134.1

It’s time to address the weight issue. It’s approximately the midway point between six weeks and three months postpartum. I’ve been silent on this topic for a month now. After vowing to get back to 125 by six weeks, I got a lot of support to drop the subject and throw out the scale and not worry about it. I appreciate the sentiment. I really do. It’s just not my style. So I weigh myself every day and, driven by my food sensitivities and health consciousness, I eat my predominantly paleo diet… Heaps of fruits and vegetables everyday.  Oatmeal most days. Nuts. Tofu. Soy milk. Meat and fish. Occasionally a bucket full of homemade gourmet popcorn, rice, or vegan roti. Essentially no bread, no sweets, no desserts. Primarily I don’t have the taste for it. But, as I mentioned, loads of fruits and vegetables. An entire watermelon! My appetite is substantial and I respect that. Lake is entirely mummy-milk-fed!

Lake and I also walk a ton. We average five miles a day. And he’s getting heavier all the time. I do at least a little yoga every day. And my planks while he’s doing his tummy time. We cheer (grunt) each other on. 

And since about 2 weeks post-partum, my weight has been fairly consistent. While Lake continues to grow heavier and taller, I’m hovering right around 135 pounds for months now. This is 10 pounds up from my baseline. I feel good. I’m not distressed or disappointed or depressed. I’m mostly curious. 

My best friend, mother of two, says

Don’t worry! It’ll come off. I had such a hard time keeping up with breastfeeding. I was practically worried I couldn’t keep enough weight on. Right now? This is nothing. Lake’s just in training camp for when he is bigger and then he’ll really start sucking you dry. Stop worrying!

My doctor says

That’s normal. We want you to be about 10 pounds heavier while you’re breastfeeding.

Well meaning associates say generally 

It’s the hormones. 

Rarely does anyone ever specify which hormone is keeping the weight on or increasing my appetite. I’m mostly only familiar with prolactin “the mothering hormone” and oxytocin “the bonding hormone” being associated with breast milk production and release during breastfeeding. Prolactin suppresses testosterone. Low testosterone could account for some weight retention. Estrogen is also suppressed. This helps prevent ovulation during pregnancy. Hmm, nature is so elegant and sophisticated. 

It’s also as basic as the basics: physics. Clearly if I’m burning 500kcal daily to provide Lake’s breakfast, lunch, and dinner, I’m also eating 500 kcal more everyday than I did before the pregnancy to keep up with him. Quarts of chocolate soy milk, pints of strawberries, gobs of hummus and peanut butter with my veggies all add up to some pretty darn yummy breast milk for Lake. Good work mummy!

So, it’s probably time to inject a bit of levity and patience into the situation and enjoy my newfound mummy curves while I’ve got them!  Meanwhile I keep on walking and picking farm fresh veggies and paying attention. For me, part of being healthy is minding the scale, and for now that means staying actively involved as the number trends back to baseline…

…and dancing around the living room!

Lake slept 9 hours straight through last night!

 I excitedly report to all who will listen (Michael) when I hear Lake in the morning. He  had just been sound asleep from 9:20pm to 6:20am. I, of course, had already woken up in a puddle of leaked breast milk and had been drowsily listening for signs of his wakefulness and hunger for a good 20 minutes already. But it had been completely silent. I had resisted the urge to go check on him to make sure he was still alive; I try to talk myself out of giving into my anxieties whenever possible.

That’s got to be some kind of record.

Michael exclaims, and goes back to sleep. Hmm, well he’s got lots of good role models around. 

Mr. Cat… loves to sleep. 

Mr. Silky… loves to sleep. 

Daddy… loves to sleep late. 

Mummy… loves to go to sleep early. 

Looks like Lake got the best sleep traits from all of us. I guess I didn’t need to overly concern myself with his sleep training. I lasted two days of sleep training at 8 weeks. He just was too hungry to stay back asleep. Even if he did cry himself back to sleep, he would wake back up rooting. I’ve heard 12 pounds is the magic number for sleeping contentedly for long stretches of the night. And according to my amateur bathroom scale weigh job, he’s 12 1/2 pounds this morning. Lake is our heavyweight champion among champions. He seems happy to have transitioned to doing his nights all on his own. He looked really proud of himself this morning. And so smiley!

Stay tuned, right?!

If rolling becomes an Olympic sport, Lake is all practiced up! He has showed an early aptitude as world class roller! Today during his work out (aka tummy time) he did three reps.

And just to keep his options open, we are maintaining his archery, fencing, volleyball, rowing and swimming training regimens as well. This entails a series of arm stretches and poses that he returns to throughout every day. “The Archer” is quite striking.

He is a very stalwart traveler. Bundled into his Baby Björn he endures mountain scrabbling and most of a lunch out. 

This evening we watch some Rio 2016 Olympic Mens Volleyball on the big screen while assembling fresh spring rolls. Lake takes it all in. He flexes and practices some blocks. Wears himself out. Asleep by 9:30pm. We watch some Women’s tennis and soon follow. Yeah, baby, we will follow you all the way to the Olympics. You are our gold medalist!

Everything about Lake is so precious and engaging. His wiggles, his hiccoughing, his burgeoning smiles… Even his sneeze. 

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We love you Lake! We are blessed you are so healthy and strong. Your exuberance for life is contagious. Gesundheit!

Happy weekending with my loves!

Just when I think there’s a pattern I can hang my hat on, Lake goes and switches it up. He knows how to keep things interesting and to keep mummy on her toes. 

For the past month he’s been very consistent about going to sleep at 11pm, then sleeping for 6-7 hours, eating an early breakfast for 1 hour and then sleeping 2 more hours. There was little to no room to influence his pattern. He would just go off and on like a light bulb on his own terms.  This week, things were slowly shifting. He began to go to sleep a bit earlier: it began with a “switching off” at 10:45, then 10:30pm, and 9:30pm… We’ve also begun to have the flexibility to shorten that early hour long breakfast down to 45 minutes and then today “breakfast express” was satisfying at 30 minutes. 

Well this evening is a game changer. I’m not sure what his plan is. He probably wasn’t sure what my plan was. We were really tired this afternoon/early evening he fell asleep at the breast and I was falling asleep too. So I thought we could both go down for a nap. He had fallen so asleep so suddenly that I was able to change his diaper without him waking up. But after 15 minutes or so, he wasn’t happy napping, so we had breastfeeding napping in bed for quite a while… One hour? Hard to say the timing and now I wish I had a reference point. I fell asleep and when I woke up it was 7:30pm. He stayed asleep. My parents had prepared a lovely dinner and the three of us enjoyed it thoroughly along with a rousing discussion about gun safety, civic duty, financial security, identity protection and past presidential election campaigns. Yum, stimulating for the mind and the appetite!

Now it’s 11:30pm and Lake is still asleep. Is this a new trend? How is the night going to play out? And how are the upcoming nights going to play out, my little sleeper agent?

There are a number of life lessons I’ve learned from my Dad, your Grandpa Duane Murphy, Lake. It seems like a good format to honor some of them here. The funniest part, is whenever I say,

You taught me that Dad!

He always looks at me with surprise,

Did I?

Yup! Here are ten life lessons from Duane:

1. Always pay off your credit card on time and in full every month.  
2. Start as young as possible saving for retirement. It’s hard to play catchup with lost time in the stock market. 
3. The number one cause of roadside failure is running out of gas. That’s entirely preventable. Your choice. 
4. Drive with a full three second following distance and an eye on the car in front of the car in front of you. Watch for their brakes lights. That’s who you’re following. 
5. Getting started on a project is getting you half way through. 
6. It’s amazing what large projects you can accomplish by chipping away at it one step at a time; a little attention every day.
7. Personal hygiene and personal fitness: be mindful every day. If you’re hungry between meals, have a piece of fruit.
8. An education is a prized accomplishment.  It makes you a better person. Do your homework every day and study hard. 
9. Life is short and your time is precious. Maximize your earning potential. 
10. Write and send letters with stamps. Everyone loves getting personal mail. 
11. Having children is the best thing in life. 

We went in to work today. Ostensibly to pick up some paperwork for Lake’s insurance enrollment, but it was primarily a social call. We had to introduce Lake around and say hello to all our work friends. He’s two months old already! 

Unbelievably, he slept through the entire excursion: four hours in the middle of the day. Nothing like wanting to show him off and then he’s all curled up and sound asleep… completely hidden. Ah, well, it seemed like people got the gist of his size and babyness even without being able to hold or interact with him. 

After “work” we went and played tennis. What fun. It’s a good feeling: getting back in the game. Auntie Lindsay met us at the courts to take Lake out of harms way. They went “Lindsin’ around” as Michael likes to say. 

Thank you friends for the wonderful day!

Today at our PEPS meeting we talked about post-baby fitness and body image. How to rehabilitate, love and accept our bodies after the pelvis has been exploded and is resettling itself, among other things. If and how to get our bodies back. Our bikini bodies. 

The thing about a bikini body is it can be feared and perceived as elusive, perhaps even unattainable. And it can be as available and as simple as taking your body as it is and putting a bikini on it. Begin there. I love that it’s August first today and in many parts of Europe such as in France and Italy, August is spent on holiday at the beach. Layers off; bikinis on. Then spend four active relaxing weeks sunning swimming walking talking eating resting. Every day. Every year. Every phase of life. Enjoying the body we are in. It’s both a profound act of acceptance as well as a motivating force to have a bikini body. 

Then in addition to a healthy lifestyle it also doesn’t hurt to do some focused core work either. Right now I’m working on a daily practice of three repetitions of 2 minute planks. Something that I can actually accomplish during a few free minutes. Lake and I get to share some tummy time!