Back in action

I had my postpartum check up today, and I'm cleared to start working out again*.  YAY!!!!!  I've been doing some walking (with a few jogging intervals thrown in there just to test the waters), but I've been very motivated to take it easy after the delivery.

I'm always amazed when I read or hear about another woman's great comeback to running after motherhood, but despite my own grand plans, I'm not sure that will happen for me.  I'm certainly not going to be in race shape anytime soon and probably not PR shape for a long time (I guess that's where the "after baby" PRs come in), but - after almost a year off of real training- I'm still excited to get back into it again.  I've updated my running tab to reflect the change.

*except for doing ab work - I'm supposed to wait another two weeks for that.

Maternity Photos

Several weeks ago, friends of ours were kind enough to take some maternity pictures for us*.  I was about 30 weeks pregnant (maybe 32???) when these were taken.  We did the photo shoot at the Pheasant Branch Conservancy.  I've actually had these pictures since before Scott was born, but time just gets away from me.  Here is a selection of my favorites.  

Many thanks, Matt and Amanda!

*They've taken maternity and newborn photos for several couples/families and they always turn out beautifully.

The fourth week

This week's theme was a huge increase in eating and a huge decrease in sleeping.  Scott has been eating about every 2 hours around the clock for the past several days (we used to get a 3 or 4 hour break every so often) and when he eats it's often for much much longer.  For example, yesterday afternoon, we had a eat/spit-up/poop fest from about 1:30-5:30 pm with short breaks for screaming making complaints to the management when I thought he was asleep and tried to sneak away to do the laundry or vacuum.

Last night was a little better, though, because we moved him into the nursery and let him sleep in the swing in there so we only heard him when he really needed us rather than having to listen to his nightly one-man performance of Pterodactyl vs. Kitten.

But when I look at these chubby cheeks, it makes it (mostly) better.

El jefe

Mommy's little cuddlebot:

Very suspicious of Daddy's (the giver of baths') intentions:

Here's a better one of Daddy and Scott:

And just because I couldn't help myself.  Baby feet:

Also, Scott has a new trick this week:

You'll have to forgive my annoying overly enthusiastic mom voice.  Everything my child does deserves a gold medal.

Fitness update

It's been a mixed bag this week...

• Exercise.  Exercise is going really well.  I'm continuing to able to walk more and faster on the treadmill without any pain, and I'm excited to be cleared to workout (I'm assuming) at my post-partum check up next week.  As per my January resolution, for the last two days I've gone down to walk on the treadmill one feeding earlier so I'm starting at about 6:30am rather than 8:30 or 9am.  I'd really like to move this back another hour, but it works for now because Daniel is flexible with when he can get to school.  In the long term, I think if I can pump/feed at 5am with the goal of exercising out at 5:30am, Daniel can get out the door at 7am to leave for school, and I can finish getting Scott ready and to daycare with the goal of being at work at 8:30???  However, that depends somewhat on being able to get more...

• Sleep.  Sleep is not so good.  It's not any worse than for any other parent of an infant, (and is probably better than for many) but the lack of sleep is draining.  Some nights are better than others, but yesterday was a feeding frenzy from 6 to 8:30 pm and then a loop of eat, cry, change diaper, cry, eat, cry, spit up, cry, etc. for about 2 hours from 8:30 to 10:30 (at least that's when I stopped looking at the clock).  Once he's asleep at night we usually get one decent chunk of about 3 or maybe 4 hours and then he's up every 2 hours for the rest of the night.  Good thing he's so cute... but it's leading me to bad...

• Eating habits.   I actually do pretty well during the day, but I've developed a "witching hour" after dinner and before Scott finally goes to sleep when I can't escape the call of the Christmas candy from the kitchen.  We're not talking about one square of dark chocolate here, either.  If chocolate is good for you, I've eaten so many antioxidants in the last 3 weeks I'll never die.  And I'm not eating because I'm hungry - it's just because its there and it tastes good and I'm tired and a little stressed out knowing that my baby is probably going to start screaming and I may or may not know how to make him happy and I'm certainly not going to get to sleep any time soon.  BUT, I do want to lose the baby weight, and I don't want to sabotage the good I'm doing by hauling myself out of bed early in the morning to exercise.  I know the answer is to shut the door to the kitchen and try to go to bed earlier, but so far I haven't found the willpower to do it.  

• Weight loss.  Last Friday I was 136.8 lbs and today I was 135.2 lbs.  I think this was a real change because I feel like my mid-section is flatter than before, but it's probably a result of water weight lost rather than any actual body composition changes.  It's somewhat annoying, but I'll take it - especially considering the junk food situation.          

So anyway... kind of a whiny post, but it's my blog so I can whine if I want to, right?  Hopefully I'll be all smiles and unicorns next Friday.

6 things that surprised me about be a mom

1. Babies make a lot of noise.  And I'm not talking about crying.  I'm talking about all the grunting, snorting, squeaking, coughing, sneezing, hiccuping, heavy breathing, and one I can only describe as "kookaburra".  At night I sometimes feel like we've invited a wild animal to sleep at the foot of our bed.

2. Babies bounce.  No, I've never actually tested this, but, while babies are tiny and delicate and need a lot of care, they are actually more resilient than I'd thought.  I remember meeting a friends' newborn baby (who was a little early but of normal size) for the first time and been absolutely terrified to hold her or even breathe on her too hard thinking I'd break her.  Scott is probably that size now, and we lug him all around the house, wrestle his clothes on and off, wrestle his diaper on and off, and he's no worse for the wear (although he'd tell you differently - especially when it comes to getting a bath).

3. Babies make a lot of laundry.  I was told that this was true, but it was another thing I had to learn from experience.  Scott will go for hours being a wonderful, clean baby and then *boom* he lets it fly, and in less than 5 minutes I've got a laundry basket full of changing pad covers, outfits, burp clothes, blankets and my shirt.  He's especially hard on changing pad covers.  Despite our best efforts to keep things... um... contained, I think we wash all four of ours every day.

4. I would get used to body fluids being expelled on me realquick - People say it's not gross because it's your kid.  I think it's only not gross because it doesn't smell (at least for breastfed babies).  

5. Things happen at their own pace.  I worried a lot in the first week or two because things that I thought were supposed to have happened hadn't yet.  When would he poop and pee more?  Why wasn't he burping or spitting up?  All those things happened shortly after I worried that they never would, and Scott has done a great job of making up for lost time.

6. Love at first sight.  Yeah, I'm ending with a sappy one, but I've read from the parenting books that a lot of moms actually grow to love their newborns rather than feel in love with them from day 1 - especially because newborns are like little dictators: lots of demands without any positive reinforcement.  Because I don't think of myself (or like to think of myself) as a particularly sentimental or emotional person, I was afraid that I'd feel like Scott was a stranger in our midst and that it would take a long time for us to bond.  However, I was awed, amazed, and in love with him from the minute I saw him and feel like mothering has come more "naturally" to me than I thought it would.

What surprised you most about parenthood?

New Years' Resolutions

There's a statistic (that I'm making up right now) that 50% of all Americans make New Years' resolutions and 50% of them break them within the first week.  I won't say my track record is any better, but, like a mosquito to one of those electric bug zappers, I'm compulsively drawn to them.  Ooooh... pretty and bright... zap.

This year I'm planning to do something different.  Taking a page from Gretchen Rubin of The Happiness Project, rather than just make a list of stuff that I want myself to want to do, I've come up with a theme for the year (hers was being happier) and plan to identify one thing per month to work on that relates to the theme.  Because life and priorities change in unexpected ways, I'll pick the project at the start of each month rather than trying to identify 12 things right now.

This year's theme is one I've written about before: finding balance between work, life, and motherhood.    This month's goal is to start/develop a workout routine that will be sustainable once I go back to work.  Mainly, I need to go to bed and get up early enough that I can exercise before Daniel needs to leave for work and figure out a nursing/pumping scheme that will allow early morning exercise to happen.

So let it be written.  So it shall be done.

Monday's post on The Happiness Project lists 5 questions to ask yourself about your resolutions:

1. What would make me happier?

• Daily exercise and (hopefully) getting back into shape  
• Working out at a time that won't make me feel like I'm cutting into time I could have spent with Scott (because he's asleep)
• Working out for an amount of time that allows me to achieve some realistic fitness goals (run a 5k or 10k, not a marathon) without driving myself/Daniel crazy or causing sleep to suffer (too much)

2. What concrete action(s) would bring change?

• Going to bed after the feeding after dinner so I can get in some sleep before Scott's late evening (10-11pm) snack
• Getting up after Scott's early morning (4:30-5am feeding) to exercise.  So far he's not a morning person in the least, so I'm not worried about exercising while he wants to play (not that he really "plays" yet) 
• Learning to operate my pump and starting to pump so even if we aren't in sync one morning, Dad can give him a bottle if he wakes up hungry

3. Am I a "yes" resolver or a "no" resolver?

• A "yes" resolver for sure.  I'd much rather do something than try to stop myself from doing something.

4. Am I starting small enough?

• Um... I think so.  Waking up to workout out first thing in the morning is a habit I love and ingrained a long time ago.  I just need to be a bit more strict about bed/wake-up times and more flexible about what kind of exercise routine I can do.

5. How will I hold myself accountable?

• I can post about how things are going - probably in my Friday weight loss/fitness update.
• I know it's generally bad news to try to enlist your spouse as your New Years' resolution cruise director/drill sergeant but I can encourage Daniel to encourage me to get to sleep earlier rather than goofing off in the early evening.

Happy New Year!

Normally I write a Christmas letter summarizing the year.  This year events conspired to push back the date and make it New Years' letter instead.  For your reading pleasure:

Dear Friends and Family,

Everything takes longer once you have a child.  Writing a Christmas letter, for example.  You sit down to write, step out for an afternoon to have a baby, and all of a sudden you’re writing a new years’ letter instead.  2012 has been an incredible year of blessing for Daniel and I, mainly defined by the birth of our son Scott on December 10.  Pregnancy and early parenthood have had their challenges, but holding Scott and smelling his sweet baby smell (the perfect combination of baby shampoo and diaper ointment) make every second of it worthwhile.

The first few months of 2012 didn’t leave much of an impression on me.  We had an incredibly mild winter, which was great for running, but bad for pretty much everyone else from farmers to snowboarders.  In early spring everything changed.  Daniel and I had been hoping to have a baby, but it wasn’t until we were sitting at the roller derby (yes, really) in April that I knew something was different.  Baby Scott – who did not have a name yet and I sort of thought was going to be a girl – had transitioned from being a twinkle in my eye to a very real (if very tiny) part of our lives.    

Those first few months of pregnancy were, in a word, awful.  I didn’t have Kate Middleton level morning sickness, but there were some days I would have given a pinky finger to be able to check into a posh London hospital to ride out the nausea while hooked up to a San Pellegrino and caviar IV.  Only in those days my tastes were more of the “spoiled 5-year old” persuasion.  The only things I wanted to eat were grilled cheese sandwiches, chicken nuggets and French fries.  I think the low point was when I started eating frozen burritos for breakfast.  Really pregnant women get a lot of attention and help, but if the 9-months pregnant me met the 9-weeks pregnant me, she would have offered her a seat, a back rub, some Tylenol, a roll of Tums (for later), and some chicken nuggets – just in case 9-weeks’ blood sugar was a little low.  There really should be designated parking spots and seating for women who haven’t told anyone they are pregnant yet.

Around the same time we had other exciting news.  Daniel had a paper accepted to a computer science conference in London.  Not wanting to miss this opportunity for a “babymoon”, we packed our bags and flew over for my first trip to Europe.  We were there a few weeks too early for the Olympics but were able to tour the Tour of London, several museums, Westminster Abbey, and Kensington Palace, and see the queen’s birthday parade.  While Daniel was attending the conference, I went to Cambridge and Stonehenge with a tour group and visited the (recreated) Globe Theater, St. Paul’s Cathedral, and Greenwich (home of the prime meridian - where time starts).  It was a lot of fun to take our last trip that won’t somehow revolve around mini golf, Grandma’s house, or finding a McDonalds with a play place.

Summer brought a welcome relief from the nausea of early pregnancy, but it also brought some of the hottest, driest weather on record in Wisconsin.  Yeah, there are other places where the temperature routinely gets into the 100s, but those places tend to have central air conditioning.  It was around that time we started to consider moving out of our little campus apartment and finding something more “family friendly” with a dishwasher, a washer and dryer, and less of a chance of the baby getting heat stroke. 

August was an exciting month because at my 20-week ultrasound we found out that the baby was a boy, and in September we moved to a townhouse on the west side of Madison.  In November, we finally chose a name for the baby – Ron Paul Ryan Gosling – but later discarded it for Scott Alan (Scott is Daniel’s middle name and Alan has no significance but we thought it sounded good).

All the time I was growing bigger and the baby inside me was squirming and kicking and hiccupping his way into our hearts.  Unfortunately he never decided to squirm, kick, or hiccup his way into a head-down position, and my doctor decided the safest course of action was to schedule his delivery for December 10 before I actually went into labor.  Daniel and I floated the idea of a 12-12-12 delivery, but my doctor wasn’t on call that day, and a nurse later told us that no C-sections were scheduled for that date.

We’ve spent the last 2.5 weeks adjusting to being the parents of the most beautiful, wonderful, cute, smart, nice-smelling baby on the planet (if I do say so myself).  Sometimes I wonder if I will ever sleep, get anywhere on time, or do anything that takes more than two hours (because it’s guaranteed the baby will either poop, get hungry or both) again, but he’s absolutely the highlight of our 2012 and every year to come.

Happy 2013!