10 Months and On the Move (Sort of...)

OK, so we've reached a fuzzy area in which I'm not sure what the correct response would be to the question "Is Will crawling yet?" You see, in order to accurately depict what is occurring you would have to break this into a two-part question:

1. CAN Will crawl? Yes, Will is capable of crawling. We have witnessed him crawl over large expanses of rooms to get to things that he wants (mostly things he should not be playing with, of course). I have seen him do it. Grandma Carol has seen him do it. Elizabeth, the babysitter has seen him do it. Tim has seen him do it. But...

2. Is Will crawling? Not really. Over the course of 3 days he has only crawled maybe 5 times. I'm not really sure what this is all about. I keep waiting for it to click with him that yes, he is capable of getting across the room to that object that he's screaming at me about because he wants it. I've been waiting for several days now and so far: not so much...

I know it seems stupid, but I was really hoping he would be "officially" crawling before today. Because now for the rest of my life when people ask me when Will crawled I have to say "at 10 months". For some reason 10 months seems so much older than 9 months for crawling. I know this doesn't matter, but he's just so late on everything. He still only has one tooth! Again, I know this doesn't matter and that when the child crawls or walks or eats table food or gets teeth is no indication of how smart he is or even his athletic ability later in life. (Although let's be honest here. Look at his parents - he really doesn't have much of a chance on that front...) It just gets frustrating watching all the other babies we know (even babies that are months younger) do everything before him.

Ok, I'm done complaining about something that doesn't even matter. Today is a day to celebrate the fact that my little man is crawling around (albeit tentatively), that he is healthy and happy, and that he is 10 months old.

Will's First Visit with our Friend Bob

It's a running joke in our family that my father LOVES Bob Evans. It's good value for your money, he says. And as a pretty big cheap-ass myself, I do have to agree with him. There was a span of time, though, where he made my mother eat there every time they went out and she put a moratorium on Bob Evans visits which, of course, sparked even more joking. Anyway, we went there to eat dinner with my parents the other night and my mom took a picture to commemorate Will's first visit there. And, of course, we had to get one of Will and Grandpa, Bob's biggest fan.

New Trick

So Will learned how to get from laying down to sitting today. It practically happened overnight. Yesterday he couldn't do it. Then today when I went to get him from his morning nap he was just sitting up in his crib looking at me. And for the rest of the day he kept doing it. Kind of weird.

Anyway, I thought it would be a good thing for me since it would mean that I no longer have to go rescue him every time he topples over and just lays there fussing because he wants to sit up again. Oh, but how naive I am. Because what it really ended up meaning is that it has become infinitely more difficult to get him to nap. We finally got into a good napping thing over the last 2 months or so where I just put him in his crib and he fusses for a few minutes and falls asleep. Well today when I put him down for his afternoon nap he fussed and fussed for over a half hour. Finally I went in there and he was sitting up with both his legs poked out the bars of the front of the crib. We tried again a half hour later with the same result. No afternoon nap today. Not good. Also, I have to work tomorrow morning so now I'm really worried that the sitter's not going to be able to get him down for a morning nap. And I assure you that no morning nap = hell for mommy for the rest of the day.

Splish Splash

Will learned to splash in the bath last night. Up until now he's always been very calm in the bath. He just lays there and enjoys it and occasionally tries to suck on the washrag. In the last week or so he's gotten very animated in the bath, though. He's trying to grab everything: the faucet, the drain, the soap, etc. He's spinning himself around in his little bathtub and trying to climb out. It's become quite a challenge to successfully clean the child.

Anyway, last night he accidentally splashed with his hand and thought it was the funniest thing he'd ever seen. So, of course, he continued to do it. With vigor. I've never gotten so wet. It's like I had taken a bath too. He just sat there and splashed and cracked himself up for like 5 minutes. I was dying laughing! Then once the funny of the whole thing wore off he continued to splash but got all serious about it, like he was doing a job. That was even funnier. He furrowed his little brow line and got a real serious look on his face and just banged his hands into the water over and over like it was very important work. Hilarious! I wish I could have gotten in on video :-(

Back to Work... Sort Of

So starting next week I am going to try out going back to work 2 mornings a week. The babysitter we have been using for random weekend nights, etc. is off school for the summer so she will be coming to watch Will.

I'm having really mixed feelings about this. I feel like I have to at least try it. While we're doing OK financially, if I could bring a bit more money in it would make things a little more comfortable. For example, we need to buy me a bigger car before we have another baby. This isn't a, "gee, it would be nice to have a bigger/newer/nicer car" thing. This is a reality in which I will not be able to fit two car seats into the back seat of the Jetta and then sit in the front seat and drive it. Anyway, there's really no room in our budget right now for a car payment. I had just really hoped Tim would be making a bit more money by this point and with the current economic situation that just hasn't happened so we're not quite as financially stable as I was hoping.

And the reality is that as Will gets older he really does need me less and less. I'm starting to have more and more time where I feel like I'm kind of just twiddling my thumbs sitting there while he plays. I mean, I do play with him and interact with him, but he mostly just wants to sit there and chew on things. He can just as easily do that with the sitter for 8 of his approximately 84 awake hours each week. That's less than 10% of his life. And there's still plenty of time leftover for me to do all of the things I want to do with him (take walks, go to the park, go to the zoo, play with his toys). I also think that it will be good for him to be with someone other than me for a little bit each week so he can get over some of his separation anxiety. Can you tell that I'm really trying to justify this to myself?

I really don't know if this is the right thing to do. I mean, lots of people leave their babies for 40+ hours a week. Compared to that, 8 hours (not even all at once) is very minimal. It's just not what I ever wanted to do, but I feel like I can't sit here with my thumb up my ass when I'm capable of doing something to provide at least some level of financial stability. I'm just torn because I think that if money wasn't an issue I wouldn't be doing this. But at the same time I don't feel like I HAVE to do it. I don't know. I'm kind of trying to fill some void in myself where I don't feel useful maybe? I have this internal need to be busy and Will is keeping me less and less busy. But at the same time I feel like I can't really get anything done around the house because I only have small intervals of time to work on things so I never even start big projects. So basically I feel like I'm being idle and useless and it's very frustrating.

But I'm really having a lot of anxiety about this. I'm worried about being away from him. I mean, when I go running for 2 hours I miss him so much and am just frantic to get home to him. (But I do enjoy my time away.) I'm not sure how I'll feel about 5 hours at a time (once you add in commute) twice a week on a regular basis. I'm also very concerned that I'm going to get stuck there late or pressured into coming in more often than planned or that the work is going to pour over into my home life so that I'm not able to really be present with him when I am home with him. That's just how this job and these people have always been. But I keep telling myself that if I'm not happy with how things are going I can quit. And more than anything I'm just worried that I'm going to miss out on things like him finally crawling or his first steps.

At the same time I am excited to be around adults a few times each week, to wear something other than jeans and shorts, to do something to stimulate my brain, to feel like I'm financially contributing.

I don't know. And I guess I can't know until I try it. So I'm trying it.

Window Playtime

The Tooth

Even though he's had this tooth for well over 6 weeks (I think the first time I felt it was March 23rd), this is the first time the tooth has been caught on film. It is rather elusive and mostly shows itself when he is pissed off (as evidenced by the photo). And yes, my poor little jack-o-lantern baby still only has the one tooth.

Mother's Day

Today is my first Mother's Day as a mother. And while, theoretically, this should be a day for my husband and son to celebrate me for being the mom, all I can think about is my own mom. Because my appreciation for her on this Mother's Day is far beyond what it has been in the past. Don't get me wrong, I have always been truly thankful for having a such a great mom. A mom who devoted her life from age 21 on to making sure that I had the best life possible. Who played games with me and took walks with me. Who cut letters out of felt and made picture flash cards to help me learn to read and write. And who drove me and my friends to the mall more times than I could count when I was was 13. But I never really understood how hard this was until 9 months ago. Now I know. And now I truly understand what Mother's Day is. And the crazy part is that I've only dealt with the giving birth and raising a baby part. And while the sleepless nights really do suck pretty damn bad, I haven't even gotten to the terrible two's, playing chauffeur to various sporting events and activities, teenage angst and insolence, or any of the other challenges I know my own mom has faced in the 29 years of raising me. Happy Mother's Day, Mom.

As for my Mother's Day, Tim got up with Will so I could sleep an extra hour. Then he went and picked me up some coffee and donuts. (I love me some donuts!) I also got some very sweet cards from both of my boys. Then my mom came over and visited for awhile and played with Will. And even though it was a little chilly, Tim, Will, and I took a walk before dinner. It was a nice day.

Ready to Travel the World

Will's passport came today.



















Look how fat he looks in his little picture :-)

9 Month Checkup

Will did such a good job at the doctor today. He laughed and clapped most of the time. He got a little freaked out when Dr. Bishop was listening to his heart and looking in his ears, but overall was in a great mood. The office has jungle animals painted on the walls and there happened to be what I think was a lemur in this exam room. Will was in LOVE with this animal on the wall. He kept trying to give it kisses and got all excited and doing the aforementioned panting every time he looked in that direction. Pretty cute. At least it kept him occupied.

He only had to get one shot (compared to the 3 or 4 he's had to get the last several times). He screamed during but calmed down as soon as I picked him up and started flirting with the nurse again. He got a little Curious George band-aid.

Weight: 20 pounds 11 1/2 ounces - 50th percentile (same as last time)
Height: 29 1/4 inches - 80th percentile (he was 75th percentile last time)

At the 9 month check-up they do this developmental test called the Denver. The first part consisted of asking me questions about things he was doing or not doing. I don't remember all of the questions, but here's what I do remember.

Things he is doing:
standing and holding onto things
indicating things he wants (reaching to be picked up, etc)
clapping

Things he is NOT doing:
pulling himself up
getting into a sitting position
saying Mama and Dada and understanding what he is saying
waving bye-bye

They said he's still within the range of normal on everything, though.

Then they did a series of little tests. First, they held a toy in the air and moved it around to see if he watched it. Then they threw it behind him to one side to see if he looked for it. Which he did. On both sides. They gave him two blocks to see if he picked them up one in each hand and banged them together, which he did (although it took awhile because he really just wanted to eat them). They gave him some cheerios to watch and see if he tried to pick them up with is thumb and forefinger, which he did. Then they rang a bell to the side of his head to see if he would turn toward it. He did immediately on the right side, but WOULD NOT do it on the left. The nurse tried for a long time. He just kept staring at her or staring out the window. She didn't seem overly concerned and told me to "just watch it" but it's kind of freaking me out. Now I'm going to be obsessed with making sure he's not deaf in that ear for the next several days, I'm sure.

Anyway, overall he's healthy and normal. I asked if I should be concerned that he's not crawling yet (which I know I shouldn't be but I kind of just needed to hear it). Dr. Bishop said that crawling is not even a major milestone and that it's perfectly fine if he never does he. He just needs to walk by 18 months. I'm pretty sure we'll get there by then :-)

Only other thing is that he has some weird form of eczema on his head. It's like this weird scaly brown stuff under his hair I've been noticing for a few weeks. So now I apparently need to wash his hair with Selson Blue.

9 Months

So Will turned 9 months last Wednesday, but because of all of the race craziness I am just now getting around to the blog post. Bad Mommy, I know. In honor of Will's 9 months I have decided to post 9 fun facts about Will as of late:

1. When he gets excited he pants like a dog. It's pretty funny. And when he gets REALLY excited he straightens his arms by his sides, balls his hands into fists, and shakes. He does this when Tim comes home from work and he sees him. He also does it any time one of the cats walk by.

2. Will's little girlfriend Claudia (my friend Beth's little girl) has been moving all around her crib for months. To the point where she wakes herself up because she gets pinned to the side. Will, on the other hand, has always been like a little statue. When I go in to get him he is in the exact same spot as I left him. Until now. He's started moving around a lot. A few times I've come in to find him on his stomach. The other night he was on his side, pinned against the side of the crib, looking through the bars at me. And he's generally horizontal across the bed in the mornings.

3. He's still not crawling, but has become pretty adept at scooting on his butt. I'll put him down in one spot and a few minutes later he's 3 or 4 feet over. On the hardwood he actually leans forward and does a crawling motion with his hands and arms and just drags his butt across the floor. Goofball.

4. He's definitely become pickier about what foods he eats. He gets really mad and yells whenever I'm feeding him vegetables, but happily opens up for the fruit. My plan of attack at this point is to alternate bites and trick him into eating the veggies. I can tell that he's starting to wise up to this, though. I think he's starting to be able to recognize the foods by their colors....

5. When he wants to be picked up he flaps his arms like a little bird.

6. He definitely understands key words now. If you say his name he turns and looks at you. He puts his arms up for me to get a hold of him when I ask him if he wants me to pick him up. He also knows if I ask him if he wants a snack that it means he gets to nurse (don't even ask where that came from).

7. He loves to stand up. He can't pull himself up to stand yet, but if you stand him against the couch he'll stand and play like that for a long time.

8. He's started this thing now where he's fine with anyone else holding him, but if he happens to see me he starts crying and wants me to hold him. He even does it with Tim sometimes lately. I'm hoping this phase doesn't last too long...

9. We discovered this weekend that he cracks up when you sing the 80's song "Turning Japanese" to him. I'm dead serious. It came on the radio in the car and I started bobbing my head and singing it to him (since I have to sit in the back seat with him because I can't fit in the passenger seat when his car seat is in there) and he started laughing so hard he could hardly breathe. I have since found that it also works without radio accompaniment.

I Did It!

I successfully crossed the "Finish Swine" of the Flying Pig Half Marathon. I never really doubted that I could actually do it (other than the odd worries about getting injured during the race, which actually did happen to my friend Beth who turned her ankle around mile 6 but still managed to somehow finish). What I was really worried about was just having a bad race. I didn't want to hit a wall and feel like crap and be miserable the whole time. And I'm so very happy to say that that did not happen. I felt GREAT the entire time. Even when I powered up the big hills on Gilbert Ave and Eden Park. I think the taper did me well. My legs did start feeling a bit heavy around mile 11 and the old ankle pain did rear its ugly head from mile 2 onwards, but it was nothing that I couldn't overcome. And I ran most of it with all of my running buddies, which was great. I even got to run across the finish line with my friend, Katie. Karen, Julie, Beth, and Eric were only a few minutes behind so we all met at the finish and hugged and congratulated each other.

I'm not usually an overly emotional person (except for when my hormones are raging as I think they are now because Will's nursing less, but that's a whole other conversation), but I really was fighting back tears as I approached that finish line. That moment was the culmination of not only 4 months of training, but the achievement of a goal I set for myself 3 years ago. I felt so proud of myself and like I could do anything. And it felt all the more wonderful that I got to do it with such a great group of people.

My official time was in 2 hours 20 minutes and 48 seconds. That's an average of 10:45 per mile. While I feel like this is a totally respectable time for a first half, to be honest I'm a little bit disappointed with it. We ran both of our long training runs at a sub 10:00 pace and I did the Heart Mini at a 10:07 pace. I just know that if the weather had cooperated (more on that later) I would have been faster. But dealing with the weather is part of sport, I guess. And I may not have enjoyed the race as much or felt as good the whole time if I had been going faster. In the end, I would much rather run and finish with friends and enjoy myself than shave 10 minutes or so off my time.

So the weather. Ah, the weather. The only way the weather for this race could have been worse (other than having a hurricane or tornado) would have been if there were 3feet of snow on the ground. When Beth and Eric picked me up at 5am (yes, they came TOTALLY out of their way to pick me up so that I wouldn't have to drive alone) it was POURING rain and storming. And this pretty much continued until we had been running for about 15 minutes. It was bad enough that we were concerned that they were going to cancel or postpone the race because of the lightening. We walked 5 or 6 blocks from our parking spot downtown to Paul Brown stadium where the running group met before the start and were pretty much soaked by the time we got there. We ran the first part of the race wearing garbage bags to try and stay at least kind of dry, but to be honest it was just futile. I have to admit that at the start I was really asking myself why in the hell I was doing this. We stayed in the stadium out of the rain until 15 minutes before the start, which was probably a mistake. There were so many people (including so many spectators who had umbrellas and would not get the HELL out of the way of people trying to get into the starting area - I was a bit irritated with them, can you tell?) and everyone was in the wrong spot because of the weather that we just couldn't get up into the right pace grouping. We wanted to start out with the 10:00 pace group (since that was our goal) but we ended up grouped with the 11:30 pacers. Not good. We got a really slow start the first few miles because of this. And it was so crowded that you just couldn't get around people. By the time I felt like we had broken free of the slower runners and walkers and could maintain our normal pace we were already several miles in and at that point there just wasn't much opportunity to make it up.

Start & Mile 1- The gun went off but it took us a good 5-10 minutes to cross the start line, which is pretty typical. It was pouring down rain. My shoes were already squishy. Thunder was rumbling. The crowd was so thick you could hardly move. It was just pretty miserable. Then once we had run for a tenth of a mile or so it hit me that I was really running in the Flying Pig. Finally! And then I got excited. Then a few minutes later the rain slowed to a drizzle and and we were good to go!

Mile 2 - We got to the marker telling us we had finished the first mile and I looked down at my watch to see how fast we had run it and I HADN'T STARTED IT. I was so pissed! I NEVER do that. And I am totally anal about watching my watch when I run so I knew that it was going to drive me crazy the whole run. I reset it and got it ready to go well before the start and I know I at least tried to hit the button as I crossed the start. I must have hit the wrong button or not pressed it hard enough or something. Ugh! I started it at mile 1, but it was just hard to really figure out how we were doing after that. Anyway, ran over the first bridge and felt great. It hardly phased me. Ripped my garbage bag off on the bridge and dumped it in the trash at the next water stop.

Mile 3 - Beth and I lost Karen, Katie, Julie, and Angela on the Licking River bridge (we lost Eric way before this). People were majorly bottle necked and we just couldn't weave as well as they could. We spent most of the mile trying to catch up to them, which we did at the next water stop. Had to expend more energy than we would have liked catching up, though.

Miles 4 & 5 - Back over to OH on the Clay Wade Bailey bridge. I still felt great. I was a bit more winded on that bridge, but not bad. I took my first Gu once we got over into western downtown hoping I would get a boost of energy in time for the Gilbert hill. I was worried this part of the race would drag because it's pretty desolate over there. It really wasn't too bad, though. Definitely not many spectators, but chatted with the girls and got through it OK. This is also where Katie and I serenaded the other runners with the McDonald's Filet O' Fish song.*

Mile 6 - This is where we ran through downtown. There were tons of people lining the streets cheering (even in the rain!) and music playing. It was really great and got me good and cheered up to tackle the hills ahead. It was during this stretch that finishing seemed completely doable. I knew at that point that I really was going to finish this thing. It was during this mile that my friend Beth turned her ankle, though. She said she was OK, but it definitely was hurting her. Most of us were wearing our pink training group shirts so we got several shout-outs to "the girls in pink". I remember a lot of these coming in this stretch. It was just fun to hear. "Looking strong, girls in pink!"

Miles 7 & 8 - The hills. I actually felt pretty good, though. I pulled ahead as I went up the final big hill to the overlook. Usually on hills if I feel good I just have to keep going rather than slow down to stay with the group. I just feel worse if I slow down. Once I got to the water stop at the overlook I waited for everyone else.

Mile 9 - This is where Tim and the others waited for us. Karen's husband Chris as well as my friends Elizabeth and Eric were there cheering with Tim. We stopped and said hi and waited for Beth and Eric to catch up and then we kept on moving.


Mile 10 & 11 - A bit of an uphill here but mostly downhill. Felt good, but near the end of this stretch my legs started getting heavy. We also lost Beth and Eric for good at this point (they told us to go ahead).

Mile 12 - This mile just sucked. Starting to get tired. This is also where Katie and I pulled ahead of Karen and Julie. Had to run out Central Parkway and then turn around and come back which meant that on the way out we had to watch everyone else coming back, which is just hard for me mentally. Once we finished the Central Parkway loop and turned onto Eggleston Kyle, one of our coaches, joined us to run in with us.

Mile 13 - At this point we were just focused on finishing. We took it fairly easy until we turned onto Pete Rose Way and then we really pushed it for that last quarter mile. Once we crested the hill and saw the finish it was just overwhelming elation, especially with what seemed like hundreds of people lining the street cheering. Katie just reminded me about something very funny that occurred during this stretch as we were hauling ass towards the finish and, consequently, passing tons of people. Here is her recollection of the events, which very closely resemble mine:

"Remember when we were like .1 from the finish line and we passed a guy in a black shirt (you went to his right, I went to his left), and one of the spectators, who was a dude our age, had immediately prior yelled "GO GIRLS IN THE PINK SHIRTS!" at us and then when we passed the guy in black the spectator was REALLY excited and yelled something like, "YEAH! PASS HIM! PASS HIM! GO GO GO! KEEP GOING, KEEP PASSING PEOPLE!!!" I'm positive neither of us knew him, and I think it's hilarious that he picked us out of the crowd to personally cheer on and did so at the price of basically rooting against the guy in the black shirt : )"

I TOTALLY forgot about this until she emailed me about it, but now I remember that at the time I thought it was HILARIOUS. This guy was a nut. He was SO excited for us. It helped take my mind off the pain I was feeling at that point :-) And had I had any energy left at that point not being used to propel my body down that road I would have laughed out loud.


Katie and I crossed the finish together. We hugged. Then we both hugged Kyle. Then we got our medals and waited for everyone else come across. More hugging ensued. It took forever to get through the chute. When we got to the end Tim was waiting with flowers.


Post-race I went home and showered and then we met my family for brunch. It was great to see all of them after and it felt really good that they all came out to help me celebrate. Then I went home and crashed...

* I LOVE the fish sandwich at McDonalds. Not sure why. I very rarely eat fast food, but when I do it is pretty much always either cheese coneys from Dixie Chili or a Filet O' Fish. Yum! Anyway, in recent years McDonald's has launched an ad campaign on TV with a very catchy song about my favorite artery-clogging sandwich. Somehow Katie and I discovered recently that we both share a fondness for this song (if not for the sandwich itself).