Post-baby Weight Loss Week 3

Week 3 got off to a good start. I held strong to my goal of working out at least 30 minutes every day. It's hard for me to find the time and energy to workout in the evenings after working all day so I walk on my breaks and I take the stairs (to the fifth floor) once or twice a day. With the walks and the stairs, I probably came close to 30 minutes of exercise every day. Two days I was also able to manage a 45 minute workout in the evening on my trusty Tony Little Gazelle. So I'm calling the goal complete. Even with all the exercise, I was terrified to step on the scale this morning. Without exposing TMI, one thing happened this week that is out of my control and throws everything off kilter. ::sigh::

So here goes nothing. I lost 0.6! A loss is a loss, right?

Looking back, it probably wasn't my best idea to eat 61 points worth of food last Sunday. Lesson learned: Little Caesar's Pizza is cheap but isn't worth all those points!

And just for fun...here is what I look at while I'm working out. That'd be Captain Jack Sparrow on the left and King Leonidas on the right. Don't mind if I do ;-)

It's my blogiversary!

365 days. 52 weeks. 12 months. 40 posts.

Today (February 27th) marks the 1 year anniversary of my very first blog post. Yay! To commemorate my blogiversary, I was going to do a give-away.

Then I remembered I have nothing to give away.

So you'll have to settle for pictures and video of my too-stinkin'-cute-for-words 3 month old baby boy. Let's face it, he's the reason we're all here :-)

He snores and dreams of food just like his mama.

Is that a smile I see?!

Such a handsome little guy

Learning to sit up...and LOVING it!

And now for the encore. A video full of smiles and giggles :-)

Epic Fail

This morning I had my very first epic fail moment in motherhood.

Colin spent most of yesterday crying. No...not crying. Wailing. For. No. Reason. I tried everything to soothe him. I rubbed his belly. Laid him on his belly. Did the "bicycle move" with his legs. Gave him a warm bath. Sang him songs. Walked with him while bouncing and singing songs. I pulled out all the stops. But to no avail. The second I would stop, he started screaming again.

I finally concluded that he had an upset stomach. There's not much a mama can do for an upset stomach. Finally he settled down around 7pm. I gave him a warm bottle of breastmilk (a natural laxative) and put him in bed. He slept until around 11pm. Not long enough for this mama. I was frustrated and exhausted. I did NOT want to get up with him. But I did it. I fed him another bottle of breastmilk and he slept until around 4am. I was still tired but in a far better mood than I was a few hours earlier. So I got up and headed to his room.

Then I smelled it. Spit up. And a lot of it. When I picked Colin up, I discovered that his entire back was soaked, the back of his head was soaked and he had spit up in his ear. I felt like the worst mother ever and I may have shed a tear or two. I can't believe I let him lay in his crib while he was soaking wet from spit up. But I pulled myself together and got him into dry jammies and a dry diaper. I handed him over to Mark to feed him so I could get his crib cleaned up. We have a "wet mat" for his crib that we lay him on and he had spit up so much that it soaked all the way through the mat and through his sheet. More tears ensued.

I know stuff like this happens but I felt awful. All I could think about was what if he had choked on the spit up? He lays on his back so it's entirely possible. I made a mental note that it's not a good idea to give him that much breastmilk before bed time. Especially since he's not used to it. Usually we give him formula before bed to help fill him up so he (and we) can get a restful sleep. Lesson learned. Unfortunately, it was learned the hard way.

On the bright side, he is in a much better mood today and his stomach isn't upset any more!

Post-baby Weight Loss - Week 2

Week 2 went a lot better than week 1. I stuck to my daily points a lot better this week. I did use 12 of my "extra" 49 Weekly Points, which I never did on WW Round 1. But Monday was Valentine's Day and since I ate most of my daily Points in chocolate, I used some extra so I could actually eat some substantial food.

I have started looking back on the last week and seeking out ways I can improve. One thing I noticed that I did extremely well was track EVERYTHING that went in to my mouth. Even if it meant I went over on my Points. I needed to do that so when I do look back, I'm reminded of how important it is to be truthful with myself about what I eat. Like the day I ate 6 (SIX) sugar cookies. In my defense, they were my late Grandmother's recipe and the taste took me straight back to my childhood, sitting on her kitchen counter helping her mix the dough. Funny how food does that.

Mark and I also ate pizza. But it was thin crust, loaded with veggies and had just a smidge of cheese. Honestly, it was the best pizza I've ever eaten from that particular restaurant. I also ate ice cream. Clearly I can't contain myself with the sweets :-)

So here it is...I lost another 1.4 pounds! Slow and steady wins the race.

My goal for week 3 is to up the anty with exercise. At least 30 minutes every single day.

My baby shouldn't have to deal with this!

100 points to anyone who can name that reality TV show! Hint: It's on MTV. That should give it away :-)

Moving on.

Colin had a hernia. It was large and in charge. It made him cranky and uncomfortable which also made Mark and me cranky and uncomfortable.

On February 11th, he had surgery to repair the hernia. The day started out AWFUL! The surgery was scheduled for 10:15. He couldn't eat for six hours prior to the surgery time so he had his last meal at 3:45am. Which means around 8:15 he started crying because he was hungry. We couldn't do anything but let him cry. Nothing soothed him. It broke my heart to listen to him cry so hard and know there was nothing I could do. He eventually cried for so long that he exhausted himself and fell asleep. So we hurried and left for the hospital.

 We got to the hospital and got checked in and everything. Then they put us in this pre-op room that was sweltering. We kept opening the door to get some cool air but a nurse would always come by and close it. Ugh. A nurse came in to draw some blood so she poked Colin's heel and then squeezed the hell out of it. She got nothing and had to poke him again. Why she poked the side of his heel instead of the bottom of it I will never know. I think it's because Mercy nurses aren't very smart but that's just my opinion.

We watched as the time got closer and closer to 10:15 but no one came in the room. Finally at 10:30 a nurse came in and told us the surgeon was running behind. Fantastic. At this point, Colin was again sc.re.am.ing from hunger. I started to cry right along with him. I'm not in the business of starving my child and that was the absolute worst part of the day. Finally around 11:15 (an hour past his scheduled time) the nurse came in and got Colin prepped for surgery. I was relieved to find out his IV would be put in in the operating room once he was already under anesthesia. Thank God I didn't have to watch that!

The surgery was finished around 12:30pm. As we were going up to his hospital room, I had to laugh at how his cry was parting people like the Red Sea. Seriously, you could hear him coming from a mile away and people would stop in their tracks to find out why this little baby was freaking out. Once we got to his room, we were instantly bombarded with nurses which seems to be the style at Mercy. For some reason, they felt it was necessary to constantly tell me that Colin was mad. Uh..ya think?! He hasn't eaten in 9 hours. I would be mad, too.

We finally got a bottle for Colin and he started to calm down. He slept for most of the afternoon. It was nice to be able to just sit and hold him while he slept. I just kept reminding myself that he will never remember that day or anything that happened. Thank goodness! It's bad enough that I have to remember it.

Sleeping in the hospital was rough. I mean, how can you sleep when the blood pressure machine would blare an ear piercing noise every 15 minutes. For. No. Reason. Eventually the nurse came in and turned down the volume after telling me that it couldn't be lowered. I would insert another comment about how much I hate Mercy nurses but I'll refrain. After waiting for an eternity for the surgeon to come on Saturday morning, we finally got to go home around 10am. We couldn't get out of that hospital fast enough. It was amazing to get home and be in our own beds.

Colin is acting sooo much better. He is much less cranky. He smiles a ton more now. I'm glad we opted to have the surgery done sooner rather than later. Knowing that Colin is not uncomfortable any more makes me forgive all my hatred of Mercy hospital and all the medical staff associated with it.

But only a little :-)

Post-baby Weight Loss - Week 1

So...I had a baby. I gained 27 pounds while pregnant. That shouldn't be hard to lose, right? WRONG! After I gave birth, I lost all but about 5 pounds. Then maternity leave happened. Most days I barely moved. I just stayed snuggled up with my baby boy and we kept each other warm. I weighed myself every morning, just like I had done every day for the last 2 years. I watched as the scale slowly crept up 2 pounds, then 5, then 7. All total I gained 12 pounds while on maternity leave. To get back to my pre-baby weight I now have to lose about 17 pounds.

I thought I could do it on my own. And I really tried. But I failed. Miserably. I didn't even lose a pound. So on Tuesday I decided to join Weight Watchers...again. Don't get me wrong...I fully advocate for WW - it works! I just didn't think I would have to go back to it. I first joined in January of 2009 and by June of 2009, I had lost 40 pounds. So with this new weight gain, I thought I had all the right techniques to lose the weight. But I don't. I need help. And so does my husband. I made him join with me - sucker :-).

I'm stealing this idea from a good friend (sorry, Jac!) and I'm making Sunday my day to blog and reflect on my weight loss journey. I don't have much to lose so hopefully it will be a short journey!

So here we go. As of this morning I have lost: 1.6 pounds! 15.4 pounds to go!

It's not as much as I was hoping for but I'll take it. And I'll be honest...I didn't try very hard. This week was difficult because Colin was having surgery and had to stay in the hospital. I'm a total emotional eater so the fact that I had enough will power to watch what I was eating enough to lose 1 pound is awesome to me.

My goal for week 2 is to seriously stick to my Points and see what kind of success I have.

First Inujry

It's happened. Colin has his first official bruise :-(

It happened this morning around 3:30am. You read that right. 3:30 IN THE MORNING. I bet you're thinking "How the heck does a baby get hurt that early in the morning?". The answer is: by depriving his parents of quality sleep needed to function properly.

Here's the story: I had been up with Colin for most of the night (stupid hernia!) and around 3:30 he needed to have his diaper changed and be fed. My loving husband volunteered to take care of him so I could try to get some sleep. The baby monitor was on and it amplifies sound like nobody's business. All of a sudden, I heard a huge commotion in the hallway and come through the monitor. I screamed Mark's name as I was trying to get out of bed quickly. It was one of those times where it felt like it took hours to get to them. I thought for sure Mark had fallen down the stairs with Colin. I was so scared! I flung open our bedroom door and thankfully Mark was standing in the hallway holding Colin, who was, of course, FREAKING. OUT. I wish I had a picture of Mark's face - total "deer in the headlights" look.

The commotion I heard was Mark tripping over the baby gate and stumbling into the door, which then slammed against the wall right next to the monitor base. It sounded a lot worse than it actually was. I asked Mark if he was OK (he was) and then started checking out Colin. He had a small red spot above his left eye and it had started to bruise. Here's a visual...

Mark didn't think he had hit his head but I think he hit the light switch. Mark felt so awful but it was just an accident. I'm sure this is just the first of many, many bruises this kid will endure!

After an ice pack, bottle and lots of cuddles...all was well in Colin's world again :-)