Say hello to my little friends

I’ve taken many deep breaths this morning and reminded myself: a) it’s Friday! And b) when I leave work I will be on vacation for 10 days! I had to talk myself off the ledge of RAGE this morning, when my daycare lady didn’t answer the door. I was ON TIME for work! I had managed to get the kids up and dressed and fed and in the car, but then I pounded on the door for twenty minutes until she finally answered. Damn home daycares. It’s a good thing she loves my kids.

AND THEN Henry had pooped while we were waiting for her so he wouldn’t get back in the car and I couldn’t change him, and he had a meltdown because we had been standing around so he didn’t realize I wasn’t going to stay …

More deep breaths. I’m getting myself all worked up again.

ANYHOW I’m so glad that colors that in high school would be considered clashing now are considered going together (that was a strange sentence) because today I’m wearing a blue and white chevron sundress, a pink cardigan, orange sandals and a multicolored chunky bracelet. Thus:

And for once, I don’t feel ridiculous! (Please, tell me if these things look ridiculous, and please don’t mind that patch of eczema on my hand)




Big things have been happening here. I signed up, spur of the moment-like, to go to The Blathering. I’m really surprised at myself for doing it; I’m not one to take such chances but I’m really excited that I did! This also means that I will be physically ill with nerves the days leading up, and then once I get there I’ll feel silly for being such a wienie. But it’s okay. I’ve already resolved to bring my teddy bear.

I have also signed up for The Blathering 5k, which hopefully will be the kick in the pants I needed to get running again. I have 10 days off work, and only 4 of them will be traveling. Certainly I can get off my duff three (maybe four) times for a jog around the neighborhood, yes?

Oh! And MAYBE a playdate with MamaFuss and I’m 95% sure I at least get lunch with Stacie while I’m in New York … Friends! Hurray, friends! Okay, out of the funk.

Now I just need to get through today.



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Single parenting

I never get much of a chance to single parent. My husband is a bit of a homebody and he doesn't travel for work at all. So while he has watched the kids while I go to visit friends in Delaware or on work trips or out for the night for one of my various book clubs, I don't have them by myself for more than an hour or two until he gets home in the evenings or to run a few errands.

Generally I feel lucky about this, but sometimes I wish that I could have them all to myself. Tonight Hubs went to his fantastic football draft and I kept the kids home. We were going to have great fun: they picked out Spiderman Mac & cheese for dinner (a treat because I don't make boxed macaroni and cheese) and we were going to Slip n Slide and watch tv and have a great time.

We got off to a slow start. Henry decided to take a late nap and then sleep for three and a half hours. Then he was a crab-ass waking up. Then I broke the slip n slide (it was twisted and when I turned on the hose it popped).

But we rallied and salvaged! I turned on the sprinkler for the slip n slide. I realized that my abs STILL hurt from playing last weekend. H didn't play a lot but he liked watching Spencer slide. Macaroni was still a big hit, and Sprout was acceptable tv.
We hit a major bump when I decided to try Henry in the bunk bed tonight. And after 1,871 times in 40 minutes of crying, rearranging pillows and stuffed animals and crying and mamas, we moved back to the crib. I was informed that the music was too loud and then he sprawled out in the crib and fell asleep.

So I could use a drink, but it's past my bedtime and I didn't get home until almost midnight from book club LAST night (those ladies might be 20 years older than me but they are way cooler than me) so I desperately need my beauty sleep. Or any kind of sleep, really.

I hope my husband lets himself in quietly. I wonder when the next time I have to single-parent is. I'm no good at this.

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Cardboard diet, week nine

I came *this close* (holds up fingers) to bowing out. This week, maybe every week. I feel like I’m not up to the challenge of exercise and unlike Chelsea I am not losing any weight without exercise. I was down a couple pounds due to being sick over the weekend, but even with great portion control I was back up to 149.2 this morning when I weighed myself. Which is a grand total of .6 down for NINE WEEKS.

But I’m here, and I don’t have anything else to blog about, so yeah. I’m still participating. Can someone local a) turn off the waterworks in the sky so less monsoons mean maybe I can run and b) kick my butt so that I start working out?

Weigh-in: see above, I don’t want to talk about it.

Exercise: We got Henry a slip n slide for his birthday, and WOW IS THAT A WORKOUT. I’m not kidding, I was sore through Wednesday, and the tops of my thighs are still a little sore. I want to hook it back up and get back in there but the daily monsoons are making that difficult. Yesterday I had thought about putting it out in the rain and playing anyhow but it was down to just yucky, humid and wet. No good rain. Also, I mowed the grass again on Monday (between rains).

Splurge: I don’t think by now I can say that Dr Pepper is a splurge, it’s just a way of life. Every other day or so, I can’t get away from it. My other splurge is that due to the birthday, there is ice cream in the house. Last night my husband made cookies and topped them with ice cream. It was a very small portion (see, portion control! Ha!) but still extravagant tasting.

Success story: I made quinoa for the first time the other day. I love it but I’ve never made it myself. I’ve had a bag in the pantry for months and finally I broke it out. I knew the kids wouldn’t go for asparagus and pesto, as I was making, so I took a couple spoonfuls out after it was cooked and before I added anything and added some shredded cheese and chicken for them. Spencer said it was cheesy rice. Henry clawed his tongue to get every piece out of his mouth. So … I haven’t decided if I’m going to try to serve it to them again or not. Actually, that’s a lie. I’m thinking feta and chicken and whatever veggies I have in the fridge for tonight’s dinner.

Recipes: this is my recipe for guacamole. It’s the end-ish of summer but it’s still hot as heck and face it, guac is delicious. I get rave reviews for my guacamole and there’s never any leftover (which is sad, because it would be great smeared on a sandwich too).





Photos:




This is the reason I haven’t been running. Well, it’s the reason I’m sticking to until it stops raining.



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Please tell me I'm doing it right, Internets.

In a classic “I’m a mom so I have to second guess my choices” moment, on this the first day of school I’m questioning my decisions regarding S and pre-k.
Spencer was born in February, so while most of his friends are headed to kindergarten this year, he would be headed to VPK. However, he’s always been way ahead of the curve in learning, so I decided about six months ago that rather than send him to all-year pre-k, I would send him to summer-before-kindergarten pre-k so he gets the STRUCTURE of school immediately preceding the start of school rather than taking the summer off to forget how things go. His daycare is regulated heavily and she does work with him every day (and he has homework too, last year it was every Friday and now I’m being told it will be every night) so he’s basically working out of kindergarten workbooks now. He’s on the verge of being able to read (he can use deductive reasoning to figure out where the Applesauce and the mac and cheese is on the kids menu, and spells out all signs). His handwriting is extremely good (although he decides when he wants to use capitals and lowercase arbitrarily) and while he’s been slow to color in the lines or draw freehand, he’s doing that now too. Math is a little bit more troublesome but he gets it, it just takes him a little longer. He’s better at word problems than straight math, oddly enough.
What I’m saying is, I know he’s doing good. And I’m sure that this decision is the right one for him. But … argh. You know what I mean. He needs to learn focus. He needs to learn structure and that he can’t always do things when he wants to (ooh, and saying “please” is delightful but it doesn’t mean you automatically get what you want). He needs to learn to listen the first time someone says something instead of the eighth when they’re yelling at you. And then he needs to not forget it before he gets to kindergarten.
I hope everyone’s first day of school went splendidly!
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Of being sick and birthdays

Henry’s birthday was Saturday (if you couldn’t tell). I’m so glad we decided not to have a party, because a) it rained like the dickens most of the day and it would have likely been an outside party and I would have been heartbroken and b) I was sick on and off most of the weekend and THAT on top of everything else would have just been too much.




But we had a good time anyhow, even though we didn’t do too much. I bought Henry a birthday hat which I made him he enjoyed wearing all day everywhere we went. We had blueberry pancakes for breakfast (seriously, buy yourself Belgium waffle mix and use that for pancakes – it rocks!), and then we did presents and lounged around all morning. I got Henry his favorite gift of the day (until his grandparents upstaged me, but I’m okay with that), which was a basketball hoop for the back of his bedroom door. He loved it! He played all weekend. I also got him a giant dump truck which is NOT a ride-on, but don’t tell him that. His birthday DAY consisted of going to the mall and playing in the play area for as long as he wanted, mac & cheese at BJ’s Brewery and a ride on a kangaroo on the Merry Go Round. All while he wore his birthday hat.




For dinner we met family at Red Robin, and then we came back home for more presents and cake and ice cream. Henry got far too much from his generous and fantastic family, but his FAVORITE gift was something I didn’t plan on or even consider getting him.




My in-laws got him a Cars trike. We have two tricycles and a bike with training wheels from Spencer, so I had no plans to get him one. I didn’t even know they planned on getting him one, but this thing is … wow. The handlebars make lots of sounds, so while Daddy was putting the rest of it together Henry just “drove” the handlebars around the living room and ignored the other presents for a bit. He liked his other presents (he played with all of them more on Sunday) but that trike is by far his favorite thing.

I apparently overdid it on Saturday because Sunday I felt like crap again. Made muffins, took anti-nausea meds, and laid about. We went to a birthday party at a lake beach in town, and the kids had a good time again. By the time we came home and Henry had a long nap I was feeling better again so we set up the slip n slide that was his last present from us and the kids played in that for quite a while. They didn’t really get the mechanics of sliding on your belly, so I stripped down to my skivvies and demonstrated … a lot. I forgot how much fun it is to be a kid! Here’s some fun video (none of me in my skivvies though).


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Two!

Happy second birthday to my littlest boy. We love you so much! Our family was not complete until you came along, and I can't imagine it any other way!

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It's Friday, I'm sick

Nearly immediately upon posting yesterday, I got terribly sick. I thought it was an inner ear infection because I had vertigo and bad nausea. I slept most of the day, leaving to go to the walk-in where it was decided that my ears are fine and they couldn't really figure out what was wrong. I got a couple scripts for nausea and my tummy and got sent home. Today I'm still home, because I'm only allowed to take the meds every 8 hours but they only really last about 3.5.

So it turns out that not eating for a day except a very small bowl of plain pasta and some grapes will help you lose 1.5lbs. Not that it's something that would stay off, but it's interesting (to me). If only I could keep that calorie count up whoe actually being active -ha! I don't calorie count. I can't.

This wasn't supposed to be one of those posts. What I was on here to say was that last night I watched two movies. A League of Her Own (long favorite) and A Little Bit of Heaven. I hadn't seen the latter, and while it was a love story involving a woman with terminal cancer, I thought "Kate Hudson! Peter Dinklage! how sad could it be?" Plus the reviews weren't overly kind about the cancer part and said it was basically a rom-com. Yeeeeeaaahhhh. I cried like a baby. Like a little, itty bitty tiny baby. I liked it, but man it was sad. I DO NOT cry at movies. I occasionally get a little choked up but I do not generally cry.

I cried.

So if you need some sort of cathartic cry session, Netflix it.

I'm off to read the mountain of books I have sitting around, as long as I'm unable to leave my bed without waves of nausea.

And before you ask, no, I'm not pregnant.


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#cbdiet update

I wish I could say that I started running like I promised. Like I promised myself. Unfortunately, I’ve had this sleep problem this week. Usually the problem is not enough sleep, but this week it was too much sleep. As in, more than ten hours a night and spending most of the day in a fog wishing I was in bed. After some analyzing this morning when I only got 7.5 hours of sleep last night and was pretty sure I woke up dead, it was pointed out to me that I a) likely have low iron and b) I need to get on a multi-vitamin. So steak for dinner tonight, and I pledge to pick up women’s gummy vitamins tonight AND start taking them.

Weigh-in: I’m back to exactly where I started.

Exercise: nada (oh wait, I did some serious gardening last weekend which left me hurting for a couple days and I mowed the overgrown lawn)

Successes: I think I’ve got my eating under control (except last night when I was too beat to make a real dinner and we had crescent roll pizza rolls and TGIF any-tizer fried green beans which I baked in the toaster oven). I don’t think I overeat, and I rarely have any late night snacks.

Splurges: there was a chocolate fountain at my cousin’s graduation last weekend. I didn’t have any of that (my kids gorged on the marshmallows though) but there was this awesome pineapple cake … I had two pieces.

Recipes: Yes! Okay, so when I was in Delaware/Philly a couple weekends ago we went to Max Brenner’s for brunch which is our thing. And they had the brunch menu out, which included a sandwich with “olive pesto” on it. We ordered breakfast and then we asked for a sample of the olive pesto. Which I have recreated for you. It is awesome.
- A handful of black olives
- A handful of pitted kalamata olives
- A couple tablespoons prepared or homemade pesto (I used prepared because it was handy)
- About a tablespoon of sundried tomatoes (reconstituted if dried, mine are packed in olive oil)

Put all into one of those little food processors that everyone has (right? Well, mine is an attachment for my immersion blender). Add kalamata olive juice and/or black olive water as needed until it is pesto consistency. Since pesto already has oil in it, I didn’t want to add more and the juice helps thin it out perfectly. Spread on a sandwich appropriately – awesome!!

Seriously. Awesome. Have I told you how awesome?

Photos:


(from top left, grilled chicken sandwich with olive pesto, olive pesto in a terrible bowl for photographing, grilled chicken salad, and my funny oldest boy)

Plan: I need a plan. My first order of business is to get my body into working order. Vitamin, proper sleep. Then I need to start working out. I need to stop with the excuses, I just haven’t figured out how. Please, tell me how.


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Oh look! Friday! A list!

1.
So I’m failing miserably at #cbdiet. I genuinely planned to start running again on Monday, but then there was a monsoon that started at 3pm and continued through the evening. And the rest of the week fell through. This Monday, I swear. I’m going to stick the rest of #cbdiet here because it’s depressing to spell it all out: this morning I was at 149.2, which means I’m a total of .6 down since we started this. I haven’t been exercising. I could give you excuses, but the bottom line is that I haven’t. I haven’t been eating much, but randomly. I skipped dinner two nights this week and lunch on Thursday. I have no photos and I have no recipes. Better next week! Fingers crossed!

2. My dad was in the hospital overnight on Wednesday. He has some weird infection on his ankle and his leg is swollen so they did a bunch of tests, couldn’t figure out what was wrong and sent him home on antibiotics while they run his blood culture. All I keep thinking about is that flesh-eating bacteria that’s been in the news lately. My family needs to stay out of the hospital. That is all.

3. I am battling a fierce case of eczema. This is what my feet look like right now:




I have one spot on my left hand, but it is contained. My feet, on the other hand, are losing the battle. Pain! Itching! Scratching until they burn instead of itch! I wrapped them to keep me away from them, but last night it was so fierce that I ripped the wrappings off and scratched them raw. It’s lovely, really. I tried to get my steroid cream from the pharmacy tonight and they told me that my dermatologist would have to call authorization to my insurance, or I would have to pay the cash price of $788. After I drove home while having a panic attack, my husband cut open my old tube to salvage enough until I can call the dr on Monday.

4. Stress. It’s all stress. And I don’t even feel that stressed, mostly! I have been a little snappish at the kids, and a little overwhelmed at work, but since I got back from that work trip everything has seemed worse, somehow.

5. Last weekend I did take a breather for myself, and went to Delaware for the weekend to spend some time with my best friend and her husband for his birthday. It’s been killing me not to say anything on here about it but it was a) a surprise that I was going to be there at all and b) there was a separate surprise birthday party scheduled for Saturday night. Secrets! Agghhh! It was so much fun, and it was so nice to see the Delaware contingency (this also includes all people who technically lived in New Jersey and Maryland but are in that same friend group). We had brunch at Max Brenner’s before I left for home on Sunday and the whole weekend was a breath of fresh air. A little cat-laden air, but relaxing air nonetheless.





(5/11 of her cats – her home is the Cat Ranch, as she has 11. And yes, I’m allergic. But they’re so cute!)





(Mexican hot chocolate from Max Brenner’s. Not a Becky trip without it)

6. We are entering birthday season. We went to one party two weekends ago and Hubs took the kids to one while I was gone. We have a birthday party this weekend and a graduation party, another party the following weekend and at least three that haven’t been set up yet to my knowledge. Since we are going out of town for a weekend in September, I know we’ll miss someone’s but we always go to as many as possible.

7. In related news, we have decided not to do a party for Henry this year. He’s going to be two on 8/18, and I feel so much relief having made this decision. We have instead decided to do fun stuff all day and end with cake. As long as there’s cake, Spencer will be happy. Did you know 8/18 is National Cupcake Day? Perhaps there will be cupcakes instead.

8. I started using twitter again, and I mostly feel like I’m talking to a wall. Does everyone who tweets feel this way at first? Did I get into it too late? When I try to get into conversations I feel like I’m trying to edge in on conversations with the cool crowd in a coming-of-age movie. They have their friends, and don’t need anymore. Polite but I feel ignored. Bah. One more way to be socially awkward.

9. The funny things about my melodramatic “parenting fail” post from earlier this week is that my children hardly ever even eat dinner. I’ve never pushed it and they’ve always eaten enough through the day that I just put food in front of them – if they eat it, great and if not, whatever. Last night we had Thai food, but they had Greek yogurt when they first got home so neither touched their bowls although they had tried it before I put some out to confirm they liked it. The night before was jambalaya, and S had all the shrimp out of his and H made a mess with the rice but neither consumed much. I wonder what my shame at Ramen was aimed at – feeding my husband Ramen? Is that anti-feminist? That I didn’t have the energy after working a 10.5 hour day? Eh, whatever. I’m always harder on myself than necessary.

10. Happy Friday!

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Parenting fail

Sometimes I do too much, or try to do too much. Sometimes I am wrought with ambition and come home from a busy day at work to clean the garage or mow the lawn, do several loads of laundry or a semi-gourmet meal.

And then there are days like the other day where I fed my small children ramen. As in, blocks of dried pasta with sodium packets.

I used only half the seasoning, and I sautéed some veggies and scallops to mix in too, and honestly it was pretty satisfying. It I still felt like a parenting failure. Would it have been healthier to make grilled cheese and/or pb&j? Should I have picked something up from someone who was more willing to cook than I? Am I totally being too hard on myself?




the offending meal

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July books

I spent most of July on my iPad and not much time reading. But here goes!

Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali: mixed feelings. It was good - really good. But I didn't like how biased she was, even though she had every right to be, considering her upbringing. Does that make sense?

The Golden Lily by Richelle Mead: loved.

The Lens and the Looker by Lory S Kaufman: terrible

Peaches by Jodi Lynn Anderson: I didn't read all of this but I enjoyed what I did read. I'll probably work on it on the plane this weekend

Discovery of Witches by Rebecca Harkness: I didn't think I'd like this at first, but I really loved it and can't wait until I get the next one from the library.


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Of friendship and herbs

I was tending my "herb garden" the other day and it occurred to me that they were a lot like my friendships.




Basil is the wonder herb. You ignore it, it gets a little droopy but when you take care of it, it flourishes. These are the best friends - if you fall out of contact your relationship may suffer short term, but with a little attention it flourishes again quickly.




I thought my rosemary was dead - it wouldn't grow. Then I left it alone and it sprouted beautifully. You can't rush some. Friendships.




My parsley is a little scraggly, but it's hanging in there. Old friend.




And no matter how much I love cilantro, it's never coming back. This is a friend that you should just let go.
And now I'm off to cultivate some of my friendships! I hope my herbs get watered while I'm gone ...
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