Infested

I'm usually pretty healthy -- I don't catch colds and flus very often.  In fact, I think the last time I had the flu was 15 years ago.  

That was before I had a 5-month old living with me.

I was warned.  I was told that I would start getting all kinds of lovely diseases.  I scoffed at the idea - surely I'd be able to fend these illnesses off.  

The Wee One caught her first cold around Halloween. Although she remained in a perfectly pleasant mood, she was pretty pathetic -- sneezing and snorting and coughing and sniffling.  I took her to the doctor, who said she just had a cold.

The next thing I knew, I had caught her cold.  I was snorting and coughing and sniffling.  Ick!

Then The Wee One's eyes started oozing a greenish discharge.  They were matted shut one morning so  I called the doctor and they said to bring her in.

This time, she had the dreaded pink eye in both eyes and a double ear infection.  The doctor warned me that pink eye was very contagious. Again, I scoffed,  I hadn't had pink eye since elementary school. 

Two days later, my eye was oozing.  I had caught the dreaded pink eye on top of my cold.

I even missed work. I ended up working from home two days so I could keep the Wee One out of daycare AND I took an actual sick day.  

It took me about two weeks to get over this nasty cold and I'm still treating my pink eye.  It sucks!.

Of course, my husband did not catch it.  He's the only healthy one in the house!

And of course, this has wreaked havoc on my weight loss since I have felt like complete and utter crap.  I gained 1 lb last week.  :(

Weigh-In #1

So I made it through my first week of Weight Watchers...and I actually stuck to the plan this time. Usually I just attend the meetings and hope to eventually lose weight through osmosis or something.

I think the number I saw on the scale - a number I  never want to see again - made me work extra hard.

Except it didn't feel like was working extra hard. Of course, it helps that I get a ton of points - partly because I am fat and partly because I am breastfeeding.  I had fast food twice this past week and my husband brought home soup in a bread bowl from Panera. (It was a bowl of bread - I was powerless to resist.) Yet I still managed to stay within my points.

Here are some things that worked for me:

•baked eggs in a muffin pan in the oven to make Pinterest perfect hard-boiled eggs, which were an easy low-point snack!

•made kale chips

•microwaved a spaghetti squash and covered it with healthy homemade bolognese sauce (ok, it was really cooked ground turkey in a jar of store bought sauce)

•baked an orange creamsicle poke cake using diet orange soda instead of eggs and sugar-free pudding instead of regular

•crafted a healthy pizza using FlatOut's artisan pizza flatbreads

•had Johnsonville cheddar turkey sausages on hand for an easy lunch or dinner

And it paid off - I lost an incredible 8.4 lbs!  That's right...8.4 lbs. I still can't believe it - I feel like dancing a jig!

A plethora of firsts

Wee One is going through an exciting series of firsts -- all at the same time:

 

• First teeth

• First cold

• First pink eye -  in both eyes!

• First ear infection - in both ears!

In addition to all that, she gave me her nasty cold. And, for bonus excitement, every time I cough it wakes her up. 

This is why I am rocking her at 1:30 am.  Good times!

I would sleep in another room, but I'm afraid my deep sleeping husband won't hear her when she wakes up to eat. And if I'm not in the same room, who is going to check 500 times a night to make sure she's breathing?

Those are some important duties!

I can handle the cold, If I get pink eye, however...THAT would be embarrassing.

Guess what else the baby finds funny

Poop!

More specifically, the kind of poop that causes a rock, paper, scissors marathon in my house.  "Wait, wait - best out of 3!"

I knew it was going to be bad when I heard the explosion all the way in our kitchen.  When I walked in the living room, my husband said,"I think she might need changed."  Understatement of the year.

I'll spare you the gory details but suffice to say, she needed a bath.

However, the whole situation gave her the giggles. She chuckled as I was changing her. She chortled as I walked her naked self to the bathroom. 

As I put her in the tub, she was practically guffawing. She was laughing so hard her stomach was shaking.

I have to say, as gross as the diaper was, baby giggles more than make up for it!

Maybe I should be concerned

Sanctimommies are everywhere:

• "I would never give my baby formula."
• "If you use drugs during delivery, you'll dope up your baby.  Your body can handle the pain."
• "No TV for two years or your baby will be autistic or have ADHD or be an idiot."
• "Only eat organic food or your baby will be autistic or have ADHD or be an idiot."

Since I have broken every single one of those rules, I think I need to stop visiting the internet.  It stresses me out.  Let's take TV for example.

For the first few months, I tried really hard to keep The Wee One away from TV, but I swear it was like a magnet.  No matter where she was in the room, she would crane her head to look at the TV.  And yes, maybe we could have opted not to watch TV, but we like it so no.

At her 4 month appointment, I asked the pediatrician about it, fully expecting to get a Judgy McJudgerson sort of lecture. Instead, he looked at me like I was an idiot and said of course babies can watch TV.  As long as she's not plopped in front of it for hours, she would be perfectly fine.  He said she was just looking at the lights and it was just background noise to her, much like the radio would be for us. He even said she might enjoy kiddie tv because of the songs.

It was a huge weight off my shoulders!  We even tried some kiddie TV.  (And let me tell you...that Caillou is a whiny brat.)

Last night we were watching Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters.  Not a horrific choice, but definitely no Elmo.

The Wee One was rolling around on a playmat -- and of course, craning her head to look at the TV.    All of a sudden, she started cracking up.  She giggled for about 5 minutes at the TV. 

So my 4-month-old not only watches TV - but she finds Percy Jackson to be hilarious.

Good times.

Eeek

So I realize that I recently had a baby and all, but it sucks that I can no longer fit in my pants. Plus, since I'm breastfeeding, I have the added bonus of looking like a porn star in all of my shirts.

Nothing says 'professional lady' like having your shirt buttons pop open in the middle of a meeting. And occasionally, I catch men on the streets giving me a creepy look as I walk the two blocks to my office.  This usually means some sort of flesh has been exposed as a result of  my too-tight clothes.

So I signed up for Weight Watchers. I tried signing up in September, but I could never make my Saturday morning meetings. Either the baby was crying or I was sleeping after being up all night or my husband was running a long distance and I needed to watch the baby.   I tried bringing the baby once but everyone kept turning around to make faces at her or they stared at me every time she made a noise. Not a good experience for one who doesn't enjoy being the center of attention. 

I think Weight Watcher Wednesdays is going to do the trick! I'll go after work -it's on the way home so I have no excuses. And based on the number I saw on the scale tonight, I absolutely need to make sure my giant arse is planted in that chair every week.

I think I'm going to use this blog to track my efforts - it gives me a record of what I've done, plus it adds another layer of accountability.

So stay tuned - a new butt is coming!

I'm back...maybe

After a ridiculously long hiatus, I think I'm back.

Sorry I was gone so long,,.I was busy making this:

Over the past two years, we went through fertility treatments, which made me sad.

We bought a house, which made me happy.

And I got knocked up as a result of said fertility treatments, which made me ecstatic and petrified all at the same time.

I considered writing during my pregnancy, but decided I wanted to privately enjoy all the feelings and emotions that came with it. And it's a good thing too because those hormones made me batshit crazy.

So now the Wee One is 4 months old.  I'm fat, exhausted, and completely overwhelmed by balancing motherhood, wifehood, friendhood and my crazy job.  But I'm happy.

We'll see how much blogging I actually manage to do, but I'm going to give it the old college middle-aged try!

Bizarro Eljabo

Last night I had the strangest dream.  (And yes, I realize I'm happily married, but it's impossible to control what you dream.  If you could, I would be murdered far less frequently.)

Anyway, I dreamed I went out on a date with a guy and he didn't call me again afterward. I was so upset, I broke into his house and played his answering machine messages. (Not sure why he still had an answering machine.)  I heard a message from another girl who was inviting him to her place to "cuddle." And of course, he walked in on me playing his answering machine messages.  Embarrassing!

The weird part was that when I woke up, I recognized the name of the guy. It was a boy I went to elementary school with when I lived in Maine. Certainly not anyone I am still in contact with and not even one of the boys I had a crush on. (Jeremy DaRos, I'm looking at you!)

So then I got to thinking, what if that guy would have been my beau had I stayed in Maine?  Maybe instead of having a dream, I was actually getting a glimpse into an alternate reality.

Then again, another option is that I have watched way too many episodes of Fringe in my lifetime. It may have had an effect on my brain.

I think I'm in love

My parents got me a spiral vegetable slicer for Christmas.  It's the Paderno World Cuisine Tri-Blade Plastic Spiral Vegetable Slicer.  (It was on my list - it wasn't an unwanted slicer by any stretch of the imagination.)

I finally used it for the first time and absolutely loved it.  I used it on zucchini to make spaghetti-like noodles.  I sauteed the "noodles" in olive oil with salt, pepper and garlic powder.  Afterward, I topped it with spaghetti sauce, turkey meatballs and Parmesan cheese.

I'm dying to use it again. The zucchini would make a fantastic side dish.  I could make curly fries out of potatoes.  I know a pretty curly, carrot salad is somewhere in my future. The possibilities are endless!

Here's my creation -- fabulous, right?