postpartum exercise questions

Okay.

For the past six weeks, my friend and I have been doing Insanity with Shawn T. The workout. Let me tell you, after three weeks of that, Jillian Michaels is like a joke. Anyway.

We've noticed ourselves getting a lot stronger, and we've noticed more definition in our arms and legs, but for both of us it seems that our abdomens have actually gotten flabbier.

Technically this can't possibly be true (right?) because I know for a fact that our ab muscles are stronger now. However, they are actually getting bigger instead of smaller, if that makes sense.

My friend had a C-section three months ago and I delivered vaginally four months ago. Anyone know why ab work is making our abs bigger instead of smaller?

cradle cap part 3

As of this morning, my darling baby is a Baldilocks. :^( It's so, so sad. He's got his real hair growing in on the top of his head, but it's short--no more than an inch long, and very pale. The rest of his head, including the crown of his head, still has 3-inch-long very dark hair. So he's like half bald and half super hairy. I ended up trimming those blasted Gollum sideburns just so he wouldn't look AS weird, but he still looks weird. At least to me.

I miss him being so cute and hairy, but I tell myself: those hairs weren't even attached to his head anyway. I just cleared them off, and now his real hair can grow in.

It's true, but it's still so sad.

Maybe I'll post a picture--I took a few yesterday--but maybe I won't. The poor kid wouldn't want you to see, probably.

Halloween pictures!

Here are some pictures of Nathaniel from Halloween. He was the best cowbaby I know of. Thanks to Heatherfor the awesome pics!

cradle cap part 2

After writing that post, I got so distraught about his cradle cap I decided to try some remedies I found online. First, I massaged his head with baby oil. I let it sit, then combed it out. Then I washed his hair with Head And Shoulders shampoo.

He is way balder now than he was three hours ago. :^(

:^(

My poor baby!

He's still got bunches of hair, but those baldish patches just make my soul frowny. When I was combing his hair after the baby oil application, clump after clump of hair came out.

Of course he doesn't have any cradle cap on the sides of his head; no, just the top of his head. Sad sad sad sad day.

cradle cap

For the past few weeks Nathaniel's had cradle cap. It's pretty sick. He has giant flakes of skin peeling off all on his head. I hadn't done anything about it because I figured he'd just grow out of it.

It's worse than that.

I realized just lately that every time a flake of skin comes off, it takes off all the hair that grew through that flake of skin, too.

:^(

Yesterday he had a sad moment and frantically pulled out a whole fistful of his own hair. It's not hard to do, with all the flakes (and therefore hair) peeling off as they are. He has a baldish patch where the hairs were, now (I say baldish because he still has a bunch of hair to masquerade the area... however, all those hairs are cradle-capped as well).

I am worried that the cradle cap area of his head is going to make him bald there. And then we'll be left with a bizarro bald-head baby with a rattail and Gollum sideburns still. :^/

random thoughts

I think I am going to do something cool like this with the empty drawers randomly in our garage.

Here is an interesting blog entry about early puberty in girls and how that may be linked to father absence. The implications are intriguing.

Article on the need for our young males to step up and become men.

Article from a Baby Boomer on why they are the most selfish generation. I have to agree with him. Sorry, Boomers, but you have collectively destroyed the future for your kids and grandkids and great grandkids. I know not all of you are to blame, but a majority are, and I for one am not happy about it.

Christmas Lists, UPDATED

Nathaniel would like:

- a cute and cushioned sling for Mom to carry him around in

- another fun sling for Mom to carry him around in

- stuff for eating (as in, toddler spoon and fork sets, little plastic plates and bowls)

- fun toys to play with

- clothes size 9 mos and larger*

- Amazon money for buying random baby supplies as needed


Carl would like:

- short white socks

- Smores pop tarts

- headphones

- new casual shoes

- athletic shorts

- a new white shirt for church that fits (I don't know what size that would be, but he is a small in T-shirt sizes)

- a toaster--yes, we don't have one

- a laptop for his wife (aw)

- new slacks for work

- Barnes and Noble money



I would like:

- a new quadruple combination, preferably the tiny kind--although I just got a compact New Testament and Book of Mormon for my diaper bag, so maybe I could handle having a full size quad now. That would actually probably be easier to take notes in. I wrote so much in my last one with acid pen that all the pages are eaten through with my notes. :^(

- non-acid pens, or mechanical scripture marking pencils, or other scripture marking tools so I don't utterly destroy my new scriptures whenever I get them

- Amazon gift cards (you can buy nursing clothes on Amazon with free shipping! Hooray!)

- Money toward our family Gun Fund

- Money toward our family Mom's Computer Fund (this laptop is OLD)

- a cute nursing dress or so (I believe I am a medium at this stage in my life) (here is another one)

- a nursing tank--most of the ones I've tried don't hide my G's but I think this one might! The black one would be sooo useful.

- Money toward new jeans

- the Parasol Protectorate series


* A note on clothes: It's safe to assume at all times that Carl is a size small.

Nathaniel is about to move into nine month clothes--so far, he's been growing into a new size about every two months, so I've started stocking up on 12+ month stuff for him. We have 4 drawers full of 6-mo clothes for him and we only use about half of that now. So it's probably safe not to buy him lots of stuff in one size.

For me, I'm nursing! And planning to do it for a while. So I've committed to only buying nursing clothes for the foreseeable future. Any non-nursing clothes I end up with will most likely be returned, unless they are cardigans or jeans that fit, although I have way too many cardigans as it is (ahhhh I cannot overstate the adoration in my heart for a cute cardigan! I have a zillion of them. Okay, even though I already have a million cute cardigans, I would take another one).

As far as nursing clothes go, I am being picky and only using the kind that let you nurse without basically stripping. This nursingwear site shows the different kinds of nursingwear openings. I don't use pull-down clothes, drop-front clothes, or built-in bra stuff, or clothes that make you pull everything up.