Allow me bragging rights

Saw this post from Todd Smith (of singing sensation "Selah"):
http://toddsmithonline.wordpress.com/2009/05/12/thou-shalt-not-compare-thy-spouse-to-others/ And I felt like I had to comment & brag on my hubby! (You really must go read Todd's post first!) This is what I said:

LOVE this post! Hilarious!!!! But, Todd, my friend, I hate to disappoint you but there is a man who’d be willing to do this for his wife. I know b/c I’m married to him and have been at the receiving end of his generosity many, many times!! Numerous times we’ve walked into church, saw that our nursery was short on help, & I’ve watched as my husband volunteered to help. (Kinda makes me feel guilty, though.) Many, many, many nights he comes home to a frazzled wife who’s been home with our 6 kids all day long (we homeschool) and does he complain that dinner’s not ready or that I’m in a really, REALLY bad mood? Nope! He watches our 6 kids while said-frazzled-wife goes to the grocery store alone or evens goes out to dinner with an equally-frazzled mom. Sorry to rain on your parade! Kudos to you for stepping up anyway!

Body After Baby, week 1 recap

Well, I'd really like to just not post anything on this one! Got nothing accomplished as far as BAB last week. Didn't get my exercise in and ate horribly. BUT, I do have good news. I've found an exercise buddy! We're going to meet at least twice a week to walk the trails at our local parks and try some accountability as far as diet & exercise go. Our first night is tonight!! She's also got some nutritional/diet information she's going to share with me. I did change the weight loss ticker over there ----> BUT I have a disclaimer. What I entered for my starting weight was what the doctor's office said I weighed at my pre-op appointment in early April. I'm sure the 1.4 pounds has absolutely nothing to do with anything more than differences in scales. Speaking of scales, I did buy a new digital one so I'm not sitting there staring at lines and trying to figure out what they mean. That's my recap.

Goal(s) for B.A.B. week #2: Hit the trails with exercise buddy twice this week; daily, make sure I drink at least 2 glasses (our glasses are 16 ounces so that would be a total of 32 ounces) of water each day. Also going back to unsweetened tea but that's not as big a deal as it sounds.

The Big T

Timothy is 17 months old today!
Timothy is bravely starting to stand on his own but just for few precious seconds. He walks really well with help but hasn't taken those precious first steps quite yet. He's still babbling more than saying anything that makes sense although he does say "night night" (which also means "bye bye") and "da da" frequently. Just today I heard him say something that sounded like "ball" and he definitely repeated the "b" sound which he's never used before. He's learned in just the last little bit how to climb on and off the couch and a variety of other places, like climbing on the bench and then onto the top of the kitchen table. He's also learned how to stand in his high chair and crawl out onto his tray. It's terrifying! We can't quite figure out how to loosen the belt in the high chair and it's too tight to buckle him in. We plan on figuring it out very soon, before he ends up on the floor. He's doing okay with his hearing aid but, if you know us very well, you know that he rarely has it in. That's my fault. It's just not on my radar enough to remember it everyday. And we've decided he can't wear it in the car any more as that's when he gets bored and pulls it out and chews on it. He's "fractured" his mold (the squishy part) but, thankfully, it doesn't effect the mold and because it fits sooooo well, we don't want to rush to get another one made. We're supposed to get his speech therapy started in the next 2 weeks. I LOVE this age (& Lydia's age, too, but this blog is about Timothy, not Lydia). I love playing Pat-a-Cake & Itsy Bitsy Spider with him and to watch him try and do the motions, too. He's got the clapping down! Oh, and to watch him shake his head no -- hilarious! For your viewing enjoyment (with a little John thrown in for good measure)


The others at ~17 months:

JohnElizabeth (obviously....)
Caleb
Nathan

Misc thoughts & Lydia's 2 month check-up

Well, I'm happy with the results of yesterday's election. I wasn't really passionate about many of the issues but one....the Reynoldsburg City School District Levy. It failed and yes, I'm glad. "That's pretty easy for you to say since you choose to homeschool your children," you're probably thinking. Well, quite frankly, you're right! However, you're only about half right. This wasn't as easy a decision as you might think it would have been for us. Why? For starters, I have a niece, nephew, & kids on my street in Reynoldsburg City Schools....I really do feel bad for all of them! I don't remember much from elementary school but moist of what I do remember is days in music class, gym, and art -- all things these kids will not have when they return to school this fall. (But I must say this gives my currently-overwhelmed-by-homeschooling heart the boost it needs to dig my heels in and make our homeschool a success!) Secondly, I'm also concerned about where these other jobs that are going to be cut are coming from...Reynoldsburg City Schools provides my father-in-law's income! I think he's safe for now as he's the head custodian of one of the elementary schools but I wonder if some of his support staff might be cut. And third, there's always that thought in the back of my head, that "what if something were to happen & I/we would need to put our kids in public school" thought. I really don't like thinking that if my kids were to ever be in the local schools, that they'd be in crowded classrooms and go through days with no gym, art, or music. But, it boiled down to this....we really can't afford such a HUGE jump in our mortgage payment, and it would have been significant (around $100/month, if I understand correctly). So if you can call that "glad" or "happy" that the levy failed, then I guess I'd say I'm "glad".

Body after baby mid-week #1....haven't reached my goal of exercising yet but the week's still young! And I have been doing a lot of sweating lately trying to keep this house clean. So I haven't been sitting around, either. Bad eating week, though, as I had a special ladies function at church on Sunday & dinner out with a friend on Monday so I haven't been watching my portions properly. But, hey, that wasn't 1 of my goals so I can let it slide, right?!?! :) But I think I might have just been blessed with a walking buddy, if I can get it worked out.

Mom confessional...and you got to promise you won't look down on me for being so transparent, okay? Going to church is my release, my mental break, often my only trip out of the house during a week unless it's grocery week. Don't get me wrong -- I KNOW I am blessed not only to have children but to have a husband who does let me at least run errands by myself in the evenings and even take nights off, like Monday when I went out with Kisha. I know other moms don't get that opportunity.... But....I don't even know if I can put a word on it but I can't tell you how it bothers me to not only miss church but to sit back & watch Jonathan go when 1 of us has to stay home with a sick kid(s). It is so hard, especially on Wednesdays, to avoid thinking "He gets to be gone alllllll day long to work and then come home, barely spend an hour here (but really NOT here 'cause he's preparing his lesson...alone...locked up in our room), and then he gets to leave again". Sounds like a whiny kid, doesn't it? Well, it's really bad today -- not only am I home with 1 sick child, I'm home with all of the kids but ONE and Jonathan has to stay late! Timothy's caught another cold on top of the sinus infection, John & Elizabeth both have a cold, and we believe Lydia has the beginnings of it, too. Caleb is here, though, and along with me, Jonathan, & Nathan he doesn't seem to have any symptoms of anything (yet). We're in the middle of a series on a healthy church and I've now missed it 2 weeks in a row which is saying a lot -- it's taught in Sunday School, it's preached in the morning service (wasn't there last week, was helping with the ladies luncheon this past week & missed both SS & preaching), AND it's discussed on Wednesday nights (which I missed last week 'cause Timothy was sick & am missing again tonight). And there's not even an option for Jonathan to stay home with the kids on Wednesday nights because he's teaching. So there -- I've said it....now you probably think I'm some sort of ungrateful or spoiled brat....I have no idea what my problem is.

While I'm posting, I'll let you know that Lydia is doing great! Other than perhaps the start of a cold and MAYBE a MINOR case of colic (she's fussy off and on most of the evenings, and is really fussy between 9 and midnight), she's perfect! 11 pounds, 4 1/2 ounces (a little above the 50th percentile), 21 1/2 inches long (25th percentile). After the way Elizabeth grew, it's so nice to see her "average". She got her first set of shots today as well and goes back @ 4 months.

I must go wipe noses & change at least 1 stinky diaper....

4 years old

5.5.05....Happy 4th Birthday, John!

(a few days after birth, in the NICU; feeding tube tape on his mouth)
1 Year2 Years3 YearsEaster this year

2 months

Sweet Lydia is 2 months old today!

The others at (approx.) 2 months....who does Lydia look like???
Nathan
Caleb
ElizabethJohn

Timothy

Body After Baby Challenge

It's May 1st....time for a challenge! I'm joining "Mama Notes" and friends for the "Body After Baby Challenge". It's not limited to women who've just had babies but that's her motivation after she had a baby boy in March. She also talks about bathing suit season which has no appeal to me whatsoever but hey -- more power to her! :) Here's the rules, copied off her blog, with some of my own thoughts:



1. Post on your blog your long term goals. Generally a goal that you want to have accomplished in 4-6 months. Be specific. Speaking in terms of pounds, my long term goal for this 4-6 month time frame is 30 pounds. Can I find my scale?!?!



2. List your short term goals for the week. For example, lose one pound this week or exercise four days a week. For this first week (which is really 10 days, 5/1-5/10), my short term goal is to exercise at least twice. I haven't exercised since before I got pregnant with Lydia so I'm not going to push myself too much. I hope that doesn't sound like a cop-out....



3. List your plan of action. How you're going to reach your goals. General "diet and exercise". For the diet part, cut back on intake (duh!) and wean myself off caffeine, starting with pop. Will take a while to get me off of tea, I'm sure, as that's what I drink more than anything. Any day I don't have caffeine, I start to feel it around bedtime with a terrible headache....For the exercise part, I have several work out videos to use and also the treadmill if Jonathan gets it fixed. Right now it's stuck at a severe incline.



4. Re-cap every Monday. On Monday's we will review our goals and our progress. We will post our success's and failures and share them with other's! Be honest. Obviously the first re-cap will be Monday, May 11.



5. Leave a link to the post in your blog so that we can all motivate and support each other. Judgement is not allowed, only support and encouragement. (You can leave your link in the comments section for now.) You can see her blog -- and read the comments of other women -- at www.mamasnotes.com/2009/04/body-afer-baby.html



Honestly, I've been overweight since before puberty and have only ever been successful at weight loss one time, right after John was born. I won't say for certain what I weigh right now (or then) but I was, at my best, 5 pounds shy of breaking 200. I've weighed over 200 since college....Wish I felt more confident 'cause I really don't. How I did it before almost isn't an option -- I literally didn't get there by myself. I was working out wtih my friend, Kisha, and we were keeping each other accountable. Once we allowed ourselves to get busy with life and started cutting back on exercise, everything went downhill. We went to the beach that April, returning on 4/30/07, and I was determined to do it on my own. However, I found out I was pregnant with Timothy the very next day so I ended up talking myself out of it. Did okay with the pregnancy with Timothy -- only gained around 10 pounds -- but in between Timothy's birth and getting pregnant with Lydia, I put back on the weight and then some. I now weigh more than I ever have not pregnant and, to get to what the charts say is ideal weight for someone my height, I need to loose somewhere around 90 pounds (no joke....). Disgusting, I know. Anyway, pray for me and the other women who are joining this challenge, would you?!?! I've added a ticker under my Twitter updates that I'll update every Monday as well.