Holidays

I wanted to post a little about our holidays.  Adam had 2.5 weeks off work, so we had lots of family time this year.  I was about 7 months pregnant but still feeling good, so we were able to get outside and do some fun things together.  Cross country skiing, sledding skating, building snow forts etc.
I do sometimes make the mistake of thinking that I can do anything with this body.  Two on two basketball with Adam, my dad and my brother reminded me that it's easier to strain these stretched out abdominal muscles.  An Insanity video reminded me that jumping around isn't the best thing for me at this stage.  No serious injuries from either, just a bit more sore than I'd like to be at this stage.  We pushed back our day to go skiing, so that I could make sure I was recovered from the basketball.

After a two hour wait in line, the kids got to see Santa 

The other big excitement for our family was that Dallin and Marie got married!  My little brother is all grown up.

I know I've blogged before about pregnancy dreams.  Well, a few nights ago I woke up and I had lifted the lamp shade off the lamp on the nightstand.  While holding it and wondering what to do, I called out, "Adam".  Then I realized, I probably didn't need his help with this, set the shade down and went back to sleep.  So. Very.  Strange.

I've also been preparing items for my home birth.  Yep, I'm gonna try to deliver at home.  Just to make other people uncomfortable.  I like what one comedian said when he told others that his wife was delivering at home.  They would respond, "oh, we thought about doing that, but we wanted our baby to live."  But really, I have great trust in the skills of my midwives and the seton hospital is a five min drive if there's any reason to be there.

I'm enjoying my workouts at the gym and can be seen there about four times a week doing low impact cardio and weights.  Look for the tall pregnant girl in the sweet compression socks.  I think I kind of stand out.  This Friday, Adam and I are going to play squash and go for a swim because he has the day off work and the kids are in school for the morning.  Yes, this could be another case of me thinking this pregnant body can do anything I ask it to...we'll see how it goes.  I am grateful for how much good nutrition and exercise have helped me through this and my other two pregnancies.

Some little thoughts about THOUGHTS.

I like to put little notes up on my bathroom mirror once in awhile.   I've had this one up for awhile and I've left it up because it remains helpful to me;

"You get what you think about, whether you want it or not."

Found that little nugget in a book by Wayne Dyer, whom I love.
I read a study awhile ago where they analyzed data on the location of highway traffic accidents.  In the study, they found a high percentage of accidents occurred where people crashed into utility poles. Much higher than it should have been statistically.  Why would this happen?  Well, you can imagine that many of these drivers were likely thinking, "don't hit the pole, don't hit the pole, don't hit the pole."

A few weeks ago Kyla had a little surgery on her ears.

A couple nights after the surgery I was talking with her before bed.  I said, "Kyla, you'll probably find tomorrow that your ears don't hurt anymore.  They are getting so much better now, so you probably won't feel pain anymore."  I mentioned to Adam about our little conversation and he laughed because he had said pretty much exactly the same thing to her before saying goodnight to her.  And guess what?  The next morning she woke up happy and said she didn't need or want medicine.  Yes, yes, I know that timing was part of this, as her ears truly were healing but I believe her thoughts were a more powerful part.

I remember when I nursed my two babies, I loved to read at the same time.  Might as well multi task, right?  I remember on multiple occasions I would read something that made me feel good and all of a sudden my milk would start flowing like a fire hose and my baby would have to come off for air.  If good, positive thoughts effect my milk supply like that , then what else are they doing to my physical body.  I believe there are powerful, unseen physical changes that occur in our bodies when we fill our minds with good thoughts.

I was speaking with my midwife at my last appt about how my previous experiences preparing mentally for some big races have helped prepare me to have this baby.  I told her that I've learned how unhelpful 'worry' is.  I've learned that it really does nothing good for me.  Sure, it's good to be aware of difficult things that are coming and to proactively prepare for them, but 'worry'....all that has done is cripple me.  I have learned that I perform best in races when I trust my body and relax into it, which is the same with labour and probably a lot of other things in life.