Category Archives: Health

Muscle memory

After hitting the gym very regularly during my pregnancy, things took a sharp turn post-baby.  Once I was cleared for take-off exercising again, I started going to the gym a couple of times a week, sometimes using the free childcare, sometimes leaving Gabriel with Matthew.

I fell into a somewhat regular pattern that completely fell apart once maternity leave ended and I went back to work full time.  After a couple of months of rarely darkening the door of the YMCA, I cancelled my membership.  I just couldn’t justify the $46 a month when I was making it there less than twice a week.

Enter unemployment and more free time — at Matthew’s urging, I’m considering gym options.  I’m torn between my familiar YMCA, which, due to our move, is now solidly in the “biking distance” category, or another gym that is just a couple of blocks away and easily walkable.

I’ve visited both gyms and worked out as a guest in the last two weeks, trying to get a feel for each facility and weigh the pros and cons.  While, on the whole, I’m much more active since I ditched the desk job for days filled with biking around with, and chasing after, a toddler, I’m enjoying the feeling of a good, full-body weight lifting session.*

If it weren’t for the distance, I’d probably pick the Y with little debate, despite it being more expensive.  However, I’d be bringing Gabriel with me most of the time, and I’m a little uncertain about biking with him in wintry weather.

If we have a very mild winter, like last year, it would be a moot point.  But you never know with the weather — with the YMCA, I may well be faced with the dilemma of driving (which I balk at since it’s less than two miles away) or skipping the gym on some days.

I’m still not sure what I’ll do on the gym question (though I should follow through and do one or the other), but I will be looking into some kind of under-the-helmet head covering for Gabriel so we’re ready for chilly rides, one way of the other.  Do they make balaclavas for toddlers?

*Not one to ease back into things, I returned home after the first workout and proceeded to hang a load of laundry, only to find that I could barely lift my arms up to hang the clothes on the line — oops!

The bad and the ugly

Unfortunately, my good biking tale was not the only noteworthy bike-related happening last week.

The Bad
Two Sundays ago, Matthew discovered that his rear shifting cable was shot, despite the cable and the shifter itself being replaced quite recently.  He finished his ride using the three front gears (incidentally, this was also his inaugural ride with Gabriel in the IBert on his bike).

He’d been wanting to take it to the bike shop for a tune-up anyway, so he arranged a bike swap with his dad (he doesn’t have his own back up bike, which is something that we plan to remedy) and sent his trusty steed in for repair.

Matt’s two cents: “Winona has been very reliable.  It’s not her fault.”*

He was back on his own bike by Wednesday, setting off in the same cloudy, damp weather I experienced.  On his way into work, he noticed that his handlebars were loose.  Assuming the shop had forgotten to tighten something, he pulled out his tool set (we both usually bike with a few small tools for minor repairs) and tightened the handle bar stem.

The Ugly
All seemed well until after work, when he was over halfway home.  As he made a turn through an intersection, the handlebars came off and he crashed.  And I received the, “I’m mostly okay, but can you come and pick me up,” call.

His main injury was a badly sprained big toe — I’ve never had a serious toe injury, but it turns out that they can be pretty crippling.  He could walk, but not well, so he was pretty out of commission for a couple of days, doing the ice, elevate, and pain reliever drill.

The story on the bike was that the part of the stem that goes into the head tube  and secures with a long bolt cracked, so even though the bolt felt tight, it was slipping, more or less like it was stripped.  The bike shop’s best explanation was age/normal wear and tear, though it is not an especially old bike.

All in all, things could have been a lot worse, but this part failure definitely surprised us.  For summer biking, we had both eased away from what, at least for me, had been a hard and fast “no open-toed shoes while biking” rule into wearing Teva sandals.  I enjoyed being able to wear the kind of footwear that I wanted at my destination, no carting around an extra pair of shoes required.

Since sturdy, closed-toe shoes probably would have prevented the sprain, we’re obviously rethinking our footwear choices.  Due to the injury Matt’s trying to find something that’s foot shaped and waterproof, but with a thick sole — anyone have any suggestions?  He normally wears Birkenstocks or Five Fingers, as he can’t find any other footwear that is shaped like his feet.

We both feel that biking is generally safe enough, but it certainly has its dangers, just like ANY form of transit/most of life in general.  This was a scary, startling, and painful experience, but Matt can’t wait to ditch the bus and get back to his faster, more energetic commute.
*Bonus points if you can guess the name of the TV series from which that quote originated.  Hint: Matthew likes sci-fi. 

Snapped

One morning last week, I knocked my glasses off the night table as I fumbled for them in the early morning hours.  They’ve hit the floor a couple of times with no obvious damage, but the noise I heard this time just sounded bad.

I assumed a cracked lens or some such, but when I turned on the light to assess the damage, I found that my instead of glasses, I now had two monocles.  The plastic bridge snapped almost right in the middle.

Seven years ago, when I switched from full-time contacts to mostly full-time glasses (something that seemed unthinkable when I was finally allowed to get contacts at age twelve), I picked out a nice pair of frames and high quality lenses.  I remember questioning the durability of a plastic frame (versus metal, which was all I’d had previously) at the time, but I really wasn’t seeing anything I liked in the metal frames, and the molded plastic seemed very comfortable.

Granted I’ve been fairly careful with them (never leaving them in the car, almost always on my face or in a very safe place), but I really was pleased with how well they’d held up as the years passed.

When I bought a nice new pair of glasses with metal frames three years ago, I stuck with the old faithful plastic frames, with the new pair as the back-ups.  Fortunately, I did have the good back-up pair when disaster struck.

I wasn’t terribly optimistic about the chances of a decent repair, but after two days in the back-ups, I bought some super glue to attempt to salvage my favorite spectacles.  At first it didn’t seem like it would work at all — it was very difficult to hold the two pieces together in just the right position without gluing my fingers to the plastic in the process.

However, I managed a fairly decent, if not quite perfect, repair job.  They’ve held up through a couple days’ wear, though I’m not sure it’s wise to go to far from home without the back-ups.  Either way, I’m happy to have my comfy plastic frames back in action for now, and I’ll probably look for something similar the next time I’m glasses shopping.

Got a new job now in the unemployment line

So . . . here we are.  When I wrote this post a month ago, I thought there was a reasonably good chance that I would move from my current job (which ended due to budget cuts) directly into something new.

For awhile, my biggest worry was that I would have a new job but no childcare arrangements (for the past nine months, Gabriel was in a daycare center literally right across the street from my [old] office, which was a great arrangement, but whose location only made sense when I had to drive there for work anyway).

Turns out I was putting the cart before the horse, since I, in fact, do not have a new job lined up.  No job means no money to pay someone else to raise my child.

So today is the first day of being a [temporary, I hope, or at least I think that’s what I hope] SAHM.

Though it brought its own set of stresses and challenges, going back to work nine months ago was a very good thing for me.  While I still struggle with some low mood and anxiety, I credit my job with preventing me from spiraling further into postpartum depression.

Getting out of the house every day, having a break from the constant demands of a young infant, having some space to breath and eat a meal without worry of being interrupted by a needy cry — glorious.

So it’s with a bit of trepidation that I enter this unemployed phase.  I’m trying to have realistic (i.e., low) expectations for what I’ll be able to do while I’m home with him.  I hope to spend time in the kitchen, but having dinner on the table every night when Matthew gets home from work is probably not in the cards.

Today I would like to make and can salsa, but we’ll just see how things go.  One day at a time, right?

What’s wrong little Pookie?

A few weeks ago, I stopped into the library when I had a few minutes to kill before an interview.   I headed to the children’s section to pick out a couple of books for Gabriel and discovered What’s Wrong Little Pookie? by Sandra Boynton.  It’s a cute book, and ever since then, I’ve been referring to Gabriel as “Pookie” almost as often as I call him Sir.

Anyhow, two weeks ago, I took Pookie to the doctor for his twelve-month “well baby” visit.  I use quotes here because a few hours before the appointment, he had a massive diarrhea explosion that was the prelude to a four-day gastrointestinal bug, and, when we saw the doctor, we found out that his ear infection, diagnosed at a sick visit two-and-a-half weeks prior, had not cleared, despite the antibiotic.

This was his second diagnosed ear infection, but the previous one, back in February, was mild and cleared without antibiotics.  With the news that the first-line drug hadn’t knocked out this infection, along with the fact that he had lots of fluid in both ears, my mind immediately spiraled to a series of infections with progressively stronger, nastier antibiotics, culminating in tubes for my poor little Pookie.

We had our follow-up visit yesterday, and I held my breath as the doctor looked in Gabriel’s ears and declared that not only had the infection cleared, but both ears were completely free of fluid already (something he had not expected, as the fluid can often take quite awhile to drain from little ears — hence the infection issue in the first place).

I restrained myself from doing a happy dance right then and there.  While the antibiotics no doubt worked on the infection, I credit the warm compresses that I applied to his ears while nursing (and perhaps the milk itself) with really sealing the deal.

Of course, his clean bill of health meant that he received his postponed twelve-month shots, so  in addition to the immediate pain, he woke up this morning with a bit of a fever.  I’m hoping that abates soon and we’ll have a happy, healthy little Pookie.