Whispers from Beyond the Death of the iOS Blogger App

Hello, friends!

A lot has happened since my last post in October 2015. A quick timeline:

• June 2016: Twins turned one!
• August 2016: Learned we were expecting one more!
• April 2017: Baby Bee arrived!
• June 2017: My office moved from 7 miles away from home to 1.5 miles away!
• Summer/early Fall 2017: Hotter and more humid than a dog's mouth.
• Mid-Fall 2017: PERFECT biking weather. 

I was able to sneak in a couple of rides to and from work before it was getting dark before I could get home. I found my helmet (need a new one!) lights, and get them charged, but I'm not feeling very organized about it just yet and plan to start fresh in the spring when the days are a bit longer and the temps a bit more favorable. 

The twins are now two-and-a-half, and the baby is almost 9 months old. We were gifted my brother-in-law's bike trailer (yay!) this summer, so when it warms a bit, I'd also like to take the Tinies (the twins) on our local bike trail (Grant's Trail, from Kirkwood to Mehlville). My BIL also provided us with two helmets appropriate for young children, so we're all set.

I have also been able to walk to and from work a couple of times but that also requires organization and a bit more time over my schedule than I've managed with a nursing baby. But she'll have broader food options in a few more months and with my 40th birthday(!) coming up later this year, I plan to reinstate a lot of things that have been pushed aside for high-risk pregnancy or to care for three very young people in the past 3.5 years. (How? So fast. So long. So everything.)

Goals for my 40s:

• Ride/walk to work as often as possible
• Start running again
• Streamline my wardrobe and possessions
• Capsule wardrobes 

I hope to start posting more regularly here again - I'll aim for once a week.
It's good to be back. ❤🚲

Postpartum Peeps

Hello there!

It's been a long time since I've checked in here. SO much has changed since my January post. A few seasons, to begin with. Also: our family. And my address! Let's catch up, shall we?

Babies! 
Over the summer, I gave birth to boy/girl twins! We are all doing so well and they are now about three months old. I had a Caesarean section with them, and while recovering from the surgery itself wasn't terrible, I am finding recovering from a twin pregnancy in my upper 30s to be pretty incredible. I have been assured that some of this is due to hormonal changes that are sustained while nursing, but gracious. I feel like a little, old arthritic lady more often than not these days! The weight has largely come off though, my energy levels are stabilizing, and the babies sleep pretty well, so those are three great things going for all of us. The kiddos are absolutely darling and I am completely smitten! I remain really excited to introduce them to bicycling, which I plan to do in the spring when they have better head control! I am looking at Burley trailers as a possible Christmas present.

Location, location, location! 
As if doubling our family isn't enough (haha. sigh.), we also moved over the summer. We bid adieu to our little house and purchased a new, larger family home a couple of miles west of the first one. From a biking perspective, this is good, bad, and neutral. The good news is that we're in a neighborhood with more gridlike streets, which opens up cycling routes for me and for the kiddos when they are old enough to ride independently. We're also part of a more complete community, so we have things to ride to within a 1-2 mile radius of our new home, like the Y, library, shops, restaurants, church, etc. So I am really excited about incorporating bicycling to those places into my life, and until I can ride with them (or independently) more easily, I like that these places are also within walking distance of our new home. The bad news is that I've added 2.5 miles to my work commute, which, given how slowly I ride and the busy-ness of part of the route, means I probably won't ride my bike to work much, if ever. When I was 6 miles from work, it took me a solid 50 minutes to get there or home. I imagine adding another 2.5 miles to that would add another 20 minutes to the commute, and while I'd be willing to try it more readily if it was just me at the hubby, for the foreseeable future, there are two small people to feed and take care of the morning, and I can't fairly leave that to my husband, nor do I really want to plan to be up for the day at 5:30am, which I'd need to do to get riding early enough to get to work at a decent hour, only to hit issues at the other end, where I'd either have to leave work early to get home in time to release our nanny or plan to pay her for extra time. All in all, it just doesn't make sense right now. I'm a little bummed, but the other reasons we chose this neighborhood ultimately trump bike commuting to work, which I think I would only have done regularly if we'd shortened my work commute to 3 miles or less, and that radius around my office didn't offer much that made sense for us at this point in our lives. In neutral news, I'm the exact same distance to and from my local multi-use trail, so hey!

Source

Plans.
So that's where we are. I find myself feeling physically ready to ride again, but with that we're finally in a place to work on our home on the weekends. So I may not be able to ride a whole lot this fall after all -- if I do, I will definitely be writing about it, though, so it may be worth checking in once in a while. I will try to post more regularly again once I have figured out how to fit bicycling back into my drastically updated life!

x

Pregnant Pause.

Hi all! 

I have not abandoned you! Alas, I have also not been riding at all for the past few months and have no plans to ride in the next several, so I wanted to tell you that this blog will likely be mostly dormant for a little while longer. I am expecting, and while that is no bar to riding for many mamas to be, it makes sense in my case, so I'm taking a bit of a break from the two-wheeled life (at least in practice). 

For far better bike-mama inspiration, I can provide links: 
(Sadly, the one I most wanted to link to has been taken down by its host. I miss the Simply Bike Blog!)

Tips for Cycling While Pregnant from People For Bikes

A firsthand account of one woman's experience Cycling While Pregnant

My friend Melissa, who I actually met through and directly as a result of said aforementioned now-defunct blog, has posted a number of things about riding while pregnant and with her kiddo. I find her really inspirational, because we live in the same town, and she rides for transport far more than I do.

So where does this leave us? Here's where I am these days, philophically and physically.

1. The Pregnancy. I'm due in the summer, and expecting twins. My pregnancy started high risk, with weight restrictions (no lifting 40-pound Fleur) and other physical restrictions through much of the first trimester. And, because it's two kiddos, my body is changing pretty quickly. As a result, while I totally support cycling while pregnant for most mamas, in my case, I have decided to take an extended break.

2. The Plan. That said, I do look forward to cycling after pregnancy for fun and fitness and for a bit of transportation, though I don't imagine I'll do that a whole lot with the babies until they are big enough to ride in a trailer. So I'm tentatively hoping to bike a bit for fun on my own by this coming autumn, and hopefully introduce the kiddos to the bike in Spring 2016.

3. The Current Philosophy. I remain frustrated with my cycling options in the county, which keeps me from riding more than I would. My cycling philosophy is (generally) as follows: you can ride on a multi-use path, or you can ride on the street. Either way, you must behave as traffic for the appropriate path. That means no hugging the right, and being visible and predictable so that you and motorists can behave in a way that is safe and a lot more enjoyable. Given my druthers (I'm a slow-bike person, after all), this means I prefer side streets and multi-use paths to arterials, neither of which are generally options I can count on to reach many destinations from my home in the county. About a year ago, we considered moving to a more urban setting, and while that didn't work out, we are still considering relocating, and bikeability to either work, recreation, or worship destinations is important to me, so location is definitely something we're weighing as we look for our next home.

I hope to post here periodically if I come across something to share, but until then, in (temporary) loving memory of both coffee and riding... until we meet again.

Yesterday after my #bike ride, I finally got my double kickstand installed! I also got my front basket fixed.Today, post-vetted cats, I'm indulging in the first real cup of #coffee I've had in six weeks. Sweet Jesus, it's delicious.

A photo posted by Rebecca B. (@seven2seven8) on Oct 19, 2014 at 7:53am PDT