Can I have a WOO HOO!!!

Yep, my pre-baby jeans fit!

'nuf said!

12 Weeks vs. 12 Weeks

12 weeks

84 days

2,016 hours

120,960 minutes

12 weeks is 12 weeks right? Wrong. I have learned that the speed in which 12 weeks move depends on what you are counting during the 12 weeks. When I am pregnant, 12 weeks is like an eternity. 12 weeks is where we took little bit of a deep breath, where I could stop the hormones and where we entered the second tri-mester. With both of our succesful pregnancies, those 12 weeks moved so very slow. Every day I would go to bed thankful that I hadn't had any spotting, that my appointments were going well. Every morning, I woke up wondering if this would be the day. Would this be the day that my baby stopped growing, the day the dream would end.

Now that J is here, 12 weeks has just flown by. 12 weeks is where she is smiling, cooing, showing her great little personality. Every day I go to bed happily exhausted thankful for my 2 beautiful girls, thankful that I can now be home with them during the day and watch them grow instead of someone else getting to spend most of their waking hours with them. Each morning I wake up wondering if this will be the day. The day that C says J's name clear as can be, the day that J will belly laugh for the first time.

12 weeks... an eternity that can pass by you are the speed of light.

My new secret identity

As of Tuesday, I have a New Identity. I am SUPER MOM!!!

Ok, no, I am not bragging about my abilities. When people found out I was leaving my job of 10 1/2 years, they would always ask if I was leaving for another job or to stay home. I would tell them I am going to be a stay at home mom by day, grocery cashier by night. I felt like a Super Hero with 2 identities when I would say it.

I have worked full time at a job away from home for the last 24 years. As of Tuesday, I am paid for a part time job. It is so strange to me.

I am Super in another way though, I am Super happy and blessed to be able to be home during the day so I can watch my girls grow, go to pancake breakfasts and eat flour lump filled pancakes made with joy by a group of 3 year olds, go to book week parades and all the joys that come with being at home.

So to Super Mom's everywhere... I am so happy to join your Super Hero ranks!

btw... if you don't know me and haven't seen pictures of me, YES, I look exactally like the picture. My boobs are that perfect and my waist is that tiny!

I've been tagged!

5 Most Frequented Websites:
BabyCenter
Flickr
Cool Mom Picks
True Mom Confessions
Ashlyns Care Page


5 Favorite Foods:
Beef filet
Garlic mashed potatoes
Tomatoes right off the vine in the summer
Peas
Ben and Jerry's Phish Food ice cream


5 Places I want to visit (never been before):
Australia
Seattle to Victoria
Figi
Chichen Itza and Coba
Ireland


5 Favorite Stress Relievers:
Pedicure
Nap
Holding J while she is sleeping
Hot shower
Massage


5 Favorite Movies:
City of Angels
Oceans 11
Oceans 13
Princess Bride
Steel Magnolias


5 Things you can do to make my day:
Comment on my blog
Tell me I look 30
Tell me how beautiful my girls are
Give me the winning Mega Million lottery numbers
Tell me Congratulations because I am leaving my job that I have hated in only 2 short days to become a stay at home mom by day and a grocery cashier part time evenings and weekends.


5 People I tag:
Rebecca
Jennifer
Lane
Dawn
?


Tag! It's your turn!

Performance-Enhancing Hugs

This was posted in The Onion and I just loved it!

C with one of her medals. (of course, hers was from the NYC Buddy Walk)

June 8, 2005

WASHINGTON, DC—Three months after the Special Olympics World Winter Games in Nagano, Japan, the International Special Olympics Committee has begun to investigate charges that athletes used performance-enhancing hugs in their training and directly before competing in key events.

"These people have no shame," ISOC chairman Bill Evans said Monday. "Right before a big game or race, many of them will take a dose of affection, sometimes from a coach, other times from a family member. Competing players have even been known to exchange hugs during the competition itself."

Although insiders have long attested to widespread hug use among special athletes, the full scope of the problem was not understood until November 2004, when Carnegie Mellon's medical school published a study on hug use in the Clinical Journal Of Sport Medicine. According to the study, researchers found double-digit spikes in self-valuation, warm fuzziness, and smiles following even a single hug.

Evans said he "took one look at the numbers" and agreed to an internal investigation and an across-the-board review of hug-use policies.

"Hug users have an unfair advantage over the hug-free, as they are pumped up with confidence," Evans said. "In competitions relying on endurance, hugs serve to artificially heighten an athlete's stamina. For example, hug users may be as much as 65 percent more likely to excel at no-contact floor hockey than those who say no to hugs. Put simply, it's unethical."
Alpine skiing bronze medalist Lee Young-Suk, who has Down syndrome, appeared on a special edition of ABC's Primetime Live Tuesday and admitted to frequent use of performance-enhancing hugs.

"When my mommy [Jun Young-Suk] hugs me, it makes me feel like I'm the best and she loves me and I can win," Suk told Diane Sawyer. "I'm a winner!"

The emotions Suk described—euphoria, omnipotence, overall well-being—have been found to last for as little as five minutes or as long as several hours, depending upon the number and type of embraces administered.

Due to the short-burst effect of performance-enhancing hugs, testing for their presence is difficult.

"Currently, eyewitness sightings are the only reliable indicators of hug use," said ISOC regulator Peter Warner. "Unfortunately, hug use can occur anywhere—from the group home to the bleachers. We can't be in every team's van at all times."

In the search for hug abusers, regulators have screened hundreds of hours of Special Olympics videotape, hoping to catch huggers in the act. They are also relying on testimony from hug users such as Suk.

"Lee Young-Suk really stood his ground at first, saying he did not want to tattle on his friends," Warner said of the hug user. "We couldn't get him to give us any names until we promised him a trip to Dairy Queen."

Still, as Evans pointed out, hug use does not necessarily translate into better athletic performance. Over time, it may even serve as a hindrance.

"Once they get hooked, even if it isn't helping their game, these Olympians continue to crave the affection, accepting it as almost a consolation prize for their effort. Sometimes you see special athletes seeking hugs outside the realm of competition, just for the sake of hugging. This is where we get into really dangerous territory."

Families start in many ways

I have a good friend from work and I have seen her suffer through the pain of wanting to start a family and finding it such a long journey. They tried to have a baby for 3 years. While their family journey was different from ours, I could really understand their pain of so wanting to have a family. You live and breathe it everyday and you are surrounded by other families, pregnant women, diaper commercials... reminders of what you can't seem to have.

They decided almost 1 year ago to persue adoption. They really embraced their new journey with such hope but also with the knowlege that it would take a while. They would probably have to wait about 2 years before their family started, not the typical 9 months it takes to have a baby... boy, were the wrong.

September 11th of 2007, they got the call. A birthmother had chosen them to meet with. It had only been 6 months since they started the process. They met with the birthmom and they all made an immediate connection and she told them then and there that she wanted them to be her son's parents. She said when she became pregnant she was so scared and had thought about terminating the pregnancy. She said she just couldn't. She knew there was a reason for this baby and she told them right then that they were the reason. She knew they were chosen by him to be his parents.

Early December the call came that he was on his way. They got in the car and were off and made it in time to see their son born. It was 9 months since they started their journey and now they had their family.

We love to get together with the babies (who are only 12 days apart) and hope to continue to have J & their son C be able to grow up together as friends and I hope to be able to keep in touch with S so I can also see her grow into the amazing mom I always knew she would be.

Today I am happy to go to her baby shower... something I know she has wanted for so long and fact is, lots of us have wanted that for them for so very long.

It doesn't make a difference what kind of family you have or how your family was made... family is still the greatest blessing there is.