I feel like it's been much too long since I've posted. Here are some new thoughts on mother hood:
1) Nursing is going well. The acid reflux medicine seems to be helping, but I wonder if he has some allergy. His little cheeks are a little scaly and red and his forehead is super dry. It may also be excema. I look forward to his 2 month appointment in two weeks to find out what we can do about it. It's kind of crazy how anything you eat can effect your child. If I was better, I would keep a food journal. It would help me lose weight and also help me know if there was a certain food that I ate that made him fussy/gassy. I really should do that. It's amazing how if I did find out that I couldn't eat a certain food, there would be no question that I would change my diet completely for him. I guess this is motherhood! In my mind I feel like if the doctor said don't eat wheat, I would instantly do it without a question in my mind. But how hard would that be? I'm glad I feel such love for Chris that something like that would maybe be a little hard, but I would never not do it. I can't seem to find the right words to explain, but you're getting what I'm saying, right?
2) Today a friend asked me how long I will nurse Chris for. Honestly, I don't know! I feel like I will want to wean him of most feedings around 9 months, but continue to nurse him in the morning and evening. I just don't know. I know there are benefits to nursing for a long time, and I want to give him those nutrients. But there is something to be said about not needing to nurse every 3 hours. It definitely dictates my schedule. And when I miss a feeding (say because of a wedding and luncheon which happened the other day), it is uncomfortable for me and we get so off for the rest of the day. I look forward to being able to just give him juice and crackers for a snack! But at the same time, I would miss those feedings. A month ago I would never thought I would say that! Now that nursing has become easy the majority of the time, I am really enjoying it. I love hearing his swallowing, I love hearing the little noises he makes. I love hearing how he breathes. And it's soothing to just sit there and nurse. I look forward to when we can interact more and he will respond to my kisses and tickling, and I'm sure I'll enjoy nursing even more. So I really don't have a plan for when to start weaning nursing and when to completely stop, but I've come to find that a mother's instinct for her child is pretty accurate and good to follow. I heard that advice before, to just follow your instincts, and I'm happy to say, I feel confident doing that now!
3) I had my 6 week appointment and I can finally exercise! And I'm happy to say I have exercised almost every day this week so far! And boy, do I get sweaty fast. I have never sweat this much exercising, and I'm not even doing that hard of exercising because I'm trying to start a little slower than I would automatically go. I guess all these months of inactivity have taken their toll... So I'm exercising using our Xbox Kinect. We have The Biggest Loser Workout game and I love it! It's awesome. Today was one of the days they designated for resting (but they have Sunday as a day to workout, so I'm switching them!) and so since I didn't have a routine they assigned me, I did some challenges! You basically are against other computer players, and you have to do things like squat to make your computer self push a cannon up a hill and then shadow box (punching the air) to crank the cannon and set it off first. It's super fun to have this competitive drive to squat a ton of times without stopping.
One thing about the game that I find funny is how fast they think I will lose weight. So I have another 10 pounds (9.8 to be exact) to lose to get to my pre-prego weight. Then I have another 15 to get to where I was when I met Jed. Then I have another 25 to what is a good weight for my height. So a total 50 pounds, I'm embarrassed to say, I have to lose. It's gonna be hard! But when I put in my weight, height, etc. and my goal weight into my profile on the Biggest Loser game, they told me I would reach my goal weight, working out 4 days a week, in 12 weeks. Ha! Do they realize I'm not actually on the biggest loser? That would be about 4 pounds a week. Seriously, I could never do that. My goal of losing my 50 pounds is to lose it by next April. One year! I think that is reasonable. I figure I can lose 20 pounds by August (so 20 pounds in three months: doable). I think these pounds will be the easiest lost. If I stick to eating like I should and not snacking on unhealthy food so much, I think I could do it easily and possibly quicker. Then, I'm giving myself two months to lose the next 10 pounds, 3 months to lost the next 10, and 4 months to lose the last 10. If I get into a groove of things, maybe it could be done quicker. I really don't know. I've never tried to lose this amount of weight. Well I've started to, but never gotten past losing more than 5 pounds. I've done a pretty terrible job in the past. So, here's hoping with a supportive husband and this momentum, I'll get into the habit and have the drive to do this!
4) I'm going back to work on Tuesday. 5 days! I'm excited. I'm so glad I have a job I can look forward to returning to. My kiddos are just so wonderful, I can't wait to see them and the progress they've made. It helps, of course, that I only have a month left in this classroom. After that, in order to complete my portfolio, I will be doing the 6 week summer school BYU sponsors so that their students can get some teaching experience before their internship or student teaching starts. That one I'm more nervous for because I have no idea what to expect, and no one can tell me what to expect because they've never had a student do it a second time because of bedrest/maternity leave.
I haven't yet started to feel sad for not seeing Chris all day long. I think the first day I will worry all day long about if he is doing okay. I already do that if I leave him with my mom's for even an hour. I have confidence that he will be okay, but I just feel like I am the best and most qualified person to help him if he starts crying because of that whole mother's instinct thing! I think I will definitely miss him, too, but right now I'm looking forward to a little more structure in our lives. Having a newborn who cannot entertain themselves and wants to be held makes schedules, structures, and going places very hard. I'm not driven enough, either, to push too hard for it either. So this will force us to have more structure in our lives.
I'm not gonna lie, the last several weeks have been pretty lazy. Stay-at-home moms are super busy, right? Well when you only have one, you really don't have that bad of a life. I still feel like I'm kind of forced into laziness (because I haven't yet figured out how to not just sit there and hold him and because nursing for 30 minutes every few hours kind of keeps you from doing things outside of your home), but I know I could be more productive. And so I have been taking it easy. I mean, we take a nap together almost every day! But I feel like I should cherish this time, because once I go back to work, I know I will be working for a long time, probably until Jed is out of graduate school in three years. Plus, next time we have a baby, I will have a (most likely) toddler to take care of too. And THAT I think will make caring for a newborn pretty difficult, and will make being a stay-at-home mom not feel so much like I'm taking a vacation.
Well, I was about to think about any other things I want to say, but Chris is up to eat! Gotta go!
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