that brought us meals when Ava was born.  We can spend a few days getting organized and stay well fed now.  Jason returns to school for planning before teacher work days actually start on the 15th.



I would say overall our road trip was a huge success, with no disasters.  Our girls were amazing little travelers and we enjoyed seeing folks along the way.

Our state count (not including airports but we do include driving across the state line even briefly) is now: Jason 48, Meggan 41, Rachel 33, Ava 20.

[Jason needs Louisiana and Michigan.  Ironically Meggan has been to Michigan and needs Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut.]


In Virginia July 23-Aug 3


Highlights from our time in Virginia July 23-Aug 3

- Grandma gave Rachel her undivided attention for playing, reading stories, meals, and snuggles the whole time we were there.

- Rachel is somewhat obsessive about her most recent story or movie and will change her own name and everyone else's names to fit the characters in the story. For example, after watching part of the Madagascar movie, she spent several days answering only to Gloria and calling people around her Alex, Marty, Melman after the animal characters.  It's exhausting to keep up with her imagination and to get who is who straight.

- Jason had extra time to clean out a lot of his stuff.  Old boxes of papers, baseball cards, furniture, etc was all organized and cleaned out.  We decided to rent a UHaul trailer and bring some things back to Colorado.  We took home a ping-ping table, a chair, bunk beds, a wheelbarrow, boxes, kitchen stuff, canning jars, etc.

- We were able to get rid of some items at grandma's house via Craigslist.  One man arrived and managed to take out the huge, old, heavy chest freezer in the garage by himself as he wore a t-shirt that said "the power of one".

- Having an extra adult meant we had extra time to exercise. We each swam and ran.  Jason enjoyed a few longer runs, including a trail run from Great Falls to Sterling. Meggan was able to slowly move from walking to jogging intervals, and even got in 500 yards at the pool.  Yup, the whole workout was 500 yards.  You gotta start somewhere!

- Several friends stopped by to say hello/ meet Ava.  We had Thai food out one night with Greg, Becky, and Marilyn meddles.  The Montanas came by.  The Berthelsons came by.  etc

-We visited the national zoo and its carousel, the local pool and playgrounds, and the local rec center pool so Rachel was thrilled.

- We drove to Maryland to see Uncle Tom, Aunt Martha, cousins Taylor, Leah, and Jessica, and their dog Honey.

- In Newport News we visited great grandparents Buddy and Francis.  We toured their complex, ate at the cafe, and went out for dinner at Cracker Barrel. (For Canadians who don't know Cracker Barrel, it's a terrific southern home-style restaurant that is pretty kid friendly and serves things like baked apple slices as a side.)  

- In Williamsburg we went to water country,USA and Rachel had a blast.  It's a totally awesome water park for kids as young as Rachel.  She enjoyed slides, river rafts, a wave pool, spraying fountains.  Jason and I even got to go down two adult rides together while grandma watched the two tired girls.  ( love you, Susan!). Jason tried the scarier drop slides, and miraculously found his sunglasses/watch/wedding ring after the force of the drop pushed these items out of his Velcro pockets.

- We visited great grandparents Doug and Barbara Lord in Williamsburg.  Rachel found all sorts of toys in their house and met everyone in the complex while running around the dining room.  We are still enjoying their applesauce!

- We had some time in the evenings to play 'take off!' ... One fabulous game that we don't own (yet).

-Ava did really well with all of this.  She loves to be held, is generally very calm, and many nights will sleep with only 2-3 waking a for milk.  Rachel did really well, because she was able to play with grandma non-stop the whole time!

Pictures to come - sorry!!