Reclaiming My Space

As some of you may . know from previous posts made many moons ago the Great basement Flood of 2012 took place in my basement. Darn sump went out and the rest is history. There was no major damage structurally, no molding or any of the real pain in the butt problems that can come with a basement taking on massive amounts of water. Though we did lose hundreds of books and Pat lost a ton of paperwork. the rest of the stuff that was ruined needed to be purged anyhow. The real issue was the wet basement odor that took months to get rid of. During clean up a ton of stuff was moved to my workout area that I was not using at the time and it never made it back to where it belongs. then the treadmill was moved down there and became a shelf and the Christmas stuff only made it to the bottom of the steps where my workout space is conveniently located. Soooo, I will not be walking the next few days, all of my down time will be devoted to reclaiming what was once mine. Workouts won’t happen unless I have somewhere to do them so it must be done. Plus, with all of the lifting, moving, purging, and putting in new carpet I will get enough exercise to make up for not walking.. right? If not oh well, there are not a ton of moments to do what I want with Ian, Emma, the house, meals, pets and all that fun stuff. Sometimes choices have to be made and I choose to do this for myself so I have an area to get things back to as they were and get back in shape.

Today I have been working on teaching Ian to nap in his crib. He is so used to me always being with him. He naps in whatever room of the house I am in. So the bassinet, swing and bouncer are what he is used to. If he can happily nap in his room in his crib maybe he will nap for a little longer with it being dim, quieter and he can get used to me not being present. even in a dead sleep he knows when I leave the room. That wakes him up more so than light and noise, the little bugger will sleep through the vacuum  tv and the dog barking. I have had to go comfort him quite a bit but the time in between is getting longer. It may sound gross but I placed one of my breast pads in his crib this time so he has my scent there. Maybe that will make a difference and I can gradually move it out of his room later. We will see. I am hoping for more consistent napping so I will have a consistent and fairly set amount of time to squeeze my workouts in.

Workout area before…

 

Workout area after… UGH! What a mess!!!

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Yoga!

Lately I just want to get moving, previously I had posted about a prenatal yoga routine I found and have been waiting for the okay to do it. Finally I have the okay so tomorrow morning it will be added to my morning routine. My mornings consist of getting Emma ready and off to school, taking meds, letting the dog out, feeding pets and vitamins and having breakfast. so nothing fantastic or difficult to do. It will be a nice change.

Honestly I am not looking for it to change my fitness level or get me in shape. There is a ton of work that will have to be done for that. What I am hoping for is a little more flexibility to develop over the next few weeks and some relief for the leg craps I have been experiencing every morning and night. Not sure if it would actually help but my legs not constantly falling asleep would be nice too.

My workout area in the basement is cluttered with stuff that had been moved after the basement had flooded but yoga does not take up much space so to the den I go. It will not take much to clear out my workout area but it will require a good amount of lifting heavy things so it will have to wait until after the baby comes. No biggie, it will give me something to do later on.

I may venture out today to get some of the things left on the Baby Registry. I have 20% off coupons, may as well use them before they expire and maybe grab some lunch with a friend. My neighbor is hospitalized so I have to wander across the street and feed, water and give meds to her kitties. That will pretty much sun up my day today. I lead such an exciting life

 

Adventure to Fitness – Interview with a 1st Grader

Emma came home from school yesterday raving about Adventures to Fitness so of course I asked her tons of questions about it. It actually is a really great program. Here is how my little interview with her on Adventures to Fitness went:

Mom: What is it?

Emma: It is a show we watch at school, the characters go places all over the world.

M: So you just watch the show? What do you learn?

E: (makes annoyed hissing sound, rolls eyes at me) No, we play it too.

M: Oh, how do you play it?

E: There is this guy make laze’ but it is pronounced the fancy way because there is a thing over the e. But it is really lazy. He wants the whole world to be lazy. So they go on an adventure to help make people not lazy. We run around and jump and stuff with it.

M: Oh that sounds fun. Do you do that in gym class.

E: No, we do it in Mrs. Sanchez’s class (the class she is in)

M: Awesome so you get to do that and gym. That sounds like fun. Do you learn anything while you play?

E: They learn about places in the world. Today we did one about Egypt. Mr. Laze’ had this necklace that looked like one of those bugs from Egypt. It make everyone be lazy so we had to help get it back so people wouldn’t be lazy. People can’t be healthy if they are just lazy all the time.

M: You are right Emma. People can’t just be lazy all the time.

E: Yeah, it makes you fat.

M: What else is it about?

E: Sometimes it talks about healthy food.

M: Like eating more of it?

E: you make me eat enough vegetables mom.

All in all it sounds like a good program. I like how it is not PE time but extra physical activity for kids during the school day. Emma wants me to find it on TV so we can do it at home but from what I have found it does not come on TV and you must have a school email to access the videos online. Bummer. It sounds like it would be a great Saturday morning activity. Maybe there is something similar out there that can be found.

In this day and age with childhood obesity, too much TV and too many video games some extra get up and go is great for kids and I give kudos to Adventures in Fitness for bringing more physical activity into schools. So many schools have gotten rid of PE, cut recess times or nixed recess all together and there are so many parents who do not encourage kids to get moving. Granted Emma does not spend a ton of time playing outdoors in the winter because my Reynaud’s makes it hard to spend time in the cold we do move things out of the living room and break out the hula hoops, jump ropes and find things to run around and do and she participates in swim most of the winter.

Can’t get enough

 

There are a few things that always seem to be lacking in my life lately.

Sleep:

Lately I have been running on only a few hours of sleep a night but could nap all day. It is making it hard to be productive. I have been forgoing naps and trying to reset myself so sleeping at night is something that happens again. Too many months of constantly being woken up due to bathroom trips and feeling extremely ill ruined my schedule. Not that sleeping has always been something that I was good at but dang, it is getting worse! The plus side is that if I don’t reset to a better sleeping schedule I will already be used to constantly being up when the baby gets here.

Water:

Why the constant feeling of dehydration? Is it even possible to consume any more fluids than I already do? On a daily basis I have been consuming 14 to 18 servings of water a day. It would not be hard to drink more. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing though. Anymore I just might float away! My glucose test results were 101 so pretty much perfect so my OB is not worried and neither am I. Each morning when I get up I must have 3 16 oz glasses of water just to feel like my tongue isn’t covered in sand. It is so weird!

Limbs that work properly:

Sitting, standing, laying and even walking my legs and feet will randomly fall asleep. The Ob said that Male fetus is on my sciatica and that all of my organ and muscles got lazy due to pregnancy. She said that everything in your body relaxes to get ready for delivery but my body decided it was going to get all relaxed and ready early and there is nothing to worry about. But dang is it annoying. Nothing is more fun than walking through the grocery store and having my legs basically give out on me. This is one of the  reasons I can’t exercise, too much risk of getting injured.

Exercise:

As it stands I am not allowed to. No other restrictions though so it is better than being on bed rest. After my next visit in 2 weeks I am hoping to get the okay to do some light walking and/or maybe some prenatal yoga. I personally feel that if I can get a little more activity in it will improve my mood, help me feel more motivated during the day, maybe help with sleep a bit and get my endurance up just a little bit so labor goes smoothly. I just need my treadmill moved to the basement so I can use it. It has been in the foyer forever!

 

12 Reasons to Exercise During Pregnancy

When I talked about getting back to a workout routine once I can do it without getting sick (all day sickness stinks!) people acted like I was a crazy person. I know that rest is a good thing during pregnancy but exercise is as well. Honestly, I think there should be a health balance of rest and exercise during a pregnancy. There are multiple benefits of staying active or getting active during your pregnancy. I am slowly getting back to more activity and it is going well. I think it may be about time to step it up a little bit.

Granted every person and pregnancy is different and I won’t tell you to go out and get moving without the supervision of you OB/GYN. They know what is best for you. I had to wait a while to get the okay to get started with working out again; in all reality during the period I had to wait (for medical reasons) I would not have been able to do anything. All daily activities were hard to do because I was so ill. Now most of my illness is in the evening through the night so during the day there is no reason I don’t try to move a little bit. Now you may be wondering what the benefits of a prenatal workout are so here are a few things I dug up and that my doctor told me.

• Improved posture: The extra weight you gain up front can cause you to have curvature in the spine and cause compression in your back increasing back pain and discomfort
• It can increase strength and stamina and that can help you through labor and delivery
• Enhancement of circulation and flexibility
• Reduced risk of gestational diabetes
• Just an all around feeling of well being
• Can help you sleep better at night
• Calcium absorption can increase
• Fewer varicose veins and stretch marks
• Less risk of abdominal separation
• Your body will bounce back quicker after you deliver
• Stress reduction
• Improved self image

Be sure to consult your physician before you start a workout regimen. Even if you have never worked out in your life starting during pregnancy is still okay for most people and a good idea!

2012 The Zombie Dash Recap

Last weekend was The Zombie Dash in Grand Rapids, MI. It was definitely an experience. Mostly fun, a little annoying. But all in our entire entire group decided we would do it again in the future.

We got to Grand Rapids pretty early in the day because we were not quite sure where to go, all we knew was that on the map our hotel looked really close to where the race started. It was! It was right across the street. So that worked out perfectly.
After we checked in we hung out for a few then walked across to the park, it ended up being on the grounds of the Gerald Ford Museum so we took a minute to check out the grave site, figured out where check in would be. Found a metal sculpture of a football player and of course that means it had to be climbed on, humped and pretended to ride it like a bull. Unfortunately I just stood by and laughed because I shouldn’t be climbing statues being pregnant and all. Then we found the big button and took fun pictures with that. Finally we decided to do what we went over there for. To find out where registration, the bathrooms and the start and finish line were as well as check out some of the route. After that we went back to the hotel for some lunch and chilled until check in started for the race.

We went to check in as soon as it opened, so there were no lines yet, it took an entire 3 minutes for a group of 9 to get our shirts, numbers and life strips… Not bad! So we wandered to the hotel once again got tutu’ed (I think I made that word up) and numbered up, watched some Harry Potter and wandered back to the park closer to start. We hopped on an earlier wave just in case we needed extra time. I certainly did.
Once the race started I started out at a jog, once the cold air hit my lungs I was done for! I pushed on for a short distance then decided that it was hard to breathe and I should just walk it. I did not want to push myself and hurt myself or the baby. Not worth it, and even walking I knew that it would be fun either way.

So I am walking along (half of my group was really far ahead of me and some were even behind me) and I get to an area that is riddled with zombies. I decided I would do a slow jog and see if I could get through with life strips. I was surprised that I was able to! So I learned that I could dodge a zombie horde if I really wanted to. But then the whole I can’t breathe thing started again so back to walking for me. This lessened lung capacity because of my growing uterus is kind of annoying. Once I get to the bridge there was another horde, I decided I was just going to walk. Life strips are not more important than my personal comfort and safety. Once I am about half way through one of the zombies was a little too grabby. I got angry. There was a very clearly stated hands-off rule. Just said some words and kept going, he surprisingly did not get my life strips though. Then I heard someone yell “Watch Out!” I turned around and he was behind me and got all grabby again and got a strip, no biggie. But I don’t like strangers touching me and I signed up for an event that was supposed to be “flag” style. O well, I didn’t let it ruin my mood. The next part was a stroll through the woods then I came to Kill Hill. You had an option of an easier paved way up or a grassy, steeper shorted way. I chose the hard way. Holy cow was it steep. I stopped for about 15 seconds in the middle and looked to see if I could see any of my comrades and a nice little boy zombie came up and asked if I needed help. He was so cute and thoughtful.

After getting through the hill I was pretty pooped out for a minute, but I recovered quite quickly and went through this cardboard zombie “city” it was pretty neat actually. Then we looped back around to where the first zombie horde was encountered. Once again one of them decided to get rough, really rough actually. Yanking on my tutu and grabbing my arm. I turned around and hand him my life strip. I was over it. Unfortunately I got a little filthy mouthed and said to him as I handed him my life strip “Here, I am to “f***ing pregnant for your bulls***” Not good on my end but once again, strangers should touch me and there was a rule against it. The rest of the race went well, Pat found me and walked with me the rest of the way, I found another person who was walking and chit chatted with her. We decided that as long as we finish we were good. And I did. My time was an hour and 5 minutes, not bad for walking and talking and all. Unfortunately one person in our group was hurt by an overzealous zombie and had to see a medic. They thought her finger was broken but it is looking like it was just sprained. Either way it should have never happened, they should have been hands off. But she still said she had fun.

After the race they had snacks and beverages of course, a beer tent (I didn’t bother with that), live music and it was nice but COLD! And The Fetus was yelling at me to eat so we waiting for everyone to meet back up hung out for a few and then went and had a nice dinner and some delish cheesecake. We all went to our rooms after warmed up and got some sleep. We meet back up in the morning convoyed to a restaurant, had a yummy lunch and headed home.

All in all it was fun and i will do it again. The organizers, Michigan Adventure Racing did a great job with the race. I also don’t blame then for our zombie issues. Some people just don’t listen and how can you monitor everyone where there are 1,100 runners and almost 500 zombies? You can’t. But maybe those zombies will read this and feel ashamed of themselves.

Tomorrow is the Big Race!

Today marks the last day before I become zombie bait! I can’t wait! I am a little scared because the announced that there will be a huge hill to climb as well as rounds of steep stairs to maneuver while being chased by the zombies. So I am sitting here eating my yogurt and wondering. “Am I really ready for this?” Hell no! I am not ready for this race! If I were to be running the entire thing I would die! But I know I can handle a mix of walking and jogging and the doctor has given me the okay to do it

The dreaded hill!

 

I already stated before that the race is not 3.1 miles but 3.5. They announced the huge hill and stairs the other day. And today it was officially announced that there will be 1,140 runners and 443 zombies. That is a lot of zombies per survivor. Let’s say goodbye to my life strips now! Even though the stats are a bit intimidating and I know my strips will be all gone and I will be deemed a zombie at the end I am really looking forward to this. My friends will be there and it is going to be a blast no matter what. I am excited to see how everyone does.

Afterwards there is a awards ceremony, costume contest and concert at the finish. Of course beverages for those who can have them. I think I will bring a thermos of hot tea. I hear fetuses don’t care for beer so much. LOL. I am totally kidding. I know they don’t!

The race shorts are pretty friggin’ sweet!

Today I HAVE to find some running pants and a sweat shirt that will fit me properly. I am kind of kicking myself in the butt for not keeping any of my larger sized clothes from my weight loss. But, their presence could have been a crutch that would make it okay to gain once again. I really can’t say anything bad about my gain now. It’s just what happens when you grow humans. Can’r forget to get batteries for the headlamps either! Can’t race without a flashlight or headlamp.

We are leaving town early in the a.m. and we are all meeting up for breakfast and driving down. There will be plenty of time to grab lunch in GR, check into our hotel, check out the area and head to registration for bib/shirt pick up. I will not be blogging tomorrow but you can look forward to reading all about it after I am back in town.

Have a fantastic Friday and a Super Saturday! Wish me luck! I may not be the best there but I will try my best!

Have a Haunted Halloween Weekend!

Pregnancy Brain

Today I had an 8:05 am baby appointment scheduled. Of course I totally spaced on it and thought it was tomorrow. It probably did not help that I had not one minute of sleep last night. There was no relief of the nausea and no way to get comfortable. On top of that my “Pregnancy Brain” has been terrible. If it is not written down and where I can see it, it just does not exist and it does not get done.

The doctor’s office was nice and squeezed me in this afternoon. Our appointment went well. The doctor suggested I try valerian root tea to help me sleep at night and no naps on days when I did not sleep the night before to reset myself. That is going to be tough! But, a normal sleep schedule is something that needs to be part of my life again. Most days feel like they are wasted because I sleep them away. I did lose 2 lbs since my last appointment. This is actually a good thing, they were glad to see that I have been able to be more active and there was no unnecessary weight loss. Soon I should get a call and find out when my “High Risk” ultrasound appointment is. I am thinking it will be in 3 to 4 weeks. Emma was at the appointment and heard the heart beat, she was very unimpressed. The doctor asked me “Why no smiles?” I was just watching Emma’s reaction I guess. Apparently this child is not impressed with the fact that I am growing a human.  I am wondering once I really get back to being active if that will help too. Less than a week until I am back into a full workout schedule. This week I have just been testing the waters and working my way back into it. No need to be hasty and hurt myself or The Fetus.

 

Reasons for Pregnancy Brain

If you’re busy, or stressed, or short on sleep, it’s 100% normal to have memory lapses or be forgetful, Christenson says.

“When you are not getting enough sleep and are multitasking, nobody’s memory is good,” says Jane Martin, MD, director of the Neuropsychological Testing and Evaluation Center at New York’s Mount Sinai Medical Center.  ”You are not cognitively sharp when you haven’t slept well.”

Surging hormone levels and new priorities may explain why pregnancy brain happens.

“There are 15 to 40 times more progesterone and estrogen marinating the brain during pregnancy, and these hormones affect all kinds of neurons in the brain,” says Louann Brizendine, MD, director of the Women’s Mood and Hormone Clinic at the University of California, San Francisco.

“By the time the woman delivers, there are huge surges of oxytocin that cause the uterus to contract and the body to produce milk — and they also affect the brain circuits.”

Pregnancy also shuffles what gets your attention. Your IQ doesn’t change, but your priorities do.

“You only have so many shelves in your brain so the top three are filled with baby stuff,” Brizendine says.

Hormones may also affect spatial memory — which includes remembering where things are — in pregnant women and new moms, a recent British study shows.

Source: webmd.com

Mother Nature

Leave it to her to rain on my parade! Well, rain on my “I am going to try to walk/run/whatever this morning” idea. Oh well, there  is always tomorrow. I need my workout area finished so I can just use the treadmill and my DVDs. If this baby gives me a moment of relief I am thinking that I will go to the gym for a little bit later. We will see how that works out.

Today was Emma’s first day of the First Grade. She was surprisingly  this morning. But alas, she is off to school and all is well. There were tons of friends from last year in her class, so I am sure she will lose those butterflies quickly. I can’t wait to see what she has to say about it this afternoon!

I did eat a yogurt parfait from McDonald’s  this morning without an issue (other than nausea so I will take it) so I am thinking I should go get the stuff to make and have them at home. Yeah, yeah, McDonald’s is bad but we were out and about and I needed to eat now!! Could have been a value meal.

Emma on her first day of First Grade. Not sure why she chose to have her picture taken while standing on the dog bed, but hey, whatever. Kids are strange!

Last Day of Summer!

Back to School for Miss Emma Kay tomorrow. She is pretty excited to go back and to wear all of her new clothes. Well the tops, she is one of those kids that swears all pants, shorts, underwear and shoes are uncomfortable. So far there has been no way to successfully convince her otherwise. Personally I am not ready for her to go back. I enjoy having her around the house. But can’t keep her from education. So back to early nights and even earlier mornings. We spent the day doing what she wanted, it consisted of Chinese food, the arcade and then pizza for dinner in a few here.

Tomorrow I am going to try to hit the pavement in the a.m. after she goes to school. With neighbor kids back in school there will be fewer people out and about so I can have some privacy. The possibility of puking on the side of the street in front of the neighbors is pretty mortifying. Plus seeing how it goes seems like a good idea to me. Won’t know unless it is tried.

Surfing the internet or “googling” as the kid calls it, late last night I stumbled upon a full Les Mills pregnancy brochure. Pretty awesome (well, I think so). it gives you modifications for pretty much all the basic LMP moves. it will certainly come in handy! If you would like to check it out you can do so (HERE). It is showing lunges as being allowed, just not walking lunges. definitely checking with the doc on this when I go in on the 10th. The brochure is getting printed up and taken to the doctor with me. Sure will make explaining everything much easier!