Pregnant Runners - This is For You!

Pregnant? Currently a runner? Worried you won't be ABLE to run when you're FIVE months, SIX months, or even SEVEN months pregnant? Well have no fear, the Mom-EZ is here! And it works!

As someone who has been running on and off (mostly on) for the last 10 years, and someone who did her VERY FIRST half marathon at 12 weeks pregnant, I'm someone who quite obviously, would like to maintain my running habits while pregnant. Running is an extremely important part of my life I JUST got back, and I'm not ready to throw it away just because I'm pregnant.

While I understand there will be limits, and I understand the health of this kid is THE most important thing in the world to me, I also know that running has a TON of benefits - particularly while pregnant. There's the obvious mental health part (running keeps me sane, it gives me an outlet), there's the "fit women have easier labours" (which is awesome for both me AND the baby!), and there's a whole lotta research that shows that exercise like running can build a stronger placenta, deliver more oxygen to your baby making them smarter, and on and on and on.

However, for me, while all of that is AWESOME, it's also about having some ME time, something that is completely MINE, and something that still makes me feel like ME. And while I struggled through weeks 8-11 with a fair amount of nausea and exhaustion, and I struggled through weeks 14-16 with EVERYTHING hurting EVERY TIME I RAN, I kept going - because running matters to me. And as long as this kid kept on growing and moving, I was going to KEEP trying to run.

But after week 16, things weren't so easy anymore. It wasn't just that I tired more easily, or that my joints hurt sooner, it was now that my pelvis HURT - like hurt a LOT when I ran, it was now that my belly felt like it was BOUNCING unless I held my hand on it, and it was now that my knees were starting to REALLY kill me in ways they really shouldn't.

To deal with the knees, I switched to the treadmill, and voila, it worked! I still have more knee pain than I did BEFORE I was pregnant, but meh, it's nothing that doesn't go away with rest, so I'm going to keep going. To deal with the belly though, I went on a hunt for the elusive MATERNITY BELT. And no, I'm not talking regular old belly band, I'm talking FULL-ON BELT. I wanted something MADE for extremes and not just the regular old backaches those lycra belly bands are made for. And lucky me, a good friend who ran until 8 months pregnant with BOTH her kids (thanks to this belt), found me her little piece of magic - the Mom-EZ.

The first thing I'll say is that this thing is NOT easy to find. Specialty running stores? Never heard of it. Lady-specific sports stores? Never heard of it. Maternity stores? Wanted to sell me a belly band. So after a lot of digging and begging, my friend who'd worn one of these herself, found me one where she got hers. But if YOU'RE looking, your best bet is probably to order online, if anything just to save yourself the calls/trips to the many stores.

The second thing I'll say, is that this thing is HIDEOUS. It's like a girdle, but BIGGER and BOLDER and THICKER. But I personally have been stuffing it underneath my workout gear, and this thing works like a FREAKING CHARM!!!! Not only does it have adjustable straps, but it also has velcro in lengths that allow you to adjust it even further. Not only does it wrap around you, but it wraps around your belly in a way that CRADLES it and ACTUALLY holds it in place. Not only does it do up nice and tight, but it's COMFORTABLE - and it DOESN'T loosen but it DOES stay in place - for my whole run, every run.

While I obviously haven't made it to 8 months with this thing yet, at 23 weeks, I have a VERY good feeling about the Mom-EZ. So far I couldn't be happier with it, and I couldn't recommend it more highly to pregnant runners. It also probably works pretty damn good for general back support if you're suffering, but so far I've been fortunate enough not to have to try it for that.

An obvious two big thumbs up for the Mom-EZ.

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Moms of Daughters: You Need This Book

• No Barbie dolls -- check.
• No disparaging of my own body -- check.
• Frequent reminders that what's inside matter more than what's outside -- check.
• Daughter without self-esteem issues -- out of checks.

I naively thought, when Tessa was an infant, that doing these checked items would go a long way to helping her develop healthy self-esteem. After all, she would have her own obvious inner light and beauty, as well as the benefit of my nearly 4 decades of working out my own issues wisdom to help her short-circuit the problems that can exist on a young girl's path.

Hah! Now that I'm parenting an 8 year-old, a complex being with layers and layers of known and unknown facets, I can see that raising a daughter with healthy self-esteem is going to require a lot more than I thought it would.

A new tool suited for this challenge was thrown across our paths recently. I was drawn, almost like a magnet, to a non-chocolate booth at the recent Chocolate Festival (imagine that: a room full of free chocolate and we wander off to a booth with no edibles).

We walked by a pink-and-purple themed booth where some face-painting was taking place. While Tessa got hearts and stars on her cheeks and Reed got sword-bearing snakes (don't ask), I chatted with the radiant, statuesque woman who was responsible for the booth.

She told me she had authored a book, a work she was guided to write, to help girls age 7-14 to recognize and appreciate their own inner beauty.

The woman's name is Debra Gano (with her daughter, Elle, in the photo), a Colorado-based author and mother who is a former actress/model (and strikingly beautiful, not surprisingly), someone who made a nice living on her looks. She is qualified to tell what that does to a person's inner value.

Disclosure: Debra gave me a complimentary copy of the first in the HeartLight Girls series called Beauty's Secret ($12 through Amazon and $18 on Debra's website). Beauty is a loved and loving daughter who has a brother and a good friend. Her life is full of joy and harmony, and one day she is discovered by a modeling scout, who invites Beauty and her friend to enter a pageant.

Beauty's measure of her worth thus moves from inside herself to outside herself. In lush paintings that drew Tessa in and with with a storyline that appealed to her, we learn of Beauty's departure from Innocence, to the meanness of Narcissism and the return to herSelf, wiser than before.

Debra's book has several high-profile cheerleaders: Marianne Williamson (A Return to Love), Jack Canfield (Chicken Soup for the Soul), Neale Donald Walsch (Conversations with God) and Dom Testa (Denver radio personality) among them. In addition, Beauty's Secret recently won the Coalition of Visionary Resources Award for Best Childrens' Book of the Year in 2008.

But how did it play out for Tessa?

It took us a week to read Beauty's Secret at one chapter a night. The message in Beauty's story is an important one, one that if absorbed will help a pre-teen understand what true beauty is, where it is housed, and how to let it shine even amid outer judgment.

Beauty's Secret also has given Tessa and me a new vocabulary with each other for noticing when our heartlights are obscured, and a shortcut for reminding each other to shine our inner beauty. When Tessa veers toward the edge of meanness (which tends to occurs when she's not feeling self-love), I now put my hand on my heart, reminding her to go inside and find her inner light. While I don't expect the awareness of her heartlight to be a cure-all, this cue and its connection to Beauty's story has actually worked several times.

Tessa and I are eager for part 2 in the series and beyond. We give four thumbs up.

What do you think are the most important elements in raising children -- especially daughters -- with healthy self-esteem?

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The "H" Word

When you're pregnant, there's a lot of things to be afraid of. There's those BIG things like "will my baby be healthy", there's those middle-size things like "how will I ever AFFORD this", and then there's those small things... those things nobody really wants to talk about but everyone is probably thinking about anyway?

Yes, I'm talking about the dreaded "h" word - HEMORRHOIDS.

As someone who has yet in life to experience a hemorrhoid, but has IBS so has had my own share of OTHER "ass" issues, the hemorrhoid is the one experience in pregnancy I actually dread. Not because it's something I can't get over, but because it's something I know I can't prevent, it's something that doesn't just last a few hours, and it's something that I have heard NIGHTMARE stories about.

While women have their own share of nightmare stories about labour, the truth is they go onto to have 2, 3, and 4 kids, so really? Well there must be something about the fact that it ends that lets them go into that kind of pain again and again. Yet hemorrhoids, well they don't just "end" - they stick around for awhile. And they stick around in a place you really don't want ANYTHING sticking around.

Anyway, getting to my point, because I DO have one... recently the kind folks at Tucks and MomCentral offered me a free sample of Tucks Take Alongs. And while no, I haven't yet experienced a hemorrhoid, I've had a pretty easy pregnancy so I'm pretty sure at some point the dreaded "h" word IS going to enter my life so I figured these were a PERFECT thing to have in my house to try out!

Putting myself into a headspace where I was imagining the dreaded "h" word appearing in my life, I opened up the box and checked them out, and while I'm sure actually HAVING hemorrhoids vs IMAGINING having them is completely different, these Tucks Take Alongs offer a couple cool things about them.

First, they come in nifty little "towlette" packages - the kind that could easily slip in your pocket on a night out. No, you wouldn't put them in your pocket TOO casually at risk of them falling out, but yes, they COULD fit in a zippered little pocket quite easily. Second, they come sealed, which is always a good thing. Third, the directions are on the package so when in paranoia you're worried you've used too many today, you can easily see that there's no problem using them up to 6x a day. And last, the smell is okay - it's strong, and definitely got that "cleansing" smell to it, but it's nothing strong enough to stick to me (meaning it didn't leave ME smelling like the wipe).

All in all, I'd give these handy little wipes two thumbs up. They're conveniently packaged to take anywhere you need, and on the quick searches I did on the net, seemed to work for those who used them to actually help with the dreaded "h" word.

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The Registry Made Easy

One of the few things I've dreaded about being pregnant, has been creating my registry - the wishlist of all the things we want and need. Not because it's not fun to look around at all that cool stuff, and not because it's not fun to think about all the FREE stuff we might get, but because there is no SINGLE store that has everything *I* want and need - there's many MANY stores. And between working, running, going to the trainer, trying to have a life, and just plain old being pregnant, there's not a lot of time to register at many stores. Or even if there WAS a lot of time, it's a bunch of work I really don't want to take on.

Except that thanks to Emily, I no longer NEED to take that on. And now, thanks to All Thumbs, neither do you! Have a birthday, wedding, anniversary, baby shower, or other event that calls for a registry? If you do, you MUST check out Wishpot.

A completely FREE service, Wishpot allows you to make a list of all the things you want from ALL the stores you want - including shops like Etsy (so no, your favorite store doesn't have to be partnered up with Wishpot either). All you do is sign up, add a little tool/button to your internet toolbar (did it in 2 minutes, easy!), and then you start clicking away.

Shopping online at Babies R Us and see that bouncy chair you really want? Simply click your "Add to Wishpot" button, choose the priority (you need it, really want it, want it, wouldn't mind it, are thinking about it), add a tag (clothing, chairs, poo, sleep), and hit Submit - done! Navigating back to Wishpot to CHECK OUT the list you've been making, you'll see that Wishpot not only lists the items you want, but grabs a screen capture of what the things look like, provides the price, AND links off to the site where they can be bought. And while that all sounds like it's too ridiculously good to be true, it's not...and it gets even better!

Want your mother or your in-laws to actually buy the things that you WANT, rather than the stuff they THINK you need but will actually just fill your house with clutter? Send them your Wishpot, and they can constantly check out your list. They can sort by tags (ie. clothing, sleep), by priority (ie. you need vs want), and even by last added date (ie. so they don't have to look at the same stuff they've already seen). You just keep adding to your list, and they have an easy way to see what you want from far far away - with NO conversation about it!

So all in all, I'd HIGHLY recommend Wishpot. I'm using it myself for Tiny B's registry, and absolutely loving it. I'm even thinking that as Tiny B grows up, I'll keep this wishlist updated so the aunts, uncles, grandparents, and far away internet friends can always see what his latest needs and wants are. No more phone calls and emails asking what the hell it is he needs this Christmas or birthday - simply check out his Wishpot! Two BIG thumbs up.

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