Yoga Baby 2: 26 Weeks

14 weeks to go! That seems far too long. Not much has changed since my last update

Cravings: Haven't really had them lately.

Aversions: Can someone explain this to me? I don't want coffee at my house. I can have lattes elsewhere, made at coffee shops, even at my mom's house, but not at home. Just no. Weirdest aversion ever.

Nausea: No nausea. I have a really strong gag reflex lately though. I think that's allergy related, not pregnancy related though.

Gender: Baby girl.

Yoga Baby 2; 24 Weeks

I need to figure out a better camera set up for my weekly photos. This quality is shoddy.

I am officially 6 months pregnant, and this is how things are going...

Cravings: Haven't really had them lately.

Aversions: Been feeling better about chicken and steak. I still don't get excited about coffee in the mornings, but I'm not really missing it, so no complaints there.

Nausea: Still free from nausea

Gender: Still a girl.

Yoga Baby 2; 20 weeks

HALFWAY! There is something so exciting about reaching the halfway point. It makes February feel so close!
As I am putting the finishing touches on this post, I am on my way home from our anniversary trip/babymoon to Miami. Today is our 7th wedding anniversary. 💓

Also, kind of a big deal, but not too big a deal because everything is fine thus far, but dude... I freaking FAINTED. According to my doctor and Dr Internet, this is relatively normal and has to do with having lowish blood pressure during pregnancy.  I walk around not pregnant with blood pressure on the low end of normal, but now that I am pregnant, it is on the low end of low normal. So, basically every other time I stand up, I get dizzy. The fainting episode was different. I was sitting in class last Tuesday and I started to feel funny - like I needed to focus intently on breathing, so after a moment or two, I thought it would be helpful to get some fresh air. I got up and slowly walked to the back of the room toward the door. I have a vague recollection of reaching for the door handle, and then I was waking up on the floor. It was so incredibly surreal. I haven't fainted since I was a teenager. The rest of class was cancelled and the ambulance and fire department came. They checked my seated pulse and heart rate, then again standing - offered to take me to the hospital, but said that if I wanted my husband to take me instead, they thought I was well enough that they were confident that would be fine. So, I did. Hubby got an Uber out to school so he could drive my car and me back to my doctor. Baby and I got checked out and everything is A-OK. (He/she is dancing up a storm as I type this). I have a nasty bruise on my hip from hitting a chair on my way down, but other than that, everything is fine. Sure was scary though.

Yoga Baby 2, Week 18

I feel like the last couple of weeks have just been crawling along at a snail's pace!

Cravings: None lately. I've been super into chips and guacamole, but I wouldn't call it a craving necessarily. Chips and guac are sort of on par with how I felt about steak fries in my first pregnancy. If they are available, I would like to eat them. If they are not available, it would be cool if we could make them available. I also frequently see or hear of things and I have a "SQUIRELL" moment, and I want that thing. So, I saw an insta-story the other day of someone making ice cream. I obviously had to make ice cream.

Aversions: Coffee, meat products, and chocolate. Same same. Hubby made ribs. He makes great ribs, even when he's not confident about them, but I was just not into it. I will usually fill my plate. I ate 2, and I had to take bites of potato salad in between to break up the heavy feeling meat.

Nausea: Seems to be gone. *knock on wood*

Gender: We'll find out probably within the next two weeks. For now, it is still a mystery. Woooooo.

Name: I think we've settled on names for either a boy or a girl, but we won't be sharing until baby is born.

Energy: Comes and goes. I think it's pretty par for the course to have good days and bad days.

Missing: Still sushi, but also poke. I'd also like a tuna or turkey sandwich.

Sleep: Has been generally crap, but I think it's improving. I finally bought a new body pillow, but I just washed the case, so I haven't used it yet.

Maternity clothes? In it to win it. Hahaha. I don't even try to get my regular pants on anymore, and I'm loving all these big flowy hand me down tops my sister gave me. I'm also loving leggings. We went shopping over the weekend to find Tim a new suit, and I was cranky and tired because I was just standing around, wrangling the kiddo while he tried on clothes, but he wanted me there for my opinion. So, we added in some shopping for me - since I've been solidly in "I hate clothes" mode for a few weeks now -  and stopped at the maternity store. I got a new dress, shorts, and black pants to wear to work. I still don't feel like I really fill out maternity clothes, but they are a heck of a lot better than my regular clothes at the moment.

Exercise? Mostly good. I've been keeping up with my goals of 4+ days a week. Sometimes my workouts are shorter and less intense than I would like, but I'm staying active, so I call that a win.

NEW CATEGORY Movement: This one is exciting for me.  With my first, I had an anterior placenta (placenta in the front), so it was really hard for me to feel baby's movements. Until well into the 3rd trimester, I would really old feel him move if he did big, whole body movements, like flipping, but this time my placenta formed on my right side. So, starting about 3 weeks ago, if I laid very still and sort of focused my energy on baby, I could feel little flutters.  And last week, I stopped having to look for the kicks, because I could feel them throughout the day. It has been amazing, and so so exciting since I feel like I didn't really get to experience this the first time around.

Until next time...

Fit Pregnancy; Week 17

Monday I tried Dancinerate at the gym. It was fine. Haha. Not my cup of tea, but not a bad workout. It was a choreographed dance class, so there were a lot of breaks to learn the next 8-count. It was good to get moving in a way I don't get to much, so all in all, pretty decent workout.

Tuesday was kind of a killer day, so I ended up taking the night off of formal exercise. Between errands, class, dr appts, karate, I was just beat end the end of the day.

Wednesday was a long, exhausting day. I posted on IG about it, but I did find about 20 minutes to get in the Tone It Up Bump It Up Pregnancy Booty & Leg workout.

Thursday was vinyasa flow. It was my last class at Equinox, and actually my first time taking an evening yoga class there. I wanted to use up the rest of the kids club vouchers I'd already paid for. Haha. It was a good class. I did some small modifications - no laying on my stomach, focused on obliques during ab work, and widened my stance for twists and folds.

Friday was a rest day.

Saturday I did a whole bunch of YouTube workouts - the Tone It Up Bump It Up Pregnancy Booty & Leg workout, the TIU Total Body Tone Up, and then Anna Renderer's 20 Minute Full Body Pregnancy Workout. I did feel like I ended up hitting some of the same body parts multiple times, but I most days I have a hard time feeling "done" after only 20 minutes of exercise.

Sunday - 20 moves in 20 minutes. This was really tough. Then followed it up with a popsugar 2nd Trimester Toning Workout. The second one was dumb. She does like 5 moves, each only like 1 time. It was really lame.

Fit Pregnancy; Week 16

It was not my intention to make Monday and Tuesday rest days, but they definitely were. Monday I was not feeling well, and Tuesday was my first day of school(!), so I took my "spare" time in the evening to get myself set up with the class' online portal and do the chapter 1 reading. It's hard to do homework when you're trying to simultaneously feed your 3 year old dinner and block out whatever your husband is watching on TV. I'm going to have to start setting aside designated homework time where I am to be left alone. Oh, the things we take for granted when we are in our 20's and can lock ourselves in our rooms with no interruptions for hours.

Fit Pregnancy; Week 15

Monday I had the day off work! I got a massage and did a little bit of gentle swimming at the pool. A little later I went to Equinox, did 20 mins on the stair climber, and then ran through the Anna Saccone 2nd trimester workout. I did a little extra yoga and stretching, and I added some 3 lb weights to most of the exercises because I felt like they were a little wimpy.

Tuesdays my son goes to karate, so figuring our my workout plan every week is a bit of a challenge. This week, we packed up and went swimming at my parents' house. We swam around for just under an hour. I tried to keep moving as much as possible, instead of just floating around on an inner tube or sitting on the steps. After the kiddo went to bed, I put on my running shoes and went on a little VERY MELLOW jog. I ran about a mile and a half. It was my first jog since May. The first half mile was really hard, but as I ran, I slowed down a bit and it got easier. I got a good stretch afterward, then hopped in the shower and ate a late dinner.

Wednesday I went back to Equinox for another attempt at Firestarter. It was harder this week than last week. I felt sorta crummy for a few days this week, so it probably wasn't the best day to attempt a HIIT workout, but I did all the low impact options. No jumping, unless it felt right (which it actually did at one point, but then I went back to not jumping again). I move at a much slower pace than I used to. I did regular mountain climbers instead of cross body mountain climbers. So, just lots of modifications.

Thursday turned out to be a rest day. I was feeling pretty crummy, so I took some tylenol and took Joey to go swimming with my sister and nephew. I just grabbed an inner tube and enjoyed the weightlessness.

I actually ended up resting Friday and Saturday too. I just wasn't feeling up for much other than lounging about.

Sunday I got up and went to Vinyasa Flow at Equinox. In the beginning it was really hard, and I realized very quickly how much that class focuses on the rectus abdominus (the 6-pack), so I ended up having to modify quite a bit more than I expected. Once I got going though, it felt really great and I was very happy to have had the time on my mat.

Until next week!

Round Two!

Hiya friends! As of today, I am 14 weeks along, and baby is scheduled to make their appearance in early February. These last few months have been a bit of a roller coaster, so without further delay, lets get into this pregnancy update!

The first trimester of this pregnancy was nothing like my first pregnancy. I barely noticed a difference the first time around. Around 7 weeks, I started getting tired and would have the occasional headache. This time around, beginning around 5.5 weeks, I felt bloated, nauseous, generally crappy, so tired I could barely keep my head up all day, and had spotting that scared the heck out of me. Then at about 8.5 weeks I started getting really bad nausea and headaches. I had several days of just being completely confined to the couch or the bed, when even the simplest tasks, like getting up to get a glass of water or empty the dishwasher were just too much. Laundry sat in baskets unfolded in the middle of the living room. So, its been different. I started reading Expecting Better, which hadn't come out yet in 2014. I'm really enjoying it. My sister told me about it when she was pregnant in 2016, but I forgot what it was called until someone mentioned it on the Birth Hour, and I immediately downloaded it onto my Kindle.

Here's the typical pregnancy stuff:

Cravings: I'm fresh out of the first trimester. I wouldn't say I have cravings. I would say I have "let's have X for dinner because it is the only thing I think I could tolerate right now" Usually, this means some kind of crunchy food - like hard shell tacos or big crunchy salad.

Aversions: Coffee. My usual morning latte just sounds repulsive at the moment. I was having iced chai in the mornings, mostly enjoying the flavor, but feeling yucky once it hits my stomach. So, I stopped having those. Most animal protein sounds disgusting. I've had a really hard time eating chicken and steak. I have to kind of disguise meat in other things - like (see above) big salads, burrito bowls, soups, etc. Around 10 weeks, my husband made his own parmesan chips. It stunk up the whole house and made me so sick.

Nausea: This comes and goes.Now that I'm clear of the first trimester, I'm *hoping* that means no more (or at least minimal) nausea. For a while there, I was nauseous and had some kind of headache every single day. I didn't throw up much - only once, I think, but we did have to stop the car a few times so I can get my land legs. The excess saliva is no joke. I just feel generally crappy and exhausted basically all the time. And bloated. So so bloated.

Gender: Don't know yet. Won't for a little while. We are going to find out though, so I'll post when we do.

Energy: What's that? I miss my workouts. I'm trying to workout more often, but I'm living my life with pretty much the bare minimum to get by.

Missing: I'd really like some sushi and eggs over easy on toast, and a freaking Jimmy Johns turkey sandwich. I feel like I could eat those things without getting sick.  I have been going a bit easy on myself with the restrictions, as Expecting Better helped lay out the medical evidence for all the things we avoid, but I still haven't taken the plunge on those most missed.

Sleep: Not terrible, but not great either. Falling asleep to begin with is the hard part, and even though the internet says Melatonin is OK to take, I'm not about to go and F with anybody's hormones.

Maternity clothes? Mostly no. I did put on one of my sisters big cozy maternity tops last week, but it didn't look very maternity-ish. I'm still wearing my pants, but I have resorted to the old rubber band trick until I'm ready to go full fledged maternity pants. Sundresses are a huge win at the moment.

Exercise? At the moment, I've been managing to get in about 2 workouts a week -  a steep drop from my usual 6-7, but I am hopeful that I'll work my way back up. I have had a couple of weeks when I managed 4 workouts, so I know that I can do it. I just hope it doesn't totally knock me back into feeling terrible.

I think that's it for now.

Cloth Diapers; Our Hybrid (AI2) System

I started writing this post over a year ago... when my kiddo was still in diapers. Umm... because he's been potty trained since last summer. I even had it mostly written, but then life blew up - as it does - and I left my blog alone for a good long while. Part of me is still surprised sometimes that it's here.

So, here goes, eh?...

toddler smoothies

 As is tradition with many toddlers, mine refuses most green vegetables. This has required a touch of creativity on my part, as the preparer of most of his food. Seriously, though, hooray for daycare providing meals when he's there. We'd probably both lose it if I had to make him these smoothies for every meal.

For now though, he ABSOLUTELY LOVES these dang smoothies. See that grubby little toddler hand trying to get his smoothie off the counter?
He gets healthy nutrients and slurps those things down in mere minutes. I kid you not. As long as there are no chunks to clog the straw, he doesn't even take breaks. His smoothie is gone before I've made my own. I even step it up a notch and use my homemade coconut milk.

breastfeeding is hard; part 2

(Want to read part 1 first? Click here.)

Our first full day at home is kind of a blur. As I write this, over a year later, I recall this was the day my grandparents came to visit.

Breastfeeding barely registers on my memory. Pillows stacked high. Trying all different positions in vain. I remember more how much I loved staring at my baby's face, and how much my whole body ached.

The nights though - the heat on high because of that terrible woman telling us "baby boys born in the winter were most likely to die of SIDS". My hands and feet were hot and puffy so I don't know how much I would have slept anyway.

The tiny one would fall asleep nursing. I could easily put him down, but would wake 15 minutes later without fail. I don't remember sleeping. I remember Tim telling me "he's hungry" and snapping at him because I didn't understand how the baby could be hungry.

breastfeeding is hard; part 1

I was around 37 weeks pregnant when I went back in for a second complete anatomy scan. The midwife was concerned that my belly was too small, which turned out to be unnecessary because baby was absofuckinglutely perfect, but before we knew that, at the end of the scan, the tech hovered the wand over his face for a few extra moments to show us our baby was already practicing suckling. We watched him there on the screen, sucking on his tongue. That image is burned into my mind. My baby was practicing eating. He was real and ready to be out on his own.

When we left the hospital on Sunday, December 14, 2014 with a 36 hour old baby in tow, he had still not properly latched. Turns out, that whole sucking on his tongue thing was actually a problem.

In the delivery room the Friday before, midnight approaching, the room was dark when I came out of my first assisted trip to the bathroom and my kick-ass no-BS labor & delivery nurse, Krystle, helped me try to breastfeed my baby for the first time. I was already in my wheelchair, ready to transfer to postnatal, and she wasn't concerned when we couldn't quite figure it out. It wasn't her specialty and she knew that the lactation consultant would come by my room in the morning to help. It was already practically morning anyway.

spinach & cottage cheese pancakes

Finding nutritious foods that a toddler likes has been a bit of a challenge for me. For the most part, he loves food in general, but certain green foods - broccoli, green beans, spinach, etc - he will taste and then reject. Every. Single. Time.
So, I've been finding ways to slip green food into my (as it turns out) picky todder's diet. He already downs homemade pouches every day, which is where he gets most of his green food, but I was looking for something different.

A girl from our Mommy & Me recommended a pancake recipe she makes for her son. Hers included blueberries and had no cottage cheese. It almost felt like a waste to blend blueberries up into pancakes when they're one of the few foods I can reliably count on him to eat raw every time he's handed some, so I opted for spinach only, and maybe I'd add a nut butter for flavor?

I ended up keeping it super simple. This recipe makes about 12 sand dollar size pancakes.

1/2 c. 4% milk fat cottage cheese
1/2 c. rolled oats
3 eggs
1 large handful of fresh (washed) spinach

Blend. I used a Nutribullet.
Pour a few dollops into the skillet of your choice on medium heat, wait until it starts to bubble, flip, give it another minute. Done.

The batter is on the thin side, so be careful pouring.

I ate these for breakfast too. They're pretty good. :)

yoga baby; 14 months

So... remember when I used to be really good about posting these updates every month?

My kiddo is 14 months old now! I can barely handle it. He's so much fun. Such a joyful, rambunctious little boy. I kinda can't handle that he's a full on toddler now. Whoa.

a day in the life... of a toddler toting working mom

I decided to document a Wednesday for this, which - along with with Tuesday - is one of our toughest days. Those are the days I teach yoga and then Joe comes to the office with me and I have no one to help me with him. Maybe next time I'll document one of our easier days.
Here goes...

zucchini banana toddler muffins

Hi there, blog! It's been a long time. My last post was after little dude turned 8 months (5 months ago), and since my last baking related post its been even longer still.

But y'all - I baked! I baked something new and it came out great and I'm excited to share it with you. 

yoga baby; 8 months

My little bug is 8 months old! Time is, oddly, slowing down. It's still going far too quickly, but I feel like I've had more time to appreciate this stage lately, short lived as it may be.

Loves: His new favorite song is this Muppets song. You know it. I promise. T and I duet so I do the "doodoooooodoodoodoo" and he does the "Mahna mahna". It's pretty great.
He loves when I do pushups and squats. He laughs so hard. Squats are the best because he gets to do them with me. He's also a fan of overhead baby press.
He loves toys that talk and sing and light up. I can leave him in baby jail with a little electronic book and go down to start a load of laundry and he's the cats pajamas. Yeah, I just said that.

yoga baby; 5 months

How is it that my baby is already 5 months old? I remember being pregnant and thinking my friend would have her baby right around his 5 month birthday and how far away that seemed, and she just had her baby a few days ago!

Likes: All the same stuff as last month - putting everything in his mouth, singing, thrill seeking. Some new favorites are: consistently rolling onto his tummy. He would do it before, but now he does it all the time.
He also likes laying on the floor next to me when I work out - and he LOVES when I do burpees with my hands on either sides of him. He loses his sh*t, it's so dang funny.

Dislikes: Naps. Ugh. The worst parts of the day are when I put this dude down for a nap. He is not a fan. These are the only times he really cries. I have temporarily given up on trying to get him to nap in his crib. He did it great for a few weeks, but now he needs to be rocked or bounced or in his swing or carseat. If I try to put him down after rocking him, he usually wakes up and cries like its the worst thing that has ever happened. For now napping happens however it needs to happen.

Sleeping? A few days after we started solids, he started sleeping longer stretches again. He'd go down at 830/9 and sleep through until about 4am (Really anytime between 330 and 5 - if he wakes up before 330, he gets a pacifier and we all go back to sleep). Then he'd go back down until 730, which is consistently when he's up for the day.
We had a few roughish nights staying in a hotel a couple weeks ago. Night 1 he needed new jammies at 330am. Night 2 I gave him a pacifier at 3am and he went back to sleep until 530. Night 3 there was a fiasco. Hotel fire alarms and flooding. The first three hours he slept, he was awake every 30 minutes or so. It was so sad/frustrating.
As soon as we got back home, he went back to long stretches and became a tummy sleeper. He's been rolling over every night since then. We flipped him twice, but the second night we turned off the light, I heard some shuffling and said to T, "you know he just rolled back over?" and sure enough...
Since then we just let him sleep how he wants.

Accomplishments:  We're still working on sitting. He's getting pretty good at it. He can hang out seated for a while before falling over. So we just keep him on heavily padded surfaces. We've had a couple face plants, but he's a tough guy.

Eating habits:
He nurses 5-6 times a day and has solids twice a day.
Sweet potato is the booooomb. He flipping loves it. We also added avocado to his list this past weekend. It was another win. The dude loves food, man. He grabs the spoon to help get it to his mouth faster. Mom and Dad don't feed him fast enough. Carrots and green beans are "meh" so far, but he eats them up. I haven't figured out how to get a good puree yet. They still seem kinda chunky. Any tips?

Stats as of the day after his 5 month bday when I weighed him at MH:
16 lbs 8 oz - which was exactly the same as the week before. A girlfriend and I agree something is off about the scale, but he doesn't get weighed at the Dr until he's almost 7 months. :/

Diapers:
Still in Size 2 disposables, but I'm considering moving him up to 3s. We have a bunch of 2s to get through though - since we don't use them very often.
Midrise snaps on his GroVia and BumGenius, Second S setting in his Charlie Bananas, and I have no idea what the setting is for Softbums because there are no markers. I have adjusted the rise so he wears them pretty high though to accommodate all the pods I stuff in there.
I still put him in GroVia O.N.E.s for nighttime.

a day in the life; round 2

Thursday, May 7, 2015

5:53 AM the dude is awake. I get up and nurse him. It's frustrating this morning because he keeps wanting to stop look up and smile at me and I just want to go back to bed. I feel bad for feeling this way, especially since he's so dang cute.

6:10 AM I put him down awake and crawl back into bed. He groans and talks for a little while and eventually falls back asleep.

7:15 AM after hitting snooze twice on my phone alarm, I get up, wash up, put on my make up, get dressed, and go downstairs for breakfast.

8:05 AM after I make breakfast, get dudes cereal ready and pack his diaper bag. This whole section is kind of a multitasking blur. Last nights laundry gets moved to the dryer, breakfast gets eaten, and dishes get washed.

8:20 AM I wake up the dude, pack him up and we head to work.

yoga baby; 4 months

This kid! He's so big! Where have the last 4 and a half months gone? Babies from our mommy & me class are already turning 5 months!

Likes: Sticking everything into his mouth - from his toys to my braid. If he can reach it, he wants to eat it. I got a haircut yesterday to make it a little less easy for him to eat my hair. He even eats his tshirts when he can pull them up to his mouth.
He still loves being sung to. He's also become a bit of a thrill seeker. He loves when we pretend we're about to drop him. He loves when dad pretends he's a crane/baby fork lift. He loves doing yoga with me - especially boat and squats. He finds it refreshing and soothing when you blow in his face. He loves being talked to and he loves talking, and he likes when you touch his toes to his nose.

Dislikes: Sitting still. Unless he's asleep, he is always moving - arms, legs, all at once.
Still not a fan of naps, but we're getting there. Most times it just takes a pacifier to settle him down.

Sleeping? We had a rough few nights clustered around his 4 month bday. A few with frequent wake ups, a few refusals to go back to sleep - but we seem to have settled into a pretty good pattern without having to resort to sleep training yet. His bedtime has moved up to 9pm, occasionally going down as early as 845 - though thats only happened once or twice. He typically sleeps between 7 and 8 hrs and then goes back down for another 2 or 3.
We're struggling a little bit having him in our room still. He doesn't wake me often, but since we go to bed an hour or two after he does, sometimes the opening and closing of drawers, the sounds of people (and panda) walking around the room, teeth brushing - they wake him up.

Accomplishments:  He rolls from back to front now, He'll roll to his side for a while and then you'll look away and he'll just be chillin' there on his tummy. It's adorable. And he can sit without assistance, though usually only for a few seconds.

In other news:
We started solids this weekend! Right now we're only doing a few teaspoons of cereal in the evening, but we're slowly increasing the amount, and in the next few days we'll let him try some avocado or sweet potato.
We're introducing foods slowly and systematically per the pediatricians orders.

Stats as of his 4 month well check:
15 lbs 10 oz, and 25.5' tall

Diapers:
Size 2 disposables. Midrise snaps on his GroVia and BumGenius, Second S setting in his Charlie Bananas, and I have no idea what the setting is for Softbums because there are no markers.
We've had pretty good luck with the GroVia ONE for nighttime. He can *usually* stay in one diaper leak free for 10-12 hrs with one night feeding. We've also been able to avoid leaks by doubling GroVia boosters.