Wednesday, January 1, 2014

New Years Eve

Yes, I know today is New Years Day, but I'm doing my New Years Eve post today, get over it!  (I'll have a New Years post later tonight, Alex had a major milestone today and I'm eager to celebrate it!)

2013 has been a great year for the Lake clan.  We started the year with Elyse gestating my progeny, and I'm happy to say that both Elyse and Alex are now separate entities and both are happy and healthy.  

Elyse (the geologist) made the decision to trade in her hardhat, work boots and soil sampling in exchange for burp clothes, nursing tops and, well, soil sampling :)  I have to say, I am very happy and proud of my wife for the amount of effort and care she has taken to be Alex's primary provider.  It is not easy as any parent knows and Elyse is handing it with grace (and sleep deprived comedy - well comedy for me anyway).

Alex has made the co-sleeper his home for the last four and a half months.  This is a contraption that attaches to the bad so our little man can sleep with us, but not with us.



As of late Alex has been just barely fitting in his co-sleeper which would be fine but he had also taken to rolling and kicking around all night (he always did that, but now it's more aggressive and there is not enough room for him to do it).  Elyse and I are discussing upgrading him to his pack and play for night time  sleeping, that way he has more room to thrash about.

Additionally on the baby front, I found this series of baby development videos:

2 month development
4 month development



I found them to be quite informative as we have been reading a lot, but everyone is so afraid to tell you where your child should be for fear of hurting your feelings.

I'm happy to say that Alex is progressing nicely along with the typical development for his age - YAY!
Additionally, it is sometimes hard to watch the typical child - Owen as it is kind of sad to see his lack of development.

Ok, back to what is really important - ME!

As some of you may know I have been trying to get back into some form of health and fitness (my standards for myself are rather high) by doing Crossfit 4-5 days a week.  I started doing Crossfit (Barracks) in March 2013 to lose the 20 lbs that I had gained through Elyse's pregnancy and my general lack of giving a f()ck while living in Oceanside for a year.   What ended up happening was that I stayed the same weight, got a heck of a lot stronger and reshaped my body a little.  In addition to that I have been working on my flexibility ( I was epicly tight in my hips and hamstrings) and have gotten to the point where I can deadlift, and overhead squat with proper range of motion (this is key to avoiding back and shoulder injuries).  It literally took my 6 months of easy working out and "mobility" (a fancy word for stretching) before I had the flexibility necessary to perform the major barbell movements (squat, clean, snatch, deadlift).

I have also started playing Ping Pong again (I've been playing with my brother since I was a kid, and have played on and off throughout my adulthood at random bars or table tennis clubs).  I found out that San Diego has one of the largest Table Tennis clubs in the country (SDTTA).  Now compared to these folks, I'm definitely bush league (some of the members compete at the National level), but I have a lot of fun and I've been getting better.