Me Myself & I – Page 15

September 20, 2011June 1, 2013

Mommy fitness

So instead of working on getting all the pictures together that I owe you, I’ve been checking out a lot of new blogs lately. Sorry. (i swear, you will have wedding pics soon!)

But this morning I found another great one. Check out Robin’s post today over on PureNaturalMom. It’s awesome! This is exactly what I needed after D was born – a simple, broken-down way to make me realize I could still fit exercise into my post-baby world, no matter how daunting that seemed (or how little i really wanted to do it).

Yes, I now am able to get a couple runs in a week (and by a couple i mean 1-2. i’m not being outrageous here), plus usually a weekly workout with my trainer and another day of maybe a walk or bike ride, but dudes, D is now almost 14 months old (holy what!? what’d you just say? how’d that happen??). I’ve had time to ease back into the exercise world and try to maintain a routine again. Those first couple months, though, hoo boy. Working up a sweat was definitely not high on the priority list anymore. Unless you count the sweats I broke walking up and down the basement stairs doing countless loads of laundry. Which, actually, do count! So there you go.

I know I’ve mentioned it before, but going for walks with D those first couple months turned out to be essential in getting back some cardiovascular endurance. I couldn’t tell at the time, since my first walk post-delivery was maybe 1 mile total and about did me in, but looking back they were immensely helpful. And before baby I viewed walking as kind of fake-exercise. Yeah, it put me in my place right quick.

So for all you new moms and moms-to-be who have been used to being gym rats, don’t sweat it now. Literally. You’ll get your groove back, all in due time. Enjoy your time with a new baby without worrying about burning your usual calories (and if you’re breastfeeding, you shouldn’t be counting calories anyway!). And if you really need to sneak in some exercise, use that new little bundle – he/she will be getting heavier by the day and building your biceps for you!

p.s. run stats – last night i ran 3.84 miles in 33:52, for an 8:53 pace. not bad. this was a longer run that i hadn’t done yet this season, so i was happy to finish without walking.

September 19, 2011February 10, 2012

Our girls

Is anyone else out there with daughters scared shitless about raising them in today’s world of over-sexed, under-dressed, unsupervised, and generally grown-up-too-fast youth? I am.

I’m horrified by some of the things I see girls younger and younger doing, wearing, saying, and experiencing, and I whole-heartedly pray that I will be strong enough to raise D with unwavering morals and values.

I want her to be proud of herself, love herself, respect others (including her elders), and love having me and R as her parents.

I want to give her a childhood full of innocence and happiness, warm summer days and nights playing outside, cold winter ones snuggled in close, and memories filled with laughter and love instead of micro-minis, stilettos, and make-up.

I want her to fully enjoy being a kid, where her biggest worries are learning to share toys and riding a bike, not whether her clothes are from the right store or if she has the perfect body or, god-forbid, the best cell phone.

I want to foster her confidence so she grows up strong enough to respect herself, not feel like she has to do whatever it takes to get the boys’ attention or that of the mean girls.

My hope of hopes is to give her the best foundation possible early in life so that she grows into a wonderful woman in her own right, ready to take on the world with a good head on her shoulders and a positive (yet not naive) outlook and attitude. I know that may sound uber-cliche, but that’s what I want.

I don’t want to be her best friend (although i’m sure that would be great, but my job is parent).

I don’t want to give in to every whine and beg just because everyone else gets to do it.

I don’t want her to have a cell phone when she’s 7 because I think that’s ridiculous; she can have one when she’s ready and able to pay for it herself (read has a job and can fund her own plan).

I don’t want her to be on Facebook until she’s well into high school, if not college, or ever (wouldn’t it be great if we could actually raise our kids to talk to each other, not online chat??).

I don’t want her to start dressing like a college student in grade school because that’s disgusting.

I don’t want her to think she’s entitled to everything just because every other kid appears to be.

I want her to address adults by Mr. and Mrs.

I want her to say please and thank you and excuse me and may I.

I want her to be able to use her imagination to make up games and stories and make-believe playlands.

I want her to understand and appreciate money and not throw a fit when there isn’t a Bentley wrapped up with a bow in the driveway on her 16th birthday.

I want her to be caring and giving, not selfish and absorbed like so many kids I watch today.

I want that amazing sparkle in her eyes to always be there, never fade.

I guess I just want her to be a good person, and I want to have the strength and wherewithal to get her there. Is that too much to ask?

I found this wonderful post today over on Clover Lane, and it’s exactly everything I’ve been thinking about and wanted to say. I don’t want D’s childhood cut short either, so I hope I’m a good enough mom to make hers long and pure.

September 16, 2011September 16, 2011

I’ve got the Twitters!

So I finally caved and joined Twitter. Please come follow me!!

Click on that Follow Me tag over there on the edge —–> and press the Twitter button to find me.

I’m not sure what I’ll have to tweet about, but it’s been fun playing around on there so far. 🙂

Thanks!

September 16, 2011September 16, 2011

I’ll admit it again, I’m addicted

To Starbucks, that is. I always hated Starbucks for its big name, invasive presence, high price, corporate crap branding, but dudes, if I haven’t had a complete change of heart.

I was standing in the little Starbucks near my office this morning, waiting for my usual iced venti nonfat light-ice chai latte, and I realized that I just love the place. There’s something comforting about the warm coffee house feeling in there. It’s like each one is a little community in its own right, inviting and welcoming to all. You have the newspapers for perusal, corner tables and couches to snuggle into for reading or computing, larger seating areas to meet and chat with friends… It just feels good being in there. And even though I hate the taste of coffee, I do love the smell of it.

As much as I’ve been sucked into the Starbucks mega-opoly (a new word i just created, feel free to use it ), I do like to try to take my patronage to local coffee houses and test out their chais when possible. And I have done this often near my office – there’s a little coffee house about a block away from where I work that I used to frequent much more often than the Starbucks. However, they have raised their prices to almost match Starbucks’ now, and the quality of their drinks really isn’t all that great either. I used to think they were far superior, but they’ve changed some of their ingredients, which, coupled with the increased pricing, really doesn’t pull me in as much over Starbucks as it used to. So to the famous green lady logo I usually head now.

Now I’m not one with a daily Starbucks habit; I can’t afford that. But rarely a week passes where I don’t pop in at least once or twice on my way into work. And it’s not all that uncommon to find me stopping by the one near our house if I’m out and about on a weekend either. I’ve mentioned before that I started walking up to the Starbucks in our neighborhood with D after she was born last summer for a little exercise, and that is where I got hooked on these chais. Before then I would have it as a Friday morning treat at the office with a group of girls, but never otherwise. But now I seem to get my morning caffeine hankerings pretty regularly.

Ah well, I guess there are much worse things that I could be addicted to. Am I right? Thought so.

p.s. run stats for the week… so i ran tuesday and thursday nights this week, and i really need to go more than just a day in between runs when i haven’t run for a while. last week i didn’t get any in with the wedding travel and all, so hitting the pavement this week felt a little rough. my times were pretty good though, so i was happy. tuesday i ran 3.23 miles in 28:32, for an 8:49 pace. last night i ran 3.24 miles in 28:19, for an 8:44 pace. i was especially pleased with last night’s run, because i pushed d in our bike trailer that converts to a jogging stroller for the first time, and holy shit was that hard! i had no idea how taxing pushing something while running would be, but i was completely out of breath after 2 blocks, and still had the whole 5k route left to go (i did the same route as the 5k i ran in our neighborhood back in may). i thought for sure i wasn’t going to be able to finish, but surprisingly i made the whole thing. and i was less than a minute and a half off my time from the actual race earlier this spring, which blew me away.

September 15, 2011

Thoughts

This is totally random, and a terribly sad subject, but it’s just been on my mind this morning. So lucky you, dear readers.

I have read so many stories lately of babies lost far too soon – women having multiples where either one or more perishes before birth; singleton miscarriages; multiples being born and spending their first hours, days, months in the NICU only to lose one or more of their siblings before going home; multiples being born healthy and happy and having gone home, only to have to rush back to the ER some time later and not bring everyone back.

I cannot even imagine that pain.

And I think now, being a parent myself, it makes it seem so much more real. Not that I can put myself in those parents’ shoes by any means whatsoever. But just knowing how devastated I would be if we lost D, such stories from complete strangers often bring tears to my eyes. From the moment she was born she captured my entire heart and world in her tiny little body, and if something were to happen to her I don’t know how I would make it. So when I hear what all these families have had to go through, my heart breaks for them each and every time. Especially when the baby(ies) have been born and the parents have gotten to see and hold and know them, even if just for minutes, then to sit there and lose them knowing no more can be done to stop it. Whew – I’m choked up just thinking about it.

I mentioned this to someone earlier today, this unfortunate plethora of angel baby stories that I’ve encountered, and their response was that it’s nature’s way. Now they totally did not mean it in a disrespectful way at all, like well those people must have done something to make that happen. No, that certainly wasn’t the case. (because when i heard that response i, too, was like what!? are you serious?? no that’s not nature’s way!) They were just thinking of it more along the lines of how when animals have offspring they know when some are not going to make it and focus their efforts and attention on those that they know will instead of trying to save each and every one. (let me also mention that this person does not have children of their own, and even admitted that they’re sure they would view things differently if they did. but right now they just have pets, so that’s their frame of reference) I said well that’s true, but we as humans rarely birth like 7 children at once (save octomom, of course), and our 40 week gestation period is so long that by the time that baby(ies) comes out it already feels like it’s been a part of us for eternity. Don’t we have one of the longest gestation periods of all species except like whales and elephants? I don’t know – I didn’t Google that yet so I could be way off. But anyway. If something was wrong with one of my babies, you’d better be damn sure that I’d do absolutely everything possible to save him/her. That’s what doctors and hospitals are for.

So there you go. See, told you it was random. Just another one of those posts where I kind of dump my thoughts out to you. But if you’re reading, please say a prayer for all the angel babies and the families that are so desperately missing them every second of every day. I guess that was really my point. And as selfish as this may sound, I hope to never know that pain.

September 15, 2011

A tease

I finally got the rest of our Colorado pictures uploaded last night; now begins the process of going through all 500 or so and picking out the best. As you can imagine, that might take a minute. So in the meantime, I’ll whet your palate with a little teaser shot.

Remember the skyscraper shoes I said I was wearing? They lasted just about through the beginning of the reception before I opted to switch to my much more comfortable and dancing-friendly flats. But they did their job and dazzled. They really were quite ridiculous, but I got lots of comments on them! And isn’t that all that matters? Ah, the pain we endure all in the name of beauty. Check these babies out…

Stay tuned for the rest of our wedding weekend pics. They’ll be coming soon.

September 13, 2011February 9, 2012

Stye-clops and her barking seal

So first of all, Colorado was awesome. D did absolutely splendidly on the planes, much better than I even expected. On the flight out she was a little fussy and squirmy after we boarded, but drank almost 2 bottles of milk right away, was asleep before takeoff, and slept the entire flight. Coming home she was awake for takeoff but fell asleep shortly after then woke up probably about 3/4 of the way through the flight, but barely made a peep once she did wake up.

The wedding was amazingly beautiful, I could not be happier for my sister and new brother-in-law, and it was wonderful to spend time with family.

However…

I started getting a stye on my upper right eyelid on Wednesday of last week, the day we flew out there. Seriously? A stye? I thought only kids got those, since the only people I ever remember seeing with them were those in my grade and high school classes.

I’d never had one until then, and man was it a bitch. It made my whole eye socket area feel like I’d been punched, it felt like I had a piece of sand under my eyelid, and I had to wear my stupid glasses for 2 days. I hate wearing my glasses. Fortunately it cleared up enough by Friday to wear my contacts again, and by wedding day Saturday it was basically gone. Thank heavens! I read they can last up to a week or 2. Gross!

Also…

D got sick this weekend. Really sick.

She had the makings of a cold and a little bit of a cough before we left, but Saturday the full brunt of the illness hit her. Just in time to perform her flower girl duties, poor little thing. But, being the sweet little trooper she is, she didn’t let it stop her and was, what I believe to be, the cutest flower girl in the history of flower girls. She made it all the way down the aisle to me like a pro, with just a minor detour back to Daddy and a chat with a couple of the guests.

So anyway, I stayed home with her yesterday and got in to see her doctor because she just kept getting worse. Turns out she has croup and a double ear infection. Fabulous! I actually suspected the ear infections (i didn’t realize it’d be a double one again, i thought 1 would be plenty) because the first one she had came with the gagging cough, but I certainly didn’t expect croup.

I didn’t really even know what it was, but once I looked up the symptoms it sounded exactly like lil’ Miss D – harsh cough that can sound like a barking seal and comes with sharp intakes of breath. Bingo. She would take these hoarse, rasping breaths and then cough so hard she’d gag, often barf, and start crying. You could just hear how painful it was for her, and with all the barfing she really hasn’t eaten a meal since Friday.

So they gave her an oral dose of a 3-day steroid at the doctor’s office yesterday, then put her on amoxicillin again, which we started last night. They said she could go back to daycare today as long as her fever was gone, which it was this morning, but she was in no shape for school. Still coughing like a little seal and could barely keep her eyes open. So today’s another sick day for the babe.

I will have plenty of pics from the weekend soon, once I get them all uploaded, but here is a little teaser of our wedding travels.