Over a month and no posts? What is wrong with me?!

We have not fallen off the face of the Earth. Mommy’s just been busy. 🙂

Sorry! I will shoot for at least 4 posts per month.

Seems like everyone in the world has already seen these, but hilarious!

This came to me as an email forward but I did find it very cute:

TEACHER:   Glen, why do you always get so dirty?
GLEN: Well, I’m a  lot closer to the ground than you are.
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TEACHER:     Millie, give me a sentence starting with ‘  I.  ‘
MILLIE:          I  is..
TEACHER:     No, Millie….. Always say, ‘I  am.’
MILLIE:         All right…  ‘I am the ninth letter of the alphabet.’
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TEACHER:    George Washington not only chopped down his father’s cherry tree, but also admitted it.
Now, Louie, do you know why his father didn’t punish him?
LOUIS:             Because George still had  the axe in his hand….
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TEACHER:    Now, Simon , tell me frankly, do you say prayers before eating?
SIMON:           No sir, I don’t have to, my Mom is a good cook.
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TEACHER:       Clyde , your  composition on ‘My Dog’ is exactly the same as your   brother’s.. Did you copy his?
CLYDE  :            No, sir. It’s the same dog.

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TEACHER:    Harold, what do you call a person who keeps on talking when people are no longer  interested?
HAROLD:      A teacher

Ben in his gDiaper

Ben is now big enough for the normal size gDiapers and they’re working. I’m very excited to not be using disposables, which are not only terrible for the environment but they don’t hold in pee worth a darn! Now we’re on the right track to grooming a mini environmentalist. 🙂

Today I got to exercise! I went mall walking for a half hour and then did some strength training stuff on the Wii. I got to do some exercises I haven’t done in 10 months – and I suck at them! After doing 30 seconds of the plank exercise, I was dying. I’m not supposed to do any crunches or hardcore cardio stuff until my doc signs off at my 6 week check up, but this was a good start. I feel less like a blob. I’ve lost like 22 pounds already – all I had to do was pop out a baby (best diet ever!).

Close up of Ben

If you want to order any of the photos of Ben’s first days, click here to view the photos on Walgreens.com and order them.

LABOR

In my throne, the last photo of me pregnant.

I was induced at around 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday, November 16. My doc told me that morning that she was concerned about my blood pressure going up-down-up-down and was afraid I’d develop pre-eclampsia and go into seizures. So we decided to induce me. Having felt so miserable the few days leading up to it, it didn’t take much convincing.

However, I didn’t expect how being induced would throw my natural childbirth plans out the window – I was hooked up to an IV the whole time, couldn’t walk around, couldn’t shower, couldn’t even potty without assistance.

DELIVERY

At around 6 p.m., the doc broke my water. That’s when the fun started! It was so unlike anything I expected, all kinds of pain in places I didn’t even know could hurt (like my toenails!). From then to when I delivered was a blur. Blake was a great coach and he helped me to give birth without the use of any pain meds or epidural. I started pushing around 11 p.m. A lot of pain and then sleeping in between contractions and pushes.

At 11:26 p.m., Tuesday, November 16, 2010, Benjamin Oliver Buck was born at Florida Hospital Waterman, Tavares, Florida. He weighed 7 lbs. and 1/2 oz. and measured 20.5 in.

We got home around 1 a.m. on Friday and have been trying to get our bearings since. This having a baby stuff is hard. It’s amazing how well the body functions on no sleep! It’s frustrating and exhausting and wonderful. Our son is beautiful – we’re truly blessed. 🙂

Too much sodium! (And the blog where I snagged this photo actually has a funny post about ketchup, if you're interested.)

I’ve been trying to watch my salt intake to keep my blood pressure and fat feet under control. I read in an issue of Parents magazine that a good rule of thumb is to avoid foods with 2x as much sodium as calories. For example, if a sandwich has 400 calories, 1700 mg of sodium is really bad. I noticed that ketchup has 15 calories in a tablespoon and 190 mg of sodium, which is horrendous. I like me some ketchup so I was a bit perturbed.

So at the grocery, I picked up a bottle of “no salt added” ketchup.

Do you know what ketchup tastes like when you don’t have any salt in it?

Tomatoes!!

How gross it that? Who dips their salty french fries in tomatoes?! Nasty.

Haha. So needless to say, I’ll have to find alternate ways to trim my sodium.

Do you know how hard it is to squat with a huge preggo belly?

Blake and I have been reading up on the Bradley Method of natural childbirth. It basically sums up to:

1. Husband is the coach during labor
2. Use specific breathing methods depending on the stage of labor (not the hee-haw of Lamaze which causes hyperventilating)
3. Use concentrated relaxation to ease pain, like intentionally relaxing the abdomen and uterus instead of tensing up (using a lot of “mind over matter”)
4. Use specific body positions to ease pain, speed up delivery, and avoid interventions

The squatting position is recommended most by the Bradley Method because:

• Shortens the second stage of labor (pushing phase)
• Decreases the need for forcep deliveries
• Reduces the need for episiotomy
• Shortens the depth of your birth canal
• Works with gravity
• Increases pelvic diameter by 10+%

Throughout my pregnancy I’ve been exercising or getting at least some activity every day, including weight lifting and strength training. I’ve been doing squats like so in prep for labor:

However, it occurred to me that you can’t actually have a baby from that position. Apparently, I should be doing these kind of squats:

Do you have any idea how much those kind of squats hurt?! 🙂 So I guess I need to work on that…