Half A Year

Scott and I have been married for a half of a year now.

I know wedding anniversaries are typically measured in years, not months... but I think there's an exception in the first year when every month is a milestone. Except in our situation, where months seem to fly by so fast that we have missed every one so far... save for the 6 month... regardless, we finally remembered one and celebrated it!

They say that the first year of marriage is the hardest. Except for the first year of having a new baby. Nice that we are just killing two birds with one stone over here by combining the two hardest times into one, for simplicity sake (?). But if this is as hard as it gets, we're gonna be just fine. Because other than a bit of recent sleep-deprived-lack-of-patience (on my part more than my dear husband's), marriage has been nothing but awesome.

And clearly Scott is anticipating us making it through the next six months as well, because he brought me not six but twelve perfect red roses.

Nice that grammy is here to babysit Moana so Scott and I could go out to dinner. We returned the to scene of the crime... if you could call it that... or maybe just call it the restaurant where we had our first real date. I remember being so nervous for that date, though clearly it went well... so well in fact that a year and a half later we have a couple of wedding bands and a baby to prove it.

And further proof that my husband is always looking out for my comfort at 3:00 AM while our infant is demanding food, he brought home this to make it a little more bearable for me.

I think I'm addicted to my new massage padded rocking chair. It's an awesome shiatsu massage and I can add the 'heat' option to warm it up and get a deeper dig. I've used it so much in the last few days that my back muscles are actually sore. So now Moana thinks that I sit in the rocking chair feeding her at all hours of the night for her pleasure, when really it's my own selfish desires...

Back In The Saddle

Woohoo! Went for my first bike ride post-partum this afternoon. It's actually maybe only my 3rd ride since I found out I was pregnant... for some reason I just completely stopped riding the day I saw the little plus sign on the stick, save for maybe one or two little rides here and there. Looking back, that really wasn't necessary (to just stop riding) but for whatever reason that was my choice at the time.

A few days ago I was at the gym and ventured onto an exercise bike to warm up before my weight routine. Actually, the only reason I attempted to sit on the bike seat was because all the treadmills and ellipticals were in use, so the bike was really my only option. With some trepidation, I gingerly mounted the exercise bike and was pleasantly surprised at the lack of pain I felt. It made me think that I may be able to get out on my road bike this weekend...

And today was the day! I was so happy to bbe out there... felt so free... for the first 45 minutes. Then it started to hurt. Mostly my back and neck. Crazy how my little 22 mile 'recovery ride' (that I used to do on Tuesdays when I was training for Ironman) became a massive endurance event today that left me feeling like I'd been hit by a truck. And who turned all the little hills into mountains over the last few months anyway? This mama has a lot of work to do before regaining my cycling fitness. Luckily I feel sure that it will come back, but it'll just take some time in the saddle before that happens. I'm gonna have to get a bike trainer so I can ride inside during the week... I think weekday rides outside are going to be nearly impossible now that I have a baby to care for full time. Saturday mornings will, however, once again become my riding days and I'm really looking forward to regaining that routine.

In other good news, I ran about 4 miles today with the jogger. It's quite hilly around my house though and I did have to walk some of the uphills. It was hot and the stroller is heavy and the hills are big and what other excuses can I come up with? I gave birth three weeks ago... maybe that counts for something.

So although it feels great to be running and riding a bit again, for the next several weeks I'm going to continue to concentrate on swimming and make sure I get 5 swims in per week. After the Double RoughWater (Dec 7) I'll put swimming on a back-burner and start to run/ride more. I'm conjuring up some semblance of a 'training plan' in my head and I like it.

Like A Box Of Chocolates

Ocean swimming is like a box of chocolates.. you never know what you're gonna get...

I did the ocean swim with my friend Kathryn again this morning. We've got a different weather pattern right now that involves south winds, which transformed the south shore of Oahu from the more typical wind chop to perfect and glassy lake-like water.

Before getting in, Kathryn and I mused about what it might be like once we get out to the deep water where we do the majority of the swim. Looks calm. Not as clear today. Might we have a head-current?

It got me thinking about all the possibilities of the ocean conditions, and it occurred to me that we never really know what to expect. In 3+ years of (almost) weekly swims out there, we've experienced a lot... although luckily no sharks yet!*

~It could be perfect and glassy.
~We could have massive wind-chop.
~There might be a really strong current pushing us along. Or maybe that's a head-current that makes us feel like gerbils on an exercise wheel. And it's possible that the current will change on us half way through when the ocean floor drops and the water gets really deep.
~Sometimes it feels really warm. Other times my hands go numb because I get so cold.
~Sometimes we get to count how many turtles we see while swimming. Today was a 'One Turtle Swim'.
~Most of the time we do a good job finding the sand channel on our way in. But occasionally there's a current that sweeps us away from it and we end up 300 meters down from where we want to be in 18 inches of water and sharp reef. My swim partners can verify how much I love it when that happens.
~Sometimes its really just a nice mellow social swim. Other times it turns into a race. Depends on who shows up and what kind of mood everyone is in.
~Most of the time we finish the swim without being stung by anything. But sometimes we get caught in jellyfish, or man-o-war, or some sort of crazy 'sea lice' that sting like crazy all over. That sucks.
~Depending on the season, we may have some decent waves to negotiate on our way out or the way back in... duck diving through white water crashing waves can make the swim fun and adventurous!
~A couple times we've ended up swimming with a pod of dolphins out there. Chasing them actually.
~Once we swam up to a boat full of strangers who were drinking beer during their Sunday afternoon sail. We climbed onto the boat and drank a beer with them before swimming the mile back to shore. I'm gonna have to find my pictures of that!

So even though we didnt get dolphins or beer today, Kathryn and I felt lucky that it was such a perfect swim. We commented about how its days like this that make us love ocean swimming. Of course its not always like that, so we take the good with the bad. It made me think a lot about how raising Moana has been similar so far. You never know what you're going to get with your infant. And you can't really control it. Sometimes she's hungry. Sometimes she sleeps. Sometimes she's awake and sometimes she gets really fussy. But it's the same thing- there are times that are so awesome that you're totally willing to take the challenging conditions because the perfect conditions are so perfect.

*I've never seen it, but apparently this tiger shark was sighted in the same waters about a year ago**...

**And for the record, we all stayed out of the water for several weeks after this photo circulated...

Sweet Baby Moana

Grunts, Groans and Moans

Moana has started into a grunting stage. It happens mostly at night when she's sleeping. The grunts are so loud that it easy to mistake them for signs of wake time unease... they usually have me jumping out of bed (hence, the moaning) in the middle of the night to check and see what's wrong... until I get to her side and see that she's sleeping soundly. It's actually quite amazing that such loud noises can come out of such a small little person and that she can squirm as much as she does while still in dreamland.

I have found a little pattern to the grunts and groans. They generally start 45 minutes to an hour prior to her waking up to feed. Which is especially fun for me because that means if she eats from, say, 3-4 AM, the grunting will start again at 5 and then she's ready to eat again at 6. So that's a whole hour of sound sleep for Mama Simmons before I'm listening for the sounds of real hunger vs the fake hunger of the grunts. It's reminiscent of the fake BH contractions I had toward the end of my pregnancy... how to tell the difference between the real thing and the fake outs? For Moana, real hunger is indicated by the frantic nature of the squirming and urgency of the cry. Sometimes her hand goes in her mouth, and her feet are generally flexed when it's real. Her eyes may or may not be open.

I think part of this problem will be solved when she moves full time into her own crib/room to sleep at night. She's there part of the time now, but since grammy is still here visiting, we switch her bassinette in the middle of the night so grammy gets the late nighttime grunts and I get the early morning ones. When we get up in the morning, we compare notes on how the night went and try to piece together the puzzle that is Moana.

Lunch At The Beach

Another big swell hit the north shore today so mom and I decided to take Moana up and check out the surfers at Sunset Beach.

I love the road that goes up to the North Shore from my house. It's been my staple Saturday ride for the past several years since I've lived here. While driving up and back today I had all sorts of flashbacks and visions of training on these roads with some of my friends. It gave me butterflies in my stomach because I know I'm pretty darn close to reliving those days here shortly!

It was indeed a big day for waves, and super fun to watch for a while. There are a bunch of pro surfers in town because the surfing competitions are starting. This gal didn't have such good luck today.

It felt good to get out of the house. Taking care of a baby who eats like she has a tapeworm, sleeps like she's addicted to ambien, and poops with the best of them can get monotonous, so days at the beach here and there seem like a good way to break it up.

We hung out under a shade tree and had lunch. It was a tough day.

Like A Wet Noodle

For the past nine months all my exercise has been totally aerobic in nature. But I've been waiting for the day when I could to push myself hard enough to be out of breath. I've wanted to work hard in a workout.

Tonight I got to do just that. I attended my first masters swim workout since February. It was awesome. I was giddy while driving there and so happy to see my old teammates and coach. So fun to be social in my workouts again rather than being in isloation.

And once again, I pleasantly surprised myself with my swim fitness. I worked hard. And my heart rate went up high. And I was out of breath. And I loved it.

Now I feel like a wet noodle. My arms are as limp as Moana's when she's all done eating. Speaking of which, I'm just waiting for her to wake up so I can feed her again before putting her down for the night. Or at least a few hours...