To Be Surprised: August 2014

You know that time, when it's 330am and you think, hey, now is the best time possible to reorganize and simplify my living room shelves.

It's been one of those weeks.Or two of those weeks. In a good way. Those weeks where you suddenly look around you and think, wait a second, how did everything get so chaotic and explode on me? Family has been here visiting again so I've been able to take some time to get the lay of the land. Things that needed attention:

1. The living room. Every part of it. The shelves are a mess, the sad couch, the wicker baskets are chock full of the random particulates of life, and the floor is jammed full of furniture (baby and adult)

2. My health. I needed to push to get back into the routine of working out, no matter what, even on days when working out seems terrible. In addition to the working out, the diet. Oh the diet. And I don't mean diet as in withholding food, although that's part of it, but I just needed to eat a bit better and a whole lot less.

3. The baby clothes avalanche. How this child has so much clothing is beyond me. We need to cull the growing mountain. In addition, a desperate need for re-vamping the storage situation.

There are many other matters that need tending to, I don't even want to start about my kitchen pantry. (I may, in fact, need the assistance of the interwebs on that one. It's unpleasant and unsolvable to me. I've always wanted to submit a question to The Kitchn for help) But, these are three things I can manage to attend to.... And the results?

1. The living room. Sorry for no before pictures of the shelves but, suffice it to say the books and paper debris were chaotic. In here we...

Bought new couches.

Sayonara old couch!

Hello, beautiful! Excuse the clutter, everything got piled there for the couch moving

Our old couch was a used couch that served it's purpose well, but had essentially given up on life. It sagged and tried to fold you in half when you sat upon it. The new color isn't exaaaactly what I envisioned, but I actually love it. It's like the orange accents in the nursery, I didn't want it but when I finally installed them, I was in love. I think it may bring a little life to the place.
Color coded the books and select DVDs. I know, it's passe, but I could care less. It looks good, and we've pared down our collection so much, I'm not the least bit worried about struggling to locate a particular book or movie
Put like objects together. In theory, I prefer to mash things together and make it look 'homey' and 'eclectic.' In practice, that ends up being merely disorganized. So, I conceded that maybe I should shelve things with like objects. Wicker baskets together, records together, books together. I've not mastered the art of interspersing of decorative empty boxes.
Transfered DVDs from cases to sleeves, alphabetized in a nice little basket. We saved TV series cases and fancy cases for concerts or what have you. It's amazing the space that frees up when you remove over 100 plastic boxes from your shelves.

2. My health. This is always a work in progress and there isn't too much to say that hasn't been said already. What I'm starting with:

Running 5 days out of the week, with long runs on the weekend.
Using MyFitnessPal and my heart rate monitor to track calories in & out
Employing a new Biggest Loser Flavors of the World cookbook (I struggle with finding low calorie meals on things like pinterest which seem to favor gluten free or low fat recipes). I'm looking to invest in the other cookbooks because the recipes have been pretty decent so far
Putting some effort into my appearance. This maybe isn't a totally 'health' oriented aspect, but let's say it's mental health. A touch of new makeup and some non workout clothes and, an honest to goodness bra does change my mood most of the time.

I'm down 7lbs, but more importantly, I just feel better. A huge plus is riding the high of knowing I've done this before and I can damn well do it again.

3. The baby clothes. This took some coordination with Ck to discuss what we loved, what we didn't, and what might work for the second round of babies. Thank God for Facetime. It also took being 'ruthless' as my mom said. I ended with 2 large trash bags of clothes for donation and a much cleaner looking closet. We changed storage methods too. These tiny outfits get everywhere and are impossible to keep folded it seems. I've moved from hanging most of it to putting it in individual baskets for easy grab and go access. So far so good...

That's about all to report for today! I'm still catching up on the sleep lost from that one hyper productive day. I'm going to do my best to write little updates and blurbs, just to get back into writing more.

This has been a Munchkin approved message

Whoops, looks like a month got washed away in the racing of time. Sorry if this is a bit of a long catch up post. It's been a lot of the same day to day, but it's amazing how much more of a routine we have now. I should mention that we had very little to do with establishing said routine. All those parenting books I read made it seem like we had control over the schedule but, with Elise, she's really set the pace. And it's worked out really well. I'm glad we let her work it out. She's still figuring out naps but as long as the nighttime stuff is more stable, we're good.

Ed and I are back on our old routines finally, calorie counting and exercising consistently. I know the results won't be quite as quick as they were a year ago, given I can't exercise for however long I want, whenever I want. Ed's running and working out at his office. I'm getting in at least 1 mile a day, and two or three on Saturday and Sunday. I'm attempting some speed training finally so I can get in more mileage in the short amount of time I have available to me in the mornings. As soon as I feel a bit more in shape again I'll add in the kettlebell, weights and yoga routines. I cannot wait for that. It feels so good to be moving again and mending my body. I'm hoping whenever the next baby comes around, I'll be back to a healthy weight AND have a stronger musculature than last time.

It's nice looking back over the past 5 months. The good and the bad. So much of the bad resolved all on it's own, regardless of anything we attempted. I still harbor unwarranted resentment that I try to work on... When I hear new moms complaining about being tired or sleep deprived with their baby who naps and just doesn't sleep when they want them to sleep - I want to feel sympathetic, but I struggle with my inner voice saying 'please, you have no idea.' I know, I'm a jerk. Having a baby that only slept ~5-6hrs in a 24hr period made it really hard to relate to other moms. I wonder if moms of colicky babies feel similarly. But it could always be worse. Isn't that the ultimate response to any complaint? Everyone has their own battles and I know being more empathetic and less critical is something I need to and am working on daily. I just wish I could go back and find more moms to commiserate with. More friends.

We took Elise's first road trip to see Dad and Debbie in Nevada and then two weeks later a trip down to L.A. to see Ck's new house. I'll refrain from saying it over and over but, her house is ah.may.zing. it was already nice looking in all the pictures, and now with the renovations they've done, it's an incredible house. Emilia and Elise got to hang out, talkin' baby talk. They seemed to enjoy each other's strangeness :) Emilia is amazing. She's super strong and just so ready to get up and go. Poor Ck, she's gonna be chasing her everywhere. She's a whirlwind and she's funny, showing off all her skills: blowing kiss, pushing things around, giving love and headbutts. Adorable. Ck gave me an awesome haircut and color. It looks so much more like what I was rocking a year ago, blonde with bangs, which makes me really happy.

Sadly, I haven't posted many pictures of the haircut or of myself in general. I've been in hibernation. I am just getting back into my routines now because for the longest time my body wasn't recovering from birth. I was embarrassed by my appearance and feeling depressed. My only intimate familiarity with what someone should look like 4 months after birth is my sister, who looked completely normal in the same time frame (see pictures of my baby shower). For me, everything "healed" and all, but my belly was still distended, I hadn't lost any weight and I didn't feel quite right. Wearing the belly band just caused me more discomfort. Turns out I had some stuff left over so I had a bit of surgery last month. Things are all in order now. Apparently whatever was still hanging around was making my body think I was still a bit pregnant, making weight loss, hormone stabilization and breastfeeding much, much harder than it needed to be. For 4 months! Crazy, I know. So, now I can get my health and fitness back in earnest... and hopefully get over myself and post more pictures!

I'll just let the pictures do the talking from here on out with the occasional caption. Ya'll know I could type up commentary forever and ever, so I'll spare ya.

Photo shoot with our grown up cousin - 10 Months and 4 Months :)

What We Are Like:
A goofy kid for sure. Lots of silly faces and noises. Very independent now, playing with her stuffed animals and rolling around into things. She holds onto you when you pick her up and snuggles. My mom calls her a turtle because when she's tired she burrows into you or the carrier. She has a blankie and loves to drape it over her head. If she's not sleepy, she'll drape it and then start dancing like crazy. Otherwise, it's blankie over the head and lights out. The blankie is one of those aden + anais security blankets. I received it in our monthly Citrus Lane box. (If you're interested in a Citrus box, lemme know and I'll send you a referral link!) Still doing cloth diapers which are working out perfectly. Still breastfeeding and supplementing with formula right before bed and once before midday nap. She's still very long and skinny, already in 9 month old sleepers and 6-9 in regular outfits because of the bulky cloth diapers. The little hair she's got goin' on looks strawberry blonde/yellow-y to me, but who knows what the end result looks like. Hell, I used to have white blonde hair. So much for that!

We Like:
* Toys! Now that she can reach out and pull things to her, she's all about all the bright shiny things. We love bright colored crinkly toys the best. That and our carrot toy from Ikea. Morning wrestle sessions with the carrot are a must.
* Classical music. Go figure. I put on my pandora station the other day and she thought this piece featuring an oboe was hilarious. She loves to waltz with me too.
* Swimming! I call her my little fish. She does great in the water, doesn't mind putting her face in and gets more comfortable with backfloats everyday. She's pretty amazing in there. She loves watching the big kids play and occasionally dousing me with water.
* I'm pleased to announce, Car Rides!! Ok, so it's a stretch to say she likes these, but hey, she isn't miserable in the car anymore so that is a big win.

We Don't Like:
* Adults laughing. I know, it's kinda bizarre, but it freaks her out. Even just me or Ed laughing solo makes her do a fearful double take. I know she'll come around on this one.

Not Sure About:
* Glasses. They don't scare her but she thinks people who wear glasses are a little shady and she gets shy. Good thing I got lasik...

Onto the pictures!