Holiday fun!

As of last week, Lily is 4 months old! Amazing. She is now 10lbs 5oz, and 23.25" long. As she's getting bigger I find that I am grateful she's been so small for so long. This kid doesn't like to be anywhere else but being held or actively entertained by somebody. Now that she weighs more, it's getting to be more of a workout to bounce and sing and walk all day. Fortunately, her window of tolerance is also growing so I have small breaks during the day. Th pediatrician said she looks super healthy and strong. And each week we seem to need a little less formula. We're down to about 4-6oz per day. 


I have lots of pictures to share from the holiday weekend. This is how we usually travel when we take the train downtown to the museums. I have one coat that I can completely zip Lily up in while she's in the Baby Bjorn, but now even that one's getting tough to close. I get such funny looks when I wear Lily like this. At first people look all confused like 'what's that strange growth on that woman's chest?' and then it turns into amused surprise and people just can't help but flash a huge grin or make silly faces at Lily. Here she's completely zonked out so her head is lolling back on my chest. Take a guess as to how cold it was that day based on our outerwear. Got it? 40 degrees Fahrenheit. I'm such a weather wimp now after living in Arizona for 3 years. It's kind of embarrassing. 

Now for some Thanksgiving pictures. Susan gave us this adorable little onesie with embroidered turkeys on it. It was also very soft and snuggly, ad subtly festive. I'm not a fan of all the stuff that says "Baby's first ______" in big letters with ugly screen printed pictures in garish colors. 

My family is really into cool building blocks, and this is the newest addition. My dad and my brother Erik built a snowman. It's kind of hard to see, but the snowman is wearing a striped scarf also made from blocks and his nose sticks out. 

And here's Lily knocking it down. 

Lily was wearing a beautiful little sweater dress with tiny tights and boots that my mom gave her. You can see some of the pretty stripes in this picture. She's very into chewing on both Joe's and my fingers these days. I think teeth are not too far off. 

Friday we went to go see the wreathing of the lions at the Art Institute and made our own wreath to take home. It was 28*F! that's the coldest Lily has ever experienced. It was windy so we had her facing me in the carrier and she snuggled in so much she just passed out. My warmer winter coat doesn't fit over her so well...

Later in the day we went to the Christkindlmarket. Lily clearly thought it was a blast. 

And finally, my parents offered to babysit while Joe and I went to a movie and dinner. We saw Harry Potter, the first movie we've seen since Inception in July. It was weird to be alone. Then we had dinner at Basilico, this cute little Italian place near my parents. I guess she did ok (read: she didn't cry ALL the time). Here she is showing grandpa how she likes to turn the pages of her book. For some reason her ears look huge!

We're still putting up Christmas decorations, but expect some more pictures soon!

Week 7

This week I pretty much held steady at 167 lbs. Which is good because I did virtually nothing but cook and eat. (There will be a separate post on our weekend activities.) 


M: 30 min video
Tu: nothing, Lily had shots
W: morning walking errands ~2 miles
Th: does competitive eating count?
F: downtown festivities
S: nothing
S: nothing

Timely Thankfulness

My family does not do the whole go around the table and say what you're thankful for thing. But this year one thing keeps popping up in my head when I think about being thankful: time. This may seem like a vague thing to be thankful for, but let me explain. 


First and foremost I am extremely grateful for all of the time our new little family spends together. With Joe in law school, every minute of his time is precious. He has been working very hard to get his work done during the day so we can be together in the evenings, even if it means getting up early and waiting for the bus in the cold. Also, before moving to Chicago, both Joe and I had stopped working by the time Lily was born. That gave us almost two full months together to get a little bit used to our new life. It really means a lot to me that we got to just hang out and get to know our daughter for that long. 


I am also thankful for the time we spend apart. We are fortunate to have the means for me to stay at home with Lily while Joe goes to school during the day. As much as I have been complaining about it, it turns out I really love it. As she's getting older, it's more fun and I can spend more time doing things i like such as cooking, unpacking (yes, sill), and decorating for Christmas! Then, once Joe gets home, he gets to sit with Lily while I get a chance to be alone. I like listening to them laugh and play together while I cook or just sit in another room for a few minutes. 


And, finally, I would be horribly remiss if I did not say how thankful I am for the time so many other people have given to us. Both Joe's and my parents were absolutely essential to getting us relocated to Chicago. We would not have been able to do it without them. Now that we're here, I'm so grateful that they get to spend so much time with Lily. It is wonderful to live near family with a child. I'm so glad she'll be close to all of them as she grows up. And I am equally grateful for our friends in many different places. Thank you for letting us hang out with you and your families, answering ridiculous questions about pregnancy and parenting, and just being cool people. 


So Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Week 6

So I'm not sure what's going on. Once again, I had a great start to the week and was down to 165 on Wednesday and Thursday. Then I steadily gained one pound each day, despite continuing to exercise and eat the same. This morning I weighed 167.6 lbs. Sunday night I ate way too much pizza, so that one was definitely deserved, but I should have lost a couple on Saturday. I walked at least 3 miles, probably closer to 6, while wearing Lily in the Baby Bjorn all day. Basically we started walking at 9:30 am and didn't stop until 4:30 pm. So I'm a little bit frustrated. Maybe I should just make my posts on Wednesday instead of Monday so I'm at least 'stuck' at a lower number.  


I might have to accept that this is where I'll be for a while yet. Because I'm still mostly breastfeeding Lily (we're down to 6-8oz of formula each day!), I can't exactly go on a super diet. Not that I would if I weren't bf-ing. I strongly believe in eating what you want, in reasonable amounts. And I tend to follow Michael Pollan's 7-word manifesto: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. And as for exercise, I'm doing what I can, when I can. This scale says I'm back to my pre-pregnancy weight, but it's about 7-10lbs different than the scale I used in Tucson so really I'm 7-10lbs less than before I was pregnant. And considering I was 204lbs when I checked into the hospital for delivery, almost 40 lbs in 4 months is not too shabby. Most importantly I'm feeling stronger and fitter, and my clothes are looking better. 


Why is she being so obsessive about this and analyzing it to death, you ask? Because I have a small anxiety problem. Being able to focus all of my insecurities and obsessiveness on one thing keeps me from worrying about everything. Choosing something that I can physically measure and keep constant track of is actually very calming to me. Also, being overly anxious about my weight allows me to not be a psychotic parent. Trust me, you would rather read a weekly post about my weight and workouts than a weekly post about how many times Lily pooped. Because that's what it would be. I would begin to obsessively count and measure something else in  my life, probably for the worse. So that's my little insanity disclaimer. Now for this week's info.


M: No data
T: 90 min walk with 2x15min run. These short runs are starting to feel great. I'm going to miss them once the snow comes.
W: 2.5 miles/90 minutes walk/errands wearing Lily. This was sort of a random day that involved lots of walking to places near our apartment, but the miles and minutes really do start to add up.
Th: Baby Yoga + 30 min workout video (video review in another post).
F: 90 min stroll to stretch out, I was pretty sore from Thursday.
S: All day out walking wearing Lily, 3-6 miles.
S: Afternoon shopping while wearing Lily

A real person

Over the past couple of weeks I have been amazed at how much more of a little person Lily is becoming. She is showing signs of a distinct personality, is starting to understand some social cues, and is moving and growing super fast. 

Lily definitely has her own quirky personality with specific likes and dislikes. The other day she was super crabby. I had The View on in the background while I was walking around the apartment trying to find something to distract her. Then Ludacris and Quincy Jones performed an acapella version of Soul Bossa Nostra (the theme song from Austin Powers). It was a pretty sweet cover, and Lily just fell in love with it. The only thing that would stop her from crying was listening to that song while I danced with her in front of the dining room window overlooking the parking lot and playing with the wind chime that hangs there. So I quickly found it on YouTube and put it on repeat. Absolutely bizarre. If any single one of those factors changed, shrieking immediately resumed. 

I'm also constantly impressed by her seeming understanding of social situations. She'll be having a crabby day, then a crabby car ride to yoga, but as soon as we get there around other people she quiets down and is willing to hang out. Also when we visit people she is a little unsure, but she is extremely "well-behaved" for a good long time. (I have a little bit of an issue with that term, but people keep using it. It's not like a baby can have 'bad' behavior.) We spend a little time each day playing in front of a mirror and I always ask her if she can make that baby smile. Just recently she has started smiling at the mirror, but then she gets all shy and buries her face in my should. Then she sort of peeks out and smiles again, and gets all shy again. She's such a little flirt. 

Lily is also growing and moving more every day. Each night when we put her down in bed she looks a little bit bigger and takes up more room. And even since last week she looks significantly bigger in her highchair. 

And finally, she has been rolling over! Over the past couple of weeks she's been doing it about once a day, but in a stealthy way. I'll be playing with her on the floor, look down at my watch, look back and she's flipped over. It's almost as if she waits until you look away to do it. On Tuesday, though, I finally caught her in the act. I was trying to take a picture of her in an adorable new onesie from Hanna, and she rolled over in slow motion. Here she is mid-roll. 

I also think she might be starting to teeth. She's drooling a ton, chewing on anything she can get in her mouth, and has been a little more irritable. Even so, it's definitely becoming a lot more fun to hang out and interact with her all day. There's much less of just sitting, more talking and playing, lots of laughing, squealing, and smiling. Maybe I can do this mom-thing after all. 

Week 5

Sorry this is one day late. Yesterday my mom came to the apartment to keep an eye on Lily while I cleaned and unpacked my books onto the new bookshelf Joe put together over the weekend. Then we went to her house and I did laundry. It was a very productive day! Anyway, amongst all the productivity I forgot to weigh myself. This morning it said 167.4 lbs. That's a bit less than last week, but at one point I was down to 165.8. Then I had Chinese take-out for dinner. I need to work on keeping up my motivation for exercising and eating healthy through at least Friday. I have pretty much gotten control over the evening munchies, though so that's progress. 


M: 60 min walk with 2x15min run. Felt awesome!
Tu: 3 hour stroll. It was so beautiful out Lily and I park-hopped up and down the lakefront all afternoon.
W: 30 min run + 45 min walk. My mom watched Lily while I got to run stroller free for a whole 30 minutes. I finally felt my first "runner's high" in over a year. Right at about 25 minutes I hit the right pace and felt like I could run forever. I was beginning to feel my lack of core strength however, and forced myself to stop at the planned 30 minutes so as to not hurt myself. I am encouraged that I'll be able to go for a long luxurious run in the near future! Then we went for a walk later that afternoon, and that's when I really felt it.
Th: Baby Yoga. Lily thought our cat and cow stretches were hilarious and laughed really loudly. It was pretty cute. 
F: 3 hour stroll to Museum of Science and Industry.
S: 2-3 mile walk at Morton Arboretum. We walked through the prairie and it was perfectly gloomy out.  
S: 1 mile walk roundtrip to grocery store. 

Gratuitous photos

So this is going to be a very random post full of random pictures from the week. This first one is Lily hanging out in her new high chair we got at IKEA. Best $40 spent ever. She happily sits in this thing with a toy for 30 minutes at a time. And it's so light and easy to move I can drag it all around the apartment with me. We got a little insert thing because she's so small. I'm pretty sure it was meant for another chair, but it fits. She really likes to swing her little feet and hold onto the soft insert. 

Here's a picture of Lily all snuggled into her stroller sleeping bag. I have no idea what it is really called, but it is perfect for the colder weather. (Thanks Aunt Becky!)

Over the past couple of weeks Lily has really enjoyed sitting up, with support of course. Her neck is very strong and she loves to grab at things, especially my hair. Also, she loves looking in the mirror. And honestly, wouldn't you if you were this cute?

This picture is just too sweet for words. 

And finally, our little drunken pirate. This hat was a hand-me-down from some friends in Tucson (thanks Rob and Sarah!). I absolutely love it. 

In other news, we recently started using G-Diapers with the biodegradable/flushable inserts. I highly recommend them. Originally, we had considered using cloth diapers, but since we have to use a shared laundry room and each load costs so much, we had to find something else. It just doesn't seem fair to the other tenants to wash dirty diapers without their consent. With G-Diapers, it's the best of both worlds. There is a cloth outer shell with a snap-in nylon liner that you put a cloth or disposable insert in. The do a good job of not leaking, and they have much less of that gross absorbent gel stuff. 

I will hopefully write a more cogent post later in the week. Only 40 days until Christmas!

Week 4

As of this morning, I am just about 5 pounds less than when I started keeping track. The scale read 167.6. Looking over my records for the past four weeks, it looks like the weekends are where I get in trouble (during the week I record my weight every day, but only post what it is each Monday morning). That's probably because Joe is around. I end up exercising less and eating more. I need to work on that. This next weekend I'm going to ask Joe to hang with Lily while I go for a stroller/baby/spouse free run. Sounds glorious already. My other problem is that as the nights get colder, I find myself hungrier in the evenings after dinner. The only thing I want to eat is dessert type food (chocolate, cookies, ice cream, etc.). What I should do is make myself a hot cup of tea with a tiny bit of honey in it for sweetness, but at that moment it is easier to grab a piece of chocolate and let's face it that's what I really want. So I'm struggling with that a bit. Any suggestions?


M: 70 min walk + grocery shopping
T: 70 min walk + 1.5 hr of housework wearing Lily
W: 90 min walk + 1 hr of housework wearing Lily. The maintenance crew came to fix our radiator so we went out for an extra long walk. It was nice to just be outside for such a long time. And Lily slept the whole way through.
Th: Baby Yoga. Lily made it through 50 minutes today. Towards the end we did a pose that involved sliding baby forward and down on her tummy, and Lily did NOT like it. 
F: 60 min walk with 20 min jog in the middle. We took a different route that was a longer distance than usual but it took me less time. I'm getting faster and stronger!
S: We walked to and around the Museum of Science and Industry. So cool. But FULL of people. I'm glad we have a membership (thanks mom and dad!) so we can go back again and again. I tend to get overwhelmed and a bit panicky in crowds so we only saw about half of what we wanted. Still, it was a good time and Lily slept for 4 hours in the stroller. Apparently the hordes of screaming children don't bother her so much. 
S: House stuff. Joe's parents stopped by to drop off some bookshelves and some more of Joe's stuff from their house, so I did about an hour of straightening up and washing dishes while Joe occupied Lily in the morning. Then later that evening we unpacked a good portion of it and I broke down/recycled a closet full of empty boxes. We're definitely making progress. It only took 2 months, but the apartment is starting to feel like home and I'm actually not embarrassed to have people over. Hooray!

CAGW

So, those of you that know me know that I am not very political and that Joe is extremely political. However, we were both equally riled up about this new ad put out by Citizens Against Government Waste:




I know there have been a million attack ads on all sides this election, but the sheer stupidity and inaccuracy of this one really gets to me.


1) "America tried to spend and tax itself out of a great recession." First, starting last year China is spending almost $600 billion on infrastructure projects to stimulate their economy (New York Times, March 2009). That really isn't all that much less than the $787 billion spent by the US (www.recovery.gov). In fact, China spent all of its stimulus money on infrastructure, thereby directly creating jobs. The current unemployment rate in China is about 4% (CIA World Factbook). Here, the stimulus package included $275 billion in tax cuts (Wikipedia - I found this same number in various other sources as well). Our current unemployment rate is about 9% (CIA World Factbook). Second, China has a 5 to 45% individual tax. Compare that with the 0 to 35% federal income tax in the US (Wikipedia - both numbers confirmed from other sources as well). While this does not include other taxes (state, property, sales, etc.), the point is that China has a similar tax rate to that of the US. Therefore, the implication that America is going to fail based on government spending and taxes should mean that China is equally doomed. 


2) "Massive changes to health care." China is moving towards a universal healthcare system (Forbes, January 2009). Specifically they are building cooperatives in rural areas to cover millions of farmers. These reforms are much more widespread than what was recently passed in the US (www.healthcare.gov). Again, if socialized medicine is such a scourge, China should be in shambles. 


3) "Government takeovers of private industries." In China, 46% of industrial output comes from state owned enterprises (Worldbank). In the US, there is no industry that is owned by the government. There are several examples of government sponsored,owned and acquired corporations, but not an entire industry. I cannot find an exact percentage, but our free market system means that much less than half of our industrial output is government driven. 


So I'm a little confused about the take-home message of this ad. The CAGW clearly see government spending, taxes, and industrial regulation as bad things that the US needs to stop doing, or China is going to take over the world. Except those things are exactly what China is doing to move up in the world, so our NOT doing them virtually guarantees the failure of the US. It doesn't matter to me what your political beliefs are, just take the time to find out what's really going on and don't just give into these stupid fear-mongering tactics. 

Silly Lily

Lily has been particularly comical this past week. She's finally gotten to the point where she can be awake for about an hour and be happy. This means I'm spending more of my day singing songs, reading books, and making funny faces. It is a welcome change. There are still hours of sitting and nursing, but they're more broken up now and don't feel like such a burden. 

Lily's newest trick is reaching out to grab at things. She has grabbed my glasses off of my face several times. Once, they landed on her face almost perfectly. I just had to straighten them out and take a picture.

My college roommate from St. Olaf, Kate, came to visit this weekend. She brought Lily a very soft bunny that she just loves. She really likes to grab it with both hands and smash it into her face while squealing. The ears and arms are perfectly floppy for her to hang onto, and it's a little bit weighted so it can sit up. Definitely a fast favorite. Here she is sitting on the couch with her bunny. She managed to kick off a sock, so logically we put it on the bunny. 

Of course we dressed Lily up for Halloween. There is a really fun toy store near our house that was selling really nice costumes. We got her a snuggly ladybug baby cape with antennas on the hood. It's definitely big enough to fit her for the next 5 years or so, so it'll be a fun dress item for a while. Also, it came with a little ladybug finger puppet that sits in the front pocket. All around cuteness. In this picture she is staring distrustfully at a lighted pumpkin in the window next to us. 

And finally, we have the smartest three month old on the planet. She can already read!

Week 3

This week was better for exercise. It was super windy earlier in the week so I couldn't go for a walk outside with Lily. The stroller turns into a huge sail and I was afraid I would lose grip on it and she would roll right into Lake Michigan. I tried walking around the neighborhood instead of the lake front trail, but there was so much debris flying around I was worried about getting stuff in our eyes, or getting smashed by a tree limb. So I had to get a little creative. All in all, I did pretty good. I was 168.8lbs this morning. 


M: We went to IKEA and Costco, each a work out on their own!
Tu: I danced around our apartment for 30 min of cardio and walked up and down our 13 flights of stairs twice while wearing Lily.
W: More than an hour of house work while wearing Lily
Th: Baby Yoga. Lily made it through the whole class without crying or needing to nurse! It was way more fun to actually do it than watch.
F: Walk home from campus, about 2 miles, after parking our car so Kate could park in our lot near the apartment. 
S: Field Museum with Kate. We took the stroller, but Lily just wanted to be carried the whole time. 
S:170, Shedd Aquarium with Kate. This time I wore Lily in the Baby Bjorn. She loved it! The belugas were particularly fascinating to her. 


Needless to say, I'm looking forward to getting outside for more walks this week. November is one of my favorite months weather-wise in Chicago. I love it when it is about 50 degrees outside and sunny. I hope it sticks around for a while!