Back in the swing

Finally, we seem to be settling back into our normal routine. As nice as it was to have Joe around for three weeks, I was beginning to miss the easy rhythm that Lily and I had established. And because I'm such a neurotic neat freak, having another person around meant more dishes, more clutter, more stress. 


Last week was pretty rough for Lily. I think it was the transition back home plus a growth spurt. I swear she's like 3 inches longer. The first night we were back she slept very soundly, but used me as a punching bag for most of the night. Maybe she was just working off some of the stored up energy from being in the car for two days. She was kicking and hitting and squirming. I kept trying to get out of her way, but I still ended up with bruises in the morning. She slept all the way through baby yoga on Tuesday morning (along with the other babies which meant we got to do mama yoga instead. Musta been the phase of the moon or something.). Wednesday was awful. She started doing this weird groaning and pushing back thing interspersed with bouts of screaming. Nothing seemed to help and I tried everything. I haven't been so relieved to hand her off to Joe ever. She continued to be cranky the rest of the week. This made it hard for me to exercise, which makes me irritable. Also we were eating lots of frozen meals and take-out because I couldn't cook. 


This week has been the complete opposite. Each day has been better than the last. Lily is sleeping great, nursing great, and having lots of fun playing with her new toys. She's even tolerating sitting in her highchair while I cook and clean. I got a new cake book, and a rotating cake stand is in the mail on its way to me. Right now I have some yogurt culturing in the kitchen, all the dishes are done and Lily is sitting in my lap trying to fit both her foot and the ear of her Purple Bear in her mouth at the same time. 


With the swings back and forth between good and horrible, I've been thinking a lot about going back to work. I've even gone so far as to send my resume a few places. I really don't know what to do. Part of me is definitely ready to be doing something other than just making silly faces and changing diapers all day. Another part of me doesn't want to be gone a single minute. And yet another part of me knows that I would be totally stressed out because I wouldn't be able to do the things I like (exercise, cook, and clean) as well as work even part-time and take care of Lily. And realistically, in any part-time job I could get I would only earn enough to pay for childcare. It's a zero-sum game. Sigh. 


Lily has a bunch of new tricks. She rolls over in both directions and likes to scoot around on her tummy if you put your hands behind her feet to push off of. She is also working on sitting up by herself. And she's suddenly become a lot more vocal. We must be using her squeaky giraffe chew toy too much because she's started emitting a high pitched squeal all of the time. Her little hands are getting to be very dextrous and quick. We had lunch at Chili's on our trip to Nebraska and she got ahold of the paper liner under the tortilla chips. Before we could stop her, she yanked the whole sheet off of the tray. She managed to do it so fast that all of the chips stayed on the tray just like when a magician pulls out the tablecloth from under the place settings. It was awesome. She was very proud of herself. 


Anyway, things are back to normal. Joe's back at school. I'm cooking and exercising. Lily is changing and growing. Life is good. 

Week 1

Back down to 167. Eating home cooked food is helping me recover from the holidays. Also, my newly replaced Nike+iPod sensor, oh how I've missed you.

M: Boo holiday eating. 30 min Yoga video + 40 min walk
T: Baby Yoga
W: Nothing, sick.
Th: 4 miles walking
F: Aquarium adventure!
S: Nothing.
S: Galavanting around town

Cookies and a Cake

As I've been settling into my stay-at-home-mom-ness and figuring out how to keep an infant entertained while doing other things, I've become obsessed with baking and decorating. Maybe it's from watching too many episodes of Cake Boss on Netflix while nursing Lily. 

Before Christmas I got my first set of piping tips and pastry bags. I decided to make some snowflake cookies for my mother-in-law's birthday. Since speed is a priority with a baby around, I used a boxed sugar cookie mix and vanilla frosting from a can. I decided to just make drop cookies so they would be irregularly shaped and then paint on a background color before piping the detail. I mixed some of the vanilla icing with some blue gel dye and almond extract then spread it on the cooled cookies. After letting that set up for a while I piped the remaining white vanilla icing in snowflake patterns. It wasn't nearly as hard as I expected it to be. I think they turned out pretty cute, and they were REALLY delicious with the almond frosting. I need to work on keeping my hands steady to make straighter lines, and figure out how to lift up the tip without creating that little tail of icing. 

After my early success, I went my usual way and took things to the extreme. I started looking into culinary and cake decorating schools. Because clearly, I had found my calling. Turns out culinary school is expensive. So, I decided to just go it alone. There's a YouTube video for everything, right? 

For Christmas, Joe and I decided to make a Yule Log to bring to my mom's house. The first step was to pipe the holly leaf and berry decorations so they could harden for a couple of days. Again, I used my trusty vanilla icing in a can and added some leaf green dye gel. Using a leaf tip, I piped a V-shape of leaves. Again, it was way easier than I expected. Then I kneaded some taste-less red gel dye with marzipan for the berries. They looked so good! I would have liked a darker green color for the leaves, but this was close enough. 

Then on Christmas Eve we baked the cake, mixed the filling, and rolled it up. We used a combination of recipe. We got the cake recipe from All Recipes (one of my favorite recipe sites) and the filling recipe from Cooks Illustrated. We were making it a day ahead so the simple whipped cream filling would have fallen and made the cake all soggy. The mascarpone cheese helped stabilize it. We decided to not use any espresso, but a touch of vanilla extract instead. We sculpted the mushrooms out of marzipan. You can't see it in this picture but the have little stubby stems and I scored the bottoms of the caps with a knife to look like little gills. I tried to make marzipan pinecones from marzipan mixed with cocoa powder. They ended up looking like poop, so they became brown mushrooms instead. The joy of sculpting with marzipan is if it looks bad you just mush it up and start again. 

Christmas morning I frosted the cake with whipped chocolate frosting from a can and dragged a fork through it to make it look like bark. I arranged the mushrooms artfully and dusted them with confectioner's sugar and cocoa powder to look like a little bit of dirt and snow. Finally, I was ready to add my piped holly leaves! I made 8 in case something happened to them. That was a good thing because I managed to crack every one of them trying to get them from the parchment paper to the log. So the least destructed one was placed on and partially repaired. Apparently frosting in a can doesn't set up as well as freshly made royal icing. Oh well. The cake was absolutely delicious, and I'm pretty proud of the way it turned out. 

As Lily gets older and more tolerant of being somewhere other than in my arms I'm looking forward to experimenting with different cake recipes and decorating techniques. I want to find some natural food coloring agents and see what all I can do with only organic ingredients. So if you're in the Chicago area and you want a delicious homemade semi-experimental cake, I'm you're girl. 

A New Year

So. I have been pretty delinquent about the blog recently. Part of that has ben due to holiday fun and part of it from boredom. Already I'm bored of writing about losing weight and I REALLY don't want to turn into one of those moms that only talks about her child all of the time. Thus my blogging resolution is to take the time to write about more non-baby topics. And I will be continuing to post my weekly workouts on Monday for my own sake, but I will be starting from Week 1 (because I have no idea what week it should be). And here's a picture that's just too funny not to post.

Happy New Year!

Week 9

I ended up at 165 lbs on Monday morning. This week proved the argument made by Elle Woods in Legally Blonde:


Exercise gives you endorphins. 
Endorphins make you happy. 
Happy people just don't kill their husbands.


Joe had his first set of law school finals this week. Which meant a lot of studying at home and at school. Joe was really awesome about helping out with Lily in the evenings and Lily, thankfully, had a great week of sleep. It's like she knew it was going to be a stressful week and saved up all her fussiness for the days that Joe actually had finals. Thursday was a complete disaster, and the first of Joe's tests. So Friday morning Joe was an angel and let me do some yoga all by myself. Then later that afternoon it was really nice out so Lily and I went for a leisurely winter stroll while Joe did some work. After that I felt ready to be the main caretaker again through the weekend so Joe could prepare for his test on Monday. Monday she screamed all day and all evening. She didn't have a fever, she might have had some gas, but whatever it was it passed and she slept soundly that night. Then yesterday was the first day of winter break, and Lily was back to her cheerful self and Joe amused her while I got to clean the kitchen and cook good food. And we went for a walk in the sunshine. The take-home message of this week for me is to keep doing things and going outside because that is clearly what keeps me sane. 


M: 166, 50 min video
T: 165, not much
W: 164, 45 min walk
Th: 164, baby yoga
F: 164, 30 min video + hour walk
S: 165, nothing
S: 166, shoppiing

Video Reviews

I've been sampling workout videos from the library in preparation for the winter. For most of my life I've gone for a run, to the gym, or taken a class to workout. I've never really mastered the "home workout." Especially when it comes to cardio. My dance skillz are pretty limited, so dancing around the apartment with Lily is only fun for so long. Certainly, there must be some cheesy video out there that will get my heart rate up and maybe work in some toning as well. Right? Well, here are my reviews of some of the videos I tried. 


Gaiam: Cardio Burn - Sculpt
The key word in this title is 'sculpt'. This video was WAY too intense for me right now. Holy cow was I sore the next two days. My body certainly felt sculpted after only the 30 minute workout. I can't even imagine what the 50 minute workout or bonus core cardio workouts are like. Other than it being too hard for now, I enjoyed it. The instructor is not annoying, the scenery is pretty, and it definitely packs a lot in in a short period of time. I can see myself liking this more when I'm a bit stronger. 


The Biggest Loser: The Workout - Boot Camp
I really liked this one. Of all The Biggest Loser brand stuff, I like the ones that Bob does the best. Jillian is way too intimidating for me. This video can be done with free weights (I have just been doing the movements without weights and it's been plenty.). There are 3 different levels meant to be done in progression over 6 weeks. It was just the right amount of cardio and strength training for me. And I like that I have the option of adding weights as well. I would definitely recommend this one. 


Gaiam: Cardio Burn - Yoga
This Gaiam video was much more doable than the Sculpt one. Basically it was a 30 minute vinyasa. I'm not sure how "cardio" intensive it was, though. I was breathing and sweating, so maybe that counts. This is a good one to start off your day with. The instructions are clear, but not overly simplistic, and the instructor actually follows the beat of the music. After a day of carrying a baby in the most ridiculous positions and then sleeping on your side all night, this video was a great way to get my body stretched out and moving again. I can see myself using this one along with a more cardio or strength intensive video, or as an 'easy' day. 
*Update: I felt this the next day. My muscles were pleasantly sore, but I didn't feel like I had over done it.
*Update 2: The 50 minute workout is so-so. Basically it's a slower tempo version of the 30 minute one, with some different poses. It was a little long for Lily, we had to stop in the middle to nurse/cuddle for a while. The workout is structured in ~10 minute chunks so there were places for natural breaks to stop and play with her. Again, it's one big vinyasa, but it felt even less cardio than the 30. This is the kind of yoga that I would like to do in a class where I could really focus, or maybe on a weekend when Joe can amuse Lily. 


Jillian Michaels: Banish Fat, Boost Metabolism
I was surprised by how much I didn't hate Jillian. She was much less intimidating and almost supportive. It's a 40 minute circuit workout that mixes cardio with strength. I only made it halfway through before Lily had a meltdown, so I don't know how it ends. There is a lot of kicking, jumping and boxing that isn't explained super great. If you were someone who had never taken a good kickboxing class before, I think you could really hurt yourself. I didn't like it enough to give it another try for the full time. 

Week 8

Today I am 166.6 lbs, and that's about what the scale said all week. No major fluctuations this time. I have been a huge wimp and not going outside in the cold and snow unless I absolutely have to. That's having a negative affect on my mood big time. My goal for this week is to be outside for half an hour every day, not necessarily all at once. And I need to keep up the motivation to do a video or something somewhat physical inside. When it's cold out all I want to do is snuggle up with Lily and watch movies all day and then eat something warm and preferably cheesy for breakfast, lunch and dinner. This is not a recipe for weight loss success.


I've considered getting a gym membership somewhere, but in the end it would just be money wasted. Lily is still a fairly fussy baby, so if there was some sort of childcare available they would be calling me back every 10 minutes because she would be screaming. And I know myself well enough to know that I would never actually go in the evening and have Joe watch her. Sigh. It's going to be a long winter. 


M: video + 45 min walk
Tu: video
W: shopping wearing Lily
Th: Baby Yoga
F: nothing
S: Museum of Science and Industry
S: walked to grocery store