His Play

These photos capture some of Isaac's favorite kinds of play and toys right now. First, he is all about automobiles. In terms of toys, he seems to favor his Green Toys recycling truck and bus, I think, because they have spaces which allow him to pile other toys into them--another thing he's crazy about right now. Give him a bag, a box, a toy refrigerator--anything he can store things in--and he will fill it with toys, stuffed animals, and rocks from his "collection". 

He is also very much into imaginary play now. Here, he is acting like a spider, but usually he's a puppy dog, walking around the house on all fours saying, "Ruff, ruff," in the most adorably pathetic puppy voice. I call him my Poky Little Puppy.

Garden Update

Here are more of our summer blooms. I love the flowers we have in our yard right now--a lot of them were here when we moved in, but we added quite a few of our own plants over the last two years. We have future plans for garden beds, more plants, and a xeriscaped front yard, but that's down the road a ways, and our flowers now bloom from spring to fall, and make me quite happy.

As for the vegetable patch, I wasn't quite as successful keeping my seedlings alive this year after the transplant. We didn't install the soaker hoses in our beds until this month, so when I planted way back in May, I was responsible for watering the beds daily. That also happened to be when I was very sick with pregnancy symptoms, and I certainly did not do a great job of watering. We have a good amount of thriving plants now, but we also lost a lot of them, too. There is always next year, right?

Here are a few of the survivors:

My gardening buddy picked his first vegetables from the garden today. He was quite pleased!

Running with Green: 19 Weeks

Have I mentioned, yet, that when asked whether baby will be a brother or sister, Isaac says it is his sister? And when asked her name, he calls her Green. Every time. So Baby Green we call her (or him).

I wanted to write a little about my experience with exercise during my pregnancy with Baby Green so far. In particular, running to this point, because if this pregnancy is anything like the last one, then my running days are numbered. In fact, few weeks ago I thought I'd taken my last few runs before baby, while in the Midwest. I experienced some abdominal and back pain while running in Rochester, and afterward, it lasted all day and into the next. Feeling a little defeated but trying to listen to my body, I resigned myself to the reality that it may no longer be safe to run, and quit for a little while.

A run with my dad on a restored prairie in West Bend, WI

Having to quit running so early into this pregnancy was a particularly hard hit for me, for one, because--and this might not come as much of a surprise, being a former collegiate runner and all--running is my favorite form of exercise. But also because until just a few weeks ago, my pregnancy symptoms had been severe enough to prevent me from exercising very much, if at all, almost from the week I found out I was pregnant. I guess I never talked about what my first trimester was like, so let me summarize it by saying that it was awful. (Ha!)

From the very beginning, along with nausea and vomiting, it was extreme fatigue that was the biggest problem. I'm talking unimaginable, severe fatigue. I would go out for an easy run--or even a walk--and then suffer the consequences for days afterward. I walked around feeling like a truck hit me, or like I had the influenza, sleeping 11 hours at night and taking a couple three-hour naps during the day. How did I get anything done, you wonder? Good question. Bad, bad, bad. Thankfully the fatigue improved from extreme to just moderate around ten weeks, and I started easing back into exercise: hiking, walking and eventually trying to run a bit, which felt worlds better than it had over the previous six weeks.  I was disappointed when I started feeling the diastisis recti beginning during my run in Rochester. Four weeks of running out of forty weeks of pregnancy.

I continued to hike on my days off of work, and felt myself growing stronger and less fatigued. I even found that I was more comfortable with knowing my limits during this pregnancy, and exercise harder and more often than I did during my first pregnancy. All was well for a little while longer until the headaches began.

I soon found that any time I exercised, I'd get a tension headache that would last for more than 24 hours that no sleep, water, food or massage could touch. I'd eventually take acetaminophen to relieve the pain, but I was not happy about taking drugs so often during pregnancy. After some friends suggested giving chiropractic care a try for headache relief, I scheduled an appointment. The day of my initial appointment, around 18 weeks, I was feeling so hopeful that the care would help that I spontaneously decided to run the 1.5 miles to the clinic, while wearing a pregnancy support belt I'd dug out of storage. Surprise! The belt helped support my abdomen and I had no pain while running to or from the office while pushing 50 pounds of toddler + stroller. Yes! 

The ongoing chiropractic care seems to help my headaches, which means that at 19 weeks I am back to running--slooowly. I still have headaches, but they are less severe, and the last one--just before my birthday--didn't require acetaminophen, thank heavens. I don't know how long I'll last before the weight of my belly causes more pain, or something else pregnancy-related comes up, but frankly I don't care. I'll take every extra mile running on the trails I've been given.

Beautiful Dreamer

First SoccerTots Practice

This summer we tried a couple of classes at the Boulder Jewish Community Center, which is a great resource for young families in the Boulder area. The first class was a tumbling/gymnastics type of class called "Let's Get Movin'," and Isaac loved it. Today we started SoccerTots (after a Let's Get Movin' class, since we had a couple of weeks' overlap):

Snack time in between classes.

Chasing hula hoops!

Rocket ship blast-off!

Team cheer: the crowd-favorite cheer is "Mama Water!"

Stacking cones and knocking them down. (Can you tell it is 90 degrees outside??)

His favorite.

Ice cream cones. Isaac said his flavor was chocolate milk. (He's never even had chocolate milk, to my knowledge!)

Isaac and Coach Ellie carrying their ice cream cones across the field together.

Goal!

I know I've joked here about never wanting to be a soccer mom, but Isaac and I both had tons of fun at his first soccer practice today! I guess if I do end up becoming a soccer mom (to the cutest little soccer player ever), and the experience down the road is more of the same, I won't mind it so much after all!

Birthday Week

Between our somewhat disappointing trip to Aspen and returning home only to feel sick with pregnancy symptoms for a couple of days (weeks? months?), I think Ben took pity on me and decided to make my birthday this year extra special. He declared it Birthday Week and took over all of our household chores, child-rearing, and cooking for the entire week! Every morning there was coffee and breakfast waiting for me, and every evening Ben bought or prepared any meal I requested. The week was filled with delicious food, good runs (!), and my two favorite boys doting on me. And, of course, there was cake. Two cakes in fact. I felt downright spoiled.

On my actual birthday, I received a flower delivery at work from my dad and stepmom, which absolutely made my day:

And after work I found more flowers at home, from Ben and Isaac. Amidst the sweet shows of affection all week long, I think the best gift of all came from Ben, in his card to me. I am a sucker for letters of any kind, but a love letter from my husband, who spent all week doing his best to take care of me, had me in tears. How did I get so lucky?

I think Ben would argue that his actual, physical gift to me was the best gift: an Ipad! 

The cakes:

Oh-so delicious macchiato cake from Kim and Jake's

And always yummy ice cream cake from Sweet Cow. I only had one piece of the second cake--a certain pair of boys had it gone before I could even think of having seconds!

The evening of my birthday the three of us sat outside, and I praised the heavens for the cool evening and for feeling well enough to enjoy my birthday. It was perfect.

Thank you to my sweet husband and son for the most wonderful of birthdays. I love you both so much!

Camping in Aspen: Day 2

Ben helps Isaac build and light his first campfire:

So very proud of himself. 

Big boy, building fires!

I don't think we are hard people to please. Give us a campfire in the woods, a blanket of stars to sleep beneath, and we are happy as clams!

Maroon Bells Hike to Crater Lake

One (well, two) of the inspirations for our trip to Aspen was this: The iconic Maroon Bells. They are so stunningly beautiful in every photo that I needed to see them at least once with my own eyes. 

Let me tell you, in person, they do not disappoint. They are even more beautiful, if that's possible. What we didn't expect, but should have, considering the popularity of these peaks, was the amount of foot traffic we'd encounter on the trails near the Bells. We had to take a crowded shuttle bus (which Isaac didn't mind!) ten miles up to the base of the peaks, and once on the trail the hiking felt more like following a herd of cattle through aspens for miles than anything. Definitely not the kind of adventure we were looking for. 

The weekend in its entirety hadn't been what we had hoped for. Aspen was filled with too many cars, too many people, and we constantly felt stressed out. More than once Ben and I remarked that we've never been to a place in Colorado that felt this way--so fake, so disingenuous. It felt as if we were in an alternate universe (one filled with fake boobs and botox), and we longed for that familiar mountain town feel we're so used to. I'll admit I had high hopes for Aspen, and perhaps it was my own expectations that led to the undoing of the weekend. 

Our experience hiking near the Maroon Bells wasn't much different. Once we reached Crater Lake, all three of us were disappointed and cranky upon arriving. While beauty abounded, the hike lacked its usual feel of wonder and tranquility, thanks to the sheer volume of people on the trails. Although we planned to continue on past the lake, by the time we reached it, we were already defeated and ready to retreat to our weekend home at the campground, tucked in the woods, quiet and restorative as it was. We sat for a while staring out at the lake and the Bells and snacked, forcing ourselves to enjoy the moment before heading back down the mountain. When my breath and energy returned, I did stare out in wonder of all that natural beauty. Gosh, we are very lucky to live so close to these massive beauties.