Two under Two

My first pregnancy was a really difficult one. There were flights to hospitals for neural tube tests, a lot of weight loss and sickness, and an under weight birth that was 5 weeks early. The difficulties continued as he developed colic that lasted a few months and lets just say he is a very stubborn child. I wouldn’t give it all up for anything, but they were not easy times. My husband had 8 months of paternity leave and without his support, there’s no way I would have survived.

My second pregnancy was a huge surprise after the issues we had with our first. It took us two years with help of fertility specialists the first time around. It was certainly different for our second. Healthy, no problems, but the history of my past always lurking in the background causing a lot of stress.

Now I’ve got 2 under 2, as the term goes, and I’m finding new difficulties. My husband only has three weeks off work instead of 8 months, and I’m healing from a c-section. We’re in a new town, in a new province, and have no support system set up. I still don’t drive (I was working on my beginners). How on earth am I going to survive and keep these precious children alive? That’s a question that honestly passes through my mind hourly at this stage, hence my decision to blog about it and get my feelings out. I suffered from horrible postpartum depression last pregnancy, and I’m terrified of going down the same road this time, too. I can’t be the mother I need to be if I can’t take care of myself.

This morning I told my husband to sleep in 2 hours, so I could handle the breakfast routine on my own and see how I do. He’s close by in case I need help, but I know that in just two weeks I’ll have to do this for real, and I want to know I can do it. Healing from my c-section is honestly the hardest part at this point. I’m sore. I can’t lift up my son for another 4 weeks, and he doesn’t understand what the heck is going on in his world.

I hope I can do it.

Day 11 – Mitered Memory Blanket

I finished my first panel of 3×3 squares for my memory blanket and am working (very slowly) on my second panel. Only 3/9 squares are done so far, but it’s not supposed to be a very fast project. Once I have a few more 3×3 panels I’ll try different joins to see which one I prefer. I’m anticipating a heavy black border around the outside and between each panel, but we’ll see what looks best. The squares are looking more uniform and are getting slightly faster for me to do now that I’ve got 12 under my belt, too. I almost wish I were doing these squares in a heavier yarn so that it would knit up faster. I do have a patter for one from knitpicks which I may end up attempting (eventually) but we’ll have to see.

In the meantime, craft on!

Day 10 – I helped create that

My daughter was born July 18th and that’s probably the most creative thing I’ve done all year. Posts may be sporadic, but I’ll try to keep up. So far the most difficult part is that my son, who is 22 months old, doesn’t understand what the heck is going on. We’ll get there though.

Day 9 – Caribbean-Spiced Veggie & Sausage Skewers

The final meal that I was trying out from Hello Fresh was these delicious looking pork sausage skewers. The potato salad threw me off because it’s made with very simple but odd to me items. It was mayo (real stuff, not miracle whip stuff), white wine vinegar, sugar, red onion, parsley, and potato. Red ones this time instead of the yukon yellows that I had in the first meal.

Still, the flavours were fantastic. It was a bit spicy for my husband, but I didn’t mind it too much. Since we don’t have a grill and I ended up ruining the oven temporarily, I used our little flat top counter grill to cook the kabobs. I did find that the meat portion was lacking slightly in this rendition. They give you 8 skewers, but I was only able to make 6 with the portions of meat I had on hand. Maybe I cut them too large, but they seemed to be the proper size for the item mentioned.

As I mentioned yesterday, it was $32 for 6 meals (3 meals for 2) and I couldn’t really go wrong taking it for a test. None of the meals were especially fancy, they were all easy to prepare, took 30 minutes or less to cook, and were all enjoyable. We’ll see how the next trial turns out (Good Food, which I have honestly never heard of before) and then maybe we’ll stick with one for a bit to make things easier at home while I continue to heal from my c-section and watch two children under two.

Bon appetit!