This is just a drill.

Wooooowwwwwwza.

It's been so long! I don't even know what I'm doing! I'm a full mom now with a whole baby and every time I leave the house I look down to make sure I'm fully dressed with proper shoes on and I'm a tornado.

Woah.

It's been great. We're great. She's great.

I have an unfinished blog from the end of November 2021 that I don't even remember what it is about. I'll have to go in and read it to see and then finish it.

This is a warm up blog. I already have my next several topics planned and a lot of y'all are gonna hate 1 of them!

Just because I'm a mom now doesn't mean I'm going to stop being "like that".

My kid is >3 moths old. In day care. I started back working a little, like 2-3 days a week. One of my best friends got married. My dogs are alive and well. My husband is alive and well.

All the outside plants are dead except the strawberries... All the inside plants are alive AND well!? Yes.

The baby is sleeping essentially all night, minus a short wake up to whimper a little.

Solved by a pacifier. I am still exclusively pumping.

I have so many friends that are currently pregnant, in their third trimesters or that just delivered babies within the last 1-3 months. It's nuts. This blog is about that.

So if you are not in that baby-having phase of life... you've reached the point in the blog where you become suddenly disinterested... catch ya on the next one!

Things that have worked well for me/us POST-PARTUM:

1. Spandex. Still. Specifically. Lululemon and Fleo. And now that I'm back at work... FIGS. Stretchy clothes are still my jam, as I have still that last about 5 pounds that I want to lose. The highest, widest waist bands. That stretch & are machine washable.

2. Hoodies. Still. With the spandex shorts/pants. Hoodies are life.

3. The 1-hour wash cycle on the dish washer and the clothes washer. Literally would never sign up for a baby if I had to hand wash all the dishes and bottles and bottle parts and definitely would not be able to work. It would take my whole life to wash the MILLION tiny clothes we go through every 2-3 days plus our own. No ma'am Pam.

4. Sandwiches

5. Smoothie King. I made - what I feel - is an awesome screen recording post

on my ApproachableNP Instagram account about HOW I order from Smoothie King. I would love for you to give me a follow and check it out!

6. Street Parking. I share nearly every aspect of my fitness journey on my personal Instagram account and it is so fulfilling to me to message with people about this. I am not afraid to share the ups and downs, my stomach that still looks pregnant, the cellulite, wins, losses ...

and I'm here to say - we need MORE of this, moms. DO NOT FEAR sharing what you are going through, what your goals are with other people. You don't have to post your life on social media, that is a choice I make because I experience how much people are helped by it. Street Parking gives me endless options to seamlessly toggle between as my body is STILL changing all the time!

7. This little lavender smelling bean filled eye weight pillow thing. A friend sent me the coolest little mom box with a pair of socks, bath bombs, this eye pillow thing, dry shampoo, etc. During the weeks, in the first two months, I slept in the front of the house with the baby in the guest room. The baby in her mini crib. If I only had 1-1.5 hours to squeeze a sleep in between a feeding/pumping/fussy time, I'd put this little pillow thing on my eyes and damn. It helped me to fall asleep so fast.

8. The "PiYo" App!

I gave in to technology and downloaded this app so that me and Wesley can document everything the baby does. At first I had a small dry-erase board that I drew table lines on LOL So many people messaged me saying... "You know there's apps you can get for this?" Yes. I do. Hand documentation was working well at first. Now, we are not both awake or home at the same time with her anymore, so to be able to give report (we are hospital people), document how much she ate, when she voided, how much I pump, if she got medicine or not... etc... We got this app, and it works really well for us. You can customize the pictures and document in ounces or milliliters. Pounds or kilos.

9. The Baby Buddah Pump. This thing is the shit. Super efficient. Actually hands free. I have the electronic pump and the manual/hand held - both are excellent. Not covered by insurance when I bought it... but can be bought with HSA/FSA dollars for sure. It seems by the looks of Google that the insurance thing may have changed... Highly recommend for pumping moms!!

10. Bottle and pump part organization is so 1,000% key to sanity. Again, me and Wesley are hospital people, so we needed a system that we could "hand off" and restock without having to ask each other what is clean/not clean, ready/not ready, needing to be done... in terms of my pumping paraphernalia. Mom - if your partner is not helping you with your pumping stuff... Send him or her to me... I'll set 'em straight. Here is my organization below. To an ICU Nurse... this cabinet shows that I'm an ER nurse. The pump tubing is all over and tangly LOL and it makes me chuckle every week. But I promise... It's a good system. The little tackle boxes keep like parts together, after they are boiled, washed, dried. The 2 pumps I have (Buddah, Spectra) are separated with only "their" stuff in their boxes. Bottles are fully assembled. Extra stuff in the back. And it's all INSIDE a cabinet instead of ON TOP of the kitchen island... This works for me... HIGHLY recommend doing this in whatever way works for you... exclusively pumping is time consuming and "hard" enough.......

11. The FitTrack Dara Scale is what I am using to track my slow and steady process of losing the baby weight. For the price, the convenience, and the data it provides - this works for me. I am totally aware that these scales are not the most accurate way to measure body composition. The most accurate way is like a water tank method. I am aware of in-body scanners and calipers and all the stuff. This scale has good research, discloses its +/- deviations from most accurate measures... and I like it. My husband can use it too! It's interesting.

12. The Paired App… Having a baby is a strain on a marriage no matter what. We have a good baby, a great baby if you will… We love each other, he is so very helpful and is open to suggestion.

Doesn’t matter. We are tired. We are working. We are on that new born grind. This app is super cool and helps us communicate and remember that “we” are still in there. It’s not free… but… it’s your marriage… If you want to keep communicating and stay grounded… and you find yourselves in a tough season… try it out…

...

I read a couple books in 2020 that changed my life perspective permanently, and I am wanting to read them again. I have mentioned them in other blogs and featured them as my favorite thing before also. The other day I watched an Instagram video with a caption that used the term ...

"aggressive support"

...and this is the type of support that works for me more often than not. That grab you by the shoulders and shake you type of pep. The latter book explains in the most excellent manner that our lives are the result of all the decisions we have made, and choices that we continue to make. What ever we are willing to tolerate, is what we are working with. So much accountability.

Out of all the "things" that are working best for me as a new mom, trying to sift through my husband working a lot, myself coming back to work, keeping up the house and doing the best I can for the baby and dogs... Honesty is my real #1.

Because, ain't nobody got time.

Not being honest about your priorities, your to-do list, how you feel, how you don't feel, what you are going through... wastes a whole lot of time. This has been the biggest "thing" for me since the end of my pregnancy and since Tyler is here. Being honest with myself. With my husband. My family. Friends. I was a pretty straight up, blunt person before I had a baby - and that is solidified now. I have a low tolerance for BS at my baseline and it's down to nothing now. Accountability is a non negotiable. If I make a choice that has consequences that I don't like ... I own that. If I need something to be done, I ask for it to be done. If I want to do something myself, I will. If something isn't going well - I'm going to say it.

If I don't want to go somewhere, I'm not. People generally label me as blunt, bitchy, grumpy, but real. People ask my advice, very often. Isn't that interesting?

I don't say I'm sorry if I'm not. If I'm late, I'm late. I don't even type "lol" if I do not think something is funny and/or I did not laugh. The more I practice this - the less scary it is. Mom, Dad - telling your truth and risking offending people is a WAY bigger deal in your head than it is out loud. And if you practice, you get better at it. Organization. Honesty. Boundaries.

Something about this baby...

Next blog is simmering……..