Sense to Save: Other Blog

Sit down, baby!

Some point recently, Vivienne thought it would be a good idea to pull herself to a stand. The first time she did it, she used our Mega Block table as support. I was startled at the sight.

I guess she thought that was pretty clever. She’s kept at it and now is regularly pulling up in her playpen and along the couch or rocking chair. Or baby gate.

Her crawling speed has increased substantially.

There’s really no stopping her now.

I don’t know if she’s wanting to practice standing or what, but it has been harder to get her to take naps lately. She just wants to stand and yell at me.

I put her in her car seat and put her back in the bedroom. That did the trick and she finally fell asleep without a fuss. Not sure what that’s all about. Babies can be so strange.

She’s still not eating solids all that well. The soft things such as apple sauce or runny rice cereal she sort of chokes down, but mostly spits out. Those dissolveable puff cereal things give her a lot of problems and she usually needs rescued. As in, she’s not breathing and cannot cough, so she needs infant CPR. Good grief. She’ll get it eventually.

In the pic, I had just given her some apple sauce and she got it all over her shirt, so I took it off and went to get a clean one and there she was.

July 18

Today I had the privilege of meeting Susan and her children, Hans and Gretchen, and her parents! Susan’s old blog was the very first I had read. I had wondered if I’d ever have a chance to meet her (she lives in Connecticut now) but she just happened to be passing through Indianapolis to see relatives along a big road trip. I’m glad I was along their route, and I’m glad she took the time to squeeze us in for a visit!

Our little boys are both sweet little blondies and I think they had fun at the mall playground. Our little girls are both busy crawlers and seemed to enjoy looking at one another and trying to grab each other’s faces. Heh. Such a sweet family!

I also recently got a chance to meet Joanna, Elliott and Josh. Joanna lives and works a little ways north of me and we got together over a lunch hour. I hope we can get together again soon!

A little before that, I got to see Ashley, Savannah and Paul while they were in Indiana. Can’t remember if I mentioned it here, but I met Ashley for the first time when she was in Pittsburgh. Ashley is pretty well-traveled and it lucks out that I’m in some of her travel paths.

I LOVE that I’ve been able to meet some of my blogging buddies. I guess it’s like modern-day pen pals, with keeping in touch and stuff. Everyone’s online persona seems to be really reflected in reality (that is to say, they are all nice, down-to-earth ladies!) and it’s fun hanging out, even if we only have a short time to do so.

Hope to keep on meeting more blogging pals.

In other news, my running is progressing much slower than I had anticipated. I figured my main weakness was cardio stamina. I was wrong. That is a weakness, but my main weakness right now is my muscular strength. I went to a running specialty store to talk with some of the staff about my issues and to get some new running shoes.

My stride is very poor (I was already aware of this — it’s nothing like what it was in high school) and it seems to be because my muscles are so out of shape. So that’s basically what caused my sharp knee pain in recent runs — lousy form.

I need to work on building my overall strength and gradually build a running base so not to injure myself. I was cautioned to NOT work on speed in any way until I really establish that base. That’s going to be a challenge, because in the past I did like to work on speed. I liked to just get the run over with as fast as possible, and also beat my times.

So I’m not going to get a wristwatch for awhile yet. And I already can tell you that my 5K time later this month is going to be absurd. That’s ok. I might even walk parts of it. I’ll just listen to my body and try and cooperate.

It’s frustrating to realize that I’m in worse shape than I thought.

Indianapolis drivers

Apparently, Indianapolis drivers are pretending they’re qualifying for the Indy 500. Of course I shouldn’t generalize an entire city’s drivers, but I’m gunna anyway.

I’ve been irritated at the tailgaters (I’m doing the speed limit or a tad over!). I don’t like how people here zip in and out of lanes and cut other driver’s off.

And what is with people running red lights like it’s legal!? I usually make a habit of looking both ways if I’m first starting out at a green light, and already I’ve avoided several collisions because of people running lights.

Today, I was in the right lane going down 86th. A service vehicle was pulled over slightly in the lane with it’s flashers on. Not enough room for our van to go around it in the same lane, so I needed to pull into the left lane to go around. Except I couldn’t. Cars whizzing past me, and cars behind me in the right lane zipping along past me.

Um, common car courtesy is to let the person ahead of you go first!

In Pittsburgh, this doesn’t happen. People go out of their way to let you over. They wave you on even if you don’t really feel like merging. They encourage you do do Pittsburgh Lefts so you aren’t sitting and waiting for a whole line of traffic to go past before you can turn left. They let you get into their lane and they don’t tailgate.

They let you merge when you have to hurry up and do so or miss your turn. They are courteous drivers. Probably it’s because they have to be, with crazy roads that are found in that city.

I miss a lot of things about Pittsburgh. One thing I definitely miss is their driving attitude.

Fourth of July weekend

We had such a fun weekend! This is proving to be just a fun summer, really.

On Saturday, we went to Spencer Farm in Hamilton County to pick some blueberries. I put Vivienne in the Ergo on my front for a little bit, and then spun her around to my back (with Shane’s help!) so I could better pick the berries. This was the first time wearing her in that and it went well, but it will take me some more practice before I really feel comfortable loading her in by myself.

Johnny thought picking blueberries was “awesome!” and “so fun!” He ate them immediately after picking for awhile, and then started to load his container. He was good about choosing the bluest ones instead of the greenish or reddish ones that still needed more time to ripen.

It was fairly hot out though, and he got pretty pink fast. He has a little tan line around the collar of his shirt where I missed some sunscreen.

After we paid for our berries, we went to West Park in Carmel. It took awhile to find it because several roads were closed that our GPS wanted us to use. GPS Betty gave up on us and shut off, but we turned it back on and eventually found the park. This one has a few fountains and a little wading area the kids can play in. Refreshing.

We followed that up with dinner at McCallister’s. Because I’m a weirdo, I was really wanting some chili. When it was 90 degrees out. Yeah. But I ended up with a club sandwich and a bowl of meaty chili. I should have had them mix some veggie chili with the meaty, because my bowl was nothing but meat and sauce. Whatever. I think I was craving substantial protein because I’ve been trying to cut back on refined sugar and my body just wanted some meat, I guess.

Sunday we went to Lafayette for a little while to see my parents and then we caught a fireworks show. I wasn’t sure how the kids were going to react to the noises. The bookies were giving Vivienne a 3:1 odds of crying first, and Johnny’s was 5:1, with 6:1 odds of them crying simultaneously.

Good thing I didn’t place any money on either of the kids, because they surprised me and neither of them cried. In fact, they liked it! Johnny was amazed and thought it was so fun. He yelled “boom!” and talked about the colors and wanted more, while jumping around and pointing at ‘em. Viv just watched with a really serious look on her face while she munched on a water bottle. She was safe in her daddy’s arms, so really, what could she worry about?

Johnny also got to meet lightning bugs at the fireworks show. I didn’t see many in Pittsburgh and none while camping for whatever reason. Maybe I wasn’t looking hard enough. Anyway, he thought they were “so funny!” when we caught them and showed him how they lit up. And really, they are pretty funny. Probably my favorite bug.

My least favorite bug also made an appearance. I have several mosquito bites and I don’t know if any got the kids or not.

Of course traffic was a pain getting out of there. In the car, Johnny said, “I want a bagel.” “We don’t have any.” “I want to go to the store.” lolz. Good try, bud. He fell asleep moments later and I carried him in and he just kept on sleeping. Same with V.

On the Fourth, we went to a family cookout here in Indy. It was great! About 30 people came out. Johnny doesn’t have any first cousins yet, but he does have a bunch of second cousins and first cousins once removed and other complex things like that.

He was playing with his second cousin who will be two years old later this week. They enjoyed playing in a little truck that they could both squeeze into, or have one drive it and the other ride on the tailgate. Too cute! We’ll get together later this month while he and his family are in town.

It was great to just enjoy the food and conversation and nice weather. There was plenty of shade and it wasn’t too hot, but the AC in the house was nice to cool off for a bit. We couldn’t have done something like this if we didn’t live here.

The kids were wiped out at the end of the day and both fell asleep in the (short!) van ride home. I carried Jonathan in and laid him down and he never really woke up until morning. At one point, I changed his diaper, because ew! And he didn’t really wake up for that much. Good ol fresh air is great for little boys.