relentless

What with being either rather pregnant or on bedrest, surviving winter, and raising an active baby, Jill had yet to take a ride to Homer Lake since we moved back to town. Saturday's plan was to eat lunch in St Joe on the way to the Lake.

Here we are looking happy and getting hungry at a branch of the Salt Fork River (I think). It's no Rio Grand, but after riding through miles of corn fields, seeing a lazy river is a pleasant diversion.

The baby slept almost the entire ride. This was the longest ride I've done pulling her along (maybe 30 miles?), and I confess to feeling somewhat worn by the end. On short rides in town, the chariot only feels weighty during accelerations. On the long ride, the extra drag adds up.
After some enchiladas (me) and flautas (Jill), we reached Homer Lake, looking ever so green after the many rainy days of late. A retired professor in my ol' department was there on a walk, so we chatted a bit. He is enjoying his retirement by working on a biofuel project funded by the beleaguered BP. How's that for some much needed positive press for BP?

At El Toro East, we met some local bike club members led by the renowned Sue J. Many were dressed just like us and didn't have clip in pedals. What kind of cyclists are they anyway?
This here is product placement. Looking to buy a bike? You won't do better than one of theirs. (Since we buy used bikes for cheap, we don't own one. Maybe someday).
Clara is dominating our lives as much as ever. A one word description of her: relentless. Lately, she plays from 3 to 10:30pm with nary a break except to eat. We're really hoping to push her bedtime up a little, but she is wired between 9 and 10.

Thankfully, she's fun and cute. Here she is eating milled chicken/rice/yogurt curry. She liked it!

two-thirds old

Another month has come and gone like a thunderstorm. Clara still has no teeth and only some hair, but she hasn't been resting on her laurels. She figured out that eating solid foods is a significant step beyond putting toys in her mouth. When hungry at dinner time a few days ago, she snapped at spoons of oatmeal. Previously, eating solids had been merely a diversion.

She's a crawler now, mostly. It's kind of a drag/army crawl with interspersed rolls, but she gets all around the living room, often in pursuit of power cords, loose papers, and vents. The tiled kitchen and hallway are barriers due to a few too many ouchy head bonks. And she's getting louder, complaining when either frustrated or bored with us.
She loves hanging out with our friends. Sadly, Fereshteh is gone for summer, but will be back in the fall as a big-time UIUC student. Go Illini!Clara and Jill sometimes stop by my office to say hello and bring a treat. Clara loves checking out new places. How many other phone cords will she see during her lifetime?
Speaking of oldies but goodies, on my way home today a fraternity was playing Guns n Roses in the front yard. Which got me thinking, that song came out when I was in jr. high. After some math, I conclude that many frat boys weren't born yet.

I'm reading (okay, skimming. Malcolm Gladwell would have done a much nicer job with the topic.) Gregg Easterbrook's The Progress Paradox. The basic question is why Americans are so unhappy despite the amazingly pleasant conditions of our lives. Basically everything is better than it used to be (e.g. the environment, food, health care, leisure time, ...). So enjoy life people!

Local marathon

Most big sporting events in this college town have a spectator to participants of about 1000 to 1. Today's big event had a ratio closer to 1 to 1. Somewhere around 10,000 crazed souls ran the Illinois Marathon around Urbana and Champaign.

We walked the 1 block to the course between miles 4 and 5 just before 8 am, just in time to see the lead runner run past. He was running fast, by himself already.

The parade of runners near our house went on for about at least 45 minutes. What a trip to look down the street at curb-to-curb runners as far as we could see.
We cheered often and hard, and even more so for friends. The list we saw was Mike, Rob, Matt, Chad, Amy, Neil, Rachel. We might have missed a few during the tight groups.
After a quick return home, we got pastries from the Farmers' market and headed to Nina's house near mile 11. We only caught the tail end of the group, so we picked a spot near the finish, the football stadium.

This is where we learned that marathoning is difficult. Large numbers of people stopped, stretched, or walked even though they could see the finish about 1/2 mile away.
My favorite runners (in no particular order): Abe Lincoln costume, pirate costume, barefoot guy, walking cast guy (who carried a spare shoe), and Cal shirt guy.

In conclusion, we were impressed. We had fun. We're not convinced that we need to join the runners next year.

wet weekend

This was a good weekend to be a duck. After numerous sunny days spent in the office, we had much rain.

Did the rain stop our adventures? Nope, they were accentuated. We walked to the library to get some fiction and came out to a downpour. Somehow, we only have 1 umbrella that Jill used to keep the baby dry.
How is it that Jill looks wetter than I do? For the above photo, I had already taken off my rainjacket. Both of our pants and shoes were soaked through.
Rain makes me feel more philosophical. The following question came to me while on my ride to Block in the rain: (Sidenotes: a handful of fields already had corn plants poking out of the ground. I didn't take the camera for fear of destroying it. Finding a spot to hang wet bike clothes after wet walk clothes was tough.) how have we changed since becoming parents? Short answer: I'm less introspective [joking]. One minor change is that not only have we not watched a new movie in the last year, we haven't even been interested [that includes you, Avatar]. Maybe Clara brings us enough extra drama and laughter?

My boss told me that I would now _always_ have worries about my kid in the back my mind. Other than the usual stress of preparing her to become a visionary world leader, it's hard to think of specific worries. Maybe that's the rub -- they wouldn't seem so big if we could name them.

We bought this cool toy for Clara on Saturday even though officially she's too young. The animals and farmer can move all around the farmyard. She likes it nearly as much as an empty cereal box.

some unprecedentosity

Since we're such highly educated people, you might think that we always have our act together. To be frank, we have a ways to go. We haven't even started on boarding pre-school applications (I say she should learn locally in Chicago, but Jill has her heart set on Prague for extra focus on the classics.) What we did get done for the first time ever was give Clara a bath on consecutive days.

Jill did make some lemon cupcakes with strawberry cream cheese. I find that they must be eaten 2 at a time.

One reason for Clara's additional bathing was playing in the grass time yesterday. She liked sitting on it and pulling it up, but would not roll. Grass blades poking her face was no fun.
We took a ride out through the local tree farm yesterday. After riding past plowed corn and soy bean fields, seeing baby trees with flowering buds is a welcome sight. The farm is not small-- about 2 miles long by one mile wide.
For a touch of extra safety, Jill recently bought a flag for Clara's trailer.
Pulling the trailer at moderate speeds is much easier than trying the stick with the fast boys on the Wed night ride. Dave told us to get ready for his 35 mph pull minutes before it happened. Even if he had told me 3 weeks ago, I'm not sure I would have been ready. Dropped!

Finally, God knows if we're going to have any more children, but we have stumbled upon a fine name theme. Jill said something about 'older' names, but I heard 'oder' names. My favorite oder name to date is Modje (pronounced Mowed-HAY, accent mark over the e). Feel free to use that one and change spelling as needed.

now 7 months

The fine weather this week called for a picnic. Our Tuesday dinner with our adopt-a-students seemed like a good time to have one. We enjoyed curry chicken-salad sandwiches and Jill-baked shortbread cookies.

We loaded up the bikes with dinner and baby, and the boys walked over to Illini Grove. I rode the Ute cargo bike, which has been neglected for some time now. Jill puts groceries in the trailer with Clara, and I rarely transport lots of stuff. I had considered getting rid of it, but will hold onto it until after the revolution.

Our 3 'kids':

Clara is yet another month older at 7 months. No doctor appointment this month, so we don't have official stats other than that she is bigger and is in the 80th percentile for funniness. Still not too much hair and no teeth. She celebrated this achievement by getting her first runny nose. 2 days later she's fully recovered.

She wouldn't sit still with Raggedy Ann for the photo shoot.
A month after their initial plan, Grandpa and Grandma are in town to see the baby. We've hit Hickory River and the Courier Cafe. Maybe we'll visit Allerton Park tomorrow.

Happy Easter

Our first easter as a family of three was today. Christ is risen! 'I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.' Ezekiel 36:26

Our adopt-a-student Eric came over for a lunch of pork tenderloin (with mojo sauce), rice, green beans, lettuce, and strawberries. Yummy!

The family portrait was taken during the sunny part of the day.
Clara will be 7 months old this week. She's starting to eat solid foods. First was rice cereal mixed with formula. Now, Jill has put our new mill to use, making sweet potatoes, bananas, and carrots. SP were the best. Below, Clara enjoys some carrots.
Clara is developing a sense of MINE. She cries when we take toys away or when she drops them on the floor. Don't fear because Jill is already on the case. She and Clara play pass the ball (thanks, Grandma K) and celebrate each good pass.

Call me a wimp, but I skipped the morning team bike ride during a downpour so that I could ride in sunshine in the afternoon on Sat. I rode around Homer Lake, sailing there in about 30 min with a strong tailwind and grinding into the wind back for over an hour. I'm partly following friend Mark's program of 3 20 minute intervals. Mine were 12, 20, and 5 min. Not terrible by me.