11 weeks - nana's marathon

hana had her 2nd road trip when we drove down to l.a. for the marathon this year. the l.a. marathon has become something of a family tradition. it started in 2003 when i decided that i was going to train for a marathon. while i had tons of family support to accomplish my goal, most thought the whole notion of doing a marathon was utterly insane. that is, except for the 6 other people i know who did it (nadia, suz, jen (party of 5!), nancy, leah & glenda- forming team "we rock")- and the 25,000 other strangers who did it that year as well. it was sooo much fun that the next year, my brother (uncle poo), my mom (nana) and jon (daddy) did it along with me. then in 2006, my aunt (great aunt dee dee) , and my step sister yolinda (auntie yo) joined in. unbeknownst to me, baby hana was along for the 2006 marathon. had i known, i would have officially registered her so that she could have gotten some sort of award for her age group. i'm sure she was a top 3 finisher in the zygote category.

this year, we didn't run the marathon which left jon, jenny and i a little blue. jon, hana, aunt dee dee and i did do the 5 k run. that was REALLY fun. jon carried her in the baby bjorn the WHOLE time (!) and we all crossed the finish line as a family. it was really sweet. the rest of the day, we were on kid patrol... a marathon in and of itself. the three of us watched our babies (hana, jack and charlotte), plus cole (nadia's 2.5 year old) while everyone else did the marathon. there was only about 45 minutes in that day when all 4 kids were happy/mellow and otherwise needed no special attention from us. we tried to play a round of syzygy (fantastic, highly addictive word game - a cross between scrabble and a crossword puzzle) but sort of fell asleep before it ended and then a baby started crying. it was still fun to be down there hangin' with the kids, even though in the end we all wished we were actually running the marathon. especially because this year, the course was brand new. oh well, next year...

anyway, as it turned out, my mom was the only one from our side of the family, who actually did the marathon this year. (nadia and glenda did it as well). mom got a giant, very impressive blood blister for her trouble. mom whined about it but we all celebrated her induction in the freakish marathon ailment club. the only blood blister i have seen comparable in size was the one nadia got after running 100 miles! after the marathon, we had our traditional food-a-pa-looza from cpk ,which also included the requisite round of baby holding. it's not uncommon to hear "who wants to hold a baby?" and there be many takers.... a line even! it's quite nice and usually amounts to one of the few meals where i acutally get to chew my food before slamming it down.

after the marathon, mom was able to spend a couple of days with us at home in oakland before heading off to portland for a conference. it was nice for her to be able to spend some quality time with hana where she didn't have to compete so much with other family members. it's funny because almost every picture of hana in l.a. shows her looking totally exhausted because my relatives don't live in the area so they never get to see her. for some, it was the first time they'd seen her. so this made for quite a bit of overstimulation. which translated to cranky baby and no sleep for the walker pettigrew family on the eve of our run... but i digress.

she continues to be into "Rainbow Rob". this picture also captures her biting her lower lip. he just started doing that within a day of two of this picture being taken. it's awfully cute. makes her look like a little "cabbage patch doll".


after dropping nana off at the airport, we went to jenny's house for a little party of 5 playdate. it presented an opportunity for hana to have some tummy time- which i frequently forget to do with her - using jack and charlotte's toys. hana is really becoming quite social and really enjoys being around other babies and kids. she had about 20 minutes of tummy time here staring in the mirror, smiling, laughing and cooing, and looking at jack... i think she was showing off for the other kids. but also, she discovered the mirror for the first time. when we did some tummy time that morning, she could care less about the mirror (well... in fairness, it was much smaller) but in the afternoon, with jack and charlotte looking on, suddenly it was the coolest toy ever. so naturally, jon and went out and bought that mirror. in the tummy time we had today, she was again very interested in it. jenny's dad bob was concerned that we were teaching her the wrong message. i don't know that you can fault her for being so vain when she's so darn cute... but of course, i do hope this phase passes when the time is right.

other things to note from this week... she seems to gearing up for another growth spurt - feeding more, sleeping less. also she has starting cooing a lot more and we have been able to carry on lots of "conversations".