Go Packers!

"The thing about birthday parties is that the first birthday party you have and the last birthday party you have are actually quite similar. You know, you just kinda sit there... you're the least excited person at the party. You don't even really realize that there is a party. You don't know what's goin' on. Both birthday parties, people have to kinda help you blow out the candles, you don't even know why you're doing it. It's also the only two birthday parties where other people have to gather your friends together for you. Sometimes they're not even your friends. They make the judgement. They bring 'em in, they sit 'em down, and they tell you - 'these are your friends!"

I have to hand it to Jerry Seinfeld, he nailed the first birthday party experience. We had about 25 people over to celebrate la cocotte's birthday but six of those people were other cocottes so it felt more like 50. La cocotte of course had no idea what was going on, I think her largest impression of the day was that there was suddenly a plethora of sippy cups from which to drink in colours far more exicting than her own.

We got very few gifts as people were under very strict instructions (in four different languages) NOT to bring anything as we are try to reduce, reduce, reduce at the moment given our impending trans-continental move. However one of hubby's colleagues originally from the midwest did send us an incredibly creative birthday present. What does one get a one year old cocotte who already has everything?

A cheesehead! As seen on TV!

Go PACKERS!

We will actually be attending a cheese festival in Wisconsin in September and I imagine this hat will figure prominently.

One year ago today

One year ago today la cocotte came screaming into our lives. I often mentally replay the memory of lying on the OR table under the bright lights, shivering uncontrollably from the anesthesia. It seemed like there was a platoon of nurses and doctors on the other side of the curtain that was carefully blocking mine and hubby's view of the proceedings. I remember the murmurings of the surgical team as they carefully counted every sponge, clip and surgical gadget they placed inside me. There was a feeling of intense pressure followed by a long moment of silence which was broken by the calm, measured voice of my obstetrician: "Well... hello there." This was followed by the wail we had waited 41.5 weeks to hear. My hubby whispered "somebody's here" and indeed she was. A life altering second, not parents one moment, parents the next. There was not enough room in my chest for my heart. There was simply no way of expressing the overwhelming emotion. I remember crying.

It is beyond my gift as a writer to describe how being a mom has affected me never mind how in love and enchanted I am with with baby. I do not want to reduce my experience with hackneyed cliches so I will simply say - Bonne Anniversaire ma cocotte toute douce. Je t'aime forte and je t'embrasse.

How to run with a baby

Well, first you have to find a safe and comfortable position in which to hold the baby. I used to put her on my shoulders but I found that branches from the shrubs lining the sidewalk would scratch her face so now I tuck her under my arm... yes, I'm kidding. Bad joke. But I am serious in that before I had said baby, I was curious to know the logistics of how running mommies well... run. So I thought I would share how I get my mileage (typically 70-100 km per week) in as a running mommy. I have four options (which is way more than I had as a childless working gal!).

Option 1: Get up obscenely early & run before hubby leaves for work. This is actually my favorite b/c I am usually up for a 5.00 am feed anyhow so it is not very onerous to head out the door rather than heading back to bed. As a bonus it means hubby spends alone time with baby when she is at her most cheerful. Fun for him, fun for her & less guilt for me! (see Option 2).

Option 2: Run when hubby gets home from work. I do this about once a week only b/c I have this amazing training partner who is only available to meet in the evening. His fitness level is perfectly matched to mine & the work-outs he does are compatible with my training style. As a bonus it gives me the chance to practice my Italian (though his English is perfect so if I get too oxygen deprived, I can switch languages). The downside of this is that evening is baby's crankiest time. I don't want to badmouth baby because she is truly wonderful and her crankiest time is far less fearsome than my crankiest time! But when she is crankiest she wants a breast... and although I leave breast milk behind it is just not the same so I feel guilty for putting hubby in that position and depriving her of comfort.

Option 3: Bring baby along in the baby jogger. I have actually only done this twice both in the past week in other words this is about to become a regular occurrence. I wanted to wait until she was at least 6 months old and now she is 7. This is hard, hard work. Maybe I just have to get used to it? But I think baby jogging adds 15-20 seconds to each kilometer. Also I feel it deteriorates my already incredibly poor form. I still need to experiment - jogger close to body? far from body? Give jogger a push and let arms swing free for a few strides? One major downside is that the sidewalks here were so NOT designed for my honking, behemoth of a baby jogger. Clearly the makers of this jogger pictured wide stretches of deserted, suburban road. Not crowded, narrow Italian sidewalks which are the scene for much of the social life here (it seems) and also serve as back-up parking in a city which was built far before the automobile was ever thought of. Inevitably I come up behind people and say in my quiet, uncertain, shy way "permesso"... which they never hear. Then louder. Then louder. Now I am at a standstill, baby jogger wheel nipping at their ankles and finally (because I cannot seem to modulate my voice) BELLOW "PERMESSO!" at which point they turn, see the baby which then means I have to to stop for a minute or so while they coo and admire the baby (the stereotype is true... Italians of all walks of life LOVE, really really really LOVE babies). Anyway the above scenario repeats 10-20 times per run which makes it not all that efficient. Plus I feel like the ugly foreigner with my honking jogger on the sidewalk because clearly sidewalks here are used in a different way than back home and part of me thinks I should respect that and not impose my baby jogger on them. All that being said, I will continue to baby jog.

Option 4: The dreadmill. Yes I am spoiled in that I have a treadmill in my house. The plus side of this is that I don't miss baby time b/c I use it while she sleeps (mostly see below). The downside, other than the sheer mind blowing boredom... though sometimes I manage to study Italian while running on it, is my paranoia. I jump off the treadmill every 5-10 minutes to check whether baby is awake and crying b/c I cannot hear her over the motor. My PB is 12 minutes without checking on her. I have never found her crying but I have often found her awake and happily chatting to herself at which point I usually bring her into the bedroom with me and put her on our bed with some toys while I finish up. She plays, I run. Sometimes I sing... shout more than sing to be heard over the motor and that is a work-out in and of itself!

All in all I find it easier to get in mileage as a stay at home mom than I did when I was working (partly b/c my work involved way too much travel). I know the real challenge lies ahead when I am a working, running mommy.

Baby Jogging

Let me provide a bit of background to this post by stating outright that I ran throughout my entire pregnancy. I'm not talking a little jog here and there... I'm talking I racked up over 1500 km during my pregnancy, over 3000 km if we include cross-training. For the first five months it was enjoyable if slightly slower than my pre-pregnancy running, months six, seven and eight were noticeably slower yet still enjoyable, months nine and ten consisted of ten minute miles, occasional stops en-route for orange juice (and in one desperate incident a doughnut), they were enjoyable but definitely hard work. Yesterday baby & I went for our first run together with her outside the womb (she is now almost 7 months old). Hmmm... I am honestly not sure what is more taxing, running while heavily pregnant or pushing the baby jogger. It is hard, hard work! College physics is a distant memory for me but somehow I thought that fact that I was pushing the weight on wheels would make baby's 7 kg plus the 10 (?) kg of the jogger negligible. So not the case! I would say the baby jogger adds 10-15 seconds per km. It also definitely changes my already poor form for the worse. Perhaps I just need to adjust. Perhaps I can parlay this into an opportunity to work on strengthening and posture and both are sorely in need of work. (As an aside, I had secretly hoped that as baby gained weight my biceps and triceps would grow in proportion to her gain so that a) she would not feel heavier to me and b) I would actually get stronger - ha! how naive). But I do wonder if this baby jogging thing is an effective training mechanism for my primary goal which is, of course, to run fast!

The good news and most important aspect is that baby really enjoyed it. She slept through some of it and commented through the rest "ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba".