Please Don't Wreck Because Of Me

**This post is a cross post from my other blog.  I have a weight loss blog with a really cheesy name that I have just started writing in again. If you want to read about my goal to not be fat, please start reading the other blog as well.  **



I may have said this before, but as a general rule, until I got very serious about losing weight, I never ran. Running was reserved for things like hurt children that I had to get to, zombies or other predators following me, or bees.
Quite frankly, the thought of running didn't even appeal to me, in the least.  I thought people who ran were a little nutty in the head.  I mean, there are a thousand ways to exercise besides running down a a sidewalk in skin tight clothes for every one on the face of this earth to stare at.  I like those other ways.
However, no matter how much I like them, I haven't been doing them enough, because I am still fat.
 
Before getting pregnant with The Littlest One, I was actually trying to run at least once a week at an actual track.  I used a couch to 5k app that I put on my phone.  It was kicking my butt.  I was losing a ton of weight with everything that I was doing, though.  Then, I did get pregnant and I gained 45 lbs or so.  Yes.  It sucks.  I am now re losing everything that I had lost before.  Totally sucks.  Every drop of sweat shed, just to have to do it all again.  So, here we are.  I don't have that track to run on anymore, though, and i need to do this a little more faithfully.  Most of the time I used to exercise, it was using DVDs inside.  Now, though, The Littlest One doesn't appreciate being put in baby jail, aka the play pen, for 30 minutes or so to watch me sweat, followed by another 20 minutes in the pen so that I can shower.  In fact, it kind of pisses her off.  So, I bought a really good jogging stroller, and I decided to use it.  I had to.  My husband said with as much money as we spent on it, it better have some "damn dirt on those damn wheels".  I agree.
Now, I go out three times a week, and use the couch to 5k app.  For the first week, that means a warm up walk, followed by intervals of walking and jogging.  Its great and all, except I don't exactly have a place to run, so I run around my neighborhood, down the side of the street, for everyone to watch.  Not in skin tight clothes, though, I promise.  I wouldn't do that to my self or anyone else.  No matter what I wear, though, I'm still out there bouncing around for all to see.  Between my gigantic boobs, and the spare tire midsection, there is a whole lotta bounce going on, too.  I have had some serious stares.  I thought I was going to cause a wreck the other day.  I try to purposefully time my list jogging interval to be a down hill run, because i need the assistance to finish it by that point.  So, I run, down hill, as hard as I can.  It stop at a 4 way intersection.  The thing is, the cars coming to that intersection can see me coming.  One particular car not only noticed me, but I think they were concerned.  They were staring hard.  I'm not sure if they thought the fat girl was being chased,and were looking for the zombies or bees,  thought I lost control and were waiting to see be go head over heals down the side walk, or simply couldn't take their eyes off my bouncing melons, but they just kept sitting there.  Other cars were coming.  Other cars were waiting at the stop signs.  Still, they sat.  It wasn't until I actually came to a stop they they were able to move on.  Perhaps they had assured themselves that there were no zombies chasing me, and all was safe in the world.
No matter, though, I will keep running.  I have to.  I have set my own goals, and I really want to run a 5k. Moreover, though, I really want to be healthy.  I am going to do this.  I am going to keep working hard, and I will get back down to where I was, and beyond.  In the mean time, when you see me running by, please don't stop and stare, and really please dont' wreck.

Some Times You have To Give Back

I think I spent 20 minutes today, trying the hardest I have ever tried just to keep a straight face.  It was work, but playing dumb for those few minutes, gave me enough joy to makeup for the crappy day, and really weekend, we have had around here.
The Littlest One sleeps in a mini play pen or play yard in my room right now.  It has a small bassinet in the top.  The weight limit actually says to remove the bassinet when they are over 15lbs, and when I weighed her last week, she had just it 15, but the thing had started to tilt a little too much for my liking, and I decided to make the big change today.  While The Two Bigger Girls were down stairs playing, aka fighting, I went upstairs with The Littlest One to vacuum and tidy up a bit.  That was when I removed the bassinet.  I never said a word about it.  I just removed it, put it in the storage bag for the bassinet, and put the bag away.  It was like nothing was different, on first glance.  I put the baby in her newly revised bed to check it out, and she seemed pretty happy hanging there with her favorite giraffe.  So, I went off to finish my work.
A bit later, The Big One comes up.  I was starting to vacuum the stairs.  She goes into my room, and I note the absence of sound from her for just a minute.  I can clearly picture it taking a second for the fact that her sister was now two feet lower to the ground than normal to sink in.  Then, I hear my name yelped, but I pretend not to.
She comes over to me rather quickly and starts to tell me something about the baby.  I know where this is going, and I instantly decide to take it somewhere a little more fun for me.

"Mom, The Baby is in the bottom of her bed!"

She is supposed to be in her bed.  That is where I put her.

"No, Mom, she is all the way down in her bed!"

You mean she is laying down?  Good!  I'm glad she is resting some.

"Mom!!!  You put her crib down!"

I didn't do anything to her crib.

""Arg!   Didn't you tell me that you can adjust her crib."

Yes.  You can adjust the crib to make it lower.

"See!  You moved it."

No.  I just told you.  I didn't do anything to her crib.

The conversation went on for quite a while.  I tried my best to model it after something like "Who's On First".  Once she got that I was being sly with the difference between the crib and the play pen, she finally started to pen me down.  I couldn't hold it too much longer, anyway. She really should have known, from the moment I didn't rush to check on The Littlest One, that I was knowingly messing with her, but this is my lovable, and slightly dingy child, who never thought about the fact that I should have been concerned, if I didn't know what she was talking about.  Once I smiled, and possible snickered just a little, she knew I was messing with her, and she was done.  She just turned and walked away.  Then I laughed out loud, the good kind that you don't get to do often.
I tell you, it was a good time, maybe not for all, but certainly for me.  It also made up for the cup of spilled orange juice, and the cup of spilled milk.  See, in this house, we don't cry over spilled milk, we just get even.

The Offensive Penis

I'm not totally sure, but I think I offended someone today by saying the word penis.
That's it.  I just said it.  I didn't have a picture of one to wave around, or talk about my personal feeling in relation to a penis.  No.  It was actually quite simple.  I mentioned the picture of Katie Holmes giving Suri a penis gummy.

(image from TMZ)

It didn't seem like a big deal to me, the word penis, not giving your child penis gummy things, which I do kind of find a bit alarming.  

I was at a potluck party today with my moms group.  One of the women mention Suri and Katie.  After she was done, I brought up the photo.  I Actually said the words "gummy penis".  The woman standing beside me left not a minute into the conversation that ensued.  She immediately went to sit by someone else, and it seemed pretty obvious to me.  Every other woman right around me and I were really into the discussion.  We all found it rather dense to do something like that if you don't want the public to see when you know every minute of your life in photographed.  Then again, we all felt it rather dense to give that box to your child to begin with. 

Now, I don't think what she found offensive was that we were being judgemental of a celebrity.  People do that all the time.  That's part of why we love celebrities.  We love having the ability to tear them up, too.  We certainly weren't bagging on the child, just the mom.  

So, it had to be the word penis being thrown around.  It had to make her uncomfortable.  I'm not sure why, but it did.  Perhaps she is just very modest.

The conversation evolved into what we can't do any more, stores we can't visit because our children are with us, and eventually into dealing with little boys and their own penis issues.   To me, this is what a great moms  group is for.  You need to have other adults that you can have adult talk with.  I certainly can't show that photo to my children, and definitely can't discuss why it isn't right with them.  I need other moms who are grown folk, and like to talk about grown folk things.  We all do. 

I have to tell you, I don't think my actions should have been offensive.  I don't feel like they were inappropriate on their face.  There were no children around to repeat what we were saying.  We were discussing a parenting choice.  I really don't think the word penis should be offensive by itself, either.  I mean, we all have kids, and the vast majority of us have gotten pretty up close and personal with one to get them.  So, let's all be grown ups.  If we are talking about anatomy, then you don't get to be upset.  Its just a body part.  Deal with it.  Penis.  Penis. Penis. Penis.  And just to make sure I'm not sexist in my grown up body part talk....vagina.  

I have a Plan to Fix The Deficit

I have what I believe to be a full proof plan to fix all the money woes we have in the great city of San Diego.
This is a very valid plan.  Ok.  Part of it is.

If the city would just deputize me to be both a fashion police officer and a parking enforcement officer, I could wipe out the debt in no time.

I wouldn't be any kind of fashion style police officer.  No.  I want to be a fashion etiquette officer.  If I find you wearing inappropriate clothing, you get a ticket.  While I get the whole freedom of speech thing, I would specifically target those who come to schools or other places that are primarily for children dressed inappropriately.  Yesterday alone, I could have racked up a bundle.  The process would be simple.  You see someone wearing a torn jean mini skirt where the pockets hanging out of the bottom are inches longer than the whats left of the hem line, they get a ticket.  When there is also a rip that goes up to where their hip in the front, only covered by the hanging out pocket, the fine increases.  When wearing that with a mini, stretchy tube top, the fine doubles.  Then, on top of all of that, when you stand there and complain about being cold, I add a nuisance fine.  That one person could have netted at least at good $500 to $1000 to go to the cty.  In fact, I think that when you wear that and are fined on school grounds, the money should go straight to the school system.  With some of the moms I see at schools, we could have every classroom in the city outfitted with the latest technology possible by next year, no problem.  Simply deputize one person per school, per school year, to do this as a volunteer position.  I'm absolutely positive the money brought in would out weigh the costs of training and the little ticket pads they would need to give us.

While that is wishful, and catty, thinking, the next part is actually very realistic, and I am thinking of how to propose this to the city.  Much like the Retired Senior Volunteer Patrol (RSVP) that drives around and checks on handicap spots, if they would seriously give the power to one person at a school to write tickets for parking violations, we could make mad bank.  Every day, it drives me nuts to see the people who really have no respect for others, and violate every parking rule possible when they pick up their children.  Apparently, each on of them seems to be more important than anyone else there.  You don't park in a red zone.  You don't park where you are blocking a drive way. You really, really don't park over a mini red zone, while blocking a drive way.  I'm barely able to walk some days, but if I don't get there early enough to get close to the school, I park on the next block and walk.  I doubt anyone has a valid reason for the bad parking.  Its just called lazy.  So, if people want to be that lazy, then they can pay for their crime, literally.  I would be glad to do it all for free.  Again, I am positive that the money brought in from all the parking tickets would far outweigh the costs of training and the little ticket pads.  Frankly, it would also be beneficial to the rest of us who do follow parking regulations.  Once you eliminate the people double parked, honking their horns at a child who doesn't even notice they are sitting there and blocking traffic, you are going to speed up traffic flow for everyone else.  I think it is a total win/win situation.  Unless, of course, you are the scofflaw who parks poorly, but then, you would deserve it.

If only someone high up would consider my proposals.  The second one at least.  I think we could make a dent in the city's financial woes one single volunteer with a pad of paper and pen at a time.

Little Things Matter Sometimes

A piece of advice that may save your life, and mouths, some day.

Always check, and double check labels before you use something.

You may think you have the right product. If you didn't read the label though, you never know.

Why, you ask, is this so important.



One of those is chili powder. One of those is cayenne pepper. There is quite a difference between the two.

I only realized that the containers look different after I tasted the chili currently in my crock pot. It is a little spicy. Actually, a lot.

I'm not sure how much The Girls will like tonight's supper. We may be utilizing that buy one get one free kid's meal coupon I have for McDs. I think the grown ups will be able to eat it, though. If there is a bright side, on top of the label checking lesson, I can't breath well right now, and this may well take care of that tonight. Hey, I'll take what ever bright side I can get.

"My Alphabet Backwards"

Have I mentioned before how different My Girls are? Night and Day is an apt description.

Their Father was playing a mean little game with them tonight. He was holding a very tasty freshly made cookie over their heads,

Finally, he told The Big One, she could have it, if she could say her alphabet backwards.
What he actually said was "You can have it, if you say 'Your alphabet backwards'". Of course, she didn't get it, and immediately began to try, slowly, to go through the alphabet.

She got stuck at "r". I just stopped her, and told her to think carefully about what her father had said. She didn't understand.

After about 10 minutes, and the 3rd time I gave up and then tried all over again to help her, I finally got her to understand.

She turns, looks at her little sister and said "Say 'your alphabet backwards'"

The Little One looked right at her, and said "alphabet backwards". Then laughed her self silly.

Oh my.

I just can't go there...

I love to lay around with my girls, snuggle, and watch a movie. Usually I let the girls get together and pick the movie. I will give a little input if needed. For example, I might interject "stop fighting g or no one gets s movie" otherwise, its up to them.

Tonight, we were going yo watch s movie and snuggle, staying up late in celebration of today being the last day of school. So I gave the girls the movie case, and the usual speech about cooperation, and let them pick. Their pick tonight fell so far off my mark I couldn't handle it.

When The Big One was very little, we found this great series of DVDs, similar to the Baby Einstein concept, but made locally in San Diego. The DVDs were great for helping to put her to sleep, or keep her from crying. They were never something we would really watch with her.

When the Little One came along, we used them with her, too. She loved them even more than her big sister and would listen to the music to go to sleep almost everyday.

One of these DVDs is a whole collection of classic children's songs, with animated characters and children singing, and some adult with a voice that makes me want to tear my ears off singing. If you are a parent, you know that there are some children's songs, that even if the person singing has a good voice, the style and production of these songs will drive you crazy. Well, this is an entire DVD complete with horrible matching visuals.

The problem is that The Little One still loves it. Somehow, last night she even got her big sister to agree to watch it.

I can't do it. With all of the stress I am already under, I think that laying down to watch that entire DVD would have sent me over the deep edge. Strait over, with a graceful swan dive.

SO, I had to opt out. I let them watch the movie alone, then came back in later to snuggle. I felt kind of bad for abandoning them to watch alone, but seriously, it was better for all of us that I did.

Tonight, I will be picking the movie.

The Blondest Of All

I love my daughters. I know they are both mine, but sometimes, I have to wonder how I ended up with one of the stereotypically blondest children to ever walk the face of this earth. I realize that there must be a genetic link, after all, I have talked about my sister before, but in all honesty, The Big One does take top honors for blond moments sometimes.

Today was one of those times.

Let me start with just a bit of back story. The other day, The Big One was upstairs playing in her room with silly putty. Silly putty is of the devil, and I know that now. Had I known it then, I would have thrown it away immediately, but alas, I did not.
She came down upset because she had somehow managed to get a small section of hair matted with silly putty. There was about a half inch wide section of hair really stuck. She had made things worse by trying to get it out herself, and basically rolling the hair into a big cylindrical shape of putty and hair mess.

Somehow, with a lot of time, I managed to pull the hair out. She lost a lot of hair, but I was able to wash out the rest of the putty, and get her all cleaned up.

After that, I decreed that she was not to play with putty unsupervised or with her hair down any more. She has such long beautiful blond hair, I didn't want to have to go though that again.

Unfortunately, we did have to go through that again, only worse the second time around.

This afternoon, she was up in her room again, playing by herself for quite a while. At some point, I hear her coming downstairs, calling for me, in a panic. I ran to her, thinking something was wrong, and boy was it. The entire rest of the egg of putty was now matted into on of the font quarter of her hair, almost up to her scalp. I can not even explain adequately how terrible it was. There was just a huge knot of putty and hair.

I took one good look at it, and told her in all likely hood we would have to cut her hair, and she would have to get a boy cut. I really didn't think we would be able to salvage it. As I tried looking at it, the hair looked like a bet of interwoven hair, covered and intermixed with silly putty. When I lifted up the hair, there was even putty in her ear, down her ear canal. In her ear, people.

I have no idea how she did this. It wasn't like there was a little bit in her hair, it was nearly an entire egg. It was everywhere. There was so much hair. I kept asking how she did it, but the reply was the same, she didn't know. Eventually, she did say something about putting putty in her sleeve, but that was as far as we got.

I just can't fathom how a six year old child can do this, except, of course, that my child isn't like most kids. She is very intelligent, but she really lives on a different plane of awareness than the rest of us. Just like when she ran her Barbie Jeep into a massive tree, she just didn't notice it. So, she just isn't sure how the putty got into her hair.

It really didn't see a way to even start working on it.

So, I did what every parent in my position would do, if they are able; I called my mom to ask for help. Mom suggested peanut butter, since it works on gum.

I had no idea if it would work, but at least there was a start, and that was what I needed. So, I pulled out a new jar of peanut butter, and started rubbing it in. The Big One thought I was crazy. I had to explain about four times that I hoped some of the oils in the gooey stuff would start to break down the silly putty or help it slide out. I got her hair good and covered in peanut butter, and decided that some time marinating might help it. So, I took the new box of plastic cling wrap from a kitchen drawn, and opened it to wrap her her up. Of course, this being one of the most fantastic days of my life, I managed to cut my thumb open on the box in the process. After the bleeding stopped, and I got a Scooby Doo band aid, I wrapped her up and let her sit.

Let me tell you that peanut butter does nothing for silly putty in the hair. In fact, I would venture that it makes the situation worse. All it does is coat the hair in fatty oils so that any substance that actually would work, has a harder time.

When mom's advice fails, I turn to the next most logical place to look for solutions, the internet. Well, I facebooked it immediately, but got no instant comments. So, I turned to google, which rarely fails me. Yet again, Google came through. I found a ton of potential solutions to our problem. The most promising appeared to be hand sanitizer. The idea is that the alcohol cuts the silicon the putty is based in. Sounded smart enough for me to try it. The next idea was to use baby oil. I started searching for both.

From all of my trials and tribulations today, let me share the entire process that actually works for silly putty in hair.

1. Calm Down. You can't do this angry. Put your child's hair in plastic cling wrap so that nothing else gets matted in, then put them in time out for a while. Put your self there for a while, too, preferably with some chocolate. Dark chocolate works best in my case.
2. Rinse out anything you have already tried and failed with, like peanut butter. A kitchen spray device works best.
3. Try the foamy hand sanitizer that you carry in your purse. While it won't work best, it will start to barely break the putty down, and give you enough hope not to whack off the hair, or start drinking.
4. Search frantically for the old school gel hand sanitizer. If necessary, run out side in your slippers and pajamas, with your house bra on, or no bra if that is how you roll when at home, when you remember that you keep a small bottle in the car.
5. Take the gel hand sanitizer and start to work it into the matted hair. Ignore the burning and stinging from the small cut on your thumb. The gel will being to loosen the knot of putty.
6. Put half the bottle into the hair, and keep working it in. Realize that you need a band aid, and go get one.
7. Try to loosen the strand, and start combing through the hair, working in the smallest section possible, and coming the bottom out first, then working your way up.
8. Put more sanitizer in as needed to loosen the putty.
9. Give up on keeping the band aid on and just learn to ignore the burning.
10. Rinse the hair often, to try and keep the alcohol from damaging her hair. Then replace gel in only the section needed.
11. One you have most of it combed out, or at least to where it looks like hair, rinse thoroughly.
12. Switch to baby oil. The baby oil will begin to remove the rest of the residue. Coat hair liberally with baby oil, or baby oil gel in this case.
13. Comb through. Rinse putty mess off comb and repeat until the comb no longer comes out coated with putty.
14. Wash child and hair. Be sure to condition bad part thoroughly.
15. Put child to bed no matter what time it is, or park in front of TV, which ever is your preference, and take second time out for yourself.

That should get you though most of it. The optional part, an option I plan on exercising shortly, will be to leave the kids in the capable hands of someone who did not have to experience the whole mess, like a grandparent, and go out for coffee. In addition, pick up something bad for dinner, since you won't want to cook, as your back is going to be killing you from the hours of standing at the kitchen sink.

I hope no one else ever has to do this, but if you do, you should take heart in the fact that there is a way to get through it, someone else has done it, and they really are only young once. While mine may always be blond, she won't always be calling me for help. Eventually, someone else will have to take care of it, be it a room mate, husband, or whom ever. One day, I'm going to be the mom who gets the call, and I will be ready, with both advice and a story.

That I look forward to.

My Birthday.

Today is my birthday.

I am 29.

Again.

You know....

You know you are having one of those days where you are just doing to much, when you get in the car to go to a play date, only to realize that you still have the house phone in your pocket.

You also know you are doing too much when you leave the phone in the car, and just go, rather than go back in the house and put it up.