Rollin' with the homies

Just hours after I was bemoaning Brendan's lack of developmental milestones, he rolled over. Three times in a row. My husband had put him on the floor for some tummy time, and Brendan was pretty unhappy. He just leaned his head to one side and straightened his arm out, and suddenly he was on his back. Ross flipped him back over, and he immediately did it again, and then a third time. Unfortunately, he hasn't done it at all today, yet. I'm hoping maybe he'll do it again tonight.

I need to start determining a daily schedule of feedings and naps. Brendan often doesn't sleep for more than an hour during the day. That usually means he's crabby by the end of the day. I got him to sleep for about 45 minutes earlier today, and now he's sort of half-napping on my shoulder. Maybe I'll be able to get him down for a while longer; I need to work on the bumper pad for his crib. It's missing some ties, and since he's on the verge of being unswaddled at night in his crib, I need to get the bumper better attached so he can't pull it loose. If I can start getting him a little better scheduled, I can get more housekeeping tasks done. I'm lucky to get a load of laundry done, or maybe the dishwasher unloaded, or dinner made. I need to figure out how all those generations of housewives did it!

Insecurity blanket

First of all, I can get the weigh-in out of the way...215.6. So, I'm losing about a pound a week. At this rate, I'll reach my target weight sometime next year. Great. I need to pick up the pace. I have barely managed to reach my workout goals: last week I marched around the house for 15-20 minutes on Monday and Wednesday, and Friday all I did was 50 crunches. Monday of this week I marched for almost 30 minutes; today I haven't done anything yet. There is roll class tonight for the local paddling club, but I don't think I'm going to go; I have to tutor until the time roll class starts, and if you factor in the time it would take to get there and get home in time to get Brendan to bed by 10, I'd only be there for an hour or so. Not sure if I want to go pay $10 for just that. I might wait until I have a clear evening, maybe one when Ross can go too. Then we can take Brendan with us and maybe get him into a swimming pool for the first time. Not sure yet.

Anyway, I need to make sure I work out at some point today, at least for a few minutes. Also, I need to be better about food. I've fallen back into some bad food habits. Part of my problem is that I'm still eating like I did when I was pregnant, in other words, I'm eating everything and lots of it. I know I need to make sure I'm eating enough to keep my milk production up, but I need to start being choosier about what I select to eat. I've eaten a lot of candy, cake, and ice cream lately, and that's not a good idea for any kind of weight loss program. I need to monitor my portion sizes as well.

As far as the boy goes, he's just a-growing away. I don't have any kind of official measurements, so I don't know where he is on the scale, but I'm a little disappointed in some of his milestones. A friend of mine has a baby boy who was due the day after Brendan but was born several weeks later. Despite the fact he's a few weeks younger, he's bigger (both longer and heavier), his head is bigger, and he's already rolled over from tummy to back. Brendan hasn't rolled over at all, and while he smiles a fair amount he hasn't laughed at all, at least not that I've heard. So it makes me feel like we're behind in some race. I know that's stupid, and I know babies all develop at a different pace, but it bothers me that Brendan isn't keeping up with a kid who is several weeks younger. It's not a competition, but it does make me feel like somehow I'm not doing enough to work on his developmental skills. How insecure am I?

Anyway, we just need to keep on going. Hopefully we'll get a roll over soon. Also, we're about to the point of needing to give up the swaddling for good. He is regularly getting an arm loose, or at least spending a lot of time fighting to do so. If he starts doing that, and rolling over, we'll definitely have to give it up. I need to do a little prep work for that: the bumper in his crib is missing some ties, so it is loose and not even attached in a few places. If he gets hold of it and pulls it off, well, it would be bad. Gotta get some fabric to make ties for it, ASAP.

Exceeding the diaper

Oh boy. It is time to move the boy up to the next size of diapers. He's about 14 lbs right now, based on my unscientific method of weighing myself while holding him and then again without him. He's also about 25 inches long, if my dressmaker's tape measure can be believed. Anyway, his current diaper size is 8-14 lbs. The next size actually runs 12-18 lbs. So I had to go in and change my Amazon Mom subscription.

Amazon.com has a great service called Amazon Mom. You can purchase baby and maternity stuff at a discount and get discounted shipping. The more you buy, the better the discount. And you can actually subscribe to supplies like diapers, wipes, and formula. They'll automatically ship it to you each month. We only got one shipment of the current size diapers (252 diapers for 29.99 and free shipping), and we're only halfway through that box. He may have some diapers leftover from that bunch...the new box o' diapers starts this way on the 28th.

Anything to keep the poo from escaping...

Bigfoot sighting and other large hairy mammals

I've been in a suck-ass, bitchy mood lately. Pretty much every time I put on a different pair of footwear, I get mad all over again because my feet are bigger now than they were before I got pregnant. There's no telling how many pairs of my shoes I'll have to replace, to say nothing of my ski boots and snowboard boots. It's very frustrating, to say nothing of an expense we really can't afford. Definitely sucks.

Then, I've also gotten tired of being fat. I've lost over 20 lbs from my highest pregnancy weight, but I'm sitting at close to my heaviest non-pregnancy weight. My body has also just plain changed shape thanks to the pregnancy, so every time I dress up in anything other than t-shirts and track pants I find items of clothing that don't fit. I've got to do something, but I can hardly find time during the day to get a shower OR do some laundry OR change out the dishes in the dishwasher. I have no idea how to work in a workout (haha).

Today the best I could do, with a cranky baby monopolizing my time, was march in place and around the house as I did some chores (made a bed and put away some laundry). I did it for at least 15 minutes, so maybe I got my heart rate up a little. But that's a pretty feeble effort, and I'm pretty sure it won't get me much weight loss. All I can really commit to at this point is to try to get 15 minutes three times this week (MWF). If I can make that, then maybe I can start working on a way to get more than that in somewhere. It's not much of a start, for sure, but at least it is a start.

Starting my weight loss journey

I was supposed to be starting my weight loss journey with a "Biggest Loser" style competition on a moms' forum that I use, but I haven't been able to log in yet. If the administrator doesn't get me set up today, it'll save me the $5 participation fee, but I'll lose some of the motivation of everyone else on the forum knowing what a fatass I am. You win some, you lose some, I suppose.

Anyway, since I had waited (weighted?) for today, I guess I need to start out with my weigh-in...

218.6

The irony is that this weigh-in is almost exactly the same as my weigh-in just over five years ago, when my husband and I made a decision to start losing weight. That was November 1, 2005. By July of 2006, I was down to 175 lbs, 25 lbs from my goal weight of 150. And then, the wheels fell off, so to speak. I got bored, I got lazy, and I gained it all back.

So now I'm trying to lose it all again. But I need to find exercises I can do at home, since I don't have a gym membership anymore, and exercises I can do in a short period of time, since I have the baby with me all day long. I can't do those three-hour workouts that I used to do.

I suspect this is going to take a lot longer than it did the last time. I just hope it also lasts longer...

Happy New Year!

Wow, I can't believe I am starting out the year as a mom! How crazy is that?

Update on the swaddling: we used the HaloSack again last night. He was REALLY pissed going to bed last night...I let him stay up a little later than usual, but still gave him a bath and used that Johnson's Bedtime wash and lotion and then wrapped him up, fed him again, and tried to put him down. He wasn't having it. I don't know what kids Johnson's did their studies on, but the Bedtime stuff doesn't seem to have any impact on Brendan. He was WOUND UP. The worst thing about that (other than the staying awake thing) is that he kind of hyperventilates while he's eating, swallows a bunch of air, and then spits everything back up all over the place. Yippee. Anyway, I put him down just before midnight, and he stayed down for about 40 minutes and then woke up hollering. I went and fed him again, and this time he popped off to sleep and stayed that way. I put him back down at 12:50, and he stayed that way until almost 6:30. Almost scared me to death. I unswaddled him, changed him, fed him, swaddled him back up again, and put him back to bed. He slept until nearly 10 am. I don't know if he was just really tired or if the HaloSack has had a positive effect on him. I do know he's terribly congested, with a bit of a runny nose, and that may be contributing to his waking up angry--when he snorts, he gets mad, and he seems to snort a lot more in the mornings than the rest of the day. The more he snorts, the more he cries. The more he cries, the more he snorts. You get the idea. I've been putting Baby Vicks on his chest and feet and running the humidifier in his room, but he's still congested. I sure hope it goes away soong.

So anyway, he slept great last night, after the initial false start. That stretch from 12:50 to 6:20 is officially the longest he's slept since he was born. I really hope this is the start of what will (sooner rather than later) become sleeping through the night. I know, we've still got about 2 1/2 hours to go before I'll consider it a success (I really need 8 hours of sleep to function appropriately the next day), but we're getting there. Hallelujia. I have ordered a HaloSack in a cotton fabric rather than the fleece (and the next size up), so hopefully it will help him sleep even better. It should arrive early this week, so I'll let you know.

One of my New Year's resolutions is (as it is pretty much every year) to lose weight. I've got just over 10 lbs to go to reach my pre-pregnancy weight. And then about another 60 lbs to go to reach the weight that someone my height and build should actually be, a weight I haven't seen since I got married, I believe. I didn't do much about it today, since we're just sitting around watching football, although I have eaten way less junk today than I have pretty much since before I have birth. We've managed to all the cookies and most of the candy in the house, so I've eaten a lot less of those things than I have been. Hopefully in the next couple of days I can get going on an exercise program. It's a little easier to do when I'm the only one home, so the next couple of days since my husband will be home too I'll have to make an extra effort.

Here's to 2011 being a great year!