Nature! It's in my nature!

For as long as I can remember I have been completely enthralled by nature and wildlife.  Growing up I often had a jar in hand, holes poked into the lid using a hammer and screw driver so that I could "catch something".  I asked my grandfather (Pop) on a daily basis to take us to the river (South River) so that I could find something to put in my jar, mostly minnows and crayfish, and he almost always obliged.  Pop introduced me to "doodle ups" (aka Ant Lions), and made me my first butterfly net out of a plastic dowel, a coat hanger, and some kind of orange netting.

I also had aspirations to catch birds, and on several occasions sat out in my grandparents' back yard holding onto a rope which was attached to a stick, which propped up a cardboard box, underneath of which was bread (bait).  When this didn't work, Pop told me that if I sprinkled salt on a bird's tail that it couldn't fly away, so I began stalking birds, salt shaker in hand.  Of course I never caught anything this way either, but I do recall coming upon a young American Robin, still exhibiting a speckled breast, that I probably could have shaken some salt onto.  I was so excited by my close proximity to the bird that I completely forgot about the salt!  Pop never did care much for Starlings and Pigeons, but he once allowed me to try to care for a Pigeon that he had found in some weeds he was pulling, the bird appeared to have been attacked by a cat.  Unfortunately the bird died sometime overnight, but Pop told me that I did a very good thing trying to help the bird, and that it was happy I had tried to help.

My grandparents also used to stop when they saw box turtles in the road, pick them up, and bring them home for us.  We kept them in a cardboard box for a few days with a small bowl of water and some lettuce (which of course was never eaten).  On a few occasions we attempted to make a nice little turtle habitat in the backyard using some garden fencing to contain the turtle - it looked nice, but they always managed to escape.

In the 7th grade we had a River Day at Ridgeview Park with a variety of different activities centered around the river.  One of the stations set up involved determining the health of the river based on what kind of life we could find in it - we were set loose to catch turn over rocks and use small hand nets to catch anything from minnows to crayfish and aquatic insects.  I believe I was the only student to find leeches - not big ones mind you, only about the size of my pinkie nail, but leeches nonetheless (which indicated that the health of the river wasn't the greatest).

In college I majored in Environmental Biology, and therefore dealt a lot with nature, but mostly in text books.  I did take a few classes that were more hands on: Ornithology, Botany, Ecology.  Our Ornithology class met bright and early at 6:30 in the morning, and incredibly early time for a college student, and most mornings (we met twice a week) we went out to look for and identify birds.  On one outing we walked by a low-lying area where some rain water had collected and I saw toad eggs in the water.  I decided to return to the area myself once I was done with classes for the day to poke around for a little bit.  When I got there I was amazed to find hundreds of frogs and toads (mostly toads) mating or seeking out a mate.  By this point in my life I was more interested in capturing wildlife through photography than capturing them in jars, and I took almost 2 entire rolls of pictures!

In graduate school my dreams of catching birds were finally answered in a big way - my thesis project called for me to spend not one, but two summers catching Prothonotary Warblers - a gorgeous yellow bird with bluish, dark gray wings.  The first summer I strictly mist-netted for birds, using an recorded call to lure them toward the net, and a decoy hand-carved out of balsa wood and painted to look like a Prothonotary Warbler.  There was a lot of waiting involved, but I got to sit outside and read books, and just enjoy listening to nothing buy the sounds of birds in the trees and wind blowing through the branches while I waited to check the net.  The second summer I mostly checked nest boxes, which required a canoe as the boxes were attached to poles several yards from shore throughout the lagoon and old channel of the James River at Dutch Gap in Chesterfield County.  I could easily spend 6+ hours a day in a canoe, weather permitting, most days of the week.  Aside from the Prothonotary Warblers I also found many Tree Swallows and Carolina Chickadees who had nested in our boxes.  One small island in the lagoon was a Great Blue Heron rookery, where dozens of herons nested communally in several tall trees - who would have thought that herons nest in trees?!  Now, Great Blue Herons make vocalizations that sound like what a dinosaur might have sounded like, and canoeing by that island sounded like something straight out of Jurassic Park!

My thesis field work led me into an internship at the Kiptopeke State Park Songbird Banding Station, a banding station on the Eastern Shore of Virginia that is open for public visitation (many banding stations do not allow public access).  I believe that fall we captured 95 different species of birds, which was actually a low number of species compared to most years, and we had many days that we captured several hundred individual birds!  In addition to the songbird banding station, Kiptopeke also has a hawk banding station and a hawk counting platform.  The hawk banding site is not open to the general public, but I got to spend some time in the blind with the hawk trapper, and even handled a few of the birds that were captured - it was amazing!

My time outside these days is somewhat limited seeing as it's summer time in Texas and I have a small baby to take care of, but fall is fast approaching and I definitely want to get outside and introduce Addisyn to the wonderful world of the great outdoors.  We have taken her for her first hike, 1.5 miles on a cooler September morning, and she does enjoy being outside.  I hope that she will have the same sense of wonder and awe about the natural world that I do - I'm sure she will!  I look forward to teaching her about the various flora and fauna out there, and learning some more myself in the process.  I look forward to butterfly nets and critter catchers, tadpoles and caterpillars.

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend...

...Inside of a dog it's too dark to read." - Groucho Marx

I can't say that I remember much about learning how to read.  I do have vague recollections of reading books such as Green Eggs and Ham and Are You My Mother? to Dad in the evenings, and being very frustrated doing it.  I recall my distinct distain for being sent to my room to read for  20 minutes most evenings.  I guess reading because I had to or reading what someone else tells me to has never really been something I enjoyed, though with age it did get more tolerable - good thing!

My first "adult" book (as I called it) was Jurassic Park, which Dad had bought for me when I was in the 6th grade.  The movie had just recently been released and I LOVED it!  We were in the Staunton mall one evening, walking by the Walden bookstore and Dad asked me if I'd like to have a copy of Jurassic Park the book - my first reaction, "there's a book?!"  The reading was still a little advanced for me - I could read and understand it, but it was a slow process and I only got through the first few pages on my first attempts at reading it.  Still, I carried that book around with me for weeks, almost as a sort of literary status symbol - my first book that hadn't come off the shelf of the children's or young adult section of the bookstore.

The true "joys" of reading books that had been assigned and had a deadline for completion began in high school; actually, the summer before high school.  Up until this point reading books that had been assigned for class wasn't half bad and I enjoyed most of them.  Enter: Robinson Crusoe and The Sea Wolf.  For my freshman Honors English class I was to read both books over the summer and do a variety of projects based on the books.  Of course I spent most of the summer reading the books I wanted to read instead of the ones I had to read.  I began the daunting summer reading project the last week or so before school started, and some how managed an A on the assignment.  Unfortunately our teacher lost his brief case shortly after we found out our grades and because he no longer had  all of that information he decided not to count that large project grade toward our 6 weeks grade.  All of that work for nothing! I received a B for the 6-weeks in that class, which would have been an A had my reading project been included.  While my freshman English class was trudging through works of classic literature, the senior Honors English class was reading books like The Horse Whisperer, which I decided would be worth reading after seeing so many of my older peers reading copies.  It was a MUCH easier read for me than Robinson Crusoe or Brave New World.  Of course I re-read The Horse Whisperer my senior year as well.

Years later after completing high school, college, and graduate school I have taken the time to sit down and read/re-read some of those classics that were on reading lists in high school on my own time and my own terms.  Robinson Crusoe and Brave New World still took some perseverance to get through.  Fahrenheit 451 was a much easier read.  I've also read many that I hadn't ever picked up before: To Kill a Mockingbird (great book!), The Iliad, Frankenstein, Dracula, to name a few.

These days I am also focused on introducing Addisyn to the wonderful world of books and reading.  This endeavor began when I was around 6 months pregnant and began reading some young adult classics to her.  By the time she was born I think I read around 18 to her.  I also read Oh, The Places You Will Go to her on a daily basis.  Now we read board books, Dr. Seuss books, and Disney story books, and most of the time she is very content to just sit there and look at the book while I read to her, definitely a good start!  I look forward to her having her own library card when she's old enough to have one, and hope that she will be as excited to get one as I was (that old, pink card stock Waynesboro Public Library card with the little metal strip attached to it).  I hope that I will be able to inspire such a love of books in her that trips to the library getting new books will be part of an effective reward system for as she gets older.

Fitness After a Baby

My Fitness Before Addisyn:
I have played sports and participated in a variety of physical activities throughout my life: gymnastics, ballet, baseball, softball, swimming, basketball, soccer, lacrosse.  Staying in shape was certainly much easier for me while playing team or organized sports.  Getting into shape and maintaining my fitness level on my own has always seemed to be a wavering endeavor.  I would spend a few weeks doing some sort of cardio workout and weight training and maintain that for several weeks to a few months and then something would happen; I would lose motivation, or become busy doing other things, and my good fitness regiment would fall to the wayside.

Fitness During Pregnancy:
When we began to discuss starting a family I consulted my doctor, books, and the internet to see what sorts of limitations I would be under as far as workouts were concerned during pregnancy.  Cardiovascular exercises had to be limited to the types and intensities of exercise being done prior to pregnancy;  I hadn't been running before I became pregnant, so I stuck to walking.  Any activity with an increased risk of falling was to be avoided (goodbye biking, rollerblading, etc).  I was not to lift anything greater than 35 pounds.  Abdominal exercises and any others that involve putting pressure on the stomach should be ceased after the first trimester.

Fitness NOW:
Since Addisyn was born 3.5 months ago I feel a heightened motivation and desire to get into shape and stay in shape, and I feel that there are several reasons for this: 1) For so long there were so many things that I could not do which has inspired me to want to do those things now that I am able to.  2)  I want to be an active, physically fit mom to set a good example for Addisyn.  3)  I have made choices to do what is best for Addisyn (breastfeeding, cloth diapering, being a stay-at-home mom), and now it's time to make choices to do what is best for myself as well.

Getting into shape with a young baby certainly has its obstacles too.  Physical activity has to be reintroduced and increased gradually because the hormone relaxin (which is responsible for loosening tendons and ligaments in pregnancy to allow for the widening of the pelvis) is still present and could lead to over-stretching or pain and injury to joints.  I also have to be somewhat conservative in my activity level (moderate exercise is perfectly fine) because I am breastfeeding - loosing too much fat too quickly could decrease my milk supply.  Another obstacle that not every new mom faces is having a husband who works away from home for several days at a time.  We have a gym membership, but at this point I am unable to go for 4-6 days at a time while my husband is away at work.  Timing is probably the final concern when it comes to exercising, I have to make sure Addisyn has been fed just before I leave for the gym when Matt is home, or before we go for walks (or in the future, runs) to make sure that I get a good amount of time to exercise before she needs to be fed again.  I also prefer to not have to feed her immediately after exercising as lactic acid builds up in breast milk just as it does in muscles during physical activity.  We haven't had an issue yet, but many babies will not breastfeed and will fuss when lactic acid is high because of the altered taste of the milk.

So, I am slowly getting back into working out and increasing my fitness level.  I just had my first 3 days back to the gym since Addisyn was born this past week, and it felt great!  I've done a little cardio on the StairMaster a few days, and am slowly getting back into doing some weights.  We have invested in a descent jogging stroller too so that I will be able to take Addisyn and go jogging while Matt is away - we walked a mile with the stroller today and anticipate trying a short run (maybe a mile?) tomorrow.