Exercise after baby.

Exercising after having a baby.  This is a new thing for me.
After I had Violet I didn't do anything for about two years.  Then we went to India and I carried her in a front pack around the streets of Chandigarh every day for three months, and got strong like a pack mule, and realized how much better physically and mentally I felt with even just a little core strength and endurance training in my life.  Upon our return home, I made it a priority to stay in shape and we started going to the YMCA.

So now fast forward.  Here we are nearly two months past having Eloise, and after taking quite a long break, I'm starting to bring the joy (and pain) of a weekly exercise routine back into my life.
Let me tell you, it is not easy.
I have already lost most of the baby weight, but for me that is absolutely not the hard part.
My body literally feels like it has been taken apart and put back together with silly putty and popsicle sticks.  All the muscles from around my joints have disappeared, and it has taken me a few weeks to feel like I'm not going to hyperventilate with every step.
Good grief.  I knew it would be hard but.... After coming home from the gym a few nights ago I was sitting on the couch, piled in a mess of sweat and water bottles and socks, trying in vain to get the sleepy baby to eat --and I needed her to eat after being away for over two hours (other mommies will know what I mean)...  sitting there listening to an overly-tired Violet go reluctantly through her bedtime routine (nightgown or pajamas?  I want to floss my teeth on the rug.  Don't brush my hair, daddy.  I want you to pick the book tonight, but don't pick that book or that book or that book....etc).
.......I couldn't help but ask myself, as I balanced my second plate of dinner on Eloise's head, if going to the gym is really worth all this hassle....

-- But the answer was simple.  Yes.  It's worth it.
It's worth it for 3 reasons that Tyler points out every time I sway about actually getting up and going.

1) It's worth it because it is pretty much the only time during the day when I get to just focus on my own being.  No one to hold, or feed.  Nothing to type or paint.  No one to write to.  Nothing to clean or read or fix.
Just me.  And it's so wonderfully selfish, in that way that selfish can be wonderful.
For just an hour I get to feel my knees and arms and stomach, and be lost a little in how everything feels.  It's like sitting down with an old friend.  Or like a therapy session, where my body is lying there and I'm next to it with a notebook asking questions-- So, how are the hips feeling today? 

2) It's a chance for Tyler to have alone time with Eloise, and for me to have alone time with Violet.  Even though Violet goes in the childcare place while we're at the gym, our drive there and back (which is a good 25 minutes each way) gives us some good time together to talk and sing songs.  Just the two of us.  It's horribly hard for me to leave the baby, but I know it's good for everyone.  Eventually Tyler and Eloise will start coming too-- and that will be fun, but for now-- in these early months-- it's been working out well to leave the baby with daddy, and drive away with my big girl and my water bottle.  

3) Getting exercise, especially in a fun group setting, keeps my spirits up.  This is something I really could have used the first time around.  A little exercise does so much for my mood and overall emotional state, especially when I'm with other people.  It's fun and up lifting.  I always feel like the cobwebs and dust have been vacuumed out of my head after a night at the gym.

So, anyway, long post.  In summary: going to the gym after having your second kid is worth the hassle.  

Rainbow Baby

I learned a new term today:  Rainbow Baby.

Rainbow Baby is a term people use when they are referring to a baby they have following a loss.
--Sort of like how a rainbow is a special beautiful thing that comes out of a storm.
Just pure happiness.  A bit of magic.  You wonder how it even came to be.
For a long time I've thought about Eloise in this way but haven't known how to put it into words; this term just explains it so perfectly, I had to share.  

Anyway... This week was big for our rainbow baby.  She's 6 weeks old now, and suddenly doesn't fit into her bassinet at all anymore.  She's growing like crazy, so we've transferred her into her big crib (when she's not sleeping snuggled on top of us).  Also, Violet has decided that Eloise is now mature enough to be read to.  So we have a lot of book reading going on, which is very sweet and actually quite helpful when I need a moment to myself.
BUT, the BIG NEWS is that we've started seeing some smiles!  REAL smiles (not just the accidental ones that come with farts).  She makes all these sweet little gurgle coo sounds, and then bends her face into the most wonderful happiness smiles.
I guess her constant eating and power sleeping has been put to good use.
It takes a lot of work and energy to grow a smile, but oh Eloise!  You've got a good one.  You bring your mommy and daddy and big sister such happiness.  You are indeed our rainbow girl :)

  

Mother's Day 2014

What a charmed day.
Morning--  I got one of my favorite breakfasts: eggs and tater tots; the breakfast table was a field of petunias and daisies.  Then we wandered around green lake and I snuggled with my baby girl in the Ergo carrier while Violet made a sandcastle.

For Lunch, Tyler and Violet made me "funny lunch" from Henry and Mudge, which consisted of a pineapple couch and a fruit/veggie version of our family.
Then, I went to Target by myself--  need I say more?

Late this afternoon I sat in the sun with Eloise and Violet, drank some pink wine, and watched Tyler dig up some stumps and root wads in our front yard.
And, while Tyler made dinner this evening, Violet and I, decked out in plastic pearls and butterfly rings, went down in the backyard and played baseball.  She took my hand and pulled me through the lilacs and camellias and said it was her flower forest.

Tonight I'll sit up with Eloise and feed her and smell her hair and forehead, and only sort of wish we would all just go to sleep.  

I never knew if I wanted to be a mommy.  But I have to say, it has been absolutely the most surprising   joy of my life.  Motherhood pulls you in so many wild directions-- happiness, fear, frustration, and nearly unbearable love.
I wasn't able to be with my own mother on mother's day this year-- thank goodness I have four older brothers to spoil her in California.  And, thank goodness I have my own girls to spoil me too :)

One Month Old

Today our Eloise is one month old.  

I continue to be constantly amazed at how well she is doing.  She is eating and sleeping well, she's peaceful and sweet and relatively easy.  It's like she just slipped into our lives and found her own little comfortable corner in which to set up her tent and roll out her sleeping bag.  And she's sitting there toasting marshmallows, watching the moon rise.   

-My little Buddha-Bunny, fitting herself under the dandelions, with a happy round belly and soft peach-colored hair-fluff, and these huge eyes that open wide like her sister's, taking in the universe.  

I love her so immensely.  I feel like I've been enjoying every single second of her-- maybe that's how it goes with the second child-- because we are so much more relaxed, and realize how temporary every stage is.  At 3am when I am sitting up in bed, feeding her, all I can think about is how lucky we are to have each other.  I'm really not trying to sound like a Christmas cheese ball.  It's just how it is.  I love her so much I almost can't take it.  

Even in the midst of an otherwise fairly hard month-- a stressful work schedule for Tyler, ups and downs with Violet transitioning to the role of "Big Sister", and a somewhat slow recovery for me, topped off with a horrendous bout of Mastitis... Eloise is like this tiny nugget of peace and joy within the center of it all.    

Happy one month birthday tiny one.  You are so very loved.