Postpartum Vlog: Prairie Moon, Week 10

WHAT WEEK?
10

WEIGHT?
We actually weighed her this week, I’ve been guessing the last 2 weeks! She is 10lb 12oz- she’s about the 20th percentile so on the smaller side but thriving.

SOMETHING NEW?
This week was the first time we’ve had a sitter with Prairie, she came to work with me so I was still close by but not always available to her. Luckily we had our divine housekeeper Angelica with Prairie and she proved us all right, Angelica has the magic touch! Whenever she comes on a Thursday the kids run to her and give her a cuddle. She’s been cleaning our home each week for the past 10 years, her husband does our gardening and her brother-in-law is our contractor. We like to keep it all in the family! Prairie was so content with Angelica, I haven’t seen her so at ease with anyone like that, it’s a testament to Angelica’s confidence and experience (she has raised 4 babies of her own!) My mum stayed at the house with our other three kids and took them in the pool and played hide and seek with them. She really held it down too so that Mark and I could work.

MOST CHALLENGING MOMENT?
The most challenging thing this week was getting back to work and shooting for long hours each day! It was hard waking up so early and then being in a physically demanding role for 12 hours. I haven’t worked since the end of March so getting back into the swing of things was certainly an adjustment! The script was so great though and this short film is directed by my friend Jess so in that respect it was a really fun project to do, Mark also starred in it with me and Prairie had a cameo. Prairie also had to adjust to not being on me 24/7 but she did so well being at work with me, I just ran to her in between takes and gave her a feed, it was so lovely having her around and the whole crew relished in her presence.

WHAT’S WORKING?
The last few days I’ve felt really in flow with the family routine. Isaac is preparing for his bar mitzvah each day and getting a bunch of homework done, we are tag-teaming on school runs, keeping up with the housework, tending to the kids, juggling homeschool as well as the other work things that have popped up! Between Mark, myself, and my mum we seem to have the system down. Some days are just a write-off and other days it’s really working. I’ve been spending some time prepping our home for a big redesign and some renovations we are going to start diving into. It’s feeling really wonderful just being here, reading scripts, working on Lovewell, taking meetings for our YZM podcast, and hanging with the babes.

MAMA TIME?
I got my brows microbladed today! I’ve been really nervous about getting it done and kept oscillating between feeling good about it and not so certain. My eyebrows have diminished an incredible amount since being pregnant with Prairie, the hairs are just disappearing so they’re very patchy and so uneven, on one side it’s like the top half of my brow has just decided it was done, and pissed off somewhere! The same thing happened to my mum postpartum and her eyebrow hairs neverrrr grew back! You know that feeling where you start realising you’re turning in to your parents physically? I think that’s beginning right now. I’m really low maintenance, hate going to the hairdressers, never blow dry my hair, do nails, etc. can’t be bothered with makeup so I really hate having to pencil them in every day and it ends up being so time-consuming. I also think you can tell they’re penciled in so it’s just been bothering me. As a very time-poor person already I’ve been looking at options on how to promote hair growth again, I didn’t have much luck so a friend recommended microblading to me. After much research, I sourced out the very best of the best who would be light-handed and make sure they’re very very natural looking and I am SO happy with the results. I’ve never done anything to my face, never even had a tattoo on my body so I was feeling trepidatious about it but it was very easy and was only a little uncomfortable for a few moments but other than that it just feels like little scratches. I’ll keep you posted on the healing process but this was certainly taking out some time for mama!

MY BODY?
Aside from nonexistent eyebrows, hardcore melasma, fresh sunspots, a newly spouted mum bum and a weight loss plateau, it’s GREAT! Haha no but really it does feel great, a little tired but it really serves me well through these long days of kid wrangling and work! I finally found my Apple Watch charger and so I’m now going to dive back into exercising to get camera-ready, feeling strong again and to reclaim my fitness! I also found that each day I worked out I had so much more energy and also slept a lot sounder so I’m looking forward to shifting things around so that I can dedicate more time to working out.

WHAT I’M EATING?
Avocado toast, a new favourite vegan burger I found from Salaya plant-based kitchen (oh boy!) Lovewell smoothies, green juices, pad Thai, vegan pizza, and many many kombuchas!!

CHECKING IN:
I really feel Prairie’s newborn days are behind us now, as she edges closer to 3 months I just can’t believe how fast the time has flown by. I am trying to relish every moment with her and take delight in the new things I’m watching her achieve but with it comes a small deep down feeling which is often fleeting but enough to take note, something that resembles a sort of grief. The thoughts of ‘is this my last newborn?’ circulate, are all these days that fall away and into our memories going to be the last of these times, the last of having such a fresh, straight outta the womb baby to call my own? We never know how life unfolds and just yesterday I felt a longing sense of ‘I know there’s another little soul out there for me.. ‘ but they come and go. I still dream of another little boy out there and a girl! Ha. I think I’d have 6 or 7 babes if it was solely up to me. I just adore it all. Even the hard parts I find myself learning from them, leaning in to my softest places when times feel tough. Lots of these thoughts have been ruminating lately and I like it!