The Life of a Running Momma: September 2014

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Week 13 Bumpdate

I was bummed this morning because right after Ty left for work I realized I'd forgotten to have him take our weekly belly picture. I tried setting the camera up with a self timer so I could take it, but I couldn't get it to work. So the pictures this week were taken right after dinner. We were going to take them before dinner, but Carter and I were too hungry. We won't have a good comparison to what my belly looked like in the pictures from last week, but it will give us a better comparison to the belly pictures from when I was pregnant with Carter. Back then I took all my belly pictures after work right before going out for a run and then eating dinner and sometimes forgot until after dinner, so that's about right with this week. I'm really more bummed that Carter's not in pajamas. There's something so adorable about him in pajamas for the pictures. The timing also didn't work as well for him cooperation-wise. He didn't want to stop playing to take a picture so we lured him into the frame with a book.

September 30, 2014

Baby's Size: Baby is the size of a peach and should be measuring just under 3 inches, wow, one whole inch of growth in just one week! Baby has fingerprints and is forming vocal cords and teeth!

Weight Gain: I'm up a pound, but with how my weight has been fluctuating I could be back down to my starting weight next week.

Maternity Clothes: When I'm standing or walking around my pants fit great and I can button them. If I'm sitting down, especially in the evening, I get really sore in my lower pelvis where my pants are tight and hit where I assume my fundus is just starting to poke out over my pelvic bone. I feel like I'm constantly playing with my pants, but when I'm sitting down I need a hair tie to loosen my pants and when I'm standing I need them buttoned. If I leave the hair tie in my pants while standing or walking around they slide down and irritate me.

Sleep: This week has been rough with sleep. I skipped my naps all week because I would rather get things done and then took a 2 hour nap on Saturday because I was so tired. I'm not sleeping very well at night. It takes me a long time to fall asleep and then I wake up itching or really hot. Skippy has been messing with me a lot at night. Last night I got so frustrated I went to push him down because he was walking around right by my head and he laid down right as I did, so I accidentally hit Ty in the face. Poor Ty is getting battered during the night this pregnancy. Skippy is seriously driving me crazy! Ty can sleep through a lot of the shenanigans, but I can't

Symptoms: No more cramps and I'm so thankful I have had no bleeding due to my low placenta. I've been really worried about bleeding and probably look like a weirdo checking during my runs. I had a really sore throat on Tuesday so I skipped out on my run and continued to feel awful Wednesday through Friday. It turned out Carter and I both had colds. Let me tell you, it's true what they say, being sick when you're pregnant sucks so much more! Pretty much every morning I woke up and had dry heaves. I also had dry heaves on a couple of runs. I think it is due to drainage from the cold and also because my allergies are in full force right now. Carter and I are both sneezing a lot!

Running: My weekly mileage this week was piddly at 7 miles. I had a cold and opted out of running Tuesday through Friday with my first run back on Saturday. That really hurt my weekly mileage, but I think it definitely led to me feeling better sooner so it was worth it! I finally got in gear with planks and did 3 sets of 30 second planks. I do forward facing and each side. After starting it I forgot for a few days. I need to get into a good routine of doing them every day. They really helped alleviate back pain for me during my pregnancy with Carter.

Food Cravings: Mustard is still my food love right now. I finally had a strange food combination during pregnancy when I dipped broccoli in mustard. Maybe it's normal for some people, but not for me! I've also been craving fish, specifically tilapia, all week long. Unfortunately Ty won't touch fish, so nothing has come of that craving. That makes me want it even more!

Food Aversions: I ate scrambled eggs this weekend and it went over really well! Then I bravely put some spinach on my sandwich today with no problems! I'm so excited, but even with those 2 aversions conquered I'm still not interested in trying BBQ. Just the smell of it makes me queasy still.

Movement: Only 3 more weeks until our next doctor's appointment. The weekend of our gender reveal with Carter was the weekend I felt him move for the first time. Knowing I'm potentially close to feeling this baby move is soooo exciting!

Best Moment of the Week: Feeling better on Saturday and being able to run again! A cold when you are pregnant with a toddler who is also sick is just a bum deal. Also watching Carter play with the other kids at the weenie roast was so much fun. Seeing siblings play so nicely was so cute and gets me excited every time!

Currently Loving: Thinking of ideas for baby's gender reveal in a few weeks. I'm definitely reusing the stuff I saved from Carter's party. It's exciting to think in just a few short weeks I'll be able to refer to the baby as he or she rather than he/she or it!

Miss Anything: I saw pumpkin beer at the store and I was a little bit sad I couldn't have one. And I really do mean one. When we got those last year I only drank one, but it was so much fun to sit outside in the cool autumn breeze with our orange Halloween lights glowing while sipping on a pumpkin beer. It felt so festive.

What Big Brother is Up to This Week: Carter enjoyed his first hayrack ride. He's also been a stool bandit, carrying a stool around to reach high places. Two of his canine teeth have popped through and now we're just waiting on those other 2 to make their appearance. He had a cold along with momma and was snotty and sneezing, but is feeling much better now! My Week 13 Bumpdate with Carter .

Monday, September 29, 2014

Weekly Learning Theme: Fall

When I saw Tuesday of this past week was the first day of fall, I planned on fall as our weekly learning theme. Then I started to worry that there wouldn't be enough fallen leaves for all of the crafts and projects I wanted to do. Much to my excitement and surprise when we got home on Sunday evening after being gone all weekend I noticed there were quite a few leaves on the ground. Not enough to rake and make a pile, but enough to collect for our projects. So I went ahead with our fall learning theme although I was a little bummed it was too early to rake a big pile of leaves. We'll just do that later on for fun.

Listed below are the objectives I am focusing on for the themed weeks. The highlighted objectives are ones Carter received exposure to during our theme this week:

Know the names of and be able to point out body parts.
Know names of objects and be able to point to them when asked.
Sort objects based on size or color/Match like objects together, for example match a circle with a circle.
Play make believe.
Speak in short phrases and 2-4 word sentences. (He's done some 2 word sentences already!)
Follow simple instructions.

Activities/Movement:

The first thing we did after reading a couple books about fall was go on a leaf hunt. We did the leaf hunt in our front yard. I took Carter outside with a plastic pumpkin and searched for leaves. Any leaves we wanted to keep, we put inside our plastic pumpkin. While we were searching I made sure I got a variety of colors of leaves: brown, yellow, and green. Carter had a blast grabbing leaves, throwing them in the air, and watching them blow back down to the ground. He would also grab a special leaf in his hand and run through the yard with it.

Throwing a leaf to watch it float back down.

Running with his leaf.

Finding a good one.

Taking his leaves to the pumpkin.

He noticed the pumpkin was full.

So he put the lid on and we headed inside.

Next we did a leaf sort. Once we got our leaves inside we dumped them all out on the floor in one big pile. I pulled out a green leaf, told Carter it was green, and put it in a separate pile. I did the same with a brown and yellow leaf. I pointed to each of the piles, said the color, and told Carter we were going to sort the leaves. Then I pulled out a leaf, said what color it was, and put it in the correct pile. I asked Carter if he wanted a turn and he sorted about 4 leaves before he started throwing them toward the piles rather than putting them in the piles and then walked off. I asked him if it was okay for me to finish sorting the leaves. He turned around to watch me. I would hold up a leaf, he would tell me the color, and then he even pointed at the pile where it belonged. I was shocked he was still playing along!

Later on we went on a leaf hunt walk. I took Carter in the stroller and we searched for leaves. I was so excited to find some red leaves which are my favorite. We didn't have anything but brown and yellow at our house!
I really wanted to rake leaves into a pile and let Carter play in it, but there weren't enough leaves. I was even going to bring his slide up front and let him slide into the leaves. We'll have to wait a while for that activity!
Throughout the week we collected lots of leaves! We hunted in our front yard, on walks, and on trips to the library. I would point at trees and we'd talk about the colors of the leaves.
Fall is a time for being outside! The weather is perfect and the sun isn't beating down quite as much. We went on a nature hike at a really neat nature trail relatively close to our house. During the hike we were on the look out for leaves and even collected a few to bring home and add to our collection for crafts. I invited Jeremy to come with us and brought along a Wal-Mart sack which I looped through my short's belt loop so we could easily collect leaves as we walked. We planned on taking a short little hour walk, but took a wrong turn and ended up on a trail we'd never been on before. We started to wonder if we were ever going to get back when we'd been walking for an hour an a half. Finally we came upon a map for the trails and realized we were 2.2 miles out and the trail basically just turned and went back so we had 2.2 miles left to walk. Our short little mile or so walk turned out to be over 4 miles! On the way back Jeremy carried Carter so we could make it back sooner because Ty and I had an event to go to and were going to be late. It was still a fun hike although much longer than planned!

Getting some help on a tricky part of the trail.

Jeremy carried Carter the majority of the last 2 miles of our walk.

Craft:

With the leaves we collected in the front yard and then sorted, we created a fall leaf wreath. Carter made red, yellow, orange, and brown handprints which I cut out. Carter caught me by surprise when after his first handprint he started putting his hand down on the paper to make a handprint all by himself. He is getting so independent! Then I cut the middle out of a paper plate and we glued his handprints to the paper plate. I put glue on the plate and showed him how to put leaves on the wreath. I thought he'd have a blast picking out the leaves and putting them on, but he wasn't interested so I ended up doing it. Then I added an orange ribbon loop and hung it over the butterfly suction cup Great Grandma Shupe got Carter so it could hang on the back door. Later on in the week Jeremy came over to watch Carter while I tutored. He said while they were outside playing Carter pointed at the wreath and wanted Jeremy to look at it. It was so cute to hear he was proud of his wreath! I saw the idea for the wreath here.

Carter's adorable wreath!

Leaf rubbings was another leaf craft we did. I put a leaf under the paper and showed Carter how to make a rubbing. He wanted to try and even held the leaf down as he colored, but he wasn't quite able to color hard enough so his didn't work. I did a few more leaf rubbings because he really enjoyed watching and thought it was so cool to see the leaf appear and then I let him color on the page.

Trying to make a leaf rubbing.

Coloring the picture after I made some leaf rubbings.

We made a picture by gluing leaves to paper to make a picture. I let Carter choose the leaves while I put glue on them and then he picked where he wanted them on the paper and I helped him push them down. When his picture was finished he ripped one of the leaves off, silly guy!

Gluing a leaf down on the paper.

Special Snack:

Carter loves to cook so much! One day we made pumpkin muffins for a snack and another day he helped me make pumpkin waffles as part of our dinner. It is so much fun to have him help me make foods. He is such an adorable chef!

Making pumpkin muffins Sunday afternoon at Grammy and Grampy's

Making pumpkin waffles for dinner one night.

Make Believe:

We each picked a large leaf and glued googly eyes to our leaf. Then I glued a popsicle stick to the back and we used the leaves as puppets. I made mine talk to Carter's and asked Carter for a hug which he happily gave it Immediately upon grabbing his to play with he ripped the eyes off and then wanted mine so he could rip the eyes off it as well. He may have been a bit young for this activity, though he thought it was hilarious when I talked to him using my puppet. If I were to do this again at his age I would just make one puppet and play with Carter using the puppet.

Our puppets before Carter destroyed them.

Ripping the eyes off my puppet.

I planned to read the book "Leaf Man" by Lois Ehlert and then play make believe with the leaves and creat different things with them, later gluing a favorite creation to paper. Unfortunately there were 6 holds on the book ahead of us at the library, so we didn't get the book in time to do our activity.

Songs:

I swear most of the fall themed songs I found on youtube were atrocious! I found one I liked and then I found lyrics to Autumn Leaves Are Falling Down. So I sang to Carter and he loved it.

Scarecrow Song:

Lyrics for Autumn Leaves are Falling Down can be found here.

Field Trip/Interactive Experience:

Over the weekend we went to visit Ty's family and on Saturday went to a weenie roast hosted by his Great Uncle Gary. The roast was on their farm and was complete with a bonfire and a hayrack ride. Carter had a blast checking out the tractor, playing with the hay bales, watching the fire, and running around with the other kids. It was the perfect fall day and the perfect ending to our week of fall fun!

Posing with the tractor.

Scaring grasshoppers off the hay bales with daddy.

Ready for the hayrack ride.

Ty snapped some pictures of us riding by before he hopped on.

Books:

I love fall so much and reading books about fall got me so excited. On the first day of fall I told Carter what the day was and then we read a book about fall. It was a great way to introduce it and he loved looking at the leaves in the pictures. I debated whether to include pumpkin books in with our fall books because we will be doing a pumpkin week in October. I decided to go ahead and include a few pumpkin books because it never hurts to re-read books!

Fall Leaves by Liesbet Slegers
Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert
Fletcher and the Falling Leaves by Julia Rawlinson
The Runaway Pumpkin by Kevin Lewis
Mouse's First Fall by Lauren Thompson
It's Fall by Linda Glaser
It's Pumpkin Time by Zoe Hall
Duck and Goose Find a Pumpkin by Tad Hills
Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf by Lois Ehlert
The Little Yellow Leaf by Caroline Gerber
Spookley the Square Pumpkin Colors/Numbers by Joe Troiano
Fall Leaves Change Colors by Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld
Sam the Scarecrow by Sharon Gordon
Clifford's First Autumn by Norman Bridwell
Fall Leaves Fall! by Zoe Hall
The Legend of Spookley the Square Pumpkin by Joe Troiano

Thursday, September 25, 2014

Weekly Learning Theme: Movement

I'm posting this one really late because I was too excited after our appointment on Monday to wait to announce our pregnancy and really wanted to post all the bumpdates as well. I had so much fun with our theme last week. There were so many activities to do and Carter had a blast with all of them. I'm going to share the activities we did throughout the week, highlighting what area they fit into: field trip/interactive experience, crafts, songs, make believe, movement, and special snack. I will also share our book list for themed-related reading throughout the week.

Listed below are the objectives I am focusing on for the themed weeks. The highlighted objectives are ones Carter received exposure to during our theme this week:

Know the names of and be able to point out body parts.
Know names of objects and be able to point to them when asked.
Sort objects based on size or color/Match like objects together, for example match a circle with a circle.
Play make believe.
Speak in short phrases and 2-4 word sentences. (He's done some 2 word sentences already!)
Follow simple instructions.

Activities/Movement:

We practiced jumping, hopping, and skipping. I would do each and then ask Carter to do it. His version of skipping was hilarious. He basically ran with a little hop thrown in every few steps. I was pretty impressed he was able to even semi do it. I didn't think he'd be able to attempt skipping as I always had a few 1st graders who couldn't skip.
Carter also practiced swimming during our trip to Florida. He also enjoyed some time in a floaty, kicking his legs.

We ran races down the hall. I would say, "On your mark, get set, go!" and we would take off down the hall. Carter sure loves to run! This weekend we were visiting my parents and their neighbor kids were outside playing. The little girl ran races with Carter down the sidewalk and they'd even hold hands and run. At one point he kept running after we'd hit our turn around spot. I told the little girl to turn around and Carter would follow her. Instead she yelled, "Carter I'll never leave you behind!" and took off running toward him. So cute!

I held Carter while I hopped, skipped, and jumped. I wanted him to feel what it was like and I also verbalized what I was doing with my body as I did each of the movements.
I took Carter on stroller runs and wagon walks.

Enjoying a wagon walk to the library with Jake.

We sat on the floor and rolled a ball to each other. I talked about how we were pushing the ball and how the ball was rolling.
Carter did his puzzle with the words "over, under, up, and down" with pictures to show each word. I also used these words a lot throughout the week as we played. We practiced over and under with chairs, tunnels, equipment at the park, etc.

We played up, down, side to side. I hold Carter and swing him down while saying "down", then swing him back up while saying "up", and when he's down low swing him side to side while saying "side to side". He thinks it's hilarious.
I got out a mat we bought a while back at a garage sale and we practiced moving on it. I would ask Carter to go across the mat while doing different motions and he would do it. I was quite surprised. I said, "Hop across the mat." and he did. Then I said , "Roll across the mat." and he tried. I was surprised that after all those months of exclusively rolling he wasn't super great at it and mostly scooted across the mat while laying on his back, using his legs. I showed him how to do a somersault and then helped him do one. He thought it was a lot of fun and wanted me to keep doing it. So we did it for a while. After we'd done that for a while I let Carter do whatever he wanted and he spent most of his time running from one side of the mat to the other.

Attempting to roll across the mat.

Crawling across the mat.

More "rolling" across the mat.

I pulled a 2x4 Ty had laying around in the garage to use as a balance beam. Carter immediately went to it and walked with one foot on the beam and one on the floor. I showed him how to do it with both feet on the beam. Then he alternated between doing it with one foot and doing it with both feet. He was cracking me up! We started with it on the carpet and then moved to the linoleum in the kitchen. I was kicking myself for not starting in the kitchen because the board wobbled on the carpet so he lost his confidence and didn't want to do it with 2 feet anymore once we moved to the linoleum where it didn't move.

Craft:

I cut a piece of paper to fit in our small, square cake pan and put a marble coated in finger paint on the paper. I showed Carter how to roll the marble in the pan by putting his hands on each side of the pan and slowly lifting one side at a time. He had a blast doing it although he sometimes grabbed the marble and manually moved it. I would ask Carter which color he wanted to use and he would tell me which color he wanted next. I was so impressed to hear him verbalize the color he was looking for. If I point to something and ask what color it is, still nothing. But when Carter wants to express what color something is or what color he wants, he knows the colors. It was so cute to hear him say "geen", "boo", "puble", "red", "bink", "ownj" (this goes for both yellow and orange), and "brah". Initially I tried to dip the marble into the paint container, but after dropping the marble into the orange container and having to fish it out, I came up with the idea to roll the marble in the paint on the inside of the lid after taking the lid off. It was much more efficient.

I want "geen"!

Rolling the marble the special way.

Grabbing the marble to make the tracks on the paper.

The finished project was so cute!

Special Snack:

We did a scavenger hunt for Carter's snack. I took pictures of 5 different places in our house and printed a scavenger hunt sheet. I numbered the pictures so we would go in order, starting in the kitchen and ending in his bedroom. Then I put small snacks in 5 different containers and put them on the item in the picture. I used raisins, Cheerios, graham cracker, cut up strawberries, and cheese as the snacks. I put the cheese on the last item because I knew once he found the cheese the game would be over! I figured I would have to help Carter with the first couple of pictures before he got the idea, but I told him I had hidden snacks for him and we had to find them. I handed him the scavenger hunt sheet and pointed at the first picture of the car. I asked him where it was, he exclaimed "car!" and took off for his car. The next picture was harder for him because he didn't recognize it so I walked over by the counter, showed him the picture, and asked him where his next snack was. He got so excited each time he found his snack and would dance around and squeal. I thought he'd eat his snack as we went to the next spot, but he wanted to sit down and eat his snack before moving on. He recognized his toys I'd used in the pictures, but I had to help him with the other places in the pictures. I'd walk to the room where the item was, show him the picture, and ask him where his next snack was. He started to lose interest a little bit at the end, but once he realized the snack was cheese he was very excited. Carter loved this activity and it was so much fun to see him get excited. I think 5 places on the hunt was too much for him and would go with 3 next time I do it. There are so many ways to make it more challenging for older kids and to change it up to go with different themes. We will definitely be doing a scavenger hunt again!

The scavenger hunt sheet.

Studying the sheet.

Finding his first snack.

Eating his first snack and figuring out where to go next.

Discovering his 3rd snack.

Found his strawberries, the 4th snack.

Checking out the last spot.

He found cheese!

So excited for the cheese!

Make Believe:

We read numerous different books about how animals move. On each page I would act out how the animal moved, pretending to be that animal. Sometimes Carter would do the movements along with me, sometimes he would just watch and laugh. It was so much fun!

Songs:

This week I used songs on CDs we owned more than I utilized Youtube. We listened to Move and Freeze and Watch Me Listen off the CD Brain Boogie Boosters by the Learning Station and Becky Bailey. Carter really liked Move and Freeze. He would dance during the music although not doing the movements the song asked for and then would freeze in place when it said, "freeze". We also danced to Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes off the CD 100 Sing Alongs Vol. 2. Another song we danced to and Carter loved was Tooty Ta from the CD Dr. Jean and Friends.

Upside Down by Jack Johnson:

Shake Your Sillies Out by Raffi was his ultimate favorite:

Field Trip/Interactive Experience:

One of our field trips was going to different playgrounds. While playing I really talked up the movements Carter was making. I talked about how he was crawling through the tunnel, climbing over the stairs, walking under the equipment. Carter enjoyed bouncing on the teeter totter toys.

Playground fun!

Bouncing on a toy.

Another field trip was to the Children's Museum. Carter had a blast going through the tape tunnel. We took some foam toys and made a balance beam for him to walk on. There is a whole section for different movements using toys on a half-pipe. Carter bounced on a ball, slid down the side of the half-pipe in a toy and on his stomach, balanced on a special toy, and ran all over the place!

Crawling through the tape tunnel.

Bouncing on a ball in the motion area.

Walking on our balance beam.

More tunnel fun.

Books:

We had a lot of fun with the movement books. With most of the books we got up and did the movements in the books as we read the pages. Carter especially loved the Heads, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes books! Any chance he gets to point to his nose makes him very happy!