Proteins, Yoga, and more discussion of Sleep Deprivation

Ever since I got pregnant, my eating habits have changed. For as long as I can remember, I never finished what was on my plate. My grandfather used to say I ate like a bird. He was right, if birds really do indeed eat the way I did. Essentially, I'd leave pieces of everything on my plate. If I finished a meal, I had to  a) have been really hungry OR b) really loved the meal

Now, especially as a breastfeeding mother, I usually finish what's on my plate and even go for seconds. I crave proteins so much that Keith has actually started to complain that we eat too MUCH meat. Whatevs, is what I say. My body is making milk for a human being. I need my meat. I eat cold cuts (of the organic variety) every day for lunch and we usually eat beef, chicken, turkey, or pork for dinner. I used to despite pork. Now I like it. I used to tolerate chicken. Now I LOVE it.  Last night, the smell of cooked chicken was absolutely invigorating. (In fact, it's what inspired me to write this post.) I've always loved beef, that's no different from my pre-pregnancy likes. Although I once was a vegan for medical reasons (IBS), now I can't imagine ever eating totally vegan again. Sure, we make vegan meals, and I don't usually eat dairy because of the IBS. But I could not ever live long term on a vegan diet again. I get too hungry. Maybe this will change once I stop breastfeeding, but now that it has become habit, I don't think it will.

 Something that I've started up again is going to yoga class. I used to go to yoga regularly before my pregnancy and then as much as I could up until my second trimester. But once the pre-term labor started, I obviously had to stop yoga.  I know I've mentioned my new class before, but I didn't really write about it in detail. I found two classes about five minutes away. They are Saturday and Sunday morning classes. I try to make it to one of the classes each weekend - never both, but sometimes neither (my back suffers when I don't go.) I've gone two Saturdays in a row. And I am loving the teacher, Anne. She rocks. Yesterday, after going through a pose, she realized people were trying to perfect the posture and not the purpose of the pose - to lengthen the back. So she showed us that if we did it a certain way, just because it didn't look perfect, didn't mean it was wrong. Honestly, I think it made everyone breathe a sigh of relief and she continued to emphasize that in the poses we did following that. I felt so much more relaxed knowing the pressure was off, not only for myself, but for the others as well. Sometimes in yoga, people sometimes (I'm guilty of this too) try to look like their posture is a perfect one even if they are killing themselves doing it. That defeats the whole purpose of yoga. Ego has no place in yoga. Yet, so often, we allow it to be present, if not take over our practices. So after she shared alternatives to the posture, I know I didn't feel as though I had to "get it right" just as long as I was lengthening, or working on my core, or whatever the purpose was for the pose at the time.

This yoga class was better than last week because I wasn't suffering from a killer headache like I did last week. Last week I left for yoga without drinking my morning tea, so my sleep deprivation was causing me to feel like total crap with no caffeine. What was also better was that she came over to me to help me with the Crow pose, something I'm not very good at, particularly because I feel like I'm going to topple over. She showed me how it should begin and I practiced it while all the other students did their crazy back inversions. There is no way I will be caught dead trying a head stand. My neck is too precious to me! I also left there feeling invigorated that I could actually practice some of the poses at home. When I was a kid I used to do the bridge and the wheel constantly on my bed, not realizing that I was doing yoga. I was usually busy pretending I was some world class gymnast (gymnastics was my heart's desire when I was a kid).

Okay, so now onto my discussion of sleep deprivation. We are tired. So tired, we walk around like zombies half the time. But one of my co-workers helped me realize just why it is I don't want to try the Tough Ass Method (as she termed it) otherwise known as the Cry It Out Method. It's actually very simple. As I wrote about in my pregnancy blog, my mother abandoned me when I was a toddler and therefore, I assumed (and was mostly correct in that assumption) that she did not love me. Living with that knowledge for so many years did a number on my self-esteem. It took me until very recently (Cole's birth, actually) to realize that it's not MY fault she didn't love me. It's no deficiency of mine.  Really, you'd have to be a VERY selfish person to not fall head over heels for your own child. So, how could I - a motherless, previously abandoned child - allow my own child to cry himself to sleep? How could I  - while he is crying hysterically - allow him to question my love for him or wonder why I'm not there for him? I never want him to have to wonder that. I never want him to think I am not or will not be there for him. This is why Keith and I trudge on, half zombied, coming to his aid to nurse/feed or rock him in the dead of the night.