Seven Quick Takes on a Thursday Night

Many blogs I read do a "seven quick takes" blog entry on Fridays, so I am going to give it a shot here on a Thursday night!

1. I have not abandoned this blog, I swear! It seems like this last month has flown by between Mother's Day and my birthday, which are a week apart, and crazy busy-ness at work. I may not have mentioned this before but I am paid to write for my company, so sometimes, while I have interesting ideas for my blog, and would much rather spend my day writing for my blog, the most energy I can muster when I get home at the end of the day is to note the idea, thinking I will come back to flesh out the post later. Um, yeah. I will try to write a little more regularly here in the future. I am better at posting pithy, 140-word updates to my Twitter feed, @GlamOMommy, so follow me on Twitter if you dare!

2. After almost two years and nine months, I have started regular exercise again--yay! Pre-baby, I was a regular, three to four times a week, Jazzerciser. Some people may think that's crazy, but I love Jazzercise. It feels more like dancing to the latest top music rather than "exercising," but it combines cardio, stretching, and strength training in one hour. I always feel so much better after a class, because I know I've worked every part of my body. I couldn't exercise during my pregnancy, because I had an early bleeding scare and considering all the difficulties I encountered to get pregnant, my doctor advised me to take it easy for the first trimester just so I would have peace of mind that the baby was okay. When the second trimester began, I was primed to go back to Jazzercise and do it all low impact, but then I was struck with a severe case of sciatica that left me having trouble simply WALKING for several weeks. By the time that passed, I was so huge and it was so hot in Texas, I just gave up and told myself I'd get back in class after the baby was born. Um, yeah. I went three times while on maternity leave, and it was SO hard because I'd been practically immobile for so long. Now, almost two years later, I am back in class, and doing WAY better than I expected. Apparently, chasing after and lifting a 28-pound toddler is fabulous exercise all on its own. My stamina now is almost better than I went to class all the time! I'm only going twice a week after a work. The other two days, I pick up my daughter from school and my husband goes to work out, so this way, we both get a good workout in!

3. On Saturday morning, my daughter and I start the first of 11 Saturday mornings of Mommy and Me swim class. What was I thinking? Well, I was thinking I didn't want my daughter to be as old as I was (six) when she started swim lessons. I wanted her not to be afraid of the water and possibly save herself. I was thinking it would be cool for her to have some good experience in the water before we go on our vacation in September (more on that later). What I wasn't thinking was, oh, that means I have to GET UP and BE SOMEWHERE at 9:15 in the morning every Saturday this summer. What I wasn't thinking was, oh, that means I have to WEAR A SWIMSUIT every Saturday morning this summer. In front of other people. With my mommy pooch and less-than-toned thighs in full effect (thus the Jazzercising!). What I wasn't thinking was, oh, that means I have to wrangle my cute baby for essentially TWO HOURS every Saturday morning this summer for a half-hour class. What I wasn't thinking was, oh, that means I have to WAX regularly this summer! (I have an appointment tomorrow!) Hopefully, it will be a fun bonding experience for me and my little gal and she will take to the water like a cute little duckling.

4. I found out this week that yet another friend of mine who has a kid around the same age as mine is pregnant with baby #2. And I feel fine. I feel I am good with my decision to only have one child, after having moments of doubt and serious babyfever this spring. While I'm not completely ready to start selling off our baby equipment and clothes yet, I feel that I am done, and I'm okay with that. I essentially knew going into our pregnancy that it was most likely my one shot at experiencing that miracle, and so I really reveled in it and tried to enjoy it as much as possible. It's a little bittersweet knowing that was truly it, especially as my daughter now looks like a kid vs. a baby and hits huge new milestones all the time, but I love her so much and I'm so grateful to have her, it's okay. She'll have all of our love and attention, whether she wants it or not! :)

Watch out world! I'm a big girl now! (21 months old)

5. Next week, for the first time in my motherhood, I am going to be single-parenting it all week, as my husband is going out of town for work. EEK! I am taking the advice of another blogger, and have lined up dinner with the grandparentals on Monday night (it's my mom's birthday), dinner with a mom friend on Tuesday night, and may take my daughter to the grandparentals to spend the night on Thursday, so I can get in one Jazzercise class at least. :)

6. As if things weren't going to be hairy enough for me next week, what with some looming deadlines at work and the single parenting, I had to go and make things more complicated by choosing NOW to start working on potty training. SIGH. I really don't know what I was thinking. For several months now, I've talked up the potty with my daughter--she comes in with me occasionally, we've watched an Elmo potty video, and read an Abby Cadabby potty book--just so she would start getting the idea. This week, I set up her little potty in our bathroom, but did not point it out to her at all or tell her it was for her. Yesterday morning as we were getting ready for work and she was playing in our room, I told her I was going to go potty, and she immediately ran over to HER potty and sat on it! Hooray--she's ready, I thought. But the thing is, at her school, they don't reinforce potty training in the class she's in now and I wasn't sure when she was going to move up to a class that would. So my husband and I stopped in at her school today and talked to the director, and she told us they have a transition class they are putting some of the early potty training kids in, and that she can visit the class NEXT WEEK (while I'm single parenting) to see if she'll do okay there, and if so, she can move on up there and doesn't have to wait until August, which is when the rest of the kids her age will move up to the potty training classes. And, in the new class, she will get music and a stretch and grow class once a week, so I think that will be fun for her...I worry that she is bored in her current class. (I may be biased, but she can count to 10, spell her first name, sing the alphabet song and many others, recite some books from memory, and recognize all the letters, shapes, and colors, so I think she's pretty smart and a fast learner and want her to be challenged and learning new things.) But, and I do this every time she moves classes, now I'm sad to see her leave her teachers, who are so sweet! It's tough...I want her to move on and grow, but I want her to stay my baby and stay with good people that love her too, so it's a push and pull all the time. Luckily, one of the teachers in the new class was her teacher when she was first in school at four months. My daughter doesn't remember her now, of course, but I loved her and so that makes it a little better for me, although we have yet to have a bad teacher at this school. :)

7. Jamaica. Jamaica. JAMAICA!! We've booked our big vacation this year, and we're going back to Jamaica! (Another perk of not having another baby--we can still afford to travel fun places!) My husband and I went to a Sandals resort in Negril about four years ago and had an amazing time. We also took the picture that became our Christmas card picture that year on that trip.

Our 2006 Christmas Card Picture from Jamaica

I thought this was pretty glam, I have to say!

Next door to Sandals, which is couples-only, is their sister resort named Beaches, which is for families. On our last visit, we walked over to check Beaches out because we had privileges there, but came back quickly after encountering all the noisy children. Now that we have a noisy child of our own, we are excited to go to Beaches! And our daughter is excited too, because she saw the pictures of Elmo and the other Sesame Street characters that live at Beaches on their website! She was like, "Elmo!!" So we will get to have a fun beach vacation in a beautiful place and help our daughter make some fun memories with her Sesame Street friends too. So, as you can imagine, the Jamaica vacation is essentially what prompted both the return to exercising and the Mommy and Me swim class! (The potty training will help too...our daughter can participate in better kid activities at the resort if she's potty trained!) And, on a few recent shopping trips, I bought two possible outfits for myself and one for my daughter for the Christmas card picture we will take on the beach in Jamaica on this trip LOL. Now I just need to coordinate a nice outfit for my husband too. :) I'm already ahead on our 2010 Christmas card--BONUS!

If you are reading this, thanks for reading! I'll try not to be away as long next time. :)