I still weigh what?????

An article sent to me by a friend has inspired the following rant. I mean blog. This has been bugging me for months. We've all seen them. You know, those women who give birth, and five minutes later look amazing. Well, not exactly five minutes later. I toured a school today, because apparently if I don't get my seven month old on a weight list now, she will never get into preschool and will be a colossal failure. But I digress. Anyway, there was this sweet girl on the tour with her baby. He is 4 months old, and weighs 15 pounds, and is 27 inches long. Big baby. This mother looked amazing. She'd lost all of her baby weight, and was back in her jeans- FOUR months after birthing a nine pound baby. How is this possible? The stupid books and experts tell us to wait a year before we can get back in those skinny jeans. But these women are everywhere- the ones that seem to defy the experts and are back in their True Religion's or bikinis before their babies can even sit up. It just isn't fair. I work my ass off doing bikram yoga, boot camp, spin class; and seven months later I still have between 8-11 pounds to lose, depending on what the scale decides to come up with on any given morning.  I know it's harder for me- I couldn't exercise my entire pregnancy because I threw up for nine months; and the inactivity really did me in. I am grateful for my baby girl, and of course she's worth the extra weight. But these women who "snap back" just kill me. I've decided that pregnancy is singlehandedly the most destructive thing you can do to your body. It's interesting that we all recover differently.  I guess I'll just work even harder at boot camp tomorrow.

The Beginnings of the Menagerie

Referring to my family as a menagerie began as a joke. It started last year at Christmas. My husband and I were traveling to Houston to spend a week with our families. We were bringing with us our 85 pound golden retriever named Hunter, and Gray our 18 pound cat. I was also 6 months pregnant. My father in law  jokingly referred to this caravan as a menagerie. The nickname stuck. Currently, my "menagerie" consists of my husband, our 7 month old baby girl, the dog, and the cat. This week we are hosting our first Thanksgiving at our home in Dallas. My parents and sister are coming, and my cousin Ashton will spend Thursday at our house. I've spent the last two months buying "fallish" items to decorate the house, much to my husband's chagrin. We've decided to skip the home cooked meal, which takes about 3 days to prepare, in favor of catering by Central Market. I will be making homemade pumpkin dip,  courtesy of my friend Bethany, as well as pumpkin bread. My family arrives on Wednesday, and we are all eagerly anticipating Sophie's first Thanksgiving. God willing it will be stress and illness free! Weather.com promises cool weather, which is not always a given here in Texas. I feel slightly sad that this year marks the end of the 100+ year rivalry football game between Texas and Texas A&M. I guess it will be up to me to tell Sophie the history of this rivalry as she gets older. Well, this is my first blog entry. Hopefully I will be able to come up with some interesting blog ideas! Happy Thanksgiving!