Three hours and counting!

I'm getting a quick blog post in right now because, drum roll please....My son is taking a nap and he's been asleep for THREE HOURS!!!!

Why is this such a big deal? The reason is, he never takes naps. NEVER. He always is up from around 5:30 in the morning to 8:30 at night without napping in between. Okay, he might sleep for 20 minutes here and there, yet that's it. He never ever sleeps for extended periods of time and I've checked on him repeatedly to make sure that he's okay. Every time I've checked, he's find, snoring away, and getting in some good rest that he apparently needed desperately!

So now that he's sleeping, I'm actually getting some things in that I've been meaning to get done for the last few days. Some of it's work related, like writing some articles for the De Pere Journal, some of it has to do with school such as getting my final presentation done that I need to complete for next week, and others are for fun, like starting my new blog called Reality TV Wombat. I made the decision to start a new blog due to the fact that I watch a lot, I mean, a lot of reality TV and I think my husband is getting sick of me talking to him about it. Thus, instead of boring him with how I feel about Teen Mom 2 or The Real World, or The Real Housewives of Orange County, I'm just going to write it all down and let people read about it if they want. To check it out, head to this link:

realitytvwombat.blogspot.com.

With that said, I'm going to go check on my little man again to make sure he's okay and if he is, then I'm going to continue taking advantage of this long nap time to get more things done! :0)

Teething is a bitch...

There’s not if’s, an’s or but’s about it, teething is a bitch for infants. Seriously, it’s horrible and frustrating and yes, this mom is pretty much at her wit’s end!!!

Currently, the only time that my son Ryan doesn’t cry is when he’s sleeping. Otherwise, it’s tears and screams and I just want this tooth to break through his swollen gums so he can feel better. I mean like, holy buckets, he has cried more in the past four days than he has during the four and a half months of his entire life.I'm not kidding, he cries so much that it almost makes me cry. :(

Ryan's arsenal of teething toys!

He’s typically a happy and chill little dude, but not now, nope, he’s all over the place and it’s been crazy to try and handle. It makes me feel like I’m a bad mother given that I can’t help ease his pain. Sure, we’ve tried the teething toys along with giving him some weird Oral gel stuff to put on his gums, yet, it just kind of masks everything that he’s going through for a few minutes and we end up right back where we started with him being uncomfortable. It’s a vicious cycle and I just try to comfort him the best that I can by holding him and doing the momma bounce all around the living room. Sometimes it helps, other times not, and one thing that I’ve found out is he really loves it when I sing to him, so, if he’s totally going off crying with the whole lip quiver thing, I start singing and he actually likes it. It makes me smile to see him kind of happy when he’s dealing this sharp little razor blade breaking through his gums. 

Oh and one thing that I forgot to mention with how much teething is not fun is all the snot that has been pouring out of Ryan’s nose and the drool that has been ooking out of his mouth. I had no idea that one little kid could produce so many bodily fluids. We now have two separate burp clothes to clean up the mess so we don’t cross-contaminate because we don’t want him to end up getting a cold, which he kind of has already. We know this because Dave and I took him to see our pediatrician due to the fact that Ryan was running a fever and that we thought he was teething. The pediatrician told us that Ryan had a bit of a cold and that he was in fact teething. He said that we had to really watch everything we do with him so the cold doesn’t get worse. That means, sucking out snot from his nose (which he hates), standing in a hot, steamy bathroom with him with the shower with him to help with the snot drainage, running a vaporizer in his room, and giving him cold medicine every once and awhile to keep his fever in check. So far, it all seems to be working. :) 

What’s keeping me from going off the deep end and going completely insane during my son’s teething is Dave. Without him, I don’t think I could take Ryan being so unhappy and his support has been pretty outstanding. We take turns holding and comforting the little man, taking over for each other when it becomes too much. I’m going to be honest here, having our son scream and cry and snot and drool and cry and drool and cry and scream and cry and snot can be a bit much at times. However, because we are doing it with each other’s help, it’s been way easier to deal with. Thanks honey, love you!

With that, I’m going to end this post for the day! Hopefully the next time I blog, it will be about Ryan officially getting his first tooth! :) Geez, I’m hoping it happens soon!

Working out makes me happy!

Just like the subject line of this blog post indicates, working out makes me happy and it’s one of the things I’ve been trying to do on a daily basis during my pregnancy.

What’s been hard about working out is that sometimes I just don’t feel like doing it, especially as of late since I’ve been getting bigger and find that I’m totally self conscious about doing it in front of other people. I feel like they’re staring at me. And who can blame them, I have a big belly and I’m sure that it looks pretty damn funny! Especially when I lose my balance and almost fall off the machine I’m on! J So to combat that, when I work out at the YMCA I go back to their little private workout area that’s somewhat shielded from the rest of the world. However, then what ends up happening is I’ll be the only person back there minding my own business, and then someone else will show up to work out and plop right down on the machine next to me. It’s like, really, out of the 15 or 20 machines back here, you have to pick the stupid one next to me. What’s even worse is that person ends up being completely annoying, like they fart a bunch or talk on the phone or something and then I get annoyed and don’t want to finish my workout. I try to power through, but it can be hard. And to those people who are annoying, get a clue and stop being annoying! And yes, I just ranted and feel better.

Anyway, another thing I do to combat my not wanting to workout is to make sure my IPod has new music on it, giving me something motivating and interesting to listen to. Or if I’m working out at home, I make sure that I digitally record shows in advance so I can watch them when I’m working out. It keeps my mind busy and prevents me from thinking about how long I have yet to go, how tired I feel, or how much I would rather be sitting on the couch eating Cheetos!

I’ve modified the workouts that I do now too and instead of cycling outdoors, which I’m sad that I can’t do, I ride the stationary bike in the house. Or, if I lift weights, instead of going all hardcore and pushing myself to lift as much weight as possible, I lift less weight and do more repetitions. I find that using the elliptical is a good alternative to running and that walking the dog up and down a bunch of hills makes for a good workout as well.

One of the 1980's weights I use when I lift! LOL!

Like I said before, I have found when I do workout, I’m much happier afterwards and that’s why I’m committed to doing at least a little something each day. My OB said that I can work out as long as I feel comfortable. I’m sure at some point I won’t be comfortable working out, yet hopefully that happens later rather than sooner.

If you’re pregnant and looking for some modified exercises or workout tips, check out: http://www.babycenter.com/0_the-best-kinds-of-exercise-for-pregnancy_7880.bc.

Or, if you’re not pregnant, but need some motivation, another good site to check out is: http://www.sparkpeople.com/

That’s about all I have for now, so get moving! I know that as much as I don’t feel like getting in a workout today after I post this, I’m going to make myself do it because it’s going to bring a smile to my face!

No, I’m not fat!

Just as a warning, this blog post is going to be one big rant, so I apologize in advance. :)

Okay, I’ve noticed that within the last week or so, I’m becoming completely self-conscious about the way that I look and I’m finding myself wanting to tell people, “No, I’m not fat, I’m pregnant!” It’s like for some strange reason, I think their eyes are on me and that they’re judging the way I look, thinking that I can’t control my eating and that I have no self-respect or something. I know that what I’m thinking is completely ludicrous because there’s no reason for complete strangers to give two cents about the way I look. Yet, the thoughts are still there and the best that I can do right now is ignore them!

It’s really probably all my fault because I’m not wearing my maternity clothes like I should, something that my husband Dave keeps telling me repeatedly that I should do. For some reason though, I can’t seem to pull the trigger and do it. All of his arguments for why I should start wearing my maternity clothes are pretty valid such as how I will be more comfortable if I start wearing them. I know that this is completely true, yet, I still sit in my uncomfortable clothes. And yes, I do complain about how uncomfortable I am. Dave has been great about my complaining and lets me vent about everything when I need to. Cool guy. I’m not quite sure why I won’t wear my maternity duds. For me, it’s almost like a sign of weakness or something to start wearing them. I know, a completely random way to think, yet those are the thoughts that are going through my mind. I’m sure a psychologist or psychiatrist would have a field day with me, too bad, I’m not going.

In a day or two, I’m going to take the plunge and put on my maternity clothes for the first time and no, I’m not joking around when I make this statement this time around Dave. (Yes, I’m addressing my husband directly here since I keep telling him I’m going to start wearing them starting tomorrow every time he points out that I should be wearing them already). It’s going to be a big day, I can’t wait!

When a tomboy gets pregnant

I’ve decided to start this blog because after doing a little research, I found that there’s not all that much information about pregnant women who really don’t have much of a feminine side. I’m not much of a girly girl and I don’t quite know what to make of this whole being pregnant deal. 

It’s not the fact that I’m carrying a child, which I’m absolutely happy about. My husband and I were trying for a little while to get pregnant and when it happened, it was an awesome moment in both of our lives.

Basically, what I’m having issues with is how being pregnant somehow means I’m supposed to act like other girly girl females have acted when they’re pregnant. For example, this past weekend I had to go shopping for maternity clothes. This would probably be an activity that most women would love to do. However, not me. One, I hate shopping. Two, I hate going to the mall. And three, I found out that they don’t really make tomboy maternity clothes. So as you can see, this was a complete awkward experience that I’ll get into at a later time.

With that said, this blog will just be about me dealing with regular pregnancy issues from a tomboy’s perspective. Just something different, something that is outside of the norm and not a typical account of the nine month pregnancy journey. I’m not a typical woman, so it’s going to be nice for me to document everything to remember what I went through. I’m sure there’s going to be some tears, some smiles, and some all-out interesting moments. So please, come along on the journey!