Pages

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

How Did This Happen?

I'm now in my 39th weeks pregnant with my third son.  I've made no secret that I'm not a huge fan of being pregnant and now I must admit to the fact that I'm...just plain HUGE.  I told myself I wouldn't get this way this time...but I let it happen.  I gave myself license to eat things I would never normally touch.  Because of my discomfort, I stopped exercising, which I had vowed not to do.  Basically, I had planned on doing "everything right" this time around.  Ummm...not so much.

Back during the summer between junior high and high school my battle with weight began.  I packed on a good 20 to 30 pounds that summer.  From there I yo-yo'ed up and down for most of high school.  I used to gain and lose weight so quickly that I once "outgrew" my clothes while on our family's two-week vacation and had to wear my dad's jeans.  No teenage girl wants that to happen.

My senior year in high school, I finally got all of the weight off and dropped to about 108.  I went on the most unhealthy of weight loss plans--I barely ate.  Mixed with my new love of swimming on the swim team, I was what I thought to be fabulously slim and trim.  That is until one day a friend told me that I was a little too slim and trim.  She had me look in the mirror and pointed out to my purtruding collar bones.  I was not just thin but way too thin.  She told that I was so thin that I was wasting away and that she couldn't see me any more until I got my problem under control.  That was a wake-up call for me.

For most of college and into my married life, I had my weight issues under control.  I straddled the line between thin and too thin carefully and tried not to get to hard on myself when I would fluxuate by five pounds every now and then.

After my first baby, I lost most of the weight within the first year or so.  With my second child, I lost most of the weight in about a year too, but that year was very, very difficult for me.  I fell into my old feelings about my body and let my issues about weight consume me.  My body image and how I appeared to people around me plagued my thoughts. 

And now, I'm huge again.  I've never made it this far in a pregnancy; my other sons had already been born by this far along.  I'm so incredibly uncomfortable, it is hard for me to move, which means I just keep getting bigger and bigger.  (I swear that this baby is going to rip through my ribs at any moment.)  It's gotten to the point that I don't even want to look at myself in the mirror when I'm wearing a tank top or (GASP) naked.

I have a feeling in the months to come, I will be dealing a lot with my weight issues and the troubling roller coaster of pounds and emotions I have been on since I was so very young.  It's my thing, it makes me crazy, and I will undoubtedly be putting a lot of pressure on myself to look like I used to.  I'm just warning you now, because this will probably be the place where I vent and cry and whine.

Monday, March 29, 2010

Because That's How I Roll

Do you hate those people with all of the plastic toys in the front yard? So white trash, right? Well, here's my front yard today.


I hate me too. Here's the thing. I can't get an internet signal in the backyard, so this morning I dragged all of my kids' crap stuff to the front yard so I could sit on my porch in the cool So Cal breeze and relish in the discomfort of the sweet, sweet baby who is late at coming out early and sip juice boxes.

On top of it all, my kids think I'm super cool for setting up a different place to play with the same old junk. I'm pretty ok with life's little victories.

Friday, March 26, 2010

Desperate Times Call for...Salad

Today I loaded the kids and we drove a whole 3.5 miles to the locally-famous Caioti Pizza Cafe in Studio City.  This small restaurant located across the street from the restaurant Robert Blake made famous, Vitello's, is known for it's labor-inducing salad.  I know it sounds crazy, if you search the restaurant's name or "labor salad" online, the two are found side-by-side throughout the web.  The labor-inducing property is supposed to be the dressing. 

I'm not at my due date yet, but this is the farthest I've gotten in either of my other two pregnancies and I can honestly say that I am beyond miserable.  My back and ribs are killing me and I feel like the baby has a foot just below my arm pit.  I'm tired...really tired and in constant pain.  Already, little baby "C" is bigger than my other boys were when they were born and in my book...he's ready to come out.

I ordered a half order of "the salad" and a cheese pizza for us to split.  The salad was served up with to log books and other literature attesting to its success.  I'm not going to lie, the salad was amazingly delicious...and that's not just the pregnancy appetite talking.  The boys played with their toys while I mowed down "the salad" and filled in my own page of the infamous journal.  While I was eating it, I noticed an older couple in the corner of the restaurant anxiously watching me, as if I was going to go into labor and push out the baby with the aid of the young, way-too-cool wait staff.

The waiter enthusiastically told me that just yesterday he served a woman her salad and after eating it her water broke at the restaurant before she and her husband had finished their meals.  It's been about three hours and I've felt no contractions.  My water has not broken.  In fact, I don't feel any different than before lunch--still miserable.  Now I'm wondering if I should have ordered a whole salad instead of half a salad.  I'm also wondering if it's just the law of averages when it comes to "the salad."  When you have that many women in the final days and weeks of their pregnancies ordering the same thing, you are bound to have some of them go into labor soon thereafter, right? 

Nonetheless, in the days or weeks (oh don't let it be weeks...) of my final pregnancy, I am glad that I have taken part in an L.A. tradition.  And here's to the labor-inducing salad.  Everyone cross your fingers (please!) that it works tonight!

Friday, March 19, 2010

A Secret Hiding Place

Kids love secret hiding places--forts, treehouses, clubhouses. My kids love to build forts out of blankets and hide away in their Star Wars tents for hours. My friend Pam and I have a fantasy of a hide away of our own. We talk about it all the time--nothing fancy, of course. We dream about a place where we can just get away to every once in a while, perhaps a studio apartment. This amazing place would be girly and stylish. It would be free of toys and other small debris that make you scream in the night when their sharp edges jab into your bare feet. It would be a place where the freezer was always stocked with the ice cream and Lean Cuisines WE like and where it is perfectly acceptable to watch Lifetime movies without criticism. There would be no apple juice in the fridge or raisins between the sofa cushions.

Most importantly, this place has two beds. They are soft, comfy beds...and no one steals the covers. And speaking of these beds, while in them, no one wakes us up at the crack of dawn requesting a cup of milk or to watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. This place is the girls' hideaway that we half joke about sharing one day. It's a place where we can go for a night--together or alone--to just get from it all and come back to our families recharged and refreshed. No laundry. No dishes to clean. No bottoms to wipe.

I love my family more than anything on this planet, but sometimes it's nice to just get a little peace and quiet and remember who I was before I possessed "working boobs." Sometimes, it's nice to imagine a place like the apartment I had before I got married. Pam and I lived on the same street when we lived in our single gal apartments, and I sometimes think we are dreaming of very similar hideaways when we discuss our grand plans. It would be a place where we can just zen out and ponder all of the day-to-day little things and life-altering big things that we all allow to fly around in our brains but never have enough time to contemplate.

Let's be real. I would never do it. We would never do it. Financially, it's crazy and well, the idea of being able to get away for a night more than once every four years is completely unrealistic. My family needs me too much and I need them too--plus I would feel way too guilty leaving them for my own needs. Pam and I will, however, continue dreaming and talking about our little piece of paradise for years to come--over giant dinners at Lucille's and delicious desserts at Yogurtland.

And even greater than our daydreams about our hideaway is my friendship with Pam because it provides me with a getaway in and of itself. We came together through college, our sorority, and living on the same street...and several other ways as well proving that we were always bound to be friends. I know that I can make it though the ups, downs, good, and bad of motherhood because we are doing it together. I know that she is just an email, texts, or phone call away when I need her and more often than not my conversations with her--long or short--are all I need to recharge and refresh.

I love my friend Pam and you will too. Stop by her blog, Mom is a Four-Letter Word.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Rights for Breastfeeding Mothers


It was announced today that it is now "illegal" to tell a woman she cannot breastfeed in a public place in the state of Wisconsin. The bill, signed in to law today, allows women to nurse their children in a public or private places so long as she is permitted to be there by law.

Wait. Are you kidding me with this? Was it actually "illegal" to breastfeed a hungry child in Wisconsin in a public or private place before? That seems unbelievable. You wouldn't tell a mother she can't give her baby a bottle, so how dare someone say you can't nurse your child? The kicker is that only 40 other states have such rights signed into law for mothers and babies. What?!

Here's more on the law...
Breast feeding in public is permissible, thanks to a new WI law - WXOW News 19 La Crosse, WI – News, Weather and Sports |

And for the record, I'm not a granola mom who whips it out in public without considering those around me. I am always covered up and not only make sure no one can see "where" the nursing is taking place, but try to ensure no one can see any other skin as well. If you are a nursing mom and looking for a great solution to cover up while nursing, stop by my blog and enter to win a Cover Me Strap. These straps turn baby blankets, towels, etc. into a nursing cover. It's fabulous!

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss

During a conference today, we suggested to a parent that he should read Dr. Seuss to his student so that she could hear examples of rhyming. He had the following questions:

1. "Is the Dr. Seuss something I can find on the internet?"

2. After explaining that they are popular books he asked, "Can I get these Dr. Seuss at the Nobles?"

3. After explaining it is available at Barnes and Noble I suggested he go to the library. He asked if the library would let him borrow the books for free.

4. "Do I actually have to read the books to my (kindergarten) daughter? Are you sure she can't just do something with this Dr. Seuss online?"

Happy birthday, Dr. Seuss. It's pretty sad that some of today's parents would rather sit their kids in front of web entertainment than read your books. Pretty sad.