What I'm Reading...

My sis-in-law (who is imminently due with a new baby and thus faces the challenge of a newborn + toddler...she is a stronger woman than I) recommended a new book for me to read.
It is called "Bringing up Bebe" by Pamela Druckerman (see below).

In short, it is the telling of an American journalist's perspective on French child rearing.
Also, it is awesome. Seriously.
It reminds me a lot of another one of my favorite books "A Girlfriend's Guide to Pregnancy." The book is an honest look at another culture's child-rearing attitudes and where it gets them. I think I like books like these because they are both informational and informative. Sort of like "babywise" meets "happiest baby on the block" meets your best friend.
As K gets older, I find parenting to be changing (no surprise) and it is becoming less about making sure she doesn't eat dog poop to more about teaching her to be a part of our family. I am constantly surprised by both what she does (and doesn't do). She is a tidy little lady who doesn't seem to mind picking up, but I am not as successful at teaching her good table skills.
One of the big things that Druckerman seems to emphasize about the difference between American and French parenting is the absence, and presence, respectively of "Waiting." I found this especially poignant as I am often responding to K whenever asked; the French, however, seem to have a big role for teaching their kids to "wait," even just for a response from Mom. Whether the "wait" is because mom is talking, eating, going the bathroom, whatever, the point is to try to teach the kiddos that although they are important, they may have to wait in line if other things are going on that are important to Mom.
Now this isn't an end-all be-all guide to parenting, I think it is a valuable perspective to add especially as K becomes older and interrupts our meals by pointing to my armpit hair and asking "What's that???"
Awesome. The joys of motherhood.
Let me know what you all think...

Shameless cuteness.

This past weekend we did K's two year photo shoot.
I am going to make it a tradition, and since this is the second year I have done it, I'd say we are well on our way.
Our friend from church Michael Friberg shot about an hour both at our house and Liberty Park and I was SO impressed. Now admittedly, he normally shoots important things like the cover for the NY Times, but he was willing to spend a bit of time with us (not quite front page news, but you know).
K loved the camera for about the first 45 minutes and kept posing-it was so funny because I have never seen her do this before!!! And then, at the end, she had had enough and just laid down on the sidewalk. So we called it a wrap.
I will try not to put too many pics, but it was just so fun and everyday I look at this little blonde pixie and wonder what on earth we did to deserve such a sweet little girl :-)
Happy almost 2 years old Baby K!!!

We love you and think you are the cutest little person around....

Momma workin' babies.





My 30th birthday was on Wednesday. I found it a little hard to believe, especially because I have such vivid memories of so many other birthdays that seemed like such a big deal (and like they weren't that long ago!).
10 when I finally got my ears pierced
16 when I got my license
21 when I got to have my first drink (ahem. legally.) and now.
30.
 Feels like it has flown by. Somewhere in the time that lapsed, I went to college, med school, got married, and had a kid. Some of those events planned and some not. But all celebrated. And now I'm in my final year of residency, looking ahead at my "career," whatever that may mean. I found it somewhat interesting that the timing of this for me coincided with a relatively hot-button article written by Princeton's Anne-Marie Slaughter, "Why Women Still Can't Have It All." As everyone and their mother has posted this article, I finally figured I should read it. This required some attention as it is no short editorial, it is a long, somewhat drawn out expose on what Slaughter feels are the short-comings of the professional/personal life options offered to highly-educated women. I have to say, although the names of the women she uses are famous, I think that ANY woman in a professional career has women around her who have given similar advice, or offered the same guidance. And I guess when I look at my life and the choices I have made, I can't help but think that somewhere in there she misses the point about choices in general.
There was an insightful response to her article (also in the Atlantic) pointed out to me by Mark. It is a bit more lippy, less laced with high-profile names, and without the academic gloss that Slaughter's article offers, but I think it offers valuable insight; insight that I use when I look at my life. The video at the top of this page is true.
My child knows that I work (and yes, that I sleep. but really, let's not worry about that part). She also, someday, will know more then I just "work babies." She will know that I value the lives of women and the children they carry enough to have spent the majority of my time over the last 8 (crazy) years learning and training to offer the best care I can in the safest way I know how. But she will also know that I had to make choices to achieve that accomplishment. But those choices aren't unique to a woman, they are the choice of anyone who chooses to be a doctor (in my case, an ob/gyn). A man in my professional position has had to miss morning wake-ups, trips to the zoo, bedtimes, etc the same as I have. Slaughter misses in her article the true professional equality that she instead seeks to skew as gender-preference for women to be able to spend more time at home. I am all for work life balance, I do my job to the best of my ability, but I will always make time for my family.
I think that all of this centers around the privilaged position of having a "choice" in our professional careers. This brings a complex debate to the forefront in my head-how much of your life is about being successful in a current system vs. making a new system in which to succeed? Slaughter wants a new system, one that is supremely female-sensitive, more specifically, mother-sensitive. But part of me says that may never happen; there will always be careers that require travel, extensive overtime, huge demands on time, and that my path will be different than those people willing to do those things.
 At the end of the day, I think I (and Slaughter) have no room for complaining. No room for pointing at the system and saying "CHANGE! I want more free time for my family." Because the truth is, the fact that we have a CHOICE at all in this story is the true issue. Globally, all women don't have this choice. They don't have choices about teen pregnancies, extremely high maternal and neonatal mortality because of lack of access to care, choices about higher education, choices about if not how they must work, choices about good "life partners," etc. These are the choices of a privilaged few; and I count myself blessed to make these choices.
Perhaps more good would come of a discussion that addresses the presence or lack of these choices in the lives of women in general, otherwise it tends to sound like the whining of a spoiled child who wants to have both a cookie and a cupcake at the same time, but heaven forbid, has to choose between them. So yes, I have "chosen" a career for now, but my choice is a choice made with my husband, with my family, with the knowledge that ultimately, at the end of the day, any choice I make won't be just mine. It will be the choice made by myself, my husband, and probably at some point, my kid.
I imagine when I read this in 10 years, 20 years, maybe even 40 years, I will have much to say. Much perspective to have gained. And maybe then I will have it all figured out. But until then, I'm going to go with the cupcake and not complain (too much).

Summertime. Is here!! We broke out the pool and the sprinkler and K loves them... I have tried to get her to wear a hat b/c with her pale skin I think she is going to burn, but she resists... Oh well! I will do what I can. We thought about swimming lessons this year, but think we will wait until next year.

Summer strawberries with daddy.

Sweet pea.

Long time.... It has been a while! I am back on a real rotation and so my time has been a bit more limited...but I have lots of updating to do :-) K and I have taken some fun trips, we are enjoying the summer weather, and trying not to get sunburned! I cannot believe how quickly K is changing now; her vocab is changing by the day and she keeps asking me "what's that?" and pointing so she can learn new words. Today on our walk we saw people having a "party" and for the rest of the day she kept asking about the party :) We had a super fun trip to DC to celebrate the graduation of Cherish, you know her by all the amazing photos on my website that she has taken. She was just about to graduate from the Corcoran and had an amazing senior project that we all got to see. In the process, K got to play with baby Cousin K and her friends Ry-Ry. Very sweet. My mom got to join us and as aways, K loves playing with Gra-ma.

K was excited about the planes. Although let me tell you, sharing a seat with a 22 month old is NOT FUN. Seriously. We cried, walked up and down the plane, tried to keep her interested in stuff; but with only a 15 second attention span a 4.5 hour flight is REALLY long. Like REALLY long. Oh well, it was worth it.

Hanging out with gma.

K-squared.

Enjoying some light theology reading with Matt.

Reading. And no K is not hitting, she is patting Cousin K's back. Very sweet. We also got to see Cate and her family which is always fun, R and K have known each other for a long time!! C is expecting her next one shortly, so we will only have more people to hang out with in DC!

Riding on the Metro. Double trouble.

Explaining the project. Pretty stinkin' cool.

Running through the museum. K loves art. Clearly.

Gma and her two Ks. We had fun!!! There are even better photos of K and Cherish and Matt on their facebook page, no shock, her photos were better than mine :-) I'll stick a few cute summer pics in the next post...

Overwhelming cuteness to cheer your day.

And we aren't biased. I promise.

 

Renovations!!!

Well, not big ones. But ones that I was excited about. I think the hard thing about changing your house is that it can be tricky to look at something you have been looking at for 2 1/2 years and imagine what it could look like.
Unless, however, you are like me and hate maroon. Always.
We have done very little in terms of painting in our house because it was some cool funky colors and we liked that, but I was sitting at dinner one night in the winter in our dining room with friends and couldn't get over how DARK it was. I mean, really dark.

And not that I dislike the maroon (lie) but I was ready for a lighter look...especially with summer coming.
So, with my somewhat reluctant husband on board, I embarked on a repainting adventure.

This is Project #1:





Before. Not bad, just dark.





After!
yay! So nice!! We are only missing a chandelier, still working on finding it.
Learned a few things on the way.
1. Frog tape WAY better than normal painter's tape. Left awesome sharp lines, exactly what I had wanted in Kyla's room but didn't get with painter's tape. Worth the extra $1.50 per role.
2. Painting is better with friends!!! Thanks to Sarah (of the blog adventures of the Judki) for some extra hands.
3. Happy with the outcome.



Project #2
We have this pantry (Aka hold all) in our kitchen that is great. Here is the original door:



Not bad right? Except for the part where it comes off the track every other day and scratches both the floor and the wall. Yeah. Not so great.

After (and might I add, this door was a PAIN for all parties...both the contractor who installed it and for me who had to paint it. Definitely took longer to paint than the WHOLE dining room).



After! Success!!! Pdog can no longer steal food!!

And lastly, made a little Pinterest project. Very proud:



Homemade white board!!!
Frame + scrapbook paper instead of photo = fun way to keep track of things :-)

I think that is all on the inside front, but Mark has made some big improvements in the yard...will try to post pics soon!

Glorious Victory!!!


Haha. So not so much.
Sorry for the radio silence, kind of had a lot going on there for a while.
Anyways. So no, glorious victory isn't quite how the race went, but wanted to fill you guys in.
Let's start with the brief recap:
1. BEAUTIFUL day and course-couldn't have been better
2. Didn't cry during the race
3. Finished sans walking
4. *May* have puked once I got back to the house
5. Had so much fun hanging out with the peeps who came with us
6. Definitely signing up next year.


Our friends had rented a townhouse here and it was great. 3 full bedrooms, 3 full bathrooms, a fully stocked kitchen, access to a park and a hot tub, and walking distance to downtown.
It was the perfect homebase for all of us runners. We got to Moab on Friday afternoon and had some good pre-race carb loading in the form of spaghetti.
The crew was a mixed bunch-all but Mark and one other hubby ran the race, so the dads at home took childcare duties so the rest of us could run.
The race itself was just gorgeous-along the river into the town of Moab with some sun, a bit of breeze, and these spectacular rock formations.

Here's a shot of a few of us prerace:

See? Look-don't we look so happy???
I'm going to exclude the post-race shot only because I can't find one.
Right.

But really, I had never run a half marathon before and I felt GREAT the first 11 miles. I mean, super great.

Then the last two miles.

wow.

That's all I have to say. The race pics are all from the last two miles.
Please note, I won't be purchasing any said photos.


After my therapeutic nap and special time in the bathroom, I re-aquainted myself with my little peanut (who is so cute!) so her dad and the other nice dad could go mountain biking on the slick rock trails. Seems like a fair trade off right?



We were enjoying the swings that were in the little attached park....



The dads who watched the kiddos during the run...ask Mark about his shirt.




Grillin' on the porch afterwards.


On the evening of our epic run, we spent some quality time in the hot tub, hung out and chatted, and I, of course, fell asleep.

We got an early start the next day and drove back through a blizzard to get home.
So Much. Fun.

I think I learned a few things about this run. I should have added a few more long runs (15 miles at least). I was surprised how hard the last two miles were because my 10 mile runs had been easy breezy.
I loved my shoes. They were GREAT.
This was a super fun and well organized race.

We will try to rent it again next year...

Until then, plod on plodders!!

Musings of a Plodder


I thought I would steer away from any more controversial posts (although, if you ever want my real opinion, just ask, I promise I won't be shy) and write about a topic that has been a part of my life for oh, about 16 years.
It all started when I got cut from the freshman volleyball team, and my parents looked at me and said, "well you have to do a sport-so it is swimming or running." Since I didn't love swimsuits and hadn't been swimming with my country club league since I was a wee toddler, that left me with one option.
Running cross-country.

Now, don't get me wrong, I like team sports, and I even like competing, but man, I was not a good runner. I ran JV my freshman/sophomore year, and then eked out a spot on the varsity team my junior/senior year; although that spot was often tenuous depending on who was injured and who had beat me that week. I remember my parents (mainly my dad) telling me to "Run faster." Right. Like I was going to to do that. Running HURTS.

Fast forward lots of years (I won't say how many) and I have passed my athletic peak during my glory days of crew when I realized that working REALLY REALLY hard meant that you got better and I find myself now, almost 30, trying to stay in shape.

Most of you know, my job involves talking with people about their health at least a bit and I feel that in my job, with all of my blessings of education, time, and knowledge that I better be living at least a passable example of what a "healthy" lifestyle can look like. Mix that in with my aversion to equipment knowledge, my desire to bring p-dog on my workouts, and my lack of creativity, and I have returned to my days as a runner. Or more accurately a plodder.

My days of plodding ebb and flow, sometimes I'm good and disciplined, other times weeks lapse between runs, but I plod on.
And have come across some interesting thoughts in the last few months.

1. I invented a new dog harness. The best ever. My special, slightly autistic coonhound can even do it. Phoenix comes from a family of coon-hunting champions. She got a bit of the short end of the stick. But check out this blog for a talented coonhound.
Anyways, back to my harness. It is awesome b/c it is hands free, keeps pdog from chasing random animals, and lets me enjoy a natural stride. Two climbing slings and one carabiner.






2. I'm intrigued by barefoot running. I recently read an article in the NYTimes called "The Once and Future Way to Run."
It kind of got me thinking and I decided I would try running in these shoes:




So far, success. It has most definitely made me change my stride to try to eliminate that nasty heel strike so we will see where it gets me.

Anyways, I'm trying to keep myself in passable shape through a combo of running, yoga (here), and the occasional ski outing.
Also AWESOME news. I washed my ipod Nano in the wash about 5 months ago and through a combination of laziness and hope, never threw it away, and guess what!!!!
It works again!!!
Props to apple. That is some solid construction.

Sadness.

What sadness. Such an avoidable tragedy.

Fun Stuff.

My mom bought some new books for K and they are cute-worth reading/buying/checking out if you haven't already.

1.

This is a cool book made sort of by accident. This artist who was home with her baby girl had this idea to make a scene surrounding her little peanut. What turned into entertainment for herself morphed into this neat neat book about baby's dreaming. Love it. She also has a cool blog: Mila's Daydreams.

2.

This author has won a bunch of awards for his simple, clearly stated, mini-moral dilemma books. Cute and education.

Also, I found out this week that not everyone knows about purple potatoes :-) I discovered them a few years ago when my hubby cooked them for me and they are SO fun to add to a dinner because they put an unexpected color on your plate. They are a bit sweeter than normal potatoes, but can be prepared pretty much the same. The bonus? If you boil them, the water turns this VIVID blue too. Lots of fun colors to use while cooking... see?



Here they are on the plate (And don't worry, I'm not humble-bragging about our AWESOME meal b/c the next night we ate Rumbi).

Wasatch Food

My hubby, as some of you might know, has had a long term interest in the food scene here in SLC. When we moved here from DC, we suffered a bit of a shock with the change in available food options, especially fancy, foreign, or just plain good food with regards to the restaurant options that were offered. Since that day, we have been on a constant quest for good out-to-eat food places.

Mark also dabbles in food making himself and has been known to whip up some extraordinary dinner fare for our household.

In honor of the above two things, he has started a new blog (the link is the title of this post) that will hopefully review the current options for out-to-eat places in and around SLC but also put up some original recipes tested in our very own kitchen.

I know he would take suggestions in both areas, so feel free to tell him what you think!!

The best part of all of this? I get to eat good food!!!

Chicago!

4 generations...K and I have matching socks over jeggings b/c we are cutting edge.

I am on vacation this week (Woohoo!!!) and am enjoying it very much. I had the chance to go to Chicago to visit my parents the first few days of my break and we had a great time.
It was my first time in a while traveling alone with Baby K and I have to admit, traveling on your post call day made for an interesting experience. The flight attendent most definitely commented on the fact that I *might* have briefly dozed off while K was watching Sesame Street on the ipad. Traveling on 3 hours of sleep total doesn't bode well, but luckily it was a lovely uneventful flight.
On both my flights the seat next to me was miraculously empty. That is all I have to say. It is AMAZING having an extra seat for K. She did so much better having her own space; space to play with the Playdoh that I brought, a tray table for her to color with, and lots of space for reading. Made it much easier overall. I tried to entertain with the ipad, but she just isn't that interested for any longer than 3 minutes. Oh well.
I also packed a dinner for us which helped a ton....
While we were in Chicago we had a great time hanging out with Great grandma L, Grandma and Grandpa, but most of all, we LOVED the kitty. Loved her. K would play for a few minutes with something else, then run back and say "Aw, kitty...."
She wore my old winter coat and also played with my old toys all of which were meticulously maintained, wore my old (including an intact doctor's kit that I distinctly remember playing with). And she got a rocking moose. Need I say more? We had a great time.

Moose assembly. Harder than you might think.

Getting ready to check kitty's blood pressure.

Getting tips on kitty whispering from Great Grandma L

Playing with my best friend

What? Sitting with my great grandma.

Grete, the infinitely patient kitty. Who, I might add, is 16 years old.

Blustery walk to the Navy Pier Children's Museum. But worth every step.

Playing on the fire truck. Truth is, K loves trucks.

Playing in the water room. Managing to get wet despite the full length raincoat.

Shopping on Michigan Avenue. K was mad cause she didn't get anything. Except her AWESOME hat.

Eating Sprinkles cupcakes with Gpa. They were good, but not as good as these.

Got REALLY REALLY close to a bear, then a lion, then gorillas. K wasn't as thrilled about this...

Tractor at the zoo/petting farm. See? Loves trucks.

This is my favorite clip from the weekend. K saw Gma laughing with her head back everytime they put stuff on Grete's head, so she did the same. So sweet.

All in all a great start to my vacation...now on the ski-cation part of things! Hoping I can make it one more day :-)

Am also reading some good books, so be on the lookout for a few new book reviews!