Quick update

I've been super busy lately, but I did want to take the time to update y'all on a couple of things.

Went to the doctor yesterday.
He is putting me on the South Beach diet and I need to go get blood work done next week to check my blood sugar for insulin resistance. He also wants me to start excercising 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes in the evening.

But my blood pressure is great- 105/80
And my Asthma is under control.
So those are both positives.

One thing he said bugged me, and I know he didn't mean it to come across the way it did so I'm trying to let it go. He said "loosing weight isn't as hard as people try to make it out to be." Obviously he has never had to battle a weight problem.

Work is busy busy busy right now. So I can't post as much as I would like, but I am still reading your blogs and still rooting for you all!

wishing i hadn't.......

I was totally stress eating yesterday.

And I didn't care at all.

I was home alone with my son  while my husband went to work and SAK was being a typical 2 year old. Clingy and wanting to jump all over and I couldn't get him to settle for most of the afternoon. I should have taken him outside. But I didn't. I was tired, I just wanted to sit and be still and read a book while he played quietly with his toys.

Yeah that didn't happen.

And then I got mad because he started to hit me (in an attempt to get my attention) and I asked him to stop and he laughed at my firm voice and kicked me in the face so I tried to "supernanny" him and he laughed and thought that time out was a game when I tried to put him in the naughty corner and I was getting more and more frustrated and........

I spanked him.

Two smacks on the diaper. It wasn't hard and I know I didn't hurt him and this was far from abuse, but it's not how I want to parent my child. It was a reflexive action held over from my own upbringing. He cried, I felt awful immediately afterwards and hugged him and said I was sorry.....and he stopped crying right away and forgot all about it in a few minutes....

I ate two cookies and a hunk of banana bread. And a glass of vanilla milk. And I cried.

I still have a bad case of the guilties and feel like the world's worst mother today. (though I do know that there are obviously worse mothers out there, it doesn't really make me feel better)

I miss my Mr. Mom

Okay,

It's been a week since my husband finally got a job. I am grateful for the income, we certainly need it.

BUT

I miss having my husband at home all day while I'm at work. It was really kind of nice having a house -husband.

He was able to take care of our son so we didn't have to rely on a non-parent to raise him.
He was able to run errends like going to the post office or picking up milk.
He would get dinner started for me occasionally so I didn't have to.
I was able to call him periodically throughout the day to talk.
He would do the laundry and the dishes while I was at work.
If I asked him to he would straighten up the apartment a bit.

But now he's not there, and my MIL is watching my son. She is really doing us a huge favor and I'm trying to have a grateful heart about it.... but deep down I really resent it and it's driving me crazy. I hate that she is spending so much more time with him than i am. I'm totally jealous and it really sucks. Plus I can't just pick him up and go, noooo I have to do a mini-visit. And yesterday she let him take a nap at 5:00. And my ding bat husband listened to her when she told him to "let him sleep a little" when he went to pick him up and he napped until 6:10. So when they finally got home at 6:30, Sak was cranky and wanted nothing to do with the dinner I cooked, threw a tantrum when it was time to take a bath, and tossed and turned in bed for 45 minutes before finally falling asleep around 10pm. I was annoyed, but I held my tongue.

I have a mountain of laundry waiting for me when I get home tonight. I want to get it done because I'm taking SAK to visit my sister who is expecting my first neice in January tomorrow. We're going to go to a nice little farm and drink apple cider and have a pony ride. And Hubby doesn't want to come with us because it's a 2 hour drive each way and he doesn't want to spend his day off in the car. I understand that, but I really would like to be able to spend some quality family time together. So I'm irritated about that too.

And the next bit here is a bit TMI so here's your fair warning....

We've hit a bit of a dry spell in the "romance" department. We just haven't been able to get in synch lately where we both want to at the same time for awhile. Whenever that happens I start feeling insecure and vulnerable, even if I know it doesn't really mean anything. I guess "romance" for me is validation that things are good between us and that he loves and cherishes me and when we haven't been "romantic" for awhile it's harder to keep the self-hating negative thoughts at bay.

I'll get over it, I just need time I think to adjust to the new routine.

Weigh in for October

Okay, so I caved to my internal pressure this morning and weighed myself.


It wasn’t as bad as it could have been. But it wasn’t as good as I had hoped it would be by now.

I’m back down to 218.4.

I know I’m not going to reach my final goal this year, but I would really REALLY like to be under 200 before New Year’s day.

That means I have to lose 18.5 pounds in 73 days. That’s less than 2 pounds per week. I know that I can do this if I buckle down and put my mind to it. I was doing great at the beginning of the year then slumped over the summer and having really been able to get my engine started as fall closed in on me.

I’m done pussy footing around.

Failure is no longer even an option.

But I don't wanna eat the cheesecake!

OK, so I have a dilemma.


I have trouble disappointing people. I’m a people pleaser by nature (or is it nurture?). This leads to many problems and issues in my day to day and can sometimes drive my husband absolutely nuts.

But the one issue I’m going to discuss here is how it affects what I eat.

In the civilized world food and drink has taken on a cultural significance above and beyond that of fuel for the body. It is the primary vehicle for family to re-connect after a long day apart. It is the centerpiece of a celebration feast. It is the way we show love and acceptance of one another. It is the grease of the social machine.

Since I have been dieting in earnest this year I have noticed a disturbing trend. Some people get outright offended when you don’t eat the way they think you should eat. They get mad. They huff and puff and get all red in the face and start gossiping about you behind your back. What the heck is that about anyway!

So me being a natural people pleaser I try to compromise. I do the whole “one small piece won’t kill me” thing. But since I wasn’t planning all day to eat that “one small piece” it is killing me, well at least it’s killing my diet. So anyway, I’m going to list top 5 culprits of the guilt machine who are trying to make me feel bad about losing weight and sabotaging my efforts.

5.) Team Workplace- Man the people I work with love to eat. There are weeks I think we spend more time eating than working. Bagels on Friday, French toast on Monday, Pizza and Chinese lunches, pastries and cakes and cookies…I can usually resist them, but I hate being the “difficult” one on the team when the company is buying lunch so I usually just say the pizza is fine and suffer in silence.

4.) My skinny bitch sister – This girl has always eaten whatever she wanted and never been larger than a size 8 in her life. I go to her house to visit and all she has is whole milk and real sugar and frosted sugar cookies. And she’s a picky eater. So forget making anything light or healthy when she comes to visit. She won’t eat vegetables. I tried making smashed cauliflower for her once and she literally gagged. She’s basically a carb junky but it doesn’t affect her body the way it affects mine. I curse her for taking all of the “good genes” from the pool.

3.) My crazy juiced up brother in law – He’s an amateur body builder and in his own way tries to be supportive and encouraging when he sees I’m losing weight. But he eats really weird food like tuna and sweet potatoes for lunch and egg whites and oatmeal for dinner and tries to make me second guess my own eating plan and I just end up getting confused. Plus he and my sister in law like to “cheat” on the weekends and then send all the leftover bad foods home with us so they won’t be in their house during the week. So now the “cheat” foods are in my house staring me down during the week. Thanks guys.

2.) My mom. Lord love her she tries. I know how hard she tries. And I know she doesn’t understand what it is I’m doing here. She knows we’re hard up for cash so she tries to invite us over to eat a lot. The thing is that she cooks with a lot of sauces and starches and fat….you know… like mom. And here’s the big secret- I’m a better cook than she is, and she hates that. So I have to tell her all the time how good everything is and take a second helping and do the whole “I can never get my meatloaf to come out like this…”type of gushing. I use my son as an excuse to leave before desert a lot. Yet she still insists on sending some home with us. Oh and she’s the one person in this world who has no problem telling me how fat and disgusting I am and she can never EVER tell that I’ve lost a few pounds. If I do say I’ve lost a few since I last saw her, she has to say she lost more. You know, the more I think about this, the more I feel like she is in competition with me or something. Yeah, she’s a psycho, but she’s also my mom and I love her just the same.

1.) My mother in law- This lady wins the grand prize. She (like my mom) is a little psycho about things. Minor inconveniences can set her off on a toddler sized temper tantrum. She loves to cook and is completely offended by any suggestion that anything she makes should not be eaten. In fact when she stays with my sister in law and her husband (see number 3) she calls me non-stop to complain about how much she hates him and the disgusting things they eat and how she can stay there because they won’t eat her food, etc. Her entire self-identity is wrapped up in how good of a homemaker she is. She loves to bake and has a severe sweet-tooth. She is constantly trying to push cakes and candy onto my two year old son (another big bone of contention, don't get me started!) and takes rejection of her cheesecake as a personal insult. She has been back in town for exactly 3 days. In that time she has sent over 1 tub of sugar cookies, one package of oatmeal cookies, fried porkchops, mashed potatoes, kielbasa, and pizza.

So how do you do it? How do you say “No thanks, that’s not really on my diet” without sounding like a calorie Nazi? And if someone has gotten offended when you turned down their prized pecan pie, what do you say? I don’t want to be fat just to be nice.

It’s only going to get worse over the next few months so any suggestions are welcome!

Because I like to sleep...

Ah parenthood…


So my son has finally broken my spirit. It was a devious plan. He began waking up a little early, just before I would get up for work around 6:30. The he started waking at 5am. So I would bring him into bed with us to snuggle for a bit and sometimes he would fall back to sleep. Then out of the blue he woke up at 3 am and I said to myself, no way, he’s going to have to cry it out. I got up checked on him laid him back down in the crib and left him there. He cried until 5am at which point I cracked and got him up and put him in bed with us. Then he started doing that earlier and earlier. 2 am… 1 am…. 11 pm ….etc.

NOW he won’t sleep in his crib AT ALL anymore.

I know I know I made a mistake I never should have brought him into bed with us that first night but I have to work and I needed my sleep too. And besides, how was I to know that my kid was a genius and had been plotting the invasion of mommy and daddy’s bed for months in advance?



Not our real feet....

 So needless to say I’m trying to figure out how to undo the damage I’ve inadvertently done. We were planning to make the move into a big boy’s bed next month anyway, so I’ve decided to push that up by a few weeks and we’re going to go buy it on Friday. Once his bed is all set-up in his room we’re going to start sleep training him to stay in it. I think it’s more logical to do it this way so that I’m not getting him to sleep in his crib again and then taking it away from him…

I’m just not sure how to do it. I’m not a mean mommy. I hate to hear him upset. It makes me feel physically ill. And from what I understand I can expect a lot of tears and why mommies and sleepless nights while we undertake this. SO I want to hear from all the mommies out there in blogland… what’s the best way to do this? I never had to sleep train him as an infant, he always just went to sleep on his own. Nights here or there of crying of course but never on this scale.

Do I-

a. Start off sleeping in his big boy bed with him and gradually wean him off of having me there.

b. Stay with him in bed until he falls asleep and then sneak out hoping he doesn’t wake up.

c. Tuck him in, snuggle, read a story and leave while he’s still awake. And just bring him back to bed each time he gets up amid tears and protests. (super nanny style)

d. Put him to bed, lock the door so he can’t get out and put him back in his bed at increasingly longer intervals, after 5 minutes, then 10 minutes, then 15 minutes, etc. until he collapses from exhaustion. (Ferber method)

I think I would like to try option B, but I think that C has the best chance of providing consistent results faster.

I just want to be able to have that hour or two in the evening with my husband and get a good night sleep without causing my son psychological damage. Is that too much to ask?

My Horoscope today...

Leo-
If anyone is innately self-confident, it's you. Still, you've had the urge to make some physical changes on and off lately, and it's back again in full force. Well, what's the holdup? You know where you are and where you want to be. That's the first step and the last. All you have to do now is fill in the middle and you're on your way. It may be easier said than done, but think of how proud you'll feel.


Um, okay, I never really put much stock in these things but whoever is doing the horoscopes for Verizon's Yahoo home page has either been stalking me the last few days or is damn good at reading the stars!