Life as a mom.

It is amazing how quickly time passes when you have a newborn. Yes, that is right I am a mom complete with a sagging empty belly! A small small price to pay for my amazing son. Now that is not to say that I am not a little freaked out to have the extra baby weight to lose on top of my prior excess.

I will say that I am happy with the amount of weight that I gained with my pregnancy, it was really appropriate. I gained 28lbs and 20 of it was baby! So I am about 8 lbs from my pre-pregnancy weight. That drops me off around the 200lb mark, most days 199.

I miss my hard round belly and knowing that my son is always with me. I miss looking at my stomach with the pride of knowing that it was holding such an amazing treasure. My body was doing exactly what it was supposed to do. I had a shockingly uneventful pregnancy with the exception of gestational diabetes that I was able to control with diet.

Now on to my son Cal, he is absolutely perfect. He was born 7lbs 3oz and 19.5 inches on November 26th. He is a happy healthy boy and he makes me want to be a better person everyday. I am currently on (unpaid) maternity leave until the end of February and I want to make the most of it. I spend my days caring for his every need and I know that one thing he will need his whole life is a healthy mom. I want to be the best role model that I can for him.

Overall I am taking mommyhood in stride and loving just about every minute. My husband is amazing and I don't know how I would do it without him. I love to see him lay on the floor playing with the baby. He has jumped into fatherhood with both feet and is wonderful at it

SO now I need a plan to work on me. With the little guys schedule slowly starting to form I am hoping to figure it out. I am thinking that I can work out in the morning while the baby sleeps after his 6am meal. I am just waiting to get cleared to work out by my doctor. Although I am sure that walking would be ok. I did have an episiotomy so I don't want to push it too much. I think that the place to start will be food, I plan to keep up with my gestational diabetes diet plan because it kept me from gaining too much while I was pregnant. It is basically high protein and lower carb. The main thing that I learned from that diet was that I needed to not skip snacks and cut sugar. I need to focus on planning meals and grocery shopping accordingly to avoid spending too much and blowing the budget.

SO that is update and I will try to post more as I go along! Without further adieu pictures of my son.

This is all I am doing right now.

20lbs 25 weeks.

Holy Moly She's alive!

Yep alive, 18 weeks pregnant with a baby BOY! I am just growing and preparing. I have school break for one more week then I start teaching summer school a couple days a week. So far I am feeling good, no complaints really. I have been really lucky in the morning sickness dept for sure. I can't believe I am almost half way there!

Everything is GREAT!

More belly talk

I am still just hanging about being pregnant. I have been very anxious these past couple weeks because my first ultrasound is this Friday. I am dying to see that everything is ok with the baby and that it is growing well. I will be almost 11 weeks along which is 1 week shy of being in my second trimester! That is a long wait, especially since we found out early at 3 weeks.

I am feeling good, just tired, and I have no reason to worry about the health of the baby. I guess it is just the not knowing whats going on in there. Since I have little morning sickness I have no big signs of being pregnant. Truthfully I feel like everything is fine but sometimes I worry that I have it too easy. So I guess I am holding my breath until Friday, think of me and send positive vibes my way around 3:30pm!!

I will post ultrasound pics as soon as I can!

Cloth

Today's adventure included dropping little Moxie Mayhem my italian greyhound off to get fixed and researching cloth diapers! Very interesting and slightly overwhelming stuff I tell ya. We made the decision to go the cloth diaper route before we even started trying to get pregnant.

It just makes so much financial and environmental sense. We are looking at spending $3-400 dollars (depending on the style we go with) for the entire diapering of our child's life and also any other future children. If went end up with only one child cloth diapers resell for around 75% of the original cost. To put a dollars and cents point of comparison the average child goes through aprox $3000 in disposable diapers. That is about 10x more that cloth.

Cloth diapers get a bad wrap I think. People have not seen the amazing leap and bounds that cloth diapers have gone through. No more pins and folding cloth. They are just as functional as disposables and even come in velcro (I'm going with snaps because they last longer) They also come in one size diapers that adjust as your baby grows. Now this barely scrapes the surface on cloth diapers and there are many other moms out there that know WAYYYY more than I do but I do plan on giving my honest lokk at using them!

life as an undercover prego

SO only a handful of people in my life know I am pregnant at this point, since I am not seeing my Dr until 11 weeks I still have a way to go before we let the news out. I feel like I am constantly exhausted, my house is a wreck, I am moody at work and I can make no excuse (even though I have a good one) I cannot wait until I can finally say "sorry I have been so lazy lately! but I am pregnant"

Did I mention that I had the stomach flu this week? Oh yeah full blown vomiting and diarea. No, it was not morning sickness it was the real deal flu. Bonus, since I am pregnant I couldn't take ANY medicine to help. Pure torture, I wanted to die. I missed 2 days of work (Tues/Wed) and really shouldn't have gone in on Thursday because I was still hurting pretty bad. I lost 3lbs, I thought it was mostly water weight but I still haven't put 2 of them back on.

The most part of being sick was worrying about the baby, I was so afraid. I guess it was my first mommy moment when I realized I would rather choke down water every 10 minutes to stay hydrated for the baby even if it meant I would throw some of it up.

I am feeling much better now but really yesterday was the first day I started to feel like myself. SO far I haven't had to deal much with morning sickness(knock on wood) and I am now 6 weeks pregnant! I hope that I am lucky enough to stay the way!!

In other odd pregnancy news although I am down 2 lbs none of my jeans fit. Holy bloating Batman!

Pregnant!

So I guess if you missed my last post then this one should catch your attention! I am officially 5 weeks pregnant with my first baby! I am so excited I am dying to tell all the people in my life however I have only told a few. I haven't seen my ob yet, apparently they don't see you until you are 8-12 weeks along. I will be seeing a nurse to go over family history etc and getting set up for blood work in a couple weeks. It is truly painful to wait to share such amazing news. Not to mention to explain why I am so tired! I think everyone at work thinks I am staying up all night partying j/k I do wonder if anyone is wondering. I have only dealt with heartburn through out the day and mild queasiness at work (knock on wood) but overall I think I am acting mostly the same if not only moving slowly but getting things done!

I am soo happy and tired : D I can feel that I am very bloated already and my pants are not fitting as comfortably as before. In preparation I have ordered some maternity pants because I carry my weight in my belly as it is. I ordered a couple of work pants that were on sale at Motherhood maternity and scored a couple pair of motherhood maternity jeans on ebay. I knew what size to get because I tried on a pair of my friends and adjusted a size down. One work pair has arrived and I have to tell you they are awesome, so comfy and the fit my legs and bum perfectly. To be honest I look better in them than my other pants!

So my blog may be more baby centered now! I hope you don't mind!

Long time no post!

Sorry I haven't been posting much, life took over! I haven't been focusing too much on diet but just making good choices. BUT that will definitely be on the back burner now because I'M PREGNANT!! So excited! I only found out today but I feel safe sharing it here!!

Sorry MIA

Life is not fair or kind right now. Weight loss is on the back burner. I am struggling through winter blues, money woes, and job dissatisfication. I don't want to post negative nancy posts so instead I am just reading other blogs.

snow snow go away.

I've lost myself again. NO I am not eating all crazy but I am not tracking. If you live in a cold climate you can probably understand when I say that this weather is killing my soul. I literally feel like the life is being sucked out of me. I have the "winter blues" and I cannot seem to climb out the the depression. I am cranky and pretty much miserable to be around. I hate it. I know I am acting cranky but I just cannot snap out of it. I just feel like I don't care about anything, I want to sleep all the time, and be left alone. It drives me even more nuts just knowing that I can see how I am acting but still cannot change it. I just feel so alone.

I need to stop and take control. I know that I just need to make a change, set some goals, and make some concrete plans. This weekend is dedicated to making some plans for the renovations on the house that we will be making using our tax return. Putting monetary values on the jobs and setting dates for action. I tracked my food today and will track tomorrow.

Something has got to change.

Sorry I am MIA

I have been very busy due to a new member of the family.

Perfect uterus

I may be chunky but my Dr. told me that I have "a perfect uterus". So I am happy.

NOTE: no my Dr. didn't say I am chunky lol.

Winter blues

Hey guys, sorry I have been such terrible blogger this year month week. I am seriously battling some winter blues. As you may have gleamed from previous posts, I live in the freezing long wintered state of Maine. After Christmas passes it can be really tough to deal with the cold and snow mentally, physically, and emotionally.

It is really hitting me this year. It doesn't help that the house we bought has basically no isulation, when the lying bastards sellers claimed it was very well insulated. So we keep the thermostat at 68 degrees and the house tends to sit at a toasty 58 to 60 degrees. Yes we could turn the heat up but our oil bill is already more than our mortgage, so we don't. I spend my time at home bundled up in sweats, wearing socks with slippers, and buried under blankets. Sounds pretty freakin depressing doesn't it?

Well we are pushing through only 3ish month left of it! We are hoping that our tax return will provide us with enough money to insulate, since we had future plans to tear out all the cracked plasterboard upstairs and the panelling downstairs. It is just more of a neccessity now. Lucky for us we have some family willing to help and show us how to do it. It is going to be a big mess and a lot of work but in the end we will be warmer next winter and our house will have more equity.

So that is where I am right now. I hope for school to be cancelled for snowdays but also hope it doesn't because I need the hours and don't want any more snow. Since school wasn't cancelled today I better go get dressed before I am late!

circle of plans

There are many things that I have attempted, put effort into, and then quit. I find myself having difficulty sticking to my plans. Maybe my plans are too rigid, maybe I give up too easily. In the end I just long to try again. I still want to be an early riser. I still want to work out in the morning I love the way it makes me feel). I still want to stop drinking diet coke. I still want to get healthy before pregnancy.

They all seem to involve each other. If I drank less diet coke, I could sleep better and rise earlier. If I got up earlier I would have time to work out before work. If I did all of these things I would be heading towards a healthier pregnancy.

SO where to start? I think that the first step is to cut back on my diet coke consumption which I would be doing once I am pregnant anyways. Along with that I am going to set my alarm 15 minutes earlier next week. How is that for a start?

Emotional

Wow last night was a tough night. I had a bit of a melt down about finances, more specifically student loan debt that is going into repayment. It is really overwhelming and I am not sure how I am supposed to live and pay them back. Especially since I have such a low paying job at the school, not that teachers make a lot but as an ed tech I make less than half what a teacher makes. SO last night I sulked, sobbed, and went to bed. My husband assures me that it will be ok but I just can't fathom paying $500 a month for the rest of my life basically. Especially when my take home is $600 bi weekly.

I just want to start a family and live a modest life. I don't need much but I don't want my child to feel like they went without like I did. I don't want them to avoid playing basketball because we cannot afford the shoes or not go to prom because they know we don't have money for a dress. That was my experience and I don't want that for my child. I want them to have what they need.

I know this isn't really health related but it is connected. Emotionally I was in a really bad place. I am still coming out of it. I realize I am lacking control. I am going to try to turn that need for control into my health. I can control what I eat and how I work out. I can control my choices.

lost but not losing.

I am feeling a bit mad at myself today. I am irritated that I paid the money for 3 moths of ww online and I am not really using it. I am wasting the money. I need to get back into the swing of things again. Every year I say that the holidays aren't going to ruin my health progress but they do. Why? Well because I let them. I then struggle to get back to my healthy ways.

I need to get back. I am really half assing this and if I am going to do it I need to really be all in. This is my time to refocus.

Back to school

Well I am back to work this week and it is truly kicking my butt. I am TIRED! But I am also tracking, pretty honestly and trying to get my water in. I started getting up earlier than before to allow myself some blogging/coffee time in the morning which is nice. No more stressful rushing to start my day.

Work is proving to have some real curveballs for the next month or so, one of the ed techs that I work with is leaving. I know that people change jobs all the time but when working with kids with autism it is especially hard to make the transition. Just to add to the stress the students are dealing with coming back from a 2 week break. Yeah did I mention I am tired : )

3lbs

Okay so I am up 3lbs this week, I think Christmas caught up with me. It doesn't help that I am at the end of my period. I have also been drinking copious amounts of diet coke and pretty much no water. This week I will focus on water intake and tracking. I have already started tracking today and will be attempting to drink at minimum 60oz of water everyday.

The water will be a challenge because I work with special needs kids and I cannot just run to the bathroom when I am at school. SO I plan on drinking one bottle while at school, one when I get home (2pm), and one with dinner. I find that by planning my water intake around certain events in my day I am much more likely to remember.

So thats the plan for this week, no lbs lost goal but life change goals.