I loved LOVED loved my run yesterday with the jogging stroller. Today I loved it even more. Chet and I were joined by his papa on our run today. And if that wasn’t good enough, we took Chet and the BOB out on its debut trail run.
4 miles. On the Trails.
Mile 1 -10:54
Mile 2 -11:04
Mile 3 – 11:20
Mile 4 – 11:14
44:36 that included A LOT of passy stops, check on baby stops, boom boom boom at baby stops. Chet wasn’t nearly as happy on this run as he was yesterday. Sorry little guy. The last mile wasn’t a happy one. (Not included in the time was a pit stop at mile 3 to nurse Chet – Mental Note: Take Cover next time! oops!).
11:09 overall pace (average moving pace was 10:53)
Running trails is so much harder than running on the road. Running trails while pushing a stroller is SO MUCH HARDER than running on the road. (I pushed all 4 miles. Christian tried to push the stroller. I wouldn’t let him. I wanted the bragging rights!)
As soon as my watch beeped at mile 4. I stopped, scooped up the baby, and then we crossed the street to enjoy the ocean air.
I really am loving my life.
(Two more days until Cole gets home and our family feels complete again. I can’t wait to add him and his bicycle to our family run.)
After work I set out to run 4 miles…with the jogging stroller. Before today my longest run with the stroller was 3.1 miles (a 5k). I was lacking motivation going into the run. I wasn’t feeling confident of how fast and how far my legs could carry me after a speedy-for-me 4 mile run last night. I knew I needed accountability. I sent a text to three friends who always motivate me by how determined they are about their own personal running. I knew if I put it out there, I would make myself run the 4 miles one way or another.
Mile 1 – I thought about my friend Sara who is in the final stretch of her pregnancy and she is still running miles (and lots of them) at a pace I still struggle to beat. 10:23 pace
Mile 2 – I thought about my friend Heidi who I ran next to while she pushed her one year old for 6.2 miles and she dragged me along with her for the final 2 miles. 10:11 pace
Mile 3 – I can’t run without thinking about my hubby. He’s embraced running over the past few months and really made me proud. His running pushed me out of my own running rut and put me back on track. 9:49 pace
Mile 4 – Me. I really am proud of the journey I am on right now. 9:50 pace
When I heard my watch beep at mile 4, I knew I had more. Chet was being an amazing running buddy.
Mile 5 – My wonderful itty bitty running companion. I ran an extra mile for Chet. He absolutely loves being in the stroller with me on our runs. We chatted for the first 2 miles (he doesn’t talk back yet, but I know he wants too!). He slept for miles 3 and 4. And he enjoyed the ride for mile 5. 10:02 pace
On July 5th we celebrated Chet’s half-year birthday. A half a year has come and gone. Our tiny munchkin is six months old. Every day that goes by I am so glad I forgot how to clean our house over the past few months. Every single mama snuggle and baby laugh was worth it.
Baby Stats:
Weight: 13 lbs 8 ozs (3rd percentile)
Length: 26.25 inches (50th percentile)
Chet has taken a dip in his weight gain, 25th to 3rd percentile, but the doctor isn’t concerned. We aren’t a big family. Cole isn’t even on the growth chart for his weight. And Chet has transitioned to the I’m-way-too-busy-to-sit-still-or-eat phase of his life. His legs never stop kicking. He rolls all over the house. He inchworms his way to whatever toys catches his attention. Once babies become very active, it is normal to see a dip in their weight gain pattern.
While the doctor isn’t concerned, I am his mom and I am allowed to worry just a little bit. I still can’t keep up with his nursing demands (but he is back to nursing about 75% of the time – teething always interferes with his want to nurse but I don’t blame him. Getting teeth can’t be fun). We are down to 4 bags of frozen milk. I’m working hard at keeping the mentality I chose to adopt when he was on his nursing strike: one month at a time. I was hoping I could make it to six months without introducing formula, and we made it. Now I’m hoping we will make it to seven months (although I’m not feeling 100% optimistic about the outcome).
With the dip in milk supply and dip in weight gain, we have ventured into the fun new territory of food.
First food: Sweet Potatoes
Originally I hoped to follow Baby Led Weaning, but I just felt like he was too young at this point to venture down that road. Instead we are using a combination of homemade and store-bought purees. We started feeding him at dinner time, but now we are incorporating a meal with grandma during the day too. Grandma is feeding him oatmeal plus another food of choice when he gets to her house in the mornings. If this goes well, I think we will introduce an afternoon meal too. His dinners at home have been dedicated to veggies and exploring new food options.
Sweet Potatoes – loves
Squash – hit or miss
Carrots – loves
Avocado – not so sure about this one
Bananas – his favorite
Apples – not a fan AT ALL
How is the one food he refuses the one food I craved during my pregnancy? I ate on average two apples a day when I was pregnant with him. Maybe he met his lifetime quota of apples while he was in my belly. He closes his lips so tight when the apples come near his mouth. He shuts his eyes. And he doesn’t budge until the apples are back in the bowl.
Another fun new discovery – cloth diapers! We finally made the switch. (blog post coming soon!)
Chet also becomes more and more vocal by the day. He has always been a talkative baby, but it is truly NON STOP now. He’s got all the vowels sounds mastered. He says a lot of the consonance sounds too. He loves to screech too. He said mama the other day, although it was not intentional and probably won’t happen again until after he learns how to say dada, dog, and Cole. I did come running down the hallway to his bedroom, knocked Christian out-of-the-way, and squeezed him ever so tightly when I heard it.
One word to describe him this month: Handful.
He is a crazy baby. He never stops. He doesn’t stop talking, kicking, wiggling, worming, whining and fidgeting. He is nonstop. When all else fails, I take him outside and he is such a peaceful baby. He is always happy when he is outside. (Christian blames me. He says it’s because I ran through pregnancy. I blame Christian. All of those words describe both daddy and baby.) Grandma claims that he is really laid back at her house. I’m not so sure I believe her.
Each month the photos become more and more challenging. I could barely keep him on his blanket. (and then my laptop deleted all the photos I had edited. sad.)
At some point post baby, the words Every step is making you stronger found their way to my long weekend run. Since then I have carried them around with me. I love mantras, and I have held on tightly to this mantra in one hand and Let go in the other.
Seven Mile Sunrise Run on Saturday – Start of Run
Every time a run gets hard, I remind myself that I’m getting stronger. Every time I’m exhausted at 3am (or every other random hour in the middle of the night) when I feed Chet (for the 3rd time), I remind myself that I am getting stronger. Every time I survive another work week when my heart wants to be at home, I remind myself that this is also making me stronger. Everything I’m doing right now is adding a layer of strength to every part of my life.
Physically the changes are obvious.
I have ONE POUND to lose until I hit pre-baby weight. In just under six months, I have lost 39 of the 40 pounds I gained while striving to maintain a balanced life.
Seven Mile Sunrise Run – Mile 2
My running is improving A LOT.
February 2012 – running total, 14.55 miles. Average pace, 13:28 per mile
March 2012 – running total, 32.83 miles. Average pace, 12:16 per mile
April 2012 – running total, 45.01 miles. Average pace, 12:11 per mile
May 2012 – running total, 34.76 miles (15 days of no running due to my bum leg). Average pace, 11:08 per mile
June 2012 – running total, 55.41 miles. Average pace, 10:17 per mile
I am proud of those numbers. Every. Single. One. Without the 13 minute miles, I would never be where I am at right now.
Seven Mile Sunrise Run – Finish Line
Today I ran 2.15 miles with Chet in the jogging stroller and Alex on his leash in 21:23 in 90 degree heat and a whole lot of humidity. That is a pace of 9:56 per mile. With the dog. Pushing the stroller.
Making progress isn’t easy. I’ve had runs I’ve wanted to quit. I’ve had weeks of no progress. But I’ve had runs that make me love running all over again. I’ve had runs that have surprised me. And every single one of my runs makes me want more.
Reflecting on progress is so important. It adds fuel to the fire. It shows you what you have accomplished and what you can accomplish. It is important to pause and pat yourself on your back every now and then.
Seven Miles Completed. Longest Run to Date (post-baby).
Today I ran 2+ miles…at a sub-10 pace…in 90 degree heat…while pushing my baby and leading my dog….after waking up 2 times in my 8 hour span of sleep to nurse my baby. This weekend I woke up at 5am and dragged my sleep deprived body to the oceanfront to tackle a 7 mile run before the heat warnings started. I finished that run feeling strong and with a smile on my face. (and I finished faster than my cookie-crumble 10k race a month ago!).
I can’t wait to see what I am capable of doing when it is cool outside, and I’ve had a good night of sleep.
As 2011 slowly ended and my belly slowly got bigger, I found myself facing 2012 in a very different way than I had anticipated. Where was my baby? I thought he’d be here by Christmas? The days ticked by ever so slowly. Each day I found myself getting more and more quiet. There was a whisper in the air that was begging me to hear it:
Let go.
As each doctor said there was no way I’d carry my baby to the next appointment, the whisper screamed to let go. The only person who knew when Chet was going to be born was Chet. I always made it to the next appointment. With every contraction I felt, the whisper encouraged me to let go. My doula encouraged me to let go. My head, my heart, my body, and my baby were still holding on tightly. Pregnancy was safe. My baby was cozy. There was an entire world outside of my body he wasn’t ready to meet.
At 41 days and 4 weeks pregnant, the day finally arrived (but not by natural choices). It was time to encourage Chet to let go of his safe home and to join the rest of his family. It was on that day that I finally realized that this journey was not up to me. I had planned and planned for the arrival of my baby and none of those plans included pitocin (not even the Plan Z option).
Let go.
As my labor progressed, things changed. Meconium in my water. Chet’s irregular heart beat. None of these items were in my plan. At first it was a whispers and then it became a strong suggestion: talk of a c-section now filled our delivery room. As I absorbed the doctors words, I became paralyzed. I was not only holding on, I was panicking. Our doula looked at me with the most tender eyes: Go to your happy place Kristy. Go to Utah.
I finally let go.
I let go of plans, of wants, and of all my desires. I let go. I cried tears that had been stored all the way down in my toes. I felt vulnerable and alive and in love with my husband and my life. Christian stared at me with the same tears in his eyes, his supportive hand resting gently on my back, and we accepted life in that moment as it was presented to us.
We let go.
Less than two hours later, we welcomed our baby boy into the world. He joined the world in the way he had always wanted (the same way we had always wanted for him): Peacefully. Vaginally. Unmedicated (minus the pitocin). Supported by his mom. Encouraged by his dad. Surround by our doula, our nurse, our doctor (and the wonderful NICU team) who loved his first breath as much as we did.
The world stopped turning that day. Nothing else mattered. I didn’t know what time it was. I had no idea how much time had passed. I don’t know if the sun was shining or if was snowing. Like all mothers, that day changed my life. While I no longer hear the heart rate monitor in my head (as I did for weeks), while I know longer vividly remember the smell of a child being born, while I can no longer remember the wonderful pain I felt as my baby boy left my body, those two small words that started as a whispered and progressed into a yell have never left me.
Let go.
Chet brought with him a lesson for me to learn the day he was born: In order to welcome life, you must let go.
I’m finding these two words in every aspect of my life now. Parenting. Marriage. Love. Yoga. Running. Eating. Working. Living. The more I let go, the more I want to get rid of things in my life. Material baggage. Emotional baggage. Social baggage. Self-imposed baggage. I want to let it all go, so the life that I’m intended to live can find me.
Every day I make the choice to be aware of how I hold on to unnecessary things. Every day I attempt to recognize how I fill my day (or choose not to fill) my life with the shallow instant gratification of technology and socially accepted norms. As I let go of each of these, one by one, I want to get rid of something else. I no longer want my cell phone near me when I’m playing with my children. I don’t want to rush to the table to see who is calling or to return a text. I rarely want to turn on the television to fill up the space in our living room. I don’t want quick and easy dinners. I want dinners that can be cooked together as a family and enjoyed over the dinner table. I want conversations as the sun sets and a good book I can’t put down. I want to escape from our life to places where the world is alive: the ocean, the mountain, the farm.
As I trade in these fillers, I am receiving the most wonderful gifts. I am truly present to experience life with all my boys. I’m connecting with my husband after a busy day of rushing around trying to get life accomplished. I’m finding friends who want the same quality in their lives. I’m finding peace on my yoga mat and a deep connection to the world while I’m in my running shoes.
I’m letting go……..to grasp what really matters.
Want to fall in love with a blog? Check out Hands Free Mama.
Every day I am learning and practicing the art of letting go. Thank you baby boy for this wonderful life lesson.
44:36 that included A LOT of passy stops, check on baby stops, boom boom boom at baby stops. Chet wasn’t nearly as happy on this run as he was yesterday. Sorry little guy. The last mile wasn’t a happy one. (Not included in the time was a pit stop at mile 3 to nurse Chet – Mental Note: Take Cover next time! oops!).
Kristy Maute 