Categories
Everything Else

February Update

It’s been a month since I’ve made a post here. The longest ever. But it wasn’t as if I wasn’t busy. In that time, I had a bad cold, & then we traveled up to VA for a fun weekend with family where I got some rest while L, Z & I gave our colds to everyone else. {Welcome to life in a toddler petri dish.}

The following week, it snowed a lot. And I was stuck on the iced roads with L & Z. I cried & prayed while they slept until we reached our driveway. I drank a beer at 2p to recover. Once I was back at work, it was crazy catch up time.

And Raleigh thawed out just in time for us to discover a hernia issue in Zach which meant a day of doctors’ appointments & fear of emergency surgery. Only to be told Tuesday afternoon, while not an emergency, he needs surgery soon. Wednesday am, I set up surgery for Wed the 26th. Wednesday afternoon, I get a call from daycare that L’s throwing up.

Her stomach bug & accompanying fever meant I was home {& by home I mean Target} with her to miss the urologist surgery scheduler’s phone call. No big deal. Just moving up Zach’s surgery to the following day {what we’d originally preferred}.

And after L woke up from a long nap, I discovered her random vom & 101.7 fever Wed weren’t a fluke as her temp was 103.2. Sigh. Off to the ped we went to rule out ear infections, lung infections, flu etc. After the all clear, I made furious & desperate calls to family to make sure my awesome Dad could come down asap to watch L while we were with Z at hospital.

No more vomiting or fever from Lucy &  Zach’s surgery was a big success. Even being an hour delayed {meaning almost 12 hours without food or milk}, he did great playing in pre-op & coming around in my arms. He spent the weekend recovering with us & my parents {who also cleaned, cooked & went shopping with me to stock us up on food}!

So now we’re up to last week. Dentist appt meant I had the chance last Tues for a bit of solo consignment sale shopping & a much needed pedicure {calmest part of my month?!}. Thursday afternoon, we got the all clear, he looks great post-surgery release from Z’s urologist! Yay!

He {& L} were fussy, so we hit up their favorite Chick fila for take out dinner. {Did I tell y’all they ate 14 nuggets between the two of them last time we ate there? No, well I just did. It was amazing. Toddlers. Sigh how much are they gonna eat as teens?!} Good idea turned out not so good when the stomach bug hit Zach hard mere minutes after finishing his bedtime sippy. And again 3 more times on me before we finally crashed 4 pjs later {thank goodness I overbuy pjs!} at 2a. Lil dude was so upset after he’d get sick. I just held him. And he chilled at home with J last Friday while I worked & L played at daycare.

A relaxing, vomit-free weekend in the 60s & 70s seemed like spring had arrived & my practically PTSD over driving in snow was far behind us. Until I checked my phone last night & read the weather had turned & Raleigh was preparing for icy/snow conditions. Again. This time on March 3rd.

And now I’m caught up. Thankfully, work let us go early enough I was driving to & from daycare & home in rain wet roads. And while the air turned super cold {my phone says 22 now}, other than a lil freezing rain, sleet & dusting of snow, we missed getting too much of the white stuff I’m so over. Daycare & work are opening at 10a. Fingers crossed, healthy L & Z let me sleep til 7! And let me enjoy lunch plans with 2 friends this weekend before we skip off to GA for a family weeding! Never a dull moment here, but we’re loving life in the midst of the craziness!

At some point {when weather & sickness don’t having me feeling exhausted}, I’ll add a sprinkling of photos to this post! L & Z are so big now!!

Categories
Motherhood

Working Mom Snow Days

Bless my fellow contributors at Liberating Working Moms hearts. They put up with me flaking blog post ‘deadlines’ way too often.

But this past week, I {& so many other Southern working mommas} experienced real snow day{s}. The looming uncertainty, the first flake excitement, & the reality of being snowed in.

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I shared my Snow Day working mom thoughts on Liberating Working Moms last Friday. Jump over there with me ~ I’d love to hear your experience {& there’s another L & Z snow photo too}.

Categories
Family/Travel Motherhood Reading

Why We Read

There’s a newish blog out there co-written by a group of busy moms who champion their continued love of books, we still read. And while I haven’t been able to keep up with all their posts or {even recently} my own reading, I love the idea behind managing to find little bits of time to keep up with book reading in between raising kiddos & sharing it online.

Wednesday night, as L & Z sat together sharing their toddler elephant chair each with their own book & then L jumped in my lap while we tried to capture a still photo of Zach stacking up his current favorite books then sitting on them to read on his own, I thought, THIS is why I read. This is why I read to them. This is why they will sometimes see me reading. Raising little readers (lil book nerds!) brings me so much joy.

Snow Day Reading

Categories
Motherhood

Frozen Love

We watched Frozen this morning after I made waffles for our half-snow day, half-delayed work day. It was the kiddos first full length movie! They caught some of it in between book reading, Little People animal playing, & car riding/pushing. I really enjoyed it ~ the winter setting was perfect for our snowy morning. I loved the strength of the female characters, the silly snowman & fun reindeer & the male characters of substance. I know we’ll be watching it again.

And then I went to shower & start getting ready for work while L & Z played & laughed in their cribs. My mind started on the bond of the sisters in Frozen & how that love changes everything. And that took me to tears, because Lucy won’t get to experience that.

Most of the time, I’m 99% over the loss of baby B while living in the wild, fast paced life of working & keeping up with two toddlers. Then something as silly as sisters in a movie takes me back to the hard shock of our loss.

Now it’s more the sadness over what could have been for L & Z; what it would be like for them to have a third party in their shenanigans, another sister to fight with & love & hug. Things we & they will never know.

{Stay tuned for non-sappy snow & makeover posts this week! I promise I’m done with melancholy now that I’ve gotten that out. Also feel like I shouldn’t have to qualify my feelings, & yet I do.}

Categories
Food Motherhood

ReLearning to Eat

From Nov 7th 2011 until very recently, I’ve been eating for three {or 14 weeks for four}. At first, that meant pouring through mom of multiples books for sample eating charts, foods recommendations & recipes to try to reach the goal of 3000 {then 2700} calories a day. I was told to add all the protein & fat I could because I was growing multiple babies {who’d most likely be preemies} & needed all they could get before they arrived. I switched to higher fat milk & subbed extra real butter on everything. Gone were any low calorie yogurt, cheese, cream cheese, breads, crackers, etc.

Then Z & L were born & my hard work eating all.the.things paid off as they were huge in comparison to their other NICU residents.

And boom. I was told by NICU LCs & MoM breastfeeding books to up my calories & fat again after L & Z were born to keep up my milk supply. So I was once again eating everything I could plus sticking with my ice cream before bed routine. In about 9 months after they were born, I’d lost the 50 lbs I’d gained pregnant plus 20-25 more. I was wearing clothes I hadn’t dreamed I’d ever fit into again while eating whatever I wanted {pretty cool, right?! Breastfeeding FTW}.

Then even when L & Z started eating solids as their main nutritional source & we started cutting nursing sessions, I kept up my big breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner & dessert routine. It’s what I knew & what my stomach was telling me I was hungry for. I was busy & tired & usually somewhat overwhelmed by life & just doing what I could.

Cue 19 months post-partum. Today. I’m still nursing L before bed & Z during 1-2 dream feeds a night. Yes my 19, almost 20, month old son doesn’t STTN {& nor do I} but that’s a whole other post. I’m still trying to drink a lot of water {although thankfully not the 100 oz I was doing while pregnant & EBFing} & maintain calories of hopefully healthy food to pass through in my milk. But honestly, my eating is kinda of a joke some days. My constant {especially strong post-nursing} sweet tooth & the holidays didn’t help.

I’ve gained back 15-20 of those pounds I’d lost. My post-multiples lower belly is a mess of chub & stretch marks & my boobs will never be where they once were. I do have kick ass arm muscles for someone my size thanks to carrying 50+ lbs of toddlers multiple times a day though. Multi-mom bonus!

I’m okay with my body shifting. Hello, I grew babIES! And at some point, I’ll find time from somewhere to work out & see about tightening up those stomach muscles. But my priority now is relearning how to eat. This might sound crazy, to some, but it’s been 26 months since I was eating for just me & I’ve kinda forgotten normal portions!

It doesn’t help that I’m on my own with getting all three of us up & out the door in the mornings. My prior life breakfast routine of leisurely eating cereal isn’t an option as I’d have L & Z going after my spoon or food while I run around the house. This past weekend, we hit up Trader Joe’s for some quick & healthy week night meals {L & Z like to eat by 6p which makes recipes with a lot of effort or cooking time a non-option} as well as their organic milk & yogurt & breakfast items for me. So I’m going to admit that instead of my usual two bagels with cream cheese when I get to work at 830, yesterday am, I ate a whole wheat bagel with cream cheese at home. While I peed. & L & Z dumped out their sock drawer. Because that’s the 5 2 mins I had to eat.

I bring my lunch to work most days & have started to pack less. And I’m cutting out my mid-afternoon snack since we usually eat dinner early.

Dinner is tough because, like I said above, it has to be made quick & I still want high calorie foods to bulk up L & especially Z. I’m not a short order cook & I want us all eating the same thing.

And I’m not ready to give up my beloved dessert forever but have cut it out some nights this week. I’m motivated. But not that motivated. 😛

So, long long long story short, I’d love to hear how, post-baby{s}, you got back to normal or the new normal.