Babies & bikes

This past week I have learned a lesson on dealing with babies, while trying to train on my bike. For my child and parenting development class at school, one of our bigger projects is having to take care of a computer newborn for a 24 hour period, that means it's on all night and all day long.  Not knowing what I was going into, I thought this was going to be a breeze…. Not so much.  Luckily you could set up "quiet times", where the baby won't cry for a certain period of time.  I had "quiet times" scheduled for Saturday and Sunday so I could get my workouts in. The first day I got the baby I was ecstatic and couldn't wait for it to cry so I could care for it.  The first time was alright, I fed the baby but, didn't realize they ate for 20 solid minutes! After the first cry they came in on a schedule; change the diaper, feed the baby, burp the baby (which usually took 40 minutes!) and change the diaper again.  This happened about every three hours.  In between the baby would start crying for no reason, for 5 minutes just screaming its little head off, I would have to pick it up in the middle of what I was doing just so it would be quiet! I knew it was going to be a long week after the first set of cries. Another thing I noticed is that they only cry when its inconvenient to you, like when I'm getting ready to ride or while I'm driving.  That night was the longest night of my life.  The baby woke me up THREE times!! I had a ride scheduled at 10am, I didn't wake up until 8:30am and that was also because of the baby. So running on about 4 hours of sleep I scrambled to get ready, loaded my bike on the car, strapped the baby in and took off.  I got to the ride at 9:45am, 15 minutes before we took off and my baby shut off.  At exactly 9:56am the baby decided he wanted to eat… against my better judgement, I ignored him and just left him in the car screaming.  I had to go ride and I wasn't going to let the baby stop me! So with one more day and night left being a "mom" I had already dropped the baby's head twice, locked him in a car, and started crying with him, it was a tragedy. Some people may laugh at this story, but it was not funny at the time! The next day and night went about as well as the previous had, long and torturous.  I ended up getting a undesired grade on the baby, so undesirable my teacher had me do the project over again two days after I had turned the baby in.  The second time was just as bad, but I did get a remarkably better grade. One thing I have learned from this assignment is having a baby, and training on a bike is nearly impossible. You aren't rested enough, and the stress it causes you is unbearable.  I give props to all those women out there, especially Pro women, who can handle having MULTIPLE children and training on their bikes.  You have to be a superwoman to do both, that's truly amazing.  Being 16, I'm lucky I won't even have to worrying about having child for a longggtime. Taking care of bikes are MUCH easier.