I did not join the Great Virtual Race Across Tennessee this year. I had a baby coming and I wasn’t sure I could do the 1000km I would need to do within four months. (Also, I’ve done it three times already and none of the swag is that compelling.) Today would have been the last day. According to my calculations I did 988.23km in the time frame. Part of me was tempted to do the 12km to get over, but I held strong. I wasn’t going to get a prize anyway.

I also see, from looking at the course this year, that the total distance required is actually a bit more at 1015.5km.

I probably could have done it. If I had signed up I would have pressured myself to run a bit more. I’m glad I didn’t. Belle is more important than any virtual race.

Belle is three months old today. I think I’ve been told that this is the point that she can start picking up routines, and also bad habits. I need to be a good dad from now on.

The last month has been stressful. At two months she was supposed to be able to lift her head up during “tummy time” (when we put her on her stomach.) For us, we could only get her to lift her butt up; she has very powerful legs and wants to use them for everything. So I guess her arms were not getting enough exercise. It did make it amusing to watch her act like a slug, moving across the floor by just legs alone.

If she isn’t lifting her head by three months, we may have to take her to a neurological expert.

For the last month we’ve been doing all we can to encourage head lifting. It has actually been going well. We watched videos and tried to do best practices. It led to a lot of crying (on her part) and adults acting spastic to make her look up. She wasn’t as interested in noisy toys as she was in human faces.

Eventually though, she lifted her head. For the last two weeks she has been able to keep her head up for long periods of time. Most of that comes from arching her back, so we still need to work on arm strength. A lot of her progress came within the single week my mother was visiting, so she got to see it happening.

Educational videos say that a crawling baby is a happy baby, so getting the arms to do more is the next step. She really just has to figure out that crawling is a thing and work towards it.

Mental development is going well too. She is able to hold onto things and even pass them between hands. She is making a wider variety of noises. Raspberries happen often, but there is a delightful cooing she does.

I have also made a discovery that is helping me sleep better. She has been crying in the middle of the night for awhile, but I recently noticed that she was still asleep while she was crying. Rather than waking her, changing her, feeding her, and trying to get her back to sleep, I instead give her a pacifier. I’m not proud of it, but it does seem to work. It may take a few attempts, but we all get to continue to sleep.