32 Weeks Young!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

January 1, 2015

Happy New Year!!!  Emily celebrated the start of 2015 by turning 32 weeks young!

On New Year's Eve, Emily woke up a bit after 11pm and as the clock kept ticking toward 11:20, then 11:30, then 11:40, I became nervous I wouldn’t get her back to sleep in time to see the ball drop with Shep!  But, she fell asleep and I laid her back down and got myself back into the living room at 11:58pm, just in the nick of time -- PHEW!

Since we were traveling for Christmas, we spent New Year's Day opening up our Christmas presents to one another.  Emily kept trying to eat the paper and she actually bit off a piece of it before we could stop her!  It got wet and stuck to her tongue and she started gagging!!  Poor baby.  :(  No more wrapped presents for this little girl for a while!

Last weekend, Emily met 14 new cousins on Shep's side of the family, including 2 newborn baby cousins!  She did great and loved meeting all her new family members and playing with other kids!

She is pulling up on furniture more and more -- she really wants to stand up!  On December 30, she pulled herself up to a full standing position in her pack-n-play!  No more hunching over.... this girl means business!  Sitting is for babies, and so last year.  ;)

Emily's Resolutions:

- Sleep more

- Drink from bottle or sippy cup

- Talk (first baby sign language & then hopefully some verbal words!)

- Learn to walk

- Don't scratch my face or mommy's face

Exercise During Pregancy

I was a Zumba lover before I got pregnant.  Work would sometimes get in the way of me making it to a class, but there were periods over the past 1-2 years where I would Zumba consistently 2 times a week, sometimes 3 if I could squeeze in a weekend class!!!  The rule with exercise during pregnancy seems to be that if you did it before, you can likely safely do it during pregnancy.  I remember one of my favorite Zumba teachers shimmying throughout her pregnancy, up until about a month before she delivered!  I remember thinking she was amazing and hoped that I'd be able to do prego Zumba too!

Source

Alas, here I am, nearly 19 weeks pregnant and only having gone to the gym a measly ONCE so far.  October 13 seems so long ago.... though I can still remember very clearly the nausea I felt when I got off the elliptical machine that day...  It seems like it hasn't let up since then!  ;)

Well, couch potato no more!  Hubby and I went to the gym together today!  {He really has been the one guilting encouraging me to go back for weeks, since all the pregnancy books try to trick you into believing that once the first trimester is in the rear view mirror so is the fatigue and nausea...}

I walked for 30 minutes on the treadmill and then did about 2 sets of 10 bicep curls on each arm using a 5 pound dumbbell before I had to call it quits.  Although I drank a full 16 ounce bottle of water while walking and didn't walk too fast or on too steep of an incline, I somehow wound up feeling pretty crappy by the time I left.  I had a little of a cramp in my side {possibly from the water, though I made sure to sip it slowly} and couldn't even bring myself to lift each arm another 10 reps.  I was a little disappointed, but I guess that's not too bad for my first visit back to the gym in over 2.5 months.  Let's hope it's not another 11 weeks before I make it back again...

I really want to work on some more arm toning and definitely some stretching and other prego-friendly exercises over the next few months.  There are a number of benefits to exercising during pregnancy.  They say that having a baby is like running a marathon, and there's noooooo way on God's green earth I'd ever be able to do the latter, so I'm thinking I need to prepare as best as I can with my remaining "training time" to make it through the delivery!!!   Plus, some studies show that pregnant women who exercise and/or stay fit have shorter labors.  Yes, please!

The Bump website has a pretty handy exercise workout guide {click here} that I'm going to *try* to use for the remaining few months of my pregnancy.

Source: The Bump

Hubby also got me a great workout video for my birthday that I'm going to give a shot, too.  {Even though my current work-out clothes may or may not look like skin on bologna...}

Here's to more exercise in 2014!