Thursday, September 23, 2010

Communication

The baby said her first word at about 10 months old. Dog. The shortly followed by Dada she now says so many words I've lost count and when I do try and count I realize I don't remember to count all of them or I find myself guessing if I've already counted banana.

The words together with the number of signs she learned makes her really easy to understand. That of course is really only we understand because she still hasn't gotten her enunciation down well enough for non-kid people to interpret, and wow how quickly we went from no signs to lots of signs.

For a while now probably, 6-8 months, I feel like we've been at a place where we understand what she needs or wants and she knows what we want. It is a great place.

It has brought about things that I was hoping we weren't going to really have to do, but that surprisingly I'm happy to oblige. Like when she says Bus and then starts dancing. We know she wants us to sing the Wheel on the bus go round and round song. Unfortunately I'm starting to sound like a broken record and when I'm focusing really hard at work that song plays in my head.

Right now it is driving me crazy, but in a few hours when I'm at home, it will be my favorite song. Maybe my wife will consider my suggestion seriously when I say we should trade off who stays at home every two years.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Joy

Being the amateur meteorologist that I like to pretend I am. I have not slept well tonight. It is 2:15am and storms have been raining since about 9pm. I should say raging. They have been brought up from the Gulf of Mexico as Tropical Storm Hermine has drawn them as it makes its inland journey. There has been unbelievably hard rain. Most of downtown Austin has had 12inches of rain and slowing spots of 15inches or more are appearing. NOAA's radar gauge does not have a color for over 15inches of rain. Here at my house we've had at least 10inches of rain since yesterday and now my rain gauge is full. The first 5 inches were from Tropical Storm Hermine as it almost passed directly over Kyle, the last 5+ inches have just been from storms drawn up from the Gulf.

For reasons that are quite clear to me, I can't sleep during severe weather. I lived in the Texas Panhandle for 13 years as a kid. Amarillo is part of what is known as Tornado Alley. I remember fondly the terrifying rides my dad used to take us on while we "hunted" tornadoes. I remember the fire drills and tornado drills from elementary school. I remember and actually kind of miss the last Friday of every month test of the Tornado sirens in Amarillo at 9am. Here in Central Texas that tornado threat isn't as real as flash flooding.

Anyway, I got wrapped up in talking about the weather but really my post is about Joy. I enjoy making people smile. One of the reasons I married my wife is because she had a great smile. I love making our baby smile. She has a smile that can stop me and draw me into whatever she is doing. I love when they make me smile. The baby has made me smile several times this weekend. She has two little books that have babies doing various things. On one of the pages there is a baby sleeping. She will put her finger to her mouth and say, "shhh." It is so cute to me and I smile. I love watching her perform tasks and explore the world. When I see her with my wife, I can't imagine anything better in life than those two girls.

Friday, September 3, 2010

p90x

Since the baby was born I've struggled to find the time necessary to achieve my fitness goals. After getting off work and coming home, eating dinner, playing, bathing and putting the baby to bed I would find it would be 7:30 to 8pm every night. And now given that we live even farther from our gym the drive there and back would take an hour which means no matter if I left at 8pm I would be guaranteed to be home no earlier than 10pm.

Plus since the baby is sleeping, someone has to stay home which means the wife and I would have to take turns going to the gym. I decided that I wanted to do p90X because my wife and I could both do it together at night without leaving and still get a total body workout and to bed on time!! It required some equipment we already had like weights, and a heart rate monitor. It did require a pull-up bar or some exercise bands that could be attached to something (in our case a door.) I also liked that it had a nutritional guide to go with it because I get bored with the meals we make sometimes. We do not follow the nutritional guide because it dramatically changes the percentage of proteins and carbs and I would much rather eat balanced than some sort of diet skewed toward protein or carbs. I was willing to give up any gains I would have seen by drinking protein shakes. Since we've worked our way into eating clean and as much unprocessed food as possible, I figured we would be alright.

I have almost completed 4 weeks of p90X and I must say, I am surprised at how hard it can be. The mantra of p90X is "Bring it!" I can say I have brought it and wavered a few times but then because of the disappointment worked harder and every time I am really whipped. Usually the next day I am sore. Sometimes really sore. I have added weight and added reps and really feel a lot stronger. I haven't really noticed any real weight loss BUT through reading some other peoples comments on p90x they point to the last 60 to 30 days as being the real weight loss phases.

I am also currently training for a half-marathon in October. So far the two have not interfered with each other, although there have been times when I was very sore from p90x Legs and Back doing a tempo run or already had wobbly legs doing plyometrics x. So far I am very pleased with the progress I've seen and how I feel overall through workouts. P90x is built on the idea of "muscle confusion" and so I'm interested to see how the new workouts challenge me as I progress through the program.