Leilani has surprised and amazed us, by gobbling down huge amounts of food. Yesterday I paid close attention, and took a photo of the exact quantities. She will drink 150ml of water if we let her, but only nurses 3 or 4 times during the daytime now.
* the cubes are steamed vegetables, which I freeze in icecube trays, so I can thaw individual portions of 30-40g, about 1oz
It was cold this evening, when we went to the neighborhood picnic, so I dug in the bottom of Leilani’s warm clothes box, and found this really cute outfit, labeled 12 months. Andy put it on and informed me it’s too small, too tight already, when I took it off later I realized what he meant. First and last time for the T-shirt. Leilani is very tall. Last week we were out, with a few friends and their toddlers, and she was standing next to a 19 months old girl, who was just 2 inches taller. She is still wearing some things labeled 12 months, and nightgowns that are even smaller, but her nice dresses and long pyjamas now are almost all for 18 months.
Short answer, no I am just fat from the last baby.
That’s not really how I felt a week ago, I was pretty OK with my weight slowly going down and the first pre-pregnancy clothes starting to fit again. But then a teenager admiring Leilani asked if I was pregnant again, which did not make me happy. I gave her exactly that short answer, smiling bravely, and she was pretty embarassed, stuttering about Britney whose Baby is Leilani’s size, and her own sister who also looked pregnant for a long time after giving birth. I had read about this question before in Dear Abby (“Never ask, rude question!”) and in Mothering Magazine and similar publications (“Laugh it off”), but I had not expected it to happen to me.
The stroller has been gathering dust in the corner, Leilani gets up late these days, Chloe is on vacation, and Andy is so busy at work making it hard to find the time to go out jogging. Andy was off during the July 4th week, but we were so busy childproofing, organizing and getting solar hot water that it felt I had less time off than in a regular week. No exercise at all, but we did go to 2 parties, the second one at the beach where the unhappy question was asked.
I looked in the mirror, and although I was almost at the weight I was before getting pregnant, my body shape has changed a lot. My legs are thinner, and less muscular, and my belly really does look pregnant, and I have less muscle more fat in general. Anyway… I went on a diet right away, didn’t seem radical to me, but I dropped 3 pounds in the first week– yesterday morning I weighed 143 pounds. I think that is too much while still nursing, so I had a good dinner yesterday. And yes, I am eating enough protein and vitamins… I am doing crunches and situps every second day, and a few other exercises while Andy watches the baby now, and hope that will eventually help.
Leilani pulled herself up to a standing position yesterday. She lost balance the second she was up, and I caught her, but she did the rest by herself! She still doesn’t crawl the official way, on hands and knees, but she can make it across the room in about 30 seconds now in a forward motion. She gets up on hands and knees, but either she doesn’t know how to balance, or her muscles don’t support the weight if one arm is in the air, so she uses different techniques arms up or hips up or creeping. It’s hard to explain, I hope to post a movie of it shortly.
I finished (I think) child proofing the playroom this morning at 4:30 am.
Leilani had her first swimming lesson yesterday. By chance at a birthday party we met a woman who told us about teaching her children to swim at an age of 9 months. Elizabeth is a counselor at Kapa’a middle school, and she explained patiently how to do the first lesson – and then agreed to meet us at the beach and help us.
Lesson one involved saying “1, 2, 3 breathe” and dunking Leilani underwater, and letting go of her for a split second, passing her from Andy to me. I then brought her up, and was all enthusiastic and praised her for being such a great little swimmer. We did it only 3 times, it was pretty cold and windy and we didn’t want her to freeze on top of the startling experience. She was a good student, and didn’t swallow water, cough or cry, but I could tell she was not so sure that it was all the fun we pretended it to be. As a reward she got draged through the water, kicking her legs and splashing happily, doing the Leilanifish. Next week she will have lesson 2.
As a sidenote: Leilani is really cranky these days, and yesterday before going to the beach she cried and was all upset, but when she saw me get out my bathingsuit she went from crying to a big grin in less than a second…
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