The big G

Parents are so funny.  Each parent wants to do the best for his or her own child.  So when they see or read or hear about parenting techniques or philosophies that are quite different from their own, they start to worry that maybe they're not doing a good enough job.   When someone else tells you that this or that way is better, that's when you start getting defensive and that's when all of the momuppances come along.  You know what they are:

"How old is your child?"
"2.  And yours?"
"2.5.  Is your baby potty-trained yet?"
"No."
"Oh.  We potty trained ours at 1.5 years old.  What other languages does yours speak?"
"He can say three or four words in Spanish, mostly learned from Dora the Explorer."
"Oh.  Our daughter can speak three languages, including Mandarin.  And we don't let our kids watch TV."

Bam, bam, bam!  And then you go home and are super pissed off that Mrs. so-and-so talked to you that way.  And then the big G starts creeping in: Guilt.  Then you start thinking to yourself, "Dammit!  I shoulda done this or that, but now it's too late because I should've started that a long time ago.  I've failed my child!  It's hopeless!  Because I let him watch Oprah with me a few times a week, he's going to grow into a withdrawn child who eats hair and scabs."

This is basically what happened to me a few months ago when I was trying to decide whether or not to hire a nanny. I have been reading some amazing parenting blogs, which, more often than not, are full of SAHM (stay-at-home-moms) whose sole purpose in life, it seems, is to provide round-the-clock stimulation for their children.  Which is fantastic, you know.  There are women out there who have worked day in and day out to write a novel, map a genome, design a prosthetic, etc.  I will contend that spending an equal amount of time stimulating a child, while not rocket science, is just as draining.  After spending a whole day with Desmond (a whole day = 8 hours, mind you), I'm physically, psychologically, and mentally drained.  It's not that spending time with Desmond is tedious (well, not ALL of the time), it's just that making funny faces, talking in "parentese," having to shake the same toy at his face over and over again...I'm exhausted at the end of the day.  I don't know how stay at home moms do it for years and years.

So, when I was thinking about hiring a nanny, a small trickle of guilt started creeping in.  Was I being a bad mother because I had to spend more time away from Desmond?  Even worse, was I a bad mother because I WANTED to spend time away from him?  Shortly after hiring Maria, our nanny, I started taking classes again up at the U.  I am gone every Monday from 9-3, Wednesday from 1030-4, and Friday from 11-1:30.  These are times that I have class and meetings.  As soon as I get home, I'm hanging out with Desmond until Billy gets home.  The first two weeks, this has worked out beautifully!  Maria and Desmond are forming a fantastic relationship with each other, I get time to go to get ready and attend class/meetings, and Des is being exposed to a second language.  Great, right?

Desmond holding on to Maria's fingers.

They get along so well...they even color-coordinate their outfits!

So, what's the problem?  This week, after staying up until 2am reading articles for my qualitative methods class, I decided that I needed even more time in order to be able to get my work done for school and my work as a research assistant.  So, we're making a (financial, among other things) sacrifice to have Maria come on Tuesdays so that I can sit and get some work done.  Once we made the decision, two simultaneous waves, one of relief and one of guilt, hit me.  I questioned the necessity of the extra day and wondered if I was just being too greedy.  We could surely use the extra money and I'm sure Desmond would prefer to spend that time with me rather than with Maria, but I need those extra 5 hours.  Physically, psychologically, and emotionally.  I can't tell you how rejuvenated I feel after a few hours away from the house.  I come home excited to see Desmond, having missed being away from him, instead of being at home with him and anxiously handing him off to Billy the second he walks through the door.  I feel that the time I spend with Desmond now is full of love and affection, and less with exasperation.

However, because of the guilt that I'm feeling about choosing to be away from him, and the pull of my emotions from making this decision, I've decided to take care of my psychological well being by seeing a counselor to talk about the tumult of feelings I've got going on.  Hopefully, by talking this through with someone, I'll come out of this without any guilt about my parenting choices, including my choice to have several hours a week of time all to myself.  I have to realize that it is my level of contentment and happiness with my life that will allow Desmond to feel content and happy in his life.

Hopefully, I'll be able to come to peace with the decisions that I make day-to-day regarding Desmond's welfare.  And hopefully, the next time another mom tries to mom-up me, I'll be able to smile and congratulate her on having a parenting philosophy that works so well for her and her family.  And mean it.

And now, for your viewing pleasure, the demon and I one morning waiting for Maria to come.  He's getting to be so vocal now.  Back then (a few weeks ago), it was all about the raspberries and the spit bubbles.  

Let's talk parenting taboos: Rufus Griscom + Alisa Volkman | Video on TED.com

Let's talk parenting taboos: Rufus Griscom + Alisa Volkman | Video on TED.com

A fantastic talk by a husband-wife team (they started babble.com, a website for parents that tells it straight). They talk about the four taboos of parenting and why people should talk about them: Not falling in love with your baby at first sight, discussing your miscarriage, parents aren't always happy, and the loneliness you feel as a parent. The interview is about 17 minutes long, but there is a transcript that you can read.

Chest hair and bath robes

I was inspired by THIS post on my friend Dani's blog.  She's a wonderful single mom and made the choice to showcase beautiful pictures of her baby's father, although she originally hesitated to do so.  As a fellow unmarried (albeit not single) mother, my proverbial hat goes off to all the "other" mothers out there: the unwedded, unattached, married to other moms, cohabiting women of the world.  

And here's my ode to the person who makes raising Desmond possible and who helps me keep my sanity day in and day out.  Billy, it really warms my heart that our son looks like you.  Honestly.  xo

My post from Furthertheless.com about real live "practice" babies

(Article can be found HERE).

For several years, many colleges across the US were quietly taking orphaned babies back to their picturesque campuses to be used as part of their Home Economics programs.  It was at these prestigious colleges that young women learned the ins and outs of being a good housewife and mother, all according to principles set out by science.  These orphans, nicknamed “Domecons” for domestic economics, lived on campus in “practice” houses and apartments.  Women taking these courses became their “practice” mothers. Cornell was one such college that ran this program from 1919-1969.

At Cornell, eight female students at a time spent a full semester living in a fully-kitted out practice apartment. The women were there to learn the entire spectrum of homemaking skills, and, the exhibit says, “an early proponent of the program, believed that babies were essential to replicate the full domestic experience. Albert Mann, Dean of the College of Agriculture, called the apartments ‘essential laboratory practice for women students.’  (SOURCE)

For about a year, these “domecon” babies lived in a laboratory bubble: every action the female students undertook was prescribed by experts in the field, including when and how much to feed a baby, when to put him or her to sleep, when to play with the baby, etc.  It was believed that an upbringing rooted in “scientific fact” was immeasurably better than an upbringing based on maternal instinct alone.  The students also created scrapbooks that chronicled the development of the child, both in picture and in words.

Domecon scrapbook

LINK

A sample feeding schedule for any given child looked something like this:

Milk (skimmed), one pint.
Toast, crackers, both white and graham.
Cereal thoroughly cooked but not strained.
Fruit juice and pulp, two kinds each day, especially orange juice and prune pulp.
Potatoes, mashed or baked, served without butter.
Vegetables other than potatoes, almost any kind, especially spinach, carrots, tomatoes.
Meat in the form of scraped beef, veal, or chicken, two or three times per week or
Eggs 2 or 3 times per week or
Custards 2 or 3 times per week.
Cod liver oil, 3 tsp. per day.

After a year or so, these babies were sent back to the orphanage where they were quickly adopted by parents eager to have babies raised according to the scientific breakthroughs of the day.  However, no one seems to know how any of these babies turned out.  Although evidence today points to the opposite direction – babies need to form a trusting bond with a primary caregiver – we don’t know the extent of the impact these kinds of programs had on these children.

Further reading can be found on Cornell’s Home Economics website and in an article by Emily Anthes.

Interspecies Lovin'

So, I have one of those invisible stat counter things on my blog.  And whenever I check it, I see where people click onto my site from (I have people stumbling across it in Iceland!)  The most googled search item that leads people to my blog is the phrase "man holding baby."  The SECOND most googled search item that leads people to my blog is the phrase "breastmilk porn," which happens to be the name of one of my older blog posts.  I'm appalled that people actually look for that online, but then have a good chuckle when they're directed to my little ol' blog about pregnancy and a baby.  Ha Ha Ha.  So, here's my attempt to foil those weirdos once again with cute pictures of Desmond hanging out with his dogbrothers. 

 He loves petting the dogs.  Hanzo barely lets him.

 The look of pure joy on his face melts my heart.

 Hanzo and Pirate are both kind of wary of Desmond.  He tends to yank on their ears and collars a lot.

 Even though it's blurry, I love his face in this one.

This totally wasn't posed.  I swear.

Here's hoping that your Monday is as good as Desmond's was. 

Breastfeeding Update

In two very short weeks, my little guy will be 6 months.  6 MONTHS!  I can't believe it, partly because him being six months means that time is flying by and Desmond will be walking and talking and rebelling in no time and partly because it means I'm that much closer to the big 3-0.  (Just out of curiosity, how many women my age out there really feel their age?  I seriously feel like I'm 24 or 25.  I look in the mirror and, besides the gray hairs, a growing bald spot, and starting-to-sag boobs, I think I look like I'm in my mid-20s.  It's probably a product of the phenomenon that occurs when you see a person every day and don't notice that they're getting older-fatter-grayer versus when you see a person once every few months and notice that they've dropped a few pounds, etc.)

Anyhow, I spent a considerable amount of time writing about my experiences with breastfeeding.  To summarize, I spent the majority of my pregnancy reading up on the benefits of breastfeeding and was 100% committed to exclusively breastfeeding Desmond for at least 6 months, if not longer.  I would skip the "problems" section of pregnancy and breastfeeding books because I was POSITIVE that I wouldn't have any problems whatsoever.  Ha.  Ha.  Ha.  Taught myself a big, fat lesson on the benefits of being completely prepared to face serious consequences.  From about day 4 or 5, I had pain while breastfeeding.  Looking back now, I know it was because Desmond had a craptastic latch.  It made my nipples crack and I had to wear a nipple shield.  On top of that, I had issues with oversupply and block fed him for way longer than I should have.  Combined with the nipple shield, this managed to decrease my milk supply so much so that Desmond was eating every 1.5-2 hours and getting frustrated enough that he would pull off before I had my second letdown.  Which led to a very underweight Desmond.

 Beautiful picture taken by Jack Allred.  Des was only 6 weeks here, but you could see how tiny he was (and still is).

But, I stuck with it, doing whatever I could to exclusively breastfeed him until 6 months.  Each passing day, I would give myself a pep talk: "You've done it for 14 weeks.  Do it for one more week.  Just 7 little days.  No big deal."  Billy was so supportive.  He helped motivate me to breastfeed and pump in between.  He would take Desmond in the mornings and at night and distract him enough to go past 2 hours in between feedings, so that I could have enough milk to give him.  I was on Mothering.com's online breastfeeding support forum weekly, Christy spent a lot of time writing back and forth with me about my concerns, my SIL shared some of her milk with me, and other fellow moms gave me their suggestions.  Without them, I don't think Desmond would have done as well.  I can't begin to underscore how important it is to surround yourself with people who will support you with your breastfeeding goals and those who are going through similar situations.  It is imperative if you have breastfeeding issues and want to continue exclusively breastfeeding.  CNN posted an article, "Desperate breastfeeding moms reveal secrets," about breastfeeding troubles women have.  I was happy to see it out there in the mainstream media because it's nice to put faces on issues you may be struggling with. 

So far, he has gained a considerable amount of weight.  He's still below average, but definitely above the 1st percentile.  Now that I'm back at school, I need to be vigilant about pumping enough so that my milk supply doesn't drop again.  I've had a few people ask me how I felt about breastfeeding after going through so many rough patches.  In the beginning, I hated breastfeeding.  I dreaded it.  I remember my mother or Billy bringing Desmond in as I was recovering from the delivery at home and just breaking out into tears.  I hesitate to post this picture up because I truly believe that breastfeeding is one of the best things that you could do for your infants and a fantastic way (abeit not the only way) to become closer to your baby.  However, I also want women to know that breastfeeding is an ART that needs to be learned; it hardly comes naturally to many women.  Educate yourself before and get support during breastfeeding.  You don't have to go through any of the pain that I went through.  I hope that this picture can show women that although it's hard at first, you will get through it and it will be a beautiful thing in the end.  (P.S. Although the entire breast isn't shown, I am in my very matronly nursing bra.  Shows about as much as a skimpy bikini would.  Just to warn you...)

Desmond was 5 days old in this picture. 

During one of my worst days, a woman that I had worked for for a project told me that she had felt the same way, but that by 4 or 5 months, she looked forward to nursing her son.  Nursing him was a treasured time that she could spend alone with him.  And you know what?  Same exact thing happened to me.  About a month and a half ago, I started looking forward to our sessions together.  My favorite times are later in the evenings, after Des has fallen asleep, when he wakes up.  I come into the bedroom and see him propped up on his arms looking around for me.  I climb into bed and as soon as I pick him up, he's looking at me, making an urgent "huh huh huh" noise (it's his way of getting excited for me to pick him up and feed him).  As soon as he starts nursing, he looks up at me and grabs my finger, caressing it the whole time he nurses.  And then it's just me and him in the whole wide world and nothing has ever come close to filling my heart like that.

 "LUNCH!" is what he's thinking.  Look at the gleam in his eye.

But then I go to sleep.  And it only lasts 2 hours, 2.5 if I'm lucky.  And he's up again.

They say that once you're a parent, you'll never ever get a decent night's sleep again.  So true: if it's not waking up several times a night, it's sitting up worried about your teenager, or worried about the quality of life for your children as adults.  It's no wonder that so many parents get addicted to sleeping pills.  More about the realities of sleeping as a parent in another post...

The all-important Christmas pictures

This year, Billy and I spent Christmas here in Salt Lake City with Billy's family.  Since it was Desmond's first Christmas, we had to dress him up in a Christmasy suit and we had to take a picture.  Hence, I had to post it. 

Sorry about the short post (maybe some of you are cheering!).  I'll be back to posting regularly as the semester settles in.

Me, Des, Billy, Kseniya, Pirate, Dan, Grandma Donna, and Grandpa Bruce.  Notice Desmond's reindeer hat :)

Better picture of me, so I included it.  Grandpa Bruce looks exactly the same in both photos.

Desmond with some of his Christmas spoils. 

HGL party

Christmas break was a blissful 1.5 weeks of spending time in a gorgeous house up on Capitol Hill (we were house sitting for some friends), having all sorts of people want to hold and see Desmond, and Billy not going to work.  To kick off the festivities of the season, Billy threw a Holiday party at Higher Ground Learning for his employees.  Since I'm a former (and sometimes current in an emergency) HGL employee, I tagged along.  He had it catered and there were these guys cooking the most delicious brunch, which included stuffed french toast, made-to-order omelets, bacon, potatoes, etc.  It was amazing! 

 Rocking the only dress that will fit me.

Most of the employees were there.  They're a really great group of people to work with.  They're all unique and have lots of fun.  I started working at HGL in 2007, so besides Billy, I'm the "oldest" tutor there.  And the only one with a kid.   And the only one who can say they slept with the boss (although in all honesty, he wasn't my boss at the time, just a co-worker).  

 The background is a Christmas Tree with mountains in the background.  

Unfortunately, finding quality female tutors to tutor students in physics, chemistry, biology, or advanced math is hard to do.  Hence, when Billy comes home and is extra nice to me, I know that he needs me to tutor someone in Spanish or Biology.  sigh.  I do it because I love him (and because the hour and a half outside of the house interacting with other people, even if it is a 15 year old, is fantastic).  

Our fake prom picture.  Billy's wearing a 3-piece corduroy suit he bought at a thrift store for $4.00.  

The best part of the party was that there was a guy walking around making sure that my glass of mimosa was filled.  This meant that at one point, I had to make Billy wear Desmond because I was feeling a little bit too cheerful.  I only had 3 mimosas!

 After the first...

 After the second...

And I'm done!  Look at Desmond's face...it's his first embarrassed face!

It's nice to be a part of such a great company.  One that provides free booze and can teach kids to learn real good :)

Sleeping arrangements

There are several controversial topics in the parenting sphere, including, but definitely not limited to, breastfeeding in public, strollers v. carriers, holding your baby too much, etc.  One of the most controversial is co-sleeping (also called bed-sharing, having a family bed, etc).  I almost (almost!) hesitate to post anything about our sleeping arrangement because I know that I'm probably going to invite a lot of criticism (constructive or otherwise) about what I do with Desmond.  So be it.  There are people out there who think that their way of raising a baby is right.  This is not that kind of post (or blog, for that matter).  I write only to share my experience with raising a child and to write what works best for me and our family.  I'm not going to say that what I do is "right," but that it feels good for me and that I believe it will be beneficial for Desmond.  If it didn't, believe me, I'd find other alternatives.

So here goes: we are a bed-sharing, co-sleeping family.  Kind of.  When I first got pregnant, Billy and I assumed that the crib would go in a nursery right next to our bedroom.  Close enough so that I could reach baby in time, but far enough away to keep my sanity.  Or so I thought.  When I started diving into EVERYTHING pregnancy and childrearing, I kept coming across the debate (mostly online) about whether or not sleeping in bed with your child was acceptable.  Some consider it dangerous and irresponsible, other consider it safe and normal, some do it in secret ("you sleep with your baby, too!  Oh god, it's so embarrasing"), some do it openly. 

As a child, one of my earliest memories was sleeping in a cot right by my parents' bed, even though I had my own princess room, replete with a canopy bed, ballerinas, and a pink blanket.  I felt safe in my parents' presence, as I'm sure many children do.  Because of that, I never viewed co-sleeping as something dangerous or weird.  I also got to know a couple of people (both online and off) who shared their beds with their children.  How easy it seemed, especially from the vantage point of someone who planned to breastfeed.  You have your child within arm's reach to pull him close to you at night and breastfeed lying down.  Both you and your child don't have to be completely roused when a feeding has to occur, versus getting up out of your warm bed; walking, half-dazed, towards the crib in another room; picking your baby up;' sitting down; and finally feeding him.   Some people are completely ok with  doing this.  If that's you, then my hat's off to you for doing so.  I'm way too addicted to sleeping more to be able to do that.

Now for the he said-she said.  The American Academy of Pediatrics strongly advises that families don't sleep with their babies.  According to their book, American Academy of Pediatrics Guide to Your Child's Sleep, co-sleeping (at least in Western society) increases the risk of "smothering" the baby.  The relationship between SIDS and co-sleeping is less clear and research is still being done, although the "back-to-sleep" campaign has reduced the incidence of SIDS-related deaths by 50%.  Smothering Desmond was a huge concern for me when we had him, but it quickly went away when I realized how lightly I slept with him next to me.  Every little cry and most major movements were quickly attended to.  What I did worry about was Billy smothering Desmond.  Billy's a heavy sleeper and although he tends to stay in one position (lying on his right side) for most of the night, I didn't want to chance him rolling over Desmond at night.  From James McKenna, a scientist who researches mother-baby sleeping arrangements:

The fear of suffocating infants has a long and complex cultural history. Since before the middle ages "overlying" or suffocating infants deliberately was common, particularly among the poor in crowded cities. This form of infanticide led local church authorities to make laws forbidding parents to let infants sleep next to them. The practice of giving infants alcohol or opiates to get them to sleep also became common; under such conditions, babies often did not wake up, and it was presumed that the mothers must have overlaid them. Also, in smoke-filled, under-ventilated rooms, infants can easily succumb to asphyxia. Unfortunately, health officials in some Western countries promote the message that sleep contact between the mother and infant increases the chances of the infant dying from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). But the research on which this message is based only indicates that bed-sharing can be dangerous when it occurs in the context of extreme poverty or when the mother is a smoker. Some researchers have attempted to export this message to other cultures. However, in Japan, for example, where co-sleeping is the norm, SIDS rates are among the lowest in the world, which suggests that this arrangement may actually help to prevent SIDS.  (SOURCE)

I researched a little more and found so many resources for co-sleeping.  One great resource is askdrsears.com and the Sleep Lab run by Dr. James McKenna at UC Irvinea and Notre Dame.

In the sleep laboratory at the University of California's Irvine School of Medicine, my colleagues and I observed mother-infant pairs as they slept both apart and together over three consecutive nights. Using a polygraph, we recorded the mother's and infant's heart rates, brain waves (EEGs), breathing, body temperature, and episodes of nursing. Infrared video photography simultaneously monitored their behavior.

We found that bed-sharing infants face their mothers for most of the night, and that mother and infant are highly responsive to each other's movements, wake more frequently, and spend more time in lighter stages of sleep than they do while sleeping alone. Bed-sharing infants nurse almost twice as often, and three times as long per bout, as they do when sleeping alone. But they rarely cry. Mothers who routinely sleep with their infants get at least as much sleep as mothers who sleep without them.

In addition to providing more nighttime nourishment and greater protection, sleeping with the mother supplies the infant with a steady stream of sensations of the mother's presence, including touch, smell, movement, and warmth. These stimuli can perhaps even compensate for the human infant's extreme neurological immaturity at birth. (SOURCE)

OK, so I was convinced that, if done properly, co-sleeping and bed sharing was physically safe for Desmond and easier for me.  Now, how to go about co-sleeping.  I was nervous about having Desmond sleep in between Billy and felt nervous about having him on the other side of me, the side closest to the side of the bed.  When Des was little, I didn't have much cause to worry that he would fall off, but it's become more important now as he has been thrashing and rolling around for the past 2 months.  We looked into buying one of those co-sleepers:

Arm's Reach cosleeper bassinet.

However, we read that babies grow out of it fast, so we'd have to plan for something that would work after he grew out of it.  After much consulting and asking around, we decided to leave one of the sides of the crib off and push it against our bed.  Perfect!  That way, the baby would be sleeping next to me, but on his own crib, with no chance of falling off.  Furthermore, his crib would have a firmer mattress and no pillows or fluffy blankets to accidentally suffocate him.  I could reach over and bring him into bed with me to nurse him, and then stealthily put him back into his crib after the feeding.  This has worked beautifully for us: I don't worry about Billy rolling onto him, I have the same amount of room I had before, and Desmond's safe and sound right next to me.  

Desmond in his crib right next to our bed.

Another shot of the crib against the bed.  We make sure that there is no gap between the bed mattress and the crib, so that he won't get stuck.

A rolled up blanket stuffed between the crib mattress and the crib to push the mattress flush with the bed mattress.  

Desmond definitely wakes up more often each night to breastfeed than the average baby (last night, he woke up every 2.5 hours instead of every 1.5-2 hours!), but our total awake time per feeding is about 10 minutes, so it's really not that bad.  And even though I may complain about how hard it is to be a mother and to parent an infant, there are very few things in this world (like winning a prize or dancing on a stage) that are better than cuddling a warm little body and holding a tiny little hand in the still and darkness of night. 

This is so embarrassing...

but I figure that if it's out there, then I HAVE to be committed to it.  And if I show before pictures, then I'll be even that much more committed to finishing the program so that I could show how I improved.  From flab to fab, as they say.

Billy and I are starting P90X.

Go ahead.

Laugh.

But I'm willing to try almost anything to get rid of this chub circle around my thighs and waist.

Billy had the plyometrics and ab ripper X cds that his friend had lent to him about a year and a half ago.  I would watch him do them and then, when he would quit halfway (ok, maybe a bit more than halfway), I would sigh, go back to my google reader, and thank my lucky stars that I didn't have to do anything that awfully barbaric.  But here I am, 15 lb heavier than I want to be and all of my breastfeeding isn't cutting it.  I guess it's not good to just rely on breastfeeding to lose weight and continue eating like I am still 8 months pregnant.

For those of you not in the know, P90X is a home workout program that "emphasizes 'muscle confusion', a method of cross-training and periodization achieved through switching the order of exercises and incorporating new and varied movements.^[1] Muscle confusion prevents the body from adapting to exercises over time, resulting in continual improvement without plateaus." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P90X).  If you stay up late, it's plastered all over the infomercial circuit.  In the infomercials, you see women doing as many pull ups and push ups as the guys in the program.  Since I have no upper body strength, I was drawn to that aspect.  I liked that it combines cardio with strength training (strength training for women is incredibly important and helps improve bone density).

Before I got pregnant, Billy and I would work out together a lot.  He would teach me how to lift weights and would accompany on some runs giving me the support and encouragement that I needed to get through the run.

Billy and me on my first 5K run.  

Ever since I got pregnant and had Desmond, we've had to juggle the responsibility of having Desmond with working out.  So, working out was done separately; one person would go workout while the other was taking care of Desmond.  This took away even more of the time we had together.  So, committing to doing P90X meant that we could work out together.  We decided to start and workout after Des had fallen asleep for the night, usually around 1030 or 11.  This worked well for us because the first part of Desmond's night-time sleep usually lasts around 3 hours.  After that, he consistently wakes up about every 2 hours to eat.  I can't tell you enough how wonderful it is to learn how to nurse while lying on your side.  It's a life- and sanity-saver.

OK.  It's been two weeks since we started and we've only missed 1 day (Billy hurt his back and there is no way that I'm doing 1.5 hours of working out at home without him.  I have about this [     ] much motivation to workout regularly, but when he's not doing it with me, it's nil.)  I've steadily improved my workout performance (for example, I can now do 20 pushups on my knees versus the 11 or so that I did at the start).  I still can't do a pull up, but I feel that I'm progressing.  Things that were once incredibly difficult (I don't even have any muscles that could do that!!!) are now doable.  Not easy, by any means, but doable.

If you do a google image search for "before and after P90X," you'll see tons of pictures of people posing in the same ways at 1 month intervals for 3 months (90 means 90 days).  So, of course, I told Billy, let's do it!  It will keep me on my toes and make me accountable.  I can't lose face once this picture is out and about in the internet.  So, here goes.  *sigh*

I had to crop these because the combination of the leggings and the flash made for a very see-through situation and nobody wants to see see-through leggings and maternity underpants (yes, I still wear maternity underpants.  And yes, I have a butterfly tattoo that I got when I was 18 and yes, I still like it.  Go ahead and chuckle to yourself.)

So, here's to the next 90 days and hoping that I could get through it.

Desmond Thomas Arrested on Drug Charges

On December 27, 2010, Desmond John Thomas was arrested for being under the influence of alcohol or drugs after police observed him staggering into oncoming dog traffic near his Salt Lake City home. After undergoing blood tests it was determined he was under the influence of what is known as immunoglobulin A (IgA) (also known as liquid Ecstasy) a "date-rape drug" which is a powerful component of the banned drug known on the street as "breast milk." He was sentenced to three years probation, counseling, and random drug testing.

He was 5-months-old at the time of his arrest. Thomas checked into a Utah rehabilitation center two days after the incident. His publicist, Scarlett Reeves, said in a statement, that Thomas "voluntarily entered Primary Children's Medical Center to receive advice and counsel that he feels he needs at this time."