Leaving the Door Cracked
On Monday, I gave one of Lil C's car seats to a neighbor whose son had barfed all over his seat. We had been outside playing on Sunday and the words, "you can have ours" just blurted out. This may not seem like a big deal to anyone else, but for me, it's monumental. I have a basement packed with baby things that I can't seem to part with. I have every onesie, stained or not. I have every toy and every shoe that either of my kids ever wore. I have, on occasion, given things to my cousin, but only to borrow. I've always asked for my baby things back.
Since I got married, I always wanted to have three kids. My husband is one of three in his family and I like the slightly bigger family. If one sibling is weird, hey, you still have another right? My family has always done things in two's and I wanted to break out of that trend.
After the way Big I came into this world, violently taking my body apart, one stretch mark and tear at a time, it's amazing I didn't decide to stop right there. But as she grew up, I knew I wanted a baby in the house again. The first time around, you're so busy worrying that you're not doing everything right that you don't truly take the time to relax and enjoy it.
I didn't think Lil C was ever going to happen. Mr. BBM was traveling all the time and it takes two to tango. After over a year of that dreaded word, "trying" I figured it was a lost cause. When I gave up, I got pregnant and I was so excited. I decided to eliminate all the medical drama and have a midwife deliver her at a birth center.
Then, half way through the pregnancy, I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes. My joyful pregnancy turned into one of worry. I cried all the time and prayed for two things: a healthy baby and that the diabetes would go away when it was all over. My Mom's never went away when she had her second baby. She has an insulin pump and a blood sugar sensor on her person at all times. There have been low blood sugars and subsequent ambulance calls and car accidents. I spent a lot of my childhood terrified because of those few times I came home to find my Mom unconscious. I didn't want that for my kids and I didn't want that for me.
Lil C's birth experience wasn't exactly where I had hoped it would be (the Director of Maternal Fetal Medicine scared me into having a hospital birth), but the experience my midwife made sure I had was an amazing one. She kept the medical business out of the experience for me as much as possible. She left me push in the dark without making my knees touch my ears. I practically delivered Lil C myself. Although during the contractions, I swore (literally) and swore I was done; after that amazing experience I wasn't so sure. I've kept the door cracked all these years, terrified to try and find out I can't. Terrified to get pregnant and then get diabetes again; maybe this time for good.
I've had two good friends of mine lose babies in recent months during varying stages of pregnancy, and the weight of that has been crushing. However, my entire street in our new development is in baby making mode and two neighbors have given birth to healthy baby boys in the past three months. The one baby and I have become particularly good friends.
When he wakes from naps on nice afternoons, he spends some time smiling at me while hanging out on my lap. The other day, as I dropped the car seat off at my neighbor's across the street, his daddy was frustrated that he wouldn't take his bottle or stop crying. I gave his Dad a break, cradled him and got him to take his bottle on the first try, while he patted my back with his little fist and held onto my pinky with his other little hand. For the first time in a long time, I thought to myself, "I could do this again." It's just the getting through the pregnancy in one piece that I doubt I can handle again.
I like the freedom that having older kids gives you. I like being able to go out when I get a babysitter and I'm happy to have my body back to myself. After about four years of combined pregnancy and nursing, that's one part I wouldn't be anxious about going back to again.
Over the weekend, we took the girls to see the movie Up. It was a fantastic movie and it was preceded by a short movie that was absolutely adorable. In it, there are storks delivering human babies and animals. I couldn't help to think to myself how nice it would be if one could get a baby delivered like that, without 9 months of being scared you'll end up with the disease you've watched your Mom deal with for years, and without thousands in adoption costs and worldwide travel.
For now, I'm going to borrow my neighbor's son when I'm feeling the baby itch, and I'm still keeping that door cracked, even if just a bit. After all, if a stork happens to drop a baby on my porch, I need to be ready.
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Sheer Exhaustion
Lately I've been training a lot, like about five days a week. It's been exhausting. I'm getting home late from the dojo and then I need time to shower, wind down, and rehydrate. I'm getting to bed too late and having to wake up too early. The only way I've been able to get through my day lately is with coffee in the morning and some cranergy in the afternoon. And I'm still tired.
Allergies aren't helping things. Whatever is out there right now is horrible and I'm completely congested and miserable. If I take my medication for it, I get really cranky and unhappy. If I don't, I'm cranky and unhappy because I can't breathe. Something has to give.
Last night, I thought I had a good option for about a minute.
Another 1st kyu was telling me about these "energy shots" you can buy at the convenience store places. I asked him if they were mega doses of caffeine and he said it wasn't. He told me they had B vitamins and a bunch of other healthy stuff and that when he's used them, he's had a good five hours of straight, non-jittery energy.
I made a mental note to pick a couple of those up for the coming weeks and then he said,
"They also make you poop."
Apparently they speed everything up and that's one of the things. I think it would probably be a bad idea to take one and have to leave the training floor non-stop to go empty the system, or God forbid, not make it in time!
I guess I'm just going to have to find a way to get some more rest. The beach vacation coming up in less than two weeks, can't come soon enough. It really can't.
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Swimsuit Shopping Never Really Gets Better
One would think, that working out pretty much non-stop for about eight months would make swimsuit shopping easier. However, nothing is easy when you have two little girls who come along for the adventure. Nothing is easy when you're a woman and your eyes are trained to see flaws before all else.
I've spent the last couple months pining after a swimsuit I spotted in the Eddie Bauer catalog. A halterkini with an apron back on it; it's exactly what I wanted. The price was stopping me though until I found it in another store on sale.
The choices in swimwear, if you're looking for a blousey one-piece that covers you from your knees to your neck seem to be endless in my area. I happen to live in a county where the average shopper is a heck of a lot older than I am. Also, people in my county like to eat a lot, and not things like organic fruit. Think bologna, pot pie, mashed potatoes, that kind of stuff. There are also ash trays in the dressing rooms (not used anymore-thank God, but still).
I loaded up on different sizes of only three different swimsuits because there was pretty much nothing to choose from, and went off to find a dressing room with the girls.
I don't know what it is about Lil C, but as soon as we get into a try-on room, she's Lil C amplified. She was busy making faces in the mirror, pushing her sister off the bench and discussing her own body parts quite loudly. I could already hear the old lady in the dressing room beside me clicking her tongue and sighing with disgust when Lil C called her sister a "poopyhead" which seems to be her new favorite. Fortunately, the child lives for pretzels and "flushies" (that would be slushies) at the mall so once I threatened her with living without her treat, she stopped discussing her butt so much.
Instead the girls decided to discuss mine.
Big I was clearly opposed to anything exposing any amount of stomach area skin and Lil C wanted to see as much of it as possible. I tuned the two of them out and made my own decision. I put the swimsuit on hold and moved on to the next store.
Here's some good marketing advice for Victoria Secret: if you want to sell swimsuits in the store in the area where I live, you should try stocking more than one tankini. I've had suits from VS in the past and loved them. When I saw they were carrying some of them in stores, I was ecstatic, but I wasn't after I hit the dressing room.
There were bikinis that were tried on as an ab experiment-to see if that P90X Ab Ripper workout is really all it's cracked up to be and if the months of medicine ball and incline board combinations really did their thing. The bikini's weren't bad if I could zone out the faded stretch marks from carrying Big I and Lil C on my stomach. There was one bikini, marked down to $25 and it was very tempting; but then I started thinking that I would probably be wearing it at the pool this summer beside some 17 year old who got breast implants for her birthday and decided the cost wasn't worth the eventual humiliation.
I moved onto the one tankini VS sells in my local store and the top was awesome. I was contemplating buying the suit when I turned around to get a glimpse at the back and saw the word "hitched" with a little pink heart on my butt. I hadn't noticed that when I grabbed the bottoms out on the floor of the store.
Big I got a look on her face that said, "Oh no you don't" and I ripped that thing off as fast as I could. We have rules in this house about wearing words on our butts. We just don't do it. We discuss our butts enough in this house; we don't need more words drawing attention to them. And yes, if you've ever been wearing pants or shorts that declare your butt is "juicy" or "pink," it's me laughing at you from behind. Sorry, but that stuff is ridiculous.
We moved on to the final store where I tried on a Kenneth Cole swimsuit that I liked the looks of last year but felt like I couldn't pull it off. I was pleasantly surprised to see that I could totally pull it off this year. Lil C voted for getting that one, but Big I convinced me that purple was not my friend and to go back to the first store, so I did.
I'm now the owner of this halterkini with two bottoms: the one Lil C liked that shows more skin and some tribal skirted bottom thing that was Big I approved. Apparently she doesn't want even a hint of a "cheek" embarrassing her at the pool this summer in front of her friends. She didn't say this; I can just tell.
What I've found after working out so hard this year is that even after all the hard work, it's still possible to be critical of your body. Although I certainly can't complain about not having tighter abs, I can still complain about the faded stretch marks and some extra skin post pregnancy. Although there's no denying my leg muscles are better than they've ever been, there's this little band of skin right above where the bottoms stop that could definitely use some tightening.
I've got a week to be pool ready and two weeks to be beach ready; and frankly, at this point, after all the workouts and dojo time in recent months, it's time to say enough. If someone is going to concentrate on that area I think needs tightening, then they're concentrating on me way too much.
According to the girls, I look like a princess in my new swimsuit; and in case you haven't heard, post-pregnancy stretch marks are the sign of a true warrior. You heard it here first.
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