To relax or not to relax

Stacy I really owe you one!!

I guess I'd better explain.

Several months ago I asked several of the new mothers to send me a list of their top 10 essentials for their babies so I could get an idea of the things that we would need to get. And while I had awesome advice and great tips from everyone one tip has proven to be very $$ valuable. Stacy mentioned that I could get gently used items from a store call "Once Upon a Child" and that I should see if we have one close to us here in MD. I checked out their website and found that they do have a store over in Baltimore and one right by the Mall in Dover. Well, let me just say I have really come to appreciate that franchise. We have been able to get some of the bigger items for Thumper at a fraction of the cost! This Christmas we went to the store in Denver and got Thumper some Broncos and Nuggets gear. Then while we were in CT we went to the store there and got him some Yankees and Giants gear (and they were having a sale buy 10 for $10 so needless to say Thumper increased his wardrobe exponentially...several of the items still had the original tags on them!)

Now what does this have to do with relaxing you might ask...glad you did. Well the doc told me that the greatest thing I can do during labor is relax...ya, you heard me right, relax! Me, relax?!! I decided that Jeff should have this kid. He is much better at that whole relaxing thing! The doc told me that I needed to figure out 1) how to relax and 2) what relaxes me and if that didn't work then I needed to start doing prenatal yoga. Now in my mind if I haven't figured out something that relaxes me in the last 28 years, so I don't think I am going to come up with something in the next 8 weeks. Therefore, I decided maybe I should try the yoga. Let me just say I HATE yoga. Every time I have tried anything remotely like yoga I have become bored to tears and adjusted the workout to actually get a workout, but since the doc told me I should I figured I had better give it another try. I looked in several stores for a prenatal yoga video and was very unsuccessful finding any prenatal videos so I resorted to Amazon. Now since I hate yoga I really hated the idea of spending $16+ on a video all to learn how to relax (I think the frustration of paying that much for something I don't like would have elevated my blood pressure every time I did the "relaxing" workout.) Here's where Stacy's tip became so valuable! While I was in Dover last weekend I decided to quickly run into the "Once Upon a Child" store and see if they had anything we couldn't live without, and low-and-behold, right inside the front door was two different prenatal workout videos and one was prenatal yoga. And can you believe the yoga video was only $2.50!!! I was quiet excited!!

So now I have begun to learn how to relax...well, as much as I can relax. Although Jeff would argue that I can't truly be relaxing while I am arguing with the instructor about her science and doctrine, but I have been surprised at how much calmer I am at the end of the video (of course I do watch the clock the entire time trying to figure out how much more I have to endure.) Now the true test will be if it helps me at all during labor...only time will tell.

I say all of that just to say, Thank you Stacy for the great tip! And to all of you who don't know about the "Once Upon a Child" store I would definitely look into it and see if you can get any great bargains.