Before You: A letter to my second child

I have largely neglected you, blog. I apologize. I felt compelled to share some thoughts today relating to my now 100% shared “I’m Pregnant” news. I know, my timing is impeccable. It’s April Fools’ Day but I promise it’s fo real. I’m 15w4d and due 9/19.

You all might be just finding out, but we’ve known since early January. There’s a lot of anticipation, excitement and unknowns. I’ve written a letter to my youngest (and final!) child…

Dear Baby,

Sometimes I think about how difficult it will be to have two kids, to parent a “second” child. Not like “where will I find the time!” type thing, but like your father and I are first borns. I worry about being able to replicate Margo’s experience for you – give you comparable levels of attention, goods and services, photographs… You spoil your kids, and it’s no secret that first borns are the recipients for more of the above.

But then, you get something that Margo never got: you’re completing our family. When I think about my family growing up, it’s the four of us. There was this short period of time before Ashley was born and then she arrived and it was the four of us forever. The past 3 years where it’s been the 3 of us McQ’s has been so great. We feel blessed in so many ways but it’s really hard to fathom that in 20 years, we’ll look back and it’ll be the 4 of us, and the 3 years when it was the 3 of us will just be the time Before You. Margo won’t have a huge memory of life Before You, and I can only imagine the ways in which you’ll make everything feel more complete, different, unimaginable that we were a family Before You.

We don’t even know if you’re a boy or a girl yet. We’re all so excited. Your sister is already ready to shower you with gifts (she made me get a sippy cup for you for when you come out!) She tells everyone we meet that “Mommy has a baby in her belly!” and she says good night to you and sometimes even sings you songs. She sang Away in a Manger the other night – did you hear it?

I know before we know it, you’ll be here. Summer is coming and summer ALWAYS flies by (just really hoping it’s not a Too Hot summer this year!) Soon we’ll know if you’re a boy or a girl, we’ll make you a room in our house (you already have one in our hearts), and we’ll pick a name for you and buy you clothes. We have a lot to do, but now we’re just excited and the anticipation is joyful.

With love,

Momma (and Daddy and Margo)

Going Streaking!

So, I’m officially taking part in the Runners’ World Streak this month, hoping I do better with this than #NaBloPoMo! For the streak, I’m committing to running at least a mile a day from Thanksgiving til New Year’s Day.

(Well, I actually started the day after Thanksgiving, since I was all snotty, coughy and voice-less on Thanksgiving. And I didn’t run Monday because we were in DC, drove 5 hours and had a very tight schedule. But I’ve let myself off the hook for that. I made the decision not to let running ruin our family schedule/mini-vacay as it sort of held our last DC trip hostage. I truly think that first week was the toughest for me schedule-wise, and I’m hopeful I can do the rest of the streak unbroken 🙂 )

So, a week into the challenge, I sort of love it. It gives me a doable goal and makes me run, as basic as that sounds. Yesterday I did a body sculpting class and had to run a quick mile before the class. I wouldn’t have done that otherwise, and those little bursts will (I’m hoping) make all the difference in keeping me feeling good this holiday season. Plus, I signed up for a 5k in 2 weeks and am hoping to go fast. I think shorter runs are making me go faster, and I’m hoping that extends to a 5k time too!

Since it’s officially cold here, with overnight lows in the 30’s pretty consistently now, I’m typically running more mid-day/afternoons. And having to run at some point every day… well, it makes me sort of have to eat light and healthy more than I had been. I can’t have heavy meals that might not digest in time for my run. That’s a good thing!

Plus, I have lots of streaker friends on the Twitters to motivate me 🙂 #RWStreak!

Dry Shampoo & Daytime Workouts: A Love Story

I don’t know if I’m severely behind the curve here, but I just discovered dry shampoo. The daytime workout game has totally changed for this curly girl.

As I’ve discussed here, I have thick, naturally curly hair. I workout at work. In the summer, that meant getting to work early & showering here. In the winter months, it means fitting it in at lunchtime and rearranging my showering schedule to accommodate. It also means that if I skip a workout bc I don’t feel like it I have to walk around all greasy and gross bc I didn’t shower OR workout.

Wait, that’s not cool.

Enter: dry shampoo. I grabbed it after my stylist told me all about it during my last cut. (I like it, but having impulse bought it at a salon… well, I’m quite sure there are more affordable and equally good options out there. That said, I’m not even gonna bother with a shout out to the brand.) Like any curly girl product, make sure it’s sulfate and silicone free & you’re set. It basically soaks up oils (sweat in my case) that might require me to wash my hair more frequently. My stylist told me that dry shampoo has been around for a while and they would often use it for the elderly & bed-bound folks who couldn’t get baths/showers as often as they needed to. (Sounds good, she also has custom made gas masks for her dogs in the case of the apocalypse, so, you know, grain of salt or whatever.) It essentially makes it so that instead of showering (or rinsing and having to redo my hair), I can do dry shampoo.

So, here’s how I use it. Let’s use today as an example.

I woke up & showered at home. This is a daily thing, I’ve stopped the “I’ll just shower at work and hope I don’t skip my workout” mess. I know you’re all proud of me for showering daily. Thank you. I feel like I’ve come so far.

I went for a run and then did at body sculpting class. The combo wasn’t intense the whole time, but I was my fair share of sweaty. When you have thick, course hair like mine, it holds the sweat in the hairs right by the scalp. Before, that meant it’d dry then have sort of oily and greasy looking roots.

So, today. after my workout, I pulled out my pony tail and blew it dry for a minute or so. I sprayed dry shampoo on the “wet” parts (that had been mostly dried) and scrunched it back up. I’m sitting here with hair that looks more or less the same as it did going into my workout.

Sometimes easy solutions fall in my lap. I think I’m in love with dry shampoo.

 

Sending Love to Mom-Mom

This post isn’t about me, or my birthday, or cancer. It’s about my mother-in-law, my husband’s mother and my child’s grandmother. We love her, she’s so important to all of us and she’s having what I can only assume is one of the toughest days of her life today.

She was diagnosed with malignant melanoma in 2007, and underwent treatment (Intensive Interferon) in the summer of 2008. We were sad to hear the news a few weeks ago that… it’s back. Today she’s having a procedure done that essentially pumps her leg full of chemo (my words, if you want the sciency/real info, check this out.) Worth noting: it says 60% of patients don’t get the cancer again. While we know there are no sure things in cancer (or… life), we’re very, very hopeful about this procedure.

Though I bash them frequently, I think I actually started a prayer chain on Twitter. There’s a first. 🙂 And I think all of my friends who were thinking of us today and will continue to as Mom-Mom recovers.

There are a lot of unknowns ahead, and we’re even more helpless than we’d otherwise be since we’re stuck 450 miles away in NC. We’re sending all our thoughts, prayers and positive recovery energy to Mom-Mom, knowing recovery from the surgery will be tough, but not tougher than she is.

We love you, Mom Mom, and we’re sending all our love.

You can follow her journey and recovery here.

I wanna go fast!

I gave myself a week after the marathon. I took it slow and totally wiped “working out” from my radar and it was great! I truly did enjoy it, and surprised myself that I didn’t get too ansty.

However, after a week…I got all twitchy and felt the urge to get back into it. (It was fun to follow my “desire to run” rather than “a spreadsheet of workouts.”)

So, I’m signing up for the Girls on the Run Reindeer Romp on Dec 15, and I’m gonna focus my working out on short, speedy workouts! It’s a fun change, after growing accustomed to one-hour workouts minimally (plus in warmer weather so always followed by a shower and hair drying!), a little half hour or less run? Pretty easy sell! I figure one month is a good period of time to focus on this, and hopefully the base I have from my marathon training isn’t all gone and I can build.

How am I gonna get faster?
I consulted with some runnerd friends and GPB, the runnerd husband and designated coach/child care provider of the group. Lots of good tips, and we’re actually hoping to do a Saturday morning speed workout in the near future! I love having runnerd friends (even though they’re all faster than me. And my goal to get faster has NOTHING to do with wanting to keep up with them. Nope.)

Well, my first method will be to run faster. (I know, you come here for the revelations like this.) But during the marathon training, I often would focus on maintaining a slower speed to go farther. Speed was not part of my focus (and that was fun in its own way!) Now I’m trying to reenter that world a little, and just go faster. I ran most of my marathon training runs in between 10:15 and 11:00/miles; I’m shooting to get myself to 9:00/miles now & gradually getting closer. Bonus: it doesn’t take as long! (I’m full of really obvious statements today – you’re totally welcome.)

Today was a great run, though I tried to take a shortcut and ended up doing who knows how much on pause. I think it was about a mile… so ended up going further than the non-short-cutted route. There’s a message in there that applies to life, I’m sure.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jamie McQuiggan (@jamiemcquiggan)

I am going to get two speed workouts in per week. I’m gonna do a tempo run later this week- 1 mile warm up, 2 miles below 9:00/mile and 1 mile cool down. I also want to include repeats and sprints as the other speed workout. We have a track at work so I can do 400 yard sprints.

I’m not sure if this is related to speed persay, or just general fitness/cross fitness, but I’m going to incorporate two strength workouts per week as well. I started going back to body sculpting last week and remember why I love it so much. I’m not sure why I’m so masochistic about being sore, lol! I hadn’t done any lifting since August, so even a bicep curl was pretty awesome. Let’s work some glamor muscles.

What do you think, runnerd and fast girls (& boys, I suppose!)? Am I missing anything? What workouts have you done to improve speed? Anyone wanna do speed workouts with me?

Confession: I hate party-planning

I’m totally torn on if we should have a 3 year birthday party for Margo.

All year, I’ve said no. We’ve had it at our house the past two years and it’s just been… so crowded and so overwhelming. It’s January, so we’re all inside. (Which I hate bc we have an awesome yard – if she had a May-September birthday, this would not be a discussion.) Last year was the BEST! (And by BEST I mean WORST!) She was sick the week leading up to her birthday party and we had to reschedule it and push it back a week. Her birthday is also 3 weeks after Christmas. You know, that time of year when you’ve finally put away all the presents and decorations and don’t want to even look at anything sweet or think about adding more toys to the mix. And you don’t want to do anything social at all because you’ve been going-going-going for 2 months straight?

Oh, January birthdays.

I feel like a mean mom, to be honest! I think I missed the creative party gene, something that is glaringly obvious every time I log into Pinterest! I felt like that about planning my wedding back in the day too – I just don’t get jazzed up about character cupcakes or personalized banners or whatever shabby-chic decor I’m supposed to want to pay so much for! I’d actually glady farm the planning out entirely. I don’t like crafting, I don’t even like calling the cupcake shop and ordering. What is wrong with me??

But, Margo has been talking about her birthday since, oh… March? She has known her birthday is January 16 and it’s coming “beary soon!” since then. All along we were saying we’d skip the party this year and just do something low key & family oriented, and maybe do a friend party once the weather got nice. But we’ve been going to friend parties all year. We went to one Sunday and she said “Margo’s going to have a birthday party soon!”

Well, it is getting to be “beary soon,” now. 2 months away, it’s time to figure this mess out, I think.

Is it a terrible idea to skip a 3 year birthday party, since she’s so excited & loves parties? Should I just suck it up and do it, or be the boss and declare this a first world problem and know that life will be just fine if we skip…

Blogging motivation: #NaBloPoMo edition

Well, I obviously didn’t blog yesterday, per my NaBloPoMo obligation. (So *shucks* I can’t win any BlogHer prizes. Let’s face it, I didn’t really want them anyway. As much as I like blogging and reading some blogs, I think the BlogHer conference seems like a big sorority party and I’m SO not that kind of girl. Ahem.)

So, I have been feeling more connected to blogging. Writing daily has made it easier to think of things to write about, generally, and I think the process of writing and sharing (and conversing through comments) has been fun and useful. Even though I won’t be able to claim *true* success on #NaBloPoMo since I missed a day, I do think the ultimate purpose of it is still taking hold for me.

It is hardest on the weekend, as I assumed it’d be since I spend little time in front of a computer on Saturdays and Sundays. No big surprise there. I also have hardly any readers on the weekend, which is another blow for my motivation. Did anyone even READ my post Saturday? (Well, 25 of you…) Sunday was this insanely hectic day of going from one thing to the next and doing laundry, cleaning, making dinner in between… I collapsed after Margo went to bed. Anyway, excuses.

It sort of made me think about what my motivation is for doing this daily blogging thing. At many times in my life I’ve been a journaler and it’s been useful in working through stuff I was feeling or going through, but I feel like, only 12 days in, blogging is sort of proving its worth a little.

I like the sharing part. I think my failure to launch yesterday was due in large part to not wanting to blog to no one. I think that’s been part of the issue all along – since I’m so inconsistent I don’t have a strong following.  While I don’t need to be the most popular, branded mommy-blogger in the world, it is nice to have readers and that process sort of reinforces the blogging through comments. And pressure (<- that’s the part I’m less sure about. Never really seeking out added obligations.)

I like the writing freedom as well. I’m a writer by trade, and I don’t have freedom in that. I’m very constricted in the style and topic. I like it, I’m okay with it, but I also have more to give and it’s nice to share that. At times the blank post is maybe TOO free… but like I said, the process of coming up with good topics IS, in fact, becoming easier the more I do it. Just like they said it would!

It’s nice to have my own little space. Even though everyone CAN/COULD do it, not everyone does. And the process makes me have more respect for those of you who do have the branded, professional looking mommy (or otherwise) blogs because HOLY CRAP when do you do it? While I’m not as overwhelmed as I assumed I’d be doing this daily, it’s a commitment.

I’m sorry, I know you were all like “NO POST FROM JAMIE ON SUNDAY!? What every shall we DO?!” Or not. But thanks for sticking with me anyway 🙂

Whatcha reading?

Weekends are becoming more what they should be around here lately: relaxing. We still have lots to do (soccer practice, and also a crapton of leaves to take care of. Yay Fall.) but we are able to fit relaxation and fun in.

For me, that means reading! And not only audio books (like it was for the past few months), REAL BOOKS. It’s exciting, and this year I’ve developed the habit of diving in to several all at once. At the moment I’m reading…

A Storm of Swords (GOT Book 3): I’m listening to this one, because I’m a huge baby/whiner about how long they are, and was getting bitter about how much reading time it was soaking up. Well, trading that in for a cool 47 hours of listening… I guess it’s a win? It’s a great book, and I’ve slowed down how much I’m listening.

One for the Books by Joe Queenan: I impulse bought this one after hearing an interview with him on NPR. He’s a brash Philadelphian (his accent was part of the appeal, though it’s not *pleasing* in the widely understandable way that, say, a Southern accent is, something about it makes me miss home.) He’s an author, but this book is about how much he reads (150ish books/year). His reading habits are nothing like mine and at times he is annoyingly flippant about books I like, but it’s making me think and sort of rededicate myself to reading more.

Catcher in the Rye: I am not quite sure why, but I feel it’s time to reread this one. It’s one I’ve read 3 times now, and I’m super excited to crack it open again. I have the copy I read in high school & I was really into underlining stuff and writing in books then. I continued that tradition and it’s sort of a whole different experience each time I read it, and funny to see how time changes what parts speak to me. The first time I fell in love with it (the second time I read it- first time I didn’t really get it, I think), I was 2 days into studying abroad in Ireland (10 years ago… how can that be?) Something about it, even though it’s not about being a stranger in a strange land or any of the things I was feeling, takes me back to those feelings. I’m pretty excited to re-re-re-reread it.

Oh, and I am sort of slowly making my way through Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake because I love Anna Quindlen (or bc you know, I am secretly 20 years older than I’ve been letting on?), and Showstoppers! for work, as a writing style to strive for in our next book. I get to read a book for work, that’s pretty cool, right? (It’s pretty geeky though.) Scott and I started listening to Paterno on the way home from DC the other weekend and we’re going to listen together on roadtrips. Really, really loving it so far, and I think most Pennsylvanians/Penn State fans would!

And, I promised myself I wasn’t going to flake out on book club for next month, so I will read the Wedding Gift next! Promise!

Movie Night!

Friday nights usually go a little something like this in our world:

YAY it’s Friday! Wahooo! Ugh, I’m so exhausted.

We’ve settled into this family tradition in the past few months of renting movie on Friday nights. (Sometimes we’ll buy if we are moderately sure we’ll like it and it’s nice to have several to choose from for road trips!) We order a pizza and eat like crap. (In fact, despite having eaten out one night this week, and having leftovers in the fridge, Scott and I were just talking about how we *cannot even consider* just regular leftovers… doesn’t feel right. Friday demands junk.) We snuggle on the couch, turn off the lights and put on our jammies. We let Margo pick which movie we want to watch, though we do often gently guide her based on what we’re in the mood for.

Side note: we do all of this on iTunes these days (since we’re a iFamily…) A few months ago, we took a big jar of change to a Coinstar machine. We turned it into itunes cash. It’s been great to slowly burn through “free money” on iTunes (ie, money we didn’t know we had.) And Coinstar doesn’t take a cut of it if you don’t get cash back & turn the coins into a gift card. We felt super smart, had to share that.

Our (current) favorites are:

The Lion King.This is by FAR the favorite; every time we say anything about a movie the answer is “Lion King!” She loves little Simba (and really, how can you not, he’s so cute, if a little bratty.) She doesn’t seem to understand why Simba’s daddy just falls asleep after that wildebeast herd. Weird. It’s not all that funny, although Timon and Pumba are obviously the grown up draw. Never realized how funny they were watching it as a kid. (Also strong communist themes with Scar. Too academic? Sorry.) This movie does hold a special place in my heart; me and my sister watched it at least daily one summer. Sometimes I recall just watching it until Mufasa died, cause then it gets heavy. Also, little Simba = cutie pie. <- Margo’s words, though tweenage Jamie & Ashley concurred evidently.

The Lorax. I love this one, and was sort of surprised since I never really loved the book or old movie. The addition of some characters & songs made a big difference. I love the message & love the music. My parents watched it with Margo the one night they babysat for us last month and I really would have given good money to see my dad’s face during “How bad can I be” 🙂 Not a real “pro-business” song.

We also own Up, Cars, Curious George, Finding Nemo and Ice Age, and they’re all good but I’d say The Lorax and LK are the big favorites right now. I really like both of her favorites, especially because, OMG you should see her face during the opening scene of Lion King. You know, when all the animals come running. It’s quite adorable how excited she gets. Here’s an impression:

*said with no breaths between words* “look! a tree! An elephant! A baby elephant! A giraffe! Canteloupes! Birdies, mommy, look! A waterfall! Where’s Simba!? Elephants!! Aw, Rafiki and Mufasa are hugging!”

And as much as we love our collection, we have so much fun watching new things every so often. Last week we watched Madagascar 3, might be the most I’ve laughed at a kids’ movie! Margo laughed a lot too, so it was a win. I would totally buy that one.

I have a great list from my Twitter friends on new ones to try but am always on the lookout for new movies to try. We did preview Cinderella last weekend and, well, it seemed so boring. Just not really up to the pace and witty banter standards of Pixar & DreamWorks that we’ve gotten used to (and enjoy as a whole family, not just the kid). I could be wrong, I haven’t watched a princess movie since I was a kid, but I sorta yawned and passed on it.

Anywho, is it quitting time yet!? Thinking maybe Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs or another Madagascar movie tonight! Anyone else do a movie night? What are the faves?

 

Dressing A 2 Year Old Girl: Rules and Lessons Learned

So, some recent convos on Twitter got me thinking about my daughter’s wardrobe… how my views have evolved and pet peeves, and what I’ve learned in the 2.75 years I’ve had to dress her up.

Make no mistake, I love dressing my daughter. She is way funner to dress up than myself, and, cheesy as it may sound, she actually influences my style. To a greater degree than it is cool to admit…

In the beginning, I got an onslaught of little-girly, teeny and (mostly) free/gifted clothes. When they say “It’s a Girl,” it’s like an unstoppable impulse to go buy a tiny pink onesie with something cute written on it. (I remember folding freshly washed onesies reading “Cutie Pie” and “So sweet” just terrified it’d be “ironic” & my daughter wouldn’t be those things and therefore the shirt would be ridiculous… lol.)  I did it, my entire circle of friends & family did it. As she gets older and her personality is becoming apparent and she has real interests and opinions, I sorta don’t feel the same as I used to about some clothing things. I don’t follow a hard and fast set of rules, however these are some of my guiding principles.

My Kid Talks, Her Clothes Don’t*
*usually

My first rule is a strong limit on words on clothes for my kid. When you really start to think about it, uh, she can’t read. If I put her in a shirt that says “Rock Star,” isn’t that a little unfair? (Or maybe just odd?) She doesn’t even know what a Rock Star is, and is that something I want her to aspire to? Ok, that’s a different tangent, but worth noting, little girl clothes are notoriously off in the skanky direction. Not likely to find one that proclaims “I love Science and Math!” or something, you know, that we WOULD want to encourage. This summer I bought/inherited a few plain colored shirts that paired with plain shorts or skirts. It was easy (even a dad can match outfits!) and I wasn’t putting some sort of weird persona on my kid.

I’m not absolute, I did just buy a babyGap shirt the other day that says “Bonjour” and has a cat on it, because she loves “Happy Lion” and cats. Also, a Lifeguard shirt because she’s so obsessed with Lifeguards it just had to be done. So maybe I act as her power of attorney a little on the “if it has to have words, at least let them be relevant” rule. I know a common “I’ll never do that” -> “I totally ate my words and am doing it anyway” issue among toddler moms is “character t-shirts.” I don’t think I ever promised to avoid them altogether; we have a few (mostly Elmo). I have a t-rex shirt and a lion shirt for her for Christmas too, because, well, she loves them! And who can resist that happy moment when you get them something they love and feed an obsession…

Comfort first

Margo has always been a sturdy little lady. That said, the jeans I’m pulling out of the hand me down box now (3T) are the first jeans to really fit her well. The first year it was a joke… she’d been sitting up for several months and I put jeans on her and she couldn’t even sit. (But, they looked SO CUTE. Don’t worry, I didn’t make her wear them.) And last year sort of worked, though I didn’t subject her to them often because I could tell they weren’t comfortable. I have this weakness for babies and tots in jeans, this was a hard, hard concession for me. Don’t let them tell you you won’t grow as a mother, people.

(Aside: I LOVE jeggings on her for this very reason. They look so cute, but they’re more comfy than jeans. See? Oh, and bonus, they’re Circo and cost like $7 on sale. Win Win Win, to infinity. )

Here’s the thing that has come to be a guiding principle for me in the Comfort realm: kids play. She shouldn’t be limited in that because her clothes are limiting her or her shoes. And, in my experience/opinion, girls clothes are far more prone to inhibit play (not ALL, but there are some scary things out there, people.) Shoes are a big thing, in our experience. We’ve had several friends send hand me downs (which we’re so grateful for), so we have shoes to choose from (i.e., we have shoes in our closet that I didn’t pick out…) Several sandals (and even wedge heels…) just didn’t fit her right or she complained about them. At first it was a little sad – these dainty white thong sandals would go perfect with this dress – but then I realized “Dummy, she’s a kid! Throw some Crocs on her and move on.” And that’s the beauty of the hand me down – no guilt when you don’t use them.

Sidenote: do toddlers EVER like thong sandals? Margo wouldn’t tolerate them long enough to get the second shoe on!

Less is More
This is my hardest rule to follow. Even within the strict parameters mentioned above, I STILL always end up with too many clothes. (I know, first world problem.) I have been approaching it from the past year from a quality over quantity standpoint. Many of Margo’s clothes now are going to be worn for several seasons, if not years (like the dress-turned-into-tunic look!) I’ve been getting less at Target and more at Lands’ End and Zulily. I hate the feeling (which I’ve had every single season so far…) of having clothes that we hardly touched, or clothes I really loved that I didn’t feel she wore enough. I’m constantly reminding myself of this one, and breaking this rule. It’s just… freaking girls clothes! Irresistible.

Cute (not sexy)
Sad it has to be said, but there you go. This rule I am holding tightly, rocking in a corner. Will become ever more relevant as she gets bigger (and I like to think I don’t need to be reminded…) Maybe it’s more like a mantra. Or prayer.

So, what are your principles in dressing your little ROCK STAR/DIVA/CUTIE PIE? 🙂