All the Sun For You

A mom, two boys, a husband, and a whole lot of adventure!

Category Archives: Family


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First Family 5K

I signed our entire family up for a charity chocolate run this morning. It was a stroller-friendly 5k that wasn’t timed, and had chocolate afterwards. In other words, it was the perfect race for our family! We picked up our race packets yesterday and received loads of handmade chocolates and coupons for more chocolate. YES!

I borrowed a friend’s BOB for Matthew to ride with Hottie and we bundled the kids up (double everything) before hitting the start line. Bryson was asleep by the first mile and Matthew was shouting to get out of the stroller at about the same time. Ha!

Matthew had a kids race afterwards and his medal was solid chocolate. Oh boy! He’s already asking to do another race! He’ll be disappointed next time that there are no chocolate dipped bananas, fancy hot cocoa, biscoff cookies, and chocolate medals afterwards!  


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Something Has Changed

This post has been LONG in the making.  Weeks?  Months?  I’m not really sure.  But something has been brewing around in my head for a long time that needed to be worked out before even verbalizing it to anyone (including Hottie).

Recent happenings, recent conversations, recent feelings have all driven me to change my mind on something really big.  I never saw this coming, but when it did come, it happened just like everyone said it would.

“You will just KNOW.  You will have an overwhelming feeling that you finally know, and that you’re at peace with whatever your decision is.”

And I know now.  I’m at peace.  I’m happy about it.

There will be no more Courtney/Hottie babies.  We are done growing our family.  Our little family of four is feeling pretty darned complete.

****

I told one friend about this last weekend and her response was, “really?  You were so sure you wanted three!”  That’s a normal reaction – I think it myself a lot of the time.  I started suspecting that this was coming when I noticed that I’d stopped daydreaming about what we would name our third baby, and when I noticed that, I thought to myself, “but you really WANT three.”  But I realized that maybe I didn’t really want three anymore, and then I started wondering why I no longer seemed to want to have three.

There are so many reasons for this decision, and when I finally had the nerve to bring it up with Hottie, he agreed with all of my reasons 100%.

****

We went out for a late(r) dinner on Friday night with the kids after Matthew’s swimming lesson.  We had to (gasp!) wait for a table and that went remarkably well.  The kids ran around and played and had a great time while we waited with other groups of people, and it was relaxing.  Once seated, we looked around at the full restaurant and smiled at each other, and Hottie said, “isn’t it fun to be out with lots of people for a later dinner on a Friday?  We’re finally there!”  And I said, “I have something to talk to you about.”

Right there, with the kids beside us and hundreds of people surrounding us, Hottie and I had a very rational, unemotional conversation about where we are right now, how we feel about our family, how we feel about each other, and how we’re both happy with the current state of our family.  I felt relieved that it was finally out there.  This was a pretty tough thing to work through on my own, but I knew I needed to really know how I felt about it before discussing it with Hottie.

****

There are so many reasons for this decision.  I hate listing them out in a list because it just feels cold.  Coming to this conclusion was the furthest thing from being a cold, hardened process.

I have been concerned about health and safety lately.  I have a uterine issue that could, ultimately, kill me and/or an unborn baby if things went wrong.  We unknowingly had that risk with Bryson, and had I labored at all prior to my scheduled C-section, the outcome could have been horrific.  Two doctors told us that laboring prior to delivery would have likely killed one or both of us.  I have brushed that thought aside for over a year because I really wanted another baby and the doctors said that we could most likely manage a future pregnancy with monitoring and careful planning.  But lately, I’ve been thinking, “it would be awful to start laboring at home, feel the rupture, and know all along that this did not need to happen.”  Knowing that there is a very real risk to having a third baby should be enough to stop me.  It hasn’t been enough, but at the end of the day, that really is the deciding factor for me.  Hottie has always been concerned about this and is relieved that I’ve finally realized the severity of this myself.

I love my two kids.  I don’t like to leave them too often and would almost always rather have them with me than without me.  I have friends who don’t feel this way about parenting, and it boggles my mind (but I don’t judge because we’re all different – I just cannot relate).  I have friends who get sitters or drop their kids at the gym daycare every single day so that they can get away from their kids – and I don’t understand that.  I take my kids to Tar.get and the grocery store – it’s what we do!  I take them to lunch every day, and we love it!  I want them with me!  Sure, I need a break here and there, but for the most part, we’re a unit.  I was talking to one of my friends a while back about this (a friend who does get breaks from her kids daily) and she said, “a third changes everything.  I started yelling more, I needed more “me time,” I became more withdrawn.  If you’re thinking you may be done with two, I’d suggest you really give it some thought.  You’re the mother I’m not – and having a third could change you into the mother you don’t want to be.”  This conversation was so important to me – because she’s right.  I have watched so many people go from two to three kids and this very thing happened – they went into survival mode and their parenting changed.  I’ve been yelling a lot lately (but have been better in the last week) because three years old is so hard for us all – and I have thought, “if I have another baby, I’ll be yelling for the next 4-5 years until that last baby is four or five.”  I don’t want to be frazzled and yelling for that long.

I’m scared to death of having a girl.  Not because girls are bad or undesirable in any way, but because that would be like starting all over again from scratch.  I’ve got this boy thing figured out – even though my two boys are entirely different people, they are both similar in their love for trucks, sports, and each other.  A girl would be the odd-man-out and that would make me sad.  These boys are “as thick as thieves” and I just cannot wrap my head around having a child who doesn’t have that with a sibling, and that could very easily happen if our third was a girl.  Heck, that could happen if our third was another boy.  You never know, but there is a part of me that doesn’t WANT to know.  I love my harmonious little set of boys just how they are!

Babysitters are so easy to find right now.  People love watching two kids – they offer it up without you asking!  Hottie and I have gone out on dates more in the last 2 months than we did in the year prior.  We escaped out-of-town last weekend because a friend ASKED to take the kids for a weekend.  If you talk to my sisters and friends with 3 kids, they’ll tell you that people, including grandparents, stopped offering to watch the kids once #3 arrived.  Three kids can be daunting for babysitters and family members, and honestly, I don’t know that I’d be comfortable leaving three kids until the youngest was at least one.  I remember being a babysitter and it was exponentially harder with three kids than it was with two, and that terrifies me as a parent.  We enjoy getting out together, we enjoy taking a night or two to ourselves, and the prospect of that becoming harder is not something that makes me happy.

Travel – oh how we wish we could travel more with the boys.  We wish that the kids were at a point where I could bring them with me to meet Hottie out in Seattle or wherever else he may be for a work trip.  We are SO CLOSE right now to that being possible – like NEXT SUMMER close!  I would have no fears of traveling with the two boys without Hottie – but I can’t say I’d be willing to do it with three.  Actually, I know I wouldn’t be willing to do it until they were all much older.  Hottie travels to fun places enough that this is something that I’m ready to do ASAP – and next summer’s trip to Seattle will be the trial trip for me.  It will involve a layover, each boy having their own seat on the plane, and no breastfeeding.  It is time.  It is time to move on and travel with these kids!  We’re all ready!

And while I’m talking about travel, Hottie’s work schedule now involves travel every other week for anywhere from 3-5 days at a time.  This is exhausting for me – bedtime is our worst time of the day when Hottie’s gone and it makes me feel like a bad mom.  No one wants to end their kids’ days on a bad/stressful note.  I honestly know that I don’t want to handle a third child with this current travel schedule.  I know that Hottie won’t travel like this all the time, but the reality of being pregnant, tending to a newborn with two other boys who need me, or getting up in the night multiple times when I’m solo parenting is not something that I care to take on.  I can’t take it on – it wouldn’t be fair to anyone.

We really, really want to be able to consider private school for the boys.  Unfortunately for us, the school we would send them to is about twice as expensive as the other private schools in our area.  Paying to send two children to this school is do-able and palatable.  Paying for three children to go to this private school would not be an option for us.  We like having the resources to travel, buy fun things, eat nice meals, etc. and paying $21,000 a year for three kids to attend private grade school would hinder all of that.  Life experiences are too important to us and to our children to limit them if at all avoidable.  This may seem petty to some, but it’s important to us.  Part of growing your family and deciding how large it will be has to do with deciding what is and is not important to you in regards to how you bring those kids up and what you expose them to.  At the end of the day, we may decide to send the boys to the public schools here, but we want to make that decision based on education and not financial resources.

One thing that worries me about having a third is that those embryos are all we have – there will be no more.  If, God forbid, something bad happened to one of the boys, we could maybe do genetic diagnostics on those embryos to try to have a baby that could help our boys.  I’m only willing to thaw them once since they are all we have.  They are precious to me for many reasons, but they are most precious because they are all we have.  They are our only chances if something bad would happen in the future.  I like knowing that they are there for us, and that we are there for them.  They are so much more than potential children – they are hope.

One of the biggest reasons for me wanting to be done at two children is that Hottie and I are in a really great place right now.  I feel like we’re finally “back amongst the living” and we’re really enjoying each other.  We go on dates, we leave town together, we listen to each other because the kids don’t require AS MUCH as they used to, we do nice things for each other, and we just really LIKE each other.  It took a lot of work to get back to this place – infertility really took a toll on us and then parenting young babies and kids just continued to deteriorate our relationship.  We feel like we’re back where we were before we were told we couldn’t have children easily – and that feels really, REALLY good.  Adding an IVF/FET cycle to our lives would only add stress, and adding another baby would take us right back to survival mode which is not where we want to be.  I like Hottie too much to mess this up!

As I was contemplating all of this, we received news that a friend had just delivered their second baby who was unexpectedly born with a difficult, painful disease.  That news sucked the air right out of both of us – it was so hard to even think about what that would be like.  We can’t imagine living it.  We have two healthy boys after years of infertility and invasive treatments.  We are lucky.  We won the lottery twice.  How awful would it be to go for a third and possibly lose it, or lose my own life, or have a rough road in front of all of us because of a health issue with the baby?  I always worried that we’d try for a third and we’d have a late-in-pregnancy loss (stillbirth is my worst nightmare) or the baby would die of SIDS or be born with poor health.  I don’t want to risk our current “easy” family life for something that could devastate us and possibly kill one or more of us.  How awful would it be to have a uterine rupture and know that it was avoidable?  How awful would it be to lose our final baby in its sleep?  I just can’t fathom it – and knowing that I can’t have a 4th pregnancy, I just don’t want to risk it.  I don’t want to finish growing our family with a tragedy or great devastation.  That’s senseless to me.

****

Hottie seemed almost relieved when I told him my thoughts.  He is so concerned about my safety and health with a third pregnancy, and we both know that I wouldn’t enjoy being pregnant because of the risk involved with it.  Every twinge, every pain, every “has the baby moved recently” scare, every ultrasound would bring stress and fear.  The odds of the pregnancy ending in tragedy are… well… I don’t even know.  But I do know that we “dodged a bullet” (doctor’s words) with Bryson’s pregnancy and neither of us wants to risk that again.  Why would we?  I was in denial for 16 months, but I’m not anymore.

****

I’m ready to sell off our baby stuff.  When a friend asked how sure I was of this decision, I said, “I want to have a garage sale next weekend!”  Hottie has asked me not to sell a thing since I could change my mind like I just did.

We agreed to hold onto things for a year.


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Girl On/Not On Fire

When I get done with a workout here at home or at the Y, I stretch to “Girl on Fire.”  The first time I heard it during exercise was at the Y and it made me stop and really focus on what I was doing.  I’ve always loved the song, but listening to it as you stretch and stretch and stretch… it’s  empowering.

I don’t always get the chance to stretch here at home because Bryson is usually waking up as I’m wrapping up my workout, but when I do get a chance, I almost feel giddy.  I look forward to my deep, long stretches and I set a timer for 5 minutes.  I have “Girl on Fire” on repeat and I get to it.  Today, I even got to squeak in an extra core workout (12 minutes) before stretching, and I felt really good about getting a full 6 minutes of stretching in before Bryson finally woke up (naps are getting better here).

****

I feel like I’m on fire right now in many regards.  The fall is here, school has started, and routines are back in play.  I feel good whenever we stick to a (good) routine.  Because school is Mon-Wed, Thursday ends up being a “catch-up day” of all the things that need to get done before the weekend – things like taking the boys bowling, getting groceries for the weekend, running to Target for cat litter, etc.  Friday morning has no routine until speech at 11:30.  We usually get out of the house once Bryson wakes up around 10:30 or so.  And I’ll admit it right here and now – we go out to lunch every day together, the boys and I.  It’s my favorite thing in the world to do.

Things in the house are pretty calm and organized.  Yes, there is a bill that is a touch late (just writing that made me go pay it, and the two other bills due later this month) and the drying rack of kids’ dishes is always full, but the dishes are always clean, laundry is always done, toys are always picked up, and the yard is always mowed.  The house has its weak spots like the mud room, the pantry, the 5th bedroom downstairs where all baby things go to hibernate before they’re needed again (??) – but everything else is pretty under control and that’s nice.  No one ever goes without clean jammies or jeans, and that’s a big accomplishment given that the boys wear fresh jeans and jammies daily (and their jeans are line dried).

My commitment to my own health and fitness is unwavering and strong.  I hated missing a workout yesterday, but I reminded myself that my goal is 6 days a week and rest days are good… necessary.  My workouts have been intense and I just make them harder and harder every day – the slogan printed on the inside soles of my shoes has truly motivated me (“Be Better Than Yesterday”).  I’m very competitive with myself and always push myself to run a little bit faster, a little bit further than the last time.  Getting my butt out for a run or to the garage for a killer workout is not a problem for me.

Hottie and I talked yesterday about will power and we both agreed that I have a tremendous amount of it.  If I tell myself that I don’t want to eat something, then I don’t eat it.  If I tell myself that I’m not going to do something, then I don’t do it.  It’s that simple.  I can stick to most anything I put my mind to like it’s nobody’s business, and I’m a champ at delaying gratification.  This is probably my greatest strength, come to think of it.  My parents pushed this hard with us (“save your favorite part for last, don’t rush to the good stuff, get the hard/not fun stuff out of the way first”) and I am truly grateful to them for that.  That will power is keeping me from eating stupid things.  I haven’t had fried food, aside from a few things while in Colorado, in 16 weeks.  SIXTEEN WEEKS.  That’s huge for me because I love nothing more (NOTHING MORE) than McD.onald’s fries.  That is a fact.  I haven’t had Mexican food in 16 weeks aside from “fresh Mexican” places like Chip.otle and Pan.cheros because the sit-down restaurants keep your chip bowl fully loaded and I do not have will power in that regard – so we just don’t go anymore.  We committed to cooking Paleo at home and aside from the cheese fondue and apple pie earlier this week, we’ve stuck to it!  How and what we eat couldn’t be going better.

Speaking of eating – I am totally in a groove when it comes to planning meals and cooking during the week.  I don’t even need to prep food anymore when the kids nap because I’ve got the timing down to have dinner on the table at 6:00 every night.  I figured this would happen with time, but I’m really glad that it did end up happening.  We don’t ever struggle on “what’s for dinner” because I have it planned out for the week on Sunday night.  “What do you want for dinner” used to cause probably 70% of our fights before I started cooking dinner here at home.  I’m serious.

Hottie and I had a great trip to Colorado and are planning to leave again next weekend for a night out of town.  We learned while in Colorado that we need to get away together – that we need to hit pause and have a few days and nights of “the old days” without kids.  It’s amazing how quickly we started to not notice each other once we got home from that trip.  There is just so much going on that by the time Hottie gets home from a hard day at work and I finally get to sit down (9:00 PM), we’re both exhausted.  That’s not good, but it is how things tend to be with small kids, so we need to carve out time to not be with those small kids.  And we’re doing great at that!

****

I’m not so on fire when it comes to parenting.  The age of three is killing me slowly.  I have been losing my patience with Matthew too quickly because he’s become quite demanding and whiny.  I know this is normal, but honestly – I just didn’t think this would happen.  Most kids get this way before they’re three, so I thought maybe he just wasn’t going to be the typical whiny, domineering kid.  I was wrong.  HA HA!  He hits and kicks me when I try to get him dressed in the morning, he’s bossy with Bryson (under the guise of helping Mom), he’s pushy at school, he whines a lot, and he’s gotten sassy.  He tells me, “Mommy, no talk to me that way AGAIN!” while wagging his finger at me.  What???

I would say that 70% of the time, Matthew is delighting me with kisses, hugs, snuggles, jokes, dances, protecting his brother, and just being sweet and loving.  He is hilarious and he loves to make people laugh.  No one is a stranger to him and he asks me to roll the window down so he can say hi to everyone.  I oblige because why not?  That’s sweet and awesome!  He is the most affectionate kid I’ve ever known and this is seconded by his teachers and instructors – he hugs and kisses them like they’re his family and he loves to hug and “tiff” (kiss) his friends.  He is so dang sweet that it makes me feel awful when I lose my temper with him. But I do lose my temper.

I’ve been yelling way too much.  Way too much.  I told myself two days ago that I was done yelling and I did great for almost 48 hours – but then Bryson almost landed on his head from a nudge from Matthew and I raised my voice.  Sigh.  At least I’m not yelling as much.  Much of what Matthew recounts to Hottie about his day is that, “Mommy got mad when I…” and that makes me feel awful.  AWFUL.  So the yelling has to stop, or be majorly reduced.  In the 48 hours of no yelling, Matthew was a better behaved boy who seemed more calm.

I need to stop yelling.

****

I’m also not “killing it” in regards to being engaging with Hottie.  The poor guy comes home to a wife who is tired and on her last nerve, and I’m usually finishing up dinner as he’s walking in.  Kids need to be put in their chairs, drinks need to be poured, food needs to be cut for the kids, and I just want to sit down and not talk.  Hottie gets the drive home to decompress, and that sometimes isn’t enough for him to “get over” his work day.  I don’t get that drive home.  I don’t get that quiet time to myself to think about whatever I want, uninterrupted (I know that Hottie thinks about work for most of the drive home, but he gets to do it in quiet).  I sometimes just want to sit and eat and not talk, and that does not make a husband feel good.

We moved the kids’ bedtimes earlier and it’s working great for Bryson, but horrible for Matthew.  Since the change, he’s delaying bedtime by asking for a different cup, more kisses (how do you say no?  I can’t.), medicine for his headache (he doesn’t have a headache), etc. each night.  He wasn’t asleep tonight until 9:40, and Hottie and I both sat and watched the monitor until he was asleep.  No conversation took place because we were too focused on Matthew’s movements in bed (“is he just tossing or getting out again?”).  It’s exhausting.  And again, I just want to sit in the quiet and not talk.  Not talk.  Not talk.

Reconnecting is so important – something we need to focus on weekly.  Once the earlier bedtimes settle down, I hope we can get back to our evening chats and laughter.  That was nice.  I miss it.  And that is why we moved the bedtimes earlier – so we could have MORE of the fun stuff together each night.  It’s not working out that way.  It will.  But it’s damn exhausting right now.

****

I hope to God I get to stretch again tomorrow.


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Success On Many Fronts

We’re home from our trip.

There is so much to say about our time away:

I cried in the driveway but never again, I SPENT HOURS AND HOURS PUMPING WITH A PLUGGED DUCT, we ate like fools (and kings), WE WALKED EVERYWHERE, the festival made us feel old and off our games, WE MET UP WITH OUR FUN FRIENDS 3 OF THE 4 DAYS THERE, Bryson got very sick with a nasty fever and vomiting but recovered after 2 days, BOTH BOYS DID JUST FINE WITHOUT US, my in-laws were exhausted when we got home, WE ABSOLUTELY LOVE THAT PART OF COLORADO, we had the time of our lives together, I “DONATED” MY PUMPED MILK AFTER BEING DISTRAUGHT OVER DUMPING 11 OUNCES DOWN THE DRAIN, Bryson did not wean himself one bit while I was gone (yay!), WE ALMOST FORGOT TO CALL HOME ON SATURDAY, neither of us slept well at all, WE’RE READY TO TAKE ANOTHER TRIP WITHOUT THE BOYS, we fell in love all over again.

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A Week of Transition

Next week, summer will officially be over in this house.

I’m sort of sad about it.

We had a really great, busy summer – the type of summer I always envisioned with kids.  Weekend trips away, full weeks of summer camps, swimming lessons, trips to the parks and zoo, and a bunch of other random things thrown in there.  Bryson changed leaps and bounds and turned into a bona fide toddler – walking, more talking, stacking blocks, holding his own with his brother, and turning into quite the comedian.  Matthew turned into a big kid overnight – learning to be confident in the water, becoming an excellent talker (you’d never know there was ever a delay there!), mastering how to introduce himself to strangers and soliciting their names in return, and deciding that “I’ll do it myself!” is his preferred way to do EVERYTHING.  Hottie and I somehow found our way out of a rather concerning slump and ended the summer completely in love with one another once again.

So yeah – a little sad to see it end.

But with this seasonal change, our routine is changing too and that’s a great thing!  Matthew starts school again on Tuesday and will be going three half-days a week this year.  I’m going to be his “room mother” – something I’ve wanted to do since we started talking about school but knew it would be too much last year with a new Bryson in the mix.  Hottie’s role is changing a bit at work and he’s looking forward to the change, even if it means a loftier quota goal.  He’s always up for the biggest challenges, and never fails.  We’ll see how this year goes, but I have high hopes for him!  I’m full-on back into my own health and fitness and have a lot of goals of my own in that department, as well as goals to not make things all about me, me, me while sticking to my health goals.  I am a mother, first and foremost, after all!  If I can find time to go to the gym every day, I can find time and ways to keep my kids engaged and soaking up the good stuff that life has to offer!

So this past week has been about transition.

Hottie had to take a work trip to NYC to better engage one of his clients, all while taking part in this fiscal year’s planning meetings remotely.  The timing wasn’t great for him or his partner, but they made it work well enough.  Kicking off the fiscal year is always a time of stress and extra work for Hottie and all of his coworkers – but it’s also a time of intense energy and optimism!

Matthew had his sneak-a-peak at school on Wednesday and was very excited to meet his new teacher (and sad to finally realize that he’s not going to see Mrs. E and Mrs. Y every day – he loved his teachers last year!).  He did great meeting Mrs. S and Mrs. M and introduced himself to them like a pro!  His new classroom is twice as large as last year’s, and I’m excited for him to have more space to explore.  He’s already talking about going to Mrs. S’s “house” next week (everything is a house – the pork house, the chicken house, the yogurt house, Katie’s house (our hair stylist), etc.) and is super excited to play with his new friends!

Bryson is getting more comfortable with his mobility and is making me very aware that parenting him is going to be an entirely different experience than was parenting Matthew.  He is so adventurous and always trusts that he’ll land on his feet (I hope he always does, literally and figuratively).  He is so hilarious, even though he only has 10 words.  He’s going to keep me very entertained when Matthew is in school!  Bryson is still needing two naps a day, but sometimes he takes just one.  Poor kid – he’s always in the car!  This fall is going to be one of big-time effort kicking that one night-time feeding and probably weaning him.  I just don’t think he’ll sleep through the night until he’s weaned.  He likes to have a visit from mama (and her boobs).

I’ve spent the last week fine-tuning my fitness plan and finally have it worked out to not interfere with school and to maximize my one-on-one time with Bryson while Matthew’s in school.  We bought a punching bag for the garage and I started running this week, so I’ll do those things on strength days and then serious cardio 3-4 days a week at the Y.  I’ll still be going to the Y probably 6 days a week, but at times that work better for the boys.  I’ve also taken a step back from a friendship this week that was becoming a bit toxic.  I need to write a post all about that, just to get it out, but it’s worth a mention because I’ve been trying to find a way to step back for months but finally found a way yesterday – during transition week.

Like I mentioned earlier, Hottie and I have really found our ways back to one another.  We left the boys overnight for the first time ever last Saturday in preparation for our trip to Colorado without them in two weeks.  We plan to leave them again later in the fall for a weekend.  We’ve been going out on more dates and have been really making each other a priority – and it feels great!  We’re getting back into fitness together – the entire reason we met in the first place – and are working out together whenever we can.  When I finished my 10 week fitness program on Saturday, Hottie and I went out for our night without the boys and he had a card for me that was so nice and so thoughtful – that I cried.  He texted me last night after the frustrating exchange with my friend and told me that I’m a great mom and “AWESOME wife” – something I’m not sure he’s said much in the last couple of years (man, having young kids is hard on relationships, isn’t it?  How do we forget to care properly for one another?).  I know I’m riding on a high here, but it feels like a great transition that we desperately needed.

Change is good.  Change is necessary.  Change is the name of the game.  I’m just glad we took a week to really focus on the transition and embrace what the changes mean.  So often, things change without us noticing, but I knew back on 8/1 that this week would be one of reflection and transition – and it’s been good!

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10 Weeks in Review

I don’t know what to say right now.  I’ve spent the last 10 weeks working my ass off and eating as intelligently as possible.  I’ve enjoyed it immensely and was completely wrapped up in the challenge.  These last 10 weeks gave me my “normal” self back – the Courtney I was before we found out that we couldn’t have babies the normal way.  The healthy and active Courtney I was before infertility became the focus of our lives (for 2+ years before conceiving Matthew, and then again as we ramped up for Bryson).

I feel like myself again in my own skin.  I feel good.  I feel strong.  I feel proud!

I didn’t win the $1,000 challenge.  My stats blew the winner away and the photos – well – they speak for themselves.  BUT – even though I was in it to win it (and I am so competitive with myself and others, it’s ridiculous), I’m so proud of what I accomplished in 10 weeks.

I’ve broken down the data in many ways because I know I’ll want to look back on this someday and not have to run all of the numbers.

Here are my 10-week stats:

2014 Stats

  • I lost a total of 21.5 inches over my entire body!
  • I lost 25 pounds exactly (but 26.2 on the gym’s scale)
  • I lost 8.1% body fat (23.9% of the fat I was carrying 10 weeks ago)
  • I lost 3.93 points in BMI and am now in the healthy range
  • I more than doubled my push-ups (ended at 78)
  • I did not double my sit-ups 😦
  • I gained 2.5 inches in flexibility
  • I took 2:21 off my mile time!

Here is a comparison of my first 10 weeks (over 8 years ago!) to this most recent 10 weeks:

2006VS2014

  • I lost 2 inches more in my chest, 4 in my waist, 1 in each arm, and 0.5 in each thigh this time around.
  • My hips aren’t as small as they were 8 years ago (surprise!)
  • I started 6.8 pounds heavier this time around and ended up 5.6 pounds lighter!
  • I ended up 2.1% lower in body fat this time around
  • I lost 0.7% more body fat this time around
  • I finished way stronger in push-ups this time around
  • I beat my 2006 final mile time by 1:31 this time around
  • This 10 weeks was way more productive than my first 10 weeks!

Here is my exercise log from the last 10 weeks.  Expect to see something almost equally aggressive in the next 10 weeks:

Workout Tracking

  • My goal was to workout 6 days a week – I exceeded that goal by 3% overall and 13% in the second half of the session
  • Many days had multiple workouts
  • Doing this helped me plan my work for the next 10 weeks

Here is my weight tracking over the 10 week period:

Weight Tracking per Week

And here are my before and after photos.  Please note that the before photos were really hard to prepare for because I NEVER stand like that in real life.  It’s amazing how much our daily posture holds us together in our mid-sections.  I had to think really hard about letting it just hang out like that.  The side view of the before photo nauseates me, but that after photo makes me SO PROUD!  There was no sucking it in in the after photos – just flexing those abs and arms!

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I worked really, really hard at this, and near the end, it really felt like my job (a job I loved).  Hottie viewed it the same way – we talked about it on Saturday.  I said that I felt like the last 10 weeks was all about me getting back to how I like to feel, how I view myself, etc. and that it felt like a true job, and he agreed.  Hottie was SO supportive, it was amazing.  I don’t know how many mornings he sat up with Bryson in the rocker while I kicked bags at class.  On many occasions, he rushed home from work so I could get to a late afternoon class because I’d been up all night with Bryson the night before and just could not get motivated to go to class at 6:15 AM.  He admitted on Saturday that he got nervous about “the gear” purchases but didn’t say anything because, “I knew it would help you stay motivated, and I wasn’t going to mess with that” (he also said he was pleasantly surprised that I didn’t buy a ton of stuff!).  This really was a team effort, as fitness always is in this house.  It was awesome to both be so focused on my success at this!


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Registered

It’s not a REAL adventure race, but it’s a great challenge and we’re signed up! I even got us matching shirts since we’re a team, Hottie and me! (I’ve decided to call B “Hottie” on my blog since that’s what I call him in real life. Well, that or “husband,” which isn’t as fun as “Hottie!”)

3 miles of kayaking, 3.5 miles of running, 12 miles of biking. Honestly, I’m most worried about the run part because I haven’t really run in a long time. Watch – the paddling will break me right out the gates. Ha!

There’s another race in November that we want to do, and it’s a REAL adventure race complete with orienteering (Hottie’s job). It will take at least 8 hours so we need to line up a babysitter now before we register. We’re pretty committed to it… I mean, we do already have the matching team shirts!


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Happy

A while back, B and I had a pretty tough conversation about the things I’m not doing as a SAHM that he sort-of expected when we decided to have me stay home.  And to be fair, I did agree to the things he expected – I just never acted on some of them.  The main thing I didn’t do, which he’d like me to do, is cook or at least prepare meals.

B likes REAL meals – not sandwiches or pizza or taco night, but real meals made from real, unprocessed food.  I like those types of meals too (I grew up on mostly real food), but I also love things like pizza, taco night, baked potatoes with good toppings. etc.  I’m perfectly happy with a grilled chicken breast and steamed veggies, but that does get boring.  Because B likes a nice pan sauce, or more-involved meals – I just decided I wasn’t going to cook for the family.  If he wanted those things, then he could make them because I surely didn’t have the time to do it with two kids yanking on my ankles.  So B would come home, prep and cook dinner, and be stressed out.  His stress would cause me stress, and the nights just didn’t end well.

No one was happy.

When I decided to do my 10-week fitness course, I knew we’d need to eat more at home to keep things healthy.  B still did the cooking, but I did a better job of having things ready and planned out.  When I decided to switch to a Paleo diet for the second 5 weeks of the fitness course, I told B that I would take responsibility for all dinners as long as we had good, easy recipes.  He ponied up the recipe book and I got to work planning.  B said he’d be happy to cook if I wanted to just get everything prepared, but I really wanted to put forth the effort.

We are 2.5 weeks into the Paleo diet and I have done 90% of the cooking, and 100% of the preparation, so far.  I’ve come to find that I LIKE doing it – it relaxes me.  Cooking has ALWAYS relaxed me, and preparing food is on a whole other level of relaxation for me – I just don’t like doing it with kids around.  I’ve gotten to the point now, though, where I can prep quite a bit when the kids are playing, and then put the finishing touches on things while they nap so that things are 100% ready to go when it’s show time.

I have my nights off this week from mom-duty because my happier husband signed me up for a sailing class with a friend, and he said he’d do everything each night so that I didn’t have to worry about anything.  However, I’m still prepping meals for him so that all he has to do is turn on the oven or burners and cook it up.  Every day, he says he can do it (and I know he can) but I really WANT to do it.

And that’s what this post is about – I WANT to do something to make B’s life easier.  I know he’s much happier this way – you can see and hear it in his eyes, his posture, his words, etc.  I want him to come home and not have to worry about whether or not dinner is planned – and stress about the possibility that it’s going to be up to him to either get dinner on the table or make the call to go out to eat.  I want all of us to know what’s coming up in the days ahead so that we can be prepared and looking forward to experiencing new recipes (and good old ones!) and time together without the resentment of who did what and when.  And the bottom line is this – preparing and cooking the meals is truly making me happy!  I spend 20 minutes each Sunday going through our cookbook, selecting recipes for the week, and then go to the store to get all of the ingredients so that we are 100% prepared.  I LOVE that part of my Sunday – it excites me!  Everyone talks about meal-planning and how easy it makes things, and I’ve always just nodded along and thought, “yeah, whatever.”  The truth is – it IS easy and such a great use of time!

This is going to sound very 1950’s, but I have felt more confident as a SAHM these last 2.5 weeks than I’ve felt in a long time.  Between the working out and taking care of my family (in the way of meals), I feel like my life is a little more directed and stable than it was before.  Because I need to plan and prep meals now, my day has more structure to it as I challenge myself to get everything (including working out) done in a timely manner so that I can have some down time to do whatever I want to do.  I’m getting up early each day to get to my fitness class, I’m getting Matthew to his summer camp before the last-minute, I’m getting Bryson and myself either to the Y or out for long walks to add onto our “active time,” and I’m getting dinner ready long before it’s time to have it on the table.  Things have fallen into place.

Having spent 2.5 weeks this way, I’m truly wondering what I did with my time before this.  I was definitely slacking off, even if I refused to believe it.

And I wasn’t super happy.  Right now, I’m feeling pretty happy!