Last Chance The personal blog of Kiara Gilbert

Life

Well, life's been pretty busy lately. Alex will be two months old on the 21, and she's already acting like a much older baby! Let's just say, most babies do not sleep through the night this young. She does. I've started using that Johnson & Johnson Bedtime Bath stuff with both the girls, and it really does help them sleep easier and better. I love it! I've even got the nightly routine down pat (not so easy when you're a single parent): I give Alex a bath, put her in clothes that cover her from the neck down, give her a warm bottle and asleep she goes! She usually falls asleep about nine, and sleeps until nine or ten the next morning. Since she sleeps so much at night, she's awake most of the day, which is fine with me. After she falls asleep, I get Ariel bathed, dressed and put down, and she sleeps until an hour or two after Alex wakes up, which gives me a little time to focus just on Alex.

Alex's father still hasn't seen her. I always thought Ariel's father was the biggest jerk, but at least he had the decency - and the balls - to show up at the hospital. Of course, I had Ariel late at night, so most of my friends weren't at work or in school (like when I had Alex).  It was a friend of mine who called Mike to tell him I was having the baby; I didn't call David until after they moved me to my room a few hours after I had Alex. But still, he knew where I was. He could've showed up.

Anyway, I digress. I have my check up in about a week, so that makes me happy. I'm already doing some light excerising; I've decided I want to learn how to belly dance! It's an awesome workout (have you see the abs on belly dancers??), and it's low impact, unlike lifting weights or something. I have weak knees, so I needed something like this. I've wanted to learn for years anyway, and now I have good incentive - I want to lose ten-fifteen pounds by Mike & Chau's wedding in August. I picked up a belly dance work out DVD a few days ago from someone off of Freecycle, and I'm picking up some belly dance clothes and some more DVD's this weekend. I also ordered two DVD's this afternoon and I  should be getting those within a week or so. I'm going to work out once a day Monday-Friday; every day I'll do a different DVD, so I don't get too bored. I've been working out while Alex naps during the day, and Ariel stands near me watching - she even tried to copy me today, it was so cute. I'm already a healthy eater, so I don't need to change anything in my diet.

I got a new cell phone! I have a Blackberry Pearl 8100 now. My Samsung flip phone broke, and I was already supposed to get my sister-in-law's almost brand new Pearl because she upgraded to the Curve when it came to T-Mobile. I love it! :)

The past few weeks, whenever I wore my foundation, my skin's been really itchy. I thought I had developed an allergy to it; but no. It was dead skin. After scratching my face a few times, I looked in a mirror and saw that my scratching had caused patches of dry skin to show up on my cheeks. I'm assuming that's why I was so itchy. I ran out of my normal exfoliating face wash a few days ago, so today I used salt and baby oil.

Yes, you read that right. I got the idea from a spa treatment I learned in massage therapy school (salt and massage oil or lotion). I just put some baby oil in the palm of my hand (I have some that smells like lavendar), added some salt, mixed it while it was still in my palm, then rubbed it onto my face where I have dry skin. The baby oil softens the dead skin, making exfoliation easier, and the salt is what actually takes the dead skin off. Another benefit: if you only wash the salt off, and leave the baby oil on, it moisturizes and softens the skin. This is great for me, since I have really dry skin on my cheeks, around my nose and at my eyebrows; dry skin shows fine lines and wrinkles much easier then oily or normal skin does. If you have oily skin, don't try my baby oil and salt exfoliating wash - or, if you do, you have to wash the baby oil off COMPLETELY. (Tip: if you don't know what kind of skin you have, here's some tips. If you're skin feels tight after washing, you have dry skin. If your skin looks shiny when you're not sweating, you have oily skin. If it doesn't feel tight and you don't have shiny spots, you have normal skin. If you have both, you have - guess what? - combination skin like me.) Just don't rub this mixture over your face too hard - trust me, it does not feel good (or look good, 'cause it makes your face red if you rub too hard). If you want, you could use sea salt instead of regular salt. I just used what I had on hand, since I was desperate to stop the itching. Oh, and do I really need to tell you not to put any other mosturizer on if you keep the baby oil on after washing the salt off? I didn't think so.