Rolling, Food, Diapers, and Jillian Michaels...

So theres a lot to catch up on!

My phone hasn't been wanting to send the picture updates that I've been attempting to send, so we're picture-less right now.

Myles started rolling really from back to tummy on Sunday, and from there on, he was a steam roller! He can roll across the living room now and can wiggle his way about 90 degrees on his belly. He's started to push up on his feet with his booty in the air too! I think we'll have a crawler soon!! (I guess I better get on that baby-proofing the house thing!)

With rolling came the end of the swaddle...not so good. He does really well at night, but the day hasn't been fun, he is totally protesting naps, and while I really appreciate his right to assemble and protest, I would much rather enjoy a rested baby! I think we're going to get there soon, I hope! Unfortunately, there is so much literature out there about baby and sleeping habits, its hard to know what you're doing right or wrong or if you need to do more, do less, stand on your head, hold your breath, or what. I guess it takes time and patience, a lot of patience!

Myles started on rice cereal on March 12, when he turned 5 months. I like to give it to him because it is iron fortified, and I know that he doesn't really get iron from me. We tried a banana, but that didn't go over well, not sure if it was the taste or the texture, but either way, he wasn't exactly a fan, so I didn't push it. We'll try other solids later, I plan on doing some research on Child Lead Weaning too, before I go too far down the path of solids.

Diapering in our house started off with disposables when he was a tiny guy, then we moved to a combination of sposies and cloth (both fitteds, which require a cover, and all-in-one pocket-style diapers). We both liked the cloth diapers, I'm a fan of the pockets, they seem easier to me, but now Myles has grown out of the fitteds we had, and we're looking into getting a few more pockets for our stash. I'd like to exclusively cloth diaper, we like the idea of saving some money on disposables and we also like that cloth diapered babies tend to be potty trained earlier, which would be awesome! Stay tuned for out continued journey in cloth!

AND Jillian Michaels, I love her, I hate her, but she's going to get me 'Ripped in 30', thats right, I bought her new video, Ripped in 30, which is very similar to the 30 day shred, you do have an additional week (or option) of workouts and a downloadable meal plan to incorporate with your workouts. The workout thus far has been pretty intense, but do-able. At least its a 30 minute workout, which is much easier to incorporate into my day that a full blown 2 hour gym workout.

I started with my weight loss in January as part of a 'Biggest Loser' style challenge. I ended up winning the challenge! (Go me!) But more important, I lost 21 pounds in 10 weeks! That for me is amazing! And now, I weigh less than I did before getting pregnant. During that time, I was making better decisions with eating and working out a little each day, usually doing Zumba in our living room with the Kinect for XBox. I've never really been one to workout in the house, I never had the motivation or the desire to workout at home, but I did this time, and I must say that Zumba is an amazing way to start a workout habit when you don't really have a good one. Zumba is working out for people who hate to workout but like to have a good time. Last night was my first actual Zumba class, and it was fun and a different energy, but it was fun! I can't wait to go again! So Jillian and Zumba will get me looking great for the summer!

Teeth

I think we're getting some teeth sometime in the near future. I attempted to post a picture of my cutie pie nawing away at something, but it didn't post for some odd reason! I try and try to feel in his mouth for a nub or something, but to no avail. Right now we just have drool, drool, everything in the mouth, a little more fussiness, a little less sleep, and did I mention drool??

I guess that teething has affected his sleep, because now we're up 2-3 times a night!! Lets hope this passes quickly!

Confessions of a Stay at Home Mommy

So I have a few confessions, nothing earth-shattering or ground breaking or natural disaster causing, just a few confessions...

I was raised by one of the strongest women I've ever met. My mom raised three girls all by herself from the time I was about 4ish. (I obviously don't remember the exact time, I was a little young for those memories). She worked two, sometimes three jobs, went back to college to earn her Bachelor's Degree then on to get her Masters (from a school 3 hours away from where we lived before online courses). She made sure we were always fed and provided for us the best way she could. She is my hero. She raised my sisters and I to be strong, independent women. We valued school and education, well, we really didn't have a choice, it was do your best (meaning A's and B's) or be grounded! We all grew up to become successful women and members of society. However, growing up, I thought that my mom was the hardest working woman, and that my friends who had stay at home moms had moms that didn't really work that hard. I mean, what did they do all day? Did they just lay in bed and clean and cook dinner? I actually remember getting into an argument with a friend about who's mom worked harder, mine who worked several jobs or her stay at home mom......but now I see the light!

I see that both Moms that work outside the home and Moms that stay at home work hard, just in different ways. I love my little man, I cherish the time that we get to spend together, I love that I was the first one to see him roll over, that he is my alarm clock, that he can look at me and smile and my whole day gets a bit brighter. But, there are also moments when I just wish I could drop him off and go back to work. As crazy as it sounds, the break from the day to day baby raising seems like a welcomed phenomena. However, I know that nobody can raise my son like I can. Nobody can love him like I can or instill our family values like I can. I know its a struggle and its a challenge, but its all for him. When I became his mom, I sacrificed sleeping in on weekends, and other comforts of the child-less people I know. But it is all worth it!

I love my husband even more for working the crazy hours he does and doing all that he is doing to make sure that I can continue to stay home with Myles. I never knew such a challenge existed in motherhood. I never knew what it was REALLY going to take to be a Mom. To be honest, being a Mom has rocked me to the core, my life will never be the same...but I'd do it all over again if I had the option....don't worry, #2 is WAY down the road!

I guess what I'm trying to say is, no matter if you're a stay at home mom or a working mom, we all work HARD!

Working out

There are consequences to every decision, right? Well, my consequence to gaining too much pregnancy weight is working out. I'm not the most athletic person, I actually don't like to work out at all unless its something fun, but most of my workouts right now are NO FUN! I run around our neighborhood a couple times a week but running is not my favorite, at all! I do understand that I have to do it, I need to be healthier, more fit Mommy and Wifey.

I also have a little bit of a financial motivation behind this. J's former coworker is doing a 'Biggest Loser' challenge. Each participant puts in $20 and at the end of 2 months, the person who loses the most gets the cash (there are also small prizes for 2nd and 3rd). When I stepped on the scale to weigh myself at her house I weighed the most that I've ever weighed (with an empty womb)...I know that I have to work out, eat better, and live healthier...and hopefully win some cash in the end!

So I've been running, doing some working out at the house (on cold days), I went to hot yoga yesterday and boy was I out of my element. It was my first time doing yoga, and although the class was for all stages of yoga practice (from beginner to expert....and boy was I a beginner!) There were people doing head stands, and all kinds of crazy poses, it was a huge challenge, but it was fun. I think I'd go back, just probably to a beginner's course this time. But yoga did intimidate me, so I'm glad I went! And I am super sore at this moment, so something worked!

Now, I'm on my way to cross fit! Yeah, I'm keeping a variety of workouts! Wish me luck and keep me in mind, I hope to win that $$!

Decisions, Decisions

When I was pregnant with Myles, J and I had a lot of decisions to make, some small (what to eat for dinner), some huge (where to have him), and everywhere in between. I was just thinking about some of those decisions, and thought that I'd share some.

What kind of birth we wanted: We liked the idea of a natural birth. I knew that I wanted to look into all our possible options, J was not comfortable at all with a home birth. He didn't feel like it was secure even though some of our friends had successful home births in the past. We looked into the birth center, and liked it...we got our natural birth, we were next door to the hospital, and we had the more secure feeling that we wanted.

Diapering: We kicked around the idea of cloth vs. disposable for a while. We both were cloth diapered at some point, and liked the idea of saving long term money, something easy on the baby's skin, and something good for the environment. I did a lot of research and we bought a bunch of different styles of cloth. We also were given some disposables (which were amazing to use in the first few weeks). We still diaper using both. Sometimes Myles's skin will appear to need a break from cloth and I'll put him in a disposable or vice versa (or I may just need to wash the diapers!). But, all in all, cloth has worked out well for us and its something we want to continue to help him learn better to potty train in the future (another added bonus!)

Name: We really didn't discuss a name, we just knew that this would be Myles. We talked about the spelling a bit, and kicked around a few middle names (we decided on Philip, J's parents' last name). We decided that all of our children will have family names as middle names and original first names. (the next one will have a middle name from my family).

Those are just a few, but it was on my mind, I thought that I'd share.

The first post: Myles's birth story

I started this blog a while ago when I was pregnant with Myles. Due to lack of time, pregnancy, and general laziness in the moment. But now, things have changed and I'm now a stay at home Mommy, which is amazing, but not without its own challenges. But I just thought that a good place to re-start the blog would be with Myles's birth story, so here ya go, enjoy! This one will be a bit long...

I had a good pregnancy, I gained more weight that recommended, and had a lot of swelling, but for the most part, I can't complain! I actually enjoyed aspects of being pregnant (but could have done without the stretch marks). I think that Myles enjoyed my pregnancy as well, because on his due date of October 3, he was making no signs or signals and truly no progress at exiting the womb. I was a bit upset a few days after when we were at the same place in pregnancy, no progress, still huge and overly pregnant. My wonderful m

idwives that the birth center kept reassuring me that this was perfectly normal, that we assign dates, but we should really just look at a range of dates to determine when the baby may come. I then thought that 10/10/10 would be an awesome birthdate, of course he didn't come on the 3rd, so I'll take the 10th. At this point I was doing everything short of standing on my head to get the baby to come, walking the neighborhood, walking stairs, eating spicy food, and a few other things that were suggested. But the 10th came, and went, no baby. I went to the midwife again on the 11th, frustrated, fed up, and pretty much convinced that I was going to be pregnant the rest of my life. They did some things to get labor started (since I was like 41 weeks and 3 days pregnant), and it worked! That evening I started to feel some discomfort, but was able to sleep until about 3am.

At 3:00 I woke up Mr. J and he started timing contractions (did you know that there's an app for that?). I called the birth center call line when the contractions were 3 minutes apart (around 5:30am), they told me to wait a little longer since the contractions up to that point had been a bit irregular. The midwife then called me back and told me to go ahead and come in, as they didn't want me getting stuck in morn

ing traffic. We got there a little before the midwives so I walked around the parking lot contracting and squeezing my hubby. The midwives set up the room that we were birthing in and monitored us for a while. When they got some readings and saw that me and baby were good, we were left alone to labor like we wanted. I have no idea how long things took from here on out, but I was in a lot of pain, nothing helped, I walked, sat, laid, squatted, nothing would bring relief. I wanted an epidural, I wanted help, shoot, I wanted to fly away on a unicorn to another world at that point. I ended up in the shower with the warm water flowing over my back and J rubbing my lower back with every contraction. Finally they checked me, and told me they would start to fill the birthing tub (YAY!), but the tub is gigantic and it to FOOORRREEEVER to fill it. I laid in the bed moaning until it was full.

When I got in the tub things went into warp speed, I was floating and J was trying to keep me in one place, but I didn't have the mental energy to spend trying to keep myself under the water in the tub. Very soon, it was time to push. I remember a few times feeling defeated, but the midwives kept telling me

that I was doing it! I remember asking them to just get the baby out, pull him out somehow, but I had to push him, guess thats how those things go. I remember pushing him out and looking at the clock, 11:30am! The only thing I can remember is JOY, pure JOY.

I kinda laughed/cried and held Myles, J was crying too! Myles looked really angry, but he wasn't crying too much. He was making faces with his eyebrows that J says I make. J cut the cord and I kept telling Myles 'Happy Birthday'. The midwives took one look at him and commented on how he was much bigger than they expected, and that they would weigh him soon. (When they did he was 8lbs 12ozs)

We spent the nex

t few hours together as a family. I was on this high, I was so happy! I was calling people and texting and laughing. God must have planted all that energy in me, because I should have been tired! My mom arrived and loved on Myles. We tried to rest and sleep, but we couldn't. (should have, but couldn't). I remember telling J that I felt like I'd been through a battle. He said that he felt like he was watching me be beat up and there was nothing we could do about it. We went home around 4pm that day with our little guy in tow.

This is Myles after getting weighed, and Daddy dressing him.

We spent the rest of that day in bed. My awesome Mom was there, cooking, cleaning, and being amazing. She was there, but we didn't know it.

I must say that having a natural birth was a challenge, to say the least. It took much more than I anticipated, but it was an awesome experience! I think that there would be some things I'd do differently when I do it again, but this was Myles's birth, his special story.

So this is the first blog of many Myles stories. He is now 3 months, and a beautiful little boy!

Slacker....thats me!

Ok, so I have been a major slacker in blogging, I realize this, and I'm sorry!

A lot has happened since the last post, my belly is getting a lot bigger, I flew across the country, and back, and some other fun stuff. (I'll post pictures later!)

My mom and I went to California to see Liz (my middle sister). She left us about a year ago to go to San Diego to become a Doctor or something like that....I'm still a little bit bitter that she decided to leave the land of humidity and mosquitos for the lovely 70 degree everyday, beautiful scenery of San Diego. I still love her though! We had a lot of fun exploring the beautiful landscapes of cliffs that overlook the ocean, the surfers, the houses, Ikea, Lowe's (well the last two are things you can do just about anywhere!). I also had my first experience with In and Out Burger...yum! We got a cat for Liz, that she later named Diego (his name was Mike, but we decided that Mike was just not right for him). Diego is going to be a fun cat for Liz, he is so affectionate and curious, I'm sure there will be many, many Diego stories to come!

We also got a peek at baby Myles while we were there. It was awesome having Liz do an ultrasound. The little guy was kicking, and moving his hands, opening his mouth and all kinds of fun stuff! It was an awesome experience, and we also got to confirm that he is in fact a boy!

While I was gone, Josh put up Myles's crib and started getting his room together. It was so awesome to see it when I got back!

The next weekend we went to hypnobirthing classes. Hypnobirthing marries hypnotherapy and child birth preparation classes. We practice relaxation techniques just about every night to prepare for the big day...birthing day, we just shy of 3 months now, its amazing how quickly the past 6 months have flown by!!

15 weeks!

Time has been going by somewhat quickly, at times I think, wow, 15 weeks, and then the next minute its like, why can't I just go to the midwife and hear that precious heartbeat again?!?

So I guess I will entertain myself by taking several pictures of my big belly.... and I'll share!



Around 8ish weeks.










13 weeks

15 weeks (excuse the messy mirror pic!) I really feel like this one is bigger than I really am in real life, maybe its just the angle? or maybe its just a big belly!

Our appointment next week is Wednesday, we'll get to hear the precious little heartbeat again!

Houston, we have a heartbeat...

Yesterday Josh and I went to the Charleston Birth Place for our 12 week appointment. We watched a video about emotions in pregnancy, and guess what? Pregnant women have mood swings...ya don't say! (Like Mom says, I have an excuse now!) I really actually haven't had too many mood swings, at least I don't think I have.

I've actually been really blessed that things haven't been too hard for me during this pregnancy, very little sickness, I'm tired more than anything really. I did start getting headaches recently, so I did address this with the midwife, and she gave me some ideas on how to deal with them.

After we talked with the midwife for a bit, went over test results (all good). They did mention that my iron was bit low, and for a fun fact of the day....strawberries are a good form of natural iron, and we all know that strawberry season is quickly approaching, this made me happy!!

We then went in the exam room, where Judy listened, using the doppler for the heartbeat. It took a few minutes, (well it felt like a few minutes at least). There was a bunch of sound, and then, a tiny, fast heartbeat. We were happy. Mr. J says it sounded like a little factory in there. Judy says that we're mearsuring in the 160s, and that is good and normal.

We go back again in 4 weeks, and then after that in 4 weeks (when we'll get an ultrasound!!).

We are happy, excited, anxious, and thankful....very, very thankful!

First Appointment

We had our first appointment at The Charleston Birth Place on Monday. Mr. J and I met there, got some literature and talked with the midwives a bit. They did an exam, took some blood, took some urine and said that they would call me if there was anything that came up or they would go over everything at the next appointment, so no big news.

I must say though, that the staff and atmosphere of the Birth Place, is awesome. Its such a comfortable environment, I am completely comfortable with the care that we're receiving there (even if they do give me homework!) Our next appointment will be at 12 weeks (on March 23rd).

We have also opted to have some early genetic testing done, which means an early ultrasound to make sure that Baby J is growing strong and healthy, and we may opt for a few other minor tests too. The Birth Place put in a referral to the University Medical Center, and we will be getting an appointment there between 11 and 13 weeks.

Within the past few days, I was reminded that I'm in an interracial couple. Now, I know that this sounds crazy for me to be reminded of this. I see my husband each and every day, and yes, his skin is significantly darker than mine, but to me, he is my husband...my Mr. J. When I see him I don't see dark skin, I see the most handsome man that God made for me. Even living in the south, I haven't been reminded that people think its wrong or that its different, I guess I just have some of the most awesome friends that see us for us, and not for the color of our skin. I love our support system here! (even though I miss my family like crazy sometimes!)

I will be interested to see what Baby J looks like, what features of both of us that he/she has, but I think that would be normal for any expecting couple.

Some of my work..

So, I thought that I would post some pictures of my work. Thats kinda the 'paint' portion of the blog. So, here's to hoping that I can get these pictures to post correctly.




This I made for cutie pie Sarai, it was a gift for two great friends when they had her. I think its still in her room, she'll be a year old soon, and I should really get around to see her again soon!





This one I made for a coworker's granddaughter. I also realize that the picture is more clear than Sarai's.









Here, I painted the walls of my friend's nursery. We painted the walls shortly before the little one came! Its hard to tell by the picture, but the walls are a light green, the swirls are brown. I also did the prints that are in the middle of the wall. I'll post a better picture of them later, but I think that they are on my phone and not the camera.



Hope you enjoyed seeing some of my work!

Still early

Today was the first day in South Carolina that we've seen snow, of course its a Saturday! I really enjoyed it though, just pretty to look at. I'd say that there were about 2-3 inches at our place. Now about 75-85% of all of the snow is melted though.


I guess this part of my blog will be about love. See, in Love, Mr. J and I have created something awesome, something amazing, something from God. Thats right, if you haven't guessed it, or didn't already know, we're having a baby! The baby is due October 3, 2010. I have a few friends that are betting on October 2nd and trying to persuade Baby J into coming a day early. (We'll see what really ends up happening). Right now, I'm right at 7 weeks pregnant...still early yet.

We have one more week until our first Dr. appointment. We'll be going to see the midwives at the Charleston Birth Place. We already went to an orientation there, and really enjoy the atmosphere of the facility, they have amazing birthing suites that come with huge birthing tubs. We're planning on doing a water birth for the baby, we're also really excited about that too!

As of right now, thats all, I do have some more art to work on, for another pregnant friend of mine, so I'll post pictures of them when I'm done with all of it.

Day 1

Today is the first day of blogging. For a while now, I thought 'what do I have to blog about', but I decided that I'd go ahead and do it, hey, I have an awesome husband, I love to cook, and recently started painting and crafting again, so that should be what my blog is about mostly.