Weekly Chat Nov. 26 -Dec (!!!) 2 « Back to Group Discussions

[spughy]

Oh hey look a new thread!

(old thread)

Scruffy that is awesome about your DSS's room clean-out.  And I totally agree that the attitude of cleaning because YOU want to clean is important to keep in mind - but it actually really stresses DH out when the place is a mess.  As the stay-at-home parent, it IS my responsibility - but I just don't know where he (or DD) want all their stuff, and if I DO put things away, I just end up badgered about where stuff is, so I stopped doing it.  Anyway, as *I* see it my job is to do things like vacuuming, dusting, cleaning floors, keeping the bathroom non-frightening, the kitchen basically sanitary, etc.  Those things are much, much harder to do when there is a layer of toys & tools over everything. (As another example of DH's inability to "think tidy" - he'll happily haul out the vacuum and run it around the living room, shoving toys and shoes and whatnot sort of out of the way with the vacuum head while he's doing it. I just can't do that.  I need the floor empty before it's vacuumable - and if that takes me an extra 20 minutes, that's 20 minutes I don't have to spend on actual cleaning.)  I don't think me picking up after DH and DD is doing either of them any favours.

[jodieanneanton]

Hey!  Guess what!!! I am back from the stone age (a land and time with no phone or internet)!  

Moving sucked.  It still does.  I decided I have a strong distaste for moving. I have never worked so hard in all my life, but the good (GREAT) news is that I have a larger house (larger to me... It is still only 750 sq ft.  But we also have an attic now for storage and our last place was much much smaller).  We decided to paint and carpet (which I could do none of) in the 3 days before moving furniture and other things.  So now, after we get organized, we are done! :D  After Christmas, I will tackle sewing projects for the house like curtains and such to put the finishing touches on the house.  I am looking forward to that! :D   

I will try to do some catching up here in the next few days and finally organize the spotlight threads! 

Hope y'all had a good (American) Thanksgiving!

[writermama12]

Hey Mamas,

jodie: Congrats on your new house! That is exciting and stressful, but it seems like a great move to have made for your family. 

I have been out of the loop for a while, too. Finished my thesis and turned it in!! I am totally done and going to graduate in Feb. Also, DH and I took our first overnight away in Boston to celebrate our 5th anniversary. It was GREAT. Saw a play, ate at an amazing restaurant, made love TWICE, oh man...it was hard to make ourselves go home. 

However, I am in a rather anxious place with my weight, as I've written about before. I have decided to really try hard to make changes that might impact my weight without sacrificing nutrients, so I've cut out all refined carbs/sugar (even though I wasn't eating much of those), cut down my daily carb intake to 150g per day (I was eating 250-300g before), making sure I walk every day, and I am watching my calories closely. This is no fun, but I hope I manage to slow down my 2.5lb per week gain I've been averaging this trimester. If I can stay under a 50 lb gain this time, I will feel very successful and healthy. We'll see. I don't have access to a scale so I won't know if my alterations are working for another three weeks. 

Also, I am rereading Anna Karenina, which is soooo good. I want to see the film soon, too. Organizing a Mom's night out to see it. So many good things this winter to look forward too. 

[GranolaMama09]

WriterMama - I want to see it too!  And The Hobbit.  :)  I'm happy you had a fun anniversary!  Totally, 100% jealous of the love making.  Man, it's been 3 weeks and we're looking at probably another 2-3 before we have 'time'.  I am one very sad and frustrated mama!  Congrats on finishing your thesis!!!  DP is in crunch time for this semester.  Finals are coming up soon but then thankfully he gets a month break before starting up again.  We've got two more years before he graduates I think.

Jodie - yay for move completion!  I hate moving but the end goal is (usually) worth it.  It looks like we're going to be moving in January or February!  0.o  My mom always made our curtains and such growing up so I get where you're coming from - have fun picking out the perfect fabrics!!!

[cabbitdancer]

spughy: tea parties are most excellent. I would love to have a tea party for a shower, but I don't want to ask anyone else to put that much work into it. ;)

My daughter loves tea sandwiches and tea with cream and honey, and scones with lemon curd and clotted cream... A friend of mine actually passed on the little china tea for one that she'd used for both of her girls (who are now 18 and 16!!!) to her, and she LOVES using it, even though it's a little drippy after so many years of use. :)

spughy and scruffy: I hate cleaning. With a passion. And I think part of it is because I'm generally cleaning up after the messes my family leaves behind. My husband can't even be bothered to put his own plate in the sink after dinner, most days, and it is infinitely frustrating to go wandering room to room in search of his and my daughter's clothes, which seem to find all kinds of interesting resting places that are not only NOT the hamper, but also not even in the vicinity of the bedroom! Argh! Add to that the fact that I just haven't had the energy, and we get days where I burst into tears just thinking about getting one room cleaned. I desperately need to go through my daughter's things and clear up the clutter. I want to do it with her, to help instill in her a sense of responsibility, but she won't get rid of anything, so, more often than not, it becomes an exercise in futility. :P As soon as I get through the post-travel miasma, I'll probably try to tackle the rooms, one by one, and get some semblance of order arranged. And, after the first of the year, my husband and I are supposed to tackle the guest room together. Ha! ;)

[babytoes]

Wow what a week! Since last Wednesday to yesterday, it's been non stop for me. It'll be nice to sit back and relax, if only for a few days. It's nice to see the board moving along... I have done a little bit of lurking over the past 5 days whenever I got a minute, but from my phone just isn't the same! Glad to know everyone seems to be doing well. 

My shower was Sunday, and mostly went off without a hitch. A few people didn't show even though they said they would, so that sort of irritated MIL which I agree was annoying. My dad ended up making the cake, and it was gorgeous! DP's aunt made a cloth 'diaper' cake, I don't know if any one remembers my anxiety over this, but I was worried about having so many prefolds when I never used them in the past, only AIO's or OS's. But after some good responses from you all, and a little youtube tutorials on how to use prefolds, I felt much better about the 'diaper' cake. Well, all of that can just be shot out the window! She made a very cute little motorcycle with a little pink bear on top. But when MIL and I started pulling it apart after getting back home, we quickly came to the conclusion that the entire thing was useless! She didn't use prefolds, she used these super thin, tissue like square cloths. I've personally never seen anything like them, they certainly wont hold any amount of pee or poo, so I have no idea what to do with them all! She used pacifiers as "hub caps", and I do use paci's with my babies, but I use Mam, and these are the .75 cent Gerber ones (yuck), there was two blankets twisted in and around everything to hold it all together, and when I got those out, it was apparent they were very very thin and rough to touch (certainly not my kind of blanket for a baby), the teddy bear on top was fine, but it's a stuffed animal, so useless. The only things we will use is the two bibs that she put on it. Other than that, nothing. What a huge waste of money! But oh well! We did get some great things, and we received 8 new diapers! Some nice outfits, quite a few blankets, bibs, and burp clothes, and a vibrating bouncy seat. Overall, it was great, and I got to meet some of DP's great-aunts. 

Yesterday DP took the day off (instead of friday), and we started reorganizing and cleaning. We are getting a washer and drier for Christmas, and we need to clean out the closet where the hook up is... And oh god, what a project! It is filled with Board games, video games and consols, work out equipment (that is never used), an end table, and tons of other junk. I joke that we dont have a junk drawer like most people, we have a junk closet! We got about 75% of it done yesterday... woo hoo!! Now we just need to pack up the cars and bring it all over to MIL's, haha! Luckily she doesn't care and has a huge attic. 

Right now I am waiting for a the repair man to show up. We haven't had any heat since last week, but because of the holiday and weekend we only finally today got ahold of our landlord. Luckily we have neighbors, so even though it gets chilly (like today its only 68 degrees in here... which is cold for us, we like the temp at 78-80) we don't freeze up since the apartments on either side keep us basically warm. Hopefully he gets here soon, I was told 10:00am and it's now 1:10pm. I hate waiting for repair men, they're never on time!

Jodie WOO HOO on the new house!! I can't wait until we can get a new house, even though the move is such a pain. I'm sure now that the bulk of the move is over, it must be nice to start settleing in. Although, being so pregnant like we are, I bet you're exhausted! 

writermama congrats on the anniversary!! 

[spughy]

Babytoes are the super-thin square cloths maybe supposed to be wipes?  They sound a lot like some that I had (and treasured) - not that I used them as wipes (I used...er...disposable wipes) but as washcloths and post-meal wiping cloths they were great.  I still have one or two that haven't completely disintegrated yet.

Cabbitdancer, I'm glad I'm not the only one with family who leave clothes in odd places.  The other day DH was all "I can't find my gym shorts" and I sort of said "whatever, if they were in the hamper they got washed and put away, check that they didn't fall off your shelf" and then the next day I found them under a pile of DD's school papers on the spare kitchen chairs.   And every time I vacuum under the coffee table (which is kind of a chest thing, so you can't see under it unless you move it, I find more of DD's socks.

And yay Hobbit movie!!! I am so looking forward to going to that with DD.

I just got back from an appt with my midwife.  We talked about the glucose tolerance test and whatnot and eventually came to the conclusion that I'd skip it for now due to the orange-flavour-barfing problem, but as the suggested diet for gestational diabetes control isn't significantly different from my regular diet, I should probably just do that anyway.  At the next appt she wants to see my blood glucose numbers from my own measurements just to make sure that it's staying pretty steady and she asked me to try to space out my meals/snacks better which I have to admit makes sense.  I'm not much of a snacker or a grazer but I know I really do have a problem in that the majority of my food intake happens between 11:30 am and 6 pm - after that I completely forget about food and don't usually WANT to eat anything until late breakfast the next day... which is fine, in normal life, but really not so good for pregnancy.  She agrees with me that my high fasting numbers (and lack of appetite in the morning) are likely due to my body kicking into ketosis in the early morning hours which isn't good for the baby.  So, I will set a reminder bing to go off on my phone ever night around 9 to remind me to eat before bed, eat smaller lunches and slightly bigger dinners (seriously - last night I had like 3 meatballs in sauce for dinner and was full.)  Ugh.  I've never been an evening snacker.  I guess I will have to get used to it.  However, I haven't gained any real weight since my last appt 4 weeks ago (scale showed me up one lb but I reeeeally had to pee bad, I bet if I'd stepped on it after that lb wouldn't have been there!) so obviously I'm not sitting on my couch eating bonbons all day so I don't think she's terribly worried.  I think my second trimester gain so far is about 3 lbs.  And, if I stick closely to the GD diet, I'm probably going to start losing weight.  I hope my mw is okay with that - well, she'll have to be.  I should clarify - it's not going to cause ME any trauma but I hope it's not a source of contention between us.  I like my mw and I want her to be happy and relaxed

[LightForest]

Babytoes, I wonder if those "diapers" were gauze flats, like the Gerber brand that you can buy at Wal-Mart-type places??

I use birdseye flats and love them, but I can't speak to the usefulness of gauze flats at all. IF they are large enough then you can fold them into the origami fold to use as a newborn diaper, and you get lots of layers of absorbency in the "wet zone." But, well, they call it the "origami fold" for a reason and if you're not interested in getting fiddly with fancy diaper folds then that option may not be useful for you. At worst, you could use them as dusting rags, or to polish the silver or wax the car or something like that??

[babytoes]

Originally Posted by spughy 

Babytoes are the super-thin square cloths maybe supposed to be wipes?  They sound a lot like some that I had (and treasured) - not that I used them as wipes (I used...er...disposable wipes) but as washcloths and post-meal wiping cloths they were great.  I still have one or two that haven't completely disintegrated yet.

Hmmm... maybe, but they are pretty big. 18"X18" or so, I guess if I folded them into smaller squares then they might be good for wash clothes.

I used disposable wipes last time too!! I found a great recipe to make my own wipes on Pintrest, using a roll of paper towels and I'm going to give that a shot this time. It's still kind of disposable, because its just paper towels soaked in a natural solution, but much cheaper than wipes!

We are also huge LOTR fans and counting down the days to opening night of the Hobbit!! Yay Tolkien!!  

[babytoes]

Originally Posted by LightForest 

Babytoes, I wonder if those "diapers" were gauze flats, like the Gerber brand that you can buy at Wal-Mart-type places??

I use birdseye flats and love them, but I can't speak to the usefulness of gauze flats at all. IF they are large enough then you can fold them into the origami fold to use as a newborn diaper, and you get lots of layers of absorbency in the "wet zone." But, well, they call it the "origami fold" for a reason and if you're not interested in getting fiddly with fancy diaper folds then that option may not be useful for you. At worst, you could use them as dusting rags, or to polish the silver or wax the car or something like that??

I think this is exactly what they are! They are pretty large, but also gauzy. I'm not sure if fancy folding is something DP and I are into, but I think you're right, they will polish silver and cars rather nicely! 

[jodieanneanton]

babytoes, do you have a sewing machine?  It is really really easy to turn a large flat diaper into a prefold.  Takes just a couple of lines of stitching and a few minutes.  Just an idea I thought I'd throw out there.

:)

[buko]

Babytoes, I thought maybe they were flats.  Just Google how to padfold them into a cover (basically just folding in quarters and then thirds) and you won't have to do any "fancy" folding at all!  Very useful.

[babytoes]

Thanks guys! I will look into how to use these. I think my problem is that I started cloth diapering DS3 because it was easy and not like the cloth diapers our parents used. I feel like this is kind of defeating the purpose for me, and DP being a total newbie to everything baby, I worry about making anything difficult (although I know he'll just roll with the flow). I know I am spoiled with my OS's and AIO's, but I guess it doesn't bother me because I am the one using these in the end, and if the flats make me scowl then I most likely just wont use them at all. My mother doesn't understand at all, I told her how they where useless to us, and she went on and on about how I could sew them, and learn how to fold them, and with them I would have 25 diapers, so that's all that matters... blah blah blah!! I finally interrupted her and said "okay mom, I'll bring them to your house, and you can use them, I didn't start cloth diapering because I wanted a new challenge. I started doing it because it was better for the baby and easy. And if it's not going to be easy than I don't want to do it!" She seemed to slow down about it at that point.

It's not like money is so tight that we can't get 7-8 more diapers before LO comes... Easy, with 3 other boys to tend to, easy is what I am looking for!

[cabbitdancer]

lol @ babytoes. EASY! EASY is what you're looking for! XD I feel daunted by flats, too. Prefolds all the way, baby! I'm hoping to be able to procure a few AIO's, too, though, for those days when I'm out and about and just don't want to deal with more than simply off, clean up, on.

spughy: A snack an hour or so before bed should help. Something small, 15g carb or so, with protein. One thing you might try as well is to test once or twice through the night (gotta get up to pee anyway, right?). I'm diabetic and one of the things I have issues with is dawn phenomenon. With a continuous glucose monitor, I can watch my sugars stay well within normal ranges all night and then spike ridiculously high as soon as I wake up. The main issue, as I've been told, with highs overnight, is that the baby has the most access to those sugars, because you're not really using them. If you're high all night long, the baby is getting a lot from you. If not, then, as far as baby is concerned, it's not too big a worry. iirc, though, dawn phenomenon is a diabetic thing, so it's definitely something to keep an eye on. 

AFM: only two weeks away from the gym and my 4 mile walk the past two mornings has been torture! I get to somewhere between 3 and 3.5 miles before I start to peter out and, when I push myself past that, my waddling becomes more pronounced, and now my sides hurt, right up under my boobs, like I was working my obliques (which I probably was!! XD ).

I tried royal raspberry leaf and nettle for the first time, last night. It smelled like feet, but didn't actually taste bad at all. Of course, I'm a tea drinker and I added in some Ceylon and cream, and it wasn't much different from any other cup of tea I've had--once I got past the smell.

[Chapsie]

Originally Posted by spughy 

Babytoes are the super-thin square cloths maybe supposed to be wipes?  They sound a lot like some that I had (and treasured) - not that I used them as wipes (I used...er...disposable wipes) but as washcloths and post-meal wiping cloths they were great.  I still have one or two that haven't completely disintegrated yet.

Cabbitdancer, I'm glad I'm not the only one with family who leave clothes in odd places.  The other day DH was all "I can't find my gym shorts" and I sort of said "whatever, if they were in the hamper they got washed and put away, check that they didn't fall off your shelf" and then the next day I found them under a pile of DD's school papers on the spare kitchen chairs.   And every time I vacuum under the coffee table (which is kind of a chest thing, so you can't see under it unless you move it, I find more of DD's socks.

And yay Hobbit movie!!! I am so looking forward to going to that with DD.

I just got back from an appt with my midwife.  We talked about the glucose tolerance test and whatnot and eventually came to the conclusion that I'd skip it for now due to the orange-flavour-barfing problem, but as the suggested diet for gestational diabetes control isn't significantly different from my regular diet, I should probably just do that anyway.  At the next appt she wants to see my blood glucose numbers from my own measurements just to make sure that it's staying pretty steady and she asked me to try to space out my meals/snacks better which I have to admit makes sense.  I'm not much of a snacker or a grazer but I know I really do have a problem in that the majority of my food intake happens between 11:30 am and 6 pm - after that I completely forget about food and don't usually WANT to eat anything until late breakfast the next day... which is fine, in normal life, but really not so good for pregnancy.  She agrees with me that my high fasting numbers (and lack of appetite in the morning) are likely due to my body kicking into ketosis in the early morning hours which isn't good for the baby.  So, I will set a reminder bing to go off on my phone ever night around 9 to remind me to eat before bed, eat smaller lunches and slightly bigger dinners (seriously - last night I had like 3 meatballs in sauce for dinner and was full.)  Ugh.  I've never been an evening snacker.  I guess I will have to get used to it.  However, I haven't gained any real weight since my last appt 4 weeks ago (scale showed me up one lb but I reeeeally had to pee bad, I bet if I'd stepped on it after that lb wouldn't have been there!) so obviously I'm not sitting on my couch eating bonbons all day so I don't think she's terribly worried.  I think my second trimester gain so far is about 3 lbs.  And, if I stick closely to the GD diet, I'm probably going to start losing weight.  I hope my mw is okay with that - well, she'll have to be.  I should clarify - it's not going to cause ME any trauma but I hope it's not a source of contention between us.  I like my mw and I want her to be happy and relaxed

Interesting... I was at my friend's birth last night (which was awesome!!! She invited me to be her doula (I'm not a certified doula, but I am an RN/IBCLC and birth nut) and it was so fun to witness my first out of hospital birth.  Anyway, after the baby was born, I was chatting with her midwife about how I am high risk for gestational diabetes because I've had two large babies (9.5 lbs), I was a big baby (10 lb 8oz) and my mom has type 2 diabetes.  I passed the glucose screening (and the 3 hr GTT last time) with both kids, but I still think there is some hidden insulin resistance going on.  Anyway-- she gave me like the OPPOSITE advice.  She told me to cut out refined carbs and increase my protein intake but to also eat the majority of my calories BEFORE 3pm.  To eat a large, protein-rich breakfast, a bigger lunch, and a very small dinner.  I guess I have some more research to do!  I REALLY want to avoid a GD diagnosis, since it would risk me out of home birth, and I wouldn't mind giving birth to a smaller baby this time!

[maydaymom10]

Originally Posted by spughy 

Scruffy that is awesome about your DSS's room clean-out.  And I totally agree that the attitude of cleaning because YOU want to clean is important to keep in mind - but it actually really stresses DH out when the place is a mess.  As the stay-at-home parent, it IS my responsibility - but I just don't know where he (or DD) want all their stuff, and if I DO put things away, I just end up badgered about where stuff is, so I stopped doing it.  Anyway, as *I* see it my job is to do things like vacuuming, dusting, cleaning floors, keeping the bathroom non-frightening, the kitchen basically sanitary, etc.  Those things are much, much harder to do when there is a layer of toys & tools over everything. (As another example of DH's inability to "think tidy" - he'll happily haul out the vacuum and run it around the living room, shoving toys and shoes and whatnot sort of out of the way with the vacuum head while he's doing it. I just can't do that.  I need the floor empty before it's vacuumable - and if that takes me an extra 20 minutes, that's 20 minutes I don't have to spend on actual cleaning.)  I don't think me picking up after DH and DD is doing either of them any favours.

This is a great thought process. I'm new to the whole SAHM-thing and cleaning is something I just don't like. But, I'm trying to adopt the mindset that it is now my job to keep the house cleaned and picked up. DH gets stressed with a cluttered house, so I'm at least trying to keep the downstair picked up when he comes home in the evening & keep the dishes from piling up. The kitchen doesn't bother me to clean because it's a pet peeve of mine to cook in a cluttered kitchen. The thing that gets me is when I do bust my butt picking up, wiping down, doing dishes and laundry, it never fails that DH will freak out on the weekends and decide that the whole house needs a deep clean. Then he stressed and gets upset over "losing" his weekend to cleaning. He doesn't seem to understand or appreciate the daily work that goes into the house, so then his frustration pisses me off. I could put in a little more effort during the week - deep cleaning a bathroom (toilets & such) and giving the house a good vacuum, but I'm not going to go overboard. I just wish we could find a happy medium.

Originally Posted by jodieanneanton 

Moving sucked.  It still does.  I decided I have a strong distaste for moving. I have never worked so hard in all my life, but the good (GREAT) news is that I have a larger house (larger to me... It is still only 750 sq ft.  But we also have an attic now for storage and our last place was much much smaller).  We decided to paint and carpet (which I could do none of) in the 3 days before moving furniture and other things.  So now, after we get organized, we are done! :D  After Christmas, I will tackle sewing projects for the house like curtains and such to put the finishing touches on the house.  I am looking forward to that! :D   

Congrats on your move! I'm glas to hear that you're fairly settled. 

Originally Posted by writermama12 

I have been out of the loop for a while, too. Finished my thesis and turned it in!! I am totally done and going to graduate in Feb. Also, DH and I took our first overnight away in Boston to celebrate our 5th anniversary. It was GREAT. Saw a play, ate at an amazing restaurant, made love TWICE, oh man...it was hard to make ourselves go home. 

However, I am in a rather anxious place with my weight, as I've written about before. I have decided to really try hard to make changes that might impact my weight without sacrificing nutrients, so I've cut out all refined carbs/sugar (even though I wasn't eating much of those), cut down my daily carb intake to 150g per day (I was eating 250-300g before), making sure I walk every day, and I am watching my calories closely. This is no fun, but I hope I manage to slow down my 2.5lb per week gain I've been averaging this trimester. If I can stay under a 50 lb gain this time, I will feel very successful and healthy. We'll see. I don't have access to a scale so I won't know if my alterations are working for another three weeks. 

First, congrats on finishing your thesis! Having done one before, I know that must be quite the relief to have it off your plate. And happy anniversary. I'm glad you got to celebrate with your DH.

Second - the weight issue. Boy I had an interesting conversations about this with some fellow doulas the other nights. I've also been stressing out about my weight, although I'm beginning to realize that I'm really in a good place right now. I just feel big & I've gained more than I did with DS. DH is nagging me to get to the gym (which is funny since I'll be teaching a prenatal fitness class beginning next week) and complaining about our diet - which isn't too bad. He just chooses some unhealthy lunch and snack options. Anyway, we were planning on starting the "100 Days of Real Food" plan on Dec. 1. Yesterday I realized that this would be a great time to begin as I'm about 100 days out from my EDD. What a challenge. I'm hoping that refocusing my efforts on the quality of food that is going in my body will help me stress less about the weight going on. Weight from good, natural food isn't going to be as difficult to lose after the fact. That being said, I'm trying to clean my house of processed foods now and am going back to eating my frozen pizza. 

Originally Posted by Chapsie 

Interesting... I was at my friend's birth last night (which was awesome!!! She invited me to be her doula (I'm not a certified doula, but I am an RN/IBCLC and birth nut) and it was so fun to witness my first out of hospital birth.  Anyway, after the baby was born, I was chatting with her midwife about how I am high risk for gestational diabetes because I've had two large babies (9.5 lbs), I was a big baby (10 lb 8oz) and my mom has type 2 diabetes.  I passed the glucose screening (and the 3 hr GTT last time) with both kids, but I still think there is some hidden insulin resistance going on.  Anyway-- she gave me like the OPPOSITE advice.  She told me to cut out refined carbs and increase my protein intake but to also eat the majority of my calories BEFORE 3pm.  To eat a large, protein-rich breakfast, a bigger lunch, and a very small dinner.  I guess I have some more research to do!  I REALLY want to avoid a GD diagnosis, since it would risk me out of home birth, and I wouldn't mind giving birth to a smaller baby this time!

I know a lot of people who follow the Brewers Pregnancy Diet to help avoid GD issues. I know that Joy Jones has some wonderful info on preventing GD through this diet & nutrition in general on the website. I still find it hard to get all of the protein that the diet recommends, but I like to use it as a general guideline for what I'm putting in my mouth on a daily basis - variety & such. From the conversations that I've had with doulas, midwives, and nutritionist, I know that there are lot of philosophies in this area. Have fun researching. Also, just remember that some women just have big babies (which I know you knowing being an RN/IBCLC). It doesn't necessarily mean that you'll get GD. Good luck!

AFM - I'm finally getting over a touch of a GI bug that DS had. No fun, but am thankful that it didn't turn into something worse. I talked with DH a bit last night about how we need to start talking about this baby coming -- the birth, who we want there, etc. He agreed, so I think I'm going to feel more settled once those conversations start taking place. Other than that it's been pretty uneventful around here. I'll take it!

[jodieanneanton]

Originally Posted by maydaymom10 
 That being said, I'm trying to clean my house of processed foods now and am going back to eating my frozen pizza. 

Great!  Now I want frozen pizza.  lol.  Good thing today is shopping day!!! :D 

AFM- Nothing new to report.  While I moved, I had a really really nasty bug (prob resporitory flu) that really did a umber on me!  (Despite all my best efforts!)  I am still struggling with the leftovers of that and hoping it will go away soon.  I have been really wanting to go to bed by 9 each night, but since there is sooo much to do, I have been putting that off and organizing/unpacking instead.  Probably not the most brilliant of ideas! :/ 

I hope you all have a wonderful day today!

[spughy]

Chapsie - what was the rationale for eating the bulk of your daily food before 3?  I would certainly prefer to do that - it's how my body naturally prefers to eat - but why??? 

Cabbitdancer - thanks for the heads-up about the "dawn syndrome" thing.  I will certainly keep an eye on that!  I had no idea.

Busy days ahead for us - tomorrow DD has the day off school for parent-teacher interviews so there'll be a lot of running around, picking up and dropping off her and DH so she can go to grandmas while DH and I got talk to her teachers... not that that's likely to be stressful or anything, she's enjoying school a lot this year and we haven't got any concerns and from just chatting casually with her teachers I can tell THEY don't have any concerns either - but it's still a lot of busying around.  And I have to start getting things packed and ready for our trip.  Fortunately the house is already sort of tidy so there's not a ton of work to do there, but I have to make extra pet food... fortunately my sister can stay with the pets so I don't have to organize much else on that score.  Then on Monday morning at an obscenely early hour we get on a plane and fly to Honolulu and I plunk my bum on the beach for 10 days.

Jodie I hope you're feeling better soon!  Take it easy.

[Chapsie]

Originally Posted by spughy 

Chapsie - what was the rationale for eating the bulk of your daily food before 3?  I would certainly prefer to do that - it's how my body naturally prefers to eat - but why??? 

Spughy, I'm not sure.  It didn't make sense to me either, but everything I've since read supports what your midwife told you about eating at regular intervals throughout the day and having a light snack before bed.  The midwife did suggest reading Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon (a cookbook/nutrition text) which may be where she got that idea?  She said something about the before 3pm thing being better about balancing out the placental hormones that affect insulin resistance but that doesnt make sense to me.  I am meeting with my own midwife on Monday and I definitely am going to have a long chat with her about this!  :)  

[writermama12]

mayday, and others talking about nutrition/diet, Since I last posted about my weight issues and modifying my diet, I have gotten back on track with the Brewer diet and also use the Nourishing Traditions book frequently to prepare foods. I also have incorporated some principles of the GD diet. I also cut down my carbs because I personally think that is contributing to my excessive gain. I am finding it rather easy to fulfill the protein requirements since cutting down on carbs-- I eat more fat and protein, and really only find it kind of hard to meet my calorie needs now and keep carbs in check. I feel great this week however! I have more energy, I've been consistently walking once or twice a day and have been preparing more sophisticated homemade meals, which is fun and tiring. I think I am also way less stressed out about my weight now that I FEEL like I am doing everything in my power to live healthfully. Like you said Mayday, if I keep gaining 2.5 lbs per week on only healthy food, it is sooo much better for both me and babe and will drop off faster after the birth. I am glowing, really. 

I also eat every two hours now, have a bedtime snack, regulate how many carbs I get each meal, eat smaller meals, and combine carbs with protein and fat. I never really paid attention to this stuff before, but now I am paying close attention to what and how I eat. My daily foods look like nuts, plain goat yogurt, berries, raw goat milk, sprouted grain toast with butter, coconut manna, meat, eggs, cooked veggies, salad, avocado, and crackers with sour creme (which I crave). I eat each of these every day. 

Anyhow, thought I'd throw out my improved diet and update in a few weeks about how its going. (secretly, though, I hope it slows down the gain! otherwise, this is gonna be a rough few months)