Currently in August&#8230;

Angie is a coffee-fueled writer, artist-wanna-be, and over-worker who currently resides in a tiny fixer-upper near Salt Lake City with her boyfriend and 70lb rescue pittie. She works full time in Customer Service/Computers, part-time in retail and fashion, goes to school part-time on and off, maintains this and another couple of blogs, as well as volunteers with rescue dogs. In her free time, what little of it there is, she likes to read, play nerd games, craft and create art, and spend time with all of the awesome people in her life.

Staying Healthy While Pregnant: Giving Your Child The Best Before They Arrive

May 3, 2017 by Angie Leave a Comment

Any expectant mother, while not only creating life, is going to be aware of the vastly differing moods and cravings a human can be susceptible to during their pregnancy. It’s just part of the natal process. The stereotype of a pregnant lady with morning sickness and odd cravings of gravy on crackers is true. Not only does helping a child grow take an immense amount of your resources to achieve, but it can also take a toll on mothers who don’t pay attention to their mental state or overall health.

How to Stay Healthy During Pregnancy

There is a list of responsibilities any mother has to ensure that they give the best start to their child. Any difficult health or emotional habits you have accumulated need to take second priority behind ensuring your child enters our wide world with as much health, nutrition and support as possible.

The following list is a detailed and varied exploration of the best methods any expectant mother can undertake in order to be sure they’ve provided everything necessary for their child to flourish healthily inside the womb.

Lower Your Stress

Lowering your stress during your pregnancy has profound effects on the development of your child. This doesn’t mean you need to take a militant approach to stress-busting, some stress is normal and even healthy. But prolonged periods of high stress, be that in a demanding and difficult job or emotionally turbulent life situation can have net negative impacts on your child’s health. When you’re stressed, your body goes into “fight or flight” mode, which sends out immense levels of cortisol along other stress hormones.

Lowering your stress during your pregnancy has profound effects on the development of your child…

Not only can high levels of stress cause issues such as high blood pressure and some forms of heart disease, but it can impact the chance that your baby is born prematurely, or at a lower weight than is healthy.

Ways to Lower Stress

Of course, we all experience life situations we haven’t planned for, and need to adapt to in order to plainly do right by our family, friends or career, so you shouldn’t feel bad for feeling stressed about those things. A good way to take care of your daily stress is to meditate. Even 10-15 minutes of meditation in the morning can have positive brain changes. The part of your brain that regulates your stress response literally decreases in response to this new stimulus.

If meditation isn’t your thing, see if there’s a prenatal yoga class nearby. This could help you improve your ever decreasing flexibility while helping you connect with new and experienced mothers in your area. This way you can be sure that your child is being looked after even before you need to clothe him/her and change its diapers.

Eat Right

Eating correctly, and in the right amounts can have wondrous effects on the prenatal development of your child. Make sure to take in plenty of vegetables, fish oils and proteins in correct amounts. Remember, you’re ‘eating for two,’ but don’t overeat, as that will also be unhealthy for your child. You’re likely to have a completely shifted palate in the first place anyway, so try and accommodate this as much as possible. For example, you might have eaten carrots happily for the 27 years of your life, but now you’re convinced they taste like gravel. Find what works for you, create a meal plan and try to stick to it. When those inevitable cravings come along, try only to satisfy the ones that make sense from a health perspective (if there are any!)

Take The Correct Prenatal Vitamins

Prenatal vitamins differ from regular multivitamins because they have the requirements necessary for both yourself and your child. Two of the more important elements of these vitamins are folic acid and iron, which are almost universally included because it’s difficult to get them from a balanced diet alone. Getting enough Folic acid (a B vitamin) at the beginning and late stages of pregnancy can reduce your baby’s risk of neural tube problems by up to 70%.

Folic acid at certain stages of pregnancy can reduce baby’s risk of neural tube problems by up to 70%…

Folic acid might also help issues such as cleft lips and heart defects. Funnily enough, the body actually makes use of the synthetic form of folic acid better than that which you can find in your diet, so even if you have the perfect meal plan, taking a prenatal vitamin is recommended. Just be sure to do your research before purchasing one, and keep your personal requirements in mind.

Lying In The Correct Positions

You’re going to increase in size during your pregnancy, more so if you’re carrying twins, triplets or, stunningly, even more than that. One way to ensure that you’re taking the best care of yourself is to make sure your baby bump is protected at all times. This doesn’t mean wearing a suit of armor, but making sure that you’re carrying yourself correctly, and lying down in the right way that is both comfortable for you and isn’t susceptible to danger while moving around.

Using a pregnancy pillow or specialty down bedding can help you negate these issues. In order to figure out the correct requirements for your form, height and posture needs, you should look online to learn how to choose a down pillow.

Cutting Out Negative Habits

Smoking, drinking, marijuana usage, staying up late and general partying are now things that should evade you. If you embark on any of these, you’re not giving your child the respect it deserves. In order to be the best supermom available, taking at least a 9-month break from these habits ensures the successful growth of your child in all aspects, as well as preventing nasty birthing defects and delivery problems.

Instead, try to replace these habits with positive ones, such as light exercise, eating correctly reading about the nuances of motherhood, and meditation. Both yours and your child will thank you.

You don’t need to be in the gym squatting 100lbs to be a good mother, and in fact, you shouldn’t…

Light Exercise

The first disclaimer with this point that should be made is that you shouldn’t overextend yourself. If you feel overtired, you probably are. If you feel like you’ve exerted yourself too much, you probably have. Find a balance that works for you and your fitness level, and strive to be better. You don’t need to be in the gym squatting 100lbs to be a good mother, and in fact, you shouldn’t.

Ways to Add Light Exercise

Positive progress in light exercise during pregnancy could be as simple as taking a 15-minute walking class with fellow expectant mothers, doing light stretching or yoga, or maybe walking on a Stairmaster for 10 minutes at a light volume. If you were a fitness freak before you got pregnant, it might be difficult to say goodbye to the habit you love, but it’s time to town it down. Becoming a better mother doesn’t necessarily mean becoming a better human when you have your child to think about. Remember, every avenue you take to look after yourself must be thought about with the caveat ‘could my child benefit from this?’

Find a balance in what works right for you and your child will be in the best position to be born healthily into your happily family home.

Have a better pregnancy by eating healthy, sleeping well, taking prenatals, and more…

Kegels

Kegel exercises are an advantageous way to ensure that your pelvic muscles are strong, flexible and supple, that way you are promoting an easier birth and lessening the need for a potential cesarean section.

Sleep Well

At least 8 hours a day. If you’re having issues with this, consider keeping a napping schedule if possible or consulting a doctor to improve your sleep quality. Every expectant Mum encounters sleep difficulties or rude awakenings for morning sickness, but if it becomes a persistent problem it’s worth talking to an expert in sleep hygiene to figure out what the problem is.

Sleep is the place where your body repairs itself from the stresses of the day, and an expectant mother is undergoing more than twice the amount of bodily stress of a normal person for 9 months straight. You can see the issues that lack of sleep might provoke. If you’re having issues consider changing the light levels, temperature, or entire sleeping setup of your bedroom such as switching pillows and nightlights. As stated higher in the list, meditation and yoga can actually improve your sleep quality, so ensure you get the best of those.

Run ALL Medications Past Your Doctor

The truth is, you’re going to have to re-prioritize everything you know about your life so far. Taking painkillers to get rid of a nasty head cold might prove harmful if you’re early in your pregnancy. It’s worth examining with a fine eye anything that enters your system in order to ensure you’re giving the most vigilant watch over your child to- be’s health.

How do you stay healthy while pregnant?

If you are expecting, do not fear! This is a life-changing and exciting time, but you’re in for a world of love and beautiful family bonding time that any woman would be jealous to have. Welcome the challenges, and understand that the immense pressure your body is going through will have some strange temporary consequences. This is normal. As long as you’re making an effort to be as healthy as possible during this time, you can be sure you’ve done everything you can to help your child be born into our weird, wonderful world in the best way possible.

Baby On Board: Suddenly Life Just Changes

April 28, 2017 by Angie 2 Comments

Unless you’ve already seen my Instagram feed, or you’re friends with me on Facebook, this may come as some sort of a surprise… But hey-I’m pregnant. I’m going to have a baby. Can you believe it? ME!?!?

Finding Out About the Baby

C swears he knew since the moment of conception. I just kind of roll my eyes at him… But I guess he wasn’t wrong.

I Thought I Was Getting the Flu

Two weeks ago I stood up to go to lunch at work and was suddenly hit with a wave of nausea. I spent a half hour in the bathroom, and when I got out I begged my manager to send my home early. I was too sick. I went home, crawled into a pile of blankets on the couch and slept the entire rest of my day. The following day, I left work an hour early because I still felt off.

Taking a Test

That night we ran to the grocery stuff to get Easter stuff for C’s boys and he made me grab a pack of pregnancy tests. I waited until the next morning, while C was still fast asleep, and took the test. I thought for sure it would be negative, but the test did its thing, and it didn’t even take the full 3 minutes… It was about 2 seconds and then bam-a very visible positive sign. I was in shock.

Telling People

I ran down stairs and immediately woke C up, I said “Well, you were right. I’m pregnant.” and then I burst into tears. It’s scary-even if the baby is wanted-and in that moment I was utterly terrified. I texted a few friends, who were all extremely over-the-moon with the news. Otherwise, I figured I’d keep the news to myself for a little bit.

Telling My Family

We waited until Easter Sunday to tell my family. I bought some adorable children’s books about grandmas and grandpas and wrote a little note in the cover that said “Dear Grandma/Grandpa, please read this to me when I get here in December.” My mother looked at me in sheer confusion, and I just looked at her and said “Yep.” She raised her eyebrow, still not getting it, and then my dad caught up and said “Are you really?” by this time my grandparents were wondering what was going on, so I blurted it out. Everyone was very excited.

Pregnancy So Far

I’ll be 8 weeks along tomorrow, which means it’s almost time for my first OB appointment. I’m anxious to see the OBGYN and get an ultrasound, something about seeing the fetus and hearing it’s heartbeat will make everything so much more real. It hardly feels real, when you know it’s in there but you can’t really feel or sense it.

How I’m Feeling

I’ve been fairly lucky to not experience actual morning sickness, not a lot of vomiting or running to the restroom. However, I live in a constant state of exhaustion and nausea. I’m never not nauseous these days. Sometimes I have to force myself to eat, and sometimes in between bouts of nausea I’m suddenly starving-even if I’ve eaten recently. Such a demanding little bundle of cells.

Also, I managed to come down with a severe chest cold over the last week that had me completely knocked down for 3 days-and I can’t take a dang thing for it. Herbal remedies only get you so far, but cold meds are super risky during the first trimester. That’s been pretty miserable.

Giving Up the Things You Love

The hardest part of giving things up for me has been coffee and my medication (ADHD/Anxiety). I quit both cold turkey the minute I found out I was pregnant, and even though my regular doctor gave me the go-ahead to have a little coffee/caffeine every day, my body rejects it. I can only get through a few swallows of coffee before I feel ill, so I’ve given up on it. Pretty much the only thing that makes me feel okay is vitamin water, and it’s not even something I drank before I got pregnant. I just tried it because it’s full of B-vitamins and I’m exhausted. Turns out that it works!

My Diet

Surprisingly, my diet has drastically improved since being pregnant. More often than not I’m craving things like fresh fruit and turkey burgers, and I’ve been eating really well. Trying to take time to snack on things like cheese and almonds in order to keep my energy up. I may end up coming out of this with a much healthier lifestyle after all.

Slowing Down

One thing being pregnant, and subsequently giving up caffeine, has taught me is that I need to slow way down. Most of you know that I’m an overachiever, and often I sign on for WAY too much. I can’t do that anymore. I need rest. I need extra sleep. I need to not overdo it.

Two Jobs

I put in my two-week notice at my second job, but after discussing it with my manager there I’ve decided to stay on for a once-a-month shift to help with floor sets. I love floor sets, and I love the people I work with, so this will be kind of fun and I’ll get to keep my discount which is awesome.

Back to Blogging

This will also give me some time to get back to blogging and work on my home business I’d like to get up and running before the baby comes. You’ll seem ore about this soon, but expect to see me around here more from now on. 🙂

Have any pregnancy/baby advice for me?

So far, I’m just taking this one day at a time. We have plans for things we want to buy, names in discussion (but it’s still so far until we know whether it’s a boy or girl that things seem to be mostly on hold for that knowledge.) We’re both so very excited for this baby. I couldn’t have picked a better partner to do this with either… He’s been out running errands on his bicycle in the rain for me when I have a craving or need something. He’s just the sweetest, and he can’t wait to be a dad again.

Preparing Kids for the Real World

March 29, 2017 by Angie Leave a Comment

In worse case scenarios, you want to know that your kids are going to be as prepared as you can make them. We’re not talking about sending them for military-style training, just making sure that they know enough about life to become independent at an age when it is appropriate. Even though I’m not a parent, I fully believe that preparing kids for the real world is important, and I do what I can to help prepare my godkids/nieces and nephews as well…

Preparing Kids for Independence

There are lots of things that you could do to help your kids more be independent. Such things include showing them some domestic essentials. From as early an age as you feel suitable, show them how to prepare basic meals, how to operate the washing machine and basic cleaning chores. Whilst you don’t need to pass the responsibilities over to them, it is helpful if they know how to do all of the standard domestic chores that you normally take care of for them.

Preparing Kids to Handle Finances

Help them to understand finances by setting up bank accounts as early as possible. Talk to them about how you pay for all of the bills in the house and why you have to pay them. Talk to them about the responsibilities involved whenever credit is taken out and help them to set up a budget based on their allowance or any other money that they have. It may even help if you mirror the concept of taking out credit; say they would like a new bike but don’t have the money to buy it. You could agree to take the money out of their allowance until the payment is fully paid off. This will give them a taste of not having that extra money each month.

Teaching Them How to Get Around

Another way to prepare your kids is to make them aware of transport arrangements. If you simply drive them everywhere, they will never learn how they would travel from one place to another. If you travel anywhere together, by train or bus etc. when the kids are old enough, tell them to plan the journey and give them the money to pay for the fares. This will help them to understand the process of arranging travel.

Preparing Kids for Driving

Another way that you can help is by teaching them the essentials about driving. Even before they are old enough to get their provisional licence, you can start teaching them how a car works, from changing gear and accelerator/brake pedals to filling up fuel. Show them the important parts of checking that a car is safe to drive, such as the tyres being at the correct pressure, the windscreen wiper water and oil is filled up etc.

You can even help them to understand the theory side of learning to drive, either by downloading a copy of the Highway Code or by setting them up to do practice theory tests on sites such as the Top Tests’ website. Once they are old enough to take their test, they will already know all of the basics.

Why Preparing Kids is So Important

By prepping your kids ready for being an adult, you will give them a huge head start in life. You’re not asking them to grow up too fast; you’re just making sure that they can be more independent if they need to be.

How are you preparing kids?

Even if you’re not a parent, how are you helping prepare the little ones in your life?

My Last Great Grandmother R.I.P

October 15, 2014 by Angie 22 Comments

I was always very fortunate growing up to have so many grandparents alive and well. People always seem very surprised to hear that, I guess it’s not common to know your great grandparents or your great great grandparents. I was even lucky enough to know my great great grandfather (on my dad’s side) until I was seven. He was 99 years old when he passed away and he was such an amazing person that those seven years influenced my life greatly.

However, as time moves on you become more and more accustomed to the fact we are all mortal, and however lucky you were to have those people in your life, you don’t get to keep them forever. It’s both a powerful reminder of your own mortality, and the fact that you should really spend whatever treasured moments you can find with the people who matter to you. You never know when you’ll no longer have those moments, or what you’ll learn in those precious fleeting encounters that may forever change your life for the better. I’m glad I didn’t miss those.

I barely remember my great great grandfather’s funeral. I was so little, and I think that it’s more lucky that I remember more of his life and the times I visited than him in a casket. I was also very little when I lost my great grandparent’s on my grandpa’s side, so I retain only memories of two-dollar bills, the cabin, grandma and her shotgun, and grandpa’s missing leg.

It’s been many years now since I lost my grandmother’s parent’s. I would have been in my early twenties when they both went and I was very lucky to have almost two decades to get to know them well. We lived with them for a while when we were children, and I’m so incredibly grateful for those years in their basement. Years filled with running upstairs to raid grandma’s candy drawer or freezer for fudge pops, family reunions at the swimming pool, picking and canning grapes from the vineyard out back, and so much love. Great Grandpa Orson wen’t one night when I was away, and though it was very unexpected Great Grandma Bernice lasted another few years. They loved each other so much, we didn’t think she’d get by without him. I was with her when she died-it was the first time I’d seen anyone die and while it wasn’t a bad thing to be there, it is hard to watch someone you love fade away.

In 2011 I lost my Great Grandma Dorothy. I hadn’t been as close to her sadly as the others, but I loved her.

It was only a few short months later I lost my Great Grandpa Paul. He was perhaps the hardest one for me to lose because it came as such a shock. He was in his late eighties and still riding his bicycle to the store every day. Even though I had to know it wasn’t true, he was so strong I felt like he had to outlive us all. But he slipped on some ice and fell, and never fully recovered. Great Grandma Delight was left alone in her great big home. Great Grandpa always used to say they’d die together, because he never wanted her left without him, but life-and death-has a funny way of screwing up all your plans.

That just left Great Grandma Dorothy, and she did not like being left behind. She did enjoy all of the time she got to spend with friends and family, especially my brother and sister-in-law who went out of their way to check on her and visit as often as possible. I’m so glad they were able to do so. Unfortunately I didn’t get up to visit as much as I wish I had, but she was always really excited to see me when I did.

When I last visited her she told me she wanted to die. She was tired of being stuck at home connected to oxygen and forced to take so many pills, and she missed my great grandfather. My sister-in-law and I both told her how she should stay because we still all needed her around. We talked, we laughed, and we met her new in-home nurse Lila, who was amazing with her.

Last Thursday I received a text from my mother around noon at work. She said Great Grandma Delight would likely not make it long enough for anyone to make it to say goodbye, but my brother was headed over and would let us know. Shortly after he said she was more responsive and so I left work early to head over. I was cautious about heading over, hesitant to have her dying be my last memory of her, but when I walked into her bedroom listening to everyone explain that she wouldn’t open her eyes but if I told her who I was she would hear me-I learned very quickly that I had to be there. When I hugged her and told her I was there she opened her eyes and reached for me. That made everything worth it and I was so glad to be able to be there to say goodbye to her. I was also glad to be there for the family prayer and the sharing of stories as the family stayed around with her.

Great Grandma Delight passed away at 10:20 AM Friday, the 10th of October 2014. She was ready to go, but she will be missed, and today we’re gathering to honor her. Safe travels to whatever is next Grandma-I love you.