catfight

I haven't been able to stop Maggie from scratching her face so the poor baby looks like she's been in a lot of catfights :( It happens even just after I've clipped her nails - which I don't do enough in the first place, because I'm so afraid of cutting her fingers by accident. When I put mitts on her she just yanks them off or sucks her thumb through the mitts, so that they get all soaked and her hands get really cold. Sigh. There have been a few really bad instances where she's drawn a lot of blood, the one I found this morning was just AWFUL, so I've decided that maybe the mitt issues are the lesser evil. I've actually been too embarrassed to take her out these past few days because it looks so bad and I feel like a terrible mommy. Of course the scratches don't bother her at all and she's still all smiley and giggly even with blood streaming down her nose.

We were going to throw out this old Hello Kitty mylar balloon from Sydney's birthday in December but first we showed it to Maggie and it turned out she was just fascinated by it. Her eyes got so wide and she just started laughing like crazy again watching it bounce around (it was still partially inflated, even after all this time).

I had my longest run in more than 2 years today - 15 miles. And the weather was perfect for it too, sunny and 40's. Yayhoo.

sleepless

So I've had my heart rate monitor about a week now and while it's pretty interesting to see the data, I think it will take a while longer before I can really utilize it, since I think what it's most useful for is analyzing trends rather than absolute numbers. The other thing is, I probably have to run a race to see what my max heart rate is, because I don't think the number I got when running up a hill last week was accurate. Well I know it wasn't because I've already exceeded it doing intervals a few days later, so oh well.

What I have noticed from the past week's data is that sleep has a noticeable effect on heart rate. More specifically, no sleep = higher heart rate. We had a few bad nights in a row, from Mon to Wed, when Maggie woke up twice during the night and on Thursday I had a really bad tempo run. Like my first mile was about 30 sec slower than my first mile repeat on Tuesday, but my heart rate was higher than on Tuesday. I was stubborn though so I pressed on but it was HARD. Fortunately, on Thursday night she only woke up once, so Friday morning I was back to normal again. I guess it's sorta funny that now I consider one sleep interruption something to be happy about.

So today I made jambalaya using this recipe, but pork-free, of course (turkey bacon, chicken sausage, no ham, etc). It was still yummy :)

happy baby

Here is a video of Maggie laughing like a maniac at Sydney making faces at her:

orange foods

Today is Sunday which means long run + cooking for the week. Well for the next couple days at least. I think I try to cook "for real" about three times a week and the rest of the time we have leftovers or Trader Joe's. For lunch we had pumpkin pancakes, and since that only used half a can of pumpkin, I also made pumpkin bread. Dinner was a chipotle chicken stew (w/ sweet potatoes, onion, garlic, celery, orange bell pepper, corn, chipotles, and thyme) and leftover red quinoa salad from the other day (w/ black beans, corn, red onion, red bell pepper, and citrus dressing).



I didn't end up heading out for my run until 4pm today which is much later than usual. Also unusual is that I underdressed (in short sleeves) instead of overdressed so I was freezing. But part of the reason I was so cold was because I was trying to keep my heart rate in the right zone for a easy/long run thus wasn't able to speed up and warm myself up. Another downside to the heart rate monitor is I can't stop looking at it! In fact it caused me to trip over a sidewalk crack and almost fall on my face - and of course I had to check out the effect this had on my heart rate (made it jump). I also need to learn to put the thing on properly - a few min after I started running the reading were getting really erratic and then I noticed that the strap was starting to fall down my back. So then I had to stop and adjust it while cars driving by were hopefully not paying attention to the girl standing on the sidewalk lifting her shirt and tugging at something underneath it.

cats and dogs

It has been pouring rain all week. Okay, maybe not all week, but yesterday and today. I was heading to the office to meet with my boss yesterday about returning to work so I just used the treadmill at the gym there. I was doing a tempo run so it was actually kind of nice to just set the pace on the treadmill and tune out instead of having to concentrate to maintain an even pace. Anyway, so I decided to return to work a month earlier than planned (when Maggie gets to 6 months), but work part-time for that month before going back to normal. I feel SO much less stressed with this plan because the idea of jumping back into the full swing of things immediately was pretty daunting to say the least with the combo of 1) being exhausted unless Maggie starts sleeping through the whole night again, 2) stress of having Maggie in daycare, 3) stress of not meeting expectations of coworkers, and 4) brain being overall very fuzzy from not being used in a while.

Today I went out for 3 miles when the rain let up to a drizzle, but only because I got my new Garmin yesterday! I finally upgraded to one with a heart rate monitor - I hadn't gotten one initially because I already had another watch with a HRM and didn't use it much, because it just seemed like too much stuff to deal with. Lately though I've been thinking that maybe heart rate tracking does seem like a good idea after all, of course at this point I've already gone and broken the one I had before by improperly changing the battery and then going swimming with it. I just did a super easy run, keeping my heart rate in the low 140's, although that number is somewhat meaningless right now because I haven't figured out my proper training zones yet. Tomorrow I'm planning on doing a field test to figure out what my max heart rate is (apparently that 220-age formula is really inaccurate since it varies so much from person to person) - it will probably involve running as fast as I can up a hill several times until I feel like passing out. Yay.

rainy week

It's supposed to rain all week, which is nice because I was kinda getting tired of the sun. Heh. It just means I can't take Maggie running - although there is a weather shield for the stroller that would keep her warm and dry, which I might look into getting. The rain has held off so far today though, so we went for 9 this morning. It was nice and overcast, and not cold at all. I took the last couple of days off to banish the niggles I was having in like six different places (some of which could be attributed to paranoia) and everything felt good again today.

Pasta salad for lunch today with the following:
tomatoes
sun-dried tomatoes
basil
mozzarella
celery
onion
tuna
red wine vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper

lazy baby

So Maggie went all week without rolling over from front to back again (until today, actually) but...yesterday she figured out how to do it the other way! (back to front) Except she didn't feel like doing it again after the first time so I have no video of it yet. She just kept swinging her legs up and over until she had enough momentum once to propel herself all the way over :)

Anyhow, yesterday Sydney and I made pizza. It was pretty yummy because of the sausage pepperoni and cheese we put on it, but I won't share the pizza dough recipe because that part was just okay. I haven't made a lot of yeast breads before so I usually have some trouble with them. I mean, it tasted fine, but it wasn't the greatest - okay, I admit this was probably because I took a whole wheat pizza crust recipe and decided to try to make it even more healthy by replacing the portion of white flour with more wheat, without making the other necessary adjustments (I think you are supposed to add gluten and other strange ingredients I don't have).

We had turkey chili the day before which did come out pretty good though :)
Recipe:
3 onions, chopped
oregano
cumin
3 lbs. ground turkey
chili powder (about 1/2 cup)
cocoa powder
cinnamon
salt
4 cans diced tomatoes
chicken broth
3 cans black beans
I'm too lazy to measure my spices so I don't actually know how much I put in. I let it cook basically all afternoon on low. Turkey chili is probably not the most photogenic food but here's a picture anyway.




And here's a picture of my spice drawer because I just organized it the other day, I put labels on all the lids so I wouldn't have to go on long searches every time I needed something.

no more going backwards

I finally took started using my jogging stroller without the car seat this week and wow, that thing is so much easier to maneuver now. No more almost tipping over when going around a turn, not to mention 7.5 less lbs to push makes a big difference. And of course, now Maggie can see where we're going now! (the car seat was in there rear-facing) The downside to that is I can't see her every second anymore, and also the wind/sun going into her face so I just pulled the canopy down all the way and put Aquaphor on her cheeks beforehand. I think I may look into getting a sun shade also.



Today we did 5 easy, yesterday was 7 with 3 @ tempo (by myself). The weather has been perfection, 40s-50s and sunny :)

slowing it down

My legs have been somewhat twinge-y lately so I'm taking today off running and backing off the rest of the week. The last 3 days I did: Sunday - 13 mile long run, Monday - 6 miles easy, and yesterday - 7 with 7 x 400m hills. Long runs are supposed to be done at an easy pace, especially if you are injury prone like me, but I ended up doing the 13 too fast so now I have little aches in my shins and ankles. I think (I hope?) taking today off will help alleviate those. I don't have pain while running or anything, but at the same time things don't feel 100%, and running is only enjoyable when I'm not stressed about some possible injury in there about to blow up. I met someone recently who used to get injured a lot even on low mileage because she was doing all of her runs too fast, but after she slowed down she was able to build up to twice the mileage she was doing before (and as a result, become a better/faster runner) without get injured. Slow meaning keeping heartrate in the 140s!

Anyway, so we decided in the end to go with daycare option 1. All her references were very happy with her and the only negatives that were mentioned were not giving the kids enough fruit and a sign she used to have in her front yard supporting Prop 8. I think I can live with those...heh. The lady actually said she would make baby food for Maggie (pureed fruits and veggies) so we shall see. I think we will be starting Maggie on solids when she gets to about 6 months. Thankfully, she has no problem drinking from her bottle anymore - she went on bottle strike for a while before and we were getting worried, but then we figured out that she was only okay drinking her bottle if she wasn't being cradled. So now she gets fed from her little chair when it's time to practice.

crucifers and legumes

It's been a while since I've made us eat a vegetarian meal - generally we have fish a couple times a week and chicken/turkey the rest of the time. Dinner tonight was panfried chickpeas and brussel sprouts, and a salad.




The salad is a bit smaller than usual due to the brussel sprouts. It didn't quite fill me up though so I had a bowl of cereal afterwards for dessert. Then again, these days I almost always eat either a bowl of cereal or a PBJ after dinner. And for breakfast, and for my mid-afternoon snack. I think I go through 2 loaves of bread and a jar of PB on my own each week. Milk production tends to make me really hungry.

dreamland

I just got some photos back that I took using this camera which I got for Christmas (yes, using film) and some of these actually came out kinda cool! No thanks to any of my own merits of course - I am a pretty crappy photographer, so if anything comes out decent it's by accident.

Here's the fam with a Darth Vader...haha. This was at a 5k we all ran in San Diego over the holidays, which was part of the Big Ballon Parade...hence the Darth balloon in the background.



And Marlon took these 2.

roly poly

Ok, Maggie has learned that being on her tummy is apparently not the worst thing that could happen to her, since she can now get out of it!

But mute this video so you don't hear me talking all googoo gaga, it's embarrassing.

indecision

Yesterday I was sitting on the floor next to Maggie who was on her tummy which she HATES, but she still has to practice every day to help strengthen her upper body and neck, and I look down at my phone for a sec and when I look up again she is on her back! So it appears that she rolled over for the first time and I missed it even though I was right next to her! But she hasn't done it again since then so now I think I may have hallucinated the whole thing. Hmm.

So I am still undecided about the daycares and literally every hour I change my mind about which one I want to use.

Option 1: Close to where we live and has good hours. The lady is younger and has two kids (8 and 11). She current watches 2 kids full-time and 3 part-time ranging from ages 2-5 and her mother is her helper. Maggie would be the only baby, but in the fall the baby sibling of one of the current kids would also be starting at her daycare. But Maggie would be almost 1 at that point, and also 2 of the other kids will be leaving to go to kindergarten. The lady is very warm and friendly, and appears to have good cleaning habits but her house is not exactly tidy (although probably this is not possible with all those kids and I am asking too much here).

Option 2: Close to work, hours are shorter but should be okay b/c I don't need to drive through traffic to get there from work. This lady has been doing it 30 years but she is very old (almost 80, according to one of her references). She would be watching 3 babies including Maggie and possibly one other older kid. Her house and yard are nicer and everything is tidy inside, with a very calm and quiet atmosphere.

It's basically down to whether I think Maggie would thrive better in the big happy (but high-activity) family atmosphere or the strict but loving grandmother (exact words from one of her references). I talked to both on the phone last night and realized I feel much more comfortable talking to the lady from option 1, because the option 2 lady seems to be more my-way-or-the-highway, but then again she has been doing this a very long time. Something that put me off though was when I asked her what the likelihood of her taking a 4th child was and she said "if you are uncomfortable with that let me know because I have someone else that is interested". Umm, okay I would have expected you to maybe say something to make me feel confident that you can handle it, but perhaps she was insulted because she said she used to take care of 8 kids at the same time.

Today's workout was 6 x 400m hill repeats. Tomorrow is a rest day!

daycare search

So I've been looking around for daycares for when I go back to work in April...which makes me really sad because I am going to miss her so much not being able to spend all day with her, but unfortunately the mortgage isn't just going to pay itself. Nor do we have parents that live nearby and are retired and ready to be baby caregivers all day long free of charge heh.

I went to go visit both large daycares and small family daycares (run out of someone's home) and decided that we'd probably go with the latter because I liked the feel of them better - many only have about 3-5 kids with 1-2 caregivers, so the atmosphere is definitely very different than in a large facility with 50 kids. Other advantages of home daycares are flexibility (if you happen to be running late one day, or need extra hours in the evening, for example) and cost. Of course, the disadvantage is that you need to do more background-checking than you would a large facility, and I'm guessing that the homes themselves are probably monitored less closely.

So after visiting about 7-8 places total, I've narrowed it down to two. One is near home and the other is near work. The others I didn't like for various reasons ranging from the condition of the home, or how the lady was handling the kids that were there, or just not cleaning the toys frequently enough (I am a clean freak and this bothers me a lot especially since babies put toys in their mouth all the time and then back on the floor etc). Anyway, so now I've been calling references and also the Community Care Licensing offices to get information on the two places I'm considering...so hopefully I'll have this taken care of by the end of this week.

Last night we had chicken soup, which I made because it was freezing in the house all day! I didn't go grocery shopping again so it basically has all the same ingredients as the shepherd's pie. Also I cheated and used some chicken broth as usual, since I'm too lazy to cook using chicken parts with bones. Here's the "recipe":

Saute chopped celery, carrots, and onion in olive oil. Add chicken thighs and chicken tenders. Throw in a big handful of chopped rosemary (this is what we have in the yard so it goes in everything). Stir in flour, then add water and chicken broth and bring to a boil. Let simmer for a long time and add a can or two of cannellini beans.

We had this with Trader Joe's 3-grain mix (rice, barley, and spelt) and a huge salad as usual (spinach with red bell pepper, broccoli, apples, pomegranate seeds, and avocado).

As for running...today and yesterday were just 6 miles w/ the stroller as usual. My default run, I guess. Tomorrow I may do hill repeats.