Smiling Mom

OK, I know I’m begin­ning to beat a dead horse into the ground but honestly. This whole Let­ter Fac­tory DVD has igni­ted a fire in my son. He’s always been inte­res­ted in books. But lately, his desire to learn about let­ters has just explo­ded. Today God gave me a gift of an inde­pen­dent son. I don’t know why, or who was tem­po­ra­rily repla­ced in BC’s body, but he was inde­pen­dent and sweet! What a treat. I was able to get a few things done this mor­ning as eClaire took a two hour nap and BC and Kayla, our dog, pla­yed in the back­yard. When I finally chec­ked on my son, BC was ecs­ta­tic with him­self. “Look mommy, I’m making let­ters!!” Below are a few pic­tu­res of what I found. Since moms tend to be trans­la­tors, I’ll trans­late each one for you.

He’s also wor­king on making the let­ter B. If he gets anywhere close, he jumps for joy. B is his favo­rite let­ter.

Yes, those sad, sad words were in fact utte­red about my waist­line this very week by He Who Shall Remain Nameless.

Muf­fin Top.

After suc­king in a quick gulp of air, I believe I said something to the effect of, “Wow, let’s not say those words out loud again. OK? I mean it’s true, but please make that an ‘inside your head thought’.”

As you now rea­lize, this post is about weight mana­ge­ment. Well, for me, it’s more about waist mana­ge­ment. I’m thin, buy the luck of the gene­tic pool, but I’ve had two kids in the past 2 1/2 years. I weigh 10.5 pounds more than I did pre-kids, and my belly flabs over my pants. I’d be happy to loose anywhere bet­ween 5 to 8 pounds. But more impor­tantly I’d love to loose three inches from around my waist, and get some muscle tone back.

I’ll spare you my exact waist mea­su­re­ment, for fear of hate mail from those of you who at this point are rolling your eyes. But, if you were to look at me, without my clothes on. Which, by the way, you won’t…my waist is pro­por­tio­nally lar­ger than the rest of my body.

So on Wed­nes­day mor­ning I took my first waist mea­su­re­ment for a base line. Then Hubby and I made our way down to the local 24 Hour Fit­ness. We enro­lled both kids into Kid Club, BC was thri­lled. eClaire was not. And we made our first step toward a healthier lifestyle.

Hubby loves to exer­cise, but doesn’t find the time. I love to lift weights, but tend to pride myself on my ina­bi­lity to break a sweat. Really, I rea­li­zed today, that I don’t break a sweat simply because my heart never works hard enough to require sweat to form. I hate car­dio. exer­cise. I hate it.

But we deci­ded that we need to change our lifestyle. So after 3 or more years of non exer­cise, I’m back. Hubby and I star­ted with 20 minu­tes of ellip­ti­cal trai­ning, which damn near broke me. I was, much to my sur­prise, swea­ting. Ima­gine that! Me swea­ting. Honestly, if you know me, you’ve never seen this hap­pen. Ever. By the end of the twenty minu­tes I felt good and was thri­lled that the worst part of my work out was over.

Now onto weights. My favo­rite!! We’ve deci­ded until we get into a rou­tine, we’d just follow the cir­cuit wor­kout that they have set up. One minute on each of the ele­ven dif­fe­rent machi­nes. With mini­mal breaks in bet­ween. Hubby and I wor­ked hard. I lis­te­ned to my new ipod shuf­fle, and felt like I got a pretty good wor­kout today.

I felt good.

This is day two of my work out rou­tine. I sure hope I keep it up. Because I feel much bet­ter about myself today. By this sum­mer, you bet­ter watch out! I’m going to be smokin’…hmm. Easier said than done. I know.

This is a pic­ture of my mom, last sum­mer with my youn­ger brother. Ya. She’s hot! I defi­na­tely have someone to aspire to!

Muf­fin Top No More!

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OK, I’m having a serious case of Mom Guilt. My blog entry yes­ter­day, Natio­nal Give Back Day, was an expres­sion of my frus­tra­tion with todd­lers and their bad beha­vior. I’m fee­ling like I put myself out there, in a very nega­tive way, and now kinda regret it.

Here come my inse­cu­ri­ties, cree­ping out!

So just to clear up a few things:
No, I don’t really want to give my kids away. Yes, they are dar­ling, 92% of the time. No, I’m not always that big of a b**ch. But some days, I am. At times I just feel like I’m going to loose it! Groovy Lady, I appre­ciate your com­ment and that you caught and empathi­zed with my exhaus­tion, and sarcasm!

So now reduce my Mom Guilt I will make a list of five things I find great and endu­ring about each of my kids. Thanks for humo­ring me.

BC
1. He is very visual. If I wear a pen­guin on my shirt, he asks if I’m going to work. (A pen­guin is my school’s mas­cot.)
2. BC has fan­tas­tic social skills. He’ll chat up anyone. Ask them their name, how’s their day going, etc.
3. When eClaire gets hurt, and I react a cer­tain way, BC asses­ses the situa­tion and will either run for ice or a band-aid.
4. BC loves his dad. His world revol­ves around Hubby. If Hubby stands lea­ning to one side, hands fol­ded, BC looks him up and down, and stands the same way.
5. BC is very com­pas­sio­nate. If I am sad, he wants very badly to make me feel bet­ter. If someone is sca­red, he wants to help them feel safe…

eCliare
1. She is very funny. If I burp, she pre­tends to burp. She’ll put her sand­wich on her head, or drink on her nose to get a reac­tion out of BC or me.
2. She loves to cuddle. BC wasn’t a cudd­ler until recently, so I never had the expe­rience of cudd­ling my baby until eClaire came to us.
3. She is inde­pen­dent. eClaire will spend long periods of time pla­ying by her­self, pic­king up items and put­ting them into a bag or purse. She enjoys tal­king on the phone, pla­ying with nec­kla­ces and pur­ses.
4. eClaire is a fan­tas­tic eater. She eats adult sized por­tions of just about anything I give her. She is not picky! Thank God.
5. eClaire is a very good slee­per. She sleeps for 12 to 13 hours a night, takes naps and goes to bed, almost always, with out a peep. She holds her “BB”, blan­ket, and puts her thumb in her mouth, and is out. If only all of us could be so lucky!

So my kids, in the big pic­ture, are about as easy as they come. But don’t all of us have those days or wees, once in a while?? I’m cros­sing my fin­gers and hoping for two kids who nap tomo­rrow. That’ll be the ticket!

Ok, guilt gone.

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Anyone? Can you help me… I know I heard something about a day where you send your kids back from whence they came? Know when that day is? I hope I haven’t mis­sed it this year.…hmm.

Lately, eClaire throws a colos­sal fit when she wants to be held, but you refuse. Which she wants con­ti­nually, and I refuse often.

BC, on the other hand, has been oh so much bet­ter. I hope you caught my sar­casm. He has been unu­sually aggres­sive, and hos­tile this week. He growls when angry, which isn’t terribly unu­sual, but always lands him straight to time out. This grow­ling thing, that has ear­ned him the nick­name Ebay, has now morphed into a growl–phpppbh. Oh, lets talk about disrespect!

Today in Costco, BC took my cell phone, the sole item kee­ping eClaire from mel­ting down com­ple­tely, away from eClaire, and when I asked him to give it back to her, he tur­ned the oppo­site direc­tion and chuc­ked it out of the cart.

If anyone tur­ned and saw my reac­tion, but not his warran­ting action, they must have thought I was one of those moms who should be shop­ping at Wal­mart. You know the ones! They scream at their kids, call them bad names and make very public sce­nes? Well, all I did was grab BC, sit him in the cart very firmly, and lea­ned close to his face, telling him that his actions were not accep­ta­ble and he was not to dis­res­pect his sis­ter, or me that way.

Oh, you should have heard the wails! “And the award for best Dra­ma­tic Moment goes to… BC.”

When we got home neither one of them would eat the din­ner I made, baked chic­ken with feta and red bell pep­pers on top. It was pretty good! But alas, my sweet dar­lings wan­ted to go to bed hungry instead.

eClaire, for the past two nights, has taken to screa­ming, hys­te­ri­cally, on the top of her lungs. She, who is the easiest baby to get to go to sleep, now refu­ses to go to sleep. She usually goes down early, like 6:30 p.m. early. But now won;t to go to sleep until her brother is in the room with her. Tonight she screa­med for just under an hour before I finally caved and took her out of her room. When I put her back in twenty minu­tes later, with BC, she cried for maybe 30 seconds, and went to sleep. Grr.

Like in the movie, Bad Boys 2, I rub­bed my ear­lo­bes with my fin­ger­tips and chan­ted, “Woo­saw, Woo­saw”

So when is that natio­nal give back day again?