Traveling, weddings and stay-cations

We had our last weekend on the road to go to the manwhore's cousin's wedding yesterday. Yes, yesterday, Sunday. It wasn't even a real wedding, but a vow renewal ceremony, and they've only been married a year. But they eloped and didn't tell anyone for like 6 months, so they basically had the wedding they avoided the first time around. It was beautiful and I doubt that I will see either of them again unless someone else gets married or dies.

My father in law and I basically pretended that we can't stand each other, but managed to not speak more than a handful of times.

Fortunately the kids, who are angels and travel like champs, were a buffer. They were totally charming and I know the photographer took several pictures of us and the kids. The bride is so going to look at her proofs and wonder who the hell those people are. rofl

On the way down there, I had a rare moment of less than stellar parenting and accidentally locked Em in the van. We had stopped at a Cracker Barrel for lunch and I thought she had gotten out on the other side while El looked for her shoes. Only she didn't. When El hopped out, I hit the button to close the door and the manwhore had already locked the van and gone inside. Em yells "Wait for me!" just as the door latched. She looked at me with these huge, terrified eyes, and I stood there in a total panic for about 10 seconds trying to figure out how to get her out and not leave her alone. I realized that I would have to go get the keys from manwhore and grabbed El and dashed into the restaurant. I practically had to tackle manwhore to get him to stop and give me the keys and I ran back out to let my bravely trying not to cry child out of the van. Bless her heart.

Now, both girls are with their beloved Aunt Dede spending the rest of the week with her. Manwhore has taken the week off and we are going to spend our time stripping wallpaper and painting the dining room, living room, foyer, and downstairs bath. Maybe we'll get it all. This will be the extent of our vacation this year and manwhore calls it a stay-cation, since we will be staying home.

Fatty, fatty 2x4

Not me this time, but my son. He had his 3 yr well visit with the doctor this week and he is 36 in tall and weighs 36 lbs. Which according to their height/weight/BMI charts puts him in the overweight category. What. The. Fuck? Seriously, what the fuck?

Now, maybe I'm living on a boat on that river in Egypt, but when I look at him, I don't see fat. I can see his ribs for christ's sake. When he laughs or cries he's got six pack abs. But online weight and BMI calculators agree that he has a BMI of 19+, which is overweight.

So now, I'm all paranoid about letting him have cookies, or ice cream or seconds at dinner if he asks for them, and while I thought that he actually rather healthily, I'm scrutinizing everything he eats.

le sigh And here I thought he was going to be the kid I didn't have to worry about his weight and eating. With El's pickyness and Em's trouble gaining weight, I was so relieved to have a kid that eats well, gains weight steadily and is just all around healthy. And now I find out he's fat.

I'm hoping against hope that he is gearing up for a growth spurt and will shoot up two or three inches in the next few months, which will put him back in the normal category.


Edited to add: Also, when the pediatrician was giving me the "What not to eat" lecture, I felt like she was thinking I was a big, fat liar every time I told her that we didn't eat fried food, don't buy chips, they rarely drink juice, the chocolate milk is low fat, etc. I'm fat, the manwhore is fat, but we really are a whole foods, whole grain, if you can't pronounce the ingredients don't eat it, kind of family. It's possible to eat too much healthy food, too. But I felt like she was looking at me being fat, and my denial of my kid's fatness and thinking that I was going to go home and feed him cheetos and ho-hos for lunch. I'm not saying that my kids never eat junk food, but it is a rare treat for them to get it.

It's Wednesday

Wednesday. The middle of the week. My house is a mess, laundry is overflowing the baskets and I'm tired. The trip to KY for the wedding was lovely. Two nights without the kids rocked. The wedding was beautiful. Lexington is horse country, so I was in heaven. But we were exhausted and then I went to a baby shower on Sunday after we got back to my parents'.

And I'm pooped. All of us are pooped. Em has dark circles under her eyes, Sam is sleeping late most days.

And we have yet another wedding/vow renewal/whateverthehellitis this weekend to go to, and I don't wanna. I just want to stay home and veg. But it is the first wedding in the manwhore's family since our own, so we have to go.

And I have to do laundry and at least make sure bathrooms are disgusting and that we can walk across the floor without breaking our necks. Wah.

On the plus side, I've gotten to ride two weeks in a row and maybe I'll get to go ride again on Sat. I'm coming along in my assertiveness with the horse, Sunny (he's a lazy old fuck) and hopefully by the end of summer will be able to ride Taco, who is not a lazy fuck, even though he's old and quite the handful.

Let the traveling begin!

Yay. Not. Actually, we are almost done with the traveling. Only 2 more weekends to go, but these two weekends are long distances. This weekend we are going to KY for a wedding, only first we have to drive to my parents' house in Al to drop off the kids. We live in TN, if you remember, so we are going 2 hrs in the opposite direction just to get rid of the kids. Then back to get them on Sun and to a baby shower.

Next weekend we are going to GA for another wedding, but the kids are invited to that one, so no side trip to AL to leave them with the grandparents.

With the price of gas these days, we might need to take one of the kids along with us in case we need to trade one for a tank of gas.

Happy Birthday to my little man!

It's hard to believe that is has been three years since he was born. He is my joy, my light, my love and I am so fortunate to be his mother.

And Happy Father's Day to my manwhore, my rock, my heart and soul. Sharing Father's Day with your son's birthday has to be the best gift of all.

The things people get their knickers in a twist about

Last week, the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman returned home after a 7 month deployment. Thousands of family members were there to welcome their sailors home. I understand from people I know who are navy wifes that dressing up and choosing just the right outfit can be pretty important to them. After all, they haven't seen each other in months, so they want to look their best.

During this particular homecoming a photographer took this pic of a waiting wife wearing hot pink shoes. The pic was published in the Virginia Pilot newspaper.

Oh, the controversy a pair of hot pink shoes can create. There were people writing letters to the paper insisting that the pic was sexist and inappropriate, that is sexualized the carrier's homecoming, that it ignored the female sailors, etc. What. The. Fuck?

Honestly, I think the picture is fabulous. She's standing there with her feet nervously crossed in her brand new shoes, which she was so excited she forgot to take the price stickers off of.

There is an interesting discussing of this pic on the Smart Bitches website I've got a link to on the side over there and another one on Sybermoms. General consensus of those two groups of women seems to be "Jesus, can't a bitch wear some pretty shoes on a happy day?"

Dust

I hate dusting. Despise it. I would rather clean a toilet than dust. I try to keep the knick knack crap to a minimum just so I don't have stuff to catch it. Most of the time, I just flat out don't dust. I do about 4 times a year. The result of this is that I was rather embarrassed at the amount of dust in my bedroom yesterday when we had a guy here painting ceilings. After he got done, I got in there and dusted like crazy, even to climbing up and vacuuming the dust off the top of the plant ledge. It was about 1/2 in thick. Ew. I even washed the curtains. So, I'm betting that the manwhore's chronic sniffle and allergies are going to be a hell of a lot better in a few days now that I've reduced the amount of dust in our room by about 90%.


I should totally just suck it up and dust once a month if I want to or not, huh?

South Beach Diet, week 1

So, I've survived a week with no sugar, white flour, bread, potatoes, basically no starches whatsoever. And, for my efforts, I am down 5 lbs. Yay me!

I may have hit my limit with eggs and omelets, though. I've had enough. But, I spent 5 out of the last 7 days at my parents' house and didn't have access to as much variety of food as I do at home. I've got cottage cheese and stuff I can do for a few days.

I can tell my clothes are fitting looser, too. So, hopefully the dress I have to wear to two weddings this month won't have me sucking my gut up like I did at Easter every time I sat down.

South Beach Diet, Day 2

No, I won't bore you with daily updates, but they say the first few days are the hardest, so I thought I would just brag that I have made without touching a cookie, koolaid, the bread basket tonight at dinner or anything carbolicious. Surprisingly, I feel great (I've done Fatkins before and felt like total crap and couldn't make it through the 2 week phase 1. I actually went to the dr because I thought I was sick.)

And I'm not going hungry. Yes, I miss bread, but I'm not dying for it. Hard to miss it too much when you can have celery stuffed with herbed cheese or endive with tuna salad. I miss it the most at breakfast, like I thought, because I'm a cereal-aholic. I miss having some toast with my eggs.


I've actually expanded my palate a bit, too, even though phase 1 is fairly restrictive, because I've been in a rut with my eating. Now I'm having fun with omelets and different things for lunch.

Now, in two weeks I might not be saying that, but for right now, I'm handling it.

I don't want to be the baby!

Poor kiddo. I think Sam has about had enough of being the baby in the family and being bossed around by everyone else. Last night, he was mad because we wouldn't let him stay at the bookstore with the oh so wonderful Thomas the Train layout. When we got home, he threw himself in the floor and declared "I don't want to be the baby anymore! I want to be the daddy now!"

In other news, I started the South Beach diet this morning. So far, so good. The first two weeks are probably going to be hell, because I am a cereal loving girl, even though it is healthy cereal, and after 6 weeks of disgusting hospital eggs, I'm not a fan of eggs. But, eggs are pretty much what you can eat for breakfast during phase I (when you are breaking the sugar cravings). I'm sure I will joyfully fall face first into a bowl of grits or oatmeal when the two weeks are up. But, I can't seem to get motivated to lose the fat ass any other way, and since the maintenance phase is how I try to eat anyway, I figured why not give it a whirl. I shall report back with my progress from time to time.