Pack your Bags--Bags!

The above statement is no longer!

Sleep is glorious. I have taken for granted all the mornings I slept in as a teenager and a hung over college student. Serious lack of sleep will make you feel like you are living in an alternate universe. For lack of a better example, a dull catatonic version of your vibrant self.

In addition to not stressing about working out (which I am working out even more than before LOL), I have decided to slowly start weening Aven from breast milk. As much as I know it is SO good for her, I think it is time.

I was pumping 2 times at work, preferably 3 times. 1 time after she went to bed, but before I went to bed. A final time in the middle of the night, around 3:30 am. I had to do this to keep up with her demand; if I wanted to do 100% breast milk.


As I might have mentioned before, we found a formula that she doesn't reject (aka projectile vomit). Gerber Good Start Soy formula has done the trick. Since this discovery, my life has been MUCH less stressful. I pump 2 times at work and that is it!!! We are doing 1/2 formula and 1/2 breast milk in her bottles. I nurse her before bed and when she wakes up.

Me: Sleeping through the night for the first time in 8 months this week has been amazing!

Aven: Sleeping through the night since she was 2 months old. *jealous*

I feel like myself more than I ever have before. Don't get me wrong...I don't feel like I have sacrificed a huge amount of myself or anything. It is just a little sleep here and there. I would totally do it all over again in a heart beat. But I gotta say, uninterrupted 8 hours of sleep is freaking A-W-E-S-O-M-E!

I woke up this morning with the ability to make a plan for the day, look forward to going to work, pack a bag to work out over lunch, and plan a yummy healthy dinner for the hubby and me. WOW.

Ripples

Yesterday I got some very bad news. A friend of mine died tragically. Sorry to just blurt it out like that, but there is no way to soften the event. I won't go into personal details about him, because I am not sure if his family is ready to read about all that in a blog post.

The true purpose of sharing this sad story with you is, just like most of my blog posts, I want to share insights I have discovered with "my readers" and to journal my thoughts as well.

Michael was someone I worked with for a short period of time. He had a good heart, he was kind, and from what I knew of him, had a wild streak. Like most men in their 20s this is not too surprising. I liked talking to him, even though I had nothing in common with him. I thought once he found his path he would/could do great things.

Things are still under investigation, but from what the news is saying, he and a young woman (whom I also knew) were standing on the rail road tracks and didn't move when the train came...

Maybe the two of them thought they were alone in this world. Maybe they felt they couldn't face another day in their own skin. Possibly there were substances involved. I am hoping this is just a horrible accident and neither of them wanted to be on those tracks when the train came. I have no clue what was going on in their lives. Maybe none of us will, but I do know there are a great many people who are saddened by their deaths. Devastated. Bewildered.

I don't think I have ever been this upset about someone dying. Maybe it is because I knew them and they were young. Maybe it is because I thought it was something that neither of them would do. I don't know, but it has made me really evaluate how we effect each other.

Try to visualize a lake. Lake Bloomington, Soddy Lake, or Chickamauga Lake. Any large body of water will do. Imagine the lake is the world we live in. It is comprised of millions, if not billions of drops of water. If you take 1 drop of water and let if fall back into the lake what happens? Ripples and more ripples and more and more. It never really stops moving. The one drop effects the entire body of water. It is so small, but yet so powerful.

No matter how alone someone may feel they are apart of something bigger. The people they work with, the people they love, even the people they despise. Everyone is connected to each other. We all have a responsibility to be good to each other and value the time we have with this very fragile life we get to live.

I am going to really miss Michael. I didn't get the chance to see him finish what I knew he was capable of. There are no words to really express how sad and horrific this situation is. I guess the only thing I can take away from it is how I want to treat people from this point on.

One small drop can do so much...what will you do with yours?

Triathlon + Mommyhood + Life = Balance -- WHAT???

I am freaking ridiculous! Really. I am. Here are the list of things I have decided to take on as a new mother:

• Breastfeeding
• Cloth diapering
• NEW Full time job (40+ hours a week)
• Pumping b/c of full time job
• Making Aven's baby food
• Training for an Iron distance triathlon in October
  

And this is all on top of cleaning the house, doing laundry, grocery shopping, cooking dinner, and trying to be present in my marriage. Not to mention we have 3 doggies that have been woefully ignored. What the H am I thinking?!

I came to my breaking point last week. Not so much a breaking point, but an epiphany of sorts. I have been so freaking stressed out with breastfeeding, and life in general, I can't even begin to explain. I think I have brought all of this stress upon myself though. I want to be the best mommy to Aven possible, I want to be an awesome wife to Andy, I want to do really well at work and not take breaks to pump, I want to pump 4x a day at work and get a large supply, I want to work out on my lunch hour everyday, I want to wake up early and get a swim in, I want to time trial every week up at Raccoon Mountain, I want I want I want...

Well, I can't get everything I want. At least not at the level I am trying to obtain it. I read in a forum the other day a great piece of advice from an experienced Mom to a new Mom... "you can do it ALL, but you just can't give it your ALL." When I read that it hit me. HARD.

Aven is only going to be less than 1 year old ONCE in her life. Granted she will have milestones beyond 1 year, but as she gets older they will be less dramatic and less poignant. She will adjust fine if I am not there to witness them, but I won't. I am a Mother. I am an athlete, wife, friend, sister, daughter, professional, etc. But first and foremost I am Aven's Mom. She needs me more than anyone in the entire world right now. Everyday she becomes more and more independent. As excited as I am for her to learn about the world around her, I am sad that one day very soon she will turn to me and say, "I can do it myself." So I have had to make some really hard decisions.

As much as a stickler I am about finishing something I set out to do, I have decided Ironman training is not in the cards for me right now. I thought about dialing it back to a half Iron distance, and then realized even that is a bit too much for me currently. I feel like I have reneged on a commitment I made to myself, but when I actually said out loud to someone I was not doing an Ironman, I felt SO amazing! It was like a weight lifted off of my shoulders. I started enjoying my days more and stressing less. One less thing to add to my very full plate.

I want to get back into shape, but I don't think I need an IM to motivate me anymore. I have 5 pounds left to loose and a lot of toning up to do. I think I am going to go back to my very first work out program, from 6 years ago. I am going to "work out" 5 days a week. Not sure of the exact days, but 1 day will be running (30-45 min tops), 1 day will be biking (over my lunch hour), 1 day will be swimming (over my lunch hour), and 2 days will be yoga. No target work outs, no heart rate to "hit," nothing structured, beyond getting out of the office to enjoy the last bit of summer/fall. If I miss a workout...oh well. I am not gonna stress about it anymore.

Another thing that has been less stressful is we found a formula that Aven will NOT throw up! Yeah. We have very slowly started to mix it with her breast milk and things are going really well. She has also started on table food. I have pureed some fruit and veggies. She likes carrots, sweet potatoes, peaches, pears, and cereal w/applesauce. She HATES (makes this hilarious gagging face) corn+green beans and bananas. This weekend I am going to try some new combinations to get more veggies into her.

So this is going to be my attempt at being "normal." Normal amount of working out balanced with family, life, and work...wish me luck! ;-)

YouTube: What 2SweetMomma Knows

There are many things I have learned about myself and about the world around me since I have become a Mom.

The first thing is there is no way to prepare a parent for the amount of sleep he/she will lose in the first 6 months of your child's life. Oh everyone said I was going to be tired, and they were NOT kidding! I have always had the ability to "function" very early in the morning and continue through the day. But whoa. Lately all I want is a nap. An opportunity to "catch up." I know that will never happen, but a girl can wish, right? ;-) Now onto the real content of this blog...

The second thing is breast feeding is so totally rewarding. People keep saying stuff like, "She sure isn't starving, is she?" My response to that is "Nope. I did that all by myself." =) ME. I. MOMMA IN THE HISOUSE. BAM. She is a healthy, chubby, cute baby. I am sure she will thin out when the time is right, but for now I love love love her little arm rolls and chubby little legs. =)

There are some drawbacks to breast feeding though. It is really lonely. Me and Aven, Aven and me...and since she isn't proficient on the talking thing, it is just me and my thoughts. ;-) When I first started, I wasn't very talented with doing it 1 handed. So no reading, no working on the computer, and the great room was sorta cold (winter baby) so no watching TV. Thank God for smart phones. I was able to stream YouTube on my Droid and watch videos. At first it was innocent enough. Surfing through the general suggestions and finding stuff to watch in the 15-20 min it took for Aven to eat. But then I realized you can "subscribe" to YouTube channels. First, you need to get your own account. HERE is a tutorial for how to do that. Then, either you can upload your own videos, like I have done with a handful of Aven videos or you can just subscribe. By subscribing, you have a que of videos you like to watch and you can even get an email when they have uploaded a new video. YouTubers like to have subscribers. It is a way of rating how they are doing and they are able to obtain statistics about how their viewers like or dislike their videos.

Basically there are 5 different types of YouTube videos:

1. Vlogs
2. Instructional videos
3. Viral videos
4. News
5. Gaming

The Vlogs are similar to what I have posted in the past. Basically, they are on-line video journal entries. There are a couple vlogs that I have become addicted to since Aven has arrived. The Shaytards is my favorite. From what I can gather, they are a family from Idaho that was your typical American family trying to make ends meet and then the dad started doing an online journal entry every day and it went crazy. They get product placement opportunities and other advertising perks and now they are full time "YouTubers." They post up almost daily vlogs and they are funny and sweet to each other. It puts me at ease and makes me smile. The other vlogs I like to watch are: KassemG (put your headphones on at work when you watch him ;-)), Ray William Johnson, and Courtney Pant's

Instructional videos are self explanatory. You can find everything from diaper folding to how to apply Avatar makeup.

Viral videos are strange, funny, disturbing videos that people watch over and over and over. Here are some of my favorites: Laughing Baby Ethan, Roller Man, and Double Rainbow. Sometimes they are real and sometimes they are fake. There are actually YouTubers out there who is their life goal to discover the "fakes."

News is pretty self explanatory, but can also be rather unique as well. There are some YouTube Channels that have created their own version of a "news show" Philip DeFranco is a good example.

And then there is Gaming. I hate video games, so I am not interested in any of these videos and have not watched them. If you are a gamer, then you probably already know of some really great YouTube channels for this stuff.

I think YouTube is AMAZING. It is free, entertaining, educational, and did I say FREE!?!? I really think in the next 5 years YouTube or some other on-line video sharing site will take over regular cable television. Let's face it. Cable TV sucks. Out of 75 channels, you maybe watch 10. You can't pick/pay for the 10 channels you want to watch so you are stuck surfing through the other 65 to get to the shows you like.

Well, off to watch some YouTube. Hope this short little tutorial has been helpful to those of you who didn't really know what the whole YouTube thing was about and for those who did, maybe I was able to share with you some funny cool channels to subscribe.

Hugs,
Heather

Back to the TRI

Race Report: Chattanooga Waterfront 7/10/11

I will preface this race report with I am not going to go on and on and on with excuses. There are many things that are working against me right now and I am not really sure how to fix them or correct them.

The main and most time consuming part of my life is breastfeeding. I thought that by 6 months we would be on the "easy train" when it came to this. Not so much. Actually feeding Aven is a breeze now. We have gotten down our routine and it is a really special bonding time for us. Although, when I am not with her it is pure torture! The pump isn't so much a hated object, but the time taken out of my very busy day to actually pump is stressful. I am also trying to make sure I have enough milk for the next day. Stress Stress Stress. Now that I have that out in the open I can get on with my race...

So this was my first race since baby girl was conceived and arrived. All others were "fun" events. The first time I did this race I thought I was so out of shape. We had moved from IL and I was 7 months post IM Florida. I hadn't really trained then and thought my efforts were OK at best. Fast forward 2 years and all the stuff that has happened since then and in hind sight, I was a freaking rock star! LOL. My times from 2009 were: swim-26:29, bike-1:21:04 (19.2 mph), and 56:22 (9:06 miles). This year... swim-29:15, bike-1:32:53 (16.79 mph), and 1:04:37 (10:23 miles). Dramatically slower all around.

I know! I know! I JUST had a baby...I have heard it from many people. Some of whom are happy b/c they feel they should be beating me because I am so out of shape. Yea...there are those really wonderful people that say OUT LOUD "Well, you JUST had a baby, so if you are beating me, there is something really wrong here." Nice. Real NICE. :-/

It just rattles me a little bit. I am having trouble finding the motivation and time to train when all my free time is spent pumping for Aven. Or trying to catch up on cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping, paying bills, dishes, etc. I don't know how IM training is really going to fit in right now. I can barely find the time to train for an Olympic distance tri for goodness sake! Andy said he would help out, but there is only so much he can do...pumping is all consuming and like I mentioned before...torture.

Ugh. I am so angry with myself. I said no excuses, right?

Recap: The swim was hot (water temp. was 89*), the bike was the worst 26 miles of my biking life (I actually wanted to cry at one point), and the run was surprisingly good--considering I was running on the surface of the SUN!

On the way down to the race, I turned to Andy and reflected on the past 2 years. All complaining and excuses aside, we have been very blessed. We set out a goal 3 years ago to move to Chattanooga, buy a dream house in the woods, have careers to be proud of, and start a family. We have done all that and more. When I got bussed out to the start of the race I looked around at the 1300+ people and realized the last time I was at the start of this race I didn't know a single soul. This year when I looked around I had so many friends doing the race with me! I found Susanna and Gina and we chatted a bit before I went and got in line. It was such an awesome feeling knowing I am a Chattanoogian now.

Not sure if IM is still going to work out. I will be disappointed in myself if I can't get it together to put the training in, but I know that life is more important than racing. It is just a hard pill to swallow after years of wanting/trying to be competitive. I never thought of myself as a completer rather than a competitor. Aven is teaching me a lot...

Baby Backpacks ROCK!

I will give a little back story to this entry...

Elaine, my mother-in-law is a blue ribbon, wicked awesome garage sale warrior. She has found SO many great deals on really good baby stuff. When Andy and I mentioned to her we wanted to get a baby back pack...she found one last summer. I think she paid maybe $5-$10. We were so happy. It has been sitting around our house waiting for the day Aven was big enough to hold her head up and be carried around in it. The day came about a month ago and I couldn't resist taking a pic of her in the mirror!


She was so excited to be upright and seeing the world from a new vantage point. I had set her in it with out tightening down the leg straps, because I didn't know how she would like it initially and how fast I would need to get her out if she hated it. So after I discovered she was good to go, I pulled on the webbing for the leg harness...and it completely disintegrated! I was SO SO sad =(

I knew it was not safe to actually go hiking with her, so I chalked it up to c'est la vie...it was a great garage sale find, but didn't last the duration. =( Then my friend Courtney came to visit! Brilliant brilliant Courtney gave me some great advice. Why not reach out to Kelty backpack's warranty department and see if they would repair it. I thought even if it costs me $35-$40 to repair it, it is cheaper than getting a new one, right? The comparable style is $150.

I went on their web-site and emailed the warranty department and got a response in a couple days. Bad news, they don't repair baby back packs. They said because of the structure of the pack, it is not cost effective to ship. So instead they would straight up warranty it for us!!! A FREE back pack???? What??? Yes sir! I had to cut off the small white tags on the inside of the pack, fill out the RA (return authorization) form, and cut off the adult shoulder straps. In essence destroying the pack. I was nervous doing it, but I couldn't really use it the way it was anyway; so what did I have to lose?

I cut off both straps, tag, and sent the RA request form and in about 2 weeks...our brand new current model FC1.0 pack arrived today -- free shipping!!!!
I am planning on purchasing the sun hood for $35 + shipping; so she won't have to wear a hat if it is sunny. Yeah!

So, when you purchase a Kelty Kids back pack...as tempting as it may be to cut off the little white tags -- DON'T. Also, know you have purchased a great pack from a company that really takes care of their customers and cares about kids =)

I seriously can't wait to go on adventures with Aven, even more than before!
Photos of said adventures to be posted shortly ;-)

Weekend fun @ the Sweets...

Weekends are always bitter sweet. I can't wait to spend time with Aven and Andy, but yet I have a week worth of laundry, cleaning, and bill paying to catch up on. Usually, I can hammer most of this stuff out when Aven is napping or after she goes down for the night at 8:30pm. But yesterday and today have been problematic being that she doesn't want to take a nap!

She falls asleep while I am nursing her, which I try to keep her up so when I do put her down she will settle herself down, but that has not been working. She passes out. I also think she falls asleep before she is full, so when she wakes up she is super hungry...and the cycle starts over.

Plus when she falls asleep while nursing she only stays asleep for about 10 min before she startles herself and is like, "Wait a darn minute! When I fell asleep I was being held by mommy and now I am alone laying in this crib! I don't like this! MOM where are you????" How this actually translates to is blood curdling crying/screaming. Nice.

Heidi was able to get her to fall asleep for naps just fine. Large bottles (5-7 oz.), full belly, quite house = 2 hour naps. Me??? No way hosier. I get 10 min tops.

Well, I rediscovered my favorite baby equipment... THE SWING. Sometimes I forget I have cool stuff at my disposal. I will admit, she was tired but after I nursed her I laid her down in the swing. Set it to a level of "3" on a scale of 1-6, and she is still sleeping 20 min later. =) Ahhhhhh. Let's keep our fingers crossed.

God Bless plastic moving baby toys!

Some other news today! I got on the scale...and I am happy to announce I am only 4 lbs. from my pre-pregnancy weight!!!!! To be honest, I haven't REALLY been working out as much as I "should" nor have I been eating very well either. It has taken me a little longer to get to the 120 lb. mark, but considering my habits, I am happy. Plus, the number on the scale is a totally different thing that weight distribution ;-) I think I had a lot more muscle before I got pregnant. My shorts are still a little tight, but hopefully nothing a little bit of working out and eating proper can't take care of.

Ok. I might only have another 5 min before she wakes up so I gotta run. But miss y'all and hope you are having a wonderful weekend too!

xoxox Heather