Moana Means Ocean

We named our first born after the ocean, so of course it was only a matter of time before we'd be putting her in it. It was finally a beautiful sunny day here on Oahu, but it is still winter, so the ocean hasn't warmed up much past maybe 76 degrees. Turns out, the little swimmer doesn't fall far from the tree... her intense dislike for cold water mirrors her mom's. Read on...

She got all dressed up in her cute little rash guard and swimmer diapers... Like a good conscientious mom, I lathered her lily white skin up in SPF30 made for babies... and we were off! Clearly, Moana was quite excited about her trip to the beach today. We met Grandma and Grandpa Simmons there... Scott took his lunch break with us, and even Hoku got to participate in the fun! Ok, are you ready? Ready to dip your feet in the ocean for the first time? Ready? Ok! Here we go!!

Apparently one needs a black fur coat in order to enjoy the ocean in the winter. We didn't subject Moana to the cold water anymore today. In the summer it'll be warmer and she'll be older, so I'm still holding out hope that she's going to grow up to be an ocean swimmer.

Luckily we had a great distraction when Kelley and Sara showed up! Sara was as happy as a clam the whole time showing off her big toothless grin. Must have been those 11 (count 'em!) hours of sleep she got last night!?! Can Sara teach Moana to do that? Please?

Apparently Kelley has done a nice job teaching Sara to share, because Moana got to try out Sara's Bumbo seat. And now I'll be surfing Craigslist trying to find one of these things. As if there's actually room in our house for yet another baby accessory...

It's hard being at the beach. Really wears a baby out.

New Skills

It's amazing to watch Moana grow overnight. I swear, each morning I wake up see that something changed... those darn fingernails don't stop growing for a second, her head got bigger, her eyelashes grew, her fingers have a stronger grip, her legs are too long for her newborn pjs... I know this will make some of you new moms with your monster boys laugh, but I just now (sadly) put away her newborn clothes in exchange for the 3 month ones. Hey, some body's got to fit in those newborn clothes, right?

One of her more developed 10 week old skills is her ability to hold her head up really high. The doc was impressed by this last week at her 2 month appointment.

And she's starting to use her hands in a more purposeful way. She's got this cute little black and white stuffed cat (see it in the picture above, on its side) that she likes to knock over like a bowling pin every time I sit it next to her. And this mirror by her changing table? She hits it every time she is getting clean pants... specifically going for that orange ball that makes noise when it spins.

We're also working on her balancing while sitting up. Hey! Looks like she's got it!

Sort of...

Shoot. Not quite.

SweatFest

Oh goodie! A new season of The Biggest Loser!

Trainer Bob said that I shouldn't be eating ice cream while watching the show this season*. Since I'm not pregnant anymore, I agreed. My new goal is to watch the tivo'd version on Wednesday mornings while sweating on my bike trainer...

Here was my view this morning. Moana slept peacefully while Jillian yelled at me. So cool.

Did you know that you can watch the whole two hours of The Biggest Loser in an hour and twenty minutes if you fast forward through the commercials?

So how long can this Mama ride her bike trainer? Until my boss says enough is enough.


*My dear friend Kathy in Chicago... he probably means no bons bons either...

Simmons Family Ain't Growin' No More

The Simmons Family Grew. That's for sure. Grandma and Grandpa Simmons inherited a new daughter-in-law and another grandchild in 2008.

I grew while I was pregnant... not just my belly. My butt. My boobs. My feet. My hair. It all grew.

But now I'm shrinking. Phew.

The only one growing in this house now is Moana. She's gained over 5 lbs in the last 2 months! Ok, the dog is kind of growing too since she gets to go out a little less now that she's second fiddle around here.

My point is, the Simmons Family isn't going to grow anymore. At least not for a while. So I changed the title of my blog. That's all.

Let The Games Begin

The biggest problem with riding in the rain is that you can't see.

Sunglasses or no sunglasses? When it's raining really hard, you can't exactly go without them, because then the water is pelting you in the eyes. But if you wear them, they're all fogged up and being hit by those same water drops. It's kind of a lose-lose.

I guess the good thing about the 25 mph winds today was that the squalls of rain passed as quickly as they came on. At one point today, I looked off toward the ocean and saw a massive rain storm out at sea... before I could even comment about it to my training partners, we were soaked. But 2 miles later we were back on dry roads, so all was right in the world.

Most of the ride today was pretty easy. Just put the miles in. One of my training partners is just coming back from a stress fracture injury in her foot, so the idea today was to just cruise. But she knows her husband well enough to know that when we get to the rolling hills section of the route on the way home, he's itching to pick up the pace. She gave him the green light when she said, "Hey, don't worry about me if I back off through this section..."

Mike gave a silent nod and I knew that he was gonna go. I was feeling strong and wondered how long I could hang on to his pace? Mike checked his heart rate monitor. Then he took a peek at his computer. How long he was planning on going hard? It didn't matter. Let the games begin! He picked it up gradually, but we really got going and held a super solid pace for probably 5 miles. Awesome! It was so much fun to actually work on the bike today.

Meet The Grandparents!

Grandma and Grandpa Simmons are here from California to meet their newest granddaughter! They've come at a great time because Moana is cuter than ever right now... the smiles come all the time and she's starting to try to talk to us with all those cooing and gooing noises. It's awesome!

Moana is clearly really happy to look at and talk to Grandma Simmons.

I was reminded last night to cherish these moments, because this is the only time in her life that Moana will let us hold her like this.

Grandma's favorite time might have been watching her son give his happy daughter a bath.

We took it to heart that we should cherish these times...

A New Year's Quiz

5:45 this New Year's morning... I'm driving my car in the pitch dark... my windshield wipers are flying back and forth across my windshield as fast as they can go but I still can't see anything on this dark highway...

What am I doing? I could be in my warm bed with my husband and cuddling with my cute little daughter.

Instead, I'm driving across the island to see how fast I can cover 6.2 hilly miles nine weeks after giving birth.

There weren't many people on the road at that hour. And the people who were out on the road? I couldn't help but wonder where they were going? Were they all just now on their way home from their New Year's Eve celebration? Or, like me, did they have something they felt they needed to do to start the new year off right?

I got to thinking about other New Year's mornings I've had... the one in another life in college where I woke up feeling completely nauseous, smelling stale clove smoke on my hands and in my hair. Ugh. Don't want a repeat of that one. Maybe the one in 1997 where I met up with some swimmers from my local masters team at the pool to complete 97 x 100's @ 1:30 just to say that we did... or a few years ago when I attempted to ride 87 miles around the island but stopped 70 miles in and instead showed up at a friend's house looking like a drowned dog begging for a ride home because I was just too tired of all the rain and mud we were riding through...

In 2009 my memory will be driving in the rain toward Hawaii Kai to run a 10K. Just a quiz to see where I'm at right now. I wondered who else on the island would also choose to skip the standard late night celebrations and fireworks to attempt a hilly 10K this morning... turns out, about 100 people, most of whom I did not know...

I'll give myself a B+ on my quiz this morning. My goal was to get under 50 minutes, but I missed that by about 13 seconds per mile. I'm okay with that though... I adjusted my goal by a few minutes when I was standing at the start line listening to other runners say stuff like, "Wait till you see that hill..." They could have been talking about any of the big hills on the course today... though when I saw the huge long steep one toward the turn-around I had a clearer understanding of the early comments. So I think averaging 8:15 on the course today is just fine. I passed my quiz and now have a good benchmark to work with in the coming months...

And now the rest of this first day in 2009 can be spent peacefully with my family at the beach!