Butterflies

I've been wanting to post about this for a while now. When we first told Laina about the new baby, we told her that mommy had a baby growing in her belly. At some point later, she decided to tell us that she had a butterfly in her belly. Not too long after that, I was feeling really sick and she was wanting to play with me. I had to lay down on the couch and I told her that the baby in mommy's belly was making me feel sick and I had to lay down. She proceeded to get up on the couch with me, lay herself down with me, and said "mommy, the butterfly in my belly is making me sick, too." So sweet. How does she come up with these things?

Belly by Belly or the first belly shot of pregnancy #2

Now that the word is officially out, I figured it's time to compare bellies. The picture on the left was posted to this blog on Nov 11, 2006. It's handy that the new baby is due about a week after Laina's birthday, so it's easy to compare. The pic on the right is me today. I thought I was looking and feeling a LOT bigger this time around, but when looking at the pic, it's not really that different. (Side note, if I would have not pinned my bangs back, you could have seen my new haircut. I decided this morning not to go as short as I was thinking previously, but seeing the old pic makes me wish I had! I just really like short hair on me).



Some other things about this pregnancy. I thought it's been a lot different than the first time. I was feeling really sick and nauseous but that is going away now. I was reading an old post from back in Sept or Oct 2006 when I talked about how I was feeling, and it seems I was sicker than I remember, and I specifically even mentioned how looking at a computer monitor made me sick. That SO happened this time around, too.

I also of course have the constant feeling of tiredness and exhaustion. Although that may be getting better, too, as I move out of the first trimester.

I guess that's it for now. I'll try to post some belly pics occasionally along the way. I won't guarantee that it will be as often as it was with Laina's pregnancy, but I'll give it a shot :)

OK, I lied, that wasn't it. I had to come back and edit this to add that I'm having serious bacon cravings. That is weird for me because I normally never eat bacon.

Little Baker Girl

Here are some pics from a couple weeks ago when Laina helped me bake and decorate Halloween cookies. Her apron was mine when I was little and was made by my grandma. It looks so sweet on my little baker :)

Art, Anyone?

Laina loves coloring. She has loved coloring and drawing for a long time now. So, I decided to sign her up for a toddler art class at our rec center this month. So far she's had two classes. The most recent one she created this spider collage where she used chalks to pattern the background, molded putty into a spider, put on the legs and eyes (and she insisted it have a mouth), glued strings down for a web, and glued on Mr Spider. The only part I helped her with was cutting the string and the glue. Pretty good, eh?



The one below is from her first day at art class. They made collages by first swirling paint around the background. Then cutting out a "tree" and "branches" and gluing them on. And lastly sponging on "leaves". It was supposed to be fairly whimsical and impressionistic, but I think Laina's turned out a bit more like modern art, maybe with a Japanese flair? She learned to use scissors for the first time in that class and that was the only part I helped her with. I'm so proud of my little budding artist!


This one below she created at Little Monkey Bizness, which is an indoor kids play area. They have a painting room and this is what she made. I think this one is my favorite and I might even mount it and hang it in her new big girl room that Jay is painting today :)


And here she is really getting into her coloring at home. She loves to partially climb up onto the coffee table and color intensely.

...But I'd Still Rather Have a Race Car

!!!

Laina's "How To" Videos

Laina has gotten into making "How To" instructional videos. The first installment is "How to cover your eyes with your feet".




And a special bonus episode: Cheater Chopsticks for Toddlers

Triathloning

While I was out of work, I decided I had no excuses to exercise, and chose the cheapest form around - running. I have never been a runner, and thought I just wasn't built for it. But I discovered something called "couch to 5k" on the 'net, and realized I was just going about it all wrong. I did the 'ease-in-to-it' method espoused by the program, and within a couple of months I was up to 5k with no problems, then worked on speeding it up a little. I'm by no means a runner still, but at least I can run decent distances without ending up massively winded.

Then I decided to join a new masters swim program at the local rec center, since swimming has always been my favorite form of exercise. I had been swimming solo for a while, so I wanted to give a coached workout a try. I didn't realize it at the time, but it was 100% triathletes, most of which are from a local triathlon club.

After moving up the ranks in the workouts, I decided to give a swim/run a try. It was a 750m swim and a 5k run at the Aurora Reservoir. I did great in the swim in spite of the awkwardness of the wetsuit, and finished first out of the water. Then I got what I now know is called 'side stitch' immediately on the run, and had a horrible time, getting passed by 3 other guys to end up finishing 4th (it was not a big event, there were probably only about 30-40 people there).

Despite the painfully bad run, I decided I wanted to try a triathlon. After pushing it off a few times due to work getting busy and not feeling prepared for the bike, I finally signed up for one of the last ones of the season, the Fall Frenzy here in Parker (500yd swim, 11mi bike, 5k run). I would have liked to have done a longer swim, and not a pool swim, but I thought it'd be fun to do the big local one, in spite of a lack of bike training.

This triathlon was heated from slowest to fastest by swim time, so I started pretty late in the morning (second to last heat). I was put in a lane at the pool where I was the fastest seed time, and I ended up catching up (lapping) to the last guy in our lane about halfway through the swim, but instead of trying to pass him, I for some reason decided to hang back and just conserve some energy for the bike and run... so my time was a little slow, a 7:39 out the door (so probably about 7:19 for the actual swim).

The annoying thing about triathlons is that being a swimmer isn't that great of an advantage. Most of the guys I beat in the swim ended up passing me in the transition from the swim to bike anyway, since I took about a minute or so longer than most being a little clueless my first time. Then I hopped on my mountain bike (with slick tires to help somewhat with the equipment disadvantage) and made my way around the bike course. It wasn't pretty, as expected since I hardly got any bike training in, but I got through it, and moved on to the run. It took me a pretty sorry 44 minutes to go 11 miles, and I hardly saw a soul the whole time since I was in one of the last heats. One of the only people I saw was the second place female finisher who whizzed past me on a several-thousand dollar racing bike and a swoopy aerodynamic helmet.



I knew from a couple of 'rehearsals' that running after biking feels really awkward, like your legs weigh 100 pounds each. So I stretched on the last part of the bike and tried to wake them up in the run before getting up to full speed. I finally started seeing some other competitors and confirmed I wouldn't be the very last person to cross the finish line. Despite not feeling like I was running very fast, I still somehow managed to knock out the 5k in 25 minutes, which, albeit not blazing fast, was actually faster than I had planned. Jenna and Laina were waiting for me at the finish line, but I had to make a beeline past them straight to the bathroom.

So my total time was 1:23 for the whole shebang. I finished 119th overall out of about 480, and 17th/30 in my age group (30-34)

I'm not sure where I'm going with this triathlon thing, but it was actually kind of fun, and I could definitely see getting a lot better at it. I was pleasantly surprised that I pulled it off without any problems, and am thinking of taking the biking part a little more seriously next year. Had I biked as well as I ran, I would have placed pretty well. I'm currently looking for a bike trainer (a device to make your bike stationary) to do some morning basement workouts over the winter.

The only part that I was really not prepared for was the ice-bath afterwards. I was pretty exhausted and my legs were feeling pretty overworked. Jenna heard from a triathlete friend that you need to take an ice bath after these things to avoid severe soreness. I did it, and I think it worked, because I felt great the next day!