Just Another Marathon Monday

The first steps are so wonderful to watch, but after that, having a little mobile baby is a little more trouble than your first think. This last weekend marked Olive’s SECOND trip to the Boston Marathon to cheer on the runners (No, Leanne and I didn’t run, we got our fill of that in October). Last time we went out to the course she slept comfortably in her car seat as we pushed her around under roughly thirty pounds of blankets. She was only a couple weeks old and really didn’t do much other than sleep, eat, and shit. As long as we kept her well fed, warm, and managed to contain the excrement, we had nothing to worry about.

This year was a different story. Sure, it was fun to watch her clap for the runners and sit and watch them run and/or limp past. But keeping her contained proved to be a little work. For a little while, all she wanted to do was set off running along with the crowds. Leanne and I took turns sitting behind her and preventing her from playing out some weird version of the running of the bulls (Running of the sweaty people in short shorts? Running of the Gu-eaters? Running of the baby tramplers?) The rest of the day was a quest to keep her entertained cause, you know, she doesn’t really sleep as much as she did when she was three weeks old.



I mean, at this point it is just tough to keep track of her. You need various strategies and accoutrement. So I think the way things worked out was this: Leave home, car seat, to the stroller, to being held, standing, held, standing, held, stroller, standing, sitting, standing, sitting, held, Ergo on daddy, standing, ergo on mommy, stroller, car seat, ergo on daddy, standing, stroller, carseat, home.

There was some playing and eating and a couple diaper changes in there somewhere. Also some sleeping, but not much.



Overall it was a great day. Walking Olive is a lot more work than non-walking Olive, but she is also a heck of a lot of fun. And it is great that we have started a little tradition of watching the marathon as a family. Who knows, maybe someday she WILL join the crowd running past.