I no longer have a baby. I have a toddler.

Let me let that sink in.

As of 2:57PM today, he has been on this earth for 8765.81 hours. Today is cause for celebration. Logan is ONE! How did that happen? Watching him grow is amazing. I’m so happy he’s healthy. He’s walking and talking and barking at the dogs. He laughs at hilarious things, like dancing. He cries at tragic things, like being left in his crib so I can shower in the morning. He’s becoming a little person, and for that I am grateful. But also, a little sad.

Let me be clear. Having an infant was work. The hard times were harder than I could have ever prepared myself for. It was a year spent wondering if I was doing it right. If he was OK. Why he wasn’t rolling over or standing or eating or sleeping exactly how the book said he would. It was a year of sleepless nights. Of early mornings. Of feeling like I was failing, But occasionally of feeling like I was doing OK. All in all, the good moments outshine the bad. The stress of a night filled with hours of screaming was simply eliminated with a smile. The fits of despair that came from trying to feed him with a spoon melted away during a snuggle filled nursing session.

Before I was a mother, I would have secretly judged the kind of mother I am. I breastfed, even though it caused me pain. I would be a stay at home mom if I could. I coslept because it was the difference between sleep and no sleep. I wasn’t ready to leave him for a night at 6 months. I refuse to go to the gym because I can't leave him in day care for another hour every day. I’ve let motherhood consume every facet of my life. And you know what, I’m not even sorry. I would not change any of it. He’s a baby for the blink of an eye.  

Even with all of the work that went into keeping my little person alive over the past year, I loved it. I loved even the hard moments. I know that I will love what’s yet to come. I know he’s entering a fun stage. But part of me already misses my baby.

Bittersweet is the label I would give today.

Happy Birthday to my Mr. Buggles, my Logi Bear, my Poopers, my Logan.  

Goal updates

In the interest of full disclosure and accountability, I'm going to try and update goals once a week-ish. Hopefully, that will make me blog more, and then my blog will take off and it will be more of like a "lifestyle website" with recipes and upcycling and crafts and clothes and stuff. Kind of like Blake Lively's Preserve or Lauren Conrad's site. You know, I could be more of a lifestyle brand.
Because I'm the same as them.
Just without the looks, money, or purpose.

Yet.

Back to the business at hand. Goals.

1. I weigh a lot

So, I didn't weigh myself before I set my weight loss goal. I weighed myself last week. I was a little saddened by the number that looking back at me. I'm not happy, but OK with it for now. If my career in health assessment has taught me anything, it's that you need baseline to set a goal because you need to know what you have to improve on. I have a lot of room for growth (or loss, as it were). 

I'm trying to work on this. I've been very consistent with my 3:00 work break workouts. The problem is they only last about 5 minutes. Nobody's losing weight on 5 minutes of activity a day. So I'm trying to add more in. Today, I took the opportunity to walk to work in the freezing cold and I used my lunch break to do a 20 minute workout. Little tip for you new moms out there - jumping jacks are tough when you have pelvic floor dysfunction. If you want to start this program at your office, I recommend a change of clothes. ALL of them. And I'll still do our workout at 3.

My office workout for today. The title of the picture is " WANT THIS BODY?"
Why yes, yes I do. 

I made myself promise that I would drink more water. And I have - I'm down to a can of diet coke a day (you might have heard of their stock crashing recently because they lost their biggest buyer). I'm probably getting 80-90 ounces of water a day in. 

I'm pretending the elevator is out of service. Even if I really want to take it. 

I can't quit the candy. I just can't. Maybe if I master the workouts and the water and the elevators, maybe then. But I need something. 

So, all in all, I'm satisfied with my efforts. My next weigh in should let me know if I should be, or if I'm sitting on a throne of lies. 

2. My wallet does not weigh a lot

I've done the worst with this resolution. 1 week in and I'm already a failure. I have excuses, most of them sound something like "I packed my lunch but didn't have time to eat breakfast so I ate my lunch for breakfast and now it's 9am and I'm starving so I have to go buy lunch and 45 snacks since I'm doing these 5 minute workouts so I have to refuel." This week has been better than last. Next week will be better than this week. 

On a positive money note, the tenants in our NC house let us know that the roof was leaking and we thought there was an issue with the furnace at our new place, one of which was free to fix and the other was less than $20, so I'd like to get credit for thousands of dollars saved on home repairs if I could. 

Terrance did find out that he's getting a bonus at work, which we'll hopefully use to pay down some stuff and do some improvements on the house that we need. That will be nice. 

Overall, I'd give myself a C on this one. 

3. Purposely purposeful 

This one is going pretty great. On a lark, I applied for a job at Harvard.  They called me for an interview. NBD. Harvard University. The one in Cambridge, MA. John Kennedy's HARVARD. So maybe someday, someone somewhere will utter the phrase, "oh, you know Kelly? The one from Harvard?" Or I'll be hanging out with my new friends on The Cape and we'll be all like "I know the 18 foot sailboat is the better choice, but I really like that yacht" or something. In reality, I did some digging and the salary would make it tough to accept if they offer me the bottom of the range, I'll need to negotiate quite a bit. I kind of have to decide if taking a hit on goal 2 is worth achieving goal 3. And that's if I get an offer. I fully understand that there is not a large enough font for the weight of that if. But for a little bit, things are better. In the words of Joseph Addison, "three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for." 

I have the something to love, and now I have the something to hope for in my goal of something to do. 

So there we have it. Not so bad for the first of the year, especially since winter finally arrived. (See below)

so. cold. 

My walk to work this morning. 

GOAL 3: What do I want to be when I grow up?

The third and final stop on the Kelly Bragg #2015newyearnewyou express is to figure out what I'm doing with my life. In the past year, the following phrases have come out of my mouth:

- I think I'm going to go back to school for an MPP
- I think I'm going to go back to school for a PhD
- I want to be a health policy analyst for a non profit or an NGO
- I want to be a Real Housewife
- I'm going to look into the DO program at OU
- The MCATs seem hard
- The CDC is hiring ebola workers, that sounds fun
- I thought about law school for when Logan goes to school, but maybe I'll try hair school instead
- I really bombed that LSAT practice test
- Hair school is $30,000 for 13 months
- Kris Jenner is brilliant.
- Maybe I should try art school.
- Or event planning.
- Or interior design.
- Or industrial design.
- But Terrance, public health does make me happy.

That last one came as part of a conversation that Terrance and I were having about me looking for other jobs and he very earnestly, without a hint of irony, said "have you ever considered doing something that makes you happy?" I assured him that I like public health. He quickly replied that I've never seemed like it. THat I seemed most happy planning parties and showers. These things have always been hobbies for me. Hobbies I enjoy and that I'm good at. But as a career? I really do like public health/health education. I believe in the public health system and what it does. I think it's unbelievably valuable to society. Which is, perhaps, why I get so disgruntled. I don't feel like what I do impacts anyone.

Because the purpose of this is to discuss the future, not the past, I won't elaborate on where I've been. Just believe me that I've been underutilized.

So what is the resolution here? To get a new job? Maybe. To switch careers if I need to to be happy? Possibly. I think it's more to figure out which one of those makes the most sense for me. How am I going to go about that? Here's the loophole for this one - the resolution is actually to figure out what I'm doing, not actually do it. So I have some time, but I have some ideas. To be successful with this resolution, I'm going to:
- continue applying for new jobs. I'm going to try for 1 a week. My rule for new jobs is that I have to apply for jobs that I never would have before. As long as I feel like i could do a good job, I'm applying, regardless of if I meet every requirement. I also need the job to pay a set amount, based on where it is.
-explore other career options. How do I become an event planner? Look into courses on interior design. Sign up for the LSATs. Something, once a month that gives me the opportunity to explore the world beyond my comfort zone

Hopefully, if I do these things, by 2016 I'll be either ridiculously happy, ridiculously wealthy, or both. I'm hoping for that third one.


So there you have it: lose weight, lose debt, and gain purpose. Those are my goals for 2015. They are all challenging in their own way. I don't realistically think that I'll achieve all 3... but wouldn't it be a trip if I did?

GOAL 2: Money

I've got Dom Perignon tastes on a Bartles & James budget. 

The overindulgence that I spoke of yesterday extends beyond just food, it also applies to purchasing things. 
Everything from shoes to baking supplies to, unfortunately, houses. I have made a life of buying things which I can't afford and I've often blamed my low wages on my nonexistent bank account balance, but the truth is that my personal lack of control is more to blame than the fact that I'm underpaid (I will always maintain that I should be earning more, but hopefully resolution 3 will take care of that. And really, you are supposed to live within your means. It's dress for the job you want, not spend that way, Kelly). Terrance and I had a discussion the other day we're both tired of the way we live. We want to be more in control of things. I read a story years ago about a couple that went one year without buying anything they didn't need. They bought food only at the grocery store - no trips out to eat. They checked out books and movies from the library - no cable, no Barnes and Noble, no movies. No vacations, weekend trips, day trips or trips to the mall. They didn't spend anything they didn't need to. This sounds like a boring life, but they were also able to pay off a substantial amount of debt by the end of the year by only doing that. And, as an added bonus, they were happier because they learned to live on only what they needed and not what they wanted. They appreciated everything around them so much more. They tried new foods, they just cooked themselves.These are values I wish to install in Logan. It's important to me that he understand how important it is to be smart with your money. So starting in January, we are going to try to go 12 months.

Three hundred and sixty five days of conscious minimalism. It will be hard. I am frugal. I buy clearance shoes. I just buy a lot of them. I will make lists and set budgets and clip coupons. I will do this. I'm not willing to put my debt out there. Between the two mortgages, car payments, student debt, and Visa, it's a lot. I don't plan on being debt free by 2016. But I'd like my debt to shrink. 

(I'd like to at least be rid of Visa. That bitch is annoying.) 

GOAL 1: WEIGHT

My never ending struggle with my weight has intensified. We're basically at a DEFCON 1 in my own personal battle of the bulge. Clothed, I find myself to be pleasantly plump. I'm learning to dress my postpartum body. Draping seems key. And cardigans. And scarves. Empire wastes are an absolute no no. As are hip hugging jeans that tend to hit me right under my still present belly.  It's the times that I catch myself in the mirror unclothed that I have trouble. I stare, not unlike a tailgater passing the gnarled wreckage of a highway collision, at my midsection. The dimpled and indented graffitti of stretchmarks and extra fat marring the once smooth landscape of my abdomen. Women on the internet call them "tiger stripes" that I should wear like a badge of honor. I crave that self confidence, to look at them and see anything but my failure to prevent what I promised myself wouldn't happen. I study the lumps and bumps of my upper thighs and, perhaps the silver lining, I marvel at the size of my (now enormous) breasts, conscious that they are, at every moment, inflating with milk. The fat on my back - the adipose filled skin that rolls over itself under no pressure whatsoever- is my biggest nemesis. No amount of sucking in makes it go away. The thing is, I've been overweight before. I've blogged about my previous struggles. I've fought pesky pounds that won't go away. But this time it's harder, for many reasons.


I take responsibility for my part of this. I know that I have to shoulder the blame for my current inability to fit into a single pair of the pants that are currently gathering cobwebs in my closet.  I would be lying if I said I had no idea why I couldn't lose the weight. The truth is that when you don't exercise and you eat whatever you want, and what you want to eat is chocolate and pizza and other foods that you're not supposed to, it's tough to drop the pounds. But this struggle of mine has been different, this time.

First, there are a lot of post partum issues that I have had that I don't want to talk about on this blog, but it's taken me almost a year to be able to walk around the block without pain. It's frustrating, especially when everyone tells you you can start exercising at 6 weeks. I registered for a jogging stroller.  I had visions of Logan and I going on runs, enjoying the summer together. I had plans to sign us up for races. My truth is that at 6 weeks post partum, I could not roll out of bed without feeling like my pelvis was breaking in two. Trying to walk ended in tears. Stepping over the side of the tub to take a shower often made me double over in pain. I waited for it to get better. It didn't. Finally, at 12 weeks, I went to the doctor. She informed me that my pelvis was out of line and my bladder was falling. She sent me to a chiropractor, who assured me that it was bone and nerve related. He assigned me a 7 week long course of treatment at the end of which I  could walk from my desk to the bathroom without grimacing. I could not run. I could not even walk for exercise. I tried different videos to try and work different parts of my body to try and tone up. I was unsuccessful. I was also $500 poorer from copays and extra fees for service. I considered that to be a poor return on my investment. So I went to the physical therapist. She informed me that there was nothing wrong with my pelvis or my bones, but that it was all muscular. 4 and a half hours of pushing had damaged me. My pelvic floor muscles were weak. I needed physical therapy. I had more success with her. At the end of a month of treatment, I could walk ONE MILE without pain. If I kept up the exercises she gave me, I would be fine. So I left, armed with an exercise band and a sheet of exercises to do to strengthen my pelvic floor.  I'm bad at homework. I'm also alone with the baby a lot. Self care has fallen by the wayside as the need for sleep and nourishment take precedence over the need to exercise my pelvic floor. As I sit here typing this, I can actually feel my bladder. You are not supposed to be able to feel that. It's unsettling. But it's life. I haven't tried running yet. I can walk about 2 miles now without crying. That's progress. And the pain doesn't linger with me for days like it used to. Also progress.

I'm an emotional eater. I used to consider myself a stress eater, but then I realized that just about any emotion I have is an excuse for me to eat. I eat when I'm stressed about work, I eat when I'm sad about my job. I eat when I've had a good day at work. I eat because I'm stressed about Logan. I eat to reward myself if I've had a good day with Logan. I eat because I'm stressed out about Terrance being out of town and I eat because I'm so happy and relieved that he's come home. I eat because I'm frustrated that I can't do what I want. I eat because I can't run. I eat because I'm hungry, because I'm tired, because I'm sad, because I'm happy, and because I'm bored. I eat because I think something looks good and, damn it, I DESERVE it. My life is hard. Chocolate is good. I love chocolate. Not dark chocolate, not some BS Fiber One chocolate brownies; I enjoy creamy milk chocolate. Preferably by the pound. Occasionally mixed with nougat. Or nuts. Maybe hazelnuts? I do consider my life to be more colorful now that I have Nutella in it. I could write an even longer paragraph about my love of pizza, but in the interest of brevity, I will just assume that you get the point.

So what happens when you have no real metabolism to speak of, you can't exercise, and you eat whatever the hell you want? You end up sitting in front of a computer writing about how you're depressed because you're 50 pounds heavier than the day you conceived your child. My goal is to have 15 of it gone by Logan's birthday - March 3. And the rest gone by sometime after that. I'll reevaluate numbers and tonnage goals if I reach that. The point is I'm going to try. We started exercising at work. Little things, every day at 3. Hopefully, with that spark and a Costco size bottle of Advil to dull the pain, I'll be on my way. I'm also trying to cut it down to no more than 100 10 Hershey kisses a day. And eat more veggies. And drink more water.

Hopefully, small daily goals + big weight goal = Happy 2015.

Wish me luck. I'm going to need it.

New Year Goals

A coworker asked me if I had ever considered writing a blog, given my awesome sense of humor and what some have called "the voice of this generation". I sheepishly told  her how I like to be called the voice of this generation and that I already had a blog. This one. She enjoyed it and I have to admit it's always nice for people for people to tell you that you're good at something.

Her comment prompted me to browse through my posts in the last five years. It felt a little like when I check my Timehop every day. Timehop is an app for phones. You sync it with your social media accounts and it tells you what you've done on that day in the past. The thing is, it's fun to look back sometimes using Timehop and see how much things have changed - a facebook post about a hangover compared to the fact that you're up at 5 with a baby these days, an instagram of you when you had different hair, etc. When I looked through my past blog posts, there were a lot of commonalities. The running theme since at least 2011 has been me stressed or unhappy or both. And I'd like to change that. I've done some reading on the subject, and according to people who know more than me about changing your life situation, writing out your goals to organize them and keeping a journal of things can help. I'd like to do that.

The thing is, I've never been much of a journal keeper. My aunt and uncle got me a diary for my birthday in the sixth grade. It was fuschia and turquoise with a picture of a vintage convertible on the hard, shiny cover. I was way more excited about the lock and key that came with it than the actual act of journaling my life. My thoughts throughout my life have never lived all that long in my head. I give them almost immediately to the nearest person. This both gets me in trouble an amuses me. A lot. So my goal, as the new year approaches, is to organize my life in such a way that I don't spend hours trying to figure out how I got here, but instead I will try and figure out how to get where I want to go. This incessant drowning feeling is getting old. So thats where the blog comes in. I will list my goals for the year and hope to give a somewhat regular update on my progress. More for me, but out there for you to judge and ridicule. A commitment. I hope to achieve at least one of them. Or at least take some solace in the fact that I am actively trying to change my life for the better.

So the next few posts will have to do with my 3 big goals for a happier 2015: Get my weight under control, get my finances under control, and figure out what the hell I'm gonna do with the rest of my life.

flashbacks

When I was posting before, I found this among the many drafts I had started while I was on leave and it made me LOL. Those first weeks are so hard... it doesn't matter what you do, no one prepares you for it. And now, with just 3 more months of surviving by the skin of my teeth parenting under my belt, I feel like this person is not me anymore:

Blogging is something that people with extra time do.

I have all these things to say and I don't have time to say them.
Lets start with the big stuff. I had Logan. Labor was hell. I have no desire to document my experience with labor because there's not a chance in hell that, in 50 years, if someone asks me what my Labor with Logan was like, I won't have a flashback and be able to relive it. I'll be the first to admit, I've led a relatively cushy life thus far, but that was my Vietnam. Almost 20 hours of labor and an excruciating, frustrating, draining 4.5 hours of pushing and then there he was. A vernix covered, blue tinted baby. I was too tired to react... I went into auto pilot. I knew that I was supposed to do skin to skin so I did. The lactaction consultant came in and showed me how to breast feed so I did. I was so tired. So physically and mentally exhausted.  I'm not sure I'll ever forgive myself for not taking the damn c section when it was offered to me. I don't even remember the exact moment that I felt whatever it is mothers are supposed to feel for their newborns, but by the third day in the hospital when Terrance tried to dress him in his adorable going home outfit and Logan started crying, I pushed Terrance aside. Causing the baby discomfort wasn't worth the adorable button down shirt and tie that he was meant to go home in. Causing him anything but comfort wasn't an option. So he went home in an oversized, boring blue sleeper.

Little Logan. Oh dear, little Logan. One day, when you grow up and forget about your mom and everything she's done for you, I'm going to tell you stories about your first 2 months on earth. Parenthood is hard. At this point, victory is making it through the day with my sanity intact. Not cracking all day is a good day. I love Logan more than I every thought I could love anything. I try and read to him and I can't make it through a book because I'm so overcome with emotion. But Holy Christ. He does not make it easy. He cries. A lot. About everything and nothing at all. He cries in the morning. In the afternoon and at night. He won't sleep longer than 2 hours. The other night we made it to 2 hours and 10 minutes and I had to go check on him because i was sure he had stopped breathing. He spits up a lot. He spits up huge amounts of food. If it's breast milk, it was damn hard work getting...

I must have gotten distracted. The baby must have woken up or gotten hungry or I must have drifted off.

I still have trouble with the thought of going through labor again. The board I follow online is filled with women who are getting pregnant again or desperately want to. I can't imagine anything more terrifying. I was more uncomfortable during my pregnancy than most people knew and I still have lingering pain. I sometimes wonder if the fact that I can't forget how hard it was for me is because I have a constant reminder. Overall, though, the joy of parenthood has been something that I can't put in words. In fact, the word joy seems woefully inadequate. Logan and I have shared some rough moments here and there, but he's quite easy to love. Plus, he slept 7 hours straight last night, making him more lovable still.