We had fun visitors over Labor Day weekend, but they left Sunday evening leaving just the three of us for a quiet family Labor Day. We are really cherishing any days that neither of us are working–it’s a strange season of life we are in with weird work hours (for me).
It was a beautiful day, so we wanted to spend it outside! We went on a beautiful walk around Lake Calhoun and stopped at a fun playground for Seton.
Seton took a good afternoon nap and Davey and I enjoy a beer, good conversation, and pulled pork on our back porch. I loved our time together, just the three of us. 🙂
Seton’s finally ( I say ‘finally’ but I guess it’s only been 13 months…) at an age where she can sit still and focus on something for a few minutes at a time. She loves to stack her blocks now rather than just knocking down MY stacks!
And she gets very serious at our public library. She is in a phase where she takes one object at a time and moves it from point A to point B. It’s like she has a really important job to do–ha! (It was really cute until “point B” was once the toilet. ;))
She has turned into quite the climber! We can’t turn our backs or she is on top of the foot stools or standing on her rocking chair.
We had some fun visitors over Labor Day weekend! Chris and Lauren drove up from Chicago, and we had a blast showing them our town! We started off Saturday with a walk around our cute town of Hopkins, MN. After morning naps, we headed to Mall of America!
The back seat babes:
I only had about 5 heart attacks watching Davey and Chris on the escalators with the strollers.
Chris is a great dad!
After afternoon naps (during which the parents watched Ninja Turtles, much to Davey’s delight) we headed to Lake Harriet Band Shell for a little picnic, drinks, live music, and chasing of a one-year-old!
I love that these girls are little buddies!
Why is it that she cries when I leave the room in our house and doesn’t let me shower or use the restroom without standing outside the door yelling, “Mommy!” but she is VERY happy to walk-run away from us in a crowd of people?
The Little Stinker.
I don’t have pics of Sunday (what was I thinking!?), but we took them out to the town diner for breakfast, played at our local playground and finished the day with Juicy Lucy’s at the 5-8 Club.
We were so sad to say good bye to them!
All our friends are probably getting a little tired of us begging them to move here.
Davey requested Aldi’s Chocolate Eclairs for his birthday, and since I make nothing easy on myself, I decided to MAKE him chocolate eclairs. Actually, I think he didn’t want me to mess up a cake, but whatevs. I bought him the requested eclairs so his birthday wasn’t too disappointing and also texted my mom for the easy-peasy yummy recipe she made us growing up.
Here’s the easy recipe I used from my mom.
Ingredients
2 packages instant vanilla pudding
1 9 oz cool whip
3 and 1/4 cup milk
1 can chocolate frosting
1 box graham crackers
9×13 pan, buttered
Mix pudding, cool whip, and milk.
Place a layer of graham crackers on bottom of buttered 9×13 pan. Pour half of the pudding mix. Place another layer of graham crackers on top of the pudding. Pour the other half of the pudding mix. Place a layer of the last graham crackers on top. Place in refrigerator.
Frost the top layer of graham crackers and enjoy!
Make low fat with skim milk, light cool whip, and sugar free pudding.
Sometimes I feel like all I am doing is preparing the next meal or snack for Seton. And the girl eats slloooooowwwwllllyy. It is not uncommon for her to be in her high chair for a full hour leisurely making her way through her meal. I try so hard not to rush her because she needs to bulk up a bit, so I let her do her thing. But mealtime/snacktime is probably the most frustrating for me. She becomes hungry ALL THE SUDDEN and she must have food RIGHT NOW or she pitches a fit. By the time the veggies have streamed or the meat is cooked she is upset and makes sure I know it throughout the whole meal.
I feel like I’m a server at a restaurant with a really crabby customer.
I’m learning to feed her a lot more often than I would think she needs to be fed in order to avoid these breakdowns. (I have to defend my mom card a LITTLE here and say that she DOES eat well and is great about liking all the healthy foods! She is just fussy on the timing of it all) I had to go on a hunt for quick, healthy toddler snacks and found some gems. Although I let Seton get messy in her high chair because I think a little mess is good for her, I’m a fan of mess-free snacks so she can eat them at other people’s houses, at restaurants, or just at home when I don’t want to clean her high chair tray for the umpteen time.
Here are my favorites:
1. | We get these from Aldi, and I love them because Seton pretty much sucks it like a straw and it is essentially NO MESS (except for that one time she squeezed it on her shirt). She loves that she has complete control over how quickly she can eat it!
2. | Bananas are the easiest fruit to travel with and also don’t create a big mess. Just don’t forget about the one you left in your diaper bag…
3. | Aint no shame in the string cheese game. String cheese used to weird me out a bit because it doesn’t seem like you should be able to pull your food apart like a strings BUT! NO MESS. No clean up. Yes, please.
4. | I craved orange juice when I was pregnant (real bad), so it’s a little whoa to see how much Seton devours oranges. Cuties are easy to pack for a snack on the go.
5. | For a little sweet treat, we let her munch on these graham crackers (Aldi, you have our hearts).
Those are our top 5 on-the-go quick and dirty-free snacks!! Now PLEASE leave a comment with your suggestions for more! Seton is still in the potential-choking phase so we are waiting on the raw hard fruits and veggies!
The combination of a wedding at the end of this week and my husband’s birthday yesterday has me thinking of love and my husband…and how much I love my husband.
I do some really dumb things, but marrying him was one of my more brilliant ideas. Here’s why:
He knows how to say, “I’m sorry”…which ends up getting said a lot in marriage. He recognizes he isn’t perfect. He admits he’s wrong when he’s wrong.
He doesn’t let me always be right. Even though I am. (j to the k). He rarely gets really upset, so when he does, I find myself hanging my head because I know I did or said something wrong.
He’s energetic. Energy in a grown man translates to the lawn getting mowed, the groceries getting shopped, the bills getting paid, the baby getting bathed. Things get done around here. (well, he always starts them and does the hard parts, and I usually finish them)
He sees marriage as something that is more than him and me. He treats me well because he considers it his vocation, not just because he thinks I’m pretty or witty or interesting (because sometimes I’m not any of those things).
He is fearful in a manly way. He is fearful of not being able to provide and in his fear, I find stability. And he finds motivation. I know my career isn’t the only thing upholding our family financially, and that’s pretty awesome.
He respects me and tries to love me the way Christ loves me.
He talks to me. If he hates doing dishes, he tells me. If he needs to be alone and watch some show (usually with people wearing dirty brown clothes i.e. Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, Peaky Blinders), he tells me so.
He thanks me for loving him. He doesn’t expect love or feel like he deserves love. He recognizes his faults and sees that I love him regardless.
With an interesting turn of events, the past few weeks my life have been largely spent in a car. Out of sheer boredom, desperate text messages were sent to friends and family for recommendations for SOMETHING TO DO. I can only take my thoughts for so long and as it turns out, “so long” ends up being about 30 minutes.
The first podcast series recommended was Serial and O to the M to the G. I was immediately pulled into the storyline of Adnan Syed, a man convicted of murder when he was 18 years old–a murder which he says he didn’t commit. BUT WHY DID THIS PODCAST HAVE TO END!?!
I went through the entire 12 episodes pretty quickly (LOTS of car time, folks) and started looking for more recommendations.
That’s when I came across Fountains of Carrots. Now I just feel like a creepy person because in my perception of my life, I had coffee with Haley and Christy 28 times over and they are my imaginary best friends that are actually not imaginary and have no idea who I am.
Those are my Friday Faves for ya! Let me know of any other podcasts you like because it looks like I have more car time in my future.
I’ve written this post a few times over in my head, but I just hadn’t found the urge to sit down and type it in fear that it would make everything seem so final.
We got news on July 22 that Davey’s grandmother was going into hospice and would pass away within the following week. We immediately made plans to drive through the night the next day and head to Indiana to see her again and say good bye. I love that I married a man that can look at me and say, “I have to go see Nana…” So sweet and loving, he is.
Meanwhile, my grandmother had been sick for some time and was under the care of hospice. She had been suffering a lot — way more than she ever could have imagined, she said. I had said my “good bye” to her in June thinking I would probably never see her alive again. I can’t really write this without tears welling in my eyes thinking of how much she endured her last few months. The pain, the nausea, the discomfort. It would have been enough to make anyone lose their faith.
I’ll never forget our last day with Nana, Davey’s grandmother. Every aspect of her personality that I respect so much was shown–her humor, her wit, her decisiveness. She was an extremely smart woman who, although enduring so much loss in her life, was easily described by her granddaughter during the eulogy as “content” with who she was. She found contentedness with the path life took her.
When a grandparent passes away, there is suddenly the realization that a familial generation will soon be gone altogether. The awareness of time becomes too keen.
I clung to Seton, happy that pieces of our grandmothers are already evident in her personality.
We spent a lot of time with Davey’s family around the time of Nana’s death. I kept thinking, “Thanks, Nana, for these people.” I knew her for 4 years and because of her life, I have a family. I have people to grow old with. I have a daughter. I have my people.
Leaving town after Nana’s funeral was difficult.
I said good bye to my grandma, again.
By that point, she wasn’t able to speak. Sitting next to her, we saw her lips moving and knew that she was praying, “Hail Mary…”
I told her I love her, and somehow from the depths of her soul, she muttered, “I love you.”
Back in June when when Davey and I thought we were saying our final goodbye, she told us, “Love each other. Don’t stop loving each other.”
She always used to say when people pass away, we selfishly want them here with us. But we have to be happy for them, and let them go.
I never really thought about how I would be telling myself that when she passed away.
Three hours to Minnesota, my phone rang. My grandmother took her last breath. She was gone.
There is a sense of being disrooted when your last living grandparent passes.
She used to have an hour glass in her hallway. We would beg to open our Christmas presents right after Christmas Eve dinner, and she would tell us, “Go turn the hour glass. When the sand runs out, it’s time.”
I’d like to think she spent her life waiting to open her present, watching the sands run through the hour glass. Now it’s her time. She has wanted this for so long. I am happy for her.
The gifts from my grandma; my people
The gifts from Nana; my people
As when anyone dies, we pledge to honor them in our life.
The best way for me to honor Nana is to be ardent and keen with decisions I make for my family. Choose to be a powerful matriarch who stays firm to my values. Make good decisions and avoid comparisons. Accept heartache and loss, but don’t let it ruin me. Laugh until I die.
The best way for me to honor Grandma is to exude love in all I do. In every dish I wash. In every patient I touch. In every diaper I change. Never stop loving in the most simple and important ways.
Thanks so much for reading through my series on the Kegel muscles (aka pelvic floor). I hope that I was able to help you in some way. Here are some questions people emailed, texted, or asked me personally after reading through my posts.
I am a mom of 5 children who were each delivered via C-section. Why are my vaginal muscles weakening? What are the best exercises and best diet plan (if that is a factor)?
Even though your children were delivered via C-section, the weight of carrying around a child (or 5) was enough pressure on your pelvic floor to stretch it out. Other factors, like your posture and sleeping position, can weaken your pelvic floor. The good news is that you can strengthen it! I recommend reading through my posts and adjust your posture and incorporate a daily routine of strengthening your Kegels. If you feel like you need more help, see a physical therapist.
I sometimes get a sudden urge to pee and have to run to the bathroom. If I don’t make it in time, I leak urine. Will strengthening my Kegels help prevent this?
This is a good time for me to bring up the different types of incontinence: urge, stress, overflow, and functional.
Urge incontinence is what is described in this question and occurs when there is an urgent need to rush to the bathroom. There can be many reasons for this, so I recommend discussing it with your doctor before attempting to strengthen your Kegels.
Stress incontinence occurs due to an increase in abdominal pressure like coughing, sneezing, or laughing. Pelvic floor strengthening is usually helpful for this type of incontinence. I also recommend that when you are coughing, laughing, or sneezing you contract your Kegels and your abdominals. You would benefit immensely from seeing a physical therapist.
Overflow incontinence occurs when you are not able to completely empty your bladder, so when it fills up again, you leak. This may occur because of a number of medical reasons, so I recommend speaking to your doctor if you feel this is the case.
Functional inctontinence occurs when a physical problem prevents you from getting to the bathroom on time.
Take ownership of your health! You CAN change your incontinence problems, so don’t sit around in silence due to embarrassment. Seek help so you can change your life for the better! If you seek professional help and are only put on a medication, I encourage you to ask more questions. Ask your practitioner which type of incontinence describes your condition and if physical therapy may help–whether you are male or female!
I leak urine when I cough and sneeze. It all started when I was about 15 weeks pregnant. I told my ob-gyn at one of my prenatal appointments, and she told me to cross my legs when I cough or sneeze. Is this what I should be doing?
Um, with all due respect to your ob-gyn, NO. Crossing your legs when you sneeze to prevent the leakage of urine might be a quick fix because it literally pulls the pelvic floor muscles taut. Pulling the muscles taut overtime STRETCHES them. A muscles that is overly stretched out is much harder to contract. Therefore, crossing your legs can weaken the muscles overtime and perpetuate the problem. I recommend contracting your Kegels and your abdominals (as instructed here) when you cough/sneeze/laugh rather than crossing your legs. Also, take yourself through the exercise progression.
I was told to strengthen my Kegels, I should contract the muscles on and off when I am peeing to make them strong. Is this a good exercise?
I have a lot of patients who tell me they do Kegel exercises when they are peeing, and I die a little bit inside every time I hear it because of the sacral micturition reflex. (the who-sa-what-a?!?!?!) Ever since our potty-training days, the act of sitting on the toilet signals our brain to tell our pelvic floor muscles, “okay, relax now” and tells our bladder “okay, contract now” so pee comes out. When we change that up by doing the OPPOSITE—that is, a kegel exercise–we screw up all that work our parents did to potty-train us. And what did we do before they potty trained us?
We peed our pants.
Don’t mess with the potty-training reflex.
Do your exercises away from the porcelain throne.
I am having pain during intercourse. How is this related to my pelvic floor?
First of all, you are not alone. It’s estimated that 20-50% of women have pain with intercourse. This means that possibly half of your friends may be experiencing the same problem! I am not going to offer much advice about this aside from saying there is a good chance it can be fixed with physical therapy. Talk to your ob-gyn and see what he/she thinks. Ask if you can have an order for physical therapy. You won’t be disappointed, and you may start having a little more fun in the sack. 😉 You can thank me later.
***The content of http://www.kayleemay.com is for informational purposes only. The information presented is not to be taken as professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. If you are having pain, or seeking medical advice, talk to your health care provider. Do not delay in seeking treatment because of information you have read on http://www.kayleemay.com. Taking recommendations presented on http://www.kayleemay.com is solely at your own risk***
Kegel muscles, or pelvic floor muscles, are just like any other muscle in your body in a sense that contracting them against gravity is a greater chore than using gravity to your advantage. This is important to remember when you decide how to go about strengthening your kegels.
SIDELYING
The position that is most helpful in contracting your Kegels is the sidelying position. Lie on your side with your top leg supported on pillows so that your hip is in a neutral position. Tighten your Kegel muscles as though you are stopping the flow of urine. I often cue people to imagine the pelvic floor is an elevator. Imagine ropes attached to your ribs. As you contract, the ropes are pulling the elevator (pelvic floor) toward your rib cage. Exhale as you are contracting.
If you are holding your breath, the opposite will happen–your pelvic floor will expand toward your feet (eek!) just like a parachute expands when it meets air resistance. This stretches the pelvic floor, making it hard to contract and can weaken it over time. Hold each contraction 5-10 seconds. Repeat 10-20 times.
(side note: If you feel like you can’t contract your pelvic floor in this position, please see a physical therapist! To see one, ask your doctor–possibly your obgyn–for an order to see a physical therapist who specializes in women’s health….even if you are male! They are the gurus of the pelvic floor. You can also see a PT through direct access.)
QUADRUPED
Another position that is “gravity-lessened” for the Kegel muscles is the quadruped position. On your hands and knees with your knees directly below your hips and your hands below your shoulders, contract your pelvic floor as described above while exhaling. Make sure your back is flat.
In this position, I also encourage you to contract your abdominal muscles as you contract your kegels. Do this by pulling your belly button toward your spine. Again, if you are holding your breath and/or bearing down, your stomach expands, and the increased volume actually stretches your pelvic floor and abdominals like a parachute stretches when it meets air resistance (aka don’t do that). Hold 5-10 seconds and repeat 10-20 times.
SITTING
It may take a few weeks, but once you are able to complete the above positions correctly, you can move to a sitting position for your Kegel work out. 😉 In this position, you are lifting your Kegels against gravity, so it is much more challenging. Contract your pelvic floor muscles by thinking of lifting them up toward your rib cage as described above. Hold 5-10 seconds and repeat 10-20 times.
STANDING
Next, try to contract your Kegels in standing. Think of raising your pelvic floor up toward your ribs with the elevator ropes as described above as you exhale.
The most challenging way to contract and exercise your Kegels is to perform contractions during your normal movements, such as arising from a chair. Start by contracting the muscles in sitting and keeping them contracted as you move to stand.
If you are active in fitness and exercise, keep these tips in mind as you lift weights and move through your exercise routine. Remember, if you hold your breath, you are expanding your pelvic floor (like when a parachute meets air resistance) and stretching them out which can weaken the muscles over time.
(Feel free to leave a comment below (you can leave one anonymously!) or send an email to kayleemayblog at gmail dot com with any questions. If I get enough questions throughout this series, I will post a Q&A post to conclude it)
***The content of http://www.kayleemay.com is for informational purposes only. The information presented is not to be taken as professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. If you are having pain, or seeking medical advice, talk to your health care provider. Do not delay in seeking treatment because of information you have read on http://www.kayleemay.com. Taking recommendations presented on http://www.kayleemay.com is solely at your own risk***
Kegel muscles are functionally and medically important for everyone (men and women!), so if you’re wondering if you should take care of your Kegels, the answer is YES.
Kegel muscles are associated with incontinence, back pain, pelvic organ prolapse, hip pain, and even your sexual performance.
When I am treating a patient in the clinic, I make sure to talk about daily positions and movements that affect their condition before educating them on exercises. The reason is that the positions and movements we perform repetitively each day will affect our bodies more than spending 15-30 minutes a day exercising. It’s incredibly important to treat our bodies well by first integrating good posture and movements into our daily habits.
First, I will address sleeping position because it’s one of the most important positions our bodies assumes that determines which muscles are stiff and which ones are too flexible. A sleeping position is like holding a stretch for hours at a time. It might seem like Kegels wouldn’t be impacted by our sleeping position, but if our hips are internally rotated and/or adducted (knee rolled inward and past midline), the pelvic floor muscles are stretched out because they actually attach to the hip bone itself (by way of the fascia of the obturator internus). So when the hip moves “inward” it pulls on the pelvic floor muscles. This happens when we lay on our side without the top leg supported. If you are a side sleeper, I recommend putting one to two pillows between your knees and feet to support your top leg in neutral.
(I promise I don’t sleep on tile floors)
Second, I will address our sitting position. I don’t care who you are–you sit a lot. If you sit in bad positions like this
Again, if our legs assume an “inward” position, our Kegel muscles are pulled taut, therefore stretched. You know how little kids look when they have to pee? They pull their knees in. That’s because that pulls the muscles taut. Over time, that position stretches the muscles, making them harder to contract. It is best to sit in a neutral position. I encourage you to modify your desk set up to make sure you are treating your Kegels well when at work!
Lastly, our standing position can impact our Kegel muscles. Standing with your hip hiked and legs crossed puts your muscles in an asymmetrical position (ahem MOMS who let a kid sit on one hip all the time). Not only will it lead to back pain, hip and back muscle asymmetries, but can weaken the pelvic floor over time.
Another bad position for your pelvic floor muscles in standing your “tail” curled under too much. Yoga and pilates classes stress tucking your tail bone (which can be a good cue to get those abs and gluts to contract) BUT this places the pelvic floor directly under the torso nice and flat so that ALL the pressure from your internal organs rests on it, weakening it over time when it’s a habit. (yes, I know you don’t FEEL heavy pressure just standing there…but there is a such thing as gravity, folks)
So don’t stand like this
or this
or this
or this
Stand in a neutral position like this:
This may seem like nit-picky advice and may even seem unreasonable to do (especially ALL THE TIME), but try to start incorporating good posture and movements into your daily routine to take care of your body.
(Feel free to leave a comment below (you can leave one anonymously!) or send an email to kayleemayblog at gmail dot com with any questions. If I get enough questions throughout this series, I will post a Q&A post to conclude it)
***The content of http://www.kayleemay.com is for informational purposes only. The information presented is not to be taken as professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. If you are having pain, or seeking medical advice, talk to your health care provider. Do not delay in seeking treatment because of information you have read on http://www.kayleemay.com. Taking recommendations presented on http://www.kayleemay.com is solely at your own risk***
