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#5Faves: Ways to Detox a Pregnancy

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Anna is here again, and this time it’s a double whammy. A #5Faves and an announcement. Bet you can’t guess what it is. I bettttt…

After the pregnancy announcement is over, it’s time to start thinking about how you should be taking care of yourself and that baby girl or baby boy in the long run. And, I think some of these detox ideas will surprise you. Follow this detox diet to make this your best pregnancy ever. And remember, it’s not just about how you look; treat yourself like you are beautiful…because you are.

Oh, a new little baby.

A new immortal soul, a new little light in the world, shining without being seen. The only tangible proof that there’s a baby even there was a line on the pregnancy test, my uncharacteristically intense craving for Pepsi, and a bloat that could propel me to India if you put a propeller on my bum. Like a happy and nauseous dirigible.

These pregnancies are starting to feel like the academic years. Nine months on, three months summer, nine months on again–at least this time around. I’ve found myself looking at this long stretch of time sort of like I did back at the start of a new school year, all psyched to start fresh, do my homework before I was tired dead shell of a human, wear a cute outfit every day, an excel in everything. About a week in, I’d usually lose a lot of morale and settle on wearing a hoodie every day and doing my homework during Oprah commercials.

But now, I’m hoping to start off the pregnancy right. My last one I gained more weight than I should have, ate way too much ramen (I was pregnant with a boy, after all, and he might as well have been a college guy as he came out the size of a line-backer), and was a cranky and tired mess. Perhaps that’s just pregnancy, but I’m going to try a five new things:

After the pregnancy announcement is over, it’s time to start thinking about how you should be taking care of yourself and that baby girl or baby boy in the long run. And, I think some of these detox ideas will surprise you. Follow this detox diet to make this your best pregnancy ever. And remember, it’s not just about how you look; treat yourself like you are beautiful…because you are.

© rohappy / Dollar Photo Club

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I will strive to only do things I consider beautiful or useful. Like the way people manage the clutter in their house, they strive to only keep possessions they consider beautiful or useful. I’m hoping to do the same in my daily life—not using pregnancy as an excuse to binge watch Sister Wives, but perhaps to pray, read, sleep, or talk to a real human when I have a chance to decompress. And when I’m with my kids, not sit idly on my iphone while I supervise them, but talk to them, engage with them, or at least LOOK at them while I work on something else. This does not mean constantly being productive—this only means to do things that will really help me with my short term goals of that moment—help me truly rest, help me work, help me grow in grace, even when I’m uncomfortable.

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I’ll only put in my body what is beautiful and useful. Is chocolate beautiful and useful? You’ll bet your sweet a** it is. But I’ll try and stick with only a few pieces, not enough to make me grow a third thigh in addition to a human. I’ll only eat the frivolous stuff to the extent it is useful—in giving me a small treat, a lift, but not a sugar or caffeine high. And just because I may not be in the exact mood for a salad or a sweet potato, doesn’t mean I shouldn’t just suck it up and eat it to nourish myself the right way. I’m hoping this will physically make me feel better overall through the pregnancy. My future child has a whole lifetime to eat a massive bag of Doritos in one sitting—let’s give him/her a chance to start AFTER he/she emerges from the womb.

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Reflect OFTEN on how this is a fleeting season. Looking at my first two, my pregnancies with them seem like such a side note. They felt awful during, but look at what we received: beautiful, unique humans who will grow, eventually sleep through the night, eventually won’t poop their pants, eventually won’t need ME at all. This will pass. And it will faster than I realize. I will not be the size of a parade float forever.

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I’ll ask for and take help easily. I am pregnant with my third baby. My first two are still very young and needy. I will be very needy. This means there will be days when I will look like the hind leg of a mountain goat and be about as friendly as one if there was an annoying chipmunk behind it. Therefore, I’m going to push my pride aside and accept the help of people around me who offer it, and try to recognize days when I genuinely need to ask for it, and accept it BEFORE the point of desperation.

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I’ll forgive myself (and others) easily. I won’t hit all my goals every day. I’m knocked up. It’s okay. Also, those around me won’t be able to read my mind. I’ll probably be an irritable grump that may be an irritable grump to those around me. But instead of being a crotchety pregnant lady, asking for grace in the times where I want to be mad at someone close to me.

Hopefully my resolution will last more than a week before I dive off the deep end into a kiddie pool of ramen noodles and the last 40 seasons of Gilmore Girls, but I’d appreciate your prayers as I grow this next kiddo.

 

Anyone have any words of wisdom on raising three? Something beautiful to tell Anna?

 

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Perfect Crock Pot Pumpkin Pie Oatmeal

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Anna is back with pumpkin pie oatmeal. Fill ’em up, Anna.

oatmeal

Before I got married, I never cooked. I ate like a semi-health conscious second grader living in a frat house.

Bob Evan’s refrigerated mashed potatoes for breakfast, a bag of Steamables brown rice for dinner (it all evens out, right??). I had once been bamboozled into making brownies from a mix while volunteering at a church youth retreat, and my heart nearly stopped from the anxiety of having to MIX STUFF UP and put it in an OVEN. You know, an oven, a thing that could explode or one could accidentally fall into at any time in a hellish vortex of burnt crumbs. The only things I knew about ovens were from fairy tales, like the one where Rumpelstitskin’s wife or whoever tried to shove those poor children into it when she lured them to her house made out of something like Twizzlers or birth control pills.

Then I got married, promptly had a baby, and realized that my vocation was going to occasionally require me to feed my family from things that that did not creep out of a can of cheese whiz. Nothing against cheese whiz, but I also need to provide things that gave my family a fighting chance at pooping, once in a while. Oh St. Jude, dost thou have a big fat project on thy saintly hands.

two of my loves, comparing pumpkins

two of my loves, comparing pumpkins

In all actuality, what prompted me to try this in the first place was when I started hosting a play group at my house when my first baby was around eight months old. I figured I was going to need the camaraderie of some mom friends at some point to not want to gnaw a hole in the wall by 10 am, and I knew of some lovely ladies with babies who I wanted to get to know better. At the first couple of groups meetings, all I had provided was coffee–and by the end I was a rabid barnyard animal, I was so hungry. I figured having something to eat and share might remedy this problem beautifully.

This oatmeal was the first thing I tried to make, and hoo boy, it’s a goodun. If you can open a can (which I could not), you can do this. It fills your house with the heavenly sent of pumpkin pie and you don’t end up with a pumpkin pie induced beer gut at the end of eating it. You can put it together at night while you’re still alive and as you stagger out of your bedroom with your drool-crust mouth corners and flock-of-seagulls hair in the morning a la Dawn of the Dead style (it’s not just me…right?) it will be awaiting you, milady.

On a more philosophical note, this oatmeal represents something bigger to me than avoiding rabid barnyard animal frothy-mouthed hunger convulsions. This was a turning point in my life, as when my first was a baby I was struggling with finding who I was now, as a perplexed version of the person I was before and now as a mother, how to live a functional and happy life, and how on earth could I manage not starving those for whom I was responsible. I was tenaciously trying to shimmy my way into a mold that I wasn’t sure I’d ever really adapt. I didn’t know how to bake muffins, cook a four-course dinner (anything more than two is fancy, right???), iron a shirt (I still don’t), or anything domestic; yet I fell ass-backward into the heart of a very domestic life. I was very fearful that I was going to fail at running a sanguine home, at mothering, at my vocation, and at being happy while I tried.

my littlest love, looking a bit like a pumpkin

my littlest love, looking a bit like a pumpkin

I found this oatmeal, and it was perfect. It suited my needs to make something easy the night before and have it ready in the morning so I could survive the flurry of morning spit-up and diapers and greet my guests in a state that conveyed we were not raised by wild alpacas or enthusiastic residents of a nudist colony. I knew I wouldn’t mess it up or catch anything on fire. And you know, people LOVED it. Even the picky toddlers actually ate it. This gave me the reassurance that I didn’t need to make anything difficult in order to make something that nourished and pleased the people around me. It was the gateway to my knowing that I was somehow capable of my new role, and it didn’t (always) have to be hard. God honored my very, very humble attempt to do something pleasing, something of service to others, something that conveyed welcome and love to those around me, and even though it only consisted of opening a can and glopping it into a pot, He blessed it. I still make this stuff almost every week.

So here it is, adapted from The Sugar Free Mom.

Ingredients:

(Serves 6 to 8)

  • Two cups STEEL CUT OATS (Not rolled oats!)
  • Six cups water
  • One can pumpkin puree (Not pumpkin pie filling!)
  • Two teaspoons vanilla extract
  • A dash of salt
  • 1 TBS pumpkin pie spice
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • Honey or brown sugar, to taste (this can be added at the end)

 

Directions:

  1. Dump all ingredients into crock pot
  2. Set to “low” for 8 hours
  3. Stir, sweeten to taste, and enjoy!

(And whatdoyaknow, you can cook this thing for over and hour past the designated amount of time and nothing bad happens. Not that I know this from experience or anything.)

 

 

That Fat Shadow Man-Jerk

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A couple of weeks back (#4), I told you I was bringing a friend on board to Call Her Happy. Welp, she’s here! Friends, this is Anna. Anna, this is friends. Anna will be delighting you with her writing ways on a monthly-ish basis. She’s a Catholic wife and momma of two. But, I’ll tell you all about her soon. For now, enjoy her first post. That’s an order.

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This is Anna. photo credit: Melanie Reyes Photography

How can you tell if a woman is a mother?

Is it the noble and wizened glint in her eye?  Her dry, cracked knuckles parched from their endless daily washings?  Or is it her gait, determined, fatigued, purposeful?

No.  Look down.  Look down on the ground at what should be her shadow.  But instead of a shadow of her own frame, see the silhouette of the fat man pointing and laughing at her, his gluttonous belly bouncing with greasy-used-car-salesman glee?  Yes, that’s how you can tell she’s a mother.  That fat shadow man-jerk following her around is Murphy.  Of Murphy’s Law.

You get what I’m saying now, don’t you.

I got acquainted with Muphy right at the beginning of my life as a mom.  My dainty, sweet little newborn daughter would not spit up all the often.  But when she did, it was everything in her stomach. In public. Directly down the shirt.   And the one night my husband and I were able to get away before our second was born?  Our hotel smelled like a dead parrot and there were banshee children running and jumping around at 2 am in the room directly above us.  We came back more sleep deprived than if we had just stayed home, in the most un-sexy sense possible.

Murphy, I’ve found, is especially attentive to us when we go to Mass, probably because it involves the highest potential of public embarrassment.  A huge amount of people around us in an environment that’s meant to be quiet and reverent?  Perfect. My son deals with the nursing drape alright most of the time.  But at Mass?  How about I stick a wild turkey under my shirt and nurse that.  It doesn’t help that I’m so fair that one slip of the nursing drape and the clergy will think lightning has flashed across St. Mary side of the sanctuary.  My daughter will not be thirsty at any mass, ever, although I bring her sippy cup with us every time.  The ONE time I forget, clearly she had taken some mysterious trek through the sahara on the way to church and therefore was beyond parched by the Gloria.  My husband had to usher her to the dreaded petri dish of the drinking fountain to go get some water and a stomach virus.  And the loudest poops that ever thunder out of the newborn?  Only during the consecration, baby, and the parishioners sitting around us aren’t going to be the types that will high five us as we carry him out to the restroom.

One last thing, Murphy also loves his Kanye moments.  The baby will have an awful blowout at the mall.  I go in, the bathroom is clean and blessedly empty. “Oh, I’m so glad we’ll be able to change you in here!” I say to the baby.  “Let’s put you down on the changing stat—” “Imma let you finish,” says Murphy, “But the stall with the changing station in it actually has a store employee in it.  And she’s taking the longest poop of all time.  OF ALL TIME!”

On the one hand, Murphy trains us to be humble and prepared.  To anticipate all the potential mishaps and to leave the rest to God’s love and mercy.  We grow in virtue as we’re faced with these little daily challenges, and although it’s a pain in the ol’ behind, it is good.  On the other hand, he’s a relentless thorn and I hate him.

As I continue in my vocation, I try to learn from these situations where everything that could go wrong, did. To count everything as a chance to suffer for Christ, to gain character, to grow.  Therefore, half my car is a stockpile of plastic bags. I am Mother Boogey Wipe.  I carry an airline-sized snack array and a fully loaded changing station in the back seat.  But you know, the day I leave the house ready truly for anything will also be the day I forget to load the baby into the car.