New habits

I decided after having the miscarriage that I really need to get healthier. The midwives told me that there didn't appear to have been a specific cause for losing the pregnancy, but still. I'm 35 now, get no regular exercise other than walking a 10-pound dog around our block, and feel no shame about gorging on all the Halloween candy that the girls hauled in a couple of weeks ago. I drink gin with abandon, add heavy cream and butter to most things I'm cooking with great recklessness, and have dessert every night. Sometimes I even have a little sweet something after lunch. I could be a little healthier, dontcha think?

So as of about 2 weeks ago, I've changed a few things. I've stopped having an enormous bowl of ice cream with homemade caramel sauce dripping all over it every night after the kids go to bed. I've stopped having my customary two gin drinkies every night. Now I just have a glass of red wine over the course of a couple of hours and then a cup of herbal tea after the girls go to sleep. (Okay, it's still alcohol and you teetotallers won't approve. But red wine is good for you, and it's just a bad idea to completely deprive a mama.) I do not snack on candy during the day, but have fruit or yogurt or cheese and crackers instead. I am trying to pay attention to when I feel full at dinner rather than snarfing everything on my plate just so I don't waste it. I do not finish Bean's leftovers at lunch or breakfast. And I've begun exercising again.

Not much, mind you. But I got up at 6:00 am this morning to go to the gym before Husband and Bean got up, and I did this last week a couple of times as well. I've been dragging the poor doggie on longer walks of 30-45 minutes in which I walk briskly up hills, working up an actual sweat. I sometimes even do abdominal crunches during naptime (though, ahem...not right now).

Husband says he can already tell it's having an affect, and I do feel different already. I feel great, actually. I've got the beginnings of the muscle tone I used to have a couple of years ago when I went to the gym as part of my regular week. And I find that it's self-perpetuating. Since I went to the gym this morning I denied myself that little sweet snack I craved after lunch because I didn't want all that damn early morning exercise to go to waste.

Now if I can just keep it up during the holidays...

Out of sorts

It's only day 4 of Sister's being back at school, but I'm feeling a bit out of sorts. Maybe it's because this house is still so new? Maybe it's that I have no garden yet in which to putter? Maybe it's because my usual choice of activity with Bean for a few weeks now has been to go shop for one house-related thing or another? Don't know. I just feel like the day yawns like a bottomless pit most mornings and afternoons. It's hard to figure out just what exactly to do with my time. It's not free time, mind you, but time that needs to be spent entertaining a baby and keeping a household running.

To that end, I told myself this morning that it was high time I start getting back to the gym again. Bean is 16 months old now and should be able to handle being away from me a few times a week for an hour or so, right? Right. So I tried introducing her to the gym daycare this morning, thinking I'd take it slow and leave her there for 20 minutes while I went to pee and maybe read a magazine out of sight in the hallway nearby. No dice. I set her up with some toys, told her bye while she still seemed happily occupied, and went to the bathroom. When I came back exactly five minutes later I could hear her wailing from down the hall. Thought I'd let the sweet, capable college girls do their job and give it a few more minutes, but...nope. Bean lasted exactly 10 whole minutes in the gym daycare before I had to rescue her. We played together there for the next 15 minutes and I took her home while she still wanted to stay and play, so maybe she'll be pleased to go back soon. But maybe I should've thought of doing this long before 16 months old. There were 8-month olds there, all nonchalant at the prospect of hanging out with a roomful of toys and other kids to play with without their moms around. Not my baby, though.

I have GOT to start doing something for myself. I hate to keep beating the dead horse that I've been beating for the last several months, but don't all you SAHM's out there feel like your days are spent cooking, cleaning up, running some errand, cooking, cleaning up, squeezing some stupid chore in during naptime, making snacks, cleaning up, helping with homework, cooking, cleaning up, and going to bed for not enough sleep every damn day?

And yeah, we're thinking of having a third child soon. I suppose there's something to be said for getting it out of the way and having all the hard, early years be concentrated together. Isn't there?