As you all know, I have started Things You Ask Thursday here on the blog! I get quite a few questions sent my way daily. I want to answer them all, but time does not allow that! This is my way of connecting and responding to you one question at a time. I take the top five most popular questions a week and make it into one big blog. These range from my marriage, motherhood, fitness, personal beliefs, etc. Ask away! Feel free to email me a question you hope to be answered next Thursday on here (livelygirlfitness@gmail.com) or direct message me on Instagram or Facebook. Thanks for stopping by friends! Let’s dig in, shall we?

1.) Am I Still Breastfeeding?

This is definitely the #1 question I get on a daily basis and I’m finally ready to answer. No… I am not! Whenever someone asks me why, I use to try to think of a better reason than, “ I need some freedom back for my sanity”…but that really is the biggest reason I stopped. I use to get embarrassed and kind of felt like a failure because let’s be honest this is a topic where every Mom has their own opinion. I respect that, so now I’m sharing mine. I decided to share my personal experience because I know I’m not the only one who has gone through this and I don’t want another momma feeling alone! Here’s how it went from the very beginning. I had one baby who latched amazing and one baby where it was a complete struggle. Turns out, one of my babies was tongue-tied. We got that taken care of but it still was a struggle even after. I started to pump a lot for both babies because I felt guilty only nursing one baby and pumping for the other. That’s where it can be tricky with twins sometimes… you want to be fair. I would spend 5-6 hours of my day pumping… I would wake up in the middle of the night and pump for an hour. I was losing sleep, and when you are only sleeping 4-5 hours a night… one hour is a LOT. Instead of nuzzling and snuggling my babies… I would be pumping. This resulted in a not very happy momma so I went with my gut and stopped around 4 months. As I weaned off, yeah it was emotional and hard for me. I would call Matthew, tears streaming down my face and just straight up ask “Am I a terrible mom for wanting to stop?”. He would assure me that no, of course, I was not! I kept second guessing my decision but now that I am completely done, I’m relieved. You are not a bad mommy if you are feeling this way. A happy mama is the best thing you can give your babies- in my opinion.

2.) Do Matthew and I have Lows in Our Relationship Since Having Two New Additions to the Family?

I’ve always said that if a couple claims they never fight…. they are lying- haha! No matter how strong a relationship is, people have disagreements, tiffs, fights, arguments… whatever you want to label it. Let me just start with the first month and progress to where we are now because what we argue about changes by the month!
Month 1 & 2:
Neither of us remembers much… we really don’t. Those first two months we were in survival mode. Majority of our arguments were sleep deprived ones at odd hours of the night! We actually look back and laugh at them because they are just so darn funny. Mainly because they don’t make sense. For example: when the babies were waking up at every half hour in the night we would take turns going to the nursery to put a binky back in their mouth or feed them. One night, I heard a wail coming from the nursery and I turn to Matthew to tell him it’s his turn (I was just in there ten mins prior). He is snoring and so I start poking him in the face… he still doesn’t wake up. So I head back to the nursery to calm a baby and then head back to bed. I was asleep for maybe forty minutes when Matthew wakes me up “Did you just poke me?! I hate being poked. Don’t do that!”. Keep in mind this all happened 40 mins ago and he was still asleep… I was so confused. I tried to explain to him why I did that because he was groggily still on the fact that I poked him. He then throws his pillow and blanket on the floor by the bed and flops down to sleep muttering “stop poking me”. Then he starts snoring again. I’ve never been so confused in my life. We learned fairly fast to not take any sleep deprived words & fights seriously. At the end of the day, all those arguments were caused by literally just not getting sleep. Nothing more to it. It’s funny because we would get to the point where we would argue for maybe a minute (at like 3 a.m.) then lay back in bed and one of us would always say “Sorry, I’m just tired. I love you. Let’s go to bed”. That became a very commonly used phrase between us. My best advice to a sleep-deprived couple reading this. Do not take any argument or disagreement personally if its past 10:00 p.m. (or whenever you go to bed). You are just tired. Recognize that & say sorry and move on!

Month 3 & 4:

This is where we really started to religiously follow the book, Mom’s On Call, to sleep train our babies. This was a huge turning point in our sleep because we had to stay consistent with the twins schedule so we could get a goods nights rest. This was truly a pivotal time for us. I am serious when I say that it saved our sleep and helped us remain a strong united team. We were starting to really get our parenting down but our friendship began to suffer – if that makes sense. Our conversations started to only revolve around the babies and pretty much whatever had to do with the babies we would talk about. We finally said, okay we need to go on a date and for the whole date, not say a word about “the babies”. We went out and it lasted five minutes- By the way, Matthew is the one that caved- HA! But every time we found ourselves doing that we would switch topics. I asked him about his work, projects he was excited about, etc. He would help me brainstorm fun and creative ideas for Lively Girl! We talked about all the fun hilarious times we had in college. Going out, just the two of us, and making sure our entire date did not revolve around everything baby related helped us with our friendship, which is crucial to have in a marriage. It brought us back to why we even fell in love with one another in the first place!

Month 5 & 6 & Currently!

Something you should know about Matthew and I is that we love to grind and get things done. We rarely sit down & relax and watch a movie. It’s not that we don’t enjoy those things occasionally…but at the same time we both have big ambitious ideas constantly running through our minds that we want to accomplish, so frankly it just doesn’t happen. Once the babies are in bed, I do anything but go into relaxation mode. I get my workout in, I get chores done around the house, I get posts & blogs I want to do for Lively Girl organized…the list goes on. Matthew has a bunch of projects he works on around the house once they are down for the count, he works ahead at his job (he is an engineer) and he plans for big goals that he wants to accomplish- He’s a total list guy…I find them all over the house- it’s actually really cute I love reading them. Anyways, it’s great that we are ambitious, but it can be a problem if that’s literally all we want to do. We sat down with each other, just last week, and said okay…these are the nights we grind and work our butts off and then these are the nights we watch a tv show together & relax and eat dinner at the same time. That’s our current mission, to stay balanced. I feel like this is something all married couples go through at one point or another. Making time for romance & friendship, being great parents, and maintaining a solid work ethic! It’s a lot…but it is do-able!. Another thing I will say is communication has been key for us. Every morning, as we sip on our coffee we are talking about our goals and plans for the day. I list off the little things I want to get done and Matthew does the same. We make a plan for how we can spend one on one time together later that day, even if it is just going for a small walk or eating dinner at the table together. Communication is downright essential to a happy couple- especially when babies are thrown into the mix!

3.) What’s Your “go-to” Recipe Right Now? You Always Seem to Have a Crockpot Recipe you are Trying Out! SHARE!

Currently loving crockpot Spaghetti Squash!

#1: It is SO EASY.

#2: It’s healthy

#3: It’s husband approved!

Slow Cooker Spaghetti Squash And Turkey Meat Sauce:

Ingredients:

  • 1 lb. ground turkey
  • 1 TBSP cooking oil
  • 3 lb spaghetti squash
  • 23.5 oz jar of marinara sauce
  • 1 portabello mushroom (diced)
  • 1 garlic clove (minced)
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp. pepper
  • 1/2 tsp oregano
  • 1/2 tsp basil

Instructions:

1.) In a large pan on the stove add the oil and brown the turkey. Add to the slow cooker! Add the marinara, mushrooms, onion, garlic, salt, pepper, oregano, and basil. Stir.

2.) Cut the spaghetti squash in half, remove the seeds with a spoon.

3.) Add the squash cut side down in the slow cooker into the sauce.

4.) Cover and cook on HIGH for four hours!

 

4.) “I’m a Brand New Twin Mom and I’m Scared to do Bath Time on My Own. How Do You Do It?”

Hey, no worries here momma! I use to dread doing it on my own too because, frankly, it just stressed me out! It has gotten a lot easier as the babies hit the 6-month mark. This is how I did it last night. I always pick the crabbiest baby first to get bathed because I know they would not be okay sitting there by themselves. I take the more content baby and put them in the high chair. I actually bring the high chair into the hallway, that connects the bathroom to the nursery. My babies are obsessed with their spoons so I give them all the spoons-  legit, every single one because they all end up on the floor –  and have them facing me so they know I’m right there.

Say CHEEEEESE!

Before they could comfortably sit in the highchair, I would bring in one the baby bouncer chairs for one of them to sit in as I washed the other baby. I would then just swap them out! That also worked fairly well too!

5.) At the End Of a Long Day, What is Your Go-To to Wind Down?

A BATH! I’ll never forget how stressed I would get the first two months of being a momma. In all reality, it really hasn’t been that long but in some ways, it does feel like a lifetime ago. After putting the babes to bed- which used to be a two-hour stressful process since we were following a fairly rigid schedule – I would immediately go take a bath. Something about the warm water just instantly calmed me and I might have snuck a glass of wine in there with me as well! Hm, who knows!

I want to conclude this post with a quote because (if you do not know already) I am a total quote junkie. I’m the girl that looks up quotes for an hour straight, late at night, simply because they speak to my soul.

Don’t be ashamed of your story, it will inspire others.”

This one completely tugs at my heartstrings. I read this and it hit me that I’ve shared so many of the struggles in my life on this page that use to shame me. It’s fun to see myself grow. Is there anything you were once ashamed of, but have turned into a positive to inspire others. I would love to know. For any brave individual, comment below and share!

Happy Thursday, Lively folk! As always, thanks for stopping by the blog today!