It's January 24, 2010.  It has been approximately 8.5 months since the birth of my twins.  Prior to the little ones, I was overweight and hoping to try and stay within the weight gain range of twin baby pregnancy, and avoid overeating.  I successfully gained 22 pounds and after the births, I was down to my original start weight.  I ate well, I drank lots of water, I craved fruits, vegetables, soups and nuts.  I repeatedly stated that this was great and I should continue eating this way after the birth, so that i could keep losing weight.  Well, after all the sleepless nights, stressful work days, and three emergency hospital visits with Joshua, I found myself binging on Pizza, cookies, chocolate, ice cream, and lots of caffeine (Pepsi and Coke IVs).  Did I mention that all our money was being spent on these binges.  Instead of eating right, I was eating whatever I could reach to satisfy hunger and sleep, while trying to run around like a banshee.  Unfortunately, as did I eat, so did my husband.  At the end of the year, we found ourselves much more overweight than ever before, and I had even gained some of the lost weight back.  We decided it was enough.  We weren't sleeping or eating right, and were slowly killing ourselves.  The pizza place was on speed dial and when we called, they just said "the usual, you got it!" 
How could we possibly raise two kids to eat healthy, when their parents were binging.  So, this weekend we made two very important decisions.  We started on the FPU (Financial Peace University) and a workout system tailored to our convenience.  While I enjoy Gilad, and have done his workouts before, I wanted something fresh, something more interactive, something that would track it all, and tell me what to do...enter My Fitness Coach.  I have a good schedule setup- Mon to Sat 60 mins.  Sunday is break day.  We bought healthy foods for the fridge (shh.. we still have some soda but that will go away soon) and I have resumed taking Prenatal Vitamins, my hubby is taking One a Day. 

So here is the challenge:

12 weeks
Wii My Fitness Coach vs Gilad's Quick Fit System
Nutritional food direction (courtesy of Weight Watchers)

On your mark....Get set.... :) 

The baby blues are described as sadness, anxiety, tearfulness, and trouble sleeping. These symptoms usually appear within several days of delivery and go away by 10 to 12 days after the birth. Usually the only treatment needed is reassurance and some help with household chores and care of the baby. About 20% of women who have postpartum blues will develop more lasting depression (per WebMD).  A more severe version of this disorder is titled post partum depression.  All in all, the idea is that during this time, you find yourself crying alone at different spurts of the day.  You find yourself looking at the babies with this surreal sense of insecurity as if you could never be a good parent to the child.  In one week, I have learned alot about my body and how much I can take with regards to the demands needed to be fullfiled.  The tears come out of nowhere and everywhere at once.  The feeling of bei

Walking through the Super Fresh during a normal Saturday in April, I saw all the radiant colors of the fruits.  The apples blushing a sweet shade of red, the oranges glowing, the multi-colored grapes dancing on their vines, and the bananas- yellow with a tint of green, their aroma following my nose.  I thought of all the reasons why springtime is such a wonderful time of year.  It's a time when the flowers start to bloom, their colors blending so brightly and cheerful, they put the colorwheels to shame.  As you follow the trails in parks and gardens, you cannot help but to stop at each gathering of flowers, to admire the gorgeous hues that nature is able to mix together on its pallet creating works of art on an endless canvas.   I saw myself at age 6, grabbing dandelions from the ground, not knowing that they were weeds.  For how can weeds be so beautiful.  Running towards the little purple flowers, never knowing what they were, but deciding that whatever the case, purple was pretty.  As I continued my hunt through the park, I would find other plants that had berries on them.  I couldn't tell if they were poisonous or not, they didn't look like the berries in the store, but the birds liked them, and they were colorful too.  I gathered all those flowers, bunched them up, and joyfully ran back to my mom, to give her just a tiny piece of nature as a gesture of my love.  My mind continued to trail to times when my family sat around on a Sunday morning in Ecuador, talking about life, children, and peeling fruits; papayas, pineapples, pomegranate, apples, bananas, strawberries, and so many other tropical nectar to mix into a bowl and enjoy after church.  You could smell the different aromas mixing in the dining room and trailing out the front door where 2nd and 3rd generations of children ran around,  while their mothers cooked the midday meal.  My grandmother was amongst them.  She was the matriarch, the grand Puma, who would direct the sauces, measure the amount of every spice and seasoning, with a wooden spoon in her hand, and a stool.  As if following a magical silent drum, they would spread through out the small kitchen and create a meal that fed an army.  I could recall loving every moment that I spent in that kitchen, and how much my grandmother meant to me.  How I would tell her to hang tight just a little longer because I wanted her to meet her great grandchildren.  I was little then, but I was selfish, I couldn't imagine such a strong influence in our family not blessing my children. In June of 2006, after trying so hard to make my wish a reality, my grandmother gave up waiting for me.  She knew I was happily married, and knew that one day I would have children of my own, but her time was up.  She lived a long, prosperous, love-filled life, and even on her last days, she reminded my mom that she would always be proud of me.  She passed at home, on a Saturday, the family gathered around her, her granddaughter miles away in Jersey, thinking and praying for her.  The fruit salad days of the past, slowly dimming away. I grabbed a cart and started gathering my fruits: apples, oranges, bananas, grapes and some Dole Orange, Strawberry Banana juice, and took the ingredients home.  Happily, although without the same gathering of people, I peeled all my fruits, put them in a bowl, mixed them together, and smiled. i explained to my husband how important it was to pick the right fruits.  My babies were coming soon, my little prince Joshua and my little angel Emilia would get to enjoy the same fruit salad that their great grandmother enjoyed, and Emilia would know how special her great grandmother was, and why she was named after her.   Born on April 5, 1914 and passing on June 3rd, my grandmother was the true meaning of Spring, bringing together the family, spreading joy and spreading the pallet of beauty through her teachings, helping everyone understand the true meaning of family, love and one great fruit salad.

It's a little after noon in the quaint township of Plainsboro.  There's a cool breeze trickling through the balcony sliding doors, and you can hear the rustling of needles from the Pine trees that reside outside our bedroom window.  The sun is shining brightly into the nursery room, illuminating the space that is reserved for our little bundles.  In the corner, there is a black lump of fur taking in the rays, curled up in himself and trying to keep reign of the room that used to be his palace.  The cat tree dome has been removed, his toys have been banished to the living room, and his windows have been occupied with strollers and bouncy baby seats.  And yet, in the small spaces between these objects, he stakes his claim, staring back at us with two yellow, focused eyes screaming, "you can take my tree, but you'll never take my window!"  The other lump of stripes is wandering aimlessly through the apartment, staring out into the patio; wishing that his paws could open the door so he could run free.  There are bunnies out there, he has seen them, and they hop teasingly along the grass path, stopping to say hello, wiggle their noses, fluff their tails, munch on grass, and mock the freedom that they possess.    They meow every once in a while, just to make sure that we hear them, they check up on us, and then they go back to their spots and sleep some more.  Today is their birthday- a whole three years old, but they don't ask for much.  All they want is food, water, litter, a few rubs on the head, and freedom.  They accept the first 4 requests, and stubbornly abandon the last one. In the bedroom, we sit, my husband and I, trying to find some way to keep ourselves entertained.  It's Easter Sunday, and with our families so far away, it just doesn't feel like a special day.  It feels the same, a bundle of days that have become hours where we can sleep, eat, and exist.  We ourselves have become cats.  I sit at the main computer, blogging about the day, observing the things around me, and thinking about what to make for lunch.  Jay, sprawled out on the bed, reads his tweets, posts some comments, and looks for ways to intrigue the Job world into hiring him.  If we could meow, we probably would, just to ensure that we recognize each other, and then we would crawl up in our respected areas and nap too.  With the babies only weeks away, 5 to be exact, according to the doctor that is, I am not too enthused by walking around in the stores.  The thought of over exerting my legs and then having to deal with additional Sciatica and leg cramps at night, have caused me to dread every day activities.  They are heavy in there, stretching my tummy to the point where I feel like they could literally carve their own way out through my belly button.  I don't sit too long, because I am convinced that sitting restricts the room for Emy, as she resides in the basement and needs as much space as possible.  It came to me one day, a few days back, that Joshua had broken out the hammock, hung it to my rib cage, and has been joyfully swaying in the top half of my abdomen for at least 10 weeks.  He has no intentions of giving up that prime realty spot.  Emy, in protest, takes out her injustice by punching her mom square in the bladder- a feeling that I could not describe in any other way then feeling as if little hands are reaching for the sunlight. Our calendar days, Monday through Sunday, have become no more than sleep time, eat time, and social time (that's usually just a walk through Baby's R Us or a wander at the Walmart).  My hours have become nothing more than two hours since our last pee break.  And Jay's hours have become just another hour towards the interest of a recruiter.  The most exciting part of the day, which I can't complain at all about because it's  the single most important part of our existence, is watching the babies kick, punch, and feeling them swim.  They are our purpose now, our sole reason for existing, and the physical reproduction of our love and admiration for one another.  So we wait impatiently for their little feetsies to feel the air, for their two sets of eyes to see their parents for the first time, their little voices to carry in harmony, and their little hands to grasp their mommy and daddy's fingers for the first time.  We wait, praying to God that he continues to keep them safe, and prepares them for the day when they will be born and held with the utmost love, devotion and dedication of their parents who have struggled so much for that moment.

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Well, yesterday I was so beat that I fell asleep before I could chat about my day.   We had an exciting day.  We went to see the babies.  Their growth has made us very proud to be future parents.  Our son Joshua is a healthy approx. 6 lbs and our little girl Emilia is a healthy approx. 4.15lbs.  Their heartbeats are strong- 151 and 142.  We also did our bpp and the babies are definitely responding.  So well, that Emy kicked me really hard while she was being measured.  I actually leaped out of the bed thing.  They didn't give us any pictures, which was kind of upsetting, but I guess it's just cause they are getting so big.  We are so happy that they are healthy and couldn't wait for our doctor visit today.  In our doctor visit, we learned that our C-Section is scheduled for the second or third Friday of the month of May, assuming the little ones don't have a different plan.  As we continue to be measure d and monitored, things might change.  So to sum up my baby days, these last two days were definitely informative.  Outside of that excitement, the last two days were ok. Oh, yeah, I was working on Sharepoint last night as well.  Our company has started an intranet, which is actually kind of cool.  As a power user, I have been assigned to create our dept. website and add to it interesting, and knowledgeable data.  I was so excited, that my hubby let me buy a How to Sharepoint guide and installed a sharepoint server on our home PC to allow me to practice outside of the office environment.  While I have access to the remote network, I want to practice on my PC, and then do the same on the work training site.  It'll help me learn more.  Also, much to my dismay of ever spending money outside of our budget, due to my FMLA and the lack of a second PC at home, we opted to purchase a netbook for me.  That will let me play from my bed, where it hurts just slightly less when I sit.  The netbook is due tomorrow and should be a good addition to my growing knowledge of the current technologies.  No matter what, I believe in paper, pencils and a brand new, crisp, paperback.  I don't care how "cool" the Kindle is!  You can't grab a highlighter, and go backwards in a Steven King novel on a Kindle. Finally, as for incarceration, it hasn't been that bad.  I get to rest when I need to, there's my hubby who keeps me happy and is always around.  I thought our constant presence around each other might not be good, but I am wrong.  I love being around him.  I just hope he can tolerate me :).  The kitties sleep alot, and we don't have TV.  But it's ok because we recently got Netflix and that is kind of fun.  Any movie we want, they come in like the daily paper.  So we are catching up on a lot of good movies that we missed in the theater.  I wrote out my thank you cards from the shower, and now I just have to seal, address, stamp and deliver.  Sounds like a job for tomorrow.  As long as I keep my mind and hands busy, this won't be too bad. To stop the mundaneness of a daily blog about how I spent the last 24 hours in my apt, I will try to blog atleast every other day.  I am sure I will have some excitement in that time.  Please leave comments and give me ideas to chat about.  I have all the time in the world. :)