Enjoying the Journey

Well, the questions has been asked by many, where the heck have I been? I’ve been here. Nope, I haven’t been traveling or anything. I don’t have exciting news or fun adventures to talk about. I’ve been at home enjoying the brief calm before the storm (aka August and September, they’re going to be brutal). I’ve been swimming with Reese in our pool, hitting the gym every day doing my sister Kellee’s weightlifting workout exercises she showed me on her visit out in addition to my Triathlon training. Did I mention I’m doing ANOTHER Triathlon? Yes, I’m crazy, and so very excited to do it with my friend Elena since it will be her first.

In addition to all of that I have also been doing a whole lot of this:

and this:

and some of this:

and this:

To say that I’ve been spending a lot of time at my computer would be an understatement.

Things sure are changing around here these days. Just when I start to get comfortable in a routine with Reese we hit a growth spurt or a transition and things change again. Here’s what’s new:

* Reese stood for the first time yesterday for over a minute without holding onto anything. Of course I placed her on her feet and gave her something (my iPhone) to hold so she would be distracted from trying to sit down immediately, which is what she usually does. She is definitely in no hurry to start stomping along on her own though, so I think we’ve got awhile before Reese will really be a “toddler”.

* Reese has always been a pretty good eater with finger foods and I was just starting to count my lucky stars that she seemed to eat any fruit or veggie I dared put in front of her (did I ever mention that she doesn’t have any interest in eating grain products like bread, crackers, or even cheerios?) Dum Dum Dum…

The picky eating stage has set in. I had hoped it would never happen to my sweet girl, but it has. Foods that she would once stuff with both hands into her mouth at alarming rates now gets thrown off her tray in disgust. I am beside myself trying to figure out what to feed this child. She can’t live on fruit alone! So far the winning foods are: bananas, watermelon, peaches, peas, avacados, raisins, toast and almost any other member of the fruit family. The losers include: scrambled eggs, PB&J sandwiches, veggie patties, spaghetti, pasta, cheerios, beans, and the list goes on…The worst is that sometimes she will scarf something I make the first time, so I get all excited that I have found something new she will eat, then she won’t ever eat that meal again.

I’m frustrated.

*We are also going through some really rough sleep issues. Reese has been weird about naps for about 2 weeks now. She will go down for a morning nap and act tired when I put her down for her afternoon nap but then she just cries the whole time. Or she won’t take her morning nap and then she is so tired by the time her afternoon nap rolls around she won’t sleep.

So I figured she is ready to go down to one nap a day right? I thought she was a little young for that, but all the signs were pointing that way. After the last two days I’m pretty sure that’s not the case either. She has been a mess! She is cranky and tired and she cries at the drop of the hat. I don’t know what to do, honestly. Any pieces of advice? I’m pretty sure she’s not teething, and she’s not sick. Argggh!

*Reesey and I are home alot more these days except for our daily outing to the gym. So Reese has had a lot more opportunities to play by herself with her toys. Lately she has been obsessed with taking things out and putting things back into containers. Whether it be laundry, blocks, even shoes. She will sit forever with her bucket and picking up toys and putting them into the bucket one by one, then taking them out and putting them back in again. I love peeking in on her while she’s playing quietly by herself, it’s totally cute.

*Reese is catching onto a few of the baby signs I have been showing her for months. She knows “more” and “all done”, although she still needs to be prompted to use them sometimes instead of whining. She can also show you where her head is and where “mama’s head” is when asked.

* Did I mention the whining? Yes, there is a lot of whining these days. I think the babe is a bit frustrated that she can’t tell us what she wants. It’s annoying. When she wants what I’m eating/holding/using, she whines. When she wants me to pick her up she throws herself at my legs, and she whines. When she wants more food on her tray, she whines.

My ears hurt.

Things they be a-changin’. Some things for the better, umm…we’ll work on the rest.

This is a list that has taken me a few days to write. My sister-in-law wrote one, and I was truly moved by some of the things she shared that I never knew about her. I have been doing some deep reflection ever since because there are things about myself that I don’t like, but that I can’t or won’t change. This is who I am. I can’t apologize for that. It’s hard to share some of the things you don’t like about yourself, or some of the things you wish were different. I am not where I want to be. But maybe by facing these truths I will be able to work on these things and become the person I want to be.

I encourage you to write your own list. You never know what you might discover about yourself.
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My little sister is getting married. It’s strange. For 4 years now my older sister and I have been the only siblings in my family who are married. It wasn’t weird for me to see by older sister get married, it just seems like what older sisters do. But having my younger sister get married is a bit weird for me. In my mind she is eternally the age she was when I left home-15. And even though consciously I know that she is an adult of 22 now with a career and living away from home, my immediate reaction when I found out she was getting married was “no way, you are far too young”! Ummm, she’s 2 years older than I was when I married Mark. I worry that she hasn’t known him long enough. Ummm, she’s known him just as long as I knew Mark when we got engaged.

I guess I just hate change, even when that change is something that makes my little sister so happy. As you saw in an earlier post, they came to visit us last weekend. It was good for me to see how in love they are, and how happy they make eachother. It has calmed my fears a lot. I still hate to let go of my little sister, but I have to remember that I’m not losing a sister, I’m gaining a fun bother-in-law.

While I am thrilled that my photography business is taking flight, it has also taken on a life of it’s own it seems. June has been pretty hectic so far with two engagement shoots alone this last week. I’m up to my ears in photos to edit for the two happy couples and an on a pretty tight deadline so they can send out initiations. It’s been crazy, but so worth it. Photography is something that completes me. I love it. I don’t know what I would do if it were not a part of my life.

One cute bride-to-be is my sweet sister Kellee who you may remember from this post last year. She and her fiance Jared came play with us this weekend and get in some engagement photos while they were out (which is another post entirely). We had a blast with them and did a bunch of the same things we did last time she visited-a day in San Francisco at Fisherman’s Wharf, a day at the beach in Carmel with Cibo, and some yummy Bay Area cuisine. We also took a bunch of non-engagement photos and played a little bit of Guitar Hero for Mark’s sanity.

Reese did AMAZING this weekend. I was a tad worried about Reese not wanting to let Kellee or Jared hold her without crying and reaching out for me every chance she got. It’s so sad when we are visiting family because she won’t let others play with her or shower her with affection. I desperately want this separation anxiety phase to be over. It’s been over 6 months now and I’m so over it! Anyways, back to this weekend-all my fears about Reese not wanting Kellee or Jared to hold her turned out to be completely unnecessary. She was fine. More than fine, she LOVES her Aunt Kellee and Jared. She also did so well without her afternoon naps both on Friday and Saturday. I was happily surprised (of course we paid for it after K&J left with 3 days of very cranky overtired baby, or maybe she just missed her favorite Aunt and Uncle-to-be?).

Brace yourselves for the remainder of this post being a very picture-heavy experience… Read more »

BIG NEWS!!!

I fit into my pre-pregnancy jeans. I’m not even talking about the jeans that have some stretch to them and that I wore well into my pregnancy. I’m talking about the skinny jeans that I used to wear when I wanted to look especially good and have no stretch whatsoever! I have not worn these jeans in over two years. Granted, they don’t quite fit the way they used to, but I am well on my way to buying a whole new jeans wardrobe since this is the smallest pair of jeans I own.

Oh skinny jeans, it’s nice to have you back:)

*UPDATE*

The joy continues…Today I stepped on the scale and it read the same number as my pre-pregnancy weight. That means I have lost 15 lbs in 2 1/2 months! Of course I am reluctant to share the number on the scale as ideally I have another 10 lbs at least to go before me and the scale will be friends. But it’s the first time in my life I’ve ever lost a significant amount of weight. It’s the best feeling.

Well, I’m sure everyone wants to know how the Tri went…It was awesome. Of course I can say that now, I am no longer sore, my bruises are healing and I have enough distance from the event so that I can look back on it fondly and not remember how hard it was. :)

When my sister-in-law and I arrived at the event at 6am, my stomach was tied up in knots. I can’t remember the last time I felt so nervous. As a dancer I never had stage fright, I was always supremely confident walking out on stage. This was my first real case of stage fright. I could barely eat anything before the race and I felt more and more nauseous as the time ticked down to the start of the race. It didn’t help that that I have a crew of men sticking their cameras in my face and asking me how I felt. That crew included my dear husbeast, my brother-in-law, and my father-in-law. I looked out at the water and and at the large orange buoys that marked where we were to swim. It looked a lot farther than the measly 10 laps I had been swimming at the pool. The water was a bit chilly but luckily much warmer than I had expected, since I didn’t have a wet suit. Finally we got in the water and my first Triathlon began. The swim was actually the best part of the whole race. The water was disgusting, but after I rounded the first buoy I got into my rhythm, my very slow rhythm, and I felt like I could swim for hours. Kim and I actually finished the swim at the same time. We hadn’t planned on staying together the whole Tri, but after that we stuck together the rest of the race.

On came the shoes and helmet and I was off on the bike trail, which incidentally was a mountain bike course. Silly me, the name of the race IS the San Jose Sprint Mountain Bike Triathlon. Was I prepared for a mountain bike course? No. Have I ever mountain biked in my life? No. Did it even occur to me prior to the race that mountain biking might be tough? No. Boy was I surprised when the bike course went totally off-road complete with rocky paths, sharp turns and steep dirt hills. I fell off my bike a few times and caught a few really nasty bruises but It wasn’t as tiring as I thought the bike course would be because I had to go slowly and take my time or I risked killing myself:). My borrowed mountain bike was a horrible bike that I will never ride again. It was Mark’s in high school and it hadn’t been ridden in years. I kept putting my weight on the pedal only to have it give out as the gears did something funky, let’s just say I got quite a bruised tushy. In the final mile of the course there is a small stream that you are supposed to ride right though if you have enough momentum and you don’t get stuck. Guess who got stuck? Muddy wet shoes, muddy wet socks, bruised tushy, bruised knee…Yeah, I’m hard core.

So I roll into the transition area to drop off my bike and head out on the run. Luckily by some miracle I had a spare pare of socks to change into so I didn’t have to wear wet ones for the run. Couldn’t help the wet muddy shoes though. Once again, Kim and I headed out about the same time. I was tired and it was really starting to heat up. Did I mention that I had only finally been able to run 3 miles straight, without stopping to walk, only one week before the race? And that was only running, without the swim and bike beforehand. So I thought for sure I would be too tired to run and would have to walk most of this leg of the race. Luckily, I was surprised to find that as long as I kept to a slow jog I was able to keep going without walking. Maybe it was the adrenaline of knowing I was almost done that kept me going. Whatever it was I was floored by my body’s ability to keep going. I walked a little bit, but I ran most of the 3.1 miles. Crossing the finish line was an amazing feeling. There are few times in my life, especially in adulthood, when I have felt that thrill of success, that pride and sense of accomplishment. Not only because I completed this physical test of endurance, but because I completed something I never thought myself capable of. It’s such a great feeling to stare defeat in the face and overcome it. It makes me feel like the old me that used to give up before she even tried is gone, and I can do anything I want if I work hard enough.

My Father-in-law compared triathlons to pregnancy and childbirth. I have thought about it ever since. It’s totally true. During the pregnancy you are excited and nervous and you prepare yourself as best you can but nothing can truly prepare you for the physical task you will face. Then you go into labor and you think “why did I do this?” and “I am in for a world of hurt, I know it”, which is about what I was thinking around the middle of my triathlon. During birth you have to find some way to grit your teeth and get through it, and it can be horrible and painful, but you have to do it. Now, granted, my triathlon was nowhere NEAR as painful at childbirth, but I had to grit my teeth and get though it even though my body wanted me to quit at times.

Then you get this amazing thrill of victory and achievement when it is all over. Immediately afterward you can’t imagine wanting to do it ever again, but slowly as time goes by you find yourself forgetting the pain and physical discomfort and all you remember is that feeling you had when it was all over. That is why women can bring themselves to go though childbirth again, because they have forgotten how painful it can be and also because they want the beautiful baby it the end of it all. That is why people do triathlons over and over, because they forget how physically demanding it was and only remember the amazing feeling of pushing their body to the limits and succeeding. I know that I want to have that feeling again.

I’m a triathalete.

I think I’m addicted.