What a difference a year makes.
365 days ago our baby girl (known on all NICU forms as BG) was whisked away by nursery staff...entirely different than the mob of doctors and nurses in the room for the delivery...leaving us in a communication dead zone for hours wondering how she was. Only later would we find out that the NICU is closed to visitors for rounds every morning so Leda had picked the rather inconvenient time of 8am to arrive. No baby updates until noon, sorry.
Flash forward to today--the kids are in a weird place. Cranky and zoned out due to colds. We even turned down a playgroup request from our NICU alum-friends. The last couple of nights have been a screaming, crying struggle (mostly her, but a little bit us) to get Leda to go to sleep...though, thankfully, she slept through the night then. Cole, apparently, is holding out for our special pizza dinner tonight. Because he's barely had anything to eat all day. Leda, on the other hand, has ended her formula days. She drank cow's milk for breakfast and has been having banana and even some of my roast beef sandwich for lunch.
The weekend was pretty intense even beyond the marathon. I spent several hours at the Race Expo on Friday afternoon picking up my packet and meeting with a new friend who was running her first 26.2. We did the usual browsing vendors plus stopped and had a coffee. Her little girls and husband were along and it was nice to spend time with them.
Saturday morning, I picked up family from the airport then we almost immediately started Leda's party. Kelly had finished the chicken and noodles I requested at the exact moment everyone was starving for lunch. We opened gifts...some for Halloween and "just because" for Cole, too. We had cupcakes which had been baked the night before and frosted by Kelly while I was on my airport run.
Monday morning everyone met again at our house to go for a post-race pancake breakfast. Which was delicious. Then we passed the time until everyone left for the airport to go home. By that time, I was in full recovery mode, everyone else was trying to fight off this cold, and a general level of exhaustion prevails.
As I just told the new friends online, you also have to mix in the strange "mission accomplished" feelings for me of having set a PR, having no long run this weekend, no goal on the immediate horizon, etc.. It's weird to have my focus now be taking the window air conditioners out and preparing to go back to work for the holiday weekends. (Oh yeah, did I mention that already? We'll get to that in another post.)
All things considered, I'd much rather have both my kids right here by my side, sniffling, watching cartoons, and pushing each other around the living room fighting over toys. Leda has had quite the amazing year. But one of the things I can't seem to get over is how she's taken it in stride. You'd never know she started life in such a dramatic way. Ok, maybe she's a bit of a drama queen. But she certainly gives no quarter and shows no weakness. A lot of the time, it makes her that much sweeter in my eyes. She's such a not-cautious little girl that it makes her cuteness more endearing.
Happy Birthday, Who Bean.
365 days ago our baby girl (known on all NICU forms as BG) was whisked away by nursery staff...entirely different than the mob of doctors and nurses in the room for the delivery...leaving us in a communication dead zone for hours wondering how she was. Only later would we find out that the NICU is closed to visitors for rounds every morning so Leda had picked the rather inconvenient time of 8am to arrive. No baby updates until noon, sorry.
Flash forward to today--the kids are in a weird place. Cranky and zoned out due to colds. We even turned down a playgroup request from our NICU alum-friends. The last couple of nights have been a screaming, crying struggle (mostly her, but a little bit us) to get Leda to go to sleep...though, thankfully, she slept through the night then. Cole, apparently, is holding out for our special pizza dinner tonight. Because he's barely had anything to eat all day. Leda, on the other hand, has ended her formula days. She drank cow's milk for breakfast and has been having banana and even some of my roast beef sandwich for lunch.
The weekend was pretty intense even beyond the marathon. I spent several hours at the Race Expo on Friday afternoon picking up my packet and meeting with a new friend who was running her first 26.2. We did the usual browsing vendors plus stopped and had a coffee. Her little girls and husband were along and it was nice to spend time with them.
Saturday morning, I picked up family from the airport then we almost immediately started Leda's party. Kelly had finished the chicken and noodles I requested at the exact moment everyone was starving for lunch. We opened gifts...some for Halloween and "just because" for Cole, too. We had cupcakes which had been baked the night before and frosted by Kelly while I was on my airport run.
Monday morning everyone met again at our house to go for a post-race pancake breakfast. Which was delicious. Then we passed the time until everyone left for the airport to go home. By that time, I was in full recovery mode, everyone else was trying to fight off this cold, and a general level of exhaustion prevails.
As I just told the new friends online, you also have to mix in the strange "mission accomplished" feelings for me of having set a PR, having no long run this weekend, no goal on the immediate horizon, etc.. It's weird to have my focus now be taking the window air conditioners out and preparing to go back to work for the holiday weekends. (Oh yeah, did I mention that already? We'll get to that in another post.)
All things considered, I'd much rather have both my kids right here by my side, sniffling, watching cartoons, and pushing each other around the living room fighting over toys. Leda has had quite the amazing year. But one of the things I can't seem to get over is how she's taken it in stride. You'd never know she started life in such a dramatic way. Ok, maybe she's a bit of a drama queen. But she certainly gives no quarter and shows no weakness. A lot of the time, it makes her that much sweeter in my eyes. She's such a not-cautious little girl that it makes her cuteness more endearing.
Happy Birthday, Who Bean.