Cupcakes do not need to be dressed up

Why do all the parenting magazines I get focus on food presentation? As, if I make the carrot look like a caterpillar, my kid will suddenly be interested in eating it.

REALLY? I mean does any kid really fall for that? Mine doesn’t. I’m so desperate to get Zach to eat vegetables, that I even bought that book Deceptively Delicious. Even if he can’t see the vegetables, even if can’t taste the vegetables, he still somehow always knows when they’re there. It’s like he has Veg-dar or something. If he sees so much as a microscopic green parsley leaf in his food he has to pick it out. (oh, and whine about it, too)

How did I end up with a kid that hates vegetables this much? I love vegetables. I’m not exaggerating – I could sit and eat a head of lettuce, just like that, with no dressing. Just pick off the leaves and munch them like they were potato chips. (Spaghetti Squash may be the only vegetable I really don’t like).

But then the parenting magazines will take things too far. They’ll make cupcakes look like little turkeys for Thanksgiving.

REALLY??? This is one thing that doesn’t need to be dressed up. We don’t have any problems getting the kids to eat cupcakes. While it may be FUN to dress up a cupcake to look like a turkey, it doesn’t need to be done, he will eat it anyway, and my time is probably better spent trying to make the turkey look like a cupcake so he’ll eat that. (He’s not big on meat either. I honestly don’t know how he survives.)

As I posted on Twitter – I told Zach if he ate asparagus, it would make his pee smell. He thought that would be really cool. It almost worked. In the end, he chickened out.

I think what we need is more Popeye’s. I remember as a kid, watching Popeye cartoons, I was encouraged to eat spinach. Of course, I don’t know why. It’s not like I really wanted to look like Popeye. Zach does like that “party in my tummy” song – it so cracks me up. (If you go to that link, and get the song stuck in your head, you can thank me later) 😉 But it’s not enough. I think the real solution is that we need more vegetarian super heroes! (and less turkey cupcakes!) Captain Cucumber saves the day!!!

Or maybe not.

Running on empty

I‘m sure this post is going to come with a fair amount of “I told you so!!”s but here I go. I haven’t been able to run for about two months now. I kept putting it off, work was extremely hectic and my knees had started to bother me. At first I thought the knee pain was related to a new migraine-prevention medicine I had recently started taking, but as far as I can tell, it’s unrelated. I kept waiting for my knees to feel better, I took motrin, it didn’t help. After a few weeks I finally caved in and called the doctor.

So it would seem I have tendinitis in my knees. She gave me some kind of anti-inflamatory cream (?!), a print-out of hard to read, hard to understand (the point of) “exercises”, told me to put some heat on it and sent me on my way. The cream you’re supposed to put on 4x a day. Which is ridiculous. Who remembers to do something 4x a day?? And a cream?? How is a cream I put on my skin going to penetrate through the cartilage of my knee and make this better?? And the exercises? Aside from the fact that I can barely read the print-out, I really don’t see how they’re going to make my knees feel better. From what I can tell in the picture (which is easier to see than the writing) it has you do things like: Sit in a chair, kick your leg forward and then back. Repeat 3 sets of 75 reps. (I’m not exaggerating on the repetitions – and that’s just ONE of the exercises!! There’s 6 more on the page like it.). As far as heat goes… do you realize how difficult it is to keep a SQUARE flat heating pad on a bent knee? WHY don’t they make a heating pad specifically designed for your knee?? I know they have those Therma-care heating pads for knees, but I think they work out to be $4 each and I would need two of them for both of my knees, every day for who-knows-how long.

So the short story is that I’m thinking I’m going to be dealing with knee pain for awhile. We’re also suspicious that the running probably had something to do with this in the first place. So… yeah. No more running for me for a good long while. If ever. I’m happy that the pain is only when I bend it so I can keep doing my other exercise classes (like Hip Hop Hustle and was going to start Turbo Kick this week too). And the bonus is that since I can’t bend down so easily anymore, I’ve had to get Zach to learn how to put his shoes on by himself… which really isn’t such a bad thing!!

(Ironic how I was running to be healthy and instead it caused me to be injured. I think I’ve mentioned before my love-hate (well, more hate) relationship with exercise? This is a good example of why that is… Something that is good for you shouldn’t cause you PAIN! At least Hip Hop Hustle is still fun and hasn’t killed me yet! LOL!)

In the back of my mind

When I was in high school, one of my cousins, who was only about 3 or 4 years old at the time, got very sick. It started out just like a cold, but quickly became something very serious. It seemed to just rip through him like wildfire. I’m not even sure what it was that he had (I don’t think they ever found out exactly), or what the symptoms were. It was as if he came down with some kind of really basic childhood cold or virus – and his body’s immune system did absolutely nothing to combat it. You’re not even aware of all the ways in which our bodies fight off all the bad things it might come in contact with… until it doesn’t.

From the time he first got sick to the time he passed away, I think it was a total of maybe about 5 days. It was pretty devastating at the time, but now as a parent, it provides a whole new perspective on that event. It’s more than just a terrible event that happened in the past. It’s an event that I live in fear of everyday. It’s always in the back of my mind – but even more so when one of the kids get sick. And while, logically, I know there was a unique set of circumstances that accompanied that situation and that are unlikely to be repeated (ie. the issue that his immune system completely shutdown for no reason), fear doesn’t need logic to thrive.

This whole H1N1 scare isn’t helping. The information is confusing and conflicting, and I think it’s partially because there is some inconsistencies with the way it’s presenting itself in people. I mean, I had it a few months ago – and it was probably the most mild thing I ever had. I had a bad fever for a couple of days, chills, body aches. I locked myself away from everyone else so I wouldn’t spread it and it was done. But I know other people get it and are completely leveled by it. And I’m not clear on what it’s doing to kids. On some websites it sounds like it’s particularly serious for kids under age 5. In fact, that age group is the only group of kids that they’re willing to give the vaccine to locally (yet, anywhere I know of, they’re out of it already – even though they just came in a few days ago! AND our pediatrician isn’t even giving out that vaccine AT ALL)

Last night after Zachary went to bed, we checked on him an hour or so later and he was sweating. (Something very unusual) We checked him and sure enough he had a fever. Not too bad, but still, enough to get my fears going. This morning, he still has a fever. We’re giving him Motrin. I called the doctor and they were mostly unimpressed and directed me to listen their pre-recorded information about the flu. So we are just “waiting and seeing.” At least he appears to be “normal” – which is what the doctor has always told us is the bigger issue. If he’s lethargic – they don’t care if his fever is low or high – it’s a problem. But nothing seems to slow Zach down. (Thank God!) And last checked, his fever has come down.

I’ll be glad when this whole swing flu thing is over. But when you think about it, we’ve had a whole zoo of these illnesses. Monkey Virus, Bird Flu, now Swine Flu… what’s next? I know I can’t put my kids in a bubble to protect them. But I have to admit that sometimes it’s tempting.

Attention Walmart shoppers: You are not getting bigger, the world is getting smaller!

So I finally got out for my clothes shopping spree. As it turns out, I’m not a size 10…. I’m a size 8. (!!!) My initial reaction was “NO FREAKING WAY!” and then I remembered… I’m being played. Big time. Do you remember hearing about that whole “vanity sizing” thing. Oh, yeah. Bummer! Well, the truth is I have *never* been a size 8. I remember when I was in college, and I went through a starvation diet phase – I managed to get myself down to a size 9. I bought a pair of jeans. Neither the diet or that size lasted very long.

So in the last few years, they’ve changed the size scale. But still – I’m sticking with the fact that the last time I had to buy a pair of jeans (which was in 2005 or 2006) I was buying size 16 jeans. I can’t believe the size scale changed since then (if it did, SHUSH! I don’t want to hear about it!) 😛 There is also the issue that I tried on jeans from Costco, Walmart (Levi brand), Old Navy, and in all cases the size 10 were too big – size 8 fit. So unless they’re all trying to play to my ego, could I have really gotten down to a size 8?? Being that I am still a size 16 in my head – as far as I’m concerned, this is all just a cruel joke the world is playing on me.

I’ll never know the truth. Either way, I have jeans that fit me, they’re not falling off. They’re flattering, and I feel good in them. That’s all that really matters.

Updated: Actually, I may need to bring these jeans back. :/ The stupid sizing is pissing me off. After wearing them for a few hours they feel too loose. I’m not sure if they’ll shrink or not… but with the vanity sizing these companies have done, and with the weight I’ve lost, I’m just totally confused what I should be wearing. I wish they had a simple chart that would tell you what size to buy based on what your measurements are. Screw generic sizes!!

Mental Weight-Loss

Status report: I am currently maintaining my 30+lb weight loss. I am only 4-5lbs from the lowest weight I can be and still be healthy and not be too thin. (I can’t even begin to tell you how weird that is. I can’t wrap my head around that).

In my head I am still fat. Not that I think I am fat. Logically, I know I’ve lost weight and I know I’m at a good, healthy weight now. It’s that I don’t FEEL thin. I think it’s the same thing as it with age. We don’t always FEEL the age we really are. I don’t FEEL 39 years old. I don’t FEEL 30 lbs lighter. How do I lose the weight in my head?

One problem that I know I need to address – my clothes. This is such a huge issue. On one hand, I’m afraid to throw away my fat clothes. What if I get fat again?? On the other hand… OMG. If I get fat again, someone slap me!! So yeah, I’m wearing clothes that are in some cases 3 sizes too big. Even a belt can’t help that much of a difference. Do you have any idea how ridiculous that looks? I had been holding off buying clothes because I wasn’t sure what size I would settle down at. But now, I really can’t lose much more weight. I can tone up some, but even if I do lose those last 4-5 lbs, it shouldn’t affect clothing size too much. At my largest size, I fit into a size 16 (sometimes 16/18) jeans. If I can sneak out of the house today, I’ll be looking for a size 10.

I have to admit, I may hold onto one or two of the larger jeans. Some of them were expensive. I should just throw them all away. I’ll agree to throw most of them away. I can wear a size 12, although they’re really baggy – so I’ll probably hang onto those (but I think I only have one or two pairs). Anything 14 and up has to go. Maybe once my clothes fit me better, I’ll FEEL my size more. I wish I had taken more/better “before” pictures to remind me of how things used to be, because even sometimes looking in the mirror it’s hard for me to see the difference. I know there’s a difference – but aside from the fact that my pants are falling down, I just don’t see it. My brain still sees me 30lbs heavier.

It’s not about failure, it’s how you recover from it

You can’t have success without failure. It’s not just that success wouldn’t taste so sweet – it’s that you wouldn’t know it when you landed on it if you didn’t know what it was like to be somewhere else. It’s good to fail once in a while. Just because you fail once in a while does not make you a failure. (Obama says so! And it’s so true! By the way, I love that speech he gave.) What defines a person is what comes after that failure. How do they recover? Do they shrink and hide away? Do they become the failure? Or do they rise above and conquer it? In conquering this “failure” – the failure ceases to be a “failure”, and instead merely a stepping point. A stone from which to rise above and become better.

So why all this talk of failure? Well… yeah. I was able to maintain my weight for a few weeks. I did a pretty good job at it too – but then work consumed my life and exercise drifted into an afterthought, and then I spent a week eating and eating and eating. While I didn’t really gain a significant amount of weight (maybe 2 lbs?), the “habits” and healthy lifestyle I worked hard to build into my life dropped into oblivion. I’m not ashamed. I saw it happen. I let it happen. I’m not even sure what I learned from the experience. At least at the moment, I’m not sure I see a lesson in all this.

The end result, is that I’m ready to get back on track. I need to get running again. It’s been weeks now. I need to get logging again. It’s been weeks on that too. That lion has his eyes on me… and he’s looking hungry.