The Harper Headlines: My Declaration

Ok, so I have been avoiding writing this post for awhile now because frankly I have been tired. I think the first 13 weeks with Eli finally caught up to me after Stacey’s wedding. Before that point I felt like I was on top of the world. I would wake up at 5am, go to work, come home, put Eli down for nap, do Insanity workout, make dinner, do bedtime routine with Eli, eat dinner, get bottles ready for next day, get ready for bed, pump one last time before going to sleep and then FINALLY zonk out at about 10:30pm. I may have missed a workout on one or two days but for the most part, I was on top of it. I would pull the motivation from the dread of having to wear that bridesmaids dress.

Then wedding weekend came and the levels of stress combined with the massive amounts of things going on really took its toll. I thought I was going to die the week after the wedding. My eyes were on the verge of rolling in the back of my head anytime I sat still for more than five minutes. My daily routine became wake up at 5:30am (after hitting my alarm 3 times in a row), go to work, come home, sleep with Eli on the couch or put him down for nap and sleep by myself on the couch, have Mark wake me up when he got home, occasionally find the strength to make dinner, throw bottles together for Eli, pass out in bed by 9:30p or 10p. For some reason, although I was so tired, I couldn’t figure out a way to make it to bed before 9pm. I was seriously struggling.

Then last week on Tuesday I brought Eli home from daycare and put him down for a nap. He slept for 2 hours and Mark picked him up out of his crib and brought him outside where I was brushing Toby out with a cloud of furr surrounding me. Eli was hungry so Mark passed him off to me and I immediately noticed how hot he felt. Mark reminded me that we had been sitting outside so I dismissed it temporarily. After I finished feeding Eli I was still concerned that he felt abnormally warm, so I went to change his diaper and decided to take his temperature to put my mind at ease. He was displaying no signs of illness so I assumed my imagination was getting the best of me. I pulled out the thermometer and took Eli’s temperature and the digital gauge started reading at 101 and rising! There had to be something wrong with the thermometer…I mean he felt warm but the thermometer eventually landed at 102.7!!!! I called Mark into the room and told him our thermometer must be broke. He agreed that it had to have been since it was reading so high. He jumped into the car and ran to the convenient store to purchase a new thermometer. After opening it up he tested it out on himself to get a perfect 98.6 degree reading to be sure it was reading properly. So in it went for another reading…the digital response soared to a whopping 103.4 degree fever! This is when the “first time” parents’ panic went into full effect.

Mark told me to throw Eli in the truck and I managed to grab my cell phone on the way out the door to call the emergency pediatric number as we headed for the emergency room. Eli sat in his car seat smiling at me as Mark raced to the hospital. Our imaginations were running wild…thus leading to this convo:

Me: “Mark he is smiling at me back here…how can he be sick and smiling at me???”
Mark: “Maybe he is so sick he is delirious and can’t even cry!!”

Yep, we were probably a little dramatic…but that fever seemed way too high! We had been sitting in the ER for about 10 minutes when the pediatrician called me back. After giving her a rundown, she put my mind at ease by telling me to go home and give him Tylenol and cool compresses. She said that she thought he would be fine until we could get him into the doctor the next morning. The fact that she wasn’t TOO alarmed by the high fever I began to calm down a bit. We drove home, gave Eli Tylenol and I hopped into the bath with him to give him an appropriately cool bath. His fever dropped and he slept through the night.

To make a long story short, at the doctor’s the next day they could not find anything wrong with him. We spent the day getting urine and blood tests done, all of which came back negative. The best guess the doctor could give was that he had Roseola, a virus that came with several days of a high fever followed by a rash. It was nothing to be overly concerned about but just something that he probably caught from daycare. Eli’s fever maintained at about 100 for the next 3 days and then finally broke. We never really saw the signs of a rash but after doing some research found out that not all babies even get the rash, so who knows! Although I hated that my baby was sick, he was in a relatively good mood and I got to spend 3 whole days away from work at home with him! This is the part that I was excited about because not only did I get to spend time with Eli but I got to catch up on my MUCH needed sleep.

Trying to get his temp down...he was tired and hungry too.

Sleeping and holding his blanket...a new thing he does now.

So… now I am out of excuses. Although I will probably never truly be completely well rested (who is though?) I am in a much better position than I was a week ago. So this is where me avoiding writing this post comes into play. I now have to get my butt off the couch when I get home and get back into working out and making dinner. I know I will feel better after doing these things but it is taking that step to actually get it done. I could always find excuses for not working out…too busy, too tired, too SOMETHING…but I don’t want to be that person that let’s her body go after having kids. I have always inspired to be that “in shape” mom that no one can even tell has ever had kids. I don’t want to look back at my pre-kids years and think “those were the days when I could wear that or when I could do that”. So why am I telling you all this?? Well because I know that it is a lot easier to not do something when no one is watching. When you publicly tell anyone who listens (or in this case reads) there is a little bit more accountability there. So I am putting it out there. I want to get back my muscle tone and feel good in everything I am wearing. I don’t really want to focus on weight because my weight is nearly back to my pre-pregnancy weight but my size is not. I apparently had much better muscle tone before and we all know muscle weighs more than fat. So this is my declaration to becoming a physically fit mommy. The first step, cleaning up that hand me down jogging stroller I got from our neighbors and getting my butt off the couch to use it. The hardest step…getting out the door!