The Day Before Vacation

Hi friends! How are you guys doing? After a rather Monday-ish Monday marked by more insomnia and some rather intense all-day nausea (<—I’ll take all of it and then some for a healthy baby!), I was ready for a better Tuesday. I had a feeling things would look up because my mom arrived in town late Monday night and her visits are always like a ray of sunshine in my life. My dad had some alumni speaking events lined up at his college and when my mom mentioned heading to Charlotte to see us and spend time with her grandson, she offered to watch Chase so Ryan and I could get away for a rather impromptu babymoon. Twist my arm!

Ryan and I are heading to South Carolina today for a few days away and I cannot tell you how much I am looking forward to some relaxation and quality time with my husband. We didn’t do much in the way of vacations last year aside from visiting family and a couple of road trips for brief weekends away with Chase, so this feels like an extra special treat for the two of us.

We’re splitting our time evenly between Kiawah Island and Charleston and pretty much have a whole lot of nothing planned. I’m dying for a prenatal massage, lots of sleep, leisurely meals with Ryan and plenty of exploration sprinkled into the mix. I know I’ve asked for Charleston recommendations from you guys in the past when we considered visiting the area before so I’ll be looking back at your previous recommendations but if you have anything else to add to Kiawah Island or Charleston must-dos (activities, restaurants, etc.) while we’re in the area, please let me know!

Tuesday

Tuesday morning began with triple chocolate protein oatmeal that I ate while I read my devotional and caught up with my mom. I absolutely love where we live but I miss my family a ton and whenever any of them come to visit us, it makes me wish they lived closer!

Chase shocked me by sleeping in on Tuesday morning (apparently our Very Monday Monday coupled with no nap hit him hard, too) but once he was awake, we read stories and played with cars before my mom headed off to Jazzercise and Chase and I went to Burn Boot Camp.

(I thought Chase would think it was really cool to have matching shoes like his mom and when I pointed out that we both have black Nike sneakers, he said, “No Mom. These like Caleb’s shoes. Super fast!” Apparently the fact that his friend also has black Nikes is way cooler than matching his mom.)

The BBC workout of the day was a stack workout which was so darn redundant. It’s my least favorite of the Burn Boot Camp formats but thankfully I had my friend Lauren working up a sweat next to me so we could make it a little more fun! We began with one exercise and added an exercise each round to build up to a final round of six exercises. (We completed each exercise for one minute.) Here’s what our stack looked like once complete:

• High Knee Skips
• Half-Burpees
• Crazy Jacks
• Bicycle Crunches
• Sprinters
• Tuck Jumps

I modified most of this workout to remove a lot of the jumping and crunching and stuck with mostly low impact exercises. I actually enjoy coming up with exercise modifications so I truly don’t mind swapping out certain exercises for pregnancy-friendly exercises that feel good to me. For the finisher, I teamed up with a woman at my gym who is currently 17 weeks pregnant and the two of us simply walked a couple of laps around our gym building. Any movement is a victory in my eyes right now!

After my workout, I said goodbye to my girlfriends, scooped Chase up from child care and headed off to get an oil change in my car.

My mom met us at the garage after her Jazzercise class and then the three of us drove to my OB/GYN’s office for another prenatal visit. I am truly beyond grateful to be pregnant (and that’s a serious understatement) but I also want to be real in this space and I have to be honest and say that pregnancy is kicking my butt at times right now. My nausea returned with a vengeance and the insomnia (followed by exhaustion) can be really challenging, especially when I’m trying to be a good mom to Chase and squeeze in work whenever possible.

My doctor asked about any concerns and made me feel so much better when I expressed some of my challenges. He recommended low doses of melatonin to help with insomnia on nights when I am struggling and magnesium and high-potassium foods for the cramping in my calves and feet. When we left the OB/GYN, we popped into Whole Foods to grab food for lunch as well as Natural Calm and melatonin.

Once we arrived back home, we ate lunch before Chase went down for his nap. Only cold veggies sounded good to me at lunchtime, so I picked up a veggie-packed sushi roll from Whole Foods to eat along with some fresh grapes and a larabar. Twenty minutes later, I also made myself toast with butter and jelly because that always sounds good to me and my stomach felt like it needed bread. (This is the story of my life right now. Something about bread feels like a NEED more than a want to keep my stomach happy and nausea at bay.) 

While Chase napped, I sat down at the computer to work until I needed a quick break for a snack and worked again until Chase was up for the afternoon.

Once he was awake, my mom, Chase and I headed off to Chase’s swim lessons. With summer on the horizon, we decided to start back up with swim lessons a couple of weeks ago to acclimate Chase to the pool again and he is LOVING every second. He’s still a little weary about going under water but we’re making progress and he’s always so, so excited anytime I say we’re going swimming.

We swung by the garage to pick up my car (naturally a standard oil change turned into “fix all the things”) and then headed home to make dinner.

On the menu yesterday was a family favorite: Pizza Spaghetti Squash Casserole followed by a bowl of Cheerios for me.

I’m glad I was able to keep dinner down because nausea surfaced again yesterday evening and it was a bit rough. The first 18 weeks of this pregnancy were marked by all-day nausea but then I feel like I got a little breather in there for a while and I felt pretty darn good for a couple of months so it’s throwing me for a loop that nausea is back with a bang right now. Ooph!

After dinner, we all hung out on the couch for a bit before making our way upstairs to pack and put Chase to bed. Our bed time followed shortly and I ended up reading for 30 minutes or so before drifting off to sleep. I just started reading The Good Liar and I’m enjoying it so far!

And now it’s time to get Chase ready for his class pictures at school before heading off to South Carolina with Ryan!

I hope you all have a great Wednesday!

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