Grocery Shopping

Gobble Gobble

Happy Thanksgiving! Just a quick update of our day. This morning we took Charlie and Finn for our own family Turkey Trot. We ran 3.2 miles and it was great. This has been the farthest I've run since the marathon in July of 2010. I have been slow getting back into running but I really want to be careful not to hurt myself again. I was surprised at how good I felt on the run. It gives me hope that soon I will be running 8-10 miles on the weekends again.

When we got back from the run Charlie wanted to play in the back of the truck. I took the opportunity to get a quick video of her :)

gobble gobble from Jennifer Rutz on Vimeo.

Finn is doing really well. I weighed him on Tuesday and he weighs 14 pounds 10 ounces. Charlie weighed 12 pounds at 3 months so he is growing like a weed. Overall he is doing great. I just wished he would sleep for longer stretches at night.

We went over to Adam's parents house for dinner this afternoon. It was a great, laid back day. Of course I ate way too much food but it was so good. Finn was able to take a little cat nap at the end of dinner.



We ended the day by watching the Miami Dolphins lose to the Dallas Cowboys. I am not much of a football fan but Adam LOVES the Dolphins (which is difficult considering their win/loss record over the past couple years). It was a good game and Adam really enjoyed being able to watch it on television because it is usually not televised in this area.
I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. My day was as close to perfect as they come.

Failed Potty Training Attempt #1

We have not been pressuring Charlotte to be potty trained. For months now, before her bath she will go to the bathroom in the "big girl potty". There have been a few times when she has come to us and let us know she needs to go potty. When she is swimming she will get out of the pool, go the the corner to poop (in her swim diaper) and won't get back in the pool until she is changed. She has yet to poop in the big girl potty. We don't pressure her and actually are not very consistent about asking her if she needs to go to the bathroom.

A friend of mine has a daughter a few months older that Charlotte. One day this past summer Elizabeth told her mom that she no longer wanted to wear her diaper. From that day on she Elizabeth has been potty trained. This included a 6 hour car ride to Vermont with no accidents.

I had also read a blog where the author's daughter (again a few months older than Charlotte) woke up one morning and said she wanted to wear her big girl panties and went the day without having an accident. This got me thinking. Charlotte didn't have any big girls panties.

I wasn't fooling myself. I didn't think Charlotte would be potty trained over night but I thought big girl panties might give her some motivation. So this morning I went to Target and bought a package of princess panties. I have tried to steer Charlotte away from princesses but I have given up. She loves them. I brought them home and we opened them together. She unfolded each one and seemed very excited. She then had to try on each pair. Finally, she decided that she needed to wear all seven pairs at once.

Charlotte had already pooped earlier in the day and usually only goes once a day so I wasn't worried about her pooping in them. Adam and I told her at least 25 times that princess don't like to get peed on and she needed to let one of us know that she needed to use the bathroom. I was half expecting her to pee in the panties but thought no big deal.

After about 20 minutes of wearing the princess panties Charlotte told Adam she needed to poop. He went to the bathroom and got everything set up for her to use the potty. When he took off her panties she had already gone! There was poop EVERYWHERE! I was taking a shower upstairs so Adam was stuck with the mess. I found the situation kind of funny. Adam however was not amused. And Charlotte wasn't even phased.

At least we tried, right?

More Pictures

This blog is quickly becoming more about Charlotte than it is about me! Oh well, I wanted to share some professional pictures we had taken a few weeks ago. This photoshoot went much better than her newborn photoshoot even though it was 95 degrees and very humid. Charlotte did great and the photographer was awesome. The pictures were taken at a park near our house. Here are some of my favorites:

Weekend Recap

Saturday we took Charlie to get her 6 month pictures. We went to JCPenney and I had a coupon so it was quite inexpensive (I thought). Here are a few of our favorites:

Saturday was also our two year anniversary. Costa Rica doesn't seem like two years ago but what is even more unbelievable is that I have known Adam for 5 years! We celebrated by going out to dinner at a sushi restaurant we both like. It has been a long time since we went out to dinner just the two of us.

Sunday marked the first day of my marathon training program. This past Christmas my sister and I registered for the Missoula Marathon as a gift to one another. We are following the same training plan and yesterday was the first day of training with a whopping 2 mile run. Even though it was two miles it still hurt. My lungs felt like they were going to explode. It looks like I have A LOT of work in front of me.

Neither one of us are running the marathon for time and just want to finish. I am looking forward to virtually training with Heather (although it would be much better if we could actually run together). I know training for a marathon is not going to be easy, especially with working full time and taking care of Charlie. But the good thing is we have a treadmill in the basement. My plan is to run either early in the morning before Charlie wakes up or at night after she goes to bed.

After my run, Adam and I took Charlie swimming. She loves the water and it is so much fun to see her splash, smile and scream with delight. If we sit her on the edge of the pool she will scoot her body off the edge and into the pool. So far the girl doesn't have any fear of the water. I hope it stays that way.

Because she is just so darn cute!

Charlie is 5 Months Old!!!

It's Over

My maternity leave is officially over. Today was my first day back at work. I only worked a half day and it wasn't that bad. This past weekend I was really worried and stressed about the transition but we all survived. I think what I imagined in my head was worse than reality. It also helped that I didn't have to drop Charlie off at day care. For the next two weeks Adam is going to stay home with her in the mornings while I am at work. Then I will have her in the afternoons while he is at work. It will be an adjustment but I think it will work for us. Then, starting February 1st I will go back full time. Adam's mom will watch her in the afternoons. Adam and I decided against day care for now for a couple different reasons. Hopefully this arrangement will work and if not we will go to plan B...although we do not currently have a plan B :)

Charlie is growing like crazy (I think all parents say this). She started rolling over last week and hasn't stopped since. The girl likes to move. She also started eating solid foods last week. We have given her rice cereal which she will tolerate and mashed banana which she LOVES. I think if we let her she would eat an entire banana. I'm afraid she inherited my sweet tooth!

4 Months Old

And it Only Took 15 Weeks!

Today I had a near perfect day with Charlie. Our day contained very little crying, lots of smiles, cooing and even a few almost giggles. She is very close to an all out laugh but is not quite there. The best part of the day was that I was able to run on the treadmill downstairs while she napped upstairs.

I put her down for a nap, quickly changed into my running clothes, grabbed my iPod, and hopped on the treadmill. I was able to run for a full FOUR minutes before she woke up. In the past this would have made me anxious and stressed. But I knew she was tired so I went back up stairs, got her back to sleep and was able to finish my workout.

This routine is something I've dreamt about since we brought her home. I naively thought this was something I would be able to do by the time Charlie was 6 weeks. Oh how foolish I was! Even though it took a little longer to get her into somewhat of a routine, things are really coming together with this whole baby thing.

Today is the first day of the 100 Runs in 100 Days Challenge my triathlon club is doing. I signed up for the silver level which means I am shooting for 80 runs in 100 days. The run just has to be 20 minutes. It is meant to maintain some kind of training base throughout the winter. I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to lose the rest of the baby weight too!

It has taken me a bit to get into running again but I still love it. I did a 5k on Thanksgiving morning while Adam and Charlie did the 1 mile fun run/walk. It was a good run for me even though I was beat by a 7 year old girl! This Saturday I am doing a 5 mile run in Baltimore. I haven't run more than 3 miles since having Charlie so Saturday should be interesting. A lot of people from the triathlon club is doing the race so it will be a lot of fun.

Here is a picture of Charlie from today. She is growing like a weed!

3 Months Old

People told me time would go by fast. Charlotte is 3 months old today. It is hard to believe. Here is a quick recap of photos from this past month.