baby fat

I’m finally feeling recovered from my c-section. My recently dislocated shoulder is giving me a bit of grief–all the baby rocking and lifting Maya isn’t great for a shoulder that hasn’t fully healed. But aside from that I’m feeling like I really want to kick start the weight loss from what I gained during pregnancy and re-sculpt my body, because I used to be really fit! I love working out and I’ve missed it.

But when you’re stuck at home with two kids, what are you supposed to do? Well, my sister who is a personal trainer, boot camp instructor, and fitness guru, has directed me to the Bodyrock website. Okay, I know it’s kind of soft porn because of the hot girls with big boobs bouncing around (and I just lost all my male readers who are now watching Bodyrock TV…), but the workouts are actually excellent. The people on the site really know what they’re doing and the best part is that you can do all the workouts in your own home, and they’re pretty short which means I can squeeze them into my day. There are loads of archives to scroll through so that you can target the areas that you most want to work on. I watched a host of videos yesterday and then my dear sweet hubby let me go to the gym for an hour to get a quick workout in, and I put to work a lot of the stuff I’ve gleaned from the site. I don’t have much weight to lose after baby, but I have a LOT of re-toning to do as things got stretched out the 2nd time around in ways that I don’t even want to think about.

I know that I won’t have much time to exercise once my mat. leave is over, so I’m doing my best now to develop good eating and exercise habits that will put me in the kind of shape I want to be in when this blissful year of being a full-time mom is over!

specialist’s findings

We met with a pediatric urologist about Morgan’s horseshoe kidney a few days ago. While things are looking good, it’s not all sunshine and roses.Her kidneys are working properly, and this is good. She is, however, at risk for developing kidney stones later in life as well as having UTI’s. Nevertheless, it may be the case that she won’t ever have either of these problems–only time will tell. But the specialist did say that because of their shape and location, horseshoe kidneys tend to drain poorly and that’s what can cause problems. So, we’ll see him again in a year for another ultrasound to be sure things are continuing to go well.

The more concerning aspect for me is the fact that this type of kidney malformation means that her kidneys are located much lower than a normal set of kidneys. Typically, kidneys are located high up and are protected by the rib cage. But horseshoe kidneys are lower and located closer to the belly button in the front of the body, leaving them exposed and more prone to injury/trauma.

My husband and I enjoy many sports and we want to encourage our girls to participate in all kinds of activities until they find their niches. Contact sports, or sports where Morgan could be hit in the abdomen, are much more risky and could be catastrophic if her kidneys were hit hard enough. Of course, we don’t want to be paranoid and keep her in a bubble, but knowing that she has to be careful for her entire life is scary for me.

I know that I fell hard a LOT of times as a kid. I got the wind knocked out of me quite on countless occasions doing all kinds of reckless things. What’s to stop Morgan from having similar accidents? The urologist made it clear that the intestines are much more forgiving than the kidneys, so these kinds of accidents would be much worse for Morgan. And kids fall a LOT.

Happy as I am that she’s doing so well despite having unusually shaped kidneys, I can’t help but worry about how we’re going to keep her safe and well with her fragile condition. Isn’t that what every parent wants? To keep their child safe from harm? We’re seeking to strike a balance here between freedom & safety, but I’m just not entirely sure what that ought to look like…

finding a moment

Today I rushed home from work, got Maya from daycare, picked up groceries, started dinner, and ran off to yoga class right after my husband walked in the door. When I got home Maya was in bed, the food was put away (leftovers for lunch) and it was time to eat my late dinner and go to bed. In a way, going off to yoga makes my life crazier. It means I hardly see the rest of my family all day and I don’t get home until late and without two of us to hold down the fort, things are inevitably a little behind in the house (i.e. dishes and laundry). But I’ve learned that if I don’t go and take the time to give myself what I need (which is usually physical exercise in some form), I’ll go a little nuts and eventually totally freak out at the fact that I’ve not had a moment to myself for a long long time. So, attention working moms: get your “ME time”, no matter what it takes. If it helps you survive the crazy rat race of life as a working mom, it’s worth it.

Grocery Store Walk

This week I felt very environmentally conscious as I walked to the grocery store not once, but twice. A wonderful commuter trail runs behind our house. It’s a gravel surface in our area, and paved in some parts closer to the centre of the city. The trail is for runners, walkers and cyclists. It’s lined with trees so you feel like you’re away from the road, but it passes by many nearby amenities as it is, despite appearances, in the middle of the city. The trail gets a lot of regular traffic, and I walk on it often to go to the lake or just for the sake of enjoying the trail itself, but only recently have I been walking to the bank, drugstore and grocery store with Maya in a baby carrier or in her stroller. It’s a small thing to do for the environment, but when I walk through the parking lot with my cloth shopping bags, past all the minivans and SUVs that are loading a few plastic bags of groceries into their cars, it feels like my walk is even more significant, and the more often I do it, the more I reduce my ecological footprint (and save gas money!). As an added bonus, walking to the store allows me to burn off a little of that pesky baby weight that’s so hard to shed!