My poor little family is under the weather right now.

Runny noses, coughing fits, hot and cold spells – we have it all. All three of us. I gave in at work today and came home at lunch.

I immediately set myself up with some comfort food before taking a three hour nap – chicken noodle soup, grilled cheese and Gatorade. There is nothing I want more when I feel sick.

Well, except some of this.

I picked this up from Publix today after my husband drank two caffeinated cups of tea last night before going to bed – and couldn’t sleep all night. I’d never tried it before, but it is DELICIOUS. I’m on my second cup of the night. If you have a cold, I highly recommend it.

I’ve also been using my Neti pot, drinking orange juice and plan to be back in bed soon.

Oh what I wouldn’t give for some Nyquil right now. But alas – it’s not exactly approved for pregnant women.

I’m hoping I wake up in the morning and we’re all magically better, but just in case, I could use some more ideas.

What are your best non-medicinal cold remedies? 

Yes, by Christmas I will have two children under the age of two. Just the thought of it makes me want to nap.

We all might be questioning my sanity, but there are definitely some perks about having your children 18 months apart. While I obviously haven’t experienced the reality of having two children under the age of two quite yet, I do know what it’s like to have less than a year between pregnancies. And if I don’t laugh about it, I might cry. So here is the first trimester edition of the “Joys of Two Under Two”:

• Your leftover prenantal vitamins haven’t expired yet!
• You still have a bottle of cocoa butter in your bedside table in hopes of magically warding off stretch marks.
• Your maternity clothes aren’t out of style – in fact, a few might still be in your dresser drawers…
• You have two birthdays in a row where everyone else has a celebratory cocktail on your behalf.
• You’re not sure if your exhaustion is from pregnancy or the fact that you are trying to keep up with an 11 month old baby.
• People ask you, “Weren’t you just pregnant?” just in case you might have forgotten.
• The nurse at the doctor’s office tells you, “Girl, you didn’t even give yourself time to lose the baby weight!” (True story. And yes I did, thankyouverymuch.)

I don’t write many sponsored posts…in fact, this is actually the first one I’ve ever written. I’m pretty picky about what I share on my blog. This is my place to write and reflect and share my life with you. But when DailyBuzz Healthy Living emailed me about an opportunity with Dove, I had to take them up on it.

Why?

Well, because Dove deodorant is the only kind I use.

And in Florida, it’s important to have good deodorant! Dove has launched a campaign called “Dare to Be Bare” promoting their new Dove Clear Tone Skin Renew Deodorant.

Here is the product description:

Did you know? When underarm skin is irritated by shaving, it can respond by creating dark marks. 

The solution — Dove^® Clear Tone™ Skin Renew Deodorant. Its unique formula, made with calendula and sunflower seed extracts, moisturizes to accelerate the natural skin renewal process, helping to visibly reduce dark marks and even tone with regular use over time, while providing 24-hour odor and wetness protection. 

Experience superior care for your underarms that stays on skin — not on clothes.

Can we get real for a moment?

I am incredibly self-conscious about the dark marks on my underarm skin. Incredibly. Which is why when I heard about this new product, I really wanted to try it. As a runner, and just as a woman living in a very warm climate, I’m in sleeveless tank tops and sundresses all the time. But I HATE all photos of me with my arms in the air – I’m so self-conscious about the dark marks. So much so that I as much as I love photos of people with their arms in the air as they cross the finish line, I don’t do it. Just because I am so dang self-conscious. I hate that.

Crossing the finish line of my first sprint triathlon with my arms down…

I’m sure it’s not as bad as I think it is. (Or at least I hope that’s the case.) But isn’t it terrible that I allow something so superficial to get me down? To keep me from celebrating with unbridled joy?

This photo is one obvious exception. And don’t I look happy??

Yes, I’m hopeful that the deodorant will work it’s magic and reduce those dark marks. In fact, it already seems to be starting to do the trick. But what I’ve taken away from this campaign is more than a product description for deodorant. It really made me think about the times in my life that I hold back because my own fears get in the way. My own insecurities. My own self-consciousness.

How many of us hold back because we are self-conscious? Maybe your “thing” isn’t the same as mine. Maybe you have lost a lot of weight and are self-conscious about the extra skin left behind. Maybe you are self-conscious about your teeth so you refuse to smile in photographs. What is it that is holding you back?

Dove asked me to blog about my “tips and tricks” for feeling confident in my bare skin. In my opinion? Confidence comes from within. It is recognizing that I am uniquely me – dark marks and all. And if I want to celebrate crossing the finish line of a half marathon with my hands in the air – I should! We all have one life to live – I don’t want to spend mine  holding back because of my insecurities. And neither should you.

Dare to be bare.

Dare to be YOU.

As part of the DailyBuzz Healthy Living Program, I received free Clear Tone Deodorant and a $150 stipend from Dove. However, my opinions are entirely my own.

Thanks for all your congratulations on the news about the new job and the move! We are actually moving about an hour away, back to our hometown where my husband and I met. Did you know we actually met in the sixth grade?

This is what he looked like then. Hubba hubba. I’ll refrain from revealing just how nerdy I looked in sixth grade. Let’s just say, we’ve known eachother a long time.

We are excited that the Mini Athlete and his sibling will grow up close to their grandparents and my husband is especially excited that his children will get to wear the green and white of our high school. In fact, this is actually how he announced the news of our move on Facebook – with the Mini Athlete in one of his old high school jerseys:

My new job will be the Executive Director of a non-profit organization. It’s definitely a change from what I do now (student affairs at a law school) but I’m excited about what I’ll be doing!

But first we have to get through this next month. Moving, starting a new job and being pregnant all at the same time definitely adds up in the stress department. We’re leaning toward renting a place when we move (and already have a place lined up for the most part) but part of me still wonders if we should be buying a place. There are so many pros and cons to both.

Timing is everything, right? A year from now we will have two children under the age of two – a two year old and a six month old. I can’t decide if the timing is better now or then!

But one this is sure – we are very excited about getting back to our roots. Our hometown is a small town, but it’s a great one. And it’s a definite perk that we have one of the nicest beaches in the world!

What do you love about your hometown?

There has been a lot of chatter this week about the cover of the latest TIME Magazine. While some people have had strong feelings about the photo on the cover, my feelings are actually just as strong about the headline:

“Are You Mom Enough?”

I hate that.

Motherhood is competitive enough. I mentioned this to my husband and he didn’t quite understand. Competitive? Really?

Face it – women are competitive.

It’s the same reason we don’t dress up to impress a guy – we dress up to impress other girls. We are constantly comparing ourselves to other women. We compare our looks, our weight, our successes, our failures…we are constantly comparing and usually, even if only subconsciously, competing.

I touched on it briefly in my post about pregnancy, but it applies here too. The “good advice” doesn’t end once your baby is born. Everyone has an opinion about how your child should be raised. What they should eat. Where they should sleep. The amount of advice (often unsolicited and sometimes even aggressively offered) is staggering.

Motherhood isn’t a competition.

We are all doing the best we can.

And how dare you, TIME Magazine, make us feel like we are anything less than enough.

So just in case you’re wondering, you – yes YOU – are enough.

You are good enough. You are smart enough. You are beautiful enough. You are strong enough.

This isn’t just a message for mothers. This a message for every woman who looked in the mirror this morning and felt like she just didn’t have it. Like she just couldn’t do it all. Like she just wasn’t…enough.

Let me tell you something:  You are.

You are uniquely you. You are what this world needs. You are what your child needs.

You are enough.

In fact, you are more than enough.

Own it. Believe it.

Because it’s true.

You know something?

Blogging is REALLY hard when you have things you are keeping a secret! And oh boy I’ve had a lot of them lately.

Keeping a pregnancy a secret for 10 weeks isn’t easy. There were so many times I wanted to tell you all what was really going on! Not to mention trying to tiptoe around things like skipping my half marathon and the fact that my workouts had been sub par at best. It’s a good thing I’m not a food blogger – my diet probably would have given it away. The food of the first trimester? Bland, white carbs. Bland white carb of choice? Plain bagels with plain cream cheese. Seriously. One day I ate three of them – one for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I kid you not.

But pregnancy isn’t the only secret I’ve been keeping. There are a few more things:

We are moving! And I’m starting a new job at the end of the month!

These secrets haven’t necessarily been as tough to keep secret on the blog, but they have been consuming a lot of my time and attention (as you can imagine!)

From trying to find a place to live to starting the packing process, it’s been a busy time. The Mini Athlete is having fun playing with all the boxes!

But I know that my health has been suffering because of all the craziness in life. I haven’t worked out in over a week and my diet has been anything but exemplary. Pizza…donuts…if it’s on the “junk food” list, I’ve probably eaten it over the past few weeks. Some of that comes from a first trimester appetite that has been adverse to vegetables or anything that had a “healthy” component.

But I do feel like I’m turning a corner. Over the past two days I’ve eaten more vegetables than I have in the past two (maybe four?) weeks! I’m finally starting to crave the healthier options. My life at work is finally starting to slow down a bit as well so I’m hoping to jump back on the fitness bandwagon again. It’s time to make it a priority!

How do you make your health a priority when life gets busy?

Weeks like this make me really glad I don’t rely on my blog as a source of income.

My life is crazy right now – both personally and professionally. It’s a very busy time and quite frankly, when I get home from work and the Mini Athlete is in bed, my brain just wants to shut off. Combine that with a recent obsession with Mad Men on Netflix…

Source

And not much blogging has been happening.

I know it’s not popular to say “I’m sorry” when not posting for a few days, but I am. No, I don’t feel like I have to apologize to any of you, but I do feel sorry that I left something that breathes so much life into me go by the wayside. I draw tremendous energy off the community I have built here. In addition to that, writing is such an outlet for me. I’ve been journaling as long as I can remember, and blogging has become my new form of journaling – just with an audience.

But that being said…it’s really nice to not feel pressure to blog. Because quite frankly, my blog suffers when I do. Churning out posts just to have something posted every day doesn’t necessarily add to the value of a blog. Sometimes silence is golden. And quite frankly – sometimes I don’t even notice when some of my favorite bloggers take a day or two off.

I’ll never be a three times a day blogger – and I’m okay with that. My mind is just not creative enough to write three quality posts a day. Well and combine that with the fact that I have a full-time job and a baby to take care of and it’s not even in the realm of possibility. But I hope to keep blogging for a long time – in a very “no pressure” type of way. Because that is where my mind is challenged, where my heart is exposed and where my words might actually make a difference to someone else.

Do you ever feel “pressure” to blog regularly? How do you balance blogging and life?

How far along are you?

I am 10 weeks pregnant, but you would think I’m more like 20 weeks by looking at me! It’s true what they say – you definitely show earlier with your second than your first. Which is funny because I remember LONGING to see a baby bump when I was pregnant with the Mini Athlete. This time, I wanted to hold off for a while! I feel like I just got out of maternity clothes. I’m not ready to go back!

But then again…I did wear some maternity clothes yesterday. Everyone should have maternity clothes to wear while recovering from the flu!

Yes, the bathroom fashion show photos are back. You know you missed them.

How are you feeling?

With the obvious exception of my bout with the stomach flu this past weekend, I’ve been feeling really good! I actually had a hard time believing I was pregnant at first because I lacked so many of the symptoms I had when pregnant the first time around. My boobs weren’t sore, I didn’t feel nauseous and…well, I just felt pretty normal. The one exception? Running. That’s actually how I first guessed I might be pregnant. Remember this six mile run? I felt so unlike myself (and so like I felt when trying to run while pregnant before) that I came home from that run and immediately took a pregnancy test. Turns out, I was right!

Were you trying?

Umm…do you really want to go there? Suffice it to say we know how these things work so we weren’t exactly shocked. Were we “planning” to have another this soon? Not exactly. But again…we know how these things work.

Are you hoping for a girl?

This question always cracks me up. As if my life is not complete unless I have a mini-me spawn or something. No, I can’t say I’m necessarily “hoping” for a girl, but I’m not “hoping” for a boy either. I’m not one of those people who will keep “trying for a girl” if we don’t have one. I have no deep burning desire to have a daughter – which is a little strange since my mom and I are so close. But I grew up in a house with four girls…I know how crazy hormonal it can be. Oh and my mom wished a daughter off on me as payback for all the grief I gave her as a teenager. As a result, the idea of having a daughter frightens me a bit.

Are you going to be one of those women who runs through your pregnancy?

A few people asked me this at the 5k on Saturday. I would respond, “I’m running today. That’s all I know.” As you might remember, I didn’t run past six weeks when pregnant the last time. I definitely felt more queasy during the first trimester last time around, and I really had no idea how my Ehlers Danlos syndrome would respond to pregnancy. I feel much more comfortable this time around – in every way – so I’ve still been running here and there. I haven’t been running fast, and I’ve been incorporating a lot of walking breaks, but I’m still getting out there. Mostly just to spend time with my best friend. But I had some pretty serious hip pain and pubic symphosis diastasis with my first pregnancy so I have no idea how long this will last. I’m trying to enjoy each run like it might be my last for a while!

By the way, I don’t usually write guest posts, but I did write one for Katie and she featured it on her blog yesterday. It’s all about getting back into shape after having a baby – I’m sure I’ll be taking my own advice again before I know it!

Do you have any more questions for me?

Thanks for all your congratulations on the announcement about our baby on the way! Were you surprised?

I have more great news – Fitness Magazine announced this morning that I won a Fitterati Blogger Award!

As the Editor’s Pick for Best Inspirational Blog, I’ll be contributing to the magazine and will be featured in an upcoming issue. I am SO honored! I have been reading Fitness Magazine as long as I can remember – it’s actually the first magazine I subscribed to when I went off to college! Thank you for all of your votes!

As you know, I celebrated my birthday on Saturday and what a celebration we had! I kicked off my 29th year with a little local 5k – the Shore Acres 5k. A local elementary school is raising money for a community garden so they held their first ever 5k. I loved that it fell on my birthday and encouraged my family to come out to race. My family drove up from Venice in the morning – all except my mom who had the stomach flu. We missed her!

My sister Shannon signed up to run the race (her second 5k) and at the very last minute, my dad decided to run it too. He had running shoes on, but wasn’t exactly dressed for the occasion. He ran the whole thing in his polo shirt and cargo shorts!

The race took place on a wide sidewalk – just a simple out and back. They had about 150 runners and the organizers did a fantastic job putting it together. To avoid the course being too crowded, they did a staggered start. Those planning to run a sub-10 min/mile went first, then five minutes later those of us running 10-15min/miles started, and then five minutes later the walkers started. It really helped to spread out the pack!

My husband Nate took off in the first pack and quickly found his way to the front of the pack. He had a goal of winning the race, but of course you never know how speedy your competition might be.

I lined up with the second group of runners and, as usual, started out too far back. I had no great goals for this race – I just wanted to have fun! I haven’t been running very fast since finding out I’m pregnant, and saw no reason to push it for the race. The 9:00am start time meant the sun was out in full force and lack of shade on the course meant things heated up quickly. I focused on my body and took walking breaks as necessary. But overall I felt great!

Since the course ran out and back, we were able to see the lead pack heading back toward the finish line. And there he was – Nate was in first place!

After I made the turn at the halfway mark, I kept asking people behind me on the course, “Is the black guy in pink still winning??” They all said he was!

Turns out, he won the race by a landslide. Look how far back the second place finisher is behind him!

He is so fast.

The craziest part? He’s probably only run maybe twice since the Grand Prix 5k back in March. Can you imagine how fast he would be if he actually trained??

My dad crossed the finish line at just over 29 minutes. Not too bad for a guy in a polo and cargo shorts!

I’ve run this route more times than I can count and enjoyed every minute of this 5k. I knew exactly how far I had to go and how much I could/should push my pace. I haven’t had that much fun running a race in a long time! I had absolutely no pressure. I’m pretty sure I had a smile on my face the entire time! I crossed the line in 35:47 – definitely not my fastest time, but not bad for 10 weeks pregnant!

My sister finished her second 5k strong – she always amazes me by the way she pushes through to the finish line at a dead sprint. She definitely leaves it all on the course!

We stayed for the quick awards ceremony to celebrate with the first place winner. So proud of my guy!

What a great way to kick off my birthday!

After the race, we all headed to Harvey’s for brunch and then headed home for naptime. All three of us slept for a few hours – we clearly needed it!

After our naps, we got all dolled up in our best Derby Day attire and headed over to the Cinco de Derby party hosted by Mary!

My husband impeccably combined the colors of Cinco de Mayo with the class of the Derby…don’t you think? And I think it’s fair to say that the Mini Athlete stole the show when we arrived!

I can’t imagine a better birthday.

Unfortunately, the day after my birthday wasn’t so fabulous. I woke up not feeling so hot, but thought it might be a (rare for me) case of morning sickness. After a few hours of not being able to keep anything down, it became painfully obvious that I had picked up my mom’s case of the stomach flu – all three of my sisters came down with it too.

After a miserable day yesterday, I’m on the mend today trying to build my strength back up. I will say, the Fitterati announcement this morning certainly helped my mood!

Are you celebrating anything today? 

I am turning 29 tomorrow and I took some time this week to look back over the amazing year it has been. My 28th year will definitely go down in the history books as a life changing year!

I became a mother on June 1…

And discovered a depth of love I never knew possible.

I went back to work and became a working mom…which left all of us a bit exhausted at first.

My parents sold my childhood home…

We celebrated the Mini Athlete’s first Christmas…

I ran my first (and second!) half marathons…

And now you can add this to quite possibly the most amazing year of my life:

The newest little athlete…due 12/02/12!

Looks like my 29th year is going to be a pretty exciting one as well!