Right before I recorded this podcast, I sat laying in between my 2 girls thinking, wow. Who knew life would have looked like this? I know I personally never saw myself with 2 children. 1 maybe, but 2, I can’t even believe it. Can’t wrap my head around it. Just never really thought it was gonna be in the cards for me. But, alas, here we are.
Transitioning From One Child To Two
And I thought I’d give a bit of a life update, as well as my own opinion about what it’s really like to go from 1 child to 2. Surprisingly, one of my most searched for episodes of my podcast is all about the benefits of being an only child versus having more than one child.
And if you don’t know, I’ll remind you that both myself and my husband are only children. And making the decision to go from 1 to 2 was something that we really had to think about and explore.
And I encourage you to listen to that episode if you haven’t already. It’s, like I said, one of my top downloaded ones, so go check it out.
But in keeping with the theme, I would want to share about more of my thoughts on what it is like because I am in the thick of it. Amazingly enough, I am truly overjoyed with having both children watching their interactions with one another and knowing that the bonds and the love they have for one another will only expand with time as will mine for both of them.
There is something new and eye opening to this whole wonderful world. It’s beyond words, experiences. I saw a I can’t remember if it was an Instagram reel or TikTok. I’m back on TikTok lately, so it could have been on there.
But it was a mom holding her young child, a toddler, and just dancing and rocking back and forth. And the caption over it was, how do you explain to someone who doesn’t have children what this feels like?
And like I said, I wasn’t a 100% positive I would ever be a mom. You know, I just reached a certain point in my life where, you know, I was getting older. My husband and I were in a routine.
We are very career driven individuals, and I just didn’t know if that was gonna happen. And now having 2 little girls, he and I both say, like, we can’t imagine life without them, and and we kinda forget what life was like.
Emotional reflections on motherhood
And I know when you don’t have kids, because like I said, we were together for a long time together. I didn’t have my first child till I was 35 years old. And you don’t know what you don’t know. Right? And so when I saw that TikTok with that mom saying, like, how do you describe this feeling? You can’t. It’s it is indescribable. It it truly is.
So I will say the only downside of being a parent I mean, yes, you get tired and you can get touched out and you can have your cortisol go through the roof. Right? Because you have all these spinning plates. But to me, the hardest part is time passing so quickly.
And you really have a better idea of how fast time moves when you have kids. Because like I said, my husband and I were very habitual. We would be in New York 6 months, Florida 6 months. It was just like rinse and repeat year after year.
We would travel, we have so many experiences with one another, but you kinda would blink and and it was just the same year in year out. You never really appreciated how time was going by.
Time and Parenting – Be In The Moment
Whereas, when you have a kid and you literally are seeing them grow out of clothes, and you’re seeing them hit these milestones of teeth and walking and their vocabulary expanding, or recently my my toddler doesn’t need us to go in the pool with her anymore for swim lessons. She goes right in with the instructor.
Like, it’s things like that that really make you appreciate how bittersweet being a parent is. Like, you’re so grateful to have these experiences with your child, but you can’t bottle them up. Like, you just have to try to stay in the moment and appreciate all that time because it just goes so fast. And I encourage any new parent to take as many photos and videos as possible.
Because what I’m noticing now with my toddler versus my newborn is, like, I kinda forget what my toddler was like as a baby. I know it wasn’t that long ago. She’s only a little over 2 and a half years old, but I really love watching all those old videos and photos of her.
And what I will say is going from 1 to 2, it’s very easy to forget to take those milestone videos and photos. I hate to say this, but with my baby, I missed her 2 month photos. Totally whiffed, totally forgot it. And I took them 2 weeks late. And that is the life of having more than one child.
It’s the fact. And I could go on and on about my developing family’s life journey, and I will continue in this episode and beyond. Plus my website and my podcast team, they’re I know they want me to really focus this week on going from 1 to 2.
And the reason why I say that is because people are searching for it in the SEO, that’s the search engine optimization. So whether you’re contemplating having another child or perhaps you’re past that season, but you want someone to kinda relate to your past experiences, like, I got you.
Like, we’re gonna talk all about that today.
But now, before we dive into all of that, I wanna share a couple of questions that I was asked this week by my friends on social media. As you probably know and you’ve gathered by now, I’m a cesspool of knowledge, and I swear, every week I’m getting asked my personal opinion on all the things, any given topic.
There’s no limits. I’m your virtual millennial, dear Abby, if you will. And as always, I want you to know I have no problem taking the time to answer these questions. I encourage it. I’m always open to conversation.
So please do not hesitate to reach out to me on Instagram, especially. That’s where I am 99% of the time. My handle is @macrowley, or you can always send me an email.
And my email address is [email protected]. I love chatting with you. I love connecting with you, but I also understand that sometimes the questions that you wanna ask can be a bit heavy.
You have friends of friends of friends that follow me and you don’t want them to know that you’re, you know, talking to me about said subject or asking me said question. So you wanna remain anonymous and I can appreciate that.
So please go to my website and you can fill out a short questionnaire there and you can remain completely anonymous. And you can also check out some of the responses that I’ve given to people for the questions that they’ve asked. So that’s another resource for you and a place that you can drop all of your questions that can be answered here on the podcast.
Audience Question 1: Double Decker Feature of the UPPAbaby Vista
So the first question, which came after one of my friends saw me post a photo on my Instagram stories of my 2 girls. I was taking them on a walk, and they were in their UPPAbaby stroller. Was, do you like the double decker feature of the UPPAbaby Vista?
The short answer is no. I don’t love it, but I’m rolling with it, no pun intended, for now. And the reasons being, first of all, if you do have the UPPAbaby Vista without the double decker, it is heavy as you know it.
It is not, in my opinion, a very easy stroller to maneuver by yourself, especially if you’re out and about and you’re juggling a kid. If you have an SUV and it’s high off the ground, you gotta lift it that much higher. It it’s heavy.
I mean, there’s no getting around it. That stroller is heavy. It’s beautiful, and I love it when I have been traveling for long periods of time. And in my house, we call the UPPAbaby our Bentley, and our fold up stroller is our Honda. But no judgment. No judgment.
You just know what we’re going with here. Okay? Roll with me, like, it’s fine.
I’m not hating on you or discriminating you based upon what you drive, but you get the idea. Like, it has all the bells and whistles, the UPPAbaby can handle so many different terrains, but the reality is, like a Honda, my fold up stroller is the old reliable, like you can’t kill it.
It just it’s fantastic. It’s just like every single person you know that owns a Honda, how many freaking 100s of 1000s of miles do they have on their Honda? Okay. You and I both know it. So I always just tend to gravitate towards my fold up stroller. It’s not, you know, cheap.
It was like a $100 compared to the 100s and 100s of dollars the UPPAbaby is. But that’s what my go to when we’re out and about, when I travel even, I love that one. Because with the UPPAbaby, the Vista, and I guess I’m not gonna get sponsored by them after all of this.
But the trouble with the double decker is you have to put the heavier child on the bottom of the stroller, so it won’t tip. Like, that’s what they tell you. Now don’t get me wrong. I have seen other people not do that, but I produce very large babies. My toddler is over 30 lbs, my she’s not really a newborn anymore.
My baby, she’s gotta be 15 lbs, is my guess, or close to it. But when you have the heavier child on the ground, that’s obviously not the ground, like lower to the ground. That’s obviously your older child, your taller child.
So my toddler, she has to sit cross legged so that her legs don’t drag on the ground. Meanwhile, the 3 month old, she’s sitting like a queen in the top, in that big massive seat, which is almost swallowing her. Right? Because it’s so much bigger than the little booster seat that my toddler is in.
And every time I get back from a walk, I have to make my toddler get out first because I and I’m strong. I can’t lift and tilt my stroller up and over the half a step and over the threshold into my front door.
I just can’t do it. It’s impossible. So I love that I’m getting more use out of this stroller. Now, with 2 babies. Right? Like I said, isn’t cheap. It is easy to pop in the car seat for my baby, but it’s heavy.
So when in doubt, go for the fold up stroller, it’s the way to go. I will say though, last thing about the stroller, I don’t wanna harp on this.
I like that it’s narrow, and it doesn’t take up a ton of space. There’s a lot of bells and whistles with it, you guys gotta buy all these extra parts, adapters, yada yada. But it is that same basic foundation, whereas a lot of these other strollers out there with 2 babies in them, they’re wide, because they’re sitting right next to one another, and they taste take up a ton of space.
So, anyway, that’s my thoughts on that.
Audience Question 2: Nutrition and Fitness Supplements
Also, this week, I got a lot of questions regarding what I plan on switching to as far as my protein shake, my electrolytes, yada yada, all the things now that I am no longer going to be a Beachbody partner as of January 1st.
I will say I made the switch with my electrolytes a while ago. I switched to Paleo Valley. I switched to them, gosh, during my first pregnancy.
So I haven’t been as faithful to Beachbody as some of these other die hards were, like riding off into the sunset, with their heads in the sand. Like, I knew there was better stuff out there, and I found it, and I truly love the watermelon electrolytes from Paleo Valley.
I also love their chocolate bone broth. Now, does it have the same super food content as Shakeology? No. And I will tell you that I haven’t found one that has all of those ingredients like Shakeology.
Truthfully, I haven’t looked, but I do plan on looking, because one of my major concerns that I voiced before is that now that Beachbody is public, dissolving its coaching network, like making all these changes, selling on Amazon, I am a bit concerned about the efficacy, quite frankly, of Shakeology. So we’ll see. I also believe that it’s a double edged sword.
So, like, you have a lot of crap, quite frankly, that can be sold on Amazon, and sometimes you aren’t even getting what you think you are. You know, the supplements stay on the shelves too long on Amazon.
They are coming from these weird third parties sometimes. But I also believe that in network marketing, a lot of times, you are paying much more for a product than it’s really worth. Reason being, you are you’re getting it from a company that they’re charging more for the product.
Because they have to cover other costs for their network marketing business. It’s not a straight, you know, directs… it’s direct sales, but it’s not direct to consumer. They have to cover the conferences.
They have to cover the commission payments to their associates, their partners, or whatever they wanna call them, whatever said company is.
So a lot of times, these products that you’re getting from direct sales companies, network marketing companies, they’re overcharging you to cover their own costs. I’m just calling it how it is. It’s the truth. And you could find similar products on the market and just buy them directly from the company and and not pay as much.
So I have to do some more research on that. I will tell you that my husband and I both focus a lot on protein intake. His new supplement of the moment is creatine, so I’ll update you on how we deal with that.
It’s a new supplement in our household, but there’s a lot of benefits to that. But given that we are athletes, we both burn a ton of calories. We are on our feet all day. I’m literally, like, massaging my quads right now, because I just had a really long day teaching and running around running an event.
So we’re burning calories left and right, and we work out probably between the 2 of us. I would say we commit to at least 4 days a week. Sometimes we push the the 5 days on on top of our busy schedules, and we wanna make sure that we are supporting all of the gains that we are attempting to make in in our gym.
What’s the point if if you’re not gonna be able to see, like, the fruits of your labor, so to speak? And not to mention, I’m also breastfeeding, so I’m burning even more calories.
And I will say, it is a myth that you will lose your supply because you work out. Most women are losing their supply because they’re not supporting their bodies properly. I worked out all last postpartum period, got into the best shape of my life. I breastfed my toddler until her 2nd birthday. I had zero supply issues. We’re going strong right now.
I don’t like to, like, flex when it comes to supply because I know everyone is different. But I’m just here to tell you, like, you have to have protein.
Importance of protein intake for active lifestyle and breastfeeding
And if you’re struggling to produce or you’re not creating enough, I would really take a solid look at your hydration. I would take a solid look at your protein intake, and you gotta go above and beyond. You can’t just go by the food that you’re eating. You just can’t.
You know, I’ve I’ve always stayed hydrated, like I said, with paleo valley’s electrolytes. I eat a ton of protein, you know, solid foods, you know, eggs, chicken, steak. I mean, I eat a lot of red meat. But let’s be real, there’s only so much solid food that you can have in a day.
And if I can’t get my protein in one sitting, I’ll make sure that I’m snacking through the day with Paleo Valley’s beef sticks. And I have it as a snack, like at night, If I know I burnt a ton of calories and especially if I’m craving something sweet, I will drink their chocolate bone broth. I swear to you, it tastes just like Swiss Miss hot chocolate. No joke.
Just like close your eyes, pretend there’s some marshmallows on it, and you just got done with a long day of skiing. Like, I swear to you. But, obviously, it’s a lot better for you. My favorite time to drink it is in the evening, like, kind of prevent myself from diving into those chocolate chip cookies.
But I will also mix it with my post workout protein shake for that extra boost. And depending on your activity levels, it is recommended that you have 0.8 grams for every pound of your body weight.
Now, obviously, your activity level, like I mentioned, I’m super active, so I go above and beyond that. But just relatively speaking, if you’re a 140 lbs, that’s 51 grams of protein. Now, like I said, your food, your breakfast, your lunch, your dinner, it can only do so much without you feeling like a stuffed pig, to be quite frank.
Because for reference, one egg is 6 to 7 grams of protein. Four ounces of a chicken breast is 27 grams of protein. Personally, I like to make sure my bases are covered, and it makes my life a lot easier to know that I’m hitting these numbers, when I can add in things like the beef sticks or the bone broth, and and know 100% – okay – that beef stick, boom, another 6 grams of protein. Boom. The bone broth, 15 grams.
I could talk about Paleo Valley’s products all day. I don’t wanna bore you. We use so many of them in our house, but I will make sure that I put my 15% discount link in the show notes for you. You can explore the website.
It’ll apply to all the different products. Like I said, vitamin c, beef sticks, bone broth, electrolytes, apple cider vinegar. I know I’m missing some things that we we use from them, but I’m telling you, they’re a fantastic company.
Oh, my gosh. I could talk about motherhood all day, every day. But to honor your time, I wanna make sure we split this episode up into 2 parts. So make sure you join me next week for part 2 of this extended episode on the topic of what it’s really like to go from having 1 child to 2. And I appreciate you tuning in.
