I’ve been neglecting you guys lately and I apologize!
Here are some progress photos as of today. (I can’t really tell the difference between February & March – mostly because I think I’ve lost 10 pounds of boob.)
I will be back soon, PROMISE!
(I actually had a much longer post I composed on my phone and lost the whole thing. Grr.)
My official weigh in this morning (Tuesday) was 235 pounds. That is a fifteen pound loss since January 3rd. To be perfectly honest, I am disappointed in that number.
This time around, it’s been different. The cravings are far less, cheating few and far between and numbers much lower. I’m having a hard time believing my age is playing a factor (I’m only 25!) and am beginning to think the RIGHT way is the SLOW way.
If I was able to keep my ass off the damn scale I’d be a lot better off. Alas, I cannot. Woe.
At the moment, exercise is alluding me and I am 100% okay with it. For now. I wake up as it is at 6:00 am (or earlier) to a crying baby, out the door by 7:00 to make the thirty minute trip to daycare, deal with all the bullshit at work, make the hour trip home, cook dinner, clean up from dinner, do laundry, clean, bathe Landon, put him to bed, clean up the house for the night, get bottles/food/my breakfast and lunch ready for the next day, bathe MYSELF, and somewhere in between try to keep Mark happy. So, exercise? Not at the top of my list or even in the middle of my list.
I took a picture of myself this morning to document what I look like in real clothes. Here is what 235 pounds looks like, on me.
You see!? Landon does wear clothes, most of the time. You can totally see the Asian in him in this photo.
The cocked hip is not a slimming technique but merely, an attempt to keep my sleepy baby from crashing to the ground.
Also, please don’t judge me by the extreme LACK of furnishings in our bedroom, we lack funds to accomplish such things.
Since Landon got sick a few weeks ago, our nights have been ROUGH. In the course of the few days he was sick, he got very used to us coming in to soothe him in the middle of the night.
Prior to the Great Plague of 2011, he was sleeping like a champ. He would drink his bottle, say goodnight to Daddy, and be put in his crib without incident. No screaming or crying just a roll to the side to cuddle with his blankie and he was zonked out.
Yesterday, Mark and I (in our exhaustion fog) decided something had to be done. Our sweet boy was going to learn that hours between 9 PM – 6 AM are not made for cuddles. I had heard about the Ferber method a few times before, when Landon was a teensy baby, and thought it was a bit cruel for what I was trying to accomplish at the time. Now? Bring.it.on.
Landon rarely fusses unless he is very tired or very hungry. The plan was, at the first sign of fuss he would get a bath, bottle and then bed.
“The Fuss” reared it’s ugly head around 7:00 last night but we kept it at bay with an empty diaper box until 7:30. Go us! Bathtime was accomplished by 7:45. Bedtime preparations were over by 8:00 and he was in his bed by 8:15. Previously, we would try to keep him up past 9:30 in hopes he’d be so exhausted he would sleep all night. Clearly, we are geniuses dumbasses.
As I walked him to his crib to lay him down the realization hit him and the screaming began. I gave him a kiss and whispered night-night and put him down. OH, did I also mention, we are paci breaking at the same time? We are gluttons for punishments, obvs!
He screamed for approximately 28 mintes. Just as suddenly as it began, it stopped. I wanted to go and check on him so badly. I waited. I sure in Hell was not about to wake him up.
When I finally snuck in there, he was sound asleep, snoring like a grown man. No paci and no soothing from Mama.
The victory in the whole thing is, he slept from 8:45ish until I woke him up this morning. No middle of the night cuddle calls.
Hopefully it continues this way.
Here is my guy last night trying to get the diaper box off the couch.
Yes, I am aware that the kid never wears pants.
Walnuts, that is.
Every morning for breakfast during the week, I have the same thing to eat. High fiber or weight control oatmeal with a 1/4 cup of chopped walnuts and 1/4 cup fat free milk.
Somehow, in my silly little brain, I totally underestimated the Points+ value of the walnuts. If you do the math of the breakfast (4 point oatmeal)+(6 point omg walnuts)+(1 point milk) = 11 points for breakfast.
People.
An egg McMuffin is only 8 points.
I don’t even know what I was thinking. Besides, not thinking at all. There is no telling just how many points I was going over each day.
Basically, in summary, shiiiiiiiiit.
Superbowl happened this weekend and may I just tell you all, I shot my proverbial wad on that one. Crumb cake muffins and cookie cake. That shit isn’t even typical Superbowl food.
I tried to stay away. I did. This morning, I felt like I was going.to.die. My stomach felt like it was being braided up into a french braid and tied up into a rubberband. Yeah, like that!
Now, thinking back on it, it wasn’t even slightly worth it. My small victory of the evening? I didn’t drink any beer.
Invisible friends, I need your advice.
Landon is almost nine months old, in about two weeks. He doesn’t crawl, or even attempt to crawl. When on his stomach he doesn’t even get up on his hands and knees. His pediatrician has assured me he will crawl on his own time but, as the weeks fly by, the more worried I become. Maybe it’s the sheer weight that hinders his progress, maybe he is lazy like his Mom.
We have tried to bribe him with, every! thing! No interest, whatsoever. On his stomach, he flips almost immediately. Mark and I have gotten down on our hands and knees to SHOW him how it’s done. We prop him on HIS hands and knees to show him how he SHOULD be positioned, arms give out.
Also, he has no teeth buds.
So, any advice?
It’s been about 1 month since I started my diet so I thought I should show you the “before” and “after” so far. Tell me if you see a difference at all.
Also, sorry about the crappy iPhone quality, Mark might think it was a little weird if I took my actual camera into the bathroom. So yes, a definite difference. I can see it now that the pics are side-by-side.
Loving that I am wearing my pre-preg jeans (that I love) and they are loose. They are so awesomely soft and worn and holey and ahhhh. I is happy.
I’m having some frustrations about the competition but I’ll have to discuss them later.
By the way, is anyone actually here?
First of all, let me tell you all to put on your gas masks and fumigate your ambient air with many bottles of Lysol. I am convinced that this PLAGUE I’ve been fighting is certainly powerful enough to infect all of the interwebs. Proceed with caution. The past two weeks has been a frenzy of Theraflu, Kleenex coated with lotion & vicks (ah!) and cough drops, many many cough drops.
Two Fridays ago, I picked Landon up from daycare and noticed he was a little wheezy and a little nose drippy. Saturday and Sunday he slept until ten! o’clock! I should have known that the mid-night wakings during the week were a precursor to aforementioned, PLAGUE! Sunday he woke with a nasty cough, stuffy and sneezy. When it became obvious that he wasn’t in fact, going to magically get better, I made the call to EL JEFE (the boss, for all of you non Spanish speakers) and let her know I wouldn’t be in.
Oh. Did I mention the several cases of RSV and walking pneumonia in his school? Monday morning we saw the pediatrician and Landon was given the diagnosis, bronchitis and ear infection. Is it wrong to be thankful that is ALL it was? He was prescribed amoxicillin, albuterol and a cough medicine. We walked out the doors ushered by the words, “it’ll probably get worse before it gets better. Have a nice day!” Well, thanks for speaking that one into existence, shithead. Landon did in fact, get much worse before he got better.
We stayed home again on Tuesday. Let me be the first to assure you that taking care of a sick baby while you yourself are sick, is a torture worse than water boarding. Also, just for future reference, pink amoxicillin puke piles stain. Badly. It was the first time I can honestly say, I’ve panicked as a mother. I was this close to packing him into the car and heading to the ER. Thankfully, I was talked down and reassured that all was fine when he smiled at me with a little pink puke on his chin. Like, ha! mom! I’m fine. Seriously, no more of that pink shit. Is gross.
He is totally fine now.
Me? Not so much. Am still dying of THE PLAGUE. My boogers are like Elmer’s rubber cement, my sinuses are pounding and I have to blow my nose every 3 seconds to keep from choking on snot. I am a sexy beast.
Thus, the diet suffered tragically last week. I didn’t track my points at all. I’m fairly certain that the 3 bags of cough drops I ate took me WAY over the legal limit. I gained about half a pound which was not at all surprising.
I still feel like death but I have started exercising. Blah. Hoping for a good week, eating wise.
In other, totally unrelated news, the Northerns are currently descending on our lovely sub tropical State. So let me just say, Welcome to The Great State of (no, we do not ride horses to work) Texas! I hope you enjoy your short break from the usual Winter weather of your frozen tundra. Oh, ha, HA! We fooled you didn’t we? My bets are that you were basking in the warmth of our lovely weather in your cargo shorts in t-shirts, right about the time all Hell broke loose and the temperature dropped thirty something degrees. Enjoy your stay, I hope you brought your mittens and your car insurance policy! You know we Texans don’t know how to drive in this bullshit!
GO PACK!
Growing up, our meals were fairly simple. We could generally count on, a meat, a starch and a vegetable. Starch being a baked potato, mashed potatoes or steamed rice with butter and soy sauce. Vegetable would be a salad, corn, lima beans or broccoli. That’s it.
As I’ve become a wife and a mother the meals I make for my family are modeled after the same principal. Can we say, BORING?
Since we didn’t grow up with much variety (for many reasons) I never experienced quite a few foods. these days, I find it difficult to find foods that are both healthy and that I enjoy.
A short list of things I just cannot bring myself to eat.
– Onions, unless fried or cleverly disguised in cheese.
– Peppers, of any variety. Bell, red, yellow, orange.
– Jalapenos (will never ever eat a jalapeno, cannot even smell them without gagging. Once mistook a pickle for a jalapeno. Much screaming and crying ensued. I was 6. It was traumatic.)
– Hot tomatoes. Spaghetti, pizza sauce, on a hamburger or hot sandwich. Gag.
– Hot fruit. Cobblers, pies, fruit on oatmeal.
– Beans. I will eat them, I just don’t love them. Refried is out.of.the.question.
– Cooked carrots. Unless they are in beef and broccoli.
– Mustard.
– Oysters, for obvious slimey reasons.
– White meat chicken & turkey. I will eat it but I much prefer dark meat.
– Celery. It’s the texture AND taste.
– Bananas. They make me gag.
So you see? I have many challenges. In other news, I have a very sick baby and a very sick self. At one point this morning there were several piles of pink amoxicillin puke on the couch/floor/me and him. He has bronchitis and an ear infection. The coughing leads to gagging, the gagging leads to barfing and the barfing is almost always after I try to give him his medicine. Fuck you very much, daycare.
I’m apologizing if this post doesn’t make sense or is mis-spelled. I started writing it last week sometime. I’m not spell checkin’.
Today you are eight month’s old. I have never written any of your progress or milestone’s here and I fear I will forget, what with my already terrible memory.
You started daycare this week and blew them out of the water. Way to prove me wrong buddy! I don’t know why I thought you would do anything but spectacular, you are after all, my child. One of your teachers, Miss Leticia told me she has never seen a baby so happy on their first day of daycare. It was probably just smoke being blown up my ass but, I’ll take it. You are spectacular, my child. That grin of yours is never-ending from the moment I drop you off until the time I pick you up.
The feeling in my stomach tells me you inherited your Daddy’s entertainer gene. Already at eight months, you feel it your duty to charm the masses. If a good beat comes on the TV or a good song comes on the iPod, you pump up the jams, man. Pretty soon, you’ll be in some club somewhere cruisin’ the laydeez and fist pumping with your buds. You’ve got the rhythm my friend. I can assure you that you are taking your own sweet ass time with the whole mobility thing. Crawling? That shit is for amatuers. You’d much rather be toted around. To the frustration of your Daddy, I am more than happy to oblige you.
You are wearing clothes ranging from 18 months – 2T. Monster baby. Just so you know, people can only hold you for a maximum of 5 minutes before their arms fall off. True story. Your Daddy and I have gotten pretty good at it though. At your last doctor’s appointment over a month ago, you weighed 24 pounds so yeah, probably 26 now. You were sleeping like a champ up until just a few nights ago. What the hell brah? Last night you did not sleep, at all. You screamed like a lunatic for hours, burped and passed out. It was awesomesauce. Me? I’ve had four, FOUR! cups of coffee today.
I am still diligently making you “home food” as they call it at school. At this point, there is pretty much nothing you don’t like. In the last week you’ve really started taking interest in our food. So far you’ve tried ground turkey, broccoli and jello. If you grow up and don’t know what to do in a kitchen, I have failed you. You sit in your high-chair for HOURS while I’m cooking/cleaning. Tell your future wife I said, you are welcome!
I have seen so many developments in you these past few days, pulling up and standing while only holding on to my fi
ngers, desperatly trying to get puffs from your hand to your mouth, dragging your back half around (before getting exhausted and just laying there.) The other night you almost took a header off the couch trying to grab the remote (which by the way? YOUR FAVE!)
Grandma Nani is pretty much your favorite person, ever. You are enthralled with the way she talks, either that or you are just trying to figure out what the hell she is saying. It’s okay buddy, we can’t figure it out either. You resemble her so much, I see her in you everytime I look at you.
Three days in and I already had a report from your school that you had a girlfriend. Sammi is her name. I kind of wish you would hold off on the girlfriends until I can take a concealed handgun course but, if push comes to shove. A baseball bat wielding mother is just as effective.
Right?
No?
Oh.
Mardi Gras beads really do the trick if you are in a bad mood. (That doesn’t bode well for the kind of things you’ll be into when you are older, if you know what I mean. No you are not ever allowed to go to New Orleans.)
Last night as you were screaming wildly in my ear, I tried to remember the time before you. I couldn’t. Life was not life before you. I love you very much Boog.
My wish for you is to reach the moon and stars and to be happy on the journey.
I am having the time of my life watching you grow.
Friday was one of the saddest days I can ever recall. I am still mad that I let myself dwell on it and not just accept and move on. I knew the day was coming, I had over 2 weeks to prepare for it. Every soul I know has heard me whine and cry about it but still, the day came, and so did the tears.
Friday was Landon’s last day with our beloved Edgy. When I was contemplating returning to work I was sick over the fact of having to put L in daycare and an opportunity presented itself. Get ready to follow this chain; my best friend’s (Brittany) Mom’s (Miss Lesa) best friend (Miss Sue) happens to be one of the lucky ones. She has a live-in nanny for her 6 year old daughter. Given the fact that Ava was in school the majority of the day, Edgy was looking for some side work. It all just happened to work out for us, their (ginormous) house was on my way to work, it gave Edgy something to do during the day and she got a little side money. Landon loved her and I trusted her completely. She took him for long walks and taught him to wave bye -bye, gave him a bath every day before I picked him up and spoke Portugese to him. Right before the New Year, we learned Susan was getting married (surprise!) they had bought a house and were moving, taking Edgy with them. I had 2 weeks to find alternate child care.
My heart felt like it was being torn into a million pieces. Why couldn’t I be one of the lucky ones, that had the gift of being able to stay home with my baby? Why was Susan making such a quick decision? Why don’t I have a damn extra bedroom so Edgy could live with us? Why, why, why?!
I felt (and still do) like I want to lay on the ground like a child, kicking and screaming and have something go MY way, just this once. People, the tears, they were constant for almost four days. Mostly, they were for selfish reasons, because Edgy was so easy for ME. Convenient for me to drop him off, to pick him up, I didn’t have to deal with the illness often associated with daycare and he had 100% attention all day.
A daycare was found, on the recommendation of a few friends, a Montessori school close to my work. Deposit and tuition has been paid, to the tune of, omfg I’m going to be eating Vienna sausages for lunch until he starts kindergarten.
Friday came and I wept and wept and wept. I’m going to spare the details, my co-workers have seen me cry more than a few times in the past week. The house where Landon spent his first few months is now empty and soon a new family will fill it’s rooms (secretly I’m hoping there is a REASON it’s not been put on the market.)
Landon has begun his new journey, in a new place, without incident. No tears, no tantrums. I left him with a kiss, gently shutting the door behind me, I didn’t even look back through the small window in the door.
Plans have been arranged for a sleepover with Edgy in February.
To all of you, the lucky ones, be thankful everyday. My biggest wish is to be one of you.
Fat Girl's this way ... 