Some Wise Preggo Advice

I was just talking to my friend, Cami (who is having her baby in less than a month! Woohoo!), and she gave some really good advice about baby names that I want to remember.  Seeing as I am in such an odd chatty/writing mood I'd better write it down now or else I may be retrospectively writing it when I'm 40 and finally getting around to it.

Advice #1  Don't tell the general public what you are naming your child till it is born.  I really liked this advice because I don't want people giving me their opinion on the name I picked out for my baby.  It's my baby, I'm carrying it for 9 months, and if you're not my husband I don't care to hear your commentary on the subject (Calm yourself preggo hormones...okay, now I'm good.).  Also names are bound to change.  Might as well keep it as simple.

Advice #2  Names with meaning.  I have always been on this bandwagon.   Give them a role model to look up to.  My brother was named after a king in the bible and I remember watching him as we grew up.  He was so proud that he was named after "one of the good guys" and it was endearing to see him trying to be like him.  And in a world where there aren't many gentlemen and manly men role models out there, we are going to have to create that for them.  True, you can do that without naming them after someone, but that is one way I choose to do it.

Man I am annoyingly opinionated today.

Also (that's as good as my segues get today),  here is a video to watch about becoming more like Heavenly Father:

Drum roll, please

We're having a boy!  

For Austin's birthday we had his family come down for dinner.  Afterwards we stopped by my sister's house where we opened our "present" of balloons to tell us the gender!  It was a surprise to see those blue balloons float to the ceiling.  Tricky baby, we though you were a girl!  But it was a happy surprise :)

It was so nice to open and celebrate it all with family; to feel their support and happiness for one of the newest members of the family!  

Hey, buddy! At 18 weeks you are 15.2 cm, a little over 6 inches, and boy you are a mover and a shaker!  Every time we've had an ultrasound, even at 10 weeks, the technicians have commented on your wiggles.  It makes me happy to feel you everyday now and have gotten used to your schedule of wiggle time and resting time. Your dad felt you for the first time this weekend, which was surprising cause I thought it was a little early, but hey! We'll take it!  I have finally grown too big for my first piece of clothing.  But I don't feel too bad, it was a pencil skirt ;)  I'm trying to keep up with your growing body and have started feeling VERY hungry every 2 hours.  The nausea bug has turned it's ugly head and now I get sick if I don't eat soon enough! Oh dear. I love knowing now that you are a boy and am very excited to have you come!

How to Make Healthy Lunches and Not Go Crazy

You can't be married to Austin and not learn to love nutrition.  Really.  In college it was one of our main topics of conversation and needless to say, it's on my mind A LOT. So, per his recommendation (and as part of my own "find-out-everything-about-children-before-I-decide-to make-one" course) I took a nutrition class the last semester of college.  Best class ever.  Everyone should take one.  It's a whole lot easier than people think.  It only gets complicated when someone is trying to sell you something.

Prego side note: Although it feels like I can eat a boat load of food now that I'm all prego, pregnant ladies only need 300 extra calories a day...that's like eating an extra yogurt and slice of bread (while nursing you'll need 800 extra calories....crazy, eh?).  So eat more often not necessarily bigger portions and please don't slap me with your crazy prego hormones.

Go here to check out cool nutrition stuff.
Here is a healthy meal planning site
And here are some free delicious recipes from that awesome site (the veggie tostadas and chicken tortilla soup are my favorites)

Back to the story.  A result of taking a nutrition class was that I began packing lunches for Austin and I everyday during college.  Now that Austin works in the mornings I still get up to  pack his lunch and can say that I've got it down to a science. Literally takes me 3 minutes...I timed it this morning.  

So for those of you who are stumped in the lunch department or want to eat more healthy I will share the wealth:

Tip 1 and only:

Make it convenient.  One difference between eating healthy food and junk food is its convenience.  How I've handled that is not buying junk food and make healthy food easy to grab and in plain sight.  Thank you Mom for brainwashing me with that mindset since childhood!

How to build it:

1.  Main dish. 

a)  Learn to love left-overs.  I don't particularly love cooking all the time.  So, if I cook enough in one dinner to last us two days and do that about 3 times a week, we will have enough lunch variety for about a week and a half.  We usually get backed up (like this week) and I end up not cooking for a couple days.  Bonus! 

b)  Always always always always put the left-overs into individual Tupperware containers while cleaning up dinner! You're there, it's there, and you're not going to want to do it in the morning while you're rushing out the door.  Just do it right then and there.

2. Veggies.  

I always make and store a vegetable with the main dish.  We really aren't picky in this house so it can be as easy as opening a can of green beans.  If I'm feeling real go-getterish I'll put together carrot and zucchini ziplock baggies while making dinner to just throw in the lunch box in the mornings. 

3.  Fruit.  

Easy to just pick up and throw in there. Apples, bananas or oranges are my fruit of choice.  Grapes and strawberries take a couple more seconds since you have to put them in a bag.  But for the sake of tossing it up, I'll do it sometimes.  

4.  Yogurt.  
Like I said, it's convenient and gets a serving of dairy in there.

5.  Something to munch.  

A roll, muffin, granola bar, baggie of trail mix.  Something that is easy to grab.  I try to make it whole grain.  I loved having this in between classes in college.  It kept me away from vending machines.

6.  Dessert. 

I usually do a pudding, cookies, maybe a candy bar if they're on sale....like I said, something convenient, that Austin or I will look forward to, and that is a good portion size.  Ya gotta do good in the dessert department!

Literally takes me three minutes to throw this all into a lunch box and we even calculated how much it costs: $3.25 a meal.  Not too shabby.  

Therapize me Cap'n: Life lessons

Getting into the professional world was a semi frustrating experience for me.  At first it was nothing I expected it to be.  When I say "nothing" I mean I was asking myself, "Did I really go to school for 4 years to end up playing board games with people all day??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!".  Nothing was organized, nothing was evidence based, bla blah bla, whine whine whine.

I felt so stuck and alone.  There are other therapists working for my company, but we only work one at a time.  So when I am there I'm literally the only one.  It felt a little lonely.  So many different populations to work with: geriatric, adolesent, women, men's military, women's military.  But no one to ask for advice, no one to bounce ideas off of.

Yes, it can hard putting on the big girl panties.  But, it's amazing what can happen when I decide to be humble and wait.

A couple weeks ago I started training a new therapist.  Part of that training is that I let her plan and run a few sessions while I observe and critique her.  She was the answer to my prayers!  She was not new to the field and I was so grateful to be able to observe her experience.  Just the way she set up and ran her group turned a key in my head about how to take my  therapy groups from just doing activities to actually providing therapy!

Here are a few new standards for Heidi's patients:

1.  To begin each session in a way that is calm, individual, establishes a rapport with each patient letting them know that I do care about them and their treatment while at our facility.
2.  To establish baseline rules of conduct at the very beginning of each session.
3.  To provide the patient with comprehensive and easy to remember tools they can use once discharged
4.  To incorporate an element of fun into at least a part of the session.  Laughter can sometimes be the best medicine.
5.  To challenge my patients to examine themselves and find parts that they are proud of and like.

It's amazing what one example can do!  And as a result I have been more effective in my therapy sessions.  My patients are more engaged and I present myself in a much more confident and capable manner.

Although nothing physically has changed in my department this experience alone has changed how I see everything with how I do recreation therapy in this setting.  I used to blame my problems on the facility, "They've set it up so the patients only expect games from the recreation therapist   So they're not even in the right mind set to do 'real' therapy!".  What a lame excuse.  It was because of the way I ran my groups that the patients felt it was okay to act the way they did.

I wish I knew some great concise quote that inspired you all to re-evaluate how your actions effect those around you to nicely wrap up this post....but nothing comes to mind and I'd rather be spending time with my hubby right now.  So....peace out.

A little distracted

Today I was going to do a post about what I've learned about being a therapist.  Quite interesting  really.  But then I got distracted by yellow and grey...some of my favorite color combinations.

I love everything about this room...just need to remember it.

Love the fabric. 

Such a cute wall.  If I had a room of my own to decorate I think I could paint that by hand.

And so it begins...Week 16

I got home from work, looked down at my belly and thought "Hmmmm, I think that something is bigger down there!"  So granted, just-home-from-work-dead-tired-on-my-feet picture is not the most flattering but I decided that honest is better :) 

Some things I have recognized is that it can be hard not to look ahead and wish to be in 'such and such' stage of pregnancy.  So instead of wishing I was big enough to show and then wishing that this baby would get here sooner once I was I decided to just be happy where I am now!  Instead of rushing through I want to celebrate the happy milestones Baby, Austin, and I are making now both in pregnancy and just in life!  To live in the moment.  It feels pretty good :)