The Rands Update!

So it is 10:55pm here on the East Coast and I promised I would post on this blog before the end of the weekend so here I am typing away hoping I fit it in before midnight! Luckily Ive always proved to be a pretty good procrastinator, hehe, so here we go!

Recent Updates on the Rands Family:

A New Job For Sarah!

At the end of my pregnancy a few months ago, as I was slowly feeling the "nesting" feeling coming on, I started worrying about what kind of job I could have while I had a baby at home.  I'd already informed the family I nannied for that I would be home with the baby and they had found a replacement for me when the time came.  I looked into some online opportunities: Tutoring online, writing topic articles for writers domain, etc and none of them seemed to fit right. But part of me wanted to continue to make some sort of money.  Of course the baby came-earlier than expected-and the constant catching up of sleep and feeding took up most of my time anyways. But then a job opportunity arose while I was in Utah.  The family next door (I originally nannied for Robin who hooked Trevor and I up with the cheap 900/month basement apartment in her brothers house in which his son, daughter-in-law, and baby live next door) needed someone to watch their 8 month old girl. I was excited at the thought because I wouldn't have to drive anywhere, and I could still be at home with Gabriel! 

So I visited with the family and we chatted about what Esmeralda, the 8-month old, needed and her schedule and such. Im not getting paid a ton, especially for this area where people pay an arm and a leg, but it seemed fair enough for me taking into account I am friends with the family, they are struggling financially (hence why the mom has to work) I don't have to drive anywhere, I can stay home with Gabe, and its only 4 days a week 7:30am-3pm.  My pay averages to be about 5 dollars an hour. We also decided I could watch her upstairs in the Grandparents (Robins brother) house since it is much more spacious for 2 babies and their toys. Everything seemed fine and dandy... until the first day happened.

7:30am came all too fast. Gabe decided he wanted to be nursed all night. I am mostly at fault for this because while I was in Utah without Trevor and feeling the lack of sleep, I had plenty of bed space to have Gabriel sleep next to me! He seemed to sleep better and nursing, heck, it was so easy when he is right there and I got more sleep! Well, that got him into a very BAD habit. So of course the night before my first day of work, Gabe decides to be EXTRA needy.  So after only getting a few hours of sleep, I trudged upstairs and finalized plans for Esmeralda with her mom before she left for work. Well her mom put her on the floor and surrounded her with toys and even put the TV on.  Everything seemed great. I put Gabriel down (who was catching up on sleep in a portable part of the bassinet I brought up-super jealous on the sleeping part) and settled him in.  The mom left and all was good. Esmeralda, bored with her toy, suddenly looked around for her mom, only to find... ME.  She suddenly began to cry. And when I say cry, it was more like scream! I had never heard any baby cry as loud as she did. This sent me into pure panic mode! I tried every toy to distract her and nothing helped.  I picked her up and rocked her which made her cry even more! And her cries woke Gabriel up who also, scared from the sudden sound, started crying too! Now I had 2 babies crying at the same time! Ahhhhhh! 

This put me in a hard position.  I had spent several minutes trying to soothe Esmeralda to no avail. She just kept screaming-the lungs on that girl! I walked around with her, sang her songs, showed her toys, tried to give her something to eat, EVERYTHING and nothing helped. All meanwhile my son is crying too. So I had to decide between soothing an unsoothable baby that I was being paid to watch and take care of, or picking up my baby which I knew would be okay once I picked him up. Well I decided 1 baby crying was better than 2 so I put Esmeralda down next to all her toys, crying and red faced, and picked Gabriel up.  He immediately stopped crying but I could tell he did not like the loud sounds of another baby crying.  And being upstairs in someone else's living room probably did not help.  The other issue was that it is an open concept floor where there is basically 1 room for the kitchen, dining room, living room, and entry way. Its nice and spacious but where do I put my child to get away from loud sounds?! In the bathroom!? That was the only place I thought of that had a door to shut out sound. I then noticed their front porch had a closed off area so I calmed him down and put him in his bassinet on the porch.  I know, sounds horrible, but I did what I had to! Needless to say, her crying went on throughout the whole day! She cried so much she tired herself out and slept for 25 minutes (forgot to mention that she doesnt take naps! Maybe 10 minutes here and there) But once she woke up, she was right back to screaming. After a few hours of trying to juggle both babies, both mostly crying, all three of us were crying! What had I gotten myself into!?!?! I was on no sleep dealing with 2 crying babies-someone could not have paid me 100/hr to want to do THAT again.  I almost quit right then and there but luckily not too long after, Esmeralda's grandma came home and was able to soothe her.  She stayed the rest of the day with me and it helped a ton.  If she hadn't rescued me, Im pretty sure I would have ran out of the house screaming-leaving both babies behind! :p

As the days went on Esmeralda slowly started getting used to me-little by little.  It also got easier that I knew to put Gabe out on the porch for his naps and how to deal with her crying.  It wasnt until thursday that she finally had a good 2 hours of no crying. I even got her to finally laugh! What a miracle! So now I am praying that this weekend has not set her back too much. I guess we will find out in 7 hrs. So that is an overview of my new job! We will see how long this lasts! but in the meantime, I am certainly happy to have a job and a few extra dollars to help toward our student loans :)

A New Life Outlook

So as many of you know, having a baby makes us pack on weight and then sometimes its hard to get off. In my case, I lost 20 lbs within the first week and haven't lost much since. Its up and down. I would get frustrated and then sad and just sometimes plain depressed! It wasn't until recently that I saw a post on facebook that totally changed my outlook: 

I cannot tell you how many times Ive thought this. I have been in a constant "I gotta lose weight" phase. It started my senior year of high school when I noticed I was gaining some pounds each year. I was constantly thinking I was overweight (didnt help those BMI scales were basically telling me I was Obese) and couldnt wait to lose the pounds to be that perfect ideal weight. This lasted all the way through college, when I got married, and now after being pregnant. When I was at BYU I would look back at high school pictures and think, "Man I was skinny then!" And then when I got married I looked back at college pictures I thought "I looked good then!" and now after looking at pictures before I had Gabe I cant help but think "Hey I looked just fine!"

I saw this facebook post and finally realized, I am sick of constantly wanting to be skinnier!! My mind was always seeing myself as TOO BIG. I want to love myself the way I am.  I always thought wanting to be skinnier would be good motivation to get myself skinnier and it is in fact not motivation at all! It just makes me depressed and makes me want to eat ice cream and chocolate all day lol. So I have changed my entire outlook! I am loving my body the way it is!

When I was at the early stages of pregnancy I was a nervous wreck over getting stretch marks-I mean they never go away completely! I didnt want stretch marks because I knew it would affect my self-esteem about my body. People kept telling me, "dont look in a full length mirror for at least 2 weeks after having a baby or youll be so depressed." But in reality for me, I looked in the mirror and saw myself as beautiful! Those stretch marks are battle wounds/sacrificial scars for this baby that I have. I didnt mind them at all!  Even though I know I am overweight and need to lose weight in the long run, I have decided to love my body the way it is! Heavenly Father gave it to me and I want to take care of it.  SO in order to do that of course I need to eat healthy, I need to exercise daily, and give my body the nourishment it needs. But this is not in order to fit in a size 2 jeans or to be stick thin, but merely to feel healthy and be able to do daily activities without becoming fatigued. I read an article in the Ensign about a girl who hiked the Y every morning and she would see people walk by and they would say "way to go, you can lose the weight." She appreciated that they were trying to be positive but her overall goal was not to lose weight but to just be healthy and get fresh air in the morning. She thought "can't I exercise without people thinking its only to lose weight." But our society today put so much pressure on us to be fit and an ideal weight.  I look in the mirror with confidence and think, "I look great the way I am and am striving to feel great in the inside too"  I now exercise because it is good for me, not because I need to lose weight.  It is amazing this small change in my attitude has changed everything.  I am not subconscious about what others are thinking of me when I walk into a room, or what I look like in pictures (as long as I dont have a ridiculous face).  I am who I am and am grateful for it! If I lose pounds on the way to being healthy, GREAT, but if not, thats okay. As long as I feel good thats what is important in the long run! I hope that you guys can find what motivates you and latch onto it! In the meantime, I want to close this blog entry with a few pictures of my chubby little boy Gabe: