My little Siena turns 2 months old tomorrow! Every day her cute chipmunk cheeks get chubbier, her arms and legs get stronger, and she's awake for longer periods of time. When she lays on her belly now, she can push up off of her chest and hold her head way up in the air! And she is forever pushing off of things with her legs, always trying to stand when you hold her. I love the way she wraps her arm around mine when I hold her to my chest. I love the way she sleeps so well at night and only wakes up once between 8pm and 6am. I love her big grins and her little coos. I just love everything about her.
Pretty much every time that I think life can't get any better, it does. When I'm holding both Chase and Siena in my lap, the feelings of happiness and peace are so overwhelming that I can hardly contain it. My favorite time of day is when I'm getting Chase ready for his nap, sitting on his bed and rubbing his back while holding Siena in my other arm. Almost every day Chase says, "Mommy has 2 hands: one for Siena, one for Chase!" Actually, I take that back... my absolute favorite time of the day is when Eric and I are both getting Chase ready for bed. All 4 of us sit on Chase's bed and read 2 books together. Berkeley also joins us by taking a quick nap on the rug on Chase's floor. It doesn't get any better than that. Or maybe it will...
I feel like the time that we've lived in Florida has definitely been the happiest time of my life so far. I don't think it's necessarily because I love Florida itself so much (although I do!)... it's more because it seems that I'm finally doing what I was made to do. Being a mechanical engineer wasn't all that bad and I certainly had an ideal work environment with an awesome (Clemson grad!) boss and extremely likable coworkers. But at the end of the day I didn't have that sense of accomplishment like I do now. Being pregnant, giving birth, nursing a baby, teaching a child their alphabet, how to do a puzzle, and even changing diapers is all hard work, but enjoyable, fulfilling work. I love it.
I'm also grateful for the chance to focus on running and competing more. Running is comfortable and it makes me feel like me. I wish I felt as comfortable riding and swimming, but I'm working on it! I've enjoyed checking out my ability as a triathlete, and I hope to do even more of that while we're here in Tampa. I'm still just getting back into shape at this point, but here are my goals/races for the next year:
-Baltimore Marathon relay (with my former coworkers!)- Oct. '09- my leg is 6.1 miles and I hope to finish it in under 50 minutes.
-Alafia 5K- Nov. '09- goal: under 23 minutes
-Fishhawk 5K- Jan '09- goal: under 21 minutes
-at least 2 or 3 sprint triathlons in the Spring '10 (Mad Dog, Escape from Fort DeSoto?) Also, I'm not sure it will happen next year or not, but I'd love to travel up to SC for the Clemson triathlon and for one in Charleston!
-finish another 5K in the spring in under 20:30. My ultimate goal is to break 20 minutes!
On another completely different subject, I just completed Siena's birth announcement collage for her room! I'm probably the least crafty person in the whole world, but I love the idea of these collages. You take all of the cards given to you for a particular occasion (wedding, birth, etc.), cut out a bunch of the key words, phrases, and pictures, and then glue them onto the mat board of a frame and insert a picture from the event in the middle. I did this way back when for our wedding and I made one of these for Chase when he was born. It's nice because what else can you do with all of the cards you receive? You hate to throw them away but it takes up so much space to save them... this way you get to enjoy them forever!
We had several of "end of summer" parties to attend last week... with water slides, which Chase LOVED...
and our own party, which we threw with our neighbors, featured 3 backyard kiddie pools, a slip n' slide, sprinkler ball, and some "red neck pools" brought by a friend! Chase liked those the best!
Chase, Siena and I playing the Handy Manny board game!
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