herbalife weight loss during pregnancy | Military Monday Family Planning Linked with Eights on the Move

herbalife weight loss during pregnancy

So Im trying my first "link up" and Im not sure if Im doing this right, so please bear with me. I discovered this blog, "Eights on the Move," and she does a Military Monday topic where people link their blogs up to hers and answer the questions posted on the topic. This weeks topic is about Family Planning. Here is the link to her blog to see what other people posted, "Military Monday: Family Planning."

Being a military family influences many aspects of your life. For instance, you never know if your husband will actually be present for your plans. Some plans are fine, like a family movie night that you really wanted to have-- easy enough to cancel or reschedule. Some are frustrating, like family pictures with a professional photographer ("Um, can you Photoshop my husband in...?"). Some are emotional, like your wedding; my husband didnt tell me at the time of our wedding that he did not know until a couple days before our wedding that he would be able to make it. He didnt tell me until afterwards because he thought it would "stress me out." Since he was able to make it, I guess it really doesnt matter either way. I did ask him how I would have felt if he told me two days before the wedding that he couldnt make it... talk about stress!

Other things are just straight up complicated, like planning when to have a baby. If you have been following my blog, you have read about my miscarriage and partial molar pregnancy. We planned on having Baby #4 in North Carolina. My husband had no duty days or underways going through college. We didnt have to deal with a boat schedule. It was the perfect time to have our last baby. You know, until we miscarried and then discovered it was a molar pregnancy and I needed to have weekly and monthly blood tests before we could get cleared to try again...

The wrench was thrown into our plans and it had nothing to do with the Navy.

When is the perfect time to have a baby as a military family?

Honestly, there isnt a perfect time for us. We never feel that our finances are in the right place or that our plans are under control. Ive never felt in shape enough or prepared enough to welcome our newest family member or family members-- definitely didnt feel prepared for twins!

After being a military spouse for almost 7 years now, I have come to the realization that the only certainty with military life is uncertainty. You never know what life will throw at you. And once you have that little person in your life to care for, you still have the other aspects of military life to contend with. Our oldest came down with reseola during one of my husbands underways when we were living in Hawaii. My parents, on the east coast and 6 hours ahead of me, were powerless to help, despite my many tearful phone calls to my mom. He had a fever over 105, projectile vomiting all over my bedroom, and I was frantically getting us to the car to head over to the emergency room in the middle of the night. I did not know at the time that he had a common childhood illness; I just remember thinking, "Please be okay. I do not want to send a Red Cross message to the boat with a horrible message about our son." I was terrified and my husband was out to sea.

We did luck out with our timing for having twins. My husband was picked up in the STA-21 program and sent to North Carolina for 3 years to get his degree in mechanical engineering. Shortly after arriving, we found out I was pregnant with identical twins. I thanked God every night that my husband wouldnt be going underway or standing duty on a boat, that he would be home every.single.night. The pieces fell together perfectly.

This time around, God has His own perfect timing in mind. I really thought it would be perfect to have our last baby at the same OBGyn that we delivered our twins at, that we should have the baby before we moved to South Carolina. It just felt perfect to me. We dont know when the perfect time is now. We have no idea what my husbands schedule will be. First we hear he will be in the October class for power school, then he wont, then he will... I dont know. I dont know how long we will be living in South Carolina. I dont know how long it will take us to get pregnant. I dont know if there are good OBGyns close by who I would trust as much as I did our last OBGyn, especially considering my history (first pregnancy miscarriage, second pregnancy induced early for medical reasons, third pregnancy identical twins, fourth pregnancy a partial molar).

For us, the right decision is to proceed with business as usual. So we dont know my husbands schedule or where we will be living in 9 months. So we dont know when I will get pregnant or if it will be viable. There are so many unknowns that we deliberately put out of mind: What if it takes a long time to get pregnant and he finishes power school, SOBC, and prototype and is back on a boat, deployed? What if we dont like our new OBGyn and they dont do enough monitoring in the first trimester? We may be a military family, but we are still a family-- a husband and wife, following God, raising three boys the best way we can. Times like these are when we need to hand over our concerns to God and trust that it will all work out in the end, which it will. So what if it takes a lot longer to get pregnant this time? So what if he is deployed when I deliver? So what if we have to fight more for first trimester monitoring? We will face those challenges as they come, but not before then.

Want to read more about the things I mentioned in this blog post?

• Check out "In my life," where I give more details on how my sister delivered their one and only while my brother-in-law was deployed.
• To learn more about my miscarriage and partial molar pregnancy, read "3 months down." Here is my blog post just about what a "Molar pregnancy" is.
• Here is information about the "STA-21 Officers Program."

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huge weight loss during pregnancy | Domestic goddess

huge weight loss during pregnancy

Picture taken by TwinBug Photography at twinbugphotography@yahoo.com

If you have read my blog post "0-2 year old twin must-haves," you know how I feel about having a housekeeper. However, things have changed for us. We moved from North Carolina to South Carolina (read "PCS to South Carolina") and our financial situation has changed (student loans!). We moved away from our housekeeper in North Carolina and do not have plan to get one-- yet-- here in South Carolina.

My husband and I have had many discussions regarding a housekeeper. While our opinion on having a housekeeper is remarkably similar, I still want to knee him in the... well, you know, whenever he says, "We really dont need a housekeeper. We really can do it just fine" (my emphasis). Who does the housework around here, if not the housekeeper? Thats right! Me! ;)

Our agreement is basically that we want to let our finances settle from the move, have a chance to adjust our family budget to the new pay (and the student loans that we are going to have to start paying on), and see how we feel about getting a housekeeper then. Our last housekeeper came once every two weeks; we might look into having someone come every two or three weeks, maybe even once a month. Well see.

But more than that has changed: it has gotten easier!

Yes, you heard me right: it has gotten easier!!!!!!!

I have been waiting and waiting and waiting for signs of it getting easier-- not just more enjoyable, as I have enjoyed it all-- but easier, where I feel I have things under control and that Im not just way behind the game or playing eternal catch-up. Strangely, going from tidying a three-bedroom two-bathroom house for our housekeeper every two weeks to cleaning a four-bedroom 2.5-bathroom house has been the thing to show me that it has, indeed, gotten easier.

I felt extremely behind taking care of our homes in North Carolina. I felt I was always behind in laundry and always behind in housecleaning. I felt our kitchen got the best of me every night and that dinner was an absolute chore. The housekeeper was much needed. She saved my sanity and gave back some of that time to my kids. My house may have been messy with toys, but it was clean! I felt like I had more time for dinner (though I still had a hard time making that happen with the kids at my feet...) and I could get other things done, like laundry or getting out of the house. My to-do list was that much shorter.

Here in South Carolina our house is much bigger. I would have thought that a bigger house would be more stressful to clean. When we first moved in, I said, "I dont know how Im going to do this!" And then it all fell together. I unpacked our dry-erase calendar (Board Dudes Magnetic Dry-Erase Calendar Tile) and put together a cleaning schedule. Each day I do a really small task and just stay on top of the other stuff (laundry, dishes, getting the kids to put away their toys, husband and I put away our things when done with them)-- really basic things.

Honestly, I think it is easier now because the toddlers are coming up on two and a half years old and our oldest is five years old. They listen better. They play together better. They have more imaginative games and like to push cars or play pretend instead of banging blocks together and stealing toys from their big brother. I can get them all doing an activity and mop the floors or have them fold a load of wash rags from the laundry while I clean the kitchen. If they dont behave or dont have their "listening ears on," as I like to say, then they are sent to their room. If they were being completely naughty, they are sent to their bed and cannot get off of it. If they were only misbehaving in a small way, they can quietly play in their room and can come out when they are ready to participate.

Now that our twins are almost two and a half, we have outlawed whining. We dont take it. No whining following along after me. No whining for more. No whining at your brother. No whining for a toy or because youre bored or because you dont know the word. They can say "please" or "help, please" or "Momma help, please" or any word they can think of instead of whining. I want to hear, "More milk, please" or "No, thank you" or "Foot hurt" or "Cup empty" or "Hungry." Whatever it is, I dont want to hear: "Moooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom....."

And we are enforcing this. It has been an uphill battle, but we are fighting it. It is worth it. I love when I say, "No whining, sir. You need to use words," and he says, "Cup empty." I love when I send them to their room for whining and say, "You can come out when you are ready to stop whining and use words," and he marches his little self out five minutes later with a big smile on his face, ready to use words. Those small victories are progress. They make up for the times that we put a toddler in his room over and over for whining or when we are putting two toddlers in their room over and over again for whining-- long, endless afternoons.

Between the enforcement of our new no-whining rule and their ability to play, housecleaning is much less of a chore. I can tell the boys that I need ten minutes to finish a task, like sweeping the floors, or cleaning the bathtub. Not saying it always goes perfect, but it is easier.

Here is my plan for cleaning our house:

The overall goal of this method is to clean a little bit each day. The fundamental principle is to pick up as you go. Dont save the mess for a different day or get to it later. If you are in the kitchen and a dirty glass is in the sink, put it in the dishwasher. If you walk through the family room and a toy car is next to the couch, drop it over the baby gate by the playroom. Be the change.

Outside of that, I follow these five simple steps everyday:

1. Clean the kitchen and table everyday
2. Sweep the kitchen as needed, most likely everyday
3. Do the dishes right away-- dont leave them for later!
4. Tidy playroom everyday-- have the boys help clean up their mess
5. Tidy the living spaces

Right now the toddlers are making a much bigger mess than our five-year old is, so were really feeling it isnt fair for him to have to do the bulk of the picking up by himself. We help them all pick up the playroom every night and, if it is really messy, before afternoon nap. Our five-year old is awesome at picking it up. Our two-year olds are getting better and better; they still need to be directed to small tasks, "Clean up the trains," instead of "Clean up the playroom," but they complete each of the tasks in a timely manner. (Consistency, consistency, consistency.)

For the actual housecleaning, it works best if you start with a totally clean house, top to bottom. From there, you break up all the big tasks. I have mine broken down to a 2-week rotation, starting over again after completing week 2.

MONDAY
Week 1 and 2 (same):
Laundry
Floors: sweep and mop, vacuum

 

TUESDAY
Laundry
Week 1:

Bathrooms: toilets, sinks, mirrors, quick clean of showers/tubs
Week 2:
Bathrooms: toilets, sinks, mirrors, thorough clean of showers/tubs

WEDNESDAY
Week 1 and 2 (same):
Laundry
Wash towels: kitchen towels, bathroom towels

THURSDAY
Week 1 and 2 (same):
Laundry
Floors: sweep and mop

FRIDAY
Week 1:
Wash bedding: master and childrens
Week 2:
Wash bedding: master and guest (if used)

SATURDAY
Week 1:
Dust and 10-minute clean
Week 2:
Pantry and fridge, 10-minute clean

SUNDAY
Meal plan for the week

 

There are, of course, other things that need to happen when housecleaning, like cleaning the walls or the floorboards. Things that happen once a month or once every couple months, I do on an as-needed basis. I will tackle those tasks, but it will probably be on a random day when the boys are napping and I dont have anywhere to be. I am not scheduling the floorboards! (I hate doing them.)

 

With all of the scheduling that I have done since our twins were born-- look back on my first blog posts-- I have learned that over scheduling can be as big of a detriment as not scheduling. Your day starts feeling trapped or played through before youve even gotten out of bed. Once the boys reached toddlerhood, we threw out our structured schedule (save for bedtime, which is promptly at 8:00 pm), and started letting things naturally happen. Dont get me wrong, we 100% feel that schedule was much needed and we would do it the same way all over again (read my blog post "Light at the end of the schedule"). Im a scheduler and a planner and, as recently pointed out to me, an over-thinker. I like to know what Im getting done each done each day and I like to plan it out. Scheduling, to some level, is just how I roll. So while I have the household chores broken down by what Im doing each day, I have not scheduled when Im doing them. Sometimes I do them as the boys are eating breakfast and contained in highchairs (like the bathrooms). Sometimes I do them during naptime (like mopping or moving laundry).

 

And some things just dont always happen according to plan. To quote Disneys Pirates of the Caribbean, "I like to think of them more as...guidelines." Today I cleaned the house from top to bottom. One week I did two days worth of tasks every other day to take the middle day off. Whatever works. Doing laundry Monday through Thursday with Friday through Sunday off is more of a goal. My mom told me that it never worked for her to take weekends off when we all were young and it hasnt worked for me yet either. Our washer and dryer hum away with at least one load seven days a week. Maybe Ill get down to Monday through Thursday-- wishful thinking, Im sure.

Sundays I take off from housecleaning to relax with my family and do our meal planning for the week. I need to do a whole blog post on meal planning-- which I will. What I will say about meal planning is that it makes dinnertime a whole lot easier each night. Dinner doesnt have to be fancy. Dinner just has to be nummy and nutritious, wholesome, reminiscent of home... your home. Tonight we had leftovers and supplemented those leftovers with a Kashi Steam Meal. Everyone was happy! We used up our leftovers and it was easy for me to make, plus the kids loved it. The meal planning is another way that I take the stress out of my day. I dont have the oh-crap-whats-for-dinner question looming over me everyday at 2 oclock in the afternoon.

 

When my mom recently came to visit and she saw my schedule posted above my washer and dryer in my laundry room, she said I was a domestic goddess. So Im running with it. If I was going to be a goddess, I think I would much rather be a goddess of love or victory, but Ill take what I can get. :)

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health weight lose during pregnancy | Eight days a week disciplining three

health weight lose during pregnancy

Picture taken by TwinBug Photography at twinbugphotography@yahoo.com

What a morning we have had! The boys woke up a little before 6:30 in foul little moods. I heard one of them screaming like a banshee and the other two arguing. Dragging myself out of bed I was settling he-touched-my-toy and he-hit-me disputes before even brewing my first cup of coffee-- definitely not my favorite way to wake up. From there it just went downhill. I put all the boys back to bed and hoped they would wake up with sunnier dispositions (and mine too). Sadly, breakfast without whining just wasnt in the cards for us this morning.

So how do you do it? How do you discipline three kids, including two-year old twins? I think this becomes a big question for parents around this age. I know I see it a lot on parenting boards and on twin groups. It is overwhelming to figure out the logistics of time outs when one two-year old is causing mayhem here and the other there and you arent sure who started what in the first place.

In my last blog post, I mentioned our war on whining.

Now that our twins are almost two and a half, we have outlawed whining. We dont take it. No whining following along after me. No whining for more. No whining at your brother. No whining for a toy or because youre bored or because you dont know the word. They can say "please" or "help, please" or "Momma help, please" or any word they can think of instead of whining. I want to hear, "More milk, please" or "No, thank you" or "Foot hurt" or "Cup empty" or "Hungry." Whatever it is, I dont want to hear: "Moooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom....."

And we are enforcing this. It has been an uphill battle, but we are fighting it. It is worth it. I love when I say, "No whining, sir. You need to use words," and he says, "Cup empty." I love when I send them to their room for whining and say, "You can come out when you are ready to stop whining and use words," and he marches his little self out five minutes later with a big smile on his face, ready to use words. Those small victories are progress. They make up for the times that we put a toddler in his room over and over for whining or when we are putting two toddlers in their room over and over again for whining-- long, endless afternoons.

Three kids whining at the kitchen table is like nails on the chalkboard. At those moments, I need to remind myself of the reasons why I love motherhood: toddler hugs and kisses, story time on the couch, the first I love yous, watching the three of them play together. There is nothing endearing about whining. The whining has gotten worlds better since we approached it with a firm hand. I think the war on whining will just take time and consistency.

For other behaviors, it has been trial and error. What works for one boy might not work for another; what is really effective for one boy is less effective on another. For instance, time outs are heartbreaking for one of our toddlers and a hilarious joke for the other; our oldest, if we put him in time out, immediately pretends that he is a baby, doing baby talk and the whole shtick. And some things just dont work for me as the mother who is enforcing these things, even if they work for my friends and their kids. Like one of my friends says that when her oldest starts pretending to be a baby, they run with it, really making her live the life of a baby and all that comes with it. While this did teach their oldest that she did not want to be a baby anymore, but rather the big sister, Im much our about swift punishment and moving on from the offending behavior immediately.

Ive really been enforcing that bad behavior means losing privileges, good behavior means gaining privileges. This morning when the boys were being so badly behaved, they all lost privileges even though only one of them was being exceedingly naughty (the other two were goading him).  So after breakfast when they all ran to the gate, one screaming on the top of this lungs, the others clamoring next to him, "Momma! Momma!" I sent them all to their beds. No more. I had been going in their room every five minutes for the past twenty minutes and was accomplishing nothing: the kitchen was still a mess and I was no closer to being ready for church. I told them that I would not settle every one of their petty disputes-- they need to work it out. And there they sat, each one on his own bed, no talking, no getting off their beds, no hollering for mom. I made them stay on their beds until I finished my to-do list. I got ready and I finished cleaning up the kitchen. The toddlers had a hard time staying on their beds. They would spot a toy across the room and try to run to grab it. When I heard them, I came in, took the toy away, and sent them back to their beds. They only got up twice during their loss of privileges. Our oldest knew better than to get out of bed and was sadly watching his wallet resting at the bottom of his ladder. It had fallen off his bed, the top bunk, when he was settling in and he wished he had it up there with him.

Consistency. It is exhausting. It is exhausting the days that they dont want to listen and exhausting breaking habits they formed during our transition period from moving. We allowed a lot of things during the madness of this past move (read "Asthma, STA-21, commissioning, and PCSing-- yikes!"). Some days I am so glad that we have chosen the battles that we have. I love when I see them using the problem solving skills weve taught them. Im sitting outside with them right now and one of the toddlers knocked a ball into the gutter. Instead of screaming loudly like he did the whole first week we moved here (our new driveway has a slight slant), he said, "Help please, brother," and our oldest came over and got it for him. Or when one of the boys accidentally runs into one of his brothers and immediately says, "Im sorry! Are you okay?" (or "Sorry! Okay?" as the toddlers say), instead of rushing to me, "I didnt mean to! I didnt do anything!" Other days I just wish they would all get along. I really dislike settling these knock down drag out petty disputes first thing in the morning. Maybe I should work on a rule: no fighting until Momma has had a cup or two of coffee? :)

The hardest thing about discipline or working out unseemly behaviors is the temptation to compare yourself or your kids to other families. It is so hard not to wonder what "shes doing different" when you see a mom at the grocery store with kids happily riding in the grocery cart. It is hard not to wonder why your kids wont share when you see brothers stacking blocks together on a playdate. You see a mom tell her kids to knock it off, without counting to three or dishing out threats, and you think, "How does she get them to listen to her??" I dont know. I try not to compare. I love the times that my boys are the well-behaved boys, the few and far between times. We went to Target yesterday and all three of them walked like gentlemen the whole trip including waiting at the check-out counter; all the customers kept complimenting their sweet faces and good manners. This is in stark contrast to the trip my mom and I took the other day when she was in town visiting. Our oldest burst into tears in the parking lot because she veered away from us as we were walking to the store, "Where is Momma going?!" Our toddlers refused to ride in the shopping cart seats and we instead spent the entire trip telling them to "sit down!" in the shopping cart baskets. One of the toddlers ended having a full-blown temper tantrum and my mom had to leave the store with him. We cut our errands short and came home for early lunch and early nap; we never did end up going on the second half our shopping outing. Those two trips were so vastly different, yet they were the same kids, same time of day. I feel like I spin the Wheel of Fortune every time I leave the house, "Will this be a good trip or a bad trip?"

The other struggle is not wanting to be "that mom." Oh, you know, "that mom." That mom you saw before you had kids, deafly pushing a shopping cart of screaming kids through the romance novel section in Target. That mom at the park vacantly texting as her kids rub dirt in each others hair. That mom caving at the check out counter and buying a candy bar for a grubby child already holding a sippy cup of juice and a packet of gummy fruits. And here I am, sitting out front with my boys as they shovel dirt onto our basketball goal while I write a blog post. I wonder what people would think of this snapshot of my life. That really is what those moments are when you see these mothers that you dont know: a snapshot. Ive bribed my kids at the grocery store the day before, for various reasons. My husband and I recently bribed our kids when we made a Costco run the evening our HHGs were delivered. We needed to get mattresses for our boys room. I wonder what people thought of us there as we pushed these big carts with three mattresses piled on, our boys eating bag after bag of applesauce. Not every battle at every moment is worth fighting; I get that. Consistency will win the war, but kids can win a battle every now and then.

This was shared a lot the other week by my mommy friends on Facebook: The Matt Walsh Blog, "Dear Parents, you need to control your kids. Sincerely, non-parents."

This is my blog post encouraging moms to be supportive of each other: "We are moms"

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