How awesome is that? One of my best friends and her husband took like 6 weeks and did an around-the-world trip a few years ago before they had kids, and I was insanely jealous. That is something I’ve always wanted to do. I’d still love to someday, but who knows when we’ll actually be able to now. I’m hopeful, though. I love to travel and see new places.
All 3 parts of that clip are really good – Move, Eat, and Learn. Damn, makes me look totally boring.
Anyone taken a look at the stock market lately? Well if you haven’t, don’t. And my only piece of advice as someone who works in the financial world day in and day out – don’t watch your 401k every day. If you do, you might start acting like this:
Too funny. Sadly, though, it’s true. Ugh, here we go again.
As a mom of a now 1 year old, my mind has started wandering into the upcoming years. Specifically, how in the hell do you entertain a toddler?? And how do you do so before reaching the demonic meltdown stage when they are displeased? Yeah, I am harboring no pretenses when it comes to the so-called terrible 2s, and what I’ve recently heard are even worse, the terrible 3s. D already does the throw-yourself-flat-down-on-the-floor-and-cry when she doesn’t get her way sometimes, and we’re a whole year out from 2. Awesome. Kids can be bitches, and I just want to be prepared so I don’t get any fingers bitten off along the way. Now hopefully D will surprise me and be a peach her whole life, but seriously? I’m not that naive.
One place that can get sticky with kids is car rides. And since we usually go to Canada each year and are in the car for a solid 12 hours, I’ll take any and all suggestions. This year ended up being a breeze with D, but she was still young enough to take lots of bottles of milk and easy finger foods like Cheerios and puffs. As she gets older, though, she won’t be so easily satisfied with such baby fare. So then what?
R sent me the following link that has some great ideas for just this scenario:
And so it begins. D started walking Tuesday night, at 1 year and 1 day old! I’d seen her take a single hesitant little step a couple times, but this was full-on actual walking.
I was in the bathroom, sitting on the toilet of course, and she was playing with the strip of floor in the doorway. All of a sudden I looked over and she was standing up on her own, smiling at me. I still kind of get weirded out when I see her just standing there, because I’m so not used to it. Sure she’s been walking around while holding onto stuff for months now, but seeing her just standing all by herself out in the open still takes a second for me to get used to.
So there she was, grinning like a little monkey, so I stuck my hands out and wiggled my fingers to see if I could get her to try walking over to me instead of plopping back down and scooting like she usually does. Sure enough, it worked. Her little legs started moving and she toddled all the way over to me and the toilet, a good 8-10 steps for her at least. Oh my god, she did it!! She did pause at one point in the middle and squatted down, but she never fully sat or touched the floor, then stood right back up and kept coming until she grabbed onto my legs and squealed with delight. I couldn’t believe it – she just walked all the way across the bathroom! I was so excited. R was out working in the garage so we had to run right out there and tell Daddy what just happened. Well, after I pulled my shorts up, of course. This was big news, but no need to bare my butt to the neighbors just yet.
I had her on the kitchen floor a little later that evening as I was cleaning up after her feast of spaghetti-o’s and peas, and I sat down there with her to see if it would happen again. Well sure, Mommy, I can do it again, duh. Here she came, walking right into my arms wearing nothing but her diaper and a grin. Yay! She really can do it! Of course R was still out in the garage and by the time he was done D was too sleepy to mess around and refused to stand, so the walking lessons were over for the night.
Look out world, there’s a D on the loose on 2 legs!
** Stats update – D had her 1 year doctor appointment last night, and she measured 31″ long (97th %) and weighed 20 lbs. 11 oz. (50th %). Our little string bean is growing! She got 3 shots too, which of course she hated. MMR, chicken pox, and hepatitis A. Fortunately she seems to be having no ill side effects, so hopefully it stays that way. She hasn’t experienced any problems with any of her vaccinations so far.
I haven’t talked too much about me physically post-pregnancy on here (besides the weirdness that was my boobs for awhile), so I thought I’d let you know what’s happened to my body in the 1 year since giving birth. Oh you don’t care? Too bad.
All the mess that occurred “down there” during delivery had healed itself by 6 weeks postpartum. I did have a small tear that needed to be stitched up, but I’m not sure exactly how long those stitches took to dissolve and disappear. By the time I had that routine follow-up appointment, though, my doctor said she couldn’t even tell I had had stitches and gave the all-clear for physical activity and sex again. Ha. No, let me rephrase. HAHAHA! Sex?? After what happened in that general vicinity? Yeah, that didn’t happen for a looooong time. I have no idea how some women can go in for their 6 week appointment and be pregnant again already. Holy OUCH! I was scared of it. Terrified, really, but that’s a whole other post…
I weighed myself on D’s birthday, and exactly 1 year after delivering her I weigh 39 pounds less than I did when she was born. And that is still 6 pounds less than I weighed when I got pregnant. I was 154.5 when I found out I was pregnant, gained 33 pounds to 187.5 at the end, and was 148.5 on Monday. I had lost all of my pregnancy weight by 3 months postpartum, before I went back to work. I then lost some more last winter with breastfeeding and multiple bouts of the flu, but now I’ve been able to get back to this level for awhile. And my body seems to be functioning properly again since I stopped breastfeeding, ahem, so I’m happy with this weight.
It took me a very long time to get back into shape after giving birth. I haven’t not exercised for a prolonged period of time since before high school, literally, so it was definitely a shock for me to be so physically wimpy. I was no body-builder before by any means, but I couldn’t even lift things that used to be an absolute breeze for me. I started going for regular walks with D in the stroller a few weeks after she was born, then did work up to jogging again by last fall. But then came winter, and I don’t run outside if it’s below 50 because I hate running in the cold, so there went that exercise routine. I canceled my gym membership by the end of last year also, because I had zero time to get there with a baby. Kudos to those of you parents who go every day, but I couldn’t do it. Nor did I really want to. I much preferred playing with and taking care of D than paying to go get all sweaty. Finally, come this past spring, I started back in earnest. I began seeing my trainer again (fortunately i can workout with her at the gym still without being a member), I started running regularly and signed up for some 5ks to make sure I stuck with it, and I do abs and push-ups on my own fairly frequently. I can now say that I feel like I am back in pretty good shape, and have been feeling this way for the better part of the summer so far. So it was almost a full year before I regained my cardiovascular endurance and some muscle mass and strength. Damn.
I am very fortunate to have escaped any postpartum depression with D. I was honestly worried about this, because there is a strong history of depression and mental illness on one side of my family, which could have made me a prime candidate. I made sure I knew what the symptoms were, and I told R that if he ever saw those signs, I would need help. I know that just because I experienced none of them this time doesn’t mean I’m out of the woods for any subsequent kids, but I am hopeful.
My back is definitely different after being pregnant. It obviously hurt by the end of my pregnancy from all the extra weight I carried, but even since giving birth it’s still more sensitive than it used to be. Not like sharp pains or pinched nerves or anything like that, but it just gets uncomfortable more easily now. Like on one of our couches I still have to sit with a pillow behind me to feel like my back isn’t totally sinking into the cushions. Maybe some of it has to do with holding D across me all those months of breastfeeding, and similarly now when I hold her at night and in the morning to give her a bottle. Or I could just be making that last part up. I’m no chiropractor.
My crazy smells did go away after pregnancy. I’m not kidding, though, there are 1 or 2 things that still make me cringe to this day when I smell them, all because I started hating the scent at the beginning of my pregnancy.
I’ve already talked about my hair loss and how that rectified itself after a few months, thank god.
I think that about does it. I was lucky – I had no major problems during my pregnancy and actually enjoyed it, and had a smooth recovery after delivery. I just really hope I didn’t use up all my good ju-ju this time around and have a hell of a ride in store for next time…
Poor little D. Her birthday celebration on Monday wasn’t exactly the fun-filled evening I was expecting. Sure it could’ve been a lot worse, but it certainly could’ve been better, too.
I left work a little early to pick her up from daycare, since one of R’s brothers and his family were coming into town for the Brewers game that night and staying at our house, so I wanted to be there when they arrived. Plus, duh, who doesn’t like to leave work early? Turns out D had taken zero naps all day, which never bodes well for the evening hours. I don’t think she’s ever decided to not nap at all at daycare, so right then I prepared for the worst. Of course she ended up falling asleep on the couch after about 2 sips of her bottle just minutes after we got home around 4, then slept for 2 solid hours until about 6. That actually wasn’t too bad because R and I were able to get a lot done around the house – he started preparing food and sauces for our upcoming party this weekend and I hung some curtains in the dining room. I’m getting pretty good at this curtain hanging thing, if I do say so myself. Just don’t make me use anything but a power drill and screwdriver now, and I’m golden.
After her nap I gave D a birthday dinner of pears, cheese, bananas, and Cheerios while we finished up what we were doing, eagerly awaiting the token first birthday cake-smashing-in-the-face. She was still pretty zombie-fied from the day, so she wasn’t exactly enthusiastic about much food, hence the lighter fare. Usually she happily gobbles up a hot dog and a couple other things, but a hot dog a day doesn’t really work like an apple to keep the doctor away. And she’s been eating tons of hot dogs lately. Anyway.
Before we got to the cupcake, however, we measured her on the growth chart board that R made for her. This thing is awesome. He took a router to the edges of a 2×4 to give it a finished look, found some really cute letters to spell out her name and glued them to the top, then stained and sealed the whole thing. So each year we’ll measure how tall she is on it, starting with her length at birth of 19″, and he’ll wood burn it in as a keepsake. We’ll mount it on the wall outside her bedroom door. She’s up to 29.5″, 10.5″ of growth in her first year. Yeah, go D! Then we showed her the box her water table came in with a big bow on top of it out in the garage, since it was a little late in the day to get started setting it up and playing. She seemed to approve.
All right – cupcake time! Let the smashing begin. We were definitely more excited about this part of the day than she was. So we got her back in the highchair, bib on, cupcake paper off, #1 candle on top, lit and sitting on her tray, ready to be blown out with some help from Mommy. Oh wait, Mom, what is this shiny thing? Fire? Let me stick my finger in it to see what it does. Oops!! She stuck her finger right in the middle of that flame to the wick before I could grab her hand away. Total Mommy fail. Of course R’s like why in the hell did you do that? I could see it from happening over here! (over here being where he was positioning the video camera to record this precious first birthday moment) Yeah, cuz I did that on purpose. I enjoy watching our child scream in agony. Oh man, that was bad. Her poor little head turned as red as a tomato with her screams, as I’m trying to suck on her finger to cool it off. Does that even work? Or does it just make it worse? I don’t know, but that was my first instinct so in my mouth her tiny index finger went. R got an ice cube to put on it right away, but she still got a little blister on it. Damn. Fortunately it didn’t seem to bother her much at all after the first couple minutes, once the pain subsided. Geez, Mommy, way to go again.
Ok, take 2. Once we got her calmed down I was tempting her with some frosting off the cupcake on my finger, since she was a little leery of going in the highchair again. That seemed to work, so she allowed me to put her back in to try the cupcake thing once more, sans candle this time. Except she really wanted nothing at all to do with that nice funfetti cupcake that I had so lovingly made and frosted in pink for her. She stuck her finger in the frosting a little tiny bit and squished it in her hand, but that was about it. Not one bite. No throwing it anywhere. No smashing in the face. I thought all babies smashed cake in their face on their birthday, didn’t you? Ah well, guess I can’t blame her. I don’t think I’d be too thrilled about something that had just burned me either, even with the burny thing removed. Maybe we’ll try again this weekend at our party so others can join in the fun, too. She did get a huge kick out of us singing “Happy Birthday” to her, though, so we ended up singing it 3 times. That means my horrifying singing voice is now captured on home video thrice. Ick. But anything to make her smile on her birthday. Plus by this point she was sufficiently exhausted again, so it was time for a bath and then bed for that little birthday girl. She had some wicked diaper rash happening that night too, which didn’t help her mood, and then I saw the culprit – another tooth. Ah ha! See, I knew these things were festering in there these past couple weeks. It’s not a molar though, like I was expecting, it’s the bottom right one that’s right next to the ones already there. What’s that called, a cuspid? I have no idea. But I saw it in there just under the surface as she was screaming with her finger on fire, then I saw the very tippy tip the following morning.
As I was rocking her to sleep with her bottle that night I obviously found myself staring down at her little head and reminiscing on that same night 1 year earlier, her first night out in this big wide world. Man, what a difference a year makes. That very first night was filled with the remaining shock and elation from the day – we had a daughter. Wait, we had a daughter!! I remember the nurses taking her to the nursery that first night and R going home to sleep, leaving just me in the hospital room, exhausted yet almost too excited to sleep, trying to fathom what life with a little girl was going to be like and wondering how long it would be until they brought her back for her first feeding. I missed her already. Then there was that night 2 nights ago, filled with calm and peace, looking down at our 1 year old daughter knowing that we made it through a whole year with a little girl and things just seemed to fall into place as we went. Thinking how lucky we are to have her in our lives, how beautiful and incredible she is, how endless the possibilities are for her in her own life, wondering what these coming years have in store. But most of all just thanking everything in the universe for her, our daughter D, on her first birthday.
Birthday wake-upBefore schoolI'm 1!A water table, just what I've always wanted!Look how big I am!Oo look - a candle! Oops.This was the extent of the smashingFamily photo with our 1 year old!
p.s. i went for a run on sunday morning, my first one in a week. it felt horrible. my legs hurt the whole time, and i felt like i was moving at a snail’s pace. so i was very surprised when i entered my stats – i ran 2.86 miles in 25:32 minutes, for a 8:56 pace. not nearly as bad as i was expecting. i just need to get more than 1 run in a week. unfortunately, this week is going to be busy, so i might only be able to squeeze in one more, tops.
So did anyone else’s skin decide to go back through puberty once you became pregnant, or was that just a cruel joke nature decided to play on me? And not really on my face so much, but I was blessed with the red-headed stepchild of skin problems – backne. Yep, that’s right. Zits on my shoulders and upper back. Gross!
Fortunately backne has never really been an issue I’ve had to deal with, aside from the occasional random blemish here or there. But once I became pregnant? Holy shit. It was like the skin of every pubescent teenager decided to take up residence on my upper back. It was so nasty. I was like what the hell is this? Where are all these pimples coming from? It was disgusting. I started using those Noxema cleansing pads to try and combat it. You know, those round ones that come pre-soaked in their own zit-zapping juice? The ones that reek and sting if you swipe them over broken skin? Yeah, those. Those that you probably haven’t even given a thought to since you were about 15. At least I hadn’t, anyway.
This lovely phenomenon lasted for pretty much the entire first trimester. I can’t remember exactly when it began, but I think it was fairly close to being from the get-go. And I know it lasted until at least March, so that would be a little ways into the second trimester as well. We went to St. Thomas for a vacation that month, and the backne was still plaguing me. I think it was beginning to finally go away at that point, but there were still some remnants. My mom even noticed my shoulders and asked me if it had started when I got pregnant, because she experienced the same thing. Some of the bumps were just awful, too. Like big and painful. Sorry, truth hurts sometimes. And so did those horrible zits. Fortunately the tan I got down there helped mask them, instead of continuing to appear as giant volcanoes on my pasty white Wisconsin winter skin.
It was so odd, too, how it was gone by the time my pregnancy was over. Thank god. Hormones, gotta love ’em.
