A Visit to the Doctor

Here are the numbers:
- 6 months old
- 14 lbs, 9.2 oz
- 25th percentile for weight for her "real age" and 50% (average) for her "adjusted age"
- 26 inches long
- 3 shots
- 1 minute of crying post-shots
- 4 oz of formula to calm down
- 8 elevator rides on our way to/from the appointment
- 4 books that Bruce read during the appointment
- 1 emergency bag of fruit snacks to keep Bruce from talking the doctor's ear off about aliens, superheroes, and how strong he is

The Fat Lady Sang, Pigs Flew, And Hell Froze Over

I can now call myself a blood donor.

I've avoided giving blood for a long time for lots of reasons - competitive racing, pregnancy, nursing, etc. - but for awhile my biggest reason was that I simply did not like needles. That's an understatement: I hated/loathed/feared needles. In high school, I had to get a shot for something and somehow kicked the nurse. In college, the coach forced me to get an annual flu shot and I spent the whole day sweating and shaking and stressing over the upcoming needle. One year I hid in the locker room to try and get out of it; that didn't work.

This fear of needles is completely irrational, I know. Most blood draws and shots really are just a pinch, and certainly running is far more painful than that, yet I enjoy it much, much, much more. But the anticipation of having my skin poked by a needle was enough to throw me into a psychotic funk.

My fear of needles was sort of tempered when I was in the hospital pregnant with Bruce. I sat in the hospital for a week with preeclampsia, getting blood draws at least twice a day. I also had an IV put in three different times ("Just a sting and a burn..."). I think after a few days of that I realized that I was just driving myself batty by stressing over the next needle.

I still don't like needles, but I've learned to tolerate them as long as I don't see them. Yesterday when I gave blood, I stared at the ceiling and made a conscious effort to not look around at all the tubes, needles, and blood bags hanging around. I survived: I felt just fine afterward. I brought a pack of Oreos home for Bruce and told him about the blood drive. When Scott got home from work, Bruce told him that I "was so brave."

I don't feel brave, but I do feel victorious.

Spaghetti Sunday, Marathon Monday

I had an awesome weekend: five former cross country/track teammates from BYU showed up for the Boston Marathon. We got together on Sunday night to eat pasta and catch up. It was fun hearing about everyone's kids, jobs, lives. We used to run many miles together and mostly chat about boys and classes. Even though it's been years since many of us have gotten together, it feels like we just pick up where we left off and nothing's really changed except now we have more responsibility in life. On Monday morning, the runners headed out early and we headed over to a friend's place near Mile 24. We ate breakfast, watched live coverage, and I went for a run up and down a part of the course with Breanne. Scott was a trooper: he wore Phoebe and chased Bruce for most of the day while I got my annual marathon fix. Scott is awesome.

Random story about this sweatshirt: I bought it at an outlet store in Ohio for three dollars. When Bruce wears it, everyone always asks Bruce who his favorite player is - of course expecting him to say "Tom Brady" since he's the quarterback. Bruce doesn't even know that the New England Patriots are a football team. So when people ask that question, Bruce replies, "my mom."
Breanne ran at BYU with me and now lives a few hours south of here. She came to cheer, but not to race. See that glow? She's due in October. Laura has been running professionally on and off since college (only "off" when having her two kids). This was her first marathon and she got into the Elite Start with her stellar credentials. She ran great through the half (1:25) and then had problems with stomach cramps to the very end in 3:13. She said it was an awful run, but that the race and spectators and everything else was wonderful. Kristen ran a good race, finishing in 3:00:05. Asked if she was ticked off because of those five extra seconds, she said, "I couldn't have run five seconds faster." She was completely spent.
Jami was so nervous for the race. She checked the weather about every hour on Sunday (chance of showers? cloudy? breezy? It ended up mid-50s, partly sunny, no wind). She started out with Kristen, and then readjusted her pace a few miles into the race. For those of you who have never run Boston, it is a deceivingly hard course. On paper, it looks easy. It's mostly downhill, there are a few hills (although nothing near the ones we ran in Utah!), lots of motivating spectators. But it is a slow course. Still, Jami ran 3:15. Oh yeah, by the way, Jami has three kids under four years old. Where does she find time to train?!Laura, Kristen, and Jami ran at BYU while I was there, but I graduated the spring before Carlee showed up. She ran the 800 meters in college, but has since moved up in distance. This is her second marathon and she ran it in 3:17. Here's the most amazing part: she has a baby that was born four days after Phoebe! There goes my excuse for not running it this year... Ethiopian Teyba Erkesso had a huge lead when she passed us at Mile 24, but had to sprint at the finish. The runner-up was only three seconds behind her then. Still, Erkesso won in 2:26:11 and got to take home the $150K. Robert Cheruiyot blew the old course record away by more than a minute, finishing in 2:05:52. I thought that he'd won this race before, but I was confused. That's a different Robert Cheruiyot, my friend Mithu informed me. Robert Kipkoech Cheruiyot was the Kenyan who won four times before. This year's champ is Robert Kiprono Cheruiyot. Who knew that was such a common name?
After the race, we met up to swap battle stories and say our goodbyes. It was so fun to have a reunion weekend.

Anyone in for Boston 2011?

Stake Center

Our church is constructing a monstrous new chapel, and we are excited. Right now our current congregation meets in a small rented space at an old boiler factory. Scott and I teach a class of seven kids, ages 4-5 (yep, Bruce too), in a classroom that is about the size of a walk-in closet. By the end of church, the room is always hot and smelly and the kids go bonkers from being cooped up with us. Anyway, we are very excited for a bigger classroom in a new big building.
The steeple was supposed to go on top of the church yesterday, so we stopped by to watch the construction. We saw this awesome crane......move the base of the steeple off the truck......but that was the coolest thing we saw. Apparently it takes a long time to set the base just right before the steeple can go on top. So after watching for almost two hours, we left for another Museum trip (update: the steeple went up today and Ellen got pictures of it).Of all the things to do in the Museum of Science, Bruce's favorite is to build droids in a Star Wars computer game.

All About Phoebe

Phoebe is finally getting bigger. It seems like she's really grown in the last two weeks. Most of her wardrobe is still sized 3-6 months, but there are a few items that are 6-12 months too. I tried giving her rice cereal a few weeks ago and it didn't go well. I tried again a week later. She still spit it out, turned her head, and yelped. After the third try, I decided to try something else: sweet potatoes. She lapped pureed sweet potatoes up, and we are now venturing into "solid" foods (although pureed veggies are hardly "solid" in my opinion).
Phoebe is getting into toys now. She shakes rattles, knocks towers of blocks over (much to Bruce's dismay), and likes to spin around in this fancy contraption.
She has crazy hair (these pictures don't do it justice). There is a nearly bald spot on the back with a few really long wispy hairs above it and a long rat-tail below it. Awesome.

All About Big Bruce

My little man is growing up into a big man. He can read simple words and can write his name. The other day, he ate a big lunch and then asked for "tortilla chips with beans, rice, and cheese" an hour later. I think this is a strong Raymond gene expressing itself: Scott eats two dinners most nights.
He tells me that when he grows up, he wants to become a builder and a superhero.
He picks up all kinds of facts from Scott - like how the liver functions, what can go wrong with kidneys, the anatomy of the digestive system, etc. - but he also makes up a lot of random stuff. For instance, he told me he's going to grow robot legs off the bottoms of his feet.

Bruce is a ham; can you tell?
He tries to tell jokes now, but they don't make any sense so then he resorts to making up nonsense words strung together in phrases with the word "stinky" peppered in. For example, "Shoelace stinky-foot muckomateraft soup-nosed stinky." And then he asks, "Is that funny?"
Every once in awhile, Bruce insists on a Pajama Day. He had it at preschool once and I guess he thought it was fun to wear pajamas all day. Last week we had one of these days.
We walked to the park with Bruce wearing his monkey pajamas. Here is Bruce flexing his muscles, in case you're wondering. Bruce woke up the other day and told me he was going to go do 60 push-ups for exercise. I heard him counting and grunting in his room. What a man.
Somehow all those push-ups paid off. Bruce gets the ladies (here he is bear-hugging a lady from church).

Even with his pants on backward.

Bump in the Road

Went to get the oil changed this morning. The mechanic always puts a little air in the tires while he's at it. And that huge metal spike up there is what he found, plugged into the side of my tire. When he pulled it out, my tire made a "sssssssssssssssssssssss" noise for a few minutes.

Who put that thing in the road?!

Bruce, Master Photographer

Bruce found out how to take pictures with our camcorder (which is much more his size than our dino D100).