Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Daddy Daughter Time.

I'm 29 weeks pregnant now!  Rocking my compression socks, oh yeah!

Once a week my dad and I spend time together.  When the weather was nice and earlier in my pregnancy, we went for runs down in fish creek together.  I'm done with running as of a couple weeks ago (hurt my foot and concerned about the impact on my veins), so we meet at the gym to spin together.

Today was fun.  Something you should know about my dad is that he doesn't like to interrupt his workouts for anything, yep he's kind of intense like that (you wonder where I get it from right?!?).  It's more of a comical intensity though because for my dad most things have a comical aspect.  So today he was wearing two pairs of shorts and he started getting warm, so he asked, "do you think I can take off my outer pair of shorts while spinning?"  It was said with a sly grin, as if asking me to dare him to it.  Of course I obliged and then laughed my head off as he kept choppily spinning, while the first leg awkwardly came out, followed by the next.  You see the guy in the picture next to my dad?  Yeah, he had that face during the shorts removal too.

Last week was even more fun.  We were on the upright bikes, rather than the granny recumbent bikes pictured above.  We were on a random interval setting.  It was intense and I got right to it, whereas my dad likes to take his time warming up.  About 5 min into the workout, he noticed that I had burned a lot more calories and gone "further" than him.  So he told me that he was going to catch me.  Well, I couldn't resist the lure of competition so I sped up as well and raised my gears with his.

We were both sweating like crazy and unfortunately for my dad, he had forgotten his sweat towel.  Having minimal bodily function phobias, he asked if he could share my sweat towel.  "No way" I responded.  "That would be like sharing your toothbrush or your toilet paper or something.  I just can't handle it.  Sorry."  So his shirt became his sweat towel and as time progressed it became a very soaked shirt.  On the competition went, both of us suffering and egging each other on, in our friendly, fun, loving way.

Then came another setback for my dad.  He needed to blow his nose quite badly.  Tragic.  So I told him it was ok, he could just get off and I would win by forfeit.  He wasn't having any of that so he proceeded to blow his nose IN HIS SHIRT.  Then he looked down and said, "wow, now that's really gross!"  So before I could stop him he took off his shirt and kept biking topless.  I'm guessing back in the 80's it was cool for men to strut around the gym topless.  I commented that I thought he might get a reprimanding, exposing himself like that, and so he put the sweaty, mucousy shirt back on.  Awesome.

We finished the workout and I honestly can't even remember who won the competition.

I love you dad.  I enjoy our workouts together every week.  Thanks for keeping it real.


Pregnancy Tips

I thought I'd share a few pregnancy tips.  Not that I'm some guru or anything but these are just some things I've been thinking about that have been helpful to me and maybe they could be helpful to you.


  • Don't compare yourself to other pregnant women.  Be kind to yourself and to others by giving each woman the respect and space to let their body do what it needs to do.
  • Build up your storage of vitamins and minerals before you even get pregnant by taking a multi or prenatal vitamin daily.  I had my iron levels tested a couple years ago.  I was low so I took extra supplements for a few months and had it re-tested, to get my levels into a good place.  My iron levels have been awesome this pregnancy and I haven't felt as tired as I did my last two pregnancies.  I think once your levels are low, it's really tough to get them up during pregnancy with that precious little leech in your womb.  
  • Along the same lines, I really believe in taking a good quality prenatal vitamin.  It's been proven that different brands of vitamins have much different absorption rates.  My naturopath recommended the Douglas labs "Pure" brand, which are relatively inexpensive.  I also take an extra omega 3 (for baby's brain development), zinc (cure for preventing anal fissures - a whole other story, which I'm happy to share if you're interested) and calcium/magnesium (because then I don't get any leg cramps).
  • Sweat pants are your friend but you'll probably feel like a slob if you wear them everyday...I know I did. I felt more attractive when I started mixing in some jeans, makeup and doing my hair, even though sweats still have a dear place in my heart and in my wardrobe...with leggings following as a close second.
  • Don't make pregnancy an excuse to eat crap all the time.  I've seen others do this, put on obscene amounts of weight and then they have to work so hard afterwards to get back to feeling good.  I do believe that some bodies will just tend to put on more weight in pregnancy, no matter how you eat (and you shouldn't beat yourself up if that's what your body tends to do because you should trust your body knows what it's doing) but don't make the damage worse by treating pregnancy like a nine month cheat day.  Not only for the weight gain issue but also for your and your baby's health...Nourish Yourself!
  • Take time to rest.  Took me awhile to learn this when I was pregnant with Riley because I viewed sloth with the highest disdain and felt guilty if I wasn't productive all...the....time.  But I learned that wasn't serving me well and that, just as a worked muscle needs time to recover and rebuilt stronger, our whole bodies, as well as our minds and emotions need rest, in order to be well and balanced.  I find that I need at least one or two afternoons a week to rest (read, nap, whatever)