Posts by ngreene
The Three Stroller System
If someone would’ve said to me before Hudson was born that I would see a need for three strollers, I would’ve called them crazy.
I’ve done I’ll lots of research when it comes to strollers. I know the different brands, I know the different styles, and I know the different uses for which a stroller is beneficial.
The good news, for us, is that we haven’t had to pay full price for any of our strollers. Susie’s father very generously gave us the gift of our travel system, which includes a stroller bassinet, car seat, and travel bag. The other two strollers I was fortunate enough to find on Kijiji for significant savings.
The components of our system are:
1) The Orbit Baby G2 Travel System
2) The Maclaren Volo Umbrella Stroller
3) The Mountain Buggy Urban Running Stroller
The travel system is incredibly important because it is comprised of a car seat that can easily be placed on the stroller base from the car while the baby is sleeping. Orbit Baby is an awesome system, specifically because of the unique locking mechanism that allows you to rotate the seat both in the car (for easy loading and unloading) and in the stroller (to use as an Ad hoc high chair anywhere).
The umbrella stroller is a must-have anytime you will be having your baby in tight situations, such as department stores or tradeshows. We chose the Volo because of its incredible light weight and compact design. Also, it doesn’t hurt that it’s a pretty snappy looking little outfit!
The running stroller is dual purpose. First, as you would expect, it’s great for running! It is very maneuverable and the perfect weight with a side of just the right kinds of adjustments available to customize the experience. Second, because of the large wheels, this is the perfect stroller to take off road. Whether its in the park or on the hiking trail, Hudson gets a nice smooth ride.
N
Read MoreWarm Weather Makes all the Difference
Today is 11° and sunny. I never thought I would describe 11° and sunny as a perfect day, but today, I’m considering it.
We got up and went through our usual morning routine. It’s been so crappy out lately that it hasn’t really been an option for us to go outside of the house just to walk around, but today all of that changed.
I forgot how easily Hudson falls asleep when out on a long walk. The walk didn’t even need to be that long today. He fell asleep within the first kilometer. Usually, I need to keep moving in order for him to stay asleep, but today I had the luxury of sitting in the sun to write this while he slept.
Once he does wake up, it’ll be time to play for little while, then I’ll take him back outside and go for a run in the running stroller.
Read MoreTuesday Routine
When I first went on leave, we started a new routine on Tuesdays.
Every week, We Drive Susie to her office and Hudson and I go to McEwan grocery store while she has a weekly meeting.
I love this place, and I think now Hudson is really starting to love it too. He’s usually asleep when we get there, but he’s always awake in time to see the same cashier every time we leave. He’s all smiles for her each and every week.
Read MoreUpdate – One more Pushup
Devotees of this blog will remember that my training for the upcoming Tough Mudder event includes me doing a single additional pushup every day between when I signed up for the event and the event itself.
When I started this process, I was barely able to do 3 good pushups before having to fight for another three.
Well, after just passing the 60th day of this project, I can confirm that it does get much easier.
I started by doing as many as I could at once, and then repeating until I hit my goal for the day. Eventually, when the number of pushups began to get larger, I needed to group into a number that made sense for counting purposes, so now I am doing push-ups in sets of 10 or 12 depending on the total.
The last time that I tried to do a series just to find out what my total maximum number of push-ups as of today, I made it to 23, but that was a few weeks ago so I’m sure that I could do even better now.
One thing that I really didn’t plan for in this project is the amount of time that it takes to do these push-ups. I mean, by the time I’m done, I may as well be going to a gym and doing a full workout for the amount of time it will take me to do 200 push-ups.
The big milestone that I’m looking forward to is Friday May 11, 2012, which is the day that I will need to do 100 push-ups. On that day I am hoping to do four sets of 25 so I am planning to build up a little better endurance by continually increasing the number of reps per set.
Read MoreNew Play Zone
Since we have all hardwood floors, we decided to invest in some foam interlocking bricks for our living room in order for Hudson to have a proper play area.
At first, I thought it would be a good idea to move all the furniture and have the play area in the middle. Instead, it seems that the better structure is to weave the foam blocks around our furniture so that Hudson has areas that he can stand up and shimmy between.
This week we found another type of block that is significantly larger and thicker for the play area. Now, we have almost a full 100 ft.².
The other adjustment that we’ve made is to place a toy box right at the edge of the play area. By leaving the box open Hudson can root through and find all of his toys. This really tends to make a huge mess every day, but we’re having fun cleaning it up anyway.
Read MoreT-Zone 30 Day Challenge … The Results
So, we’ve come to the end of the T-Zone 30 day challenge.
Here is the final video for the challenge:
As you will remember, Susie and I had a bit of a disagreement about whether or not whole body vibration wouldn’t make any difference whatsoever when added to your daily routine. She was firmly in the believers camp while I was extremely skeptical as to whether the technology would make any difference whatsoever.
The only way to determine who was right and who was wrong was to have a challenge. Susie was to do a full workout on the machine every day for 30 days while My role, as skeptic, was to simply stand on the machine every day for 10 minutes.
We made no changes whatsoever to our otherwise eating and exercise regimes. That said, Susie works out regularly, 4 to 5 times per week for at least 60 minutes. I, on the other hand, don’t work out at all.
When it comes to eating, Susie has a regimented diet that she follows whereas I don’t follow any sort of diet at this time.
If you’ve been keeping up with this story, you will remember that, after two weeks, I was down 5 inches across the areas that we measured, but Susie was only down 4 inches and she was a little upset at my progress being better than hers.
Well, the final results are in. At the end of four weeks, I continue to be down 5 inches across those same areas. Susie, on the other hand, has continued to see success, netting a total of just over 9 inches lost in the key areas that we measured.
My best guess, is that the vibration technology works really well to tone and tighten the muscles in the single area that I was activating by standing on the machine with the pelvic tilt. It looks like, I got all of the benefits of standing on the machine in the first two weeks. I would guess that my muscles got used to those contractions and relaxations and I would have needed to change something in order to continue seeing results. Although, I must admit, they’re definitely does feel like there has been additional benefits in areas that we did not measure. For example, my pants fit looser. Not just in the waist, but throughout the seat and in the legs.
Susie’s experience has been different than mine. She saw the 4 inch results after two weeks but then saw an acceleration in her results, netting in the total of over 9 inches by the end of the challenge. That makes a lot of sense to me given that she was causing quite a bit of muscle confusion by doing all kinds of different exercises and varying her routine day by day.
At this point there are two things that need to happen. First, I need to formally and publicly admit that my wife was right and I was wrong in that whole body vibration technology does make a difference.
Second, now that I’ve seen what kind of difference this technology makes, I need to take advantage of it properly rather than just simply standing on the machine.
N
Read MoreStupid Spring
The weather turned on this this week. Since late winter we had been enjoying a beautiful warm season. Now it’s full on back to late winter / early spring.
For a little boy, whose job it is at such a young age to explore and see as much as he can see, this colder weather absolutely sucks.
On warm days, we’ve been able to get out and travel around town. We’ve been to the park, we’ve been out for runs, we’ve been out hiking, and we’ve had plenty of opportunities to sit in the grass and sit on rocks.
We’ve had plenty of opportunities to field new things and see new things and it’s been really easy to keep Hudson’s mind active.
Unfortunately, this colder weather has had a stuck indoors. We tried going out to malls but there’s only so much one can buy.
We need to figure out some sort of system for keeping ourselves entertained indoors.
Read MoreUsing his weight against him
Tonight, we discovered a whole new way of tiring Hudson out before bed.
I’ve mentioned before how relentless he can be when he gets something into his head. The trick to a good night sleep, it seems, is to really tucker him out before bad.
The key, then, is to wait until he gets something stuck in his head and then exploit it. Last night, Sam discovered that Hudson was obsessed with grabbing power cords from behind our couch. It was as easy last night as letting him stand up on the couch then pulling him back down and seating him again on the couch.
Hudson repeated this at least 25 times before becoming absolutely exhausted. Then, it was a simple matter of bringing him upstairs and lying him in his crib.
The result was a full 12 hour sleep that we all enjoyed.
Read MoreFirst Word
Hudson said his first word over the weekend.
At first, we weren’t sure if we could officially say it said his first word. But, as the weekend went on, he said it again and again.
When he first said it, Susie and I both heard it, and we were sure that we had heard it, but we weren’t sure if he had said it with purpose or not. We decided that we would call that his first word if, and only if, he continued to use that word.
The word was “Hi”, which was great because that meant he didn’t have to choose mom or dad, but instead went with an even “hi”, so that neither of us can be offended.
He has now said “hi “on at least a half-dozen occasions. He won’t do it on demand, like a circus seal, but when he feels it’s right, he throws out a “Hi”.
Read MoreHe is Relentless
Hudson has reached a stage where he is starting to be mobile. He is officially crawling and he goes after anything that he can reach.
I’m not sure if all kids are like this, or of its because Susie and I are the people that we are but, when this kid set his mind to something, he is absolutely relentless.
He is obsessed with electronics. I’m trying to figure out if its the fact that it’s electronic, or if it’s just that he sees Mom and Dad focused on those devices and he wants to be part of it.
In any case, it’s now a full time job to play defense against the things he goes after. We can no longer have power cables lying around. Actually, I think I’ll need to go about baby proofing our entire house really soon.
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