Enough said.
My wonderful ex taught me a few life-simplifying tricks, like how to pack for a two-week trip using a small backpack. On his shelves, he had two stacks of t-shirts: white & black; 2 stacks of socks: white & black; 1 stack of undies: white (and a random pair of smiley-face boxers). I think he's branched out on the undies, but that's not the point...
The point is, he's going to have a hard time with parenthood, because of the baby socks! You can't buy packs of black & white baby socks. 6-pack of socks = 6 different pastel colors, each embroidered with a different cute animal or sports emblem (boys)/flower (girls). After 1 cycle of laundry, you will have 5 mismatched socks, 1 actual pair (1/2 of which has a poop stan on it), and a week's worth of fun finding errant socks in the carseat, exersaucer, laptop case, etc.
If you are a perfectionist, you will never leave the house, because, having proudly dressed the baby in the clean pair of matching socks, you will find another clean sock somewhere and realize: duckies! The duckies with yellow cuffs match the duckie onesie he has on, even though the light blue puppies looked ok when you got him dressed. And so on.
For this, I went to Harvard.
10.24.2006
10.22.2006
Sleeping Like a Baby
Tonight the Swadfather & I did the parental happy-dance all around the house. Speedy put himself to sleep!
He's getting teeth 3 & 4 (top front teeth) simultaneously, it seems, so we were all up half the night last night. Then today we had a whirlwind day of running, errand-running, and sukkah deconstruction (er...), so his only naps were in transit.
Even when your Ima is relatively slow, 5K isn't much of a nap, so Speedy was pretty punchy this evening. He was doing his "drunk baby" routine, where he wats to nurse on the nose or bicep of whoever is holding him, climb over the side of the rocking chair to look at the nightlight, nurse upsidedown while doing downward-facing dog on my belly, etc. I was in no mood for it, so I laid him down in the crib, kissed him goodnight, and told him Abba would be in to rock him shortly. When Jesse was about to go in, we heard the blessed noise of our baby buzz-saw, snoring away.
Aside: The (only) nice thing about having a baby who snores is that you don't have to sneak the bedroom door open to make sure he's still breathing!
He's getting teeth 3 & 4 (top front teeth) simultaneously, it seems, so we were all up half the night last night. Then today we had a whirlwind day of running, errand-running, and sukkah deconstruction (er...), so his only naps were in transit.
Even when your Ima is relatively slow, 5K isn't much of a nap, so Speedy was pretty punchy this evening. He was doing his "drunk baby" routine, where he wats to nurse on the nose or bicep of whoever is holding him, climb over the side of the rocking chair to look at the nightlight, nurse upsidedown while doing downward-facing dog on my belly, etc. I was in no mood for it, so I laid him down in the crib, kissed him goodnight, and told him Abba would be in to rock him shortly. When Jesse was about to go in, we heard the blessed noise of our baby buzz-saw, snoring away.
Aside: The (only) nice thing about having a baby who snores is that you don't have to sneak the bedroom door open to make sure he's still breathing!
10.15.2006
Endurance 50
I'm starting to feel like life is maybe under control -- the dishes are clean, I'm able to read a few pages a night, Speedy sleeps for longer than 2 hours at a time and feeds himself solid food... Soon the ground will freeze, plants will die, and my work will slow down for a couple months. Maybe I'll be able to post more now.
The Swadfather is running some portion of the Boston Marathon course with Dean Karnazes tomorrow as part of his Endurance 50 series. Speedy & I will be setting up shop on the back of the Black Sheep (my truck, so called because it's the only one in the fleet that's not white) to hand out fruit slices & water along the route. I'm excited, but I don't know whether to hope that the Swadfather finishes or sags, as he hasn't been training. I think both of us take endurance events with a grain of salt now that we're working parents. I mean, Dean's totally inspiring and crazy, but he also has a high-power job, endorsements, and a nanny for his kids.
Last weekend, Swad & I both ran totally unprepared, and did OK. Saturday, we ran the Somerville Homeless Coalition 5K -- Swad with a time of 27 min unladen, and me in 32:29 with a sleeping Speedy in BOB. While 10:27 miles are no PR, it was substantially faster and easier than the 13-minute miles I did last year. Of course, I was 8 months pregnant at the time, and my lungs were squished somewhere up around my ears... It was cool to come full-circle and run the same race with Speedy outside instead of inside. And I passed the same lady I passed last year, only this time I had the baby-jogger, and she was unladen!
Monday, I did the 30th annual Tufts 10K, an all women's race which I've done almost every year since I've lived in the Boston area. Finished in 1:03:27, which felt pretty good, given that my goal had just been to run the whole thing.
Running an all-women's race can be really powerful. About 8,000 women run, and many are first-timers, so the start can be a bit chaotic. You have to seed yourself optimistically, because a lot of the folks are up with 7-minute milers and plan to walk and talk the whole way. I wasted a lot of energy 2 years ago trying to break through the pack for the first mile. Anyway, when we were lined up and waiting around, the announcer was calling for various groups of women to raise their hands: sisters, aunts, mothers, etc. Lately when I've been close to hitting the wall on a run, I think about labor and delivery, and how much pain and effort my body can handle. So, when I my calves started cramping and planter fasciae were screaming in mile 4, I looked around me, remembered that approximately 1/3 of the crowd had raised their hands as mothers, and got all teary at the raw power that was surrounding me. I was on adrenaline for the last mile, and sprinted in to "Meet Virginia" on the iPod as we rounded the Common.
The Swadfather is running some portion of the Boston Marathon course with Dean Karnazes tomorrow as part of his Endurance 50 series. Speedy & I will be setting up shop on the back of the Black Sheep (my truck, so called because it's the only one in the fleet that's not white) to hand out fruit slices & water along the route. I'm excited, but I don't know whether to hope that the Swadfather finishes or sags, as he hasn't been training. I think both of us take endurance events with a grain of salt now that we're working parents. I mean, Dean's totally inspiring and crazy, but he also has a high-power job, endorsements, and a nanny for his kids.
Last weekend, Swad & I both ran totally unprepared, and did OK. Saturday, we ran the Somerville Homeless Coalition 5K -- Swad with a time of 27 min unladen, and me in 32:29 with a sleeping Speedy in BOB. While 10:27 miles are no PR, it was substantially faster and easier than the 13-minute miles I did last year. Of course, I was 8 months pregnant at the time, and my lungs were squished somewhere up around my ears... It was cool to come full-circle and run the same race with Speedy outside instead of inside. And I passed the same lady I passed last year, only this time I had the baby-jogger, and she was unladen!
Monday, I did the 30th annual Tufts 10K, an all women's race which I've done almost every year since I've lived in the Boston area. Finished in 1:03:27, which felt pretty good, given that my goal had just been to run the whole thing.
Running an all-women's race can be really powerful. About 8,000 women run, and many are first-timers, so the start can be a bit chaotic. You have to seed yourself optimistically, because a lot of the folks are up with 7-minute milers and plan to walk and talk the whole way. I wasted a lot of energy 2 years ago trying to break through the pack for the first mile. Anyway, when we were lined up and waiting around, the announcer was calling for various groups of women to raise their hands: sisters, aunts, mothers, etc. Lately when I've been close to hitting the wall on a run, I think about labor and delivery, and how much pain and effort my body can handle. So, when I my calves started cramping and planter fasciae were screaming in mile 4, I looked around me, remembered that approximately 1/3 of the crowd had raised their hands as mothers, and got all teary at the raw power that was surrounding me. I was on adrenaline for the last mile, and sprinted in to "Meet Virginia" on the iPod as we rounded the Common.
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