Full Moon

I've been too hot and too huge to care about much except my final weeks of work, so forgive me for not writing much.

I'm scheduled for a c-section on Sept 18, but this big boy is already 8lbs, so I think he's coming sooner.

Tomorrow is the full moon and the day before my husband leaves town for a short trip. Therefore- I am sure I will go into labor tomorrow night :)

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Daily Exercise Log: July 3, 2007

I have had no success keeping a paper exercise and otherwise diary, so I figured this is as good a place as any. I am really upset that my local Curves shut down. I hadn't been very good about going, but now that my schedule is becoming more predictable and I home a few days a week, I would really like to go again. When I went earlier in my pregnancy it always made me feel great and got me a full body workout.

So here is my plan. For the remaining 11 weeks of my pregnancy:

Walking/gentle aerobic activity: 30 minutes per day
Pilates/yoga/similar exercise: Video 3-4X per week

I find that on the days I do the videos, my back feels better and I have more energy. If I go on the road and forget the DVDs, I wake up with aches, leg cramps and general extra grumpiness.

Some of my favorite videos are The Lotte Berk Method and The Bar Method Body . They are different- similar to maybe pilates or yoga. You don't get really sweaty and they seem to go by fast, but dang it, you feel that something is happening and your body changes pretty quickly after using them for a few weeks. I find it to be just the right kind of exercise for me right now.

Today: 30 min walk around the neighborhood; Lotte Berk DVD


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Lazy Sunday and Thoughts on Career

My husband is fixing the dishwasher, I am procrastinating on some technical writing I need to finish, daughter is playing with her toys... the weather is pretty mediocre today- not hot enough for the beach, but too hot to really spend the day outside. So we're just chilling out in the house. Daughter still takes a reasonable nap around 12:30, so I figure I can do my tech. writing then. I'm working on a manual for the software I teach. It is almost finished and will be published in September which will be really neat. It is my first time authoring something that will be published for the general public.

Daughter likes to color and do workbooks, so this morning we spent some time doing activities from Comprehensive Curriculum of Basic Skills, Preschool. I mean to do something from this book with her every single day, but mostly it winds up getting pulled out on weekends and rainy days. She goes to a decent preschool that does your typical low key preschool type stuff (days of the week, colors, letter sounds, puzzles, etc.) but I have some twisted idea that my child needs more than that. We do a few activities until she gets bored and just wants to color the pages, so I let her.

This brings up an interesting dilemna. I wish I had two lives to lead or more hours of daylight or something in life. I am torn between giving it all up and homeschooling my kids and getting a full time nanny and devoting myself to building an intense and satisfyin career. I guess there has to be some middle ground, but I struggle to find it. I go through phases where my part time freelance work (some training, some design, a lot of technical writing and software documentation) isn't enough and I crave more... more speaking engagements, more travel, more money.... but then I think about my daughter and this new baby and I get all weepy and want to be home with them and just throw the whole work thing out the window.

I know in my heart that career will always be there but children grow up too fast. I know that if there are regrets to be had it will be about the kids and not about the career. The unfortunate thing is that I didn't really enjoy my career until my daughter was about six months old, and suddenly I found a niche that sang to me the way nothing had ever sang to me before. So here I was, in the midst of semi-full time motherhood having stumbled upon the most satisfying and lucrative job opportunity I had ever known. It seemed to be a cruel catch-22.

All of my attempts to balance motherhood and my career have failed in one way or another. Either I am home but my mind is on work all day so the TV winds up on longer than necessary or I am distant and detached... or I am away on site with clients and cry silently in the bathroom that I wish I was home... My husband theoretically likes the money and pushes me to make it, but at the same time he craves adult interaction when I am away at night and gets drained from being the primary parent.

I am not looking for infant care for this new baby, so I know that my traveling days are over and my work must be flexible and doable from my home office, but as much as the idea of being away from my new son kills me inside, the idea of not doing my work to its full capacity also kills me. I hate the way this sounds. A few years ago, I turned my nose up at women who said this sort of thing and considered them selfish and arrogant. Perhaps they are. But I think I finally get why they say it.



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Engineering a Family Google Group Formed

I thought it might be fun to interact with other Moms like me... professional women who are trying to figure out how to make it all work, women who left careers in high tech fields to raise children and everyone in between. Join the group and spread the word! It should be fun. We can chat about fedexing breastmilk, building with legos and what is the best software package for keeping both a family and professional calendar. (And anything else that comes to mind).

Join my Google Discussion Group at http://groups.google.com/group/engineeringafamily.

Check out my favorite things at Engineering a Family Favorite Things

Can this Pill make my baby smarter? Who knows. But maybe it will keep my mind sharp...

I get into my academic mode whenever I take on a new project, and growing a human being in my womb seems like a project to me. So in my readings, I have found a lot of articles like this one Pregnant? Omega-3 Essential for Baby's Brain that talk about supplementing fatty acids into your diet.

Here is an excerpt from that article that caught my attention:

"Babies born to mothers who had higher blood levels of DHA scored better on the attention tests until 6 months of age, and they scored better on different tests designed to measure visual learning in older babies at 1 year and 18 months. The findings are reported in the July/August issue of the journal Child Development."

When I was pregnant with my daughter, I kind of inconsistently took a walmart brand omega supplement, but I wasn't sure I was taking the right one. I also took it while breastfeeding and tried to eat those omega eggs you see at the grocery store. I then took flax seed oil supplements, but I still felt unsure that I was doing anything that made a difference. You read stuff about "balancing the different omegas" and stuff. I was at a loss.

I nursed her until she was about 9 months old, and gave her Formula with DHA until she was 2 years old. (I did introduce regular cow's milk at age 1, but the bulk of her "milk" (about 16 oz) during the day was formula until around her second birthday. I have no medical reason for that, I just figured it would ensure she got enough iron and DHA during the day... I didn't see how it could hurt. My pediatrician thought it was fine in our case, too.)

This one came around Expecta Lipil DHA Supplement for Pregnant & Nursing Moms after I past the nursing stage with my daughter. This year, the prenatal vitamin my midwife would have prescribed me came with this supplement built into it. (I choose to take something else which she approved of instead.)

After some research, I settled on Nature's Way Efa Gold Neuromins, High Potency DHA 200mg.I liked the idea of it being mercury free since I do like to eat salmon and tuna every once in awhile and I didn't want to have to weigh my daily supplements in those mercury consumption calculations. There is also a 100mg version and others that are fish oil based.

Regardless of whether or not it might help my unborn (and young baby) become some kind of super genius, I figure at the very least it might help keep my brain sharper since I don't eat nearly enough fish these days.

Disheveled but Looking Young

So... I'm 28 weeks pregnant, but I am still as vain as I was before I got pregnant. Perhaps vain isn't the right word.... considering I haven't changed my earrings (silver hoops) since January and I am in bad need of a haircut and some fresh highlights. My mother would also laugh at my claim to vanity considering she hasn't seen me with lipstick on since I was 3 years old digging her in cosmetic box. So what? So I like mud and grime- I'm a civil engineer for crying out loud. However, while I am covered with earth on the jobsite or digging in a sandpile with my daughter, I might look like a slob, but I'd really like to look like a young slob, you know?

Anyway, these are a few of the beauty products that I consider to be worth the hard earned money that I fritter away on them:

Creme de La Mer Original
My husband nearly had a heart attack when he saw the invoice for this one the first time I bought it, but this size jar lasts me about a year. I read about it in Allure a few years ago. They had a close up of Katie Holmes (who was about 20 at the time) and broke down what makeup and products she used. The cosmetic artist talked about how great Creme de La Mer was and how everything else was a waste of money. I was intrigued. When it arrived, I was a little disappointed in the packaging jar (seemed cheesy considering the price tag), and at first the consistency of the cream was like paste. After a few nights of using it, my skin got used to the weight of the cream and it didn't seem like greasy plaster anymore. While I am not sure it is the miracle product their website proclaims, there is NOTHING that fixes my itchy winter face like a few days of using it. I use it every night in the winter, every night in hotels in Las Vegas and other dry places, and about every second or third night the rest of the year.

Creme de La Mer Day Lotion
Even once my skin got used to the original cream, there is no way it could be a day cream for me. I like this lotion a lot, but I tend not to travel with it. La Mer also has a great oil controlling lotion that works well. On the road I like Biore Pore Minimizing Cream SPF 15. The Biore product is cheap and a nice size for my travel bag and I don't have to worry about losing it.

Creme de La Mer Face Wash
This is my favorite of the La Mer products I use. It sounds really lame, but after using it my face feels like a dream. I don't travel with it because it tends to bust open in my cosmetic bag. On the road I use Biore Face Wash which again is cheaper, closes tight and is a nice size. It also works pretty well.

Dove Pro-Age Body Wash
I tried this after a coupon I found at Curves. Holy crap it's good. I don't know if it is really stopping the aging process, but my skin feels like I just put lotion on it when I get out of the shower. Not like a slick handful of lotion, but a nice mist of lotion. I had been using Olay Age Defying Body Wash because I am such a sucker for commericals. I liked the commercial where the numbers from the clock were being repelled from the shower door. But when I read the olay package it said that it was "formerly normal body wash" or something like that and that annoyed me. I thought I was getting something special! So I tried the Dove Pro-Age, and it was actually noticably more moisturizing so I pitched the Olay for good. I cannot live without this stuff and I travel with a full sized bottle and loofah. I use a generous amount all over my body, especially my belly and my feet. I have horrible feet- cracked and peely and gross. Feet like a Hobbit. I will talk more about feet later. But this stuff has made a huge difference.

LOreal Sunless Sublime Glow Daily Moisturizer Fair Skin Tones
I pretend I don't like to be tan. Last summer I spent so much time locked up in my home office beating on projects that I managed to stay white as a ghost and so it was easier to pretend I don't like to be tan. This year, I can't handle being pasty as well as distended and swollen. So I sought a solution. I had tried St Tropez Self Tanner last year with really terrible results. I couldn't even wear sandals my feet were so orange. So I figured I would try this moisturizer with a "hint of subtle" whatever in it. It works nice. It doesn't last too long, but I find that if I put it after every other shower I can maintain a subtle "pantyhose" looking color that just keeps me out of the Casper territory when I break down and wear shorts. It doesn't streak or leave a noticeable line at the high thigh (where I stop). I haven't had the guts to try it on my arms because I am not sure I can reach all of my flesh without help and I fear looking patchy. It also puts a little "glitter" on your skin so you have that Beyonce sepia glimmer. (Ok, Beyonce might be a stretch). I don't like applying it in the morning because on hot days I feel it on my skin all day long, so it is a night shower thing.

Kerasal and Gel Socks
I have feet like a Hobbit. I am so disorganized I can never find my shoes, so I go outside in the middle of summer to get the mail and walk over stones, hot asphalt and worse and it doesn't bother me. It's pitiful. They are big, too, and kinda look like Fred Flintstone's feet. But a few times of year I get inspired to fix them and wear sandals to a wedding or something. Or when my daughter says that when she grows up she wants cracks like mine... well.... doesn't seem right. Anyway. When I am inpsired, it only takes about 3 nights of this tandem treatment to get them looking better. A few weeks and they are like different feet. Of course, this is when I get cocky and go out to pull weeds in my bare feet or something so the process begins again. The only Kersal I like is the one linked above. It is thick and greasy like vasoline. The creamy ones don't work as well.

Secret Clinical Strength
I stink. Especially when I am pregnant. Bad smells just ooze from my body. I was using Secret Platnium combined with some sort of sweat reducer and a generous sprinkling of powder. It worked until about noon. Since I lean over people a lot while I am training them, I was always wondering if they could smell my funk. Likely, yes. I saw a poster for this last time I was at the OB, and I tried it. It works better than any other deodorant/antipersperant I have tried to date. It seems to keep the stink at bay until at least I get home at night. Granted, I am not so keen on flodding my body with aluminium, especially while gestating, but I figure if I eat enough fruit and vegetables during the day, the antioxidants might counteract the aluminium.

That's it for now. I will pay more attention to what I slather, slap and spray on this carcass and keep you posted on the good stuff.

Prenatal Brainwashing or Prenatal Bonding?

I just finished my first round of "rub rub, tap tap" with my preborn son here as described in Creating a Prenatal Classroom. I also copied about 5 of my favorite poems (Robert Frost and the like) into a small notebook with the intention of reading them outloud every night. I finally got around to doing that. I am on week six of the BabyPlus program. I am pretty convinced that the classical music I played for my daughter while I was pregnant contributed to her sweet and peaceful disposition as a newborn. I am hoping that this baby is similar. I just wanted to jot down some thoughts and record what I did tonight- more commentary on all this later.

Read:
The Road Not Taken
Psalm 23
The Daffodils
Sonnet XVII: Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
The Owl and the Pussycat

Games:
Pat
Rub
Shake
Tap

BabyPlus Lesson 6 (AM and PM)

Wombsong Mozart- whole CD

Yes... it was!

The results were positive that week- and I am now about 26 weeks pregnant with my second child- a boy. Stay tuned- this blog is about to become active very soon.