Exercise log while away

Sunday - biked 7 km with Tim (who was towing Sam) for a fun Father's day
Friday - 3.4 km run
Saturday - 11.4 km bike

So I slacked off a bit last week, mainly because I was away....but I'm working hard this week at getting back on track!

A week away...

Well, Sam and I spent most of last week two and a half hours away from my husband. We went and visited grammy and grampy (my parents) and hung out there to play and help grammy do some sorting at her house. My parents are not retiring in the near future, but will retire in the next several years. Mom is starting the process of de-cluttering, so I went up and helped her sort through some of her stuff. It was a wonderful visit. I really enjoyed being there and seeing how Sam interacted with his grandparents. I learned a few things too.

1. No one can make Sam laugh like his grammy can (not even me!).
2. Sam likes animals and is aware of them in his surroundings (especially when he gets a big doggie kiss).
3. A jolly-jumper stand CAN be broken down and transported in a car trunk without taking up too much room.
4. During an earthquake, you do NOT want to run to the basement of your house. If you're not in the vicinity of large buildings, go outside. (This info was shared with me by my sister after the earthquake out of Quebec last week)

I really enjoyed my time away, it was fun hanging out with my parents and seeing Sam get to interact with them. He seemed to have a fun time too!! :)

Exercise log for the week

Monday - ran 3.4 km in 22 min 33 sec (YAY! the farthest I've run since Sam was born)
Tuesday - Yoga!! I'm really enjoying this, and Tim is kind enough to babysit. :)
Wednesday - Swam 40 lengths at the YMCA pool - getting better everyday!
Thursday - took a break
Friday - Swam another 40 lengths at the Y

I'm going to try and get my exercise log up regularly so that I can stay accountable. :)

Predictably Unpredictable

People are always saying how as soon as you think you know your baby, as soon as you are getting used to some sort of "pattern", they change it. For the past month at least, Sam has been eating every 3 hours during the day, waking up between 7 and 7:30 am, and taking three short naps (45 min-hour, sometimes one nap would be hour and a half). The past few days he has started changing his schedule. And mommy doesn't like it. It messes with my routine that I have been getting used to. He's been waking up around 5:30 am (ugh), eating at unpredictable intervals (3-4.5 hour stretches) and taking one or two (if I'm lucky) longer naps during the day. It's crazy. I feel like my world is being turned upside down. And I'm tired. :(

But I guess that's life when you have a baby. Predictably unpredictable. :P

Mommy brain strikes again...

I would never trade in being a mom, I love Sam and I don't regret it for a moment. But sometimes the side effects of pregnancy and motherhood can be slightly annoying. Like "mommy brain" - a term I'd never heard, and certainly could not relate to until I entered the realm of motherhood. It astounds me at how absentminded and forgetful I can be, especially since Tim used to tease me and tell me I had the memory of an elephant....This afternoon mommy brain really got me.

I arrived at the park in downtown Barrie around 12:30 to meet some friends for a picnic with our babies. One of my friends had already arrived and she walked over to my car to greet me. I chatted away with her as I took the stroller out of the trunk, pulled gear out of the car, stuffed it in the stroller, attached Sam's carseat into the stroller, put my purse in the trunk, grabbed my diaper bag and locked the car. As we walked away from the car I realized I had forgotten Sam's hat. Now normally when I leave my purse in the trunk, I put the keys in the diaper bag. I reached into the diaper bag, but found no keys. I distinctly remembered throwing the keys into something, but since they weren't in the diaper bag, I must have put them in my purse. Which was locked in the trunk. And the car was locked. Sigh.

Thankfully my friend Ashley had a cell phone, so I called Tim and asked if he could bring the spare key to open the car. I felt awful because Tim has a HUGE project due tomorrow and was in work mode. While we were waiting for Tim to arrive, we set up our picnic and started eating. I kept my eyes open for Tim, and when I saw his car I went to meet him and get the spare key. After a quick hello Tim went on his way and I went over to the car to retrieve my keys. I checked my purse in the trunk first. No keys. I opened the driver's side door, checked the ignition, under the seats. No keys. I checked the rest of the car and my purse AGAIN. No keys. I walked back to the picnic spot a little perplexed and tore through my diaper bag. No keys. In desperation I emptied the bottom of the stroller. Sure enough, I had thrown the keys into the basket on the bottom of the stroller and then proceeded to pile all sorts of blankets and other baby paraphernalia on top. Don't ask me what I was thinking, because obviously I wasn't....at least my keys were safe! :)

The Sam Dance

Sam started using the Jolly Jumper this week! And he LOVES it!!! Check out the video Tim made of Sam goofing off in his Jolly Jumper...

Healthy Banana Muffins

I've been trying to experiment with and use a variety of grains when I'm cooking and baking because they provide a variety of flavours to recipes, and are often healthier than plain old refined wheat. :P Some of the grains and flours I've been experimenting with include Kamut flour, quinoa, 7 grain flour (great for substituting in bread recipes!), flax and oats in various forms. I found an interesting website called Versagrain that provides you with lots of recipes and info on various grains. I've also been using a book called "Quinoa 365" to find some yummy recipes. The following is a recipe I tried off the versagrain website for healthy banana muffins. Give them a try!

Healthy Banana Muffins

(Makes 12)
- 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour (I used 3/4 cup WW, 3/4 cup Kamut flour)
- 1/4 cup oat bran
- 3/4 tsp cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp nutmeg
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt (I used a healthy pinch!)
- 3 ripe bananas, mashed
- 3/4 cup brown sugar
- 2 egg whites (I used 2 eggs)
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce or pumpkin puree (I used pumpkin, it was GREAT!)
- 3 TBsp ground flaxseed

Directions

Preheat oven the 375 deg F, spray muffin tins with cooking spray.

In a large bowl, sift together flour, oat bran, spices, baking soda, baking powder and salt.

In a separate bowl, whisk together bananas, brown sugar, egg whites, vanilla, and applesauce. Add banana mixture to the flour mixture. Using as few strokes as possible, mix until everything is moistened (lumps are okay). Spoon banana muffin batter into prepared muffin cups, 2/3 full. Bake in preheated oven for 18-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. Remove from oven and sprinkle muffin tops with ground flaxseed.

One thing I did differently was that I mixed the ground flaxseed in the recipe instead of sprinkling it on top the warm muffins. These muffins were excellent, very hearty, very yummy. You'd probably be able to decrease the sugar to 1/2 cup and/or substitute it for maple sugar for a different taste. They freeze very well. This one's definitely a keeper!

Lap Swim

So it's been 4 1/2 months since Sam was born, and I have been trying to get back to my active lifestyle that I had before Sam existed. It's hard, because I don't always have the energy to be active, AND I'm so much less fit than I was. It's also a little discouraging because even though I've been exercising vigorously at least 4-5 days a week for the past month and a bit, I haven't lost an ounce. I think I may have actually gained a few pounds....I'm trying to keep things in perspective because I know that I will be gaining some muscle and I can now fit one pair of pants besides my yoga pants. But it's hard when you just want instant results. It's hard when your clothes don't fit. Sigh. The other challenge is that I have to make sure I'm consuming enough calories to keep up with breastfeeding, which makes it very difficult to lose the baby weight. Someone once told me that breastfeeding was the BEST weight loss plan they'd ever tried and that it just melts the weight off...they were LYING!!!

Anyway, now that my little rant is over...today I went swimming. I've never been a very good swimmer, so I actually took up swimming when I was about 5 1/2 months pregnant with Sam to try and improve my skills. I took a swim class and did at least one lap swim a week for the remainder of my pregnancy. Swimming is good exercise, and I enjoy the feeling of weightlessness. I'm hoping that I can improve my skills enough to compete in a tri-a-tri (mini-triathlon) this summer. Today I swam 34 lengths. It went pretty well. Hope to build that number up. I'll keep you posted. :)

Tasty!

Little Hands

...They bunch up the covers and thread fingers through the holes,
...Grasp unto shirt, face, lips when he suckles at the breast,
...Pull at hair, earrings, necklace when you get in too close,
...Clutch tightly to rubber giraffes and plastic rings.

...Wave in the air with excitement upon seeing a familiar face,
...Hold one another as he ponders something new,
...Grab at the diaper, penaten and wipes, making change time messy,
...Stroke soft objects, including passing cats.

Oh how I love these little hands, that God has entrusted into ours.

Maggie strikes...

Maggie, our sometimes unruly adolescent cat, loves to chase things. It may be a stray piece of paper, our cat Edwin, Sam's toys, a housefly. If it will move, she will chase it. Which leads me to two events that have happened in our home in the last 48 hours, both leading to a fair amount of frustration.

The first occurrence involves a roll of 100 stamps. I am in the process of writing and sending out thank you notes to all the wonderful people who blessed us with gifts for Sam before and after he was born. Now there isn't 100 cards to send, but there were enough that I figured buying stamps from Costco would be a good plan. Anyway, Wednesday morning I had a stack of about 10 cards to send out, and I went down to our entryway table where I keep the stamps to address them and then I was planning to send them out. On Tuesday morning Tim had done some cleaning, including tidying up the entryway table, so when I went to look for the stamps, the only thing on the table were our car keys. I figured Tim had relocated the stamps and went to ask him. He said he hadn't, which lead to frustration on both our parts (me not totally believing him, he being annoyed with me) and a day's worth of searching. Wednesday evening, after Sam was in bed, Tim and I started talking about the possibilities of where the stamps might have gone. That is when Tim said, "Do you think Maggie could have found them and chased them off somewhere?" To which I replied "It's possible". With that, we started deducing if we were Maggie, and got hold of a roll of stamps, where would we chase it? The first place we thought of was our entryway closet, a long shot we figured, but nonetheless, worth checking. I went down the stairs, and got down on my hands and knees to look in. I found two things that were out of place. 1. Our beloved Maggie and 2. Our missing roll of stamps. Maggie 1 Adults 0.

The second occurrence involves Maggie's love of chasing live creatures, such as flies. Last night, we had our windows open because it was a nice cool evening. Maggie was perched on the window ledge watching something outside. All of a sudden, and with full use of her claws, she began attacking the screen with fervor. I scolded her and immediately chased her off the window ledge. To prevent Maggie from wrecking the screen overnight, I closed the window until there were only a couple inches left, just enough to let the air circulate. Or so I thought. I was wrong. This morning, after feeding Sam, I walked out into the main room. I looked over towards the window, and what should I see, but our juvenile cat squished between the window and the screen. I imagine she had been there for a few hours, because she couldn't turn around, although she was trying. And with each attempt, she was further tearing our screen away from it's frame. I guess I'm lucky that I found her when I did, because if she had been there much longer, she may have torn the screen sufficiently to fall out the window (and a storey and a half to the ground).
Maggie 2 Adults 0

And now Tim has to replace a screen!

Picture of the day

Ordinary days

I find as a new mom that sometimes I can get a little lonely. So to combat this I have occupied many of my days with going to "mom's groups", walking with other moms, hanging out with friends. But you know, sometimes I find the week flies by and I haven't had much "slow time" with just me and Sam. Just an ordinary day, with no errands to run and nowhere I have to be.

Today is one of those days. I woke up, had a muffin and some orange juice. Then I went in to feed Sam and was greeted with his sweet smile. He did a little body wiggle as if to say "I'm so glad to see you, thanks for thinking of me". He gave me another little smile and then began to cry, as is per normal when he first wakes up in the morning: hungry. He ate, I changed his diaper, and then we began our daily routine. Play on the blankets on the ground with his favorite toys while mommy ate the rest of her breakfast (sitting on the ground with him!). Sit in his bumbo and play with the rings while mommy did some work at the table. Take a nap. Eat. Play. Repeat.

You'd think the predictability of these ordinary days would drive a person crazy. But every smile, every giggle, every discovery is fresh. And I think I might just like these "ordinary" days best. :)