Guest Post from Erika: Shannon is my hero (again)

So, today I ran for the first time since my half marathon in November 2010. Ok, I *jogged*. It was PAINFUL. My body went through all the stage of grief. First, there was denial. My body said: "Are you KIDDING me? What the heck are you trying to do???" I felt like I had new, flabby appendages hanging off of my body in my (formerly wee) bust area, my stomach, and yes, I daresay, my buttocks. Where did this stuff come from??? Oh yes, pregnancy.

Once I got used to the new appendages flopping along beside me, my body moved on to anger. "HEY, what about that sore throat you've been complaining about for weeks now? Feel that? And remember that ear ache? POP. How does THAT feel?" And that was just the first four minutes.

When I hit the Nevada Street hill, my body started hard into the Bargaining phase. I quickly agreed to shorten my optimistic three and a half mile run to Twenty Minutes No Matter How Far I Go. This shot me straight through depression into the "acceptance" phase, and I started to get into the swing of things and even feel pretty good. But I sure was happy to see Grove Street in the distance, just as my knees were starting to complain and a cramp started forming in my abdomen. 20:15. Not bad for a first try.

Well, we all have to start somewhere. And I would immediately quit except that I have promised my dear friend Shannon that I will run the San Diego half marathon with her on June 3. Before I met Shannon, I had run exactly one mile. I remember it well. In high school, I agreed to join my (incredibly fit) father on a jog around our block, which was approximately one mile. I made it, but when I got home I collapsed on the kitchen floor and swore off running for ever more.

Fast forward a few years to when the luck of the draw landed me in a dorm room with a Rower (Shannon). Our shared alarm clock went off most mornings at 4:30am and after a while I capitulated and joined the crew team since I was waking up anyway. But the thing about the crew team was that you had to run. A lot.

After the first excruciating group run, I decided crew just wasn't for me. But Shannon encouraged me to stick with it for a few weeks longer. She would take me out on training runs, patiently running with me at my incredibly slow pace for a mile or two, and then take off on her own (much faster, much longer) run. If it hadn't been for Shannon, I never would have become a runner, I am certain. And I certainly never would have won the national rowing championships with her a few years later. Or moved to Buffalo, New York. But that's another story.

Thank you, Shannon, for helping me be a better person, for reminding me that my kids will benefit from a healthy, happy mommy, and for being the best friend and college roommate a girl could EVER hope for.

Karolina is three months old

Let's see. Not a whole lot has changed in the last month. Except that she has recently developed an Iron Grip. Seriously, don't dangle any loose folds of skin near this one -- once she has a grip, she does not let go.

Here is a picture of Peter when he was her age. IDENTICAL!!! Right down to the angle of their little ears.

In Other News

Karolina is catching up to me. A check-up yesterday revealed that she is now 14 lbs, 12 oz, and 24 inches long. Even her head grew! 15 and 3/4 inches! She's a big girl, but I'm still ahead...for now.

Guest Post from Erika: The Motherhood Olympics

This post is dedicated to all the single mamas out there -- I don't know how you do it. I'm only a single mama a few nights a week, and most of those nights I feel like I am competing in the Motherhood Olympics just feeding my children and getting them to sleep.

My friend Tina, who is not a single mama, but is FULL of extremely useful information and advice, always leaves a tip for me on her voicemail messages and I do the same for her. It can be a tip about anything that makes life easier or more enjoyable. My favorite tip was in response to a frustrated rant about some child behavior issue that I had left on *her* voicemail (with accompanying tip, of course). She advised me: when it has been One of Those Days and you are at the end of your rope and you still have to make dinner, just call it a day, make yourself a cocktail, and make breakfast for dinner. Easy, and everybody is happy. l should listen to Tina more often.

In the spirit of good advice, here is my tip for anybody that cooks: READ the WHOLE recipe before you start to make it, or even think about making it. It seems obvious, but I still get myself into a pickle on a regular basis because I ignore this particularly practical piece of advice. This evening was Less Than Pleasant in part due to the fact that I neglected to thoroughly read the darn recipe.

Any of my friends, acquaintances, and yes, even my hairdresser, who put dinner on the table have heard about how my slow cooker has changed my life. It is the only reason my family gets a hot, nutritious meal at least two nights a week. (Thanks, parents, for my new LARGE slow cooker -- life is even easier now.) I recently acquired a new slow cooker cookbook, "Slow Cooker: The Best Cookbook Ever" by Diane Phillips, that has put an astounding number of delicious meals on our table. However, the emphasis in this particular cookbook is definitely more on "delicious" than "quick to prepare", which I have been slow to figure out. The Italian Wedding Soup with handmade meatballs should have been a big clue, but...

I found a recipe for Old-Fashioned Beef Brisket with Root Vegetables, which screamed Comfort Food -- the perfect thing for the rainy/sleety weather we have finally been getting. I put it on the calendar for Monday night, also known as Slow Cooker Night in our household. But this morning (Monday) things did not go as planned. It was raining. Peter had a fever, so he was not going to pre-school. And I had my first Back to Work meeting scheduled for 10:30am, the time I normally put the food in the slow cooker so that it is ready to be eaten at 6:30pm. Did I mention it was raining?

Wonder Sitter Ariana arrived at 8:15am, right on schedule, to watch Karolina, who was still asleep. I stuck her with Peter instead and exercised my option to take a shower. At 9:00am I called my dear mother-in-law, Jana, who is visiting from Prague, and begged her to come over and watch Peter while I was at the meeting and while Ariana was taking care of Karolina. She quickly agreed (yay!). For the first event in the Motherhood Olympics, I picked Jana up, brought her back to our house, nursed the baby, and sped off to my meeting, with time to spare for a much-needed latte. Score!!! Figured I would put the food in the slow cooker when I got home.

Home by 12:00, fed Karolina, and then tried to feed my beloved son, who was feeling spunky for a kid with a fever. He picked up his bowl of soup, dumped it on the floor, and said "I want a sandwich!" By the time I got him to clean up the mess, finished my lunch, read him some books, and got him up to his room to try and get him to take a nap, it was close to 2:00pm. The slow cooker! I finally got around to reading the recipe thoroughly. Chop four kinds of vegetables, put in the slow cooker, rub the meat with spice mixture, toss that in and cook on low for ten hours. TEN HOURS!?!?! That meant we would be eating around...oh my, way, WAY too late. So much for Slow Cooker Monday. Thank goodness there was leftover soup.

Fast forward through the rest of the afternoon, which mostly involved Peter not napping, Karolina napping when we needed to go to the doctor, and a frenetic trip with both kids to the doctor, who determined that Peter has "a virus" (How many times have you heard THAT one, parents?) but at least it's not strep, which is making the rounds at pre-school. Peter made up for the Soup Incident by taking the initiative to wash all of the dinner dishes while I was in the other room, nursing Karolina. He did this by taking each dish, one at at time, to the bathroom sink (he can't reach the kitchen sink without a chair), rinsing it, and bringing it back to the kitchen to put it in the dishwasher. Darling child! Didn't even break one.

As we got closer to bed time, the fever kicked into high gear, just when Karolina decided that it was Play Time. This was the most challenging Olympic event -- I spent a good part of two hours rushing from our room (trying to get Karolina to go to sleep or at least stop crying) to Peter's room (in response to the most pitiful whimpering of "I'm cold! I'm too hot! I'm thirsty! Mama, come here!") and back. It was heart-breaking. As soon as Peter would start to drift off, Karolina would cry and I would race back to her room to rock her and sing her more lullabies. Then Peter would call out in that weak little voice and I would put Karolina down, imploring her to sleep so that I could tend to her brother.

During those precious few moments when both children were quiet, I would sneak downstairs and chop vegetables for tomorrow night's slow cooker meal. For, as I was nursing Karolina, I did the math again. In order to get dinner on the table by 6:30pm on TUESDAY, I would have to turn the crock pot on at 8:30am. In the morning. With all of the vegetables chopped and ready to go. Oh, did I mention that we are going BACK to the doctor's office tomorrow morning, for Karolina's two-month check-up? sigh. Realizing that there was No Way At All I was going to get anything done before 8:30am tomorrow morning after being up all night with a feverish child and a newborn, I decided to chop the vegetables tonight.

It went something like this: Scrape three parsnips, start chopping one, and run upstairs to rock Karolina, then soothe Peter, then sanitize hands and put Karolina's pacifier back in her mouth two or three or twenty times. Sneak downstairs...wash hands, chop another parsnip, rush back upstairs to pick Karolina up and sing her a lullaby. Sit with Peter, get him to drink water, sneak downstairs to wash hands again and finish the parsnips. It was worse when I got to the onions because then I had to wash my hands BEFORE I re-inserted Karolina's pacifier and checked on Peter.

Poor little guy, I asked him so many times today to cover his cough that he was actually doing it in his sleep. I love watching him sleep, but I hate watching him suffer. I think about all the mothers who have sat at their child's bedside, helplessly keeping watch as the poor little things burn with fever. Even now I hear him coughing. It's going to be a long night. At least it's not strep, which the whole family would no doubt get. And at least I'll have a delicious, nutritious and warming dinner on the table at 6:30 tomorrow night with very little time or effort during the pre-dinner witching hour. Let the games begin!

Karolina is TWO months old!

At over twelve and a half pounds (that's where she was 2 weeks ago at her 6-week visit to the midwives), she has officially outgrown most of her teeny little newborn clothes, including the fleece Christmas sleeper (but we got a lot of use out of it -- thanks, Aunt Brooke!), but now she fits into her Santa outfit!



Favorite activities continue to be: sleeping...



and eating (not pictured).
Pooping comes in at a close third.

The most notable change from last month is in her vocalizations. They have increased in both variety and frequency. I think I heard her first "aboo" today (my favorite baby word).

Peter, too, has changed a bit in the last month, pushing the limits of both good and bad behavior. For instance, on Friday morning the child retrieved his cooling bowl of oatmeal from the counter, seated himself at the table, donned a bib, and proceeded to finish the entire bowl, unassisted and without complaint (this is somewhat rare). Model behavior! So grown-up! So independent! Same boy actually requested MORE vegetables at dinner. Dream child!

However, this very same child was found, later that evening, dancing on top of the coffee table in a puddle of his own urine. Not just dancing, but *spreading* the puddle with his bare feet to each corner of the table. (Don't worry, future guests, I thoroughly disinfected the table.)

Later, he was discovered sitting on the back of the couch with both feet on the chest of his sister, who was lying on the cushion below. Thai massage or testing how much weight her tiny body could withstand? We will never know because he was quickly snatched away and SEVERELY admonished.

These observations all happened on the very same day. Incredible range of behavior. Parenthood is never boring.

Happily, I have finally trained him to retrieve the cat treats and feed them to me on command. Oh, joy! My hard work paid off!

Guest Post from Erika: My Uncle Bill

It has been a year of death. Birth too, thank goodness, but more people that I know have died this year than in all of my previous years combined. On Sunday, my Uncle Bill left us forever, and without any warning except a premonition that I had at our last visit in September. This death has hit me harder than all the others, partially due to its suddenness and partially because I knew and loved this man my whole life.

How to describe Uncle Bill? He was so many different things to different people. This is what I observed: Fiercely independent, committed to living life his way, for better or for worse. Although he lived alone his whole life, and could be gruff and ornery, he deeply cared for other people, especially those who were at some sort of disadvantage. Walking with him around the tiny coastal town of Pescadero, his adopted home for the last 50 years, he seemed to know everyone we ran into. Most knew him as the school bus driver, but he also regularly drove members of the large immigrant farm worker community to meals, church, wherever they needed to go.

Bill also loved and cared for animals, wild and domestic, especially his dear departed cat, Bobcat. All animals that he encountered gravitated towards his gentle nature. He knew how to be still and connect with them.

He was intensely spiritual, and studied energetic healing for a time. In his youth, he was apparently something of a hippie, studying art at UC Berkeley, riding his bicycle all over California and beyond, and attending Rainbow Gatherings. I learned about these days on the walks we used to take together around Pescadero and down Old Stage Road. Bill could talk your ear off, especially about family history or his philosophical theories, or he could be silent for hours, depending on the situation. At most family gatherings, he would sit quietly except to come up with simply awful puns every once in a while. When I think of him now, I see his eyes twinkling. He wasn't exactly mischievous, but he found the humor in situations.

My cousins and I remember him most for his infamously bizarre gifts. He was extremely generous with all three of us, but we were always surprised by what he would present to us. Our "uncle bill gifts" were always memorable. They were consistently accompanied by a rambling, heartfelt, always poetic note in his elaborate curly cue handwriting. The writing frequently took up the whole card, and beyond, and the content was often as confusing as the gift.

I am sure others have very different impressions of Bill -- these thoughts are just my experience of him. I still can't believe he is gone, and will be processing this loss for a while. There is a hole in my life now.

Fortunately, I have a very tangible reminder that not only does life go on, life is happening Right Now. Her name is Karolina, and she will be one month old tomorrow. I will be sure to tell her stories about her great uncle Bill when she is old enough to understand them.



And just for comparison...here is Peter at one month old. Yep, they are definitely related. And definitely Kosinas.

We Have a New Baby

Well, through the wonders of Facebook, e-mail, Skype, and the good old-fashioned family grapevine, most of you have heard that there is a new baby in the house. Karolina Annalaura Kosina. Karolina is pronounced Kar like "car" and lina rhymes with Kosina. Anna was the name of Martin's maternal grandmother, and Laura was the name of Erika's maternal grandmother. Laura named her daughter Laurene (Erika's mother) after herself and her sister Irene, so we have lots of female relatives packed into that middle name.

So far, I like the new set up. Erika is not allowed to go downstairs for at least a week while her (extensive) stitches heal, so she spends 98% of her time in bed, which is GREAT for me, not so great for Martin, who is responsible for transporting anything that Erika needs (food, water, dental floss, water for a bath, etc.) upstairs. Luckily, the midwives are letting us hold onto the birthing tub and the potty chair for the foreseeable future, so we have created a lovely temporary bathroom on the second floor. My bathroom was re-located to Martin's office (Are you starting to think that Martin got the short end of the stick here? Yeah, me too.) But at least he did not have to push an 8lb, 11oz baby through any of *his* orifices. Hmmph.

We have been blessed by many visitors over the last few days, and the master bedroom has been converted into a sort of cocktail lounge/dining room for the duration. Last night we hosted Aunt Brooke and Tony for champagne, beef stew (thanks MOM!), and chocolate cake (for Karolina's birthday). Here is the set up:

And here is Erika in her standard position:

What? You said you didn't come here to see pictures of people eating dinner? Where the heck are the cute baby pictures? Ok, ok...
Here is Karolina's second bath (the first one was not fit for photos due to all the screaming):

And here she is sleeping:

And we still think Peter is pretty cute, even when he is doing his fake, hammy smile: