Marathon Mom

Wine country with an infant was a great experience, somehow traveling turned my child into a great napper. I was nervous about the flights, especially after the day started with a major poop blowout on the way through security, but she did great! We even managed to keep an open seat in our row on the flight home and bring on the car seat, which resulted in a nap through nearly the entire flight. The reason for the trip was to coach my team through the Napa to Sonoma Half marathon, a course that winds through the wineries and finishes with a wine tasting in Sonoma Square. All 32 of my runners finished, many ahead of their predicted times, and all said they felt great. One runner even finished 3rd in her age group, pretty great accomplishment for a first timer. Ophelia loves watching and cheering for the runners, I hope this continues as she gets older since I’m sure Matt and I will continue to race. Once again this trip followed the same pattern as most, food, wine, and running. I...

Matt and I ran an inagural race to start our 4th of July this year. We wentdown to the start area on Saturday to pick up our packets and while we were there I encountered a strange woman. I was standing with Ophelia and she came up and started telling me how cute she was, asking her age, name, etc. And then proceeded to tell me that my child had an "iffy" name and making reference to Shakespeare. Okay, thanks for the infornation. Really, is it even possible to pick a name for your child that doesn't in some way associate with something negative? After the half on Sunday I am remembering what I don’t like about racing, the early wake ups that are now even tougher with an infant. The race started at 6:30 and I knew it was going to be a tough one when it was already 80 degrees on our way there. We got there about 6am, figuring we’d have plenty of time to spare. Wrong! After waiting in the massive line for the bathroom, I started almost 7 minutes after the gun went off, good...

On Monday Ophelia was 5 months old, wow has time flown. She has developed such a unique and inquisitive personality. We had joked that with our backgrounds she would go to medical school, she seems interested already. She has been to doctor appointments with me and my mom and just listens intently to every word the doctor is saying and then lets out a few squeals of agreement, now the dentist on the other hand is a different story, she wasn’t quite a happy to be there with me. She also has a fascination with pagers and loves throwing mine on the ground, some days I agree! Today she was given a pager case to play with from one of Matt’s coworkers and loved it. Although I’m sure in 20 years these will be non-existent. In the past month she has started eating; rice cereal, oatmeal, carrots, and bananas. She loves it all, but the favorite seems to be bananas. Just recently she signed “milk” for the first time and can sit up for a short time unsupported. Last weekend she spent her firs...