Yesterday was “Donuts with Dad” day at Molly’s preschool. She filled out a certificate for Daddy that is super cute. It reads as follows:
My Dad’s name is … JR
My Dad’s favorite color is … green
My Dad likes to eat … spaghetti
I love my Dad because … he works so hard and he makes me happy.
Isn’t that the cutest??
Well, I started this post at 6 weeks & counting, added a few things at 4 weeks & counting and now with 2 weeks to go, I suppose it is now or never for a post about what to do to get the big sisters ready for the new baby! I made a list of things to consider when we were preparing for Violet to enter our family, but ended up keeping it VERY simple since the big sisters were only 2.5 & 1 at the time (and the other factor being that I had VERY little energy for any of the extra stuff!). This time, however, we have some pretty big Big Sisters so they are much more aware of what’s going on and excited for the new addition. Here’s a run down of what we’ve done to involve the girls in the process. It has really been fun to see their enthusiasm grow and witness their innate love for their baby brother.
1. “Big Sister” books.
I’m kind of picky when it comes to big brother/sister books. Most of them seem really negative suggesting that when the new baby comes he will probably cry all the time and take all of mommy’s attention. They also tend to focus on what the baby can’t do – I guess the thinking is that it makes the big sibling feel better about being big, but it seems to give the impression that the new baby is not very interesting at all. So I looked for books that took a different approach – that adding a baby to the family is a wonderful, exciting adventure that we can all do together, especially those that focus on what a big sister can do with the new baby and a realistic impression of what life with a new baby would look like (which might include some of the negatives, but also emphasizes the positives). With that in mind, I chose the following books for the girls:
On the practical side – including education about pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding & newborn care:
Rosie’s Babies (Martin Waddell)
On the spiritual side – including an understanding that children are a gift from God, as well as the concept that they are very much alive & precious while they are hidden from us in mommy’s tummy.
Angel in the Waters (Regina Doman)
A Miracle Worth the Wait (Amber Jones) (this was a recent gift & is a very sweet book written by a friend of a friend – thanks Sara!)
2. For the first time, the girls took a Big Sister class at the hospital. I was really excited for them to go and they each got a new baby doll to take to the class. It started with a tour of the hospital (at least the OB floor) and ended in a classroom where they watched an Arthur video on becoming a big brother and then learned to swaddle & hold a baby doll. It was an okay experience, but I’m not sure they got much out of it. The tour was the best part because they got an idea of where Mama & baby will be. The video followed the negative stereotypes of a new baby that I mentioned in the book section, so I wasn’t too fond of it. And when it came time to learn to swaddle & hold the baby dolls, the teacher stole my thunder by passing out CPR training infants to replace the girls’ new baby dolls (for the record, they were supposed to bring a doll to the class). I would recommend a child be at least 3 or 4 to really get much out of a big sibling class, but it was only $15 (for all 3), and our girls seemed to enjoy the field trip.
3. Last weekend, we had a trial run for what the girls will do while we’re at the hospital. Our very good friends will be keeping them for at least one night – maybe two. They have two little girls of their own and all 5 girls really enjoy being together. Plus my friend is a really fun mom who always thinks of crafts & fun ways to pass the time. On Saturday night, they made ice cream in the living room with one of those balls that you roll around while they watched Veggietales’ SweetPea Beauty. When they brought the girls to church Sunday morning, Violet didn’t even want to come to me – she wanted to stay with my friend! Needless to say, they are very much looking forward to a repeat of the sleepover at the “house of fun!”
4. Some smaller things that we have been doing include keeping a calendar on the wall of the big girls’ room where we can x out the days until baby arrives (or at least until the due date – they will really have a hard time if he is 2 weeks overdue like Violet was!). We started the calendar at the first of the year because the girls were very disappointed that the baby was not born “after Christmas.” You see, when we found out we were pregnant last summer, I told them that the baby would come “after Christmas” because it was a date with which they had some familiarity and it was a long time in the future. Well, when Christmas came and went and the baby still did not come, there were some pretty frustrated little girls. The calendar helped us get through the last 3 months. 
We have also been looking at the pictures from the hospital when they were each newborns and talking about how big they were, etc. Finally, they have really enjoyed sharing in the set up for baby brother like getting out his newborn clothes and making a space for him in Violet’s room. Hopefully, all of that work will be completed this week!
5. There were a few other things that I thought were good ideas, but I’m not sure we’ll implement them this time around. I’ve heard of the big sisters baking a birthday cake for the new baby which I thought was a fun idea, but it places the burden on the caregiver and I’m not sure when a good time would be to present the cake to the baby – at the hospital? when you get home? Another idea was for the girls to give a gift to their baby brother and to receive a gift “from” their baby brother. We did a modified version of the gift to their baby brother in that I let them each pick out a onesie at the Carters outlet for him. They were mildly interested in it, but picked this one, this one & this one – all super cute. We also got him a Little Brother shirt and 3 matching Big Sister shirts. As far as gifts “from” their baby brother, we didn’t characterize them as such, but the girls did each receive a new doll (this one for Olivia – which she named Grace, this one for Molly - which she named Tianna, and this one for Violet - which she named Sara). We took them to the toy store and let them each pick out their own doll. Happily, the toy store had better prices than Amazon! Olivia has had some second thoughts about choosing a big girl doll instead of a baby doll, but thankfully, Violet has shared her doll pretty well and enjoyed having access to the old favorites we already had. I also bought them a doll Ergo carrier which they will probably get in their Easter basket. I’m super excited about that one!
Obviously, this “preparing the big sisters for the new baby” project is something I have been really excited about and something that I hope will build a good foundation for a loving relationship between the baby brother and his big sisters. I’m not sure I would change a whole lot if there was a big brother in the group – it seems like a big brother would enjoy many of the same activities and books and would even enjoy having a doll or ‘buddy’ of his own. After all, a little boy will likely grow into a dad someday and there is nothing wrong with pretending to be a good daddy!
As far as my preparations go for the new baby, I spent the first 8.5 months thinking there wasn’t much preparation really needed for a newborn (after all, I’ve done this 3 times already). But the last couple weeks, I’ve been feeling a little stressed that I hadn’t done much preparation! Thankfully, we still have a few weeks to do the small things that are helpful like packing the hospital bag (especially helpful for natural, unmedicated births as we have done where the comfort items are so appreciated), washing & hanging the newborn clothes, gathering the disposable stuff like diapers, pacifiers, etc. and getting out the newborn equipment like the Moses basket, carseat, swing, bouncer, slings, diaper bag, etc. I think by the end of this week, we should be all set and I will actually be more prepared for this arrival than any of the others (I was pretty darn prepared for Olivia, but this time I have the experience to add to the material preparations)! Now if we could just decide on a name!!
Well, actually it is why Zach can’t have pictures of the girls. Really USPS? I know where I’d make some spending cuts.
PS. I want my stamp back.
“Who wants to be first?” I asked, calling the girls to get ready for lunch.
“Me!” “Me!” Molly & Violet shouted.
Seeing that Violet was disappointed that Molly had gotten to the table first, I said, “it’s okay Violet, you can be second.” She smiled & was pleased, until Molly pointed out an interesting fact.
“There are only 2 girls at home now, Violet, so if you are second, you are last!”
And then came the tears . . .
Well so much for more frequent updates, huh? Life with little ones has a way of consuming every last minute of each day, but I have been thinking lately that I want to bump up blogging on the priority list because I don’t want to forget all the funny & charming moments of my life with the girls (and boy!). Plus, I know I’ll wonder, what did I do with all that time! So Small Successes seemed like an easy way to get back into it. I’ll keep it brief, but here’s what we’ve been up to:
1. Violet is potty trained! Praise the Lord!! After 5 years of at least one child in diapers, I am enjoying my 3 months off.
2. We did a done of “business” in the last couple months – refinanced the house on a 15-year mortgage (we got 4.25%!); replaced the air conditioning unit, added insulation to the attic & sealed the house to get the Austin energy seal of approval (and got the federal tax rebate!); created wills; set up 2011 automatic charitable giving. Now for the taxes . . . we have a big incentive not to wait ’til the last minute this year!
3. Registered Olivia for kindergarten at our local Catholic elementary starting in the fall and signed Molly & Violet up for the two mornings a week preschool program at our parish. I’m excited to have just the baby for two mornings a week – it will be like having a first baby again – only I know (more) what I’m doing now!
And here are a couple bonus ones that I am especially proud of:
4. JR & I have gone on a monthly date each of the last 5 months, thanks to the generosity of our friends. It has been such a gift to spend a little one-on-one time together each month, especially after years of hardly getting out once a year!
5. I completed a 10-week swim class last fall. It was at a heated outdoor pool (admittedly, temps are not all that low in December in Austin, but still hovered near freezing toward the end) and I LOVED it! I had perfect attendance (only partially motivated by the reward of a tuition refund for perfect attendance! Unfortunately, there were two of us with perfect attendance, a drawing was held and I received “honorable mention” – good thing it was pretty economical to begin with!). Thanks, Adria & JR, for talking me into it!
Updates on each of the girls coming next and high hopes of updating that photo album, too . . . bear with us . . .
I work with real-time operating systems for a living. So time is a very serious thing to me and there are even classic arguments which we still talk about such as the “It depends on what you consider time.” rant. So now the rest of the story on the official San Antonio marathon times. It turns out my official chip time for the San Antonio Marathon was 4:00:09. Chip time is measured by runners having an RFID chip on their shoe which is read by timing mats which the runners run over on the course including one at the starting line and one at the finish. My chip time also included 3:48 standing and waiting for the train. As I said in my last post, I didn’t think there was any way that they could adjust the times. How could they? How would they figure out who had to wait an how long?
Turns out they were gonna try. After the race they put up a website where you could go and enter what you thought your time should have been. Now, I knew what my time was since I stopped my watch when I stopped running, but I think most runners were so caught off guard that they didn’t. But I mean come on, how can they adjust the times for people who request it? Then you have some adjusted times and some not; that doesn’t seem fair. My thought was that was my chip time. OK, put an asterisk by it and note a train delay, but chip time is chip time. I understand that some people were trying to qualify for other events. But they could appeal to that event and provide evidence. Adjusting times doesn’t seem right to me and seems like a slippery slope. Now, I’m not really that serious about things so don’t start thinking this is a hot button issue for me, but I didn’t submit a time correction request for my time. I knew what it was and that is what mattered. So boy was I surprised when I got the following email:
Dear Affected Rock ‘n’ Roll San Antonio Participants:
Our research indicates you were most likely delayed by the Union Pacific train on race day.
After painstaking review of all timing data gathered from 2010 Rock ‘n’ Roll San Antonio, we have adjusted your results to account for the amount of time you appeared to have been held up by the train. Your new results have been posted the Results Page on our website.
While most of you filed a formal Results Correction Request, a great number of you did not, therefore we have taken the liberty of adjusting the results of those individuals as well. Thank you to everyone who took the time to file a request – your data was invaluable to making the appropriate corrections based on all factors involved.
For the record, we know your exact starting time (to the second) and that the stop gates at the railroad crossing (at .8 miles into the race) were lowered at 7:24:54am and raised at 7:29:37am. To determine your adjusted time, we analyzed your pace for the first 5K (the affected portion) and the second 5K, and assumed that unimpeded you would have run even pace for the first 10K. We then made the necessary adjustment to the first 5K. By clicking here, you can see both your original and adjusted finish times. There are always exceptions to every rule, so if you believe further adjustments are still necessary for you, please file a Results Correction Request. When the results are deemed Final and Official, they will be sent to all of our licensees (Action Sports International (ASI) Photography, Fond Memories Graphics, and PR Engraving) and if you either had your finisher medal engraved or purchased a commemorative plaque, replacements will be sent to you free of charge.
In the meantime, on behalf of Union Pacific Railroad, Competitor Group, the City of San Antonio, and everyone involved with Rock ‘n’ Roll San Antonio; thank you for your patience as we sorted through all the data. Please, feel free to use the online coupon code TRAIN before 12/31/10 to receive a $10 discount on the 2011 Rock ‘n’ Roll San Antonio Marathon & 1/2 Marathon. Please, also accept our sincerest apologies for any inconvenience and distress the interruption of your race caused you.
Happy Running and have a great Holiday Season!
Rock ‘n’ Roll San Antonio Marathon & 1/2 Marathon
benefiting Susan G. Komen for the Cure®
San Antonio, TX
November 13, 2011
rnrsa@competitorgroup.com
http://san-antonio.competitor.com
800.311.1255
I had stopped my watch at 3:56:10, which if anything was 5-10 seconds long from me not stopping my watch right when I crossed the line. They had my officially adjusted time at 3:56:27. I’ll still stick with my watch time.
OK, so now to finally finish up the story. We didn’t get too far in part 1 due to the train in the first mile but that is where we pick up.
So less than a mile in, got stopped by a train, waited 4 minutes, train gone, started running again. Now the dilemma was whether or not to try to make up the time. OK, that was easy, no. Being less than a mile in it was tempting, but 4 minutes is a lot of time and we had a lot of miles to cover. There was lots of talk on the course of what they would do with the times and if they would adjust them. But come on. You can’t change official times, it just isn’t right. About then we saw the 3:45 pace group go by. Gerardo and I had planned on keeping the 3:45 pace group in sight for the first half, but they were bookin’ it. We sped up enough to ask them if they were going to make up the time and they said they were. From their pace they were gonna do it in the next six miles or so. So we did the smart thing and let them go.
The front half of the course weaved around downtown San Antonio and the crowd was good. I admit that I like “working” the crowd. Gerardo got a lot of Aggies’ to respond to his “Gigg’em” calls since they were still feeling pretty good from winning their football game the night before. I got a couple of “nice facial hair” shout-outs. At about mile 6, someone was handing out glasses of Guinness. Yes, beer, real beer. We had a train delay already, so why not. I mean if you are crazy enough to run a marathon, why not go all in. Well, there are a lot of reasons to not, like another 20 miles to run, but like I’ve said before, I’m not one to pass up a beer challenge. So I cut across the road and grabbed one. It was about 6 oz. total and I figured I’d take one swig and toss the rest. I took a gulp while still running and as I lowered the cup I watched it foam up. All I could think was that is what it is going to do in my stomach for the next few miles. I was just about to toss the cup when I realized, “Wow that tasted good. Really good!”, so I finished it off before tossing the cup. Yes, I know it was stupid, but don’t worry it didn’t affect me and I was still focused on the race. In fact, about a mile later the gal running a stride length in front of me was adjusting her watch and dropped it. With cat like reflexes I bent down and snagged it like a baseball pitcher snagging a one hop grounder off the pitching rubber. By the time she turned her head I handed her the watch. Things were going well.
The girls were cheering for us at mile 8. I had started out with my race bib (number) folded up and pinned to my running belt so that I could ditch my shirt with the girls. I also ditched my hat and Jenny gave me a bottle for my belt with Gatorade. They had Cytomax on the course, which is awful, so I decided to wear my running belt with one 8 ounce bottle of Gatorade and then Jenny gave me the second one. The ‘transition’ with the girls went smooth and it was off to the barren back half of the course.
Oh, did I mention that I had to pee? Yeah, you may not have thought about it if you haven’t run a marathon before, but not only is a marathon a long distance but it takes a long time so you have to try to figure out the logistics food and water consumption and restrooms. Side-note: I stay away from energy gels with caffeine due to it seeming to do a little too much to wake up my lower digestive system if you know what I mean. Anyway, for breakfast I just had a banana and some Gatorade and figured I’d be good, but after a couple more miles I knew I was gonna have to stop. Some banks of port-a-potties were right on the course and others were way off the course so I split from Gerardo and went out a little faster so that when I stopped, I wouldn’t have as much time to make up to catch up to him. I figure I sped up about 15 seconds per mile for one mile and then I found a nice open port-a-pottie on the course. I did my business and was back out on the course in a flash. I could still see Gerardo who was now 15-30 seconds in front of me. I reeled him in over the next two miles. It was kind of fun to have a little ‘race’ within the race as a distraction.
I caught back up to Gerardo before we did a loop on the south end of the course and headed back up north towards the finish. There were about 5 miles there which were pretty uneventful. Then at about mile 17 the course looped back on itself and we were doubling back. That meant the gentle downhill which we didn’t notice on the way down was over and it was a gradual incline for the last nine miles. We noticed it this time and on the way back and things get a little foggy here. I remember a couple of things clearly. One is that I was starving. Should have had more than a banana for breakfast (and more for supper the night before), but not much I could do about it now other than use my Gu energy gels. Being starving at mile 17 didn’t seem like a good indication. Next, there were a couple of more distinct uphills. The plan was to keep pace. We did, but it hurt. We were still on a pretty good pace so overall I wasn’t worried. We were close enough that we would end up with a decent time for us, but I knew my body well enough that it was going to be a battle.
And a battle it was. We pushed through and our pace fell off, but it didn’t fall off a cliff. We were getting closer to the finish and downtown so there were more spectators, but that wasn’t much of a lift. I haven’t ever run a race with someone before so that was also something new. Our plan was to play it by ear at the end regarding staying together or splitting up. I could tell that Gerardo was hurting – I think he thought I was doing better than him, but that was just talk trying to stay positive and I was right there too. At mile 22, I fell off the cliff. My pace fell from 9:22 to 9:45. I don’t know if Gerardo noticed that or not but I had it in my head that when I couldn’t hold 9:30 pace I was in trouble. Gerardo didn’t seem to mind my drop in pace and he was right there with me. There was a short awkward time when we both were ready to walk/run it in , but didn’t know want to slow the other one down. Gerardo spoke up first saying, “Go on ahead if you want, but I…”, but before he finished, I was already pulling up to walk. That gradual uphill and the hungry lack of energy was killer. Maybe it was mental but it didn’t matter at that point. I’m not sure Gerardo had planned for this but after my Omaha marathon I was ready with plan B which was walk about 1 minute per mile and then trying to hold a pace. We held it together but it wasn’t pretty. With about 2 miles or so left Gerardo and I were in our own worlds. I was looking for longer intervals and he was wanting more off and on. We were close enough to the finish that I knew Gerardo would be able to easily make it under his ultimate 4 hour goal and it looked like I might be able to pull it in under 3:55 so I went up ahead. Turns out there were a few steeper uphills right at the end and I wasn’t pulling it in. But there was the sense of relief that it was going to turn out to be a decent time for me mixed with the disbelief of how long the last .2 miles can seem.
I crossed the finish line at a clock time of 4:03:11. I stopped my watch at 3:56:10, which was my actual finish time since it didn’t include the time I waited for my corral to be released at the start and the time we waited for the train. If you are a running geek and want to check out the details from my GPS watch you can here. Gerardo was only about 15 seconds behind me so it wasn’t hard to find him. Next, it was time to grab some oranges, water, bagels, and anything I could get my hands on. Remember, I was starving. Then we had to walk down 500 steps and then back up 500 steps to get to the trucks with our bags we dropped off at the start. Then back the same way to meet up with our families. This not being my first ‘rodeo’, OK so it was just my second full, I had planned ahead. I didn’t want to put my cellphone in my gear drop bag in case it got lost so instead I put a two-way radio in my bag so that I could find out where the girls were waiting. Jenny and the girls were happy to see me and had an ice cold Coke waiting for me. I love an ice cold Coke after a marathon. We took a few pictures with our new hardware.
Then we were off for a cool down walk back to the hotel which was about 1.5 miles. Gerardo and I both ended up with little girls riding on our shoulders most of the way which I thought was pretty funny for having just ran 26.2 miles. But you got to give the race fans what they want right?
Bad news: Drozmonkey has the flu.
Good news: Luckily he also has Swype on his Evo which is so easy to use he can still blog. Ok, that was enough. Don’t expect me at work until after New Years. Trip to Nebraska also in jeopardy. But don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll be fine.
Violet is hiding in the closet. I find her and ask what she’s doing.
“I hiding from the naughty witch,” she says.
So you made it through my last marathon post (pun intended) and you came back for more? <edit>I promise the story from San Antonio won’t be that long?</edit> Where to start. It all started one night out with some guys for a beer. They were both going to be having babies and were looking for an excuse to keep them in shape. Jenny and I weren’t expecting (yet), but I’m not one to back down from a challenge so I said I was in. We were to run the San Antonio Rock & Roll Marathon, November 14, 2010. We had plenty of time to train and at one point I even thought I would try to run it barefoot. Wow, that was crazy. But I’ll post on barefoot running some other time. Work hours got long and I finally decided I just needed to get my mileage up so I ditched that I idea and laced the shoes back up. Training went pretty well for me, but my buddy Trim, ended up pulling a muscle and re-targeted to running the Austin Marathon in February. The best thing about training was getting convinced to go all the way downtown at Lady Bird Lake. The nice thing about running downtown is jumping into Barton Springs Pool after a long run. The only set back to my training was a pretty bad ‘black toenail’. I had already gotten a half size bigger shoe but I think I was also leaving my shoes too loose and on runs over 16 miles my big toe would rub on top of the shoe enough to cause a problem. I got one of my planned 20 mile runs in before it finally got bad enough that I had to do something. Instead of doing the farmer thing and heating up a paperclip, I went into to the health clinic at work (yeah, we’ve got our own primary care clinic at work) and had it looked at. I admit that even I had doubts when the doctor said he was going to drill a few holes in my toenail using a 16 gauge needle. OK, OK, that is probably enough detail on that topic, but it didn’t hurt and it felt much better afterwards. It forced me to take a week off from running, but I was still able to workout on an elliptical. The last week before the race I was able to run and everything felt pretty good. I was ready. Well almost. The final step was shaving my beard into… friendly mutton chops. (There are no pre-race pictures so you’ll have to wait for the post-race pics.)
Race weekend rolled around and I was surprisingly calm. We got checked into the Embassy Suites on the Riverwalk where the girls were just half a block off the course at mile 8. The morning of the race I felt good and had a banana before heading out to the starting line with Gerardo. They had set up “corrals” to start the field in waves and we were in #5. That seemed a little close to the front but I wasn’t going to complain. We were planning on going out at 3:45 finish time pace (8:35 per mile), and in my mind, likely falling back to 3:50 finishing time pace. The race started and within a couple of minutes it was time to start.
Mile 1 – Haulin’: We crossed the starting line and most of the corral took off haulin’ it. We joked that we’d be passing them later when they gassed and we tried to settle into our pace. At about .75 miles, we turned a corner and noticed people the people up ahead of once were taking off sprinting. I also remember hearing a train horn. It took me a bit to put two and two together, but it wasn’t hard when I finally noticed the freight train barreling down the railroad tracks. Not tracks along side the course; tracks we were about to cross. A lot of runners ran past the lone race official posted there waving an orange flag and ducked the cross-arms to get by ahead of the train. I don’t think Gerardo and I actually said anything to each other but we got to the tracks just as the train was about to the crossing and we both knew better and we pulled up. We were actually in the first row of people who stopped. Pretty quickly I stopped my watch so that I would still end up with an accurate time. Now what. Was the train stopping? It seemed like it. The crowd of runners grew and spread off the street along the side of the tracks. I admit to feeling more than a little unsafe turning around and seeing the huge crowd of runners gathered hoping that the ones in the back didn’t decide to push forward since at that point we were about ten feet away from speeding freight train. But after just under 4 minutes the train cleared and the race was on. It worked out pretty good for us since were in the front and didn’t get tangled up in the crowed. Here’s the new report:
Stay tuned for the rest of the story…
