And then my eyes got a little watery at work.

I look at Lucy these days and I want to ask her where she came from. This goofy, chattering, tall, hilarious girl. She can’t be my daughter, because my daughter is a little baby girl. Of course she is her. After [...]]]> I read this the other day: http://www.mamapedia.com/voices/an-open-letter-to-time

And then my eyes got a little watery at work.

I look at Lucy these days and I want to ask her where she came from. This goofy, chattering, tall, hilarious girl. She can’t be my daughter, because my daughter is a little baby girl. Of course she is her. After some time.

When she was little I was very excited about things like, “OH MY GOD SHE TOTALLY JUST ROLLED OVER!!!!” or “OH MY GOD SHE JUST ROLLED OVER THE OTHER WAY!!!!” To be fair little babies don’t do much so you are kind of always waiting for the next thing to happen.

My goal with baby Rocky is to just be. To just enjoy him or her as she is in that moment, because as soon as the day is gone, the little baby is a day older and a day wiser and pretty soon she’s doing summersaults and building towers with legos and “reading” her favorite books to all of her stuffed animals. The time, it goes so much faster than you realize.

I’m sure I’ll be saying the same thing with the next baby as I don’t think you are ever prepared to see your little babies all grown up. But I just want to take it a little easier. Not that I won’t be excited about the baby rolling over. I mean come on I still get excited about stupid little things that I would get excited about when I was 9 so I really haven’t changed that much, (ahem, Christmas morning).

As far as personally I want to take the same attitude. For example, I’m going to start running as soon as I’m allowed, but I’m not going to train for the marathon this year. With nursing I just couldn’t do it the last time I tried it and having to be out running for 3-4 hours at a time doesn’t work. We do have the baby jogging stroller but Rocky will be too little (although I think we can get an attachment for it that would work). And we have the Lucille to think about. Also last time I was biking about 24 miles a day (Ok I did this for like 3 weeks) to and from northwestern, or downtown to catch the train to then bike to fermilab. All while carrying my pump and then my pumped milk and a change of clothes on my back. No. Not this time. Although I would like to get some more use out of my bike.

I do have a goal of the 2013 marathon though. But I just want to be. I want to run and enjoy it and not feel like I have to. I do like all that I was doing last time because I got into pretty good shape pretty fast after she was born. When Jason would come home from work when I was on maternity leave, I would already be dressed in running clothes and I would hand him the baby and walk out the door. All day home with the little baby is tough so I imagine that will be similar. So OK fine, just no planned races. And no biking with pump parts. And I did love that Core Power Yoga.

With work and keeping the family unit from falling apart, I also think I will have to do all my runs early in the morning at like 4:45 because that is the only time that won’t take away from family time. Which will be tough, but not impossible. I need to make a Moms Morning Running Group. Running Jayhawk I’m looking at you.

Ok, I really meant for this to be a short post and on and on I went. In short. Enjoy the time.

I read on the internet recently that the days go slow but the years go fast and holy crap is that true. Where did the last two years go? I mean now she looks like this:

Her [...]]]> Really? When did that happen? I mean it was just like a few minutes ago that she looked like this:

I read on the internet recently that the days go slow but the years go fast and holy crap is that true. Where did the last two years go? I mean now she looks like this:

Her eyes are really that color there isn’t any photoshopping.

She’s got a mind of her own and frequently says, “NO! Lucy does it.” If you try and help her with anything it’s usually a big battle. We just had our parent teacher meetings at her daycare and found out that she’s doing perfectly fine. One of the comments on her little sheet was something along the lines of “We are trying to encourage lucy to use her words when she gets frustrated. .

She loves to read and would rather do that than anything else. Or legos. Her favorite stuffed animal is a Curious George doll. We have three of them in case one gets lost or left at school.

She has a great laugh and loves to be tickled.

She likes to boss people around, “NO. Mommy sit here. Like this.” Heaven forbid you do it wrong.

She’s still a good sleeper (for the most part), and loves her bedtime routine of dinner, bathtime, read 2 books and then bedtime.

She’s by far the best thing I have ever done and when I have a bad day at work and come home to her laughing all that fades away.

Happy Birthday my sweet baby girl. I can’t wait to see what the future bring.

Anyways there was an [...]]]> How many of you watch Modern Family? Well I know I should watch it more than I do because every time we catch an episode I laugh so hard that I just about pee my pants. Seriously last time I watched an episode I was laughing so hard my stomach muscles ached.

Anyways there was an episode where the little girl bit a kid on the playground and the two guys were like, well you must be mistaken as our Lilly would never do that. Then she bit them and there was a funny scene with “just put some pepper on her tongue.” Anyways Lucy isn’t a biter, but she does seem to like to hit when she’s not getting *exactly* what she wants. Apparently she’s also like her stubborn mother and even more stubborn grandfather and thus she doesn’t get what she wants often and has some problems going with the flow. But as she’s approaching 2 I know this is to be expected.

She’s also teething and it’s really heartbreaking (I feel like I’ve been saying that she’s teething for the last year because a) she has and b) these goddamn k-9 teeth will not fucking poke through…seriously, I want to just yank them out, I think she’s been working on them for about 6 months now..ok maybe 3 months…but STILL).

Anyways, it’s rough because she’s so tired when she gets home from school and as we all know the more tired the more cranky and if something hurts the more it hurts when you are tired.

The teething will end I know and so will the hitting, but it’s a little exhausting right now. Apparently Jason went in her room when she woke up at 1 in the morning last night and she just had her face in her pillow saying “owie, owwie.” My poor baby girl.

Also the hitting is funny (I know! I’m not supposed to laugh), but she will hit the table sometimes in her utter anger….and then it hurts her hand so then she has this look like, DAMNIT. Now I don’t have what I want and my hand hurts.

Running is going ok, I’m just taking it for fun for now. Speed and distance will come, but not if I’m not having run. I’m running a 5K on my birthday in about 4 weeks which should be fun). Always nice to have a race to train for.

I know, I know I just said on the last post that I’m just happy to be running at all. That’s a Lie.

I want to run far again and I just can’t get into [...]]]> Seriously, it doesn’t seem like it was that long ago that I was pumped to run and was running 8:whatever minute miles.

I know, I know I just said on the last post that I’m just happy to be running at all. That’s a Lie.

I want to run far again and I just can’t get into the rhythm of training 3-4 days a week. I mean we usually run 3 days a week, but the run generally are just eh and we aren’t adding any distance. But that’s probably because we have no end game goal. Maybe we should make one. A fall race perhaps?

We were going to run this afternoon and I just plain didn’t feel like it. So we walked the grocery store instead. That’s the other problem, we continue to not have enough hours in the day to do what we want to do. Which is irritating.

The Lucille has been a rock star sleeping at night. Oh wait. No. That’s a lie too. She used to be such a good sleeper and now Jason and I feel like jackasses for being so naive that that behavior would last. Now understand I like getting up at 5. However, I like to get up at 5 and have some coffee, get some work done, read the paper, eat breakfast and then get the baby together. She wakes up at 5, screaming and sad and I just can’t leave her there. And so she’s up, but she’s not really up. She’s “up” in the sense that there is no way in hell she’s going back to bed, but she’s also just whiney for awhile before she really gets rolling. So there is no reading the paper, there is no coffee.

But it’s the only time that she’s remotely willing to snuggle up against me (she doesn’t like people in her personal space, OK!?!) and so as tired as I’ve been and I would like her to sleep longer for her sake and our sanity, those few early morning minutes are priceless.

Ok, that post got to be a little more rambly that I had anticipated. Mainly I think the lack of motivation in running is coming from the lack of a full nights sleep for the last many weeks.

Since I ended up being a little random, here’s a few pictures of an evening swimming in the pool on the deck of my Dad’s building. Lucy is a swimming champ and just steps off the side of the pool. She loves it and loves going underwater. My Dad and Stepmom got me an Olympus Tough camera back in June and it goes underwater so we were having some fun with that:

Do you know that the little miss Lucille has turned 18 months old. This is what she looks like:

Wait….whose’s kid is that? Can’t be mine, I just have a [...]]]> Well, where I have been. Busy! Where am I now? Princeton, New Jersey for the D0 Collaboration meeting. I’m up early and so I have some time.

Do you know that the little miss Lucille has turned 18 months old. This is what she looks like:

Wait….whose’s kid is that? Can’t be mine, I just have a little baby. Ok Fine here is another:

You want more? Oh alright, I’ll oblige:

She's in the middle of all of that.

She’s SO much fun these days. She has figured out climbing and is now afraid of nothing. She is all over any kind of ladder she can get on, and we have taught her to say, “TaDA!” if she falls down, which is frequent.

We had her 18 month appointment on Friday and she’s still a tall girl. She’s 34″ tall (this is ~95-100th percentile) and weighting in at a cool 24lb 8oz. She still doesn’t like the doctor, but did a little bit better than last time. She on track with her development and words which is good. She will try to imitate *everything* that we say. She might not get it right but it usually has the right candance…this means that mom really has to stop swearing. Don’t need a little girl saying, “What the f*&%?”

Now where I rant.

Jason and I have grown increasingly frustrated at our local playgrounds and this is where I am going to tell all the parents to LET YOUR KIDS PLAY ON THE PLAYGROUND EQUIPMENT AND GET YOUR BIG SELF OFF. There are frequently many parents on the equipment at our park. As soon as you put 2-3 big people on little kid equipment it becomes very crowded. Most parks have a little bridge and when Lucy stands on it nothing really happens to the shape because she weights 24lbs. However, when Mr. Dad is on there who weights 180 lbs, the bridge becomes a V because you actually weigh it down. Now it becomes harder for Lucy to even be on there. I saw a Mom on there with her daughter, and mom started jumping on it….and the daughter fell and her arm went through the spaces on the bridge. Now, this wasn’t a big fall, but she only fell because the mom was jumping on it! Lucy has taken to just leaving the playground equipment when there are so many parents on there because a) I think it freaks here out and b) she doesn’t know where to go.

The parents on said equipment are also “protecting” kids (but what are they protecting them from? Hurting themselves? Learning how to fall?) that are maybe 3-5 years old. And lots of times telling them how to climb. Do this. Put your foot here. No. Not there. Here. That’s right. Put your hands like this. No be careful. Oh you did a perfect job. Good Job.

Meanwhile I’m thinking, does climbing a ladder deserve a “good job!”?

We of course let Lucy run around and do her own thing. We will “spot” here from outside the equipment if she is on something where she could fall far and hurt herself. We had a parent the other day tell us, “She’s really impressive climbing that thing. How old is she? Oh I NEVER would have let my son do that when he was that age.” I wanted to say, ok, well I can’t really let her not do it. So she can try and if she can’t do it she can go to another thing. If she falls it won’t be the end of the world. KIDS FALL. THAT’S WHY THEY ARE SO SHORT, THEY DON’T HAVE FAR TO GO! We often get the eye from the other yuppie parents like, how can you let your kid do that. I’m concerned that you will all see me in the new for starting a playground fight with the other parents.

I mean seriously we had a parent coming off the equipment and knock Lucy off the steps and just keep walking. They don’t even look at the kids around them. They are only worried about their 3 or 4 year olds (who really DON’T NEED YOUR HELP).

To be fair when Lucy was younger and no one else was at the park I would go up on it with her. But she was like 9 months old and we were the only people there. That is very different from what we are seeing at the park these days. Every once in awhile there is a shining light and it makes me think that humanity is going to be ok. I was talking to one mom who’s son was 2 and she was saying she feels like she apologizes a lot. For example a kid goes down the slide but Lucy is still at the bottom. Usually a parent comes over and says, “Now Jack, that was bad, you didn’t wait your turn. Try again” The they drag the kid to the top of the slide, wait for Lucy to move. then they turn to us and say, “I’m really sorry about that.” The mom and I were talking and it’s so frustrating because you totally feel like you have to do that, on the other hand neither kid was hurt and they usually figure it out themselves if there is  some kind of conflict. OR AT LEAST LET THEM TRY.

I just want to tell the parents to let kids be kids. They will figure it out and if they get a few bumps and bruises or even GASP a broken bone, they’ll be better because of it. Just lay off.

Alright. So that’s it from Jason and Leah Land. This summer is going to kick all kinds of ass.

Do you know something? Biking is hard. Also, I was still nursing and biking  + nursing proved to be too difficult for me. I was carrying my pump, milk, lunch, change of clothes, laptop on my back and biking [...]]]> Last summer Jason and I bought new bikes because I was going to BIKE TO WORK EVERYDAY!

Do you know something? Biking is hard. Also, I was still nursing and biking  + nursing proved to be too difficult for me. I was carrying my pump, milk, lunch, change of clothes, laptop on my back and biking 20 miles a day. I know for all you super starts that’s nothing, but for me it’s a lot and it was just too much. Plus with nursing I was still burning so many calories just from doing that, that I wasn’t able to eat enough to keep up with it. So I had to drop the biking.

This summer we want to bike more and now that Lucy can actually hold her head up we can include her in the bike trips. So we went back and forth do we want a seat on the bike or do we want a trailer. I have fond memories of being on the back of my mom’s bike, but then I would see kids on the lakefront path seemingly enjoying being in a trailer. Plus one trailer works for two kids while the seat on the back is just for one and at some point we plan on having more kids. I also heard good reviews from people I know that had tried the trailer and so it was decided the trailer would be the way to go.

Do you know those things are expensive?

Well they are.

But we found out that REI was having a sale for members for 20% off so we could get one version of a Burley trailer for not too bad a price. But I did one last check on craigslist for a used one and Sunday night a Burley d’lite was posted for $100 less than the new one (even after the discounts) and so I sent a quick email and we decided on a time to have me look at it.

That day was today and it looked good and so the deal was made.

We gave it a roll today and wow is that thing awesome. Jason did the biking with Lucy in there, but I gave it a try empty and it’s so light, and you can’t even tell that there was something back there. In even better news, Lucy *loved* it. And laughed and smiled and played in there the whole time. Which was great to see as lately she’s been a little firecracker.

We are both really excited because we have a lot more possibilities in the city now. One day a week we would like to hang out in Millenium Park for music. The plan there will be for me to pick up Lucy from the daycare and ride downtown with her and meet Jason for some picnicing and downtowning. Then perhaps Lucy can fall asleep on the way back home. I don’t know if she will but it looks pretty comfy in there! Here is her first trip:

She's unsure, but not hysterical so we are making progress!

Nice ride Kid! She has her George, and her graham crackers and she's good to go!

Go that way daddy! Go! Now! What are you waiting for, I'm clearly ready to go!

So we haven’t really used it that much, but so far I can highly recommend this trailer. It’s light, good space for lucy and gives us freedom for some longer trips around the city. But it is large so if you have a smallish apartment (hello my home) it will be a little hard to store. Right now it’s living in the middle of our bedroom and so we have to get our clever on and find a good spot for it.

Summer is coming Chicago. It’s right around the corner!