The project, it hath begun ...

No cowbell today, I promise.

Instead, wow, it's been two weeks since the Blessed Event--no, not the election or the fact that gas is still under $2 here. You know what I'm talking about (even if you're probably sick of hearing about this fabulous, perfect little poop-and-smiles-generator that's sleeping in the crib behind me) (yes, did I mention that she smiles now when I tickle her with my hair?) (ok, no more baby talk--promise!) (I think).

So, it's been roughly two weeks since the c-section. It's been eleven days since I came home ten pounds heavier than I went into the hospital--mostly because of the perpetual saline or ringer drips I was on. However you want to spin it, this morning, I weighed 30 pounds less than two weeks ago, and 40 pounds less than eleven days ago. In other words, I'm nine pounds away from my pre-pregnancy weight. Nine measly pounds! I'm also at the cusp of a light exercise program, as in walking around the block once a day, up the stairs one or two handful of times, and using my 3- or 5-pound weights to do some muscle archeology starting once TBIK is back at work. Now, I'm not kidding myself: Those 30 or 40 pounds lost, they are, according to the "normal" statistics

8 lbs Little Miss Wonderful herself (did I mention that she smells better than chocolate? I mean, BETTER THAN CHOCOLATE???).
2 lbs Amniotic Fluid (which baby dutifully pooped out during the first 3 days)
1.5 - 2 lbs Placenta (did I mention she lost her umbilical cord stump yesterday? My baby is becoming independent already! WAAAAH!)
1.5 - 2 lbs Breast Tissue (which she loves cuddling)
3 lbs Blood Volume (curdling each time I think about going back to work and having to trust my baby to someone else. I mean, this is my BABEEE!)
2 - 2.5 lbs Uterine Muscle (ah, the glorious swaddling techniques the Chinese nurse taught us! So useful during nighttime, which is about SLEEP! For everyone! Someone get the message to Little Smileyface! No, we're not playing with Baby Einstein at 2 a.m.! Much. Anymore.)

Which, in my case, leaves about 13-23 pounds that could be divided up into, oh, 10 pounds water, 10 pounds of cankles, and 3 pounds of hormones. Ohmigosh, those hormones! To my credit, I no longer cry every 10 minutes about "oh, how perfect she is!" "oh gosh, how can we let those poor polar bears die?" or "oh, poor Ozzy Osborne really needs a speech therapist!"; the night sweats hardly wake up shivering in drenched sheets any more; and it seems that my girl parts are eager to, um, return to normal. Which means four more weeks (or 40,320 minutes) of self-control. Not that TBIK anyone's counting. Especially when you can turn over the side of your bed and sniff on something that smells better than chocolate. Ha!

And then, there's something that's a close number two:

My favorite purple suede peep toe pumps and me. Yes, we made hot sticky lurve today. Because those ten-pound cankles, they are GONE!

Anyway, so, one of my obvious goals this year is to get my post-pregnancy body back in shape. I realize that I've most likely lost a lot of muscle tissue and gained more fat tissue--one reason why I haven't tried on my prepregnancy jeans yet. I'm also realizing that, because of changes in the muscle architecture, regular crunches won't bring back the erstwhile washboard abs. Instead, since abs separate over a growing uterus, pulling them back together happens through exercising the transverse and oblique musculature (at least, that's what Fit Pregnancy says). So, if I curse the plank and the evil pushup on this blog in the near future, you'll know why.

Other than that, though, we're doing fine. Very, chocolatey, purply-pumpsy fine! And I think I didn't even mention the baby you-know-what once in this post!