Fabulous Friday

Hi, Folks!

It's a Fabulous Friday in my world - how about all of you?

In addition to my full-time job, I take on a lot of freelance web content creation work. I am not a morning person, but I have found that my optimal time to work on some of my projects is early in the morning - like 6 AM - before I head out the door to my full-time job. (Where I'm at now, by the way, on my lunch break!)

This morning, I was working on a few little articles, in a house that was very quiet for the first hour. Then, at 7, the house woke up. The cat started whining, the dogs wanted to be let out, and Catherine woke up and started kicking the heck out of me.

And that made it a fabulous Friday because I can just picture, actually here and born in just over another month - going through the same routine! Mama will get up to write for a bit, baby may nap in her pack and play for awhile, but eventually she'll wake up and want my attention. I love looking forward to that!

Have a great weekend, ya'll!

Tiffany

Weight Gain and Pregnancy

We're all different in our body compositions and how much weight we gain during the normal course of a pregnancy. Since we got pregnant, I've had people tell me they gained 5 pounds (they were overweight prior to being pregnant) all the way up to 70 pounds. Supposedly, you aren't supposed to gain much weight in the first trimester, moderately in the second trimester, and then a pound a week in the third.

Well...

Yeah, my body doesn't work like that. I gained something like 20 pounds in the first trimester - granted, I was about 10-15 pounds underweight, but yikes! Then I gained about another 15 in the second trimester. We're talking holy cow territory where my legs started hurting just to walk since I had gained such a percentage of my body weight. Now in the third, I've barely gained any weight at all. I think I'm up 3 pounds in 5 weeks.

I know that just through delivering baby, I'll lose quite a bit of weight, but I'd anticipate I'll still have around 15 pounds to lose afterwards. I plan to go on the P90X exercise plan once I'm about 4 weeks post-delivery.

How about you, readers? Did you have a specific exercise plan in mind for post-baby? Care to share what it is?

New Mom Site, Fab Giveaways

I came across a new site that officially launched on August 24th - the same day I launched 0 to Mom! These folks have a bit more moolah than me, however, and are giving away a ton of fabulous things that any mom would love. You have just GOT to go check it out.

Called "The Mindful Moms", they'll be doing regular columns on things like traveling with baby, staying green, keeping house, planning budgets and much, much more. All the practical stuff, in other words! To join in on the great giveaway, head over to a nifty little blog called "Mom's Favorite Stuff" and get in the game.

Here's a look at what is in the gift bag that's worth over $250:

• Mom’s Favorite Stuff Tote Bag
• Manic Trout Sweetest Thing Earrings
• Thermaplex and Pinxav Samples
• Rita Wilcox French Purse in Aqua
• OnTray2Go in mellow yellow
• Giggling Lola from Kids Preferred
• Giggling Charlie from Kids Preferred
• Sizzles the Dog from Kids Preferred
• Think-ets
• Haba Little Heart Clutching Toy
• Haba Mushroom Clutching Toy
• Haba Dwarf Clutching Toy
• Imagiplay Puzzle Me Up frog
• Fancy Nancy Card Game
• Animal Soup card game
• Grandparent Talk Clip
• Family Talk 2 Clip
• Family Talk Clip
• Cahootie Truth or Dare
• Charlie & Lola - I Am Not Sleepy and I Will Not Go to Bed (softcover)
• Charlie & Lola - I Will Never Not Ever Eat a Tomato (softcover)
• Charlie & Lola - I Completely Must do Drawing Now (softcover)
• Charlie & Lola - My Very Busy Sticker Stories
• Charlie & Lola - Sizzles is Completely Not Here
• Mythmatical Battles Cards
• 2 gift sets from SpaSecrets.net (3 soaps, foot scrub, foot cream)
• Monster Room spray from Lindsay’s Candles

Have fun - and good luck!

Preparing for Leave

Happy Monday, ya'll! Thanks for stopping by, and make sure to see the reader response questions below so you can respond with your opinions!

On this Manic Monday, I'm hyper aware that I only have a few weeks left to wrap things up at my job and transition my projects and on-going duties to the folks who will be backing me up while I'm on maternity leave.

Things have not exactly gone according to plan. My major project is running behind - by a lot! I just got more news today that will impact my progress. ACK! My overall transition plan as well as my plan for my leave as a whole is still in development. When my father passed away at the beginning of the month and I subsequently missed 1.5 weeks of work, I came back feeling like I was way off track and would never catch up.

But Spoiled Baby isn't going to wait for her Frazzled Mommy to catch up at work!

So I'm interested in hearing what all of your BTDT (been there, done that) parents have to say!

• What did you do to prepare for your maternity/paternity leaves?
  
• How did you draw up your project plans so that the work of your positions would continue while you were out?
• Did you do any work from home or any part-time work while you were still technically on leave?
• What other advice can you share?

Thanks for participating! For another chance to share your opinion, scroll down to the previous post or click here to let me know what aspects of your life you gave up when you first started your families!

What Did You Give Up?

Very few people have only a singular focus in life. Most of us have a million things going on at any one point in time. It's what keeps us occupied, it's what fulfills us, and it's what drives us stark raving mad.

With less than two months to go until Spoiled Baby is born, I've been giving a lot of thought to how I'll manage my time once she's here. For the first 12 or so weeks, I'll be at home on maternity leave. After that, however, it's time to start juggling again.

Here's what I'll be juggling:

• Biggest priority - Raising Spoiled Baby
• Bigger priority - Loving Funny Daddy
• Big priority - Managing Crazy House
• Full time job - HR Project Manager/Analyst
• Part time freelancing - Web content writing and editing
• Constant blogging - Personal and paid
• Occasional judging - HS Speech and Debate
• Cooking shows and sales - Pampered Chef
• Volunteer training - Leadership Development
• Favored pursuit - Fiction writing

Just looking at that list, I feel tired. But with the exception of the first item, the other 9 are already the activities I juggle between in life.

It seems like everybody and their brother loves to tell me that I'm going to have to give up either "everything" or "a whole lot" once Spoiled Baby gets here. But...I don't want to.

Does that sound selfish?

I like my many involvements. I've always had a zillion things going on - dating right back to childhood. I once told my mother, in the second grade, that I was burned out. But when she cut back on my activities the next school year, I was so bored and miserable that I found more things to throw myself into.

I'm convinced that with careful planning, I can still juggle all of these activities and be a good mom to Spoiled Baby. But if it really comes down to it, it'll be the last three items on the list that go by the wayside: my fiction, the training I present, and my Pampered Chef business.

What do you all think? What did you give up when you became a mommy? Leave me comments with your thoughts!

About

Hi!

Welcome to one of my newest blogging adventures - 0toMom.com. Our first child is due to be born in the fall of 2008 and as we prepare for her arrival, we'd like to use the blogosphere as a way to connect with other new and experienced parents to share stories, ideas, and frustrations.

Thanks for stopping by - I hope you come back soon, and often!

Smiles,

Frazzled Mommy

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