mama series

Hello everyone! I thought it might be interesting to capture my day with baby..as three months have passed since the baby’s birth, we got in to a somewhat regular schedule.

6:00am: Baby gets up..I hear her from the next room, so I get up, change her diaper and feed her. After the feeding, I put Kiko back in her crib, sometimes she falls back to sleep, and other times, she plays by herself. She stares at the elephant mobile on her crib, and yells at the elephants if they don’t move :p

Then I take a shower and dress. Even when I’m home all day (which is rare though), I make it a rule that I get changed in the morning, and never spend entire day in pajamas. I love the idea of “staying in PJ’s all day”, but I always find myself disgusted for wearing PJ’s and keeping messy hair all day long. Today I’m wearing forever 21 body con skirt as a tube top with white lace shorts that I made myself. After getting dressed, if I’m good I have a devotional time. I’m reading through the Gospel of  Luke now.

7:30am: Andy makes breakfast 🙂 We always have the same thing: brown rice, fried egg and coffee. I love coffee and can’t start my day without one (or two!)!

8:00am: After breakfast, I check emails, respond to etsy convos etc. Around this time, Kiko gets up again so I feed her. Andy and I play with her as she is in a good mood after a nice long sleep 🙂

9:00am: I start sewing, today I’m worked on bridesmaid dresses for a customer who is having her wedding in November. I sew till about 11:30am. Usually listen to J wave radio while I sew.  Kiko takes her morning nap during this time.

11:30am: I get Kiko up, feed her again and put her in her  stroller. Then we head to Andy’s kick boxing gym.  It’s about a 10 minutes walk from our house. Today I did 5 rounds of three minutes. 3 rounds of punch mits and 2 rounds on the heavy bag.

After the work out, we stop by at the grocery store to pick up food for dinner.

12:30pm: Shower, and then lunch time! I made myself  tom yum noodle soup with egg in it. After this, I relaxed a bit, read a book and had another cup of coffee.

2:00pm: I start sewing again. Kiko does not sleep much in the afternoon, so I stop often to feed her, change her diaper and play with her 🙂

She loves to be on her back, and look at and grab the curtain as it blows over the top of her propelled by the wind…she is not a big fan of the bumbo chair pictured, but I put her in it anyway :p

6:00pm: I usually stop sewing at this time to bath Kiko. I put water in the tub, and have our little “swimming lesson”. My friend gave me the swimba (pictured in the middle), where you can use from 1 month old. I think it helps her sleep better at night, giving her some exercise to do 🙂 After about a 15 minutes lesson, I wash her up and change her. Then do another feeding time.

7:00pm: 7 is her bed time. When we first put her on a set schedule, she did not like it at all and cried a lot. But I didn’t give in 🙂 Now she knows 7pm is her bed time, and goes to sleep without fussing or crying, as long as she is well fed.

7:30pm: Dinner time! Today I made a vegetable soup with string beans, tomato, onions, mushrooms, cabbage and egg plants.

8:30-10:30pm: Relax! Since I don’t have to feed Kiko till next morning, sometimes I have a drink or two..
I write a blog post, paint my nails tomato red, read or watch Gossip Girl 🙂 Before going to bed, I pump so that I won’t wake up in pain because of overly full breasts. Good night!

Thank you for all your responses to  last week’s post about the weight loss issue. I was relieved to know that I wasn’t the only one who felt what I felt, and I realized that I should give it more time. I hid my scale from myself, so I won’t have to worry about being tempted to jump on and check my weight.  Having done that, I’m less worried and enjoying working out more. In fact, I’m attending my first Cross Fit intro class tomorrow morning. I’m excited!

While I was still pregnant, I searched for the perfect baby bag. I kind of liked this nylon baby bag by Marc by Marc Jacobs, but I could not bring myself to spend over $500 on bag made out of nylon. It was also heavier than I expected. I continued my search, but ended up not getting any baby bags. I came to the conclusion that I like leather handbags too much and do not want to carry baby bag that looks too momsy. My friend kindly gave me this diaper bag by Tsumori Chisato, and I put everything I need for the baby in it, and I carry that bag inside my leather handbag.

In the diaper bag (from top left, clockwise): 1. nursing cape, extra formula just in case, diaper wipes, three extra diapers, a plastic bag for dirty clothes, hat, headband, sun screen, one extra onesie and two extra bibs.

Besides the diaper bag, I have in my bag an iPod shuffle, wallet (seriously need a new one! I’ve been using this wallet since I was 19. I’m eyeing this orange Tory Burch one for a while), keys, pen, a note pad to jot down some ideas for new designs, and iPhone (can’t live without it now!). I just realized that I don’t carry any make-up with me. After putting  makeup on in the morning, I don’t really re-touch it afterwards.

Wearing: H&M bustier top, self-made skirt (pattern is available here), thrifted sandals for 50 yen  (about 60 cents!), and Bally bag.

What’s in your baby/diaper bag? Did you get anything special once you become a mom?

I meant to post Mommy’s Diary yesterday, but I was too exhausted to write anything. I went out to fabric shopping in Nippori with my friend who is a soon to be bride. The trip turned out to be really successful, and I am so glad we got everything we needed for her wedding dress! We got the fabrics, notions and even a dress cover. I’m so excited to do this, and will update with more details of the process of wedding dress making as it gets underway.

Kiko seems to have realized that she has voice and she is trying to omit different sounds. I have no idea what she is saying, but she coos and woos, and then look at me as if I’m supposed to understand:) She also seems to have come to a realization that she has hands. She grabs different things and eats her own fists. Not sure if they taste good.

The other week, I wrote that I was going to write about postpartum weight issue sometime. I gained 10kg through out my pregnancy, and lost 8kg within a week after delivery. I did not do anything special to lose 8kg – obviously I could not exercise at that point. I didn’t change my eating habits or anything like that.  I really did nothing and I was relieved that the weight came off so easily.  After that first weight drop I expected the rest would come off just as easily and I would be at my pre-pregnancy within a months time.  that was not to be. I was sadly wrong. Two months passed and I was still 2kg heavier than I was before Miss Kiko. I began to get really frustrated. So I decided to workout harder, and count calories. I aimed for 1800kcal per day with some kind of work out everyday. I did that for about two weeks, and got on scale only to see that the needle had not moved. It just did not make sense! How can I workout so hard and eat less, but not see results on the scale? This made me really miserable. Sometimes I would work out twice a day so thinking that a 5km run will cancel out 300kcal ice cream that I wanted to eat. I began to hate life! Exercising is one of my hobbies, but I realized I made it a chore.

After thinking about this for a few days, I decided to forget about the whole diet thing. It was not worth it! Of course I want to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight, but I made the whole process  miserable. I love working out, and I should not be thinking , “If I do this, I can eat a bowl of cereal without guilt and gaining weight” while on treadmill. It takes the joy out of working out.

Honestly, the weight issue hit me harder than I expected. I would look at my stretched-out belly and be sad. I thought my fat belly would disappear right after I popped out Kiko. Am I the only one who felt that way?