Its been another interesting week. My body is morphing almost drastically, like it does at about this time in pregnancy just the other way around. (thank God) I think its been a combination of a cleaner diet, more yoga and time. I think all of these things needed to be in alignment for the scale to shift. I’ve been thinking alot about (sorry tmi) how many digestive issues I had while pregnant and lots of constipation almost like my intestines where in the way. Upping the fiber content to my diet with all the veggies and fruits has helped significantly to cleaning things out. It makes me wonder if why I held on to so much extra weight for so much longer the second time around is because it was all stuck in my colon. My chronic stomach aches that started after Lia was born are basicallly non-existant. Rehabbing my core made a huge difference in that.

I’ve also been thinking about how much clearer my mind feels and how eating foods that are green and alive give an overall better quality of energy. No jitters or crashing like with lattes. I actually had a latte yesterday and I didn’t even like how it tasted. (I can’t say the same thing for the cinnamon roll though and I don’t feel a bit bad about eating that ;))

Upping the yoga in my life has also made me feel more that a person and not “just” a mom. Its really important to my mental health to have that time as a person without attending to anyone else’s needs and it absolutely makes me a better mom.

Ian has morphed into a velcro baby almost over night. He’s completely fine playing or with someone else until he sees me and then it’s game over. Its almost comedic. He’s just about 7 months old and thinks he can walk. He’s close to crawling and probably would be already if he didn’t spend all of his time trying to stand. And this little meatloaf of mine finally rolled over today. He’s already got 3 razor sharp teeth too. Its flying by so unbelievably fast.

Week 30

This has been a super fascinating week in regards to finding the middle path. I mentioned the movie Fat, Sick and nearly Dead last week. We watched part 2 this week also and when we were on vacation we came across Michael Pollen’s In Defense of food on pbs. It’s generated interesting conversations in our house. The gist is simple: eat food, not too much, mostly plants. I really enjoyed the section on the morality of foods, you know good foods and bad foods, the “I really shouldn’t eat this even though I am.” If you eat mostly real live food you can eat whatever you want and it really shouldn’t matter and nothing has to be “bad.”

So this week I focused on adding to my diet and not at all about giving up. I incorporated either a spinach, berry, water smoothie or beet, apple, lime, cucumber water smoothie or both every day using my ninja blender. I also added greens to my morning eggs a few times and more veggies to our meals and less meat. 

Here’s what happened:

I had way more energy. If I started feeling tired in the start of the week I would make an afternoon green smoothie. I went to the bathroom way more. The scale dipped all the way down to 162. I didn’t crave sugar like I normally do. I forgot about my morning tea more than once and when I did have it, it didn’t give me the same satisfaction. This I found super interesting. I had the desire to move my body more. I did 4 yoga classes this week. I generally feel more happy and have more patience. My pants are getting loose. The leftover cinnamon roll coffee cake from Christmas that is in the freezer has no power over me at all whereas typically it would be gone by now. All of this was pretty immediate too.

I’d like to think the pregnancy weight after Lia just came off but the truth is I was working out with a personal trainer and also always worried about my milk supply. I’m focusing on doing things that make me feel good and it seems the excess is rolling off which is great and feels effortless and sustainable. It’s interesting to me that around this point of my pregnancy I started to get serious about being present for my baby and the birth. It feels like the same energy as I find my new normal. 

I’m late to write because Christmas and being sick and then road tripping to the smokeys without internet. So here is some reflections from the last two weeks.

Week 27

This week kicked my ace and was also a good reminder in consistency. I got the dreaded never ending cough we’ve been fighting off all fall. I was coughing so much it made it impossible to do my core rehab exercises. It always amazes me how hard you can work your body and how quickly it all falls apart when you stop. All my post partum issues came back like nothing ever happened, even the stuff I forgot about because it had been so long since I thought about or had to deal with it. So it was a good reminder that these tiny, short and sweet exercises are game changers, life changers and they are working. Also, I’m 6 months post partum and my body is still healing. The good news is muscle memory and my body sighed in relief and said yes engage that core and lift everything back up!

  
Week 28

Facebook reminded me on New Year’s Eve that 5 years ago I was childless and going through a major career shift. I had absolutely no idea just how much my life was about to change. I started a business on my own, I got engaged, pregnant and married, moved my business, had 3 more pregnancies, closed my office, and so much more. These past 5 years I’ve learned quite a bit and been stretched in ways I never thought I would be. It makes me excited to think of what the next 5 years might bring. 

  
Now that we’ve found a rhythm to life with 2 kids I’m looking forward to getting on my yoga mat on a much more regular basis and I’m looking forward to how much better I will feel because of that. I watched fat, sick and nearly dead last night and it was so inspiring. I was toying with the idea of juicing for Lia since she’s gotten so into juice and isn’t drinking enough water but this is bringing a whole new level of inspiration. I’m curious how that will all go and if you have a juicer you love and is easy to clean let me know about it! 

This week we went for our yearly wellness screening for our insurance. My weight was exactly the same a year ago at roughly 16 weeks pregnant. For some reason this felt really cool. I reached the goal I had in my head first for thanksgiving and then for Christmas. I haven’t changed anything really but I’m trusting my body is ready to let it go. It feels fantastic. My numbers were good last year but they were even better this year. Maybe this whole motherhood thing is good for me after all. Jk

I walked into Maurice’s, which I’ve never been to before and they dressed me up which I desperately needed and ended up with a Christmas outfit I would have never in a million years pulled off the rack let alone tried on. 

My little meatloaf is already 6months old 20 pounds and 27 inches. Now that he’s mastered sitting all he wants to do is stand and he can’t be bothered to roll over. It’s hard to believe this time last year we didn’t know him and now can’t imagine life without him.

  
My wish is if you are reading this you are finding some light (and magic!) in this darkest time of year. 

I know what professional burn out looks like for me and what to do to alleviate it and even prevent it. Its been much murkier as a full time parent. Should there even be such a term might have been a question I would have asked myself. I mean I love my kids and basically with a little cleaning and cooking mixed in I get to do fun things all day.

I recently went to an acupuncture conference of sorts and at the keynote speech everyone stood up and said who they were and what clinic they worked at. I was at a loss for words when it was my turn as I stood up nursing my 3 month old at the time and simply said, “I’m Sarah and I’m a mom.” I almost felt embarrassed and have had a slight identity crisis ever since. While I still treat people on a regular basis I do it to fit the needs of my family first and don’t really consider it “work.” Acupuncture and/or healing work is something that I need to do, like breathing, if I don’t my hands start to burn, literally burn. I always have needles with me because there is suffering every where and that is the beauty and simplicity of this medicine and why its still relevant. But do I consider it my job? No. I suppose its never been my job per say because I always loved working. The same could be true of motherhood. Both things are just parts of me but they aren’t the whole me.

This past week has been perhaps the most challenging weeks of my adult life. I won’t go into all the sordid details but in the end I’m thankful for it. I learned a lesson I’ve needed to embrace for quite some time now: you can do everything right and yet not prevent everything bad from happening, sometimes it just does. So if you are like me and have been walking around thinking you actually have that much power to prevent every hurt and inconvenience etc etc especially for your children take a deep breath with me right now, pat yourself on the back for loving so hard and remember that you can do everything right and stuff can still go awry and that’s ok, its not anyone’s fault. I also learned that I need to be taking way better care of myself so I can be the person that I am and want to be. That’s completely on me, its not on my husband or my kids or any other excuse I might have for why I haven’t been taking care of myself. It is essential. I’ve had this idea in my head that maybe I wasn’t even all the way conscious of that because I wasn’t waking up every morning going to a j.o.b. that what I do for our family doesn’t matter or is somehow less. But its not. It’s just not. This work is so important for so many reasons. And I saw through all these lessons this week and remembered that I didn’t give anything up to be home with my kids. It was a decision I labored over for months, if not years with my husband. This is what I wanted for my kids, for my family. This is what I want. No one is forcing me to be here, there is no need to be a martyr. Is it hard sometimes? Is it monotonous? Of course! Isn’t anything? When I look at my husband longingly as he gets dressed for work and walks out the door its not as exciting as it seems its just a different kind of hard. My husband is so awesome, he is so patient, and kind and forgiving. He has always been the first one to tell me I could do whatever it was that I wanted to do no matter how crazy the idea has been and especially when I didn’t think I could. I don’t think I tell him enough how glad I am that I know him and get to share this life with him and watch these kids grow together. He’s been the scapegoat to my unhappiness recently and that is all on me. I see it now, I haven’t been seeing anything lately but I do now.

And… after weeks of gaining and losing the same few pounds this week the scale went down to 168. Oh happy dance of joy.

Take care of yourself today, this week, always. Don’t wait until you melt down or get sick. Do something that makes you happy, that makes you feel like you, you’re worth it and your whole world will be better because you did.

We’ve reached the stage of milky smiles. Do you know the one when your nursling looks up at you and smiles the playful smile of love and gratitude and milk dribbles out the sides of his mouth before he latches back on back to business and I think to myself I don’t want this to ever end, this little creature so happy and safe in my arms. There were also moments of children whining in stereo not even in harmony and I think when will this end so I guess there is balance. 😉

I took a beautiful yoga class this morning. Usually I leave my mat feeling so in love with my body except lately it just makes me aware of how much my body is not what I want it to be. Today in downward facing dog I looked down and was slightly horrified at the goo of belly I saw. I internally cringed and then I had this thought, of course it’s goo. It’s a hollow goo cave where a whole person grew out of stardust and hope and it’s still goo because organs still need some space to find their way back to where they normally hang out. Did you know that process takes 18 months? And that relaxin stays in your joints for 6 months after the last time you nurse? So I spent the rest of class loving on my goo. Just as my body knew how to grow this person and birth him I will keep trusting that I will return to normal too even if it’s not on my time schedule. 

I have to first say what a joy and relief it was this week to be with my husband and kids for a whole week with no agenda. (And to sleep!) It was like a vacation just being able to co parent together and laugh, we laughed so much. I even went to a yoga class all on my own with one of my favorite teachers, it was such a treat.

It seems I sway bi polarly in intense extremes between loving my body and being so frustrated at not being at a different point along this journey physically. The scale just won’t dip past 170 despite my avoidance of the lattes. Then I look a little deeper and it’s never really about that. 

Lia has been asking tough questions lately about death and what happens. Those big questions that no one has answers for. My little turkey boy would have been one around this time. It’s an ache buried and embedded in so much joy. I looked at my son on thanksgiving and squeezed him tight. I feel so lucky to know my children and yet I think of my son that I knew if only briefly. How do you get over the pain of knowing someone only from the inside, knowing but never meeting? I think of those long heavy steps we took from the ER doors to our car and the hollow empty feeling that came with it. I was a mother again but didn’t know where my child was. I wonder would it have been better to see him? To take him with us? I know we did what in the moment felt best, and right. It was all so surreal. I wonder is he with my dad? Is my dad still old and overweight, is my child still a baby on that other side? Are they children together playing and laughing? Grief comes at such odd times. I know there is nothing I could have done and yet I feel responsible. So the work this week has been sitting with all that and mostly not so gracefully. And then tonight I taught a very serendipitous yoga class and for the first time in a long time felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be and it made my bruised heart smile. 

This week has felt like 2 weeks mostly because I’ve been getting up so early with the baby, who by the way is now 5 months and sitting all on his own. Someone please tell him to slow down a little! I feel so much better since I ditched the lattes and that hunk of glue in my guts is gone. I opted for an earlier bedtime and found some real joy in those quiet mornings. This morning for the first time in I don’t know how long I woke up after the sun and before Ian. It was surprisingly bittersweet (I’m not complaining) 

I’ve been on a knitting frenzy but it looks as though I will finish all of my projects on time. I keep adding to my list and overwhelming myself but it’s nice to have a deadline to work towards. I’m feeling like I need something but I’m not quite sure what it is. My brain is achey and wants to learn or maybe it’s my heart it’s hard to tell. 

Lia said this morning, “Mama why are you taking this picture again?” She kind of had a point. Bodies are fluid, they are always changing. Maybe the point is always surrender and acceptance in all things. I find myself thinking what size jeans was I wearing by now when Lia was this age. Why do we do that? Who even cares? So this is me right here and now and it could be totally different tomorrow. 22 weeks ago I had a baby and I can’t imagine life without him.

I’ve spent a lot  of time this week contemplating my addiction to sugar. I’ve always considered myself to be fairly health conscious with a generous love of sweets. My diet improved greatly after Lia was born and seems to be doing more so after Ian except for the last week or so. On Thursday I woke up and could feel the last two weeks of minimal rest and lots of poor choices nestled into my guts like glue. It probably didn’t literally accumulate overnight but it almost felt like it had. Is this the whole cortisol, stress, sleep thing? I wondered. Where is my strong center? I almost pouted. Ok, I definitely pouted. 

When I don’t get adequate rest I make poor choices because I’m already in a clouded haze. I drink usually one cup of tea in the morning but lately the occasional latte has turned into a 3pm survival tactic. My body literally felt like it was running on artificial energy, mostly because it was. All the caffeine and sugar almost made me forget about veggies too. Almost a whole weeks worth is hiding in the fridge. Feeling like crap isn’t always enough to jump start a change for me but early in the week I noticed a familiar rash when changing a diaper. L had it as a baby and it was a a dairy allergy. I don’t usually do a whole lot of dairy and we very rarely have milk in the house unless I need it for a recipe. I had a sneaky suspicion I knew what it was: Ben and Jerry’s and lattes.  🙁 Its been a few days since the junk is out of my system and the rash is fading and I’m finding my energy that isn’t laced in jitters, that and going to bed earlier. I’m finding some joy in the quiet moments Ian and I share together before the world (at least in our house) is awake. I’m hoping this 5 pound weight in my center dissolves as quickly as it arrived.

On another note, I graduated from PT this week too. It was really awesome to see tangible results in my strength. I promise a blog about the process one if these days. I’m up to my neck in knitting projects for the holidays at the moment. 😉 

Week 21

Twenty weeks ago I became a mom of two which is way different than becoming a mom again. I’m eating a pint of Ben and Jerry’s so that should be enough to tell you how the week went (and the fact that I’m 3 days into next week). It’s funny though how even with the struggles, frustrations, exhaustion, burnout etc there’s still so much joy. 

We are all adjusting to the time change. A 5:30p bedtime isn’t much fun at 4am but I will say the quiet and stillness and those big blue eyes staring at me: it’s a sweetness that’s hard to capture. Even in the moment when I so desperately wish we were back asleep I pause to remember it because this need he has for me is so fleeting and when he does finally, thankfully fall asleep I can’t help but give my daughter a quick snuggle too. As she squirms away from me in her sleep I can hardly remember her eyes so big when she was the size of her brother. It’s all so endless and fleeting. 

The scale blinked 169 at me this week. It’s funny where my mind goes. 169 is the 160s which is really close to the 150s which is what I was at after we lost our baby which means I’m only 15 pounds away from “pre-pre-pre pregnancy” weight. It’s really still about 30 pounds but it made me feel less bad about rummaging through Halloween candy. Haha 🙂 Truthfully I was pondering my thoughts from last week about really loving my body right now, maybe the first time ever in my life and really realized how huge that is considering how betrayed and detached I felt by my body after we lost 2 babies before Ian came and how healing it’s been to have him in our lives. 

Facebook is reminding me about where I was 4 years ago just shy of our wedding day. It’s so amazing to think all that transpired for that to happen and the fact that my whole family went all the way to Guatemala to be apart of it. It’s really touching my heart. 

So to sum up: life goes so fast stop for Ben and Jerry’s or whatever gives you joy. (Enjoy the cute little photo bomb this week.)

*i have no affiliation with Ben and Jerry’s it just floats my boat. Half baked or peanut butter fudge core are my favorite in case you were wondering 😉