Tag Archives: Walking

Vale at 11 Months

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At this stage in life, it is apparent Vale has opinions about things. She does not like putting on clothes (let’s see how this plays out when the weather gets cooler, kiddo!). She does not appreciate being dragged away from things and “goals” she intends to pursue, e.g. breakable dishes, electrical sockets, bottles of wine, picture frames, etc.

She remains quite social, but tends to be much more charmed and interested by older kids, as opposed to babies closer to her own age. She had a grand time playing with a 3 or 4 year old boy and a couple of 12 year old girls at Crack Shack. They played with giant Legos and made fast friends.

She made her second trip to Mexico (TJ), and accompanied the adults on various taco and beer adventures, where she enjoyed a few bites of taco meat, washed down with yummy Horchata.

She loves toddling around, exploring her environment, and being outdoors. She’s starting to get quite a tan, and mom has restricted direct sun exposure to after 3:00 p.m., especially since she refuses to keep a hat on her head. Her favorite toys are constantly changing, and recently, she enjoys taking things in and out of a small makeup pouch.

She’s eating more and more solid foods, though unfortunately, this includes some junk food, such as cheese balls. Dad got her a gigantic tub of these at WinCo. One questions why these cheese balls only come in a 3 gallon tub, but then you eat one and remember  they are about as addicting as crack. After a stint without cheesy poofs, she will walk over to the container and pound on the lid to demand more.

 

Vale at 10 months

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We went to Maui this month, and Vale proved again to be a relatively compliant little traveler on the plane. However, due to the slight time change and new environment, she woke up twice a night to eat for almost the whole trip. On the positive side – she pooped three times on the toilet, and took one step on our vacation. She loved playing in the pool water, splashing in the ocean waves, and visiting with the staff at Java Jazz cafe/bar.

Over the next couple of weeks after we returned from Maui, she added more and more steps, and we think she’ll be fully walking any day now. She has finally started to be amenable to solid foods once again, and is back to eating avocado. She also likes string cheese, Pirate’s Booty cheese puffs, celery, and unfortunately, cat food.

Her new favorite activities include tearing into the spice drawer and playing with her new alphabet flashcards. She also enjoys playing in the sand pit and turf at Crack Shack while her parents enjoy beers.

We attended a beer and cheese tasting at Alesmith brewing, hosted by our real estate agent, and decided to bring Vale along. She enjoyed a fancy, dry, gouda with excellent flavor crystals. She also tried and liked the triple cream brie, goat, and bleu. Unfortunately, she was not of legal age to pair these cheeses with the recommended Alesmith Nut Brown, .394 Pale, Horny Devil (Belgian), or Speedway Stout, respectively.

 

Tijuana

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So if it hadn’t been for a friend’s baby shower and a close call with mastitis #4, we were seriously considering going to Tijuana for new years with Vale. Add on top the fact she has been eating every hour and a half, and we decided against it, because I didn’t know what kind of TJ activities we could even do with her incessant need to feed.

However, I haven’t given up completely on a TJ trip in the near future, so I Googled “Tijuana with a baby” and was met with the following encouraging headlines:

  • Baby Found Dead in Tijuana, Left By Mom and Boyfriend
  • Mexico’s Bargain Babies
  • US-born Baby Found Dead at Empty Lot in Tijuana
  • …

You get the point. These aren’t the most encouraging links when planning a short trip down to TJ. I get it. TJ probably has a sketchy reputation for a good reason, but I still feel there’s a significant element of paranoia when it comes to Mexico. The odds of something terrible happening on a weekend in TJ is probably extremely low. There are plenty of crime-ridden cities in the United States, but fewer people seem to bring up murder as the first point of discussion when mentioning Chicago or Detroit.

As for us, our primary concern with traveling to TJ with a baby is a matter of logistics. Driving back on the way home is always hellish at the border crossing, which turns a 1 hour drive into a 5 hour nightmare. This is because the War on Drugs keeps border patrol employed and well-paid, cracking down on non-violent violations of the law, and because American immigration policy is full of shit. The border crossing located right on the edge of Mexico is the worst, but let’s not forget that there are border checkpoints all over southern California, as far as one hundred fucking miles north of the border.

Anyway, the government’s barbaric insistence on violating human rights is such that walking, rather than driving, across the border is the transportation method of choice. However, we have yet to figure out what baby items are absolutely necessary over the course of a weekend, and whether it’s possible to minimize our stuff to the point where we can carry these things and walk across the border.

Late Third Trimester Exercise

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Week 35

Monday: Prenatal Yoga

Tuesday: Hiking by our old house. About 3 miles round trip, 45 minute hike, nice view at the top. One of my favorites for a quick hike because of the short distance (didn’t even have to pee once on the hike!) and decent elevation gain.

Wednesday: Weights. Triceps dips, bridge lifts, squats with 20 pound weights, wall sits, low squat jumps.

Friday: Aspired to walk the stairs at the beach, but did not get very far. I only made it 5 times because I was tired and my legs are starting to hit my belly when I take two stairs at a time which is uncomfortable and annoying as fuck.

Weekend: Really tired, did nothing. Walked around Comicon on Saturday to people watch and go to bars for a few hours (and yell at an anti-abortion protester to shut the fuck up) and that was too much excitement for me.

Week 36

Monday: Prenatal Yoga

Tuesday: 3 hill sprints, 2 sets of 13 squat jumps, 25 regular squats

Wednesday: Triceps dips, squats with weights, wall sitting, bridge lifts.

Weekend: Does lounging around the pool in the desert or going clubbing count for anything? Probably not. On Sunday we walked up a hill near our house 3 times, but that wasn’t too intense and didn’t really counter the weekend sloth.

Week 35 Workouts

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Exercising has become a constantly evolving project. I tried doing my regular hill sprinting (6 times) around 30 weeks or so and wasn’t feeling so hot. I felt stiff, crampy, and achy and laid off sprints altogether for about a month. However, I decided to see if I could work them back in and am currently alternating 3 hill sprints with 3 sets of 12-15 squat jumps and a couple of Yoga stretches for a quick workout.

Hiking has become increasingly challenging. In the first couple of trimesters, the cardio aspect was harder, but in the third trimester, I basically have to pee constantly on hikes and really start to wither in the summer heat. I’m still hiking… it’s just a lot less pleasant. We did a 4-mile hike last weekend during which I had to pee twice, thought I was going to melt, and then needed a nap afterwards.

The hill I used to jog is still in the repertoire, but I started walking it twice instead, except for this past weekend, when it was too hot and I walked it once and did three sets of squat jumps instead of the second round. The squat jumps are my all-purpose filler to replace anything I can’t do  comfortably, but those (and squats in general) are starting to be a bit hard on the knees, so we’ll see how long I can keep those up.

I’m still working in some stairs by the beach every week or so. As with the hill, I can’t jog them any more, but I go up two steps at a time and do 8 sets while enjoying the lovely ocean view. Unfortunately, with the increasingly warmer weather, there is more foot traffic at the beach and on the stairs, but for now, this is a pretty reliable workout.

Up until week 34 I was doing one day of weights a week, including some butt lifts, squats with 20 pound weights, wall sits, triceps dips, biceps curls, and shoulder lifts. Weights didn’t happen week 34 just because I was busy doing other stuff, but hopefully not too much has changed in a week and a half and I can resume it as usual this week.

I am doing prenatal yoga once a week, which is still pretty gentle, but as I am able to do less, I might start going twice a week. I still suspect Yoga is the reason my hips are bothering me less in my sleep and is responsible for at least some degree of overall well-being.

A Little Perspective

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I’m not big on frozen desserts, but sometimes I’ll have a couple of ounces of frozen yogurt topped with fresh blueberries, mangoes, and raspberries. My favorite ice cream is Hagen Dazs Rum Raisin, but I probably only buy the smallest sized carton of this once a year, if that. Being a frequenter of Yelp events, I’ve also had the opportunity to taste various craft ice creams and gelatos, most notably and recently sea salt caramel and Himalayan pink salt flavors that were lovely and memorable.

However, we were hanging out at South Street Seaport in New York over the weekend and stopped for refreshments in the heat. I was drinking a juice, and Kyle had a pretty decent IPA. My brother came back to the table with French fries and vanilla soft serve from McDonald’s. I never go to McDonald’s, but if I did, these would be the exact two items I would order. He offered me some of the ice cream cone, which was quickly becoming softer and drippier in the summer heat.

I took a few licks and handed it back to him. Maybe the heat and hours of walking made the soft serve that much more enjoyable. Maybe the section in my Mindful Birthing book about practicing “mindful eating” and paying deliberate, intentioned, attention to texture and flavors during the eating experience had made its way into my subconscious. I suddenly had a realization about how simple, cheap, forgotten, and underrated MacDonald’s soft serve was.

He had a few bites then offered me the rest. As I finished the familiar, melty, sweet, cone, I considered that this fast food classic could easily compete with hipster caramel and exotic pink salt.

Meeting On a Street Corner

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Someone told her there were a thousand trillion neutrinos zipping through her body at this very moment, so inspired

She fluttered down the sidewalk until she was face to face with him and

He pulled her into a kiss on the street corner to mark his territory

Puppetted her with small dances while the warm waves in her veins bubbled to slow vibrations of the skin until

She thought she could fly

In the morning when she has to leave she becomes paralyzed with wrath and decay and remembers the hard plague

Again she is a small ghost in the Californian sunshine, wandering unnoticed, forced to walk to the sound of angry music over and over

Walking

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she worked daily to make him but a smear in her thoughts

when she is drinking iced tea

he appears on the patio sometimes, softened by sunlight and appearing innocuous

when the night air is falling and rippling around her vague intent to conquer and

the Los Angeles concrete is fluid, snaking brightly in the dark

her steps are flight and he is not even a stain on her immediacy

only a crimson shadow in her kingdom of vanity, if he is there at all

but in her sleep

she fears he is the colour of her blood.

A Few Breweries Downtown

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We decided to walk around to some breweries downtown a little while back, and started out at Monkey Paw Brewing,where we did several tasting flights.

Dr. Bill’s ESB was malty and a little sweet. The I-5 Coconut Black IPA was more coconut and less IPA than I would prefer. The Gibbon Back IIPA was lemony and floral. The Low and Slow Smoked Lager was interesting. I’m not usually one for lagers, but decided to give this one a go. It smelled sort of like smoked salmon, and had savory notes with a hint of smoked plum.

For our second flight, we had the Rhubarb Saison, which was fruity, slightly tart, with grapefruit tones. The Dark Side of Paradise, a macadamia nut milk stout, was a big hit with us. It was smooth, velvety, and practically a dessert. The Might Joe Young Stout was another good stout, with an obvious coffee flavor, more of a bite, but still smooth.

Our friends ordered some food while we were here, and decided it was the best Philly Cheesesteak they’d ever had.

Next, we made our way to Mission Brewery. Mission Brewery operates out of a building that used to be the Wonder Bread factory, which gives it a unique atmosphere and a certain charm that sets it apart from other breweries located inside industrial parks. We hadn’t been here in about 5 years, and were surprised to find some major changes to this place. You still have to walk through some pretty sketchy areas of downtown to get here (at one point, our friend saw an entire block of trash, tents, and shopping carts and questioned whether there was an alternative route to get to this place) but once you get in, it’s a whole different world.

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When we came 5 years prior, it was relatively empty and quiet. This time, it was busy as hell, and they’d added more tables, a small store, and opened up an additional area in the back.

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Mission has a great selection of IPA’s, so this was sort of a heaven for me, but if you’re not into IPA’s it might be a bit less exciting. After Mission, we walked to Half Door Brewing, which is located in a converted house. It is adorable, and I’d passed it with curiosity on several occasions in the last year. This was another IPA heaven, and I enjoyed most of the beers I tasted, including House of Hops, the Pale Ale, the Buzz, the Northeast IPA, and the Hoban. My only complaint about this place is that the tasters are a bit pricey for what they are.

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