keeping it real

Henry and I are having a quiet day today, as Celia's back at daycare for the first day in nearly two weeks. It's in the single digits outside- good wool sock wearing, hot tea drinking, fold the laundry in front of the fire weather.

Speaking of fire, last night around 9:00 we realized our furnace wasn't working. With the temperature dropping to around seven degrees, this was a big problem. Chris got the wood stove cranking and called the oil company's emergency line. Celia was already asleep in her room, so I piled blankets over her and kept Henry near the wood stove for the night. Late at night someone did come to fix the heat, so we were okay. Chris and I were both up too late, and he was up half the night keeping the wood stove burning and worrying about whether the heat was working.

It will be nice getting back to our normal schedule. I'll miss Celia when she's not home, but it's good to have time alone with Henry so I can give him my undivided attention. When Celia's home I have to give her as much attention as possible, and can't always do everything I'd like to with Henry.

Henry has been in a great mood today. He's been so smiley that I've been able to catch some smiles on camera.

After he woke up and ate this morning we talked and played, I folded laundry, and we did Henry's bath. He was even happy in the bath, and seemed pleased to try cloth diapers for the first time. I'm going to phase them in now that he's big enough.

Bad phone pics, but you get the idea. Henry fell asleep in his seat after the bath, so I took a shower and got dinner ready for the oven while he was sleeping. Then he woke up, ate, socialized for a while, and we went for a drive just to get out and so I could get a fancy coffee drink. I have errands to run, but it's so cold outside that I don't really want to be carting him around from place to place.

One more thing. You know those people who show post-partum pictures of themselves, looking like they'd never been pregnant just two weeks after having a baby? And you want to clobber them because they make you feel like a fat slob and wonder why you didn't lose that kind of weight? I'm typically a thin person, and even I don't bounce back like that. I want to have my old body back and fit in all my clothes yesterday, but I have to be patient. I did fit into my fat jeans this morning, though, which was a small victory. So in honor of that, and to keep things real and show you all that I don't live in some la-la land where I magically drop all the weight and have no belly left at all, here I am at five weeks post partum:

And I know it's not like I look horrible, but clearly I still have a belly. And if you didn't know me you'd think I wouldn't have much to lose, but I'm still much bigger all over than my normal self and have around 15 pounds to lose. My big goal for the months to come! I'm ready to start exercising again. May try to do something tomorrow...

Anyway, that's our day. Finally a quiet one.

Are you someone who bounced right back? Or did it take some time?