Two Months!

Ben turned two months old today!  I can't believe that two months has already passed since I first held my little man in the hospital.  We've had a crazy two months filled with cherished visits from family and friends and to trips to New York to find a house. A brief synopsis of our life with Ben thus far:

Enjoying a book on his 1 month birthday

Month One:  No one tells you how truly tiring it is to have a newborn baby.  I was accustomed to at least 9 hours of uninterrupted sleep per night before Ben was born.  Suddenly this little guy showed up and getting two hours of uninterrupted sleep seemed like a luxury.  Andrew and I had some very sleepy days.  We were overwhelmed at times by the fact that it was our responsibility to keep Ben alive!  The first few weeks were tough.  We were blessed by having various friends and family stop by with food and help out with house work.  By the end of the first month we were starting to feel a little better but Ben still wasn't sleeping more than two hours at a time.  Both Andrew and I got a little tired of hearing "Sleep when the baby sleeps" and "you really should space out his feedings"  or "have you tried a pacifier?"   All good ideas in theory but in reality neither really worked out too well for us.   I slept as much as I could when Ben was sleeping but his sleep time also meant I could go for a "run," take a shower or brush my teeth.  A pacifier?  You should see how far Ben can spit a pacifier.

Month Two:  Ben reached 11 lbs 2 oz. by his one month check-up and our tubby child began showing his personality.  We saw his first real smile on March1st while he was hanging out on his changing table looking at his animal stickers on the wall.  His smiles have turned into laughter when he sees Andrew and I or reads a book or eats or gets a bath or...pretty much he smiles all the time.

I love my animals!

 This month he has also turned into the poster child for having children.  Around our friends he is happy, relaxed and charming.   He is not good birth control.    He has started to fall into a schedule and while he loves to eat, his belly is staying full for longer periods of time.  He sleeps for five hour stretches at night which is making both Andrew and I feel more human.  His solid body is filling out 3-6  month clothes. He weighed in at 13 lbs 4 oz. for his 2 month check up and measured 23.5 inches. He's started sucking on his fingers and the moments that he straightens out his fingers and gets his thumb into his mouth look incredibly satisfying.  He loves to be moving and enjoys his stroller, snuggling in a sling and being carried by his dad in the baby carrier. He is increasingly aware of his surroundings, has noticed his fur friends and enjoys looking at pictures on the refrigerator.  He has enjoyed a few runs in his cushy stroller on the rail trail.

  

Learning the names of family and friends

After our second month of parenthood, we've decided that we can do this.  Ben is growing.  We are sleeping.  The dogs are getting plenty of exercise.  In general we are all happy and enjoying our new lives with the cutest baby ever.

A Snowy Trail Run, in Pictures

Yesterday the dogs and I both needed some exercise. So we fought the good fight against the white snow of death and went to Bakers Ridge and slogged about (aboat for my Canadian reader(s)) and got muddy, snowy, tired, and happy. From A to Zed it was a good time and my toque worked perfectly.

Running with my dogs always makes me feel like a slow, clumsy, inferior species.

It also reminds me that exercise is play, mud is fun, and that a good face-licking is never a bad idea.

It took me about an hour and a half to get out, run for nearly an hour, make a stop at Kroger for some missing ingredients, and get home. Probably a better way to spend some time than watching "The Spy Next Door" which is what I was up to before I left.

The Past Few Days

Have been busy.

Somebody had a baby.

Someone else has been doing schoolwork, walking the dogs and trying to be a good daddy.

The little bundle didn't sleep at all last night, and the wifey is tired. I slept just fine, though, thank you very much.

The dag's have been adjusting just fine.

They still get to hike and play in the snow:

And Chopper still enjoys a solid snuggle or two.

Times are good in our house right now.

Andrew's 2011 racing plans and a birth play-by-play from my perspective coming later this week.

Out like Chief Ron in TDB.

Weight and Waiting

There are two things in my own personal life that I’ve never liked: gaining weight and waiting for things. Fortunately I’ve enjoyed good health and a wealth of activity for most of my life and therefore gaining weight has never been a big problem. I enjoy the self-discipline of training for long running races and love to be outside. I’ve taken it for granted that I’ve been fit enough for the past seven or eight years to go out for a ten mile run on a Saturday without much thought. Even though my fitness since I’ve graduated from college has experienced highs and lows, the scale hasn’t fluctuated more than a few pounds.

Waiting is something that I’ve never really had much control over. I don’t enjoy waiting for Andrew to pick me up from school. I don’t like to wait for people who are running late. I don’t like to wait to give people presents at Christmas. I’m obsessed with tracking packages on the internet and when they are “out for delivery” I feel anxious.

When Andrew and I found out I was pregnant a million months ago, I knew that the entire pregnancy was going to be a challenge because it combined my two least favorite things. Forty weeks to grow a baby and as many pounds to match? How was I going to begin to survive? I don’t like waiting three minutes for milk to heat up for hot chocolate!

Surprisingly of the two parts of pregnancy I dreaded most, gaining weight has been the easiest. I will admit, the doctor’s appointment I had back in November where I’d gained eight pounds (yes EIGHT pounds) in four weeks nearly brought me to tears, but I know there is a healthy little (or perhaps he is enormous) boy growing inside of me. Now when I go in for my weekly weigh in I have to chuckle at the numbers on the scale. Never in a million years did I think I would weigh more than a friend of my husband’s or that the weight I’ve gained so far is the equivalent of our puppy. I look back at pictures from early in my pregnancy and am amused by what I once thought was a bump and where I am today.

13.5 Weeks

39 Weeks, 2 Days

Now I am at the most difficult part: waiting. Ben is due any day and I just want him to hurry up and get here. Every day I wake up and wonder…will today be the day? Every night I go to sleep a little grumpy that it hasn’t happened yet. To me, waiting for Ben to arrive is one of the hardest things I’ve ever waited for. I don’t have a countdown. I can’t check off days on the calendar. Instead I just wait and wait and wait and wait…

Parenting and Puppies

When I was in eigth grade, I was a pudgy, hormonal pain in the butt. This was taken at my sixth grade birthday party. Not really.

My sisters and parents will back me up on this. Trust me.

On a day at the end of that year of school when I didn’t have finals, I was not studying. Not surprising. Instead, my friends Dylan, Jorey, and Alex went down to the Canadaway Creek and goofed off. This still sounds like a good way to spend a day off to me.

While we were down at the creek, we started throwing stuff at each other. Why? Who cares. We were middle school boys. Throwing stuff at each other is pretty much what you do.

I don’t recommend lobbing a seven foot long, four inch round piece of hardwood someone's head, though. That’s what Dylan did to me.

He hit me right under my right eye, and gave me an honest-to-goodness concussion. My otherwise kind and sympathetic mother was not terribly impressed, and I was left at home to convalesce by myself.

I was lying in my room, feeling awful, when I heard the phone ring. The nearest phone was in my parents room, and I hustled in there in an attempt to answer the phone.

I never made it.

Instead, I vomited, lavishly and with great enthusiasm, onto my parents bed, which did not have any sheets on it. After I finished, I had the decency to call my mom (at work) and tell her that I “barfed all over your bed.”

Why do I tell this story?

Chopper Reed Brautigam, the newest Ornery Dog, has spent every night of the past three weeks snuggling with me all night long. He does this with great aplomb, and some might say downright flair. I’ve woken up with his head on top of mine. Seriously.

There haven’t been any problems with this setup, except when he burrows under the covers and wakes me up with his hot puppy breath. All in all, a pretty good deal for everyone. (Until he weighs 75 lbs, but that’s a long way off.)

Last night, at 2 am, I put my arm under Chopper’s sleeping belly to scoot him over on the bed. I wasn’t awake.

That is, I wasn’t awake until my arm hit the huge, and still warm, puddle of pee on the bed.

He is sleeping in his crate from now on.

This kind of thing is why people have said that puppies are good training for babies. Just like babies, puppies have accidents. They pee at inopportune times. They get worms. They poop in the house. They want to eat stuff that is poisonous. They gnaw through laptop power cords.

Maybe some of those things are only done by puppies, but I wouldn’t put any of those activities past Baby Ben.

I am looking forward to seeing the havoc the little one wreaks as a toddler, and I’m looking forward to loving the little grubber as a newborn.

Countdown to due date: 14 days. 

On: Grace

Unless you've been living under an e-rock for the past couple of weeks, you've probably e-followed the Ted Willimas story.

Last week, the following video went "viral." Click here to watch, if you haven't already.

In case your ADD kicks in, here are the basics: A Homeless dude has an awesome radio voice.

After his video got infectious like ebola, Mr. Williams' situation changed completely. Job offers came flooding in. He appeared on Good Morning America. The Cleveland Cavaliers want him. Kraft wants him to be the voice of Mac'n'Cheese.

There are good reasons for this stories popularity. It's a great rags to riches, diamond in the rough, "redemption" type story. What is most poignant about this story is what it lacks.

Grace.

Biblical Grace.

Even though I've heard it described as a story of grace, of redemption, this story is not true grace.

The 3 famous parables of Luke 15 describe God's grace: A lost sheep is sought by a shepherd, a lost coin is sought by its owner. A spendthrift son is welcomed home by the father he despised.

Each of these stories illustrates the paradigm shift that is New Testament Grace.

Ted Williams' story does not.

Mr. Williams is, essentially, Susan Boyle in different packaging. He possesses talent that has gone to waste, but has recently been discovered. He is the happy beneficiary of lucky circumstances. The change in his situation is the result of his talent, of his exceptional qualities. Furthermore, his situation has changed because of his tremendous popularity, as he's become a famous person.

The biblical parables that illustrate grace are totally different from this story. The recipients of grace are not exceptionally valuable or talented. One sheep is not more valuable than the other 99, one coin is not more valuable than the other 10.

The spend-thrift son is no more valuable than the dutiful son who works for the benefit of the father.

In these parables, though, the seeker seeks the lost thing and treats it as something or someone of great value. Overwhelming value. The shepherd leaves the rest of his livelihood, the woman seeks the coin despite its lack of exceptional value.

The father runs to the son. The son who told the father "I wish you were dead" by taking his inheritence early. The son who squandered the fathers wealth. The son completely without external value to the Father.

Ted Williams is getting a kind of twisted "justice." Right now, he is getting what he deserves: compensated for his "golden voice." Grace for this man will be continued opportunity when he goes on a binge.

Grace is active. Grace seeks.Grace does not seek the exceptional, but the mundane.

Grace pardons the guilty, not the wrongly convicted.

Biblical grace is not just avoiding getting what is deserved, it is getting more than is deserved.

That's why Ted Williams' story is not true grace, but helps us to realize what grace really is.

Race Report: Frozen Sasquatch 25K

On Saturday, I participated in my first race of the year, the Frozen Sasquatch 25k, in the Kanawha State Forest, near Charleston WV.

I had signed up for the 50k in September, back when I was feeling fit, the sun was shining, and I was unreasonably optimistic. As the semester wore on, my schoolwork piled up, and my wife got more and more pregnant, I modified my agenda, and started planning on running the 25k.

That was a very good idea.

While I was reasonably active through the past 3 months, my longest run was about 10 miles, and that was on flat roads in November. I’ve been doing some Crossfit WOD’s over at the House of PAIN (aka Pumphouse Industries), running here and there, and riding my bicycles occasionally.

I woke up at 4:00 am on race day feeling very unprepared, despite my pre-game carb loading. (3.5 slices of pizza and chicken fingers. Very Paleo.)

The drive down was fairly uneventful, aside from crushing redneck monster-truck egos in my little purple-blue Mazda 3. As I got closer to Charleston, the snow got deeper. I was one of the first cars in the parking lot at around 7 am.

As I picked up my race packet, my spirits lifted considerably at the sight of two dudes in Five Fingers. While I’m a fan of the toe-shoes, they suck in the snow. And they’re really, really cold. Plus, one of the barefoot brothers was wearing a kids hat with ears. I felt pretty darn good about my trail-slippers (New Balance MT 100’s) and girlie hat with a pony-tail hole.

After an encouraging PRP (pre-race-poop) I sat through a boring, standard pre-race meeting, while chatting with Michael Owen, a total stud runner who got 9^th place at TNF 50 miler in San Francisco in December.

The race started, and I was near the front of the pack. The first climb/hike was uneventful, and I honestly don’t remember too much from the race itself. All trails look pretty much the same when covered with snow.

After the first hour, my faux-fitness started to dissolve. The downhills hurt more and more, and my fast hiking kept getting slower.

I got chicked at least 3 times. I only avoided the 4^th by a furious kick in the last 400m. I call it the ego-sprint.

My finishing time was 3:00:34. Not exactly world-beating, but fast enough for a big dude with minimal running experience. At the Mohican 100 (2009 edition) Jeremiah Bishop beat me by about 3 hours. It’s good to know I’m at least 50% slower than both top ultra-runners and ultra mountain bike guys.

The race was fun, and I’m looking forward to a summer of trail running adventures. Next up: Big Bear Lake 20k.