Going Clean

Yes-I shower everyday, that is not what this post is about...

This is so random, but they reduced my diuretic medication and guess what?  I instantly gained 1.5 lbs. I was like "Damn, that was a good run" in reference to the fact that I've been chowing whatever I wanted including subway cookies, an occasional soda (I, what a hypocrite, cause i'm such a soda nazi!), even chips one day, and still was sitting pretty at 178 lbs.  I somehow managed to stay at this weight even though I was chowing down and barely running.  WTF Jen?!  Food Vacation Over.   Don't me wrong, I know I just gained that weight over night due to the reduction in the diuretic, but it made me think about these last 10 lbs I have to lose.

At home we hardly eat (or buy) any processed foods. In fact, one of my babysitters jokingly said my house sucks for snack foods and all I have is "that healthy organic crap."  Now, I'm only home for Breakfast and Dinner, lunch I usually end up at the Hospital cafeteria full of processed crap.

When I leave this job, I'm leaving that habit behind as well.  I am going to re-dedicate myself to eating clean and mostly raw.  When I'm "clean" with my diet, I feel better, sleep better, even my skin and hair feel amazing.  When we pull Mimi out of daycare I want her to not have access to processed foods either.  I'm not saying i'm going to be uber controlling and not let her have a cupcake at a birthday party or ever go out for icecream, but the bulk of our food is going to be unprocessed, without dyes and preservatives.

    
Here is a link to the article I read today.
It talked about artificial dyes in our foods.  It wasn't the best article, but It made me think a little more.

So now that I just downed a "large size" kit kat for my 3pm sugar crash, I am posting this and making a resolution to do better.  Hey---I did drink 3 liters of water today folks!  That's a start heading back into the right direction.

A non-crap fortune

When we went for Vietnamese food a few weeks ago, my ginger cookie held this fortune for me.  This was right after my husband and I decided we would put in applications for jobs in Austin and see what happened.

I'm so excited for these next few months.

Weekend Sans Papa

My husband has been in Austin since Thursday doing his interviews.  He aced Friday's (hey offered him that job!!!), but has two more interviews with two different companies.  So we know for sure now that we ARE MOVING TO AUSTIN!  So exciting.  We don't know when yet though.

I spent this weekend alone with Mimi.  It was such a relaxing weekend.  I made absolutely NO PLANS at all and just went with the flow Saturday and Sunday.  Mimi and I just ate when we wanted, and slept when we wanted and caught some play dates on the fly and just enjoyed the weekend.  We got some great time in at the park and stole some time in a bounce house left over from a party that was at the park, got some pizza and lemonade together and lounged around.  I love the pink lemonade from Scholtzsky's Deli, it's pure sugar and one of my guilty pleasures.  When I was pregnant I CRAVED that stuff liek mad.  Mimi and I shared one in the car and I said to Mimi "This lemonade is the best!" and then Mimi kept saying "Lem-nade Best!" over and over and it was friggin' adorable.  This stage in toddlerhood is so fun.

Today we lounged and cleaned most of the day sprinkled with a trip to the grocery store.  Mimi napped for 2 hours and I cleaned the car, did laundry, chatted with my mom, enjoyed a cold one outside by myself.....  When she woke up my friend Grace watched Mimi so I could get a quick run in (THANKS!!!!!).  I set out with my IPOD charged and decided to just run as far as I was comfortable.  I think I got in about 2 or so miles.  I hadn't run in a week.   As you know I've been having a lot of problems with my blood pressure, and even though it's under control now with medication, running isn't always comfortable and smooth.  I sometimes get pain in my chest, dizziness, numbness in my hands, etc.  I'm working with a cardiologist who said that it's safe to run, but the medications I am on are likely causing the dizziness and numbness.  To rule out any physical issues associated with the pain in my chest I'm having a stress test done next week, where they hook you up to treadmill and sensors and monitor you as you run.  So hopefully I'm just overmedicated as the cardiologist suggests, and she can readjust my meds back down and wean me back a little to so I can get back to my normal self.  Running is such a big part of my life, and I really want to get back to my normal self.  I also plan to run through my next pregnancy and would prefer to also be off these drugs before we try for baby #2.

I can't tell you how excited I a about our upcoming life change.  I am not really psyched to move my household, but I'm just going to take it one day at a time and do my best.

I'll have more new next week (hopefully)!

Right now I'm just soaking in Florida and our gorgeous weather!

Time to come clean...

Well guys I have come confessions...

1. Mimi's carseat was front facing as soon as she hit the weight/age for it (gasp)
2. I forget to brush Mimi's teeth sometimes (gasp)
3. I sometimes have to bribe her with candy to get her to behave in public places (oh my)
4. I feed her scrambled eggs and peas for dinner whenever I dont' feel like cooking (this is often folks...)
5. Mimi is in daycare fulltime (gasp!)
6. I let Mimi eat stuff off the floor if she's faster than me (oh dear)
7. Once I got her up in the middle of the night to cuddle with me in my bed because I missed her (holy selfish mother)
8. I let Mimi watch a hour of TV while we cook dinner each night (wow i'm a hypocrite)
9. I let Mimi play with my Iphone even though my husband tells her no when she grabs his (mixed signals much?)
10. Mimi had cow's milk before she was 12 months (oh snap)
11.  Mimi is never getting the chicken pox vaccine and missed the rota virus vaccine (oh well)
12.  Mimi wears crocs almost daily because we're too lazy to match her socks (wow, we are lazy)
13. Twice my husband forgot to feed Mimi (WTF right?)
14. Mimi wears disposables (I know we're earth killers right? how dare us!?)
15. I never taught Mimi baby sign language because I'm too lazy to learn it. (just sayin')
16.  I let Mimi take sips of my coffee drinks when she asks
17.  I dozed off one saturday morning on accident while Mimi watched Dora
18. For some words we often use "baby word" equivalents (Mimi where are your shoesies?)

I think that's a good enough list for the first child.  Do you have motherly confessions?

Mimi is alive and thriving despite all of my "mistakes"

Amazing Beach Weekend

So I told you my husband has been interviewing for jobs in another state--well things are moving right along and we are becoming somewhat prepared to be moving soon...More news on that next week.....
But for now, we are sucking the life our of Florida.  This weekend we went camping at our favorite beach spot.  Anastasia Island State Park is on the most amazing state parks I've ever camped at.  We had 6 adults, 1 Mimi, and my friends dog all cozied into our site for the entire weekend.  It was hot and gorgeous by day and cool by night, perfect for hours around the campfire.  There's this small window in the Florida springtime where it is still cool at night, comfortable to sleep and great for blazing campfires.

Our weekend was full of smores, dirt, sand, sunscreen, fun camp food, and friends.  The only downer is that I think I have strep throat and suffered all weekend with a fever and not being able to swallow.  So that sucked, but hopefully I'll get in to the doc tomorrow for a throat culture.

Enjoy this photo heavy post with some of my favorite beachy photos of Mimi and my friends.

Mimi and Papa

Found a washed up starfish

Mimi and Momma, delicatley cropping her not-so-ready swimsuit body out of the photo....

Carefully cropped photo of mimi with the sandollar I found

My little beachy baby toddler

Playing at the beach

Grace's Baby Sprinkle

Continuing with my 40 days of positive.....Today was my friend Grace's baby "sprinkle!!"

If you're asking yourself "WTF is a baby sprinkle?" Basically since it was baby #2 for Grace, and it's another girl, she felt a little weird about letting us throw her a traditional shower, so we called it a "sprinkle" instead of a "shower" and had a more low-key event.  She didn't register and we asked that everyone bring diapers or wipes. We had a pancake breakfast and some lemon cupcakes.  I think everyone had a good time.  I wish my house was a little bigger, but I don't think anyone minded.  We only did 2 games and had a very crafty session of decorating wipes cases.  Find the tutorial here.  I was impressed at how creative everyone got!

I had so much fun planning and executing this event.  Besides me over sleeping this morning and not being quite ready, I think it went really well.  Here's some photos from the day.....

It was such a pleasure to be a part of Grace's day.  Every woman and every baby should be celebrated, no matter is it's 1, 2 or 5!  We are all really excited for Evie's arrival next month!  Love you Grace!

Good News! (Sort of)

My husband has been interviewing for jobs for the last 3 weeks and one company is flying him out after two phone interviews! Very exciting.  I'm not sure how it ranks in his preferences of the three he's up for, but that is great news all the same!  Plus he gets to see the city and get a taste of it.

He's been working all night doing the technical part of one his interviews and I can hear him in there typing away on the computer.  I'm so proud of him. Can't wait to see where this all takes us!

Running thoughts

Man I love night runs.  There's something so amazing about the cool crisp air, the night sky, the quiet...

I just came back from a nice 3.1 mile run at 9:30 at night.

Spare me the "you shouldn't run at night alone lectures," I wouldn't do it if I didn't feel safe.  


I've been missing my runs a lot lately.  With all my headaches and fatigue it's been hard to get my usually 4 runs in per week.  I've been reduced down to 2 (maybe 3) in a week, which kills me.  I am addicted to running.  I love the natural high, the calorie burn, the time to myself... Running has become such a big part of my life this year.  It my salvation from stress.

I love how thought race through my head while I run (no pun intended).  I started off my run tonight thinking about our potential upcoming life changes and how I really see this part of our life as an adventure.  I thought about all the fun Mimi and I could have home together all day.

As I rounded mile one, I thought about how there's this delicious smell to the air when spring comes and the trees and azaleas are blooming.  I love to run through the smells of neighborhoods.  It's something you don't notice that much, but a lot of neighborhoods have this delightful smell of laundry detergent and fabric softener.  It's kind of nice actually.

As I passed mile 2, my chest felt kind of tight and I felt kind of winded so I walked for a minute.  There's this weird part of me that feels guilty for stopping running for a minute.  Like some mean high school coach in my head yelling at me to keep running and not be a failure.  Today I didn't care.  I need to listen to my body, besides who am I trying to beat anyway?

As I finished the third mile I saw the skinny guy that passed me in mile 1 and I decided to race him home (well mentally, I didn't actually challenge him or anything).  I halled ass the last half mile and finished my 3.1 miles feeling like a million bucks.

Now I'm home and a warm bath and a good book are waiting for me.

Do you run? Try it, it has changed my life.

OMG This made me laugh...

Okay so when I was nursing 24/7 at home with Mimi for 10 months, I got addicted to youtube moms and blogger.  Seriously--I don't have cable and I would be up all night nursing etc, so I clicked, and watched, and commented and bonded with a few moms.  In fact, there's a few moms I met through this community who I consider true friends and I feel very blessed to have come in contact with them.  Some of them I've gone ahead and met "IRL" and others I hope to someday soon!  But---with the kindred spirits I've found I've found some doozies that really entertain me.  We all know that xxxjoelpolexxx can be very entertaining.  Lately I've been marveling at how pregnant she looks like RIGHT AWAY (and I'm uber jealous at how awesome her stomach looks after 2 previous pregnancies) and also I've been marveling at her vocabulary.  I think that I want to do a post just on the words she repeatedly uses that aren't even true words in the English language--maybe that are "texan" words.  I digress----

This mom, "InformationMommy" formely know as "parkerfur" is self proclaimed educated expert on all things kid.  I say this with sarcasm, because one, she never truly claims to be an expert, in fact, she always throws out that cover your ass disclaimer before she opens her mouth as to not offend people when she dumps her usually somewhat biased opinion on us, and 2, I don't really find her to be any sort of expert (are any of us really?).  I like that she acknowledges that it is important to provide sources of information, but her sources aren't always respectable, and her research methods are often biased, which is frustrating and misleading.  I do respect this woman in that she generally accepts criticism and nasty comments with grace and maturity.  Last night I was relaxing and watching youtube (while my husband was studying for his interview! Yeah!) and I watched informationmommy's video mentioning something about "a troll" attacking her facebook.  The trashy gossip spark in me ignited, I was like "ooooo wonder what the drama is."  I found it.

I laughed so hard at this. Not because of the content, but because this Alyssa Grant women riled up some moms! Holy crap lol.  This woman got exactly what she wanted--attention.  Here is the link to the video Alyssa is criticizing by the way....

Do I dare comment on the content of what this woman said? Bring on my crucification....

I comment this because it has been on my mind A LOT lately.  Why do we as couples decide to have children if we cannot afford to have one parent stay home (at least most of the time) and be the primary caretakers?  I say decide, because Mimi wasn't a calculated decision.  Mimi was a welcomed surprise (read birth control failure).  Believe me, I completely understand that not all families can afford this luxury--me included right now.    I gave this example to my friend Grace the other day....There's "can't afford to go out to dinner" and "can't afford food for dinner."  We cannot afford to have me home full time not working.  BUT--we are made very aware right now that one us should be home with Mimi while she is little (and our other children that are anticipated yet non-existent).  We both agree that we will not have another baby until one us can be home at least most of the time.

When I sit down and think about this it makes my stomach turn--I leave my house at 7:30 am and come home at 5:30 (sometimes 6pm).  Mimi wakes up at 7 and goes to bed by 7:30.  She is at daycare from 8 to 5:30. 9.5 HOURS!  During the week, I see her ~2 hours a day,  the daycare lady sees her 9.5 hours a day.  Just typing that out and saying in my head feels like a knife to my heart.  She has grown up SO FAST, and for about a year now she's done it in a daycare  (albeit a nice daycare run by someone I trust that loves her). Am I a bad parent for putting her daycare? No.  Could I be a better parent and more of a influence to her if I was home with her?  I don't think I even need to answer that question.  Now let me say there are advantages to daycare--these are things I tell myself to help me sleep at night.....  Some that come to mind are socialization and exposure to germs (immunity building blah blah).  So as I tell myself these things to help me sleep better, the other rational side of me knows she would get both of those being a child of a SAHP (stay-at-home-parent) too.

A lot of other stuff this Alyssa woman said was just mean and spiteful, It does seem that Information Mommy is a  great mom/parent. Besides, who made us the judge of what equals a "good mom" or parent?  I'm certainly not perfect and make mistakes and misjudgments all the time.   I admire that she cloth diapers and makes her own babyfood, but I don't think she should get a medal for doing it or anything, but it's admirable.

Cutting Mimi's Hair

I am really lucky that Mimi's hair is curly.  I cannot bring myself to cut it.  To me it is like her last untouched infant-like characteristic.  I have never cut a hair on this kids head.  Can you imagine what a ragga-muffin she would look like if she had straight her? It would be all uneven and hippy granola looking probably....

Here's her hair on an everyday morning.  I don't even brush it.  I bathe her at night and comb her hair with a wide tooth comb and that's it. I never comb it otherwise.  I hope that these curls are for real and stay for the long haul.  Her poppa has ringlet curly hair and mine is wavy, so I say little prayers that these curls are here to stay....

We've just been enjoying the GORGEOUS weather Florida is having this past week or two.  Go ahead, you can be jealous....it's a reasonable feeling when you read about me having to wear sunscreen in February/early March when you're still shoveling snow out of your driveway........Wow, that was so mean....but seriously it has been beautiful.

Life has been a little crazy and I'm just trying to take each day as one day to get through.  I get up, kiss Mimi as many times as I can before I leave for work, do my best at my job and just come home and love my family and relax in my home.  The floors can get mopped tomorrow, my body won't melt into blubber if I don't run tonight, and the dishes can wait until tomorrow---however the more I put off giving my poor dog a bath, the worse we all are! Phew I wish I had Courtney's hypoallergenic scent free dog Jack Jack Sparrow right now.....

My blood pressure has not improved even with two doublings of my medication. I continue to go for more tests to rule out other potential health issues.  So far signs still lead back to stress.  Today my boss yelled at me about something so stupid and not even my fault, but instead of getting upset and letting it bother me, or making me cry, I just felt bad for him.  I was embarrassed for him, that he exhibits such behavior as a superviser, a leader, and an adult.  I am not the one with the problem.  

Friday I am going to try a meditation class.  I have a friend that has been practicing meditation for over a year now and he claims it has changed his life.  He used to be a very high strung stressed out peson like myself.  It's actually free too, which is nice.  Cheaper than beta blockers!  Anyway, so I'm going to try it out.  I may try doing a yoga class at my gym too.

I am dedicated to changing my life and situation to improve my health.  I know this seems far off, but it's not really--I have been thinking a lot lately about having another baby, and we've talked about trying for another one next year if our living situation is right.  Maybe it's all my beautiful pregnant friends who I am overjoyed for making this be on my mind more.....  (BTW CONGRATS TO COURT FINDING OUT SHE'S HAVING A BOY!!!)  Having hypertension would make a pregnancy much more risky for me and for an unborn child.  I really need to put my health first right now.  

Today I'm just thankful to have such a great support system.  My husband has been beyond loving and supportive to me through all this stress and craziness, and I have a great circle of friends that listen to me over coffee, let me call them on my way home from work, and always have an open ear and a funny joke. 

Today my daughter did something that melted my heart....she's been really big into boo boo's lately, showing me her boo boo's, telling me she has boo boo's, wanting kisses for her boo boos.....As we sat on the kitchen floor picking up the pasta she dumped everywhere, she pointed to the hideous scar on my right knee (well I have about 6 actually from the two surgeries), and she said boo boo with such a sad little voice and bent her head down and kissed my knee and looked at me with a huge smile, as if to say "I fixed it mommy, it's all better now."  I can't even find words to express how much I love my child.