After being on my weight loss and exercise 'journey' for a year and a half now, I have taken what could be considered the scariest move so far. Not that deciding to change my life wasn't scary from the outset, or going to a gym and being the biggest person there, or going shopping for gym shoes and conveying to the salesperson that yes I am a big fat person but I am doing something about my weight.
No all that pales into insignificance next to this one....I am going to train to become a gym instructor!!! Les Mills BodyStep to be more precise!
A few months ago the group fitness manager at my gym asked me if I would like to be an instructor. At the time I was getting ready for a big fitness assesment, so admittadly my mind was elsewhere, and i was quite jittery and nervous. So it didn't really sink in. Later I thought about it and realised the enormouty of what she had asked me. She (and others) thought I was good enough at the classes technically, and thought that I would be capable of standing up in front of a group of others and leading them through the workout. WOW!! On realising this, it totally blew me away! ME!!?? Little old me. Who 2 years ago was at my heaviest weight, even heavier than when I was pregnant. Me who can't speak in front of people to save myself! (i am a singer so I get aroud it that way :)
There are so many reasons why I should not do this. I am not fit enough. I am not thin enough. I may not be very good at talking. I might get the moves muffed up. People might not like me. People may not think I am good enough.
But there are too many reasons why I should give this a go. I am almost 32. I am getting older. I really many not get another chance like this. I would really love to inspire and share my knowledge with others. I think people would look up to me for that reason.
So I decided just to go for it.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Must be that time of the month...
Today I feel really wierd. I am not sure if it is just that time of the months, or I am in the beginnings of a mid life crisis of sorts!!
I just had the realisation that - this is my life. What I have now, my child, my husband, our home, my cats, everything - this is it. When I was a kid and thinking about how my life would turn out and what I would do when I grew up, this is it!
And I can't help feel a little bit ripped off. Regrets, well not really. Just a bit of a scare to think that this is it!
I had been feeling like this for a little while, well not exactly like this, just some underlying wierd feeling that I could never quite put my finger on. It was not that I was unhappy as such, just something was there niggling away.
I think it really came to a head this weekend, when we had a couple of young riders stay at our place. When I say young, well younger, only 28 and 29 which is only 2 years younger than me. But it made me realise how much they have achieved in their lives, how much they have done and seen, and also how much they have left to do. Living in Europe for 9 years, travelling heaps, seeing the world, meeting lots of people. Then when they are done with that they will settle down and start a family and have all that part of their lives left ahead of them.
I am not saying that I want to give up this life for another, it had just made me realise that this is it! I will probably have another baby, watch them grow up, then retire and die. That's it.
I guess that sounds really selifish on one level, that in watching them grow I will get so much joy and love and laughter. And when we retire, we will travel and have fun and enjoy our grandchildren. But all I can see now is the next few years where my husband will work his ass off at work, and we will raise the children and I will be stuck at home. I think that's it really, feeling trapped. I thought it might have been wanting to reclaim my youth, after the night out I had on Saturday, and had to go home early coz of the baby. Selfishness has always been a strong point of mine. Jealousy maybe too, that I can't have the life that others have. But I wanted to have a family, I did a lot of living before Alex and there is much to come after wards.
Just a different sort of living.
I just had the realisation that - this is my life. What I have now, my child, my husband, our home, my cats, everything - this is it. When I was a kid and thinking about how my life would turn out and what I would do when I grew up, this is it!
And I can't help feel a little bit ripped off. Regrets, well not really. Just a bit of a scare to think that this is it!
I had been feeling like this for a little while, well not exactly like this, just some underlying wierd feeling that I could never quite put my finger on. It was not that I was unhappy as such, just something was there niggling away.
I think it really came to a head this weekend, when we had a couple of young riders stay at our place. When I say young, well younger, only 28 and 29 which is only 2 years younger than me. But it made me realise how much they have achieved in their lives, how much they have done and seen, and also how much they have left to do. Living in Europe for 9 years, travelling heaps, seeing the world, meeting lots of people. Then when they are done with that they will settle down and start a family and have all that part of their lives left ahead of them.
I am not saying that I want to give up this life for another, it had just made me realise that this is it! I will probably have another baby, watch them grow up, then retire and die. That's it.
I guess that sounds really selifish on one level, that in watching them grow I will get so much joy and love and laughter. And when we retire, we will travel and have fun and enjoy our grandchildren. But all I can see now is the next few years where my husband will work his ass off at work, and we will raise the children and I will be stuck at home. I think that's it really, feeling trapped. I thought it might have been wanting to reclaim my youth, after the night out I had on Saturday, and had to go home early coz of the baby. Selfishness has always been a strong point of mine. Jealousy maybe too, that I can't have the life that others have. But I wanted to have a family, I did a lot of living before Alex and there is much to come after wards.
Just a different sort of living.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Mother's Group 1st Birthday Party
Today my Mother's Group held our joint 1st Birthday party for the babies.
Here in Australia, when you have a baby the fantastic South Australian government set you up with a Mothers's Group of babies born around the same time. You have 6 weeks of structured learning at the local Child and Youth Health Centre, then you can do what you like. We have met every week since then, and it has been an amazing journey of sharing and friendship. We only have 9 in our group, most have over 12 mums.
I have loved hearing other people's stories, and I am not ashamed to admit that I like hearing other people's problems because it helps to put yours into perspective. Everyone goes through hard times, and it helps to hear how others have dealt with it.
And it amazes me how all the babies can develop at so many varied rates. Some are walking at 10 months, some don't have teeth at 11 month, others slept through the night at 3 months and some still aren't. Yet they are all classed as perfectly normal!!
After a year, 3 mums have returned to full time work, and everyone else is working at least some time. So we are going to miss out on seeing some of the babies grow up. Even today we saw Evan and him mum after not seeing him for 3 months. And he has really changed.
So here are a few choice pics of our Mother's Group, from day one, to 1 year on!!
Alex playing with Ahlia
The fabulous big bird cake!
The babies 1 year on - minus BrodieTuesday, February 3, 2009
One year on..
I can't believe that in just a few weeks we will be celebrating Pappy's 1st Birthday!!
It really does seem like only a few months ago we were bringing him home, working out how to get him to sleep, sorting out the dramas of breastfeeding and not getting much sleep at all!!
How time has just flown by. Now my little man is communicating, crawling, eating like a trooper and sleeping blissfully through the night! Wow, maybe I will consider having another one after all!!
So i have sent out the invitations, after much discussion about who/where/what we would do. I am pretty happy with the outcome, I don't feel like I have left anyone out who would be offended. After all, it is really a party for us adults its't it! A bit of a celebration for us to say 'we made it!" He is still alive! Let's reward outselves for that!
I have had a practice of his lion birthday cake, as you can see it is a good thing I practiced it as it does need a little work! The icing just wasn't thick enough when I started. Also I am not 100% happy with the colours. But I have some time to perfect that!
Along with the slab for the lion cake, I have ordered some cupcakes from the Women's Work Depot, so that I can decorate them with the fabulous designs I found in the Women's Weekly 'Easy Cupcakes by Colours' book I was given for Christmas. I am not a baker, really I'm not, so I have taken half the hard work out for myself... just don't tell the guests!!!
Also I have checked out some co-ordinating decorations, in yellow and orange, to match the lion. But I haven't found anything I really like so I think we won't worry about that.
But I have soooooo much work to do in the garden and around the house to tidy up. Since late Feb should be pretty warm here, we are planning to have the party outside under the pergola and let the kids go nuts in the garden. Just got to make it weed free and kid friendly in 3 weeks! UGH! I have let everything go except my roses over the Summer so there is a lot of work to do.
Anyhow I will keep you posted.. may end up hiring a gardener to clean up for me!
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Pappy's 1st Christmas
I felt a little creative the other day and decided to do some photos to commemorate Pappy's 1st Chrissy. Then it dawned on me that they would be a fabulous gift for my folks, inlaws and sister, so in the same breath knocked 3 pressies off my list! Phew!
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
My new best friend
When I was pregant, I found it really hard to imagine a real live baby inside my tummy. Looking back, I sort of imagined a ‘thing’, or a little soul, without making the connection that it was the same thing I was looking at on the ultrasound screen. It really did feel like a part of me, not a separate little entity.
Now that my child is born and is definately his own little entity, I still can’t make the connection - I cannot imagine him swanning around in my belly. Very strange.
If the first few months were about hanging in there and just getting through, from week 16 I have really felt we have come into our own. My little team - me and my bubba. We do everything together. In the early days I would relish getting out of the house, just for half hour to pick up take out food or get the paper, but now, oh now I can’t bear to be away from him!!! I will find any excuse to make sure I am the one staying home and playing with him while DH gets the take out!!
Even now as I write this I am looking forward to the moment he wakes up so I can spend time with him, cuddle and love him and teach him about the world. Show him new things and make sure he gets a little bit of everything in his day. A bit of love, a bit of stimlation, new things and playing with his familiar toys. I just cannot get enough!
I love it that he is able to stay up for 2 hours now after each feed, so that I can bundle him up and take him into town, for a walk or go do the shopping. I take him out to my mum’s so she can spend some quality time with him. It is just great!
This is what being a mother is all about! And is what I thought it should be like from day one, little did I know you have to go through some tough times to get to the reward!!
Now that my child is born and is definately his own little entity, I still can’t make the connection - I cannot imagine him swanning around in my belly. Very strange.
If the first few months were about hanging in there and just getting through, from week 16 I have really felt we have come into our own. My little team - me and my bubba. We do everything together. In the early days I would relish getting out of the house, just for half hour to pick up take out food or get the paper, but now, oh now I can’t bear to be away from him!!! I will find any excuse to make sure I am the one staying home and playing with him while DH gets the take out!!
Even now as I write this I am looking forward to the moment he wakes up so I can spend time with him, cuddle and love him and teach him about the world. Show him new things and make sure he gets a little bit of everything in his day. A bit of love, a bit of stimlation, new things and playing with his familiar toys. I just cannot get enough!
I love it that he is able to stay up for 2 hours now after each feed, so that I can bundle him up and take him into town, for a walk or go do the shopping. I take him out to my mum’s so she can spend some quality time with him. It is just great!
This is what being a mother is all about! And is what I thought it should be like from day one, little did I know you have to go through some tough times to get to the reward!!
Tough work if you can get it
Being a new mum is really hard - don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. The more and more I talk to mums I realise that what I went through was competely normal. Shame I didn’t know that at the time!
The thing is, when you are pregnant, all anyone focuses on is ‘when’s the baby due’, ‘how are you feeling’, ‘have you been getting sick’, it was only towards the end that I got the ‘are you planning to breast feed’ and ‘ask you scared of labour’. Even at antenatal classes they don’t say - the next 3 months of your life are going to be like nothing you have ever experienced. Think of the most difficult thing you have ever done at work or in your life, and multiply it by ten. This is how hard it is going to be.
We all know about the sleepless nights, but its the problem solving, the questioning yourself, at times feeling competely alone and isolated - even when you are in the hospital! I remember the nights at hospital were the worse, being along in the dark with a crying baby who I could not get to attach to breast feed. I would ring the bell and wait for a nurse who would manhandling my breasts to get my child to attach - some of them even ask if its ok!! Although I hated being in hospital and just wanted to get home, it was pretty easy to be able to press a button any time the baby wouldn’t attach or get someone to wheel him away to the nursery when I needed some sleep.
Being at home, all by yourself with this little thing, is like the biggest shock to the system you will ever experience. YOU and only you are in charge of the tiny creature. If you are breastfeeding then you are totally on the line each and every time that baby cries for food, and if you cannot get it sorted out, then battling with a now screaming baby with arms going everywhere is only cause for tears. I cannot remember the amount of times I called the Parent Help line or the hospital to get help with feeding. All around me mothers were stopping breatfeeding and going to bottle, either becuase it was too hard, baby wasn’t gaining wait etc. My sister in law’s bub who was being fed bottle and breast each day when she returned to work all of a sudden rejected the boob and so she had to stop feeding. Ladies in my Mothers Group were giving up as it was all too hard. Not only was battling with attachement with engorged breasts, but to top it off my bub was a ’sleepy baby’ and we were going out of our minds trying to wake this child to feed - I swear we tried everything except putting him in a bucket of water! I would finally get him on, then he would fall asleep again and pop off. I would try and try and keep persisting till I knew he had enough. Then I would weigh him incessantly to ensure he was getting enough. Over this period I had countless trips to the local nurses centre, the doctors, called the helpline, rang Australian Breastfeeding Association, read so many books, reasearched on the web and joined chat rooms and forums, had so much advice from other mums, my mother and the midwives at the hospital. At the time I just wanted answers, and in the end, I found it easier to just go with my gut instincts.
I gave myself 4 weeks. I said to my husband that if it didn’t improve then I would be going to the bottle. I didn’t want to, but the alternative I was faced with was so much worse. So I stuck with it. But by god I am so glad I battled on. 4.5 months on, the baby is thriving on breast milk.
The nighs were a slightly different story - as I had been told that babies start to sleep through from 3 months, i was really hanging out for this. When I was getting up twice a night to him at the start, I would say to myself, only 10 weeks to go, only 9 weeks to go, just hang in there. Sometimes it seems like all you do in just hang in there, and I found numerous times over the first months questioning things and wondering when the actual enjoyment of having a baby would start! All around me, my family, my husbands family, friend, they were loving this little thing, saying how wonderful he was, and then when they would go home we would be left to do the real hard work with this, and I would feel juped. I was working my guts out to keep this little one alive and happy, and wasn’t getting that much fun out of it - and someone else would come into the house and goo and gah over him and say how wonderful he was!! They would get to enjoy him, not me. But come 3 months, and he was sleeping a consistant 9 hour block after the last feed, and I was getting 8 hours of sleep a night, things looked up! At 6 weeks when he started smiling, at 11 weeks when he was interacting more, at 12 weeks when he was really holding objects - I thought to myself, this is the time when you can start enjoying your baby!!
So although it is hard, and at the time I found it hard to see this, they do grow, things do get better. But my god steel yourself for a bumpy ride, and when come out at the end of it with a happy, smiling baby, you will know it was all worth while. Infact, you may think - it wasn’t really that bad, I could do that again!
The thing is, when you are pregnant, all anyone focuses on is ‘when’s the baby due’, ‘how are you feeling’, ‘have you been getting sick’, it was only towards the end that I got the ‘are you planning to breast feed’ and ‘ask you scared of labour’. Even at antenatal classes they don’t say - the next 3 months of your life are going to be like nothing you have ever experienced. Think of the most difficult thing you have ever done at work or in your life, and multiply it by ten. This is how hard it is going to be.
We all know about the sleepless nights, but its the problem solving, the questioning yourself, at times feeling competely alone and isolated - even when you are in the hospital! I remember the nights at hospital were the worse, being along in the dark with a crying baby who I could not get to attach to breast feed. I would ring the bell and wait for a nurse who would manhandling my breasts to get my child to attach - some of them even ask if its ok!! Although I hated being in hospital and just wanted to get home, it was pretty easy to be able to press a button any time the baby wouldn’t attach or get someone to wheel him away to the nursery when I needed some sleep.
Being at home, all by yourself with this little thing, is like the biggest shock to the system you will ever experience. YOU and only you are in charge of the tiny creature. If you are breastfeeding then you are totally on the line each and every time that baby cries for food, and if you cannot get it sorted out, then battling with a now screaming baby with arms going everywhere is only cause for tears. I cannot remember the amount of times I called the Parent Help line or the hospital to get help with feeding. All around me mothers were stopping breatfeeding and going to bottle, either becuase it was too hard, baby wasn’t gaining wait etc. My sister in law’s bub who was being fed bottle and breast each day when she returned to work all of a sudden rejected the boob and so she had to stop feeding. Ladies in my Mothers Group were giving up as it was all too hard. Not only was battling with attachement with engorged breasts, but to top it off my bub was a ’sleepy baby’ and we were going out of our minds trying to wake this child to feed - I swear we tried everything except putting him in a bucket of water! I would finally get him on, then he would fall asleep again and pop off. I would try and try and keep persisting till I knew he had enough. Then I would weigh him incessantly to ensure he was getting enough. Over this period I had countless trips to the local nurses centre, the doctors, called the helpline, rang Australian Breastfeeding Association, read so many books, reasearched on the web and joined chat rooms and forums, had so much advice from other mums, my mother and the midwives at the hospital. At the time I just wanted answers, and in the end, I found it easier to just go with my gut instincts.
I gave myself 4 weeks. I said to my husband that if it didn’t improve then I would be going to the bottle. I didn’t want to, but the alternative I was faced with was so much worse. So I stuck with it. But by god I am so glad I battled on. 4.5 months on, the baby is thriving on breast milk.
The nighs were a slightly different story - as I had been told that babies start to sleep through from 3 months, i was really hanging out for this. When I was getting up twice a night to him at the start, I would say to myself, only 10 weeks to go, only 9 weeks to go, just hang in there. Sometimes it seems like all you do in just hang in there, and I found numerous times over the first months questioning things and wondering when the actual enjoyment of having a baby would start! All around me, my family, my husbands family, friend, they were loving this little thing, saying how wonderful he was, and then when they would go home we would be left to do the real hard work with this, and I would feel juped. I was working my guts out to keep this little one alive and happy, and wasn’t getting that much fun out of it - and someone else would come into the house and goo and gah over him and say how wonderful he was!! They would get to enjoy him, not me. But come 3 months, and he was sleeping a consistant 9 hour block after the last feed, and I was getting 8 hours of sleep a night, things looked up! At 6 weeks when he started smiling, at 11 weeks when he was interacting more, at 12 weeks when he was really holding objects - I thought to myself, this is the time when you can start enjoying your baby!!
So although it is hard, and at the time I found it hard to see this, they do grow, things do get better. But my god steel yourself for a bumpy ride, and when come out at the end of it with a happy, smiling baby, you will know it was all worth while. Infact, you may think - it wasn’t really that bad, I could do that again!
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