Exersaucers and Neck Crunches

These spare 10 quiet minutes brought to you by my bestie, Dawn, who brought over her exersaucer for the Doodle yesterday. My child LOVES this thing, and I feel 0% guilty letting her play with it since she's practicing her skillz and has learned how to turn her chair to find a new toy when the current one gets boring.

(Sorry Dawn, I'm also borrowing this picture.)

I'm using Diet Coke and extra-strength Advil to nurse a sore neck/jaw from last night's crunches. I hear you saying, "Your neck isn't supposed to be sore when you do crunches!" I'm pretty sure at one point I had stomach muscles, but now I don't. I blame the 7 inch hole they had to cut for my c-section. Or possibly the entire month of January when all I accomplished was sitting on the couch nursing and finally getting to watch all the shows on my Netflix list. Either way, by crunch 956, I was pulling myself up by the back of the neck. And I'm left with lock-jaw and stomach flab.

But I've got to get used to the idea of crunches, because in a week and a half I start a weight loss challenge at the gym where my mom and I take weekly Zumba. I'll be following The Plan and doing Yoga, Zumba, and Boot Camp each week. They made us write down our weight loss goals when we joined the program and mine was simply: "wear non-maternity jeans." I'm too cheap to buy a bigger size and I've got too much belly left to zip and button my old ones. So hopefully by the end of May I'll be back into my regular pants size. I'm okay buying a bigger size shirt, because let's be honest -- it's worth it to have a D cup (Yay breastfeeding!)

Things I've learned about being a parent

Things I wasn't expecting when I became a parent:

• Time goes so so fast. Like, the Earth literally spins on it's axle more quickly and *poof* you have a 4 month old. Which is really bizarre considering how much of each day I'm actually awake for now. 
• Breastfeeding is less icky than I thought it would be. However, in public I've found it's best never to acknowledged how you feed your baby. Everyone has an opinion; a shocking number of them feel they need to tell you about it.
• My marriage has become sort of a "war-buddies" type situation. Our deepest conversations are about epic baby poos and catchy kid songs and other people's offspring.This makes us (a) boring and (b) uniquely suited for one another. There's kind of a gross awesomeness about the whole thing. Like a weird mole. 
• The sweet agony of your baby sleeping through the night for the first time. You look like Pamela Anderson and feel like Rip VanWinkle. Wait, my baby's still breathing right?!? 
• My body is a weird shape. I'm just going to be honest and say.....every time I leave my house I'm in a terrible mood because nothing fits and I've just thrown everything that used to be my favorite all over the bedroom. Unless looking like Whinny the Pooh goes into style, I'm not bikini ready.
• I'm not sure how narcissistic it is on a 10 point scale, but my husband and I spend a significant portion of our day admiring how beautiful our baby is. Seriously dude, we made that. #sorrynotsorry
• My house can go from peaceful picked-up space of tranquility to Babies-R-Us explosion in about 5 seconds. I have no idea how this happens, but I'm telling you it does.
• Babies can smell fear. As long as you pretend that you know what you're doing, they pretty much go with it. 
• Nobody plays a better game of baby hot-potato than a mom and dad who are trying to decide who's going to change a poopy diaper that's so smelly the neighbors are complaining.
• I do not want parenting advice. 
• Being a mom is the hardest and most fun/rewarding thing I've ever done.