Give me my pants back!

By the end of my pregnancy with Gracie, I had gained almost 50 lbs.  I was convinced it was because I had a huge monster baby inside me, and the rest was water weight.  HA! I couldn't be more wrong.  Baby G came out only weighing 6 lbs.  When she was two weeks old, I had only lost about 16 lbs. of actual baby weight, and then I was stuck.  I would get so mad when friends of mine, who had their babies, 1, 2 or 3 months after mine would announce, very shortly after the birth of their babes, that they were already back in their pre-pregnancy pants.  yay for you guys.  When Gracie turned 2 months old, I was still wearing my maternity pants because they were all that fit.  How depressing! 
Finally I had to accept the fact that I'm not like my skinny friends.  Breastfeeding was not a weight loss key for me, and I had to start literally working my butt off if I ever wanted to take control of my body again. 
So I stopped buying pre-made cookie dough, I learned how to bake my own whole grain bread, and I registered for a half marathon.
I can't count calories, it makes me crazy and if I'm thinking about food all day, then I just want it more. 
I try to eat only whole, real foods.  I avoid processed foods as much as I can.  This has made me learn new recipe, as well as change my tastes.  I keep around plenty of fruits and veggies and I drink a lot of water.  I eat either a salad or a green smoothie for breakfast.

And finally, finally, my little girl is 7 months, and I am down 26 lbs, and 3 belt holes.  And yes, I pulled out my jeans again! 

Family Health Update

I just feel like writing this post because if I ever read back on this blog as the story of my life, I will want to know the outcome of my illness this week.  So it turns out I just had a 24 hour flu thing.  I never believed in the 24 hour flu.  Literally.  I thought it was a myth, or food poisoning. But I really was just sick for seriously 24 hours, to the minute.  I got sick around 4:00 while I was at the zoo, went from feeling great to suddenly being punched in the stomach, I felt well enough to go for my short 2.5 mile run that evening, but my crazy leg pain wasn't because of my run, it was because of the flu.  I know this because Skylar contacted the exact same thing I had the next day, he started feeling sick around 4:00, couldn't sleep all night because he was achy, spent the day throwing up, then was better by dinner the next day, around the same time he started feeling ill.
I cant' say whether or not Gracie got any form of the flu as well because she got some shots the day Skylar was sick and was acting a bit unhappy, but I couldn't tell whether it was from the shots, or the flu.  She never threw up, just acted clingy, sleepy and achy. 

oh where oh where has my she-lion gone?

I practically never get sick.  In the four years I've been married I can count on less than a whole hand how many times I've felt really down in the dumps.  Two of those times are today, and about 3 weeks ago when we all had something icky.
I didn't ever realize how healthy I was until I married my sweetheart, who, bless his heart, gets sick probably 6 times a year.  And I never do anything different around him, and I never catch whatever he's got.  In October 2009, hubby got the swine flu. I didn't even catch the sniffles.
So far, it seems that Gracie has been blessed with my she-lion immune system that catches and kills anything within arms length.  Her daddy got sick the week she was born, being a new and excited father he couldn't resist but to still hold her and love on her.  And being the admiring wife of that new daddy, I couldn't resist how cute the daddy daughter pair were, so I didn't intervene.  Gracie was fine, she didn't get sick.  Daddy got sick again a few months later.  Again we didn't do anything different, and neither of us she-lions were slowed down.
At 5 and 1/2 months Gracie picked something up from somewhere else, and much to my dismay, she got her mommy sick (and to no one's surprise mommy got daddy sick too). 
And now. I don't know where it came from, but I want it to go away.  I feel absolutely disgusting.  I ran only 2.5 miles last evening and hurt more than I ever have after much lengthier and more strenuous workouts.  Then I couldn't sleep all night either because my screaming legs woke me up or because I felt like hurling.
I'd take a bad cold over a nauseous tummy any day.
Please please she-lion, come back!
 

To regret or not to regret. That is the question.

I've come up with a new theme for my choice making. 
Regret.
As in, which would I regret more, option A or B? 
I think about this every time Skylar nudges me at 5:00am and says, are you going to get up and go to the gym?
And I think to myself:  No Thanks, I'd rather stay in my warm bed.
Then I ask myself, which will I regret more, staying in bed? or getting up and working out?  As tempting as it is to stay in bed, I know that I'll be happier if I get up. 
So I do (most days). 
I find myself in a similar situation with eating chocolate.  Nearly every hour I hear my head having this conversation:
What do you want more? The brownie, or the skinny body?
This one is a toss up.  Sometimes I want the brownie more, sometimes I want my skinny body back more.  Unfortunately, in this case, I'm really asking myself the wrong question.  I should be asking the same question as I do when I'm in bed.  Would I regret eating the brownie more than I would regret refraining from the delicious chocolatey yumminess?  In that case, I would say, although I really really really want the chocolate more than I want to meet my goal (in that very second), I do, at least, know that I would regret it promptly afterward.  Thus, I would choose not to partake. 

You see, this is how my inner devil tricks me. I need to be more consistent in thinking about which option I would regret more rather than which one I happen to want more at the moment. 
Gotta think big picture.
Or in my case, skinny picture?


P.S. I'm not like most girls who has their pregnancy weight melt away by only breathing and breastfeeding.  For me it's been a hard, grueling process, but I'm getting there. So far, I've lost 17 lbs, only 11 more to go until I'm at pre-pregnancy. (then 10 more after that to really satisfy my vanity)

Potty Update

A few people have asked me how the potty training (or EC [elimination communication]) is going with Gracie. So here's a little report on that.
Let me first say, Gracie is a very contented child.  The biggest thing with EC is the Communication part.  Mommy is supposed to communicate with baby the potty cues, then baby is supposed to communicate with mommy (somehow) when she needs to eliminate. 
I'll boldly say I've done my part.  Gracie has definitely learned that pssst psst means "go pee now" (unfortunately we failed with the poop cue, so psst means both)  Gracie is really good at actually pushing her  little muscles and making herself go when I put her on the potty and tell her to go, even if it's just a tiny little teaspoon she's able to eliminate.  So in that sense, we're doing great and I'm really proud of her.
However, on Gracie's end, where most babies have some sort of cue as to when they need to poop (the pees are less obvious for most kids) I have found nothing with Gracie.  She doesn't grunt, fart, smile, cry, nothing.  She'll just be playing one second and pooping the next.  I try to catch her poops immediately and put her on the potty (after it's too late) and tell her where she should do that, but she just laughs at me, and sometimes she'll give me a little pity pee.  Of course there are some days where I do have motherly intuition and I'm able to catch her poops in the potty.  Those are really good days. 
And of course some days are better than others.  It all depends on how much effort I put into helping her.  For example, today, our washing machine is broken, so I'm trying not to dirty any diapers since I don't know when it will be fixed and it's almost 2:00, and she's only had one dirty diaper (pooped while I was eating breakfast, the little stinker).  Otherwise all of her elimination has been in the potty. 

 

 She's a good girl.

Pretty Baby

This is me being a braggy mom.
Isn't my baby pretty?

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

This post is a book review.  If you're anything like me, you'll see that's the case and click on to the next blog without even skimming.  That's fine.  But I just have one thing to say before you click away.  I wouldn't be writing a book review unless I thought the book was really interesting and had some affect on my life view.  With that being said, I will proceed.

 Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua tells her personal story about how Chinese parenting is better than Western parenting.  So, if you've ever wondered why Asian kids are always the ones who excel the most at music, math, science, and pretty much everything that they do, it's not because of any special Asian gift, it's because their parents force them to be nothing short of better than awesome.  The parents are extremely critical, high strung, slave drivers.  But what is interrupted as cruel in Western society is showing love in Chinese.  Chinese parents push their children so hard because they know that their child can be great and it's not loving to let them be mediocre.
I'm a fan of discipline.  And I want my daughter to feel good about herself, and while I know there is no way that I could not be a "Chinese" mother, I am definitely more determined to do whatever I can to help my little girl, and future children, be successful.
I had a great mother, and I know that she tried her best, but she either trusted me too much to make my own decisions or was always too busy and tired that she didn't fight me when I wanted to quit.  She didn't push me to do anything.  So while I "won" as a child and got out of ballet lessons, or practicing the piano or play any sports, or do anything other than play with my friends and watch TV, I ultimately lost big time as I am now a talentless adult with little achievements to speak of from my youth.  I don't want that to happen to Gracie. Having her hate me is a small price to pay for her to learn to be a hard worker and excel. 

If you want to read a synopsis of the book and get a better idea of what I'm talking about, click here

I really enjoyed the book, it was a quick fun read even if you're not a parent.  Often times I caught myself laughing out loud. 

I broke

I didn't grow up with video games.
I hardly even had friends that had video games.
I stink at playing video games.
I hate video games.


I admit that I am one of those people who believed that video games are evil, plain and simple.  They are mind sucking, time wasting, loser making toys that are not necessary for anything.

Then I met Nintendo Wii.
And it was L O V E

Here's why I love the Wii
You actually move around while playing Wii games.  My first exposure to Wii was Wii Bowling, and I won, and I loved it.  Then we played all sorts of Wii Sports and I worked up a major sweat, and I loved it.
Also, all the Wii games I ever played were family friendly, so it was more like sitting down and playing a board game.
Of course I learned that Wii does have certain games that I hate, which I will not name because the list would be too long, but let's just say, if it's not family friendly and or not making you move around, then I have very strong negative feelings for it.

So (more story telling before I get to the point) during Christmas break while Skylar and I were visiting Utah, we spent much of the time playing the Wii because we did not have a vehicle and no one was very keen on either chauffeuring us around or letting us borrow their car, and there wasn't much else to do as our families left for work or school or whatever else they did during their normal lives.
And we had fun, and I truly realized that maybe some video games are not so bad. And maybe it might be nice to play a Wii game instead of Rumikub, Scrabble or Monopoly (because those are basically the only games we have). 
We got some money for Christmas.
But I'm still too cheap to cave in.
So the deal maker was this:
Skylar gets points on Lexis Nexis (a law search engine).  Every day that he does research he gets 15 points, plus more bonus points for other various and random reasons.  He can buy things with his points through Lexis Nexis.  So, we saved up enough points to buy an Amazon gift card to pay for our Wii (we did have to supplement a little with our Christmas money, thanks Grandma and Grandpa).

So, it came in the mail today.  And we've bowled, and played tennis, and I lost everything, and I laughed.


The end.

Running Report

I'm training for a half marathon which will be on May 7th. 
I'm ashamed to say that I've known about it for 3 months now and I am still behind on my training schedule.

I have some excuses
1. It's cold.
2. I have a baby to care for and a husband in law school.
3. It's cold.

Skylar came home early yesterday so I could go to the gym, I was so excited I ran out of the house and forgot to tape my leg, so I was only able to run 1 mile then had to do the rest of my time on the elliptical.
Boo.

Skylar came home early again today so I could try again, I did remember to tape my leg this time, but my car was so covered in ice and it took me so long just to leave my driveway that I lost about 10 minutes of my precious running time, then I had to wait another 5 minutes to get on a treadmill at the gym.  (lame!)
So there's good news and bad news about tonight's run. 
Good news, I was able to run!
Bad news, I didn't run my goal of 4 miles.
Good news, I did run 3.8 miles at my fastest time yet.

Mind you, my fastest run is rather pathetic to one who truly may call themselves a runner.  My average speed was 9:30 m/m.  I usually run at about a 10:40 m/m.
So, being short legged, overweight and inherently slow, a 9:30 minute/mile average was pretty freakin awesome for me. 

Shin Splints

I guess I got shin splints.  I didn't know what it was, I just knew my leg started hurting when I started running.  So my dear more educated friends told me I had shin splints and taught me how to take care of it and prevent future problems.
Exercise the shins - you can do this by repeatedly tapping your toe until it burns and burns.  I've been doing this a lot lately.   You can also walk around on your heels until it burns.


Wrap: I'll let the picture explain itself.

So I taped my leg this morning and ran three miles pain free!  Huray!!

Oh, there they are.

That's right, the watch and sunglasses are stuck to the wall. 

(please don't judge me by the messy dresser)

Poached Egg

Skylar wanted eggs benedict, so we did it.
I don't know why I've always thought that poaching an egg would be hard, for some reason on movies and cooking shows they make the poached egg like the ultimate egg cooking test, which is dumb because it's super easy.
Boil the water, then let it simmer, add vinegar to the water.  Crack the egg into a separate dish.

Pour in the egg, and don't worry, the whites will gather themselves together again.

I don't know how long it's supposed to cook, but maybe 3 minutes?  I just let it go until it looks like the whites are all cooked. Then pull it out with a slotted spoon to drain out the water. 

Lay it on top of whatever you want to eat it on.  :)  
In our case we used ciabatta bread, our personal favorite, gouda cheese (totally perfect for the dish!)  canadian bacon, and topped it with some hollendaise sauce.  
Delicious!!!

On MasterChief the true test of the properly poached egg was to see if the yolk was runny

 Yep, it's perfect!!

Yumm... I think I'll have this for dinner again.


(The only downer is the poached egg gets cold really fast so you have to eat it as soon as you make it, so no eating poached eggs together as a family.  One person cooks while the other eats)

King James I of England and IV of Scotland.

Skylar and I are both reading the New Testament this year, and I got curious about King James since we read the King James Version of the Bible, also known as the Authorized Version.

King James was crowned King of Scotland when he was 13 months, but did not take the throne until he was 16.  His mother was imprisoned for 19 years for conspiracy to kill Queen Elizabeth.
James is known for being highly educated thanks to his tutor George Buchanan. 
James allied with Queen Elizabeth I and took her throne over England when she died, so he was King of both Scotland and England.  (Interesting side note: Merlin predicted a Scotsman would rule England one day which is why England  tried so hard to subjugate them)

He authorized the English translation of the Bible for the Puritans who insisted that everyone should be able to know and read God's word without intermediaries.  It became known as the authorized version because it was the only Bible authorized to be read aloud in churches. 

I'm grateful to great men and women of the past who did things to make our lives more convenient.

Home Sweet Home

Here's what I learned in the last 2 1/2 weeks:

There's no place like home.

And there's no better way to appreciate home than being away for an extended amount of time.

So as soon as I get my home back in order, I will get back to my random studying, meanwhile, here are some cute pictures of Gracie, taken while we were gone.

Kidney

Is the kidney bean shaped, or is the bean kidney shaped?

 The bubble words have nothing to do with this post, I just thought the talking kidney was cute.

I'll be the first to admit that I don't know anything, which is why I'm trying to learn something each day.

And I didn't know exactly what the function of the kidney is.
Kidney's process about 200 quarts of blood a day. (for those of you like me who measure the american way, here's a little refresher, 4 quarts = 1 gallon, so the kidney is flushing about 50 gallons a day). The kidneys flush out the waste and water from the blood and send it to the bladder.

The kidneys measure out chemicals like sodium, phosphorus, and potassium and release them back to the blood to return to the body. In this way, the kidneys regulate the body’s level of these substances. The right balance is necessary for life. 

Now if Gracie asks me about the kidney, I have something to tell her.


 

Honey

After my Honey Bee post, which really just turned into a Queen Bee post, Skylar really wanted to know WHY bees make honey. 
So honey this one is for you.

The answer is simple; bees make honey for an energy source (food).  But here's what I didn't know, honey also acts as insulation for their hive during the winter. 

Because most bee colonies are maintained by beekeepers, the bees overproduce honey, which is why it's ok for us to take it from them.  Human consumption of honey is not doing any harm to the baby bees, they still get their fill.

Here are a few other interesting facts I learned about honey:
Nectar is regurgitated into the honeycomb, the content is high in water and natural yeast, if it was left this way it would ferment and be no good; but those smart little bees fan the nectar, thus making the water evaporate so that it is more sugar concentrated and turns to honey, and will not ferment.

Honey can be used as an antibiotic for burns and ulcers or gangrene, honey draws water away, so when honey is applied topically, the infection will be dehydrated to death.

Babies should not consume honey!  They can get botulism and die within 3-30 days. While the botulinum spores are not harmful to adults and children, they can be fatal to infants as their immune system and digestive tract are not fully developed.

HoneyBee

My friend told me that her father raised bees when she was young, their family got rid of the bees when she was 11 so she didn't know much about them, and I had a lot of questions as she was telling me what she did know.  So my research today is on the Honey Bee.  There is so much about bees I could probably study them all week, or all month, but I'm just going to focus on a one, after all, I do still have a baby to take care of.

 What's the deal with the Queen Bee?
The Queen is the only fertile bee in the swarm. She's incredibly important to the rest of the swarm for this reason, she lays all the eggs. 

A queen is made when the swarm becomes very large and they decide it's time to create a new colony, at that time the queen lays a few eggs in queen cups (see picture above), at which point the larva are fed exclusively something called royal jelly, a protein rich substance excreted from the heads of the worker bees.  All larva are fed royal jelly for a couple days, but the queen larva are fed it exclusively.  Being fed the royal jelly makes the queen larva sexually mature and fertile. 
When it's time for the queen bee to mate, she mates with about 16 drone (male) bees and stores up their sperm in a spermatheca (?) and then releases the sperm for 2-7 years (her queenly lifetime) onto the laid eggs.  Isn't that fascinating?  
I also learned that all worker bees are female, and only females have stingers because the stinger is actually an ovipositor (egg laying organ).  And the worker bee does die if it stings you, there are little barbs on their stinger that stick into the stung individual and when the bee pulls out the stinger stays in and kills the bee.  However, the queen bee's stinger is not barbed, so she can sting as many times as she wants. 

In short, Bees are magnificent, and I'm grateful for them.

Learning something new: Egg

There is so much that I don't know, and I'm often very inquisitive in conversations, so I decided that I'm going to make an effort to learn something new everyday, afterall, with Google and Wikipedia, there's no reason that I shouldn't know a lot more than I do.
In order to retain a little more about what I've learned, I'm going to write some small summary reports here and make a learning journal.
If anyone has suggestions on what I should study up on, please give me your suggestions!


I'm starting with an egg. 

Yesterday we didn't have any eggs, so I had to look up what I can use as an egg substitution for baking.  There are many options, most of which I did not have, such as arrowroot (what's that?) tofu (yea right), and soy milk (nope!)  The two most helpful and feasible for me were 1. Applesauce and 2 Banana.   
I made pumpkin pancakes with applesauce instead of an egg and they turned out perfect! 
Tangent:  It seems like applesauce is going to be a new family staple as I now use it as an oil substitute in baking, and can also use it when we run out of eggs.  Applesauce, you're a life saver.

So my next question about the egg is the nutritional facts, of course we've all heard that the egg white is the healthy part with all the protein, and the yolk is bad bad bad.

So here's my discovery:

One YOKE contains all of the vitamins, A, D and E.
Calories: 60
Protein: 2g
Fat 5g (2 saturated)
Cholesterol 212 mg (71% of your daily value of cholesterol)
Carbs 0g

Yoke contains your daily value of Choline, which I'd never heard of before, but it's apparently important to pregnant and nursing women as it is important in brain development, and increases fetal/infant brain development.  So maybe Choline is why breastfed babies generally have higher IQs than formula fed babies? 
Also interesting, the yoke's color is due to the diet of the chicken, so if a chicken is fed colorless food, the yoke will also be colorless.  Which makes sense why my parents chicken's yokes are bright orange rather than a dull yellow.  So I'm going to just make a guess and say that the more deep the yoke color, the more vitamins it has.

So you see, the egg yoke should not be shunned.  Although it has heartattackingly high cholesterol, it's also goodness packed.  So throw a yoke or two in with those whites, then do a little exercise to transform the cholesterol to good! (is that how it works? maybe I need to study cholesterol next)

Egg Whites consists of water (87%) and Protein (13%), sounds like the egg white isn't as proteinalishious as it's cracked up to be (cracked up.. egg.. get it?) 
Calories: 16
Protein 3.5g
Fat 0g
Cholesterol 0g
Carbs 0g

So here's what I'm going to do... change nothing!  Skylar and I already make our scrambled eggs with more whites than whole eggs, the portions depend on how many eggs we have on stock, since using just the whites makes less food.  Today we had a full carton so I only used 1 whole egg and the rest all white. 

Another tip I discovered for the poor homemaker, whipping your whites makes it look like you have more food.  I wanted to make a quiche, but we only had 4 eggs, and it usually takes about 5 or 6 whole eggs to fill up a pie crust, but I didn't want to use the whole egg because we're trying to be more healthy, so I whipped the heck out of those four little egg whites gently folded in some turkey, spinach and feta and viola, a beautiful low cal quiche filling. 

Scripture Reading Discovery.

I always seem to struggle finding time to read my scriptures, while I have plenty of time to read blogs, check facebook and watch internet television shows. Well, I have discovered the new LDS.org website, which is beautiful, I decided to read a chapter online as it was easier to read from the computer while holding Gracie than from a book, and I love it! I don't know why, but when I read from the scriptures on the computer I paid attention better, and felt like reading more and more. Even cooler, they even have audio so I can listen to someone else read scripture to me while I'm cooking, folding laundry or feeding a baby. I love the new lds.org website, especially the scripture page.
http://lds.org/scriptures/?lang=eng

Cooing

I love her noises