An ode to my blue jeans...

One of the hardest things for me right now is looking in my closet and seeing this:

This is about 1/4Th of my wardrobe. As you can see, I have many clothes. I love my clothes, and can I just say, I miss them! I started wearing maternity clothes when I was 10 weeks a long so it has been a while since I've worn them. I especially miss these:
My favorite jeans from Ann Taylor Loft

I have about 10 pairs of jeans and can't fit into a single pair at this point. I knew it was going to be a long, tough road. After all, it took me 9 months to gain the 45 extra pounds I put on, so of course this wasn't going to come off overnight. Unfortunately, baby Zeke did not weigh 45 pounds {sigh}.

After having Sebastian, I started working out and began dieting with weight watchers. I look back at Christmas of 2008, a little over a year after having Sebastian, and I was in the best shape of my life. I swore to myself that I was never going back to being overweight and unhealthy, but a las my dieting/exercising program slowly became more and more lax and the pounds started piling on.

When I got pregnant with Zeke, I was 20 pounds up from that 2008 weight. Add on the 45 pounds I gained during pregnancy and you see why I am fretting about fitting into my clothes. I would love to get down to that 2008 weight again, which means I had a whopping 65 pounds to drop after giving birth.

About 25 pounds of this came off easily after the birth due to baby Zeke, water weight, placenta, etc. Now comes the hard part, which is dropping the extra 40 and hopefully fitting back into my pre-pregnancy clothes sometime soon! Pretty much since I gave birth I've been working super hard to get the weight back off. I'm doing weight watchers again. I'm exercising. I'm really, really ready to wear my clothes again.

Hopefully this hard work will pay off and eventually, I will be able to wear this again: (my size 6 little black dress)

The new normal

It has been a month now since little Zeke was born and I'm just starting to figure out what our new "normal" is. I haven't had a chance to blog about how we've been doing because, well, I haven't really had a chance to do much of anything. When you have to plan your time in 3 hour stretches (which is necessary when you have a newborn), you find out really quickly what absolutely HAS to get done and what can wait until later.... much, much later.

It's impossible to describe the feeling of becoming a parent and the love that seems to develop almost overnight between yourself and your little bundle of joy. Of course I fell in love with Zeke while I carried him for almost 9 months, but I find myself still being amazed by how much I am still falling in love with him each day. Having said this, I will admit that the past month has not been the piece of cake parenting I was expecting it to be. One of the questions I get asked most lately is if Zeke is a "good" baby. While I might smile and nod when asked this question, I often find myself questioning the truthfulness of my answer, especially if "good" translates into "easy".

Both Solomon and Sebastian were very easy babies in the sense that they never had any feeding problems, learned early on to "self-sooth", and slept through the night at a fairly early age. I guess I was hoping and expecting a little bit of the same this go round. Don't get me wrong, Zeke is a perfectly peaceful baby... when being held and rocked and given a pacifier. The problems arise when he's not in those circumstances. This makes putting him down during the day impossible as screaming almost certainly ensues. Night times are a little better but not completely without issues.

Shad blames my constant "hover mom" stance for Zeke's dislike for any situation that doesn't involve being held, and he may not be wrong about this. After all, I do jump to pick him up at the slightest whimper and have become permanantly attached to my Moby wrap. But when the latest research suggests that letting babies cry it out could cause developmental delays, even brain damage, what's a mom to do??

Our 1 month pediatrician visit is coming up, and I hope to find some answers to some of the problems we've been having. There's a good possibility that acid reflux could be involve since I've noticed many of the possible symptoms. If that were the case, this may be an easy fix. I'm not completely optimistic, however. Zeke could just be a fussy (dare I say "colic-y") baby.

If that's the case, like many mothers who experience the effects of a constantly crying baby, I'm just trying to find our new normal. Right now that involves living life in 3 hour stretches and trying to get as much done as possible while wearing my little one like some sort of accessory. It also involves getting used to very little sleep.

In the mean time, at least I get to look at this little face all day :)