Tag Archives: Baby Stuff

Kettle Bells, 11.5, Jacked Annie…

It’s been harder and harder to motivate myself to get into the gym this past week or so. By the time 430/5pm rolls around, my energy feels pretty much zapped. Thankfully, Nikki runs an 830am class over at 609, so I am going to try to get over into that one while I have energy in the morning.

Thursday, 4/21/2011

Ah, kettle bells. So much fun every time! This WOD was quick, but ouch, it had me breathing hard…

  • 1 Turkish Get Up
  • 5 kb snatches lt side
  • 1 Turkish Get Down
  • Repeat other side
  • 1 Turkish Get Up
  • 5 kb clean and jerks lt side
  • 1 Turkish Get Down
  • Repeat other side
  • 1 Turkish Get Up
  • 5 kb OH squats lt side
  • 1 Turkish Get Down
  • Repeat other side

Time: 3:34 with a 1.5 pood KB.

 

Friday, 4/22/2011

Ah, 11.5… this crap is almost over… can’t wait.

AMRAP(20)

  • 5 power clean @ 145#
  • 10 toes to bar
  • 15 wall ball @ 20#

I managed to squeak out 5 rounds + 15 reps. The toes to bar ate up most of my time as I am still learning the skill. Good times.

 

Wednesday, 4/27/2011

WOW, it felt much better to work out at 830am. I had energy and was able to be fully engaged (rather than “I am tired and want to go home”…). At this point, with the way life is @ home, I think that this time might work a lot better for me.

Before we got to the WOD, we did 25 strict ring pull ups. Not fun, but love that fact that we are building some strength.

“Jacked Up Annie”

50 – 40 – 30 – 20 – 10 {Double Unders / Jack knife sit ups @ 20#}

This took me 11:54. Not a great time, BUT, I did my first set of double unders unbroken!!! I have never done that many before, so that was a huge plus.

After the WOD we did some back squats. I had a hard time with these as my left elbow is hurting. I need to have it looked at… sigh. Don’t leave your 20’s kids. It’s no fun.

 

In other news, we are SO ready to have this baby! V’s due date was this past Saturday (4/23) and my parents only have a few more days here (leaving 4/30). I know that the little guy/girl will come when he/she is ready, but waiting like this has been the hardest part of the entire pregnancy. Hopefully, he/she will decide that they would like to come out and meet everyone sooner rather than later.

Baby Update

Time is flying by SO quickly. It seems like just last week I got an MMS sitting in a hotel room in Nashville, TN of a positive pregnancy test.

Now, there are about 12 weeks left until we get to meet little Alexander or Brenna. Whoa.

Things are mostly ready, I would say. We have most of the major stuff. Crib, dresser, glider, clothes, diapers, strollers, toys… and we haven’t even had the baby shower yet. I cannot believe how nice people have been with giving us things that they no longer needed. Believe me, it’s a HUGE help for us and I can’t even begin to describe how helpful this all is. Thank you all so much for your various donations.

One of our good friends is planning a baby shower for V at the beginning of March, so I assume we will get a lot more of what we need then. One of my good friends asked if he could throw me a diaper party. Although I have never heard of this, I welcome anything that people want to do for me =) I consider it good karma. I try to do good things for people so, I never refuse an open invitation for help.

Our Bradley classes are going very well. I am learning SO much about so many things that I have never thought about or considered. I will say that opting to do a natural birth (and, I’m talking about a REAL natural birth, not what you refer to as “natural birth” while in a hospital… that isn’t a natural birth, that’s just you not getting drugged, but that’s another blog all together) has been a very enlightening experience and oddly empowering. To be able to know everything about the process and be able to know when certain things are MEDICALLY necessary and when they are not really helps to make this whole process a bit more comfortable.

In addition to the classes, I am also reading various baby books that talk about labor/delivery and then just overall baby care. Although being a Dad is something I have always wanted and assumed would happen, it literally scares the shit of me to know that I will soon be responsible for another life. The mix of emotions is mind boggling. I am to excited to describe while at the same time terrified that I will do something wrong or make the wrong decision or mess the kid up somehow. I know most will read this and say “don’t worry about it, everything will be fine”, and for the most part, I know it will. These are just my crazy thoughts.

We just had our 28 week appointment yesterday and everything seemed to be fine. The baby’s heartbeat was good and strong. Mama is doing ok too. There’s the general discomfort that goes along with getting bigger and having strain on joints and all of that, but overall, I think she’s doing really well.

I guess we are getting to the home stretch now. Stay tuned!

Just wait…

By now, you know that we are parents to be. We have a little over 4 months to go until the newest Goldstein is born. We get some really good advice, tips, and tricks from lots of people. Obviously, people have had kids before and offer up their words of wisdom and most of the time it’s all good stuff and very much welcomed.

Sometimes, though, the advice is a little ridiculous and sometimes downright negative. Now, I completely understand that lots of people probably don’t even realize they do this but, after hearing some of these things SO many times, it sort of becomes grating. So, because this is my blog and one of the only places that I can vent about stuff like this, here are some things that we hear VERY often that get under my skin:

  1. The phrase “oh just wait until…”. Yes… we know kids do a lot of stupid things and will try our patience and time. We know that they will do this, that, and the other thing. I can’t say that I am fully ready or will know how to deal with every situation as with any new parent, but, really, I don’t need the reminders. My wife doesn’t either. “Oh just wait until you’re in your 3rd trimester and…” … yup. We have read the books. We have talked to other pregnant ladies. It’s not pleasant. We know. If you had said this to me or her at some point, I have smiled and nodded… we hear it A LOT. Of course, *positive* statements that start in “oh just wait…” are more than welcomed.
  2. You being flabbergasted that we are not finding out the sex of the child. While I completely understand that today, everyone finds out what they are having, we don’t want to know. That doesn’t make us bad people or parents. I realize this is hard to understand for some people, but we really want that surprise when the kid pops out and makes his/her grand entrance. While I respect and understand your decision TO find out what you are having so that you can paint your nursery or buy clothing, please respect mine and don’t talk down to me about it. I don’t need your attitude. 
  3. You acting like we are committing heresy by wanting to have a natural childbirth in a birthing center. Hmm… let’s see. Humans have been around and reproducing for how long? If you are talking about humanoid type things, 2.2 MILLION years. If I want to be generous and just talk about homo-sapiens (us), that’d be about 200,000 years. How on EARTH did those women back then even give birth without doctors, epidurals, drugs, un-natural positions, and a gigantic medical industry pushing interventions on them?! How?! Please, someone tell me how. Now, you are going to tell me that I am being “crazy” or “irresponsible” for having my child in a MEDICAL FACILITY where my wife is free to move about and deliver in a position that is best suited for her. Perhaps you are the crazy one for just going along with what everyone tells you is “best”. If you’d like to have a discussion about the merits, benefits/detriments to birthing here, there, or over there, that’s perfectly OK, but again, please, don’t talk to my like I am out of my damn mind OR go the sarcastic route with phrases such as “well, good luck with that”, or “yeah, we will see how THAT goes”, or “you will be screaming for an epidural”. Granted, this is a completely new frontier for us. It’s our first baby. I know that you think since you have had a few, that you can be a bit high and mighty. Maybe you tried to have a “natural” childbirth in a hospital and didn’t turn out all that well for you. Stories of that sort are certainly welcomed. The more information we have, the better. But this “well, I did that and it was the worst ever and I will never do it again and I would get the epidural a week before delivering and you are nuts”, well, it really just makes me not want to talk to you.

I am trying really hard to not sound like a jerk here. I don’t want to turn anyone off from giving us advice or helping us though the experiences that they have had with all of this. I am POSITIVE that as we go along we will have TONS of questions and will want to hear how different people have done things.

I guess in a nutshell, what I am trying to say here is “if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all”.

If you know something that you think we will greatly benefit from, please, by all means, let if fly. But, if all you want to do is criticize, tear down, and tell me just how much worse it can get/will be, please, don’t say anything at all.

Back for WOD #2 of the week. Feeling a bit sore from Monday, but that’s cool.

Warm-Up

  • 500m row
  • 10 box jumps
  • 2x (12 GHD/Back Ext, 10 KB Swings @ 1.5 pood)
  • 2x (5 dead hang pull ups, 6 HSPU (Blue + Green Bands))

WOD

15 Minute AMRAP

  • 3 burpees
  • 6 power cleans (95#)
  • 9 sit-ups (this was supposed to be K2E, but they hurt my back)

I got in 11 rounds + (3 burpees & 1 power clean). The Rx on the power cleans was 135#, but I am not there yet. I did every one as consciously as possible keeping really good form. I REALLY don’t want to hurt myself again. All in all, I felt really good during this WOD.

In other news, I felt the baby kick for the first time this week! Although V has been feeling it moving around a ton, I finally got to feel the little thing kick my hand! How cool was that!

We are making lots of progress in getting ready Xander/Brenna’s arrival. Jason, from CFCP was awesome enough to help me pick up the dresser and crib that bought from Babies R Us. Thankfully, the dresser was already assembled. I hate building drawers. Anyway, since we got the dresser and the closet all done, V has been washing all of the baby clothes that have been donated to us by friends, sorting them, and getting them ready to go. Yes, I know we have a long time to go, but hey, I feel the more we get done sooner, the less we will have to worry about later. Some think we are nuts for doing things so early, but I don’t care.

I am going to wait until my parents are here during the week of the 11th to put the crib together with my dad. It will be some nice father/son building bonding time.

We are working on finishing our Christmas shopping. I remember how much I used to spend on gifts for people and really, I wish I could still do it, but sadly, I can’t buy the way that I used to anymore. This year, I am trying to focus on buying people stuff that they will actually like while trying to keep within a pretty strict budget. Between V and myself, we have a lot of people to buy for.

Back At It

Lots has happened since the last post.

I went to open gym this morning and wasn’t sure if I would workout with the group or not. I ended up being in a group with the Goldbergs, Mike Tillman, and Sonny. It was a great reminder that CrossFit is customizable and modifiable for any fitness level, injury, etc. Nikki (I know I will regret saying this at some point) gave us a really easy WOD. Now, I say “easy” because I couldn’t Rx the KB swings. I am keeping it light due to my back still healing. We started off with a warm up, which really got me breathing hard. Being away SUCKS. After the warm up, we went outside and did some more stretching/sprints, then came in and broke up into teams of 5 to complete:

  • 3k row
  • 300 KB Swings
  • 300 push ups

Our team got it done in just under 13 minutes. After that WOD, we went outside and did some Tabata running and squats. Lastly, we came inside to do 5 minutes of fun which didn’t feel so great. Still thought, it was good to get back in there and move around.

In other news, I was finally able to finish the shelving in the closet in the baby’s room. Here are some pics:

Finished closet:

photo 1

I had to borrow Matt’s dremel tool as I needed to make my own notches to inset the hanger rod clips into these 16″ brackets. FYI, if you ever go to Lowes to look for this kind of shelving, understand the Rubbermaid makes 2 lines, HomeFree (for closets) and FastTrack (for pantries and what I bought). If you want like, accessories, hanger rods, etc, you need to get HomeFree, but then you are stuck with 12″ depth shelves. I wanted to get as much out of the closet as possible, so I bought 16″ depth shelves. Well, the brackets for the 16″ selves DO NOT have the extra notch needed to put the hanger rod clips in. COME ON.

So, talking to my dad about it, he thought a dremel could be used to cut the notches in myself. He was right and it worked just great. I added the zip ties for a little extra insurance that they don’t fall out:

photo 2

Lastly, it’s days like this that I wish I had a pickup. I got a call from Babies R Us that the crib has come in, but I am not sure if it will fit in my car. Also, we bought a new dining room table last night which came at a really great deal, but I can’t fit the box that has the tabletop in it in my car. Argh. I hate nothing more than asking people for help. I feel terrible asking people who have pickups to help me out, but I am lucky that I have nice friends that are willing to do it.