Cooking Fails & Other Things

So the other day I liked the Crockpot Girl on Facebook so that I could get awesome recipes right on my homepage. The next day she posted about slow cooker roasted vegetables. I thought it sounded awesome, I love roasted veggies. You just dump whatever veggies you want in the crockpot, drizzle some olive oil and seasonings on them, and then leave it on low for four hours and it's supposed to be just like you roasted then in the oven. How simple. So I thought id try it today with some red potatoes, but then I was too lazy to chop them up so I thought I would just throw in the Normandy blend of frozen vegetables you can buy at Costco. I did that and then I took a nap with Quinn. When I woke up, a very strong broccoli scent assaulted my nose. I went downstairs to look at it, and all the vegetables were super wilted and limp and dis- colored. They definitely didn't look oven roasted. It had been less than two hours. I tasted some and it wasn't good. I thought that maybe Kelly would like it so I left them in the crockpot on warm so that the broccoli smell could seep into the walls. I eventually realized that he probably would not like it, since it was disgusting, and I turned off the crockpot. I told him what happened when he got home and he said "well, it probably would have been good with fresh vegetables. Not frozen ones." Oh. Haha.

Meanwhile, I decided to just boil some red potatoes to go with dinner. Only, every time I've boiled them it takes forever to get them soft. So I thought I should boil them for a good hour, since 30 minutes wasn't doing the trick. I put them on the stove on high and then ran upstairs to go put Quinn down for another nap. She fell asleep pretty fast and I decided to fold laundry before Kelly got home. I ran downstairs and brought it all back up to our room and I was jamming out to some music when the most awful sound attacked my eardrums. 

What is that?!...  The smoke alarm! It's gonna wake up Quinn! What is burning?? The potatoes!!  

Those were the thoughts running through my head. I booked it down the stairs and saw a smoking pan of red potatoes on the stove with no water. I checked the potatoes and they weren't burned too bad and they still weren't done so I got a new pot and filled it with water then put it on medium and went back upstairs. I listened at Quinn's door and I didn't hear anything. How is she still asleep? That child wakes up when my ankle pops as I'm walking out of her room. Maybe she's dead... So I check on her and her eyes are closed, I make sure her chest is rising and falling, and sure enough, she is alive. She slept through the smoke alarm. Good job Quinn. 

I also burned the oil I was heating up to fry fish for dinner, but nothing bad really happened. I just dumped it out and started over. The fish and the potatoes were good. I'm probably an unfit mother though. Thank goodness for smoke alarms. 

Basically the only other thing I have to talk about besides my cooking fails is holy cow, I get really lonely sometimes! I love staying home with Quinn. It's exhausting a lot of times but I don't want a break from it or anything. I just miss people! I feel like I've had this problem since I had her, where now when I actually get to talk to people, whether it's visiting teachers or the people at the kids klub at the gym, I just over share. It's like I can't stop myself from talking because I'm so excited to finally talk to someone during the day. I get to talk to Kelly, obviously, but I need girl talk. He doesn't really get girl talk... I probably over share on this blog sometimes too. I call my mom a lot and I can tell that after awhile she gets bored and she starts coming up with reasons to get off the phone so I try to think of something interesting to say. Anyways, now that I sound pathetic as ever, I'll end this post. 

4 Months

Quincy Grace turned four months old yesterday! I can hardly believe how much she has grown. She has had a lot of firsts within the last week. We were visiting Washington last week when my mom got her to giggle for the first time! It was adorable, of course. After the first time she did it, I kept trying to get her to laugh and I finally did a few days later. It's so funny to me what will make her laugh. She likes being tossed in the air, and she laughs if you look at her suddenly and say hi or boo or pretty much anything. 

She talks all the time. In the mornings, she likes to stand or sit up and tell me all about her dreams. She's also started yelling a lot. She yells before she cries most of the time. 

She rolled over for the first time at my mom's house. She hates tummy time but she slowly rolled over and found her way out of it. We were all gathered around her cheering her on while she kind of cried until she landed on her back. Then we all clapped for her, lol. 

We were sitting in church and I had Quinn in my lap. She was tired so I was holding her on her side, facing towards me. She usually turns her head into me when she's tired and she wants her binki. She did this, so I tried to give her her binki but then she looked up at me and smiled. Then she hid again when I looked at her.  She kept turning away smiling when I looked down at her and then she'd look back up at me until I looked at her again. She did this like 20 times! She was playing her own form of peek a boo with me. I kind of thought she didn't really ever know what she was doing, but she does! I feel like she's getting so smart. My baby is a genius. 

My baby is also a terrible napper. She wakes up after 45 minutes. Then she gets cranky because she's still tired but most of the time, I can't get her to go back to sleep. I do not believe in crying it out. I have been reading Elizabeth Pantley's book about no cry sleeping, and it has some really good tips so we have been slowly making some progress. I did try letting her cry it out once or twice after being super exhausted, but I just ended up sobbing too and I won't do it again. Babies don't cry just to cry, they cry because they need your help. Their brain is going through huge developments and eventually they will want to be more independent. For now though, she needs to know that I am there for her when she needs me. She will learn to sleep on her own someday. I did start giving her a little bit of rice cereal before bedtime and that has made a huge difference. I don't believe that she wasn't getting what she needed from my milk, I just think that the slower digesting rice cereal compared to my breastmilk that is 90% water keeps her fuller for longer. There is nothing that meets my baby's nutritional needs better than my own milk though. Studies have shown that babies don't wake up from hunger, they just wake up sometimes. All I know is that the first night I gave her cereal, she didn't wake up until 2:00 in the morning. After that she didn't sleep that great but it's so much better than she used to be. It also doesn't help that she is super squirmy as she falls asleep and pulls her binki out all the time. We will get there. 

Here are some pictures from the last month! 

Is there anything cuter than a baby wrapped up in their baby towel?! 

She loves the bumbo seat! And she's getting really chunky, haha. That shiny part on her chest is drool. She drools all the time, and she always has her fingers in her mouth. I keep checking to see if she is teething, but she's just a drooler. 

She is still in the rock n play. I try to switch her over to a flat mattress, but no luck so far. I guess we will get there someday, she won't fit in that thing forever. 

 I love these pictures! Thanks to grandpa Scott for taking them :) 

Looking up at great grandma Darlene! 

Quinn never snuggles, unless she has just woken up. But she sat in grandpa's lap just like this for over an hour! She just looked around. My dad was happier about it than he looks in the picture. Also, she does own pajamas, but I think she peed on them. Or maybe it was my mom, who kept taking them off of her while we were there because she thought Quinn looked so cute in just her diaper. 

I love being her mommy! She doesn't let me sleep very often, but I know she doesn't do it on purpose. Also, she could be way worse. She could be better, too, but I think she will always be perfect the way she is!! 

Fat

This is not a post about learning to love your post- baby body. While I get that stretch marks and wider hips come with a baby sometimes, I don't like how women use their pregnancy/baby as an excuse for being unhealthy. My baby comes first, and she needs a good example of how to be healthy and happy. 

I can't count how many times I've said the phrase "I'm fat" since I was pregnant. I gained around 40 lbs when all was said and done. Before I got pregnant, I always thought that I would exercise throughout my entire pregnancies. I didn't know how tired I would feel. My thyroid was out of wack during my whole first trimester and that made me even more tired than normal. People told me that during the second trimester you get a burst of energy. That happened for like a day and a half at 15 weeks. Then I was tired again. I thought it was wrong to burn more calories when I was hardly eating anything except for popcorn and baked potatoes. I didn't know that my tiny baby would just leach whatever she needed from wherever she could find it in my body. My muscles atrophied quickly, I think around 6 or 7 weeks I noticed that I could hardly lift half the weight I had lifted after taking a week off. I couldn't stand the taste/smell of protein. Disgusting. So I felt like there was no point, and that it would be easy enough to lose the weight afterwards.

How wrong I was. I never felt so squishy in my life as I did those weeks after she was born. My butt got huge during pregnancy and then it just got saggy afterwards. I had a mom butt. I typically store fat around my thighs and arms, it goes to my stomach last but I suddenly had this blob of fat that I was constantly trying to stuff into my stretchy pants. I had a huge muffin top. Because of my long labor followed by a c-section, I couldn't walk normally for the first three weeks. And then I still couldn't walk fast at all until 1 month pp. With all that said, the first 25 lbs came off very easily within the first 5 weeks. The last 15 have decided they won't go away without a fight. 

Kelly and I got gym memberships when Quinn was 7 weeks old. I am fortunate to be so close to such a nice gym and it has a kids klub where I can drop off Quinn. She does really well in there, but I sort of hate dropping her off in there every time I go. At first, it was difficult to get to the gym because I had to do it right after she ate, since she was still nursing every two hours and wouldn't take a bottle. I was also terrified that she would get sick while she was so tiny. I realized though, that I was a better mom and wife on the days I got to the gym. I was more productive and I felt better about myself. 

As I write this, I am holding Quinn in my lap while she sleeps. It's noon, I got ready to go to the gym over an hour ago but she was really grumpy because she has a hard time napping longer than 45 minutes most of the time. I don't want to take her there, have her stay awake the whole time (because I know she won't sleep there), and then have her grumpy when I get her home and I'm trying to shower and stuff. People say not to schedule your day around your baby, but since this is something I can easily push back and if she doesn't sleep well early in the day her naps will just get worse and lead to a bad night of sleep. It does suck though that it's noon and I haven't gotten anything done other than unloading the dishwasher. I still need to do laundry and clean up the house today. 

Anyways, when I first started going to the gym, I would just go to group fitness classes. It was easier for me to push myself if I was in front of others. I was so weak though that I could hardly do anything. The first class I went to after signing up was a spin class. At two full rotations of the tension knob thing, I was maxed out. I had to stand up and put my full weight on whichever side I was trying to pedal downwards. Yikes. I think you can turn that thing like ten times at least. I went to a step class a few days later, and I was so sore that when each song ended, I had a really hard time picking my feet back up to get on the step again. I also couldn't jump on it with only one riser underneath. There was like a 60 year old lady next to me doing it though. Awesome. I tried running again after a week or two of going to classes. I set the treadmill to 5 mph and ran for two minutes and then walked for like five. It was hard. I think I did that for like half an hour. The next day my hips were so sore and so was my incision. It was kind of swollen. It sucks having your abs cut clear through. 

I kept going to classes for a few weeks until I got antsy to get out on the floor and lift again. I was tired of being so flabby. I found a program on this girl's blog and I liked her split routine. There's leg day, chest/shoulder/tricep day, back/bicep, and butt blaster day. You also do cardio every day along with abs. I started out following her program but I've tweaked it along the way. I also don't get to do as much cardio as she does because I only pay for Quinn to stay in the kids klub for an hour at a time. I'm hoping to get a jogging stroller sometime. Quinn likes the stroller so it would be nice to be able to get a workout in while Quinn enjoys a ride in the sunshine. So I started lifting four days a week about two months ago. The first month, my weight stated exactly the same but I was able to fit into a pair of my old jeans and my wedding ring fits again. So I was losing fat at least. The second month I've slowly lost three pounds. Thank goodness. I'm 11-12 pounds away from my pre- pregnancy weight now. I'm sure if I ate better I would lose faster, but I honestly have no idea how many calories to eat in a day while breast feeding. I cannot find any definitive information on it. Some people say that they can't lose the last 10-15 lbs until they quit nursing, others say it's the only way they can lose the weight. When I first started lifting again, my milk supply went down so I ate more and it went back up. I think slowly cutting calories out is the key. Women in a state of famine can produce perfectly nutritional breast milk though, so I'm sure I'll find the balance eventually. Right now I just eat when I'm hungry, and I eat mostly whole foods. I try to eat protein with every meal to control my blood sugar and also because nursing takes around 13g of protein a day. Gotta have protein to build muscle, I drink a protein shake, too.

Anyways, next pregnancy I plan on being a lot better. I know now how hard it will be but I also know how hard it is when you don't stay active. I think I would have had less aches and pains throughout had I remained active. Maybe I wouldn't have had gestational hypertension. Also, it's nice to wear clothes that fit.