Life is like a box of chinese food

No really. I've decided. It's just like a Dinner Special #1 with an egg roll.

Since I'm sure you don't have the local Chinese menu memorized, like I do, let me tell you what a #1 is. It's Sesame Chicken and pork fried rice with choice of egg roll or cheese wonton. It was one of my favorite meals when I was pregnant and I probably ate it two or three times a month when I was at work. One of the best parts is that the meal is so big that even preggo me couldn't finish it and there was always enough left over for my hubby to have a meal.

The typical "I need to lose 30 lbs yesterday" diet doesn't encourage you to eat Chinese food. In fact, I haven't eaten Chinese since I was pregnant. And last night I simply couldn't bring myself to "eat" the SlimFast shake that I'd brought to work. I tried to convince myself. Tried REALLY hard. I promise. But I couldn't do it.

So at 6:30 I broke down and called in an order. My usual #1 with an egg roll. I thought the restaurant smelled incredibly delicious when I pulled up to pick up my order. I was so excited! The anticipation was palpable. I could practically taste the egg roll. It was going to be so tasty! Well worth the extra calories.

I paid for my order. Returned to work. Got out my chopsticks and ate a bite of chicken.

Egag!

Hmm. What on earth?

Tried a bite of egg roll.

Ick! 

The food that I was looking so forward to was barely edible! What was wrong? It looked and smelled fine. But it was so greasy! And the few bites I was able to eat felt so heavy in my stomach. I put the lid back on, slid it into the bag and let Josh know he would have plenty of Chinese for supper.

I don't think anything was wrong with the food itself. Josh said it was delicious and had zero problems eating all that I didn't. I think it had been so long since I'd cheated on my diet that my stomach just really couldn't handle all that deep-fried and greasy food.

To make it worse, I had been so excited about eating Chinese that I'd really built it up in my head beyond any reasonable expectation. And as a result the let down was hard. I could have cried I was so disappointed! And all over some stupid Chinese food.

I think I do that sort of thing a lot though. I set my expectations too high. And as a result I'm disappointed. With Chinese food, with my dieting, with my husband and children, with work. I expect myself to lose this baby weight so fast and as a result I get so frustrated and fed up with the slow-but-steady results. I expect my husband to read my mind and know that what he's doing is aggravating me, or more often what he's not doing is aggravating me, but I don't ASK him to do something. I just get mad. I expect my children to know that I have a headache and act accordingly or know that I had a bad day and be darling cherubs. Of course I'm going to be disappointed!

So now that I know I'm doing this, I wonder if I'll be able to change it? If I can I think I would be a much happier camper. We shall see...

Successes and failures of dieting

So, I work in a job that requires us to wear a uniform to work Monday through Thursday. On the weekends (Friday included) we get to wear our blue jeans with a work shirt. Today, for the FIRST time, I'm wearing jeans that don't have an elastic waist for the first time since last July. They aren't my size 5's or even my size 7's. They're size 11's. They're the jeans that I bought a few months after Evie was born because I was tired of wearing maternity jeans. It's a success, and although it does feel like a success it is a bittersweet one.

A year ago now I had finally gotten back down into my size 5's and my small shirts. I had lost 70 lbs since Evie's birth in August and was incredibly proud of myself. It took a LOT of hard work and perseverance. I stuck to my low-calorie diet, did belly dancing and a couple hundred crunches every day. EVERY day. And it paid off. I weighed around 125 lbs when I quit officially "dieting." Though I wanted to get back down into the teens where I had been the summer before I had Evie.

I started slacking some on the diet before I got pregnant. I had probably gained around 5-10 lbs but its hard to say since it's not like I was going to the doctor or anything to see what I weighed once a month. At my first couple of prenatal visits my weight was in the 130s. And at that point I really shouldn't have been gaining preggo weight. So it was probably just my laziness.

By the end of my pregnancy I weighed 195 lbs. I was kinda devastated because I had gained as much weight as I had with my first pregnancy, except this time I had stayed fairly active, walking several times a week and chasing a one-year old around several hours a day, and had watched what I ate. I ate fast food sparingly and never got a "large" meal, unlike with my first pregnancy where I just assumed the weight would be easy to lose and just ate whatever I wanted. Being a bit wiser the second time I kept my calorie and fat intake down but despite my efforts, I was just as big at the end. Since the baby was smaller, I guess I was bigger.

Elly is about 9 weeks old now and I have lost about 46 lbs. Technically I've lost 50 lbs since I lost 45, regained 4 when I started birth control (stupid hormones) and then lost 5. I currently weight about 149 lbs. And while I can't fit into my size 8 uniform pants or my size 7 jeans, the size 11 jeans are a little roomy. And the size 14 uniform pants that a coworker gave me to wear until I get into my usual ones work but they're definitely way too big.

I'm not denying that I've made a lot of progress in 2 months. And I'm definitely on track to be back down at 125 by the six month mark like I was the first time. Just 24 more pounds!

But at the same time, spring is here and summer is fast approaching. Down here in the south, we don't have a lot of time between snow and sauna. Seems like one week you're building a snow man, the next it's 100 degrees and the air is so thick you can hardly breathe. Soon I will need to be wearing shorts and tank tops and showing lots of skin and I'm a long ways from being able to fit into my summer clothes. After Evie I had all winter to get skinny. Winter means sweatpants, sweatshirts, sweaters and jeans. Baggy, loose-fitting clothes that don't show any skin or extra weight. Summer clothes aren't as forgiving. Plus, since I've never been 140-some pounds during the summer before I don't have clothes to fit a 140-some-pound me. My shorts, tee shirts and tank tops were all bought when I was a smaller, more fit person and I cringe at the thought of going shopping with my two-babies-in-two-years body. In all honesty, I want to curl up in the fetal position and cry. Well, I do cry a little bit.

This is the summer before I got pregnant with Evie.


It's just hard.

So my goal now is 24 more pounds to be back to a happy weight. Thirty pounds and I will be walking on air, ecstatic and beyond happy. If I can lose 10 lbs a month then I will be back to a normal size before Evie's birthday. And I'll just suffer through the summer in athletic shorts and baggy t-shirts.

But dieting is so hard. And so frustrating. And losing weight takes time. And requires eating lots of boring food!

Like this...

Stupid weight loss shakes. Though, unlike most people who drink them, I do actually like them. I just get bored drinking them every morning for breakfast. And them having one for lunch or supper some days.

I'd much rather have some of these...

Blueberry muffins that I made Evie this morning. She ate three. And a piece of cheese. And drank a huge cup of whole milk. It's frustrating when you're jealous of what your kid is eating.

Of course, it's all worth the two precious girls that I go home to every night. Even if one of them likes to steal my lean pockets and the other won't let me have 5 minutes to do crunches in the morning. I love them more than I loved being a size 5. But I hope that one day in the not too far future I will get to have both. In the meantime I stick to my 1200 calorie, high protein diet. I do at least 50 crunches every day after the girls are asleep and we go for walks as often as time and weather allow.

And of course there's this cutie-patootie...(who I swear is already trying to say "momma"...is that possible?)

Is it fair to add to the family tree?

At the beginning of my pregnancy I worried that there was something wrong with me because I just didn't feel the same about this baby as I did my first. When I found out I was pregnant with Evie I was immediately attached and overjoyed. I was infatuated with her from the moment I first saw the plus sign on the pee stick while she was just a cluster of cells without even so much as a heartbeat to distinguish her.

Weeks later seeing her on the ultrasound monitor, watching that teeny tiny heart pump away, I cried. I was overwhelmed with excitement and love for this little person, which now had a heartbeat, but still looked more like a sea monkey than a person with its flippers and tail. When she was born she looked almost exactly as I had pictured, except she was a blonde and I had imagined her brunette.

With Elly, I didn't get that immediate love. I was excited to be having a second child. I was also afraid, apprehensive, worried, overwhelmed...well, you get the idea. When I found out I was pregnant I had a nine month old in the next room. Not only was I worried about how I would manage two babies at once. I was worried about how this would effect Evie. She had only been with us for nine months. And now, even though her sibling wasn't due until February, already our time and affections would be split between her, my sweet baby girl, and this unknown little person. I would have to start going to doctor's appointments and soon I would start showing and wouldn't be able to do as much with Evie as I wanted. We would need to plan a nursery for the new baby and start preparing our home for a second child. So even though we had some time before she had to really start sharing her home with a new baby, her life was being affected early on by the pregnancy.

I felt so torn about adding a new baby to our home while my baby was still...well, a baby. It just seemed so unfair to Evie. And those are feelings I've dealt with a lot of the last 36 weeks. As I've gotten bigger and bigger I am less and less able to do things with Evie that I'd like to do. I certainly can't chase her up and down the halls like I did seven months ago. Getting up and down from the floor takes a lot longer than it should and sometimes I'm super snappy because I'm tired and hormonal.

Of course, I am excited about having a second child now. But sometimes at night I still lie awake and wonder how this is all going to affect Evie. Whether or not this is the right thing for her or fair to her. I worry about how upset she's going to be when we bring a new baby home from the hospital. If it will hurt her feelings that I will be changing someone else's diapers, teaching someone else how to eat and sleep and sit up and crawl, taking care of another baby. No longer would she and I have so much Mommy and Evie time because now there would also be little sister with us. And although I talk to her about it, I know that she's just a baby and simply cannot truly understand how much her life is getting ready to change.

Let me repeat, in case it's not coming through, that I am really very excited to have a second baby. Especially a girl because I think having two girls so close together is going to be so great when they get older.

But still I worry about how fair it will be Evie when her little sister is born next week. And I wonder what her reaction to this whole thing will be. I hope and pray that she does well with it and I remind myself over and over that she's so young that she will not even remember this tumultuous transition. She won't remember a life without her sister and hopefully that will lead to an inseparable bond and a friendship that she cherishes throughout her life. I envision two curly-headed little girls, about the same size since they will be so close in age, having tea parties in their bedroom and building forts in the living room. I see them staying up late to finish a chapter in some childhood classic, camping out on the top bunk with a flashlight and huddling under a shared blanket. I know they will fight like cats and dogs but they'll also curl up on the couch together and fall asleep watching a movie. At least I hope that they snuggle, and bond and just absolutely love each other. If not it might be a long 18 years til they're out of the house. I look at pictures of my friend's two little boys, one is 22 months old and the other is 4 months old, and see how much the older adores his little brother and I'm hopeful that my girls will be the same.

As I snuggle Evie at night these last few nights where it's just us, I try to memorize what it is like with just the two of us. I know we'll have alone time again but it'll be harder to come by. And it will be different then. But I'm really glad that we have a set period of time (hopefully) that I can sit back and really savor my last few days of pregnancy and Evie time.

So on Monday our lives will all change. The countdown has begun and for better or worse our lil family of three will become a family of four. For better I believe. Our "normal" will be long gone but a new normal will be established. We'll find a new rhythm and everyone will find a new niche and life will go on. One day, we'll all get to sleep through the night again. And although our lives will be different, I think that our little addition will make us all better and happier and our family will be complete.

Soooo Ready...

I don't think it's possible to be any more ready for this baby than we are. If I'm missing something, please, tell me. But I just don't think it's possible. Not just physically, but mentally, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually...haha. I just am unbelievably ready for this baby to be here. Way more so than I ever was the first time around.

The nursery is ready. We've got the pack-n-play set up in our bedroom for her to sleep in for at least the first couple of weeks. We've got a decent amount on newborn diapers, a huge amount of size 1 diapers, and I've even ordered a box of size 2 diapers from Amazon. I had received a promotional credit and a 20% coupon so literally the diapers were free. We've got paci's and they've all been sanitized. The hospital bag has been packed and repacked. And then repacked again. There's a stockpile of Similac that should get us through the first couple of weeks at least. Her clothes are washed and sorted.

I'm officially nesting and it is driving my toddler a little crazy. She's never seen me so motivated to clean EVERYTHING. She follows along wanting to help. She holds the dust pan while I sweep in corners and clean down cob webs. She wanders around with the Swiffer and dusts random things. It's adorable really.

Game plans have been established for what to do with Evie when I go into labor. Who is going where.

I've been closely monitoring my contractions and really really worried about my water breaking. Of course, most women don't experience their water breaking prior to being in full-blown labor so that shouldn't be a problem. But I can't help but worry about it. I dunno why!

Physically, I'm starting to feel the wear and tear of daily non-stop contractions (even though they are still technically Braxton-Hicks because they are irregular, they HURT and they're exhausting). My hips feel loose and sore. My back is starting to ache. My feet are achey and swollen at night, no matter how much I put them up. And my restless legs syndrome is no longer kept at bay with my placebo beverage. (Throughout both pregnancies I have had to have a glass of OJ/ginger ale mix EVERY night to keep my legs from hurting) I'm waking up a lot at night and just cannot get comfortable. The baby's feet are frequently kicking my ribs, her head feels like its pushing out, and I get the worst heartburn I've ever had every night around 8 p.m.

So I'm ready. Only 16 more days til she's full-term. Maybe she'll come shortly thereafter.

Does Mommy know "breast"?

These days breastfeeding is a heated topic. A lot of moms feel very strongly one way or the other and no one can argue with the medical data that shows that breast milk boosts the immune system of infants. However pregnant women can be unsure what decision to make. They may feel pressured to breastfeed and feel guilty if they don't want to. But what decision is really the "best" for them and their baby?

Well, I think it all depends. I breastfed my first daughter for about 5 weeks before my milk dried up. My job is a fast-paced and, at times, physically and emotionally demanding one. The field of emergency communications tends to be a drought or flood environment. We're either twiddling our thumbs and handling a few administrative tasks and calls or we're out of ambulances with more calls coming in. Its not a job where pumping was going to be an option. So after about a month we introduced a bottle and formula to replace the two feedings that I would miss while working and hoped that my milk flow would just accommodate the change. Yeah...that didn't happen. My boobs completely refused to produce more milk after the bottle was introduced. So at five weeks my daughter became a bottle baby, and I finally got my body back.

I was in no way upset about the situation. Evie...well, she hated formula and hated bottles. But she loved to eat so she quickly adapted and moved on. A lot of moms say that they loved breastfeeding their child. It was a bonding experience. They felt like they were doing what they were made to do. I won't argue that its dramatically cheaper. But I absolutely hated breastfeeding. It was exhausting. It wasn't uncomfortable, but it wasn't really comfortable either. Despite what anyone else had told me, it did NOT help me lose weight. I didn't feel like I bonded with Evie at all. In fact, I just felt like a cow. A gross, leaky, exhausted cow. I didn't have time to sleep, to shower, to eat or do anything other than feed the baby. It was horrible. And after nine months of carrying Evie around, I thought I would get my body back after labor. But instead it felt like now she was holding it hostage even from beyond the womb. I couldn't diet, it would hurt my milk supply. I couldn't exercise, it might spoil my milk. I couldn't drink, because it might get into my breast milk. I couldn't sleep more than an hour at a time, because Evie wanted to eat every three hours, took nearly an hour to eat, and took longer to doze off. And when you breastfeed, you're the ONLY one who can feed the baby. So my husband was getting a full night's rest while I did good to catch a few cat naps through the night.

Needless to say, I don't want to breastfeed this time around. And my husband is giving me a hard time about it.

"It's selfish that you won't breastfeed just because you want to get more sleep," he says. "It's not fair that you breastfed Evie and won't Elly," he says. "I can't believe you don't want to breastfeed."

I've now told him if he wants to he is WELCOME to breastfeed Elly. He says I'm being a smart ass but I don't really feel that way. Why is it that just because I"m capable of breastfeeding that its selfish of me not to? He's capable of bottle feeding, so I think its selfish of him not to want to. Of course, part of my explanation to him about why I wasn't going to be breastfeeding including explaining that we could take turns feeding the baby at night and that way we could both get some sleep without one of us going on nothing while the other one sleeps all night. It was when he realized that his sleep schedule might be affected that he began having a problem with bottle feeding. So who is the selfish one?

Josh will only get a few days off from work so he'll be heading back to work while I enjoy six weeks of maternity leave. And I don't expect him to get up as much when he's going to be working 45 hours a week while I'm staying home. Of course, its not like I'll be spending my days snoozing. There won't be "sleeping when the baby sleeps" this time around. Because this time there will be a toddler to take care of during the day. And I'm not sure how often I will be lucky enough to get both babies asleep at the same time. But, with him working, I don't expect him to get up all night with a colicky baby or whatever.

So why is it that a mom who doesn't want to breastfeed is a bad mom? Since I've unintentionally managed to baby bunch I feel like I've spent the last two years pregnant. That's a lot of time that I've not really felt in control of my body. In fact I had literally just gotten back to my pre-baby weight and enjoyed a month of being skinny before I was pregnant again. And with this pregnancy being so close to my last my body very quickly reverted to pregnancy mode. I want my body back! I want to see my feet, and sleep on my stomach, and wear jeans that don't have an elastic waist. I don't want to be a slave to an infant because I want to take care of my toddler. I've had family graciously offer to come help out after the new baby comes and I'm excited that they'll be there. In all honesty, I'm going to let the family help take care of the new baby as much as possible so that Evie doesn't feel as abandoned and displaced. That won't be easy to do if I'm breastfeeding.

And even if I do breastfeed, it will be for only six weeks, then I'll be working full-time again and odds are good that once we introduce bottles, my milk will once more dry up. How much of a difference can six weeks really make for the baby? I know plenty of perfectly healthy children that were bottle fed. I know plenty of kids that pick up every cold, flu, stomach bug, and cough that they walk across that were breastfed. So whereas there is a lot of science backing breast milk, I think some immunity is inherited and some people just happen to get sick a lot. Breast milk may improve their immunity but these days science has brought formula a long ways. Many of the antibodies that breast milk is touted for are in formula as well. Along with the probiotics, vitamins, minerals, and even iron (which, for the record, breastfed babies are usually low on).

So I really don't think this should be such a hot button issue. I don't feel that it is in any way fair to persecute a mother for not wanting to breastfeed. I fully support every woman's right to breastfeed. But I also believe that it should be a choice. Someone shouldn't be stoned or spurned or made to feel guilty because of her feelings on breastfeeding. Breastfeeding is like spandex...its really NOT for everyone. Some women love breastfeeding and more power to them. Others struggle or aren't comfortable and it's sad that a woman is persecuted in any way for such a personal choice.

So pooh on anyone who frowns on my choice to not breastfeed. I've been a good mommy for nine months. I've avoided cocaine, methamphetamines, alcohol, tobacco, aspirin, caffeine (okay, so I do occasionally have a coffee or soda...but NEVER more than one), sleeping on my back, heavy lifting, physical trauma, lead paint exposure, radiation, etc. (For the record, I've never even seen cocaine or meth and I would never smoke or drink while pregnant). I've not griped about losing my waist, gaining a lot of weight, heartburn, swollen feet, back pain, not being about to wear my wedding ring, not being able to breath, contractions, constipation, bloating, gas, feeling super itchy, exhaustion, soreness....okay the list of pregnancy gripes is never-ending. But nevertheless, I feel like I've been positive and optimistic and largely kept my complaints to myself. Surely to goodness, after nine months of being so good, my daughter won't hold it against me for choosing bottles and formula. I hope not at least.