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Club Half As Small As You: Month 16

January 4, 2010 11:51 am | 18 Comments

Welcome to month 16 of Club HASAY! Not sure what HASAY is? Read all about it here.

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A Decade in the Making

I recently read somewhere that baby weight that you don’t shed within the first year usually sticks around indefinitely. I wish that I could say that was my long term problem but I was struggling before I popped out two kids. They just added an extra few layers of belly fat to an already increasing waistline. Thanks, guys. Elliot is almost twenty-one months and Graham just turned three so I fear the bulge is holding on for dear life.

Having been athletic my entire life, I always ate what I wanted and never worried about putting on weight. Growing up in a house with two older brothers, I scarfed any available sweets or soda quickly before someone else beat me to them. Once my metabolism slowed down, these two things led to my demise. I still eat like shit and scarf my food, it’s a pattern I haven’t yet been able to break. Jamie has even noticed my marathon eating and tells me to slow down and enjoy my food. Still, my plate is usually clean before he’s eaten his first few bites. Old habits are hard to break.

Although I still scarf my food and eat like shit, my eating today is also stress induced. When the kids stress me out, I eat some chocolate. When I’m trying to eat and the kids are screaming at the table, I scarf my meal as fast as I can so I can at least eat something. It’s not healthy and I want to change, but I just need to figure out how.

Let’s talk exercise or lack thereof. A few months back, I was in a great routine of hitting the gym four or five times a week. It felt great, actually, and my clothes were starting to fit again. Then the kids got sick and Graham stopped sleeping and I fell off the wagon hard. I haven’t been able to climb back on and I can honestly say that I weigh the most today that I’ve ever weighed in my entire life.

Things have got to change around here in HASAYville. I’m embarrassed to be seen in photographs, by my husband, by friends and family. I’m the only one who cares about my weight but still, it consumes every thought of every second of every day. It’s depressing. So here we are, in an entirely new decade but I’m still chugging along, fatty business as usual. I vow, again, to get off of my fat fucking ass and do something about my weight. I’ve stocked the fridge with veggies and plan to reach for the carrots instead of the cookie dough. I’m going to ease myself back into the gym and form a long lasting routine. God, that sounds like such bullshit to read but I mean it this time. I have to. Who’s with me?

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Tags: Club Half As Small As You

Random Tuesday Thoughts: Potty Mouths And Five Finger Discounts

December 28, 2009 10:54 pm | 36 Comments

Ever since we moved Graham to a toddler bed a couple of months back, he has completely lost the ability to sleep. As in waking up every 45 minutes and coming to find us. It sucks donkey balls and Jamie and I take shifts so we can each get uninterrupted sleep every other night. So now, whoever is on duty will camp out on the couch and wait for Graham’s 11-2 am wakeup, at which point we’ll spend the remainder of the night on the floor in his room so we can quickly get him back to sleep when he wakes up. I hate my life.

I never imagined myself hosting sleepovers with a three year old every night, especially without a tent and a campfire. Due to the uncomfortable nature of the fucking FLOOR, I’ve been hobbling around like a 90 year old for the past couple of months.

The other night while I was pulling my Graham shift, a mosquito started dive-bombing my head. I did the only rational thing and hid under the covers, hoping it would go away. So there I was, smothering myself in my own blanket-induced CO2 cloud to avoid being eaten alive.

Ahh, Christmas. I’m so glad it’s over. I consider it a Christmas miracle that my kids made it through the day alive since they fought over new toys the entire day long.

I impulse bought a 50% off LED cherry blossom tree over the weekend at Target. Jamie smirked when I brought it home and doesn’t think it’s half as cool as I do. Yesterday, I found the receipt and noticed that they never charged me for it. So I went back today and admitted my unintentional shoplifting mistake and paid for the stupid thing. I think that qualifies me for sainthood.

On my way to return said tree, some guy decided that I was apparently following too closely as we entered the parking lot (I wasn’t!!!). Said fuckwad SLAMMED ON HIS FUCKING BRAKES and left me stranded in the middle of the street with oncoming traffic coming my way. The dude wouldn’t budge so I pulled off onto the shoulder to get out of the way of the honking car that was speeding toward me. Then the dude rolled down his window and called me a fucking bitch. So (since my kids weren’t with me), I let my potty mouth fly and screamed “MOVE OUT OF THE WAY, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!!!” and eventually he did. On shaky legs, I proceeded to Target to pay for my stolen item. My only regret is that I didn’t use one of my favorite (thanks, Captain Dumbass) go to words, Douche Canoe.

So I fear I’ve set a bad example for Graham with my shoplifting. The other day, he came home from school with a stolen pepper shaker from his classroom kitchen set. I immediately (the next day) marched him back to school and made him return said stolen item. No kid if mine is going to be a thief.

Play Doh has become the bane of my existence. I’d never let it in my house before now, but Graham got two different sets for his birthday a few weeks back. I don’t mind it so much except that the kids refuse to actually make anything with it. Instead they boss Jamie and I around to “make a star, make a ball, make a circle, make a square, make a cookie, make a triangle”, yada yada. Play Doh is the first thing Graham asks for in the morning and the last thing at night. I’ve totally turned into someone’s Play Doh bitch.

I made my mom framed silhouettes of the kids for one of her Xmas presents. It turned out pretty well, considering I had the kids sit STILL while I traced their shadows onto a piece of paper:

The first picture of Elliot actually made her look like a caveman so I’m glad I went with drawing #2:

Speaking of cavemen, Elliot has decided to start living off the land. As in eating EVERYTHING. This has actually been going on for over a year but it’s to the point where I actually need to talk to her doctor about it. She will eat dirt, sand, grass, bugs, lint, string, Play Doh, chalk, POOP, pretty much anything. The troublesome thing is that she rips out CLUMPS full of hair and eats those. So now we’re on our way to needing to surgically remove a hairball from my one year old daughter.

Are you looking for love in all the wrong places? No fine girls, just ugly faces? Check out Keely for some hot Canadian action. Or random thoughts.

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Tags: Random Tuesday Thoughts

Happy Happy!

December 25, 2009 4:46 am | 18 Comments

Happy Holidays!

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Tags: Holidays

Random Tuesday Thoughts: Number Five Is Alive!!!

December 15, 2009 12:15 am | 32 Comments

In lieu of an actual post, I thought I’d reenter the blogging world with some randomness. Things are still tough around here so don’t expect an coherent thoughts out of me just yet. Bitter thoughts, of course.

We’re on week three with no TV for the kids. YOU READ THAT RIGHT, WEEK THREE OF NO TV. Which basically means I’ve turned into a preschool teacher and we spend all day/every day manipulating Play-Doh, building blocks, coloring, painting and playing with toys. Playing with my kids all day is exhausting. But fun. The kids seem much happier because of it and I guess that’s a good thing. Jerks.

Almost a month has passed since we went completely dye free with the kid’s diets. This basically means scouring every single label and not letting them ingest anything that was prepared with artificial food dyes. Do you have any idea how fucking hard this is? It sucks. It was completely necessary though, my kids had turned into little Linda Blairs and we traced the behavioral problems back to the dyes in the foods they were eating. More to come but if you want to read up on it, you can do so here and here.

Proof that the above dietary change worked was provided when we let Graham eat something made with Egg Beaters in the ingredients and he turned into a hyperactive monster for two days following because of the yellow dye in the egg beaters.

Today at Gymbo, there was a group of Stepford-ish moms who were meeting up for a playgroup. They were more interested in gabbing then watching their approximately 9 month old kids and I wanted to punch them in the face. The moms, not the kids. Then Graham walked up to one to say hi and she immediately put her hands in the air and backed away from him like he has the plague. What the fuck, bitch. I’m going to train Graham to cough on people when they do that.

The highlight of the last month is the new double sink we had installed in the kid’s bathroom. That’s really all the good news I have to share. Pathetic.

Did you know that Whole Foods takes back #5 plastics for recycling? They send them off to some company who uses them to make razors and toothbrushes. We’ve been saving ours for a few months and decided to make the trek across town to turn them in and ended up spending $100 since we’d never been there before and the place was awesome. Nicely played, Whole Foods. Spending green while going green.

In the interest of being green, we switched to LED lights on the house this year. Can I just say holy bright lights, Batman? I’m pretty sure our house is visible from space and I have to turn them off when they kids go to bed since I don’t want to chance them waking up.

I picked four kids off of one of the Angel Trees this year. Is it bad that I regifted some of Graham’s birthday presents to one of the kids? I got him the shit he wanted and threw some of our unwanted gifts in there too.

Elliot recently started screaming my name the way Whitney Houston screams BOBBBBBBBBY!!! MOMMMMMMMMMMEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!! So every morning when she wakes up, I hear Whitney screaming from her crib. It’s not a pleasant sound.

Graham has turned into quite the backseat driver lately. He screams for me to stop at red lights and stop signs and reminds me constantly to keep two hands on the wheel. For someone who can barely even maneuver his tricycle, he sure has a lot to say.

In the midst of potty training, Graham has been accompanying both Jamie and I on pretty much every bathroom trip and asks a million questions as he gets all up in our business. Last week, Graham watched Jamie pee and said “you have a big penis, Daddy!”. Jamie later sheepishly told me the story since he was embarrassed by the ordeal. The next day, Graham told me “you have a BIG penis, Mommy!” (I don’t, btw). I told Jamie not to let it go to his head since Graham tells that to everyone.

Stop by and give Keely a shout.

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Tags: Random Tuesday Thoughts

Club Half As Small As You: Month 15

December 7, 2009 10:24 am | 25 Comments

Welcome to month 15 of Club HASAY! Not sure what HASAY is? Read all about it here.

So in case you were wondering, I am still alive and kicking. Life has been kicking my ass lately so I stepped away from the blogosphere to things in order. Don’t worry, it was nothing too serious, just some severe behavioral issues and sleep deprivation from the kids that required my full attention. More on that later.

HASAY…hmm, HASAY. For me, dieting in the holiday season is akin to Paris Hilton shying away from a camera, pretty damn near impossible. I’m trying though. Exercise is a different story, I’ve pretty much dropped the ball on that for now but I plan on picking it back up and running with it soon. Going on 3 or 4 hours of sleep a night doesn’t leave me motivated to get up and drag my ass to the gym. Hopefully the sleep issue will be resolved soon and I can resume sweatin to the oldies. Again, more on that later.

On a positive note, I can’t look too bad since some old dude hit on me in Subway last week. I actually didn’t notice until the chick that works there came over and said “he was TOTALLY checking you out!”. I’ll take it as a compliment, even if the dude was missing half his teeth. I’ll take what I can get these days.

So how are you guys doing this holiday season? Are you scarfing the Christmas cookies and fudge yet? Have you hooked up an IV directly to your arm for apple cider or eggnog? Have you pretty much said “fuck it” and decided to start fresh in the new year? Dish. As in eat the…

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Tags: Club Half As Small As You

Spin Cycle: A Shitty Shituation

November 13, 2009 9:42 pm | 50 Comments

The event I’m about to speak of happened a little over two months ago. I’ve just now come to terms with it and am finally ready to share the story with the bloggy world.

Elliot and Graham are active kids by nature. They both love to test the boundaries on a second by second basis which makes every day a new challenge. Most days, I fall into a heap on the couch the minute their little tow heads hit the pillow, unable to move or think for the remainder of the evening. This day was no exception.

We’d gone to Gymboree post-nap to kill time until dinner. I was trying my best to follow the Gymboree rules and stay a “hugs distance” from my kids at all times. It’s an impossible feat though since my kids have a secret pact to split up and head in opposite directions any time I set them free. They then both find the most death-trappy pieces of equipment to scale, forcing me to choose which kid to save and which obviously unloved kid I’ll let fall to their death. I can only reach one in time so these days, I usually let Graham work it out on his own since he’s a foot taller and fifteen pounds heavier than Elliot.

On this particular day, Graham bee lined for the monkey bars. I’m somewhat of an overprotective parent who doesn’t yet let her two year old climb monkey bars so they’ve become the bane of my existence. Every fucking time we head to Gymboree, I spend the entire time fighting Graham to “get down off that ladder RIGHT NOW!”. We’ve spent countless timeouts in the Gymboree lobby over monkey bar wars and now Graham was at the top of the ladder again, threatening to attempt to climb across. He went for it and was instantly stuck, hanging from the bars, unable to hold on and afraid to let go. I sauntered over and told him that he had to work it out on his own and either climb back to the ladder or let go and drop to the mats below. They were cushioned, people, don’t give me that judgy look.

So as I’m playing monkey bar chicken with Graham, I’m keeping one eye on Elliot who is across the room. I notice her chewing on something but since Graham’s the one in the death trap situation, I have to let it go until I can win the war with Graham. I forgot to mention that Elliot has a penchant for eating stuff off the floor, lint, dirt, leaves, whatever will fit in her little mouth goes right in. It’s exhausting and on this particular day, I developed a cavalier “fuck it” attitude. When I finally made my way over to Elliot, I picked her up and stuck my finger in her mouth. Out came a chewed up chunk of something. Chocolate. No, not chocolate, uh, same texture. I brought my finger to my nose and smelled the confiscated chunk. OH MY FUCKING GOD, MY DAUGHTER IS EATING A PIECE OF SHIT. Not just any shit, rogue shit from an unidentified shitter that she found who the fuck knows where on the Gymboree play floor.

I started gagging. I wasn’t sure what to do. I had only gotten out maybe half of the shit on my first finger-mouth swipe and I had to go back in for more. Elliot was grinning, happy to have gotten a reaction out of me. I swept her up and ran to the bathroom, nearly knocking over anyone who got in my way. Once there, I started rinsing Elliot’s mouth out with water and then spotted the liquid soap. I coated my hands and started scrubbing her teeth and tongue with the soap. She was completely unphased by the entire event, still grinning her impish grin while I dry heaved and scrubbed her mouth out.

The whole thing took maybe two minutes. I set Elliot down and went to tell the manager that my formerly clean daughter ate a hunk of unidentified shit. Elliot immediately headed back in the other direction and found another tiny piece but this time I was onto her. I washed her hands and the manager vacuumed the entire place while we sat there and watched.

There are no words to describe how disgusted I felt while I cleaned human shit out of my daughter’s mouth. It somehow made things worse not knowing whose shit it was or where it came from. I had a choice to make at that point. Sell my shit eating daughter on ebay or try to forget about the ordeal and move forward. I chose the latter and I decided to keep her. We brushed her teeth several times that night and It took me a day or two before I accepted any of her sweet kisses. Eventually I got over it and things were back business as usual. These days, I watch Elliot like a hawk. She still finds random pieces of hair or lint or scraps of who knows what and they go straight for her mouth but I’m always one step behind her with my HAZMAT suit, ready for cleanup. At least I have this story filed away to ward off any future would-be-kissers.

Pucker up, bitches!

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Tags: Elliot, poop, Spin Cycle

Wordless Wednesday: In Summation

November 4, 2009 11:28 am | 38 Comments

The month of October summed up in one picture filled post.

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Tags: Wordless Wednesday

Random Tuesday Thoughts: She’s A Man Eater

November 3, 2009 12:01 am | 34 Comments

I’m glad October is finally over but it was a kickass month. We did so many Halloween-themed things that my kids are now suffering from post-Halloween withdrawals.

We crashed two church Halloween festivals over the weekend. I think they were free to the public but we tried to keep a low profile just in case. Pastor Dan set his sights on Jamie and followed him around the entire night trying to strike up a conversation. My polite husband kept his head low and refused to make eye contact and we got away safely.

So, the second Halloween festival we crashed was at a church with an attached preschool. On the door of each classroom was this note:

Note how they crossed out the one confirmed case and updated it with the running tally. We’re so screwed, I woke up today with a sore throat and I’m positive I’m dying.

Elliot experienced her first kiss a few weeks back. She basically tackled a friend’s son at Gymboree and their hugging embrace turned into her planting her entire mouth over the poor boy’s mouth before he even knew what was happening. For the record, she doesn’t take after me.. no clue where she got all loosy goosey. Eh hem. Nope, not after me.

At least she didn’t bite him. She hasn’t bitten anyone at school since her one day suspension. It’s tough raising piranhas.

I’m suffering from Calendar Guilt. We keep getting calendars in the mail from charities and although I won’t actually use them, I can’t throw them away. What the hell am I supposed to do with them?

I’ve been reading this eco friendly website recently and now I’m all about going green. Like to the point where I’ve told friends and family all of my newly discovered green tips. And it’s probably annoying. Jamie and I are going to paint the roof white, I’ve been reading up on studies that show that it could reduce our energy bill up to 30% just by changing the roof color. You should do it too. Since I’m a peer pressure green pusher. I’ll check back with you next week to make sure you went through with it. Either way, here is the site I’ve been stalking lately, it’s pretty cool.

We have a red Cookie Monster stamp that we sometimes let the kids play with. They end up stamping and restamping their pudgy little legs to the point where CM is no longer recognizable. Then they just look like we beat them or put out cigarettes on their legs. At last weekend’s Halloween festival, I found myself nervously over explaining to a total stranger that we do not, in fact, beat our children. I’m sure Child Services won’t be showing up any second.

That’s all I’ve got, someone with a CPS shirt is knocking on my door..

Until next week, stop by and give Keely a shout. She’s cool. We should call her Kooly instead.

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Tags: Random Tuesday Thoughts