September 18, 2002
Zeke and I just got home from our weekly lunch date with Keith, and after I sat down with him for a nice lengthy (and calming for both of us) feeding, I laid him quietly down for a nap and tiptoed away to the office to get some writing and photo organization done. Five minutes later I heard him making happy gurgling sounds, so I went back to fetch him, and when I picked him up, he was sloshing. I kid you not. You could hear the milk in his tummy sloshing back and forth. I thought he was on the verge of spitting up everywhere, but no, he just had a super-full belly. I very carefully brought him back with me to the office and sat him on the floor amidst his toys, and he is currently playing happily and showing no signs of expelling vast quantities of milk. Yet, anyway.
My exciting news for the week is that last night I went to my first bellydancing class. I saw a belly dancer at the Wallingford street fair last weekend and thought to myself, "That looks fun," so I signed up for classes. Last night was the first class, and I was pleased, although not entirely surprised, to find that I was neither the fattest nor the thinnest woman there. I was the only one with visible stretch marks, although maybe some of the other women had stretch marks too and just wore clothes that covered them up. In my opinion, every single one of my stretch marks is a badge of motherhood, and I'm not going to be embarrassed about them. Besides, what's the point in belly dancing if you're going to have to cover up your belly?
It was a much more serious workout than I thought it would be, which was an unexpected bonus. Shaking your hips and butt around the room and waving your arms in the air for an hour will really work those major muscle groups.
Speaking of getting exercise, I tried on a divided skirt the other day that hasn't fit me since high school -- in fact, I have no idea why I didn't get rid of it a long time ago -- and IT FIT. I wore it to Meeting on Sunday and it wasn't even all that tight. It was a size 14. The last time I was a size 14 was my senior year of high school, and that was after a concentrated effort to lose weight for my senior pictures. Before I got pregnant with Zeke, I was a solid size 20 and heading for a size 22.
I'm not just losing weight, either; I'm getting into shape. There's this hill next to my old workplace that I climbed pretty much every day of my third trimester, because I had to get brisk exercise to keep my blood sugar down. I remember always being winded and feeling exhausted at the top. Today Keith and I climbed that hill on our way to lunch, and I made it to the top easily, without feeling breathless. I can carry Zeke up a flight of stairs without feeling my heart pound. I can carry him in the sling for hours without getting tired. I feel so strong and light, it's unbelievable. I didn't think I felt all that bad when I was a size 20-almost-22 and weighed 20 pounds more than I do right now, but compared to how I feel now? I felt like crap.
I have a physical scheduled for next week and I'll be curious to see what my weight is on the official doctor's scale. I'm also curious to see what my hemoglobin A1c results are, as I've been more carefully monitoring my blood sugar lately. My last a1c was around 6.1, which is OK but not great, and I'd like to see it lower than that. They're also going to check my thyroid function, because I chart my basal body temperature every morning, and it's consistently extremely low. I don't really have any other signs of poor thyroid functioning, but I figured that as long as they're drawing my blood for the a1c anyway, I might as well get it checked.
I leave you now with a couple pictures of Zeke, who is now officially a huge monster baby. Here's Zeke asleep in his grandma's yard, and here's Zeke crawling around looking cute. OK, one more: here's Zeke eating beets for the first time.