Amo a Mama (or, My Baby is Bilingual)

I swear, these things only happen to me.

So I'm in Target yesterday, to pick up some 99c Circo-brand bottles that apparently will screw into my Madela breast pump (the ones that came with the pump are WAY too small to contain all the "white gold" coming from my udders), which is MUCH cheaper than the converter kits they sell to make any bottle fit any pump. I'm leaning over the display rack (trying to inconspicuously open a package of cloth diapers to see if they're soft enough, if you must know... and yes, they are quite soft) when I hear a familiar-but-gross sound - my heart sinks just as I feel something wet and hot hit my shoulder. That's right. Nathan has officially projectile vomited in Target. And of course, I am without a burp cloth. So I grab the first blue bib I see out of the $1 bin to clean up the mess.

Nathan is now the proud new owner of a bib that says Amo a Mama. Which I assume means something along the lines of "yaaaaay Mommy," right? Spanish speakers out there - confirmation?

In case you're wondering, there are very few looks stranger than the one a white woman (with her very ruddy baby) gets when trying to purchase a vomit-covered hispanic bib from Target.

Happy 2 months, Nathan!

My little baby is 2 months old today! I can't believe how fast it's going... let me assure you that the first 2 months of his life have been MUCH faster than the last 2 months of my pregnancy! It really seems like just afew days ago (but also in some ways, a lifetime ago - did I ever NOT have a son?) that I was in the hospital, holding him for the first time and worried about him getting enough to eat. But it was 9 weeks ago - amazing. And in that time, here's what we know and love about you, Nathan:

1.) you are the loudest pooper I have ever met

2.) you definitely eat enough - 94th percentile in weight, and above 95th in height!

3.) you are a great sleeper - usually between 8 and 9 hours a night! And you still love to sleep with your arms above your head - touchdown!

4.) you have the best smile in the world! (see below)



5.) you are happiest up on my shoulder, and you can hold your head up by yourself that way.

6.) you are starting to be aware of the things around you - right now your favorite is the animal mobile above your bed. Fascinating, I know.

7.) you still don't like your pacifier. Is it time for us to give up on trying?

8.) You adore car rides.

9.) you adore baths, but not the part where you have to get out.

10.) you are SO LOVED!!!

more bragging on my family

Ashley rode her bike to the top of Beech Mountain yesterday. Do you know how hard that must have been? She did it with Jennings (center) and Matt (right), who were her relay teammates in last weekend's half-ironman (because clearly, they haven't exercised enough this month). She said she's been wanting to do it all summer, so I'm proud of her.

My family is incredible.

Because singing makes everything better (even when despite your accomplishments it's a hard weekend), and because this is one of Ashley's favorites:

Pedal faster, step in time!

The Jolly Postman

So to add to the list already containing the Harry Potter books, The Chronicles of Narnia, Alice in Wonderland, The Jungle Book, Thomas the Train books, and Winnie the Pooh (& Roo too!), and countless other brilliant children's literature by British authors, I must now also include The Jolly Postman. It's apparently been a favorite in England for years, but I have been in the dark about this book, which is filled to the brim with treasures (and I mean that quite literally - and literally - ha! I'm punny). British kids have the best books...

The premise is cute enough - a kindly mailman is travelling around fairy tale land, where dwell all the characters from any nursery rhyme you can think of (and they all know and interact with each other, far more intricately than those in the Shrek movies). But what makes this book so spectacular is that every other page is an envelope, and it's actually holding the mail that the Postman is delivering - we can open it and read it! (And it also explains why the book comes wrapped in plastic, which I'll admit confused me at first!)

I think there's something innately fascinating about knowing what comes in other people's mail. (And no, I'm not just saying that because I'm the kind of person who looks under other people's bathroom sinks and in their medicine cabinets.) But especially for a child whose access to his favorite characters had previously been limited to the lines in any given nursery rhyme or fairy tale, this book now offers a glimpse into these creatures' lives outside of the stories which made them famous.

The amount of detail included in these "letters" is astounding. And how much more real these characters become when we get a peek at their private lives!

Goldilocks has a mom who forces apologies for cutting up (Who hasn't been there? I feel you, chica). The witch in the gingerbread house is addicted to mail-order catalogs (my Grandpa feels you on that one, bitty). Cinderella, now that she's royalty, is selling the rights to her story. The wolf is under official notice to vacate Grandma's house, and is being sued for damages by the pigs. Who are their lawyers, you ask? Meeny, Miny, Mo & Co., of course.

I cannot get enough of this book. Buy this book. I promise you want your children to own it. Good thing Dr. O knew that before I did!

70.3

Can you swim 1.2 miles in extremely choppy lake water?
Can you bike 56 miles through 4 counties - in one stretch?
Can you run 13.1 miles - a half marathon?

My mom can. And she did all three of those things, without stopping, in just over seven hours. Yes, that's 70.3 miles. Which is farther than driving from Raleigh to Burlington. It's like driving your boat around the island of Manhattan - three times. It's like driving from a northern suburb of Washington up to Baltimore, eating a crab cake, and then returning to DC. It's really, really far.

Mom is officially half iron. And I am unblieveably proud. I need a bumper sticker that shouts to the world, My mom is stronger than your mom!

Mom, Michael, and three relays (including Team Goettsch, who managed to beat mom by just a very few minutes) finished the course before the day was over.

Here's how it went down:

We arrived at Jordan Lake early (approximately oh-dark-thirty) on Sunday morning - as my friends would say, even Jesus was still asleep. Someone thought it would be cute to play a get-pumped-up song about how it was the best time of day. Did they think it would be motivating? Energizing? It wasn't. It was, in fact, quite annoying. I was glad when it was over... at least for the 30 seconds of silence before they announced that the water in the lake was officially colder than a baggie of frozen breast milk (not really, it was 78 exactly), and that the race would be wetsuit legal.

Guess who doesn't have a wetsuit?

With Nathan strapped to my front, I proceed to get our timing chip hooked to my left ankle (they were very specific about putting it on the left ankle - I wonder if past racers tried to wear them as headbands or stick them in their underwear or something?), get my body marked with our relay's official race number, watch Mark unload his bike and all our equipment from the car and stack it up in the transition area, then I wander off to find other participants and family members.

Enter Mom (Marmie) and Ashley (li'l sis). Both bleary-eyed. Both carrying buckets of transition-time equipment, like real triathletes do. Both shivering: Ashley from the cold, Mom from a combination of cold, nervousness about the race, and a fear of where/when she will coordinate all of her bathroom breaks over the course of the day. (This is a common Race Day Issue for mom. It always works out fine, in case you were wondering. ) Ashley is frantically trying to buy, borrow, or steal a wetsuit, since she has negative body fat and is starting to worry about the cold water - not so much about discomfort, but about losing her competitive edge. (She's one of the few people present who has a competitive edge, or a desire to do anything beyond just finish her part of the race.)

Enter Michael, aka MA (Mr. Awesome - his favorite word), aka mom's trainer. Bright-eyed. Grinning. (It's his way, even at 5 am... don't you hate those types?) Mumbling to himself in German. Also nervous about lack of wetsuit.

I finally track down Neighbor Drew in the crowds of athletes wandering around. He is relieved to find out the race starts an hour after he originally thought. (This is before the sun comes up and he sees just how far away that last bouy in the water really is. At which point I think panic sets in.)

Then there's Vicki (or Wicki, as Michael would say - why can't Germans get their V's and W's straight? Seriously, compared to the dativ case, it's really not that complicated) and her son Matt. The two sanest people currently present.

We swimmers migrate down to the water, sans warm outerwear, and shiver while the first waves of racers get started. I notice Nathan's chin is trembling - he's that cold. I'd like to say that it's because I was prepared for hot sun, not chilly wind... but I didn't pack a hat or sunscreen for him either; I just had a bad-mom moment when putting his diaper bag together for the weekend. So we strap him to Mark in the snugli and tuck a blanket around all of him - including his head - and he only whimpers a little until the sun comes up. (Except the part where he screamed the whole time I was swimming, apparently.)

Finally, finally, after standing around barely dressed at the lake's edge, it's our wave's turn to start. The water is blissfully warm compared to the outside air temp. Urinating commences (I know I wasn't the only one). Weird white fluid in the water in front of me... diagnosis: breast milk leakage. I swim away and hope that no one noticed (but really I don't care, or I wouldn't be writing about it now). After some last-minute shouts of good luck, we're off!

Ashley is off like a shot, passing pretty much everyone in our wave and lots of people from the earlier waves - she's the first non-wetsuit woman from our group out of the water (32 minutes!)... I try to stick with mom for a while, but then decide she's not swimming in a straight line (I don't need anyone else's help to get off course!) so I abandon that plan. I'm smacked in the face three or four times by waves coming from the right (yes, the water is that choppy, even in the lake.... thank you, windy day) before I decide to stop breathing on that side. I swim into Michael approximately 8,468 times before the turn-around bouy. Shortly after we turn, he starts kicking and loses me (or maybe that's when I start to swim the wrong way). I am convinced that Drew is still with me, on my heels, but it turns out that's someone else - Drew had himself pulled for safety reasons (yes, he's fine - but open water is scary when it's that choopy!) a little earlier. On the way back to land, the water current is in my favor, so I relax a little... and by "relax a little" I mean basically float in the water until I find myself so far off course that my hands are scraping mud near the opposite bank. (Trust me, that's way better than the off-course route I swam in St. Croix last year, which probably took me almost a mile out of the way!) But eventually I finish (52 minutes - not last!), run to the transition area, pass the chip to Mark and he's off for his cycle.

I look around for Nathan and find him in Nick's arms - good, our relay's runner has arrived (no thanks to a malfunctioning cell phone alarm clock and a loooong walk into the race from the off-site parking area). Looks like Wicki has been allowed to start her cycle, even though Drew didn't finish the swim. Since mom was running her bike out of the transition area as I was running in from the swim, I know she has about a 2-minute head start on Mark for the cycle. (Read: Mark doesn't have a prayer of catching her.) So much for me getting out of the water before mom so he has a little jump start. Now we're just hoping he can stay close enough behind her for Nick to make up the lost time on the run.

The next few hours are a blur of people coming and going in the transition area. Matt finishes his cycle and mentions how hard the course was - it's the general consensus of all the cyclers coming back. Their relay, partly thanks to Ashley's speedy swim, will come in 11th when all is said and done - pretty good. Wicki comes back from her cycle sooner than expected, having averaged a faster time than she thought she could; Barbara does some last-second stretching and is off for her run - she manages to stay in front of everyone else we're with, doing the second half faster than the first! Michael comes into transition off the cycle, with Mom hot on his heels... she's a little slower starting her run, seeing as she had to pee on a towel before she could start (I told you these things always work out). She's going to kill me for mentioning it, but it's really funny. Eventually she's off, too, with Frank flapping in the wind. (Since she's going to kill me anyway, I might as well introduce you to Frank. Frank is the skin on her body left over after she lost all that weight. She wears him like a badge of honor and doesn't seem to mind at all that her children treat him like another member of the family.)>
An ambulance leaves. Everyone in the area says a little prayer that it's not their friend or teammate being rescued. Mark is in no danger - we don't know it at the time, but he's riding along happily, until a 69-year-old woman passes him (he can see her age on the back of her calf as she breezes by) and he tries not to feel too bad about himself. Back at the transition area, we notice that the ambulance has actually only moved to a different parking space. [Insert sigh of relief here.] At some point I become aware of the aforementioned forgotten baby hat and sunscreen, so Nathan spends much of the rest of the afternoon with a cloth diaper over his head, making him look like a cross between the virgin mary and a muslim woman. At some point Mark crosses the finish line on his bike, with a big grin and a good finish time (3 hrs, 55 minutes). Nick is off to start his run, but he has almost 25 minutes to make up if he wants to catch mom - we know it's a long shot.

We head down to the halfway point for our runners - Barbara first, then Michael, then Mom, with Nick hot on her heels (go Nick!)... Somewhere between then and when we see them again, Nick will pass mom, then stop 100 yards later to stretch - but mom won't be able to catch him again before the finish. Down at the run's halfway point, a kid is playing bagpipes. Why? I don't know. Maybe that's the triathlon's answer to the football marching band. It's weird, in any case. I take a picture. And video. Um, go team!(?)

We're hanging out by the finish line. Here comes Barbara (so early we didn't have the cameras ready... her finish time was only 6 minutes slower than Nick's)! Here comes Michael! Where are mom and Nick? Who will we see first? It's Nick, coming through the finish line, and mom not far behind!
(Are you singing the Chariots of Fire theme song in your head right now? You should be.)

Mom raced for more than 7 hours straight. And she finished in good spirits (even though we beat her). But honestly, it's impossible to be prouder of our relay beating her than I am of her finishing the race. She did the whole thing and she did it well. CONGRATULATIONS, MARMIE!!!

Want to see more pictures? Click here.

visit with the Church family

Our friends Justin and LeAnn were visiting for the past couple of days, which meant that Lucas and Nathan finally got to meet. All of us parents are hoping that they will become great friends, like their dads. And it's shaping up to look that way - Lucas was quite curious about the baby. Although Nathan slept through most of it, Lucas found great fun in mashing Nathan's face with his hand, rubbing his belly, using his body as a handrail to stand up, and throwing diapers at his head (oddly reminiscent of Justin throwing a full bottle of gatorade at Mark's head... which he also slept through).

for more pictures of lucas and nathan, click here.

We also ate fried chicken with the Goettsch version of...
Southern Living's macaroni and cheese (Mark and Justin's favorite):

8 oz elbow macaroni, cooked
2 cups milk (I use skim)
1/3 cup flour (but I don't really measure it)
some onion powder
some salt
10 oz medium cheddar cheese
10 oz monterrey jack cheese
soft breadcrumbs (4 slices of bread, crusts removed, cut into chunks)
some spray butter or melted butter

while macaroni is cooking, shred cheese and toss with a little flour (that way it doesn't all sink to the bottom of the dish when you bake it). In a casserole dish, whisk together the milk, remaining flour, onion powder and salt. slowly add cheese and macaroni to casserole dish. top with breadcrumbs, and drizzle or spray butter on top. bake at 350 for about 40 minutes.

It's (going to be) a girl!

The Calhouns found out today that their expected baby will be a daughter!

Jenny is one of my oldest friends... she was like another sister to me growing up, and was like another daughter to my family (a good daughter, who did chores and stuff... she's like a parent's dream).

If there is anyone in my life who was built to be a mommy, it's Jen. I have seen her practice parenting on her (six!) siblings - yes, even the older ones. And Dan is one of those rare humans who (like us!) adores his dog (the tenacious Obi) as he would a human child. They will be super parents to their daughter, I'm sure. I am so excited that I have another friend in the starting-a-family phase.

For old time's sake, enjoy a picture of Jenny and me in Washington DC, when we were in middle school. We've come so far, haven't we? From elementary school band geeks, to middle school beta club geeks, to high school drama geeks (her, not me... though she would prefer the term "thespian" but don't get me started on how I feel about that word) to world travelers in college, to young professionals trying to start an adult life in new cities. And now we're grownups... we have husbands, houses, pets, yards, and we're making babies. How weird is that?

Congratulations, Jenny and Dan! And future Baby Calhoun!

We love Lucas Church

Lucas is the handsome and jovial young son of our friends Justin and LeAnn. We love their family for a number of reasons, but today we especially appreciate them for the plethora of hand-me-downs that have made our life so much easier (and inexpensive) in the last six weeks.


Yes, I know this is a picture of Nathan, not Lucas. I wish I did have a picture of Lucas to post, but Lucas and Nathan have not actually met yet, and Lucas has probably changed so much since I last saw him that I won't recognize him. But everything else in the picture once belonged to Lucas. That includes the vibrating hammock, the clothing, and yes - even the diaper! (Previously unused, obviously. Lucas outgrew many of his diapers before he could wear them, which is how they found their way into Nathan's closet.)

So thanks, Lucas! I know Nathan can't wait to meet you and go fishing!

You've won a new car!

Now that my new Accord has been on a road trip and back, I feel like I can finally admit that I am sort of relieved to have a new car, because

1.) it has 4 doors

2.) the clutch doesn't have to be pushed all the way to the floor to engage

3.) the gear shift is much smoother

4.) I feel like a mom when I drive it (I think that's a plus)

5.) the trunk is big enough for the stroller and groceries

6.) it has 4 doors!

7.) it won't show dirt as much as a black car (which is good, since I'm not a religious car washer)

8.) it has a CD player (and no, I do not mean one of those that's hooked up to a cassette!)

9.) I can put the windows down with my remote entry button, when I'm still in the house

10.) IT HAS FOUR DOORS!!!!!

visiting with Clemson and Furman friends

For us, this weekend was full of reconnecting with friends from college. It's really good for us, seeing as we live in Raleigh, where very few of our fellow alumni seem to be located! These are people who know us best and really get us (let's remember they knew us when we were straight out of high school - yikes!), so it was very affirming to get to spend some time with them.

On Friday night, Katie came over for dinner and a visit. Klutz that I am, I managed to spill a diet coke all over the floor, and since it was easier for me to clean it up than have Katie do it (seeing as I knew where all the towels, mop, etc. were and could get to them quickly) I handed her Nathan so she could keep him happy while I rectified the mess. She seemed quite surprised to have a newborn flung in her arms with no notice - I wish I would have had a camera when she was holding him out from her body, under his armpits, asking "how do I do it?" - I think she needed some reassurance that she wouldn't break him. But if course she did fine, and I think she was even comfortable with it after a few minutes. So now I know what Sarah meant when she got excited and said, "yay for Katie holding babies!"


And speaking of Sarah, she also joined us on Friday night, and stayed until Sunday. It was so, so wonderful to see her. I can't describe what a beautiful, kind, strong woman Sarah has become in the seven years I have known her. She holds me accountable to my faith (and now to my mommyhood too!), and ever since we bonded over late-night discussions about love and God and friends in the hallway of G-300, she has really known the real me.

She also got to bond with Nathan, which was really fun to see. Sarah has a passion for children and a calling to nurture them, so she knows more about babies than I do (and I live with one!); her reassurance that I'm doing ok by Nathan means more than most people's would.

Sarah was also present for Nathan's first swim. He likes his bath so much that I thought he had real Bumgarner genes and would take the to water like the rest of us do. But apparently, it was a little too cold... and as you can see, he wasn't a fan.



For more pictures of Nathan's first swim, click here.

On Monday, we headed down to Greenville so that Mark could go to the Clemson-FSU Game (Bowden Bowl IX). Since I am still on maternity leave and didn't need to work today, I decided to tag along.

First we stopped to visit with Jonathan and Kelley Caskey, who are also friends from Furman. They have been M's in India for the last several years, so it had been a very long time since we had seen either of them. While in India, they had a beautiful daughter, Kiran... who I think didn't know what to make of Nathan!


It was neat to see Kiran toddling around - she can practically RUN! I do enjoy this time with Nathan as a newborn, but seeing Kiran explore and climb and interact with her world was amazing, and it makes me ready to see Nathan do the same!

See that purple shirt I'm wearing? That was shirt #3, and it wasn't even lunchtime. I think I go through clothes faster than Nathan goes through diapers.




On the way to the game, we stopped by the Jones house. Jeff was one of Mark's college roomies, and (despite Jeff's love of all things Toby Keith!) we really enjoy both him and his wife, Crystal. They have two boys - Matthew (22 months) and James (10 months). Jeff is one of the few people in Mark's life who is happy to honor Mark's "only wear orange" rule... Mark tends to bring extra orange shirts and jackets to Clemson games, in case the people he's going with somehow (gasp!) wore clothing that was some other color. Apparently Jeff understands that Real Fans Wear Orange - as you can see. For more pictures of our visit to Greenville, click here.... and of us with the Jones family, click here.

Before Nathan braved his first night in a hotel, I was able to catch up with another Furman friend, Ryan, whom I adore. One can be sure that an evening with Ryan will be filled with hilarity (you know how you have those friends that always make you laugh? Ryan is one of those for me), brutal honesty, good food, probably a cocktail or two, shopping (this time at Barnes and Noble! my favorite...), and amazingly stimulating conversation. It was good to get my fix.


You can't see it in this picture, but Nathan's PJs say "my dog likes bones" with a puppy on the leg. Hmmm.

And that's the story of how we survived our first overnight road trip with an infant, two dogs, and more orange clothing stuffed into two bags than any one family should own.

"Hey Mark, which half is iron?"...

... is the question posed last weekend by our friend Madge. Why, you ask?

Because she knows that we are training for a half-ironman triathlon, taking place on September 16. About 15 months ago, my mom decided to kick-start her health routine, lose a lot of weight, and get active again. Since then, she has been experiencing a new life as a competitive endurance athlete.

Her newest goal is to complete a half-ironman, and the one she picked is on the 16th, at Jordan Lake (in the Raleigh area). In order to motivate her training and so she knows she's never in these events alone, Team Goettsch has challenged her to beat us on her own as we do the race as a realy. I will do the swim (1.2 miles), Mark will do the bike (56 miles), and Mark's brother Nick will do the run (a half marathon - 13.1 miles). For me, this has been a relatively easy training process. But mark had to pick up a whole new sport and log a lot of miles on the bike (and in the winter, on the bike on its trainer in our rec room!) in order to get ready for the event. And poor Nick has been sweating mile after mile after mile, training for the half marathon in the awful heat that has been the summer of 2007.

Mom's trainer, Michael, will also be doing the whole race, and there are two other relay teams who will be competing. My sister will be swimming on one of those teams, and Nick's fiancée Barbara will be running on one of those teams. It's shaping up to be quite the ordeal.




Last weekend when Mom was in town, she and Mark cycled on part of the race course as part of their training. Don't they look hot? Despite the fact that mom's helmet is a little crooked, she really is a very "together" athlete and will likely shame all of us with a MUCH better time in the race! Our friends at church are all pulling for mom, so if anyone out there wants to cheer for us instead, please do! (Although I find it hard to get people to pull against a grandmother who has recently lost half her body weight in an effort to get healthy, especially when that grandmother is doing three times more of the race than any one of us young'uns!)


So, I guess... go mom!