Check! Twice! Well, kinda. I finally picked a PCP in January or so and had a complete physical then, with everything checking out. I recently picked yet another PCP with Kaiser but honestly, since I'm seeing my ob/gyn at least once a month and have already had a flu shot, I doubt I'll need to see my new doc until I'm post-partum.
Check! But a lot of good it did me. Thanks to marathon training and post-marathon weight shed, I was possibly close to 10 pounds lighter heading into this pregnancy than I was when I became pregnant with Elias. That said, I think I've made up for it as I'm right about where I was, weight-wise, this time in my pregnancy with Elias. And I'm feeling it. Things started off pretty well, especially with the possibly gestational diabetes diet, but adjusting to Neal's schedule changes in August and into September proved to be a not so great turning point for my prenatal exercise routine. My day solo with Elias before and after school is longer and yet I feel like I have less time to work, work out, etc. while he's away. And getting up at 5:30 to sneak that workout in as I was doing before getting pregnant hasn't been an option for awhile. I need all the sleep I can get. Hopefully losing the baby weight won't be too much harder than it was with Elias.
3. hair
Ugh, hair. I guess I'm kind of rocking "the true 'mom hair' eternal ponytail", as I pointed out in my last post, but I also seem to be cutting it shorter and shorter with each stylist visit. I'm sure most women enjoy this rare perk of pregnancy - fuller hair - but it's kinda driving me crazy as I spend 15-20 minutes fussing with it every morning, whether I aim to "do my hair" that morning or not. That may not sound like much time to most women but ideally, on weekdays, I'd like to shower, put some sort of product in it, scrunch it to make the waves work for me, and call it a day. At this point I figure I have two more appointments to get it right before baby #2 arrives. Wish me luck!
Check! A few times!
5. cut out coffee, splenda, limit artificial stuff like Fresca, etc.
Hmm. Yeah, not so much. I cut out coffee and Splenda for awhile and have pretty successfully limited my Fresca habit but after a few weeks of feeling unbelievably groggy and mildly cranky during the first trimester, I reintroduced a cup of half-caff to my morning routine. And I use Splenda. I guess I'm banking on research so far being correct in that a little Splenda (and caffeine) is harmless because it seems to go hand-in-hand with my coffee habit.
Kinda. Turns out we did get some decent pics out of an extended family photo shoot in southern California last Labor Day weekend, shortly after I wrote my original post. It'd be nice to have something more recent, but with a kid who continues to shy away from non-candid photography and not feeling so photogenic myself these days, I think that'll have to do until we're a party of 4.
7. cats!
Nope. We've still got 'em. And they still drive me crazy. One is pretty mellow. She's crazy in a typically crazy cat way but less vocal. It's actually sort of charming, if you're into cats. And she's the healthy one. The only possible caveat with her is that she sleeps in our room, usually on our bed, with us. I'm not sure how this will translate to the baby sleeping in our room for the first few months. Xander, on the other hand, is as neurotic as they come, with a handful of mysterious physical ailments to boot. Most recently there's been a fair amount of digestive issues, from both ends, dare I get a little graphic here. I'm going to be dealing with a lot of bodily fluids again pretty soon without having to clean up after a geriatric cat. And the meowing. He meows incessantly, for mysterious reasons. And the shedding. I was vacuuming sometimes every other day before I finally plunked down a hundred bucks or so to have them both groomed (they're both medium to long-haired). Much better. We may just have to budget for that sort of thing 2 to 3 times per year. It's cheaper than therapy, right?
8. finish room makeovers and other house stuff
We've actually made some progress on this one! Our room will probably have to wait until later, although I have picked out a paint color and still hope to have Neal (and a helper of some sort, ideally) rearrange the furniture before the baby's born. But the bathrooms are coming along. We hired a handyman and his crew to re-tile both bathroom floors (desperately needed in one, despite being remodeled just 5 to 7 years before we bought the house), plus the entryway, and replaced everything but the toilet in the 1/2 bath that connects to our room (yay, Ikea!). We're working with what we have in the main bathroom, replacing only the light fixture in there, adding an exhaust fan in a couple of weeks, and generally embracing a "transitional" style, mixing our more contemporary tastes with the fairly traditional cabinets, etc. I repainted the wainscoting this past weekend and it took me about four days to feel recovered from that (spending two hours on tedious paint work immediately after cleaning the entire house is officially too much...my back, it was not happy). So I'm not sure how realistic this goal is, but with a paint color finally picked out, I'm hoping to repaint both bathrooms before Thanksgiving.
9. go through all Eli's baby stuff
Not even close. This is on the post-Thanksgiving to do list. You know, the one that overlaps with holiday shenanigans and the period when Eli's school will be closed for two weeks. No problem!
Check! I wasn't sure if we were going to be able to swing it after Neal's unemployment and, now that he has a job, wanting to save every hour of vacation time for when baby #2 arrives, but we decided to go for it and snuck away to Disneyland for three days last month. Exhausting, but fun, and I'm so glad we were able to do that with Elias and as a family of three before we're unofficially on house arrest again for awhile. More on that trip in the next one or two posts.
Check! This was actually the only thing crossed off the list when I originally posted it, having recently ditched our 15 year old, 180,000+ miles Mazda Protege for a Mazda 5. Other than kinda crappy gas mileage (I think it averages out at around 20-21 mpg, translating to us spending sometimes four times what we were spending on gas before, partly due to gas prices increasing over the past couple of years, partly due to our fuel efficiency going down considerably with this change), I still really like it. When baby #2 arrives in January, we'll still have an optional third row for Grandma Joanne or whoever else might visit. Or, of course, that extra cargo space for strollers, groceries, etc. No complaints there and so far, we continue to be a one-car family, which is something of a lifelong goal for me.
Overall, not too shabby, eh? In other pregnancy related news, I'm 29 weeks today, one week into the third trimester. I passed the glucose drink test last month with flying colors, meaning I'm offically off the hook for gestational diabetes. That was fun. And pointless. Yes, I learned a lot about nutrition and stuff but has that kept me from over-indulging during this pregnancy? Unfortunately, no. I'm a little obsessed with food, actually, and can't seem to stop baking stuff. I just baked some oatmeal sunflower seed chocolate chip bars today, actually, justifying this by pretending like they're granola bars, something I make almost every week for Eli's school lunch and my own snacking needs (not exactly low calorie but pretty healthy, full of things like oats, nut butter, nuts, chia seeds, flax meal, etc.). These things, on the other hand - they're called cookie bars, for crying out loud. And yet...
But, anyway, I happily hopped off the GD wagon (and then ate my way through Disneyland the next weekend!). Everything else continues to look good although I have received one friendly reminder about the rate of my weight gain in September. I gained 10 pounds in 5 weeks but as of my last appointment I was back to about 1 pound per week over the four weeks prior, and suspect things will continue to slow down slightly since, despite all this baking, I'm already at that point where a kid's meal makes me feel unbelievably, miserably full. My stomach is in my chest it seems. So that has helped as well as curbing post-4yo-bedtime snacking most evenings. And all that painting! That's gotta burn a few calories, right?
